Chapter 1: Justice and Vengeance
Chapter Text
Justice and Vengeance
The great hall of Riverrun was, perforce, the largest single room in the castle. At full capacity almost four hundred people could join the Lord of Riverrun at wine and meat. Hoster Tully had hoped that his current crowd of guests would do exactly that, for they had been assembled for a happy occasion, the joint wedding of Hoster’s daughter Catelyn to Brandon Stark, eldest son and heir of Lord Rickard of Winterfell, and Lord Rickard’s daughter Lyanna to Robert Baratheon, Lord of Storm’s End. From all across northern and eastern Westeros the guests had come, fully a third of the peerage of the realm with their retinues, come to witness the socio-political event of the decade; overshadowed in scope by the great tournament at Harrenhal perhaps, but vastly more significant, as three kingdoms were bonded together by marriage and a fourth joined them in fellowship.
But three men had been consumed by madness and so all of the carefully laid plans had been brought crashing down. Instead of hosting a nuptial banquet, Hoster found himself chairing the next best thing to a Great Council.
Whether or not it would become a council of war was the topic currently being discussed.
“Our course is clear!” proclaimed Jon Umber, his beard bristling. “We must raise our banners and fight! Today!”
“You would raise your sword against your king?” Lord Darry shouted back, his eyes popping. “Have you no honor?!”
The Greatjon spat on the floor. “That, for Mad Aerys!” he roared in Darry’s face. “And for you as well, if you are too craven to fight by our side against tyranny!”
Lord Corbray took advantage of the hubbub that ensued as Darry was physically restrained from attacking the Northman to interject. “Our northern cousins say truly that we cannot let so gross an insult pass unanswered,” he said soothingly. “But neither must we forget our duty to our king. The fault for this affair lies not with him but with his son. Let us send again to King’s Landing, beseeching the king’s justice . . .” he was drowned out by a chorus of boos, over which thundered the stentorian voice of Robert Baratheon.
“We have sent to King’s Landing for justice!” the young stormlord bellowed, pointing to the high table. “And in answer of our plea, he summons my good-father to account for his actions like some common felon! Are we men or slaves, to be treated so?!”
Hoster turned his attention from the outcry among the assembled lords to cast his glance over the other two occupants of the high table. Jon Arryn was leaning forward in his chair, his elbows braced against the table as he surveyed the hall with pensive eyes over his steepled fingers. Rickard Stark was reading and rereading the missive that had come from King’s Landing, delivered by raven that very morning, his stern face set like flint.
Many men found the Warden of the North a hard man to read, but Hoster Tully knew him of old; Rickard’s angers ran cold instead of hot. The fact that he had not said anything since reading the missive aloud to the assembly betokened ill.
Hoster turned his attention back to the floor of the hall where Lord Mooton was holding forth. “We know we are justified in our wroth, my lords, but many others will not see it so,” he said, gesturing grandly at the walls. “What of the lords of the Crownlands, who hold seisin of the king? What of the Martells, whose nephew is second in line for the Throne? What of Lord Lannister, who longs for royal favor once more? What of Mace Tyrell, who knows little of our northern cousins and cares less? What of the armies and fleets these men can muster? If we declare against the king, will not they . . . “ He was cut off by a sudden crack that made the whole hall flinch and snap their eyes toward the high table, where Rickard Stark had brought his open palm down on the tables surface.
“Have. Done,” the Stark said, his voice as absolute as a dungeon door slamming closed. “I am weary unto death of these arguments. Now I will speak, and you will listen.” Mooton showed tremendous poise, Hoster thought, by yielding the floor to Rickard with a graceful bow instead of simply collapsing into his seat. Rickard stood, ominous in his dark leather doublet and black fur-lined cape, the missive still clutched in his hand.
“Two hundred years ago and more,” he said somberly, “my ancestor Torrhen knelt before Aegon the Conqueror and surrendered his crown. When he did, he placed his hands between the Conqueror’s and swore a mighty oath, an oath that has been remembered in my line ever since. ‘To Aegon of House Targaryen, and his heirs after him, I pledge the faith of Winterfell and the North. Hearth and heart and harvest we yield up to you, our king. Our swords and spears and arrows are yours to command. Grant mercy to our weak, help to our helpless, and justice to all, and we shall never fail you. We swear it by earth and water, by bronze and iron, by ice and fire.’ And when Torrhen had sworn, Aegon too swore an oath, binding him and his heirs after him, that he would not forget our oath, nor fail to reward what was given; fealty with love, valor with honor, oath-breaking with vengeance. Any who did harm to us did harm to him, and at their peril. This he swore by the blood of his House and the fire of their dragons, that the first might be spilled and the second extinguished if he failed in his oath.” There were nods around the room; every man present was intimately familiar with what an oath of fealty entailed. “Two hundred years and more,” Rickard went on, “we have kept our oath. We gave our tax and our counsel in peace and our swords and our lives in war. We have kept faith with the heirs of the Conqueror, even in the deepest winter.”
Rickard’s voice roughened, became laced with anger. “And how has our loyalty been rewarded?” he asked rhetorically. “Our sworn men have been ambushed and murdered. My daughter has been abducted, on the very eve of her wedding day. My son languishes in a black cell, falsely accused of treason.” He paused for a shuddering breath; Hoster had learned rhetoric from some of the best, but he could detect no hint of falsehood in the Northman’s apparent emotions. “I will not permit myself to think of the torments that even now they may be suffering.”
Rickard’s anger was in his eyes now, hard as stones. “I wrote to the King, telling him of the injury inflicted on my house and humbly requesting that I be granted justice, as the Conqueror had sworn. And in answer to my plea,” his voice rose to an ursine roar as he brandished the missive, “I am summoned to King’s Landing to answer the charge of treason!”
The whole hall held its breath as Rickard lowered his hand. “Two hundred years and more of fealty and leal service,” he rumbled, “answered with murder, kidnapping, and base calumny. It cannot be borne.” His eyes swept the hall. “Aerys Targaryen has summoned me to King’s Landing,” he said, his voice terribly calm, “And to King’s Landing I will go. But I do not go to answer this false charge of treason. I go to King’s Landing to claim the justice that I am owed, and if it is refused me, I will take it.”
Silence stretched for an unbearably long moment after Rickard’s speech until Jon Arryn stood up. “All that my lord Stark says is true,” he said firmly. “Men who have given leal service cannot stand by when their fealty is rewarded by gross injury and deadly insult.” His eyes, old and wreathed in wrinkles but still as keen as those of the falcon on his sigil, swept the hall. “We have all of us given leal service to House Targaryen since the Conqueror was crowned. But the dragons of House Targaryen are dead, and what remains of them are mere serpents, degenerate scions of a failing line, who have forgotten not just their honor but their reason. You all know well the tales of the madness of Aerys, and you know just as well the madness that Rhaegar has succumbed to.” He paused, eyes still sweeping the assembled lords. “A king who wrongs his people so is no king,” he said softly. “By all the gods, my lords, how long shall we suffer these madmen to tear at us? I for one shall not suffer it for even another minute.” He turned to Rickard. “I will ride with you to King’s Landing,” he proclaimed, “and we shall have an answer from Aerys the Mad for this insult.”
Robert Baratheon stood. “I’m coming also,” he said flatly. “And after we have settled with Aerys, I will find my Lyanna, wherever that bastard Rhaegar has hidden her. And if the kidnapper objects,” he drew his sword and raised it high, his eyes blazing fury, “then may the Gods have mercy on him, for I will not!”
Hoster stood as well, the eyes of his vassal lords hot upon him. “It is not meet that such tyranny go unanswered,” he snarled, finally allowing himself to feel the fury that he had been biting back for the past two sennights. “I will see justice done for this banditry, if I have to twist Aerys’s arms to breaking to get it from him.”
Jon Umber barked a single syllable of thunderous laughter as he stood forth. “Leave some for the rest of us, my lords,” he said in mock-chiding tones, his beady eyes twinkling. “Your quarrel with the dragons is ours as well.” The vastly proportioned northman drew his sword and held it out in salute. “Justice and vengeance!” he roared.
Every lord in the hall rose to their feet, and the drawing of their swords in the late afternoon sunlight slanting through the windows was like sudden flame. “Justice and vengeance!” they chorused. “Justice and vengeance! JUSTICE AND VENGEANCE!”
Chapter 2: War in the Hedgerows
Chapter Text
War in the Hedgerows
The first month and a half of the rebellion of the Lords Declarant, or Robert’s Rebellion, as it is more colloquially known, bore a greater resemblance to a royal progress than a military campaign. After marching west along the River Road, collecting the levies of the central Riverlands, the rebels linked up with the first wave of levies from the northern and eastern Riverlands and the southwestern Vale. This gave the rebels an army of some twenty-five thousand men, of which almost ten thousand were Riverlanders, eight thousand were Valemen, and the remainder a more or less even split between Northmen and Stormlanders. Further reinforcements were already on the march from the North and the remainder of the Vale, but it would take them sennights or months to arrive at Darry, and while Hoster Tully advocated waiting until the full power of the rebels was united before pressing onwards, he was overruled by Robert Baratheon and Rickard Stark, who insisted that the success of their rebellion depended on speed.
In this they were almost certainly right, as even at their full united strength the rebels would have been greatly outnumbered by the likely royalist forces. Mace Tyrell, for one, could muster almost as many men as the whole rebellion put together simply by calling out the arriére-ban of the Reach, and while the Lord of Highgarden bore no especial love for the Crown, neither was he any particular friend of the rebels. More immediately, the Crownlands could field between ten and fifteen thousand men, and when Aerys ordered Lord Commander Gerold Hightower to raise an army to crush the rebels, Hightower was able to raise eight thousand men within two weeks, with more on the way.
By the time the rebels reached Brindlewood, and the interior Crownlands, Hightower’s army numbered eleven thousand men, primarily Crownland lords and their levies along with a company of two thousand men raised from King’s Landing, and Hightower felt confident enough to give battle. He was greatly assisted in this by the ground on which he chose to fight.
- Swords Against a Throne: Being a History of the Rebellion of the Lords Declarant by Maester Padramore, published 785 AC
The interior Crownlands had been densely populated and heavily farmed for centuries. As a result, each family’s particular plot of farmland was surrounded by well-developed hedgerows, which over the generations had developed into low walls of earth surmounted and overgrown by brambles, vines, and shrubs and trees of a myriad of types, ranging from boxwood to hawthorn to beech to laurel to yew. In between these fields ran twisting lanes of such antiquity that they had sunk into the ground between the hedgerows, so that the berms these hedgerows formed could rise breast or shoulder-high on a tall man.
It was here that Gerold Hightower had chosen to make his stand, and Jon Arryn cursed him daily for it.
Hightower had divided his army into companies of three hundred men apiece, ordering them to choose a particular field, fortify it as best they might, and hold it to the last man. As a result, the rebels were forced to fight what amounted to a series of sieges, cutting off and reducing the fields one by one as they ground forward. In two sennights they had pushed forward only a single mile, in fighting that the veterans among claimed never to have seen equaled for brutality. When forcing one’s way through the defended hedgerows and into the fields, the weapon of choice was not the sword but the dagger, wielded overarm in a reverse grip and plunged downwards into a grappled enemy until he stopped moving.
The savage close-quarters fighting that storming a hedgerow entailed was putting particular strain on the knights and lords, whose heavier armor allowed them to take risks that killed their footmen in scores. One could argue that it was good for the morale of the army as a whole to see their leaders take such risks, but the knights were being ground down like grist in a mill. Lord Darry and Nestor Royce had both been killed, as had no less than four of Walder Frey’s sons. But the most devastating loss yet had been Lord Rickard Stark. The Old Wolf had led an assault on a field that had reportedly been defended by Hightower himself, and had been cut off and captured in the confusion when the assault was repelled. The Northmen had fought like men possessed ever since, but none more so than Ned, who made a point of leading every assault he could in the plate armor that Jon had commissioned for him for his eighteenth nameday. The rest of the army, Jon had heard, spoke in whispers of the Iron Wolf and his men, who reportedly tore down their enemies with no other weapon than their hands and teeth, and refused to take prisoners.
Jon knew the first rumor for a lie, but he knew that the second rumor was more or less true, and not just of the Northmen. The whole army was growing ever more brutal as the fighting wore on and fewer and fewer prisoners were being taken by the day. Just this morning Jon had watched as a knight in the livery of the Blounts was reduced to a sack of broken bones and pulped meat by a squad of maul-wielding footmen, despite the Blount’s cries of ransom. He knew of one incident among the Riverlanders where an assault had been preceded by a dozen prisoners being decapitated and their severed heads thrown into the hedgerows ahead of the storming party. Robert, Jon had heard, had given orders that only lords were to be taken prisoner; all others were to be killed out of hand. Jon had yet to do anything so drastic himself, but he was not immune from the growing madness either; two days ago he had butchered a fallen enemy into gory ruin, his sword continuing to rise and fall long after the man expired. It had taken three large men working in concert to drag him off of the man.
Damn you, Hightower, Jon thought wearily as a galloper came into sight bearing new orders. Couldn’t you have made this a decent fight, instead of this butchery?
Chapter 3: The Dragon's Lair
Chapter Text
The Dragon's Lair
After three and a half sennights of almost continuous combat the decisive breakthrough that the rebels had sought came when Gerold Hightower and his principal subordinates were caught up in an assault near the hamlet of Bluestone; Hightower himself was killed by Robert Baratheon in a ferocious contest, while his subordinates were either killed or captured. The sudden leadership vacuum lead to the disintegration of the Royal Army of the Crownlands.
However, although the rebels had finally defeated the main royalist army facing them, Hightower had delayed them sufficiently for the royalist forces to fully mobilize. The same day that the rebels broke out of the hedgerow country, forty thousand Reachmen under Mace Tyrell marched into the Stormlands, brushing aside a small force under Lord Dondarrion at Summerhall. This force later divided, with most of the thirty thousand foot under Lord Randyll Tarly marching on Storm’s End to besiege it while the rest of the foot and all of the ten thousand cavalry marched north up the Kingsroad under Mace Tyrell to relieve King’s Landing.
Tarly implemented the siege of Storm’s End with his usual efficiency, imposing a blockade by land and sea with both his own force and the Redwyne fleet that left the garrison of Storm’s End completely isolated. Tyrell, on the other hand, was sluggish in moving his force up the Kingsroad and was made even more so by the fact that the Stormland countryside had been roused against the Reachmen. The raids mounted on Tyrell’s column by the minor lords and landed knights of the central and northern Stormlands, along with their retainers and fighting-tails, rarely amounted to more than pinpricks, but the sheer number of them served to delay Tyrell’s advance on King’s Landing by at least two sennights.
Meanwhile, in the Crownlands, the rebels had received reinforcements from the Vale and the North, bringing their strength to almost forty thousand men. Emboldened by their success and their reinforcements, the rebels encircled King’s Landing and prepared to lay siege . . .
- Swords Against a Throne: Being a History of the Rebellion of the Lords Declarant by Maester Padramore, published 785 AC
Eddard Stark had yet to set foot in King’s Landing and he hated it already.
He had heard that near five hundred thousand people lived in the city, which he could easily believe from the size of the place, and judging by the smell, none of them ever washed. The aroma of excrement, smoke, fish, and sweat, all overlaid by sea-salt, was overpowering even at four hundred paces. Furthermore, the place just looked ugly. Winterfell was a fortress, not a palace, but it had a rough, functional beauty. The Eyrie looked like something out of a nursemaid’s tale, a splendor of marble amid the clouds. King’s Landing, by contrast, squatted on the north bank of the Blackwater like a toad, a heaving mass of densely-packed buildings broken by only three prominences and the structures atop them. The Hill of Rhaenys, topped by the half-collapsed ruins of the Dragonpit, rose from the northern quarter of the city like a boil. Visenya’s Hill, in the southern quarter, was topped by the Great Sept of Baelor, with its marble dome and seven crystal towers shining over the city like a mocking glimpse of what the city could be like if it were properly taken in hand. And, highest of them all, Aegon’s High Hill, in the eastern corner of the city, with the Red Keep and Maegor’s Holdfast perched atop it like a sleeping dragon.
Eddard clamped down on the anger that built in his veins at the sight of the Targaryen’s redoubt. Not yet, he told himself, but soon, soon. Hold on, Brandon, Father; I am coming.
The Gate of the Gods creaked open and a party of horsem*n trotted through it under a flag of parley. Their apparent leader was a man with flaming red hair and beard and wearing a chain of golden hands over his breastplate. On his left was an elderly man with a long gray beard wearing a maester’s chain, while on his right was a man that Eddard recognized from Harrenhall as Prince Lewyn Martell. The parley flag was held by a man Eddard didn’t know whose tabard displayed a crossed mace and dagger on green and white.
As the royalist party drew rein before the rebels, the man wearing the chain of hands nodded curtly. “I trust you’ll forgive me for not extending my hand, gentlemen,” he said curtly. “I don’t make a habit of extending courtesies to traitors.”
“Bold words from a man who has committed treason himself,” Robert spat. “Or do you deny your allegiance to me, Jon Connington?”
Connington eyed Robert balefully. “As long as you stand against your rightful king, yes,” he said flatly, before turning to Jon Arryn. “I trust you have terms to deliver. Get on with it.”
Jon drew himself up. “Our terms are these,” he said. “Aerys must abdicate the throne on grounds of his evident unfitness to rule. Rhaegar Targaryen must surrender himself and stand trial for the kidnap of Lyanna Stark and the murder of Lord Stark’s household men. All of our men taken prisoner must be returned to us with their armor and weapons, especially Lord Rickard Stark and Brandon Stark.”
“Have you not heard?” Connington interrupted. “The traitor Lord Stark is dead these two sennights.”
Eddard felt the abyss open beneath him. Father. Dead. No. It was only when Robert grabbed his arm and shouted sense back into him that Eddard realized that he had spurred his horse towards the man who had told him of his father’s death and half-drawn his sword. He rammed the sword back into its scabbard and forced himself back to calm with a long, shuddering breath. “How did my father die?” he asked when he had mastered himself.
“He asked for a trial by combat,” Prince Lewyn answered, his face sympathetic. “Aerys agreed, and your father lost. He was very brave.” Lewyn paused, then continued. “Brandon still lives, but he is . . . unwell.”
Connington spat aside. “As he should be,” he said coldly, turning back to Jon Arryn. “In place of your terms, which we reject entirely, these are the terms that His Grace King Aerys offers. You four are to submit yourselves to the King’s justice along with your principal lieutenants among those lords who follow you. The other lords and knights in your army shall receive mercy of the king on condition that they immediately go into exile overseas for the duration of their lives. The common soldiers of your army may return to their homes unmolested, provided that they swear allegiance to King Aerys and pledge to never again take up arms against him or his heirs on pain of death. What say you?”
“Horsesh*t,” Hoster Tully replied instantly. “We are owed justice by the King for his son’s crimes. If he will not give it to us, then we shall take it.”
“My lords,” the man wearing the maester’s chain said tremulously, “has not enough blood been shed already? The four of you have it in your hands to end this strife now, today, and spare thousands of lives, if not tens of thousands. Why should you not end this madness now, rather than two months from now, when the army that is even now marching up the Kingsroad has destroyed you?”
“In this world, only winter is certain,” Eddard replied, his voice as cold as a winter gale. “We may lose, yes, but we will fight regardless. It is all that free men can do.” He turned to Connington, allowing some of the hatred in his bones to show in his eyes. “Tell Aerys the Mad that his life is mine; I claim it by right of my father’s blood.” He turned his horse around and spurred it back to the siege lines, his thoughts a maelstrom of grief and rage.
Chapter 4: The Lion's Pride
Chapter Text
The Lion's Pride
The siege of King’s Landing lasted all of three sennights before it came to an abrupt end. For unlooked-for Tywin Lannister had called the banners of the West and marched down the Gold Road to King’s Landing with twenty thousand men. As he marched, Tywin kept his army in excellent order, keeping looting to a minimum both by ferocious discipline and by spending gold like water to buy provisions. Tywin had declared for neither the throne nor the rebels, but the rebels chose to err on the side of caution when dealing with the formidable Lord of Casterly Rock and lifted the siege of King’s Landing to fall back on Hayford Castle. In doing so, they extricated themselves from a potential three-sided trap, with Lannister advancing from the east, Mace Tyrell marching up from the south, and the garrison of King’s Landing on either their flank or rear.
The garrison of King’s Landing, naturally, considered Lannister’s arrival to be evidence of divine favor, and opened the gates to his army in celebration . . .
- Swords Against a Throne: Being a History of the Rebellion of the Lords Declarant by Maester Padramore, published 785 AC
Tywin Lannister had not ridden through the gates of King’s Landing to acclamation in years; so long that he had almost forgotten how it felt. To have crowds of thousands line the street as you passed, cheering and calling down the benedictions of the gods, was a heady brew indeed, but Tywin clamped down on himself with an iron fist. Focus, man. Remember why you are here.
His army filed through the gate in strict order; each company in column of mess groups with their centenar at their head and every man marching in step. He had commanded that his army keep strict discipline, both on the march and in camp, and exerted rigorous pressure on the officers to make it so. There had been grumblings, which had lasted up until last night, when the men were finally informed why exactly they had force-marched across the continent when it was widely known that their lord was no friend of the Targaryens.
He was met at the Great Square by Prince Lewyn Martell of the Kingsguard, gravely elegant in his white armor. He held up a hand, there was a rippling chorus of orders and a braying of trumpets, and the army stamped to a halt, perfectly still. He allowed himself a moment of satisfaction. This was what was possible if people simply obeyed. “Lord Tywin,” Martell said, hiding the relief he had to be feeling with impeccable poise as he bowed in the saddle, “His Grace King Aerys welcomes you to King’s Landing.”
“I’m sure he does,” Tywin replied politely before turning to the man who rode beside him. “Now, Clegane, if you please.”
For such a large man, Gregor Clegane could be surprisingly fast. Martell died without knowing what had hit him. Almost a pity to kill a man like that, Tywin mused in the moment of stunned silence as Martell’s decapitated body slid out of the saddle. Nothing personal, Martell, just a matter of business. As far as you were concerned, anyway. “The city is ours!” Clegane roared into the silence as he flourished his bloody greatsword. “Take it! And take everything in it!”
The Army of the Westerland gave voice to a howl of unthinking bloodlust, like the baying of some great hound, as it split to either side of the street and charged, swords drawn and spears leveled. Within moments the screaming was so loud that Tywin had to shout to make himself understood. “Take your men to the Red Keep!” he shouted in Clegane’s ear. “And remember! Once you secure my son, go right on to your other objectives! And make a clean sweep of it! I don’t want any loose ends!”
“Yes, lord,” Clegane rumbled before turning to the select company that had held ranks just behind him and Tywin while the rest of the army went on the rampage. “Follow me, boys!” he roared and spurred his charger away, his company following at a trot. A foul and unsavory crew, that lot, but every purpose had its tool and every tool its purpose.
He turned to his brother Kevan. “Plant my banner there,” he said, indicating the steps leading up to the guild hall of the Alchemists. “I will place my headquarters in the guild hall. See that the men remember that I will have no burning of buildings or other such destruction. Otherwise,” he shrugged, “I care not.” Kevan bowed, his face inscrutable, and gestured to the company of knights and men-at-arms that functioned as Tywin’s bodyguard. As the guardsmen snapped to their tasks, Tywin dismounted, handed his horse off to a squire, and strode into the guild hall as the screams continued unabated. Insult my wife and make a jest of me, would you, Aerys, he thought, as two of his knights opened the doors for him. How do you like my jest?
The Sack of King’s Landing lasted three days and nights before Lord Tywin restored order with his usual ruthlessness. By the time it was finished, the heart of the Targaryen dynasty had been torn out. King Aerys had been killed by Ser Jaime Lannister of the Kingsguard under circ*mstances that to this day remain mysterious, while Queen Rhaella, Princess Elia, Princess Rhaenys, and the infant Prince Aegon had been murdered by Ser Gregor Clegane and Ser Amory Lorch with a brutality that was appalling even in that brutal age. There is no documentary evidence that Clegane and Lorch acted under orders from Tywin, but it is extremely unlikely that they would have committed so heinous a crime without orders from their liege lord. At the very least it seems unlikely that men of such repute as Clegane and Lorch would be charged with securing the royal family unless they were intended to be, to borrow a modern phrase, ‘killed while resisting arrest.’
Regardless of responsibility, the only Targaryens who remained alive following the Sack of King’s Landing were Prince Rhaegar, who was still at large somewhere south of the Riverlands, and Prince Viserys, who had been sent to Dragonstone under the protection of Ser Barristan Selmy during the siege.
- Dragon Declining: The Last Years of the Targaryen Dynasty by Ralph Crofter, published 1873 AC
Chapter 5: The Parley
Chapter Text
The Parley
The parley, convened at the invitation of Tywin Lannister, took place in the neutral ground between the three armies. The rebels, drawn up to the northwest of King’s Landing, sent Jon Arryn, Hoster Tully, Robert Baratheon, and Eddard Stark. Mace Tyrell served as his own representative, joined by Alester Florent and Baelor Hightower, riding up from where he had arrayed his army opposite the rebels. And out from the city came Tywin Lannnister with his brothers Tygett and Kevan. Each party was accompanied by a single man-at-arms carrying a parley banner, while Tywin was followed by a small wagon that rattle and bumped along the road.
When the negotiating parties all met there was a brief moment of silence as they each weighed each other which was broken by Mace Tyrell. “Well,” he said, affecting a cheery tone, “this is a fine puzzle we find ourselves in, isn’t it?”
“Indeed,” Hoster said coolly, turning to the Lannisters. “I knew you liked to hold grudges, Lord Tywin, but this seems a bit much, even for you. Can we expect a new song? The Fire of King’s Landing, perhaps?”
“Potentially,” Tywin said casually. “Minstrels have such imaginations and are so eager to curry favor.” He turned his gaze to Eddard. “You’ll be pleased to know, Stark, that we found your brother alive. My own maester is tending to him even now and he is confident that your brother will recover at least some of his former strength, although he is currently too ill to be safely moved.”
Eddard nodded deeply. “House Stark thanks you,” he said formally. “But I would like to know why you, of all people, would resort to treachery to take your revenge. From what I heard of the Reynes and the Tarbecks, simple force seemed more your style.”
Tywin’s eyes hardened. “Aerys had my son,” he said simply. “He claimed that he was doing me honor by raising him to the Kingsguard, but I knew that Jaime would be a hostage against my loyalty first and a Kingsguard second.”
“Interesting as this conversation is, it is not strictly germane to our purpose here,” Jon said firmly. “We here hold the fate of Westeros in our hands. Given the fact that Aerys is dead, which information we have on reliable authority,” he bowed in the saddle to Tywin, “and that Rhaegar is currently missing and anyways unfit to rule, we presently have no king. The question before us is this; what shall we do about it?”
“There is another heir,” Mace pointed out, “if there is any truth to the rumor that Aerys sent Prince Viserys to safety on Dragonstone.”
“There is,” Tywin said, “but it would be unwise of us to raise him to the kingship. As evidence . . .” he turned in his saddle and gestured to the men on the wagon, who leaped off the seat and began pulling long cloth-wrapped bundles off the bed of the wagon and carrying them before the Lannisters and unwrapping them to reveal corpses.
An older woman who had to be Queen Rhaella was displayed first, her body marred with sword slashes. Then Princess Elia, her beauty ruined by whatever had crushed her skull. Then, hardest and coldest of all, a pair of bodies wrapped in the same cloth who could only be Princess Rhaenys and Prince Aegon. The state of Rhaenys’s body was bad enough, cut almost to pieces, but none at the parley could look for long at Aegon, whose head had been not just crushed, but smashed into red ruin.
Mace signed himself with the seven-pointed star with a shaking hand, mimicked by Alester, Baelor, Jon, and Hoster. Eddard clenched his jaw and brought a hand to his mouth for a long moment before he mastered himself. Robert also tightened his jaw, but less than Eddard, and was the first to break the silence. “Is this supposed to be evidence of your commitment to our cause, Lannister?” he asked in a hard voice. “Or is this just supposed to be an object lesson of the perils of crossing you?”
The Lord of Casterly Rock shrugged. “This did not happen by any order of mine,” he replied. “I had given orders that they be honorably treated, but even the best of men becomes a beast during a sack.”
Mace Tyrell looked up from the bodies and stared at Tywin. “Give me one reason,” he said slowly, “why I should not go back to my army and declare war to the knife against you and your dogs, Lannister. These were women and children, Hells take your black soul!”
“I’ll give you two reasons,” Tywin said coldly. “Firstly, if you declare war against me, I will not rest until I have made a second Castamere of Highgarden. Secondly, the Targaryens are unworthy of your swords, Tyrell. Aerys was a raving madman and Rhaegar is at the very least a kidnapper and almost certainly a rapist as well. As for Viserys,” he shrugged. “Who can say but that he will be even more insane than Aerys, in time? Better that we dispense with the Targaryens altogether, and have a dynasty that will act in a sensible fashion.”
Jon Arryn raised a finger. “I concede the logic of your position, my lord,” he said, “but it would become us and our position to offer some mercy to Viserys. We might offer him the lordship of Dragonstone for the duration of his life, and the right of tithe and tax over the Narrow Sea houses, in return for his public renunciation of his claim to the throne.” He turned to Mace Tyrell. “Allow me to give you another reason to not take the Targaryen’s part in this war, my lord,” he continued. “If you declare for the dragons, you will be declaring war on all the rest of Westeros. The West, the Riverlands, the Vale, the North, and the Stormlands will all march against you. The Iron Isles will leap at the opportunity to reave your shores again. Your only ally will be the Dornish, who hate you only slightly less than they will hate us. And bethink you as well,” Jon Arryn’s smoothly aristocratic voice hardened, “the consequences of such a war. So long as even one Targaryen lives, there can be no possibility of peace that we will be able to trust. Our only choice, if we ever wish to live in security, will be to strike and spare not, and make the Reach a burned desert from Blackwater Rush to the Redwyne Straits. Are you willing to bring such a fate upon your bannermen, when you have it in your power to end the fighting today?”
Mace glared around the circle of faces, from Tywin’s impassive glower to Hoster Tully’s unsympathetic stare. “I will pay any price to maintain the honor of my house,” he said sullenly. “I will not tell my ancestors that I turned my back on the house that raised mine to lordship.”
“Mern Gardener maintained the honor of his house when he rode against Aegon the Conqueror, to the acclaim of the Reach,” Eddard Stark interjected. “My ancestor Torrhen Stark swallowed his pride and surrendered his crown to the Conqueror, and was condemned by high and low for it, even his own sons. And here I stand, a Stark of Winterfell, lord of all the North, in my brother’s name.” Eddard leaned forward. “Where are the Gardeners today, Mace Tyrell?” he asked intently. “Do they rule in Highgarden? Or do their ashes rest on the Field of Fire where the Conqueror’s dragons burned them?”
Mace flinched, then looked down at the corpses of the Targaryen women and children for a long moment. At last he looked up. “You will swear for Viserys’ life if he renounces his claim to the Iron Throne?” he asked Jon Arryn.
Jon bowed. “In the sight of gods and of men,” he proclaimed, “I swear that Viserys Targaryen shall live out his days in complete security if he renounces his claim and abides by the law and peace of the Realm. By the honor of my house, I swear it.” He signed himself with the seven-pointed star and kissed the small crystal that hung around his neck.
Tywin shrugged. “I am willing to be satisfied with the vengeance I have already taken,” he said diffidently. Let Baratheon and Stark do as they like with Rhaegar and I am content for Viserys to stay on Dragonstone and molder there.”
Mace exchanged a glance with Alester Florent, who shrugged eloquently, and turned back to the rebels. “I will need to take this to the lords of my army,” he said, “but under these terms I am willing to declare a truce and pull back to the vicinity of Summerhal, if you remain north of the Kingswood and do not reinforce the garrison of Storm’s End.”
Jon Arryn co*cked an eyebrow. “Do you rule the Reach, or do you not?” he asked pointedly. “Our terms of truce are given; if you are willing to accept them then do so. Or should we ask someone else?”
Mace drew himself up, glaring hot-eyed at Jon Arryn. “I rule the Reach,” he said coldly, “and I accept truce on the terms you have offered me.”
Robert smiled. “Good!” he said, clapping his hands. “Now that that’s settled, you will have to excuse me for the nonce, my lords. I have unfinished business with Rhaegar to attend to.”
“As do I,” Eddard added, stroking the pommel of his arming sword.
“The last report I had was that Rhaegar was seen riding south, towards Dorne,” Mace offered, “accompanied by two Kingsguards and a woman. Your sister, I imagine, Lord Stark.”
“Why Dorne?” Robert asked, bafflement on his face. “Does he really think that he would find refuge in Dorne after abandoning his wife and children?”
“In Dorne, perhaps not,” Tywin mused. “But I imagine that Arthur Dayne would know places in the Marches where a small party could hide themselves away from the rest of the world.”
“We’ll need an army,” Robert said. “I wouldn’t put it past the Martells to declare their independence, with the dragons gone.”
Mace Tyrell shrugged. “I would have no objection to Lord Stark taking a force into the Marches,” he allowed, “but if the Dornish do rise, then it would be best if you were not in their reach, Lord Baratheon.” He looked around the circle. “I assume, given that we are setting aside the Targaryens, that Lord Baratheon is your choice for our new king?”
Hoster Tully nodded. “He has the birth, the blood, and the ability,” he said. “And I agree that to put yourself within easy reach of the Dornish is unwise, Robert. It is not in the nature of snakes to be trustworthy.”
Eddard turned to Robert. “You know I’ll find her if she can be found,” he said earnestly. “She’s my sister, Robert. If I must scour the Marches with fire and sword, I’ll find her.”
Robert held Eddard’s gaze for a moment, his hands tightening on the reins, and then he turned to Mace. “I’m coming as far as Storm’s End, with my men,” he said. “My brothers are waiting for me.”
“Much to Lord Tarly’s disgruntlement,” Mace said lightly. “I have your word that you will not raise more men than you have here?”
“You do,” Robert said shortly, lifting his chin. “My oath on it.”
Mace shrugged. “Fair enough, then.” He turned to Eddard. “I can provide you a company of scouts who know the Marches like the backs of their hands, if you want them. I’ll also send a raven to Doran Martell telling him to keep Oberyn on a leash and not get any ideas of his own, unless he wants my knights coming over the mountains.” He smiled wryly. “Snakes may not be trustworthy, but they can be convinced to be cautious.”
Eddard bowed. “My thanks, Lord Tyrell,” he said formally. “I will not forget your assistance in this quest.”
Mace bowed solemnly.
Chapter 6: Loss and Resolve
Chapter Text
Loss and Resolve
When Eddard cantered back through the gates of King’s Landing nine months later, he did so empty-handed and full of dread. After riding south with Mace Tyrell and Robert to terminate the siege of Storm’s End and pick up the company of guides he had been offered, he had descended on the Dornish Marches with two thousand men and searched them from Grandview to Starfall. Every gorge, ravine, draw, and gully was combed from end to end, marcher villages were turned inside out by hard-eyed riders, and the aid of the Dornish marcher lords was enlisted with the promise of revenge against the man who abandoned Elia of Dorne to a gruesome fate.
All in vain. The terrain had yielded only stony ground and elusive game, the villages had been devoid of anything resembling a Targaryen prince, a Stark lady, or a Kingsguard knight, and the Dornish lords entrusted with guarding the border passes all swore that they had not seen Rhaegar since at least the Tourney of Harrenhal. The only thing Eddard hadn’t resorted to in the search for his sister was torture, for fear of inciting reprisals from the marcher lords. In the end, Eddard had called off the search when a raven from King’s Landing reached him at Uplands. It had consisted of only eight words: Come to King’s Landing at once. Jon Arryn.
So Eddard had sent riders out to his men telling them that the search was off and rode back to King’s Landing at the head of the company of lordlings that had followed him south. They had ridden their horses almost to foundering, securing remounts as they could from the Reacher lords whose keeps they happened across. In one stretch between Horn Hill and Cider Hall they averaged thirty-five miles a day for twenty days, at the cost of having to replace half of their horses. Eddard suspected that he had been cheated at least twice on the price of remounts, but he hadn’t pursued the matter. Speed had been the only priority.
As they clattered through the King’s Gate in a chilling drizzle, they were met by Arryn men and hastily conducted to the Red Keep, where Jon Arryn met Eddard in a small chamber near the royal apartments in Maegor’s Holdfast.
“There is news,” Jon said gravely, his face even more lined than Eddard remembered. “Of Rhaegar and your sister.”
Eddard stiffened. “Where are they?” he asked intently, hardly daring to hope.
“Rhaegar is in Myr,” Jon said, “a guest of the Conclave of Magisters. He summons all leal men to join him.”
“And Lyanna?” Eddard pressed, hope rising in his chest.
“Was heavily pregnant when she and Rhaegar took ship from Oldtown, though Leyton Hightower swears the ship was stolen. She went into labor while they were still at sea. I’m so sorry, Ned,” Jon said, pain evident on his face, “but neither Lyanna nor her daughter survived. They were buried at sea off the coast of Dorne.”
Eddard swayed as if struck by a hammer. Lya. Gods, no. Not her, not her too. He sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands. His father was dead, his brother sorely injured by the Mad King, and now his sister was dead. All because of Rhaegar’s madness. Eddard wanted to scream his lungs out, rend Rhaegar limb from limb with his bare hands, crawl into a hole and pull the hole in on top of himself, call down a killing blizzard from the farthest North to bury the land in ice, raise the seas and drown the world of men.
But he could do none of these things. With his father dead and Brandon still bedridden, he was Lord of Winterfell. And lordship came with responsibilities. He forced himself to look up at his foster-father, who had respectfully stood back to leave him with his grief. “Robert?” he asked woodenly.
“Took it even worse than you did,” Jon replied heavily. “He hasn’t come out of his chamber in days, hardly eats. Ned, you need to talk to him; he won’t listen to me.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Eddard said, pushing himself out of the chair.
Jon looked him in the eye. “He has to marry, Ned,” he said simply. “Not now, and not for a time yet, but soon. He needs an heir, and we need allies. Dorne murmurs of vengeance against Elia’s murderers, the Reacher lords are restive, and Tywin Lannister will expect a reward for his contribution to our cause.”
“You would reward the murder of children by making their murderer the goodfather of the King of Westeros?” Eddard snapped, the blunted anger sharpening anew.
“I would make a peace that outlives Robert,” Jon Arryn replied. “For that, we need the swords of the Westerlands. And to get the Westerlands, we need Tywin Lannister.” The Lord of the Eyrie shook his head. “Just talk to him, Ned. You’re the only one he might listen to.”
Eddard could only nod as he stumbled out of the chamber and made his way to the king’s bedchamber. He didn’t bother knocking as he went in.
“Damn you, I said get out!” Robert shouted, his words slurred with more than drink. “That’s a buggering order from your buggering king!”
The king’s bedchamber was normally sumptuously appointed, but now it looked like a herd of aurochs had stampeded through. Desk, chairs, sideboard, and tables were all shattered to flinders, whether by hammerblows or simply being thrown against the walls was anyone’s guess. The royal bed was too massive to be treated so, but the linens had been torn off and shredded. The whole room stank of vomit, alcohol, and unwashed man. Robert staggered out of the shadows, as unsteady as a harborside drunkard, his clothes disheveled, his crown askew, and a wineskin in his hand. His beard, normally neatly trimmed, had turned shaggy and his hair was lank and matted.
“Didn’t you f*cking hear me, you . . .” Robert stopped mid-roar, the anger draining from his blotchy face. “Ned,” he said brokenly.
“I heard,” Eddard said simply.
The two foster-brothers stood looking at each other for a long moment, and then crashed together in the embrace of men whose world has collapsed. They wound up sitting side by side on the floor against the wall, passing the wineskin back and forth unenthusiastically as the tears streamed down their faces.
“I loved her, Ned,” Robert blurted out through his sobs. “More than anyone.”
“I know, Robert,” Ned replied, tipping the wineskin up for a swallow and passing back to Robert who drained it in a long pull.
“And that bastard worm who murdered her thumbs his nose at us across the Narrow Sea,” Robert said thickly, dropping the wineskin at his feet with a disgusted expression. “The whor*son rapist who murdered our Lyanna dares to name himself a f*cking king.”
“Yes,” Eddard said, grief crystallizing into anger. “He must answer for what he has done.”
Robert studied his hands where they rested on his knees. “Jon wants me to marry the Lannister girl,” he said abruptly. “Cersei, old Tywin’s daughter. Brought it up twice before I threw him out. I need to apologize to him for that.”
“He wants to keep you on your throne,” Eddard said dully. “Lannister swords would help with that.”
“f*ck the Lannisters,” Robert rumbled. “f*ck their swords. And f*ck the Iron Throne. I didn’t ask for it and I don’t want it. I’ll not sit on that f*cking chair until I can impale Rhaegar f*cking Targaryen’s head on its highest spike.”
He didn’t ask Eddard to bear him witness, nor did he invoke any of the gods, but Eddard knew an oath when he heard one.
“So mote it be,” he said softly.
Chapter 7: Direwolves
Chapter Text
Direwolves
The two foster-brothers parted ways shortly after, Robert to wash and shave and Eddard to seek out the lords who had followed his father south, first for a wedding and then to war. He found them in a wing of the keep adjacent to the godswood, probably thanks to Jon Arryn being his thorough self. When Eddard walked into the hall that had become the de facto council chamber of the northern lords, he was greeted by a wave of condolences from the assembled lords, who had all heard the news of Lyanna’s death. Even the saturnine Roose Bolton offered his hand, while the Greatjon would not allow anyone to sit until a harper had played a lament and the company drank the arval, the grave-ale, without which ancient custom held that the dead would not lie quietly in their graves. Lyanna and her daughter had no grave but a patch of ocean on the far side of a continent from Winterfell, but the gods cared not where their children lay, so long as the rites were properly observed.
After the arval was drunk and the harper dismissed with a pouch of gold, the talk turned to Eddard’s account of his meeting with Robert, and what might come of it.
“So you’ll be bound for Myr, then,” said Galbart Glover. “You’ll be needing some good sword-arms, I imagine, my lord.”
“They would certainly be helpful,” Eddard replied. “But I’m not your lord, Galbart; Brandon is.”
“Yes, about that,” said Wyman Manderly, looking into his goblet as if it held the answer to all of life’s questions.
Eddard looked around the suddenly quiet hall. Most of the lords didn’t meet his gaze, although the Greatjon and Roose Bolton returned it squarely, as did Hugo Wull and Jorah Mormont. “Whatever it is,” Eddard said finally, “spit it out or swallow it. I’m not in the mood for games.”
“Och, damn ye all for a pack o’ fidgety auld wimmen,” Hugo Wull spat disgustedly at his fellow lords before turning to Eddard. “The Lannister lied to ye, Ned,” he said simply. “When he said yer brother would regain his auld strength.”
Eddard closed his eyes. Of course. He should have suspected falsehoods from Tywin Lannister, when the man had just sacked a city through treachery. Especially since by that time Brandon had been in the Mad King’s power for the better part of three months. “How bad is he?” he asked wearily.
“He may walk again,” Wyman said slowly. “With crutches. If he is very lucky, he may be able to get away with using a cane. That mad bastard Aerys had his kneecaps broken, among other things.” Everyone in the room winced; to be injured so was to be crippled, almost certainly for life. “As for traveling any kind of distance . . .” Wyman shook his head. “Only in a wheelhouse, if that. He won’t be able to ride a horse worth the name for any length of time.”
Eddard gently pinched the bridge of his nose. Brandon had been so vibrant, so full of energy and motion and life, that the idea of him crippled was almost unthinkable. “And you think . . . what? That he should renounce his claim?” he asked, the words heavy on the air.
“He can’t rule the North from a chair, Ned, much less a sickbed,” the Greatjon said soberly. “He has to renounce his claim. How can he pass sentence without being able to swing the sword?”
“My lord,” Roose Bolton said in his soft, soft voice, “you stood in your brother’s stead when he married the Tully girl by proxy, and swore that you would fulfill his oaths if he were to die or be otherwise rendered incapable. Any reasonable man would agree that your brother’s injuries would render him incapable of fulfilling his oaths.”
“Have they consummated their marriage?” Eddard asked bluntly. He didn’t wait for answers. “If Brandon can consummate the marriage, then he can keep his oaths,” he proclaimed, rising from his chair. “Let me be clear, my lords; I will not usurp my brother’s claim to Winterfell, or the overlordship of the North. It is not in me to betray my blood.” With that, Eddard marched out of the hall and strode down the hall, first to his own chambers and then to those inhabited by his brother, where the guards admitted him without question.
Brandon was propped up against the head of his bed, his legs encased in heavy splints. His chest was swathed in bandages, his fingertips were bandaged as well, and there was a wide scar around his throat. But what claimed Eddard’s attention was the three-headed dragon branded onto his brother’s forehead.
“Not a pretty sight, eh?” Brandon asked with what Eddard could tell was forced levity, a slight rasp in his voice. “Aerys said it was so I would remember my true allegiance whenever I looked in a mirror.”
Eddard dropped his gaze.
“Sit down, man,” Brandon said, gesturing to a chair beside his bed. “I’d offer you some wine, but I’m afraid I drank all that I was allowed for the day by noon. The maester who’s seeing to me has some odd ideas about the healthfulness of wine, especially in combination with milk of the poppy.”
“I’ve drunk my fill tonight, anyways,” Eddard said, extending Ice across the space between him and his brother. “This belongs to you now.”
Brandon’s eyes lit at the sight of House Stark’s ancestral blade, which he accepted with shaking hands. “Thank you, Ned,” he said simply, laying it across his lap. “Not that it matters much, as I’ll never wield it.”
“Brandon . . .”
“Aerys and his torturers broke me, Ned,” Brandon said bluntly. “The broken ribs and the strained joints are healing nicely, I am told, and my fingernails are growing back as we speak, but my knees will never work properly again.” He gestured vaguely at his legs. “I won’t be able to walk, hardly, much less ride. My faithful bannermen,” the sudden vitriol in his voice was shocking, “will not accept me as their liegelord.” His eyes on Eddard’s face sharpened. “Especially not when I have two healthy brothers, one of whom has made quite a name for himself already.”
Eddard shook his head. “I don’t want it,” he replied. “And even if I wanted it, I couldn’t take it. Not with Rhaegar still alive.”
Brandon nodded. “So you and Baratheon mean it.” At Eddard’s shocked expression he snorted lightly. “I’m crippled, brother, not deaf. I have eyes and ears beyond this room, even in my condition.” He paused, continued. “If you are set on this, then you must know that you can never again set foot in the North. To have a crippled Lord of Winterfell with a healthy and well-regarded brother would mean civil war in the end, any protestations of unwillingness to the contrary.”
Eddard bowed his head. “I can make my own way,” he said, biting back the pain and grief. “If nothing else, I can always find a place in Robert’s household.”
Brandon nodded. “Like enough,” he said, before reaching across to grip Eddard’s clasped hands. “Kill Rhaegar,” he said fiercely, his eyes blazing. “If it’s the last thing you do, Ned, kill that kidnapping bastard. Kill him, kill Viserys, and kill any children they may have. Burn the Targaryens out of the world, root and branch, if it takes your whole lifetime and your last copper. Kill them for our father and our sister.”
Eddard met his brother’s eyes. “Justice and vengeance, my lord,” he said decisively. “Justice for Lyanna, vengeance for Father. I swear it on this sword,” he reached out and touched the tip of Ice’s scabbard, “and by the honor of our House.”
“So mote it be,” Brandon intoned.
Chapter 8: Robert the Brief
Chapter Text
Robert the Brief
Robert had not yet formed a small council, but a makeshift government had taken shape in the meantime. Jon Arryn stood at its head, as the elder statesman of the victorious rebels, while Hoster Tully acted as his lieutenant. With the lifting of the Siege of Storm’s End, Robert’s brother Stannis had followed him back to the city and now sat on the council by right of his kinship to Robert and his status among the stormlords, who had been impressed at his cool defiance of Randyll Tarly. Mace Tyrell and Tywin Lannister also claimed seats at the council table by right of their status and their armies. The Northmen had been represented by Wyman Manderly until Eddard’s return from the Dornish Marches, at which point Eddard had become the ranking lord among the Northmen, although he had publically proclaimed that he was only acting in Brandon’s name and at his direction. Quellon Greyjoy had made his way to King’s Landing to pay his homage to the new king, but he had no place on the council; centuries of reaving had seen to that. From Dorne not even ravens had come, beyond a short warning from Doran Martell that any attempt to invade Dorne would be resisted to the death by every man, woman, and child in that strange principality.
The council should have been reasonably harmonious, considering that everyone on it was either a supporter of the new dynasty or at least reconciled to it. This was not the case, as Eddard was witnessing. Eddard knew himself to be all but deaf and blind compared to Jon Arryn’s political astuteness, but even he could feel the tension in the air.
“We have news that the royal fleet has sailed from Dragonstone to Myr and pledged sword and sail to Rhaegar,” Tywin Lannister said in his impassive voice, his doublet immaculate. “It appears that Viserys sailed with them, as did most of the strength of the Narrow Sea and Crackclaw Point. Celtigar, Bar Emmon, Brune, Sunglass, Velaryon, Crabb, Hardy . . .”
“Scraps, all of them,” Robert spat, his face still flushed but looking much better for a trim and a bath. With the crown on properly he even looked regal, if you overlooked the redness of his features. “Barely a thousand swords between the pack of them. We broke the strength of the Crownlands in the hedgerow fighting.”
“And what remains of them is going over the sea as fast as they can find ships,” Mace Tyrell said, as Eddard breathed a sigh of mild relief. At least his vow to kill Viserys would no longer be breaking the peace that had concluded the Rebellion. The young dragon had chosen his fate when he stepped on the ship that carried him to Essos. “And Rhaegar will not have to rely on exiles alone; Lord Merryweather has sent me word from his exile in Pentos that Rhaegar has been negotiating with sellswords.”
“Where is he getting the money for them?” Hoster Tully asked. “He had to flee Westeros with nothing more than what he carried on him.”
“Merryweather says that he is promising to pay them handsomely out of the royal treasury when he retakes King’s Landing,” Mace replied. “And he is also promising lordships for the officers, and land for those men who wish it.”
“Interesting,” Tywin mused. “Does Merryweather charge a price for this information?”
Mace shook his head. “Only that his exile be lifted and he be restored to his title and lands of Longtable,” he replied. “I think it not too great a reward for the risk he is undertaking, to inform on Rhaegar where we cannot easily protect or rescue him.”
Hoster shrugged. “If he can give us information more valuable than gossip we can learn from any sailor from across the Narrow Sea, then he might deserve restoration,” he said. “Otherwise, if he chooses to risk his skin in the game of shadows, that’s his own affair. Although I doubt the Conclave would move against Pentos, for fear of challenging the Titan.”
“I will draft letters for the Conclave of Magisters,” Jon said, his hair much greyer than Eddard ever remembered it being. “They will not lightly defy the might of the Seven Kingdoms.”
“Letters,” Eddard said flatly. “My sister’s murderer sits in Myr as the guest of the Conclave and recruits an army and you would send letters. Shall I hold Rhaegar’s arms for you while you beat him to death with one?”
“Finally some sense,” Robert said, pointing at Eddard. “Be damned to your letters, Jon; we don’t need to write, we need to act! We need to go over to Myr and drag Rhaegar out of it by his bloody silver hair!”
“How do you propose to do that without a fleet?” Stannis asked, his dour face skeptical. “We don’t have one, the Graftons have sailed to join Rhaegar and taken their fleet with them, and I would rather entrust you to a guard of Dornishmen than see you set foot on a Redwyne deck.” Stannis returned Mace Tyrell’s glare with a glower of his own; the Redwyne fleet had blockaded Storm’s End until the siege had been raised. The siege had ended before starvation set in, but Stannis, it seemed, was not the type to let go of grudges.
“Robert,” Jon said wearily, “I know you want Rhaegar’s head on a pike, but you can’t just go haring off across the Narrow Sea for revenge’s sake. Who will be our king if you die at sea, or on some foreign field? I can tell you right now that the Reach will not quietly accept Stannis as king. At the very least, you need an heir of your body before you go overseas.” Left unspoken was the threat of a renewed civil war. Jon had to be in a cold fury about the Graftons defecting, while both Hoster and Mace looked harassed. Eddard had heard that there were men among the Riverlords and the Reachlords who were dissatisfied with the new dynasty, but none that dared act on it. Not without something to tip them over the edge.
“Which will take years,” Robert growled. “Years in which Rhaegar will turn Myr into a fortress loyal to him and raise an army to come back and take all our heads. Damn it, Jon, we don’t have years! We need to crush the dragons now, before they regain their strength and come back for their own revenge!”
“Damn it, Robert, you are not in business for yourself!” Jon snapped, his eyes suddenly blazing fury. “You are a king now; your responsibility to the realm outweighs your own desires. You cannot simply go charging over all creation simply for vengeance, not when your people need you here, alive and ruling over them.”
Robert glared at his foster-father. “I have sworn to avenge Lyanna’s blood upon the cur that raped and murdered her,” he snarled. “Would you have me break that oath?”
“If you mean to be a king, then yes,” Jon said pitilessly.
“I agree with Lord Arryn,” said Tywin Lannister. “Kings do not have the luxury of revenge.”
Robert flinched as if he had been slapped, then looked down at the table he was leaning over, his fists braced against the surface of the table. “I cannot rest while Lyanna’s murderer walks the earth,” he said finally after a terrible moment of silence. “As the gods are my witness, I will not.” He took off his crown and tossed it to Stannis, who caught it by sheer reflex. “It’s yours,” he said, “don’t break it.”
“I beg your pardon?” Stannis asked, visibly taken aback.
“You heard me,” Robert said, turning to Jon, who was staring at him in shock. “I quit, resign, abdicate, whatever the word is, I do it. Stannis can have the throne and Lannister’s daughter with it; I’m going to Myr if I have to bloody swim there.” He turned to Eddard. “Ned, you with me?”
“From this day until my last day,” Eddard said fervently. “Justice and vengeance.”
Chapter 9: The Gathering of Eagles
Chapter Text
The Gathering of Eagles
Jon Arryn raged, Tywin Lannister fumed, and Mace Tyrell all but begged on bended knee but Robert’s mind was made up. He would go to Myr and take revenge on Rhaegar Targaryen and gods pity the poor bugger who tried to stop him. The most that Jon could get out of them was that Robert wait a few months before making his abdication official and sailing away, and that largely because Eddard had agreed with him; after all, they would need to find men to fight at their side and ships to carry them. Robert’s agreement to delay, however, did not stop him from refusing to wear a crown (“heavy blasted thing”) or sit on the Iron Throne (“hideous old thing, and damned uncomfortable”).
They got their first recruit three days later, when Stannis brought up the matter of Jaime Lannister.
“Ser Jaime can’t be charged with Aerys’s murder,” was Jon’s instant response. “It’s not practicable.”
“He broke a sacred oath,” Stannis said doggedly. “He must answer for it.”
“He broke that oath to kill a mad king,” Tywin answered, glowering at the younger Baratheon. “He acted in good faith with his vow as a knight to uphold justice.”
“Then have him take the black,” Ned interjected. “The good of his intent does not outweigh the wrong of his actions.”
Hoster Tully raised a hand. “I have an idea,” he said. “Ser Jaime must clearly be dismissed from the Kingsguard for the killing of Aerys; mad though he was, he was still his king. But instead of being sent to the Wall, let his sentence be to follow Robert overseas. He broke an oath to the Seven; let him fight at Robert’s side for seven years as penance.” The riverlord’s mouth quirked in a half-smile. “I’m sure some septon will be able to make a sermon out of it.”
Robert shrugged. “I have no objections,” he said, and the matter was concluded. Tywin was less than enthused at the thought of his heir being effectively banished for most of a decade, despite the High Septon’s endorsem*nt of the proposition, but he was mollified by Stannis agreeing to marry his daughter Cersei. The fact that Stannis ground out his acquiescence through clenched teeth seemed to be of little import to him as he promptly sent word to Casterly Rock for Cersei to make her way to King’s Landing.
By then word had got out of Robert’s intent to pursue Rhaegar across the Narrow Sea and Robert and Eddard were swarmed with volunteers. Robert was hugely popular in the Stormlands, quite a few of the northern lords made no secret of their preferring Eddard to Brandon, and they had both made friends in the Vale during their years at the Eyrie. But the prize catch was Brynden Tully, who walked up to them one day and announced that he was going with them.
“Hoster’s been after me to marry again,” he explained, shrugging as if this explained everything. “I think I have another war left in me.”
Robert had accepted his services in a heartbeat; when it came to famous names, Brynden Tully was only a step or two below Arthur Dayne and Barristan Selmy. Robert and Eddard were only newly famous themselves, but the Blackfish had a name that could draw men from across the continent, and a reputation second only to a very few as a man of war.
With the Blackfish taking over much of the legwork of recruiting, the framework of an army began to take shape around King’s Landing. Eddard had to outright command Howland Reed to go back to Greywater Watch to join his wife for the birth of their first child, but he accepted half of Howland’s crannogmen to serve as his scouts. The Greatjon swore himself and a third of his men to the venture, naming his uncles joint castellans of Last Hearth in his absence. Jorah Mormont went home to Bear Island but his aunt Maege remained with a score of men-at-arms and shield-women, including her daughter Dacey. Rickard Karstark and Medger Cerwyn pled responsibilities at home, but Karstark’s brother Arnulf remained with a company of heavy horse, while Cerwyn gave Eddard twenty riders to serve as his household men. Ser Wendel Manderly, Lord Wyman’s second son, pledged his sword and ten knights, along with a company of two hundred foot. Leobald Tallhart brought a company of foot with which to seek his fortune, and Ser Mark Ryswell brought a mixed company of horse and mounted infantry. Ethan Glover, the stamp of the black cells still on his gaunt face and haunted eyes, joined as well with a dozen riders, while the mountain clans provided a company of men who would have ‘gone hunting’ in the next winter, either old men or poor ones but nonetheless doughty.
Nor were the Northmen alone in volunteering. Minor lords, knights, and second and third sons of noble houses from across the Stormlands all but swarmed northward to pledge sword and lance to Robert, often bringing up to a score of followers with them. Brynden picked over the Riverlander host, choosing the best he could find that were willing to volunteer, many of them fellow veterans of the War of the Ninepenny Kings. Ser Lyn Corbray, newly knighted after the hedgerow battles, came from the Valemen, explaining that he was unwilling to go home to a keep ruled by his brother, professing a desire to see Essos, and bringing thirty hedge knights and freeriders with him, along with a slew of other second and third sons of the nobility and chivalry of the Vale.
It was enough to make Eddard despair. With Robert and Jaime uninterested in ‘counting coppers’ and the Blackfish too busy recruiting, it fell to Eddard to manage their accounts and he quickly found it a demoralizing task. The royal treasury had been full when Robert claimed it by right of conquest, but their army was almost three thousand strong already and every man of them needed what Brynden referred to as the three B’s; bed, board, and beer. Eddard was spending gold like water simply keeping everyone fed and housed and the thousand men that Tywin Lannister had promised had yet to arrive.
Nor was that their only problem. Stannis had spoken truly when he questioned Robert’s ability to take Myr without a fleet. There were not enough ships in King’s Landing available for hire to carry even a quarter of their growing army and even if there were, none of them were warships. If Rhaegar’s fleet caught them mid-crossing, or even in the process of debarking, they would be hideously vulnerable. Against the hundred galleys and two score of carracks that the Royal Fleet could field, the company could field one carrack, Gerion Lannister’s Laughing Lion, and twenty Ironborn longships, courtesy of Quellon Greyjoy and commanded by his son Victarion and his master-at-arms Dagmer Cleftjaw. Even Robert, who cared but little for odds of any sort, was unwilling to accept the risk of interception against such odds, even if they had enough ships to take them across in the first place. Warships were already being built, but it would take months before they were ready; months in which the company would run out of money and fall apart like a rotten carcass.
Finally, a Braavosi entered the company’s camp and begged an audience with Robert. Brought before Robert, who now held court in the Small Council chamber, he introduced himself as an agent of the Iron Bank, come to take the measure of the new dynasty. Having done so, and learned of Robert’s vow to abdicate and cross the Narrow Sea to pursue Rhaegar, he invited Robert or a representative empowered to speak in his name to come to Braavos for consultations with the leading keyholders of the Iron Bank. After Robert promised to consider the invitation and dismissed the Braavosi, Eddard wasted no time in telling him that they had to at least hear what the Braavosi had to say. The Braavosi fleet was perhaps the most powerful in the world, so puissant that even the Royal Fleet would hesitate to engage it. If they could acquire that fleet’s services, even if only once, it would solve a good third of their problems and put them in a position to solve the rest.
Robert agreed, and promptly named Eddard as his representative, for the bond of trust between them and Eddard’s knowledge of their company’s accounts, and Gerion Lannister as his second, for his knowledge of the Free Cities. The two sailed on the next tide, armed with a letter of introduction from the Iron Bank’s representative and a mandate from Robert to acquire the use of every ship they could get their hands on.
Neither Eddard nor Gerion knew that their voyage would one day be considered one of the turning points of history, and Eddard, for one, would not have cared for the first few days. He was too busy being seasick.
Chapter 10: The Titan's Favor
Chapter Text
The Titan's Favor
After an uneventful crossing, Eddard and Gerion landed in Braavos, with much different reactions. Gerion stepped onto the dock with a light spring in his step and a deep sigh, as of a man who finds himself in an old and favored haunt. Eddard, by contrast, trudged onto the dock carefully, and with a prayer of thanksgiving that he was off that never-to-be-sufficiently-damned ship. His seasickness had abated somewhat, but he had remained queasy for the whole trip. He fairly dreaded returning to King’s Landing, and the voyage that would be necessary to take the company to Braavos.
After securing rooms at a tavern convenient to Ragman’s Harbor, the pair rested for a day before renting one of the long, slender boats that poled the canals of the city and the services of an oarsman, who paddled them through the winding canals to the Iron Bank.
The Iron Bank of Braavos was a forbidding structure, a massive construction of white and grey marble that rivaled the Great Sept of Baelor for size, although to Eddard’s mind it was much more tastefully decorated with its plain white columns and lack of gaudy stained-glass windows or intricate statuary. The whole building seemed to exude not just power, but surety of power, like a man so strong that he had no need to boast of his might. When Eddard looked at the Iron Bank, two days after he and Gerion landed in Braavos, the aura of authority that seemed to radiate from the building irrationally reminded him of his father, or Tywin Lannister, as if someone had taken the air of reflexive dominance that those men had possessed and instilled it into the structure.
Squaring his shoulders almost self-consciously, Eddard led Gerion through the doors of the Iron Bank and presented their letter of introduction to the clerk at the front desk. This clerk read the letter with eyes that went from skeptical to staring in what had to be record time and bade them wait before scurrying away at such speed that the skirts of his tunic flapped behind him. A return message invited them to the manse of Bassanio Scalizzeri three days hence, to join a feast that Magister Scalizzeri was hosting for certain keyholders of the Bank. And so five days after landing in Braavos Eddard Stark and Gerion Lannister donned the finest clothes they had brought and took a boat to House Scalizzeri, where they were bowed in and announced with as much ceremony as would have taken place in the Red Keep.
The food was excellent, the wine even better, and the entertainment provided by a troupe of musicians and jugglers was superb, but Eddard couldn’t help but feel like a performing bear. Compared to the neat and spare Braavosi in their somber greys and browns, even his relatively modest doublet, white linen with the grey direwolf embroidered in silver thread under the upward-facing crescent that marked him as the second son of his house, stood out like a star in the night sky, although he paled next to Gerion’s flame-bright crimson tunic with the lion rampant of Lannister embroidered in cloth-of-gold.
The comparison wasn’t helped by the difference in body type between the two Westerosi and their Braavosi hosts. Neither Eddard nor Gerion was particularly large, by Westerosi standards, but they had spent almost all of their lives training to arms. Consequently, they were both broad-shouldered and deep-chested men, with forearms so muscular that they flowed into their hands without much in the way of indentation at the wrist. Compared to the Braavosi, who were slimly-built for the most part except for one or two of great corpulence, Eddard felt like a troll. To be sure, a few of them looked like men who had some skill at arms, but they were still lean and wiry men, as slender as the blades of their swords.
At least the lady seated next to him was intelligent and sensible enough not to press him too closely for details about Westeros in general and the North particularly. Eddard was in no mood to discuss the home he would never return to.
After the last of the food was cleared away, a servant in the livery of the Scalizzeri appeared at Eddard’s elbow. “My lord,” he said in a low voice, “the keyholders retire to the roof for digestives and wish to invite you. Your friend will be well entertained while you converse with the keyholders.” Eddard glanced over at Gerion and saw that he was deep in conversation with a stunningly beautiful woman with dark brown skin and black hair. “Lady Bellonara Otherys,” the servant said, a ghost of a smile flitting across his face, “whom men call the Black Pearl of Braavos. Your friend will be well entertained, my lord, if I am any judge.”
Eddard shrugged. They hardly had the money to spend on a courtesan, especially one who could command the price that the Black Pearl could, but what Gerion did with his own money was his business; it wasn’t as if the man was married. “Lead on,” he said to the servant, who bowed and led him to a staircase that emptied onto the roof of the manse.
Evidently, it was a custom for guests to retire to the roof after dinner, for the roof was broad and flat, topped with a linen canopy and strewn with chairs, couches, and stools. Many were already filled by men in the drab attire of keyholders, although one man, a slight fellow who seemed only a few years older than Eddard with curly black hair, a great beak of a nose, and a body that seemed to be made of sticks and rawhide was wearing swordsman’s leathers relieved only by a small badge on his left breast of a sword, the hilt up and the point down. This man immediately caught Eddard’s attention by the way he sat on his stool; not heavily or sprawling as the others were, but erect and with his legs coiled under him, ready to spring in any direction. Eddard had known men in Westeros who sat like that. They had invariably been men who earned their daily bread by killing people.
“I see that a wolf recognizes a tiger when he sees one,” Bassanio Scalizzeri said lightly. “Be at ease, Ser Eddard, you are in no danger from this man. Allow me to present Syrio Forel, First Sword of Braavos. Master Forel, I present to you Eddard Stark, who is here to represent King Robert Baratheon of Westeros.”
Eddard and Syrio exchanged slight bows as Eddard’s nerves sharpened. First Sword, Gerion had told him, was the title given to the personal champion and chief bodyguard of the Sealord. Whatever was going on here, the Sealord had an interest in it.
And for one of such youth to hold such a post said much about them. Eddard knew little of the First Sword, beyond what Gerion had told him, but he imagined that the requirements to receive the title were equivalent to those required to join the Kingsguard. Perhaps not knighthood, but certainly valor, prowess, honor, and a willingness to put yourself between your sovereign and an arrowstorm.
A trio of silent servants carrying trays presented the keyholders and Eddard with a selection of liquors as they discussed trade and ships lightly while Eddard admired the view of the city and then withdrew, bowing. Eddard noted that Syrio had taken nothing, and that the eyes of the keyholders all turned to him as soon as the servants left.
“We are told, Ser Eddard,” said a keyholder so fat he managed to fill an entire couch by himself, “that you come in search of ships.”
“As many as can be hired,” Eddard replied, tearing his eyes away from the First Sword of Braavos. “We have sore need of them.”
“To conquer Myr?” another keyholder asked. “We have no love for the slaveholding cities but it would be an ill thing if the current balance between the daughters of Valyria were too greatly disturbed. Peace is not something to be lightly cast aside.”
“We have no quarrel with Myr,” Eddard said. “Only the kidnapper and murderer who hides behind her walls, and the men who shield him.”
“Yes, the Targaryen prince who now calls himself a king,” mused a third keyholder. “We are told that he pays court to the daughter of one who sits high in the Conclave of Magisters, and has done the city good service on the borders against Tyrosh and Lys. We believe,” he said softly, his eyes darting around the other keyholders, “that the Targaryen and Myr may soon become inseparable; in fact if not in name.”
Eddard narrowed his eyes. So Rhaegar thinks to find himself a new throne, eh? “If that is so, then so much the worse for Myr,” he said.
The eyes of the keyholders sharpened upon him, but none more so than the eyes of Syrio Forel. “And what, we wonder, shall become of the other Targaryen prince,” asked a fourth keyholder, this one a grave-faced man with a short patch of beard under his lower lip and a pair of mustachios that had to be a foot long from end to end. “The sins of the fathers are not always inherited by their sons, but their possessions and aspirations are. And boys become men, in the fullness of time.”
Eddard ignored the keyholder and met the gaze of the First Sword of Braavos. “I have sworn,” he said, trying to sound like his foster-father passing judgment, “to make an ending of House Targaryen. I have sworn on the honor of my House that I shall destroy them root and branch, so that the line of the Conqueror shall be no more. In this I am joined by His Grace King Robert, and by the other lords and knights of our company.”
The First Sword studied him for a long moment and then nodded sharply. “Well and so,” he said in a lilting voice. “He will do, masters, as will his king, if he sends such a man to treat on his behalf.”
The keyholders relaxed visibly. “Our apologies for the interrogation, Ser Eddard,” said Bassanio, sipping from his glass, “but we did not know what sort of man your king had sent, or what your true intentions were. We will provide you the use of ships to carry your company across the Narrow Sea, and loan you gold besides, if you will do us a service.”
Eddard was rocked, but strove manfully not to show it. He had not expected the Iron Bank to be so generous. “What manner of service, my lords?” he asked, swirling the drink in his glass.
“What know you of our city’s relationship to Pentos?” asked Bassanio.
Eddard frowned. “I know that Pentos stands as a vassal to Braavos,” he said carefully, “and that it is forbidden from maintaining either an army or a fleet worth the name.”
“Accurate enough,” said the fat keyholder. “In addition to which, we have forbidden Pentos from participating in the slave trade or from keeping slaves. You must understand, Ser Eddard,” the fat keyholder’s face was flushed, “that slavery is anathema to us. The First Law of Braavos is that no man, woman, or child shall be a slave, a bondsman, or a thrall. We who are children of old Valyria’s escaped slaves can never be reconciled to the practice of slavery.”
“No more can we,” Eddard replied. “Both the Old Gods and the Seven proclaim slavery an abomination.”
The keyholders murmured approbation, a few of them tapping their feet against the roof.
“Then you will understand our disgust at learning that the slave trade is alive and well in Pentos today,” said the fat keyholder.
Eddard co*cked an eyebrow. “Despite the fact that Braavos forbids it?”
“When the old First Sword died,” Syrio Forel interjected, “the Sealord announced that he would interview candidates to be the next First Sword. He met with them in a parlor, holding on his lap a cat. In the course of their conversation, the Sealord would comment on this cat, and invite comment from the men he interviewed. All agreed that it was a most wondrous cat, of unusual beauty and obviously of great puissance, clearly a mighty specimen from some exotic land. At last, the Sealord interviewed me. And when he asked me what I thought of the cat I said that he was a most excellent cat, of the sort that I saw every day in the alleys of our city. Other men were stronger, faster, of greater renown, but I was named First Sword of Braavos, because I alone saw the cat for what he truly was and spoke truly to the Sealord. I have seen Pentos, Ser Eddard,” Syrio continued, his lilting voice hardening, “and I tell you truly that I saw slaves on every street and in every great house. The Pentoshi magisters may call them free bond servants, as they do, but when a servant’s bed and board and clothing is worth more than their hire, and they have no right to petition for higher wages or seek work elsewhere, then that servant is a slave and nothing else.”
“Normally, we would attend to this ourselves,” said Bassanio, “but much of our strength is committed elsewhere. War is not only found in Westeros.”
“To hold Norvos and Qohor at bay, and occasionally to assist them in defending their territories along the upper Rhoyne from Volantis, requires just over a third of our strength in any given year,” Syrio supplied. “Of the rest, much of it is deployed aboard our ships, which range from the western shore of Westeros to Yi-ti. Some few ships even sail to Asshai-by-the-Shadow, though never more than two or three a year attempt that voyaging. The remainder is garrisoned at the Arsenal or the Titan, and guards the city. To send a force to Pentos to enforce the laws against slavery would leave us hideously vulnerable.”
“In addition to which,” the fat keyholder said, “to enforce our rule in Pentos with our current forces would destabilize the current balance of power among the Free Cities. We are perhaps the strongest of Valyria’s daughters, but we are not so powerful that we can lightly enter into a war with Myr or Lys or Tyrosh, any more than they can with us. To face an alliance of two of those cities, or even all three, as may occur if we move to bring Pentos utterly within the cloak of our power,” he paused to sip at his glass, “suffice to say that we would not have to make too many mistakes before we faced utter disaster.”
“However,” said the keyholder who had asked whether Robert intended to conquer Myr, “if we could get our hands on some five or six thousand Westerosi horse and foot with a desire to cross the Narrow Sea to make war, then at the very least we would be able to solve each other’s problems, and so become allies of convenience at the very least.”
Eddard sipped at his glass to conceal his thoughts. In his wildest dreams he had not expected such success. “So our part in this would be to escort your officials into Pentos, see them installed, and stifle the slave trade?” he asked.
“In broad terms, yes,” Bassanio said. “There may be some resistance from the Pentoshi, but we trust you will be able to overcome it.”
“And in return,” Eddard continued, “we would get passage across the Narrow Sea, a contract to see your men emplaced in Pentos, and a loan to cover our further expenses in the hunt for Rhaegar?”
“Passage for men and horses, naturally,” replied a keyholder who had remained previously remained silent. “For the contract we are willing to pay each footman four of your copper stars per day, each horseman one silver stag and two copper stars likewise, each knight one silver moon and three silver stags ditto, and each senior officer two gold dragons and one silver moon. Days spent in combat to be paid at double the daily rate per man, with losses of horses or equipment in combat to be made good at our expense. Payment to be disbursed monthly, reckoned on the lunar calendar starting at the full moon. The contract to run for one year from the date of your company’s arrival in Essos, with the option to renew it at the agreement of both parties. The terms of a loan can be discussed after your contract is completed.”
Eddard had to clench his jaw to keep it from dropping. Part of him rebelled at selling his sword, as if he were some broken man without name, house, or lord, but it would solve most of the company’s problems almost at a stroke. Their coffers would be replenished, they would gain a powerful patron on this side of the Narrow Sea, and most importantly, they would be across. Once the company was in Essos, half the battle would already be fought, and the greater half of Rhaegar’s advantage over them would be nullified. Eddard had been fretting himself ill over the problem of maintaining the company and finding them transport; if someone had offered to arrange for the company to fly across the Narrow Sea, he would have been willing to hear them out.
Of course, that didn’t mean he had to accept the proffered solution without having a say in the terms. Five thousand swords gave you rights. “Payment due one month in advance,” he said firmly. “If we are to turn sellsword, then it would behoove us to never fight for free.” A round of chuckles was accompanied by a graceful gesture from the keyholder who had outlined the terms. “The length of contract to run six months from date of signing or until Pentos is conquered and secured, after which renewal shall be at the agreement of both parties. Otherwise, in the name of His Grace, I accept your terms as they have been given me.”
Bassanio clapped his hands. “Done and done!” he cried. “Gentlemen, a toast!” Glasses were raised into the air. “To the contract we make here today, and to our friends of Westeros!”
Chapter 11: The Parting of Brothers
Chapter Text
The Parting of Brothers
Gerion hadn’t liked it, but Robert had made their respective roles clear before they boarded ship. Gerion was there to act as guide and advisor, nothing more. Authority to speak in Robert’s name and sign with his hand had been vested in Eddard. And so the contract was signed and sealed and three sennights later Eddard and Gerion sailed back to Westeros at the head of a veritable flotilla of galleys and caravels, enough to carry six thousand men and horses across the Narrow Sea.
When they arrived in King’s Landing, they found that the company had grown to more than six and a half thousand men, thanks to late arrivals from the Reach, the arrival of the thousand Westermen who would be following Jaime Lannister over the Narrow Sea under the command of his uncle Tygett, and the advent of Victarion Greyjoy and nine hundred Ironborn reavers. Fortunately the Ironborn could transport themselves in their longships, a wave of newly-constructed ships had come off the slipways of King’s Landing’s shipyards and Brandon had persuaded Lord Manderly to place the better part of his fleet, ten carracks, at the company’s service, in addition to other ships that frequented White Harbor. The ships would be crowded, but everyone could be carried across in one voyage.
If the company’s encampment was all a-bustle with preparations to depart, with Robert striding about in fine fettle chaffing with the soldiery and roaring at longshore gang bosses in turn, the Red Keep was a ferment of frantic activity. In addition to the aftermath of Stannis’ wedding to Cersei Lannister, which had taken place while Eddard was in Braavos, and the preparations for Robert’s formal abdication and Stannis’ coronation, which seemed to require a small army of maesters to invent the correct protocol, Jon Arryn and Mace Tyrell were politicking frantically. Eddard was absorbed in preparing the company to sail, but he overheard that Denys Arryn had been confirmed as Jon’s heir and betrothed to Delena Florent, that Leyton Hightower’s second son Garth and Arywn Oakheart’s eldest son Arahad were to come to King’s Landing as squires, that Mathis Rowan’s newborn son had been betrothed to Mace Tyrell’s infant daughter, and that Randyll Tarly had been named Captain of the Marches with a brief to command the forces of the marcher lords in the event of war with Dorne, which looked more likely with every day that passed without communication from Sunspear.
“The trouble is that we just don’t know what the Dornish will do,” Jon Arryn said one day over luncheon, looking bone-weary. “The Reachlords may be pacified for now with these betrothals and squirings, but Dorne may as well be a closed book to us. Doran Martell has yet to reply to any of our letters asking for a council between us and he, Oberyn Martell is riding from house to house across the Principality, and their border lords are not letting even trade caravans pass, much less emissaries.” He had shaken his head. “If I fear anything, I fear what Oberyn Martell may do. I doubt that he will fight for the man who abandoned his sister, but who can say what is in the Red Viper’s mind? Dornishmen are all mad and he is the maddest of them all.”
At last all was prepared, Robert abdicated and Stannis was crowned in a ceremony that struck Eddard as ostentatiously magnificent, probably thanks to Tywin Lannister’s purse, the ships were loaded save for the men, and the company was ready to sail on the morning tide, and Eddard found himself in the company of his brother in the godswood of the Red Keep, standing before the heart tree. Brandon was but newly risen from his sickbed, with his ribs and joints healed and his knees, according to the maesters, as mended as they were likely to be. Brandon was able to walk somewhat, with his legs braced and bound straight and the use of crutches, but his former grace and strength had been replaced with a hesitant jerkiness, like a newborn foal that hadn’t quite learned the use of its legs. Eddard hadn’t missed the looks that those Northmen who would be staying behind had shot at him over the course of the feast, especially when he hadn’t joined in the dancing.
“Take care of Benjen for me?” he eventually said, breaking the companionable silence they had fallen into. “Make sure he doesn’t make too great a fool of himself?”
“Aye, I will,” Brandon said, shifting his crutches. “Until he goes to the Wall.” At Eddard’s glance he shrugged. “He wrote me, asking leave to take the black after I returned. I’m not inclined to refuse him; best to forestall any foolishness.” He grinned lopsidedly. “He’ll stay at Winterfell until my fish-wife gives me a son and a spare, though. Can’t have the line die out; there must always be a Stark in Winterfell.”
Eddard nodded. Every scion of their house absorbed that with their mother’s milk. “How are you and Catelyn suiting each other?” he asked. His brother and good-sister had attended the coronation feast together, and seemed content with each other.
“Aerys’s torturers broke my knees, Ned, not my co*ck,” Brandon said with a reminiscent smile. “Took a bit of fumbling, but we suit each other just fine.” He chuckled at Eddard’s reddening ears. “Aren’t you a bit old to be blushing like a maiden, Ned? I know you and Ashara Dayne passed the time together, and I surely hope you had at least a few conquests in the Vale.”
Eddard glanced at his brother. “I did,” he said shortly, his tone not inviting further comment. “But a gentleman does not boast of such, out of consideration for the ladies. In any case,” he said over Brandon’s bark of “HA!” “Robert was the one who cut a swathe through the women of the Eyrie and the Gates of the Moon. I had to confine myself to what he passed over, which wasn’t much.” Eddard loved Robert as another brother, but there were things even brothers shouldn’t share. Secrets, horses, and wine, certainly, but not women.
Brandon turned a glance to Eddard. “Do you think he would have stopped?” he asked bluntly. “I heard Lyanna’s complaints about him, Ned, don’t think I didn’t. If swearing off other women was the price of her marrying him, do you think he would have paid it?”
Eddard thought for a moment. “I believe so, yes,” he said finally. “He was infatuated with her. But,” he paused, gathering his thoughts, and then forged ahead, “Lyanna didn’t see that. She simply saw the women he had had before her, and the daughter he had in the Vale; charming little girl, Mya by name. She didn’t see that, to Robert’s mind, they didn’t matter. Once they had married, he wouldn’t have looked twice at another woman.”
Brandon nodded, then shrugged. “Fair enough. Not that it matters now, does it,” he said bitterly. “She’s dead, and all we can do is honor her memory and avenge her death.” He turned hot eyes onto Eddard. “Kill him,” he hissed, seizing Eddard’s arm. “Kill him and all his name and ilk. I will give you what aid I can, but you must swing the sword. Send Rhaegar’s heart and his balls to Winterfell in a box and I will die a happy man. For the sake of our blood, brother, kill him.”
“I swear to you, my lord,” Eddard said ardently, “there is nowhere under heaven where I will not pursue him. Not the farthest shore, not the most distant mountain, not the deepest pit of the deepest hell.”
“Good, good,” Brandon said, nodding, his hand still on Eddard’s arm. “Gods all speed your travels and strengthen your arm, brother. I’ll tell my sons of you.”
“And I mine of you,” Eddard said, returning Brandon’s grip with one of his own, “if I ever have any.”
The brothers embraced for the last time under the waning moon.
Chapter 12: The Landing of the Sunset
Chapter Text
The Landing of the Sunset
After an uneventful voyage, the company landed on the southern end of the Braavosian Coastlands, at a small town called Mytila, where they met with the contingent of Braavosi justiciars who had been dispatched to investigate the servile practices of Pentos. Their head was introduced as Tregano Baholis, late of the Sealord’s household and vested with the power of command over the expedition, although he promised to defer to Robert’s judgment in military matters. The town’s chief magistrate was also present to pay his respects, which he did with almost exaggerated courtesy. Six and a half thousand troops suddenly landing on one’s doorstep at short notice would terrify any civic authority, whether they were destined for his overlord’s service or not.
After the ships had unloaded and the encampment had been established, the company had been assembled at the base of a small hill a mile from the camp. At the top stood the leadership of the company, Robert standing to the fore with a tall, heavily-built hedge knight from the Stormlands named Ser Dafyn Otley standing behind him clutching a pikestaff, the top third of which was wrapped in cloth. On either side of Robert stood his five captains; Eddard Stark, Brynden Tully, and Jaime Lannister on his right and Lyn Corbray and Victarion Greyjoy on his left, while the Braavosi delegation stood a little apart from the company officers. After Justiciar Baholis read out the proclamation declaring “a state of hostilities short of war” between Braavos and Pentos, whatever that meant, and accepting the company into the service of Braavos on behalf of the Sealord and his Council of Thirty, Robert stepped forward.
“The rules of this company are simple,” he declared in a voice that boomed over the assembly, although heralds stationed through the crowd repeated his words anyway. “Firstly, you fight, you fight well, you fight to win, you fight to the death if you have to.” There was a slightly surly muttering from the company; of course they would do so. That was their part of the bargain as men-at-arms.
“Just so we’re clear,” Robert continued. “Secondly, you will obey the lawful orders of your superior officers as you would obey your gods. You don’t obey a lawful order, you deserve whatever happens to you. Clear?” The company murmured assent. That was also part of the soldier’s bargain.
“Thirdly, the common folk of this country will not be abused in any way. We are here to give this country justice and good government, not to set ourselves up as tyrants. So treat the common folk as you would like your own families to be treated. As for the magisters and the slaveholders,” Robert shrugged, “just remember what your mothers taught you about playing with your food.” A wave of predatory chuckles swept through the company. When it got out what the company would be doing when it got to Pentos, the men’s enthusiasm had sharpened; not only would they be doing a righteous deed, but they had the opportunity to get rich out of it. Everyone knew the stories of the wealth of the Essosi magisters.
“Fourthly, regarding the division of plunder,” Robert proceeded. “Any coin you take is yours, but other valuables will be purchased at fair market value by the Iron Bank, in the person of Master Vito Nestoris here,” he gestured to a slim man in the drab brown tunic of the Iron Bank’s officials. “One-third of the purchase price is yours to spend as you like. One-third goes to the general coffers of the company, in order to help pay for all the food you bottomless pits shovel into your maws.” There was a round of laughter. “And the remaining third will go to the Sealord, as his share of the spoils of this venture. Any man who defrauds the company to the value of one gold dragon answers to a court of officers. Clear?” The murmur of assent was muted, but it swept the company nonetheless. Plunder was one of the main draws of a soldier’s life and any interference with it was usually fiercely contested, but the disapproval was muted by the fact that the company had received their first month’s pay before sailing.
“Just a few more things, and then dismissed,” Robert said. “Firstly, we have a name; the Sunset Company. Secondly, thanks to the ladies of the Red Keep, we have a banner. You may fly the banners of your houses as you like, but the company banner takes precedence over all others, even my own. Clear?” At the chorus of assent, Robert turned and nodded to Ser Dafyn, who bowed and swung the pikestaff in ever-widening circles to unfurl the new banner of the Sunset Company, six feet by six feet of silk displaying a severed dragon’s head in red impaled on a black sword, backed by a half sunburst in yellow resting on the border between the two halves of the field, purple over green. There was a murmur of appreciation for the new banner, and some scattered applause. “We remain here all day tomorrow, and then march to Pentos the day after,” Robert announced. “Any questions? No? Then DISMISSED!” As the Sunset Company broke up and drifted to their tents, save for those appointed to sentry duty, the captains met in Robert’s tent with Justiciar Baholis and Master Nestoris.
“Our agents in Pentos inform us that they expect no resistance to be offered,” Baholis said as he accepted a cup of wine from Robert’s squire, a pimpled young man named Richard Horpe. “Indeed, they tell us that the Prince of the city plans to greet us himself, with his council, in the Great Square.”
“Let’s hope they do,” Brynden Tully said, clutching his goblet in both his battered hands. “We may have the second-largest body of fighting men on this continent here with us, but we don’t have any siege equipment. If the Pentoshi shut the gates on us, we’d look bloody silly stuck outside the walls.”
“I doubt they would do any such thing,” Lyn Corbray said lazily. “They know what happens to towns that get taken by storm.” He waggled his eyebrows at Jaime Lannister. “Especially those taken by lions, eh, Kingslayer?”
Jaime narrowed his eyes, but his rejoinder was forestalled by Robert. “Corbray,” he said warningly, “keep a civil tongue in your head or keep silent.” He glowered about the room. “And that goes for the lot of you, and your officers. While you are in this company, you are not permitted to duel for any reason; there aren’t enough of us here that we can afford to kill our own. Him that gives reason for a duel gets to duel me. Clear?” There were nods all around, if reluctantly from Lyn, Jaime, and Victarion. The right to defend one’s honor with sword in hand was taken for granted by the Westerosi aristocracy, but Robert had a point.
“In any case,” Baholis said, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had descended, “we should be able to march through the northern gate of Pentos within a sennight or two.”
“Gods willing,” Robert said, draining his goblet. “In aid of which, we have work to do. I’ll have to lead the vanguard but Ned, I want you and your Northmen right behind me . . .”
Chapter 13: To Fulfill a Contract
Chapter Text
To Fulfill a Contract
The company reached Pentos city two and a half sennights later and spent the first night camped outside the walls to prepare for the official entry into the city tomorrow and go over the plan one last time. When dawn broke, officers and rankers alike had been up for two hours already, making last-minute preparations and getting themselves in formation. At noon sharp a trumpet blared, the northern gate of Pentos opened, and the company stepped off to march into the city under a bright-blue sky only sparsely interrupted by clouds.
The first detachment through the gate was Robert’s Stormlanders and Reachmen, five hundred mounted knights and men-at-arms and a thousand foot with Robert at their head riding a massive charger, his antlered helmet almost nine feet off the ground, Justiciar Baholis at his side. He was closely followed by Eddard’s Northmen, five hundred riders and a thousand foot, with Eddard leading them on his courser, resplendent in the suit of plate armor that was a gift from his foster-father. Behind them were Lyn Corbray’s Valemen, two hundred knights and mounted men-at-arms with six hundred foot augmented by Victarion Greyjoy’s nine hundred Ironborn reavers, which immediately fell out and took control of the gate house, dismissing the city watchmen with polite but firm assurances that they would take responsibility for the gate. As Jaime Lannister’s thousand Westermen, three hundred knights, squires, and men-at-arms followed by seven hundred foot, and Brynden Tully’s two hundred and fifty knights and men-at-arms and seven hundred infantry filed in through the gate, the Valemen and the Ironborn fanned out along the circuit of the walls, evicting the city watchmen from the gates and ordering them closed. A few made to object, but hard words from knights and reavers backed by hands on sword hilts and axe hafts, and in the case of one argumentative sergeant a blow from Victarion’s fist that sent him sprawling, persuaded them that discretion, in this case, outweighed valor and they went home, calling their families inside and barricading the doors.
As the Westerosi marched through the city they were met with scattered cheers and applause from the citizenry. A few, either greatly daring or else carried away by the spectacle of six and a half thousand armored men marching in close formation, threw flowers at the soldiers, but the vast majority simply stood and watched, their smiles edged with nervousness. Like townspeople the world over, the Pentoshi feared soldiers, especially foreign ones. Only the fact that they couldn’t hope to withstand either siege or assault had driven them to accept their rulers opening the gates.
When the company reached the great market square in the center of the city, specially cleared for this occasion, they filed off from column to line, with Robert’s contingent at the right of the line and Brynden’s Riverlanders at the left, the cavalry a spear-length ahead of the infantry. Facing them on the far side of the square was the Prince of Pentos, accompanied by the magisters of his council and a slew of other highly-ranking merchants. As Justiciar Baholis dismounted the Prince stepped forward, his arms spread in welcome. “Greetings, my lords,” he cried with every appearance of joviality. “Be welcome in Pentos, princess of cities!”
Tregano Baholis inclined his head. “We thank you for your welcome,” he said formally. “My Lord Baratheon, if you please.” Robert gestured curtly at a mounted herald behind him, who urged his horse forward a pace and produced a roll of parchment.
“Hear ye, hear ye,” he cried in the loud-but-not-quite-shouting voice of a professional announcer. “Whereas it has come to the attention of His Excellency Ferrego Antaryon, Sealord of Braavos, and the Council of Thirty, that the practice of slavery continues in the city and country of Pentos, whereas the existence of slavery in the city and country of Pentos is in direct violation of the terms of the peace between Braavos and Pentos, and whereas His Excellency the Sealord and the Council of Thirty have no confidence in the ability of the Prince of Pentos or the Council of Magisters to enforce the laws against slavery, a state of emergency is declared in the city and country of Pentos, this by decree of His Excellency the Sealord in conclave with the Council of Thirty. All powers of government are hereby vested in the Honorable Justiciar Tregano Baholis, duly appointed representative of the Sealord and the Council.”
The Prince of Pentos by now had stopped in his tracks, his staring eyes and gaping mouth making him look like someone had struck him between the eyes with a hammer, while behind him the magisters of his council and the merchants looked similarly flabbergasted. The herald plowed on. “By decree of Justiciar Baholis, the Council of Magisters and the City Watch of Pentos are dissolved. Full military and police powers are invested in Lord Robert Baratheon, Captain-General of the Sunset Company, and his officers. Gods save His Excellency the Sealord and the Council of Thirty!”
“My Lord Baratheon, fulfill your contract, if you please,” Baholis said pleasantly, as if he had not just had announced the conquest of a nominally sovereign country.
“With pleasure, my lord,” Robert growled, turning his horse to face the company. “Company!” he roared. “Arrest the Prince of Pentos, arrest his council, arrest every slaveholder in this city! Harm no slave, woman, or child under fifteen, but take every magister and merchant in this city and bring them here for judgment! Company, move!”
Eddard spurred his horse forward, the twenty riders of his household following him by a split second, and cantered towards the Prince and his council, followed by three hundred Northern horsem*n. Behind him there was a sudden torrent of motion and noise but Eddard didn’t stop; he knew his part of the plan. Forty paces away from the council and the cluster of other magisters and merchants he raised his fist in the air and roared “DIVIDE!” as he guided his horse around the left of the Pentoshi government and dignitaries, trailing riders like a tail, and circled around behind them at the canter, meeting Arnolf Karstark and his horsem*n halfway around, while the Pentoshi milled around in the middle of the circle of riders, some spitting with fury, others gabbling in terror, a few outright fainting. One man, however, simply raised his chin and stared at Eddard from beneath hooded eyes, as if to say; this display boots not. I will not be intimidated by flea-ridden barbarians. Eddard met his gaze with an iron-eyed glare; Perhaps, that glare acknowledged. And yet here we are.
With the magisters and merchants penned in a ring of horseflesh and hard-faced riders with swords and spears ready to use, Eddard trotted back to Robert, who had taken the Prince of Pentos captive by the simple expedient of riding him down, kicking him in the face with a sabatoned foot, and then dismounting and planting a foot on the prone man’s back. The fact that the Prince was still moving testified that Robert had restrained himself; such a blow with one of Robert’s pillar-like legs behind it could quite easily have caved the man’s face in as effectively as a blow from Robert’s hammer. “The council is secured,” Eddard said. “Is everyone about their tasks?”
“Like so many wheels turning,” Robert said, pointing behind him with his thumb. The only men of the company remaining in the square were a hundred of Robert’s Stormlanders and Eddard’s three hundred horse; the rest had split off in a series of columns, each guided by a Braavosi justiciar to the part of the city they had been assigned to secure and clear of slaveholders. “Corbray sent a galloper saying that he had control of the gates right before this kicked off,” Robert added, leaning forward onto the struggling Prince underneath his armored foot. “So long as none of them get to the harbor before the Blackfish’s lads get there, we may bag the lot.” Baholis, sitting his horse next to Robert, bared his teeth in a smile that was equal parts smug and carnivorous.
“I’ll take a hundred of my riders and join the other Northmen,” Eddard said, turning in the saddle and gesturing to his underofficers. “This needs to be kept under control.”
“Aye,” Robert agreed with a grin. “Can’t have the lads burn the city down, can we? Don’t think our employers would like that.”
Eddard swallowed a grimace as he led his two hundred riders away. Robert could joke, but the stories Eddard had heard of the sack of King’s Landing had been bad enough. He had no wish to see a sack in person.
Chapter 14: The Captains
Chapter Text
The Captains
On the one hand, Victarion was enjoying himself immensely. To be sure the sack of Pentos had been pitiful, as sacks went; his men had been charged with holding the Sunrise Gate against all comers and so they had missed out on the loot and the women, neither of which had been very plentiful anyway by all accounts. That said, they had paid most of the iron price, thanks to a group of quick-thinking magisters who had grabbed their household guards and their families and tried to run for their estates. The eunuch guards in their spiked caps had taken some killing, but few men could rival the Ironborn when it came to handstrokes. It had almost made up for missing out on the plunder.
What had come next had been both enjoyable and disquieting.
Enjoyable, because while the company went out to subdue the countryside, Victarion and his Ironborn had been left in the city to assist Justiciar Baholis in dispensing justice.
A long table was set up in the great market square with seats for Baholis and his fellow justiciars. A quartet of scribes were seated at another table, while a lone chair was placed before the justiciars’ table. This chair was occupied by the magisters and merchants that the Sunset Company had arrested when they had captured the city, who were held in the chair by a pair of Victarion’s reavers while their papers were inspected and their ‘servants’ examined.
Victarion had been disgusted when the Pentoshi dodge around the Braavosi laws had been explained to him. If you wanted to keep slaves, then that was your business; although a true man would have the balls to pay the iron price for them instead of the gold price. But if you were forbidden from keeping slaves and couldn’t throw off the prohibition with axe and sword, then you had no business trying to do so anyway. If you broke the laws and couldn’t protect yourself against the consequences, then you deserved what you got.
Every ‘servant’ who was determined under examination to be a slave was immediately declared free and awarded compensation out of their former master’s assets. In each case, the compensation awarded was the maximum amount permitted under Braavosi law.
The justiciars defined slavery . . . broadly.
“Your master gave money to your former master when you entered their service?” inquired one. “The payment received for your services did not cover the cost of your bed, board, and clothing?” asked another. “You were branded and wore a collar?” asked a third. “Sounds like slavery to me,” said Baholis. Quill scratched on parchment. Freed, maximum compensation awarded
Nine in ten of the ‘servants’ examined were freed in this way. For the rest, the justiciars inspected their masters’ records. In eight cases out of ten, this inspection provided proof of slavery, with the result of freedom and maximum compensation. Every ‘servant’ for whom there were inadequate records, or no records at all, was also freed at maximum compensation.
The justiciars’ definition of adequate records was . . . rigorous.
“The ink is smudged on this one,” announced one. “Hardly legible at all,” proclaimed another. “Abominable calligraphy,” said a third. “Clearly insufficient,” agreed Baholis. Scratch, scratch. Freed, maximum compensation awarded.
Some of the slaveholders tried to object. A blow from a reaver’s fist and a snarled warning sufficed to silence them. You’ll show respect for the honored justiciars, crows eat your eyes. Next time you mouth off, you’ll spit teeth. Time after that, you’ll spit guts. Try us, you soft-handed, spineless bastard.
What had come next for the slaveholders had been less enjoyable but still compelling. Every man found guilty of possessing slaves was stripped of all their property and hauled aside to be confined in the dungeons below the Prince’s Palace until such time as they could be transported to Braavos to spend the remainder of their lives as oarsmen in the republic’s galleys. Any found guilty of trading slaves, either from abroad or within the borders of Pentos, was likewise stripped of property, but instead of confinement they were sentenced to death and beheaded on the spot; Victarion had taken his turn at the duty, at Dagmer’s recommendation. It had kept the grumbling at becoming common executioners down, anyway; in fact, quite a few of the men seemed pleased that the Braavosi were, through them, exacting the iron price for the breaking of their laws, although it was agreed that Baholis should wield an axe himself on at least one or two of the slavers, for his own honor’s sake. A few from each class of prisoner, those who had possessed or traded particularly large numbers of slaves, or who had abused them more than usual, were turned over to their victims, who invariably killed them.
That last part had kept the whole experience from being an unalloyed satisfaction. Victarion had been a boy when his father had declared the thralls of the Iron Islands free, but he remembered the outpouring of joy and gratitude from the thralls when it was announced. One old man, bent and withered from the mines, had all but kissed his father’s boots when he was informed, weeping with happiness. Most of the slaves here had had a similar reaction. A few had seemed more bewildered than anything, and one or two had even looked frightened, but many had wept, or invoked the favor of the gods on the justiciars, or danced for joy. One stuck in Victarion’s memory; a young woman, barely more than a girl and remarkably beautiful, who had prostrated herself before the justiciars and said something in a rolling, guttural language that had made Baholis turn red and cough in what sounded like embarrassment before waving her away. Victarion hadn’t known what she had said, but he could guess.
Victarion knew that the thralls his family held in servitude had been well-treated, as such things went. Their food and clothing had been assured, and only the worst had been flogged, or sent into the deepest of the mines. Certainly, he had never heard of any suffering the abuses that some of the slaves here had recounted receiving at the hands of the justiciars.
Why, then, had they reacted in much the same way as these freed slaves?
Victarion shook his head irritably. Such thoughts were for maesters and maybe his brother Euron, who fancied himself a . . . what was the phrase, something Essosi . . . philosopher, that was it. Victarion’s skill was with the axe, not with the mind.
But the similarities still made him lie awake at night.
XXX
Eddard knelt on the edge of the road north out of Pentos, surrounded by his lieutenants. “What’s the next one?” he asked Ethan Glover, who had effectively become his squire since they landed in Essos.
Ethan spread out the map of the Northern Flatlands they had been provided with and traced their progress up the northward-bound road. “Something in Valyrian that I can’t pronounce,” he said sourly, “although as best I can make out it translates into Common as ‘Fair Oaks’.” He consulted the sheaf of notes that had come with the map. The Titan had many eyes, aided in no small measure by Owen Merryweather, who had offered to host a feast for the Sunset Company's officers at the first opportunity. “Apparently it’s owned by some bugger named Illyrio Mopatis, trader in cheeses and spices, among other things.”
“’Other things’ meaning slaves, no doubt,” rumbled the Greatjon, cracking his knuckles.
“Was he in the city when we took it?” asked Mark Ryswell.
“Apparently not, as he was in disfavor with the Prince,” Ethan answered, scanning the notes. “It seems he was married to the Prince’s cousin, but she died a few years ago and he recently remarried, to a pillow house worker of all things. Apparently the Prince took exception.” There was a round of nods; none of the lords present would take it kindly if an in-law of theirs had dishonored the memory of their relation by marrying a whor*. “In any case we have a writ for him. It appears his star was rising despite the Prince’s enmity; he only bought Fair Oaks two years ago, ‘hired’ about two hundred ‘bond servants’ to work the fields about the manse.”
There were low growls from the Northmen. In the past two sennights since marching out the northern gate, they had captured four great estates and half a dozen smaller ones and found slaves on each of them. These slaves hadn’t been disguised as ‘servants’ either; they had been collared and branded, and many of them had borne the scars of the lash.
The owners of those estates had been absentee masters for the most part, preferring to live in the city and leave the running of their estates to an overseer and a small troop of guards. These men had either tried to resist against heavy horse and infantry and died for it, or they had been killed afterwards, either by the newly liberated slaves or by Northern soldiers outraged at the evil they had witnessed. On the first estate they had liberated, Eddard had come across an overseer who had been flogging a woman when the Northmen rode up; apparently her crime had been that she had broken a certain vase that the master had prized while she was cleaning the house.
Eddard had beheaded him on the spot, along with every other guard on the estate. On every estate afterwards, any overseer or guard who was taken alive after offering resistance was given the same treatment, either by Eddard himself or by any of the other Northmen. Mercy to the guilty was cruelty to the innocent, as the saying went.
“Same method as the others, I assume?” Maege Mormont asked, co*cking an eyebrow at Eddard, who nodded.
“Aye,” he said, putting his finger to the map. “Arnolf, take your horsem*n and swing around the estate to the east. Mark, take your riders straight up the road and cut off any escape to the north. Greatjon, your foot will be responsible for securing the manse while Wendell’s men clear the grounds. Don’t bother announcing yourselves, we can do that later.” In strictest law, they were required to announce themselves and summon the person or persons named in their writ of arrest to surrender before assailing them, but Justiciar Baholis had given them discretion to modify their methods if they deemed it necessary. Given such instructions, and their increasing revulsion at what they were witnessing, the Westerosi were reverting to the rules of war, where fair warning was not required. “If this Illyrio surrenders himself, we will send him back to Pentos for judgment. If he chooses to resist,” Eddard shrugged, “then he should have known better. Let his deeds be upon his head.” There were wolf-like smiles from his lieutenants. The one magister who had been on his estate when they captured it had been killed while resisting arrest; the fact that he had not been resisting very effectively was not remarked upon. If a man drew a sword, then he accepted responsibility for whatever happened to him afterwards.
Eddard stood and slapped dust off his poleyn. “Mount up, my lords.”
XXX
“What in the f*ck,” Robert asked flatly, “is all this?”
A crowd of women was seething in front of a long low building with only one entrance and a few small windows. Some had fallen to their knees and were rocking back and forth, weeping. One had somehow gotten her hands on a knife and stabbed herself; two soldiers were frantically trying to stem the flow of blood from her torso. But the rest, almost fifty women, were trying to get at the quivering magister who had surrendered and was now being guarded by a squad of halberdiers who were fully occupied in holding the women at bay with the staves of their weapons. Gently holding them at bay, because almost all of the women were visibly pregnant.
“Apparently, my lord,” said the squad leader, a grizzled veteran with sweeping mustachios, “the magister here ran the place as a school for pleasure slaves. Bought up young women slaves from the slaverunners and had them taught how to please a man.” The sergeant’s face hardened. “As for why they’re pregnant, apparently the magisters paid more for slaves who were proven to be fertile. Less risk in natural increase than in shipping in new stock past the Braavosi, or so that one’s bookkeeper told us when we put iron to him.”
Robert controlled his gorge with difficulty. Gods knew he had a roving eye and a love for the ladies himself but this was . . . cruel. “What happens to their children?” he asked softly, remembering his daughter in the Vale, his little Mya.
“Sold on to other magisters, my lord, again according to the bookkeeper,” said the sergeant. “Apparently it’s the fashion here for noble children to have a slave companion their age.” His face grew bleak. “In addition to which . . . the bookkeeper told us that they catered to all tastes, my lord. Er, permission to get drunk tonight, my lord? I could have done without knowing a few of the things that yon bookkeeper told us.”
Robert was too far gone in shock, dawning horror, and growing anger to do more than gesture assent to the sergeant as he walked his horse over to the magister and dismounted. Children, for the love of the Gods. “Why?” he asked the portly magister, his voice shaking.
The magister fell to his knees and clutched at Robert’s greaves. “Mercy, lord,” he babbled. “Mercy, I beg-“
Robert cut him off with a roundhouse slap with his gauntleted hand that opened a gash on the magister’s cheekbone and knocked him sprawling. “I asked you a question, slaver!” he roared, snatching his hammer from its holster at his saddlebow. “Why, Hells take your soul?! Children, for the Gods’ sakes!”
The magister touched his split cheek, looked at the blood on his fingers, and became very calm, the fear on his face replaced by a cold uncaringness. “Because it fulfilled a need and I was paid well for it,” he said, his voice cool. “Why not? It’s not like they were important or anything,” he continued, picking himself up and dusting off his robes. “They were slaves to begin with, and mine to dispose of. Simply a matter of business.”
Robert’s war hammer was a mighty weapon; a seven-pound serrated square hammerhead backed by a pyramidal spike a foot long and topped by a spear-point the size of a man’s hand counterbalanced at the other end of the three-foot haft by a round iron ball filled with three pounds of lead. With Robert’s herculean arm propelling it, it could collapse a breastplate or cave in a helmet.
When Robert, blind with red fury, brought it up and around and swung it into the side of the magister’s head, the magister’s skull did not break as much as it shattered.
Robert came back to himself almost a full minute later, breathing heavily as he stood over the magister’s pulped corpse like a bear over its kill with the whole courtyard staring at him in a mixture of awe and terror. Finally remembering who and where and what he was, he spat on the magister’s corpse and turned to the mustachioed sergeant, absent-mindedly pulling a cloth out of his belt. “See to it that these women are cared for,” he commanded as he began to clean the gore off his hammer. “We have some women with the baggage train; see that they lend what help they can give. No man is to touch them unless explicitly invited.” He stared into the sergeant’s eyes, round with shock. “Is that clear?”
The sergeant nodded so hard he almost gave himself whiplash.
XXX
I have made a mistake, Jaime Lannister thought ruefully as his head twinged.
He had heard rumors for the past sennight that the magisters and landlords of the southern Flatlands had entered into negotiations with sellswords to defend their estates, but he had discounted the rumors. Most of the wealth available to the magisters was either coin deposited in the counting-houses and moneylender’s vaults in Pentos city, and hence taken by the company and the Braavosi, or else it was tied up in their slaves. He had not thought that they would have the liquid wealth to hire mercenaries.
Apparently he had been mistaken.
He had been marching down the southward road out of Pentos for two sennights now, doing the same thing that Stark, Tully, Corbray, and Baratheon were doing in the rest of the Flatlands; executing writs of arrest for magisters who had been out of the city when the company had conquered it and liberating the slaves on the hinterland estates. In order to cover more ground faster, Jaime had split his cavalry into half a dozen flying columns, each comprising fifty knights and men-at-arms who ranged outward from the main body of infantry to strike at estates beyond their line of march. Chafing at the slow progress of the infantry, he had given Tygett command and taken control of a flying column, ranging two days ahead of the infantry.
Which had left him and his men isolated and exposed to a counterblow, such as the one that had fallen upon them that morning.
They had been trotting along the road when a body of a hundred cavalry burst out of a small copse two hundred yards off their right flank. Jaime had been about to wheel his men and countercharge when he had spotted a similarly-sized troop of cavalry appear on their left out of a fold in the earth. Throwing circ*mspection to the wind, he had chosen to charge the horsem*n on the right anyway, hoping to break them quickly and then turn on the horsem*n who were now behind them.
He had broken the cavalry in front of him alright, the Western knights tearing them off their horses with their long lances and hacking them from the saddle with sword and axe, but he had taken too long about it, and the horsem*n behind them had caught his knights almost at a standstill. Only three things had saved them. Firstly, the intermingling of the Western knights with the Essosi horsem*n had diluted the impact of the charge. Secondly, the plate armor of the knights made them all but impervious to single-handed sword-strokes and difficult to bring down even with axes and war hammers, while their opponents had been rather more lightly armored in mail-shirts or brigandines, and hence comparatively vulnerable. Third and lastly, when it came to handstrokes Gregor Clegane was the finest battler in the world. He had stuck to Jaime’s left flank like he was tethered there and the two of them had rampaged around the battle like tavern bouncers, breaking apart knots of enemy horsem*n and rallying the knights to them by ones and twos until the Essosi had broken.
Jaime hadn’t wanted to take the Mountain with him, but Father had insisted. He would not, he had said in that terribly final tone of voice that Jaime had learned to respect at a young age, suffer his heir to come to harm through lack of protection, and so Jaime had accepted Clegane as his personal bodyguard. Father had then taken him aside and told him that if Clegane broke discipline, then he was to have no qualms about executing him on the spot. Having the meanest dog in the district at your beck and call was a fine thing, he had said, but a dog that wouldn’t obey orders was good only as food for more obedient dogs. Jaime had agreed readily; he didn’t know exactly what Clegane had done to Princess Elia, but he didn’t think it would be too hard to guess. The Mountain had a reputation.
Jaime bit back bile that wasn’t just caused by the axe-blow that he had taken on the helmet. His first serious engagement as an independent commander and he had been defeated. By common sellswords, no less; a hastily interrogated prisoner had told them that they were men of the Company of the Rose. He had lost twenty men dead and five badly wounded, although for a mercy none of them had been too badly wounded to ride. Even so, the fact of his defeat burned at him like acid in his bowels.
At least he had carried himself well in the actual fighting, and had gotten at least some of his knights away safely. The thought of being captured himself was not to be borne.
XXX
Tygett Lannister scowled as Jaime told his tale of ambush and defeat, and the loss of half his force. I told you it was a bad idea, but would you listen, he groused to himself as he turned to his gallopers. “Ride out to the flying columns,” he said. “Order them to rejoin the main body at once. I also need one of you to go to each of the other divisions and inform them that we need them to reinforce us. These magisters seem to want to make a fight of it.” As the gallopers conferred among themselves and cantered away, after glancing at Jaime who impatiently waved them on, he turned to his brother. “Gerion, we need to turn around and go back north to regroup with the rest of the company. I’ll get the column turned around, but I need you to take our outriders and screen our retreat. We need to find out what we’re facing here and we need to keep it off our backs while we get out of this mess.”
Gerion nodded, his normally twinkling eyes deadly serious. “I shall arrange,” he replied, turning his horse and cantering away, calling for the officers of the outriders.
Tygett turned to the two other senior officers among the Westermen. “Lyle, Addam, I need you to help me get this traveling fair turned around. I want our infantry formed up in a box around the baggage train, with our horse, when we get them back, formed up on each corner to watch for ambushers and escort the column. Lyle, you’ll have the rear of the column, Addam, you’ll have the front.”
Addam Marbrand frowned. “We’re retreating?” he asked incredulously.
“We just lost one in twelve of our heavy cavalry, we’re marching through enemy territory with what’s left of our heavy cavalry scattered to the winds, and our nearest reinforcement is two and a half sennights away,” Tygett said dourly. “You bet your ass we’re retreating; at least until we consolidate our forces, reunite with the rest of the company, and get a better idea of what we’re facing.”
Lyle Crakehall glanced at Jaime, who nodded affirmation, and nodded himself. “I can buy that,” he rumbled. “I’ll keep the rear of the column together, Ser Tygett, if I have to hold them together with my bare hands.”
“Good, because you might need to,” Tygett replied, turning to back to Addam. “Addam, if you run into opposition ahead of you, I’ll need you to plow through it. Don’t go so fast that you leave us behind, but don’t let anyone or anything stop you.”
Addam nodded, his face turning serious. “I will, Ser,” he said simply.
“Then go on, get to it,” Tygett said, waving the young knights away and turning in his saddle to glare southward. His fool nephew had gotten soundly thrashed and escaped death or capture by the skin of his teeth, but with any luck, they could keep the rest of the division from suffering disaster, at least until they were reinforced. And when we come south again, he vowed to himself, we’ll see how well these magisters make war against an army.
Chapter 15: The Breaking of Chains
Chapter Text
The Breaking of Chains
Tygett sighed in relief as the Rivermen joined him at their camp outside the walls of Pentos. He had managed to keep the Westermen together despite harrying raids by mercenary horsem*n and established an entrenched camp just outside the walls of Pentos, but the arrival of the Rivermen doubled his numbers and gave him the ability to do more than simply defend himself if he was attacked in force. The fact that Victarion Greyjoy had marched half his men out from the city to join them had been even better; the ballads emphasized the prowess and chivalry of the knights, but Tygett knew that actual battles turned on good infantry. The ironborn might not have the discipline to stand against a charge of knights, but he couldn’t ask for a better force of cutthroats to throw into a melee.
Ser Brynden Tully rode up to him and clanked his gauntleted fist against Tygett’s. “Not bad,” he said, sounding genuinely admiring. “Any idea what you’re facing?”
“The Company of the Rose, at least,” Tygett answered, “along with about two thousand infantry. Apparently the southern magisters decided to try and fight for their lands.”
Gerion rode up, catching the last sentence as he reined in. “I don’t think their foot are anything to worry about,” he said, taking off his helmet and shaking out his hair. “From what little the outriders saw of them, they seemed to be slaves carrying hand weapons for the most part, along with some household retainers. I doubt they’re wielding anything more than pitchforks and billhooks, at least for the slaves.”
Brynden waggled his head. “Even so, I’d rather wait until further reinforcements arrived before we tried attacking them. Robert’s only a day behind me, and Eddard will be here in five or six days. After that, I’ll take our chances against any army in this quarter of Essos.”
“We can’t let them pen us up for too long,” Gerion observed. “The men won’t stand for it, especially with reinforcements. The Ironborn are all but demanding that we march on the enemy.”
“They can wait two days, at least,” Brynden replied. “That’ll give us a thousand heavy horse and just under two and a half thousand foot. I’d prefer to have Ned’s lot with us, but I’ll still take those odds.” He paused. “How’s Ser Jaime doing?”
Tygett shrugged. “He’ll keep,” he said. “Took a whack to the head, but it didn’t knock all his brains out and may have knocked some sense back into him. Although I pity whatever sellsword gets in his way when the battle starts.” He stroked his beard. “So today and tomorrow to hold them and let Robert arrive, and the day after to fight them. I’ve got some ideas already, Ser Brynden, but first I want you to take a look at the ground around here . . .”
XXX
Tomar of Norvos, Captain of the Company of the Rose, stormed into his tent with a thunderous expression on his weathered face and anger smoking off his blocky frame. “Out,” he snapped at his body slave and his concubines, and as they scuttled out he seized the table and flipped it over with a roar of disgusted rage.
Still his employers had yet to find their balls! Two days now they had camped before the walls of Pentos, watching reinforcements flood into the Andal camp, and all the magisters wanted to talk about was ‘exploring channels’ and ‘coming to mutually beneficial solutions.’ Tomar snorted in disgust as he snatched up a bottle of Tyroshi brandy and knocked the top off of it with his dagger. If they had had the least hope of succeeding he would have wished them luck, but did the silly buggers seriously think they could outbid the Iron Bank?
And even if they could have, he thought as he tipped the bottle back and let the brandy burn down his throat, they would have had to find a receptive ear. It was well known that the Andals hated slavery like poison, the Gods knew why, and apparently this lot had been recruited specifically to stamp out slavery in Pentos. The Pentoshi clearly didn’t have a prayer of retrieving the situation, not against six and a half thousand men with only his seven hundred and thirty-eight horse, their sons and retainers dressed up as cavalry, and their slaves.
Tomar spat. That was the other thing; did these fat idiots really think that their slaves would fight and die for them? Even if the slaves loved their masters so much, if they were men with any fighting spirit they wouldn’t be slaves to begin with. If he had known that the magisters were so hard up for solutions, he would have laughed in their faces and extended his services to the Braavosi.
But he hadn’t known, and his word, publicly given, could not be retracted. A sellsword who broke his contract unprovoked was a sellsword who couldn’t be trusted, and a sellsword who couldn’t be trusted was a sellsword that no one would hire.
He rose from where he had sat on his bed and stalked out of his tent. The day was wasted anyway; he might as well find someone to drink with.
XXX
Jaime Lannister was not usually given to strong emotion. He tended more towards a quiet stoicism, leavened by a gift for sarcasm that could almost pass for humor, if you didn’t examine it too closely. This inclination had only been strengthened by his time in the Kingsguard; there were things he had heard, standing guard on the royal apartments, that didn’t bear thinking about. The only thing to do with those memories was to put them away in a back corner of your mind and not bring them out again.
So the anger that coursed through his veins at the sight of the sellsword banners fluttering in the morning breeze burned like wildfire. The authors of his disgrace were on the field and, by special dispensation of the gods, were opposite his knights. Jaime clenched his jaw to beat back the fury that threatened to cloud his mind. Nerve cold-blue, blade blood-red, his teachers had all taught him, and the maxim had served him well. Besides, he intended to enjoy his revenge.
He was two horse-lengths ahead of the line of his knights, riding alone but for Gregor Clegane, who had outright refused to leave his side and was sitting a half-length behind him on his left. He no longer actively wanted to die, but the shame of his defeat still lurked in his mind. He could see the half-pitying gazes his knights were casting at his back even now, regarding the fool who had lost his first proper battle and gotten half his men killed, and felt them like knives in his back.
He intended to conquer, and so expunge that shame, or die and be rid of it.
At long last, the horn sounded from the center, where Baratheon had his standard. Jaime closed his visor with the edge of his shield and raised his lance to signal the advance.
XXX
On the left of the formation, Brynden Tully sent a quick prayer to the Warrior to guide Jaime’s charge. He had every confidence that Jaime and his knights could break the sellswords, but the gods laughed at the plans of men.
The Blackfish went over the plan again in his mind. On the right, Jaime and his knights would engage the Company of the Rose and destroy or at least entangle them, while Brynden Tully’s Rivermen did the same with the company of horsem*n on the left flank; sons and retainers of the Pentoshi magnates, according to their intelligence. In the meantime, Robert’s Stormlanders and Reachmen, with Victarion’s Ironborn, would hold in the center and wait to see what the slaves would do. A deserter last night had brought them tales of widespread disaffection in the ranks of the armed slaves and a general unwillingness to die for their masters.
Brynden only hoped that disaffection would yield something. He had little stomach for killing the people he was supposed to be liberating. He raised his own lance, and the cavalry of the Riverlands spurred their horses forward.
XXX
Tomar spat into the dust beside his warhorse. The enemy was already advancing and the magisters had only just gotten their armed slaves into ranks. The so-called ‘company’ of magisters’ sons and retainers was still mounting up and forming ranks, for gods’ sakes.
Now the Andals’ right flank was advancing and the only force Tomar had to counter it was his own company. Tomar hated going head to head like this, but there was nothing else for it. Any hope of victory depended on keeping the enemy horse away from the infantry. Against other infantry, they might, might, serve well enough, especially once fear made them savage. But if the horsem*n ever got into them, they would be meat on the butcher’s block.
It was an article of faith among sellswords, and most other soldiers, that heavy cavalry with proper leadership would defeat an equivalent number of infantry any day of the week, given the opportunity to charge home. It was why so many sellsword companies were mostly or even exclusively cavalry.
Tomar turned to his men, most of whom he had known for years. “Follow me, the Rose!” he roared, drawing his sword and levelling it at the advancing knights. “Hell or plunder!”
“Hell or plunder!” the Company of the Rose chorused back at him as they spurred their horses forward and drew their swords.
XXX
The Company of the Rose was an old company. In almost three centuries, they had fought everything that the continent of Essos could throw at them, from Dothraki to Unsullied. But they had not faced Andal knights in a massed charge.
This was not strictly their fault. The prerequisite conditions for the development of mounted knights (open country, good horses, and a military aristocracy) did not exist in Essos. To be sure, Essos had open country and good horses in plenty, but the aristocrats of Essos, in large part, were merchants or landlords rather than warriors. Fighting was work for mercenaries or slaves, not noblemen. In Braavos, where what the aristocracy were of a more martial bent, social pressure militated against their fighting as a separate corps of armored cavalry. In Braavos, noblemen served either as marines on the republic’s galleys, or as officers in the pike-wielding regiments of the city’s army.
Moreover, Westeros had only rarely intervened in Essos. Westerosi came to Essos all the time, but they were traders, sellswords, or diplomats, and they rarely came in numbers. United Westeros had only fought against the denizens of Essos’ western littoral twice. In the Dance of Dragons, the fighting had all taken place at sea, and in the War of the Ninepenny Kings most of the fighting had taken place either on the Stepstones against pirates, or in the Disputed Lands against sellswords. The Essosi city-states had decided they had nothing to learn from such bagatelles.
To be fair, there were Andal-style knights in Essos, in the form of the Golden Company, but they were all but unique, and often enough the Golden Company’s reputation alone was able to decide a conflict. It had been years since the Golden Company’s knights were called upon to charge the enemy in massed formation.
So when the Sunset Company imported twelve hundred knights and five hundred Northern heavy horse (distinguished from knights only in their lack of the title Ser), it imported a mode of fighting never properly introduced to Essos, and consequently devastating against those who faced it for the first time.
When the Company of the Rose rode onto the field of Pentos, they were equipped as heavy cavalrymen after the Essosi fashion, wearing half-armor and wielding hand weapons atop medium-weight horses. Against them, the Western knights were wearing full plate, for the most part, save a few poorer men-at-arms who wore half-plate over mail, and wielded lances in addition to swords and other hand weapons, while their horses were on the heavy end of the medium-weight spectrum. The relatively light equipment of the Essosi made them quicker off the mark and more maneuverable, as well as more sustainable over a long campaign of hard marching.
In a charge, though, they were far outclassed.
Captain Tomar did not live long enough to learn this lesson, however; Jaime Lannister’s lance speared through his brigandine and tore him out of the saddle in a spray of blood. He was dead before he hit the ground. Bare seconds later, the same thing happened to nine in ten of the Company of the Rose’s front rank and almost all of their officers, as the Western knights hit them. Most cavalry forces would have broken instantly, but the men of the Company of the Rose were hardened veterans for the most part, and even their newest recruits fought hard; cowards did not take up the life of a sellsword.
Courage, however, is a poor substitute for armor, and over the next twenty minutes, the Company of the Rose was destroyed. Of seven hundred and thirty-eight men, only one hundred and eighty-two escaped the melee, where the knights of the Westerlands were cutting their comrades to pieces. Of those, only ninety-seven would be listed as ‘present, fit for duty’ at the next muster they could undertake after the battle. The Company of the Rose had known defeats, but this was their worst.
On their other flank, the Pentoshi cavalry were being even more thoroughly trounced. The magnate’s sons and retainers that made up that corps were largely untested at any sort of martial endeavor beyond dueling or keeping slaves at their work, and although a few of them were splendidly armored, the vast majority of them wore only gambesons or shirts of ring-mail. To pit them against the Riverlander knights and men-at-arms, the vast majority of whom were veterans hand-chosen by no less an authority than the Blackfish, was akin to pitting lap-dogs against mastiffs, and with much the same results.
While the Company of the Rose and the Pentoshi cavalry were being demolished, the first embers of the Slave Wars were bursting into flame behind them.
XXX
Hastron Ordello, head of the League of Magisters, frowned sourly as the Company of the Rose rode out to meet the Andals. He had told Tomar not to bring on a general engagement until he was signaled to do so, but here they were. See if we pay him his victory bonus after this insubordination, Ordello thought savagely as he gestured at his trumpeter. “Sound the advance,” he said casually, sipping at his morning hippocras.
The trumpeter swung up his instrument and belted out the two rising notes that signaled the army to advance and crush the enemies of Pentos. Officers drew their swords and roared the order to advance.
Not one bond servant in the ranks of the infantry moved.
Ordello could not believe his eyes. For a long moment he blinked quizzically at the stationary ranks of bond servants before he gestured to his trumpeter again. “Sound the advance,” he repeated, “as loud as you can.” Again the trumpet blared, again the officers roared.
Again the bond servants ignored them.
Ignored them!
Ordello shot to his feet, throwing his goblet away in sudden anger. “Gods below!” he shouted. “Is it mutiny?! I’ll have them at the whipping post so long the ants will be able to crawl up their hair to get at their eyes!” He strode over to his horse and hoisted himself into the saddle; in his younger days he could have vaulted from ground to saddle, but these days he was too broad and his legs no longer had the necessary strength. The hint of personal decline did nothing to help his spleen. Snapping, “Follow me!” at the score of young gentlemen whom he had made his personal guard, he trotted out to the nearest company. By the time they arrived he was in a surpassing rage.
“Are you deaf?!” he roared as he reached the company. “Advance, damn you!”
The bond servants cast sullen glances at him, but they didn’t move.
“By the gods!” Ordello screamed, losing his temper entirely. “You will advance or I will have every mother’s son of you flogged until you can no longer stand! Advance!”
A bond servant in the front rank looked up at him and said, quite calmly, “No.”
Ordello gaped at him, unsure whether he could trust his senses. First bond servants refusing orders, and now saying no to their masters?! It was appalling, unthinkable. “What?” he croaked, his voice throttled by shock and rage.
“No,” said the bond servant, a tall fellow with the heavy muscles of a laborer or a farm hand whose Dothraki blood was as evident in his copper skin and black hair as it was in his thick accent. “We not fight.”
Ordello gaped at him for another moment, and then, seized by a paroxysm of fury, brought up his riding crop and slashed it down at the bond servant’s head.
The bond servant caught it, suddenly glaring at Ordello. “I Akhollo, son of Jhazamo, blood of Khal Hannarbo’s blood,” he said, his voice suddenly fierce. “I no longer be whipped like slave.”
Ordello gobbled incoherently. This was madness, the end of civilization. “Kill him!” he finally shrieked, releasing the crop to point at the bond servant who had dared to refuse his master’s commands. The affront to nature that could not be allowed to stand. “Kill him! Kill them all!”
The bond servant threw his head back and gave voice to a yipping howl that echoed over the ranks of the bond servants. “Free or dead!” he bellowed, lunging forward with the crude spear he had been given and burying it in Ordello’s gut.
The last thing Ordello heard before he blacked out from the pain was two thousand bond servants resounding the call to insurrection.
Chapter 16: Onto the Glittering Stairs
Chapter Text
Onto the Glittering Stairs
“Fighting battles without me, are you?” Eddard said mock-chidingly as he accepted a goblet from Robert’s squire; it had been a dusty ride and Robert’s tent wasn’t exactly cool, although it kept the sun off at least. “If I knew you were that desperate for a challenge, Robert, I’d have offered to spar with you.”
“Only if you let me use my hammer, Ned,” Robert said laughingly. “I like to win sometimes.” With his hammer in his hand, Robert could beat the world, but when it came to swords, Eddard was his better. Eddard wasn’t remotely the artist with the sword that Ser Arthur Dayne was, or Ser Barristan Selmy, but he was certainly a good craftsman with a sword, being stubborn, canny, and vigorous. “Not that it was much of a challenge anyway,” Robert continued. “Once their cavalry had been broken and their slaves revolted, it was more a matter of chasing down the survivors than anything. Those that the slaves left alive, that is, which wasn’t many.”
Eddard nodded. He had seen the heads mounted on pikes along the circuit of the walls. “How did Justiciar Baholis react to the slaves revolting?” he asked.
“Oh, he was quite pleased,” Robert said, taking a swig from his goblet. “Surprised, but pleased. He’s already offered them Braavosi citizenship, if they’ll accept Braavosi law.”
Eddard blinked. Braavos was one of the most cosmopolitan nations on earth, but to receive Braavosi citizenship, one had to be born on Braavosi lands, or a Braavosi ship, to parents who were themselves citizens. For foreigners to be offered citizenship was a rare thing, and usually only given as a reward for heroic service. “How many of them have accepted?” he inquired. He imagined that many of them had; the chance to go from a slave to a free citizen of a powerful nation would be tempting for anyone.
“About one in five,” Robert said. “The rest want to come with us.”
Eddard looked down at his goblet. “This must be stronger than what I’m used to,” he said. “I could have sworn that you said that four in every five of the slaves we’re talking about want to come with us.”
“I did, because they do,” Robert replied. “And more besides. A lot of the slaves we’ve liberated, or those of fighting age, have decided to follow us. I tried telling one fellow that it was the Braavosi who were freeing the slaves, not us, and the cheeky bugger laughed at me. He said it wasn’t any Braavosi that cut the collar off his throat or killed his master, but an Andal. He said he wouldn’t swear oath to any man but the ones who freed him and his fellows.”
“How many slaves are we talking about here?” Eddard asked slowly.
“Four thousand give or take. So far, anyway,” Robert said. “Most of them men between the ages of fifteen and thirty. They’ve already started asking for weapons.”
Eddard sat back in his chair, mind spinning. Four thousand . . . “We can’t take them,” he said finally. “Not even half of them. What are we going to feed them?”
“By great good fortune, we got here just as the harvest was coming ripe,” Robert said with a twinkle in his eye. “Baholis is putting contingents together to get the harvest in and between our pay, our victory bonus, and the company’s share of the loot, we should be able to buy up a fair portion of it. Enough to tide us over until we get to Myr, anyway.”
Eddard shook his head. “We still can’t take them,” he persisted. “We can’t arm them, not with weapons worth the name.”
Robert shrugged. “They can cook and carry for us, anyway,” he said. “And the more promising can be given weapons from the Myrmen we kill.”
Eddard slumped forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “And how many of them will fight for our cause?” he asked. “We’re here to avenge Lyanna, not destroy slavery in all of Essos.”
“The one may lead to the other, if what Baholis tells me of the Three Daughters is true,” Robert replied. “Rhaegar is King of Myr in all but name, and in Myr there are three slaves for every freeborn. When those slaves hear that the army that freed the slaves of Pentos is coming their way, what do you think they’ll do? Stay in the fields with their eyes on the ground, when freedom is coming their way?” Robert leaned forward, his eyes intent. “Ned, you know there is no going back for the two of us. Even if we kill Rhaegar and Viserys tomorrow, we will never return to Westeros as living men. For better or worse, our future lies here, in these lands. And whether we like it or not, we are the men who destroyed slavery in Pentos. It wasn’t the Braavosi who broke the chains off these slaves, but us, and the men we command.”
Robert reached out and grabbed Eddard’s knee. “Ned, Ned, I can feel the wind turning around us. When we march south, we will destroy slavery in Myr. We won’t be able to do otherwise; even if we left the slaveholders alone the slaves would flock to our banner in droves. And it won’t stop at Myr either.” Robert’s eyes were feverish now. “Tyrosh and Lys will fight us, sure as death, so we’ll have to fight them back. And in doing so, we’ll destroy slavery in those cities as well. Volantis won’t stomach having us as a neighbor; they’ll fight us too, depend on it. There are five slaves for every freeborn in Volantis; do you think they’ll stand idle when we are riding through the countryside and beating on the gates of the city?” Robert shook his head. “We have shattered the illusion that slavery is the proper order of things, with our victory here. So long as we draw breath, we will be a living message to every slave that freedom is possible, if only you fight for it. We cannot be anything else.”
Eddard stared. He hadn’t seen his foster-brother so transported since the tourney at Harrenhal, when Robert had sung Lyanna’s praises to him over a goblet of Arbor Gold. “Won’t the masters fight back?” he asked hesitantly. “I imagine they’ve put down slave rebellions before.”
“Not when the slaves were backed up by a foreign army,” Robert said with a carnivorous twinkle in his eye. “Much less an army like ours. Ned, the Blackfish’s knights went through the Pentoshi cavalry like an axe through a pastry. If the Essosi are fool enough to fight us in open battle, I’ll stand surety that we’ll hand them their heads every time.”
Eddard looked down into his goblet, his thoughts a-whirl. We could do it, he thought to himself. Gods old and new witness, we could do it. There wasn’t a force between here and Slaver’s Bay that could match them in open battle save for the Golden Company. If the Three Daughters were foolish enough to fight them, the Sunset Company would bowl them over. If they lost men, either to battle, disease, or simply because they wanted to return to Westeros, then the freed slaves would fill the gaps and then some, if the numbers of their current recruits were any indication; they weren’t soldiers, but a few months under Ser Brynden’s instruction would remedy that. And not all of Westeros’ hedge knights and second sons had sailed with them. For the promise of land and titles, they would flood across the Narrow Sea, as they wouldn’t for Lyanna’s sake.
The thought of his sister stilled his swirling mind and brought clarity back to his thoughts. He looked back up at his foster-brother. “First we kill Rhaegar,” he said. “If Viserys runs, he can keep until he’s of a man’s years, but Rhaegar must die before we forge this kingdom of broken chains. I swore an oath.”
Robert smiled ferociously. “As have I,” he said intently. “But when that oath is fulfilled, Rhaegar will leave a crown in the dirt. I mean to pick it up.”
Eddard smiled back. “You’ve been thinking about this for a while, haven’t you?” he asked in playful accusation.
“Ever since we finished cleaning up from that battle and I had a word with Baholis and the other captains about our next moves,” Robert admitted. “Are you in, Ned?”
“Of course I am,” Eddard replied matter-of-factly. “You’ll need someone to do the difficult thinking for you.” He paused. “Didn’t you tell me once that you were glad to give Stannis the crown?” he asked. He distinctly remembered Robert telling him on the voyage over that he had hated every minute that he had been forced to act a king.
Robert shrugged. “Odds are we’ll be spending the rest of our lives at war, Ned,” he observed. “If not against Lys and Tyrosh, then against Volantis or the Dothraki. I might wear a crown, but I won’t be sitting on a throne and going to fat.”
Eddard smiled. “Let’s get you your new throne first, before you decide whether to spurn it or not,” he answered. “In the meantime, let’s call in the others, get the maps out, and put a plan together.”
“And so the brothers swore, and their oath set their feet on the glittering stairs of empire, which they scaled to dizzying heights, until the fame and dread of their names was spread across the world and a new world was born in blood and fire.”
- Breakers of Chains by Howard Roberts, published 1939 AC
Chapter 17: The Old Country
Chapter Text
The Old Country>
Meanwhile, in Westeros . . .
There were times when Jon Arryn dearly wished he could allow himself to get drunk.
He had plotted and schemed for more than two decades, praying for the opportunity to overthrow the Targaryens. The dragonkings had been a blight upon Westeros, their predilection for the black arts and their unholy preference for mating brother with sister bringing the judgment of the gods upon the Kingdoms. The revolt of the Faith Militant, the Dance of Dragons, the Blackfyre Rebellions, all directly stemmed from the misrule of the Tagaryens. Not even the few kings they had produced who had been worth the name could balance the scales against civil war.
At last, he had achieved his goal. After two decades of careful planning, the Targaryens were overthrown and those few who remained expelled from Westeros. He had lost family and dear friends in the doing of it, but when set against the victory he had achieved it would be churlish to count the cost. The Targaryens were deposed, a king of proper Westerosi lineage sat the throne of united Westeros, and at long last he could be about the business of making Westeros a nation, and not merely a patchwork of quarreling kingdoms.
And then the gods had seen fit to snatch the prize almost entirely out of his hands. Robert, that impetuous, selfish, pig-headed, brilliant young man, had given up the Iron Throne for the sake of his own private quarrel with Rhaegar. And Eddard, who Jon had depended on to keep Robert on a solid foundation, had gone with him. If pressed, he would admit that there was justice in their cause, but he had thought that he had taught Robert better; that a lord’s duty, much less a king’s, was to set aside his own desires and hatreds for the sake of his people’s good.
Eddard at least had seemed to have taken his lessons in that regard to heart. It was Jon’s own folly for forgetting the importance that the Northmen placed on exacting revenge for an injury.
Now Robert and Eddard were gone over-sea and Jon was left to try and salvage the Seven Kingdoms from its second change of kings in less than a year. Fortunately, he had promising material to work with. Stannis was dutiful, conscientious, and had a strong sense of justice that Jon found both refreshing and potentially useful. Quite a few kings could, with some justice, be called ‘the Great’, but their accomplishments tended to be ephemeral, with notable exceptions. Those kings who earned the sobriquet ‘the Lawgiver’, on the other hand . . .
The problem was that Stannis was about as tactfully subtle as a wild boar. When he had learned just how many of the Crownland and Narrow Sea lords had gone into exile with the Targaryen, he had wasted no time in declaring their whole houses attainted and their lands forfeit to the Crown. Rosby, Duskendale, Sharp Point, Brownhollow, Sweetpoint Sound, Claw Isle, Driftmark, every hold occupied by Targaryen loyalists who had followed the dragons into exile had been taken over by royal troops and given to men who had served in the Rebellion; mostly Stormlanders, Rivermen, and Valemen, but also some Westermen and even a few Northmen. What was more, these men were not made lords in their own right, but instead held the title of Royal Castellan and pledged their allegiance directly to the Iron Throne. Only a few of the noble houses of the Crownlands, those like Massey, Buckwell, and Gaunt who had made their peace with the result of the Rebellion and pledged allegiance to the new dynasty, had kept their lands and their relative autonomy. Jon approved of the theory, but the actual doing of it left Stannis vulnerable to accusations of being even more of a tyrant than Aerys was. Even after Duskendale, Aerys had not enacted such sweeping attainders and confiscations.
The Royal Order of the Storm was another innovation that Jon had mixed feelings about. The Kingsguard could be rightfully said to be defunct, as none of them remained save those in Rhaegar’s service. And even if any had taken service with the new dynasty, their lack of action to prevent the crimes of the Mad King or of the Kidnapper Prince had thoroughly sullied the Whitecloaks’ honor; all the authorities on chivalry, when asked for their opinion, had agreed that a knight who assisted his lord in the commission of a crime brought shame upon himself and forfeited the right to call himself a knight, although they also all agreed that such a knight could not himself be charged with a crime if all they did was obey the orders of their liege-lord. Jon did approve of the way that Stannis had stated that they would number forty-nine; to be sure it would dilute the honor of each individual position within the Order, but the increase in numbers would allow the Order to more effectively guard the royal family and the significance of the number, seven times seven, resonated with the Faithful. Of a certainty the High Septon had been very willing to bless the banner of the Order and witness the oath of its knights, as they were found and inducted. This was proving to take some time as Stannis insisted that his ‘Stormguard’, as they swiftly became known, be selected as much for their commitment to the laws of the Realm as for their skill at arms; so far only twenty-one knights had been selected, while three times as many had been turned away by either Stannis or Lord Commander Penrose, some with harsh words.
Thankfully, the rest of Stannis’ councilors were competent enough, for the most part. Damon Lannister was a weak reed, but the Crown’s finances were recovering well under his oversight. Roose Bolton had reformed the City Watch with singular efficiency; if the smallfolk whispered that the Master of Laws was a sorcerer tainted with the blood of the White Walkers, at least it seemed to help keep crime down. Paxter Redwyne was solid if not inspired, and the Royal Fleet was back up to twenty galleys already, with another thirty set to be completed within the next three months. The only real fly in the ointment was Jon’s distant cousin Gerold, from the Gulltown branch of the family. Not that Gerold was outright incompetent, Jon wouldn’t have nominated him if he had been, but he tended to complacency. For one thing, Gerold was almost blasé about how little news they had from Dorne.
Jon, on the other hand, was positively fearful of the silence from Dorne. They had only learned two things out of Dorne in the past month. Firstly, that Oberyn Martell had left the desert and was now visiting the borderer houses in the Red Mountains. Secondly, and arrived just this morning by fast ship, that Prince Doran had demanded that the men who killed his sister and her children be handed over to him for execution.
Jon sighed wearily. They could not expect a reply from Tywin Lannister for the next sennight or two, but Damon had laughed at the demand; not for all the spices in the east, he had declared, would his cousin give up his pet killers. In any case, Gregor the Mountain, who was the prime suspect, had gone to Essos as the sworn shield of young Jaime and Jon didn’t need to be told that Tywin would eat his own fingers before he would deprive his son and heir of such a protector. The fact that Oberyn would almost certainly take such a refusal as cause for war, even if Doran didn’t, was not remarked upon either by Damon or by Gerold.
Stannis, however, had seen the possible danger when Jon had brought it up after the council meeting, and word had been sent to the marcher lords, both of the Stormlands and the Reach, to be on their guard against incursions from Dorne. Jon knew that it was probably a case of hauling wine to the Arbor to tell the marcher lords to be wary of Dorne, but it had to be done nonetheless; even if nothing came of it, it would demonstrate that the Iron Throne was mindful of the dangers its subjects might face.
Jon put the matter from his mind with an effort of will. Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof, as his confessor insisted on reminding him; he had done all he reasonably could to guard against Dorne, and there were other problems that demanded his time, even if they did not command so much of his fear. At least Stannis had wasted no time in getting Cersei pregnant.
XXX
People did not appreciate hard work; this was something Mace Tyrell had learned time and again over his life.
He was taking advantage of the warm and clear day to walk the gardens, alone for once, save for his faithful bodyguards, but he often forgot their presence. As was fitting for men of their trade; the best bodyguard was one who knew how to make themselves invisible until they were required.
He made a point to thank the men who tended the bounty that gave Highgarden its name. No castle in all of Westeros was more beautiful, more nurturing to the soul. Not only did the gardens give beauty to what would otherwise be sterile stone, but nestled amongst the flowers were vegetables and herbs that would in time grace the castle’s banquet tables. The servants claimed it was Garth Greenhand himself who had planned the layout of the gardens but Mace knew otherwise. To be sure, the Greenhand may have laid the original gardens but the centuries since had seen more mundane hands leave their mark. The gardens had been changed and tinkered with and outright replaced several times over the years, either due to blight or simply to whether the lord of the time had a different taste in flowers than his predecessor.
Still they grew strong. And those that made them strong deserved to be appreciated.
But he as Lord Paramount of the Reach was not.
They thought him a fool. Even his own mother, the insufferable woman. Love her as he did she seemed to have no greater ambition than to undermine his authority so that she could rule in his name. Much as she had driven his father to an early grave; Mace couldn’t prove anything, but he knew his father was not such a fool as to ride off a cliff without meaning to.
She had chided him for answering the Kings call. Then when he returned having made peace with the rebels she called him a fool for that. The impossibility of the situation that had confronted him seemed lost on her. Honor had demanded he answer his king's call. And when Tywin Lannister, that gilded murderer, destroyed the royal family and joined hands with the rebels, his duty to protect his family had demanded that he make peace on the best terms he could get.
Not that the mighty Queen of Thorns cared to see that. No, all were beneath her, all men were fools and all women lesser in wisdom than her. Did she even care how her reputation harmed their house? The Reach was not Dorne where whispers of a woman ruling were met with respect. His proud lords saw only weakness and scorned their overlords for it.
She told him the same thing his own spies did; that many of his bannermen plotted against him. Of course his bannermen plotted against him, it was in the nature of nobles to plot, but what was he to do? Take a cue from Tywin the Terrible and answer dissent with fire and sword, until the Reach ran red with blood?
The lords of the Reach had conspired without respite ever since the Tyrells first sat on the Roseseat; for all their grumbling, Mace had no fear of their rising in open revolt. For one thing, despite the Lannister’s barbarity, the rebels were not all men of Tywin’s stamp. Jon Arryn had been most obliging, and even Stannis seemed to understand the importance of honor.
In fact, Mace thought as he went to one knee at the sight of a weed amongst a rose bush, a rebellion might not be entirely a bad thing.
That was the other reason he did not fear rebellion; his loyal men far outnumbered the vain and the desperate that had to dream of glory because they lacked it and were far more united than the grumblers. Florent paraded his lineage too busily to realize that his pride alienated his potential supporters. The Peakes had earned a reputation for surviving failure, but only by sacrificing anything and anyone who was not essential to their desired goal. The Hightowers delayed and dithered and almost never threw their weight to one faction or another until the outcome was already decided. None of them, or any of the other houses that coveted Highgarden, trusted any of the others to sit the Roseseat.
Not that it mattered. Even if the loyal houses of the Reach were discounted, Highgarden’s lands were rich and its lord was famed far and wide for his generosity to those who served him well. Five hundred knights and men-at-arms wore Mace Tyrell’s livery and ate his food; in all of Westeros, only Tywin Lannister could muster a retinue so strong.
It was a pity what happened with Rhaegar, Mace mused as he examined the rose bush for a way through to the weed. He could hardly believe the prince to be a rapist. Perhaps the lady had sought escape from her boor of an intended? Gods knew that Robert had not been discreet in his wenching. Rhaegar was always a queer man, and certainly he had looked the part of a ‘perfect and gentle knight’, straight out of a lay of the Gardener kings. Had he simply been swept up in the romance of the thing, as men could be?
The whys and the wherefores mattered little, Mace reminded himself. Rhaegar was finished, driven from Westeros’ shores never to return. If he was wise he would destroy Robert Baratheon and make a new life for himself in the east; from what Mace heard, he had found a new kingdom for himself in Myr already.
The Sour Stag was no threat, for all his dourness. Stannis made enemies easily but if he caught even a whiff of dragon in any rebellion aimed at Highgarden then royal knights would come clattering down the Roseroad. And while Mace would never consent to Tywin's dogs being let loose in his lands, they would be an excellent threat to hang over the head of anyone who got ideas above their station.
With skill honed since childhood he plucked the weed out from the rose bush without so much as touching the thorns. If his mother were there she would likely say would that the gods had made him a gardener instead of a lord.
Let her scoff. History would remember him as the lord who shepherded House Tyrell through these uncertain times and expanded their power as he did so. And she and the rest of the mockers would be either forgotten or mocked as his adversaries overcome.
Growing Strong were his houses words; by the favor of the gods Mace Tyrell planned to grow very strong indeed. And it seemed the Dornish dogs were going to give him aid along the way, if what little he heard from that gods-forsaken hellhole had any truth to it. Let the Red Viper bite as he pleased. House Martell’s misfortune would be House Tyrell’s windfall, if Mace had anything to say about it.
XXX
“Item twenty-seven,” Maester Luwin said, “a dispute between Lord Karstark and Lord Manderly regarding their respective rights in the fishing grounds off Skagos.”
“What manner of dispute is it this time?” Brandon Stark asked wearily, “Is it serious, or is it just another pissing contest?”
“Lord Karstark claims that Manderly vessels are taking more than the share of fish that was allotted them by the judgement of King Jaehaerys the First,” Luwin said, scanning the parchment. “Lord Manderly claims that Lord Karstark is, to quote Lord Manderly words, ‘talking out of his ass’, and further states that the Karstarks are the ones fishing more than their share.”
“Do we know which is in the right?” Catelyn Stark asked from where she sat at Brandon’s right hand, a fleece robe over her shoulders against the morning chill; even in summer, the North reminded you that winter was never far away.
Luwin shook his head. “Not on the information presented in this letter, my lady.”
“Put it in the ‘investigate’ pile, then,” Brandon said. Luwin nodded and dropped the letter in the appropriate pile. When Brandon reviewed the correspondence of the day, most of which were disputes referred to him for judgment, one of two things happened. Firstly, in cases where the right and wrong of the matter was not in dispute, judgment was given then and there, usually with a quick scrawl of ‘Affirmed’ in Brandon’s own hand at the bottom of the letter. Such cases had usually been already judged anyway and all that was left for Brandon to do was approve them. Secondly, in cases where the facts were in dispute, Brandon would send trustworthy men to investigate the facts and summon the disputants and any witnesses to Winterfell, where Brandon would question them and issue judgment.
These judgments almost always provoked grumbling from the party who had had the decision go against them, but thankfully no one had yet disputed the validity of Brandon’s judgments. If Brandon had had to sentence anyone to death, it might have been different, but fortunately that test had yet to arise. Even so, Catelyn knew, her husband practiced in secret with an axe, against the day when he might have to strike off a felon’s head with his own hands. Those nights he usually came to supper morose.
“Item twenty-four,” Luwin continued, “the Sunset Company has left the service of Braavos and marches south against Myr.”
“Good!” Brandon barked, making their glasses rattle with a blow of his fist upon the table. “I knew my brother would cut loose of the Titan’s strings eventually. Any news of the Raper’s response?”
“None, my lord,” Luwin said, scanning the rest of the letter. “There appears to be no word of any reaction by Myr to the company’s marching.”
“Caught the lizard napping, by the gods,” Brandon said savagely, working his fingers as if they held Rhaegar Targaryen’s throat. “Well, he’ll have a rude awakening, won’t he just? Old Ned’ll see to that, if I know him at all. He’ll have the Raper’s head in a bag before he knows it’s off.”
Catelyn concealed a shudder. She certainly wished her good-brother well, but she hoped with equal fervor that he never returned to Westeros, much less the North. Her husband believed in his brother’s loyalty as she believed in the Seven, but let Brandon misstep one time too many, and his bannermen would rush to set him aside in favor of famous, tested, whole Eddard; she had no illusions about her own chances of survival in that case, much less those of the babe beneath her heart.
Until that day came, however, the best she could do was strengthen her husband’s rule in any way she could and console herself with the knowledge that Rhaegar the Raper was also a dangerous man, and those who guarded him even more so. She did not actively wish that her good-brother would die on a foreign field on the sword of Ser Arthur Dayne or Ser Barristan Selmy, that would be far too close to kinslaying for comfort, but it would remove at least one danger from her husband’s path.
“Item twenty-five,” Luwin went on, picking up another letter. “A request from Lord Hornwood that you foster his son Daryn when he reaches the right age, in answer to your declaration that you are open to fosterings.”
“By all means,” Catelyn said instantly. “If nothing else, my son will need a suitable playmate.”
“And at the same time, we will be able to ensure Hornwood’s loyalty both now and when Daryn inherits,” Brandon said, smiling at his wife. “Send Halys our approval in tomorrow’s correspondence.”
“Item twenty-six,” Luwin droned on, lifting yet another letter. “A report from Lord Manderly on the price of wheat in King’s Landing . . .”
Chapter 18: Rousing the Dragon
Chapter Text
Rousing the Dragon
The Conclave of Magisters was often a contentious body, jealous of its prerogatives, but the events of the past year had muted their once-lively debates. The simple fact was that Rhaegar Targaryen was now King of Myr in all but title, thanks to his marriage to the only daughter of Magister Rahtheon, his feats on the borders against the forces of Lys and Tyrosh, and the fact that he commanded the largest single body of armed men in the city, in the form of his fifteen hundred-strong brigade of exiles. He had not crowned himself, yet, but he did bear the titles of Governor of the South and Protector of the City, and the gates of Myr were manned by men wearing the three-headed dragon.
So when the herald arrived bearing a message from the Sunset Company, the Conclave was hesitant about admitting him. To be sure, heralds, like ambassadors, were supposed to be sacrosanct in their persons during the course of their duties, but it was well known that Andals were all mad, and Targaryens even more so. Of a certainty some of the reports from the border skirmishes indicated that Rhaegar fought like a man with little care for his own skin.
Eventually, however, Rhaegar himself had requested that the Conclave admit the herald and receive his message. So the Conclave assembled around the oval table in the Chamber of State, with Rhaegar sitting at the right hand of Magister Rahtheon at the head of the table, and received the herald with the pomp usually reserved for foreign dignitaries. The members of the Conclave were all in their best formal robes, unornamented but perfectly tailored of some of the most expensive cloth available; on one magister’s robe the sleeves were made of silk, part of a consignment imported at vast expense from far Yi-ti. Magister Rahtheon, whose attachment to Rhaegar had propelled to the position of Gonfalonier of the Conclave, wore the richly embroidered stole of his office draped over his wide shoulders and barrel chest; his sharp-featured face was set in the unreadable expression that had helped him so much in his rise to wealth and power. The herald wore the tabard of his profession, blazoned with the black stag on yellow of the Baratheons.
But by far the most striking man in the room was Rhaegar Targaryen, the Minstrel Prince, the Exile King. His doublet, overrobe, and hose were all of flat black linen, which was saved from being dull by a multitude of small slashings in the sleeves of his overrobe that let his crimson shirt show through like scales. If Rhaegar were even slightly more fair-complexioned the ensemble would have made him look ghostly; as it was, it merely made his handsome face severe, a severity accentuated by the short horse-tail that his hair was pulled back into and the lines on his face that hadn’t been there a year and a half ago.
After the traditional announcement and exchange of greetings, the herald produced a scroll and proceeded to read it aloud.
“From His Lordship, Robert of the House of Baratheon, Captain-General of the Sunset Company, with his captains Lord Eddard Stark, Ser Brynden Tully, Ser Jaime Lannister, Ser Lyn Corbray, and Lord Victarion Greyjoy, to The Conclave of Magisters of the City of Myr, greetings.
“We are informed by reliable report that you have among you the man Rhaegar Targaryen, who styles himself as King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Defender of the Realm. We declare upon our honor that this Targaryen is an outlaw, guilty of the several crimes of kidnap, rape, and murder, the justice of which charges we will prove upon his body at his convenience. We will you, therefore, in the name of the several gods, that you withdraw your protection from him and expel him from your city. Failing this, we shall have no choice but to consider you his accessories in crime and wage war upon you as harshly as we do upon him, until such time as we are satisfied in our quarrel.”
“Given under our hand at the town of Lucania, in the two hundred and eighty-fourth year after the Conquest.”
The herald lowered the scroll and fastidiously re-rolled it. “There is a second letter, my lords, that I was charged to deliver to Ser Rhaegar himself,” he said after he had finished rolling the scroll and handed it off to one of the Conclave’s secretaries.
Rhaegar stood from his chair. “I am here,” he said calmly. “I pray you, read it aloud.”
The herald bowed, drew a smaller scroll out of his wallet and opened it. He perused the contents, went a little pale, and looked up at Rhaegar. “My apologies, Your Grace,” he stammered, “but the language is most impolitic.”
“Read it,” Rhaegar commanded, his expression growing slightly testy. “In full, if you please.”
The herald bowed shortly and began to read haltingly. “To the . . . kidnapper Rhaegar Targaryen. We are come into this land to seek thee . . . rapist and murderer . . . and we will not leave unless we carry before us . . . your head on a pike. Signed, Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark.”
All eyes turned to Rhaegar as the herald lowered the letter. Rhaegar’s face was white with anger, his nostrils flared in rage, and his eyes all but burned with fury. For a long moment, the only movement in the chamber was a slight stirring of the tapestry depicting the city’s founding in a draft. When at last he spoke, it was in the voice of a maddened dragon. “Your messages are heard,” he said, his tone only barely short of a growl. “Get out.”
The herald bowed himself out the door and almost fled down the corridor. The Conclave eyed Rhaegar nervously as he seemed to strive with himself for a long moment. At last, his expression only slightly relaxed, he turned to Magister Rahtheon. “Hire every sellsword company you can,” he commanded bluntly. “Order every citizen with training at arms to present themselves for military service. We are at war.”
XXX
Lyn Corbray smiled in grim satisfaction. The company had finally marched, after three sennights of preparation that had tried his patience to the limit. If he had wanted to oversee harvests or superintend the purchase of supplies, he’d have stayed in Heart’s Home with his spineless brother. He had come to Essos to cement a reputation founded in the hedgerow fighting of the Rebellion and acquire a fortune, and he planned to do exactly that.
So far, he was off to a good start. He’d picked up a fair amount of coin in Pentos, as well as some lovely items from a few of the manses that his men had liberated that had fetched a pretty penny from a goldsmith in the city who had taken the hint to keep his mouth shut. And if he didn’t stand as high in Baratheon’s esteem as Lannister did after his display in the battle, then he had at least earned some congratulations for what he had done in Pentos.
And if the conquest of Pentos had been profitable, this campaign bade fair to be a proper gold mine. The Myrish magisters were even wealthier than their Pentoshi counterparts and liked to prove it with ostentatious display. Their taste tended to the gaudy, and in some cases bordered on atrocious, but that was all to the better; the more expensive something looked, the more it sold for, in Lyn’s experience. And while he couldn’t volunteer for every foray against the estates that bordered the company’s line of march, he could certainly convince the knights under his command to volunteer for as many of the rest as they could and keep an eye out for loose valuables, in return for a cut of the proceeds.
Lyn sighed in contentment. The day was as fine as any he had seen in the Vale, with a clear sky and a bright sun warming the earth. He was on campaign against a rich, and so far weak, enemy, with plenty of opportunity to gain wealth now and advancement later, and in the meantime a plethora of the rougher pleasures in life; good horses, good arms, good company, good wine drunk straight from the bottle around a blazing campfire to raucous song, and women for the asking if your tastes ran that way, which Lyn’s didn’t. This was how the gods had meant a man to live.
Lyn’s eye chanced across a figure shambling alongside the man-at-arms two horses ahead of him and his expression soured. Now if only he could get rid of these damned tag-alongs.
It was, he supposed, inevitable. Every estate the company raided had at least a handful of slaves about the manse and more working the fields attached thereto; easily more than a hundred slaves in total, on some of the larger ones. When the estate was raided, the overseer and guards who kept those slaves in line and at their work were killed, along with their master if he was in residence. Either way, the slaves in question now had no one to hold them to their work, and found themselves in the presence of the army that had already liberated one city’s slaves. A few, a very few, had stayed on the estates for reasons of age or fear, but the majority simply gathered what few belongings they had and whatever they felt like scavenging from their master’s possessions and followed the Westerosi back to the company’s lines in a loose cloud, like sparks trailing a flame.
It tried Lyn’s patience. Oh the freedmen had their uses, Lyn himself had a freedman serving as his personal cook and valet, but what in the world was the company supposed to do with elders and children? It wasn’t like they could simply drop them off at a convenient castle; for one thing, there weren’t any castles in this country. For another thing, the company was marching through a hostile land and although the Myrmen seemed to be rather slow off the mark in stopping them, they were bound to wake up sooner or later. If it came to a pass where the company had to outmarch the Myrmen, there was simply no way that any but the young and physically fit among the freedmen would be able to keep pace; the others would just have to be left behind.
And that might prove difficult. Those freedmen of military age who could lay hands on weapons wasted no time in doing so, even if it was just a knife or a heavy tree branch, and they insisted on learning how to use them. If they took it into their heads to object to the unfit and the unhealthy being left behind, it would almost certainly end up being a bloody mess in a very literal sense of the term.
Lyn spat aside. Either way, it wasn’t properly his concern until it happened. He just hoped Baratheon or Stark had thought of it and come up with some clever idea to keep it from getting them all killed.
Chapter 19: Of Pioneers and Priests
Chapter Text
Of Pioneers and Priests
“How many?” Eddard asked wearily.
“One hundred and twenty-seven,” Lyn said, his face screwed up into the expression of a man talking about a subject he finds distasteful. “Sixty-eight of which are fit men of military age.”
Eddard sighed. “Thank the gods you brought in that estate’s food supplies as well,” he said. “We’ll be able to feed them all for a sennight or two at least. Ethan!” Eddard’s squire trotted up. “Take charge of the slaves in Ser Lyn’s column and get them over to the other unattached freedmen. Tell all fit men of military age to report to the Pioneers.” Eddard turned back to Lyn. “Carry on, Ser Lyn.”
Lyn clanked a gauntleted fist on his breastplate in salute and reined his horse around towards the Valemen’s section of the company’s encampment. Eddard sighed again as he turned his own horse and rode back through the encampment towards the cluster of tents at the center where the captains resided. He wanted to be able to trust Lyn Corbray but he couldn’t bring himself to it. The young Valeman was just too obviously a man of ambition, always keeping an eye out for the main chance. Not that there was anything strictly wrong with that, but both his father and his foster-father taught him that it was best to keep your ambitions close to the chest. His foster-father had held that there were things that it wasn’t polite to discuss in general company; ambitions, women, and most bodily functions, for instance. His father, on the other hand, had been of the opinion that it was a lot easier to keep a secret if you simply didn’t talk about it.
Even so, Eddard couldn’t deny that Corbray had his uses, especially as a captain of raiders. The evidence was present in his column; sixty heavy wagons, all piled high with wheat, oats, rye, and other cereals, all vital to an army on the march and all bound to be slotted into the baggage train. Men could be induced to fight without pay for a time and without shelter for a while, with good weather, but they couldn’t fight without food.
That, in fact, was the main difficulty that the company had had to plan for, and one of the things that the whole campaign turned on. Six and a half thousand fighting men and almost six thousand camp followers eating four or five pounds of food daily required just over twenty-eight tons of food every day. And that didn’t count the food that their horses and oxen and mules required. If they hadn’t crossed the border without warning, thereby not giving the Myrish time to cart away the harvest, they would have been in real danger of starving. Fortunately, not only had they gotten over the border and into the Myrish grain country before the Myrish had reacted, but thanks to the Braavosi spy network they had known which area of the country had had the greatest harvest, and more or less where the most productive estates could be found.
It was the main reason they had not been forced to turn away all the slaves that had flocked to them by the hundreds since they crossed the border. The news that the Sunset Company, the breakers of chains and the killers of masters, had come over the border had raced across the Myrish north-country like a grass fire in a drought and the Myrish slaves had reacted. Many that found themselves with the means and the opportunity had simply fled their masters in search of the company’s lines, but others, unable to slip away, had resorted to more drastic means. Myr as a whole had three slaves for every freeborn, but on the country estates that ratio was more on the order of eleven or twelve to one. And although the overseers and guards were hard men trained to arms and used to violence, a shovel or a hoe or a billhook could kill a man just as dead as a sword or spear and ten to one would have been long odds even for Westerosi men-at-arms.
From one end of the Myrish north-country to another servile revolts flared into being as men and women with nothing to lose but lives not worth living seized their chance in both hands. Some uprisings were stamped out with bloody massacre, but more succeeded in overthrowing and slaughtering their oppressors and then struck out for the last reported location of their putative liberators. Some, more by luck than by judgment, found the company by their own efforts. Others came across one or another of the company’s raiding parties and followed them back to the company’s lines. Still others, more poorly led or simply less lucky, had run across one of the bands of irregular horsem*n that the local magnates had called into being. These bands, composed mostly of the relatives and retainers of the magnates and often led by the district constables, roamed throughout the Myrish north-country seeking both to maintain order among the slaves by the threat or use of force and to harass the Sunset Company while the Myrish army mobilized.
When the Myrish irregulars and the escaped slaves collided, the resulting combat was invariably ruthlessly brutal; both groups were smart enough to know that their survival depended on the utter extermination of the other. Eddard recalled coming across the scene of one such skirmish that had evidently resulted in mutual annihilation; one slave, stabbed through the ribs with a dagger, had evidently used the last of his strength to strangle the Myrman who had stabbed him. He took care not to think about the times they had found a scene where the Myrish irregulars had triumphed; there were things no sane man wanted to have in his head.
Of course the problem was that, once the slaves reached the Sunset Company and became freedmen, the company had to do something with them. Each meinie, the fighting-tail of the individual lords and knights of the company that could number anywhere from five to five-score, had taken on anywhere from one or two to thirty or forty freedmen to act as cooks, valets, grooms, runners, and general dogsbodies, but that still left several hundred freedmen unattached and without anything to do but get into trouble, which the military-aged fit men among them tended to do when they demanded that a knight treat them like men instead of slaves, to the incomprehension, mild shock, and general consternation of the knight in question. The resulting problem of discipline had been agonized over by the captains for a full sennight until one evening Ser Brynden had frowned and asked, “Why don’t we use them as pioneers?”
When Robert had asked him what the devil he meant, he explained that the Ghiscari legions, and later the Valyrian Freehold, had employed companies of men trained in construction and engineering who were responsible for constructing army camps, building bridges and roads, constructing walls and buildings, and digging mines, among other duties. It was these men, he explained, who had laid the beds of the famous Valyrian roads, although the final paving and sealing of the roads had been done by magic. Of course, getting men-at-arms to do such things would be a nigh-impossibility; even if they weren’t nobles, digging and hauling was the sort of thing they had become soldiers to avoid. On the other hand, the freedmen didn’t have such pretensions, were already used to hard manual labor, and although the company was short of hard cash after buying up about a quarter of Pentos’ total harvest and there was a shortage of proper tools, those without tools could be used to carry and emplace. Even better, it was found that one of the two maesters who had accompanied the company to Essos to chronicle its deeds had forged a few links in architecture; apparently his father had been a stonemason and had hoped that his son might return to the family business. However, despite Maester Gordon’s talent for building his true love was history, hence his reason for volunteering to follow the company
So the call was put out for volunteers to serve in the Corps of Pioneers at half the rate of a footman’s pay under the direct command of Captain-General Robert Baratheon, Maester Gordon was named as their deputy commander, the sliced-pie arrangement of the company’s encampment was expanded to make space for them, and those volunteers that took the star were brought under military discipline and their days were filled with either work or training. Some in the company regarded them as a mild joke, but Eddard had to think differently. A day’s march away was a stream whose name translated into Common as Catblood Creek. According to the people they had questioned about the terrain, Catblood Creek wasn’t particularly broad or deep, but it flowed swiftly and its banks were steep-sided. More importantly, there was no ford for twenty miles either upstream or down and, according to a band of escapees who had come in two days ago, the bridge that the company had been making for had been torn down by Myrish irregulars. Furthermore, the company had already stripped almost all the estates within easy reach of the bridge-site of food.
The Pioneers would have to earn their pay, or the company would risk being pinned against the creek with no way across. If that happened, they would be eating their draft animals in a sennight, their horses three days after that, and then they would be eating their belts and boots to stave off starvation.
XXX
Maester Gordon beamed satisfaction at his men. “Well done, lads,” he said in his rote-learned Low Valyrian. “Well done indeed. Bloody well showed those joking sods who didn’t think you were worth your feed, didn’t we?”
His men growled agreement, flourishing their tools. In two days, these men, most of whom had never worked a major construction project before, had thrown a bridge across a creek twenty-five feet wide from bank to sheer bank that could take a heavy wagon with a full load. For caution’s sake, they were driving the wagons across one at a time, which would take at least a full day and probably two, but they were getting across, by the gods. And in case there was any doubt about who was responsible for that minor miracle, he had taken the time to paint a sign that read, “Cross Catblood Creek with dry feet, courtesy of the Corps of Pioneers.”
“Second section, remain on duty in case one of the wagons goes in the drink. The rest of you, fall out and have the rest of the evening to yourselves, you’ve earned it,” he said, throwing up his hands. “Dismiss!”
As the Pioneers streamed away to their fires, Septon Jonothor, the senior of the septons who had followed the company to Essos, walked up and surveyed the bridge with a critical eye. “Well done, Maester,” he said, his harsh voice not mellowed by the note of approval. “Although I was almost looking forward to a wade, in this heat.”
Gordon shrugged. “Nothing stopping you, Father,” he said equably. “And the job wasn’t as hard as all that. It was a clapper bridge, initially; basically a pair of bloody great stone slabs held up in the middle by a pile of stones. The Myrish dropped the slabs in the river and tore down the pile; just a matter of reassembling it, really. And putting in new piles underneath the slabs to help them take the weight of the wagons. I’d have preferred to double the width of the bridge, but we didn’t have the materials.”
Jonothor nodded as they watched a wagon inch its way across. They made for an interesting visual contrast. Gordon had inherited the stout build of his stonemason father, with beefy arms, a chest like a barrel, and a broad, amiable face he kept meticulously shaven, despite the fact that they were on campaign and so growing a beard would be understandable. Jonothor, on the other hand, was tall and sparely built, with an angularly severe face that wasn’t helped by his habit of wearing a stern expression.
“Do you truly think that we can actually win?” Gordon asked as the wagon made its way onto dry land. “Not that I doubt the skill and bravery of our captains, of course, but taking on a whole continent smells an awful lot like hubris to me.”
Jonothor shrugged. “If the gods will it so, anything is possible,” he said with a voice of such absolute certainty that it made Gordon blink. “And our captains are sound and godly men, for the most part.” He made a face. “I could wish that we had no pagans among us, but Lord Stark’s grievance is just, and he is properly respectful of the Faith.”
Gordon almost asked what Jonothor thought of Lord Greyjoy, but decided against it at the last minute. Remember why the Archmaesters sent you out here in the first place, old man . . . “And we are not making war against a whole continent, my son,” Jonothor continued. “Only one city, and that weakened by the evils it practices.”
“One city that controls enough territory to rival the Riverlands or the Westerlands in size,” Gordon replied, gesturing at the lightly rolling fields surrounding them; farmland that equaled anything in the Reach and with a climate to match. Myr grew damned near any kind of crop except for citrus, or so he was told. Apparently the climate wasn’t quite warm enough for citrus trees. “And has more people than either of them. These plantations don’t just feed their owners and their slaves, Father, but towns as big as any in Westeros. Ceralia alone has thirty thousand souls within its walls, and Myr city has ten times that many. We have, what, six or seven thousand spears?” Gordon spread his hands. “You have to admit, Father, that the odds do not exactly favor us, even before the rest of the continent is added in.”
“The odds did not favor Artys Arryn at the Battle of the Seven Stars,” Jonothor countered, “but by the gods’ grace and the skill and courage of his men, he triumphed, and so the Vale was conquered. And I tell you again, we do not face the whole continent, but merely one city.”
“One city in this campaign, perhaps,” Gordon said, before turning to his Pioneers where they lounged on the edge of the creek-bank. “Gaenys, keep your hands to yourself! I see you, you light-fingered bugger! But the other cities won’t take kindly to having us for neighbors,” he continued. “Nor will our own men let us live in peace with slavers. My Pioneers have sworn blood-oath that when they get to Myr they won’t leave a single slaveholder alive. And judging by the way they practice at arms when they’re not at work, they mean it.” He shrugged. “I don’t particularly mind dying; I’m an old man. But I’d like to know that I died for a cause that stood a chance of winning.”
Jonothor eyed him. “We fight in a worthy cause, against men who have profaned against the gods by word and deed,” he said severely. “Whether we win or lose, those who fall will be welcomed by the gods as heroes, and sit at their right hands on the day of judgment. But we will not lose,” he continued, eyes burning. “The gods will see that we fight against abomination, and even the pagans among us will receive the Warrior’s strength, and the Father’s hand will shield them. Those we free will flock to our banner, as they did in Pentos, and even the weakest of them will be made as lions by the power of the gods. Even should the slavers march against us in their thousands and their tens of thousands, we shall conquer, for the gods will fight at our side.”
Gordon shrugged. “If you say so, Father,” he said, turning back to watch another wagon rumble off the bridge. “I just hope that the gods give us reinforcements.”
After the crossing of Catblood Creek, the Sunset Company proceeded south towards the town of Ceralia. This town was the hub of Myr’s northern lands, hosting both the largest market and the largest livestock fair in the region as well as serving as the home base of the Governor of the North. This provoked a hasty response from Rhaegar; his hold over Myr was not so strong that he could afford to have one of its major satellite towns fall without fighting for it. And fight for it he would have to. The Governor of the North had sent word that he didn’t have enough soldiers to both hold the walls and prevent a slave uprising within the town, and in any case the town’s defenses were in too poor a state of repair to hold against an assault.
So Rhaegar marched north towards Ceralia with only half the men he had planned on mustering, and despite the slowness of his muster he marched with commendable dispatch; a bare sennight and a half after setting out, the Army of Myr and the Sunset Company met on opposite sides of a shallow valley near the village of Tara.
- Chasing Dragons: The Sunset Company Reexamined by Maester Hendricus, published 1539 AC
Chapter 20: The Dragon and the Stag
Chapter Text
The Dragon and the Stag
Rhaegar felt no great swell of pride as he surveyed the Army of Myr. Despite his work over the past year, the fact remained the only part of the army that he could truly rely on were his own exiles; loyal men who had followed him over the sea rather than serve the Usurper or his callow brother. Of the rest, more than half were levied citizens of Myr city and its satellite towns, men who not only would much rather be back in their homes than facing angry strangers on a distant field, but men who considered the profession of arms to be beneath them. To be sure, Myr had bravos enough, and plenty of young men who played the part as they fancied, but aside from dueling to uphold the honor of their house, no proper Myrish aristocrat would dream of going for a soldier except in extremity. Fighting wars was work for sellswords, not noblemen, to the Essosi way of thinking. Speaking of sellswords, almost a third of Rhaegar’s army was made up of them, and it made him nervous. He didn’t doubt that they would stand by their contract; a sellsword who broke their contract was a sellsword that no one would hire, after all. But they were expensive, and not likely to be resilient in extremity. If his coffers ran dry, or the Usurper defeated them, it would not be implausible that they would employ the escape clause in their contract and desert. As they would point out, their contract only specified that they would fight under Myr’s command. It said nothing about fighting to the death in a hopeless cause. And if Rhaegar missed three pay days in a row, then that was sufficient cause for them to break their contract and seek employment elsewhere.
Rhaegar shook his worries out of his head and looked across the shallow valley. He had enough troubles without borrowing more.
Across the valley, the Sunset Company was arrayed in splendor, its lines gleaming with late-summer sunlight on spearheads and thick with banners. Many of them were from the rebel houses, of course, but there were a few from the Reach, a cluster of men under the golden kraken of the Greyjoys, and a whole division flying Western banners under the lion rampant of the Lannnisters. Rhaegar felt his blood boil at the sight of the lion banners. Traitors. Murderers. Oathbreakers. He clamped down on the building fury with clenched jaw and thinned lips. It would be unseemly for him to rant and rage in public, as gratifying as it might be. His wife and children would be avenged soon enough, now.
But there was one banner that flew above the crowned stag in the center that angered him even more than the Lannister’s; the sunset with the severed dragons-head impaled on the black sword. There could be no clearer statement of intent on Baratheon’s part.
Rhaegar mastered his anger and reviewed the plan in his head. It was quite simple really. March the army forward until the crossbows were in range and then have the crossbows bombard the rebels. If the rebels stood fast to be shot, so much the better. If they advanced, then Rhaegar could countercharge them with his exiles and the three sellsword companies his goodfather had hired, the Long Lances, the Stormcrows, and the Company of the Cat. Just over four thousand cavalry should suffice to handle the rebel knights. And if it came to a general brawl . . . Rhaegar smiled at the thought. Fear would make even the most reluctant of his Myrmen savage, and his army outnumbered the Sunset Company by two to one. All else aside, numbers told.
XXX
Jacaegon Valreos, ‘Jace’ to his friends, hadn’t particularly wanted to be a crossbowman.
However, when the Conclave of Magisters had decreed that every adult male citizen was to learn the crossbow or the spear and spend at least one day in seven at drill with it, the only thing left to do had been to choose which he preferred. Especially since the Andal knights who had been placed in charge of the training program had made it plain that anyone who shirked their new duties would deeply regret it, along with anyone who helped them do so.
Jace had never been a particularly large man to begin with and years as a clerk in his great-uncle’s shipping business hadn’t done anything to improve his physique. So he had chosen to become a crossbowman; the new cranequin-cranked crossbows required almost none of the brute strength that a spearman needed and, with any luck, the enemy would be safely far away when Jace killed them. Not that he was a craven, just sensible; logically speaking, any man he was trying to kill was likely to take offense and would almost certainly be much better at hand-to-hand physical violence than Jace was. Let the Andal madmen have their fun cutting the enemy’s guts out with daggers; if Jace was going to risk his personal, precious hide on a battlefield, then he would stay well out of any melee and kill the enemy from far enough away that they couldn’t kill him back.
Or so Jace had thought, anyway. When he had reported for training, no one had told him that the crossbowmen would be the first ones sent against the enemy.
When the order came down for the crossbowmen to advance, Jace’s first instinct had been to tell the sergeant to piss off; gods all witness that Jacaegon Valreos had no desire whatsoever to walk towards a pack of angry foreigners who would think nothing of killing him in inventively painful ways. Several things, however, had stopped him. Firstly, the sergeant, a former sellsword with an array of scars that was as impressive as it was disturbing, was twice his size and would have no problem at all enforcing the law against disobedience to orders with his bare hands if Jace made any trouble. Secondly, everyone around him had started marching forward, which had both carried Jace along and would have made any attempted malingering instantly noticeable. Thirdly, while the foreigners might kill him, the Andals would certainly kill him if he displayed what gravel-voiced Ser Alliser Thorne, who had read out the Articles of War to them, had described as ‘cowardice in the face of the enemy’.
Fourth and lastly, the enemy weren’t just any pack of foreigners. They were the Sunset Company, the foreigners who had helped the damned Braavosi (he automatically thought the name in his great-uncles harsh voice, followed by a hawked gob of spittle as the old man remembered sundry slights and humiliations) conquer Pentos and overthrow slavery. Jace’s branch of the Valreos family wasn’t wealthy enough to own many slaves, nothing like the hordes that some of the magisters employed in the workshops of the artisans quarter or on the fields of their country estates, but they did own a cook and a housekeeper, as well as his mother’s maid and the nurse who had cared for Jace and his younger sisters. Jace had heard tales of slaves who had mistreated by their masters, and it was true that when the housekeeper had tried to abscond his father had had the constables brand her on the face with the runaway’s ‘R’, but all in all, he saw nothing wrong with slavery as an institution. He did believe that a master who had to enforce discipline with chains and the lash was a poor master, but taken as a whole, he believed that slavery was the way the world was meant to be, and that both master and slave benefitted. The master received the slave’s service, and in return the slave was fed, clothed, and housed, and could be rewarded for exemplary service. But the Andals, for some mad reason, believed as an article of their faith that slavery was not just wrong but an abomination, and that those who owned slaves were enemies to be killed on sight.
Jace was not naturally a man of blood, and he shared the mild disdain for such men common among the bourgeoisie and aristocrats of the Free Cities, but he would certainly fight to the death to protect his home, his parents, and his sisters.
So he walked forward with six thousand other young Myrmen into the shallow valley that separated the Army of Myr from the Sunset Company. The crossbow in his hands with its iron cranequin was heavy and clumsy, the quiver with its sixty bolts bounced annoyingly against his hip, the short falchion on his other hip threatened to entangle his legs and trip him, and the padded vest and round halfhelm that were his only armor did altogether too good a job of capturing the heat of the bright and cloudless day, but he and the other crossbowmen still trotted down the slope in good heart, a few even making jokes about going for a walk. Jace simply focused on walking forward and ignoring the nervousness that was building in his guts about walking towards a large group of armed and dangerous strangers, but he did admit that the scattered jokes helped to settle his stomach.
“Steady now, boys,” the sergeant called reassuringly. “Don’t get ahead of yourselves, keep in ranks. Just stay together now.”
The crossbowmen continued to advance, drawing steadily away from their own army. They were still almost a hundred yards out of range when there was a ripple of motion along the far ridge.
“Steady, boys,” the sergeant called, an edge of tension in his voice now. “Stay steady, those are just their archers, nothing to worry about.” Jace would have begged to differ, but knew better than to try and contradict the sergeant.
There was a further ripple of motion along the far ridge.
“Steady, boys, steady,” the sergeant called, and then there was a noise like a horribly out of tune harp string being plucked very badly, so that the note was flat and blurred, and a line of darkness rose from the far ridge. Jace’s jaw dropped involuntarily; the enemy was shooting at them already?! But they were still dozens of yards out of range! Dammit, it wasn’t fair! Jace suddenly became hideously aware that the turmoil in his belly had intensified. He clenched his jaw to keep from vomiting.
“Steady, boys!” the sergeant yelled, as there was another botched plucking of that mistuned harp string and another line of darkness rose off the ridge. Jace quailed even as his feet bore him forward, almost against his will. The enemy archers were firing again? But their first volley was still in the air! And speeding along, he realized with sudden terrible clarity, straight towards one Jacaegon Valreos, only son of Galaemon and Jaenera Valreos. The turmoil in his guts rose to new heights at the thought of iron-tipped wood raining down on his personal, precious, and irreplaceable head, with only a few centimeters of iron to keep arrowheads out of his skull.
Jace suddenly wanted, very badly indeed, to be back at home; preferably at the Dancing Doe with a glass of good wine and the best girl in the house all to himself for the whole night. Although he would settle for being set to counting inventory in his great-uncle’s largest warehouse all by himself. Anything to get away from the iron rain that was hissing down towards him.
“Take it like men, boys!” the sergeant roared, and the arrows hit.
There were, in total, two thousand eight hundred and seven archers standing under the Sunset Company’s banner that day on the field of Tara. Each of them drew a longbow of yew or ash or elm, the lightest of which had a draw-weight of ninety-five pounds and could outrange the Myrish crossbows by about a hundred yards. These men were every bit as highly-trained experts, in their way, as the company’s knights were; as the saying went, ‘To make a good archer, start with his grandfather’. The true advantage imparted by that training wasn’t just in the power or range of the bows, however.
It was in their rate of fire.
It was generally agreed that in order to be useful on the battlefield, an archer had to be able to loose ten arrows in one minute, almost three times the rate of fire that could be expected of a cranequin crossbow such as the Army of Myr used. Two thousand eight hundred and seven archers, firing ten arrows a minute, yielded an arrowstorm numbering twenty-eight thousand and seventy arrows a minute, or four hundred and sixty-eight arrows every second.
In the first minute of the Battle of Tara, the archers of the Sunset Company loosed enough arrows to kill every crossbowman in the Army of Myr almost five times over.
Of course, not all of those arrows hit. Shooting for effect sacrifices accuracy for volume of fire, especially at long range. Almost a third of the arrows hit nothing but dirt. Of the rest, about one in six struck armor or equipment and were either absorbed or deflected away. The rest hit something more vital.
Screams rose up around Jace as the arrows struck home. The man just next to him, who had looked up at the falling arrows, took a shaft plumb in the eyeball and collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut. Another took two arrows through his padded vest and dropped to his knees to choke his life out in bloody gouts. Another fell to ground howling as he tried to squeeze the pain out of his transfixed thigh. Yet another, shot through the groin, seemed to be screaming without pausing to draw breath.
Jace vomited in reaction, and continued to plod forward, hunching his shoulders like a man walking into a high wind, trying to shut out everything but the sergeant, who was now bellowing to make himself heard over the screaming wounded.
The second volley was worse
The Myrish crossbowmen made it within range of the Sunset Company’s position and even found the courage to loose a volley of their own before they finally broke and ran back to their own lines. Although the men of the Sunset Company, or those who left records, were almost universally contemptuous of the Essosi, the bravery of the Myrish crossbowmen at Tara won respect even from the most chauvinistic Westerosi, while more moderate commentators were more openly admiring. Gerion Lannister, in his diary, ended his account of the Myrish crossbowmen by quoting a passage from a popular chanson of the Conquest of Dorne commenting on Ser Uther Dayne, who was Sword of the Morning during the Conquest; “Such a vassal he might have been, had he served a better lord.”
Rhaegar watched his crossbowmen streaming back towards the army’s lines and snarled. He should have guessed that the Usurper would make sure to have an abundance of archers. He would have paid dearly to have such men available to him, but the Free Cities didn’t produce military archers any more than they did knights. Any man with the wealth to acquire a bow and the free time to train with it could just as easily buy a crossbow, especially in Myr, where the slave artisans made them by the thousands, and crossbows were much easier to attain proficiency with.
A chill of anticipation settled into his bones as he turned to his Kingsguards. Ser Alliser Thorne and Ser Lothor Brune, their newest members, all but bursting at the seams with fierce pride. Ser Oswell Whent, his normally sardonic grin absent as he returned his king’s gaze. And Ser Arthur Dayne, his closest friend in all the world and his fiercest champion, his dark-blue eyes solemn under the brow of his helmet.
“Gentlemen,” Rhaegar said, “it is time. To your posts.” Ser Alliser and Ser Lothor clanked their gauntleted fists off their breastplates and cantered away to their places at the head of the Myrish spearmen. Ser Oswell and Ser Arthur assumed their positions on either side of Rhaegar, Arthur on his right and Oswell on his left. Rhaegar turned to his trumpeter. “Sound the advance,” he commanded. The trumpeter nodded, raised his instrument to his lips, and blew, the long rising notes splitting the air. Rhaegar drew his sword and aimed it at the Sunset Company. “Forward!” he shouted, pitching his voice to carry as far as it could. “Forward! Fire and Blood!”
The Army of Myr rolled down the hill, its line quickly becoming uneven as the infantry of the Company of the Cat began to outstrip the Myrish spearmen. Not that the Myrmen were deliberately lagging, with Rhaegar’s loyalists behind them, but the Company of the Cat was more used to maneuvering as a single unit; before now, the Myrmen had only practiced maneuvering in hundred-strong companies. On the right rode the five hundred horsem*n of the Stormcrows, led by their three captains; Sallor the Bald with his twisting scar warped by his pensive frown, Prendahl na Ghezn, whose broad face was as composed as a king riding to council, and Daario Naharis twisting his gold-painted mustachios between his gauntleted fingers. On the left flank rode the Long Lances, eight hundred of the best lancers in Essos although they were more lightly-armored than the Andal knights, with their homely captain Gylo Rhegan at their head. Behind the front line rode the cavalry of the Company of the Cat led by the bulky figure of their captain Bloodbeard, his famous red beard bristling over his breastplate, and Rhaegar’s loyalists, the lean figure of their black-armored king at their head flanked by his Kingsguards.
As they marched down the slope and into the valley, absorbing the retreating crossbowmen as they go, they entered the zone where the Sunset Company’s archers shot the crossbowmen to ribbons. The arrows rise and fall again, but the Myrmen and the sellswords raised shields and plodded on; if the Myrmen are unenthusiastic about dying far from home at the hands of angry strangers, they know that to retreat without orders is to die, and their shields are protecting them well enough to let them continue. As for the sellsword infantry, they have walked through fields of dying men before, and faced downpours of steel rain before; to take the punishment and march on was their work and their pride.
XXX
Sarra’s Will, an archer from the Reach, cursed as his questing fingers found nothing but an empty quiver. “I’m out,” he said to the man behind him as he unstrung his bow. “Your turn, ser knight, and best of luck to you.” Ser Basil Graves, whose family owned the village where Will had lived before going for a sellsword, grunted acknowledgement and pushed forward, raising his poleaxe so that the butt-spike was presented forward and the spike-backed hammer head that could break a man’s skull through the helmet was co*cked back behind his left ear. Will squeezed back through the line, passing Ser Andrey’s squire and a spearman from Bitterbridge who was muttering prayers under his breath before reaching the rear, where he reached back over his left shoulder and drew a maul out of its carrying loops. A maul was quite crude as weapons went, being essentially a steel hammerhead mounted on a four-foot haft, but with an archer’s huge strength behind it, it could batter a knight to flinders. Will braced his shoulder against the spearman’s back, said a prayer, and waited for the impact.
All along the line, the scene was repeated; the archers ran out of arrows and fell back through the lines, while the knights and men-at-arms pushed forward to from the front with their squires and the infantry just behind them. The Stormlanders and the footmen of the North held the left, while the Valemen and the infantry of the Westerlands stood on the right. On the left wing was the cavalry of the North, Eddard Stark at their head with a predatory look in his eyes at the sight of the dragon banners. On the right wing stood the knights and the men-at-arms of the Westerlands, with Jaime Lannister in the front rank with the great bulk of Gregor Clegane at his left hand. In the rear waited the Riverlanders and the Ironborn, waiting for the command from Brynden Tully that would send them into the fray. The front rank was studded with the champions of the Sunset Company. Leobald Tallhart, Maege Mormont and her daughter Dacey, and Greatjon Umber stood at the head of the Northmen. Ser Clifford Swann, saturnine Ser Brus Buckler, and Ser Willam ‘Silveraxe’ Fell with his famous axe led the Stormlanders, while Robert Baratheon stood at the center of the line. In the front rank of the Valemen stood Ser Eustace Hunter, Ser Lyn Corbray, and gravely elegant Ser Mychel Egen, while at the head of the Westermen were Ser Lyle Crakehall, Ser Tygett Lannister, and broadly mustachioed Ser Elys Westerling.
These men were some of the deadliest slayers in the world, both individually and collectively. They had been sidetracked by the conquest of Pentos, but now their enemy was before them. The oaths of vengeance they had taken back in Westeros burned in their minds at the sight of the dragon banners, and even the Westermen, who cared little for the rights and wrongs of the matter, became infected with the wrath that was spreading through the Company. Already the Northmen were chanting “Charge! Charge!” and the Northern horse and the Western knights were trotting forward.
Robert Baratheon felt the fury that was his bloodline’s heritage sear through his veins like fire. The man, no, the vermin that had abducted, raped, and murdered his betrothed and dumped her body in the sea like so much garbage was before him. Now, by the gods, he would have his revenge. He raised his great hammer over his head. “AT THEM!” he roared, letting the hammer fall to point at the enemy. “JUSTICE AND VENGEANCE!”
The company roared like a storm breaking on the cliffs of Shipbreaker Bay as they rushed forward.
The initial clash of the Sunset Company and the Army of Myr was fearsome by all accounts. No less an authority than Ser Brynden Tully, in his memoirs, claimed that the Battle of Tara “was more fiercely fought than any battle I had ever been in before that time, and in all my later experience it was equaled but never surpassed for ferocity.” Septon Jonothor, writing to a colleague in King’s Landing, said “Never have I seen men become possessed of a fury such as they were possessed at Tara. I can only imagine that the Warrior, seeing that we fought against slavers, was moved to assist our arms and lent us his anger.”
Whatever the cause for the ferocity of the combat, the initial clash went in favor of the Sunset Company; on their right the Company of the Cat was stopped dead in their tracks, while on their left the Myrish spearmen were actually driven a short way back down the hillside with Ser Lothor Brune of the Kingsguard being killed at the head of his battle by Ser Brus Buckler. However, the breakthrough was quickly stemmed. Ser Alliser Thorne rallied his battle against the Northmen, killing Leobald Tallhart and pressing his company back some twenty yards according to Maester Alleras’ history of the battle, while Rhaegar himself committed his exiles to the fray. On the other side of the battle, Bloodbeard committed his cavalry to the fight and bogged the Sunset Company’s right into a grinding stalemate.
Fortunately for the Sunset Company, Robert had had the wit to place his reserves under possibly the best commander on the whole field . . .
Brynden Tully reined in beside Victarion Greyjoy. “Your lads ready to go in, Greyjoy?” he asked gruffly.
“Aye, they are,” Victarion replied, running the thumb of his gauntlet along the edge of his axe. “They’ve been desperate for a proper fight since Pentos, haven’t you lads?”
That last was pitched to carry to the nine hundred reavers behind him, who replied with laughter and catcalls, including one fellow who claimed that a good fight wasn’t the only thing he was desperate for and that in his state, even a Myrman would do.
“We come too,” said a guttural voice behind Brynden, who turned to find Akhollo, who he knew vaguely as one of the more prominent freedmen despite not joining the Pioneers, wearing an ill-fitting mail shirt and carrying a sword sloped against his shoulder. And beside him was Maester Gordon, still in his maester’s robes but with a belligerent expression on his face.
Brynden blinked. “You’re not in the company,” he said finally, knowing even as he said it that the argument sounded lame. “And your people aren’t equipped for a fight like this,” he jerked a thumb towards the battle. “They’ll be massacred.”
Akhollo stepped forward and grasped Brynden’s ankle. “We slaves,” he said, his accent thickening even further. “Then you kill our masters, free us. Now we men.” Akhollo shook Brynden’s ankle, his eyes earnest. “Men fight,” he said sincerely. “Fight for khal, fight for hate, fight for food, fight for gifts. Best fight for freedom. We have sworn, fight for freedom.” Akhollo’s eyes were steely now. “All have sworn,” he said, voice burning with fervor. “We fight, and be free or dead, as stars look down in witness.”
Gordon nodded. “My Pioneers want in, too,” he said, his voice firm. “If you don’t take them in, they’ll go in anyway.”
Gods of blood and death, Brynden thought amazedly, And, realizing, he knew that he could not refuse the freedmen a place in the battle line. But the thought of the freedmen, poorly armed and worse armored, fighting proper soldiers made him quail. He turned to Victarion, almost willing him to object.
“What are you looking at me for?” Victarion demanded. “I heard him. They want to pay the iron price for their freedom, I’m not going to say them nay.” There was an approving murmur from the ranks of the Ironborn, and Dagmer Cleftjaw nodded his grizzled head sagely.
Gods forgive me, Brynden thought, turning back to Akhollo. “You wait for the trumpet,” he said, “and then you follow us in. Understand?”
Akhollo nodded. “We fight,” he said. “We kill masters, and free slaves.” He grinned, baring his teeth. “We kill all masters,” he said savagely, “and free all slaves. We pray for it.” He saluted with his sword and trotted back to the freedmen, already roaring what sounded like orders in the Low Valyrian/Dothraki/Common Tongue argot that the freedmen seemed to have adopted as a language. Gordon flicked a finger off his brow in a token salute and dashed away himself, also roaring for his Pioneers.
Brynden shook his head wearily and turned back to Victarion. “On the trumpet,” he reminded him, and cantered back to his Riverlanders.
While the infantry were slugging it out in the center, two separate cavalry battles were taking place on the flanks. On the right of the Sunset Company, the Western knights under the command of Jaime Lannister repeated their performance at the Battle of Pentos by breaking the Long Lances. On the other flank, the Northern horse under the command of Eddard Stark faced the Stormcrows . . .
Daario Naharis broke out of the melee, swearing in stupefaction. What in the hells do they feed cavalrymen across the Narrow Sea, he asked himself as he brandished his arakh overhead and roared for any Stormcrows to rally to him.
Daario had been a cavalryman for going on eleven years now and in all that time he had only participated in three massed cavalry fights. Most campaigns were taken up in maneuvers, largely focusing on raiding the other side’s territory while protecting one’s own; battles were such chancy things that most captains avoided them except in extremity. The company received as much pay whether they lost half their men or none at all, and sellswords appreciated a captain who didn’t waste their blood. Dead men didn’t get to enjoy their pay, after all.
The role of cavalry in such operations was taken up primarily with reconnaissance during the maneuvers and sparring on the flanks of the armies in the rare battles. These conflicts could get bloody, certainly, and the quicksilver slash-and-run war between two armies’ outriders had the potential to become gruesome especially between companies that hated each other, but the need for massed combat rarely arose. Of the three such battles that Daario had fought in, only one had arisen by design, during a particularly nasty border war between Volantis and Norvos; the other two had happened by accident, when the Stormcrows, maneuvering in a body, had stumbled across another company and no one had had time to call matters off before the first blood was shed.
Apparently no one had told these Andal horsem*n the rules, though. Instead of darting back and forth and exchanging sallies of small parties with the Stormcrows, they had all rolled forward in a solid mass, knee to armored knee, apparently dead-set on colliding with the company at full speed. Thank the gods that Sallor and Prendahl had seen that the only thing to do was meet the charge with one of their own; Daario didn’t want to think what taking that charge at the standstill would have been like. The melee that had followed the impact was more terrible than anything Daario cared to remember; howling Andals coming out of the dust waving swords or axes or spiked maces and nothing to do but block, cut back, and ride on, trying desperately to see in ten directions at once while the screams of men and horses filled the air.
Daario knew himself to be a brave man; where other men trembled at the prospect of a fight he felt elated. But the thought of diving back into that swirling, snarling brawl frightened him.
Ruthlessly he drove the fear from his mind. The company was in that mess. And the first law of the sellsword was that you didn’t run out on your company. Daario howled encouragement to the handful of Stormcrows that had rallied to his side, raked back his spurs, and plunged into the maelstrom.
The Northern cavalry eventually broke the Stormcrows, but a remnant retreated in good order under the command of Daario Naharis, who with the deaths of his co-captains Sallor the Bald and Prendahl na Ghezn was the senior surviving officer of the Stormcrows. Despite his victory, Eddard faced some difficulty in reforming his horsem*n, as casualties had to be carried off and the squadrons reformed.
In the center, the battle was only intensifying . . .
Ever after, the men who fought in the center at the Battle of Tara would remember it for its noise. The clamor of metal on metal, the drumming of horse’s hooves, the shouts and trumpet calls of orders attempting to get through the clangor, but most of all the screams. Screaming men and screaming horses, their flesh torn and their bones broken, filled the air. More than one veteran would later claim that they could tell how a man was wounded by the way he screamed, but such differences were lost in the cacophony of the battle.
It was into this maelstrom of noise that Rhaegar Targaryen committed his reserves, his loyalists on his right and the horse of the Company of the Cat on his left. The effect was akin to bouncers plunging into a tavern brawl. Slowly, little by little, the Sunset Company was pressed back by the weight of metal and flesh that crashed into the fray. The Northmen, rallied by Maege Mormont and the towering Greatjon, closed ranks and refused to budge, and the Westermen on the other flank locked shields and stood fast under the leadership of Tygett Lannister, but in the center the Valemen, the Stormlanders, and the Reachmen slowly gave ground. Ser Clifford Swann died there when Ser Alliser Thorne rammed his sword through the marcher knight’s visor and face into his brain. Rhaegar Targaryen, who for all his faults was not a coward, slew Ser Basil Graves with a downward cut that knocked the Reacher to his knees and under his destrier’s hooves where he was trampled to death. Bloodbeard of the Company of the Cat slew five of the best knights of the Vale in succession as he pushed forward, laughing uproariously with the battle-joy. A breakthrough seemed imminent.
At that moment a trumpet screamed the charge, and the reserves of the Sunset Company entered the fray. On the right the Ironborn advanced, chanting a battle-song in a tongue that was old before the first Andal set foot in Westeros as Victarion Greyjoy threw his axe in the air to spin end over end in a blur of wood and steel before plucking it out of the air. On the left, Ser Brynden Tully led the Riverlanders in a dismounted charge that carried the Northmen forward with them and turned the Myrish right from a relatively orderly formation to a struggling mass. And in the center, with a tigerish roar of “Free or dead!” the freedmen dived into the fray.
The freedmen were only lightly armored in scavenged mail and brigandines, and their weapons ranged from spears and shields taken from the dead to bare hands. They were poorly drilled, and even the Pioneers, the best-trained men among them, were in no kind of formation. But between them they had more than ten thousand years’ worth of bottled-up slights and humiliations and injuries to avenge, and the primal hatred of the slave for the slave-owner consumed them. So when the freedmen plunged into the center, they hit with the force of a cavalry charge and stopped the advance of Rhaegar’s army dead in its tracks. Ser Gyles Rosby was dragged from his horse by a Pioneer with a pick and beaten to a paste by the rest of his dismounter’s squad. A freedman clinging to his sword arm undid Ser Jaremy Rykker, who flung the man to the ground and ran him through the belly in the time it would have taken him to dodge Robert Baratheon’s great hammer. The remaining Myrish spearmen fought desperately and built a low berm of dead freedmen before their shield-wall, but the tide of freedmen submerged them.
Now all semblance of orderly lines and closed ranks was swept away and combatants from both armies were intermingled. Ser Alliser Thorne struck down three Riverlander spearmen in quick succession and then fell himself as Dacey Mormont’s mace collapsed the back of his helmet. The verses of The Seven-Pointed Star filigreed across Ser Guncer Sunglass’s breastplate failed to protect him against the Greatjon’s massive blade and the pious lord of Sweetport Sound fell to the roaring Northman’s greatsword. Lyn Corbray and Bloodbeard were twice swept together and swept apart by the tides of struggling men and horses before a third engagement ended with Lyn’s dagger buried in the sellsword captain’s visor slit. Ser Tygett Lannister stood over the body of Akhollo, who had been stunned by a spear-shaft across the head, and died when a Cat’s axe cut through his gorget. Ser Elys Westerling was clubbed down and beaten into red ruin by a squad of Cats with mauls.
But the most important combat occurred when Robert Baratheon, roaring his battle-fury to the skies, met Rhaegar Targaryen in close combat while his household men occupied the Kingsguards. The singers tell that the Great Stag’s first blow slew the Exile Prince’s horse, so that Rhaegar fell to the ground. They also tell that Robert and Rhaegar stood toe-to-toe for nigh on half an hour trading blows, but that is false. In reality, the storied duel lasted a handful of heartbeats. Rhaegar lunged, aiming for the seams in Robert’s fauld, but he was foiled by a rising parry that sent the point of his sword scraping across Robert’s breastplate. Robert, wielding his hammer two-handed, rammed the butt of his hammer into Rhaegar’s visor to force him back, and then swung for Rhaegar’s head. Rhaegar raised his sword and ducked, but not strongly enough and not far enough and the hammerblow clipped him over the top of his helmet, sending him sprawling.
Rhaegar would certainly have died there, for Robert was even then raising his hammer to finish him off, but for the valor of his Kingsguards, who broke away from Robert’s men. Ser Oswell Whent flung himself from his horse and tackled Robert to the ground, distracting him entirely while Ser Arthur Dayne dragged his king’s unconscious body onto his horse. Ser Oswell died moments later when Robert crushed his helm under his hammer, but he had bought the time Ser Arthur Dayne needed to sound the retreat. Long training served the exiles well as they cut their way out of the melee and regrouped around the Sword of the Morning, who began to lead them out of the battle and leave the sellswords and the Myrish to their fates.
After those Targaryen loyalists who could make their way out of the melee did so, Ser Arthur Dayne immediately ordered a full retreat to Myr. By this time, Eddard Stark and Jaime Lannister had managed to regroup their respective horsem*n after breaking the Stormcrows and the Long Lances, and they quickly set out in pursuit.
The running battle that ensued would eventually enter into the hagiographies of both the Sunset Company and the Exile Prince . . .
“Reform! Reform!” Eddard chanted as the Western knights and the Northern men-at-arms eddied around him. The last counter-charge that Ser Arthur Dayne had led against them had broken their cohesion and he and Ser Jaime had to spend valuable minutes rallying them back into ranks.
Rhaegar was getting away, Gods curse him! Eddard and Jaime had pursued the exiles for at least four miles now, snapping at their column’s heels like wolves at an elk, but the Sword of the Morning was as war-wise as he was valiant and not only was he holding the column together, but he was steadily pulling it away from the pursuit. Eddard snarled, roaring at his cavalry to get themselves in order. The man whose madness had killed his father, murdered his sister, crippled his brother, and exiled him from the North was so close that Eddard could almost feel the murderer’s throat under his fingers, but mile by mile he was slipping out of Eddard’s grasp.
At last the Northern riders reformed their ranks, Arnolf Karstark waving his axe from the head of his wing and Ser Wendel Manderly brandishing his sword at the head of his four remaining knights. The exiles were dying, but they were paving their road to the Seven Hells with the corpses of good men.
A quick glance over towards the Westermen showed that Jaime had rallied his knights into a formation and was gesturing readiness to attack; Eddard raised his sword and lowered it towards the column sheltering the man he hated more than any other in the world. “Advance!!” he bellowed, and the knights of the West and the horsem*n of the North spurred their already foaming horses to a clumsy trot. Eddard knew that he was killing the horses of a good third of the company’s cavalry, but the effort had to be made. One more, he thought brutally, one more attack and we have them. They can’t keep this up forever. Please, gods of my fathers.
As the company’s cavalry closed to within a hundred and fifty yards of the exiles a trumpeter sounded his instrument and the thin rank of infantry parted to make way for a column of knights, led by a figure whose white cloak and armor were liberally spattered with gore. Eddard’s lip curled to bare his teeth behind his visor. He had admired Ser Arthur Dayne; what young man of his age had not? But the man had helped Rhaegar Targaryen kidnap and rape his sister and so he had to die. What was more, for him to continue in the service of a madman brought shame upon his knighthood and dishonored his house; or so Eddard had heard the few Reacher knights who had joined them say, and he presumed that they knew what they were talking about. For him the mere fact that Dayne served the Targaryen was reason enough for deadly feud.
The exile knights shook out from column into line and trotted forward; they had no lances left, but each of them had a sword, axe, mace, or war hammer in his fist and slanted back to rest against his pauldron. Eddard growled to himself, stood in his stirrups, and raised his sword. “CHARGE!” he bellowed, leaning forward and spurring his horse into a canter. “LYANNA!”
“LYANNA!” the Northern horsem*n howled back as they spurred their horses forward into a careening charge, heedless of the fact that their horses were foaming their lungs out. Beside them the Westermen charged as well, so that the world was full of the thunder of hooves, and then the two bodies of cavalry collided.
And as the exile knights and his Northmen savaged each other, Eddard Stark learned first-hand why Ser Arthur Dayne was a legend.
The Sword of the Morning’s first blow shook Eddard’s shield and drove it back into his shoulder. The second, flowing out of the first like a snake twisting through grass, skidded off the crown of Eddard’s basinet with enough force to make his ears ring. Eddard managed to hurl a blow with his broad-bladed arming sword, but Dayne’s own arming sword (Dawn, too long and too heavy to be wielded with one hand, was strapped to his back) slapped it aside and the counter-cut that he launched at Eddard’s visor cut through the soft iron rim of Eddard’s shield and bit into the wood beneath. With a strength that was all the more terrifying for being so casual the Sword of the Morning jerked his blade free and brought around in a cut that cracked Eddard’s shield across and nearly broke his arm through the vambrace. Eddard launched a desperate thrust at the facial slot in Dayne’s barbute helm, but a combination dodge and cross-parry knocked Eddard’s sword off-line and the return cut dented Eddard’s basinet and knocked him half out of the saddle. The whole series of blows took no longer than forty-five seconds.
Eddard would have died there, if Dayne had not been entirely distracted by Jaime Lannister ramming his horse into Dayne’s and launching a thrust at his face.
Ser Arthur managed to slap the thrust aside and bring his horse back under control, but the Young Lion pressed him hard for a long series of seconds, enough for Eddard to reseat himself and shake some of the stars out his eyes. By the time Ser Arthur managed to interrupt Jaime’s rain of blows, Eddard was on his other side and hammering away at him.
Any man but Arthur Dayne would have died there, beset on two sides by experienced foes, but Arthur Dayne had not earned his title and his white cloak by virtue of his name alone. Coolly he parried the storm of swords until he saw an opening. Quick as a frog’s tongue taking a fly, his sword licked out and opened the neck of Jaime’s horse, which collapsed away and died. Without pausing for an instant, knowing that his blow had struck home, Dayne turned in the saddle and threw a thrust at Eddard’s visor, disregarding the fact that Eddard’s arming sword was descending on his left wrist.
The point of Dayne’s arming sword, forged narrow and sharp as a bodkin for exactly this purpose, tore through one of the breathing-slits in the bottom of Eddard’s visor and gouged a furrow down his cheek even as Eddard’s arming sword (like most Northern weapons a generation or two behind their Southron counterparts and so broader in the blade and with a less acute point) struck Dayne’s left wrist and broke it through the gauntlet. In the next instant, with Eddard reeling away in pain and shock and Dayne ripping his sword free of Eddard’s visor, Jaime hurdled his dead horse, half-swording his blade, and rammed the point of his sword through the leaf-mail skirt protecting Dayne’s hip. A frantic blow downwards and to the right left a long dent in Lannister’s sallet helm and hammered him to his knees, but Dayne knew it was time to leave. He had done all he could for his king; he just had to hope it was enough. “Fall back!” he shouted hoarsely, waving his sword in a circle above his head. “Fall back!”
Eddard knocked his visor upward, spraying blood from his torn cheek. He saw Arthur Dayne turn his back and put the spurs to his horse, but to no avail. With a despairing neigh his horse foundered, with only horseman’s reflexes getting Eddard clear of the saddle and saving him from a broken leg. As Eddard staggered up and looked around, what he saw made him curse the gods. The Western knights and the Northern cavalry were in little better state than he and Jaime; from what he could see barely two-thirds of the men they had started the pursuit with were still mounted and fit to fight and all of them looked as blown as their horses. As he watched Ser Wendel Manderly slumped over the neck of his horse and slid to the ground, utterly exhausted.
And across the field the exiles were getting away! Rhaegar was getting away! Eddard shook his sword and raged almost incoherently, but he knew he could do nothing more. In the final paroxysm of his rage he rammed his sword into the earth and, scowling, called an end to the pursuit. He managed to turn around and walk about ten feet before the battle-rage drained out of him and his legs collapsed underneath him, putting him face down in the churned earth.
The Battle of Tara is an interesting case. Tactically and operationally, it was a crushing victory, destroying Myr’s primary field army and incapacitating its best commander for the foreseeable future. Strategically, however, the honors were more nearly even. Rhaegar Targaryen may have been wounded, but he still lived, thus keeping victory as far out of the Sunset Company’s reach after the battle as it had been before. Furthermore, the Sunset Company had suffered significant casualties. Leobald Tallhart, Ser Clifford Swann, Ser Tygett Lannister, Ser Elys Westerling ,and a score of other knights and minor lords were killed in the battle, while the running battle of the pursuit claimed the lives of Ethan Glover, Ser Mark Ryswell, Ser Rupert Brax, and fully a quarter of the Western knights and Northern cavalrymen, as well as many of their horses. In addition to the aristocrats, almost five hundred of the Westerosi infantry were killed outright, as were about three times as many freedmen. The number of wounded who later died of their injuries is probably comparable to those who died in the heat of the action.
But if the Sunset Company’s casualties had been significant, the exiles’ losses had been devastating. Oswell Whent, Alliser Thorne, Jaremy Rykker, Lothor Brune, Ardrian Celtigar, Guncer Sunglass, and Gyles Rosby were all killed in the battle or the pursuit, as well as one in three of the other knights and lords among the exiles and many of their infantrymen. Some of these men were not killed during the actual fighting, but had simply fallen behind during the retreat. As they were unable to pay ransom, even if the Sunset Company were willing to take them prisoner, they were killed out of hand. In a single campaign, Rhaegar Targaryen’s reputation in Myr was badly dented and his army all but crippled, while the repute of the Sunset Company soared to new heights.
The consequences arose soon after . . .
- Chasing Dragons: The Sunset Company Reexamined by Maester Hendricus, published 1539 AC
Chapter 21: Marching On
Chapter Text
Marching On
Author Note: Trigger warning for mentions of sexual assault in the last part of this chapter. Medieval warfare ain't pretty.
Eddard strode into Robert’s tent to find Robert sitting in a chair naked to the waist with a similarly half-naked woman sitting on his lap and the pair of them kissing deeply. Eddard paused for a moment and then cleared his voice emphatically; this was not the first time he had had to interrupt Robert in the midst of a revel.
Robert broke free of his woman’s lips and cast a jaundiced look at his foster-brother. “Do you mind?” he said in an oddly hushed voice. “Only I’m somewhat occupied, as you might have noticed.” The woman sitting on his lap giggled.
Eddard returned Robert’s look with a patient stare. “I’m afraid it can’t wait,” he replied. “And it’s the sort of thing that needs your undivided attention.” He flicked a glance at the woman.
Robert sighed gustily. “Alright then, if you insist,” he said sullenly, pushing the woman off his lap. “Perhaps tonight, love,” he said to the woman with a kiss to the inside of her wrist. The woman sighed, threw on a shirt and swept a robe around herself, and swept past Eddard with a brief, scorching look. Eddard turned to watch her go, and then turned back to Robert and raised an eyebrow. “I swore revenge, Ned, not chastity,” Robert said defensively. “If it makes you feel any better, Alaesa’s the only woman I’ve had since Pentos.” He sighed. “Whatever you do, please don’t shout,” he begged. “That bloody bat tackled me from horseback and hit my helmet with his; I have the most ungodly headache.”
Eddard blinked, and then threw his head back and laughed as he hadn’t laughed since the company sailed from King’s Landing. “You, restrict yourself to only one woman?” he demanded jokingly between chortles. “Pull the other leg, there’s bells on it. Or do you think I’ve forgotten how you had one woman in the Eyrie, one in the Bloody Gate, one in Gulltown, and one in Runestone, all thinking they were the only woman in your life?”
Robert winced and held his hands to his head. “Weren’t those the days,” he said with a wan smile. “But it’s true. Ask young Dick Horpe if you don’t believe your own foster-brother.”
Eddard tilted his head and put a quizzical expression on his face. “Are you feeling quite well?” he said. “This is the east, after all; you never know what strange diseases you might catch.”
“Only disease I’ve caught is something chivalric,” Robert said, putting a shirt on over his heavily muscled torso and motioning Eddard to a chair. “Have I told you about this one pleasure school my lads found when we were conquering Pentos?”
Eddard shook his head. “I did hear about it from the Greatjon, who heard from Ser Brus Buckler,” he said. “According to him it was . . . bad.”
“Bad enough that three or four of the women we pulled out of that bloody hole killed themselves afterwards,” Robert said morosely. “Couldn’t live with what had happened to them.” He sat down again, his normally open face somber. “After that,” he continued, “I couldn’t help but think how many of the whor*s I’ve had went through something like that. Didn’t help when I found out that about one in three of them had been kidnapped.” Like Lyanna hung in the air unsaid. “So I kept myself to myself, until Alaesa jumped into my bed and said a liberator deserved to be rewarded appropriately.” He shrugged. “She’s nice,” he said. “Not just in bed, either. We talk.”
Eddard blinked. Robert hadn’t been the sort to get introspective with his women; the order of the day had been wine, song, and pleasure. “What do you talk about?” he asked curiously.
“Why we’re here,” Robert said, pouring wine for them both. “Why we want Rhaegar’s head on a plate. What we plan to do after we’ve gotten it. What that might mean for everyone else.” Robert looked up at Eddard. “Alaesa was born into slavery, she said. Her mother was a housekeeper, her father could be any one of about five or six men including their master and all his sons. She ended up here when her master gave her as a gift to a guest who complimented her; some magister or other from Ceralia. She never got to properly say goodbye to her mother.” Robert’s face was set. “If nothing else, what we’re doing here will put a stop to that, by the gods.”
Eddard nodded. “We’ve made a decent start, anyway,” he said. “Ceralia has fallen.”
Robert leaned forward. “How?” he asked. “The slaves revolt?”
“As soon as Lyn Corbray showed up at the gates with the news that we had won here,” Eddard answered with a nod. “The slaves revolted that night, and Lyn woke up to see half the city in flames and the Governor’s guards fighting the slaves for the other half. So he had the Pioneers with him break down the gates and pitched in. He sent word of his victory and the Governor of the North’s head in a bag.”
“Good for Lyn,” Robert said, his voice filled with satisfaction. “We get any volunteers from the slaves in Ceralia?”
“Lyn also sent back four hundred and twenty-nine fit men of military age who’ve taken the star,” Eddard replied. “Some from Ceralia, others from the surrounding countryside. They’ve been mustered in and taken in hand.”
“I wish the Blackfish joy of them,” Robert said, drinking deep. “Did Lyn happen to say whether there was anything left of Ceralia but a pile of ash?”
“His message didn’t say one way or the other,” Eddard said with a sip of his wine. “Either way, we can’t linger too long. We need to strike while the iron’s hot and put Rhaegar in the ground or on a gibbet for good.”
“That eager to cross swords with Ser Arthur Dayne again, Ned?” Robert asked with a crooked smile. “Last time didn’t go so well for you.”
Eddard brushed a finger against the line of stitches along his cheek. “With the gods’ help, I can handle Ser Arthur Dayne,” he said, disregarding the chill that ran down his spine at the memory of that blend of lightning speed and massive strength.
“Not without improving your sword-craft, you can’t,” Robert said seriously. “Ned, you’re as much my brother as Stannis is; more so in most ways. I won’t have you die because you weren’t enough of a swordsman to tackle Ser Arthur Dayne. You’re good, but you’re not a master. Become one; that’s an order from your Captain-General.”
Eddard nodded formally. “As you command, my lord,” he said. Straightening, he went on. “If we can get those of our wounded too wounded to march or fight effectively under roofs in Ceralia, we should be able to march on Myr within a few days; Septon Jonothor tells me that his men are down to the last few-score bodies to bury. After that, we should be able to march to Myr in a sennight or so, depending on how well the freedmen shake down on the march. Ser Brynden’s scavenged as much armor and as many weapons as he can from the battlefield; we actually have enough for every man to have at least a gambeson and a weapon of some kind. As far as actual formations goes, the freedmen can make up about eighteen hundred spearmen and twenty-three hundred crossbowmen; the crossbowmen only have about ten bolts apiece, though. We’ve got three sennights worth of food on hand, and two sennights’ forage.”
Robert winced. “Only two?” he asked. Forage was essential if they were to keep their horses in fit condition to fight. Military horses ate a lot; to stay in prime condition, at least part of their diet had to be grain or oats as well. Simple grass wouldn’t cut it.
Eddard shrugged. “We’d have less if we hadn’t lost so many horses during the pursuit,” he pointed out. “We can stretch it a little if we restrict the draught animals to grazing, but that has its own problems.” Grazing didn’t just take time; it took space as well, unless you wanted to replace the grass with mud. “Forbye, only about one in four of the Northern horse and the Western knights will be able to fight a-horse until we get remounts. I confess to be at a loss as to how we’ll acquire those except by natural increase.”
Destriers and coursers were, for the most part, very specialized animals; destriers literally had no other purpose than to carry an armored knight into battle. Not only were they bred to the task, they were also trained to it, so that a knight’s warhorse was as dangerous an opponent as the knight was. As such, destriers and coursers of the sort that knights required only tended to be produced in regions that produced knights or similar armored horsem*n. Essos made fine horses, but they weren’t trained or bred to carry a knight into battle. Even Dothraki chargers, the finest horses in the East, would not necessarily suffice as a knight’s steed.
“That can wait until after we take Myr,” Robert said finally. “Not like cavalry will be much use in a siege, anyway, unless you can find a horse that can leap a city wall.” He sat back in his chair. “How’s Ser Brynden doing with the freedmen?”
Eddard smiled. “Do you know, I really think he’s enjoying himself.”
XXX
“Left, left-right-left! Oh for f*ck’s sake Company, halt!” The sergeant in charge of drilling this particular lot of freedmen darted into the marching phalanx and grabbed a freedman in the second rank by the shoulders. “For gods’ sake, man, do you not know your right from your left?!” he roared in the man’s face.
The freedman stared at him with a look of mild terror. “No, lord,” he finally choked out.
The sergeant blinked, and then leaned to one side to face the phalanx in general. “Who else doesn’t know their right from their left?” he demanded, and felt his heart sink to see how many hands went up. “Warrior’s hairy balls,” he said softly to himself, turning back to the freedman he was still holding by the shoulders. “This is your front,” he yelled, buffeting the freedman on the chest, “and this is your rear!” buffeting him on the back. Looking down at the freedman’s feet, he continued with “this is your right,” stomping (lightly) on the freedman’s toes, “and this is your left! Teach your mates tonight!” Stepping back out of the ranks, the sergeant swept the freedmen with a hawk-like stare. “If you can’t march, you can’t keep formation!” he roared. “If you can’t keep formation, you can’t fight! If you can’t fight, then you die! So you will learn to march, in step! Company! Forward, march! Left, left, left-right-left!”
Sitting on his horse at the edge of the drill field just outside the main encampment, Brynden grinned as he watched the sergeant march his freedmen around the circuit of the field, seeming to propel them along by sheer lung-power. He remembered having to learn to keep formation on horseback, with a scarred old knight who had fought in the Blackfyre Rebellion roaring at him to “keep yer bloody horse in hand there, Tully, and dinnae let him go wanderin’ over all creation!” That knight was long years dead now, having fallen off his horse after a long night’s reveling at The Slippery Fish and broken his neck, but Brynden knew that he was nodding approval from the Warrior’s halls. This was how one made a group of individuals into an army.
There were currently three companies of freedmen marching around the drill field, getting the hang of marching in step. Two more companies, faster learners, were learning to maneuver on one half of the field. One was doing a credible job of “on center right wheel”, while another was making a dreadful hash of “from column form line by sections from the right”; their sergeant was purple in the face and swearing fantastically as he waded into the mess to sort them out. The other half of the field was a forest of pells, man-high wooden posts at which freedmen were practicing with sword and spear. Some were simply swinging or thrusting by rote, others were bobbing and weaving around the post, cutting and thrusting enthusiastically. Sergeants roamed through the pells, roaring out corrections and encouragement richly flavored with profanity.
In short, the freedmen were becoming soldiers. It was taking a lot of time and work, and there were more than a few sprains, broken bones, and lacerations among the freedmen and a few cases of strained vocal cords and one near-aneurysm among the sergeants, but give it another few months and Brynden would take them against any comparable force of infantry in the east. Because they wanted to kill.
Brynden had been a knight long enough to know that the common man’s capacity for violence was rather limited. Most men, faced with a situation that demands that they confront a complete stranger, will restrict themselves to shouting and gesticulation, with maybe a punch or two thrown if they were extremely upset. If they were inebriated, then more punches would be thrown, and maybe the knives would come out if the stranger was a horse-coper or a foreigner or a Dornishman or belonged to some other group that people distrusted or despised on principle, but even then outright murder was rare. As a general rule, the ability to kill a complete stranger in cold blood was a talent so rare that it had to be instilled by rigorous training; that level of training was what set knights and men-at-arms apart from the common run of men.
The freedmen, however, had no such qualms when it came to slavers; they had proved as much at Tara. What they really needed to learn was how to do it properly. Almost half of the freedmen who had fought at Tara had been killed or mortally wounded, and many others had been wounded badly enough that they could no longer march or fight. Simple fanaticism wasn’t enough; if the freedmen wanted to have their revenge, they would have to become soldiers.
Brynden just hoped that the new volunteers would learn quickly. Robert had given orders that the company was to march for Myr city by the end of the sennight.
XXX
Ser Arthur Dayne glanced up as the door opened; it was not yet meal-time and he had given strict orders that the king was not to be disturbed. His hand tightened on the hilt of the sword lying across his lap and his legs curled underneath his chair but before he sprang into action he recognized Magister Rahtheon, the king’s good-father.
“How come you here?” he asked almost rudely; the pain in his splinted wrist and bandaged thigh made him short-tempered and he distinctly remembered telling Barristan that Rahtheon was not to be admitted.
“My daughter prevailed upon Ser Barristan to let me in,” Rahtheon said in his smooth voice that put Arthur in mind of a hedge-maester such as had visited the town at the foot of Starfall castle. “How is the king?”
It was the simple concern in the magister’s voice that kept Arthur from telling him it was not his concern. He turned towards the bed. “Much as you see him,” he said, his voice heavy with repressed sorrow and mastered fear.
Rhaegar Targaryen, uncrowned King of Myr and true King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, lay on the bed, motionless except for the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. His eyes were closed and his hands folded on his chest, but his eyes roamed under their lids and his hands occasionally trembled where they lay. Rhaegar had always been lean, but two sennights on no greater nourishment than thick broth and tea was wasting his muscles. Already his face looked too much like that of a cadaver.
Rahtheon stood silently for a long moment before he turned back to Arthur. “Will he recover?” he asked, the directness of his voice almost entirely masking the tinge of doubt.
Arthur shrugged. “That is in the hands of the gods,” he said hollowly. “But the maesters are not confident. If he would remain awake for more than moments at a time it would be different, but he does not. Blows to the head such as he sustained are chancy things.” Arthur didn’t mention the fact that when Rhaegar did awaken he was anything but lucid; mostly he stared blankly at the ceiling but on occasion he ranted incoherently. Arthur feared little, but his king’s condition made his bones seem to chill.
Rahtheon sighed gustily and drew up a stool. “Well, sh*t,” he said disgustedly. “So much for that idea.” At Arthur’s co*cked eyebrow he went on. “The Conclave is scheduled to debate a motion of no confidence in the king’s ability to lead tomorrow,” he explained. “I had hoped that he would be able to forestall the debate by appearing in person, but . . .” he gestured at the supine king.
Arthur clamped down on the fury in his veins. “The faint-hearted, treacherous dogs,” he said savagely. “Can you not prevent them?”
Rahtheon held up his hands. “If it were up to me, I would stop them in a heartbeat, but it’s not up to me. My faction is only one of four or five on the Conclave and since news of the battle reached us it has quickly become the smallest one. The simple fact, as the Conclave sees it, is that the king is solely at fault for a war that we are currently losing, at a cost of just over six thousand lives and hundreds of thousands of florins in lost and destroyed property. The easiest way to end the war, or so they will say, will be to accede to the Baratheon’s demand that the king be turned over to him.”
Arthur looked up, and Rahtheon quailed at the deadly anger in his eyes. “Let them try, if they dare,” the Sword of the Morning said harshly, his hand tight upon his sword-hilt. “I will festoon the streets of this city with their guts.”
“I doubt it not, ser knight, but can you do as much to the whole city?” Rahtheon asked, mastering the fear that the Andal knight had put in him; he had not restored his family’s fortune and risen to the first rank of the Conclave without learning to keep his countenance in the face of peril. “Your army is destroyed; your own men are reduced to perhaps a half or a third of their former strength. There are almost seventy-five thousand free men and women in this city; do you truly think that you can kill enough of them to cow the rest into obedience before they pull you down? Already my people bring me word that the common people of this city are considering storming this manse and throwing the survivors to the Baratheon in hopes that he will leave the city in peace. I have seen what happens when a bear is faced with a horde of dogs in the fighting pits of Meereen, ser knight, and let me tell you; nine times in ten the bear gets eaten.” Rahtheon spread his hands. “We find ourselves in the position of the bear, ser knight. We can stand and fight, and almost certainly die, or we can escape and live to fight another day.”
Arthur glared at the magister, passion warring with logic in his brain, and finally leaned back in his chair, his anger dimming as he looked at his prostrate king. “Tell Ser Barristan, on my authority, that he is to make preparations to defend this place against attack,” he said, his voice still hard. “And pass word to Ser Gyles Rambton that he is to hold his ships in instant readiness to sail; if we have to fight our way out of the city, I would rather we not be vexed by lack of stores or suchlike.” He looked back up at the magister. “Do all you can with the Conclave, my lord,” he said seriously. “The future of the kingdom depends on it.”
Rahtheon stood and bowed. “All that my might and craft can do, I shall, for my daughter’s sake and that of my grandchild” he said. At Arthur’s co*cked eyebrow he went on. “My daughter has suspected for the past moon and more that she is pregnant, but in the past sennight she has become certain.” He crossed to Ser Arthur and held out his hand. “Praela is my only heir, ser knight,” he said, his voice deadly serious. “Her brother died in infancy and her mother followed him into the grave from grief. The only hope of my line is in my daughter and the child beneath her heart. Whatever you do to secure the future of House Targaryen, you have my aid, to my last copper and my last breath. The house you swore fealty to is my house now, by the bond between your king and my daughter, and I will not permit it to fail.”
Ser Arthur rose. “Nor shall I,” the Sword of the Morning said grimly. “Not while I have the strength to slay its enemies.” And tucking his sword under his left arm he clasped forearms with the magister as with a brother.
XXX
In close-order formation, each infantryman occupied three square feet of space. A mounted cavalryman occupied twice as much frontage and three times as much depth, because horses are so large. If the eleven hundred cavalry and six thousand, nine hundred infantry of the Sunset Company were arrayed in a single file line, they would stretch almost six miles along the Great North Road that linked Myr city to its northern territories. However, such a single file line would be impractical, to say the least, and so with the fighting men of the company arrayed in column of fours and with flank guards, advance scouts, and rearguard deployed around the column, the fighting men of the Sunset Company were compacted down to just over a full mile of road-space. This, of course, did not include either the baggage train or the great cloud of camp followers that trailed the company like the tail of a comet.
And there were other factors that operated on the length of the column. Every day during the three sennights that the company took to march from Tara and Ceralia to Myr city, parties of cavalrymen and mounted infantrymen left the main body of the company to range on either side of the line of march, seeking the rich estates that lined one of the three best roads in Myr. Guided by former slaves who in some cases had escaped from those same estates only days before, they generally found them, although they struck any estate or farm they happened across; the Sunset Company did not discriminate between targets.
When the estates were found, several things happened. First, any resistance was overcome; overseers, guards, and any men of the house who were foolish enough to hold onto a weapon or make any threatening moves were cut down by veterans of the great battle of Tara, against whom they had about as much chance of victory as a lady’s lapdog would have against a direwolf. Second, every slave still held in bondage was freed in a cacophony of jubilation as every chain was broken and every shackle struck off. Third, the estate or farm was systematically pillaged. This could be a major operation; even the small farms of the few freeholding yeomen of the Myrish countryside were prosperous on a scale rarely seen in Westeros. The fat black earth of the Myrish heartlands was as fertile as any soil in Westeros, and if Westeros had enjoyed years of peace since the last of the Blackfyre rebellions, it was longer still since grim-visaged War had visited the heartlands of Myr with sword and torch; the fighting between Myr and its sister cities was confined to the borderlands, and while the Dothraki had never heard the story of the goose that laid the golden eggs, they would have instantly recognized the sense behind it. As a result, even the meanest yeoman’s cottage was well-furnished by Westerosi standards, and the barns and granaries were filled with grain; the war had so disrupted the usual system of transport, with Rhaegar’s army requisitioning carts and wagons to carry supplies, that the grain had not been transported to market.
In addition to all the foodstuffs they could carry, the Westerosi swept up any coin or loose valuables they could find; if there were any survivors from the capture of the estate, they were questioned ruthlessly about where their wealth was hidden, often with torture. This, of course, presumed that the newly freed ex-slaves had not killed the survivors already, which they usually did. The officers commanding the raiding parties did their best to prevent any female captives from being raped, on the orders of their Captain-General, but they could not be everywhere at once and many of them simply ignored the screams on the grounds that they had more important things to be getting on with, like organizing transport for the spoils that would feed the company and enrich both their men and the general coffers of the company.
At last, after everything that could be carried away had been stowed and loaded and the freedmen were ready to march, the torches were lit. The cottages of the yeomen were generally spared, although the furniture was almost always smashed, but every manse that received a visit from the Sunset Company’s raiders was burned, either by the raiders themselves or by the freedmen. In bringing freedom and justice to Myr, the Sunset Company left a trail of death and ruin, marked by pillars of smoke from manses put to the torch.
Word of their coming preceded them, as these things do, and many Myrish chose not to await their arrival. Taking whatever valuables and heirlooms they could carry on their backs, their horses, or in a cart, they took to the road and ran for Myr city, constantly looking over their shoulders for the cloud of dust that would herald the outriders of the horde that had descended on them. These refugees, augmented by those who had actually endured the Andals’ visitations and either escaped or been let loose, streamed into Myr city by the hundreds every day, each bearing their own tale of woe and anguish, and their stories mingled and conflated until many-tongued Rumor flew through the city. The Andals were freeing and arming every slave, even the women and children. The Andal priests had declared a holy war against the very institution of slavery, and were urging the utter destruction not just of Myr, but of every Free City that did not immediately free their slaves. The Andals’ chieftain was a stag-headed giant who exulted in rape and slaughter and laughed as he slew; his chief lieutenant was a pelt-wearing barbarian from the farthest northland who ate the hearts of his enemies and could transform into a great man-wolf. The armed slaves had sworn a blood-oath by dark gods that they would not leave a freeborn throat uncut or a freeborn maidenhead untorn when they captured Myr.
The rumors grew ever more fantastic and ever more hysterical as the days passed and the flow of refugees from the countryside continued unabated. The common people of Myr muttered in their taverns and bawdyhouses, the magisters sealed themselves in their manses, priests held forth on street corners about the savagery of the Andals and the judgment of the gods that rode with them, the Conclave debated, the guards on the walls watched for the gleam of sunlight on spearheads that would herald the coming of the enemy, and the slaves whispered in their barracks, laying their own plans against the advent of freedom.
Chapter 22: Red Viper Rising
Chapter Text
Red Viper Rising
Meanwhile, in Westeros . . .
King's Landing would rejoice at the birth of King Stannis' firstborn son Prince Lyonel, who received the title Prince of Dragonstone, and would quickly gain the additional title of the Black Prince in homage to the Baratheon coloring he inherited from his father.
The event, like the births of all his children, would see displays of largess otherwise unheard of from the king as the coffers of the Red Keep opened to provide food and merriment for the smallfolk of the capital; and even the public works of the crownroads and the reclamation of Rhaenrya's Hill would be halted as public holiday was declared by the Grim Stag.
But the jubilation of the people and king would prove short-lived, as it would be revealed than on the very day of the Black Prince’s birth, Oberyn Martell would declare that his brother Doran's failure to avenge the murder of their kin and defend the honor of House Nymerios Martell, had forfeited his right to sit as head of their house. As such Prince Oberyn would declare himself the one rightful Prince of Dorne and call for the Dornish to flock to his host; to both install him in Sunspear and restore the independence of the Dornish Principality.
In one audacious move Oberyn Martell would ignite the first fire that would test the fledgling Baratheon Dynasty, and the first of the many wars of Lyonel the Magnificent’s life.
The Red Viper Rebellion had begun . . .
Oberyn Martell mounted his favorite horse and rode to the top of the great dune overlooking his camp. Here, in the great desert between Sandstone and Hellholt, was the true soul of Dorne, and it was here where its truest men lived. Among the host that had answered his call the scorpions of the Qorgyles and the flames of the Ullers were most prominent, along with a bandera of three hundred men from the farming settlements along the banks of the Greenblood under his own banner of the sun-and-spear encircled by the red viper. Around the periphery of the main block of tents were men from the other houses of Dorne; pale mountaineers who had remembered honor, swarthy fishers and shore-dwellers from the coast, and even some townsmen from Planky Town or the shadow town at the base of Sunspear who had acknowledged their true prince.
The trumpets blared for silence and the assembled host before him quieted. Oberyn muttered a quick prayer for eloquence and began to orate. “Cousins,” he began, pitching his voice to be heard even in the back of the host, although there were heralds to repeat his words. “Brothers and sisters of Dorne! Barely a year ago, our beloved princess, Elia of Martell, was savagely and inhumanly murdered along with her children. Men say it is unknown who committed this abominable deed, but all men know who the culprit is! It was Tywin Lannister who gave the command, it was Amory Lorch who stabbed Elia’s daughter Rhaenys half a hundred times, and it was Gregor Clegane whom men call the Mountain who dashed out the brains of Elia’s son Aegon before he raped and strangled her.” There were murmurs through the host, and a few ululated their grief for the slain.
“We know this, as all men with eyes to see and ears to hear know,” Oberyn continued. “And from that day to this, we have demanded justice for our murdered princess and her babes. By the blood wrongfully shed, by the horror visited on our beloved princess, we have demanded the vengeance that we are owed, by the laws of gods and men. And how have we been answered?” Oberyn allowed some of the anger boiling in his heart to seep into his voice. “Our demands for what we are rightfully due and owed have been met with naught but silence and insult! Tywin the Butcher lolls in Casterly Rock and revels in his wealth and his honors! Gregor the Mountain even now holds a place of honor as the sworn shield of the Butcher’s son and heir! Amory Lorch is accounted as a trusty and well-beloved bannerman of the Butcher! And King Stannis, who owes us justice for our slain, takes the Butcher’s daughter to his bed and calls her his queen, rutting with her in the same apartment where our princess’s daughter was slaughtered!” Boos rose from the crowd, interspersed with cries of “Shame! Shame!” and “To the spears!”
“And while we are so insulted,” Oberyn went on, now in the full grip of his rage, “our so-called prince does nothing! The blood and dishonor of our princess and her children, his own sister and niece and nephew, cries out from the earth for vengeance and he does nothing! He sits in the Tower of the Sun and weeps as a beaten whor* weeps, while the ghosts of our defiled princess and her butchered children plead for justice from the Heavens!” Roars of disapproval rose from the host, but to Oberyn’s relief they were all for Doran’s sluggishness. This had been the most dangerous part; Tywin Lannister and his dogs were easy targets, but a ruling Prince less so.
He flung up his hand and the cries of “Shame!” and “Dishonor!” slowly stilled. “A prince who does not protect his people, and fails to avenge their deaths, is not a prince that deserves to rule us,” he declared, his words striking the silence as thrown rocks against a board. Gods be with me; I cannot turn back now . . . He stifled the regret he felt for his brother’s wife, who was blameless in this affair; only with an iron heart could he say what he had to say next. “Here do I declare that Doran Martell the coward is deposed, and that I, Oberyn of the House of Nymeros Martell, trueborn and true son of the line of Nymeria, claim the title and throne of the Prince of Dorne. For my first act, I declare that Dorne withdraws her allegiance from King Stannis, who has ignored our demands for justice. For my second act, I declare war unrelenting on House Lannister.” The swelling roar of acclaim was stilled, barely by his upraised hand. “I declare House Lannister, and all who swear them fealty, to be enemies of Dorne!” he proclaimed. “On the blood of my raped and murdered sister, and the graves of my slaughtered niece and butchered nephew, I swear that I shall give no peace and no mercy to House Lannister. I shall destroy them utterly, unto the last child, lay their castles in ruins, and put to the sword every man, woman, and child who bears the taint of Lannister blood, so that they shall be no more.” Spears were being beaten on shields now, in a growing thunder that Oberyn had to shout over. “This I swear,” he yelled, “with the Gods and all here as my witness! And I summon all true Dornishmen who love their country and the memory of Elia the Fair to my banner! Let all true Dornishmen declare their fealty, or perish with our enemies!”
The thunder of spear on shield rose to a crescendo, and the ululating war cries that had put fear in the armies of the northerners for generations out of mind split the heavens.
The first target of the rebels was those noble houses that did not declare for Oberyn. Of these, the most prominent was House Yronwood, the most powerful of the Stony Dornish houses and the strongest noble house in all of Dorne after the Martells. Hoping to make a show of force by crushing these overmighty vassals, Oberyn led his forces out of the desert and into the foothills of the eastern Red Mountains, the heart of the Yronwoods’ power. Weakened by desertions to Oberyn’s cause and faced with overwhelming numbers, the Yronwoods were quickly faced with a crisis . . .
Anders Yronwood brooded in his solar, glowering down at his family’s lands from the tower window. It was ordinarily a restoring vista, with the stark beauty of the Red Mountains contrasting the fertile upland meadows that produced the bulk of the House’s fighting-tail. On this occasion, however, it was anything but restorative. The columns of smoke rising to the sapphire sky saw to that.
Damn Oberyn, Anders thought bitterly, damn him to the deepest hell. The Red Viper had murdered his grandfather over the favors of the old man’s paramour, while he was a guest, to boot. Oh, the official story was that Edgar Yronwood’s wounds had festered, but there was no doubt in Anders’ mind whatsoever that Oberyn had fought that duel with a poisoned blade, in blatant contravention of the dictates of chivalry. For the sake of peace, and for the sake of Prince Doran’s regard, he had done his best to put the past behind him; Oberyn had been effectively exiled, after all. But the old imperative, ancient as the mountains, that blood demanded blood, still lurked in his heart.
And then this mad revolt. Anders had been both puzzled and more than a little indignant at Prince Doran’s hesitation in seeking revenge for his sister and her children, but he had been patient. He knew Doran of old; the Prince of Dorne had never bolted his food when he could linger over it, and his mind was a labyrinth of schemes and counter-schemes. So Anders had consoled himself with the thought that whenever Doran did act, it would be well-considered, and the more complete for being thorough. But Oberyn had lost his reason, and as a result the people who looked to Anders for protection were being harried with fire and sword.
And Anders couldn’t do anything to stop it. Even if none of his men had deserted to the Viper’s standard, Yronwood didn’t have the men to face down a host of the size that Oberyn commanded. And all his ravens to Sunspear seeking aid had gone unanswered; for all the good they had done, Anders might as well have eaten them.
There was another he could call on for aid though. The mere thought of it stung Anders’ pride, but his pride would not shield his people. With a final glare at the columns of smoke that hung accusingly in the air, Anders strode away from the window, sat at his desk, and, bile in his throat, began to write.
To His Grace, Stannis, the First of His Name of House Baratheon, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Defender of the Realm, greetings.
As I am sure Your Grace is aware, some three sennights ago Oberyn Martell raised his banners in rebellion, declaring his intent to depose his brother Prince Doran, forswear Dorne’s allegiance to the Iron Throne, and exterminate House Lannister. In this he has been joined by Houses Qorgyle and Uller, their bannermen, and various other forces throughout Dorne. Some, however, have remained loyal to their Prince and their King, and refused to join the revolt. I am proud to declare that my House is first among them. In response to my refusal to forswear my allegiance, the rebel has declared war upon me with the express intention of forcing my submission.
I regret to report to Your Grace that I do not have the power to adequately defend my lands and my people against the rebel. My forces at this time consist in their entirety of one hundred knights, their squires, five hundred light horse, and seven hundred foot, of whom only half are regular men-at-arms. The best intelligence available to me places the rebel’s strength at some three to four thousand men, among whom are some of the best light horse in all of Dorne.
Over the past sennight I have dispatched every raven my maester has trained for Sunspear, pleading for Prince Doran’s aid as is my right under my oath of fealty to him. My repeated pleas have been met only with continued silence. I must perforce conclude that Prince Doran is unable or unwilling to march against the rebel.
Consequently I appeal to Your Grace for justice and protection, trusting that Your Grace will remember your oath to your people to defend them against all their enemies. I pray Your Grace to come to Dorne with sufficient power to suppress the rebel and restore the King’s Peace in Dorne, in aid of which I pledge all the strength available to me. Should Your Grace do this, I shall pledge my fealty and my homage to Your Grace, to be your true and loyal servant against all Your Grace’s enemies with all my power, for so long as the mountains endure.
I pray Your Grace not take too long in answering this plea; we are in a most desperate case.
I remain, in the meantime, Your Grace’s humble and obedient servant,
Anders Yronwood, the Bloodroyal, Lord of Yronwood, and Warden of the Stone Way
Anders neatly folded the letter, sealed it with his signet ring, and called for his maester. The raven flew north that very evening. Anders spent the rest of the night trying not to think too much about what his forefathers would have thought of him begging for help from a northerner, and a Baratheon descended from the Durrandons at that. He suspected that they wouldn’t be very understanding.
Lord Yronwood’s letter found a receptive ear in King’s Landing. Although the news of the rebellion had come as a shock to King Stannis and his Small Council, the young king proved both resilient and decisive. The marcher houses of the Reach and the Stormlands were immediately ordered onto a war footing, and orders went out for two royal hosts to gather. One, to be comprised primarily of Reachmen and Riverlanders, was to assemble at Highgarden and march down the Prince’s Pass under the command of Mace Tyrell and Randyll Tarly. The other, composed of Stormlanders, Crownlanders, and Valemen, was to assemble at Summerhall and march down the Boneway under Stannis’ personal command . An offer of ten thousand horse and foot by Tywin Lannister was turned down; as Roose Bolton put it, “The Dornish are people to befriend, kill, or leave well enough alone, but never to insult.”
As these hosts would take some time to gather and march to the combat zone, time that the Yronwoods didn’t have to spare, orders swiftly flew to Blackhaven, Grandview, Stonehelm and Crow’s Nest, ordering the Dondarrions, the Grandisons, the Swanns, and the Morrigens to march down the Boneway at best speed and place themselves under Lord Yronwood’s command. This unprecedented move of cooperation went off with surprisingly few hitches, although the combined marcher force did not pursue Oberyn’s forces very aggressively, being content to guard the Yronwood lands and hold the Boneway open until the royal hosts arrived.
A month later, Yronwood hosted another unprecedented event . . .
All his life, Ser Cortnay Penrose had known that the Dornish were the enemy.
According to family legend, the first Penrose had been a scribe who had saved his master’s life from a Dornish assassin. Penrose’s had followed the Storm Kings to war on the Dornish Marches for centuries before the Conquest; after the Conquest they had followed the three-headed dragon of the Targaryens south behind Aegon the Conqueror and Daeron the Young Dragon. As a boy, Cortnay had dreamed of bettering the deeds of his ancestors in those old wars; of forcing the Boneway against the Wyls and the Yronwoods, of sweeping the banks of the Greenblood with sword and torch, of matching wits against raiding war-bands out of the deep deserts under the colors of the Ullers and the Qorgyles, of scaling the walls of Sunspear and storming the Tower of the Sun in the teeth of the Martell spears.
Never in all his days had he ever dreamed that he would be a high officer in a royal army entering Dorne at the invitation of the Dornish.
And yet here he was, the Lord Commander of the royal bodyguard, escorting a king into Dorne who had come at the request of a Dornish lord to fight other Dornish. If his forefathers who had made war on Dorne in those bygone days had lived to see the event, they would have died of shock. One or two of them might have had the presence of mind to gasp out warnings against treachery before they expired, but Cortnay doubted it.
Behind them the Dornish half of the Boneway was filled with royal troops. In the center were the infantry; archers and brigandine-coated spearmen from the Riverlands, mailed spearmen and archers from the Vale, billmen and archers from the Stormlands, and a block of six hundred spearmen from the Crownlands in breastplates and open-faced halfhelms under the black stag of the royal house. At either end of the column were the knights and freeriders of the army, the Valemen and Riverlanders at the rear and the Stormlanders and the Crownlanders at the front.
Normally, Stannis held a place in the column at the join between the vanguard cavalry and the infantry, surrounded by the Royal Order of the Storm; Cortnay refused to call it the Stormguard as some men did, out of a lifelong belief in calling things by their proper names. Today, however, Stannis had ridden ahead of the army to meet with Lord Yronwood, taking all twenty of the knights of the Order who had marched with the army with him; the other twelve had stayed in King’s Landing to protect Queen Cersei and Prince Lyonel. As they neared the castle, Cortnay pursed his lips at the vista that greeted them; apparently the Red Viper’s raiders had gotten quite close to the castle before being driven off by the arrival of the marchers who had been dispatched to Yronwood’s aid. It said much for the rebels’ numbers and prowess that they should so discomfit the second house of Dorne, inferior only to the Martells.
At the gates of the castle, under the shadow of its frowning towers, there waited a sight that Cortnay had dreamed of encountering across a stricken field in his youthful days; the Lord of Yronwood, the most powerful lord in all of Dorne bar one, mounted and armed and surrounded by his household men with his banner flying; a prize greater than any in Dorne save for a scion of the Martells, sure to yield gold, honor, and fame to any man who was knight enough to take or slay him. Cortnay had to remind himself that far from an enemy, Lord Anders was a fellow subject of the king who had been forced to beg for aid against a foe he could not defeat on his own. In a way he could almost feel sorry for him; no man liked to be a supplicant, much less a stiff-necked Dornishman.
As the royal party drew near and reined in, Lord Yronwood dismounted in a clatter of armor. Handing off his horse to a squire and stepping forward, he slowly bent the knee and bowed his head, while the knights of his household lowered their lances until the long points touched the ground in salute. Stannis, still young but already tall and looking almost as regal as Robert had ever done, also dismounted and walked forward until he stood before the Dornishman. “My lord,” he said solemnly, “as you have asked, I have come. What would you have of me?”
“Justice, Your Grace,” Lord Yronwood said hoarsely. “Justice for my murdered people, my slain men, and my devastated lands. Justice and the head of Oberyn Martell, who men call the Red Viper.”
“Then justice you shall have,” Stannis said, a note of iron sternness entering his voice. “Let all here witness: By my right of high justice in all of Westeros, I declare Oberyn Martell to be an outlaw, and an enemy of the Iron Throne. I denounce and attaint him, and command all leal men to do him such harm as they are able. In aid whereof, I myself shall lead the hunt for him, and may the gods defend the right.”
Lord Yronwood drew his sword from where he knelt and held it before him, the point resting on the ground and his hands clasped about the hilt. “Here do I pledge my fealty and my allegiance to His Grace, Stannis of House Baratheon, King in Westeros,” he said, his voice stronger now. “To him shall I give my service without reservation, offering my tax and my counsel in peace and my swords and my spears in war. His enemies are mine, as are his friends. Thus do I swear, binding me and my heirs after me, while the mountains endure.”
“I hear and accept your oath, my lord,” Stannis replied, “and in doing so bind myself to reward what is given; fealty with love, valor with honor, good service with good lordship. All who do harm to you do harm to me, and at their peril. Thus do I swear, binding me and my heirs after me, while the line of my House endures.”
Lord Yronwood sheathed his sword, rose to his feet, and exchanged the kiss of peace with his monarch. Even then, Cortnay did not wholly relax until every man present shared bread and salt; old habits died hard, after all. Even later in the evening during the welcome feast in the castle hall when the wine came out and the Dornishmen drank to the health of King Stannis and his newborn son, Cortnay remained all too aware of where his sword and dagger hung on his belt.
The arrival of royal forces at Yronwood forced Oberyn to withdraw to the headwaters of the River Scourge; although he commanded the largest single army in Dorne, Oberyn could not hope to face Stannis’ army in open battle, especially not after it had been reinforced by Dornish royalists like Lord Yronwood. Nothing daunted, the Red Viper proceeded to move down the Scourge to the Greenblood, hoping to draw Stannis after him by threatening to capture Sunspear. Stannis wasted no time in setting out in pursuit, which was greatly aided by his securing the loyalty of House Jordayne thanks to the good offices of Ser Harold Jordayne, who had been in Stonehelm on business and enjoyed the distinction of being the first Dornish knight to swear fealty to Stannis during the Rebellion.
In Sunspear, the Martells prepared for a siege. They did so under a significant handicap; Prince Doran had been in an unstable emotional state ever since the death of his beloved sister. The news that his brother had rebelled against him brought on what the medical profession at the time called severe melancholia and what modern medicine would term acute depression. As a result, the responsibility of undertaking defensive measures largely devolved on his wife, Princess-Consort Mellario, and the officers of his household. Fortunately for the Martells, Mellario rose to the occasion . . .
“The last of the outrider parties has returned, my lady,” Ricasso said, consulting the scroll in his hand and thanking the gods for the opportunity to get out of the sun; this inner chamber of the Tower of the Sun was blessedly dark and cool after the glaring heat of late summer in southern Dorne.“The food they have gathered has been dispatched to the castle granary, and the able-bodied men and women of military age are being entered onto the levy rolls and provided weapons and armor. All that remains is to fire that part of the shadow city that lies outside the Winding Walls and we will have done all we can to prepare.”
Mellario, Princess Consort of Dorne, and it’s effective ruler thanks to the incapacitation of its Prince, nodded pensively. “Order Ser Manfrey to make preparations to do so, but to wait until the rebels are within sight of the walls before burning the city,” she commanded. “It would be ill-done if we destroyed our people’s homes and livelihoods unnecessarily.”
Ricasso blinked. “My lady believes that King Stannis may defeat the rebel?”
“In war, I am told, anything is possible,” Mellario replied. “At the very least, Stannis appears to have rather more men than my good-brother does.”
“Perhaps so, my lady, but numbers are not everything in war,” Ricasso replied; boldly perhaps, but he had grown old in House Martell’s service. That sort of tenure gave you privileges. “Were it otherwise, Dorne would have fallen to the first Aegon and we would almost certainly not be here.”
“Indeed,” Mellario observed, her tone mildly frosty. “In the event that it comes to a siege, how do we stand to offer resistance?”
“I will need to review the final figures after today’s totals are tallied,” Ricasso answered, “but as of last report we have a thousand knights and men-at-arms in the city, along with twice as many levy infantry. We have provisions for three months at full rations and five at half rations. Our cisterns and wells are full, and at need we can boil seawater and condense the steam; it won’t produce much, but it will produce some water at least.”
“All our soldiers are loyal?” Mellario asked pointedly.
Ricasso spread his hands. “My lady, we can hardly expect a traitor to reveal themselves before they take action,” he said. “However, the nature of the walls provides some safeguard against the most dangerous kind of treachery. Any traitor seeking to open a gate to the rebel would need to open all three portals of the Threefold Gate at the same time and hold them until the rebels managed to secure them. I trust my lady will share my skepticism that so perilous a scheme could be executed.”
Mellario nodded. “I certainly admit that it would appear far-fetched,” she allowed, “but still I must consider that even so chancy a plot might succeed.” Left unsaid was the thought that no one had seriously contemplated that Oberyn would revolt against his brother.
Ricasso bowed. “Even in the event of such catastrophe, my lady, we would not be entirely undone,” he assured her. The Sandship can be held by less than two hundred men, if they are brave and well-led, and Captain Hotah has vowed that in the event of treachery he will hold the Sandship against all comers with the household guardsmen.”
Mellario smiled. “If Areo says so, then I believe him,” she said simply, reminding Ricasso that the Princess Consort had known Hotah for years before she ever came to Dorne. “Is there more news of the rebel and the king?”
Ricasso shook his head. “None that can be considered reliable, my lady,” he said regretfully. “As of our last reliable report, the rebels are still in the vicinity of Godsgrace attempting to subdue the Allyrions, and the king is advancing against them.”
“Very well,” Mellario said. “Thank you, Master Ricasso.”
Ricasso hesitated, then bowed. “If I may ask, my lady . . .” he began.
“About the Prince?” Mellario asked sharply, her eyes glinting. Ricasso bowed lower. “He remains as he has been since news of the rebellion reached us,” she said, her voice devoid of inflection. “Maester Caelotte is attending him to the best of his abilities, but he fears that the Prince’s condition is tied in some way to the state of the rebellion; he hopes that a victory may result in some improvement.”
Ricasso straightened and folded his hands in his sleeves. “Then I shall pray for the King’s victory, my lady,” he said calmly.
“Please do,” Mellario said, her expression softening. “You may go, Master Ricasso.”
Ricasso bowed and walked out of the room.
As it happened, Mellario’s preparations would prove unnecessary. Four days after the Threefold Gates were closed, a royal scouting party collided with a rebel scouting party a mile downriver from Godsgrace. Both commanders, thinking that they faced a much larger force than they truly did, immediately dispatched urgent requests for reinforcements . . .
- Blood and Sand: The Red Viper Rebellion by Maester Coran, published 1745 AC
Chapter 23: Flight and Ultimatum
Chapter Text
Flight and Ultimatum
In the captain’s cabin of the Conqueror’s Blade, flagship of the Royal Fleet, the chiefs of the Targaryen loyalists sat and took wine. The mood was subdued; only the day before they had been forced to cut their way out of a city that had been roused against them, and the toll of that fighting march to the docks, and the grinding battle to hold the mobs away from the docks where their ships were berthed, weighed on their souls. Magister Rahtheon still had a haunted look in his eyes; for a man who had rebuilt his family’s fortunes from genteel poverty, the loss of wealth and position entailed by their flight was as harrowing as the prospect of being dismembered by the furious crowd. Ser Gyles Rambton, who as Lord Admiral was the de facto master of ships, and Ser Marq Grafton, who commanded the Gulltown squadrons, had only in the past hour lost the involuntary shaking in their fingers that had made writing and holding a full glass difficult. Ser Arthur Dayne and Ser Barristan Selmy had concealed their own agitations ruthlessly, but they had both been grateful for the opportunity to get away from prying eyes and permit themselves to feel the fear that the mobs had struck in them. Arthur, for one, knew that there would be a special place in his nightmares for the surf-roar of ten thousand people driven mad by fear and rage, punctuated by the pounding chant of “Out! Out! Out! Out! Out!”
After a moment of silence, Arthur leaned forward. “My lords,” he said formally, “before we begin, I must thank you all for the courage and prowess you showed during our most recent difficulty. As soon as we have the opportunity, we will need to provide a suitable reward to the men for their steadfastness, especially the sailors of the fleet. If they had not stood fast, we would not have been able to make good our escape.”
“And what exactly do you mean to reward them with?” Marq asked sardonically. “Knighthoods all around? A knighthood is a fine thing to be sure, but you can’t spend it on wine, women, and song, nor yet send it home to the family, and the men have yet to be paid this month. And if we have more than three hundred gold dragons between us, I’ll eat my boots.”
“We are not utterly destitute,” Rahtheon replied. “The majority of my assets may have been lost in Myr, but I have properties and accounts in the other Free Cities. We will not starve, at least.”
“All well and good,” Gyles replied, “but what do we do after we find our feet again? My lords, if the Usurper has followed us this far, he will not hesitate to follow us farther. And if Myr could not withstand him, do we truly think that Lys or Tyrosh can do so?”
“The Usurper has no fleet,” said Barristan, “and Lys and Tyrosh are island cities. He may be able to storm Myr, but he cannot do as much to Lys or Tyrosh unless he finds some way to march an army across water.”
“And would the Tyroshi or the Lyseni prove more resilient than we did?” Rahtheon asked. “I know them, ser knight, and the moment we become a greater liability than an asset, they will throw us to the Usurper as the Conclave did.”
There was a moment of silence as all around the table acknowledged the truth of Rahtheon’s words. The Tyroshi were the most martial of the Three Daughters, but they were raiders and slavers for the most part, not soldiers fit to face down the Sunset Company. And the Lyseni were brothel-keepers, not warriors; they hired sellswords to fight their wars, and the Sunset Company had demonstrated at Pentos and Tara that they could handle sellswords.
Arthur drummed his fingers on the table. “So if Tyrosh and Lys are not suitable,” he said, “then we must look further afield.” He turned to Rahtheon. “How stand your contacts and your affairs in Volantis, my lord?”
Rahtheon spread his hands. “Broad enough, among the merchant community,” he said. “Less so among the Old Blood, who do not directly involve themselves in day-to-day business; they have people to do that for them. Their banks are less powerful and not as refined as the Iron Bank of Braavos, but they are sound enough that I have monies deposited in their vaults.”
“Can Volantis stand against the Usurper, though?” Gyles asked.
“If any of the Free Cities can defeat the Usurper, Volantis can,” Rahtheon replied. “Of all of Valyria’s daughters they are the strongest on land, thanks to their control of the River Rhoyne and the fields it waters.”
“I mislike it,” Marq interjected. “In Myr, we had the strength to rule the city, however tenuous that rule may have been. In Volantis we will be a curiosity, and one without the strength to determine our fates. If the Old Blood decide to throw us to the Usurper, we will not be able to resist them anymore than we could the Myrish.”
“It is that very strength that may prevent such ill-fortune,” Arthur answered. “If the Volantenes are indeed strong enough to render us a minor power, they will almost certainly be strong enough to hold the Usurper at bay, especially for the next few years, at least.” Arthur leaned forward. “My lords, even if the Usurper conquers Myr, which is not an outcome preordained, he will not be in a position to seriously challenge Volantis for some time. At the very least he will have to reduce Lys and Tyrosh, if not utterly subjugate them, and accomplishing that and repairing the damage enough to weld them into a single kingdom will take years, if I am any judge. Even if he demands that the Old Blood turn us out of the city, he will not be able to back up his threats with force until he can send an army from Myr to The Sorrows and not be threatened by invasions from his rear.”
Gyles nodded. “I agree with Ser Arthur’s logic,” he said. “I say we sail for Volantis.”
“We’ll need to stop at Tyrosh or Lys, first,” said Marq. “Sailing straight to Volantis will cut very close to the limit of our supplies, especially of water. One week without wind would be the death of us.”
“We’ll stop at Tyrosh,” Arthur replied. “If we stopped at Lys we’d never get the men on board again.” The chuckles that ran around the table at the thought of trying to enforce discipline among sailors and soldiers in Lys of all cities masked an undertone of unease. All commanders dreaded mutiny.
When all had filed out again, Gyles to the Blade’s quarterdeck, Marq to his own Gulltown’s Pride, Rahtheon to his daughter’s cabin to apprise her of the council’s decision, and Barristan to Viserys’ cabin, Arthur knelt beside the curtained bed that contained the comatose body of his king. He did not bother to speak; if Rhaegar could hear and understand, then he would have heard and understood all that the council had said. All that remained was to protect him. And if he died, as looked more likely with every day, then Arthur would protect his heir as fiercely as he had protected him, whether that heir was Viserys or a son born of Queen Praela.
He had sworn an oath.
XXX
Talaeron Arreos made for a decent exemplar of that category of humans titled “Myrish, young man, upper-class.” He was well-educated in the skills that became a young aristocrat of his people, well-spoken, reasonably popular among his peers, and bade fair to make a worthy heir to his father’s trading concern. He stood out from the mass of his peers in two respects. Firstly, he had a reputation for being able to keep his countenance even in extremity; a skill he had developed in order to better supplement his allowance by relieving his peers of theirs at cards. Secondly, he spoke the Common Tongue of the Andals more fluently than any of his peers; Common Tongue was widely known among the Myrish aristocracy for trade, but Talaeron was almost unique in that he knew it well enough to not only recite but also discuss poetry in it.
It was these two skills that resulted in his being chosen as the Conclave’s ambassador to the Sunset Company.
His father hadn’t even been able to object, as much as he would have wished to. The Arreos clan was relatively low-ranked among the magisters of Myr, which made the selection of Talaeron as an ambassador an even greater honor than it normally was. Of course, in this particular case the honor was decidedly a mixed one, given that it would place him within the power of the Sunset Company and their armed slaves, but inquiries had established that, as barbaric as the Andals were, they at least understood that an ambassador’s person was inviolate. And if Talaeron could manage to claim hospitality, then even the most uncivilized Andal or the most rabid slave would think twice about doing him harm. Apparently among the Andals, a man who broke guest right, as they called it, would have serious cause to regret his breach of etiquette fervently and at length.
So when Talaeron was admitted to the tent of Lord Robert Baratheon, Captain-General of the Sunset Company, he was relieved to see bread, salt, and wine on the table off to one side and perturbed to see that the two men on either side of the Lord’s chair, one golden-haired and handsomely severe with his gilded armor contrasted by a black cloak, and the other dark-haired and scowling in plain unburnished steel, held unsheathed longswords before them with the points resting between their feet. If he recalled his hurried lessons correctly, that meant that hospitality was not granted, but not yet denied either, and Baratheon was willing to be convinced one way or the other.
He swallowed his nervousness, set aside the way his ambassadorial finery was cut a touch too tightly for comfort, clicked his heels, and bowed shortly. “My lord Baratheon, I presume?” he asked in the neutrally polite tones that merchants and diplomats both had as their usual manner of speaking.
The man sitting in the Lord’s chair nodded slowly. Talaeron had heard the rumors, of course, but the rumors, in this case, were only partially connected to reality. The Andal was a big man, of course, even seated, but not quite the towering ogre that rumor had painted. His head was quite normal, if proportionate to his size and decked with heavy, flowing black hair; Talaeron assumed that the antlered helmet resting at the top of the armor-stand to one side of the tent had given rise to the claim that he had a stag’s head. The bright blue eyes were intelligent and piercing, hardly alight with lust for blood or carnal pleasure. His trousers, shirt, and doublet were plain, but they were clean, well-made, and perfectly respectable, the sort of thing you would expect any nobleman to wear and hardly the blood-matted furs of rumor. In all, Talaeron thought to himself, a man after all and hardly the monster of rumor. “I am he,” the Andal said in a deep voice that could probably swell to a stunning roar at need. “Are you come from the Conclave?”
“I have the honor to be the Conclave’s ambassador, my lord,” Talaeron answered. “In proof of which, I present my credentials.” He handed over the fine paper scroll, closed with the official seal of the Conclave and decked with the seals of all fifteen of the Conclave’s members, which proved his status. Baratheon accepted it, broke the seal with a flick of his thumb, and glanced over its contents.
A minute later he rolled up the scroll and handed it off to the pimple-faced young man who was standing behind his chair. “Your credentials are accepted,” he said. “What does the Conclave want?”
Talareon bowed. “The Conclave, my lord, wishes to ask what terms you will accept to bring an end to this war,” he replied. “The Conclave wishes also to inform you that Rhaegar Targaryen and his followers have left the city bound for points unknown.”
“The Rapist yet lives?” the dark-haired lord standing at Baratheon’s right hand asked sharply.
Talaeron spread his hands. “I do not know to say yea or nay, my lord,” he replied. “The Targaryen was not seen abroad in the city after the battle, and he was carried to the ships in an enclosed horse-litter. It was rumored that he was sorely wounded at Tara, but whether he has died or yet lives is unknown to me.”
Baratheon waved a hand. “The reptile can wait his turn, then,” he said dismissively. “What terms does the Conclave offer that I should listen to them?”
Talaeron bowed. “As it please my lord, I was not told what terms the Conclave offer or accept,” he said carefully. This was the serious part. “I was bidden only to hear what terms you would accept as sufficient to end this war and convey them to the Conclave.”
Baratheon leaned back in his chair. “The only terms we will accept are unconditional surrender,” he said flatly. “Any who wish to leave the city may do so upon the surrender of all wealth they hold in the city, including their slaves. In return, I will not turn the city over to the soldiers to be sacked, and no man will be sentenced to die for any crimes they may have committed against their slaves.”
It took all of Talaeron’s self-control not to gape. “My lord,” he said when he finally regained enough confidence that he felt able to speak without stuttering, “these terms are impossible. I am not privy to the Conclave’s deliberations but I know for a certainty that they will never accept such terms as these!”
“They can accept these terms,” Baratheon said, glowering, “or they can take their chances in a sack. I have sufficient force here to take the city by storm; the freedmen alone outnumber your soldiers within the walls by at least two to one. Your soldiers that are still outside the walls are too busy fighting rebel slaves to march to your aid and even if they did we would cut them to pieces. You have more than two hundred thousand slaves within your walls; do you truly think that you can hold the walls against us and the city against them at the same time?” The massively built Andal pointed a sausage-sized finger at Talaeron. “The only two choices available to the Conclave,” he said in tones of absolute finality, “are these. Surrender and live, or fight and die. You’ve seen my army, boy. How confident are you that your city can fight it off?”
Talaeron shuddered involuntarily. The escort of knights that had met him halfway to the siege lines had been intimidating enough, like so many faceless metal monsters with swords and lances, but the slave, instantly identifiable by the scar around his neck that could only have come from a collar, who had stared at him with incandescent hatred in his eyes as he almost lovingly sharpened a short-sword had been chilling. And the sea of tents that spread around the walls of Myr held thousands of such men, each thirsting for bloody revenge. Talaeron had a sister and two nieces, and he had heard the tales of the Sunset Company’s march to Myr.
I am a son of Myr, he reminded himself sternly. Fear is beneath my dignity. “I will carry your terms to the Conclave, my lord,” he said formally. “But I must warn you that they will find little favor.”
“I don’t care how little they favor our terms, so long as they surrender,” Baratheon replied. “They can have the rest of this sennight to think it over.”
The Conclave responded to the demand for unconditional surrender with an offer to grant the officers of the Sunset Company titles of nobility and land in the northern part of the Myrish hinterlands, along with substantial donatives to each officer and also to the company as a whole. Robert responded to their offer by ordering the Corps of Pioneers, who had constructed a trio of mangonels during the negotiations, to begin bombarding the city. By the laws of war then in effect during this period, this signaled the end of negotiations; the siege of Myr was officially begun and could only end in victory for one side and defeat for the other.
- Chasing Dragons: The Sunset Company Reexamined by Maester Hendricus, published 1539 AC
Chapter 24: Calm Before the Storm
Chapter Text
Calm Before the Storm
Maester Gordon had always loved the sight of a tough job well done. His stonemason father, before sending him to the Citadel, had made Gordon earn his journeyman’s ring the hard way, and the life of a stonemason’s apprentice could be brutally hard. But seeing the actual finished product, especially of a tough, difficult job that strained the limits of your strength and skill, had an almost magical way of making the bruises and aches sting less painfully.
So looking at the finished product of what was probably the toughest job he had yet to undertake had him almost walking on clouds.
The problem had been multi-layered from the start. Firstly, the walls of Myr were forty feet high and some twenty feet thick. And if they weren’t quite as formidable as the walls of Oldtown or Riverrun or any other Westerosi castle, they were still plenty tall and stout enough to withstand the three mangonels that were the heaviest artillery that Gordon and his Pioneers had had the means to construct. So opening a breach by bombardment was out of the question.
Secondly, the soil around Myr wasn’t suitable for undermining, even if they had had the time to dig enough tunnels that one of them would slip past the inevitable counter-mines. Digging a mine ten or more feet across and some six hundred yards long would take sennights, even before they dug out a chamber underneath the actual walls large enough to cause a practicable breach. By that time, the company would be reduced to eating their remaining horses and draught beasts; if the assault failed they would be eating their boots and belts shortly thereafter, and then starvation would make them easy prey even for the Myrmen, much less any Dothraki that happened by. So mining was also out of the question.
And the traditional way of prosecuting a siege, by blockading the target and starving it out, was hilariously impractical. Myr’s logistical issues were even greater than those facing the Sunset Company, to be sure, but the Myrish also had an open harbor and a fleet that could carry supplies from anywhere else in the world and carry them into the city. The Ironborn’s longships were still in storage at Mytila, on the southern Braavosi coast, and even if they had been here, twenty longships could not hope to blockade any city against a respectable fleet of galleys and dromonds, such as the Myrish had.
That left escalade as the only practical option, along with battering down the gates. It was an option only rarely resorted to, on account of the hideous casualties it usually caused and the uncertainty of success when faced by skilled and determined opposition, but the captains, and especially Robert, believed that it could be made to work. The Myrish had shown that they were brave, at Tara, but they hadn’t been able to stand against Westerosi men-at-arms in close combat.
So the Pioneers had been ordered to build a pair of siege towers, a covered battering ram, and as many scaling ladders as they could. Gordon had ransacked every town, village, hamlet, and yeoman’s cottage for miles around, tearing down buildings and cutting down trees for timber, and worked his men every hour of daylight for the past three sennights. And his efforts had borne fruit. Two siege towers reared nearly sixty feet in the air, looming menacingly against the night sky with wetted hides, rugs, and tapestries covering their faces in a riotous patchwork of texture and color, and a battering ram lurked under its protective roof. Arrayed around the towers were a dozen ladders, each sized to overtop the walls.
Gordon wouldn’t fancy being the man who went up those ladders first, but that wasn’t his job. His Pioneers had claimed one of the ladders for themselves, but he wouldn’t be going up it; he had never trained to arms, beyond the brawling techniques every working lad needed, and he would never see forty again, either.
The men who would be going up the ladders and the towers, and taking the ram in, were already preparing themselves for the assault tomorrow.
XXX
Robert and Eddard shared a flagon of wine in Robert’s tent in companionable silence, both thinking on the morrow. They would both be going up one of the towers; Robert had had to go, of course, and Eddard, knowing better than to gainsay him, had insisted on joining him. Someone, he had claimed, had to watch Robert’s back. The laugh that had gone around the council table had had an edge to it; everyone knew that the one common strand that held all the pieces of the company together was their acknowledgement of Robert’s leadership. Especially after Tara men followed him as they wouldn’t follow Eddard or Jaime, or even the Blackfish.
Where other men would have been nervously discussing the assault tomorrow, the foster-brothers knew there was nothing to discuss. Everything was in readiness for the assault, from the two great towers to the arrows stockpiled for the archers. And they were both confident enough in their own abilities and those of their men to not make idle boasts or seek reassurance.
There were other things to talk about though.
“Have you considered that that ambassador might have been lying when he said Rhaegar had left the city?” Eddard asked finally. “For all we know, he could be hiding in some cellar somewhere waiting for us to dig him out.”
“If that were the case, then the royal fleet would still be in the harbor, and this siege would be a lot more difficult,” Robert said. “If nothing else, I wouldn’t try an escalade in the face of the lizard’s lackeys; they might serve a rapist and a murderer, but Gods witness they can fight. No cowards or empty braggarts among that lot, not after Tara.”
Eddard nodded. “And so long as he has a fleet and we don’t, we can’t catch the bastard,” he said sourly. “Hence this siege.”
Robert tipped his hand from side to side. “Among other things,” he qualified. “For one, the freedmen would mutiny if we didn’t at least try an assault.” Eddard gestured acknowledgement; Akhollo, their elected captain and representative, along with Maester Gordon, had more than once said that he and his were fighting for their freedom, not ‘some Andal girl’, as he put it. And their freedom depended on the complete destruction of slavery in at least this corner of Essos. “For another,” Robert paused, marshalling his thoughts. “We’re being carried along on the back of something big here, Ned. I thought I had it figured out in Pentos, but I didn’t know how just how many slaves there were in the East. It feels like it does in Storm’s End, when a howling storm is coming in from the sea and the wind’s just starting to pick up. When that storm breaks . . . “ he shrugged his massive shoulders. “What we’ve done so far will look like a tourney, is the best feeling I have of it.”
Eddard nodded somberly, contemplating the look he had seen in the freedmen’s eyes when they spoke of freedom. It was the same look some men got when they talked about their gods. “So long as Rhaegar dies,” he said finally, his voice as hard as northern stone. “Whoever else lives or dies, I will not rest until Rhaegar is food for worms and crows.”
“Nor will I,” Robert said. “But if we want to live long enough to take our revenge, then we need to carve out a kingdom here, and make it as strong as we can.” Robert swirled the wine in his cup. “Myr isn’t Storm’s End,” he said. “But it’ll do.”
The two foster-brothers sat and drank meditatively for a few moments more, and then Eddard drained his cup and stood. “I need to go,” he said. “The men will be gathering soon, with the sun going down.” The Northmen, lacking a heart tree or any other kind of tree thanks to the Pioneers’ insatiable demand for timber, had decided to simply face northward as they prayed tonight.
Robert stood. “I need to go out as well,” he said, tossing back the rest of his wine. “The men will be better for seeing me.” Robert was no more than conventionally pious, being of the opinion that the here and now was far more important than whatever might be waiting for him after he died. That said, he knew that his soldiers would fight better for a man they knew than they would for a stranger, and seeing that that man shared their beliefs also went a long way towards binding them to him. And in any case, it was a lord’s duty to honor the gods his folk worshipped, in much the same way that even a lord who couldn’t fight was expected to take the field when his people went to war. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“In the first light of dawn,” Eddard said, grinning wolfishly, “and we’ll have our luncheon in Myr.”
The foster-brothers clasped forearms and embraced roughly.
XXX
Jaime Lannister hadn’t gone to a sept with serious intent since he joined the Kingsguard. He had never been particularly pious to begin with, and standing guard at Queen Rhaella’s door on those nights when Aerys had visited her had turned his heart against the gods. There were things that shouldn’t be allowed to happen, especially when they could be prevented by a strong man with a sharp sword.
But his mind was in too much turmoil. His uncle, who had first taught him the blade, was dead, killed by some nameless sellsword for all love, and although Jaime knew he was not as callow as he had been when the company had landed, he still felt anchorless without his uncle’s gruff, solid dependability underwriting him. He and Uncle Gerion had mourned Tygett’s death with a flagon of strong Tyroshi brandy and old memories, but while Gerion had seemed much better for it, the loss still ate at Jaime’s confidence. Especially since he had failed the last serious challenge he had faced without his uncle’s aid.
Of all the knights in the world, Jaime had known, one of the best was Ser Arthur Dayne. The Sword of the Morning hadn’t just been a peerless swordsman, but a man of flawless honor and incomparable chivalry. Nor had it been solely repute; Jaime had seen him live the legend when he had allowed the Smiling Knight to take up another sword when his first broke in their famous duel. And Jaime had never seen him be anything less than the picture of courtesy, even when faced with vexation.
And then he had helped Rhaegar kidnap Lyanna Stark. Jaime cared little for the Stark girl, personally, but he had heard Aerys visit Rhaella after a man had been burned, and Rhaella’s pleas. If Ser Arthur had not only stood aside while something similar had happened to the Stark girl but had a hand in bringing it about . . . the thought of it made Jaime nauseous.
When a Kingsguard turned to wrong it fell to their Sworn Brothers to punish them. It was why Jaime had attacked Ser Arthur in that last snarling melee during the pursuit from Tara. But Ser Arthur had handled him like a seasoned knight handled a new squire. Even with Stark pitching in, and quite well for a Northman if Jaime was being honest, Ser Arthur would almost certainly have killed them both if he hadn’t been forced to fall back to prevent the rest of the Targaryen forces from being overrun. Jaime knew he was good with a sword, better than anyone his age he had ever fought. And as the saying went, even John the Oak or Serwyn of the Mirror Shield couldn’t beat two men at once.
The only explanation Jaime could come up with was that the Warrior had favored Ser Arthur in that fight. Which posed its own problem; why would the gods look with favor on a man who had facilitated rape?
When he asked Septon Jonothor that question, after the fierce-eyed cleric had finished saying Divine Office for the Westermen and heard the last man’s confession, the Septon had nodded understandingly, a grim set to his jaw. “It is one of the more common reasons that men doubt the gods,” he replied. “And one of the most dangerous, because taken at face value it cannot be answered. If the gods are indeed all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving, as the Seven-Pointed Star tells us, then evil ought not to exist.” Jonothor sat down on the ground with a grunt and motioned for Jaime to sit with him. As Jaime did so, Jonothor continued. “That said, there are arguments against it. To begin with, the gods gave us minds and wills of our own, which perforce grants us the ability to choose evil over good. Therefore evil does not arise from the negligence or the culpable action of the gods, but by solely human agency, for which the gods cannot be justly blamed. For another,” Jonothor gestured at the setting sun, “what is evil in the first place but the absence of an element of good, or a deviation from good? Bethink you, young Lannister; if we lived all our lives in the sunlight, how would we know what darkness is? How would we know what heat is without knowing what cold is? As darkness is to light and cold is to heat, so evil is to good; something without which it’s opposite could not be experienced, much less defined.” Jaime shrugged; he had never paid much attention when his father’s maester had tried to teach him logic, but he could see how the argument followed.
Jonothor turned his gimlet eyes on Jaime again. “All that said,” he went on, “my personal opinion is that whether or not the problem of evil contradicts the nature of the gods as we understand it is irrelevant. We are mortals, made imperfectly and born to suffer, but we have the strength to struggle against that suffering. And in our struggles we may pray to the gods for their aid; to the Father for justice, to the Mother for mercy, to the Warrior for strength, and so on. But the onus of the struggle rests on our shoulders alone. It is for us to either submit to our misfortunes, or to overcome them. It is for us to conquer our imperfections and defeat our difficulties, or to surrender to them.” He pointed a finger skywards. “Whatever choice we make,” he said, “the gods watch us, and judge whether we have proved ourselves worthy of reward. For those who submit to despair, the afterlife is much like this one, albeit less painful. But for those who overcome the difficulties that life sets against them, or who perish valiantly in their struggle, the Gates of the Seven Heavens truly open, and the delights of paradise await.” He aimed the finger he had pointed at the heavens at Jaime. “That is the choice before you, Jaime Lannister,” he said sternly. “Will you turn aside from your duty to punish your former brother for his crimes? Or will you persevere, even at the cost of your life? Choose wisely, young Lannister; the fate of your soul depends upon it.”
With that Jonothor levered himself to his feet and strode off towards the tents of the Rivermen. Jaime remained sitting; he had much to think over.
XXX
The faiths of the Seven Kingdoms each had their own way of how a man prepared to die in battle. A man who worshipped the Seven would hear Divine Office, confess his sins, and receive the blessing of a septon. A man who followed the Old Gods would simply pray, and ask the Old Gods to watch over him in the fray; in the old days a dog, a horse, or even a man would be sacrificed to entice the Old Gods’ favor, but those practices had long since died out.
Those who offered to the Drowned God, on the other hand, had a different way entirely.
A roaring bonfire had been built on the sea-strand with hoarded and salvaged wood and the Ironborn of the company were keeping wassail under the bright sickle-moon with as much of the company’s stores of wine and beer as they could get their hands on. It was the way of the Ironborn to defy the coming of death with raucous celebration, with strong drink flowing like rivers, with thunderous song, and with men boasting of what deeds they would accomplish before the Drowned God took them to His halls and swearing to fight to the death beside their shield-brothers and their gold-giving lord.
This night, they had been joined by the followers of the Red God, who offered their own prayers to the Lord of Light to the acclamation of their fellows. As these prayers were almost all for courage in the coming battle, the Ironborn invariably joined in the acclamation with their traditional shout of “Wassail!” It was right and proper, to their thinking, for a man to call on his gods for aid in battle, especially if they then went out and fought with every ounce of their strength. And since the men offering the prayers would be the first ones up the ladders tomorrow that could be taken as read.
The drowned priests would have forbidden the intermingling, of course, but none had followed the company to Essos. And even if they had, they would have been hard-put to enforce the prohibition; above all else the Ironborn respected strength and courage. The freedmen had demonstrated both in spectacular fashion at Tara, and it was doubtful that a priest would have done as much. In point of fact, a priest would probably have been excluded from the revel as much as the women of the company were, and for the same reason; this was a night for men.
One man, as pale as any Westerosi, stood forward in the firelight and raised his hand, quieting the laughter and the shouts as all within hearing range gave ear to witness; the bard who had been chanting a lay of Dalton the Red Kraken let his voice trail off and the beat of his hand-drum soften to a murmur. “Tomorrow,” the freedman said in halting Common Tongue only lightly flavored with Low Valyrian, “we fight. O Lord of Light let me fight with my sword in my hand and your flames in my heart.” The freedmen round about murmured agreement. “So that if I should die in the assault,” the freedman continued, “and face the terrible night of death, I will know that you, Lord who lights the fires of freedom, are with me, and I shall fear no man. I ask this by your grace, God of Flame and Shadow.” The freedman raised his leather drinking-jack. “Drink hail!” he cried in the fashion that had spread from the Ironborn to the freedmen at the speed of alcohol.
“Wassail!” the revelers roared back, raising drinking-jacks, tankards, and ale-horns. The hum of conversation rose again as the freedman stepped back into the crowd and the bard began to chant again of Red Dalton and his raids. A short time later another freedman stood forward, this one a Summer Islander with a short beard and skin like polished ebony. Again the noise of the crowd died to a murmur.
“You know, Lord of Light,” the freedman began, “that I was taken as a slave with all my family, and that we were sold to different masters, so that we have not seen or heard from each other since. You know also, Lord, that many of us here have suffered so.” There were murmurs of agreement through the crowd. “So Lord of Light, I come before you tonight to ask that if tomorrow is the day we die, that you visit our families in the night of their terror and tell them that we died with our faces to the enemy.” There was a ripple of approval from the freedmen, and also from the Ironborn. “Let our families know, Lord,” the freedman went on, his voice building, “that we died with our teeth in the throats of our enslavers.” The chorus of approval was shouted now, and a few Dothraki freedmen gave the short high-pitched whoops that presaged the blood-scream. “Let them know, Lord,” the freedman shouted, “that we died free!” There were roars of approbation from every quarter now, and those with weapons flourished them in the firelight. “I ask this of your Grace, o Heart of Flame, knowing how you love justice and hate the evildoer,” said the freedman, raising his goblet. “Drink hail!”
“Wassail!” the crowd roared back, drinking deep to seal the prayer. Victarion stood from where he had been sitting on a log and motioned to the men who had been serving the drink, who promptly began to refill the emptied containers.
“Brothers!” Victarion roared in his battle-voice, already deep for one as young as he. “The gods witness that I hate to cut short a revel such as this. But we must rise early tomorrow, and I am told that we are running out of drink anyway.” There was scattered laughter at the slight jest. “So allow me to end this night with a boast on behalf of us all!” he cried, holding his horn out before him. “After we drink hail to this boast, neither wine nor beer nor ale shall pass our lips until we slake our thirst in the palaces of Myr! And if the Drowned God wills that we drink not there, we shall go to His halls and drink them dry!” He raised his horn high. “Drink hail!” he roared.
“WASSAIL!” the Ironborn bellowed back amid gales of laughter. It was just the sort of madcap, daredevil gesture that spoke to the soul of every Ironborn, who learned from the cradle that all the riches of the earth were theirs if they were bold enough to seize them. The freedmen also added their voices to the toast, with a savage edge that made even hardened and tipsy reavers blink. As the revelers staggered to their beds, Ironborn and freedmen alike clasped hands and swore to fight to the death on the morrow; the Ironborn for honor’s sake, and the freedmen for the sake of Holy Freedom.
Chapter 25: The Storm Breaks
Chapter Text
The Storm Breaks
The first rays of dawn found the Sunset Company in ranks and ready to attack. During the night, the siege towers and scaling ladders had been wheeled to the head of the trench lines by the Pioneers, just two hundred yards from the walls. Robert’s Stormlanders were packed in behind one, aimed at the northern side of the Great Eastern Gate, with Eddard’s Northmen squeezed in with them. Behind the other tower, aimed at the next section of wall northward, the Westermen and the Ironborn were packed in a solid column while behind the dozen men carrying each scaling ladder there was a mass of men (and a few hard women) in the varied armor of the freedmen.
The few septons that had followed the company to the east walked up and down the lines, granting general absolution. When the septons came by the Stormlanders, there was a rush of rustling and clanking as armored men knelt and signed themselves with the seven-pointed star while the septon recited the sacrament. Eddard and his Northmen also knelt, but not for the septon. Each Northman took a pinch of dirt from the ground and held it to his lips; the more devout swallowed it, as Eddard did. From the earth we come, and to the earth we return, Eddard recited to himself, in the traditional prayer that the followers of the old gods made when faced with likely death. Gods of my fathers, watch over me amid the shattering of the spears. Grant me your strength, that I might overcome my enemies. And if I die, know that I accept it willingly, for each must die someday. So mote it be.
As the company stood, Robert held out his hand and his squire Richard Horpe handed him a horn. Robert paused, looked down the line of the company, and then blew a sky-shaking blast. “Forward!” he roared. “Justice and vengeance!”
With an answering bellow of “Justice and vengeance!” the company advanced under the patchy sky. Men put their shoulders to the poles that stuck out from the base of the siege towers and pushed, so that the great contraptions began to roll forward slowly. The freedmen, far quicker off the mark, loped forward in a dozen columns, each one tipped by a scaling ladder. As they advanced the freedmen gave voice to a baying roar, like hounds at the scent of a boar, slowly overridden by a chant of “Free or dead!”
The defenders of Myr were not long in replying. The first crossbow bolts began to fly within moments, followed by bolts from the quintet of springalds mounted atop the walls. The first screams rose up to the sky, but they went unheeded by men who were still more angry than afraid. For his part, Eddard raised the shield he had taken from the supply wagons and plodded on behind the tower. The plate armor he was wearing was all but impervious to any but the heaviest of crossbows barring very bad luck indeed, but a shield would help with those odds regardless, though he would discard it once he went up the siege tower and rely on his longsword.
The fact that the shield would be no help at all if one of the springalds hit him was something he consciously disregarded. Some things just didn’t bear thinking about.
After a seeming eternity of slowly marching behind the tower through a rain of bolts, the tower finally ground to a halt; they had reached the foot of the wall. Eddard tossed aside the shield and followed Robert up the series of steep stairs and ladders to the second-topmost level. On the actual topmost level there were a dozen archers and crossbowmen from the freedmen who were even now raking the wall with arrows and bolts, trying to clear a space for the knights and men-at-arms swarming up the tower to attack into. At last, when the second-topmost level was filled with men, each with the staring eyes and curling lips that Eddard knew as the visible signs of the battle-fury, the gangplank creaked downwards, those men with visors closed them, and with a wordless roar of fear-fueled fury, Robert and Eddard tucked their shoulders into their shields and stormed forward.
They were met with a volley of crossbow bolts that thudded into their shields like a storm of hammerblows but failed to do them any harm, and the two foster-brothers dropped their shields and rushed across the gangplank and onto the wall before the defenders could reload. Eddard fought in grim silence, but for the huff of expended breath as he struck out with his longsword, alternating diagonal overhands with short thrusts as he sought to cut a path through the Myrmen. Robert, by contrast, laughed and roared as he laid about him with his hammer, each blow dashing a Myrman to the ground. “Three!” he bellowed, as he crushed a helmet. “Four!” as he shattered a scale breastplate. “Come on you bastards, my hammer’s hungry!” Behind them came a flood of Northmen and Stormlanders. The Greatjon was next on the wall after Eddard and the first blow of his greatsword cleaved through two Myrmen and knocked a third off the wall screaming. Ser Willam Fell, commonly called ‘Silveraxe,’ shouldered his way onto Robert’s left side, his famous axe rising and falling like a blacksmith’s hammer, while Richard Horpe followed Robert as close as he could without impeding his lord’s fighting room. Maege and Dacey Mormont jumped off the gangplank with shadowcat screams, their maces whirring. Ser Brus Buckler fell in on Robert’s right, his sword and shield working like a boxer’s fists. They had a foothold on the wall.
But they didn’t have the towers on either side of them. Those towers were full of crossbowmen loosing bolts as fast as they could span their crossbows and even against heavy armor the bolts told as either chance or skill sent them through the gaps in protection that every suit of armor had; the stones being cast from the roofs of those towers were even more effective, if less accurate. A Northman in Umber livery fell screaming as a bolt punched through the mail skirt beneath his breastplate and skewered his groin. A Stormlander with a visor-less sallet helm was shot through the face and toppled off the gangplank without so much as a sigh, dead long before he hit the ground sixty feet below. The Myrish spearmen, defending their homes and families, closed ranks and fought with the grim doggedness of men with everything to lose, holding the Westerosi at bay with a wall of shields and a hedge of spear points. Arnolf Karstark tried to break through the spears and was cut off and stabbed to death with daggers. Maege Mormont stood over the body of her daughter Dacey, slain by a ten-pound stone thrown from a tower that broke her skull, and wept as she slew. The archers and crossbowmen on the siege tower took every shot they could, but they were beginning to run short of arrows, and what was more three of them were dead and four more severely wounded.
To compound the problem, there simply wasn’t enough space. The foothold on the wall was already packed with men and no more could fit, so that the flood of reinforcements became clogged on the gangplank of the siege tower, a prime target for crossbow and rock and thrown spear. The Westerosi were being stymied, bottled up by spearmen who forewent trying to push them off the wall by their own efforts and simply held them in place for the crossbows to chip away at them.
On the other segment of the wall, much the same thing was happening. Gregor Clegane and Victarion Greyjoy had led the rush across the gangplanks, with Jaime Lannister and Dagmer Cleftjaw hard on their heels; the Mountain, who had missed the final scrambling melee in the pursuit from Tara thanks to his horse foundering beneath him, had flatly refused to let Jaime be first onto the wall and offered to eat the guts of any man who tried to stop him. Now, on the walls of Myr, Gregor Clegane was proving his worth as every swing of his massive greatsword felled a Myrman. Roaring with the battle-lust, he forged ahead into the crowd of Myrmen, blazing a path to the door of the tower separating the Westermen and the Ironborn from the Stormlanders and Northmen. He was twenty steps deep in the Myrish phalanx when a fifteen-pound rock thrown from the tower he had been making for struck him on the helmet and dropped him to his knees, stunned. Talaeron Arreos, who was one of the officers on this stretch of wall, dropped shield and spear and, drawing a dagger, tackled the Mountain, knocking him fully prone. Clegane, who managed to come to his senses a bare moment before the young Myrman was able to drive the dagger into his visor, caught the young Myrman’s wrist in one hand and his neck in the other and crushed his throat by main strength, but by then another Myrman had dropped his shield and spear to take up the stone that had stunned the Mountain. Propelled downward by frantic, hateful, desperate strength, the stone split in half even as it broke Clegane’s helmet asunder along the weld-lines and smashed him down into unconsciousness. A quartet of Myrmen who flung themselves on him with daggers stabbed him to death in the next instant, even as the Myrman who had taken up the stone stamped his boot down on his head as a man stamps on a scorpion he has stumbled across by surprise.
Even as the Mountain had blazed his last trail of blood and death, the Myrish spears had closed behind him and held the Andals at bay. Jaime, Victarion, and Dagmer were swiftly joined by Jaime’s uncle Gerion, Lyle Crakehal, Harras Harlaw, and Addam Marbrand, but the same problems that were befalling Robert and Eddard on the next section of wall over were befalling them. There was simply too little space and too many Myrmen resolved to shed their heart’s blood in the last ditch to protect their families and their livelihoods for any collection of paladins to overcome.
The assault would almost certainly have been repulsed with great loss, but two things happened that later chroniclers almost uniformly ascribed to the will of the gods.
XXX
Gordon’s heart sank as he saw the freedmen begin to fall back from the wall. With a shout of “Follow me!” to those of his Pioneers who hadn’t gone forward yet, he plunged forward towards the retreating men; he was not terribly conversant with how fighting men acted under these sorts of conditions, but he had heard about how important it was to stop a retreat as quickly as possible, before it became a rout. The freedmen’s officers were already bellowing themselves hoarse as they waded into their men, cursing mightily as they exhorted their men to stand and fight, but they needed help
He body-checked the first retreating set of retreating men he came to. “Stop, godsdamnit!” he roared in their faces. “Stop! We’ll beat the bastards yet!” Moving on, he grabbed an underofficer by the shoulders and shook him roughly. “Grow some balls, man!” he shouted. “Get your boys in order and get them back on those walls!” Pushing deeper into the crowd he caught a pair of men by the collars of their gambesons. “Are you going to let the bastards enslave you again!?” he demanded. “Stand and fight, damn you!” Pushing off from them he came across Akhollo, who was almost weeping with rage as he abominated his men in Dothraki for cowards and eunuchs. Gordon buffeted him across the face to get his attention. “Get a hold of yourself, man!” he roared. “Get a hold of yourself and a handle on your men; we need them up that wall!”
“STAND, BROTHERS!” Gordon spun around and saw Septon Jonothor standing like a tower, his crystal raised in his right hand and his face transfigured with passion. “STAND,” Jonothor roared in a voice of thunder, “AND HEAR THE WORDS OF THE GODS!”
The freedmen nearby, already slowed by Gordon and their officers, halted dead in their tracks; others, nearby, slowed to a walk.
Jonothor raised his eyes to the heavens. “Thus sayeth the Father:” he said in a voice that carried even over the surf-pounding of the assault, “he that places chains on a man and enslaveth him enslaveth me, for man is made in my image. Him that would keep faith with me must give no peace to the slaver, nor show him mercy, but destroy him utterly, and free every man he holds in bondage. Thus sayeth the Warrior:” the freedmen around him were staring at him transfixed, those nearby who had slowed down had stopped. Others further away were slowing. “Thou art my battle axe and my weapons of war. With thee shall I shatter kingdoms; with thee shall I break in pieces the nations. For it is I who lend thee of my strength, that thou mayest overthrow thine enemies, and take their possessions for thy birthright. Thus sayeth the Father:” every freedman within hearing range had stopped by now, and others out of easy earshot were stopping to investigate and crowding around. “Him that seeketh justice, and who giveth of his life for the cause of justice, even though he die, yet shall he live. For I shall take him up and say to him ‘Well done and bravely fought, thou who art great among my children.’ And I shall seat him at my right hand at the feasting table, as a father doth a favorite son, and the Mother shall bless him, and the Warrior greet him as a brother, and the Maiden welcome him as a bridegroom. And on the last day when the living and the dead are judged I shall say unto him, ‘The blood that thou shed for my justice hath washed away thy sin, and thy virtue hath burned evil out of thee, and thou shalt live at my side as a favored son, while the heavens endure.’”
Jonothor glared about him, his eyes blazing with fervor. “These are the words that the Seven-who-are-One say to you, my brothers,” he proclaimed. “And their words are true! Why then do you fear for your lives?! For if you die, then you die as free men, fighting for the Father’s justice, and the delights of Paradise shall be yours! And if you live in triumph, you shall be free, and your children and your children’s children after you shall be free!” He flung his arm out to point at the walls. “There is the enemy!” he bellowed, spit flying. “There are the authors of your grief, the makers of your despair, the begetters of your pain! There are the ones who have taken your freedom, who have blasphemed against the gods! There are the enemies of freedom, of justice, of life! The gods look down upon you and they say, ‘Fight! Strike them down! Slay and spare not among them! As they have done unto you, do unto them sevenfold! This we command, opening the Gates of the Heavens for the fallen!’” The freedmen were stirring, murmurs turning to feral growls. Jonothor threw up his hands, his crystal catching the light in a spray of color. “So go forth!” he thundered. “Go forth and fear not, for the gods watch over you! Go forth and conquer! The gods will it!”
The other septons, standing nearby, threw up their hands also. “The gods will it!” they bawled in chorus. “The gods will it!” The freedmen immediately around them began to take up the chant. “The gods will it! The gods will it!” The chant spread through the crowd of freedmen, building strength like a storm at sea. “The gods will it! The gods will it!” Every freedman in the crowd was shouting now, brandishing weapons. “The gods will it! The gods will it! THE GODS WILL IT!”
Akhollo threw his head back and gave voice to the yipping howl of his war cry. “Forward!” he bellowed, brandishing the sword he had taken from a Pentoshi nobleman. “Free or dead! The gods will it!”
The freedmen surged towards the walls like a mighty wave, bearing their hatred before them like the first wind of a hurricane. Their ladders had been cast down by the Myrmen; a thousand hands raised them up again and freedmen stormed up the ladders with berserk fury in their hearts. The Myrish officers hadn’t expected the freedmen to return from their retreat and so they had sent men to reinforce the sectors attacked by the siege towers; those that remained were submerged by the onset. A tower door was hacked down with axes and the tower bloodily stormed, Myrish crossbowmen pitched off the tower roof to fall sixty feet to the ground, screaming all the way. The integrity of the whole defense was jeopardized.
But the Myrmen had laid plans against such an eventuality. The City Watch had been split into companies of two hundred men and each company had been assigned to a tower as a reserve. If a tower were to be breached, then its company was to immediately reinforce the tower’s defenders and restore the situation. The City Watch were keepers of the peace and enforcers of the law, not soldiers, but their families were in the city, and they knew that they were the only thing between those families and the horde of slaves and Andals that had sworn to utterly destroy them. So the City Watch of Myr streamed in through the ground-floor door of the tower and up the stairs to the landing just beneath the wall, closed ranks behind their recently issued shields, leveled their spears, and fought as men fight against drowning. The freedmen threw themselves at the wall of spears and shields with the abandon of men who cared not whether they lived or died so long as they slew, but even the transcendent rage that possessed them could not breach that wall of desperate men. The floor of that landing was quickly awash in blood and knee-deep in corpses, but still the deadlock continued.
That death-grapple was broken apart by something that absolutely no-one had expected.
XXX
It had been years and years since the slaves of Myr city had revolted. Partly this was due to the savagery with which the last revolt had been suppressed, but it also had its roots in the reality of how social mores were enforced. In strictest theory, a slave was their master’s property to do with as they pleased, but in practice there were sharp limits on that power. For one thing, no properly behaved Myrish aristocrat, or any who aped their manners, would dream of harming their slaves except as a punishment for wrongdoing; not only was it poor business sense, it simply wasn’t gentlemanly. In much the same way, although female slaves were almost always sexually exploited by their masters, it was the expectation that any resulting children would remain with their mother, who would retain her position in the household, and would become a part of the household themselves when they reached an age to enter service. Furthermore, deliberate and gratuitous cruelty was sharply frowned upon; a true gentleman behaved with appropriate restraint in all situations, especially in the exercise of power over those who had none of their own. In the privacy of the countryside, a master could thumb his nose at this unwritten code of behavior and get away with it, for the most part, but in the city there were many more eyes belonging to interested parties. It was a rare man (or woman for that matter) who would invite social opprobrium by breaking the rules of properly civilized conduct.
This was not to say that the lot of a slave in Myr city was a happy one, of course. Even the best of days came with a hundred little slights and humiliations, all overlaid by the weight of the collar and brand. And such days were few and far between. However, the lack of opportunity to remedy their situation either by fair means or foul, combined with the occasional drastic example of the consequences of failed rebellion, had forced most of the slaves in Myr city to at least bury their anger so deeply under the mask of servility that even they didn’t know it was there.
But things had changed. The slaves had heard the rumors that had come flying down with the north wind. The Andals come from beyond the sunset to bring freedom. They will break every chain and strike off every shackle. They will break the power of the masters and destroy them utterly. Under their rule there shall be neither slave nor bondsman, but free men and women. Most of the slaves did not fully believe the rumors, especially the one that had claimed that the coming of the Andals heralded a new age of freedom where all men would be absolutely equal. But they certainly believed the rumor that the Andals meant to destroy slavery; their own masters had said as much, repeatedly and with growing hysteria as they drew ever closer. And judging by the flood of refugees from the countryside, and the news of the great battle, the Andals seemed likely to win. What was more, there was proof that the Andals were serious about destroying slavery.
Slaves in Myr did not carry arms. Exceptions were made for household guards, but they could not wear armor and they were forbidden from carrying any weapon besides clubs or staves. And the use of slaves as household guards had not taken root in Myr as it did in other Free Cities; every house of rank or note had its assortment of bravos whose main duty was to serve as the house’s defense against anyone inclined to mischief. For the Andals to not only free slaves but give them weapons and training in how to use them was clear proof that they meant what they said about freedom.
So the slaves had begun to lay plans. The initial plot had originated in the shipyards, under the leadership of a slave foreman named Franlan who had originally thought only to prevent that portion of the Myrish fleet that lay at anchor in the harbor from being denied to the liberators. From there it had expanded to the other artisan’s guilds; seven in ten of the guildsmen in Myr were slaves, the property of the master craftsmen who used them as unpaid apprentices and journeymen. Even some domestic slaves had been brought in, despite the fact that these were the most likely to betray their co-conspirators. The plan had been simple. Wait until the masters were sufficiently involved in the fighting on the walls, and then hit them from behind.
When the City Watch marched to reinforce the walls and attempt to retake the captured tower, the slaves had been alerted by a relay of runners and the first sparks had flown. The shipyard slaves had broken out of their barracks and overwhelmed the few men who remained to guard them. Adzes, chisels, and mauls had broken open the barracks of the other artisan-slaves and the rising spread like wildfire. A solid mass of slaves, many of them muscular toughs from the smithies and the slaughterhouses, poured forth from the artisan’s quarter and marched into the neighborhoods inhabited by the magisters and the richer freeborn citizens; before the hour was out whole streets were a chaos of blood as the slaves rampaged through the manses of the rich and slew all who came under their weapons.
At the same time a third player entered the game. By ancient pact, the Red Temple of Myr did not keep a chapter of the Fiery Hand, but they were allowed to train devotees of their faith who aspired to join the Fiery Hand’s ranks in Volantis. At the time of the siege, the Red Temple could command the services of thirty-three fully trained men who were waiting only for a vacancy in the Hand’s ranks, as well as a like number of trainees and older priests who had received training in the past but had decided not to serve their Lord in a militant role. When the siege had begun, High Priest Danikos had brought his congregants into the Temple to protect them and laid plans with his subordinates to intervene in an assault; the Red Faith was tolerated in Myr, but not embraced or particularly honored by many beyond the lower classes and the slaves, and Myrish officialdom looked upon the Lord of Light’s priests and devotees with disfavor. Danikos was sixty-eight years old, and had absorbed many slights and witnessed the oppression of many of his congregants over those years. It was time to pay the debt in blood.
When the slave revolt broke out of the artisan’s quarter, Danikos knew it was time. The gates of the Red Temple opened and Danikos himself led the Red Sword of the Lord of Light onto the streets. As they marched to the walls, chanting a battle-hymn to the God of Flame and Shadow, a growing tail of rebelling slaves grew around them, drawn as much by the disciplined purpose of the R’hllorites as by the belligerence of their hymn.
When they reached the Great Eastern Gate, they paused only to roar “Lord of Light, defend us!” before charging home. The nearby companies of the City Watch, caught in the middle of deploying onto the walls, turned about and tried to form ranks but they were swarmed under and hacked into bloody ruin. Danikos was killed in the first moments of the onset but his second-in-command, a man named Kalarus, took up the leadership instantly and pressed home the attack. The company that had marched into the captured tower was taken from behind by a party of slaves sent by Kalarus under the leadership of a trio of red priests and was massacred to a man. The slaves battered down the tower doors and stormed in with incoherent roars while half a thousand hands lifted the bars holding the Great Eastern Gate shut out of their brackets and hauled back the great leaves.
Lyn Corbray’s Valemen had weathered volley upon volley of crossbow bolts and hails of stones trying to break down the gates and they were now in a fury. Only some very fast talking on Kalarus’ part and some great good luck prevented them from slaughtering their new-found allies. Lyn, fastening upon the essentials of the situation, seized a horn from his squire and blew as he had never blown before, signaling that the gate was open. Brynden Tully, hearing the horn blasts, sounded his own horn, committing the Sunset Company’s reserves to the fray. The freedmen, inspired by Jonothor’s impromptu sermon, had already stormed for the walls, but there were still just under six hundred men under Brynden’s control, all Riverlanders and many of them men he had recruited himself to join Robert and Eddard in their feud. At the horn-blast from their captain, the Riverlanders advanced, trotting towards and through the gate in a river of steel, their knights at the head of the column led by the Blackfish himself.
Now the true slaughter began. The Myrmen on the walls, cut off and surrounded, were cut down without regard for cries of surrender, which to their credit were few. The soldiers of the Sunset Company streamed off the walls to join their comrades who had come through the gate and together they swarmed into the city, Westerosi and freedmen alike driven equally berserk by the fighting. Streams of soldiers, spearheaded by the Myrish slaves, swarmed into the city, baying like wolves at the sight of wounded prey. The red priests, their mission fulfilled, cut their way back to the Red Temple and resolved to fight off all comers to defend their congregants and their families. The remaining City Watchmen of Myr fought valiantly, but they were too few and the attackers were not to be denied of even the least part of their prize.
Even as the last of the Watch were being slaughtered on the steps of the Palace of Order, the screams were already rising from the city. In just under an hour of brutal fighting the fate of Myr had been sealed, and the gateway was opened to what would later be called the Generation of Blood.
Chapter 26: The Storm's Fury
Chapter Text
The Storm's Fury
Author's Note: Trigger warning for mentions of sexual assault in the first two parts of this chapter. The city's being sacked under medieval codes of warfare; it's not a pretty sight. Also Ironborn are Ironborn, even when they're on the side of the good guys.
Ser Brynden Tully had been a soldier for almost all his adult life. In those years he had he had fought in duels, skirmishes, sieges, and pitched battles. He had thought he had seen much of what men drunk on blood could do.
He had not, however, seen a major city sacked.
This was mostly due to the rarity of such things. The only city to be sacked in Westeros in living memory had been King’s Landing, and Brynden had been several miles away from that mess, although he had seen the aftermath. In the early 200s, the Golden Company had sacked Qohor, but that had also been a rarity; in the normal run of Essosi warfare, cities were not themselves directly sieged. And in most successful sieges, the defenders surrendered on terms, which tended to include the prohibition of a general sack.
So when Brynden took responsibility for trying to police the sack, he quickly found himself facing the toughest job he had ever undertaken. If he hadn’t managed to keep a hundred of his knights and their squires under his control and sober, bribed by the promise of double shares and a division of Brynden’s own share, it would have been impossible.
“The docks are secure!” one of those knights was yelling in Brynden’s ear over the clamor. “Lord Stark’s Northmen have linked up with the slaves there. Most of the Northmen have gone off looting, but Lord Stark and his household men have joined the cordon.”
Brynden nodded, gentling his horse as it shifted underneath him at the commotion. “How many ships are docked?” he yelled back, closing his mind to the rhythmic screams coming from the manse across the street.
“Twenty galleys and dromonds that I could see,” the knight shouted. “Whole mess of cogs and hulks also. Lord Stark said he had them well in hand, so long as no fires started.”
Brynden winced; the thought of a fire reaching the docks and the shipyards, with their stores of seasoned timber, pitch, oakum, sailcloth, tar, and ropes, was terrifying. He turned in the saddle. “Ser Mychel!” he called, waving his arm, and Ser Mychel Charlton trotted up. “Take forty men and patrol the dockside streets until relieved. Any man starting fires is subject to summary execution, on my authority.” Ser Mychel clanked his gauntleted fist off his breastplate in salute and clattered off with his score of knights close behind. Brynden turned to his next lieutenant, Ser Harrold Grey. “Ser Harrold, take forty men and patrol from here,” Brynden indicated the street they were located on, which seemed to be the dividing line between the artisan’s quarter and the magister’s quarter, “out to the northern wall. Your focus is to protect the market squares; don’t try and prevent looting, but keep them from being completely destroyed. Again, any man starting fires is subject to summary execution, on my authority.” Myr had been taken by storm, which meant that the company could do whatever they liked with the people and the movable property, but even sacks had rules, the main one being that arson was strictly forbidden. For one thing, the immovable property of the captured city now belonged to Robert as the company’s commander. For another, burning down a city with the company inside it would be even more catastrophic than a repulse would have been.
Ser Harrold frowned. “Forty men is pretty few to try and hold the market squares,” he said dubiously.
“Which is why I don’t expect you to hold them,” Brynden replied. “They don’t have to be pristine, just not destroyed.”
Ser Harrold nodded, saluted, and trotted away with his forty men. Brynden knew that Harrold would have a difficult time, but it should get easier. For one thing, the sack was only an hour old; once the men got their hands on the city’s supplies of drink, increasing intoxication would render them less physically capable of violence, if more easily disposed to it. For another, Brynden wasn’t asking him to try and restrain the men from all misdeeds, simply from firesetting.
Brynden knew enough about soldiers to know that a sack, once started, could not be controlled. It could only be ridden out.
Which was why, when the half-naked girl ran screaming down the street with a trio of soldiers, one Northman and two freedmen by the look of them, in hot pursuit, Brynden made no move to intervene. His duty was to prevent the burning of the city and protect vital installations, not keep every woman in the city from being raped. In any case, he simply didn’t have enough men to do it. He had sent Ser Mychel and his forty to the dockside streets, Ser Harrold and his forty to the northern sector markets, and he had eighty men protecting the crossbow manufactory and the two largest armorer’s shops in the artisan’s quarter. That left him only forty men to help the red priests protect the people who had taken refuge in their temple and serve as a central reserve. Eddard had the docks in hand, Robert was in the artisan’s quarter keeping the crossbow manufactory under guard, Lyn Corbray had joined his troops in looting by all accounts, and Victarion and Akhollo were leading the pillage in the Palace of Order. Aside from the men under Brynden’s command, there were no men-at-arms under discipline in the whole city.
So Brynden closed his ears to the screams and waited for his lieutenants to send him progress reports by galloper. There was nothing else to do.
XXX
The Palace of Order had been the seat of Myrish governance for centuries. Within its halls the Conclave had met in council, alliances and treaties had been ratified, laws had been passed, and the city-states judges had presided over the enforcement of law and order. During those years, the Palace of Order had seen its share of parties; restrained, sober, and elegant parties, these, where the wealthy and the powerful mixed with their peers, to see and be seen.
The Ironborn had different ideas of what a good party was like.
The Sack of Myr was a day old, and although the first rush of savagery had largely spent itself, the army was not yet done with its carnival of officially sanctioned lawlessness. There were a few holdouts of order, mainly around the Red Temple where Brynden Tully had placed his banner and around the docks, where Eddard Stark was ruthlessly enforcing sobriety and discipline. But the rest of the city was a pandemonium of drunkenness, looting, rape, and murder. One of the few islands of relative stability was the Palace of Order, where the freedmen of the company and the Ironborn had a boast to fulfill, in which they allowed certain men who had proved their valor to their satisfaction to join. The other captains had been invited to join the revels, but they had refused. Robert and Eddard were hammering out terms with Foreman Franlan, who had led the shipyard slaves in the initial revolt, Jaime was putting his feet up in the manse that Rhaegar Targaryen had occupied, and Lyn had begged off as being busy overseeing his men at plunder.
Not that the Ironborn, the freedmen, and their accomplices strictly needed the captains to be present; they had things well in hand. Every hour parties striking out into the rest of the city came back with more wine, more beer, more food, and more women to sate the appetites of conquerors. The cells that had held miscreants awaiting judgement became holding pens for the women, who were routinely dragged off to be raped. The rooms where judges had pronounced on questions of law became storerooms for looted treasure and brothels were the captured women were violated. The hallways were filled with soldiers shouting drunken plaudits and vows of brotherhood to each other over the screams and quaffing wine by the gallon. And in the chamber where Rhaegar Targaryen and the Conclave had received the Sunset Company’s letters at the start of the campaign, the officers held court.
Victarion Greyjoy leaned his chair back on its rear legs, resting his booted feet on the table as he held a bottle of wine in one hand and a young woman of Myr under his arm. His armor had been stripped off, save for his arming coat and vambraces, and rested on the floor behind him along with his axe. Around the table, in similar condition, were Dagmer Cleftjaw, Ser Harras Harlaw, and Akhollo, who was currently standing on the table and chanting a riding song in Dothraki to the cheers of the other officers and the hangers-on who also filled the room. The young woman under Victarion’s arm, barely seventeen and stark naked save for bruises, scratches, and her waist-length seal-brown hair, huddled by the man who had claimed her as a prize of war; if Victarion was brutal and unthinking in his lust at least he was not deliberately cruel. She had seen and heard the women who had fallen into the hands of the freedmen, and her mind shrank from the fresh memories. If the other men around her cast leering eyes her way, none dared to try and steal the prize of their captain.
Akhollo finished his song to thundering applause and flung up his hands for quiet, which came reluctantly. “Brothers!” he cried, his vocabulary improved over the months but his accent still thick, and more so from drink. “We are men!” There were shouts of acclamation from the onlookers and men beat their fists against the table. “But we have not a name,” Akhollo said slurringly, “not a name as our Andal and Ironborn brothers do! We must take one!” At the shouts of agreement Akhollo threw his arms wide. “Come, come,” he said expansively, “suggest names! I welcome all ideas!”
“The Unshackled!” cried a bulky freedman wearing a judge’s hat at a jaunty angle.
“The Freed Ones!” called an Ironborn with his fingers twisted in a Myrish girl’s hair.
“The Sons of Liberty!” yelled a freedman with a tankard in one hand and a joint of mutton in the other.
“The Chainbreakers!” hollered a Westerman with a Myrish girl under each arm.
Ser Harras Harlaw disentangled himself from the girl under his arm and leaped onto the table. “The Iron Legion!” he bellowed, drowning out all others. “The Ghiscari claim their legions are the finest foot in the world,” Harras said, taking a wide-legged stance on the table, “but could their legions have rallied and taken the walls as our brothers have done?” Boos and catcalls filled the air with derision. “I say nay!” Harras answered his own question. “Our brothers have shown that they are men with iron in their souls, as we are, and they must have a name that shows it! A name that shows that they have paid the iron price for it! And if the iron legions of New Ghis object to having their name stolen,” Harras spread his hands extravagantly, not caring for the wine that spilled from his goblet, “then they are welcome to come and take it back, if they can!”
Predatory laughs ran through the crowd of revelers as Akhollo nodded and raised his hands again. “What say you, my brothers who are blood of my blood!” he shouted. “Shall we call ourselves the Iron Legion?”
“Aye!” the freedmen in the chamber roared back raising their drinking vessels in salute. “Aye! AYE!”
XXX
Septon Jonothor rose from the cot, tucked his much-thumbed copy of The Seven-Pointed Star under his arm, and signed the seven-pointed star over the Stormlander. “Gods watch over you,” he said softly, and stepped away to move on to the next.
The assault on the walls and the gate had produced heavy casualties. The Sunset Company had numbered just under eight thousand men when they had launched the assault, and in taking the city they had suffered just over six hundred men killed and around a thousand wounded. The wounded, for the most part, had fallen into three categories. First, there were the men who were only lightly wounded and were fit for light duties after being stitched and bandaged. The next group was those men whose wounds were serious to put them off their feet for days or sennights, thanks to minor broken bones, moderate slash or stab wounds, or light scalds by the boiling water and tallow that had been poured over the battering ram, but whose lives would be saved by medical treatment.
The third group was the men whom Jonothor was walking among.
These were the men who had been placed in the hands of the gods. The company had only one maester with any training in the healing arts, and Maester Antony had nowhere near the resources necessary to treat a thousand wounded men with only a handful of assistants, and in any case the majority of their attention was reserved for the highborn wounded and their household men. So men who had suffered serious broken bones, serious slash or stab wounds, and serious scalds had been carried into this room, which had once been the main guildhall of the Weaver’s Guild, and left to recover as they might or die, as the gods decreed. As these were the men most in need of divine succor, it was here that Jonothor was spending the sack; in the past two and a half days he had had only seven hours of sleep. Nor had he eaten more than morsels snatched at random, although given the smell of the wound rot that was starting to set in, that might be for the better. The other septons of the company were also gliding around the room giving what aid and comfort they could, either through prayer or through what medical knowledge they had picked up over the years; the maesters claimed a monopoly on healing, but every septon knew how to dress a wound, wrap a tourniquet, and splint a fracture, in the event that they found a parishioner in need.
He went to the next bed down, where a Northman was lying with a broken skull; a rock thrown from one of the towers had struck him on the helmet and he hadn’t awoken since. Jonothor knelt by the bedside, felt for a pulse at the man’s neck, and found none.
His surcoat was unadorned, bore no heraldry. Jonothor turned to the Stormlander he had just visited. “Your pardon, my son,” he asked, “but do you know who this man serves?”
The Stormlander, both his legs broken, lifted himself up on his elbows. “No idea, father,” he said with a shake of his head. “Never seen him before he was brought in here. Lot of big Northmen carried him in, didn’t have any heraldry on them. Sorry.”
Jonothor nodded. “Think not of it, son,” he said with a reassuring wave. As the Stormlander sank back on his pallet, Jonothor was thinking furiously. Under the laws of the Faith, any man could receive the blessing of the gods. That said, what was needed here was not a simple blessing but a prayer for the commendation of the dead to the care of the gods, and that Jonothor could not give him; under the laws of the Faith, only the Faithful could enter the Seven Heavens and dwell in the light of the gods. The Northman could be a Manderly man and hence a worshipper of the Seven, but those were long odds and Jonothor doubted that the Most Devout would look kindly on such a guess.
On the other hand, this Northman had fought valiantly in a cause blessed by the Seven and given his life for that cause. If that cause had not, strictly speaking, been his, then that made his sacrifice all the greater. Either way, Jonothor reminded himself, the salient point was that here was a man who had fought as valiantly, suffered as greatly, and died as dead as any of the Faithful of the company.
Out upon it, he thought finally, having ruminated over the problem for half an hour. What will the Most Devout do, banish me? They’ve done that already. He placed his hand lightly on the Northman’s face. “Oh gods,” he said softly, “here lies one who fought valiantly and gave his life for a cause dear to your hearts, though he knew you not. Let not his lack of faith in you make him unworthy in your sight, we pray. Judge him justly, Father. Be merciful, Mother. Greet him as a cousin, Warrior. Welcome him as a friend, Maiden. Grant him strength, Smith. Light his way, Crone. Guide him well, Stranger. Let not the Gates of the Heavens be closed to him for his lack of belief in you, but let perpetual light shine upon him and grant him peace. This we ask in your names, almighty gods.”
Jonothor stood and glanced at the Stormlander, who was looking at him in shock. “He who pays the price deserves the reward,” he said firmly. “On my head be the consequences.” He walked to the next bed over, this one containing a Westerman with a crushed shoulder. There were more than three hundred men in this ward, and his duty was to provide what aid and comfort he could to all of them.
XXX
The Sack of Myr lasted four days before order was restored. The Myrish aristocracy was all but wiped out, while the merchant class was also severely reduced; the first accurate census after the Sack, conducted just over two years later, records barely a quarter of the merchant families on the census rolls before the Sack. Fortunately, although a few buildings were burned (largely to smoke out diehard resisters) the destruction of structures was limited. Also, the craftsfolk of Myr, many of them born slaves, were less affected by the Sack; indeed, many of them joined the Sunset Company and the freedmen in the general mayhem. One letter that survives in the archives of the Great Sept, written to the Most Devout by Septon Jonothor, who was the chaplain to the Stormlanders of the Company in those days, described the Myrish slaves as being “incredibly savage in their vengeance. Neither age, sex, nor condition was shown mercy, but instead were destroyed utterly, and often with great cruelty.”
Despite being abhorrent by modern standards, and regarded in much recent scholarship as a black mark on the Sunset Company’s record, it is unsound to view historical events and actors through the prism of modern morality. Under the laws of war as they existed at the time, the Company was perfectly justified in sacking Myr, as they had taken it by storm after it had resisted them. Furthermore, for the common soldiers of the Company, and for any army of the time, wages were so low and so irregularly paid that they relied on plunder to survive, much less to benefit from their military service. Only the Iron Bank of Braavos could afford to regularly pay an army for any length of time and even then the armies they could pay were not very large. The contract under which the Company conquered Pentos on Braavos’ behalf was very much an anomaly in the Narrow Sea world of the late two hundreds and early three hundreds.
- Chasing Dragons: The Sunset Company Reexamined by Maester Hendricus, published 1539 AC
Chapter 27: Long Live the King
Chapter Text
Long Live the King
A sennight after the Sack had ended, the city of Myr was more or less restored. Those buildings that had been burned had yet to be replaced and the subsequent gaps in the streetfronts stood out like missing teeth in a jaw, but the bodies had been burned or dumped in the harbor, the bloodstains had been washed away, and at least some of the damage to buildings had been patched up. There was still much to do before the city was restored to its former prosperity.
But today that work was halted, for today was a day of great ceremony. The soldiery that had sacked the city and then put it back in order now stood at attention on the Street of Magisters, the great thoroughfare that led from the Great Eastern Gate to the Palace of Order and presented arms as the procession marched past them under a cloudy sky.
First came a score of men from the Iron Legion, who had claimed the right to lead the parade on account of their being the first to successfully breach the walls. The front rank of ten men carried spear, shield, and shortsword, while the second rank carried a crossbow each at slope arms. Their marching was somewhat ragged, but each man walked proudly with a triumphant gleam in his eye.
Behind them came three horsem*n, carrying the banners. Ser Lyle Crakehall rode in the center, bearing the sunset sky and impaled dragon’s-head of the Sunset Company. On his right rode Ser Brus Buckler, carrying the crowned stag, black on yellow, of the Baratheons. On the left was Captain Akhollo of the freedmen. The former slave was still re-learning how to ride, but he had refused to do anything else and so he rode carrying the new standard of the Iron Legion, a red chain being broken by a black spear on a field of cloth-of-gold looted from the stores of the Weaver’s Guild. The freedmen lining the processional route cheered themselves hoarse as the banners went by and Akhollo was bright-eyed with pride and joy.
Behind the banners, and riding alone on his massive charger, came Robert Baratheon. He was in full armor save for his antlered helmet. In his right hand he held his great hammer, the pommel resting on his hip, and the breeze made the yellow and black cloak fastened at his neck with a simple brooch of unadorned silver flutter at the flanks of his horse. Robert had stoutly resisted making “any stuff and fuss” about his coronation, but long argument had worn him down, and now he was determined to play his part with appropriate gravity.
Behind him came his five captains, also in full armor save for their helmets. Ser Lyn Corbray, his sharp-featured handsomeness almost cruel. Ser Brynden Tully, his craggy face calmly purposeful. Victarion Greyjoy, self-consciously grave as only the young can be. Ser Jaime Lannister, smiling so broadly his face seemed like to split. And on the right, in the place of honor, Eddard Stark, his solemn face set in the fashion of a man faced with great ceremony and determined to do it properly.
Bringing up the rear were seven knights representing each of the contingents who had followed Robert in the conquest of the city. Ser Gerion Lannister of the Westerlands, Ser Willam ‘Silveraxe’ Fell of the Stormlands, Ser Mychel Egen of the Vale, Ser Harrold Grey of the Riverlands, Ser Wendel Manderly of the North, Ser Colin Dunn of the Reach, and Ser Harras Harlaw of the Ironborn, all fully armored and carrying lances streaming with pennons.
Eventually the procession came to the great square before the Palace of Order, with the great steps leading up to the doors of the Palace. At the top of those stairs was the chair that had been used by the Gonfalonier of the Conclave and that had been appropriated by Rhaegar Targaryen during his undeclared rule, while at the base of the steps was Septon Jonothor, wearing his plain robes; more elaborate vestments had been found but he had flatly refused them. He was a septon, he had said, not a mummer. Beside him stood High Priest Kalarus of the Red Temple, a stern-faced fireplug of a man whose brocaded formal robes looked out of place on him, like a gown on a prizefighter.
“Who comes?” asked Jonothor in a voice pitched to carry across the square and into the streets around it, where heralds would relay his words to the crowd.
“It is Robert, of House Baratheon, who comes,” answered Ser Brus Buckler.
“Why has he come to this place at this hour?” asked Kalarus, following the script that he, Jonothor, Maester Gordon, and Maester Antony had devised for the ceremony two days ago.
“He comes to be crowned King of Myr, Protector of the Realm, Defender of the Faiths, and Shield of Freedom,” answered Ser Lyle Crakehall.
“By what right does he claim the title of King?” asked Kalarus.
Akhollo lifted his chin. “By right of conquest,” he answered, speaking carefully through his thick accent, “for he has conquered Myr, and claims it as his lawful prize.”
Jonothor and Kalarus raised their hands and addressed the crowd. “People of Myr!” they proclaimed. “We here present to you Robert of House Baratheon. Is it your will to take him as your king, your captain, and your judge, professing homage, faith, and allegiance to him and his heirs after him, for so long as his line endures?”
The acclamation was thunderous, as more than ten thousand people roared their approval, and the soldiers drummed the butts of their polearms against the ground like hailstones.
Jonothor and Kalarus lowered their hands and turned back to the procession. “Approach, Robert of House Baratheon.” Robert dropped his reins onto the neck of his horse, swung his leg over the pommel of his saddle, and slid to the ground with a clank of armor. As the freedmen and the standard bearers moved aside and the captains dismounted, he strode forward, his hammer still resting on his hip, until he stood before Septon Jonothor. He knelt, and lowered his hammer to the ground, looking the Septon and the High Priest in the face.
“Robert of House Baratheon,” Septon Jonothor intoned, “is it your will to be crowned king?”
“It is,” Robert answered, his voice solemn for once in his life.
“Do you swear to uphold the rights and liberties of your people, and to defend them against all their enemies, wheresoever they may arise?”
“I swear.”
“Do you swear to cause law and justice to be executed in all your judgements, tempered with mercy, as you would have the Father judge you?”
“I swear.”
“Do you swear to protect the several faiths of all your peoples, to uphold the rights of their clergy, and to defend their sacred things and holy places as you would defend your own?”
“I swear.” The Northmen and the Rhllorites in the crowd rumbled approval. They knew that Eddard and High Priest Kalarus had insisted on that particular oath being inserted into the ceremony, as a hedge against the future.
“Do you swear to especially abhor the evil of slavery, to forbid it in your realm, and to wage war without mercy upon it wheresoever it may be found?”
“I swear.” The freedmen gave a short shout of approval, like the bark of some immense hound, and beat spear and pike butts against the ground in a dull thunderclap.
“Then rise, Robert of House Baratheon, and assume your throne.” Jonothor and Kalarus turned and led Robert up the stairs, Jonothor chanting a psalm to the Seven which was taken up by the Seven-worshippers in the crowd; Kalarus sang a hymn to the Lord of Light that was likewise taken up by the Red God’s devotees. At last, Robert reached the throne and seated himself in it, while Septon Jonothor took the crown, a simple, unadorned circlet of hammered gold, and raised it high. “I crown thee, Robert of House Baratheon, King of Myr, Protector of the Realm, Defender of the Faiths, and Shield of Freedom,” he intoned, lowering the crown onto Robert’s head. Lifting his hands away and turning to the square Jonothor and Kalarus lifted up their voices. “People of Myr!” they roared. “Behold your king!
Every person in the square knelt, even the Iron Legion, who had reserved the right to stand in every circ*mstance save this. “Long live the King!” they thundered in a chorus that made birds take to the air and rattled windows in their frames. “Long live the King! Long live the King!”
XXX
Eddard Stark strode through what had been the Palace of Order and was now the Palace of Justice. The revels that had turned it into a combined brothel and tavern of disorder had left it a proper mess, but the last of the clutter was being swept up and carted out, and the offices of the Myrish judges had been restored to some semblance of order as the offices of the Kingdom of Myr’s civil service. The statues and paintings and tapestries that had decorated the corridors had been either destroyed or stolen by the soldiers that had occupied it, leaving it pleasingly austere to Eddard’s eye, although it retained its grandiose façade and overpoweringly cavernous entrance hall. Fortunately, the Palace’s store of parchment, ink, and quills had been largely spared by the rampaging soldiery, although it had apparently taken hours to gather up all the quills that had been thrown into the air. The ledger books had been strewn about the place in various states of damage, but those that had remained intact were being scraped clean and repurposed. In short, all the necessary tools of government were present and in order. All that was missing was a government.
And it fell to Eddard to fill the gap. As Hand of the King, an appointment so recent that he didn’t even have a badge of office yet, Eddard was responsible for the government of the new Kingdom of Myr in the King’s absence, and Robert had been called away from the city. Eddard had argued bitterly against it, but Robert had been adamant. “The people need to see me, Ned,” Robert had explained, pointing out the window at the city, and the country beyond Myr’s walls. “We’re going to ask them to bend the knee to us, and eventually to fight and die for us. They won’t do that for a stranger. They need to see that we’re different from the magisters, that we deserve to be followed as the magisters don’t.”
Eddard had asked to go along, in order to hone his skills, but Robert had refused him. For one thing, as he pointed out, to have both the King and the Hand going on the same progress defeated the purpose of the King having a Hand in the first place. For another, as Robert had said in private, Eddard was the only man he trusted enough to take command in his absence. And in any case, Robert had added with a smile, it wasn’t as if he was taking all of the best swords with him; Eddard would have plenty of good men to practice his sword-craft against in the time he could spare from restoring the city and forming the government of the new kingdom.
So Robert had taken two thousand foot and eight hundred horse, with Lyn, Jaime, Akhollo, and Maester Gordon as his lieutenants, and embarked on a progress that was to carry him through his new lands. First he was going south to the town of Sirmium, which Eddard understood to be the southern districts’ equivalent to Ceralia in the north. Eight hundred infantry and four hundred cavalry would be left there under Lyn’s command as Warden of the Southern Marches, with a charge to bring the southern provinces under the King’s Peace, defend them against Lyseni or Tyroshi incursions and launch reprisal raids in the event of provocation. Eddard could only hope that Lyn would find it a sufficient force; to spare even that much was to strip the trained garrison of Myr city to a minimum, and raising and training new companies of the Iron Legion from the freedmen would take time and resources that were likely to be rare. And if he was any judge, the Lyseni and the Tyroshi would start to probe the frontier sooner rather than later.
From Sirmium, the progress would turn northeast and make for the town of Campora, where Ser Brus Buckler would be installed as Warden of the Eastern Marches with four hundred foot and one hundred horse and the same mandate as Lyn did; the hope was that, given the distance between the new kingdom’s eastern border and the zone of Volantene control, Ser Brus would have an easier job than Lyn despite his fewer resources. From Campora, the progress would proceed to Ceralia, link up with the garrison that had been left there under the command of Ser Richard Shermer, who had been a bored officer of the Oldtown City Watch before he joined the company and lost a hand at Tara, and then proceed down the Great North Road to return to Myr. Along the way he would be collecting information on the state of the kingdom’s lands and the ownership thereof, with a view to laying the groundwork for a proper cadastral survey and eventually granting lands to those of the company who merited them.
The whole journey was likely to take several months, barring delays, and while it was going on Eddard was expected to finish the restoration and repair of Myr city, form a government almost entirely from scratch, and generally exercise the right to bind and loose in the name of King Robert, the First of His Name, etc., etc.
It was a daunting proposition. Eddard had one fully qualified maester in the person of Grand Maester Antony, whose specialty was in healing not administration. He had Ser Brynden Tully, the newly named Master of Soldiers, to command the garrison and oversee the raising, training and organization of the Royal Army. He had Victarion Greyjoy, the new Master of Ships, for the next four days before he and his fellow Ironborn set off up the coastal road towards Pentos to retrieve the longships that the Ironborn had left at Mytila, pacifying the coastal lands as he went. He had Ser Wendel Manderly for Master of Coin, the which office he had gained thanks to having received some tutelage in the art of finance from his father, who was the richest lord in the North aside from the Starks. He had Ser Gerion Lannister as Master of Whispers, who held his office thanks to the contacts he had developed on his previous travels around the Narrow Sea. He had Ser Mychel Egen, who as Master of Law was charged with keeping order within the city and developing the legal code of the new kingdom. He had Franlan Shipwright, the newly-created Lord Captain of the Port, who had authority over all matters pertaining to the safety and good order of the harbor, the building and maintenance of ships, and the policing of the harborside districts in the name of His Grace King Robert.
What he didn’t have was a large body of men who were literate and numerate. Literacy was rare among the smallfolk in Westeros and in Myr it had been against the law to teach slaves to read except as necessary to carry out their duties. Those with noble blood tended to be more literate, but the second and third sons who had followed the Sunset Company to Essos were rarely more literate than was required to read or write a letter; the path to fame and fortune, for such men, was through the use of sword and lance, not of quill and ink. There had been a substantial number of scribe-slaves in Myr, but many of them had been targeted during the Sack as accomplices of the magisters who had relied on them to, among other things, draw up bills of sale and keep records of which slave belonged to which master. The survivors were almost pathetically eager to offer their services in the hopes of gaining protection, but there weren’t enough of them to form even half of a civil service.
Nor did he have a legal framework to operate within, he reflected as he entered what had been the office of the Gonfalonier of the Conclave and was now the office of the Hand of the King. Clearly the laws of Myr could not stand; the institution of slavery was too tightly woven into them to be allowed. Nor, Eddard knew, could the laws of Westeros be imported in their entirety. Those laws had been made for a different people in a different land under different circ*mstances. What was needed was an entirely new code of laws to govern the new realm, one that took the best laws of Westeros and the best laws of Myr and forged them into a new creation.
All things considered, he thought as he surveyed his new domain, it was a good thing that he had sent word to the Citadel asking for them to dispatch as many maesters as they could. He, and the new kingdom, would sorely need them.
XXX
The exiled Westerosi stood in ranks before the pyre that had been built on the sea-strand just outside the city of Volantis. On one side stood the sailors of the Royal Fleet, arrayed by ship’s companies with their captains at their head. On the other were the knights and men-at-arms who had followed the Targaryens into exile, with their swords drawn and held before them in salute, catching the rays of the setting sun like slivers of fire.
Standing before them, halfway between the men and the pyre, were the captains of the exiles. Ser Gyles Rambton, his sea-weathered face mournful as an old hound’s. Ser Marq Grafton, stoically unreadable. Ser Arthur Dayne, who was not weeping only because he had exhausted his tears. Ser Barristan Selmy, his square face somber. Magister Rahtheon, downcast as if he were burying his own son, while behind him his daughter Praela wept openly. And, in the middle of them all, was Viserys Targaryen, his round child’s face composed except for the trembling lower lip that he couldn’t quite conceal and dressed all in plain black except for the three-headed dragon embroidered in crimson thread on the front of this tunic.
On the pyre itself rested Rhaegar, the First of His Name, King of Myr, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm. He had died the day before, barely four hours after the exiles had landed in Volantis and taken up residence in one of the five warehouses along the Volantene waterfront that Magister Rahtheon partly owned. In King’s Landing the Silent Sisters would have embalmed his corpse and he would have lain in state in the Great Sept for seven times seven days before his body was given to the flames with as many of the great lords of the realm as could be gathered in attendance and the High Septon leading the service assisted by the Most Devout. But there were no Silent Sisters in Volantis, and aside from the exiles there were barely two thousand people present. Most of them were Volantene smallfolk and merchants come to gawk at the foreigners, but there were a pair of noblemen from the Old Blood of Volantis and their retinues, old trading partners of Rahtheon’s who attended out of respect for their partner. And instead of the High Septon and the Most Devout there was only the Royal Fleet’s chaplain, a rotund old man who said the funeral service in a quavering voice that not even the most generous listener could call dignified.
Ser Arthur Dayne, his heart burning with dull anger that the finest scion of House Targaryen should be commended to the gods in such a paltry state as this, stepped forward as the septon gave the final blessing and lowered his crystal, with the other captains and their prince following him. As one man they lowered the torches they each held in their hands and thrust them into the pyre, which caught light with a gratifying speed as the flames fastened onto the oil-drenched wood. As the smoke and the overcooked-pork scent of burning flesh began to rise, the captains stepped back and drew their own swords, holding them at the salute as their king was carried home to the gods on fiery wings.
As the flames began to die, Ser Arthur sheathed Dawn, provoking a manifold rush of steel hissing against wood and leather as just over five hundred swords were sheathed. “The King is dead!” Ser Arthur shouted over the crackle-and-pop of the still-burning wood. He turned to Viserys, who was now looking at him with an expression of mingled grief and mild fear on his face. “Long live the King!” Ser Arthur shouted, and bent the knee, inciting a rush of rustling and clanking as two and a half thousand men, the last followers of House Targaryen, knelt before His Grace, Viserys the Third of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm.
“Long live the King!” they roared. “Long live the King! Long live the King!”
Chapter 28: The Stag and the Viper
Chapter Text
The Stag and the Viper
Meanwhile, and over the next several months, in Westeros . . .
The lords who had assembled in King Stannis’ tent rose and bowed as the King walked in. Stannis still had a bruise down one side of his face where an Uller man’s mace had caught him a glancing blow on the visor, but otherwise he looked as fresh as any man could be expected to only two days after their first battle.
His captains were in a similar state. The sling holding Lord Abram Gaunt’s left arm and the row of stitches on Lord Trebor Jordayne’s face were the most obvious tokens of the battle, but all the lords and knights present had their share of the scrapes, bruises, and cuts that were an inescapable side-effect of fighting for one’s life.
“My lords,” Stannis began, still standing. “Before we begin I must thank you all again for the good service you did me and my house in the recent battle. Your valor and prowess will be remembered.” As he sat down, allowing the other lords to sit as well, he continued. “The purpose of this meeting is to determine exactly what took place during the battle, what we did well, and what we can do better next time. I wish to make it clear,” Stannis swept the table with a level stare, “that I expect complete honesty from you all, about your own actions as much as the actions of others. No man will be punished for admitting to fault here, nor will any man be punished based solely on any evidence presented here.” As the lords nodded, some willingly and others reluctantly, he sat back in his chair. “I believe we all agree, my lords, that we owe a great debt to our friends of Dorne and their outriders. But for their scouting, we would not have known that the Red Viper would attempt an ambush.”
“Aye,” said Bronze Yohn Royce, who commanded the Valemen with his lieutenant, Ser Symond Templeton. “And that made all the difference. If we hadn’t known that ambush was coming, we’d have been pushed into the river.”
“Like as not,” agreed Gulian Swann, who commanded the Stormlanders. “As it was we were ready for them, and we were able to turn and face them before they could get into us.”
Gulian’s lieutenant, Ralph Buckler, raised a finger. “I noticed that the rebels opposing us seemed too few to make a serious attack,” he noted. “If we had tried to simply turn back along our line of march and cut our way out, there wouldn’t have been enough of them to stop us.”
“I noticed as much at the front of the column,” said Jason Mallister, who commanded the Riverlanders. “If we had tried to push on towards Sunspear, we could have cut our way through them without too much difficulty.”
“Until they came at our rear, anyway,” Ser Stevron Frey noted dourly. “Nothing more excited than a Dornishman trying to take someone from behind.”
“But of course,” said urbane Trebor Jordayne, second-in-command of the loyal Dornish. “That way we can have all the fun of taking you without having to look at your ugly faces.” A round of chuckles from around the table awarded the point to Trebor, while Stevron flushed. “And making only light attacks on our rear and vanguard may have been deliberate,” the Dornish lord went on. “If the rebel had succeeded in overwhelming our center, then the rearguard and vanguard would have been isolated from each other and would have to retreat in different directions along the line of the river. In that case, he could have turned upon each at leisure and devoured them without them being able to come to each other’s support.”
“I agree,” said Anders Yronwood. “It makes good tactical sense, if you’re sure that your army can pull it off.”
“I thought he was attacking us unusually hard,” said Abram Gaunt, who held command of the Royal Brigade. “Came at us like a tidal wave. Fortunately our foot was able to brace themselves or we’d have been run over.” The grizzled old lord hesitated, and then stood and looked at Stannis. “I owe you an apology, Your Grace. When you ordered that the lords and knights of the Royal Brigade fight dismounted I obeyed because you ordered it, not because I agreed with you. If we hadn’t had their leadership among the foot, they would likely have broken. You were right and I was wrong.” Abram bowed shortly.
Stannis nodded in reply. “Think nothing of it, my lord,” he replied. “You obeyed, and that is the important part. I will not hold a man’s reservations against him, so long as he obeys orders.” He leaned forward. “In fact, I must commend you, my lord, for the valor you showed in the shield-wall. The integrity of the line owed much to your skill and your example.” The other lords rapped their knuckles on the light travelling table in applause as Abram flushed in pleased embarrassment. “So,” Stannis continued. “The rebel made holding attacks against our right and left, allowing them routes of retreat that would have proved disadvantageous, and made his main effort against our center. I must conclude that his primary target was me.”
“I agree, Your Grace,” said Anders. “If Oberyn had killed or captured you, he could have won his rebellion then and there. I beg Your Grace’s pardon, but I think we all can guess what would have happened in the aftermath.” There was a moment of silence as those present contemplated a future without Stannis, even if the Royal Army had managed to fight its way out of Dorne. Every lord jockeying for position, Tywin Lannister calling his banners to protect the reign of his grandson against all comers, the Dornish allowed to break away from the Realm as the royal government slowed to a crawl, and the peace of the Realm hanging on the statecraft and wisdom of Jon Arryn and the breath of a baby still at the breast.
“Gods be thanked it did not come to pass,” said Ser Wyllam Nayland, the Royal Castellan of Rosby and second-in-command of the Royal Brigade.
“The gods and the spearmen of the Royal Brigade,” said Ser Cortnay Penrose. “The rebel must have been supremely confident trying to attack formed heavy infantry with Dornish cavalry.” Dornish horsem*n almost uniformly were a weight class or two below Reacher and Stormland knights, courtesy of their warmer climate and lighter horses; even on the Marches the average Dornish knight was closer in equipment to a Northern heavy cavalryman than a proper knight.
“So our center repelled them,” said Stevron, “And then the order came to counterattack.” He glanced at Stannis. “Forgive me, Your Grace, but that order was premature. The center had repulsed their enemies but we on the right were still stuck in with them; we couldn’t advance.”
“Likewise on the left,” said Ralph Buckler. “Those Greenblood men might have been levies, but they fought like wolves.”
Stannis nodded. “The order to counterattack was ill-advised; I admit it,” he said. “When the center advanced without the flanks advancing alongside it we became exposed on either side, at which point they turned inward and began to collapse on us. And then the rebel charged our front again and broke through them.”
“That was the dangerous part, right there,” said Wyllam. “If we hadn’t had the Stormguard backing us up, that breakthrough in the front would have been a lot worse. Speaking of which, I need to commend one of my knights to Your Grace. Ser Harry Flash was commanding the platoon just to the right of the breach. When it was forced open he and his sergeant stepped into it and managed to keep the Dornishmen to a trickle until the Stormguard were able to plug the gap. Killed four Uller men himself, easy as breathing, according to his sergeant.”
Stannis nodded. “I will arrange some suitable reward,” he said. “I must also thank my Stormguard,” he added, turning to Cortnay. “They handled the breakthrough splendidly. I am told that one of the men who was killed in that clash was Lord Uller himself.”
Trebor nodded. “I saw the body and it was old Harmen alright,” he said. “I’d know his face anywhere, even with a lance-point through it.”
“And also His Grace comported himself well during the fighting,” said Stevron, a tone of fawningness creeping into his voice.
Stannis arched an eyebrow. “How would you know, when you weren’t there to see?” he asked pointedly. After making Stevron wilt a little under his cool stare, Stannis had mercy on him and shrugged. “I comported myself well enough,” he said, “but the brunt of the fighting was borne by my Stormguard, and borne well. I will not steal credit from men who deserve it more than I.”
Gulian Swann nodded slightly. Bronze Yohn steepled his hands in front of a small smile. Jason Mallister stroked his beard. Abram Gaunt rubbed his thumb over the knuckle of his forefinger. They had all known that their king was no coward; they wouldn’t have gone along with his plan of deliberately springing the ambush otherwise. But to have a king who was brave not only in battle but in the council chamber . . . that was rare indeed. And quite gratifying, for him to trust that their esteem of him did not need continual stoking, like a blacksmith’s forge.
“I wonder why the rebel himself did not lead that assault?” Anders mused. “Could he have been wounded in the first attack?”
“Possibly,”Gulian answered. “Or he could have been commanding from the rear.”
Anders shook his head. “You don’t know Oberyn as I do,” he said. “The man never finds a fight without throwing himself into it headfirst.”
“Whether Oberyn was injured or not is irrelevant,” Stannis said decisively. “He was able to break off the engagement and make good his escape.” His lips twisted in what could be called a self-deprecating smile if it weren’t so much like a grimace. “I still believe that we could have pursued him but, upon consideration, I agree with Ser Cortnay and Lord Anders that it would have been too chancy an endeavor to justify.”
“Especially since we’ve accomplished our primary objective,” Anders said. “The road to Sunspear lies open before us. A sennight’s march, maybe two, and we will be able to put Sunspear in order and go about crushing the Viper with no difficulties behind us.”
“Gods be merciful and make it so,” said Ser Symond Templeton. All present joined him in signing themselves with the seven-pointed star. “But what if Prince Doran either refuses to admit us or is incapable of doing so? I mean no insult, but all reports agree that he has not been himself since the Red Viper rebelled.”
“If Doran doesn’t admit us, then we shall have to negotiate with Princess-Consort Mellario,” Stannis replied. “By all reports, she seems to have assumed power in Sunspear. And quite well at that.”
“Really?” asked Jason in a surprised tone. “Can she do that?”
Trebor co*cked an eyebrow. “She is the Princess-Consort, and of sound mind and body,” he said coolly. “In the event of Prince Doran’s incapacitation, the power of the Prince passes to her, since Princess Arianne is still a minor. Surely you must know that we do things differently here in Dorne, Lord Mallister.”
“Yes, but . . . “Jason trailed off, knowing that saying hearing is different from seeing would sound as lame in his mouth as it did in his mind.
Stannis tapped a fingernail against the table. “In any case, we must needs prepare to continue our march to Sunspear. I am told that our wounded can all be ready to travel by the day after tomorrow, but . . . “
XXX
Ricasso was a maester, not a minstrel, but he dabbled in poetry when his duties allowed. And looking at King Stannis meeting with Princess Mellario, he knew he would have fodder for a dozen poems based on the similarities and differences between them. On the one hand, there was Princess Mellario, slender and graceful, draped in loose robes of orange silk painted with the sun-and-spear of the Martells, haughtily beautiful with her high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes reinforced by the gravity of her thirty-seven years. On the other, King Stannis, broad-shouldered and strongly built, clad in armor covered with a yellow linen tabard embroidered with the black crowned stag of his house, his face grimly set so that the light beard he was beginning to cultivate bristled as best it could.
The contrast they offered was startling, but even more startling was the similarity that Ricasso could sense in both of them. The shadows under Mellario’s eyes, concealed by cleverly applied cosmetics, and the lines already setting in on Stannis’ face, both spoke of heavy responsibilities suddenly assumed and stoically burdened, while the way Stannis gripped the hilt of his sword and the way Mellario spread her hands on the arms of the throne revealed what they chose to base their strength on. For Mellario, Ricasso knew, it was the House that she had married into; its antiquity, its reputation, and its long line of heroes and heroines. For Stannis, it was his own strength and his absolute trust in himself to meet any challenge with all the craft and might he could command; a natural enough attitude in a man just shy of his twenty-first nameday.
Ricasso could only hope that the two could see their similarities more than their differences; especially since they were meeting in private except for him and Stannis’ stern-looking Lord Commander, Ser Cortnay Penrose. The official reception had already taken place and the audience, where Stannis would decree the new course of royal policy in Dorne, was to take place tomorrow. The purpose of this conversation was to negotiate that policy.
“I wish to begin,” Stannis said finally, “by saying that Prince Doran cannot continue as Prince of Dorne. What I saw of him at the reception confirmed it in my mind.” Doran had attended the reception, under the influence of a stimulant, and had retired as early as was decently allowable. Even dosed, he had been dull-eyed and his speech had been soft and stilted, a far cry from the rich, flowing baritone that he had had before the rebellion.
Mellario tilted her head to one side. “For now, at least,” she conceded, “but he need not always be so. Maester Caelotte tells me that his condition improves daily. In time he will be able to resume his duties.”
Stannis shook his head. “His recovery will not suffice,” he said bluntly. “I require that Dorne be ruled by one who can maintain the King’s Peace in the face of all hazards, and in case of catastrophe provide effective leadership until royal aid arrives. Only one Martell has been able to do so, and it is not Doran.”
Mellario blinked, and then smiled slightly. “You have an odd sense of flattery, Your Grace.”
“The truth is not flattery,” Stannis replied. “You have proved yourself worthy to rule Dorne in my name until Doran’s heir comes of age. That said,” he frowned briefly, “those Houses that have declared their loyalty will need a greater voice in the running of Dorne to compensate them for their loyalty. At the very least the regency council will need to include Lord Yronwood.”
Mellario flipped her hand. “Like as not,” she said, “but the size and nature of such a council can wait until my goodbrother is brought to heel.”
“Which, with any luck, should be sometime in the next few months,” Stannis said. “With your forces added to mine, we should be able to push the rebels into the deep deserts easily enough, and then we can send our men in to root them out.”
“That may prove difficult,” Mellario observed. “The desert has eaten royal armies before.”
Stannis smiled grimly. “Not one that I have commanded,” he said.
XXX
The year 286 has just dawned. The Red Viper Rebellion is just under a year old.
After his defeat on the banks of the Greenblood, Oberyn Martell, the Red Viper, takes his fight to the desert. Royal forces pursue him, bringing fire and sword in their wake. The war becomes an affair of raid and counter-raid, of ambush and reprisal, of destroyed wells and populations sent to the Greenblood to be held prisoner in guarded camps. While royalist soldiers scour the desert, Ironborn reavers under the command of Quellon Greyjoy and his son Euron sweep the coast. Atrocities are committed by land and sea.
Oberyn himself fights for every inch he can. After being driven from Vaith by overwhelming numbers, he divides his forces in order for them to more effectively harry the royal forces. King Stannis, in response, divides his armies into ‘hunting parties’, each charged with killing every rebel they can find.
After months of searching, a ‘hunting party’ finds evidence that Oberyn has passed nearby, and sets out in pursuit . . .
- The opening crawl from The Red Viper: Blood and Sand, the third season of a popular television series that depicts a fictionalized version of Oberyn Martell’s life and which aired in 1987 AC. Claims that production of the series was partially funded by the Sons of the Sand, an extremist nationalist group, remain officially unfounded.
At least it’s cool in here, Ser Rickon Riverbend thought as he knelt in the Dornish sept. Gods know that not much else about it is right.
The village of Palm Spring, so named for the date palms that grew around a spring that formed a respectable pond, boasted a small sept on account of it being home to some two hundred souls, but it was evidently little-used and had been designed by someone with tastes that leaned towards the heretical. There was a layer of dust on the altars of the Warrior, the Crone, and the Stranger, and the layout of the altars was wrong as well. Instead of being separated into their own alcoves, as was proper, the altars were grouped by twos, the Father with the Mother, the Warrior with the Maiden, and the Crone with the Smith, while the Stranger’s altar sat by itself. What was more, instead of wearing a properly beatific expression the Mother looked almost as stern as the Father.
Ser Rickon scowled for a moment, and then cleared his mind with an effort of will. Heretical or not, it was still a sept, and he needed to pray.
He had been a landed knight’s bastard son, trained to arms out of a sense of paternal responsibility that had come late to his father and had probably been spurred by the fact that his trueborn son was a sour and small-souled man. By dint of hard work and uncomplaining service he had managed to earn a place in the guard of Lord Darry. He had been passed over for promotion and reward in favor of men with better names than Rivers, but his skill at arms and chivalrous conduct had won him a modicum of respect.
And then the Rebellion had come along and given him his chance. The hedgerows had given him a reputation for valor and two captured knights whose ransoms had provided him with a new courser, a fine suit of plate armor, and a better sword than any he had previously owned. But an even sweeter reward than the ransoms had been respect; men who had scorned him for his bastard birth had offered him a place at their fire, bought him wine, even tried to claim his friendship. No less a knight than the Blackfish himself had asked him to join the Sunset Company on its venture!
That offer he had refused; justice aside the gods could not look with favor upon Robert Baratheon, who was as foolish as he was vulgar. The sheer arrogance it must have taken to forswear the crown that the gods had placed on his head and forsake the responsibilities of kingship was mind-boggling. Not for nothing was pride accounted the deadliest of sins.
On top of which, the Book of the Father clearly stated vengeance is mine. For mortal men to usurp that power smacked not just of pride, but hubris.
So Rickon had stayed in Westeros, and quickly found himself lordless; Lord Darry had needed to make room in his service for a bastard nephew, or some such, and Rickon had been the lowest-ranked and most junior of his sworn swords. At least the old man had been apologetic about the necessity, and gracious enough to give him a purse of silver and a letter of recommendation with his seal to present to any lord who Rickon approached. But with the end of the Rebellion the lords had no need of another sword, even one as good and well-mannered as Rickon, even with so many fools rushing off to the East to find glory or an early grave, and so he had found himself a hedge knight at the age of twenty-eight.
The first thing he had done was find a master herald and change his name from Rivers to Riverbend; he could not entirely escape the stain of bastardy, but he would change as much of it as he could. That had taken much of the purse Lord Darry had given him, and his horse had steadily eaten through much of the rest. He had been down to two silver stags and a handful of coppers when the call went out for men to put down a Dornish rebellion.
He had ridden to King’s Landing the next day and taken the King’s star; a true knight fought in his king’s service when called upon, without reservation. He had done good service at the Greenblood with the Royal Brigade, and when the rebel had taken to the desert he had been tapped to lead a ‘hunting party’; a column of two to three-score knights, light horse, and mounted archers that operated as an independent unit that pursued the rebels by whatever means it’s commander deemed necessary. King Stannis, in his wisdom, had given his officers considerable latitude in how they went about running the rebels to earth; almost the only injunction laid on their initiative was that those Dornishmen who submitted to the King’s Justice and kept his Peace were to be protected to the last drop of blood or bloodily avenged, as circ*mstances dictated.
By the gods’ mercy he was here under the former of those circ*mstances; what the rebels left of their victims made hard viewing even for seasoned veterans. In fact, he had been told that a man who dwelt in this village had information for him.
As he was saying a prayer to the Warrior for the skill to lead his men well (he knew that he did not lack for courage) the door to the vestry opened and soft footsteps announced the coming of a man who knelt beside him. As Rickon finished praying, the man, hooded and cloaked even in the heat of the Dornish desert, turned his head.
“Ser knight, I have information,” he said softly. Rickon made a face; even the language was different here, with the stretching, rolling contortions it put words through. It made him long for the true speech of his homeland, that lovely land of broad fields and green forests watered by the mighty Trident, so different from this place with its burning sands and bleak mountains and anemic streams that the locals insisted were rivers.
“Speak, then, in the king’s name,” he said, giving the countersign. It was crude, the fat, bald man who had taught him the password that royal informants would use had said, but it had the advantage of being simple. Rickon wouldn’t have known, as he had little stomach for such games; give him a good horse, a strong lance, and a level field any day.
“Rebel horsem*n came through this village last night,” the informant whispered. “They stopped only to water their horses and themselves, but I heard one of them say that it was not too far to their camp. Two hours hard riding and no more.”
Rickon fingered the small crystal he had pulled out from under his breastplate. “Any idea of where this camp might be?” he asked softly.
“There is an arroyo, a ravine, some twenty miles from here,” the informant whispered. “The spring there is too small for herds of goats or sheep, so we of this village do not go there, but it might be sufficient for a score and a half of horsem*n who were careful not to let themselves or their horses drink too much.”
Rickon nodded. “Can you lead us to this ravine?” he inquired.
The informant spread his hands. “Ser knight, most in this village are loyal subjects of His Grace, but no one loves a tell-tale. To do even this much is to put my life at risk. If I were to lead you to these rebels I would be dead before the sennight is out. Come, and hearken,” the informant stood and walked up to the Warrior’s altar; Rickon followed and winced to see him drawing a map in the dust with his fingertip; it wasn’t strictly against the laws of the Faith, but it didn’t do to show the gods disrespect. “Ride out on the road towards Hellholt,” the informant whispered,” and when you have gone some six miles, stop and turn due north, so. From that point it is perhaps two hours fast ride for a single man, and you will come upon the ravine from the side.”
“Does it open at either end?” Rickon asked, committing the crude map to memory.
“Aye,” said the Dornishman. “But the ways in and out are narrow; only ten sheep or so may pass abreast. Perhaps one or two men on horseback, if they wish to move at speed?” He waggled his hand to indicate uncertainty.
Rickon finished committing the map to memory and swept it away with the flat of his hand. “Will you be safe here, after we leave?” he asked, as he continued to brush the dust off the altar.
“With the gods’ help, yes,” said the Dornishman. “But all things are in their hands and they help best those who help themselves.”
Rickon nodded, the saying was much the same in the Riverlands, and fished a small medallion stamped with the royal arms on one side and a lidless eye on the other out of his belt pouch. “If you must flee then get yourself to Vaith, or Godsgrace, or Sunspear,” he said, “and present this to any king’s officer. Protection will be provided, and passage out of Dorne.”
The Dornishman accepted the medallion and pressed it to his forehead. “Gods bless His Grace, and the Warrior guide your hand, ser knight,” he said, slipping away and back to the vestry.
Four hours later, Rickon and his hunting party were riding across the desert, a score of loyal Dornish light horsem*n, what they called jinetes, half as many mounted archers, and ten knights with their squires, who were armed after the fashion of the jinetes with light ring-mail shirts under their surcoats, a shield, a sword, and a pair of javelins. The knights, squires, and mounted archers were riding in a loose double line abreast that alternated squires with mounted archers and held the knights as a reserve, while half of the jinetes formed a scouting screen and the rest covered the flanks. Every eye scanned the horizon and the crests of the low dunes they were riding through; the rebels fought from ambush wherever they could, and what they did to prisoners was enough to make even the boldest man wary.
The jinetes out in front suddenly stopped just short of the crest of the next dune, raising their spears straight up in the signal to halt, and after hurried consultation one wheeled his horse around and trotted up to Rickon. “The ravine is up ahead, ser,” he said, his accent less pronounced than the informant’s had been; he was Stony Dornish, from the Fowler lands, lent with the rest of his bandera by Randyll Tarly, who was holding the western edge of the desert. “Just beyond this next dune there is a gentle downslope to a flat stretch that reaches for about a long bowshot and a half, and through this the ravine runs. Both the slope and the flat can be easily passed by men on horseback. There is no cover to approach by stealth.”
Rickon bared his teeth. The moment he went over that crest, then, he would be spotted. Assuming, of course, that he hadn’t been already, although his men took steps to limit their visibility. Their metal was either carefully dulled and browned or covered, and whenever they rode near a hill or dune-crest they lowered their lances and spears to the horizontal to keep them from poking over the crest and revealing them. “Are the ways out of the ravine within easy reach from here?”
“Yes, especially for men traveling at speed,” the Dornishman replied. “Also, the sides of the ravine seem steep, too steep for riders.”
Rickon only had to consider for a moment. Turning in the saddle, he called for his second-in-command, a Crownlander named Ser Willam Gisbourne, and the sergeant of the archers, a Stormlander from the Marches who answered to the name of Bent. “Ser Willam, take half the cavalry, and take the left end of the ravine. Block it off, keep them from escaping, and run down any who get out before we get there. I’ll do the same on the right. Bent, take the archers to the edge of the ravine; your first target will be any who seem about to get away from us. Once the leakers are dealt with, turn your bows on those in the ravine.”
Bent smiled evilly. “Fish in a barrel they’ll be, ser, and no mistake,” he said eagerly.
“Remember,” Rickon said sharply, “we want prisoners to interrogate, and anyone who asks quarter is to be given it. We are not murderers, as the rebels are.” Ser Willam nodded. Bent did as well, after a shrug and a muttered “Could’ve fooled me” earned him a scorching look.
Five minutes later, all was in readiness; the knights, squires, and jinetes were deployed in two columns on either end of the formation and the archers were in a single line with their bows already strung. Turbans and headscarfs, worn as protection against the blistering Dornish sun, were stripped off and replaced with helmets, and the dull yellow kaftan that each man wore to keep the sun off his armor was rolled into a tube and stashed on the back of the saddle. Rickon took a final look up and down the line, craned his neck to check that his squire was in his proper place, and whistled sharply, gesturing with the light spear that he had taken to using in place of a knight’s lance.
The hunting party came over the crest of the dune at the trot and accelerated to a fast canter on the downslope, whooping as they came; they were already in plain sight of any sentries, there was no need to try and maintain stealth. They were a long javelin cast away when the first rebel riders started to come streaming out of the ravine at either end. Rickon was dimly aware of the archers dismounting and sending their first arrows whistling away, but he ignored them as he tossed his spear into a throwing grip, stood in his stirrups, and threw with all the power in his arms and back; he had taken to practicing spear-throwing from horseback after the Greenblood, where the rebel jinetes had tormented the knights with showers of javelins.
His spear sank home into a magnificent coal-black horse just coming out of the ravine, which made it another four steps before collapsing with a despairing neigh, it’s rider missing his opportunity to get clear of the saddle and becoming pinned under the saddle and almost a half-ton of horseflesh by his left leg. A shouted command as Rickon drew his sword sent the jinetes after the men who had gotten out before the dying horse had choked the escape route and Rickon and his knights struck the two men who had gone back for their comrade and a third who had come out of the ravine to assist them like a hammer. With a shout of “Watch him!” to his squire and another of “On me!” to his knights, Rickon dismounted and went to one knee in the entrance to the ravine, his shield covering him from front knee to chin and his sword drawn back ready to stab as his knights joined him.
“Yield!” he roared over the chorus of screams that told him that the archers had reached the lip of the ravine and were picking their targets. “Yield or die!”
A cry of “f*ck you, northerner!” choked off in a gurgling scream. Rickon shook his head and rose to his feet. “Forward!” he shouted, leading his knights into the ravine.
The rebels fought valiantly, but in their light mail-shirts and brigandines they were a poor match for knights in half-plate at close quarters, especially veterans such as Rickon’s men were. As Rickon tramped out of the valley cleaning his sword on a cloth taken from one of the slain rebels and feeling the sudden draining sensation that always hit him after fighting hard, he found his squire where he had left him, standing on the prone rebel’s right arm. “Any trouble, Tytos?” he asked lightly.
Tytos Hill shook his head. He was a lad of fifteen, who would have been handsome in a dark and brooding sort of fashion but for the shocking burn scar that warped the left side of his face. Tytos was a poor conversationalist, being sullen, sharp-tongued, and prone to sarcasm, but his lack of graces was remedied by his martial skills, which were well-advanced for one so young. He was a decent jouster and a fair hand with a war hammer, mace, or axe, but with a sword he was a natural artist, enough so that only Rickon’s greater experience allowed him to give the young Westerman the proper tutelage. “Not much any man can do in his condition,” he said roughly. “But look at his surcoat, ser.”
Rickon looked as he returned his sword to its sheath and felt his heart skip a beat. The sun and spear of the Martell’s, encircled by a red viper with its fangs bared. Only one man in Dorne was entitled to bear those arms. Rickon looked the prisoner in his swarthy, sharp-nosed face. “What is your name, friend?” he asked courteously.
“I’m no friend of yours, lion-arse licker,” the rebel spat in a voice shot through with pain that trailed off as he grimaced and clutched at his trapped leg with his left hand. Tytos lifted his mace, a two-foot long steel bar with an x-shaped cross-section formed by four flanges that flared outwards as they neared the striking end, and was about to bring it down on the rebel’s good leg when Rickon reached out and grabbed him by the wrist.
Tytos glanced at him. “He would do as much to us,” he said defensively, “if not worse.”
“Yet we do not,” Rickon said firmly. “That is how we are better than them.”
Tytos subsided, grumbling, as the sergeant of the party’s jinetes, a man named Gerris Sand who was apparently a bastard nephew of Lord Blackmont, trotted up, flourishing his bloody sword, which was slightly curved in the Dornish fashion. “None escaped, ser,” he said gleefully. “The fastest made it a hundred yards. I took him from behind, thusly . . .”
Rickon raised a hand. “Some other time,” he said. “Do you know this man?” He gestured at the prisoner.
Gerris peered down at the prisoner’s face, and his eyes grew wide. “Gods old and new!” he spat. “It is Oberyn Martell!”
Rickon suppressed the surge of triumph that welled in his breast. “You are sure?” he asked. “I mean no offense, but we must be certain.”
“When he came to Blackmont, all men came out to see the Red Viper,” Gerris said, almost babbling in his excitement. “I only saw him at a distance, but I saw him clearly, aye and the horse that he rode and which now lies on top of him.” Gerris threw his head back and whooped. “Ah, ser knight, the gods smile upon us! His Grace King Stannis will give much in gold for the pleasure of killing him!”
Oberyn Martell spat at the hooves of Gerris’ horse. “Laugh while you may, traitor,” he growled sibilantly. “The deepest circle of the Hells is reserved for betrayers.”
“And there is a furnace thrice-heated awaiting thee in that pit, Viper, for betraying your prince and bringing this war upon us,” Gerris snarled back. “Although you could burn for eternity and it would be insufficient.” The Dornishman looked up at Rickon. “Shall I cut out his tongue, ser, that we might be spared his curses?”
Rickon shook his head. “A gag will suffice,” he said. “Bind him well, but not cruelly, and search him for poisons. I will not have any man cheat the King’s justice, especially not this one.”
Twelve days later, Rickon was standing in the great hall of Castle Vaith, recounting his tale to King Stannis and his court, which broke into light applause as he came to the end of his report. “Well done, Ser Rickon,” said the King, who had led the applause. “My steward shall see your men rewarded with monies; I am told that Lord Tyrell has placed a substantial price on Oberyn’s head after he placed a price on the head of Tyrell’s son Willas. As for your own reward, attend upon me after this audience is dismissed and we shall speak of it.” As Rickon bowed and withdrew to the company of his hunting party, who received him with fierce grins of triumph, Stannis turned to Oberyn. “Now, Prince Oberyn, what shall we do with you?”
Oberyn, who had been carried in on a chair due to his splinted leg with his wrists manacled behind the chairs back, spat on the floor. “I maintain the justice of my cause,” he snarled, his face contorted with hatred, “and curse you for a tyrant blinded by Cersei Lannister’s tit*! Let me out of these chains and face me with a sword, weakling, and let us see whose cause the gods favor.”
Stannis co*cked an eyebrow. “Trial by combat is resorted to only when there is a question of guilt to be determined,” he said evenly. “As a rebel taken in arms, your guilt is not in doubt. Nor will I have it said that I made a crippled man fight for his life.” He rose from his seat. “Oberyn Martell,” he said formally, “by my right of high justice in all of Westeros, I find you guilty of high treason against the Iron Throne, and sentence you to death by beheading.” He turned to the Lord Commander of his Stormguard. “Ser Cortnay, take the condemned in custody. See to it that he remains in good health until he is brought out to die.”
Oberyn cursed loud and long as a quartet of Stormguard knights stepped forward to pick up his chair and carry him out of the hall, being silenced only by a blow from a gauntleted fist that knocked him unconscious. As the rebel prince slumped in his chair and the court broke up in excited conversation, a page in royal livery tugged on Rickon’s sleeve and led him out of the hall. Rickon followed, his head spinning with the possibilities that royal favor would make possible. Land and wealth certainly, but honor was just as good, and Rickon knew that the Stormguard had a dozen posts left to fill before it reached the required forty-nine. The Stormguard didn’t have the reputation that the Kingsguard had, but Rickon knew a legend in the making when he saw one. It was a rare man who was able to become a part of such legends.
Oberyn Martell was beheaded in the courtyard of Castle Vaith before a crowd of a thousand people; by all accounts he died as he lived, proud and defiant to his last breath. With Oberyn’s execution, and the death of Lord Qorgyle in an ambush eight days later, the Red Viper Rebellion was decisively crushed. If the Red Viper’s banner was raised in later years it was by bandit gangs seeking a fig leaf for their crimes.
Of course, Stannis’ work was not completed with simply defeating the rebels. Over the next two months Sunspear played host to almost a tenth of the nobility of the Seven Kingdoms as Stannis hammered out the new terms of the governance of Dorne with the Dornish magnates; perhaps the most exotic attendee was Balon Greyjoy, whose father Quellon had died in a raid on a rebel camp on the Dornish coast and had come to Sunspear to pledge his fealty to Stannis. A proposal that the Martells be deprived of the Princedom was shot down by Stannis himself, but they did not escape with a whole skin either. Doran Martell abdicated as Prince of Dorne; by the end of the sennight he was on a royal ship bound for Quiet Isle, there to live out his days as a contemplative monk of the Faith under observation by the garrison of Saltpans. Princess Mellario was confirmed as Princess-Regent for her daughter Arianne, but was required to accept a regency council composed of three royalist magnates in the persons of Lord Anders Yronwood, Lady Larra Blackmont, and Lord Franklyn Fowler, one neutral in the form of Lady Casella Dalt, who would become one of Mellario’s stronger supporters on the council, and Ser Harold Jordayne.
The inclusion of Ser Harold on the regency council would ordinarily have been inexplicable, for aside from being the first Dornishman to personally swear fealty to Stannis at the start of the rebellion and being of impeccable loyalty afterwards, he was relatively undistinguished. Indeed, the most noteworthy service he performed during the rebellion was ensuring House Jordayne’s loyalty on the march to Sunspear, a feat which owed more to his glib tongue than any skill at arms. But Ser Harold was no longer a mere knight, but the instrument of a bold new experiment on Stannis’ part.
The end of the rebellion did not mean an immediate return to peace across Dorne; a few die-hard rebels still lurked in the desert, while bandit gangs roamed from the Torrentine to the Greenblood, taking advantage of the breakdown of law and order to enjoy a heyday of raiding and pillage. In order to combat this, Stannis created a new order of knighthood. The Royal Order of the Sun, as it was called, served three purposes. Firstly, and most explicitly, it was charged with enforcing the King’s Peace in Dorne, delivering grievances to the regency council on which Ser Harold sat by virtue of his rank as Master of the Order, and executing justice on their behalf. Secondly, it provided a means to reward knights and men-at-arms who had done good service in the Rebellion and would otherwise have become unemployed with the end of hostilities; a sterling example was Ser Rickon Riverbend, who was the named the Order’s first Marshal. Thirdly, and most controversially, it was meant to be the visible arm of the royal government in Dorne; the office of Grand Master of the Order was made hereditary in the Baratheon royal line and all Order patrols were to fly the king’s banner, alongside their own banner of a yellow sun-in-splendor on a white field.
The creation of the Order was certainly unprecedented, and was viewed with much wariness and no small amount of alarm among the conservative faction at court and the neutral-leaning Dornish, but they had vital support among the royalist Dornish. Lord Yronwood granted the Order five farms on his lands, and other loyalist lords provided similar grants, either of lands or of other assets; Lord Jordayne gifted each of the Order’s four principal officers a sand steed from his personal stud. The reasons for this generosity varied widely, both generally and personally, but they appear to be a mix of genuine loyalty to King Stannis, and by extension to his representatives, and self-interest; Lady Blackmont, writing to Lord Dayne, described them as “not just our shield against future rebellions, but a club with which we may beat down our enemies if they stand against us.” The justice of the latter claim is borne out by a review of Marshal Rickon’s reports to the regency council, which largely consisted of claims that the remaining members of Houses Uller and Qorgyle where either granting safe haven to bandits or else failing in their duty to hunt them down; consequently both of these former rebel Houses suffered a series of penalties, including censures, fines, and even confiscation of lands, which were typically awarded to the Fowlers, the Yronwoods, and the Daynes, all of which had supported the Iron Throne.
The consequences of the Order’s creation reverberate to this day . . .
- All King’s Men: The Knightly Orders of Stannis the Grim by Jon Daniels, published 1897 AC
Chapter 29: Dog-Brothers
Chapter Text
Dog-Brothers
“You are sure I cannot convince you to stay?” Eddard asked, hoping against hope.
Jon Umber shook his head. “I’m still the Lord of Last Hearth, Ned,” he said regretfully. “Now that Rhaegar’s dead, I can no longer stay away. My people need me.”
Maege Mormont also shook her head. “I need to take my daughter home,” she said, glancing at the coffin being loaded aboard the ship. “But I’ll be back, even if this overgrown loon won’t.” She jerked a thumb towards the Greatjon, who co*cked an eyebrow. “And I’ll bring every sword your brother can spare with me,” she went on. “The debt of my daughter’s death is paid, but there are still slavers in these lands. I have not yet had my fill of blood.”
“Nor have I,” Eddard said grimly. News of Rhaegar’s death had reached Myr a sennight ago, and Eddard had received it with mixed feelings. On the one hand, the Rapist was dead, and Lyanna’s blood avenged. On the other, Eddard had not delivered the fatal blow himself, and Ser Arthur Dayne’s rescue of Rhaegar from the field of Tara and his subsequent escape from Myr meant that he was denied the pleasure of sending Rhaegar’s skull to Winterfell to be laid at the feet of Lyanna’s statue in the crypts. Moreover, Viserys still lived, and so long as one Targaryen drew breath, Eddard’s vengeance was incomplete.
In the meantime, the kingdom was losing men. Some had decided that with Rhaegar dead, the Company’s quest had been fulfilled and they were released from their oaths. Others, more prosaically, had made enough money from plunder that they wanted to go home and spend it, or at least make sure that it got to any family they had left behind in Westeros. Those who fell under the former category Eddard had released from service with the condition that they send as many recruits and as much aid as they could from their homelands. The latter Eddard had dispatched with wishes for safe travels after extracting oaths to return as swiftly as they might. The ships that had started arriving over the past two sennights, bold merchant seamen from Braavos or King’s Landing or Gulltown taking a chance at being the first to make commercial contacts with the new kingdom, were making a fair amount of money out of it.
“We’ll need more than swords, though,” Eddard said finally after a long moment. “We need maesters, scribes, war horses, law-readers . . . “ he spread his hands as if to indicate the enormity of the problem. “We have the makings of a kingdom, but we need a fully functioning kingdom, and we need it quickly. Tyrosh and Lys may be contenting themselves with probing the borders so far, but there will be open war within a year. And that leaves aside the Dothraki.”
“I’ll send what aid I can,” Jon rumbled. “If nothing else I can tell every restless lad in the North that there’s fame and fortune to be had in these lands if he serves you well. If no one else, poor old Arnolf’s sons will come. Better than sitting around Karhold the rest of their lives living on Rickard’s goodwill and they have their father to avenge.” He grinned mirthlessly. “And if Brandon complains, I can tell him that I’m doing him a favor. First by making sure his brother has sufficient force to defend himself, second by getting all those hot-headed young men somewhere they can make themselves useful.”
Eddard favored Jon with an irritated look. “Jon,” he said evenly, “don’t give Brandon more grief than you must. You know I can’t take Winterfell even if I wanted it, now, and Benjen is promised to the Night’s Watch. I would take it amiss if Brandon’s children were disinherited and you had anything to do with it.”
“Don’t fash yourself, Ned,” Jon said, waving a hand larger than most dinner plates. “I’ll be the soul of loyalty to Brandon and his bairns while I’m in the North and under his rule.” The towering Northman looked Eddard full in the face. “But hearkee, Ned,” he said seriously. “If you need my sword, all you have to do is call and I’ll come. And if Brandon doesn’t give me leave,” his great paw flicked sharply, as if to shoo away an insect, “then f*ck him.”
Eddard considered a range of responses, and in the end opted for simply sticking his hand out. “Can’t say fairer than that,” he said resignedly, exchanging grips with Jon and Maege in turn. “Gods watch over you both.”
XXX
The hedge knight knew he was not quite the picture of chivalry. His horse was no great destrier of the Highgarden stables or the great stud farm outside Lannisport, but a graying and scarred rounsey of no particular breeding that he called Jack; he had stopped giving his horses fancy names years ago. His armor, which consisted primarily of a breastplate, vambraces, and a kettle helm, was old and seamed with the bright lines that showed where old dents had been hammered out and was painted a dull black, as was his shield; the paint helped keep the metal from rusting and the wood from rotting. His arming sword, broad-bladed and with a less acute point than newer blades, was sharp and clean, but undeniably old; it had been his uncle’s sword before the old man shat himself to death after drinking from a stream in the Stormlands, and was a generation out of date. He himself was no maiden’s fantasy either; years on the road, interspersed with fighting for as much pay as he could cadge from whatever lord he served at the time, had battered a once-handsome face into homeliness and weathered him like an old boulder.
All that said, he was still in a cheery mood. It was a late summer day with fine weather, he had money in his purse and food in his saddlebags courtesy of the Dornish rebellion, and he knew where a good camping place was to be found on this road on the eastern bank of the Mander. He had been on the roads for thirty years, first as his uncle’s page and squire and then as a knight, and he knew every trick of how to survive the solitary and nomadic existence of the hedge knight. And even if he hadn’t, this particular camping place was widely known, for if hedge knights weren’t there then drovers or local shepherds usually were, or young nobles who had gone hunting and decided to stay out overnight.
So he wasn’t terribly surprised to see the glow of a fire through the trees that surrounded the site. “Hello the fire!” he called as he rode up; there were rules to life on the road and one of them was that when you approached a camp you always announced yourself. If you didn’t, then whoever was in that camp had the right to assume that you weren’t friendly and act accordingly. That sort of thing could get bloody in a tearing hurry, especially when it involved men who lived by their wits and their skill at arms.
“Hello yourself!” came the reply; a Riverlander by the accent, if the hedge knight was any judge. He himself was a Crownlander from around Sow’s Horn, although he hadn’t visited his family’s home in years. “Come and join us, friend, if friend you be.”
The hedge knight walked his horse up to the edge of the camping site and dismounted with a small groan of relief; he would never see forty again and long days in the saddle left him stiffer than they used to. Stripping off his heavy steerhide gloves he held out his hand to the man who had risen to greet him. “Ser Vernan Irons,” he introduced himself. “I have food to share, if you’re agreeable.”
“More than,” said the other man, a thickset fellow with a short goatee and a bushy moustache. “Ser Lanard Blackpool, at your service. My friend here is Ser Brynnan the Axe, as you might tell by his weapon.” The man sitting on the ground flicked a finger off his brow in acknowledgement; he was a powerfully built man with hands like spades; the horseman’s axe resting conveniently close to his hand had a shaft as long as a man’s arm with a deceptively small head.
Introductions being taken care of and the sun going down, the hedge knights set to work. By the time the bottom edge of the sun had touched the horizon, Vernan’s horse had been unsaddled, a small pot of nail soup was bubbling over the fire, and Brynnan had produced a bottle of rough wine that made its way around.
“Whereabouts you coming from?” asked Brynnan as he spooned a helping of soup into his bowl.
“Dorne, along the Torrentine,” Vernan replied. “What with Oberyn getting the axe, Lord Tarly didn’t need me anymore, so he released me from his service.”
“You were in Dorne?” asked Lanard, perking up. “I was there myself, around Skyreach mostly.” He shook his head. “In about a hundred years, I’ll want to do that again. Hotter than a frying pan and never knowing if this was the day some rebel bastard was going to dry-gulch you while you were taking a piss. Were you in Dorne, Brynnan?”
The dour Westerlander shook his head. “I was sworn to Lord Foote at the time,” he said, “and the West didn’t march. Something about not poking a thumb in the Dornishmen’s eye unnecessarily.” He snorted. “Load of rot, you ask me. Do I look like a Clegane?”
Lanard co*cked his head and narrowed his eyes. “Depend on the light,” he said, an affectedly serious tone in his voice, “but if you turn your head just to the right and furrow your brow . . .” Brynnan threw a small pebble at him lightly while Vernan laughed. “Thank the gods it’s over, though,” Lanard went on. “Back in country the gods truly love with decent weather instead of that burning hellhole.”
“Except for the part where we’re not getting paid anymore,” Vernan replied, blowing on a spoonful of soup. “War or peace, we still have to eat, and so do our horses.” Swallowing the spoonful of soup he glanced at Brynnan. “Any of the western lords retaining men?”
“If they were, I wouldn’t be here,” Brynnan replied. “Old Tywin has the Westerlands sewn up tighter than a moneylender’s purse, and his patrols don’t look kindly on hedge knights or freeriders roaming around the place without being in service. So when I lost my place to a man who, to be fair, was better with a sword than I am with an axe, I thought I’d go east and see if there was any truth to the news out of Essos.”
That provoked a moment of silence. For months now, news of what had passed in Essos had spread through the Seven Kingdoms like wildfire. A great battle had been fought that had left ten thousand dead upon the field. Myr had been besieged, and then sacked with great slaughter. Robert Baratheon, once called Robert the Brief, was now a king again, this time of Myr. Rhaegar Targaryen was dead, either in the battle or later after his flight to Volantis. Robert summoned all brave men who loved freedom and feared neither toil nor battle to his new kingdom, where leal service would be richly rewarded.
“I heard as there were lordships for the taking in Myr now,” Lanard offered. “Fight well and serve loyally and Baratheon’ll give you land and make you a lord, and never mind what you were before.”
Brynnan looked up from the fire sharply. “Is that true?” he asked, his voice edged. “Because if it’s not true, then that’s a very poor joke, and you shouldn’t make it.”
Lanard held up his hands. “I just heard it,” he said defensively. “I don’t know whether the news is true or not, I just hear it.”
Brynnan gestured acceptance and went back to staring at the fire. The words hung in the air. Land. Lordship. It was long and long since a new lordly house had been raised up. Even the best and luckiest of hedge knights could hope only to become a landed knight, with four or five farms under their hand and maybe a mill if they were lucky. To be sure hedge knights had joined the Kingsguard in days past, and word was that there were a few on the Stormguard, but even a man of the royal bodyguard still depended on his lord’s favor for his daily bread; incur your lord’s displeasure and you risked being dismissed without pay or reference, and maybe a beating if you were very unlucky. To own land in your own right was to be a lord; a small lord perhaps but a lord nonetheless. To own land was to never worry about starving again, to never fear being caught on the road without shelter in winter, to not have to contend with bad weather or bandits with only your own wits and your own sword-craft. What was more, to own land was to be able to buy proper armor or a good war-horse or a new sword, to be able to marry and father sons to carry on your name, to start a line that might last a thousand years if your heirs played their cards right.
But it was a rare lord who rewarded his sworn swords with land; for the most part, there was no unclaimed land to give in reward. And even if there was land, there was usually a shortage of people to farm it. Every lord in Westeros tried to lure people to their lands, but the simple fact was that farm work was brutally hard, and while the smallfolk tended to have large families, it wasn’t uncommon for four or five of every ten children to die before their fifth nameday. Even prosperous, safe, and well-governed lands tended to gain in population only slowly.
So if Robert Baratheon was rewarding good service with land . . .
“How much does it cost to buy a passage from King’s Landing to Myr?” Vernan asked finally.
Lanard shrugged. “I wouldn’t know, as I’ve never been on a ship,” he said. “Could be anywhere from fifty stags to fifty dragons.” He grimaced. “Probably more, to carry your horse.”
Brynnan shrugged. “Either way, it’s out of my reach,” he said sourly. “Lord Foote shoveled me out the gate without bothering to pay me for the last month I served him, the tight-fisted old bastard. Said that as payday hadn’t come around yet, I wasn’t entitled to pay.” He shrugged. “Guess I’ll have to head down to Dorne and see if I can get a place in this Order of the Sun people say the King’s set up.”
Vernan raised a finger. “I’ve an idea,” he said. “What say we pool our money together, ride to King’s Landing, and try to get passage to Myr all together? We might be able to knock a few stags off the price by volunteering to help fight off any pirates the ship runs into.”
Lanard and Brynnan looked at each other. “That could work,” Lanard said hesitantly. “I’ve got a fair amount left from my Dornish service still, enough that I should be able to pay for a passage with some left over.” He grimaced. “If it comes to that, we can probably make up any shortfall by selling our horses. Essos has horses, doesn’t it?”
“Must do,” said Brynnan. “What with bloody Dothraki crawling all over the place.” He grimaced again; Vernan thought it might be a favorite expression of his. “If you’ll help me pay my passage,” he said slowly, sounding like he was in pain, “I’ll pay you back as soon as I can, once we’re in Myr and in Baratheon’s service.”
Lanard waved a hand. “What’s a favor between comrades?” he said carelessly. “Besides, three stout lads like us?” He gave a cawing laugh. “We’ll have more gold off the magisters than we’ll know what to do with, ere long.”
“I’ll drink to that,” said Vernan pouring a measure of the rough wine into his small horn cup and passing the bottle to Brynnan, who did the same and passed it to Lanard. Vernan lifted his cup. “Hell or plunder, dog-brothers.”
The three hedge knights tapped their cups together to seal their pact.
Author's Note: This chapter and the next few chapters will be taking place over the course of the next several months in-story as the fallout from the Fall of Myr and the Red Viper Rebellion takes effect.
Chapter 30: Howl and Scream
Chapter Text
Howl and Scream
War without fire, Lyn Corbray’s old master-at-arms had told him, was like sausage without mustard. If that was the case, he reflected as he sipped at his canteen and surveyed the swath of border country that his men had swept through, this particular dish was well-seasoned indeed.
As Warden of the Southern Marches, Lyn was charged with keeping the peace throughout the new kingdom’s southern border country, repelling any incursions, and, in the event of a major invasion, holding the enemy at bay as long as he could until reinforcements arrived from the rest of the realm. On the face of it, this would have been a difficult task even with a strong and well-found realm; with a realm that was still being born, it was almost impossible.
Assuming of course, that you took a very limited view of the task and the power given you to carry it out.
The day after Robert and his progress had moved on, Lyn had placed Ser Eustace Hunter in command of Sirmium with a tenth of his force and taken the rest on a massive raid into the Tyroshi lands. The main column of infantry, a mixture of Westerosi spearmen and men of the Iron Legion, marched from one walled town to the other, storming them by surprise escalade under cover of night and bloodily sacking them, while parties of horsem*n ranged out from the column to despoil and torch every village, estate, and farm they could reach. The Tyroshi border guards had suspected an incursion, and indeed had been reinforced by a company of Tyroshi regulars a sennight before the assault, but the speed and violence of the offensive had caught them off guard. The Prefect of the East, the Tyroshi governor, managed to rally enough of his forces to offer battle at the town of Tignes, but the companies of the Iron Legion who made up most of Lyn’s infantry had learned quickly and well from the Westerosi veterans and the Tyroshi infantry were scattered.
The goal was to turn the Tyroshi side of the border from a prosperous and well-ordered region that could serve as the storehouse of an invading army to a smoking ruin incapable of supporting any sizable force. And to do that Lyn was sweeping the frontier with sword and torch as it had not been swept in more than a century. The sellsword companies of the east could be brutal, to be sure, but their brutality had rules as to what could be demanded, what punishment could be levied if what was demanded was not produced and there was no excuse, and what compensation was due to those who produced promptly and in full; among other things the farm and draft horses of the Disputed Lands had a respectable amount of war-horse blood in their family tree. These rules were what allowed the free companies to serve one city one year and another the next year with a minimum of problems arising.
The Kingdom of Myr had no use for such rules. The old canons of conflict in Essos, where war was reduced to a business venture with sharply defined limits and strict rules, had been thrown out of the window the minute the first slave was freed. Lyn cared little for the prattling of Septon Jonothor about the holy cause of freedom and the divinely ordained duty of destroying the slavers, but he recognized the necessity of absolute victory. Every slave freed was another potential recruit to the Iron Legion, every estate burned was one that wouldn’t feed a Tyroshi army in the next campaign season, every town sacked was a town that couldn’t pay the taxes that would pay for such an army.
Then and there, Lyn resolved to serve the Lyseni borderlands as he had served the Tyroshi, and hang the fact that they were technically at peace. No one he had ever talked to expected that peace to last out the year, and he knew better than most that the Kingdom of Myr was in no position to fight off an invasion. The best way to prevent such an invasion to turn the enemy border country into a wasteland incapable of supporting the passage of an army, and the best way to do that was to carry out such raids as this one on a regular basis.
Lyn recorked his canteen and tossed it back to his squire. They had another five miles to go today, and the best weapon he had in this situation was speed. More than once his hard-marching veterans had surprised a Tyroshi border guard company that hadn’t expected them for another day or two and put them to flight. But the pace had to be maintained.
Lyn bared his teeth in anticipation. He was already making the Tyroshi howl; by the time he was done with the Lyseni, they would scream.
XXX
Ser Gerold Potts looked down from the window of his solar at the lone man riding out from his holdfast into the bright dawn and grunted to himself. He had half-expected this, but he hadn’t thought that his second son had it in him to strike out into the unknown. In hindsight, he should probably have known better; he himself had never looked when he could leap.
“This is your fault,” his wife said reproachfully. Brenda Potts had been one of the beauties of Saltpans once, before age and children had rounded her frame and softened her face, although at times she was still the flashing-eyed spitfire who had caught Gerold’s attention as he rode through the town on business from his liege-lord. This was one of those times. “If you had told him that he was in your will yesterday, he wouldn’t have left.”
Gerold turned to where his wife sat on their bed. “Would you have had me lie to him?” he asked sardonically. “You know that the holdfast and the rents and produce from the farms have to go to Jon, along with the lion’s share of my wealth, and most of the rest went for Jenna’s dowry. All I can leave to Joren I’ve already given him. It would do him no favors to lead him on.”
“But you could have found him a place closer to home,” Brenda spat; she had stopped sobbing but her face was still splotchy and her eyes were red. Judging by the look she was giving him, grief was turning to anger. “You could have found him a place with Ser Quincy or Lord Mooton or someone . . . “
“I tried,” Gerold said heavily, sitting on the bed next to his wife of twenty years. “Gods witness I tried. But no one’s taking on new sworn swords unless they’re a relation of some sort; what with the wars done and dusted, there’s no need for them. And even if he could find a place,” he went on, “what proper future would that be for him? Spending his years as some petty lord’s tax collector and bone-breaker and nothing but a calloused arse and a pallet in his brother’s hall when he can no longer serve?” He shook his head. “I got this place for the service I gave in the War of the Ninepenny Kings,” he said. “Joren’s as good as I ever was, if not better; he has it in him to become a lord, not just a landed knight with a hand of farms for his support. If Robert Baratheon’s giving out lordships in Myr for good service, then it would be a crime not to send Joren off to him.”
Brenda turned a look of dawning comprehension on him. “You wanted him to do this?” she asked, her voice dangerously soft.
Gerold held up his hands. “I wanted him to have a better future than I could give him,” he replied defensively. “And the best way to do that was to send him east. But you know Joren, ornery as an old mule since he turned eighteen. The only way I could think of to make him go east was to forbid him. So I did, and gave old Evrard down in the stables orders to lend him a hand if he asked.” He lowered his hands. “It was the only way, love,” he said softly. “I can’t give him the future he deserves; he has to go and take it. Gods know I did as much and I didn’t do too badly, did I?” he gestured broadly to indicate both his wife and the small holdfast he ruled.
Brenda stood up. “I accept your explanation,” she said icily. “But hear me, Gerold Potts; I do not forgive you for driving my son away. Do not think to enter my bed until I do.” She turned and swept out of the room; Gerold waited until she had closed the door to sigh in relief. All in all, he reflected, that had gone as well as he had any right to expect.\
Chapter 31: Of Laws and Gods
Chapter Text
Of Laws and Gods
Eddard peered at his opponent through the vision slits in his visor; he was a tricky one, not terribly fast but tough as an old stump and devious. Eddard’s only consolation was that his opponent was blowing as hard as he was. Fighting in armor was brutally hard work, especially when you pushed yourself to the limit as he was doing; his sword, normally as light and responsive as a live thing, seemed to have quadrupled in weight and his armor weighed on him like the sins of Aerys the Mad.
He set aside his fatigue with an effort of will as his opponent sidled forward, shifted his weight forward, put all his strength into a forehand blow from the guard of the lady as he pushed off his back foot . . . and found himself on the ground with his ears ringing.
“Hold,” came the voice of the master-at-arms. “Kill to Ser Brynden. Set to Ser Brynden, three-one-one.”
Eddard rolled onto his hands and knees and stood, stripping off his basinet and saluting Ser Brynden with his sword. “How’d you do that?” he asked ruefully. “I would have sworn I had you right then.”
“If you’d let me come in another three or four inches, you would have,” Brynden replied as he pulled off his great helm. “As it was I saw you shift your weight forward and I had enough time to sidestep and counter-cut to the back of your head.”
“And put you on the ground with a thoroughly rung bell,” said a voice from the side of the fencing ground as Grand Maester Antony strode forward, clucking. “Honestly, Lord Stark, as important as you are, I must recommend that you take a bit more care in your sparring.” He strode behind Eddard and poked at the back of Eddard’s head. “Tilt your head forward please. Any dizziness, impaired vision, nausea?”
“No, Grand Maester,” Eddard said long-sufferingly; Antony was a worthy man but a worrywart, and somewhat inclined to self-importance. “And it’s a lord’s duty to fight, as we established the other day,” he went on as Antony probed at the base of his skull with light fingers. “It’s not exactly a safe occupation, fighting.”
“I suppose not,” Antony sighed as he finished his inspection. “Call for me if any of the symptoms I just named eventuate, which they probably won’t but might, so. And speaking of establishing things,” he said briskly, “we have run into a difficulty in that regard that requires your intervention, if you can be spared from bashing at the Master of Soldiers with a steel bar.”
Eddard sighed as he turned to the sidelines to find Ser Mychel Egen, Franlan Shipwright, and Maesters Laurens and Yorick, who with Grand Maester Antony were the council charged with developing the laws of the new kingdom. They were only proposals until Robert returned from his progress, but the work still needed to be done; Robert had made clear that he wanted a coherent set of proposals to approve or modify when he returned. “Let’s see,” he said, cudgeling his memory as he handed his sword off to his page and began to strip off his armor. “We’ve covered the rights, duties, and obligations of the nobility, the commons, and the crown, we’ve covered freedom of worship, we’ve covered the absolute illegality of slavery, what are we covering this time?”
“The question of the towns,” said Maester Yorick, a Crownlander with a black goatee that he kept fussily trimmed. “Specifically whether or not they should be included in the land grants of the nobility, elect their own leadership, or be placed directly under royal rule.”
Eddard grimaced. “Didn’t we decide to put off this discussion until we got more reports on what arrangements Robert was making in the towns?” he asked. “If nothing else, whoever he puts in charge may have more permanent views of their situation.”
“We’ve reviewed the reports from the southern towns and those towns in the eastern territories that His Grace has visited so far,” Antony said, folding his hands in his sleeves, “and we believe that we have sufficient information to base a proposal on.”
“The freedmen must be allowed to elect their own leadership,” Franlan snapped; the feisty dockyard foreman made a point of fighting for every inch of the rights of the commons, which was only fair as that was what he had been appointed to the council to do. His bulky, barrel-chested frame was hunched slightly forward like a boxer’s, his massive arms were folded belligerently, and his gray-white beard bristled out from his florid face. “If we are free, then we must be free to elect our rulers.”
“Even if those rulers turn out to be incompetent?” Mychel asked. “How likely is a craftsman or a merchant to know how to govern?”
“We’ll never know if we don’t find out,” said Maester Laurens. “That said, the first priority must be that the towns be properly governed, and especially that they be governed in such a way that they contribute as much as possible to the defense of the realm. The majority of those taxes that are paid in cash will derive from the towns, after all, and they will be our largest reserve of ready manpower.”
“The scheme we adopted for the recruitment of soldiers can be applied to the towns as well as the country,” Franlan said, his brows knitting. Under that scheme, each lordship was required to provide a certain number of equipped soldiers, the number, type, and equipment of which was stipulated in that lordship’s contract with the royal government, to serve in the Royal Army at the king’s pleasure. “We’ll have to take the same precautions there as we did in the lordships, though, especially for those trades that rely on skilled labor; you don’t make a journeyman carpenter overnight, or a glassblower.”
“How about this,” Eddard said as he began to unbuckle the straps that held his breastplate together. “The power of governance rests with a royally appointed official, like the Wardens, but the freedmen of the town can elect a council of burghers to advise the official.” Eddard’s page stepped forward and took over unbuckling Eddard’s cuirass. “Thank you, Saul,” Eddard said off-handedly; Saul, who had been a child-apprentice in the shipyards before he attached himself to Eddard’s household, blushed fiercely. It had not been the Myrish way to thank their slaves for initiative shown or work well done. “This official, let’s call him a Lord Lieutenant, serves as the mayor of the town, the commander of the garrison, and the chief judge in the town’s court, but all decisions of governance that affect the town as a whole must be made in consultation with the council of burghers.”
“What if this Lord Lieutenant chooses to make decisions that the council does not agree with?” Franlan asked, his brows still knitted. “If he is the lord and commands the garrison, then he will be able to ignore the council’s advice.”
Mychel shrugged. “Then the council can appeal to the king,” he said. “The royal inspectors we’re going to be sending around can visit the towns as easily as the lordships, and they can take down evidence of a Lord Lieutenant’s wrongdoing as easily as a lord’s.” The royal inspectors, an idea of Franlan’s, were slated to be a corps of royal officials who would travel through the realm inspecting the state of the fortifications and the military forces, with a side brief of hearing any complaints against a lord made by his smallfolk and collecting any supporting evidence, all of which would be reported to the Master of Laws and the King. It was a massive intrusion of royal power against the traditional prerogatives of the nobility, but Eddard believed that they could justify it on the grounds of necessity; the proper maintenance and training of the realm’s military might was essential to its survival. If the Kingdom of Myr showed weakness, its enemies would drag it down and eat it alive.
As the last of Eddard’s armor came off and Saul began to gather it up to take it away and polish it, Eddard settled his knight’s belt of linked steel plates, a gift from his foster-father, around his hips. “Sounds fair to me,” he said, closing the belt by slipping a pin into a trio of steel rings set behind one of the plates. “Any objections?” As heads shook all around, Franlan’s reluctantly, Eddard shrugged. “All right then, write it up and we’ll put it in the list. Anything else?”
“Now that you mention it,” Yorick said slowly, making Eddard stifle a groan. It bode fair to be a very long day.
XXX
Ser Leofric Corbray, formerly the Lord of Heart’s Home and now a simple knight again, stifled a groan of relief as the High Septon wound down the ceremony. He and more than a score of other knights, volunteers to serve in the gods’ cause in Essos, had petitioned the High Septon to bless them before their departure and the mouthpiece of the gods on earth hadn’t been able to pass up the opportunity for ceremony. The spectacle of almost thirty knights, kneeling in full armor and holding their swords across their hands while the High Septon invoked the favor of the gods upon them, recalled the days of the Faith Militant, and Leofric had started wondering if doing this sort of thing in public was entirely wise. Jon Arryn was being enough of a stick in the mud already, refusing to let any who held titles or lands of King Stannis go east-over-sea to fight in the holy cause without renouncing their titles and lands, without having fears of a resurrected Faith Militant put in his head.
But the majority of his relief was for himself. He was more than fifty years old and kneeling for a prolonged period of time in full armor was painful even for a young man; Leofric’s knees felt like someone had put them in a vise where the edges of his greaves and poleyns had dug into his flesh through his arming trousers. His back ached from the weight of his cuirass and pauldrons, and the effort of holding the almost three pounds of Valyrian steel that Lady Forlorn represented across his extended hands was taking a toll on his arms, which were further encumbered by the weight of gauntlets, vambraces, couters, and rerebraces. Only stubborn pride had kept his arms from trembling. He might be old enough to have sired any of the other knights with him, but he was still the scion of one of the oldest and most martial houses of the Vale, the cradle of Westerosi chivalry; he would not betray weakness.
At least the day wasn’t too hot. Wearing full plate on a hot day was roughly akin to wearing an oven.
Finally the High Septon ended the ceremony, the final amen was said, and the knights were allowed to stand and sheathe their swords. As Leofric turned away, he was approached by a monk and, after a whispered conversation, ushered into the vestry of the Great Sept for a private word with the High Septon, who received him very informally with only a single septon in attendance who served them both an exceptional wine before standing at the High Septon’s left hand.
“We wish to begin, Ser Leofric,” the High Septon began, “by commending you for your piety. The Book of the Smith commands us to serve the gods and do good works without thought of cost, but we find that it is regarded as less a commandment and more a mild suggestion. For you to make such sacrifices as you have already made in the service of the gods does you great honor.”
Leofric bowed. “I but serve the gods as best I may, Your Holiness,” he replied. “And in my circ*mstances, the sacrifice is not as onerous as it might be to others.” Lyonel had been ready to take up the reins of lordship for some time now, and Lyn held a post of high honor in the service of King Robert by all accounts. Lucas had to remain in Heart’s Home to serve as Lyonel’s heir until he bore a son, thanks to the royal decree, almost certainly devised by Jon Arryn, that no man who held a title or office under King Robert could inherit in the lands of King Stannis, but Leofric had little concern in that regard. Whatever befell, his House’s future was well provided-for.
As far as Leofric’s own concerns went, the simple fact was that he was growing old. His knees, back, and wrists ached even when he didn’t wear armor and it was long years since his hair had been any color other than grey. Three-score and ten were the appointed years of a man, or so said the Book of the Father, and Leofric had less than twenty of those years left. If he could spend those years in a knightly venture, serving a cause the gods clearly favored, and die sword in hand in a ring of his slain as a knight should, he would die content.
“If that is so, then perhaps we might induce you to perform a small service for us?” the High Septon asked lightly, making Leofric blink. If the High Septon wanted something that the Faith could not provide for him, then properly speaking he should make the request of King Stannis; for him to approach Leofric, who was preparing to renounce his allegiance to Stannis, was more than a little irregular.
But Leofric was a dutiful son of the Faith, so he gestured acceptance. “Name this service and I shall see it done, Your Holiness,” he said confidently.
“When the Sunset Company first sailed,” the High Septon said, leaning back in his chair, “we took the liberty of dispatching seven septons with it to attend to the spiritual needs of the men. Among them was a Septon Jonothor,” the High Septon sighed. “He was an exceptional student at seminary, but very difficult; he burned with zeal for the Faith, and tended to allow that zeal to overcome his reason. He was deemed too, shall we say, prickly to assign to a noble household, so he was given a parish in Flea Bottom in the hopes that it would teach him humility. Unfortunately his zeal seemed to burn all the more brightly and be all the more misdirected, especially in upbraiding his fellow clergy.” The High Septon smiled slightly. “Among other things he all but accused one of his fellow septons of hubris and commanded him to repent, lest tragedy befall him. In fairness the septon in question was in error, but Jonothor overstepped the bounds of his office in issuing him a command he did not have the authority to give.”
Leofric nodded; he was beginning to see why this Jonothor had been sent with the Sunset Company. “It was decided,” the High Septon continued, “that Jonothor should be sent to Essos with the company, in order that he might gain some perspective. We have since heard much of him that redounds to the credit of the Faith; apparently when the freedmen were repulsed from the walls of Myr it was Jonothor who rallied them with the power of scripture. However,” the High Septon’s face tightened, as if he found what he had to say next distasteful, “we have also heard much that gives us cause to fear that Jonothor has fallen into error, and strayed from the teachings of the Faith.” He gestured to the septon standing next to his chair. “Consequently, we shall be dispatching Septon Jaspar and a small party of other septons to investigate Jonothor’s activities and compile any evidence of error or wrongdoing. We would esteem it as a favor, Ser Leofric, if you were to place yourself and your knights at Septon Jaspar’s disposal if he should have need of your assistance.”
Leofric frowned. These were rapidly becoming deep waters. “With all respect, Your Holiness,” he asked tentatively, “is that entirely legal? Or, for that matter, wise? If this Septon Jonothor has fallen into error, then surely all that will be needed will be for Your Holiness to command King Robert to arrest him and transport him here to King’s Landing to face a trial. Pardon my bluntness, but to bypass King Robert in this fashion would give the impression that you do not trust him to obey such a command, which would be no small insult to a good son of the Faith.”
“We are reliably informed that Septon Jonothor is held in the highest esteem by King Robert,” the High Septon answered. “Indeed, it was Jonothor who officiated at his coronation and placed the crown on his head. And King Robert’s loyalty to those he considers his friends is well-known. To force him to choose between one he considers a friend and our good regard for him and his kingdom seems to us to be most impolite.” The High Septon spread his hands. “By employing you as our hand in this matter, we would be granting Robert the option of simply turning aside, instead of insisting that he clap Jonothor in irons with his own hands. But this is somewhat premature,” the High Septon said, a placating tone entering his voice. “It is possible that our information is mistaken and the need to arrest Jonothor will not arise. Tales grow in the telling, after all.”
Leofric nodded. “As I am sure Your Holiness would be made even more aware of than you are now, if you passed the time with any fishermen,” he said politely, drawing a laugh from the High Septon as he thought furiously. More than being an insult to Robert on the High Septon’s behalf, carrying out this mission would be tantamount to committing treason against his new king and declaring the Faith Militant reborn. That was a step that even the boldest would hesitate to take, and while Leofric knew himself to be brave, he was not suicidal.
And even if Leofric and his knights were able to extradite this rogue septon to King’s Landing by force or by guile, would Stannis accept the Faith’s complaint and order his Master of Laws to bring charges? By all reports there wasn’t much love lost between the two brothers, but countenancing the kidnapping of a favored cleric and prosecuting him for heresy was at the very least a deadly insult, if not an act of war. Far less trouble, and far more convenient, to return the cleric with a letter of apology and the heads of the kidnappers in a box.
On the other hand, Leofric was a man of his word, and he had already said that he would carry out whatever service the High Septon might ask of him. Let this be a lesson to you, old son, about remembering to look before you leap, he chided himself as he bowed. “I accept this mission, Your Holiness,” he said formally.
Leofric spent much of his remaining time in King’s Landing, and of the voyage to Myr, praying that this Septon Jonothor fellow had done nothing to warrant the ire of the High Septon.
Chapter 32: Bonds of Honor and Blood
Chapter Text
Bonds of Honor and Blood
Robert read over the missive that had arrived that afternoon by fast ship from King’s Landing and dispatch rider from Myr city to find them three days ride from Ceralia and smiled. “I’ll be damned,” he said happily. “I’m an uncle.”
Jaime glanced over. “Cersei’s had a child?” he asked.
“Lyonel Baratheon, a fine fat bouncing baby boy with Stannis’ hair and eyes,” Robert replied, chuckling. “I’ll have to send the sourpuss a letter with my congratulations when we get back to Myr. About time he had a child, maybe it’ll liven him up a bit.” He glanced at Jaime. “Your sister’s doing well, according to this,” he said. “No fever, no hemorrhage. She should be back to queening it around the Red Keep in no time.”
Jaime blew his cheeks out in relief as he signed himself with the seven-pointed star. Childbirth was dangerous even for a woman with the finest maesters in Westeros at hand, but if any woman would come through it with flying colors, Cersei would. If nothing else she would just decree it; Child, be born, and the child would come quietly if it knew what was good for it.
“Once your exile’s over we’ll have to send you back on the next ship,” Robert said. “The boy will have to know his uncle of course. And I don’t care what Stannis says, his boy will be lucky to have your sword at his service.”
“So eager to get rid of me, Your Grace?” Jaime asked teasingly. “I promise you’re safe from me.”
Robert threw his head back and laughed. “As for that, if you ever get the notion to try and add another king to your tally then I am, as they say, at your service,” he said, his eyes twinkling with mirth and a touch of challenge. “But you’ll be wanting to go back to Westeros anyway; if nothing else your father will be wanting his heir back. And if I kept you from inheriting Casterly Rock, I’d deserve whatever you tried to give me. Who wouldn’t want to be the richest lord in Westeros?”
One who didn’t want to live with what his father did, Jaime thought but didn’t say. Aerys he had no tears for, but the others . . . Queen Rhaella had done nothing to deserve her fate, any more than Princess Elia had. He had played with little Rhaenys when duty would allow it, and Aegon had been a babe at the breast. He had only discussed it with his father once, and the memory still rankled; he could still hear his father lecturing him on honor, duty, and necessity in that cold, stony voice of his. That conversation had ended with Jaime storming out of the room and refusing to speak to his father again until the day before the company sailed. Aloud he said, “Someone who wanted to do more than sit in his hall and count coppers,” gesturing at the land around them. “In Casterly Rock I’d be talking to merchants and listening to my lords complain about how things were so much better in my father’s day. Here I can do what the gods made me to do.”
Robert co*cked an eyebrow. “Is that you talking or Septon Jonothor?” he asked. “I hadn’t figured you for being more than usually devout, but I’ve seen you at his services since Myr. Nothing wrong with that of course,” he added hastily, “nothing at all; Jonothor’s a good man for a septon. But if Jonothor’s trying to suborn my knights, I need to know.”
Jaime waved a hand. “It’s nothing like that at all,” he replied. “I’ll admit that Jonothor’s certainty is refreshing, but it’s not the only reason I want to remain here.” He poked a thumb over his shoulder towards the village they had stopped for luncheon in. “The people back there hadn’t heard the name of Lannister before I came through; in Westeros everyone and their pig knows of House Lannister, and most of them know of my father, if only by reputation.” Especially after King’s Landing hung in the air unsaid as Jaime shrugged. “Live your whole life in someone’s shadow, you’ll do a lot to get a place in the sun, Your Grace.”
Robert narrowed his eyes speculatively as Jaime subsided. He wasn’t used to talking about this sort of thing and a feeling of mild embarrassment settled on him. “I’ll try to keep that in mind,” Robert said slowly. “Although it may be a bit late in my case.” Robert shrugged. “I’ll send you back to King’s Landing after your exile’s over anyway, if only for a time,” he said. “I’ll need someone to tell my nephew about me who can be relied on to tell him the truth.”
Jaime blinked, then ducked his head as the import of what Robert just said hit him. “Your Grace does me too much honor,” he said.
Robert waved a hand. “You saved Ned’s life at Tara,” he said airily. “I’ll be the judge of how much honor you are owed. Now about these cavalry companies we were talking about, to support the legions . . . “
XXX
The longship nosing up the quay got Victarion’s eye and made him break off his conversation with Franlan about the design of a new type of galley. He knew every longship in the Royal Fleet of Myr by sight, and this one wasn’t one of them. It was familiar to him, however; he had seen it among his father’s fleet before he sailed from Pyke to join the Sunset Company. Given that it was flying the banner of House Greyjoy from the masthead, and that the sails were also emblazoned with the golden kraken, it had to be here on official business.
His suspicions confirmed by the sight of the man who jumped from the deck to the quay, Victarion excused himself and strode over to embrace the newcomer. “Aeron, by the gods!” he roared happily. “Finally visiting your brother, eh? What news from the Isles?”
Aeron returned the embrace, pounding on Victarion’s back. “Good to see you too brother,” he exclaimed before whispering in Victarion’s ear, “and I do have news from the Isles; news that I’m only supposed to tell to you.”
Victarion blinked, sneaking about had never been Aeron’s style, and broke the embrace. “Come,” he said loudly, “join me in my cabin for a glass! Best wine this side of the Arbor, we’ve got, and all the better for having paid the iron price for it!”
A few minutes later, with Franlan taking charge of seeing to Aeron’s crew and cargo, the two brothers were secluded in Victarion’s cabin aboard the Iron Storm and sharing a flagon of Myrish wine. After exchanging the news of the sea, the gossip of weather and ships and currents that was the common language of seafarers the world over, Aeron put down his goblet and leaned forward. “The first of my news is ill, brother,” he said seriously. “Our father is dead.”
Victarion nodded. “I’ve heard,” he said soberly, recalling the grief that had overtaken him. “A trader brought the news three sennights ago of his death in battle on the coast of Dorne.” He raised his goblet. “What is dead may never die,” he said, in the old language of the Isles that had survived only for the ceremonies of the Drowned God’s faith and the most ancient of poetry and song.
“But rises again, harder and stronger,” Aeron replied in the same language before switching back to Common Tongue. “Balon has taken the Seastone Chair and been acclaimed as Lord of the Isles. He wants you and the other Ironborn with you to return to the Isles as swiftly as you may.”
Victarion sat back, his jaw dropping as the full weight of what Aeron had said hit him. “But that is impossible,” he said finally. “We are the backbone of the Royal Fleet. If we left, then the kingdom would be naked on the seas.”
Aeron shrugged. “So get these greenlanders to build and man their own ships and get the Master of Ships here to release you from service,” he said in a voice that indicated how little he cared one way or the other. “Shouldn’t be too difficult, greenlanders never properly value our services anyway.”
Victarion spread his hands. “I am the Master of Ships,” he said simply.
Aeron straightened in his seat, blinking rapidly, jaw dropping, clearly stunned. “Oh,” he said after a long moment. “I see. Congratulations.” Shaking his head, he leaned forward again. “Nevertheless, brother, Balon wants you and your men back as quickly as you can sail. He says he needs you to hold the Isles.”
“Are the other lords in rebellion?” Victarion asked. Discontent among the ironborn lords wasn’t unprecedented, but outright rebellion almost certainly was; Victarion hadn’t paid much attention when his father’s maester had tried to teach him history.
“No,” Aeron admitted, “but Balon fears they might, if something doesn’t change. You know that Father’s reforms were not exactly welcomed.”
Victarion shrugged. “If the lords don’t like what Balon’s doing, then they’re welcome to join us here,” he said, gesturing at the walls of his cabin to indicate the harbor outside. “The god knows we need every ship and sailor we can get, and there’s no shortage of enemies to pay the iron price to. The Tyroshi sent an emissary just the other sennight telling us to stop freeing their slaves on pain of war.” He barked a laugh. “If he hadn’t been an emissary under flag of truce, I think Stark would have cut him down on the spot. As it was he told the emissary that he was giving him until sundown to leave the city and that he was freeing all the slaves the man had brought with him. I thought the man was going to have a, a, what do the maesters call it when a blood vessel in your brain explodes?”
Aeron shrugged. “Aneurysm, I think?” he said, sounding out the word hesitantly. “But that’s beside the point,” he said more seriously. “Uncle Rodrik said you might find it difficult to leave, but Balon said he didn’t care. He wants you and your men home. All your men.”
Victarion co*cked an eyebrow. “Assuming that I could do what Balon is telling me to do,” he said, “why would I want to? Can Balon give me command of a fleet with license to paint the seas red with blood and take as much treasure as I please? Can he give me comrades like the freedmen my men are training to be sailors? Can he give me a war the likes of which no Ironborn has fought since Dagon Greyjoy’s day?” He spread his hands. “There’s nothing Balon can give me that I can’t pay the iron price for here, brother. And even if that weren’t so,” he went on, “I can’t hold any titles or lands in Westeros now anyway, not since Stannis’ decree.”
Aeron waved a hand dismissively. “And since when have the sons of the sea cared for the decrees of greenlanders?” he asked. “I can tell you already that Balon doesn’t.” He looked Victarion in the eye. “Brother,” he said seriously, “you might serve Robert, but Balon is your lord as well as your brother. And he told me to tell you that this isn’t a request, it’s a command. If you don’t obey it, then you won’t be welcome home.”
Victarion stiffened. “And what,” he said slowly, leaning forward as he did so, “gives Balon the right to command me? I am sworn to King Robert of Myr, may the Drowned God grant him strength and glory, and with the Drowned God as my witness I swear that I have never sworn any oath of fealty to Balon. For him to presume on my loyalty like this is very near to an insult.”
Aeron stood his ground. “Balon is your rightful lord,” he said stubbornly, “and for you to refuse his commands is treason.”
Victarion’s hand tightened on his goblet until his fingers left dents in the soft gold. ”Get out, brother,” he snarled, his fighting blood singing softly in his ears, “before I forget the tie of blood between us. And tell Balon that he can take his commands and shove them up his weak arse.”
As Aeron strode out of the cabin, Victarion glared at the door for a long minute before throwing his goblet at it in a spasm of fury that also saw him upend the table and break one of his chairs. When he finally calmed down, he walked out of his cabin, down the gangplank, and summoned those of his captains who were still in the port. He had some talking to do, although he would much rather charge a company of spearmen.
XXX
There were times when Tregano Baholis, Chief Justiciar of Pentos in the name of His Excellency the Sealord and the Council of Thirty, dearly wished he could swear. Unfortunately, as the viceroy-in-all-but-name of the largest of Braavos’ overseas possessions, he was required to project a certain gravitas that would be entirely overthrown if he employed any of the curses that he had picked up as a young man during the three years he had spent on his father’s ships. For one of his position to swear, or jump up and down, or even scowl, was unbecoming.
So as Tregano looked down at the sea of felt tents spread out before the walls of the city, the most reaction he could allow himself was a slight pursing of the lips and a soft drawl of “Hmm. How vexing.”
Damn it, everything had been going so well! The conquest had removed enough of the Pentoshi aristocracy that the remainder had not dared to do more than mutter, especially once the first companies of freedmen had been inducted into Braavosi service and trained by the remains of the Company of the Rose; the heads of the Prince of Pentos and the Council of Magisters on their pikes over the gates of the city provided a warning of the consequences of failed rebellion. A cadastral survey had been undertaken and the estates of the magisters broken up into smaller communal farms each worked by a dozen families or so; full productivity wasn’t expected for another two or three years, but it served to bind the freedmen’s hearts to the Titan with bands of iron. The ‘Little Arsenal’ was already half-built and a squadron of the Braavosi fleet had been stationed in Pentos in anticipation of it being completed. Braavosi ships sailing out of Pentos had been making money hand over fist transporting Westerosi to Myr, and a few of those Westerosi had taken service with the Sealord and now made up a respectable fraction of Pentos city’s garrison; some had been attracted by Lord Merryweather, who was now King Stannis’ representative in the city of Pentos, while others were simply less enterprising or less bloodthirsty. He had been considering dispatching an expedition to Ghoyan Drohe to establish an outpost with a view to securing the country there for further expansion.
But the arrival of the Dothraki endangered all those plans. Braavos ordinarily had little to do with the horse-lords; a combination of a low but nonetheless significant mountain range separating Braavos’ mainland possessions from the Dothraki Sea and Braavos’ general remoteness from the Dothraki’s usual hunting grounds meant that it was a rare khalasar indeed that ventured anywhere near Braavos. But the Flatlands were regularly visited by the nomads, and while it would be an infamous capitulation to pay tribute to slavers, as the Dothraki were, provoking a war with the Dothraki would be potentially disastrous. Pentos city would be relatively safe with its walls and its garrison, but the hinterland would be all but indefensible against the nomad cavalry. The towns all had at least a wooden palisade and rudimentary stockpiles of food, but none of them were able to withstand even a mid-sized khalasar; the Dothraki considered it demeaning to fight on foot, but if they were sufficiently inflamed they would do so anyway, and if their siegecraft had deteriorated since the Sarnori wars it was not altogether non-existent. Only Pentos city had walls of sufficient strength and a garrison of sufficient size to withstand an assault. Moreover almost all of the armed forces of Braavos present in Pentos were infantry; good infantry, admittedly, if Tregano said so himself, but infantry nonetheless. Infantry could not hope to catch a khalasar that didn’t want to be caught and the two hundred cavalry that Tregano had at his disposal would almost certainly be massacred if they tried to fight a khalasar that, as far as Tregano could tell, numbered at least twenty thousand and possibly as many as thirty thousand.
So while Tregano had considered disobeying the Sealord’s orders to reach an accommodation with the Dothraki, he hadn’t considered it for very long. For one thing, he was a loyal servant of the republic. For another, attempting to offer resistance would be suicidal. As a party of Dothraki riders cantered towards the Sunrise Gate, Tregano swallowed his disgust and walked down to the gate to meet them.
Chapter 33: Nits Make Lice
Chapter Text
Nits Make Lice
The year 285 ended well for the Kingdom of Myr. Along the southern frontier Lyn Corbray’s raiding spree had effectively neutered Lys and Tyrosh’s ability to launch an invasion by land. Victarion Greyjoy and Brynden Tully’s expansion of the Royal Fleet and the Royal Army proceeded apace, although Brynden reported much swifter progress than Victarion due to the comparative ease of training soldiers. And on the last day of the year King Robert returned to Myr city in triumph, leaving behind him a pacified countryside and a populace whose feelings about their new government ranged from neutral acceptance to fervent enthusiasm. Five days later, heralds issued from the Palace of Justice to announce the ratification of the Great Charter.
This charter, since described as the founding document of Westerosi-style constitutionalism, was in fact much less radical than its proponents have made it out to be. Of the seventy clauses in the charter, only three established institutions that were even remotely democratic, and those were sharply limited; the council of burghers of each chartered town was limited to an advisory role, as was the council of burghers of the city of Myr, while the Council of Commons only had oversight authority over investigations of nobles and knights who were accused of failing to meet their Charter obligations. If the Great Charter was a pioneering document it was in only two senses. Firstly, it spelled out in explicit language the implicit social contract of feudalism; although exemptions from military service away from their places of residence were granted to certain groups of smallfolk such as skilled craftsmen, no such exemptions existed for the nobility or the chivalry. Every able-bodied male of military age and either noble or knightly rank was obligated to serve at the king’s pleasure when summoned, although they were entitled to receive pay commensurate to their rank after forty days. Secondly, it laid the foundations of the authoritarian garrison state that so many latter-day dictators would attempt to copy.
The need for such a system of government and social control was made brutally apparent a month later, with the launch of the First Slave War . . .
- Freedom or Death: An Overview of the Slave Wars by Maester Julian, published 2182 AC
The village on the coast west of Myr was so small it hardly had a name, and certainly not one widely known to outsiders. It boasted only two dozen families, all of whom made their living by a mixture of fishing and truck gardening and none of whom were rich enough to own slaves. They had known virtually nothing of the war except terrifying rumor, but the older and wiser heads of the village had counseled against fear; who would bother with a village as small and as poor as theirs? Even if the rider who had come from Myr city had told the truth when he told them that the Conclave was overthrown and they now had a king, surely he had more important things to worry about than one little fishing village with no wealth to speak of.
And, in large part, their predictions had come true. Aside from that one rider and another who came later to read out the new laws of the kingdom and nail a parchment copy to the door of the boatshed (somewhat pointlessly as no one in the village could read) their new king had left them alone. Life in the village had gone on as it had for as long as anyone could remember, with its endless round of fishing, gardening, the myriad of chores that life in a fishing village entailed, and the usual intricacies of life among so few people is such remote circ*mstances.
Until the day the raiders came.
The sight of a pair of galleys rounding the headland out of the setting sun had initially been interesting but ultimately nonthreatening; the village had never been visited by a vessel larger than their fishing smacks. When they had descended on the boats returning from a day on the waves and begun to bombard them with crossbow bolts, sling-stones, and javelins, the immediate reaction had been shock. Surely there had been some mistake. But when the galleys beached and soldiers began to disembark and storm up the shingle to the village, shock had turned to terror. The village boasted no weapons more threatening than the harpoons some of the men used to take sturgeon or seal or porpoise and the knives with which the fishermen cleaned and dressed their daily catch, and the men that might have led the resistance were now dead in their boats or turning the surf pink with their blood.
So when the raiders reached the village, only those with the presence of mind to flee without hesitating escaped. For the rest what took place was akin to the end of the world. Armored soldiers with spears and swords rampaged through the village. Any woman of nubile age that they came across was raped and killed, and sometimes not in that order; the old, the very young, and the infirm were simply killed. The one-room cottages that the villagers had lived in were ransacked for any valuables (fruitlessly, in most cases) and then burned.
Under ordinary circ*mstances, there would have been less in the way of outright murder; alive an unskilled slave could be worth anywhere between ten and seventy silver ducats in the Tyroshi slave markets, while a dead one could only be sold for half a copper denier a pound as fishbait. But half of the raiders were Myrish exiles, seamen who had been abroad when their city was stormed, and with their families almost certainly destroyed and themselves cast adrift on the tides of fate with barely a florin to their names they burned for revenge. Indeed they had refused to sail with their Tyroshi hosts against the Andal invaders unless the Tyroshi pledged to take no prisoners or slaves. Partly this was to prevent the Tyroshi from profiting at Myr’s expense but mostly it was driven by unreasoning fury, both against the Andals and against the slaves who had joined them.
As one Myrish captain had told the Archon, “Nits make lice.”
The fact that the inhabitants of the village were not liberated slaves, had had nothing to do with the Andals, and had been some of the most inoffensive people in the world did not signify. The only thing that mattered to their executioners was that they had not fought against the Andal invasion and accepted King Robert’s rule.
By the time the raiders departed and the four survivors crept back, all that remained of the village was dead bodies and burned homes.
XXX
Jaime Lannister turned in the saddle, glanced out to sea for the tenth time in the past hour, and mentally thanked the gods that he saw no sails on the horizon. The coastal road, which linked Myr city to the towns of Celsa, Navio, and Cillium on the Tyroshi border, ran within long bowshot of the shore for long stretches, and according to Lord Franlan the coasts of the Sea of Myrth were almost perfect for beaching galleys with their gentle shelving and generally shallow tides. Consequently the whole Myrish littoral was vulnerable to the raiding squadrons of the slavers, except for those stretches of coastline that had a squadron of the Royal Fleet cruising directly off them.
The slavers, curse them, had gotten smart. They weren’t trying to match the Royal Army strength to strength; indeed they had evacuated the population of their own borderlands to more secure locations deep within their mainland holdings and stripped them of any resources that might support an army. Almost the only thing they hadn’t done was try and stop up the springs. With their terrestrial holdings reasonably safe behind the devastated zone of the borders and the walls of their towns, the slavers had unleashed their fleets with orders to scour the Myrish coast of human life. The regular navies of Tyrosh and Lys led the flotillas, backed by Myrish exiles, sellsails, and even, Uncle Gerion had heard, a squadron of volunteer ships from Volantis who had joined for the chance of plunder and slaves. These ships were ranging the length and breadth of the Sea of Myrth, which the Archon of Tyrosh and the Lyseni Conclave had declared closed to all shipping bound for Myr. Victarion Greyjoy, after consultations with Lord Franlan, Ser Brynden, and King Robert, had opted to entrust the naval defense of Myr city to the city’s fortifications and taken the twenty longships and ten galleys of the Royal Fleet out to patrol the coast. He couldn’t hope to defeat the main body of the enemy fleets in battle, but at the very least he could snap up some of the smaller raiding squadrons and ships foolish enough to sail alone, which by all accounts he was doing with admirable zeal.
But the overriding concern to preserve the fleet as an entity meant that the fleet had to stay together, and even if the fleet had been dispersed they were so few that they could not patrol even half of the coast. So Robert had taken six thousand men, half the Royal Army, and marched out of the city to do what he could for the coastlands. For the most part that meant rounding up the populations of every small village and hamlet within a day’s march of the coast and herding them into Myr city or one of the towns, where they could be protected behind stone walls and a garrison. Robert had taken half the relief force and marched up the northward-running part of the coast and given Jaime the other half to clear the western shore.
Jaime hated it. The simple fact was that withdrawing the population into the towns like this was an admission that the kingdom could not adequately defend its own coastline. The only good thing that could be said for the strategy was that it protected the people, who were the most precious resource the kingdom had, and demonstrated to them that kingdom took their safety seriously; while there had been some difficulties posed by the influx of hundreds of people with no more possessions than those they could carry on their backs, the young men had flooded into the ranks of the Iron Legions. It also provided new arrivals from Westeros with reason to hate the slavers; twice now Jaime’s column had come across a village that had been devastated by the raiders before the Army had arrived, and the sight of women and children left to rot unburied was enough to harden anyone’s heart against the perpetrator. One young volunteer, a brash young man named Joren Potts, had led a clutch of other youngsters of a similar age in swearing a mighty oath to leave not one stone atop another when Tyrosh was taken.
Jaime snorted in sudden humor. A fine thing for him to call someone youngster, at the hoary old age of twenty; Joren was barely three years his junior. Of course, few of the volunteers had ever been in a battle to equal Tara or the taking of Myr. Most of the older ones had fought in the War of the Ninepenny Kings, and some had fought in Dorne during the recent rebellion, but otherwise the only wars in Westeros had been the armed pissing matches that the minor lords engaged in to better define the pecking order. Set against the wars here, those squabbles were swiftly revealed for the petty affairs that they were.
Jaime flicked his eyes out to sea and scanned the horizon again, snarling to himself in the privacy of his mind as he did so. This feeling of vulnerability was a new experience for him and he already hated it as much as conceding the advantage to the enemy.
After the initial storm of coastal raiding, the pace of the war slowed to a crawl. The sequestration of the coast’s inhabitants into the fortified towns starved the slaver fleets of easy targets, and the strength of those towns’ garrisons and fortifications, along with the companies of the Royal Army that marched from town to town along the coastal road, precluded any attempt at assaulting them. And in any case, the slavers were only loosely allied by their common enmity and lacked the cohesion and communications technology that would have been necessary to concentrate their forces and attempt to take one of the towns by storm.
On the other hand, the Kingdom of Myr could not force the slaver fleets to abandon the Sea of Myrth. The Royal Fleet simply did not have the numbers to attempt a decisive engagement; against the almost four hundred galleys and dromonds that the slavers had put into the Sea of Myrth, Victarion could muster only twenty longships and ten galleys, and the danger posed by the enemy’s control of the Sea of Myrth prevented the training of new crews. The best Victarion could do was prowl along the coast and attempt to pick off any raiders foolish enough to be caught at a disadvantage.
The stalemate that this set of circ*mstances engendered, with neither of the two belligerents able to strike a decisive blow at each other, is almost certainly the origin of the phrase “turtle war”, which in later years would acquire the unspoken connotations of either cowardice or impotence, depending on the commentator. In the First Slave War, it was a policy that the Kingdom of Myr was forced to adopt out of necessity, and which in the absence of outside influence would only have been brought to an end by the exhaustion of the combatants.
However, no human activity is undertaken in a vacuum, and the First Slave War was no exception . . .
- Storm and Fury: The Battle for the Center of the World by Maester Barnabas, published 2036.
Chapter 34: Iron and Bloodriders
Chapter Text
Iron and Bloodriders
The First Slave War affected not only the immediate combatants but societies hundreds of miles away. The quadrilateral formed by Lys, Tyrosh, Planky Town, and Stonehelm was the crossroads between two worlds, that of the Narrow Sea and that of Slaver’s Bay. Through that quadrilateral passed timber, pelts, grain, cloth, wine, peppers, and salt from Westeros, Braavosi dyes and manufactures, Pentoshi cheeses and jewelry, Lyseni tapestries and perfumes, Tyroshi armor and pear brandy, and, before the war, Myrish lace, carpets, lenses, and glassware, all shipped eastward to Volantis and the cities of Slaver’s Bay. As they did so they passed silk, spice, gems, and other rarities that had originated in the Jade Sea and been brought west by Volantene, Ghiscari, and Qartheen merchants, although the value of these transshipped luxury goods was dwarfed by the convoys of slave ships that were the true lifeblood of trade east of the Narrow Sea.
The war had disrupted this web of trade to an unsettling degree. Although most of the naval fighting was restricted to the Sea of Myrth, the Myrish exiles who made up almost a third of the allied fleets proved unwilling to restrain themselves and expanded the naval war beyond Myrish waters. A much-talked-about plan to sack King’s Landing in revenge for the Sunset Company’s sailing to Essos came to nothing, but raids on the coasts of Dorne and the Stormlands became more frequent and more savage with every month that the stalemate in the Sea of Myrth progressed, while Westerosi ships were only safe from attack if they sailed in convoy with a naval escort either from the royal fleet or the Braavosian Navy. This undeclared war was the proving ground for Stannis’ new fleet and the making of the reputations of a generation of new Westerosi captains, most notably Euron Greyjoy.
It was this disruption to trade that aroused the interest of the Seven Kingdoms and, more importantly, of Braavos. The Bastard Daughter of Valyria relied on trade as no other society did in those years, for its hinterland barely produced enough food to feed its population. It was trade that provided the money necessary to buy the grain, meat, fish, and other foodstuffs necessary to provide the level of sustenance that Braavos’ citizens were accustomed to, and trade that paid for the fleet that guarded the ships those foodstuffs arrived in. Indeed it was that same reliance on foreign food, procured at reasonable prices at reliable times, that had partially driven the conquest of Pentos; the abolitionist cause had provided an undeniable moral justification, but the Pentoshi hinterland was far more fertile than Braavos’, and an analysis of documents from the 270s and early 280s shows a slow, but nonetheless steady increase in the price of Pentoshi grain.
So when Stannis sent an embassy to Braavos under the leadership of Lord Arryn, he found a receptive audience both in the Council of Thirty and in the keyholders of the Iron Bank, which had been forced to increase its insurance rates for vessels traveling in the southern Narrow Sea. But while Lord Arryn conferred with the Sealord, another piece was entering the gameboard . . .
- Chasing Dragons: The Sunset Company Reexamined by Maester Hendricus, published 1539 AC
Ser Rickon looked over the organized chaos of the docks and nodded. “All in order, then, my lord?” he asked.
“Aye,” rumbled Erik Ironmaker, who by virtue of his reputation and his standing as the only lord to have sailed with the fleet bound for Myr had assumed command. “The Dornishmen gouged us for every copper they could, but we have water and provisions enough to get us to Myr, at least.”
“Speaking of which, word just reached us from King’s Landing,” Rickon said. “The rumors that Lord Castellan Euron reported from Ghaston Grey are confirmed; Lys and Tyrosh have declared war on the Kingdom of Myr.”
Erik threw his head back and laughed. “Excellent!” he shouted. “We’ll catch them between the hammer and the anvil, by the god!” He rubbed his hands with an expression of gleeful anticipation. “Let the Tyroshi look to their oars and their blades, if they want to keep the seas to themselves.”
“Are you sure you’ll be able to get through?” Rickon asked carefully. “I mean no disrespect, my lord, but not all of the people in your fleet are warriors.” Indeed from where he and Lord Ironmaker were standing he could see at least three Ironborn women, one of whom was either unfortunately chubby or else in the early stages of pregnancy.
Erik waved a hand. “The women knew the risks when they shipped out with us,” he said. “And our women are not so soft as yours, greenlander. All true children of the Isles have iron in their bones.”
Rickon gestured acceptance; the thought of women deliberately going into danger made him mildly nauseous, but he didn’t have command in this matter; best to let Erik do as he deemed best. “I’ll admit when I heard how many of you had come, I thought the Commander here was lying to me,” he said, gesturing at the fleet that filled the harbor of Planky Town. One hundred longships, like so many floating daggers, bobbed alongside the piers, along with a dozen fatter knarrs that were being steadily filled with provisions and water casks under the watchful eyes of their captains. Altogether there were just over eight thousand Ironborn milling around the harborside, and the majority of them were either young men no older than their early twenties, or older men a decade or two younger than Erik; old and young alike were armed to the teeth with spears, axes, long and heavy-bladed knives, a few swords and hammers, and the round central-bossed shields that the Ironborn favored. Thank the gods that the avarice of the Dornish merchants hadn’t resulted in violence, although the expressions of relief and glee evident on every merchant’s face may have gone some way to reducing tensions; Planky Town had seen little commerce for the past several months, and every household had been feeling the pinch. The opportunity to buy and sell with a fleet of Ironborn must have seemed like a miracle. “Now I’m just amazed that Lord Balon can spare so many fighting men.”
Erik spat off the side of the dock into the water. “That, for Balon,” he said darkly. “The fool tried to forbid our sailing, as if we were greenlanders to be penned like cattle. If we hadn’t needed to catch the tide, I’d have broken his jaw then and there. No, ser knight, you’ll find little enough love for Balon among us.” He gestured at his countrymen. “Some of the youngsters are newlyweds looking for a better life than they can find on the Isles, trying to scratch a living out of the soil like thralls or feed a family with only a small fishing boat. Others are young men hoping to take enough gold for a bride-price, or the fame to seek a wife at all. The older men are mostly old salts who’re too restless to farm or fish and were just this side of pirates before they joined us. For my own part,” the old Ironborn lord turned to face Rickon, his white hair and his scarred, weathered face giving him the look of some sea-god’s idol brought to life. “I am old, ser knight,” he said simply, “so old that I sailed with Dagon Greyjoy in my youth, and was a friend to those who also sailed with him. Ah, those were men, ser knight; Black Urron, Andrik Hammerhand, Hagen Pyke, Ragnor Nine-Fingers, Ralf the Dancer, Sigfryd Hardhead . . . “ Rickon was taken aback to see a hint of a tear in the old Ironborn’s eye as he sighed heavily. “All dead and gone save me, either in Dagon’s war or on later voyages. I alone remain of that crew, and if I die in my bed I will not see them again. The Drowned God takes us all to his halls when we die, but my old shipmates will not accept me in their company unless I die in battle, as they did.” Erik turned to stare out at the eastern horizon. “I have sons and grandsons to carry on my name,” he said softly. “I settled my affairs before I sailed, and gave Iron Hall to my heir. I would make a song before the Drowned God takes me.”
Rickon nodded. The Faith had a similar teaching in that only those who died in battle could enter the Heaven of the Warrior. “I’ll pray for your success then,” he said, “and offer you some more news. A report from the Royal Customs Officer in White Harbor claimed that Maege Mormont was also setting sail for Essos with fifteen hundred Northmen. King Stannis has ordered that those ships under construction for the royal fleet be completed and run through their sea trials at best speed, and that the rest of the fleet prepare to sail and fight on three days’ notice. Dragonstone has been ordered to lay in provisions and military stores sufficient to resupply thirty galleys.”
Erik co*cked an eyebrow. “Does Stannis mean to take a hand in this war?” he asked.
Rickon shrugged. “I know not,” he answered, “nor would it be likely that I would be informed unless there were some danger to Dorne and the king’s interests here. In any case I have not heard that the royal fleet was yet strong enough to contemplate fighting both Lys and Tyrosh.”
Erik nodded. “No more had I,” he said. “Takes time to build a fleet; time and good sailors.” He turned back to the bustling harbor. “We’ll give King Robert a fleet though,” he said. “And we’ll see how the slavers fight against true sons of the sea.”
“If I may make a suggestion, my lord,” Rickon said slowly, not wanting to give offense, “take care. Animals are most dangerous when they’re frightened; people aren’t much different. After Myr, the slavers have reason to be very frightened.”
Erik smiled a carnivorous smile. “All the better,” he said confidently, stroking the head of the massive hammer thrust into his belt. “Frightened men fight stupidly.”
XXX
Robert turned from Maester Gordon’s explanation of the improvements his Pioneers were making to the battlements of the town of Almus at a slight cough from one of his bodyguards, his initial frown turning into a smile at the sight of a familiar face. “Master Nestoris!” he cried, striding forward and clasping hands with Vito Nestoris. “It’s been too long, man! How is the Bank treating you these days?”
“Well enough, Your Grace, thank you,” Vito replied with a bow over their clasped hands before turning gracefully and gesturing to the man standing next to him. “Allow me to present to Your Grace Giulio Armati, Special Envoy of the Sealord and the Council of Thirty.” Giulio, a sparely built man of about thirty with a rectangular face, neat as a black mouse in his hose, close-fitting doublet, and unadorned cloak, swept off his flat black cap, adorned only with a small silver badge depicting the Titan of Braavos, and bowed deeply.
Robert gestured for him to rise impatiently. “Come, Master Giulio, give your hand like a man,” he said. “Friends need not stand on ceremony with each other.” Giulio rose slowly, looking somewhat nonplussed, and eventually shook Robert’s hand tentatively. “Shall we move indoors?” Robert asked, gesturing at the walkway they were standing on. “This is not exactly a council chamber.”
“That will not be necessary, Your Grace,” Vito said calmly. “Six days ago we were riding out from the northern gate of Myr city and we have not left the saddle since except in necessity; it will be good to stand for a time. In any case we have been charged to waste not a moment if it can be helped.
Robert blinked, six days from Myr city to Almus on its northern border would be hard and fast riding even for him, and looked over the two Braavosi again. Both were unshaven, and their clothes, usually so neatly immaculate, were rumpled and travel-stained. Clearly they had taken their charge of haste seriously. “Very well then,” he said, hooking his thumbs into his sword-belt as he leaned against a merlon, “what news from Braavos?”
“His Excellency the Sealord and the Council of Thirty wish to invite you to a conference in the city of Pentos, to be held in three sennights’ time,” Giulio replied. “It is their intention to find some solution to this present conflict that all parties will find agreeable, in order to restore peace to the Narrow Sea and allow the resumption of regular commerce.”
Robert co*cked an eyebrow. “In the first place,” he said skeptically, “I happen to be at war; I can’t just up and bugger off to Pentos at the drop of a hat. Secondly, I’ll be damned if I negotiate with f*cking slavers.”
“The Sealord and the Council are aware of these difficulties, Your Grace,” Giulio answered smoothly. “This is why the conference is being held in Pentos under the auspices of third parties. Both the Sealord and the Council have asked me to assure you that you will not be thought the worse of by them if you refuse to accept any agreement that may be produced. They ask only that you attend and listen with open ears.”
“Third parties, plural?” asked Maester Gordon, rolling up his plans. “Who else is hosting the conference?”
“The Sealord approached Your Grace’s brother King Stannis to solicit his assistance in bringing about this conference,” Giulio replied. “He proved amenable, and will be sending his Hand Lord Arryn to serve as his representative.”
Robert pursed his lips meditatively. If he had to pick any man aside from Ned to make sure that everyone at this conference played by the rules, he would pick Jon; his foster-father might be an old stick at times, but he could read a man like a book and play him like an instrument. He would bet anything that Jon was providing most of Stannis’ brains these days. Be fair, man, he chided himself. He would have done the same for you, like as not, if you couldn’t have Ned. Speaking of whom . . . “Why do you want me, specifically, to attend?” he asked. “This sort of thing is why I have a Hand; you’d have met him in Myr.”
“We did, as a matter of fact,” said Giulio, his bland expression suddenly shadowed by a slight frown. “I am instructed to convey to Your Grace the regrets of the Sealord and the Council that they do not consider Lord Stark to be a suitable representative.”
Robert’s jaw dropped. “Bells of the hells, why?” he asked when he finally got over his shock. “I trust Ned more than any man alive.”
“Lord Stark assured the Council and the Sealord’s representative that Your Grace had no intent to assume the government of Myr,” Giulio said, spreading his hands. “And yet here we are.”
“Your Grace,” Vito interjected, “When I followed your company to Pentos I had the opportunity to observe Lord Stark rather closely. I am but a humble functionary of the Bank, but I have some skill at discerning a man’s character and I saw no hint of duplicity in Lord Stark’s nature. That being the case, the Sealord and the Council must assume one of two things, and I pray Your Grace not take offense as I enumerate them.” He held up a slender finger. “One: Lord Stark has sufficient skill at lying to fool more than a dozen of the most discerning men in Braavos, including the First Sword, who among other things was chosen specifically for his skill at perceiving a man’s true nature.” Vito paused as Robert threw his head back and laughed uproariously at the thought of Ned Stark, consummate liar. When Robert finally calmed down enough to motion for him to continue, he raised a second finger. “Two: Lord Stark was not operating with full knowledge of Your Grace’s intentions when he was negotiating with us, demonstrating thereby that he does not, in fact, have the utmost confidence of Your Grace.”
Vito spread his hands. “In either case, Your Grace, the remedy is clear to the Sealord and the Council; the only man they may assume has full knowledge of Your Grace’s designs is Your Grace yourself, which makes you the only man we may negotiate with and be confident that any agreements will be properly adhered to. I must add, Your Grace, that this is also the view of the keyholders of the Iron Bank. After all, it was they as much as First Sword Forel whom Lord Stark so effectively fooled.”
Robert opened his mouth to roar at the man who had just cast aspersions on his honor and that of his best friend, and then closed his mouth as he thought it through. Bloody hells, when it was put that way he could see the Braavosi’s point. He’d have a hard time trusting or believing someone who suckered him with a straight face, whether he had meant to or not. He turned to Ser Dafyn Otley, who as one of the lieutenants of his bodyguard had command of the half-company on duty today. “How quickly can the household be on the road to Pentos?” he asked.
Ser Dafyn glanced at the sun, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Daybreak tomorrow, if we start preparing within the hour,” he said eventually. “Noon, if we take more than essential baggage.”
“Essential baggage only,” Robert said firmly. “I assume the conference will begin within a sennight or two,” he glanced at Giulio and Vito, who nodded confirmation. “Plan to be on the road for eight to eleven days, in Pentos for fourteen days, and then traveling back here immediately after. No wagons, no carts; packhorses only, and every man mounted.” He turned to Giulio and Vito. “I assume the slavers will be there as well?”
Giulio nodded. “Representatives from Lys and Tyrosh will be attending in addition to Your Grace and Lord Arryn,” he replied. “We are reasonably certain that the Lyseni Conclave at least desires a swift return to peace. The Archon,” Giulio made a face, “may need some persuading.”
Robert nodded and turned back to Ser Dafyn. “No man comes who cannot fight,” he said. “I don’t trust these slavers any further than I can kick them.” Neither of the Braavosi reacted, to Robert’s mild disappointment; his comment had come very near to implying that he didn’t trust them to keep the peace at their own conference on their own territory. They deserve it for not trusting Ned. “Masters, I pray you excuse us,” he said to the Braavosi. “I have business to attend to before we ride tomorrow.”
“But Your Grace,” Maester Gordon said suddenly, “who are you leaving in command?”
“Ned will rule in my absence, I’ll sign papers to that effect tonight,” Robert replied. “As for who will command here,” he smiled at Gordon, “you will. Congratulations on your promotion, don’t let the town get sacked. Or if you do, have the good manners to die trying to prevent it and spare me the effort of having you executed.”
His jocular tone, beaming smile, and hearty clap on Gordon’s shoulder didn’t seem to have the intended effect of showing the maester that he was only joking about the execution; Gordon was still standing there, his mouth opening and closing like a landed fish, as Robert and Ser Dafyn walked toward the town to inform the household of the new change in plans. Later that night, after signing the warrant placing power in Ned’s hands while he was in Pentos, Robert leaned back and smiled at the thought of seeing Jon’s face when he walked into the council chamber as a king. Mad harebrained venture eh, Jon, he thought as he poured himself a glass and smiled through the door at Alaesa where she sat invitingly on the bed. I don’t think I’ve done too badly so far.
XXX
Sajo, ko to Khal Zirqo, smiled in anticipation as the khalasar rode into the Myrish lands. It had been too long since they had come this way.
Khal Zirqo was one of the hrakkar of the plains, unquestioned ruler of a khalasar twenty-five thousand strong. Ten of the bells in his braid had been gotten in battle against khalasars almost as strong as his, and when he visited the cities of the walkers they all but fell over themselves to provide him gifts. Even Khal Drogo, whose fame and dread had already spread across the plains before his twenty-fifth year, spoke softly to Khal Zirqo when they met at Vaes Dothrak and gave him gifts of honor. Zirqo might be past forty, but he had last cut his hair at the age of sixteen, and age had only tempered his strength with wisdom.
So when Zirqo had heard of the wars that had taken place among the slaver cities, he had led his khalasar across the Rhoyne to see for himself. As he had explained to Sajo and the other khals, whether the walkers who had held power when last the khalasar had rode this way still held power or not, their war would have weakened them enough that their gifts would be all the greater; the better to earn the khal’s forbearance while they were weak. And if their wars had weakened them enough that their gifts proved insufficient, then they would be weak enough that the khalasar could take their own gifts. Sajo’s smile turned carnivorous at the thought. The gifts that the walkers gave were good enough, in their way, but it was known that they gave only a portion of their treasures, and not the best portion. The thought of being able to choose for himself from the goods of a walker’s house, from his cloth and wine and slaves and women . . . it was almost enough to make Sajo salivate.
And the khal’s predictions had been borne out. Six gold dinars, minted in the vaults of the Iron Bank, stamped with the head of the Titan, and with the hole punched through the center to show that the khal of Braavos’ tax had been paid, could buy Khal Zirqo’s favorite horse, or so Sajo had been told. Fifty such dinars would buy a house in one of the walkers’ cities or a mating-slave from the walkers of Lys.
The new khal of Pentos, who it seemed was in truth a ko of Braavos, had given forty thousand gold dinars to Khal Zirqo alone, along with ten thousand each to Sajo and the other two kos, and the value of another ten thousand in silver and bronze dinars, so that each of the eleven thousand warriors of the kahalasar had a string of silver and bronze coins attached to the line of his reins so that they jingled as he rode. In addition to the coin there had also been bolts of richly dyed cloth, casks of stinging wine and rich beer, and a sumptuous feast. It had almost made up for the fact that the khal of Pentos had refused outright to give them any slaves. It was, he had said with great dignity, against the will of the Braavosi’s gods for them to keep or give slaves, and rather than transgress against that commandment they would fight to the death. Khal Zirqo, for his part, had accepted the explanation, enjoyed the proffered feast with good cheer, and on the road southward he had allowed his kos to attack one village each and take their people as slaves.
Sajo sighed reminiscently; it was good to have a khal who was mindful of his followers and generous with those that pleased him. Zirqo had even told them that they could keep all the slaves they had taken without giving him a gift of the best, as was customary. Sajo and his fellow kos, Hazo and Pobo, had given the khal the best of the slaves they had taken anyway; it was bad luck to reward generosity with stinginess, as the khal himself had demonstrated to the Braavosi. Hopefully the Andals who had taken Myr would have better manners than the Braavosi.
On the other hand, they might not be. The khal-of-Pentos-who-was-truly-a-ko-of-Braavos had claimed that the Andals who had taken Myr were fierce warriors, and were also forbidden by their gods from keeping or giving slaves. He had waxed especially eloquent about their steel-covered horsem*n who made the ground quake under their charge, and their archers who could darken the sky with their shafts. Their khal, it had been claimed, was a giant of a man taller and broader than any man in the khalasar who fought with a hammer that an ordinary man could barely lift, while the least of his kos was a finer swordsman than any in their homeland across the poison water. Their gods fought at their side, the slaves that had been taken from the Pentoshi villages had claimed, and every man of them fought like hrakkar as a result.
Sajo spat on the ground by his horse’s right fore-hoof; walkers all lied, it was known. The Andals who came to the plains were weak and cowardly creatures, giving gifts to any who asked them and never raising a hand to defend themselves, even against insults that would have even a Dothraki woman shrieking with fury and reaching for her husband’s arakh. And even if these Andals did fight, there were no fighters in the world who could match the Dothraki. The plains were littered with the ruined cities of those who had tried.
So when Sajo saw a pair of men on horseback burst out of a ravine and gallop away southward, he held his riders back. It would only be polite, he explained to Khal Zirqo that evening when he made his report, to allow the Andals time to gather a sufficient quantity of suitable gifts. The khal laughed loud and long at the jest.
Chapter 35: Rolling the Iron Dice
Chapter Text
Rolling the Iron Dice
It was a very different army that was marching out of Myr, Eddard reflected, from the army that had taken it. The heart and soul of that army had been Westerosi, although the freedmen had become an important appendage that helped to fill their ranks. The army that marched past him out of the Great Eastern Gate was almost entirely Myrish; except for a few officers in the infantry, fifty archers, and the two hundred knights and heavy horse, every man marching under the paired banners of the Crown and the Iron Legion had either been born or had lived most of their lives east of the Narrow Sea. Partly that was due to the fact that most of the Westerosi-born soldiers in the Royal Army had marched with Robert and Jaime to defend the coastlands, but it was also a fact of numbers. The months between the taking of Myr and the closing of the Sea of Myrth due to this new war had seen a flood of volunteers come across the Narrow Sea, but even so Eddard didn’t believe that there were more than ten or eleven thousand Westerosi of all descriptions in the Kingdom of Myr. If the new kingdom was to not only survive, but thrive, it depended on the men marching past him.
On the face of it, they were certainly promising material, even though only a few of them were veterans of Tara or the taking of Myr; most of those veterans had marched away with Robert. Each man wore at least a padded jack made up of quilted layers of linen and leather, while some men wore brigandines or ring- or scale-mail shirts that had been taken from slaver corpses. Their armor also included an arming cap and a helmet, most often either a halfhelm or a kettle helmet, although a few wore greathelms, barbutes, or bascinets scavenged from dead men-at-arms or knights. For weapons they carried either a kite shield and a seven-foot spear or a crossbow and forty bolts, with a shortsword at each man’s left hip. Their officers, either former sergeants from Westeros or Essosi-born freedmen who had been promoted for ability and initiative, carried a glaive, a bill, or a halberd, both to help straighten the lines of their men and to provide each company with weapons that would be more effective against armored enemies; there was no proper equivalent to the Andal knight in Essos, but Tyroshi and Qohorik armor was famous even in Westeros, and the slaver cities had the wealth to put at least some men in full plate.
As for the men themselves, the faces under the helmet-brims were uniformly resolute behind the beards and moustaches that almost all of them had taken to cultivating; slaves had been forbidden from growing out their facial hair under Myrish law, apparently in order to allow them to be distinguished at a glance from the free-born. Each man wore the spear-and-broken-chain emblem of the Legion stitched onto their jack, often supplemented with either the seven-pointed star of the Faith or the fiery heart of R’hllor. Their marching didn’t quite have the same degree of belligerent confidence of the veterans, but veteran or not, three thousand spearmen and a thousand crossbowmen marching in step made the earth tremble, and Eddard saw nothing in the infantry that hinted of fear.
“I still say this is risky,” Ser Gerion grumbled at his side. “This is most of the remaining garrison you’re marching away with, and the men you’ll be meeting from Sirmium and Campora will be most of the proven men of their garrisons. If the horselords beat you, we will be all but naked unless we yield the coastlands to the slavers.”
“You still have the walls,” Eddard said, gesturing at the gatehouse looming above them. “And I’m leaving you five hundred spears and two thousand crossbows, along with the City Watch and whatever men you can train with the crossbows we’re leaving behind. That was almost enough to beat us, and we’re much better at storming fortifications than the Dothraki are. Even if the slavers try and attack the city you should be fine.”
“It’s still risky,” Gerion said, brushing a fly away from his horse’s neck irritably. “If anyone aside from Robert can hold this kingdom together it’s you, if only because you’re Robert’s foster-brother. You should trust the Blackfish to fight this battle for you, if the Dothraki decide to fight.”
Eddard shook his head. “We can’t afford to stay out of this,” he answered. “We have to show the freedmen that our lordship over them is justified, that we won’t shirk our share of the fighting just because we’ve become the lords of this land. Why do you think I’m taking every knight that can be spared from the garrison and the Watch?”
Gerion scowled. “You don’t need to lecture me on the duties of a knight,” he said sourly. “I am a knight, after all. I just want to be sure that you’re not leading this army out just because you want to make your name as a great captain.”
“I already have a name, after Tara and the siege,” Eddard said, “I don’t need another. What I do need, what this kingdom needs, is to show our people that we can and will fight to the death against every slaver on this continent.” He shrugged. “We can shout ‘Death to the slavers’ from the rooftops all we want, but we have to show that we mean it. If we slacken even once, if we give the slavers even one inch of ground or one day of peace, then we tell our people that we aren’t serious about the fight for freedom.” Eddard looked back at the river of men marching out of the gates. “The Dothraki call the tribute they levy ‘gifts’, Akhollo tells me,” he said softly. “The only gifts this kingdom can give to slavers are the gifts of fire and sword. If ever we give anything else, that is the day we start to die.”
Gerion chewed on the ends of his moustache for a moment as he thought over Eddard’s words, then shrugged. “Well and so,” he said grumpily. “But I still say it’s risky.”
“Is there any part of this empris that is not risky?” Eddard asked, gesturing at the city walls. “If we have come this far it is because we have rolled the iron dice without thought of cost. The only thing to do is keep rolling.”
XXX
Ser Leofric gestured for Septon Jaspar to sit and poured him a glass of wine. “My son thinks you are hearing my confession,” he said, pushing the glass across the table, “and the tale of my sins is not so great that telling of them would take very long. What do you want?”
Jaspar leaned forward. “I have sufficient evidence to convict Septon Jonothor of heresy,” he said, his voice unfortunately brittle-sounding even when he was speaking softly. “Twenty minutes of questioning in front of the Most Devout and I can have him condemned to the fire.”
Leofric sat back in his light campaign chair. “Quite the claim,” he said finally. “Defend it, if you please.”
“The heart of it is that Jonothor is defying the teachings of the Faith,” Jaspar said, his brittle voice turning pedantic. “The Council of Stony Sept in 452 BC declared that salvation is contingent upon belief in the Seven and the performance of good works in accordance with their laws. This is why those who follow the Old Gods are barred from the Heavens and must suffer in Purgatory until the last day, regardless of their merits in this life.” Leofric nodded; as the eldest son he had been destined to inherit Heart’s Home instead of becoming a septon, but everyone learned the basic doctrines of the Faith. “Jonothor’s commendation of Faithless dead to the care of the Seven, however, relies on the idea that belief in the Seven is not necessary; that salvation can be attained through good works alone. In this case, dying in the wars of this kingdom.” Jaspar spread his hands. “It is unquestionably heretical,” he said triumphantly. “No man can enter the Heavens unless he believes in the Seven and keeps their commandments. In advocating otherwise, Jonothor is directly contravening the doctrines of the Faith. I would be perfectly justified in ordering you to strike off his head at the next opportunity.”
Leofric co*cked an eyebrow. “In the first place,” he began slowly, marshalling his thoughts as he went, “suicide is a mortal sin, and attacking Jonothor would count as suicide; I’ve seen how the freedmen infantry who follow the Seven regard him, much less the knights. In the second place, to kill a man without a trial and a sentence of death is murder, also a deadly sin. In the third place, the only place where Jonothor can be fairly tried is in King’s Landing.” He gestured at the walls of the tent to indicate the encampment beyond. “There happens to be a war on, if you hadn’t noticed; even if we could get Jonothor back to Myr city, onto a ship, and across the Narrow Sea, we would be rightly condemned as deserters and oath-breakers.”
“When Jaehaerys the Conciliator placed the Faith under his protection, he swore an oath that the crown would defend the Faith against heresy as well as its other enemies,” Jaspar replied, glowering. “I invoke that oath, ser knight, and the oath you swore when you received the accolade to protect the Faith. Do your duty.”
Leofric slapped his hand down on the table. “Do not lecture me on my duty, septon,” he growled. “I was defending the Faith when you were still a bulge in your father’s trousers.” That was quite literally true on both counts; Jaspar had to be half Leofric’s age, if that. And the hill tribes of the Mountains of the Moon hated septons even more than knights; knights didn’t forcibly convert captured children or burn their sacred groves with their shamans tied to the heart tree, they just killed them. What the tribesmen did to a sept they had overrun, or to a septon or a begging brother caught on the road, was enough to give even hardened soldiers nausea. “If there is evidence that Jonothor is a heretic,” he continued, gritting his teeth, “then I will take such action as I deem fit. And hear me,” he aimed a finger at Jaspar, “when Jaehaerys swore to protect the Faith, the Faith swore to respect the king’s right to try and execute criminals. I do not care who your uncle may or may not be; in matters of the sword, I hold authority and you have no more right to command than the lowliest page in this army.” He hadn’t seen any family resemblance between Jaspar and the High Septon, but likenesses didn’t always run in families; Leofric, for one, looked nothing like the one half-brother he knew of. And for a man as young as Jaspar to be given a duty this important at such a young age generally took either great ability or great influence. Jaspar certainly had ability, even if his style of preaching tended to grate and he was a little harsh with the penances he handed out, but he was still a tad young to be sent to sniff out a potential heretic. Unless someone in charge of making such decisions thought he had what it took.
As Jaspar stalked out of the tent, Leofric glared at the bottle of wine, eventually deciding against another glass. These days drinking to excess made him sluggish and crabby the next morning and deliberately incapacitating yourself while on campaign was a stupid idea. Besides, he reflected grumpily as he stowed the bottle in its case, it was his own damned fault for swearing contradictory oaths. At his age he really should have known better.
That self-knowledge didn’t keep him from staying up half the night praying to the Crone for the wisdom to see a way out of the mess he had landed himself in. Come morning he was no closer to a solution than he had been the evening before and he was as snappish as if he had drained the bottle. I might as well have gotten drunk, he thought to himself grouchily as he swung himself onto his horse.
XXX
Marq Grafton sat down in his chair, automatically compensating for the gentle roll of his ship Gulltown’s Pride as he did so, while his manservant set out a pair of goblets and a decanter of wine, the last of the Arbor red, and placed a cushion on the chair across the table from him. A successful escape deserved an appropriate celebration.
Marq prided himself on being a practical man with a keen mind and a gift for logic. It was why he had been one of the richest lords in the Vale, second only to Jon Arryn and that only because the old man had taken an unreasonable share of the customs duties on cargos that landed on the Gulltown docks. Ancient privilege or not, there had been no reason for it; Jon, ever the proper lord and the perfect gentle knight, had refused to dirty his hands with the intimate details of trade. Marq’s fingers tightened on the arm of his chair as he remembered how the old man had looked down that overlarge nose at him, as if the interest he took in commerce made him some sort of lesser being. The Graftons were at least as old a house as the Arryns, if not older, and featured just as prominently in the old legends about the conquest of the Vale. A Grafton had fought at Artys Arryn’s side at the Battle of the Seven Stars, and Grafton knights had harried the mountain tribesmen as fiercely as those of any other Vale house. And yet he had never been given his proper due of respect, simply because he took the interest in trade necessary to make his house thrive beyond what their lands alone could support, so that he could leave his sons a greater patrimony than he had received from his father.
So when Rhaegar had promised not just a remission of royal taxes on imports into Gulltown but positions of honor for Marq and his sons, he had taken his fleet and joined the Minstrel Prince’s court of exiles. And while his enthusiasm for the dragon’s cause had waned after Tara, the flight to Volantis, and Rhaegar’s death, he had remained faithful; there was still Viserys, after all, and the child Queen Praela had been carrying might have been a son. But the Queen had birthed a daughter, and the day after the Triarchs of Volantis had informed them that they would not support or endorse Viserys’ claim to the Iron Throne, although they would allow the exiles to remain in the city in token of the past courtesies that House Targaryen had paid to Volantis the mighty.
Marq had begun plotting the same night. It was plain for anyone with the eyes to see and the wits to calculate that without significant support from Volantis, the best that the Targaryens could hope for was to become sellswords, and Marq didn’t want that life for his sons and grandsons. Nor had he been alone. Both his own sailors and the men of the royal fleet had not signed up for a life of permanent exile; they had all believed, had all been promised, that a year or two would see the Baratheons thrown down and the dragon restored to its rightful throne, with rewards for every man who kept faith. But that year had run its course, Rhaegar was dead and gone to ashes, and the only remaining dragons were a ten year-old boy and an infant girl, with the cause of the Targaryens in the hands of their two remaining Kingsguards and a glorified cloth-monger. Clearly it was time to get out of it while they still had a chance; Rahtheon’s pockets might be deep, but they couldn’t maintain a fleet of one hundred and eighty ships and pay their sailors indefinitely.
Marq had had the means and the motive, and the opportunity had arisen when a little man had come to him and explained that the Triarchs would consider it a favor if he removed the main force of the Targaryens from their control; Volantis, it seemed, had less-than-fond memories of the dragonlords of old Valyria, despite their protestations of amity to the current heirs of those dragonlords. A plan had quickly taken shape around that scaffolding. All that had been missing was the sweetener.
A knock on the door of the cabin, and his manservant’s announcement of “Her Grace the Queen,” brought Marq to his feet with a practiced smile on his face. It was even mostly genuine; Praela not only had all the accomplishments a young woman of her class should have, she was very easy on the eyes. A bit too dark for Marq’s tastes, with her skin a shade or two darker than olive, but pretty enough with her heart-shaped face and black eyes. She didn’t quite match Marq’s memories of Elia Martell, for one thing she wasn’t as slender as the Dornish princess had been, but he could certainly see how she had caught Rhaegar’s eye.
Nor was she alone; a tall man with the ebony skin of a Summer Islander was carrying a locked chest in his massive arms. It took much of Marq’s self-control to not start drooling at the sight of it. Instead he bowed over Praela’s hand, with the same ceremony and propriety as if they were at court, gestured her to her seat, which his manservant pulled out for her with millimetric correctness, and poured wine for them both, raising his goblet in a toast. “To our success, Your Grace, and the blessing of the Gods on our venture,” he said, letting a twinkle enter his eye.
“To a most excellently managed escape, my lord,” Praela purred. “I know little enough of such enterprises, but I am led to understand that preparing a fleet to sail in complete secrecy and effecting an escape from a guarded harbor is quite difficult.”
“Courage, good judgment, and divine favor make all things possible, Your Grace,” Marq said, placing his goblet on the table and not mentioning the fact that the Triarchs had given orders that their escape not be contested. “And for a lady so fair as yourself, I would undertake ventures more difficult still.” Especially if he could have someone like Praela herself assisting; how she had managed to lull not only Ser Arthur and Ser Barristan but her own father into a false sense of security was beyond Marq’s comprehension. He had managed it by dint of avoiding them when he could and speaking as little as possible when circ*mstance forced him into their company. Without Praela holding their attention, one of them would have gotten suspicious.
Praela set her own goblet on the table. “My lord, you must call me by my name,” she said, beaming at him. “We are to be partners, after all; partners have no need of formality between them.”
Marq inclined his head slightly. “As you wish, my . . . Praela,” he said, making her giggle. Gods, I had almost forgotten how much fun seduction was, he thought to himself as they exchanged further coquetries. His wife had died in childbirth years ago, and he had never felt the need to remarry afterwards, or even engage in the harmless philandering common to lords across Westeros. His work had consumed him in the years after his wife died. At last, after a conversation that had begun with flirtation and ended with a serious discussion of what they needed in order to set up as a pirate fleet in the Stepstones, he cleared his throat awkwardly. “I, ah, hope you don’t mind,” he said stiffly, “but as to the promises we made to each other . . .”
“Of course, of course,” Praela answered smoothly, fluttering her hands. “Business is business.” A click of her fingers brought her slave forward from where he had been standing with the chest to set in on the table at Praela’s left hand. Reaching down the front of her dress with a wink at Marq that almost made him shake his head in disappointment at the obviousness of the stratagem, she produced a heavy iron key. “Unfortunately I was only able to acquire half of them,” she said, fitting the key to the heavy padlock holding the chest closed and turning it with a small grunt of effort, “but there were too many for one man to carry and I had no one else I could trust but old Jabas, here, who has been with me since I was a girl.” The Summer Islander bowed mutely as Praela drew back the lid of the chest. “The treasure of House Targaryen, my . . . Marq,” she said grandly, gesturing at the quintet of dragon eggs that rested within the chest on a velvet cushion. “Take your choice.”
Marq’s smile became entirely genuine. “Erac,” he said calmly.
Without hesitation, his manservant produced a poniard from his sleeve and drove it into Jabas’ back twice. The blow to the kidney would have been fatal within moments, but the second blow transfixed the Summer Islander’s heart and the scream that Jabas had been opening his mouth to utter turned into a gurgling sigh as he collapsed. Erac, a fastidious and endlessly useful man, took the time to wipe his blade clean on Jabas’ loose trousers before knocking on the door in a syncopated rhythm that instantly produced sounds of violence outside.
Praela was aghast. “Are you mad?!” she cried finally, after almost a full minute spent looking from her dead slave to Marq to Erac and back.
“You know, I wasn’t sure whether or not you actually believed, me,” Marq said, leaning back in his chair as a pair of his men-at-arms came through the door cleaning the last of the blood off their swords. “After all, why would a sane and rational man like myself turn pirate, with all the dangers and discomforts that entails, when in one stroke I can win a king’s regard, regain my lands and titles, and become one of the richest men in Westeros. If it makes you feel better, something like this would have happened even if I’d actually been planning to turn pirate; a woman cold enough to abandon her newborn daughter for her own advantage is a woman too cold to share my bed. I’m an old man, and I’d like to grow older still.” At Praela’s sudden, fearful glance back towards the men-at-arms, Marq shook his head. “Fear not, Your Grace, no harm will come to you; you’re to be an ornament of King Stannis’ court, after all, it wouldn’t do for you to be damaged in the meantime. I admit that I know little enough of Stannis’ character, but no man likes to unwrap a gift only to find it broken.”
Praela, her face contorting with sudden fury, was only foiled in her attempt to snatch up her goblet and throw it at him by the two men-at-arms, who caught her by the arms. “Faithless bastard!” she shrieked, her formerly laughing black eyes flashing hate. “We had a deal!”
“I am altering the deal, Your Grace,” Marq said calmly. “If you wish to spend the rest of the voyage in comfort, then I suggest you pray that I do not alter it further.” He turned his attention to the two men-at-arms. “Put her in the fo’c’sle cabin and place a guard on the door. Any man who touches her loses whatever he touched her with. Make it known.”
As the men-at-arms grunted acknowledgement and towed the screeching former queen out of the cabin, Marq refilled his goblet and raised it in a toast to his new dragon eggs. I do love it when a plan comes together, he mused as he drank deep.
Chapter 36: A Flash, a Smuggler, and Twa Corbies
Chapter Text
A Flash, a Smuggler, and Twa Corbies
The following is an excerpt from Flash and the Round Table, the second instalment in the Flash Papers by George Dand.
It’s a hell of a thing, a heroic reputation. On the one hand the whor*masters don’t gouge you as much, the innkeepers tend to give you discounts in return for getting a glowing testimonial from a genuine hero, and it’s hellishly flattering to have minstrels and jongleurs making songs about your exploits (magnifying the facts out of all recognition as they go, but that’s part of their trade so there you are). On the other hand, once you have a reputation you have to maintain the blasted thing, especially if you’re not the sort of person who’s expected to have one. It’s all right for the Jaime Lannisters and the Ned Starks and the Robert Baratheons of the world to win laurels as the great men of their day; comes with the name, see? But when you’re the son of a newly-landed knight whose only talents are horsemanship and languages (and fornication, but only among ladies of negotiable virtue), you need to prove that you deserve to be named in the same breath as men like the Black Lion and the Iron Wolf.
So when the raven came from King’s Landing requesting me to present myself at Court for consultations, there was nothing for it but to spend the rest of the day packing and set out the next morning. For one thing, my family was among Stannis’ New Nobles and held the manor by dint of knight-service at His Grace’s pleasure; failure to show up would get at least me and possibly the whole family kicked onto the road. For another, it wouldn’t do for Ser Harry Flash, one of the heroes of the Greenblood, to be anything but enthusiastic for His Grace’s service. Tally ho and once more unto the breach, that was the ticket, and never a hint that I’d much rather be home galloping Maryam out of her wits at every opportunity and drinking myself into an early grave instead of jumping into the political mess of the decade.
It was like this, see. His Grace’s mad brother Robert, who had gone and conquered one of the Free Cities by dint of sheer balls and hard fighting, had gotten himself in a spot of bother in that he had found himself at war with the two other Free Cities in the area, both of whom hated his guts. As well they should have, seeing as he was bent on killing them all and freeing their slaves. Mind, I’ve no truck with slavery myself, but I can see how that sort of attitude would offend. The problem was that Robert was too strong for them to beat on land, so they had taken to fighting him from the sea, where he wasn’t strong enough to even try to fight them, much less beat them; not that it stopped his pet Ironborn from trying, but that’s Ironborn for you, optimistic lunatics to a man. That said, they could scourge the Sea of Myrth all they wanted, but they couldn’t take the Myrish coastland in the face of the Iron Legion, so the war turned into a stalemate.
That got the attention of the Braavosi. They’re the most cold-blooded people in the world, the Braavosi, except about two things; slavery and trade. They didn’t like the slaver cities any more than Robert did, but at the same time they needed a war with them like they needed a hole in the head; a third of Braavos’ exchequer came from trade with the slaver cities, for all their unflattering comments about fleshmongers. So the Braavosi set up a conference at Pentos and invited Robert and the slavers to come and talk out their differences, with us helping the Braavosi keep the peace. Since the invitation to the conference was official, that meant that the only person who would do as His Grace’s representative was His Hand, Lord Arryn, and he would need a full retinue, to which I found myself attached, officially anyway, as interpreter, gentleman-at-arms, and general functionary. Unofficially, or so I was told, I was to be a combination bodyguard and errand boy. See, the slaver cities didn’t like us much more than they did Robert’s new kingdom; Robert was our king’s brother after all, and his army was still Westerosi when it wasn’t freedman. So if some lunatic on the slaver’s side lost his temper and tried to knife Lord Arryn at the conference table, it would be a good thing for His Nibs to have someone at his side who was a good man of his hands and whose presence couldn’t be objected to. Similarly, if His Nibs needed someone to run any dangerous errands, it would be good if he had someone who knew the lingo well enough to talk his way out of any complications he couldn’t fight his way out of.
Of course all this talk about bodyguarding the Hand of the King and running clandestine errands for him, and the accompanying mental images of fighting off a swarm of Essosi daggermen or riding for my life with slaver freeriders in pursuit, put my heart right down in my boots, but there was nothing for it except to say ‘As my lord commands,’ and fall into ranks. For one thing trying to beg off would have looked damned fishy. For another, it was still a comfortable billet; Lord Arryn was a pretty dry old stick, but he was also known to feed his men well and it was supposed to be a peace conference after all. The Exchequer’s report was that none of the parties involved had enough lucre to pay for more than another month or two of war, and so they should be happy enough to find a way out of it all. So despite my misgivings, I reported aboard ship with the rest of the retinue, stood at attention while His Grace and His Nibs gassed away at each other through the departure ceremonies, and suffered through the voyage to Pentos with the rest of the embassy. Gods, if only I had known what I was getting myself into . . .
XXX
Erik Ironmaker smiled as he reviewed the chart of the Stepstones that lived in his head. Bloodstone was the largest of the Stepstones save for the isle of Tyrosh, and his fleet had stormed and burned the tower that the Tyroshi kept on the island with less than a hundred casualties. It was the latest in a string of victories that taken separately were only minor ones, but as a whole could only constitute a serious defeat to the naval policy of the slavers. It appeared that none of the slavers had thought to watch for a fleet coming from the south and southwest; understandably so, as Dorne had no navy worth the name, and all of the slavers’ potential enemies that did have fleets were either north or northwest of them. So the Ironborn had swept the breadth of the Stepstones from south to north, taking, sinking, or burning every ship and stronghold flying slaver colors they encountered. Twenty galleys had gone to the bottom and five towers like the one here on Bloodstone had gone up in smoke in order to put Erik and his fleet on the northern edge of the Stepstones with a choice before them.
From Bloodstone there were three ways to reach the Sea of Myrth. The safest way would be to sail due north until the easternmost tip of Cape Wrath was sighted, and then turn due east; the problem was that the prevailing winds out of the Sea of Myrth drove westward towards Cape Wrath and Shipbreaker Bay. And while the fleet could resort to their oars, it would be slow and exhausting going, and there would be at least one battle to fight on the other end of the voyage. The two other ways went right by Tyrosh isle itself, one between Tyrosh and its companion isle of Coralstone, the other between Tyrosh and the mainland. Taking either of those routes would allow the fleet to slip under the westerlies and use the northern edge of the eastward winds that rolled out of Dorne to speed their passage.
The problem, of course, was that it would also take them right under the noses of the Tyroshi, who were bound to have kept at least one squadron of galleys to defend their home island. Ordinarily, Erik wouldn’t have cared, but the blow they were planning would not strike half as heavily without a generous helping of surprise. And if the slaver galleys got past the longships and into the knarrs . . . there were almost two hundred women in those ships, along with about a dozen children.
Fortunately, there were sources Erik could consult.
Smuggling was an inescapable fact of life in the Stepstones, so much so that the Three Daughters had long since given up trying to extirpate it. The tower that Erik’s fleet had burned down had overlooked the main harbor on Bloodstone not just to deny it to enemy shipping, but also to keep an eye on the smugglers who frequented the village that had sprung up to service passing ships. The ‘arrangement’, as it had been known, had been that the Tyroshi, or whoever owned the tower during that phase of the on-and-off wars between the Quarrelsome Daughters, did not interfere too much in smuggling unless they got wind of some especially egregious violation, such as smuggling bullion or arms. In return, the smugglers conducted their business in an orderly fashion and didn’t complain too much when a shortfall in the treasury of the towers’ owners led to a shakedown. Like many things about Essos, it had originated through official boredom, private enterprise, and the never-ending cycle of commerce that dominated the Essosi littoral as thoroughly as the rhythm of the seasons dominated Westeros, and had carried on ever since.
The village had been spared for the most part, although the fleet’s bachelors had gone through its quartet of whor*houses like a hurricane; Erik was too old to know most of the smugglers currently in port himself, but his captains knew them well enough, and it was recognized by all concerned that clashes of kings had no bearing on business. Just because there was a war on didn’t mean that reasonable men couldn’t dicker over a goblet of mead or wine and see if they could make a profit off each other. Half of Erik’s captains were even now selling loot taken from Tyroshi and Lyseni ships to smugglers from almost every quarter of the known world in return for either hard coin or provisions to top off their ships’ stores.
And in addition to coin and provisions, the smugglers also had information; as often as not their necks depended on having at least a general idea of who was where, with how many ships and men, under what colors and in what guise. A smuggler who didn’t pay attention to his surroundings was a smuggler who didn’t live very long, in the usual run of things. So Erik had sent some of his officers out with orders to find him the captain who had most recently passed by Tyrosh and tell him (or her, although female captains were as rare as hen’s teeth) that Erik Ironmaker would pay handsomely for news of Tyrosh and the waters around it.
A knock on the door of the cabin he staying in onshore announced the arrival of one of those captains, who opened the door to announce “News for you, lord,” and usher in a man so slight and ordinary-looking that if Erik had passed him on the street, he wouldn’t have even noticed him. Erik stood, extending his hand as the stranger walked towards him with the rolling gait of a seaman.
“Erik Ironmaker,” he introduced himself, “admiral of the Ironborn here. I take it you have news of Tyrosh?”
“I do, my lord,” the man said in a voice that could only have come from Flea Bottom “Name’s Davos. What do you want to know?”
XXX
Lyn Corbray was not a man of faith.
He paid the Faith the lip-service it was due, but the simple truth of the matter was that he cared not what awaited him when he died. As he understood it, the gods determined where you went and what happened to you in advance, so spending time and effort praying about it struck him as mildly foolish. Whether he lived or died would be determined, he believed, by his own prowess, that of his enemies and allies, and the whim of chance.
So while he attended Divine Office in order to meet the expectations of his men (and his father, although he would never admit it), instead of praying further he took a bottle of wine to the edge of the encampment and sipped from it meditatively as he surveyed the dim glow of the Dothraki camp on the far side of the wide, flat valley through which ran a small stream whose name, somewhat unoriginally, translated into Common as Narrow Run. About halfway between Ceralia and Myr city, the valley had originally been home to a trio of cotton plantations that had been burned out in the Company’s march on Myr, and Lyn had heard somewhere that the plan was to turn each plantation into a collection of smaller farms centered on a village where the plantation’s manse had been.
He snorted. That would have to wait for a time.
A rustle behind him brought around with a hand on the baselard sheathed at his waist; the slavers would love little better than to have someone put a knife in his back. Fortunately it was only his father.
“Son,” the old man said softly, extending a hand. “Will you allow me to join you?”
“Of course,” Lyn replied, taking his father’s hand and offering him the bottle, which he accepted with a nod of thanks. After a long moment of silence as they passed the bottle back and forth, Lyn cleared his throat. “A quiet night so far,” he observed, gesturing across the valley. “Seems our guests don’t want to try their luck in the dark.”
“Few would, even on ground as clear as this,” his father said. “Quite a few of them, aren’t there?”
“Scouts reported about twenty, twenty-five thousand,” Lyn answered. “Call it ten, eleven thousand men of fighting age?”
“Like enough,” his father replied. Savages like the Dothraki had one advantage over civilized folk in that they could put a larger proportion of their folk in the battle-line, especially if, like the Dothraki, they were a warlike and predatory tribe. Among the Dothraki, Lyn had heard, every able-bodied man between fourteen and seventy was a warrior; if you tried that in Westeros the starvation that would result as the crops failed would cause devastation. Typically the most you could get away with without crippling your farms was one man in ten between the ages of seventeen and fifty, and most of those would be indifferent soldiers unless they had been part of some town’s militia or held a farm by sergeanty. “Do you think there will be a battle?”
Lyn shrugged as he took the bottle back. “If it was the Blackfish who was going to parlay with them, then I would doubt it,” he said. “The man’s too canny to provoke a fight on ground that favors the enemy as much as this does.” A gesture with his free hand indicated the clear, gently rolling ground of the valley; almost perfect for cavalry. “But since Stark’s going to be the one parlaying . . . “ He made a face that was only partially concealed by the fading light. “Stark hates slavers almost as much as he hates Targaryens,” he said. “And we’re here partly on the strength of his hatred for Targaryens. I wouldn’t put it past him to tell the khal, or whoever the khal sends, to go f*ck his horse tomorrow, and damn the consequences.”
His father nodded, letting a silence fall between them. After a few moments of companionable silence he turned to Lyn. “My son, there are two things I must tell you before tomorrow,” he said. “Things concerning the future of our House.”
Lyn narrowed his eyes. “What manner of things?” he asked cautiously.
“Firstly that if I fall tomorrow, you must take up Lady Forlorn,” his father said. “The sword of our House should go to the knight most worthy of her and I can think of none more so than you. Lucas is a boy still and while Lyonel is a good man, he is not one to uphold the words of our House.”
“Feed the Birds,” Lyn whispered as the import of his father’s words sank into him.
“Nor have either them served our House’s reputation and the Faith as well as you have done thus far,” his father went on. “Which brings me to the second thing I must tell you. But first a question; what think you of Septon Jonothor?”
Lyn shrugged. “I admit that I care little for his theology,” he said. “But he seems a good man withal. And a man, with it, which is more than can be said for most septons.” The memory of the angular, stern face set in a scowl worthy of the Father as the septon in question preached ran through Lyn’s mind. “He challenges the men to be worthy,” he went on. “And instead of hating him, they love him for it. There are men who would kill and die for him, knights as well as footmen. Jaime Lannister likes him, Ned Stark respects him, and King Robert loves him. Even Greyjoy treats him with courtesy; probably reminds him of one of his god’s priests, if what I hear of the drowned priests is true.”
His father nodded. “Well and so,” he said heavily. “The septon who sailed here with me, Jaspar, would have me keep silent about this matter. But I swore, when I arrived, to give my true faith and allegiance to King Robert, and I have a duty to our House besides. Both on this side of the Sea and the other.” Glancing over his shoulder, he leaned forward, his lined face intent. “Septon Jaspar was sent here, not to preach of the Seven, but to investigate Jonothor for heresy,” he said in a low voice. “And he claims to have found sufficient evidence to convict him of it. The first ship that can make the voyage to King’s Landing will bear his report to the High Septon and the Most Devout, and I doubt not but that their response will be to petition King Robert to arrest Jonothor and transport him to King’s Landing for trial.”
Lyn shook his head. “Ask Robert to give up wine and women and you would be more likely to succeed,” he said. “He has more love for Jonothor than for the High Septon and all the Most Devout put together. He remembers who spurred the freedmen over the walls of Myr, and who put the crown on his head.”
“Like as not,” his father went on. “So, if Robert refuses, they will petition Stannis, who has no such debt to Jonothor and so will be more mindful of his duties as king. I doubt that he will press the issue to the point of war, but it will still come between them, and from small matters great ones arise, in the fullness of time.”
Lyn winced as he contemplated the thought of having to fight a war with the slaver cities without the benevolent neutrality that had hitherto been the policy of the Seven Kingdoms. “I will have to inform Stark of this,” he said. “And Robert too, when he returns from Pentos.”
“I know,” his father replied. “I have already written letters to your brothers, and another to Lord Arryn, advising them of this matter.” He gripped Lyn’s forearm. “You are a man grown, my son, with a place and a name in this kingdom. But if ever you heeded your father’s advice, heed it now; think carefully before involving yourself in this matter of the Faith. I know not whether Jonothor is truly a heretic or not, but if he defies the Most Devout, then the Faith will schism, especially here. The Westerosi here acknowledge the authority of the Great Sept of Baelor, and of the Most Devout and the High Septon, but what of the Essosi who have converted? Will they cleave to authority an ocean away who they have never met, opposed to the man who converted them and brought the light of the Seven to their lives?”
Lyn shook his head. “No,” he said shortly. “It wasn’t the Most Devout who broke their chains.” He shook himself and looked his father in the eye. “Whether it comes to a schism or not,” he said slowly, “I will still have a frontier to hold. As far away from King’s Landing and Myr city as I am, I should be able to stay out of it. But if it finds me,” he shrugged. “I am sworn to Robert,” he went on. “My sword and my service are his to command. Whatever the hazards.”
His father clapped him on the shoulder, pride in his eyes. “I thought as much,” he said, smiling. “You are my son.”
Chapter 37: The Game of Words and Daggers
Chapter Text
The Game of Words and Daggers
Author's note: This chapter takes place over the space of about two sennights or so, more or less concurrently to the mobilization of the Royal Army of Myr and it's march to Narrow Run. Sections in first-person POV are further excerpts from Flash and the Round Table.
Jon Arryn sat back in his chair, his posture unconsciously erect, and surveyed the other participants of the conference over his steepled fingers. Robert sat three seats away from him on his left, insulated from the other participants by Ser Dafyn Otley, who Jon gathered was one of the chief officers of his household, and Maege Mormont, who had landed two days ago with fifteen hundred Northmen, two –thirds of whom were even now marching south along the coastal road under the command of Cregan Karstark. Across the circular table from him, glaring like a mad tiger, was Garros Sanatis, who claimed to represent the Myrish exiles; Jon had heard that the man had been a merchant-venturer who had been taking on water in Lys when news came of Myr’s capture by the Sunset Company. According to Ser Harry Flash, who claimed to have come across the information while drinking with some of the Lyseni delegation, Garros’ wife, three daughters, sister, goodbrother, two nephews, and niece had not been heard from since the siege and were presumed dead. On Garros’ right was the Tyroshi delegate, Donesso Hestaar, who was stroking his chest-length purple-dyed beard as he glanced around the table under hooded eyelids; evidently he stood high in the Archon’s councils. On Garros’ left there sat the Lyseni ambassador, a tall man with ringleted hair named Brachio Fylliros who even Jon could not describe as anything but beautiful and who sat in his chair with an indolent grace that stopped just short of boorishness. For all his apparent insouciance, however, Brachio’s eyes were still keen as they gazed on Robert; Jon knew little of him beyond that he was deeply involved in the slave and wine trades, but one did not rise high in the Free Cities without at least some ability.
On Jon’s right, Tregano Baholis, the host of the conference, stood and cleared his throat, holding a small sheet of parchment before him. “Your Grace,” he began in the smooth tones of a professional orator, “My Lord, Your Honors, gentlemen, in the name of His Excellency the Sealord and the Council of Thirty, I bid you welcome to this conference. Our purpose here is the restoration of peace through the world, in order that the nations represented here may enjoy the blessings of security, amity, and commerce beloved of men and of the gods, and to allow for justice to be done for any unlawful misdeeds we find to have been done . . . “
“As to that,” spat Garros suddenly, leaning forward, “I would like to know where my wife and daughters are. How about it, Baratheon?”
“How should I know?” Robert asked with a theatrical shrug. “Do I look like a whor*master to you?”
Jon sighed as Garros shot to his feet, spewing fury and ignoring Donesso’s grab at his arm while Tregano hammered his fist on the table and shouted for order. This, he thought wearily, is going to take a lot of work.
XXX
I once got into a terrible argument with this one septon (the conversation had been about hunting, of all bloody things) about whether fate or chance played a greater role in human affairs. Of course to religious types everything has to be the will of the gods; if it wasn’t they wouldn’t be able to explain things. I, on the other hand, having been embroiled in something like two-thirds of the wars, diplomatic crises, and general alarums of the past half-century or so (through no fault or desire of my own, let the record show), know just how much of a role that blind luck can play, especially in affairs that can impact the course of history. To name only one example, if I hadn’t happened to be the only person in the Westerosi embassy who could convincingly pass himself off as a Essosi sellsword, and if I had preferred Westerosi beer to Essosi wine, I wouldn’t have been in the Purple Octopus on the night after the first day of the conference and I wouldn’t have heard the words “kill the Andal” from the table behind me.
Fortunately I managed to pass off my spraying half of my goblet across the table as a spasm caused by the wine going down the wrong tube, mostly by coughing a lot and gesturing in vague reassurance at the serving-wench who started across the floor to see if I needed to be helped out the door so I didn’t die on the premises. Once I had regained control of myself and, more importantly, determined the Andal in question wasn’t me, I bent my ear as hard as I could to see if I could find out which Andal they were talking about. After all, that sort of thing was why I was down in the Purple Octopus drinking inferior wine and trying not to shudder at the collection of trulls on offer instead of sitting in front of a decent fire in the wing of the Viceregal Palace that had been given over to our embassy, sipping a decent red and seducing one of the maids. Alas, the Purple Octopus was not the quietest of establishments and I could only pick fragments out of the general babble, although those fragments were chilling enough. I mean, you try listening to someone mutter words like “death”, “revenge”, and “blood for blood”, even in a sultry Myrish accent, and see how it makes you feel.
Now if I was a cutthroat out of a romance, as daring as a knight and as cunning as a fox, I’d have waited until whoever it was who was speaking behind me left, followed them until they split up each to their own lairs, and knocked one of them over the head so that I could drag them back to the Palace to see how well he could hold his tongue with a torch held under his feet. Unfortunately, the villains weren’t so obliging; they did split up, but into two groups of three and no one in the group I followed split off to take a piss or to taste any more of Myr’s delights. That said, they were at least kind enough to end up someplace recognizable. The house they went in at had the Tyroshi banner hanging from a cross-pole over the door.
I told Lord Arryn about it of course, but he didn’t think it too important. “Of course they want to kill Andals,” was his verdict. “If they didn’t want to kill Andals we wouldn’t be here. Unless you can find out which Andal specifically they want to kill, and when and where and how they want to kill him, I’m afraid I can do nothing. Now will you please go and find those things out and cease wasting my time meanwhile?” Damned ingratitude, you ask me, but what can you do? That’s high lordships for you.
XXX
Jon Arryn put down his glass, concealing irritation with the ease of long practice. “I beg your pardon?” he asked, deliberately keeping his tone light. “What do you mean you cannot recognize the Kingdom of Myr as a sovereign nation?”
Donesso shrugged. “I mean exactly that,” he replied evenly. “The simple fact is that they are not a nation, but a robber band that has managed to take over a city by dint of treachery. The true nation of Myr is that which is represented by our well-beloved friend Garros Sanatis and his lieutenants.”
“Who do not hold any Myrish territory beyond a few rocks in the Stepstones and don’t have the ability to take it back,” Jon retorted. “If anyone is the robber band in this equation it is they. Or do you deny that they have conducted what amount to pirate raids on the lands of my king?”
Donesso gestured with his free hand as if to brush away an insect. “An attack of rashness on their part which we shall pledge to restrain in future,” he said smoothly. “But Robert and his followers have no legitimate claim to the possession of Myr.”
Ser Harry Flash, who had been pouring himself a drink at the sideboard, raised his eyebrows. “It’s got their troops all over it, that makes it theirs,” he said sardonically. “Right of conquest and all that.”
Donesso rolled his gaze over to fix Harry with an even stare. “Are we to acknowledge the right of bandits to keep their spoils, then?” he asked. “An outlaw band is no less criminal for being large and well-disciplined.”
Jon shrugged. “The Sunset Company’s war against Myr was conducted properly enough, as we reckon such matters,” he said. “A challenge was issued with reasonable terms, the Company marched openly under true colors, it faced the Myrish army in open battle and defeated it honestly. When Myr itself was besieged they offered honorable terms of surrender, and when those terms were refused the city was stormed and sacked.” He shrugged again. “Everything was conducted according to the rules of war. If the Myrish could not defeat them, then that is their misfortune.”
Donesso frowned. “Perhaps,” he allowed. “But the matter is not as simple as deciding whether or not the rules were followed. The Archon has sworn to give the Myrish all aid within his power to retake their city. He cannot be seen to go back on his word. And in any case,” he continued, arching his eyebrow, “their raid into our borderlands was proceeded by neither challenge nor terms, reasonable or otherwise. They had suffered no provocation, had no reason to believe that war with us was imminent or even likely. Ask our border towns that lie in ashes, and the children who lie dead in their streets, if the Sunset Company abided by your rules of war, or if they acted as any bandit gang would have done.”
Jon steepled his fingers. “For the latter question,” he began, “I say that when one perceives that a future enemy has let his guard down, prudence demands that you strike a blow while you may. Do you deny that, even if the Sunset Company had not raided your borders, you would have allowed them to enjoy the fruits of their conquest unmolested? As for the question of the exiles, I would submit,” he went on, “that the Archon has kept his word admirably; if the Kingdom of Myr is so beset on the seas, it is due largely to the Tyroshi navy.” Donesso accepted the compliment with a small bow from his chair. “And yet despite that aid,” Jon continued, “the Myrish have not been able to capture even a significant town, much less their city itself. Does the Archon’s charity extend so far as to provide indefinite aid to powerless beggars?”
Donesso pursed his lips. “Your first question we will never know the answer to, given the circ*mstances. As to the second question, the pursuit of honor and profit has no limit,” he said, as if quoting a proverb. “We cannot be seen to withdraw from an honorable struggle empty-handed.”
“You might have to anyway,” Harry replied as he sat down on the third chair in Jon’s private solar, “if the Braavosi decide to involve themselves. How well did it end for Tyrosh the last time their fleets tried conclusions with the Titan?”
“Ser Harry, that will do,” Jon said in the same tone he had used on Robert whenever he had said something impertinent. “This gentleman is our guest.”
Harry flushed appropriately and ducked his head. “Humbly crave your pardon,” he mumbled.
Donesso gracefully gestured acceptance of the apology. “The Titan’s fleets are formidable, it is true,” he averred. “But even them we would defy for the sake of honor. It takes a year and more to build a fleet, but it takes a hundred years to build a reputation.”
Jon scratched his freshly-shaven jaw; he preferred to cultivate a short goatee and moustache rather than a full beard. “It may be,” he said slowly, “that we can convince Robert to leave by any claims upon the territory Myr held in the Stepstones when he invaded, as well as any claims Myr may have held upon Tyroshi or Lyseni territory in the Disputed Lands. That would provide the exiles with a homeland, if a truncated one, and remove at least one source of potential friction.”
Donesso frowned. “That might work,” he said after a long moment of consideration. “But on its own I do not think it would suffice. What might suffice is if Robert was convinced to drop this idea of our paying him, what is the term, weregild? We entered this war not just to assist friends and allies, but to avenge the insult offered our ambassador when he was summarily ejected from Myr and his property confiscated.” He spread his hands. “As I understand, the payment of weregild constitutes an admission of guilt; we are not guilty of causing this war.”
Harry laughed shortly. “A fine time you’ll have convincing Robert of that, Your Honor,” he said, sipping at his glass.
“Leave that to me,” Jon said, leaning back in his chair. “Robert may not accept no weregild at all, but he may be mollified with a nominal sum, given the circ*mstances.”
XXX
In my professional opinion, the best place to hold a confidential meeting is in a middle-class tavern, especially if it also serves as a brothel.
In your low-class winesinks and cathouses, see, the average customer focuses on either getting as drunk as possible as fast as possible, or picking out the first harlot that comes to hand who isn’t too unsightly and getting straight down to business. Someone who lingers over his drink, or who only seems interested in observing the whor*s on offer instead of actually choosing one, stands out; two people holding a conversation of more than a few words might as well hold up a sign saying “We are the Suspicious People you are looking for”. Also such places are so raucous that you often can’t hear yourself think, much less hear someone across the table who is trying to be discreet.
In a high-class tavern or bordello you run into the opposite problem in that the common rooms are so sedate that you can eavesdrop on even a quiet conversation at ten paces. And even if you have the lucre to spring for a private room you aren’t safe; a lot of those private rooms have spyholes where someone can look in to watch you and your partner of choice perform the horizontal estampie with you unawares. Not exactly my style, but I’ve gotten so much professional use out of it over the years that I can’t bring myself to condemn it.
But a middle-class tavern-brothel, one boisterous enough to conceal a casual conversation but sophisticated enough that you’re almost expected to linger over your drink and your choice of pleasures, is perfect. So when the embassy received a message from someone who signed himself ‘a friend’ and insisting that they had ‘critical information’ that they could only impart to ‘a discreet and trustworthy officer’ (which in this case meant me, much to my dismay), my return message directed them to meet me at The Maiden’s Head, a tavern-brothel in the tradesman’s quarter that catered to the wealthier sort of journeyman.
I had gotten halfway through a tankard of quite decent ale, and decided that if whoever-it-was didn’t show up in the next hour I was going to pick out one of the establishment’s jezebels and at least get some enjoyment out of the evening, when a little man with a face like a sad lapdog slid into the chair across from me and introduced himself as Beleo, a ‘friend’, to use his words, of Lord Merryweather. Apparently, he had been trying to report to the old man for days now but his manse was too heavily watched. He had just gotten to the part of his story where he was babbling out how he had gotten a message to the embassy through a fourth party and handed me an envelope which he claimed held important information when I felt eyes on me.
I daresay I’m more sensitive to it than most, but if you stare at someone long enough and hard enough, they will notice it. Don’t ask me how or why because I don’t know, but it’s saved my life at least a dozen times over the years. Fortunately, I was able to keep the sudden twist in my guts off my face, Beleo seemed nervous enough already, as I scanned the room. Eventually, I found them.
“Don’t look,” I said, forcing myself to be calm, “but there are a few gentlemen at the bar who don’t seem to be very interested in their drinks.” Naturally, just as I said so, they got up from their seats and started walking over to us.
“Who are they?” Beleo asked, his eyes flitting from side to side anxiously.
I shrugged; the men in question had the sort of face common from Braavos to Volantis. “Damned if I know,” I said. “Tyroshi, Lyseni, maybe Volantene . . . “ By this point they had reached our table.
“Come quietly,” one said in a distinctively sultry accent.
“Make that Myrish exile,” I said, trying to conceal my sinking heart behind a light tone. Ser Harry Flash’s Rules of Covertcy have never been published, nor are they likely to be published, but one of the first ten of those Rules is this: Never get involved with people who have nothing to lose if they don’t play by the rules.
“And bring the letter with you,” the one who had first spoken continued as if I hadn’t said anything.
I didn’t much care for his tone, which doubtless is what made me try to brazen it out; I’m not usually that reckless. Besides, I was still a young man in those days. “Letter?” I demanded in my iciest tone. “What letter?”
“The letter this one just gave you,” said another of the Myrmen, this one slighter than his colleague but no less dangerous-looking.
Beleo, to give him credit, could shift from nervousness to temerity in a heartbeat. “Me?” he asked in a voice that didn’t even quaver. “Do I look like a messenger boy?”
“We will not ask again,” said the third Myrman, who even in workman’s clothes held himself in a way that all but shouted nobleman. “Come quietly, or . . .”
“Or what?” Beleo asked boldly, drawing a peasant’s knife and thumping the hilt down on the table.
The first Myrman, who had positioned himself between us, drew back his cloak to reveal a shortsword. “Or we kill you and take what you have anyway,” he said amiably. “This way, you live longer. Outside, please.”
Well, there was nothing to do at that point but stand up and walk towards the door, which we both did. Fortunately, Lady Flash didn’t raise any slow thinkers, so halfway to the door I contrived to stumble against Beleo and roughly shove him halfway across the table he was passing with a shout of “Watch where you’re going, damn your eyes! Think a man of the Old Blood of Volantis can be jostled like a peasant, do you?”
While Beleo protested feebly from where he lay on the table, one of its occupants stood up, and up, and up. “You owe us a round and two bottles of the house vintage,” he said with a Northern burr so thick I could have cut it with a knife. “Along with a dozen gold dragons or so for taking the trouble to teach you manners.”
In reply to this I put on my best sneer, looked him up and down with as much insolence as I could muster on short notice, and replied, in my best impression of a Volantene nobleman’s accent, “Going to make me, tree-f*cker?”
There were a score of Northmen at that table, all younger sons of minor aristocracy with a few glasses of strong wine in them. Every one of them stood up at that, stripping off their doublets and putting hands to dirk hilts. The one who had first stood up, a man about my age with arms as thick as most men’s legs, grabbed me by the front of my doublet and managed to snarl, “Think you’re funny, do you . . .” before I keyed his arm into a shoulder lock and threw him into the Myrmen.
That, as they say, did it. In seconds the Maiden’s Head was a maelstrom of combat, with the blades coming out and the furniture beginning to fly, and I was crawling on hands and knees for the door. How I got out onto the street with nothing more than bruises, I’ll never know, but I did and I wasted no time at all in dashing to the stable attached to the tavern, dragging my horse out without taking the time to tack up, and riding back to the Palace and the safety of the embassy at best speed.
What happened to Beleo I never found out, but I still had his letter, and the contents, once I got around to opening and reading it, were almost worth the bruises.
XXX
“This is a joke, right?” Robert asked as Tregano Baholis finished reading out the preliminary terms of the treaty. “Jon, you can’t honestly expect me to accept these terms.”
Jon Arryn shrugged. “These are the terms that all the other parties are willing to accept,” he replied. “You’re the only one who hasn’t approved them.”
“Do you truly think that I give a damn what a pack of slavers are willing or not willing to accept?” Robert spat. “Donesso and Garros and Brachio can all line up and kiss my arse for all the good it may do them.”
Tregano set down the paper on which he had scribbled down the terms of the treaty and spread his hands. “Your grace, as unpalatable as these terms may be, they are the terms on which we can make peace,” he said simply. “As early as tomorrow afternoon, if you accept them today. And you must admit, they are not entirely unfavorable to you and your realm.”
Robert clenched his jaw on a sour remark; the truth was the terms were decent enough. The recognition of the Kingdom of Myr as a sovereign nation, the abolition of slavery and the slave trade outside of Tyroshi and Lyseni territory, and peace on the terms of status quo ante bellum were all more than acceptable. The provision that slaves of other nations visiting Myr on a temporary basis would remain slaves was difficult to swallow, but understandable given Tyrosh and Lys’s reliance on slaves to row their galleys. It was the other terms that truly stuck in Robert’s craw.
The Kingdom of Myr renounces all claims on territory previously claimed but not actually occupied in the Disputed Lands and it’s territories in the Stepstones.
The Kingdom of Myr pledges to not interfere in the internal affairs of the other signatories to the treaty, nor to encourage, condone, support, or render aid and comfort to any revolt, rebellion, or insurrection within the territory of the aforesaid signatories.
No signatory to this treaty shall interdict, harass, or blockade the commerce of any other signatory, upon pain of reprisal actions by the other signatories.
Tyrosh and Lys shall each pay reparations to the Kingdom of Myr in the amount of one gold dragon, or an equivalent amount in their currency, in compensation for the damage done to the property of the Crown of Myr during the war.
The first three of those terms were bad enough; at a stroke they would forbid the Kingdom of Myr from making any attempt to forcibly abolish slavery in Tyrosh and Lys. But the fourth term was what truly made Robert see red. For one thing, the amount was insultingly small, as if he were some beggar to be thrown a coin. For another, there was no mention in the treaty whatsoever of the hundreds of his people who had been murdered by the slavers, or of the reparations that were due to them.
“How can you expect me,” Robert said after explaining this to Jon, “to go back to Myr and tell my people that I agreed with the notion that their lives were not even worth mentioning?! You taught me better than that, Jon!”
Jon narrowed his eyes. “If you had remembered my lessons a year and a half ago,” he said coldly, “we would not be here and you would not have to accept these terms. We are here,” he continued, his voice rising as he leaned forwards over the table, “because you chose to act like a child told it could not have a toy instead of a king. Every drop of blood spilled is on your head, boy!”
Tregano slapped his hand down on the table with a sharp crack. “Enough, both of you!” he snapped. “You are a king and the first officer of a king. Comport yourselves accordingly, if you please.” As Robert and Jon subsided, both glaring daggers at each other, Tregano sat back in his chair. “Your Grace,” he said in a more moderate tone, “I am informed by the Sealord that he personally considers these terms to be objectionable. However, for the sake of the commerce that his people depend upon for their livelihood, he is willing to accept them and lend of the Titan’s strength to see that they are observed. The Council of Thirty has already voted to approve an arrangement wherein thirty of our galleys, based out of Dragonstone and Estermont, will patrol the southern Narrow Sea and the Stepstones to enforce the terms of the treaty in conjunction with a squadron of King Stannis’ fleet. You may be assured that the captains will be scrupulous in carrying out their duties. If you wish to add a squadron of your own to this fleet, they will be more than welcome so long as they abide by the terms of the treaty.”
Robert scowled. “What’s in this for you, anyway?” he asked. “I don’t recall seeing anything in the treaty that redounded to Braavos’ benefit.”
“Two things,” Tregano said. “Firstly, it redounds greatly to the honor of Braavos that her good offices were instrumental in stopping a war and restoring peace and commerce. Secondly,” his face split in a grimly triumphant smile, “this treaty constitutes the greatest defeat ever handed to the forces of slavery. In one stroke, slavery and the slave trade will be eliminated from almost the entirety of the Narrow Sea, save for the Stepstones. We have fought against slavery for more than a thousand years, Your Grace, and in all those centuries we have suffered defeats as often as we have celebrated victories. A victory as great as this will be celebrated loud and long by every man, woman, and child who swears allegiance to the Titan.”
Robert nodded. “There’s a lesson in that, I suppose,” he said sourly. “Take a hollow victory when it offers itself, instead of holding out for a perfect victory and going down to defeat, or something like.” Pushing away from the table and standing to his feet, he stalked over to the window and glowered down at the city below. “Suppose I accepted these terms,” he said slowly. “What else could I expect to get, from either of you?”
Tregano concealed a smile. “I’m sure the Iron Bank would be more than willing to open a branch in Myr city,” he said. “Master Nestoris would be able to tell you more than me, but I can tell you that the best help to commerce known to man is readily accessible credit. And no one in the world, Your Grace, can offer more credit on better terms than the Iron Bank.”
Jon shrugged. “The treaty will forbid you from recruiting in the Seven Kingdoms,” he said, “but it doesn’t prevent people from sailing from Westeros to Myr. Any man who volunteers to join your army would have to give up their inheritance rights in the Seven Kingdoms, but they would still be free to sail if they can afford the price of passage. In addition to which,” he continued, his voice turning speculative, “the treaty does not forbid the Iron Throne from shipping men to Myr as we would ship them to the Wall. Any man sentenced to exile, as Ser Jaime was, could certainly be put on the next ship to Myr.”
Robert glowered down at the city for a while longer, and then turned back to the two other men. “Very well,” he rumbled. “I will sign the damned thing. But mark me, my lords; I dislike being forced to accept the unacceptable. I wish it to be entered into the record that I am only accepting these terms because I have no other choice if I wish to preserve my people and my kingdom. And when this treaty’s odiousness outweighs its usefulness, my hammer will not sleep.”
XXX
I didn’t get to see Robert and his household march down to the ship that would carry them back to Pentos, as it happens. Officially, I was excused from duty that day on account of I had been on duty for the two sennights prior and I was under orders to take the day off. Unofficially, it was so I could set up in a top-floor room in a certain tavern with a bottle of surprisingly decent Arbor red and wait for someone to show up; which they did, about an hour after I had taken a seat in the far corner of the same wall that held the door.
He wasn’t very extraordinary in appearance; one of your small, neat men with the sort of face that will blend into half the crowds in the world. If it weren’t for the heavy-looking sack he was carrying over his shoulder and the feline way in which he moved, I’d never have pegged him for an assassin.
“Good morning,” I said brightly as he closed the door. “Care for a drink?”
To his credit, he hardly even flinched; just a momentary start, a slight stiffening of the shoulders and the neck, and then he was looking at me with some of the coldest eyes I have ever seen. And keep in mind, I’ve been in more than my share of staring contests. The only man I ever met who could unequivocally beat this bird in a staring match was Tywin Lannister.
“Thank you, no,” he said finally, having not moved from where he stood with one hand on the doorknob. I could tell already that the only reason he hadn’t tried to kill me yet was that he wasn’t quite sure of what exactly he had walked into. After all, he had thought that he would have a nice private room to commit a murder from, and here was a big Westerosi with an educated accent that belied his tradesman’s clothes, apparently without a care in the world or a weapon in his hands, offering him a drink. “I was unaware this room was already occupied.”
I gave a self-deprecating smile. “Yes. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell the innkeep about me, actually. See, I didn’t tell him I was taking a private room.” In actuality I’d slipped him a few stags in order to keep quiet about my presence, but I didn’t want this cove or one of his friends thinking he’d betrayed them.
“Lovely view this room has, eh?” I went on, indicating the window. “Day as clear as today, you can see right down to where the High Street meets the docks. Not a chimney or a dovecote in the way and barely a hundred yards distance.”
“Indeed,” says the small man with the cold eyes. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me who gave you the notion to come here to this room in this tavern?”
I shrugged. “Afraid I can’t, old boy. See, I don’t know where the information that brought me here came from. Just an anonymous letter dropped by the embassy.”
The other man pursed his lips and nodded. He still hadn’t moved away from the door and he was still standing in the sort of balanced, absolutely still posture you only see in acrobats, dancers, and fighting men, and even then only in the good ones. There was a distant swell of noise from outside, which I made of show of listening to by placing my left hand, which had been resting on the table, to my ear; my right hand still held my wineglass. “That’ll be King Robert passing through, I’ll wager,” I said. “Give it another minute or three and he’ll be aboard ship. And once he’s aboard and everything’s settled . . .”
“Down to Myr he goes,” the man said. “Home again, home again, for him.” His eyes, if anything, grew even colder, and I could tell that they weren’t looking at me anymore. “My father was a glassblower in Myr, a free glassblower,” he said, his sultry accent thickening a little. “He wanted me to go into the trade, like my older brother, but I didn’t have the lungs for it. Fortunately, I did have a head for numbers; one good enough that the Master my father worked for got me a job as a clerk in a trading house. Eventually, I got so good at that job that the head of the house sent me to Tyrosh, where one of his partners needed a replacement clerk who wasn’t tied to any of the houses there. My ship sailed the day before the Sunset Company came over the border.” His voice was as even and measured as if he were discussing the weather, but I could still hear the pain and hatred underneath it. “My older brother was killed at Tara,” he went on. “My father, my uncles, and my goodbrother were killed during the siege or the assault. My mother, my aunt, my goodsister and my two sisters were raped during the sack; my goodsister died in the process and my mother killed herself afterwards. My sisters managed to get on a ship and join me in Tyrosh, but they aren’t right; Vellona still cringes at the sight of me, sometimes, her own brother, and Meshora can’t sleep unless the door to her room is locked, barred, and wedged shut. I don’t know where my aunt is. The shop where my father and older brother worked, and where four generations of my family have worked, was burned half to the ground and is now a barracks for the City Watch, or so I am told.” His eyes focused back on me. “Will I ever get to go home, ser whoever-you-are?”
All I could do was shrug. “Don’t ask me, old boy. I’m just a knight in the service of King Stannis, gods bless him. When he, or one of his officers, says unto me, ‘go’, I go, and when they say unto me, ‘do this’, I do it. What they choose to make out of where I go and what I do for them is their problem and none of mine, so long as they do right by me and my family.” I indicated the bottle sitting on the small table in front of me. “Sure you don’t want a drink? It’s really quite good, for this sort of establishment.”
He shook his head. “Thank you, but no.” He flicked a glance at the window, through which the noise of the crowds was coming only faintly. “It would appear that there is no purpose to my remaining here, anyways.” Looking back to me, he raised an eyebrow. “Will you allow me to leave, or will I have to cut my way out?”
He was, as I have said, not a particularly big fellow; perhaps five feet high and maybe a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet and wearing heavy clothing. That said I wouldn’t have wanted to try conclusions with him under the conditions we were in at the time. I had left my sword and my armor at the embassy, and all my warlike equipment in that room consisted of a leather doublet and a baselard, the better to seem like a commoner, if a well-off commoner. On the other hand, it wouldn’t have done to let him know that I was reluctant to pick a fight. Undersized or not, this fellow struck me as the sort who would fasten on any weakness and not let go until you stopped breathing. “I’m under orders not to kill you,” I said as a result. “Be inconvenient for our hosts if one of their guests goes around knifing people. Besides, we’ve just ended a war; be bad form to start another one before the ink’s dry on the peace treaty.”
He nodded. “I imagine so. You said you serve King Stannis?”
“I have that honor.”
“Then our paths will probably cross again someday,” he said. “May I ask your name?”
Now, it’s a bad idea to let the other side know who you are, as a general rule, but I was young at the time and I didn’t see how it cost me to give the fellow my name. After all, I had won this round. So I stood up slowly, making sure to keep my hands clear of my baselard, clicked my heels, and bowed shortly, maintaining eye contact as I did so. “Ser Harry Flash, at your service.”
“Stallen Naerolis of Myr, at yours,” he replied. “I hope you won’t mind if I don’t wish you good luck? Nothing personal, you understand; strictly a matter of business.”
“Not a whit,” I answered him. “Doesn’t sound like you have any good luck to wish on someone anyway.” If I hadn’t known better, I’d have sworn his eyes had flashed red in that instant from concentrated hate. But then, I’d been running on about half my normal amount of sleep per night, so maybe it was just me. “The sele of the day to you.”
“And you,” he said, courteously enough, as he shouldered his heavy sack again and left the room, but not my life. If I had known how many sleepless nights and grey hairs that little man would give me over the years, I’d have taken my chances right there in that room, if only for the sake of my peace of mind. But then, I’m a knight, not a fortune-teller, so how was I to know?
Chapter 38: The Gift of Death
Chapter Text
The Gift of Death
Eddard narrowed his eyes at the sight of the quintet of horsem*n riding out from the Dothraki host under a flag of truce, with another man jogging along behind them. Turning to Akhollo, he jerked his head at the delegation. “Do you think they mean it?” he asked. “The flag of truce?”
Akhollo nodded. “Dothraki respect truce-flags as much as Andals do, Lord Stark,” he said gravely. “On the plains it is death to attack a messenger. The one on foot will probably be a slave who speaks Valyrian or Common Tongue; they will not expect walkers to speak Dothraki.”
Eddard nodded. “Ser Brynden,” he called over to where the Blackfish sat his horse. “You have command in my absence. Be ready to intervene if things go wrong.” As the Blackfish waved acknowledgment Eddard turned to the captain of his household, one of the ten survivors of the twenty Cerwyn men who had formed his original guards. “Daimh, I’ll need you, Aralt, Niall, Dael, and Gram, and a flag of truce. The rest of the household to remain here until we return, but to stand ready to ride to our aid.” Daimh, a stolid, blocky man whose already-wide shoulders looked positively deformed when he was in armor, clanked his gauntleted fist off his breastplate in salute and turned to snap orders at the other household men.
Twenty minutes later, Eddard and his men were reining in before the Dothraki delegation, which had waited for them in the middle of the shallow stream that gave the broad, gently sloping valley its name. One of the Dothraki, a strongly-built man who seemed no less hale for the streaks of gray in his long, intricately braided and bell-festooned hair and beard, raised an empty hand in a ceremonious gesture that Eddard copied after a short hesitation, and then lowered his hand to gesture sharply with a snap of his fingers. The man on foot strode forward and bowed. “I am Harar, lord,” he said humbly in Low Valyrian. “With your leave I will translate your words for Khal Zirqo, and his words for you.”
Eddard co*cked his head. “Are you from Pentos?” he asked; his Low Valyrian was more conversational than truly fluent, but he had picked up the accent.
Harar nodded. “Born and raised, my lord, until I was sold to the khal ten years ago by . . .” The Dothraki who had gestured Harar forward, and who Eddard took to be Khal Zirqo, quite calmly drew a quirt and, leaning over, struck Harar on the back with it, accompanying the blow with a torrent of incendiary-sounding language. Harar, for his part, took both blow and scolding with nothing more than a bow to the khal and another to Eddard. “The khal bids me translate only, my lord,” he said, “and says that if I speak otherwise he shall flog me further when the day’s business is over.”
Eddard tightened his hands on the reins of his courser until his gauntlets creaked. “In that case,” he said, restraining his fury with an effort of will, “I ask the khal what his business is in these lands, for none ride armed in Myr unless they swear fealty to the king.”
As Harar translated Eddard’s words into the rough gutturals of Dothraki, the khal laughed, as did the four other men who rode with him and who Eddard took to be his household men, or bloodriders as Akhollo had told him they were called. “Khal Zirqo says that the Dothraki ride where they please, as they please,” Harar said as the khal spoke. “He says also that he spits on this king of whom you speak, who thinks that he can command free men as if they were slaves.”
“Tell him,” Eddard replied, “that he has not answered my question. What is his business in these lands?”
“Khal Zirqo says that he has heard that there is a new king in Myr,” Harar answered. “He says that he wishes to meet this king, and ask him for such gifts as the magisters gave.”
Eddard nodded. “And what,” he asked, “will the khal give in return if we give him these gifts he asks for?”
At Harar’s translation, Zirqo smiled as a tiger might smile. “Khal Zirqo says,” Harar said as Zirqo spoke slowly and with evident relish, “that if he receives worthy gifts, then he will give your king the gift of his friendship. He says further that if the gifts he receives are unworthy, then he will do to you what he did to the Pentoshi, and burn your villages and take your people as slaves, to teach you what gifts are worthy of a khal.”
A fist gripped Eddard’s heart. “He took slaves in Pentos?” he asked, his voice suddenly cold.
“Khal Zirqo says that the Braavosi who now rule in Pentos refused to give him slaves,” Harar replied. “So he took the number of slaves that he would have been given by the old rulers of Pentos. He says that it is the way of the world, that the strong do as they please, and that the Dothraki are strong. He says further that he will do the same here, unless your gifts are worthy; your men, he says, are weak, and cannot stand against his riders. You would have done as well to leave them in their homes and come alone, he says, they would have been as much use to you.” One of the bloodriders added a comment which provoked chuckles from his fellows and the khal, who gestured at Harar. “Chokho, who is bloodrider to the khal, says that his khal misspoke,” Harar said. “In bringing your men here, he has saved the khal the bother of rooting them out of their holes like a woman hunting marmots.”
Eddard held out a hand to still the growing murmur of anger from his household men, who had been listening to the exchange. “Tell the khal,” he said softly, lowering his hand and shifting his grip on the reins of his horse, “that I will give him the same gifts that we gave the magisters of Myr, if he does not apologize for the insults he has given.”
There was a short silence as Harar translated Eddard’s words, and then Zirqo threw his head back and roared laughter, as did his bloodriders. Finally, wiping tears from his eyes, Zirqo gasped out a sentence to Harar, who turned back to Eddard and bowed. “Khal Zirqo says that he does not know what you mean,” he said, “but you will have to give him greater gifts than you gave mere magisters, if you are to keep his friendship.”
“He misunderstands,” Eddard said, spurring his horse forward so that he closed with Zirqo. “We gave the magisters the gift of death.” And with that, he swept his longsword out of the scabbard and swung it in a flat arc that drove the last two inches of the blade across Zirqo’s throat.
There was a long moment of stillness, broken only by Zirqo clutching at his throat and gobbling horribly as blood flowed from the wound and sprayed from his mouth, and as he fell from his horse the spell was broken. The bloodrider who had spoken, Chokho, roared incoherently and drew his arakh, followed in the next heartbeat by the other three bloodriders. Eddard had enough time to close his visor before they were on him, with his household men adding their spears and swords to the fray moments later.
XXX
Five hundred yards away with the rest of the khalasar, Sajo gaped as Khal Zirqo fell from his saddle. No one, no one, broke the protection of a truce flag. It was literally unthinkable. And yet the Myrman had killed the khal like a dog, and the parley was turning into a battle before his eyes.
Beside him, his cousin Qhodovvo was gagging in outrage. “Blasphemers!” he finally roared, his voice a trumpet of fury breaking the shocked silence that had fallen over the khalasar. “Desecrators! Hell shall be thy portion for this!”
A deep-throated baying rose from the host, those few men who hadn’t been mounted tightening girths and leaping into the saddle. In the center of the host Pobo walked his horse forward and drew his arakh. “Forward!” he roared. “Avenge the khal! Kill, brothers, kill! Kill them all!”
As one man eleven thousand riders went from a standing start to a charge in five strides, and the ululating howl of the bloodscream split the heavens.
XXX
Brynden Tully watched, horror-struck, as the parley turned into a brawl and the Dothraki charged. But only for a moment; even the shock of witnessing a war crime could not override his veteran’s instincts. So after only a single shouted obscenity, he turned to one of the gallopers waiting near to hand. “My compliments to Ser Lyn Corbray,” he said calmly, “and he is to charge the enemy immediately.” As the galloper spurred his horse away, he turned to his trumpeter. “Sound prepare to receive cavalry,” he ordered. As the trumpeter raised his instrument and sent the brassy notes echoing away, Brynden drew his sword and held it in a loose grip down by his right leg. Damn it, Ned, he thought savagely. Why did you have to go and do that?
XXX
Contrary to popular belief, a charge of heavy cavalry does not go straight from a standing start to a gallop.
For one thing, a horse as large as a courser or a destrier simply cannot accelerate that fast, especially not when it’s weighed down by its tack and barding, its rider, and his armor and weapons, all of which can easily come to three hundred pounds or more. Coursers and destriers are plenty fast in a straight line, but it takes them a while to get up to speed and once they do they can’t turn very quickly. For another, even a lightly-encumbered horse can only gallop for about two miles before fatigue sets in; a barded horse carrying an armored knight, even one as strong as a destrier, can only maintain a gallop for about a mile.
Moreover, heavy cavalry, and especially well-drilled heavy cavalry, almost never gallop. At the gallop it is almost impossible to maintain cohesion and heavy cavalry live and die by cohesion. A charge that loses cohesion will strike the enemy like a spray of water droplets; individually hard but diffuse, and easily absorbed by the enemy. On the other hand, a charge that maintains its cohesion so that it strikes the enemy as a solid wall of armored men and horses tipped by an unbroken line of lance-heads will strike the enemy like the fist of an angry god.
So when Ser Lyn Corbray’s trumpeter sounded the advance, the three hundred knights and men-at-arms on the field that day started at the walk. A dozen strides later, they accelerated to the trot, maintaining their alignment with the ease of long practice. Three hundred armored men on heavy horses made the earth shake as they rode, even at a pace as slow as the trot; when, just after splashing across Narrow Run stream, two hundred yards from the oncoming Dothraki, they accelerated to the canter, the thunder of hooves was loud enough to drown out speech.
Each man, now, was effectively a guided missile as the lances swept down to form a leading edge of steel before the wave of armored horses. Taken together, a knight, his horse, and their gear came out to an average of six hundred and eighty kilograms of mass, moving at more than six and a half meters per second. That combination of mass and acceleration meant that, upon impact, each knight would deliver almost four and a half thousand newtons of force through a lance-head that ended in a point as narrow and sharp as a bodkin. Even against armored men, that much force could kill.
The Dothraki reckoned a man’s courage by the amount of armor he wore; the more armor he wore, the less his courage. A true man relied on his skill and his speed to avoid injury. In the quicksilver slash-and-fade warfare of the plains, that sort of thinking had merit; the more armor a man wore, the faster he exhausted his horse, and he whose horse was the first to lose its wind was the first to die. In a head-on charge against armored lancers, it was suicidal.
Especially since the Dothraki’s charge had been broken when it reached Eddard and his four remaining men (Niall had died under a bloodrider’s arakh), who had met the Dothraki charge with one of their own; the odds against five men surviving a charge against eleven thousand were laughably long, but in mounted combat it was always better to meet a charge with a counter-charge rather than meet it at the standstill, and so Eddard and his men had attacked. When they met the Dothraki it caused the men closest to their point of impact to turn in towards them, causing an eddy-like effect in the center of the Dothraki host, while on either side the riders charged on towards the infantry. As a result, when the Myrish knights reached the Dothraki, they hit, not a charging enemy, but a swirling mass of men and horses, many of whom were either at an angle or even broadside on to them.
The effect was roughly akin to that of a ten-pound sledgehammer swung down onto a bowl of eggs. A rippling chorus of wet, crackling thuds momentarily drowned out the thunder of hooves as the lances tore through the nomad riders. The Dothraki horses, tireless, stout, and dauntless as they were, simply did not have the mass to meet heavy coursers and destriers at the charge. The force of impact as the western chargers met them shoulder-to-shoulder drove many of them back onto their haunches; some, screaming in equine terror, were bowled completely off their hooves. As the Dothraki reeled from the shock of impact, the knights and men-at-arms, who had trained to do exactly this from the age of seven, discarded the stubs of their broken lances, drew their swords, axes, maces, and war hammers, and spurred deeper into the fray, roaring their battle cries.
This would have been bad enough for the Dothraki. But while their center was being savaged by the heavy cavalry, their flanking squadrons were facing an even greater enemy.
XXX
Thoros of Myr had never been a very priestly man. In fact, if it were not for his skill at arms, his genial nature, and the fact that he had memorized most of the scriptures before his seventeenth year, he would almost certainly have been thrown out of the Red Temple in disgrace for drunkenness, fornication, and conduct unbecoming a novice in that he tended to punctuate his arguments with his fists. As it was, High Priest Danikos had simply shaken his head, remarked that the god had a use even for sots, lechers, and brawlers, and ordered that he be given extra weapons training and religious instruction. As Danikos had seen it, the best way to keep Thoros out of trouble was to mire him in either the classroom or the training yard as much as decently possible, hopefully teaching him self-control or at least leaving him too exhausted to get up to the hijinks that made him the despair of old Innes, the formidable master of novices.
So Thoros, who to his credit learned both quickly and deeply when given sufficient motivation, grew to become one of the Red Temple of Myr’s most formidable warriors and learned scholars, although his fondness for wine, women, and violent disputation meant that he never advanced beyond the first grade of priesthood. Indeed, in spite of the orders that he be kept busy every waking hour, he had managed to continue his escapades, which climaxed in an epic misadventure in which he had helped drink the Pied Merlin dry, knocked out a glassblower for daring to dispute theology with him, and added insult to injury by seducing the man’s wife over his unconscious body. The morning afterward, Danikos, who had been thoroughly informed of Thoros’ doings by the City Watch, had called him into his study and informed him that he was going to King’s Landing to spread the Faith of R’hllor. This, he had sternly informed Thoros, was to be considered a punishment of exile in that he was not to petition to be allowed to return for at least a year, and also a favor in that it would put him beyond reach of the Glassblower’s Guild.
Thoros had been thoroughly miserable for most of his stay in Westeros. For despite his misbehavior he did have a young man’s zeal for the god’s service, and he had been unable to accomplish anything to spread the worship of the Lord of Light in Westeros. Aerys had not only been too insane to be converted, but after Thoros had told him (very carefully, not being entirely stupid) that no, he could not set a man on fire solely by the power of the god, he had lost interest in R’hllor’s faith generally and Thoros specifically, except for the paranoia he leveled at everyone. Robert, when he took the throne, had been too preoccupied with finding his lost betrothed, then too sunk in grief, and then too absorbed in forming the Sunset Company to discuss theology, although Thoros had found him to at least be a good drinking companion the one time they had shared a keg. As for Stannis, not only did he seem genuinely uninterested in theological matters, but the need to maintain the friendship of the Faith of the Seven and the influence of his Lannister wife had made it awkward for him to even receive Thoros, much less entertain the idea of converting. As for the other Westerosi, they had been quite happy with their seven gods, thank you very much, although only the nobles and the better sort of the burghers had been that polite about it; the smallfolk had been more vehement. The only comfort had been the availability of good wine and women of negotiable virtue, but even that had been restricted; the stipend the Temple allowed him hadn’t covered much beyond the cost of bed, board, and beer.
So, when the year was up, Thoros had petitioned to be allowed home, owing to his lack of progress and the unlikelihood of making any. His petition had been granted, contingent on his good behavior, and he had landed eight days before Myr was besieged by the Sunset Company. As one of the best swordsmen that the Red Temple could command, he had been only a step behind Danikos when the Red Sword had marched to the Great Eastern Gate to overthrow the magisters and admit the Westerosi. It was Thoros who had led the party of slaves that broke open the defense of the captured tower, and when Kalarus, who had assumed command after Danikos was killed, ordered the Red Sword back to the Temple, it was Thoros who led the vanguard through the chaos of the streets.
And when the Royal Army had marched out from Myr to face the Dothraki, it was Thoros who was sent along to minister to those who followed the God of Flame and Shadow. “It will be good for you to be a priest, as well as a fighter,” Kalarus had said, looking more like an irascible old owl than ever with his bushy brows beetling over his stern eyes. “The god knows that I, for one, have beaten enough doctrine into your thick skull over the years. And you have the gift of the gab, as the Northmen among the Andals put it; if any man can reconcile them to the fact that our faith has never put aside the sword, as theirs has, you can.” So Thoros had stuffed the few possessions he was allowed as a low-ranking priest into a sack, donned his mail and his sword, and presented himself to Lord Stark for duty.
The march to Narrow Run had been pleasant enough, even enjoyable after a fashion, especially once Thoros had gotten used to sleeping under the open sky; for a man who had been born and lived his whole life within city walls, the thought of not having a roof over your head as you slept was alarming. What if it rained? But Thoros, to his mild surprise, had not only grown to like living outdoors, but had also come to enjoy leading the nightfire service. In the Red Temple everything had been so complicated that he had always been afraid of saying the wrong thing, and in Westeros he had been a stranger among a strange people, most of whom spoke only a few words of his native language. But out here on the plains, with only a simple fire and a ring of soldiers seeking the comfort of their faith as they marched to face a dreaded enemy, Thoros had found the words springing to his tongue unbidden. Quite easy, really; simply keep the focus on those chapters and verses that spoke of the god’s love for his children, and the protection he would give to those who followed him, and the punishment he would visit on their enemies.
Which was exactly what he was doing now, as he strode along behind the lines of spearmen bracing to receive cavalry and crossbowmen spanning their weapons and loosing in volleys by ranks, with thousands of angry Dothraki bearing down on them. “Him that dwells in the shelter of R’hllor shall find refuge in His light,” he declaimed, reciting from one his favorite psalms to the Lord of Light. “You shall not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. Though a thousand fall at your right hand, and ten thousand at your left, it shall not come near to you. You shall see with your eyes how the Lord of Light punishes the wicked.” He broke off to nod to Septon Jonothor, who was also walking the lines and chanting the scriptures of his faith; a good man that, he reminded Thoros of Kalarus. No wonder they got along. Tramping onward he continued with the psalm. “He is the candle-fire and the sun-fire,” he chanted “and sees all that transpires in his light. Therefore we shall not fear, though the night draw in upon us, and darkness cover the earth, for still He is with us.”
All the while the drumming of hooves and the ululating bloodscream of the Dothraki was growing ever louder, until the commands of the sergeants and officers were drowned out, and Thoros, who had been trained to oratory by some of the best in the business, had to shout to make himself heard. “Thus sayeth the Lord of Light;” he roared, “’I am the fire in your hearts, the light in your eyes, the heat in your loins. I am the sun that warms your days, and the stars that light the night. Though you walk under the shadow of death, I shall be with you, and you shall fear nothing. For I have kindled the fire of my strength within you, that the servants of darkness shall have no power over you.’” As the thunder of the hooves and the howling of the nomads rose to a crescendo Thoros pushed through the volleying crossbowmen, planted his hands against the backs of a pair of spearmen, bellowed “Lord of Light, defend us!” and braced for impact.
He needn’t have worried.
In pursuit of a goal they deem worthy humans will travel for miles across burning desert or frozen tundra, march into storms of missiles, even deliberately starve or immolate themselves. The only limit to the trauma that humans will willingly endure in pursuit of a goal is the ability of the human body to withstand punishment. This ability to willfully disregard the instinct of self-preservation, however, is uniquely human.
Horses, to name only one other animal, are sane and sensible creatures with a healthy respect for their own skins and have a far more conservative idea of what constitutes an unacceptable level of pain or danger beyond which they will not go. It is possible, by dint of long training, to teach a horse to shoulder a single, small obstacle aside, but there is no amount of training that will induce a horse to run headlong into a large solid obstacle that it can’t see through. Horses are far too careful of their legs to endanger them so, and with good reason; for a horse, a broken leg is almost invariably fatal.
It is this confluence of equine biology and psychology that allows formed, well-disciplined infantry to stand against cavalry. Infantry in loose formation, or that are foolish enough to try and run, are meat on the chopping block for cavalry. But infantry that have the rigorous training and the iron discipline and the stony pride that allows them to stand fast with hundreds of speeding horses carrying heavily armed and very angry strangers bearing down on them have little to fear from cavalry. A lance can allow a horseman to outreach a spear, and horse archers do not need to close to within arm’s reach to be dangerous, but infantry that maintain close formation and don’t break are immune from the kind of slaughter that cavalry can inflict on infantry.
The men of the Iron Legion who were on the field of Narrow Run that day might have been new soldiers, but pound for pound they were probably the best new soldiers of their kind in the known world. Ninety-nine in every hundred of them were ex-slaves, and the memory of the years of grinding servitude and unceasing degradation lay ever in the back of their minds so that they turned to their new lives with zeal comparable to that of religious converts. They had been slaves, but now they were men, free men. And this, they had been taught by the Westerosi sergeants who had trained them, was how free men fought; shoulder to shoulder with their comrades in the shield-wall, where the strength of the company was the man, and the strength of the man was the company.
They had learned well. And so on that day at Narrow Run, with the avalanche-rumble of the hooves and the war-cries of the Dothraki riders drowning out the orders of their officers, the curses of their sergeants, and the exhortations of their priests, and with the fate of half a world riding on their shoulders, the spearmen of the Iron Legion planted their feet, tucked their shoulders into their shields, and stood fast.
And the Dothraki charge broke like a wave against a cliff. All along the line the Dothraki horses baulked at the solid wall of shields and the hedge of spear-points, whinnying in protest as their riders sought to urge them on with curses and blows of their heels and the flats of their arakhs. Those Dothraki who had drawn their bows instead of their arakhs during the charge bent them now, and shot as only the horse-lords could shoot, but the tall kite shields and the lowered helmets of the spearmen offered few vulnerable targets. And while the Dothraki shot, the crossbowmen of the legions and the hundred Westerosi archers were also shooting. The crossbowmen were shooting by rote now, spanning their bows, levelling them at the Dothraki, and loosing their bolts without even aiming more than necessary to keep from shooting a comrade in the back, but with the nomads stalled barely forty feet in front of them aiming was unimportant. What was important was that the crossbowmen of the Iron Legion were loosing two bolts a minute in ranked volleys, and there were two thousand of them.
Behind the lines of the Legion, Ser Brynden Tully smiled. He had had his doubts about the Iron Legion, but he was certainly thankful to see them disproved. Now, with the Dothraki brought to a halt in front of the Legion’s lines and easy targets for the crossbows, the easy move would be to let the spearmen continue to stand, holding the riders at bay while the crossbowmen emptied their quivers into them. That, however, would mean giving the Dothraki time to think, time to realize their mistake in charging the Legion head-on, time to let cold cunning take the place of hot anger, time to reorganize themselves and exploit their advantage in mobility and firepower. Or, if they truly held foot soldiers in contempt, as Brynden was told, time to ride back to the aid of their fellows, overwhelm the knights, and then turn on the infantry again and submerge them.
So instead of letting his crossbowmen continue to shoot, Brynden raised his sword overhead and chopped it down to point towards the nomad cavalry milling in front of the Legion. “Advance!” he roared.
XXX
Although the common perception of the Dothraki was of a barbarous, anarchic collection of hordes that lived only by the law of the sword, there were, in fact, rules that governed Dothraki warfare. You did not poison water supplies. You did not deliberately set fire to the plains. And you thrice three times never broke the protection of a truce flag. To do any of these things was to arouse the wrath of the horse god in its most terrible aspect; the Midnight Mare, She who guarded the road to hell and herded thither those who broke the horse god’s commandments. The best way to avert Her anger, it was known, was to destroy utterly those who profaned against the laws of the horse god, so that there was no need for Her to arise in dread and smite the evil-doer Herself, along with anyone who happened to be nearby.
These walkers who faced the khalasar of Khal Zirqo had killed him under a truce flag, apparently without warning or even provocation. All any of the Dothraki had seen was the khal and his bloodriders speaking to the walkers, and then one of them had whipped out his sword and cut the khal out of the saddle without even giving him the chance to fight back. There were greater sacrileges in the Dothraki religion, but that was well up the river, as the saying went.
So even though the walker cavalry (and wasn’t that also a perversion of the natural order of things?) seemed almost impervious to their arakhs, even though the walker foot-fighters were proving unnaturally, nigh-presumptuously stubborn, the Dothraki fought on. Their khal lay dead, murdered by treachery, and the law of their god had been shattered; even among a mild and pacific people there would have been anger. The Dothraki, the fiercest and most belligerent tribe the plains had yet spawned, had gone beyond anger into a berserk fury which drove them into the fray like a lash of fire. And if their arakhs were all but useless against the knights and men-at-arms, and of only limited effect against the armored infantry of the Iron Legion, their bows were still strong, their arrowheads still keen, and they still had the fighting ability that was ingrained into every freeborn man of their nation.
So even among the knights, they inflicted casualties. Ser Leofric Corbray, who had sailed across an ocean to seek a warrior’s death, found it when a Dothraki rider wrestled him off his horse, forced up his visor, and buried the broad-bladed knife that every Dothraki carried into his face. Ser Lanard Blackpool was shot through the throat by a Dothraki arrow that slammed through the mail aventail attached to the lower brim of his helmet and fell from his horse to choke his life out in bloody gouts, never to receive the lordship he had sought. Ten other knights were killed that day, either shot, wrestled down and stabbed through the gaps in their armor, or unhorsed and trampled, while two-score more were wounded to varying degrees. Among the infantry of the Legion, less heavily armored than the elite heavy cavalry, the losses were worse; of the seven thousand Legion infantry who took the field that day, two hundred and seventy-eight were killed outright, and twice as many more or less wounded by arakh and bow and knife and the lashing hooves of the Dothraki chargers.
But to inflict even that much damage the Dothraki suffered terribly. All four of Khal Zirqo’s adult sons died on the field of Narrow Run; Virsallo was shot through the bowel and liver by crossbow bolts, Rhozo’s skull was split to the teeth by a knight’s axe, Asso was cut almost in half through the midriff by a sergeant’s glaive, and Chom*okko, khalakka of the host and deepest pride of his father, was speared through the chest by a man-at-arms’ lance in the first shock of impact as the knights charged home. Scores of riders had died in that initial charge, and hundreds more fell as the knights and men-at-arms rampaged through their ranks like steel-clad tigers. Deep in the host, only Daimh remained of the household men who had followed Eddard Stark to the parley, but the Iron Wolf, unhorsed and his plate armor spattered with gore, still stood tall and laid about him with his longsword, and the long hours of practice in which he had dueled some of the best swordsmen that the Kingdom of Myr had to offer paid off. When Lyn Corbray cut his way through to Eddard’s side, he found him in the center of a ring of slain nomads two and three deep in places, and still fighting on. Ser Vernan Irons and Ser Brynnan the Axe also made their names on the field of Narrow Run, standing back to back over the body of their friend Ser Lanard and cutting down all who came in reach of their sword and axe.
Against the Iron Legion the Dothraki suffered even more grievously. When Ser Brynden gave the order to advance, five thousand Legion spearmen shifted their spears to the level, raised the points of their shields off the ground where they had braced them to receive the charge, and powered into the stalled nomad riders with a rush that was no less ferocious for having a short run. The spears lashed out like striking vipers, punching the Dothraki off their horses or else striking the horses themselves to spill the rider to the ground. Once unhorsed, any nomad that did not bounce back to his feet instantly and begin laying about him with arakh and knife was pounded into the blood-sodden dirt by the shields, while even those that did make it to their feet were still easy prey for the spears. If a Legion spearman lost his spear, then their sharp-pointed shortswords came out and they reverted to the drill hammered into them by the Westerosi sergeants; keep your shield high to block the downward cut of the horseman, stick your blade into horse or man with a short, punching thrust, and repeat as necessary. If, by chance, you found yourself facing a horse head-on, then punch the top edge of your shield into the horse’s mouth until it throws the rider, and then press forward to finish him off while he’s still stunned. The crossbowmen pressed forward with the spears, either shooting point-blank or, after emptying their quivers, dropping their crossbows to draw shortsword and buckler and wade in. Sergeants and officers pushed forward with their men, glaives and bills and halberds chopping down horse and rider, while from the rear Ser Brynden Tully led his small household into the fray.
After a time the Legion and the khalasar became intermingled, and it was during this time that the fighting was most ferocious as Legion spearmen sought to contain and beat down knots of recalcitrant Dothraki. Captain Akhollo, fighting as hard against his erstwhile people as he had against the magisters of Pentos and Myr, won laurels for his bravery and leadership that day as he led an improvised flying squad of crossbowmen who had run out of ammunition in vicious attacks to reduce such pockets. Two of Khal Zirqo’s kos, Sajo and Hazo, were killed in the chaos of the melee, Sajo cut out of the saddle by Ser Brynden and Hazo unhorsed and beaten into red ruin by hammering shields. Thoros of Myr and Septon Jonothor saved each other’s life; Thoros hacking down a Dothraki who had knocked the septon to the ground, and Jonothor using his staff to bludgeon another who attempted to stab Thoros in the back. The earth, formerly parched from the summer heat, became sodden with the blood and fluids of thousands of men and horses, until Narrow Run became a corpse-choked trickle of blood.
Eventually, as the sun drew down to the horizon, the Dothraki began to pull away from the field. They had fought mercilessly, gripped by red wrath, for five hours, but now that fury was ebbing and they began to see how many of their brothers and fathers and sons and uncles and cousins and nephews had fallen, and how many of the walkers still remained. But where another people might have succumbed to terror and fled the field in panic, the Dothraki still had their pride. They were the horse-lords, the undisputed masters of the plains, and it was beneath their dignity to show fear to walkers. So they retreated, not at a run or a gallop, but at a walk, fighting their way clear and turning back to tear into any who pressed them too closely. The Royal Army of Myr, for their part, let them go gladly; after so long in combat, even the hardiest knight and the most stalwart infantryman was teetering on the edge of exhaustion, and many men were collapsing where they stood as the battle-fury drained away.
Narrow Run would become one of the most written-about battles in history. Over the years various historians would hail it as the first defeat suffered by a Dothraki khalasar since the Century of Blood, the battle where the Iron Legion won its spurs, the battle that made the Kingdom of Myr, and various other lauds. But those were plaudits given many years later and with the benefit of considerable hindsight. On that day, the prevailing reaction among the Royal Army was summed up by Ser Brynden Tully, whose words were only recorded in the memoir of his squire. “Gods save me,” the Blackfish said as he cleaned and sheathed his sword, “but we made a right bloody sh*theap out of this place.”
Chapter 39: Two Gold Dragons
Chapter Text
Two Gold Dragons
Author's Note: So this is the first of several chapters showing the immediate aftermath of the First Slave War. As a whole, this mini-arc takes place over the course of two or three sennights right after the Conference of Pentos and the Battle of Narrow Run.
Ser Gerion Lannister, Master of Whispers and acting Captain of the city of Myr, raised an eyebrow as the fleet sailed into the harbor. At his last count the Royal Fleet numbered only thirty keels; by his count there were at least twice that many longships and about a dozen fatter ships passing the breakwater that marked the outer perimeter of the harbor, many of them flying banners that he didn’t recognize. If it wasn’t for the fact that Victarion Greyjoy’s Iron Storm was in the lead with Greyjoy’s unmistakable silhouette in the bows, he’d have suspected a trick. That said, the fact that the galleys that many of the longships had in tow had their masts unstepped and their oars drawn in, with each of the towed ships trailing a Tyroshi banner in the sea behind them, seemed to militate against this being a ruse. Behind him the crowd was starting to murmur excitedly; evidently something had happened on the Sea of Myrth.
Twenty minutes later, the Iron Storm and another longship that Gerion didn’t recognize were tied up alongside the quay and Victarion Greyjoy had leapt ashore without waiting for the longshoremen to rig a gangplank, followed by a score of his crew and mimicked by a similar party from the other ship. As the rest of the fleet began to nose up to the docks, Victarion marched up to Gerion, followed by the other Ironborn, and slammed a gauntleted fist against his breastplate in salute. “Ser Gerion,” he boomed, “we are triumphant!”
The first outburst of cheering took a while to die down, even with Gerion’s household men thumping their shields for quiet. “You defeated the Tyroshi fleet in battle?” Gerion asked, keeping his composure with some difficulty.
Victarion nodded. “First, I must introduce you to the man who made it possible,” he said, gesturing back to the strange ship, where a party of Ironborn housecarls was carrying a coffin down the gangplank. As they advanced at a slow march and came to a halt before them, Victarion went on. “Lord Erik Ironmaker led a fleet of a hundred longships from the Iron Isles to pledge sword and sail to King Robert. On the way here they swept through the Stepstones with fire and the axe, sinking twenty galleys before turning to attempt the channel between Tyrosh isle and the mainland. By the grace of the Drowned God and the aid of Davos the smuggler, who I shall introduce to you later, they passed the channel unmolested, and sailed along the coast towards the city. Along the way, they came across a squadron of the Tyroshi fleet eighty galleys strong, which had been pursuing us towards the coast. Lord Ironmaker immediately ordered the attack, and his ships took the Tyroshi in their flank while we, not questioning where our aid had come from, turned and attacked into their front. The battle raged for most of that day, and when it was ended we had sunk, burned, or taken seventy of the Tyroshi galleys in return for the loss of twenty ships and fourteen hundred men killed or wounded. Among them,” Victarion gestured to the coffin, “was Lord Ironmaker, who was slain at the head of his men.”
The Ironborn who had first leapt off the strange ship, a grizzled, wolfishly-built man whose forked beard was done in a pair of simple braids, stepped forward. “This is true,” he said shortly. “I am Roryn Pyke, first mate to the Ironmaker, and I fought at his side in the battle. He led us over the rail onto a Tyroshi galley, and after clearing it led us over the other side’s rail onto another. We were only forty men, then, but the Drowned God was with us, and most of all with the Ironmaker. Ten men he killed in as many strides, laughing as he slew, and he was the first to reach the enemy’s quarterdeck. There he fought the enemy captain, and although he was stabbed through the belly he beat the other man down with his hammer and crushed his chest. He died on that ship, with a smile on his face and the names of his dead shipmates on his lips.” Roryn, whose voice had been thickening throughout his tale, stopped suddenly, and if Gerion hadn’t known better he’d have sworn the other man was fighting back tears. “The Drowned God needed a strong oarsman,” he said finally, “and none of us was stronger than the Ironmaker. The god grant that I go as my captain did when He takes me.” He gestured at the coffin. “We brought him here,” he went on, “so that he could complete his last voyage.”
Gerion nodded solemnly. “What is dead may never die,” he replied, “and while I live the name of Lord Erik Ironmaker will be remembered. By your leave, I will light candles to the Warrior for him, and have Divine Offices said for his soul; courage deserves honor, even from the gods.” Roryn nodded, and the Ironborn standing behind him murmured approval. Gerion stifled a chuckle at the notion that he, whose family’s original claim to lordship was the ability to defeat Ironborn, would do such honor to a reaver, passing it off as a clearing of his throat, and raised his voice. “In the name of His Grace King Robert,” he declaimed. “I bid you welcome, my friends, and thank you for the aid you have given us unasked and unlooked-for! I myself shall arrange for your housing while you are in the city, and your wounded shall receive the best care we can provide. Tonight we shall provide wine and ale to drink wassail to the valiant dead, and food to feast their memory.” He turned to the crowd. “Let all take note,” he went on, “that these men are honored guests of His Grace King Robert. Let all do them such honor as they can, and treat them as kinsmen.” He raised his hands. “Hail to the valiant!” he cried. “Hail to the victory they have won for us!”
“HAIL!” the crowd roared, like storm-surf booming against the shore, and the cheers shook the skies.
XXX
The stars gleamed down as the shaman trudged into the ring of sitting and squatting tribesmen and sat heavily on his haunches. He set down his horsehide hand-drum with the careful deliberation of a man walking on the ragged edge of endurance, gripped a waterskin passed towards him with the same exacting control, and sipped slowly. When his eyes lost the glassy look that had been brought on by two days without food and with only minimal water, he looked around at the ring of questioning faces and shook his head. “Nothing,” he said heavily. “For all my entreaties and invocations, nothing. The god was silent. This only could I glean; the Midnight Mare is displeased with how few of the walkers we slew, but the blood we shed in the attempt has satisfied Her. We need not fear Her wrath.”
The momentary relaxation was dispelled by a question from the far side of the ring. “Has the god abandoned us then?”
The shaman shook his head with the first sign of vigor he had shown since rejoining the khalasar. “No,” he said, “the god is still with us. Even now I feel its presence. It simply will not answer my questions.” He shrugged. “If we were on the plains or in Vaes Dothrak, away from these cursed walkers and their pollution, maybe I could gain a response. But here and now . . .” he shook his head again. “The best I can say is that the god wishes us to face this trial ourselves.”
The Dothraki exchanged glances with one another, or else stared into the fire. If that was so, then it was almost as frightening as if the Midnight Mare was about to rise in fury. The khalasar had crossed the Myrish border with eleven thousand fighting riders in the prime of their strength. Now, if they mounted and armed every boy and elder who could sit a horse and hold a bow or arakh, they could put maybe three thousand riders in the field. Six thousand men lay four days dead at Narrow Run, almost a thousand more were too wounded to fight, and hundreds more had split off from the khalasar in a collection of separate bands, either raiding the countryside to seek what revenge they could find or else riding back to Narrow Run to find the death that they had been cheated of the day of the battle. There was not a tent in the khalasar that had not resounded with the cries of people mourning the loss of a father, a brother, a son, a cousin. In the ring of nomads around the fire there was not a single face that was not at least drawn; those were the few who had refused to cut their braids, claiming that the treachery of the walkers removed the need to express shame at being defeated. The vast majority, however, had kept with tradition, and now looked almost small and ridiculous with their hangdog expressions and their shorn hair; they were the ones who had been outfought by the walker infantry, and the weight of that defeat overrode even the black treachery of the walker who had killed their khal under flag of truce. If the Dothraki reaction to disgrace had been suicide, almost all of those who had survived fighting against that terrible infantry would have slain themselves in shame at losing to men who did not even ride.
As it was, they felt that shame all the more intensely for having lost so definitively and survived. By all the Dothraki canons of manhood every one of them should lie dead on the field alongside their khal. That they had not only survived, but retreated from the field and left their khal’s body for the walkers to despoil ate at their souls like acid. “Better that the god truly abandon us,” one of the shorn ones muttered in a voice that unintentionally carried through the still air, “than that it should allow us to bear our shame without saying why.”
Pobo chopped his hand outward in a definitive gesture. “Whatever the god’s intention may be,” he said, “my path is no different. Khal Zirqo and his bloodriders are dead; as the only surviving ko, it is for me to escort the khaleesi to Vaes Dothrak, so she may join the dosh khaleen. That is the law.” He glanced around the ring. “While we escort the khaleesi,” he went on, “we can claim the god’s protection as we cross the plains. The other khals will not prevent me from fulfilling this last duty.” There was a wave of nods and gestures of agreement; if the walkers had blasphemed against the god’s laws, other Dothraki would still keep them. “Once we reach Vaes Dothrak, and the khaleesi is delivered to the dosh khaleen, our shaman will take counsel with the god, and learn the meaning of what we have suffered. What you do . . .” Pobo shrugged. “That I leave up to you. You may join other khalasars if you wish, and seek better fortune. For myself,” Pobo stood, his face solemn, “I will ride back here, and avenge my khal or die in the attempt. This I swear, before you all and before the god, as the stars look down in witness.”
XXX
Robert hated ships almost as much as Ned did. But where Ned’s dislike for ships began and ended with his vulnerability to seasickness, Robert’s distaste for them stemmed from another source entirely. It had been years now since it had happened, but there were still nights when once again he saw the Windproud breaking up on the rocks of Shipbreaker Bay, powerless to save his parents. He hated feeling powerless even more than he hated ships.
So while he had accepted Justiciar Baholis’ offer of a flotilla of Braavosi galleys to carry him and his household back to Myr politely, he had done so with gritted teeth and clenched fists. The treaty that had been forced upon him was reason enough to be angry with the Braavosi, but then he had learned that he had deliberately been left ignorant of the Dothraki horde heading for Myr. Vito Nestoris, who was sailing with them to lay the groundwork for the opening of a branch of the Iron Bank in Myr city, had been profusely apologetic when Robert had confronted him, calling the gods to witness that he would have told Robert about the Dothraki in a heartbeat, if he had been permitted, but he was a man under authority. Giulio Armati had been less contrite, saying only that he had been ordered not to mention the Dothraki to Robert, and as a loyal servant of the Sealord and the Council he had had no choice but to obey. Robert had been sorely tempted to punch his infuriatingly composed face until it fell apart, but he had restrained himself. He needed Braavos’ money and friendship more than he needed to vent his anger on a glorified errand boy.
Even after reminding himself of that for the twentieth time in the past five days, Robert still couldn’t help but glower at the plain and undecorated walls of his cabin. While he had been getting trapped into a bad peace in Pentos, Ned had been left to face the Dothraki with barely six thousand men ready to hand, maybe seven thousand if he pulled the border garrisons north. And Robert was powerless to do anything about it. I should have been there, Robert growled in the privacy of his mind. I swore to fight for my people. It should have been me on that field and Ned at that damned conference. Ned would have known how to answer Jon and Tregano and their damned words.
If nothing else, Ned would have thought of something to forestall the most galling part of the whole rigmarole. After the treaty had been signed, Donesso of Tyrosh and Brachio of Lys had each snapped their fingers, summoning forward a pair of slaves bearing silk cushions, upon each of which rested a single gold coin. Robert had heard that Stannis was changing the gold currency of the Seven Kingdoms to stags and the silver to falcons, but the reparations offered by the ambassadors of Tyrosh and Lys were both gold dragons minted with the name and face of Aerys the Mad.
It had taken all of Robert’s self-control not to throw Donesso and Brachio through the nearest window.
Robert glared at the two golden coins where they sat, gleaming inoffensively, on the table of his cabin. He would have them strung on a chain, he decided, and wear them around his neck to remind himself of the price of defeat. He would learn how to fight with words as well as he did with his hammer, he vowed, and he would do his utmost to trap the slavers in such a web as he had been trapped in. And when the day of reckoning came, he would give Tyrosh and Lys their money back. In full and with interest.
He signed himself with the seven-pointed star to seal the oath, his hand trembling with suppressed rage.
Chapter 40: The Cost of Treachery
Chapter Text
The Cost of Treachery
The great hall of the Red Keep was designed to be overbearing. The second-largest chamber of its sort in Westeros after that of Harrenhal, it could comfortably accommodate more than a thousand people, all standing under the shadow of the Iron Throne. In Targaryen days it had been even more forbidding, what with the great dragon skulls mounted on the walls, but the banners that had replaced the dragon skulls were just as impressive in their way. Stannis Baratheon had commanded that every noble and knightly family who swore fealty to him was to send a banner to the Red Keep as a token of their fealty, and so the great hall was festooned with hundreds of banners. Near the entrance were the small pennants sent by landed knights and minor nobles, while midway along the hall were the banners of the middle nobility; the burning tree of the Marbrands, the Mallister eagle, the oak leaves of the Oakhearts, the bridge-and-towers of the Freys, the lances of the Gaunts, the flayed man of the Boltons, the Bracken horse, and the badger of the Lyddens, to name only a few, brushed against each other in the draft in no particular order. Closest to the throne were the banners of the great houses; the Tully salmon, the direwolf of the Starks, the Tyrell rose, the moon-and-falcon of the Arryns, and the lion rampant of the Lannisters, all flanking the truly massive Baratheon banner that hung directly behind the throne.
Marq Grafton had to admit, as he marched down the aisle towards the throne, that the banners were, in their way, an even bigger threat than the dragon skulls had been. Look, they said, and imagine seeing these banners flying above an army. Imagine what such an army would look like, across the field of war. Again, he congratulated himself on leaving the dragons when he could.
At the correct distance, some fifteen feet from the Stormguards standing at the foot of the dais that held the throne, he stamped to a halt, his captains doing likewise behind him, and bent the knee with a flourish of his short cape. “Your Grace,” he declaimed, “I am returned from my folly, and cry your pardon.”
Marq couldn’t see Stannis with his eyes cast downwards, but he could hear the raised eyebrow in Stannis’ reply. “Folly, you say, Lord Grafton? I was led to understand that you had taken careful deliberations before sailing to support Rhaegar the accursed.”
“I did, Your Grace, with the information available to me at the time,” Marq said, injecting a note of sorrow into his voice. “But I was misled by the information I had, and Rhaegar, it transpired, lied about his chances of success. Against your royal brother King Robert he had no more chance than a fox against a wolf.”
“And yet you remained with the Targaryens even after Rhaegar’s death, we are told,” came a high, cold voice that Marq could only guess belonged to Queen Cersei; he had seen her sitting at Stannis’ left hand. “What are we to think of this seeming obstinance in your folly?”
“That I was but biding my time to see if something could be salvaged from the ruin, Your Grace,” Marq replied, “and after my hopes were dashed, that I was taking the time to plan most carefully for how I could escape the Targaryens while preserving my life and the lives of the men under me. The men now leading the exiles are as desperate as any robber band, Your Grace; if Arthur Dayne or Barristan Selmy had caught wind of my scheme, they would have slain any man who they suspected of treason.”
“You will refer to the knights you have just named by their proper ranks, if you please,” Stannis said in a voice that was no less absolute for being completely calm. “Traitors under sentence of death they may be, but they have not been formally stripped of their knighthoods.”
Marq ducked his head even lower for a heartbeat. “As Your Grace commands. So I laid my plans, concealing them from Ser Arthur and Ser Barristan, and when the time came I escaped with my ships and those of the royal fleet, who also cry Your Grace’s pardon and beg to return to your service. If Your Grace will allow, I will also present the treasures that I was able to make away with in my escape, for it was in my mind to do what damage I could to the Targaryens in my flight, beyond merely depriving them of their ships.”
“Rise then, and do so,” said Stannis, to which Marq rose to his feet and gestured sharply at the small party that had hung back near the doors of the Great Hall. When the party halted at his side, he drew back the lid of the chest to reveal four dragon eggs.
“The treasures of House Targaryen, Your Grace,” he declared over the chorus of murmurs that arose, “an emperor’s ransom in dragon eggs. In addition,” he stepped aside and indicated his other offering with a sweeping gesture, “allow me to present Her Highness, Praela Targaryen, late queen to Rhaegar Targaryen, without whose aid my escape would have been impossible.”
“And what, pray, is the meaning of her being presented as a treasure?” Stannis asked. “We are forbidden from receiving people as gifts, my lord; such is the custom of slavers, which is forbidden under the law of the realm.”
“It was in my mind that she would make an ornament of your court, Your Grace, and a lady-in-waiting for Her Grace the Queen,” Marq said smoothly. “It would be more fitting for a queen to be held securely in a royal court, where she might remain in the style to which she is accustomed, than to force her into the keeping of the Faith, where she would be forced to pray to gods not her own.”
“Perhaps,” said Queen Cersei. “Lady Praela, is it your will to become our lady-in-waiting?”
Praela raised her chin. “It is, Your Grace,” she replied steadily, looking Cersei squarely in the eye with a gaze of iron as she did so.
Stannis nodded. “Then be welcome in our court, my lady,” he said courteously, before turning back to Marq. “And what, I wonder, do you wish in return for these presents you give us, Lord Grafton?”
Marq bowed low. “Only to be restored to my seat of Gulltown, Your Grace, and to leave it my heirs after me,” he said humbly, “and to be your loyal liege-man henceforward.”
“As loyal a liege-man as you were to Rhaegar?” Stannis asked, an arch tone entering his voice. “Your gifts we accept, with our thanks, but a good deed does not wipe out the bad. You and every man with you have committed treason; we would be within our rights to have you all cut down on the spot.” The Stormguards at the foot of the dais, and those who had lined the aisle to the throne, drew their swords with a subtle, manifold rasp of steel on wood and leather. Marq stared at the stone-faced young man on the Iron Throne, his jaw starting to gape; this was not how he had expected this to go. “However,” Stannis continued, “extenuating circ*mstances being as they are, we are inclined to exercise our prerogative of mercy. You who were captains in our fleet, we will accept you back into our service on the condition that you place your families under our hand as hostages to your loyalty. Any of you who do not wish to serve thus may serve us at the Wall. You who were captains in the fleet of Lord Grafton, you have committed treason not only against ourself but against our Hand Lord Arryn, and so at his recommendation we offer you the choice of the Wall or the sword; you may have the length of the night to consider your choice.” Stannis’ gaze swept the captains like an icy breeze. “Take heed; this is the path of mercy we offer you. If you think it insufficient, then you may whistle for a better offer for all the good it may do you.”
Stannis turned his cold, cold gaze to Marq. “As for you, Lord Grafton, to you also we shall show mercy, in gratitude for these gifts you have brought us and the harm you have done the Targaryens by spiriting them away. Our castellan at Ghaston Grey finds himself so much at sea that he has need of a captain to hold the castle while he is away. We shall transport you there on the morning tide, in order to take up the duty, unless you would prefer to serve us at the Wall. Between the two, we would recommend Ghaston Grey; we are told that the weather is more pleasant and the scenery more appealing. You need not fear for the dragon egg you sought to appropriate for yourself,” at Marq’s panicked expression Stannis only nodded. “Yes we know about it, your man talked, and it is quite safe in your personal effects; it is beneath our dignity to commit petty theft. We hope it will give you some comfort during your term of office, which we pray will be long and uninteresting.”
Marq, who had only been able to listen in astonishment and growing fury as his plans collapsed around his ears, finally found his voice. “I’ve given you the second-largest fleet in the known world,” he choked out, his voice thick with anger. “I’ve given you the Narrow Sea on a plate! You and the Braavosi!”
“And you are still rich, still a lord, and still alive,” Stannis said coolly. “All in all, you are doing remarkably well for a confessed traitor. Do not let us detain you.”
Marq was still gobbling fury when a pair of his captains took him under the arms and steered him out of the hall.
XXX
At the knock on his door, Jaspar rose from his desk and strode across the small room he had been given in what had been a Temple of Trade and was now the First Sept of Myr. Opening the door, he was struck momentarily dumb with surprise to see Septon Jonothor standing in the hall. “Good evening, brother,” Jonothor said pleasantly, his severe face mild for once. “May I come in?”
“B-By all means, brother,” Jaspar said, flushing as he stood aside; it had taken him years to overcome that bloody stammer and it still snuck up on him on occasion. Usually when he was taken off guard or unexpectedly summoned before authority, which Jonothor certainly constituted, given his stature in the Kingdom. As Jonothor walked in he closed the door behind him and gestured at the stool before his desk that constituted one of only three pieces of furniture in the spartan chamber. “Please, sit. I was just doing some writing when you knocked.”
Jonothor glanced at the desk, then glanced again. “You write poetry?” he asked interestedly.
Jaspar shrugged as he sat on his pallet. “Infrequently, and not very well,” he said ruefully. “Certainly nothing to rival Jon of the Star.”
“Who is?” Jonothor asked rhetorically, his eyes wandering. “Amen, the father smiled/How love’s a cajoler in you!/ No sooner said than lo/ the universe sprang to view,” he quoted, shaking his head as he finished. “Somewhat unorthodox, perhaps, but a brilliant poet.”
“Indeed,” Jaspar said, nodding; he had never gone wrong by agreeing with someone of higher rank than himself. “If I may ask, brother, what brings you here? I had thought you would be at the palace helping to plan the celebration of the King’s victory.” The army had returned yesterday morning, and the news of the destruction of the Dothraki khalasar had enhanced the festive mood that had been instilled by the Ironborn’s victory at sea. In turn, the news that had arrived only this morning that a treaty of peace had been concluded had led to an official decree that, as soon as King Robert landed, there was to be a public celebration, with a procession down the Street of Freedom, a tournament outside the city walls, and, it was rumored, the elevation of men who had distinguished themselves in the sea-fight or at Narrow Run to the nobility and the chivalry. Preparations were already underway.
Jonothor waved a hand. “My part in the planning is already done,” he said. “I am here to say good-bye to you, before you leave us tomorrow.”
Jaspar froze, fear coursing through his veins. “Leave you, brother?” he asked hesitantly.
“Did you think Ser Leofric Corbray was reconciled to how the High Septon inveigled him into his scheme?” Jonothor asked, his voice blunt. “He told his son, who told Ser Brynden, who told Ser Gerion, who told me. We know what your true purpose here is, brother.”
The irony imbued in that last word made Jaspar cringe involuntarily. “It matters not,” he said, injecting defiance into his voice. “The first three ships to sail for King’s Landing after the blockade lifted each carried a copy of my report to the Most Devout and the High Septon. Give it two or three sennights, four at most, and they will know of your heresy. As for myself . . .” he drew himself up, straightening his cassock. “The Stranger waits,” he said calmly, “and I trust my Father to judge my soul justly.”
“Perhaps, but in your case He will need to wait a while longer,” Jonothor said briskly. “There is a ship called the Salt Shore Lass berthed at the fourth pier in the docks, sailing for King’s Landing on tomorrow’s evening tide. Your passage has already been arranged; the captain knows to expect you.” He gave Jaspar a lopsided smile. “Consider yourself lucky; if Lord Stark had been told of this, he may have sent you back to the High Septon in a coffin. As it was, that option was seriously discussed. Fortunately, Ser Brynden and Ser Gerion are more level-headed than Ser Lyn, and outvoted him.”
Jaspar gaped at him, the wind thoroughly taken out of his sails. “You’re letting me go?” he asked incredulously. At Jonothor’s nod, he deflated. “In the names of the gods, why?” he asked, utterly bewildered. “You consort with heathens, distort the teachings of the Faith, even take up arms and fight in defiance of Maegor’s law . . . what matter one septon more or less?”
“If you need to ask that, then you clearly learned nothing at seminary,” Jonothor said, his voice returning to its usual severe tone. “As for your charges, my defense is this. Firstly, that the nature of this kingdom requires me to ‘consort with’ and come to an accommodation with the pagans who make up a good half of the realm’s population. And I must say, I have found better men among the pagans here than I have in King’s Landing. Even the Ironborn at least have the courage to face their enemies with sword in hand. Secondly, I firmly believe that the gods welcome and reward all who fight and fall in their cause, regardless of their faith in this life. And thirdly, while I am sorely tempted to indulge in tu quoque, arguing ad hominem is the last resort of fools who cannot win otherwise.” He chuckled. “Do you know, when I first heard of how the High Septon had inveigled Ser Leofric into serving the Faith, I called him a fool? If he wanted to revive the Faith Militant, all he had to do was look across the sea to what we are building here.”
Jonothor gestured at the narrow window that looked out onto the street. “Consider this kingdom, brother,” he said. “Here men from more than a score of nations worship the Seven, the old gods, the Drowned God, the Lord of Light, the Moonsingers, and a dozen other deities. The sheer diversity of the people of this kingdom can break it apart at any time. There are only two things that provide the mortar that binds the stones of this kingdom together; loyalty to the King, and commitment to the cause of freedom. A cause, I remind you, that is approved of by the Seven, who offer a martyr’s crown for those who die in it.” Jonothor rose and began to pace the room. “Two hundred years and more,” he continued, “the Faith has dreamed of regaining the right to field the Swords and the Stars. Perhaps not fervently, at times, but dreamed nonetheless. Well, here there are tens of thousands of the finest fighting men in this half of the world, all fighting for one cause that each creed and sect deems holy. And the High Septon would resort to trickery to resurrect the Faith Militant?” He stopped and spread his hands. “The Faith Militant has already been reborn,” he declared. “Or rather, the Faiths Militant, plural. They may not be the Swords and the Stars, but they are something older and truer than those orders ever were. The Faith Militant was not originally a separate class of knights and sergeants living apart from the rest of society, the writings of the patriarchs tell us, but rather the muster of every man of the Faith able to bear arms, whether noble, knight, or commoner, called out to defend themselves and their coreligionists against a common enemy. It was only later that the Swords and Stars were instituted, by High Septons seeking greater control over the fighting men of the Faith.”
Jonothor gestured towards the window again. “I say it again: the Faith Militant is reborn. It is composed of knights who follow the Seven, Northern men-at-arms who follow the old gods, Legion infantry who follow the Seven or the Lord of Light or the Moonsingers, even Ironborn reavers who offer to the Drowned God. And none of them needed to be trapped into pledging life and honor to the cause of holy freedom, as the High Septon trapped Ser Leofric. So before the High Septon levels that charge against me, I suggest that he reflect on how his own schemes along that line not only failed, but led to the death of a valiant knight and a good man who didn’t deserve to be forced into conflicting loyalties.”
Jonothor lowered his arm. “I’d tell the High Septon as much to his face, but I have been constrained not to,” he said with such artless candor that Jaspar, who had grown up listening to powerful men say things they didn’t mean, instantly believed him. “For me to take the leave of absence from my duties that such a journey would require, I would have to ask the King’s blessing, and it is considered doubtful that he would do so. Ser Gerion is of the opinion that if I were to appear before the Most Devout to testify, I would not leave the room alive, and he has said that he will make that view known to the king when he returns. So I shall have to remain here to await your replacement, or a summons from the Most Devout to answer the charges you have supplied them with evidence for.” His stern mouth quirked in a lopsided smile. “Allow me to suggest that they choose their messenger very carefully. Lord Stark may not be one of my parishioners, but we are friends, after a fashion, and the last time someone he cared about was summoned to King’s Landing to answer charges, he ended up chasing the guilty ones across an ocean seeking revenge. So I would recommend that they either choose someone who can speak softly enough not to rouse the wolf, or choose someone whose demise would not be grounds for a war.”
Jonothor nodded shortly. “Godsspeed your voyage back to King’s Landing, brother. Remember my words when the High Septon asks for your recommendation on what to do with me.”
As Jonothor showed himself out, Jaspar flopped backwards so that he lay flat on his pallet. Confronting danger wasn’t a new experience for him, but never before had so felt the shadow of the Stranger’s scythe rest so heavily on his neck. Nor had he ever felt so at a loss. He had come here expecting an easy victory, that all he had to do was hint at the High Septon’s stretching forth his hand and Jonothor would be delivered up to him, like a lamb for slaughter. Now, between Jonothor’s defiance and the support of the royal government for his heresy, he didn’t know what to expect.
XXX
The city of Myr had four graveyards.
The first, within the walls, housed the great and good; men and women of magister families or the richest trading houses. The second, outside the walls on the north side of the city, contained those a grade or two lower; merchants, guild masters, and ship captains rested there. The third, also outside the walls but on the south side of the city, held commoners; free guild craftsmen, small merchants and traders, yeomen, and free sailors, for the most part. There was no cemetery for slaves; street-sweeper, slaughterhouse butcher, glassblower, and rich family’s butler were all alike cremated and their ashes scattered in the harbor when they died.
The fourth graveyard, and the newest, also rested outside the walls, and held soldiers.
More specifically it held soldiers of the Royal Army, and of the Sunset Company before them. After the siege, the ground on which the Sunset Company had encamped was appropriated by the Crown for the purpose of burying those who fell in royal service. Duly consecrated by Septon Jonothor and High Priest Kalarus and its gates guarded by a pair of saplings that bade fair to grow into truly impressive oak trees, it already housed just under a thousand graves, between the dead of the siege and the dead of Narrow Run, whose graves were still fresh. The markers were simple stone slabs, with at least the name and date of death of the deceased. In addition to this there was a symbol of the deceased’s faith; the seven-pointed star of the Faith, the tree of the old gods, the fiery heart of R’hllor, and for those whose faith was unknown the spear and broken chain of the Legion.
It was here that Eddard was standing, wrapped in his cloak and staring at four graves in particular, when Robert found him. “Your man Daimh told me I’d find you here,” he said, gesturing for Ser Dafyn Otley to wait for him at the gate of the cemetery. “He told me that the Blackfish had torn you a new arsehole after the battle and you’d taken it to heart. And since he couldn’t knock sense into you, he’d be obliged if I would.”
“Daimh,” Eddard said dully, “needs to learn to leave well enough alone.”
“Does he?” Robert challenged. “Because from what I can see, some sense wouldn’t go amiss. You’re not helping your men by beating yourself up about them, Ned. They’re dead, gods rest them, and if what Ser Brynden tells me about how they died is anywhere near true, then even now they’re eating and drinking like lords on the Warrior’s tab. Five men against eleven thousand?” He shook his head. “Even for me, that’s a tall order.”
“That’s the point,” Eddard replied. “They deserved a lord who wouldn’t lead them to their deaths. Gods know they deserved a lord with more honor than to kill a man under flag of truce. Or did Ser Brynden not tell you about that?”
“Oh, he did,” Robert said, nodding. “And yes, that was more than a little stupid of you, Ned. That said, your man Daimh told me that the man you killed had enslaved some of the people we freed in Pentos after he had agreed not to.” He shrugged. “If he was stupid enough to brag about it to you, then he deserved to get it where the chicken gets the hatchet.”
Eddard shook his head. “Whether he deserved it or not doesn’t signify,” he said. “The Braavosi didn’t trust me to negotiate with them even before Narrow Run. You think they’re going to trust me now? When that trouble with Septon Jaspar came up, Ser Lyn and Ser Gerion and Ser Brynden didn’t trust me to handle it; Gerion said that we had enough troubles without me killing one of the High Septon’s pets. Icy Hells, Robert, I can’t even properly blame them for not telling me; I’m not sure I can trust myself. That buggering savage was sitting there on his horse laughing and I walked my horse up to him and cut his throat without so much as a ‘have at thee’.” He shook his head again. “You need a Hand who other people can trust to play by the rules, not a mad dog who can’t keep his sword in its scabbard.” He reached up, undid the hand-shaped brooch that served as his badge of office, and held it out to Robert. “Name me to what post you will, Your Grace,” he said formally, “but I can no longer serve as Your Hand. I’ve dragged your honor through too much mud already.”
Robert looked down at the brooch for a long moment, and then looked back up at Eddard. “If you truly believe that you cannot be my Hand, then so be it,” he said. “But keep the post until after the victory celebrations at least. I mean to make some announcements at the end of the tournament anyway, one more shouldn’t be too much bother. Until then, take as much time off your duties as you need; Ser Gerion has been doing well at the post since you went off to Narrow Run. Mourn your men, get drunk, find some pretty young thing and take her to bed, do whatever you need to do to get your head in order.” As Eddard lowered his hand Robert clapped him on the shoulder. “We’re still brothers, Ned,” he said simply. “Whatever you do, you’ll still have a place in my realm. So take heed; you are not to hurt yourself over this. As your king, I forbid you. I’ll have work for you to do after you give me that brooch for good.”
XXX
No matter how the Archon of Tyrosh glared at the map that took up the south wall of his private study, it stubbornly refused to show anything but the worst strategic situation the city had faced in generations. In the north, Braavos had effectively doubled its population base, resolved the food security problems that had kept them co-first-among-equals among the Free Cities with Volantis, and acquired an advanced base that put its galleys within easy striking distance of the southern Narrow Sea. In the west, the Seven Kingdoms were rousing from their inward-looking slumber and casting speculative eyes across the Narrow Sea. It had been decades since Westeros had looked eastward, as the last Targaryens turned away from politics to magic and the whims of their madness, but this Stannis who had been so unexpectedly raised to the Iron Throne appeared to have risen to the challenge magnificently. The swift crushing of the Dornish rebellion allowed him to spare attention to the Narrow Sea, the alignment of his interests with those of the Titan gave him an ally, and the return of his fleet gave him the means to impose his will independently. More Westerosi war galleys had been seen more frequently in the Narrow Sea in the past two months than at any point in the past five years, and once the royal fleet was properly retrained to obedience that show of strength would only multiply.
Worst of all was the threat to the east. The collection of mad adventurers that had taken over Myr had evidently turned themselves into a proper state with bewildering speed. Taxes were collected, companies of armed men under the sunset banner trained daily, roads were patrolled, they even had a navy, for all love. The Archon hadn’t thought of the Ironborn as more than pirates with delusions of grandeur, but those same pirates had all but wiped out a squadron of the Tyroshi navy, widely regarded as one of the three or four best navies in the known world. On land the borders remained unchanged, but that lack of change didn’t reflect the devastation that had been visited on the frontiers, which were only now starting to recover from the despoliation inflicted on them by the Great Raid. Nor did they reflect any grand feat of Tyroshi arms; the Sunset Company, or, more properly these days, the Royal Army of Myr, had yet to be seriously challenged on land.
Moreover, Myr had, by all reports, aligned with the Seven Kingdoms and Braavos. A Braavosi alliance had probably been inevitable, but the Archon, and most of the Conclave, had hoped that the reported bad blood between Robert of Myr and Stannis of Westeros might preclude any joining of forces; it was well known, after all, that there was no hate deeper or more abiding than that between estranged brothers. Unfortunately, it seemed that the Baratheon brothers had swallowed their dislike in pursuit of a common goal. Robert may have been cold towards Lord Arryn in their last encounter, but personal contretemps did not strictly mean anything in the business of thrones.
The fact of the matter was that the conditions that had fostered the military aristocracy of Westeros did not exist in Essos. Before the coming of the Sunset Company, Essosi wars had been essentially limited affairs, relegated to the care of professionals who could be trusted to conduct them in a civilized fashion. To the people caught up in them they had been savage enough, but they were nowhere near as ferocious as the wars of Westeros, which were assumed by all involved to be life-or-death affairs, with stakes no lower than the continued survival of the participants. The great accomplishment of the Targaryens had been to change the implements of the old wars from swords and lances to betrothals and fosterings, but even Jaehaerys the Conciliator and Baelor the Blessed had not been able to tame the martial impulses of the Westerosi nobility.
The Archon had already undertaken plans to address the apparent imbalance in martial ability between his nation and the new Myrish state. He had been very fortunate to be able to acquire the services of Daario Naharis and the survivors of the Stormcrows, whose first-hand experience of the Westerosi way of war would be invaluable in the training of Tyrosh’s new army. The Second Sons, the Ragged Standard, and the Bright Banners had also been recently retained, at lowered prices, even, in return for the security of a long-term contract; he would have retained the Golden Company if Volantis hadn’t snapped them up. A motion requiring every able-bodied male citizen to receive military training had passed the Conclave smoothly, and the guildmasters had agreed to facilitate the process by encouraging their journeymen to enlist in the companies that each guild had agreed to raise. But to incorporate the separate parts of the new army into a whole and train them to a level of prowess that would allow them to contest the Iron Legion would take time. And thanks to Donesso’s damned foolish gesture, that time might be limited. Donesso was even now doing penance for that folly by staying on one of his smaller estates on the mainland, which just so happened to also be the one closest to the Myrish border. Hopefully he would learn the appropriate lesson about not bearding a tiger when you lived on the doorstep of its den.
Very little of this, the Archon reflected as he glanced at the border, would have been possible without the Great Raid. It galled him to be in the debt of Lyn Corbray, of all people, but the fact was that his raid had frightened the Conclave into permitting the use of extreme measures. Ordinarily, such an expansion of military strength, and its subsequent inflation of the powers of the Archon who was also Captain-General of the armed forces of the city, would have invited accusations of attempted tyranny. As it was, the Great Raid and the recent defeat in the Sea of Myrth had demonstrated to all and sundry that the barbarians were an existential threat that required extreme solutions. If anyone needed reminding, all they had to do was look to the exiles who had crowded into the Myrish Quarter. One glance at their drawn faces and the somber mourning attire that many of them had adopted was enough to drive home to anyone what fate awaited Tyrosh if the city were to fall to the Andals.
In the meantime, the map still showed enemies on every side bar one, and the Archon knew better than to put his trust in the Lyseni. If it suited their interests, they would throw him to the wolves in a heartbeat. On the other hand, they also seemed to be taking the threat of the Kingdom of Myr seriously; the Archon’s spies had reported that the Lyseni conclave had dispatched ambassadors to Astapor with orders to buy Unsullied. If any slave soldiers could withstand the blandishments of the Myrish and their infernal doctrine of abolition, they could.
Chapter 41: Days of Celebration
Chapter Text
Days of Celebration
The first tournament ever held in Myr took place over the course of two bright days, the first of which was given over to jousting and archery. In the first of these competitions Ser Jaime Lannister, his previously gilded armor now chipped, scarred, and battered from Tara, the siege, and the coastal war, carried all before him in a magnificent display of prowess, while Ser Lyn Corbray, Ser Willam Fell, Ser Lyle Crakehal, Ser Brynden Tully, and Ser Addam Marbrand dueled for the lower places. Eventually Ser Brynden took the second place, narrowly outpointing Ser Lyn in a series of tilts that had the crowds screaming their approval. In the archery contest the longbow competition was won by Sarra’s Will, a wiry Reachman who had stayed on with the new kingdom after his knight died at Tara, while the crossbow contest was won by Silent Jorro, a laconic, gloomy-faced Myrman from Ceralia.
Throughout both that day and the next the inevitable cloud of bookmakers and odds-fixers oversaw the most profitable day of their lives as almost everyone with some spare cash laid a bet on the outcome of a joust or a bout. A rash of self-proclaimed experts on the finer points of jousting, archery, swordsmanship, and other forms of martial contest, many of whom had only the vaguest idea of what they were talking about, did their part to drive the betting with assessments of men and horses and equipment. A few ended up having to run for their lives from people who had taken their advice and lost, but the majority, either by luck or nascent judgment, found themselves making accurate predictions.
The second day was reserved for more prosaic contests. The melee, judged too dangerous to risk the lives of valuable knights in, was replaced with single combat on foot in armor with longswords. Thoros the Red made a valiant showing on behalf of Myr’s native sons, advancing to the semi-finals to tumultuous applause from the freedmen. There, however, he met Ser Lyn, who took him apart in a display of sword-craft clinical enough to provoke more murmurs than applause. The lack of acclaim for Ser Lyn, however, was more than made up for by the approbation that met Ser Jamie and Eddard Stark, both of whom were only mildly less popular with the crowd than Thoros. Eddard, of course, was acclaimed as the uncompromising stalwart of Narrow Run, while if Jaime had seen less action on the coast, he had still seen some bloody skirmishes and had been a highly visible figure in the fortified towns of the coast in his black cloak and his increasingly battered gilded armor. Jaime and Eddard’s bout proved to be a long and grueling war, but eventually Eddard’s grim determination and ferocious in-fighting skill proved no match for Jaime’s slight advantage in speed and native talent and the Black Lion eked out the winning point in a last flurry of flashing blades that made the crowds roar. By contrast the match between Lyn and Jaime for the champion’s purse was almost an anticlimax, assisted by the fact that Jaime’s exhaustion from his bout with Eddard slowed him down enough to make him easier prey for Lyn.
It was during this competition, and especially his last bout, that Eddard was seen to wear a brown lace, of the sort a woman might use to tie her kirtle closed, wrapped around his left rerebrace, which occasioned no small amount of comment. Jaime shrugged and observed that if the Iron Wolf had a heart after all, it didn’t seem to impair his swordsmanship, Lyn narrowed his eyes and said nothing, Brynden stroked his beard speculatively and cast his eye over the ladies clustered around the royal stands, Gerion steepled his fingertips and frowned pensively, and Robert laughed and said “About damned time.” In the stands a certain woman held her cloak more tightly around her than the warmth of the day might warrant and refused to let her friends see if she was wearing her spare kirtle-lace.
After the swordsmanship came one of the freedmen’s events, derived from the training of the Iron Legion. Thirty men, one from each Legion company, donned the full regulation armor and kit of a Legion spearman and ran a single lap around the perimeter of the lists, cheered on by freedmen and nobility alike as they clattered along. The race was won by Tychan Breakchain of the fourth Legion company, a massively-built veteran of Tara and the siege inevitably known as “Little Tychan” by his messmates, who carried him shoulder-high to the royal stands to receive his award, which he did with some embarrassment as he was usually a withdrawn and monosyllabic individual. When Robert clapped him on the shoulder after handing over his winner’s purse Tychan blushed bright red, muttered something unintelligible, and all but died standing up as his comrades carried him away for a stiff drink.
After the race came the wrestling, an event that had been added in tribute to the Ironborn who had maintained the honor of the Myrish navy. Every knight learned to wrestle as part of their training, and every peasant learned at least some rudiments of rough-and-tumble, but in the Isles wrestling was an art and the team the Ironborn entered swept the field. The final bout between Victarion Greyjoy and Dagmer Cleftjaw was even longer and more hard-fought than Jaime and Eddard’s sword fight, and eventually ended in a draw at two falls each due to mutual exhaustion. Roryn Pyke placed third after a cagy, tactical match against Ser Harras Harlaw, who redeemed his poor showing in the jousting with a ferocious performance in the ring.
This cleared the stage for the last competition of all, the push-of-war. Two teams of ten men from separate companies of the Legion, each man invariably one of great size and massive strength, in full spearman’s panoply locked their shields and sought to physically push each other out of the ring. This unprecedented competition proved an immediate hit with the crowd, and the victory of the team of the fifth company was met with even greater applause than Jaime and Eddard’s match in the sword-fighting.
From there, those with invitations retreated to the inner courtyard of the Palace of Justice, where places for five thousand people had been set to dine at the Crown’s expense. For those not invited, bread and beer had been made available from the royal stores and food vendors had been quietly urged to keep their prices low for the duration of the tournament. As a result the revelry was infectiously high-spirited, with all and sundry toasting the health of the king, the Iron Legion, the knights of the Royal Army, and the Ironborn, but most fervently toasting the end of the war and the coming of peace. The exact terms of the Peace of Pentos were still only fuzzily understood by the vast majority of the populace, but they had quickly grasped that the salient point that concerned them was the termination of hostilities. For those who did understand the terms of the peace, the indignation at their injustice was tempered by the realization of their necessity. The kingdom needed peace in order to build up to a point where it could triumph in future wars. And the news Robert had brought back of Braavos’ interest in forming an alliance and the continuing benevolent neutrality of the Seven Kingdoms was extremely welcome. Already Ser Gerion and Ser Wendel Manderly were reported to be negotiating the terms not just of a loan, but of the opening of a branch of the Iron Bank in Myr.
In the Palace of Justice the mood was unabashedly effervescent. Guildsmen rubbed shoulders with knights, lords passed the salt for Legion captains, merchants chaffered over the wine and meat with priests of the Seven and the Lord of Light, the champions of the tournament were toasted and re-toasted, and at the high table Robert held court with the officers of his government and a few select members of the nobility, clergy, and burghers of the city. A coterie of musicians played a range of tunes that was already beginning to blend the chansons and ballades of Westeros with the a capella call-and-response work and field songs of the former slaves. Eventually Robert quaffed the last of his goblet, stood from his chair, walked out in front of the high table, and raised his hands for quiet, which descended gradually as the musicians wound down.
“Gentles all,” Robert said, projecting his voice across the courtyard, “we thank you all for the service you have done the realm in the late war, and for the sacrifices you have made. But thanks alone are not enough, when the service and sacrifice are deserving of more. Consequently, there are men I would reward for what they have done for the realm. Captain Akhollo, stand forward!” After a moment extricating himself from his bench the tall Dothraki, his hair tied back in a simple braid and set with a quartet of tiny bells for Pentos, Tara, the siege, and Narrow Run, strode out in front of Robert and clapped his fist against his chest in a military salute that Robert returned gravely. “When we spoke yesterday, I asked you to choose a surname,” Robert said. “Have you chosen one?”
Akhollo lifted his chin. “I am a free man, Your Grace,” he said, only a trace of accent remaining, “and so I take the surname of Freeman.”
Robert nodded as a murmur of approval swept the room. “Then let it be so,” he said, his voice turning formal. “Akhollo Freeman, for the valor, leadership, and zeal you have shown in our service, we are minded to make you a knight of the realm. To be such a knight is a grave responsibility; by accepting it, you accept also that your life is no longer your own, but is at the service of the people you are set in authority over. To be a knight is to judge the quarrels of your people, to relieve their afflictions, to maintain the laws of the kingdom for their good, and to defend them to the last drop of your heart’s blood in the last ditch against those who would do them harm. If you fail in any of this, you will be called to account before your peers and your gods, at peril of your mortal body and your immortal soul. Knowing all this, is it your will to accept this charge and this honor?”
Akhollo blinked, his face momentarily slack in astonishment, and then squared his shoulders. “It is, Your Grace,” he said resolutely.
“Then kneel,” Robert said, and as Akhollo did so he drew his sword, raised it high, and then lowered it to rest the flat of the blade on Akhollo’s shoulder. “Be without fear in the face of the enemy,” Robert intoned, raising the blade over Akhollo’s head to lower it onto his other shoulder. “Uphold rigorously and execute faithfully the laws of the realm.” Back to the other shoulder. “Defend the least of your people as you would defend yourself and your blood.” Back to the other shoulder. “Act with honor and do no wrong. That is your oath.” Robert raised his sword to the salute and sheathed it, then brought his hand across in a backhand blow that rocked Akhollo’s head aside. “And that is so you remember it,” he said. “Rise, Ser Akhollo Freeman, and let me be the first to welcome you to the brotherhood of chivalry.”
As Ser Akhollo Freeman rose to his feet and Robert embraced him as a brother, the onlookers erupted with applause. All present knew they were witnessing history; never before had a Dothraki, or a former slave, received the accolade from an Andal king. As Akhollo, who had just been ordered to take a broken shackle for his coat of arms, walked back to his seat with a glazed look on his face, Robert was already calling the next man forward. In total, more than a hundred men, sixty of them former slaves, received the accolade that night, nor were they the only men honored.
Ser Vernan Irons and Ser Brynnan the Axe were made lords for their valor at Narrow Run, with lands near Ceralia. Victarion Greyjoy, with Dagmer Cleftjaw and Roryn Pyke at his side, received a charter to found a fortified town on the western coast and bring the land around it under cultivation as Lord Lieutenant of the new town and Warden of the Sea of Myrth; Robert announced that the least thanks he could give the Ironborn for the courage they had shown without even swearing fealty to him was to give them a home. Lord Erik Ironmaker’s hammer, he swore, would be mounted in a place of honor in the great hall of the Palace of Justice, as a monument to his valor and leadership, and a reminder to his heirs of the worth of the Ironborn; Roryn Pyke was seen to shed tears of joy at the honor done to his old lord, though he vigorously dashed them away and clamped his jaw rigidly shut. Franlan Shipwright’s post of Lord Captain of the Port was made hereditary in his line, with the right to receive a tithe of the harbor tolls. Ser Lyn Corbray was ennobled as Lord Lieutenant of Sirmium, with additional fiefs around that town, and confirmed as Warden of the South, along with his counterparts Ser Brus Buckler of Campora and the East and Ser Richard Shermer of Ceralia and the North. Ser Mychel Egen and Ser Wendel Manderly received lordships near Myr city, while more than two-score other knights took seisin of lordships in the hinterlands under the terms of the Great Charter.
At last Robert, who had needed to drain two more goblets of wine over the course of the ceremonies, cleared his throat. “Only one more matter must be settled tonight,” he declared, “and it is one close to our hearts. Ser Gerion Lannister, stand forward. Lord Eddard Stark, stand forward.” As the Master of Whispers and the Hand of the King stepped out from behind the high table and stood before their king, Robert held out his hand to Eddard, who reached up, undid the brooch that was his badge of office, and handed it over with a bow. Lowering his hand, Robert quelled the murmurs that swept the hall with a look. “We are of the view,” he declared, “that for a king to have only one Hand is a flawed system; after all, we have two hands.” A chuckle rippled through the onlookers as Robert raised his plate-sized paws in illustration. “The first of these hands is that which we present to our friends,” Robert continued, his gaze seeking out the few Braavosi in the crowd. “The open hand of peace and commerce, the velvet glove of amity and brotherhood. For this, we must have one who our friends may trust to speak with our words under all conditions.” Robert turned to Ser Gerion. “Ser Gerion Lannister,” he said, “for the skill, integrity, and prudence you have shown in your service to us, we would name you the King’s Hand, to see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and speak with our voice to our friends and allies.”
Ser Gerion bent the knee. “I accept this office, Your Grace,” he answered, “and pledge upon my honor and my life never to fail you and your realm.”
After Ser Gerion was raised to his feet and the gold Hand’s brooch affixed to the breast of his doublet, Robert raised his hands to still the applause and cheers. “The second of our hands,” he said, his voice darkening, “is for those who set themselves against us. We know well, friends, that there are those in this world who would stop at naught to see this realm thrown down and destroyed, as if it had never been.” A feral growl rose from the court in answer. “To offer the velvet glove of friendship to such people would be an exercise in futility, for they would see it as an admission of weakness,” Robert went on. “And so to them we must offer a different hand. To our enemies we must extend, not the open hand in the velvet glove, but the clenched fist in the iron gauntlet. For such an office, we must have one who we may trust to be unswerving in his devotion to the realm and his hatred for its enemies.” Robert looked Eddard in the face. “Eddard Stark,” he said solemnly, “for the valor, leadership, and zeal you have shown in our service, we would name you the King’s Fist, to be the shield of our realm and people and the hammer of our enemies.”
Eddard knelt before his foster-brother. “By earth and water,” he said, his voice fervent, “by bronze and iron, by ice and fire, I swear to be Your Grace’s man in peace and in war. I shall be a watchdog to your people and a hunting wolf to your enemies. If I should fail in this office, then may my name be cursed and my body rot unburied under the empty sky.” He drew the ceremonial dagger from his belt and drew it across his palm. “This I swear,” he proclaimed as the blood welled, “with the gods and all here as my witness.”
“So mote it be,” Robert said, raising Eddard to his feet and pinning a black iron brooch in the shape of a clenched gauntlet to the front of his doublet. As Eddard and Gerion bowed and walked back to their seats to applause and cheers, Robert raised his hands again. “Thus ends the business of kingship tonight,” he declared, “and my only command now is this; drink, dance, and be merry, for tonight we celebrate victory! Let all who love holy freedom rejoice, and let all who uphold accursed slavery hear our revels and tremble!”
The cheers made the walls of the courtyard reverberate as the musicians struck up a foot-stomping tune and tables and benches were dragged away to clear the floor for dancing.
Chapter 42: Beyond the Songs and Stories
Chapter Text
Beyond the Songs and Stories
Any song would have had the story end there, with laughter and dancing and wild celebration. But songs, Robert reflected as his head twinged again, deliberately ignored the morning after. Of a certainty, they never mentioned hangovers.
Nor did they mention that even the morning after a victory celebration there was still business to do. So, as much as Robert wanted to stick his head under the pillow and close his eyes until the headache went away, he dragged himself out of bed and started on his daily work. Two hours of light exercise in the training yard and a gallon of water cut half and half with wine alleviated most of the headache, or at least enough for him to focus on his correspondence. After an hour of letters Ser Brynden, looking almost indecently fresh despite the fact that he had done as much dancing and drinking as anyone the night before, and Gerion and Ser Wendel Manderly, who at least looked a little pale, came by to review the state of the Royal Army and which companies they wanted to keep on duty and which they wanted to place on a reserve footing. Since that question would need Ned’s input they went in search of him, talking along the way about some of the broader implications of the Peace of Pentos.
Along the way they met Lyn and Jaime, who had just finished an inconclusive series of practice bouts in the training yard and were going in for luncheon. Upon hearing of the topic of conversation and the subject of the proposed meeting they fell in, with Jaime suggesting that they might as well impose on Ned’s hospitality with the promise to let him do the same to them sometime. A little further along they found Victarion, who also joined them with the claim that as long as they were discussing military matters they could talk about the navy, especially if they could send a runner for Lord Franlan.
At Ned’s quarters they were more than a little surprised to find him taking luncheon with a woman. And a rather good-looking woman, at that, Robert decided with a professional’s judgment; a fair-skinned brunette with strong cheekbones, a snub nose, and a ready smile, judging by the one she had been giving Ned when he and Ser Brynden walked in unannounced. As Ned and his companion rose from their chairs and began to kneel Robert forestalled them with a wave. “No need for formality, Ned, this isn’t a formal occasion.” He co*cked an eyebrow at the woman. “Friend of yours, brother?”
“Amarya Farwynd, Your Grace,” Ned said, squaring his shoulders, “my betrothed.”
For a long moment Robert didn’t believe his ears. “Your what?” he asked finally, shock robbing him of his manners.
“He asked me to marry him, Your Grace, and I said yes,” the woman said, just as bluntly as Ned had introduced her. “This morning.”
Robert’s jaw dropped as he blinked rapidly and exchanged a glance with Ser Brynden, who seemed just as shocked as he did. Gerion was also looking at Ned like a country bumpkin who had just seen a two-headed calf, while Victarion was giving the woman the same look. Jaime’s eyebrows had all but vanished under his bangs and he was opening and closing his mouth like a fish yanked out of the water; Wendel was similarly flabbergasted. Only Lyn had kept his countenance. When Robert finally regained the ability to speak the only thing he could think to say was, “Dammit Ned, I told you to find a leman, not a wife.”
Ned shrugged. “You told me to find some pretty young thing and take her to bed, Your Grace,” he said reasonably. “Those were your exact words, as I recall. You never said anything about what I should do afterwards.”
Robert opened his mouth to retort, stopped to remember exactly what he had told Ned to do when he found him in that graveyard, and eventually laughed ruefully. “You’re right, I didn’t,” he admitted. “Teach me to mind what I say.”
“Farwynd,” Ser Brynden said musingly. “Any relation to Lord Farwynd?”
“Not one worth mentioning,” Amarya replied, her accent thickening. “My father’s the proverbial poor relation, and my mother was a fisherman’s daughter. I fell in love with another fisherman who answered Lord Ironmaker’s call for men to find wealth and glory in Myrish service, and followed him onto the ships.” Her eyes glittered a moment. “He died in the sea-fight with Lord Ironmaker, and I was alone here with barely a hand of friends this side of the Narrow Sea. So when Eddard and I found each other by the docks . . .” she shrugged, conveying a world of meaning in that simple gesture.
Robert glanced at Victarion, who shrugged. “She’s a free woman, and of age,” he said. “And even if her father was likely to object, he’s back in the Isles; it’s not like we can ask his opinion on the matter. Not that he would object to his daughter marrying the foster-brother and first captain of a king.”
“When exactly did you two first meet?” Jaime asked hesitantly.
“Two days before the tournament,” Ned replied.
Jaime blinked. “Are you entirely sure you’ve thought this all the way through?” he asked even more hesitantly. “Only three days seems a bit fast to go from first meeting to betrothal.”
“Especially when one of the parties involved has no dowry and no meaningful connections to offer,” Lyn added, raising his hands at Ned and Victarion’s joint glare. “Merely a statement of fact, no offense intended.”
Eddard tipped his head to one side and back again. “Not like I have much to offer either, except for my effects and what I’ve put by from my pay from when we were in Braavosi service.”
“Which can be remedied,” Robert replied in his most definite tone of voice. “I will not have my Fist waste away for lack of a living.”
Brynden shrugged. “I don’t see much here that threatens the strength of the realm,” he said. “That said, it’s not my decision.” Wendel nodded agreement.
At Robert’s raised eyebrow Gerion also shrugged. “I agree with Brynden,” he said. “It’s not like Your Grace can use Lord Stark’s marriage as a bargaining chip, since he’s not of your house and, forgive me, not the best bait to dangle in that regard anyways, for various reasons.”
Robert saw Amarya shoot Gerion a venomous glare out of the corner of his eye and was more than a little cheered by it, especially since he also caught Eddard’s shrug. Damnit, Ned deserved someone who would take his part. He agreed with Jaime that it seemed a bit fast, but Ned was both sensible enough not to fall for a money-grubber and, for now at least, not wealthy enough to attract one.
Besides which, Robert decided as he looked at Ned and Amarya standing by each other, he could see why Ned had chosen to strike while the iron was hot, so to speak. He had thought his future with Lyanna was secure, and then the Rapist had taken her on the eve of their f*cking wedding day. The Stranger waited, as the septons put it, especially for men who lived by their swords.
Hells take it, he decided, at least one of us should get some joy out of this whole affair, for however long it lasts. He extended his hand with a smile. “Welcome to the family, Lady Amarya,” he said. “Ned, I hope you’ve got some good wine in here, because this calls for a drink.”
XXX
The young Valeman licked his lips as the city grew on the horizon. Partly in anticipation, but mostly in nervousness; the next two or three days would be the fulcrum around which the rest of his life would pivot.
It had been a long road from the Fingers to this place. He had dreamed of rising from his family’s small and hardscrabble origins to be a man equal to his foster-siblings, but time and again the door had been slammed in his face. He had been highborn enough to play with a lord’s children, but not to wed one of them. When he had attempted to win the lady’s hand by the strength of his arm, as the singers loved to tell, her brute of a betrothed had played with him like a cat with a mouse before tiring of the game and all but killing him. No sooner had his wounds closed enough to let him leave his bed than his erstwhile foster-father had sent him back to the Fingers with a warning to not come near his daughters again. Oh, how he had stewed over the injustice of it all as he healed, nursing his hate as much as his wounds, until it settled in his bones like molten iron in a mold.
In a song, he would doubtless have become a great villain, the sort of monster smallfolk women used to frighten their children into behaving. But then the rebellion happened, and all had changed.
Not that he had been reunited with his lady-love with all obstacles swept away; her betrothed had been crippled, not killed, and by all accounts they seemed to be comfortable enough with each other. His fingers clenched involuntarily on the rail at the thought of his Cat bearing the children of that glorified savage. At least the savage had been crippled, and that severely, by all accounts. He would take that much justice from the gods as a gift unlooked-for. But much else had changed, especially in these last few months after Robert the Brief had first conquered Myr, and then defended it.
In the two months since the Peace of Pentos, there had been a small flood of emigration to the new kingdom. Sellswords, freeriders, and hedge knights from across the Seven Kingdoms had marched to the ports of eastern Westeros to seek fame and fortune, many of them clubbing together and pooling their funds to buy their passage. Merchants followed them just as assiduously, either to reestablish fortunes and contacts destroyed in the Sack of Myr or else seeking out whatever new markets might be had. Begging brothers and itinerant septons were also seeking passage across the Narrow Sea, hoping to spread the worship of the Faith. Even some women were making the crossing; five of them were on this very ship. Two were the daughters of landed knights hoping to be able to boast of having a lord for a good-son, while the other three were the daughters of wealthy merchants hoping to marry into at least the chivalry, if not the nobility, on the strength of their purses.
If an iron-headed sellsword could rise to lordship in King Robert’s service, the Valeman had vowed, then so could he. What, did he not have the finest hand and the sharpest mind in the Vale? Had he not learned how to stretch the tiny rents and revenues of his familial lands to their greatest extent? He had no talent for sword-play, but give him a paper full of numbers and he could make them dance with a scrawl of his quill. And in Myr, he would not have to face the same barred doors that had forestalled his rise in Westeros.
So he had swallowed his pride, stifled his hatred for at least a little while, and written a letter. Upon receiving the prayed-for answer, he had sold his family’s lands and tower on the Fingers, made his way down to Gulltown, and taken a steerage berth on the next ship bound for Myr. All he owned in the wide world he now carried on his person, none of it more precious than the letter that even now was tucked in his doublet. Eddard Stark’s influence in the court of Myr might be reduced, but he was still King Robert’s foster-brother. If someone came to him bearing a letter of recommendation signed by his brother and good-sister, then much could be made possible. And if Stark was unamenable, then surely the Blackfish would remember the boy who had come to him for advice about his childhood troubles. If nothing else, the Royal Army would surely need a good clerk.
Perhaps he couldn’t forge a kingdom for himself by the strength of his arms, but he could still leave his mark on the Kingdom of Myr. Petyr Baelish smiled in anticipation as the stink of Myr’s harbor began to fill his nostrils. It smelled like opportunity.
Chapter 43: Beyond the Seas
Chapter Text
Beyond the Seas
The High Septon put down the last page of Jaspar’s report and gently pinched the bridge of his nose against the headache he could feel building behind his eyeballs. Damn it, nephew, he thought wearily. Was it too much to ask for you to do your job properly?
“I told you that sending Jaspar was a bad idea,” Most Devout Hugar said bluntly. Only three or four people in the world could speak so boldly to the High Septon; Hugar got away with it by being the former archsepton of the Westerlands. Any man who could execute the requirements of that office while maintaining such good relations with Tywin Lannister as to confirm his children was not someone to take lightly. Especially when his liver was making him short-tempered.
Most Devout Payten waggled his hand from side to side. “Not as bad as all that, brother,” he qualified. “Jaspar did do what he was ordered to do and what he could reasonably accomplish, given the circ*mstances.”
“And tip our hand to the heretic while he was at it,” Hugar spat disgustedly. He was no friend to Payten, who had been the senior septon at Stoney Sept’s seminary and retained an academic’s taste for finely reasoned argument. “Once he had the evidence he should have either acted, or kept his mouth shut until further instructions. As it was, the knight refused him, and then had the gall to spill the beans.”
“It may be,” said Most Devout Mateo, “that the attempt to draw Ser Leofric into the plan was the weak reed that made the project collapse. If Jaspar’s mission had been strictly investigatory, with no view towards possible arrest and extradition, then secrecy would have been maintained.”
The High Septon concealed his anger; he had long suspected Mateo of angling for the crystal crown and that little speech only added to the evidence, in his mind. The former archsepton of Dorne was as ambitious as any child of that desert realm, and all the more dangerous for having been civilized. Not while I draw breath, old man. “Does anyone truly believe that I did not act as seemed best at the time?” he asked in his most reasonable tone of voice. “Jaspar may have proved inept, but we all had every reason to expect great things of him from his record at seminary, and Ser Leofric was well-known to be a good son of the Faith. Will any here deny this?”
Put like that, even Hugar and Mateo had to shake their heads; to do otherwise would have meant directly challenging the High Septon’s fitness to lead the Faithful, and neither of them was powerful enough to take that step. Nor would they be, while Tywin Lannister remained content to rest on his laurels and Dorne was still recovering from the Red Viper Rebellion. “In any case,” the High Septon continued, “Jaspar did an admirable job of compiling the evidence against Jonothor.” He tapped the papers in front of him, a fair copy of which rested before every member of the Most Devout present in a testament to the number of scribes the Great Sept could bring to bear and the fact that each of the Most Devout could read. And very well, at that; Mateo, for one, wrote devotional poetry not just in Common Tongue and the High Andalic that was the official language of the Faith, but in Rhoynish. He thought it was a closely guarded secret, but the High Septon had suborned his secretary some time ago. “Does anyone doubt that we have sufficient evidence before us to convict Jonothor of heresy?”
Again, there were only shaking heads. “His commission of non-Faithful dead to the care of the Seven would be evidence enough,” said Payten, “but his other offenses compound his guilt. To suffer a cleric of R’hllor to preach to the Faithful!”
“Personally, I find his last words to Jaspar to be most interesting,” said Most Devout Donnal. “Firstly, his claim to have resurrected the Faith Militant. Leaving aside the fact that it provides that much more rope to hang him with, can any of us deny that his words have a kernel of truth in them?”
Payten shook his head. “The Faith Militant can only be composed of the Faithful,” he said pedantically. “To claim otherwise is just as heretical as his primary offense.”
Most Devout Justan flipped through the pages before him. “For my part, I find his argument interesting, as Donnal said,” he replied. “Even if nine in ten of this ‘Faith Militant’, so called, are not of the Faith, the fact remains that they fight under the command of Faithful knights, sworn to a Faithful king, in a cause the Seven approve of. It is not the Swords and Stars reborn, but it is a step further in that direction than any that has been taken since the time of the Conciliator.”
The other Most Devout glanced at each other. Donnal and Justan both came from the Snowy Sept, which had an ambiguous reputation in the Faith. On the one hand, it was lauded for its defense and propagation of the Faith in the teeth of one of the last great strongholds of paganism in Westeros; it was for this reason that at least one or two of the Most Devout tended to be veterans of the place. On the other hand, there was always the sneaking suspicion that the Northern Faith was not quite as doctrinally or as practically pure as it should be. It was a fair way from the supervision of any other sept, after all, with potentially unfriendly pagans on every side. That sort of thing was almost bound to lead to compromise; or corruption, if you weren’t feeling charitable.
Not that anyone had ever been able to prove anything. “You said firstly,” Payten said, “which implies that there is at least one other reason. If you would enlighten us?”
“That Jonothor claimed to have been under orders to not return here to confront us,” Donnal said, leaning forward in his chair. “And also that he specifically advised that we send someone who would not incur the wrath of at least Eddard Stark. I submit, friends, that we must consider not only how to deal with Jonothor, but how to deal with the Kingdom of Myr if they persist in offering him sanctuary in defiance of His Holiness.”
“They would not dare,” Hugar claimed. “Not when we can excommunicate everyone who follows the heretic and place the kingdom under interdict.”
“The last time someone told Robert Baratheon he couldn’t do something, he abdicated the Iron Throne and did it anyway,” Justan replied. “I agree with Donnal on this one, friends. If we wish to pursue this matter, then we must plan for all the potential outcomes.”
Silence fell around the table. It had been long and long since the Faith was seriously threatened with schism; the last such scare, two hundred years before the Conquest, had been resolved by the Council of Stoney Sept, which had effectively set the seal on almost half a millennium’s steady codification of the Faith’s doctrines and practices across the boundaries of the individual kingdoms. But the old enmities that had previously existed in the Faith had been bloody, and the chronicles of the old wars of Faithful against Faithful made for chilling reading.
“In that case,” Septon Mateo said slowly, “it may be best to tread softly on this matter for the moment. Excommunicate Jonothor, by all means, but do not extend the punishment to those who associate with him. Simply remind them of their duty as sons of the Faith to heed the commands of His Holiness.”
Septon Koryn leaned forward. “And if they refuse to denounce him?” he asked. “I am told that the vast majority of the Faithful of Myr are Essosi; former slaves whom Jonothor converted himself. That is not a bond easily broken.”
The High Septon raised a finger. “Then we employ other means of exerting pressure,” he replied. “We publicize the fact of Jonothor’s heresy, and warn the Faithful that to serve the realm that gives him shelter imperils their souls as abettors of heresy. We suggest to His Grace that it would be a godly deed to restrain or even forbid commerce and emigration to Myr until Jonothor is delivered to us for trial. For our own dealings with the Kingdom of Myr,” he spread his hands. “Complete silence. Refuse even to speak to them until they deliver Jonothor to the Great Sept in chains. We do not preach in favor of their crusade, which is in fact illegal since we have not declared it ourselves, we do not send more septons to minister to the Faithful, we do not fund the construction of septries or motherhouses in the Kingdom of Myr, we do not advance them loans from our revenues, we do not do anything.”
Koryn gestured assent as a murmur of agreement swept around the table; the Reachman had been elevated to the Most Devout as a reward for long service at the Starry Sept, rather than because he had any ambitions to high office, and he tended to indecision in the absence of someone else presenting a plan.
“All of which,” Payten said reflectively, “may be unnecessary.” At the inquiring looks he went on. “I was one of Jonothor’s teachers at seminary, and unless he’s changed more than most men do, he’ll be much as he was then; stiff as a short plank and about as capable of compromise. Let him try and change Robert Baratheon from a wine-bibbing lecher to an upright and morally correct son of the Faith for a few months and Robert will send him to us himself, if only to have done with the lectures.”
“You think Jonothor will truly bite the hand that shields him?” Donnal asked, his voice skeptical. “I’ve never met the man, but I have heard that he’s quite intelligent.”
Payten shook his head. “Jonothor can no more condone moral laxness than he can flap his arms and fly,” he said confidently. “The number of times he dragged his fellow students out of the Peach by the scruff of the neck, haranguing them all the way up to the seminary doors . . .” He shook his head with a reminiscent smile on his face. “One time,” he went on, a chuckle entering his voice, “the man went after a trio of students and managed to drag them all back up the seminary, with one in each hand and driving the third before him with kicks to the posterior, berating them at full volume about the sin of lust the whole while . . .” Payten dissolved into chortles at the evidently happy memory, with a few of the other Most Devout chuckling along at the mental image thus inspired. “No,” Payten said, wiping away tears as he finally got himself under control. “He’ll force Robert to behave according to the Seven-Pointed Star or break himself in the attempt.”
The High Septon nodded. “Doubtless,” he said, “but nonetheless we shall proceed with our other means of exerting pressure on the Kingdom of Myr. The gods help best those who help themselves, after all.” The platitude won a wave of nods; no one knew that better than the Faith. The gods had their plans for each living soul and worked their will in the world as they pleased, but sometimes they needed a little help here and there.
XXX
Donys Rahtheon was not a man of his hands, but of his mind.
To be sure he had done manual work in the past, rebuilding his family’s fortunes from the genteel poverty that his father and grandfather had wastreled them into, but that had been in the early days of his manhood, when it had been necessary to go along on the ships himself to make sure the captains didn’t defraud them. Those had been hard days and harder nights, sleeping with one hand on a sheathed dagger under the pillow in case this was the night that some captain who had grown too used to taking more than his share tried to knock him over the head and drop him overboard with a length of chain around his ankles. Thankfully, he had not needed to do such things since the year before he married; after that, he had had people to do that for him, leaving him free to pursue his true calling.
For Donys Rahtheon was a man who could take vastly disparate pieces of information, connect them to each other, and draw the lines that made a picture. From his study in Myr he had been able to take the news that the price of Pentoshi wheat had gone up, a rumor of heavy rains and flooding along the Trident, and a report that the Tyrells were having difficulty with their bannermen again, and come to the conclusion that an enterprising man with connections to the farms of the hinterlands could make a killing selling grain to Braavos that year. He had done so on two memorable occasions, both of which had been immensely profitable years with the added attraction of being able to gouge the hated and feared Braavosi.
If he was working from the upper-floor office of a warehouse on the Volantene waterfront instead of a manse in the magister’s quarter of Myr, these days, and if his circle of agents, contacts, and friends-of-friends was somewhat reduced from its previous expanse, the rules and methods of the game hadn’t changed. The stakes, though, those had changed even more dramatically than his circ*mstances.
By the calculus of fate and availability, he had become the treasurer, quartermaster, purser, and spymaster to House Targaryen-in-exile. It was his agents that provided them with information, his accounts and monies that fed and clothed and housed them, and his ships that carried the commerce that was their lifeblood. He had no skill with a sword and he could not command an army, but he could certainly keep everyone out of penury, especially since he was essentially left to do what he did best.
That was part of the deal that he, Ser Arthur, and Ser Barristan had come to, once they had all recovered from the shock of Marq Grafton’s and . . . her (Donys firmly pushed the memory of his daughter’s name out of his mind; he had no daughter, now) betrayal. Ser Barristan had taken responsibility for Viserys and Visenya’s personal protection, Ser Arthur had taken command of the exiles (the Company of the Dragon, as they called themselves now), and Donys had taken charge of everything else. Ser Gyles Rambton, murdered by the deserters along with a dozen others from the fleet who had refused to be forsworn, had been buried with the honors due to brave men. Viserys’ education had been taken in hand, with Ser Barristan seeing to the boy’s martial training and Donys finding a half-maester for his other studies. Some hurried negotiations had seen the Company taken on a long-term contract with the Triarchs, with the stipulations that they be allowed to recruit locally to fill their ranks and that Donys’ warehouses and other properties within the city be considered extraterritorial possessions of House Targaryen. Shortly afterward, their ranks padded out with the sweepings of the Volantene gaols and a few freeborn citizens desperate or mad enough to sign on, the Company had been sent east with orders to devastate the western lands of Matarys; evidently that city had done something to earn the ire of the Triarchs.
That, Donys reflected, had been quite foolish of them. Volantis was easily the strongest of the Free Cities on land, and the only one besides Braavos that had an entrenched martial tradition. The tigers of Volantis were the nearest equivalent Essos had to Westerosi knights, although they historically fought as charioteers or infantrymen, rather than as armored lancers. Under ordinary circ*mstances, that adherence to the martial traditions of the Freehold had been a handicap, being seen as an anachronism that wasn’t quite gentlemanly, but these were hardly ordinary times. The fall of Myr to the Sunset Company and the subsequent rise of the Kingdom of Myr had given the tigers their finest opportunity since the Century of Blood; the study of war was not some outdated anachronism, anymore, but a dire necessity. The wolves were on their doorstep, their orators cried, and if they did not take arms and strike, remembering the ways of their ancestors who of old had conquered Essos, then the fate of Myr would befall Volantis.
The resulting fervor had infected even the elephants; predictably so, in Donys’ opinion. An elephant might be bulky, slow, and easy-going, but they were as dangerous as tigers were; he had once seen an elephant goaded beyond endurance turn its mahout into a red smear. The Kingdom of Myr hadn’t struck at Volantis directly, yet, but the mere fact of their existence could not be tolerated. Not when Volantis’ slaves outnumbered its citizens by five to one, and Robert Baratheon had sworn to wage war without mercy on slavery.
Already two plots by the slaves to revolt that Donys knew of had been uncovered and crushed with ruthless butchery, those ringleaders taken alive being publicly executed in inventively gruesome ways and their heads mounted on pikes along the Long Bridge. The Red Temple, he knew, was closely watched by Triarchal spies, in answer to which the Fiery Hand seemed to be on edge and even more zealous in their duties than they normally were. At least four of the tiger cloaks’ officers had been posted to the frontier ahead of the regular schedule of rotations. Donys could read the signs as if they were writ in letters of fire; Volantis was standing on the lip of the volcano.
Fortunately, the Triarchs appeared to have come to the same conclusion, and were taking appropriate measures. The Golden Company had also been retained on a generous long-term contract, as had several lesser companies. The tigers had started a citizen’s militia, with a company based in each ward of the city, and Triarchal agents had been dispatched to Astapor to buy as many Unsullied as the Good Masters would sell. Every blacksmith in the city who could forge weapons was now required to forge a set number of spear-heads and sword-blades every month, depending on the size of their shop, to be bought at a fixed price by the city to arm their new forces.
Donys smiled thinly. The Kingdom of Myr, he judged, was almost certainly biting off rather more than it could chew. Their victory at Narrow Run, and the treachery that had ensured it, would make them enemies of the Dothraki nation. Tyrosh and Lys were rearming themselves to meet the threat that had so suddenly arisen. But most of all, the First Daughter of Valyria was rousing itself to anger. Even if Viserys never again set foot in Westeros, a fate that seemed increasingly likely to Donys, though he never said so where Ser Arthur could hear him, the odds that he would be able to take revenge on Robert and Eddard for his family’s exile and his brother’s death were improving by the day. Especially since Viserys was proving himself to be a determined student; he would not, he had explained with a child’s seriousness, allow his sister Visenya to come to harm at anyone’s hands, especially not those of Robert Dragonsbane and his dog. The fact that he had just turned ten and barely came up to a grown man’s elbow had not seemed to matter to him.
Donys’ smile broadened as he contemplated the future. From the darkness of three months ago, it seemed considerably brighter.
XXX
To My Lord Tywin Lannister, health, prosperity, and the blessings of the gods.
The situation in the city remains unchanged from my previous letter. The prosperity engendered by the end of the late war has silenced any dissent against the king, so that the only unrest that remains is the muttering of malcontents and broken men who can never be satisfied. The retraining of the royal fleet proceeds apace; Lord Redwyne reports that the whole fleet should be ready to go on campaign within a month of the new year. The news from Dorne is uniformly good; with the recent hounding into exile of Ser Garin Uller, the last leader of the rebel-brigands of any name, Princess-Regent Mellario, the other members of the regency council, and the Royal Order of the Sun seem to have matters well in hand.
I have the pleasure to report that Her Grace your daughter is again increasing, and swears that she will present another son to His Grace. Aside from the usual discomforts attendant upon such a condition she seems untroubled by it, and given her previous success in this field and the good health she continues in I believe that she has but little to fear from a second confinement. I shall, of course, undertake every effort to ensure a happy ending for all concerned. Your grandson Prince Lyonel is a vigorous child, already toddling and babbling; his recent learning of the word ‘no’ was cause for much consternation among his nurses.
His Grace the king also continues in good health and vigor, and his reign continues to wax mightily. The success of the Peace of Pentos and the prosperity it has engendered has strengthened his rule and won him the hearts of the people of this city to an extent that I have not seen since My Lord was Hand. He has directed me to draw up plans for the extension of the crownroads through the Riverlands and the Stormlands and the replacement of the Dragonpit with a Guildhall and public garden, which last has already proven such a popular notion with the aldermen and burghers of the city that they have voted to contribute funds toward the cost of the endeavor.
The only difficulty currently facing their Graces is the new lady-in-waiting; Lady Praela has a sharp tongue and is not afraid to use it on anyone who crosses her. Her Grace your daughter, for her part, returns word for word with a will, especially when her condition makes her short of temper. His Grace has commanded them to be civil to each other in his presence and they obey, but when he leaves the room the war is resumed as fervently as ever. I have given instructions that Lady Praela be watched most carefully to ensure that she does not go beyond words to some more drastic means and advised your daughter not to accept food or drink from her, to which she replied with no small amount of acerbity that she would do as she pleased, damn my eyes. I fear that I spoke to her while her pregnancy was making her dyspeptic. My vigilance in this matter shall, of course, continue unflaggingly.
As far as His Grace’s thoughts on any future contentions in the Disputed Lands and the southern Narrow Sea are concerned, I have no new information. That said, His Grace spends much time closeted with Lord Redwyne and has requested that I provide an accurate and up-to-date map of the Stepstones as soon as I may. I must therefore conclude that His Grace intends to take a hand in any future conflict in that quarter of the world, presumably in alliance with the Braavosi. I shall provide more information as it is disclosed to me.
I remain, in the meantime, My Lord’s most humble and obedient servant,
Pycelle, Grand Maester.
Chapter 44: Wars Are Coming
Chapter Text
Wars Are Coming
While the slaver cities were arming themselves, the small council of the Kingdom of Myr was taking stock of their own situation. On the one hand, this situation was relatively sound; in addition to the Royal Army and the Royal Navy, the Kingdom could reasonably expect Braavos and the Seven Kingdoms to come to their aid if Lys or Tyrosh attacked first. Braavos’ land forces were still stretched covering Braavos and Pentos, supporting Norvos against a newly belligerent Qohor, and protecting Braavosi ships all around the world, but the Braavosian fleet was the strongest in the Narrow Sea, if not the world. And what the Braavosi potentially lacked in soldiers could be more than made up for by the forces of the Seven Kingdoms, for King Stannis had not confined his pioneering improvements solely to Westeros’ infrastructure.
On the other hand, the situation that the Kingdom of Myr faced was dire. Although their northern frontier was relatively secure thanks to the Braavosi alliance, they were otherwise surrounded by enemies, who if they managed to coordinate their attacks could submerge them beneath a tide of foes. Fortunately, the Kingdom of Myr only really had to face two enemies at once, instead of three or four; distance and the realities of logistics largely prevented Volantis from quickly intervening in an overland war, while the disunity of the Dothraki and the distance between Myr and the Dothraki Sea meant that the Dothraki would only pose an intermittent threat, if a serious one.
This, however, still left the Kingdom of Myr facing two-to-one odds, for late in 286 Tyrosh and Lys signed a treaty committing themselves to a military alliance against the Kingdom of Myr under any and all circ*mstances. Faced with this problem, the Kingdom of Myr had two potential solutions; stand on the defensive in the next war, or attack. The defensive option was quickly discarded; the Kingdom of Myr didn’t have the resources to win a long war of attrition. It being decided to attack, the target of the attack was quickly chosen as Tyrosh; between that city and Lys, Tyrosh was closer, more immediately threatening, and had incurred more grudges on the part of the Kingdom of Myr thanks to their harboring of the Myrish exiles and their leading role in the First Slave War.
With the target of the offensive chosen, the council turned to discussing ways and means . . .
Eddard frowned at the map that had been hung on the wall of the small council chamber. “The way I read that map,” he said slowly, “Tyrosh has five major towns that we have to reduce. Of those, the toughest nuts to crack will be these ones.” He traced a finger over Lissus, Aesica, and Brivas. “The fact that they’re seaport towns means that the Tyroshi will be able to rush in reinforcements and supplies without too much difficulty.” He turned to Victarion. “Unless the Royal Fleet can blockade them?”
Victarion made a face. “Not easily,” he admitted. “Once the new ships are built and their crews trained, we should be able to blockade one of those ports, but not two and certainly not all three. We will be able to launch raids which should interdict at least some ships, but we won’t be able to close off more than one port completely at any one time.”
Eddard nodded. “So we’ll have to hold off on attack those three towns for the moment, and focus on the other two.” He pointed towards the first one, a sennight’s march west of the borderlands. “Of those, Alalia is the one we’ll have to take first, if only because it’s closer to the border. Sinuessa’s on it’s far side, and we can’t risk leaving a major fortified town in our rear.”
Gerion nodded. “And the Tyroshi know it,” he said. “The Tyroshi Conclave has voted funds to improve the fortifications and increase the garrison there, and the Archon has ordered that non-essential slaves be sent out of the town, in order to make it easier to police them. Judging from the information I have, we should expect to face at least a thousand soldiers, both Tyroshi regulars and sellswords, and maybe twice as many militia. That, in addition to any forces we drive into the town and the Tyroshi field army.”
“Against which,” Brynden said, tapping the sheaf of papers before him, “we can muster maybe ten companies of the Legion and four companies of cavalry for an attack into Tyroshi territory, assuming at least eight days’ notice.”
There were nods around the table. The system on which the Royal Army had been organized was twofold. Firstly, there were the standing forces, one Legion company and one cavalry company stationed in Myr and an equal force in the three major towns; these would be full-time warriors drawing monthly pay from the royal treasury. The rest of the Iron Legion would spend the majority of their time either farming or practicing a trade and assembling to train as a full company for eight days a month and three full sennights a year in order to keep their skills sharp; each man was expected to train with their personal weapons on their own time. The cavalry companies, being composed of the nobility and chivalry of the realm and their principal henchmen, were expected to assemble and train as a full company for at least one full sennight every month in addition to their individual training. Both Legion men and cavalrymen were expected to find their own keep when they weren’t training or on Royal service, and in order to draw their monthly training stipend they had to attend and complete their required training to the satisfaction of the royal inspectors. It was a setup designed to maintain a sizable and well-trained reserve while balancing the cost to the treasury against the thousand and one other commitments that absolutely needed to be funded, but the downside was that the number of soldiers that could be immediately put in the field in case of emergency was limited. In order to assemble an army large enough to go a-conquering, advance notice was required in order to allow the reserve companies to assemble and march to the designated muster point.
“How large can we expect the Tyroshi field army to be?” Eddard asked.
Gerion flipped through his notes for a brief moment. “Perhaps two thousand sellsword cavalry and ten thousand infantry, most of which will be men of the Archon’s new militia,” he answered. “More or less our numbers.”
Each company of the Iron Legion was a thousand strong, with three spearmen for every crossbowman. Each cavalry company was set at a hundred lances, with each lance consisting of a knight or man-at-arms, his squire, a valet who could serve as a heavy infantryman, an archer, and a page; the formula had originated in either the Reach or the Vale, depending on who you asked, several hundred years before the Conquest and had continued in use with only minor changes ever since.
“These new militia, will they be able to stand against us?” Victarion asked, clearly skeptical. “These are tradesmen and idle aristos for the most part, I understand, not warriors.”
Gerion shrugged. “The Myrish militiamen fought well enough,” he pointed out,” and quite a few of the Myrish exiles, I am told, have taken service in the Tyroshi militia. As for the Tyroshi themselves,” he spread his hands. “Only the worst of men will not fight to the death to protect his home and his family and the temples of his gods. The sellswords may be easy pickings or not, as the case may be, but we should expect the Tyroshi infantry to fight hard, if not well.”
“Especially given that a fair proportion of them will be regular soldiers, men who have been in harness for years already,” Brynden added. “According to Ser Lyn’s reports from the Great Raid and the reports from the coastal fighting they’re stubborn enough.”
Victarion gestured concession as Eddard sat back down in his chair. “Then we will simply have to be better,” the King’s Fist said definitively. “Ser Brynden and I have already worked out a training program that should put us comfortably ahead of both Tyrosh and Lys in military proficiency, both in battle and on the march.” Wendel winced; training was expensive, both in pay to the men doing the training and in the equipment that they inevitably broke or wore out in the process. Eddard drove on. “Another of the deciding factors will be speed; we will need to defeat the Tyroshi quickly in order to prevent the Lyseni from coming to their aid. Ser Brynden, how fast can we have our attacking force over the border under normal conditions?”
Brynden looked up at the ceiling, the fingers of his left hand twitching as he calculated. “Eight days to complete the call-up of the necessary units,” he said finally, “and then seventeen days afterward to march from here to the border at best speed, picking up units along the way. Allowing a margin for unforeseen obstacles,” he made a face, “twenty to twenty-five days.”
The men around the table grimaced. It was a simple fact that armies were slow, especially when the fastest way to transport the necessary supplies in the amounts required was by horse or ox-drawn wagon; such vehicles did well to make ten miles a day. But in a contest where victory and defeat would be decided in a matter of days, that lack of speed was dangerous.
“Ned, work with Ser Brynden to find ways to reduce that time,” Robert said. “Wendel, join in with them to work out which options can be done best at a minimum of cost. Anything else today?” At the round of negatives, Robert nodded. “Very well then, meeting adjourned. Ned, remain a moment.” As the other small council members filed out Robert sipped from the mug of smallbeer before him and looked over his foster-brother. “All going well with your wife, Ned?”
“Very much so, Your Grace,” Eddard said, smiling in unconscious reminiscence at how he and Amarya had passed the previous evening and part of that morning. “Not just in bed, either,” he continued, ignoring Robert’s snickers. “She’s done well at taking on a lady’s duties, even if my household is a small one still.” Not that it would stay small for long; Eddard had let the word out two days ago that he was looking for new retainers and already his steward was being flooded with men putting their names forward. It seemed that, far from being warned off by the stories of Narrow Run, the fighting men of the kingdom were considering Eddard’s retinue to be a post of high honor to be hotly sought after. And not just among Northmen, but the freedmen as well; Ser Akhollo had already sent his regrets that his post as a Legion captain prevented him from taking service with a lord’s household and hinting broadly that if Eddard offered him a place he would resign his commission.
“Good, good,” Robert said absently, fiddling with his mug while Eddard co*cked an eyebrow; he had known Robert since they were both only ten years of age and in all that time he had only seen him hesitate once or twice. “If I might ask, how did you go about asking her to marry you?” he said finally.
Eddard, taken aback, shrugged. “I just asked her,” he replied. “We were in bed, we had just finished, well,” he resolutely ignored Robert’s chuckle, “and I was looking at her and thinking that of all the women in the world this was the only one I could see myself spending the rest of my days with and the question just slipped out.” His mouth quirked in a half-smile. “Fortunately she said yes, or I’d have felt bloody silly.” As Robert guffawed he co*cked an eyebrow. “Out of curiosity, why do you ask?”
Robert sobered immediately. “Alaesa’s pregnant,” he said. “I’m considering asking her to marry me.”
Eddard sat back, stunned. “I see,” he said finally. Then, hesitantly, “Robert, are you looking for my advice as your foster-brother or as your Fist?”
Robert shrugged. “Either,” he said. “Both, if you want.”
Eddard nodded. “As your foster-brother, then,” he said, “I say do so and best of luck to you. I doubt Lyanna would want you to let all your children be bastards.” Robert barked a laugh and gestured agreement. “As your Fist, on the other hand,” Eddard went on, “I would ask you to consider whether marrying Alaesa is the best thing you can do to strengthen your kingdom. Marrying her would certainly bind the freedmen to us with bands of iron, but we have their loyalty already and until we conquer Tyrosh and Lys, we will not be acquiring more except by natural increase.” Left unspoken was the assumption that they would conquer Tyrosh and Lys, but Robert already knew his foster-brother’s views on the necessity of the conquest of the slaver cities. “Marrying a lady from the Seven Kingdoms, on the other hand,” Eddard plowed on, “or a lady of Braavos, would gain us the strength of her House and any alliances they might have, in addition to allowing for an heir that might find more favor among the Andal nobility.”
The two foster-brothers exchanged a look. The loyalty of the nobility, both Andal and Essosi, to Robert, personally, was beyond question. How loyal they would be to his heir was potentially open to debate; the Essosi nobility would almost certainly accept Robert’s heir under any circ*mstances barring the egregious, but the Andal nobility might look askance on an heir whose mother had been born a slave. That potential dissatisfaction might or might not prove the root of disloyalty, but wisdom militated against taking that chance.
Especially since, given that Robert would almost certainly be leading the attack into Tyrosh when the next war came, there was at least some chance that he would die. Robert was one of the mightiest warriors alive, but even the Dragonknight had met his match eventually. And crossbow bolts didn’t care how good you were if they managed to get through your armor. Knights tended towards a certain fatalism for that very reason. If Robert were to die and leave behind an underage heir who wasn’t entirely accepted by the nobility and wouldn’t have the chance to prove himself for some years . . .
“Woe to thee, o land, when thy king is a child,” Robert said, to which Eddard nodded; the quote was from the Book of the Crone, but the faith of the old gods had a similar saying. “I will think on this,” Robert went on, “and ask Gerion’s counsel as well. Thank you, Ned.”
XXX
Maester Gordon slapped the imaginary dust of his hands and nodded. “Not bad,” he said approvingly. “Not half bad at all.”
Beside him Lord Captain of the Port Franlan Shipwright added his own nod. The object of their approval was the towers that sat at the ends of the two moles protecting Myr harbor. The original towers, glorified guardhouses really, had been worn down by the continuous assault of wind and wave, combined with official neglect; during the old wars the Quarrelsome Daughters had almost never attacked each other directly. And even if they had, their fleets would have seen off any such attack handily enough, so there had been no incentive to heavily fortify their harbors.
The Kingdom of Myr, however, couldn’t take that risk. Their fleet had maintained its honor in the war, but even protecting Myr city had taken almost all of their ships. Moreover, the Royal Fleet was actually shrinking; almost a sixth of the Ironborn were sailing back to the Isles to either inherit or enjoy their newfound wealth, most notably Harras Harlaw. So, it had been decided by the small council that each port in the Kingdom would be required to be able to defend itself, thereby freeing up the Fleet to contest the seas. In Myr city, that defense had taken the form of two heavy springalds in each of the two towers on the landward ends of the harbor moles and the two new towers. These towers, Tygett’s Tower to the west and Leofric’s Tower to the east, were horseshoe-shaped constructions of stone some ten feet tall with walls five feet thick, and housed three heavy springalds on their single level of battlements, their handlers, and a score of crossbowmen each. The causeways atop the moles running out to them had been reinforced with an uncrenellated wall as tall as a man facing the sea, and plans were in hand to add a harbor chain to the setup when the funds were available.
Which, with any luck at all, would be soon, given the reason why so much effort had been spent on fortifying the harbor. With the cessation of the war, trade had come flooding into Myr like a tidal wave, so that the harbor was filled with ships. Braavos, King’s Landing, Gulltown, Planky Town, White Harbor, Saltpans, Maidenpool, and Oldtown all seemed to have an insatiable appetite for Myrish glassware, carpets, and lace, and the Glassblower’s Guild and the Weaver’s Guild, now composed entirely of freedmen working for wages, had risen to the challenge magnificently. As the head of the Weaver’s Guild had explained, there was a world of difference between being forced to work for the profit of people who didn’t deserve your labor, and working for your own profit at a trade that you could take pride in. The Crossbowmaker’s Guild had also seen business pick up; Stannis of Westeros had ordered a hundred crossbows as a trial, with the option to expand the order to as many as five thousand. A similar order from Braavos had driven the Crossbowmaker’s Guild to expand its workforce by almost half again in order to meet the foreign orders while keeping up with domestic demand. The Ironborn, those that could be spared from training the freedmen who had volunteered for the Royal Fleet and the construction of the new town of Ironhold down the western coast, were making a pretty penny both from carrying cargos in their own holds and by contracting out as escorts; the end of the war hadn’t put a stop to piracy
All of this was fueled by the expansion of the Iron Bank into Myr. Vito Nestoris, who had recently been declared the Iron Bank’s agent-in-residence for Myr, had recently drawn up an instrument with Ser Wendel Manderly whereby the Iron Bank had been declared the Kingdom of Myr’s lender of last resort; that document, which had amounted to the Iron Bank underwriting the exchequer of the Kingdom of Myr, had made previously skeptical traders, moneylenders, and other merchants much more confident that the Myrish guilds would be able to deliver the goods. The fact that the Iron Bank had explicitly guaranteed only the royal government and not the guilds was, it was widely agreed, not strictly relevant. Without the guilds driving the flow of money, the royal government would quickly become insolvent, the surplus of the produce grown in the hinterland would rot in the fields for lack of paying customers in the city and abroad, and the whole economy of the kingdom would grind to a halt. If the guilds failed, then the royal government would be all but forced to prop them up. And their ability to do that had just been guaranteed by the Iron Bank.
“I mislike this dependence on the Braavosi,” grumbled Franlan, who had evidently been following Gordon’s train of thought. “We saw much of them in Myr before the siege, as traders, and their First Law did not seem to prevent their making a profit off the work of slaves, so long as those slaves were in a foreign land.” He glowered at an otherwise inoffensive Braavosi ship in the act of exiting the harbor. “But I suppose that we must work with the tools that come to our hands.”
“And the Braavosi have the potential to be a very fine tool indeed,” Gordon agreed. “We haven’t had to ask them for a loan yet, or so I hear, so that source of income should be ready to hand if we need it.” He made a face. “Which we almost certainly will, if we are to complete the fortification program in a timely fashion.” Myr city wasn’t the only place that required improvements to its defensive capabilities. Every town on the coast was required by the Crown to have a stone wall and at least two towers, one overlooking the main gate and the other protecting the harbor mouth, if they had one. Every village was required to have a wall encircling the main cluster of homes and shops. The three main towns of Ceralia, Sirmium, and Campora were already walled, so the only requirement that had been laid on them was to ‘make any repairs or improvements that the King’s Fist shall deem necessary and proper.’
All of this had to be paid for with a river of gold. Fortifications were expensive, enough so that the erecting of castles was beyond the reach even of most lords. As a result, when Gordon had been given the task of designing the fortified places of the realm, he had opted for simplicity. A ditch ten feet deep would provide a significant obstacle for a formed body of attackers, especially when the earth that had been excavated to form the ditch was piled up along the inner perimeter of that ditch to form a rampart. Where stone was unavailable or prohibitively expensive, a palisade of stakes would provide the parapet, and the towers would also be made out of rammed earth and wood.
Even with these cost-saving measures, however, the fortification of the realm would take up a significant portion of the Crown’s revenue, most of which would come from the various tolls and fees generated by Myr’s harbor. Hence the importance placed on protecting that vital district. He had seen his father work on enough large and complicated projects to know that some damned thing always went wrong, or took too long, or cost more than advertised, or broke on first use and needed replacing at the last moment, invariably requiring more money to correct the problem. And for now, the biggest money maker available to the realm was Myr harbor.
“You’ll be off down the coast next?” Franlan asked, raising an eyebrow.
Gordon nodded. “First to Ironhold, to help Lord Greyjoy get things in proper order,” he replied. “Then down the coast to Celsa, Navio, and Cillium to make sure they’re up to regulation. Then back inland, to make a tour of the hinterland with my Pioneers and help the villagers get themselves in shape.” He shrugged. “Which could take anywhere from several months to a year or more. Has to be done though.”
Franlan nodded. “To borrow from Lord Stark, wars are coming,” he rumbled.
Chapter 45: Oaths
Chapter Text
Oaths
Robert was just finishing his correspondence for the day when his secretary, a former scribe-slave named Maran, opened the door. “Your Grace,” he said in his soft and slightly timid voice, “Septon Jonothor requests a moment of your time.”
Robert’s brows beetled in a pensive frown as he returned his quill to its inkpot. “By all means,” he said, “send him in.” He hadn’t expected a visit from Jonothor, but he could always make time for the man who had put the crown on his head. Especially since he didn’t make a habit of requesting audiences for frivolous reasons.
When Jonothor came in Robert’s frown deepened; he had never seen the septon so out of sorts. Jonothor’s severe, angular face was drawn and his jaw clenched, like a man trying to hold back vomit. His hands had picked up a slight tremble from somewhere, and he walked with the slow, deliberate gait of a man holding onto his self-control by his fingernails. As Jonothor bowed Robert waved impatiently. “Sit down, man, sit,” he insisted, gesturing at the chair on the other side of his desk. “No need for formality, we’re not in court.”
Which was true; Robert’s solar was one of the larger rooms in the royal suite, but it was still meant as an informal reception room as much as a workplace. Aside from the desk with its pair of chairs, there were a few other chairs and a low table with parchment, quills, and ink by the fireplace, a sideboard with a selection of good wines, and a small kettle for mulling them when winter came. Which, the gods willing, would not be for some years yet; Robert was unsure as to how well the Kingdom of Myr could withstand a winter without at least a year or two of peace beforehand to prepare for it. “Drink for you?” Robert asked, gesturing at the sideboard. “You look like you could do with one.
“No, thank you Your Grace,” Jonothor said hoarsely. “I have come to inform you that I will be sailing for King’s Landing on the morning tide. I am summoned to the Great Sept of Baelor.”
Robert blinked. “Forgive me,” he said, “but I was under the impression that you had been sent here with us specifically because the Great Sept wanted you out of their sight. What do they want you back for?”
Jonothor reached into his cassock and drew out a scroll. “This,” he replied, handing over the scroll with a slight rustle as his hand trembled involuntarily, “will explain.”
Robert accepted the scroll, unrolling it to find a bull fixed with the seal of the High Septon. As he laboriously read through the flowery High Andalic of the bull, his frown deepened and deepened, so that by the time he reached the end he wore a scowl like a wrathful pagan deity. “What in the bowels of the Hells are they on?” he asked in a growl. “After that mess with Jaspar, I know you don’t exactly see eye to eye with the High Septon and the Most Devout, but you’re not a heretic!” Catching himself, he co*cked an eyebrow. “Are you?”
Jonothor shrugged. “It is true that I have gone beyond the bounds of canon law,” he admitted, “but always in a fashion that I believe to be consistent with the teachings of the Seven-Pointed Star and the commandments of the gods. I have never denied the supremacy of the Seven, or their number and constitution, nor have I altered the Divine Office beyond the prescribed bounds.” He shrugged again. “In any case, it will all come out at the trial,” he went on. “Under canon law, I have the right to face my accusers and name an advocate to present evidence in my defense. I still have a few friends in Westeros who would be willing to defy the Most Devout.”
Robert laid the scroll down on the table and leaned back in his chair. “How confident are you that you can win an acquittal?” he asked bluntly.
Jonothor spread his hands. “Before an impartial court, I would be reasonably confident,” he replied. “As it is, I doubt that the Most Devout would be a model of impartiality in my case. Accused heretics do not usually find favorable listeners at the Great Sept. Have you heard of Jon Wicleff?”
Robert frowned. “Name rings a bell,” he said slowly, “but I can’t place it.”
“He was another who believed that the Faith needed to change,” Jonothor explained, “and in arguing so he ran afoul of the Great Sept. His death was suitably gruesome.” Jonothor bowed his head. “The Stranger waits for us all,” he said somberly, “and although I would rather keep him waiting a while longer, I will accept whatever judgment the Father levies upon me.”
Robert frowned. “The Faith can’t actually execute you, can’t they?” he asked. “As I recall, someone sentenced to death by the Faith must be handed over to secular authority to be actually executed.”
“That much is true,” Jonothor admitted, “but I cannot foresee the Most Devout encountering any difficulty in that regard. King Stannis is, by all reports, a dutiful son of the Faith, if not an enthusiastic one.” He stood. “By your leave, Your Grace, I have some final business to attend to before I leave tomorrow.”
“No you don’t,” Robert said, having made his decision between one word and the next. “You aren’t going anywhere.”
Jonothor froze, blinking rapidly. “Your Grace,” he said slowly, as if to a somewhat dense child, “I am summoned to the Great Sept. One does not simply refuse such a summons.”
“One does when the summons is illegal,” Robert replied. “Listen, whatever heresy you did, you did in the Kingdom of Myr, correct?” At Jonothor’s hesitant nod he plunged ahead. “So even if the Most Devout were able to judge you, they would have to hand you over to me for execution. And since I will not do so, there is no point to you making such a long journey and undergoing such dangers when you don’t need to.”
Jonothor opened his mouth, then closed it. “The argument has some merit,” he allowed finally, “but it ignores the central issue. If you give me safe harbor, Your Grace, then you will declare yourself to be an abettor of heresy and an enemy of the Faith.” He spread his hands. “I submit, Your Grace, that your kingdom has enough enemies already without adding the Faith to their ranks.”
Robert stood. “Have you forgotten the oaths I swore?” he asked softly. “The oaths you witnessed when you put the crown on my head? I swore to defend the faiths of my people, to uphold the rights of their clergy, and to protect them against all their enemies, wheresoever they may arise.” He shrugged. “If the Most Devout choose to make themselves the enemy of my people, then they can take the consequences.”
Jonothor shook his head. “Your responsibility to the rest of your people outweighs your responsibility to me,” he replied. “The Faith can be one of the strongest pillars of this kingdom, along with the Royal Army and the Red Temple. Even if the Seven never claim more than a third to a half of the smallfolk, they will still provide another means of binding them and the Faithful nobility to the kingdom and its mission of destroying slavery. If, on the other hand, that prop is turned against this kingdom . . .” Jonothor grimaced. “Imagine this kingdom placed under interdict, Your Grace. The Divine Office unsaid, the dead unable to be buried with the rites of the Faith or in sacred ground, the sacraments unperformed, the septs closed . . .” He shook his head. “Better that I should suffer whatever penalty the Faith levies upon me than that I should bring down such a fate upon the people who look to me for spiritual guidance.”
Robert leaned forward, planting his knuckles on the desk. “Let them,” he rumbled, his brows furrowing again. “We shall reopen the septs and celebrate the sacraments anyway.”
Jonothor’s jaw dropped, his face turning white. “Your Grace,” he stammered, “are you seriously proposing to lead the kingdom into schism deliberately?”
“That is exactly what I am proposing,” Robert said. “I am the King of Myr, not the High Septon, and I will not be dictated to by some soft-handed dress-wearing pimp who has done less for my kingdom than the least of my soldiers.” He tilted his head to look past Jonothor. “Maran!” he roared. “Get in here!”
As Maran scuttled in, Robert pushed himself away from the desk and squared his shoulders. “Take dictation,” he told his secretary, who situated himself at the fireplace table and took up a quill. “To His Holiness the High Septon,” Robert began. “I have been told of your excommunication of my trusty and well-beloved friend Septon Jonothor from the Faith and your summoning of him to King’s Landing to answer the charge of heresy. Upon interviewing Septon Jonothor myself, in my office as Defender of the Faiths, I have determined that he has done nothing to warrant such treatment, and that both the order of excommunication and the summons to appear are thereby invalid. Septon Jonothor has at every point in his service with the Sunset Company and the Kingdom of Myr acted in accordance with the highest traditions of the Faith, has earned the gratitude of the Crown for his deeds multiple times, and retains the complete faith of the people of his parish, his fellow septons, and of myself in both my office as King and in my private person. Accordingly, I have directed him to remain at his post in the First Sept of Myr and continue in the duties of his office.” He nodded. “Add the usual salutations, but none of the usual pleasantries; I want to convey my displeasure at him. Write up a fair copy tonight and I’ll review it with the Small Council tomorrow.”
As Maran left the room, Jonothor bowed low. “Your Grace,” he said humbly, “I truly appreciate your willingness to protect me, but I fear that you are making a grievous mistake. The Faith is not an ordinary enemy.”
“Jon Arryn, Tywin Lannister, Hoster Tully, and Mace Tyrell all told me that I was making a grievous mistake when I abdicated the Iron Throne and formed the Sunset Company,” Robert replied, gesturing broadly at the room. “And behold, here we are. If I have learned anything, Jonothor, it is that there is nothing that cannot be overcome with sufficient courage, skill, and might.” He bared his teeth. “How many companies does the High Septon have?” he asked rhetorically.
XXX
“You’re too f*cking slow!!” the exiled knight roared, all but dancing in rage. “Spur up, man, spur up! Faster, faster, fast-oh for f*ck’s sake!” There was a thump as the trainee’s lance hit the shield on the quintain, a creaking as the quintain’s arms revolved around the central post, and then another thump, this one rather heavier, as the sackful of wet sand on the other arm caught the trainee on the back of the head and knocked him off his horse to land heavily on the packed earth of the lists. The exiled knight snatched off his cap and dashed it to the ground with a cry of “Godsdamnit!” and strode towards the line of other trainees who were sitting their horses on the other end of the lists.
“Are those lily wands?!” he demanded. “Are you soldiers?! You’re supposed to kill the other bastards; at that speed you won’t even tickle them! It’s enough to make the knightly aura of my blood turn to effluent!” He propped his fists on his hips as he glared at the trainees, who for their part stared at him with a sort of paralyzed fixation. “How many times do I have to tell you?” he demanded. “You lock your lance under your arm, you lean forward, you dig your spurs in, you get your nag up to speed, and you don’t stop this side of Hellgates! It’s not difficult when you do it right! Now again, from the top! You!” He aimed a finger at the trainee at the right end of the line. “Take your mark! And show some spirit this time or so help me gods I will put some on the end of my co*ck and ram it up your arse!”
Daario Naharis shrugged to himself as the trainee in question heeled his horse forward. The exiled knight, a Second Son who had been exiled from the Reach for murder, attempted kidnap, and chronic inability to pay his debts, had an abrasive manner that was exacerbated by his short temper, but he was universally recognized as the best lancer in Tyroshi service, so the men he was trying to turn into Andal-style armored lancers put up with him. And to give him his due, he was doing a decent job of it; the sellswords he was training not only knew how to ride, but they also knew how to use weapons from horseback, thereby removing the first problem of training a cavalry recruit. In further aid of the matter, the men he was training were throwing themselves at the problem with the determination of men whose livelihood was in danger. The few Stormcrows who had survived Tara had told enough stories of fighting the Andal heavy cavalry to impress upon even the densest listener that the future of cavalry warfare in the Disputed Lands was the armored lancer deployed in mass. A company that could field such cavalry in numbers was a company that would not only be able to survive the coming wars, but come out of them in a position to dominate the market.
Fortunately their employers were also sensing the tide of progress. While Tyrosh was more famous for its armor than its blades, the Andal-style arming sword with its rigid, diamond-cross-sectioned blade and needle-like point was easy enough to copy for a decent armorer and the number of skilled armorsmiths who called Tyrosh home meant that every heavy cavalryman could be equipped with at least a sword, a breastplate, a pot helm, and tassets. Provided, of course, they were willing to cover the cost of their new equipment, either in hard coin or on credit against their pay. Daario snorted to himself; trust merchants to find ways to make or save money, even with a hard and brutal war in the offing. If anything the Tyroshi did was going to undermine their chances of victory, it was the ingrained impulse to turn a profit on the fighting, or at least minimize any losses.
He glanced at the lances each trainee was using. Especially when their enemies give them a push in that regard, he thought sourly.
The simple fact was that armies used a lot of seasoned wood. Lances, crossbows, tent poles, spear-shafts, axe handles, carts, saddle-trees, barrels . . . the list went on and on. Lances and spear-shafts, in particular, required relatively long, straight, and knot-less lengths of ash or fir or oak. Ships required even more wood, again in the form of long, straight, knot-free boards. That required trees, and one of the few things that Tyrosh did not have either in its mainland domains or on its island possessions was an abundance of suitable trees; centuries of ship-building and other construction had denuded the Disputed Lands and the Stepstones both of forests worthy of the name. The few that remained were more on the order of groves than proper woodlands, and were mostly maintained to provide hunting grounds for the Tyroshi nobility.
Ordinarily, this would not be a problem; Tyroshi merchants had been buying timber from the Stormlands for generations, and the commercial contacts that had been forged in the process were strong and extensive. The problem was that, again, the old paths in which the affairs of the Narrow Sea had walked for so long had been jarred awry. Westerosi merchants that for years and years had called Tyroshi merchants their friends and partners suddenly had no time for them and no words beyond curses; the raids of the Myrish exiles against the Westerosi mainland had soured their hearts and illustrated to them that their erstwhile partners were now at least the hosts of their enemies, if not enemies themselves. And then the Braavosi had gotten involved.
The Tyroshi timber cartel had paid one hundred silver ducats per hundredweight of seasoned timber landed on the docks of Tyrosh. The Sealord of Braavos, it seemed, was now offering one hundred and fifty silver dinars per hundredweight of seasoned timber on the docks of Stonhelm, the main port of exit for exported Stormlands timber, as well as the cost of shipping the timber to Braavos if a Westerosi ship was so contracted, payable either in hard coin or in sight drafts on the Iron Bank, which were as good as coined gold from Lorath to Qarth. Similar offers in King’s Landing, Gulltown, and White Harbor combined to effectively shut Tyrosh out of the Westerosi timber market. Ordinarily this could have been compensated for by buying Qohorik timber through Volantis, but there were problems there too. Volantis was casting covetous eyes up the Rhoyne towards Dagger Lake, and in consequence the Qohorik were cutting back on the amount of timber they were allowing to be shipped downriver. What little did come down the Rhoyne was almost immediately bought up by the Triarchs, who also needed all the wood they could get to supply the needs of their new army.
The result was that the new heavy cavalry of Tyrosh, and the spearmen of the citizen’s militia, were training with cast-iron poles instead of lances and spears, which would be issued from the city arsenal in the event of war. Daario knew that there was a side benefit to the necessity in that it would strengthen the men’s arms more than they would be otherwise, but it was still best to train with the weapons you were actually going to fight with, if at all possible. The Archon had sent agents to Oldtown and Lannisport seeking timber, but those voyages would take months if not years to bear fruit, and the Tyroshi fleet had claimed first priority on the first shipment of seasoned timber, in order to retain their numeric edge over the Myrish.
Daario sighed as the third trainee in the line walked his horse forward to take his turn at the quintain. One problem at a time, old son, he reminded himself. Sufficient to the day is the difficulty thereof.
Chapter 46: Better to Marry than to Burn
Chapter Text
Better to Marry than to Burn
Serina Phassos sighed and shook her head at the sight of the black eye on her brother Adaran’s face. “What was it this time?” she asked wearily. “Did someone compose an inferior sonnet to the Nightingale’s eyebrow?”
Adaran gave her the sidelong look that every long-suffering younger sibling has given their nosy, interfering elders down the centuries. “No,” he said, drawing out the word not quite long enough for insolence, “that slaver-lover Illyros Forin said that we should let the Kingdom of Myr fight its own battles. I disputed his position.”
Serina co*cked an eyebrow as she sat down at the table. “A fist is a tool of debate now?” she asked, glancing up as one of the kitchen maids brought in a basket of rolls. “Thank you, Minysa,” she said politely, drawing a smile from the maid; the superiority of master to servant went without saying, as her mother had taught her, but a noblewoman of Braavos never treated the help like slaves. Part of that was knowing their names and thanking them for service done well and promptly.
“Seems to be working well enough for the Andals,” Adaran replied, seizing a roll and splitting it in half with his knife. “The slavers operate on fear and power anyway,” he went on, buttering his roll as he did so. “If you want to talk to them, it helps to speak their language.”
Their father Ballario glanced up from his slice of frittata to fix Adaran with a look that was no less steely for being mild. “The Forins aren’t slavers,” he said brusquely. “I should know; I’ve been in business with them for forty years. Make sure you’re certain of your target before you loose your words, boy.”
Adaran returned his father’s look. “I know they’re not slavers, father,” he said reasonably, “but what are we supposed to call those who do business with the slavers and close their eyes to the fact of slavery? Which is more vile; the one who commits a crime, or the one who stands aside and allows it to be committed?”
Ballario’s gaze hardened. “Enough, boy,” he said definitively. “I do not dispute the question, but I will not allow you to insult my partners under my roof.” Adaran opened his mouth to continue the argument, but closed it as Ballario’s gaze became adamantine. Standing from his chair he bowed shortly and strode away, his hand darting out to filch another roll as he went. Serina watched her brother walk away and sighed softly through her nose. The Moonsingers knew she loved her younger brother dearly, but he needed to learn not to provoke their father so.
Ballario blew his cheeks out as he leaned back in his chair. “I’m sorry you had to see that, my dear,” he said to her. “Strife in a family is an ill thing, be it never so mild.”
Serina shrugged slightly. “Better that I know of it, at least,” she replied. “If only to know it exists.”
Her father gestured acknowledgement. “Even so,” he rumbled, in the mildly embarrassed tone that colored his words whenever such matters arose. He shook his head. “Adaran’s a good lad, but he will let his heart run away with his head so. It’s that damned faction he’s fallen into, these Sharks as they call themselves. Pack of idle louts whose families don’t give them enough work and let them run to mischief.” He shook his head again, like a bull pestered by flies. “When I was a lad, young men of that age were kept too busy to get up to devilment.”
Serina toyed with her frittata. “From what my friends tell me, the Whales aren’t much better,” she offered. “Nilona told me yesterday that her brothers have been present at four fights in the past six days, and three of them provoked by Whales.”
The Sharks and the Whales were the two factions that had sprung up in Braavosi politics since the end of the First Slave War; the names had originated as derogatory insults that had quickly been adopted. The Sharks favored joining the Kingdom of Myr in their crusade against slavery, not simply with monetary aid but with arms. To the ships! was their cry. Spread the First Law at the sword’s point! Remind the slavers why they fear the Titan! They were mostly young hotheads, as her father had said, but they also counted magisters among their number, and a frankly disturbing number of soldiers and fleet sailors eager to wipe out the stain of paying tribute to Khal Zirqo the Faithless.
The Whales, by contrast, preferred to keep their involvement in the fray to a minimum. They saw little point, or so they claimed, in spending Braavosi treasure and blood when the Kingdom of Myr not only did both so well, but placed their treasury effectively at the mercy of the Iron Bank. Let the Andals shoulder the burden they had assumed, they said, and let them carry Braavos to new heights of wealth and influence in the Narrow Sea.
Her father nodded. “And my own friends have told me of more such outbursts,” he said. “Common brawls and proper duels both. No one has died yet, but the Night Watch fears the worst.” He waved a hand. “But enough of such talk,” he went on, his voice turning brisk. “You’ve had four days and nights to consider Magister Nestyris’ offer on behalf of his son; what say you?”
Serina spread her hands. “If it is your will that I accept, father, than I shall certainly do so,” she said guilelessly. “But is it entirely fitting for one of our house to marry a younger son of a family that only reached the rank of magister three years ago? You said yourself that you would have no tradesman for a son-in-law.”
“Tradesman, bosh,” Ballario replied. “The Nestyris’s are perfectly respectable, and their second son is a good young man, or so I have heard.”
“A good young man who has yet to make his first voyage,” Serina rejoined. “Surely you would not force me to wed an untested youth, father?”
“I would see you wed to a good man, and that quickly,” her father said seriously. “You and Adaran are the only heirs in the direct line of this house, and I know my cousins for the spendthrift wastrels they are. I will not suffer them to lay claim to your inheritance, girl, or Adaran’s.”
Serina bowed her head. She knew the law; in the event that a minor child had no living parents, custody passed to their nearest living relative, with preference shown to the male line. And with custody of their persons came control of their inheritance and their betrothal and marriage until they came of age. Her father was past sixty, and the brown had long since leached out of his hair and beard; she and her younger brother had been born late in their parents’ lives, and their mother had died birthing a stillborn daughter. If, all the gods prevent, her father died before either of them attained their majority, then they would certainly be at the mercy of their father’s cousins, the best of whom simply had a weakness for gambling that was matched by his ineptitude. The thought of their house being mortgaged or even sold in order to pay off his debts, or of being forced into a marriage to one of their cousins’ more unsavory business partners, simply did not bear thinking of.
And while Adaran might be able to resist or flee, she would have no such recourse. Indeed, even the worst case would appear to outsiders to be only the fulfilling of familial obligation. At sixteen she was old to be unbetrothed; the average age of betrothal among the Braavosi magisters was fourteen or fifteen, for girls and boys both. This, it was acknowledged but never explicitly stated, was so that young men going on their first voyage in the City’s trading fleets had something more than mere filial obligation and patriotic duty to prevent them from jumping ship in a foreign land for romance’s sake or, even more shocking, bringing a foreign bride back to the City. It happened on occasion, but social opprobrium meant that such marriages rarely prospered.
All of which meant that she had to either marry or at least become betrothed, and soon; even a marriage of convenience would be better than one of force. The problem was that none of the unattached men of her age and station were men that she could consider living the rest of her life with without being bored out of her mind.
And while some of her friends might come near to swooning at the thought of being carried away by some dashing, handsome, chivalrous Andal knight, much to the vexation of their brothers and cousins, Serina had no such illusions. Her station and her family’s wealth meant that she had to marry for the sake of advantage more than anything, and a rich lordling who had turned his back on land and fortune to fight in a worthy cause, or a hedge knight dreaming of fortune and glory, would have little to offer her family.
And besides, for her to succumb to such fantasies would smack of hypocrisy. Had she not called two of her closest friends a pair of fools just yesterday for dreaming too long on the thought of marrying Jaime Lannister or Robert Baratheon?
XXX
Eddard looked across the training yard to where Robert was exercising at one of the pells and frowned pensively. Ordinarily, when Robert was at the pell, he fought the man-high oak post almost as if it were a living opponent, dancing about it on the balls of his feet and darting back and forth to strike at it with his hammer, surprisingly light-footed for a man his size. Today, however, Robert had simply squared up to the pell and was methodically beating at it with his hammer, chips flying from where the blunt serrations on the striking face of his hammer had gouged at the wood.
It wasn’t like Robert to practice so sloppily; there was always the temptation for a man as large and strong as Robert to neglect their mobility in favor of raw strength and heavy armor, but their masters-of-arms had never let Robert fall into that trap. And Robert had continued those habits after leaving the Eyrie. Something, therefore, was out of joint.
He turned to Saul, who had recently become his squire and was almost painfully keen to learn how to fight. “Pair with Daimh, tell him I said he was to teach you the guard of the boar,” he said. Saul nodded and trotted over to where Daimh was supervising some of the newer household men at drill, while Eddard walked across the yard towards Robert, shouldering his longsword. “If you’re trying to cut that thing down, I would suggest an axe,” he said lightly, making Robert pause and look at him dully. Eddard blinked; Robert looked terrible. His face was drawn, his eyes red, and he looked more subdued than he had since King’s Landing. “Are you all right, brother?” he asked. “You look like someone drank all your beer.”
Robert let the haft of his hammer slip through his fingers until the butt hit the ground and folded his hands over the hammerhead. “I asked Alaesa to marry me,” he said wearily. “She refused. Said she wasn’t cut out to be a queen and anyway women like her didn’t get to be queens. They just got to live in comfort all their days and bear the children that men didn’t feel like giving their wives.”
“Ah,” Eddard said, nodding in acknowledgement, before gesturing with the hand that wasn’t holding his longsword on his shoulder. “Well, as hints go, at least it’s pretty clear . . .”
“Damn you Ned, it’s not funny,” Robert snapped, a thread of anger entering his voice. “I swore, after Pentos, that I wouldn’t treat a woman like a whor*. If I keep Alaesa as a mistress, I would be doing exactly that, and I wouldn’t even be able to have the excuse of ignorance this time.” He sighed gustily, looking down towards the short-mowed grass. “She’s the only woman who’s been able to make me laugh, actually laugh, since Lyanna,” he said softly. “I know I have to marry, and that quickly, but I don’t want to marry some brainless bint with nothing of worth but her name and her womb. I’m owed a bit more happiness than that, surely?”
Eddard nodded again, then jerked his head towards the rest of the yard. “Come on, let’s spar.”
Robert shook his head. “I’m not . . .” he began.
“Best thing for you,” Eddard said over him. “Get your mind off Alaesa for a little while at least.”
Robert stood looking at the ground for a moment more, almost like one of the more brooding statues of the Warrior, before looking up and nodding. “Fine then,” he said. “But not with longswords. I saw your match against Jaime; I’m not in the mood to look like an ox.”
“Arming sword and buckler,” Eddard promised.
A few moments later the two foster brothers were standing towards the edge of the training yard, having swapped longsword and hammer for their arming swords and a buckler apiece. The first exchange was slow and almost tentative, ending with a wrist cut from Eddard that came to rest on the inside of Robert’s knee, but afterwards they became faster and more forthright, until eventually Eddard and Robert were throwing cuts almost as hard and fast as they would have thrown them at Tyroshi regulars and raising a discordant cling-ting-scring of metal on metal. Their last exchange ended in Eddard catching Robert’s blade in an elegant bind, whereupon Robert dropped blade and buckler both to rush in, wrap his arms around Eddard’s midriff, heave him bodily off his feet and throw him to the ground with a powerful writhing twist like a massive python, and almost draw his rondel dagger before he remembered that this was his brother-in-all-but-blood that was pinned underneath him. Slowly he got to his feet, hauling Eddard along with him.
“You really are getting better,” he said. “You wouldn’t have even tried that last bind when we were at the Vale.”
“Of course not, since I only learned it two sennights ago,” Eddard replied, handing sword and buckler off to Saul, who had been watching them wide-eyed along with all the rest of Eddard and Robert’s households that were currently at drill. As Daimh and Ser Dafyn Otley roared the cheering men back to their exercises, Robert and Eddard strode over to one of the wooden benches that were scattered around the periphery of the training yard. Saul met them there with a canteen of watered wine each and hovered a moment more until Eddard raised an eyebrow at him and nodded towards Daimh. “Saul’s a good lad,” he told Robert. “A bit too eager, though. If he hadn’t been under strict orders to remain with the baggage train he’d have jumped into Narrow Run with both feet, and him barely fourteen.”
“Better to have to restrain the stallion than prod the mule,” Robert replied. “He’ll learn.” He tipped back his canteen for a pull and wiped his mouth with his the back of his hand afterwards. “I’ll ask Alaesa again tomorrow,” he said. “Who knows, maybe she’ll have changed her mind.”
Eddard shook his head. “Only if you want to forfeit her regard for you,” he said firmly. “You asked her, she said no, that ends the matter. Part of not treating a woman like a whor* is respecting her choices.” At Robert’s raised eyebrow he shrugged. “I’ve only been married a few months, but I learned that much in the first sennight.”
Robert shook his head. “Maybe I should take a tip from you,” he said. “Go down to the docks, find a willing woman, and have her turn out to a desirable and worthy wife.”
“You truly think so?” Eddard asked. “When I married Amarya, I was no one important; simply the King of Myr’s mad dog who he kept around to set on his enemies. Who I married didn’t matter to anyone but me.” Which was no longer strictly true, given that Robert had granted him a wide swathe of lands bordering on the royal demesne around Myr city as a wedding gift. Calculating by acreage, Eddard was one of the two or three greatest men in the Kingdom of Myr. “You, on the other hand, are a king; who you marry matters a great deal indeed.” He took a sip from his canteen. “If you want my advice, after Alaesa’s refusal,” he went on, “then I would recommend that you look to Braavos for a wife. At the moment the Braavosi see us as customers, and a proxy who can do the lion’s share of the dying in this phase of their long war against slavery. If they see one of their own as our queen, and an heir to our throne that is half-Braavosi . . .” he shrugged.
Robert frowned. “You think that we might pull them into the war openly?” he asked.
“I think that it would make it harder for the peace party in Braavos, these Whales, as we’ve heard them called, to argue that we should be left to do all the fighting and dying if doing so weakens the position of a Braavosi citizen,” Eddard replied. “And if Gerion can finagle a treaty out of them at the same time that unequivocally states that Braavos will join us in the event of war, then we will have won the most powerful navy in the known world to our side. You know as well as I, brother, how much we need such a navy.”
Robert nodded. The Royal Fleet was growing again, but only slowly, and even after incorporating the remains of Erik Ironmaker’s fleet it still numbered only one ninety-five longships and fifty galleys. “I will think on it,” he conceded. “After I see Alaesa settled. And I say it now, Ned,” he looked Eddard in the eye. “Whoever I marry, Alaesa’s child will be a Baratheon. It was stories of my bastards that made Lyanna wary of marrying me; with the gods as my witness, I’ll not sire another child without giving them my name. To sh*t with the consequences.”
Eddard nodded slowly and deeply. “As you say, Your Grace.”
Author's note: My beta reader and I considered not having Braavosian politics split between a peace party and a war party, but it just made too much sense not to put in. Braavos has been coexisting with the slaver cities for centuries; it stands to reason that at least some of the Braavosi magisters and trading cartels would be reluctant to go to war against their customers and business partners.
Chapter 47: Ambition and Humility
Chapter Text
Ambition and Humility
Balon Greyjoy stared out the window as his maester finished reading the letter that had arrived that morning by raven from King’s Landing, doing his level best to contain the anger boiling through his veins. “Read that last part again,” he said, his voice rigid with self-control. “The part just before the salutation.”
There was a light cough as the maester cleared his throat and a soft rustle of parchment as he raised the letter again. “We require you, therefore,” he quoted in the calm voice of a professional reader, “in accordance with the law of the Realm, to forestall, stay, and prevent any attempt by Ser Harras to resume his place in the succession of House Harlaw or to assume the lordship of that House or any cadet branch thereof, by whatever means you deem fit and proper. Any aid you may require in this regard shall be provided. Given under our hand . . .”
Balon silenced him with a raised hand, not trusting himself to speak without losing his hold on his temper. By the God, the arrogance, he seethed in the privacy of his mind. That he, the Lord Reaper of Pyke, the Son of the Sea Wind, should be spoken to like some damned servant . . .
Ruthlessly he bottled his rage, forcing his still-raised hand to uncurl from the fist he had clenched it into. It had been difficult, the first few times, but he had gotten much better at it, over these past two years. The God knew he had plenty of practice.
Ever since his father had sailed away to the Dornish rebellion he had been given cause for fury, and no opportunity to remedy it. First he had been left in the Isles when there was blood to be spilled and reputations to be made; the only reputation Balon had made from that war had been that of a stay-at-home, and one who had come when called like a dog to boot, after Stannis had summoned him to Sunspear to pledge his fealty. Given a choice, Balon would have stayed on Pyke, but that would have risked Euron being asked to pledge fealty on his behalf, which would all to easily have led to the impression that, as Euron was the one who had done homage, it was Euron who was rightfully Lord of the Iron Isles.
And then his brother, his faithless, false-hearted, traitorous brother, had refused his direct command to come home and instead set himself up as a lord in his own right; a lord who welcomed all who found themselves dissatisfied with Balon’s rule, or who simply wanted to honor the Old Way as they couldn’t in the Isles. The flood of men, and not just runaway thralls and nameless karls, but fighting-men and lords, to join the traitor’s standard had been galling. Even worse, some of them were now coming back, telling tales to any who would listen of the wealth and fame that could be gained in the east, and the honor in which the Ironborn were held as the Kingdom of Myr’s seaward shield.
Balon spat out the window. As if it did not matter that to go to Myr was to become one of Robert the Brief’s dogs, little better than a hired hand. The Isles were poor, he admitted it, but here the sons of the sea were the masters of their fates, and answered to none but their freely chosen lords. Unfortunately, few of the Ironborn seemed to share his view of the situation; of the fifteen thousand trained warriors that House Greyjoy could theoretically call to their banner, barely eight thousand remained in the Isles. And those that remained were not all they might be. Many were older men, already settled with wives and families and reputations, while others either didn’t have the ambition to sail so far to make their reputations or were so troublesome and cross-grained that they couldn’t find a crew that would take them. Of the rest, a minority were established lords and their housekarls who had no need to seek fame and fortune in foreign lands, but many more simply didn’t like House Greyjoy to the point where even a rebel Greyjoy was unpalatable; those, Balon had learned, often spent their evenings muttering that the current occupant of the Seastone Chair was unworthy of it.
Not that Balon feared an attempt at overthrow; Pyke was not the richest or the largest of the islands, but his hold over those of his directly sworn warriors that still remained to him was still strong, and none of the potential usurpers had the strength to defeat him and every other claimant. For a certainty none of his other brothers would attempt it; Euron seemed content enough as one of Stannis’ lapdogs, Urrigon was a dullard, and Aeron was a drunk. And as popular as Victarion was, Balon was still the Lord Reaper, with the power and the ability to reward his followers that that entailed. He was not loved, but he was not openly hated or despised either.
And there were ways of winning the love of the Ironborn. He turned away from the window to fix his maester with a look. “Take dictation,” he said, driving the maester to produce parchment, quill, and ink. “To His Grace King Stannis,” he began, “I fail to understand the necessity of preventing Ser Harras’ assumption of his rightful inheritance. He has done good service in your brother’s wars, is a true and faithful son of the Isles, and has committed no crime for which he deserves to be disinherited. All this being so, I cannot justly or honorably forbid him from assuming his inheritance of Grey Garden and his place in the succession to the Lordship of Harlaw.” He waved his hand. “Add the usual titles and write out a fair copy for my signature.”
As his maester busied himself at the desk he turned back toward the window. Of all qualities the Ironborn respected courage and strength most of all, and the best way for him to show both in this situation was to champion his bannerman’s cause against the king, wherever that road led him. If nothing else his good-brother the Reader would be properly grateful; Harras was his cousin, after all. And if what he had heard of Harras’ deeds in the east was true, then he would be no mean personage himself in years to come. He would only be inheriting Grey Garden and not Harlaw itself, as the Reader had two living sons, but a man with a name such as Harras had earned in Myr would not be one to trifle with.
Although if Balon played his cards right, his name would grow to outshine even his treacherous brother’s. Victarion might bend the knee to a greenlander king and eat the scraps from his table, but Balon would stand tall and tell an even greater king where to shove his commands. He knew which course would earn greater respect from his people.
XXX
The Bahaan Bakery was one of the institutions of Blackpetal Lane. Owned and worked by the same family for three generations, it served almost every family in a three-block radius, as well as a few noble houses before the Siege, and it had done so with a consistency of quality, price, and quantity that had made them one of the most formidable bakeries in their district. Bakers starting a new shop knew better than to try and open a storefront in the area Bahaan’s served; they would never be able to survive, much less turn a profit.
Old Janos, the current patriarch of the Bahaan family, lived his life after the Siege in almost exactly the same way that he had done before it. Every day at the fourth hour before sunrise he awoke, along with his wife, his two adult sons and their wives, and his six grandchildren, and led them downstairs to light the ovens. That first ritual of the day done, he led them in a quick prayer to the Lord of Light; strictly speaking, the Dawn Prayer had to be said, well, at dawn, but High Priest Danikos had issued a dispensation to the city’s bakers in view of the fact that dawn saw them already hard at work, and High Priest Kalarus had confirmed it after his ascension.
Prayers finished, the bakery became a hive of activity as the family prepared for the day’s business. While the children put out the day-old bread and made sure the front of the store was swept and clean for their customers, the adults mixed the day’s dough. Janos led the storm of activity at the mixing and kneading counters as he had done every day for the forty years since his father’s early death, the precision with which he measured out water and flour and salt and yeast and the care with which he mixed and kneaded belied by the speed with which he did so. Under his knobby-knuckled hands a loaf of bread could go from raw ingredients to rising dough with almost unbelievable speed, faster even than his sons, whom he had taught every trick and secret he knew and had the strength and stamina of comparative youth to speed their work. There were things you learned in almost sixty years as a baker.
It was said that Janos Bahaan was the finest baker in the tradesmen’s district, perhaps the finest in Myr. He never said so himself, had never dreamed of saying so. To him it was simply his life, the life given to him when he had been born in the upstairs bedroom where he and his wife had brought their children into the world.
By the time that the last round of loaves were leaving the oven the sun was coming up, and the customers with it. Old Arario and Vogonno, the two City Watchmen who had walked the night patrol in their part of the district, had been killed in the sack that had followed the Siege, but they had been replaced by Varynno and Lazello, also City Watchmen of the night patrol, who on their way home from the Watch house stopped by to pick up a loaf apiece. Janos chatted with them briefly, as he had done with Arario and Vogonno, and learned that they had had a quiet shift, with no murders, only two robberies, and, unusually, a burglary. He assured them that he kept his windows locked during the nights (he did) and kept his valuables safely hidden (under a floorboard underneath the bed he shared with his wife for the most part, although his sons had convinced him to open an account with the Iron Bank that the weekly profit now went into) and they went on their way, Lazello ruffling the hair of Janos’ youngest grandson affectionately as he went.
Next there came the servants, maids and errand boys collecting the standing orders of those noble houses that Bahaan’s provided bread for; a noble house’s cook certainly could and would make bread, but that was the bread that was served on special occasions or to guests. The bread that the household ate on a day to day basis could only be provided in the necessary quantities by a dedicated bakery. They were paid servants now, not slaves, but the gossip was much the same, even if most of the names had changed; Lord So-and-So was in a temper about taxes, young Master Such-and-Such was chasing after Lord So-and-So’s daughter, Lady This-and-That was entertaining male callers while her husband was out on business. Janos responded to all of these little tales with a shake of the head, or a laugh, or a wry comment, or an exaggerated shrug, as the case called for, while he filled their baskets with their orders, and sent them on their way with thanks for their business and a kind word or two to those who seemed to need it.
Then there came everyone else; tradesmen, small merchants, notaries, day workers, students, City Watchmen, even a few soldiers seeking to supplement their daily rations with better bread than they received in the barracks kitchens. With these last Janos had initially decided to charge them less than the usual rate, in order to be on the safe side, but the soldiers had insisted on paying the full price; their sergeants, they had explained, would go spare if they found out that they were cheating their own people. Janos, in some bemusem*nt, had acquiesced, and had spread the word to his fellow bakers to not even think about cheating the soldiers. If a sergeant’s threatened wrath could make soldiers behave then a sergeant was a fearsome creature indeed, and not one that it would be wise to cross.
After the first rush of business the day settled into its usual ebb and flow. A slight lull in the mid-morning during which the family ate their second meal of the day (the first was usually eaten on the move, or in what few lulls existed in the pre-dawn hours) followed by another rush around noon as people who hadn’t gotten their loaves that morning got one for luncheon and one or two more for supper. A final spurt of activity occurred around the third hour past noon, when those who discovered that they didn’t have quite enough bread for supper dashed in to buy a loaf or two, and then the shop closed. But the daily work didn’t finish there. The children plied their brooms again, while the adults banked the oven fires and cleaned the counters; bakers learned to be fastidious from a young age, in order to stave off mice and ants, and Janos was a firm believer that if you took care of your store, then your store would take care of you.
The family ate supper earlier than non-bakers did, around five hours past noon, thanks to their earlier start to the day, and then the usual household affairs occurred. The grandchildren would take their lessons from their grandmother, Janos’ sons would do whatever work was needed around the store or the upstairs living quarters while their father calculated the daily take, and their wives would do whatever washing, sewing, or cleaning came to hand. It was a day like any other, and in the forty years since he had taken over the shop Janos had only missed twenty such days of work. Four for the births of each of his children (his two sons, a daughter who was now married to a butcher, and a second daughter who had been stillborn), three for the marriages of his children, eight for the births of his grandchildren (four from one son, two from the other, and two from his daughter), one when his mother had died, the day in which the city had been stormed, and the three days of the sack.
Bahaan’s had survived the sack of course; by law buildings containing bakeries had to be constructed entirely of stone, against the risk of fire, so what few fires had been set had posed no danger. And Janos had never owned a slave, had never had the wealth to buy and maintain one or the need for one, and he had been known as one who would give a sympathetic ear and a kind word to anyone, even if they wore collar and brand. Even in the artisan’s district they had heard that of him, and so he and his had been spared, thanks to the small band of former household slaves who had joined him and his sons in guarding the bakery and directed potential looters to look elsewhere.
Immediately after the sack had ended he had reopened the bakery. People didn’t stop needing bread simply because the world had been broken into pieces and reassembled in entirely the wrong order, after all. And more than that, Janos had needed the world to feel normal, after the sack, and the only way in which his world could be normal was to open the bakery and put in a solid day’s work. That had been noticed, and his name writ down somewhere, though he had known it not. If he had had his say his name would have been forgotten, but that was out of his hands. Lord Stark had not given much thought to the use of informants among the people of the city when he was the King’s Hand, but the new Hand, Ser Gerion or whatever his name was, had less faith in his fellow subjects it seemed. Which had led to the change in Janos Bahaan’s life.
It had been three months since the man had come to him and explained what the Hand wanted him to do. In most ways it was quite simple; do as he had done for forty years and more and listen to the talk of his customers, but this time remember what they said, and if anything struck him as dangerous or something that the Hand should know about, report it. And also report if there was nothing much to say in either regard, so that they would be able to know if someone was impersonating him.
That last part had struck Janos as really quite silly (Impersonate him, of all people?) but the man had been quite serious. It was a known device, he had said, his brow furrowed, and people had died because of it before. So after Janos finished calculating the daily take (reading, writing, and figuring were necessary skills for an independent man of business to have, even a baker, who was normally considered among the lower occupations worthy of a guild), he pulled a sheet of parchment across the desk towards him and began to write. It was the report which he was supposed to hand off to a courier once every sennight, and so far he had nothing of interest to report.
Oh to be sure, he had heard rumors of complaint; the Myrish noble class had been all but extinguished during the sack but the remaining rich merchants and burghers lived in fear and horror that they would be remembered and dragged out to their deaths, the guildmasters and the other rich men of the city complained about taxes, the few small ship captains who came through his door complained incessantly of the vagaries of wind and wave and trade, but everyone complained, didn’t they? Janos considered his life to be very nearly perfect, in its way, but even he had some complaints about how it had all gone. He could have done without his mother dying, for instance, and while time had dulled the pain hardly a day went by that he didn’t remember the daughter who hadn’t survived. And of course there were the myriad minor frustrations of everyday life. People went through hardships, they complained about them, and then, for the most part, they picked up and moved on. So those grumbles he didn’t set down in his report; they simply weren’t important, in his opinion.
Nor did he have any dangerous rumors to report. For pity’s sake, he ran a bakery not some smoky tavern down by the docks where you could buy a slit throat for the price of a mug of ale. It wasn’t as if foreign spies were going to walk through his door and spill their darkest secrets like rolls from a dropped basket.
So he simply wrote down the date and nothing of interest to report, folded the parchment carefully, and put it back in the ledger that only he and his wife ever touched and only he ever opened. Two more days, and he would be able to take it out, carry it into the alley behind the store, and leave it under a certain rock, where it would be replaced by a handful of copper coins; due consideration for his services, he had been given to understand, given the lack of danger in his work and the unlikelihood that he would uncover something worth silver or gold. Janos shrugged; he was a respectable man who ran the most successful bakery in the tradesmen’s district, it wasn’t as if he needed the money. He would never be rich, but he wouldn’t leave his family poor, ether, and in all honesty he was content with that much. An excess of money, he had observed over the years, seemed to act like some kind of disease that made a man incapable of thinking right. If he were the ambitious sort he might have thought about how high he could rise in the Crown’s service, but Janos was fundamentally an unambitious man. He was a baker, his father and grandfather had been bakers, and his sons and grandsons would be bakers. That was how the world worked.
He poured another mug of ale for himself and blew off the foam. He would much rather, he thought sourly, have never come to the Hand’s attention.
Chapter 48: All the Kings' Men
Chapter Text
All the Kings' Men
Ser Arthur Dayne reined his horse aside and then wheeled it back to review the company as it marched into the small square where it was to be welcomed back to Volantis. As the Company of the Dragon tramped past, he couldn’t help but feel a thrill of pride at the sight of them, one hundred and fifty knights and nine hundred heavy foot, spearmen and crossbowmen, marching proudly under the banner of the three-headed dragon. If only half of them were men of Westeros, that was only the more miraculous; that men who had never bent the knee to the Targaryens, who three months ago would have laughed in his face if he had commanded them to bend the knee, should now acknowledge Viserys Targaryen as their king.
Even better, the men were in high spirits. For the Essosi it was mere pride at an easy victory and a return to a city with good wine and good whor*s with a victory bonus in their pockets that was making them strut, but the Westerosi were even more changed. When they had marched out from the city they had done so correctly enough but there had been very little pride in the men who had suffered so many defeats and such an astonishing betrayal. But now they were returning from their first victory in a year; an easy victory perhaps but a triumph nonetheless, when set against the catastrophe of Tara and the escape from Myr. Arthur had not seen his men march with such pride since they had marched to the field of Tara, and the sight made his eyes prickle in a way that had nothing to do with the brightness of the day.
As they filed into the square a series of commands brought the lead banda to a halt, while the other two bandas marched off to either side to change the company’s formation from column of march to line of battle before the reviewing stand. A final command brought nine hundred right feet stamping to attention, while one hundred and fifty lances swept down in salute and Ser Garin Uller, the standard-bearer of the company and the newest knight of the Kingsguard thanks to his daring in the field, dipped the banner to the Triarch; only he, Arthur, Barristan, and Donys knew that he was really saluting King Viserys, who stood at the Triarch’s right hand, taller than Arthur remembered him with an almost unnaturally grave expression on his round child’s face and Barristan standing behind him like an alabaster statue.
While the Triarch, a kettle-bellied man resplendent in embroidered velvet and gold brocade, began to pontificate on the company’s recent victory against Mantarys, Arthur was already beginning to plan the next campaign the Volantenes would send them on. The signs, Donys had written to him, were unmistakable; the Triarchs meant to declare war on Qohor, taking advantage of the perceived distraction of the Braavosi towards the Disputed Lands to extend their dominion up the Rhoyne. Norvos, it seemed, did not figure into the Triarchs’ plan, although why that might be Donys could not say.
In any case, Arthur decided as the Triarch continued to declaim at his king’s soldiers, comparing them to the heroes of Old Valyria, a war up the Rhoyne, like any war, would take logistics and good troops. The logistics would be relatively easy, thanks to the abundance of river galleys, barges, and cargo boats that plied the River Rhoyne. The good troops, on the other hand, might prove troublesome. The citizen’s militia Donys had written to him about seemed good enough for catching arrows that might hit someone important, but they wouldn’t be able to match proper men-at-arms, much less the Unsullied that Qohor relied upon for the bulk of its fighting strength. The only fighters that Volantis had which might be able to do so were the tiger cloaks, the Golden Company, and the Company of the Dragon, and of those the tiger cloaks were unreliable thanks to their R’hllorist leanings and the Golden Company wasn’t the only-somewhat-welcome-guest that the Company of the Dragon was but a proper, genuine sellsword company. If their contract was paid off tomorrow they would have no problem simply marching away, unlike the Company of the Dragon.
Arthur concealed his distaste with the ease of long practice as the Triarch began to reach the end of his oration. If the Triarchs meant for the Company of the Dragon to be ground to pieces in the blood-mill of war, then he would have to find ways to prevent it. Or at the very least, to keep the grinding to a minimum.
XXX
Mace Tyrell smiled beatifically as he surveyed the scene in the great hall of the Red Keep. Ordinarily he didn’t like King’s Landing (an uglier, rougher, and more malodorous city even than Oldtown, so unlike his beauteous and well-ordered Highgarden), but he could make an exception for an occasion such as this. For it was a bright-shining day, there was peace from Dorne to the Wall, the gods were in their heavens, the flower of the South and the pick of the North were gathered in the capital, and King Stannis and Queen Cersei’s second-born child, only three months old, was being presented to the court.
Princess Joanna, she had been named; a lovely babe, all agreed, though how exactly this was decided Mace hadn’t the foggiest idea. One baby looked much like another, to his eyes. But even if she had been born ugly, the important thing was that she had been born alive and healthy and Queen Cersei seemed none the worse for it.
Even better, King Stannis had declared a holiday in honor of his daughter’s birth; the easiest way to soften the Grim Stag’s heart, it seemed, was to give him another child. And this time, there were no rebellions in the offing to spoil the festivities. To be sure the news from the Iron Isles was vaguely troubling, but Mace was not unduly worried. Whatever else Balon Greyjoy might be, he was not an utter fool. Surely he would see that provoking a war against the might of the Seven Kingdoms, united under a monarch as vigorous as Stannis, could only lead to an early grave. Not that there weren’t other ways to play the game of thrones, but the Ironborn had never had the patience for finesse.
For the most part the assembled nobility seemed to have caught the mood of jubilation and were reflecting it seven-fold. Even the usually sober Northmen were cheerful; Lord Bolton was smiling, which judging by rumor alone Mace would have judged impossible. The only man who seemed less than entirely content was, paradoxically, Tywin Lannister, whose habitually severe mien had softened but not to the point of smiling. The general agreement, judging by what Mace had heard, was that he was disappointed that his newest grandchild was a princess and not another prince to secure the succession. Mace, however, harbored a thought that it was the child’s name more than it’s gender that was the cause for the Old Lion’s attitude; by all accounts Tywin had truly loved his late lady wife, and for his granddaughter to be named after her must have dredged up at least a few painful memories.
Mace snorted softly. Spoilsport, he mentally chided the lord of Casterly Rock. Don’t you know that this is a celebration? Not that Mace strictly cared what Tywin thought at the moment, for his stock at court had ascended to new heights.
It had begun in the Red Viper Rebellion, when Mace had led his army into the Red Mountains. There had been no clashes to match the Battle of the Greenblood, thanks to the relative paucity of support for Oberyn among the Dornish marcher houses, but Stannis had publicly acknowledged that Mace’s efforts, and those of Lord Tarly as his chief lieutenant, had kept Western Dorne from declaring for the rebel, and helped to contain the spread of the rebellion. Even better the casualties had been light; enough to show the depth of the Reach’s commitment to the Baratheon dynasty, but not enough to cause unrest in the Reach. The only fly in the ointment had been the price that Oberyn had put on the head of Mace’s son Willas. Even for a Dornishman, that had been beyond the pale. Mace had invaded Dorne as a move in the game of thrones; it hadn’t been personal. Not until Randyll Tarly’s guards had caught the Dornishman creeping into Willas’ tent with a poisoned dagger.
Mace had gladly paid every golden stag of the price he had put on Oberyn’s head in return, and done it in person even, to make it clear how greatly he esteemed men who did him such service. Of course it had been made easier by Ser Rickon Riverbend being the sort of man he was. In Mace’s experience, and from what he had heard, most bastards who found themselves elevated to some rank went to the bad, either through dissolution facilitated by greater wealth or because they couldn’t see past the chip on their shoulder. But Ser Rickon had seemed not to have been so moved, despite the magnitude of his elevation; indeed he seemed a fine knight and a pious, good-natured man, if a touch over-courteous.
And the Royal Order of the Sun had been a fascinating concept. It was unlikely that he would be able to establish a similar order in the Reach, but he certainly planned to learn what he could of it. He had already made up his mind to send Loras to serve a term under the Order’s banner when he was ready to squire.
Mace shook his head and brought himself back to the present, allowing his smile to grow by a few more teeth as he did so. He had known his gift for the little princess would go over well.
There had been the predictable profusion of gold and silver and ivory rattles and toys from people of lesser imagination. Tywin had presented a masterfully worked and magnificently decorated little box from Qarth that played a simple musical tune on a series of trip-hammered strings by means of a pin-studded cylinder on a wound spring. Lord Captain Euron Greyjoy, Stannis’ favorite watch-dog of the Narrow Sea, had sent a scale model of his ship, the Unspeakable, that was perfect down to the little wooden figures of the crew on the deck and could apparently float. Brandon Stark had sent a cunningly wrought silver pendant of a single, almost impossibly intricate snowflake on a silver chain for the princess to wear when she was of a proper age. All perfectly acceptable gifts for a princess of one of the most powerful lineages in the world. But they had forgotten that Stannis prized practicality above simple display. Mace had not.
House Tyrell’s gift had been a selection of cuttings and seedlings from their personal gardens, carefully transported to the capital by a small company of gardeners to be replanted in the new gardens that had replaced the Dragonpit. Those gardens were to be a royal haven from the cares and troubles of governance, and a place where they could meet with their favorites and petitioners in less formal circ*mstances than might be allowable in the Red Keep. The Joanna Gardens, they were to be named, and both Stannis and Cersei were said to be determined that they were to be the finest gardens in Westeros.
Mace sipped his Arbor Gold appreciatively. A jealous man might think that such an ambition would be an insult to House Tyrell, but he was not so small-minded. And in this, as in all other things, he was happy to oblige Stannis to the best of his abilities.
XXX
The following is an excerpt from Flash for the Faith!, the second instalment in the Flash Papers by George Dand.
I wasn’t too surprised to receive an invitation to the presentation of Princess Joanna; I was a certified hero of the realm after all, even if only half of my exploits were public knowledge and all of them were, in my opinion, vastly overinflated. For instance, I’ve dined out in Sunspear at least twice on the strength of being the Ser Harry Flash who slew the four Uller men at the Greenblood, when in reality I only managed to kill one of them, and that only by blind luck; it was my sergeant who killed the other three, but he died and I didn’t, so I was the one who received the laurels.
But however unjustified my reputation might have been, I wasn’t the sort to look a gift horse in the mouth in those years. Stannis was a bit of a sobersides, and when he was in a temper about something he could put the fear of the Stranger into a stone, much less me, but he knew a host’s duty well enough, and what little he forgot, his wife didn’t. I suppose being married to a Lannister has its benefits, even if Cersei always struck me as a bit of a cold fish. Face like a goddess of course, and the sort of body men would kill to see naked, but too haughty by half for my tastes. I can only imagine that it would put a fellow off his stride, to look a woman in the face when in the act and see her regarding him like an insect.
In any case once the fuss and bother of the official presentation of the royal infant was done with, Maryam and I promenaded around the great hall, gassing and being gassed at by the rest of the quality, and Maryam almost squealing with delight at the pomp and display of it all. I could almost see her thinking how splendid the hall at the family castle would look with some decoration and I felt a twinge of pity for our poor steward who would have to talk her out of commissioning a gilded chandelier or a forty-foot tapestry showing the Battle of the Greenblood.
I had just been cornered by Renly Baratheon, the baby of the Baratheon brothers, who was squeaking to be told about the Greenblood and the rest of the Dornish War when a Stormguard knight appeared at my elbow saying that Stannis was requesting my attendance on a private matter. Of course I couldn’t just say, “Why thank you, old boy, but do tell His Grace that I am extremely busy entertaining his younger brother and do not wish to be disturbed,” so I told Renly that I would have to regale him some other time, left Maryam with him, and followed the Stormguard to a small chamber at the back of the hall, behind the Throne, where we found His Grace, Lord Arryn, a wizened septon, and an older, heavyset gentleman wearing the Estermont arms. Stannis waved me up from my bow, dismissed the Stormguard, and got straight down to business, as was his way. “Tell me, Ser Harry,” he demanded, fixing me with that stormy glower that was already famous through the Seven Kingdoms, “what do you know of heresy?”
That threw me. I attended Divine Office and did my bit to help my father support the village septon because it was expected of me, but that was as far as my involvement with the Faith went. If there was one thing I didn’t want, it was the Seven taking a personal interest in my affairs. “Not much, Your Grace,” I replied, using my best ‘bluff-and-hearty’ voice, the one that makes me sound twenty years older and much more wine-steeped than I actually am. “Don’t have much truck with heretics, you see. Don’t get many of them around my lands.”
Stannis nodded. “Perhaps not,” he said, “but our brother Robert’s realm of Myr seems to have an infestation of them, according to the High Septon. It seems that the chief septon the Most Devout sent with the Sunset Company, one Jonothor by name, has broken with doctrine regarding,” he drew a note out of his pocket, “the sole authority of the Seven, the exclusivity of salvation, the primacy of the Great Sept of Baelor, and a variety of other minor offenses.” He pocketed the note. “The High Septon has already ordered this Jonothor’s defrocking and excommunication, and commanded him to sail here to stand trial before the Most Devout. Jonothor, it appears, was willing to do so, but Robert prevented him, on the grounds that the government of the Faith in Myr was his prerogative and no one else’s.” A corner of Stannis’s mouth twitched in a slight hint of a smile. “Judging by what reports we have received, Robert has declared that he finds no reason to prevent Jonothor from continuing in his duties as a septon and ordered him to continue in those duties, regardless of the High Septon’s commands to the contrary. His Holiness, we are told, was wroth when the news reached him.”
I only barely managed to restrain myself from whistling. I had known that Robert was a braw loon, to use the Northern phrase, but never in a hundred years would I have imagined that he would throw down the gauntlet to the Faith. The only king to do that had been Maegor, and things hadn’t ended well for him. Even Aerys had never attempted to confront the Faith and he had been literally raving mad by the end, or so I had heard.
“Five days ago,” Stannis continued, “we received a petition from His Holiness requesting that we employ every means within our power to bring Jonothor to justice and expunge his heresy, as is our duty under Jaehaerys’s law. Now we are fully aware of our duties and obligations, especially to the Faith, but we wish to be certain that we are fully justified in exercising our power in this instance. It would be an ill thing if we were to put a man in peril of his life on groundless charges.”
I blinked. “Your pardon, Your Grace, but aren’t the charges sufficiently grounded already?” I asked. “I mean, if this Jonothor fellow has already been excommunicated then surely the Most Devout had evidence . . .”
“They did, but it was very poor evidence,” said the wizened septon. “The septon they sent to investigate Jonothor’s heresy made a terrible hash of his report; any good canon lawyer can poke a dozen holes in the first page alone. No, a proper investigation, starting from first principles, is called for.”
“And it were better also that we think carefully before taking any irrevocable measures,” Lord Arryn said, looking more like a grumpy old eagle than usual. “Robert holds this Jonothor in very high esteem, we are told. If Robert were to take it into his head that Jonothor was being persecuted to the point of death without cause, all for the sake of the High Septon’s bile . . .” He shrugged. “The last time Robert lost someone he cared for, he abdicated the Iron Throne in order to pursue the feud. I doubt he would be able to do something as drastic in this case, but it would be best to take precautions. It is an ill thing when brother fights brother.”
Stannis nodded. “Which is why we shall be dispatching a fact-finding mission to Myr, in order to determine for ourselves the nature, extent, and danger of Jonothor’s heresy, if it exists, and divine the likely reaction if steps were taken to remove him to King’s Landing for trial. Lord Estermont shall head the mission,” the heavyset gentleman in the Estermont colors bowed, “and Septon Martyn shall lead the ecclesiastical investigation.” As the wizened septon bowed, Stannis turned back to me. “Your part, Ser Harry, will be to investigate the sentiment among the chivalry and common soldiers of the Kingdom of Myr towards Jonothor, with a particular eye towards their likely reaction to his arrest and execution. Given the extent to which Robert’s throne rests on his control of his army, it would be foolish to discount that army’s sentiments on this matter.”
That was probably true, but I really didn’t like the direction this conversation had taken. “Me, Your Grace?” I half stammered, trying to make it sound like it was pleased surprise more than shock that was making my voice unsteady. “But I’m a knight, Your Grace, not a, a spy!”
“Spies work clandestinely,” Stannis said inexorably. “There will be nothing clandestine about this mission. You will be operating as credentialed emissaries under my seal.”
Lord Arryn nodded. “Of a certainty it will be far more overt than your service in Pentos,” he chipped in. “No false titles or disguises this time, simply a knight asking questions of other knights out of duty to his king.”
I was almost goggle-eyed by now and my heart was fairly in my shoes, but I knew better than to try and point out the dangers. A fellow like me would be expected to have no care for such things, which goes some way to explaining why so many knights find early graves. And Lord Arryn’s mention of my Pentoshi service had fairly clinched the deal; the sort of daring fellow who could uncover an assassination plot almost single-handed (barring the involvement of a turncoat or two and a healthy dose of blind luck) wouldn’t blink twice at a simple diplomatic mission to a friendly realm. Or at the very least, it would look damnably out of character if he did. So there was nothing for it but to click my heels, bow, and mutter something about humbly accepting this great trust and honor, etc. etc. etc. Gods, the things I’ve said and done.
Chapter 49: Bonds Forged and Broken
Chapter Text
Bonds Forged and Broken
Jaime Lannister tilted his head back and sighed deeply. This, he was firmly convinced, was the life.
It was a bright summer’s day on the western frontier of the Kingdom of Myr, the breeze off the sea thirty miles distant was keeping the worst of the heat off, and he was the captain-lieutenant of the second cavalry company of the Royal Army of the Kingdom of Myr; which was another way of saying that he commanded fifty of the finest lances in the finest army in the world.
Strictly speaking, of course, his birth entitled him to more, especially since his seven hundred Westerlanders were one of the largest single contingents of Westerosi remaining to the Kingdom of Myr after the Northmen, but he didn’t make any bones about it. For one thing, he was aware that the Blackfish still regarded him with a jaundiced eye due to the ambush he had suffered in Pentos, and the disapproval of Ser Brynden Tully was a fearsome thing. For another, he knew that Ned Stark and King Robert viewed him as a potential sword of the kingdom; his captain-lieutenancy was meant to provide him an apprenticeship under Ser Lyn Corbray, who whatever his other faults was an excellent cavalryman, before taking command of his own company.
How long he would enjoy a full captaincy, of course, was open to debate. Strictly speaking his exile had only four years left to run, and his father would be counting the days until his return and his assumption of the heirship to Casterly Rock. The fact that he didn’t particularly want to sit in the great hall of the Rock and dispense justice, or preside at tourneys without getting to break a lance himself, or haggle with his bannermen and the burghers of Lannisport, would not enter into the old man’s calculations. He was his heir, he could hear his father saying in that grimly final voice of his, and he would inherit the Lordship of Casterly Rock. It was his duty as a Lannister to uphold the family name.
His father, Jaime reflected as he and his men rode down into the shallow valley, had clearly never been young and strong and commanding a half-company of lances on a long patrol along a hostile border. Alright, a potentially hostile border; the Kingdom of Myr was at peace with Tyrosh for the moment. On the other hand, if the Tyroshi chose today to break the Peace of Pentos and began the festivities by ambushing and wiping out a cavalry patrol along the border . . . well, the knowledge that your king would avenge you wouldn’t be of much use to your corpse. All the more reason to act as if you were actually at war, and take the appropriate safeguards.
One of which was riding back down the slope towards him, one of the dozen scouts who made up the vanguard of the patrol. Reaching the bottom in a spray of dirt, he trotted up to Jaime and clapped a fist to his breastplate in salute. “Sir, on the next ridge over there is a party of people on foot,” he reported. “They appear to be men, for the most part, with a few women, and are in some haste.”
“Any armor or weapons?” Jaime asked; weapons might be easily explained, but armor far less so for people evidently intent on crossing the border, which lay along the line of the small river in the next valley over. Armor meant soldiers.
“Only farm implements that we could see, sir,” the scout replied. “Hoes and billhooks for the most part. No armor that we could see.”
Jaime nodded. “Probably runaway slaves, then,” he mused. The Tyroshi border country had been hit hard by the Great Raid, but Corbray hadn’t been able to burn out all of the Tyroshi border estates. Those outside his line of march had survived, if they had been able to keep their slaves from rebelling. And even those estates that had been burned out had mostly been reclaimed, either by relatives seeking to restore the family fortunes or by adventurers gambling that peace would allow them to reclaim the rich lands of the borders and leverage them into a ticket into the ranks of the magisters. There had been a steady trickle of runaway slaves since, running the gauntlet of cavalry patrols doing much the same thing he was doing, with the added task of keeping the slaves in line. He turned to Ser Addam Marbrand, who was his second-in-command for this patrol. “Up the ridge, but not over the top yet,” he said. “Don’t want to spook them into dithering and getting caught on the wrong side of the border.”
Addam nodded. “Archers and valets to dismount at the top of the ridge?” he asked.
“No, let’s keep everyone mounted for now,” Jaime said. “If they’re not being pursued after all then there’s no point to the men jumping off and on. And if they are being pursued, men on horseback are more intimidating than men on foot, for the most part.” Addam nodded agreement; that last was why the City Watch of Lannisport maintained a hundred mounted men, in order to help manage crowds.
Jaime raised his hand and pumped it up and down twice. “Forward at the trot,” he called, pitching his voice to reach the rest of the patrol but not carry too far. “Stop just under the ridgeline.”
All down the column the spurs went back and the horses spurted forward, nickering in mild remonstrance. The slope was gentle enough, but no one, man or beast, actually likes to run uphill. Upon reaching the ridgeline, Jaime swung down from his horse, handed it off to Harlos, his page, took his far-eye from him with a nod, and poked his head over the top of the ridge to see the people his scouts had mentioned splashing across the small river that marked the border; it was more of a stream really, but it was still one of the larger watercourses in this part of the Disputed Lands. He also saw the party of cavalry under Tyroshi colors that was cresting the far ridgeline. He smirked mirthlessly; he could just imagine the Tyroshi commander’s frustration. Here he was, having chased these runaways for gods knew how long, and they had managed to get free and clear through his very fingers. For the terms of the Peace of Pentos were clear; any slave who made it onto Myrish soil of their own free will was then, thenceforth, and forever free. Free soil makes a man free, as the saying had become. Of course, whether or not the slaver cities respected that was up to them, and more specifically to their soldiers and agents along the border.
“Come on,” Jaime said under his breath, his eye pressed to the lens of his far-eye. “Just let them go, already. They’re over the border, there’s nothing you can do about it, it’s been days since you put your feet up with a decent bottle . . .” Across the valley the Tyroshi captain, easily identifiable by the plumes in his burgonet, waved his arm and his company started down the slope. “Damn,” Jaime said softly, striding back to his horse and remounting. “Helmets and lances, gentlemen!” he called as he handed his far-eye to Harlos. His knights and men-at-arms had been riding in almost all their armor, but no one put on their helmets until they had to; wearing several pounds of steel on your head for extended periods of time invariably lead to a splitting headache. Following his own command he took his sallet helm from Harlos, let him do up the laces under his chin, and accepted a lance. Now fully armored and ready to fight, he raised his voice again. “Knights and squires in charge order, archers, valets, and pages stand ready to dismount and support. Over the top and halfway down the slope, then halt.” He turned to Addam. “Addam, get those people behind us. I don’t want any lack of clarity as to our position.”
Addam bared his teeth. “Yes, sir,” he replied.
Jaime nodded, then turned towards Dallen, his trumpeter. “Forward at the trot, if you please, as loud as you can.” As the brassy notes rang out, the half-company, now arrayed for battle, trotted over the top of the ridge and started down the opposite slope. The runaway slaves, fleeing from armored men behind them and now seeing armored men ahead of them, stopped dead with despairing cries, but Addam spurred forward with his lance, shouting in Low Valyrian for them to get moving and get behind the horses. As the half-company clattered to a halt halfway down the slope, the runaways, starting to realize that they were not to have their throats cut, dashed behind them, one pausing for a moment to point at Jaime’s black cloak and battered armor before being hustled along, while across the river the Tyroshi finished reining in in some confusion.
Jaime smiled condescendingly as the Tyroshi sorted themselves out; his men had had rather more impetus behind them thanks to their heavier equipment and they had still managed to keep their alignment both on the move and in the process of halting. Eventually the Tyroshi captain spurred forward, raising his empty hand in token of parley. Jaime turned to Harlos, who had kept at his right hand like a good page. “Tell Ser Addam that he has command until I return from the parley,” he said, handing over his lance. At Harlos’ nod he walked his horse the rest of the way down the slope, mimicking the Tyroshi captain’s gesture as he went, until they met in the middle of the river; there was a ford here, which was part of why Jaime’s half-company had been in the area.
“Jaqenno Hotiris,” said the Tyroshi, who judging by his accent and his almost womanishly beautiful features was in fact a Lyseni, “captain-lieutenant, red banda of the Ragged Standard, Army of Tyrosh. I believe you have a few things of ours.”
“Ser Jaime Lannister, captain-lieutenant, second cavalry company of the Royal Army of Myr,” Jaime replied, raising his visor. “And no, we don’t. See, they’re not yours anymore.”
Jaqenno frowned. “Are they not? They are slaves of the magister Donesso Hestaar that do not have his leave to be absent from the estate where they work. We have been trailing them for three days now and have yet to find their collars, so we assume they are still wearing them. That makes them runaway slaves, and ours.”
“They’re on our side of the border, that makes them free and ours,” Jaime retorted. “According to the Peace of Pentos anyway, which unless I am mistaken, this Hestaar signed himself on behalf of the Archon.”
Jaqenno waved his gauntleted hand. “A technicality that we can surely agree to overlook,” he said. “Surely you would not condemn me, a fellow man of arms, to return empty-handed and ashamed by failure?”
“I most certainly would, in order to keep innocent people from being forced back into slavery,” Jaime said, sitting back in his saddle. “Surely you would not force me to be ashamed before my men and my king?”
Jaqenno shrugged, no mean feat in armor. “Not willingly,” he admitted, “but I am, as they say, a man under authority.”
“So am I,” Jaime replied. “Of course, if you want to try and take them back by force then I am willing to accept the challenge, and let the Warrior decide.”
Jaqenno cast a pawky glance up at Jaime’s half-company, almost two hundred and fifty men in full or half-armor, and another back at his own men, almost precisely half that number in lighter armor. “You are pleased to make game of me,” he said drily, “but I must decline. Duty prevents me from wasting the lives of my men in a contest I am doomed to lose.”
Jaime nodded. “Some other time, perhaps?” he suggested.
“We shall see,” Jaqenno replied. “All things are in the hands of the gods.” He bowed shortly in the saddle. “The sele of the day to you, ser.”
“And to you,” Jaime said courteously, noting with some admiration how good Jaqenno’s control was. If he had been bearded by a boy several years his junior he would have been furious. Reining his horse around, he cantered back up the slope, gesturing for the half-company to turn about and ride back over the ridge. As he resumed his place in the column, he passed by the new freedmen, who seemed to have realized that they were to be free after all. A few were dancing as they walked, one or two were weeping openly, and a few had their hands raised in prayer and were noisily calling down the blessings of various gods. One brawny fellow with the arms and shoulders of a blacksmith, spying Jaime, raised his folded hands in salute.
“Black Lion!” he shouted in thickly accented Low Valyrian. “Black Lion and freedom!” As the other freedmen took up the shout Jaime raised a hand in acknowledgement, smiling broadly as he did so. He had first heard men cheer his father at the age of five, during some celebration or other. But he had never heard his father cheered as the freedmen were cheering him now.
XXX
As the door to his private chambers creaked open, the pirate-lord all but leaped to his feet, a genuine smile lighting up his face as he raised his arms. “Davos, my old,” he cried genially, striding forward to meet his guest. “It has been too long, far too long.”
“You always were a flatterer, Salladhor,” Davos replied, meeting the pirate-lord’s embrace with one of his own. “It’s only been five months since our paths crossed.”
“Ah, but between friends, the pain of separation is increased by the love they bear for each other.” Salladhor said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Do you not find it so with your wife?”
Davos waggled his eyebrows. “Why do you think we have four sons?” he asked rhetorically, provoking a belly-laugh from his host. They made for an odd pair, the pirate-lord and the smuggler, sharing only their slender builds and the wrinkles common to every seaman the world over. Salladhor Saan was almost compulsively flamboyant, as seen by the fact that on an evening when he was not holding court among his crew or officially receiving guests he was wearing an exquisitely tailored suit of crimson velvet intricately embroidered with gold thread. By contrast, Davos’s trews, shirt, tunic, and mantle were all of the sort you might find on a minor tradesman who was making ends meet with not much to spare, being simply and sturdily made out of unadorned broadcloth. Where Salladhor was handsome, graceful, suave, and courtly in his manners, Davos was as plain of face as he was of speech and habitually walked with the rolling gait of a lifelong sailor. Even the room they were standing in highlighted the differences between them. Davos’ cabin on the Shadow was spare and very plainly furnished, but Salladhor’s private study was almost the perfect definition of a rich pirate’s lair. The hide of a great snow bear served as a rug, the walls were hung with Myrish tapestries, the desk was a massive specimen of its kind liberally bedecked with Qohorik carvings, and the quill with which Salladhor had been writing had originally graced the wing of a Sothoryan parrot.
Yet despite their differences, or perhaps because of them, Salladhor and Davos were not simply business partners, but good friends. As proved when Salladhor gestured at his butler, who had continued to stand in the doorway. “Bring wine and food, man!” he cried. “And girls, too! Only the best for my friend!” He co*cked an eyebrow at Davos. “You still prefer girls, yes?”
“I do, but I’m afraid that I’m here on business, not pleasure,” Davos replied regretfully. “And it’s the sort of business that cannot be discussed where other ears can hear it.”
Salladhor searched Davos’ face for a moment, and then turned back to his butler. “Leave us,” he commanded, suddenly serious. “And let none disturb us until we call.” As the butler bowed away and closed the door after himself, Davos and Salladhor sat down on a pair of richly upholstered chairs that Salladhor had taken from a Volantene pleasure barge. “Is it that you have found a score that you need help mastering, my friend?” Salladhor asked. “Speak, and we shall find a way to make it possible.”
“I have a score all right,” Davos answered, “but it’s one of the easiest I’ve ever come across. My employer handed it to me himself.”
Salladhor’s eyebrows shot up towards his hairline. “Employer?” he asked delicately.
Davos nodded. “I am instructed to convey to you the warm regards and great esteem of His Grace King Robert of Myr.”
Salladhor nodded back. “Ah, so,” he said wonderingly. “Sits the wind in that corner, then, my old?”
“It does,” Davos replied, reaching into a pocket of his tunic. “If I had my way, I’d have stayed out of it, and if Ironmaker had lived he might have let me, but Victarion Greyjoy insisted on introducing me to King Robert. And let me tell you, my friend, when an Ironborn captain half again your size puts his hand on your shoulder and says he will introduce you to his king, you get introduced to his king.” As Salladhor chuckled at the mental image thus invoked, Davos drew out a scroll. “I was also instructed to convey this to you,” he went on, handing it over. “A King’s Commission, declaring you and your ships to be a detached auxiliary squadron of the Royal Fleet of Myr.”
Salladhor shook his head pityingly as he accepted the scroll. “Davos, my old, you of all people should know that I have sworn to be no man’s servant, while I can yet sail a ship and swing a sword.”
“Less a servant and more an ally, in this case,” Davos said, nodding to acknowledge the point. “In the event of war against Lys or Tyrosh, or both, you would be requested to do all in your power to harm their shipping and their commerce. You and your ships would be able to reprovision in Myrish ports, call on other ships of the Royal Fleet for aid, and keep all the legitimate plunder you take.”
Salladhor raised an eyebrow. “Is it to be war, then?” he asked.
Davos spread his hands. “My friend, you know as well as I that the Peace of Pentos is no more meant to be a permanent peace than it is meant to turn lead into gold. The insults and the wounds there go too deep for any piece of paper to heal, much less one that King Robert was all but forced into signing. He wears the coins that Donesso and Brachio gave him in reparation on a chain around his neck, you know, to remind himself of the insult they offered to him.”
Salladhor nodded. “And in return for my aid, Robert requires what?”
“Only that you free every slave you currently hold,” Davos replied, “and transport any slaves you take from the enemy to Myr for emancipation.”
Salladhor tapped the scroll against his chin for a moment, then tossed it on the small table between them and stood. “Come, my friend, and read a chart with me,” he invited, going over to his desk and pulling a chart from a nearby rack. As Davos joined him he unrolled it to show the southern Narrow Sea. “Consider my position, here, my old,” he said rhetorically. “To the west I have the Seven Kingdoms, to whom I am naught but a slave-taking pirate. To the north and the northeast I have the Braavosi, who would gladly keelhaul me under my own ship before hanging my carcass from the Titan’s kilt by the ankles. In Myr I have a pack of fanatics who, for the dubious benefit of their friendship, demand that I surrender a sizable percentage of my wealth and forswear any chance of recovering it. In Tyrosh and Lys, on the other hand, I have old foes who would like very much to hang me, but who may swallow their distaste when they remember the strength of my ships and the skill of my men.” He spread his hands. “What is a poor corsair to do in such a situation? I ask you to set aside your prejudice against slavery, my friend, and answer dispassionately.”
Davos shrugged. “I would still counsel you to ally with the Kingdom of Myr,” he said. “King Robert is not a man of business, as we are, but he is a man of his word. Unlike some in Tyrosh and Lys that I could name, like that one harbormaster.”
“May he rot in the deepest of your seven hells with worms gnawing his balls,” Salladhor said, his mellifluous voice darkening. He and Davos had both lost a great deal of money on account of that harbormaster. “But at least the Archon and the Conclave will not demand that I beggar myself for the privilege of becoming an isolated and unsupported ally. If I declare for the Kingdom of Myr,” he gestured at the chart again, “then I place myself in a ring of mortal enemies, of which at least two-thirds know these islands as intimately as you and I. Whereas if I cast my lot with Lys and Tyrosh, then I will secure my position in these islands for some time yet. Even if the Braavosi fleet sails south to sweep the seas, I much doubt that they will be able to defeat Lys, Tyrosh, and myself, all at the same time.”
“They might still win, though,” Davos said. “And if Lys and Tyrosh can gain a peace by throwing you to the Braavosi, you know they will. They’ve suffered your raids as much as the Braavosi have.”
“A chance I am willing to take, knowing coves and bays that even the Braavosi do not,” Salladhor said. “And if I were to cast my lot with King Robert and accept impoverishment, what would he do if the Braavosi demanded my head in return for their continued support of his treasury? He might swear an oath to me if I become his man, but he would still have an oath to his people.” He shook his head. “I am not the most merciful of men, but I am merciful enough to spare a man that decision.”
Davos nodded slowly. Put that way he could certainly see Salladhor’s logic, even if it burned at him to admit it. “This is your final answer then?” he asked.
“It is,” Salladhor replied, his face sad. “I am sorry, my old, but we must choose different roads henceforth.”
Davos nodded again. “If you’re ever captured,” he said, “I’ll testify on your behalf. I don’t have much influence, but Victarion and his Ironborn owe me a debt for guiding Ironmaker’s fleet to them, and Ser Gerion Lannister has acknowledged that the Crown also owes me for that.”
Salladhor laughed, half in genuine amusem*nt and half in bitterness. “Ye of little faith,” he said jestingly. “Am I not Salladhor Saan, the prince of the Narrow Sea, who was dodging or slaying his pursuers before he had hair on his balls?”
“You are, but times are changing, Salladhor,” Davos said earnestly. “I first felt it on Bloodstone when I stood before Ironmaker, and again when the Ironborn fought the Tyroshi fleet. There’s a new wind brewing, and unless we trim our sails to ride it we’ll get driven under.”
Salladhor shrugged. “Then I will die as I have lived, a free sailor and no man’s servant,” he said simply. “In any case, if I did not make a habit of rolling the dice, I would still be a deckhand, and not the master of twenty keels with a name known from White Harbor to Astapor. I will take my chances.” He extended his hand to Davos. “Will you accept my hospitality for the night at least, before sailing back to Myr?”
“Of course,” Davos said, taking his old friend’s hand in a firm clasp, blinking back a sudden itch in his eyes. “If this is to be our last night as friends, then let us celebrate old times before we part ways.”
“Spoken like a true brother of the coast,” Salladhor said, clapping Davos on the shoulder.
Chapter 50: Peace was Never an Option
Chapter Text
Peace was Never an Option
Lyn Corbray prided himself on having a strong stomach. Well, if you wanted to be a knight you had to be able to ignore the smell of freshly-spilled blood and the even worse smell of perforated bowels. Nor could you let the sight of what lay under a man’s skin put you off your stride. Not if you wanted to keep your own guts where they belonged, anyway. There was a reason that knights, and other men-at-arms, tended to a certain hard-edged indifference to carnage.
That being said, there were certain things that could make even the staunchest stomach rebel. For instance, the scene that Lyn and his half-company had found while on patrol.
It wasn’t the scale of the massacre that was making veteran knights hurriedly dismount and bend over; as far as Lyn could tell, there were thirteen or fourteen corpses clustered in the little swale and no more. Nor was it the fact that they had all, quite obviously, died extremely violent deaths; men who had fought at Tara, the Siege of Myr, the Great Raid, and Narrow Run were no strangers to the forms that violent death took. Even the smell wasn’t as bad as any of those battles; fourteen corpses just didn’t compare to several thousand, even after a day and a half in the slightly damp heat of the Disputed Lands in high summer.
But even a man who had been disemboweled was still more or less in one piece. The people who had been killed here in this nameless little depression in the grasslands along the border had not just been killed, but savaged, so that of the thirteen or fourteen dead bodies, not one of them was intact. Lyn swallowed his gorge with some difficulty and turned to Ser Joren Potts, who had been posted to his company a month after the war as part of Stark and Tully’s reorganization of the army. The fresh-faced younger knight was almost as cold-blooded as Lyn himself was sometimes, but he had soft spots still. Lyn could tell.
“Runaway slaves, I imagine,” he said, forcing his voice to remain level; it would not do for his men to see him undone. One of the pillars on which their esteem of him rested, after all, was his ability to keep his countenance even under such conditions as these.
Joren nodded jerkily. “Some of them are still wearing collars,” he said woodenly, gesturing at one corpse that had kept its head. “Tyroshi patrol must have followed them over the border, caught up to them.”
Lyn gave his own nod. “They fought back though,” he said, gesturing at a severed arm lying near his charger’s left fore-hoof. “See there, the cuts along the forearm and the broken nails? Whoever that belonged to went hand-to-hand against someone with a weapon. That must have made them angry.”
“And they vented that anger on their victims,” Joren finished, staring fixedly at the beheaded corpse of a woman; Lyn followed his gaze and hurriedly looked away. He knew himself to be a hard man, but the ruin between that corpse’s legs was not something that he needed in his memories. Joren signed himself with the seven-pointed star, his hand shaking. “Father have mercy, Mother have mercy,” he said, his voice starting to tremble. “I thought I knew what the slavers were like after the coast, but this . . .”
“Was probably the work of an exile banda,” Lyn said, interrupting Joren before he began to babble. “Sellswords might have committed the rape, but not the dismemberment; their pay isn’t based on how many pieces they cut their victims into and cutting people apart like this is hard to do, both for the muscles and the mind. If anything, they would have cut off their heads to take them back and show that their work was done.” Lyn shook his head. “This wasn’t done by professionals; this is amateur’s work.” As Lyn spoke a vulture began to glide downwards towards the pile of bodies, and was shot out of the sky by an archer who proceeded to march over to the avian’s carcass and retrieve his arrow with rather more force than was strictly necessary, casting aspersions on the vulture’s parentage, diet, and sexual preferences as he did so.
Joren gulped noisily, twice, and then visibly mastered himself. “I’ll organize a party of archers to dig a grave for these people,” he said hoarsely. “We don’t have a septon with us, but we can spare them from the scavengers at least.”
Lyn nodded. “Make it so, on my authority,” he said in his command voice; he didn’t hold much with sentiment, but there was something to be said for not giving the predators around here a free supper. The Disputed Lands had been long-settled, but along the borders the population had been kept relatively light by the wars, with the result that the borderlands were rich with game, and the predators who fed both on them and the corpses that the wars left behind. The wolves here were not as large as they were in the Vale, Lyn would swear, but he had never seen wolves with less fear of men. “In the meanwhile, I will be writing a report to King Robert. He must know of this.”
XXX
The four Tyroshi captains were well pleased with themselves as they sat in the private room of the Pied Merlin, the finest tavern and boardinghouse on the Myrish waterfront. They had taken a gamble on being the first Tyroshi merchants to breach the unofficial embargo that had been placed upon the Kingdom of Myr by the Archon and the Lyseni conclave, and so far that gamble was paying off handsomely. They had received permission to trade from Lord Captain of the Port Franlan, their cargoes were all safely warehoused, and they were already receiving handsome offers for their dyes, pear brandy, and mechanical devices and curios. They had, they agreed over bowls of rich seafood stew and glasses of quite good wine, done well to remember that, despite the war and the grudges it had spawned, business was business.
Of course, they still had to take precautions. Ordinarily they would have eaten in the common room to spare their purses the expense of a private room, but they had received enough black looks from the populace to decide to keep out of sight as much as possible. Even a tavern with a repute as good as the Pied Merlin produced drunkards and men flown with drink were far more prone to violence than men in full possession of their reason. But all in all, they had been pleasantly surprised; far from the seething cesspool of the unchained rabble barely held in check by Andal slayers that Rumor had portrayed, Myr city was almost as busy and vibrant as it had been before the siege and sack. The rules of the great game of trade had changed of course, but it seemed that there was still room for sensible and rational men of business to make a living, or even a fortune.
Their good humor was put to a sudden end when the door slammed open and six heavily armored men, two belted knights and four men-at-arms, strode in. One of the captains stood from his chair and blustered a demand for an explanation, only to have one of the men-at-arms put his hands on his shoulders and drive him back down onto his chair so hard that his buttocks were bruised. The other three captains, seeing their fellow thusly manhandled, remained in their seats and kept their hands in plain view, carefully not reaching for their eating knives. Whatever this was, they thought among themselves, it was surely something that could be settled without any bloodshed. They were in a public place after all, and the Kingdom of Myr prided itself on the strength of its laws.
These hopes were substantially deflated by the arrival of a seventh man in heavy armor, whose white surcoat with its grey direwolf sigil was pinned at the shoulder with a brooch in the shape of a clenched gauntlet. There were stories about Lord Eddard Stark, and the liberties that King Robert allowed his Fist.
“By order of His Grace King Robert,” Lord Stark proclaimed in a terribly final voice, “you men are under arrest.”
“On what grounds?” the captain who had tried to stand demanded to know as he tried to sit as lightly as possible.
“On the grounds that nine days ago, fourteen citizens of this kingdom were massacred by a Tyroshi cavalry patrol,” Lord Stark replied, fixing each of the captains with his iron-eyed glower. “His Grace has already sent to Tyrosh demanding that the guilty ones be handed over to face the Crown’s justice. In the meantime, you and your men will be lodged in the Palace of Justice as guests of His Grace. In order to pay for your maintenance, your cargos will be impounded and sold at public auction; any monies not so used by the time of your release will be disbursed to you.”
The three elder captains looked at each other and shrugged. On the face of it, it wasn’t the worst proposition in the world. At least there was a chance for them to make some money out of this sudden misfortune; their goods were not being seized as much as held in trust, when looked at from a certain point of view. More importantly, it seemed they weren’t to be killed out of hand. The presence of the King’s Fist was as good an indication as any that they were being viewed as enemies of the Kingdom of Myr, but apparently the sword was merely being loosened in its scabbard, not drawn and swung.
“The hell you say!” the fourth and youngest of the captains suddenly blurted out, surging half to his feet before the man-at-arms standing behind him drove him back down into his seat. “This is barefaced theft!” he spluttered, heedless of the gauntlets holding his shoulders. “Is your king so craven he must send his dog to do his stealing for him?!”
“Damn it, Laziros, shut up!” said one of the other three captains, who turned to Lord Stark. “I apologize for my brother-in-law, Lord Stark. He is too easily angered.”
“Evidently,” Lord Stark said calmly. “Your apology is accepted. And your dinners are paid for; I shall make arrangements with the keeper. Now, gentles, if you will come with us, we have a carriage waiting for you.”
Laziros opened his mouth again, only shutting it after his brother-in-law seized his wrist in an iron grip and joined the other two captains in glaring him into deflating. Slowly the four captains stood from their chairs, allowing their captors to take the swordbelts that they had hung on the backs of their chairs, and followed Lord Stark through the busily murmuring common room out to the carriage.
XXX
The Archon of Tyrosh kept his expression carefully neutral as the herald finished reading out the demand from King Robert. One of the burdens of being a ruler, of any stripe, was that one was more or less barred from showing strong emotion in public, in order to maintain the dignity of one’s office.
His councilors had fewer such inhibitions. No sooner had the Archon waved the herald out of the room than Councilor Varoros slammed his fist on the table. “By the gods, the impertinence,” the white-haired old battler spat, his lined face a picture of barely-restrained anger. “That an upjumped, beer-swilling barbarian whor*monger should speak to men such as us as if we were slaves, to bend over on command.”
“He might simply be posturing,” said Councilor Jaqaquo. “I have dealt with Andals in positions of power before and every one of them was simply enamored of theatrics.”
“You don’t carve out a kingdom at the sword’s edge by theatrics,” replied Councilor Stallar, before turning towards the Archon. “My lord, I fear that we must take King Robert at his word,” he said earnestly. “And unless we are entirely ready to accept the wager of battle, we should give serious consideration to meeting his demands.”
Varoros glared at his fellow councilor. “Have you lost your balls?” he demanded bluntly. “Or are you that eager to bare your arse to the barbarians? My lord,” he went on, turning to the Archon as Stallar purpled in rage, “throw their herald out, I beg you. Or better yet, send him back to the barbarians in a coffin. We are not bound to follow the conventions of diplomacy when dealing with people who break them so readily.”
“Are you finally losing your wits along with the last of your teeth?” Councilor Innennos spat. “The Andals hate us already. If we kill a herald under flag of truce, then they will sow this city with salt.”
“Assuming that they take the city at all,” Varoros snapped. “I have more faith in our army and our fleet than to consider that a possibility.”
Stallar was on the verge of exploding into fury when the Archon, having made up his mind, raised his hand, stilling all conversation. Even Varoros sat back in his chair. “Gentlemen,” the Archon began, “we find ourselves in a quandary. On the one hand we are threatened with the loss of our lives and our property, which we must by no means risk lightly. We each of us have a duty to our sons and grandsons to leave them a patrimony as great as that which our fathers and grandfathers gave to us. On the other hand, we are threatened with the loss of our honor, which is the greater danger. We know well, gentlemen, what the Kingdom of Myr intends to do to us, in the fullness of time. Is there any man here who truly believes, in his heart of hearts, that to yield to the barbarians will do more than whet their appetites for ever more of our lifeblood?”
Every man around the table shook their heads. They had heard the reports of their spies in the Kingdom of Myr, especially those who managed to listen in on the conversations of the Kingdom’s infernal Legion. They made for chilling reading. Even worse had been the stories of the Sack of Myr, and especially the barbarities that had taken place in the Palace of Order. There were families, the Archon knew, who had sworn to either die fighting or else commit collective suicide in order to forestall being victimized as the Myrish had been.
The Archon shook his own head. “Beyond even the loss of our honor,” he continued, “is the loss of the fear our slaves have for us that would result from a surrender to the barbarians. I pray, gentlemen, that none of us here are so foolish as to believe that our slaves obey our commands out of love for us. No, if they obey it is because they fear, and rightly, the punishments our law prescribes for a rebellious slave. But if we once give them cause to doubt our firmness and our courage, then that doubt will be as a spray of embers cast upon damp tinder. The majority may extinguish themselves and never take hold, but some few will find a dry place, and the tinder will begin to smolder. And we will be forced to run from ember to ember, stamping them out one by one as the smoke rises, all the while praying that we never miss even one, lest the whole pile of tinder burst into flame beneath our feet.”
The Archon swept his councilors with a steely gaze. “Therefore,” he said, “we are not only well-advised, but compelled to defy King Robert’s demand, and pray that it is the bluff it appears to be. It is true, that our defiance may provoke a war that will destroy us. But if we bend the knee to his demands, then we will have traded a quick and clean death by the sword for a slow and inglorious end, wasting away like a pox victim, until we die, raving and impotent, overwhelmed by corruption.” The Archon raised a clenched fist. “If we must fall, gentlemen,” he said, his voice building, “then let us fall like men!”
The councilors, their bickering swept aside by having their choices laid out for them so starkly, thumped the table in the traditional symbol of agreement and acclamation.
The defiance of the Tyroshi reached Myr a sennight later and sparked an immediate response. The ravens flew that very evening, summoning the Royal Army to its assembly areas. For the third time in as many years, war had come to the Disputed Lands.
- Chasing Dragons: The Sunset Company Reexamined by Maester Hendricus, published 1539 AC
Chapter 51: Reasons to Live and Reasons to Fight
Chapter Text
Reasons to Live and Reasons to Fight
Wolf House, as Lord and Lady Stark’s manse in Myr city was known, was cheerful enough as official residences went. It was sparsely decorated, thanks to Lord Eddard’s spartan tastes and Lady Amarya’s frugality, but it made up for the lack of ornament with a reputation for hospitality; the two parties that the Starks had officially hosted, one for the Northmen that had followed Maege Mormont back to Essos and another for the officers of the local companies of the Iron Legion, had been great successes, and the rumors had spread in the telling.
Today however the cheerfulness had vanished. The army was assembling to march for the border, and the King’s Fist was in the final stages of preparing to take leave of his wife. The whole house seemed to have caught the grim mood, but nowhere more so than in the solar where Lord Stark was arming.
Saul tightened the last strap on Eddard’s armor, ran a buffing cloth over the surface of the metal to remove any smudges from his fingers, swiped a minute flake of dust from one of the linked steel plates of Eddard’s sword belt, and stepped back. “All well, my lord?” he asked.
Eddard slowly swung his arms in exaggerated circles, raised his knees up towards his chest, and twisted and bent at the waist, the plates of his armor sliding over each other with a metallic rustling. “Very well indeed,” he replied. “Thank you, Saul.”
Saul, already armored in brigandine, plate arm and leg harness, and a gorget, bowed his head and reached for Eddard’s arming cap; Eddard forestalled him with a gesture. “The rest can wait,” he said, “we’ll not be fighting today.” Saul nodded and tucked Eddard’s arming cap and gauntlets into his bascinet, snatched up his own half-helm and gauntlets, and bowed his way out of the room. As he did so, Amarya rose from her chair by the window and joined Eddard in the center of the room, where she drew a brown lace out of her pocket and began to wrap it around Eddard’s left rerebrace.
“Remember when we first met?” she asked with a slight smile as she tied off the knot that would hold it in place.
Eddard nodded. “As one who was walking in darkness remembers first seeing the light,” he said, taking his wife’s hands. “I thought it made me a better warrior, to have nothing to live for beyond vengeance,” he went on, running his thumb over Amarya’s wedding ring. “But if that is so, then why is my arm stronger and my sword swifter at the thought of never seeing you again?”
Amarya’s eyes searched Eddard’s face. “Perhaps because now you have a reason not only to not die, but to live,” she replied. “And with it, the hope that there may be a life for you after the death of the Targaryens.”
“Or perhaps the songs are right in this much, that love makes a man better than he was before,” Eddard said, meeting Amarya’s gaze. “The gods know that I have slept better in your arms than I ever did before, since the rebellion.” He drew his wife into a careful embrace; the strength of his arms and the rigidity of his breastplate meant that it would not be difficult for him to accidentally crack Amarya’s ribs. It was one of the downsides of knightly training that the strength to wield sword and lance through a long day of fighting was also the sort of strength that made it easy to break things if you weren’t careful.
“I will return,” he said when he finally broke the embrace. “And if any damned slavers try to stop me, they will not live to regret it.”
Amarya smiled. “Oh, I am sure that they will regret it,” she said, a slight edge of humor in her voice. “Briefly, perhaps, but no less deeply.” After she and Eddard had stopped chuckling, she raised a hand to her husband’s face, her expression turning grave. “Safe into battle, safe out of battle,” she intoned softly, “and safe return from the strife. Come back to me, love.”
“Though all the hells bar the way,” Eddard replied, raising Amarya’s hand to his lips and kissing her wedding ring.
XXX
Daario Naharis blew his lips out in a sigh of relief. He had been assured that the fleet could fight off any attempt by the Ironborn to interdict the passage of the soldiers stationed on Tyrosh isle to the mainland, but he had still spent the short voyage in a state of nervousness. He had been a sellsword for twelve years now, and one of the lessons that had been engraved on his heart in letters of steel in those years was to never take an assurance at face value. Only fellow members of the company were exempted from that mandate of skepticism.
Fortunately, the fleet had kept its word, and the passage from Tyrosh isle to Aesica had been unmolested by the Myrish navy. The need to keep a substantial garrison on the isle had reduced the number of reinforcements that could be sent to the mainland, but even with that limitation Daario had three thousand infantry under his hand, half of them newly landed from Tyrosh isle, along with a thousand cavalry. Those had already been waiting for him on the fields outside Aesica; cavalry needed space and grazing, neither of which was possible to find on the island of Tyrosh, covered from shore to shore as it was by the city.
Daario tore his eyes away from the organized chaos of the encamped army and turned his gaze inland. Five days to raise, organize, and transport the forces from the isle, he mused, remembering the haste and tumult of those days; he had not slept more than three or four hours a night in all that time. A day or two to land those forces and integrate them with the ones already here. Eight or nine days to march from Aesica to Alalia, picking up militia and regular companies along the way and meeting the Ragged Standard at Alalia. And then six or seven days to the border. Barring unforeseen setbacks, he spat aside and touched the wood of his saddle’s pommel reflexively, we should be over the border on the thirty-third day of the war at the latest. Not bad. Hard luck on the border estates, who would have no defense against any invaders for at least two or three days according to the most favorable calculations of the Archon’s logisticians, but the interior, with its broad-acred farms that fed the city, the mines that fueled its workshops, and the seaport towns that funneled the raw materials of the mainland to Tyrosh isle, would be protected.
And that was the overarching impulse behind Daario’s orders as Captain-General of the Army of Tyrosh. Protect the interior. If you can trap the Myrish army and destroy it, then by all means, but hold them at bay if it is the last thing you do. The Archon and his Council had decided to adopt a conservative strategy against the Kingdom of Myr. The political situation of the Kingdom of Myr, it had been explained to Daario, was such that in order to maintain internal stability it had to push ever further outwards to conquer new territories in the name of abolition. If that impulse to foreign conquest was successfully stymied, then it was entirely possible that the Kingdom of Myr could fall apart in fratricidal recriminations over King Robert’s failure to uphold his coronation oath to destroy slavery. If that came to pass, then steps could be taken to exploit the divisions, but in order to bring those divisions about the Kingdom of Myr had to be defeated, the more resoundingly the better.
Daario pursed his lips, remembering the ferocity of the combat at Tara, where all his old notions about combat had been stood on their heads. A fine thing to say, ‘defeat the enemy’, he thought to himself. But no one ever seems to consider that the enemy gets a say in the matter. He would do his utmost, of course, that went without saying. And not simply out of professional pride, either; he had forsworn his allegiance to Tyrosh when he took up the life of a sellsword, but the past several months had rekindled his fondness for his homeland. He had a respectable army to do that utmost with, he had a moderately formidable ally in the Lyseni who were supposed to draw off forces from any invading army by harrying the southern frontier of the Kingdom of Myr, and he had a decent strategic position to work with. But for all that, he couldn’t help but feel a trickle of foreboding from worming into his guts.
Especially since he had never played for stakes this high before, with his own money or anyone else’s. In the Stormcrows he had been only a lieutenant, if a senior and influential lieutenant; he had never commanded more than a hundred men at once. Now he was set to command anywhere from ten to fifteen thousand men, with a kingdom for the stakes. Victory would propel him to heights he had never dreamed of ascending, but if he lost . . . there were plenty of men in Tyrosh, powerful and influential men, who would happily see him disemboweled for being promoted over the heads of men who had never wavered in their loyalty to the city. Councilor Varoros, for one, had publicly averred that nothing good could come of entrusting the defense of the city to an upjumped sellsword who had only lately rediscovered his loyalty to the city that had birthed him.
Daario spat aside again. f*ck you too, councilor, he thought viciously. As if I didn’t have enough problems with the enemy.
Of course, if he won then Varoros would have to eat his words, without salt. If he lost, however, he would be the man who had pissed away the main army of the city and almost certainly lost it the war. Tyrosh had other forces than the ones under Daario’s command, but very few that could actually take the field. The towns required substantial garrisons in order to be able to hold the walls against a siege and the streets against the slaves, while every estate owner on the mainland howled as long and as loud as he could for frequent and strong patrols across their lands to keep their slaves in line. For all practical purposes, Daario’s army was the only one Tyrosh had and if he lost it there would not be another one for at least a year, if not two or three years.
Daario shook his head forcefully, trying to drive the thoughts out of his head. Just do all you can and let Lady Fortune handle the rest, old son, he reminded himself. But he still couldn’t make the hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach go away.
XXX
The following is an excerpt from Flash for the Faith! by George Dand
The voyage to Myr went well enough, largely thanks to the fact that I’ve never been prone to seasickness and the captain kept a reasonably good table. Lord Estermont was a decent sort, one of your bluff, hearty fellows who get more expansive in physique and manner as they age; Lord Estermont being fifty years old, he was a barrel-chested ogre of a man with a booming laugh and a handshake like a vise. Septon Martyn I found less congenial; he was the sort of person who knows that he is the smartest person in any given room on his particular subject and can’t help but demonstrate it when given occasion. If he hadn’t been such a decent fellow, and if he hadn’t had such a good sense of humor, I’d have been sorely tempted to kick him overboard. Not that I would have anyway; I didn’t know what his history was, but any man with the credentials to get sent on a mission like this was sure to have friends in high places who would take a very sharply pointed interest if he came to an unexplained end.
In any case we landed in Myr city only to find that Robert and Septon Jonothor had both gone. It seemed that in the time we had been crossing the Narrow Sea war had broken out between the Kingdom of Myr on one side and Tyrosh on the other, with Lys supposedly set to join the Tyroshi due to their treaty. Robert was marching south-east to muster an army at the town of Sirmium, and Jonothor had gone with him to minister to the Seven-worshippers among the troops. Ser Gerion Lannister, who as Hand of the King had been left in command in Robert’s absence, invited us to take up lodging in the Palace of Justice, but Lord Estermont wouldn’t hear it. “What,” he had bellowed, “loll at my ease while my grandson faces the enemy?! Be damned if I will! Follow me, sers!” Not three hours later we had acquired horses (of indifferent quality it must be said; all the good ones had gone with the army) and were clattering out of the gates onto the road.
Say what you like about Lord Estermont, he could shift when he had a mind to; we must have covered twenty miles that day alone, and for each of the nine days afterward we averaged fifteen or twenty miles, riding at the trot for an hour and then walking for an hour to give our horses a breather. By the time we reached Sirmium I was worn almost to a nub from fatigue; how Septon Martyn endured it I can’t imagine, unless the gods had decided to give one of their own a helping hand. Even Lord Estermont was looking a little grey around the gills. Even so, he still had enough energy to roar introductions at the sentries who challenged our approach and demand to be taken to see Robert immediately. I suppose going to fat around the middle gives you some reserves to draw on.
The sentries were a suspicious lot, infantry in heavy spearman’s kit and evidently keenly aware of their responsibilities. Only their corporal was able to read Common Tongue and that slowly, but he managed to puzzle through the letter from King Stannis establishing our bonafides and told off a pair of his men to escort us; as we left some wag among the sentries shouted “Enjoy the show!” to which Lord Estermont asked him what the devil he meant only to be waved off with a “You’ll see!” And by the gods we didn’t have to wait long to see what he meant, though we heard it long before we saw it. First it was a sporadic braying of trumpets and lowing of horns, then a thunder of hooves and a rumble of marching feet, and then we topped the rise to see one of the most fearsome spectacles of our time, the drawn sword of abolition and the terror of the slaver cities: the Iron Legion.
Now in my time, I’ve had to become something of a connoisseur of armies (not by choice, mark you; if I had my way, I’d never have left the Crownlands), and I’ve never succumbed to the belief that some breeds of men make naturally better soldiers. As Stannis himself once put it, there are no bad soldiers, only bad captains. So when I say that the Grand Army of Volantis was bigger, the Great Armament more awe-inspiring in its way, and that there’s a special place in my nightmares for the sight of thirty thousand Dothraki screamers at the charge, you can take it as the sober and considered opinion of an (unwilling) expert. But for sheer military power I’ve seen nothing outside Westeros or Braavos and damned little in them to match the Iron Legion. It wasn’t a question of numbers; as far as I know, the Iron Legion never mustered more than thirty thousand foot and ten thousand horse in one place. Nor was it a matter of visual splendor; the Iron Legion was one of the drabbest armies I have ever seen. What really took my breath away was the discipline and the systematic order of them; every man wore near enough to the same equipment, depending on what class of soldier they were, as made no difference, they stood in close-ordered ranks and marched in step, and every mess group of every company moved in almost perfect unison at the word of command, like bees in a swarm or swallows in a flock. The Iron Legion wasn’t a collection of lordly retinues, urban militias, and sellsword bands, each with their own allegiances, rivalries, and agendas, like most armies in the world, they were something entirely different. What we were looking at was more than a hundred mechanisms bound in nigh-perfect obedience into a single machine, obedient to a single brain and driven by a single force. This, we would come to realize, was an army.
The first thing I thought when I made sense of what I was seeing was ‘Thank all the gods we don’t have slavery in Westeros, because we’d never be able to beat this lot.’ Even after more than forty years there are a score of images in my head from that field as fresh as if I saw them yesterday: a company of lances wheeling at the canter with not a single horse more than an inch out of alignment that I could see; a hundred or so longbowmen shooting cheap clay saucers out of the air like ducks for the pot before turning on the butts and loosing a scorcher of a volley that turned every bulls-eye into a hedgehog; a banda of light horse transitioning from loose scouting order to close ranks at a single trumpet call; and most terrifying of all, a heavy infantry company deploying from column of march to line of battle without missing a step, the spearmen crouching down and shuffling forward as the crossbows loosed over their advancing heads into a double row of wooden dummies, and then at the shriek of a whistle the spearmen rearing up and plunging forward with a roar of “Free or dead!” to overrun the dummies with spears flashing and damn me if their ranks weren’t as straight as a carpenter’s rule even at the charge, the shields a perfect wall of iron-rimmed wood tipped with a hedge of spear-points.
Next to me Lord Estermont was signing himself with the seven-pointed star with a dumbstruck expression on his face, while Septon Martyn’s jaw was gaping open as he stared. I don’t know what they were thinking, but I was thinking that I wouldn’t give a single clipped penny for Tyrosh’s chances if they tried to fight this crowd. If the companies I was seeing at drill here were representative of the whole army and if they worked together as well as they did alone, then the Tyroshi would get eaten alive. The second thing I thought was that it didn’t matter what Septon Martyn found regarding Jonothor’s heresy, we’d never be able to try him for it unless Robert let us. So long as Robert protected him, and had this army to back him up, Jonothor was as safe as any man in the world.
I should have remembered that naming calls; no sooner had I had that thought than the man himself came cantering up. Well, I suppose if you see your grandfather’s banner unexpectedly you tend to drop whatever you’re doing and find out what brought him this far east. As Robert and Lord Estermont shook hands and roared jovial greetings at each other I couldn’t help but be struck by Robert’s appearance. Handsome he undoubtedly was, a proper maiden’s fantasy, but I never saw a king so plainly dressed. If it weren’t for the gold circlet around his head, the surcoat over his half-armor with the black crowned stag on yellow, and the two coins strung around his neck, you’d have thought he was a well-to-do landed knight, not a king. At the time I figured that the plainness of Robert’s wardrobe was due to spending all his money on his army, but later I learned that it was part of his legend and theory of kingship. A king, he was of the opinion, only needed the full fig of royal regalia if he couldn’t command the respect and admiration of his people with his deeds. Load of rot, you ask me, but it seemed to work for him; I suppose it’s easy to command people’s respect when you’re Robert Baratheon.
After the rest of the introductions were made, Septon Martyn and I were sent off to find a place in the encampment where our party could bed down while Lord Estermont joined Robert in reviewing the Legion at drill. Personally, I was glad to be sent forth from the royal presence; it had been a long ride from Myr city and my arse was declaring its readiness to kill me unless I got out of the saddle. If I had known how much riding awaited us over the next few months I would have found some way to come down with a debilitating but not too dangerous illness, but I’m a knight, not a fortune teller.
Chapter 52: The Stag and The Stormcrow
Chapter Text
The Stag and the Stormcrow
First there came the outriders, the scouts and raiders of the Royal Army of Myr. They were a varied crew, a mixture of freeriders who couldn’t afford the weight of armor necessary to serve as a knight, renegade Dornish who had made the Principality too hot to hold them with the King’s Hounds enforcing the law, and herdsmen from across the Seven Kingdoms who had been drawn by the prospect of a life that wasn’t spent eternally looking at the south end of a north-bound cow, as the saying went. Some of them, primarily the Dornish, carried horsebows, but more commonly they carried longbows or crossbows that they dismounted to fire, and for hand weapons they carried spears, axes, and swords. Their defensive armament consisted of padded jacks and light ring-mail shirts for the most part, while a few carried small round shields. The cloth badges they wore stitched onto the breasts of their jacks and mail shirts mostly depicted the arms of Lord Lyn Corbray, a single raven perched on the hilt of a longsword, for the Lord Lieutenant of Sirmium was the man most responsible for the development of the light cavalry of the Royal Army, due to the need for a force to patrol the border that was more mobile than a heavy cavalry squadron.
After the outriders passed, warily scanning the horizon, there came the vanguard. These were the companies that were based in and around the town of Sirmium, marching under Lord Corbray’s colors and the golden lion on scarlet of his chief lieutenant in addition to the spear and broken chain of the Legion and the sunset sky and impaled dragon’s head that was the war-banner of the Kingdom of Myr. As they were in enemy territory, they marched in full armor, with the knights and men-at-arms of the cavalry companies wearing all but their helmets and the squires leading the already-barded destriers on short reins. In the event of an attack that had slipped by the outriders or, more likely, an outrider galloping back to alert them of an impending attack, it wouldn’t take more than a minute for the knights to don their helmets and remount onto their destriers. And while they did so they would be shielded from a sudden onset, for the cavalry marched within a protective shell of infantry like a three-sided rectangle, one company leading in line and the other two on the flanks in column. Alongside the infantry and cavalry there marched the Corps of Pioneers in their leather aprons with their tools sloped over their shoulders and their carts of lumber and rope lumbering along behind them, ready to bridge, straighten, level, or fell any territorial impediment to the army’s advance.
Immediately behind them came the main body of the army, the companies drawn from Myr city, its environs, and the heartland of the kingdom between the coast and the borders. The most prominent banner here, aside from the great war-banner, was the crowned stag of the king, but it was hardly alone. Just beside it there flew the running direwolf of the King’s Fist, the black salmon of the Master of Soldiers, and dozens of other banners announcing the presence of a full third of the nobility and chivalry of the Kingdom of Myr. Here, too, the cavalry marched in the center of a cordon of infantry, ready at any moment to turn and face an attack. The army trusted its outriders, who were deployed on their flanks as well as ahead of them, but Ser Brynden Tully had hammered on the need to exercise reasonable caution and King Robert had agreed with him. It might be embarrassing to act as if they were afraid of the enemy, he had pointed out to some of his more belligerent nobles, but it would be even more embarrassing to die because they had walked into an ambush that any fool could have spotted if they had taken proper precautions.
Immediately behind the main body came the baggage train, two hundred heavy wains and almost exactly twice that number of lighter carts loaded with all the needs of an army. These were followed by a herd of cattle, sheep, and other beasts that had been driven off of Tyroshi estates since crossing the border, meat on the hoof to supplement the rough flatbread, pottage, and hard cheese that were a soldier’s typical fare. The carters and drovers responsible for the baggage train were also armed, in order to fight off any attempt to steal or destroy the army’s supplies, and also to mark them as being part of the army, and due the respect that was the right of every soldier of the Royal Army.
Wherever they passed they brought destruction. The outriders were the most guilty of deliberate devastation, for among their orders was the pillage of the great estates of the Tyroshi elite, the which task they carried out with savage glee. Every great house they came across was stormed, ransacked, and burned, often enough with the owners still in it, either dead or alive. The slaves who had worked the estate were unchained and given an escort back towards the army, where they were drafted into either the Pioneers or the baggage train, unless they were taken on as a general servant-recruit by one of the companies. Bridges and culverts along the line of march were zealously guarded, but those that weren’t were torn down or burned in order to prevent the army being flanked. Any Tyroshi freeman caught on the road was almost invariably killed, unless they were smart enough to surrender on the spot and declare themselves wealthy enough to pay ransom.
The rest of the army was almost as bad. Twelve thousand men, almost five times as many animals, and six hundred wheeled vehicles would damage almost any surface they marched on, and while the roads of the Disputed Lands were relatively well-established, they were not the nigh-impervious dragonroads of Old Valyria. Where the army marched the land was alternately pounded flat by tramping boots and torn up by clopping hooves, so that the ground was almost mutilated by their passage. If there had been rain the army would have left a quagmire in its wake, but there had been no rain for two weeks and so in place of a sea of mud the army was trailed by clouds of dust. Where the army camped all wood for almost a mile around, whether trees, fence rails, or houses and barns, went for the legion of fires that twelve thousand men required to do their nightly cooking. What the army didn’t trample down or consume, the baggage train did, especially at night when the drovers herded their beasts off the road to graze.
This trail of destruction zig-zagged across the Tyroshi borderland for almost a hundred miles in the opening sennights of the war, mirrored almost exactly in parallel a few miles opposite, for the Royal Army of Myr and the Army of Tyrosh were maneuvering to try and gain a position of advantage over each other. King Robert Baratheon of Myr sought a place where he could trap the Tyroshi army and destroy it, while Captain-General Daario Naharis of Tyrosh sought to force the Myrish army to attack him in a place where he could use the terrain to nullify the Myrish advantage in cavalry. As a by-product of these opposing strategies almost a thousand Tyroshi citizens were killed and hundreds more rendered destitute as the borderlands were devastated for the second time in almost as many years. Many of those who had gambled on improving their fortunes by commandeering a destroyed estate and rebuilding it as their own saw their dreams of riches quite literally go up in smoke as the armies stalked each other. Even those that didn’t lose homes and lives saw their fortunes plummet as their slaves seized the opportunity provided by the chaos and ran for the border or the Myrish army, depending on which they thought was closer. On two estates the slaves outright revolted on hearing of the Royal Army’s proximity and their masters’ plans to flee to the interior. Both of these revolts were successful, but only narrowly and bloodily, with almost twice as many slaves being killed or wounded as masters, guards, and overseers, for the Tyroshi had learned from the Great Raid that servile insurrection could not be met with any countermeasure but swift and overwhelming violence, and the slaves knew that to lose was to die.
But for all the tumult, the armies only fought each other through their outriders. A proper battle, where the fate of the borderlands would be settled, continued to evade both armies, much to the consternation of the men commanding them.
XXX
The captains of the Royal Army of Myr sat around the table in various degrees of disgruntlement. They weren’t used to being denied their prey, and the way in which the Tyroshi army had fended them off over the past sennight put them in a sour mood. Especially since a round of debate lively enough to put even the veteran squires serving them on edge had established that their lack of good fortune was no one’s fault; apparently, the Tyroshi were just that good at outfoxing them. And so far, none of them had been able to come up with an idea to change the situation.
“We’re looking at the problem backwards,” Robert said suddenly, making everyone glance at him in sudden attention. “We’ve been trying to fight the Tyroshi army, but we don’t need to.”
Akhollo frowned. “Doesn’t fighting a war usually involve fighting an enemy army?” he asked skeptically.
“Not when you consider our goals and circ*mstances as opposed to the Tyroshi’s,” Robert replied. “We’re fighting this war to conquer Tyrosh and free its slaves, or as much of it and as many of them as we can before the Braavosi call us to heel.” There was a round of sour chuckles around the table. For all that Braavos was the Kingdom of Myr’s closest ally, there were still sore feelings against them for the part they had played in crafting the Peace of Pentos and its insulting terms. “The Tyroshi, on the other hand, are fighting this war in order to keep us out of their territory and keep their slaves,” Robert went on. “And we got over the border first. That being so, in order for us to obtain our goals, all we need to do is march into the Tyroshi interior and start taking towns. The Tyroshi, though, need to face us in battle and defeat us in order to achieve their goals.”
Ser Brynden frowned. “In that case, they should be maneuvering much more aggressively than they have been,” he said. “Instead of us trying to trap them, they should be trying to trap us. But they’ve been content to let us chase them hither and yon, keeping one step ahead of us the while. If they need to fight and defeat us, then they should be trying to catch us in a situation where we’d have to fight at a disadvantage.”
“Unless whoever’s commanding them isn’t confident of victory,” Eddard mused, drumming his fingertips on the table. “Who is commanding the Tyroshi?”
Ser Brynden flipped through his papers for a moment. “One Daario Naharis,” he said, finding the correct report, “Tyroshi-born, but a sellsword all his adult life. Former lieutenant in the Stormcrows, fought at Tara, led the remnant of the Stormcrows out of Myrish service after that battle, entered Tyroshi service about a month before the Peace of Pentos, according to Ser Gerion’s sources.” He frowned. “If he fought at Tara with the Stormcrows, that might explain why he’s being so damned cagy. From what I’ve heard, your horsem*n handled them pretty roughly, Ned.”
Lyn leaned forward in his chair, lowering his hands from where he had steepled them in front of his face. “If we need to march into the Tyroshi interior and take towns,” he said, “then let us start with Alalia. It’s the hub of the Tyroshi lands’ south-eastern district, and it sits astride the crossroads of the main north-south and east-west roads in this quarter of the Disputed Lands. If we take Alalia then we can dominate the whole countryside hereabouts.” A quick stroke of Lyn’s finger on the map laid out on the table indicated a rough right triangle ten miles along the height formed by the Myrish border and thirty-five miles along the base formed by the Lyseni border, with the long side formed by the Turtle River, a broad but shallow and slow-flowing stream that ran roughly northeast from the Whitestone Hills to empty into the Sea of Myrth about five miles over the Myrish border.
“Agreed,” Akhollo said, leaning forward himself. “From what the new freedmen tell us, that area is well watered by Turtle River and its vassal streams; the estates there are very fertile, in crops and livestock both. And they have many slaves as a result.” He grinned savagely. “And also much wealth in Alalia, from the petty magisters who cannot afford to live on Tyrosh isle except for a small part of the year, and the factors who deal in the produce of the estates.” The captains all nodded. The destruction of slavery was a fine and worthy goal, but insofar as the business of the kingdom was concerned, Akhollo had just listed the most attractive fruits of any war. Thousands of new subjects, fertile and productive land to support them, a rich town to stimulate commerce, and a fair bit of ready cash to reward the army for its service and sacrifices.
Robert nodded. “So starting tomorrow we’ll stop this feinting and march straight for Alalia,” he said, drawing his finger across the map, “and we’ll dare this Daario Naharis to stop us. If he stands and fights, well and good. If not, then we’ll storm Alalia and make him look like a coward who won’t use the army the Archon’s given him.”
XXX
Daario glared at the scrap of parchment that the scout’s report was written on and manfully resisted the urge to tear it to bits, or ball it up and throw it away. The Myrish, it seemed, had lost patience with maneuvering and were tromping down the road towards Alalia. The force he had set to watch the bridge at Pipe Creek had been brushed aside by Lyn Corbray and Jaime Lannister’s outriders, and by now the Myrish would have almost all their force across Pipe Creek.
He transferred his glare from the parchment to the western horizon, thinking furiously. Alalia wasn’t strategically critical, in the grand scheme of things; it’s loss and that of the farms and mines in its hinterland would be a blow, but a survivable one, in that it wouldn’t cause the city to starve or go bankrupt. Politically, however, the loss of Alalia would be intolerable. Quite a few of the Archon’s council had estates around Alalia, and Daario could already hear their howls of outrage at the loss of productive estates and valuable slaves. In the broader population the outrage would be that the barbarian Andals and their rogue slaves had gotten so far into the Tyroshi heartland and wrought their outrages on Tyroshi citizens.
If Alalia fell without a fight, then there would be questions asked about why the upjumped sellsword, who had been given command over more deserving men by a perhaps-too-indulgent Archon, had not fought to prevent the sacred soil of Tyrosh from falling into the hands of the barbarians and their renegade bondsmen. Questions that could all to easily become sharp, hot, or heavy, if not a combination of the three. Daario might have regained his Tyroshi citizenship after rejoining the city’s service and so was theoretically legally protected from torture, but citizenship could be revoked as a punishment for treason. And you could easily make a case that refusing to fight for a major town constituted treason; he could hear Varoros framing the argument already. The Archon might be his patron, but at the end of the day, the Archon always held his position at the pleasure of the conclave, which could be called for a special session to debate and vote on a motion of no confidence on the recommendation of a majority of the Archon’s council. Daario wasn’t willing to trust his personal, precious, and irreplaceable neck to the strength of the Archon’s political position, especially since, as the man’s client, his fortunes reflected on the Archon.
Daario stuffed the parchment into his belt purse and sent his manservant to summon his officers. He had an army to turn around.
King Robert’s turn towards Alalia, risky as it was in that it exposed the Royal Army’s flank to the Tyroshi, was a calculated risk; Robert was gambling that his army’s superior march discipline would allow them to outrun the Tyroshi until they came to a suitable battlefield. Four days after executing the turn, and twenty-three days after crossing the border, that battlefield came to hand . . .
- Freedom or Death: An Overview of the Slave Wars by Maester Julian, published 2182 AC
Chapter 53: A Flash of Battle
Chapter Text
A Flash of Battle
The following is an excerpt from Flash for the Faith!
You need an uncommonly detailed map to find Solva these days, mostly because it doesn’t exist anymore; the Myrish outriders burnt it out and those that survived decided to try their luck elsewhere. It was a little village about four days ride from Alalia that had sprung up because it lay where the main east-west road through the Tyroshi interior crossed Hatchet Stream and it was a convenient day’s ride to the two nearest plantations. It’s always the small, unknown places that seem to attract great battles, though; Tara was a sleepy country estate, Narrow Run a magister’s playground, and the Battle of the Greenblood took place along a deserted stretch of the high road along the river. I don’t know if its fate, the gods, or the imp of the perverse, but whatever it was, it put both the Royal Army of Myr and the Army of Tyrosh at Solva at the same time, and that’s as good a way to start a battle as any.
The land around Solva was primarily pastureland, thanks to the demand for the village to supply meat to the nearby plantations, to its inns, and to Alalia, and it was divided into great lots by hedgerows much like the ones in the Crownlands. One of these lots, lying just across the road to the north of Solva with the bridge at its southwest corner, had been turned into an improvised fortress by the Pioneers, who had spent the past day and half the night chopping down some of the foliage along the north and east-facing hedgerows and weaving it into the rest to form makeshift barriers. The south-facing hedgerow had been mostly cleared of vegetation and two channels twenty feet wide hacked through the bank to allow for wheeled vehicles to pass through. A regular little castle it was, if you had infantry to hold it with, and in the Iron Legion the Royal Army had the best infantry in the world at that time.
The Army of Tyrosh had come down out of the northeast and spent the night opposite us, about a mile distant. Most of them, about ten thousand, were spear-and-crossbow militia, Tyroshi citizens who were ordinarily yeoman farmers or urban tradesmen. The other fifteen hundred were sellsword cavalry, the Ragged Standard, the Bright Banners, and the Second Sons. It was certainly respectable, as armies went; the militia weren’t a patch on the Iron Legion but they would fight bravely enough for their homes and their families, and the sellswords would fight because that was what they were paid to do. And the man commanding them, Daario Naharis, was a clever sod of a sellsword who knew his business, and also knew that he didn’t dare let us get to Alalia without fighting for it. If they let us any deeper into the Tyroshi interior the slave revolt would make the one in Myr look like a harvest festival, and that and the army’s devastations would tear the guts out of Tyrosh’s economy.
So when Robert, cool as willie-be-damned, started sending his baggage train across Hatchet Stream, Naharis threw the lever and went at him like a lightning bolt. I don’t mind telling you that it was more than a little unnerving seeing almost twelve thousand men coming at us with murderous intent, but then the skinpipers that Maege Mormont had brought across the sea with her struck up that hideous droning wail and Ned Stark led the Iron Legion to their positions and I began to feel much better. After all, I was on the Legion’s side, and for the first several minutes of the battle my optimism seemed justified enough as the Legion met the Tyroshi militia at the hedgerows and cut them up something dreadful. I’m told that Septon Jonothor was right there with them, tramping up and down the line with an iron-bound staff in one hand and shouting quotes from the Seven-Pointed Star with the other septons while the red priests did the same thing with their own scriptures. Having met the man, I wouldn’t be surprised; I don’t know what it is about god-botherers that makes them so careless of their own lives and so convinced that they’re doing the right thing, but whatever it is Jonothor had enough of it for five men. No wonder he caused so much trouble. I was just thinking that things seemed well in hand when I looked out towards the right and I felt my heart go into my throat.
Naharis had put all fifteen hundred of his cavalry on that flank and it was coming down the road like water down a pipe. If they managed to get all the way down that road to the bridge, then two things would happen. One, the sellswords would be able to cut off and swallow the supply wagons that had already gotten across Hatchet Stream, which would be bad enough. Two, they would be able to swarm over the southern face of the Royal Army’s position and break it open from the inside. Especially since the only uncommitted forces in the lot were the hundred lances of Robert’s bodyguard; the rest of our cavalry had ridden off in the night and was nowhere to be seen. And three to one, or so I thought, was poor odds for anybody, even men that Ser Brynden Tully and Eddard Stark had taken a personal hand in training.
Well, I was punished for thinking that things were about to go to sh*t, because on top of being a bonny fighter Robert had a useful head on his shoulders, and in the Blackfish and the Iron Wolf he had two of the canniest generals of the day. No sooner had the sellsword cavalry gotten within a hundred yards of the east-facing hedgerow than a horn sounded and out from a sunken road between two lots just east of Solva came the Royal Army’s cavalry, Jaime Lannister and four hundred knights and squires that barged into the flank of that charge and turned them from a wave of oncoming destruction into a chaotic mess of falling riders and struggling beasts with the knights plunging further in to complete the overthrow while the valets, archers, and pages moved in on foot to establish a position.
It was the neatest flank attack I ever saw and ever hope to see; the knights of the Royal Orders couldn’t have done it better and I saw them try. Within a minute the melee was starting to collapse as sellswords streamed away in flight, while the horns blew wildly to reform and next to me Lord Estermont was standing in his stirrups bellowing triumphantly. “That’s the way, boys!” was one of the more restrained things he said. “By the gods, that’s the way! That’s how you fix their hash!” A little way over Robert himself was also standing in the stirrups roaring approbation, with the knights of his bodyguard hammering gauntlets against breastplates in applause, and then Robert was shouting orders and the horns were blowing again and Robert was leading his bodyguard out through one of the lanes cut into the bank. That set Lord Estermont off good and proper. “There he goes!” he roared. “Out to finish them off, by the gods! That’s the way to do it!” He hesitated for only a moment before throwing caution to the winds entirely. “Guy, my lance! Lances ready sers, we’re going with them!”
My initial thought was that I’d misheard him, but then a lance was shoved into my fist and he and the other five men-at-arms in our party were cantering away and my horse, idiot screw that he was, was cantering after them and I realized that he was quite serious. He had no business doing it of course, we were a fact-finding mission for all love, we weren’t even supposed to be anywhere near the border much less thirteen days ride over it, but that didn’t matter to him. His grandson was going to fight and he would be damned if he didn’t ride with him. Besides which, Robert was that kind of man; if he went somewhere you followed, even if you couldn’t explain why for the life of you. I wouldn’t have, for a pension, but I’ve got a windy streak wider than the Trident, so maybe it was just me.
Not that it mattered by that point. Backing out would be impossible, in broad daylight with everyone able to see. So instead I placed myself in the second rank as we joined Robert’s guards; whoever took the brunt of the charge, it wouldn’t be me if I had anything to say about it. We caught up to the cavalry just as they had straightened themselves out, placed ourselves in their center as another hundred lances joined us on the right, and then the horns blew and the charge began.
I heard afterward that the Tyroshi started to break before the charge even began and the gods know that it felt like it at first. What I didn’t know until afterward was that as soon as Daario Naharis saw his cavalry collapse, he had given the order to retreat. Quite rightly, in my opinion, with fifteen hundred heavy horse and mounted infantry on his left flank front ready to come down on him like a hammer on a nail and nothing to put in their way. And after an hour of bouncing off the Iron Legion the militia were ready to oblige. The Legion didn’t like that above half and if they’d had their way not one of the Tyroshi militia would have escaped. But the same fortifications that had helped them handle the Tyroshi so easily kept them from pursuing; depending on who you ask it took the Pioneers anywhere between ten and twenty minutes to get to the front and dismantle the fortifications to let the Legion through. And unless you’ve seen a man run for his life, you really don’t know how much ground he can cover in that length of time. Suffice to say that its more than you might think.
Of course, even men running for their lives are slower than cavalry and for the first several minutes we just rode over them. There’s nothing in the world quite like riding down a fleeing man and swinging your sword back into his face; it’s a lot like being drunk except you feel like your blood’s been replaced by chain lightning. You feel invincible, almost god-like, like there’s nothing in the world that can stop you. Right up until someone belts you across the face. Which is what Daario Naharis did.
How he managed it I don’t know but somehow he managed to rally a few hundred of his sellswords and led them in a counter-charge that caught us about halfway through his infantry. At the time it was just a wild chaos of shouting men and screaming horses and the clangor of metal on metal, but at this remove I can see it for the neat little counter-punch it was; quickly in, bam, to throw us off our stride and into confusion, and then quickly out again, to do it again when we had sorted ourselves out. Nor was he alone in doing so. On the far side of the army a company of Myrish exiles and their in-laws refused to break and run. Instead they retired at a walk, in formation, turning back every now and then to lock horns with anyone who tried to complete the rout by breaking them. As the Blackfish put it afterwards, “Slaver bastards, perhaps, but brave men withal. They deserve a better cause.”
I learned later that between that company and the cavalry Naharis had rallied, the Army of Tyrosh managed to put up a fighting retreat for almost ten miles, with Jaime Lannister and Lyn Corbray chewing away at the rearguard like bulldogs, but I didn’t see all of that. My horse gave out and collapsed about four miles in and I sprained my ankle bad enough in leaping clear that all I could do was sit myself on the beast and wait for someone to collect me when the fighting was done. Thank blind idiot luck for that, too, because apparently the last few clashes were downright vicious, including one exchange where Daario came up against Jaime Lannister and only escaped by dint of killing Jaime’s horse at the first opportunity. Not that I knew or cared, then; all I wanted was for my damned ankle to stop throbbing.
Chapter 54: Frustrated Ambitions
Chapter Text
Petyr Baelish finished off the last sentence of the order he was drafting, placed his pen in its inkwell, and carefully stretched the incipient cramp out of his hand as he sanded the ink with his other hand. Long hours of writing had given him almost as much strength and control in that hand as a swordsman, but four twelve-hour days would take a toll on anyone.
Not that he had expected royal service to be a cushy job. A kingdom on the make needed every wheel to be turning at full speed with a minimum of squeaking. He had found this out for himself when Lord Stark had found him a clerkship in a Port warehouse; Lord Captain of the Port Franlan tolerated no sluggards in his workforce, be they watchman, clerk, or stevedore. Even the slowdown in trade caused by the war hadn’t lightened the workload. On the contrary, Franlan had taken the names of those clerks who found themselves idled by lack of business and given the list to Ser Gerion with the offer to loan them out to him until trade picked back up.
Which was how Petyr had come to be a supply clerk in the Royal Army of Myr, which in layman’s terms meant that his world had turned into a side room that held eight tables each eight feet square, a rack of cubbyholes each stuffed with papers, and a supply of ink and spare quills. In any given hour, Petyr might have to report how many feet of half-inch rope lay in Myr city’s warehouses, grade a request by a village militia commander for extra crossbows and recommend to his superior whether to approve or deny the request, and draft an order to ship five hundredweight of wheat to Campora to top up its siege stores. And whenever something was sent out or received, it had to be signed for by the person disbursing it, the person transporting it, the person receiving it, and the clerk who had written up the order for transport, which generated even more papers.
That was one reason that Petyr hadn’t tried to give his salary a little covert augmentation. If, for instance, he arranged for a few military crossbows to fall off the back of a wagon, then he would have to bring at least two other people into the scheme, which was two too many for comfort. As the saying went, three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead. And even if his cohorts kept their silence, all it took was one royal inspector noticing a discrepancy between what someone said they had and what they actually had to break the scheme open; the trail of signed papers would lead right to Petyr and his conspirators.
That was the other reason Petyr hadn’t dipped his fingers into the till. The royal inspectors didn’t just inspect the state of the town garrisons and the fitness of the Legion companies; they inspected every branch of royal government from top to bottom. And when they found something out of order, correction followed with the speed and finality of a thrown axe. The day before Petyr had transferred to War House, the sprawling manse that Ser Brynden Tully had made the great brain of the Royal Army, a master clerk in the Palace of Justice had been caught embezzling and every scribbler who wore the livery and took the pay of the Kingdom of Myr had been ordered to attend his execution.
At first, Petyr had thought that it was a show, that the unfortunate would be taken up to the scaffold and the noose placed on his neck before a messenger came hotfoot from the Palace of Justice with a grant of clemency, or at least a stay of execution. But the noose had been tightened, the red priest had recited the death prayer, and Petyr and almost four hundred other clerks watched in shock as the lever was pulled and the embezzler dropped. But not far enough to break his neck, oh no, the headsman had given the embezzler the short drop, so that instead of having his neck broken he had slowly strangled. It had taken the poor sod almost ten minutes to die, with his face slowly turning blue and his eyes bulging as he fought for air. Eventually he had gone limp, and the headsman had made sure of his demise by grabbing onto his ankles and yanking down hard.
Petyr prided himself on being a fast learner and the lesson had been tolerably clear: Keep your sticky fingers to yourself, if you know what’s good for you. And at that, the man had apparently been lucky to be hanged. Ducking out to the local bakery for lunch one day, Petyr had overheard a pair of Legion spearmen discussing the embezzler and what they would have done to him if he’d been handed over to them as they had requested. He had lost his appetite entirely after only a few sentences.
So he kept his hands to himself and his head down; there was plenty of time still to make his fortune and something would turn up. He had already made a fair bit investing in a few cargoes of glassware that had gone to Braavos and King’s Landing; it wasn’t strictly forbidden for royal employees to invest and speculate on trade so long as they only did so with their own money and didn’t abuse their position in the process. The war had put a stop to that for now, but he had an investment lined up with the Weaver’s Guild as soon as trade resumed its normal flow. He might wear plain clothes and eat plain food for now, but time and a continuance of his newfound luck would change that, among other things.
He gently set the order into the tray designated for outgoing papers and reached for the next paper in the tray designated for incomers. There were several hours left to go before the office closed and the stack in his incoming tray was still two inches thick.
XXX
Roryn Pyke laboriously scratched out his signature on the report to Ser Gerion on the probe that had been fended off two days ago; he had been learning to read and write since being named castellan of Ironhold, but he still relied on a scribe for anything longer or more complicated than a short message. After he finished writing he handed the report back to his scribe to be sealed and sent off by dispatch rider and turned to glower out the window at the sea.
By all rights the Sea of Myrth should be a Myrish sea in truth, but the fact remained that the Royal Navy could do no more than protect the littoral and the coastal shelf and make occasional forays out into the open sea. The slaver fleets were simply too numerous and, if Roryn was being entirely honest, too competent to challenge for a fleet that still numbered less than seventy galleys; longships made excellent patrol and raiding craft, but they couldn’t fight galleys on even terms and expect to win. The Ironmaker’s victory had been won by surprise, and those actions where a Myrish longship had beaten a slaver galley had almost uniformly been won by a boarding action after an error in maneuvering had allowed the longship to get alongside the galley. There were ways to force such errors in maneuvering, if you had the numbers to threaten each galley from multiple angles, but Roryn, Victarion, and Dagmer Cleftjaw had worked out that the most reliable method of doing so required a lone galley to be opposed by three longships.
The slavers, the god curse them, had taken to sailing in squadrons of three or four galleys, and operating in close concert as they did so. That made things infinitely more difficult; not that it was impossible to force the kind of errors you needed to win, but you needed to have four or five times the number of longships in order to do so, and you needed all the skill you could muster and all the special favor you could cadge out of the god in order to do so. And even under the best of circ*mstances the Drowned God was stingy with his favor. Only those who had already done all that mortal might and craft could accomplish could reasonably expect him to take a hand.
So Lord Captain Franlan was building new galleys as fast as he could, while off the shore the Royal Navy did the best they could to keep the coastal villages from being attacked as they had been in the first war. But for all the valor the Navy showed in protecting the coast, they couldn’t reopen the Sea of Myrth to trade. The slavers had announced the Sea of Myrth to be closed to trade on pain of attack, and proved it by sinking a slew of merchant vessels in the opening days of the war. Dispatch riders had already been sent north to Pentos requesting the aid of the Braavosi fleet on the grounds that the Peace of Pentos had guaranteed freedom of navigation, but it would take some time for that aid to come, if it came at all. In the meantime, the merchants of Ironhold and Myr city were being forced to tighten their belts and explore other means of making a living. More than a few merchant’s sons had joined the Royal Navy in order to contribute a sailor’s wages towards the maintenance of their families, while their mothers and sisters took in sewing and embroidery and their fathers turned their gazes inland.
At least Ironhold was more or less immune to attack. The harbor defenses were essentially a copy of those protecting the port of Myr, augmented by the fact that the town castle, a stoutly constructed citadel in the fashion of the holdfasts of the Iron Isles, was placed on the shore at the western end of the harbor. Moreover, the town’s buildings were strongly built, whether of stone or wood, and each household, shop, and place of business was required to maintain at least one water barrel and four buckets per floor against fire. The probe he was reporting to Ser Gerion had been a pair of Tyroshi galleys that had flirted with the extreme range of the springalds on the harbor mole towers. A few desultory bolts back and forth, and a hand of longships putting out from the docks, had convinced the slavers to try their luck elsewhere.
Roryn’s lip curled into a snarl; he hated feeling unable to protect the livelihood of his people, and if he knew Victarion it would be eating at the young lord’s soul like rats in a granary. At least Victarion was out at sea where he could do something about it. Roryn, by contrast, was stuck in Ironhold listening to his scribe read out reports and petitions and taking out his frustrations on the pell and those of the town garrison who would brave his increasingly foul mood in order to spar with him.
XXX
A properly brought-up Lyseni aristocrat didn’t show strong emotion in public. Not that they couldn’t show emotion at all, even grief was acceptable if you were in mourning. But it had to understated; a discreet sniffle and a lone tear was perfectly within the bounds of civilized behavior, wailing and floods of tears not so much. Such extravagant displays of unbridled emotion were for barbarians, not the well-bred scions of Lys the Lovely.
But on finding that his path was blocked by yet another fortified village, Cladio Pyrrius couldn’t help himself. He thumped his fist on the pommel of his saddle and spat a caustic string of oaths that made his lieutenants edge backward as they traded nervous glances. Cladio snarled a final imprecation that he had heard on one of his uncle’s ships, which cursed its target, its progeny, and its ancestors unto the fourth generation, and finally subsided, forcing himself to review the situation dispassionately as he deliberately slowed his breathing.
He had come over the border ten days ago with three thousand mounted light infantry and light horse under his command; it was well short of the commitment promised by the mutual defense treaty with Tyrosh, but it was what could be spared from the defenses while the army was being restructured. In any case, he had been ordered to do all the damage he could to the Myrish countryside in order to draw troops away from the invasion of Tyrosh, or at least render the Myrish southeastern frontier incapable of supporting an army. A sound enough strategy, but the cracks had appeared almost immediately.
To name only one, the damned Andals hadn’t been caught with their pants down, as some of the more optimistic members of the conclave had theorized. On his first day over the border he had seen no less than six signal fires, and the purpose of them had become apparent only two days later, when his army came across their first fortified village. It hadn’t been anything special, simply a ditch-and-rampart affair with a palisade along the rampart and short, but no less significant towers at each corner bastion. But it had contained the inhabitants of every nearby farm, down to the livestock; Cladio’s scouts had found nothing greater than a chicken in any of the farmhouses within a day’s ride of the fortified villages, and no valuables either. The farms had been burned, of course, but with the crops only recently planted the only things that could be burned were the buildings, fruit trees, and vineyards that couldn’t be brought within the villages.
He had stormed the first of those villages, of course; he would not have it said that he was afraid to try conclusions against slaves and peasants. But it had been far more difficult than he was expecting. The first storming party had been shot apart by crossbow volleys without getting within fifty feet of the wall. The second storming party, better supported with missile fire and employing improvised mantlets, had gotten to the walls but had been forced to retreat after a short but vicious contest atop the palisade. At that point Cladio had lost his temper and ordered the gates to be burned. This had been accomplished, and a substantial section of the palisade on either side of the gatehouse burned down as well before the bucket brigade overwhelmed the flames, but the villagers had dug a shallow ditch and assembled a barricade from the excavated earth and other materials that allowed them to cover the new gap in the walls with crossbowmen in cover supported by spearmen. It hadn’t saved them in the end, but for the privilege of reducing the village to a corpse-strewn ruin Cladio’s force had paid a heavy price. A hundred and thirty-six men had either been killed outright or died of their wounds, while another two hundred had been too badly wounded to continue with the raid and three hundred more were lightly wounded.
Cladio, for his part, had been more aghast that none of the defenders of the village appeared to be regular soldiers. They had all been peasants, albeit peasants wielding military weapons. His patrician soul rebelled at the idea of an armed peasantry trained and willing to fight, but he could not deny the evidence before his eyes. The fact that of the three villages they had encountered since every one of them had been fortified and defended provided even more evidence. The Kingdom of Myr simply couldn’t have enough trained soldiers to invade Tyrosh, garrison Myr city and their principal towns, and protect every village; the numbers required would bankrupt them. Instead, it appeared, the Myrish had armed and trained their peasants to defend themselves, and built those ungodly fortified villages to further help them do so, in order to allow them to concentrate their soldiers in the major towns, Myr city, and their field army.
Confirmation of that theory would have to wait on further information however, and while Cladio was willing to try and find out the hard way, that was no longer an option. After losing just over a tenth of his strength at that nameless, never-to-be-sufficiently-damned village, he didn’t have the numbers to storm more villages and protect himself against a counter-stroke. Especially since the companies stationed at Campora had sallied out to take the field against him. He did outnumber them by about half their numbers again and was far more mobile than the heavy infantry and heavy cavalry of the Iron Legion, but their commander was mirroring his movements on the inner of two concentric arcs, which meant that he had fundamentally less ground to cover in order to keep Cladio from penetrating further. And Cladio knew better than to fight head-on against heavy foot and armored lancers with light foot and light horse.
Cladio shrugged. He had been told to do all the damage to the Myrish frontier that he could, and he had done so. Along his whole line of march there was not a farmhouse that remained unburnt or an orchard that had not been cut down. He had also been ordered to preserve his force insofar as he was able within the confines of his other orders and so far, he had lost only two hundred and fifty men killed and wounded. His family’s rivals in the conclave couldn’t argue with successfully completed orders. Especially since he had made sure that each of his entries in the running log that detailed the travails of his command had been countersigned by two of his subordinates. It was one thing to accuse a commander of cowardice or inability, but quite another to extend that accusation to the full roster of his subordinate officers.
He turned and started giving orders. They would inflict what devastation they could on the lands around the village, and then begin the withdrawal. It galled him to withdraw without at least spying the towers of Campora, but that was the fault of the men who’d given him a raiding force instead of a proper army. If the conclave had any sense and read his reports, they wouldn’t try an invasion again without a larger force, a proper supply train, and siege engines.
Chapter 55: Flotsam and Jetsam
Chapter Text
Flotsam and Jetsam
Ser Brynden Tully pursed his lips as he stared about him. Alalia had fallen, as might have been predicted, but it had been nowhere near as clean a takeover as even the taking of Myr had been, much less the capture of Pentos, his ideal. Unavoidably so, perhaps, given the circ*mstances, but it was still unfortunate.
When news of the Battle of Solva had reached the town, the slaves had erupted in rebellion that very evening. Apparently, it had started nigh-spontaneously when the street-sweepers had refused to go into their barracks for the night, but the mutiny of the sweepers had only been the spark that ignited the first flame. The porters had gone to the aid of the sweepers, and that had convinced the laborers and blacksmiths that this was the best opportunity they could ask for to initiate their deeply-laid plans at rebellion. With that the revolt had become general, even among the domestic slaves, and within twenty minutes Alalia had become a battlefield as the rebelling slaves grappled with the garrison and the watch for control of the streets.
The fighting, judging by the evidence, had been savage; from where Brynden sat his horse he could see where the blood had pooled along the street and splashed against the walls of the buildings on either side. The market district, he had been told, had changed hands twice before a concerted effort by the blacksmiths, butchers, and porters had slaughtered or driven out the garrison troops and watchmen who had been holding it. At that point the commander of the garrison, in desperation, had resorted to the use of fire, deliberately torching a swathe of the town in order to buy time for his men to regroup. It might even have worked, if the Royal Army hadn’t arrived the very next day.
An assault column of Legion spearmen headed by dismounted knights had entered through the one gate that the slaves had taken and spearheaded the final attack through the town while other companies deployed against the fire. The commander of the garrison and a hundred die-hards had fought to the last man in the manse of the Prefect of the East, who it seemed had been away when the slaves rebelled. The remaining Tyroshi soldiers and watchmen had been hunted through the streets like rats; the last of them had been rooted out and slain not two hours ago. As for the free population of the city, they had suffered terribly during the fighting; less than a thousand people of all ages and sexes had survived, and those were huddling in the Temple of Trade in a state of abject fear. The brutality of the fighting had exhausted the slaves’ appetite for revenge for now, but when they had recovered and remembered the masters who still remained . . .
Robert, apparently, intended to let them go free. There were no fit men of military age remaining among them, as the commander of the garrison had conscripted every man who could wield sword or spear, and he didn’t expect Tyrosh to hold out long enough for the male children to grow old enough to fight for her. The former slaves might be unhappy about it, but as their one surviving leader had put it, their chains had been avenged enough for now. Brynden shrugged to himself; they would have plenty of opportunity to take what revenge they thought necessary in the near future. Indeed, more than a few of them had enlisted in the Legion. Which would solve the problem of keeping them from committing any more destruction at least.
Which left the problem of Alalia’s condition. Almost a fifth of the town had been reduced to ash and the charred skeletons of buildings. Most of the rest had been thoroughly pillaged; the new freedmen had taken the opportunity to plunder and destroy in between fighting the garrison and the watch and tormenting the burghers. Even worse, the municipal granary had been burned on the garrison commander’s orders, with the deliberate intent, according to the survivors of the garrison, of denying its contents to the Royal Army. When Brynden had seen the blackened shell of the great structure, the largest single building in the town, he had briefly entertained the notion of hiring a warlock to raise the garrison commander from the dead so that he could kill him again. The Royal Army consumed several tons of food every day, and losing the municipal granary, holding as it did the siege stores of the town and the produce of some of the most fertile fields in Tyroshi territory, had been a blow. And not just to the Army, either; they were now responsible for feeding the town of Alalia and the population of the surrounding countryside as well.
That task, combined with putting Alalia back on its feet as a fully functioning town, would take a great deal of time and effort. And that left aside the mess that the countryside had become.
XXX
Stallen Naerolis, former diplomatic functionary and now a lieutenant in the Army of Tyrosh, swallowed a curse as he beheld the burned-out shell of the farmhouse. There was no point in wasting his breath on empty curses, even if this was the third destroyed farm that he had come across in as many hours of riding.
The slaves of Tyrosh had been restive ever since the Fall of Myr, when the Andals had proven that they and their doctrine of violent abolition had the means and the ability to become a permanent addition to the political and social landscape of western Essos. On Tyrosh isle that new restlessness had been muted due to the fact that the isle’s garrison was reinforced with the Tyroshi fleet, with all its sailors and marines. But in the countryside, there hadn’t been so large and so obvious a military presence, even after the Peace of Pentos when the Archon had ordered the expansion of the Tyroshi army. There had been few outright revolts, and those that had erupted had been crushed with signal brutality, but the rate of what the Tyroshi justiciars called ‘deliberate indiscipline’ had risen drastically, as had the number of runaways. This had been met with an increase in the number and strength of military patrols through the countryside, and a new requirement that those patrols visit every estate within their district at least twice a month, but such measures had only abated the problem, not solved it.
And then the war had come, and the majority of those patrols had been swept up into the army. The result had been a predictable increase in escapes, but outright revolt had been averted, probably by the deliberate choice of the slaves themselves. Who could say, after all, but that the masters might not be victorious? But then the Battle of Solva had been fought, and news of the Tyroshi defeat had put the spark to the tinder. The very day after the retreat from Solva ended, no less than four messengers had come galloping up to the army from the nearby estates to report that the slaves had revolted. Captain-General Naharis had dispatched what was left of his cavalry to suppress the revolts, out of necessity, but within two days the cavalry had returned in near-disarray. The whole countryside, they had reported, was aflame with servile rebellion. The slaves from the nearby estates, armed with farming tools and weapons taken from the great houses of the estates, were roaming the roads in hundreds-strong mobs, intent on slaughter and pillage. Even worse, they were being joined by bands of Andal cavalry, providing them with the disciplined core of armored men necessary to fight off attempts to suppress them.
To his credit, Naharis had seen what needed to be done and ordered an immediate retreat towards Aesica. Once over the Turtle River, the army could resupply, replenish its numbers, and prepare to take up the contest again. While the infantry plodded down the North Road towards the bridges at Dubris, the remaining cavalry, and the remains of the Exile Company, as the Myrish among the army were called, were set to patrolling the flanks of the army’s line of march. He had also sent off a spray of dispatch riders to rush north to the warn the garrison of Dubris to be on its guard and call up reinforcements. And as someone had apparently told him of what Stallen had actually been assigned to do in Pentos, nothing would do but that Stallen be one of those riders. Any man with the skill and the sand to almost pull off an assassination attempt against Robert the Bloody was clearly the man to carry a vital message through hostile country.
Stallen spat aside as he reined his horse back onto the road. It was flattering to have the Captain-General hold so high an opinion of his skills, but he could have done without being given this assignment. Up till now he had only heard what the Andals and the slaves had done to his homeland, and that had been bad enough. Now, seeing what an Andal invasion and a slave revolt meant with his own eyes, it didn’t take much imagination to see these things happening in his own country. Especially since it had already happened.
XXX
Stannis read through the report that had just arrived from Evenfall Hall that morning for the third time, calculating furiously as he did so. Not about whether a war could be justified; that was easily answered. The Peace of Pentos had clearly been breached and he was in a position to fulfill the obligations that such an event imposed on him as one of the guaranteeing powers. It would bring shame on his House and endanger his position as King not to declare war on the slavers who had broken the Peace.
No, what filled Stannis’ mind was what he would make war with and what he could expect out of it. He had the two hundred galleys and cogs of the royal fleet of course, and he was reasonably confident that the Braavosi squadron stationed at Evenfall Hall would agree to join the war; it was the Braavosi who had insisted on making freedom of navigation a condition of the Peace, after all. Jon would probably insist on leaving the Vale fleet at home against a counter-stroke, though, and the need to act quickly precluded sending for the Manderly or Redwyne fleets. The New Nobles could be drawn on for marines; even the most horse-bound of them would accept the impossibility of fighting in the saddle when at sea and they held their lands and their positions on condition of knight-service at the Crown’s pleasure. And those ships the New Nobles couldn’t provide marines for could have their complements filled out by the Knights of the Crown, a new Royal Order with roughly equivalent duties in the Crownlands to those that the Knights of the Sun discharged in Dorne. Like the Knights of the Sun, those of the Crown were primarily younger sons of the nobility and landed chivalry or elevated hedge knights, and would have no trouble at all following a command to serve as naval infantry. Most of them were grateful enough to be in royal service, with all the things that implied for their social status and their chances of making a good marriage, that they would fight however and wherever they were told to, or so one of their officers had said in a report.
That settled the what, which left the second half of the why. One of the sub-clauses of the Peace of Pentos provided for the guaranteeing powers to levy fines and other sanctions against parties in breach of the Peace, but Stannis wasn’t terribly concerned with strictly monetary sanctions; ready cash was certainly convenient to have around, but it wasn’t the sine qua non of royal policy. He stood up, walked over to the rack of cubbyholes along the wall of his solar, and drew out a certain map which he spread across the table. After weighing down the corners of the map with an inkpot, his dagger, a small plate that held the remains of his luncheon, and an ornamental statuette of an armored knight on a rearing destrier that he hated but couldn’t throw away because it was a gift from Cersei, he traced the main shipping routes through the Stepstones with his finger.
.The Stepstones were a haven for piracy not just because of the profusion of easily-hidden lairs that they offered but because none of the nearby powers had the strength or the will to effect a cleansing and keep the isles cleared of the sea-bandits. Consequently, goods that traversed the Stepstones were more expensive than they might otherwise be in order to offset the costs of allowing a large and active population of semi-organized criminals to go about their business. But if the Tyroshi could be forced to yield their possessions in the Stepstones, and their selectively blind patrols replaced with men of the proper rectitude and thoroughness . . . Stannis smiled thinly. He could probably convince the Braavosi that it would be acceptable enough for an ally to collect a toll from the ships that passed through the Narrow Sea in return for suppressing piracy, especially if that ally promised to give Braavosi ships a reduced rate. The Braavosi were smart enough to realize that it was better to pay a few coppers in order to secure a steady stream of silver than pay nothing in return for a little gold now and then.
His decision made, he rang a small handbell. “Inform Lord Arryn and Lord Redwyne to meet me in the Small Council at once, if you please,” he said to the valet that appeared at the door. “Pass the word for the Grand Maester as well.” What Lord Redwyne didn’t know about the prevailing conditions in the Stepstones, Pycelle should; Stannis had ordered him to undertake a study of them just last month. As the valet bowed his way back out of sight he re-rolled the map and tucked it under his arm, snatching up the report in his other hand as he did so. Theoretically, he had servants to carry things for him, but Stannis was sure that they had more important things to do than carry such a trifling load. What, did he not have strong arms and clever hands of his own? He shook his head absent-mindedly. The pomp and theatrics of kingship he could understand but the protocol that theoretically prevented him from doing even the slightest manual labor beyond training at arms was simply inefficient.
Chapter 56: The Stormcrow's Stand
Chapter Text
The Stormcrow's Stand
Mero of Braavos, the Titan’s Bastard, smiled carnivorously as the last knot of rebellious slaves went down under the swords of his men. It had taken longer than he would have liked, but at least it was done and he could get after the clot of runaway slaves that was running for the Turtle River as fast as their feet could carry them.
As Naharis had feared, the slave rebellion had indeed spread north of Turtle River; word of the defeat at Solva had traveled fast and far. But the rebellion below the river had an advantage that their fellows above it did not. The Royal Army of Myr’s defeat of the Tyroshi army had won them the ability to dispatch cavalry parties to organize and lend aid to the rebel slaves. Without that aid, the slaves here could not hope to stand against either Mero’s Second Sons, even reduced as they were from Solva, or the Tyroshi militia, companies of which had been force-marched from the coast to put down the rebellion.
He had beaten down two large parties of rebel slaves before the rest, apparently getting the message, began to flee southward. Mero hadn’t taken more than a moment to guess why; if they got south of Turtle River, the slaves would be effectively safe from reprisal. Naharis hadn’t said it outright, but Mero could tell that he had more or less given up on trying to reclaim Alalia and its hinterland before the next campaigning season. Mero snorted softly; Naharis was canny enough and no one could deny that he was a brave and good man of his hands, but he couldn’t help but think that Tara and Solva had done something to him. It was a rare sellsword that actively sought out a battle, but Naharis had seemed almost reluctant to try conclusions with the Myrish before their march on Alalia had forced his hand. There had been a few moments in the first two sennights of the war where Mero had thought himself in a position to strike a sound blow against the Royal Army, only to have Naharis call him off.
At least Naharis seemed to have not taken the defeat at Solva too much to heart. Indeed he seemed to be newly invigorated by the challenge of holding the line of the Turtle River against the Myrish and putting down a slave rebellion at the same time. Mero had been sent to put the slaves down, but he had heard that Naharis was shuffling companies from one bridge and ford to another on a stretch of the river thirty miles long, trying to create an impression of newfound strength great enough to bluff the Myrish out of attempting a crossing. And for a wonder it seemed to be working, or at least Mero hadn’t heard that the Myrish had gotten over the river.
His soldiers began to settle, lowering their weapons and catching their breath after finishing off the last of the wounded slaves. Mero turned in his saddle and waved at the banda of cavalry he had kept as a reserve, sending them trotting forward. The slaves were fighting as hard as they could to keep him from catching up to the columns of their fleeing fellows, but to the best of his knowledge this was the last knot of armed slaves between him and the slowest of those columns. With any luck his cavalry should be able to run them down within another day or so, and then they would have some fun. It would be difficult to keep the lads from satisfying their pleasures before attending to business, but that was why he was riding with them with his personal guard of fifty men. If he took charge of any prisoners with the promise to share them out equally when the work was done, then his men would give them up without too much fuss. Mero demanded discipline, but he rewarded it by being generous and even-handed with the spoils and his men loved him for it.
Not that there were likely to be many spoils if the Tyroshi militia got to the slaves first, but they were infantry and his men were cavalry, so they probably wouldn’t. For that matter there would be fewer spoils than usual even with his sellswords, given that they had orders direct from the Archon to spare no male slave over the age of ten who rebelled against his master. Wasteful, in Mero’s opinion, but the Archon was paying his bill, so he would follow orders. And the Archon had said nothing about the female slaves.
Mero threw his head back and whooped in anticipation, his men taking up the call as they spurred their horses into a canter.
XXX
Eddard spat aside as he surveyed the bridge of Dubris. It was as great a structure as might be expected for one that bore the main north-south road of a state as rich as Tyrosh, a double-arched span of grey-white stone wide enough for two heavy wagons to pass abreast with room to spare on either side of them. If it could be taken intact, it would be perfect for conveying the army across Turtle River.
The operative word in that sentence, however, was if.
“I still say we should try to take it at a rush,” Jaime Lannister said, eyeing the flat, even surface of the bridge’s roadway and the flat plain leading up to it. “Concentrate our knights and men-at-arms into a single column, send them across at the charge with a company’s worth of volunteers from the Legion following them up. If their infantry acts like it did at Solva, they’ll break.”
“Unless it’s that company of Myrish exiles,” Ser Brynden Tully said dourly, gesturing at the company of spearmen plugging the far end of the bridge with a wall of shields and the two other companies stacked behind them, ready to lend their weight to any pushing matches. “If it is then they’ll stand, like as not, and we’ll be stuck out there with no cover but a hip-high wall and our shields, while those bastards,” another gesture indicated the hundreds of crossbowmen fanned out on either side of the bridge, “shoot us to pieces. Especially since they’re close enough to the bridge to shoot through plate. A glorious failure is still a failure.”
“And we wouldn’t be able to get enough reinforcements across quickly enough to exploit even if they did break,” Eddard added. “Not with those cavalry there ready to pitch in.” He pointed to where a banda of enemy horsem*n lurked under the trees a medium bowshot away from the bridge. The sellsword cavalry wasn’t up to the standard of the Royal Army, but charging into a mass of men disorganized by even a successful charge across the bridge . . .
Jaime frowned, then shrugged. “True enough,” he said unwillingly. “And it’s not like we can ford the river here.” Turtle River was relatively shallow as rivers went, but five feet was still too deep for infantry to wade across into the teeth of massed crossbows. And the muddy bottom would make it even worse going for heavy cavalry; horses hated mud even when they were unloaded for the way their hooves sank into it. With upwards of three hundred pounds of rider, armor, and weapons on top of them their hooves would go into the mud of the riverbed like nails into soft wood. Moreover, the open ground on either side of the river would give the Tyroshi crossbowmen plenty of time to shoot into them as they came and if they had any sense at all, they would aim for the horses first. “Is there another crossing anywhere close?”
Ser Brynden shrugged. “Corbray’s scouts tell me there’s a ford five miles downriver,” he said. “But it’s a narrow one and the footing’s almost as bad there as it is here. Loose rocks in mud.” The captains winced. A man walking across such a surface in heavy armor, especially if he couldn’t look down to watch where he was putting his feet, would court a broken ankle with every step. And no horseman worth the name would take a horse across such a ford. It would be more merciful to simply take an axe to the beast’s neck and spare it the pain of a broken leg. Ser Brynden turned to the fourth man in their little council. “Maester Gordon, can your Pioneers get a bridge across that ford?”
Gordon scratched at his freshly-shaven chin. “I rode out to take a look at it yesterday,” he admitted, “and I’m not confident that they can; the ford’s got a guard on it like this one, albeit smaller. If it were just a matter of building the bridge, then it wouldn’t be a problem at all. But building a bridge in the face of an enemy covering force and then keeping it up long enough for reinforcements to get across?” He tipped a hand from one side to another. “I won’t say it can’t be done, but it’d be bloody. We’d probably be better off just laying planks along the bed of the ford, sending the Legion across to drive off the covering force, and then building the bridge.”
“All of which would take time,” Jaime mused, “Probably enough time for the Tyroshi to send enough men to beat down the bridgehead at the ford while keeping enough here to keep us from storming this bridge.” He glared across the bridge at the Tyroshi opposite them. The infantry blocking the far end of the bridge were different companies from yesterday, they could tell that much by the differences in their armor and the blazons on their shields, usually a series of geometric designs but occasionally the odd fantastic beast. “Where in the hells did this bastard get all his new strength from? I thought the Tyroshi only had the one field army?”
“They’ve probably stripped the coastlands bare to make up the numbers,” Eddard said. “It’s what I’d do if I had their navy.” He glared at the river again and cursed the quirk of history that meant there was only one large bridge within easy striking distance of Alalia. Turtle River, it seemed, had been the border between Tyrosh and Lys until a few decades ago, and as part of the two cities’ plans for controlling the flow of trade and people between their territories only one major bridge had been built within four days ride of Alalia. They had even dredged out most of the fords within that radius, save for those that were already impassible to wheeled vehicles like the one Gordon had just dismissed as a crossing site.
He turned his horse to face his captains. “We have to keep at least half of our force here,” he said, “in case the Tyroshi try to recross the river.” Eddard had six Legion companies and a cavalry company at the bridge; Robert had two Legion companies at Alalia and Lyn Corbray had the two remaining Legion companies and the other three cavalry companies patrolling the country between the river and the Lyseni border. Word of Lys’s entry into the war with the raid towards Campora had reached the army five days ago. “Ser Jaime, take three Legion companies, fifty lances, Maester Gordon and his Pioneers, and go upriver. If you can find a practicable crossing point within two day’s march, secure it and send word. I’ll keep one company and the remaining cavalry here as a covering force and send the other companies to reinforce you.” He turned to the Blackfish. “Ser Brynden, I’ll need you to remain with me. If the slavers can read our heraldry, then they’ll start getting suspicious if the Blackfish disappears.” The necessary corollary to that statement, that the Tyroshi would not be so suspicious if the lion of Lannister suddenly vanished, only made Jaime blink, and that mildly. Understandably so; Ser Brynden had had a famous name before either Jaime or Eddard had been born. And that fame hadn’t been confined to Westeros.
“You’ll move out tomorrow night, Ser Jaime, just before sundown,” Eddard continued. “Make a night march in order to get clean away without the Tyroshi taking note, and then a hard day’s march to find a crossing.” At Jaime’s nod of comprehension Eddard nodded himself. “Let’s get to work then, sers.”
XXX
Lord Vernan Irons sat back in his saddle and stared in disbelief. “Maiden’s tit*,” he said wonderingly, “but I have never seen such a mess in all my born days.”
Lord Brynnan Axewell, his sword-brother and fellow corporal in the seventh cavalry company of the Royal Army, laughed humorlessly. “Nor have I,” he admitted. “And I’ve seen Lannisport the morning after the harvest festival. At least that mess stayed in one place.”
Just in front of them was a ford that, judging by the evidence, was broad, flat-bottomed, and, best of all, was unguarded. The problem lay in the evidence.
The ford was jammed with people. From edge to edge and bank to bank was a seething mass of humanity so dense that Vernan could hardly see the water of the river. On the far side there were even more people, a milling swarm of bodies that jostled impatiently, almost frantically, to get into the ford and across the river, while even more people streamed into the mass from the road that led northward from the ford. On the near side those who had already crossed were streaming away at a plodding walk, save for those who were staggering aside to collapse from what appeared to be exhaustion. A slight eddy in the river of people had formed where they instinctively shrank away from the sight of armored men on horseback, but otherwise they simply trudged along with their heads down. The cacophony of noise from what had to be at least ten thousand and possibly as many as fifteen thousand people brabbling at each other in various tones of alarm, anger, confusion, and fear was incredible.
Vernan spurred his horse forward, leaned down, and took a man by the arm. “What is this?” he asked loudly and slowly in the Common-Low Valyrian-Dothraki creole that had sprung up in Myr. “Who are you people? What is going on?”
The man he had seized looked up at him with a hunted look in his eyes. “They’re behind us,” he said dully in thickly accented Low Valyrian. “We need to move. Get across the river before they cut us up.”
“They,” Vernan said, switching to Low Valyrian as he noticed the collar-scar around the man’s neck. “The Tyroshi?” The man nodded, cringing a little in what seemed to be an involuntary reaction. Vernan nodded back. “Keep your people moving,” he said, injecting a reassuring tone into his voice. “Anyone falls out, carry them out of the line of march. Keep the road clear.”
The man nodded slowly. “Need to keep moving,” he agreed. “Need to run, not let them catch us.”
Vernan released the man’s arm and seized him by the cheek and jaw, turning his face upward to look him in the face. “The Royal Army of Myr does not run,” he said, the absolute finality of his voice starting the man out of his blank-eyed fear. “And slavers do not catch us,” Vernan went on, “we catch them. Now keep the road clear and your people moving so we can do so.” He released the man, straightened up in the saddle, and rode away from the crowd, leaving the man gaping at him. “Courier!” he shouted, summoning a hard-faced young freedwoman on a fine-boned horse that looked like a repurposed racehorse; the couriers of the Royal Army were either men just out of boyhood or a few hard women like this one, as they made the lightest and fastest riders. They were also all volunteers who knew the likely consequences if they were captured by the enemy. The only arms they carried were narrow daggers of the type called “mercy-blades”, in order to prevent themselves from falling into enemy hands.
“Message to Ser Jaime,” Vernan began. “Have discovered ford but unable to cross. Large crowd of escaped slaves crossing river at ford totally blocking passage. Interrogation of slaves indicates Tyroshi force in pursuit; location, speed, and type of force is unknown. Will hold this side of the ford and attempt to speed up crossing until reinforced. Recommend supplies be brought up to help feed the escaped slaves until they can be sent on to Myr. Do you have all that?” After the courier repeated his words back to him Vernan nodded. “Off with you then.” As the courier galloped off Vernan turned to Brynnan. “Let’s get our archers placed where they can cover the far side of the ford,” he said. “When the Tyroshi get here we’ll have to at least be able to shoot them off the rear of this column, even if we can’t cross the river and drive them off.”
Brynnan co*cked an eyebrow. “The Tyroshi are behind this lot?” he asked, unconsciously stroking the head of his axe.
“According to the man I talked to, aye,” Vernan replied. “If I had to guess,” he went on, gesturing at the horde funneling itself across the river, “I’d say that this is what’s left of a failed slave uprising north of the river.”
Brynnan nodded, not needing to be told anything further. “We’ll have to deploy all on this side of the ford,” he said. “No way in hell we’ll be able to coordinate a defense if we have to communicate across that lot.” He indicated the dense, slow-moving, yet somehow inexorable river of people marching past them.
“Agreed,” Vernan said. “Archers, pages, and valets on foot, knights and squires mounted for a countercharge, if they come. Until then, get everyone dismounted, loosen the saddle-girths, and let’s do our part to get this herd safe across the river.”
Brynnan nodded and turned away, shouting commands. Vernan turned back to survey the column, a grim resolve settling in his bones. The slavers were coming, and likely in some force, but that was what he and his ilk were for. It was a knight’s duty to defend the weak from those who would do them harm. And even if it hadn’t been, Vernan was a man with a powerful sense of obligation. When he had been made a lord after Narrow Run, unexpectedly despite all his hopes, he had effectively struck a bargain. In that bargain he received the land and the castle and the deference of the smallfolk and in return he pledged to fight to the death in the service of his king and the defense of his people.
The moment these people had thrown off their chains, they had become his people. Now they needed his protection against the terror that was pursuing them. And even when he had been a lowly hedge knight with barely two groats to rub together, Vernan Irons had paid what he owed, on the spot and in full. He would not break that record now.
Chapter 57: Limitations
Chapter Text
Limitations
In the second place, the morale advantage had swung decidedly in favor of the Royal Army of Myr. Despite the influx of reinforcements, the survivors of the Battle of Solva were not eager to try conclusions against the Iron Legion a second time. A few of the letters that the soldiers wrote in this period have survived and they are universally both downcast about the battle’s result and pessimistic about the likelihood of future victory. This might have been less of a problem if their commander had been a man of robust leadership in all military affairs, but for all his battlefield vigor Naharis seems to have preferred a hands-off style of managing the morale of his men. Moreover, Naharis seems to have lost confidence in the ability of his army to win a battle. One of the few documents surviving from the archives of the Tyroshi government of this period is a letter that Naharis drafted in reply to an order-in-council from the Archon to resume the offensive; it is a very laundry list of reasons why such an offensive was impossible, concluding with an assertion that to take the army south of Turtle River would expose it to complete destruction and lay all of Tyrosh’s mainland possessions bare to the Iron Legion.
Faced with such an impasse, and alerted to the mobilization of the royal fleet of King Stannis, the Archon and his council faced a difficult decision which, to their credit, they did not shy away from . . .
- Red Waves: The Slave Wars at Sea by Enriquos Feori, published 1050 AC
Councillor Andros Stallar sat heavily in his favorite chair, the one just by the fireplace in his study. It had been a long and draining day for the Archon’s Council, with their latest debate. Especially for him, as if his advice had been heeded it would have been unnecessary. “I tried to warn them,” he told his wife Doraena. “Gods all witness, I tried to warn them that Baratheon was not to be trifled with, but the fools wouldn’t listen. And now look where we are.”
Doraena poured a cup of wine from the decanter on the sideboard and pushed it into his hand as she sat on the footstool just in front of the chair. “You did all you could before the Archon decided the matter,” she said soothingly. “Could you have stood against him after he made his speech?”
Andros shook his head. “He swayed too many of the doubters,” he replied. “One voice raised in opposition would only have been shouted down. And been removed from the council, like enough, in favor of a more supportive one.” Theoretically the councilors of the Archon were elected from among their peers for a single six-year term, but unless they incurred the Archon’s displeasure or made too many enemies, councilors tended to be re-elected with only a minimum of bother. On the other hand, if they did make too many enemies, or go against the Archon too forcefully too many times, those elections could all too easily swing the other way. Assuming that your enemies didn’t manufacture charges of corruption or somesuch that would land you in exile, if not a cell in the Bleeding Tower. It was a known stratagem.
“At least they accepted my proposal,” he went on. “After talking about it for eight hours on end.” Talking was a somewhat misleading way to describe the day’s discussions, of course, but Andros made a policy of minimizing the disturbances of the day when he was at home. It was one of the reasons his private life was so peaceful, as opposed to some of the difficulties that his fellow councilors found themselves in with their wives.
Doraena raised an eyebrow. “They accepted your proposal for a truce, then?” she asked.
Andros nodded. “They made some changes,” he allowed. “But the terms we are offering the Andals are essentially the terms I drafted, minus one or two they deemed too objectionable.” He smiled mirthlessly. “Even Varoros voted for it in the end.”
“Varoros voted to open negotiations?” Doraena asked incredulously. “But his speech just yesterday . . .”
“Bravado, if well-spoken bravado,” Andros said. “He can read the strategic situation as well as any of us.” With the Iron Legion firmly ensconced in Alalia, Naharis desperately holding the line of the Turtle River and bawling for reinforcements, slave revolts sputtering fitfully across the length and breadth of the mainland, and the Lyseni either unwilling or unable to fulfill their commitment to dispatch an army into south-eastern Myr, it had suddenly become vital to seek as much of a peace as they could get. Even if they had to give up a few concessions, it was better to lose some now and have a decent chance of holding the rest, than bet everything and lose.
Especially since it was reported that the lord of Estermont was riding with King Robert’s army. It was reported that there was division between the Baratheon brothers, something to do with a certain Andal priest or somesuch, but who better to patch up such a breach than their mutually beloved grandfather? And if the report was true that he had joined Robert’s charge at Solva, which Andros was fully willing to believe given the Andal predilection for such madness, then it was possible that such a rapprochement had already been effected.
“I see,” Doraena said, nodding. After a moment of silence her mouth quirked into a half-smile. “Innos will be disappointed,” she said, referring to their twenty-year-old second son who had enrolled as a crossbowman in defiance of his father. “His company hasn’t been ordered to move to the mainland yet.”
Andros shrugged. “At least he’ll be alive to be disappointed,” he said. “Until the war begins again. As it will, unless we take steps toward a permanent accommodation with the Andals, which we won’t.” Especially since any such accommodation would require the abolition of slavery in Tyroshi territory, which would be intolerable to the magisters whose estates depended on slave labor to till their fields and work their mines. He shook his head. “If only the Lyseni would send in their army. If they attacked Myr now, while their army is pinned around Alalia, then we would have a chance to destroy the Andals for good and all. Even if they only have half as many Unsullied as they would like.”
“They’ve sent us their fleet, at least,” Doraena reminded him.
“Which does nothing to help us destroy their army,” Andros replied, “and mark me, wife, we will have no peace in these lands while the Iron Legion exists.” There was a reason that, by Tyroshi law, no slave was permitted to own, use, or be trained to use weapons, even if they had been manumitted after long years of loyal servitude. No one was foolish enough to think that their slaves loved them, for all that slaves cooked their food, cared for their children, and warmed their beds. Let a slave once take a weapon in his hand, the wisdom went, and only the gods knew what he would do with it before the end.
XXX
The manse of the Prefect of the East was one of the three largest buildings in Alalia outside the municipal granary and the Temple of Trade, not out of any particular sense of grandeur but because it had housed the Prefect, his family, and the entirety of his staff, from clerks to bodyguards to advocates. This had made it the natural choice for Robert to establish a command post in until the campaign moved on. Which was why Donesso Hestaar, special envoy of the Archon of Tyrosh, was standing in the room that had previously served the Prefect of the East as a courtroom to deliver the Archon’s message to King Robert of Myr and the captains of his army.
As Hestaar rerolled the parchment scroll from which he had read the terms that the Archon of Tyrosh offered as the basis of a truce, Robert glanced around the semi-circular table at his captains. What he saw did not give him much hope. Jaime Lannister was only barely concealing a predatory grin. Ser Brynden, by contrast, had a pensive look on his face, while Ned was scowling openly. That made Robert blink. If Ned took against the terms, then this was going to be difficult. Interestingly, Ser Akhollo Freeman had a blankly neutral expression on his face; Robert would have expected him to be spitting fury.
Robert almost wished that his grandfather was present; Lord Estermont loved to play the bluff old reprobate, but he had a sound head on his shoulders for all that. Unfortunately, he was Stannis’ man, and so politely excluded from the command council thanks to the lack of an alliance.
He turned his gaze back to Hestaar, who was as defiantly cool as if Robert was the one offering him terms and not the other way around, and raised a finger. “Ser Dafyn,” he said to the knight standing behind his chair, “escort Magister Hestaar and his retinue to their quarters. I shall give him my answer after I consult with my officers.” Hestaar’s lips tightened almost imperceptibly at being snubbed so, but his bow was no less graceful and his gait no less assured as he swept out of the room.
No sooner had the door swung to behind the magister than Jaime slapped the table with a sharp crack. “By the gods, we’ve got them!” he crowed, his smile fierce. “We can win this whole war with one more push!”
“Perhaps,” Ser Brynden interjected, “but why would we want to? They’re already handing us a victory, without one more drop of blood needed.”
“They wouldn’t be offering terms if they still had the strength to fight,” Jaime shot back. “I saw it on the Turtle River and I saw it again here; Tyrosh is on its last legs. Your Grace,” he turned to face Robert, “let me take the forces along the river and attack across the bridge at Dubris, or at Irons’ Ford. If I do not drive the Tyroshi into the sea by the end of this campaign season, then break my spurs and consign me to the infantry.”
“And even if you succeed, what will you feed those forces with?” Ser Brynden said, heat creeping into his voice. “We are on the end of a supply chain forty miles long or more, one that can be cut at almost any point along that length by anyone with a light cavalry banda and half the usual ration of ballocks. We have, right now, four and a half days of food for the army and not a crust more until the next convoy comes through three days from now. We have something on the order of twenty thousand new subjects to feed and house and resettle, which will cut our margin for error as regards supplies to the bone. And if Naharis has left so much as a crumb within three day’s march of the north bank of the Turtle River, then I’ll eat my boot without salt and call it a cutlet.”
Ned forestalled Jaime’s retort with a raised hand. “I agree that our supplies are not satisfactory at this point,” he said, “but I too believe that we should reject these terms. They are so paltry as to be insulting.”
Ser Brynden’s jaw dropped. “They’re ceding all the land between Turtle River and the Lyseni border,” he said when he finally regained control of himself. “They’re acknowledging their guilt over the massacre Ser Lyn found and have sent us the heads of those responsible. They’re offering to pay weregild for them and give us Hestaar as a hostage against its payment. They’re even offering to order their garrison commanders to refrain from burning the towns they command in the event of defeat. How in all the hells are they paltry?”
“They are not abolishing slavery,” Ned said flatly. “Nor are they offering us the heads of those responsible for crushing the rebellion north of the Turtle River. Nor are they even apologizing for the deaths their commander here caused when he fired the town. This is not an offer that can lead to peace; this is an attempt to buy us off until they can cudgel their slaves back to the fields and the mines.”
“There are twenty thousand of those slaves who they can no longer cudgel, because they have crossed over the river to us,” Brynden snapped back. “Under the Charter, we are now responsible for them, until they can be resettled either here or in Myr. If we fight on, then we run the risk of causing a famine in these lands, for us and for them. Would you like to ride into one of their camps a few sennights hence, when the hunger’s set in, and tell the mother of a starving child that we are keeping the food out of her child’s mouth because we didn’t accept peace when it was offered us?”
“Enough,” Robert snapped, cutting Ned off even as he opened his mouth to roar at the Blackfish. “Ser Akhollo, what say you to these terms?”
Akhollo tapped his fingers on the table, taking a long second to marshal his thoughts. “I agree that these terms should be rejected, if for different reasons,” he said slowly. “The only peace I would have with the slavers is the peace of the grave. But Ser Brynden is right that we should not cause our people to starve, willingly or not. They are ours, now, and we must care for them as our own. If we do not, then we are no better than the masters. As to any question of strategy,” he shrugged, “when I hunt a new prey, I seek advice from a man who has hunted it before. After taking that advice I would be a fool not to heed it. It is the same in war, I have found, since I joined you after Pentos.”
“Then hear this advice,” Jaime said, leaning forward. “We have the Tyroshi by the balls. If we press forward now, we can drive them into the sea and drown them like the curs they are.”
“And their fleet with them, with all their marines?” Brynden asked. “And all this with the Lyseni still in the fight? Lord Buckler beat back their raid, aye, but who is to say they might not return with an army? Or, worse yet, send that army against us here, and catch us between the hammer of their army and the anvil of the Tyroshi along Turtle River?”
Ned snapped his fingers. “That, for the Lyseni,” he said flatly. “They’re brothel-keepers, not soldiers.”
“Then why isn’t Lyn Corbray here, instead of watching the Lyseni border with half our army?” Brynden demanded. “If the Lyseni are worthless, then surely he’s wasting his time when we need his counsel here.”
Robert raised a hand, stifling further argument. “Your council is welcome, friends,” he said, using his “war-king voice” as Alaesa had called it and suppressing a stab of pain at the thought of her. “But after hearing your council the decision is mine. And I agree with Ser Brynden that we should accept the truce, if only to feed our new people. That said,” he turned to Jaime and Ned, who were looking at him with faces made blank by shock, “I note that the truce is only offered under the Archon’s signature. The Lyseni are not covered by its terms. And there is a debt there that I would see repaid with interest.”
Ned opened his mouth, shut it with a frown, and then nodded. “I will take my household to the border and command the attack myself.”
“Make it a raid only, Ned,” Robert said. “Pillage and burn how you like, sack any towns you can take without undue losses, but don’t let yourself get drawn into a pitched battle unless it can’t be avoided. Make the Lyseni howl enough to make their conclave either fight or offer terms.”
Ned’s face could have been carved from Northern granite. “Howl be damned,” he snarled. “I’ll make the Lyseni scream loud enough for the dragons to hear them in Volantis.”
XXX
Before the Slave Wars, the isle of Tarth had been a backwater. Its lands were more beautiful than rich, it didn’t produce anything that couldn’t be had elsewhere, and its lords tended to a certain introspection that probably stemmed from the fact that Tarth was usually self-sufficient if the harvest was any sort of good. What it did have was a series of natural harbors along its western coast that the island’s bulk protected from the storms that the westerlies blew into Shipbreaker Bay and the coast of the Narrow Sea, combined with a lord who was even-tempered, amiable, and fiercely if quietly loyal to his king. It was for this reason that the Storm Kings of old had based their fleets on Tarth before the Conquest. It was also for this reason that the Braavosi ships pledged to enforce the terms of the Peace of Pentos had relocated to Tarth from windswept Estermont, and why Stannis had ordered the joint fleet to assemble there.
It had come to the attention of the Iron Throne and the Sealord, Stannis had announced in the great hall of the Red Keep with the Braavosi consul only two steps below the Throne, that Tyrosh had broken the terms of the Peace of Pentos, both by murdering Myrish subjects on Myrish soil, as had been sensationally reported, and by unilaterally closing the Sea of Myrth to trade. Therefore, the Seven Kingdoms and the Commune of Braavos had resolved to restore the Peace, punish the breach of its conditions, and secure fitting compensation for the loss inflicted on the Kingdom of Myr. Hence the fleet that had been ordered to assemble on the isle of Tarth, one hundred galleys of the royal fleet of Westeros and thirty-five galleys of the Braavosi fleet under the joint command of Lord Paxter Redwyne and Commander Marquos Dandalo, with a mandate to destroy the Tyroshi fleet and besiege the isle of Tyrosh.
It was, Stannis reflected as he looked down on the principal harbor of Tarth below Evenfall Hall, potentially unwise of him to join the fleet himself, especially without taking command, but it needed to be done. He had made a good start on a martial reputation with the crushing of the Red Viper Rebellion, but his subjects, especially the martial nobility, expected their king to be the foremost knight of the realm as much as anything. His roads and public works, and the alliance with the Braavosi and the boom in trade it had engendered, would not endear him to his nobles half as much as a successful campaign. That being said, he knew very little about how to command a fleet in battle, while Lord Redwyne had first made his name hunting pirates and rogue Ironborn before ascending to the lordship of the Arbor. It had taken some argument, but eventually even Jon Arryn had accepted the wisdom of him ceding command to the more experienced sea captain.
A discreet cough made him turn around to find Lord Selwyn Tarth standing just beyond Lord Commander Penrose. At his raised eyebrow Selwyn bowed shortly, although his long-limbed and slender frame made it look as graceful as a full courtly reverence. “Your Grace,” he said in his soft voice, “my steward tells me that supper shall be ready shortly.”
Stannis nodded. “Then by all means, let us not keep our people waiting for us,” he said, stepping away from the promontory where he had been surveying the harbor. As he walked back towards the castle with Selwyn at his left hand, he felt more than saw Ser Cortnay fall in on his right side as the four other members of the Stormguard on duty today resumed their positions around him. Two dozen Stormguards had followed him onto the great galley Fury, the royal fleet’s flagship, and if Ser Cortnay had had his way at least half of them would have been on duty, but Stannis had worn him down to four by patiently restating the fact that Tarth was loyal to him not just as King but as Lord Paramount of the Stormlands until Renly came of age. Going about with a dozen fully-armored knights surrounding him would be a mild way of calling that loyalty into question, but an insult was an insult no matter how mild. Lord Tarth had done nothing to deserve such, and Stannis had long since made up his mind not to tread on the hem of any man’s honor unless he deserved it.
“Will your daughter be joining us for supper, my lord?” he asked stiltedly; he had never been one for casual conversation, but it was expected in this sort of situation. Thankfully Ser Cortnay had given him some advice on how to go about it.
Selwyn nodded. “She promised to make an extra effort to act in a becoming fashion, in return for being allowed to watch Your Grace’s knights at exercise,” he replied. He sighed slightly. “She’s a good girl, Your Grace, but I must confess that I can’t understand her infatuation with arms. Just the day before you arrived, I caught her asking one of my men-at-arms to show her how to hold a dagger. When I asked her why she wanted to learn such things she said it was so she could fight if the slavers ever came.” He shook his head. “There are days, Your Grace, when I dread trying to find her a husband. Given . . . well, everything.”
Stannis nodded. Brienne was only six but she was already as tall as a boy of eight or nine would be, and judging by the size of her hands and ears she was going to grow even taller. She was also painfully plain-faced and had a habit of forthrightness that might be considered precocious in a child but would be unattractive in a young woman. “If the gods and fortune are good, then they will provide,” he said, trying to inject a comforting tone into his voice. After a moment’s hesitation he went on. “And if they do not, then I would advise you not to try and force a square peg into a round hole. It may fit, but it won’t fit well and it won’t hold half as well as it would in a hole of the proper shape.”
Selwyn glanced at him. “You would have me encourage her interest, Your Grace?” he asked, plainly somewhat befuddled.
Stannis shrugged. “In time my daughter will need a sworn shield of her own,” he observed, hiding the flash of emotion that went through him at the thought of little Joanna. “It would be as well if she had one who would understand things that men would not, and could follow her into places that men could not.”
Selwyn’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “There is precedent, even,” he said after a long moment of consideration. “Jonquil Darke and Queen Alysanne.”
“Among others, back through the centuries,” Stannis agreed. “It would ease my mind greatly if my daughter’s nearest guard were the child of one of my most trusted bannermen.”
Selwyn visibly inflated at the compliment, making Stannis sigh slightly to himself. Flattery, he was beginning to accept, was a necessary part of kingship, but he had thought Selwyn too discerning to fall for it. If he had to judge such a thing dispassionately, the list of his most trusted bannermen would start with the Penroses and then go down the roster of his New Nobles. The Tarths of Tarth would be a long way down that scale, if only by comparison. Really, he asked himself as he and Selwyn walked up to the gates of Tarth and the men-at-arms stiffened at their passing, was it too much to ask for people to think logically?
The Peace of Alalia, whereby Tyrosh ceded that town and all the lands between Turtle River and the Lyseni border to the Kingdom of Myr, was signed the day after Hestaar met with Robert and his officers. Two days afterward, while dispatch riders were fanning out across the newly ceded territory bearing news of the peace and a special delegation was bearing news of the Kingdom of Myr’s acceptance to the Archon, Eddard Stark and Lyn Corbray led their troops over the Lyseni border in a two-pronged and highly destructive raid. This offensive, which sparked a general slave uprising in Lys’ northern territories, forced the Lyseni to sue for peace in only twenty days. Lys was able to retain all its territories, but the emigration of the slaves in those territories northward to the Kingdom of Myr meant that those territories were temporarily rendered almost useless to the Lyseni exchequer.
The question of what might have happened if Robert had known of Stannis’ impending offensive is, in the editor’s opinion, a moot point. The messenger ravens that the Seven Kingdoms and the Kingdom of Myr relied upon for long-distance, high-speed communication could not cross the Narrow Sea, and even the fastest dispatch galley then in Westerosi service would have been hard put to outrace the Tyroshi (or Tyroshi-contracted) ship that almost certainly set sail from King’s Landing as soon as Stannis declared war. The fact that the Tyroshi were operating on interior lines as opposed to their enemies gave them an invaluable edge in speed of communications.
Moreover, the Kingdom of Myr needed peace almost as badly as the Tyroshi did. With the acquisition of Alalia, a relatively narrow salient had been pushed in between Tyroshi and Lyseni territory, one that was largely devastated by both the movements of the opposing armies and the servile rebellion sparked by the Battle of Solva. The destruction of farms and the disruption of the food-transport network caused by the armies’ commandeering of wheeled vehicles came within a hairs-breadth of causing a general famine in the newly acquired lands; the raid into Lyseni territory was undertaken not just to bring them to the negotiating table but also to allow at least a portion of the Royal Army to live off of enemy lands and allow the food that Ser Brynden Tully was shipping into the newly conquered lands to go to the former slaves.
The restoration of peace on land, however, would have grave consequences on the seas . . .
- excerpted from the Historical Note from the end of Flash for the Faith!
Chapter 58: A Wine-Dark Sea
Chapter Text
Marquos Dandalo, Commander in the Braavosi fleet, nodded judiciously to himself as he surveyed the array of galleys through his Myrish far-eye. Lord Redwyne might not be the most inspired of admirals, but he was certainly competent enough for a Westerosi.
The Westerosi fleet was drawn up into two squadrons of thirty ships apiece formed in line, with a third squadron thirty sail strong formed in column on the left of the lines and the remaining ten ships forming a reserve. Marquos' own squadron, thirty-five galleys, was also formed in column and covered the right flank of the lines. It was the position he had asked for himself, both as the position of honor and as the most difficult position to maintain formation from given the prevailing winds in this region at this time of year. The Westerosi made passable sailors, but the sons of Braavos were born with salt water in their blood; how not, when the livelihood of their city depended on seaborne trade?
Turning his gaze to the Tyroshi fleet opposite them, he couldn't help clicking his tongue in reproof. The Tyroshi admiral, whoever he was, had formed his fleet into three squadrons, but his deployment was unlike any Marquos had seen before. At least sixty galleys were arranged in a column ten hulls abreast in the center, while two thick lines of galleys stretched out from the center column, like wings from the body of a dragonfly. The forming of a column to counter a line was nothing new, indeed every captain in the Braavosi fleet learned that a column was the ideal way to break an enemy line, due to a column's high density of combat power per unit of front and the inertia that successive ranks of galleys imparted. But why was the Tyroshi letting his flanking squadrons oppose nearly twice their numbers, with the way they overlapped both the allied flanking squadrons and part of the center squadrons? Surely, he was not arrogant enough to think that his left flank squadron would be able to oppose Marquos' squadron, especially with Westerosi aid?
"Sir," his flag captain Nicklos Contarenos said, clicking his heels to get his commander's attention, "Lord Redwyne is signaling the advance."
Marquos lowered his far-eye and glanced to the center of the formation to see the red pennon being hoisted up to the masthead of theFury, in the signal that had been agreed upon before sailing from Tarth. "So he is," he replied. "Hoist our own signal to advance, and bid the oarmaster beat double-time." As his flag-captain acknowledged the order and turned away to execute it Marquos raised his voice. "Helmets and gauntlets, gentlemen," he snapped, accepting his morion from his valet. Every man was already in armor, from the walrus-hide jerkins of the rowers to the suits of half and three-quarter plate worn by the marines and officers, but helmets and gauntlets were typically left off until battle was imminent. The gauntlets because they cut manual dexterity to a fraction of what bare hands could achieve, and the helmets because wearing what amounted to a metal bucket on your head in direct sunlight for extended periods of time was an invitation to a splitting headache.
Marquos's valet buckled the chinstrap of his morion as he slipped on his gauntlets, thumping the knuckles of each hand into the palm of the other to make sure they were properly seated. That done he tested the draw of his sidesword and dagger, and glanced to make sure he was within easy reach of the rack of half-pikes that stood by the rail. It was an article of faith in the Commune's navy that its officers led from the front, even Commanders and Admirals. Battle didn't play favorites any more than the sea did.
XXX
Lazario Ahratis, Gonfalonier of Myr-in-exile and Captain-General of its armed forces, smiled predatorially as the Andal fleet and their Braavosi allies sailed forward. They were taking the bait, just as Admiral Ostaan had predicted. Lazario had been leery of predicating a battle plan on the enemy's arrogance, but he supposed he should have expected it to work. What little the Andals lacked in arrogance, the Braavosi surely made up for.
Under ordinary circ*mstances, that arrogance may have been justified, given the Braavosi skill at sailing and the Andals' skill at close-quarters action. But Admiral Ostaan had a card up his sleeve that should go some way to evening the odds. The average war galley carried seventy-five soldiers in addition to the crew. But the proximity of the fleet to Tyrosh isle, and the subsequent ease with which the fleet could resupply itself, meant that the one hundred and seventy galleys of the combined fleets of Tyrosh, Lys, and True Myr could embark one hundred to one hundred and fifty soldiers apiece, most of them veterans. The soldiers aboard the ten galleys of the Myrish Remnant, for instance, were mostly veterans of the hit-and-run fighting along the Myrish coast in the First Andal War, and those that weren't were men of the Exile Company who had been rushed back from the Turtle River at the first news of the enemy fleet sailing from Westeros.
Lazario tore his gaze away from the Andal ships to look toward the inner front corner of the right flank squadron. Admiral Ostaan had placed his flagship there in order to be able to be in a central position while keeping out of the central column's way. For once the column was launched, he had said in yesterday's conference on the deck of his ship, nothing must stand in its way. The central column was to act as a wedge, splitting the enemy fleet in two and allowing the flanking squadrons to encircle the separated halves and consume them. Lazario had volunteered True Myr's galleys for the duty of leading the central column on the spot. These Andals were not the ones who had invaded and destroyed their homeland, it was true, but the children of Myr were not disposed to be fussy eaters. If Robert the Bloody had sacked their city, it was Stannis who had first allowed him to sail; revenge against the one would serve as revenge against the other. More to the point, Lazario's brother had died in the Sack. It would only be just if Robert lost his own brother, to balance the debt.
A black pennon broke out from the masthead of Admiral Ostaan's ship, and Lazario's smile became shark-like as he turned to the trumpeter that stood on the quarterdeck with him. "Sound the advance," he said shortly, and as the brassy notes sailed away on the breeze he turned to the oarmaster. "Double-time on the oars," he called, "and don't spare the slaves." As the oarmaster gestured acknowledgement and cracked his whip, Lazario turned to face the soldiers arrayed on his deck; true Myrmen to a man, every one of them, or at least in-laws and cousins. "You see that galley in the enemy center there, men?" he shouted gesturing at the great ship flying the Baratheon standard. "That ship is carrying King Stannis of Westeros, Robert the Bloody's brother!" A low growl went up from the soldiers. "I am of a mind to send this Stannis' head to his brother in a box, as a token of the love the sons of Myr have for him! What say you?!"
The soldiers roared approval, thumping the deck with the butts of their short poleaxes.
XXX
The worst part of a battle, Ser Cortnay had once told Stannis, wasn't the way that enough spilled blood could turn the ground into discolored mud. Nor was it the way a man screamed with a spear-head through his wedding tackle, or even the iron-and-sewage smell that inevitably arose when people were cut open with sharp and pointy things. The worst part of a battle, Ser Cortnay had said with his eyes twenty-four years away, was the part when the armies had assembled and squared off against each other but hadn't started fighting yet. That time when the world held its breath to see what would happen next, with the sun beating down on your helmet and the sweat running down under your arming clothes and all the little devils of your imagination painting lurid pictures of all the terrible things that could happen to you,thatwas the worst part of a battle.
Stannis had found this to be so during the Red Viper Rebellion, especially during the Battle of the Greenblood, when he had waited for the ambush for what was surely only a handful of hours but what at the time had felt like at least a year. In theory, he reasoned, having come through that experience, he should be much less prone to that slowly-escalating dread. However, judging by the evidence, namely the butterflies flitting through his bowels, this was not, in fact, the case.
It was entirely possible, Stannis mused, that this was due to the fact that he nowknew, as only a man who has fought in a battle knows, exactly what could happen to the human body when it comes into contact with sharp metal traveling at high velocity. Or, alternatively, it could be explained by the fact that this was his first sea battle, and fighting at sea had terrors that a land battle did not. For one thing, you didn't have any control over whether or not you went towards the large crowd of angry and heavily armed strangers who wanted to kill you, otherwise known as the enemy. On land you could control that, if you didn't mind being labeled a coward, but at sea you were carried into the fray whether you wanted to be or not.
All this went through Stannis' mind as he stood dead center in the sterncastle, clad head-to-toe in full plate, with a poleaxe in his left hand with the butt-spike planted firmly on the deck by his left foot and his face as calm as a septon's at prayer. His two dozen Stormguards stood around him in a clump, also in full plate and carrying poleaxes, while Lord Redwyne and Captain Fisher stood on either side of the helmsman. Ser Cortnay had attempted to talk him out of wearing full plate, but Stannis had rebutted his argument with the simple fact that the main argument against wearing full plate at sea was that if you went over the side it would drag you down like an anchor. Of course, if you got out of it quickly enough then you could, in theory, swim back to the surface, but this was rendered moot, Stannis had pointed out, by the fact that he had never learned to swim. That being so, the best thing to do was not go over the side in the first place, and that being the case, wearing full armor would be vastly more beneficial than the leather jerkins of the sailors or even the brigandines of the archers. Full plate was heavier than either of those, although a lifetime's training accustomed you to the weight, but when well-made it was as flexible as any other type of armor and far sturdier. It made you almost impervious to sword-strokes, for instance, if not quite a well-placed and lucky thrust, and it made your own body into a weapon if you lost everything else. A blow from a gauntleted fist with a knight's arm behind it was fully capable of caving in a man's face, as Stannis had seen demonstrated at the Greenblood.
On the main deck below them the archers and men-at-arms had crouched behind the shield-hung rails, waiting for the range to close. These archers could comfortably be described as an elite among elites; they were the pick of the Red Keep's garrison, and winning a place in that body of men was no easy feat in and of itself. The archers of the Red Keep disdained shooting at the butts as being an exercise for children, preferring instead to shoot at panels of oak or ash thrown into the air from random points along the range. But shooting from a moving platform to hit a moving target on another moving target with a gusting cross-breeze was an exercise in futility more than anything, even for such archers as these. At sea, Lord Redwyne had explained to them, archers shot as rapidly as they could at close range, and then fought hand-to-hand with the other soldiers.
The time for that, Stannis judged would be soon now, with the nearest galley only a hundred yards away. Lord Redwyne, glancing from that galley to the three others bearing down on theFury, turned to Stannis. "You may want to go to one knee, Your Grace, in order to remain upright," he said, before turning back to the front and shouting, "All hands, brace for impact!" Stannis obeyed, as did his Stormguards, and a moment later Lord Redwyne bellowed, "Archers, stand up! Loose at will!" to which some wit with clearly too much time on his hands shouted back, "Which one's Will?!"
No sooner had the attempted levity passed unremarked than there came a rush of flat plucking notes from the waist and forecastle of the ship, shortly followed by screams from the oncoming galleys. Some knights called the sound of massed archery 'the Hells' harp music', an appellation that archers did nothing to discourage. Only a few moments had passed, however, when there was a dull, grindingTHUMPas theFurycollided with the slaver galley with a shock that made Stannis stagger, even braced as he was. In the next instant there was anotherTHUD,the unmistakable sound of a massed crossbow volley, and then a baying roar of "Revenge!"that almost drowned out Lord Redwyne's shout of "Lash the wheel! All hands, repel boarders!"
Stannis surged to his feet to behold a scene from one of the bloodier depictions of the Seven Hells. They had been grappled on both the port and starboard bows by slaver galleys. The forecastle was already overrun, and the main deck was a maelstrom of battle, archers and men-at-arms grappling with slaver soldiers who seemed, judging by the black bands they wore around their upper arms and the heraldry on their ships' banners, to be Myrish exiles. Nor did the predicament end there; as Stannis watched two more slaver galleys, these ones also in Myrish colors, wedged themselves between theFuryand the ships on either side of her, while behind them came a steady stream of galleys that poured into the gaps thus opened. As the Myrish galleys on either side began to throw out their own grappling irons, Stannis turned to his Stormguards. "Sers," he said calmly, "it would appear that our assistance is required on the main deck. Ser Cortnay, take half the men and go down the port gangway; hold it open for our men to retreat to the sterncastle. I shall do the same for the starboard gangway with the other half. Go with the gods, sers, and fight well."
XXX
As Marquos Dandalo saw the slavers' central column strike home, he knew, instantly and with terrible clarity, what their plan was. A heartbeat later, he knew that there was nothing he could do to stop it. He was too far away from the point of crisis, and even if he was his ships were too few.
More to the point, the formation was too shallow. In order to keep a column like that from breaking through, a line would have to be at least half and preferably two-thirds as deep as the column was.
That said, he realized in the next heartbeat, as the rear ranks of slaver ships opposite him started to turn towards the center, the same thing also applied on this flank.
He turned to his trumpeter. "Soundfull speed, close order,andfollow me, now!" he snapped, barely acknowledging the man's nod before turning to his Captain Nicklos. "Take us right through that line, Captain," he ordered. "We'll break that line open, and then turn inwards and start cutting into the center." He described a wheeling motion with his hands.
It was a risky maneuver, and one that would expose them to being attacked from the bow and the beam if Marquos was wrong, but all seamanship, especially military seamanship, was based on discipline. Nicklos nodded briskly and then turned away to give the necessary orders. Marquos tested the draw of his sword again and touched the three-fold moon engraved on the pommel for luck.Moonsingers,he prayed,please let this work.
XXX
A battle between galley fleets is very much like a battle on land, in that it very quickly devolves into a general melee. This is due to the fact that the surest way to capture and/or destroy an enemy ship is to board it, and there are few fancy maneuvers involved in a boarding action. The order of the day for such a thing is speed, shock, and fury, with no quarter asked or given. In shipboard combat, he who hesitates dies.
The Tyroshi, Lyseni, and True Myrish understood this; it had been instilled in them by generations of fighting against pirates, Volantenes, Braavosi, Summer Islanders, each other, and occasionally Westerosi. The Westerosi did not.
Not that the Westerosi were poor fighters. A goodly proportion of them were veterans of the Rebellion or the Dornish war, and a few had fought with the Sunset Company at Pentos or Tara. But when it came to sea-fighting, they were novices facing experts, and experts who had upgraded their own armor and weapons in order to stand a chance against fully armored men-at-arms, at that.
That said, they were numerous, heavily armed, and well-trained novices, and so even on the left flank, where there was no counterstroke like the one the Braavosi made on the right, they made the masters pay in blood. The great galleyRoyal Stagchanged hands three times before her last surviving officer opened the seaco*cks under the feet of the Lyseni who finally captured her.StormriderandSapphire Spray, captained by a pair of cousins from Tarth, grappled each other rail-to-rail and fought alone against three-to-one odds for two hours before being overwhelmed. Aboard theWarrior's Gift,ten Knights of the Crown and thirty archers defended the sterncastle of the ship so ferociously that the Tyroshi were forced to scuttle the ship underneath them. A Lyseni poet, who was later famous for his layThe Fall of Myrand was present at the battle, would later write that "the roar of battle drowned out all other sound, and the sea became dark as wine with blood."
But the fiercest contest was that waged in the center, where theFuryremained unconquered.
XXX
Stannis staggered back from the front line, knocked his visor up on the third attempt, and gulped down air. He was already as tired as he had ever been in his life, and if he was any judge the day was nowhere near over yet.
Not even at the Greenblood had he seen so much death packed into so small a place. By his estimate there were at least fifty or sixty dead men lying on theFury's deck, and there would be more if the slavers and the Westerosi alike hadn't taken the time in between bouts of murderous fighting to heave bodies over the side into the sea to keep them from getting underfoot. The gangways seemed to have been painted almost a solid coat of red, and the main deck was liberally splashed with gore. Eight times the slavers had attempted to storm the sterncastle of theFury, and six times they had been bloodily repelled. And not without cost; of the twelve Stormguards that Stannis had led down the starboard gangway, only five were still standing. Ser Cortnay, on the port gangway, had seven Stormguards still on their feet. Twenty archers had made it to the sterncastle, but only nine still lived and their arrows had run out three charges ago. They and the twelve remaining men-at-arms, a mixture of Redwyne men, New Nobles, and Knights of the Crown, were the only reserve remaining. Lord Redwyne was dead, having taken a poleaxe spike to the throat in the fourth charge. Captain Fisher had died in the second charge with a crossbow bolt through the eye.
At the foot of the gangways the slavers were catching their breath. They had mounted eight assaults in six hours, and were apparently no closer to victory now than they had been when they forced the Andals back into the sterncastle. But Stannis knew they would come again. For the Myrish exiles among them, the lure of revenge against House Baratheon would be irresistible. The Tyroshi and Lyseni didn't have that same impulse, or at least not as strong a one, but they had another motive. How great was a king's ransom? Stannis had no idea, no ransom had been demanded in the Defiance of Duskendale and no other king in living memory had been taken captive, but it would certainly be beyond even a magister's wildest dreams of avarice.
He straightened up, waving away a waterskin held by an archer with a brusque command to give it to the knights first. The question, if he had anything to say about it, would be moot. He was not Robert, but he was no laggard when it came to slaying; his poleaxe was irretrievably embedded in a Myrman's head, and his longsword was red from point to quillons. At the very least, he could fight hard enough to make the slavers kill him. Jon Arryn, Tywin Lannister, and Mace Tyrell could hold the Kingdoms together until Lyonel came of age, and Cersei would find a good match for Joanna.
His only regret, he decided, was that he would not see his son and daughter grow up.
The slavers were starting to edge forward again; evidently they were beginning to regain their nerve. Stannis was about to close his visor and resume his place in the line when a deep-toned horn sounded and a guttural shout in some hard, yet lilting tongue momentarily overrode the noise of battle. Over the rails of the slaver galleys that had grappled theFurythere came a wave of men in knee-length ring-mail hauberks wielding broad-bladed axes, followed by lighter-armored men with spears and round, center-bossed shields. The slavers wheeled to face them, but at the first shock of impact dozens went down. Stannis, his resigned stoicism turning to furious hope by the unlooked-for reinforcements, raised his longsword and pointed it at the slavers. "At them!" he bellowed hoarsely.
The Stormguards clattered down the gangways to the deck, Stannis forcing his way to the front as the men-at-arms and archers crowded behind them. By the time they charged into the slavers, however, their resistance was already broken; surprised in their rear by fresh enemies and charged in front by the foes they had assailed unsuccessfully for so long, their only thought was to flee. Many of them managed to clamber over the rails of their ships and away to safety, but as many were caught on the deck of theFuryand cut to pieces; the Westerosi were in no mood to show mercy to the enemies who had threatened to massacre them for so long.
Stannis knocked up his visor again to find himself confronted with a tall, well-built man with a steel breastplate and arm-guards over his hauberk and a gold kraken inlaid on the breastplate. "Lord Greyjoy," he said, once he had re-caught his breath, "my thanks for coming to the rescue. But how on earth . . ."
"Sailed around the right flank, Your Grace," Euron replied, "and then went up the center where the slavers' column went in. Silly buggers didn't leave a reserve." Euron raised the visor of his pot-helm to reveal a grimace of distaste on his saturnine face. "Not that the bastards seem to need it," he added, gesturing northward with his axe.
Stannis looked and felt his heart sink. The whole left of the fleet was enveloped in a ring of slaver galleys, and judging by the positions of the banners, the slavers were starting to digest the ships caught inside the envelopment. "We can still salvage something," he said. "With your men reinforcing us and the Braavosi . . ."
"The Braavosi are busy holding off the slavers on the right," Euron replied. "They've pushed them back towards the center, but that's as far as they can go. There's no hope of salvaging this, Your Grace, that half of your fleet's lost." He said this in a voice as dry as if he were commenting on the weather. "But if we go now, Your Grace, we can still get the rest of the fleet away while the Braavosi hold them off."
Stannis shook his head reflexively. "No," he said stubbornly. "No retreat. I will not abandon our allies. Not while we can still fight."
"Your Grace, we can't fight," said Ser Cortnay, who had joined the conversation wiping blood off his poleaxe with a scrap of sail. "We haven't got twoscore men left on their feet, and the Ironborn aren't enough to break into that lot." He turned to Euron. "No offense meant, my lord, but even an equal number of knights, even an equal number of Stormguards, wouldn't make much of a difference in that," he gestured at the cauldron of battle that had enveloped the left flank. "They'd get in, maybe, but then they'd just die with the rest."
Euron nodded. "I agree, as it happens," he said. "I say we get out of this while we can, rebuild, and try again with a better plan."
Stannis frowned, turned to survey the men under his command. The Stormguards had gone to their knees, blowing like winded horses, and the other men-at-arms were in little better shape. "Very well then," he said grudgingly, "though you both are witnesses that I would not turn from this field if my men were still able to fight. Let us away, sers."
XXX
Marquos, leaning on his half-pike in the lull that invariably followed the repulse of an enemy boarding attempt, looked out to where the one lieutenant remaining to him was pointing and felt his heart sink. About half a mile beyond the edge of the combat, eight longships of distinctively Ironborn make were rowing south, the masthead of the lead ship displaying the standard of King Stannis and the two white pennons signaling a general retreat. The Westerosi were fleeing, and by the looks of it in some disorder, as Stannis had evidently transferred his flag from theFuryto theUnspeakable.
Another man might have shaken his fist and raged against the perfidy of the Westerosi with all the power of invective granted by thirty-five years at sea. But officers of the Commune were expected to act with a dignity becoming of their office. Besides, Marquos decided, he didn't have the energy left to properly curse the Westerosi and do what he had to do next. After giving a short order to the lieutenant, who to his credit only gulped once before turning to carry it out, he straightened up and called for the attention of his crew.
"Gentlemen," he said formally in a voice pitched to carry over the roar of the nearby combat, "it has been a privilege to serve with you. In one minute, I shall hoist the black pennon. Any man who wishes to quit the Commune's service before that is done may do so without penalty, on my honor and my family's."
His men exchanged looks. In sea battles, pennons flown from a command ship had a range of generally accepted meanings, red for 'attack', white for 'retreat', and so forth. The rarest of these was the black pennon, on account of what it represented. An admiral who hoisted the black pennon was ordering his men to fight to the death, with no quarter asked or given and no consideration given to retreat. In the Braavosi fleet it was mandated that the black pennon not be flown except 'in cases where the honor or the survival of the Commune is contingent upon the conduct of the Commune's forces.' The survival of Braavos was not in question, here, but honor certainly was. Marquos had no position in either the Sharks or the Whales, but by all the gods, he would show the world that the sons of Braavos did not run, even if their allies did.
Which was why he was offering his men the choice of whether or not to continue fighting. To stay and fight would almost certainly mean the death of them all, especially since the Westerosi ships were already starting to peel away from the battle as more and more of them saw their king ordering the retreat. Once the black pennon was raised, then by the laws governing the Braavosi fleet every officer and every sailor who saw it was obligated to fight to the bitter, bloody end, with execution in disgrace awaiting the man who broke ranks. The millstones of the Commune's justice turned slowly in most cases, but when it came to military misconduct they turned very fast indeed, while still grinding infinitesimally fine. That said, Marquos' pledged honor that they would not suffer any penalty for refusing to fight on would protect them from the court, especially since he had invoked his family's honor as well.
But these men were Braavosi sailors, and they knew the traditions of their fleet. Moreover, they meant to prove, for good and all, that the children of the Titan had not forgotten how to fight against the evil of slavery. Or so the bosun reported to Marquos, after a hurried consultation among the common sailors and soldiers. The lieutenant, when the choice was put to him after he returned with the pennon in his arms, simply snorted and said, "Don't be ridiculous, sir." Well, Marquos decided, the lieutenant was a young man, and an unabashed Shark besides, who had volunteered for the fleet to fight slavers. If he wanted to uphold his words with his body, then that was his affair. As for Marquos himself, he knew the penalties that Braavosi law dictated for a defeated commander. There was some leeway allowed for unforeseeable circ*mstances or treachery on the part of an ally but not much, and the shame of defeat would be a heavy blow to his family. That said, it was recognized that a valiant death in the Commune's service could expiate a multitude of sins, especially for those who had been serving as an adjunct of an ally's fleet and been betrayed.
Marquos bowed shortly to his crew. "Thank you, gentlemen," he said in a voice half-choked by sudden emotion, and then turned to the lieutenant. "Hoist the pennon, lieutenant, if you please."
As the long roll of black cloth was hoisted up the mast and unfurled by the north-easterly wind, Marquos passed his half-pike to the lieutenant and drew his side-sword and dagger. "For honor and freedom, gentlemen," he called out in a voice that had bellowed over tropical storm and arctic gale. "At them!"
His men echoed the battle cry to the heavens as they followed him over the rail.
Chapter 59: Grief and Wrath
Chapter Text
Stannis managed to make good his escape from the Battle of Tyrosh, along with twenty-seven galleys of the royal fleet; the other seventy-three were either sunk or captured, with the loss of almost nine thousand men. The Braavosi squadron was almost totally destroyed, with the few prisoners either dying of their wounds or being executed for being unlikely to fetch a ransom. The combined slaver fleet lost only twenty galleys sunk (those that had been captured were abandoned by the fleeing Westerosi and recaptured); accounts of their losses vary from four to eight thousand, but they are unanimous that the exiled Myrish sustained the heaviest casualties of any of the contingents 'due to the valor with which they made their assaults and the prowess of the Andals they fought', in the words of a Lyseni chronicler.
The reaction in Westeros was one of shock, especially when Stannis made his first pronouncement concerning the rebuilding of the royal fleet . . .
-Red Waves: The Slave Wars at Seaby Enriquos Feori, published 1050 AC
Euron Greyjoy, as of yesterday evening the new master of ships, poured out a glass of Dornish red for himself and passed the bottle to his guest. "So," he began, "what do we have, what do we need, what can we get?"
Ser Symond Templeton, the Knight of Ninestars and new commander of the Gulltown fleet, accepted the bottle with a grateful nod. "What we have is twenty-seven galleys of the royal fleet that got away from the battle," he said, filling his glass, "plus another fifty galleys and eight cogs from my uncle's fleet. Enough to hold Blackwater Bay and patrol off Massey's Hook, but not to offer battle. To do that, we'd need about as many ships again, if only to both be able to offer battle and defend the coast."
Euron nodded. "At least the Stormlands and Dorne are poor pickings for raiders," he observed. "Lightly settled coastlines and what settlements there are have castles full of belligerent men-at-arms hard by them. And it's a rare raider that'll willingly go into Shipbreaker Bay and risk the storms." Euron didn't mention that the Ironborn had learned that lesson the hard way; his brother might have mentioned it, but Balon was an uncultured boor.
Ser Symond nodded. "And word's come from the Arbor and the Westerlands of aid," he said. "Horas Redwyne with twenty ships for a year, and five Lannister galleys to serve at His Grace's pleasure and Tywin's expense."
Euron raised an eyebrow. "Well, that's quite handsome of the Old Lion," he said. "Of course, it's his daughter in Stannis' bed and his grandson who's next in line for the throne." He sipped at his glass, savoring the tartness of the Dornish wine. "Still not enough for us to try and take the waves against the slavers though."
"Which should change within a few months," Ser Symond replied. "Once the new ships are built."
Euron shook his head. "I give it eight months to a year, at least, before the new fleet is ready," he said. "More probably a year and a half to two years. A galley you can make in two or three months, with enough shipwrights and materials, but making a good sailor takes a year or more, at least half of which has to be spent at sea. Making a good captain takes longer, and we have so few of them left, now."
Ser Symond made a face, but nodded, conceding Euron's point. Part of old Grafton's plot for taking the royal fleet out of the service of the Targaryens had involved killing those captains who were still loyal; about three in every seven or so, as it had transpired. The men who had succeeded them had been good enough seamen, but most of them had died off Tyrosh, leading their crews from the front. Euron could understand the need to prove oneself worthy of the captaincy, but they could at least have fought well enough to stay alive. "And there's another problem," Ser Symond said, leaning over the table. "Lord Arryn tells me that some of the lords are protesting at the cost of raising a new fleet. More than usual, I should say; lords always protest against paying new taxes. Or any taxes at all, really."
Euron tipped his head to the side. "They're not refusing to pay, are they?" he asked.
"No, His Grace's stock hasn't sunk so low with them yet," Ser Symond replied. "But if he suffers another defeat, they might. Or at least refuse to do so without some sort of concession. His Grace's reforms are broadly popular, especially among those who benefit from them, but broadly is not universally. The Knights of the Crown are being viewed with a jaundiced eye, especially on Crackclaw Point and among the petty lords and landed knights along the upper Mander."
Euron nodded. "And the gods know that my brother Balon is no friend of His Grace," he said. "Not since the affair of Ser Harras Harlaw." That had finally been settled with Ser Harras volunteering to foreswear his claim to Harlaw so long as he was allowed to inherit Grey Garden. Balon had, reportedly, been displeased at the young knight bypassing him in such a way, but he had eventually dropped his objections. The current silence from Pyke, both about the Battle of Tyrosh and any aid coming to the Iron Throne, was more than a little troubling; Euron wouldn't put it past his brother to be vindictive, even with a brother's reputation at stake.
Although now that he thought of it, he mused as he swirled the wine in his glass, that reputation might be what was making him so reticent. For an Ironborn to rise high in royal service would have been unthinkable as little as five years ago. With some justice, Euron was prepared to admit, with Dagon's raids only barely outside living memory and the memories of Dalton the Red still fresh in the Westerlands and the Reach. It had taken a king like Stannis, immovably tied to the Lannisters and unafraid of exploiting talent wherever it was found, to start bringing the Ironborn into the fold. Admittedly it was Victarion, that bone-headed ox Victarion, of all people, who had kicked the door open with his victories in Robert's service, but Euron hadnotexpected to be hailed as a hero by the people of King's Landing, even after saving Stannis' life off of Tyrosh. The cheers of the smallfolk, and the approbation even of the lords and knights, had been a heady drug indeed. One that Balon, stiff and prideful as he was, would resent his brothers receiving while he remained starved of all but the usual respect due to a lord.
He concealed a grimace with a swig from his glass. "In any case, ser, until we get the new ships and the new crews training, we'll have to hold Blackwater Bay with what we have. It would probably be best if we drafted a patrol schedule that mixed both royal and Arryn ships; I had a few ideas . . . "
XXX
The city of Tyrosh celebrated loud and long their victory over the feared Andals and the hated Braavosi. Not in the past century had such a victory been won, and when set against the defeat of Solva and the loss of Alalia it seemed all the greater. Wine barrels stood open at every street corner, compliments of the Archon, and musicians played for the throngs that danced with wild abandon to celebrate the victory. Even the length of the casualty lists had not been able to dampen the celebratory mood; the train of captured galleys towed into the harbor with their masts unstepped and their banners trailing in the water behind them had been too great a declaration of victory, and while the casualties had been heavy they had not been crippling by any stretch of the imagination. The pool of experienced seafarers in the Free Cities was equaled in numbers only by that of Braavos, and such men could become fighting sailors with only minimal training and equipment.
Only in the neighborhood that had been given over to Myr-in-exile was the mood less than jubilant, and nowhere less so than in the manse where the effective government of Myr-in-exile were meeting.
"How many?" Stallen Naerolis demanded, not believing his ears.
"Two hundred and eighty-seven survivors," replied Brachyllo Hestos, the senior surviving officer of the fleet of True Myr. "Almost all of them wounded to one degree or another. At least five are expected to die before the sennight is out, and I can tell you now that some twenty will never fight again except at direst extremity."
Stallen turned to Noriros Brenion, who was the closest thing that True Myr had to a treasurer; a childhood accident had left him with a twisted leg that prevented him from fighting, but he had a better head for numbers than any man Stallen knew of. "How many men does that leave us?" he asked softly.
Noriros pursed his lips and glanced at the ceiling, his fingers twitching as he calculated. "I'd have to take a census," he finally admitted, "but no more than five hundred and fifty. And that includes distant cousins, in-laws, and every man between the ages of fourteen and seventy who can stand and hold a crossbow. If we lose them as well . . ."
"Then our people die," Stallen said, nodding. "Not this generation, perhaps, but certainly the next, or the one after." He placed his head in his hands and groaned. True Myr had never been populous; of the whole citizenry, only about ten thousand had been able to assemble on Tyrosh isle, either escapees from the ruin of Myr or people who had already been overseas. Two years of war had inflicted losses on their men of fighting age, but in the space of barely three months they had been cruelly reduced. Five hundred men had been lost at Solva, and for this latest battle they had fielded just over a thousand. By all reports their bravery had been instrumental in the victory, but at terrible cost; eight in ten of the last strength of Myr-in-exile now rested beneath the waves. All that remained of them were women, children, a few elders, relations and in-laws of increasingly tenuous connection, and those five hundred men Noriros had just mentioned. If indeed there so many left.
And all of their deaths had been for naught; Myr was not reconquered, nor did Robert the Bloody lie dead with his corpse left to rot unburied. Nor did they have even the modicum of vengeance that slaying Stannis would have brought. All reports of the battle agreed that Stannis had escaped, denying them even that shred of retribution.
"Gods only know how we shall maintain our fleet and the company, after this," Brachyllo said, scratching at the bandage around his left arm, which was cradled in a sling thanks to an Andal mace.
"We won't be able to," Noriros replied. "We simply don't have the men."
"Preserve the fleet," Stallen said through his hands. "At all costs, preserve our fleet." He raised his face out of his hands. "So long as we have our own ships, we are still free. If we give them up, then we place ourselves at the mercy of our allies' generosity." Stallen thought a moment more. "Who is in command now?"
Brachyllo shrugged. "I suppose I am, as the senior surviving officer," he said, "but I'm better with a sword than a word. I'll let you have it if you want it."
Stallen shook his head. "I hold no formal rank," he said. "I'm a spy and an occasional errand boy, not a commander."
Noriros raised a finger. "Why not share power between the three of us?" he asked. "Brachyllo can be our strength, you, Stallen, our eyes, and I can be our mind."
Stallen and Brachyllo exchanged glances; Brachyllo shrugged. "I have no objections," he said.
"Nor I," Stallen said, raising his glass of watered wine. "Good fortune to us, gentlemen. The gods know we need it."
"Hear, hear," Brachyllo said despondently as he and Noriros raised their own glasses and touched them to Stallen's. As they each sipped from their glasses, Brachyllo frowned. "I confess to be at a loss as to how to proceed," he said almost sheepishly. "Reconquer our city, by all means, but how? And what do we do in the meantime? Some of the widows have been asking."
Stallen shrugged. "Don't ask me. Just a minute ago I was a spy; you don't tell a spy what your long-term plans are." He looked at Noriros. "Did Lazario ever tell you what his plans were?"
Noriros shook his head ruefully. "He kept them all in his head," he said dully. "I have no more idea of how to proceed than you gentlemen do."
The new Triarchs of Myr looked into their glasses morosely.
XXX
The Council Chamber in the Palace of the Sealord was silent. The Council of Thirty prided itself on the sobriety and thoughtfulness of its deliberations, usually only requiring the Sealord to recognize the next councilor to speak, but news of the defeat off Tyrosh had shocked the chamber into silence. Not in the past hundred years had the Titan suffered such a defeat.
Finally, Radalfos Solazzo broke the silence. "Cursed be the fate," he said softly, "that led us to shed the blood of our men in a fight not our own."
"Coward."
Every man's head jerked up at that flat statement. It wasn't unknown for the Council's disputes to be fierce, but they werealwayscarried out with the appropriate degree of propriety. Blatant insults were for street-walking bravos in their gaudy suits and raucous winesinks, not the soberly dressed magisters of the Council of Thirty in their austerely appointed chamber. Vulmaro Bertone, however, had apparently forgotten that rule, having shot to his feet and spat out the word like a blow.
"What did you just call me?" Solazzo asked, his voice dangerously quiet.
"I called you a coward," Bertone snarled back. "A craven lickspittle with no more balls than a capon. This fight is,and always was, our fight. If there is a fate to be cursed, it is that fate that has led us to forget that fact for so many years, and forsake the First Law for the sake ofprofit." He spat the word like a curse.
Solazzo rose to his own feet. "You speak of profit like an Andal," he hissed. "Have you forgotten that it is that sameprofitthat raised you to the dignity of a magister? That it isprofitthat put those robes on your shoulders and filled your family's accounts?"
Bertone hunched his shoulders like a boxer preparing to close. "At least I have never trafficked withslavers, as you have done," he spat back, his voice rising. "Did you refuse to ask where the money they paid you with came from or did you simply forget in your dotage?"
The Council was on the verge of erupting, with supporters of Solazzo and Bertone leaping to their feet and the Sealord gesturing to his First Sword, when there was a sudden and insistentthump, thump, thump, thump.All eyes turned to old Fortunato Dandalo, at eighty-nine the oldest member of the Council, who lowered his walking stick from where he had raised it to continue thumping against the marble floor. "My lord," Dandalo said, his voice softened by age but still strong for a man of his years, "I would speak."
The Sealord nodded. "Magister Dandalo," he said respectfully, "the Council hears you."
As old Dandalo slowly rose to his feet the other councilors sank back into their chairs. Fortunato Dandalo had sat on the Council longer than any of them, and reportedly had never been elected Sealord only because he did not wish the post. His prestige was tremendous, and his influence considerable. The Dandalos were one of the oldest and richest families in Braavos, with a web of power and influence that spanned half the world. Fortunato's great-grandfather had been the Sealord, and he had reportedly had high hopes for a nephew. No longer, however.
"Profit and honor," Dandalo began, folding his hands atop his walking stick. "These are the watchwords of our Commune, gentlemen; the words by which we live our lives. Profit, for the lands we call our home are poor and cannot provide us the sustenance that we require. There is no shame in this, gentlemen, but great pride, that from a huddle of escaped slaves with no wealth to our names we have become one of the great powers of the world by our industry and our acumen." There were nods around the room; there was no truer measure of a state's wealth, these men knew, than the strength of its merchant fleet.
"But equal to profit, gentlemen, is honor," Dandalo continued. "Honor that we trade honestly, weigh and measure fairly, fulfill our contracts faithfully, and uphold our laws rigorously. And the First of those laws, gentlemen, is this:No man, woman, or child shall be a slave, thrall, or bondsman." Dandalo's eyes, old but still keen, swept around the room. "We have executed that law most faithfully in Braavos, gentlemen, but in the rest of the world we have failed it. On my first voyage, when we stopped at Lys, a young woman came to our ship and threw herself at the feet of the guard at the bottom of our gangplank begging to let on board. She would go wherever we did, do whatever we asked, if only we took her away, for she could not bear to spend another day in her master's house. Not a moment later, two bravos, men in the livery of one of the pleasure houses, came out of the crowd and laid hands on her. I, being young, reached for my sword but the captain stayed my hand. It was not for us, he said, to bid defiance to the laws of the lands where we traded."
Dandalo looked down at his folded hands. "Every night for the rest of that voyage," he said softly, "I heard the screams of that poor woman as the bravos dragged her back into the crowd. When we returned, I reported this to my father, and requested that he dismiss the captain from our house's service for breaking the First Law. To this my father shook his head. It was the way of the world, he said, that not everyone could be saved. If I were wise, I would learn that there were things that I could not change and people I could not save, and not concern myself with them."
Dandalo looked up, his face set. "Seventy-four years ago, that was," he continued, a hint of a shake in his voice, "and from that day forward I took my father's advice. I learned to look away and turn aside, to close my eyes and stop up my ears. I learned to accept the money of my customers, and load their goods for transport, and not question where either had come from. I learned to ignore, gentlemen, that the greater part of our trade, the trade that sustains we descendants of escaped slaves, is borne on the backs of slaves. After all, there was nothing I could do about it."
He thumped his walking stick on the floor; a few of the councilors, rapt, jumped in their seats at the surprise. "But this is no longer the case," he said, his voice hardening. "Where we have failed, a new champion has stepped forward to take up the fight. Where we have learned to fold our hands, he has ridden forth to strike hammerblows. Where we have decided to ignore the evil of slavery, he has sworn to wage war without mercy upon it where ever it might be found." Dandalo's gaze swept around the room. "That man's name," he said softly, "is Robert Baratheon, King of Myr."
"I admit it, gentlemen," Dandalo went on, "that when Robert first sent to us for our aid, I was one of those who was suspicious. What might this Andal do in his quest for vengeance, I asked myself. What damage might he do to the trade that sustains us and makes us wealthy? What ills might he wreak, uncaring of the gossamer strands of knowledge and trust and money that we rely upon for our livelihoods? I fear, gentlemen, that my suspicion was misfounded. What I should have been asking was this:What might this man do, if he sees what we have learned to ignore for so long?"
Dandalo thumped his walking stick again. "The answer, gentlemen, is that Robert Baratheon has done more to advance the First Law of Braavos in the past three years than we have done in the past three hundred. He has disrupted our trade, yes; I myself lost old and valued customers and contacts in the Sack of Myr. But more than this, he has challenged our honor. When Robert led ten thousand men against Tyrosh, determined to stamp out slavery in that state's lands, we sent a mere thirty-five galleys, only a tithe of our strength, to enforce the conditions of a peace that we knew to be unjust and insulting. I had a hand in crafting the terms of that peace, gentlemen, and my nephew Marquos lies beneath the waves off Tyrosh for his efforts to enforce it. I accept this as the punishment the gods see fit to visit on my house for my complicity in the evil of slavery, and for my part in the Peace of Pentos."
He reached into a fold of his robes and drew out a small roll of parchment. "My eldest grandnephew, as you gentlemen might be aware, styles himself a Shark," he said. "Ten days ago, he wrote this doggerel and presented it to me, professing himself dissatisfied with the meter and asking if I had any advice for him. With the Sealord's approval, I shall read it out." At the Sealord's nod, Dandalo unrolled the parchment and cleared his throat. "Raise the broken sword high/with freedom's fire in your eye./ Let the dragons dread/ the ports where freemen tread./ From the fire-choked caves/ unto the free waves,/ Carry the law writ in stone/err the dragons burn thee to bone./ And with your final breath/ pay the slaver death."He re-rolled the parchment and raised it high. "My eldest grandnephew, gentlemen, is but twenty-seven years of age, and in these words he has, unknowingly, given a worthy epitaph to his father and a challenge to us all. Shall we continue to fail the First Law, the root and wellspring of all our freedoms, or shall we, at long last, open our eyes and raise our hands? Choose as you will, gentlemen; I have chosen already. The honor of the Commune demands it of me." Dandalo turned toward the Sealord. "My Lord," he said formally, drawing himself up with all the terrible dignity of his years, "I move that the Commune of Braavos immediately seek a military alliance with the Kingdom of Myr, and further move that the war-fleet of the Commune be immediately prepared for war against the city of Tyrosh."
Bertone leaped to his feet. "I second the motion!" he shouted.
The Sealord nodded gravely. "The motion is proposed and seconded," he said. "I open the floor to debate." No sooner had the words left his mouth than Solazzo shot to his feet roaring to be recognized, backed up by his supporters. Not as many supporters, however, as he had started with, the Sealord noticed. Ordinarily, Solazzo could rely on the support of twelve of the Thirty; only five councilors joined Solazzo in shouting opposition to the motion. Of the other seven, three were still in their seats looking around them uncertainly and the other four had apparently been swayed by Dandalo's speech. Ferrego Antaryon, Sealord of Braavos, pursed his lips.This,he thought sourly,does not look very promising.
XXX
Adaran stared at the wall listlessly. It hadn't changed since he had been locked into the narrow cell late yesterday evening, but there wasn't much else to look at. The cell had no window, and even in the block of cells reserved for minor malefactors the guards were unsympathetic and not given to conversation.
He had, over the past several months, given some serious thought to the possibility that he might end up in a cell like this one. He and his fellow Sharks had not been foolish enough to think that the enemies of freedom would yield graciously or even peacefully. The scuola he had joined had made its members pledge on the honor of their houses that they would uphold the tenets of their oath to maintain the First Law at the sword's point in the face of all hazards, even death. Bold words from bold young men, willingly spoken by candlelight with your friends around you and a cup or two of wine in your belly, but cold comfort when those hazards were staring you in the face as they were him.
Gosto Caporazo hadn't drawn; everything boiled down to that. The young Whale had had his hand on the hilt of his sword while he blasphemed against the First Law, but there had been no steel between guard and scabbard. When Adaran, goaded beyond endurance, had finally lunged forward and put his fist to Gosto's jaw, the sword had remained in its sheath even as he fell like a tree to crack his head upon the cobblestones. That was all that had mattered to the Night Watch when they had arrived on the scene a moment later, and it was all that would matter to the court when it got around to him.
Braavos might seem a lawless place to outsiders, with its bravos challenging any sword-bearing man they pleased, but the seeming lawlessness was in fact highly regulated. To assail an unarmed man, or to set upon an armed man without giving him a chance to draw his sword, was at the very least attempted murder by Braavosi law. Mutual combat and its consequences were the responsibility of the combatants, but an assault that was not met with force was punishable by at least a term of imprisonment, and it was not uncommon for the justiciars of the Commune to hand down the death penalty for such crimes. The millstones of Braavosi justice could turn slowly, but not when the honor and profit of the Commune were at stake, and even at speed they ground exceedingly fine.
For his part Adaran was willing to accept whatever punishment was given him, but for the fact that it would not fall on him alone. For him to be convicted of a felony would bring disgrace on his family. He would be legally barred from inheriting during the period of his sentence, leaving his father without a male heir of his body; if he were exiled for life or executed, the loss would be permanent. His sister would almost certainly be forced to marry one of their father's cousins, or whoever they could drum up from their creditors; no family of good repute would marry their son to the sister of a convicted felon.
Adaran cursed himself, past caring how many times he had done so in the past hour alone. With one blow he had effectively destroyed his family's future.
The clank of the lock made him turn his head, and the sight of his father made him rise to his feet even as his heart sank anew. His father lookedawful. He was wearing his best suit of clothes and he was as erect as ever, but there were lines on his face that Adaran had never seen before and a bag of loose skin under each eye that spoke of a long and sleepless night under great strain. Worst of all was the look in his father's eyes as he regarded him; simple anger Adaran could have endured, but anger mixed with disappointment he had no defense against. "You," his father said quietly, "are an idiot."
Adaran bowed his head. "Yes, sir," he said meekly.
"Fortunately, you are not, yet, a murderer," his father went on. "Young Caporazo has not yet awakened, but he has not yet died, either. The doctors have done all they can for him; whether he lives or dies is for the gods to decide, now." Adaran could feel the old man's gaze boring into his head. "I trust you understand the gravity of what you have done? The position you have placed your family in?"
Adaran jerked his head in a miniscule nod. "Yes, sir."
"Then I can spare myself that much breath at least," his father said. "Fortunately, your Shark friends are good for something. For every witness that you struck young Caporazo unprovoked, there are as many swearing that you were most grievously provoked, and that you offered no further violence beyond the initial blow. Consequently," his father's voice could have dried raw meat, "the justiciars have decided to consider this whole affair as a crime of passion and not simply a case of attempted murder. The law is able to make allowances, or so I am told, for madmen and idiots and other people who cannot control themselves." Adaran couldn't help a slight cringe.
"The court," his father went on, "is willing to offer you a deal. If you plea guilty to attempted manslaughter, then you will be banished from the city and the lagoon until young Capozaro's condition resolves itself. If he reawakens as the man he was, then your exile will last five years from the day he awakens. If he dies, or awakens with an impaired mind, then your exile from the lagoon shall last ten years, and your exile from the city shall be permanent unless you are officially summoned. You will have a citizen's freedom of the colonies and the lesser isles of the lagoon, but you will never return to Braavos itself except on the business of the Commune."
Adaran nodded. "I accept," he said, his voice small. "When shall I leave?"
"That has already been arranged," his father replied. "The Council of Thirty, thanks to the new majority of Sharks among its members, has decided that King Stannis should not be the only military ally of the Commune, and so a special embassy is being prepared to travel to the Kingdom of Myr. The Sealord's own sister shall be one of the envoys, and your sister has been chosen as one of her ladies-in-waiting, in recognition of our family's past services to the Commune. You shall travel with her, and upon arriving you shall offer your service to King Robert for the duration of your exile. If you wish to fight the enemies of freedom, then the least that the Commune can do is give you the opportunity."
Adaran nodded. "What shall I do if he refuses me?" he asked.
"You are to serve King Robert in whatever capacity he thinks you are fit for," his father said in a voice of stone. "You shall carry out any and all commands he gives you, save those that would require you to commit treason against the Titan. If he commands you to sweep sh*t from the streets, you shall do so to the best of your ability."
Adaran bowed shortly. There was really nothing to say, was there?
"You shall be transferred from this place to the barracks of the Sealord's Guard, and remain there under close arrest until the embassy sails," his father continued. "From this point on, you are considered a soldier of the Commune, subject to military law. If you have questions as to what that means, then you may ask the sergeant you are assigned to; I am sure that he will be happy to enlighten you." He paused, then said, "Look at me, boy."
Adaran raised his head to see his father still staring at him with that mixture of anger and disappointment. "I hope that King Robert is able to make a man of you," he said, his voice soft but still terrible. "It would appear that I have failed. Do not present yourself under my roof until you have restored the honor you have cost our family. Is that understood?"
Adaran nodded, his heart in ashes. "Yes, sir," he said in the smallest voice he had ever used.
Chapter 60: Sowing the Wind
Chapter Text
Lord Owen Merryweather was an affable man. Partly by personal predilection, but also by training; his father had taught him that a man without friends was a man vulnerable to any turn of fortune. Money, swords, and high birth were all useful things to have, but the right friends could get you all three of them, and more besides. Men, his father had also taught him, were like wolves in that they hunted best in a pack, and a friendly wolf was much more likely to keep his place in the pack than one that constantly felt the need to test his packmates.
So from a young age Owen had set out to establish himself as a good friend to all, and that friendliness had paid a handsome dividend. When Tywin Lannister had finally let his pride get the better of him and Aerys had searched for a new Hand, Owen's friends had immediately recommended him for his genial nature. Perfect, they had said, for winning back those lords who had been put off by the Old Lion's icy sternness. Aerys, understandably in search of a more congenial Hand than Tywin, had offered him the post, and for a time Owen Merryweather had been the second or third most powerful man in the Seven Kingdoms.
He should have remembered that dragons make for dangerous friends.
When word of the Rebellion had reached him he had leapt, leapt, into action, sending out ravens by the dozen to rally his friends to the defense of King's Landing. But his friends had responded slowly, if at all, and after the Hedgerows Aerys had become impervious to reason. Owen still had no idea how it was his fault that Hightower had been beaten or that Lord Tyrell had marched so slowly and taken that unaccountably long detour to Storm's End, but whatever the chain of logic he had used, Aerys had been implacable. Owen had escaped death only by volunteering to go into exile beyond the sea; a risky but, in the event, gods-inspired gambit. His exile had not simply preserved himself and his house from Aerys' wrath, it had left them in a uniquely favorable position to undertake the new role in which he had found himself.
Of course, it had required him to betray a friendship (a step Owen had only taken once or twice before, and then only in extremis), but even the blindest fool could see that the day of the Targaryens was past. Aerys was dead, Queen Rhaella was dead, Princess Elia and her children by Rhaegar were dead, even the Stark girl that Rhaegar had tried to make his paramour had died and her child with her. And while Rhaegar had offered to make restitution for his father's mistreatment of a friend, Owen had not been minded to place himself at the dragon's mercy again. Rhaegar might have been more stable than Aerys, but a dragon was a poor friend regardless of its age, as liable to burn you to death as warm you. The Tyrells, on the other hand, and Lord Mace particularly . . .
Owen had been a friend of old Lord Luthor from boyhood and an honorary uncle to Lord Mace, and the Rose had not failed him. One letter from Owen to Mace, and one conversation between Mace and Stannis, and House Merryweather had been raised up again from the pit they had been thrown down to. The taint of exile had been lifted, an estate found in the Crownlands to maintain the family's position, and Owen himself had been offered a handsome stipend and a post of honor as an officer of the Iron Throne. There were very few men in the history of the Seven Kingdoms who had been granted practically viceregal powers; as the Westerosi consul to Pentos, Owen not only had the power to rule the Westerosi enclave in the city in the name of King Stannis, but he was also effectively Stannis' ambassador to the Commune of Braavos. There was an embassy in Braavos proper, but after the Iron Throne they took their orders from Owen, and it was to Owen that they first sent their correspondence, except in cases of direst emergency.
Owen, for his part, was well content with the arrangement. He was perfectly happy to let his ambitious son administer their new fief and have to deal with uppity smallfolk and the occasional nosy neighbor; here in Pentos he could indulge in the delights of civilization to his heart's content, secure in the knowledge that doing so was, in fact, as much of a duty as a pleasure, for part of his remit was to maintain good relations with the Braavosi.
Admittedly, that could be a difficult duty at times; not that the Braavosi were churlish, for a race of merchants, but they had such strange ideas, sometimes. Fortunately, his other main duty, uncovering clandestine information, was much easier. Owen snorted to himself; Varys, that posturing eunuch, had made it sound so difficult, when all it boiled down to was what Own had been doing since the age of seventeen. You simply found people in potentially useful positions, made friends with them, and then offered to give them something in exchange for them giving you something. Mostly that something was coin, but even more powerful than coin was favor. You could give anyone a few coppers and he'd be grateful for as long as it took him to drink them away, but if a few words in the right ears got a man's son an apprenticeship, or his daughter a good marriage, then he was yours for life.
The Peace of Pentos had been his great triumph. Beleo, that usefully clever man, had managed to get enough information to thwart whatever it was the slavers had planned, and Stannis had been suitably grateful. Longtable, at last, had been restored, and Owen's son Orson was there now rebuilding the family's ties to the smallfolk while Orton, Owen's grandson and a likely lad, kept the Crownlands fief warm for them. Owen, meanwhile, obedient to the new saying that 'King Stannis expects every man to do his duty', had remained in Pentos as King Stannis' eyes, ears, and voice in Pentos.
For the most part, Owen admitted to himself as he swung into the saddle of his palfrey, it was an easy duty. The manse lacked a proper garden for parties and the banquet hall was not quite large enough for his preferences, but otherwise it was perfectly suitable and a gift from the Braavosi besides; the Titan made a point of rewarding good friendship, especially when it increased the profit of the Commune. And the conquest of Pentos had easily been the most profitable venture the Braavosi had undertaken in the past two hundred years.
Not that he would be able to properly enjoy that friendship today, he reflected as he walked his horse out through the gates, returning the salute of the porter with a wave of his riding crop as four of his household men took their places around him. He had hoped to make today a light working-day, mostly some paperwork and preparation for the Viceroy's Court tomorrow, but new orders had arrived two days ago, straight from the hand of Lord Arryn himself. Somewhat frivolous orders in Owen's opinion; apparently some of the septons and begging brothers in Gulltown had been forgetting their place enough to preach against the Arryns. Something to do with Septon Jonothor down in the Kingdom of Myr and an obsession with a few passages out of the Seven-Pointed Star, probably taken entirely out of context. The information had been quite vague, to be honest, and Owen had wondered if the stress of being Hand wasn't starting to get to the Old Falcon; he had been the Hand himself, and knew how rare it was to get a full night's sleep.
And surely it didn't matter what a few troublesome septons and unwashed begging brothers thought, did it? If they didn't come to their senses of their own accord then the Most Devout would see to them. A few confinements in some of the more uncomfortable septries and maybe an excommunication or two and everything would settle down again. Owen had seen it happen before in Longtable.
Still, an order was an order, and as it happened, three of Owen's contacts in the docklands had reported that the 'True Faith', so-called, was being preached to the sailors and to the Westerosi who were either stopping over in Pentos on their way to Myr or were taking service with the Viceroy in return for yeoman's farms. So Owen and his men-at-arms rode down to the docks, stopping at a few shops along the way to cover the true nature of their excursion; Owen had needed new gloves anyway and it would be churlish to prevent his men-at-arms from ogling the merchandise of the armorers and goldsmiths. By and by, they found themselves at the docks, and as Owen sent one of his men-at-arms to investigate a clump of rough-looking fellows who had just gotten off a round ship flying Mooton colors and were probably either archers or city toughs hoping to take the Titan's dinar, he bent an ear to the middle-aged, unshaven man in a begging brother's robes who was standing on a crate and haranguing anyone who would listen.
He could hear why the man had never been made a septon; he spoke poorly and clumsily, if passionately. In Westeros he would have been hooted off his crate with maybe a few horse droppings flung at him, but the Braavosi kept too orderly a city to allow such behavior even in the docklands; from where Owen was sitting, he could see four pairs of Watchmen, each with their tabards, truncheons, and whistles. As for the Braavosi themselves, they were quite hesitant about employing even mild coercion against holy men. One of their laws, Owen understood, was that any faith was free to preach, worship, and congregate so long as they did not cause a breach of the peace or contravene Braavosi law. Owen didn't pretend to understand it, nor did he feel that he needed to; how the Braavosi kept the peace among a score of different religions wasn't his affair.
And while this fellow wasn't saying anything about the Arryns, or the Braavosi for that matter, he seemed to have a great deal to say about Andalos. The ancient homeland wasn't an uncommon theme in sermons, but the fool seemed to think it was in Myrish territory! Owen snorted to himself; anyone who knew their geography knew that Old Andalos lay in the northern part of Pentos (well, the central region of Greater Braavos, now, but who was counting?). As the man began to rant about how proof of blood would bring the Seven down from the heavens to bring about a world without winter Owen's man-at-arms returned from his investigation and Owen signaled for his party to ride back home.
Really rather a waste of his time, Owen reflected, but at least he could claim that he had been properly diligent when Lord Arryn asked for a report. He just hoped the old man wouldn't get too excited about the whole affair; the Faith had its place, as everything did, and while it wasn't proper for the Faith to interfere with matters of lordship it wasn't proper for lords to interfere with the Faith, either. That was the meat of the agreement Jaehaerys the Conciliator had come to with the Faith, and it was the agreement that had kept the peace between the Faith and the Iron Throne ever since.
He shrugged; if Lord Arryn decided to do something, he would hear about it when it happened. For now, he had to review the arrangements for the dinner he was holding for the Viceroy and his chief officers three days from now. They had been forced to postpone it twice already for lack of guests; apparently the change in government policy was having some sort of effect on the Viceroy's administration.
XXX
Damon Lannister knew that he had not deserved to be named master of coin. His appointment owed much more to the fact that his step-niece was the Queen and Lord Tywin had felt the need for an additional voice and pair of eyes at court. Kevan had been needed in the Westerlands as Tywin's steady right hand, Tygett and Gerion had gone east-over-sea with young Jaime, and Stafford hadn't the brains that the gods gave an ox, so Damon had been the only remaining choice. Fortunately, the job had been easy enough to learn and his subordinates were smart enough that he only rarely needed to lend a hand himself beyond approving their decisions.
However, there were things that simply couldn't be delegated. Small council meetings were one of them. Another was negotiating with the High Septon.
Damon glanced at his king and ran a finger under the collar of his doublet nervously. Overall, he reflected, he would much rather be sitting through any number of small council meetings. He didn't have the faintest idea how Stannis was able to remain so blasted calm while he was waiting for an audience with the most powerful man in the Faith. Yet there he was, as calm as if he were at prayer instead of being made to cool his heels. Admittedly his composed face had a much grimmer cast to it than it had before the Tyroshi expedition which was reinforced by his unrelieved black wardrobe and simple gold circlet, but his hands were folded in his lap and his eyes half-closed as if in meditation. Of the rest of their party only the old septon he had sent east-over-sea seemed to share his calm, standing as he was in a relaxed stance and fingering his string of prayer beads with a serene look on his lined face. Grand Maester Pycelle, by contrast, was glancing between Stannis and the door to the High Septon's solar nervously.
As well he might; the High Septon had kept them waiting for at least ten minutes already. Damon didn't know why the man was making the King wait, especially since this visit had been previously arranged. The Faith wasn't immune to pettiness, but he would have thought that the High Septon would know better than to try it with the most powerful man in the Seven Kingdoms. If Ser Cortnay Penrose were here instead of interviewing candidates to refill the ranks of the Stormguard, then the old battler would have been in a cold fury at the implied disrespect. At least Greyjoy wasn't here; he might act like a civilized man, but Damon was ready to wager that the upjumped pirate would have taken his axe to the door by now.
Finally, the door opened and a young septon ushered them into the High Septon's solar. Damon blinked; even by the standards of a Lannister of Casterly Rock, the room was sumptuously appointed. The chairs and tables were all finely carved, the seven-pointed star in the window was of brilliantly-colored stained glass, and the rug before the great fireplace could only be Myrish-made, and that before the Sack. After a moment he smiled to himself; at least when the topic of today's meeting was broached, the High Septon would not be able to claim that he was incapable of doing what the King wanted him to.
The High Septon, glittering in cassock and shoulder cape of watered silk and with a heavy crystal strung around his neck, rose from his chair behind a vast desk with stately grace and met Stannis in the middle of the room. "Be welcome in the house of the Faith, Your Grace," he said formally, extending his hand; Damon, Pycelle, and Stannis' septon all bent the knee as Stannis bowed to kiss the High Septon's ring. The formalities seen to, the High Septon and King Stannis sat on either side of the desk as Stannis' party arrayed themselves behind him; Damon at his right, Pycelle at his left, and the old septon on Pycelle's left. "Now," the High Septon said, folding his hands over his paunch, "what can the Faith do for the Iron Throne?"
"I find myself having to replace the royal fleet for the second time in three years," Stannis said, as calmly as if he was not, even indirectly, commenting on the worst embarrassment to befall Westerosi arms in at least a century. "As you might imagine, this is a somewhat expensive proposition; warships are not to be had cheaply, unless you want them to be worthless."
The High Septon nodded. "I imagine not," he said equably. "Will you be wanting a loan then?"
Stannis shook his head. "I will not be a debtor," he replied, his voice almost as grim as his face for a brief moment before turning to its previous, unhurried tone. "I want to levy a tax on the property of the Faith."
The High Septon's head went back; the young septon at his side stiffened visibly. "Your Grace," the High Septon said slowly, "the Faith has always been exempted from taxation, even before the Conquest. It is one of our most ancient privileges."
"And yet you travel on royal roads, are protected by royal soldiers, receive donatives from the royal treasury from time to time, and receive the benefits of royal law," Stannis observed, "to name only a few things. Leaving aside the benefit of your prayers, the scope of which cannot be assigned a monetary value, what do you do to earn these things of us? Septons do not fight in the kingdom's wars, nor do they educate the younger sons of the nobility as the maesters do, nor do they grow or raise or make anything that contributes to the royal treasury."
"All of which," the High Septon said calmly, "is covered by the terms of the agreement that Jaehaerys the Conciliator came to with the Faith, when the Faith Militant disbanded. In return for which, we pray, as you said, and guide the Faithful in carrying out the commandments and fulfilling the sacraments. We preach obedience to the Iron Throne and keep the King and his family in the prayers of the Faithful. It is true that we do not teach the sons of the nobility, but our septas do teach their daughters. Even houses that do not keep the Seven find us useful in that regard; not four months ago Lord Stark requested that a septa be sent to Winterfell to minister to his wife's household."
The High Septon spread his hands. "And while I concede that the maesters are a blessing upon the Kingdoms, Your Grace, they have never been numerous enough beyond the walls of Oldtown to suit the needs of all our people. Those houses that are too small or too poor to attract a maester must rely on a septon to teach and advise them, as do many of the higher men of the smallfolk, merchants and guild masters and the like."
The High Septon stood and began to pace back and forth behind his desk. "To continue with the smallfolk, many of them have no access to the healing arts save through a septon; it is a rare lord indeed that will send his maester to treat one of his laborers. Our arts rarely equal a maesters, but better a septon with a steady hand who knows what he is doing than a travelling barber-surgeon whose hands shake with drink or a woods-witch who talks to spirits. Our septries and motherhouses each keep a small ward where a man may be treated for injury or illness, besides working to sustain themselves; the best, such as Quiet Isle, require nothing save new initiates and what few resources they cannot grow or make themselves. Those that cannot achieve so high a level of self-sufficiency are still industrious enough that they can trade with the laity for what they need. None of these things, Your Grace, can be achieved cheaply unless it is to be done poorly, which is to say worthlessly. As for our not fighting in the kingdom's wars . . ."
The High Septon sat back in his chair, seeming to deflate a little. "I will not insult Your Grace's intelligence by reminding you of the pact that was made between my predecessor of saintly memory and Jaehaerys the Conciliator. It has not been for lack of courage, or love of country, or thirst for justice, that we have not taken up the sword in the years since, but merely the faith we have placed in the Iron Throne, that when the ravens fly and the storm of war threatens the King's sword will be the first that is drawn to defend us in place of the swords we surrendered."
Stannis nodded. "All true," he allowed, "and we mean to carry on that tradition, with this new fleet. For the first time since the Andals came to Westeros, Your Holiness, the Faith is worshipped on both sides of the Narrow Sea. And even if it is my brother who defends the Faith in those lands, I would not let him stand alone."
The High Septon raised an eyebrow. "Has the schism been resolved then?" he asked. "I had not heard that Jonothor had crossed the Narrow Sea with the intention of repenting his errors."
Stannis shook his head. "Not resolved, but defined at least," he admitted, raising his right hand and gesturing at his septon. "Septon Martyn will explain."
"The only difference between the magisterium of the Faith and Jonothor's new doctrine, Your Holiness," Septon Martyn said, "is this; that salvation may be achieved through good works alone. If a man, or woman for that matter, lives a virtuous life and acts righteously, then the Seven will admit them to the Heavens regardless of their faith in this life. In all other respects," the septon flicked his fingers dismissively, "there is no substantive difference between Jonothor's teachings and those of the Faith. He does not question the commandments or deny the sacraments, nor does he deny the authority of the Most Devout save on the question of salvation through works alone. The Myrish Faith may be erring brothers, Your Holiness, but they are still brothers in Faith."
The High Septon narrowed his eyes. "And so potentially recoverable to the true Faith, if they repent of this error," he said shrewdly.
Stannis nodded; Damon noticed a slight tightening at the corner of his eyes. "Indeed, Your Holiness. But in order to make that likely, we will need to not only assist them in their wars, but be seen to do so, and prominently. At this moment, the only example that the Myrish have of the Faith is Septon Jonothor and those septons he has converted to his doctrine; the few that have remained loyal to Your Holiness are so few that they are easily drowned out. If we of the Seven Kingdoms were to fight at their side, then they would be much more likely to heed those septons who have remained loyal, and also those that Your Holiness would dispatch to minister to them."
The High Septon nodded. "In aid of which, Your Grace needs your fleet," he said. "What manner of tax did you have in mind?"
Thirty minutes later the young septon was bowing them out of the room. As the royal party walked down the hallway towards the doors Damon couldn't help but look at Pycelle and shake his head wearily. "I truly hoped that the High Septon would be more amenable," he said, unable to keep a tone of despair out of his voice.
Pycelle snorted softly. "Actually, it went better than I had expected," the old maester replied, fingering his beard. "His High Holiness didn't refuse us outright, and towards the end he seemed to be coming around to the idea. I foresee no insurmountable difficulties arising in this affair."
Damon frowned, running through the last part of the conversation in his head. His Holiness had been almost cordial towards the end, and Stannis seemed to have relaxed as much as he did these days. He shook his read resignedly. He knew he wasn't meant for this sort of thing.
XXX
Daario Naharis strode into the Dragon's Wing, the sturdily-built tavern in Aesica that the Stormcrows patronized most often when they weren't in camp, and sat heavily on one of the stools at the bar. "Brandy," he demanded, and when the barkeep obliged, he downed the glass at a single gulp, grimacing as the liquor burned down his throat before holding the glass up again. "Another of the same," he said.
"Hard day with the Council?" asked Sallaquo Haterion, who had been a sergeant at Tara and was now the de facto Captain of the Stormcrows, since Daario's days had been taken up with commanding the army as a whole. Sallaquo, a genial man who had been the fourth son of a Volantene baker before going for a sellsword, looked over his former captain and blinked. "Hang on, where's your baton?" Upon being named captain-general, Daario had been presented with a laurel-wood baton as a sign of his rank; in his quarters he had kept it in one of his saddlebags, but he had been legally required to have it either on his person or within arm's reach when he was in public.
Daario threw back the second glass of brandy and raised it to signal for another. "In the first place, it was never my baton, it was the city's baton; they just loaned it to me," he said, allowing bitterness to color his voice. "In the second place, the city has no place in its service for a captain-general who bungles away a fifth of its territory. So they took it back."
Sallaquo's jaw dropped. "They gave you the sack?" he asked, plainly stupefied. "They know you're the reason they still have the other four-fifths of their territory, don't they? That you were able to keep enough of the army together to bluff Robert Baratheon out of crossing Turtle River?"
Daario nodded. "They do," he said. "I was led to understand that this was why I was being dismissed in disgrace instead of arrested for treasonous incompetence. Well," he amended, as the barkeep refilled his glass, "that, and the Council's prerogative of mercy."
"The pricks," Sallaquo said loyally, sipping from his tankard. "You'll be coming back to the Stormcrows, then? I don't mind letting you have the captaincy again."
Daario shook his head. "I am not permitted," he said, even more bitterly than before, "to take any force contracted with the city with me when I go into exile. Not even you, my friend."
Sallaquo eyed his captain for a moment, and then turned to the barkeep and stuck a hand in his purse. "Private room," he said, drawing out a silver ducat and flipping it to the barkeep with his thumb. "And a bottle of that brandy the captain's having."
The barkeep snatched the coin out of the air, glanced at it, and tucked it into his purse in a motion so smooth that Daario could hardly follow it. "Down the hall, first door on the left," he said, taking a bottle down from the shelf behind him and sliding it down the counter to Sallaquo's waiting hand. "Don't make too big a mess."
"Captain here just needs to drown his sorrows a little," Sallaquo said reassuringly. "Don't you, Captain?" he asked Daario with a wink so brief it could almost be mistaken for a nervous tic.
Daario was not yet so drunk that he couldn't take a hint. "That I do," he said, standing from his stool and staggering only a little as three glasses of brandy on an empty stomach went to his head for a brief moment. He followed Sallaquo down the hall into the private room, more of a hole in the wall just big enough for five chairs and a table, on which Sallaquo plunked down Daario's glass and his tankard before knocking the top off the bottle with his dirk.
"So," he said, pouring Daario a generous measure and adding a slug to his ale which he stirred in with his dirk blade, "who's got the command now?"
"Draqeo Varoros, the councilor's son, has the captain-generalship," Daario said, taking a sip. "And Mero's been given command of the sellsword companies, in recognition of his victory over the rebel slaves."
Sallaquo snorted. "Well, the hells be damned if we take orders from that lout," he said. "Sort of man that gives sellswords a bad name, that one." He sipped at his reinforced ale, smacking his lips a little at the sting of the brandy. "You know," he continued slowly, "if we play our cards right, we might be able to get out of this whole mess."
Daario snorted bitterly. "How?" he asked. "We'd have to go to bloody Meereen at least, in order to get away from the Andals for more than a few months. And who's this we anyhow? I have five days to settle my affairs before departing for foreign lands, and the council won't let me take you with me."
"Balls to the council," Sallaquo said bluntly. "You think the company will let you leave if it means bloody Mero taking command? You held us together after Tara, and then you got us out of Solva in one piece. We're yours, captain, wherever you lead us."
Daario blinked; he had not expected this. "But you have a contract," he said finally. "You don't run out on a contract!"
"You do when your employer is a damned fool who's bound on self-destruction," Sallaquo said. "Look, the point of the contract is that it binds both the employer and the company to behave in a reasonable fashion, right? Not just in pay, but also in discipline and what-not." Daario nodded; sellsword contracts primarily focused on pay, division of loot, and discipline, but they also contained clauses regarding the resolution of disputes between employer and company which usually boiled down to 'talk it out like rational men and if that doesn't work then find a judge and submit to arbitration'. There was a reason that sellsword companies almost always had at least one lawyer attached to the captain's household.
"Part of that reasonable behavior is appointing the best man available to command and giving him as much leeway as possible within the bounds of policy," Sallaquo continued. "You're the only captain on the whole damned continent who's made Robert Baratheon work for his victories; if he hadn't gone for Alalia like he did, you'd have run him and that damned Legion of his into the ground. I've never heard of this Varoros boy, but if he's a councilor's son, then odds are he hasn't been near a military camp in his life, much less a battlefield. Which means he'll be relying on Mero for advice; fair enough, that's in the rules." Daario nodded; such an arrangement hadn't been uncommon in the days before the Sunset Company landed and changed all the rules. "But Mero doesn't have the brains that the gods gave a sheep, and if tries to go bull-at-a-gate like he usually does then the Iron Legion will turn him into sausage and the army with him." Sallaquo shrugged. "We're sellswords; fighting is part of the job but military suicide isn't. That's what the escape clause is for. You know, the one that reads the company is not obligated to accept orders that, in the captain's considered opinion, are likely to lead to excessive casualties for minimal return."
Daario frowned. "The escape clause only applies in the field, though," he said. "If the company's in camp, then it isn't operative."
Sallaquo snorted. "You think the lads will care? They know they're not obligated to accept an unfit commander who's acting with insufficient advice. They also know that you're the person who's kept the company alive over the past two years. If you're gone, then so are they. Just because you're being paid well doesn't mean you leave your good sense at the door."
Daario stared down into his glass as Sallaquo sipped at his ale for a long moment, then nodded slowly. "All right then," he said, his voice a trifle thicker than usual. "Get the lads alerted for a hard march. And warn them; keep it quiet. If the Tyroshi get wind of what we have planned, then we're dead men. We keep it quiet, and then we run for the Lyseni border like all the devils in hell are after us."
Sallaquo drained his tankard. "I'll get them started tonight," he said, rising from the table. "Keep the head, captain; we're with you on this."
XXX
"A fine reward is offered for the return of a slave woman, stolen or absconded, from the house of Marodos Sorrin," the newsreader declaimed. "Any citizen wishing to investigate is directed to seek further details at that house."
Leryna Nahin rolled her eyes as she continued wrung out the shirt she was washing. That made four slaves absconded from the magisters within as many days, and that was only the ones whose masters had deemed worth paying coin to have their flight announced by the newsreader. You'd think that they hadn't won the war. And where were the slaves planning to flee to? The isle of Lys was an island, after all, and it wasn't as if any ship captain would take on a slave without the written permission of their master; they knew the penalties for abetting the flight of an escaped slave.
The newsreader, a stoutly built man with a double chin barely hidden by his wispy beard and a simple round haircut, handed off the tablet he had been reading from to one of his assistants and accepted another tablet from his other assistant. "In light of the recent delivery of two further centuries of Unsullied, and the subsequent increase to the strength of the city's arms," he declared in the loud, carrying voice of the professional orator, "the Conclave of Magisters has voted to table the proposed motion for the creation of a Select Militia for service in foreign lands. Any militia company which has already declared itself a Select company is hereby directed to cease the use of that title forthwith. All militia companies remain subject to service in the lands of the city, but shall not be called upon for service beyond the city's borders."
Leryna blew her cheeks out in relief as she draped the shirt over the drying frame and reached into the tub for another one. Her son would be disappointed, but at least he wouldn't be sent to die in Myr for a cause that didn't concern him. The Nahin family didn't even own a share in a slave, much less own one outright! What was it to them whether slavery continued to exist or not? And who knew; maybe if there was an end to slavery, maybe Leryna would get fewer dirty looks from the better-off. Being a laundress was a perfectly respectable occupation, but in rich houses it was work done by slaves, and associations stuck no matter what you did to get free of them. Even if, like the Nahin's, you had as much Valyrian blood as any magister. She spat; not into the tub, but off to one side with a conspicuous turn of her head. There was no point fouling clean water.
"Furthermore," the newsreader continued, "in light of the recent increase in the price of further Unsullied, and the expense of hiring further Free Companies, the Conclave of Magisters has voted to levy two new taxes. The first, a duty on the sale of slaves, shall be assessed at one shilling per lady in value of each slave sold at public auction." Leryna ran the numbers in her head as she wrung out the shirt and winced; taxing any kind of sale at a twelfth of its sale price was steep. At least this tax would only affect those wealthy enough to buy and keep slaves, which was hardly anyone she knew. The neighborhood where she and her family lived were primarily either small shopkeepers or lower guild craftsmen; slaves were for families rich enough that the wife didn't need to work as a laundress by the fountain of the neighborhood square while her husband and her sons worked in the family's small cutlery shop.
"The second tax," the newsreader continued, "shall be a duty on the brothels of the city of one shilling per lady in profit." Leryna snickered to herself as she draped the shirt onto the drying rack; she could just hear the whor*s complaining about having to support the treasury with their c*nts. "Both of these taxes shall be assessed quarterly; violators shall be subject to a fine of not less than the amount of tax unpaid. The Conclave pledges that all the funds raised from these duties shall be spent on the defense of the city and nothing else. Citizens seeking further information are directed to address their inquiries to the Committee for Revenue."
Leryna shrugged to herself as she fished the last shirt of the day out of the tub. She had no idea how you 'addressed an inquiry to the Committee for Revenue' and was perfectly happy not knowing. As far as she was concerned, politics was for those rich enough to care about such things, with the sole exception of this militia business that her eldest son had been roped into. One male per household serving the city in arms in case of emergencies was all well enough, especially since there was some money in it, but she would be damned if she let her son get himself killed just so some foreign magisters could have their manses and their slaves back.
Of course, fighting off an invasion was another matter entirely; she had heard the stories about the Sack of Myr and the Rebellion of Alalia. Just yesterday one of her neighbors had warned her child to be good or the Andals would come and get her.
The newsreader changed tablets again. "In celebration of the city's victory," he declared, "and under the auspices of Murielle the Bright Lady, a public festival is to be held two days hence, in the square of the Temple of Trade, sponsored by the Orlyrion Bank. Freedmen and slaves are not eligible. Prostitutes from the Perfumed Garden shall be on offer at half their regular rate within the designated pavilion. Free wine will be provided by Drennoris and Sorrassar Chandlery, and cakes by the Guild of Millers. The Guild of Millers uses only the finest grains; true Lyseni bread for true Lyseni." Leryna snorted to herself at the dull tone that crept into the newsreader's voice as he read out the boast. "Any man who disrupts the peace of the Lady must leave when ordered by the civic officers or be subject to arrest." The newsreader changed tablets again as Leryna wrung out the shirt and draped it on the drying rack. "A reminder to all citizens," he pronounced, "by order of the Conclave, the curfew for slaves remains in effect. Any slave found on public land, or outside their master's property, in the hours of darkness without the written permission of their master will be subject to arrest and confinement until redeemed by their master. Citizens seeking further information are directed to address their inquiries to the Committee for the Night Watch."
The newsreader changed tablets again as Leryna fished the last shirt out of the tub and began to wring it out, and then raised his arm to gesture grandly. "News from Volantis!" he shouted. "Seeking to maintain the rights of the First Daughter of Valyria, and ensure the freedom of the navigation of the River Rhoyne, the Triarchs of Volantis have unanimously declared war against the city of Qohor! A Grand Army," Leryna could hear the capital letters in the newsreader's intonation, "under the command of Garrello Maegyr has gone forth from the city, and is marching north along the Rhoyne. So great is this army that a decisive victory is expected shortly . . ."
XXX
All his life, Ser Arthur Dayne had heard stories about the wealth and power of the cities of the East. Even as a child, however, he had only believed half of them and as he grew to manhood he believed even fewer. The wealth of Essos he readily conceded; he knew for a fact that the tax revenue of Pentos city alone was roughly equivalent to that of Gulltown, the second-richest port on the eastern coast of Westeros. Their might, however, he had never seriously credited. It was well known that the great men of Essos were not knights or even common warriors, but merchants. And their habit of giving themselves and their creations pretentious names tended to undermine their believability.
All that said, he was willing to admit that the Grand Army of Volantis bade fair to deserve its name.
Twenty thousand tiger cloaks. Five thousand freeborn militia. Three thousand Unsullied. The Golden Company, ten thousand strong. The four thousand men of the Dragon Company. A thousand lesser sellswords. A flotilla of river galleys one hundred strong escorting a transport fleet of almost three hundred sail. There were larger armies in the world, but few that could match the Grand Army's uniformity of equipment across contingents and level of supply. There was, evidently, a great stockpile of supplies awaiting them at Selhorys, and the plan was for the transport fleet to unload the supplies they currently carried at that city and then reload with the stockpiled supplies to provision the army's move northward to Chroyane, where a second base of supply would be established to support the advance to Dagger Lake.
If nothing else, that gave him confidence. Forty-three thousand men was a respectable force by anyone's standards, but keeping so many men and their animals, especially the twelve elephants of the Golden Company, fed and watered and armed and supplied would tax even the wealthiest kingdom, especially if they were being sent some one hundred and fifty miles beyond their homeland's borders. The elephants alone would require some three tons of fodder every day. Even for Volantis the Great, perhaps the wealthiest of the Free Cities bar only Braavos, such a feat was only made possible by the fact that the lower Rhoyne boasted some of the most fertile farmland in Essos and the Rhoyne itself allowed for waterborne transport of that bounty. Boats were vastly more efficient than wheeled vehicles, even travelling against the current.
Of course, it would be better if there were less tension in the army. The men of the Golden Company and those of the Dragon Company tended to be stiff with each other, as if they were so many strange cats, but the true source of disquiet was the tiger cloaks. Not that they were undisciplined, far from it; they seemed to make a point of trying to be more disciplined than any other contingent of the army. That was part of the problem. The tiger cloaks, from what Donys had heard, seemed to be under the impression that their masters did not entirely trust them, and were more than a little bewildered and resentful at the implied lack of faith. Fortunately, Garello Maegyr, a nephew of the vastly influential patriarch of that clan, was a genial fellow with a gift for smoothing ruffled feathers. Arthur knew of at least two occasions already where Garello had ridden through the tiger cloaks to personally hear any complaints they might have and promise redress.
And the other commanders seemed a likely lot. Ser Myles Toyne of the Golden Company had even managed to be positively good-natured the few times he and Arthur had had to converse, although some of his officers only barely concealed their distaste for the trueborn heir to the Iron Throne. The only potential fly in the ointment that Arthur could see was the threescore-strong bodyguard of young Volantene noblemen who attended on Garello; they were splendidly armed and mounted, and their armor was some of the finest that Arthur had ever seen, but the arrogance that seemed to be inborn into the pack of them was troubling.
Especially since they seemed to think that because they wore full armor and rode on horseback they were equal to knights; a few who were evidently less confident had engaged knights of the Golden Company to tutor them. Arthur shook his head wearily; putting a man in armor and sticking him on a horse didn't make him a knight any more than cutting a man's balls off made him an Unsullied. And the level of decoration on their armor bordered on the ridiculous. He glanced aside at where Viserys was riding between him and Ser Barristan on his pony. He had to admit that Donys and Ser Garin Uller had had the right idea; the king's wardrobe, a sober black with the three-headed dragon embroidered on his chest in red, made a striking and really quite pleasing contrast to the Volantene popinjays that was helped by his demeanor. Viserys was a good boy, but almost unnaturally serious. Arthur supposed that growing up in exile had its effects.
For a moment Arthur wished that he had Donys at hand to explain the causes of this war to him again. He had done so at least twice, citing treaties that were old before the Conquest, but Arthur still found it hard to follow; there some things you had to be born into to properly understand, he supposed, like the endlessly complicated web of relationships, feuds, rivalries, friendships, and allegiances along the Dornish Marches. Donys, however, was back in Volantis with Princess Visenya and Ser Tomas Shett, the only Kingsguard not with the Company. Ser Tomas was a competent knight with a genius for horsemanship, but otherwise his outstanding quality was his almost dog-like loyalty. It was that unreasoning fidelity that had earned him the white cloak more than his other qualities. Ser Tomas had proved his courage, zeal, and diligence at Tara, the escape from Myr, and the raid against Mantarys, but he himself had admitted to Arthur that he did not have the brains, the birth, or the natural gift to command men at war. Place him at the head of a conroi of knights and tell him to charge the enemy, or give him an assault column and a ladder and tell him to storm a castle and he would do either well, but more than that was beyond him.
So Ser Tomas had been left in Volantis to serve as the princess's watch-dog, with Donys to do the thinking for him and a score of men-at-arms of certain loyalty to back him up and leave some protection for the people the company had left behind when they marched out of the city. Of which there were now quite a collection; some of the men-at-arms and even a few of the knights had taken up with Essosi women with inevitable results. A few had even married their paramours. Arthur was unsure how to take it. On the one hand, it boded ill that the company should put down such permanent roots in the East when their king's throne remained unclaimed, but conversely it was unfair to expect celibacy of men who had not sworn the vows of the Kingsguard. And at least four in five of the Dragon Company were Essosi, these days. In the end, Arthur decided to tolerate it, commanding only that any children born to Westerosi men of the company receive instruction in the Faith and that no man quit the company's service without leave. Viserys would need as many of them as he could get to reclaim his throne.
Especially, he reflected, since this would be the first true test of the Dragon Company. The war against Mantarys had been an important victory, but Mantarys was a minor power even by Westerosi standards, much less those of Essos. If the company could secure a victory against a city as powerful as Qohor, then it would bode well for the future.
Chapter 61: New Beginnings
Chapter Text
Jaime Lannister was, at heart, a very simple man; all he wanted was to be the best knight in the world. And the metrics by which knighthood was measured were, thankfully, simple. Prowess, courage, loyalty to your lord, devotion to your lady, adherence to the tenets of the Faith, magnanimity and generosity to the weak, and at least a modicum of good manners were all that was necessary to make a knight. He had never hoped to be anything else and Ned Stark, for one, had known it. Which made this betrayal all the worse.
Jaime glowered at the desk with its neat stack of papers.Hisdesk, now, withhispapers on it, all of them needing his attention and his signature. He'd rather go sword-to-sword against Ser Arthur Dayne again, without Stark's help.
It had been Robert's opinion that Alalia needed a Lord Lieutenant who was more of a fighter than an administrator, given its placement on the new border and the temporary nature of the current peace. Stark, upon hearing this, had recommended Jaime for the post in the next breath. Jaime had proved his ability to lead in the recent war, he had said, especially with the defense of Irons' Ford, and it was time to give him an opportunity to broaden his horizons. And if he was far more comfortable with a sword in his hand than a pen and cared more for the timing of a cavalry charge than the yield of an agricultural district, well that was what clerks and the royal inspectors were for.
The damnable thing was that Stark probably thought he had been doing Jaime afavor. He had acknowledged that he owed Jaime a debt for saving his life when the two of them crossed swords with Ser Arthur Dayne at Tara; securing someone a post of honor was one way to repay such a debt.
To be entirely fair, he wasn't chained to the bloody desk all day every day. There were plenty of matters outside the walls of the former Prefect's manse, now officially called the House of Justice, that required his personal attention. Some of them even called him out of Alalia all together; inspecting the defenses of the bridge of Dubris and Irons' Ford to name only one. And it helped the people to see that their new lords were an attentive and diligent bunch, especially with Alalia crowded with refugees who had gravitated to the town looking for work, shelter, and food. Taking a conroi of his knights down through the seething streets and the minor chaos of new construction where the town had burned, both to patrol the streets and to give largesse where it seemed needed, was an easy and highly visible way of telling the Kingdom's newest subjects that their overlords cared about them in a way that the slavers had never done.
But there was only so much that Jaime could do to make those blessed escapes from his desk last. And the longer he made them last, the more motherless papers piled up on the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned desk.
With a stifled groan he threw himself into the chair and started looking through the papers, scrawling his signature on the necessary lines. Damn it, this was the sort of thing he had been hoping to escape with his exile. It wasn't bloody fair.
XXX
A nudge on the couter from Ser Barristan brought Arthur's gaze up from his plate to see a small clump of knights and squires standing a respectful distance from where the commanders of the Dragon Company were dining outside the command tent. Ordinarily this wouldn't be particularly special, as the command tent was placed squarely in the center of the company's encampment and it wasn't uncommon for men passing by to stop and salute King Viserys, who for his part always returned those salutes with a graveness Arthur wouldn't have thought to see in a boy just shy of his eleventh name-day. What made this case unusual was that these were all men of the Golden Company.
Two of the knights stepped forward from the group and bowed to Viserys, who nodded deeply in reply. One of the knights was a young man of twenty or so, a strongly-built fellow with dirty-blonde hair cut short and a sharply-featured face that even at rest had a judgmental cast. The other was an older man, perhaps forty or forty-five, whose mostly grey hair and short beard lent credence to the number of gold rings on his arms and who sported a spider-in-spiderweb tattoo on the side of his neck. "Your Grace," the older knight said in a voice so suave that it immediately made Arthur wary, "our apologies for interrupting your dinner, but we have a question for Ser Arthur Dayne, if he is present."
"He is," Viserys said, gesturing at Arthur, who handed off his plate to one of the household's valets and stood. "What manner of question do you have?"
The older knight inclined his head to Arthur. "Ser Clarence Webber, ser, at your service," he said. "My friends and I," a graceful gesture indicated both the knight standing next to him and the clump of knights and squires who had kept their distance, "have heard a story of the Battle of Tara that we find difficult to believe. Is it true that you went sword to sword with two knights at the same time and defeated them both?"
Arthur's left wrist ached dully at the thought of Tara. "It is," he replied shortly.
The younger knight shook his head. "Impossible," he said flatly. "It cannot be done."
Ser Clarence kicked him in the ankle with a clink of sabaton on greave. "I apologize for my comrade's bluntness, Ser Arthur," he said smoothly. "He is not given to tact."
"Evidently," said Ser Barristan from where he was sitting at Arthur's left, within arm's reach of the king. "May I ask your name and style, ser?"
"Ser Edwyn Saffron," the younger knight said. "And I repeat that it is impossible for a knight to face two knights of comparable skill alone and triumph. It is beyond the limits of human skill."
"And you would know this from personal experience, ser?" Arthur said, with just a slight stress on the wordspersonal experience. He had decided that he did not care for the young knight's assumptions.
Ser Edwyn shrugged. "Since hearing of your supposed feat at Tara I have attempted to replicate it three hundred and twenty-seven times," he said as matter-of-factly as if he were commenting on the weather, "with a variety of different knights, using a variety of different weapons. Thus far, my results are conclusive; the knight fighting alone may kill one of their opponents, but invariably the other one kills them. The best that can be managed against the second opponent is to double him, and this even I can do only one time in three." 'Doubling' was when two sparring knights struck each other at the same time; a mutual kill, in battlefield terms. "I must conclude," Ser Edwyn continued, "that either reports of your feat have been greatly exaggerated, or it was accomplished against very poor knights." He shrugged again, apparently uncaring that he had just offered what in some quarters would be considered a deadly insult.
Arthur flexed the fingers of his right hand. "Ser Jaime Lannister is one of the best knights of his generation," he said coolly, suppressing a flash of hatred at the memory of the young lion. "As for Eddard Stark, he is no knight, but he has been trained as one; if he were not a good swordsman, and did not have it in him to be a great one, he would not have survived our encounter."
Ser Clarence bowed again. "What you must understand, Ser Arthur," he said in a conciliatory tone, "is that Ser Edwyn is perhaps the best swordsman in our company. If he says a feat of arms is impossible, then his ruling is broadly accepted as accurate."
Arthur shrugged. "Well, if he is unwilling to accept another knight's word," he said, "then perhaps he would be willing to be defend his conclusions against me?" He bowed shortly to Ser Edwyn. "In the company of any knight he cares to name, of course, excepting Ser Barristan, whose duties prevent him from taking up such a challenge."
Ser Edwyn's eyes lit up. "I accept," he said eagerly. "Tomorrow at the midday halt, perhaps?"
Ser Arthur shrugged again. "I am already armed and ready," he pointed out, "and I am perfectly willing to defend my good name here and now as anywhere and anytime." He turned and bowed to Viserys. "With His Grace's approval, of course."
Viserys nodded. "I would not let my first sword's name be blackened for one day longer than it must be," he said. "Ser Barristan shall be the marshal."
As Barristan nodded and stood to his feet, Arthur deepened his bow for a heartbeat before straightening and turning back to Ser Edwyn. "At your pleasure, then, ser," he said.
Ser Clarence nodded. "I will be the second man," he said. At Ser Edywn's frown he shook his head. "I broached the subject," he went on, "it behooves me to help you defend your conclusions."
Ser Edwyn pursed his lips and scowled, then shrugged. "Well, at least you have some skill with a blade," he allowed, ungraciously in Arthur's opinion but the older knight seemed unruffled. He turned and snapped his fingers. "Joro," he called, "my helmet and gauntlets." A sullen-looking young man in a squire's three-quarter armor and plain leather belt dashed out of the pack with a pair of gauntlets tucked into a sallet, while another squire brought Ser Clarence his own gauntlets in a great helm. Arthur's own squire, an eager lad named Beleqor, brought Arthur his own barbute and gauntlets, tucked under his arm with Dawn cradled across his palms like a relic.
"Hold a moment," said one of the Golden Company knights, pointing at Dawn. "If you're as good a knight as you say you are, what have you got the magic sword for? Use a different one, if you've got the balls for it." He drew his longsword half out of its sheath with his left hand under the quillons. "Use mine, if you like."
Arthur paused in donning his gauntlets to cast a disdainful look at the knight who spoke up. "Is this the courtesy they teach knights in the Golden Company?" he drawled. "I must say, I'm not impressed."
Ser Edwyn also glared at the knight who had proffered his sword. "I will not have it said that I made a man defend himself at a disadvantage," he said coldly. "Let him use the sword. If he wins, well and so. If he loses, all the better."
The knight, realizing that his comrades around him were glowering at the conduct that had called their reputations into question, rammed his sword back into its sheath and folded his hands over the buckle of his belt as Ser Edwyn and Ser Clarence drew their swords. Ser Edwyn's blade was a long, slim, and strongly tapering weapon with a point like an awl and a forward-curving guard. Ser Clarence preferred a broader blade with less of a taper, a more rounded point, and a plain cross-guard. As they settled into their guards and the onlookers began to form a ring, Arthur settled his barbute on his head and drew Dawn from its sheath.
As the forty-two inches of narrow, diamond cross-sectioned steel as pale as alabaster flew clear, Arthur did what he always did before a fight and emptied himself. He let go of his fatigue from the day, tucked away his hatred for Jaime Lannister and Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon, set aside all the myriad likes and dislikes and beliefs and petty quirks that made him a regular man, and replaced them with the single-minded focus and clarity of purpose that every great swordsman had. For some men this took time and careful preparation; many never fully achieved it. It was Arthur's gift that he could enter this state almost instantly and more deeply than any man he knew. In this state he had once cut a dragonfly on the wing out of the air with a single snapping blow of Dawn; a feat still unequaled in the Kingsguard.
The mental emptiness seeming almost to slow time to a crawl, he turned and stepped into the circle, Dawn co*cked up and back over his right shoulder in the guard of the lady. Ser Barristan, who had equipped himself with a spear from a nearby infantryman, took position in the center of the circle, lowered the head of the spear to the ground, and glanced to either side. "On guard," he said, his words dulled and seemingly elongated. Ser Clarence took up the conservative short guard, with his right foot forward and the pommel of his sword resting near his groin with the blade canted upward. On his left, Ser Edwyn settled into the full iron gate, left foot forward and sword held low across his thighs and pointed downwards to the right. "Ready," said Ser Barristan, raising the spear head to waist height, "and lay on," he snapped, flicking the spear up and out of the way as he quickstepped back.
Ser Clarence crept forward on Arthur's left, his steps slow but steady as he kept himself in line. Ser Edwyn's advance was quicker and more self-confident, his feet skimming over the ground as he glided forward in a series of passing steps.Both of them trained, but not togetherArthur thought to himself as he began to shift to his right.And Ser Clarence has never faced a greatsword.Few men carried them due to the level of training it took to use one well. And keeping Dawn back in the guard of the lady kept it's exact length, and hence Arthur's reach, concealed for a few critical moments. Ser Edwyn slowed his advance, backstepped a pace, and started to match Arthur's move towards his right.He knows enough not to overcommit himself without a partnerArthur thought, his feet barely clearing the ground as he added some forward motion to his rightward drift. Ser Clarence pivoted and began to come up on Ser Edwyn's left.SmartArthur noted, almost absently, as his feet carried him forward,but not quite fast enoughand as his toes crossed an invisible line in the dirt, he pounced.
Dawn came out from behind his neck in a descending diagonal forehand that would have felled an elephant as he pushed off with his right foot into a passing step. Ser Edwyn's sword, somehow moving even as Arthur began his cut, managed to catch Dawn's edge a full foot away from his face and came whipping back in a counter-cut at Arthur's helmet, but Arthur was already moving. Dawn's ricasso and guard pushed Ser Edwyn's blade up and over Arthur's head and his left foot, encased in it's steel sabaton, came up andforwardin a stamping thrust-kick that took the younger knight in the top part of the plackart and sent him sprawling. Even as Ser Edwyn fell Arthur was pivoting on his right heel and bringing Dawn down in a semi-circular parry that caught Ser Clarence's thrust and threw it aside. A pair of quick steps brought Arthur to close quarters before Ser Clarence could throw another blow, and when the older knight's raised left forearm blocked the pommel-thrust that Arthur launched at his face Arthur hooked his pommel over the other knight's arm, forced it down, and then stamped on Ser Clarence's right foot as he shifted his grip on Dawn's hilt and drove both gauntleted fists into the front of his opponent's helmet.
Ser Clarence, caught square-stanced and with his dominant foot trapped under Arthur's, fell like a tree as Arthur,knowingthat his opponent was overthrown, wheeled back to meet Ser Edwyn, who had powered up off the ground and was in the act of throwing a lateral forehand cut, right to left. Arthur caught the blow on Dawn's ricasso, let go of Dawn's hilt with his left hand and upended the greatsword over Ser Edwyn's blade to half-sword it, and twisted back to the left, pushing off his right foot and sweeping it back behind him as he did so. Ser Edwyn, his sword trapped between Dawn's blade and Arthur's armored left arm, showed wisdom and quick thinking by letting his sword go and drawing his dagger, but Arthur was ready for him. Still half-swording Dawn, he caught Ser Edwyn's descending dagger arm on the third of his blade beyond his left gauntlet, guided it up and over, and then lunged forward, wrapping his left leg around Ser Edwyn's right as his left forearm hammered into the other knight's gorget.
Ser Edwyn fell in a clatter of plate as Ser Arthur let go of Dawn's blade, spun the greatsword back so that it's pommel slapped into his left hand, parried a rising backhand cut from Ser Clarence, and thrust upward as Ser Barristan shouted, "HOLD! Enough!"
When the marshal shoutedhold, you stopped what you were doing on the spot. In this case, Ser Arthur stopped his upward thrust four inches short of the gap between Ser Clarence's tassets. That gap was covered by a ringmail skirt, but even so there were a round of winces and instinctive self-protective movements from the onlookers; knights were supposed to scorn death but some deaths just didn't bear thinking about. "Ser Edwyn," Ser Barristan said formally, "are you satisfied?"
Ser Edwyn, frozen in the act of getting up, raised a hand and opened his visor. "I am," he said, in exactly the same tone of voice in which he had announced the impossibility of Arthur's feat. "I admit that Ser Arthur Dayne is sufficiently skilled to defeat two knights of comparable skill by himself and repent of my earlier disbelief." He rose the rest of the way to his feet and turned to Arthur. "Although you keep your grip too loose on your hilt before you throw your first strike; the tightening of your fists gives away your intent."
As Ser Arthur recovered himself, Ser Clarence handed off his sword to his squire and pulled his helmet off. "Now, now, Edwyn," he said teasingly. "Let the poor man catch his breath before you start with him." He turned to the onlookers. "Well, sers, you saw him do it. Pay what you owe, please, like good gentlemen." A chorus of groans rose from the Golden Company men as they reached for their purses. Ser Clarence's squire passed back his sword and began to go around the ring collecting money.
Arthur frowned. "There was a bet as to whether I could win?" he asked incredulously. "And you bet against yourself?"
Ser Clarence shrugged. "You're the Sword of the Morning," he said simply. "I know what that means, even if these," he gestured at the knights around him, "do not. I pray you not judge all the knights of the Golden Company by the example of he who spoke against your sword, Ser Arthur; most of us were taught better."
Arthur nodded. "I will try to," he promised. "You fought well enough; how many years have you served?"
"Twenty-seven, come New Year's Eve," Ser Clarence said proudly. "Ever since my older brother was killed in the War of the Ninepenny Kings; he was one of Maelys' household men before your sworn brother there killed him on his way to killing Maelys." He raised a hand. "Fear not, ser, your brother is safe from me. My brother's dead, gods rest him, and killing Ser Barristan won't bring him back. Nor would I want to bring him back at this point, seeing as I married his wife after he died. I meant well by it, but it would be a bit difficult to explain, still." Arthur chuckled at the mental image thus provoked as Ser Clarence's squire joined them with a full money-pouch. "Thank you, Vogen," Ser Clarence said cheerfully. "Count it out and give half of it to Ser Arthur, if you please." He turned to Arthur. "For your time, ser, and as an apology for the slight on your name and fame."
Arthur nodded. "As you wish," he said, before turning to the squire. "Keep a gold dragon for yourself, lad, and drink a health to the dragon for me."
The squire bobbed his head. "I will that, ser, and thank you," he said in thickly accented Common Tongue. "Although it'll be a gold stag, like as not," he added with a shrug. "You see more of them than dragons these days."
Ser Clarence tapped him on the back of the head with a gauntleted hand. "A dragon is standing right there, lout," he said genially, pointing at King Viserys, who was beaming with pride. "Red or black, a dragon is still a dragon." He nodded to Arthur as his squire blushed and started counting. "Don't be alarmed if Ser Edwyn comes by every chance he gets asking to spar. Lives for the sword and the clash of arms, that one, and nothing else. Doesn't drink, doesn't wench, doesn't hardly eat beyond what the common mess serves."
"He's not touched in the head, is he?" Arthur asked cautiously. He didn't drink or chase women either, but that was a conscious choice on his part.
Ser Clarence shook his head. "Boy wants to be the best knight in the world, nothing else," he replied. "You want to talk to the part of him that cares about anything else, talk to his sister. Lissena by name, married to one of our lieutenants. She's the brains in that family, ser, make no mistake." Vogen finished counting, took a gold coin out of one of the two little piles of money he had made, poured the rest of that money back into the pouch and handed it to Arthur with a bow. As Arthur accepted it and Vogen began scooping the rest of the money into another purse, Ser Clarence bowed. "Good evening to you, ser," he said grandly. "Come by my tent anytime; second column from the center, fourth row on the northern side. You can't miss it."
Arthur nodded. "I think I will, at that," he said, "once I pay my respects to Ser Myles, of course." It would not be proper for him to pay a visit to the Golden Company's camp without their captain's leave, but Arthur saw little difficulty in that regard; Ser Myles Toyne had a fearsome reputation, but it was belied by his good nature. He didn't share Ser Clarence's attitudes about dragons, perhaps, but he was known as a man whose mind could be changed by sufficient argument.
XXX
Ser Gerion stepped back and saluted with his longsword, raising the visor of his sallet as he did so. "You really are getting better," he said cheerfully. "Either that, or I'm just getting soft." He rapped his gauntlet against the plackart of his breastplate. "It's this diet of signing papers and dispensing justice His Grace has me on; much more of it and I'll go flabby."
Eddard chuckled as he returned the salute and knocked the visor of his basinet upwards. "The men of the City Watch would beg to differ," he said teasingly. "Ser Mychel Egen's been grousing about you handling his lads like uppity squires." The City Watch carried staves and shortswords as a rule, but in the event of a siege the staves were to be replaced with bills, essentially a forward-hooked blade like a cleaver with a thrusting point and a back-spike on a seven-foot haft. The training to use them was much like that for using a stave, but it was different enough to require distinct training. Part of which was learning how to face an armored man with a longsword.
Ser Gerion shrugged. "Ser Mychel would have less to complain about if his lads would learn their lessons properly," he said with airy self-assurance as his squire stepped forward to take his sword and gauntlets. "Until they do, I'll just have to continue lending them my expertise." He raised an eyebrow. "Will His Grace be joining us today? I haven't seen him down here yet."
"He's reading through that file you gave him," Eddard replied, handing Saul his longsword and stripping off his gauntlets as his squire unbuckled the chinstrap of his helmet. "The one about the Braavosi nobility."
Gerion raised an eyebrow. "He's serious, then?" he asked. "Actually serious, I mean?"
"Extremely," Eddard affirmed, passing off his gauntlets and pulling his helmet off. "Seeing Lord Estermont in the fight at Solva made him take notice in a way that not much else would have. And when he tried taking the old man to task for it, Estermont told him that he was a fine one to talk, risking his life in a cavalry charge when he had no heir. Robert took it to heart."
"He knows that the Braavosi don't work the way we do, right?" Gerion asked, stripping off his own helmet and untying the strings of his arming cap. "Even if the Sealord had an available sister or daughter, which he doesn't, since his sister's past child-bearing age, marrying her wouldn't necessarily secure an alliance with the Commune. One of the ill-effects of having a government that's elective, not hereditary."
"He knows," Eddard said, pulling off his own arming cap and sighing in relief as sweat-painted skin met cooling air. "And it doesn't change the fact that he needs an heir; a legitimate heir, I should say, not one of his bastards." Alaesa had given birth the sennight before the army had returned from Alalia; her son Stalleo was a lusty infant with a shock of black hair and laughing blue eyes. They lived in a manse only a street away from the Palace of Justice now. "And he can't look to Westeros for a bride. Too complicated, as you should know."
Gerion grimaced as he nodded agreement. The thought of having a queen whose family came with interests and obligations in Stannis' realm was, to say the least, gut-clenching. "The Legion wouldn't have a problem with Stalleo as our next king, though," he pointed out. "Nor would I, for that matter, or you."
Eddard nodded. "Granted, but how many of the nobility and the chivalry would accept a legitimized bastard whose mother was a household slave as their king?" he asked.
Gerion shrugged. "Maybe one in four or five," he said in the voice of a man conceding defeat as he and Eddard walked over to one of the benches on the outskirts of the training yard, yielding their circle to a pair of knights from the first cavalry company who were facing each other with poleaxes. "And most of those would be either former slaves themselves or elevated hedge knights and freeriders." He shook his head as he sat down in a clatter of plate. "If only Alaesa had agreed to marry Robert," he went on mournfully. "It would have made this whole matter much simpler. And it would have been a masterstroke, from the standpoint of binding the Legion to the dynasty."
Eddard shrugged as he took a swallow from the canteen Saul handed to him. "The Legion will accept any heir Robert gives them," he pointed out. "Getting that heir accepted by the majority of the nobility and chivalry is the tricky part, and why Robert can't just marry one of the ladies from the fishing fleet." The fishing fleet being the steady stream of young women whose noble but impoverished or wealthy but non-noble families had shipped them to Myr to find a suitable husband to solve whichever problem the family had. "An heir that happens to be at least noble on both sides of the family, and whose birth entitles him to claim aid of the Commune if we need it . . ." He shrugged illustratively. The Commune was notoriously protective of its citizens; an unflattering commentator had once likened them to pigs in a sounder. "That being the case, who would you recommend?"
Gerion smoothed his moustache with his thumb and forefinger. "If we could get a Dandalo, I'd say to do so, but all of the marriageable Dandalo ladies are already spoken for. And not even for a king would the Dandalos be willing to break a betrothal contract, anymore than any other Braavosi clan." Eddard nodded agreement; to the mercantile Braavosi soul, breach of contract was a sin almost on par with murder. "That being so," Gerion went on, "I'd say that the Dorrma are the best bet going, or the Contarenos. Maybe the Venieri." He shrugged. "Of course, for our purposes, any noble family of Braavos would do, so long as they weren't blatantly unsuitable. It's not the resources of any particular clan we're hoping to bind to the throne, as much as a citizen's claim on the Commune's aid and protection."
Eddard nodded. "It would help if Robert could stand to be around them," he added. "Gods know Robert has never had any difficulty talking his way into a woman's bed, but a marriage is not a dalliance." He glanced upwards at the angle of the sun. "Speaking of which, I should go home for the evening; Amarya said that the cook was preparing something special."
"Something she can eat, hopefully," Gerion said laughingly. "I remember when Joanna had morning sickness; couldn't hardly smell a plate of cooked food without dashing for the privy for a month or more."
Eddard chuckled. "Fortunately, that seems to have passed," he said. "Now she's just complaining that none of her kirtles will lace up properly and that it seems foolish to get entirely new ones when she will no longer need them in less than a year."
Gerion laughed. "The drawbacks of having a frugal nature, I suppose," he said. "Thank the gods I don't have that problem. Give your lady my best regards, Ned."
"I will," Eddard said, smiling.
XXX
Grazdan mo Ullhor took up the quill, sparing a finger of his left hand to restrain the flowing sleeve of the silk shirt he wore under his tokar as he dipped it into the pot of gold-flecked ink, and with exquisite care began to write his name onto the treaty. Calligraphy was a high art among the children of the harpy, and it would shame his family if his was the least ornate signature on the treaty.
Especially since it was such a magnificent document. A great expanse of some of the finest vellum that Grazdan had ever seen, it stretched almost five feet long by at least three feet wide and was covered with fine calligraphy. The scribe-slaves, he had heard, had labored long and hard over the calligraphy of the articles of the treaty, and the artist-slaves had done a fine job on the harpies whose illustrations filled the ample margins.
Finally, he finished inscribing the last serif and flourish of his formal signature and stepped back from the table to let the next signatory add his name. Ordinarily, he would take a cup of wine (well-watered, of course, it being only a little past noon), but the slaves with their trays would not bring out the goblets until the last signature had been added. Nonetheless, he smiled; the celebrations would begin as soon as the last name was set down and they would be fine indeed.
It had taken a year and a half of careful negotiation, but he had done it, by the gods. If he accomplished nothing else, then men would remember the man who made possible the Pact of the Six Cities. It was not a formal alliance, true, but it was the greatest and most comprehensive treaty that had ever been signed by the cities of Slaver's Bay. Meereen, Yunkai, Grazdan's own Astapor, Tolos, Elyria, and New Ghis had all decided to show at least the semblance of a united front in the face of the new conditions obtaining in western Essos, settling longstanding disputes and rectifying conflicts of interest in pursuit of a greater goal.
It would have been impossible, Grazdan freely admitted, without the recent civil war in far-away Westeros. Even in Slaver's Bay they had heard of the madness of Aerys Targaryen and the folly of his son Rhaegar in stealing the intended bride of one of the foremost noblemen of his father's realm. And the greater folly of Robert Baratheon, who had abdicated his throne to pursue Rhaegar overseas. Grazdan remembered his astonishment when he had heard; had there been no assassins in Westeros? But even more astonishing had been how many had followed Robert on his mad quest. Truly Westeros was rich, to be able to spare so many idle warriors; fortunate also, to find a way to send them where they would be someone else's problem.
The subsequent wars had made their greatest impact on Slaver's Bay in two ways. Firstly, the loss of Pentos and Myr had reduced the market for slaves. Ordinarily, this would have been a bad thing, but the other effect of the conquests had been a dramatic increase in demand from those cities that remained free. After all, those cities could no longer rely on local sources to the same extent, and the foreseeable increase in uprisings and runaways had added an edge to the demand for slaves that were not only cheap, butreliable.
The Good Masters of Astapor had reaped the greatest dividends, of course, and Grazdan not least among them; not since the Century of Blood had there been such a demand for Unsullied. But they had quickly run into a problem. Between Lys, Volantis, Qohor's standing order, and sundry lesser purchasers, demand had outstripped supply. The Good Masters had expanded their schools, of course, but the unavoidable fact was that in order to make Unsullied you needed a large supply of healthy males in a certain age range; five-year-olds, for preference, but six or seven-year-olds at a pinch. The Good Masters rejected any boy older than eight as being too old to be properly molded. And you needed enough them to absorb the inevitable wastage.
The difficulty, and the second problem that had arisen, was that healthy young boys were in demand, well,everywhere. And many of the usual sources of supply had dried up; Volantis had recently placed new restrictions on the export of male slaves in good health, and Tyrosh had forbidden the export of slaves entirely on the grounds that they could not afford to lose more than they already had. Mantarys had attempted to profit off the western cities' desperation for slaves, but they had made the mistake of doing so a little too eagerly. A short and sharp war had cured them of their enthusiasm. There were other markets, Qarth to name only one, but the combination of distance and old rivalries made it unprofitable to turn to them. No, the cities of Slaver's Bay had needed a new or at least an improved supply of slaves to meet the demand, and at least enough cooperation to be able to bargain with the western cities as a collective from a position of strength.
Hence not only the Pact, but it's first joint enterprise. Lhazar, with its plentiful population and lack of martial tradition, would be an easy target. Not for conquest, admittedly; simple distance mitigated against it. But for the imposition of a treaty that respected their sovereignty in exchange for a sufficient tribute of slaves . . . Grazdan smiled. It was true that selllswords had become somewhat thin on the ground, what with the demand for their services in the west, but between Astapor's Unsullied, the legions of New Ghis, the slingers of Tolos, and the contingents that Yunkai and Meereen could field, he foresaw few problems. The main difficulty would be keeping everyone fed, but that would be a simple exercise for men who had to orchestrate the feeding and watering of convoys of ships carrying hundreds if not thousands of slaves.
The last signatory finished inscribing his name and stepped away from the table, and as the slaves brought out their goblet-laden trays Grazdan stepped forward and raised his right hand ceremoniously. "It is accomplished!" he proclaimed. "It is done, it is done, and thrice it is done! Masters all, a toast!" He took a goblet from a passing tray and raised it high as the other signatories copied him. "To the Pact of the Six Cities, and to our prosperity!"
The signatories echoed the toast solemnly.
Chapter 62: Alliances
Chapter Text
Exactly what happened in Vaes Dothrak when Khal Pobo began to recruit followers for a revenge attack against the Kingdom of Myr remains unknown to this day. The few eyewitness accounts that survive do not agree on specifics, and the second and third-hand accounts are necessarily confused and contradictory. However, all sources agree on the general course of events . . .
-Devils on Horseback: The Dothraki in the Generation of Bloodby Maester Atkins, published 1132 AC
Pobo had never been unusually prone to anger. As a child and as a man both, his tendency to run cool rather than hot had been remarked upon. That, however, was before he had become a khal and had to deal with the irreligious fools who called themselves such.
He reminded himself, for the fifteenth time that day alone, that it was death to break the peace of Vaes Dothrak. There were ways around that restriction, of course, but none of them could be used here in Khal Zirqo's, now his, roundhouse with the fire in the central hearth illuminating the gloom and riders and their women lounging around the periphery. The Dothraki were not a people given to privacy.
"I say it again," he said. "The murder of Khal Zirqo is an insult to all Dothraki. And an insult can only be answered with blood."
"That is true," said Khal Rhadozho. "But that blood has already been spilled; you yourself have said so, many times. No one in Vaes Dothrak has not heard you summon men to your standard to rebuild your khalasar."
"Not enough," Pobo said, gritting his teeth. "Less than a thousand walkers were killed at Narrow Run."
"Then why should we help you?" asked Khal Achrallo, pausing as he raised another strip of spiced meat to his maw. "It is not the way of the world that the weak receive help from the strong, you know this. If you cannot avenge your khal, then fulfill your oath as his ko and open your throat."
Rhadozho nodded agreement. "It has been eight days since your shaman went to the Womb of the World to seek council with the god," he pointed out. "Never has the god taken more than four days to answer. The people of your khalasar know this; why else would more than a hundred of them have joined my khalasar just yesterday? You have delivered Zirqo's khaleesi to the dosh khaleen, and we honor you for it. But there is nothing left for you in this world."
Pobo shook his head, cursing his fate that the only other khals in Vaes Dothrak at the time were these two old fools. Khal Drogo would have taken up the challenge in a heartbeat, but he had taken his khalasar west from Vaes Dothrak ten days before Pobo had arrived; headed for the headwaters of the Selhoru, from what Pobo had heard, eyeing the Volantenes and the Qohori at their war. "I have sworn to kill the walker who killed my khal, and all who stand beside him," he repeated. "I cannot ride the nightlands by his side until that oath is fulfilled."
"Indeed, you cannot," came a voice from the door of the roundhouse, and the three khals and the riders lounging against the walls looked up to see the shaman standing in the doorway. His face was haggard from eight days of drumming and chanting with no more nourishment than water, but his eyes burned with a fire that hadn't been there when he went up the mountain. "I have spoken with the god," the shaman went on, advancing from the doorway to stand before the fire in the center of the house, "and it has answered my pleas. The Great Stallion is angered that Khal Zirqo was murdered, but one wilder than he is awakened. The Midnight Mare has seen that the walkers who killed Khal Zirqo grow in strength, and She is angered that such treachery should go unpunished. When Her fury is roused, none may stand before it and live; they may seek only to turn it aside."
Into the silence engendered by this pronouncement, Pobo stood forward. "How may this be done?" he asked the shaman. "What must we do, to avert the anger of She Who Brings Fear?"
The shaman raised his hands overhead. "This is what the Great Stallion has said to me," he intoned. "The walkers who slew Khal Zirqo must die, and those who stand with them must die. Their towns and their cities must be destroyed, and all their land made grass for horses. Not even one of the walkers who defiled the flag of truce must escape; even if they cross the poison water, we must follow them and slay them. Only when each of the walkers who slew Khal Zirqo under flag of truce is dead will the Midnight Mare be appeased, and her wrath stayed."
Pobo, rejoicing in his heart at this literally god-sent gift, bowed his head. "Then it shall be so," he said, matching the shaman's tone. "I shall give a gift to the Midnight Mare, to She Who Brings Fear. I shall ride west, with every man who will follow me. I shall fight the walkers who slew Khal Zirqo, and destroy them. I shall slay and spare none among them, not man or woman or child. I shall destroy their stone houses and burn their cities until nothing is left of them but ash. I, Pobo, will do this." By now he was shouting, and the riders who had been sitting around the walls of the roundhouse were on their feet roaring approval. "I shall kill the walkers of Myr, and of Pentos and Braavos!" he went on, now in full throat as the fury came upon him. "I shall follow them across the poison water if they flee, and kill until none of them remain alive! I shall make their lands grass for horses, raise a mountain of their skulls to the Midnight Mare, and bring their broken gods back to Vaes Dothrak! This I swear, I, Pobo son of Hajaero, before the Mother of Mountains, as the stars look down in witness!"
Achrallo and Rhadozho sprang to their feet, joining the riders in bellowing approbation. "As the stars look down in witness! As the stars look down in witness!" Pobo howled, sealing his vow with the most solemn oath the Dothraki held.
When, five days later, Khal Pobo rode out from Vaes Dothrak, Khals Achrallo and Rhadozho rode at his side, with twenty-five thousand riders behind them.
XXX
If there was one thing that the Commune of Braavos prided itself on more than its fleet and its laws, it was its knowledge. Trade, after all, required information on a thousand and one disparate factors, from weather patterns to currency exchange rates, and the act of commercial exchange generated a mountain of paperwork in bills of sale alone, to say nothing of tax receipts and property leases. Adding to the stream of information, each consul was required to draft and submit a report of any and all noteworthy doings and happenings within the city where he was posted quarterly, and the captains of the merchant galleys were likewise required to submit a report on their voyage. And all of this left aside the Commune's spies, of whom there were multitudes. The common saying was that where the Braavosi trod not even a sparrow fell but word was sent to the Titan.
The practical effect of all this was twofold. Firstly, the state archives of the Commune, counting both public and secret material, already covered some sixty miles of shelf space and were as jealously guarded as the Arsenal; no one, not even the Sealord, entered the Archives without first being searched for incendiary materials and being given an escort of two scribes, who were charged with both assisting the guest in his inquiries and making sure that they didn't alter, destroy, or steal anything.
The second effect was that no diplomats in the world were as well prepared to take up their duties as those of Braavos. When a consul or an ambassador was sworn in he (or, upon very rare occasion, she) was presented with a folio containing all the information available to the Commune on their destination, save only whatever knowledge was deemed too secret to be so disseminated (that was revealed to the ambassador when their ship was a day out of harbor by their secretary, who was invariably an agent of the Council). If the consul or ambassador was new to the location where they were being sent, someone was found who was reputed an expert on the place and dispatched with them as an advisor-without-portfolio; these, uniquely among ambassadorial and consular personnel, were permitted to engage in trade while in office, in order to soften the blow of such a disruption to their lives (although their accounts were rigorously examined by Council auditors in order to prevent corruption). Such advisors were also expected to inform the other members of an embassy or a consular staff about the place they were being sent, in order to prevent any occurrences that would jeopardize the profit or honor of the Commune.
Which was to say that Serina Phassos had had some idea of what to expect from the court of King Robert; she had paid attention to the lectures, after all. "Above all other things," former Viceroy and now (again) mere Justiciar Tregano Baholis had said, "the Westerosi prize the martial virtues. Strength, valor, loyalty, prowess, hardihood, determination; cunning to a degree, although an excess is frowned upon. These, combined with devotion to their gods, they term chivalry, the code by which their knights and lords are expected to abide. One of the greatest compliments a Westerosi can bestow upon someone is to name them a true knight."
But for all of Justiciar Baholis' lectures, the court of King Robert still gives her pause. Just to start with, it is almost entirely undecorated. The chamber where the Sealord and the Council received foreign dignitaries was richly appointed, both in furnishings and in decoration, with a great mural depicting the Unmasking of Uthero covering the wall behind the Sealord's chair. Here the walls are bare save for a few weapons, helmets, and shields mounted in brackets, with pride of place nearest the throne going to a crudely made two-handed war hammer, a raven-crested helmet shaped like a barrel, and a red shield depicting a lion rampant under a five-pointed star. And instead of the intricately carved near-throne that the Sealord sat on when speaking with the Commune's voice, the throne here is a simple chair, without so much as a cushion that Serina can see, mounted on a low dais. And instead of a mural or fresco, the wall behind the throne is decorated by only three banners; the crowned stag of the Baratheon dynasty directly behind the throne, the spear and broken chain of the Legion on its left, and the sunset sky and impaled dragon's head of the Sunset Company on it's right.
The other thing that makes Serina blink, and which makes her brother's arm tighten around hers when the embassy entered the hall, is the way that the people are dressed. In Braavos, the magisters and wealthy merchants tended to an austere elegance even in their most formal clothing, but the austerity was only in the cut and decoration; the most common cloth that an upper-class Braavosi would wear to the Sealord's Palace was very finely-woven linen. Cotton and silk were more usual. And weapons were never worn in the Palace; the only person in all of Braavos permitted to bear arms in the Sealord's presence was his First Sword, save in emergencies or on those exceedingly rare occasions when the Sealord went on campaign. Anyone summoned to the Sealord's Palace was required to leave his weapons in the care of the Porter.
At King Robert's court, by contrast, every man and woman is carrying at least one weapon, ranging from the silver-hilted poniard at the waist of the lady nearest to Serina to the longswords that at least half of the men in the room wear suspended from the belt of linked plates that Justiciar Baholis had described as a mark of knighthood. And while the ladies at least are wearing recognizably formal gowns, almost every man in the room is wearing armor. Most wear only half-armor, but a few are in plate or mail from throat to feet. And while in many cases that armor is beautifully decorated (one man not ten feet from her has seven stars inlaid in bronze on the breastplate of his cuirass) it is still clearlyarmor; that of the man nearest her, for instance, is seamed with bright lines that she can only assume are the results of someone trying to cut through it and failing.
The impetus behind this display of martial splendor is clear enough, as the embassy is being received not only by King Robert, but by all the high officers of his government, every man of them in full plate armor save for helmets and their gauntleted hands resting on the hilts of sheathed longswords as they stand arrayed like guardsmen before the dais. As Ambassadress Dorysa Antaryon rises from her courtesy (making the rest of the embassy straighten from their own bows and courtesys) and proffers the embassy's credentials, Serina keeps nervousness at bay by putting faces to the names and sigils that Justiciar Baholis had drilled into them aboard the ship. At the far left of the line, on King Robert's right, stands a young man (only a year or three older than her if she is any judge) with a face already developing seaman's wrinkles and a black beard tied in a short braid;Victarion Greyjoy, she thinks with a glance at the golden kraken embroidered on the front of his surcoat,Lord Lieutenant of Ironhold, Warden of the Sea of Myrth, and Master of Ships. And also, she remembers, brother to Lord Balon Greyjoy of Pyke and Euron Greyjoy, lately King's Castellan of Ghaston Grey and more recently, they have learned, master of ships to King Stannis of Westeros.
Just to his left is a slightly older man with short-cropped hair and a plain, square face, whose surcoat shows a sun, crescent moon, and star above a white field;Ser Mychel Egen, Master of Law, she remembers, a dour man but an effective one, by all reports. To Ser Mychel's left, and at the right hand of the king himself, is a dark-haired man about Lord Greyjoy's age whose long, somber face is given a menacing air by the scar that runs along one cheek;Eddard Stark,she knows by the direwolf on his surcoat,the King's Fist, commonly called the Iron Wolf.A figure of nigh-proverbial ferocity to the enemies of his king and his people, but reputedly a devoted husband withal and soon to be a father if the gods were kind. On the other side of the king, standing at his left hand and passing him the embassy's credentials, is an urbanely handsome man with earlobe-length blonde hair and a red half-cloak draped over his left shoulder;Gerion Lannister,she guesses easily enough,Hand of the King. By all reports, he ruled on his king's behalf when he was away on campaign, and judging by what she had seen of the city so far, he had done a good job of it. Next to him was the only man of the lot who seemed properly of an age to govern, a lean and craggy-faced man with greying hair and bushy eyebrows;Brynden Tully,she knows from the black trout on his surcoat,Master of Soldiers. Reportedly he was the one man that everyone in the Kingdom of Myr respected unreservedly; the Iron Legion, it was said, accorded the Blackfish only slightly less honor than they did their king. And at the far end of the line there stood a great bulk of a man whose round face perched like a mustachioed moon above his gorget;Ser Wendel Manderly, Master of Coin, she deduced by process of elimination. Arguably one of the two or three most vital men in the whole government of the Kingdom of Myr, as he was the one who had to find how to pay for, well,everything.
A slight squeeze on the arm from her brother brings her attention to the king, who has stood to address the court. As he does so there is a rustle of short bows from the courtiers; this they have been warned about, that after the first full reverence the custom of the court is to tender the sort of bow that would be given in the field. So the embassy follows suit, and as they do so Serina sees Robert Baratheon for the first time and cannot help a blink of astonishment.
With all the tales describing King Robert as something very near to the Andal god of war, disappointment at him being merely human would have been reasonable. But no such disappointment occurs; while he is not truly a giant, he is still one of the mightiest-looking men that she has seen outside the denizens of traveling shows. His half-armor covers him in steel from throat to hips to wrists, but it does nothing to hide the strength of his build. His face is regularly handsome save for a slight kink in his nose where it was most likely broken at some point, with strong features, a jaw more adorned than hidden by a short-cropped warrior's beard, and thick black hair pulled back into a short braid. He may be young, but the effect is no less powerful.
And it is made more so by the simplicity of his regalia. Serina, not being immune to fashion, has read some of the Andal tales of chivalry that have become popular in Braavos since the landing of the Sunset Company and its aid in the Conquest of Pentos. Some were tedious, some puzzling, and a few thrilling, but a common thread in all of them is the attention lavished upon the description of a lord's appearance, much less that of a king; the splendor of their armor and weapons, the richness of their regalia when not at war, the rarity of the trophies they display in their halls, all bear testament to the character's position and power, with pages spent not only on their description but on their history and provenance. An Andal leader was known by the magnificence of his dress, a trope confirmed by the splendor of even this most martial of courts.
King Robert, by contrast, is simply attired. Even she can tell that his armor is excellently made, but it is plain burnished steel, absent the engraving and inlay seen on the armor of his lords. Of ornaments and baubles, he had only two; the famed Two Dragons of the Peace of Pentos, strung on a silver chain about his neck, and an unembellished golden circlet around his head. The only people in the room more simply attired than he are the servants stationed around the hall. Even the King's Fist, a man famously dismissive of ostentation, is wearing armor that has been etched to give it the appearance of fur, and the knuckles of his gauntlets are embossed with decorative wolf claws.
Even more shocking is the fact that alone of all the men in the room of military age, King Robert bears no weapons. His famous hammer, his longsword, and his dagger all rest on a rack crowned by his famed antlered helmet, which stands just behind and to the right of the throne and is attended a young knight with dark hair and a slightly pockmarked face. It is only a short distance, to be sure, but nonetheless significant in this hall where every other man and woman goes armed. Later discussions of the import of this among the ladies-in-waiting will come to two possible conclusions. Firstly, that King Robert cannot conceive that anyone who means him harm can penetrate into the heart of his power. Secondly, and more flatteringly, that it is a gesture of faith on Robert's part that anyone who does mean him harm will first have to cut their way through his courtiers and almost certainly die in the process. Serina cannot help but argue in favor of the latter.
Especially since, when the court was adjourned after the embassy was welcomed, she chances to lock eyes with him when he looks away from the Ambassadress. There is confidence in those eyes, to be sure, but not arrogance; she knows the difference well enough from watching her brother's friends. The rest of what she sees in King Robert's eyes she cannot bring herself to say, even when her fellows all but beg her to do so. All she can think is that it is a pity that none of the songs and stories give a fitting description of the eyes of Robert the Strong.
XXX
Daario couldn't help a smirk as he and the commander of the local garrison rode to meet Mero under a flag of truce. The weather might be turning poor buthe had pulled it off;twenty days of forced marching, with a few skirmishes along the way, had seen the Stormcrows arrive safely in Lyseni territory while leaving less than a hundred dead men in their wake. Future historians might denigrate his accomplishment because it was not accompanied by rivers of blood, but Daario knew that he had planned and executed perhaps the neatest forced march through hostile territory that had been undertaken in living memory.
And the Lyseni, for their part, seemed to be welcoming. The local commander, a minor magister's son named Harloquo Vynolis, had been positively eager to provide food and camping space for Daario's men, and had sent off a dispatch rider to Lys city the same day. The Conclave might be putting its trust in the Unsullied it had recently purchased, he had told Daario over a glass of surprisingly good wine for a frontier post, but four hundred and twenty-six veteran cavalry were not to be sneezed at. Wars had been decided by fewer men in the past.
Mero, for his part, seemed exceedingly displeased; unsurprisingly perhaps, especially since he must have fallen for the false trail that Daario had laid, the one that indicated that he was bound for Dubris and Myrish service rather than the Lyseni border town of Barium. He must have felt a proper fool. "Give me one reason," the red-bearded mercenary ground out even before the customary exchange of pleasantries had been made, "why I should not cut you out of the saddle and have my boys massacre your pack of deserters."
"I'll give you two reasons," Daario said smoothly. "Reason the first: if you were confident that you could win such a battle, we would not be having this conversation. Reason the second: if you attack a company under contract with Lys, then you will have effectively declared war on Lys in Tyrosh's name. I doubt the Archon will be very happy with you overstepping your authority in such a way."
Mero paused, and then turned to Commander Vynolis. "Is that true, that he and his are under contract?" he asked suspiciously.
"A preliminary contract," Vynolis said with a shrug, "pending negotiations with the conclave, but yes."
"Then you should know that this one," Mero jerked a thumb at Daario, "ran out on his last contract, and encouraged his company to do likewise. His word isn't worth slave-sh*t."
"You were always a fool, Mero," Daario said pityingly. "Think, man; the Tyroshi aren't just at war with the Myrish, they've poked a thumb in the Titan's eye. When was the last time that ended well for anyone? The Westerosi did it once, but they had a continent behind them. If the Archon doesn't sue for terms and that quickly, then he'll be facing the Iron Legionandthe Braavosi fleet, and even Salladhor Saan won't be able to save him." Daario shrugged. "Give it a year, maybe two or three," he went on, "and there won't be anything left of Tyrosh but ash and corpses; anyone with half a brain can see it. We're sellswords, not fanatics. We aren't obligated to die in a hopeless cause."
Mero turned back to Daario with an ugly expression on his face. "I always knew you for a ponce, Daario, but I never figured you for a coward," he snarled. "I'd challenge you, if I thought there was half a chance of it being accepted."
"I've called you a fool already," Daario said, allowing disgust to seep into his voice, "I cannot do so again. I will leave you to find your death without me; I just wish that so many good men did not have to die with you." Daario neck-reined his horse around and began to trot back to his company's encampment, trying to pretend that he had not felt Mero's words like blows against his pride.
XXX
Robert leaned back in one of the better chairs in his solar and steepled his fingers. "Well?" he asked his two closest advisors. "What do you think?"
Eddard shrugged. "The offer seems genuine to me," he allowed. "Letting Adaran swear himself to you may have been part of a lawyer's dodge, but it is a good gesture."
Robert nodded. "Although I confess to be at a loss as to what we're supposed to do with him," he admitted. "The household would be the best place for a bravo, but we can't put him in it; wouldn't be fair." In order to secure a place in Robert's household men you needed to be either an original veteran of the Sunset Company or a tested and exemplary soldier. Simply giving a place to a foreign bravo without a day's experience in the field, and a convicted criminal serving a term of exile at that, would be insulting to the other men of the household. "Can you find a place for him, Ned?"
"Not without the same problems of putting him in your household, your grace," he replied. Eddard's household was considered only slightly less of an elite corps than Robert's; the rivalry between the two would have been fierce if it wasn't known that neither the King nor his Fist would tolerate any such thing. "We could always find him a place in a Legion company, for all that he's a bravo and not a foot soldier. A pity he's too old to make a knight out of him; we'd be able to make him someone's squire if he was." Robert nodded; Adaran was of an age to squire, but he was too old to start knightly training from the ground up. In order to make a good enough horseman to serve as a knight, you needed to start riding by the age of six or seven. And by his own admission Adaran had passed all his life in the lagoon of Braavos, where there was neither grazing nor even room to keep horses. The Braavosi were a nation of mariners, not horsem*n.
Gerion shrugged. "If you don't want him, I'll take him," he offered. "My household is less, shall we say, fashionable than either of yours is, and less likely to be jealous. And I could use a young man with an intimate knowledge of Braavos who isn't afraid of a fight, so long as he can be taught to think. As for the offer," he looked out the window pensively. "The fact that Fortunato Dandalo is behind this shift in policy is promising, very promising," he mused. "The Dandalos tend to steer a safe course when it comes to politics. For them to come out in support of the Sharks like this . . ." Gerion nodded again, this time with the air of a man coming to a decision. "I agree with Ned; the offer is genuine. And quite good, at that."
Robert nodded. "The Titan doesn't make war without both hands, it seems," he said, glancing down at the paper that the ambassadress had presented to him and which contained the bare details of the proposed alliance. A fully manned fleet of two hundred galleys at six months' notice or three hundred galleys at nine months' notice, a lump sum of one hundred thousand gold dinars and a new line of credit on the Iron Bank, the services of two thousand heavy infantry for a year at the Commune's expense, recognition of the Kingdom of Myr's claim to any and all territory taken on the mainland, and a pledge to negotiate no separate peace with 'any city or state that permits the evil of slavery' in return for the isle of Tyrosh, the Stepstones, the isles of Lys, and perpetual most-favored-nation status in matters of commerce was, on the face of it, a very good deal indeed.
The devil, however, would be in the details, as always. Robert turned to Eddard. "Ned, meet with First Sword Forel and work out a plan for the reduction and conquest of Tyrosh. Plan on starting the war no later than a year from now."
Eddard nodded. "I'll need Ser Brynden for some of the mustering details," he said. "And Victarion for the naval side of things."
"You'll have them," Robert said. "This matter is the foremost priority until further notice. Gerion," he went on as he turned to his Hand, "we'll need you and Wendel to work out the minutiae of how much this next war is going to cost."
Gerion made a face. "It'll be steep, I can tell you that much," he said sourly. "Four wars in as many years is a lot of potential work left undone, especially since our seaborne trade keeps getting cut off. Having the Iron Bank undo the purse strings will help, but we may need to introduce some new taxes."
Robert and Eddard both winced; introducing new taxes was never a pleasant exercise. "Well, see what you can do, in any case," Robert replied. "If nothing else, the loot from Tyrosh will go some way to covering any gaps." Theoretically a third of all portable loot was supposed to be turned over to the treasury, but compliance varied across the army. The Legion tended to be more diligent, but some of the cavalry companies had shown a discrepancy between the amount of loot they were said to have taken and the amount that had been surrendered. On the other hand, conquered real estate became crown property, which made for a substantial asset.
"One other thing, Gerion," Robert said. "When the ambassadress presented her credentials, did you mark the ladies of her retinue?"
Gerion frowned. "I'm afraid I did not," he confessed. "Not closely, at any rate."
"One of them caught my eye," Robert said. "The one on Adaran's arm. A pretty thing, and more intelligent than most of the others were likely to be, judging from what little I saw of her."
Gerion nodded slowly. "I take it that this is related to the other great matter you have in mind, your grace?" he asked cautiously. Robert nodded. "Shall I make inquiries?"
"Discreet ones," Robert said. "I'd rather not disrupt this matter of the alliance. Start with Adaran; he was on her arm and there seemed something of a resemblance. And since he is now one of your household, we can swear him to secrecy on the matter."
Gerion nodded agreement. "By your leave, I shall begin immediately," he said, and at Robert's wave he stood from his chair, bowed shortly, and strode out the door.
Eddard waggled his eyebrows at Robert. "Would you like me to recommend a tailor?" he said teasingly. "You'll need a wedding suit, and I happen to know a good one."
Robert shook his head. "'To make rabbit stew, first catch the rabbit'," he replied, quoting a proverb from the Dornish Marches. "It's a slight interest for now, and may come to nothing. If Gerion's inquiries prove fruitful, however . . ." he shrugged. "Tell your tailor to keep his needles sharp, at any rate."
Chapter 63: Horizons
Chapter Text
Jonothor was not naturally given to apprehension. Somehow, by the grace of the gods, he had always known what the right thing to do in any given situation was; or, at least, the least bad thing given the natural constraints upon human knowledge and action. There were some things that it was not given to man to amend, or even change. That was part of the reason for faith.
But here and now, in the First Sept of Myr, the one place where he should rightly feel safest in all the world, he is afraid. Because of what is on the table in front of him.
It was a humble thing to inspire fear, being a mere roll of parchment. But what it contains, he knows, is no less deadly a weapon than a keg of wildfire on a slow fuse. Lifting it gingerly, he reread the first two lines; the root from which all the rest of the document had grown.In matters concerning virtue and the salvation of souls, every man and woman has the right to be judged, not on the content of their beliefs, but upon the practical effects generated by their acting upon those beliefs. A man who does not believe in the Seven but who acts justly, tempers his actions with mercy, and walks humbly along the path that the gods have laid before him, is more deserving of the Heavens than a man who believes in the Seven with all the force of his soul and yet does none of these things.
It was nothing more or less than a direct attack upon the doctrine offoi seule, which held that faith alone was necessary to enter the Seven Heavens. It had been a controversial doctrine since its inception some five centuries before the Conquest, but it was still the foundation of the Faith as it currently stood. After the Dance of Dragons and the collapse of the Doctrine of Exceptionalism, it had been the principle that justified the Targaryen monarchy; they believed in the Seven and the doctrines of the Faith, even if they so rarely acted in accordance with them, and so their rule was no different from that of any other lord. It was also, Jonothor’s teachers at seminary had explained, a uniquely comforting doctrine for the smallfolk, for even if their ignorance and poverty prevented them from fulfilling every jot and tittle of the Faith’s strictures their faith would ensure them a place in the Heavens regardless.
That, Jonothor is willing to concede. What he is not willing, and not able, to concede is that faith alone was enough to outweigh all of a man’s sins. By canon law, mere contrition over and confession of sins was not enough; the penitent had to do something to make amends for their sins in order for the sacrament of penance to be effective. And yet he had seen men with the weight of mortal sins on their soul be promised swift access to the Heavens, simply because they believed in the Seven.
His teachers at seminary, and later his superiors, had told him not to concern himself with these things but to concern himself with the needs of his parishioners; that it was not fitting for one lowly septon to take upon himself the moral guardianship of every soul he came across. And he had done so, keeping to his lowly septry in Flea Bottom and trying to restrain himself from confronting his erring brothers in ministry; with only moderate success, he would be the first to admit. But then he had been sent with the Sunset Company, and he had seen more worthy behavior from men who actively scorned the Seven than he had seen from the Most Devout. Who was more worthy of the Heavens; an old gods-worshipping Northman who wore mail and boiled leather, ate plain food, and daily risked his life in a holy cause or a prelate who wore silk and samite, ate only of the finest viands, and had never once risked his life in any cause, holy or otherwise?
It was a question that had demanded an answer. Hence this document, this protestation, before him, the product of months of theological, ethical, and moral inquisition. There is nothing in it that he would not defend, but still he hesitates to put his name to it. For once he does, there would be no turning back, no possibility of reconciliation with the Great Sept. This document he had written was the torch that would burn the last bridge between him and the faith that had raised him.
And it would not affect him alone. The other septons who had followed the Sunset Company across the sea had all pledged to follow him, and every month brought a trickle of septons from Westeros who came to see what all the fuss was about. Some of them held to the Great Sept, but as many had taken to preaching the new doctrine that they all ascribed to Jonothor. And the people listened; he doubted that the worship of R’hllor would ever be fully supplanted in the Kingdom of Myr, but at least a third and perhaps as many as a half of the Iron Legion now worshipped the Seven, and most of them did so under the doctrine of works. It was, Jonothor should have guessed, a doctrine almost uniquely suited to the Legion, who either by training or inclination were men of action to a one. But exactly what the doctrine of works meant, and how it differed from the Faith and how it did not, had never been explicitly set out. Hence this document, which is meant to answer that question.
But did the need to properly explain his position to those who followed him outweigh the need for peace? If he signed this document it would be tantamount to declaring war on the Great Sept, and it was an inescapable fact that war brought death and destruction everywhere it marched. Wars of religion especially; the chronicles of the rebellion of the Faith Militant against Maegor the Cruel made for grim reading, as did the tales of the wars of Faithful against Faithful before the Conquest. Jonothor has learned enough of leadership to know that he owes those who follow him, and his non-believing allies like Lord Stark, as peaceful a course as he can steer for them. Nor would the dying be confined to those who might be said to deserve it; Leofric Corbray was not the first good man to be swayed to the service of evil, nor would he be the last.
But to refuse to sign this document, to reconcile with the Great Sept, would mean another sacrifice of truth on the altar of politics; an abdication of justice in favor of peace. He sets the parchment back down on the table and raises his hand to his brow. At seminary, in the final year of instruction before ordination, one of the instructors had asked him if there was anything in the Faith, in the scriptures, in the writings of the patriarchs, in the decrees of the High Septons, anything at all that he would not be willing to defend at cost of his life. “For,” that formidable old septon had said, glowering at him over his spectacles, “it may be that you will be called to uphold the Faith as a martyr, as in the days of Maegor, and you will be required to defend the tenets and doctrines of our Faith even on the scaffold. If there is anything you cannot defend while chained to the stake with the flames rising about you, say so now, and we will see what may be done.”
There had not been, then. Likewise now, he decides, there is nothing in this document that he would not defend with his life. And he cannot bear, he decides, to allow what he knows to be right to be stifled. If there is one thing he has learned, here in Essos, it is that it is better by far to fight to the death for what you know to be right than to sacrifice virtue for the sake of peace. Slowly he signs himself with the seven-pointed star.Gods all defend me, on this path you have set before me.He takes the quill from the inkpot and slowly inscribes his name on the bottom of the document.
XXX
Owen Merryweather could only shake his head in amazement. He had known that the Braavosi were an industrious people, but he had never seriously considered how that natural industry could be applied to war. Not until the new Viceroy of Pentos, under instructions to ensure that King Stannis’ ambassador appreciated how seriously the Titan was taking the Battle of Tyrosh and its consequences, had shown him.
The Little Arsenal, he had been assured, only had about half of the capacity oftheArsenal, but it was still one of the greatest manufactories in the world. Two days ago, Owen had been taken on a tour of the Little Arsenal and shown how stockpiles of seasoned timber, brass nails, tar, raw wool, ropes, sails and pre-forged metal fittings could be turned into a great galley in five to six days. Yesterday, he had been taken out to the great drill field outside the city walls and shown some of the Viceroyalty’s soldiers at drill. Each battalion (the term, he had been told, was derived from the old practice of referring to military formations as battles) consisted of five hundred men, divided into two companies of crossbowmen and three of pikemen; the fourteen-foot length of the pikes, he was told, was a compromise between the need for length when in the open field and the need for handiness when on shipboard. What had been more astonishing than the discipline of the men at drill (he had been told that only their officers and sergeants had previously been soldiers, the rest being either former slaves or immigrants from the lagoon of Braavos or points elsewhere), however, was the fact that each and every man, down to the crossbowmen, was wearing at least a breastplate and helmet, while the pikemen’s armor included tassets, vambraces, and half-gauntlets. Truly Braavos was rich, he had thought then, to be able to put even its common soldiers in plate armor instead of the more usual brigandines.
But the true power of Braavos, as embodied in the Viceroyalty of Pentos, was what he was seeing right now; a column of a hundred heavy wagons loaded with sacks of grain rumbling through the Sunrise Gate. That grain, only a fraction and not a large one at that of the yield of the farms nearest Pentos city, was on its way to the city’s bakeries, where it would be baked into ship’s biscuit to feed the fleet and the battalions they would dispatch to Myr, with a tenth held back to bolster the winter reserves. This column, he had been assured by the Viceroy, was only the first one expected this month, out of a total of twenty from all over the Pentoshi hinterlands.
Owen, like every feudal lord in Westeros, had a marrow-deep understanding of the importance of food; when the yield of your lands constituted eighty to ninety percent of your yearly diet and sixty to seventy percent of your yearly income, food was literally power. For the Braavosi to be able to feed themselves, their new citizens, their fleet, and a small army all at the same time, and all out of their own resources, was an expression of power that Owen was hard-pressed to find an equal to. This, he understood, was why the Braavosi had used the Sunset Company to conquer Pentos, more than simply enforcing the laws against slavery. Pentos city and its hinterland held almost as many people as the original Braavosi lands had, and the fields of Pentos, well-watered by the rains off the Narrow Sea and the multitude of streams and small rivers that spidered over the landscape, where more than fertile enough to feed them. Especially when the yield of those lands was added to the rich fisheries of the northern seas.
His next letter to King Stannis, Owen decided as another wagon rumbled and squeaked past him, would advise him that the Commune of Braavos would be a powerful friend and a dangerous enemy for the foreseeable future. And that if he was any judge, Tyrosh’s days were numbered.
XXX
Ser Barristan Selmy paused as he saw who his sworn brother was speaking to. He had known that the Dragon Company had attracted attention in unusual quarters, priests of the Lord of Light and the Valyrian gods and a variety of so-called wizards and sorcerers and the like, but he hadn’t expected them to come into the open like this. Yet there was the warlock, albino-pale skin glowing luridly in the light of the setting sun, bent deferentially as he and Ser Arthur conversed. Eventually the warlock bowed almost parallel with the ground and walked away with a mincing sort of gait that made Barristan’s sword hand twitch; he couldn’t help the feeling that the warlock could move a lot faster if he wanted to.
Shaking his head to collect himself he strode up to his sworn brother. “Since when did we traffic with warlocks, brother?” he asked brusquely; normally he and Arthur were on much more cordial terms, but the warlock had unsettled him.
Arthur shrugged. “Since we came within three days’ march of the Sorrows,” he replied, as if it were obvious. “The mists do things to a man’s mind, or so it is said. Greel claims that he and his fellows can prevent such ‘interference’, as he calls it. Or at least mitigate it.”
“And you believe him?” Barristan demanded incredulously.
“Only as far as I can kick him,” Arthur said conciliatingly. “I’ll believe in magic the day that one of our dragon eggs hatches. But if our men believe that they have at least some protection from the mists . . .” he shrugged again. “In the absence of an able septon of our own, we have to take what help we can get. It’s not like we can ask the Golden Company to loan us one of theirs; even if they would give one over, they’ve been praying and blessing almost the whole clock ‘round.”
Barristan gave a grudging nod. He was old enough to know that there while there was much truth to the saying that believing a thing didn’t make it so, there were still exceptions. Any man who had seen a man walk across hot coals and glass shards with not a burn or a scratch on him, as he had once seen at a tourney in the Crownlands, would admit that. And he was also willing to admit that the stories about the Sorrows, and the mists that lay upon them, were enough to give even him the shivers, and not for nothing was he called ‘the Bold’. The common soldiers were downright fearful of the possibility of having to march through the mists and face what lay within them. “I mislike it,” he said flatly. “Magic is a sword without a hilt at the best of times, and unclean besides; both the Faith and the maesters agree that to practice magic is to commit abomination.”
Arthur nodded. “Even the followers of the old gods fear magic,” he agreed, “and with reason, if the old legends are to be believed. Fear not, brother; I don’t plan to use Greel and his ilk any more than necessary.”
“Be ruled by me in this, brother, and make the necessity as rare as possible,” Barristan said. “For the sake of our souls, if nothing else.” As Arthur nodded agreement, Barristan glanced after the warlock. “What brings a warlock this far west, anyway?” he asked suspiciously. “I thought they stayed in Qarth.”
“For the most part, they do,” Arthur replied. “But some of them reside in Volantis; they are not popular even among those Volantenes that patronize what they call ‘the Art’, but there is some demand for their services. Greel thought we would refuse him out of hand, so he went to Donys first, to volunteer his abilities and those of his little cabal. He claims that what is happening, here along the Rhoyne, on the coast, even in Westeros, is contradicting prophecy and he wants to see where it leads us.”
“All the gods be merciful and let it not be down the throat of something unnatural,” Barristan said tartly.
Arthur smiled. “As to that, I have an answer for anything that Greel or any other charlatan conjures out of their hat,” he said lightly, touching the hilt of Dawn where it protruded over his shoulder. “Dawn has faced more dire enemies than men before, if the legends are to be believed. It is still here and they are not.”
XXX
The butts at Ironkeep were regularly used; Ser Vernan Irons was an old enough veteran to know the value of good archers and crossbowmen. The four archers of his household were under standing orders to shoot at least thirty arrows a day in practice, weather and other duties allowing. Which was why Amy’s Jon, Black Sim, Diccon Waggoner, and Will Poacher were at them before luncheon; the clouds they had seen that morning looked unpromising and Ser Vernan was not the sort to accept flimsy excuses. And even less so now than usual, Black Sim had observed, at least ever since he had come back from attending to business in Myr.
“I mean, he always had a bee in his arse about practice,” Black Sim said as he stepped up to the mark and drew an arrow from the bag at his belt. “But now he’s downright fierce about it. Had the men-at-arms running up and down the stairs half the day yesterday, in full armor too.”
“Course he is,” Amy’s Jon said in his thick Westerland accent. “Man’s getting married, unless I miss my guess. He wants to show off for his lass.”
Will Poacher swore as he fouled his release in surprise. “Damn you, Jon,” he snarled, glaring at his messmate. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to go telling lies?”
Amy’s Jon shrugged. “Which I saw him down on one knee in front of a fine-looking lassie from the fishing fleet,” he said defensively. “And I don’t think he was swearing her fealty, either. And he went to a goldsmith before we left the city, and I heard him talking to the smithy about making a ring for a lady.”
Diccon Waggoner waited until he loosed his arrow before nodding approval. “Good for the Old Man,” he said. “My parents saw what happened when the old Lord Leygood died without leaving a clear heir, back in the Reach; blood you could paint houses with.”
Sim frowned. “That wouldn’t happen here though, would it?” he asked. “I mean, what with the royal inspectors going around making sure we’re all being good little boys and girls and poking their noses into everything. I heard as some lord over Campora way got clapped in irons because he was tumbling lasses without their leave.”
Diccon, who was something of a barrack-room lawyer, shrugged. “Think about it,” he said. “If the Old Man died without a son, right, and had a brother or a cousin or a nephew as wasn’t fit to pour piss out of a boot, and we were told that he had the lordship now, how many of us would let him have it? Knowing that the next time the ravens flew he’d be leading us to war.”
Will gave a caw of laughter. “With Lord Axewell just down the road being the Old Man’s sword-brother and fit enough to take over from him?” he asked sarcastically. “We’d see how well the worthless cousin liked a taste of his lordship’s axe, and help to arrange the meeting besides.”
There was a round of nods from the other archers. “The Old Man’s a good lord, aye,” said Jon, “but if I couldn’t serve him, I’d serve Lord Axewell like that,” he snapped heavily calloused fingers. “Nor would I be the only one, either.” There were even more nods as Jon went back to reaching for a new arrow.
“Well, if the Old Man’s getting married, we’ll have to see that all our kit is scrubbed up,” Will said, nocking an arrow and rifling it into the target with only a light grunt of effort as he pulled back the hundred-and-ten pound draw-weight on his massive bow. “Bows repainted, mail polished, swords re-sharpened, and all. Might even have to bathe.”
“From your lips to the gods’ ears, man,” Sim said, signing himself with the seven-pointed star. “In weather like what we’ve been getting?” He jerked a thumb up at the fat, dark clouds that had been crawling southward all day. “We’ll get the ague, or worse.”
“Afraid of a little water, Sim?” Diccon said teasingly. “Afraid that all the color will wash off you and your mother won’t recognize you?” Jon cackled as Sim, swarthy and sensitive about it, said something uncomplimentary about Diccon’s mother and made an obscene gesture.
“Stuff it, the pair of you,” Will snapped as he let fly his last arrow. “Save it for the bastard slavers; you know we’ll be facing them again by and by. And if you think otherwise, then I’ve got a castle going spare you might be interested in.”
“So long as the loot’s better than last time,” Jon said as he loosed his last arrow and unstrung his bow. “Didn’t get more than a handful of coppers out of Alalia.”
“Just you wait until we do for Tyrosh, boyo,” said Will, who was the oldest in service of all of them, having chosen to sail with the Sunset Company instead of losing his fingers for taking a stag in the Kingswood. “If it’s anywhere near as rich as Myr was . . .” he cackled reminiscently.
Chapter 64: Houses
Chapter Text
Lyn Corbray sighed in bone-deep satisfaction. Outside of war,this, he was convinced, was life as the gods meant it to be lived.
The weather was perfect; warm but not hot and sunny without being obnoxiously bright, with a breeze just crisp enough to make it worth wearing a cote over his doublet. The fields of Forlorn Hall, his home estate outside of Sirmium, had been shorn down to stubble by the harvest and the first celebrations were already underway in the village below the castle. He smiled indulgently; gods knew his smallfolk had reason to celebrate. A short and victorious war without too many dead, a good harvest augmented by the soldiers returning home, and news that a new friend was joining them in the great war. He was minded to let them enjoy themselves, so long as they didn't get so boisterous as to forget the laws.
For himself, he was perfectly content to take a late luncheon in the vineyard just an hour's ride from the heart of the estate, with only his guards and the most trusted members of his little court around him. Good and sturdy men, all; the celebratory feast scheduled to take place two days hence and his other official duties required him to endure less pleasant company, so he would take the opportunity to indulge his own standards of good company. And this particular vineyard didn't just make very promising wine, but it had one of the best views in the whole Southern March.
Forlorn Hall itself, the castle that would make the estate aproperholding, was already almost half-completed after only two and a half years of work. It could not compare to the Eyrie, of course, or even to Riverrun, but it washis,a stout keep four stories high on the end of a low ridge, with a twenty-foot wall sweeping forward from either side to a pair of horseshoe-shaped wall towers flanking the front wall and gatehouse three hundred feet from the keep. The keep had been inspired by that of Heart's Home, but the corner towers had been the fruit of the knowledge of the Essosi masons who were primarily responsible for the design of the castle. It was one of the few castles nearing completion not just among the border lords, but among all the Myrish nobility, for a variety of factors.
The first, of course, was money. Lyn had taken pains to ensure that he profited from Robert's wars, and while some of it had to go to his men to maintain their loyalty, he had been careful to build up a reserve. The second was that Lyn had been raised with the expectation that he would be in a position to either build or at least take over a castle of his own, unlike the younger sons of lesser knights, suddenly-elevated hedge knights, and neglected younger noblemen who made up most of the Myrish peerage. He had known what to do, and more importantly who to retain, right from the start, before the men and materials necessary to make a castle had been made expensive by relative scarcity. Every lord had at least a strongly-built and easily defensible manse now, the royal inspectors and Maester Gordon's Sappers had seen to that, but actual castles were few.
And that, Lyn reflected as he popped a grape into his mouth, left aside the fact of how he did things and who he was. Some of the newly elevated lords had let their new-found authority go to their heads, wielding their power like a barkeep's bludgeon. Quite stupid of them, in Lyn's opinion; even leaving aside the prying eyes of the royal inspectors and the inevitably-resulting ire of the King's Fist, such men were not well-served by their smallfolk unless they were watched. Which could not be done at all times under all conditions, as any fool could have foreseen. A man had to sleep sometime. Other newly elevated noblemen erred too much to the other side of the scales, as if their newly acquired power would break if they pushed it too far. Such men inevitably fell prey to the devices of their smallfolk, or worse those of the town guildsmen and the Lord Lieutenants. In either case, it didn't help matters that the nobility of the Kingdom of Myr clearly held their power on sufferance, not just of the Crown but also, more importantly, of the smallfolk. The former slaves who made up the majority of the Myrish smallfolk accepted their new lords, but only because even they realized that someone had to be empowered to give orders when it was necessary. And also because Robert the Strong, who had broken their chains and made them free, had asked them to do so.
He, on the other hand, he reflected as he took a bite of crumbly cheese, had learned enough from his father to know that the smallfolk had to be governed with neither too heavy or too light a hand. Firm, but not brutal, and above allconsistent, that was the proper way to rule. Men were much more willing to serve you if they knew with absolute certainty that good service would be rewarded and wrongdoing punished. And every man from the border shepherds to Ceralia knew that Lord Corbray paid fair wages for fair work and was as scrupulous as a priest in his observance of the law.
But more than his methods was hisname. When his comrades had been hanging bandits on Robert's Progress, he had been taking the war to Tyrosh and Lys. The Great Raid had made his mark as one of the paladins of Holy Freedom, especially here in the southlands where the danger from the slavers was greatest. When he had been confirmed as a lord, as a Lord Lieutenant, and as the Warden of the South, the people had rejoiced at the news; one red priest in Sirmium had reportedly fallen to his knees on the spot and given thanks to the Lord of Light that "the sword and shield of the people" would remain with them.
Whatever the Great Charter had to say about his official rights and powers, the undeniable fact was that the South washis.Where other lords had to rely on the Great Charter's provisions for compelling the labor and produce of the smallfolk on behalf of their lords, men went willingly to work on his castle and in his demesne fields and willingly paid his tax. No merchant dared to try and cheat him or even gouge him too harshly; the last one who had tried had been beaten bloody by the onlooking crowd before his men-at-arms had intervened. And while Jaime Lannister's appointment to the Lord Lieutenancy of Alalia might have been a curb on his power, Lyn knew that for all his battlefield courage the Black Lion had a horror of politics. And in three short years Lannister would be gone, regardless, while he would remain and raise an edifice of Corbray power that would last a thousand years.
Lyn raised his glass to a half-heard toast and smiled. If only his father had lived to see it.
Especially since it would have made at least one of his more inconvenient obligations much easier. His father had been most understanding about his preferences, both because he was a middle son and not the heir and because in all other respects, he had been a much more satisfying son for the old man than his half-spined brother. He had even, when Lyn had grown to manhood, introduced him to an old comrade of his, a tourney knight named Ser Mark of the Fords, who had taught Lyn how to sate his appetites while protecting himself from people with unfortunately narrow minds. If he had survived Narrow Run, then in all likelihood Lyn could have chosen some sensible-enough girl from the fishing fleet, married her, and then left her and his father to go about the business of getting Lyn an heir that the world would know as Lyn's son.
Lyn knew that his father would have done it, for the sake of the family name if not his favorite son, but the High Septon had ensnared him in a web of deceit and conflicting loyalties until the only way he could see out of it was death. He didn't begrudge Stark for sparking the battle, the savage's insolence had demanded an answer, but he could not forgive the High Septon for driving his father to seek a valiant death before his time. The odds that he would be able to settle that debt of blood on the man himself were vanishingly small, but he would certainly take every opportunity to poke a stick in his eye. A resolve made all the easier by the fact that Jonothor's new creed actually appealed to him in a way that the Faith had rarely done.
You won the game of thrones by adhering to the standards of good business, Lyn reflected as he raised his glass and one of his courtiers refilled it, but what was the point of playing the game if you couldn't use the prizes to your own ends?
XXX
Robert's secretary Maran knocked softly on the door of his solar and poked his head in. "Ser Gerion Lannister to see Your Grace," he announced quietly.
Robert stood up from his desk gratefully; he was getting better at enduring them, but reports of agricultural yields never failed to bore him. "Send him in, by all means," he said, stretching his fingers as Gerion strode in. "Well, Gerion, what's the news?"
Gerion nodded deeply. "Your Grace wanted me to make inquiries into a certain young lady of the Braavosi embassy," he said with a hint of a smile.
"Ah," Robert said, gesturing awkwardly at the chair opposite his desk and sitting down as Gerion took a seat. "And?"
Gerion steepled his fingers. "Serina Phassos by name," he said, "eldest child and only daughter of the main line of that house, sixteen years of age, and unmarried. Not even betrothed according to Adaran, who is her younger brother, by the by."
Robert frowned slightly. "Sixteen is a little old to be unbetrothed, is it not?" he asked cautiously.
Gerion nodded. "It appears that her father has been having some difficulty finding a match that she will accept," he said, catching the flash of pain that briefly ran across Robert's face. "I must say that my inquiries have found no evidence that would indicate a lack of, shall we say, suitability, on the lady's part," he added delicately. "She is, by all accounts, a most sensible and well-qualified young woman."
Robert nodded acknowledgement. "Phassos," he said slowly. "I don't recall that family being among those in the folder you gave me."
"Because I didn't think that they would be a serious contender," Gerion said with a shrug. "The Phassos are an old house among the Braavosi magisters, and a respectable one, but somewhat fallen from the height of their former powers. The usual story, profligate and careless sons of a great father squandering his fortune and all that." Robert nodded; that sort of story was not uncommon in Westeros. "But to be fair to the Phassos, it has historically been the younger sons and the cadet branches who have been the wastrels," Gerion added. "The main line has always been sound, and astute enough to at least keep the family's head above water. In which they have been helped by knowing when to cut a particularly disastrous family member off without a copper, although they have had to maintain ties to the majority of their relations for the sake of family honor. These days the Phassos are on roughly the same social level as, say, the Morrigens or the Oakhearts or the Lyddens; not the first or even the second rank, but certainly not to be despised."
Robert drummed his fingers on his desk. "And her parents?" he asked.
"Mother deceased for some years, father still alive," Gerion said. "One Ballario by name, aging but still hale according to his son. Well respected by his business partners and his fellow magisters. Shall I open a line of correspondence?"
Robert nodded. "This day, if you please," he said decisively. "I mean to pursue this matter." He smiled wryly. "As soon as I can convince Serina, anyroad."
Gerion nodded. "Adaran tells me that she is the apple of her father's eye," he said. "Enough so that he has allowed her to refuse two respectable offers already. If she refuses to assent, then it is unlikely that Ballario will force her, or so I must conclude from the information available to me."
Robert's smile broadened. "Then I shall simply have to be a greater charmer than ever before, eh?" he said jokingly.
XXX
Serina looked down at the book, her mind a blank of surprise. In and of itself, the book was nothing to deserve such a reaction; it was simply a collection of chivalric ballads from Westeros, inexpensively written and cheaply if sturdily bound in brown leather. What made it astonishing was that it was a gift to her from King Robert. Acourting gift,if Ambassadress Antaryon was to be believed.
"You realize, of course, that I will have to report this to the Council of Thirty," she heard the Ambassadress say. "Who King Robert chooses to court is a question of high policy more than anything." She nodded automatically in agreement. "And, of course, your father will have to be informed, and allowed to have his say." Her hands tightened on the book involuntarily. She could already imagine what her father's reaction would be.
"But we will not be hearing from them for at least a month, if not more, so in the meantime the decision of what to do falls to me," the Ambassadress went on briskly. "Now, under ordinary circ*mstances, I should at the very least take steps to constrain this matter, if not forbid it outright. As you are a legal minor under my authority then until I am informed otherwise, I am empowered to actin loco parentisfor you, with all the responsibilities that implies." Serina nodded again. "However, as these are not ordinary circ*mstances, I shall dono such thing."
Serina jerked her head up in astonishment. "I beg your pardon?" she asked, shock making her forget her manners for a moment. "I mean, I beg your pardon, Your Excellency?"
The Ambassadress arched an eyebrow. "You are, of course, aware of your rights and responsibilities as a Braavosi citizen?" she asked archly.
"Yes, but . . ." Serina stammered.
"You are aware of the duty you owe your family?" the Ambassadress plowed on.
"Yes, but . . ." Serina stammered again.
"Then thus far, there is no need for me to intervene," the Ambassadress said serenely. "You have an excellent reputation for sensibility, Miss Phassos, despite your brother's unfortunate intemperance; enough so that I have little fear that you will do something foolish. So instead, I shall simply advise you that, as a question of policy, it would be most advantageous for the Commune if you and King Robert were to wed." Serina's jaw dropped; the Ambassadress arched her eyebrow again. "Do close your mouth, my dear; you look like a surprised fish." Serina's teeth clicked as her mouth slammed shut. "Andthink; in Westeros, it is traditional for the nobility to seal alliances with a marriage, is it not?" At Serina's nod, the Ambassadress spread her hands. "Then I trust you will see that, while we of Braavos might think the alliance to be complete once pen is set to paper, it will not be so to the Kingdom of Myr unless Robert weds a Braavosi citizen. And the higher-placed, the better, from their view. I suppose that ideally, Robert would wedme, but given the circ*mstances I would be unsuitable." This last was delivered in a pawky tone; the Ambassadress was past forty, with her black hair turning iron-grey and her face seamed with faint wrinkles, although you could still see the beauty she had been when she smiled.
As she seemed to be on the verge of doing now, Serina noted as she dragged herself out of shock by main force. "There's another reason, though, isn't there Your Excellency?" she asked cautiously.
The Ambassadress's smile grew. "My dear girl, do you have any ideahow longit has been since I was the go-between in a courtship?" she asked.
Serina shook her head. "No, Your Excellency," she said with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"Nine years," the Ambassadress said, her smile turning wistfully reminiscent. "Too damned long by half, gods witness. A side-effect of my brother becoming the Sealord, you see; people didn't want to get me in trouble accidentally." Serina nodded; the laws governing the proper use of government power and resources, and the penalties they laid down for their misuse, were as stringent as they were numerous. No one, not even the Sealord, was beyond the reach of the Titan's law. "So this is my ruling;" the Ambassadress said sunnily, "you will let King Robert court you with the intention of securing his hand in marriage, I shall assist you, and I for one shall enjoy every minute of it. Although," she added with a gleam in her eye, "I may have to offer him some advice on what constitutes a suitable courting gift. Chivalric ballads? Ha!"
Serina stumbled out of the room a few minutes later, still in a mild daze. She had joined the embassy thinking that she would do whatever duties the Ambassadress gave her and see her brother settled into his exile; she hadnotexpected to find herself being courted by possibly the most famous monarch west of Yi-Ti. And to think that only a few months ago she had laughed in her best friend's face for seriously considering such a thing! Moonsingers preserve her if news of this broke among the circle of her friends; the jokes would be unbearable.
Although, she decided later as she lay in bed, it could be worse. At least King Robert was courting her discreetly, and with decent taste. The one ballad she had read from the book, the tale of a young knight who had foresworn his inheritance to serve on the Kingsguard, had been quite good, of its kind. And moreover, King Robert himself was not to be despised as a suitor. By all accounts he was generous, honorable in his dealings, the very picture of Westerosi chivalry. Of a certainty he was far more impressive, and more handsome, than either of the two young men who had previously asked for her hand. She could already see the letter from her father all but begging her to accept King Robert's courtship as the gods-sent gift that it was for their family.
She thumped her head back against the pillow. She loved her father, and hated to disappoint him. But at the same time, she instinctively rebelled against the idea of marrying simply as a question of policy. She knew that at least some consideration of policy was unavoidable, but above all else she wanted at least a measure of the fondness that she had seen in her parents' marriage. And while she had yet to see any evidence that King Robertwouldn'tbe an affectionate husband, she had seen no evidence that he would be, either.
She would, she decided, await such evidence and see what might be seen. The giggles from the other ladies-in-waiting in the embassy would simply have to be endured. And if Adaran made so much as a single joke, she decided, she would slap him on the spot. He had lost the right to make jokes at her expense the minute he put her in this mess.
XXX
The Qohorik scout lay so still that ants crawled over him, as he had done since mid-morning. He had all but stumbled across the Grand Army of Volantis' camp, and only by dropping to the ground and freezing had he escaped detection. The mists around Chroyane were infamously treacherous; dense enough to conceal an army and thick enough to muffle even the sound of fifty thousand men and their beasts.
In order to stave off boredom, that deadliest enemy of the scout and the spy, he reviewed the information he had gleaned from his observations. The Grand Army of Volantis was encamped in a rectangular formation, with the tiger cloaks occupying the northern half and their Unsullied at the southern end. Just back of the midpoint were the Golden Company and the Dragon Company, distinguishable by their banners. They had posted sentries, but closer to the lines of the encampment than was usual; a result of the mists, no doubt, and the half-legendary creatures said to reside within them. The stone men were the most notorious of Chroyane's denizens, but other things were said to live there as well. Wise men did not linger in the mists, but traveled through them as swiftly as possible, with their weapons ready to hand and their eyes scanning the swirling banks of half-opaque vapor.
The scout smiled humorlessly. By that standard, then he was either a fool or a madman, but he was neither. He was Unsullied, specially chosen and trained by his masters to undertake the dangerous work of a scout, and so such petty truisms did not apply to him. He was not as other men. Where other men feared the mists, or found them unsettlingly beautiful, he simply regarded them as an obstacle to be overcome. He had cared nothing for the heat of the day and would care nothing for the coolness of the night. If the stone men found him, then he would fight his way through them, for his purpose was to observe the progress of the Volantene army and report it back to his commander. Fear of all other things, of flood, of fire, of sickness, of maiming and death, of snakes and scorpions and wild beasts, even the fear of Chroyane and the nameless things rumored to dwell within, had been burned out of him by his training, but he still feared to fail in his purpose. He narrowed his eyes minutely.I will not fail,he declared in the recesses of his mind.Hear me, O Bride of Battles.
The night was falling; soon he would be able to make his report and fulfill his purpose. Another hour, perhaps an hour and a half, he judged, and the light would have fallen enough for him to rise from his hiding place and start the run back to the army.
Chapter 65: Blades in the Mist
Chapter Text
That the Battle of Chroyane developed the way it did is largely due to a combination of politics and accident. Lazaran Ahrah was the scion of one of the most powerful families in Qohor, so when he requested five hundred Unsullied to 'stiffen' his advanced guard, he could not be gracefully denied. And for all the Ahrah's power, Lazaran was an ambitious soul who saw military glory as a good way to accelerate his plans to satisfy that ambition. So when his scouts came across the encampment of the Grand Army of Volantis and reported that not only had they not fortified their camp but that the dispositions of their sentries were faulty, Lazaran saw an opportunity to land a stunning blow on Volantis' main field army . . .
-The Last Sane War: The River War of 287by Maester Andrews, published 1066 AC
The attack began quietly. A few scouts slipped out of the darkness and the eddying mists to kill the sentries at the north end of the Volantene camp. Most of them went down quietly enough that no alarm was raised, but one of the scouts, a pirate from Dagger Lake drawn by the promise of gold, fouled up his dagger stroke so that instead of cutting his sentry's throat below the voice box and severing both blood vessels and windpipe all at once, he only managed to open the man's jugular vein and nick his windpipe above the voice box. He killed his man moments later, but not before the sentry managed to drag his hand down far enough to voice a half-strangled shout of alarm.
Not that it strictly mattered, in the end, for the small force that the Qohorik army had sent forward to screen its advance was close enough that only thirty seconds run was enough to put them among the Volantene tents. The first wave of men were sellswords, for the most part; either pirates from Dagger Lake lured by gold or more prosaic mercenaries, put in the front rank for two reasons. Firstly, because they were neither as brave (or as mad, looked at a certain way) or as reliable as the Unsullied. If they had gotten cold feet and attempted to either abscond or simply lie low and unnoticed in the mists, the Unsullied would have found them and prodded them back into the ranks. Secondly, because for all the Unsullied's soldierly virtues they are not the sort of men to use in a wild slashing melee such as is produced when a camp is assaulted by surprise. The strength of the Unsullied is in their inhuman discipline, in their ability to maintain the shield-wall and the spear-hedge in the face of all hazards. If the formation breaks, then they are not insuperably greater or worse than any other breed of warrior, although their immunity to fear and pain certainly gives them an advantage when it comes to handstrokes. So the plan is for the mercenaries to lead the way, spreading chaos and death as they press ever onwards, while the Unsullied follow behind them to reduce any pockets of resistance that remain.
And for the first several minutes the plan works. The tiger cloaks have almost entirely been caught in their beds, and while they had been wearing their gambesons, and some of them their mail-shirts, for nightclothes thanks to being in potentially hostile territory, none of them are wearing armor heavier than that; they have simply snatched up their weapons and stumbled out of their tents, blinking and bleary-eyed, to face wide-eyed men whose suppressed fear has turned to red fury by the onset. So the tiger cloaks reel back, some barely stopping to trade more than a blow with the Qohorik soldiers before running southward as fast as their feet can carry them, while behind them the sellswords pursue them with whooping hunting calls and the Unsullied tramp forward in grim silence. Many tiger cloaks die in the first minutes of the battle, cut down as they try to fight back, and many more take to their heels, spreading the chaos of the onset as they go.
But the tiger cloaks were not the only soldiers that Volantis had on the field of Chroyane, nor were they even the best. And the time it had taken the Qohori to cut through the tiger cloaks had been time that those soldiers had been given to prepare . . .
XXX
Ser Arthur Dayne, fully armored and with Dawn held by the blade in his left fist, strode out of the tent he shared with King Viserys and his two sworn brothers to behold a mixed vision. On the one hand, the tiger cloaks appeared to have stampeded, and streams of them were flowing southward only partially channeled by the rows of tents. On the other hand, the Dragon Company appeared to be standing fast; the quarter guard had sounded the alarm at the first sound of battle in the tiger cloaks' part of the encampment and the ruin of the tiger cloaks had taken enough time that the men of the company had been able to get at least most of their armor on before the underofficers had bellowed them into ranks. Now they were standing in line facing northward, their shields braced and their spears lowered, ready to at least exchange blows with whatever came out of the mists.
Arthur turned to his squire. "Beleqor, ride over to the Golden Company," he said, injecting calm into his voice in the hopes that it would prove infectious, "don't bother going on foot, you won't make it across the flow of that herd." He gestured at the retreating tiger cloaks. "Find Ser Myles Toyne, tell him we are holding the right third of the width of the encampment and can keep on holding it if he holds the center and the left. Then find General Maegyr and tell him that we are holding the line but that we need reinforcements with some urgency. I recommend he sends the Unsullied up as quickly as he may."
"Yes, ser," Beleqor said, his voice calm but his eyes still staring a bit as he clapped a fist to the front of his brigandine in salute and strode toward his horse. Arthur took a moment to wish him luck, Beleqor was a good lad and a good squire, and then turned to his king, who had come striding out of the tent flanked by Ser Barristan and Ser Garin. "Your Grace," he said with a quick dip of the knee, "I recommend that we hold our position here and defend ourselves as best we may. At need we can refuse our flanks on either side and form a square, and then we will be all but impervious to assault."
Viserys, looking unexpectedly martial in his boy-sized brigandine, nodded. "Let it be so, then," he said calmly. "Plant my banner there," he pointed to the center of the company's line. "I would let whoever is attacking us know who they are fighting."
Arthur nodded. "As you command, Your Grace," he said, before nodding to Ser Garin, who unfurled the dragon banner as he and his brothers accompanied their king forward and planted it behind the second rank. Men cheered to see the three-headed dragon by torchlight, and Arthur could feel the company's ranks stiffen.
"Here they come!" yelled a voice on the left, towards the center of the camp, and peering through the mist Arthur could see the glint of firelight on bloodied steel; it was a very distinctive glint, and not one easily forgotten. "Crossbows!" Arthur roared, the unmistakable tone of command in his voice bringing fifteen hundred crossbows to port arms. "Make ready!" The crossbowmen fingered their bolts to make sure they were properly nocked against the strings. "Level!" The crossbowmen brought their crossbows to the horizontal; if they had been told to aim they would have picked individual targets, but being told to level meant that that they were not to bother aiming more than necessary to keep from shooting a comrade in the back. "Loose!"
There was a rippling manifold 'tung-snap' as the crossbows loosed into the fire-shot blackness, followed by a wave of screams as the bolts struck home. A fair percentage of them had probably struck fleeing tiger cloaks, but that was unavoidable in this situation. And Arthur's responsibility was to protect his men and keep them from being overrun too; the best way to do that was to shoot flat everyone who approached his lines that wasn't verifiably friendly. The crossbowmen bent to the work of reloading as the underofficers stalked the ranks barking reassurance. Arthur, for his part, simply took Dawn's hilt in his right hand and stood at rest with the greatsword held low across his armored thighs; for the moment there was nothing for him to do except project an image of icy self-assurance. Fear might be catching, like sickness, but so was confidence. He flicked a glance at Viserys; the young king was visibly excited, but controlling it as well as an eleven-year-old boy could be expected to. He nodded slightly in approval as Viserys caught his eye and was rewarded with a smile.
A flicker of movement on the other side of Viserys, past where Ser Barristan was standing at his right hand, caught Arthur's eye, and when he turned his attention to it his lip curled involuntarily. Greel and his cabal were standing there, robed and hooded, their hands linked in an outward-facing circle. He could see Greel's mouth moving rhythmically, but couldn't hear what the warlock was saying over the clamor of the battle. Nonetheless the mere sight of the warlock and his cronies evidently at work made the hairs on his arms crawl, even under his arming doublet and arm harness.
"Ser Arthur!" came a shout from his left, and he turned to see Ser Clarence Webber riding towards him on a prancing courser with his hand raised in greeting. Arthur returned the gesture, narrowing his eyes as Ser Clarence reined in in front of the command group; it was hard to tell in this light but he couldswearthat he saw a gleam of pomade in the eastern knight's goatee. Aplomb was all well and good, but there werelimits, surely."And His Grace as well, I see," Ser Clarence cried, bowing in the saddle to Viserys. "Good morning, Your Grace. I could have wished that we might have met under more auspicious circ*mstances."
Viserys nodded. "Yes, yes," he said, flushing as Ser Barristan raised an eyebrow at his impatient tone and raising his voice over the screams as the crossbowmen loosed again. "We take it you have news, ser knight?"
"Indeed, Your Grace," Ser Clarence replied. "I just crossed paths with Ser Arthur's squire. It seems great minds think alike; Captain-General Toyne had already sent two of our bandas to extend our line to meet yours. Our spearmen are not a minute behind me, I believe." He turned in the saddle. "Ah, there they are now!" he exclaimed, pointing at a hedge of spearpoints that was forging its way through the stream of fleeing men. "With any luck, we should be able to get this unsightly mess into some kind of order."
Viserys nodded. "With the grace of the gods and your help, sers, I doubt it not," he said. "Ser Arthur," Arthur knelt, "cooperate fully with Captain-General Toyne in the fighting of this battle. I would not have even one of these unmannered dogs who disturbed our sleep get away."
Arthur ducked his head, having caught the wink Viserys had tipped towards Ser Barristan. "I shall do my utmost to make it so, Your Grace," he said as the crossbowmen loosed their third volley.
XXX
Garello Maegyr reined in his horse and folded his gauntleted hands on the pommel as he looked down on the tiger cloaks. They had stopped running, finally, once they realized that no one was chasing them anymore and they were among friends still. Now their fear was turning into sullenness, and they were starting to mutter among themselves. Garello grinned.Perfect.
"Why, my boys, I am surprised at you!" he exclaimed, making heads turn. "All the way here, you tell me,assureme, even, that you will drive the Qohori like whipped dogs. And now in the first battle it isyouwho are driven! How on earth am I to explain this to the Triarchs?"
"That we were surprised in our beds, master general," shouted one bearded stalwart near him, the tiger stripes on his cheeks damp with tears of frustration. "That the enemy did not give us a chance to fight!"
Garello raised a hand. "It is true, they did not," he allowed. "But are you not soldiers? Have you no weapons? Have you not had the chance to catch your breath and awaken?" He gestured northward towards where the Golden and Dragon Companies were locked in battle with the Qohori. "Have not your fellow soldiers given you the chance to fight, and prove yourselves?"
That, as he had thought it might, did it. The tiger cloaks brandished their weapons high with a shout of fury; cries of "We are ready, master!" and "Let us fight!" broke through the brabble, which was quickly overridden by the wordless coughing roar that was the traditional battle cry of the tiger cloaks.
Garello spread his hands. "Far be it from me to refuse you, O Claws of Volantis!" he cried, eliciting a shout at his use of one of the old names for the tiger cloaks. "Go forth then and fight!" He pointed to the fighting again. "The enemy's that way!"
The roar of the tiger cloaks made his horse shift nervously in place as they streamed past him, brandishing spear and sword. Garello sighed regretfully; he hated to do this to good troops, he really did, but orders were orders. And as a dutiful son of the First Daughter of Valyria, he would obey his orders in full. It was how he was able to justify being given this command, when he was barely forty.
He shrugged slightly to himself. At least the tiger cloaks were being willing accomplices.
XXX
"Stand, you dogs!" Lazaran Ahrah roared, laying about him with his riding whip. "Stand fast, damn you! Rally to me!"
The sellswords streamed past him, heedless of either his words or the blows he rained on their heads. Lazaran redoubled his efforts, fear lending power to his arm. Damn it, he had had the battle in the bag! The Volantenes were stampeded, screaming that the monsters of the mists were upon them, meat on the chopping block for his men. But then he had fallen victim to success; even six hundred men take time to cut their way through a crowd of twenty thousand. And he had been able to rely on somewhat less than six hundred, as men were distracted from the pursuit by the opportunity to plunder. His Unsullied had driven them on when they caught up to them, but the damage had been done.
Those damned sellswords the Volantenes had! It was just their luck to be able to retain both the Golden Companyandthe Dragon Company without them killing each other. Lazaran had hoped that the enmity between the Targaryens and the heirs of Bittersteel and the Blackfyres would have kept them from cooperating, but apparently they had patched up their differences enough to able to fight side by side. The line they had formed had stopped his sellswords in their tracks, and by the time he had brought his Unsullied to the front, the Volantene tiger cloaks had reformed enough to counter-charge.
His Unsullied had stood like the rocks they were, of course, but his sellswords, who had felt their easy victory slipping away from them, had broken like a vase thrown against a wall. The tide of fleeing men had borne him back as well, his horse whinnying nervously as it back-stepped under the pressure of the stream of bodies. Now they were right back where the attack had started, at the northern edge of the Volantene encampment, and the sellswords were streaming away into the mist, deaf to all of his entreaties.
Lazaran aimed a last mighty swing at the head of a slow-running sellsword, missed, hit his horse instead, and went flying as the animal, frightened beyond the capacity of its nerves, put its head down and its hindquarters up. When he got his breath back half a minute later, he was lying flat on his back on the ground, with neither his horse nor his soldiers anywhere to be seen. He staggered to his feet, spat a last obscenity in the direction of the Volantenes, and walked stiff-legged into the mists.
XXX
"I thank you, Ser Arthur, Captain-General Toyne, but the situation is well in hand," Garello Maegyr said calmly, gesturing at the last Qohorik force left on the field. "As you can see, the tiger cloaks have claimed the honor of eliminating the last of the enemy."
A hundred yards away, the Qohori Unsullied were standing in a shield-ring, their tall rectangular shields forming a circular wall tipped with a hedge of spear-points. The tiger cloaks had surrounded them and were trying furiously to break into the ring, hacking at the shields with spear and sword and axe as the Unsullied sent them reeling back with short, punching thrusts of their spears and shortswords.
"I can see, indeed," Arthur said dubiously, "but what I can't see is the point of fighting on. Why not summon them to surrender?"
Garello gave him a half-smile. "My dear Ser Arthur, you would not ask a blind man to look at a painting, would you? Or ask a deaf man to listen to music?"
Arthur shook his head. "Of course not. What would be the point?
"None," Garello said. "Just as there is no point in asking these Unsullied to surrender. You see how there are no officer's pennants among them?" At Arthur's nod he went on. "That means that they have no one among them that is able to make them surrender. And they will not surrender of their own accord; they do not have the freedom of will to allow it."
Ser Myles Toyne nodded. "I've fought Unsullied before now," he said, "and I agree with the general; Unsullied don't surrender unless an officer orders them to. If these Unsullied don't have officers, then the only thing to do is kill them all."
Arthur grimaced. "I see," he said unwillingly. "In that case, shall I bring up my crossbowmen? It would be easier to shoot them down than to try and kill them all by hand."
"I quite agree," Garello said, "but that would require me to call off the tiger cloaks, and that I will not do, either. They have lost their honor by allowing themselves to be surprised and put to flight; they have the right to reclaim it if they are able. Eliminating this last infestation of the enemy should do nicely for that purpose."
Ser Myles arched an eyebrow. "And what happens if the Unsullied repulse them?" he asked curiously.
Garello looked down at him with a blankly pleasant expression on his aristocratic face. "Then they will simply have to try again, won't they?" he said lightly.
Ser Myles opened his mouth, either to protest or simply to comment, but Arthur forestalled him by kicking him lightly in the ankle. At the Captain-General's look of mildly indignant surprise he returned a steady gaze and a slight shake of his head; he was remembering a certain conversation he had had with Donys shortly before the Grand Army marched, one held on the end of an empty dock for fear of Triarchal spies. "I see," Ser Myles said finally, his voice flatly professional. "With your permission, my lord, I would see to my men."
Garello waved a hand. "By all means, Captain-General," he said pleasantly. "Ser Arthur, you may go as well; we will have no further need of your company tonight, I think."
Arthur bowed, as did Ser Myles, and the two of them turned away and started walking back towards their men. A few paces later Ser Myles thumped a gauntleted fist into his palm. "He's murdering those men," he whispered, his tone savage. "Gods witness, he might as well cut their throats himself."
"I know," Arthur replied soothingly. "I was told something like this might happen." At Ser Myles' outraged look he elbowed the man sharply; more of a gesture than anything, since they were both in armor. "Think, man; the tiger cloaks are slaves, are they not?" When Ser Myles nodded, he plowed on. "And Robert Baratheon of Myr has sworn to liberate every slave in Essos, has he not? So, if Robert were ever to declare war on Volantis and promise freedom to every slave that joined his banner . . ."
Ser Myles's jaw dropped for a moment, then closed with a click of teeth as a considering look stole over his face. "I see," he finally said, as flatly as he had spoken to Garello. "And the Triarchs can't simply disband the tiger cloaks."
"Not without losing the ability to give them orders," Arthur said, nodding. "Orders like this one." He jerked a thumb to where the tiger cloaks had recoiled from the ring of shields; their underofficers were stalking up and down the ranks exhorting the men into a fresh frenzy. Already the stripe-tattooed slave soldiers were baying like so many hounds scenting blood. Arthur could see one biting the rim of his shield.
Ser Myles nodded. "Indeed," he said pensively. "I was wondering why so many of the soldiers in this army were tiger cloaks." He paused. "But would the tiger cloaks have revolted?" he asked. "There are slaves and there are slaves, after all. It's a rare slave indeed that gets to bear arms openly and enforce the law even on freeborn citizens."
Arthur shrugged. "Franlan the Foreman was a privileged slave, as well," he pointed out. "And yet he led the revolt of the Myrish slaves, and has risen to high office thanks to his betrayal."
Ser Myles nodded unwillingly. "True, that," he agreed, stroking his beard. He hesitated, and then forged on. "Given,this," he gestured to where the tiger cloaks were surging forward again with a shout of blood-lust, "I think it would be wise if we kept each other informed of any inklings we might have that the Triarchs may be losing their trust in us. I would not have my company be placed in a situation such as this."
Arthur nodded back. "Agreed," he said softly. "Red or black, dragons should fly together in hostile skies."
Ser Myles smiled painfully. "Bittersteel's ghost just might come back from the grave and strangle me for this," he said ruefully as he stripped off his gauntlet and offered Arthur his hand, "but I'll take my chances." Arthur shucked off his own gauntlet and clasped the Captain-General's wrist in a warrior's handshake.
XXX
Lazaran Ahrah cursed as he stumbled blindly through the mists. For hours now, it seemed, he had walked away from the Volantene encampment where his ambitions had foundered on the rock of those hell-damned sellswords. Every so often he called out, hoping to come across one of his men, but he had never heard a reply, save for bird-calls. His ribs ached abominably from his fall, his hips and shoulders were sore almost to bloodiness from the chafing of his cuirass, and he was tormented more and more by thirst.
A splash and a sudden wetness in his boots made him stop in his tracks and look down; he was standing in water over the tops of his feet. "Goat's balls," he swore, "have I walked into the river?"
"Yes."
Lazaran's sword flew out it's sheath as he spun wildly, eyes raking the mists for the source of the voice. "Who is there?" he demanded.
"One who gave you warning,"said the bone-dry, rasping voice,"not to try and cross these lands without leave."
Lazaran glared about him. He remembered the scroll that had landed on his desk the day before he had ordered his force into the mists, warning him to pay the Shrouded Lord's toll if he wanted to pass in peace. He had consigned it to his brazier unanswered, of course; he was not a child to pay heed to nursery tales. "Are you really?" he asked, a snarl creeping into his voice. "Then why don't you come out and make me pay for my transgression?"
"We will,"the voice said, and a sudden gust parted the mists to reveal a line of stone men along the bank. Their horribly crusted skin glistened in the wan light, their blank eyes regarded Lazaran dully, and they carried crude knives of chipped stone in their calcified hands.
Lazaran knew fear for a moment, then he surveyed his adversaries again and laughed. He was still strong, and his armor that had formerly weighed on him like a felon's crimes was now only a reassuring heaviness around his torso, and his sword was long and sharp, a masterpiece of Qohorik blade-smithing and so by definition one of the finest blades in the world. "You must think very little of me, to send so few men with such poor weapons to take my head," he said loudly, injecting scorn into his voice as he whipped his sword through a wrist-loosening figure-eight and prepared to sell his life dearly.
"Who said anything about taking heads?"the voice asked amid a rush of water and Lazaran knew with a blood-freezing rush of fear that the owner of the voicewas right behind him.
He spun, his sword rising up and then descending in a cut that would have decapitated an ox and he had just enough time to see it shatter on a stony head before a terrible force seized him by the throat and lifted him off his feet."Your men were right to fear the mists,"the voice said, and then he was flying through the air to land on the bank. The impact knocked him unconscious so that he did not struggle as the stone men took him. He awoke, some time later, long enough to see the fire and the rack and the stone men leaning over him with their knives before his mind broke and he began screaming incoherently and thrashing like a mad thing in a trap.
One of the stone men, annoyed that Lazaran's thrashing had fouled his cut, dazed him with a blow to the temple from a stony fist. The blow was hard enough to break a blood vessel in Lazaran's brain, and thus fatal, but not nearly as quickly as Lazaran wished by then.
The Battle of Chroyane, called the Battle of the Mists by those who fought it, was a mixed victory for the Volantenes. On the one hand, the Qohorik advance force was effectively destroyed; every one of the five hundred Unsullied was killed, and of the six hundred sellswords barely a hundred escaped the mists. On the other hand, the Unsullied did not die alone. While casualties in the Dragon and Golden Companies were light, the tiger cloaks suffered two thousand dead and three times as many seriously wounded or missing. Most of the dead were suffered attacking the Unsullied; eyewitness accounts generally agree that the tiger cloaks had to climb over a berm of dead and wounded two and three deep to overwhelm the last of the Unsullied.
Maegyr wasted little time; as soon as the dead were buried and the wounded shipped downriver to Volantis, the Grand Army marched northward again . . .
-The Last Sane War: The River War of 287by Maester Andrews, published 1066 AC
Chapter 66: Rumblings
Chapter Text
Meanwhile, in Westeros . . .
Stannis' attempt to rebuild the royal fleet for the second time in three years was greatly eased by the High Septon's granting of the right to tax a tenth of the Faith's revenue, but support for the project remained relatively limited. Although it was recognized that the honor of the Baratheon dynasty, and so the honor of Westeros as a whole, was at stake, the perception that the fleet which had been raised at so much expense had been wasted persisted, especially in areas where the Iron Throne's hand lay lightly. Resistance to the new taxes was fiercest on Crackclaw Point, where discontent at the attainder of the indigenous nobility was aggravated by the attempts of the foreign (primarily Stormlander) New Nobles who replaced them to collect the new taxes. A month after the new tax was declared, a coalition of Crackclaw gentry headed by Lord Carsen Boggs, Lord Morgan Cave, and Lord Conin Pyne sent a message to King's Landing declaring their refusal to allow the new tax to be collected in their territory; as a gesture of their earnestness they flogged the heralds who had been sent to them to proclaim the new taxes.
Stannis' response was immediate . . .
- Stag at Bay: The Wars of Stannis the Grim by Maester Pherson, published 1498 AC
The following is an excerpt from Flash on the High Seas, the third installment in the Flash Papers by George Dand.
Of course, His Nibs couldn't let the Crackclaws bid him defiance and let them get away with it. If you let your vassals thumb their nose at you, then sooner or later it leads to civil war when they work up the balls for it. Kings like to avoid that sort of thing when they can; it's very bad for business. Fortunately, the New Nobles were still in Stannis' pocket (Gods witness I was) and so he was able to whistle up an army on short notice and march it into Crackclaw Point, where the first stop was Pyneton, the seat of House Pyne.
Stannis' plan, as he told us, was to march the army up to the gates of the castle, catapults and battering rams in full view, and demand that the gates be opened and the tax paid. If the rebels accepted, all well and good. If they didn't, well, they should have known better than to try and resist a royal army. As plans went, it had the virtue of being simple. The problem was that the rebels had known Stannis was coming and had assembled their forces at Pyneton. I don't know what they hoped to accomplish, since they didn't have more than four or five hundred spears between them, with maybe a tenth of those being men-at-arms, much less knights, but there they were, drawn up in array, facing off against ten times their number. If we didn't outnumber them in men-at-arms alone, we came pretty damned close.
I've been told since, and looking back I can believe it, that the rebels hadn't expected a confrontation. They had spent so much time telling each other that Stannis had lost his balls at the Battle of Tyrosh that they had believed it; they had expected him to either try to negotiate or even fold up completely. The one thing they hadn't expected, or seriously planned for, was for Stannis to call their bluff. Now that he had, they were in quite the vise. On the one hand, they could see as well as anyone just how bad the odds against them were, and they knew that the traditional punishment for rebels taken in arms was death not long delayed. On the other hand, they couldn't simply back down, however much they wanted to. Not only was it a matter of honor, but the most powerful man among them, Lord Carsen Boggs, wouldn't hear of surrender. He knew his rights, by the gods, and he would have them, even from Stannis. Nor would he let it be said that he was a coward, to bend the knee like a whipped cur. Now, I know the importance of having a good reputation as well as anyone, and I think he was full of sh*t. A blind man could have seen that he and his didn't have the proverbial snowball's chance in the Seven Hells, and there was no dishonor in bending the knee to your lawful king, anyway.
Of course, the whole affair was an exercise in collective idiocy of the first water. I blame the Crackclaw lords, myself; the silly buggers had stayed away from King's Landing in some sort of protest at their neighbors' dispossession, with the result that they hadn't learned what Stannis was like. The Masseys, now, might have been boot-lickers of the highest order, but they at least had learned to stay in Stannis' good graces and avoid his displeasure like grayscale. The Crackclaws, on the other hand, had thought they had learned all they needed to know about Stannis from their neighbors getting attainted and his policies since. They hadn't seen him put Marq Grafton in his place, like I had; if they had, they wouldn't have dared raise their voice to him. But they hadn't, so there we were.
What happened at the parley I blame on two things. The first is Stannis himself; unchivalrous of me, perhaps, but he really should have known better, despite my reputation. The second is the fact that my valet had gotten his hands on some quite good Tyroshi brandy the day before and I had overindulged that night. Consequently, when it came time for the parley, I had one of the worst hangovers I have ever experienced. Ordinarily, this would not have been a problem, as all I was supposed to do was sit my horse at Stannis' side and look the part of my reputation; I wasn't a Stormguard, but I had a reputation as a budding version of Ser Barristan Selmy, so I had been added to the party to help Ser Cortnay Penrose represent Stannis' mailed fist. But when Lord Boggs said something particularly asinine, I'm not sure what, I was that hungover, I said something uncomplimentary in return.
Again, I'm not sure what I said, but whatever it was, Lord Boggs demanded satisfaction. And Stannis took his side; I can only imagine that he was sufficiently embarrassed that his own man had been so rude that he was minded to let me be taught a lesson. Ordinarily Stannis didn't care much for the fine points of social proprieties, but when he took them seriously he could be positively fierce. Especially when it was a case of someone's conduct reflecting on him. Which was how the duel that you've doubtless heard about came to pass; my hangover, Lord Boggs' pride, and Stannis' sense of propriety.
The duel was the usual thing in such cases; one pass with war lances, and then combat on foot until first blood or submission. By the time things had been arranged and set in motion, I had recovered enough to know just how deeply I was in it and my heart was down in my sabatons. I couldn't withdraw the insult; apologize to a declared rebel, or the next thing to one? It just wouldn't do. If I lost, then like as not Lord Boggs would claim the blessing of the gods on his cause against the king, the Crackclaw rebels would be emboldened, our army would be disheartened, Stannis would be hideously embarrassed, and it would all be my fault. The only real course of action in that case would be to catch the next ship to Myr and arrange to find a heroic death, because the shame would be too much to bear. Especially for someone like me; when your reputation is all you have, and especially if it's undeserved, then losing it is the worst thing in the world.
Fortunately, the reflexes my father's master-at-arms had beaten into me kicked in; when the trumpet blew my spurs went back more or less of their own accord and my lance drifted downward to lock under my arm. I may be a slothful soul with a windy streak a mile long who much prefers a good bottle and a lusty wench to a joust or a melee, but I can ride anything with legs and with a lance in my hand I can hold my own against anyone. And there was really no option for me but to win or die in the attempt, given the consequences of losing, so I leaned forward in the saddle, rammed my feet into the stirrups, and went across that patch of ground like a steel avalanche.
Lord Boggs might have been a decent jouster, but even with me hungover he wasn't in my league; he hit my shield all right, but my old master-of-arms hit me harder when I was first learning to joust. My lance, on the other hand, went through his shield and hit him squarely under the bevor; it must have been a cheap shield. In any case when I reined in my horse and turned him around to dismount Lord Boggs was lying flat on his back in the dirt, not moving so much as a finger. When his second rushed out to help him, he discovered that Boggs' neck had broken, either from the strike of my lance or from simply hitting the ground wrong.
Of course, the other rebels gave up that same day, once Stannis granted an amnesty conditional on their future obedience; there might be clearer signs that the gods don't favor your cause, but you can't expect to get them. Within a month the Crackclaws had scraped up several thousand gold dragons as an advance on the Faith-tax, Stannis pronounced himself satisfied, and the army was sent home. I had gone home earlier; I wasn't technically in disfavor with Stannis, but I had still provoked a duel that had ended in a death. That sort of thing just couldn't be allowed to pass unremarked, never mind that it had effectively ended the rebellion. And Lord Boggs had been a popular sort for a lord, enough so that it wasn't out of the question that one of his men would try to cut my throat. All things considered, it was considered best that I go somewhere where I could be out of sight and out of mind for a few months.
Not that I strictly minded; it's never good to be on the outs with your liege-lord, but I hadn't liked Crackclaw Point. Take a population of Dornishmen and put them somewhere with rain, heavily forested hills, and unmarked bogs waiting to trap you in mud, and you have Crackclaw Point. The weather is ghastly, the people sullen and unsightly, the drink is unspeakable, and the food wretched (hardly a decent beefsteak to be found in the whole place). So when I was told that I was to take ship for Braavos as military observer and general functionary, I actually took it as a turn of good fortune; the weather might be unpredictable, but you can find anything in Braavos to suit your fancy, so long as your tastes don't include slavery, which mine don't. If only I had known what I was getting into . . .
XXX
Ser Rickon Riverbend's sword caught the light of the sept's candles as he lowered it onto his squire's right shoulder. "In the Name of the Father," he intoned, "I charge you to act justly. In the Name of the Mother," he moved his sword to his squire's left shoulder, "I charge you to temper your actions with mercy. In the Name of the Warrior," back to the right shoulder, "I charge you to be valiant in the face of all dangers. In the Name of the Maiden," back to the left shoulder, "I charge you to defend the innocent. In the Name of the Smith," back to the right shoulder, "I charge you to be truthful in all your dealings. In the Name of the Crone," back to the left shoulder, "I charge you to honor wisdom." He raised his sword to the salute and then sheathed it with a whisper of steel on leather-covered wood. "Rise, Ser Sandor Clegane, and let me be the first to welcome you to the brotherhood of chivalry."
Ser Sandor rose with a slight clatter of armor and accepted Rickon's embrace roughly. "Wouldn't have taken it from anyone else, ser," he whispered, his voice even hoarser than usual. "Thank you."
Rickon clapped him on the backplate, a more symbolic gesture than anything. "My pleasure to do so, Ser Sandor," he whispered back as he loosened his embrace. As Sandor stepped back to exchange hand-clasps with the small crowd of Order knights, squires, and auxiliaries who had come to see their Marshal's squire knighted, he turned and shook hands with Ser Trebor Jordayne, the Order's Master. "Thank you for coming, ser," he said softly, letting the rising brabble of congratulations drown his words out of any ears but Ser Trebor's.
"Oh, it was my pleasure," the Dornish knight replied with a beaming smile. "Your first knighted squire; congratulations. And may you have many more."
"With luck and the goodwill of the gods," Rickon said turning back to look at his former squire. "Although hopefully they will go by their actual names. I understand the reasoning, but even so . . ." He grimaced, hating the slight whine that had entered his voice. He hadn't known until yesterday morning that his squire Tytos Hill was in fact one Sandor Clegane, the younger brother of Gregor the Mountain of famous (or notorious depending on your sympathies) memory. Aside from having been played for a fool, which he by no means appreciated, at least part of his bond with his squire had been predicated on fellow feeling between two bastards making their way up the ladder of polite society the hard way. To have that bond betrayed, even if it had been unwillingly done on Sandor's part, was hard to bear.
Ser Trebor shrugged as only a Dornishman could shrug. "There was nothing else for it," he said, leaving unsaid what Rickon had known already; that for Sandor to go by his actual name in Dorne would have meant his death sooner or later. As it was, he would only be in Dorne for another ten hours before his ship sailed for King's Landing on the morning tide. "I will get you a new squire as soon as may be, old friend," he went on. "The gods know you will need the help, with the new order the King has sent down."
Rickon co*cked an eyebrow. "New order?" he asked.
Ser Trebor nodded. "Well, two new orders, to be precise. The first is to redouble our vigilance against possible rebels, as unlikely as that is at the moment." Rickon gestured agreement; Dorne might be the hottest of the Seven Kingdoms, both literally and metaphorically, but the rumors of potential rebellion were as low as they'd been since the fall of the Targaryens. "The second is to keep an eye out for any possible signs of heresy, especially along the lines of Septon Jonothor's new doctrine. Any we find are to be noted and reported on to King's Landing."
Rickon frowned. "We've never concerned ourselves with heresy before," he said dubiously. "And sniffing out heretics is the Faith's bailiwick, surely?"
"Not anymore, or at least not exclusively," Ser Trebor said with another Dornish shrug. "I imagine that this has something to do with the new Faith-tax we are meant to help collect. Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours, yes?"
Rickon made a slight face. "In that case, we would have to report ourselves, would we not?" he asked wryly. "Forgive me, ser, but to my eyes, the layout of this sept is still uncomfortably strange at times." A gesture took in the sept that was the chapel of the Order. It was a pentagon with the statues of the Seven paired off two to each wall, with the Stranger standing alone against one wall and the double doors set in another. The statues of the gods, rather than being carved from marble or alabaster or onyx as they often were in the northern kingdoms, were carved from wood and then vibrantly painted, enough so that they seemed almost life-like in a way. In the alcove behind each statue there was a painted silk banner showing some scene from the Seven-Pointed Star depicting the god in question, while before each altar there was a silver basin filled with blessed water on a small stand for use by worshippers. In the Riverlands, for example, a septry would be a seven-sided structure, with each god having it's individual altar, the statues of the gods would be carved from stone if the septry was rich enough, the banners would be woven instead of painted, and there would be only one, much larger, basin of blessed water at the entrance to the septry.
Ser Trebor laughed. "Oh, the Most Devout have known about our little variations on the Faith's doctrines these many years," he said merrily, "and they have largely given up on trying to correct them. You see, ser, in Daeron the Good's time the High Septon gave the Principality a dispensation to continue our old-accustomed practices, both as part of declaring the supremacy of Dornish law within Dorne and to bring the Faith's view of us in line with other places where local practice differed slightly from the Most Devout's strictures. At least insofar as those differences were the result of practical difficulties in following doctrine to the last jot and tittle, or quirks of time and place and people, and not serious errors." Rickon nodded understanding. In a land as broad and diverse as Westeros, he supposed, it would be asking a bit much that Divine Office be carried out in exactly the same way in every place under all circ*mstances. The liturgy did provide a common base of practice, and should be followed to the letter, but some variation from kingdom to kingdom was not entirely to be unexpected.
"In any case," Ser Trebor went on, waving a hand airily, "I think it unlikely that any substantial heresy should take root here; we are a proud people, and do not change our ways easily. And while the usual suspects might otherwise be tempted to spite the Iron Throne, none of them would touch Jonothor's new doctrine with an eighteen-foot pike. They hate the Baratheons only slightly less than they hate the Lannisters, enough so that they would never follow a doctrine promulgated by Robert the Brief's favorite septon."
Rickon nodded. "Doubtless it will be much as you say," he said, "but I'll tell our agents in Planky Town to keep their ears to the ground; trouble of this sort tends to brew faster in cities, or so I am told. When I was visiting the Yronwood commandery I heard that there was trouble in Gulltown about septons preaching some new doctrine. Not Jonothor's, but something else; the rumors were inconsistent."
Ser Trebor gestured easily. "Whatever you think necessary, my good Marshal," he said lightly, "although I would encourage you not to lose too much sleep. It would be a rare septon indeed who would risk the wrath of the Arryns. And speaking of septons," his eyes twinkled merrily, "did you hear that Tywin Lannister had sent his son Tyrion, you know, the dwarf, to the Faith?"
Rickon blinked. "I had not," he said, surprised. "And the Faith took him?"
"Well, they wouldn't say no to Tywin Lannister, would they?" Ser Trebor said, chuckling. "Can you imagine anyone doing so?"
Rickon laughed ruefully. "No one but King Stannis," he allowed.
"True, that," Ser Trebor said, reining in his chortles. "If anyone would have the stones to do it, he would. I can hear him now." He straightened, put a stern look on his face, and lowered his voice to a fair approximation of Stannis' baritone. "'I will not let the Most Devout be insulted by having to accept a dwarf in their ranks, my lord.' And you just know that Tywin would accept nothing less from any son of his." At Rickon's nod he dropped the act. "At any rate, I'll offer my congratulations to Ser Sandor and then seek my bed; there's a certain widow who's grown quite fond of me over the past few sennights. Or fond of my money and my wit, anyway, which amounts to the same thing in the end."
"Will you not stay for supper?" Rickon asked. "The kitchens are putting on a small feast for us, whole roast lamb and all."
Ser Trebor shook his head. "No, I'll let the men relax and enjoy themselves," he said generously. "If I were there, they'd be on their best behavior all night and Ser Sandor deserves a proper celebration. Good evening, ser."
XXX
The Greatjon nodded sagely. "Aye, 'tis a hard life," he said to the young lordlings who had crowded around the table where he was telling tales of the Kingdom of Myr and the life of its warriors, "needing skill and strength and hardihood and the favor of the gods, but tell me this, lads. Which would you rather have: a year of sitting in your father's hall listening to him jaw about the good old days and waiting for him to die so you can inherit, or a single day on a stricken field with the wind at your back, a good warhorse between your legs, your sword-brothers at your side, and the horns sounding the charge?" He paused to take a gulp from his beer-filled tankard.
"And if ye live," he went on, wiping foam from his moustache and beard with his sleeve, "then fame and fortune are both yours for the asking, so they are. One hundred acres with twenty smallfolk families to work them, that's the smallest fief King Robert will grant a man-at-arms willing to put his hands between his and swear him fealty, and there are many with more than that. Ser Wendel Manderly was a second son who didn't bid fair to inherit much of anything, and see him now! Six hundred acres of fat farmland bordering the royal demesne, and more besides; a great manse in Myr city with sixty rooms, rights of pasturage and venery in the countryside, an interest in a third of the trading ships that enter Myr's harbor, and a high office in King Robert's government. The very Master of Coin he is, now!"
The lordlings gathered around his table buzzed with excitement. All else aside the words six hundred acres of fat farmland had stuck in their ears. Six hundred acres might be a moderate lordship in the North, but with the soil so unproductive fiefs needed to be large in order to compensate. Six hundred acres of the proverbially fertile farmland of southwestern Essos, however . . . That wasn't quite wealth beyond their wildest dreams, but it was close.
"And that's only what King Robert will give ye," said the Greatjon, a smile of predatory reminiscence stealing across his face. "Essos is rich, lads, and the slavers the richest people in it. When we plundered Myr city we fairly swam in gold; three hundred gold dragons per man, each man-at-arms' share came to when the spoils were divided, and that's besides what the men picked up of their own accord! I saw archers who had filled their helmets with gold and silver, and knights who filled their saddlebags with jewels. And Tyrosh and Lys are as rich as Myr ever was, if not richer." He chuckled cavernously. "So what think you, lads? Will ye stay here and watch the grass grow and the sheep sh*t, or will ye sail to Myr where ye can prove yourselves men in a godly cause and fill your purses?"
The lordlings gave a brief but no less enthusiastic cheer and then fell to dickering among themselves. Before the night was out half a dozen partnerships would be formed as the young men vowed to pool their money to cover the cost of sailing to Myr or at least to Pentos, and plans were laid to meet at White Harbor on such-and-such a date to catch a ship for the sunny South.
Catelyn Stark glowered at them the while, although long training meant that it was a very subtle glower; a slight tightening at the corners of her eyes and an unusual intensity of gaze more than anything overt. The nobility of the North had come to Winterfell to celebrate the birth of her and Brandon's second son Rickard, and by rights the Greatjon should have kept his tongue behind his teeth until at least the second or third day of festivities. But there the giant Northman was, seducing the young men of the North with tales of the Kingdom of Myr and barely deigning to glance her way. The muscles at her jaw hinges tightened as she clenched her teeth in frustration.
A hand on her wrist interrupted her dark thoughts. "Peace, love," Brandon murmured under the brabble of the hall. "Words are wind, and the Greatjon's don't blow in a threatening direction."
"Even when he sings Eddard's praises at your expense?" Catelyn hissed back as she turned toward her husband. "And when he steals the swords that should be yours, fulfilling your own schemes?"
Brandon shrugged. "Enough young blades remain to us to see those schemes on their way," he answered. "And those that leave are, in the main, ones that we want to leave. A man who sails off to Myr is not likely to be one content with resettling the New Gift or the Stony Shore, especially when those who settle in the Gift must tithe a part of their income to the Watch for the next thirty years."
"True enough," Catelyn allowed. "But I should think that the Greatjon would have the sense to want the New Gift resettled, considering that those who settle there will shield his lands against the wildlings. Assuming of course that King Stannis gives his blessing." The message detailing Brandon's idea had gone south two sennights ago, and was awaiting King Stannis' approval; the New Gift, after all, was technically Crown land that had been gifted to the Night's Watch. And Jaehaerys the Conciliator had never said that the Iron Throne couldn't take it back.
Brandon chuckled. "No one ever accused the Greatjon of being a deep thinker," he said. "And he would rather eat crow than admit that he needed help scaring off mere raiding parties. An invasion of the sort led by Bael the Bard or Raymun Redbeard would be a different matter, but raiders?" He flicked his hand dismissively. "A mere trifle," he said in a fair imitation of the Greatjon's boisterous baritone, "not worth the effort of using both hands."
At Catelyn's involuntary giggle, he smiled and placed his hand on her wrist again. "Go easily, love," he said soothingly, "the Greatjon will be a stout friend of ours so long as we give him his due. Even if he loved us not, he would keep his peace, for the sake of Ned's regard for him."
Catelyn nodded grudgingly. "Like as not," she said. "Although I still can't bring myself to like him." She flicked her eyes over to where Benjen sat on Brandon's other side. "In any case, we have a stout shield and a strong sword of our own, if the Greatjon or anyone else becomes too . . . restive."
Brandon also glanced at his youngest brother. "Aye, that we do," he said proudly; Benjen was just past twenty, and already had a name as a fine man-at-arms. Just as importantly, he had made it plain to everyone he met that he had no interest in the game of thrones. "For a time at least." At Catelyn's surprised look he shrugged again. "He wants to join the Night's Watch, still," he explained, "and I'm not inclined to say him nay. The Watch has been too long without a Stark."
Catelyn made a moue of distaste. "It seems a waste," she said, "to condemn him to a life in exile when his nephews may have need of him."
"And his going may forestall that need," Brandon replied. "Benjen cares naught for politics, aye, but others will care naught that he cares naught. It would not be the first time that the Stark in Winterfell was a puppet of overmighty bannermen."
Catelyn's arms tightened instinctively around her son. She had no illusions as to what her fate or the fate of her children would be if such a thing came to pass. "He said himself that that was part of why he wanted to join the Watch," Brandon went on, "and it is also why I am minded to let him. In the Watch he cannot be used as a cats-paw, and there is honor enough in serving the Watch that none would take exception."
Catelyn nodded. "Very well," she said unwillingly, leaning back in her chair. "Let him go then, when Rickard reaches his first nameday." Brandon leaned back in his own chair with a nod, before turning his attention to young Domeric Bolton with a practiced smile. Catelyn subsided, stroking her sleeping son as she did so. She still had little regard for the Night's Watch, given the state to which it had fallen; her uncle Brynden had once traveled to the Wall, when Catelyn was still a girl, and she had heard him describe the Watch to her father as "the scum of the earth; not worth the steel it would take to send them to the Hells." But in the North they were still honored, enough so that she held her peace about them for the most part, especially since her husband prided himself on the support he gave them. The last thing she wanted to give credence to the malcontents who muttered in their drink that Brandon the Broken gave his Southron wife too much influence.
Fortunately, those who grumbled had little enough to give weight to their complaints. The North had had four years of peace and plenty, enough so that even the Ryswells and the Dustins had little reason to inveigh against Brandon's rule. The lords were content, or at least content enough, and for their chafing sons there were always the Essosi wars. For all the grumbling about her husband's legs and all the toasts raised to the Iron Wolf there was not a single whisper of rebellion.
Let them sing of Ned Stark and his victories, she told herself. Sooner or later Robert the Brief's wars would grind him up, and any sons he left would be half-Ironborn. And the First Men had been at feud with the Ironborn long before the first Andal set foot in Westeros.
There was no sept here to pray in, for as much as her husband loved her he could not lay himself open to the charge of inviting the Faith into the last great stronghold of the old gods. But she had her septa and the little altar and septych in her solar, and she had much to be thankful for; two healthy sons, three years of peace, and a good and loving husband. It would be almost ungrateful to pray for aught but more of the same.
XXX
Argen Hill pulled the sword he was working on out of the forge and peered at the color of the hot blade in the darkness of the shop. Straw. Excellent. That was the temperature you wanted the blade to get during tempering; either too hot or too cold and the steel in the blade wouldn't relax properly, leaving it either too hard or too soft to use in battle.
He placed the sword back in the forge a minute more, for luck, and then lifted it out to place it on the cooling bench. Once it was cooled, an apprentice would sharpen, polish, and hilt it, and by the time that was done he would be a quarter to a third of the way through the next blade. He stripped off the kerchief he had wound around his head and mopped his brow before dragging the kerchief back through his short-cropped hair to collect the sweat; blacksmiths tended to be short-haired, usually by choice given the obvious dangers of having long hair in a workplace that include open flames and occasional flying embers. Every so often, however, a smith had his hair shortened involuntarily, and sympathy aside he was usually roundly teased for having his pretensions so definitively answered.
Master Mott's shop was always busy, but the past month had seen work flow through their doors like a river. Aside from the usual orders, Master Mott had taken a contract to provide weapons for King Stannis' new fleet, in order to arm the sailors and free rowers. Argen smiled ruefully as he remembered how Master Mott had broken the news. "Lads," he had said, the rough gutturals of his native accent showing through the rapid, clipped accent of King's Landing, "I've taken on a hard contract. By month's end sixteen months from now, we need to make three thousand shortswords, as many spears, two thousand hand-axes, and a thousand war hammers, all for the King's fleet. That in addition to our regular orders. It'll be hard graft, I know it, but if any shop can do it, we can." He had swept his assembled journeymen and apprentices with his habitually stern gaze. "I'll say it now; we'll be too busy to deal with workers who can't stand the pace. You all know I pay the best wages the Guild offers, and I'll add some hard-lying money. If you don't think you can take the strain, tell me after we're done here and I'll give you a good reference to another shop. If you stay, then you're in for the whole haul. Any questions? No? Then let's get to work."
They had cheered him then, and no one had taken him up on his offer to back out; Master Mott was the best master in the whole Armorer's Guild, after all, and the men and boys who worked for him wouldn't have traded places with anyone, even a Stormguard. But he hadn't been exaggerating; the work since he had taken the contract had been almost brutal. There were days when Argen barely had the strength to stagger home from the shop, and even sleeping his ears rang with the din of hammer on anvil. But by the gods, they were doing it; with half the journeymen and three-quarters of the apprentices in the shop dedicated to the royal contract they were averaging ten shortswords a sennight taken from bar stock to rough-finished weapon. Five months in they were already halfway through the order of spears, as they took less time to forge, and Bryer, Ronard, and Aldo were a third of the way through making the necessary number of hand-axe heads.
Argen took a waterskin from an apprentice with a nod of thanks and drank deep before pouring more water over his head and handing it back. There were times, he allowed as he mopped his face again with his kerchief, that he couldn't help wincing at the rough and simplistic nature of the weapons they were churning out; Master Mott placed a high value on the artistry of his work and that attitude was something that his journeymen and apprentices absorbed in their bone marrow. But it couldn't be helped. What was important in this contract was speed and efficiency, not artistry. It would have to be enough that each weapon was stamped with the crossed hammer and goat's head that was Master Mott's maker's mark. And speaking of which, it was time that he put his nose back to the grindstone himself. Argen pulled a fresh kerchief out of his pocket, tied it around his head, and walked over to the barrel that held fresh bar stock; there was still enough time in the day to at least rough out a new blade. If there wasn't time for more, then the apprentices could pick it up tomorrow for grinding.
XXX
Richard Norcross sighed in satisfaction; it had been a fine wedding and a finer feast than any in recent memory, at least in the sort of circles he and his moved in. Gods knew he had paid enough, not just for his niece's dowry but also for food and drink enough to feast almost every landed knight and minor nobleman of any name along the Upper Mander. The hall was still well-filled with men and women celebrating the day and the happy couple, even though the bedding had come and gone and most of the revelers had sought their beds from fatigue or intoxication.
Fortunately, the three men he had invited to his solar had stayed at least mostly sober, not just for what they were going to talk about but for the sake of Richard's pride; he was quite proud of what he had done with the space. His grandfather had not been a wise man, either in his treatment of money or in his desire to improve his reputation in the lists. When Richard's father had inherited, he had had to make it his life's work to restore the family fortunes, and the economies he had been forced to institute had left the castle more austere than was suitable for a family of their station. At least he had been successful, so that Richard could restore the family's reputation for generosity and the display becoming of a nobleman.
It hadn't even been that difficult, not until recent months and the sudden advent of the new difficulties.
He donned his best comradely smile. "I trust that your lordships found the festivities to your liking?" he asked lightly.
"Yes, yes, a fine revel," his new good-cousin Lord Fredrick Norridge said expansively as he raised his goblet. "To the couple, Richard, and our houses!"
"Hear, hear," Richard said, returning the toast with his other guests as Fredrick threw back the '63 vintage Arbor gold like it was cheap hock. He had never liked Fredrick, but the Norridges were powerful enough that Fredrick's boorishness and over-fondness for drink had to be endured.
"Everything but a tourney, and the entertainments more than made up for the lack," Lord Gaston Graves allowed; four of Richard's household knights had held a wooden corral against all comers on foot with longswords, as if they were defending a miniature castle, and some of his herdsmen had performed feats of trick riding that even knights would have found difficult to copy. "I applaud you, my lord."
"Indeed, you have raised our expectations for all such events in the future," said Lord Dayvid Pommingham, his broad and florid face split with an unfortunately frog-like smile as he raised his goblet in salute. Richard returned the salute, letting his gaze cool as he looked at his least favorite of his fellows. Dayvid was, to be quite blunt, something of an ass, and a self-important one at that; the only reason Richard was considering inviting him into the little cabal he hoped to form was that he had a startlingly broad array of connections and friends. He claimed to have made them all through his work as a tax farmer in Lord Luthor's time, but Richard had his suspicions. For such an unhandsome man, Dayvid had a surprising, and to Richard's mind suspicious, number of bastards, and his sister was still unmarried despite being past fifty.
That said, no one had ever been able to prove anything, and so Dayvid continued in a state of respectability, however earned or unearned it might be. Richard had made use of his web of contacts in the past, and whatever his reservations about the man's worthiness he couldn't gainsay his abilities in his preferred field. And if nothing else it would be better to have him where Richard could keep an eye on him and get some use out of him.
"My thanks, my lords," he said graciously, deciding to throw out a line to see if they would tug. "It was not the easiest thing I have ever had to organize, especially with these new taxes and imposts we must contend with. Not that I need remind you of them."
"I should think not!" Fredrick barked, his face turning even redder than could be accounted for by how much he had drunk. "Gods, was there ever such a king? First, he betrays Lord Grafton, then he loses his fleet to a pack of dye merchants and whor*masters and expects us to bear the cost of replacing it! And when men try to defend their rights, he has their captain murdered under color of chivalry!"
"Comes of surrounding himself with hedge knights and bastards and degenerate sons of unworthy houses," Gaston spat darkly. "Not a man of worth among them, and especially not Penrose; the Tyroshi felled them like wheat before the scythe, ask anyone who was at Tyrosh."
"Very true, my lord," Fredrick said, raising his goblet in agreement. "Bad enough that Stannis burdens us with taxes for his Eastern ventures, but not content with that he inflicts these so-called 'knightly orders'," Richard could hear the sarcasm even under the wine, "upon us. Even Aerys did not go so far, madman that he was."
"Indeed, friends," Dayvid piped up, shaking his head in an affectation of mournfulness. "An ill day when lords and gentlemen must give way to hedge knights and bastards. Dorne has become a mockery of a kingdom." He gave a derisive caw of laughter. "Of course, Dorne had difficulties long before Stannis forced his Hounds upon them."
"A troubling excess of Dornishmen, first and foremost," Richard quipped, provoking a storm of laughter. He sat back in his chair and sipped at his wine as the conversation continued, smiling at what he heard. And to think he had thought that this would be difficult.
Fredrick would have been easiest of them all, of course; the new bond of familial obligation between then would have been enough. But Fredrick had always demanded every inch of what he thought was his rightful due, even as a boy; Richard knew of at least one instance in his teenage years where he had demanded a sworn sword whipped and dismissed for showing him insufficient respect. He had learned to hold his tongue as he aged, but he had grown only more jealously protective of his rights and prerogatives. Stannis' taxes and knightly orders could not have been more perfectly designed to instill in him that dangerous blending of anger and fear. He feared that Stannis was Aegon the Unlikely, the Smallfolk's Friend, come again, only this time with the steel to make his visions reality.
Gaston was almost as easy; he had answered Merryweather's muster ahead of any other Reacher house, but he still hadn't made it to the Hedgerows before Hightower's death at Blue Stone and the collapse of his army. When his force had been caught on the march by Leofric Corbray he had surrendered, ransomed himself and his knights, gone home, and stayed home even when Rhaegar had raised his banner in Myr. Gaston had hoped to be rewarded or at least recognized, but Stannis' favor had amounted only a trifling dispute resolved in their favor; the Sour Stag, it seemed, expected more from his leal lords than their simply refusing temptation.
But Gaston had held his peace, and might have simply taken out his spleen on the king's knights at tourneys, were it not for his brother. Ser Pattar Graves had been a fine knight, a good swordsman and a truly excellent jouster, who had wished nothing more than to serve in the Kingsguard. The Graves were not so great a family that a son of theirs could readily aspire to the white cloak, but they were certainly well born enough to aspire to the gold-edged black cloak of the Stormguard with its crossed lightning bolt and stag's antler, and Pattar had certainly had the prowess to earn one. But he had been overly fond of dice and drink, and Ser Cortnay Penrose had turned him away with harsh words and given his cloak to a hedge knight, and one whose father had been a tanner at that, by all reports.
Ser Pattar Graves had walked into the Blackwater Rush in full armor that same day. And ever since, his brother had hated the Lord Commander of the Stormguard like a septon hated the Lord of the Seven Hells, and had reportedly sworn to take bloody revenge on Ser Dannel Tanner, the base-born thief who had stolen the cloak Pattar had earned a hundred times more than he. And hatred of the servant, Richard knew, easily became hatred of the master.
Dayvid, for his part, was more difficult but also simpler, in his way; the man was ambitious as a Blackfyre, pure and simple. He wanted his house exalted and its detractors thrown down and trampled. House Pommingham, however, had not the strength to effect such a change by force of arms, and Dayvid himself was too much out of favor with the great lords of the Reach to raise himself by connection with one of them. He had left the Tyrell's service some years ago under undefined-but-inauspicious circ*mstances, and no one was foolish enough to take on someone under Lord Mace's displeasure. If Dayvid wanted his house to rise, then the game needed to change, and somewhat drastically at that.
Eventually, with the wine taking its toll, the three lords retired, having discussed nothing meaningful but agreeing to meet again. Even if they didn't know why or wherefore. As they sought their beds Richard stared into the fire, drawing out his half-brother's medallion and fingering it moodily. Westeros was a troubled land, he would agree, but he had his doubts as to Stannis' responsibility for the disquiet. But for all his faults Stannis, and his brother Robert as well, it had to be said, had demonstrated that there was no problem that could not be solved with vision and might. And Robert's pet septon, proving that there was no hole so dark that light would not shine into it, had shown the way.
He raised his half-brother's medallion to his lips and kissed the simple seven-pointed star. He would, he decided, send word to Septon Ryman, and to others that his half-brother had written him of over the years since he had been sent to a poor septry in the Dornish Marches, and seek their council. They had seen, 'through a glass darkly' as Ryman had put it, quoting Jon of the Star, a vision of a different Westeros, but mere sight was not enough. What was needed to make vision reality was force, and he was closer to providing that force than anyone had been since Maegor's day. All it would take was patience, and Richard knew he was not a patient man by nature.
But, he reminded himself, all things are possible through the gods who are our strength and our solace.
XXX
The Ironborn were not much for sacred sites. Why would they be, when all the seas and oceans of the world were sacred, the very home of their god? Wherever saltwater flowed, there the Ironborn found holiness.
The one exception to this rule was Nagga's hill, on Old Wyk. It was here, the very oldest legends said, that the Drowned God had made the original covenant with the Ironborn, granting them dominion over the waves in return for their obedience and worship, and it was here where He had placed the bones of Nagga the sea dragon, to remind them always of the covenant they had made. It was on Nagga's hill that the kings of old had been crowned and the lords of the Isles had pledged their fealty, and it was on Nagga's hill where the mourning service for those kings was held when they died, regardless of where their bodies had been given to the waves.
And it was here where the lords of the Ironborn sought the guidance of the god, and rededicated themselves to his service.
Balon Greyjoy, his already harsh face made wolfish by a full day and night without even water, strode out from Nagga's ribs, where he had knelt in prayer since sunrise the day before. He was the very picture of a reaver in his black-enameled plate, with the words What is dead may never die inlaid in gold into chisel-etched channels on the edges of his breastplate, pauldrons, vambraces, tassets, and gauntlets. His sword-belt was a length of golden chain that he had taken from a Lyseni pleasure galley on his first reaving voyage, and the scabbard of his sword was inlaid with tendrils of alternating blackened and gilded steel carved to resemble kraken tentacles.
He did not stand alone, either, just as he had not prayed alone. His eldest son Rodrik stood at his right hand in a knee-length hauberk of blackened ring-mail over a walrus-hide jerkin. His second son Maron stood at his left, in similar armor; both young men had long-hafted hand-axes thrust through their belts. Balon's brothers Urrigon and Aeron were there as well in their war-gear; Aeron looked worn and winced at the brightness of the unclouded sky, while Urrigon's eyes seemed to glow with fervor. Balon's goodbrother Rodrik Harlaw cut an unexpectedly martial figure in his breastplate and arm harness; the Reader's prowess was not well-regarded, but even if the wrinkles around his eyes owed more to poring over books than to peering through rain squalls and sea-glare they could still be as cold as any reaver's. Rodrik's cousins Hotho and Boremund were also there in their armor; Balon had made it plain that this was to be a family affair.
Before them, standing between them and the crowd of local notables and karls headed by Ser Harras Harlaw, who for all his worship of the Seven was still Ironborn, that had come to witness, stood the oldest and most venerable of the Drowned God's priests, Sigurd Stone-Eye. He was past the age of eighty, and his kelp-braided beard reached almost to his knees and was white as bone, but his back was still straight, his voice still clear, and his one good eye glowered undimmed at the world. His other eye, the right, was blind and milky as a beach pebble, with an old scar bisecting the brow above and the cheekbone underneath; it was whispered that he himself had wielded the blade that made that wound, as an offering to the god in hope of receiving wisdom.
Balon stepped up to the old priest and knelt, but did not lower his head, staring Sigurd in the face. His sons and brothers and goodbrother and cousins did likewise; the Ironbron were reverent but not obsequious in their devotions. The Drowned God did not love men who feared.
Sigurd Stone-Eye raised his waterskin as the minor priests who formed his retinue moved forward to do likewise for the other Greyjoys and Harlaws, and poured a steady stream of saltwater, not an hour out of the sea, onto Balon's forehead. "God who drowned for us," he intoned in the old language of the Isles, following a formula that was ancient centuries before the Targaryens landed on Dragonstone, "let Balon Greyjoy your servant be born again from the sea, as you were. Bless him with salt," he trailed the stream of water down Balon's nose, "bless him with stone," he trailed the water across Balon's eyes, "bless him with steel." He emptied the rest of his waterskin over Balon's forehead, in a gesture of great favor, and lowered the waterskin.
"What is dead may never die," Balon said in the same language, refusing to blink or let his voice waver even as the saltwater stung his eyes.
"What is dead may never die," Sigurd Stone-Eye affirmed, still in the old tongue, "but rises again, harder and stronger." He raised Balon to his feet and embraced him ceremoniously. "I hope you know what you're doing," he whispered in Balon's ear, "for our people's sake."
Balon clapped the old priest on the back. "I do, old one," he whispered back respectfully. "If I did not, I would not do this." He broke the embrace and turned away to clasp forearms with the Reader. "We have work to do, goodbrother," he said in a low voice under the cheering of the crowd.
The Reader nodded. "Aye," he said just as lowly, "especially since we want to do this right." Balon nodded agreement. Only a fool started a rebellion overnight.
Chapter 67: The Gyre Tightens
Chapter Text
Eddard was fighting for his life.
His opponent was pressing him hard, his narrow-bladed sword flashing through a dizzying barrage of thrusts aimed at visor, armpits, and the insides of his elbows, the main places where his armor had the gaps necessary to allow him to see, breathe, and move. In his left hand a long dagger with a wide guard and a metal sheet curving over the back of the man's hand down to the pommel waited like a coiled viper, ready either to strike or to catch one of the counter-blows Eddard managed to throw into the gaps between his opponent's attacks. His opponent didn't quite have Eddard's height or weight of muscle, but his arms seemed as long as an ape's and they were dazzlingly fast. Twice a thrown counter-cut had been foiled almost as soon as it had been launched, when his opponent had interposed either sword or dagger at the very beginning of the cut's arc.
Eddard's breath sounded like a trumpet in the confines of his helmet. If he was feeling the strain so much then his opponenthadto be facing a similar level of fatigue. If he could simply ride out the storm of blows . . . His opponent overextended by perhaps an inch, Eddard let go of his longsword's hilt with his right hand to wrap his arm around his opponent's sword and threw a short cut towards his opponent's face hoping to connect with the base of his sword, and his opponentducked under the cutat the cost of letting go his sword and bounced up again to drive his dagger at Eddard's visor. A desperately upflung right arm caught the strike at his opponent's wrist and Eddard dropped his own sword to throw a left cross that caught his opponent on the morion hard enough to spoil his second dagger-thrust and got his own dagger in his right fist . . .
"HOLD!" the marshal shouted, and Eddard and his opponent both froze in place with Eddard's dagger half-raised and his opponent having just switched his dagger from left hand to right and raised his left arm to intercept Eddard's overhand blow. "I declare that you sers have done enough," the marshal said in a normal voice, "and I declare this bout a draw. This match is a draw, zero-zero-three."
Eddard stepped back, sheathing his dagger on the second try with his hands shaking from the draining battle-fury, and then knocked his visor upward and stripped off his gauntlet to extend his hand to Syrio Forel, who had handed his dagger to his second and was advancing with his heavy steerhide glove off and a brilliant smile on his face. "Well fought, Lord Stark!" the Braavosi champion exclaimed as he took Eddard's hand and embraced him while the small crowd of onlookers cheered. The match had originally been arranged as a private matter between two lovers of the blade, but word had gotten out. Half the court, most of the Braavosi embassy, and what looked like a brigade of representatives from every Legion company in the city garrison had turned out to watch the First Sword of Braavos, the champion of the Commune, cross swords with the Iron Wolf, the great paladin of the Kingdom of Myr. "I must revise my opinion of the iron dance of Westeros; it has more of art than I had thought."
"Likewise, Ser Forel," Eddard replied, patting him on the back of his brigandine; he had feared that the First Sword might have held a grudge over how Eddard had unintentionally fooled him the last time they met, but fortunately this did not seem to be the case. "I will write the Sealord and let him know that his First Sword is indeed the best blade he may ask for." As they broke the embrace to collect their swords from where they had fallen Eddard shook his head. "Gods witness, I've never seen a man as fast as you," he said wonderingly. "How do you do it?"
"Long practice, my lord," Syrio said smilingly as he picked up his sidesword and ran his thumbnail down the edge to check for nicks. "Just as you became so strong; Death's blade, but there were times I feared for my wrists under your blows." Syrio took his sword-belt from Adaran, who had acted as his second for the length of his match with Eddard and ran the sword into the plain black leather scabbard. "Scalizzeri called you a wolf when first we met," he went on as he buckled the belt low on his hips, lower than a knight would wear it, "but my impression of you, forgive me, was that you were still a cub, if a dangerous one. Now you are become a wolf indeed, with fangs fit to slay a dragon. May I interest you in a glass of grappa, to celebrate this feat of arms? It's a distilled grape spirit, fit for only the greatest of warriors."
Eddard bowed. "By all means, ser," he said as he accepted his own scabbard from Saul and sheathed his longsword. "I'll need to let those fangs grow a bit longer first," he went on as he hooked the scabbard back onto his belt, "if the best I can do against a tiger is to double him."
Syrio shook his head. "We doubled each other because we were unfamiliar with how each other fought," he answered, taking off his other glove and stuffing them both into his belt before reaching up to undo the chinstrap of his morion. "Against one whose style of the sword-art is more familiar to you, you will have but little to fear, unless I miss my guess." He pulled his morion off and tucked it under his arm as he undid the laces of his arming cap. "I trust, at any rate," he continued as he shook out his short, curly hair and mopped sweat from his brow with the outside of his arming cap, "that I have laid to rest any fears that the sons of the Titan are poor men of their hands."
Eddard shook his head as he handed his bascinet to Saul, who had already taken his gauntlets. "I had no such fears, for my part," he replied, "however much our knights might have." Left unsaid was the fact that the Legion was far more skeptical of the Braavosi than the chivalry had ever been; the freedmen remembered how long the Braavosi had been content to turn a blind eye to slavery. It would take more than a single match between swordsmen to convince them of the worth of their new allies. "Although it seems to me that this 'water dance' is more suited to dueling than to the battlefield."
Syrio laughed. "There is water andwater, my lord," he said, "as any child of the sea knows. There is a great difference indeed between a mountain stream flowing around and between the rocks, and the Narrow Sea in a winter storm, with a living gale out of the north driving the waves as high as your mainmast."
"I doubt it not," Eddard said, nodding as he considered the picture Syrio had painted. The Sunset Company hadn't had to deal with storms on their crossing, but he had heard enough stories to have at least some understanding of the danger they posed. "I would be glad to see the Commune's soldiers in action against the enemy, especially if I fought at their side."
"May that day come swiftly," Syrio replied, his smile becoming alarmingly vulpine for a moment. "The word we have had is very good; the whole force of the Commune is arming. With another four or five months to train, we should be able to put three hundred and fifty galleys in the water, each filled with marines and armed rowers, besides the battalions that will come marching down the coastal road."
Eddard whistled softly; three hundred and fifty galleys carrying seventy-five marines apiece amounted to something on the order of twenty-seven thousand fighting men, not counting armed rowers and the officers and crew. With those men and the Braavosi land force added in, that was roughly equivalent to the full arriere-ban of the Vale. And while the Valemen would represent everything on the scale of armament from knights in full plate with longswords and poleaxes to smallfolk levies with leather jerkins and hunting spears, the Braavosi would all be at least moderately armored, and their infantry would be some of the best-armored footmen in the world.
It was also a significant concentration of force for a state with interests in need of protection that spread from Lannisport to Yi-ti, but Eddard was willing not to poke his nose into that matter. The important thing was that the Braavosi seemed to be assigning a higher priority to the war against slavery, and that their interest should be cultivated and exploited. "These battalions of yours," he asked as the two walked off the training yard, leaving behind them the excitedly chattering crowd, "they sound much like the companies of the Iron Legion?"
Syrio nodded. "Although we prefer pikes instead of spear-and-shield," he said. "And our greater wealth means we can afford to armor our infantrymen in half-plate instead of brigandines. It makes us less maneuverable than your Legion perhaps, but on shipboard there is not much room to maneuver, no? So we maneuver less in favor of simply cutting our way through the enemy."
Eddard nodded agreement. He had heard stories of the Battle of Tyrosh, both secondhand and from survivors who had found their way to Myr for one reason or another. They had been fragmented and contradictory, but they had all emphasized the violent and merciless nature of shipboard action. "Well, I look forward to seeing them in action," he said. "Them, your fleet, the Legion, and our chivalry? We shall conquer Tyrosh in no time, if the gods will it so."
"There is only one god for warriors, my lord," Syrio said, his face turning somber, "and his name is Death. But," his smile came back, "methinks that Death will come for Tyrosh before he comes for us, eh? Especially," his smile turned sly, "since Tyrosh is not the only conquest on King Robert's mind, no?"
Eddard laughed. "No, it is not," he said. "Although it would be a strange thing if one Braavosi maiden were to prove a harder conquest than an enemy city in arms."
Syrio chuckled. "You have never courted a Braavosi maiden, have you, my lord?" he asked jestingly.
Saul and Adaran, following behind them with their helmets, smiled at each other as Eddard and Syrio's laughter rang off the walls of the corridor.
XXX
The third anniversary of the taking of Myr, and the founding of the kingdom, was celebrated in slightly restrained style. The knights of King Robert's court jousted with each other on the lists outside the city while the Ironborn wrestled and Legion soldiers raced in armor, there was a public holiday with bards, jugglers, and other entertainers in every market square paid for by the Crown, and a trio of statues carved by a Braavosi sculptor was installed at the gates of the military cemetery outside the city. These statues, showing a Legion spearman, an Andal knight and archer, and an Ironborn housekarl, had been commissioned by Bassanio Scalizzeri when news of the Sunset Company's taking of Myr had reached Braavos and had been unloaded only a sennight ago, having been brought south and gifted to the Myrish Crown as a gesture of the Scalizzeri's regard for the Kingdom. The statues had been placed before the gates of the military cemetery like so many silent guardians, and King Robert had dedicated them to their duty with a short speech.
This last ceremony had been attended not just by the court and the Braavosi embassy, but also as many citizens as had been able to stream out the gates to reach the cemetery, and their subsequent flow back into the city had outstripped the court's attempt to reach the gates ahead of them. As a result, the court and the embassy were having to ride around the city to the Great Northern Gate, as the Great Eastern Gate was jammed with a slow-moving crowd of people that no force of man or nature could have cleared a path through. Serina found herself hoping fervently that the streets back to the palace weren't jammed as well; this was only her second time on horseback for any length of time, and her legs and back were already sore from having to follow the horse's motion.
And her discomfort wasn't helped by the fact that Ser Gerion Lannister and Ambassadress Dorysa Antaryon had maneuvered their own horses so that Serina found herself riding beside King Robert, the Ambassadress smiling mischievously as she did so. Serina kept herself from rolling her eyes with an effort of will. It was all well and good that the Ambassadress was in favor of the King courting her, especially since she had reconciled herself to it, but sometimes it seemed that she was having a littletoomuch fun playing matchmaker.
She cleared her throat noiselessly; a habit picked up during her studies. "I thought your speech was very good, Your Grace," she began. "'Having lost their lives for this kingdom, they became its people.' I'll have to remember that line to my cousin; he has a fascination with rhetoric."
Robert nodded. "Septon Jonothor helped me write it," he replied. "The sentiment was mine but he helped me find the words for it. Part of being a septon is having to come with a new speech at least once a sennight and have it be interesting enough to hold your congregation's attention."
Serina smiled. "I imagine all priests share that same challenge," she said, provoking a laugh and a gesture of acknowledgement. She hesitated for a moment, then went on. "Forgive me for asking, but I was wondering why Your Grace didn't attend Septon Jonothor's services? I was under the impression that his new doctrines had met with your approval."
"They had," Robert said, "and please, call me by my name; we are courting, after all." His face lost its good humor somewhat as Serina nodded. "I want to attend Jonothor's services," he said, "but my Small Council have asked me not to, for the time being; Ser Gerion all but begged on bended knee. It would beimpolitic," he almost spat the word, "to so irretrievably break with the High Septon, given our current position." He laughed sardonically. "As if the High Septon had not irretrievably broken withme,by suborning one of my knights."
Serina nodded. She had heard the story of Ser Leofric Corbray. "I had thought that you had already broken with the High Septon?" she asked. "I confess I know little enough of the theology involved, but since Septon Jonothorhasbeen declared a heretic . . ." She spread her hands.
Robert shrugged. "For my part, I broke with the High Septon when he ordered Jonothor to return to King's Landing for a trial that would end in his legal murder," he replied. "But that break hasn't resulted in this kingdom being placed under interdict, a ban on the rites of the Faith being performed," he explained at her blank look, "or in me, personally, being excommunicated. And, for now, it would be much better for it to stay that way, if only to preserve the flow of volunteers from the southern part of the Seven Kingdoms."
Serina nodded. "I see," she said. "If you broke with the High Septon, that flow would dry up?"
"Like a puddle in a desert," Robert confirmed. "And it would cause problems here as well, among those of the Faithful that haven't accepted Jonothor's doctrine. My own Master of Law, to name only one. If nothing else, the Faithful that still follow the Great Sept would be much less likely to fight in the kingdom's wars, or at least fight as boldly as I would need them to, if they did not think that they would be assured a proper burial."
Serina winced. The Moonsingers had an equivalent, but it was only rarely used; usually the mere threat was enough to produce compliance. "So you wouldn't have nearly as many knights as you have now?"
Robert nodded. "If the High Septon declared an interdict tomorrow, we would lose at least half our knights, if not two-thirds. Or so I would guess; it's not the sort of question you can just come out and ask someone. And we would have no way to replace them except through our squires, who would not be of the same prowess. Not that they would be poor knights," he said hastily, "but someone who starts riding at six or seven is vastly better than someone who only starts riding at fourteen or fifteen or sixteen, as with most of our current squires. The level of prowess we have now we would not have again for at least ten years and probably more like fifteen, when my son Stalleo and his generation become squires."
Serina nodded. The Iron Legion might be the shield of the Kingdom of Myr, but the chivalry, the knights and lords and men-at-arms, were its sword, the men who shattered the armies that broke on the Legion's spears and rode them down in bloody ruin. "Hence the need to placate the High Septon and prevent such a disaster."
Robert smiled bitterly. "Which is why I must bite my tongue and take the sacraments from septons who aren't fit to lick Jonothor's sandals clean." He shook his head. "I gave up the Iron Throne so that I wouldn't have to live my life according to policy," he said. "And even when I took the throne here I thought I could let my Small Council handle the policy while I played the warrior-king, with a war horse for a throne, a helmet for a crown, and my hammer for a scepter." His hand rose, seemingly unconsciously, and fingered the Two Dragons hanging from his neck. "I learned differently, at Pentos."
Serina nodded. "I had hoped to live without policy as well," she said pensively. "Or at least to make the policy as bearable as may be, given my duty to my family." She paused, then forged on. "Forgive me for asking, but how does King Stannis see this matter? I have been told that you and he are, ah, not friends."
Robert threw his head back and laughed. "That's a very polite way of putting it," he chortled before calming down and waving a hand. "But no, the bad blood between us has grown in the telling; we exchange letters, often with unsolicited advice. He keeps telling me to get an heir, and a legitimate one, not another bastard, if I want my realm to last, and I keep telling him to drag the Archon to King's Landing in chains if he really wants to win the love of his nobles. We have never and probably never will be bosom friends, but we're still brothers, for all that; he stood by me in the Rebellion and I gave him the Iron Throne."
He frowned and looked ahead again. "Although that might change, given this matter of the Faith. I can thumb my nose at the High Septon with some degree of security, but Stannis has to live in the same city as the self-righteous old fart. More to the point, Stannis has his children's inheritance to think about; he wouldn't want to take the risk that the High Septon might refuse to confirm either of them in the Faith, or to crown Lyonel when the time comes." He shook his head. "No, Stannis will back the High Septon, for all that we're brothers. Especially since he doesn't just have the High Septon to worry about."
Serina frowned, then nodded. "His nobles?"
"One defeat can wipe out a hundred victories," Robert replied. "And Stannis doesn't have that many victoriestowipe out, just the Red Viper's rebellion and that mess on Crackclaw Point, which to be honest anyone could have beaten if they kept their nerve. At the moment, Stannis is weaker than he's been since he took the Throne. If the High Septon were to make it known that Stannis was in his bad books . . ." He shrugged. "The Westerlands and the Vale might be safe, with Tywin being Stannis' goodfather and Jon Arryn being his Hand, but the other kingdoms would go up like a bonfire. The Targaryens were overthrown because they made too many and too powerful enemies, and they had more than two hundred years of legitimacy behind them; Stannis only has four." He shook his head. "No, Stannis won't take chances. Not with his children's inheritance on the table."
Serina reached across and laid a hand on Robert's forearm. "I'm sorry, Robert," she said softly.
Robert shrugged heavily, which she imagined was something of a feat in full armor. "Eh, well, such is the life of kings," he said. "And it's not like the news is all sour; Lord Corbray's asked permission to form a chivalric order for those knights that find themselves excluded from the existing brotherhoods on account of their choosing to follow Jonothor, as he has." He laughed. "I wish Ser Mychel joy of drawing up the laws governing such a thing; the man's a Baelorite, as I said, and if he wants an order for knights that follow the High Septon then he'll have to give them the same liberties that Jonothoran knights have. No more and no less."
Serina joined him in laughing. "Oh gods, but that must be uncomfortable. It's one thing to limit someone else's liberties but when that means limiting your own . . ."
Robert nodded, still laughing. "Yes, he'll have some sleepless nights ahead of him," he said. "It may be unchivalrous of me to find it funny but I can just see him grumbling and grousing to himself as he looks down the parchment of what he'd like to give the Jonothoran orders and what he'd like to give the Baelorite orders and chewing his guts out over reconciling the two . . ."
As Robert and Serina's laughter drifted back to them, Ser Gerion looked at the Ambassadress and raised an eyebrow. "What was it you said?" he asked archly. "That His Grace would have to take some lessons in courting?"
The Ambassadress snorted. "That was before I knew how quick a study he was," she said primly. "And I still say that his taste in gifts needs some work. The silk was lovely, but the color it was in was last in fashion whenIwas a girl."
Ser Gerion laughed. "Ye of little faith," he said jestingly. "I'll be telling my household to make sure they have clothes suitable for a wedding. They'll need them, if I'm any judge."
As Serina's laughter subsided into giggles, she remembered another thing that she had wanted to ask. "I've heard much of King Stannis' wife," she said. "Is it true that she's the most beautiful woman in Westeros?"
"Cersei?" Robert asked. At Serina's nod, he frowned, and then shrugged. "Well, I haven't seen all the women in Westeros," he said mock-seriously, making Serina reach over and nudge his arm with her elbow, "so I would have to reserve judgement. But yes, she is quite the beauty. But compared to some I have seen here in Essos . . ." his look made Serina blush.
XXX
The Faith had no shortage of martyrs. The annals of the Faith were full of stories of men (and no few women) who had suffered horrible torments for the sake of the Gods. Drownings, dismemberments, burnings, decapitations, stonings, even one incident where a missionary who had offended the crannogmen had been dipped in a vat of blood and tied to an anthill. Seminary students were required to read them all and memorize as many as they could, as an aid to their devotions.
Jonothor wondered if he could start a new category in the Faith's martyrologies. Surely it could be agreed that even burning at the stake had its positive points compared to running a general council. Burning at least resulted in a relatively quick death, or so he had been told, while the meetings and conferences and debates of a general council went on and on andon and on . . .He shook himself; contemplating the burden of work before him was a fool's errand. That way lay madness. And hehadbrought it on himself, with his Protestation.
Simply choosing the venue had been frustrating. The council had quickly become too large to be housed in the First Sept without forcing its closure, and Jonothor had insisted that no undue hardship fall on his parishioners. King Robert had offered the Palace of Justice, but Jonothor had agreed with the Small Council that it would be inappropriate; the council was a matter of faith, not of state, and it would be impolitic for the Crown to be seen to take sides in the burgeoning schism. Finally, Ser Mychel Egen mentioned that the Crown had taken possession of a manse in the city as part of settling the debts of a merchant venturer whose schemes had apparently met with spectacular failure. Jonothor had thought it a bit much, given the richness of the furnishings, but he couldn't deny the usefulness of the sheer size of the place.
It would be an exaggeration to say that every septon, septa, and scholar of the Faith in Myr had chosen to attend the council, but one could be forgiven for thinking so. There were, by the estimation of Jonothor's secretary Vogos (Jonothor snorted to himself; a fine pass things had come to whenhe, who had always taken pride in writing his own correspondence, had a secretary) at least a thousand people attending the council, andall of themwanted to add their widow's mite to the general discussion over what to do with the schism they found themselves facing. At this very moment there was one committee in the music room discussing the territorial organization of the new Faith, another in the receiving room chewing over how best to revise the Hugorian Creed to fit the new doctrine, another in the upstairs sunroom trying to decide how to organize the hierarchy of the new Faith, and another (the largest, this) in the formal dining room trying to resolve how the new Faith would interact with other faiths.
Jonothor spent as much time on that one committee as he did on all the rest put together, and the questions it posed gave him the most heartache. Being cut off from his former friends and colleagues in Westeros he had accepted, but the schism had not been merely between the Kingdom of Myr and the Seven Kingdoms. There were many in Myr itself, primarily merchants, knights, and noblemen, who had broken ties with Jonothor and those septs that had either joined him or even simply not denounced him. The merchants he had expected; almost all of them had ties in Westeros that would be endangered if they embraced him, and the loss of those ties could potentially ruin them. His old parish in Flea Bottom had only attracted the lowest tier of merchant, but Jonothor had still seen for himself how living the life of a merchant required a cold-blooded pragmatism that even the most hard-boiled of knights could find shocking. He could not bring himself to condemn them.
The loss of the knights and nobles had been a greater blow, as he had served as chaplain to many of them in the Sunset Company. Ser Mychel Egen, to name only one, now regarded him as a traitor to the Faith and the Kingdom for provoking the schism. He would still, he had sworn, uphold the laws protecting the rights of citizens regardless of their faith, but that was only because his oath to King Robert outweighed his hatred of heresy. And Jonothor had taken note recently of how many knights who had previously bowed in the street when he walked by now glowered at him and fingered the hilts of their swords. There had been a few incidents between people who held to the Great Sept of Baelor and people who followed him (and used his name to identify themselves as his followers, despite his asking themnotto), but fortunately the City Watch tended to either support his new doctrine or at least be neutral on the subject.
Especially since Ser Mychel wasn't his only opponent on the Small Council. Ser Gerion Lannister and Ser Brynden Tully were more polite about it than Ser Mychel, but they supported the Great Sept as firmly as he did. With some justice, Jonothor had to admit, given the history of their families. Ser Gerion was old enough to remember the Reynes and the Tarbecks, and House Tully had always been plagued with insubordinate vassals. To them, heresy was rebellion, only under a different name and against a different lord. Ser Wendel Manderly had not declared himself one way or the other, but it was strongly suspected that he was awaiting instruction from his father Lord Wyman.
Fortunately, the list of potential foes ended there. Lord Stark had declared that he had no interest in the internal affairs of a faith not his own, but he had also declared that he would not favor one side of the schism over another in the managing of the Royal Army; promotions and assignments would be given out only on the basis of merit and experience. More surprisingly, Lord Greyjoy, of all people, had become a vocal supporter; apparently he and his fellow Ironborn found Jonothor and his 'heartier breed of septon' vastly preferable to the 'fat and perfumed holy men' who kept themselves in King's Landing and hid behind their vestments and the sanctity of their offices. And when appraised of the true cause of the schism the Ironborn had become even more respectful. He should have known, Jonothor reflected, that the Ironborn would find much to sympathize with in a creed that favored deeds over devotion, given that their own faith held as much.
Nor had his unlooked-for supporters limited themselves to the Small Council. The Braavosi embassy had sent people to observe the council, and he had already received several inquiries seeking 'a discussion of mutual profit'. And while the few priests of the drowned god that had come to Myr had held themselves aloof, the red priests had turned out in force. Most of them were observers, but many were taking part in the discussions, and even making their own proposals.
High Priest Kalarus had come to his rescue with an explanation. It seemed that there was a school of thought which held that the Faith of the Seven was a long-lost branch of the faith of R'hllor, corrupted by long separation. It had long been an obscure and somewhat trivial belief, but it had recently exploded in popularity among the R'hllorites of Myr. Kalarus had given orders that the red priests who chose to attend the council were to limit themselves to neighborly aid and advice, but some just couldn't resist the urge to try and shunt their wayward cousins back into the fold of the Lord of Light. Fortunately, Kalarus had foreseen the possibility, and dispatched Thoros with orders to drag out anyone who became too troublesome.
That, of course, left only the actual Faithful, and their myriad legions of proposals. Jonothor knew exactly where he stood on doctrine, and his Protestation had been accepted as the basic document of the council, but there the uniformity ended. Take the debate over the structure of the new Faith, for instance. One extreme wanted to organize the Faith in Myr on exactly the same lines that it was organized in Westeros, from the office of the High Septon on down to the constitutions of the septries and motherhouses and the rights of the begging brothers, when things became peaceful enough to allow for them. The opposite extreme wanted no organization larger than the parish sept, with overarching issues the purview of a sort of ongoing general council. In between those two poles was every degree and variety of organization under the sun, and there were days when it seemed that the only consensus that could be achieved was that no one wanted an organization that he had not proposed.
And it fell to him, Jonothor of Myr and lately of Carnival Row in Flea Bottom, to forge a working Faith out of this morass of opinion and counter-opinion. For King Robert, who was his biggest supporter for all that he had to publicly deny that he was any such thing, had told him that the council was his responsibility and that whatever came out of it would have to be something the Crown could allow to be a power in the kingdom. The king knew himself to be no theologian and so trusted Jonothor with the council as he trusted Ser Wendel with the treasury and Lord Stark with the Royal Army.
The Gods had given Jonothor everything he needed to right the course of the Faith, from the doctrine to the converts to the support of a king. It fell to him to take those elements and not only use them, but use them properly. It was a heavy load to bear, but his forerunners in the Faith had borne heavier. It behooved him to be a worthy heir to the legacy of the martyrs. He downed the glass of water he had poured himself and stood, squaring his shoulders. He had taken enough time to himself; it was time to get back into the fray.
XXX
There were times when Robert was glad to be a king. The day of his coronation, obviously, along with the tournament at the end of the First Slave War, the Battle of Solva and the taking of Alalia, and those rare occasions when he got to personally set something right for his people.
This was not one of those days.
It had been a day of meetings; long ones, short ones, informal ones, one over luncheon, and the time between them filled with correspondence and petitions. Hehadmanaged to take two hours on the training ground to himself, but no sooner had he walked out of the sparring ring and handed his hammer to his squire than the flow of work had come right back to him.
Nor had it even been the result of neglecting his duties. It was true that he had taken a three-day hunting trip in the country around Myr city, but that had been a political matter as much as anything, with almost the whole Court in attendance. Even the Braavosi embassy had come along, although that had its benefits . . .
Robert dragged himself out of a memory of Serina in hunting garb and smiling with excitement as the deer broke cover and forced his attention back to the meeting at hand. It was the last one of the day, and despite the long grind of the previous meetings it was still interesting enough to hold his attention for the most part. It was a small meeting, just him and Ser Brynden Tully and Maester Gordon discussing the state of the kingdom's roads and what improvements needed to be made so they could be best used to facilitate the movement of armies in the coming wars. The road network in the southern marches, for instance, was in good condition and well developed, as that had been the frontier most in need of swiftly-marching forces, but the roads in the north and east had seen less improvement in the years since the conquest. And given the news of war on the River Rhoyne, and especially of the Targaryens flexing their muscles, Ser Brynden was hoping to find space in the royal budget to improve the Great East Road enough to allow the rapid deployment of a substantial portion of the Royal Army at short notice, in case the Volantenes decided to test the borders.
For his part, Robert saw little reason not to. Once Tyrosh was wrapped up Lys would be next, and the only ally they would have left to turn to would be Volantis. Which meant that the focus of the kingdom's military efforts would have to start shifting from the south to the east, facing the coastal plain that stretched from the Narrow Sea to the west bank of the Rhoyne. Ser Wendel Manderly would have to find money to pay for the road crews, of course, but if he couldn't, then they could probably do something where the lords would be made responsible for the upkeep of those stretches of road that crossed their fiefs. The Corps of Pioneers would have charge of any improvements and would advise the royal inspectors as to what state the roads should ideally be in, but if the labor came from the feudal lords then it would at least be cheaper than hiring road-cutting crews and paying them out of the royal treasury.
Robert snorted to himself. A fine pass things had come to, when he could not only keep all of that straight but actually comprehend the meaning behind it. He had come a long way from the brash, headstrong young lordling who took pleasure in nothing so much as a good fight, a good f*ck, and a good drink.
Ser Brynden flipped through the last few papers in the hardened leather folder that lay open before him and raised his head. "I believe that is everything for today, Your Grace. I'll write up a summary and send it to Ser Wendel."
"Good, good," Robert said, leaning back in his chair. "Anything else today?"
"Just one thing, Your Grace," said Maester Gordon, who now that Robert looked at him looked even more worn than Robert felt. When had that happened? "I intend to resign from my command of the Pioneers. Not immediately, but within the next month or two."
"What?" Robert asked, stunned. "In the Gods' names, why? You've done a damned fine job with them!"
Gordon shrugged. "I'm an old man, Your Grace," he said simply. "I turned fifty the year after we took the city and I haven't the strength that a man who has lived his whole life in arms might. I do not think that I can again give you the same service that I did in the last war, and if I guess aright then you will need a Commander of Pioneers who can work a full day after only four hours of sleep on hard ground."
Robert nodded unwillingly. He could definitely see Gordon's point, looking at the way his previously-full cheeks and double chin had fallen in on themselves. "It would be unjust to keep you in harness if you cannot stand the load," he agreed. "Do you have a successor in mind?"
"There are two or three of the Pioneers who I think would be able to fill my boots," Gordon answered with a nod. "I can give you their names after we're done here and arrange for you to meet them." He shrugged again. "In truth, I doubt that they would miss having me in command. They are none of them maesters, but only because there isn't a link the Citadel offers for what the Pioneers do." He paused, then forged on. "By your leave, Your Grace, there is something else I would like to do after I resign."
Robert spread his hands. "Name it," he said, "and if it is within my power to give it, I shall."
"My chain is based on architecture," Gordon said, "but my first love has always been history. In my time in Your Grace's service, I have lived through some of the most exciting history since the last Blackfyre wars. I would set it down on paper, while I still have the wit and the memory to do so."
Robert nodded slowly. "A fine ambition," he said. "If you can no longer command my Pioneers, then serve as my chronicler. Anything you need for the work is yours for the asking; any aid the Crown can give you. I would have my sons and grandsons know what I did in these wars, and why I did it."
Gordon bowed in his chair. "I shall do my utmost to inform them accurately, Your Grace," he said solemnly, before looking up with a twinkle in his eye. "And would those sons be coming swiftly, Your Grace?"
Robert laughed as Ser Brynden snorted. "Not quite yet," he said lightly. "But soon, by the grace of the gods."
XXX
Maege Mormont had not only brought reinforcements back from the North. She had also brought weirwood seeds, so that the followers of the old gods could have a proper heart tree. One of the seeds had taken to the fertile soil in the public gardens near the Palace of Justice, and while the sapling was too young to have a face carved into its trunk, it's little alcove had quickly become the preferred place of worship for the Northmen who had come to Myr, and those freedmen who had chosen to follow the old gods.
When it was not being used for worship the weirwood's alcove was technically open to any who visited the gardens, although there tended to be at least a few old gods-worshippers nearby in order to prevent anything that Ser Mychel Egen might describe as an 'unfortunate and uncivilized incident'. Aside from their watch, however, they did not interfere with anyone who chose to visit the weirwood; the old gods accepted any who came to them of their own will.
And when King Robert and Lady Serina chose to visit of an evening, the watchers snapped to attention and clapped fists to chests in the military salute; properly enough, since they were almost always either soldiers of the Royal Army or members of Lord Stark's military household. Robert returned the salute gravely, as was his wont. Men who were willing to die for you were deserving of respect, regardless of any difference in relative status.
Serina ignored the byplay, her attention captured by the weirwood. It was barely two years old, but the juxtaposition of its bone-white trunk and branches and its blood-red leaves was striking. She had seen weirwood before, in one of the doors of the House of Black and White and in the houses of those magisters who were rich enough to afford it but who still moved in the Phassos' social circles. One magister her father knew owned a cyvasse set of weirwood and ebony. But seeing the dead wood was entirely different from seeing a living tree, like the difference between seeing a lion mounted as a trophy and seeing the living beast. She could see how the First Men had come to the conclusion that there was something otherworldly about the weirwood.
"It's still very young, of course," Robert said, "and it won't be a proper heart tree until it's at least a century old, or so Ned tells me. Weirwoods grow slowly, slower than most trees."
Serina nodded. "Was there a weirwood at the Eyrie, when you were fostering?" she asked curiously.
Robert shook his head. "There was a godswood, but not a weirwood," he replied. "The soil in the Eyrie is too thin and stony to allow one to grow. But Riverrun has a weirwood, almost as old as the castle. Lyanna and I would have been married in front of it but . . . "A pained expression came over his face. "Well, I'm sure you know the story."
"As much as everyone who has heard of the madness of Rhaegar the Rapist," Serina said, nodding. There was already an epic making the rounds,The Song of Wolf and Dragon, which detailed the abduction of Lyanna Stark, the rebellion of her father Lord Rickard and his allies, and the downfall of House Targaryen. "What was she like?" she asked gently. "I've heard the songs and stories, of course, but I know how much storytellers and songwriters take liberties with the truth."
Robert stared silently at the weirwood for so long that Serina thought he had chosen to ignore the question. She was about to urge him to forget it when he began to speak. "As beautiful as any woman I've ever met," he said, his voice slightly roughened. "You and she would be about the same height, but she was slimmer, her hair was a lighter shade of brown, and her face was stronger-featured, if only slightly." Serina's hair was brown almost to blackness, and she had her mother's fine cheekbones and narrow jaw. "Her beauty wasn't all in her face though," he went on. "She had the sort of grace that even other women rarely have, like a cat. You could see it best when she rode, and gods all witness that she could ride like the wind; there were belted knights, some of the best horsem*n in the south, that couldn't keep pace with her." He sighed gustily, his eyes years away. "And those were the least of her charms," he said, his voice slowing. "I had never met a woman who, how to say it,pushed backthe way Lyanna did. She had a fire to her that no other woman in the south had, and it caught my heart like a hook catching a fish. Women who would throw themselves at my feet and hang on my every word I could find anywhere, but one who had the mettle to laugh in my face and ride away?" He shook his head with a reminiscent smile. "That I had never found before, and it made me want her all the more. And when I heard at Harrenhal about how she had taken a tourney sword to a pack of squires who were bullying her father's bannerman, I knew that she was the woman for me. She was the woman I could trust to have the strength to rule my lands at my side, and give me children as strong as she and I were."
Serina nodded as Robert sighed again, this time with a shudder in his breath. "She sounds as fair as the songs describe her," she said.
"Aye," Robert rumbled, "but in this song, the knight never came to the maiden's rescue. He sat on the throne he had won and did nothing while the dragon took his fill of her and then cast her into the sea like so much refuse." His spade-like hands knotted into fists for a terrible moment before uncurling. "Forgive me," he said stiffly. "It is not a song I am fond of." A smile quirked at the corner of his mouth. "I preferFreedom's HammertoThe Song of Wolf and Dragon."
Serina shrugged. "It could be argued thatFreedom's Hammeris a continuation ofWolf and Dragon," she pointed out. "The knight who failed in his quest sets aside the throne he won to avenge the woman he loved, and along the way learns that there is more to knighthood than courtly love."
"True enough," Robert said, "although even the happy songs leave things out. Like backaches from wearing armor for five days in a row and how dull food can get on the march and hangovers from the victory celebrations."
"Of course they do," Serina laughed. "Can you imagine trying to makehangoverfit into a rhyme scheme?"
Robert chuckled. "Not easily," he allowed. He sighed again. "Lyanna is avenged, at any rate," he said with a smile of predatory satisfaction. "It took a while, but the blow I gave Rhaegar at Tara killed him. May he and the Lord of the Seven Hells have much joy of each other. Ned won't be happy until the Targaryens are torn out of the world root and branch and I'll help him do it, but that's his quest more than mine, now. For my part I am content to let Rhaegar's blood wash out Lyanna's." He co*cked an eyebrow at Serina. "So what is left for the knight, now that his lady has been avenged and his quest fulfilled?"
Serina smiled. "He finds a new quest, of course," she said jokingly. "When his people need aid, he seeks a strong ally, and learns of a giant who would be perfect if it could be roused."
Robert smiled. "Aye, like enough," he replied with a nod. "But the giant is old and, shall we say, set in his ways? So, he challenges the knight to give him a reason to become the knight's ally."
"And while the knight is finding that reason," Serina carried on, "he meets the giant's daughter. And he thinks to himself, 'Aha! The giant may not fight for a stranger, but he will certainly fight for his goodson!'"
Robert nodded, his eyes gleaming with enthusiasm. "So the knight courts the giant's daughter," he said, picking up the thread of the story, "and wins her hand, and the giant becomes his ally. And together they defy all the powers of evil to stand against them!" He raised a hand as if to order the charge and neither he nor Serina could keep themselves from laughing.
When they finally caught their breath, Robert looked her in the face with a serious expression. "Do you think it may be so?" he asked softly. "That the giant would fight alongside the knight, if the knight married his daughter?"
Serina felt a terrible calm settle over her. "The giant would fight anyway, after the knight's brother reminded him of his honor," she said quietly. "But for his daughter's husband he would fight with all his strength, and their enemies would tremble at his coming."
Robert nodded pensively. "But would the giant's daughter accept the knight, and all that came with him?" he asked again. "He has children from previous courtships, a son he loves and a daughter he has too long ignored. Would the giant's daughter be willing to accept the knight's earlier failings, and accept also that he cannot ignore his natural children as lesser men would?"
Serina's breath caught in her throat as she looked at her feet, her mind racing. She had known about Robert's bastards, thanks to Adaran and the Ambassadress, but she hadn't seriously considered that Robert might bring them to Court. It was not unknown or even uncommon for Braavosi men to acknowledge or at least provide for their bastards, but it was certainly rare for them to be raised alongside their legitimate half-siblings. There were appearances to keep up, after all, and it was considered both unwise and unjust to show a bastard what could have been theirs if only they had been born in wedlock but prevent them from fully enjoying it. As one would have to, in order to preserve the inheritance of their legitimate children.
On the other hand, that Robert valued his children enough to take responsibility for them spoke highly of him, and at least he was being honest about his former dalliances. Most men, she knew from listening to those of her friends that were already married, would not be. And there would be little sense in holding a grudge against him for something he had done years ago as a different man.
That said, there was policy here, too. It was not only unjust, but potentially dangerous to raise Robert's bastards alongside his legitimate children. There had never been a court without faction, and a king's bastard could be a valuable piece in such machinations, either as a way to a potential claim to the throne or as a figurehead. And that was leaving aside the possibility that the bastard in question would become ambitious enough to attempt to seize what had been denied him by an accident of birth. The Blackfyre Rebellions had been fought over such ambitions, and they were only barely outside living memory.
Conversely, there was the argument that it was possible to raise a bastard as a friend to his legitimate half-siblings, and have them become close enough friends that ambition and faction alike would be forestalled. It was a risky gambit, but one that had been known to work in the past. Daeron the Second and Aerys the First had had no servant more faithful, or more fearsome, than Brynden Rivers, known to history as Bloodraven.
And, Serina found as she looked up, she couldn't bring herself to deny that Robert was trying to do right by his children. And that counted for much. "The knight would have to agree that his children with the giant's daughter would come before his other children," she said softly. "But yes, she would accept that he could not deny his children simply because he had not married their mother." She paused. "But before she could say yea or nay, the knight would have to ask her father's leave, for such is the law of their people."
"And the law of the knight's people as well," Robert said with a nod. He reached out and stroked Serina's cheek with a hand that was remarkably gentle for all that it was covered in a swordsman's calluses and backed by an arm as thick as Serina's leg. "So he will ask," he went on softly, "and pray for a favorable answer, for he would count himself honored above all other men if the giant's daughter would be his queen."
Chapter 68: Councils of Fear
Chapter Text
King Robert's request for Lady Phassos' hand, and it's acceptance by her father and the Braavosi Council of Thirty, was greeted with jubilation in the Kingdom of Myr. Those of us that had previously feared, however privately, for the longevity of the dynasty were made glad that at least King Robert would have a legitimate heir whose right to rule could not be denied. The Royal Army, and the Iron Legion especially, were made glad that our ally would be unquestionably bound to us, for as the descendant of a Braavosi citizen King Robert's heir would have a legal right to the aid of the Commune. And those of use who were closest to King Robert, myself among them, were made glad that His Grace had at last found at least a semblance of the love he had felt for Lyanna Stark.
The reaction to the news of King Robert's impending marriage among our enemies may have to await further research as their archives become available for public review, but the news of their reactions that reached us was unanimous in its alarm . . .
-Justice and Vengeance: The Sunset Company and the Kingdom of Myr in the Slave Warsby Maester Gordon, published 317 AC
The Archon of Tyrosh sat back in his chair, concealing surprise with the ease of a lifelong politician. "You cannot possibly be serious."
"Far to the contrary, Your Excellency," said Brachyllo Hestos, "we are completely serious."
The Archon fixed the Myrish triarch with a baleful stare. "Your squadron is one of the best formations in the wholefleet," he snapped. "Do you really think that I would let my people lose one of the most critical planks in their shield on short notice, with theBraavosipreparing for war?"
"It is preciselybecausethe Braavosi are preparing for war that we wish to depart," said Noriros Brenion, who was leaning on his cane to spare his twisted leg; it was a sign of how tense the meeting was that he had not been given a chair. "The last time we faced the Braavosi and their Andal dogs we barely survived as a people, and then we faced only a tithe of the Titan's strength. There are,right now, two hundred and fifty great galleys either fully ready for sea or else in the last stages of fitting-out and sea trials. Before two months are out, our source expects the strength of that fleet to rise to three hundred great galleys or more, leaving aside galiots and fustas." Noriros paused, almost visibly casting about for words.
"Even leaving aside any ships that the Andals contribute," he finally went on, "it will be the greatest fleet seen in this half of the world since the Century of Blood. It will carry at least twenty-seven thousand Braavosi marines and armed rowers and probably more on the order of thirty thousand. And as I said, that number isn't considering the ships the Andals will contribute and the fighting men that will be aboard them. If Robert the Bloody adds his fleet to the mix, as he will given his upcoming marriage, then we will be facing perhaps four hundred to four hundred and fifty galleys and between thirty-eight and forty thousand men. Your Excellency's fleet has, at its fullest possible strength under current conditions, perhaps one hundred and seventy galleys and maybe ten thousand men."
"And to that fleet," Brachyllo jumped in, "we can add only four hundred men fit to fight in a sea battle like the one where we defeated Stannis, in three or four galleys. Once those men die, as they almost certainly will in such a battle . . ."
"Your line of argument precludes the possibility that we will be victorious," the Archon interrupted, twin spots of color appearing under his cheekbones. "I would have thought that the men who made our great victory possible would have more faith than to concede defeat with the battle still unfought."
"Even victories, Your Excellency, produce casualties," Noriros said waspishly. "We of Myr entered the Battle of Tyrosh with a thousand men and left it with two hundred and eighty-seven. If we sustain such a rate of losses again,then our people will die. Even if we retook Myr the day after such a victory was won, there would not be enough of us left to rebuild our city as it was. We would be," he paused again, striving for a suitable word, "absorbed, like a drop of wine in a goblet of water, by the other people who would flock to the city."
"And so you would run like a pack of whipped dogs," the Archon spat, "and abandon the people who gave you a home to replace the one you lost. Damn your souls,we have a deal!"
"And if we adhere to that deal, then we will be destroyed," Brachyllo snapped. "We have people among us who managed to survive one sack, Your Excellency. We will not make them suffer another. And so wewillbe sailing for Volantis before the month is out. With or without your leave."
"Not if I raise the harbor chain and order the Bleeding Tower to sink any True Myrish ship attempting to leave the harbor, you won't," the Archon said coldly.
The Myrish Triarchs froze for a long moment. Eventually Brachyllo found his voice. "You would order your soldiers to sink ships carrying women and children?" he asked softly.
"I would most certainly order them to sink ships carrying traitors," the Archon said, his voice still cold. "And if you attempt to sail without my leave, then youaretraitors; under the terms of our deal, you get to govern yourselves according to Myrish law and in return you pay a tax and fight when called upon to defend the city and it's possessions. Lazario Ahratis, gods preserve his memory, put his signature on the paper next to mine in that very room out there," he pointed to the door that led out of his sparsely-furnished private office to the more sumptuously-appointed receiving room, "and swore upon his honor to uphold its terms. By the blood he shed in defense of this city, I hold you to that oath,gentlemen," he spat the term, "so that I might fulfillmyoath, to protect my people. I will not,cannot, let even the smallest of weapons slip my grasp without making full use of them. Not with this Braavosi fleet hanging over our heads."
The Myrish Triarchs stood silent, clearly non-plussed by the Archon's vehemence. "What if the fleet did not sail?" Stallen Naerolis asked finally.
The Archon blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
Stallen looked the Archon in the eyes. "What if the fleet did not sail, or was at least weakened or delayed," he said steadily. "Would that be held to satisfy the terms of our deal?"
The Archon steepled his fingers. "What did you have in mind?" he asked slowly.
Stallen told him. The Archon's jaw dropped in astonishment and Brachyllo and Noriros looked at their fellow Triarch as they might look at a madman. "You're insane," the Archon said finally, his voice shaking slightly. "Shades of hell, man, it can't be done. You'll die."
Stallen smiled wryly. "Your Excellency has some knowledge of what has happened to my family since the coming of the Andals, and the life that is left to me," he said. "I invite you to consider whether it is a life I would prefer to live out to the end."
The Archon made a gesture of concession. "Even allowing that," he said, "how would you go about it? One or two ships, I can buy easily. A few tied up on a single wharf, likewise. But blood of the gods, how do you propose to burn awhole fleet?"
"It will take some luck and careful management," Stallen said, nodding. "But I think it can be done. And if it cannot, then I have an alternative in mind." Again, he told the Archon. Again, the Archon's jaw dropped.
"You really are insane," the Archon said softly. "I should have you locked up, for the safety of the city."
Stallen's smile was frighteningly mirthless. "It's not your city that is responsible for what has happened to my family, Your Excellency," he said calmly. "And if what I propose works, then it will be an even greater blow than the destruction of the fleet."
The Archon stared at him over the tops of his steepled fingers for a long moment. Finally, he nodded. "I am willing to let this course you have proposed fulfill our deal," he said. "Either the first course or the alternative. The only condition I have is that of success."
Stallen shook his head. "With respect, Your Excellency, we must be allowed to sail whether I succeed or not," he said firmly. "I know that what I propose to do is, shall we say, extreme, even by the standards of this war, and what it will mean for my sisters to be related to the man who carried it out. So I trust you will agree that my price must be as steep as I can bargain for."
The Archon frowned, then nodded unwillingly. "Indeed," he said tartly. "I accept your terms, Master Naerolis. Sail to Braavos to carry out your scheme, and I shall allow True Myr to sail where they please on the next tide."
Stallen bowed formally. "Done and done, Your Excellency," he said. "I shall need the rest of today and tomorrow to settle my affairs here and arrange for the necessary materials, and then I shall sail."
XXX
Vyrenno Phasselion, Gonfalonier of the Lyseni Conclave, lowered the letter onto his desk and looked at his city's new Captain-General over the rims of his spectacles. "Well, then, Captain," he said, "it seems we have some decisions to make. Advise me, if you would."
Daario Naharis bowed shortly. "My first advice, Your Excellency, is this," he replied. "Withdraw all Lyseni ships from Tyrosh at once. Send the order today, if possible."
Vyrenno leaned back in his chair. "You would have me jettison the alliance which is the cornerstone of the city's foreign policy?"
"I would have you untie a stone from around the city's neck," Daario said. "Barring the direct intervention of the gods, Tyrosh will fall in the next war. Against the Kingdom of Myr alone they might have a chance. Against the Commune of Braavos alone they might have a chance. Against a slave rebellion alone they might have a chance. Against the Kingdom, the Commune, and their slaves all at once, or even one right after another, they don't have a minnow's chance against a shark. Even if Salladhor Saan rallies every pirate and corsair on the waves to their defense, it won't be enough; they'll fight for as long as they can win, but at the first sign of defeat they'll take their plunder and run for the horizon. And when that happens Tyrosh will fall and everyone who fights for them will die. Your Excellency knows it, I know it; gods of death, the Tyroshi themselves know it. Why else would they send away so many of their children?"
Vyrenno nodded agreement. He had seen the reports of his secret service on how many children of wealthy Tyroshi, and not just merchants and trading captains but magisters, had landed in Lys over the two months since word of King Robert's impending marriage had broken. Officially those children were visiting relatives or family friends, but his spies had noted that many of them appeared to be in possession of important family records and commercial papers, and carrying substantial amounts of money as well. The daughters of the chief shareholders of the Hastyrion Bank, who with their brothers were supposedly on the first leg of a grand tour, had spent the first night at their lodgings unpicking the hems of their dresses and removing a fortune in jewels, according to one spy, while their brothers had been carrying thousands of ducats apiece. The Lyseni branch of the Hastyrion Bank had reported receiving a rather large deposit of capital the day after they had arrived; he suspected that they had, if anything, underreported just how much capital they had received.
And while some might regard Daario's advice as advocating for the cowardly abandonment of an ally, Tyrosh was Daario's homeland. The connection was doubtless tenuous, or else he would never have gone for a sellsword, but even so the bonds of patriotism were not easily thrown off, even for a man who had been dismissed in disgrace and exiled. For Daario to be able to recommend throwing his homeland and countrymen to the wolves showed a remarkable degree of strategic detachment.
Of course, it could also be a way for him to exact revenge upon the magisters who had engineered his disgrace. In which case it would demonstrate a truly epic degree of spite.
"What do you recommend, then?" he asked. "Aside from abandoning our allies to their fate."
"Three things, Your Excellency," Daario replied. "Firstly, that we make plans to seize upon as much Tyroshi territory on the mainland as we may be able to, in the confusion that will result from their fall. We will not be able to prevent the Kingdom of Myr from seizing much of the northern Disputed Lands, but we should be able to annex Sinuessa at least, for unless I miss my guess the Myrish will be focused on the coast more than the interior."
Vyrenno nodded. "Especially since they will want to maximize the advantage gained by the availability of the Commune's war-fleet," he agreed. Left unsaid was the slight problem that doing so would be a betrayal of Lys' alliance with Tyrosh, but that alliance's days were numbered. And from a certain standpoint, they would be doing the Tyroshi in those lands a favor by keeping out from under the stag's hoof. "Continue."
"Secondly," Daario went on, "that steps be taken to prevent a slave rebellion on the mainland. And not just repressive measures, but positive measures as well."
"The Conclave will never vote to approve emancipation," Vyrennno warned him.
Daario gestured agreement. "I know, Your Excellency, which is why I did not suggest emancipation. However, a lightening of the conditions under which the slaves work should at least be granted, and perhaps a way by which slaves who keep faith with their masters and labor diligently might eventually earn their freedom."
"Indentured servitude?" Vyrenno asked, narrowing his eyes. "This might be possible. Of course, as a domestic matter it will have to be approved by the Conclave." The Gonfalonier's powers regarding foreign policy and military matters were broad, but in domestic affairs the Conclave held the upper hand and was not shy about using it.
"Third, and perhaps most importantly," Daario continued with a nod, "we must find a new ally to replace Tyrosh. One more likely to be able to stand up to both the Commune and the Kingdom."
"You mean Volantis," Vyrennno said flatly. At Daario's nod he shook his head. "The Conclave will never grant the concessions that the Triarchs will demand as the price of a military alliance."
"I submit, Your Excellency, that the Conclave would do well to contemplate the position we find ourselves in," Daario said, steel entering his voice. "Against either the Myrish or the Braavosi alone I would be confident of at least forcing a stalemate, provided of course that I had freedom of action in how I conducted the war." Vyrenno nodded; that was the condition that Daario had insisted on before accepting the Captain-Generalship, and he had decided to give it to him. Captains with experience of fighting the Andals, and even of holding their own against them for at least a time, were not so thick on the ground that one who volunteered his services could be readily passed up. "Against both of them together, on the other hand . . ." Daario shook his head. "In that event, Your Excellency, I would not be prepared to guarantee the security of either the mainlandorthe isles. Not in the face of the Iron Legion and the Braavosi fleet acting in unison."
Vyrenno's mouth twisted. For such a young institution the Iron Legion already had a fearsome reputation, and that of the Braavosi fleet was proverbial. And for all the drilling and the brave proclamations, Vyrenno had little confidence in the ability of the militia to stand up to either of them. The only force the city had that did have his confidence, beside the fleet, was the thousand Unsullied that his agents in Astapor had been able to buy before the price had become prohibitive, and even for Unsullied forty to one was long odds. "I'll open a line of correspondence," he said. "But I doubt we'll be able to get the Triarchs to commit to anything before their war with the Qohori wraps up and that could take months, if not a year or more."
"At the very least we can start swaying them to our side," Daario said earnestly. "And from that we can build higher. We need an alliance that commits the Grand Army to our aid or the Commune and the Kingdom will eat us alive."
XXX
Salladhor Saan prided himself on his self-possession. Both because it was how he maintained his standing in the eyes of his crew and because it was a matter of personal pride that he met every crisis life threw at him with an imperturbability worthy of the ancient Stoics. And his crew appreciated it; their captain might be a peaco*ck of a man, but he was unquestionably aman. Ask anyone who had seen him stare down a tavern full to bursting with riotously drunk pirates who had just been told that shore leave was canceled.
So when he looked down from the roof of the officially-on-loan Tower at Bloodstone Harbor onto the anarchy that had descended on the island's main settlement, he did so with no more than a raised eyebrow and a slight, indulgent smile. Well, you couldn't expect pirates to be as disciplined as Unsullied, could you? Most of them had become pirates preciselybecausethey'd had a bellyful of discipline, after all.
Which was not to say that pirates couldn't be disciplined, it was just that they had to be disciplined in a way that they could stomach. The articles that each crew drew up among themselves invariably acknowledged the absolute command of the captain in battle or in storm, but otherwise all affairs of moment had to be decided by a vote of the assembled officers and representatives of the crew, if not by the whole ship's company. Neither the most rabid democrat of Volantis nor the most intransigent republican of Braavos would have been out of place in a pirate crew. And while the articles regulated shipboard life as well as any other code could have, few of them said anything at all about how the ship's company was to conduct themselves on shore when they were not on the ship's business.
To make matters worse, the Brethren of the Waves were, as one Westerosi maester had described them, 'as diverse a set of rascals as any that ever put to sea'; Salladhor's flagship alone carried men from no less than fifteen different nations. Theoretically the Brethren forswore the lands that had spawned them and the allegiances and hatreds they had grown up with when they signed the articles of their crew, but such sentiments ran deep and were not easily put aside. And even where they were, they were usually replaced by a whole new set of allegiances and hatreds; the Brethren were no less prone to faction than any other nation, and feuds between captains were almost always taken up by their crews.
So, when the flotilla of fifty ships that Salladhor had been able to assemble on the basis of his name and the promise of Tyroshi gold had reached Bloodstone Harbor, the small town had become engulfed in something like an ongoing low-level riot. If it weren't for the fact that every man had been forbidden from carrying any weapon larger than a seaman's knife onshore, and if there hadn't been a nigh-constant drizzling rain that had kept the men inclined to stay indoors for the past six days, there would have been far more blood shed than the five brawls Salladhor knew about, in which four men had died and ten more had been seriously injured. Fortunately, he had been able to placate the captains of the crews involved, otherwise there reallywouldhave been a riot. Just because the captains he had recruited had sworn to accept his orders in battle and agree to an equal division of any plunder taken didn't mean that they all loved each other.
Especially, he mused as he stroked his goatee, since not all of his erstwhile subordinates were equally enthusiastic about the fight they found themselves facing. A few, like Bartoleo the Black and Avary Waters, were either smart enough to agree with Salladhor that the expansion of Braavosi power threatened their very existence or simply hated the Braavosi enough that they hadn't needed much persuading. But most of them, Salladhor knew, would fight for as long as Tyrosh seemed a likely winner and then take their gains and run for it. As the saying went, there were old pirates and bold pirates, but no old bold pirates. And while the Stepstones might be the richest hunting ground in the Narrow Sea, there were other seas on the world-ocean, and other hunting grounds in them.
Which, he suspected, was at least part of the reason why so few of his fellow captains had answered his call. He had twenty ships under his personal command, and the other thirty hulls were unevenly divided between eighteen other captains, but by rights there should have been far more than that. There had been more than two hundred independent captains that he knew of plying the Narrow Sea, and more than a hundred and fifty of them concentrated in the Stepstones. But the archipelago seemed to have almost emptied over the past several months; the ships he had sent out to spread the word that Tyrosh was looking for sellsails had come back reporting that the traditional haunts and lairs of their fellow sea-rovers seemed all but abandoned. Salladhor shrugged; it was a bit much to expect the Brethren to unite, for it was proverbial that if you gathered ten pirates together and asked them what the best general-purpose sail plan was you would get ten different answers. Especially since the thought of fighting the Braavosi was one that would make even the fiercest pirate think twice; even before it's recent reawakening the Titan had been a fearsome enemy. But for the Brethren to scatter themselves in such a fashion was almost unheard-of. Only Daemon Targaryen had managed to disperse the Brethren for any length of time, and he had had a dragon to do it with.
Nor were there even Ironborn to be found. The Ironborn had been a longstanding presence in the Stepstones, especially when they were between rebellions and had to seek prey beyond Westeros. They hadn't been considered fully-fledged members of the Brethren, but they had certainly been at least friendly rivals when they hadn't been allies. The past four years, however, had seen the Ironborn forsake reaving in droves to pledge themselves to one king or another. Victarion Greyjoy had a greater name than any Ironborn since Dalton the Red Kraken, and made no secret of his ambition to pay the iron price to increase his fame; it was rumored that he had sworn to present King Robert with a Tyroshi galley for every knight of King Stannis' that had fallen in the Battle of Tyrosh. And his older brother Euron was, if anything, his equal in reputation; from a younger son with no real prospects he had risen to be King Stannis' master of ships by sole virtue of his ability, loyalty, and prowess. The Ironborn in the Narrow Sea that hadn't chosen a side before the Battle of Tyrosh had streamed to Myr and King's Landing to pledge themselves, partly to be able to bask in the reflected honor and partly because they could see that if they stayed independent then sooner or later they would have to face either Victarion or Euron. And aside from the unlikelihood of victory, the Drowned God's law was that Ironborn could not shed the blood of other Ironborn.
Nor had any Ironborn come to replace them. Ordinarily the flow of Ironborn into the Narrow Sea only stopped when winter made the seas unnavigable, but summer had months still to run, if not years, and not a single new longship had been seen in the isles in some months. Either the Ironborn had lost their taste for venture, which Salladhor would believe when pigs flew, or something very fishy was going on.
And some of the Brethren thathadanswered his call, he was sure, would be looking for the chance to change sides. The Braavosi hated pirates only slightly less than they hated slavers, but they had a reputation for being open to negotiation. More than a few pirates who had found themselves in a tight corner had managed to buy a pardon from the Titan by giving up their fellows, or some other valuable information. Those pirates were only rarely allowed to leave the lagoon again, as the Braavosi weren't stupid, but few enough pirates managed a peaceful retirement that being able to do so was a form of triumph all its own. And Salladhor feared that his fellow captains were looking at the resurgence of the Braavosi, the awakening of the Westerosi, and the emergence of the Kingdom of Myr and coming to the conclusion that it was better to jump ship now when there was still time to negotiate than to wait too long and have nothing to bargain with. You couldn't buy your freedom by betraying another pirate if you were the last pirate left standing.
He shrugged and turned back to the stairs that led down the Tower. He had been dealing with his fellow pirates since he was old enough to walk a ship's deck; he had withstood his first attempted betrayal before he was fifteen. This situation might come with higher stakes, but it would be nothing new.
XXX
Donys Rahtheon's calm face as he poured himself his customary afternoon glass of watered wine masked a turbulent mind. The news from the west hadn't improved since the Dragon Company had ensconced itself in Volantene service. Not only was the Kingdom of Myr growing more powerful almost by the month thanks to the stream of immigrants that poured into its harbor, but the Usurper's impending marriage bade fair not only to solidify his adventurer's gains into a dynastic inheritance but also to irreversibly bind the Titan to his side. And the news from across the Narrow Sea was even more depressing; not only had the Crackclaw Point rising been definitively crushed, but Queen Cersei was pregnantagain, thus solidifying the position of the junior branch of the Baratheons even further.
He sipped at his glass moodily, staring at the map of western Essos that dominated one wall of his modestly appointed office as his mind turned over the new information. On the one hand, he would not enjoy appraising Ser Arthur of the Baratheons' good fortune, for the Lord Commander was increasingly short-tempered about such news. On the other hand, at least the news supported Donys' own conclusions about the Company's situation.
There were two schools of thought about the Company's long-term strategy. Both agreed that the endgame should be the reconquest of Westeros and the reinstallation of the Targaryen dynasty on the Iron Throne, but they differed on when that should occur and what the Company should do in the meantime. The first school, which called itself the Restorationist and was helmed by Ser Arthur, argued that the reconquest should be undertaken by no later than Viserys' twentieth nameday and that in the meantime the Company should keep itself as detached and footloose as possible, in order to be able to exploit any opportunity that might arise to return to Westeros. The second school, which called itself the Valyrian, was if anything even more ambitious, if differently so. That the ultimate goal should be the reconquest of Westeros was unquestioned, but why should the dynasty stop there? As the last heirs of Old Valyria left standing, were not the Targaryens rightfully the rulers of Essos as well as Westeros? That being the case, the logic ran, the Company's short-term goal should be to form a power base in Essos that could be used to support the reconquest of Westeros, with the eventual goal of planting the standard of the three-headed dragon from Lannisport to New Ghis.
Donys considered himself the head of the Valyrian school, and had come to two conclusions regarding the Company's short-term objectives. Firstly, the existence of the Valyrian faction had to be kept as secret as possible, for any Targaryen kingdom of the East would have to include Volantis if it was to be a long-term concern and the Triarchs would not look kindly on any plans to supplant them. Arthur's report of the Battle of Chroyane had confirmed his worst fears of the Triarchs' plans for the tiger cloaks, and he had no illusions that they would not do the same thing to the Dragon Company if they too-obviously strained at their leash.
Secondly, when the time did come for the Company to execute its plans, it had to mark its emergence by destroying all opposition within the city. In consequence, Donys could find it in his heart to welcome not only the news of the Baratheons' good fortune, but also the news of the tiger cloaks' destruction. The tiger cloaks had been numerous and potent enough that they could have presented an insurmountable obstacle to any seizure of power by the Dragon Company, especially if the Golden Company had come to the defense of the Triarchs as well. But with the tiger cloaks being destroyed, and the Golden Company reportedly drifting towards a rapprochement if Ser Arthur's correspondence was to be believed, then the only obstacles remaining in their way were the Unsullied and the Militia, and Donys was fairly sure that careful planning and careful management could neutralize both.
To begin with, the Militia was primarily being trained by men seconded from the Dragon and Golden Companies, so the habit of obeying men wearing Targaryen colors was already being instilled. In addition to which, the Militia was primarily composed of men from the middle orders of Volantene society, families that were well-off but not rich enough to count as magisters, much less as Old Blood. Some of them even had relatives in the Dragon and Golden Companies, given their recruitment drives before the war, and those that didn't had more in common with the knights and minor aristocrats of the Companies than they did with the Old Blood, who considered them a lower form of life for not being able to trace their ancestries back to Old Valyria.
More to the point, despite the city's recent martial turn, the Old Blood seemed content to ensconce themselves behind the Black Walls and soldier as a blood-sport more than a serious matter. The tigers might vaunt the martial glory of their ancestors, but those that Donys had seen march out of the northern gates had done so as cohort commanders or aides to General Maegyr, riding fine bloodstock horses and wearing magnificently decorated plate armor while their soldiers marched on their own feet and wore plain brigandines. To be sure the Companies' officers also rode good horses and wore fine armor, but they had the reputation to ground the display. Aside from traditional habits of obedience and bonds of patronage, there was precious little to bind the Old Blood officers to their citizen-soldiers, for whom the current string of wars was a deadly serious matter indeed. The Black Walls might be impregnable, but the walls around the rest of the city were not so reputed, and the stories from the Disputed Lands made very clear what fate the burghers of Volantis could expect at the hands of a slave uprising, much less an invasion by the Iron Legion.
And those stories were being refreshed and expanded upon by the Tyroshi who had started streaming into the harbor, bearing word that the Kingdom of Myr, already considered an abode of devils and a habitation of monsters, was now allied with Braavos, the old enemy. Donys had also reached out to his countrymen who had previously taken refuge in Tyrosh to offer them a new shelter, both out of genuine concern and fellow-feeling and also to fan the flames of agitation that the Tyroshi exodus was sparking. Part of bringing the Militia onboard, and also of reconciling the Volantene people to a foreign upstart, would be presenting them with what his mathematics tutor had called a binary solution set; they could put their trust in King Viserys, or they could take their chances with a barbarian invasion whose first goal would be to kill every freeman in sight.
The Unsullied presented a harder challenge, but ironically a simpler one. All that was needed was to acquire the authority to give them orders and they could be at least neutralized until things were settled. A failure to do so, of course, would make matters highly dangerous, especially since the confines of the city streets would play to the Unsullied's discipline and skill at close-order fighting, but Donys did not plan to fail.
Any reasonable strategist would have dubbed the plans an exercise in madness, but Donys was convinced that they were the only plans that afforded the Targaryen dynasty any hope of long-term success. The Blackfyres had played it safe when they were exiled, and in three short generations they had degenerated into only another company of mercenaries in a land full of them. Donys would not let the king he had sworn himself to become another sellsword, nor would he let his granddaughter be a mercenary's whor*. The only way to forestall such a decline was to strike boldly and let not a single opportunity pass.
Of course, those plans were contingent upon the Dragon Company coming out of the current war not only victorious, but covered in glory. Donys glowered at the stretch of the Rhoyne between Chroyane and Dagger Lake. The reports of the Battle of Chroyane had been uniformly positive, but that had been against an advance guard only. The main Qohori army had yet to be attended to. Donys had never been much given to nerves, but that was because he was so good at planning and unfortunately planning only took you so far in the game of thrones. You could plan a maneuver down to the second, but sooner or later you had to roll the iron dice and pray that they came up sixes.
It was only in these days, after Myr had been irreparably lost and Tyrosh stood on the brink of the abyss, that the leaders of the Free Cities truly realized that the old era with its limited wars was dead and buried, and a new age of annihilation had dawned. To their credit, when they realized that if they did not change their assumptions about and practices of warfare then they would perish, they adapted swiftly . . .
-Soldier of Fortune: The Memoirs of Daario Naharis
Chapter 69: The Bloody Dagger
Chapter Text
Taraban Hyrgos, Grand Commander of the Army of Qohor, glowered from the ramparts of Fort Dagger at where the Grand Army of Volantis was encamped a mile away from the fort. They might have taken casualties in Ahrah's criminally reckless attack, but they still numbered more than thirty thousand men, and their fleet had reportedly been untouched. "Damn you, Ahrah," he snarled under his breath. "Your orders were to observe and harass, not fight and die."
"If you had sent Ahrah and his force into the mists with proper protection, as I recommended," came a dry, pedantic voice behind him, "he might have remembered those orders."
Hyrgos' hand tightened on the pommel of his sword. "I do not recall soliciting your advice, priest," he said coldly. "Nor were you given any power of command by the Council of Nobles. You are here to minister to the soldiersonly."
"And you prevented me from doing so by refusing to let any of my fellows join Ahrah's force," the priest said reasonably. "Ever since Garin the Great raised the waters of Mother Rhoyne with his curse, the Sorrows have been a haunt of the weird and the unnatural. To send soldiers of the city into such a place without the means to protect themselves against such . . ." the priest clicked his tongue. "As well to have sent them into battle without shields or armor. Their deaths would have been kinder than those they found in the mists."
Hyrgos turned to glower at the priest, who stared back at him serenely from under his cowl, which concealed everything from his eyebrows upwards but did nothing to hide his bristling beard and almost unnaturallycertaineyes. "If you want an opportunity to make up for that misfortune," he said, suppressing anger behind a mask of calm, "then I hereby grant you one. Call up the Black Goat and have him crush the Volantenes to dust."
The priest narrowed his eyes. "Do not, I pray you, make mockery of the god," he said testily. "He moves in His own ways, and aids His followers, or aids them not, as it pleases Him." He shrugged. "Nevertheless, I shall invoke Him, and summon what aid I can. It would be easier if a fitting offering were at hand."
Hyrgos nodded grudgingly. "There are a pair of attempted deserters who were caught in the act awaiting punishment, along with a thief," he said. "Take them if you want; I will need all the horses I have for this battle, unless I miss my guess."
The priest nodded. "We will hold the sacrifice at sundown," he said, his fingers twitching at the ends of his voluminous sleeves. "Shall I reserve a place among the witnesses for you?"
Hyrgos nodded. "I will attend," he promised, "barring the exigencies of battle." As the priest turned and strode away (omitting even a polite nod, much less the customary bow) Hyrgos turned back to glare at the Volantenes. He was a devout man, in his way, but he had little taste for the theatrics of the Black Goat's priesthood. If nothing else they seemed to take too much joy in the helplessness of their sacrifices. He shrugged to himself; in any case, he had to afford the priest the necessary courtesies. The struggle between the army and the priesthood was an old one, and bitter, but it was one conducted behind closed doors. It was unseemly, and potentially dangerous, to admit to division before outsiders.
Especially since Qohor was nowhere near the most populous of the Free Cities. The Black Goat was choosy in His followers, and his dictates were stringent enough that few from beyond His city willingly chose to serve him. Where Volantis could muster forty thousand men without especial effort, Qohor had strained itself to raise half that number from its heartland and vassal towns. Were it not for the eight thousand Unsullied that made up the core of his army, Qohor could not have dreamed of challenging Volantis for control of the Rhoyne.
And for all the faith his countrymen placed in the eunuch slave-soldiers, Hyrgos was aware that the Unsullied were of limited value. They could stand and fight shield-to-shield better than anyone, but they were only able to do it so well by virtue ofonlybeing able to do that one thing well. Theycouldmaneuver in an open-field battle, but they served best as a living fortress that the rest of an army could anchor itself on. The rigidity that their style of formation-fighting required made them unsuited to maneuvering quickly, or over broken ground, or in anything but a straight line.
Hence, he reflected, the fort he had had built. The key to any sort of battle but especially to a siege was morale, and the Unsullied could outlast the morale of any other soldiery under the sun. And the Volantenes wouldhaveto take his fort; if they didn't then they would be leaving a hostile force in their rear with a protected base of supply, ready to cut their supply lines and leave them stranded more than a hundred miles from their nearest support or relief. Supply had determined more campaigns than swords, and Hyrgos was ready to prove the dictum once again.
XXX
Garello Maegyr smiled slightly as he surveyed the Qohori fort from the front of his tent. "A very ugly brute, isn't it, gentlemen?" he asked lightly. "And yet, I deem, one that we will find easy enough to conquer."
"Gods be good and make it so," Ser Myles Toyne said sourly. "I thought the Qohori bastard we fought in the mists was a fool for attacking us the way he did, but if it was to gain the time to let this thing be built . . ." He twitched his head to one side in a half-shrug. "Well, it wasn't to no purpose, is all I'll say."
Fort Dagger (they had learned its name from a deserter) was a squat polygon of piled earth surrounded by the ditch that had been excavated in order to raise the ramparts. Its shape was based on a triangle pointed southward down the Rhoyne, but the point of the triangle had been chopped off and replaced with a pair of arrowhead-shaped bastions projecting outward from the two long sides of the triangle, so that it looked like the head of a two-pronged fishing spear. One of the rear points of the fort reached almost to the waters of Dagger Lake, and there was a makeshift gate both there and in between the two front bastions.
The walls of the fort weren't very high, only about eight or nine feet or so, but combined with the ditch in front of them they made for a significant obstacle, especially since they would be covered by a combination of Unsullied and crossbowmen. Nor did it help matters that the two bastions at the front of the fort were constructed in such a way that fire from one could cover the face of the other from the flank, and vice-versa, and it was close enough to the shore that the pirate galleys resting on the lake could cover the seaward face of the fort with their on-board scorpions and archers. Fort Dagger might be small, but it would be a tough nut to crack.
Fortunately, Garello knew, there was more than one way to hunt ahrakkar. He turned to his captains, who had assembled around the table that his slaves had set up outside his tent. "Gentlemen, I have a plan in place, but it shall require each of you to act in concert. Ser Myles, Ser Arthur, I shall need your companies to march north of the fort, and then turn inwards towards the lakeshore." His gesture on the crude map that his scribe-slave had drawn up last night described a parabolic arc around the landward side of the fort, through the shortgrass-covered flatlands that stretched from the Rhoyne to the edge of the Dothraki Sea, where the grass could grow as tall as a warhorse. "Once that maneuver is completed, your men shall begin to entrench around the fort, both facing towards and away from it. While this is going on, Commander Stasselion and the fleet will emerge from the river onto the lake, engage the pirates that the Qohori have employed, and either destroy or drive them away." With his other hand, he described another parabolic arc on the map, this one on the lake. "In this way, gentlemen, we shall cut the fort off from resupply and reinforcement by both land and sea, and force their surrender, which I expect before the sennight is up."
His Essosi captains nodded agreement; it was the classic solution to such a problem as this. Two relatively simple maneuvers would effectively neuter the only army Qohor could afford to put in the field, and essentially end the war.
Ser Arthur, on the other hand, looked dubious. "With respect, my lord," he said, "the outflanking movement seems vulnerable to me. If the Qohori have a second force in the vicinity, and if the Qohori commander in the fort is able and brave enough to seize the opportunity, then we could be caught between the hammer and the anvil." The exiled knight's gauntleted fists tapped together illustratively as Ser Myles gestured agreement.
Garello nodded. "I quite agree, Ser Arthur," he said genially, "which is why I shall arrange for the Qohori commander to be too busy to entertain such a counterstroke." He turned to Captain Harleo, who commanded the remaining tiger cloaks. "Captain, I shall require your men to launch holding attacks against the fort of sufficient vigor to both cover Ser Arthur and Ser Myles' movement and also to prevent the enemy from opening their gates to any pirates who manage to make their way to shore. It will be hard, and dangerous, but I can think of none in the army so able to do it as the Claws of Volantis. Can I depend on them to carry it out?"
Captain Harleo, a grizzled but still spry fifty-year-old whose stripes had grown mottled with age spots, straightened to a degree that looked almost painful. "We have not failed the city in a thousand years, master," he ground out. "We shall not fail now."
Garello bowed shortly. "I did not think you would," he said, injecting sincerity into his voice. "It was for that reason that I asked that so many of you be sent with me." Harleo seemed to swell slightly with pride at the compliment, but Garello didn't miss the glance that shot between Ser Arthur and Ser Myles.Don't fear, gentlemen,he thought,the Triarchs have no such plans for you. That I know of, anyway.
XXX
Hyrgos frowned as he watched the probing attack retreat down the glacis of the rampart.Alright, fine,he groused to himself,the bastard does have an idea of what he's playing at.
That had been the third probe that the fort had withstood in the past hour. In and of themselves, none of them had been terribly significant, simply rushes up the sloping earth walls of the fort by a few hundred tiger cloaks at a time covered by crossbow fire, but together they added up to a serious effort. Especially since they were backed by a close encirclement of the fort by what seemed to be the whole force of the tiger cloaks that the Volantene general had available to him. Just a score of paces beyond the ditch the tiger cloaks had established a shield-wall, their spearmen planting their oval shields in the ground and crouching behind them while their crossbowmen loosed volleys over their heads.
It was a costly stratagem, for along with the casualties incurred by the probing attacks, the return fire of the Qohorik crossbowmen and light infantry produced a steady trickle of casualties from the surrounding tiger cloaks. But it forced Hyrgos to keep his men under cover in order to preserve them from the Volantene crossbows, and it also prevented him from dispatching a force to prevent the encircling maneuver he had spied through the dust towards the east. For one thing, any force he dispatched would most likely be cut off and pulled down unless he reinforced them. For another, the dispatch of such a force, and especially of reinforcements for it, would almost certainly provoke a general attack by the whole of the Grand Army. Fortifications could make up for relative lack of numbers, but only to a degree, even if they were defended by Unsullied. His mouth tightened in a barely-perceptible grimace; it was just like the Volantenes to abandon their usually conservative tactics just when it would be inconvenient.
It was not the way of the Qohori aristocracy to make blatant displays of emotion; it was considered to show a lack of breeding. But simply because Hyrgos didn't spit on the ground didn't mean he didn't want to.
XXX
Ser Arthur Dayne had seen enough of Garello Maegyr to concede that while the Volantene was hardly Daeron the Young Dragon or Alyn Oakenfist come again, he was at least competent as a leader of men. Nonetheless, the unconscious self-assurance of the man grated on his nerves more than a little, especially when he applied it to deeds of arms. Self-confidence was a fine quality, indeed a necessary one, in a man-at-arms, but Arthur would have preferred it if Maegyr had a little less self-confidence and a little more practical experience. He had been right in his predictions of the enemy's likely actions so far, and judging by how he managed the army his military tutors had taught him well, but Ser Arthur would never believe that everything about war could be learned solely by precept.
Moreover, there was nothing in the Dragon Company's contract about taking unwarranted risks, nor would Arthur take any even if there were. The Dragon Company was the sole force remaining to the dynasty that Arthur had sworn a sacred vow to protect with his last breath, and he had come too far and done too much to fail in his duty.
As a result, while the Dragon Company marched quickly, it did so in column of bandas, with the knights and men-at-arms on the left side of each column and the squires, valets, and archers on their right. In the event that a sally broke out of the fortress, the only orders that would need to be given would be 'halt', 'left face', 'dismount', and 'horse-holders to the rear'; that would put the company in battle array, with the knights and men-at-arms in the front line, the valets and archers backing them up, and the pages in the rear holding the horses of their lance-mates. Given the proximity of the Golden Company (they were marching side-by-side, in almost the same order) and the recent defrosting of relations between the two companies, that would give them good odds of at least surviving, if not outright defeating, any attempt at interfering with their maneuver.
Which, of course, presumed that the enemy would actually make such an attempt. Which they hadn't, so far, despite the fact that any man with eyes and a brain could see what they were attempting to do. Yet the Qohori commander seemed content to sit in his fort and let the Grand Army tighten the noose about him. Arthur turned to Ser Myles, who was riding beside him. "What in the Seven Hells is the bugger playing at?" he demanded, gesturing at the fort. "Warrior's blood, he's letting us pen him in without a fight! Any Westerosi commander would have at least sallied by now, if not met us in the open field!"
Ser Myles shrugged, no small feat in full plate. "This is the way of war, here," he said simply. "Or it was before the Sunset Company came. Don't fight if you can help it, and when you have to fight do so intelligently. Never fight when you can bluff, never bluff when you can maneuver. There's no profit in dead bodies, especially since no mercenary company worth the name will agree to a contract that doesn't allow them to collect the last month's pay owed to any dead." At Arthur's surprised look he shrugged again. "It's how their funerals are paid for, as well as any outstanding debts they leave behind."
Arthur frowned pensively. "I suppose that makes sense," he allowed. "But he should at least be attempting to break out of the tiger cloaks' cordon, instead of hunkering down like a turtle in its shell."
"The tiger cloaks will have to fall back from the ditch sooner or later," Ser Myles observed, "unless Chroyane gave them all a death wish. The Qohori probably figures that he can use his fleet to keep the fort supplied, and the fact of his army's existence to pin us here while his city tries to raise a force to come to his aid, and until then he doesn't gain anything by exposing his soldiers. It's why he put that fort so close to the water, not simply to be able to control and tax passing river traffic. On the other hand, whenourfleet breaks out of the river and gets into the lake . . ."
Arthur nodded.Nowhe was able to see the sense behind Maegyr's plan, with matters spelled out for him like that. Of course, it depended on the river fleet pulling its share of the weight.
XXX
The pirates of Dagger Lake were in every sense of the term a motley crew. It was a rare man among them, aside from the captains and a few lucky or thrifty officers, who had a breastplate; brigandines and mail-shirts were more common. Some, either by reason of poverty, extreme bravery, or incipient madness, fought almost entirely unarmored. They were raiders, not soldiers, was commonly the argument of such men, and so armor was as much hindrance as help, especially when approaching a vessel or lakeside camp by stealth. And in any case, it was better by far, they often went on, to rely on speed, shock, and ferocity to break the will of their victims to resist than to be so slowed by armor that the targeted crew had the opportunity to regain their courage and fight back.
Most pirates, being reasonably sane men, thought that such men were insane, but since they often insisted on being among the first to board their madness was indulged; better for a victim who did fight back to kill them, the thinking ran, rather than someone in full possession of their wits. The men who plied the riverine trade tended to be smart, tough, and either well-armed, fast, or stealthy; the few hard women who captained river-boats had those qualities to a degree that few men could hope to match. Such people often did fight back, on the theory that if you held the pirates away from your helmsman long enough for him to get you away from the pirates' galley, then you stood decent odds of preserving your craft, your profit, and your life.
As a consequence of all this the pirates of Dagger Lake, thanks to the principles of natural selection, were as hard and warlike as any nation of thieves in the world and more than many, and possessed a practical knowledge of aquatic irregular warfare that had few equals. Someone who needed to acquire a riverine fleet on short notice could do much worse than to engage a few dozen captains as sellsails on the strength of a pardon for past crimes, a monthly subsidy, and a share of any loot. Such a fleet would have been extremely difficult for most nations to counter, but the tigers of Volantis had foreseen the possibility that Qohor would raise such a fleet, and taken measures to counter it.
The Volantene fleet was less storied than that of Braavos, but that was due to circ*mstances beyond the fleet's control. For one thing, Volantis had few overseas colonies and outposts, and so the Volantene fleet tended to be homebodies compared to the wide-ranging Braavosi. For another, while Braavos was a city of the sea, and depended on its fleet for its prosperity, security, and martial reputation abroad, Volantis was a fundamentally landward-looking city, where the fleet was very much the junior service to the army.
Reputation aside, the Volantene fleet was one of the three or four most powerful fleets in the Narrow Sea and its vicinity. It didn't have the same level of seamanship as the Braavosi, but what they lacked in ability they made up for in the heaviness of their ships and the valor and equipment of their naval infantry. Each Volantene marine wore plate half-armor consisting of breast-and-back, ringmail sleeves, tassets, and kettle helmet. Only Braavos was rich enough to give each of its naval infantrymen a similar degree of protection.
The great galleys of the seagoing fleet were too long and too deep-drafted to sail far up the Rhoyne, but Volantis had already had a small fleet of river galleys before the war, and it had built many more on short notice by dint of throwing manpower and resources at the problem. When those new galleys were finished, they had been loaded with approximately an eighth of Volantis' naval infantry, five thousand of the heaviest marines in the world. These were men thoroughly schooled in the uniquely ferocious art of shipboard combat, bearing heavy armor and carrying heavy weapons; crossbows that could punch a bolt in one side of a small boat and out the other, half-pikes, and heavy cleaver-like falchions.
When the Volantene river fleet came out of the mouth of the Rhoyne and rushed the pirate flotilla, the pirates gave way before them, intending to lure them into over-extending and then picking them off as they isolated themselves in a running battle. The problem with that plan was that the Volantene river fleet didn't just carry marines. Each river galley also carried a heavy springald in the bows, a giant crossbow capable of throwing a five-pound bolt sixty yards. When such a bolt hit a pirate galley, invariably lightly built for speed and maneuverability, the result was often catastrophic; a five-pound bolt could splinter a mast, shatter a rudder, or crack a keel if it hit just so. When men were struck by such projectiles, theysplashed.
Only three pirate galleys, it was later determined, were sunk by the fire of the springalds, but many more were dismasted or had their oar-banks knocked out of action. These, falling behind their fleeing mates, were easy prey for the Volantene galleys and their armored marines, who rampaged through the pirates like steel-clad wolves. Those pirates who managed to escape both bombardment and boarding, and there were more than a few, made a hasty calculation of the relative merits of discretion and valor and came to the conclusion that they weren't being paid enough to face such odds; they redoubled their efforts and fled before the Volantene river fleet, assisted by a stiff breeze out of the south-east that filled their sails. There would be other contracts, and in the meantime there were always their usual prey.
For an irregular and slapdash force, their retreat was remarkably disciplined; there was none of the wild tacking in every direction that a truly disorganized force would have engaged in and which would have caused potentially fatal collisions and the pirates even maintained a semblance of a formation, even if it was more of an amorphous blob than a neat affair of lines and columns. This was due to the nature of the pirates of Dagger Lake, and the environment that spawned them. Unlike the sea-rovers, who had the whole of the world-ocean to roam in and so were fostered in a freewheeling, chaotic environment where everyone was free to blaze their own trail, the pirates of Dagger Lake had to exist within an ecosystem that, by comparison, was so sharply circ*mscribed as to be nigh-claustrophobic. This cramped existence, confined to one relatively small lake and several-score miles of river with three powerful and perennially hostile nations penning them in, had bred a far more competitive and, paradoxically, a far more cooperative breed of pirate than that found in the Stepstones or the Basilisk Isles. You could not survive as a pirate on the Rhoyne if you were weak, but you also couldn't survive as a pirate on the Rhoyne if you could not, on occasion, leave by old feuds and stand with your fellow pirates against outsiders. It was this combination of natural selection for toughness, ferocity, cunning, and cooperativeness that had kept Dagger Lake free from law for so many years, despite being coveted by Volantis, Qohor, and Norvos all at once.
The pursuit lasted only half an hour before Commander Stassellion recalled his galleys with trumpet blasts and furiously waving signal flags; discipline in the Volantene fleet was ferociously strict. Only four hours after the initial attack, the fleet was executing the other part of it's share of the plan. Two-thirds of the river galleys took up a patrol pattern to guard the mouth of the river and the transport barges while covering the lakeward flank of the fort, while the other third beached themselves a safe distance from the fort and disembarked their marines. As the naval infantry clattered down the gangplanks and formed up by companies, the rower-slaves began to dismount the heavy springalds from the bows of each galley under the direction of the boatswain and lower them to the beach.
XXX
Early the next morning . . .
Hyrgos frowned at the letter that lay before him on the small table that was the centerpiece of his command tent. Most of his distemper was the simple fact that he hadn't gotten much sleep the night before; the Volantenes had continued their probing attacks through the night and into the small hours of the morning, forcing him to remain awake and ready to command the garrison. If he had gone to sleep and the fort had been stormed afterwards, he would have deserved to be hanged, with a short drop.
The rest of his foul mood was due to the contents of the letter.
Dear Ser,it read, in flowery formal calligraphy.Allow me to offer my compliments upon a determined and skillful defense. That the fortunes of war have fallen out the way they have is, I am prepared to testify, no actionable fault of yours. Howbeit, the fact remains that those fortunes have most decisively turned against you. Your army is surrounded within the fort, I am reliably informed that your supplies of food and water are not sufficient to withstand a siege of more than five days' duration, and your allies and auxiliaries have abandoned you. I declare further, upon my honor, that my scouts have detected no trace of any supporting or relieving force in the immediate vicinity and that my captains have unanimously assured me that this siege may be maintained for the foreseeable future.
Therefore, in order to prevent any further effusion of blood, which in these circ*mstances must be as uncivilized and ungentlemanly as it would be unnecessary and unprofitable, I hereby request the voluntary surrender of the forces and fortifications under your command. I declare, upon my honor, that your person, your officers, and your soldiers shall be treated in full accordance with the customary conventions and usages regarding prisoners of war, and that no egregious or unwarranted insult or injury shall befall you, save as punishment for misconduct or attempted escape without parole.
Trusting that your reason and humanity shall swiftly guide you to take the course of action that these circ*mstances demand, I shall await your reply by the same officer that conducted this letter, who has my every confidence in his ability and discretion.
I remain, in the meantime, your humble servant,
Garello Maegyr,
True Scion of that Most Ancient and Noble House,
Descended in the Right Line from Old Valyria,
Prefect of the Tenth Ward of the City of Volantis,
Vice-Captain of the Sword-Bearing Guard of the Triarchs,
Proconsul of the Northern Territories,
Captain-General Commanding,
Grand Army of Volantis.
Hyrgos stood forcefully and stalked around his table. The letter's formal language did not hide the fact that it was a bare-faced demand to surrender or face the consequences. It might not have listed any consequences for refusing to surrender, but Hyrgos knew what to expect if he did. All yesterday afternoon he had watched as the Volantenes had dismounted the heavy springalds from their galleys and emplaced them in batteries dispersed through their lines. He had a few heavy springalds of his own, but not enough to win a shooting contest against the thirty Volantene engines that had already been disembarked, much less the sixty or more that remained on the Volantene ships. If he told this Maegyr to go jump in the lake, then the next communication he could expect from him would be a barrage of five-pound bolts traveling at high velocity.
It was possible, he supposed, that he might be able to withstand a bombardment; packed earth was much more resistant to missiles than stone or even brick, and especially to bolts as opposed to stone or iron balls. But he wouldn't be able to withstand a blockade. Whatever deserters or spies had given Maegyr his information had spoken truly; he had a total of four days' worth of food, maybe as many as seven or eight if he ordered the army's draft animals slaughtered. Even more distressing, he had perhaps two days' worth of water at careful rationing. There had been no call to dig wells inside the fort, with the lake so close, and the fort's water needs had been supplied by filling canteens and barrels by hand while a pump was sent for from the city. Not even Unsullied could go without water for more than two days or so, especially not if they were fighting as well; dehydration was no respecter of persons. And while Hyrgoscouldtry digging a well now, it would be a much more difficult task while under bombardment, and there was no guarantee that they would strike water.
He spat, heedless of the fine rug covering the floor of the tent; he had always hated losing, even in small matters. For a defeat of this nature, on this scale, he could expect to be broken and exiled in disgrace, if not thrown to the priests as a sacrifice to the Black Goat.
I obeyed the orders given me, and did what seemed best at the time with the knowledge and resources available to me,he decided.For the rest, I will answer to the Goat.He sat down, drew a piece of paper across the table towards him, dipped his quill in his inkpot, and began to write.
Dear ser,
Having received your communication of this past hour, and having carefully considered every practicable course of action available to me, I grant your request for the voluntary surrender of this command . . .
XXX
As Garello Maegyr and the chief of the Qohori delegation strode out from the luxurious pavilion that had been set up where the River Qhoyne flowed into Dagger Lake and ceremonially embraced each other before the assembled Grand Army, Ser Myles Toyne turned his horse and raised his gauntleted hand. "Three cheers for the Captain-General!" he roared, his deep voice crashing out over the serried ranks. "Ave!"
"Imperator!"the army thundered back, honoring Garello with the ancient Valyrian title for a victorious general.
"Ave!" Ser Myles bellowed again.
"Imperator!"
"Ave!"
"Imperator!"The drumbeat discipline of the formal salute broke down into general cheering as the soldiers beat spear-shafts against shields, the knights of the Golden and Dragon Companies beat their gauntleted fists against their breastplates, and the army's trumpeters sounded the charge in celebration of victory.
The quartet of horsem*n sitting their horses off to one side did not join in the salute or the general cheering; for one thing, none of them knew what the words meant. For another, they wouldn't have cared even if they had known. This war hadn't been theirs, nor did three out of the four strictly care who had won. Squabbles between walkers were of no concern to Dothraki, unless it made one group or another of them easier prey. The mere fact that the majority of the army standing before them were infantry only solidified their contempt; among their people only slaves and women walked. Free men, and especially men of name or worth, rode. So the three horsem*n looked on the army with scorn, concealed only by the reserve their nation considered proper to show before strangers on occasions such as this.
The fourth horseman, who sat his horse a little ahead of his three compatriots, was of a different stamp. He was young, but his braid was already long and jingled with bells. He was of forbidding aspect, with plainsman's wrinkles already spidering over his strong cheekbones and furrowing his high forehead, but he was a man that would attract long looks regardless. For in him the wiry strength of his people reached a degree rarely seen even among the khals and their bloodriders; at twenty years of age he was already as tall as any other man in his khalasar and taller than many, with a breadth of shoulder and a depth of chest that men of more settled nations could rarely hope to achieve unless they too were men bred to war. He sat his horse with the unconscious ease of the born-and-bred nomad, held himself with the thoughtless poise of a natural fighter and athlete, and his black eyes glittered with a native intelligence that belied his heavy brow and unconsciously ferocious cast of face. He was Drogo, son of Barbo, and for all that he was the youngest khal on the Dothraki Sea he was already one of the strongest and most far-famed.
"So the Volantenes have won," he observed to his bloodriders without taking his eyes off the Grand Army. "That may be less-than-good hearing."
Behind him Qotho snorted. "We should care that one lot of walkers has beaten another?" he asked sarcastically. The Dothraki were a reverent people, when the occasion called for it, but they were not given to subservience. Especially not men such as Qotho, with the skill and the innate aggression necessary to become a bloodrider. "Let them beat each other, I say. The fatter they become, the tastier they will be when the time of bow and arakh comes."
Drogo nodded minutely. "We should care," he said, simply but no less forcefully. "This is not mere greed that sets them against each other; there is something else here. Something that makes my liver itch." A man of Westeros would have said 'makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up'.
"They are still walkers," Qotho said dismissively. "Geldings and women, every one of them. Not a true man to be found among them." He spat audibly.
"Khal Zirqo would disagree with you," Cohollo said softly. "As would his riders, if they still lived."
"Zirqo was old and weak," said Haggo. "Our khal is young and strong. We will ride them down like the marmot-runts they are."
"In time," Drogo said, leaving unsaid that he had no quarrel with the new walkers of Myr that he saw. If the rumors about the circ*mstances of Zirqo's death were true, on the other hand, then that would change. "But first we shall watch these walkers, and see what they do. This land will be as good a place to spend the winter as any."
His bloodriders clicked their tongues in agreement; they were far enough south, and close enough to the ocean, to escape the winter storms that could make the Dothraki Sea one of the deadliest places in the world, the killing blizzards that could bury a khalasar in snow over their heads in a single night and the abyssal cold that could freeze a mounted rider solid where his horse stood. Here the weather would be positively warm, and the grazing plentiful. There were still some months to go yet before winter hit, if the shaman was correct in his readings, but he had never been wrong about weather predictions before and he had served Drogo's father Barbo, and Barbo's father before him.
Drogo turned his horse with no more than a slight change of pressure in his thighs and calves, almost imperceptible even to a trained observer. "Come," he said. "I have seen enough of these walkers." His bloodriders wheeled their horses into formation around and behind him and followed him back to the khalasar's encampment at the trot.
XXX
The Battle of Dagger Lake cleared the way for the Grand Army of Volantis to march on Qohor itself, an action it was only prevented from doing by the arrival in camp of a delegation of Qohori nobles and priests seeking terms of truce. Those terms, which became the foundation for the Peace of Chroyane, were as follows.
1. That Qohor abandon all proprietary claims on the River Rhoyne and its navigation south of Dagger Lake.
2. That Qohor surrender to Volantis all the Unsullied in General Hyrgos' army, and agree to pay a war indemnity of two hundred thousand gold honors.
3. That Volantis gain the right to tax and regulate commerce along the River Rhoyne from the outflow of Dagger Lake southwards, along with the right to settle along the river's banks and in its floodplain in that area. In aid whereof, Fort Dagger is transferred to Volantene control in perpetuity.
4. That Qohor surrender half of its yearly production of raw timber to Volantis for the next twenty years at one-fourth of market price per hundredweight.
These terms may have been harsh, but the Qohori were only too willing to accept them. As one nobleman was heard to comment to one of his fellows, "Better to have a fraction of something than the entirety of nothing." With Qohor's field army so neatly wrapped up and casualties among the Grand Army relatively low, the Qohori delegation had no wish at all to prolong the war until the Grand Army reached Qohorik territory proper and began the devastation that was usual of warfare throughout the world. Especially since Hyrgos' army had contained four-fifths of all the Unsullied in Qohori service, thereby crippling the Qohori military establishment for lack of high-quality heavy infantry until they could be replaced. Nor did Qohor have any allies in a position to render aid in time; Qohor was famously standoffish with the other Free Cities, and their feud with Volantis aside they had spent most of their existence at daggers drawn with Norvos, over religious differences, and Braavos, over trading and territorial and fishing rights.
And as harsh as the terms might have been, they were much better than those that the Qohori could have expected from an enemy such as the Kingdom of Myr, and they knew it. Just to start with, they said nothing about slavery . . .
-The Last Sane War: The River War of 287by Maester Andrews, published 1066 AC
Chapter 70: Something Old, Something New
Chapter Text
Lord Eldon Estermont stood from the bench where he had awaited his royal grandson's pleasure as a servant gestured for his attention, taking a moment to direct a mental curse at the way his hips and back seemed to stiffen at the least provocation these days. He had always been a man of action, never letting a day go by without exercising with his household knights for at least two hours, and he had kept up the habit even when his hair had started turning grey. In truth, he could still keep pace with his knights, as he had proven at Solva, but it got harder and harder every year; some of them were almost indecently fast these days and it took every scrap of his experience to make up for the way his limbs had slowed.
Yet for all that he still cut a fine figure as he followed the servant into his grandson's solar, a burly, grizzled bear of a man whose doublet and hose were cut to show his blocky figure to advantage. His grandson also looked uncommonly fine as he rose to greet him; his close-trimmed beard had filled out nicely for a man who was only just past his twenty-first nameday, and his doublet and shirt didn't do much to conceal the power of his muscular build. Eldon made to bend the knee, but was forestalled by Stannis' impatient wave. "Come, grandfather," he said, "you of all my lords need never kneel to me; I was raised better than to demand such of my elders. And in any case, this is not a formal meeting."
Eldon straightened and embraced his grandson; the boy who had been so stiff after his parents' death had become a stern man, but he had lost at least some of that boyish stiffness. "Then what brings me here from Greenstone?" he asked. "Everything is well with Her Grace, I trust?"
"For now, by the grace of the Gods old and new," Stannis replied, his brow furrowing. "Although Pycelle claims that she is carrying heavier than in her previous pregnancies, and believes it possible she may be carrying twins." He shook his head. "Cersei claims to be undaunted by it, but she tires more easily as well. I fear that this pregnancy may be one too many in too few years, grandfather, especially if it is twins."
Eldon placed his hand on Stannis' shoulder in commiseration; the queen had done her duty well to so quickly provide children to fill House Baratheon. But a woman's struggles in the birthing chamber were a battle as perilous as any clash of arms and Eldon knew as well as any knight the importance of being able to recover between enemies. To leap into battle after battle with little rest... "The gods call us all to their sides sooner or later, grandson," he said roughly. "If Cersei's time comes, then even you can do nothing to prevent it, king though you be. Let the gods take her, and rejoice that she gave you your son and daughter before she was called."
"So the High Septon has counseled me," Stannis said, "though it sits ill with me to let the gods take my wife and donothing." He shook himself, Eldon remained silent while the king gathered himself; it was a sore subject for any husband worth the name after all. He himself had not been fit company for man nor beast for a full year after his wife died. "But that is not why I called you here, grandfather. You have heard, I trust, that Robert is to marry?"
"I have," Eldon replied, smiling. "Not before time, either, as I told him when I was in Myr. Will you be sending an ambassador?"
Stannis made a face. "Alas, I cannot. So long as this schism in the Faith continues unhealed, regular diplomacy between the Seven Kingdoms and Myr are more or less impossible. The High Septon's goodwill and support are, for the time being, too valuable to jeopardize by exchanging ambassadors with a kingdom that has, by the High Septon's reports, all but fallen to heresy. He claims it is only for the sake of those in Myr who still hold to the Great Sept and the cause of Holy Freedom that he does not take harsher measures."
Eldon frowned. "Bugger the High Septon," he said bluntly. "Robert'sfamily."
"I would dearly like to, grandfather, but so long as I find myself straddling a keg of wildfireI can't," Stannis gestured at the north wall of the solar. "Reformist preachers are already walking the streets of Gulltown, preaching resistance against 'unFaithful' rulers. Denys Arryn is keeping a lid on the pot for now, but I fear it is only because the High Septon has declared that any who stand with the Reformists will be considered a heretic subject to the traditional punishments reserved for such, and the smallfolk heed his words. If the High Septon were to withdraw his support..."
Stannis led Eldon over to the west wall of his solar, where a map of the Seven Kingdoms was displayed across half the wall-space. "The realm is young as such things are measured, grandfather," he explained, gesturing at the map, "less than three centuries of unity against ancient divisions that are still remembered too well in too many places, even if they have been officially forgotten. The Seven Kingdoms were forged into one by dragonfire, and even Aegon and his sisters faced long ordeals and deadly enemies in doing it. When the dragons died out the Targaryens ruled by the bonds of loyalty to their dynasty that had been forged prior to the loss of their dragons and by the fear or reverence that the blood of Old Valyria could still inspire in men of other lineages."
"In overthrowing the Targaryens root and branch, we gave up any chance of taking the legitimacy they had built up for our own. House Baratheon rules Westeros by the sword, grandfather, and by nothing else. But the sword can only do so much. When Robert left for Essos, Oberyn Martell challenged us. When I was defeated at Tyrosh, the Point Lords attempted to make demands of the crown in its own fief. Rule based solely on the sword falters the moment any vassal with ambition or grievance sees the slightest ghost of weakness in your sword hand."
Stannis made a gesture of concession as Eldon opened his mouth to protest. "I doubt not that the Stormlands are loyal, grandfather; those you cannot persuade see that Renly will be their lord when he comes of age, and are content that House Baratheon will not forget them. And with my New Nobles I have made the Crownlandsmine, a possession cemented by the recent insurrection. But elsewhere?"
He shrugged. "The Westerlands are loyal to Tywin Lannister and he is our ally, but if matters take a turn for the worst, he will look to himself and his own house before any other. And outside the Westerlands the Old Lion is hated or at least distrusted from the wall to the Red Sands; drawing him close will drive many others away. The Vale will be loyal so long as the Arryns maintain their rule, but that rule may not be as reliable as it once was if things continue as they are."
He gestured at the southern half of the map. "Mace Tyrell is sincere in his loyalty, unless I amverymuch mistaken, but his house commands the loyalty of perhaps a third of the Reach if all the false protestations are disregarded. The rest is divided between those who plot against him, and by extension me, and the vultures who say much and do little until they can feast on the defeated. In the Riverlands, the friendship of the Tullys earns me the ire of the Freys for old grudges; and likewise from one end of that kingdom to the other. Every ally secured earns the dynasty the discontent of their foes. Not for nothing, grandfather, did the Riverlands fall to the Durrandons and then the Hoares by treachery. Dorne is well in hand, but only because the strength of the dynasty is so clearly uppermost within it; if that strength is seen to reduce then we may yet invite peril.
He moved his hand northward. "The North does not hate me; but neither, I think, does it love me enough to stir itself save when its own interests are clearly threatened. Brandon the Broken is not one to inspire a rebellion, but nor would he be able to convince his banners to spend their lives and fortunes on a distant field for a far-away king who knows little of their lands and ways. As for the Iron Isles, Lord Balon so hates me for ruling over him that he would rebel in a heartbeat if he could. Only the fact that so many of his reavers have joined Robert in Myr has forced him to stay his hand thus far."
Stannis lowered his hand and turned to face Eldon. "The unity of the Realm is a gambler's bluff, grandfather; it stands because no one has yet had the strength or the courage to call it out for the mummery it is. Even with no grand foe to unite our enemies against us the situation is not far short of dire; the mightiest stag can be dragged down and torn to shreds by a pack of mangy dogs who agree on nothing save they want to feast on venison. I have high hopes for Lyonel, but a man does not build his policy on hopes and dreams for days to come. He must build them on the reality in front of him and the achievable ways he can alter it. Strength and justice are not enough to build a legacy upon, butfaith, on the other hand . . ."
Stannis shrugged. "The simple truth is that the Faith of the Seven is the one institution that permeates every corner of the realm from top to bottom. It even has footholds in the North and in the Iron Isles; even if it grows slowly, it still grows. The High Septon's support for the throne and his opposition to the Throne's enemies gives us a cause. It is a rare king that can inspire men to sacrifice themselves for him, but men sacrifice themselves for their gods every day. Hence the difficulty I find myself in. As an ally the High Septon can leash many of those who would tear me down, calming some and hobbling others. As an enemy he need only set snares and let me stumble to the dogs."
He made a moue of distaste. "And however much I dislike admitting it, he has already made himself useful. His cooperation with the Faith-tax not only lessened the burden on the nobles but his septons preached for men low and high born to follow the Great Sept's example. Gold for the ships flows into the treasury and shame has smothered who knows how many other tax rebellions before they have a chance to spark. Men who would not raise even a finger for my sake will take up arms because the High Septon declares me righteous and implores them to do so."
Stannis glowered at where the map's eastern edge ended, halfway across the Narrow Sea. "Does Robert even appreciate the risk of these Reformists? A corrupt Faith can be understood and bargained with, as disgusting as their excesses might be; they arepredictable. The Reformists may be a nobler breed in some ways, but they are too bold, too ambitious, and above all too damnedpassionateto be trusted in the Kingdoms. I can no more trust them to keep the peace and obey the laws than I can trust a madman with a loaded crossbow." He shook his head. "Robert is my brother, and master in his own house, but I regret every day that he did not simply surrender Jonothor to the fires."
Eldon nodded. Put that way, he could certainly see his grandson's point. "So you must move carefully as king. Even withholding gestures of brotherhood with your own brother."
"Aegon the Conqueror wished no one to sit his throne easily. Even with his house driven from it, it seems that his wish is honored." Stannis' mouth quirked into a lopsided half-smile. "If, on the other hand," he went on, "Robert's grandfather and youngest brother were to visit Myr to offer their congratulations on his wedding, strictly as a family affair, then the High Septon would have no grounds to object overmuch. Even if, in the course of their conversation, they were to talk about matters where the Iron Throne and the Crown of Myr have mutual interests."
Eldon laughed. "Such matters including the rebuilding of the royal fleet and it's future fielding against the slavers, no doubt," he observed. As Stannis nodded, Eldon's brows knit. "'Youngest brother'," he mused. "You're sending Renly as well?"
"It is time he saw more of the world than Storm's End, King's Landing, and the kingsroad between the two," Stannis replied, to which Eldon gestured assent; it would also be good for Renly to start to emerge from the shadows of his brothers. "Especially given the way that things seem to be shifting in the balance of powers. Mark me, grandfather; whoever controls the Narrow Sea, and especially it's southern entrance, will be the dominant power in Westeros and western Essos for the foreseeable future; the resources and the trade are just too rich. It would be well for us if we had our rightful share of that control, or were the best of friends with those whodidhave control."
"Even if they happen to be a pack of heretics," Eldon said, nodding. "I'll see that Robert remembers his family on this side of the Sea, grandson, never fear."
XXX
Serina glowered at her brother. "I really don't think your presence is necessary," she observed tartly.
Adaran raised his hands defensively. "Not my decision to make, sister," he replied. "Ser Gerion told me to not let you out of my sight, and that if anyone tried to kill you then I was to kill them first. First rule of service; you don't disobey orders."
Serina snorted indelicately. "As if someone would try and assassinate mehere, of all places," she snapped, gesturing at their surroundings broadly enough to make the tailor click his tongue in disapproval as the measurement he was taking of her shoulders was fouled. He had been a tailor long enough, or was simply eccentric enough, that even a commission for a royal wedding dress wasn't enough to throw off his professional equilibrium.
"You'd be surprised," Adaran said darkly. "An assassin who couldn't worm his way into a public tailor's shop wouldn't be much of an assassin, would he? And no," he went on as Serina opened her mouth, "the fact that there are soldiers at the front and back doors wouldn't necessarily dissuade him. All he'd have to do would be to pose as a courier or an errand boy or somesuch, with something that he had been told to place in your hands and no other's. Then when he gets within arm's reach he outs with his knife and . . ." he drew a finger across his throat illustratively.
Serina raised an eyebrow as the tailor began measuring her outseam. "So why aren't you holding your sword to the tailor's throat?" she asked. "He could have a poisoned pin on his person, after all."
Adaran shook his head. "We've investigated him," he said, "he's clean. Keeps to himself, doesn't socialize outside his work, doesn't have any outstanding debts, doesn't have any family abroad or unaccounted for."
"So glad to know that I'm officially trustworthy, young ser," the tailor said drily. "If you would raise your arms straight out from your shoulders, my lady? Yes, thus." He ran his tape along the length of her arm from shoulder to wrist.
Serina sighed. "I'm not going to be able to get away from this, aren't I?" she asked, jerking her chin at Adaran, who true to his orders was standing within arm's reach with a brigandine over his torso and his sidesword and buckler on his belt, and at the front door of the shop where a quartet of Legion sergeants in half-armor were suspiciously glaring at the passing crowds with their hands on the hilts of their shortswords under the command of Ser Richard Horpe, who had posted another quartet of sergeants at the back door.
"Not so long as you're married to King Robert, no, nor will you be able to escape them," Adaran replied breezily, indicating the trio of ladies-in-waiting who had been attached to Serina two days ago and were being measured by the tailor's assistants. "In point of fact, I've been told that most of my duties will consist of guarding you, at least until the wedding." His eyes twinkled merrily. "And here I was, thinking that I was going to be doing close-order drill until my feet fell off with some sergeant screaming in my ear. Instead I get to do something I would be doing anyway when the day had finally come, and I get to repay all the timesyouwouldn't stop watchingme."
Serina smiled wistfully. "Simpler times," she observed, remembering all the times that she had kept Adaran on the straight and narrow path when they were children. It was only after Adaran had started to reach a man's years that he had fallen in with the would-be bravos that had made up his clique of friends. She had known, intellectually at least, that marrying Robert would mean accepting a certain degree of separation from her former life, but the reality was only now starting to sink in. The thought of never being able to even visit her father again without it being an affair of state was particularly daunting. "How are your other duties?" she asked, staving off melancholy with conversation.
Adaran shrugged. "Not bad," he said. "There was some friction with some of the other members of Ser Gerion's household, but that's cleared up and it was no more than what happens to any stranger that gets pushed into a tightly-knit group at short notice. For the most part it's a lot of training at arms and a lot of lessons." He shook his head. "Never let anyone tell you that an Andal maester isn't the equal of an Essosi professor, sister mine. The power of their intellect is matched only by the tediousness of their lectures."
Serina raised an eyebrow. "So you aren't learning anything, is what you're saying."
"Far to the contrary," Adaran replied. "I can rattle off damned near anything you might want to know about the economies of the Narrow Sea and the biographies of the major players in what Ser Gerion calls the game of thrones. It's just that I don't necessarilylikedoing so." He shook his head. "As far as the maesters' tedium goes, I blame the fact that they're officially celibate myself. Your professor, see, knows that if he spins out the lesson for too long then his wife will give him an earful when he gets home about the lateness of the hour. Maesters don't have that incentive to keep things short."
Serina laughed. "I'll be sure to tellmymaester that when I see him next," she said as the tailor measured down her back from shoulder to ankle. "Which will be directly after this is done. Going over the structure and officers of the Legion, if I remember properly." As the first hostess of the kingdom, and the highest bestower of honor short of Robert, it was necessary for her to know who she would be bestowing honor upon, and at least some of what they did.
Adaran nodded. "It's simple enough if you remember that the units organize by tens," he assured her. "Ten men per squad, ten squads to a century, ten centuries to a company. Squads are led by sergeants, centuries by lieutenants, companies by captains." He shrugged. "It's different for the cavalry, but that's a different lesson."
"I'll be sure to tell Maester Ronnet that I was given the short version earlier today," Serina said sardonically, drawing a laugh out of her brother, who had become far more serious in his exile. As Adaran subsided she favored him with a warm look. "Promise me that things will stay the same between us?" she asked. "In private, at least?"
Adaran nodded deeply. "Far be it from me to forget to remind my sister that she wasn't always queen of all she surveyed," he said with a gleam in his eye. "If your head ever gets too inflated, I'll just bring up that incident with what's-his-face, the Contarenos cousin you slapped."
Serina lifted her chin imperiously. "He had it coming," she said haughtily. "At least he should know better than to make suggestive comments to women he has only just met."
Adaran cawed with laughter. "Is that what it was about? I seem to remember you putting him almost on the floor. Mind, that was probably surprise more than anything, given the fact that you were barely shoulder-high to him and maybe half his weight." He held up his right hand with thumb and forefinger maybe half an inch apart.
Serina's laughter made the tailor click his tongue in reproof as his measurement of her waistline was spoiled.
XXX
Owen Merryweather sighed to himself as he watched his ship being loaded for the voyage down to Myr for King Robert's wedding. He had tried to beg off attending, but King Stannis had insisted. Anyone of name or note in Braavos, the letter had explained, would be attending, so it would behoove the Iron Throne's most trusted representative in Essos to attend, in order to maintain the alliance and help facilitate relations between the Commune and the Kingdom of Myr. The Seven Kingdoms might be prevented from sending any official representatives to the wedding thanks to the Schism, but even if Merryweather only attended as an adjunct of the Braavosi party he would still be attending.
Owen shook his head. These waters were rapidly becoming too deep and too murky for him. During his exile he had come to appreciate the value of having a simple life with only enough work to keep things interesting. His tenure as Hand had brought him greater wealth and greater honors than his current status, but having to deal with Aerys and his . . .eccentricities. . . had made it not worth it in the end. He had turned spy in order to try and restore his House's fortunes, but he had no longer had any ambitions for himself. One close brush with death at the whim of a mad king was quite enough for one lifetime.
Admittedly Stannis showed no inclination to madness, quite the opposite if anything, but Owen knew enough history to know that kingship changed a man. Gods witness, anyone in need of proof of that need only look at Robert. The headstrong, heedless, overgrown boy had become a thoughtful, canny, and well-seasoned man, by all accounts. A man that any knight would be proud to serve. Not that Owen would allow his son or grandson to serve him; aside from the fact that neither of them could be spared from the House's lands in Westeros tar stuck, and so did accusations of trafficking with heretics. House Merryweather needed no upheavals, after all they had been through in the last several years.
Fortunately, those Westerosi that Owen's duties made him responsible for were almost all Baelorites; Reformists tended not to stay long in Pentos city. Most of them were only passing through on their way to Myr, and those that weren't were bound for Andalos. Those Reformists tended to be the most assertive and confrontational of the whole unsavory pack of them, which made Owen all the more thankful that they removed themselves from his attention of their own accord. He knew himself to be as prejudiced as any man, but he had never been the sort to feel mortally oppressed by the mere existence of people who were different from him. After all, if everyone were a lord, then who would farm the land or weave cloth or trade from goods from foreign lands, or hew the wood and draw the water for that matter? Having a variety of people available, each good at doing different things, was necessary for Owen and his family to be what they were.
The "Old Faith", as they called themselves, saw things quite differently. To their way of thinking, anyone who didn't ascribe to their unfortunately narrow interpretation ofThe Seven-Pointed Starwas at best an outsider and not to be trusted, if not an actual or potential enemy. Fortunately, that same attitude made them a rather insular sect, who preferred to devote their energies to "reclaiming the Andalos of our forefathers" rather than converting or exterminating their neighbors. The facts that Andalos was now a Braavosi possession, that they had only been allowed to enter the country and settle it thanks to the charity of the Titan's policies regarding immigrants to the newly-claimed lands who were willing to accept Braavosi law, and that the whole pack of them together might be able to last an hour against a single battalion of Braavosi foot were unimportant, as far as they were concerned. Andalos was their birthright, they were fond of saying, by right of inheritance from their ancestors who had originated there before sailing to Westeros, and they would have it.
And while they had been cold to those who held to Baelor's, their relations with the Jonothorans had been outright venomous. One time a ship had landed at the docks after ferrying a mixed load of Old Faith and Jonothoran passengers across the Narrow Sea; the captain had reported that there had been a brawl every two or three days before he had finally forced the Old Faith passengers into the forepeak and the Jonothorans into one of the holds and forbidden them to leave, and four people had come within a hairsbreadth of dying. Fortunately, that animosity had yet to boil over in Pentos, but Owen feared it was only a matter of time before someone said the wrong thing and caused a riot.
Owen had alerted the Braavosi viceroy that the Old Faith were renegades who had foresworn their allegiance to the Iron Throne and had nothing to do with King Stannis, but the viceroy had been remarkably phlegmatic about the whole business. For one thing, he had explained, the fact that they had yet to break Braavosi law meant that he couldn't actually do anything to or about them; the laws of Braavos applied as strictly to and on behalf of its subjects as they did to its citizens. For another, he trusted that the very narrowness and exclusivity of their beliefs would ultimately work against them. Who, after all, would willingly join a cult that banned social dancing, non-religious music, and all forms of sex outside of marriage? Their severity would drive away any potential converts. Owen could see the viceroy's point, but he was less sure of the likelihood that the Old Faith would starve itself; if there was one thing that his time in royal service had convinced him of, it was that people were fundamentally unpredictable, even sane ones. Sometimesespeciallythe sane ones, because their unpredictability could never be predicted, as it could be with someone like, for instance, Aerys.
Owen shook his head. Gods, but where had all these schisms come from? All his life, and all through the lives of his forefathers, the Faith had been simply the Faith, diverse but unified, as the separate colors were in a rainbow. Now it seemed that every third or fourth man and his horse and his dog thought that they could do a better job of running the Faith than the High Septon and the Most Devout. Was Jonothor truly that charismatic, to inspire so many people to theological rebellion even on different continents? Or had he simply unearthed the warren and let the rats run loose?
For the next few weeks, at least, it would not be his problem. He had a wedding to attend, an alliance to facilitate, a king to unofficially represent, and friends on all sides to keep happy. That was quite enough to have on his plate without borrowing trouble from obstreperous heretics.
Chapter 71: Forward as One
Chapter Text
The city of Myr was a frenzy of preparation for the royal wedding. Companies of citizens, organized by quarter and ward, were taking to the streets with brooms, shovels, brushes, and buckets of whitewash to make their neighborhoods presentable, with special attention being given to the thoroughfare from the harbor district to the Palace of Justice, the great square before the Palace, and the Palace itself, for it had been decided that these would be the main venues for the official ceremonies. The city barracks were positively vibrating with the energy of thousands of soldiers polishing their armor and weapons with something approaching religious intensity; the city's standing Legion company went through almost fifty pounds of sand and wood-ash and five cloth-brushes per man in the month immediately prior to the wedding alone as helmets and arm and leg harnesses were burnished to a mirror polish and brigandines brushed until they shone. The city's guilds, recognizing the excitement of their apprentices and journeymen, decided that the excitement should at least serve a useful purpose and volunteered them to help fabricate and emplace decorations throughout the city. The only guild that didn't take part was the Tailor's Guild, for they were all but submerged with custom; it seemed that everyone with even a little spare cash had decided to order a new suit of fine clothes.
Within the councils of the royal government the atmosphere was almost as highly charged as plans were debated to and fro. There was no real question as to how the bridal procession would happen, not after the Sealord of Braavos arrived with thirty galleys of his city's fleet and a positively glittering array of the great and good of the Commune; the bridal procession would start at the docks and proceed up the main thoroughfare to the Palace of Justice, with the bride being escorted by her father, the Sealord, the Braavosi magisters, and the marines of the Braavosi squadron formed in a company under the First Sword. Nor were the post-ceremonial entertainments in doubt; nothing would do but a full tournament, with jousting, longsword and wrestling bouts, and the full spread of Legion events. Already knights were flooding in from all over the kingdom to participate, spurred not only by the chance to display their prowess and chivalry before their king but by rumors that those who acquitted themselves especially well would receive some special mark of favor. Every room-to-let in the city had been occupied, and the fields outside the walls had become a sea of tents and pavilions.
What occupied the most attention was the question of the officiant. There was no question that it would have to be done by a septon; Robert kept the Seven, and the Moonsingers were very flexible about ceremonial minutiae, as befitted a faith that had originated among steppe nomads. But which septon would officiate proved a thorny matter to parse. Robert had initially wanted Jonothor, but Jonothor himself had pointed out that the Schism disqualified him from taking part in the ceremony in any official capacity; whatever Robert's personal beliefs, the unfortunate reality was that he had to at least publicly submit to the authority of the Great Sept of Baelor. The High Septon had sent a message volunteering his services and Ser Gerion had counseled accepting the offer, but Robert had put his foot down with the support of Ser Brynden and, surprisingly, Ser Mychel, who had commented that Jonothoran sympathies among the Legion and the City Watch were such that the High Septon was likely to meet with a hostile reception and that giving orders likely to drive a wedge between the largely Baelorite knight-officers and the Jonothoran rank-and-file would be a bad idea.
Eventually it was decided to compromise, and Septon Matthos was chosen. On the face of it Matthos was a vanishingly unlikely choice, being one of a trio of proctors from Quiet Isle who was in the city to investigate the possibility of building a daughter house of the septry within the Kingdom of Myr and a reserved, studious man who much preferred exegesis to preaching. That being said, as Gerion pointed out, the important thing was that he was a Baelorite, and so acceptable to the High Septon, who agreed that Jonothor at least had a point, making him palatable enough for Robert to stomach.
Fortunately, once Septon Matthos was fastened on as the officiant (and safely ensconced in the Palace of Justice where he could practice the service without interruptions), the rest flowed into place easily enough, until at last everything was ready. The city was liberally festooned with decorations, the streets were clean enough almost to eat off of, the last alterations had been made to Serina's dress and Robert's suit, and both of them were surrounded by royal knights, Legion spearmen, and Braavosi marines who seemed to actively vie with each other in watchfulness, suspicion, and punctiliousness. No one was under any illusions that the slavers would scruple at any means under the sun to try and prevent the wedding by violence, and Lord Stark had made it clear that even the slightest hint of an attack was to be met with an immediate and overwhelming response (the actual words he used included 'crushed', 'smothered', and 'destroyed', with his fist tapped into his palm for emphasis after every one). The night before the wedding, teams of crossbowmen were deployed on the roofs along the route of the procession and surrounding the square before the Palace of Justice, the Legion lieutenants whose platoons would be lining the route walked the full length of the thoroughfare checking and re-checking potential ambush sites, and the Braavosi nobles who would be escorting Serina and the Myrish knights who would be standing with Robert went over and over their plans of action in case of attack or other emergency.
The ordinary citizens, however, were exemplified in their approach to the coming festivities by Janos Bahaan, who finished his daily work, closed up his bakery, made sure that his good clothes and those of his family were ready for the morning, and then went to sleep.
XXX
Whether by blind chance or the prayers of half the city, the day of the wedding dawned to a cloudless sky and a sun that shone down on the finery of the city below it. It was a mark of the Kingdom of Myr's prosperity, even in spite of the wars, that most of its citizens were able to afford two sets of regular clothes and a third set of finer make reserved for special occasions. The Legion spearmen lining the thoroughfare from the harbor were in a double line, back to armored back, with half of each company facing outwards to restrain and watch the crowds and the other half facing inwards to render the royal salute as the bride passed.
The vanguard of the procession was a corps of musicians, trumpeters from the Sealord's Palace who were roughly equivalent to Westerosi heralds and drummers who in the regular order of things were oar-masters on the galleys, the men who kept time for the rowers. These had been given new uniforms before sailing, as the other sailors of the squadron had, and carried themselves with justifiable pride. For the ships that had sailed to Myr for the wedding were the best in the whole Braavosi fleet, chosen by a rigorous selection process that had evaluated readiness for sea, crew efficiency, and the general turnout of the ship. Only the finest, it had been made clear, would do as an escort for a king's bride.
Behind the musicians, who preceded the column with trumpet blasts and hammering crescendos on their kettle-drums, came the marines of the Braavosi fleet. These men, on the advice of Justiciar Baholis, displayed a mix of pageantry and earnestness, on the grounds that such would be the best way to appeal to the Myrish. Each man's armor had been polished to a mirror-sheen, each morion had been decorated with egret and heron plumes, and bouquets of flowers had been tied below the head of each pike with blue ribbons, but the decoration did not conceal what lay beneath it. The armor of many of the marines was still seamed with faint lines that told of hard blows exchanged in far-foreign waters that even the most assiduous polishing could not entirely remove, and the heads of the pikes were still ten inches of tempered steel that started as broad as a man's hand and narrowed to a point like an awl. The First Sword of Braavos, who was striding proudly at their head, exemplified the dichotomy; the eye-watering gleam of his cuirass and the splendor of the osprey feathers in the tiger-skin band of his morion didn't disguise the fact that his sidesword and dagger were the same ones with which he had fought Lord Stark to a standstill, an event that was even more famous among the Legion than it was among the chivalry.
The message, already tolerably clear, was hammered home by the dress of the Braavosi magisters when they came into view, formed in a protective cordon around the bride, her father, and the Sealord. Every man of them, even the ones who had never fought a man in deadly earnest in their lives, was wearing a breastplate and carrying a sidesword. They were wearing their formal clothes underneath the armor, and they wore brimless black caps instead of helmets, but the message was still plain. The Titan is roused and prepared to fight.
It was a message that any serious student of Braavosi history would have already known; the prosperity of the Commune, and it's commanding position in the world of seaborne commerce, was no less the product of the shrewdness of its diplomats and the strength of its coinage than it was the fruit of the intrepidity of its mariners and their willingness to defend their gains at swords-point. It was the way of the world that wealth attracted thieves, and the records of the Braavosi government were full of reports detailing how the merchant mariners of the Commune had had to fight as ferociously as any soldiers to preserve their lives and their cargoes. In similar fashion the records of Volantis and Tyrosh and Lys and the other city-states of Essos had their share of stories of how the Braavosi enclaves within them could close ranks at the first sign of upheaval to bristle blades and defiance at the world; more than one Volantene chronicler had likened them, unflatteringly, to wild boar in their tendency to stick together and fight to the death against any who threatened them. But the Kingdom of Myr had never learned such a lesson, and so it had been decided that the Commune of Braavos was to take the opportunity of this wedding to display that underneath the gold there still lay the bitter steel, to borrow a phrase.
The message was impressed upon the closer observers of the procession fairly well, but it was lost on the majority, who were swept away by the appearance of the bride. It had been expected that she would be beautiful (hadn't she been seen about the city?) but few had expected her to be lustrous enough to outshine the gilded chariot that she was riding in. Some of the finest weavers and tailors in the world, and without question the best lace-makers in the world, resided in Myr, and Serina Phassos' wedding dress was, they all collectively agreed later on, a masterpiece of their craft. The silvery sheen of the overgown and kirtle made her almost glow in the sun, and the six yards of lace that made up her veil were the finest made in Myr since the Sack. And if she was wearing a shirt of fine ring-mail between her kirtle and her chemise, as insurance against an assassination attempt, that was something only seven people in the world knew besides her, and all but one of them were either in the procession with her or awaiting her at the Palace of Justice.
She was, almost all who saw her later agreed, truly fit to be the bride of a king. Only a very few had reservations.
XXX
"A bit skinny, isn't she?" the big man observed under his breath to his companion. The balcony they were standing on was only moderately crowded, but it was still far more closely-packed than he liked. He preferred to be able to swing his arms freely, just in case it was ever necessary to fight. "I mean, some men like them that way, but not as wives. Makes childbirth difficult."
His companion shrugged. "My little kittens tell me that her mother had no difficulty birthing her or her brother," he said softly. "And while she did die in childbirth, she did so when she was almost forty. I trust that His Grace will not wait so long to get her with child."
The big man frowned. "And did your little kittens tell you that she was fertile to begin with?" he asked crossly. "It wouldn't be the first time that a pretty face turned out to be only a veil for a desert."
"Now, now, my old friend, there's no need to be uncouth," the other man replied. "His Grace is certainly fertile enough; does he not have two children already? As for the lady . . ." he shrugged expressively. "Who can say, when there has been no chance to garner evidence? If it truly concerns you so, then I suggest you learn to pray."
The big man favored his companion with a stony gaze. "I've told you about me and the gods, boss," he said, his voice utterly flat. "I know you like your jokes, and that you're the boss, but please don't make that joke again. At least not where I can hear it."
The other man, who was no midget but looked positively short compared to his massive friend, nodded shortly. "Then I shall not," he said easily. "Although if you will not pray, then I will, if there is a god that will hear a prayer from me." He looked down at the procession as it marched up the thoroughfare. "There is much that depends upon this matter having a successful conclusion," he murmured, low enough that the big man could hardly hear him. "More than even my plans can compass, I deem."
The big man hooked his thumbs into the belt that held his fighting knives and held his peace. He alone, of all the people on this balcony, knew that the slightly pudgy man he was standing with, with his shoulder-length white hair and his smooth, almost childlike face, was the Kindly Man, the uncrowned prince of Myrish crime. His outright control amounted to barely a third of all the illegality that happened in Myr city and the hinterland of the Kingdom, but the discipline of his organization, the wealth that it generated, and his cunning had made him preeminent among the other crime-lords in the city. His reach was famously long, and it was said that he had information worth killing for on almost every man and woman of worth or note in the Kingdom, from mid-ranking Guild masters to members of the Royal government.
The big man didn't know if that last was true, but he did know that the boss, as he called the Kindly Man, had an arrangement of some sort that kept the City Watch from regarding him and his organization with too keen an eye. He also knew that he didn't know even half of what went on in the boss's head, or anything at all about the boss's plans that didn't immediately concern him. He had made his peace with that long ago; his contract with the boss was that he was paid, and quite handsomely, to keep the boss alive, protect anyone the boss told him to, and kill anyone the boss told him to. The making of plans was the boss's job, who then left their execution up to either him or any one of at least a hundred other of the boss's 'friends'.
And for today, the boss's pleasure was to attend the wedding celebrations, partake of the food and drink and entertainments that would be on offer, and generally have a good time. The big man was content to bodyguard him through all of that, for the boss had promised not only him, but all his people, that whatever storms life sent their way they would, in his words, 'keep on paddling'.
XXX
Lord Vernan Irons raised his eyebrows and whistled softly as the procession pulled into the great square before the Palace of Justice. "Not half bad, that lot," he said softly, eyeing the Braavosi marines. "Good discipline and good drill, at least."
"I'd like to see them fight before betting my life on them," Lord Brynnan Axewell replied just as softly. "But otherwise, aye, they seem fairly decent. Though I'll still put my money on the Legion."
Brynnan's wife, Lady Jesmyn, kicked him lightly in the ankle. "For once, can the pair of you talk about something other than war and soldiers?" she demanded, half-teasingly and half-seriously as she rolled her deep brown eyes at her husband. "This is a wedding!"
"No," Vernan replied flatly, drawing a kick in the ankle from his own wife, Lady Emely, who he favored with a hurt look. "What?" he asked in tones of mock-defensiveness. "It's what we do and who we are."
"This is still a wedding," Emely said, the archness of her tone belying the pleasant expression on her broad face; she was a great believer in keeping up appearances. "And so it is neither the time or the place for such talk. Especially since the bride is arriving." The last few words were almost submerged in the swelling cheer as the chariot carrying the bride rolled into the square, drawn by a pair of draft horses in elaborately embroidered caparisons that reached almost to their pasterns and chanfrons crested with egret plumes. On either side of the chariot strode the bride's father and the Sealord of Braavos, who as the chariot ground to a halt before the steps of the Palace handed the bride down and escorted her up the steps to where King Robert and his groomsmen waited like a vision from the Warrior's Heaven.
Brynnan pursed his lips thoughtfully. "She certainly looks well enough," he conceded, enduring another kick from his wife. "Although I could wish that she was from an actual noble family instead of whatever her family is in Braavos."
"Think on it, man," Vernan said drily. "Would you rather His Grace had chosen a wife from a Westerosi noble family that was sworn to Stannis and obedient to the High Septon? Because you know as well as I what the price of that marriage would be."
Brynnan shuddered and signed himself with the seven-pointed star. "Gods old and new between us and evil," he muttered. He could well imagine what the High Septon would demand of Robert in return for allowing him to marry a Baelorite noblewoman. "Probably better thus, then. I don't care what the High Septon says, if he thinks I'm going to try to stab the Legion in the back, then he can do it himself."
At the top of the steps Robert was raising Serina's veil and a wave of low gasps and murmurs ran through the crowd at the revealed beauty. Brynnan smiled, nodding sagely. "Aye, that's what a queen should look like," he said approvingly, drawing a fondly exasperated look from Jesmyn. "And will you look at yon Braavosi?" he went on, stifling a chuckle. "You can just tell what they're thinking; that there isn't a chance in any of the Seven Hells that His Grace is going to ignore his Braavosi bride. You can see them reckoning the opportunities already."
Vernan shook his head. "She is, in fact, too beautiful," he said gloomily. "The kingdom is doomed. We will never be able to pry His Grace out of bed."
Emely kicked him in the ankle again. "Don't be crass," she said sharply. "I'm sure His Grace will be able to tear himself away from her for long enough to lead the army to war. And as long as he's able to do that, do you care?"
Vernan shrugged. "So long as he gets himself an heir and keeps his Council in order, not really," he admitted. "Though I'd like him to be able to swing his hammer still. It's a little hard to fight when you're exhausted."
Emely kicked him again.
XXX
The ceremony was short, as such things usually were, and made more so by the fact that the bride wasn't converting, as was usually the case in marriages were the couple were of different faiths. It had been considered unthinkable even to ask, in this case; as Ser Gerion had put it, there were some things that friends simply shouldn't ask of each other.
When the vows were said and the rings exchanged and the wedding cloak swept over the bride's shoulders and the first kiss shared, the uproar from the crowd made the windows of the nearby buildings shake in their frames. A good wedding was always a joyous occasion, and it was made even more so in this case by the common knowledge that it was a match of affection as much as policy. The more sentimental members of the crowd were swept away by the romance of it all, and even the most hard-boiled and cynical of observers could see the joy that was radiating off both bride and groom and decide that this really wasn't the day for cynicism. Besides, there was a party to get to.
While the wedding party and a selection of guests went into the Palace of Justice for the first of several feasts, the crowd in the great square was fragmenting. While the ceremony had been going on, pre-positioned barrels of wine and beer and ale were being rolled out of the buildings where they had been stashed overnight and set up in the city's lesser squares and on street corners that had been carefully chosen for maximum dispersion of the festivities, in order to prevent any potentially fatal crushes. The city's street food vendors, men and women who sold rolls and meat pies and scones and batter-fried chunks of fish and a dozen other varieties of food that could be eaten on the move with the fingers, had been cajoled by Ser Wendel Manderly into working under Royal contract for the three days of the festivities in order to guarantee them an agreeable minimum profit in an effort to keep prices low enough to prevent even the least grumbling and were now scattered throughout the city to complement the barrels of free alcohol. The city's buskers, the street-corner musicians and dancers who earned their daily bread by entertaining their fellow citizens, had not officially received such a contract, but the gang bosses who they paid tribute to had actually bucked the trend by offering them commissions in order to augment the public entertainments.
The combination of free alcohol, cheap food, and more-or-less free entertainment had the desired effect and before three hours were out the city of Myr was, effectively, one massive party from the docklands to the Great Eastern Gate that would continue until it ran into something that stopped it. Considering that the Iron Bank and the Braavosi Exchequer were helping to fund and source the alcohol and food, this was not likely to be anytime soon. The exuberance of the festivities were only kept in bounds by the fact that the City Watch, which had been offered double pay for the duration of the celebrations and a bonus at the end of them in order to remain on duty and sober, were still patrolling the city in order to break up any fights or unacceptable disorderliness.
The chivalry and the Legion, it was noted by those who remained sober enough to notice and care, abstained from the city-wide party that was even then mushrooming from wall to wall. They had preparations to make for their own celebrations.
XXX
The tournament began, as most tournaments did, with a parade. First there came the great lords of the realm in full armor, one-handed Ser Richard Shermer of Ceralia with his reins knotted on the pommel of his saddle, Ser Brus Buckler of Campora with the buckles of his house's insignia embroidered in gold thread on his blue cloak, Ser Jaime Lannister of Alalia with his famous black cloak thrown back over his shoulders, Lord Victarion Greyjoy of Ironhold with kraken tentacles inlaid down the cheek-plates of his barbute, and Ser Lyn Corbray of Sirmium with his bascinet's visor drawn out like a raven's beak in the front rank, with two-score of the leading magnates of the Kingdom of Myr behind them in column of fours. Leading them all, by virtue of their respective and co-equal ranks, were Ser Gerion Lannister, resplendent in gilded armor trimmed in red enamel, and Lord Eddard Stark with the direwolf of his house embroidered in silver thread on his spotlessly white surcoat. Every lord in the contingent held their drawn sword at the carry, and as they walked their horses past the royal stand with the newly-wedded king and queen and the Sealord, Lord Stark barked out the command "Eyes, Right!" and each sword swept up to the lips and down to the right leg as the lords turned their heads sharply in salute to the royals.
Behind the lords came the chivalry, formed in column of fives by companies. Not all the chivalry of Myr had been able to attend the wedding, due to the need to keep the borders at least somewhat guarded, but enough had come that every cavalry company in the Royal Army was represented by at least a lance's worth of knights, their captain, and at least one of their captain-lieutenants, for a total of almost six hundred knights. The chivalry also rode with drawn swords, and also gave the royal salute at the command of Eyes Right, while the hooves of their chargers made the ground rumble even at the walk.
Behind them came the Legion, led by two centuries of the Pioneers and the companies of Myr city and its immediate hinterland. Ser Akhollo Freeman had the honor of leading the contingent, and as he gave the command for the salute and swept his sword down by his leg the spear-and-broken-chain banner of each Legion company, and of the centuries that had been sent to represent the companies stationed on the borders, tipped forward in salute as six thousand spearmen and crossbowmen marched past in review. Close behind the Legion came the Ironborn, two thousand housekarls, the pick of the Myrish fleet, with their axes sloped over their shoulders and the iron bars connecting the nasal guards of their halfhelms to the cheekplates giving them the look of so many predatory birds. They were led by Dagmer Cleftjaw, who was resplendent in three-quarter plate and bore a new sword at his side, and Roryn Pyke, who bore the kraken banner of the fleet and swept it through a great figure-eight as he lowered it into the salute. Along with the Ironborn there marched a contingent of Myrish sailors, clad in leather jerkins rather than mail and with hand-axes hanging at their hips rather than the four-foot long bearded axes of the housekarls, but they had picked up the unconscious swagger of the Ironborn who had taught so many of them how to make war on the seas, and many of them braided their beards and hair in imitation of the reavers-turned-marines.
The Braavosi, and especially the Sealord and his First Sword, were clever enough to recognize that this parade was the Kingdom of Myr's answer to their own parade from the docks. This is the bride-price that the Kingdom of Myr offers the Commune of Braavos. The swords of its knights, the spears and bows of its infantry, and the axes of its marines. It might have been unnecessary, given that the Kingdom of Myr's martial reputation was precisely why the alliance was being sought, but it was, as one magister later put it, likely a matter of pride on the part of the Myrish to be able to demonstrate their strength, and in any case a friendly reminder between friends never hurt anyone.
After the parade came the tilt between Lord Eddard and Ser Gerion, who had claimed the honor of opening the lists. The King's Fist and the Hand of the King, who had already been mounted on their destriers and had collected lances from their squires, cantered onto the lists, saluted the royals and each other, rode back to either end, and charged. Eddard's lance struck Gerion's shield dead on and broke it cleanly in half, but Gerion's lance caught the wolf-fur crest that ran along the top of Eddard's basinet and plucked it off so that the Hand cantered to the end of the lists with the crest still impaled on the point of his lance. As they were only running a single course the marshal's flag went up to award the victory to Gerion, who wrested Eddard's crest off his lance-point and offered it back to him with a courtly bow; Eddard, for his part, had the grace to accept it with a bow of his own.
While Robert was still trying to explain to Serina and the Sealord that Gerion's greater control over his lance entitled him to the point under the rules of jousting, the tilts went on. As was typical of Westerosi jousts, there was a defending team, made up of the knights and lords from Myr city and its environs, and a visiting team made up of knights from the hinterland and the borders. The defenders, co-captained by Ser Wendel Manderly and Ser Mychel Egen, managed to hold the visitors to a draw almost to the final four jousts, when Ser Brus Buckler, Ser Lyle Crakehall, and co-captains Ser Jaime Lannister and Ser Lyn Corbray managed to eke out a victory by unhorsing Ser Wendel, Ser Mychel, Ser Richard Horpe, and Ser Brynden Tully one after the other in a dazzling display of prowess. Against such a display the archery competition went almost unnoticed, despite Will Poacher, Jon Ravenhair, and Sarra's Will pushing the target of the long shoot out to fully two hundred and seventy-five paces before Will Poacher managed to outshoot his counterparts.
The second day of the celebrations saw the Braavosi take the field, for that was the day for swordplay and wrestling, both of which were far more accessible to the Braavosi than the jousting. First Sword Syrio Forel, released from his duties for the day by special dispensation from the Sealord, had assembled a team of half a dozen of the finest blades that Braavos had to offer, and they rampaged through the qualifying rounds like leopards among sheep as the water dance of sidesword and dagger baffled the longswords of the Myrish knights with its emphasis on speed and maneuver. Only in the last several rounds did the Braavosi meet with serious competition, with Lyn Corbray, Jaime Lannister, and Eddard Stark managing to knock half the Braavosi team out of the running even as Thoros the Red and Francesco Grassi took each other out of the competition with broken fingers and Brus Buckler, Ser Addam Marbrand, and Ser Willam Fell were laid low by the remainder. The final series of bouts began well for the Braavosi when Jaime Lannister was undone by the blisteringly fast hand speed of Redalfo Marozo, but Eddard Stark managed to even the score by almost literally beating down Antonio Caransa, who had to yield the ring when the strain of attempting to parry the Iron Wolf's blows left him unable to hold his blades. The bout between Syrio Forel and Lyn Corbray was hard-fought and grueling, but finally came to an end when Syrio unveiled a beautiful feint-and-bind combination that ended with Lady Forlorn trapped over Lyn's head in the guard of Syrio's sidesword and the point of Syrio's dagger placed just so in the gap of Lyn's armpit, drawing a roar of applause from the spectators.
When Syrio and Eddard took the ring against each other for the championship the anticipation in the onlookers was intense, for their previous meeting was already the stuff of legend. Nor were they disappointed, for the First Sword of Braavos and the King's Fist were almost perfectly matched; the one a hair faster and more perceptive, the latter a touch stronger and more instinctively ferocious. When they came to the end of the time allotted to them, they were stalemated at one touch apiece; when Robert and Serina offered them the choice of fighting on for one more touch or sharing the victory, mutual exhaustion prompted them to accept a draw to tumultuous applause from Myrish noble and Braavosi magister alike as they staggered off to their arming tents. The priests in the crowd wasted no time in commenting on how good an omen the decision to share the victory was for the alliance, with High Priest Kalarus speaking for many when he observed that it was the common habit of true brothers to share their good fortunes with each other. The wrestling was just as hard fought, but again the Ironborn swept the field, with Victarion Greyjoy, Dagmer Cleftjaw, and Roryn Pyke holding the ring against all comers. Victarion was given a little trouble by Ser Akhollo Freeman, but the Ironborn lord managed to pin him easily enough in the end.
The third day of the festivities was given over to the Legion events; the race-in-armor, the push-of-war, and two new events in the form of spear-throwing and a contest that was swiftly labelled 'the gauntlet'. In the gauntlet, a courier had to get a packet of messages from one end of the tourney grounds to the other, riding their horse halfway across and then covering the remaining distance on foot; this process was complicated by the fact that the couriers were presented with a quintet of obstacles along the way. First there was a fence that the couriers would have to jump, followed by a pair of outriders who would try to unhorse them and take them prisoner. After dismounting, the couriers would be faced by a ten-foot wall that they would have to scale, a low crawl under a net of bell-strung ropes, and a trio of Legion spearmen who would try to capture them between the low crawl and the finish line. To be captured, ring one of the bells on the low crawl, or otherwise be prevented from continuing was to lose, while the winner would be whoever managed to complete the course in the least amount of time.
Like most new events, the gauntlet proved sensational, although some of the more conservative onlookers grumbled about the fact that the contestants included a handful of women. Their objections, however, were quickly silenced by the observation that the women in question happened to be enrolled members of the Legion, and had all served the Kingdom in arms in the most recent war, if not earlier. And indeed when one of those women, a lithe and hard-faced virago who answered to the name of Sauce, won the competition by dint of simply weaving through the Legion spearmen of the final obstacle instead of trying to fight through them like the second-place competitor did the conservatives were seen to cheer as loudly as any other spectator. The sight of Sauce flitting through the onrushing spearmen, evading their attempted tackles by inches, had been enough to delight any lover of athletics.
The spear-throwing also won fans, but the main events, it was readily agreed, were the race-in-armor and the push-of-war. Tychan Breakchain of the fourth Legion company came within a breath of repeating his victory at the First Tournament, but he was narrowly edged out by Hararo Armsman of the sixth company, who if he didn't quite have Tychan's weight of muscle and unstoppable inertia was slightly lighter on his feet, even in almost fifty pounds of armor and gear. The push-of-war was just as popular as it had been at the First Tournament, and was made more so by the entrance of a Braavosi team consisting of ten marines from the fleet, who taken as a group could have outmassed a small aurochs. They acquitted themselves well by advancing to the quarterfinals, eventually going down in defeat to the team of the third Legion company, who went on to win and were later heard to say that the Braavosi marines had given them the toughest fight of the whole competition.
When the last of the competitions was completed a general feast was laid on for the contestants, at which the royals put in an appearance before returning to the Palace of Justice, where on the morrow the last day of celebrations would be held.
XXX
The final feast of the wedding celebrations was marked by three events, interspersed between the courses. The first event was a selection of Braavosi poets who stood forth to present the odes and sonnets they had written to mark the occasion, almost all of which were in praise of the royal couple. Each of the poets earned applause from the crowd and rich gifts from the royals, but one young poet, who was announced as Ricardo Dandalo, earned not just applause but a standing ovation for his poem, The Price of Freedom, and received not only a purse of gold from King Robert but a rose from the bouquet that rested by Queen Serina's chair, which he would later claim had been an even greater honor than the gold and the cheers.
The second event was one that only a very few had known was in the wind. Robert had never formed a Kingsguard, preferring to rely on the knights and squires of his military household for close protection. But that household would go with him almost in its entirety when he was on campaign, for most of them were either officers or senior knights of the first cavalry company of the Royal Army, and even in the most private sense Robert no longer had only himself to think about. So throughout the tournament he and the senior knights of his household had paid careful attention to those knights who distinguished themselves in the various events of the tournament, balancing their skill at arms against the chivalry they had displayed and prioritizing men who were either landless retinue knights or held only one knight's fee and had a proven record of lawful behavior and loyalty to the realm and the dynasty, balancing the judgments made against the information they had gathered on each prospective knight before the wedding. Parallel to this selection process ran another which focused on the Legion, seeking entire squads with good disciplinary and fighting records, and which also evidenced any particular fervor for the dynasty and the kingdom. Some of the squads that had stood out in the first investigations had been explicitly invited to the capitol to take part in the wedding, and their behavior had been judged throughout.
In the end, five knights and five squads had been selected, and it was those men that stood forth at the feast to be incorporated as the Brotherhood of the Broken Chain, sworn to defend the members of House Baratheon with their very lives against all enemies. Ser Akhollo Freeman, who had been named as their first Lord Commander, spontaneously drew his dagger and dragged the edge across his palm to seal the oath in blood, an action which was copied by each man in the new Brotherhood and which the Braavosi attending the feast found deeply impressive. The Sealord's Guard were famous for their loyalty, of course, but their oath-taking was always a matter of formulaic ceremony and solemnity, and underneath it ran the unspoken assumption that the first loyalty of the Guard was always to the Commune more than the Sealord, who was their charge on account of his being the first servant of the Commune and nothing more. And Guard recruits had never been asked to seal their oath in blood, as the heathen Ibbenese or the barbaric Dothraki might. That House Baratheon was popular enough among its army to inspire such a demonstration of unsolicited loyalty, the Braavosi later whispered among themselves, was a good omen not only for the wars to come, but for the alliance as well, since it was fairly clear that nothing could prosper in the Kingdom of Myr if the Royal Army took a disliking to it.
The third event, after the cakes, custards, fritters, and tarts of the final dessert course had been cleared away, was the speeches. First to stand forth was the Sealord of Braavos, who delivered a very pretty oration that began by complimenting the hospitality of the Kingdom of Myr and went on to extol the virtues of the new Myrish people, which were so much greater than those of the people whose displacement had been nothing more than their just punishment for the evils they had permitted in their lands. From there he went on to list the reasons that the Titan of Braavos had finally chosen to wake from its long slumber, not least of which, he claimed with a bow to Robert, was that the Kingdom of Myr had reminded them of the obligation to act imposed by the First Law. And so Braavos had awoken, and linked it's cause with the Kingdom of Myr. "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that the scourge of war may speedily pass away," the Sealord declaimed. "However, if it be the decree of fate that these wars continue until all the wealth piled up by the six thousand years of the slave's unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until each drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be repaid by another drawn with the sword, as is written in the Book of the Father, still so long shall we fight on saying, as the Moonsingers do, 'Against fate, even the gods do not contend'. It is in furtherance of this resolve that we have come here to pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor in solemn brotherhood with this great kingdom, giving the fairest flower of our womanhood in marriage to your greatest champion as a pledge to you and to all future generations that the Commune of Braavos shall never again forget the First Law, the keel-timber of our liberties and the wellspring of our prosperity."
The Sealord's speech was met with applause from Braavosi and Myrish alike, but the true anticipation was for Robert's speech, for it had gotten out that he had spent some days closeted with Septon Jonothor and High Priest Kalarus brushing up on his rhetoric. And when Robert stood forth, he did not disappoint. The first part of his speech was a solid and workmanlike thanks to the Sealord for his compliments, and to the assembled guests for attending, while the second part laid out in stirring detail the course of Robert's journey from an adventurer bent on revenge to a king seeking to preserve his people and uphold his coronation oath, taking the audience up to the day when, confronted with the prospect of facing potentially overwhelming enemies, he had sought an ally, and chosen to look for one in the Commune of Braavos, 'the eldest child of Liberty'. And Braavos, in answer to his prayers, had stirred itself, and joined the struggle which, Robert warned, was likely to be long and arduous, requiring all the strength, hardihood, and cunning that the Kingdom and the Commune could muster.
It was then that he came to the third part of his speech, which would resound the world over. "To the question of potential defeat, which prudence requires that we keep ever before our eyes," Robert declared, "I would note that there has been no period in the history of any kingdom or state when an absolute guarantee against defeat could have been offered in good faith. It has, from time to time, so pleased the gods as to visit defeat upon the same arms that theretofore they had without exception blessed with victory, and mortal wisdom may not tell why. But that being said, I will say this also; that for my part I am fully confident that if each man and each woman acts with the courage and vigilance of their forefathers, if no point of duty is neglected, if our plans are good, and if the gods favor our cause, as they do, then we shall prove ourselves able to defend this kingdom of freedom, to ride out the storm of war, and to expand the blessings of liberty through every land that remains in bondage. It is to this purpose that I have resolved myself. It is a resolve shared by the officers of my government, by my lords and knights, and by the soldiers of my army, every one of them. It is the will of every man, woman, and child of this kingdom."
Already Robert's words were being greeted with cheers and applause. "The Kingdom of Myr, and the Commune of Braavos, joined by the indissoluble bonds of honor and kinship, shall maintain to the last breath the right of every man and woman to live and die in the freedom that is their divinely-gifted birthright," Robert proclaimed, drawing even more cheers from the assembled guests, "aiding each other like good comrades and true brothers to the last extremity of their strength." The Braavosi guests, starting to be carried away, thumped the tables in approbation, shouting their willingness to live up to the challenge.
"It is true that many rich and powerful states are arrayed, or will be arrayed, against us, with as many nations shackled into their ranks," Robert went on, "but truly is it said, 'The greater the enemy, the greater the honor of his defeat.' So although the slavers come in their thousands and their tens of thousands this I swear, binding me and my heirs after me; we shall not flag or fail, but press forward to victory!" The cheers by now were becoming general, and abating only when Robert raised his hands for quiet to go on. "We shall liberate Tyrosh," he declared, "we shall liberate Lys, we shall with the aid of our brothers liberate the seas and oceans, we shall liberate every land where slavery rests its head whatever the cost may be!" The table-thumping had swelled to the proportions of a small cavalry charge, and even when Robert raised his hands it took a moment for the cheers and applause to die down. "We shall liberate Volantis," he went on, "we shall liberate Meereen and Yunkai, we shall liberate Astapor and New Ghis, we shall liberate Qarth, we shall never surrender and never retreat!" The cheering was only stopped from swelling to an unstoppable roar by the Brotherhood of the Broken Chain thumping the butts of their spears on the flagstones for quiet. "And if," Robert went on, his huge frame seeming to have swelled to giant proportions over the course of the speech, "as the gods may will, we here should be called to give our lives in this holy cause, then our sons, and our cousins beyond the Sea, will step forward and carry on the struggle, until with the help of the almighty gods we may say, and that truly, that the last chain has been broken, that the last shackle has been struck off, and that slavery is no more!"
The feasting hall exploded in noise as the guests shot to their feet, roaring approval as they hammered on the tables in approbation. The trumpeters stationed at the doors sounded the call to arms, and the Brotherhood of the Broken Chain hammered the butts of their spears against the floor. No one could tell, afterward, who began the chant, but when it started it spread like wildfire. "Hail Robert King!" they roared, making the windows shake. "Hail Robert King! Hail Robert King!"
Chapter 72: Flashing Flame
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The following is an excerpt fromFlash on the High Seas,the third installment of the Flash Papers by George Dand.
Now, in my time, I've dealt with my share of unpleasant people. Among other things I've had to jump off a cliff (a short one but still a cliff) to escape a group of Drowned Men with clubs and a cash-flow problem, convince both a cadre of Old Faith rebels and a warband of Burned Men that I was spying for their side, and think my way through a night of treachery in Qarth when their version of the game of thrones got bloody and the Blue Lips seemed to be the only faction still sane enough to care what it was all about. And that's leaving aside the time I've spent north of the Wall, which I presume you know about. Gods know there's enough songs about it. All of which is to say that when I describe a group of people as being hard to like, I know whereof I speak.
Now, I like Braavos, taken as a whole. To be sure the weather can be vile, and it's not kind to people who are easily seasick, but the food's good, the people can be stunningly hospitable, their parties are some of the best I've ever been to, and their women, ye gods and little fishes their women . . . But every barrel of apples has a few sour ones, and Braavos is no exception. Take the hot temper of a Dornishman, the self-importance of a knight of the Reach, the dislike of foreigners of a Northman, the pride of a Valeman, the fractiousness of a Riverlander, the blood-lust of a Stormlander, and the self-righteousness of a Reformist, distill them all into one man and give him a sword and the knowledge of how to use it, and you have a Braavosi bravo. Small wonder that every family that could sent their sons to sea; whatever fate awaited them there, it was preferable to them running with, or being run through by, one pack or another of those lunatics.
Mind you, there are rules to their behavior, although it's rare for them to take the time and go to the bother of explaining them to a foreigner when they can simply draw swords and lay on, but rules there are nonetheless. They'll leave you alone if you're unarmed, for one thing, and for another they'll leave you alone if the government puts the word out that you're to be left alone. But that's a rare favor to receive, and one I didn't get, so the best I could have hoped for was for them to decide that I was beneath their notice. There were two problems with that hope. Firstly, I was a famous knight who had recently won a duel of some importance, the which had only grown in the retelling. Secondly, I was an envoy of King Stannis, who as far as the Braavosi public was concerned had left their fleet to die off Tyrosh. As a result, I could hardly go anywhere in the city without little clots of bravos turning up outside the building I was in for the day, yelling for Flash the Fool to come out and show them what Andal knights were made of.
I did my best to ignore them, of course; my own windiness aside, there are things you just don't do when you're on diplomatic service, however much you might want to, and fighting duels on street corners with every ruffian who questions your good name is one of them, even when the titled mediocrity who's the ambassador is in mild awe of your reputation and gives you a lot of leeway outside your few regular duties. So I tried to do my traveling in broad daylight, on the well-traveled and consequently well-policed canals and alleyways of the city, and did my best to ignore the poems and ditties that started to crop up insulting me, King Stannis, and the Seven Kingdoms as a whole. Fortunately, I've never been particularly sensitive about myamour propre, mostly because I don't have any, although it would have been different if I hadn't been able to plead the constraints of my duty.Youmight not care about your reputation, but other people care a great deal indeed, and all too often theirs is the relevant opinion.
Unfortunately, my luck ran out, as it tends to do at inopportune moments. I had been keeping company with a Braavosi courtesan (notthe Nightingale; I never laid eyes on her despite what the songs say) but she had another customer to entertain, and one who was richer and better-connected than I was, so nothing would do but for me to take my leave. As it was a few hours past sundown and her house was on the far side of the Purple Harbor from the embassy and the Sealord's Palace, it wasn't more than a moment before a pack of bravos was on my heels, calling for me to stand and fight. For my part I just walked on with my nose in the air, concealing the churning in my guts with an outward air of panache as I turned through the lanes and alleys of the Purple Harbor to try and lose them. See, if you don't make an effort to defend yourself, then the bravos can't touch you without it being assault, if not attempted murder, which Braavosi courts take a very dim view of even as a general rule. When the victim was a foreign ambassador . . .
In any case I wasn't paying much attention to where I was going, so it came as a complete surprise to me when I turned my second corner in a row and tripped over a man kneeling by the building that took up the whole block. We had just picked ourselves up and were starting to brush each other off and apologize when I looked at his face and felt my heart stop. It had been years, and he had a more wolfish cast to his features than I remembered, but I would have recognized Stallen Naerolis anywhere.
I don't know how long we stood there gaping at each other (he looked as surprised as I was) but all I can remember was that I was thinking furiously. Stallen had been a True Myrish assassin when last we met, and before I had sailed for Braavos one of Lord Arryn's secretaries had mentioned that he had become a big fellow in their secret service. And Braavos, since their alliance with the Kingdom of Myr, was now their enemy. QED, if Stallen was here, and with a band of cutthroats who were also looking at me with shock on their faces, then he was up to no good. Furthermore, since I had evidently interrupted him in the midst of something nefarious, he couldn't afford to let me get away with my life.
In light of all this, as the Dornish would say, there was no choice but to fight.
We must have come to the same conclusion within heartbeats of each other, but I'm morally convinced that I decided first, the reason being that I went to headbutt him a split-second before he did. As a result, my forehead hit the bridge of his nose, while his forehead hit the top of my forehead where it curved back towards my scalp. At any rate we reeled away from each other, with me accelerating the separation with a thrust-kick to the midsection. "Infiltrators!" I bellowed as I clawed at my arming sword and rondel dagger; thank the gods for the knight's reflex that had made me wear them out of the embassy that morning. "Turn out the Watch! Enemies, fire, murder! The Watch, ho!"
By this time, Stallen had his own blade out and was coming at me with murderous intent, with his ruffians also coming up with blades in hand; if they let me carry on shouting then the Braavosi Night Watch would come by sooner or later and they would really be for it. Thankfully, for all his other talents, Stallen was a poor swordsman; a simple forehand and backhand pair of cuts were enough to send him reeling backward with a gashed cheek. I was back-stepping rapidly, trying to keep far enough away from the bulk of them that I wouldn't get submerged and still bellowing for the Watch as I flailed my blades at them when the bravos who had been chasing me came around the corner.
Even bravos have their moments. I remember hearing the one who had been yelling at me the loudest roaring, "What!? Are you men or dogs to set upon a man at such odds? At them, brothers, for the city's honor!" and then there were eight bravos at my side with their sideswords and parrying daggers flashing in the moon and lamplight. However long we fought in that damned alleyway, it felt like an eternity, with twenty-odd swords and almost as many daggers clashing loud enough to rival a smithy. I know I killed at least one of Stallen's gang when the silly bugger didn't make his overhand cover strongly enough and the last four inches of my sword went through his skull and into his brain, but I don't properly remember anything else until the whistles of the Night Watch were sounding and Stallen was yelling "Back! Back!" and suddenly Stallen's men had run for it and there was a Night Watch patrol all around us.
I was just starting to explain who I was to their corporal when one of the constables starting yelling for him to come and look. I followed him over, naturally enough, and what I saw made my stomach turn over; sitting in the middle of the block, right against the timber wall of the building, was a pile of oil and pitch-soaked rags surrounding a bottle of murky green liquid. I had never seen wildfire before, but one of my father's men-at-arms had seen it used often enough at Mad Aerys' court to know it on sight. He didn't talk about it without a few bottles in him, but the stories he had told had been enough to give me nightmares worthy of lobster and cheese. Braavos was primarily built in stone, but wildfire will burn even on water, and even stone buildings have wooden fixtures and floors and rafters and all manner of other things. And that was just the city; what wildfire would do to the harbor, which was crowded full to bursting with trading ships and war galleys every one of which might as well have been a floating tinderbox . . .
The corporal, gods old and new bless him, was also a quick thinker. "Benito, sound the general alarm," he snapped. "Marco, Danilo, Rufio, attend." As Benito, a pink-cheeked squeaker who was probably on his first year as a constable, started blowing a three-long, three-short, three-long call on his whistle and the other three stepped forward, he bent down and gods help me if he didn't pull the rags away from the bottle and thenliftit away from the wall as carefully as if it were made out of spun sugar crystal. Turning to the three men who had stepped forward he held it out. "Get this onto a boat,carefully and gently, as you value your lives, and get it out into the lagoon. Get it beyond the Titan and then heave it as far out to sea as you can. And then get to the Titan and tell them to close the strait, by order of the Night Watch." As one of the three men reached out and took the wildfire with hands that I could tell desperately wanted to shake, the corporal looked him in the eye. "Hear me, Marco," he said intently. "If that thing goes off, the city will die. If you feel it get warm, jump in the water and dive for the bottom. Understand me?" At Marco's convulsive nod, he turned to the other two. "Danilo, Rufio, if anyone gets in your way, cut them down. Commandeer the first boat that is remotely seaworthy and don't let anything stop you. Now go, go!" As the three men started trotting down the alley, Marco cradling the wildfire like a baby and Danilo and Rufio on either side of him with blades drawn, the corporal turned to me and the bravos. "Gentlemen," he said in an unmistakable tone of command, "by the authority vested in me by the Commune, I hereby deputize you to the Night Watch. Let us hunt the vermin who would burn our city."
The bravos answered with a cheer and a flourish of blades, and of course there was nothing for it but for me to come along. I couldn't very well have backed out; the Braavosi had a low enough opinion of Westerosi already without a belted knight refusing to help pursue an attempted arsonist and mass murderer. We must have made quite the sight, one knight and seven bravos in fancy dress (one of the bravos had taken thrusts through the leg and shoulder and had been left at the scene with Benito) and two Night Watchmen in gambesons, all with drawn swords and moving as a pack, following a gang of enemy infiltrators by the blood trail from their wounded.
We didn't catch up to them before they managed to escape, except for two men who had apparently been too badly wounded to keep pace and had been left behind at the docks. One of them was collared by the constables, while the other one was literally cut to pieces by the bravos. But Stallen Naerolis, that canny bastard, had a backup plan; he might have had only the one bottle of wildfire, but his getaway boat had evidently been stocked with a bow and a store of fire arrows, which he shot at the warships that had been anchored near the Arsenal on his way out. By the time the last fire was put out, twenty ships had burned to the waterline and thirty more had been too severely damaged to do anything but float. If the Braavosi crews had been even a hair slower or less well-trained in damage control, then half the fleet might have been lost, what with burning ships coming loose from their anchors and drifting into each other.
As for Marco, Danilo, and Rufio, they got the wildfire out of the city all right, but they hadn't quite managed to get beyond the Titan before the wildfire went off in their boat. Gods grant that they died quickly, they were brave enough to deserve it, but the patch of green flames burning underneath the Titan's kilt was enough to convince even the most skeptical Braavosi of how narrow an escape they had had. Which is why my list of honors includes the Bronze Moon of Service, the fourth-highest award the Commune can give for extraordinary service done to the Commune or for valor in action. The corporal, Vitorio, received the Silver Moon, which is a grade higher, and Marco, Danilo, and Rufio's families all got the Medal of Valor, the Commune'shighestaward for extraordinary service, and a fairly comfortable pension courtesy of the Iron Bank. I haven't been able to buy my own wine in Braavos from that day to this, and the first toast I offer is always to those three men; gods all bless and keep them. Even the bravos got official thanks from the Council of Thirty and substantial rewards from the Iron Bank, which I helped them blow in a two-day party which ended with me being made an honorary member of their confraternity, what they called ascuolo.
By the time the Great Armament sailed two weeks later, the only True Myrish, Tyroshi, or Lyseni citizens left alive in the city were the ones who had turned themselves in to protective custody and every man in the Braavosi fleet was in a killing mood. I thought about asking the gods to take pity on the Tyroshi when they came over the horizon but I decided against it. The bastards had tried to burn a city with me in it, after all, and even without considering my personal, precious, and irreplaceable carcass, trying to burn Braavos was an act of barbarism more than an act of war. If the Tyroshi had managed to storm the city, then it would have been fair doings, but trying to do it by stealth made it a crime as much as anything. To this day the Great Armament is the only military expedition I've ever volunteered for of my own will.
Chapter 73: Desires and Ambitions
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Lion House was relatively small as manses went, despite it's being the urban residence of the Hand of the King. Partially that was due to the fact that Gerion made a point of keeping his work separate from his home, save for those things that his office required him to have within reach at all times. But mostly it was due to Gerion's sense of perceptions. Of all of the Kingdom of Myr's nobility, he was the most continuously aware of just how new, and just how shaky, their position was. In Westeros, the nobility had the weight of thousands of years of tradition holding them in place, serving as an anchor against the misdeeds and missteps of individual lords. In Myr, that ideological anchor did not exist, and would not exist for decades if not centuries to come. As a consequence, the nobility of the Kingdom of Myr had to demonstrate their worthiness to hold power in a way that the Westerosi nobility had not had to do for many years, both in war and in peace. Hence the modesty of Gerion's domicile in the city and the restraint of its decoration, despite the fact that his personal wealth was one of the two or three greatest fortunes in the whole kingdom; he might have changed his allegiances, as he had once observed to Robert, but he hadn't changed his family.
That last was why he and his nephew were sitting in his private solar sharing a decanter of Dornish red, one of the first vintages to finish aging for the market since the Red Viper Rebellion. "Tywin has arranged a marriage for you when your exile is lifted," Gerion said, getting down to brass tacks as quickly as decently possible after they had exchanged pleasantries about the wedding, the tournament, and the more interesting parts of the city's gossip.
Jaime leaned back, concealing surprise by raising his glass for a sip, but not well enough to hide it from his uncle. "Has he?" he asked rhetorically. "And who might the lucky girl be?"
"Lysa Tully," Gerion replied. "Lord Hoster's younger daughter."
Jaime frowned. "She's still unmarried?" he asked suspiciously.
"I am told that Hoster has been having some difficulty finding a suitable husband for her in the Riverlands," Gerion said, swirling the wine in his glass. "You know what the Riverlands are like; can't show favor to one House without offending five others. And outside the Riverlands there seems to be a dearth of bachelors of sufficient rank, worthiness, or both to marry a Lord Paramount's daughter, even if she is the younger one." He shrugged. "Possibly Hoster's fault for being picky, but what would you?"
Jaime shrugged. "I would like to be able to have some say in who I wed," he said, a slight edge in his voice. "Instead of having Father simply push a girl into my arms and telling me to produce a grandson and be quick about it."
Gerion placed his glass on the low table between them and leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. "It's part of a father's duty to find his son a bride," he said carefully; he had dealt with his share of touchy young men over the years. "And it's a good match, at that. Lysa's a fair beauty, by all accounts, and her dowry is likely to be substantial, even by the standards of our family."
"And no doubt it will be very convenient for Father to be able to secure his eastern flankandturn a profit at the same time," Jaime drawled. "Insofar as the Riverlands can ever be secured, at any rate."
Gerion spread his hands. "Tywin has always had a penchant for solving two problems with a single solution," he agreed. "And it's a lord's duty to work for the advantage of his people, with whatever means may be appropriate."
"Including turning his dogs loose on women and children?" Jaime asked, his green eyes turning hard. "You know as well as I that neither Amory Lorch nor the Mountain would have laid a finger on Elia Martell or her children without Father's orders."
"That has never been proven," Gerion replied coolly. "And as far as the Mountain is concerned, I would be unwilling to put anything past him; he might have died a hero, but I will be the first to allow that he lived as a beast, and a rabid one at that. Nor will I ever claim to know what is in Amory Lorch's head, although I suspect the answer is 'not very much'."
"Please don't try to distract me with japes, uncle," Jaime said. "Just answer me this: Why would I go back to Westeros when I have everything I need and want here in Myr?"
Gerion looked Jaime in the eyes. "Because you have a duty to your family," he said sharply, "and duty means that we do things we would rather not do from time to time. I would have thought that you had learned that by now."
Jaime's face hardened. "I have learned much and more, uncle," he replied, his voice dangerously soft. "I have learned that I can do more good with a single stroke of my sword here than I can in a month of judgements in the Westerlands. I have learned that here I can be the knight I always wished to be, rather than my father's pawn. I have learned that this is the only place in the world where I can be that knight, and fulfill the oaths I swore at my knighting, and not be derided for it."
"And when you are Lord of Casterly Rock you will have the opportunity to be that knight again, and more besides," Gerion said, injecting reasonableness into his voice as he deliberately relaxed his posture; he didnotwant to start a fight with his nephew. "Tywin will not live forever, and when he dies you will be not pawn but player. Many of the other Westermen who fight alongside you will be traveling back with you; they will be your men in a way that they can never be Tywin's, and you will have their loyalty and the skills they have learned here to draw upon. And which do you think that Robert would find more valuable; a single knight, however valiant and accomplished, or an ally who is Lord of Casterly Rock, and who will have the ear of the King on the Iron Throne and both ears of his heir?" He leaned forward. "At least sail back to Westeros for a time, Jaime," he urged his nephew. "Long enough to see Tyrion, at least; I know you have kept in touch with each other. See Cersei and Stannis as well, and your nephew and your niece. They should know you as more than a name."
Jaime's mouth contorted as he struggled with himself. Gerion carefully didn't smile; he had thought that that last exhortation would hit home. "I will consider it," he said finally. "But I will make no promises, uncle. I have done too much to restore our family's honor here to risk tainting it again."
XXX
Lord Eldon Estermont could not remember the last time he had seen Renly so pensive. His youngest grandson had always been a brash and excitable lad, driving his parents and his brothers to distraction as he raced around Storm's End, drawing anyone he could into his fantasies. The maesters Stannis had appointed to assist Maester Cressen had curbed some of the energy, but the enthusiasm they had been unable to dampen. On the voyage to Myr, he had asked so many questions that the ship's captain had eventually ordered his sailing master to take Renly on as an apprentice for the duration of the voyage; whether to preempt further questions or simply tie the boy down with honest instruction Eldon was unsure. Renly, for his part, had paid commendable attention to the sailing master's tuition, enough so that by the time they had landed in Myr he had been able to use the ship's astrolabe and compass to determine their course with, as the master put it, "reasonable accuracy for a landsman."
His ebullience had continued through almost the whole visit to Myr; the royal wedding had been almost everything a boy of almost eleven years could ask for, between the feasts and the tournament. Renly had been entranced with his older brother, and being able to sit in the royal box and at the high table with him had been enough to make the boy swell almost to bursting with pride and excitement. Robert for his part had been more than happy to explain the intricacies of the Iron Legion and the rules and reasons for the new contests that distinguished the Myrish tournament from the Westerosi, and Queen Serina had shared a few stories of life in Braavos that had Renly alternately laughing and exclaiming in astonishment. Even the knights of Robert's court had enjoyed entertaining their king's youngest brother, spinning tales of the taking of Pentos, of the Conquest of Myr, and of the Slave Wars since that had made Renly's eyes grow to the size of saucers.
But ever since their last day in Myr Renly had been quiet, almost withdrawn. Even boarding the ship and going back to his lessons with the sailing master had failed to spark his enthusiasm, although he had applied himself with an earnestness that he hadn't had before. Finally, after Eldon caught him puzzling his way through a book (a portent indeed, even before it proved to be a pamphlet that the Blackfish had written about how to drill a company of horse), he asked him what the matter was. Renly's response surprised him. "I want to be like Robert, grandfather," he had said simply. "I want people to look at me like they look at him and listen to me like they listen to him." He looked down at the deck, rubbing his hands over his knees. "I want to do what he does," he went on, "make the world better. That's what knights do."
Eldon leaned back on his stool, unconsciously stroking his beard in thought. "You'll have to work hard at your practice and your studies," he said finally. "You will need to be able to read and write well, and have a good grasp of mathematica, aside from possessing all the usual knightly skills. And more than that," he leaned forward and rapped Renly on the head with a thick knuckle, "you must learn tolisten.And when you have listened you mustthinkon what you have heard, and thenactupon it. There's a broad gap between each of the three, lad. Some never bridge even one, most only bridge the one between listening and acting or the one between listening and thinking. But the ones who manage to bridge all three, like your brothers do, they're the ones who leave their mark on the world. Can you do that, lad?"
Renly looked up and nodded. "Yes, my lord grandfather," he said as resolutely as he could with his voice not yet broken.
Eldon smiled. "Then read through the rest of that book and we'll discuss it tomorrow. The Blackfish is a good captain and a worthy knight, but I'll wager that I may know a thing or two that he doesn't, eh?"
XXX
Five companies of the Royal Army of Myr were assembled on the tournament grounds outside the city of Myr. Three of them were Legion companies, the standing companies from the city itself and the villages and small towns of its immediate hinterland and one of the militia companies from the city; the city's other militia company was remaining behind to provide a garrison. The other two companies were cavalry, and carried themselves with justifiable pride. They were the first and second cavalry companies of the Royal Army, the personal retinues of the King and the King's Fist in all but name. Their ranks were filled with the vassals and household men of their captains, and their officers included some of the kingdom's most famous knights. Every man and woman was fully equipped and ready to march, with the cavalry standing at the heads of their horses awaiting the order to mount up. All that was missing was their captains.
Well, they weren't missing, per se; they simply weren't in ranks. Robert was bestowing the power to rule in his name on his Hand, Ser Gerion Lannister, and both he and Lord Stark were also taking leave of their wives. It was more than a little incongruous for some of the waiting soldiers, and more than a few of the onlookers, to see the Iron Wolf holding his newborn son Brandon so carefully and kissing his wife so tenderly, but most simply shrugged and remarked that wolves cared for the members of their pack. The farewell between King Robert and Queen Serina, by contrast, drew more than a few cheers, especially when the kiss went on a tad longer than might be strictly decorous. More than a few jokes were made in the crowd, and later that day among the soldiers, about the habits of newlyweds. By and by, both King and King's Fist mounted their warhorses, causing the cavalry to vault onto their own mounts, and trotted to join their soldiers. A gesture from Robert provoked a trumpet blast, and like a single many-headed beast the companies turned to their right and began to march onto the southwestern road to Sirmium and the war.
Chapter 74: Descending Madness
Chapter Text
The arrival of the Great Armament, as the Braavosi fleet was called in that war, signaled the beginning of the Third Slave War; the day after they finished resupplying war was officially declared. The general outline of that war is well-known, but I will broadly outline the major strokes. The Royal Army, reinforced by the Braavosi battalions who had marched south from Pentos, marched over the border in a two-pronged assault; King Robert led one force west from Ironhold and Sirmium, while Lord Stark led the other north from Alalia, with the intention of catching the Tyroshi field army in a vise.
This was successful, in that the general intent was accomplished, but the devil, as always, was in the details . . .
-Justice and Vengeance: The Sunset Company and the Kingdom of Myr in the Slave Warsby Maester Gordon, published 317 AC
Eddard glowered at the manse. It would have attracted his ire under any circ*mstances, being the country home of a Tyroshi magister and the nerve center of the estate it stood on, but there were what a lawyer would call aggravating circ*mstances. For one thing, it had clearly been the focus of an attempt to make it defensible; the glass windows had been fitted with iron shutters that were pierced with arrow-slits, the door had been sheathed in iron plating, and the half-timbered walls had been faced with brick.
For another, those defenses were being put to use. The magister was away, but the estate manager, the guards, and the free retainers who lived and worked on the estate had locked themselves inside when the southern prong of the attack had drawn close, but not before massacring the estate's slaves. This, the estate manager had shouted out to them during the one parley they had held, had been done at the order of the Archon, in order to deny the Iron Legion further recruits. That parley had ended when one of the guards had shot the legionary carrying the truce flag, shouting that vermin didn't deserve to be parleyed with and that they would all die fighting rather than be killed like dogs.
Eddard stroked his beard as he considered the manse. The doors and windows might have been given some protection, but the roof was still timber covered in pottery shingles; metal or brick would have been too heavy for the rafters to bear. He turned to Maege Mormont, who had been his chief lieutenant since her return to Essos. "Have the men get torches, and set the roof alight," he said. "Dry as it's been the past few days, it should go up easily enough. If they come out, cut them down; they've had their chance to surrender. If they don't," he shrugged, "then they will no longer be a problem."
Maege nodded and spurred her horse away, calling out commands. Eddard turned to Cregan and Arthor Karstark, who had both become cavalry officers. "Push the cavalry further out in front of the column, and increase the rate of march as much as you dare," he commanded. "This," he gestured at where the bodies of the dead slaves where being piled for burial, "is happening because the news of our coming outstripped us. If we can outrun the news, then hopefully we can prevent more of this kind of thing from happening."
Cregan nodded. "And it'll help us move more quickly if we don't have to siege down every manse between here and the coast," he said. "We'll see to it, my lord."
As the Karstark brothers clattered away, Eddard turned to where the Legion crossbowmen were pelting the arrow-slits of the manse to cover the advance of the torch-bearers. This was the first estate his wing of the army had come across since storming Irons' Ford and Dubris, and the determination being shown was not promising. Nor was the attempt made to fortify the manse; someone had tried to take a leaf out of the Kingdom's book on fortified settlements. If similar things were facing Robert on the northern flank of the offensive, then this war might be more difficult than previously thought.
XXX
Robert glowered at the field of bodies strewn on the fields around the manse. About two-thirds, he judged, were slaves; men and women who had been killed at the approach of the Royal Army and it's Braavosi allies. As enraging as that was, it was the other third, the one concentrated in the decorative gardens before the main doors of the manse, that had made him bristle in anger until his courser had sidled nervously from the signals it was receiving from rein and leg; those men were legionaries who, goaded beyond endurance by the fact that this was the fifth estate they had liberated where the slaves had been massacred, had broken ranks to charge the manse and been shot down by its defenders. Fortunately, only one century had gone berserk, with swearing sergeants physically holding the men of the other centuries in ranks while mounted officers cantered across the fronts of their companies roaring the men to stillness.
The manse was burning nicely now, and the cries of its defenders were weakening, but Robert had already put that from his mind. Turning his horse away from the field, he turned his glower on the lieutenant of the century that had broken. "This," he said in a voice that fairly smoked with restrained fury, "could have been accomplished with hardly a man lost if your men had kept their discipline. Instead, we have twenty men dead and twice as many seriously wounded becauseyoulost control of them."
The lieutenant, a freedman who was standing at rigid attention, opened his mouth, but was forestalled in whatever he had to say by Robert raising his gauntleted hand. "I am not interested in explanations or excuses," Robert snapped. "You failed in your duty to your men, to the Legion, and to the Kingdom. The evidence lies before us and cannot be denied. Bearing what I have said in mind, do you have anything to say in your defense?"
The lieutenant was an intelligent man. "No excuse, Your Grace," he said woodenly.
"I agree," Robert said, "and this is my sentence. For their indiscipline, your men will be stripped of their armor and all weapons larger than an eating knife, and they shall place themselves under the orders of the captain of the baggage train. There they shall do such work as he deems fit until,in my sole estimation, they have re-earned the right to stand in the ranks of the Legion." The surviving men of the century, drawn up in ranks behind their lieutenant, moaned slightly, only being silenced by a snapped command from their senior sergeant; many of them would doubtless have preferred physical punishment to being reduced from soldiers to stevedores. "As for you, Belan Freeman," Robert went on, pointedlynotusing the lieutenant's rank, "the Kingdom has no place in its service for a man who cannot maintain discipline and fails the trust placed in him. Drop your armor and your weapons where you stand." He turned to Ser Akhollo, who as Lord Commander of the Brotherhood was now one of the two or three highest ranking officers of his household, along with Ser Dafyn Otley and Ser Richard Horpe; Ser Dafyn was back in Myr with half the Brotherhood protecting Serina, while Ser Richard Horpe was sitting his horse on Robert's other side. "Lord Commander Freeman, assist him in divesting himself."
Ser Akhollo, his face sternly impassive, swung down from his horse and strode over to the former lieutenant, who was standing blank-faced with shock. He hardly moved as Akhollo took the glaive out of his hand, knocked his helmet out from under his other arm, unfastened his sword-belt, undid the ties of his brigandine, and dragged off his gambeson, dumping them all in the dirt as he did so. "Do not present yourself for service again," Robert commanded as Akhollo stalked back to his horse and remounted, "and henceforward do noteverrefer to yourself as a man of the Iron Legion or a soldier of the Royal Army. That honor is reserved for men who are worthy of it, not fools who allow their men to be slaughtered." Robert allowed some of the fury boiling in his veins to leak into his voice. "Get. Out. My. Sight."
The former lieutenant, looking more diminished than even the loss of his armor and weapons would account for, bowed and backed away before turning about, his face ashen and his jaw and lips clamped shut. His former company parted ranks for him silently, and then fell out themselves at a curt gesture of command from Robert. The commander of the Braavosi battalion attached to Robert's wing of the army, Captain Omero Bardi, brought his horse alongside Robert, close enough that only Akhollo and Richard would be able to overhear a quiet conversation. "A harsh decision, Your Grace, but a necessary and good one, I think," he said softly. "The man looked as if he would rather have been killed."
"That's the point, captain," Robert said coldly, gesturing to where the Legion was reforming to begin tramping down the road towards Lissus again. "The men of the Legion still fear death or mutilation or pain, as all men do, but they are old companions of theirs from their time in slavery; their masters had every right under old Myrish law to kill them out of hand for disobedience. And familiarity, as we say, breeds contempt, especially when that familiarity is wedded to the power and the pride they have gained from joining the Legion. Forbye, we have explicitly forbidden the use of most forms of physical punishment in our Army, in order to further draw the line between ourselves and the slavers."
Captain Omero nodded. "Hence the sentence of expulsion in disgrace," he commented. "They may have no fear of flogging or branding or other such punishments, but to be cast out of the brotherhood of arms in shame . . ."
Robert nodded. "Exactly," he replied. "Thatwill give them pause, where even death may not." He looked westwards toward Lissus, and beyond it to Tyrosh. "Pause enough to make them remember discipline and keep them alive, the gods willing," he said softly, fingering the head of his war hammer where it hung at his belt. If what they had seen since crossing the border was going to be normal, then Robert could almost find it in him to dread what they would find in Tyrosh itself.
XXX
Daario Naharis couldn't help smiling as he rode through the gates of Sinuessa. Partly it was due to sheer glee at the way his plans had come off; barely ten days after the war had started and his army was before the main town of Tyrosh's southwestern lands and the gates had opened to them with barely any blood spilled. But it was also due to the reception that he and his men were receiving. The denizens of Sinuessa were being rapturously thankful for being taken under the protection of a city that would allow them to retain their rights and their property. The alternative, given the news from the eastern territories, had been coming under the bootheel of the Iron Legion, and no one had had any illusions about whatthatmeant, however much effort they had evidently put into repairing and upgrading their walls and gates.
So the entry of the Army of Lys had been met with a crowd that seemed to consist of almost all the able-bodied citizens of the town, all cheering themselves hoarse. Many of them were throwing flowers, and some of the women in the crowd were pushing their way forward to kiss the soldiers. The only faces in the crowd that weren't transported with joy or at least relief were those of the slaves, which if they didn't mimic the happiness of the citizenry were set in the carefully blank mask that slaves and servants learned to cultivate in the presence of their masters. Daario shrugged to himself; it was the nature of the world that you couldn't please everyone, although you could at least do your best. For his part, he intended to use the powers that he possessed in military and military-related matters, which were almost alarmingly broad if you took them at face value, to try and forestall any unpleasantness from that quarter.
Under the new law that had just passed the Conclave, each district of the Lyseni territories was to vote on whether or not to adopt the recommendations put forth by the law, which boiled down to a transition from chattel slavery to indentured servitude. Each slave employed in a commercial or industrial capacity who had given satisfactory service under good behavior for thirty years was to be manumitted and given limited legal rights, including the right to own property, act as a legal witness, and join craft guilds; the children of these manumitted slaves would, upon attainting their majority with a clean criminal record, be full-fledged citizens. Few districts had implemented the law, preferring to maintain the system of slavery that had served their city-state so well in the past; a major complaint was that it would deprive citizens ofalltheir slaves, despite the fact that the law said nothing about domestic slaves and allowed exceptions for enterprises that owned fewer than ten slaves.
In districts where martial law or a state of emergency had not been declared, Daario couldn't do anything, despite being a clear case of people's willful blindness overriding their own best interest. But in districts thatwereunder martial law or in a state of emergency, as Sinuessa would be for the foreseeable future, Daario could enforce the law regardless of what the citizens thought of it, and he intended to do so to the hilt. It was entirely possible that the same citizens that were throwing flowers and calling down the blessings of the gods upon him would throw brickbats and demand his head when he declared the law in full effect, with each eligible slave's required period of service backdated to the day of their enslavement, but as he had an army and they did not he did not foresee any insuperable problems. Especially since the core of his army was five hundred Unsullied, who in all probability were entirely capable of defeating the rest of his army put together, and two thousand mercenary cavalrymen, the core of which were the four hundred remaining Stormcrows who he knew would follow him anywhere. The garrison and militia of Sinuessa couldn't easily object, either; for one thing they had joined his army, and he would ensure that the habit of obeying his orders was swiftly instilled. For another, most of them were all too grateful to have a commander who had an idea, not only of how to survive, but of how to win.
He would have to strike while the iron was hot, though, not just in regards to the law, but also in grabbing enough of the nearby countryside to support the population of the town. People tended to be less combative on a full stomach.
XXX
Iluro had been a small farming village since its founding, with its main draw being the fact that it sat on the junction of two second-rank roads that linked the plantations of the Tyroshi mainland to the port of Lissus. It was those same roads that had led Mero of Braavos to lay a trap for the northern wing of the Royal Army of Myr nearby; another road ran parallel to the roads that ran through Iluro, and it was this road that the Royal Army was using on it's march from Ironhold and Sirmium to Lissus. Mero's plan had been to wait until the Royal Army had passed Iluro, and then strike it from the flank rear in order to catch it between the hammer of the Army of Tyrosh and the walls of Lissus.
Unfortunately for Mero, the outriders of the Royal Army had scouted his ambush, and the slave rebellions that had broken out when war had been declared had allowed the couriers of the Royal Army to carry the orders that had reversed the trap. Mero had launched his ambush, only to find his attacks repulsed and driven back to Iluro in a running fight where the valor of his militiamen had been outmatched by the coordination and initiative of the Royal Army, but Iluro had proved no refuge either. For obedient to his king's orders Eddard Stark had turned his wing northeast and eight companies of the Iron Legion and six cavalry companies had come up out of the southwest to turn Iluro into a slaughterhouse where men fought street by street and house by house. The Tyroshi had fought desperately, but when it came to the confused grappling of even a small urban action there were few combinations of troops better than Legion armored spear and crossbowmen spearheaded by dismounted knights and men-at-arms in plate. The second cavalry company, commonly named the Northern Company for the preponderance of Northmen in its officer corps, with Maege Mormont being most prominent among them as the company's captain, distinguished itself by leading the assault into the village and overrunning the inn despite desperate resistance from the Tyroshi company that attempted to hold it.
Finally, the last holdouts had been wrinkled out of the last cellars, by the simple expedient of opening the doors, throwing in combustibles and lit torches, and then closing the doors until the Tyroshi either surrendered or died from the smoke and the flames. Some of the Tyroshihadsurrendered, but not many, and they had gone down fighting. Between the running fight and the Battle of Iluro, the Royal Army had lost almost a thousand men dead and twice as many wounded, with most of the casualties concentrated on the lighter-armored Legion infantry and the outriders. The Army of Tyrosh, on the other hand, had started the day fifteen thousand strong and ended it as fewer than three thousand scattered fugitives, many of them sellswords who had seen the writing on the wall and fought their way clear at the first opportunity.
One sellsword that did not make good his escape was Mero of Braavos, the Titan's Bastard, who had been unhorsed and taken prisoner in the running fight by Ser Richard Horpe; the lack of a guiding commander had been a main factor in the disorganization of the Tyroshi during the fight for Iluro. His fate could have become a bone of contention, for there was a price on his head in both the Kingdom of Myr, for the suppression of the Turtle River Revolt, and in the Commune of Braavos for the rape and murder that had led to his initial outlawry, but Captain Omero Bardi yielded the Titan's claim to Mero's blood on the grounds that the offense he had committed against the Kingdom of Myr outweighed his offense against the Commune. Mero was subsequently hanged by the neck until dead as a common criminal, cursing King Robert, the Kingdom of Myr, Sealord Antaryon, the Commune of Braavos, and every man and woman of both kingdom and commune until the tightening noose cut off his voice.
After the destruction of the Tyroshi army, the Royal Army ran rampant over the Tyroshi mainland. Myrish cavalry companies, supported by hard-marching Legion infantry, stormed plantation after plantation, their hearts hardened by the massacres on the plantations they had overrun in the border country. Eddard Stark's sobriquet of 'the Hangman' was earned in this period when he ordered that any Tyroshi male taken prisoner after defending a plantation where the slaves had been massacred was to be hanged from the nearest tree that could take the weight. One squadron of the eighth cavalry company, under the command of Ser Joren Potts, interpreted that order so broadly that it was known thereafter as 'Gallowstree Squadron'. In Lissus a slave revolt erupted when the garrison attempted to force the municipal slaves into their barracks; the slaves saw the preparation of incendiaries nearby, put two and two together, and decided that it was better to die fighting than be killed like rats. The garrison, stripped of most of its best soldiers to reinforce Mero's army, was overwhelmed and the revolt spread literally like wildfire; parts of Lissus didn't stop burning for days. The garrisons of Aesica and Brivas abandoned their posts and retreated to Tyrosh. Aesica fell two days later when the town's slaves opened the gates to the Royal Army, but the citizens of Brivas were spared the fate of their countrymen in Aesica and Lissus; not six hours after the garrison sailed away a long-range patrol of the Army of Lys entered the town at the invitation of the citizens.
Despite his displeasure at the unhinging of his plans, which had left Brivas out of the territory that Lys would claim in order to keep the border short enough to be defensible, Daario Naharis rushed reinforcements to Brivas while dispatching a spray of messengers to the Royal Army assuring Robert that he had no belligerent intentions towards the Kingdom of Myr or the Commune of Braavos and that there would be no preemptory massacres or other such excesses so long as there was peace between the alliance and Lys. A terse message from Robert accepting his terms, which had included a suggestion that further negotiations be held after the war, made Daario breathe a sigh of relief and allowed him to focus on the fortification and reorganization of Lys' newly acquired territories. On the other side of the Disputed Lands, which more than one wag had noted would need a different name as they were becoming less and less disputed by the day, the Royal Army of Myr and it's Braavosi allies concentrated on Aesica. There they were met by the Great Armament, three hundred Braavosi great galleys and one hundred Myrish galleys and longships, all packed with marines, as well as more than two hundred cogs and dromonds that would carry the army to Tyrosh isle.
On Tyrosh itself the mood was verging on the apocalyptic. With the mainland fallen and their enemies only a day's sailing away, the fear in the streets was almost thick enough to cut with a knife. Berths on outbound ships, even ships bound for Westeros or Pentos, became things to offer fortunes for, or spill blood over. One ship, theSea-Horse, was so badly swarmed by desperate citizens attempting to flee that a riot broke out; only the quick thinking of the ship's captain, who cut the ropes holding his ship to the pier and sailed away on the spot, prevented the riot from spreading onto the ship and dooming it. The declaration of martial law and universal conscription had little effect, when so few able-bodied men were not already bearing arms, but they served to reinforce the feeling of despair. Alchemists, doctors, and apothecaries sold out of their supplies of lethal substances as families made suicide pacts, and knives and daggers quickly became worth their weight in gold by the same demand. The city's gold reserves were transferred out of the city under strict secrecy, save for what was necessary to pay the mercenaries, as were the securities and promissory notes of the city's major banks.
The city's fear quickly found a focus. Word of the slave revolt in Lissus had reached Tyrosh, as had reports of the slaves of Aesica opening the gates to the Iron Legion, and fear swiftly transmuted to murderous anger. A rash of attacks all over the city drove domestic and industrial slaves from household and manufactory into hiding in the barracks of the municipal slaves, where fears of a different kind quickly took hold. Those fears were realized a day later, when the barracks were surrounded by marines from the Tyroshi fleet and the garrisons of Brivas and Aesica and set alight. Those slaves that managed to break out of the burning barracks were shot down by crossbowmen or cut down by spear and swordsmen as they tried to flee. More than ten thousand slaves were killed on the Night of Flames, as it was called thereafter, and in the days that followed thousands more were killed as soldiers, marines, sailors, and gangs of armed citizens rampaged through the city seeking to remove the fifth column from their midst.
Some of the Tyroshi were jubilant or at least relieved when the last suspected slave was dragged from their hiding place and torn apart, considering that with the threat of treachery removed they might at least have a fighting chance against their external enemies. Most were more ambivalent, viewing it as a distasteful matter that needed to be carried out in the interests of the city's defense, like the conscription of all adult men and the imposition of martial law. A few, more humane or perhaps simply more practical, took a different view altogether . . .
XXX
Salladhor Saan's cabin aboard theValyrianwas spacious as shipboard accommodations went, but it was still small enough that the company he was currently keeping in it made it positively cramped. Theoretically every captain in his little fleet was entitled to vote on the fleet's course of action, but realistically only seven of them had enough ships under their command to merit a permanent place at the table, and some negotiation had seen those seven entrusted with the proxies of the smaller captains. Those seven were as fractious and prideful as you might expect of men who had come to power on the strength of their swords and their wits, but they all agreed on one thing: the Night of Flames and the massacres since had been a mistake.
The difference that remained was how they would respond to it. Bartoleo the Black and Avary Waters were minded to let it pass and carry on as before. Jon Rackham, Irlodos Orlinar, and Donnel Hawkins, on the other hand, wanted to send a letter to the Archon denouncing the massacres and threatening to leave Tyroshi service if they were not denounced or if they resumed against the few slaves that remained alive. Fernadeo Hardhand and Nickolas Teach, for their part, wanted to simply sail away and leave the Tyroshi to their fate; Teach, in particular, was disgusted by the massacres. Salladhor himself was minded to sign his name to a letter of protest, but in order for such a letter to have much effect it would need to be signed by all of the major captains. This was in keeping with the usual rules governing an assemblage such as theirs, which required a unanimous vote for all major decisions, but it made making those decisions exceedingly difficult if people dug their heels in.
Bartoleo had just cut off Donnel's argument in favor of the letter by pointing out that it would make no difference and possibly make them the next targets for the mobs when there was a knock on the door and Salladhor's first mate poked his head in the door. "Messenger for you, captain," he said apologetically. "He says it's urgent."
Salladhor raised an eyebrow. "Urgent enough that it cannot wait until after we are finished?" he asked, mildly enough that only someone who knew him would be able to tell that he was displeased at the interruption.
The first mate nodded. "He said that you wouldn't want to be interrupted, and that I was to offer his apologies and this." He held up a small purse. "Payment he owes for a night in White Harbor, he said?"
Salladhor pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting back a sudden attack of weariness. "Send him in," he said, shaking his head as his first mate opened the door to admit the man he least wanted to see at that particular moment. "Davos, my friend, my old, why do you put me in these positions?"
"Believe me, I would rather not," Davos replied, pulling off his gloves and tucking them into his belt. "But needs must when your employer drives." He nodded to the other captains. "Gentlemen, I trust the evening finds you well?"
"Who the Hells are you?" Avary Waters demanded; the pug-nosed bastard from the Crownlands had always been blunt, in speech and action both.
"Davos of Flea Bottom, at your service," Davos replied with a short bow, "although I'm afraid you may have to form a line; I am here on behalf of His Grace King Robert of Myr."
There was a moment of silence as the captains absorbed the bare-faced admission. "You are either the bravest man I have ever met," Nickolas Teach said finally, "or the stupidest. Why should we not hand you over to the Tyroshi and count the reward while they decide whether to hang you or throw you to the mob?"
"Because I have a business proposition for you," Davos replied, slowly reaching into his jerkin and drawing out a sheaf of papers. "I have here letters of marque for each captain in your fleet, on behalf of the Kingdom of Myr and the Commune of Braavos. Sign them, and get them signed by King Robert and Sealord Antaryon, and each of you receives a full pardon for past crimes committed and license to raid the shipping of any state at odds with the Kingdom and the Commune." He dropped them on the table, where each man eyed them with a mixture of hunger and wariness. Getting a letter of marque from the Commune was a rare thing, and getting one signed by two different powers was almost unheard of. When those powers were engaged in long-running and apparently unstoppable wars, such a letter amounted to a license to mint your own money, if you had a good ship, a good crew, and the brains and the balls to use them. Which was why the captains hesitated; they had not reached their current positions by leaping at every opportunity that came their way without first scouting it for potential dangers.
"And why," Salladhor drawled, "would we give up the life of the free sailor to become a set of hirelings? Really, Davos, a less generous man than me would take this as an insult, especially given our last conversation."
"Because the Braavosi fleet is coming," Davos said, as bluntly as Avary Waters might have done. "So is the Kingdom of Myr's fleet, and both of them will be carrying armies. They're in Aesica right now, waiting for the word to set sail. And when they get here, they will not be in a forgiving mood. They've heard about the Night of Flames, gentles, and the massacres since then."
Bartoleo shrugged. "That was the Tyroshi's doing, not ours," he pointed out. "We didn't join the mobs, nor did we let our crews join them either."
Davos gave a sardonic bark of laughter. "You think the Iron Legion will care?" he asked derisively. "I was in Aesica when the word hit, and you can take it from me: They don't. When they get here . . ." He shrugged. "They might spare the dogs. Or maybe not; slaversaredogs, after all. Ask any legionary."
"So why are you offering us the letters, then?" asked Francis Redleg. "If they're going to kill us anyway, why bother?"
"Because you have three options to choose from when the alliance gets here," Davos said, folding his arms. "First, you take the letters, hoist the green pennant, and join the attack on the city. Second, you hoist the white pennant and take yourself elsewhere; you will be allowed to sail away unmolested, but you will still be enemies of the Kingdom and the Commune. Third, you stand with the Tyroshi and you take your chances, which in this case will be whether you die in the battle or afterwards." Davos looked around the room. "I know you gentlemen aren't the type to take kindly to threats, but I am under orders to say this; in recompense for the Night of Flames, and all the people that the Tyroshi have slaughtered over the course of this war, King Robert has sworn to visit torturous death upon the gallows onallwho survive the taking of the city. Every man, every woman, every child over the age of fifteen who survives the assault will hang; as you will, if you fight alongside them."
"Bold words from a man who hasn't even fought the battle yet," Bartoleo the Black observed silkily. "We have our swords, and gods witness we are no laggards when it comes to the slaying."
"Bold words from a man who seems to be having trouble with the odds," Davos shot back, making Bartoleo bristle; the Volantene exile, reportedly a former tiger cloak despite the lack of facial tattoos, had a reputation of sufficient luridness that very few people dared show him defiance. "Braavos has sent three hundred galleys south," Davos went on, "each one full of their marines. The Kingdom of Myr is adding in just over a hundred galleys and longships, most of them crewed by Ironborn reavers. That'sfour hundredwarships coming your way, with some of the fiercest fighters on the world-ocean aboard them. And that's not counting the cogs and dromonds and hulks that will be carrying the army." Davos' mouth quirked. "The Tyroshi have, what, a hundred ships, maybe a hundred and fifty if they push out every vessel that can float and carry a squad of marines? Two hundred all up, counting all of your ships?"
Davos opened his arms and spread his hands. "Tyrosh is done for," he said definitively. "But you gentles don't have to be. You can join and live, and share in the loot of the city, you can run and live as you have before now, or you can fight and die. I suggest you choose quickly; that fleet isn't going to wait for you."
There was a long moment of silence before Salladhor raised his face from where he had placed it in his hands. "You would have us break the contract we have made, my old friend?" he asked softly.
"I would have you think about what is good business," Davos replied. "For yourselves and your crews. Even if you win this battle, then the Kingdom and the Commune will come again, and again, and again, until they have this place under their heels. And when they do, they will hang every one of you that survives where you can watch the sack."
There was another moment of silence that stretched almost unbearably, as the captains flicked their eyes at each other scanning for some clue as to how they would jump. "Bugger it," Nickolas Teach said finally, reaching out one plate-sized hand, "give me one of those. Salladhor, you have a quill and some ink I can use?"
"You can't just sign that," Avary protested as Davos slid one of the letters across the table and Salladhor fetched an inkpot and one of his quills from a drawer on his side of the table.
"f*cking watch me," Nickolas challenged through his bushy black beard.
"Not without a vote of your crew at least," Avary insisted.
"My crew's been after me to leave this sh*thole since the Night of Flames," Nickolas said with a wry twinkle in his eyes. "I think they'll ratify this just fine. And if they don't, then they'll replace me. Either way, I'll be done with this madhouse." He scratched his name onto the letter of marque and held up the quill. "Who's next?"
XXX
Councillor Andros Stallar looked out upon Tyrosh. Tyrosh the Bright City, Tyrosh the Colorful, Tyrosh the Princess of the Stepstones, and so many other titles. It was his favorite view of the city, from a small balcony in his family mansion, as the sun set.
"Sunset, the Sunset Company ending the days of so many," the Councilor mused to himself.
Tyrosh had been founded as a military outpost of the Valyrian Freehold, meant to establish the Freehold's military presence in the Stepstones and curb the piracy that had run through these waters even in that age. Then they had discovered a most unexpected treasure under the sea, and the rest was history, as men were so fond of saying.
Tyrosh had grown and prospered under the Freehold, filling its isle to bursting until the city and island were one and the same, and proving a favored daughter for her fidelity to the Freehold. And when the Freehold fell while other cities had struggled the Archon appointed by the Freehold to command the garrison had stood fast and built a new government, maintaining the laws that had been the mainstay of Valyrian liberty and right. Tyrosh did not have the ancient traditions or the ample Valyrian blood of Lys and Volantis, but she had stood ever as a proud daughter of Valyria even as she forged her own identity.
Tyrosh had faced trials before; indeed Stallar had witnessed many of them. In his youth he had witnessed the rise of the Tyrant and the dark days when the vagabonds of the Band of Nine had strutted through their streets as conquerors. He had done his part to hold his family and their affinity together when the Tyrant had set brother against brother so that he might hold onto power over the graves of his comrades. And when the time came Stallar had played a role in the death of the Tyrant and the overthrow of his lackeys, paving the way for the return of proper governance. He had prayed, when all was done and the new Archon elected, that he had seen the end of such strife and that the proper order of things would be restored, that his sons and his sons' sons might live long and prosperously and never have their doors darkened by civil strife or foreign war.
Yet now the end was come.
For all the Myrish Remnant howled Stallar knew for a fact that at least as many if not more Freeborn Myrmen had remained in the conquered city. True, they had been cast down to the status of tradesmen and lower merchants, and none of the old nobility lived, but there were still men and women in Myr who had been born free and held citizenship before the Sack. Old Myr had been struck down and its power shattered, but still it lived on and added its strands to the tapestry of the new kingdom.
It would not be so for Tyrosh. There had been little enough of mercy in the city's enemies from the previous wars, even among the Andals who had never suffered under the lash and the brand as the soldiers of the Legion had. And what little mercy had remained had been burned away in this war, in the atrocities on the mainland and the massacres on the island. Only when the sword had drunk it's fill of blood and then some would it be sheathed.
Despite the futility of the question he couldn't help but wonder where the tipping point had been. At what point had his nation's doom been sealed? Had they burned their last chance with the barbarism of the Night of Flames? Had their last chance been at the end of the last war, when his motion for a gradual abolition of slavery had been defeated? Had they been doomed the moment Robert the Bloody struck down Rhaegar the Accursed at Tara? Surely their fate had not been set in stone when they had first instituted slavery?
What could he have done, what road could he have steered his city down, to avoid this fate?
He rubbed his thumb over the stone rail of the balcony absent-mindedly. The manse at his back had been in his family for six generations, its splendor and wealth waxing and waning with their fortunes. Under his charge it had regained the heights of fortune it had enjoyed in his grandfather's day, before the Band of Nine, but now like so many other noble houses it was cast down. So many of his family had gone; his son dead on the mainland with Mero's army, his wife and daughters sent to Oldtown where the Tyroshi enclave lived under the protection of Lord Hightower, one of the few Andals possessed of reason and honor, and his younger brother and his family gone to Volantis with half of the family's accounts and records (his wife had the other half, the half pertaining to their trade with Westeros).
But many more remained, and they knew they would perish. One of his cousins had told him outright that her children would never live under an Andal boot, to be servants in the house where they had been masters. She had poison for them and a dagger for herself, and when she was dead then her husband would take that dagger and his father's old sword to any Braavosi or Andal or slave he could before he died.
Some in the city, he knew, denied what was coming, saying that if the fleet prevailed the winter storms would protect them until spring came and went. Surely in that time Lys or Volantis would see reason and come to their aid.
Stallar was under no such delusions. The end was upon them, if not before the winter storms closed the seas to fleets and armies, then after they cleared. A treacherous voice in him hoped for the enemy to prevail soon; better a terrible end, as he had once heard a philosopher say, than terror without end.
Convincing his wife to go had been the greatest ordeal. Doraena had abandoned all dignity and outright begged him to come with her and their daughters. For him to bid bad cess to all those who had ignored his wisdom and lead his family into whatever perilous days were to come.
But he could not; he was a Councilor of Tyrosh, the son of an ancient and noble house that had been one of the leaders of the city for more than a thousand years. To abandon the city and people in their darkest hour would betray everything he was and spit on the graves of his ancestors who had given their lives for the city's good. And even if he had wanted to escape it would have been impractical. The commons were already discontented that so many of the great and good were using their fortunes to make good their escape; if word had got out that a high officer of the city's government had abandoned them then there would most likely have been a riot.
In the end he had been able to make Doraena see that shehadto go; that he could only face what was to come with the necessary dignity if he knew that she and his daughters were well out of it. He had already given his son to the city; he would not lay his wife and surviving children on its funeral pyre. Stallar blew a kiss westward and then turned his back on the falling night. Those of his kin that remained in the city had gathered in his house, the better to pool their remaining resources and keep each other's spirits up. As the head of the house, it fell to him to lead them, even into the ending of their world. He had never failed in his duty to his family and his city; he would not fail now, even at the ending of all things.
Chapter 75: The Bleeding Tower
Chapter Text
"This has got to be the craziest idea in the history of reaving," Dagmer Cleftjaw grumbled under his breath, quietly enough that only the men immediately around him could hear.
Victarion Greyjoy favored his lieutenant with a raised eyebrow. "It's working so far, isn't it?" he asked, also under his breath and in a mild tone. "It it's crazy and it works . . ."
"It's still crazy, you just got lucky," Dagmer shot back, his tone conveying the stress that might have shown on his face if it weren't so dark and he weren't so experienced. "I don't like relying on luck, lord. Never have, never will. I didn't get to be this old by relying on things coming out my way."
Victarion shrugged; a minor feat in armor. "If it works, then we open the harbor with hardly any losses and we become the most famous reavers in the world, not just the Narrow Sea," he said reasonably. "If it doesn't, then we can try it the other way. But until we do, may I suggest that you stop tempting the Storm God's attention?" As Dagmer, having been all but accused of unseemly complaining, subsided into disgruntled mutterings, Victarion suppressed the urge to soothe the old reaver's feelings. He was the one in command, and so his word was law. It could be contested with the proper argument, but not in the field and certainly not where other men could hear. Although that being said, he was willing to concede Dagmer's point; this quite possiblywasthe craziest idea in the history of reaving.
The original plan to deal with the Bleeding Tower had been a surprise escalade; a collapsible scaling ladder assembled at the foot of the tower stealthily placed up against a window, and the first thing the garrison of the tower would know of the assault would be an armored reaver coming through the window with sword drawn. The problem with it was that if the process was interrupted then the storming party would be stranded outside the Tower in a hostile city and the best they could hope for would be a quick death in battle. So when the success of Davos' mission to suborn the pirates had borne fruit, Victarion had modified the plan.
The people of Tyrosh were used by now to seeing groups of armed and armored men in their streets, the pirates of their auxiliary fleet not least among them. At a distance or a casual glance, there wasn't much difference between the Ironborn and the pirates, as they both tended to be large, rangy men in battered armor who habitually walked with one hand on a weapon. The broad round shields that the Ironborn habitually carried had been left behind, on the theory that they were too bulky to fit into the smuggling compartments of theShadowalong with the more recognizable members of the storming party, which removed one of the easy identifiers, and the Ironborn had traded their masked helmets to the pirates for simple halfhelms with nasal bars, thusly removing another. After years in the east their arming swords had almost wholly transitioned from the lobe-pommeled and thick-guarded blades of the Islands to the cross-hilted and wheel-pommeled blades that Westerosi armorers had made popular throughout the Narrow Sea. The long-hafted axes would have been more difficult to conceal or disguise, but they weren't very common even among reavers, and those who did carry them, like Victarion, were holding them low and staying in the middle of the mixed group of Ironborn and pirates in order to conceal them. The hand-axes that were so common as to be ubiquitous throughout the Narrow Sea owed their popularity to the centuries of their successful use by the Ironborn; indeed, half the pirates who had joined the storming party were carrying hand-axes that owed their inspiration to Ironborn weapons.
So although the mixed group of Ironborn and pirates had been walking down the streets like they owned the place for more than a dozen blocks, no one had spared them a second glance. All that was needed was for the Ironborn to look less like themselves and more like the sea-rovers who surrounded them and not do anything to attract close attention. Victarion had learned from his father that men saw what they expected to see, even when their expectations were outright false, but he had never thought to receive such drastic proof of the saying.
Although their success might also be due to how few people were in the streets to begin with. The average harbor district was busy almost every hour of the day or night, and under normal circ*mstances the harbor of Tyrosh would be no different. But the war had shut off trade almost completely, except for a few daring merchant-venturers seeking to take advantage of prices inflated by scarcity, and so the usual hustle and bustle of sailors reeling from tavern to brothel to flophouse and back was down to a near-trickle. Nor were there any of the ubiquitous gangs of stevedores and longshoremen; in point of fact, Victarion had not seen a single slave in Tyrosh thus far. He bared his teeth unconsciously; if the reports of the Night of Flames and the massacres since were true, then there was nothing that the Iron Legion wouldn't do to the city. Nor, come to that, was there anything he wouldn't forgive the Legion doing to the city. Some things just couldn't be allowed to pass unavenged.
They turned the last corner and found themselves facing the target of the whole enterprise, the Bleeding Tower. The key to Tyrosh's harbor sat on a breakwater that sheltered the harbor from the waves stirred up by the westbound winds that would eventually reach the southern Stormlands and properly speaking was not so much a tower as it was a small keep, being a square-built structure that was meant to house a permanent garrison as well as protect the harbor. The five floors of the Tower held a garrison of two hundred men, twelve heavy springalds, and four heavy mangonels on the top floor. Such a complement of artillery was fully capable of dominating the harbor mouth on its own, especially since the springalds were reportedly capable of launching incendiary bolts, but they were overshadowed in importance by the feature that dominated the ground floor of the Tower.
The harbor chain of Tyrosh was one of the island city's most important defenses, for it served the harbor as a gate served a castle. When the garrison of the Bleeding Tower raised it every night by means of working the great capstan on the ground floor of the tower, they made the harbor almost impossible to breach. A sufficiently large and heavy ship with enough speed behind it could break the chain, but in order to do so it would have to run the gauntlet of fire from the Tower's artillery, which would be certain to concentrate its efforts on any ship that appeared intent on overrunning the chain.
Fortunately, there were other ways of dealing with such a chain, as both Ironborn reaver and Narrow Sea pirate knew of old.
The mate in command of the pirates who had joined the storming party, a bosun from Nickolas Teach's crew named Iago Hands, strode up to the postern door of the Tower and hammered on it with a fist encased in a heavy steerhide glove. A viewport in the door slid open. "Who's there?" demanded a voice from inside.
"Relief watch," Hands answered. He had been chosen to knock on the door because he had been born in Tyrosh, the son of a Westerosi exile, and his accent would help allay suspicions until it was too late.
"You're two hours early," the person inside the door said.
"Tell it to the port admiral, he's the one who signed the orders," Hands replied.
"Show me," the voice challenged, and Hands produced the paper that had been written out not an hour ago by a member of Davos' crew who had some skill at such things. It wouldn't pass close inspection but hopefully it wouldn't need to.
There was a pause as Hands pressed the part of the paper bearing the forged signature of the port admiral to the viewport. "Alright, half a moment," the voice inside the door said grumpily, and the viewport slid closed. There was a grinding and rattling of bars and bolts and then the postern slid open, revealing a short and pudgy-faced militiaman in a ring-mail shirt several inches too big around for him; the excess spilled over his swordbelt. "What are pirates doing garrisoning the Tower?" the militiaman asked suspiciously, scratching at his chest as he peered at Hands, who in his felt-faced brigandine and calico sash over his swordbelt was the picture of a daring freebooter.
Hands shrugged. "Which we were told we'd get two gold ducats a man every night we were willing to garrison the Tower," he answered. "And which some of us like to sleep in a dry feather bed 'stead of a damp hammock. Now are you letting us in or not?"
The militiaman scratched at his chest again as he visibly thought it over. Victarion couldn't help but sympathize; poorly made gambesons could itch like nothing else, and there was really no way to get at it when you were wearing something over the padded fabric. "Alright, get in," the militiaman said finally, turning his back on Hands and stepping into the room. "Jace, rouse the captain," he went on as Hands began to lead the storming party through the postern.
By the time Victarion made it inside the Tower, the man who had been sent for the captain had left the room, closing the door behind him, and pirates and reavers were fanning out through the guardroom, which was fairly cozy with the four men it was supposed to hold and positively cramped with three times that many pressing in. The man who had opened the door glanced at Victarion as he leaned his axe against the table, then did a double-take. "Hang on," he said suspiciously, "do I know you from somewhere?"
Victarion shrugged. "I doubt it," he said, and he took a split-second to enjoy the shock and dawning horror on the militiaman's face as his accent registered before punching the man in the throat and seizing him by the back of his head and his chin as he staggered. "Now, lads," he said conversationally as hepulledwith his left hand andpushedwith his right.
There was a series of ripplingpop-cracksas the bones of the militiaman's neck gave way, overlaid by the sounds of the other two men suffering the same fate. Years of hauling ropes and pulling oars made seamen hugely strong, and training to arms as the Ironborn and the pirates did made them even stronger. It took a special kind of hard man to break another's neck in such a fashion, but it was both quicker and more reliably quiet than a knife across the throat or a hand-axe to the back of the head. Assuming you could get into position to do it without alerting your prey, there was really no better way of removing someone troublesome.
Victarion dragged the militiaman over to a corner where he would be out of the way and laid him down gently so as not to make his mail rattle. Turning back to the room he took up his axe and flexed his shoulders under his cuirass. "Between here and the roof," he said grimly to his comrades, "kill everything that comes under your weapons. Now all together, and let them know who they're fighting." At the nods and bared-teeth fighting-smiles of the other men of the storming party, he turned to Iago Hands, who was standing by the door to the rest of the first floor of the Tower, and nodded sharply. Hands unlatched the door, counted down from three on his fingers, and then pushed it open and stood aside as Victarion charged.
He had an impression of a big rectangular room dominated by a pair of long tables and their accompanying benches, and then the first Tyroshi soldier was within reach. His axe, co*cked back on his right shoulder with his left hand at the butt-spike and his right hand halfway up the shaft, flicked out and sheared the man's head in half on the diagonal and on the follow-through and recovery he thrust the butt-spike into another man's throat. "Ironhold!" he bellowed, stunning-loud even in a room as large as this, as the man fell away choking with his hands at his throat, "Ironhold for Robert King! Justice and Vengeance!"
After that there was only pandemonium as the room flooded with reavers and pirates, roaring in fury fueled by the nervous tension of the long walk through the enemy city. Victarion forged forward, his axe spinning a wheel of death as he strode between the tables, carving through men who had been seating at bread and cheese or dicing or playing cards with their comrades only moments before. One man who sprang to his feet before him choked and clutched at his throat as he turned purple, and as Victarion slashed open the man's belly he dimly realized that the man must have choked on his last meal. Another Tyroshi, showing remarkable bravery and athleticism if little sense, rolled off the bench like an acrobat and then came off the floor like a coiled spring as he drove at Victarion's face with an eating knife, but a sidestep and a rising blow with the haft of the axe drove the man past him and into the path of two of Victarion's housekarls, who hacked him down with their arming swords. Two more Tyroshi soldiers went down before him, one to a cut that opened his neck as neatly as a sword slash and the other to a backhand blow with the pell of the axe that caved in his temple, and suddenly there was nothing before Victarion but a great capstan wound about with a thick chain that stretched out of a little square window in the side of the Tower.
He gaped at it for a moment, unwilling to believe that the Tyroshi wouldn't have put one of their most important defenses behind a secure door, and then turned. "Hands!" he shouted, pointing at the capstan with his axe. "Take six men, unwind that damned thing all the way, and then take an axe to it. I want that chain on the bottom of the harbor. The rest of you," he went on as Hands, bleeding freely from a cut on his upper arm under the short sleeve of his brigandine, grabbed the six men nearest him, "up the stairs and anyone that beats me to the top will earn something precious of me. On, on!"
The storming party bayed like so many hounds on the scent of wounded prey as they pounded up the stairs, Victarion in the lead. Like many keeps, the Bleeding Tower's stairs only went from one floor to another, with the stairs to the next floor at the far side of the room to force any attackers to fight from floor to floor instead of bypassing one floor for those above it. The design was sound, but it depended on the garrison being alert, armed, and ready. At barely two hours until dawn, secure in the assumption that they would have plenty of warning in the event of attack, the garrison of the Bleeding Tower proved to be anything but alert and more than half of them had been killed on the first floor, although to their credit they responded quickly. The second floor fell without much effort, but at the third floor they were met with twenty men who had had time to don their mail-shirts and helmets and snatch up spears and swords. If the ten men behind them had had a moment more to span their crossbows then they might have been able to stymie the onslaught, but both the pirates and the reavers had grown to manhood on the gospel of speed and shock and the crossbows hit the ground half-spanned as Victarion, Dagmer, and their housekarls barreled into the Tyroshi. Victarion was never able, afterward, to say with any certainty that he had killed the captain of the Bleeding Tower, the fighting was so confused, but later poets and balladeers credited him with the man's death nonetheless.
Finally, at the roof, Victarion took only a moment to drag a breath into his lungs before he began giving orders. The noise of the fight would have been muffled by the Tower's walls, but the last man of the Tyroshi garrison to fall had been cut down in the middle of ringing the alarm bell, and the city was already stirring. Unless the fleet was signaled, and quickly, the Tower would become a deathtrap.
XXX
Antonio Rozzi, the Second Sword of Braavos and Captain-General of its fleet, felt his jaw drop of its own accord as he saw the navigation light at the top of the Bleeding Tower, which was a lighthouse as well as a defensive work, stop in the middle of its rotation, and then blink three times in rapid succession, as if someone were holding a board in front of the great lens that magnified the light of the beacon fire. "Well, well," he said mildly when he had mastered his astonishment, "I suppose that will teach me to doubt Lord Greyjoy's prowess." He turned to Quarlo Venier, his flag captain. "General advance and the black pennant, captain, if you please." As Quarlo began to give the necessary orders, Antonio turned to the other high officer who was sharing the sterncastle with him. "Commander Xhan, I trust the marines are ready?"
"They've been ready since midnight, sir," Darabhar Xhan replied, leaning on his great spear; the Summer Islander sellsword was only a captain in the Braavosi marines, but there was only one captain aboard a ship. Those who held the rank in any other service were referred to by the rank immediately higher to avoid confusion. "All we need is to get into that harbor and either ashore or alongside a slaver ship."
"Which shall be arranged presently," Antonio assured him. "Carry on."
Xhan straightened up, gave him the palm-backwards salute of the Braavosi fleet, and then turned andleaptfrom the sterncastle to the maindeck in a single bound, voicing a guttural roar as he landed with surprising agility for a man six and a half feet tall and heavy enough to make the deck boom like a drum beneath him. Rising with tigerish grace from the kneeling stance he'd landed in he began to stamp straddle-legged along the deck, beating the iron-shod butt of his eight-foot spear against the planks as he slapped his chest and thigh in time to a pounding chant.
"Ka mate, ka mate! ka ora! ka ora!
Ka mate, ka mate! ka ora! Ka ora!"
Antonio allowed himself a half-smile; it was unlikely that Xhan would have made a good marine in peacetime, but he had come highly recommended and on the voyage south from Braavos he had lived up to it. Antonio had never seen an outsider so quickly establish himself as lead wolf among a contingent of Braavosi marines, who were as insular and clannish as any other military elite in the world. And while it was hardly in keeping with the formal dignity that the Commune required of its officers, there was no denying that Xhan's display was impressive, and likely to inspire the crew. Going into action was always a nerve-racking experience made easier by a display or two of conspicuous bravery or contempt for danger, and you would have to be a lizard or dead to not recognize the elemental strength and primordial menace of Xhan's war-chant. The first time Antonio had heard it, on a trading voyage to Walano, he had very nearly disgraced himself.
"Tēnei te tangata pūhuruhuru
Nāna nei i tiki mai whakawhiti te rā!"
The oil lamps on either side of the fore and sterncastles had their wicks extended to bathe the flagship in light, an action that was repeated throughout the fleet in a rippling wave of light that revealed the greatest fleet to take to the seas since Nymeria led the Rhoynar into exile. Three hundred great galleys under the Titan of Braavos, fifty galleys and seventy longships under the crowned stag of the Kingdom of Myr, and dromonds, cogs and hulks by the score, all within only a few miles of Tyrosh harbor. The voyage from Lissus had been nerve-racking, especially since the last half of it had been spent sailing in the dark with only minimal lights to ward off collisions. If the fleet hadn't been manned by Braavosi and Ironborn sailors it would have been impossible; simply getting the fleet to this place at this time, still in one roughly cohesive whole, counted as a great feat of seamanship and navigation. Antonio couldn't help a thrill of exhilaration as whistles sounded throughout the fleet and oarmasters began to beat their kettledrums to set the pace for the rowers.Now we shall have our revenge, he thought, stroking the pommel of his sidesword.Now we shall make amends for the generations of our indifference. Tremble, Tyrosh, for your doom is upon you.Horns were sounding throughout the fleet, but Xhan's chant cut through the terrifying melody like an axe.
"Ā upane! ka upane!
Ā upane, ka upane, whiti te ra!"
XXX
Gorro Redleg, purser of the independent shipRanger, looked at the sea lighting up like a false dawn and felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. They had all heard the rumors about the size of the so-called Great Armament, but few had given them serious credence; five hundred warships, along with half as many transports? Even for the Braavosi it seemed far-fetched. But the band of yellow light stretching across the middle distance was enough to convert even the most obdurate unbeliever. Trying to seek refuge in rational thought, he began to calculate the cost in whale oil that such a display would require.Let's see, six hundred, no, more like seven hundred ships, four lanterns per ship burning half a gallon of whale oil an hour at that brightness . . .The figure he arrived at was staggering enough to shock him out of calculation; it was more than theRangerhad made in all the years of her roving ever since he had come aboard to keep the ship's accounts. "Gods of sea and sky," he whispered as he clutched the amulet that hung around his neck, "deliver us."
Around him theRanger'sother officers and crew were also reacting to the revelation of the enemy fleet with a mixture of shock and dread. Black Galavhar, the hulking Summer Islander who held the rank of bosun and was one of the most desperate and bloody-handed rogues yet unhanged, was standing rooted to the deck with his jaw hanging open and a poleaxed expression on his face. Humbert, a defrocked septon who had fled Westeros a step ahead of the pyre for rape and murder, was signing himself with the seven-pointed star and frantically mumbling prayers for mercy and deliverance to his seven gods. Red Torrhen, a wildling from Beyond-the-Wall who had made even that lawless land too hot to hold him, was staring at the oncoming fleet with a fixed expression on his face and calling his nameless gods to witness that he had only ever killed from need and not from wantonness; a palpable lie, from what Gorro knew of Torrhen's history, but he didn't have the heart to object.
Gorro tore his eyes away from the band of light that was starting to advance across the waves and looked towards the sterncastle, where the captain was standing. Bartoleo the Black was one of the tigers of the sea, as cunning as he was ferocious, and he bore a hatred for the Braavosi that bordered on the unreasonable, even for a pirate. He had told the crew, and the captains of the other vessels under his command, that he intended to cut his way clear of whatever fleet was coming and then leave Tyrosh to its fate and the crew had cheered him for it, but Gorro desperately hoped that he had changed his mind. A fleet that large would crush any who stood before it like a boot would crush an ant, even a score of well-found and stoutly-manned ships under the command of an admiral as intrepid as Bartoleo, who was one of only five pirate admirals in history who had successfully fought off a Braavosi naval squadron intent on killing or taking them.Please, Captain,Gorro all but begged,don't order us to go at that lot. Don't order us to our deaths.
After an unbearably long moment in which half the crew stared at the oncoming fleet in horror and the other half fixed desperate gazes on their captain, Bartoleo looked away from the enemy fleet to glance at his steward, who was also the man in charge of the ship's signal flags. "Hoist the green pennant, Master Gibbs, if you please," he said in a carrying voice before turning back to his crew. "Lads!" he shouted, loudly enough that the men who had been staring fixedly at the enemy fleet started and looked to the sterncastle. "That fleet's coming for this city, and when it gets here it'll kill everything that isn't on its side. So let's show them that the green pennant isn't just for show, eh?!" There was a heartfelt cheer from the crew, and as Bartoleo began to snap out orders Gorro rushed to his action station as the captain of the right-hand bow scorpion.Thank you, gods, for a bit of sense, he thought, before remembering that until that fleet got into the harbor, they would be facing odds of roughly three or four to one in ships alone, along with the whole rest of the city, which had defenses other than the Bleeding Tower. He rubbed his amulet again. "I know you're probably a little busy right now," he muttered plaintively to whatever gods might be listening, "but a bit of help would be nice just now."
XXX
"Make ready, boys, here they come again!"
Victarion stoppered the waterskin and tossed it back to Dagmer, forcing himself to straighten up from leaning on his stolen shield and breathe deep into the bottom of his lungs. This marked the third time that the Tyroshi had attempted to retake the Bleeding Tower, and it was already starting to wear.
The causeway out to the Bleeding Tower ran almost a thousand feet out from the edge of the town, a narrow ribbon of stone walkway wide enough for ten men to walk abreast at a measured pace that opened onto a little plaza that lay before the Bleeding Tower's gate. That plaza was barred by Victarion's Ironborn, who had taken the shields of the former garrison of the Tower and formed a shield-wall at the near end of the causeway; Victarion hadn't liked the idea of having to split his forces to defend both the main gate and the postern when he could defend both at once. On the face of it advancing out from the Tower might be a stupid idea, but there were three things that kept it from being so.
Firstly, Victarion's Ironborn were the finest slayers in the Myrish fleet, all hand-chosen for courage, weapon-skill, and hardihood; most of them were Victarion's housekarls, his personal fighting-tail. Individually each of them was probably worth three or four Tyroshi regulars, but formed in the shield-wall and with no possibility of being outflanked, they could easily stand off odds of five or six to one, if not more. Secondly, the defection of the pirates had given the storming party more than a hundred reinforcements, among whom were some very good crossbowmen. These had taken the crossbows of the garrison and were providing archery support from the windows of the second and third levels of the Tower; the relative lack of shooting positions facing the causeway limited their potential output of bolts, but the fact that they were shooting from a protected position and being fed by dedicated teams of loaders made up for it. Thirdly, the pirates had managed to manhandle two of the heavy mangonels on the roof of the Tower around to bring them to bear on the causeway. Those mangonels could throw a forty-pound stone ball almost seven hundred feet, which meant that almost two-thirds of the causeway could be covered by projectile fire of some kind.
So when the Tyroshi burst forth from the town and began to rush down the causeway, they were met first by two forty-pound stone balls traveling at something on the order of several hundred feet per second. Whatever stone the balls were made of was softer than the stone of the causeway, and so both exploded on impact to send dozens of stone shards whizzing through the Tyroshi; plate armor over thick arming clothes could stop such fragments, and a good double-layered ring-mail shirt over a gambeson could also provide a decent amount of protection, but even where the fragments didn't penetrate they hit hard enough to leave men bruised and winded. Where they weren't stopped, they flew through the packed infantrymen like gutting knives.
The Tyroshi closed up and pushed on over their screaming and writhing comrades, making Victarion's lip curl; the first attempt to retake the Tower had been a hasty affair, a patrol of the City Watch reinforced by a pack of armed citizens from what they had seen of them and how they had acted. The second attempt had been more of the same, the attack pressed home with more vigor so that it actually reached the wall of shields before breaking. This attempt, by contrast, appeared to be made up of regulars, possibly the actual relief watch that was supposed to take over the Tower from the men the storming party had cut down.
The Ironborn stood up from where they had knelt to take a rest and closed ranks, each man's shield touching the ones on either side. This was the sort of situation men like these lived for; a narrow passage where the shield-wall could not be outflanked and where all that mattered was strength, stamina, ferocity, and the orca-pod discipline where the strength of one was the strength of all. There might be only fifty of them, that being as many as would fit in the ship's company of theShadowwithout making it seem suspiciously overcrewed and the smuggling compartments could hold, but their worth was displayed by the fact that the wrack line of the battle, where the waves of the Tyroshi had washed up against the wall of shields, was already a shin-deep pile of corpses. Victarion picked his sword up from where he had carefully laid it on the ground in between rushes (blood was an almightypainto get out of a scabbard) and held it low with the point jutting out between the lower curves of the oval shields; in the shield-wall there was no room to effectively cut against an opponent who was even moderately armored, which was why his axe was resting in the seal-skin scabbard on his back, and three inches of thrust was worth three feet of slash any day and was far more efficient in terms of energy, as his old master-at-arms had taught him. In a situation like this, where there would be no reinforcements until they were relieved, husbanding every ounce of energy that could be saved was not just wise, but absolutely necessary; the Tyroshi might be poor slayers compared to Victarion's picked reavers, but even bad fighters took time and strength to kill.
On his right side Dagmer spat over the rim of his shield and then set himself so that he was crouched like a panther behind the shield that covered him from just below his eyes to his knees, while on his left Ragnar Crowfeeder bared his teeth and gave voice to an ursine growl. The Tyroshi were closing in, raising their shields against the crossbow bolts that were zipping into them from the Tower and howling their fear-fueled rage at the invaders who threatened to annihilate them. The four ranks behind the immediate front of the shield-wall placed their shields against the backs of the men before them, bracing them for the onset, while the front rank set themselves as Dagmer had done, holding their swords low as Victarion did while the men in the second rank leveled their spears over the shoulders of the front rank. Victarion had time to roar, "Hold fast, brothers, for your salt and given oaths!" before the Tyroshi reached them and the killing began again.
XXX
Antonio smiled grimly as his flagship slid into the harbor of Tyrosh unopposed. Ordinarily such a direct approach would have been suicidal, but the taking of the Bleeding Tower had removed half the threat, and evidently Captain Davos had removed the other half, judging by the uproar that the harbor was in. A few ships had sailed out of the harbor under the white pennant, including one with distinctively striped oars, but approximately forty ships were rowing back and forth in front of the docks launching arrows and springald bolts at the ships that were trying to get under way, reminding Antonio of nothing so much as sheepdogs trying to keep a restive flock of sheep in one place. They had evidently paid a high price for it, judging by the fact that there were at least eight ships either on fire or sinking that Antonio could see, and also by the fact that some of the ships appeared to be drunk, the way they were weaving from side to side as they sailed. That would be due to casualties among the rowers being unevenly distributed between the port and starboard banks; the side with less motive power would not be able to do their part to keep the ship on a straight course, requiring the helmsman to compensate.
The ships trying to stifle the Tyroshi fleet, no two of them quite the same size or pattern of build, were all flying green pennants from every mast, including their bowsprits, and also had men on their sterncastles frantically waving pikestaffs bearing green pennants where the light of the stern lanterns would better illuminate them. He turned to Quarlo. "Signal for the fleet, captain," he said briskly. "Right and center divisions to pass through our friends and assault the docks."
Quarlo passed the order on to his steward, who quickly ran the signal flags up the hoist where they would be at least partially illuminated by the stern lanterns and began blowing a bugle to get the attention of the nearby ships to get them to repeat the signal. "Will we be sending ships to cut off the causeway and relieve the Ironborn, sir?" he asked.
Antonio nodded. "The captains of the left division have already been briefed that they are to accomplish that mission above all others. But the Ironborn seem to have that well in hand, and we must exploit the advantage that they and our new sellsails have bought us. And in any case," he raised an eyebrow, "we have an outstanding debt to settle, do we not?"
Quarlo nodded, a shark-like smile settling on his face. "With all dispatch, sir," he agreed. Antonio's smile was slighter, but still predatory; the Braavosi were not nobles, who believed that the path to honor was to keep no count of cost, but merchants. Their debts had to be paid, and those owed to them collected. As the Tyroshi would find, the Commune collected fairly, but in full,to the last jot and tittle. Tyrosh's debt to the Commune could not be paid in cash, not with all their wealth, so blood would have to make up the difference.Try and burn our city, will you?
The flagship nosed in between two rather battered galleys, one of which Antonio recognized even with her foremast evidently chopped in half by a springald bolt and her rails bristling with embedded crossbow bolts.A strange day when I, the Second Sword of Braavos, come to the rescue of Bartoleo the Black, he mused, and then there was nothing in front of the ship but enemies. There was a deepTunggas the bow springald sent its bolt hurtling through the hull of a Tyroshi galley that had managed to get under way, and then there was a grating scrape as the flagship plowed alongside another who was still lashed to the docks. "Lash the wheel!" Quarlo roared. "Boarders away!"
A score of grapnels flew from the forecastle and the waist of the ship to snag on the Tyroshi, and a quartet of boarding planks were run out. Darabhar Xhan disdained the planks in favor of simply hurling himself across the shifting gap between the two ships with a leonine roar, his spear whirling even before he landed. Darabhar's spear was seven feet of goldenheart wood tipped with a foot-long blade as broad as a man's fist at the base and tapering to a point like an awl, and in his massive hands it spun a wheel of death as he carved out a space at the end of the foremost boarding plank. The slash he landed with sent three men reeling away with their throats slashed open, a smashing blow with the butt-spike caved in a man's temple, a thrust drove a man to the deck with his rib cage split open, and a man who swung his cutlass overhand found his wrist caught in a hand the size of a dinner plate that broke his arm with a single twist-and-jerk before he was hammered away by a stamping kick to the midsection.
Behind Darabhar the Braavosi marines rose from where they had crouched on the deck of the flagship and surged over the boarding planks with a wordless roar. Their fourteen-foot pikes swung down to the level as they came onto the planks and drove the Tyroshi bodily away from where the planks debouched onto their ship, and behind the front-rankers men wielding sidesword and buckler and dagger poured to left and right to join the bridgeheads. Behind the marines came the ship's rowers, who abandoned their oars to go streaming over the side with cutlass and dagger and hand-axe, taking up the battle-cry that the roar of the marines had coalesced into. "The First Law!" they bayed as they streamed onto the Tyroshi ship, lending their weight to the pushing match that the marines were already rapidly winning. "The First Law!"
Antonio turned to the dozen gentleman-volunteers who had remained on the sterncastle; they were all sons and nephews of prominent families who had joined the fleet as his aides-cum-bodyguards. "Well, gentlemen, the music has begun and the couples have taken the floor," he said lightly as he accepted his morion from his steward and buckled it onto his head over his arming cap. "Shall we join the dancing?" The volunteers answered with a shout of bloodthirsty assent and a manifold slithering of steel on leather-cased wood as they drew their swords.
XXX
The following is an excerpt fromFlash on the High Seas, by George Dand.
I hope it will come as no surprise to my readers that emotions are as contagious as the pox ever was. If you don't believe me, go watch a musician perform; I'll bet all the money in my pockets against all the money in your pockets that you'll leave as happy or as sad as the music. If you still don't believe me, then you'll just have to take my word for it, because it happened to me on the voyage south from Braavos.
I had joined the Great Armament for two main reasons. Firstly, because my reputation meant that it was expected of me, especially after the Council of Thirty hung an order on my neck. Secondly, because there was a moral necessity to it that even I couldn't deny. Try and burn a whole city to the ground with no warning, no declaration of war, no anything? It simply wasn't done and it simply couldn't be allowed. And even though Stallen Naerolis had been the one to actually attempt it, the Tyroshi had put him up to it and given him the supplies, which meant that they were just as guilty as he was, if not more so. Even I could see the logic behind that and I'm no one's idea of a lawyer. Besides, the bastards had tried to burn the city while I was in it.
But if I was simply vexed at the Tyroshi, the Braavosi werefurious. You won't find many people in the world who are prouder of their homeland than the children of the Titan, and the Tyroshi had just tried to cut its heart out. I don't know how many oaths of vengeance I heard made on the voyage south, but by the time we reached Lissus the anger of the men around me had leached into my own heart. Before that voyage I had no particular axe to grind with the Tyroshi as a people, but after it I wouldn't have shed a tear if the whole island of Tyrosh had been burned down, plowed up, and sown with salt. After reaching Lissus and hearing the stories of the Night of Flames and the other massacres the Tyroshi had committed, I was ready to wield the torch myself.
All of which is by way of explaining that when the Great Armament landed in Tyrosh harbor, my usual windy streak had decided to take the day off, probably helped by the fact that every man on the galley got a double ration of grappa, a distilled grape spirit that the Braavosi like; a stiff slug of that and I don't care who you are, it'll make you ready for a fight. No wonder the bravos like it so much. I wasn't the first man down the gangplanks onto the docks on the left flank of the harbor, but that was only because the Braavosi marines got to go first; if I'd had my way Iwouldhave been the first ashore. Now no one thinks of the Braavosi as great fighters, but take it from me; when the Braavosi marines went ashore on Tyrosh all the Heavenly Host couldn't have stopped them. They went down the gangplanks four abreast,at a dead run with pikes at the level and in half-plateas the Warrior is my witness, with not an inch of room on either side before they went into the water, and the shock of their onset broke the Tyroshi on the dock like a hammer breaking glass. And then the gentleman-volunteers, of which I was one, were following them down with swords drawn and "The First Law!" as our battle-cry.
I don't properly recall the next few moments, except in flashes that tend to come back when I've drunk too much Dornish red or I've overindulged on lobster and cheese or I'm cutting through a layered pie and the sound reminds me a little too much of an axe going home in someone's head. I do know that we cleared our dock in jig time, between the shock of the marines and the way we volunteers fanned out to mop up the pockets the marines had isolated, and then we were marching off the dock and into the harbor district, and then things really got bloody. Ironically enough, pike formations aren't really suited to pushing out from a chokepoint like a dock; the corners are more vulnerable than you'd think to an enterprising or simply desperate band of fellows just looking for an opportunity. So the gentleman-volunteers were called to the front and we went in to break open the door to Tyrosh.
That, as the poet later said, was the time of the sword. The Tyroshi had closed ranks against us, but their professionals must have been busy on other docks because the men facing us were almost certainly militia by the fact that they were wearing mail instead of half-plate and carrying spears instead of halberds or poleaxes. For my part I was in my full suit of plate and the fury of the Braavosi had me in its grip, so I brushed the spears aside with my longsword and barreled into them with my shoulder lowered. I don't care how desperate you are, if a man just over six feet tall who weighs thirteen stone before he puts his armor on hits you at speed, you get moved. The Tyroshi eddied back from where I had barged into them, and I cut forehand and backhand and forehand again as I pushed forward; cuts wouldn't do much against mail, but the point was to keep them off balance. One of the Tyroshi lunged at me with his spear but I parried it aside and then cut overhand from the guard of the lady. He brought his spear up cross-wise over his head to try and parry, but he was at perfect cutting distance and the blood was singing in my ears and everything was an invitation to strike and spare not and so help me I put all the power of my arms and shoulders and back and hips into that blow and I smote him like Artys Arryn smiting a wildling. And my sword broke the shaft of his spear clean in half and my blade sheared through his helmet and cleft his skull to the teeth. Maybe it was cheap wood and cheap metal that his spear and helmet were made from, but Gods all witness I have only seen a helmet cut through with a sword three or four times in all my life of arms and that was one of them.
The Braavosi had followed me in, of course, and we were steadily pushing the Tyroshi back into the streets of the docklands, with the marines pushing up to aid us and casting aside their pikes in order to draw cutlass and buckler to do so. The Tyroshi fought like gameco*cks for every inch and before the night was over one in four of the gentleman-volunteers from my ship was dead or wounded, but we had better armor and better weapons and we were fighting for more than mere survival. I don't know how to explain it to someone who wasn't there but when I charged into that mass of Tyroshi IswearI felt something push me forward, and I couldn't have cut through that one Tyroshi's spear and helmet and skull in one blow on my own strength alone, not in a thousand years. I don't know if the gods had actually decided to take an interest in the battle or if we were all simply that angry at the Tyroshi, but I've understood men like Septon Jonothor and Ryman much better since that fight; when you've got that extra whatever-it-is behind you, you feel like you can do anything. Although if they feel like thatall the time, then no wonder they're so much trouble; the urge to use it just because you can must be overpowering.
I didn't see most of the famous incidents of the first assault wave, like the taking of the Temple of Trade or the Second Sword of Braavos welcoming King Robert ashore, but I was there when the Ironborn were relieved. They were down to twenty-eight men still on their feet and able to fight and most of those collapsed the second they were safe, but I led the banda that relieved them and I can tell you that they hadn't taken one step back from the mouth of the square before the Tower and that the Tyroshi bodies were piled thigh-deep before the shield-wall; say whatever you like about the Ironborn, but they can sail and they can fight. Victarion Greyjoy, for his part, was leaning on his shield like an old man on a cane but he still had the ginger to grin at me and ask what was to be done next. I've never asked for more proof that the Ironborn are a race of lunatics than that.
Chapter 76: Red Dawn
Chapter Text
Dawn revealed a city in torment. The harbor and all the docklands had fallen, including the Temple of Trade, and the situation in the outer city was getting more desperate by the hour. No one who was there disputes the bravery of the Tyroshi soldiers, but they were overmatched and many of them, it seems, knew it. It was when the defense of the outer city began to crumble and our troops began to advance towards the inner walls that they began to see proof of the madness that had fallen upon the Tyroshi . . .
-Justice and Vengeance: The Sunset Company and the Kingdom of Myr in the Slave Warsby Maester Gordon, published 317 AC
Ser Joren Potts, captain-lieutenant in the eighth cavalry company of the Royal Army of Myr, poked his head around the corner to peek at the cul-de-sac formed by enclosure of a side-street into a single manse's property. It was fairly risky, inviting a crossbow bolt through the eye if he wasn't careful, but unlike most such buildings that had been cut off by the advancing front line this one wasn't spitting crossbow bolts and defiance at the encircling armies. Which didn't mean that itwasn'tgarrisoned, of course; given the size of the place it could be harboring anywhere up to a hundred Tyroshi, although most of the houses that his troop had stormed had been garrisoned by far less.
In any case it would have to be reduced; hard experience had already taught the Royal Army and their Braavosi allies that every building had to be cleared room by room and then held until the houses immediately around it had been seized. It wasn't helped by the fact that the sewers seemed to be large enough to allow men to pass through them, although they were still cramped enough to prohibit the use of armor and any weapons much larger than daggers. Fortunately, that problem could be solved by placing heavy stone blocks over the manholes and setting men to watch the outflows and grates with crossbows.
Joren pulled his head back and turned to his troop. "Hawkwood, Harper," he said, pitching his voice to be heard over the surf-roar of the battle, which was barely two streets away, "axes to the gate, and then your lances to go straight ahead. Perkins, go left; Stewart, go right. I'll back up Hawkwood and Harper. Hard and fast, like the others."
His knights nodded grimly, as did their squires, valets, and archers despite the fatigue that was etching lines on the faces of men not yet thirty. With his own lance they numbered twenty-five fighting men counting their pages, who would be following close behind them with light crossbows; the pages were nowhere near old enough to actually stand in the battle-line or take the lead in storming a fortified house, but they were certainly old enough to stand with the archers and add their bolts to the clothyard shafts of the older men. Five lances was only a tenth of the force he was entitled to command as second officer of the eighth, but the disjointed nature of the fighting prevented him from personally leading more; the outer city of Tyrosh, like most urban areas that had sprouted up without much in the way of central planning, was a maze of streets and cross-streets, almost perfectly designed to keep a force from maintaining more cohesion than could be maintained by the reach of the human voice. He would simply have to trust in the leadership and skill of the corporals to keep their sections together; that they would keep moving forward, on the other hand, he had no worries about barring exhaustion. The Tyroshi had seen to that themselves.
He adjusted his grip on his longsword, breathed deeply to force the fatigue to give ground, looked around his lances one last time, and then nodded sharply as he slapped his visor closed. "Go!" he shouted, wheeling around the corner and running for the low wall that had been built across the side-street when it had been enclosed, his knights clattering behind. The key to urban fighting, it had quickly been learned, was speed; spend the least amount of time at range, get into the enemy before they could put enough bolts into you to stop you, and cut them down before they could recover. It was a risky and bloody way of doing business, but the plate armor of the knights and men-at-arms allowed them to take risks that would kill Legion spearmen or even Braavosi marines, and so the cavalry companies of the Royal Army had left their horses on the mainland and were now fighting as heavy infantry.
He put his back against the wall, barely taller than his head but still a serious obstacle for all that, followed by the other men of the section, and then Hawkwood and Harper set themselves in front of the gate and began hacking away. Daven Hawkwood and Patrek Harper were both big and brawny men, even for knights, and Joren had immediately picked them out as his door-breakers when he had taken over the section. The manse's gate was stoutly built, but not stoutly enough to resist two big men wielding heavy poleaxes, and in less than a dozen blows the bar holding it closed gave way with a crunching crack. Hawkwood and Harper didn't pause before lowering their shoulders and ramming the gate the rest of the way open, because that was the other lesson the Royal Army had learned about urban combat:Never hesitate; hesitation got you killed. Their lances, which had formed behind them in two columns with the archers and pages scanning the windows of the manse, followed them through with a yell meant to drown out their fear and put it into the enemy and the other lances surged in after them. The archers and pages volleyed arrows and bolts into the manse's windows as the men-at-arms and squires and valets stormed across the courtyard, Perkins and Stewart peeling their lances off to the left and right to clear the outbuildings, which in this case (Joren risked breaking his stride to look around) were no more than a low shed where the slaves would sleep and another that probably held the jakes.
Hawkwood and Harper made quick work of the manse's door; even barred, the average manse door was not designed to resist the impact of two men the size of Hawkwood and Harper, who were both more than six feet tall and so strongly built as to be almost rectangular in silhouette, especially when they were encased in sixty-odd pounds of plate armor and launched themselves at it shoulders-first. Their squires and valets pushed in after them, and Joren followed to find them all staring at what they had found in the front sitting room. "Bloody hells," Harper was saying softly to himself, his square face ashen. "Bloody buggering hells, the mad bastards."
The sitting room was a macabre scene. Four children lay on the floor, looking almost like they were asleep until Joren realized that they weren't breathing. An older woman, and a younger woman who had probably been the eldest child, were hanging from the rafters, inexpertly tied nooses around their necks. In the great chair by the fireplace there sat an old man with silvery hair and a face that might have been dignified before death had slackened it and let his jaw hang open; his wrists had been slashed open, almost certainly by the bloodied knife that lay by one of the chair legs.
"Blood's still fresh," Hawkwood observed quietly, as if the nature of what they had found demanded quietude. "This was done recently."
"This is, what, the fourth bloody time they've done this?" asked Ned Cooper, who was Hawkwood's valet and had been a City Watchman in King's Landing before the Sack. "They're mad, all of them. Mad as a bucket of eels."
Joren shook himself with a rustle of steel on steel. "Clear the rest of the building," he ordered harshly, "just because the family killed themselves doesn't mean there aren't more hiding out somewhere." He grabbed Harper by the pauldron. "Patrek, I need you to keep your head on straight, alright?" he said softly so that only the big Riverlander could hear him. "Don't let this sort of thing slow you down. They're dead, move on, kill any that aren't. Eh?"
Patrek nodded mechanically. "Aye, lieutenant," he replied. "It's just . . ." He shook his head wearily. "Why the hells do they have to kill their kids, though? Will you tell me that, ser?"
"Because they think we will, Patrek," Joren replied. "And they aren't far wrong. You saw what happened when the Legion took that one temple." Patrek nodded; some of the screams had been too high-pitched to be from adults, even women. "Come on, ser knight," Joren went on, slapping him on the backplate. "Time to get back to the job."
As he walked out of the manse a few minutes later, having confirmed that nothing alive was still within except for his men, he was startled to see Perkins' valet back out of the slave quarters, dragging what appeared to be a young woman by the hair. He strode over as the valet, a rough-faced old villain from the lower Trident named Ditcher Sym, picked the girl up off the ground by the front of her dress and pushed her back against the wall of the shed. "What's all this, Sym?" he demanded.
"Little bitch went at Ser Alleyn with a fruit knife, ser," Sym grated. "He was opening the closet to look in, and she gives him the edge across the face and comes bolting out to try and run for it." He grinned evilly. "Didn't run very fast, though, did you, little pretty?"
Ser Alleyn Perkins clattered out of the shed not a moment later, the rag he was holding to his face confirming Sym's story. "Hold her there, Sym," he ordered, raising his sword as his unslashed cheek flushed red; Perkins was a good fighter but vain of his looks, which Joren doubted would be improved by a scar he couldn't even boast about. "Cut me, will you, slaver bitch?"
Joren caught Perkins' sword at mid-blade, his gauntlet protecting him from the edges. "That will do, Ser Alleyn," he said warningly. "Just because the slavers make war on girls doesn't mean we do. And she's a slave herself, or do you not see the collar?"
Perkins turned hot eyes on Joren. "She drew on me,lieutenant," he spat. "She fought for the slavers. That makes her the goat-f*cking enemy, which means we get to do whatever we like to her, don't we lads?" There was a slight murmur of assent, but only from the other men of Perkins' lance; Perkins wasn't the sort of man to make friends outside the circle of his cronies, and while the men of his lance were all of his temper, the others hadn't yet had their discipline sufficiently frayed, despite the fact that they had been fighting for five hours already and exhaustion was starting to wear their tempers thin. The fact that the girl palpablywasa slave, with her collar still on her neck and the brand on her shoulder exposed by her dress slipping down, made matters even more clear-cut, and the fact that their losses so far had been light was also a help.
Joren looked Perkins squarely in the face. "Contain yourself,ser," he commanded. "Or quit the company and call yourself a knight no longer."
Perkins scoffed. "You wouldn't break my spurs now," he sneered, gesturing at the city around them. "Not with the battle still raging."
"I will break your spurs with my own hands, followed by your neck," Joren said deliberately, the naked menace in his voice making Perkins blink. "And you know as well as I do that Lord Corbray will not only back my decision, but applaud me for it." He injected a growl into his voice. "Stand down,ser."
Perkins's face worked for a moment, and then he deflated. Joren released his sword after holding it a moment more, in order to make sure he had gotten the message. "Ser Patrek," he said, making the big Riverlander snap to attention. "take two men and take this girl back to the docks, place her in the care of Lord Corbray's steward until we return." He raised his voice so that every man in the courtyard could hear him. "Tell him that she is a member of my household and under my protection. If even one hair of her head is harmed, I will take it out of his hide along with the man responsible. Understood?"
"Yes, ser!" Harper barked as he strode forward. A look made Sym let the girl go and back away with an innocent expression on his face. "Come on now, lass, no need to fret," he said soothingly, ushering the girl under his arm. The girl, really a young woman now that Joren saw her properly, with shoulder-length black hair and deep brown eyes like a frightened animal's, crept under the big Riverland knight's arm, shooting a brief glance Joren's way that managed to convey both gratitude and terror at the same time.
As Harper strode out of the gate with the girl under his left arm, taking two of the pages with him, Joren strode after them. "Fall in outside," he shouted. "Let's move on."
XXX
The intersection of Jeweler's Row and Broad Street had been a popular place for the moderately wealthy of Tyrosh to see and be seen in more peaceful days. It's shops had kept their prices carefully calibrated to offer good deals to those with the beginnings of real wealth or the pretensions thereof while being careful to never go low enough to attract 'the wrong sort', while the public fountain in the middle of the intersection had been a popular place for courting couples to meet under the watchful eyes of chaperones.
No longer.
Adaran Phassos stood flat against the wall of a storefront's entryway behind the barricade sealing off the eastern end of the intersection where Broad Street ran down towards the docklands, frantically working the cranequin of his crossbow. The barricade had been taken two, no, three hours ago by a detachment from the tenth Legion company, to which he'd been attached for the duration of the battle in order for him to 'win his spurs', and it had been under more or less constant attack ever since. The shops occupying the opposite corners of the intersection were full of Tyroshi, many of whom seemed to have crossbows and a near-inexhaustible supply of bolts judging by how many they were shooting across the square. Adaran himself was down to five bolts left in the quiver hanging off his right hip, and then he had his sidesword, the buckler hanging from a clip on the scabbard, and the rondel dagger at the small of his back, unless he could scavenge some of the bolts that the Tyroshi were shooting at him or the detachment was reinforced or resupplied.
He finally finished cranking the string of the crossbow back to the nut, unwound the cranequin to take the hooks off the string and the whole mechanism off the bow to let it hang from the lanyard attached to the cross belt that ran over his brigandine, slipped a bolt from his quiver to lay it in the shooting groove on the front part of the stock, and clamped it in place with his thumb. He peeked around the corner towards the far side of the square and jerked his head back as a Tyroshi bolt struck sparks from the face of the building. He took a breath to still the shaking in his hands, and then swiveled around the corner, aimed at the ground-floor window of the jeweler's shop on the far north corner, loosed his bolt, and let the recoil help propel him back into cover, already grabbing for his cranequin and fitting it onto the stock to reload. Ser Gerion's master-at-arms had drilled him on loading and shooting almost until he collapsed for sennights, until he had been able to do it blindfolded, and the fighting he had seen at Iluro had given him the confidence to apply that training without so much as a hiccup. He might be shooting only two or three bolts a minute, but by the gods he was shooting well, even if half the time he was only shooting to keep the enemy's head down instead of to kill.
He was two-thirds of the way through the loading drill when one of the legionaries at the barricade roared, "Here they come again, get set!" Adaran forced himself to breathe evenly as he deliberately blocked out the baying howl of the Tyroshi regulars coming down the street; Iluro had taught him that steadiness was everything in this sort of work.
"Archers ready!" came the shout of the lieutenant commanding the detachment. Adaran unwound the cranequin, slipped it off the stock, and slapped on a bolt. "Aim!" He pivoted around the corner, leveling his bow at a Tyroshi wielding an eighteen-foot pike. "Loose!" There was a ripplingtunngg-snaappas Adaran and twenty other crossbowmen and archers loosed and the Tyroshi attack seemed to eddy as men fell across the front with clothyard shafts and bolts thicker than a man's thumb punched through their armor. "Spears, stand up!" the lieutenant roared, and the Legion spearmen who had been crouching behind the barricade stood up to brace their shields on the piled sacks and crates and furniture with their spears protruding outward like the spines of a hedgehog. "Brace for it, lads!" the lieutenant roared, and the Tyroshi hit the Legion shield-wall. Most of them bounced off again, but a few of them managed to punch through, their pikes overrunning the Legion shields and their inertia carrying them through the line. The archers turned their bows on them and within moments all but three were down, but those three were less than twenty feet from Adaran and he had only just started to wind his cranequin.
There was no time to load. He unwound the cranequin and slipped the hooks off the string just in time to bring the bow upwards in a rising parry that beat aside the first Tyroshi's pike. A desperate twist aside turned a lethal thrust to the left abdomen to a miss so close that the blade of the second man's pike caught a loose thread on the back of Adaran's brigandine and tore it free. Adaran never saw the third Tyroshi take an arrow to the throat and collapse, being too busy swinging his crossbow into the first Tyroshi's face. As the Tyroshi reeled backward, dropping his pike as he spat blood and broken teeth, Adaran closed with him, dropping his crossbow to snatch the rondel dagger from the small of his back and drive it in a downward thrust at the Tyroshi's neck.
The Tyroshi blocked it with a flailing arm and went for his own dagger but instinct and training drove Adaran's right fist into his face and he drove forward with another thrust as the Tyroshi staggered. That one sank into the Tyroshi's mailed forearm as he misjudged his block. The Tyroshi sprayed blood as he yowled in pain and swung a gauntleted punch at Adaran's head, but Adaran blocked the punch with his own arm and then wrapped his arm around the Tyroshi's to immobilize it and rammed the brow of his visor-less sallet into the Tyroshi's face, further mangling his dentition and winning himself the time and space to rip his dagger free and plunge it into the Tyroshi's neck with a wordless howl of fear-fueled fury.
As the Tyroshi sagged away, blood gushing from his torn neck veins, Adaran stepped back and wheeled about, ripping his sidesword from its scabbard only to find that the second Tyroshi had also been shot down and was lying on the cobblestones with two arrows through his mail-shirt and a third through his face. Adaran refused to process the fact that the Tyroshi had dropped his pike and had a dagger in his fist, clearly intending to stab him in the back, and instead sheathed sidesword and dagger as he picked up his crossbow and mechanically began to reload. The Legion had closed the line and repulsed the counterattack, but the fighting wasn't over.
XXX
Black-hearted murdering devils, the Tyroshi were and no mistake, even for slavers, and no one could convince Sergeant Jorapho Scrivener of the fifth company of the Iron Legion otherwise. He had thought that he had seen cruelty in his time as a slave in Myr, for his master had been a man of seemingly unending lasciviousness, and as Jorapho had been the house's majordomo it had fallen to him to summon whichever girl in the house had caught the master's fancy. He had done what he could to shield those who were too young or too fragile to withstand the master's attentions, often by claiming that the girl in question was feeling unwell and perhaps the master would prefer another, but he had not been able to protect all of them and the bruises and haunted eyes of those he couldn't save had haunted him. Nothing in life had given Jorapho more pleasure than taking his penknife to his master's throat during the Sack and watching him choke on his own blood. And even after the Sack he had not been able to have a peaceful night's sleep until he had joined the Legion, where he could begin to redress the debt of blood and pain he owed.
But as vile as his master had been, his cruelty had had limits, and his lechery aside he had been fairly considerate as masters went. Everyone had had enough to eat, even the scullery maids and the potboys, and the lash had been rarely used. The Tyroshi, he had known even when he was still a slave, had had no such inhibitions. One of the reasons that the lash had been so rarely used was that his former master's policy had been to sell disobedient slaves over the border, where the lash, the branks, the branding iron, and other punishments were more liberally employed. After the Westerosi had come and the wars had begun, the Tyroshi had only increased their savagery; slaves liberated from Tyroshi territory had told of overseers and guards beating slaves unconscious, or even killing them outright, at the least sign of resistance.
That alone would have been enough to make the Legion strike and spare not when it crossed the Tyroshi border. But then they had seen the massacres and heard of the Night of Flames, and steely resolve had become burning fury. The first time Septon Jonothor and Thoros the Red had held a joint service after news of the Night of Flames had reached the waiting army at Lissus, the texts they had chosen had been perfectly chosen to match the mood of their congregants. Jonothor had read from the Book of the Warrior, "See, I will defend your cause and avenge you. I will dry up her sea and make her springs dry. She will be a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals, an object of horror and scorn, a place where no one lives," while Thoros had read from the Scroll of Judgment, "Thus saith the Lord of Light: Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man and beast, and upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground, and it shall burn and not be quenched."
Since they had landed and passed through the Braavosi to take up the burden of the attack the Legion had done their best to execute those words. Every Tyroshi who had come under their weapons had died, the fighting men quickly for that they had made it a matter of kill or be killed but those who hadn't fought had died as slowly as the men could manage in the short time allotted to them, spear and sword thrusts to the belly leaving them curled on the ground and screaming from wounds that would kill them from infection if not from loss of blood. Jorapho had taken little part in such, being content to oversee the work as it was done, but the screams had filled him with a grim satisfaction, and the more so when they came from houses that the Legion had set alight to force the defenders to come out and die or burn. Let the masters learn what it was to be helpless in the power of men who could kill them without consequence, as their slaves had been. Blood demanded blood, and the Iron Legion was minded to settle the bill with interest.
Temple Street, he had learned, was so-named for the Red Temple that sat midway between the gates of the inner city and the docks, which the Tyroshi had taken over and fortified prior to the landing. The priests had been killed, and many of their parishioners with them, for by the end the followers of R'hllor had been viewed as potential traitors as dangerous as the city's slaves; word of the Red Temple of Myr's role in the taking of the city had spread far and wide, and grown in the telling. Jorapho had converted to the Faith when he had been freed, on the grounds that it had been a Seven-worshipping Andal who had conquered the city and freed him and his, but many of his comrades followed the Lord of Light, and the Legion looked out for its own.
Which was why his company had been assigned to take the Red Temple, and was fanning out from a side-street to form a shield-wall the breadth of the great street. As Jorapho took his place in the third rank he turned his spear laterally and placed it across the shoulders of the three men in front of him, both to help urge them forward and to help them keep their alignment. Discipline, the Legion believed as an article of faith, was everything on the battlefield, and the example of the men who had been reduced to teamsters for breaking it had been taken to heart. Ahead of him the front and second-rank men hunkered behind their shields, their spears bristling outwards like the spines of a hedgehog, while behind him the company's crossbowmen loosed the first of many volleys over their heads.
"The company will advance!" called Captain Tychio Ostion, who had been a field hand before the Liberation and had sworn before the assembled company to take the lives of ten slavers as recompense for each of the whip scars that made his back a lattice of ridged flesh. "At the half-step, forward, MARCH!"
The company lifted their shields from where they had braced them against the cobblestones and began to creep forward; at the half-step each pace was only fifteen inches long as opposed to the thirty inches of the quickstep, although each man was still supposed to take one hundred and twenty steps a minute. Jorapho kept his shield up over his face as the company advanced, relying on the pressures on his spear to tell him what was going on in the rank immediately before him; the Tyroshi lodged in the Temple seemed to have no shortage of crossbows and the sound of bolts on shields was like hailstones on roof tiles, interspersed with the occasional groan or scream as a bolt slipped past the wall of double-layered oak to punch through armor. "Close up, there, close up," the officers and his fellow sergeants were already chanting, the familiar litany of commands. "Close that gap, there. Mind your dressing. Damn your eagerness, Garrat, stay in ranks. Close up, now, close up. Steady, lads, don't lose your heads. Keep an even pace, there, Draqos. Steady, lads, steady does it."
Behind him the officers of the crossbowmen were giving their own round of commands. "First rank, advance! Take aim! Loose! Reload! Second rank, advance! Take aim! Loose! Reload! Third rank, advance! Take aim! Loose! Reload! Fourth rank, advance! Take aim! Loose! Reload! First rank, advance! Take aim! Loose! Reload! Second rank, advance!" The bolts were zipping over the heads of the spearmen as the ranks of the crossbowmen passed through each other to keep up a steady rate of fire, aiming at the windows to try and suppress the Tyroshi crossbowmen. The company, Jorapho risked his life to glance from behind his shield, was halfway to the Red Temple and leaving a trail of bodies behind them, but behind their shield-wall and ranks of crossbows there was a party of knights carrying a ram improvised from the mast of a Tyroshi galley, and around them were more knights and men-at-arms with poleaxes and war hammers and longswords. Good men to have on your side in a fight, the knights, with their heavy armor and heavy weapons, but Jorapho was not convinced that most of them properly understood what the wars wereabout. To them the wars were a chance to get rich and become famous, while to the Legion it was a matter of life and death, for they would die before they consented to suffer the collar and lash again. So Jorapho would never fully trust the knights, for all that he would welcome their aid on the battlefield. His trust was reserved for his comrades of the Legion and his king, who had made them free and given them the weapons to prove it.
The Red Temple was looming over them now, a blocky and menacing structure spitting death from every window. "The company will advance at speed, on the command!" Captain Ostion roared over the brabble of dying men and clashing arms from nearby streets. "Company, charge!" The fifth gave a baying roar and broke ranks, rushing forward the last three hundred paces to press themselves against the walls of the Temple where they would be safe from the crossbows. The knights had also broken into a clattering run, and ended it by slamming the ram home against the doors with a hollowBOOM. The doors quaked, but did not give, and the knights tried again, backing a short way and then rushing forward to smash the ram against the doors. Meanwhile the spearmen of the fifth were starting to block up the tall and narrowed windows of the ground floor of the Temple with their shields, stripping them off their arms and holding them over the windows until nods from the crossbowmen made them jerk the shields aside, allowing the crossbowmen to shoot inside. Other spearmen were holding their shields overhead against the stones and beams that the Tyroshi were throwing out of the upper windows, although the weight of the projectiles and the height from which they were thrown was sending many men to the ground with arms broken in their shield-straps. On either side of the ram, knights were hacking at the doors with their poleaxes, and the doors themselves were starting to splinter and buckle.
Then a trio of barrels came crashing down from the upper windows and Jorapho's nose wrinkled involuntarily at the smell of boat soap. "Back!" he roared, along with a dozen other sergeants and officers. "Back! Away from the doors!" But a few of the knights either ignored or didn't hear them and when a torch was thrown down they burned, screaming horribly as their armor glowed yellow, then red, in the heat of the flames. One of the knights who had heeded the command to back away stared in horror at his flame-wreathed comrades, and then closed his visor and took a new grip on his poleaxe. "Pull those shields aside!" he barked at the two spearmen who were blocking up the window nearest Jorapho, and when they did so at Jorapho's nod he pushed forward and began chopping at the window's shutters. Half a dozen strokes from the heavy poleaxe were enough to take the shutters off their hinges, but before the knight could do more than roar, "Follow me, those who dare!" a trio of crossbows coughed from within and he was knocked to the ground with bolts through his cuirass and visor. A dozen Legion crossbowmen volleyed their own bolts back through the window in reply, and then a knight with a longsword forced his way through the window and disappeared into the Temple. Jorapho dropped his spear and drew his shortsword as another knight squeezed through the window. "Come on lads, don't let them fight alone!" he shouted, and followed the knights into the Temple.
XXX
In the great hall of the Palace of Order, the Archon of Tyrosh planted his fists on the table that held his map of the city and leaned forward, hunching his shoulders like a man at the wheel. The Myrish gambit against the Bleeding Tower had cracked open the shell of Tyrosh's defenses and from there everything else had gone wrong. The harbor had been lost in the first hour of the assault thanks to the treachery of the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned pirates, although the Braavosi had at least been prevented from expanding their gains beyond the docklands and the harbor moles. But then the Myrish had landed, and the Iron Legion had started chewing through the defensive line that his captains had so hastily put together. Barricade after barricade had been overrun, sometimes within an hour of being erected, and the Legion had begun to spread through the outer city like mold through bread. Jeweler's Row had fallen, and Draper's Street, and Glover's Alley, centuries of prosperity sometimes literally going up in smoke as the Legion burned out those militiamen who had barricaded themselves in their shops. By mid-morning, half of the trades in Tyrosh city had been driven out of their homes or worse; the fishmonger's, shipwright's, and chandler's guilds had all been wiped out to the last apprentice when the Braavosi overran the docklands. Of the thirteen men of his council, five were already dead, three more too wounded to fight on, and the rest were by the gates of the inner walls awaiting orders to lead their companies into the fray; Councilor Varoros had fulfilled his oath to take not one step backward in the defense of the city when his company had been overrun on Temple Street, while Councilor Stallar would never make another speech with his head impaled on a Legion banner.
And now, at high noon, word had just reached him that the Red Temple had been overrun, with no reported survivors. If that was so, then almost a tenth of the best soldiers the city had left had been lost with it; the butcher's and armorer's guilds had committed their militia companies to that defense, and behind them the void was filled only by the survivors of the docklands fighting, who would be in no shape to fight either the Myrish or the Braavosi so soon after being broken. And according to other messengers, the attack up Temple Street was only the head of the assault; its shoulders were advancing as well, if more slowly due to comparative lack of resources. The men around him, subordinates of the captains fighting for their lives in the streets of the city, were busily shading in areas of the map in red grease pencil to indicate areas that had been lost; already a third of the outer city had turned red, and it was growing by the hour.
The Archon knew he was no general, despite the vote of confidence from his council, but even he could see what the only option left to him was. "Withdraw," he said hoarsely. "Withdraw behind the inner walls. It's our only chance."
Chapter 77: The Final Lines
Chapter Text
Cities as old as Tyrosh rarely had an inner layer of walls, for the simple reason that by their nature walls impeded movement. It was a rare city that would force its citizens to funnel through narrow gates when they could simply tear down the wall, both opening the streets and providing building materiel for new construction. Especially since it was a rare city that had experienced open warfare in the streets in living memory. The coup of the Tyrant during the days of the Band of Nine had been the exception that proved the rule; no matter how much he claimed legitimacy he had never been able to get past the violence of his ascension.
Tyrosh, however, had not been able to follow the example of her sister cities, for her inner walls were made of dragonstone, the supernally durable material with which the Valyrian Freehold had made its greatest feats of engineering. Harder than granite, harder than steel, harder even than diamond, it had resisted all attempts at demolition, and so it had been left standing. And to tell the truth the elite of Tyrosh had not been too displeased at the walls' survival. The inner city had become their haven, and as in Volantis the walls had provided a handy marker of social status; no one could buy or even rent land within the walls unless he could gain the recommendation of three people who already lived within the walls, which had served to limit new residents to those with both the wealth and the social graces to fit in with their new peers. One of the unspoken rules of the recommendation process was that no one who had made his own fortune could reasonably expect to be recommended, nor could his son. Generally, a family had to be wealthy for at least three or four generations before being allowed within the walls.
But the Archons of Tyrosh had never forgotten the original purpose of the walls, which was to defend the core of Tyrosh against either domestic unrest or foreign invasion. The money allocated to their maintenance had been sparse before the Slave Wars, both for lack of need and in order to spare money for the fleet, but the cleared zone before the walls had been maintained, so that no permanent building stood within twenty feet of the foot of the walls. Not much more had been needed to make the walls as formidable an obstacle as they had ever been, Eddard Stark mused grimly as he watched the Legion fall back from their second unsuccessful assault on the Temple Street Gate. That gate had swung shut almost literally in the face of the Royal Army; whoever had been commanding the gatehouse had evidently been smart enough to realize that the only way to keep the Alliance from breaking through had been to close the gate on their own fellows, in order to prevent the Royal Army from coming through the gate on the cloak-trails of the Tyroshi. Roughly a hundred Tyroshi soldiers had been cut to pieces outside the gate, but a rain of crossbow bolts, stones, and incendiaries from the battlements above had forced the Legion back with almost as many men dead and wounded.
A second attempt had been made using axes and a roof-beam as an improvised ram, but again the efforts of the defenders had proved too much. Incandescent fury and vitriolic hatred were of little avail against such a rampart, especially when no one had brought ready-made scaling ladders. Fortunately, there were other methods of taking a fortified place than by escalade. Eddard turned to Maege Mormont. "Take half the company," he ordered, "ride back to the Bleeding Tower, and start dismounting the engines; knock the windows out and lower them down with ropes if you have to. I want the mangonels battering the gate and the springalds raking the battlements." As Maege saluted and rode away Eddard turned to the Karstark brothers. "Call the Legion back," he said. "I will not allow more lives to be wasted on fruitless assaults against this gate. We have the advantage in numbers; let's use it. Fan the companies out around the whole perimeter of the walls and have them probe for a weak point. Somewhere there'll be a drain that wasn't blocked up, or a stretch of wall where we can get a grapnel up, or a postern we can break down. Find it."
As the Karstark brothers clattered off, roaring commands, Eddard had his trumpeter blow the rally call, and then blow it again and again. Aggression was essential, but it had to be controlled and used in a way that matched strength against weakness. He had made the mistake, before meeting Amarya, of letting his heart rule his head; he would not allow that mistake to befall Robert's army.
XXX
The Archon deliberately held his horse, quite possibly the last horse left in the inner walls of Tyrosh city, to a measured trot as he rode up Palace Way through the lengthening shadows of the afternoon. The report that had reached him from the wall was of the first urgency, but it would not do to appear driven to haste. Panic had caused more defeats than anything else in the history of war, especially in situations such as this.
The defense of the inner city had been going well thus far. The gates had swung shut in the very face of the abolitionists, and their attempts to force them had all been repelled. Their probing of the whole circuit of the walls was troubling, for it required the defenders to move from point to point at speed to keep them from gaining a foothold, but so far every attempt had been beaten back. They had supplies for several months at careful rationing, especially with so many trapped outside the walls, and plentiful ammunition for crossbow and catapult. If they could hold the walls until winter closed the seas, they might yet be able to force a negotiated settlement.
But then a butler had found him at the Temple Street Gate and told him of something that might upset the whole balance. The Archon shook his head. In hindsight, he really should have paid more attention to Concilor Varoros; the silver-haired old stalwart had been the most incendiary voice on the council from the first day of the wars, demanding ever more money, men, and resources of all kinds be set aside for the war effort and that ever-harsher measures be taken against even the slightest hint of servile unrest. It had been Varoros who had instigated the Night of Flames, and done the most to drive the massacres afterwards.
It had also been Varoros who had made the most dire pronouncements on what awaited Tyrosh if it fell to the abolitionists, and what men of worth and honor should do before the end.
He reined in in front of the Varoros manse, an elegantly-built exemplar of its kind, and frowned slightly; the door was standing open. Even if the butler, now dancing nervously from foot to foot by his stirrup, had left it standing opensomeoneshould have closed it. That they hadn't boded ill. He dismounted and turned to the captain of his retinue. "Four of your best to follow me, captain, softly and out of sight," he commanded. "It would be unwise to cause any hasty decisions to be made." At the captain's bow he strode up the steps and through the door.
In the great hall of the manse he found a sight that confirmed both the butler's warning and his own fears. Firewood had been piled under and around the great dining table, and more lay around the pillars that supported the high-vaulted roof and the tapestry-decked walls. The wood fairly glistened with oil, and the carpeted floor fairly squelched with it. But it was what was on the table that held his attention. Two young women, their faces set with the waxy rigidity of death, lay upon it, and standing over them was Lady Varoros in her finest gown, her hair immaculately coiffed and her hands and neck heavy with jewels. A pair of servants, evidently freeborn from their lack of collars, stood nearby holding torches.
"Stand fast!" the Archon shouted, making the servants stiffen reflexively. "Lady Varoros, I . . ." the Archon's voice died as Lady Varoros snatched the torch from one of her servants and turned to him. "My lady," he said formally, forcing the sudden terror to the back of his mind; if she dropped that torch, and the butler had told the truth about the whole house being set to go up in flames . . . "give the torch back to your servant, if you please. There is no need for this sort of thing just yet. Perhaps not ever, if we can hold the walls."
The light in Lady Varoros' eyes was beyond insane. "Fool born of fools," she said softly, her voice all the more terrible for the perfection of her diction, "do you not have eyes to see what is happening? The barbarians are at the gates! Ye may prevail against them on the walls for a day, but against the tide that is rising in the west and the north there can be no victory. When they break through then they will run rampant over us, and all that is noble and good and gentle in this world will be destroyed as if it had never been. We will be blotted out of the record of the world, and those of us they allow to live will be the slaves of their slaves. But not I and mine! I will not allow this house which has stood a thousand years to fall to the greed of the barbarians, or suffer my daughters to fall victim to the lusts of the slaves who march with them. If this is how the story of House Varoros ends, then no hand but mine shall write the final lines or close the book!" She raised her arms. "Ancestors!" she cried, her voice the scream of a maddened falcon. "Take us home to you!"
She dropped the torch onto the oil-drenched table, and the Archon turned and sprinted for the door. He made it eight steps before the oil vapors that had pooled just above the carpet caught light with a dullwhumpand the room exploded.
XXX
The causes of the Great Fire of Tyrosh remain undetermined up to the present day. Slaver and slaver-sympathizing sources almost unanimously point the finger of blame at the Alliance, who they claim started the fire by launching incendiaries into the inner city with the artillery pieces they took from the Bleeding Tower. That the Alliance was both physically and mentally capable of such an act is beyond dispute, but the assertion is refuted by the reports of the Braavosi provveditores attached to the Great Armament, which unanimously agree that while the Alliance had begun bombarding the city when the first column of smoke was observed within the inner city, they had not yet begun launching incendiaries. In addition to this, it should be remembered that an incendiary bombardment would almost certainly have been a last resort for the Alliance, which would have hoped to preserve the wealthy inner city of Tyrosh until their soldiers could sack it.
Most Myrish sources, and many Westerosi ones as well, follow the lead of Maester Gordon, who posits that it was the Tyroshi who started the fire, in order to deny the Alliance the sack it sought. The support usually offered for this theory is the atrocities that the Tyroshi committed previously in the war which culminated in the Night of Flames. The Tyroshi, the story goes, had by this time become a nation of madmen so lost to sense and honor as to be capable of anything, even burning their own city. If this is true, then it would present an interesting case of mass psychosis, but it is disproved by the statements of those Tyroshi who survived the Fire; their accounts all agree that, far from deliberately burning the inner city, the plan was to hold the inner wall as long as possible in hopes of winning a negotiated surrender.
The third possibility comes from Second Sword Antonio Rozzi, whose report offered the theory that the Great Fire was caused by the mishandling or accidental ignition of incendiary munitions within the inner city and then exacerbated by the bombardment and the final assault. Most Braavosi sources support this theory, offering as supporting evidence the fact that Tyrosh had previously attempted to burn a city, and was known by the Commune's secret service to have been bent on acquiring wildfire as a means of improving the odds against them. That Tyrosh was in the market for weapons of all sorts in the months prior to the Third Slave War is a matter of public record, but the assertion that they had acquired a supply of wildfire can be discounted. The records of the Guild of Pyromancers, seized and searched after the Fall of Tyrosh on King Stannis' orders, revealed that only one bottle of wildfire had gone missing between the Sack of King's Landing and the Fall of Tyrosh, and this was almost certainly the bottle used in the attempted destruction of Braavos. It must be considered unlikely that anyone outside the Guild, a notoriously secretive body, could have discovered how to concoct the substance, and in any case there is no physical evidence that wildfire was employed at Tyrosh. Wildfire burns with a distinctive greenish flame, and none of the primary sources of the Great Fire mention green flames.
Regardless of the causes of the Great Fire, its effects are clear enough. Short of a disease epidemic, medieval civic authorities feared nothing more than a major fire. Even stone buildings had wooden floors, roof-timbers, furnishings, fixtures, etc., and in an age without pressurized hoses or automatic sprinkler systems a fire could run out of control with bewildering speed. In the Building Code of King's Landing, first codified into law in 295 AC, forty of the sixty ordinances were meant to mitigate the risk of fire, as opposed to the ten that were meant to improve sanitation. It is also illustrative that in King's Landing, Braavos, Myr, and Volantis arson and even attempted arson remained punishable by death into the 600s, and even after the death penalty was lifted the mandatory minimum sentence for arson related crimes in Westeros was imprisonment for life at hard labor until 850 AC.
Given the fear of fire imprinted on the medieval mind, it should not be wondered at that the Great Fire provoked a panic among the defenders of the inner city of Tyrosh. For every soldier that remained at his post one or two deserted to join the bucket brigades, and even those that remained must have fought with one eye looking back over their shoulders. This could not have been helped by the fact that the Allied artillery switched targets from the gates and the battlements of the wall to the inner city itself, disrupting the firefighting efforts and starting new fires by using incendiary munitions that had been originally designed for use as anti-shipping projectiles. It was into the chaos that ensued from this that the final assault on the walls was launched . . .
-Storm and Fury: The Battle for the Center of the Worldby Maester Barnabas, published 2036.
The past six years had given Jaime Lannister a bone-deep appreciation of the fragility of a man's reputation. Before the Sack of King's Landing, his father had been renowned as a just and fair lord, if a strict one; the Reynes and Tarbecks had been in open rebellion, after all, so in strictest law they had deserved everything they had gotten. After the Sack, the respect his father had been held in had changed to fear, and fear laced with contempt, at that. With some justice, Jaime was willing to admit; how else were people supposed to take the fact that he had sacked a city that he had entered as a friend and ally?
For his own part, Jaime had seen his own reputation take a terrible beating in Pentos, when only blind luck and Gregor Clegane's prowess had kept him alive and uncaptured in his first independent command. He had gone some way to repairing that beating in the Battle of Pentos and the pursuit after the Battle of Tara, but he had still heard the whispers that perhaps the Lion of Lannister was more alley-cat than lion. It was why he had applied himself so diligently to his tutelage under Lyn Corbray and followed the Blackfish's strictures on the science and art of soldiering so rigorously. He was well aware that his right to sit in the command council of the Sunset Company had been a product of his birth, and he knew, now, that his being named to the Kingsguard had as much to do with his being a hostage against his father's loyalty as with his prowess. He was determined toearnwhatever laurels he received henceforward.
Which was why he had volunteered to lead the assault on the wall of the inner city of Tyrosh as the sun lowered towards the horizon. Outside of a tournament, there was no more conspicuous a way to earn a reputation than to lead an assault against a fortified place, if only because it could be readily seen who went up each ladder and how well they did. And leaving aside reputation, even leaving aside the fact that he never felt soaliveas when he fought, leading such assaults was what knights werefor. It was, Jaime had learned in Essos in a way that he probably never would have learned in Westeros, how a knight paid for the armor and the sword and the lands and the respect of the smallfolk and all the rest. He who did the most was worth the most.
So when the ladder, a hastily-built affair that the Braavosi ship's carpenter had assured him was sturdier than it looked, scraped against the wall, Jaime roared "Follow me!" at the rest of the storming party and swarmed up the ladder, letting his legs power him upward and letting his left hand guide him up the siderail while his right hand held his longsword. He had time to be afraid, but he was comforted by three things. Firstly, he had seen for himself before the attack went forward that the Tyroshi had been in confusion on the wall-top. Secondly, the assault was closely supported by both cavalry archers and Legion and Braavosi crossbowmen and even over the chaotic brabble of noise from the assault and the fire that had evidently sprung up inside the walls he could hear the whistling of wind through the arrow flights as they showered the battlements with projectiles. Thirdly, he had come a long way from the callow young knight who had been ambushed and very nearly killed or taken on that dusty road in Pentos; the forge of the Conquest of Myr, the anvil of the coastal fighting in the first war, and the tempering of the second war and the Battle of Solva had made him a living sword of a man. In Westeros he had been known as a promising squire and a fine young knight, one of those rare men for whom wielding sword and lance came naturally. Essos had taken that promising young man, given him a reason to live up to that promise, and honed him to a killing edge.
So when Jaime reached the top of the wall to find himself facing a Tyroshi crossbowman in the crenel before the summit of his ladder, it didn't take so much as a conscious thought for him to put the point of his longsword through the Tyroshi's throat-bole and flow through the crenel like a weasel through a mousehole. Another Tyroshi raised his crossbow to shoot, but the bow wasn't even halfway to his shoulder before Jaime's blade lashed out in a diagonal cut and the crossbow exploded as he cut through the bowstring and released the huge forces restrained by the bow's mechanisms. The Tyroshi flinched away reflexively and Jaime took advantage of his distraction to kill the man next to him who had dropped his own crossbow to claw at his sidesword. A third Tyroshi came at him with an axe that slid off Jaime's blade as he brought it up to the guard of the window and a thrust-kick hammered the Tyroshi backwards and very nearly off the wall entirely. Jaime turned back, killed the Tyroshi whose crossbow he had destroyed with a snapping forehand lateral cut that took off all the man's head above his lower jaw, and then turned right to charge with lowered shoulder against the Tyroshi who had managed to draw his falchion and bring it up for the sort of overhand chop that weapon was best at.
Jaime's pauldron-encased shoulder hit the Tyroshi squarely in the upper chest and knocked him flying as his arm bounced off Jaime's bascinet. Jaime pressed forward, stamping on the man's arm to break it as he went, and began cutting his way along the wall towards the next ladder over, letting the other men of his column follow him onto the wall. This was the sort of fighting that knights were best at, this close-quarters brawling where armor and strength and skill and endurance mattered most, and Jaime's heart rejoiced as he slew the Tyroshi like a steel-clad lion among so many sheep.Thiswas what a knight did, and by all the gods old and new,he was a knight.
It was that spirit of exultation that carried him along the wall from ladder to ladder until at last he came to the gatehouse, where in six blows he killed the gatehouse's captain, his lieutenant, and four of his sergeants. As his men opened the gates to let the Legion into the burning city Jamie knelt, knocking his visor up to suck down air as he smiled; let men deny his worth now, if they dared.
XXX
Eddard undid the chinstrap of his bascinet, pulled it off his head, and looked the Legion captain square in the face in the late evening light. "Captain," he said civilly, "you need to pull your men out of the line. Get them back from the wall and down Temple Street to Jeweler's Row, at the double."
The captain, a burly man with the flat face and copper skin of a Lhazareen, stared at him incredulously. "The hell you say!" he eventually spluttered, gesturing at the opened gates and the flood of men pressing through them. "The inner city is fallen! This is our chance for the revenge King Robert promised us!"
"And what good will that revenge be to dead men?" Eddard demanded. "The city is on fire. Give it two hours, maybe three, and there will be nothing in the inner city but ash and charred bones.Yourcharred bones, and your men's, if you don't keep them out of there."
The captain's face turned stormy. "So you'll let the slavers retake the walls?" he challenged. "Let them rebuild their defenses so that we have to take them all over again?"
"Any slavers left are fighting the fires," Eddard replied. "And losing. They'll burn with the inner city, and I hope they burn slowly. What we need to do," he leaned down in the saddle, "is keep the fire out of the outer city. If we can pull the men who are already in the city back to the wall and start fire watches in the streets around the walls, then we can keep the outer city from going up. But first we need to get the men behind them out of the way or else they won't be able to pull back. That means you, captain, need to get your men moving back down the street, and quick, before we start losing men to the flames and the heat."
The captain's jaw set. "I am not moving my company one inch backwards, my lord," he said flatly. "We have debts to settle with the slavers, and by the gods, wewillsettle them."
"Are you disobeying a direct order?" Eddard asked coldly.
The captain had opened his mouth to answer when a ringing of horseshoes on the cobblestones heralded the arrival of Robert, surrounded by his household men. "Heard you were in something of a fix, Ned," he boomed, waving off Eddard's nod and the captain's bow, "so I came up to lend a hand. What passes here?"
"We need to get the street behind the gate cleared before we pull the other men out of the inner city, Your Grace," Eddard reported. "The captain here is refusing to move his company."
Robert turned a baleful glare on the captain. "Do it," he snapped. "Or take your armor off and report to the quartermasters."
The captain blanched, then threw a salute and marched away, roaring commands at his lieutenants and sergeants. Eddard breathed a sigh of relief; for a moment, he had feared that the man would refuse even Robert's orders. He had seen the light in the man's eyes, and it had not been human; fortunately Robert's voice had penetrated the bloodlust. As the company began to turn about and trudge away from the gate Robert turned back to him. "I take it you'll want me back here directing traffic while you go into that mess?" He gestured at the red-lit pandemonium within the gates; Eddard nodded. "Alright then," Robert said. "But mark me, Ned; not one Tyroshi walks out of that place alive. If we're going to deny our men their vengeance, then we can at least make sure that the fire takes it for them."
Eddard saluted, turned his horse, and spurred it into the river of soldiers, his household men following. Even fifty warhorses were enough to slow the stream of armed humanity, allowing the half-company that Eddard had managed to keep in hand to run across the road and form a shield-wall facing down Temple Street. Eddard left them to block the ingress of even more soldiers into the inner city and led his men through the gates into the last madness of Tyrosh.
The Great Fire of Tyrosh would burn for the rest of the day, all of that night, and into the next morning before it began to peter out. The damage was gruesome; roughly three quarters of the inner city of Tyrosh was destroyed, and most of the buildings that survived were damaged to one degree or another. The outer city was spared, but it was a close-run thing; flying embers that made it over the wall managed to set twelve houses and eight other buildings alight, and only the vigilance of the bucket brigades that each Myrish and Braavosi company became prevented the conflagration from spreading.
The human cost of the fire was commensurate with the loss of property; of the roughly ten thousand Tyroshi citizens of the inner city, only five hundred and sixty-two are known to have survived, and most of these were later hanged by the Myrish. How many Myrish and Braavosi soldiers died as a result of the Great Fire is unclear, as their casualty reports were inclusive of the whole battle, but Eddard Stark later admitted in a letter to his brother Brandon that he almost certainly failed to save two or three hundred men "who were so avid for loot that they would not be dissuaded from entering the inner city, and burned with their spoils."
The aftermath of the Great Fire proved to be almost as stressful as the taking of the city, for even as the flames began to die the temperature dropped, and the very next day snow flurries fell on the island. Winter was coming . . .
-Storm and Fury: The Battle for the Center of the Worldby Maester Barnabas, published 2036.
Chapter 78: Upon the Ashes
Chapter Text
Maester Gordon had always loved history. Where other boys had thrilled to the legends of the children of Garth Greenhand or the tales of Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, Gordon had been more drawn to stories of the Blackfyre Rebellions and the deeds of Ser Duncan the Tall. History had a relevance and an immediacy that he had never found in the legends, and he had loved nothing more than to read of Jaehaerys the Conciliator's acts or Daeron the Young Dragon's wars. But while history had been a popular field at the Citadel, the chance to undertake original research had been rare and usually confined to a handful of students. Actually writing a book had required both such a chance and a powerful patron, which Gordon the stonemason's son could never have hoped to acquire. In theory there was no rank among the maesters except that conferred by scholarship, but it was still all too easy to discern who had been a lord's son and who hadn't; you simply looked for who got the plum assignments.
So Gordon had, regretfully, resigned himself to basing his chain on architecture, engineering, and a few links in the minor fields of medicine, and all but given up hope of writing a work of history. But then he had been assigned to the Sunset Company and found himself living through history, and some of the best history since at least the War of the Ninepenny Kings, if not the Conquest, at that. As enjoyable as his tenure as captain of the Pioneers had been, his assignment as King Robert's chronicler was a dream come true. Ever since receiving the assignment he had done his utmost to follow the Citadel's commandments of historiography, the first of which was to never get your information secondhand if you could help it. The dream of any historical researcher was to be able to collect an eyewitness account as soon after the even as possible, before the foibles of human memory started to embroider facts. And thankfully his health had sufficiently recovered to allow him to accompany the army.
Which was why Gordon had joined the assault on Tyrosh, officially as a member of the medical train but really in order to collect accounts of the city's fall from the men who had thrown it down. In between stitching and splinting he had sat by bedsides with pen and parchment taking down the recollections of wounded men, or else sitting in King Robert's command post and scribbling down everything he heard. It was how he had come to witness the submission of the pirate captains who had joined the Alliance and record the knighting of Ser Davos Blacksail for securing their loyalty. He had also dutifully taken down the names of those captains like Irlodos Orlinar and Donnel Hawkins who had died fighting in the harbor, and whom Robert had promised to raise a memorial to, and also record the sentence of outlawry passed against Salladhor Saan, who had not taken part in the battle and fled for points unknown.
It was also how he had come to be summoned to join Robert for the day's ceremonies, which had been hastily planned and even more hastily laid on. The freak snow shower that had hit Tyrosh the night the Great Fire ended had neither stuck nor had it been repeated, but it had still been taken as an omen. For snow to fly this far south before the white ravens had even flown was clearly a sign of a hard winter coming on fast, and so the decision had been made to move the army back to the mainland as swiftly as possible. The first ships had sailed on that morning's tide, loaded with wounded, and more were due to sail throughout the day. But before Robert sailed, or Second Sword Rozzi, there were matters that had to be attended to.
The first had been the disposition of those Tyroshi who had survived the Great Fire; all five hundred and sixty-two of them, out of what must have been thousands if not tens of thousands. Two hundred and seven had been minor children who had been remanded to the custody of the Braavosi, who would raise them as wards of the Commune. The rest had been taken to the site of the former Palace of Order, now a charred skeleton, and beheaded for lack of a structure sturdy enough to hang them from and lack of time to build suitable gallows. When Lord Stark had decapitated the last Tyroshi soldier, Robert had taken one of the Dragons off of the chain around his neck and thrown it into the widening pool of blood. "Tyrosh," he had said coldly, "our debt is settled." The witnessing legionaries had all cheered as had many of the knights, but Gordon had noticed that Ser Lyn Corbray could not hide a sour look. Of course, that was probably because there had been very little loot from the inner city, and not much from the outer city either after it was divided among both the Royal Army and the Great Armament. Ser Lyn had a fearsome reputation but he was not, Gordon believed, a very complicated man at bottom.
The next matter to be attended to had been the installation of Cassio Dorrma as Governor-General of Martyros, as the isle of Tyrosh had been renamed (Gordon suspected that it would be some time before the new name caught on outside of official correspondence). This had been accomplished by Second Sword Rozzi reading out a short speech commending the isle to Dorrma's care on behalf of the Commune and presenting him with a short, heavy baton of white wood as his symbol of office, in reply to which Dorrma had pledged to serve the Commune well and faithfully, make a full account of his actions when called upon, and execute the Titan's laws rigorously. Rozzi and Dorrma had then turned to Robert and sworn on behalf of the Titan to uphold the terms of the alliance, yielding sovereignty over the mainland possessions of Tyrosh in return for retaining sovereignty over Tyrosh's island possessions. This Robert had agreed to, pledging to uphold the alliance, and the ceremonies had wrapped up with Robert swearing on his hammer and Rozzi swearing on his sword to do everything in their power to maintain the alliance.
No sooner had they sworn than Robert and his retinue had gone down to the docks to oversee the embarkation of the rest of the Royal Army; no one wanted to take chances with winter announcing its arrival in such fashion. Robert had sailed on the next ship, leaving Lord Stark in command until the last ship had sailed. Gordon had sailed with Robert, having resolved not to leave his king's side until the last vestiges of the war were wrapped up. This was too great an opportunity for any lover of history to miss, much less one who had been denied as long as Gordon had been.
XXX
The following is an excerpt fromFlash on the High Seasby George Dand.
The letter calling me back to Westeros arrived two days after Robert sailed away, of all the luck; if it had come three days sooner I might have been able to find a place on his ship and toady him back to Myr on the pretext of being able to find better passage there. It might not have been strictly true, but very few people are immune to flattery. I think the only two people I've ever met who were immune to it were Stannis and Tywin Lannister, although Tywin had his weak moments.
As it was, I was able to snag a berth on a Braavosi galley whose captain had decided to chance the King's Landing run on a hunch that pre-Fall Tyroshi brandy might be able to command a good price, especially since it was unlikely that there would be any more for some time. Keen as hounds after a fox for a good deal, the Braavosi, but that one more so than most, in order to not only find the brandy undrunk and unspoiled by the fires but to keep it out of his crew's hands. And since he and his men had been mustered out of the Titan's service, they were free to make what deals they pleased while they could before winter made sea travel too risky for regular trade.
Nor were they the only ones. The Great Armament was a feat of mustering and provisioning probably unequalled in my lifetime, but the men who crewed and fought it were by no means all regulars. Only about two or three ships in every ten were crewed by full-time Fleet sailors, the rest had been crewed by volunteer citizens. Admittedly most of them had had at least some experience of naval combat, but still and all, they had been more-or-less normal burghers before the call had gone out for men to crew the ships. It's why I've never been disrespectful of the third estate since; I've seen what they can do when they put their hands and minds to it. But in any case, something like two thirds of the Great Armament was mustered out of service after Dorrma took the oath, and galleys went everywhere. Most of them went straight back to Braavos with chits for the back pay drawn on the Iron Bank, but plenty went either to Myrish territory or to Westeros. Some, like my captain, were planning flying visits to get some trading in, but most were looking for a place where they could bed down for the winter, get their galleys in proper order, and do someserioustrading.
I was glad to get off of Tyrosh by then, I don't mind telling you. Most of the city's prewar population was dead, after all, and the inner city wasdead; hardly a single intact building in the whole place. Dorrma and his officers had taken over a tavern in the outer city that was only mostly pillaged as the new seat of government and the harbor district was more or less full from the hundred-odd ships that the Braavosi were leaving in Tyrosh as a garrison (all regulars, these) but the rest of the city was quiet enough to give even strong men the heebies. It just doesn't feel natural to walk around a city and not see people; makes you wonder if whatever's waiting around the next corner is responsible for all the people disappearing. I've had some weird and unseelie experiences in my life of arms, but walking through destroyed Tyrosh was one of the weirdest and all of it had been made by the hand of man. Curious, eh?
Of course, by then it wasn't Tyrosh anymore; the Braavosi had renamed it Martyros, in honor of all the people who had died in the Slave Wars. A silly name, in my opinion, and one that I thought would never catch on. It still hasn't, in some quarters, but it's gained a fair amount of traction over the years, largely because the people who grew up knowing it as Tyrosh have started to die out. It wouldn't be my last time visiting that island, but at the time I was grateful to be done with Essos and its troubles. And hoping my recall would let me take some well-earned time to spend my share of the spoils at home and bask in the glory of the war to my peers; rather than riding off posthaste on some errand for His Nibs. I'd had my fill of blood and then some. If I had known what was waiting for me back in Westeros, though . . .
XXX
Willet Longsword, until recently simply Willet son of Anthor, couldn't help raising his eyebrows as he walked through the streets of Aesica, although he was at least able to stop himself from gaping. He had been here before, and had seen cities that made Aesica look like the moderately-sized town it was, but the change from when he had first seen it was astonishing. From a moderately prosperous seaport town that held maybe four or five thousand citizens, it had grown to a sprawling city of almost twenty thousand as the Royal Army of Myr and the army of Braavos returned from the conquest of Tyrosh. The sense of dislocation was all the greater for it being less than a decade ago he had first seen a town of Aesica's size, much less a city.
It had been seven years since he and five friends from the Painted Dogs had joined the crew of a smuggler who had landed to trade wine and steel tools and weapons for pelts and amber and plunder taken in raids against the Andals. He had always had an itch toknow, even as a lad, and the smuggler had offered to take him and his friends aboard and help them see the world if they would lend him their spears and strong arms against danger. His uncles hadn't liked the idea, claiming that the tribe could not afford to spare warriors, but Willet and his friends had all been grown men and free to go their own way, so they had gone aboard. Three of those five were dead now; one knifed in a tavern in Volantis, one taken by the sea in a storm, and one killed when their ship had been attacked and taken by pirates when passing through the Stepstones. Willet had survived that fight, and with his two remaining friends Dovas and Hokkan had joined the crew of the pirate who had taken them, one Jaime Burns, who sailed under the banner of Donnel Hawkins.
Willet had risen quickly in Burns's crew by virtue of his strength, prowess, and ferocity, and when Hawkins had summoned them to Bloodstone to join Salladhor Saan's fleet Willet had held the rank of master-at-arms. And when Burns had been killed fighting in Tyrosh harbor after the fleet had turned it's coat Willet had taken command as the highest-ranking officer still on their feet; a position he had held for all of ten minutes before the ship had taken a volley of heavy springald bolts from a Tyroshi cog that had sunk her. Fortunately she had sunk slowly enough that Willet had been able to get the crew off and join the fighting in the city, where they had gotten enough plunder to allow the crew to split up and let each man make his own way. For his part Willet had acquired a finely-made longsword from a dead Tyroshi officer that he couldn't stop fingering. Never in his life had he ever dreamed of holding such a weapon, a wide-bladed yet superbly balanced blade with a cross-section like a wide and flat diamond. The first time he had used it, on a Tyroshi soldier who didn't surrender quickly enough, he had been caught off-guard and unbalanced by how easily the blade had taken the man's arm off at the shoulder.
Willet and Hokkan (Dovas had been killed in the harbor) had sworn themselves to a Myrish lord named Branton, who had been looking for swords to replace the ones he had lost helping to take the Red Temple. Lord Branton seemed a decent sort for an Andal, if more self-effacing and colorless than Willet found entirely proper even if the man was a sub-lord to Ser Wendel Manderly, but Willet had not taken service with him in order to seek a permanent position. If the past few years, and especially the Fall of Tyrosh, had taught him anything it was that the world was being shaken loose. When he had first seen Tyrosh the sheer size of the city had frankly terrified him; he had not imagined that there were so many people in all the world, much less that they would pack themselves so closely together. Now Tyrosh was ash and its people food for crows, destroyed by men who had previously been their slaves.
If slaves could do such things, then why could not his people do even greater things? It had been long years since Willet had laid eyes on his native mountains, but he was still Willet son of Anthor, and he remembered where he came from and who his people were. The old ways were being swept aside; he could feel it in his bones. In times such as these, when the order of things was being remade, a man of strength and cunning could make something great of himself, if the gods favored him and he was not afraid to seize his chance. Willet would serve until that chance presented itself, and then he would seize it with both hands.
XXX
The two commanders met under an iron sky in a farmer's field in the no-man's-land between their forces, roughly forty miles north-east of Sinuessa. Their escorts hung back, glowering at each other under their raised visors as the commanders rode towards each other; the heralds had chosen this site because of the lack of cover, but neither side was happy about letting their principal out of reach. The knight and the sellsword both dismounted with the easy grace of natural horsem*n and exchanged salutes. "Daario Naharis, Captain-General of Lys, at your service," the sellsword said with a bow.
The knight returned the bow. "Ser Brynden Tully, Master of Soldiers to His Grace King Robert, at yours," he replied. "Before we go further, I trust you will understand that nothing I say here can bind His Grace? I am but one of his officers and have no authority to negotiate a general peace."
"Of course, of course," Daario replied, waving a hand. "Strictly speaking, I cannot speak for the Gonfalonier, much less the Conclave as a whole. But we can speak for ourselves as soldiers and the forces under our command, no?"
Brynden nodded. "Aye, that we can," he allowed. "Hopefully we can leave aside the folderol about claims, as well. Especially since King Robert's claims include essentially everything east of the Narrow Sea that isn't Braavosi. Freedom has no boundary, as Septon Jonothor is fond of saying."
Daario nodded back. "Indeed. In respect of which, I am willing to abandon Brivas in return for a truce. My mother, gods rest her soul, taught me to never bite off more than I can chew."
"In return for keeping Sinuessa?" Brynden asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Along with a hinterland that includes the coast directly west of it, with Vulture's Cape," Daario answered. "And that spans, shall we say, twenty miles north and east of the city? It will need to be able to support itself with only minimal help from the rest of our mainland possessions, and that will include the better part of its good farmland."
"Will you allow the slaves in Sinuessa the choice of remaining with their masters or emigrating to us?" Brynden asked. "I would be remiss if I did not ask."
Daario made a face. "Unfortunately, such a concession is not within my power to give outright," he said, "but I trust you will have heard of the new law that the Conclave has passed which allows for a transition from slavery to indentured servitude and emancipation after a term of years? As it stands, the law must be adopted by each district before it has any force, but I can and will impose it in Sinuessa."
Brynden's bushy eyebrow lifted again. "Without reference to the Gonfalonier or the Conclave?"
"The part of my contract that I made non-negotiable was that the Conclave grant me proconsular powers," Daario replied, a slight smile stealing across his face. "I believe the actual line reads something along the lines of, 'when deployed in the field with his army in time of war, the Captain-General shall do that which he deems fit and proper for the safety, security, and advantage of Lys, and shall be deemed to have full powers of command within the endangered region.' Essentially, Ser Brynden, in Sinuessa and along the whole border to a depth of about twenty miles, I have the legal authority to do damned near anything I can justify as militarily expedient. I believe that neutralizing a potential source of rebellion counts, don't you?"
Both of Brynden's eyebrows rose, almost into his hairline. "Indeed," he said. "I imagine that those powers include the ability to put down resistance to the imposition of that law?"
Daario's smile was that of a well-fed and satisfied feline. "By any means I deem necessary, against . . . anyone, really. I even have the Gonfalonier's backing on that one. He is of the opinion that the fewer fools we are burdened with, the better."
Brynden nodded. "I imagine that there will be some resistance anyway," he said. "Mark me, Captain-General; I don't want to hear anything about slaves, or indentured servants for that matter, being abused in Lyseni territory. No loopholing by their masters, no debt-bondage, no crime sprees, and especially no riots and no massacres like the Tyroshi did. If I hear one word about anything like the Night of Flames, then the truce is off and we march."
Daario nodded soberly. "I will personally undertake to ensure that no such barbarity occurs," he said. "One city burned to the ground is enough for one century, no? In aid of which, I am willing to order the freeborn population of Brivas to evacuate the town. Their movable property I will have to let them carry away with them, but Icanorder them to leave their slaves behind."
Brynden nodded. "That would be helpful," he allowed. "And I can certainly keep my cavalry from harassing them as they go; the collapse of the Tyroshi has led to more banditry than His Grace would be willing to publicly admit. We will have enough heads to break within our borders without looking for more outside them."
Daario bowed. "That will certainly make the task much easier than it otherwise would. And I trust that we are both aware that we have little enough time to work with." He gestured at the low, dark grey clouds overhead. There hadn't been any snow beyond the freak squall reported from Tyrosh isle, but short and violent showers of cold rain had become a daily occurrence. The ground squished beneath their feet from the one that had happened this morning, and the temperature was low enough that the fur-lined cloaks they wore were not affectations but necessities.
Brynden nodded. "We received a dispatch yesterday that the white ravens had flown from the Citadel," he confirmed. "The news came to us late because they can't cross the Narrow Sea in one bound; they have to hop across the Stepstones." He looked out across the field for a long moment, his face pensive. "I am willing to accept these terms as the basis of a truce," he said finally, "but in order for them to become the terms of a peace they will have to be accepted by King Robert. I will advocate for them as much as I can, but I can make no guarantees."
"Nor can I guarantee that the Conclave will accept them," Daario replied. "But I will swear upon my honor as a man-at-arms that I will enforce them to the best of my abilities until ordered otherwise, and advocate for them as forcefully as I can before the Conclave."
"Then so will I swear as well," Brynden said. "I would swear on my sword, but drawing it would give our comrades the wrong idea, I think. Shall we shake hands on it instead?"
"By all means," Daario said, shucking off his riding glove. Brynden did the same, and they clasped hands.
XXX
In one of history's many dark ironies, Martyros would begin its history much as Tyrosh had, as a military outpost. While officially a civil colony claiming not only the city, but all the former Tyroshi and Myrish Stepstones for its jurisdiction, the city had been nearly depopulated by the twin genocides carried out by the Tyroshi and the Abolitionist Alliance.
Through its first winter Martyros was primarily peopled by the Braavosi viceregal government and garrison; the meager civilian population consisting of a small number of freedmen who had survived the destruction and chosen to stay and a few daring immigrants gambling that they could make their fortune even in the face of winter.
For Braavos, it would prove a harsh winter. Not only was the sack far less lucrative than expected but the skilled workers and much of the knowledge of the famed dye trade and sea slug harvesting was lost to massacre and fire. It would be the work of a generation to see the dye works recover from what could be salvaged and longer still until it matched the prewar production for either quality or quantity.
And with the dispersal of the Great Armament the Brethren of the Waves would return daring the winter seas as only pirates could. Although they could not seriously threaten the Braavosi hold on the city their harassment of supply lines and raids on island outposts would be the opening blows in the long and complex struggle between the Titan and the pirates for who ruled the Southern Narrow Sea.
But spring would bring renewal to the city. For along with the news of battle word spread of a city emptied. Of bakeries awaiting bakers to tend their ovens, of looms left to grow dusty, and of forges awaiting smiths. A city lacking in merchants, servants, scribes and every other occupation.
Although the migration of Old Faithers to Old Andalos continued, the main flow of Westerosi would shift south with men of all stripes setting out to seize a chance too great to let pass. And the Westerosi were not alone. The Braavosi would also join the migration, some out of patriotism but many simply seeking opportunities that Braavos lacked and Pentos had fallen short of. Even the Myrish would leave their mark, in the form of many Freeborn who had managed to survive the Sack in reduced circ*mstances saw the new city as a chance for a fresh start under a regime that might be more palatable.
It was the long and troubled birth of not only a city but a people upon the ruins of Tyrosh that was . . .
-Between East and West: A Beginner's History of the Stepstonesby Maester Humphrey, published 897 AC
Chapter 79: Visions of Vengeance
Chapter Text
Khal Pobo nodded to himself in satisfaction. The crossing was going as smoothly as could be asked for.
The war between the walkers of Volantis and the walkers of Qohor might have disrupted his whole endeavor, for part of the tribute the walkers of Qohor paid was that they ferried khalasars across the Rhoyne if the khalasar stopped at their city first and told them where and when to meet them. The walkers of Qohor had been almost tearfully apologetic when they had told Pobo that they couldn't uphold that agreement and warned him that the Volantenes who now ruled Dagger Lake and the river below it were unmannerly people who weren't likely to be amenable. But the walkers that the Volantenes had left in command had been delighted to hear that Pobo and his fellow khals sought to cross the Rhoyne to make war against Myr; the new walkers of Myr, they had explained, were the enemies of their Khal Viserys, and they would happily ferry the khalasar across if only Pobo would promise to bring them the skull of Robert Baratheon, who had killed their Viserys's older brother.
Pobo had readily made that promise. Properly speaking, a blood feud had to be conducted in person, but Khal Viserys was young still, and it was acceptable for a boy who had not yet reached a man's years to ask others to take his vengeance for him. And from what his riders had told him, Khal Viserys was attentive and brave when his kos taught him the use of weapons and had recently led his khalasar to victory, which boded well for the years of his manhood. His ko Ser Arthur Dayne, on the other hand, was less admirable. Being bound to his khal's side was a valid excuse for not pursuing his feud with Eddard Stark, but it had been unmanly of him to come to Pobo's fire and offer to fill his hands with gold coins if he brought Stark's skull back with Baratheon's. Especially since he had admitted to failing to kill Eddard the last time they had met. If this "Sword of the Morning" was too weak to take vengeance for his khal and his sister, then he should open his throat and go to be their slave in the nightlands.
He would still kill Eddard Stark though, but he would do it for Khal Zirqo and the men who had died at Narrow Run. On the ride west from Vaes Dothrak he had questioned every passing trader about the Andal ko who fought under the sign of the wolf and killed his khal, and he had heard much from them about the Iron Wolf. Pobo had hunted wolves before; with the Midnight Mare's help, this one would be little different.
On the bank of the river twenty yards away a Volantene barge ground ashore and disgorged its load. The Rhoyne was too broad and too deep just below Fort Dagger to be bridged, but the Volantenes had a dozen great barges that they ordinarily used to carry wains across the river. With each barge carrying a dozen men and horses each trip and making the quarter-mile journey once an hour, it would take approximately seventeen days to land all twenty-five thousand of the khalasar's riders on the east bank of the river and longer to cross the women, children, and herds, but Pobo had little fear of being caught with the river dividing his forces. Winter was upon them, after all, and even if the walkers of Myr hadn't just conquered Tyrosh they wouldn't venture out this far. For one thing, it was far beyond even the furthest react of their power, and for another the walkers of Myr were weak to cold and did not travel in winter. Pobo snorted derisively. Winter along the coast was not cold, nor winter along the great river, for that matter. Winter on the plains, now,thatwas cold.
His gaze flicked back across the river and he couldn't help a grimace. If only he had been able to convince Khal Drogo to join him . . .
XXX
"Fortune favors the bold" was an Andal saying, not a Dothraki one, but any Dothraki would agree with it. Indeed, many of their sayings conveyed a similar sentiment. How not, when it was known that strength and skill were meaningless without the will to put them to the test and risk all for the sake of fame and fortune and honor?
Which was why, Drogo reflected, his khalasar was on the move while the walker armies were burrowing into their winter quarters like marmots.
The great river blunted the edge of winter, but even though winter on the Rhoyne was nothing compared to winter on the plains this winter had all the signs of being a hard one. His original plan had been for his khalasar to pitch their winter camp in the lands that the Volantenes had newly claimed, in order to let his people benefit from the milder climate while he heard the news and contemplated where they would ride next when the snows melted. His kos had been in negotiations with the kos of Khal Viserys over what gifts he might offer to win Drogo's friendship, and those negotiations might have led to others, for Khal Viserys had professed himself eager to be Drogo's friend. His people had heartily approved of the plan, especially the women and elders, for it was a rare winter on the plains that did not see at least a few elders and new children die of cold or hunger, and the prospect of everyone surviving to see the snows melt was a welcome one.
And then Pobo had arrived and kicked over the milking bucket.
One of the underpinnings of the Dothraki code of manhood was that an offense had to be repaid with death. An offense as great as the murder of a khal under a truce flag demanded every death that could be taken in recompense. And not just for the sake of honor, either, but for the sake of survival, for the Midnight Mare was not known to be discriminate in her wrath. If Drogo had remained idle over the winter then the loss of face would have been potentially catastrophic, regardless of the outcome of Pobo's feud. If Pobo had won, then Drogo would have been the coward who had refused the call to vengeance and denied his riders the honor of taking part in such a feud, as well as the plunder that could be had in the west. If, on the other hand, Pobo was defeated, then Drogo would have been the faintheart who's inaction had caused Pobo's failure. If only, the story would go, Pobo had had Drogo's riders at his disposal.
Which had made for a thorny problem, for Drogo had had no intention whatsoever of putting himself under the command of a khal who only held his position by virtue of surviving a massacre. Especially when that khal was bent on facing a foe with such a mighty reputation. If the god willed that he cross blades with the Black Stag, then that would be as it would be, but only a coward let the god rule his fate without doing what he could to swing the balance in his favor. Drogo could see no good coming from facing the walkers of Myr, who despite being walkers had a good reputation as warriors, while being under the command of a fool blinded by his obsession.
Fortunately, there was a shame even greater than Pobo's that had yet to be rectified, and the opportunity had arisen to do so. The defeat of Khal Temmo at the hands of the Three Thousand of Qohor had yet to be redressed, and Drogo had learned of the terms that the Volantenes had forced on the followers of the Black Goat over fires shared with Khal Viserys and his kos. Qohor had been stripped of almost all of it's Unsullied, and with their wealth lost to the Volantenes they had little money left to buy sellswords. And Pobo's horde had brought the news, heard from merchants, that the price of Unsullied had risen too high even for the wealthiest of walkers to pay, and that the Qohori had not been able to renew their order with the walkers of Astapor.
The banks of the Qhoyne would not be as warm as those of the great river it fed, but they would be warm enough when the towns and villages of the Black Goat burned. The trade that the Qohori depended on would feed Drogo's people better than they, for only the strong deserved to eat their fill of the best. And when the snows melted and the Qohori were weakened by a winter of war, then there would be a reckoning for Khal Temmo and his riders.
Drogo smiled to himself. Pobo had been right about one thing, when he had brooded over the fire he had shared with Drogo the night he had arrived at the banks of the Rhoyne. The wind was bringing not just winter, butchange. The defeat of Khal Temmo had broken the momentum that had begun with Khal Mengo's victories, when the Dothraki had been all-powerful from the Narrow Sea to the Mountains of Bone. If that defeat could be avenged, then who knew but that a new age might dawn when the horselords might be able to ride unchecked from the Mountains to the Sea and make the whole of their world grass for horses.
XXX
Ser Arthur Dayne raised an eyebrow. "You're quite serious?" he asked incredulously.
Ser Clarence Webber shrugged. "I would be remiss if I did not recommend it on behalf of my captain," he said defensively. "I am aware of the Westerosi skepticism about magic, of course, and it is true that the Rhoynar are a shadow of their former prowess and glory, but there is power yet in some of them. There is more in the world, Ser Arthur, than is found in the books of your maesters." The two knights were walking down the 'main street' of the Dragon Company's winter encampment. Fort Dagger was the centerpiece, but the fort was not large enough to contain the whole of the company, and so a small town of earth-and-timber huts had been erected in order to give everyone a place out of the weather. The Golden Company had been called back to Volantis, but Ser Clarence Webber had remained behind with fifty of the Golden Company's lances and helped to lay out the camp; apparently the Golden Company used the same design, based on the marching camps of the Ghiscari legions. Ser Garin Uller had taken fifty of the Dragon Company's lances and gone with the Golden Company to return the gesture of trust and friendship.
Ser Arthur frowned. "Perhaps," he allowed. "But I am hesitant to allow someone I have never met within reach of His Grace. You say this fortune-teller must touch the person whose future she would tell?"
"An unavoidable part of her gift," Ser Clarence answered reassuringly. "And one that is quite safe, I can assure you. The Rhoynar of Essos no longer take part in the contentions of kings and powers, not since the Valyrians broke their strength and drove them into exile. They are content to ply the great river and practice their ways in peace. And Mother Meshorlah is past eighty years of age, and cares nothing for who sits what throne or where."
Ser Arthur's frown deepened, then he nodded. "I will put it to His Grace," he said, "but I will neither speak for or against it, save to observe that magic is an untrusty thing to rely on." At Ser Clarence's raised eyebrow and glance in the direction of Greel's tent Arthur's look turned defensive. "I use Greel," he admitted. "But only as an auxiliary. He takes no part in our councils, and I do not rely on his arts alone in anything I use him in."
Ser Clarence nodded. "A wise decision," he said softly. "Mother Meshorlah might be harmless, but the warlocks of Qarth are a different breed altogether."
Later that evening in the rough-hewn cabin that was the main dining hall of Fort Dagger, after the remains of supper had been cleared away, Viserys clapped his hands. "I would see this fortune-teller that my Lord Commander has told me of," he piped, ignoring Ser Barristan's pained glance; the older Kingsguard had recommended against consulting Mother Meshorlah. "Bring her before me."
Ser Clarence rose and bowed. "She is without, Your Grace, and I shall bring her immediately, by your leave." At Viserys' nod he strode out and came back in the company of an aged woman in a simple gray cloak who leaned on the shoulder of a younger woman with braided black hair that fell halfway down her back and felt the ground before her with a stick.
"Yes, Your Grace, I am blind," the old woman said reedily as she sat on the stool that Beleqor had placed in the center of the room for her and drew back her hood to reveal an olive-skinned face as lined as a dried apple and two eyes as milky and opaque as river stones. "For every gift the gods give they exact a price, in proportion."
Viserys started. "You could tell what I was thinking?" he blurted, kingly dignity fleeing for a moment to give way to childish awe.
Mother Meshorlah cackled. "I needed no gift to do that, young king," she said teasingly. "You are young yet, and likely have never met a person who needed the aids that I do. When you are as old as I am, you hear people ask the same questions so many times it takes no foresight to see them coming."
"But you have foresight, we are told?" Viserys said, after a slight cough and a visible reassuming of his dignity.
Mother Meshorlah nodded, an operation that sent her whole upper body rocking back and forth ever so slightly. "It comes and it goes," she admitted. "But it is strongest when applied to those in a position to alter the course of, hmm, the paths of possibilities that constitute what is commonly called fate or destiny. What I see is the path that is most likely to occur, but there are points along the paths of possibilities where what I see can be changed, or even forestalled entirely."
Ser Barristan leaned forward. "Fate can be changed?" he asked incredulously. "But the Faith tells us that the gods determine the course of each man's life the day he is born, and that it is futile hubris to try and change the will of the gods."
Mother Meshorlah shrugged. "And perhaps there is wisdom in that teaching," she said, "for destiny is not an easy thing to change. Picture the fate of each person and each thing as a system of rivers, ser whitecloak, like the rivers and lesser streams that feed Mother Rhoyne. Each stream is a facet of that person's or thing's circ*mstances and personality that plays a part in determining their fate; some are stronger, some are weaker. The effort required to change their course varies, depending on the strength of the stream, but even the smallest of changes alters the character of the great river that is that person's or thing's fate." She jerked her head at the young woman standing by her stool. "This is what my granddaughter is learning, for when I return to Mother Rhoyne and she takes my place. There has always been one-who-sees in our family, back to the earliest days of the name."
Viserys nodded. "I understand," he said, "and I would like you to tell me what my fate will be."
"Good, for my gifts would do little good to anyone else in this room," Mother Meshorlah replied. "Ser Clarence's fate I have told him already, and he has made his peace with it. As for you, ser whitecloak," her sightless eyes sought out Ser Arthur's with uncanny accuracy, "to tell your king's future is to tell yours, and that of your brother there; such oaths as you have sworn bind more than just the body and the mind, or even the soul. And there is no one else here that is close enough to the, hmm, fulcrums upon which the levers of history pivot to let me see clearly." Her hand shot out and latched onto her granddaughter's elbow. "Come, girl, help me up," she commanded. "Kings don't come to the likes of us."
"They do when chivalry commands it of them," Viserys said, standing from his chair. "I have been taught to respect my elders better than to demand their discomfort."
As Viserys walked out from behind the table, Ser Arthur and Ser Barristan falling in on either side of him, Mother Meshorlah nodded. "I had heard of your father, young king," she said, relaxing back onto her stool, "and a piece of work he was by all reports. It is good to see that you will be better than him, at least. Now come, and let me See; don't worry, ser whitecloaks, your king is safe with me. I am too old to care about wars that were ancient before my great-grandmother was in the womb." As Viserys strode forward Mother Meshorlah leaned her stick back against her shoulder and stretched out hands that reminded Arthur uncomfortably of claws, although they were remarkably deft as Mother Meshorlah placed her fingertips around Viserys' temples.
Whatever Ser Arthur expected, it was not what came next.
"Aiee!" Mother Meshorlah cried, recoiling so quickly that Ser Arthur and Ser Barristan's daggers flew into their hands by pure reflex; only the equally quick reaction of Meshorlah's granddaughter saved her from toppling off the stool. "Neverhave I Seen so clearly, young king. Your fate is one of fire and blood! The dragon shall rise again, aye, and the fallen star and the wheatsheaf will burn brightly at his side, but they who come for you are greater than you and your whitecloaks can ever hope to be. From the sea comes striding a giant whose sword has been reforged, and with him comes the greatest kraken of all that terrible brood! On the land they are joined by ones greater still. A black trout, old and strong and wise! A cunning raven whose wingbeats fan the flames of war! A black lion rampant in his strength and his pride! A grey wolf whose howls fill the air! And greatest of all, a black stag whose pawing shakes the earth and whose challenge splits the heavens! You and they shall battle, young king, and mighty shall be the victor among the nations until the cold winds blow and the night falls. But few, ah gods how few, shall be left to kneel before the conqueror!"
Ser Arthur replaced his dagger with a hand that he forced to be steady; a knight did not admit to fear. "Can this fate be changed?" he asked brusquely. He had seen the look on his king's face out of the corner of his eye and he did not appreciate that this old crone had put it there with nothing more than words that any bard could have dreamed up.
"Peace, Ser Arthur," Ser Clarence said warningly, rising from his chair. "It is ill-luck to ask one-who-sees to tell more than they wish."
"And I will See no more tonight," Mother Meshorlah said quickly, clearly shaken. "After Seeingthat?" Her sightless eyes sought out Viserys'. "Pray to your gods, young king, if you would change what I have Seen; perhaps they will tell you what you must do. As for you, ser whitecloak," she turned her gaze to Ser Arthur as her granddaughter helped her up, "I heard your name in the howling of the wolf. Buying a strong hound or two, or perhaps four or five, might be in order."
As Mother Meshorlah hobbled out on her granddaughter's arm, Ser Arthur turned to his king. "Your Grace," he said soothingly, "I pray you give no heed to the old woman's words. Words are wind, and worth as much when compared to actions."
"Winds fill sails, Ser Arthur," Viserys replied somberly, and to that Arthur could make no reply.
Chapter 80: Winter of Discontent
Chapter Text
Meanwhile, in Westeros . . .
"Let me get this straight," Stannis said incredulously. "My wife, the queen, threw an inkpot at Lady Praela because Lady Praela recommended that she drink an infusion of dill and fennel?"
"Yes, Your Grace," Ser Cortnay replied.
Stannis blinked. "In the name of the gods,why?" he demanded. "Does my wife have some abiding hatred of dill and fennel that I was unaware of?"
"Apparently, Your Grace," Ser Cortnay answered, "Lady Praela recommended it as a traditional Myrish cure. A specific against bloat, I believe, was how she put it."
"A specific against . . ." Stannis began to say incredulously, then stopped himself as he stared at his chief bodyguard in a mixture of disbelief and indignation. "Is this what passed for courtesy in Myr before the Conquest?" he asked finally. "Or did the magisters of Myr have astonishingly boorish tastes in humor? Either way, I'm inclined to believe that Robert did the world an even greater favor than he reckoned when he conquered the place."
"That I cannot speak to, Your Grace," Ser Cortnay said. "But I can say that if Ser Dannel Tanner had been a touch slower, that inkpot would have hit Lady Praela square in the face and done her substantial injury. As it is, Her Grace has commanded that Lady Praela be confined to her quarters on bread and water until she learns better manners."
"Does she rule within the Red Keep, or do I?" Stannis asked mildly. "Lady Praela shall continue to have her freedom of the Red Keep, but if she cannot be civil to my wife, then she has my leave to abjure her company until she can."
Ser Cortnay hesitated, then forged ahead; sometimes you just had to presume upon the privilege that long and faithful service gave you. "May I speak freely, Your Grace?"
Stannis gestured gracefully with an ink-stained hand; he had been writing some private correspondence when Ser Cortnay had entered his austerely furnished solar. "Always, Ser Cortnay."
"Lady Praela may have provoked this incident," Ser Cortnay said carefully, "but Her Grace is also at fault for rising to the bait. And not only in this matter. Her ladies-in-waiting have felt the sharp edge of her tongue so often that they have taken to drawing lots as to which of them will sit nearest her on any given day. The Stormguard knights assigned to her have been abused in language that a knight should not have to bear; five of them have requested that they be assigned different duties. Similar discontent is brewing among the staff as well, or so the steward and the linen-mistress tell me. Your Grace, for the sake of peace in your court, I must request that you take steps to reduce the queen's distemper."
"And what steps would you have me take, ser knight?" Stannis asked impatiently. "A pregnancy is not something that can be hurried; the babes will come when they will come, and not a day sooner. Another month, or maybe six sennights, Pycelle tells me, and we may expect their arrival imminently."
"May the gods be merciful and make that day come swiftly, Your Grace," Ser Cortnay said darkly. "Before Her Grace reduces another laundry maid to tears or makes another one of your knights consider taking the black. Ser Jacen Landser told me that at least at the Wall if a woman insulted him, he could give her the back of his hand and not have to swallow the insult like some petty underling; I talked him out of it and assigned him to gate duty, but it was a near thing."
Stannis fiddled with the end of the quill he had been writing with, then plucked it out of the inkpot and threw it down onto the letter he had been writing. "Damn it," he said mildly. "You're right, Ser Cortnay. I've let myself get tied up in the governance of the Kingdoms too much and I've been neglecting my Court to do it. And my Queen, as well." He shook his head wearily. "It's this juggling act I've had to do since Tyrosh, balancing the demands of the Faith against the patience of the nobles and the willingness of the smallfolk. I trust you've heard of the petition that the Merchant Guild of King's Landing has drawn up, asking me to relax the strictures against usury? I can see their point, opening the valve wider would allow the money to flow easier, but the Faith considers usury a sin. And since the Faith is currently paying a greater share of the Throne's revenues than the Merchant Guild is, I must give their opinion precedence, and risk being called a second Baelor the Befuddled." He scowled briefly. "In addition to which, the Merchant Guild counseled for peace after the Battle of Tyrosh, so I'm not inclined to give them much beyond the sele of the day."
Ser Cortnay bowed slightly in agreement. He knew that it would be a sore point for his king that he had not been able to take part in the Fall of Tyrosh. At least Ser Harry Flash had been able to represent the Iron Throne, and quite well by all accounts. And merchants, it was known, were men of little honor; there were some things, a knight knew, that could not simply be bought and sold. Honor, not least of them. Nor could a man be trusted who could wrap you in chains of debt as strong as any steel ever forged and the more insidious for existing solely on paper. "And with the Faith-tax coming in as smoothly as it has, we have no need to go to the merchants for either a tax or a loan," he supplied, "so we have no need to deal with men who loved their traffic with slavers more than their king's honor."
"That, too," Stannis agreed, rising from his chair and striding over to the window, where he stood with hands knotted behind his back. "Although we cannot wholly stand against them, either. If, by some ill fate, the High Septon turns against us, then we will need the merchants, and the smallfolk they can attract to our banner, to counteract him."
Ser Cortnay frowned. "Is there something I should know about between you and the High Septon?" he asked cautiously. "As Lord Commander of your Stormguard . . ."
"You have a right to know, yes," Stannis replied; it wasn't the first time Ser Cortnay had used that line. "The migration of these so-called 'Old Faithers' to Andalos is not just putting him out of temper, it's making him nervous. It's not simply that they call his very office heretical, but that they dare to do it without a single patron to support or shield them. If I hadn't convinced him that it was better to have them making trouble on the other side of the Narrow Sea than in the Kingdoms, he might have formally requested me to take drastic measures. And the news form the Vale isn't helping; the rogue preachers there grow more intemperate by the month. Denys Arryn is keeping a lid on the pot for now, but he has sent ravens to Jon warning that unless something is done to break the mold, then the pot will boil over sooner or later."
Ser Cortnay nodded so that Stannis could see it in his reflection in the window and then moved the conversation on to other matters. Dwelling on the Vale heretics would only darken his King's mood further, and he would be remiss in his duty if he allowed that to happen. Besides which, such matters properly fell under the remit of the relevant overlord unless they got so out of control as to merit the King's attention, and if the Arryns were ever forced to plead for royal assistance against their own people . . .
After a half hour of discussing the city's winter food stores and measures to be taken against extreme weather, the impromptu meeting closed with Stannis resolving to make more time for his wife, to which Ser Cortnay bowed gratefully. Queen Cersei had inherited her father's pride, but she respected her husband enough to bury it for his sake. And if worst came to worst, the only person in the Red Keep who could browbeat the Queen into behaving, by custom, law, and natural order, was the King. Ser Cortnay's only suggestion was that His Grace make more time for his children as well. Prince Lyonel and Princess Joanna were some of the few things that could reliably lift Stannis out of his periodic black moods, and it would be an ill thing if Stannis reverted to the sour young man who had been prepared to hold Storm's End until it starved out of unadulterated, not to say unreasoning, stubbornness.
It was his duty to protect his king's mind and heart as much as his body, after all.
XXX
Ser Sandor Clegane stepped away from the pell and saluted with his longsword, the same way he did before beginning his cutting drills, as his breath steamed in the chill air. It was a habit that Ser Rickon had instilled in him when he was a new squire, as an aid to concentration, and one that Sandor had kept after receiving the accolade. He had found some of Ser Rickon's ideas difficult to accept, especially when it came to the role of the Faith in a man's life, but his ideas of how to fight, and especially how to train, he had engraved on his heart.
And training was most of what there was to do now, with winter upon them. Ordinarily, Sandor spent the middle days of the sennight riding around his fief, either hunting or simply relearning the land he had hoped never to come back to, but half a foot of snow on the ground and the constant possibility of more put a damper on riding. Horses were surprisingly fragile creatures, health-wise, and Sandor wasn't rich enough that he could afford to risk losing a horse to cold or illness. If his people needed his help, then that was another matter entirely, but for the most part they didn't, so Sandor confined himself to Clegane Keep and his household men with him.
Not that he let that be an excuse for idleness. If he and the five men-at-arms who followed his banner couldn't ride abroad, they could still exercise at the pell, swagger swords with each other, wrestle, practice with spear and poleaxe, and race each other around the keep in armor. They had done the last two already, though, and Sandor had already held the ring against his household men and either sent them to the other pells to practice certain cuts and covers or, in the case of two of the squires, set them to practice drawing and sheathing their swords until they could do so smoothly without looking down at the scabbard. It was a surprisingly difficult skill to master, but a necessary one; if you took your eyes off an opponent, even one that was defeated, then he was liable to take advantage of your inattention to put his sword through your guts.
Sandor sheathed his longsword and walked into the keep from the training yard, pulling off his basinet with a sigh of relief as the weight lifted off his head and neck muscles. His valet, a quiet and unremarkable man named Carlus, and his steward, an unassuming but somehow solid older man named Samwell, were waiting for him inside the doors to the keep. "I see my lord acted upon his word as regarded Ser Thomas," Samwell observed as Carlus took Sandor's sword.
"I said I would, didn't I?" Sandor replied almost gruffly. Samwell was always properly respectful, but he had been the man that Lord Tywin had sent to put Fief Clegane in order after word of Gregor's death had reached the Rock, and the man had done so with an energy and rigor that the other servants still spoke of in hushed tones. There were times when Sandor couldn't help the feeling that Samwell saw him as a slightly dim latecomer to the world of running a fief, if a well-meaning and quick-learning latecomer. "He'll know to keep his hands to himself in the future, or to at least get an invitation first."
Samwell nodded. Thomas Cutler, one of the men-at-arms, had evidently taken a few unwanted liberties with one of the chambermaids a few days ago, and the linen-mistress had brought the girl's complaint to Samwell, who had brought it to Sandor. Sandor, knowing that the best way to get an idea into Cutler's head was to pound it in, had done just that when they had sparred with poleaxes, sending him staggering inside on the shoulder of his squire with a cracked head and a warning to remember the rules next time he went a-courting. "There is a message from Lord Algood in your solar, inviting you to a winter tourney," he went on as Sandor began to walk up the stairs to his quarters, falling in on Sandor's left side as Carlus trailed them unobtrusively.
"Tell him I can't come, on account of the season and the difficulty of travel," Sandor said as he pulled off his gauntlets and tucked them under his arm. "More polite than saying that I hate tourneys." He had been to one, shortly after taking possession of Fief Clegane, and wanted to ride for the hills before the first day was half-over.Someonemust have told the mothers that the new Knight of Clegane was a fine catch for a landed knight's daughter, what with being a distinguished veteran of the Dornish wars and having the favor of Lord Lannister. If the Red Viper were still alive, Sandor would have told him to learn from the women who had sent their daughters after him; none of the ambushes he had survived in Dorne had been anywhere near as bad. Even scowling at them in a way that he knew made his facial scars especially grotesque hadn't helped; one brainless creature had actuallygiggledand asked him to do it again, as if he was some kind of performing bear.
Their fathers and brothers had been worse, if that was possible. The number of western knights who had served in Dorne could be counted on two hands, and Sandor was the only one who had stayed in Dorne longer than the king had. Which meant that, to the knights who had been forced to stay home on account of politics, he was the closest that they could get to experiencing the Red Viper Rebellion themselves. The badgering for anecdotes had been relentless, along with the claims that if only the men of the Westerlands had been there then the Red Viper would have been brought to bay on the banks of the Greenblood, if not sooner. It had taken all of Sandor's hard-won self-control to not sneer in their faces. They might be belted knights, and men whose pedigrees went back to time out of mind, but he doubted that any of them would have done well on a long patrol in the desert, where the consequences of failure had started at a quick death in battle and gotten worse from there. Sandor would have taken Ser Rickon over any five of his neighbors; at least Ser Rickon had known what he was doing.
"All well at Dog Tower, still?" he asked, off-handedly.
"Ser Garrick sent the usual smoke signal at noon," Samwell replied. "Nothing unusual to report."
Sandor nodded, concealing disappointment. With Clegane Keep at one end of the fief, the other end was secured by Dog Tower, a two-story watchtower that had a double-edged reputation among the fief's men-at-arms. Usually, being placed in command of Dog Tower was a mark of favor and a sign that you were being considered for advancement, on account of it being an effectively independent command. In winter, however, being placed in command of Dog Tower was considered a sign of disfavor, due to its poor heating and relative isolation from the rest of the fief. Which was why Ser Garrick Dacre was in command there; he was an old man, the only man-at-arms of the fief who remained from Gregor's days, and his weakness for and ineptitude at gambling had left him with hardly a handful of coppers to his name when Sandor had taken possession. Sandor hadn't been able to bring himself to throw Ser Garrick, who was old enough to be his father, onto the road, but he still had doubts about the man. Any man who could serve Gregor was not someone to wholly trust. Hence his posting to Dog Tower. If Ser Garrick could keep the small garrison in order for the length of the winter and stay away from the dice and the cards while he did, then he would stay. If he couldn't, then Sandor would dismiss him, and the old man would have to try and get a place with the Lannisport City Watch. As Ser Rickon had been fond of saying, sometimes you simply had to know when to let someone go.
As Sandor dismissed Samwell at the door of his solar, he couldn't help scowling after the man. Being the Knight of Clegane had its benefits, for one thing he had a roaring fire and a warm bed to look forward to, but being confined to the Keep and its environs like this wasboring. The reason Sandor had asked after Dog Tower was the slight hope that Ser Garrick might report bandits or even a wolf pack or a lion taking livestock. Anything to break the tedium.
XXX
"Whereas the king has imposed upon his people new and unusual taxes intended to fuel a profitless enterprise of folly;
Whereas the king has abolished the ancient system of governance in neighboring kingdoms, establishing therein arbitrary governments subject to his will alone and imposing that will with such force as to render it an example and fit instrument to extend such arbitrary government throughout the remainder of the Realm;
Whereas the king has enlisted the help of a corrupt and tyrannical High Septon to enforce the aforesaid taxes and arbitrary governments, thus unjustly placing those persons who seek only to defend their rights and liberties in peril of their mortal lives and immortal souls;
Whereas this unnatural and unholy alliance is clearly meant to more perfectly impose an illegal despotism upon the Seven Kingdoms, of a sort designed to reduce the people of those Kingdoms to the status of slaves in bondage to the Iron Throne;
Whereas all our petitions for redress of these and other grievances have gone unanswered;
We who sign our names below hereby resolve, upon the honor of our Houses,
Firstly, that we shall refuse to pay any taxes to the king's government save those which we have been accustomed to pay since time immemorial, or to which we shall freely consent;
Secondly, that we shall refuse to submit to the authority of any government save for that to which we have been accustomed to submit since time immemorial, or to which we shall freely consent;
Thirdly, to petition that a General Council of the Faith of the Seven be called to redress such abuses as shall be discovered;
Fourthly, to call a Great Council of the Seven Kingdoms in order to redress the grievances named herein, along with such other grievances as the Council shall deem necessary and expedient."
Richard Norcross lowered the sheet of fine vellum upon which he and his fellows had written their Resolutions and looked around the table. "My lords," he said formally, "the laws of chivalry demand I ask you this; are you prepared to uphold these words with your fortunes and your bodies? For once we put our names to these Resolutions, there is no turning back. We will not be able to accept any peace short of victory."
"I am prepared," Fredrick Norridge said, his cheeks flushed with spirit as much as with the claret that had been passed around the table as the conspirators finalized their plans. "I say aye to these Resolutions."
"As do I," said Gaston Graves, who drew the ivory-hilted rondel dagger from his side and placed it on the table. "And I say also; damnation to this king, and all who stand with him!"
"I say aye, as well," Dayvid Pommingham said, "and pledge me and all mine to this cause."
Richard bowed. "Then I say aye as well, my comrades," he said formally, "in earnest of which, I call you all to witness that I am the first to sign my name to these Resolutions." He took the swan-feather quill from the inkpot at his right hand and signed his name with a dramatic flourish. As he stepped back Fredrick came forward and signed, then Gaston, and then Dayvid. After Dayvid signed his name, they each drew their daggers and crossed them over the parchment as Septon Ryman, who had been standing to one side, stepped forward and placed his claw-like hand over the blades.
"As you have sworn, so let yourselves be bound," he intoned. "Let none of you make any separate peace with your enemies, nor break faith with your comrades, nor fail to do all within your power to secure the victory. In the name of the Father, and of the Mother, and of the Warrior, and of the Maiden, and of the Smith, and of the Crone, and of the Stranger, so mote it be."
"So mote it be," the conspirators murmured as Richard felt a surge of triumph. They were only four, yes, but between them they had almost three hundred lances at their call, and many of their friends and neighbors who shared the same fears and grievances they did could be counted on to join their banners. All that was needed was for a spark to be struck, and the tinder that was the Upper Mander would burst into flame. And, Gods willing, once the weakness and falsehood of the Sour Stag was exposed, men of worth across Westeros would rally to them. And even if they didn't, the Gods would provide.
XXX
Lord Commander Qorgyle of the Night's Watch looked down at the slip of paper that Maester Aemon had put in his hands; it was the daily report from the patrol he had sent towards Eastwatch-by-the-Sea.Arrived Sable Hall this evening, stopping for the night. Will continue onwards tomorrow. Nothing unusual to report. Jarman Buckwell.
Qorgyle neatly folded the paper and tucked it into a pocket of his black cloak, thinking as he did so. Mallador Locke had also reported in from the patrol heading west to the Shadow Tower to say that nothing was amiss. Not only that, but the two patrols he had sent northward to scout the haunted forest had also sent their ravens back reporting that they had found nothing unusual and were on their way home. When winter had arrived so swiftly he had privately feared the worst, but it seemed that the White Walkers would not be coming this year. He tapped the hilt of his sword and spat aside to avert the omen, nonetheless, but if they were coming then they would have seen signs. Wildlings moving south in larger-than-usual numbers, uncommonly long blizzards, wild rumors out of Hardhome,anything.The lack of evidence might be suspicious in itself, but sometimes no news was the best news.
And aside from the onset of winter, the Watch was doing splendidly. Robert the Brief's venture across the Narrow Sea might have proven a drain on their already slender recruiting pool, but the Red Viper's rebellion had made up for it. There were many Dornishmen who had fought for the Red Viper and had either been captured or surrendered upon his death, and when these men had been given the choice between death, exile to Myr, or the Wall, many of them had chosen the Wall. They had not fought for the Red Viper's cause simply to bend the knee to a Baratheon, whatever side of the Narrow Sea he ruled on. Not since the Targaryens had landed, he thought, had so many Dornishmen taken the black; when the Targaryens had fought in Dorne, they had killed their captives out of hand, more often than not, either as reprisal killings or simply to try and sow terror. Whatever might be said of Stannis, he was at least more reasonable than Daeron the Young Dragon.
Qorgyle nodded to Maester Aemon, who bowed silently, and strode out of the rookery to make for his study. He would write to Lord Brandon and inform him that all seemed quiet Beyond-the-Wall, and since the White Walkers were nowhere to be seen that would almost certainly be true of mundane threats as well. Even the wildlings did not make war in winter if they could help it.
Chapter 81: The Winter War
Chapter Text
When the Volantenes had gifted Khal Pobo the services of the men they called "engineers", he had genuinely hesitated before accepting. It was bad luck to refuse a gift, of course, but what would they have been able to do that his riders couldn't do better? And their carts had slowed the horde even more than the women and children did.
Now, however, Pobo was willing to admit that he had been wrong to hesitate. The stone-throwers of the Volantene engineers had broken down the gate of the village and smashed holes in the palisade while the arrows of the riders had forced the defenders to cower behind their walls; with those obstacles removed, there had been little to stop the riders from storming through the breaches and killing all who stood against them. And when the last of the defenders had refused to come out of the stone-walled temple at the center of the village the engineers had shown Pobo that even a building made of stone could burn if you cracked the shell open to expose the wood and cloth inside. His riders could have taken the village without the help of the engineers, of course, but they had made it far easier. In order to draw the walkers out of Myr city to be killed he would need to set every village and town ablaze, and the engineers would allow him to do that without those villages and towns bleeding the horde white.
Now, with the village thoroughly looted, the houses burning, and the surviving inhabitants herded out onto the plains under a flurry of snow that the ground was still too warm to let stick, Pobo couldn't help a thrill of victory as he rode down the line of prisoners with his bloodriders at his side and Khals Achrallo and Rhadozho behind him. When last he had been in the west, he had been forced to turn tail and run like a beaten slave. Now it was he who rode in triumph, while the walkers lowered their eyes and trembled. The village was a minor one, to tell the truth, less than a hundred buildings, but at last, the proper order of things was being restored. There was just one thing that had to be attended to before he and his riders could celebrate. He halted his horse with no greater cue than a subtle shift of weight and pointed at one of the people cowering before him. "Bring the old one forward," he commanded his bloodriders, "and the girl next to him."
As his bloodriders dragged them out and forced them to kneel, he gestured for the slave trotting behind his horse to step forward; the slave had assured him that he spoke the Andal tongue as well as he did Low Valyrian. "Tell them my words, slave," he commanded shortly, not taking his eyes off the white-bearded and wrinkle-faced old man and the girl-child who huddled under his arm. "You will carry my word to Robert Baratheon," he said, stumbling only a little over the outlandish foreign name; he had said it enough in his prayers to the Midnight Mare for strength and vengeance that the last few difficult syllables now gave him little difficulty. "You will tell him that I am Khal Pobo, and I have come to take revenge for the death of Khal Zirqo who was blood-of-my-blood. You will tell him that I shall kill his warriors, rape his women, take his children for slaves, and make his lands grass for horses. You will tell him that I shall send his soul to the Midnight Mare and leave his body to rot unburied as food for worms and beetles. Do you understand?"
As the slave finished translating, the old man bowed and said something in the choppy language of the Andals. "He says, master, that he will carry your word to King Robert," the slave said, softly but loudly enough for Pobo to hear him over the undercurrent of moaning and weeping from the captives, "and that he thanks you for sparing his life and the life of his granddaughter to do so."
"Tell him to thank his demons," Pobo said, "for if I did not need him to carry my word then he and his granddaughter would suffer the same fate as the rest of these." He raised his voice. "Let no one harm these two; they carry my word to the khal of these walkers. Do as you will with the others."
As the riders began to urge their horses into the crowd to pick out the comeliest of the surviving women and the sobs again became screams, Pobo turned his horse and began to ride back to the encampment. He had sworn to mount no woman until Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon lay in the dust under his horse's hooves, and the Midnight Mare did not look kindly on those who broke oaths to her.
XXX
Ser Brus Buckler knew that he was a mediocrity among the great nobles of the Kingdom of Myr. He did not have the flair of Ser Lyn Corbray or the dash of Ser Jaime Lannister. He had little of the sheer drive and overpowering will of Eddard Stark or the dignified charm of Ser Gerion Lannister. Certainly, he had nothing of the genius of charisma that possessed King Robert. Nor did his birth match any of them except Corbray. His main qualifications to be Lord Lieutenant of Campora and Warden of the East, aside from being an original member of the Sunset Company, had been an appetite for work and a stolid reliability that had made him a perfectly suitable choice for a relatively quiet frontier. Under his management the East had become one of the engines of the Kingdom of Myr's economy and military, providing food and other raw materials to feed the capital and fuel it's workshops and soldiers to fill the ranks of the Iron Legion.
This Dothraki incursion was his first test in independent command, and for the most part, he thought as he watched the small army he had assembled form up in march order under an iron sky and a fitful, spitting rain shower, he had done well. The East was regarded as a quiet area compared to the South, not the sort of place you went if you wanted to see good soldiers in action. But the local companies had all assembled quickly enough when the beacon fires had been lit, and the local chivalry had responded with admirable promptness; the two cavalry companies under his command were fully manned, and if they lacked the hard-bitten demeanor he had seen in the southern chivalry at King Robert's wedding they were still some of the finest heavy cavalry on the continent.
In point of fact, he thought on as the little army began to finish forming up, he really had nothing to fret over. Six thousand Legion infantry and two hundred lances, roughly eight thousand of the finest fighting men in the known world all together? He would take that much against any Dothraki khalasar on the plains, however much their numbers had been inflated by fear. The horselords had a fearsome reputation, but Lord Stark had shown that they were poor men of arms at Narrow Run. Both the knights and the Legion had stacked slain Dothraki like cordwood for burning after the battle, because there were too many of them to easily bury.
And even if he had been more inclined to caution, turning turtle would have been impossible in any case. For one thing, he would have had to explain to Lord Stark, if not King Robert himself, why he had hidden behind Campora's walls and allowed the countryside to be ravaged. For another, the Shepvor of Campora, the chief lieutenant of First Septon Jonothor in the East, had taken a line in his preaching that left no doubt about the Faith's opinion on the matter. For yesterday's Divine Office he had taken his text from the Book of the Warrior: "Have I not commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Gods are with thee wheresoever thou goest." The message had been tolerably clear.
Alongside which, he reminded himself, he had a son now; his little Mikael, whose mother was the daughter of a rich merchant from Oldtown. The fiefs that Robert had granted him were hereditary in his line, but the greater part of his wealth, and more importantly his name, came from his service in the wars and his offices as Lord Lieutenant and Warden. He had risen high in the Kingdom, but if his son was to rise higher still, high enough to stand with Lord Stark's or Ser Lyn's sons, then he needed to leave him a legacy to match the Iron Wolf and the Stormcrow. It was a father's duty to leave his sons the greatest patrimony he could.
XXX
Among the children of Lys the Lovely, beauty was a way of life. Even their fortifications, where they could, were made in such a way that they were as much a work of art as a practical defense. This mindset also extended to their government; the Palace of Order was one of the five or six finest buildings in southwestern Essos, famed far and wide for the skill of its architecture and the decoration of its rooms. One of which was the Chamber of the Conclave, rivaled only by the Gallery of Beauties and the Hall of Revels for opulence. The only parts of the walls that weren't covered by frescos depicting scenes from Lys' history were the great windows, each three feet wide and eight feet tall and a minor miracle of stained glass showing the beauty of the isles themselves.
Nor was it mere decoration; every brushstroke and speck of glass was meant to remind the magisters of the Conclave of what they were entrusted with. The most beautiful, and some of the richest, lands in the world, a people who traced their history back for more than six thousand years, and the sense of pride and self-worth that such possessions instilled. It was a reminder cemented by the table they sat around. Aside from a foot of plain varnished, if high-quality and extremely expensive, wood around the perimeter where documents might be laid, the surface of the table was a map depicting southwestern Essos, the southern Narrow Sea, the Stepstones, and the Arm of Dorne. Some said that the Painted Table of Aegon the Conqueror had inspired this table; the Lyseni knew that it was the other way around and that the Painted Table was a pale imitation. For the table was a living map that was regularly updated by a team of artists and notaries whose sole function was to ensure that the table-map rendered an accurate picture of who owned what in the lands it portrayed, so that the Conclave that sat with Lys' history at their backs would always be faced with the present reality that they lived in.
For centuries, the majority of the edits to the table-map had been the small, but nonetheless significant, changes of the borderlines in the Disputed Lands and among the Stepstones, but recent years had seen that change. The borders of Myr had, by order of Gonfalonier Phasselion, been repainted in red instead of the traditional black, and ever since that change it had advanced steadily southwestward, spreading over the mainland territory of Tyrosh like a bloodstain. Now that territory was wholly engulfed, and the islands that had sworn fealty to the Archon were repainted a dark and threatening purple, like that of a thundercloud. One island in particular, the one recently relabeled 'Martyros', drew the eye like an aberration among regularity; every man who sat at that table remembered the shock they had felt when they had walked into this room and first seen the table-map repainted to reflect the Fall of Tyrosh.
As the equerry who had been giving his report bowed and left the room, Vyrenno Phasselion sat back in his chair and looked around the table at the other members of the Conclave of Lys. "Well, masters?" he asked lightly. "I think we may consider this to be proof of concept."
"Of what?" Lazero Dynoris asked sourly. "That a sellsword will always overstep their authority if they are not watched?"
Salleqor Irniris raised a finger. "Point of order: the Captain-Generaldidn'toverstep his authority," he said pedantically. "He employed the powers we gave him under his contract to respond to a military emergency. His execution might be alarming in its precipitateness, but he only enforced a pre-existing law in areas that were in a state of military emergency. Under his contract, he is completely entitled to do exactly that, without reference to the Gonfalonier or the Conclave."
"I said then that giving him such powers was a mistake," said Tregesso Naeroris, "and I say it again now. By all the gods, masters, he has effectively abolished slavery in our border territories, depriving law-abiding citizens of hundreds of thousands of ladies worth of property. Are we to allow such, suchtheft, to pass unanswered?"
"Better to lose some now," observed Syrys Eranen, "than everything later. Whatever else our Captain-General has done, he has kept the Andals and their pet renegades out of our lands. And more than that, he has given us the groundwork of a potential peace with the Kingdom of Myr. Anactualpeace, not simply a truce between wars."
"At the cost of devastating the economy of the border districts," Lazero snapped. "It will be years before the plantations there can yield anything like the produce they previously did, much less pay the same taxes as they did before."
"And with any luck we will have those years for them to recover," Syrys replied, a waspish tone entering his voice. "With the peace our Captain-General has won us, we will be able to draw up terms of employment with our new freedmen that will allow the plantations to continue to operate. And there is this, masters; we will not be obligated to feed or house or clothe those freedmen who labor for us. They will have to pay for that themselves, out of the wages we pay them, and who can they buy them from but us?"
There was a wave of nods around the table as most of the Conclave acknowledged Syrys' point, although Vyrenno noted that most of the nodders were magisters whose wealth primarily came from trade, not land. Lazero, to name only one, owned no less than ten plantations, the smallest of which was seven hundred acres of good farmland worked by thirty slave families; if Daario had enacted his policies on his plantations, then Lazero could have expected to be set back at least two or three years, if not four or five. And plantations were, by their nature, even more high maintenance than shipping fleets such as the one Syrys owned. A year of bad profits was difficult for shipowner and plantation owner alike, but a year of no profits at all was far more dangerous for the plantation owner; a plantation just didn't have the same predictability of profit that a shipping run did, especially with the wars making prices so unstable.
"All of this is well and good," said Varonno Flaerys, the member of the Conclave who had spent the most time in Westeros, "but it disregards the fact that even complete abolition will not satisfy the Myrish." He looked around the room. "The Iron Legion may fight for the sake of abolition but the Andal knights and lords fight for the sake of the lands and riches that they can earn from King Robert for fighting well. Riches and lands, lest we forget, that they must take fromus. The conquest of Tyrosh may sate their appetite for a time, but they will hunger again, and when that day comes they will come over the border in such force that even our Captain-General may not be able to withstand. Masters, we must make use of this time that our Captain-General has bought us; first and foremost, we must conclude the alliance with Volantis."
"The terms the Triarchs have offered us are unacceptable," Salleqor said bluntly. "They amount to nothing less than a complete surrender of our sovereignty."
"At least we would be alive to complain about it," Syrys replied drily. "Although for my money the reason the terms are so extortionate is because we have not proved that we are a sound investment. We suffered heavily under the Great Raid, our return raid was blunted with little to show for it, and even this latest victory owes more to our Captain-General's glib tongue than it does to his prowess. If we want the Volantenes to offer more acceptable terms, then we need a victory of our own, a true victory."
"Or we can simply wait," Lazero observed. "The elections are due in five months. I'm sure we have people in Volantis who can make it known that we will offer our support, monetary and otherwise, to candidates who will offers us honorable terms of alliance against the Myrish."
Tregesso frowned. "Is that even legal?" he asked skeptically. "Or, more practically, advisable? The Volantenes are a proud people and much attached to their traditions. If it comes out that we interfered in one of their elections . . ."
"Bribery's been a part of the Volantene elections for millennia," Salleqor replied airily; aside from trade, his main interest was in the political affairs of foreign lands. "Bribery by a foreign country would be little different from what the Volantenes themselves do in every election. And I'm sure our agents are not so stupid as to make free with our names where interested ears can hear them do so."
"Whether we choose to intervene or not," Vyrenno interjected, "we must not forget the question of cost. It is true that our Captain-General's actions, however successful at quelling potential unrest, have cost us greatly, and we must look for ways to redress the shortfall."
"There are men in this city who do not pay a tenth of the taxes and imposts they should pay," Lazero said darkly. "Men who, by their recent actions, have proven themselves unworthy of our hospitality." He jerked his chin at the representation of Martyros, and the little figurine of the Titan that stood on it.
Vyrenno steepled his fingers. "A bold suggestion, master," he said slowly. "But one worth considering . . ."
Chapter 82: Blood and Snow
Chapter Text
Ser Brus Buckler narrowed his eyes as he surveyed the enemy. There were certainly enough of the Dothraki that he now believed the rumor of twenty thousand riders or more, but what puzzled him was their behavior. At Narrow Run, he had been told, the Dothraki had simply charged without any preliminary maneuvering. Here, by contrast, they were simply sitting their horses on the low rise across the plain between them. Hardly the picture of the blood-mad savages who had been so foolhardy at Narrow Run.
Especially since they had anchored their left flank on the stream that ran down the rise, which Brus had been told was called Piper's Creek, after a famous sellsword captain who had also been a minstrel of some note. Not the sort of behavior Brus would have associated with the Dothraki, who by all reports were more footloose than any other nation in the world. If anything, he would have expected them to avoid Piper's Creek, in order to allow their horses more room to maneuver, especially since the spasmodic rain of the past sennight had given way to a deep cold out of the east that had frozen the previously soggy soil and added a dusting of snow from the flurries that lasted barely a minute before swirling on. And the reports of the refugees had been unanimous that the khal in command of this particular horde was a madman who thirsted for Myrish blood.
So why was he inviting attack instead of going on the attack himself?
Brus shrugged to himself, though not so much as to noticeably raise his pauldrons. They were there, he was here, and the only thing to do was to go out and pick a fight. For all the odds, the fact remained that he had a sizeable fraction of the best army in the known world under his hand and the Dothraki had brought fire and sword to his king's people. It was his duty, both legally and morally, to do something about that. He gestured to his trumpeter and the brassy scream of the instrument sounding the advance split the freezing air as the Army of the East stepped off.
XXX
Pobo nodded to himself as the walkers began to come forward. In the months since Narrow Run he had learned much of the walkers of Myr, and what he had learned had confirmed his opinion that they were all mad. Admittedly it was the sort of madness that a Dothraki could admire, but it was still madness. Especially their belief that slaves could fight. If slaves could fight, then they wouldn't be slaves, would they?
Of course, the Myrish slaves had fought at Narrow Run, and fought fiercely. Enough so that tales of that fight had spread through the horde and come to the attention of Achrallo and Rhadozho, both of whom had wanted to know how Pobo planned to break through the same wall-of-shields that had broken the charge at Narrow Run. Pobo had thanked the Midnight Mare in that hour for the gift of the Volantene engineers. If their engines could break a wall of wood and earth, then one of mere men should prove no difficulty. So Pobo had summoned the engineers and promised to fill their hands with gold if they broke the wall-of-shields. The chief of the engineers had initially balked, claiming that engines were for use either against fortifications or from them against besiegers, but when Pobo had threatened to make him watch the battle as a severed head on a spear he had agreed to do his best.
"Target front, enemy infantry in formation!" Pobo heard the chief of the engineers shout behind him; the line of engines, what the Volantenes calledballistaewere placed in a line atop the low ridge. "Range five hundred yards! Load!"
Pobo turned in the saddle to observe as the engineers turned the winches at the back end of the engines, drawing back the arms of the engine and the string between them. All in all, they looked like a crossbow, but with two differences. Firstly, instead of a bowstave, the arms of the engine were separate staves around which were twisted taut ropes of sinew. When the arms were drawn back, Pobo had been told, the ropes were tightened even further, so that when the string was released the arms would snap forward. Secondly, the whole machine was as tall as Pobo's head when he was mounted on his war horse, and neither he nor his charger were short.
As Pobo watched the string was brought back to its fullest extent and a pair of brawny slaves placed a round stone in the groove carved into the shaft of the engine, easing it against the pad in the center of the bowstring. "Ready," they cried, backing away.
"Stand clear!" roared the engineer at the back of the engine, who was holding a short rope. The other engineers stepped away from the engine, raising their hands.
"Loose!" called the chief of the engineers.
"On the way!" the engineer at the back of the engine shouted, and he jerked the rope.
There was a deepthunk-clackas the engine's arms sprang forward and sent the stone rocketing away. Pobo peered after it, breathing a prayer to the Midnight Mare as he did so; on this rested his whole plan for the battle. The stone landed a little short, but it bounced forward, and Pobo howled in glee as he saw it bowl through the ranks of the walkers. He turned to yell encouragement to the engineers, but their chief was already doing so. "Reload, reload!" he shouted, all but dancing with excitement. "All engines, load and loose! Loose at will!"
Pobo smiled broadly. His kos had argued against letting the engineers play such a vital role in the battle; all else aside, they were still walkers after all. Pobo had replied that when fighting against men without honor, such as the Myrish, then all means of fighting were permitted, even those that might not be considered honorable. And behold, the engineers were proving themselves worthy of the trust he had placed in them. Of a certainty their captain was proving to have a man's enthusiasm for slaying, even if he was doing it at a distance and not face-to-face like a true man.
XXX
Brus gaped as a wave of stone balls fell from the heavens to shatter his men. He had heard from refugees that the Dothraki had engines, but he had assumed that there were only one or two of them, perhaps manned by sellswords. A glorified toy that the khal had picked up on a whim. And yet judging by the way the balls were flying, and plowing bloody lanes through the Legion, this was a regular battery, and one that was being employed in the field, at that! It was, to the best of Brus' knowledge, unprecedented; engines were for sieges, not battles. And yet here they were, killing his men.
He dragged himself out of shock with an effort of will. "Captain Smith!" he roared. "Captain Smith, attend me!" As the senior Legion captain cantered up Brus waved at where the Dothraki continued to sit their horses. "Keep the Legion moving forward!" he shouted. "I don't care if the gods themselves tell you to stop, the Legion will march on! Get into those bastards and tear them up!"
As Captain Smith shouted his assent Brus turned to his trumpeter. "Cavalry to the front, charge order!" he commanded, and as the notes pealed out he urged his destrier forward through the ranks of the infantry, his household men close behind him. As he came out from the ranks he was joined by the two cavalry companies, which had flowed forward from their position on the flanks of the army to form a solid band of armored riders in front of the advancing army. Brus knew that what he was about to attempt was, as a concept, only slightly less foolhardy than what Lord Stark had done at Narrow Run; his combined cavalry strength came out to just under eleven hundred horse, counting his household men. Assuming that there were in fact twenty-five thousand Dothraki on that ridge, then that was taking on odds of just under twenty-five to one, and doing it riding uphill.
But there was nothing else for it. The engines had to be silenced. "The cavalry will advance!" he bellowed. "At the trot, march!"
XXX
Pobo blinked as the Myrish cavalry began to trundle forward. He had seen them do almost exactly this at Narrow Run, but he had assumed that it had been an aberration spurred by Stark's murder of Khal Zirqo. Narrow Run had been a grass fire of a battle; quick to ignite, fierce in its burning, and savage in its consequences. He had hoped, by starting this battle more slowly, to keep the walkers together where the engines could hit them more easily. Instead, the walkers were detaching their cavalry to rush ahead, apparently expecting a thousand men to defeat more than twenty times their number.
He shook off his momentary surprise and drew his bow from its case under his left knee. "Forward, brothers!" he howled, raising his bow above his head. "Forward for vengeance! Let the arrows fly!"
The bloodscream rose from twenty-five thousand throats as the Dothraki rocked forward, their horses entering the slow, mile-eating canter that they could sustain for miles after the overgrown horses of the walkers would lie down and die.
XXX
"Don't stop for anything!" Brus roared over the drumming of hooves and the droningswooshof the stone balls from the engines. "Just plow through them and kill the engineers!"
There was a barking shout of acknowledgement from his knights and Brus felt his heart lift. This battle might have gotten off to a bad start, but he had more than a thousand of the finest heavy cavalry in the world under his hand and a clear target before him. The Dothraki might be able to outmaneuver him, but the engines couldn't; no engine in the world that was big enough to throw a stone ball a respectable fraction of a mile was small or light enough to reposition quickly. Certainly not quickly enough to get away from a cavalry charge.
The Dothraki werefloodingdown from the ridge, howling like the demons they were. Brus gritted his teeth. Gods, but this was going to be rough. "At the canter," he shouted, "march!"
XXX
Pobo drew his arrow back to the ear, waited for the half-floating moment when his horse had only one foot on the ground, and loosed, the arrow whistling away. Without conscious thought intervening his hand flew down to the quiver and drew another arrow.Nock, draw, loose. Nock, draw, loose. Faster than a man could tell, all done at the canter.Thiswas what had made the Dothraki so feared in the times of Temmo and Mengo and the great conqueror-khals, the ability to shoot heavy bows from horseback at speed. In later years that fear had meant that the Dothraki had rarely had to do anything more than charge at an enemy to put them to flight, but although the arakh had become preeminent the bow had never lost its place. Not when every male Dothraki grew to manhood shooting antelopes or marmots for the pot and used the bow to drive wolves andhrakkaraway from the herds.
On either side of him the other riders were shooting as well, the flat, harsh strumming of the bowstrings music to Pobo's ears. The armor of the Myrish might make them almost impervious to the arakh, but not to bows that could bury the whole length of a quarter-pound arrow in an elephant's side, breaking ribs to do it.
XXX
Brus snarled to himself as the arrows continued to slam home. In his full suit of plate and behind his shield he was almost impervious even to heavy arrows from heavy war-bows barring ill-fortune, but each arrow that hit his shield or caromed off his armor struck like a punch from a strong man, and they followed each other like the blows of a champion boxer. And other knights were not so rich or so fortunate. Ser Erryk Spenser and Ser Coryn Storm, both men of his household from Pentos and veterans of a dozen actions, had been shot from their horses and lay a hundred yards behind him. The pages and archers in their lighter armor were being shot to pieces by the arrows that flickered through the men-at-arms, and the squires and valets in their brigandines were also suffering. It might, he reflected, have been a mistake to bring the lighter elements of the cavalry along, but even if the charge succeeded they were likely going to be cut off and surrounded until the Legion could fight through to them. Under those circ*mstances the help of the archers would be vital.
Fortunately, the Dothraki had not been shooting at their horses. Barding was so expensive that few knights could afford to cover both themselves and their horses in plate; most were only able to afford a chamfron and otherwise made do with caparisons made of fabric. Those could offer some protection against arrows, but not arrows like these.
They were close now, close enough that Brusknewthat the Dothraki couldn't get out of the way. "Straight through them!" he bellowed. "Charge!"
His trumpeter, ignoring the arrow through his left forearm, sounding the two-step rising notes of the charge and the knights roared as the lances swung down.
XXX
Pobo loosed an arrow at a range of less than twenty feet and then leaned back in his saddle until he lay flat against the back of his horse. Death in the form of a lance-point seared through the air over his body and Pobo grinned in exultant relief. He hadn't thought that would work, but it stood to reason that something as long and heavy as a lance such as the Myrish used couldn't change targets quickly or easily.
Some of his riders, his kos especially, had copied his feat and dodged the lances, but others were unable to summon the necessary speed, dexterity, or luck and screams split the air as the lances tore them apart. More screams rose as the giant horses of the Myrish caught some of the lighter Dothraki steeds shoulder-to-shoulder and either staggered them or bowled them right over, and Pobo couldn't help a surge of grief for the horses. As valiant as a Dothraki war horse might be, asking it to go head to head with a beast two or three hands taller and half again as heavy was an injustice. And horses knew nothing of the quarrels of men.
His own horse, whose parents he had chosen himself and which he had raised from a foal, weaved between the Myrish horses like a dancer, twitching this way and that as Pobo lay flat on its back; he knew better than to pop up when he was surrounded by Myrish horsem*n in armor. He remembered the fighting at Narrow Run and seeing his nephew rain blows ineffectually on a Myrish knight until the knight had taken his arm off at the shoulder with a single blow of his sword.
As the thunder of hooves passed him by Pobo levered himself upright and turned in the saddle, fully expecting to see a melee. He had given orders that no rider was to come to handstrokes with a Myrish knight if he still had arrows in the quiver, but men in the grip of the battle-fury often forgot such orders. When he saw that the Myrish were riding on he blinked in puzzlement, and then cursed himself.Of coursethe Myrish would recognize that the engines were the key to the battle. Just because they were walkers didn't mean that they were stupid. He wheeled his horse, howling for his riders to regroup and follow the Myrish.
XXX
"On, on!" Brus roared, waving his sword in a circle over his head. "On to the engines! Charge the engines!"
Those of his knights who were still with him closed up around him and spurred on. Some of them had fallen to arrows, or become entangled with the Dothraki riders, but most had obeyed the order to crash through and were now plunging onward. The other knights, Brus risked his life to glance to either side, were also following suit, those that had gotten through the arrows and the Dothraki in the saddle at least. Brus felt a wave of triumph; they had gone through the Dothraki like a hammer through a pane of glass, and now there was nothing before them but the engines over the crest of the ridge. And no line of engines could stop a charge of knights.
The horses, egged on by the spurs of their riders, lumbered up the ridge, already starting to blow, and as they crested the ridge Brus knew the savage joy of triumph. There were the engines, and there were the engineers clustered around them stopping dead in their tracks at the sight of the enemy at close quarters. "Kill the bastards!" he bellowed. "No quarter!"
The knights howled assent and the engineers dropped what they were doing and scattered as the knights plunged at them. They ran as only men in fear of their lives could run, but even a horse bearing a fully armored knight was faster than a man and for a few minutes all the knights had to do was lean slightly to the right, cut down, and ride on to leave a man on the frozen ground with a cleft skull or a split face. Brus couldn't help a tigrish smile. The battle had begun poorly with the shock of the engines and the surprisingly potent rain of arrows, but once again the superiority of the Andal knight over the Dothraki screamer had been proved and the bastards who had tormented his men were meat on the chopping block.
And then young Markus, Brus' squire who had stayed at his left handall through the charge, screamed and pitched out of the saddle with an arrow through the back of his brigandine. Brus, realizing that not all of the hooves drumming behind him were friendly, cut back and to the left with the false edge of his longsword and was rewarded with a jarring thump-scrape of impact and an agonized scream. "Wheel about!" he shouted as three arrows failed one after the other to punch through his backplate, rocking him in the saddle like blows from a club. "Wheel about and charge back through!"
His trumpeter managed to get the first half of the signal out before an arrow slammed through his aventail and the notes died in an unmusical squawk. Brus couldn't spare the man's death the attention he deserved, for all his long and faithful service, being preoccupied with rallying his blood-mad knights while the Dothraki poured back over the ridge screaming their own fury.
XXX
Achrallo remembered what Pobo had asked him and Rhadozho to do before the battle had begun. Harry the walker infantry, prevent them from closing with the engines, and above all else work to separate them from the knights. So while Pobo and the riders of his khalasar wheeled around and began to chase the knights back towards the engines, Achrallo kept his own riders in hand with shrill whistles and shouted commands and drove them at the walker infantry. Most of his riders had not been able to bring their bows to bear against the knights for the simple reason that Pobo's khalasar had taken up the whole of their front and then some, and so they bore down on the walkers with full quivers and vengeful determination in their hearts. They did not have a dead khal to avenge, but the insult was no less severe and the fear of the Midnight Mare's wrath ran no less deep. She Who Brings Fear had no patience with sluggards.
That said, She also enjoined her followers to exercise all their craft against Her enemies as well as all their might, and so Achrallo had spent the weeks before the battle enjoining his riders to treat the battle like an aurochs hunt rather than like a battle. The great wild cattle were famously belligerent, and tough enough that even the strongest Dothraki could not hope to kill one with an arakh and live to boast of it. Aurochs hunters stayed out of reach of the animal's horns instead, peppering it with arrows until it collapsed from blood loss. So too, Achrallo had told his riders, must they do to the walker infantry. Stay out of reach of the spears, pelt them with arrows until they could no longer hold the wall-of-shields, and then ride them down with the arakh.
So as Achrallo rode down on the walker infantry at the head of his bloodriders, he did not draw his arakh and lean forward to send his horse into the headlong charge. Instead he kept his bow in his hand, loosing arrows as he rode, and at fifty feet from the shields he turned his horse to the right, his bloodriders wheeling with him so that they rode along the face of the wall-of-shields until they passed the edge of the formation, at which point they turned away from the walkers to put space between them.
Achrallo spared a glance at his riders and could not resist a whoop of triumph. His riders had remembered what he had told them and were following his lead, wheeling away from the walker infantry instead of closing with them and showering them with arrows the whole time. Already the wall-of-shields was rippling as men who had fallen were replaced by their fellows behind them, and while the walker crossbowmen were shooting back it was far more difficult to hit a moving target than a stationary one. Even when they aimed at the horses they only produced a trickle of casualties instead of the sudden flood that would have been necessary to take the heart out of the riders.
Achrallo had privately feared that his riders would not obey; to do anything but show the utmost contempt for the enemy was considered unmanly. But he had led his khalasar successfully for almost twenty years, and even those that were willing to overlook that record of success were unwilling to ignore the tales of Narrow Run and the magnitude of that charge's failure. If the battle was a defeat, of course, then he would be lucky to live out the week given the blow that his reputation would sustain. On the other hand, victory excused all manner of transgressions. And the moment he had agreed to follow Pobo's lead he had willingly placed his fate in the balance, with either eternal shame or eternal glory as his reward. That was the way of things when gods made war through the men who worshipped them.
As Achrallo slowed his horse to a trot to preserve its wind the breeze that had been steadily blowing out of the north all day picked up and another flurry began, this one thicker than all the others. Achrallo cursed vividly for a moment, then smiled. Cold as it might be and thick as the flakes might fall, a winter on the coastal plain was nothing compared to winter on the high steppe. And even if the snow cut visibility to nothing, as it threatened to do, that served the Dothraki far better than it served the walkers. Walkers knew nothing of fighting in the winter.
XXX
Brus muttered a continuing stream of profanities under his breath in between urging on his men. The snow squall that had been threatening all day had descended and visibility had dropped to twenty feet, if that. On the one hand, that was a blessing, in that it removed much of the danger from arrows. But the blessing was far outweighed by the curse;he couldn't see which way to go. He had just gotten his knights halfway wheeled about when the squall had descended and piled chaos on top of disorder.
Even the Dothraki seemed to be having difficulty, or at least the collection of them that had just blundered into his makeshift squadron had seemed just as surprised as his men had been. Brus parried and cut mechanically, his sword making terrible ruins of the unarmored Dothraki as those of his men did, but there were just too many of the howling devils. And he was damned if he knew which way to go to get back to his infantry. "Follow me!" he roared finally as he stiff-armed his sword's point into the belly of the last screamer in front of him. "Follow me and stay close! Knee to knee and nose to tail!"
As the Dothraki sagged off his sword and his horse to fall screaming in the snow-dusted grass Brus urged his charger into a trot, all that the valiant beast was capable of doing. His men closed up around him as he plodded onward, their swords bloody from point to quillons and their horse's flanks red from girth to haunch from the spur. They did not know it yet, but they would march fifteen miles before darkness and exhaustion brought them to a halt, fighting off Dothraki riders for half that distance and staving off the cold only by desperate scavenging of firewood when they finally halted. As the bone-weary cavalrymen settled in for the night and posted their first watch, Brus was so overwhelmed by shame as to put his head in his hands and almost weep. The cavalry of the Campora District had bored a hole through twenty-five times their number, cut down more than half of the enemy's most effective weapon, and then cut their way out again. By any measure it was a remarkable feat of arms, even with the loss of more than half of their numbers. But it hadn't been enough; he had failed his men.
XXX
When the next morning dawned harsh, frosty, and clear to reveal that the Myrish cavalry had been unable to rejoin their infantry, Pobo couldn't suppress a whoop of unadulterated glee. Truly the god was good, to deliver his enemies into his hands. He turned to Achrallo and Rhadozho. "Damage them all you can," he commanded. "Empty every quiver in the horde if you must but shoot them down like the vermin they are. I will have the engineers fire every stone they have. And when you see me charge, charge with me."
Achrallo and Rhadozho nodded eagerly. Any doubts they might have had had been extinguished by yesterday's fighting. Had not the Myrish knights been driven from the field yesterday, and their slave infantry baffled and battered and stung to a grinding halt? Clearly the Midnight Mare truly did favor Pobo, and those who rode with him. As they rode away, Pobo turned back to surveying the Myrish infantry. To their credit they had held their wall-of-shields all through the night, unbroken either by the cold or by the realization that their masters had deserted them. But in spite of the inconvenience Pobo couldn't bring himself to begrudge the slaves' stubbornness. He had known when he had made his vow that the Myrish would be difficult enemies, even if only in their treachery, and he was obscurely gratified to see that they had strength as well as duplicity. One of the best measures of a man's strength was the strength of his adversaries. And the Midnight Mare did not look kindly on ingrates, especially ones that she had already shown great favor.
When the surviving engineers, reduced in numbers but eager to take revenge on the 'barbarians', as they named the Myrish, began to work their engines, Pobo felt a surge of triumph. By the god of his people, he had done it! He had brought a Myrish army to battle and beaten it. The Midnight Mare had rewarded him for his zeal to see justice done and his craft in seeing it done well, and his enemies were all but helpless before him. Now he would take vengeance for his khal, and his brother kos, and for every rider who had fallen at Narrow Run. All he had to do, he reminded himself sternly as the stones began to fly through the air and the riders began to make their darting forays against the slave infantry, was wait for the proper moment to strike.
XXX
Lodo Porter had never felt worse in his life, even on the worst days of his slavery. He hadn't properly slept since the night before yesterday, he had eaten the last shard of twice-baked biscuit in his wallet and drunk the last swallow of water in his canteen before sunrise, and he was so cold that he had lost feeling in his feet and hands. His armor weighed on him like a slaver's crimes, his stomach was screaming for food and water, and the minor wounds he had taken felt like fire in his flesh. And that was only the physical pain. He had seen his best friends, men he considered brothers, be splattered by catapult stones and shot to pieces with arrows. The knights that had sworn to protect them had ridden away after making their charge and abandoned the legionaries to their fate. And when some of his comrades could no longer take the strain and tried to flee, the Dothraki had easily scooped them up with every evidence of glee; those men had died slowly, screaming their souls out under the knives of the savages.
The only relief was that he had passed beyond emotion. He no longer held grief for his fallen brothers, or anger at the deserter knights, or sorrow that he would never sit in his platoon's favorite inn with his comrades and a beer again, or even despair at his own impending doom. All that was left was mechanical obedience to the sergeant's broken-voiced refrain of "Close up, close up," and a worn-down but still solid resolve to die well. Lodo had no illusions that he would walk away from this battle; he had seen what the Dothraki had done to his comrades. Instead he had promised himself that, when the end came, he would fight hard enough to make the Dothraki kill him quickly. So he husbanded his strength, shuffling instead of stepping, keeping back all the reserve he could for the last melee. Lodo had never hoped for freedom before King Robert had come and having gained it he had promised himself that he would never tarnish the greatest gift he had ever received. He was a free man, and a soldier, and he would die like one.
The Legion companies of the Campora District, stranded in the middle of an enemy army with no support and no way to break contact, had only two options; break and flee, or lock shields and sell their lives dearly. They chose the latter, and in so doing wrote a chapter for themselves in the Legion's mythology. To this day it is the custom that any soldier passing by the scene of the Legion's last stand at Piper's Creek stops and renders a formal salute. The few Dothraki accounts that survive of Piper's Creek are remarkably admiring of the legionaries, who being both infantry and former slaves were lesser forms of life in their eyes; one Dothraki is recorded in a Volantene frontier garrison report as saying that the legionaries "fought hard all day, and died like men."
The shockwaves from this, the first major defeat that the Iron Legion had suffered, would reverberate loud and long in the Kingdom of Myr, but there were more blows still to come . . .
-Devils on Horseback: the Dothraki in the Generation of Bloodby Maester Atkins
Chapter 83: Winter Storm Rising
Chapter Text
'Dark wings, dark words' was not a saying that could strictly apply when the message traveled by horse instead of bird. The raven network of the Kingdom of Myr was still a rudimentary and paltry thing compared to the web of flight-paths in Westeros, and the East had been neglected in favor of the South, which was the frontier of greatest danger, and the North, where there were the Braavosi to connect with. As Grand Maester Antony was always reminding people, the ravens could only breed so quickly and then they had to grow from hatchlings before the maesters could train them. And there were so few maesters with links of ravencraft in their chain; the recruitment of raven-maesters had been a priority, but a priority that had had to contend with the need for architects and healers and artificers. So King Robert and his captains had been able to return to Myr and set about organizing the victory celebrations before a courier had come pounding in on a foam-streaked horse with an urgent message for the King.
Robert looked down at the kneeling courier who had just delivered the terrible news from the East. "How did it happen?" he asked finally, breaking the stunned silence that had fallen on the Small Council when they had heard that Ser Brus Buckler had been defeated.
"Your Grace, I know only what I was told by Ser Brus, and what I learned from the other knights," the courier replied. "But they said that the Dothraki had engines, and that in his eagerness to silence them Ser Brus became separated from his infantry. The Dothraki were then able to keep them apart and beat them each in turn."
Ser Brynden nodded. "Defeat in detail," he observed. "It's what I would do if I were facing a force like Ser Brus'." At Victarion's surprised look the Blackfish shrugged. "I'm the Master of Soldiers; part of my duty is to think about things like this."
"Does Campora still hold?" Eddard asked, cutting off any reply Victarion was considering.
"It does, my lord; Ser Brus and the survivors rallied thence and have raised the militia." The courier raised his head to give Robert an uncertain look. "Your Grace, there was much dissension in the town that the knights were able to escape but not the Legion. But Ser Brus said I was to tell you that he had sworn on the altar of the Stranger that he would hold Campora or die in the attempt."
The Seven-worshippers in the room winced. Any of the Seven was a weighty thing to swear by. But no one swore on the Stranger's altar unless they wereabsolutely determinedto see something through. The god of death was not known for leniency, to put it mildly.
"What manner of dissension?" Ser Gerion asked.
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Ser Edward House found his lord where he had become accustomed to finding him in the days since they had regained the safety of Campora's walls; atop the wall over the eastern gatehouse, staring out at the columns of smoke that rose over the countryside as the Dothraki closed in, pillaging as they went. Ser Brus would stand atop the gatehouse for hours, meditatively overlooking the ruin of his lands, his left hand clenched on the hilt of his sword like a lifeline. Ser Edward paused for a moment, remembering that his lord had given orders not to be disturbed, and then decided that what he had to say was important enough to disobey those orders. And what was the point of building up credit with your lord by good service if you never used it? "My lord, I beg leave to report," he said formally, coming to attention as he did so.
Ser Brus waved his right hand in apparent permission. Ser Edward braced himself further. "The Shepvor announced in his sermon that he was assuming command of the town militia," he said. "He said that he would make decisions in that regard in consultation with you, but that hewouldmake decisions."
Ser Brus shrugged. "Let him," he replied in the dull tone that had too often colored his speech since Piper's Creek. "The militia will listen to him well enough; the gods know enough of them follow Jonothor as avidly as he does."
"Far be it from me to comment on the Shepvor's worthiness," Ser Edward said, "but he is not the Lord Lieutenant of this town, nor yet is he the Warden of the East. Those offices areyours,my lord, and with them the power of command over the muster of this district."
"And if I exercised that power, how many would obey?" Ser Brus asked. "You saw how the people looked at us when they learned about Piper's Creek; you would think we had insulted their sisters. No, the Shepvor will lead them better than I can." He turned away from the battlements to look at Ser Edward. "Have the knights decided?"
Ser Edward nodded. "All of us have sworn to fight and fall at your side, my lord," he said formally. "At least half of us have sworn so on the Stranger's altar." He lifted his chin. "Myself among them."
Ser Brus bowed shortly. "You do me more honor than I deserve," he said simply enough that Ser Edwardknewthat he believed it. "Is there anything else?"
Ser Edward bowed. "No, my lord."
"Then leave me," Ser Brus said. "And Ser Edward; you need not call me your lord anymore. It is not a title I deserve."
"As you will, my lord," Ser Edward said with a slight emphasis on the honorific as he withdrew, directing a curse at the Shepvor in the privacy of his mind. Even under ordinary circ*mstances he had little use for the arrogant heretic; he held to the Great Sept, as his fathers had done before him. But this usurpation was beyond the pale. For all his rank his lord had never been one of the shining stars of the Kingdom of Myr, but he had been a good lord and a better man who had earned the love of his people and the respect of his king for his steady, reliable competence. Under his rule Campora had revived from the near ruin that the fall of the magisters had left it in, incidents like the Skylark affair had been settled with scrupulous justice, and the district had settled into a quietly industrious prosperity. Even the Lyseni invasion in the first war of the new kingdom hadn't been able to undo his lord's work. From the day the Sunset Company had formed to this day Ser Edward had never regretted swearing his sword to Ser Brus's service.
Now the smallfolk, egged on by that sanctimonious, smirking heretic, considered the lord who had done so much for them to be little better than a traitor and a coward. A single defeat thanks to the devil's luck that the Dothraki had come up with had shattered his lord's reputation, and, Ser Edward privately feared, his soul with it.
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Robert tightened his lips as the courier finished recounting the situation in Campora when he had left it. "We will simply have to trust in the Shepvor's good will and Ser Brus' prowess," he said finally, in tones that didn't bode well for the Shepvor when Robert found time to grant him a private audience. "In the meantime, Gerion," he turned to his Hand, "we will need to postpone the victory celebrations. Campora must be relieved."
Gerion's mouth twisted in a slight grimace. "The dignitaries who have arrived in the city to join the celebrations won't be best pleased," he warned. "They were expecting a sennight of festivities to celebrate the Fall of Tyrosh."
"So were the city's merchant guilds," Ser Wendel chimed in. "If for no other reason than that they were looking forward to a week of hobnobbing with their counterparts from Braavos, Pentos, and Westeros, making contacts and exploring avenues of profit. The Innkeeper's Guild will be especially put out; a week of high-paying customers is not something to be easily missed."
"They would be even more put out if the Dothraki were able to get away with such barbarities," Eddard observed tartly. "And the East is one of our main sources of both income and recruits; if we let it fall, or even be severely damaged, then it will set us back at least a year, if not more."
"Quite," Robert replied, "which is why I shall lead the army myself to the relief of Campora and the defeat of this horde. Ned, Ser Brynden, I shall need you as my wing commanders."
Gerion raised a finger. "If I may, Your Grace," he said, "I think that Lord Stark should betake himself to Alalia if you plan to take the field in person. If both of you go against the Dothraki, then the Lyseni might decide to try their luck. If, on the other hand, the Iron Wolf were to stand on their border, they will likely decide to stay on their side of it for fear of provoking his wrath."
Eddard made a face, but nodded. "Ser Gerion has a point, Your Grace," he allowed. "In addition to which, if, gods old and new forfend, the worst should happen, then both Ser Gerion and I will be needed to oversee the succession." Everyone in the chamber signed themselves after the fashion of their faiths. It was true that Robert had married, but Queen Serina had yet to fall pregnant thanks to the interruption of the war. Until such time as she did, the succession was still unsettled. With another king they might have counseled that he not take the field, but not with Robert. They knew him too well.
Robert scowled thunderously, then acquiesced with a wave. "I'll take Ser Jaime as my other wing commander, then," he said. "He has the name and the experience for it, now. And he showed at Tyrosh and over the past year at Alalia that he's fit for proper field command."
"Shall I muster my Ironborn, Your Grace?" Victarion asked eagerly.
Robert shook his head. "Most of your men are back at Ironhold, my lord, and we must march within days. But if you wish to bring your household men along, I won't say you nay. I'd like to see how Dothraki screamers stand up against Ironborn axemen."
As Victarion bowed in his chair with a grin of wolfish anticipation, Robert turned to Ser Wendel. "Ser Wendel, I know that this will be our second war this year, and our fourth in less than five years," he said, "but we will need to find a way to pay for everything, still. There are times for parsimony, but an invasion by barbarians is not one of them."
Ser Wendel looked like a man expected to perform a miracle. "I'll see what I can do, Your Grace, but it won't be easy," he said heavily. "We need to survey our new lands in the west, we need to regularize our financial relations with the Braavosi, we need to balance both of those against the current state of our finances . . ." He shook his head like a horse bothered by flies. "I'll talk to the Iron Bank, draw on the line of credit they gave us with the alliance, see if they can defer at least part of next year's interest payments on the debt we already have with them. Damn it, Your Grace, I'll do everything I can think of."
"I ask for nothing more, my lord," Robert said soothingly. "Just so long as we can cover our bills for this winter."
XXX
Serina had sat in on the embroidery sessions of her mother's friends enough to know that there were few things in the world with the potential power of a clique of highly-placed and influential women used to working together. More than once her mother's friends, who had taken her in as a sort of functionary-cum-apprentice after her mother had died, had been responsible for the continuing prosperity of each other's houses as they dropped hints of potentially lucrative trading opportunities or shifts in political fortunes in each other's ears over tea and scones and fine embroidery. And more than once Serina had heard them plot the chastisem*nt of someone who had offended against one of them or someone attached to them; she had never heard of such a plot failing to put the offender in their place, sometimes to the tune of thousands of dinars. One poor fellow had been driven into bankruptcy.
So even before Serina had been officially crowned she had started having tea in her solar with the other leading ladies of the Myrish court, as a way to both reconcile them to her sudden elevation and gauge how easily they might become what her mother's friends had been. Now, several sennights after her coronation, she felt that she had a grip on the dynamics among the ladies of the court;herladies, as their husbands were Robert's lords, and wasn't that something that still took her aback at times?
"It seems, ladies," she said after the usual opening pleasantries had been attended to, "that the king is to march the army to Campora. The Dothraki have invaded, and Ser Brus Buckler was defeated when he sought to repel them."
Mistress Jarella Vendalen shuddered minutely and signed herself with the seven-pointed star. "Gods preserve him," she said piously. "And gods preserve the East until His Grace arrives to succor them. The Dothraki were always savages, even when you loaded them down with all the gifts they asked for."
Lady Orobin Shipwright turned a bland glance at the plump elder lady. "Indeed," she said tonelessly. "I've talked to women who had been in Dothraki camps. Worse even than brothels, by all reports."
"Well, with any luck, these Dothraki will not be long for the world," Serina interjected before Mistress Vendalen could do more than blink at Lady Shipwright's tone. It was perhaps inevitable that the two would be at odds with each other; Lady Shipwright had been a pleasure slave before she had helped Lord Captain Franlan plan the revolt that had opened the gates to the Sunset Company, while the Vendalen's were the most prominent freeborn family of Old Myr still standing. But part of Serina's duty was to keep the two of them from exchanging more than cursory barbs. "His Grace is confident that a full muster of the Royal Army will be more than capable of putting paid to them."
"I should think so," Lady Perianne Egen said fiercely. "Ser Brus would have had two hundred knights under his command? His Grace will have almost athousand."
"And many more Legion infantry than Ser Brus would have been able to call upon," Lady Shipwright added, her usual bland friendliness tinged with predatory anticipation. "At Narrow Run the Legion did as much to defeat the Dothraki as the knights did."
"And both the Legion and the chivalry will do so again, I am sure," Serina said. "It is what makes the Royal Army so strong, that each part works hand in glove with the others."
Lady Egen settled back in her chair, visibly calming as she laid a hand on her child-swollen belly. She might be only nineteen years of age, but she had a reputation for temper, especially where the standing of Myr's chivalry was concerned. Enough so, in fact, that the brooch pinning her cloak over her kirtle was enameled with the device of the Order of the Sunset, the knightly order that had been instituted for Baelorite knights. She had a right to do so, of course, her husband Ser Mychel was the Order's first officer, but it was more than a little unusual for a lady to wear an Order's insignia. Lady Egen got away with it by virtue both of her rank and of her being one of the Baelorite Faith's most prominent female supporters.
"Wolves are always strongest in a pack," Lady Amarya Stark said softly as she shifted her sleeping son in her arms. "Men are no different, especially men of war."
There was a low murmur of agreement. Lady Stark didn't usually contribute to their discussions, but when she did she usually had a worthy observation to make. Her habitual reticence didn't help her reputation for being standoffish, but Serina was of the opinion that Lady Stark simply had as little stomach for high politics as her husband did.
"Speaking of packs," Mistress Vendalen said with a twinkling eye, "there may be a new one starting in the near future; a little bird told me that Ser Lyn Corbray was in the market for a bride."
"About time," Lady Egen observed tartly. "He really should have gotten married after he was confirmed as Lord Lieutenant. But then I suppose it takes some work to find a woman who will put up with such a man."
Lady Shipwright chuckled. "Especially since I am given to understand that his tastes run to the, shall we say, unusual. I know the type. But then, I suppose a Lord Lieutenancy and several thousand gold stags a year make up for a host of faults."
"Even heading an order of schismatics," Lady Egen said, casting a pall over the conversation that Serina was compelled to break.
"Ser Lyn's order is loyal to the Realm," she said, injecting a note of gentle sternness into her voice. "Unquestionably so. And I imagine that in some quarters his office in such an order would be another point in his favor rather than a disqualification."
Lady Egen sipped her tea through pursed lips, taking the implied rebuke in silence. Serina wanted to sigh and sayfor pity's sake girl, you're both on the same side, but kept her peace and moved the topic onto the latest news from Ser Wendel's office of the state of the Westerosi trade. There were things you simply couldn't say where other people could hear. Although shewouldhave a word with Lady Egen in private about when and how to discuss religion with your friends. She might be the foremost female champion of the Baelorites, but that didn't give her license to provoke Mistress Vendalen, who with her husband was devoutly Jonothoran, and Lady Shipwright, who despite following the Moonsingers was known to favor the Jonothorans as being more her people than the primarily aristocratic Baelorites.
Serina sighed softly through her nose. People, she supposed, were people the world over, and the Moonsingers knew that she had had to deal with enough fools in Braavos, but she hadn't considered just how often she would be tempted to slap someone for idiocy and be prevented by the dictates of her office. Not that she had been able to slap someone in Braavos, either, but the temptations had been fewer and much further between.
Chapter 84: Midnight Falls
Chapter Text
Brus Buckler (he had stopped referring to himself as Ser) looked impassively at his death from the top of the East Gate of Campora. The Dothraki horde that had beaten him at Piper's Creek was spread before the walls, their felt tents covering the snow-dusted plain like toadstools. There was, as far as he could tell, no particular order to them beyond the three rough groupings that they seemed to be clustered into, and even then the difference was not so much a matter of visible ornament as much as congregation. If it weren't for the fact that the engines that had broken the Legion at Piper's Creek hadn't been set up in a recognizably disciplined and systematic fashion, he wouldn't have dignified the current situation with the name of siege.
As one of the aforementioned and gods-cursed engines sent a stone hurtling into the wall with a smashing impact that made the other men on the wall duck and shout, Brus stood unmoved; he had lost concern for such things. The bombardment was actually targeting the stretch of wall just to the south of the East Gate, not the gatehouse on which he was standing, but ballistae such as the Dothraki were using were not known for their pinpoint accuracy. And even if they were, he was a prime target for the Dothraki bows the way he was standing in the gap between two merlons, his whole torso exposed through the embrasure and his head and shoulders poking over the merlons on either side. The Dothraki had learned better than to try and shoot it out with the militia crossbowmen, but every so often a small clot of the savages would canter up and loose a few arrows at the walls before wheeling away with yipping whoops, and those pinpricks often resulted in incautious or simply unlucky defenders taking an arrow. And both his armor and his position made him a conspicuous target.
He had decided that he didn't care. Life as a reputed coward wasn't worth living when you were a knight. He hadn't even managed to kill enough of those never-to-be-sufficiently-damned engineers to prevent them from beating a hole in the walls of his town.
"My lord," Ser Edward House said behind him, "youmustcome down. You are needed to organize the defense."
"Everything is in hand," Brus replied without so much as turning his head, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the trickle of broken stone sliding down the wall; a breach was halfway formed already, testament both to the power of the Dothraki engines and the skill of the men working them. "The knights will take the lead in defending the breach, and the militia will hold the walls on either side and reinforce us. There is nothing left for me to do."
"With respect, my lord, there is," Ser Edward insisted. "You can retake command of the militia from the Shepvor, who is insisting that militia be the first to hold the breach. You can sway their officers back to obedience of lawful authority and return their men to proper discipline."
"I believe that we have already discussed this," Brus said testily. "The militia will not accept commands from one who they believe abandoned their brothers to die. Nor will the Shepvor yield command to one who has proved himself unworthy of it. Why else would he not even consult me on the best placement of the militia?"
"My lord, you havenotproved yourself unworthy of it," Ser Edward snapped. "If you would only stand for your own . . ."
"Desist, ser," Brus interrupted. "I will not waste my breath in a fruitless endeavor, nor will I give orders that will not be obeyed. I may be deemed a coward, but I will not add idiot to my list of faults."
He could hear Ser Edward sigh behind him and quashed a tinge of guilt for being so abrupt with the man, who had done nothing to deserve such. "Will you at least come down from the walls then, my lord?" Ser Edward asked plaintively. "You will do the town no good if you get yourself killed to no purpose."
"I will not," Brus said flatly. "And if you or anyone else attempts to remove me from the walls, then I will kill you myself."
There was a long silence behind him, and then a clanking rustle as Ser Edward bowed. "As you will, my lord," the former hedge knight said formally, before striding away with a clatter of sabatons on stone. Brus continued to stare out at the Dothraki spread before the town as his senior surviving officer walked away; he had spoken nothing but the truth, after all, and for Ser Edward to claim otherwise was nothing but misguided loyalty. There was nothing left for him to do but wait for the breach to become practicable, and then to die well when the Dothraki came. There was only one way to wash out the taint of cowardice under the laws of chivalry. His dreams for his son's future might be dead, but he would at least not leave the boy with the shame of having a coward for a father.
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The engineer bowed as he stood before the khals in the common area before Pobo's tent. "Your Excellencies, the breach will be practicable by tomorrow morning; tomorrow noon at latest," he said with a touch of what he considered pardonable pride. Even if Campora was only a town and not a proper fortified city or castle, knocking a breach in it's walls in only a week was excellent practice. "I must warn you, however, that the Myrish are likely to have established defenses behind the breach; at least a barricade, if not one fronted by an abatis or a trench."
"How do you know this?" Khal Rhadozho asked sharply.
The engineer shrugged. "Your Excellency, the Myrish are not blind; they know where the breach is as well as we do. They would have to be utter fools not to establish defenses behind it. This is common practice in sieges, Your Excellencies."
Khal Pobo chopped a hand outward. "It matters not," he said sharply. "As soon as the breach is made, we will attack. One rush over the wall to seize the gatehouse, and then we open the gates to let the other riders through." He looked at the other two khals. "The horses will not be able to run over the breach, I am told," he went on. "The stones will break their legs. Those who attack the breach will have to do so on foot. I will lead, but I will not command others to follow. I will only ask."
His bloodriders immediately volunteered, and the other warriors lounging around the open-fronted tent sprang to their feet and did likewise. The engineer couldn't help gaping in astonishment; it was widely known that no Dothraki fought on foot if he could possibly help it. Drunken brawlers would fight on foot, but even the Dothraki equivalent of duels were fought on horseback. A man without a horse was no true man, the Dothraki said. Not tot say that they had never fought on foot in the past, but those days had died with Khal Temmo, when the previously irresistible momentum of the Dothraki city-takers had been broken.
On the other hand, Pobo was the unquestioned leader of the horde, and since Piper's Creek his prestige among the riders had reached dizzying heights. Had he not proved that he held the favor of the Midnight Mare, who was famously selective in her champions? The engineer suspected that if Pobo had told his riders to fight bare-arse naked with birch sticks, they would have done so.
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When the assault went forward into the breach, two things went wrong. The first affected the Dothraki, in that they did not have the amount of artillery support that would have been ideal. The Volantene engineers had done their best, but the need to exploit the victory of Piper's Creek with all speed had resulted in them leaving a substantial amount of their ammunition on the field. What they had recovered they had husbanded, making every shot count in order to have a reserve ready to shoot the assault in. This reserve, however, was small even for a battery as reduced as the Volantenes, and the last stone went whistling away while the Dothraki were still below the breach.
This paled, however, compared to the second thing that went wrong. Ser Brus Buckler and his knights had claimed the right to lead the defense of the breach, and Ser Edward House had posted a guard of five knights to stand by the breach night and day until the assault came. When it did come, however, the knights found that the breach was already occupied; the militia had gotten there first.
There was little to fault with the militia's worthiness; the Shepvor had stirred them into a fine fervor to fight and die for their homes and Holy Freedom. But fit to stand and fight to the death in a contested breach they were not. They carried spear and shield and shortsword as the Iron Legion did, but the Legion had transitioned to ring-mail hauberks and brigandines as their primary armor, often eked out with whatever pieces of plate harness the individual legionaries could afford, such as tassets or vambraces. There were hauberks to be found in the Campora militia, but gambesons were far more common. Of plate armor they had none; even bought piecemeal, plate was almost prohibitively expensive for most men, especially those who had to buy their own food and equipment. And with the demand in the south siphoning away so much of the supply, what had remained had become so expensive that only knights could afford it.
Moreover, the militia didn't have the training, either physical or psychological, to hold a breach. In theory, holding a breach was the simplest military action imaginable; you simply got enough armored men together, plugged the breach with their bodies, and had them fight like mad bastards until the enemy lost heart. Such fighting, however, required not only physical training, but a bloody-mindedness that was hard to come across even in professional soldiers. The Legion had it, as did the knights, but the militia of Campora did not. They were shopkeepers and farmers and tradesmen, not soldiers, and a few weeks of the Shepvor's sermons did not, could not, have the same effect as the daily indoctrination of the Iron Legion or the lifetime of psychological preparation for violence that living by the code of chivalry gave the knights.
Even fighting on foot instead of on horseback, and even only starting to relearn siegecraft, the Dothraki were still men who had been raised almost from birth to be warriors, and who now had the victory of Piper's Creek to buoy their spirits even higher. Had they not put the vaunted knights of Myr to flight like so many startled sheep, and had they not destroyed the dreaded Iron Legion? Against such foes the militia of Campora were nothing, especially since they were town-dwellers and so contemptible even among walkers.
So while the militia fought bravely when the Dothraki came up the breach, they couldn't fight hard enough to make the Dothraki lose heart. Instead they gave back a step, then another step. The five knights of the watch managed to hold the left half of the breach long enough for the militia to breathe and potentially regroup, but it might have been better if they had fallen back and let the militia fight on. It wouldn't have given them time tothinkabout what was happening or realize the full horror of their situation. The militia behind the knights eddied for a moment, and then when two of the knights were overwhelmed and the Dothraki poured through the militia on the left side of the breach panicked.
The panic proved infectious, and as quickly as a window shattering the militia went streaming back into the town. Here and there knots of them rallied around the knights who had been prevented from filling the breach and the Shepvor rallied a whole company around himself, but the dam had burst and the Dothraki flowed into the town with demonic howls. Here the knights entered the fray and for a time they seemed to turn the tide as they and the militia they had rallied fought the Dothraki street by street. But the knights and their rallied militia could not kill the Dothraki fast enough to make them lose heart, and they certainly could not close or even contest the breach.
By the time night fell only one holdout remained.
XXX
Pobo looked down from his horse at the walker knight who had been dragged out of the gatehouse. "You are sure this is the one?" he asked the leader of the engineers dubiously; the walker didn't look like much, with his armor a battered wreck, his face covered with a sheet of drying blood from the blow that had stunned him through his helmet, and a screamer holding each arm almost at the point of hyperextension.
"I am, Your Excellency," the engineer replied. "Before we left Volantis, we were taught to recognize the heraldry of the officers and great nobles of the Myrish, and this one had three buckles on his surcoat. He is Ser Brus Buckler, the lord of this town."
Pobo nodded as he looked at the walker again and snapped his fingers for his translator-slave. "Tell him," he said, not looking at the slave who translated his words, "that I will allow him to live if he orders the walkers in the temple to surrender."
The walker glanced at the temple Pobo referred to, one of the few buildings in the town more than a single story tall, and then looked back at Pobo and said, "No," in atrociously accented but still understandable Dothraki.
Pobo leaned forward in his saddle. "I am Pobo, blood of Khal Zirqo's blood," he said slowly, allowing the hatred that boiled in his veins to infuse his voice, "and I am here to avenge his death. Order the walkers in the temple to surrender and both you and they will live as my slaves. If you do not, then I will burn it down on their heads. And you will not die. I will make you watch as every man in this town is killed and every woman raped. I will take you east and make you watch as the children are sold to the Astapori for Unsullied and the Yunkai'i for whor*s. And when this is done and your heart is as dust,thenI will bind you hand and foot and run our horses over you until you die."
The walker lifted his chin and spat out an angry-sounding stream of his too-choppy language. "Master," the translator-slave said uneasily, "he says many insults against you and the Dothraki, but he also says that his people will be taken to the home of their gods, so it matters not whether they die now or later. He also says that if his arms were free and he had a sword then you would not dare speak so to him, but it matters not. He says that his king is coming, and by the grace of the gods he will give to you a second Narrow Run."
Pobo, blinded by unreasoning fury, split the walker's skull with his arakh before he could stop himself. Ripping the blade free with a muttered curse on the walker's parentage he turned to the engineer. "Burn the temple," he spat, angry now at his loss of self-control, "and then burn the rest of the town." As the engineer bowed and hastened to obey Pobo turned to his riders. "My children!" he shouted. "Take no more slaves this day! Kill every walker who comes under the hooves of your horses!"
The high ululations of the bloodscream filled the air as his riders flourished their weapons in the air.
Khal Pobo's horde did their level best to fulfill their master's command, but the temptation to take slaves proved overpowering; although Campora was almost entirely depopulated, the majority of its people were enslaved rather than massacred. Nonetheless, the body count was massive. At least three hundred people died when the First Sept of Campora was burned, with the Dothraki shooting down any who attempted to flee, and Dothraki accounts of the massacre following the capture of the town invariably number the dead in the thousands. The chief of the Volantene engineers, Ghaelon Barafos, wrote a report on the siege and the sack to the Triarchs that still survives in the Volantene Archives and which estimates the number of dead at 'at least ten thousand, if not more, this being at least half of the town's populace.'
Pobo did not have long to celebrate his victory, however. Barely four days after Campora fell, the Royal Army of Myr was close enough to threaten battle. This presented Pobo with a quandary. On the one hand, the horde had lost almost a quarter of it's fighting men between the battle and the siege, including Khal Rhadozho, and Pobo was smart enough to realize that there was difference between facing the Army of the East, which had been a scratch force with a relative paucity of experience, and facing the Royal Army proper, which was arguably the most experienced and best-led army in the world. On the other hand, there was a tremendous amount of psychological momentum behind Pobo as the victor of Piper's Creek and the taker of Campora, and simply retreating back to the plains without a fight would have been an unacceptable loss of face. In addition to which, while he had made substantial progress on fulfilling his oath, Pobo had yet to face Eddard Stark or Robert Baratheon in battle and refusing to do so would have damaged his newfound reputation as the champion of the Midnight Mare.
Pobo, however, knew that there was more than one way to skin a cat . . .
-Devils on Horseback: the Dothraki in the Generation of Bloodby Maester Atkins
Chapter 85: Winter Storm's Fury
Chapter Text
Arrived before Campora today, knew what to expect from scout reports, but still a shock; less than two hundred survivors and at least half the town burned. According to survivors Dothraki breached the wall with engines and then stormed the breach on foot. Very uncharacteristic of the barbarians judging from prior reports; possible help from Volantis?
Ser Brus' body found near the gate; cleft skull. Next to him was the Shepvor, arrow wounds all over him. The barbarians probably used him for archery practice after they burned him out of the Sept. Other corpses found in wells, fountains, etc., central granaries burned down, gates to the town and the castle destroyed, other destruction all meant to render the town useless as a base for this campaign. All too methodical and professionally done to be the product of mere savagery; this Pobo means to deliberately cripple us.
Strong men, knights and Legion veterans both, wept at the sight of the town destroyed; I swear His Grace aged a year before my eyes. Then the grief turned to fury, whole companies swearing bloody revenge. Gods help the Dothraki who comes under our blades this campaign . . .
Excerpt from the diary of Ser Brynden Tully
Sauce reined in before the command party in a flurry of snow and vaulted out of the saddle to kneel before her king. "Your Grace," she said breathlessly, "Ser Brynden begs leave to report; he has found the trail of the Dothraki running east, back towards the border. One central column of people on foot and multiple groups on either flank, all mounted. He believes the central column to be captives from Campora and the other sacked settlements, being taken east as slaves."
There was a rustling murmur of anger that was quickly stilled by King Robert's peremptory gesture. "Any indication of how old the trail was?" he asked in his baritone rumble.
"Not less than a day old, no more than two or three, according to the trackers," Sauce replied. "Ser Brynden is ready to pursue, but recommends that the army stay together in order to best weather attack. Dothraki rearguards have probed his advance parties a dozen times in the last four hours."
"If they're probing then they don't just mean to cover a retreat, they mean to fight," King Robert observed, stroking his short beard with gauntlet-clad fingers. "I want each company in column of centuries, and I want the cavalry kept on a short leash; no wild-goose chases. We're punching through the savages and taking our people back."
XXX
Pobo whispered a prayer of thanks to the Midnight Mare as he peered through the looted far-eye at the walker army trudging along the road. He had sent the slaves on ahead with the engineers and the wounded riders of the horde under the command of Khal Rhadozho's son Khal Najo, with orders to make all speed without thought to concealing their trail. Last night's snow had made him fear that their tracks would be covered, but it had turned out to be only a dusting on top of the already packed layers, not enough to conceal the passage of more than five thousand people, even from scouts as blind as walkers. Khal Najo had been unhappy at being sent away with the slaves and the weaklings, but he was young still, with barely six bells in his braid, and had been swayed by Pobo's argument that this battle could only be fought by the most seasoned warriors.
He had heard much of Robert Baratheon's concern for his people, both from the Volantenes and also from the slaves, and in those tales he had found the answer to the problem that had bedeviled him since Campora had fallen. A headlong battle against the Royal Army of Myr he could not hope to win; he remembered Narrow Run. But a running fight, where the speed and endurance of the Dothraki horses and the power of their bows would outweigh the armor and impetus of the Myrish knights, much less their infantry . . . He grinned predatorially. How fitting would it be if Robert Baratheon, whose gods commanded him to hate slavery and regard the least of his people as his own blood, was defeated because of his adherence to those commands? How better to prove the weakness of the walker gods, than to prevent their champion from fulfilling their laws?
He closed the far-eye and handed it to his slave as he turned to Khal Achrallo. "Harry them from the south," he commanded. "I will harry them from the north and the east. Slow them, bleed them, make them angry and blind and stupid."
Achrallo nodded and wheeled his horse away, rallying his riders after him with a howling whoop. Pobo drew his bow from its case under his knee. "Follow me, brothers!" he cried, raising the bow overhead and shaking it. "Bleed them like the aurochs they are!"
His riders yipped and screeched with the battle-joy as they streamed after him. Truly, it was unfortunate that he had not seen Eddard Stark's wolf banner among the walkers, but it was a disappointment that could be turned to relish. Let the murderer of his khal know what it was to lose the man he had sworn to defend with his heart's blood.
XXX
This is how soldiers, in the form of the Royal Army of Myr, defeat warriors, in the form of the Dothraki.
When the Dothraki came storming over the slightly-rolling plains, they found the Iron Legion companies in column of centuries, meaning that each century in a company had formed line of battle, spears in front and crossbows behind, and then formed up one behind another, so that each company resembled a stack of roof tiles. Whenever the Dothraki came too close to a given company, the order was given to form square on the first pair of centuries, so that the stack of roof tiles become a hollow quadrilateral with the spearmen on the outer ranks and the crossbows forming the inner layers, like a fortress made of men's bodies. The Dothraki quickly learned not to do more than flirt with the squares, because the crossbows were just as powerful as their recurves and each ranked volley could empty a score of saddles or more, while the Dothraki arrows had to get past the broad shields and lowered helmets of the spearmen even before they could try to punch through the mail-shirts and brigandines of the crossbowmen. And while the longbowmen were not nearly as numerous as the crossbowmen, their faster rate of fire made up for their lack of numbers; Dothraki bands that ran afoul of the longbowmen were shot to pieces with blistering speed.
If the Legion had been fighting alone then they would never have gone another step once they formed square, for a square trades mobility for protection and if they had reformed column the Dothraki would have been able to rush them. But they were not alone, and while the cavalry of the Royal Army of Myr was less disciplined than the Legion they were fighting under the eye of their king, and what that didn't do to make them behave well the leadership of Ser Brynden Tully and Ser Jaime Lannister did. Both the Blackfish and the Black Lion had the reputation to make even the most pig-headed and self-important minor knight pay attention to them, and they knew exactly what King Robert wanted of them. So there were no death-or-glory charges on the first day of the Battle of Campora-Novadomo, so named for the town that it started near and the village it ended at. Instead the cavalry made short, controlled advances, never at a greater pace than a trot, that forced the Dothraki away long enough for the Legion to reform their columns and march on, seeking always to catch up to the column of their people that they knew was being driven on ahead of them.
When the sun set, the Royal Army had advanced eight miles, leaving a trail of slain Dothraki in their wake in return for less than two hundred dead out of twenty thousand infantry and five thousand cavalry. As they settled into the sacked village of Novadomo for the night half of the army remained on watch while the other half pitched tents and built up fires against the winter cold, with the wagons of the baggage train being wheeled into a semi-circle before the breach in the village's palisade to form a makeshift barrier around the part of the army that couldn't fit in the city. Meanwhile, less than a mile away, the Dothraki licked their wounds from the day's fighting and watched, while each side's leaders calculated their next move.
XXX
When dawn broke, so did the Dothraki; almost six thousand of them boiling out of the cover provided by the irrigation ditches of the village's fields and the slight undulation of the ground. The plan that Khal Pobo had devised was to break open the barrier formed by the Royal Army's wagons and pour the rest of the horde into the camp to turn the fight into the sort of wild, disorganized melee where ferocity counted for more than discipline. He had wagered that after a long day of fighting and marching, and a longer night spent under arms, that the Royal Army would not be in a condition to withstand such an assault. Especially since the second part of his plan involved several-score of the better archers in the horde on either side of the camp shooting fire arrows into the camp and the village, in the hopes of causing at least a panic if not actually starting a fire in the snow-dampened wood.
Unfortunately for Pobo, the Royal Army was ready for him. A change in watch at midnight had made sure that everyone had gotten at least some food and sleep, and orders had gone around that everyone was to sleep in armor and keep their weapons close at hand. The first rush of the Dothraki assault managed to get past the wall of wagons and a dozen yards into the camp, but after that they were met with knights and men-at-arms who had rolled out of their blankets fully armored and clutching their swords and poleaxes, while behind them squads of legionaries were rapidly coalescing into battle lines.
Those Dothraki who had gotten past the wagons were literally cut to pieces in the ensuing fray, and by weight of metal the knights and legionaries were able to force the plainsmen back to the wagons in a counterattack led by Ser Jaime Lannister. But there the counterattack stopped; the wagons were just as great a barrier to the Royal Army as they were to the Dothraki, and to venture beyond them was to get cut off, pulled down, and either stabbed or beaten to death by blood-mad barbarians. The Dothraki for their part, had a fury upon them, and the repulse didn't give them more than a minute's pause before they hurled themselves back into the fray. On either flank the Dothraki ran out of arrows without starting a single major fire, although some minor blazes made the horses of the Royal Army sidle and whinny nervously as their grooms frantically tried to keep them from stampeding, and went at the palisade themselves, whips and lariats turning into scaling ropes as they hauled themselves over the palisade and dropped into the village with knife and arakh.
Within minutes more Dothraki were following them over, and the Royal Army found itself fighting for its life. Ser Brynden Tully fought at King Robert's side until a blindly loosed Dothraki arrow flitted through the breach and slammed into his knee. Ser Vernan Irons lost an eye to a slash from an arakh, and Ser Brynnan Axewell was shot through the throat by a Dothraki who had carried his bow to the top of the palisade as he stood over his sword-brother. More than two-score other knights were killed or seriously wounded either in the village or at the wagons, and the casualties of the Legion numbered in the hundreds.
But the Dothraki also suffered. For all their fury they simply didn't have the armor to stand toe-to-toe against the Royal Army and try as Pobo might he could not call them back from either the wagons or the palisade. Moreover, the Royal Army of Myr that fought at Novadomo was perhaps the most experienced army in the world. To be a neophyte in it's ranks was to have served at Iluro and the Fall of Tyrosh, and some could date their service back to the Battle of Tara, having seen more pitched battles than had been fought in this part of the world in three generations. A berm of corpses began to build up outside the wagons, and inside the village the Royal Army slowly began to push the Dothraki back to the palisade. At this point Pobo, who had not seen Robert Baratheon's banner at the wagons, decided that a last throw of the dice had to be made.
XXX
Victarion leaned on his axe, unable to help a reckless grin as he sucked down air. Truly the god was good, to give his followers such a battle.
Although if these Dothraki were typical of their nation, then he would never believe that they would be a serious threat to the Kingdom. Oh, they would still have to be killed, of course, but the silly bastards didn't even wear armor! Their arrows were dangerous enough, a dozen of his housecarls would testify as much if they were still alive to do so, but when it came to handstrokes they were as awkward as hogs on ice, and as vulnerable.
A creaking and cracking caught his attention and he turned towards the rear of the village. He blinked; he couldswearthat the palisade was leaning . . . a fifteen-foot section of the palisade collapsed outward to reveal a line of Dothraki on horseback who quickly threw aside the ropes they had used to pull down the palisade and come cantering forward. Victarion shook off his surprise and swung his axe up into a back-weighted guard. "Follow me!" he roared to his housekarls, and dashed for the gap. He didn't have time to form a more coherent plan than 'get in the way', but he could tell that this was going to be a contest of speed, shock, and ferocity, and few people could best the Ironborn at such a game. This thought flickered through his head with barely more than a passing interest before he sway-stepped to the right of the rider that was bearing down on him and swung his axe with a full-throated roar.
Victarion's axe was four feet of black-painted oak bound with iron langets and topped by a fan of layer-forged steel that measured a full foot along it's cleaver-like edge and was backed by a short hammer face. In Victarion's spade-like hands, powered by arms as thick as most people's legs and all the power of Victarion's ogrishly muscled shoulders and back and hips, it was a weapon that could behead an aurochs with a single blow. The Dothraki leading the charge made a valiant attempt to turn his cut into a parry, but the axe blew through his hastily-formed guard and tore open his chest from sternum to outer ribs, the force of the blow ripping him out of the saddle to spill his lifeblood on the snow-sprinkled ground.
On either side of Victarion the fifty housekarls he had left on their feet were acting similarly, although a few of them misjudged their sidestep and were bowled over by the horses or hammered to their knees by the Dothraki; even if it couldn't cut through their helmet, a blow from an arakh with a barbarian's arm behind it was nothing to shrug off. If the Ironborn had been acting alone they might have been overrun, but behind them was King Robert and the Brotherhood of the Broken Chain, who were only momentarily slower off the mark and plunged into the fray to lend a hand. They were the only reserve remaining, every blade that could be spared had gone to the palisade or the wagons, and this was clearly the decisive moment. Victarion had just gone to one knee to dodge a barbarian's swing and was raising his axe to deflect the blow of the rider behind him when the one that had just passed him was beaten out of the saddle by Robert's warhammer. The king was laughing with the battle-joy as he pressed forward to Victarion's side, and the Ironborn lord was overjoyed to be so reminded that his king was a warrior-king, a man willing to pay the iron price for his people. Side-by-side they stood and fought, axe and hammer rising and falling as Robert counted his slain and roared for the Dothraki to come and die and Victarion chanted a battle song that was ancient before Valyria fell, and their household men closed around them and broke the Dothraki charge.
The battle was teetering between the Dothraki withdrawing and them renewing the attack when a keening wail pierced the surf-roar of the battle, shocking the combatants to a standstill. The ranks of the Dothraki parted, pushed aside by an old man in a fringed robe carrying a drum, who came to a stop before Victarion and Robert, his eyes fixed on the slain before them. He paused, plainly searching for a moment, and then howled with evident grief and dashed forward to fall to his knees before the first man that Victarion had hacked out of the saddle. Victarion's knowledge of the Dothraki tongue was rudimentary and mostly limited to some choice insults that he had learned from Ser Akhollo, but he knew enough to pick out two words out of the stream of rolling gutturals: Khal Pobo, the king of these Dothraki and the burner of Campora, who had released prisoners to spread the word of his coming and intent.
The old man rocked back and forth on his knees, chanting through streaming tears for a long string of moments, before with a last shouted exclamation he put his fist through the skin of his drum, whipped a dagger out of his robe, and plunged it into his throat.
Barbarian rider and royal soldier alike remained paralyzed for a moment, agog at the spectacle they had just witnessed, then Victarion's instincts reasserted themselves. The enemy was off-balance, their lord dead and their momentum gone; now was the time to strike. He vaulted the corpses with a roar and swung his axe into the head of the nearest Dothraki's horse, and the Dothraki broke like glass under a hammerblow as the Royal Army plunged after him.
XXX
When the Dothraki had broken through the wagon-line at the start of the day, a few enterprising souls among them had tried to drag two of the wagons apart in order to break the barrier. They hadn't succeeded in pulling them all the way apart before the counterattack had repelled them, but a gap large enough for a man to fit through had been opened in the barrier. It was into this gap that Jaime Lannister had shouldered his way, and it was in this gap where he had stood and fought for the past hour and more.
Although to call what he was doing fighting might be stretching the term. He was standing between the inner pair of wheels in the guard of the serpent, his left foot forward and his longsword held low across his body at hilt and half-blade, as if it were a very short spear. The Dothraki would come storming into the gap, arakh whirling up over their head for the downward stroke that came as naturally as breathing to them, and Jaime would take a short lunging step forward with his front foot, ram his sword forward in a thrust that took the savage in the belly or the chest as their blow rang off his armor, and then recover to meet the next barbarian. In this fashion he had built a pile of bodies waist-high in front of him, and the Dothraki were starting to noticeably hesitate before trying to force the gap where the Black Lion waited for his prey.
Jaime, battered and bruised but still intact and belligerent in his ostentatiously battered but still well-crafted armor, would later swear that hefeltsomething change as he waited for the next challenger. One minute the Dothraki had been storming at the barricade, the very picture of barbarian fury, and the next their battle cries had changed tenor. When he took the chance of opening his visor, what he saw astonished him. The barbarians were in full flight, streaming away from the wagon-line to their horses. And when they reached those horses they didn't waste even a second in spurring away at the gallop, with every evidence of panic.
Jaime was starting to relax from the guard he had held for more than an hour, still wondering what on earth was going on, when King Robert pushed through the ranks behind him and took him by the shoulder. "Their khal's dead," Robert shouted in his ear; both men knew that fighting in a helmet often left you a little hard of hearing for a while until the ringing stopped. "Pobo, the one that burned Campora. Victarion hacked him out of the saddle and they just broke and buggered off; I've never seen the like. We need to mount up, get after them."
For a long moment Jaime was possessed by the thought of a pursuit that ran the barbarians to earth and left a trail of corpses in its wake, and then he remembered Pentos and shook his head. "They're too fast, Your Grace," replied. "They don't have a tenth the weight we do, and their horses have more stamina; they can outride us all they want. Besides," he jerked an armored thumb at the men around them, "if we leave the infantry behind, we'll just be giving them the chance to do to us what they did to Ser Brus. Cut us off from each other, beat us in turn. And the Legion won't keep formation if they get the order to pursue; they'll string out and the barbarians will cut them apart."
Robert shook his helmeted head. "No, no, they're broken," he insisted. "They haven't the piss to fight a pack of novices. We can blow through them, get our people back."
Jaime shook his head again, fatigue starting to settle on him like a blanket made of lead. "The barbarians will have taken them out of our reach, Your Grace," he said heavily. "You saw how they were pushing them yesterday; you think they won't have pushed them all last night and all of today at the same pace?" On yesterdays fighting march they had come across more than a few bodies of Camporans who had collapsed from exhaustion; the Dothraki had finished them off and left them where they lay. "And if the Dothraki recover," Jaime pressed on, holding exhaustion at bay by main will, "then they'll have us right where they want us. Out in the open, where they can ride rings around us and shoot us to death. Do you want to leave the Queen a childless widow, Your Grace? Besides which," he pressed on, "if we catch up to the column, the Dothraki will just massacre them, in order to spite us."
Robert winced visibly, turned to glare at the retreating Dothraki, and then swung his hammer into the side of the wagon next to them in an explosive display of thwarted wrath that made the men around them jump with hastily-swallowed curses. "Damn it, you're right, Lannister," he said sourly as the wagon settled back on all four wheels, it's side half caved-in. "And we're in no shape to pursue, anyway. The Blackfish is down, and the knights that are still on their feet are fought out." His blue eyes were ferocious as he turned their glare back on Jaime. "But mark me, ser," he said in a cold fury. "I will be avenged for this injury that these savages have done me and mine. I will carpet the plains with their slain and turn the sky above the Dothraki Sea black with ravens."
Jaime bent the knee. "And I shall aid you in the doing, Your Grace," he said formally, "with all the might I can muster."
The Battle of Novadomo was a tactical draw, in that King Robert made no attempt to pursue the remnants of Pobo's horde, but a strategic victory in that it ended the threat that the horde had posed. The engines that had made the storming of Campora possible had been abandoned outside Campora and burned by the Royal Army prior to their fighting march to Novadomo, and the loss of almost half of the horde's remaining fighting men (Maester Gordon's history, drawing on eyewitness accounts, puts the count of Dothraki dead at seven thousand, while Volantene sources that relied on Dothraki reports place the toll at four or five thousand) left the horde too weak to seriously threaten the remaining fortified villages in eastern Myr, especially after their garrisons were reinforced by detachments of the Royal Army. More importantly, both Khal Pobo and Khal Achrallo had been killed at Novadomo, and the resulting vacuum in leadership would have taken some time to sort out even if they had left clear heirs, which neither did; Pobo was unmarried and childless, and neither of Khal Achrallo's sons survived Novadomo. Khal Rhadozho's son, Najo, did survive and take his father's place as khal, but by that point he was miles away from the battlefield driving the slave column and in no position to assume command over the remains of the horde.
Conversely, the horde had done substantial damage to the Kingdom of Myr. One of it's three premier towns outside of the capital city had been destroyed, and the Royal Army had suffered more than a thousand dead and twice that number wounded between the two battles it had fought with the horde. In addition, the devastation that had been wrought on the East set back the royal government's plans it's development by a generation or more. Although Campora would be resettled and rebuilding would begin as soon as winter lifted, it would be years before it could be the commercial, industrial, and cultural center that Ceralia or Sirmium had become, and more than a dozen villages would remain abandoned for more than a decade.
Nor was the horde the only difficulty that the Kingdom of Myr faced . . .
Devils on Horseback: the Dothraki in the Generation of Bloodby Maester Atkins
Chapter 86: Counting the Cost
Chapter Text
The room in which the five men met was incongruously nondescript, given the caliber of the men sitting in it. Vito Nestoris and Giulio Armati, the special representatives of the Iron Bank and the Sealord, respectively, sat at the head of the table, a function of the fact that they represented two of the most powerful entities in the Narrow Sea, if not the world. Just below them sat their two guests, Lord Owen Merryweather, consul to Pentos on behalf of King Stannis of Westeros, and Ser Wendel Manderly, Master of Coin to King Robert of Myr. At the other end of the table sat their host, Matteo Contarenos, Viceroy of Pentos, flanked by his financial secretary, a remarkably unremarkable man who had introduced himself simply as Niccolo.
"Gentlemen," Vito opened the meeting, "the purpose of this meeting is to discuss a disaster that has befallen the Commune and its effects both on the parties we represent and other parties throughout the Narrow Sea. Some months ago, our ambassador in Lys was summoned before the Conclave and presented with a demand for an exorbitant fine, disguised as an interest-free loan to help pay for the fortification of the isle of Lys. When our ambassador protested, he was informed that failure to pay would result in the expulsion of every Braavosi citizen from Lyseni territory and the confiscation of their property. The ambassador, presented with such an ultimatum and with no time to refer to the Commune for direction, was forced to accede, and raise the money from our citizens in Lys. Since then, word has reached us that our enclaves in the cities east of Lys have suffered similar treatment, or worse. The enclave in Volantis paid the fine that was levied upon them and was then summarily expelled. Our enclaves in Astapor, Yunkai, and Elyria were also expelled; in their cases, the local authorities did not bother with the pretense of a forced loan and simply confiscated their assets before escorting them to the ships. Our enclaves in Mantarys, Tolos, and Meeren were attacked outright and overrun; in Meereen the attack was allegedly spearheaded by soldiers in the livery of the Great Masters. We have heard nothing from our enclaves in New Ghis and Qarth. This may be due to distance, but we must assume the worst."
He sighed. "In addition to which," he went on, "we have suffered other setbacks. Our ambassador in Norvos had been working to turn that city to our cause, but the 'Rape of Tyrosh', as it is being called, has turned attitudes against us; the bearded priests have no wish to be entangled in any war that might unleash such passions against their city. Further afield, Khal Drogo has all but blockaded Qohor; no trade has come from that city for months now, when even in winter there is at least a trickle. We fear the worst for our citizens there. Lorath is still being receptive to our advances, but that is only because they are so isolated and so poor; they cannot hope to contend against us if we decide to employ more direct measures. In short, gentlemen, our trade with the East is almost entirely destroyed."
There was a long moment of silence following Vito's bald-faced report; Wendel and Owen signed themselves with the seven-pointed star in empathy. There had been rumors of trouble in the East, but this exceeded even the worst predictions. Finally, Matteo broke the silence. "Leaving aside our citizens and speaking only of finances," he asked slowly, "how much have we lost?"
"The final report is still being compiled," Vito replied, "but the most generous estimate when we left Braavos placed the financial loss at four hundred thousand gold dinars."
Owen swore softly, while Wendel whistled as he calculated in his head. That was roughly equivalent to the yearly income of the Crown of Myr, and then some, unless he was getting the conversion wrong.
"Four hundred thousand," Matteo said, a note of relief entering his voice. "Not great, not terrible. We can retrench, expand our other markets . . ."
"And how much will you lose next year?" Wendel asked, his voice overriding the Viceroy. "You're telling us that you've been locked out of the eastern trade," he pressed, ignoring Matteo's look of indignation. "If you're still locked out of it next year, how much will you lose?"
Vito nodded, for all the world like a teacher hearing his prize student ask the right question. "There's the rub," he said. "We don't know. At the very least, this shortfall will continue into next year. Depending on how much the Lyseni charge us for the privilege of using them as our clearinghouse for the eastern trade and whether or not the bearded priests allow us to remain in Norvos. . ." He shrugged. "I would be surprised if they didn't squeeze us for every drop of blood; they know that they have us over a barrel. My personal estimate is that this year's loss will be doubled by the time that next year's books are balanced. This, I should add," he went on, "is solely the loss that will be felt by the Exchequer and the Iron Bank. The losses to lesser trading houses, the guilds and to individual citizens will be another matter entirely, but they will certainly be proportional."
Every man in the room grunted as if they had been punched in the belly. Four hundred thousand gold dinars was a staggering loss, but as much as twice that,right aftersuch a loss . . . Kingdoms had fallen for less cause. The thought of every guild in Braavos that relied on the eastern trade going bankrupt and the rest losing most of their business, of hundreds if not thousands of apprentices and journeymen out of work with the price of everything shooting upwards, and the Sealord unable to do anything to alleviate the suffering on account of having no money himself . . .
"Since we're being honest with each other," Ser Wendel said after a long pause, "I have this to add to the bad news. The first reports of the damage done to our eastern marches arrived the day before I left Myr and they were not promising. Simply refortifying Campora and the villages that the Dothraki sacked will cost at least a third of the Crown's yearly income, if not more. And when I speak of the Crown's yearly income, I include the lines of credit that the Iron Bank has extended us." He looked Vito in the eye. "Will I need to revise that calculation?"
Vito shook his head. "Those lines of credit that are currently open will remain so until further notice. We may need to enter into negotiations about restructuring of loan repayment schedules and collateral options, but we will only do so if word of such negotiations becoming public becomes necessary to calm our other customers. The keyholders foresee a slowing of the Bank's extraordinary lending, if not an outright pause, but we recognize the importance of the Kingdom of Myr to the strategic situation in the Narrow Sea. It is in our interests that you remain afloat and viable." Vito's lip quirked in a half-smile. "And we will need access to your trading market in order to help ride out this storm. With the East closed to us, our traders will need other customers." Left unsaid was the fact that such a contraction would have to be kept strictly secret; the stability of the Iron Bank was one of the cornerstones of trade in the Narrow Sea, and indeed in the broader world. If it became known that the Iron Bank was in financial difficulties, then all bets would be off; panic was as infectious in finance as it was in battle, and just as dangerous.
"Especially since Westeros is less attractive now than it would be otherwise," Matteo said sourly. "There's a rebellion underway in the Upper Mander country."
"A minor rebellion," Owen replied coolly. "A mere smattering of minor lords and landed knights feeling their oats and forgetting their place. Lord Tyrell and His Grace the King have matters well in hand and foresee an early end to this unseemliness. And in any case," he went on, spreading his hands, "Westeros is larger than the Upper Mander. There are markets that will not even feel a whisper from such a minor disquiet."
"The North especially," Wendel added with a nod. "Lord Stark, the Fist's elder brother, has been searching for ways to increase the North's strength since he became Lord of Winterfell. A partnership with the Commune would fit the bill nicely, especially since there is much that the North has that the Commune needs. Timber, to name only one; the Wolfswood has some of the oldest trees in Westeros."
The Braavosi perked up. When it came to trees,oldmeantbig, and if there was one thing you needed to make ships, it was big, straight trees. You could make a mast by taking smaller staves and binding them together into a single trunk with heat-shrunk iron hoops and glue, but such a mast was weaker and far more vulnerable to damage than one made from a single mature pine or cedar tree-trunk.
"And our internal market is robust," Matteo said. "The lands here are even more productive than we had been led to believe; the plantations must have been deliberately holding down their efficiency in order to drive prices up. At the very least there will be no shortage of wheat and other grains, and the cattle herds of the interior are multiplying as if it's going out of style. And our previous difficulties in finding people to settle the further reaches of the interior has been solved by these 'Old Faith' followers from Westeros." He made a face. "Unpleasantly sober-sided and self-righteous as they might be, they at least make productive farmers and they pay their taxes on time."
"Which is all well and good," Vito interjected, "but this, reorientation, of our trade from the East to Westeros and the Narrow Sea will take time, and for the duration of that time the Commune will be very short of money indeed. We will be hard-pressed even to maintain the garrison of Martyros and continue the program of fortification in the Pentoshi interior, and the majority of the Commune's war-fleet will have to be laid up for some time." He looked at Wendel. "My lord, wemusthave peace, at least for a year or two and preferably for four or five. We can fund another war, or we can tide our people over until our trade rebuilds. We cannot, I repeatcannot, do both. If we try, then people will die from the destitution that they will be cast into."
Wendel nodded. "I agree," he said. "Between me and thee, and I must emphasize, gentlemen, that this cannot leave this room, we are in no financial shape to fight another war ourselves. Simply rebuilding the eastern marches will cost what the destruction of Tyrosh cost, if not more. Without you, we won't have anywhere near that much. We will be able to maintain the standing companies of the Royal Army and the fleet, but our reserve companies will have to remain off the royal payrolls for some time. And without them we don't have the strength to fight an offensive war. Of course, that assumes that our enemies will cooperate as well, but I foresee few difficulties in that regard; the Volantenes are too far away for now and the Lyseni will probably be content to let the truce that their captain-general negotiated at the end of the last war hold for the time being. What the Dothraki will do I cannot begin to guess, but if this Khal Drogo you mentioned has set his sights on Qohor, then we should be safe at least until the end of winter, and perhaps for a year or two afterwards." He grimaced. "Of course, all of this is speculation. The gods are great, and all things are accomplished according to their will."
There were nods around the table. If, ten years ago, someone had predicted that the Targaryens would be violently deposed, Pentos conquered for Braavos by Westerosi adventurers, Myr conquered by those same adventurers for themselves to found an aggressively abolitionist kingdom, Tyrosh destroyed by an alliance of that new kingdom and Braavos, and two Dothraki khalasars defeated in open battle, all over the course of only six years, then they would have been laughed out of the room.
As Wendel and Owen left the room Owen turned to Wendel as soon as they were out of earshot of the Braavosi. "They must be feeling the pinch even worse than they let on," he hissed under his breath. "They didn't even mention any sort of retaliation against Lys, much less Volantis or Meereen."
Wendel nodded. "I noticed," he murmured. "Nor did they say how the Sealord would react to all this. Something tells me that we should expect a change in management in the Sealord's Palace."
"Agreed," Owen muttered.
XXX
Ser Joren Potts bent the knee with his household as his liege-lord rode through the gate of his holdfast and dismounted. "Be welcome at Pottsdam, my lord," he said formally.
"My thanks for your hospitality, Ser Joren," Lord Corbray replied with equal formality as he approached, making the slight palm-down to palm-up gesture that meantrise. "And my compliments on the state of your lands and your men; they do you credit." Joren exchanged the kiss of peace with his lord, who then did him the honor of reviewing the assembled household, which had been standing behind Joren in their finest. It was a small household, consisting of a steward, cook, stablemaster, the two men-at-arms that Joren maintained, and his squire Kyllan and his page Draqo along with a handful of minor servants, but they were all well-dressed, well-fed, and clearly proud to wear the black crossed swords on white that Joren had taken as his sigil, and Lord Corbray was clearly pleased to be met with such a display of Joren's ability. He even shook hands with the principal members of the household, exchanged salutes with the men-at-arms, Kyllan, and Draqo, and nodded to each of the servants in turn before allowing Joren to take him on a tour of the small holdfast, which didn't take long as it was composed of only the two-story tower house and a small wall that enclosed the essential buildings, all of which were made of rammed earth faced and buttressed with local stone. The dam on Silverside Stream (named, disappointingly, after the local trout rather than any mineral deposits) which gave the holdfast its name and ensured the water supply of Joren's farmers was made of similar material and sat within easy bowshot of the tower house.
After the tour was completed and the royal inspector who had accompanied Lord Corbray betook himself to his proffered room to begin his report (which he had been kind enough to tell Joren would be nothing to worry about), Joren and Lord Corbray retired to Joren's solar for a glass of wine before dinner. After a few compliments on the vintage and the jet and ivory cyvasse set that Joren had picked up in Tyrosh as loot, Lord Corbray placed his glass on the small table beside his chair and steepled his fingers. "I will be frank with you, Ser Joren," he began, "this is not merely a social visit or your quarterly inspection. I have two items of business that we must discuss, the first of which is the rumors that I was planning another Great Raid. Thereistruth to them, but less than I would like. I am planning to undertake a raid, but it will be a smaller one; more of a probe than a proper campaign."
Joren frowned. "How small a probe are we talking about, my lord?" he asked carefully.
"Fifty lances at most," Lord Corbray replied. "Which will not include yours. This is no slight against you, ser, but a matter of practicality. I have been told that we will have to rely on our own resources for any forays over the border for the foreseeable future, and I want to keep a strong reserve in case the Lyseni decide to do some raiding of their own. Between that and keeping the border knights at their posts, fifty is all I can spare and pay for."
Joren nodded. He could see the sense in his lord's explanation, and while it irked him to be left out of the action there was a certain honor in being one of the men that Lord Corbray trusted to stand ready to solve any unexpected problems. "The Legion will not be joining the probe?" he asked.
"For an operation as small as this we can either bite off a plantation and hold it, or we can burn three or four plantations and dash back to the border," Lord Corbray replied. "I plan to undertake the latter sort, and for that we will need mobility, and mobility means cavalry. If we were planning to take a bite out of the frontier than the Legion would fit the bill perfectly, but they just don't have the speed to conduct the sort of slash-and-run operation I intend to mount."
Joren nodded again. "I will hold myself and my lances ready for your word, as always," he assured his lord. "And the second matter?"
"I understood that you had taken a freedwoman that you rescued in Tyrosh into your household," Lord Corbray said. "One Dinora, was it not?"
Joren felt his hackles rise instinctively before smoothing them again. "Yes, my lord," he replied. "She currently works as my chambermaid."
Lord Corbray nodded. "I am sure that you understand that you will need to marry at some point," he said calmly. "At this point, you have a few options." He counted them off on his fingers. "Firstly, you may permit me to, shall we say, acquire a suitable young lady for you, trusting that I will take ensure that the lady in question is suitable both personally and materially. Secondly, you may make your own inquiries among the fishing fleet and take your chances. Or, thirdly," his mouth quirked in a half-smile, "you may decide to, ah,regularizeyour relationship with this Dinora."
Joren suppressed a flash of fury with a minor effort of will. He knew that Lord Corbray didn't mean anything by his choice of words, but even so . . . "I hope my lord has a better opinion of my knighthood," he said tersely, "than to imagine that I would take advantage of a woman under my protection"
"I do, as it happens," Lord Corbray replied, "but I hope that you will take my advice and think carefully before any commitments are made, and doors closed thereby. Love is all well and good, but our emotions should not rule our reason. We nobles do not live for ourselves alone, as my father was fond of saying."
Joren made a short bow in his seat in combined acceptance and apology. "Dinora and I have not discussed making any commitments, my lord," he said in a deliberately calm tone of voice. "But I hope that if, when, we do, she will not prove unamenable."
Lord Corbray nodded. "Simply be reasonable about the matter, and keep me suitably informed," he said placatingly. "I am aware that as your liege-lord I have les say over your marriage than I would if you were, for instance, my brother, but any service I can provide you may call upon. You have proved yourself one of the worthiest of my knights, Ser Joren, and I would see you rise accordingly. Which reminds me; has Lord Egen invited you to join the Knights of the Sunset?"
Joren shook his head. "No, my lord. I have never so much as exchanged pleasantries with Lrod Egen."
Lord Corbray raised an eyebrow. "Truly?" he said in evident surprise. "The Knights of the Sunset must have high standards indeed to pass up a knight who has demonstrated his zeal and his chivalry as you have."
Joren replied with a noncommittal shrug. If he was given the choice, then a place in the Knights of the Sunset would be hard to pass up. For one thing, such an honor would go a long way to elevating his house above the common run of landed knights, as well as providing him with a significant array of potentially useful contacts. For another, if he had to pick a side in the religious disputes of the kingdom then he would come down on the side of the Great Sept; as good a man and as good a septon as Jonothor might be, he had no more right to rebel against his liege-lord over a mere difference in preferred policy than Joren did. Of course, he was also the sworn man of the Kingdom's foremost Jonothoran lord, and hence most likely suspect in the eyes of Lord Egen. It was a rather ticklish situation, all things considered, and Joren was grateful that he hadn't been forced to commit himself.
"In any case," Lord Corbray went on, "If you ever find yourself in need of friends, there will always be a place in the Knights of the First Sept for you. Lord Egen may not know your worth but I do, and I would see it rewarded."
Joren bowed in his seat. "I shall certainly consider the offer, my lord," he said as Dinora opened the door and announced that dinner was prepared and waiting on their arrival.
XXX
The Lorathi were not considered an overly festive people; indeed it was commonly said that they were as somber and strange as the fog-shrouded isles and chill shores they hailed from. 'No one boasts of Lorath', as the saying went. But some things are indeed universal, and the desire for a good party at the appropriate time and place is one of them.
One such party was just winding down in the well-adorned manse of one of the city's magisters, the guests having demolished the fine banquet of roasted porpoise and seal pie and grilled fish of a dozen kinds, all seasoned with spices from the far south that were almost as expensive as the rest of the meal and the night's entertainment put together. The hired musicians were still playing for the lesser guests in the main hall, but the host and the most honored of his guests had withdrawn to the host's sitting room for digestifs and conversation. But underneath the compliments and the pleasantries there lurked an edge of tension.
The Council of Princes was almost entirely ceremonial, and known to be so, but it was a closely guarded secret that the Council of Magisters was also essentially a show put on for the public. The true business of governing took place in such meetings as this, where magisters (and representatives of magisters who found themselves otherwise engaged) could hash out proposals and make deals before submitting the finished product to the scripted ritual of being passed by the Council of Magisters and formally enacted by the Princes. It was considered unseemly for the inner workings of government to be exposed to the common people; such things were better kept out of sight and out of mind, where they could not provoke discord.
This gathering amounted to an emergency meeting of the Council; the banquet had been laid on at the earliest possible excuse, and between attendees and proxies they had a quorum of the council's members. And the gods knew that they had reason.
"So, brothers, this council faces a choice," said the host when all had arranged themselves on the variety of couches and chairs scattered about the room in the latest configuration of alliances and understandings.
"A magister states the obvious," the corpulent representative of the Goldsmith's Guild said dryly.
"Nonetheless, it must be said," the host replied with a slightly arch tone. "A man believes that we may all agree that we can no longer flirt with both sides, being all things to all men. The time comes swiftly when men must choose a side and stand with it, for good or ill."
There was a wave of dissenting mutters, but not enough to close the debate. There were many on the council who considered the current policy of neutrality to be the best one available to them, but recent events had conspired to cut the ground out from under them.
"Let us review, again, the essence of what is offered," said a hoarse-voiced old magister who had lost an eye in his youth as a sellsail.
One of the other magisters stood. "Great Norvos seeks to strengthen its hand against the Braavosi, and perhaps also against the Volantenes," he said, gripping the lapels of his cote like a lecturing professor, "and so they offer an alliance. They promise soldiers to reinforce us, and trade to enrich us. Most of all they stress that we would be not subjects but partners, free to make our own choices and craft our own policies so long as we make common cause with them."
"A man finds these terms to be well and good, as do his friends," said the head of the Weaver's Guild.
"And the Braavosi?" the hoarse-voiced old magister inquired, quelling the head of the Weaver's Guild with a baleful eye.
"Offer us an alliance of mutual defense in the North Sea and along it's coasts," the standing magister went on, "in return for which they demand the abolition of slavery. A gradual abolition they will accept, so long as it proceeds swiftly enough that they do not feel the need to doubt our sincerity. They offer no coin in compensation, but they do offer the return of territory once ours, as a gesture of good faith."
"This territory," said the commander of Lorath's small war-fleet, "to include four islands in the Shivering Sea, and on land the border would shift to the River Dwenn, with the Braavosi retaining the rights to the river itself."
"A magister notes that the fort of Ruruk would be returned to us, a hundred years after its loss," said a magister with a breastbone-length beard.
"A magister is correct," said the standing magister with a nod. "But the Braavosi make clear that the transfer of territory will only be undertaken if we fully commit ourselves to the alliance. And a requirement of that alliance is that Lorath abolish slavery with laws equal to or stronger than those of Braavos."
The head of the Merchant's Guild shook his head. "Near one man in nine in Lorath is a slave," he observed. "How shall we find work or housing for them all? And to ban slavery would offend the Ibbenese, which is not a thing to be done lightly."
"Nor shall the peril stop there," said the representative of the City Watch. "If we declare slaves to be free, shall we not be forced to declare servants equal to their masters, and apprentices as deserving of honor as journeymen? And by the gods, masters, we are men, all of us. Shall we become slaves of the Titan, and no longer have the ordering of our own house?"
"Perils greater than the Ibbenese exist," the barrel-chested and thick-armed head of the Whaler's Guild said in a voice roughened by years of shouting over gales. "A man believes that the Archon of Tyrosh would have sold his very soul to Robert the Strong for terms half so sweet as these."
A magister wearing a grey doublet nodded in agreement. "Norvos deems itself great, but Braavos is mighty indeed, and we know of old the strength of the Titan's fury."
"A fury we have not provoked," said the head of the Weaver's Guild. "We have laid no plots with wildfire, nor have we made war on Myr to turn the heart of Robert the Strong against us."
A cowled priest leaned forward. "Men that a man knows have sailed to Myr recently, and returned," he said softly. "It is a land lost to reason. A passion has taken hold of the people there, walking in the streets and sitting in every house. In the eyes of this passion slavery is not merely crime, but blasphemy. Even the most moderate of them hold the killing of a slaver to be no crime but a public service, like to the killing of a mad dog. In Braavos the opinion is more moderate, but the men who seek peace, the Whales as they call themselves, are sorely outmatched in the canals and in the council chambers alike. Men here think Braavos weak, their forces overstretched. A man says to you: even weakened, Braavos is stronger than we can hope to be, and if they call Baratheon north to their aid then he will come, with all his knights."
The priest spread his hands. "They may not come with spring, they may not come for years, but they will come to the jingle of chains and the crack of whips like sharks to blood. And when they come their terms will be less pleasant than these, if terms are offered at all."
The councilors sat in silence as the priest leaned back in his chair, remembering what they had heard of the Rape of Tyrosh and picturing their own city in flames. Proud men touched amulets or lucky charms to ward off evil, and the discussion resumed with less rancor than it might have done otherwise.
The Lorathi Decree of Emancipation of 288 is a curiosity among such documents. In strictest law it freed no one at all, merely pledging the abolition of slavery within five years. Were it not for the fact that the signing was accompanied by the members of the Council of Magisters each manumitting a quarter of their slaves, it would likely have been regarded as a sham. As it was, Braavos chose to accept the Lorathi at their word, a decision which was helped both by their financial difficulties and by the Lorathi magisters pledging to compensate smaller slaveowners for the value of their slaves, which did much to sweeten the pill.
Lorath would be the only Free City to take no part in the Slave Wars, a distinction that owed as much to their isolation as to their decision to accept abolition voluntarily. Lorathi sellswords would fight with distinction under many of the banners raised in the wars, but Lorath itself saw not a single blade drawn in it's streets. Lorath's reputation as one of the few safe havens remaining in Essos spread quickly, and it swiftly became a haven for people seeking to escape the storms that had broken out across the continent . . .
Twists and Turns: The Foreign Policy of Lorath from 250 to 330 ACby Maester Clynten
Chapter 87: Complications
Chapter Text
Vernan Irons felt his heart sink even further as he rode through the gate of Firelight Keep, his late sword-brother's seat. He was no stranger to the place, of course; he had helped Brynnan pick out the site when they had toured their new lands and helped him oversee the construction, as Brynnan had done when he had raised Ironkeep. And after their keeps had been raised, a process that at times had seemed almost unreal for all that Vernan had held the land grant in his hand and watched the stones laid atop each other, he and Brynnan had hosted each other a dozen times or more. When Brynnan had married Jesmyn, Vernan had stood at his side in the half-built chapel of the keep and handed him the wedding cloak to drape over his new bride's shoulders, and Brynnan had done the same when Vernan had married Emely.
Yes, there were happy memories here for Vernan, but this would not be one of them. He and Brynnan had both known that they would likely die violently, but Vernan had never thought that the oldest dog would be the last to die. As he reined in before Lady Jesmyn and carefully dismounted, he spared a moment to thank the Seven that he had shed all his tears before coming here. As much as he had loved Brynnan, there were appearances to keep up.
He and Jesmyn exchanged the slight bow-and-curtsey of equals. "Be welcome in Firelight Hall, my lord, as you always are," Jesmyn said in a tightly controlled voice. "We all thank the gods for your safe return from the war, and offer our condolences on the loss of your eye and your men."
"From the depths of my heart I thank you, my lady," Vernan replied. "Although I would give my other eye to be here on happier business." He gestured to where his squire and three of his men-at-arms were lifting Brynnan's coffin from the light two-wheeled wagon that had carried it from Novadomo. "I have brought my brother home," he went on, "knowing that it was his wish to lie in his own land."
At that Jesmyn's control very nearly broke; a tear streaked down each cheek and she drew a shuddering breath. Vernan resisted the urge to embrace her. She was Lady of Firelight Keep now, and her baby son Lanard Lord Axewell; it was no longer possible for her to publicly admit to weakness. Later, after the septon Vernan had brought had presided over the burial and the grave-ale had been drunk, Vernan joined Jesmyn in the holdfast's sept, where Brynnan had been buried in a side chapel dedicated to the Warrior.
"I have no skill at words," he said slowly, unsure of how he should proceed, "but I do know this much. Hedge knights might not fear death, but they do fear a death without dignity; illness, the weather, an infected wound. We know that such a death means that we will die unmourned and unburied, with the smallfolk robbing our corpses and scavengers picking our bones. The best we can hope for is that some begging brother will give us a grave and a few words, and even that much leaves us bereft. We have no one to remember our deeds, no sons to carry on our names, nothing to say that we lived and fought." He turned to look Jesmyn in the face. "Brynnan had all of that and more when he died," he said softly. "Some of the best knights in the army came to offer their condolences; King Robert himself sent his squire with his sympathies when he heard the news. He had me to take him home, and his wife and son to bury his bones and carry on his name. It is a better death than he could have hoped to have in Westeros, where he was just another sellsword."
Jesmyn nodded jerkily. "Thank you for your kind words, ser," she said dully. "Will you tell them to my son when he asks why he has no father?"
Vernan nodded. "I will," he promised. "How could I not, when his father was my brother?"
Jesmyn sighed raggedly. "Then when he asks, I will send him to you," she replied. "Now I must pray you leave me, ser. I would say good-bye to my husband."
Vernan withdrew with a bow; after a life as long as his had been, he knew when to shut up and walk away. He also knew that this wasn't the time to mention that his wife had given birth to a daughter while he was at war; Brienne, she had named her, after the man who would have been her godsfather. Nevertheless, he resolved as he walked out of the little sept, he would bring it up, and formally propose what he and Brynnan had discussed shortly after Vernan had married. Young Lanard would need an heir of his own, after all, if his father's name was to be continued.I Repaywere the words Vernan had chosen when he had been made a lord, and he would live up to them.
XXX
"Gods old and new bugger me," Robert said in amazement, "sixseparate currencies?"
In the great hall of the Palace of Justice the victory feast was still in full swing, but the work of running a kingdom was never finished. So after the rewards and accolades had been bestowed, Robert, Serina, Ser Gerion, and Ser Wendel had left Eddard to preside over the feast and Ser Jaime and Lord Victarion to the adulation of the crowds and met privately in Ser Wendel's office.
"Yes, Your Grace," Ser Wendel replied. "Westerosi stags and dragons, Braavosi dinars, Tyroshi ducats, old Myrish florins, Lyseni ladies, and Volantene honors all found their way into the most recent tax levy, along with their subordinate coins."
Robert took a sip from the flagon of small beer he had carried out of the hall and shrugged. "So?" he asked. "So long as everyone's paying their taxes on time and in full, does it matter what they pay them in?"
"It does if we don't know exactly how much they paid," Serina replied. "Each currency has a different rate of exchange to each other which fluctuates depending on the market, so that a Braavosi dinar might be worth so many Volantene honors one month and so many more or less the next." As the men in the room turned surprised looks on her, she shrugged slightly. "My family are merchants; we learn about this sort of thing from the time we learn to read and write. The Braavosi dinar might be the strongest coin in the world, but customers overseas pay us in all sorts of currency, and we have to know how to determine what they're paying us in dinars."
Ser Wendel bowed. "Your Grace hits the nail on the head," he said. "And the problem is exacerbated by the fact that we have no official coinage of our own. We have been reckoning everything in Westerosi stags, for the sake of convenience, but that comes with its own problems."
Robert frowned; he was following the thread of the conversation so far, but he had never had much head for finance. Even after doing his best to learn, the concepts still didn't feel properlyrealto him in the way that a sword or a horse was real. "Such as?" he asked.
"The amount of metal used in each coining has varied over the years, Your Grace," Ser Wendel said. "Kings in need of more money would make coins with less metal in them in order to make the silver and gold stretch further and use base metal such as tin or lead to make up the difference in weight. For instance," he picked up a gold dragon from the table, "this is a coin dating from the reign of Daeron the Second, when the Iron Throne's finances were sound." He dropped the coin onto the table, where it fell with a light ring. "And this," he went on, picking up another dragon "is a coin from Aegon the Fourth's reign, when the Iron Throne's finances were in disarray." The coin fell with a clank. "More tin than gold, that one," Wendel said. "And the older coins are tired; some of the metal has been lost simply through wear and tear and some of it has been lost by people clipping or sweating it, in order to collect some of the metal and then exchange the coin at the face value. You can make quite the profit if you're not too obvious about it and people don't know to look for it."
"Moreover," Ser Gerion added, "the stag is aWesterosicoin, and has been since your brother took the Iron Throne. By now when people think of it, they will think of Stannis more than they think of Your Grace, and will expect to see his face on the coin. If we choose to copy the stag, and they see your face instead, then they will assume that the coin is counterfeit, and confidence in both Your Grace's coin and your brother's will drop."
Serina nodded. "Which will hurt the rate of exchange with other currencies, even if the coin itself is good," she interjected. "A coin's value is based on the amount of metal it holds, but it is also based on trust; the trust that if you go to, for instance, the Iron Bank, then the bank will take a gold stag or a Volantene honor or a Braavosi dinar and give you the value of the coin in raw gold or silver. When that trust is lacking, the perceived value of the coin drops and people exchange it for coin theycantrust. This is essentially the same as an attack against the state that produces that currency, and why Braavosi law prescribes death by disembowelment for counterfeiters."
The men winced; they all knew how long it could take a man to die from a gut wound.
"And even if they don't think it's counterfeit," Serina pressed on, "Ser Gerion is right that they will see it as aWesterosicoin. The Kingdom of Myr is a child of Westeros but it is not Westeros, nor should it attempt to appear so. If we want to make ourselves a true power, than we must know when to cut loose of such ties as a common coinage."
Robert smiled at his wife.I knew I didn't marry you for your face alone."Alright, you've convinced me," he said. "We need our own coin, and it needs to be good. What do you recommend?"
"That we take the coin we have already, including the most recent tax levy, and use the metal therein to mint our own coin," Ser Wendel replied. "We coin to the same weight and standard of metal as Braavos in order to peg the value of our coin to theirs, and announce that our new coin will be the official currency of the realm."
"As far as the name goes," Ser Gerion added on, "we were considering appropriating the name of the old Myrish florin, in order to trade on that coin's reputation from before the Conquest, but we decided that it would smack too much of the slavers." Robert nodded agreement;anythingto distance the kingdom from the slavers. "So instead," Ser Gerion went on, "we would call the new gold coin the crown, the silver the shield, and the copper the penny. We continue to accept other currency as payment, but the only coin we pay out is our new currency, both to encourage people to trust it and to help tie its reputation to the Crown's."
"This might lead to some disruption in the markets," Ser Wendel took up the thread of the conversation, "but the good that comes of this will be worth it. We will have a currency of our own that will stand with the other currencies in the Narrow Sea, the coins will have Your Grace's face on them to increase your fame, and those who seek to attack us through finance will have a new currency to contend with. Learning how to meddle with it will take them some time, time enough for us to establish its position if we employ the necessary degree of ruthlessness in doing so."
Robert frowned. "The Iron Bank won't make a fuss about us establishing a new currency?" he asked.
"We'll be minting to a recognized weight and standard, so there won't be too many problems," Serina said confidently. "If we were minting to a completely new weight and standard, there would be some resistance on the part of the Bank, but our taking steps to avoid unnecessary confusion will play well with them."
"And I suppose this will be another reason for us to avoid any unnecessary wars until the dust settles?" Robert co*cked an eye at Ser Wendel, who nodded.
"Convincing the Legion to accept their pay in the new currency should be easy enough," Ser Wendel said. "But convincing the nobility and the chivalry to accept it as well may take some doing. Until they do, we wouldn't be able to pay them to carry war over the border."
Robert nodded. "I suppose that would be as good an excuse as any to cover up the real reason why we can't go to war for the time being," he said; he had been shocked at the news that the Braavosi had been expelled from the eastern trade, and appalled at the potential knock-on effects. The Kingdom of Myr simply didn't have the financial resources of the Commune of Braavos or the Iron Bank, or even of the Seven Kingdoms for that matter. A financial collapse was possibly the worst enemy that the kingdom could face. Men who would charge a line of spears without flinching could be unmanned by the prospect of a life of poverty. "Make it so, then; start work as swiftly as possible. And mark me, Wendel, I want this to go smoothly. We can't afford any sudden shocks just now."
XXX
Petyr Baelish was willing to admit that he had been feeling a little hard-done-by in recent days. The shortage of staff at War House and the Port Office had been largely rectified, but the continuing expansion of the Kingdom meant that the workload continued unabated; he and his fellow men of the quill were earning their callouses many times over. His efforts hadn't gone unnoticed, of course, but the increasing responsibility had not been matched by increasing pay, or at least not to any commensurate degree. He was in no danger of starving, but he would never be rich on his salary alone.
Of course, hedidn'tjust have his salary alone, but even his investments and side ventures weren't bringing him as much as he would have liked. Part of that was due to the endless and endlessly nosy Royal Inspectors, who Petyr suspected got a bonus for every corrupt official they rooted out. Gods knew they had taken enough of his colleagues. How many of them had been genuinely corrupt and how many had simply forgotten to properly heed the lines was open to debate in Petyr's mind, but at least the Inspectors hadn't found a way to pin anything on him. Thank the gods he had taken the trouble to find outexactlywhat the rules were and stuck to them like a leech.
But all a life of virtue had given him so far was a middling rank in the royal bureaucracy, a never-ending workload, a modest fortune, and a reputation as a man who could get things done on time and within budget. And there were days, when the work seemed especially heavy, that he wondered if he had risen as high as a man like him could rise in royal service. Even in a realm as meritocratic as the Kingdom of Myr birth still counted for much, and what birth didn't get you martial prowess could. Hadn't King Robert been heard to tell a Norvoshi ambassador that he would ennoble any man who proved his worth in the field? Not for the first time Baelish cursed the fate that had given him a head for figures but no talent for swordsmanship.
Which was why this invitation to meet with the Blackfish had been so unexpected. In all his time in Myr, Petyr had only met with Ser Brynden once, when the old man had told him that he had found him a place in Lord Captain Franlan's employ and given him some advice on his new master's quirks. Otherwise, the Master of Soldiers seemed to have never found the time to meet with a lowly clerk, even a clerk that had regarded him as a second father. And Petyr doubted that a brush with death was going to lead to a renewal of ties, no matter how close it had been.
Eventually Ser Brynden's squire let him into the office, a broad room with a massive desk, an array of bookshelves, and one wall dominated by a tapestry that showed a map of the Kingdom. But what truly caught Petyr's eye was the man behind the desk, who he almost didn't recognize. The Blackfish lookedold. Of course, the manwasold, he'd had grey hairs even when Petyr had lived at Riverrun, but he had always seemed to defy his age. Now there was white in his hair along with the grey, his face was as lined as cedar bark, and there was a crutch resting against the back of the desk.
"Master Baelish, please sit," Ser Brynden commanded. Petr gratefully complied; much longer and the staring would have become obvious. "Care for a drink? Wine, beer, something stronger?"
"An ale would be lovely," Petyr replied. Ser Brynden nodded at his squire, who poured a cup for each of them and withdrew. After the obligatory toast to the King, Ser Brynden leaned back in his chair and fixed Petyr with a look.
"Firstly, I believe I owe you an apology," he said, to Petyr's concealed surprise. "When you first applied for the royal service, I doubted you. I knew that you were talented, but I also knew that you had made an absolute fool of yourself and, to be quite frank, come within a hair of being deniably killed as a result of that foolishness. But we had a crying need for men of your skills, so I swallowed my doubts and advocated for you, while telling the Royal Inspectors to be wary of you. I didn't know quite what to expect, only that a man who had done what you did was one to watch." Ser Brynden nodded. "But your probity has won over even the most skeptical of the Inspectors, and your appetite for work and your acumen have earned plaudits from every man in authority over you, almost all of whom have told me, with some force, that I should stop remembering the past and judge by the present. Well, even an old dog can learn, and I have rarely been so happy to be proved wrong." He leaned forward and extended his hand.
Petyr accepted it in a mild daze. He had been ready for almost anything, but not such an unequivocal statement of praise and offer to let bygones be bygones. The revelation that Ser Brynden had doubted him had been a blow, but the old man's admission that he had been wrong more than soothed the hurt. As he shook Ser Brynden's hand he couldn't help but feel a lightness enter his heart, as if some old grief had finally been lifted.
"Now," Ser Brynden said as he released Petyr's hand and sat back in his chair again, "we have a task for you. A different one than what you have done for us before now, but one we think you will be well suited for."
Petyr couldn't help a reckless grin. "Name it, my lord," he said eagerly.
"As I am sure you are aware, we have gained a substantial amount of new territory from the destruction of Tyrosh," Ser Brynden said with a nod at the tapestry-map, where the borders were delineated in black thread. "Even with Daario Naharis managing to snaffle off a piece for Lys, we haven't gained so much territory so quickly since the founding of the kingdom; three major towns, more than a hundred smaller villages, and more hamlets and plantations than you can shake a stick at. Now, strictly speaking, it's all Crown land, being spoils of war, but that's frankly not sustainable. We'd have to triple the bureaucracy at least to bring it all under even the slightest semblance of proper government, and the Crown doesn't have the money to do that. At the moment, it's all we can do to keep order in the towns and keep the countryside banditry to an acceptable minimum."
Petyr nodded. He had heard stories from the clerks who had been dispatched to Lissus and Aesica and Brivas; all of them agreed that the west was a wild and woolly land outside the walls of the towns. One clerk in Brivas had written him that the garrison didn't leave the town except in force and full armor, and often came back with bandit heads swinging from their saddlebows to mount over the gates of the town.
"As such, the only thing to do is divide up the countryside into lordships and let our gallant chivalry take over the job of restoring order," Ser Brynden continued. "With the help of the Legion, of course. Now the new lordshavebeen named, but exactly what they hold is still undefined; His Grace and Ser Gerion felt it unwise to draw up the actual land grants until things were more settled. Which hasn't been helped by the disarray that the conquest left. Tyrosh's archives were completely destroyed, of course, as were those of Lissus, while the archives of Brivas were carried off; apparently the archivist and his assistants claimed them as 'movable property'" Petyr couldn't help a chuckle at the absolute disgust in Ser Brynden's voice and on his face as he spat out the last two words. "We've had some luck with Aesica's records, but they only cover the area around Aesica itself with any sort of thoroughness. For the rest of the new territories, we're essentially starting from first principles, the first of which is a new cadastral survey."
Ser Brynden leaned forward. "I want you to lead one of the survey teams. Find out what exactly the area you're assigned to consists of, what it's currently worth, how much itcanbe worth, and what kind of time and resources it will take to get from one to the other. You will have a collection of scribes and other experts to do the necessary writing and measuring and assessing and a squad or two from the Legion for your defense, but you'll still be spending days if not sennights on the road doing hard work in all weathers under more or less constant threat from bandits. You might even have to contend with raiders from over the border; some of our patrols have found incriminating sign of such." Ser Brynden tapped the table. "Do this well, Petyr, and there's more than just a bonus in it for you. I'll nominate you to a post in the upper staff of anyone you care to name; Lord Captain Franlan, Ser Wendel, Ser Gerion, Ned Stark, even the King if a place opens. If you're open to leaving the capital, there are other jobs as well; the Lord Lieutenants are always looking for useful men with good heads on their shoulders."
Petyr smiled. "I accept, my lord," he said firmly, raising his cup. "All that a man can do, I shall."
"I'll drink to that," Ser Brynden replied, tapping his cup against Petyr's. "Orders will be written up within the sennight, and you'll be on the road west within the month."
As Petyr walked away from Ser Brynden's office a short while later he couldn't help but put a spring in his step. His doubters were proved wrong, his worth had been noted at the highest levels, and his star was in the ascendant. Yes, he had months of hard work in questionable weather and doubtful safety to look forward to, but what did he care tonight? He had known that there was opportunity in the Kingdom of Myr, and the scent of it was thick in his nostrils.
XXX
"So what are you going to do?" Ser Addam Marbrand asked.
Ser Lyle Crakehal shrugged. "Stay here, unless I'm told otherwise," he replied. "Why would I go back to Westeros when there's nothing there for me that I don't have or can't get here? It's not like I'm due to inherit much of anything and I don't need my lord father to find me a bride when I can take my pick of the fishing fleet. Nor do I need to push my new reputation into anyone's face, unlike some I could name but won't, like Gerold Falwell." He paused. "Mind, if Ser Jaime asked me to go back with him, that would be another matter, but he hasn't. As far as I know he hasn't asked anyone."
"He asked me," Addam said. "But I was going back anyway, since I'm due to inherit. My lord father's last letter told me that I had spent quite enough time playing the knight errant and I was to come home and learn how to be a proper lord." He shook his head. "Honestly, I wanted to reach through the letter and slap the old man. Doesn't he know what we're fighting against here? Gods know I've told him often enough in my letters."
"There's a difference between reading and seeing," Lyle said darkly. "I'd heard that they were slavers in the east, but I'd never seen a slave pen, or a slave brothel for that matter. Some of the places we cleared out in the city here . . ." he subsided with a wordless rumble, glowering into his wine. Addam nodded in commiseration; he remembered some of those places as well, and others they had found in Tyrosh. He had known that the Tyroshi had a reputation for the ingenuity of their torture devices, but he hadn't given a thought to how those devices were developed and tested.
"I'm staying, anyways," Lyle went on after a long moment. "Better fighting here than in Westeros, and more rewards. They'll be needing new lords in the east, and I'm told that the west might get shaken up as well. A knight like me with four major actions and I don't remember how many skirmishes to my name, along with three great tourneys?"
Addam nodded. "Aye, you'll be much more attractive to His Grace than some parvenu fresh off the boat. Has Ser Jaime given you command?"
"Aside from the lances I led for him against Tyrosh and the Dothraki?" Lyle shrugged. "Nothing explicit, but a lot of Westermen have been sending me letters offering their service, or asking me in person. Mostly younger sons with nothing to inherit like me, or men who don't have anything waiting for them back in Westeros. If I had to guess, I'd say Ser Jaime has been dropping words in ears."
Addam nodded again, this time more speculatively. "You don't think Ser Jaime's going to renounce his inheritance, is he?" he asked softly; the Iron Horse was one of the better inns in Myr city and they were sitting in one of its private rooms, but you never knew who might be listening. "Releasing us from any obligation to follow him back to Westeros, only accepting men who stand to inherit or are the sort of awkward sod you wouldn't mind not seeing again to sail back with him, leaving you in charge? If I didn't know who he was, I'd swear he was intending to come back."
Lyle snorted. "If he does, then he's gone soft in the head. He's the heir toCasterly Rock, for the gods' sake, not some hedge knight. What can he get here that he can't get in Westeros?"
"A good fight?" Addam suggested with a shrug. "There might be a rebellion in the Upper Mander country, but you know that Stannis won't use Western troops to put it down, not after the Sack of King's Landing. And if Balon Greyjoy's stupid enough to pick a fight with Westeros, I'll eat my boots."
Lyle shook his head. "Ser Jaime's a good knight, but he's not stupid," he insisted. "He can do us more good in Casterly Rock than he can here. How big do you think the Royal Army can get with the Rock's gold paying its bills?"
That made Addam pause. The thought of the proverbially rich mines of Casterly Rock pouring a river of gold and silver into King Robert's coffers . . . "Pretty damned big, I'll wager," he said finally. "No, you're probably right. And Ser Jaime's got a good marriage waiting for him besides. Lysa Tully, I heard."
Lyle shook his head in amazement. "Gods, what a web," he said. "The Old Lion's daughter as Stannis' Queen, his son married to Lord Tully's daughter and through her goodbrothers with the Starks, and the dwarf being measured for a Most Devout's robe. When was the last time someone had a hold on the Westerlands, the Riverlands, the Stormlands, the North, the Crownlands, and the Faith all at the same time?"
"Not ever, that I know of," Addam answered, shaking his own head at the picture Lyle had painted. "Mind, you know what they say about eggs; never count them until they're in the pudding."
Chapter 88: Casting Dice
Chapter Text
289 would be a year of ups and downs for the Baratheons in Westeros as well as Essos. On the positive side of the ledger, Queen Cersei was delivered of twin daughters after a long and trying pregnancy. Queen Cersei herself appears to have found the labor a difficult one, for Court records do not show her as appearing in public for fully two months after the twins were born, as opposed to mere days after Lyonel and Joanna's births.
No sooner had Princess Cerelle and Princess Argella been named and presented to Court, however, than word of trouble arrived from the north-eastern Reach. The third revolt of King Stannis' reign, and the first of the Westerosi Wars of Religion, had just gone out of control . . .
Stag at Bay: The Wars of Stannis the Grimby Maester Pherson
"Who in theHells," the High Septon demanded, "is Septon Ryman?"
Most Devout Mateo, for once, looked chagrined. "One of mine, it turns out," he admitted. "Although he didn't start with me. Payten?"
Most Devout Payten tapped a folio that lay on the table before him. "Ryman, born in 247 to unknown parents and abandoned at the doors of the Stony Sept. Raised and educated within the sept, entered seminary, quickly made a name as a brilliant student, especially in debating doctrine. And then he fell in with Jonothor." There was a wave of groans around the table; had any of their problems in the past decadenotstarted with Jonothor? "He started questioning certain practices of the Faith, especially the allowance of local deviations in the execution of the Divine Office," Payten went on. "His slogan quickly became 'one faith, one practice', without allowance for differing conditions from place to place. Unlike Jonothor, however, he attempted to publish his arguments, and then refused to retract them when commanded by the rector. Which is when he became one of Mateo's people."
Mateo nodded. "He was sent to a contemplative monastery in the Red Mountains," he explained, "in order to consider the error of his arguments. He never recanted, however, and apparently only hardened in his beliefs, so his assignment was made indefinite. At least at the monastery he would not be able to corrupt anyone." He grimaced slightly. "Apparently, that judgment was mistaken; it seems that he was able to suborn a young septon who had been sent to the monastery for conduct unbecoming of his office. A septon whose half-brother happens to be Lord Richard Norcross."
"And this was not discovered?" Most Devout Hugar snapped.
"Only after Lord Norcross visited his half-brother at the monastery, and apparently arranged for them to escape," Mateo said. "The superior's report reached me here in King's Landing last month and I submitted it to the office of His Holiness for review. Since then I have heard nothing."
The High Septon concealed a flash of anger at Mateo's all-too-bland voice.Don't think you can pin this on me, you old sand-eater . . ."And what, exactly," he said when he was sure he could control his voice, "does this Ryman believe that is contrary to the magisterium of the Faith?"
"That faith alone is insufficient, but must be combined with correct practice," Mateo said. "That failure to adhere to correct practice is as fatal as lack of faith, and that errors in practice inevitably lead to loss of faith. In addition, he has posited that, as the Book of the Father states 'None may come to me unless I grant them', then the Father not only predestines all things, but He also predestines whether or not an individual may receive salvation or not."
Most Devout Koryn shook his head. "Utter rubbish, even internally," he declared. "If the Father predestines some to salvation and some to damnation, then why bother with correct practice, whatever that might be? What use human free will?"
The High Septon gestured irritably. "A question that need not be answered, as we shall not deign to debate it," he said flatly. "I am told that this Ryman has declared us illegitimate and does not recognize our authority. So be it;wedo not recognizehim. He has fallen away from the Faith, and may he rot where he has fallen."
"Could this Ryman still be in cahoots with Jonothor?" Hugar asked. "Two serious heresies in less than a decade seems unlikely to me."
Payten shook his head. "It appears that they fell out while they were still in seminary," replied. "Jonothor took exception to the theory of double predestination, it seems, while Ryman was unwilling to budge on the necessity of correct practice. A pity; we could have sent Ryman overseas and let the heretics all stew in the same pot."
"Unfortunately, Ryman is here," Mateo said, "and we must deal with him. In aid of which, I propose that we expand the aid we are already giving the Iron Throne. If His Grace is to be able to defend us against this new enemy, then we must give him the means to do so."
The High Septon fought back a glower; heknewMateo had been positioning himself as the natural successor to the crystal crown, and this was as good as proof. "The motion is proposed," he said, forcing his voice to smoothness. "All in favor, make it known."
The motion passed easily. Between Jonothor's heresy, the so-called 'Old Faith' that Septon Derek was promoting in Andalos and which appeared to be spreading in the Vale, and now Ryman's heresy, the Faith was under siege as it had not been since the Conquest. This was not the time to be parsimonious with the Faith's best defender.
XXX
"So," Stannis said as the servants left the chamber, "what happened?"
Lord Randyll Tarly made a face as the war council that had assembled at Stony Sept turned its attention to him. "I miscalculated," he said in a voice strained enough that the words seemed to be dragged out of him. "The report was that Norridge, Norcross, Graves, and Pommingham were in revolt, so I assumed that the only forces I would face would be their meinies and whatever levies they could raise from their peasants, along with however many hedge knights and freeriders they could cozen into their service. I didn't expect to find that a full third of the Upper Mander's chivalry had taken the field." He shook his head. "I overreached and they very nearly mousetrapped me. If the blocking force they had placed north of me had been a hundred men stronger or even a touch better commanded, I'd never have made it out. As it was Lord Caswell's force was cut off; since he hasn't arrived, I assume that he has been either killed or taken."
Ser Cortnay Penrose leaned forward. "Aside from the principals, what other houses did you see in the field?"
Randyll shrugged. "Inchfield, Redding, Bridges, and Leygood were among the banners I saw in the blocking force," he admitted. "I never laid eyes on the main force of the rebels, so I can't swear to who was with them, but my scouts reported 'many' banners, for what that's worth."
Stannis stroked his short beard as he turned to the meeting's host. "It seems, my lord, that we must treat this as a war rather than a simple uprising."
Hoster Tully nodded. "I'll send more ravens tonight," he said. "Given my preference, I'd summon lords from the northern Riverlands, in order to forestall any neighborly feelings; Frey, Lychester, Darry, Vance, Shawney, Blackwood and Bracken. It might take some time for them to assemble."
Stannis nodded. "Lord Tarly and I will be marching south as soon as his men have recovered from their journey. When your forces are assembled, they can follow on and reinforce us. Lord Tyrell, we are told, is mustering another army from the Lower Mander and the coastal lords and means to lead the march up the Mander himself." He smiled slightly at the prospect of the rebels being caught between his fifteen thousand men and Randyll's five thousand coming from the north and Mace's tens of thousands from the south. "And then we'll see how these rebels react to being caught in a vise."
Cortnay winced. "Hard graft, campaigning in winter," he said, jerking his head at the window. There was an inch of snow on the ground, and only the fact that the Stony Sept had thrown open its doors to house Lord Tarly's battered and exhausted troops had kept any of them from dying.
"Indeed," Stannis said, "but we will be able to bear the strain better than the rebels. They must restrain themselves in supporting their army by foraging, if only so that they will be able to tax their smallfolk in the spring. We have no such restrictions."
"Will Lord Lannister not be joining us?" Randyll asked.
Stannis shook his head. "Lannister troops have an ill reputation since the Sack of King's Landing," he replied. "And this matter touches Lord Tully and Lord Tyrell more closely than it does Lord Lannister. His gold will help pay for the armies we raise to crush this rebellion and some of his knights will help reinforce royal garrisons in the Crownlands to keep the Point lords from seeing an opportunity, but no Western soldier will march into the Upper Mander if I have any choice in the matter. In any case," he went on, "Lord Lannister will be in King's Landing for the foreseeable future for consultations with Lord Arryn and his cousin Ser Damon. I trust I need not explain too baldly that the Braavosi's newfound difficulties have created opportunities for men with Lannister's degree of wealth."
Hoster paused in taking a sip of his wine. "He means to establish a new bank?" he asked. "That would set the cat among the pigeons with the Braavosi."
Stannis nodded. "Which is why any speculation must be kept to ourselves. The Iron Bank does not suffer rivals lightly, and any financial strife would be," he paused to consider his words, "I will not say dangerous, but certainly annoying. We need money to flow freely if we are to maintain our present course, and few institutions can make money flow like the Iron Bank." Stannis leaned forward. "Another thing I must emphasize, my lords," he went on, "is that we cannot make any more missteps. The rebels will be emboldened enough by their defeat of Lord Tarly; many more such failures and we will be facing a general revolt of the minor nobility from the Red Mountains to the Neck. Princess Mellario and Ser Harold Jordayne tell me that Dorne is quiet and Lord Stark says the same for the North, but everywhere in between is a potential bonfire. I include the Crownlands and the Stormlands in that estimate; I am aware of how many toes I have stepped on with my initiatives. This rebellion must be put down quickly, but above alldecisively. Enough so that no one else dares to raise their banners against us."
"Especially since they're heretics as well," Lord Tarly added with a snarl of distaste. "Like as not they will claim any future victories as proof that the gods favor their cause above the Throne's."
"For our purposes, their heresy matters not," Stannis said, drawing surprised looks from his followers. "It is enough that they are rebels in arms against us. We care not for how our subjects worship so long as they obey the law, but by the gods wewillhave obedience from our subjects. By whatever means become necessary."
XXX
Tywin Lannister ignored the cold, for all that it cut through both the tow padding of his doublet and the lion fur-trimmed wool of his cloak. The body was but an instrument to serve the mind and the will, and he had long since subjugated his. And the view from atop the main gate of the Red Keep was worth the chill.
To a less discerning observer, King's Landing under a coat of fresh snow might be a beautiful sight, but Tywin's eye could pick out the fundamental untidiness of the city even under its white blanket. Aegon and his sister-wives had been famously uncaring of how their capital would be laid out, being more concerned with the fortification of their stronghold than with how people would live near it. The Conqueror's heirs had continued the trend, caring more for the fact of the city's existence than for the details thereof. Was it not sufficient proof of their greatness that they had caused a great city to spring up where none had existed before? Even Jaehaerys the First, who had found King's Landing a city of wood and left it a city of stone, had done nothing to remedy the basic disorderliness of the city's streets.
The reign of the dragons, he reflected, had reflected their urban planning. Chaotic, disorderly, lurching from crisis to crisis. Jaehaerys the First was the exception that proved the rule; no sooner had he died than the storm clouds began to gather around his heir. The Targaryens had gotten by on the strength of their dragons and the mystique of Old Valyria, but their dragons had withered and they had never turned the legend of their worthiness to rule into reality. By the time Aerys had ascended to the throne, House Targaryen had been a rotting edifice teetering on collapse. One swift kick to the foundation had been all that was necessary but even Tywin had been stunned by the completeness of the collapse. It was a lesson that any noble house would be wise to heed; pay attention to the details or pay with your life.
Fortunately, Stannis had apparently dodged the trap that had beguiled the Targaryens of resting on one's laurels. He had required some direction to prevent time from being wasted on fruitless endeavors, but most of his ideas had been sound and there was nothing wrong with his energy. And he had had the wisdom to put his own house in order first, both by installing his New Nobles and by making his mark on the city. Tywin had walked the Joanna Gardens more than once since his arrival two sennights before Cersei had been brought to bed, always with one of the gardeners at his elbow twittering about how the plants would do so much better when spring came. There was something poetic, he had decided, in the ruins of the Targaryens' power being replaced by a symbol of orderly renewal. Of a certainty it had been a good omen for his goodson's reign.
But Stannis' measures faded from the forefront of his mind as he remembered why he had chosen to pass the rest of the winter in King's Landing. His son was coming home; he had it on good authority that Jaime had engaged the first ship that would dare the crossing after the winter storms abated. Seven long years of ruthlessly concealed anxiety and sleepless nights rewarded by an heir who had tempered youthful vigor with experience and earned a name as one of the great knights of the age. And one, moreover, who in only seven years had washed away stains on House Lannister's reputation that Tywin had privately feared might take decades to scrub out.
Oh, his own name was still irretrievably bloodstained, but Tywin had made his peace with that; what were four deaths set against a war ended almost on the spot? But Jaime was an acknowledged hero, and Tywin had years left to mold him into the lord he needed to be to carry the Lannister name to ever-greater heights. A lord with Jaime's reputation, a sister in his king's bed, and a nephew set to inherit the Iron Throne could reach levels of power that his royal ancestors would have committed any number of murders to attain.
Nor had Jaime been alone in rehabilitating the Lannister name. Tygett had died a hero's death, and Gerion was acquitting himself well as Robert the Brief's Hand. It was slightly worrying that Gerion's dispatches had long since started to indicate a growing fondness for the elder Baratheon, but Tywin could not find it in himself to be concerned; family was family, and Gerion knew that Tywin was master of his House.
Robert and his pet heretic were a more troubling matter. Tywin cared little for theology, but he knew that the Faith was an indispensable pillar of the Seven Kingdoms, and heresy threated to topple it. He had told Stannis the very day after he and Cersei had wed that it mattered not what he thought of the Faith; what did matter was that it be kept stable and biddable, so that it would support your rule and lend it's weight to your endeavors. And behold, his injunction had been borne out; had not the High Septon told Jon Arryn that very morning that the Faith would extend the tax on it's revenue for another five years, and increase it from a tenth to a seventh? Tywin had every confidence that this new rebellion would bind the Faith closer to Stannis, especially if, as he sometimes feared on his more sleepless nights, the roots of heresy ran too deep to be easily extracted. Which, paradoxically, made Robert's protection of Jonothor all the more threatening.
It was an article of faith that heresy could not be tolerated. Themodus vivendithat had evolved between the Faith and the followers of the old gods allowed for coexistence on the basis of mutual non-interference, but heresy within the Faith was regarded as an existential threat, one that if left uncrushed would invariably lead to dissension, civil war, even to anarchy. If Robert managed to provide a counter-example, that a sufficiently beloved, impartial, and scrupulous king could cause different sects to live together in harmony, then it would not only call into question Stannis' defense of orthodoxy but cast a shadow over the legitimacy of his rule. How could a king call himself a great king if he needlessly repressed his own subjects? No, if Jonothor's heresy could not be uprooted and sent to the pyre, then at the very least it needed to be held at bay so that it never crossed the Narrow Sea.
The first of those steps was the bank he intended to create. He would not have dared to challenge the Iron Bank at the height of its powers, but the disasters that had fallen on the Braavosi in the East would shake even the Iron Bank to its foundations if he was any judge. The establishment of a Lannister Bank would act as a curb on the financial power of the Braavosi in Westeros; the mere existence of a competitor would force them to offer better terms to their customers than if they stood alone at the height of the banking world. And in the east the Lannister name was tied to Jaime. Lions might not care for the opinions of sheep, but bankers did; the Iron Bank would hesitate to strike against an institution that was so prominently tied to such a famous abolitionist.
Stannis had wanted the bank to be placed in King's Landing and named the Royal Bank when Tywin had broached the idea, but Jon Arryn had proved an unexpected ally. The Old Falcon might resent Tywin's resurgence, but he feared the failure of the Baratheon dynasty more than he resented going from the power behind the throne to the middling member of the triumvirate of powers below the King. Establishing a new bank on the scale that Tywin proposed to do, Arryn had pointed out, was an inherently risky enterprise; if, gods forbid, it failed, then it would be better if it had as tenuous a connection to the dynasty as possible. And if it succeeded, then it would be less trouble with the other kingdoms if it was a Lannister institution rather than yet another new royal institution meant at consolidating power behind the Iron Throne. It would be a thin veil, but sometimes a thin veil was all that was necessary.
And the negotiations to establish the bank weren't the only reason Tywin was in King's Landing. With so many of his plans being so long-term, he had to ensure that the next generation would be ready to take up the cudgels. Cersei's recent delivery of twin girls had been disappointing insofar as it had failed to secure the dynasty, but Tywin wasn't minded to complain overmuch. Cersei had come too close to sharing her mother's fate for him to carp; had Pycelle been slightly less skilled or Fortune slightly less kind, then Tywin would have been forced to watch her buried. As it was, she had come extremely close to death. Pycelle had ordered strict bedrest for at least two sennights, if not longer, and no strenuous activity or excitement for at least a month, and for once Cersei had not objected to instructions. At least her newfound devotion to the Seven was helping her in that regard. It wasn't like prayer required you to move; quite the opposite, if anything.
The new twins were too young to pass judgment on, save that their good health and lack of deformity made for a good beginning, but the older children were promising indeed. Lyonel was proving to be an active boy, equally eager to learn in the classroom as in the tiltyard when his governess allowed him to watch the knights at practice, while Joanna bade fair to match her mother's beauty. Lyonel might be short-tempered, even for a boy of five, but there was time yet for that flaw to be remedied. And in truth Tywin had little fear for their educations; both Stannis and Jon Arryn were already making arrangements for them to receive the finest instruction that the Iron Throne could buy, and Arryn had promised to personally take a hand when it came time for Lyonel to learn statecraft. And his concerns about Cersei's stability had so far proven to be groundless, and not likely to affect her children. Tywin could not help a smile as he remembered how Joanna had managed to inveigle him into joining her at play with her dolls, of all things. That girl would go far, if she learned to temper her ability to make friends with wisdom in her choice of friends.
But most surprising of all was the dwarf. Tyrion had apparently thrown himself wholeheartedly into his education at the Great Sept's seminary. His teachers reported that he still had a weakness for wine, but he had so far stayed away from capital's whor*s and other vices. One septon reported that Tyrion had taken it upon himself to chastise some of his fellow pupils who had strayed from their vows, and that the combination of holy writ and withering sarcasm that he had employed had proved remarkably effective. He might have a worrying tendency to play heretic's advocate, but Tywin could remedy that swiftly enough and otherwise he seemed poised to be a worthy agent of his family's interests in the Faith. And it would be yet another proof of Lannister greatness that where other dwarfs were mummers or objects in private grotesqueries the one dwarf that the Lannisters had been cursed with would rise high in the ranks of the Faith.
A sudden bursting gust made Tywin turn away from the city and began to stride along the wall towards the stairs, his personal guards falling in around him. The body might be the subject of the will, but a wise ruler never pushed his subjects further than they were able; the clouds coming down from the north had looked distinctly unpromising. He was no longer young enough that his age could be wholly denied; all the better then that so many of his plans would be executed by his son and goodson. He would leave them a stable foundation to build upon, but there were still some dice yet to throw, and he meant to make them as crooked as possible. Even the most carefully-laid plans could be thrown astray by the madness or the stupidity of mortals, the gods knew he had seen enough proof of that when he had served as Aerys' Hand. The Red Viper Rebellion and the abortive rising of the Point Lords were quite enough in the way of unforeseen surprises, and he would do all in his power to avert anymore.
One throw had already mostly succeeded. Lysa Tully had joined his party when he had passed Riverrun, in order to help cement her betrothal with Jaime as swiftly as possible. She seemed an intelligent girl, if somewhat flighty and prone to chatter, but Tywin suspected that she had leapt at the chance to travel to King's Landing in order to escape her father's court as much as to meet her betrothed. Tywin shrugged internally; if Lysa could be detached from her father then that was all to the good. Better that she should be a vehicle for her husband's will rather than her father's.
Even so, Tywin could not help the feeling that most of the dice were still in the air.
Chapter 89: Placing Bets
Chapter Text
"You know, I was starting to think that you had waited too long to give the signal," Ser Hubert Flowers said as he cleaned his longsword.
Lord Gaston Graves shrugged. "Something my father always told me about waiting on the battlefield," he explained. "When you think you've waited a moment too long, wait a moment more. Nerve cold-blue, blade blood-red."
Hubert nodded pensively. "A fine saying, that," he said agreeably. "I'll have to remember it. But perhaps for another time; here comes my brother now."
A pair of men-at-arms were frog-marching Lorent Caswell out of the keep, forging their way through the semi-controlled riot that the storming had turned into once the last resistance had been overcome and the troops had begun the sack. A place that had been taken by storm was the lawful prey of the stormers, under the laws of war. As Lorent was pushed to his knees before the horses of the men that had taken Bitterbridge Hubert leaned on the pommel of his saddle and smiled merrily. "Well, then, brother, what shall we do with you?"
For a boy barely of a man's years, Lorent could muster an impressive glare. "You f*cking traitor," he snarled, hawking a gob of bloody spit at Hubert's boot. "My father raised you in his castle, trained you as a knight, and you repay him with treachery?"
Hubert shrugged. "You're behind the times, brother," he said smoothly. "If anyone's the traitor here, you are, for not accepting the True Faith and forswearing the corruption of Baelor's. As for our father, I had no hand in his death; he died from wounds he had taken at Redleaf Stream, when Lord Tarly abandoned us."
Lorent spat again; clearly the beating he had taken was making blood leak into his mouth. "At least he didn't live to see you betray him," he said hotly. "I should have known when I saw that it was you riding in my father's place in the van; never trust a bastard to keep faith." He turned his gaze to Gaston. "You shame your knighthood to ride with this man, ser, much less to take part in his deceit."
"War is war," Gaston replied bluntly, walking his horse a pace forward. "You think there are rules to it, boy? If you're still breathing at the end of the day, then you win; that's the only rule that matters." With a sudden movement he withdrew his sabaton-clad foot from the stirrup and kicked Lorent in the face, knocking the young man flat. "And I am a lord, boy," he went on mildly, "so address me properly."
Lorent struggled back to his knees, helped along by the men-at-arms. "If I am for the axe, then swing it and have done," he spat through broken teeth. "Although you had better be prepared for me to haunt you for the rest of your days,brother," he hawked blood at the hooves of Hubert's horse. "Then again, maybe you won't care; you're already a traitor, and a bastard at that. Kinslaying should be no great obstacle."
Hubert reared back in his saddle. "Me? Slay my own brother?" he said in a mock-wounded voice. "Gods forbid that I should spill the blood of my kinsman. No, brother, you have nothing to fear from me." He paused, resettling himself in the saddle, and then raked back the spurs.
The men-at-arms holding Lorent's arms sprang away with curses as Hubert's courser lurched forward, directly at the kneeling man. At a range of a few feet the horse stopped dead in its tracks, reared, and lashed out with its forelegs, striking like a boxer. Both iron-shod hooves, each the size of a dinner plate, struck Lorent Caswell square on, the first in the upper chest and the second one on the cheekbone, sending the young lord sprawling on his back. Obedient to the signals it was receiving from its rider's legs and spurs, the horse spurted forward a few paces and then began to dance in place, bouncing off its front legs to pick it's hooves up and stamp them down on the young man who lay prone beneath it. If the first pair of blows hadn't killed Lorent Caswell on the spot, the ones that followed certainly did.
Hubert reined his horse in a minute later, backing it off the battered sack of splintered bones and pulped meat that his half-brother had become, and then shrugged at Gaston's look of surprise and mild shock. "I said he had nothing to fear from me," he said defensively. "I said nothing at all about my horse. And while I admit that there is more than a passing resemblance to his mother, I can categorically assure you that they are not related."
Gaston shrugged and sheathed his sword. "You know, I could have simply beheaded him for you, and spared the mess," he said mildly. "But done is done, and you've more than upheld your part of the bargain." He gestured at his squire, and that blood-spattered worthy placed a scroll in his hand. "Congratulations on your accession, Lord Caswell," he said as he handed over the grant and writ of legitimation. "Long may you hold your seat."
Hubert bowed slightly as he accepted the paired documents. "Oh, I plan to, my lord," he said with relish. "The gods know that I have waited long enough."
"I will leave you to it, then," Gaston said, reining his horse aside and sending it trotting away where Hubert couldn't see the look of disgust that crept onto his face. He had had his doubts when Septon Ryman had suggested using the bastard to claim Bitterbridge, and what he had seen since had confirmed him in those doubts. Hubert was a blunt instrument, with no more manners or breeding than the tradesman his maternal grandfather had been, although he appeared to be properly appreciative of the men who had arranged for him to claim Bitterbridge. On the other hand, he was an active and brave man who seemed to have the way of getting along with fellow knights; evidently old Lord Caswell had used him as one of his captains. If he hadn't been born on the wrong side of the blanket, he would have made an excellent knight. As it was, Gaston feared that he would remain a mere thug, if a well-trained one. Young Lorent, by contrast, had showed the influence of proper breeding with his defiance. Powerless and at the mercy of his captors and the boy had gone to his end like a man. A pity that he couldn't have been swayed to their side, he would have been a pillar of their cause.
Although even what troubles Hubert might present paled next to the success they had gained so far, he reflected as he dismounted before Bitterbridge's stables and handed off the reins to his page. Lord Tarly, the most highly renowned warlord that the Reach had to offer, had fled before them like a whipped dog and Lord Caswell's contingent had surrendered immediately after their lord had gone down in the melee. And now Bitterbridge, one of the greatest castles on the Mander, had fallen to them in mere hours with far fewer men lost than he had feared. Gaston had had his doubts about Septon Ryman; as worthy as the man was in himself, Gaston had stopped trusting in the special providence of the Gods the day that he had learned of his brother's suicide. But now their cause was triumphant, and all because they had heeded Septon Ryman's exhortations and listened to his advice.
Gaston fingered the seven-pointed star medallion that hung from his neck. He had found his faith again, and the gods pity any who tried to deny him.
XXX
"I still say that campaigning in winter is folly," Olenna Tyrell said sharply. "Really, Mace, it's not like the Upper Mander is going anywhere."
"Perhaps not, mother, but the rebels are," Mace replied, holding his arms out as his squires, Lady Oakheart's middle son Aragost and Lord Hightower's youngest son Gunthor, fastened on his arm harnesses. He had already bade his wife farewell, but his mother had insisted on remaining as he was armed; she had not been done trying to poke holes in his argument for action. "With Bitterbridge taken they've effectively seized control of every district north of there, or at the very least cut them off. All the taxes those districts produce comes to us on the Mander, and Bitterbridge cuts off all the traffic upstream of it."
"And those taxes will not come again for months anyway," Olenna shot back, folding her hands on the hilt of her cane. "Not until spring is well advanced, at least, and by then the roads will be dry enough to support armies. Really, Mace, this looks more like posturing than anything useful."
Mace concealed a flash of irritation as his squires finished lacing up his arm harnesses; it would be unseemly to snap at his mother where the squires could hear. "Maester Lomys assures me that the current cold spell will last for some sennights yet," he said reassuringly as he flexed his arms to help settle the plates. "And when it breaks, it will be with snow, not rain. By then we should be at Cider Hall, and able to wait out any dampness."
"Oh, Cider Hall," Olenna said scathingly. "Perfectly positioned to thumb your nose at the rebels without being able to do anything about them. As if you couldn't do that here and save us the effort and money of calling the banners and marching halfway up the Mander."
Mace raised a hand to stop his squires from giving him his helmet and gauntlets. "I won't be needing those until we assemble at the gates," he said pleasantly. "Await me outside, if you please." As the squires withdrew with identical bows, closing the door behind them as they went, Mace turned to face his mother. "Whether or not we will actually come to grips with the rebels in this campaign is irrelevant, mother," he said frostily. "Lord Caswell is dead and his legitimate heir murdered and supplanted by a bastard. We must do something, and beseento do something, or else the whole Reach will go up in smoke. This rebellion is as much against House Tyrell as it is against Stannis; if we do not hang together, then the rebels will hang us separately. And it's not like I'm doing anything out of the ordinary; House Tyrell's fortunes have always waxed and waned with the Iron Throne's."
"You just want to prove that you're as great a warlord as Lyonel or Leo Longthorn," Olenna snapped back. "And since the Dornish didn't oblige you, you need to take it out on your bannermen."
"In the first place, they aren't my bannermen anymore," Mace said reasonably. "Not until they stop rebelling against me, anyway. In the second place, I'm glad you brought up the subject of Dorne, because thatisthe other reason I'm doing this. Doran Martell lost his seat for not doing enough to keep the King's Peace; gouty as he might have been, he could still have played the man against his brother. If I sat in Highgarden and watched the rain fall while Stannis put down this rebellion, do you really think he would not demand thatIstep down, and let Willas take the Roseseat?"
Olenna blinked. "He would not dare," she said after a long pause. "Dorne and the Martells are one thing, but Highgarden is not so easily trifled with."
"And will you tell Stannis that, when he comes with his Stormguard and a new royal order to patrol the Reach?" Mace pressed. "You know as well as I that our bannermen would like nothing better than to see us fall. Why should we who were stewards be kings in all but name, when there are half a dozen houses with more of the Gardener's blood in their veins than us? No, if we want to hold Highgarden, then we must keep in the Iron Throne's good graces. With Stannis at our side, then our bannermen will do no more than mutter. Without him, then we will be fighting these rebellions all over the Reach, and sooner or later they will overwhelm us and we will have to yield to whatever terms Stannis is willing to offer us in order to restore order. Would you like to see royal soldiers standing guard on Highgarden's walls and royal clerks inspecting Highgarden's accounts, or a Royal Order of the Mander or somesuch using Highgarden as a garrison? It will happen, unless we cleave to Stannis." Mace turned away. "The ground is shifting under our feet, mother," he said over his shoulder as he opened the door. "I am trying to keep it as solid as I might. I pray you get out of my way and let me do what I can."
Mace rarely felt more satisfied than he did when he closed the door in his mother's face. Honestly, did the woman not see what was coming down the pike? Mace had seen it in Dorne; Stannis meant to change the order of the world. House Tyrell could either stand with him and carve out a place at his side, or they could stand against him and take their chances, but they couldnottry to play both ends against the middle, not this time. If they tried, they would be ground to powder. For his part, Mace had decided to stand with Stannis; he had placed his hands between Stannis' and sworn fealty, and the gods knew that he was true to his given oath.
And there were reasons besides honor, he reflected as he strode down the corridor to Highgarden's muster square. For one, Stannis had proved himself generous to those that stood with him and served him well. Look at Euron Greyjoy. If a third son with no greater prospects than a life of piracy could be raised to the small council, then how high could Mace Tyrell, one of the three or four most powerful single men in Westeros, rise if he gave satisfaction? It was unlikely that any of his grandchildren would sit on the Iron Throne, with Margaery betrothed to Lord Rowan's boy, but a betrothal between Princess Joanna and either Willas or Garlan would be almost as good, and certainly not beyond possibility.
For another, someone would have to keep Tywin Lannister from running roughshod over the Seven Kingdoms. Stannis might be his own man, but he had been a man grown when he came under Tywin's eye, and an unusually strong-willed one at that. There was no guarantee that Prince Lyonel would be similarly willful, especially since his mother was Tywin's daughter and would doubtless prime him to heed the Old Lion's counsel above all others. Jon Arryn could only do so much to counter the Lannisters with the Vale coming to a boil, Brandon Stark was too far away and too disinclined to meddle in the affairs of the wider kingdom, Renly was a promising boy but still a boy, it would be years before Dorne was anything but a viceroyalty of the Iron Throne, the Iron Islands were too poor and too lightly peopled to be more than an irritant, and Hoster Tully had betrothed his daughter to Tywin's heir. Mace knew that he was the only man in Westeros outside of Stannis who could hope to challenge Tywin as the power behind the Iron Throne. His jaw tightened imperceptibly as he remembered the sight of five corpses wrapped in red cloaks, two of them far too small. He would not allow Tywin Lannister to be the only voice in the King's ear; Aerys' death he would not carp about, but one massacre of the innocents was quite enough.
XXX
"Next!" the craggy-faced and mustachioed knight called as he waved away the recruit standing in front of the table that had been set up in front of the Apple and Pear. "Step forward, say your name."
Jon stepped forward and stamped to attention. "Jon Barley, ser. Archer."
The knight raised an eyebrow. "Archer, eh? Show us your kit, then."
Jon laid his bowstave, wrapped in its bowstring, on the knight's table, following it with his falchion, arrow bag, baselard, and eating knife. As the knight hurriedly pulled his inkpot off the table to spare from being knocked over by the impromptu inspection, Jon took his purse off his belt and placed it on the table to withdraw two spare bowstrings, his tinderbox and sewing kit, a lump of beeswax for the bowstrings, and a small sack of arrowheads, all of which were laid on the table. Finally, he plucked his kettle helmet, the right brim of which had been trimmed away to allow an easier draw, on the table and stepped back a half-pace; he was already wearing his jack with its short mail sleeves and his heavy steerhide gloves.
The knight put his inkpot back on the desk when he was sure it wouldn't be knocked over onto his parchment. "You've done this before," he observed. "Dorne?"
Jon nodded. "Yes, ser. Served with Lord Peake's company."
The knight raised his eyebrow again; Jon suspected it was a tic. "But not anymore?" he asked in a tone that suggested that he expected a good answer.
Jon shrugged, concealing the flash of irritation with ease; he had long since gotten used to people assuming that he was a bandit. "Wife died when I was in Dorne, ser. Didn't have any family left in Starpike and I was a free peasant, so I took to the road as a caravan guard. Not many caravans in winter and I heard that Lord Fossoway was paying good money for soldiers, so I decided to try my luck."
The knight nodded. "Very well, then," he said. "Two silver stags a week, plus room and board; if you don't like the food, buy your own. You have all your own equipment and you're an experienced man, so you get a week's pay now as a bonus. Bardolf here's your sergeant," he indicated a scraggle-bearded man with a many-times-broken nose standing behind him, "anyone who gives orders to him gives orders to you. No drunkenness, no indiscipline, no theft, no fornication unless you pay for it. First offence is up to Bardolf to punish, second offence is a flogging, third offence gets you either branded or hanged, depending on the circ*mstances. Any plunder you take you share equally with your mess group, His Lordship will buy any ransoms you take. Any questions?"
"Just one, ser," Jon said. "Is Lord Fossoway for the rebels or against them? I've always been a king's man, and a Faithful one."
The knight's mouth quirked in a half-smile. "When Lord Fossoway sees fit to tell me, Master Barley, you'll be the first man I pass it on to. Until he does, I just do as he tells me to and fight who he tells me to."
Jon nodded. "Can't say fairer than that, ser," he said. "Where do I make my mark?"
XXX
Rodrik Harlaw had always considered his study a sanctuary. When all the business of the day was done, he could close the door, open one of his books, and take an hour or two of blessed quiet to himself. Unlike people, his books had never asked him for anything he couldn't give them, and they had always given him far more than they had asked him for. So Rodrik had poured almost all his spare money into this, his one extravagance, collecting books from across the world to form the greatest library in the Isles. It might be a paltry collection compared to that of Tywin Lannister or Mace Tyrell, much less Lord Hightower's library or the vast shelves of the Citadel, but it was still a worthy array, and as great a display of wealth as Harlaw's fleet, in its way.
Which made the current circ*mstances all the more painful. The books that for so long had been his refuge and his resource, his unanswerable reserve of knowledge, were now a torment. Rodrik had read and re-read through every book and scroll in his possession, trying to find some way to cheat fate, but he had failed. There was nothing in his books that could allow him to override the inexorable dictates of geography.
The Isles were simply too small and too poor to stand a chance against the other realms of Westeros. The Isles produced tin, lead, iron, fish, and almost nothing else. No one starved if the Drowned God was kind with the sea-harvest, but there was no way for the Isles to produce the population or the wealth to fight the Westerlands or the Reach or the Riverlands or even the North on anything like even terms. The Ironborn might be able to strike the first blow, and strike hard with surprise and shock, but the greenlanders had reserves of men and wealth and resources that the Ironborn would never be able to lay a hand on. Once those reserves were brought to bear, it became a question of mathematics; what did it matter if one Ironborn reaver was the equal of five greenlander warriors if the greenlanders outnumbered them by twenty to one? No, if there was one thing the histories all agreed on, it was that the Ironborn had always done best when the mainland realms were divided and fighting amongst themselves. Harwyn Hardhand's victory over Arrec Durrandon was the exception that proved the rule; Hardhand would never have conquered the Riverlands if he hadn't been aided by riverlords dissatisfied with being ruled from Storm's End. Dalton's raids had taken place during the Dance of Dragons, and Dagon had only been able to do as much as he did because the Targaryens had been distracted by the Blackfyres and the Kingdoms had been weakened by plague and drought. In both cases, once the Kingdoms had recovered, vengeance had not been long delayed. And that was before so many of the Ironborn had been tempted away from the Isles by greener pastures and more appreciative lords.
Rodrik took a sip of his evening wine and glowered out the window towards the east. Towards Tyrosh, where hope had died.
The death had been long in coming, and the product of more twists of fate than he cared to think of, but no less inexorable for all Rodrik could tell. He had known Balon from of old, even before they had become goodbrothers; it had pleased old Lord Quellon to encourage a friendship between his heir and the foremost of his vassals. Balon had always been proud. Proud of his strength and prowess, aye, but even more proud of his lineage, of the long line of reavers and raiders that had made the world fear the sight of longships on the horizon. As they had aged, that pride had curdled into the great weakness of their people, that poisonous mixture of veneration of the past, resentment of the present, and envy of the greenlanders with their undeserved riches. Rodrik had been touched by that madness in his youth as well, when he had made his reaving voyages, but somehow he had outgrown it. A combination of his books, his responsibilities as Lord, and his wife and children perhaps, but whatever it was, it seemed to have affected him alone. So he had watched his people carry on as they had done, struggling to hew a life out of the Isles and the seas around them and reflexively despising the greenlanders as soft while at the same time desiring their riches like a drunkard desired wine, his former approval turning to well-concealed exasperation as he read of how things might be different.
Balon had gone down a diametrically opposed path, for all Quellon's cajoling, growing ever more disdainful of everything that was not Ironborn, ever more devoted to the old songs of the glory days of the reavers. Balon worshipped at the shrine of Harwyn Hardhand and Harren the Black, of Dalton the Red Kraken and Dagon the Last Reaver, as much as he worshipped the Drowned God. Rodrik had hoped that Balon's accession to the Lordship of Pyke might mellow him; responsibility changed men, and Balon was a father with sons to provide a future to. Even when Balon had first begun to talk of rebellion Rodrik had hoped to steer him onto a different course, to use his knowledge to convince Balon that there were other ways to gain glory than a doomed revolt against such a king as Stannis.
But then Victarion had stormed the Bleeding Tower, with courage and craft and prowess that the reavers of old would have applauded. The outpouring of songs in honor of Freedom's Reaver had been instantaneous and overwhelming; not since Dalton had a Greyjoy so perfectly embodied the virtues of the Ironborn, to hear the skalds tell it. Balon's wrath had been terrible. Even if Victarion died ingloriously his reputation was already set in stone, and it was so great as to cast his brother's into impenetrable shadow.
That Euron had also achieved great fame Balon barely acknowledged these days; bad enough that one brother should be a king's running-dog, he had once snarled to Rodrik, but that two of his brothers should be so lost to shame was anguish inexpressible. The rumors that Euron might be planning to convert to the Faith of the Seven, and the confirmed news that he had been seen in consultation with septons, had only completed the breach; Balon had forbidden Euron's name to be spoken in his hearing. For his part, Rodrik could understand Euron's choice even if his heart and liver instinctively rebelled against apostasy. Euron had made his bed in King's Landing and converting would open doors that would otherwise remain closed to him, regardless of Stannis' favor. As for the doors it would close, he had left those doors behind him when he had abandoned his homeland and forsaken his brother.
Regardless, when people spoke the name Greyjoy, they invariably did so in reference to Victarion and Euron; Balon hardly rated a mention. The only way that Balon might challenge the reputation of his brothers was to do them one better. What did the favored servants of powerful kings matter, against one who had seized a crown at sword's point and defended it against all enemies?
Rodrik sipped his wine again, fighting off despair. They had plans, they had assets, the god knew he had developed enough of them. And Balon's 'master spy', whoever they were, had reported that the time was ripe, that this new rebellion had hamstrung Stannis and exposed the Iron Throne's weakness for the world to see. The vultures were circling, and waited only for someone to strike the deathblow. When Balon struck for his own then the Ironborn captains in the royal fleets of Westeros and Myr would remember their true allegiances and rejoin their true king. The wavering lords in the Isles, men like Farwynd and Wynch and Tawney and Drumm, would flock to Balon's banner at the first glorious victory, for fear of being left out of the spoils. The Seven Kingdoms would collapse into a stew of anarchy and civil war, tearing at each other over their seven gods and their quarrels, and the Ironborn would rule the waves and raid where it pleased them to raid and take what it pleased them to take.
Rodrik snorted to himself. In a pig's eye. He didn't care if Balon's 'master spy' was Varys the Spider as so many of their fellow conspirators chose to believe, no plan was that perfect. He had been a captain and then a lord long enough to know that some damned thingalwayswent wrong.
He tossed back the rest of his wine and picked up a book; not a history or a recounting of tales but a collection of romances. He needed to distract himself from his problems, if only for an hour, and that much his books could still do for him at least.
Chapter 90: Doubling Down
Chapter Text
Winter campaigns were unusual in Westeros, but not unheard of. As a matter of fact, winter was theoretically one of the better times to launch a campaign; with the agricultural cycle at a low ebb, more peasant farmers would be willing to try and earn some extra money as soldiers and be able to leave their fields for the extended periods of time required. It rarely worked that way, of course, but the old Valyrian and Ghiscari manuals on how to wage war all agreed that one of the main factors limiting the size of armies was the need for sufficient farmers to be retained to grow food. What made winter campaigns unusual was that several factors needed to come together to allow one to happen.
The Royal Army of Westeros, as the collection of forces that gathered at Stony Sept was officially dubbed, had three of these factors going for it at the start of the campaign. Access to Stony Sept's storehouses, filled by the abundant harvests of the Riverlands, provided the necessary logistical base. It's composition, based around the Royal Order of the Crown, the New Nobles, and the personal retinues of the lords summoned to the campaign, gave it the necessary size, or rather lack thereof; each man could be equipped for long marches and hard fights in cold weather out of the resources of the area, primarily by employing every weaver, seamstress, and tailor in the district to turn a year's wool into cloaks. And in Stannis Baratheon, Randyll Tarly, and Hoster Tully it had three active, forceful leaders who were willing to take chances to strike a decisive blow.
The third circ*mstance was up to the gods to provide, for it had to do with the weather. A winter campaign required a prolonged spell of weather cold enough to keep the ground hard under a marching army but not cold enough to be fatal to unsheltered men and beasts, with either no precipitation or at the very least not enough to turn the ground to mud and bog the army down. A day of heavy snow, followed by a day of cold rain, could kill men by the hundreds.
This was a combination of circ*mstances so rare that the Lords Resolute had justifiably gambled the safety of their territory on it. After the taking of Bitterbridge they dispersed much of their army to the web of villages in the northern part of their territory, retaining sizable forces only at Bitterbridge and Norcross Castle. In this way they had hoped to keep their army easily fed for the balance of the winter while keeping their villages garrisoned enough to see off any small raiding parties that Stannis might send against them. Winter was a season for raiding parties, not armies.
Unfortunately for the rebels, the weather turned clear and cold a mere sennight after the arrival of the contingent sent by Lord Frey, fifty picked lances under his third son Aenys, and Stannis did not let the opportunity go to waste. The Royal Army divided into three columns under its principal commanders and set out from Stoney Sept, marching southwards over the Goldroad and into the northeastern Reach. Each of these columns, three hundred lances strong, had been given an itinerary and detailed instructions not only on what to do at each stop but on what to do in case of contact with a weaker, equal, or stronger force. Stannis had made it clear that he expected these instructions to be followed unless doing so would cause disaster; there were times for flexibility and improvisation, he had said, but this was not one of them.
The first village to be visited by one of these columns was the small town of Treve's Cross, named for the fact that it stood on the intersection of two tributary lanes of the Goldroad. The town being the largest settlement for miles, and close to the border of the territory the rebels controlled, it had been allotted a garrison of twenty lances; enough to fight a delaying action while warning was sent to Norcross Castle. This the commander of the garrison, a minor cousin of the Norridge family named Gerold, attempted to do, but he found himself facing the column commanded by King Stannis and made up of the Royal Order of the Crown and New Nobles commanded by Stormguard knights.
Gerold Norridge tried his best to fight the sort of hit-and-run action that he had been ordered to fight, but the men he was facing had cut their teeth on that sort of fighting in Dorne; Norridge's ambush was broken by the speedy reaction of the men he had attempted to spring it on and within minutes his little command was riding south as fast as their horses could carry them. They did not ride far before they ran into the detachment of outriders that Stannis had sent to hook around the town the day before. These men, mounted archers and light horse equipped after the fashion of the Dornishjinetes, cut Norridge's lances to pieces. Norridge and thirteen of his men were taken prisoner and brought before Stannis at Treve's Cross, the other ninety having been killed, left for dead on the field, or scattered to the winds. Stannis heard the report of his outriders' commander, Ser Michael Cotton, and promptly ordered the prisoners to be hanged as rebels taken in arms.
As the ropes were thrown over the branches of convenient trees and nooses tied, Stannis turned his attention to the headman of Treve's Crossing. Was Treve's Crossing ready to return to its true allegiance? he asked sharply. The headman, glancing nervously at the rebels being strung up, assured him that it was. Excellent, Stannis declared, then the headman would gladly furnish him with the names of all who had given aid and comfort to the rebels, as well as such supplies as his chief clerk would name. The headman spluttered protests about informing on his neighbors and the need to keep all the supplies the village had for the winter and was promptly beaten to the ground by the spear-butts of two of the king's sergeants. Disobedience to a king's lawful order, Stannis observed coldly over the headman's whimpers, was rebellion and punishable by death, but he was willing to exercise his prerogative of mercy and grant the headman a second chance to obey. The headman, spitting blood and broken teeth, obeyed.
All across the northeastern Reach, similar scenes played out. The small garrisons that the Lords Resolute had scattered throughout their hinterland proved too few to mount effective resistance against the royalist columns. Most beat hasty retreats, losing men to the cold and the enforced lack of preparation, while those who tried to fight were either quickly driven off or entrapped and overwhelmed. On Stannis' orders every man taken in arms was executed as a rebel and traitor. The relevant order specified hanging, on the grounds that such men did not deserve to die by the sword when it could be helped, but it made allowances if there was a lack of time, rope, or convenient trees or roofbeams. The main difference between the three columns was in how they treated their prisoners prior to execution and how they treated the villages on their itineraries.
Stannis' column was punctiliously disciplined, partly as a result of ingrained habits from the Dornish war and partly because they were under their King's eye. Stannis had no compunctions about being as hard on his men as he was on the enemy, if it was the only way to enforce discipline. The old sweats with wrinkles around their eyes from the Dornish sun did their part, telling vivid stories of the punishments Stannis had inflicted on looters and rapists in Dorne, and the flogging of three archers who had attempted to molest a woman in Treve's Cross underlined the point. Named traitors were swiftly dispatched and assessed collections meant as fines for abetting treason were ruthlessly collected, but otherwise the Crownlanders were on their best behavior
Hoster Tully was less scrupulous in enforcing discipline; for two reasons. Firstly, he knew better than anyone that keeping the web of alliances, mutual understandings, and momentarily shelved rivalries that was an army of Riverlanders in order was a difficult exercise even at the best of times; an overabundance of discipline would break such an army into its component parts with bewildering speed. Secondly, he knew that part of the reason his bannermen had come was for the chance to plunder; they were all entitled to draw king's wages after forty days in service, but plunder in your hand was always better than pay in arrears, even if Stannis had yet to default on payment owed. So Hoster studiously looked the other way while the men under his command pocketed what they could pick up and generally trusted his lords to keep their men in order, although he drew the line at rape, murder, and arson. They were there to restore the King's Peace, he sternly reminded his lords as they crossed the border, not to treat the Reach as an enemy country to be conquered. Anyone not in arms against the King was a fellow subject and was to be treated accordingly. By and large, the riverlords listened. There were occasional incidents that required the column to halt for a half-day while facts were found and justice dispensed with the whip or the sword and the troops of some Houses gained unsavory reputations, but aside from looting everything that wasn't nailed down and didn't try to run away, the rivermen behaved themselves for the most part.
The column of Reachmen under Randyll Tarly was another matter entirely. These were men who had suffered a serious blow to their pride when they had been forced to run for their lives to get out of the trap the rebels had laid for them. The fury of proud men forced to suffer embarrassment had set into them, further spiced by the news of the fall of Bitterbridge to the rebels and the murder of Lorent Caswell. That Septon Ryman had reportedly endorsed the bloody deed as 'the due of all men who do not submit to the will of the Seven' had been the last straw.
No man who fought against the Reachmen was taken alive to be hanged. The villages they came across were ransacked and burned, the inhabitants driven out into the winter. Attempts by village headmen and local septons to plea for better treatment from fellow Reachmen fell on deaf ears; most of the Reachmen under the king's banner were southerners, men from the Tarly lands on the Dornish Marches and the minor lords and landed knights who were their neighbors. As far as they were concerned, these northerners were almost a different people, and certainly not close enough to merit special consideration. And Randyll, whose creed had no place for pretense, knew that if he didn't give his men the opportunity to vent their spleen now then they would do so later, and probably under less manageable circ*mstances. He had no wish to see anything like the Destruction of Tyrosh happen on Westerosi soil, even if he was fighting heretics. So while it might irk his sense of fitness to allow indiscipline, he let his men plunder and sack, punishing only especially egregious violations.
The Lords Resolute, for their part, reacted well. More than a few of them were also veterans of Dorne and even those that weren't were men bred to war. On top of which, their early victories and Septon Ryman's efforts had instilled a high morale that would not be easily dented. But every cause had its doubters, and the Lords Resolute were no different.
XXX
Dayvid Pommingham prided himself on being a clearsighted man. Even as a boy he had never taken long to discern how to obtain his goals, and it had not taken him long to develop the stomach necessary to take the actions required to attain those goals. Part of his secret was learning to put aside the pretense that the average person was basically an intelligent, honest, and upright individual. The average person, he had learned, was not very bright, as crooked as they could get away with, and basically self-serving. There was no one that couldn't be bribed, bullied, or reasoned into setting aside their morals; all that was needed was the right price, the right leverage, or the right argument.
Which made his current situation more than a little alarming. Stannis' counter-offensive, launched in the middle of winter against all reasonable expectations, had been all too successful. No less than forty villages in the northern borderlands of the Reach had been either forcibly returned to their former allegiance to the Iron Throne, and consequently impoverished by Stannis' collections, or simply burned out, and it was rumored that the villagers were either being sent north into the Riverlands or impressed into the Royal Army. The garrisons of those villages had either been massacred or put to flight with at least some loss; the reports that prisoners were being executed after only the briefest trials had spread like wildfire. At least there reports of torture were few enough and mutually contradictory enough that they were probably untrue. Lord Norcross had tried to lead the thirty lances he had kept in reserve at Norcross Castle to counter the invasion, but he had been forced to give up after vainly trailing the hard-marching Royal Army for two sennights without being able to maintain contact and losing a fifth of his men to the cold.
To the south their situation was not much better. Bitterbridge had been taken and Hubert Caswell had been installed, but Longtable had stood firm for the King. House Merryweather, Lord Orson had declared, was not so ungrateful as to forget that King Stannis had restored them from their exile, nor did they forget that the Lords Resolute had stood aside and let them be exiled in the first place, and had sent Lord Graves' herald back to him empty-handed. On the far side of Longtable Lord Fossoway of Cider Hall was reported to be mustering his levies, but Dayvid had no confidence that the red apple would be raised in rebellion; Lord Fossoway was too cautious for that, especially with Mace Tyrell marching up the Mander with an army.
Dayvid had calculated the relevant factors time and again and come to the same conclusion every time; the rebellion had reached its likely high-water mark at Bitterbridge. The plan to use the winter to fortify their gains, convert the smallfolk more fully to their support, and hold up an example of successful rebellion to other malcontents had been thoroughly unhinged. Stannis' counterstroke had reduced their resources of manpower, money, food, and other supplies by at least a quarter and inflicted more losses than they could afford without incurring a similar toll on the royalists. Even worse, the installation of Ser Hubert Flowers as Lord of Bitterbridge had proved a mistake, giving the lie to their claims to defend the rights of the nobility. The rallying of the Riverlands and the Tyrells had both placed the upper Mander between the hammer and the anvil and made any further uprisings by the minor lords and landed knights of the Mander vanishingly unlikely. Unless either Stannis or Mace Tyrell made a mistake big enough to throw their armies away, then there was no way for the Lords Resolute to survive. Their low opinion of Stannis' prowess, predicated on the fact that the Dornish had been divided, the Point Lords half-wildlings barely worthy of their titles, and that Stannis had run away from the Battle of Tyrosh after being saved by his pet reaver, appeared to have been formed in error.
All of which was distressing enough, but his fellow rebels seemed unwilling to face the facts. Septon Ryman had merely pointed out that Artys Arryn had been outnumbered at the Battle of the Seven Stars and that the Gods would provide, but the other principals had, if anything, been even more unyielding. Dayvid hadn't been foolish enough to take his doubts to the inexorable Septon Ryman and Lord Norridge had simply said, "No surrender," before going back to his wine but Norcross and Graves had told him in no uncertain terms that not only was surrender impossible, but suggesting it was unbecoming and unmanly. Of the two, Norcross had been the most conciliatory, describing a scenario where the spring campaign saw Stannis' Royal Army either humbled or outright broken by the same sort of stratagem that had put Lord Tarly to flight. On the heels of such a victory, he had said, the Royal Army would fragment under the weight of the rivalries of the Riverlanders and the discrediting of Stannis' prowess, while Mace Tyrell's army would be hamstrung as the lords and knights that made it up calculated whether it was worth it to fight and die for a Stormlander king who had no ties to the Reach and would reduce it to a mere province under a royal despotism if he could get away with it. Victory over the Tyrells would swiftly follow, and the Lords Resolute would swell in numbers as more and more lords and knights saw liberty's banner advance and Ryman's preaching swayed the smallfolk away from Baelor's and its fraudulence. Sooner or later even the coffers of Tywin Lannister and the Faith would be exhausted from trying to fight so great a host as would be assembled, and Stannis would be forced to ask for terms. Graves had simply told him to put the thought of terms out of his head. This would be a war to the knife, with quarter neither asked nor given; Stannis had made that clear when he had murdered Gerold Norridge and his men under color of law. The only outcome would be either total victory or total annihilation.
Dayvid begged to differ. If thirty years of lordship had taught him anything it was that there wasalwaysanother way, if you troubled to look for it. Stannis might be feeling unreasonable, but Lord Tyrell was known as a just man, and a sensible one. Hadn't he restored the Merryweathers to Longtable, and arranged for them to receive new lands an office of high honor besides? Dayvid could claim that he had only joined Norcross' cabal because he thought Norcross would limit himself to legal means of redress; by the time he had known the man intended violent rebellion it had been too late to back out. It would even have the benefit of being mostly true. He had genuinely thought that Norcross' aim was to build up a faction of the minor nobility large enough to convince Lord Tyrell to side with them against Stannis for fear of alienating the majority of his bannermen. An open and armed rebellion might have become inevitable if Stannis had not given up on his program of tyranny, but he had been sure that Norcross would wait for someone else to throw down the gauntlet first, or at least wait until their faction was stronger and more broadly based.
Yes, he decided as he downed the last of his wine. Mace Tyrell would be the one to approach. He might not be able to trade on an old friendship like Merryweather had done, but he might be able to keep his head at least. The trick would be to present the right offer.
XXX
Mace had always suffered from pre-action nerves. The prospect of going into action, either with swords or with words, had always been a test of will for him, from when he was a boy. Fortunately, he had made a breakthrough on the matter as a young man, when he had gone into his first tourney. He had been in his pavilion, on the verge of vomiting from the turmoil his nerves were inflicting on his stomach, when his father's master-at-arms, a rangy, balding, square-faced man named Ser Talbot Flowers (a by-blow of Lord Costayne), had walked in. That gruff old battler had taken one look at Mace, stood him on his feet, and told him in no uncertain terms that while it was perfectly natural to be nervous, it was not acceptable to let them rule you, and everyone had heard him brag about how well he would do in the lists at the feast the night before. It was, as Ser Talbot had said in his south-coast drawl, 'time to either nut up or shut up.'
Mace had gone on to unhorse five knights in a row before being knocked out of the competition; none of them had been of any great name, but it had been a perfectly respectable showing for his first tourney as a belted knight. His father had been effusive and his mother proud in her sharp-tongued way, but the greatest praise Mace had received that day had been the lazy smile and slow nod of Ser Talbot.
Ser Talbot Flowers had died two years later of the flux, but Mace could still hear the man's voice, full of the easy self-assurance that only comes from great prowess, whenever his nerves threatened to overwhelm him. So despite the fact that he was riding into an uncertain and potentially highly dangerous situation, he kept his back straight and his face calm, admitting no sign of nervousness to break through the façade of confidence.
The red-apple Fossoways had always been an uncertain and opportunistic breed, and Lord Harmon was proving true to the type. There were any number of things he could have done to declare himself one way or the other when the rebellion broke out, but instead he had simply called his banners, raised his levies, and perched in Cider Hall to see what happened next. Mace was hopeful that events would do their part to sway Harmon to his side; the seizure of Bitterbridge and the supplanting of the Caswells with a bastard had already helped convince many of the minor lords of the lower Mander to join Mace's army. That the Lords Resolute had at the very least condoned the kinslaying of Ser Hubert Flowers was off-putting enough, that Septon Ryman had endorsed it had acted as a red rag to a bull. Mace had set out from Highgarden with five hundred lances. On his march up the Mander almost five hundred more had joined him, many of them led by either the lords of the Houses whose livery they wore or else by their heirs. Ravens had reached Mace alerting him that Orson Merryweather had raised his levies for King Stannis and would hold Longtable until Mace joined him for the march against Bitterbridge. All that remained on the lower Mander was to bring the Fossoways to heel.
Hence this parley. Lord Harmon had agreed to meet Mace outside the walls of Cider Hall, with a herald, a standard-bearer, and ten knights each. The squires and pages of the ten minor lords (all of them knighted, and so allowed under the terms of the parley) that Mace had chosen had been up half the night making everything ready, and they positively gleamed in the winter sun. There was a message there; that regardless of the claims of the Lords Resolute, House Tyrell still held up its end of the feudal bargain, and here were their bannermen holding uptheirend as proof thereof. There was also a message behind the fact that every man in Mace's party except for the herald was in full armor and that only Mace had his visor open. This might be a parley, but Mace was not leaving the option of violence off the table, and was willing to use it promptly if he thought it called-for.
Mace raised his hand lazily to signal the halt as his party reached the agreed meeting-place three long bowshots from the main gate of Cider Hall and there was a rustle from behind him as his lords halted their horses. Mace could see Harmon hesitate fifty yards away at the sight of Mace's war-like party, the armored men sitting motionless on the barded horses blowing great clouds of steam from their nostrils like equine dragons.Don't fret, man, this is just for show,Mace thought at him.Now come on, you know me. I'm a reasonable man, not a double-crosser like Gaston Graves or Tywin Lannister or a madman like Eddard Stark. Come on, trust me this once, you lily-livered . . .Harmon nudged his horse back into a walk and Mace permitted himself a small sigh of relief.
As Harmon reined in before him, Mace decided to forestall the pleasantries. He knew Harmon Fossoway of old; the man was cautious as lords went, but he tended to get caught up in the moment and was easily stampeded. Especially if he was put on the spot before his liegemen. "Lord Fossoway," he said flatly, "would you please explain to me what in theHellsyou think you are playing at?"
Harmon, in armor but not wearing his helmet, blinked. "My lord," he began, spluttering only a little to his credit, "I am taking necessary measures to defend my lands . . ."
"Failing to march against declared rebels?" Mace said over him. "Calling your banners and raising your levies but refusing to do ought but sit in your hall? Not even showing your liege-lord the bare requirements of hospitality? These are not the signs by which my lord father, the Seven rest his soul, taught me to recognize a loyal bannerman, my lord."
"My lord, you do me an injustice," Harmon said, coloring. "I and my House have always been faithful to House Tyrell . . ."
"Then why have you not declared yourself to be so until now?" Mace demanded. "Why have you not sent aid to Lord Merryweather, who is bravely facing the rebels alone and counting the days until I arrive to relieve him? Why, my lord, have you let your King take the field without you? Clearly you are not lacking in ability or in strength, so is it your courage or your motives that I should suspect?"
Harmon started as if slapped. "The Gods, Old and New, know that I am as brave and loyal as any man here!" he snapped. "And that you should question me, my lord, is . . ."
"Nothing you have not brought upon yourself," Mace interrupted him. "For the Gods' sakes, man, do you not recognize the stakes of the game you are playing here? You have raised an army, at a time when rebellion and heresy are abroad in the land, but you have not declared for your liege-lord or your king! By the Stranger, my lord, if I were Tywin Lannister I would, at this very moment, be declaring you outlaw and laying siege to you! Some of these gentlemen," he gestured at the lords behind him, "have advised me to do exactly that and not cease until I might carry your severed head on a pike before my army, as a warning to other potential traitors! It is only because I have remembered the past loyalty of your House that I have not taken their advice and chosen to trust you. Was I mistaken in that choice, my lord?"
Harmon was red in the face. "By the Gods, you were not!" he shouted. "House Fossoway has always,always,my lord, been true to its oaths!"
"Then prove it, my lord," Mace said coldly. "Prove that the apple of Fossoway has not rotted. The world is changing, my lord, and men must choose whether they stand for order and the rule of law, or anarchy and the rule of the sword.Thatis the choice this rebellion lays before us, my lord. The choice between a world where every man may trust in the King's Peace and Justice and the permanence of the Faith, or a world where there is no peace, there is no justice beyond the sword of the strongest man, and the Faith is shattered beyond all hope of reconciliation." Mace aimed a finger at Harmon. "Choose this day whom you will serve, my lord," he said, deliberately paraphrasing the Book of the Father. "For me and my House, and those who follow us, we will serve the King on the Iron Throne, whose name is Baratheon."
Harmon nodded jerkily, then wheeled his horse to face his men. "Hear me!" he cried. "I am Harmon Fossoway, Lord of Cider Hall, and I ride with Lord Tyrell and King Stannis against treason and heresy. Let all good men who love their lord, their king, and their Faith follow me. If any man here dares harbor any sympathy for the enemies of the realm and of the gods," he stripped off one of his gauntlets and cast it into the snow, "then let him accept my challenge if he dares, and may the gods defend the right!"
Harmon's men cheered lustily and Mace couldn't help a triumphant smile as he dismounted to take Harmon's oath. He had thought that putting Harmon on his honor would work, but it was lovely to have a gamble rewarded. As the parley turned towards merging Harmon's force into the army and preparing for the march to Longtable, Mace was already composing two letters in his head. The first to King Stannis, telling him that the Mander as far as Longtable was secure for the King. And second to Highgarden to tell his wife and his mother that his ploy had worked.
XXX
Ser Harras Harlaw breathed deeply, relishing the tang of salt on the air. It was good to ride the whale's road again, as the skalds would say. Since his return to the Isles his horizons had shrunk to the hops from island to island that even children could make and the occasional run to Lannisport on a matter of trade, the course of which even a drunkard could plot in his head. It had been a far cry from his days in Myr, when he had roamed the breadth of the Narrow Sea escorting merchant ships from port to port, raiding the Disputed Lands, and occasionally ferrying important correspondence up the coast to Pentos.
But as much as he might regret leaving Myr behind, he was glad he had returned home. The difficulty of his inheritance aside, he had received a hero's welcome not just in Grey Garden, but on Harlaw as a whole. The Reader himself had invited him to his hall as a guest of honor, giving him a gold arm-ring as one who had brought glory to the Harlaw name. Men who had held Grey Garden in contempt since his family took the Seven bowed in the street as he walked by. And never in his life had Harras seen his father as proud as he had been when he had met him on the docks and welcomed him home.
And in truth he had been too busy to dwell overlong on memories of Myr. Grey Garden was situated on one of the few patches of truly fertile land on Harlaw but it was still a minor fief with little access to the life-giving sea. They were not poor, but his father and grandfather had always been forced to put off making improvements year after year for lack of spare funds. The wealth Harras had accumulated in the East had allowed some of those long-desired projects to finally go forward, even after leaving aside a respectable selection of trophies to adorn the hall as a testament to his deeds. Every farming family on Grey Garden land now had plows and other farming tools made of good steel instead of the rough and impurity-filled iron that most of them had been forced to make do with, and the hall itself had never been in better repair. Harras nodded to himself. Yes, his days in Myr had been glorious and would make good memories to warm his hands at on cold nights, as his grandfather would say, but life was not all daring deeds and epic struggles. His family's septon had always taught that there was as much merit in overcoming life's daily struggles with persistence and craft as there was in writing one's name in the sagas with great feats of courage and prowess, and a true lord never forgot to aid his people. So while Harras eagerly devoured every scrap of news of his old comrades in Myr, his mind always returned home.
Even so, he reminded himself, it was a fine thing to be sailing again, especially as the sole commander of twenty longships. When word had come of the rebellion on the Mander, he had hoped that Lord Greyjoy would call the banners to King Stannis' aid and send the longships up the great river to crush the rebels. Jonothor had been a fine man, but Harras had not been able to abide his heresy. A good son of the Seven was respectful of other faiths when respect was due, but division within the Faith could not be tolerated. The rebels on the Mander had committed treason against their king and against the gods; it was against the laws of nature to react to such a crime except with steel and fire.
And how glorious would it have been to row up the Mander and be hailed as rescuing heroes instead of reviled as foreign invaders? What rewards might they have earned of King Stannis for aiding him against rebellion, much less those that His High Holiness would have dispensed to the crushers of heresy? Harras had risen high in one Baratheon king's favor; why should he not do the same with the other?
But Lord Greyjoy had proven as spiteful as a woman scorned, and instead of sailing for the Mander Harras and the ships he had been given command of were to sail for the Basilisk Isles. King Stannis had not asked for their aid, Lord Greyjoy had declared, and so the Ironborn would not stick their oars in where they were not wanted. Instead they would sail to their old hunting grounds and return with thralls to work the fields and mines of the Isles and treasure to adorn the halls of the reavers who had seized it. Harras spat overboard. Treasure he would take gladly, but not a single thrall would he take aboard his ships. A reaver he might be, and proudly, but never a slaver. No, any people they took from the Basilisk Isles would be dropped off in Myr to become freedmen; before he left Ser Gerion had told him that there would be a reward for every liberated slave brought to Myrish lands for emancipation. And if any man under his command sought to invoke tradition to defy him, then Harras would show them how he had dealt with slavers when he had sailed under the crowned stag.
Ser Kevan Lannister had been visibly relieved when Harras had told him his plan during the fleet's stop at Lannisport, and the subsequent negotiations for watering and reprovisioning had gone remarkably smoothly. The Westerlands were no friends of the Isles, the feuds were too many and too old, but Harras had detected a thawing in the hearts of the Westermen in the years since he had returned. Doubtless the intercession of Ser Gerion and Ser Jaime had done much to unlock that door, but the Ironborn themselves had opened it the rest of the way with their deeds in the East. There were more songs sung of the feats of Victarion and Euron in the taverns of Lannisport than of the raids of Dagon and Dalton, especially since the Destruction of Tyrosh. Harras sighed enviously; oh, to have been one of the men who had stormed the Bleeding Tower!Thathad been a deed for the skalds to sing of so long as tales of craft and courage were loved, and a rare raven-feeding to boast of.
But there were still songs to be written of these years; Harras could smell it on the wind. And if Balon had chosen to stay home and stew in his bitterness, then let him. The fewer men, the greater share of honor, as the singers said. It was a pity that he would miss Ser Jaime's return to the Westerlands and the tournament that the Old Lion would certainly throw, but time and tide waited for no man. He would visit his fellow easterner on his voyage back to the Isles, he resolved, and with the plunder he would take from the corsairs and the Lannister's famed generosity there would be a celebration indeed, both of past adventures and glories still to come.
Chapter 91: Reshuffle
Chapter Text
Ser Cortnay Penrose couldn't help a satisfied grin as he watched the Royal Army march back into Stoney Sept from his post by Stannis' left shoulder. The weather and the fighting had taken an unquestionable toll, leaving the men lean and wolfish with faces reddened and chapped by the cold winds, but they were marching proudly and with an unmistakable spring in their step. They had marched through enemy territory for several sennights, taken every town and village and hamlet they had come across, destroyed or put to flight every rebel and heretic that had dared challenge them, and then outmarched the rebels' attempted counterstroke, twiddling their fingers as they went. They had every right to be proud of themselves, and the news that there would be two full days liberty once everyone was settled into the winter quarters that the town's garrison and the local smallfolk had been impressed into building; the quarters in question were mostly earth-and-rough-timber huts, but they were certainly better than tents. The fact that the men would finally have a chance to sit down to a properly cooked meal and actually get out of the weather for the first time in sennights only set the seal on the widespread good mood. Cheers were raised as the contingents passed the small knot of Stormguards and the figure of the king sitting his bay just inside the gates, the men brandishing bows and spears and swords in salute. The Riverlanders and the Reachmen tried to drown each other out in a cacophony of overlapping shouts and slogans as they marched by, flailing their weapons vigorously enough that there was a real threat of injury, but the Crownlanders, knowing their monarch's preference, restrained themselves to a single roar of acclaim and a single flourish of their swords as they passed the royal standard. Ser Cortnay noticed Stannis' approving nod at the display of discipline and clicked his tongue to himself. Discipline was all well and good, but there was a time and a place to unbend. The men appreciated a commander who could be at ease among them
That being said, he allowed as the Crownlanders passed into the streets and the royal party turned their horses towards the center of the city, there was more than one way to win men's hearts. Leading them to victory was one of the best ways in the book, and Stannis had certainly done that by any stretch of the imagination. The rebels had lost at least a fifth of their human and material resources in this campaign, and the immaterial blows must have struck even harder. Word had reached them upon their arrival that Lord Tyrell had brought Lord Fossoway into the fighting under the king's banner and secured the Mander as far north as Longtable. To the best of Ser Cortnay's knowledge, not a single new banner had been raised in rebellion since Stannis' army had crossed the border into the rebel lands, and he doubted that any would be. Not when Stannis had proved himself willing and able to take the fight to the rebels.
In the face of such success, the applause of the army was only to be expected. The Crownlanders, of course, had been Stannis' men in body and mind and soul since Dorne, but the Reachmen and Riverlanders hadn't had the same bond. They did now, though, if Ser Cortnay was any judge; the Reachmen especially, for that Stannis had helped them avenge their earlier defeat. Randyll Tarly had been wearing a grimly satisfied expression on his face as he led his men into the town that had struck a noticeable contrast to Hoster Tully's pleased good cheer. And this campaign had helped forge the contingents of each division of the army into a cohesive whole, accustomed to following orders and a common plan towards a common goal. How well those divisions would fare as a single army remained to be seen, but he doubted that they would do worse than the enemy. They would be coming off this victorious campaign, following proven leaders, and facing men whose confidence in themselves, their leaders, and their cause had to have been shaken by their recent defeats. No, there was little to fear from the coming of spring, he decided as the royal party dismounted in front of the Sept to attend the service of thanksgiving that was being laid on to celebrate the victory. The rebels might not have been beaten to their knees quite yet, but the impetus had shifted away from them and back to Stannis. The coming of spring would herald the coming of victory over this rebellion.
XXX
The two knights, one a bannerman of the Merryweathers and the other one of Mace Tyrell's household men, thundered down the lists at each other, the lances drifting down with an almost mechanical smoothness to aim at the brightly-painted shields, and then there was an ear-hurtingcrackas the two lengths of seasoned ash broke simultaneously. Both knights rocked back in their saddles but managed to keep their seats as they hurtled past each other, although the Tyrell man was seen to sway in his saddle as he reached the end of the lists and the marshal's flag went up to award the point to his opponent.
"Well rode, well rode!" Mace shouted, adding his voice to the applause of more than a thousand other spectators. Turning to his host and lowering his voice he went on. "Your man is quite the lance, my lord. It is a rare man indeed who can give Ser Oliver a run for his money."
Orson Merryweather nodded. "Ser Regynald is one of my finest knights," he replied. "I would be happy to introduce him to you at the feast tonight."
"By all means, by all means," Mace said expansively as a new pair of knights entered the lists; as only single courses were being run, Ser Oliver and Ser Regynald had withdrawn.
With winter still hard upon the land and the rebels apparently content to sit in Bitterbridge and hold the Caswell lands, there had been little reason not to throw a tournament. It kept everyone busy enough to forestall any casual mischief, allowed the knights to settle any quarrels that they had developed on the march up the Mander, and provided the smallfolk with entertainment and custom to allay their resentment at having to host an army in winter. It also allowed the men of each House's contingent to get to know each other, take the measure of each other's prowess, and make some boasts that they would have to live up to when spring came and the army marched north. The fact that Mace had offered to foot the majority of the bill and provide the prizes had been all that was necessary to win Lord Merryweather's support for the idea.
It also provided them with the opportunity to do multiple pieces of business at the same time. "Any more news from your source in the rebel camp?" Mace said softly as the new knights, one a Fossoway man and the other a hedge knight in Merryweather livery, saluted each other and the marshal's baton dropped to signal the charge.
Orson nodded as the lances broke. "A note came in this morning by raven," he said under the applause, which he and Mace joined in; the hedge knight had borne himself well and Harmon Fossoway was cheering his man. "A list of the villages that the rebels have garrisoned most heavily, with numbers of men, the strength of their equipment, and the names of their commanders. Our double agent appears to be a man of some resource."
"And of some rank, as well," Mace mused as the next two knights, both his own men, he noted absently, took the lists. "Someone who can send ravens to us and be confident that they will not be discovered or named to their fellows?" He broke the conversation for a moment to join in the applause as his knights knocked each other flat over the backs of their horses but recovered in a good display of strength and horsemanship.
Orson nodded again. "Probably one of their principals, is my maester's assessment," he said. "And of those, he thinks it most likely to be Dayvid Pommingham."
Mace pursed his lips as he remembered the man. "Perhaps," he allowed. "Gods know that the man's unscrupulous enough for it. Remind me to tell you sometime of how he tried to gain a seneschally on the Mander from my lord father. Does your maester think any of the other principals could be involved?"
Orson shook his head as the next two knights, one a minor lord from the lower Mander and the other a landed knight from the Fossoway lands, took the lists. "Gaston Graves is not sufficiently flexible in his loyalties, or more importantly his hatreds, he tells me," he replied. "And we can hardly expect Richard Norcross to betray the very rebellion he instigated. The only one of the principals who would be likely to attempt something like this is Fredrick Norridge, and I know he is not the sort of man who would do this. Too blunt and too reckless by half, especially when the wine is in him."
Mace nodded in agreement. "I remember one time, on my progress around the Reach just after I took the Roseseat," he said under the applause as the Fossoway man sent the minor lord flying off his destrier to tumultuous applause from his comrades and a roar of approval from Harmon, "when Fredrick Norridge told me that saving his feudal duties I had no right whatsoever on his lands or over his people. This to my face, with half a dozen men to see and hear, over a rustler taken in the act and as guilty as Maegor. It was cleared up and the rustler hanged in the end, but he never retracted his words." He shrugged. "It was a minor matter, and he apologized for his intemperance, so I chose not to press it. A mistake, perhaps, but a minor one, or so I thought. Evidently, I was mistaken."
Orson held off on his reply until the next two knights, both hedge knights in his own colors, had finished their pass. "If it is Pommingham," he asked as he applauded, "what can he hope to gain? Aside from keeping his head out of a noose."
Mace lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. "To keep his lands under his family's banner, I would suppose," he replied. "He might hope to worm his son into my favor, by offering him as a hostage. He's surprisingly long-headed, is Pommingham, for all his underhandedness. His father was the same way, I have been told; never made a plan without placing himself where it's failure would suit him as well as its success."
Orson raised an eyebrow. "He couldn't have planned this whole rebellion towards such an end, could he have?" he asked incredulously. "It would be insanely chancy, but if it got his son under your wing . . ."
Mace opened his mouth, closed it for a bit as he took the opportunity provided by the next joust to calculate, and then shook his head. "No, he couldn't have," he said under the chorus of exclamations as a Fossoway man and one of his household men unhorsed each other. "It would have been entirelytoorisky. How would he know that I would leave him alive and take his son as a hostage, instead of abandoning them to the King's Justice? Pommingham will gamble with many things, but not with his House's future." He shook his head again. "No, this was Norcross's plan; Pommingham was simply a colleague."
Orson nodded. "May I inquire as to how you plan to handle him, my lord?" he asked delicately.
Mace half-shrugged again. "That will depend on what other aid he gives us, and on the degree of his contrition when we finally take him," he replied. "If he is of more material help, then we shall see. If he merely straddles the fence . . ." he flicked a hand. "He will die by the sword, as a knight should. Regrettable, but the King will insist."
XXX
Dayvid Pommingham shook his head, blinking against the light flurry of snow that the wind was driving about the dais that had been erected in the courtyard of Norcross Castle. "I say again, my lord, this is a mistake," he said softly, not taking his eyes from the scene in front of him. "Bitterbridge was bad enough, butthis. . ."
"Is necessary," Richard Norcross replied, also softly but in a voice of granite. "The man is a would-be murderer and an obstinate heretic. The law is clear regarding the proper fate of such."
"Then either hang him or cut off his head, as the law allows for murderers," Dayvid insisted. "Execution by burning was outlawed by Aegon the Third, after the Dance of Dragons, even as a punishment for heresy; it took Aerys the Mad to bring it back. And when even the Targaryens can't stomach something . . ."
"The later Targaryens were weak," Richard snapped back. "Degenerate scions of a failing line, who lost the Iron Throne through their incapacity. We are not so impotent, nor can we afford to be with our cause in these straits. And I wonder, my lord," he turned to fix Dayvid with an accusatory eye, "what causes you to beg mercy for a traitor."
"Only the knowledge that we are better men than the Targaryens were, and should comport ourselves accordingly," Dayvid answered. "That the man must die, I do not dispute, only the method of his death. My lord," he turned to look Richard full in the face, "it is not in my nature to beseech, but I pray you, in the names of the Gods, think it possible that you may be wrong in this."
Richard held his gaze for a long moment, then turned away. "No," he said. "The man must die, and he must die by fire. The crimes he committed can only be purged by the flames. I pray you hold your tongue on this matter, my lord, for I will not be swayed. In any case," he went on with a minute shrug, "it is out of my hands now. The man has been sentenced by the Gods and by men, and the verdict cannot be appealed against."
Dayvid bit his tongue to keep himself from asking 'sentenced by the Gods or by Septon Ryman?' and turned back to watch the execution unfold. The condemned man, an old retainer of the Caswells who had attempted to stab Septon Ryman, had already been carried out of the cells and was strapped to the stake that had been set up in front of the dais; even at this range Dayvid could see the marks of torture on the man's skin and in the way he had to be held up against the stake as the executioner bound him to it. Septon Ryman, in his usual black cassock and black skullcap, stepped forward and gave the condemned man a final chance to repent of his sins, forswear the corruption of the Great Sept of Baelor, and accept the True Faith. The condemned man spat at the Septon's feet, provoking angry outbursts from the crowd who had gathered to watch the execution. Ryman, unmoved, raised his medallion with the Seven-Pointed Star and said the death prayer in a voice trained to fill the air, at the end of which he lowered his medallion and nodded to the executioner. The executioner, wearing the voluminous robe of his office, thrust a torch into the pile of oil-soaked wood and straw under the condemned man's feet.
Dayvid forced himself to watch as the man burned, his screams turning to choking coughs and finally to silence as the overcooked-pork smell filled his nostrils.You failed to save him from this, you can watch the result of your failure,he told himself sternly. As the man slumped in his bonds, Dayvid found himself swearing an oath in the privacy of his head.This was wrong and someone will pay for it. Blood demands blood.As Septon Ryman signed the air before the pyre with the Seven-Pointed Star, his face as impassive as a soldier's despite the horror that he had caused to take place, Dayvid was already thinking about how best to tear him down.
XXX
The following is an excerpt fromA King's Flash, the fourth instalment of the Flash Papers by George Dand
My involvement in the Destruction of Tyrosh began with overindulging in brandy, as you know if you've read my other books, so it's fitting enough that it ended with brandy as well. The letter of recall that had been sent as a reward for my helping to save Braavos from the Wildfire Plot (completely by accident, but that's history for you) had finally caught up to me in Tyrosh and I managed to get a berth with a Braavosi captain who had managed to get his hands on a hold's worth of Tyroshi brandy during the Sack. Since the Tyroshi Distiller's Guild had been wiped out to the last apprentice, that brandy was effectively the last of its kind to be laid down and the captain figured that it would be worth a pretty shiny penny or two in King's Landing on that basis alone. The voyage up the Narrow Sea was miserable, it being the beginning of winter, but the captain knew his business and had a good crew so we made it to King's Landing on schedule, if a little battered by wind and wave and somewhat the worse for the cold rain that had dogged us through the middle part of the voyage.
At that point I wanted nothing more than to hasten home, lock myself in my bedchamber with Maryam, and not open the door except to let the servants in with food and drink, but alas being in royal service comes with obligations. My letter of recall wasn't just a lifting of my informal exile but a summons to appear at court. It was very politely worded, but it was still a command to give an account of my travels and place myself at the King's disposal, and that's not the sort of command you ignore if you know what's good for you.
Not that I minded too much. King's Landing isn't Braavos, or Sunspear or Highgarden for that matter, but there are worse places to spend a winter. And the news of my part in the saving of Braavos and the Destruction of Tyrosh would only inflate my reputation as one of Stannis' finest knights. Stannis might have been a sourpuss, but he knew how to reward good service, even if it was done unofficially. In fact, since my actions might be said to have salvaged his reputation with the Braaovsi, I was certain that I would be due for official rewards, which, lets face it, are one of the handful of things that make the fuss and bother of having a heroic reputation worth it.
Gods witness, though, it was a closer-run thing than I would have thought possible. When I learned, not an hour after stepping off the docks, that the Upper Mander lords were fools so lost to sense as to launch a rebellion inwinterI almost fainted. The thought of another campaign right after Tyrosh was nearly too much to bear. Righteous anger is all well and good, but when you see the results of an excess of it close at hand . . . it doesn't rest easy on your mind is all I'll say. For about a day and a half I wanted nothing more than to have not been recalled and been left to stay in Myr instead, where there was no one stupid enough to rebel against Baratheons. Of course, if I had stayed in Myr I would have ended up facing Dothraki, which is no picnic either as I learned the hard way. Honestly, the number of people who wanted the Baratheons dead in those years . . .
Fortunately for my sanity, Ser Cortnay Penrose proved to be a thoughtful old sod; I learned later that he had advised the king that I had done enough in his service for a while and that a suitable reward, along with the purse of gold and the sword of honor and the public praise, would be to let me be an ornament of his court for a few months. For a wonder, His Nibs listened (probably on the basis that you don't ride a horse to foundering if you can help it, knowing him), and I was detailed to remain in King's Landing as a gentleman-at-arms attached to the city garrison on the understanding that my duties would be light enough to let me regularly attend court. As a mark of my privileged status I was permitted to travel home to see my prizes settled and bring Maryam back to the city with me. There was a happy reunion, if I do say so myself.
So, having dodged the wars for once, I installed Maryam into a suite in the Red Keep (less comfortable and certainly less private than a rented house in the city would have been, but that's a courtier's life for you) and settled into my duties, both with the garrison and at the court. The first wasn't too onerous with the city as quiet as it was, comprising mainly of keeping a half-company of guild militiamen up to the mark and spending one day in every fortnight on the walls looking important and freezing my balls off, but the second . . . good gods, the second. Cersei Lannister had never been the easiest woman to be around, too prideful by half even if she was the greatest beauty in the Kingdoms, and carrying a set of twins through a long and strenuous pregnancy had made her even more difficult. Her ladies-in-waiting all went in fear and trembling of arousing her temper, except for Lady Praela who as far as I could tell lived for the war of words between the two of them. The rumor around the court that Praela had managed to worm her way into Stannis' bed in the last month or two of Cersei's pregnancy only added fuel to the fire. Personally, I think that rumor never had any basis in fact, Stannis wasn't the type to philander, butCerseibelieved it did and hers was the relevant opinion on the matter. She was the Queen, after all. Thank the gods that Lord Tywin was there to make her be civil at least some of the time, or someone might have done something drastic. At least Cersei never turned her sights on me; one of the benefits of a sovereign reputation is that it makes you untouchable in court disputes, especially if you weren't around when the insults started flying.
Between Cersei and Praela carrying on a verbal duel, Lord Arryn being worked almost to distraction by governing the Kingdoms while Stannis was away, and Lord Tywin stalking about the place like some avatar of absolutism doing his best to pour oil on troubled waters when he wasn't playing the doting grandfather (to the amazement of everyone who witnessed him proudly watching Prince Lyonel take his first swings with a practice sword or dandling Princess Joanna on his knee), about the only bright spot was Lysa Tully, Lord Hoster's younger daughter. The girl was so star-struck at everything about King's Landing, and so obviously eager to please and so obviously in search of friends, that even Cersei and Praela gentled their tongues around her. When yours truly entered onto the scene, newly returned from Daring Adventures and Glorious Battles in Foreign Lands, she wasted no time at all in badgering me for every detail of my time in Essos, especially everything I had seen and heard of her betrothed. Was he truly as handsome as the songs said he was? Was he truly the greatest knight in King Robert's service? Was it true (this with a sigh that I swear was genuinely melancholy) that he still wore a black cloak in memory of his slain uncle? The only time she stopped asking about Jaime Lannister was when she remembered that her uncle the Blackfish existed and asked afterhim. A sweet lady, but there was an edge of barely-concealed desperation in her questioning that made me put my guard up on reflex. From what I heard, Lord Hoster got on with his younger daughter about as well as he did with his brother, but Lysa just didn't have the option of giving him the V-sign and riding off that the Blackfish did. I'm not given to sympathy, as a rule, but Lysa made me want to stick her in a box full of cotton wool and put her someplace safe, for fear that something bad might happen to her and she would break into a thousand pieces. What kind of wife she would have made for the Black Lion I can't imagine, but Fate took a hand there, the contrary old bitch.
Nor was I able to escape my reputation, although I blame the Faith for what happened next. This, as my grandmother would say, was the way of it.
One of the heresies that sprang up after Jonothor blew the lid open was the 'Old Faith', as they called themselves. Aside from the grievances that owed more to politics than to religion and their frankly quite stupid idea that the feudal order should be abolished with no rank higher than the village headman and the septon, their main points of conflict with Baelor's were threefold. Firstly, they believed that the structure of the Faith should revert to the way they said it had been in Hugor of the Hill's day, with no higher authority than the village septon. Secondly, they believed that theSeven-Pointed Starshould be theonlybasis for doctrine, ritual, and what-not, and that every word of it should be taken at face value. Thirdly, they believed that Andalos, the Ancient Homeland of the Andal People, had to be reclaimed, by fair means or foul. The Most Devout and the High Septon didn't particularly care about Andalos so long as the Braavosi didn't object, but the first two points they hated like poison. Well, you try telling someone that their very existence is an offense against the gods and that all their works have been in blatant contravention of the gods' will and see what it gets you. Moreover, the Old Faith had had the questionable judgement to show its face in the Vale, where the Arryn's held sway; the Arryn's, who prided themselves on being more Faithful than the High Septon. No wonder so many of them took the first ship to Pentos that they could and staked out a claim in Andalos. At least the Braavosi didn't take the least excuse to descend on them with clubs and catchpoles, and as for the Dothraki, it wasn't just pragmatism that drove the Braavosi to offer braid-bounty.
But some of them stayed in the Vale, either out of poverty or, as I later learned, because they considered the Vale of Arryn to be the New Andalos. Even for heretics, the Old Faith could be incoherent; natural consequence of not having a single leader, in my opinion. Say what you will about Jonothor, he never let his followers get out of hand without reining them in sharpish. Either way, they quickly became a running sore to the Arryn's, especially in Gulltown. Gulltown had been a simmering pot of resentment since the Graftons had been removed from power for their allegiance to Rhaegar and the Gulltown Arryn's elevated in their place, and so it had proved fertile ground for the heretics. Especially once they started equating the repressiveness of the Arryn's with the misguidedness of the Great Sept; tying one perceived evil to another perceived evil and claiming that they're in cahoots is a device as old as politics, much less religion. Or so Lord Arryn said when he filled me in on the situation that had developed in Gulltown over the course of the winter. From resentment to enmity had been a short step, and when Denys Arryn had been foolish enough to arrest a prominent preacher and deport him to King's Landing to be tried by the Most Devout for heresy, the Old Faith's appeal grew even more. Nothing like a common enemy to unite people, especially if the enemy in question is an outsider. Rumors had reached Lord Arryn that the heretics had gone so far as to consecrate their own sept, although they varied as to whether it was an old sept that had been converted (cue gasps of pious horror from those who cared) or a warehouse or somesuch that had been repurposed. Either way, it couldn't be allowed to stand. Give someone a patch of ground to fight for, especially holy ground, and they'll fight like rabid badgers.
What I needed to do, according to Lord Arryn (who looked older than even a man of seventy had any right to be), was to go to Gulltown, find out the truth about this heretic sept, and tell Denys Arryn where it was so it could be either burnt out or returned to the Faith. As for why I was the one being sent, which you can take for granted was the first question out of my mouth, Lord Arryn said that he remembered how well I had done at covert work in Pentos, and that my previous work with the Faith would serve to prevent the heresy of the Old Faith from taking root in me. Which was flattering as anything, but inaccurate; I really didn't care about the Faith so long as it didn't poke its nose into my business. I attended Divine Office and pretended to take confession and penance seriously in order to keep the septons off my back, but that was the limit of my involvement in it. Not for me the pilgrimages to Stony Sept or the Starry Sept in Oldtown or the Great Sept in King's Landing, not when there was plenty of wine, women, and song to be found closer to home and I've never seriously felt the need to lighten my conscience.
So it might come as a surprise to you that I accepted. Not because I was anxious to get back in the saddle, I can assure you, but I'd been on garrison duty for months by then and I was starting to reach my limit of herding militiamen who didn't know their right from their left and didn't care. Forbye I was starting to have my fill of Court; it wasn't the snake pit then that it came to be later, not yet, but I could see the signs. Cersei was bringing in more septons by the month, the people who wanted to let the Faith take care of itself while they got on with running the Kingdoms were starting to be edged out, and Praela was gleefully dropping poison in the ears of anyone who would listen. Nothing overtly treasonous, of course, she hadn't gone completely wode, but I've never met someone with a finer judgement of allusion and innuendo, or with less discrimination in her choice of targets. EvenIcame in for a few scurrilous rumors, and I conducted myself like a bloody septon the whole time I was in the city! I may be a fool at times, but I know better than to debauch myself anywhere my superiors are forced to take notice. Besides which, Maryam was there and while she never asked about what I did when we were apart, she demanded my whole attention when we were together. I could philander as I pleased, as she told me when we married, but as I loved her I was not to do so where she could see it and I was not to bring home any results thereof. And for all my sins I did love her, and what was more I valued the good opinion of her father and her brothers, so in that one thing I did as a true knight should and obeyed my lady. Virtually every other sin in the book I've committed, and a few I've added in, but I've never deliberately embarrassed my wife.
Any road, I sailed for Gulltown a week later on a small cog running southern wine up the coast to trade for Vale furs and timber. At the time I thought it would be an easy job, if not necessarily a quick one. I would have the city government to assist me in my inquiries and the city watch to get out of any tight corners, not that I expected a few blustering septons and their idiot followers to be able to put me in any. This in addition to Denys Arryn swearing on a stack ofSeven-Pointed Starsthat he had Gulltown under control. Well, he's been receipted and filed for the idiot he was, but I didn't know that at the time, did I?
Chapter 92: Busted Flush
Chapter Text
Author's Note: Trigger Warning for the second scene in this chapter: suicide/suicidal thoughts.
With the Royal Army entering winter quarters at Stoney Sept an uneasy calm settled over the Upper Mander country. While Lord Tyrell would take no offensive action until spring, his demonstration that the Rose would not wither in the face of heresy swung the neutrals among the gentry and the aristocracy back to the Royalist banner, although most of them chose to march under the Tyrell rose rather than the Baratheon crowned stag. Despite the theories of later writers and propagandists, this should not be taken as a sign of the first stirrings of incipient nationalism. The lords and knights in question were vassals and sub-vassals of the Tyrells, whose allegiance to the Iron Throne was two or three or even four steps removed, in strictest law; their displaying of their liege-lord's colors in favor of their king's was perfectly acceptable under contemporary law and custom.
However glad the rebels might have been of the respite, they did not slow the pace of their activities after Stannis terminated his campaign. Richard Norcross and Gaston Graves took the lead in touring the districts that the rebels had managed to seize before the net had started to tighten around them, inspecting fortifications and making sure that the fighting men of each holding were keeping their skills sharp over the winter. Septon Ryman traveled with them to better spread his doctrines by personal proselytization; each review was followed by a homily on the corruption of the Great Sept and the ungodliness of the King who was its proclaimed defender. Such a man as Stannis, who championed the degenerate and maintained the corrupt by spurning the virtuous and trampling the righteous, was entirely unfit to be the ruler of a free people, Ryman argued, and ought to be dethroned at once. Despite having virtually no prior experience with preaching, Ryman seems to have had a natural talent, doubtless aided by his commanding appearance and absolute faith in himself and his doctrines. Letters and journals from witnesses that survive invariably testify to the power of the man's oratory and the strength of his convictions; a letter from Hubert Flowers describes Ryman's conviction as being 'as forceful as a blow with a sword, for all that he rarely raised his voice beyond a normal volume. To hear him speak was to be transported with emotion.'
Outside the co*ckpit of the rebellion, the events of the world carried on, with one in particular drawing the attention of the continent. After seven years in exile, Ser Jaime Lannister was going home as a hero of the Slave Wars. In King's Landing his sister Queen Cersei threw herself into organizing a series of great festivities to celebrate his return and the return of the Westermen who had followed him east-over-sea. Invitations went out across eastern Westeros to a winter tourney at King's Landing, with a purse of twenty thousand gold stags to the victor. Every householder in King's Landing who owned more than a gold dragon's worth of real estate received an invitation to the grand banquet that was to follow the tourney, and preparations were made to distribute free bread and meat and wine to the poorer citizens. The capstone of the revels was to be the wedding of Ser Jaime to Lysa Tully, to be held in the Great Sept and officiated by the High Septon himself amid as much splendor as the Crown could muster.
No such ceremonies formally took place in Myr at Ser Jaime's request, claiming that he had received enough honor from the King for a dozen men already. King Robert honored the request and limited the formal ceremonies to formally releasing Ser Jaime and the Westermen who would be sailing with him from their oaths and obligations to him and to the Kingdom and thanking them for their valor and prowess in the Kingdom's service, but others begged to differ. Victarion Greyjoy organized a wassail for the departing Westermen that the attendees claimed to be unprecedented in expansiveness, and at which Ser Jaime, Victarion, and Eddard Stark all swore an oath of blood-brotherhood. Ser Brynden Tully knighted every Western squire that was sailing with Ser Jaime, and the Iron Legion formed an honor guard as the Westermen marched down to the docks with Ser Akhollo Freeman tendering the salute at the pier where Ser Jaime's ship was waiting. Queen Serina was also waiting at the docks with King Robert and almost the entirety of the Court, to provide Ser Jaime and the most distinguished of the Westermen with a mark of favor that was unprecedented in Myr (though not in Queen Serina's native Braavos) . . .
. . . Before arriving in King's Landing, the ships carrying the Westermen stopped on Dragonstone to top off their supplies before sailing up Blackwater Bay. There they were met by none other than Tywin Lannister, who had decided to be the first to welcome his son and heir back to Westeros . . .
Lion Rampant: The Resurgence of House Lannisterby Maester Jorge
Jaime Lannister's father rounded on him as the door of the Chamber of the Painted Table closed in the faces of the sycophants and retainers who had followed them up from the official welcome. "Whatareyou wearing?" he demanded.
Jaime blinked. "They're called arming clothes and armor, father," he replied as blandly as he could manage. "Knights wear them on a daily basis."
Tywin fixed him with a baleful eye. "Do not, I pray you, play the fool," he said flatly. "It does not become you. What is that badge on the ribbon around your neck?"
"Oh, this?" Jaime tapped a gauntleted finger against the seven-pointed star embossed with the crossed swords that rested on his breastplate. "Queen Serina implemented a system of honors akin to that which the Braavosi have, to honor those who display exceptional valor or prowess or diligence in the Kingdom's service. This, the Star of Valor, is the highest of those honors, and was awarded to me for being the first man to scale the inner wall of Tyrosh."
Tywin raised an eyebrow. "A bauble worth five silver falcons, if that, a mark of honor?" he asked rhetorically. "Queen Serina must know very little of knights if she thinks that they need honors beyond the title of ser. Leave it off when we arrive in King's Landing; King Stannis will not thank you for reminding him of his brother's wars. And you are his man now, not Robert's. It would be best if you acted like it."
Jaime's left hand involuntarily clenched on the hilt of his longsword for a brief moment as he registered the tone of his father's voice and the import of his command. "I would have thought," he said, forcing his voice to levelness, "that you would be gratified that King Robert was willing to honor our family by rewarding me so, considering the terms under which I left Westeros."
Tywin flicked his fingers. "A matter of little import," he said dismissively. "The past is past, the dead are dead, and you have expiated any wrongdoing on your part. And quite well, at that; hardly anyone refers to you as Kingslayer except our enemies, and their words matter not. Now come, sit; we have much to discuss."
Jaime tamped down the sense of indignation that rose in his belly at his father's disdainfulness and followed him to the Painted Table, where a colorless servant had poured them each a glass of wine before retreating back against the wall. As they sat, Tywin with a rustle of brocaded broadcloth and Jaime with a slight clatter of plate and mail only slightly alleviated by his black cloak, Tywin gestured at the great map-table. "As you see, my son, the Seven Kingdoms are united, but the map fails to show the divisions beneath the appearance of tranquility. As I am sure you have heard, the minor nobles of the Upper Mander have rebelled against the King, and raised the standard of heresy besides. More heretics lurk in Gulltown, plotting against Arryn and Baratheon alike. The existence of these schismatics fuels the suspicion that even more heretics exist that have yet to show their faces, causing neighbor to distrust neighbor and bannerman to distrust liege-lord. The Seven Kingdoms have become a bonfire that awaits only a spark."
Jaime sipped his wine, taking a moment to appreciate the flavor as his father paused in his oratory. "I assume you have a plan to pour water on the kindling," he said dryly just as his father was opening his mouth to continue. "And that it involves me marrying Lysa Tully."
Tywin eyed him admonishingly. "Of course," he replied. "By wedding Lysa Tully you will not only bind the Riverlands to us, and through us to the Iron Throne, but give Lord Tully more resources than he would otherwise be able to command if any of his bannermen revolt against him. The weakness of the Riverlands has always been due to the weakness of their overlords, from the Mudds on down, but with our gold filling his coffers and our soldiers stiffening his ranks, Lord Hoster will be able to amend that weakness."
"And if Edmure were to die without a legitimate heir, then we would be positioned to press a claim to at least Riverrun, if not the Riverlands as a whole," Jaime cut in. "Very impressive, Father, managing to get no less than three of the Seven under our family's direct rule within a generation."
"That would require young Edmuretodie," Tywin said primly, "which is in the hands of the gods. And through Prince Lyonel we will have not just three, butallof the Seven Kingdoms in our grasp. Brandon the Broken will be too busy keeping his bannermen happy with his rule to pose a challenge, the Arryn's will be set back years by this heresy in Gulltown, Tyrell will face the same problem that Stark faces magnified ten times, and neither Dorne nor the Iron Islands can hope to challenge us." He gave Jaime a smile that was all the more terrible for being so slight. "We will establish a dynasty that will last a thousand years," he said, an intense tone entering his voice. "Stannis may spend the rest of his reign breaking the Kingdoms to bridle, but in doing so he will make Lyonel the most powerful king in the known world. We will do what the Targaryens never did with all their dragons, and make the Seven Kingdoms intoonekingdom, under a single banner, and that banner will include the lion of Lannister."
"And all it will take to make this dream reality," Jaime interrupted, "is for me to turn my back on the oaths I swore as a knight, marry a girl I have never met, and forsake the only king I have ever known who deserves his title." He set his wine down on the Table and leaned back in his chair, spreading his arms. "How on earth can I refuse," he asked mockingly, "when the choice is so clear?"
His father glowered. "This flippancy is beneath you," he retorted, "both as a knight and as my son. I have spent my whole life working towards this goal, ever since I became Lord of Casterly Rock. More than thirty years of effort, of diplomacy, of promises have gone into this plan, along with more, and more fraught, gambles than I care to remember. You found one cause in Essos that you deemed worth your life. I present you with another; the advancement of our family to the greatest height of power below the gods. Will you not fulfill your duty to your family?"
Jaime leaned forward to plant his armored elbows on the table, swirling the wine in his glass as he collected his thoughts. "When we took Tyrosh," he said finally, "the company I led liberated a 'house of correction', as such things were called. The Tyroshi believed that obedience was best produced by pain, and so when a slave became disobedient or deliberately inattentive or simply failed to perform to their master's expectations, they would be sent to a house of correction, in order to have their fault remedied." He felt a coldness settle into his bones as he remembered what he and his men had found in that innocuous-looking building. "The Tyroshi had been practicing torture since Valyria fell," he said, "and what was in that building was some of the fruits of seven thousand years of experimentation with pain. There were machines there that would have made Aerys the Mad clap his hands in glee and demand a copy for the dungeons of the Red Keep. When we broke in, there were still a few slaves in them." He clenched his jaw for a moment as the memory of one woman in particular flooded him. "They were being questioned about a conspiracy among the slaves to revolt and deliver the city to us," he went on, "despite the fact that there were only a handful of slaves still alive in Tyrosh when we landed. Or so their torturers told us, when we putthemin the machines to find out how they worked. Those of them that survived to be taken, of course. The slaves we took out of the machines . . . they had been tortured for days. All we could do for them was kill them."
Tywin nodded. "And avenge them," he observed. "Tyrosh is no more, is it not?"
Jaime nodded. "We purged the evil of that city with steel and flame," he replied. "But Tyrosh was not alone in torturing it's slaves. Do you know what the Lyseni do to train their pleasure slaves? Or what the Volantenes do to slaves found guilty of rebellion?" He looked his father in the eye. "I swore to protect the weak when I was made a knight," he said. "Would you have me break that oath as well?"
"You will be better able to protect the weak as Lord of Casterly Rock than you could ever be as a mere knight," Tywin replied. "A single sword can only do so much, however valiant and skilled it's wielder. How much aid do you think you will be able to give Robert in his wars with the gold of the Rock and the knights of the West at your command?"
"Less than I should," Jaime said, "for that Stannis will claim every stag and every sword I can squeeze out of the Westerlands for his wars. Wars that do nothing but advance his power and the power of House Lannister with him."
"And do as much good as Robert's wars have done," Tywin retorted, a testy note entering his voice. "With every rebellion that is beaten down, more and more of the Kingdoms are brought under the King's Justice, where lord and peasant alike are held to account. In place of the antiquated laws of the Conqueror and the Conciliator there are new laws, laws that prevent the abuses of the worst of the lords while restraining the criminal tendencies of the worst of the smallfolk. In the Crownlands a lord can no longer raise the rent of his tenants without referring to King's Landing, and an eviction can only be enforced after a trial before a king's officer. It is better justice than they have had since Aegon the Fifth's day, and all thanks to Stannis."
Jaime nodded. "Answer me one question," he demanded. "Did you order Gregor Clegane and Amory Lorch to murder the Targaryen women and children? Or did you simply ask, 'Will no one rid me of these troublesome women and children?' where they could hear it?"
Tywin's face closed like a dungeon door slamming shut. "There are times," he said coldly, "when we must do what is necessary rather than what is chivalrous. I would have thought that you had learned that after seven years of war. How many women and children died in the Destruction of Tyrosh, or the Conquest of Myr, or any other of your holy wars against the slave power?"
"More than I can count," Jaime admitted, his voice hardening. "But at least we marched against them as open enemies under flags of war, instead of pretending to be their saviors up until we put the dagger in."
"You sanctimoniouschild," Tywin spat. "Do you think the dead care whether you claimed to be their friend or not before you slew them? Do you think that dressing your actions in the language of chivalry makes them less bloody? Let me tell you something that I learned when I restored our House's power in the Westerlands; chivalry matters nothing when set against efficiency. When the Reynes locked themselves into their tunnels in Castamere, I could have stormed them. It would have been a bloodbath, for us as well as them, and while we might have carried the day the burden of doing so would have broken us for years. So instead I dammed that stream and drowned them like the rebellious curs they were, and not a single man in our camp died except for one idiot who fell into the stream after drinking himself stupid. Was it unchivalrous? Of course it was, and yet not a single voice was raised against me. Because Iwon, boy, and the only thing about victory that matters is the fact of it. You will learn this by the time I die and you take the Rock."
"Some lessons are better left unlearned," Jaime snapped back. "The dead may not care how they died butIcare, and when I die,Imust justify my actions to the gods. Everyone I killed in the East, I had the courage to kill myself, with my own hand and sword, while giving them the opportunity to kill me. That is the honor I have won in King Robert's service, and if I must give it up to become Lord of Casterly Rock . . ." he paused, flexing his hand. "Jonothor asked me a question, before I sailed," he went on. "'What does it profit a man if he gain a kingdom and lose his soul?'"
"A worthless question from one who lost his soul when he turned heretic," Tywin said coldly. "Worthless even if he were still one of the Faithful, as well. We are men, my son, born to live for a time and then die. And when we die the only thing that matters, theonlything, is the legacy we leave behind us. For us, that legacy is our family, House Lannister, that were kings for time out of mind when the Targaryens were minor lordlings in Valyria. What we do for our family, for the increase of their power and wealth and fame,thatis what matters. Not the state of an immaterial possession of no worth to any but fools."
Jaime felt a calm settle over him, as it always did when he went into battle. "You insult my queen, the wife of my sworn king," he said calmly, "you insult the entire concept of knighthood, you insult one of the wisest and most godly men I have ever been blessed to meet, and you insultme. You expect me to throw away my honor to play the part you have laid out for me in the game of thrones, turning my back on the king I swore to follow into the mouth of the Seven Hells in the doing, and become nothing more than a copy of you. And for this, you expect me to sell my soul." Jaime shook his head. "I am a knight. I have lived as a knight. With the help of the gods, I will die a knight. I may be your son,but I will not be your tool."
Tywin's face went white, then red, then settled back into its natural color as he breathed deeply. "Then go back to Myr, ser," he said in a voice cold enough to freeze dragonfire, "and be whatever sort of knight you wish. But do not go as my son. If you turn your back upon me, then I shall do as much to you."
Jaime stood, bowed with exacting correctness. "I shall not impose on your hospitality a day longer than I must, my lord," he said formally, and then turned and walked towards the door as coolly as he could muster. Not until he had arranged a berth on a ship back to Myr and installed himself in the cabin he had rented did he allow himself to break down shaking at what he had just done.
In the Chamber of the Painted Table, Tywin Lannister dismissed the servant who had poured the wine. When the door closed upon him, he did something he had not done since his wife Joanna died. He slumped in his chair, put his head in his hands, and wept for what he had lost.
XXX
Lysa Tully had had a dream. A dream that had soothed her on the nights when she could feel the walls of Riverrun closing around her, that had anchored her when she could not bear the look in her father's eyes, that had grown ever clearer the closer it had come.
Jaime Lannister, the man who would be her husband, would return from the wars. He would arrive in King's Landing to a hero's welcome, crowned with the laurels he had won in the wars against the slavers and feted by all who met him for his valor and his prowess. But eventually he would tire of the cheers and the adoration and the press of the crowds, and that would be her moment. She would provide a place where he could shelter from the storm of adulation, and simple affection would plant the seed of love.
Their wedding would be in the Great Sept, of course; he would be radiant in his golden armor and she would shine like a star in the dress her father, in the greatest kindness he had ever shown her, had commissioned for her. And then they would have to make the long journey across the continent to Casterly Rock, but between them they would make the time fly. He would regale her with tales of the East and the wars of Robert the Strong, and she would show him that she was by far a greater prize than the drabs and shrews that were all he would have been able to find in Myr. A greater prize, even, he would whisper in her ear, than the merchant's daughter who had haggled her way into Robert's bed. By the time they reached the Rock, she would no longer be Lysa Tully but Lysa Lannister, a trout no more but a lioness in truth.
She would be one of the greatest ladies in the Seven Kingdoms, surpassing all other women save only the queen who would be a better sister than Cat had ever been. Lord Tywin would see her do all she could to exalt the lion of the West and hobble the trout of the Riverlands, and give her the respect her father had never allowed her to even glimpse. She would give her husband such pleasure that he would never regret leaving the East behind him, and their golden-haired children would fill the Rock with laughter in their youth and bring it new and greater honors when they were grown.
One day they might even visit Myr, so that she could see the Bastion of Freedom and her husband could relive the days of his youthful adventures. Great and small alike would welcome the Black Lion who had been one of their great heroes with fanfare, and gaze in awe at the woman who alone among her sex had been worthy to be his wife. Ned Stark's eyes would not be so cold when he greeted her as a goodsister, King Robert would acknowledge her fairness while his merchant queen looked on with envy, and dear Uncle Brynden would weep with pride to see the magnificent woman she had become.
And Petyr would be there as well, doing well for himself with an advantageous marriage and sons as clever as he was. They would meet (in public of course, to preserve propriety) and revisit old memories, and part as friends. They had loved each other once, but it had been a childish infatuation, nothing more, and they would have other loves to be faithful to and lives full of promise.
It had been the most beautiful dream she had ever had. And it had been taken from her.
The news that Jaime had not accompanied his father to King's Landing but instead taken ship back to Essos from Dragonstone had spread like wildfire through the city. When it had reached her, at court with the Queen and the other ladies-in-waiting, she had not believed her ears at first. It was only when the messenger had persisted in his story in spite of the Queen damning him for a liar that she had believed, and the world had spun around her. It was impossible, he had been coming, she had beenpromised. When the Queen leapt to her feet and made to storm out of the chamber it had taken all of her strength to ask to go with her. Never in her life had she been as grateful as when the Queen nodded assent after a moment of seething consideration; simply waiting for confirmation would have been unbearable. She had had toknow,now, the truth of this.
The guards at the door of Lord Tywin's study, where he had closeted himself immediately after landing at the docks, had been Redcloaks, with little knowledge of the Queen, and had proved it when they tried to bar her access. One lioness snarl from Her Grace and the three Stormguards who comprised her escort had forced the Redcloaks aside and opened the door. They had not even needed to draw their swords.
"What have you done?"the Queen had demanded as she strode into the Lion's den. It had made Lysa almost quake to follow her but follow she did. Even if the Queen's anger reminded her too much of her father's, the Queen was on her side. And despite the dread of the situation there had been a spark of satisfaction at seeing the Old Lion momentarily gape that someone had the nerve to speak so to his face. But he had rallied and answered the Queen's interrogation with the face of stone that Lysa knew all too well from dealing with her own father. Men did not explain themselves to women, and certainly not fathers to their daughters; Lysa had learned this years ago.
Exactly what had been said and done Lysa never learned. The Queen was too angry to be focused in her questions, and Lord Tywin was too evasive in his answers to be pinned down. Although his mention of Jonothor settled the question in Lysa's mind. It was well known that there was no villainy a heretic would not stoop to; that this one should steal her husband from her was only to be expected.
Not that it mattered, she had realized with ever-growing horror. Jaime was not coming, was never coming. She knew the look in Lord Tywin's eyes; she had seen it in her father's eyes often enough. It was the same fury that had driven Uncle Brynden away, that had condemned Petyr to exile despite his valor in attempting to defend Cat from being sold to a barbarian. Her Jaime was too great a knight, too great aman, to yield to his father's anger; he would be a free knight with no inheritance before he would be his father's slave. And her father would never allow her to marry mere Ser Jaime of Myr, who would not inherit Casterly Rock.
It was while the full import of her loss was breaking over her that the Queen brought up the matter of the Rock. Lord Tywin dismissed it with a flick of his fingers, saying that he was already writing letters to the High Septon and Lord Arryn to confirm Jaime's disinheritance, and gain their support on other matters. Lysa could not have given two pins for the Rock, but the Queen had stiffened like a hound scenting a wolf. "If Jaime is gone, thenIam your heir!" she had declared.
Lord Tywin had shaken his head. "The Rock will be the Iron Throne's servant, not it's possession," he had said in that terribly final voice, as if even a Queen's words were of no import.
"Then my second son . . ." the Queen had started.
"Yes, this long-promisedsecond son," Lord Tywin had drawled, his voice promising further venom if the matter were pressed.
"The dwarf cannot inherit! He took vows!" the Queen had all but shouted, and Lysa's budding grief had stopped in its tracks as she realized what they were talking about.
"Vows can be absolved," Lord Tywin had observed. "The High Septon and the Most Devout know who their friends are and where the interests of the Kingdoms lie, and Lord Arryn and Lord Bolton will cover the secular flank. Tyrion will accompany me back to Casterly Rock as my heir; with any luck he will produce an acceptable heir and a spare before I die and he can return to the Faith. He will likely agree to such a plan, the gods know he's taken well enough to the idea of being a septon."
"But Uncle Kevan's line . . ."
"Will be a last resort if Tyrion cannot sire an heir in time, or proves too difficult. I will not displace Joanna's line from the Rock so easily." Lysa had gasped a little at that. The Old Lion was such a forbidding figure that it was easy to forget that he had loved a woman once, and loved her so much that he had never remarried or even taken a mistress. That he should still love her memory so much that he would make a dwarf his heir to maintain her memory was, in its way, a greater proof of that love than she would ever have expected such a man to offer.
It was the gasp that had reminded Lord Tywin of her presence. "Lady Tully," he had said formally, "this discussion no longer concerns you; it is an internal matter of House Lannister. I pray you leave us." There had been nothing she could do but curtsy and turn for the door. As one of the Stormguards had opened the door for her Lord Tywin had astounded her again. "For what it is worth, my lady," he had said gravely, "you have my deepest apologies. My son . . . was not the man I hoped he would be. I will remedy this."
That had been enough for Lysa to realize that the death of her dream was nothing more than a momentary setback for him. She would marry a Lannister, and if Jaime was not available then the dwarf would take his place. Her father would seethe at the humiliation, grind his teeth to nubs at the whispered japes of his bannermen and the ditties of the singers, but he would hold his tongue and give her away nonetheless; even his pride was nothing compared to an alliance with the Lannister's. She had managed to reach her chambers before collapsing with a strangled cry. As if her own pride did not matter! She had been promised Jaime, the greatest knight in the world, the nearest thing to a god that walked among men! And now he had been snatched away from her and she would be forced into the bed of Tyrion Lannister, a dwarf so grotesque he was barely human!
The abyss had opened before her. There would be no greatness for her, not as the wife of the dwarf. Instead of envy she would be regarded with pity, if not with scorn. She would not be Lysa Lannister, the Light of the West, but Lysa Tully, the human brood-mare who would be used until she produced an heir and then discarded when the dwarf went back to the Faith. She had wept until she had no more tears to weep, until grief had crystallized into resolve. She would not have her husband? Well and so; then her father would not have his ambitions and the dwarf would not haveher.
She had written two letters. One to her Uncle Brynden, sending him all the love that was left to her and wishing him the greatest of good fortune, and the other to Petyr, also wishing him good fortune and proclaiming her unbounded confidence in his abilities. Both letters had been sealed and sent to Lady Flash by way of a servant; Maryam was a simple soul but honest and a good friend. Lysa could not help a burst of envy. Ser Harry was nowhere near as great a knight as Jaime was, but he was a bluff, hearty, and kind-souled man, the sort of man the world needed more of. Lysa wished them every happiness.
Now there was only one thing left to do.
Her chamber, shared with two other ladies-in-waiting who had been polite enough to leave her to her grief, was situated just below the royal apartments, high in one of the towers of Maegor's holdfast. The late-winter sun, bright in the cold sky, pierced her eyes as she threw open the shutters of the east-facing window and stepped onto the sill. Strange, that the world outside could be so bright when there was nothing but darkness within her. She stared out at the sea, a plain of brightness lighting the way to her husband, and stepped out towards it. The last thought in her head as she fell forever was of the child that would have had her eyes and Jaime's hair.
XXX
To a casual observer, Balon's Rebellion is a mere rerun of the Red Viper Rebellion. An egotistical, immature, and bloodthirsty nobleman leads his people into a revolt against a monarchy they perceive as weak for the sake of revenge, pride, and ambition, and the revolt is put down in rivers of blood as the monarchy proves to be not nearly as weak as it was thought to be. This reductive and careless encapsulation fails to properly understand the differences between the kingdoms that were led into rebellion and the men who led them.
For all the literature depicting Dorne as a land of the strange and the exotic, inhabited by a foreign people who kept queer customs and proudly stood apart from their northern neighbors, Dorne had long been an integrated part of broader Westeros. The unquestionable influence of the Rhoynar notwithstanding, Dorne had more in common with the rest of the Seven Kingdoms than it did not, as may be seen by the twin facts that Dorne had long-standing trade relations with the other Kingdoms and that the Rhoynish readily adopted the Faith of the Seven, with the exception of the Orphans of the Greenblood. Moreover, the fact that Dorne was inescapably part of the Seven Kingdoms forced the Targaryens to engage with it. And while the attempted conquests of Aegon I and Daeron I failed, the diplomacy of Baelor I and Daeron II proved to be spectacularly successful. By the time of the Rebellion of the Lords Declarant, Dorne was largely reconciled to the prospect of being an inalienable part of the Seven Kingdoms, and the other Kingdoms had mostly accepted its inclusion in their ranks. The Red Viper Rebellion represented the last concerted effort of traditional Dornish separatism, and its suppression and Stannis' divide-and-rule policies cemented the successes of the later Targaryens in integrating the southernmost of the Seven Kingdoms.
Exactly the opposite conditions obtained in the Iron Islands. The Isles were truly a land apart, home to a strange people and a strange faith. Neither the high kings of the First Men or the Andal conquerors seriously attempted to bring the Isles under their hegemony, and the Ironborn found themselves increasingly frozen out of the life of the mainland by their comparative poverty. There was simply nothing the Isles had or made that the mainland needed or wanted and couldn't get elsewhere. Traditional commerce failing them, the Ironborn turned to raiding, and the seeds of future conflict were sown. By the time the Greyiron dynasty established its hereditary rule over the Isles, the stereotypes were set in stone. On the one hand, the mainlanders had learned that the Ironborn were murderous pirates, raiders who sought only to take their goods for plunder and their women for salt wives. On the other hand, the Ironborn had learned that the mainlanders were weak, the lawful prey of any man strong enough to take what he pleased from them. This latter attitude was only reinforced by the conquests of the Hoare dynasty, and is perhaps best summed up by Harren Hoare's legendary reply to a delegation of septons petitioning him to reduce his plundering of the Riverlands to build Harrenhal. "If the God didn't want you to be sheared," Black Harren is reported to have asked, "then why did He make you sheep?"
These attitudes did not change under the Targaryens. The mainlanders regarded the Burning of Harrenhal as a fitting punishment for the crimes of the Ironborn, while the Ironborn maintained that Aegon would never have defeated Harren man to man and blade to blade; the use of Balerion to destroy Harrenhal was regarded as an act of unmanly cheating. Later Targaryens continued the Conqueror's policy of official neglect, codified by Aenys I's agreement to the Expulsion of the Faith. So long as the Ironborn were quiet and reasonably law-abiding, the Targaryens were content to let them stew in their own bitterness. Even when the Ironborn took to reaving again, the Targaryens allowed the lords of the Westerlands and the Reach to handle the problem themselves with a minimum of oversight. The Targaryens gave the Ironborn no reason to consider themselves as part of united Westeros, and in response the Ironborn clung the more fiercely to the memories of their last Golden Age, when they had been masters of almost a quarter of Westeros and unquestioned rulers of the waves.
By the time the Baratheons took the Iron Throne, the Ironborn were a culture in crisis. Quellon the Wise had managed to effectively abolish thralldom, restore the Faith of the Seven to the Isles, and reach out to the mainland as no Greyjoy had ever done before, but he hadn't been able to win the hearts of his own people's ruling class in a way that made his reforms outlast his death. To the martial nobility and the excess of would-be reavers, the notion of giving up the Old Way of chauvinist isolation and freewheeling piracy in favor of a New Way of reaching out to the mainland and replacing raiding with trading threatened the underpinnings of their identity. This backlash was not helped by the fact that Balon Greyjoy immediately repudiated his father's policies, restoring thralldom and removing House Greyjoy's support from the trading initiatives that had sprung up. This volte-face might have made a return to large-scale reaving inevitable, if only to stave off economic collapse, had it not been for the foundation of the Kingdom of Myr.
On the face of it, the Kingdom of Myr could not have been better tailored to provide a vehicle to integrate the Ironborn into Westerosi society. On the one hand, King Robert's wars provided ample opportunity for the Ironborn to practice the Old Way and earn the riches and reputation that came with being a successful reaver. On the other hand, the Westerosi saw the Ironborn using their proclivities in a just and worthy cause against enemies that both of them found odious, if for different reasons, and on both sides the opportunity was offered to forge alliances consecrated in the blood of slavers. Unfortunately, this process did not happen under Balon's leadership but under that of his brother Victarion, and Victarion quickly found himself able to forswear Balon's authority in favor of King Robert's. As a result, Balon found himself faced with the prospect of watching his power dwindle as both footloose reavers and the nascent Ironborn commercial class whose hopes Quellon had fostered and Balon had dashed streamed away to Myr in search of fame, fortune, and better lives. Not even the fact that some Ironborn returned to the Isles could alleviate Balon's aggravation, for these invariably came back loaded with plunder taken in the East and singing the praises of King Robert and Lord Victarion, who were overlords that an Ironborn could be proud of.
To Balon, who had not gone on a reiving voyage since before the Red Viper Rebellion, the challenge to his authority was no less unmistakable for being only implicit. He had to do something lest the Old Way crumble out from under his feet and take his authority with it. To his own misfortune, and the mixed fortunes of others, Balon Greyjoy's faults were faults of excess more than faults of lack; of a certainty he had no lack of courage, decisiveness, or ability to plan, as he would demonstrate . . .
Iron Hearts and Long Ships: the Ironborn in the Generation of Bloodby Maester Atkins
Maron Greyjoy tried to hold himself with the icy calm of a veteran reaver captain, but he could not keep his fingers from drumming on the head of the hand-axe thrust through his belt. This wasn't his first time sailing into battle, but it was his first time sailing into battle under conditions like these. Nor had he ever thrown the iron dice for stakes this high.
As his father and the Reader had explained it, the success of the rebellion would depend on whether or not the Westerlands were knocked out of the fight in the opening round. If the Westerlands retained the ability to field a fleet, then the Ironborn would be too busy being forced to defend the Isles to take the war to their enemies, as they would need to in order to have a chance at winning. On the other hand, if the Westerlands were struck to their knees and kept there, by an overwhelming blow followed by a series of raids, then the Ironborn would have knocked out half of the Iron Throne's strength in the Sunset Sea, and the more feared half at that. The Reachmen might be more numerous, but Mace Tyrell's reputation was nowhere near as savage as Tywin Lannister's; the man was mocked to his face by hismother, for the God's sake. As for his bannermen, even Euron and his fellow hirelings had outdone the Reachmen at the Battle of Tyrosh. Every man of worth among them had joined Victarion in the East; only the cowards, the weaklings, and the women were left, according to Father's spy.
So the majority of the Iron Fleet was sailing for Lannisport, seventy longships under his father's personal command and twenty sellsails, pirates from the Stepstones who had been drawn by offers of employment and loot a long way away from the turmoil of the Slave Wars and the fanatics fighting in them. Alongside them came ships from more than two-thirds of the Houses in the Isles; Tawney and Drumm, Harlaw and Codd, Goodbrother and Wynch, and a score of others. The only great lords of the Isles not with the fleet were the Reader, who had taken twenty longships of the Iron Fleet, thirty other longships, and forty more sellsails to attack Fair Isle, and Rodrik, who had taken the remaining ten longships of the Iron Fleet, fifteen other longships, and the last ten sellsails to attack the small harbor of the Banefort. But the fleet was not led by theGreat Kraken; instead they were led by ten old longships that had been filled with bundles of loose-tied kindling and old tarry rope, liberally doused with oil and pitch. These 'fireships', as the Reader called them, were to be sailed into the docks and set alight as the first part of the attack, in order to spread fire among the Lannister fleet and sow confusion and disorder for the fleet to attack into. The men who had volunteered to crew the fireships and be the first men ashore, in return for double shares and first pick of the loot, even ahead of the captains, had been looked upon by their fellows as a collection of madmen.
The trick to this attack, everyone had been told, was to appear friendly until the last possible moment. A fleet approaching with hostile intent would be greeted with a city that had flown to arms and a garrison that had had time to man the springalds and mangonels on the seaward walls. On the other hand, an apparent trading fleet would be treated as unusual but not dangerous; certainly nothing to man the engines for. So the figureheads carved to resemble the heads of sea serpents and krakens and other monsters had been left off, the shields were stowed inboard rather than hung over the rails, and the rowers had left their armor off entirely while the captains and their housekarls had contented themselves with byrnies only. Surprise and shock would be their protection. The greenlanders were soft, peace-loving men; only the soldiers on duty and maybe one or two knights would be wearing armor and carrying weapons larger than knives and side-swords, and they would not be expecting danger any more than the townsmen would.
This fog that had descended upon them last night, thick as Myrish felt and almost as transparent, had been greeted as a welcome addition to the plan. Even if the Westermen saw them coming, it would only be at close range, giving them barely enough time to register their presence before the fleet came within striking range. Truly the God favored them, the drowned priests who had sailed with the fleet had observed, to give them such aid.
Maron had known that land was close for some time now, thanks to the change in the color of the sea and the smell of the shore on the breeze, but it was still a shock to see the walls of Lannisport suddenly loom out of the fog, as if by a conjurer's spell. The stern lanterns on the leading ships flashed back towards the fleet, winking bright, then dark, then bright again as iron shutters were opened and closed. Maron couldfeelthe crew of hisIron Fisttense in anticipation as he bared his teeth in a shark-smile. "Axe-time, sword-time, shields are sundered," he muttered to himself, quoting from an epic of the Drowned God that was ancient before the Andals brought their seven false gods to Westeros. "Wind-time, wolf-time, ere the world falls."
XXX
The city of Lannisport was proud of its martial heritage. In a world where wealth attracted thieves, the wealthy had to be strong enough to convince thieves to seek easier prey if they wanted to stay wealthy. With the most notorious nation of thieves in Westeros just over the horizon from them, Lannisport had had to become strong indeed. By city ordinance every guildsman had to own a coat of plates, a sword and buckler, and either a heavy spear or poleaxe or a crossbow, and spend at least one day in every seven either in practice with them or serving in the garrison. In addition, knights who resided in Lannisport could earn credit against city taxes by performing garrison service, and knights that swore themselves to the city's service received a stipend to officer and train the guild militia and the City Watch.
These policies had been endorsed and supported by the Lannister's, both those of the city and those of Casterly Rock. The Rock's gold might be the foundation of the Lannister's wealth, but Lannisport was the engine that pumped that gold into the trading network that spanned the western coast of Westeros. Every ship that carried timber, pelts, mammoth ivory, wool, and amber south from the North landed at Lannisport to trade their cargoes for grain, wine, silk, and luxury goods from the Reach, and it was the facilities and brokers of Lannisport that facilitated this trade. In return for its services, Lannisport charged the traders who used them a percentage of their profits, which flowed into the Lannister vaults in a river of coin. From long before the Conquest the Lannister's had recognized the importance of protecting the source of that river, and recognized the wisdom of helping it defend itself in return for it's loyalty. Tywin had been no different; one of his first acts in his quest to suppress the Reynes and Tarbecks had been to renew the oath his father had let lapse, that House Lannister would always maintain Lannisport's privileges, rights, and freedoms against any aggressor, and prove his seriousness by hanging the next robber knight who had tried to extort the city for tribute. Lannisport had repaid Tywin with ferocious loyalty; the corps of crossbowmen that had marched with him against the Tarbecks and the Reynes had been recruited from the guilds of Lannisport, as had many of the men-at-arms that first flocked to his banner.
All of which is to say that the Iron Fleet would have found Lannisport a tough nut to crack, under normal circ*mstances. But times had not been normal. More than a few of Lannisport's knights had gone east to serve Ser Jaime in his exile, and more had gone east since the Conquest of Myr, drawn by the lure of seeing more action and more loot in a year in the east than they might see in a lifetime in Lannisport. The fact that so many of the Ironborn had gone east as well had only loosened the tie. Surely Balon Greyjoy would not be foolish enough to attack the strongest city on the western coast when so many of his reavers had foresworn his service in favor of his more famous brother. So the watchfulness of the city had waned, and what remained had been turned landward by the news of revolt in the Reach and the rumor of heresy abroad in the land.
So when the Ironborn longships emerged from the fog and raced for the harbor, it came as a complete surprise. By the time the alarm horns had been sounded, the towers protecting the harbor chain had been stormed and the chain cut, and the fireships that had led the rush had been rammed into the docks and set alight. Four of the ten failed to transmit the flames they carried to anything significant, but the other six did; one, either by extreme skill or extreme luck, found it's way into the slips where the Lannister fleet was held out of the water. Within minutes half of the waterfront was ablaze, and the other half was swarming with reavers killing anything that came under their weapons.
Only two things prevented the city from being completely overrun. The first was that as many reavers stopped attacking in order to carry loot from the dockland warehouses back to their ships as carried on into the main streets of the city. The second was that Kevan Lannister had been visiting the city with fifty of his knights, and at the first alarum he led them in an immediate counterattack. Only the ten who had been on duty were actually in armor; no city in the world was as friendly to Lannister's as Lannisport, and the lawfulness of the Westerlands under Tywin's rule meant that it was a rare knight that wore armor without some pressing need. But fifty trained men, led by a leader willing to use them, could make a world of difference, and with their lord at their head they plunged into the hell that the Smith's Quarter had become like bouncers plunging into a tavern brawl.
Of those fifty men only twelve would survive the battle unwounded and Kevan Lannister would be crippled for life by Ironborn axe blows to his right leg and left arm, but their blood bought time for the garrison, the City Watch, and the guilds and knights of the city to arm and rally. The rest of the day saw the tide of battle slowly begin to turn against the Ironborn, as they began to be driven back street by street and square by square. Ser Sandor Clegane, who had been in the city to consult with his factor, won plaudits by personally leading a counterattack that cleared Grocer's Row down to the docklands, killing Lord Dunstan Drumm and his champion Andrik the Unsmiling in single combat as he did so. But what truly drove the Ironborn off was the spreading of the fires they had started in the docklands, which threatened to cut off their retreat by consuming their longships. So the Ironborn pulled back to the docks, taking as much loot as they could carry as they did so, and sailed away as quickly as they boarded, trading bolts with the springalds on the sea-wall as they went.
The fires that the Ironborn set would rage for two days before the last of them was extinguished, leaving the docklands of Lannisport almost totally destroyed. The Lannister fleet was reduced to only a pair of heavily damaged galleys, both of which were written off and broken up for their surviving timbers and fittings. Lannisport itself suffered more damage than even Dalton had inflicted; almost half of the city's guildsmen were killed or wounded along with many of the city's knights and Watchmen. More than two hundred women and girls were abducted as salt wives; less than a third of these would ever return to Westeros.
The outpouring of rage at this surprise attack was immediate and overwhelming; within a sennight, companies were streaming to Lannisport from all over the Westerlands to take part in the counterstroke that was widely regarded as being only a matter of time. This anger was exacerbated by the fact that Lannisport was not the only target of Balon's strategic ambush . . .
XXX
The Most Devout glanced cautiously at the High Septon as the messenger finished giving his report. The past months had already been stressful for the man, what with the Upper Mander Rebellion and the increasing unrest in Gulltown over the heretics there. Only the conversion of Euron Greyjoy had offered a ray of light in the gathering darkness. But this last sennight had aged him years. Ser Jaime Lannister, perhaps the most famous knight of his generation, was not coming home after all but was returning to that pit of heresy that called itself the Kingdom of Myr. Lord Tywin had yet to tell anyone what had transpired to make Ser Jaime sail away, but many-tongued Rumor was offering a score of theories, ranging from Ser Jaime taking offense at Lord Tywin's disdain for King Robert to Ser Jaime having turned heretic in his time overseas; that last had, perhaps predictably, gained the most traction. Queen Cersei had been livid, and her anger had infected the people of the city who had been denied the chance to celebrate the return of a hero.
The knights and lords who had traveled to King's Landing for the planned tournament had been even angrier. Many of them had traveled for sennights, acquired lodgings in the city at inflated prices, bought new clothes and jewels for the wedding that would cap off the festivities, and had nothing to show for their time and money. Angriest of all had been the Riverlanders, spurred to fury at the suicide of their liege-lord's daughter; had Ser Jaime fallen into their hands in the days immediately Lysa Tully's death, he would almost certainly have died on the spot as a murderer. The High Septon had been running himself ragged spreading oil on troubled waters, preaching the virtues of patience and forgiveness to people who didn't want to hear a word about them. Lord Mooton had walked out of his audience when the High Septon had counseled him to remember that wrath was a deadly sin and forgiveness a saving virtue, and he was neither alone in doing so or even the most extreme in his views; when the High Septon had given the same counsel to Lord Blackwood, the pagan lord's knights had had to physically restrain him. And Lord Tywin had been little help; after sending written apologies (but not explanations) to each of the lords and another to the Council of Burghers, he had hied himself back to Casterly Rock, leaving the High Septon to play peacemaker. Not only that, but he had taken his son Tyrion with him, newly laicized and named heir to the Rock, thus depriving the Faith of one of the most promising minds in its current crop of seminarians.
And now this news falling like a thunderbolt from the heavens. Lannisport attacked by surprise and partially sacked, the Silver Sept stripped of its valuables and put to the torch with half its septons killed before the altars. Fair Isle overrun by another combined fleet of Ironborn and pirates, Faircastle taken by storm and sacked and Lord Farman beheaded before his wife and daughters were taken as salt wives. The Banefort attacked by athirdfleet of Ironborn and pirates that had posed as friends until the swords were drawn, Lord Banefort killed by Urrigon Greyjoy after greeting him as a friend. Ironborn ships ranging up and down the coast of the Westerlands, pillaging and burning at will. The High Septon, the Most Devout remembered, had been born in Lannisport and educated at the Silver Sept's seminary. Many of the septons there had been his friends before he was elected to the crystal crown. The news of their deaths had clearly struck him like a hammerblow, leaving him gray-faced and hunched in his throne.
Then before their eyes he rallied, his already great bulk seeming to inflate even further as he stood. "This cannot stand," he ground out, his face reddening. "Long have we tolerated the heathenry of the Ironborn, in accordance with the dictates of the Iron Throne. I say now:no longer. Not while this crime stands stinking in the nostrils of the Seven." He paused with a wince, bringing a hand to his chest, but waved off the septon-servant who stepped forward to help him back to his chair. "Spread my word throughout the Seven Kingdoms," he ground out through gritted teeth. "I summon the Faithful to war against the Iron Islands. Let all the wrath that the Ironborn have stored up for themselves be poured out upon them. Let their seas run red with their blood and their skies be made black with carrion crows." He spasmed, clutching at his chest as his face contorted with pain, but when the septon-servant rushed to his side the High Septon pushed him away with surprising force. "The Iron Islands," he gasped, "must be," he dragged in a shuddering breath. "Destroyed," he wheezed, and collapsed to the floor in a heap.
Chapter 93: Showdown
Chapter Text
The news of Balon's Rebellion had two effects on the Upper Mander Rebellion. Firstly, Stannis was compelled to release the Mallister contingent from the Royal Army, as the Mallister's were traditionally the Riverlands' first line of defense against the Ironborn. Secondly, it restored the pressure to finish the Upper Mander rebels quickly that the winter campaign had removed. Every day that the Upper Mander Rebellion dragged on was a day that Stannis could not adequately defend his western subjects against the Ironborn. Although there was no real danger of the Westerlands being overrun beyond Fair Isle, or of the Riverlands being invaded once the Mallister's returned to Seagard, the specter of Ironborn longships being able to raid the whole western coast unchallenged was exactly the sort of pollitical disaster that Stannis could least afford.
Consequently, as soon as the late winter/early spring rains let up enough to allow armies to march without bogging down in mud, the Royal Army marched straight for the rebel heartland between Norcross and Norridge Castles. At the same time, Mace Tyrell led his army up the Mander towards Bitterbridge, both to evict Hubert the Bastard from his unjustly-claimed fief and to provide the anvil to Stannis' hammer. The intent that Stannis and Mace had developed over the balance of the winter, over a series of raven-borne messages between Stoney Sept and Longtable, was to force the rebels into fighting a set-piece battle, where they would be most vulnerable to a decisive defeat.
The rebel leadership, for their part, had apparently foreseen this eventuality and laid their own plan. Surviving letters bearing the signatures of the ringleaders show that Norcross and Pommingham, quickly joined by Graves, quickly came to the conclusion that if they were forced to fight a battle, then it would be better if they fought it against Stannis before Tyrell could come to his aid. Their men, Pommingham claimed in one particularly insightful letter, would almost certainly fight harder against the tyrant king they had been taught to hate all winter (and who, to be strictly fair, had done more than a little to earn their hate), than they would against their liege-lord, who had recently declared that he would intercede with Stannis on behalf of any rebel who returned to their allegiance and threw themselves upon his mercy. Animals fought best when their only options were death or victory, Pommingham wrote, and men were not much different.
This plan won Septon Ryman's approval, and as the Royal Army marched south-east the rebels began to converge from their winter quarters to meet them at Tickclose Field. Little did the rebels suspect that they were being played . . .
Wandering Stars: The Westerosi Wars of Religion, Vol. Iby Maester Setton
"Where thef*ck,"Richard Norcross snarled, "are Norridge and Pommingham?"
Gaston Graves shrugged. "Don't ask me," he said without looking at his colleague. "It's a bit late in the day for them to show up, any road."
Richard spat on the ground by his destrier's hoof as he followed Gaston's gaze across the field. The Royal Army was standing in formation under the iron sky and fitful showers, infantry and archers in the center and cavalry on the flanks, easily fifteen thousand men or more. By contrast, Richard and Gaston had barely five thousand men under their banners. They had a fairly high proportion of knights and men-at-arms, about one man in five, but they should have had at least twice as many men. Richard swore under his breath; heknewhe had sent Norridge and Pommingham their marching orders in good time for them to come up, and that their guides were good enough to lead them to this chosen field. And unlike Hubert Flo-Caswell,he reminded himself, he knew that they had marched; Hubert had refused to abandon Bitterbridge and was trying to hold it against the Tyrells at last report. So where in the bowels of the Hellswere they?He had sent gallopers down each of the roads behind the army looking for them, but none had reported back yet. He could feel his stomach gradually tie itself in knots as he clenched and unclenched his gauntleted hands.
A hand laid on his vambrace caught his attention and he found himself looking into the preternaturally calm eyes of Septon Ryman. "Be at ease, my lord," the septon said in his resonant baritone. "Ser Artys Arryn faced worse odds when he overthrew the Royces and won the Vale, as did Hugor of the Hill when he smote the unbelievers. Mere numbers are nothing against the power of the Gods."
Richard set his jaw and tore his gaze away from the septon's to look back across the field. "Perhaps," he allowed. "But the Gods best help those who help themselves, do they not?"
"'If you had the faith of a grass seed, you would be able to tell that mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it would move,'" Septon Ryman quoted from the Book of the Father. "All things are possible through the Gods that are our strength and our sustenance, my lord, if only we put our faith in them."
At that moment the clouds broke and sun shone through, and a wave of gasps arose from the army as a rainbow appeared in the center of the field. "You see?!" Septon Ryman proclaimed as he threw out a hand to point at the rainbow. "The gods send a sign to their Faithful! Was it not in this way that they proclaimed the fall of Tristifer Mudd, and delivered him into the hands of their champions? Why then shall we fear? Let us go forth and conquer, my lord, for the Gods will it so!"
A cheer sprang up from the knights who heard Ryman's speech, and Richard felt the hesitation that had infected him melt away. He turned to his trumpeter. "Sound 'To Horse'," he commanded, and as the brassy notes rang away the knights and men-at-arms who had dismounted to fight on foot with the infantry called their pages forward with their horses. When, minutes later, Richard walked his horse forward with Gaston at his right hand and Septon Ryman at his left, a thousand knights and men-at-arms rode forward with him to form a wall of armored men and great horses before their infantry. Richard glanced to either side and raised his lance. "For the Gods and our freedoms!" he roared. "Charge!"
The battle-cry rang to the heavens as the spurs went back and four thousand hooves began to drum out the advance.
XXX
Stannis narrowed his eyes as the rebel cavalry charged. He had expected some measure of hotheadedness, but a full-frontal charge at odds of fifteen to one, leaving behind their infantry, had exceeded even his expectations. Doubtless the appearance of the rainbow had something to do with it; men saw what they wanted to see, after all, especially if doing so allowed them to claim divine favor.Let this remind you never to underestimate men's passions,he told himself as he raised a gauntleted hand to signal for one of his gallopers. "Inform Lord Blackwood and Lord Gaunt," he said conversationally, "that their archers may loose when ready."
The galloper clapped hand to breastplate in salute and cantered away as Stannis calculated. The longbowmen should have time to loose at least four or five volleys before the rebel cavalry reached the spearmen who were even now bracing their pavises against the ground and planting their spear-butts under their insteps to receive the charge. That would amount to more than ten thousand quarter-pound arrows striking the rebels before they could even bring their lances to bear. Those arrows might do little enough against men in plate, but few of the rebels were armored in full suits of plate, from what he could tell; mostly they seemed to wear heavy brigandines over doubled ring-mail, with plate arms and legs. Such armor was substantially cheaper than full plate and still provided a good degree of protection, but it was less effective against arrows than full plate thanks to the greater profusion of joints.
And the longbowmen of the Riverlands were not the only archers Stannis had in his army. The Crownland infantry under Lord Gaunt included a thousand crossbowmen recruited from the guilds of King's Landing; they might be slower to load and loose than the longbowmen but their steel-staved crossbows were strong enough that they could only be loaded with the help of windlasses or cranequins. One journeyman of the Wainwright's Guild had demonstrated the strength of his weapon to Stannis by putting a bolt through the breastplate of an empty cuirass and leaving a knuckle-deep dent in the backplate from the inside. Against horses that were only lightly barded, when they were barded at all, Stannis expected such weapons to wreak havoc. Orders had been given accordingly.
So when the rebel cavalry weathered the storm of arrows as they cantered across the field, Stannis did not so much as raise an eyebrow, projecting an image of resolute calm as he sipped at a cup of watered wine that his squire Arahad Oakheart had been resourceful enough to acquire. He might not be able to fake good cheer or make a jest the way Robert could, but this mask of impervious calm was one he had mastered when Lord Tyrell had besieged Storm's End and perfected over the last seven years of unexpected kingship.
As the rebels closed to within fifty yards, with the longbows continuing to pluck their unmusical song, the guildsmen levelled their crossbows on the order of the sergeants, waited a dozen heartbeats, and then loosed. What had been a mighty charge, no less splendid for the saddles that had been emptied almost every heartbeat, became an unsightly mess as almost the whole front rank of horses went down, screaming louder than men could ever hope to do as the bolts smashed through them. The fallen horses and their riders became an obstacle that those following them could not hope to avoid; a few managed to jump their steeds over the logjam of men and horses, but more found themselves unable to jump over, stop short of, or avoid the morass of men and beasts, and added themselves to the pileup.
Stannis drank the last of his cup, tossed it back to Arahad, and turned to his trumpeter. "Sound the advance," he ordered, and drew his sword and raised it high to catch the sunlight. "For the Faith and the law!" he roared, aiming his blade at the stalled rebel charge. "At them!"
"Stannis King!" his Stormguards bellowed back as they closed their visors, and as the infantry took up the war-shout as they raised their shields and levelled their spears for the charge.
XXX
Richard didn't have the breath to spare for curses, but if he did he would have been uttering a continuous stream of them.Damned archers,he would have said,damned crossbowmen, damned impetuousness, damned tardy allies.
He didn't even have the luxury to think these things, for his whole being was engaged in fighting for his life. By some miracle he had managed to get clear of his horse when it was shot down by the royalist crossbows, and now he was almost entirely surrounded by royalist infantry and dismounted men-at-arms. He was back-to-back-to back with a pair of knights whose names he didn't know, his longsword flying from guard to guard as he covered and cut, fast enough that conscious thought was too slow to keep up and only instinct and reflex could serve. He was dimly aware that the war cries of his comrades were fading away, drowned out or simply replaced by the pounding hateful chant of "Stannis King!", but with his helmet on and his visor up all he could see was the spearheads that constantly probed at him and the sword blades and axe and mace heads that came whirling in.
He spent breath and spirit like a libertine spent gold keeping himself alive, not consciously knowing that he and the men he was fighting with were building a small ring of dead and wounded men around them. He felt the man to his left-rear go down and wheeled, knocking a spearman senseless with the pommel of his longsword as the man reversed his grip on his spear to finish his victim off, and in the same instant something struck his left hip like a thunderbolt. He staggered, aware that something had given way, but he forced himself to stay upright and on pure reflex he managed to catch the poleaxe that had dislocated his hip under his left arm as it crashed into the side of his cuirass and plunge half the length of his longsword through the visor slit of its wielder. He wasted a breath trying to retrieve the blade when it jammed in the other man's skull and visor, a breath in which he took four separate blows that he could feel through his armor, and then his dagger was in his fist and he was staggering into the press; the dagger was too short a weapon to fight defensively with against such a throng. He made it two steps, his hands and arms flying through the frenetic routines that his master-at-arms had drilled into him from the age of seven, before his feet caught on something and he went down. He managed to shake one of his legs free and ram his dagger through the skirt of a spearman's hauberk into his thigh when a blow to the helmet stunned him. He felt men dive onto him and had just enough time to think,sh*t on all of it, anyway,before he fell into darkness.
XXX
. . . The defeat of the rebel cavalry essentially won the battle for Stannis. The rebel infantry, which had gone through a rollercoaster all winter in regards to their morale, was faced with a choice. Either fight on for leaders who were either dead, taken, or put to flight, surrender and trust that the royalists would be in a merciful mood, or run for it and make their submissions when tempers had cooled. Without Septon Ryman or the rebel knights to stiffen their resolve, and with the royalist cavalry bearing down on them, the rebel infantry decided to flee. And it is as well they did, because Stannis' orders had been explicit, and are best described in the words of one that they were given to. As Lord Randyll Tarly wrote in a surviving letter to his wife, "His Grace ordered that once the battle began, no quarter should be given except to the ringleaders of the rebellion, who were to face the King's Justice. Whether knight, man-at-arms, sellsword, or smallfolk, any man on the field who bore arms against the Iron Throne was to be slain, as was any man who fled the field and, being pursued, was taken before night fell. This, with the help of the Gods and by the exertions of many brave gentlemen, was done."
Maester Yandel writes that the pursuit lasted for fifteen miles or more, and that "only those who ran faster than all their fellows escaped the King's vengeance." An exact toll of the dead is uncertain, but that many smallfolk whose only real crime was obeying the orders of their lords were massacred cannot be doubted. Nor was this the only massacre to be carried out that day . . .
The Mask of Chivalry: Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Westeros from the Blackfyre Rebellions to the Wars of Religionby Maester Marks
XXX
Ser Maxwell Taylor couldn't help feeling uneasy as he watched the argument that had sprung up. Lord Pommingham had led them off the line of march that would have taken them to the rallying point for the army, just like he had told him and the other leading knights of his retinue that he would, but then they had come across Lord Norridge's force. Lord Norridge had demanded to know why Lord Pommingham wasn't riding on the agreed-upon route and Lord Pommingham had taken him by the arm and drawn him aside to "have a word between ourselves." Now the two lords were muttering back and forth at each other, while their men eyed each other as they sat their horses. Ser Maxwell knew that his lord had become disenchanted with Lord Norcross's revolt, but he hadn't been privy to his lord's whole plan. He shifted in his saddle, directing a mental curse at his lord's caginess He had never liked being kept in the dark; in his experience it was what you didn't know that ended up coming at with a dagger when you least expected it. The only reason he hadn't changed lords years ago was because the knight's-fee he held was conditional upon his service, and he was too old to go back to being a hedge knight.
He had just finished sizing up the young knight opposite him and decided that he could probably take him if it came to blows when he heard something he had never thought to hear his lord say. "In that case, my lord, you leave me no choice," Lord Pommingham announced in the sorrowfully firm voice that he used when passing judgement. "I hereby arrest you in the name of His Grace the King for the crime of high treason." Ser Maxwell whipped his head around, his mouth falling open in shock, to see Lord Norridge saw at the reins of his horse, trying to back it away as he gobbled fury. Lord Pommingham, missing his grab at the other lord's reins, nudged his horse's flanks with his spurs and drew his sword, cutting straight from the draw to whip his blade over Lord Norridge's arm as he sought to draw his own sword and lay open the other lord's throat above his gorget.
As Lord Norridge clutched at his throat, spraying blood as he gobbled and fell from the saddle to bleed his life out, Lord Pommingham rode back to his men. "You all saw him, he resisted arrest . . ." he began saying into the shocked silence, and then his words were drowned out by a half-strangled howl of fury. The young knight Ser Maxwell had been eyeing shot forward on his spur-stung horse, his sword flying clear, and by the time Lord Pommingham brought his sword up to cover the young knight's thrust it had already gone into his mouth and out the back of his head half its length. Ser Maxwell raked back his own spurs, drawing his sword purely on reflex, and cut the young knight's head from his shoulders, but as he did so he could hear the roars of "Treachery!" go up from the Norridge men and the cries of "Avenge!" from his fellow Pommingham men and then he was too busy fighting to listen to what anyone was saying.
XXX
Ser Henrie Talbert reined in his horse and threw up his hand to signal the halt as he took in the scene before him. "Well," he observed to his second, Ser Jon Conver, "this is a fine mess, isn't it?"
"Quite," Ser Jon replied as he scratched the end of his hooked nose with gauntleted fingers. Lord Tyrell had taken Bitterbridge by storm a few days ago; the Bastard hadn't been able to inspire enough loyalty to prevent someone from opening a postern, or to rally his men once it was clear the outer wall was lost. No sooner had the Bastard been strung up for the bandit he was and a cousin of the Caswell's declared lord, pending His Grace's approval, than Ser Henrie and Ser Jon had been entrusted with an urgent mission. The hundred lances they were leading on behalf of Lord Tyrell were meant to meet with Lord Dayvid Pommingham, assist him in putting down any rebels that presented themselves, and take custody of the traitor Lord Fredrick Norridge, but it appeared that something had gone wrong. The crossroads in front of them was a cauldron of combat as knights, men-at-arms, sergeants, and archers hacked at each other, apparently intent on self-destruction. Exactly who was supposed to be serving who, Ser Henrie couldn't tell for the life of him, and only the banners that still flew told him that these were Pommingham and Norridge men. "Who were we supposed to kill again?" Ser Jon asked; he had taken enough blows to the head that he sometimes forgot things he had just been told.
Ser Henrie considered a moment, then decided it didn't matter; he could make no more sense of this than his old neighbor could, and he suspected that this wasn't the sort of situation that would make sense even to the people in it. "They're all rebels and heretics, aren't they?" he asked rhetorically with shrug of his armored shoulders. "So let's kill them all."
Ser Jon nodded. "Much simpler," he agreed, closing his visor. Ser Henrie waved to either side to order the men behind him to fan out, closed his visor as they did so, and then took his lance from his squire.
"Charge!" he shouted and put the spurs to his courser as his men gave a cheer and followed him.
XXX
Four days later, in the courtyard of Norcross Castle . . .
"Let it be known," the herald proclaimed in the loud-but-not-shouting voice of his profession, "that whereas he has been taken on the field of battle bearing arms against His Grace, Stannis the First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm, and whereas he has previously to this committed divers other crimes against His Grace and levied war against him and his subjects and servants, that Richard Norcross, Lord of the House of that name, is hereby found guilty of high treason. By his right of high justice in all of Westeros, His Grace King Stannis hereby decrees that the said Richard Norcross shall be degraded from the dignity of knighthood, be drawn to the nearest tree that might take his weight, and there be hanged by the neck until dead. May the Gods have mercy upon his soul."
As the herald rolled up his scroll, one of several that had been drafted over the past three days, two of Stannis' Stormguards advanced on Richard Norcross, who was standing before the improvised dais that Stannis and Mace Tyrell were sitting on with his hands bound and his arms held by a pair of brawny sergeants. Stannis watched, visibly unmoved, as Norcross's surcoat displaying his arms was torn off his body and passed to a pair of camp followers to be torn to rags, the straps and points of his armor cut and the pieces allowed to fall away, his belt of plates removed and passed to a smith to be dismantled, his sword broken and the pieces cast to the ground before him, and finally his spurs cut away and passed to the smith to be cut in half with a chisel. He was tempted to feel sorry as Norcross' face went from stoic defiance to ashen collapse, but he steeled himself. The man was a confessed and proven traitor, after all, and Stannis was no longer willing to allow such men even the least comfort in their deaths. The precedent that traitor knights were entitled to die in the dignity of their knighthood was one more that would have to be overturned, if he was to realize his vision of the Seven Kingdoms becoming One. Nor was that the only precedent he meant to break today.
As Norcross was dragged away past the ranks of grimly triumphant royalists, many of whom spat in his path as he went by, his family and the families of Fredrick Norridge and Gaston Graves were escorted forward by a squad of Crownland spearmen; Gaston himself had died on the field of Tickclose, or else he would have shared Norcross' fate. At Stannis' signal, the herald unrolled another scroll that his assistant had handed him and cleared his throat. "Let it be known," he declaimed, "that whereas the heads of Houses Norcross, Norridge, and Graves have been condemned of high treason, and whereas no member of those Houses remained true to their allegiance to the Iron Throne, the aforesaid Houses are declared to be attainted. By his right of high justice in all of Westeros, His Grace the King declares that the holdings of the aforesaid Houses are hereby forfeited to the stewardship of House Tyrell, and all members of the aforesaid Houses over the age of majority are commanded to abjure the Seven Kingdoms forthwith, upon pain of death. All members of the aforesaid Houses under the age of majority shall be taken as wards of His Grace, that they might be raised in loyalty to their sovereign king until they are of sufficient age and trustworthiness to inherit the holdings of their Houses."
As the newly attainted families were led away, a few of them unwisely attempting to protest, the family of Dayvid Pommingham came forward. As the herald began to read out the sentence in their case, Stannis flicked a glance at Mace Tyrell, who sat at his right hand. "I will require assurances that the Pommingham's will not abuse the mercy we have shown them," he murmured under the herald's declaration that for their head's return to his allegiance House Pommingham would retain their lands and titles at the Iron Throne's pleasure.
"I made plain to them that their continued existence is due only to Your Grace's begrudging sufferance and my extreme effort," Mace muttered back, maintaining his avuncularly stern expression as he did; he had told Stannis that he could not bring himself to wholly approve of such harshness, but he would play his part nonetheless. The appearance of unity, he had said, was just as important as the fact of it, especially coming from authority. "In addition, I have taken the new heir, Jaymes by name, and his sister and oldest male cousin as hostages. They will be treated as pages, for the most part, but if their parents put so much as a toe out of line, then they will die before the next sunrise; I told them so in as many words."
Stannis nodded minutely. "That will serve for now," he agreed under his breath as the Pomminghams were ushered away and the herald began to proclaim the posthumous degradation from knighthood of the knights and lords who had died in rebellion, the outlawry of those who had yet to be killed or taken prisoner, and the decrees of heavy fines and demands for hostages levied against their families. That last had been Mace's idea; in lieu of outright dispossession, the former rebels could foot the bill for the war against the Iron Isles. "Are preparations in hand for our moving downriver?"
"A raven came from Bitterbridge two hours ago," Mace whispered. "Fifty heavy river barges have already been assembled, and Lord Merryweather believes that he should have as many as seventy-five in hand by the time we arrive. Between the barges and smaller craft, we should be able to float at least the balance of the infantry down the Mander, if not the majority, while the cavalry ride down the Roseroad. Especially since the Riverlanders will not be joining us?"
Stannis nodded minutely again. "Lord Tully led the last contingents northward at daybreak to cover the coasts," he murmured as the herald continued to drone through the list of Houses and the fines and hostages required of them. "Fifteen days to Highgarden without stopping along the way, three days' rest to resupply and throw a feast to celebrate this victory and allow the Hightower's and their vassals to assemble and take ship to Lannisport, and then down the rest of the Mander to the Shield Islands and northward along the coast." He paused, then went on. "A pity we could not take Ryman alive; the Faith would have been grateful for the opportunity to punish him fittingly."
"Fortunes of war," Mace said softly with a hint of verbal shrug. "And dead men cannot make a spectacle of their trials or their executions."
"True," Stannis agreed. "Although I'm told that stories are already spreading of his end." The heresiarch had been found dead on the field with two arrows through his chest and a broken neck, probably from falling off his horse, but Stannis had been told that there were already reports circulating that Ryman had been shot withsevenarrows, or that he had actually fallen in battle against some famous knight. One rumor even had him fightingStannis himself, of all the foolish things. "We have yet to sweep up the septons that he turned to his heresy, or so I am told," he went on. "I would take it as a favor if you did all in your power to root them out, my lord."
"I have already sent ravens to the local reeves commanding to be on the lookout," Mace assured him sotto voce. "If any whispers of heresy come to our ears, we will root them out."
"As thoroughly as ever you may, my lord, if you please," Stannis said, no less firmly for speaking so softly. "I do not wish to be forced to fight this rebellion a second time."
"Nor do I, Your Grace" Mace replied as the herald finished with the roll of attainted knights and lords and moved on to the declaration of conditional amnesty for the smallfolk who had followed their lords into rebellion. "Any news from King's Landing, perchance?"
"Later," Stannis murmured, thinking about the raven-message he had received from Jon Arryn yesterday evening.
Chapter 94: Flash Among the Gulls
Chapter Text
The following is an excerpt fromA King's Flash, the fourth instalment of the Flash Papers by George Dand
Davos Blacksail once told me that each seaport town smelled differently to him. Load of rot, in my opinion; they all smelled of salt, fish, and sh*t to me. The only difference was in degree. The best I could say of Gulltown in that regard was that it was less overwhelming than King's Landing, which admittedly isn't a high bar to clear.
But that wasn't the only thing I smelled in Gulltown when I came off the ship. From one pier alone I could see no less than twenty men-at-arms in Arryn colors, and five belted knights to command them; they all had an odd air around them, but for the life of me I couldn't place it. The ordinary people along the docks, the longshoremen and peddlers and touts and whatnot, gave them a wide berth as they went around their business, and seemed to take pains to avoid drawing their attention. One old seaman looked ready to spit when one of them asked him his business before visibly thinking better of it. It wasn't until someonedidtell them to mind their own business and got casually battered to the flagstones for his trouble that I realized what had been so odd. Each man-at-arms had their sword at their side, but they all had three-foot batons in their hands, as did the knights. They were also in three-quarter armor, which struck me as even stranger; Gulltown was a law-abiding city, or so I had heard, so why did Denys Arryn's men feel the need to treat it's people like a recently conquered populace?
The Watch commander that I handed my letter of introduction to filled me in over cheap wine in his office. "Unrest," he said through his over-bushy moustache. "There've been two riots in the past month, and more close calls than I care to think about. The riots were small ones, only a street or two, but they were bad; men hurt as bad as if they were in battle, a few killed even, and more than a few taken to the cells to cool their heels. I've got five in this very Watch house waiting to go up for judgement; the justices have been working from dawn to dusk."
I confess I fairly gaped. "But Ser Denys has been saying that Gulltown's been quiet for months, years even," I protested.
The only reason the Watch commander didn't spit was because we were indoors; he contented himself with clicking his tongue derisively. "Ser Denys is half the reason we're in this mess, ser," he snapped. "Half the people who stop to listen to the heretics at their preaching aren't heretics themselves, nor likely to be. We've always liked a bit of street theater, here, and when the heretics say something stupid the people like to heckle. But Ser Denys, he doesn't know that people just like to have their fun; if you stop to listen to a heretic, that makes you a heretic in his book, or close enough, so move along or be moved. Of course, people don't like being told what to do by an outsider, so they tell him and his boys to get lost. At least, that's what happened the first few times, and then Ser Denys gave his men those batons and orders to use them. Now if you stop to listen to a preacher, you're lucky if you only get your ribs sprung and left to crawl home. If you're not lucky then it's a cracked skull for you, and you get to sleep it off in the cells. No one's worked up the balls to do more than mutter, so Ser Denys can say that he has things in hand. But if his boys break the wrong head and it can't be covered up, or the heretics decide to stop talking and start fighting . . ."
As he covered up his grimace by taking another swallow from his cup, I couldn't help wincing. Cities are the very devil to fight in, especially if you don't know them as well as the natives. And while Gulltowners weren't Braavosi, I had no illusions about their willingness to fight; it's a rare and strange man that won't fight to protect his home and family and customs, especially against outsiders. And if you think that the Arryns couldn't have been outsiders in Gulltown, try getting someone from Massey's Hook and someone from Crackclaw Point to see each other as countrymen; nine times in ten labels like Valeman or Stormlander only mean anything to people from outside the region referred to. I've met people who considered everywhere more than a day's walk from their front door to be 'foreign parts.' Exactly how well the Gulltowners would fight was open to debate, but at the same time almost immaterial. Ser Denys couldn't have enough men to hold an entire city down by force, especially if the rising were sudden, sharp, and even minimally planned. Add in a levelling strand of heresy that was almost perfectly designed to appeal to burghers, who aren't the most reverent sort of people and don't have much use for knights and lords as a general rule and especially not when they're strangers, and it was no wonder the Watch commander was knocking back the wine like it was water. He was contemplating the possibility of civil war breaking out, on his watch.
If I had any doubts about the situation, they were dispelled not two hours later, when I had left the Watch house and was seeking out an inn to lodge at; I was officially incognito, and traveling under the guise of a hedge knight seeking work with the City Watch. I just finished getting directions from a street vendor, listening with half an ear to the fevered preaching of a battered-looking begging brother standing on an upturned crate on the street corner, when a clatter of hooves announced the arrival of a dozen mounted men-at-arms, none other than Gerold Arryn, of the Gulltown branch of that family. He had been Master of Whispers in the first years of Stannis' reign, thanks to being Lord Arryn's distant cousin, but he hadn't seen the Red Viper's rebellion coming and so he had been dismissed.
By all appearances, he was trying to make up for past failure with present vigor, as witnessed by the way that he rode his horse to within arm's reach of the small crowd that had sprung up around the begging brother and proclaimed, "This is an illegal assembly! By order of Lord Arryn, I command you to disperse! If you do not disperse by the time I return to my men, then we will use force to clear the area! You have been warned!" This to a crowd that had started to mutter as soon as he showed up, within clear view and easy range of anyone who wanted to pry up a cobblestone and heave it. Then he turned his horse around and walked it back to where his men had arrayed themselves to block the street, dead casual. The man had brass neck, I'll give him that if nothing else. I had just finished eyeing the nearby alleys when Gerold turned his horse back around, raised his command staff above his head, and then levelled it at the crowd. The men-at-arms walked their horses down the street, batons at the ready, and even after the Watch commander's words I couldn't stop myself thinkingThey can't be serious. They'll rein in in a moment, surely this is a mistake. But gods help me if they didn't plow straight into the crowd, which had been starting to fragment already, and start laying about them, as if they were fighting Tyroshi regulars and not their own people. Some of the crowd tried to fight back, naturally; they were free burghers, after all, with as much spirit as any knight, and the men-at-arms were hammering on their neighbors and friends and family. But there are two advantages a man on horseback has over a man on foot. The first is height; unless you have a spear or some other polearm, most of a mounted man's vitals are at the very edge of your reach, while he's in perfect position to rain blows on your head. The other is the horse. Some people think horses can't be dangerous on account of they eat grass and they're easily spooked. Those people have clearly never faced a destrier or a heavy courser trained to fight; an animal like that, when roused, is roughly three-quarters of a ton of muscle and screaming aggression, with what amounts to a war hammer on the end of each leg. And the hooves are only themostdangerous part. I've seen a destrier take half a man's face off his head with a snap of yellow teeth. Why in the Hells Denys was letting his men use war horses against his subjects is beyond me, unless he wastryingto provoke a rebellion.
By the time the screaming started I was headed for the nearest alley, which happened to be right next to the begging brother's crate; it was altogether too close to the violence to be comfortable, but no sane horseman would take a horse down a passage that narrow. There are very few places a horseman can't reach with a sword, or a baton for that matter, but one of them is right in front of the horse's head. Good luck throwing a cut there without taking one of your beast's ears off. I had almost made it into the alley and to safety when a small knot of people ducked into it just in front of me. I had just enough time to curse when a clattering of hooves to my left alerted me and I turned to see an Arryn man coming at me, baton raised. I didn't go for my sword; I know better than to make a bad situation worse by introducing live steel. Instead I dodged around to the left side of the horse (towards the alley coincidentally) and took the Arryn man's cut on my vambraces. My persona was of a man of middling wealth who wore his armor because it was cheaper than keeping a mule to carry it and, Gods be thanked, was rich enough that he was able to afford good armor. My vambraces kept my arms intact, and instinct let me wrap one arm around the baton and get my other hand on the cuff of the Arryn man's gauntlet. I don't care to think about how many of the muscles in the man's groin I overstretched as I dragged him out of the saddle, but judging by the way he yelped I imagine it was all of them.
That got attention, and as the man's comrades turned towards me I dived into the alley, only to find that the knot of people that had gotten in my waywere still there. "Move, you idiots!" I yelled at them, only barely remembering through my terror to use my persona's slight Riverlander accent and trying to shove them along. Well, you try shoving three or four people down an alley not much wider than a big man's shoulders and see how far you get. I was just about to draw my sword to help get the message across when one of the Arryn men tried to take his horse into the alley. At that point I had two options. The first was to do nothing, or try and push my way through, and risk getting trampled. The second, which after a split-second's hesitation I chose, was to turn about, draw my sword, and put the point into the horse's muzzle.
Even a battle-trained war horse can't ignore a blow like that. It reared, spraying blood as it screamed and flailed it's forehooves at me, and the moment it came back down I did it again. This time the horse reared back so far that it lost it's balance and came crashing down on it's rider. How he made out I still don't know to this day, but I wouldn't be surprised if the horse falling on him didn't break his pelvis. I turned back, hoping to use the moment or two I had bought to get away, and thebloody idiotswerestill there!"Gods damn it, I said move!" I roared in my best imitation of my father's master-at-arms. That startled them into moving on, with me shuffling after them with my sword still drawn. I didn'tthinkthat a mounted man-at-arms would be able to jump his horse over the barrier I had just made and come after us, but I didn'tknowthat they couldn't either. Either way, the best thing to do was run, and stick together in case we ran into any other patrols. If we did, then hopefully they would be distracted with the others long enough for me to slip away.
I forget how many turns we took, but at least an hour later we finally stopped to catch our breath, and coincidentally to let me look over my new companions. There were two men, both labor-guildsmen of some sort judging by their bulk and their hands, the begging brother whose harangues had started the whole thing, and a woman who's first words after she got her wind back were, "Thank the Gods you were with us, ser. How are you called?"
An odd phrasing, but she had been respectful enough, especially for my persona, so I bowed, sheathed the sword I had quite forgotten that I still had in my hand and replied, "Ser Harry Speed, at your service madame. And your name, if I may ask?"
"Kathryn Cooper, ser," she replied, and it was only when she smiled at me that I saw her face properly for the first time and Gods witness I have rarely seen a more attractive woman. She wasn't a beauty in the classical sense, Cersei would have outshone her on those marks, but the spark in her eyes and the energy in the way she held herself, even after running for what had to be several miles, made me stand up straight and flick a hand over the hair above my ears. I swear it was involuntary, but it still made her grin, and oh, Gods, that grin. It made her face light up like a bonfire.
"A rare knight, indeed, to come to the aid of the oppressed," the begging brother said, clearly without a care in the world that he was interrupting, damn his eyes. Mind, my odds of successfully asking the lady to dinner would probably have been nil anyway, given her companions, but he still scuppered the idea entirely too quickly. "Too often we see knights turn aside from the injustices that are committed against us," he went on, fixing me with a gimlet eye. "Or leading the charge against us, with club and catchpole."
If I had been myself I might have bristled on account of Idon'tmake a habit of oppressing people, it being an expensive and time-consuming hobby without much percentage in it, but I wasn't so I simply shrugged and said, "Don't judge a blade without testing it's temper, brother. Not all knights are false."
"No," he replied, his gaze turning considering, "it seems they are not." He caught my eyes with his, then, and I swear it was one of the most unnerving experiences of my life. I had met Jonothor, of course, but we hadn't passed more than a score of words together and I think he wrote me off as a brainless sword-swinger by the end of them. No, this was my first experience locking eyes with a heretic septon and I don't mind saying that the experience shook me. It's not often that you look into a man's eyes and seeabsolute certainty, not just in himself but in everything he does. Everyone, or at least almost everyone, has a worm or two of doubtsomewhere. That said, in order to turn heretic, a septon has to turn his back on the work of a lifetime and, in doing so, accept that every man's hand and tongue will be against him and that he will almost certainly die a messy and unpleasant death. That's not the sort of choice you make unless you are utterly convinced that there is no other way forward. Which is what this bird believed, though I only learned that later.
He held my gaze for an uncomfortably long period of time, and then broke it with a nod. "Well and so," he said firmly, "the Gods work with tools that men cannot grasp. Come with us, ser, and prove how true a knight you are."
"Septon, are you . . ." one of the men burst out, before being silenced by a kick to the ankle from his comrade.
"I am quite certain, brother," the begging brother, by his comrade's address actually a full septon, replied. "The Gods have seen fit to send us this man; it behooves us to accept the gift they have offered."
"I'm terribly flattered, father," I interjected, "but may I ask who exactly the Gods have sent me to?"
"My name, Ser Harry," he replied, "is Septon Colyn, and I am the septon of those who follow the Old Faith."
Only by the grace of the Gods did I keep my countenance in that moment. What were the odds that, the very day I arrived in Gulltown, I would fall in with the same people I had been sent to find? Fortunately, as I've said previously, Lady Flash didn't raise any slow thinkers, so instead of looking the gift horse in the mouth I simply bowed and said, "Lead on, then."
Chapter 95: Consequences
Chapter Text
Meanwhile, in Essos . . .
Robert waited until the door had closed behind the servant who had just finished pouring wine to let the frustration show on his face. "Youidiot," he snapped.
Jaime stiffened. "I beg your pardon, Your Grace . . ." he began tentatively.
"You had one job," Robert went on, overriding him. "Go back to Westeros, marry Lysa Tully, inherit Casterly Rock in due time, and be our advocate in Stannis' court and in Westeros as a whole, along with being a source of income for us that wasn't Braavos."
"Technically, Your Grace, that's five jobs . . ." Jaime interjected, trying to regain control of the conversation, but Robert cut him off with aslapof his spade-like hand against the low table between the chairs that he, Jaime, Serina, and Gerion were sitting in.
"Do not make light of this, Lannister," he snarled. "You have presumed upon my forbearance quite enough already."
Jaime straightened in his chair as the tone of Robert's voice struck home. He had been Tywin Lannister's son; he knew when the only thing to do was to shut up, pay attention, and make the appropriate noises.
"With you as Lord of the West, this Kingdom would have had it made," Robert said, his voice smoldering with pent-up anger. "What knight of any worth would have dared stay home, when Jaime Lannister urged him to go the East to make his fortune in a worthy cause? How long could Stannis have maintained his policy of strict neutrality, when his wife's own brother was pleading our case? And even if Stannis had held out, how long might his son have done so, with his most famous uncle urging him to war against the great evil of the world? How great might the Iron Legion have grown, and how long might we have kept it in the field, with the gold of Casterly Rock behind us? How many ships could we put on the waves, how many castles could we raise, how many wars might we wage, with the Rock's gold to foot the bill? All this and more we might have done, if you hadremembered your duty.Instead, you have destroyed, at one stroke, our whole relationship with the Seven Kingdoms. Our ambassador has not been able to gain an audience with Stannis' government since you sailed back from Dragonstone. Tywin Lannister has forbidden any Westerman from sailing to join us, on pain of dispossession and outlawry. Hoster Tully has done the same for the Riverlands, and for a wonder his bannermen agree with him; I am told that half of them want your head on a pike for Lysa Tully's death and the other half want you taken alive, so they can teach you some consideration before you die. Thank all the Gods that Balon rebelled when he did, otherwise the High Septon might have declared war againstusinstead of the Iron Islands."
"And that," Gerion cut in, "leaves aside the discord you have sown here. I had to go hat in hand to Ser Brynden and ask him, as a personal favor, not to fight a duel with you over Lysa's death. He agreed, for which the Gods be thanked, but few of the other former Riverlanders among the chivalry were as forgiving as he was. Most of them observed that the Blackfish might be prevented from dueling by his injury, but they were under no such restraints. The rest of the chivalry and nobility," he shrugged, "is divided. One faction agrees with the Riverlanders, another thinks that you're simply the greatest fool in creation, and a third thinks you're the greatest hero the Kingdom can offer. Which is an opinion they share with the Legion, the Gods know why. If someonedoesdecide to challenge you, then they just might take it into their heads to object." He threw up his hands. "Congratulations, Jaime; you've laid the groundwork for a minor civil war, without being anywhere near the line of succession or even being a landholding bannerman! I'd have to check, but that must be some kind of record."
Jaime felt a terrible draining sensation in his stomach. He had had no idea that his decision, the first he had made as a truly free man, could have had such ramifications. "How do I make this right?" he asked in a voice that he couldn't keep from being small.
"You go away," Robert said. "Far enough away that no one can find you to challenge you, for long enough that tempers are given time to cool. The Summer Isles will do, I think; we were considering sending an embassy there anyway. If nothing else, their swan ships would make a valuable addition to the Fleet as sellsails."
Gerion nodded. "Ser Wendel will be heading the embassy, as it's meant primarily to establish trading links between us and the Isles. You will be attached as a co-ambassador, in order to boost the embassy's prominence; Ser Wendel is a good man, but he doesn't have half the name that you do. Your fame will open doors that would be closed to Ser Wendel, especially among the swan ship captains that most often find themselves at odds with the slavers."
Jaime blinked. "But I don't know anything about . . ." he began.
"The Commune will provide assistance," Serina said coolly. "They have contacts among the princes and princesses, and there are Summer Islanders in Braavos who will know what the Commune does not. One Darabhar Xhan, I believe, was mentioned as being recruited for the embassy. He served at Tyrosh, so you will have something to discuss when you reach your daily fill of diplomacy."
"The Commune's experts will prepare you as best they can on the voyage," Robert said. "If, by the time you arrive, you still aren't ready, then you can play the bluff soldier full of war stories while Ser Wendel does the actual work. Orders will be drafted by the end of the day, and all should be in readiness by the end of the month. You have our leave to remain in seclusion until your departure, in order to prevent any outbursts that would disturb the court." He turned to Serina. "I believe there was something else you wanted to add, my dear?"
Serina nodded. "When you left for Westeros, I gave you a token of honor," she said. "As your abandonment of your responsibilities has proven you unworthy of it, I must ask for it back."
As she held out a hand, Jaime felt the hole in his guts widen. "Your Grace," he stammered, half in protest.
"I do not revoke it entirely," Serina said, her voice softly remorseless. "I merely ask for it's return until you have proved yourself worthy to wear it again. Valor is all well and good, but valor is worthless unless it is guided by duty and honor. Repair the damage done by your failure to do your duty and you will wear the Star again. Until that day, I will keep it safe for you."
Jaime, feeling worse than when he had been named Kingslayer, lifted the Star of Valor from off his neck and placed it in his Queen's hands. "I am sorry to have been unworthy of it, Your Grace," he choked out.
"It is for that reason that I am confident that you will be worthy of it again," Serina said gravely. "You may go, ser."
As Jaime closed the door behind himself, Robert leaned back in his chair. "What do you think?" he asked Gerion. "Too much?"
Gerion shook his head. "Just right, I think," he replied. "Hard enough that he will be driven to redeem himself, but light enough that he won't be tempted to desperation." He bowed in his chair to Serina. "If I may say so, Your Grace, the suspension of the Star was inspired."
"Honors should always be revocable," Serina replied, running her thumb over the face of the medallion. "Otherwise, how can those who receive them be held to the level of worth required afterwards? The Commune learned that lesson long ago." She looked up at Gerion. "Do you have any idea what Lord Lannister might have said that caused Ser Jaime to change his mind?" she asked. "I can only imagine it was a truly colossal insult, to make him renounce Casterly Rock."
Gerion spread his hands. "Jaime hasn't told me, Your Grace, so I can only speculate. And speculation, in my opinion, is useless in this matter; it is done, and we must live with the consequences."
"As we did after the Peace of Pentos," Robert said. "In all truth, I probably should have foreseen this; the similarities between Ser Jaime and myself before the Peace are too obvious looking back on them."
"With all respect, Your Grace,no onecould have foreseen this," Gerion said. "Except perhaps Jonothor; I noted that he seemed to have anticipated Jaime's return. Gods know he accepted his conversion quickly enough."
"At least he kept it relatively quiet," Robert grumbled. "That would have been all we needed, to bring the Faith into this hash." He shook his head roughly. "At least it is attended to. What about the other matter we were supposed to attend to today?"
"I am told that the situation has been handled," Gerion replied, a slight smile quirking his face. "Say what you will of the Ironborn, they don't beat about the bush."
XXX
The day before, in Ironhold . . .
Davos didn't know quite how things had taken such a sharp turn, and on such a lovely spring day. All he had done was bring word from King's Landing that Balon had raised his banner against King Stannis, and the whole town had gone crazy. Almost a quarter of the Ironborn had marched to the docks with the intent to make sail for the Isles and support their kinsmen against Stannis, only to be met by the rest of the Ironborn, led by Victarion himself, blocking off the docks in full array. Victarion had even press-ganged Davos and his crew into joining the shield-wall, in order to add numbers, and he had done it so quickly and forcefully that Davos hadn't even been able to protest that he wasn't even Ironborn, or that as a king's messenger he wasn't supposed to get caught up in this sort of thing. Which was why Davos was wearing the mail-shirt and arm harness that he hardly ever wore, with a shield in one hand and his short, broad-bladed seaman's sword in the other, listening to Victarion and Dagmer Cleftjaw boom at each other.
"Balon turned his back on us long ago!" Victarion shouted over the squalling of the gulls, as much to the Ironborn behind Dagmer as to Dagmer himself, or so Davos guessed. "He turned his back on us when he declared us exile unless we broke our oath to King Robert and forsook this Kingdom and it's cause! Why should we raise a hand to aid this fool who has willingly steered his ship onto the rocks, and who declared us to no longer be his countrymen?!"
"Because they are still our countrymen!" Dagmer bawled back. "Whether in the east or in the west, we are still Ironborn, and Stannis threatens our people with destruction! Shall we stand idle while our brothers and our cousins die on greenlander swords, or are converted to the Seven by force, and our homes are burned by royal soldiers?"
"Our people are here!" Victarion roared, stamping his foot on the cobblestones of the street. "Here, where we have made a home that can feed our children, under a king who pays the iron price along with us! Here, where we are brothers-in-arms to be honored, not pirates to be reviled and suspected of thievery!"
"Then you are a traitor, Victarion Greyjoy!" Dagmer bellowed. "A traitor to your home, to your people, and to the God!Níðingr, I name you!"
"The Drowned God knows that I am as true and faithful as every man here!" Victarion thundered. "Withdraw those words, Dagmer Cleftjaw, or face me on the hides, as in ancient days!"
"Done!" Dagmer roared. "I will prove your unmanliness on your body, traitor and coward!"
That brought a cheer from both sides, and to Davos' amazement everyone immediately relaxed. As men from either side rushed off into the town, others lowered their shields to the ground, sheathed their swords, and upended their axes to lean on the stave while the head rested on the cobblestones. The only ones that didn't follow the trend were Victarion and Dagmer who with their squires began taking off their armor and weapons while a pair of drowned priests stepped forward to confer with them urgently. Davos elbowed a fork-bearded reaver standing next to him. "I'm terribly sorry, but what on earth is going on?" he asked.
"Holmgang," the reaver replied. "Dagmer insulted Lord Victarion and Lord Victarion gave him the lie, so now they fight. Like you knights and your dueling, yes?"
"I suppose," Davos replied, remembering the hasty lessons he had received on the behavior that was expected of a knight. As a mere captain and smuggler, he could have let insults pass; he was rarely in one place long enough for them to stick. But as a knight, whose honor reflected on his king's, he could no longer simply shrug his shoulders and observe that you couldn't please everyone. It was one of the ways in which he paid the price for the better life he had won for his wife and sons. "Why are they disarming, then?"
The reaver shrugged. "Weapons and armor differ from man to man," he said. "And who can say that the better man will have the better gear, whether he paid the iron price for it or not? So in theholmgang, men face each other as the God made them. No armor, no weapons, no tricks; strength and skill alone, and the God to decide which shall bear His favor." He shrugged again. "It is not common, not since the Hoares took the Seastone Chair, even less so since the Targaryen's came. But is still known, and how men may challenge captains who fail."
"I see," Davos said, glancing around the opposing crowds. "So what happens if Lord Victarion wins?"
The reaver smiled. "Then all men see that the God favors him, his lordship over Dagmer's people is restored, and this foolishness of sailing back to Westeros is forgotten. If he loses . . ." he shrugged again; Davos suspected that it was a habit. "Then we have no lord, and men must choose who they will follow, either Dagmer or some other captain. But he will not lose."
Davos blinked. "Forgive me if I offend, but why are you so sure?"
The reaver spread his hands with a smile. "Because he is Lord Victarion! The man who took the Bleeding Tower and slew Khal Pobo with a single stroke will not die at the hands of an oath-breaker."
Davos nodded. "I'll pray for him anyway," he told the reaver, before turning back to his crewmen. "Looks like Lord Greyjoy and Captain Cleftjaw are going to settle this between themselves, lads," he told them. "Relax, make yourselves comfortable, and be ready to get out of the way if things get hairy."
As his men stood down, the Ironborn who had rushed into the town came back, carrying what Davos recognized as rolled ox hides. These were unrolled onto the ground and the edges pegged down with stakes, while a third drowned priest inspected the hides and the stakes minutely. Eventually the priest nodded and stepped back, while the priests who had been talking to Victarion and Dagmer met in the middle of the hides to discuss. "The priests attempt to avert theholmgang," the fork-bearded reaver explained. "Although no weapons are used, blood will yet be spilled, and Ironborn should not slay Ironborn. So they seek to resolve the quarrel."
Davos nodded. "Knights do something similar, I'm told," he said. "Their seconds try and reconcile them, but it doesn't usually work. By the time a challenge is offered, no one is willing to offer or accept an apology until blood's been drawn."
"Same with theholmgang," the reaver said. "Lord Victarion cannot accept being namedníðingr,and Dagmer cannot withdraw it without admitting himself in the wrong."
"What doesníðingrmean, exactly?" Davos asked as the drowned priests went back to the men they represented.
The reaver shrugged. "Oathbreaker," he said, "liar, traitor, outlaw. Aníðingris a man who is cast out, to be killed on sight as an enemy to all people. Dagmer had as well drawn his sword and fought as called Lord Victarion such."
"I see," Davos said as the priests met in the middle of the hides again, conversed briefly, and then went back to their men. "I take it that Lord Victarion and Dagmer will face each other on the hides?"
The reaver nodded. "To step off the hides and beyond the stakes is to forfeit, to flee is cowardice," he said. "When a man steps onto the hides, he does not leave until his opponent is slain or begs his pardon." In front of them Victarion, stripped to his braies and with his armor piled on the ground next to him, held out his hands and the drowned priest with him poured seawater from his flask over them. "To wash off poison," the reaver explained as Victarion scrubbed his hands, "and also to remove magic; the Drowned God hates him who uses magic, and so His water washes it away."
Davos nodded. "The septons say the same about blessed water," he said as Dagmer did the same on the other side of the hides. "Will they only wrestle, or may they strike each other?"
"Wrestle, punch, kick," the reaver said, "anything they might do with their arms and legs. The only things they may not do are bite and gouge each other's eyes; they are men, not beasts."
As Davos was absorbing this, Victarion and Dagmer strode onto the hides and the third drowned priest, the one who had inspected the hides, held his staff between them. "You are both come here for honor's sake," he said sternly. "I am come to see that you settle this honorably. You will not bite each other, nor will you gouge each other's eyes, nor will you use any weapon save for those which the God has given you. If pardon is asked . . ."
"No pardon will be asked," Dagmer interjected.
"Or given," Victarion rumbled, flexing his massive shoulders.
The drowned priest's somber expression flickered for a moment; probably, Davos reflected, in irritation at being interrupted. "Then attend upon your strength and your skill, and may the God favor him who is in the right." He withdrew his staff and stepped off the hides.
The two Ironborn stalked towards each other, lowering their heads and hunching their shoulders. Victarion, easily six feet tall with the shoulders and arms of a bear, advanced in a slight crouch with his arms opened to shoulder-width, his elbows pointed out and slightly bent, and his hands open, while Dagmer, who was a head shorter than Victarion but was just as broadly built, kept his arms close to his sides and his hands raised before his head, sidling forward at an angle like a crab. Davos watched them circle each other, reminded uncannily of a pair of lions he had once seen pitted against each other in a fighting pit in Meereen, and then he found himself shouting with the rest of the onlookers as Dagmer and Victarion rushed each other. Dagmer threw a jab that Victarion batted aside as his other arm swooped in to seek a hold, but Dagmer ducked under the grab and fired a right cross that likely would have felled an ox. Victarion took it on a raised shoulder the size of a man's head, brought his left arm back to cover Dagmer's uppercut, and threw a short hook with his right that caught Dagmer under the ribs. Dagmer absorbed it with a terrifying immovability, throwing a right that struck Victarion on the cheekbone in a spray of blood. Victarion bellowed, a sound that seemed more ursine than human, and lunged forward, wrapping his arms around Dagmer's neck and under his left shoulder.
Dagmer, quick as thought, hammered three short blows into Victarion's left side and tried to stomp on his foot, but he missed and was aiming for the wrong foot; the right, when Victarion was shifting his left back for a wider base. Victarion twisted, the muscles in his back writhing like pythons as he roared in exertion, and Dagmer landed on the hides with an audiblethump. The Ironborn spectators bellowed appreciation and advice as the two champions scrabbled at each other, for this waswrestling, the sport the Ironborn loved above all others. Howls of acclaim rose as Dagmer struggled back to his feet, the muscles of his arms and shoulders standing out like tensioned cables as he strained against the mass of his opponent, and even greater howls arose when Victarion twisted again, weasel-fast, and threw Dagmer over his hip to slam against the hides. The flurry of catch-and-counter that followed was too fast for Davos to follow, but when Dagmer finally kicked free and rolled back to his feet he was favoring his right arm, while Victarion was streaming blood from his nose as well as his cheekbone.
Victarion bored in again, to be met with a jab that was blocked with a raised forearm and a kick that slammed home against the corded muscles of his belly. The breath went out of him in a greatwoofas he staggered, but as Dagmer rushed in, eyes alight with sudden hope, Victarion threw a desperate punch that caught Dagmer across the chin and sent him reeling back. Victarion fell to his knees, dragging air back into his lungs with deep and deliberately slow breaths while Dagmer tried to get his feet back under him, but Dagmer recovered first and drove in again while Victarion still had one knee on the hides. Victarion stayed on one knee for what seemed an age, as his supporters bawled for him to stand, and then sprang upward, wrapping his arms around Dagmer's waist and heaving him bodily into the air. For a long moment Victarion seemed to pause at his full height, Dagmer balanced on one shoulder like a sack of flour, and then he fell backwards like a tree.
If Dagmer had taken that fall squarely on his head, Davos knew, he would have died in a heartbeat as his neck snapped, but Dagmer was able to tuck his head and bring his arms up to absorb the impact. Even so, strong men winced to see him take such a fall, and while Victarion flipped over onto his front like a cat and scrabbled to straddle, Dagmer lay stunned despite the cajoling of his supporters. Victarion threw a leg over Dagmer's chest, brushed aside a feeble arm, and began to rain blows on the prostrate captain. Each hammering stroke of Victarion's maul-like fists sent blood flying, and before a dozen blows had landed, Dagmer was lying limp, his head jerked violently from side-to-side as Victarion's fists struck home. Eventually, as the crowd fell silent, Victarion left off punching, stood to his feet, swung up a pillar-like leg, and drove his heel down onto Dagmer's chest with an audiblecrunchof breaking ribs and breastbone.
Victarion, spattered with blood like a pagan idol after a sacrifice, glared around the ring of spectators; as his gaze crossed Davos' the former smuggler couldn't help a slight gasp at the battle-fury in the eyes of the Ironborn lord. "Does any other man here," he demanded in a rumbling growl, "challenge my right to lead? If he does," he spread his arms, "then let him speak now, or hold his peace hereafter."
There was utter silence for a moment, and then the Ironborn who had followed Dagmer fell to their knees with a rustle like wind through a forest. "Hail Victarion, Lord of Ironhold!" they shouted in chorus, and Victarion's original supporters cheered with a brandishing of weapons.
As the drowned priests carried Dagmer's body away and Victarion, still bloody and battered from the duel, accepted the oaths of the captains who had wavered in their allegiance, the reaver turned to Davos and smiled broadly. "What did I tell you?" he demanded cheerily. "Lord Victarion is victorious, that oath-breaking f*ck Dagmer is dead, and we will hear no more of helping f*cking Balon, who spat on us."
Davos nodded; really there was nothing else to do, was there?
XXX
Gone were the days when Daario Naharis could join his comrades at revelry in a tavern, whether it was one of bricks and mortar or one made of a tent converted into an awning by an opportunistic camp follower. For one thing, he was not even the captain anymore, but The Captain, unquestioned master of the armies of Lys, and there was a certain degree of elevation that had to be maintained. Now the most he could do was pass through, say a few encouraging words, and maybe drink a glass if it was pressed on him, instead of taking part in the night-long drinking bouts punctuated with singing, stories, dancing, and the occasional fight that were one of the highlights of a sellsword's life.
For another thing, there were simply too many motherless, goat-humping, never-to-be-sufficiently-damned reports for him to read to give him the time to carouse. His staff did their best, but what still absolutely needed to be seen and, usually, signed by him still kept him working all hours, even with no crises on the horizon. Which was why he was in his office, sitting at his desk, drinking nothing stronger than tea, while his men were making the rafters roar in every tavern in the town.
At least most of the papers he had to read were good ones, congratulatory notes on beating back the latest incursion over the border from people too important to be ignored. Those Daario only glanced at before handing them back to one of his secretaries with orders to draw up a suitable reply for his signature. The probe hadn't been terribly serious, only forty or fifty lances, but the plans Daario had drawn up to react to such things had worked splendidly. The watchtowers nearest the point of entry had lit off their beacon fires, the companies encamped in the forts nearest had responded with admirable quickness to head off and box in the intruders, and Daario himself had led the main reaction force northwards. From there, the Myrish commander, who judging by scout reports and prisoner interrogations was none other than Lyn Corbray, had had two choices. He could stand and fight against a superior force with no infantry support, or he could put his tail between his legs and run back to the border. In the event, he had chosen the latter, and while Daario's forces had pursued him closely they hadn't tried to cut him off and destroy him. Few things in the world were as dangerous as men who had been forced to fight for their lives, and the Myrish had pulled off too many battlefield miracles for Daario to tempt fate. So he had contented himself with cutting their foraging parties to ribbons and snapping up their stragglers, and when all the shouting was over the Myrish had lost at least forty men, perhaps as many as fifty or sixty, without getting within even a day's march of the nearest plantation.
That had shattered their aura of invincibility even more than Piper's Creek and the sack of Campora had done, and the plaudits had been immediate and overwhelming. Daario now held three large plantations on the mainland, with stewards to run them and slaves to work them for the increase of his purse. Which accounted for a significant fraction of his other correspondence; his stewards were legally required to furnish him with regular reports on the doings of the plantations, and he had to pay attention to what they wrote, in case they tried to pull a fast one on him. So far, everything seemed well in hand on that front; the winter hadn't been too bad, and the winter hadn't been severe enough to cause any unusually expensive damage. One of his stewards even reported that he had received letters from a few families of moderate rank inquiring after his willingness tomarry. Daario snorted;thatwould be the day.
Another report, this one detailing the incorporation of another volunteer company, did even more to lighten Daario's mood. The isles of Lys might continue in their serene hedonism, but her citizens on the mainland had become ever more militant over the winter. The Rape of Tyrosh had shown everyone with eyes to see what the Kingdom of Myr had in store for it's enemies, and the Conclave had done its part by commissioning musicians and poets to write elegies and laments for the fall of Valyria's Daughter, and rallying calls for the sons of Lys to defend her against the barbarians that stood at the gates. The heads of the magisterial families might shake their grizzled heads and mutter about the indignity and degradation of a soldier's life, but their sons and grandsons had responded to the call magnificently, if with more enthusiasm than prowess thus far. Every district on the mainland now boasted at least two and sometimes as many as five companies of volunteers; men who armed, equipped, and trained themselves, in return for receiving double pay when called to the banners. Mostly they were tenants and retainers of the magisterial families led by the younger generation thereof, with their gear being paid for out of the house's coffers. Daario had low expectations for their usefulness in the field, but he appreciated the willingness of the younger magisters to join the fight; if nothing else, the quality of armor they could afford would allow them to shield the men behind them, who might be able to get some use out of such protection. And to be fair, the few volunteer companies he had seen himself had seemed painfully earnest about learning to be soldiers, which boded well for the future. If Lys was to survive, then it had to develop the same sort of martial inclinations among its population that the Kingdom of Myr had managed to generate almost overnight, where they hadn't imported them in from Westeros.
Daario rubbed a hand over his eyes. In that regard, his victory over that probe might turn out to be counterproductive. Nothing bred overconfidence like an early and easy success, and overconfidence killed as many people as the bloody flux and greyscale put together. If he wanted to make the best use of the prestige of his recent victory to advance his plans for reform, then he would have to move quickly.
He picked up another report, this one a digest of reports from Volantis. The election had retained the current balance of two tiger Triarchs to one elephant, with Malaquo Maegyr reportedly the head of the three. The report also noted that the True Myrish had landed in Volantis over the winter and had been absorbed into the ranks of the Dragon Company, with their leaders bending the knee to Viserys Targaryen in return for his oath to restore them to their city. Whoever wrote the report seemed to have been faintly amused by the Targaryen's collecting another pack of exiles, given how much ink he used describing it, but Daario also noted that the Dragon Company was now stationed in Volantis itself and the Golden Company sent to the forts along the western border, where the survivors of the recently-disbanded tiger cloaks were being settled as free farmers. As Daario re-read that line he became aware of a prickling sensation between his shoulder blades. Hadn't he heard that the Dragon and Golden Companies were on unusually good terms, given the feud between Targaryen and Blackfyre? The Dragon Company might be ruled by a child and captained by a madman, but they had just gained a small fleet manned by fighting seamen who deserved to be ranked with the best in the world. If they managed an alliance with the Golden Company, as well . . . Daario made a gesture against evil. Thank the gods that handling that situation was someone else's problem.
The report also mentioned that no substantive headway had been made on an alliance. He shook his head angrily. Didn't the Triarchs see that the slave states had to hang together or be hanged separately? Robert the Bloody had as good as said that once Lys fell, Volantis was next. If the Old Blood didn't realize that, then Daario didn't give a fig for Volantis' chances when they first crossed swords with the Myrish. Nor was there any word from Qohor, which was even more troubling. Even if Khal Drogo meant to rake the Qohori over the coals lengthwise, there was still no reason for him to take this long about it. What could the Qohori give him now that they couldn't have given him over the winter, before he had pillaged their countryside? The only answers to that question that Daario could think of were unpleasant ones.
He set the report aside and leafed through the remainder of the stack. None of it seemed particularly important, so he called in one of his secretaries to take it out and deal with it; much more dwelling on what could go wrong and he would be driven to drink. He made a note to send an aide to fetch one of the better working girls from the red-light quarter of the town. Rank had its perks, after all, and what was the point of having it if you didn't use them?
XXX
Adaran Phassos had never dreamed before his exile that he would become a connoisseur of the sounds and feels of mechanisms. His family had been traders, not clockmakers or crossbow makers. But now he could tell by the slight roughness and faint squeak as he wound the crank of his crossbow that he would need to add some grease to the wheel's bearings before the next inspection. He finished unwinding the crank from the co*cked string, slipped the crank off the stock, fitted a bolt into the shallow groove carved into the top of the stock, aimed, and loosed the bolt at the straw dummy, where it joined the five other bolts he had loosed in the dummy's chest.
He nodded to himself as his hands automatically began the reloading process. If any of his bravo friends had seen him at practice they likely would have regarded it with amused contempt; if a gentleman wanted to kill someone then it was only proper to give the other fellow a chance to kill you in return. A bravo might be a duelist, but he was never an assassin. Adaran had had such attitudes beaten out of him by Ser Gerion's master-at-arms, and what little remained had been mortally wounded at Iluro and finished off at Tyrosh. The battles he had been in had killed the bravo in him and given birth to the soldier, who knew that there was precious little room for such quibbles on the battlefield. When someone was coming at you with a weapon and murderous intent, then dead was dead.
"I see you've been keeping your shooting up to the mark," a cultured voice said off to his left, and Adaran stopped unwinding the crank to pull back the string as he turned and bowed to Ser Gerion, who had walked up to the shooting line on the range that took up half of Lion House's training yard. "And Jaime tells me that your blade-skill is still impressive."
Adaran nodded, noting to himself that Ser Gerion still wasn't referring to his storied nephew by his proper title. That was a bad sign, if he was any judge. "Less impressive than the speed with which he is learning the water dance, my lord," he replied as he took the crank off his crossbow and slung it over his shoulder. "Give it another sennight or two, and I'll have nothing left to teach him."
Ser Gerion pursed his lips. "Hmm," he said noncommittally. "A pity that his talents could not be less potent and more widely spread. But my thanks for the lessons; this period is not meant to be comfortable for my nephew but letting him stew in self-recrimination would be counterproductive. But how fares it with you?" he asked as the familiar twinkle went back into his eyes. "Does your sister have any plans to celebrate the news that you recently received, or is it to be left to me?"
Adaran shrugged. "Serin-your pardon, the Queen is of course pleased to hear that Master Caporazo has regained his senses. But it remains to be seen whether all of his faculties have fully recovered; the letter mentioned that he suffered from migraines. So it remains unclear whether my exile shall be lifted or not."
Ser Gerion waved a hand dismissively. "A minor detail," he said airily. "His family's fortunes have declined significantly in recent times, I have been told, and you have served the Titan most honorably during your exile thus far. I foresee little difficulty in getting your exile reduced to the five years that was originally agreed upon."
Adaran bowed in lieu of comment. Ser Gerion, his sister, and King Robert might apply all the leverage they could, but the Commune's justice was based on laws, not men. And the law of the Titan did not bend, even for kings.
"In any case," Ser Gerion went on, "I have something to give you." He reached into a pocket of his cloak and pulled out what looked for all the world like a miniature crossbow; it couldn't have been more than a foot long or wide, made all of steel. "A new invention from Braavos; a ballestrino, they call it," he said. "It's wound by a screw jack in the back of the stock, here," he wound the knurled handle at the back of the stock back as Adaran leaned in for a closer look, "and then this whole assembly slides forward toward the string." Ser Gerion pushed on the handle demonstratively and the center of the stock slid forward on a trough that had been either forged or cast into the steel. "The nut is held in place by the lever here on the top," Ser Gerion continued, "so you slide the nut under the string in the loosed position, roll it up to lock the assembly, tighten the jack to draw the string, and then push down on the lever with your thumb to loose the bolt."
Adaran frowned. "I can't see this on the battlefield," he said skeptically. "Too slow to load, even among crossbows. Too expensive, too, with all the mechanisms and the cost of the metal. And something this small can't be able to shoot very far, no matter how high the draw-weight on the prod."
"Apparently the inventor was planning to market it to wealthy men for recreational shooting," Ser Gerion said. "But my agent in Braavos sent me one, with a note observing that it might serve as a concealed weapon of last resort for agents abroad."
"Or for an assassin," Adaran observed. "Less risky than a dagger, and more concealable than a regular crossbow, much less a longbow."
"Exactly the thought that crossed my mind," Ser Gerion said as he handed Adaran the little weapon. "Test it out, write up a report on how it performs and how it might be used, and add a recommendation on whether it should be adopted or not," he commanded, handing over a quartet of bolts sized to the weapon. "In your own time; there is no real urgency about this matter. And keep it to yourself, if you please; His Grace's views on assassins are a matter of public record."
Adaran nodded. Someone at Court had wondered a bit too loudly why the Queen didn't send a list of names and a bag of gold to the House of Black and White with a note telling the Faceless Men to get busy. By all reports King Robert's sneer had been magnificent; a king he might be, but he was a knight long before he was crowned, he had declared, and a true knight did his own killing, face to face against an enemy who could fight back. The hapless courtier had withdrawn, hideously embarrassed, and reportedly had yet to show his face at Court again.
For his own part, Adaran had fewer scruples. He had some idea, from what little had reached his ears, just how many assassins the slavers had sent after his sister and his good-brother; even now there was a man in one of the cellar rooms of Lion House being asked where his safe house was and who his contacts in the city were. The questioning was unlikely to yield answers, despite the fact that Ser Gerion had evidently secured the loan of one or two of the Council of Thirty's own inquisitors to train the men he selected for such tasks, but Adaranknewthat there would be more. The slavers could not afford to let King Robert live; by the same token they could not afford to let Serina live, for fear that she might bear a son to take up Robert's hammer.
Adaran ran a thumb over the intricate mechanism of the ballestrino. Ser Gerion's chaplain had once told him that the Book of the Mother enjoined the followers of the Seven to turn the other cheek and forgive those who offended them, but even if Adaran had joined the Faith, which he hadn't, he found the harsher passages of the Books of the Father and the Warrior more to his taste.Try and murder my sister, will you?
Chapter 96: Delayed Reckoning
Chapter Text
The following is an excerpt fromA King's Flash, the fourth instalment of the Flash Papers by George Dand
Never let it be said that sanity doesn't have its advantages. No sane person would have taken one episode where I did them a favor, especially when it was my ass if I didn't do it, as the Gods tapping them on the shoulder and saying, "Trust this man with your life." They'd have had me doing menial but increasingly important errands for months, if not years, before they took me fully into their confidence. At least, that's how most legitimate enterprises and almost any criminal organization under the sun would have reacted to my getting them out of that mess. Then again, if you're fully convinced that the Gods are whispering in your ear on a regular basis, then rationality is probably not your strong suit to begin with. And apparently the Old Faith was so desperate for friends that knew their way around a sword that they weren't inclined to be picky. Kathryn told me so that night, after she had given me her personal thank-you for saving her and her comrades. "We have prayed for so long that at least one knight would join us," she said as we lay in each other's arms. "That at least one knight would remember that in the early days of the Faith their vows were sworn to the smallfolk of their village and to the Gods, and not to any earthly lord. But it has been years and not one knight has remembered his true allegiance. Septon Colyn tells us to have hope, and trust in the Gods to work their will in their good time, but for many of us . . ." she shrugged, and I was momentarily distracted. "It is long since we had any hope," she finished softly.
And judging by what I saw of them, there was good reason for that. They might have been able to establish themselves in a warehouse that one of them owned, but there couldn't have been more than a hundred of them, and most of those had been forced to sequester themselves in the warehouse. Denys might have been driving his city to the brink of revolt, but his measures had at least managed to drive the Old Faith in Gulltown underground. On the other hand, it was also driving the Old Faith to desperation, or at least to that sort of cold, relentless fury that only arises in response to losing almost everything short of your life. I remember one old burgher with particular vividness. "Killed my daughter, they did," he told me as he ran a whetstone along the edge of a hand-axe. "My little Eryka, nobbut fifteen years old, and the bastard Arryn's broke her skull because she stopped to listen to the septon's preaching. She died raving, ser, in one of their cages, and the bastards didn't even give us her body to bury. They just dumped her in the harbor with the criminals and the beggars." If it weren't for the accent, I'd have sworn I was talking with Stallen Naerolis or some other True Myrman. "So I'll not be talking with any of them, ser," he went on. "Not unless they're Ser Denys himself, or Ser Gerold, so they can tell me why their men killed my daughter before they die. The rest I'll just kill, like the mad dogs they are."
This from a man who had to be closer to sixty than fifty, with not a hair on his head or face that wasn't grey or white. The younger converts were, if anything, even more fervent in their hatred of the Arryns. At one service I witnessed one group of five young men kneel at one of the makeshift altars and swear an oath to the Stranger to kill a hundred Arryn men each before they died. You might think it was youthful bravado, but every one of them appeared to take it perfectly seriously and if it takes a special kind of desperado to swear an oath to the Stranger, imagine one who seals the contract in his own blood; if you believe in that sort of thing, and these younkers did as far as I could tell, then breaking such an oath gives the Stranger license to manifest on earthand personally drag your ass to the deepest of the Seven Hells.Nor did Septon Colyn try and talk them out of it. Far to the contrary, he seemed to have foreseen it, because he didn't just hear and witness the oath but gave an hour-long sermon on the appropriateness of such oaths, and the actions necessary to fulfill them, as a response to oppression.
That was the part of the services that struck me most, not the differences in doctrine that frankly no one but a septon would really notice, much less care about. There was always a segment set apart, between the last scripture reading and the sermon, where people in the congregation had the opportunity to tell the rest of the congregation, and presumably the Gods, what they had suffered on account of the Arryn's persecution of them and theirs. I don't mind telling you that it could be hard to listen to, and there were a few times were I almost started hating the Arryn's myself. Which was rather the point of the exercise, when you think about it; it established that instead of the oppression of the Arryn's happening to you alone, it was the common thread that bound the community together, so that you had the wrongs of your fellows to avenge as well as your own. Septon Colyn might not have been much for theology, but he knew how to get people onboard with his variant of the Old Faith. Which was a good thing for him, because the Old Faithers were a diverse lot. It's not every day you see guildsmen and dockhands rubbing elbows, much less sitting side by side at the same table and eating from the same pot. The average guildsman sees the average dockhand as an uncultured roughneck that has to be reminded to use an eating knife instead of just his fingers, while the average dockhand sees the average guildsman as a stuck-up ponce. But Colyn had not just them, but their women looking out for each other like Legion squadmates.
Which is why it took me so long to get back to the Watch with my report; not a moment away from someone who might ask me why I was ducking out alone. It wasn't until a delegation arrived from the Essosi Old Faithers to try and convince Colyn to lead his sect to join them that the opportunity arose. I don't mind saying that the walk back to the Watch house didn't have its difficulties, almost all of them in my head. On the one hand, my orders from Lord Arryn, and my duty to Stannis, was explicit. On the other hand, I wasn't sure if I could bring myself to call down a massacre on people who had welcomed me as one of their own; I had eaten their bread and salt, after all, which made me their guest, and while I'm not much of a stickler about religion, hospitality is a different kettle of fish entirely. On the third hand, it could be argued that once I left the warehouse I was no longer their guest, so the laws of hospitality didn't apply. On the fourth hand, whether the laws of hospitality applied or not I was still betraying people who had given me their trust, which was more than a little unchivalrous. Of course, on the fifth hand, the laws of chivalry didn't strictly apply to dealing with heretics; heretics arehostis humani generis, to use the Valyrian phrase, enemies-general of humankind, to be warred upon without restriction wherever found, like pirates or bandits. And these heretics were in rebellion against the Iron Throne, in fact if not in name, and hence doubly damned.
And so on and so forth. Honestly, I was so distracted that its a miracle I didn't get knocked over the head and robbed. Or take a wrong turn and accidentally walk off the end of a pier, which would have been even more embarrassing on account of I can only dog-paddle.
At any rate, by the time I got to the Watch house, I had solved the problem. I was a knight in service to my King, I had orders to fulfill, and that was that. Dealing with the results was not my problem, and with any luck by the time those results eventuated I would be on the next ship to King's Landing. And to be honest I was not remotely tempted to turn heretic; for one thing I just didn't care enough. For another, Kathryn was a capital ride, but not worth never being able to put my feet under my own high table in my own hall ever again. Besides, I couldn't simply run out on Maryam; shehadgiven me a son after all, and we loved each other well enough. More to the point, I knew that the so-called romance of an outlaw's life was never all it was cracked up to be; living by your wits and your sword with every man's hand against you is a road that only ends with you dying, and usually in a fashion that warrants the joke blessing 'rest in pieces'.
That said, I had some leeway in how those orders were to be fulfilled, which is why I went to the Watch instead of Gulltown Castle and the Arryn's. I was in no mood to let Denys be able to claim any credit for rooting out the heretics, after seeing how he had let Gerold treat the people he was supposed to give good lordship. I don't care how many philosophers claim that the rule of the nobility should be absolute, or that the commons should be content with their lot and properly grateful for the safety that their lord provides. There arerulesto good lordship and Denys, that idiot, had let Gerold break them, so he could explain how they and all their knights and men-at-arms had failed to root out the heretics while the Watch, which he and Gerold had regularly denigrated in their reports to King's Landing, had managed it just fine. Or so I told the Watch commander, who jumped at the opportunity to put egg on Denys' face; he later told me that Denys had threatened to sack him in disgrace if he protested the heavy-handedness of his methods one more time, so he was eager for any chance to get his own back. He certainly proved it by how fast he acted. Within half an hour we were marching back towards the warehouse at the head of almost two hundred Watchmen.
And not a moment too soon, either, because we caught the Old Faithers in the act of moving house. Colyn might have been naïve, but he wasn't a slow thinker; the second I had been reported absent without leave he had jumped to the worst, and most accurate, conclusion and ordered an evacuation. Most of the heretics had dispersed by the time we got there, but Colyn and about two dozen of his most fervent followers were still disassembling and loading up the altars and paraphernalia of the sect to move to some other location; exactly where we never found out. They fought, of course, but two dozen against almost two hundred are odds that you really do need divine assistance to overcome, all other things being equal, and no matter how loudly Colyn invoked them the Gods appeared to be busy elsewhere.
He had plenty of words for me as well when he came to in manacles and saw me standing guard on him. I've never been called traitor so many different ways in my life and I won't pretend it didn't sting a little. To be sure he was a declared traitor himself, and a heretic, to boot, but he had still trusted me. Breaking faith just isn't something you shrug off if you have any sort of conscience, and for all my protestations to the contrary I do have scraps of conscience here and there. Which made the next part of my duties even more difficult; my orders were that any leader of the Old Faith, upon being arrested, was to be immediately transported to King's Landing for trial by the Faith, and the Watch captain was perfectly willing to get Colyn out of the city before his escaped followers tried to spring him out of clink. That it would prevent Denys Arryn from ordering the heresiarch transferred to the Castle and his custody, where he could start claiming that the breaking of the heretic ring had been his work all along, was an added bonus, as far as the captain was concerned. But it meant that I had to arrange passage on the next ship bound for King's Landing, muscle Colyn aboard, and see him secured in a corner of the hold all while having to listen to him revile me. I dared not gag him, for fear that he would allow it to suffocate him in order to spite me, and I couldn't knock him senseless either. Blows to the head are chancy things; you never really know what your margin for error is between hard enough to stun and hard enough to kill. Besides, I had enough to be getting on with without having to haul Colyn's dead weight around, and he wasn't a small man, either; judging by his build and his hands he had been a tradesman before entering seminary, and probably a metalsmith.
Nor could I just leave him in the hold for the duration of the voyage and let him stew. I was responsible for getting him to King's Landing alive and well enough to stand trial, which meant that I had to ensure that he stayed healthy until I handed him over to the Faith. Which, in turn, meant that I had to watch him through the whole voyage, to ensure that he didn't contrive to commit suicide in order to deny the Fait the pleasure of killing him; he seemed the sort that would consider that sort of outcome a victory. As a consequence, I had to listen to him all the way from Gulltown to King's Landing, doing my level best to let his words not get to me. For the most part they didn't, because most of them were nonsense, but a few did, when he made one of his rare lucid observations. One I remember especially well.
"They're fools to think that it will stop with me," he said, having just finished a diatribe against the corruption of the Most Devout. "Do they think that I'm the only one who sees how the Faith has lost it's way? I knew I could not live forever, or lead forever; there were men in my congregation I was training to take my place. They can burn me, but a hundred salamanders will rise from my ashes to set the Vale ablaze against the Arryn's. And you are as great a fool as they are to think that my death will be a victory; there were men among us who had lost all hope of reforming either the Faith or the Kingdoms from within. I held them leashed, counseling patience and the hope that men would remember their oaths, and with this you have shown them that their only hope of survival is in killing everyone who stands against them. You think Septon Derek will stop them? He cares nothing for Westeros beyond its ability to produce settlers for his dream of Andalos reborn. The Kingdoms descending into anarchy would only suit his purpose even more perfectly than one under Stannis' heel; the greater chaos the Kingdoms fall into, the more people will be willing to take their chances with settling overseas. But it matters nothing; the Gods will not forsake their Faithful forever; it may take years, but they will raise us up, and cast down those who oppressed us. I am willing to accept my death in the furtherance of their plans, for they move in mysterious ways."
From there he lapsed into the resentful muttering that filled most of his days, but I had cause to remember his words later, after Stannis was forced to turn his attention elsewhere for too long and the Vale really went to pot. I got caught up in that mess, too, but like the man said it took years to get that bad, so it wasn't until things had really turned sour that I was sent back. If only Denys had learned . . .
Chapter 97: Gathering Fury
Chapter Text
Rodrik Harlaw could not help the moroseness stealing over him. The curse of foresightedness, he had learned long ago, was that it prevented you from simply taking the days as they came. As a consequence, he found himself unable to keep his focus on the revel being held in Faircastle's great hall, the drunken singing and boasts fading away as he dwelled instead on the word that had reached his ears over the last few days.
His own attack on Faircastle had gone off without a hitch and the rest of Fair Isle had fallen easily enough, but precious little else had gone well in this first phase of the war. The force that Rodrik Greyjoy had led against the Banefort had succeeded in plundering the small harbor there, but Lord Banefort's garrison had driven the landing party back to the ships after a hard fight. Following the success against Lannisport, Balon had dispatched Aeron with fifty sail, half Ironborn and half pirate sellsail, against Seagard to burn out the harbor there, but either warning had reached the Mallister's in time or, with so many men away with Stannis, those who remained had decided to err on the side of vigilance; Aeron's force had found the artillery mounted on the harbor mole and sea-towers of Seagard fully manned and alert, and Aeron had withdrawn after losing eight ships sunk or burned. And early this morning, the flotilla that had been sent to raid Kayce had returned in a sour mood. The Kenning's of Kayce and the Prester's of Feastfires had covered the coast of their peninsula with roaming cavalry patrols, so that the flotilla could find no place to land a raiding party and been forced to return empty-handed save for the contents of a few fishing boats that they had snapped up offshore.
This, on top of a report from one of Rodrik's own ships, bringing word that Lannisport was now too strong to even think of attacking again. The strength of the Westerlands had gathered within and about it, and the rumor was that Tywin Lannister himself had returned from King's Landing and was taking personal command of the growing army. Rodrik drummed his fingers against his goblet. The success of the first raid against Lannisport had been due to the direct intervention of the God, as far as he was concerned, and repeating it against the Old Lion would take an even greater intervention on the God's part. And while the God did reward those who served Him well, a wise man did not ask too much of Him; the God was known to be impatient with those who asked for what they did not deserve.
And Balon, for his part, seemed unconcerned. What did it matter if the Ironborn had yet to gain a foothold on the mainland? They were a sea-people, he had observed in one of his more coherent ramblings, whose natural frontier was the high-tide line of any foreign coast. So long as they prevented their enemies from gaining command of the seas, then they were invulnerable on their islands, and the greenlander had not been born that could outsail an Ironborn, or outfight them on the waves. A few decisive victories against what fleets the greenlanders were able to field this year, possibly the next, and their position would be secure, he claimed. His spy had told him that the treasury of the Iron Throne was so drained by fighting rebels on the mainland that there was no money to replace the Royal Fleet if it was lostagain, and no willingness among the nobles or the smallfolk to pay the taxes that might make up the shortfall.
Rodrik had his doubts, which he kept to himself. For one thing, whether the Iron Throne was out of money or not, theLannister'swere not remotely so strapped for cash, and the sack of Lannisport had touched the Old Lion to the quick. One of Rodrik's contacts on the mainland claimed that he had personally heard the Old Lion order his officers to "Spend and spare not what is needed," to rebuild the fleet. For another, a report had arrived from Sunspear that Euron had led the royal fleet westward from that city after reprovisioning and picking up a handful of galleys manned both by the Order of the Sun and by the Dornish themselves under the command of Ser Rickon Riverbend, Marshal of the Order, and Lord Franklyn Fowler; the report had mentioned that Princess-Regent Mellario and Princess Arianne had personally seen their contribution to the fleet off at the docks, and that the rumor was that the royal fleet would link up with the Redwyne and Hightower fleets when they rounded the heel of Westeros. Even if the Lannisters didn't manage to launch a single ship before they arrived, the Ironborn would still be outnumbered by at least two-to-one, even counting their sellsails and latecomers energized by the success of the raid against Lannisport. All else being equal numbers told, and doubtless Euron would remember the trick the Tyroshi had played of packing extra marines into their ships.
Rodrik clicked his tongue irritably and sipped from his goblet. The die was cast, regardless, and at least he had covered his bets beforehand. His sons might have been seduced by Balon's vision, but his cousin was an intelligent man; he had only needed a few hints before he sailed to discern what Rodrik's plan was, and he had agreed to hold up his end.
XXX
Harras had heard of four-way standoffs, but he had never seriously considered that he might be involved in one. And yet here he was.
Oldtown was a city on a knife's-edge of tension. Word of Balon's rising and surprise attack on Lannisport had reached the city bare hours after Harras' fleet had landed and begun reprovisioning for the voyage around Dorne, and suspicions had immediately been aroused. Only by great good fortune, some very fast talking on Harras' part, and the willingness of Ser Moryn Tyrell, Commander of the Oldtown City Watch, to accept the fleet's parole and mount a conspicuous guard on them had a riot been prevented. Even so, crowds had regularly gathered at the ends of the wharfs where the longships were docked, chanting hateful slogans and occasionally throwing rotten vegetables and lumps of dung. Then word had arrived that Balon's fleets had included pirate sellsails from the Stepstones, and suspicion had fallen on the Essosi of Oldtown, especially those who had only settled in the city recently. Ser Moryn had been hard-pressed to both keep Harras' Ironborn and the expatriate Essosi protected, and it had gone hard for those Essosi who had been caught outside of the hastily-barricaded streets where their community had established themselves. The lucky ones, and the ones who had been quick-witted enough to start spouting fulsome declarations of loyalty to the city and hatred of their former homeland and countrymen, had gotten off with being heckled through the streets and pelted with the same projectiles the Ironborn had been subjected to. The unlucky ones had been beaten, or worse; Harras had heard of at least one ex-Tyroshi, given away and damned by his dyed beard and thick accent, who had been kicked to death before the Watch could intervene, and whose corpse had been strung up from a tree outside his street's barricade with a placard reading 'Thus always to spies.' He was sure there were more whose deaths he hadn't heard of.
Finally Lord Hightower had chosen to intervene, arming his men with cudgels and sending them into the streets with orders to keep the peace by any means necessary. The chilling effect of the streets being flooded with men-at-arms under orders to break whatever heads were necessary to prevent disorder had worked, or enough so that the people of the city had limited themselves to muttering instead of throwing things, and Lord Hightower had followed it up by summoning both Harras and a representative of the Essosi community to the Hightower to provide proofs of their loyalty and willingness to keep the peace. Which was why Harras was standing at rest with his feet shoulder-width apart and his thumbs hooked into his belt-of-plates in the antechamber to the Great Hall of the Hightower, where Lord Leyton would receive them. Despite the tension in his stomach, he couldn't help stealing glances at the Essosi representative; not in a hundred years would he have considered that they would send a woman. But there she was, sitting on the small bench against the wall with her back as straight as a pike-staff and her hands folded primly in her lap, and with a dignified beauty more enhanced than reduced by her severe black wardrobe. Harras had to admire her poise; she might be under Lord Hightower's protection as his guest, but for a woman to come to such a meeting alone spoke of a reservoir of grit that most men could only dream of.
Finally, a liveried servant beckoned them forward, and as they walked through the doors the herald standing just to one side lifted up his voice. "Ser Harras Harlaw, the Knight of Grey Garden, and Mistress Doraena Stallar!" he proclaimed, and Harras had to remind himself not to look aside at the Essosi woman. He knew the name of Stallar from his time in Essos; a Councilor of Tyrosh, if recalled correctly. His estimate of the woman's courage rose, while his estimation of the intelligence of the people who had chosen her sank. Lord Hightower was known to be a reasonable man, but the name of Tyrosh was rarely spoken without being accompanied by a curse or a gob of spittle. Even those with no particular interest in the Slave Wars had heard of their cruelties, capped off by the Night of Flames and the Great Fire that had completed the Destruction.
And the composition of the audience awaiting them in the vast hall, bedecked with more tapestries and floored with more carpets than Harras had seen even in Essos, didn't bode well for her either. The Faith, represented by the Radianor of the Starry Sept, had always considered slavery anathema, as had the Citadel, represented by a trio of robed and masked archmaesters, if for different reasons. The guild masters arrayed on one side of the aisle before the dais were also unlikely to be sympathetic; no guild could be sympathetic to slavery, for that competition with unpaid slaves would both drive down the wages of free apprentices and journeymen and degrade the prestige of the trades by associating labor with bondage. The merchant factors standing with them might be more ambivalent, but not by much. For his own part, Harras was feeling equivocal. On the one hand, he had no quarrel with Mistress Stallar, and the laws of chivalry commanded that he take the part of any woman in distress. On the other hand, he had seen what Tyroshi raiders had left behind on the coasts of Myr too many times, and heard too much of what they had done north of the Turtle River, to be charitably inclined to any child of that nation. And he had quite enough troubles of his own without borrowing more, although he thought that he would have an easier time of it than she would.
Ten paces from the dais he stamped to a halt and bowed from the waist, Mistress Stallar sinking gracefully into a curtsey beside him. "Rise, my guests," Lord Hightower said from the throne-like chair atop the dais; adoption of kingly honors was officially frowned upon, of course, but the fact of the matter was that the Hightower's occupied a place only one or two steps below the Iron Throne in terms of power and prestige. They had been kings themselves, once, and they both remembered it. "I have been told," Lord Hightower went on as Harras and Mistress Stallar straightened, "that there is unrest in my city on account of the communities you represent. After hearing evidence from various good people, I am satisfied that there is little fault, if any, that attaches to you and yours as regards the cause of this. Nonetheless, your presence in my city has disturbed the peace and good order that I and my House are sworn to provide. Mistress Stallar, I am shocked at this from you and your people especially; I was given specific oaths that your presence in this city would not cause any such difficulties."
"Oaths that remain unbroken, my lord," Mistress Stallar replied calmly. "I am willing to swear any oath you or any here with you may wish, on or by whatever you wish, that no person of our community has broken the peace of the city except to defend themselves. Many of us have lost one home already, my lord; we are not so foolish as to cause ourselves to lose this one."
"I just said that I know that no fault attaches to your people for the recent unpleasantness," Lord Hightower said, his tone mildly testy. "What I require is some meaningful gesture from your people to silence those who doubt. Many of whom, I must admit, have given compelling arguments that their doubts are well-founded, and not to be dismissed lightly."
Mistress Stallar curtseyed again. "I have been told that your lordship plans to send a fleet northward to help put down this Balon Greyjoy," she said. "If any expense arises therefrom, you may send the bill to us; we will undertake to cover it."
A murmur rustled through the spectators as Lord Hightower raised an eyebrow; that was, by almost any measure, a princely gesture, if not a kingly one. "The raising and provisioning of a fleet of the sort we mean to send costs thousands of gold stags," Lord Hightower said, a skeptical note entering his voice. "Thousands, mistress, before a single sailor, soldier, or knight is paid for a single day of service."
"We have been in business in this city and these lands for many years, my lord," Mistress Stallar replied, "and under your family's rule we have prospered. Even those of us who came here with very little have been able to become wealthy, if they displayed the necessary ability. This creates a debt between us, my lord, which we will be glad to pay in full."
Lord Hightower stroked his beard thoughtfully as Harras glanced about the hall. The Radianor was wearing a slight frown, as well he might; many of the Essosi had made their fortunes in moneylending, and by popular rumor almost a quarter of the shares of the Bank of Oldtown were owned by Essosi. The Faith had never approved of usury, even regarding the Iron Bank of Braavos with mild suspicion. The guild masters and merchant factors seemed to be in a state of mild confusion, and Harras thought he could guess why. On the one hand, he knew, the idea of wealthy foreigners was never popular with the commons, especially when those foreigners were as visible and clannish as the Essosi. On the other hand, Mistress Stallar had just offered to underwrite the cost of a war, which would otherwise have fallen on the guilds and merchant companies in the form of new or increased taxes or, even more unpopular, forced loans. Even the crustiest and most parochial guildsman could appreciate such a gesture. As for the archmaesters . . . Harras glanced at them and then looked away with a spurt of self-irritation. The odds of being able to read a man wearing a full metal mask and robes were unthinkably long.
"I find this offer fitting, and acceptable," Lord Hightower said finally. "I thank you, Mistress Stallar. My steward and my personal maester will meet with you to discuss the details." The grizzled old lord turned his gaze to Harras. "As for you, ser, what are we to make of your arrival, with such a fleet as you command, so soon after your liege-lord declares war against, well, everyone who isn't Ironborn? I am aware of your intent to lead your fleet to the Basilisk Isles, but how am I to be sure that you will not, shall we say, make any detours along the way?"
"You may be sure of it, my lord," Harras replied, "because we will not be sailing to the Basilisk Isles. We will sail north with you, and we will make Balon answer for blackening our name with this treachery."
Lord Hightower raised a finger, and the outburst of disbelief at Harras' declaration ceased as suddenly as it had started. "I was under the impression that Ironborn were forbidden from shedding the blood of other Ironborn," he observed.
"As a general rule, that is true," Harras said, "but there are exceptions. Every man in my fleet, my lord, was either discontented with Balon's rule or had made himself unwelcome in the Isles under Balon's government; this is why we were sent away. By launching this attack as he has done, before we had gotten ourselves far enough away that our intentions could not be doubted, Balon has both recklessly endangered our lives and sullied the reputation that we have won for our people in the East." He clenched a gloved fist as he remembered the fury that had boiled in his veins when he heard of the Sack of Lannisport. "Balon and his reavers took thralls when they sacked Lannisport," he went on. "They tookslaves,in other words. My lord, many of us swore, by the Drowned God or by the Seven, as I did, that we would show no mercy to slavers, but make war upon them wherever we found them. If this evil has infected our people, then our oaths bind us to cut it out and cast it into the sea. We have held a moot about this, my lord, and agreed that this must be done, so we ask only for leave to sail north and lend sword and axe to the fight against Balon."
Lord Hightower tapped his fingers against the arm of his chair as he held Harras' gaze, his brown eyes searching. Harras returned the look fearlessly, his head thrown back and his hands at his sides; he had nothing to hide, and meant nothing but what he said. He knew that it was his family's disagreement with the reinstitution of thralldom that had landed them in Balon's bad books, and that Balon had only taken Harras' part in the dispute over his inheritance to spite Stannis. He also knew that Balon's recklessness had broken any ties that that incident might have forged; a true lord did not gamble with the lives of his liegemen except on the battlefield, and even then only sparingly and within reason. Even if his cousin the Reader had not hinted that he should take Stannis' part in the event of any "disturbances", to use his word, Harras would have broken with Balon for so recklessly endangering his men and casting such doubt upon his reputation.
At last Lord Hightower nodded. "I am willing to accept this offer, ser," he said. "One of my captains will meet with you to discuss how best we can attach you to our fleet. As far as payment for your services is concerned, I will pay your men king's wages for thirty days, starting from the day we sail."
Harras bowed. "With all respect, my lord, we are fighting to redeem our homeland and restore our honor, not to become rich. Forbye, our families still in the Isles will be subject to Balon's mercies once he discovers that we have turned our hands against him. The only payment we need is for our ships to be reprovisioned and made ready for war; no more will we ask."
Thatcaught the attention of the onlookers, as Harras had guessed it might. A buzz of whispers arose from the guild masters and merchant factors, while the Radianor raised his eyebrows in visible surprise. For his part Lord Hightower blinked twice in rapid succession, knitted his brows in thought for a long moment, and then chuckled ruefully. "A fine day when an Ironborn teaches a Reachman a lesson in chivalry," he half-said, half-laughed. "Very well then, ser; I shall take you at your word. Provisions will be made available by dawn tomorrow, and the captain I send will ensure that your ships are armed and fitted out."
Harras bowed. "I thank you, my lord," he said formally, "and ask you to hear this my oath; that I shall not rest until Balon is put down like the dog he is, or brought in chains before the King's Justice to answer for his crimes. By sea and sky and the Light of the Seven, I swear this, by the honor of my House and on the salt of my blood."
Lord Hightower nodded. "Your oath is heard and witnessed, ser," he replied with a vast dignity. "May the day of it's fulfillment come swiftly."
XXX
The High Septon, until two sennights ago Most Devout Mateo, had known that dealing with paperwork was an inescapable part of holding high office in the Faith. If nothing else, you had to review the reports of the Radianors of your province. Even so, he hadn't expected to write out an itinerary, as if he were a lowly circuit septon. It just seemed . . .mundanewas the only descriptor he could think of.
Not that he had expected the Seven to descend in glory and give him his marching orders, or even just whisper them in his ears. The Seven expected their followers to discern their will through scriptural exegesis, through the signs that appeared around them, and through the imperceptible but no less real influence which They exerted upon the human heart and mind. To expect direct revelation smacked of hubris, for it was only to be reasonably expected as either a last resort to attempt to communicate their will to one who had been obstinately impervious to their message, or as a sign that a truly colossal catastrophe was so close at hand that the Seven believed that their usual methods would work too slowly for the good of the Faithful. He himself had written an opinion on the matter as a young seminarian, which his teachers had held up to the other students as a model of it's kind.
And come to that, he was of the honest opinion that he didn'tneedthe Seven to walk into his office and tell him in so many words what to do. The signs of the times made it abundantly clear.
His predecessor of blessed memory had been a decent sort, as high officers of the Faith went, but like so many who had taken the crystal crown he had fallen prey to the sins that tempted powerful men. Gluttony most obviously, but also sloth, wrath, and, most dangerous of all, pride. His predecessor had only rarely set foot outside the Great Sept after his election and coronation, and only once had he gone beyond the gates of King's Landing, when he made the customary pilgrimage to the Starry Sept that all newly-crowned High Septons made barring war or plague. He had shut himself away in the Great Sept, turning his back on the Faithful in order to more fully cloak himself in the power and mystique of his office. Did any more proof of the folly of such a policy need to be asked for than the sudden explosion of heresies? Had his predecessor been more active, in word as well as in deed, then neither Jonothor nor Ryman nor Derek would have been able to gain much traction.
He would not be so introverted, he had vowed when he received the crystal crown. He was a son of Dorne, the descendant of men who had lived by speed of their horses no less than the sharpness of their wits when the dragons came. And despite his years he was still hale, his mind still keen, and the ambition that had propelled him to the peak of the Faith was undiminished. He wouldnotbe known simply as the Lean One.
And, by one of those twists of fate by which the Seven made known Their will, his predecessor had pointed the way with his final words.
It was customary for a newly-elected High Septon to make a pilgrimage to some prominent center of the Faith, both to pray for the Seven's blessings on his tenure and to show himself to the Faithful. Before the Great Sept had been built the most popular destination had been Gulltown, closely followed by Lannisport. After the building of the Great Sept and the rebasing of the Faith to King's Landing, the destination of choice had become Oldtown, to pay homage to the old seat of the Faith. It had been rumored that his pilgrimage would be to Lannisport, to lend his imprimatur to the calls for reconstruction and remind the other Kingdoms that charity was a saving virtue. He would pray in Lannisport, to be sure, but not to complete his pilgrimage. To do that, he had declared a few days ago, he would pray in the former sept of Pyke, when it had been reconsecrated to the Seven.
His lips quirked in a half-smile as he remembered the uproar among the Most Devout that his announcement had provoked. The sight of Most Devout Hugar almost babbling in shock had been especially entertaining. Fortunately, both Queen Cersei and Lord Arryn had agreed to his idea when he had proposed it to them before announcing it to the Most Devout. Theoretically the Iron Throne had no direct control over what the Faith could and could not do, but even in peaceful times it was considered an ill thing for the Faith to be at odds with the Throne. In these troubled times, upsetting the close relationship that his predecessor had cultivated would be unwise in the extreme.
Which was why he had not persisted when they refused his offer to lead a hundred or so healing brothers, silent sisters, and other septons to assist the royal army. The offer was greatly appreciated, Lord Arryn had said politely, but even the appearance of the High Septon commanding a force in the field of any sort smacked too much of the Faith Militant reborn. The last thing they needed was to give the Faith's enemies any more ammunition to throw at it, and breaking Jaehaerys' Covenant would weigh heavily in that balance. He snorted to himself; honestly, one would think that the Faith Militant had held the nobility to ransom or put them in fear of their lives on a daily basis, when in fact they had tended to be apolitical except in cases where the Faith had become involved. The Seven cared little who ruled what or where, so long as Their commandments were kept.
And he had gotten what he truly wanted, so it would have been churlish to balk. Especially since both Lord Arryn and the Queen had already offered to loan him sufficient men-at-arms to ensure his security, an offer that many other nobles at Court had hastened to join in. And none other than Lord Bolton had offered to command them. He had wanted to go to the war anyways, to meet with the Northmen who were even now marching down the Kingsroad to join the King's banner, he had explained in that oddly soft voice, and as he did not keep the Seven there could be no suspicion that he was taking the High Septon's orders rather than the King's. The High Septon could not bring himself to like the pale Northman, with his ghost-grey eyes and ghoulish demeanor, but he had accepted the offer nonetheless; you didn't have to like your allies in the Great Game, you simply had to be able to tolerate them long enough for them to serve your purpose. He had learned that lesson while he was still at seminary. And while the rumors about the Leech Lord's personal habits remained unconfirmed, his effectiveness at keeping law and order in the City was unquestionable.
Forbye, the scale of what he planned to do was quite enough without tacking on difficulties of his own making. He would not simply race down the Riverroad to Lannisport, never spending more than a day in any given place. Instead he would stop at every castle along the way that he could, to pray and to preach and to rouse the people of the Seven Kingdoms in support of their King's war against this latest crop of rebels. Not pagans, nor heathens, nor infidels, King Stannis' letter from Highgarden had made clear, but rebels; this war was not against the Drowned God, but only those Ironborn who had forsworn themselves and abandoned their allegiance to the Iron Throne. There was to be no mention of this being a war of religion, or at the very least there was to be as little mention as possible, and none at all from anyone in any position of authority.
Ordinarily he wouldn't have cared, not being a man of blood, but he knew what was in the hearts of the people and he knew that a good leader led his people where they wanted to go, whether the leader cared for the destination or not. No, this war would be one of faith as much as politics, and he would remind Stannis of it when the reavers were cudgeled back to their obedience and punishments were decided on. As first chaplain of the royal army, he would have a voice at the council that would decide such matters, and he intended to push for the proselytization of the Iron Isles as hard as he could, on the grounds that the worship of the Drowned God had proved itself incompatible with residence in civilized society. That the Ironborn of the Kingdom of Myr seemed by all reports to be loyal subjects of King Robert only made them the exception that proved the rule, for the near-constant state of war that kingdom found itself in meant that there were plenty of outlets for the more barbaric impulses of the islanders. What they would do if peace ever came to that unsettled land the High Septon could not imagine, unless it was to be the same pattern of grudging obedience and episodic violence that had characterized the Ironborn's relations with the Iron Throne.
It would take some careful management to get Stannis to approve of it, given his legendary stubbornness and insistence on having his own way, but even a man as rigid as Stannis would have to bend to the expressed will of a majority of his lords. And while he thought himself wise enough not to count his eggs until they were in the pudding, he imagined that he would be able to muster the necessary level of support from the other high lords of the army, especially since one of them would already be on his side. He had met with Euron Greyjoy before he sailed and the master of ships had not only accepted his arguments, but enthusiastically endorsed them. It seemed that the young Ironborn had his own plans for his homeland, and their conversion to the Faith would be quite helpful. As he had phrased it, conversion would be 'an integral part of my final solution to the problem of the Iron Price.' The High Septon nodded; he liked the idea of a 'final solution' to the depredations of the Ironborn and their false god. Dorne had not suffered as heavily from their raids as the Westerlands or the Reach or the Riverlands, but the Faith was supposed to care for each of its adherents equally, without regard to the land of their birth. If his tenure saw the power of the Ironborn broken for good and all, then he would be content. And 'the Ironbreaker' would be so much more satisfying an appellation than 'the Lean One'.
XXX
Euron Greyjoy loved plans, but not so much that he wedded himself to them irrevocably. At least, not since the greatest plan of all had come flying apart. He hadseen, through the eyes of his teacher, the strands of a plan stretching back centuries, all fastidiously woven to produce one end, that when the White Walkers arose from their long hibernation the right man would be in the right place to lead the fight against them.Seeingso much, with so little of the training necessary to mitigate the potential damage that such a flood of information could bring, had very nearly driven him to madness, but he had accepted his part in the old man's plan. How could he not, when all the wheels seemed to be turning so inexorably toward the completion of the plan?
And then one choice had been made differently, and more choices after that had been made differently, and before long the plan his teacher had inducted him into had lain in ruins. The old man's wrath at how casually his long-laid plan had been thwarted by people who weren't even alive when its foundations were laid had been terrible, and made more so when Euron had forsaken his role in the plan and shut him out. He had seen how a man of sufficient courage and will and guile could change destiny, and he knew that it was too late to salvage even the barest semblance of the plan. So he had given up on the notion of traveling the wide world in search of mystical knowledge that might be used against the White Walkers, in favor of rising as high as he could in Stannis' service. Even if the Prince Who Was Promised were never born, as had been made almost certain within the first stages of the plan's unraveling, Stannis had the might and the main to be an acceptable substitute, and he would need able men at his side when the night fell and cold winds blew. And who could say but that the cataclysm his teacher had shown him to be the consequence of the plan's failure might be averted? The Long Night might never fall, the White Walkers might never wake from their long sleep. In which case, the men who served Stannis well and faithfully would have the length of their lives to enjoy the rewards of loyal service to the mightiest sovereign in the world, and have the opportunity to raise their descendants higher still. The knowledge of the mystic arts that he had already gleaned had served him in good stead on that front already, and would likely continue to do so, but magic was a fickle tool and one that he had learned not to rely on overmuch. Especially when more mundane means and a sufficient understanding of men's natures would suffice.
He sipped at a cup of mead and smiled in the privacy of his cabin. He could almost pity his brother, but he did not. Any fool so great as to swallow whole such a spread of omissions, half-truths, and outright lies as he had fed him did not deserve to hold power. Judging by the evidence he had never questioned who his spy in King's Landing mightbe, who might have the means and the motive to send him reports that showed the Seven Kingdoms to be so divided by unrest and schism as to be easy prey, when even a moment's rational analysis would give the lie to every word of them. No, he didn't pity his fool of a brother one bit. Not when he was almost the perfect embodiment of the folly and willful blindness of their people. Not when he had dishonored their father's memory by undoing every vestige of the work of the old man's life, putting back their rapprochement with the mainland by a generation or more in the space of a few sennights. Not when he was morally certain that Balon had had Lady Piper, their father's third wife, killed along with her son Robin. The greenlander lady might not have been blood, but she had still been family, and Robin's deformity did not excuse kinslaying.
So Balon would die, if Euron had to kill him with his own hands. Aeron and Urrigon would die as well, not for any grudge he bore them but because the plan he had developed required that he make a clean sweep of every other man who potentially stood to inherit Pyke. Or almost all; Victarion had forsaken the Isles and his claim, and so could be spared. And if Euron was honest with himself, he was too proud of his brother, who for too long he had mistaken for a simple-minded ox with no thought in his head beyond the next fight and the next f*ck, to be comfortable with the idea of slaying him; had he not taken the Bleeding Tower? No, Victarion would live to be Robert's fist upon the seas, while Euron set his sights higher than any Greyjoy before him had dared.
He would be Lord Paramount, aye, but only for long enough to lay the groundwork and take the necessary steps to bring the benighted Isles forward into the modern world. Sooner or later Stannis would find himself in need of a man of sufficient ability and sufficient reputation to help Lord Arryn counterbalance the shrewishness of the Queen, and in time to replace the Old Falcon when he grew too old and worn to shoulder the burden of governance. He would be ideally placed to make himself the one man Stannis could not do without in the governance of the Realm, and when the time came for Stannis to die he would be the natural choice to be regent until one of Stannis' daughters came of age. He had nothing against Stannis, he really didn't, but he also knew that Stannis was not capable of tolerating a true equal; the dictates of the Throne and the government he was trying to forge prevented him. There could only be room for one man at the top of the new Westeros that Stannis was trying to forge, and why should that man not be Euron Greyjoy? His blood was as noble as Stannis', and the Baratheon's had taken the throne by force and by guile, so why not he? Why should he not become regent, and perhaps even Prince-Consort if one of the girls was willing? Why should his bloodline not join Stannis' on the Iron Throne?
Of course, that depended on him landing sixes every time he threw the iron dice, and the odds of that were long indeed. He had hoped to string Balon along for a few years more while he consolidated his position as master of ships and general man-of-all-work in Stannis' government, but when the Upper Mander Rebellion had broken out Balon had taken the bit between his teeth. At least the sudden change in the Faith's leadership had worked out for the best; he had been considering forcing the conversion of the Ironborn to the Seven for some time now, but the High Septon's suggestion of it had crystallized the idea in his mind. What better way to illustrate the sea-change in the Ironborn's behavior than to turn the longships that had been the dread of the Faithful into septs?
The best part, he decided as he took another sip of mead, was that no one would ever know that it was him that had led Balon to rebel. He had written all his messages himself, sending them to a factor in Sunspear who would pass them to Balon along with his regular correspondence, and he had taken the time to arrange for the factor's death when the fleet had stopped in Sunspear. Balon did not know who to suspect of feeding him false information, and even if he suspected Euron who would be believed? A declared rebel and traitor? Or the man who had saved the King's life off Tyrosh and occupied a high post in his government?
He smiled as he sipped the last of his mead. His former teacher must be chewing his guts out in frustration at how the world had changed, and the advancement of his own schemes would only salt the wound with envy.How's that for a plan, old crow?
Chapter 98: A Change of Course
Chapter Text
Stannis' counter-stroke against Balon's Rebellion took longer to assemble than his response to the Upper Mander Rebellion, but that was a function of the intricacies of naval warfare, even in those relatively crude days, and the distances involved more than a lack of enthusiasm. In the sennights before the arrival of the Redwyne, Hightower, and royal fleets rendezvoused with the Tyrell fleet and the royal army at the mouth of the Mander, Stannis had made a point of walking into the surf up to his knees every day as a token of his eagerness to sail. Even if this was a cold-blooded gambit rather than a display of genuine emotion, it helped elevate Stannis' credit even further in the eyes of the Reachmen. As Lord Randyll Tarly wrote to his wife, "At last we have a king who cares more for the honor and safety of the Kingdoms than for old words in books, or for the mumblings of soothsayers and warlocks. Such a king as King Stannis the men of this army will follow anywhere, in the face of any hazard."
The armada that assembled at the mouth of the Mander and sailed northward to Fair Isle was one of the great fleets of the age; at just under three hundred and thirty ships of war it was only slightly smaller than the Great Armament's complement, although it had far fewer transport ships. Those were being assembled or built new in Lannisport and Seagard, to ferry the armies of the Westerlands and the Riverlands to the Isles. And while the caliber of the fleet's leadership was not quite at the level of the Great Armament's, it still counted more than a few famous names; some of them, such as Ser Harras Harlaw, Euron Greyjoy, and King Stannis himself, were veterans of the fighting in Essos or the Narrow Sea, while the marines of the six galleys that the Dornish contributed were Knights of the Sun for the most part, and veterans of either the Red Viper Rebellion or the ongoing law-and-order campaigns since. The Redwyne fleet had also seen action along the coast of Dorne in the Red Viper Rebellion, while many of the men in the Hightower fleet had served in the Red Mountains; the popularity of the counter-attack against the Ironborn allowed Lord Hightower's recruiting officers to be discriminate in their choice of recruits, and they were under orders to give preference to veterans of prior service.
The first objective for this fleet was to retake Fair Isle, and if possible to bring the Iron Fleet to battle and either destroy it or damage it enough to remove it from play. Balon Greyjoy, in need of a victory to rejuvenate his prospects after the failures against Seagard and Feastfires, decided to play a risky gambit; he would let the royal army land on Fair Isle, drawn by the bait of a strong garrison left in Faircastle, and then attempt to destroy the fleet and strand Stannis and his men on an island stripped bare of anything that might feed an army. The professors of today's War Academy would have had sharp critiques for any student who presented it for their consideration, but it's high-risk-high-reward nature and it's dependence on the supposed superiority of the Ironborn as fighting sailors made it of a piece with all the rest of Balon's strategic thinking. And to his credit, it might have worked if his opponents had made the necessary mistakes. But Stannis Baratheon was not the sort of person to make unforced mistakes, nor were the men he entrusted with high commands . . .
King's Men: the Early Years of the Royal Army of Westerosby Maester Hastyngs
Euron Greyjoy couldn't help an exultant laugh as hisUnspeakableclosed in on the last few stragglers of the Iron Fleet. He had thought that his brother would try something rash, and Stannis had agreed; anyone mad enough to rebel as Balon had done was clearly capable of anything. So while the army had made a great show of going ashore, most of it had gone back on board under cover of night, with only enough knights, archers, and infantry remaining ashore to lend verisimilitude to the deceptive activities of the squires and pages. And while Stannis had planted his banner on the shore, he had gone back aboard theSea-Roselater in the evening, leaving Ser Cortnay Penrose and five of his Stormguards standing guard on an empty tent. Ser Cortnay had resisted that particular part of the plan mightily, until Stannis had finally made it an order.
So when Balon's ships had come around the headland and descended on the fleet, it had found every ship fully manned, full to the gunwales with soldiers, and ready to fight. The resulting brawl had been almost as fierce as Tyrosh had been, but with a much different outcome. Euron glanced at the middle distance, where those longships that had managed to disengage from the galleys and dromonds of the fleet were running for the northern horizon as fast as oar and sail could carry them. They might live to fight another day, but one in five of their number would not. Twenty longships from the Iron Fleet alone had been taken, sunk, or burned that Euron had seen, and while he didn't know how many ships the other lords of the Isles had lost, he couldn't imagine that they were anything but proportional. He had only seen two major banners go down, the brazier of the Stonehouse's and the bloody moon of the Wynch's, but all that meant was that Balon would have to explain his defeat to the lords themselves, instead of their comparatively untried heirs.
Ahead of him the trio of longships he and the two ships that had followed him out of the battle were pursuing turned, evidently preparing to make a fight of it. Euron nodded; he knew his people well enough to know that they would not surrender while they still had the means to resist. Yet another attitude he would have to beat out of them when he took his seat in Pyke. At least he would have Stannis' help for the first part of that; the King had agreed when Euron had told him that the best way to break the Iron Price was to pay it first, up front and in full. This first installment was perfectly satisfactory, thus far, but every penny of it would have to be paid sooner or later, and Euron prided himself that he had never been a debtor for longer than he must. He raised his axe. "One more fight, lads, and then we feast in Faircastle!" he roared. "With these traitors to rest our feet on!" His men responded with a laughing cheer and a flourish of weapons; they had been his crew for many years now and were men after Euron's own heart. They were all fatigued from the earlier fighting, but they had the smell of victory in their noses and you didn't sign articles with Euron Greyjoy if you weren't a man of ambition. Go inland and take up farming if you wanted to be able to call a job done and put your feet up at the end of the day; if you went aboard theUnspeakable, you signed up to work like a horse and fight like a wolf with barely an hour of the day to call your own, in return for which The Captain saw you suitably rewarded at the post-battle wassail.
When the grappling irons were thrown out for the tenth time that day, Euron was the first over the rail with a mad laugh, as he had been every other time that day. He was a more discerning man and had more appreciation for the fine things in life than all of his brothers put together, but he was still Ironborn, and possessed a full share of the battle-joy of his people. Andals fought for honor's sake and First Men for duty's sake and Rhoynar for pride's sake, Euron reflected idly as his axe swept out in a looping cut that cut through a man's skull above his cheekbones and ended up co*cked behind him as he lowered his shoulder to ram deeper into the mass of enemies, but Ironborn fought because theyenjoyedit. The Gods knew he was enjoying himself as he cut a swathe through his erstwhile countrymen, his axe feeling as light as a willow switch in his hands but striking with enough power to shatter bone underneath mail and gambeson.
He carved his way to the steering oars, laughing as he went, and almost died on the spot as the ship's captain threw a spear-thrust at his throat. Euron batted it away and threw a return cut that should have broken the spear-shaft, but it only flexed and he had to jerk his head aside as the long, heavy head of the spear reached for his visor. The laughter began to die in his throat as he brought his axe back to guard against a cut and threw a counter-cut, and then the laughter died entirely when the captain swayed away from the cut and brought his spear back, around, and down in a spinning blow that no sane man would have attempted and the force of which buckled Euron's arms as he threw his axe up crosswise in an instinctive guard. Euron kicked at the captain's midsection to gain some space and had just enough time to wonderWho the f*ck are you?before the captain's spear was coming back at him again. He dodged a thrust, threw a return cut that the captain ducked with an ease that was appalling, and then cut again and never saw it strike home because in the same instant something struck him in the belly and knocked all the wind out of him.
He looked down, saw the spear buried to the lugs in his breastplate, felt the wetness starting to pool around his waist and run down his legs, and knew he had taken his death-wound. He dropped his axe to clutch at the spear-shaft, and only then did he see that the spear-shaft was as white as old bone.Weirwood,he thought numbly, and gritted his teeth against a wave of pain and an even greater wave ofknowing.Oh,f*ck you, you one-eyed old . . .and then the darkness took him and he knew no more.
In that same moment, in a vast cave in the far reaches of the high north, an old man smiled vindictively as he awoke from his trance. "Thatfor your plan, my old apprentice," he rasped in his dust-dry voice. "When you reach the Seventh Hell, be sure to give the other deserters my warmest regards." He allowed himself a laugh as he leaned back against his throne of roots, and the figures watching him from the shadows shivered involuntarily at the sound of that grating cackle.
XXX
As Lord Harlaw walked out from the gates of Faircastle under a cloudy sky, Ser Cortnay Penrose could not help being struck by the similarities between the old Ironborn lord and his king. To be sure King Stannis was substantially younger, and despite the stresses of the last seven years there was still no gray in his close-cropped hair and short beard. But both men had faces lined by care and sleepless nights and the hard, emotionless eyes of men who had to make the difficult decisions of high office and great responsibility. Although the lines were more pronounced on the Reader's face than Stannis', even more so than mere age would account for, and Ser Cortnay thought he could guess why; in a culture that held intellect in mild contempt at best, Lord Harlaw's well-known inclinations meant that he was alone in a way that even Stannis wasn't. He might be respected, but he had never been loved by the people he had done his best to lead, protect, and govern through the long years of his lordship.
"I will be frank with you, Your Grace," Lord Harlaw said after the initial pleasantries had been exchanged. "I know that my men and I are isolated, with no hope of relief or rescue. I also know that if we choose to go down fighting, then we can make our lives cost more than they are worth. Especially since you will need every sword you can get to take the Isles."
"Swords that are already waiting for me in Lannisport," Stannis replied. "And I need not reduce you at all. All I need do is leave enough ships to blockade the harbor below the castle and enough men to bottle up your garrison in the castle, burn the town to deny you the use of its materials, and sail away. Meat well-stored and well-salted does not spoil easily." He didn't sayAnd we both know that if I order my army to storm the castle, they'll do it on the spot and be done with it inside an hour,but Ser Cortnay hadn't expected him to. The army's celebrations at the defeat of the Ironborn fleet yesterday had certainly been loud enough to hear from the castle, even despite Lord Euron's death. There was nothing like victory to inspire men to further deeds.
"Perhaps not, but leaving a mess untidied can become embarrassing easily enough," Lord Harlaw replied. "The Farman's have relations who will demand to know why you did not see fit to liberate their land and restore them to their seat, and why you chose to leave their daughters in the hands of reavers to be their playthings."
Stannis stiffened, as did Ser Cortnay. "Lord Farman's daughters still live then?" Stannis asked tautly.
Lord Harlaw nodded. "Somewhat the worse for wear, but they live," he answered. "Which may cease to be the case, if the castle is stormed."
Stannis bent his head in an infinitesimal nod. "So you ask for terms, in order to spare not only the lives of your men and mine, but to spare blameless girls," he growled. "Is this the behavior I can expect of the men of the Isles, to threaten the massacre of innocents in order to save their own worthless hides?"
"Surely I need not remind Your Grace thatinter arma enim silent leges," Lord Harlaw said calmly. "Necessity is its own defense, not just among Ironborn but among all peoples. I believe that Most Devout Aquynus acknowledged this in hisSummary."
Stannis gestured irritably. "A question for lawyers," he snapped, "which we need not concern ourselves with. What terms do you seek?"
"Only this," Lord Harlaw replied, "that no man among us be put to death for our actions here or in this rebellion in general. We will accept any other punishment you name, but the law of the Drowned God commands that if we must die then we must die fighting." He raised his chin. "If you require any more blood to be shed," he said more dignity than Ser Cortnay expected, "then I offer mine, unconditionally. I know that to be a lord is to be responsible for the people you rule, and for the actions they commit in peace or war."
Ser Cortnay blinked. Whatever he had expected, it hadn't been that. It was, to be entirely honest, an almost chivalrous gesture on the Reader's part. Although it was probably to be expected that the Reader would have a greater understanding of a lord's duty than his fellows; he had probably read enough on the subject. And hewasa lord, to be scrupulously fair; all else being equal, blood told, even among Ironborn. Stannis ran a gloved thumb over the pommel of his longsword as he eyed the old reaver-lord. "And if these terms are accepted," he said slowly, "then Faircastle will be surrendered undamaged and Lord Farman's daughters released without further harm done to them?"
"This very day, if that would be most convenient," Lord Harlaw replied. "I have my men standing ready to march out right now, with the Farman girls under the protection of my own housekarls."
Stannis looked off into the distance for a moment, then nodded. "Your men will go to the Wall," he said, "marching overland, not by ship. As many letters as I've been getting from the Watch complaining about being undermanned, I might as well give one person cause for happiness out of this whole affair. As for yourself, I have a better use for your head than mounting it on a pike."
Lord Harlaw blinked. "That being?" he asked curiously.
"I want you to carry an ultimatum to Balon Greyjoy," Stannis said; not using any of the rebellious lord's titles, Ser Cortnay noted. "He must surrender himself and such other men as I will name to the King's Justice and give an answer for this rebellion and the crimes committed in it, and accept such other conditions as I will name, or I shall take the Iron Islands by storm, extract an answer from him with my sword, and impose those conditions regardless."
"Balon will never accept these terms," Lord Harlaw replied immediately. "In point of fact, he is likely to kill the man who brings them to him."
"In that event, the debt of blood you owe the Seven Kingdoms for your part in this rebellion will be settled," Stannis said pitilessly. "And if, by some miracle, you succeed, then you may expunge that debt at the Wall. I'm told that the records of the Night's Watch make for interesting reading."
Lord Harlaw laughed without humor. "And all the Gods witness I have never been able to pry so much as a single page out of the Night's Watch, no matter how I write my requests to Maester Aemon," he said dryly. "They do like to keep their secrets, the Watch." The old reaver looked out at the sea for a long moment, his face unreadable, and then knelt. "On behalf of my men, I accept these terms," he said formally. "Accordingly, I submit me and mine to Your Grace's mercy, under the terms we have just agreed."
Stannis smiled slightly. "Then we have an accord," he said. "Go and tell your men that they will live to fight another day, even if it's only against wildlings."
XXX
Several days later, in Lannisport . . .
The Goldsmith's Guildhall of Lannisport was used to hosting the great and good; it was the most sought-after venue for social events in the city, even above Lannisport Castle. The Castle was a grim, imposing building, so obviously a military fortress that it could not be anything else. The Guildhall, by contrast, had almost every kind of meeting room you could ask for, from little rooms where two or three men could meet in private over Arbor gold or Tyroshi brandy to the great hall, two hundred paces long, that was used for banquets and galas. The Mayor's annual feast for the guildmasters and the officers of the city's government was held in the great hall, but even the grandest of those occasions did not begin to match the array of powerful men now gathered around the high table. Ser Rickon Riverbend and Lord Franklyn Fowler, their faces bronzed from the Dornish sun, sat next to Randyll Tarly, Ser Baelor Hightower, and Mace Tyrell, who had brought his eldest son Willas as his squire; the young man stood at rest behind his father's chair like a statue, his eyes flitting around the room to take in the other participants. Across the table from the southerners sat Brandon Stark, his canes leaning against the table and his legs stretched stiffly in front of him. Determined to show that he could at least lead his bannermen to war even if he could not fight at their head, he had overridden all the objections of his wife and his maester and ridden down from Winterfell in a cart that he described laconically as 'uncomfortable', refusing to allow any delay on account of his infirmity. At his right hand sat Roose Bolton, his pale eyes guardedly surveying the room, and on his left sat the Greatjon, who had already drunk enough to be jovial even with southrons and continually regaled the man sitting on his other side with tales of his lord's surprising hardiness on the road. Ser Harras Harlaw, for his part, listened to the Greatjon's ramblings with a good ear and made sure to nod and smile and laugh appropriately; he knew he needed allies. For on either side of the head of the table sat Tywin Lannister, looking for all the world like he had been carved from stone, and the new High Septon, whose practiced benign half-smile left his eyes whenever he looked at Harras. The aura those two men exuded was so powerful that the men sitting between them and the rest of the table, Bronze Yohn Royce, Abram Gaunt, and Gulian Swann on Tywin's side of the table and Hoster Tully, Tytos Blackwood, and Jason Mallister on the High Septon's side, had turned monosyllabic, and these were men old in lordship.
At the head of the table Stannis rapped his knuckles against the table to bring the meeting to order. "Your Holiness, my lords, welcome" he began. "We are gathered here to discuss how best to respond to this latest rebellion. I do not refer to any military measures, as those are well in hand and due to advance. I refer instead to what shall be done with the Iron Isles after this rebellion is quashed and the Isles returned to their obedience. The central question, which we must keep at the forefront of our minds, is this;how might we best transform the Ironborn into lawful and productive subjects of the Iron Throne?I had named Euron Greyjoy as Lord Paramount of the Iron Islands and intended to leave the matter in his hands, but since his death off Fair Isle this is no longer an option. That being so, I open the floor to suggestions."
The High Septon stood, folding his hands in the wide sleeves of his cassock. "I have given much thought to this matter over the course of my pilgrimage," he said, "and in all my deliberations I found myself coming back to the one fact that sets the Islands apart from the rest of Westeros. And that fact, Your Grace, my lords, is one offaith. The Ironborn have never accepted the Seven, and their message of brotherhood, amity, and charity into their hearts. Instead they offer their prayers to a god that smiles most warmly on pillage and rapine, that commands it's followers to take what they please without regard for any right but that of the sword. There are, of course, exceptions," he nodded at Ser Harras Harlaw, "who are all the more honorable for cleaving to the Faith despite the contempt and opprobrium it brings upon them. And the Seven witness," he said with a nod to the Northmen, "that those who follow the Old Gods have ever kept faith with us, and upheld the Great Compromise." Brandon nodded in reply, Roose blinked slowly, and the Greatjon raised his tankard in salute. "But I am firmly convinced," the High Septon went on," in my mind and in my heart, that the problem the Iron Islands and the Ironborn present will never be finally solved until the faith of the Drowned God is extirpated, and the hearts of the Ironborn are loosed from it's strictures of predation upon all who are weaker than them. Your Grace," he looked Stannis full in the face, "if you would seek a final solution to the Iron Islands, look for it within the Faith. Let the Ironborn be brought into the Light of the Seven, and they will be no more troublesome than any other subject of the Iron Throne. I will stake all the treasures of the Faith upon it."
As the High Septon sat, Tywin Lannister rose, almost in unison with Brandon Stark. For a long moment the two men locked eyes, and then Tywin sat down again with a graceful gesture; after the pain that Brandon had endured to join the war, it would have been churlish of the Old Lion to simply seize the floor. Brandon planted his fists on the table and leaned forward with a wince that Harras wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been watching closely. "I acknowledge His Holiness' point that the faith of the Ironborn may bear some fault for their intransigence," he said deliberately. "But I cannot lend my voice to any measure that calls for the forced conversion of any subject of the Iron Throne. In the North, we have a saying:Lord or master or farmer or beggar, every man stands alone before the Gods.Among us a man's faith, and the state of his soul, is the concern of him, his gods, and none other. If a man's faith compels him to break the peace of the Realm, or to make unrelenting war against his neighbors, then that too is between him and his gods, although his breach of the peace must of course be punished. Bethink you, my lords," he swept his gaze around the table, "is there any man here whose soul is so light that he can assume responsibility for that of another, as we would have to if we compelled the Ironborn to convert? Or that, upon learning that they will be forced to convert or die, the vast majority of the Ironborn will not prefer to die, and die fighting? If we announce our intent to stamp out the faith of the Drowned God wholesale, from oldest to youngest, than even those who might abandon Balon's cause to save their own skins would almost certainly fight on. So my rede is this; let the faith of the Drowned God alone, and levy punishment only when those who follow him break the law of the Kingdoms. Let this policy be applied firmly and with an even hand, and let the Ironborn see those of them who follow the Seven live in harmony with the same strictures that prevent them from following their faith, and many of them will convert of their own will. Those who do not will either attempt to fight, and die, or sail to Essos, where they may not only follow the Drowned God's commandments unmolested, but be praised for doing so. If the Faith seek to convert them faster than natural inclination allows," he turned his gaze on the High Septon, "then let them show the Ironborn that the Seven are worthy of their faith, by executing their commands in a way that the Ironborn can respect. Who is braver, the man who puts on full armor and carries every weapon he can to fight an enemy, or the man who relies on no weapon greater than his wits, his tongue, and his faith that if he dies then the Seven will reward him with a martyr's crown?"
As Brandon eased himself back into his seat, Tywin Lannister stood up again. "Whichever course we choose with regard to the faith of the Drowned God," he said in his absolute voice, "we must certainly strike down the Ironborn as harshly as any of our ancestors ever did, and this time we must not simply return home when the killing is done. Instead we must keep our boot on their necks, for years if we must, until they become something that is no longer a threat to us. How many times have we simply endured the Ironborn's predations until that generation's chief reaver died and his fleets collapsed in squabbling over his successor, only to rise again a generation later under the command of a new lord?" The Old Lion's adamantine gaze swept the room. "No longer," he said, his voice all the more terrible for being so calm. "This time there can be no doubt that the Ironborn are defeated, for good and for all, and that the days when they can simply bide their time until we look away to go back to reaving are done, for good and for all. Every lord who sailed with Balon must die, and their heirs be dispossessed and either slain or sent to the Wall. Every man who sailed with them must be exiled from the Isles and from Westeros on pain of death, to go East or to the Seven Hells, as they prefer. Every captain who sails forth to reave must hang, and every man who sails with him be condemned to the same mines they send their thralls down. Thralls, I doubt I need to remind you all, that were formerly freeborn subjects of His Grace through us." He tapped a finger against the table, and more than one onlooker couldn't help a shiver at the controlled menace of that single gesture. "No mercy," Tywin insisted softly, "no forgiveness, no doubt whatsoever of their place in the order of things."
There was a silence as Tywin sat, broken only by approving murmurs from the Riverlanders, then Roose Bolton stood up. "Some years ago," he said in his ghost-soft voice, which nonetheless carried around the table, "I attended a play in King's Landing, a line from which caught my ear. 'That in the course of justice none of us should see salvation, we do pray for mercy, and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy.' I admit that I am not, by nature, the most merciful of men, but I have found in my time as His Grace's master of laws," he bowed to Stannis, "that mercy has it's uses. When a man who has committed a crime has knowledge about other crimes, or was merely the cats-paw of one who willed the crime to take place, then the best practice is to offer a degree of leniency if he tells you all he knows; torture has it's uses also, but it can be surprisingly inefficient in the pursuit of truth. And a man tortured thoroughly enough that you may be certain beyond any doubt he is telling the truth is invariably of no further use or interest afterward. By contrast, once a man turns informer for you then he is yours until the day he dies, and if he rebels against your control all you need do is threaten to reveal that he has betrayed his fellows. There may be no honor among thieves, but there is certainly a strong tendency to punish those who give evidence against their compatriots, especially if the reason for their betrayal was to save their own skin." A few of the listener's couldn't help an involuntary twitch at that last; there werestoriesabout the Bolton's.
"So by all means, let us smite the Ironborn down into the dust and keep them there with a boot on the back of the neck," Roose went on with a bow to Tywin, "but let us not allow force to take the place of craft whole and entire. Let us allow those Ironborn who return to their allegiance to keep their seats and their powers, after suitable punishment, and bind them to us with policy. Let us reward them, publicly, for upholding the King's Peace by informing us of attempted reavers, whether they did so or not. Let us thank them, publicly, for assisting us in tracking down and dispatching the most intransigent and unreasonable of the drowned priests, whether they did so or not. Let us congratulate them, publicly, on allowing the Light of the Seven to enter the hearts and minds of them and their families, whether they do so or not. Let us, in short, treat them as the City Watch of King's Landing treats criminals who turn informer, with the distinction that we make public the fact that they have turned to us, and are now our tools. And if ever they seek to dislodge us, or too openly remember happier days," he spread his hands illustratively, "then we threaten toleavethem, taking our soldiers and our knights with us, and leave them naked to the vengeance of the people they betrayed and the wrath of the god they forsook. Whether they did so or not."
As Roose bowed to Stannis and seated himself, Mace Tyrell stood. "Lord Bolton's suggestion concurs with much that is in my own mind," he said. "But how may we best apply it? If we replace those lords who persist in their treason with new lords from among the Ironborn, then it may be that we will simply delay the resurrection of the reavers until the new lords we raise develop the reputation and the wealth to draw men to follow them, at which point the cycle may well begin again if our attention is forcibly drawn elsewhere. And if we replace them with lords chosen from among our bannermen, then we will have to watch them more closely than they will find palatable, to ensure that they are not ensnared by the whiles of the same people they are supposed to convert. When our Andal forefathers came to Westeros, they sought to conquer and displace the First Men lock, stock, and barrel, yet when we examine the records of those days, what do we find within a few generations? That the Andal lords marry women of the First Men, give their sons and daughters names from their mother's heritage, and take the surnames and sigils and words of the families they married into for their own. The so-called conquerors, in short, were conquered in turn, in a reversal no less profound for being almost bloodless. What is called for is a body of men whose sole purpose is to do that watching, and who stand apart enough from both the Ironborn and from the new lords we install that they will not be susceptible to pressure to relent in their duties. In short, another Royal Order, this one devoted to the Iron Isles." He gestured at Ser Rickon Riverbend. "The Order of the Sun has done splendid work in returning Dorne to peace and obedience, both by persuasion and by the sword. If a Royal Order of the Sea were instituted, and given a similar remit with even greater powers of investigation and prosecution, I doubt not but that they would expand the roll of honors that the Order of the Sun and the Order of the Crown have already amassed."
Stannis raised an eyebrow. "You would have the Iron Throne take responsibility for the overall peace of the Isles, including disputes raised by any new lords that might be named?" he asked. "Such a measure would go far towards confirming the scurrilous rumors about our inclination to tyranny, would it not?"
"With respect, Your Grace, not so," Mace said with a short bow. "By this armed rebellion, the Iron Isles have declared themselves no longer part of the Seven Kingdoms and not subject to its laws, correct?" There were nods around the table, some grudging, others speculative. "Thus it can be argued," Mace went on, "that the Iron Isles as they existed in the Seven Kingdoms committed legal suicide, wiping away the laws that were emplaced upon them and leaving behind, as it were, a blank slate. Under these circ*mstances, the Iron Isles become nothing more or less than conquered provinces, and Your Grace would be perfectly within your rights to establish new laws, particularly suited to the Isles, and establish a body of men under sufficient officers to ensure that those laws are observed and enforced. If such a body were maintained indefinitely, then it would lend credence to accusations of tyranny, but it need not be so. Such a body need only be maintained until the Iron Throne is satisfied that the King's Peace shall be adequately maintained and his laws sufficiently adhered to by the people of the Isles, whatever their estate. Exactly what those terms may mean," he gestured idly with one hand, "need not be explicitly stated. For Your Grace's purposes, it would probably be better if they never were so, but simply left open to negotiation."
Baelor Hightower stood at his overlord's side. "To speak further on the potential charge of tyranny," he said, "what exactly is tyranny? It is the arbitrary rule of one man over others, without regard to law or to the will and wishes of his subjects. Given that we here," he gestured around the table, "would naturally support such a measure, as loyal subjects of Your Grace, it would not be tyranny at all. Rather would it be simply the action of a conscientious king hearing the expressed wish of his subjects and granting it. The maesters we brought with us from Oldtown have spent some time arguing this among themselves as a matter of law, at our suggestion, and they are willing to write a brief in support of this theory, which they are certain will win a great deal of support from the Citadel."
There were nods around the table as the two Reachmen sat back down; the maesters might forswear temporal power when they forged their chains, but they still wielded a great deal of influence as the foremost authorities on secular knowledge, including matters of law. Simply knowing that something was legal, even if only technically, counted for much in making it acceptable. A murmur was about to build around the table when Bronze Yohn Royce stood. The Lord of Runestone was an impressive figure in his own right, but who he stood for commanded even more respect; it was widely known that he had come west as the eyes, ears, and voice of Jon Arryn, who had remained in King's Landing to maintain the royal government.
"Your Grace," Bronze Yohn began, his booming voice moderated to a rumble, "my lords, we have stepped onto dangerous ground with this talk of laws erased and blank slates created by rebellion. It amounts to offering the Iron Throne license, by dint of attaining the support of only a bare majority of its subjects, to disregard the pacts that have been the foundation of law and good government in the Kingdoms for time out of mind. When Rickard Stark led us to war against House Targaryen," he bowed shortly to Brandon, "he did not do so because of the vileness and depravity of any member of that House. He did so because the ancient oath between Aegon the Conqueror and Torrhen the Last had been broken, and his attempt to seek redress within the bounds of law had been scorned. It was this breach of faith, this defilement of the pact that binds lord to subject, that gave us leave to follow him into rebellion, for if a House as ancient, as noble, as honorable as House Stark could be treated so, then who could say but that any of us might be next? It was this that allowed us to depose the Targaryen's, for a dynasty that so flagrantly violated the tenets of good lordship clearly did not deserve to hold power. It was this that justified the attainder of those houses who followed Rhaegar the Raper into exile, for any who would make themselves accomplices of such a crime could no longer be trusted among us."
He leaned forward and planted his fists on the table. "What is this plan we are developing, my lords, but a plan to do to a whole kingdom what Aerys and Rhaegar did to a single House? I do not say that the Iron Throne may not punish those who rebel against it, merely that the punishment cannot be so broad, or so radical. Execute or exile every rebel taken in arms, by all means. Exact such fines and confiscations as are proportionate to the severity of their offense, of course. But to treat an entire kingdom as we would so many brigands, trampling their rights underfoot simply because we can command a quorum of the powers of the Seven Kingdoms?" He shook his head like a bear pestered by flies. "Can you not see, my lords, the door that this opens? Beyond that door lies a Westeros where no right is sacred, no pact secure, no privilege inviolable, unless by the strength and number of its defenders. The law that protects every subject of the Iron Throne from the arbitrary will of every other would be nothing more than a passing fancy, to be altered by any man who could assemble a sufficient number of the great and good to declare it's nullity and muster sufficient maesters to proclaim the legal righteousness of the destruction. What would stop a king of future days, or even a sufficiently strong and charismatic lord, from declaring himself absolute ruler of all he surveyed, subject to no law of men or of gods, doing and taking as he pleased and declaring it legal by dint of nothing more than the majority he commands?"
As Lord Royce bowed to Stannis and resumed his seat Gulian Swann stood up. "And why should we go to the trouble and expense of taking these measures that are proposed?" he asked. "To raise new lords, to establish a new royal order, to maintain them for the length of years necessary to be sure of the Ironborn's reduction, would be of significant expense to the Iron Throne, and through the Iron Throne to us for that we will have to meet the cost through increased taxes and excises and the like. Why should we not, instead of incurring this expense, simply neuter the Isles? Let us destroy their ships, the same ships they use in these rebellions and raids, and deny them the ability to make more by forbidding them the purchase of wood and cloth and rope? Let us forbid them the right to land in our ports, forbid them to engage in trade with us, forbid them to reprovision at our ports in order to sail to points further abroad, unless they offer us proofs of their renunciation of the Drowned God and his ways and their embrace of the Seven and the laws of the Seven Kingdoms?" The Stormlander looked around the table. "Let their crimes and their intransigence be punished by poverty," he suggested, "and let that poverty only be relived by their conversion. Hunger cuts deeper than any sword, and is far more persuasive."
There was a long moment of silence as the Marcher lord retook his seat, broken only by an approving rumble from the Greatjon, and then Franklyn Fowler rose gracefully from his chair and bowed to Bronze Yohn. "Lord Royce speaks most eloquently," he said in his rolling accent. "But as regards the wider realm, he overlooks a simple fact; the fact of civilization. Your Grace, my lords, the Seven Kingdoms are so called to acknowledge the history before the Targaryen Conquest, when we were not one kingdom but many, all locked in an unending contest for hegemony. Yet despite the ages of division, and the long and bloody wars that marked them, we welded ourselves into one kingdom peaceably enough under the Targaryen's, in spite of the occasional spasm that broke out when the dragons were weak. Even Dorne, which of all the lands of Westeros fought longest and hardest against the Targaryen's, kept the peace when it was finally brought into the Seven Kingdoms. Oberyn the Red Viper and others might have broken the peace from time to time, but they were never able to muster a majority of Dorne in support of their cause. Even where the people of the Kingdoms are divided by differences in faith, as in the North," he turned and bowed shortly to the Northmen, "they live in peace with each other, obedient to the needs and dictates of the common civilization embodied by the Iron Throne. It is only when the Iron Throne has been weak and its occupancy called into question that the Realm has truly bled, as in the Dance of Dragons and the first of the Blackfyre Rebellions. We have our differences, our disagreements, our ambitions, and our feuds, but the peace of the Iron Throne is to the so-called 'peace' of the years before the Conquest as Spring is to Winter."
"The sole exception to this," the Dornish lord went on, "is the Ironborn. Alone of all the peoples of the Seven Kingdoms, they have never truly accepted the fact of the Iron Throne, and the civilization attendant upon it. They have held themselves aloof, spurning all but the most necessary trade with we of the mainland and regarding even that with contempt. They disregard the yield of their own mines, refuse to seriously contemplate any harvest but that of the sea, and openly care not for how they might improve their lands. The only path to wealth, honor, and fame they value is that path of plunder and rapine, of unending war of all against all, which they call the Old Way, which they cleave to in spite of all the evidence against it. Time and again the power of the reavers has been broken, and yet they are held up as heroes. Dalton the Red Kraken might have made peace and become a truly great lord with the gold and honor won for his people, but instead he let his lust for ever more glory and gold and blood lead to his death, and all his gains were undone in blood and fire. Yet instead of being reviled for throwing away perhaps the greatest chance his people had for greatness, he is revered in the Isles as we revere the paladins of our people, for exactly the same qualities that led to his downfall. Nor is Dalton the only example; from generation to generation the Ironborn have seen men rise from among them to attempt to resurrect the days when they raided as they pleased and none could withstand them, and from generation to generation they have seen every one of these men go down in bloody defeat. Yet they continue to praise these men as champions, and refuse to forswear their failed doctrines, all for the sake of pride. They even violate their most solemn taboo, that Ironborn shall not shed the blood of other Ironborn, when the Old Way is threatened. For what reason was Lord Euron killed by a man who should have been his bannerman, if not for that he stood for civilization against barbarism?"
Lord Fowler spread his hands. "It is simply the way the Ironborn are," he said. "They have willfully scorned the civilization of the Seven Kingdoms in favor of their failed god and his barbaric commandments. It has been proven so through history and proved again today. Why else would they join in Balon's madness when they had all the opportunity they needed to win gold and glory with Lord Victarion in the Kingdom of Myr's wars? Your Grace, my lords, the Ironborn have proven that they cannot, will not, change their ways. If we wish to see them change, then we must force them to change, by whatever means they make necessary. As to the fear of tyranny," he flicked his fingers, "it is unfounded. We are diverse in our characteristics, but we are united in our civilization; it is only against the barbarism of the Ironborn that we are forced to resort to measures as drastic as these. If such measures were proposed to be implemented against Dorne, or the Reach, or the Riverlands, or the North, then they would be dismissed out of hand as being unnecessary in dealing with civilized men. Nor," his sneer was magnificent, "can we take any thought ofcost. Are we merchants, to put a price on our honor and the safety of our people? We know, my lords, that chivalry commands that we spend and count not the cost, to fulfill the oaths we swear to protect our people and uphold the King's Peace. Let us put aside fears of impossible futures, my lords, andfulfillthose oaths, in such a way that the Ironborn cease to be a threat to our people and the peace of the Realm."
As Lord Fowler bowed to Stannis and resumed his seat the other lords rapped their knuckles on the table in a wave of applause for the Dornishman's call to action. The only man present who did not participate was Ser Harras Harlaw, who felt the bottom drop out of his stomach as he surveyed the table and the resolutely vengeful looks of the men sitting at it. The only men who seemed as troubled as he were Lord Royce, who had folded his arms and leaned back in his chair with a slight scowl on his face, and Brandon Stark, whose gently rapping knuckles were balanced by the unreadably blank expression on his face.Oh Gods,he thought to himself as he forced himself to join the applause at the subjugation of his people,have mercy on us sinners, and grant us justice for this in your good time.
XXX
Several days later . . .
At last all was in readiness. The combined royal/Reacher fleet had been refitted and reprovisioned. By any measure, the army that had been assembled was a star-studded one, as it included the King on the Iron Throne, four Lords Paramount, almost a hundred major Lords, and, as a contemporary claimed, 'knights, squires, and gentlemen-at-arms beyond number', including Ser Sandor Clegane, whose feats in the defense of Lannisport and capture of the Valyrian steel sword Red Rain had earned him the sobriquet 'the Mastiff', and who was boarding one of the dromonds that had been hastily built by the Lannisport shipyards with his small retinue.
One of the few lords, or men of lordly rank, of military age who was not boarding the ships was Tyrion Lannister, who had been formally invested with command of Lannisport in his father's absence. Tyrion had already made himself noticeable for his gregarious yet firm manner and the undaunted optimism with which he had already approached the task of rebuilding the city and restoring the Lannister fleet. The devastation was great, he repeatedly said, but what would rise from the ashes would be greater still. Now, seeing his father off to war, he demonstrated that he could muster not only wit but dignity; Lord Mallister would write in a letter to his wife that Tyrion "might be small in body, but he showed no lack of spirit or of gravitas; even a fool would have found little to laugh at in his performance on the docks."
But undoubtedly the most impressive figure on the docks that day was the High Septon, who had turned out in the full regalia of his office. The efforts he had exerted over the past sennights in hearing confessions and ministering to the army seemed to weigh on him not at all as he gave a sermon from the Book of the Father, exhorting the soldiers to remember the justice of their cause and the perfidy of their opponents, and capping it off by granting general absolution to every member of the army and the fleet. More than a few of the men who knelt on the cobblestones of the dockside streets as the High Septon raised his crystal and pronounced the words of the sacrament would remember it as the most profound experience of their lives.
The sun was high in the cloudless sky when the last man finally went aboard the last ship and the last rope was cast off. As the fleet sailed off to the west, the High Septon could help a surge of triumph as he led the Faithful of Lannisport in a psalm; he might not be sailing with the army, having been convinced to wait until Pyke was fallen to make the last leg of his pilgrimage, but he had nonetheless made his mark upon this, the greatest military expedition Westeros had undertaken since Stannis' ill-fated intervention in the Slave Wars. So far, everything was going according to plan.
Chapter 99: The Storm God's Own
Chapter Text
The men of the Reach had learned, over the centuries, that they could never match the Ironborn for seamanship. Only the men of the Arbor and the Shield Islands could come close, and even then the Ironborn, who grew up as amphibious as seals and as closely attuned to the quirks of the sea, could sail rings around them in their light, swift longships. Against the men of Oldtown, there was no real contest.
So the Reachmen, and their Westerlander counterparts, had learned not to try and match the Ironborn in mobility. Instead of making their ships fast and nimble, they built them strong, sturdy, and large enough to carry more men and stores than the average longship. Such ships were too slow to hunt down Ironborn raiders, but that counted for less when their primary purpose was to defend a specific area instead of chasing rumors up and down the coast. The Ironborn could reave the coastlands as they liked, or so the theory went, but so long as they were prevented from attacking and either seizing or sacking Oldtown, the Arbor, or the port villages at the mouth of the Mander, then the Reach's ability to mount a counterstroke would be preserved and the mathematics that made any war between the Iron Islands and the mainland a matter of time and bloody-mindedness would proceed to their logical conclusion.
They would also, the theory went, be of the same use in the inevitable counterstroke. All the mobility in the world was useless if you found yourself forced to fight for something. And the Ironborn, being as tied to their homeland as any people, would always fight to protect their islands from foreign invaders.
So far as Ser Baelor Hightower could tell, from the sterncastle of thePride of Oldtownwhile he cleaned his sword and caught his breath, the equation was holding true.
The Westerosi fleet had borne down on the Isles like a tidal wave of wood and steel and murderous intent, and Balon could not have afforded to let them land unopposed. The expectation that the Lord Reaper would fight the enemies of his people for every inch had precluded any argument for allowing them to land and attempting to cut them off from the mainland by burning their transport ships. And, to be blunt, if the royal army was allowed to land on the Isles, then cutting them off from supply would likely prove counterproductive, as they would resolve any ensuing lack of food by seizing food from the Ironborn. So the Iron Fleet had sailed out to fight, and met the Westerosi fleet in the channel between Harlaw and Pyke under a lowering sky with a stiff breeze coming out of the west.
The result was a ship-to-ship brawl, exactly the sort of fight that the heavy ships of the Reach and the Westerlands were built for. Ser Baelor had accepted the argument that all other things being equal, size counted in a fight, but he hadn't properly appreciated the advantage conferred by how high in the water a hulk sat compared to a longship; it was like defending a wall against escaladers. Historically, he knew, one of the ways the Ironborn had offset this disadvantage was to fight in as much and as heavy armor as they could obtain, playing off the fact that the seamen of other nations typically didn't wear much if any armor for fear of going overboard. Going into any body of water over your head while wearing armor of any kind was a quick way to die of drowning. But King Stannis, as he had in the Battle of Tyrosh, had made it known that he would fight in full armor regardless, as he had never learned how to swim and so the traditional argument was moot. In addition to which, he had went on at the last conference of captains on board theSea-Rose, given the High Septon's granting of general absolution he had little enough fear of death, and he trusted that men such as those he had sailed with would be of the same kidney. Put that way, there hadn't been much choice at all; between taking the risk of drowning and looking less courageous than His Grace, no man of spirit would choose the latter. Where the King led, his men followed. And the mainlanders, for the most part, were better armored than the Ironborn; it was a rare Ironborn outside of the nobility and their household men who could afford a full hauberk of ring-mail, much less full plate, while even the poorest man-at-arms in the fleet wore the equivalent value in cash of half a dozen or more Ironborn farms and fishing boats on his chest and back and head and arms.
The Ironborn had fought hard, of course, with the desperation to be expected of men with their backs to the wall, but they had been overmatched in numbers and armor and the relative size of ships, and eventually the Iron Fleet had started to disintegrate. From where Ser Baelor stood he could see a dozen longships that had hauled down their banners and pulled in their oars and now floated helpless under the eye of galleys and dromons and hulks that could rake them bow to stern with archer and scorpion fire in a heartbeat. More longships were floating under newly-raised mainlander banners, with bodies being heaved over the rails and into the blood-tinged waters. Ser Baelor had seen more than a few sharks tear at the bodies, with only occasional and momentary dissuasion from the archers aboard the Westerosi ships. The rest of the longships were sailing away as fast as oar and sail could carry them, either to Pyke or Harlaw or, Ser Baelor suspected, one of the other Isles, there to protect their own homes and families as well as they could. The only exception, as far as he was aware, was a longship that at the very start of the battle had not lowered its sail, unstepped its mast, and hung out the shields along its sides but instead had hoisted a rainbow-striped truce flag and sailed through the fleet with the hands of every crew member not at the oars conspicuously raised to show that they were empty and the captain repeatedly bellowing declarations of peaceful intent through a speaking trumpet. Stannis had made clear, at that last conference, that any ship which displayed a truce flag was not to be molested, so Baelor had ordered his archers to hold their arrows even when the longship passed less than twenty paces off the port beam, it's captain still roaring that he did not intend to fight. He had bellowed back, though his own speaking trumpet, that the longship should heave to and prepare to be boarded, but the longship had sailed on and there had been no time to grapple them before the fleets clashed, so he had let them go. He wondered, idly, if someone else had grappled them or if they had brazened their way clean through the fleet, and then shrugged the thought away as he cleaned the last of the blood from his sword and slid it home in the scabbard. Whatever had happened to that ship was no longer his problem.
XXX
Rodrik Harlaw knew he no longer looked the part of a great lord, after more than a sennight in Castle Pyke's dungeons, but he still kept his back straight and his pace as dignified as the leg irons would allow as he walked into the great hall with one of Balon's housekarls at each elbow; he would not give his idiot of a goodbrother the satisfaction of seeing him downcast. Especially since Balon had evidently taken Nightfall, the ancient sword of House Harlaw, for himself. The mere sight of the black blade, as wide at the base as a man's hand and tapering to a point like a spear, lying across Balon's knees made Rodrik's blood boil; he had given it to his son Ingulf before they had sailed to war, and Balon had kept Ingulf at his side from Lannisport onwards. For honor's sake, he had said, but Rodrik knew that his son had been a hostage to his enthusiasm for the rebellion. If Balon had taken Nightfall for himself, then Ingulf had to be dead. If not in the same battle that must have put the bandages on Balon's thigh, then by Balon's own hand.
He choked down his anger and schooled his face to serenity; he knew that Balon would find insolence more unbearable than anger. "You rang?" he drawled, putting a Lannisport accent into his speech.
Balon glowered at him. "Kneel when you address your lord, oathbreaker," he snarled.
Rodrik raised an eyebrow, doing his level best to imitate a greenlander dandy. "Why on earth would I do that?" he said calmly, bracing himself as Balon gestured irritably. The kicks the housekarls behind delivered to the backs of his knees sent him to the floor, and the boot that one of them placed on the back of his calf ensured he would stay there. He gritted his teeth for a moment as the pain of landing on the bare flagstones seared through his knees and up and down his legs, and then he turned the grimace into an attempt at a smile. "You know you could have tried convincing me," he said, putting a slight archness into his tone.
"Be silent until I give you leave," Balon spat. "When we sailed against the greenlanders, my brother Urrigon hoisted one of their truce banners and sailed through their fleet, apparently unmolested. When I returned to Pyke I was told that Asha was nowhere to be found and was last seen in Urrigon's company. Urrigon had speech with you eight days ago, after you delivered Stannis' message and I put you in a cell like the dog you had become." Balon glared thunderously. "What did you tell my brother that made him desert his lord, his people, and his god, kidnapping his niece into the bargain?"
Rodrik shrugged. "Urrigon was leery of the future course of this rebellion after the sea took Aeron off Fair Isle, and for whatever reason he took his concerns to me. I told him that our cause was doomed, by numbers if by nothing else," he said, and got no further before Balon gestured again and the housekarl on his left cuffed him over the head with blow that made stars flash before his eyes.
"If you must lie, then do so knowing we can cut the truth out of you," Balon spat, "but do not try to infect us with your cowardice."
Rodrik shook his head to make the last of the stars go away. "Do you want me to tell you or not?" he asked with as much insolence as he could muster. "I told Urrigon that when Stannis took the Isles, then House Greyjoy would be lucky if every male in his majority was put to death on the spot and all the other members disinherited and imprisoned. I told him that Stannis had assured me that surrenders would be accepted if they took place before the fighting started and that those who fled the Isles would not be pursued, and that if he cared ought for House Greyjoy than he would save more than just his own skin because the God knew what that was worth. I told him that we might not be welcome in the Kingdom of Myr because we had taken thralls and salt wives in this rebellion, but the Lyseni and the Volantenes would regard that as a point in favor more than one against. As for what he did with what I told him," he shrugged again. "Well, you would have to ask him and good luck with that, under the circ*mstances."
Balon stabbed a finger at him. "So," he hissed. "You admit to inducing my brother to desertion, treason, and kidnapping. You admit to committing treason by deliberately weakening the Iron Fleet. You admit to . . ."
"If I am to die, then do it and have done," Rodrik interrupted. "Or else let me go back to my cell; I'm an old man who needs his sleep and I was having the most wonderful nap when your men woke me up for this . . ." a blow from his right blasted him into blackness. When he awoke, he was back on his knees, the housekarls who had escorted him into the hall were holding his arms, blessedly unshackled, twisted back behind him, and Balon was standing in front and to one side of him with Nightfall at the ready.
"For treason against your lord and your people," Balon ground out, his face a study of wrath, "I condemn you to die, Rodrik Harlaw. I condemn your House to destitution and your memory to oblivion. May the Storm God fry your soul with his lightning for eternity, traitor."
Rodrik spat at Balon's boots as the blade swept up. "And may the Storm God fry you along with me for the fool you are . . ." was all he was able to get out before the blade swung down and he knew no more.
XXX
The invasion of the Iron Islands faced a significant difficulty in that there were no less than seven of the Iron Isles, each of which would have to be subdued. In other words, the royal army would have to carry out at least seven contested landings, each followed by a more or less protracted campaign to besiege and reduce any strongholds and terrorize the populace into compliance. In an age before naval gunfire or air support, this was a tall order. Had Balon Greyjoy been able to exercise more effective command and control, then even the reduced forces remaining to him might have exacted a heavy toll. But this was also an age before radio, or indeed any communication faster than messenger-raven, and the royal army employed not just archers but falconers flying goshawks and other large raptors to interdict messenger-ravens. And in the age of muscle-dominated warfare, the gods almost invariably came down on the side of the biggest battalions.
In addition to which, the Ironborn were no longer a unified force. Hotho Harlaw, commonly called the Humpback, having been declared Rodrik the Reader's heir by Balon after the Reader's execution, descended on Grey Garden with his household men and a crowd of hastily-recruited levies. If he had restricted himself to merely forcing it's submission then nothing further might have come of it, but Hotho, long jealous of his more handsome and more famous cousin Ser Harras, took Grey Garden Hall by storm and sacked it; the Grey Garden Harlaw's were put to the sword and their hall razed, while the graves of those of the family who had died in the Faith of the Seven were intentionally desecrated by the Drowned God-worshipping Hotho. This excess of zeal, combined with Balon's appropriation of Nightfall and judicial murder of the Reader, provoked the rest of the clan into open opposition, and within days the island of Harlaw was rent by civil war as the Harlaws of Harridan Hill under Boremund the Blue and the Harlaws of Harlaw Hall under Sigfryd Silverhair took the field against the Humpback.
These events only solidified the choice of Harlaw as the first target of the royal army, Stannis having already settled on it in order to restore Ser Harras Harlaw to his patrimony and establish a base of operations from which to reduce the rest of the Isles. Hotho's forces, already facing serious difficulties against the other branches of the Harlaw clan and those of their bannermen that had rallied to their banner in honor of the Reader's memory, had no chance at all against the royal army, even if Ser Harras hadn't been able to rally the fence-sitters among the Harlaw vassals. Hotho, backed into a corner and increasingly bereft of men as his followers abandoned him to throw themselves on Stannis' mercy, was finally captured by none other than Ser Harras himself, who would install the Humpback's head on a pike overlooking the ruins of Grey Garden.
Harlaw, however, would prove the exception, as none of the other Isles saw anywhere near as broad a swath of defections. As the contingents of the royal army fanned out across the other major Isles, a pattern quickly began to emerge . . .
Mace Tyrell couldn't help an exultant smile from stealing over his face as he raised his visor and surveyed the field. As the largest and one of the most densely populated of the Isles, Great Wyk could have been the most significant obstacle to the conquest short of Pyke itself. But it was not without cause that the Ironborn had a reputation for fractiousness rivalled only the Riverlands and Dorne. He had never thought that he might pray for the repose of an Ironborn's soul, but if any Ironborn deserved such prayers, Erik Ironmaker did.
Erik's son and heir, Alfric, had apparently inherited not just Furnace Hall, but the contempt his father had held Balon Greyjoy in. When Greyjoy had summoned the Ironmaker's to join his rebellion, Alfric had answered the letter with contemptuous and defiant reply and taken his people into the hills, both to evade reprisals and to do what he could to injure Balon's cause. Despite having only a few friends and enemies on every side, Alfric had not only held his people together but even managed to recruit a few disaffected minor nobles to his banner, and when Mace and his Reachmen had landed on Great Wyk he had marched his forces into Mace's camp, banners flying, to pledge sword and sail to King Stannis.
That had been the first lucky stroke Mace had gotten. The second had been even better. If the lords of Great Wyk, Goodbrother, Merlyn, Sparr, and their bannermen, had followed Ironmaker's example and taken to the hills, then rooting them out could have taken months. There had been so little room for horses in the fleet that Mace could only bring enough to mount three-score of his knights; the rest had been forced to serve as armored infantry. Running down raiders would have required cavalry, and plenty of them.
Instead, the lords of Great Wyk had chosen to take the field in force. Exactly why, Mace couldn't guess, unless they thought the lack of warhorses meant that, for once, they had an even chance in an open-field battle against knights. Whatever their reasoning, they had been quickly disabused of their conceit. The unlooked-for reinforcements that Lord Ironmaker had provided had given Mace enough numbers to forgo the option of relying on attrition and attempt an outflanking maneuver. While Lord Tarly and Ser Baelor Hightower had led the foot, stiffened by the horseless knights, against the shield-wall the rebels had formed on the slope of Whistling Hill, Mace had led his three-score mounted knights and two hundred quick-stepping archers around the other side of the Hill, up to the crest, and then down it in a charge that had smashed the shield-wall against the mass of Reacher and loyalist infantry in front of them. Even such zeal as the rebels had displayed could not withstand such a blow, and they had broken in panicked flight.
After that, the battle had turned into a fox hunt, with his knights running rampant over the fleeing Ironborn while the archers picked off those the knights couldn't get to. Within minutes the first hands had been raised in surrender, but even if Stannis' instructions on rebels taken in arms hadn't been explicit cavalry in hot pursuit almost never gave quarter, and so Mace and his knights had simply ridden over them, sword and axe and mace and war hammer and iron-shod hoof leaving trails of bloody ruin behind them. Mace's own sword was red to the quillons, and the caparison of his horse, emerald-green cotton embroidered with golden roses and the Tyrell words stitched along the hem, was liberally spattered with blood and other substances. Battle, he reflected as he reached down the side of his horse, gathered a handful of the caparison, and wiped the blade of his sword, was rarely clean in practice, however neat the tactics might have been.
He barked a laugh.Finally,he had had his battle, after three wars in which he was either too late or too far away from the main co*ckpit to take part in the fighting. It might have been against the Ironborn, and a force of them that he outnumbered by several hundred men if he had read the banners right, but no one could deny that it was as complete a victory as could be asked for, or that he had played a leading role in the climax of the battle. Lord Tarly and Ser Baelor would get credit for their part in the opening moves of the battle, but it had been his mind that formulated the plan and his hand that had struck the deathblow. He raised his sword in an impetuous gesture and his knights roared acclamation, flourishing their own blades in salute. Let men question that he deserved to stand at the foot of the Iron Throne now, if they dared.
XXX
Brandon Stark took his feet from the stirrups and tapped his horse with his riding crop in the specific pattern that told it to kneel. His legs worked far better now than they had in the days after he had first been allowed to get back on his feet, but they were still stiff enough that mounting and dismounting a standing horse was difficult without a sufficiently tall mounting-block. Fortunately, Lord Dustin had sent him this horse, and three others, specially trained to carry a man whose legs were too stiff to let him ride normally; apparently the horsemaster who had trained them had worn splints on his own legs to acclimatize them to the feel.
His mouth twitched as his horse folded down to it's knees and he swung his right leg over its back, steadying himself on his canes; he was sure that Lord Dustin had meant it as a backhanded show of respect, but there wasn't much he could do about it. It simply wasn't done for a lord to refuse a gift from his bannermen, especially a gift as valuable as such specifically trained horses. And while riding them was still damnably uncomfortable, at least they allowed him to ride. There were situations where going by cart simply wouldn't do, and leading an army in the field was one of them.
Not that he had needed to do much. The denizens of Old Wyk were few enough that even as few as four thousand men could defeat them handily, especially since those three thousand were the pick of the North. Many of them, in fact, were Brandon's own household men; the lords who rode with him had been told to bring as few of their retainers as was necessary to maintain their consequence. Whatever else became of this, Brandon meant to demonstrate that the direwolf of Winterfell had fangs as long and sharp as any in the North.
And also that Winterfell's lord was capable of leading his men and making the hard decisions that came with leadership. Which was why he was here, stumping up the low hill with Roose Bolton, the Greatjon, Rickard Karstark, and Hugo Wull behind him.
Before him stood Nagga's ribs, stark against the patchy sky, while beyond them lay the waters of Nagga's Cradle. Bluer than they should be, those waters were, he mused; he had been told that the waters between the separate islands of the Iron Isles were shallower than the waters surrounding the Isles as a whole, the way a mountain range was higher than the flatlands around it. Then again, if the legends were true, then a sea dragon's lair would have to be deep indeed to shelter its coils. He surveyed the ribs, unable to suppress the feeling that stole over him. He was no more sensitive to the unnatural and unseelie than the next man, but he could feelsomething. Something like thesomethinghe felt in the godswood of Winterfell. A feeling of deep age and silent watchfulness.I was here long before your fathers' fathers were born, the bones seemed to say,and I will be here long after your sons' sons are buried. I will be here, and I will watch.And underneath that . . . He turned to Lord Bolton. "See that a watch is placed on this hill," he commanded. "It is only to be given to reliable men, and kept at every hour. And spread my word through the army; no one is to molest this place."
"You want to guard their shrines for them?" the Greatjon rumbled thickly; his son the Smalljon had died in the fighting on the beach, one of the few men of name to die in the fighting so far, and he had been distinctly red of eye and pale of face when he had joined Brandon for the journey to this place.
"We are here to subjugate these people, not erase them," Brandon replied, still holding Roose's pale eyes. "Let the Andals make this a war of faiths if they must; I will have no part in such." He turned back to regard Nagga's bones. "And even if the Drowned God's power is being broken in this war, as the septons say," he went on, "let us leave his fane alone if we can. I would not unnecessarily rouse whatever power might sleep here."
Beside him the Lord of the Dreadfort nodded deeply. "A wise choice, my lord," he said in his soft, soft voice. "In the Dreadfort we know this as well; that some things are best left to sleep, forgetting the world and by the world being forgotten."
"Not forgotten, perhaps," Brandon said, tracing the curve of one rib with his eyes. "Treated with the appropriate wariness, rather. A bear in hibernation is still a bear."
"If we divert men to guard this place, then we will have fewer to chase down the Ironborn who still bear arms against us," Rickard Karstark rumbled.
"Then we don't chase them," Brandon said coldly. "Instead we strip the island bare of food, herd it's people into places where we can keep a watch on them and make sure they do not shelter rebels, transport them off the island entirely if we must." He turned to face the rest of his lords. "The Ironborn claim that this isle is the most sacred of their lands," he said. "If they insist on fighting for it, then we shall empty it and leave it to their god. Or what remains of him after this war, anyroad." He left unsaid that many of Old Wyk's fighting men had already died, as they had been among the first to join Balon's rebellion and the battles of Lannisport, Fair Isle, and the Strait had winnowed their numbers mercilessly.
The Northmen bowed, most of them smiling slightly. Their lord might be a cripple, but at least he could be as hard as any lord before him. The words of Winterfell did not always refer to the change of seasons.
XXX
Bronze Yohn Royce had no love for Ironborn. They were a nation of pirates, after all, and heathen to boot. The Vale hadn't suffered from the attentions of the reavers nearly as much as the more westerly Kingdoms, but Royce's had married into Houses from those realms in the past, and the stories those Houses had of the Ironborn had woven themselves into the Royce's collective memory.
But he also knew that the way this war was being conducted was wrong. To be sure, Lord Tully had not countenanced outright massacre or blatant violations of the customs and usages of war, but he had willfully turned a blind eye to more than Yohn could stomach. He had no pity for the reavers themselves, men who lived by the sword had to expect to die by the sword, but their relatives who had confined themselves to fishing and working their wretchedly hardscrabble farms? Their women? He shook his head disgustedly. What was chivalryfor, if not to keep men on the straight and narrow path of righteousness even when fighting a hated enemy? The Seven knew there was no honor in killing an old man, his beard grizzled and his back stooped from working his stony fields, for not having some hidden store of treasure, or in raping the old man's granddaughters, who whatever the culprits might claim were nowhere near old enough to have given birth to reavers.
He had said as much to Lord Tully, and for his pains he found himself and his men in the rear of the companies sweeping over Blacktyde. If he loved the Ironborn so much, Lord Tully had said with a restrained sneer, then he could have the honor of binding up their wounds and making sure they held to the terms of their surrenders. In the meantime, the fighting would be done by those who had the stomach for it. Only the knowledge that King Stannis had not only explicitly forbidden dueling but hanged both the principals and the seconds of the one duel thathadtaken place had stayed his hand from slapping Tully across the face.
He spat aside. At least Tully and his menwereaccepting surrenders. Unlike what he had heard of others . . .
XXX
Ser Addam Marbrand waved the courier out of his pavilion and read through the short missive he had carried to him from Lord Tywin.Tawney Hall taken by storm. All offers of quarter refused. All minor children of the Name killed by their parents to spite us. Only three prisoners taken, all daughters of the House who were prevented from committing suicide. Will continue pacification efforts after sack is complete. Report on your progress by this courier.
Ser Addam folded the missive, keeping his face studiously unmoved. On the one hand, his report would be uniformly positive. His engineers had assured him that another day's work would see both the ram and a sufficiency of ladders assembled to attempt an assault. And the Orkwood's had evidently lost enough men off Fair Isle and off Pyke that they were scraping the bottom of the barrel for manpower; he had seen through the Myrish far-eye that he had brought home from the wars in Essos that some of the defenders on the battlements of Orkwood Castle were boys too young to shave wearing armor too big for them. He had every confidence that his men would be able to carry the walls.
On the other hand, his orders from Lord Tywin in the event of a successful assault were explicit. The castle to be burned out and leveled to its foundations, and no quarter to be given to any but noblewomen of child-bearing age. Even the children were to be disposed of. Lord Tywin had apparently already done as much at Tawney Hall, although his note hadn't said so explicitly. Which was the other part of his orders;no explicit records on paper. If pressed, he was to say that the Ironborn had acted the way the Tyroshi acted, with the adults killing their children to prevent the despised mainlanders from laying hands on them before fighting to the death themselves. There were some things, Tywin had said in thatabsolutevoice of his, that simply had to be done, regardless of what might have been ordered by any higher authority. Which Addam knew could only mean King Stannis.
He had to admit he saw the logic of the argument. No one had said that the Westermen were to vent their spleen on Orkmont in exchange for not being able to take revenge on the Reader for the sack of Fair Isle, but the fact that the only forces dispatched to Orkmont were Westermen under Lord Tywin's direct command said more than it didn't. Orkmont, Ser Addam could only guess, would serve as an abject lesson to the rest of the Iron Isles that however they might have suffered under the rest of the royal army, their fate could have been worse. Lord Tywin's orders, in his address to the army upon landing, had been explicit.Kill, pillage, and burn. Let Orkmont suffer at our hands as we have suffered at the Ironborn's hands for generations.So far as Ser Addam could tell, the only living Ironborn within a day's march of his encampment before Orkmont Castle were the women who had been brought back to the camp to serve the conquerors. This was not, Lord Tywin had told him in private, to be considered an atrocity, but justice. How many times had the Ironborn descended on the Westerlands to kill and rape and pillage, leaving only burning villages and shattered victims behind them? There was a vast debt of blood and sorrow that the Ironborn had built up for themselves, and now it was time to collect, principal and interest alike.
Yes, he decided, he could accept the argument. He could agree that the Ironborn had exhausted any patience or goodwill they might have had to their name. He could agree that all the Ironborn worthy of consideration or mercy had gone East to serve King Robert. He could agree that the only way to stop the Ironborn from preying upon their neighbors forever and aye was to make them into something that was no longer a threat, whatever that might be. But none of that meant he had to enjoy the process, any more than he had to accept his valet's offer to find him a bed-warmer from among the Ironborn women that had been brought back to camp. It was simply a dirty, dangerous, and difficult job, as the Destruction of Tyrosh had been, and he simply had to do his part. He drew a sheet of parchment in front of him, dipped his quill in the inkpot set into the light camp-table that Maester Gordon had designed and which almost every knight in the Kingdom of Myr now owned, and began to draft his report.
. . . In short, the Ironborn were to be reduced to the conquered people of a conquered province, with no recourse save what they could gain by collaborating with the royal army. Pride of place on the roll of atrocities must go to Tywin Lannister's devastation of Orkmont, but each of the Isles suffered it's share of tragedies. Even Saltcliffe, initially ignored by the royalists, would be assaulted and it's population decimated by Reachmen freed up by the end of hostilities on Great Wyk. Only Lonely Light would be left entirely alone, save for a visit by a Crownlander squadron under Abram Gaunt to confirm Lord Farwynd's claim that he had never been summoned to join Balon's Rebellion and accept his submission to King Stannis. In all the other Isles, the native nobility was decimated; at least a third of the noble houses of the Ironborn were reduced to minor children, who were taken as wards of the Iron Throne, while others were left almost denuded of adult men. The loyalist branches of the Harlaw clan and their adherents were almost alone in largely retaining their pre-Rebellion power or prestige, and that only by the intercession of Ser Harras Harlaw on behalf of his cousins. The only case of an Ironborn noble house not only retaining but actually gaining in power and influence was that of the Ironmaker's, and that was largely due to Lord Mace Tyrell's advocacy on behalf of the Ironmaker's and those who had joined them in their guerilla war. It was Lord Tyrell's endless lobbying on behalf not just of the Ironmaker's but of other Ironborn nobles who had been less than entirely enthusiastic about Balon's rebellion, in fact, that earned him the sobriquet 'the Merciful', although this was largely due to the contrast he posed vis-à-vis Tywin Lannister, who presided over the near-extermination of the nobility of Orkmont and the ruination of much of it's smallfolk.
At last, the other Isles having been subdued, Stannis set his sights on Pyke itself. This most densely populated and richest of the Isles would have been a tough nut to crack under any circ*mstances and was made more so by two separate but connected influences.
Firstly, by this stage Balon Greyjoy was well advanced in what can only be described as madness. With his plans in tatters, his allies destroyed or surrendered, his fleet driven from the seas, and his control reduced only to the shores and people of Pyke, he became ever more obsessed with the thought of at least securing a worthy death. If he could do nothing else, his maester later testified to him saying, he could make his end so bloody as to be remembered a thousand years hence. To this end he ordered the arming of every man, woman, and child who could hold a weapon and the redoubling of the fortification of Pyke Castle. In addition, in a gesture even more profound to an Ironborn than to a mainlander, he burned every longship remaining on Pyke, putting the torch to his flagshipGreat Krakenwith his own hands. There would be no flight from Pyke, he proclaimed at this perverse ceremony; only a last bloody combat and a red sunset, before the Drowned God welcomed his children home.
Secondly, the drowned priests had been driven to a frenzy by the change in the Ironborn's fortunes. The defeat of the Iron Fleet in not one but two straight fights, the landings on each of the Isles and the subsequent massacres by heathen mainlanders chanting the slogans of their faith, and the lack of action by the Drowned God to prevent or remedy any of this quickly spawned an apocalyptic attitude on the part of the drowned priests. The time of the Ironborn was coming to an end, they proclaimed, with their traditional mastery of the seas rescinded from them and granted to their pagan enemies by divine agency, against which there could be no appeal. And as proof they did not need to point further than Stannis Baratheon. Stannis, the younger and, at first, perceived lesser brother of the Baratheon lineage, who had only come to the Iron Throne by his brother's abdication. Stannis, who despite his defeat off Tyrosh had steadily dismantled the presumption of his inadequacy by crushing every enemy that had risen against him. Stannis, who over the course of the past year had gone from being Stannis the Sour to Stannis the Grim thanks to his merciless treatment of his foes. Stannis, who was descended in the right line from the Storm Kings of old, and through them from Durran Godsgrief and Elenei, daughter of the sea god and the goddess of the winds. What else could Stannis be, the drowned priests asked, than the favored son and champion of the Storm God, come to destroy the children of his father's great enemy? The seed took root in mental ground made fertile by terror, and by the time royal forces landed on Pyke Stannis was no longer Stannis Baratheon to those Ironborn who remained in rebellion, but The Storm God's Own.
When the royalist galleys beached themselves on Pyke and the first knights vaulted over the side, they found themselves in an even fiercer fight than they had anticipated . . .
XXX
As the runner from Lord Lannister gasped out his message that the Westermen had managed to storm the headland of Castle Pyke, Stannis took a sip from his horn cup and made a face. Less of a one than he had made when he first tasted it, admittedly. His favorite beverage was still iced water with a twist of lemon and a pinch of salt, but the odds of getting ice in the Iron Isles were so long that even a Dornishman wouldn't take them. And the maesters who had sailed with the army had insisted that the army's water be thoroughly boiled before drinking, for fear that the Ironborn would foul it. That being the case, the cooks had decided that they might as well add some flavor to the water and taken to throwing in the bones of whatever animals had been slaughtered to feed the army. The resulting broth was nowhere near as refreshing as his lemon water but brewed hot and strong enough it helped keep men awake and going longer than water alone would, even water cut with wine or liquor. And all the gods knew that his men needed all the help they could get.
What on earth was possessing the Ironborn to fight this hard, he couldn't imagine. From the hour his army had splashed ashore, the inhabitants of Pyke had fought them for every foot of ground. The heavier armor and better training of his soldiers had ended up prevailing of course, but that had only driven the Ironborn into Pyke Castle, except for those who had evaded the dragnet and were now taking every opportunity they could to launch raids and ambushes. Prosecuting a siege was difficult. Doing so against a castle that was not so much a single complex as it was more than a dozen complexes connected only by bridges was even more difficult. Prosecuting such a siege while also dealing with energetic if not terribly skillful raiders was . . . not even remotely impossible, given the royal fleet's command of the sea and the ease of resupply and reinforcement that allowed, but certainly taxing.
At least this message from Tywin was good news. He turned to Ser Cortnay. "Send word to all contingents," he ordered. "'Move forward and hold yourselves in instant readiness.' If, when, Lord Lannister calls for reinforcements, I want them on the move within the hour. We might have taken the headland, but reducing each of the towers in turn will be a bloody affair."
"Especially if they start dropping the bridges," Ser Cortnay said as he flicked a hand at one of the runners waiting at the entry of the pavilion and sent him scurrying out. "Your Grace, as soon as we get back to King's Landing, we should take a page out of your royal brother's book and institute a corps of pioneers. If we didn't have Lord Lannister's miners and artificers, this siege would be nigh-impossible."
Stannis shook his head. "Assaulting would be nigh-impossible," he corrected. "Blockade and deliberate starvation would not be. But I agree that it would be impossible to force an end to this siege in any speedy fashion." Which was the other reason he had ordered this morning's assault; the sooner he got back to King's Landing, the better. The reports he was getting from Jon Arryn of Cersei's behavior were . . . disquieting. "Make a note of it," he went on, "and we will see what can be done after this is finished." He grimaced at the sound of steel clashing on steel; by the volume not a hundred feet from his pavilion. "Ser Dannel," he said to the Stormguard closest to the entry, "will you find out who is making that racket and put a stop to it?"
Ser Dannel Tanner had clanked his armored heels and was just turning to exit the pavilion when a man came reeling backwards through it clutching at his throat and spewing blood from his mouth. Another man came hurtling in with a wordless scream of fury and ran smack into Ser Dannel, who wrapped his steel-clad arms around him on pure reflex. Three more men burst in, waving daggers and hand-axes, only to find themselves faced with twice their number of Stormguards, who at the entry of the first man had immediately closed ranks in front of Stannis and drawn their daggers. There was an explosion of chaotic movement and noise for a few seconds, and when it ended two of the four intruders were dead, a third plainly dying from the way the blood was bubbling out of his nose and mouth, and the fourth had a Stormguard holding each arm, another pinioning his legs, and a fourth holding a dagger to his throat.
Stannis took another sip of his broth. "I was entirely unaware that I was keeping an open house," he remarked drily to Ser Cortnay, who was standing in front of him with his dagger clenched in a raised fist like an iron claw and the other fist held ready to cover or strike. "If I had been, I should have ordered decorations to be hung and food and drink set out." He tapped his first bodyguard on one pauldron with a free hand. "Move aside, ser, if you please; the danger is evidently passed and I would have an answer for this unseemly intrusion."
As Ser Cortnay grudgingly complied, Stannis got his first full look at the man who had evidently attempted to kill him and had to keep his mouth from dropping open in shock. The man before him was not Euron Greyjoy, he had seen the body, but the resemblance was too great to be a mere coincidence. "You are one of the Greyjoy's, are you not?" he asked blandly.
The would-be assassin spat at Stannis' boots. "I am Maron Greyjoy," he snarled. "Son of that House, come to kill the monster who invaded our lands and massacred our people."
Stannis considered replying, then decided against it. He had seen the look in young Maron's eyes before, in the eyes of Ironborn who had, according to their surviving comrades, sworn death-oath to the Drowned God to redeem the land of his people with their blood. He gestured to the Stormguard holding his dagger to Maron's throat, and before anyone in the pavilion could blink next that same dagger had opened the big blood vessels in Maron's throat along with his windpipe. "Now where were we?" he asked Ser Cortnay as the second son of House Greyjoy choked and sprayed his life out on the bare floor of the pavilion. "The creation of a corps of pioneers, I believe?"
Ser Cortnay shook his head as he sheathed his dagger. "Your Grace closed the subject by asking me to make a note of it for when we returned to King's Landing," he replied as the Stormguards who had been holding Maron carried him outside. "Although I will say further that I wish we had them now. Especially if one of them had come up with a portable bridge that could be installed in the face of opposition."
Stannis nodded. The thought of men under his command being dropped into the sea if a bridge were destroyed underneath them was bad enough. The thought of them being cut off by a bridge being destroyed behind them was even worse; the Ironborn had not been kind to the few prisoners they had taken thus far. At least it was his good-father's men taking the brunt of the fighting. If the reports from Orkmont were anything close to accurate, then giving the Westermen the opportunity to vent the rest of their spleen on the Ironborn could only be helpful, if only to prevent them from taking any unsettled grievances back to Westeros. And it would probably be for the best if the forces Tywin could command in his own right came out of this somewhat the worse for wear. Monsters tended to be less frightening after they had taken a beating.
XXX
"Damn, damn, damn," Sandor muttered under his breath. He was facing the soldier's ultimate nightmare; cut off in a hostile environment, outnumbered by an effectively infinite margin, with no food or water beyond what could be scavenged, and with no likely prospect of reinforcement or rescue. Ever since that grinning bastard of an Ironborn had dropped that bridge behind his men, sending four of them screaming into the pounding surf below, he had kept his men on the move, pressing ever forward into Pyke. Their only hope, he knew from his training under Ser Rickon, was to be moving and not get pinned down. If they got pinned down then they would be ground into sausage by weight of numbers. Especially since, he reflected with a glance back at the men behind him, he had only fourteen men with him, and ten of those were smallfolk levies who only had as much training at arms as Sandor had been able to give them since their mustering-in. At least his men-at-arms had been licked into shape before Balon had suffered his attack of madness.
Speaking of which . . .Sandor thought to himself as he put his eye back to the chink in the door to the servant's passage. The servant girl they had picked up had offered to guide them around the castle in exchange for staying alive. Sandor had known that his men would need a guide who knew how to get around this damned maze of a castle without being seen, so he had accepted her offer, over the objections of the men who had wanted to simply cut her throat and be done with it, and brought her along after tying her hands and gagging her. He hadnotexpected her to lead them to Balon buggering Greyjoy his own self!
He hissed through his teeth.Think, you bloody fool . . .he berated himself.Think! What would Ser Rickon do?Somehow the thought of his old mentor focused him. He could almost see Ser Rickon co*cking his eyebrow and sayingFirst things first, take stock. What is your mission?That was easy enough, at least. His mission was to take the castle and either kill or capture every member of House Greyjoy within.What are your assets, your liabilities, your obstacles?He glanced at his men again; for assets he had himself, four men-at-arms, and ten levy infantry. All decently armed and armored, too; his men-at-arms had more armor than any Ironborn outside a lord's retinue, and his levies all had at least a gambeson, a short-sleeved mail shirt, and a kettle helmet. For liabilities he had the girl, who would be dead weight at best in any kind of fight. For obstacles . . . he pressed his eye to the chink again.Let's see, at least five retinue men that I can see, almost certainly more, Balon himself, and gods know how many other lords.He continued down the mental list Ser Rickon had beaten into his brain during his squiring.Second, if your assets are insufficient to overcome your liabilities and obstacles, can you get more?He snorted to himself. Fat chance of that.Third, if no further assets are forthcoming, can you use the assets you have to whittle down the obstacles one at a time?Not remotely; his men-at-arms were good and his levies decent, but not a chance in any of the Hells would he split them up to try a diversion.Fourth, if whittling down isn't an option, will delaying improve the situation?Again, not remotely. The longer they delayed, the more likely they were to be discovered. How they hadn't been rumbled already was due only to a minor miracle, in that they had managed to overwhelm those few Ironborn who had stumbled across them before they could raise the alarum.Fifth and lastly, if all other options exhaust themselves, rely on surprise and shock action.He nodded briefly to himself and turned to face his men.
"Lads," he said in as quiet a voice as he had ever used, "Balon Greyjoy's in that room." There was a rustle of surprise that made Sandor hold up a clenched fist in a reminder for silence, punctuated by the fiercest scowl he could muster. "We kill him, we end this whole thing," he went on. "So we're going in. Ser Garrick, Ser Walton, you two cover the left and right." The usually morose Ser Garrick Dacre for once had the gleam of a roused fighting man in his eyes, while mustachioed Ser Walton Hill simply shifted his grip on his long-handled mace and nodded convulsively. "Ser Thomas, Ser Henrik, you're with me; we'll bore a hole straight through to Greyjoy." Ser Thomas Cutler gave him a wolf's bared-teeth smile, while Ser Henrik Faulkner signed himself with the seven-pointed star and kissed the crystal inlaid in the pommel of his longsword; of all of them he was the most conscientiously devout. Sandor turned his attention to his levies. "You lads keep close on our tails and kill everything that isn't us until I say stop. Remember; these are the bastards who attacked Lannisport, and the bigger bastard who ordered it." There were silent snarls from the levies as they hefted their weapons; they had arrived quickly enough after the Sack to see the ruin that the Ironborn had made of the Jewel of the West. "On my command," Sandor said, turning back towards the door. He took a moment to breathe a prayer, not to any of the gods but to Ser Rickon, that he had gotten everything right, and then his left hand took the handle of the door while his right, which had been holding Red Rain sloped on his shoulder, came up and closed his visor. "GO!" he bellowed as he lifted the latch and put his shoulder to the door.
He exploded through the door like a boar breaking from cover, giving voice to the wordless howling roar he had taken as a war-cry, and the first Ironborn that crossed his path was still recovering from the instinctive crouch-and-spin in response to the shock when Sandor cut him down. The first time he had wielded Red Rain in action, on Orkmont, he had almost been thrown off-balance by how easily the ruddy-tinted steel had sheared through a man's body, but he had learned since and now, as the Ironborn fell with his head and right arm and shoulder sliding away from the rest of his body, Sandor powered forward, sweeping his blade back across his front in a snapping false-edgereverso.That blow took off a man's hand at the wrist as it came up holding a hand-axe, carried on to slice through both his cheeks and make a ruin of his mouth, and Sandor drove forward again to drive the screaming man to the floor with a hammering blow of the pommel. He could not afford to so much as slow down; if he did, then the Ironborn would have time to react and he and his men would be overwhelmed.
So he forged forward, every step a blow and every blow a step, carving his way through the Ironborn towards the great chair at the end of the hall and the man who was standing before it. Next to him he was dimly aware of Ser Thomas Cutler laughing with battle-joy as his poleaxe spun a wheel of death in his hands and Ser Henrik chanting a paean to the Warrior as his longsword flew from cut to cut, but otherwise his whole focus was on the men in front of him until they fell away either dead or mangled, and then Red Rain stopped dead in mid-cut and he found himself face-to-face with Balon Greyjoy. He had time to be dimly aware of mad, staring eyes through the slit of his visor, and then he had brought his foot up and forward in a thrust-kick that pushed Balon back towards his throne and was plunging after him. Balon might have been famous among the Ironborn for his blade-skill, Sandor reflected detachedly as he sent Red Rain whirling through a sword-scale that Ser Rickon had taught him, but that must have been before he had taken the wound that had wrapped his leg in bandages, and before he went mad. Mad enough to rail on in spite of how hard Sandor was pressing him.
"Blasphemer!" the Ironborn king ranted as he flailed the black-hued Valyrian steel blade he held at Sandor. "Defiler! Desecrator! You would make us into you?! You shall not!" He grunted as Sandor landed a blow on his pauldron that had to have left a bone-bruise through steel and padding, but he recovered faster than even a healthy man should have been able to and threw a counter-cut that forced Sandor to duck before it took his head off. "Let the Storm God rage as he likes!" he fulminated. "All the storms in the world cannot change the sea! And in the sea our God waits! He waits, and watches what you do to us," he cried out as Sandor, their blades locked, threw a stamping blow with his heel that caught him on the bloody bandages and sent him reeling backward again. "And as He watches," he raved as he swung his blade up for an overhead cut, "he plots his revenge!"
Sandor caught the descending blow on the base of Red Rain's blade, let go with his left hand to wrap it under Balon's arms, pivoted his weapon so that the pommel hooked over Balon's blade, and with a single twist-and-pull he stripped the blade out of Balon's hands. He absorbed Balon's attempted headbutt on the side of his helmet, threw an uppercut with Red Rain's hilt that rocked Balon back on his heels, and followed it up with a thrust-kick that drove him back onto the Seastone Chair. Balon spat blood and broken teeth at him, then threw his head back and laughed in a voice that wasn't human. "What is dead . . ."
Sandor drove the point of his sword through Balon's mouth and out the base of his skull. "Should have the good manners to bloody wellstaythat way," he muttered irritably as he placed a foot on Balon's breastplate and dragged Red Rain free. He whirled around, saw in disbelief that the only men left standing were his men, and then a sudden rush of apprehension made him wheel back around.
Heknewhe had killed Balon; a thrust like the one he had given him killed as quickly as a wound could do short of decapitation. And dead blood didn't clot; he had seen that in Dorne. So why was the blood around Balon's mouth congealing almost as he watched? Why were Balon's fingertips twitching? Why were the waves, until now only a dull roar in the background, suddenly crashing against the seastacks of the castle like an avalanche? And why, in all the hells, did he suddenly hear even over the noise of the waves a dim, muffledthump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, like some distant drum? Or, he realized as apprehension crystallized into fear, like a beating heart? He hesitated, every nerve telling him to run as far and as fast as he could, and then something broke into his mind.Get him off the Chair!a voice roared through his skull, sounding for all the world like Ser Rickon the one time Sandor had been foolish enough to make himproperlyangry.You blind, daft, stupid bugger, get his ass off the Chair!
Sandor choked back his fear, dropped Red Rain, lunged forward to grab Balon by the collar of his breastplate, and heaved him forward with a convulsive effort that sent them both tumbling back from the dais and ended with Sandor flat on his back and Balon lying on top of him.That should do it, the voice said gruffly as Sandor thrust the erstwhile king away from him and frantically scooted away on his arse.Sorry I couldn't tell you sooner, lad, but there are Rules. Which is also why you're not going to remember any of this unless you have to. Nothing personal, but I hope we don't ever have to talk again. Stay sharp, lad.
Sandor blinked. "What just happened?" he asked reflexively, and then ground his teeth at the inanity of the question.
"You tell me, ser," Ser Thomas said as he held out his hand. "You'd just done for his lordship, there," he said as Sandor took his hand and hauled himself to his feet, scooping up Red Rain as he did so, "and then all of a sudden I wanted to run until I couldn't run anymore, and then you hauled him off that thing like it was on fire." The two of them regarded the Seastone Chair, which for it's part simply sat where it had sat for centuries, mute and immobile but somehow, Sandor couldn't help feeling, giving off an air of malevolence. "Now what did you go and do that for, ser?"
Sandor searched his memory, found it unsettlingly blank, and settled for shrugging. "Bastard didn't deserve to sit in it anymore, did he?" he snapped as he cursorily wiped the blood of his blade and ran it back into its scabbard, and Ser Thomas surprised him by nodding.
"Hi, you!" came a shout from their left, and they turned to see Ralf Millet, one of the levies, dive at a corner behind the Chair. "Come out of there, you, or I'll gut ya!"
"What the hells, Millet?!" Sandor snarled as he strode over, and then he closed his mouth as Millet dragged a boy out of the corner.
"'S a boy, ser," Millet said unnecessarily, pushing him at Sandor's feet. "Lookin' like a little lordie, too." Sandor looked down at the boy, noted the good fit and quality of his clothes and the lack of scars or callouses on his hands, and then reached down, put an armored finger under the boy's chin and tilted his face upwards where he could see it. He had only seen Euron at a distance, but he had seen Balon from close enough to bite him and the resemblance was uncanny.
"Theon Greyjoy," he said softly, and started to think very hard as his men started murmuring. On the one hand, King Stannis had ordered that the Greyjoy's be either killed or captured, without saying which he would prefer, but Sandor doubted that he would look kindly on a child-killer. On the other, Lord Lannister had come around before the assault letting everyone important know that if any of the Greyjoy children happened to die in the assault, by accident, say, then he would make it right with Stannis; the decisions men made in an assault shouldn't be questioned, he had said. Then again, Sandor could well imagine what Ser Rickon would think of anyone who killed anyone but another fighting-man; his opinions on the deaths of the Targaryen women and children would have made his name mud with Lord Lannister if he had ever said them publicly.
All of which aside, he thought on, he knew exactly what Gregor would have done in this situation.f*ck it, and f*ck the Old Lion too. I'm not my brother."Get the doors closed," he snapped. "Bar or brace them as best you can. If that was all of the bastards, then I'll eat them. And we just killed their lord. Woman, are you still there?!" As the men rushed to the doors, the servant girl, for a wonder, poked her head out of the servant's passage and nodded; she had even left her gag in, which showed either a high tolerance for discomfort or a disturbingly deep compulsion to follow orders. "Take this one," Sandor said, propelling the little Greyjoy to her with a shove, "and keep him in there with you until I call you out. Not a sound from either of you." As the maid nodded, took hold of the boy, and hauled him into the corridor, Sandor put his back against a pillar and let his head droop as weariness set in. That fight must have taken more out of him than he had thought.
"Ser, ser!" The urgent shout and rough jostling on his pauldron made him start awake, blinking and shaking his head.I bloody fell asleep?he thought savagely.A fine knight I make, falling asleep in the middle of a battle.He had evendreamed, he recalled vaguely, about deep, cold waters wheresomethingwaited dreaming. "Ser!" Ralf Millet was all but dancing from foot to foot. "Ser Walton hears men coming down the corridor! Lots of 'em!"
Sandor nodded. "Alright, alright, keep your braes on," he said as he stood away from the pillar. Millet was one of the better lads among the levies, but he got excited too easily. Sandor shook himself to make sure his armor was settled properly as he prowled towards the doors. "Get ready for it, lads; here they come!" he snarled as he drew Red Rain and lowered it into the guard of the long tail. The doors were braced with what his men could scrounge from the hall, but he could tell at a glance that they wouldn't hold a ram for more than a score of strokes. He glanced behind him; his men-at-arms were all on their feet, but only five of the levies were still fighting fit. They seemed in good spirits, though, falling in behind the knights with spears held underarm to stab in between the armored men. It was the one formation he had had time to drill them in before they sailed and they had taken to it readily enough, trusting the armor of the richer men to protect them while they did what damage they could.
The sound of clanking feet from beyond the doors came to a halt, and then there came a dullboom-boom-boomas what had to have been either a spear-butt or a gauntleted fist was beaten against the planks. "Ser Sandor Clegane!" a rough baritone bellowed through the doors. "Open in the name of your King!"
Sandor blinked. "I know that voice," he said half to himself, and then raised his voice. "Hold on a second, we need to take the braces away!" He sheathed Red Rain and turned to his men. "You heard him, lads," he said, and within moments the makeshift barricade had been pulled away and the doors hauled open. On the other side was none other than Ser Cortnay Penrose, a score of other Stormguard knights, and Stannis Baratheon himself, with Lord Lannister and Lord Tully on either side of him.
"I'll be damned," Ser Cortnay said as he took in the scene of the hall. "You actually did it."
Sandor saluted hastily. "Your Grace," he said, unable to stop a grin from spreading over his face, "welcome to the great hall of Pyke Castle."
Stannis nodded as he stepped forward. "Our thanks, Ser Clegane," he said, flapping his hands impatiently as Sandor's men, none of whom knew their king's preferred protocol, dropped to their knees. "Our thanks as well for breaking this siege," he said, taking Sandor's arm and drawing him along as he strode towards the Seastone Chair. "It seems some of those who witnessed the death of Lord Greyjoy escaped and spread the word to their fellows. When they heard their lord was dead they fell into chaos. Some surrendered, others charged blindly to die on our blades, others still turned their weapons on themselves or jumped into the sea." He paused; they had reached Balon Greyjoy's body. Stannis turned it over with his foot and regarded his face. "A long way from Sunspear, eh, Balon?" he said. "May traitors and rebels ever prosper so. Ser Sandor, I will see you suitably rewarded for this. I reserve only that sword," he pointed at the black-bladed longsword that Balon had wielded. "Nightfall is the ancestral blade of House Harlaw, and I have promised Ser Harras to restore it."
"That's our Ser Sandor, Your Grace!" Ser Thomas said boldly over the cheer from the onlookers at Stannis' confirmation of victory, a smile splitting his face. "A proper Kingslayer!"
Stannis turned a freezing glare on the brash man-at-arms. "Say not so, ser," he commanded. "This man was no king. Only a lord who let his pride lead him into madness." As Ser Thomas, his face bright red with embarrassment, hastily bowed, Stannis turned and began to walk toward the Seastone Chair.
"Wait, Your Grace," Sandor said hastily, seized by a feeling of dread, and then coughed as Stannis turned and raised an eyebrow. "I would advise that you not sit in that chair, Your Grace. Not until the blood has been cleaned off at least. Consider it my reward, if you must, but . . ." he gestured helplessly. "Something strange happened when Balon died on that chair. I don't know what, can't explain what, but . . ." he gestured again. "Just please don't sit on it, Your Grace."
Stannis regarded him coldly for a moment, then turned back to regard the Chair, with the kraken tentacles framing the seat and the body of the thing perched above the back, and nodded. "Very well," he said. "Looks damnably uncomfortable anyway. And as we have the most powerful throne in the known world, it would undoubtedly be hubristic to claim another." He nodded again. "Well and so," he said. "Ser Cortnay, see that this chair is cleaned, and determine whether or not it can be moved from this chamber. Perhaps if the Ironborn have no throne of their own they will not be so tempted to foolishness in future days."
"Cast it into the sea it came from, is my advice, Your Grace," Lord Lannister said coldly. "And may the Ironborn have joy of trying to get it back."
Stannis nodded. "Perhaps," he allowed. "But we shall take counsel of all our lords as to what the wisest course might be." He turned back to Sandor. "Ser Sandor, you have our leave to withdraw and see to the welfare of your men; please convey to them that we are most grateful for their good service this day."
Sandor bowed. "There is one other thing, Your Grace," he said, and going over to the servant's door he pulled it open. "Come out of there," he ordered, and the maid walked out, pushing Theon Greyjoy before her. "Your Grace, this is the woman who led us here, and I believe the boy to be Theon Greyjoy."
Stannis' eyes widened momentarily. "If it proves so," he said loudly enough to quell the sudden riot of murmur among the spectators, "then you shall be due even greater rewards from us, Ser Clegane. In the meantime, we pray you withdraw; we must take council with our lords."
Sandor bowed and withdrew, ignoring the impassive stare of Lord Lannister, the muttered congratulations from the men he pushed past and the backslaps of his men. Things had happened that he couldn't explain in that hall, and despite the sunshine outside the castle he couldn't help a slight crawling sensation over his skin.Be damned if I'll ever come back here again,he vowed.
. . . The capture of Pyke not only capped off the Westerosi conquest of the Isles, it also encapsulated in miniature the situation that faced the Iron Throne in the immediate aftermath. Pyke had lost almost a third of it's population, with casualties among the nobility reaching near-totality. In House Greyjoy alone, only three members survived to see the end of the war; Urrigon, Balon's brother, who had taken his niece Asha with him when he effected his escape, and Theon, Balon's only surviving son, who was taken as a ward of the Iron Throne. This situation was mirrored throughout the Isles, although the degree of the damage varied from island to island. The strategy that Stannis and his noblemen devised to meet this problem was informed by the now-notorious debate of the Council of Lannisport, and will no doubt be familiar to students of other Westerosi conquests.
Firstly, the vacancies in the Isles' power structures were filled by Westerosi nobles, in this case primarily from the Westerlands, the Riverlands, and the Reach. These new Houses, some of which were branches of previously existing Houses and some of which were absolute newcomers to the nobility, were granted the lands of the Ironborn Houses they were replacing, with the right to build fortifications, enforce the laws of the Realm and the King's Peace, and levy taxes on their new subjects. Blacktyde was settled primarily by Riverlanders with a sprinkling of Valemen, most notably Nestor Royce, who outnumbered the remaining Ironborn nobility by almost four to one even before the Ironborn of Blacktyde were stripped of the majority of their lands and power. On Great Wyk only the Ironmaker's and their allies remained in power, while those Ironborn nobles who surrendered after Whistling Slope were reduced to the same degree as their fellows on Blacktyde. Those who didn't surrender, or who were wiped out at Whistling Slope, were replaced by Reachman under the overlordship of none other than Mace Tyrell's second son Garlan, although given his youth it would be some years before he took up the reins of lordship in his own right. Saltcliffe was denuded of it's nobility on the orders of Stannis himself, in order to resettle it with nobles from the Crownlands and Stormlands, with the evicted Ironborn nobles being resettled on Old Wyk on the theory that their uprooting and transplanting among people who didn't know them would weaken them sufficiently to allow new loyalties to take root. Orkmont and Pyke, where the Ironborn nobility had been hounded to extinction, were resettled entirely by mainlanders. Orkmont was given to the Westerlanders, with Kevan Lannister being given overlordship of the island as Lord of Lion's Den, although he would end up dividing his time between Orkmont and Pyke. Pyke was reserved to the Iron Throne, to provide a home base for the second prong of Stannis' strategy.
This was the creation of a new Order, the fourth of Stannis' reign. The Royal Order of the Sea followed the model of their predecessors in that their members swore fealty and obedience directly to King Stannis, who added 'Grand Master of the Royal Order of the Sea' to his official style, were allowed to marry and sire legitimate children while they were in the Order, and were expected to support their regular operations from the yield of the lands and properties granted them in return for being the Iron Throne's boot on the neck of the local population. The Order would have been one of the great powers in the Isles in any event, thanks to its ownership of Pyke, but it's position was strengthened even further by the vocal and unstinting support of both Tywin Lannister and Hoster Tully, both of whom granted it substantial subsidies out of their revenues and actively encouraged the more footloose and land or fame-hungry of their vassals and knights to take the King's Star. As a result of this support the Order's ranks filled swiftly, and within a year it was turning away applicants eager to cash in on the fiscal and social rewards of royal service.
Thirdly, and in a first for Stannis if not his brother Robert, a new code of laws was imposed on the conquered territory. This new code, quickly dubbed the Iron Code, deserves to be examined in some detail, as it was the first legislation of its kind in Westerosi jurisprudence since the Targaryen Conquest. It's first articles established it's supremacy over 'such laws as the Iron Islands shall have previously been subjected to, the aforesaid laws having been expunged by the late rebellion,' declared the Isles to be 'under the rule, control, and sovereignty of His Grace the King and his heirs after him, through such officers as he shall be pleased to name,' and declared the Code's purpose to be 'the better keeping of the King's Peace in these Islands, the better ordering of the King's government, and the provisioning of the safety and security of these Islands, the seas around them, and the lands upon which those seas shall touch.' Thus was the legal theory of 'state suicide' floated at the Council of Lannisport made law, with consequences that will be familiar to any student of the Baratheon dynasty.
The Iron Code then diverged from Westerosi jurisprudence even further in establishing, for the first time in Stannis' reign, laws aimed solely at the subjugation of a people on the basis of faith. Under the Iron Code, Ironborn who worshipped the Drowned God could not legally, among other things, intermarry with or inherit from Seven or Old Gods-worshippers, attend the Citadel 'or any other institution of higher learning', bear arms 'of a military nature' except in royal service under royal officers, own any horse worth more than three gold stags or any watercraft that could hold more than ten persons, take custody of, foster, or adopt orphans, or testify in court before a King's Magistrate. Further articles required the priests of the Drowned God to register with the Royal Order of the Sea and allow royal officers to monitor their sermons for sedition, forbade them giving religious or secular instruction or remaining in any particular place more than three consecutive days, and barred them from admitting any child born to a Seven or Old Gods-worshipping parent into the faith of the Drowned God. The only mechanism the Iron Code allowed for relief from these restrictions was conversion to either the Faith of the Seven or the faith of the Old Gods, and the punishments it prescribed were draconian; a full third of the Iron Code's articles decreed that condemned offenders 'suffer death, or such other punishment as competent authority shall deem meet and proper.' Offenders who fled were adjudged under the Iron Code 'to have forsworn their lands and rights as subjects of the Iron Throne, which shall escheat thereto, and shall be considered outlaws.'
To what degree the Iron Code, along with the other provisions of the Pyke Plan, as Stannis' strategy for the pacification of the Isles came to be known, constituted a deliberate attempt at ethnic cleansing is open to debate, but what cannot be debated is that those who did most to destroy the Ironborn as a culture were those who were most rewarded in the aftermath of the fighting. Tywin Lannister, the destroyer of Orkmont, was publicly praised by King Stannis, who named him 'the rod and flail of our authority in these Isles'; his brother Kevan added Royal Castellan of Pyke and Warden of the Isles to his title of Lord of Lion's Den, making him Viceroy in all but name. Brandon Stark, on whose orders Old Wyk lost almost half its population either to death or deportation, was also hailed from Stannis' campaign throne and sent home with rewards and royal favor. Ser Rickon Riverbend, who distinguished himself on Harlaw and Pyke, was named first Master of the Royal Order of the Sea, second in the Order only to Stannis as Grand Master and, given the communications delay between King's Landing and Pyke, an independent warlord in all but name. Sandor Clegane, for his actions in the defense of Lannisport, his service on Orkmont, and his killing of Balon Greyjoy, was made Lord Clegane, with a second fief near Casterly Rock, commercial privileges and honorary citizenship in the city he helped defend, and confirmation of his possession of the sword Red Rain as an heirloom of his House. Alfric Ironmaker, who had raised his banner against his liege-lord, saw his family's lands vastly expanded and his power correspondingly increased, as one of the few Ironborn lords who held the official trust of the Iron Throne. But the greatest reward of all went to Ser Harras Harlaw, who swore fealty to Stannis as Lord of Harlaw, Ten Towers, Grey Garden, and the Tower of Glimmering, Marshal of the Order of the Sea, and Lord Paramount of the Iron Isles. At this same audience the Seastone Chair was cast into the seas below Pyke and a significant number of the younger generations of the Harlaw's and the Ironmaker's converted to the Faith of the Seven in a ceremony presided over by the High Septon himself, who declared, 'By this act of faith, the Isles are redeemed from the long bondage of the Drowned God, and reborn anew in the light of the true faith.'
Under circ*mstances such as these, many Ironborn found life in the Isles untenable. Those who could scrape together the resources eagerly took ship to Myr, where they could worship their God in peace under a king who honored them more than Stannis ever could . . .
Under Stormy Skies: the Ironborn under the Baratheon'sby Egil Pyke
Chapter 100: The Appendix
Chapter Text
Westeros
King on the Iron Throne:Stannis Baratheon, the First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Protector of the Realm, Grand Master of the Royal Order of the Sun, Grand Master of the Royal Order of the Crown, Grand Master of the Royal Order of the Sea
Queen-Consort:Cersei Lannister, "the Light of the West"
Prince of Dragonstone:Lyonel Baratheon
Princesses:Joanna, Cerelle, and Argella
Royal Order of the Storm:the new royal bodyguard, replacing the Kingsguard of the Targaryen's. Numbers forty-nine 'proven knights' who are expected to serve to the death, but their charter allows them to petition the King for release from service without penalty, either for inability to continue in service or for personal cause. Stormguard knights are forbidden from marrying while in service but they are not strictly required to be celibate; however, the dictates of upholding the honor of the dynasty and the moral repute of the court means that any philandering must be kept strictly private. The knights are also forbidden from holding any post or asset that could compromise their loyalty to the dynasty and are expected to forswear family allegiances for the duration of their service.
Lord Commander:Ser Cortnay Penrose, former master-of-arms at Storm's End. He is perhaps the best friend Stannis has in the wide world, and is certainly the one man he trusts more than any other besides himself. Every time Stannis has taken the field Ser Cortnay has fought at his side, and this fidelity gives Ser Cortnay a license to speak frankly that almost no one else can approach. Ser Cortnay, for his part, is careful never to question Stannis in public, and also considers that his duty is to protect not just Stannis' body but also his happiness. As a result he has become increasingly disenchanted with Queen Cersei, who he blames for the current discord at Court.
Knights:Ser Dannel Tanner, Ser Jacen Landser
Royal Order of the Knights of the Crown:an order of chivalry mandated to uphold the King's Peace and enforce his will and law in the Crownlands. Due to its proximity, it is more closely tied to the dynasty than any other order aside from the Order of the Storm; their commandery in King's Landing exists mainly to transmit Stannis' directives to the other commanderies. The seat of the Order is Crownhold, a recently raised fort outside Duskendale where the Master of the Order fields those issues that do not require the King's attention.
Unlike the other orders, the Knights of the Crown are funded directly from the royal treasury and donatives from the nobility of the Crownlands; the Order holds no lands of its own. Their primary occupation is patrolling the roads and countryside of the Crownlands, which to their credit has quickly become a routine exercise everywhere outside of Crackclaw Point, where their expanded presence after the Defiance is resented, and the Kingswood, which is too dense and too wild off the roads to fully clear of bandits and broken men. In time of war their lances are one of the cornerstones of Stannis' personal military strength; in the Upper Mander Rebellion and Balon's Rebellion nearly half of Stannis' retinue, the men wearing his livery and acting directly under his orders, were Knights of the Crown. The Order also has a strong partnership with the royal fleet, acting as a component of its marines.
Master:Ser Jacelyn Bywater, a former goldcloak who left the Watch for the Order after deciding that it offered more honorable employment. Joining as a non-noble man-at-arms, he advanced quickly through the ranks and was knighted after surviving the Battle of Tyrosh, after which he became Commander of the Kingswood district. After the death of founding Master Halleck Hogg of flux he took command of the Order's contingent that had followed Stannis to the Upper Mander Rebellion and was confirmed in the office of Master at Highgarden. Lost his left hand fighting on Pyke but has refused to consider stepping down, instead commissioning a replacement hand forged from the armor of the Ironborn who wounded him. He has since gained the sobriquet 'Ironhand'.
Hand of the King:Jon Arryn, Lord of the Eyrie, Lord Paramount of the Vale, andWarden of the East
Master of Laws:Roose Bolton, Lord of the Dreadfort
Master of Coin:Damon Lannister
Master of Ships:Ser Baelor Hightower
Master of Whispers:Ser Gabryel Storm (a knight from Stonehelm, has already drafted his letter of resignation for failing to predict Balon's Rebellion. The Master-ship of Whispers has seen so many incumbents come and go in Stannis' reign already that it is rumored to be hexed.)
Grand Maester:Maester Pycelle
Lord Paramount of the North:Brandon Stark, called "the Broken", Lord of Winterfell andWarden of the North
Lord Paramount of the Riverlands:Hoster Tully, Lord of Riverrun
Lord Paramount of the Westerlands:Tywin Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock, Shield of Lannisport, andWarden of the West
Lord Paramount of the Reach:Mace Tyrell, Lord of Highgarden, Lord Paramount of the Mander, Defender of the Marches, High Marshal of the Reach, andWarden of the South
Princess of Dorne:Arianne Martell (currently a minor; her Regency Council consists of Princess-Regent Mellario, Lord Anders Yronwood, Lord Franklyn Fowler, Lady Larra Blackmont, Lady Cassella Dalt, and Ser Harold Jordayne)
Royal Order of the Sun:Is charged with upholding the King's Peace in the Principality of Dorne. Based in the Shadow City of Sunspear, it maintains commanderies in Planky Town, Yronwood, Hellholt, Vaith, Starfall, Blackmont, and other strategic locations in the Principality, along with a scattering of blockhouses situated on the major caravan routes. The Order also holds land in its own right, but these lands are the property of the Order as a whole, not the men placed in charge of them; this land is tax-exempt on the condition that it's revenues go solely to support the Order. In addition to the original royal grant, the Order has acquired properties from noble houses within Dorne, either as gifts from their supporters or as confiscations from persistent troublemakers. The Order is more or less evenly split between Dornishmen and 'northerners', with the majority of its members being younger sons and hedge knights drawn by the promise of steady employment and advancement on the basis of merit.
Master:Ser Harold Jordayne, cousin of the Lord of that House, named to the post for services rendered in the Red Viper Rebellion. A generally easy-going and naturally friendly man, he tends to focus on the politics of the Regency Council and the general management of the Order, leaving field operations to the Marshal of the Order and the Commanders scattered around Dorne. This has ameliorated his reputation in some quarters as collaborator-in-chief, but there are still those in Dorne who would happily kill him on the spot as a traitor. Since his longtime Marshal has been poached to head the Royal Order of the Sea he is in the market for a replacement, although he doubts that whoever replaces Ser Rickon will be able to match him. He has recently taken Loras Tyrell as a squire, on the understanding that he will not only train the boy as a knight but groom him for high royal service, as he stands to inherit no lands of his own.
Lord Paramount of the Iron Islands:Ser Harras Harlaw, Lord of Harlaw, Ten Towers, Grey Garden, and the Tower of Glimmering, Marshal of the Royal Order of the Sea.
Royal Order of the Sea:Established to uphold the King's Peace in the Iron Islands, enforce the Iron Code, and assist in the ruling of Pyke. While technically subordinate to the Lord Castellan of Pyke, in practice they effectively form a parallel administration of the island of Pyke, while on the other islands their authority as the direct agents of the King's will is effectively unchallenged. Their base is the town of Lordsport, which has been recently renamed Euronsport in honor of the erstwhile master of ships who died off Fair Isle. Despite its newness it has done very well with recruiting, thanks to the vocal and financial support of Lords Lannister, Tully, and Tyrell. It also benefits from the fact that many of its officers are veterans of the other Royal Orders, giving it a depth of experience that few other military forces in Westeros can match.
The Order of the Sea is unique of its kind in that it boasts its own navy; a necessity, given its remit of patrolling the Isles. This navy is small, only four galleys so far, but much of the Order's revenue is being funneled towards its expansion, either by purchasing ships already made or by building their own from the shipyards of Pyke.
Master:Ser Rickon Riverbend, the natural son of a minor landed knight who legally changed his name after winning distinction in the Rebellion of the Lords Declarant. The Red Viper Rebellion found him a hedge knight on the edge of poverty, but he distinguished himself at the Battle of the Greenblood and in the hunt for Oberyn Martell, who he personally captured, becoming the Marshal of the Royal Order of the Sun for that feat. It was during this time that he took as squire one Tytos Hill, actually Sandor Clegane incognito, whom he later knighted. As the Order of the Sun's first Marshal he had a strong hand in forming and executing its policies, especially since it fell to him to make the rounds of the Order's commanderies in place of Ser Harold Jordayne, the Order's Master. He led the contingent the Order sent to Balon's Rebellion, and when the Order of the Sea was founded he was tapped to lead it as being the man with the most relevant experience at hand.
A man of deep piety, Ser Rickon's time in Dorne has nevertheless instilled a willingness to be flexible on matters of faith, an attitude that raises some eyebrows from the Faith's representatives in the Isles but which is supported by his reputation for moral conviction; in Dorne, Order members that mistreated prisoners rarely got away without at least a written reprimand and a dressing-down in front of their fellows, if not more concrete punishment. He is self-conscious of his humble origins and aware that there are gaps in his formal education and especially the social side thereof, which he compensates for by erring on the side of formality and politeness.
Marshal:Ser Harras Harlaw, whose appointment as an Order officer while being a sitting lord is unprecedented and an artifact of politics. He has less influence than his counterparts in the other Royal Orders given the fragmented nature of the Isles and the independence thereby conferred on the local Commanders, and for his part he is content not to push the bounds of his authority. Firstly because he knows that he has a rather high tightrope to walk to keep his family in power, and secondly because he has struggled with the emotional fallout of the sack of Grey Garden during Balon's Rebellion and the deaths of his family.
King's Consul and Royal Magistrate in Pentos:Lord Owen Merryweather, who is Viceroy in all but title of the Westerosi enclave in Pentos. In addition to his official duties, the lack of charisma and initiative on the part of the actual ambassador to Braavos and the instability of the Master-ship of Whispers has made Owen Stannis' chief diplomat and spymaster in western Essos.
Essos
Kingdom of Myr
King of Myr:Robert Baratheon, the First of His Name, Protector of the Realm, Defender of the Faiths and Shield of Freedom
Queen of Myr:Serina Baratheon, nee Phassos, Her brother, Adaran, is a member of Ser Gerion's household
Lord Commander of the Brotherhood of the Broken Chain:Ser Akhollo Freeman
Hand of the King:Ser Gerion Lannister
King's Fist:Lord Eddard Stark, "the Iron Wolf", alsoActingWarden of the Eastern Marches
Master of Laws:Ser Mychel Egen
Master of Coin:Ser Wendel Manderly
Master of Ships:Victarion Greyjoy, Lord of Ironhold andWarden of the Sea of Myrth
Master of Soldiers:Ser Brynden Tully, "the Blackfish"
Grand Maester:Maester Antony
Royal Chronicler:Maester Gordon (late of the Royal Corps of Pioneers, became Chronicler after resigning from the Pioneers on the grounds of his health).
Lord Captain of the Port:Lord Franlan Shipwright
Warden of the Northern Marches:Ser Richard Shermer, Lord of Ceralia
Warden of the Southern Marches:Ser Lyn Corbray, Lord of Sirmium
Warden of the Western Marches:Currently vacant, as the West is still being brought under control.
Emissary to the Summer Isles:Ser Jaime Lannister, a landless knight in the service of King Robert. Called the Black Lion.
The Royal Corps of Pioneers:the first formal branch of the military meant to bring the freedmen who followed the Sunset Company under discipline as laborers under the command of Maester Gordon. Took part in the fighting at Tara and the Siege of Myr but has since been reserved for a more noncombatant role, although its members are still expected to be able to fight. Specializing in construction and engineering, its members are responsible for building and maintaining royal fortifications, inspecting other fortifications throughout the Realm in concert with the Royal Inspectors, manning the siege train of the Royal Army, and constructing and repairing the royal roads. Since Maester Gordon's retirement they are the first branch of the Royal Army to be led entirely by Essosi.
Their sigil is a crossed pick and forester's axe in black on a gold field; their motto is 'We Clear The Way'.
The Iron Legion:The regular army of the kingdom, with the Pioneers the only branch that is sworn directly to the Crown and sits outside the feudal hierarchy. This branch is best known for its disciplined heavy infantry, but it also has a crossbow arm of note and a light cavalry service that is rapidly gaining in fame. Famously the most fanatical branch of the Royal Army, both in battle and in ideology, it has earned such nicknames as 'Freedom's Sword' and 'the Bane of Slavery'. Contrary to popular belief it is not composed solely of Essosi, with much of its officer corps and a respectable fraction of its underofficers being Westerosi, although recent years have seen more and more Essosi receive officer's commissions. Its rivalry with the feudal branch of the Royal Army is somewhat exaggerated, but the rivalry is nonetheless real and fed by a latent distrust of the nobility on the part of the Legion.
Their sigil is a gold spear breaking a red chain on a black field; their motto is 'Free or Dead'.
The Brotherhood of the Broken Chain:The royal bodyguard; currently composed of five knights drawn from the chivalry and five squads chosen from the Iron Legion and commanded by Lord Commander Ser Akhollo Freeman. Its members are not sworn to celibacy, as the Kingsguard are, but they swear blood-oath to protect the royal family to the death against all enemies.
Their sigil is a broken chain in black on a gold field; their motto is 'Freedom and Loyalty'.
The Royal Inspectors:A corps of royal officers charged with inspecting fortifications and contingents liable for military service under the royal banner throughout the Realm. They are also the chief investigatory arm of the Master-ship of Laws, empowered to hear evidence from anyone against or on behalf of anyone, on any grounds, anywhere in the Kingdom, conduct further investigation (including compelling testimony and production of evidence from unwilling parties), and prefer charges on behalf of the Crown against any person. In the years since their founding they have built a fearsome reputation for rigor; their investigations have led to the unseating of no less than a dozen landed knights and lords from their fiefs for breaching the Great Charter, and it is largely their efforts that have made the civil service of the Kingdom of Myr the least corrupt in the known world.
Their sigil is a lidless eye in black on a white field; their motto is 'Constant Vigilance'.
Commune of Braavos
Sealord:Ferrego Antaryon (has tendered his resignation to the Council of Thirty, and waits only for the election to be called before vacating his office)
Members of the Council of Thirty:Radalfos Solazzo, Vulmaro Bertone, Fortunato Dandolo
First Sword of Braavos:Syrio Forel
Second Sword of Braavos:Antonio Rozzi
Viceroy of Pentos:Matteo Contarenos
Governor-General of Martyros:Cassio Dorrma
Special Representative of the Sealord:Giulio Armati
Special Representative of the Iron Bank:Vito Nestoris
City of Lys
Gonfalonier of the Conclave:Vyrenno Phasselion
Members of the Conclave:Lazero Dynoris, Salleqor Irniris, Tregesso Naeroris, Syrys Eranen, Varonno Flaerys
Captain-General of the Forces of the City:Daario Naharis, also Captain of the Stormcrows
City of Volantis
Triarchs of the City:Malaquo Maegyr (tiger), Marreqor Bahaenor (tiger), Jorelos Hotaan (elephant)
Captain-General of the Grand Army of Volantis:Garello Maegyr
The Exile Company
Captain-General:Viserys Targaryen, the Third of His Name, also exiled claimant of the Iron Throne by right of blood succession from House Targaryen. Has one niece, Princess Visenya, the daughter of Rhaegar Targaryen and Praela Rahtheon.
Captain:Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, alsoHand of the KingandLord Commander of the Kingsguard
Master of Coin/Whispers:Donys Rahtheon, former magister of Myr and uncle-in-law to Viserys. Also aTriarch of True Myr
Lord Admiral:Brachyllo Hestos, senior surviving naval officer of the navy of True Myr. Also aTriarch of True Myr
Comptroller:Noriros Brenion, a cripple with a talent for numbers. Also aTriarch of True Myr
Kingsguard:
Ser Barristan Selmy: one of only three surviving members of Aerys's Kingsguard. Most often charged with close protection of Viserys while Ser Arthur leads the company
Ser Garin Uller: a Dornish knight who joined the Exile Company after being hounded out of Dorne for his part in the Red Viper Rebellion. Named to the Kingsguard for valor and daring in the war against Mantarys.
Ser Tomas Shett: An exile from the Crownlands, named to the Kingsguard for his devotion to the dynasty. A horseman of note, he is the sworn shield of Princess Visenya.
The Golden Company
Captain-General:Ser Myles Toyne, called 'Blackheart'. A competent and well-liked leader, who has started a rapprochement with the Targaryen's due to mutual concerns about the treatment of the tiger cloaks by the Volantenes.
Knights of the Company:
Ser Edwyn Saffron: a dour and blunt-to-rudeness young man whose sole ambition is to become the greatest swordsman in the world; he is already acknowledged as the best swordsman of the Golden Company.
Ser Clarence Webber: a twenty-seven-year veteran of the Company, with the skill to match. An amiable man by nature, he was instrumental in facilitating the rapprochement between the Golden Company and the Exile Company.
The Faith of the Seven
Is essentially the OTL Medieval Catholic Church, especially since, and this is somewhat important, theSeven-Pointed Staris not the sole source of doctrine. It's the foundation of doctrine, but doctrine is also derived from the writings of the Patriarchs and the rulings of previous High Septons when pronouncing on questions of doctrineex cathedra. Main point of difference from OTL Medieval Catholicism (aside from being septenarian rather than trinitarian) is the doctrine offoi seule, the belief that faith alone is sufficient to assure salvation.
Despite the schisms of the past eight years and the taxes it has voted on itself to support Stannis' wars, it appears to be waxing in strength. So-called 'Baelorites' dominate the Westerosi presence in Pentos and form a numerous and influential party in the Kingdom of Myr, and the Faith has risen to the challenge of its newly acquired license to convert the Iron Islands.
The High Septon:formerly Most Devout Matteo
The Most Devout:Payten, Koryn, Hugar, Donnal, Justan. Equivalent to the College of Cardinals
Archseptons:equivalent to archbishops
Radianors:equivalent to bishops
Septons
The Reformed (Jonothorian) Faith of the Seven
Roughly equivalent to OTL Lutheranism in that it is the first successful schism of the Faith. There are two main points of difference, one formal and the other informal. Firstly, the Reformed Faith rejects the doctrine offoi seulein favor of 'salvation by deeds', the belief that the only prerequisite for salvation is that the person in question act in accordance with the Faith's strictures, regardless of whether they believe in the Seven or not. Secondly, while the Reformed Faith has never officially rejected the supremacy of the High Septon and the Most Devout, it hasn't obeyed their commands since Jonothor's excommunication. The Reformed Faith also differs from the Faith in its concept of the Faith Militant, which it holds to include all persons willing to fight for a godly cause regardless of their individual faith.
The Reformed Faith is almost solely restricted to the Kingdom of Myr, but within the Kingdom it is possibly the most influential of the four main faiths. Its crusading rhetoric has made it popular with the Iron Legion, and its ecumenical slant and relative lack of formal strictures on moral minutiae has done much to attract converts among the younger generations.
First Septon:Septon Jonothor. The leader of the Reformed Faith, hisProtestationis considered the foundational document of the Reformed Faith's theology. His personal prestige is such that his pronouncements on doctrine are only rarely even questioned, much less opposed, but he nonetheless insists on abiding by the rules adopted by the First General Council, wherein the First Septon's pronouncements must be ratified by . . .
The Council of Faith:two representatives from each of the ecclesiastical provinces, of which there is one centered on each major town and another centered on Myr city. These representatives must be in minor orders at least, butcannotbe the Shepvor of the province they represent. Their remit is the discipline and maintenance of the Reformed Faith, as well as the debate and ratification of any pronouncements made by the First Septon on the subject of doctrine.
Shepvor:Bishop-equivalent; the smaller size of the Kingdom of Myr relative to Westeros means that the need for an Archsepton equivalent has yet to arise. Shepvor is an older term for the office than Radianor, and was deliberately chosen by the Frist General Council to hearken back to the days before the Faith's corruption under the Targaryen's.
Septons
The Radical Reformed (Rymanist) Faith of the Seven
OTL Calvinist in some ways, with two major points of divergence from the Faith. Firstly, Ryman believed that the allowance of local variation in the practice of the Faith was prima facie corruption, and not to be tolerated; 'one Faith, one practice' was one of his mottoes. Secondly, and far more controversially within the Faith itself, Ryman propounded the doctrine of double predestination; not only do the Seven predestine some to be saved, but they also predestine some to be damned. Such is the power of the Seven, Ryman claimed, that even the exercise of free will is nothing more than the person in question acting in accordance with the will of the Seven as regarded their case; the idea that a mere mortal can defy the destiny set for them by the Seven, who as theSeven-Pointed Staraffirms are omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, is preposterous. This differs from the Faith and the Reformed Faith in that those camps believe that the Seven granted men free will in order that they might exercise it themselves, whether to cooperate with the will of the Seven or to actively oppose it.
Due to its short life in the open and initially limited geographic scope, the need for an organizational structure has yet to arise.
Has been driven underground since the death of Ryman at Tickclose Field and the defeat of the Upper Mander Rebellion, but is not, in fact, as dead as Stannis and co. would like it to be. Stay tuned . . .
The True Faith of the Seven (also called the Old Faith, or 'those blithering idiots')
Roughly equivalent to OTL Puritans/Presbyterians, with three main points of difference from the other camps of the Faith. Firstly, they believe that theSeven-Pointed Staris the only viable source of doctrine, as it is divinely inspired and not the result of human, and thus necessarily fallible, reason. Secondly, and in keeping with the first point, they believe that the only proper method of social organization for a Faithful community is that which existed in Hugor of the Hill's day, which was essentially a network of autonomous villages under no authority higher than the local septon and the local headman. The feudal system, they believe, is a corruption of this original system that was instilled by contact with the First Men and their system of kings ruling over vassal bannermen. Consequently, they believe that the feudal system as it currently exists in Westeros not only should but must be abolished, especially the levels higher than that of the local minor lord or landed knight controlling only one or two villages; the High Septon and the Most Devout are also considered products of this corruption, and inconsistent with the proper ordering of the Faith. Thirdly, they believe that Andalos-that-was must be reclaimed for the Faith and resettled by the Faithful, in preparation for expanding the rule of the Seven throughout the world.
The Westerosi branch is in mild disarray after the capture of Septon Colyn, who we last saw being transported to King's Landing for trial, but the Essosi branch is chugging along under Septon Deryk, who is leading their colonization efforts in Andalos-that-was, now central Greater Braavos.
The Assembly of the Faithful:the governing body of the Old Faith, comprised of at least one septon or septa from each community along with such secular figures as are invited to attend. The Assembly debates issues of theology and matters of communal interest and concern, choosing the course it will take on each point by popular vote. Theoretically each member is legally equal, with every member having one vote except for the elected Speaker, who manages the proceedings in return for relinquishing their right to vote except to decide a tie. However, Septon Deryk is so widely respected in the Old Faith that his decisions are almost always passed with only the briefest of debate.
The Knights of Andalos Reborn:The militia of the Old Faith's communities in Andalos-that-was, formed with Braavosi approval and subject to Braavosi control when summoned to the Commune's banner. Primarily made up of smallfolk militia with only a cadre of squires and a bare handful of knights under the command of Ser Jon Bay, but observers have described them as being tightly-disciplined and terribly earnest.
A Brief Summary of the Wars of the Baratheons
The Rebellion of the Lords Declarant:The rebellion that overthrew the Targaryen's, instigated by Rickard Stark after Rhaegar kidnapped Lyanna. Saw the Sack of King's Landing and the death of all but two Targaryen's at the hands of Tywin Lannister's Westermen; Viserys had been sent to Dragonstone with Ser Barristan Selmy at the start of the Rebellion and Rhaegar was in the Dornish Marches with Lyanna. Ended with a negotiated peace between the Lords Declarant, joined by Tywin, and Mace Tyrell as the senior remaining Loyalist lord. Rhaegar sails for Myr from Oldtown with Ser Arthur Dayne, Ser Oswell Whent, and Lyanna, who dies at sea giving birth to a stillborn child. Viserys joins Rhaegar in Myr with Ser Barristan and the Royal Fleet. This leads to . . .
The Pentoshi Emergency:After abdicating the Iron Throne in favor of Stannis, Robert assembles a force later dubbed the Sunset Company to follow the Targaryen's across the Narrow Sea and complete his oath of vengeance. In need of ships to carry this force, Robert strikes a deal with the Commune of Braavos, who undertake to transport the Sunset Company to Essos in return for their assistance in enforcing abolition in Pentos, which had been skirting the anti-slavery laws by various legal dodges. The Sunset Company manages to seize Pentos city by coup-de-main, and remaining Pentoshi resistance is put down by a combination of fighting patrols and a minor battle that crushes the small army the Pentoshi were able to raise. It is in this battle that the first successful slave revolt in Essos since the Unmasking of Uthero occurs, sealing the defeat of the Pentoshi. Their contract complete, the Sunset Company turns its attention south.
The Conquest of Myr:After sending an ultimatum to the Conclave of Magisters and a missive of defiance to Rhaegar, the Sunset Company crosses the Myrish border and begins to pillage it's way south. Already joined by a substantial number of former slaves from Pentos, it is joined by hundreds more escaped slaves, who are organized into the Corps of Pioneers. Rhaegar leads the Army of Myr north and meets the Sunset Company in battle near a plantation called Tara. The Myrish are defeated and put to flight, with Rhaegar being severely wounded and only saved by the efforts of his Kingsguard. The Sunset Company continues to pillage it's way south towards Myr city, which is quickly driven to terror by the defeat of it's army and the rumors (true ones) that the Sunset Company is arming and training freed slaves. A vote of no confidence in Rhaegar's leadership becomes a riot that forces the Targaryen loyalists to evacuate the city and sail to Volantis. The Sunset Company besieges Myr and takes it by storm, aided by a general slave revolt within the walls and an attack against the rear of the city walls by the Red Temple. After the Sack is completed, Robert is crowned King of Myr; the Iron Legion is also formally incorporated, and dates it's founding from the day of Myr's fall.
The Red Viper Rebellion:Concurrently with the Conquest of Myr, Oberyn Martell raises his banner in rebellion against Stannis, in revenge for the murder of his sister Elia and her children during the Sack of King's Landing by Stannis' goodfather Tywin. As his support in Dorne is by no means unanimous, Oberyn's first target is those Dornish lords who refuse to declare for him; one of these, Lord Anders Yronwood, appeals to Stannis for aid on the grounds that he cannot defeat Oberyn alone and Prince Doran has failed to answer his requests for aid. Stannis responds with alacrity, entering Dorne to relieve the siege of Yronwood, accept Lord Anders' oath of fealty, and march south to Sunspear to pursue Oberyn, who has moved south against the Dornish capital to depose his brother. Oberyn turns and ambushes Stannis on the banks of the Greenblood River, but he fails to break Stannis' army and is forced to retreat. He takes to the desert and attempts to wage the sort of protracted guerilla war that gave the Targaryen's so many problems, but he is taken by a royalist hunting party and executed; his army either surrenders or degenerates into banditry thereafter. Stannis forces Doran to retire to Quiet Isle leaving Princess Mellario and a council of regent lords to hold the Principality until Princess Arianne comes of age. The Royal Order of the Sun is established in the aftermath of the Rebellion.
The First Slave War:Lys, Tyrosh, and the Myrish exile community join forces to launch a string of coastal raids against the Kingdom of Myr. Despite the initial devastation, the coasts are too heavily garrisoned and patrolled for the slave states to contemplate a forced landing pursuant to reconquest, and the Kingdom of Myr's navy is not strong enough to secure the Sea of Myrth, and the fighting along the coasts degenerates into a 'turtle war'. Concurrently, a Dothraki khalasar under Khal Zirqo, having previously extorted tribute and taken slaves in Braavosi Pentos, crosses the border and moves south towards Myr; Eddard Stark leads an army out from Myr to meet them, as Robert has been called to a peace conference in Pentos under the auspices of the Braavosi. The naval part of the war ends with the Peace of Pentos and a naval battle between the Tyroshi fleet and the Royal Fleet, with unlooked-for aid in the form of an Ironborn fleet led by Lord Erik Ironmaker. The land part of the war ends with the Battle of Narrow Run, where Eddard Stark kills Khal Zirqo under a flag of parley for taking slaves in Pentos and Zirqo's khalasar is largely destroyed in the battle that ensues. The survivors of Zirqo's khalasar retreat back east under the leadership of Khal Pobo, the last survivor of Zirqo's kos.
The Second Slave War:The Lyseni-Tyroshi-Myrish exile alliance again declares war on the Kingdom of Myr after Robert orders commercial reprisals for the massacre of a group of escaped slaves on the Myrish side of the border. The Royal Army marches over the border into Tyroshi territory, where they are met by the Tyroshi army under the command of Daario Naharis. After a period of inconclusive maneuvering, Robert decides to force battle by marching for the town of Alalia, and Daario is forced to take the bait in order to retain his command. Daario is soundly defeated at the Battle of Solva and Alalia falls to slave revolt and an assault by the Royal Army some days later, but he manages to hold the line of the Turtle River against the Royal Army until Robert agrees to a peace on the condition that he retain the strip of Tyroshi territory he has conquered south of the Turtle River; a slave revolt north of the River is bloodily suppressed by Mero of Braavos and his Second Sons. Meanwhile Stannis, who under the Peace of Pentos is bound to guarantee peace in the southern Narrow Sea, mobilizes his fleet to attack Tyrosh as punishment for declaring war. This fleet, reinforced by a Braavosi squadron, is defeated off Tyrosh by the combined fleet of the slaver alliance; Stannis manages to escape, but the majority of his fleet and the whole of the Braavosi squadron is destroyed.
The Crackclaw Point Rising:The nobility of Crackclaw Point, angered by the new taxes levied to replace the royal fleet, refuse to pay them, flogging the herald Stannis sent to announce them. Stannis leads a military force into the Point intending to force their submission, but military action is forestalled when the ringleader of the Rising, Lord Carsen Boggs, is killed in a duel by Ser Harry Flash, one of Stannis' knights. Faced with this indication of divine disfavor, the Crackclaw Point lords stand down and agree to pay the taxes. Ser Harry is sent to Braavos as punishment for provoking the duel, where he becomes embroiled in . . .
The Third Slave War:Braavos, spurred to action by the destruction of their squadron in the Battle of Tyrosh, concludes an alliance with the Kingdom of Myr, which is rapidly sealed with the marriage of Robert to Serina Phassos, a Braavosi noblewoman of moderate rank. An attempt by the Myrish exile operative Stallen Naerolis to burn Braavos with wildfire in order to knock them out of the war only succeeds in further angering the Braavosi, who respond by launching the Great Armament, the largest fleet in recent history, while the Royal Army, reinforced by a contingent of the Braavosi army, storms across the Turtle River. The Tyroshi army, now commanded by Mero of Braavos since Daario Naharis' dismissal for losing the Battle of Solva, is decisively defeated at the Battle of Iluro and the Tyroshi mainland falls to the Royal Army. Tyrosh itself falls to an amphibious assault spearheaded by a commando assault led by Victarion Greyjoy that seizes the Bleeding Tower, and the resulting fighting leaves Tyrosh isle largely destroyed and almost entirely depopulated.
The Winter War:The coming of Winter after the Destruction of Tyrosh does not prevent Khal Pobo, whose oath of vengeance for Khal Zirqo's death has been joined by Khals Achrallo and Radozho, from leading their combined khalasars across the Myrish border. Ser Brus Buckler, Lord of Campora and Warden of the Eastern Marches, leads the army of the eastern districts against them, but he is defeated at the Battle of Piper's Creek, largely due to Volantis' contribution of a battery of siege engines to Pobo's horde. Ser Brus flees back to Campora with what remains of his army, but Pobo follows up his victory by besieging Campora and taking it by storm, killing Ser Brus during the sack and taking the surviving citizens of the town as slaves. The Royal Army, under the command of King Robert, arrives shortly afterward and pursues the horde to the village of Novodomo, where Pobo turns around and counterattacks; the battle ends in a strategic draw, with Pobo himself slain and his horde broken by the casualties it sustains but the Royal Army too exhausted to pursue further. King Robert vows revenge on the Dothraki.
The Upper Mander Rebellion:Alarmed at the measures Stannis has taken to centralize power under the Iron Throne and egged on by the rhetoric of Septon Ryman, a coalition of minor nobles from the Upper Mander region raise their banners in revolt against the Iron Throne. An initial attempt at suppressing the revolt by Lord Randyll Tarly fails and Bitterbridge is taken by treachery, but Stannis is undaunted and scores a major propaganda victory with a midwinter raid through the territory of the rebels while Mace Tyrell rallies the lords of the Lower Mander to the Iron Throne. When Spring arrives, the rebels are brought to battle at Tickclose Field and decisively defeated. The reprisal measures that Stannis takes against the surviving rebels lead to the first recorded instance of him being labeled 'the Grim'.
Balon's Rebellion:Upon receiving word of the Upper Mander Rebellion, Balon Greyjoy declares the independence of the Iron Isles from the Iron Throne and leads his fleet on a surprise attack against the Westerlands to remove the greatest obstacle thereto. Lannisport is attacked and partially sacked before the assault force is driven off by the city garrison, the Banefort is devastated, and Fair Isle is captured with the seat of Faircastle sacked. After the Upper Mander Rebellion is wrapped up, Stannis leads his and Mace Tyrell's army down the Mander to the Shield Islands, where they are joined by the royal fleet, a small contingent from Dorne, the Hightower's and their vassals, and an Ironborn fleet under Ser Harras Harlaw which swears to Stannis. This combined fleet sails northward and defeats the Iron Fleet in battle off Fair Isle, despite the death in battle of Euron Greyjoy, the master of ships. Rodrik 'the Reader' Harlaw surrenders Fair Isle on terms, and is later executed for treason by Balon. Stannis' fleet links up with an army of Westermen, Riverlanders, Northmen, and Valemen at Lannisport and sails to the Iron Islands, where the remaining Ironborn strength at sea is defeated in the Battle of the Strait. The Isles are then reduced one by one, often with a degree of savagery hitherto unseen in Stannis' wars. Eventually Castle Pyke is stormed and Balon himself killed in battle by Ser Sandor Clegane. The Iron Isles are effectively divided up between the southern kingdoms, with Kevan Lannister named Lord Castellan of Pyke, Lord of Orkmont, and Warden of the Iron Isles, and the Iron Code is instituted to drive the faith of the Drowned God underground.
The Free Cities
Braavos:The last several years have seen a rollercoaster of fortunes almost unprecedented in the Commune's history. The Pentoshi Emergency, ending as it did in the effective conquest of Pentos on the Commune's behalf by the Sunset Company, more than doubled the Commune's mainland territories, and increased it's good agricultural land by a factor of three or four, at virtually zero cost to the Commune beyond the Sunset Company's wages. The destruction of the Braavosi squadron in the Battle of Tyrosh might have put an end to this streak of good fortune, being the worst naval defeat that the Commune had suffered in decades, but the defeat was subsumed by domestic politics as the Shark faction, which favored direct involvement in the Slave Wars, used the shame of the defeat and the depredations of Khal Zirqo the Faithless to convince the Braavosi public that it was time to join the fight against slavery whole-heartedly. The Great Armament and the Destruction of Tyrosh has done much to redress the debt of blood in the minds of the common Braavosi and the marriage of King Robert of Myr to Serina Phassos has helped sway the hearts of the Braavosi towards their new allies, but even the acquisition of Tyrosh isle (renamed Martyros) and it's possessions in the Narrow Sea could not mitigate the impact of the next blow.
The Expulsion, the massacre or eviction of Braavosi trading communities from the slaver cities in retaliation for their part in the Destruction of Tyrosh, has effectively hamstrung the Braavosi economy. A hasty reorientation of the Commune's eastern trade to Westeros and the Kingdom of Myr, along with the agricultural windfall of the conquest of Pentos, prevented a general economic collapse, but the economy has nonetheless seriously contracted. Many trading houses are a shadow of their former selves, while others have been forced to declare bankruptcy. Only its reputation has, so far, saved the Iron Bank from serious damage; it is simply too big foranyoneto consider it failing, even the slavers. It still holds a significant number of their promissory notes, after all. The most prominent casualty of the Expulsion, however, is none other than Ferrego Antaryon, the Sealord himself, who has submitted his resignation to the Council of Thirty citing his age and his failure to prevent this latest tragedy from befalling the Commune. As the Council of Thirty dusts off the procedures for electing a new Sealord, it remains to be seen whether the Commune will rebound from this setback as it has so many others, or if the Commune has at last been irrevocably set on the road of decline.
Pentos:Having been conquered by the Sunset Company ('liberated' is the term more advisably used in public) and remanded to the suzerainty of Braavos, Pentos was the first of the Free Cities to see its status quo upended. By and large the upheaval has proved popular with the people of the city, especially the former 'bond servants' who were set free and compensated with the wealth of their masters. The non-slaveholding freeborn have been won over by the fact that Braavos has prevented any serious reprisals on the part of the former bond servants against them and has allowed them to continue working in business and in government virtually unimpeded so long as they adhere to Braavosi laws. The slaveholding freeborn might have objected, but those that are still alive to do so are now serving as impressed oarsmen on the Commune's galleys; those of them that didn't serve at the Battle of Tyrosh served in the Great Armament, ironically enough.
So far, the main threat to Braavosi Pentos has proven to be Dothraki khalasars coming over the Velvet Hills, such as Khal Zirqo the Faithless. This has resulted in the Viceroyalty of Pentos having some difficulty in attracting sufficient settlers and investors to fully populate the city's hinterland, but the Viceroy has two irons in the fire on that score. The first, allowing settlers from Westeros, many of them religious refugees, to settle in Andalos-that-was on condition of submission to the Titan's laws, is paying dividends so far as the Westerosi have proven to be industrious and reasonably law-abiding, although the refugees tend to be tiresomely sanctimonious. The second, encouraging Braavosi citizens to take up the life of country squires, has proved slow to get off the ground thus far, but the Viceroy has high hopes for its success given the effects of the Expulsion.
Old Myr:Following the Conquest of Myr by the Sunset Company and the coronation of Robert Baratheon as King, the former elite of Myr have been sorely reduced from their former power and riches. Many of them were killed in the Conquest, and those that survived have almost invariably taken the first opportunity that came up to join their countrymen in exile; less than one in every thousand of the old Myrish aristocracy still lives in Myr city. These exiles fought valiantly, and viciously, in the First and Second Slave Wars, but the casualties they sustained in those wars have driven them to the verge of extinction. Prior to the Third Slave War the exiled Myrish fled their former haven in Tyrosh in order to preserve themselves from the Great Armament and eventually made their way to Volantis, where they have made common cause with Viserys Targaryen.
The other Old Myrish freeborn have been largely left alone since the Sack, but their influence has been much reduced. Most have decided to fully reconcile with their new King, choosing to ape Westerosi speech, dress, and manners, on the theory that the more Westerosi they seem the more the Westerosi will accept them. This societal conversion has led the Old Myrish to regain some of their former standing in the guilds and trading companies, although the freedmen who have taken over the leadership of those institutions almost universally regard them with a jaundiced eye. The Iron Legion has made it known that no Old Myrish will be welcome in its ranks, a policy unofficially but tacitly supported by the Crown, but the Old Myrish have responded by grooming their sons to become the pages and squires of the chivalry in hopes that their eventual ascension to knighthood will allow their families to regain the status they had.
Some families, however, have not reconciled to the new dispensation, and silently chafed under the preference shown to freedmen in virtually every quarter of public and commercial life. Most of these families have chosen to emigrate, either to Pentos or, more recently, to Martyros, hoping to escape the opprobrium that attaches to them in Myr.
Tyrosh:The Destruction of Tyrosh has reduced its people to the status of exiles as well. Of these, the largest communities are in Lys, where they form a respected clique of merchants and bankers, and Oldtown, where they are regarded with mild suspicion at best and open hostility at worst. The Oldtown Tyroshi have earned some respect from their fellow-citizens by funding the Hightowers' part of the counterattack against Balon's Rebellion, but their leaders are painfully aware that they still exist on sufferance.
Lys:Lys remains the Lovely, despite the wars, but things are changing in this most idyllic of the slaver cities. It's Captain-General, Daario Naharis (recently dubbed 'Daario the Defiant' for repelling a Myrish border raid), has used his proconsular powers in active war zones to effectively replace slavery with indentured servitude within twenty miles of the border, justifying it as necessary to ensure the security of the border country and prevent the sort of incident that sparked the Second Slave War. This, more than anything, has impressed upon the inhabitants of the Lyseni mainland the danger that the Kingdom of Myr poses; if the Captain-General taking such a broad view of his powers is militarily justifiable, then the Myrish are so dangerous a foe that they must be held at bay at all costs. Consequently, mainland Lys is rapidly coming to resemble an armed camp, with the younger generations of the magisterial families forming volunteer companies made up of their tenants and retainers and each plantation taking steps to fortify at least the great house if not the whole property.
The isles of Lys, on the other hand, are doing their best to carry on business as usual. The inhabitants of the isles feel secure enough behind their fleet, given the Expulsion of the Braavosi and its consequences for the Commune, that they don't yet see the need to militarize to the degree that the mainland has. The relative quietness of the border since the winter raid that Daario repulsed is starting to breed overconfidence, and some questions are already being asked in the Conclave if the taxes levied to pay for the city's current military expenditures might not be excessive. Currently the Gonfalonier is standing with Daario in maintaining the necessity of such high military expenditure, but unless something changes the opposition may grow in boldness.
Norvos:Is currently walking the tightrope. They cannot afford to offend Volantis by taking the necessary steps to fully placate the Kingdom of Myr and the Braavosi, but at the same time they cannot afford to offend the Kingdom of Myr and the Braavosi by declaring neutrality. The Expulsion has been a godsend to them on this front, as they are now one of the few entry points the Braavosi yet have to the trading networks of eastern Essos, thanks to Norvos' connection to the Rhoyne. The Norvosi have chosen to allow the Braavosi to continue trading within Norvos, knowing that the Braavosi feel that the tariffs they must pay are worth being able to placate at least some of the demand for the commodities of the East. The bearded priests, however, are increasingly under the apprehension that their city's current modus vivendi is living on borrowed time, and that at some point in the not-too-distant future they may be forced to make a choice. The debates in the council chambers of the Great Temple are increasingly strident, but have yet to reach any substantive conclusions; the pro-slavery faction still maintains a majority, but it is too narrow to win a vote on the issue by the margin required.
Lorath:The weakest of the Free Cities has taken a path dictated by that weakness. Faced with a choice between allying with Norvos and allying with Braavos, Lorath chose to declare neutrality, appeasing Braavos by instituting a scheme of gradual emancipation. Lorath has also declared itself open to all who come seeking refuge from the wars that are wracking the continent, and has already attracted a fair few refugees. Lorathi citizens have emigrated to take part in the fighting on whatever side pleases them, but Lorath itself has declared that it will take no part in the Slave Wars. This position is underscored by the fact that Lorath is small enough and far enough away from the co*ckpit of the fighting to get away with neutrality, but the Ibbenese have registered protests at Lorath's adoption of emancipation, even a scheme as gradual as the one they have adopted, and the Maze City is casting wary looks at its eastern neighbors.
Volantis:The greatest of the Free Cities is also doing the best of the current situation. Two short, sharp, and victorious wars against Mantarys and Qohor have asserted the city's dominant position in the lands between the Narrow Sea littoral and Slaver's Bay and expanded it's territory up the Rhoyne to Dagger Lake, further than it's writ has run since the Fall of Valyria. It's only setback on the foreign policy front to date is its failure to conclude an alliance with Lys, despite the Lyseni's apparent desperation for a strong ally. But under the surface of apparent dominance, Volantis is a city on the edge of erupting. A rash of minor slave revolts, both in the city and in its vassal towns and hinterland, has led to the institution of brutal reprisal measures; the penalties levied against disobedient slaves now start with death by hanging and get more inventively unpleasant from there. Fears of the tiger cloaks, the slave soldiers of the city, being suborned by the abolitionist rhetoric of the Kingdom of Myr has led the Triarchs to countenance their decimation in the war against Qohor, with the survivors being demobilized and settled in the western borderland as free farmers. The Red Temple, having so far refused to excommunicate it's daughter temple in Myr, is now under continuous surveillance, and the red priests and the members of the Red Hand are tailed by Triarchal spies whenever they leave the Temple grounds. Most worryingly, the two largest sellsword companies in Volantene service, the Golden Company and the Exile Company, are now apparently on friendlier terms than should be expected of them, given the feud between their respective founders. The Triarchs have attempted to mitigate this rapprochement by keeping the companies separated and have set agents to sow dissension between them, but these efforts are having little effect. Only the recent rediscovery by the tigers of their martial heritage, mirroring the volunteer movement in mainland Lys, is allowing the Triarchs to sleep more or less soundly. Their hope, thus far, is that if the companies revolt then the city's homegrown warriors will be sufficient to repel them, and that in the meantime the threat of a general uprising by the slaves that hate the companies as much as they hate their masters will keep everyone's mind focused. How justified that hope is remains to be seen.
Qohor:. . .
Chapter 101: Challengers
Chapter Text
Khal Drogo smiled the smile of a sated predator as he viewed the ruins of Qohor. It had taken almost two whole years, but he had finally done it. Khal Temmo was avenged, and the old insult of his defeat finally wiped out.
It had begun as such things had begun since ancient days, with a demand for gifts sent to the walkers of the city. Ordinarily, such a demand would have been light enough that the walkers could fulfill it while still being reminded of their inferiority to the Dothraki, but Drogo had deliberately made his demand too great for the walkers of Qohor to pay. The defeat of Khal Zirqo had threatened to destroy the natural order, in which the Dothraki were held in proper respect by the walkers who gave them gifts to avert their wrath. When order was broken, the very world was imperiled; the balance had to be restored.
So Drogo had made his demands, the Qohori had been forced to refuse, and Drogo had unleashed his riders against a city weakened by the war they had lost. All winter they had ranged through the city's hinterlands, burning out the farming towns of the Qohori hinterland and driving the farm-folk into the snow to be hunted like gazelle on the plains. The Qohori had tried to defend their people, but their riders were so slow and clumsy as to be unworthy of the name, and their infantry had first cowered under the rain of arrows, and then they had broken and run to be hunted. Only the few Unsullied that had marched out had fought like men, but there had been too few of them and they had been shot down where they stood. When Drogo's khalasar returned to ride before the walls of Qohor, it was with Unsullied heads, still wearing their famous spiked caps, dangling from their saddle-bows, and with captives that were tortured and raped before the walls to show what would happen if the city did not surrender.
What he would have done if the Qohori had stood firm Drogo could not have said, unless it was to pen them up within the walls for another year while he burned their lands around them, cutting them off from the crops that fed them and the trade that made them rich. Sooner or later they would have broken. But they had not stood firm. A slave had come to Drogo's tent from the magister who commanded the city's Unsullied, bearing news that the priests of the Black Goat had called for a great sacrifice of the children of the magisters, in order to petition the Black Goat to put forth his power and save his people. His master, the slave had said, would open the main gate for the khalasar if Drogo agreed to slay and spare none of the Goat's priests, and also if he would spare him and his household from the city's fate. Drogo had initially been inclined to scorn the offer (was he weak, to take victory from another man's hands?), but the shaman had all but begged him to accept it; by his arts and the horse god's grace he might be able to counteract such a ritual as the slave described, he had said, but it would be better if the ritual could be forestalled from ever happening. When gods took the field, he had said, even the mightiest warriors fought in vain. So Drogo had sent the slave back with his word that no Dothraki would slay the magister or any member of his household and that the priests of the Black Goat would die where they stood, and the very next night the main gate had opened, allowing the khalasar to stream into the city while the Unsullied held the gate open until it was too late.
What had followed was what had happened every time the Dothraki had taken a city in the days of Mengo and Moro and Temmo; every adult male was slain, along with a great many others, and every other living human was taken as a slave. The priests of the Black Goat had been slaughtered within the precincts of their temples, their pleas to their goat-god going unanswered. The Unsullied who had opened the gate were caught up in the massacre and killed to the last, damned by the human-hair braids that adorned their spears and reminded the riders of the shame of Khal Temmo's defeat. Only the smiths of the city escaped the general ruin, for Drogo had given instructions that the smiths were to be taken as slaves of the khalasar; he had heard of how the walkers of Myr fought in iron dresses that protected them from bow and arakh and allowed them to tear through riders like lions through sheep; his riders, he knew, would need weapons that would enable them to pierce those dresses, when they faced the walkers of Myr in battle. The magister who had opened the gate for them had also survived, but Drogo had ordered him and his household taken and held apart, save for two of the magister's daughters who had caught his eye; those he had taken for his own. The magister had protested until Qotho had broken his jaw with a casual backhanded blow, and then he had been silent. Tens of thousands of Qohori now filled the camp of the khalasar, to be either kept by the riders who had taken them or sold in the markets of Vaes Dothrak.
And that was just the slaves. Qohor had been rich, even after the gifts they had been forced to give the Volantenes. Gold and silver and crystal and gems and tapestries and spices and rugs and blankets and furniture and weapons and cloth of a hundred kinds and colors . . . There was so much to be taken that the khalasar could not take it all. Some of the riders had resorted to burying what they could not carry, marking the caches thus created against the day that the khalasar came this way again. Drogo had given much of his loot away to reward his kos and the best of his riders, but he had kept a Valyrian steel arakh that had been found in one of the famous forges of the city, along with a magnificent belt of entwined gold and silver and electrum and bronze and enough coin to acquire what the khalasar would need in Vaes Dothrak.
When the killing and taking was done, Drogo had ordered that Qohor be razed to the ground. The walkers, he had told his riders, had forgotten what it was to face the wrath of the Dothraki, and so it was time to remind them. His riders had fallen to the work with a will; every building in the city had been put to the torch, until the heat and smoke of the growing inferno had driven the khalasar from the city. For five days the city had burned, the riders cantering about the walls and chanting drunken songs of victory while the new slaves wept for their home, and when the last flames had finally died down all that remained of the City of Sorcerers was the walls that had failed to defend it.
Drogo nodded.Nowthe balance was redressed, and the walkers reminded of the proper order of things. There was only one thing left to be done before the khalasar rode away to find greener pastures for the horses. He turned in his saddle to face his bloodriders. "Bring the magister, and his people," he said. "And prepare the herd." His bloodriders trotted away, and within moments Qotho and Haggo returned with the magister and his household between their horses. The magister looked Drogo in the eye, his face full of sorrow and the hate of betrayal.We had an agreement,his eyes accused. Drogo replied with a look of withering scorn. Not only was the man a walker, and so beneath contempt, but he had betrayed his people to the wrath of their enemies to save his own skin; any Dothraki would have eaten dirt before doing as he had done. But then even among walkers the Qohori had been contemptible, with only the Unsullied allowing them to even pretend to be men among men. It was not to be remarked upon that, stripped of that protection, they would resort to such baseness. That said, there was no need for Drogo to break their agreement egregiously.
After all, he had observed to the shaman, he had told the magister that noDothrakiwould slay the magister, or the members of his household. The shaman, catching Drogo's drift, had agreed that the horse god hated treachery as a matter of course, even when it benefitted his people. And in any case the magister was a captive, and Drogo's to dispose of as he pleased.
Cohollo rode up on Drogo's other side. "The herd is ready, blood of my blood," he said. Drogo nodded to him, and then drew his new arakh and gestured with it. Blows and curses drove the magister and his household into the channel between the two halves of the khalasar, who had been drawn up to witness this last act of justice. As a trio of Drogo's slaves bound them to tent pegs that had been driven into the earth the night before, Drogo walked his horse forward a pace. "These ones," he said, his words striking out into the silence like blows, "betrayed their people to save themselves, earning the ire of the god. So I say that they shall share the punishment of all such traitors." He backed his horse, stood in the stirrups, looked to his left, and waved his arakh overhead.
There was a sudden volley of whistles and whip-cracks, and then a rumble like thunder over the plains as the khalasar's remount herd was driven down the channel. The magister and his household pled for mercy, but not one of the riders on either side lifted a finger to help them. It was tradition, after all, that traitors die under the hooves of the horse god's earthly children. When the river of horses finally finished passing over them, the Qohori were no longer recognizable.
Drogo nodded in satisfaction and gave the signal to prepare to ride. As his khalasar flowed away to break camp, he rode his horse back to his tent with his bloodriders around him, smiling grimly. One old grievance against the Dothraki might be settled, but another waited. The walkers of Myr might be more fearsome than most, by all report, but they too would fall. The god willed it so, and he, he knew, was the god's instrument, his scourge upon the earth.The walkers of Myr shall weep even louder than those of Qohor,he vowed,and the flames that consume their city shall rise even higher. And when they are destroyed and their lands grass for horses, then we shall ride from the poison water to the White Mountains, and all shall tremble before us.
But before aught else, the khalasar would return to Vaes Dothrak. The head of the great idol of the Black Goat would be installed along the godsway, he and the shaman could make sacrifice to the horse god in thanks for its aid, his men could spend the loot and sell the slaves they had taken, his new smith-slaves would be able to do their work, and he . . . Drogo smiled again, this time in anticipation. Khal Pobo had come to Vaes Dothrak a beaten failure and left it with two khals in his train, and not minor ones either. How many mightheexpect to lead, after such a victory as this?
XXX
Stallen Naerolis didnotbreathe a sigh of relief as Magister Rahtheon's personal secretary ushered him into the man's office. For one thing, the government of the Company of the Dragon, now the Exile Company since its welcoming of True Myr into its ranks, followed the precautions of war in all things, thanks to the Company's mutually suspicious relationship with the Volantene Triarchs. Underneath the hustle and bustle of scribblers and messengers and orderlies that even the relatively small government of a mercenary company needed there was a careful watchfulness and strict attention to the measures that Magister Rahtheon had put in place to ensure security. At the end of each day all waste paper was collected and burned under the eye of armed guards, while all continuing paperwork was placed under lock and key in Magister Rahtheon's office, to be dispensed the next day only to those who had turned it in the day before. No paper left the office unless it was first reviewed by Magister Rahtheon himself or by Noriros Brenion, who as Comptroller had been given authority over some of the Company's financial matters. Stallen didn't know what measures exactly were being taken to counteract the Triarchy's spies, but he was sure that they existed in rigorous detail.
For another thing, he never allowed himself to relax in the presence of Magister Rahtheon. Stallen knew enough of politics to know that it was Rhaegar Targaryen's establishment as a power in Myr-that-was that brought the wrath of the Sunset Company down upon the city, and he knew whose patronage had allowed Rhaegar to rise so high in so short a time, from a nigh-penniless exile to king in all but name. Which was worse, the beast who struck when provoked or the fool who provoked it?
He stifled the old feeling of resentment, opened the satchel that hung at his side and which he had kept a hand on since dismounting his horse, and handed the grizzled Magister the folded letter within. "Personal dispatch for you, my lord," he said in the bland tones of the professional courier that he had become, using the code that let the magister know it was from the Golden Company. They might theoretically be secure in this manse that the Company had recently bought, but theory threshed no wheat, as the saying went.
Magister Rahtheon took the letter in an ink-stained and liver spotted but still strong hand. "Any trouble along the road?" he asked, as he always did, meaningWere you followed?
"Only the usual, my lord," Stallen replied, as he always did, meaningNot that I could tell. He might be the Exile Company's primary messenger to and from the Golden Company, but as far as the Volantene government was concerned he was merely an errand boy for Universal Exports, the trading company that was the public face of the Exile Company's treasury. His latest excuse for leaving the city for the western border country had been to collect reports on the olive, cotton, and wool crops that Universal Exports owned a share of for export overseas. It worked because it was partially true, his satchel also held those reports, but it was the letter from Toyne that would land him in a soundproofed cellar under the custody of some very persistent gentlemen with a variety of unpleasant tools of persuasion. The Triarchs were nervous enough that the fact of the Captain-General of the Golden Company sending a (he assumed) coded message to the Master of Coin and Whispers of the Exile Company would be the spark that lit the wildfire.
Stallen's fingers twitched by the hilt of his long peasant's knife; gods and devils knew he had little enough love for the Volantene Triarchs already without their threatening his life. They had stood back and looked to their own profits while Myr was sacked and Tyrosh burned and their people either massacred or scattered to the winds, ignoring every plea for aid. It was not the Triarchs who had offered True Myr refuge when they arrived in Volantis, but Viserys Targaryen and the barrel-chested magister who had interceded for his countrymen with his nephew-in-law and king, regardless of the fact that it drew even closer and more nervous attention from the Volantenes. Whatever game King Viserys and Magister Rahtheon were playing, Stallen would shed no tears if it involved the destruction of the Triarchy.
Magister Rahtheon broke the seal of the letter and scanned it briefly. "All seems in order," he said. "If you will wait at your usual hostel, I will send a runner for you when my reply to this is ready. I assume there was no verbal message?" At Stallen's negative gesture the former magister nodded. "You may go, then."
Stallen bowed and left the office, allowing himself a momentary grimace as he closed the door behind him. He knew that Magister Rahtheon was wholly devoted to the restoration of his goodnephew to the Iron Throne and the downfall of the Baratheon brothers, but he also knew that he would never be able to rid himself of the anger he bore for the man's foolishness in harboring Rhaegar. From that one decision had resulted all of Myr's misfortunes since, from the Battle of Tara to their compelled flight from Tyrosh, with a toll of deaths in the tens of thousands. The magister would have a fine time explainingthatto whatever awaited him when he died, wouldn't he just?
At the same time, Stallen reminded himself, such things were no longer properly his concern. His surviving sisters were provided for, housing and clothing and maintenance and dowries and all, in return for which he was, body and soul, at the service of Viserys Targaryen. The boy-king himself had told him that if the Company was the dragon's fire and the Kingsguard its talons, then he would be the barb in its tail, disregarded until it struck home in the enemy's breast. He might almost certainly die in the dragon's service, Viserys had gone on to say, but the dragon remembered those who served it well, especially when their quarrels were as much its own as Stallen's was. Stallen had bent the knee for the first time that day, having seen the fire in the boy-king's eye and heard the steel in his voice. In his prior life, he would never have considered such an abasem*nt, but in that prior life he had not suffered the losses he had in this, nor seen his people suffer along with him. Here, at last, had been someone with the nerve and the balls to match Robert the Bloody move for move in the Great Game, and even if he was Rhaegar's brother that was nothing compared to his evident will to cast the Baratheon's down into the dust. Stallen nodded. Yes, he reflected, he had indeed found a king that day, and so long as that king's cause was his and his people's cause he would serve him as well as he could. Even if it meant stomaching Magister Rahtheon.
XXX
Ser Arthur Dayne looked down at the glove that had just been thrown at his feet, then looked back up at the young man who had thrown it there. "You cannotpossiblybe serious," he said incredulously.
Ser Gawen Dayne, a cousin from the High Hermitage branch of the family, flushed at Arthur's tone. "You have brought shame upon our House," he repeated, his voice thick with anger. "You have dishonored every Sword who went before you. Gods, man, look at yourself! A sellsword who takes orders from a boy of a fallen House not worth the effort of extermination! This after defending a kidnapper and rapist from the just revenge of his victim's family! Even the Wyls never sank so low!" There was a growl from the other knights in the hall of the manse where Viserys was holding court, but Ser Gawen plowed on; he was already committed. "You have three choices,cousin," he spat. "Either surrender the sword," he pointed at Dawn's hilt where it rose above Arthur's shoulder, "along with your title and your name, or fight and let the Warrior show you how far you have fallen. Or refuse to fight and let all men see you for the cur you have become"
Arthur looked the young knight in the face. "Do you have any idea what the oaths of the Kingsuardare?" he asked, letting some of his own anger leach into his voice. "Do you know what itmeansto bind your life to another's? Gods, boy, have you ever even fought another man in earnest, much less killed one? I'd swear you weren't even old enough to shave."
Ser Gawen's face went from flushed to blazing; he was probably prouder than he should have been of the fine-grained moustache and goatee he sported, even though it made him look like a cut-rate mountebank. "I have challenged you once," he spat. "I cannot do so again. That you refuse to fight says all that need be said of your baseness." He turned to where Viserys sat on the carved chair that served him for a throne. "You would do well to find a better Lord Commander, Your Grace," he said with the barest minimum of courtesy. "It seems this one left his balls on Rhaegar's pyre."
"I never said," Arthur interjected coolly, "that I refused to fight you." He turned and bowed to Viserys. "Although I will of course abide by His Grace's command in this, as in all things."
Viserys nodded. "It is against my will, ser, that any man should insult the Lord Commander of my Kingsguard without being made to defend his words," he said, only grimacing a little when his voice broke involuntarily. "You have my leave to fight him here and now, so that our Court may witness your defense of your and our reputation."
Arthur deepened his bow. "As Your Grace commands," he replied. Rising from his bow he stripped off the white cloak of his office and passed it to Ser Barristan, who accepted it with a nod, and then stepped off the low dais that had been set up for the throne, pulling the baldric that carried Dawn over his head and withdrawing the greatsword from its carrying loops. Ser Gawen, his lips tight with what Arthur could only guess was anticipation leavened with nerves, tugged on his gauntlets to make sure they were seated properly, accepted a basinet from his nervous-looking squire, and then drew his own greatsword as the Court stepped back to give them room to fight.
Three passes later, Arthur had his cousin's measure; he was well-trained but inexperienced, and evidently unable to tell a feint from a true blow without feeling it on his blade. And whoever was teaching the greatsword at High Hermitage these days was either not properly appreciative of the importance of non-linear footwork or not properly forceful in teaching it to his students. A simple envelopment would be all that was necessary. Thought, at Arthur's level of swordsmanship, was action. He threw a forehand cut that brought Ser Gawen's blade up into the guard of the crown, then a moment before impact he snatched Dawn's blade away, rolling it back and up anddownas he took a gliding advancing step to his right front and pivoted to his left, and with an unmusicaltingDawn sheared through Ser Gawen's right couter and mail sleeve and dropped his forearm, still encased in vambrace and gauntlet, to the floor.
There was a momentary pause as Arthur recollected himself from the blow and Ser Gawen dropped his greatsword to clutch at his truncated limb with his remaining hand as he collapsed to the floor with a shocked cry, then a soft clap started a round of applause. "Well struck, Ser Arthur," Viserys said as Arthur pivoted on his heel and brought Dawn up in the salute. "We find that this settles any question as to your repute." The boy-king looked at Ser Gawen, who was now voicing a high-pitched moaning as his squire scrabbled to remove his rerebrace and pauldron and apply a tourniquet. "And what, ser, shall we do with you?"
"If I may, Your Grace," Arthur said, lowering Dawn so that it rested in the crook of his elbow with his hand holding one of the quillons. "I pray you let this knight heal and return to Westeros when he is again well enough to travel. A knight without his dominant hand is punished enough for any insult."
Viserys smiled. "Ser Arthur, you taught us the law of arms yourself, did you not?" he asked.
Arthur bowed again. "I did, Your Grace," he replied.
"As I recall your teaching," Viserys went on, "a trial by combat such as this solely determines the defendant's guilt. The punishment to levied against him remains to be determined by the relevant power." Arthur bowed acknowledgement. "We are the relevant power in this case," Viserys continued. "And it is our decision that the insult this man gave to us and to you still wants redress." He turned to Ser Garin Uller, who as the one Kingsguard without other duties was responsible for the discipline of Viserys' Court. "Ser Garin, remove this man to the cells and see him doctored for his arm," he ordered, pointing at Ser Gawen, who had gotten his moaning under control and whose arm was only bleeding sluggishly through the tourniquet his squire had put in place. "When his arm has healed, have him beaten until he repents of his calumny against Ser Arthur and his ill manners towards us, and then put him on the first ship to Westeros. We are not concerned with how he pays for his passage, only that he is removed from our notice."
Ser Garin bowed. "I obey, Your Grace," he said, and striding to Ser Gawen he took him by the collar of his cuirass and bodily dragged him from the hall, snapping armored fingers to bring Halfmaester Hollard trotting after him, while Ser Gawen's squire strode along at his knight's side holding a rag to the bleeding stump.
Arthur ran through a dozen responses before dismissing them all and settling for passing Dawn to his squire Beleqor for cleaning and taking his cloak back from Ser Barristan, giving a miniscule shake of the head to his brother's inquiring look. Viserys had passed judgment in open Court; there was absolutelynothingthey could do. They were his guards, not his courtiers. If they had anything to say about what he said or did, it would have to wait until Court was dismissed and he solicited their views on the business of the day. And while Viserys was only five months past his thirteenth nameday, he was already as strong-willed as Rhaegar had ever been. Getting him to change his mind would be difficult at best and, Arthur reflected as he re-pinned his cloak, possibly counterproductive. Restoring the dynasty to the Iron Throne would take a strong king, after all, and a king who was easily swayed by his advisors would not be strong enough to take on Robert the Bloody and his fellow rebels, much less Stannis the Grim and his executioners. No, he decided as a trio of servants descended on Ser Gawen's blood with mops and buckets, he would say nothing. After all, it was his place to guard, not to question.
In addition to which, he reflected as the servants sponged up the last of the blood and Viserys gestured for the next petitioner to come forward, arguing about this matter of Ser Gawen would only distract from the argument he truly wanted to win with his king. After almost seven and a half years in exile, it was high time that the Kingsguard was brought back up to strength. Viserys had mentioned that giving a white cloak or two to Essosi members of the Company would be a good way to reward and further bind their loyalty to the dynasty, but Arthur disagreed. The Essosi might be worthy enough, the gods witness, but they were not,could not, be as worthy as men who had left everything behind for the sake of loyalty. No, the highest honor that the Kingsguard represented had to be reserved for those who had made the greatest sacrifices in House Targaryen's service. He had hoped that Ser Gawen had come to offer his sword to Viserys until he had thrown his glove at his feet, but his cousin was not the only knight to come east since the Exile. Half the petitioners who had come to the sparsely decorated manse that served Viserys as a temporary palace were men that Stannis had driven into exile with his despotisms. Such men would hate Robert as much as Stannis, for abdicating and allowing him to come to the Iron Throne in the first place, and Arthur knew that men with nothing to lose and everything to gain were always the most dangerous.
XXX
"The Gonfalonier and the Conclave aremost pleased, captain," the judge said, sounding for all the world like he agreed with them. "Pleased enough, in fact, that they chose to add a gratuity to the reward." He pulled a folded paper out of the wide sleeve of his robe of office. "A note of hand in the name of the City, signed by the Gonfalonier," he explained. "Good at any bank you care to name."
"Except those in Myr, I dare say," Salladhor Saan said drily as he took the note, glanced at it, twitched an eyelid at the amount, and passed it into a pocket in one of his own sleeves. "Not that I would attempt it, of course. There are old captains and bold captains, but few old bold captains." He paused, then pressed on. "Speaking of which, how will he end?"
"Master Rackham?" the judge asked; at Salladhor's nod he shrugged eloquently. "He is a pirate taken in the act, and bearing letters of marque from an enemy state," he said simply. "He will die the death the law prescribes for such."
Salladhor nodded, his mouth tightening; he had seen a man garroted once, and that was enough for him. There was a reason that no pirate in the Narrow Sea would kill even his most hated enemy by strangulation except in the heat of combat. "I would take it as a personal favor," he said slowly, "if his end were made as quick as the law could allow."
The judge raised an eyebrow. "Is he a friend of yours, that you ask this?" he asked mildly.
"Not personally," Salladhor replied, shaking his head. "It is a question of fitness. That he must die I do not dispute, only that he must die like a dog."
The judge nodded. "I will consider it," he said in the same mild tone. "Will you attend the execution?"
Salladhor shook his head again. "I have the tide and the wind to catch, and matters I must attend to in the city before then," he explained.
"Then far be it from me to detain you," the judge said. "Good fortune on your voyages, captain, in the city's service."
Salladhor nodded. "Good fortune to you as well," he said pleasantly, waiting until the judge had turned his back to grimace. He had always hated judges, and this one reminded him why. A smugger, more superior collection of men with no more actual worth than so many beggars, in his opinion. At least begging required a certain degree of physical strength and mental fortitude in order to survive. As a matter of fact, two of the men who fell in around him as he strode out from under the colonnade around the courthouse had been beggars before they had joined his crew. Lazlo had warned him of an attempted robbery one night in Volantis when he had gotten drunker than he should have, and Riszlan had given him some very helpful advice just before a meeting with the magister whose neighborhood Riszlan had begged in. Both had been pathetically grateful for the chance to get off the streets and prove themselves men, and they had been both fiercely loyal and cheerfully vicious in his service ever since.
As he entered the street with his men around him, Salladhor couldn't help a sour feeling stealing over him despite the brightness of the day and the pleasantness of the weather. To be sure he was now several thousand ladies richer from official income alone and it was a fine thing to be a respected and occasionally honored mainstay of the City's forces, but wealth and honors alike were poor compensation for the look Jon Rackham had given him when he took the stand to give testimony about the circ*mstances of his capture. If looks could have killed, then the mingled reproach and loathing in Rackham's eyes would have struck him dead on the spot, if not reduced him to ashes. But what could the man have expected? He knew that Salladhor had taken a privateer's commission with the Lyseni Conclave after fleeing Tyrosh, and he had to have guessed that one of the conditions thereof would have been that Salladhor would make a point of hunting down those pirates who had taken the letters of marque that the Myrish and the Braavosi had offered. That being so, he had only himself to blame for being taken alive, tried, and condemned to the garrote. Salladhor clicked his tongue derisively to himself; he had reconciled himself to the dangers of a pirate's life years ago. If his fellows hadn't done so, then that was their affair.
None of which mitigated the fact that he had helped send a man to the stranglers. He spat aside and touched an amulet that hung from his sword belt.Pirate's life, he told himself sternly, and forced his mind back to business. He did indeed have matters to attend to before the evening tide, which would no more wait for him than for any man. And the business that waited for him on the sea was, he had come to understand, vitally important. He was hardly a good son of Lys, but there was a difference between a son that stole from his mother's house and a son that allied with reavers to burn his mother's house to the ground and see her raped and murdered. He could admit, intellectually and for the sake of argument, that there might be some merit to the cause of the abolitionists, but there were better ways to effect change in the world than the one the abolitionists had chosen. He glanced at the beauty of the city around him and winced; since Tyrosh he could all too easily imagine Lys in flames, its people lying massacred in the streets and its beauty destroyed. War, he knew all too well, was nothing more than a clash of monsters, but there had always beenrules. The Andals, and the slaves they had freed and armed, had thrown the rules overboard with their mad crusade. Such a war as they meant to fight was not a matter of business, as war was supposed to be, but a matter of survival.
Well and so, he reflected, tracing a thumb over the hilt of his sword. If they meant to destroy his home, then let them come. He was no coward, and even an old pirate who had changed his colors as often as he had could choose a hill to die on. It might as well be a beautiful one.
Chapter 102: Warm Peace
Chapter Text
As a general rule, Jaime preferred wine for his drink, and that as good as he could afford. Being Tywin Lannister's son and one of Aerys' Kingsguards had exposed him to good wine from a young age, and the rough-edged and sour stuff that most establishments served as table wine he now found physically difficult to drink. When wine was not available he preferred the pale, hoppy ale that Western brewers had made popular across half of Southern Westeros; his father, he remembered suddenly, had introduced him to it. The realization made him grimace as he lowered the drinking horn.How many times am I going to run up against my father,he asked himself bitterly.
Fortunately, his companion mistook the reason for his expression. "A proper man's drink, eh, Lannister?" Victarion Greyjoy asked with one of his booming laughs, taking a pull at his own horn as he did so.
Jaime could only nod as the alcohol in the mead struck him; the sweetness of the drink had concealed its potency, as strong as any wine he had ever taken. "Indeed," he said when he trusted himself to speak properly again.
"Come, then, fill up again!" Victarion said expansively, indicating the firkin he had placed on the table. Jaime debated answers for a split-second and then mentally threw up his hands.The Hells with it,he told himself as he worked the tap,I'm going into exile, I might as well get properly drunk.
He was, in fact, sailing on the morning tide; after months of preparation the embassy to the Summer Isles was finally ready to depart. Victarion had come up from Ironhold to advise on the best course to the Isles, and this evening he had shown up at the door of Lion House with a firkin of mead on his shoulder and two drinking horns in his other hand, saying that he had come to share drink with a shield-brother. Since his arrival they hadn't talked of much beyond gossip; the most astonishing thing to learn was that there were rumors that Lyn Corbray, of all people, was finally choosing a bride. Victarion had done his best to keep the conversation jolly, but Jaime couldn't help but feel that he was deliberately ignoring the issue that everyone else seemed to feel free to bring up with him.f*ck it,he decided as he took another drink. "My lord, let's have it."
Victarion raised an eyebrow. "Have what?" he asked, sounding for all the world genuinely curious.
"I made a proper mess of things, didn't I?" Jaime asked, letting his voice turn self-deprecating. "Pissed away my inheritance, mucked up our diplomacy with Westeros, made Lysa Tully kill herself . . ."
Victarion waved a plate-sized hand. "Hold hard, there, man," he interrupted. "The Tully girl's death was unfortunate, yes, but she's the one who chose to jump. Unless you pushed her out of that window yourself there's no blame left for you, so you can butt out of that."
Jaime blinked, covering his confusion with another swig of the mead. Looked at that way, he could see the logic, even if it was entirely too flattering to him to sit well. "The kingdom, then," he said, spreading his hands and already past caring about the potential of spilling his mead on the carpet. "I could have done more for the kingdom as Lord of the Rock than as a knight."
Victarion shrugged as he let the apple in his throat flutter, then lowered his horn. "That's as may be," he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, "but it's also neither here nor there. You choseusover the Rock, over the legacy of your fathers. Whether it was wise or foolish doesn't matter; you chose loyalty over wealth, and that's all I need to know." Victarion aimed a finger at Jaime. "I might be as thick as the planks of my ship sometimes, Lannister, but this much I have learned over the years; a loyal fool is always better than a self-interested genius. The former might not be the sharpest knife in the block, but you can count on him to do the best he can, to mean well in doing it, and to do his best to make right what he does wrong. The latter," he flicked his hand. "The latter you can't trust not to turn on you between one breath and the next, because he thinks it best for himself. And then you have to kill him, because he mistakes his own pride for his people's glory and doesn't know that it is better to lead your people into a bright future than to shackle them to a dead past."
Jaime tipped his head as he tried to piece things together through the muzziness that was already descending. "You're talking about Dagmer, aren't you?" he asked finally. He had heard about the duel; who hadn't? There were already half a dozen songs about it that he knew of. And to be fair, there had probably been ample material for them; it sounded like something out of a chanson.
Victarion nodded, staring moodily into his horn. "Aye," he said. "Dagmer needed to die. He was a good man, in battle and out of it, but his honor demanded he set a course that would lead all with him to ruin. It would have stained our honor to let him kill so many in a cause that any fool could see was lost." He looked back at Jaime. "We might not have your code of chivalry, Lannister," he said grimly. "But we hold that a captain must remember his ship and his crew, and not just his own glory. I mourned Dagmer, but as I did so I remembered that he would have led some hundreds of my people to their deaths." He shook his head. "If only he had died in battle, as a man like him should have," he said with a gusty sigh. "He might have found it in Pyke, and truth be told I would have let him seek it, but he would not sail alone."
Jaime nodded as he lowered his horn, trying to ignore the feeling of looseness in his neck. "If he had sailed alone, he'd have found a death alright," he said. "My bloody father would have seen to that."
"Aye, like as not," Victarion rumbled. "Some nights I dream about it; Pyke in flames, the people dead or scattered, Balon dead on the Seastone Chair . . ." He shook his head. "I loved Balon once," he admitted. "If he'd asked it of me, I'd have fought to the death on the spot, or sailed the Iron Fleet to your seventh hell and conquered it for him. But then he asked me to break my oath, damn his eyes, and then he wouldn't accept that I had grown bigger than him, as a lord and as a man." Victarion's face was stormy now, and his horn creaked in his grip at what Jaime assumed were remembered slights. "That selfish bastard," Victarion snarled, "would have denied me the glory I won with my own craft and courage, when he had not the balls to sail forth and make a name to equal mine. When I would have taken as hard a blow for him as I would have for any of my brothers!" He paused. "Barring Euron," he amended. "Gods, the man could be an ass."
Jaime choked on his mead at this blunt dismissal of Stannis' master of ships, a famous fighting sailor in his own right, spraying mead as he chuckled.
"Can you not hold your mead, man?" Victarion asked teasingly as a smile crept over his face, refilling his horn. Jaime glanced down at his horn, realized it was mostly empty, and held it out in mute challenge. Victarion filled it to the brim with a twinkle in his eye and raised his own horn. "To the asses of our family!" he cried. "May we be well shot of them all!"
"Shot of them all, by the gods!" Jaime roared, and drained his horn.
What happened afterwards he could not for the life of him remember the next day when he woke up with the worst hangover of his life and only two hours to prepare for sailing. Victarion, his valet told him as he hastily washed up and changed his clothes, had been dragged off to a guest room to sleep off his own hangover, which Jaime hoped was just as bad as his own. He would, he decided as he pulled on his cote, have to arrange some gesture of thanks for the big Ironborn on his return.
XXX
Serina Baratheon could not help the smile on her face. It was a beautiful spring day, all was right with the world that she could make right today, and she was currently engaged in helping set right one of the things she couldn't make right today. The fact that doing so combined royal duty and familial obligation with personal pleasure was simply the gravy to the roast.
No sooner had she learned exactly how great a financial crisis was facing both the Kingdom and the Commune than she had made arrangements for a shopping excursion into the city. She was a merchant's daughter; she knew that money was made to be spent, not to gather dust in a vault. She also knew that one of the better places she could spend money in times like this was in the poorer neighborhoods of Myr city, in shops whose keepers spent almost all they earned. The money she spent in those shops, she had explained to Robert, Ser Gerion, and Ser Wendel, would in turn be spent by the people she gave it to, either on the necessities of daily survival or on goods and materials to restock their shelves. The people who received the money fromthosetransactions would be either small merchants, craftspeople, or farmers and fishers, who would in turn spend it on the thingstheyneeded on a daily basis, and so on and so on and so on. A silver shield spent in Cheapside or Waterfront would buy several times its face value before finally coming back to the Treasury in the form of taxes.
As for why she herself had to go out into the city, the argument there was twofold. The one that had won Robert over was that a queen that knew good product from bad and paid fair value was one that the people of the city wouldrespect, more than simplyrevere. The other, which had had Ser Gerion and Ser Wendel nodding agreement, was that the true foundation of the world of finance wasn't gold or silver, butconfidence. If the Queen of Myr was confident enough in the economy of her capital to spend money in it and form business relations with its merchants, then that was a powerful vote of confidence in its resilience and sophistication indeed. Powerful enough to make other potential investors, who might otherwise have kept their purses and their mouths closed, open both in order to find out what deals could be made in Myr city.
There had been another argument as well, which had also done much to win Robert over. Part of Serina's plan for securing the inheritance of her children had been to befriend Robert's natural children, and one of the easiest ways to do that was to win over their mothers; if nothing else she had to reconcile them to the fact that their children would always come behind Serina's. And while she might have very little in common with either Alaesa, a former slave, or Cora, a peasant woman, to build a friendship on, she knew that it was a rare woman indeed who didn't like spending a day shopping, especially if it wasn't just for household necessaries.
Which was why she, Alaesa, and Cora were examining the inventory of a clothier in Cheapside while their escort of two squads from the Brotherhood of the Broken Chain watched the front and back doors and kept the children from getting underfoot. Cora had already selected the fabric she needed for a new dress for Mya, who was twelve and shooting up like a weed, but Alaesa and Serina were still in search of the right material.
"Too rough," Alaesa said definitively as she rubbed the edge of the bolt of linen between her fingers. "It'll chafe, and nothing makes a baby fussy like chafing."
The proprietor, a thin man with wispy hair and a fussy demeanor, gave the nodding half-bow common to shopkeepers the world over. "Quite so, my lady," he said. "My sister had exactly such an experience with her eldest boy. If you will excuse for a moment . . ." he scuttled over to one of the walls, his fingers spidering over the shelves as he muttered to himself, and then settled on a bolt that he drew off the shelf and brought back to the table where Alaesa and Serina were sitting down. "This," he said as he unrolled a hand's breadth of the fabric, "is a blend of cotton and goat wool; a Dornish invention, or so I am told. Apparently, the goat wool comes from the Red Mountains, where it is used for scarves and gloves and hats, and the cotton is from the Greenblood, where farmers raise it alongside their regular crops to sell in Planky Town."
Alaesa rubbed a corner of the fabric between her fingers; her eyebrows lifted involuntarily at the fineness. "How did it come here?" she asked.
"A cousin of my sister's husband works as a longshoreman, Your Grace," the proprietor said, "and at the tail end of the winter a trader captain from Dorne found that his partner here had been engaged in misfeasance to such a degree that he had no ready cash to pay the longshoremen who unloaded his ship. So the cargo was broken up to offer payment in kind, and this bolt was part of my cousin-in-law's wages from that job. His family no longer needed cloth fit for winter clothes, winter being close to ending, so I bought it from him for the shop. It is no longer winter, yes, but babies, my sister has told me, must be kept warm at all times, so . . ."
Serina nodded. "It should do well for a swaddling blanket," she said. "How much?"
Twenty minutes of agreeable haggling saw not only the Dornish bolt but a bolt of finer linen than the one that Alaesa had previously rejected wrapped up for delivery to the Palace of Justice later that evening. "The greatest of pleasures doing business with Your Grace, ladies," the proprietor said as his assistant, who looked enough like him to be a nephew and probably was, carried the payment back to the shop's strongbox. "And if I may be so bold as to ask, Your Grace, when might we expect the blessed event?"
"Four months, or so Maester Antony tells me," Serina said, patting her bulging stomach.
The proprietor folded his hands and bowed. "I shall pray and light candles for you at the sept and the Red Temple, Your Grace, and for your child as well," he assured her. "And so will my whole family; I will ask them to this very evening." His assistant nodded animatedly, sketching the seven-pointed star in the air with his hands as he bowed.
"I could wish that they weren't so fervent about it," she told Alaesa as they walked up the street towards Bahaan's Bakery, where they would buy rolls for luncheon. "I mean, I'll happily take the prayers on my behalf, but it's not like there's any great risk."
"From your lips to the gods' ears, girl," Alaesa replied. "Labor is nothing to take lightly, whether it's your first or your fifth. And I'd think that you'd have an idea why they're taking it so seriously."
Serina nodded. She knew full well that the same child that had given her the most abominable morning sickness and made her have to pee with frustrating frequency was the Kingdom's best hope for a stable future, especially if it was a boy. It was, after all, one of the main reasons that Robert had married her. "How was it, when you bore Stalleo?" she asked, gesturing at the five-year-old boy who had his mother's hand clamped in his and was looking around him with the wide-eyed curiosity of the young.
"Thirteen hours, from the first cramps to him finally coming out," Alaesar replied matter-of-factly. "And as hard work as anything I ever did, I don't mind telling you. The cramps alone . . ."
There was a sudden flurry of motion in the corner of Serina's eye, and in the next instant she and Alaesa and Cora and the children were all pressed together as their escort closed ranks with a hiss of drawing swords while screams rang through the crowd. There was a roar of "Death to the . . ." cut off by the wetcrunchof a blade going home in someone, then a flurry of noise that sounded for all the world like a mix between a smithy and an abattoir, and then a baying roar and an onset that even through the ranks of the Brotherhood Serina felt like a gale as the crowd descended on what she could only assume were assassins. A flurry of commotion later, and then Ser Cormac Brand, the commander of the escort, called out, "Clear!" in his gravelly voice.
As the Brotherhood squads expanded outwards from the close ring they had formed around them, Serina stood from where she had crouched with her arms around Alaesa and Cora, both of whom had crushed their children against them. She straightened her dress, clearing her throat, and turned to Ser Cormac. "Our thanks, Ser Cormac, for suppressing this intrusion," she said in a voice that she forced to calmness despite the shaking in her hands. Assassins had come close before, she knew, but this was the first time that they had actually come close enough to make an attempt. "I assume that the culprits are awaiting our pleasure?"
"Only as regards their funeral arrangements, Your Grace," Ser Cormac replied as he saluted with his recently-cleaned sword. "The crowd killed the ones we didn't."
Serina looked and almost immediately wished she hadn't; only the ones that had died on the Brotherhood's blades were still recognizable as human beings. The ones the crowd had gotten to were only so much blood and meat. "So I see," she said, laying an admonitory hand on her belly as her child kicked her in the stomach.Enough of that, you; I don't need to vomit here and now."Our thanks to you all, for your zeal," she said, lifting her voice as the people in the crowd hurriedly doffed their hats and bowed. "I only ask that in future you remember that the Watch cannot interrogate corpses."
"Here's one that isn't a corpse, Your Grace!" came a call, and a trio of well-built young men, Ironborn judging by their dress and the way they wore their beards, shouldered through the crowd; two of them were holding a fourth man, evidently unconscious, by the arms while the third had him by the ankles. They dropped the unconscious man to the cobbles and doffed their sailor's caps. "The Watch can ask him," said the evident spokesman, a man with seaman's wrinkles and rusty-blonde hair and beard, "why he made a signal right before these curs," he flicked the toe of a boot at one of the dead assassins, "took their knives out and came at you."
Serina raised a hand to forestall the ugly murmur that was building in the crowd. "I am certain they will," she said coolly. "Ser Cormac, see that one," she gestured at the unconscious man who had been dropped in a blood-pool, "taken in custody; he is not to die before he has answeredallthe questions we will have for him." As Ser Cormac nodded and gestured for a pair of legionaries to bind the man she raised an eyebrow at the young man. "Your name and style, ser?"
The young man bowed. "Ivar Drumm, Your Grace," he said, his accent thickening. "These are Lucas Humble," a brawny, round-faced man who was flushing bright red as he bowed, "and Dalton Pyke," a leaner man with a facial scar that was impressive for a man his age. "We landed two days ago after sailing from Lordsport," Ivar explained, "and hoped to serve in Your Grace's fleet."
Serina nodded. "Come to the Palace of Justice tomorrow at noon," she said, "and we shall speak further. In the meantime, place yourself and your friends at the disposal of the Watch in attending to the remains of this business; they will need your statements of evidence if this one," she indicated the man being hauled to his feet as he struggled back to consciousness, "is to face charges for his actions." As Ivar and his friends deepened their bows she turned back to Ser Cormac. "Let us leave this matter in the hands of the Watch, ser, and carry on; we have yet to conclude the remainder of our business."
"By your leave, Your Grace," Ser Cormac rumbled, "I would prefer it if we conveyed you and the ladies back to the Palace, in order to better preserve your safety."
Serina lifted her chin. "The day I allow fear to dictate my actions, ser, will be the day I renounce my crown," she said calmly and clearly, affecting not to hear the approving rumble from the onlookers; she might break down shaking later, but while she was still in public she would, by all the gods, play the part of the imperturbable monarch to perfection. "We shall deposit the prisoner at the nearest Watchhouse, and then we shall continue on our business."
Ser Cormac's face worked for a moment, and then he covered his objections with a bow. "As Your Grace commands," he said.
As they began to proceed up the street Serina glanced at Alaesa and Cora. "If you would prefer to cut this excursion short," she said in an undertone, "then I am sure that I can make do with only one squad for my defense; the other should be able to see you back to your homes."
Alaesa and Cora exchanged looks. "If Your Grace will give us leave to do so," Cora replied tentatively.
"I do," Serina said, to which Cora replied with a grateful nod. The Valewoman was brave enough in her way, Serina knew, but not the sort to pretend an assassination attempt was simply a momentary inconvenience; she had yet to uncurl her arm from around Mya's shoulders or stop her eyes from darting around the street. Mya, for her part, was wide-eyed and white-faced with nervous reaction, although Serina could swear she saw a hint of excitement in the gangly girl's eyes. Gods pity whoever they decided to marry her to when that day came; they would have to make sure he knew what he was getting into. Alaesa, on the other hand, simply nodded with a guarded look in her eye; the former slave was made of sterner stuff than Cora, but she was also sharp enough to know that Serina was taking advantage of an opportunity to politely assert her superiority. Proclaiming an assassination attempt to be beneath concern was all well and good, but carrying on with one's plans in spite of one's friends taking the opportunity to scuttle back to safety gave the force of action to what might otherwise be mere words. She was also smart enough to know, unless Serina missed her guess, that raw courage counted for as much as any other quality with the people of the Kingdom, and that since Serina would never set foot on a battlefield she would have to make the most out of every opportunity to defy assassins. Even if it meant manipulating the women who were supposed to be among her closest friends, which the plain-spoken Alaesa obviously found distasteful.
Serina forced herself not to shrug. Alaesa might have had the courage to make a decent queen, but courage was worth little unless it was supported by the appropriate degree of guile; this the Braavosi had learned even before the Unmasking. And while she would be glad to have her husband's former paramours for her friends, she did not need, or for that matter want, them to be her equals. The Throne, after all, was only large enough for one person to sit on, and that person would be her child, whether it was the one currently stirring in her womb or some later one. She would do everything she could, she had vowed, to make their rule as strong and stable as she could make it, and to do that, she had to be Queen in truth. And not just a Braavosi Queen, either, but a Myrish Queen, with all that that implied.
XXX
Robert glowered at the courtyard through the tall, unadorned windows of Wolf House. Not ten minutes ago he had been down there, helping little Brandon take a turn about the place on his pony, as part of his resolve to take a personal interest in the welfare of Ned's family while his Fist was overseeing the reconstruction of the East. Since it was his orders that had sent Ned east, it behooved him to make sure that his family did well in his absence, and politically it did well to remind people of the bond of brotherhood between him and his officers. In addition to which, in his heart of hearts, he had to admit that he was compensating for not having been able to do as much for Stalleo; Alaesa had wanted to avoid any confusion about the boy's place in the succession, not least in his own mind, and his Council had agreed with her. And since Alaesa had invited Cora into her household the same now held true for Mya. At least he had been able to give his bastards a better name than Summer; Mya and Stalleo were now surnamed Robertdon, after the ancient custom of the Stormlands. He might be forced by policy to be a distant figure in their lives, but by the gods he would show that they were his blood and that he was not ashamed to be their father.
But no sooner had he gotten little Brandon, squealing joyfully and drumming his heels against the sides of his stolid and long-suffering pony, halfway around the courtyard than Gerion and Adaran had arrived to bring news of another assassination attempt. One that, he realized as Ser Gerion wrapped up the narrative, had come uncomfortably close to succeeding.
"Make a note; I would see those three Ironborn well rewarded," he said into the silence after Gerion finished speaking.
"I believe Her Grace already intends to do so, but I shall make arrangements," Gerion replied. "I find it odd, though, that Ironborn fresh from the Isles would sail to the city and not directly to Ironhold, in order to take service with Lord Greyjoy as quickly as they may."
Robert turned away from the window, his glower turning into a puzzled frown. "You suspect a ruse?"
Gerion shook his head. "I consider it unlikely, Your Grace, but we would do well to err on the side of wariness. Urrigon Greyjoy was last seen in Lys, after all, and if he does not turn pirate then he may well rally Ironborn exiles to Volantis and the service of the Targaryen; Gods know he is taking in every other exile he lays hands on. And I would remind Your Grace that the Ironborn who have come east since Balon's Rebellion have ample reason to hate the name of Baratheon."
"And more reason to hate the name of Lannister," Robert said darkly as he stalked away from the window towards Ned's desk. "This bloody farce of a peace in the Isles; I swear it reeks to high heaven of Tywin. And Gods know Kevan is in it up to his eyebrows, though at least he does it publicly. Stannis has always been cold one, but . . ."
"It was neither Tywin's nor Kevan's signature that made the Iron Code law, but Stannis'," Gerion observed mildly. "And time and care changes us all, for better and for worse, whether it shows or not. I pray Your Grace will forgive me, but we both know that your correspondence with your royal brother is not what it was."
"Been reading my mail again, Lannister?" Robert rumbled darkly, knowing as he spoke that he was being unfair; Gerion had always been true, and given good counsel. It was this latest attempt against Serina, and Alaesa and Cora and the children, that was making him lose his grip on his temper. Attempts on his life, or Ned's or any of his other officers', was one thing; they were all men of war, and had accepted the likelihood of a violent death when they had become knights. But sending hired killers after his wife, and his children, and their mothers . . .
"I serve at the pleasure of the Crown," Gerion said formally with a short bow, interrupting Robert's train of thought. "If Your Grace is dissatisfied with my service, then I beg your leave to withdraw."
Robert snorted. "As if I would cut off a Hand of your caliber," he said with a mix of irritation and levity, waving for Gerion to straighten from his bow; they went through this song and dance about once a month by his reckoning, and it had gone from being serious to being a mild jest between the two of them. Adaran had been aghast the first time he had witnessed it, but by now he had seen it often enough that he hadn't even stirred from where he stood at parade rest near the door, one hand on the buckle of his belt and the other on the pommel of his side-sword, apparently relaxed but to the trained eye clearly ready for anything. "Now tell me; do you think the man will know anything useful?"
Robert had had years to learn to read Gerion's shrugs; the one he offered now appeared to combineuncertaintywithdoubtwith a dash ofresignation-to-duty. "No effort shall be spared, of course," the youngest brother of Tywin Lannister said urbanely, "but I would not advise Your Grace to hold your breath; whoever has charge of such things among the slavers these days has been careful enough with his information in the past. At most, he will know price his services commanded and the location of the safehouse that he and his cohorts used, which will doubtless be stripped bare of any evidence by the time we extract the address. The Kindly Man may know more, but I doubt that he will know very much more."
"The Kindly Man . . ." Robert mused, planting his fists on Ned's desk. "Do we still not have a name to put to this outlaw?"
"If I may, Your Grace," Adaran piped up. At Robert's gesture he continued. "Your Grace, the Kindly Man appears to be less of an outlaw and more of an free-lance intelligencer; a Master of Whispers without a King, as it were. If nothing else, it shows in his methods. Simply contacting him is a matter of sending messages through I cannot begin to guess how many cutouts. Hunting the man himself, or even the trail of his deeds, is akin to searching for a particular needle in a heap of needles. What wehavefound that can be laid at his door is no more than venial criminality, and if I may be so bold, Your Grace, I would suggest that we have enough threats to face without adding on a mere parasite who occasionally does us a good turn."
Robert regarded his goodbrother with a measured eye; since Tyrosh he was hardly to be recognized as the self-conscious bravo that had trailed an almost literal cloud of self-doubt and wounded pride. War, he knew, did that to a certain class of person, breaking down the façade of vanity and self-conceit and reforging them into something harder and sharper. The gods knew it had happened to him drastically enough. It seemed to have happened to Adaran, too, although there was a sharpness to the younger man that made the short hairs on the back of his neck start to prickle. He had learned from Jon Arryn that war made some men unfit to live at peace, either with themselves or with others, and hoped that his good brother would not be so afflicted.
"Well, I shall trust your judgement in that matter, since you have made a study of it," he said. "As for the rest, I assume that there is nothing to be done, again?"
This time Gerion's shrug all but screamedresignationas he spread his hands. "What can be done, Your Grace?" he asked rhetorically. "You know as well as I that we cannot afford another war, and will not be able to for some time yet. Daario Naharis has proved that the system of defense he has emplaced on the Lyseni border is effectively impervious to ought short of a full-scale invasion. The Dothraki are no closer than Ny Sar, and the latest report is that the khalasar there has turned back east. The Volantenes are too far to consider a blow, and that they are not yet openly in the field against us is a boon due only to the unsettled state of their internal affairs. As it stands, we cannot even evict the slavers' merchants because there are no merchantstoevict, unless we count the smugglers, who the slavers cannot care less about, in public."
Robert tapped a sledge-like fist against the surface of Ned's desk, fighting back the urge to throw it out the window. It wasn't his desk to throw, after all, or his window to throw it out of. Instead he stalked over to the sideboard and poured himself a shallow cup of the dark Northern ale that Ned preferred to wine; the bitterness of it matched his mood. Times like this reminded him too much of Pentos, and the Peace he had been forced to accept there. Unconsciously he raised a hand to finger the dragon that still hung from his neck, the one that sneering pretty-boy of a Lyseni had given him.
"That being said, Your Grace," Gerion continued cautiously, "we may be able to find another way to answer this latest outrage. It will almost certainly not be chivalrous, in even the loosest sense of the term, but with some study I am sure we can find a way to give them a blow."
"Do so," Robert ordered as he sipped at the ale again. "Whatever way you find, make sure that the blow stings; I would convey my displeasure in the strongest terms available." He might have scorned the possibility of using the Faceless Men, but that was as much because they were mercenaries as because they were assassins; if he was going to order someone assassinated, then it would be one of his people who received the orders, and carried them out under the rule of war. He certainly wouldn't hide behind any such weaseling phrase as 'plausible deniability'; the first time he had heard that phrase, from Vito Nestoris, it had taken all his self-control not to make an insult out of it.
And the unutterable swine had come entirely too close to killing his wife, his former paramours, and his children. Some things simply could not be endured, even for honor's sake.
Gerion bowed again. "I shall arrange, Your Grace," he said, baring his teeth in a feline smile.
XXX
Petyr couldn't help adding a flourish to the last line of the last page of his report. "And that," he said triumphantly as he returned his quill to the inkpot built into his lap-desk, "is that."
Across the fire Jorapho Scrivener looked up. "It's finished?" he asked.
Petyr nodded with a grin as he sprinkled sand on the page to fix the ink and stretched out his hand. "Yes, it's finished," he replied, placing the page upside down on the stack of pages beside him and flipping the stack right way up onto his lap-desk. "One cadastral survey, signed, sealed, and ready to be delivered. The clerks and the lawyers will have to take their turn at it and doubtless we'll be giving evidence before the Inspectors for months but otherwise, our part of it is done."
"Bloody finally," Jorapho said jovially, leaning over and drawing a bottle out of his pack. "This calls for a drink, I believe."
Petyr nodded. "Most certainly; a drink for every man," he said eagerly as he bound his report in oilskin and twine to protect it; the thought of the four hundred-odd page document being damaged and having to be rewritten was enough to give him the cold sweats. He placed the report in the oak-and-steel chest that had been built specifically to hold the report when it wasn't being worked on, locked it with the key he hadn't removed from around his neck since the survey had set out from Sirmium so many months ago, and placed the chest between his feet before standing from his place by the fire that had been built in the courtyard of the ruined plantation and accepting the small pewter tankard that Jorapho handed him. "Friends!" he called out, drawing the attention of the of the three squads of Legion infantrymen, two Royal Inspectors, and the score of clerks who made up the rest of the survey, "the report is finished! We will yet need to convey it to the King and see it entered on the rolls, but that aside our mission is complete." He raised his tankard. "To the report!"
"The report!" the rest of the survey echoed the toast with a cheer; they had been on the road for months in weather ranging from the beautiful to the vile, enduring everything from poor hospitality to deliberate obfuscation to three attacks by 'bandits', but their work was almost done. The Great Survey of the West was completed, and all they had to do was get it back to Myr city, which even the greatest pessimist could not foresee any difficulty with. They were near enough to the coast that a day's march would see them to Brivas, and from there it would be a sennight or less by messenger-galley to Myr city. Once there they would be able to celebrate properly, but an extra ration of even the rough wine that the Legion issued its soldiers when beer wasn't available would allow a decent head start.
Petyr sat back down after accepting the congratulations of the other officers of the survey and smiled at Jorapho. "So what will you do, after this is all wrapped up?" he asked curiously; they had talked before, but never about the future. Jorapho had been strictly professional during the survey, with never a word for anything beyond the day's business and future measures and movements.
Jorapho shrugged as he sipped at his tankard. "Go back to my company and serve until I can't," he said, as if such a thing were obvious. "I've a few years left in me still, however stiff I get in the mornings, and there's still red in my ledger. And with this in my service record I should imagine there will be at least one promotion coming my way before I get mustered out."
Petyr nodded. "Like as not," he said encouragingly. "Ser Brynden promised me a promotion for doing this well, so I imagine everyone here will get at least some advancement out of it. And if they don't, I should be able to put in a good word for them. But what about afterward?"
Jorapho shrugged again. "There's always a use for a man who can read and write, no matter how old he is," he said self-deprecatingly. "The gods know that the Legion seems to need as many clerks as spearmen, nowadays. I'll get by."
Petyr nodded. He had seen Jorapho at work, over the course of the survey, and a steadier and more diligent man he had never met; hardly what he would have expected in a soldier. And the man's integrity had won plaudits even from the Inspectors; the first time someone had been foolish enough to try and bribe them, Jorapho had had to be restrained from cutting his throat on the spot. Afterwards he had contented himself with simply administering whatever summary punishment the Inspectors had ordered, which had usually been a beating, although he had still been given to muttering darkly about how he would prefer to reward such attempts at suborning treachery.
It would be a shame, he decided suddenly, for such a man to be put out to pasture if he wasn't willing. "If you find yourself mustered out," he said, leaning forward as he did so, "then call on me; I'll find you a place somewhere. Even if the civil service doesn't take you, I have business ventures of my own that could use a man of your qualities." That last was true, if less so than Petyr would have liked; the ventures he could think of that would most need someone of Jorapho's competence and bloodthirstiness would be the same ones that would be most likely to drive him into a rage, even if he could keep them a secret from the Royal Inspectors.
"Now that's a handsome offer," Jorapho said with a grin. "Thank you very much; I'll certainly keep it in mind."
As they tapped their tankards together to seal the bargain, Petyr smiled. It might have taken the whole trip for Jorapho to warm up to him, but he had finally thawed from his first attitude of icy correctness; it had probably been a bit much, in hindsight, to expect respect from a veteran of Jorapho's record without having seen combat himself. But with this bargain he had secured the man's friendship, and likely his future services if they ever became available. And that was something that one could never have enough of, especially if one had not been born to the high nobility and had to claw his way up from the bottom. Petyr's smile broadened as he sipped his wine and considered the future. The Handship might be out of his reach, but why not the Small Council? Sooner or later the wars would end, and then the men of the quill would have the opportunity to prove themselves as worthy of the kingdom's regard as the men of the sword. Swords might be necessary but you couldn't eat them, or make them into coin to spend on roads and harbors and other improvements. He had some ideas for the land he had just finished surveying that would remain in the Crown's possession that should turn a pretty little profit indeed, roads to connect rebuilt farms and reopened mines with the port towns and dams to facilitate waterwheels and suchlike, and King Robert had made it policy that Crown stewards and castellans could retain a small percentage of their bailiwick's produce for their own use, on the grounds that it would be more conducive to initiative than a flat stipend. Surely it could be argued that as the person with the original idea for such improvements, he should receive a portion of their first fruits, after the King's share was subtracted, of course?
Petyr leaned back, resting his feet on the chest that held his report, and smiled even more broadly at the future that stretched before him. With the success of this survey behind him, what could stand against him in his climb up the glittering stairs of power?
Chapter 103: A New Balance
Chapter Text
Campora had come a long way from its sack and depopulation by the horde of Khal Pobo, but it was by no means recovered. In this it reflected the countryside around it; so many villages had been destroyed that the produce of the few that had escaped and the even fewer that had been repopulated did not amount to a fifth of the previous yield of the eastern districts. Not that the population of the Kingdom of Myr hadn't grown, between immigration and natural increase, but that growth had only lightly touched upon the Eastern Marches. The immigrants gravitated either to Myr city and the other large towns, where jobs were to be had, or to the Western Marches, where tax remittances were being offered to those hardy souls willing to turn the former plantations into yeoman's farms, especially if they were Legion veterans, while the rising generation of Myrish smallfolk were busily engaged in filling in the gaps between their elders' farms and shops, or simply taking them over from parents too old to continue working.
There was, in fact, one segment of the population that had been more eager than any other to reclaim the East, and that was the Royal Army. Campora and its satellite villages and hamlets were now so many armed camps, with their walls rebuilt and their moats deepened, and every settlement had its Warrior's Field, the place where the garrison and the soldiers billeted there spent their days at drill. And not simply the close-order square-bashing of the Iron Legion and the ponderous, inertia-fueled maneuvers of the feudal cavalry, or at least not these alone.
On the battlements overlooking the Warrior's Field outside Campora, Ser Justan Osgrey narrowed his eyes as he watched his company of light cavalry perform the final set of maneuvers of today's exercise; 'from line, right incline into echelon of troops,' 'left about wheel into feigned retreat,' and 'right about wheel into charge,' all done at the canter. As the company rumbled through these maneuvers, meant to simulate attracting the attention of an enemy force, tempting them into pursuing the company away from their supports, and then turning about and crushing them, he braced himself for Lord Stark's comments.
"Nicely done," was the first comment of the King's Fist as he watched the company thunder across the Field, preceding their charge with a volley of javelins before following through with their falchions drawn. "A little slow on the wheels for my liking and the echelon was somewhat ragged, but otherwise nicely done. Still constrained to javelins?"
"Yes, my lord," Ser Justan replied. "We have made some attempts at archery from horseback, using Dothraki bows taken from Narrow Run and Novodomo, but we have not been able to use them with any effectiveness; the draw-weight is too high for men who have not been raised as archers, and such men are rarely good enough horsem*n to do more than stay on and steer at any pace above a trot."
Lord Stark nodded. "We will switch our efforts to using light crossbows, then, if we wish our light horse to have more ranged sting than javelins can provide," he said. "Detail one of your squadrons to such experiments, while the other squadrons continue these drills. Now, let us see the mounted infantry." As Ser Justan's company trotted off the Field, throwing a salute to the observers on the wall above them, and the newly-organized company of mounted infantry trotted onto it, Lord Stark raised an eyebrow. "Captain Marsh, I believe this is your command, yes? Describe what I am seeing, if you please."
Desmond Marsh, a wiry Northman from the lands around Long Lake, stepped forward as Ser Justan withdrew a half-pace. "As you know, my lord, Ser Brynden's office came to the conclusion that it would take another generation, at least, for the mounted herdsmen of the Kingdom to attain sufficient numbers and sufficient prowess at mounted archery to be able to match the Dothraki at their own game. So it was decided that we would attempt to marry the mobility of the light horse to the ranged strength of the chivalry's archers and the Legion's crossbowmen. In our first experiments, we found that archers and crossbowmen alone were too vulnerable to being rushed down and overrun; in the time it took a light horsem*n such as the Dothraki to close to sword-range, the archers would only be able to get off nine or ten arrows under ideal circ*mstances, while the crossbowmen were lucky to get off two bolts. Against an enemy as lightly armored as the Dothraki, this would still incur heavy losses, but the losses of the archers would be total, or close enough. So we halved the number of archers and crossbowmen in the company and replaced them with spearmen. The job of these men is to provide close protection to the missile troops, who in turn establish a zone where the light horse can retreat to if they face being overwhelmed by a superior enemy."
Lord Stark nodded as he watched the company demonstrate the sequence that saw them dismount, form square with horse-holders in the center, loose two volleys while the spearmen held the perimeter, and then remount and carry out a series of mounted maneuvers. "The transition from mounted to dismounted action and vice versa seems the moment of maximum vulnerability," he observed. "Has some way been found to mitigate it yet?"
Desmond shook his head. "The period within those transitions where the company can neither move nor fight seems unavoidable," he admitted. "So far, the only ways we have found to prevent the company from being rushed and overrun in that period are to either have the light horse close at hand to fend off any such attempt, or to have the regiment dismount far enough away from the enemy that it can form in time to repel a charge."
Lord Stark nodded. "Which would be far enough away that the enemy would simply be able to maneuver away," he mused. "The company would be able to advance to contact on foot, I suppose, but that puts them back at the beginning" He shrugged. "Not that it strictly matters; such a company as this is meant primarily as a defensive instrument, as far as the Dothraki are concerned." And the Dothraki, every man present was aware, was the foe that would most likely be faced on this frontier; the co*ckpit of any fighting with the Lyseni would be along the southwestern borders, and the Volantenes were simply too far away for the logistics to be practical. "Continue your experiments," Lord Stark went on briskly, "write up a report with your findings and recommendations, and Ser Brynden and I will review it. Anything else? No? Carry on, then."
"All in all, it went about as well as we could have asked, I think," Desmond said that evening as he and Ser Justan sipped at their drinks in the Crown and Shield, one of the taverns in Campora that primarily catered to officers. "No one missed a signal, no one tripped over their own feet and fell on their face in front of Lord Stark, no one's horse threw a shoe . . ." He shrugged. "And everyone showed to advantage, which is the main thing. Himself didn't find anything to criticize too sharply and what he did criticize we had answers for."
"And His Lordship is a reasonable man, within the bounds," Ser Justan replied. "If you have a problem, he just asks that you have a good explanation and a plan to fix it. Gods help you if you don't, though; I heard what happened when he came across a cavalry company that failed inspection twice running. Captain relieved on the spot, all the other officers demoted a grade, the company itself broken up and the lances distributed around other companies that needed to refill their ranks . . ." The pair of them shuddered; bad enough to suffer the humiliation of dismissal, but for the whole company to come in for the same treatment, with the standards withdrawn and the other officers and men having to bear the black mark of disgrace that came with such an incident . . .
Desmond clicked his tongue meditatively. "And that wasn't the only one," he said. "I heard of other companies that didn't measure up to their fellows getting put on the reserve list, and their officers given the choice of either half-pay or taking a land grant, either here or in the West. And not just cavalry companies either, but Legion companies as well. Part of this new regimentalization move, or so I heard from a friend at War House."
"Hmm," Ser Justan said noncommittally as he sipped at his table wine. He wouldn't have thought that Desmond Marsh had friends at War House, but the Northman had a name as an opportunist, always with an eye for a break or a chance. Not that he wasn't a good man-at-arms and a skilled captain, he wouldn't have been given the mounted infantry otherwise, but he had a shark-like streak of ambition that was a little too evident for Justan to be comfortable with.
That being said, he was willing to allow that the time seemed to demand ambitious men. Aside from the volatility introduced to the markets, one of the main effects of the Expulsion and its knock-on effects on the Kingdom's economies was that the Royal Army had come in for a general review and reorganization. The scrambling nature of the Kingdom's establishment and the 'all hands to the pumps' and 'come as you're able' nature of the Slave Wars meant that a vast profusion of companies had arisen, to the effect that, with the settling of peace after the Winter War and the failure of Lyn Corbray's raid against the Lyseni, War House had been reportedly overwhelmed at the confusion as companies from the same districts competed for recruits and supplies and facilities. Justan had heard that Sirmium town alone boasted no less than six separate Legion companies. So the Blackfish had issued a directive under Royal Seal; all companies aside from those raised and maintained under Royal mandate were to consider themselves on notice for reorganization. The Royal companies, the one Legion and one cavalry company stationed in Myr city and each of the major towns, would serve as the basis for new regiments, which would consist of the Royal company, which would continue to draw it's pay and rations from the Treasury, and the two companies of the district who performed best under the eye of the Inspectors, who would be classed as the Reserve and draw the monthly stipend due for men who performed their monthly training to the satisfaction of the Inspectors unless they were called to the banner, in which case they would be paid Crown wages. Companies that did not do so well under the eyes of the Inspectors would be degraded to Militia status, with their banners brought into storage and the officers and men furloughed into less martial occupations unless or until a need arose for them; if a Royal or Reserve company needed it's ranks refilled, then the Militia would be the first resource drawn upon, and in the case of a general call to arms the Militia would either fill out the ranks of the Army or remain home to maintain the garrisons. The actual strength that the Kingdom could muster was more or less unchanged, from all that Justan had heard, but the army that had marched the Destruction of Tyrosh would be unmatched for size in the Kingdom's history for some time, unless another general war broke out.
Justan himself had guessed at what was coming and re-applied himself to the duties of his commission with vigor. As the youngest son of a landed knight, he hadn't had the resources to survive being retired; the majority of his wealth had been bound up in his armor, his weapons, and the rouncey that was the best horse he could afford to keep, and after paying his squire and his valet his remaining coin fit into his belt-purse with room to spare. He hadn't even been able to afford the full panoply of a knight; his armor consisted of a gambeson, a ring-mail shirt (secondhand, and with arrow holes that had required patching), a kettle helmet (as much boiled leather as iron), gauntlets (mismatched), and nothing more. That same lack of wealth, however, had proved a blessing in disguise; he hadn't been in one of the feudal cavalry companies when the reorganization hit, but in one of the troops of light horse that had occupied a peripheral niche in the Army until the Winter War had highlighted the need for them. So while the cavalry companies saw their archers trimmed away to form the mounted infantry and their numbers and officers ruthlessly reordered by War House's regimentalization, the light horse saw themselves transformed from independent troops to consolidated companies, embodied as a Royal regiment with their own banner and the patronage of the King himself, and provided with sufficient funds to offer the forty shields a month of a man-at-arms' pay to every recruit.
It had been a godsend, for Justan himself and for the light horse as a whole, both financially and morally. The light horse had been looked down on in the earlier wars, both for their not being able to join the charge of the knights and the fact that they had mostly been paid in rations and the right to plunder the enemy. Now they had the means to give themselves the look of soldiers, instead of mounted pirates or brigands; Justan had given his kettle helmet to his valet and replaced it with a new half-helm after the Ironborn fashion, with it's nasal bar joined to the rim of the helmet by wide bars that curved around the cheekbones, and exchanged his mail shirt for a breastplate that was three-quarters the weight and far better against arrows. And while the chivalry squabbled amongst itself for places in the Royal and Reserve companies, the light horse felt a sense of purpose that united what had been a hodge-podge of herdsmen of half a score of nations, poor knights and men-at-arms like Justan, and a smattering of Dornish exiles. If, when, the Dothraki returned, the Royal Army would be waiting for them, and the light horse would be the first line of defense against the screamers. Campora would not fall again, not if the Royal Army had anything to say about it. The oaths that some of Justan's officers had sworn on the subject had been graphic.
Not that Justan expected an invitation to the tournament that would surely mark the birth of the long-awaited heir; such things were for men who were higher on the ladder of fame and fortune than he was, besides the fact that he was only an average jouster. But the personal elevation that came with the exaltation of his arm of the Army was gratifying, especially since he fully expected to die in King Robert's service. He had no lack of faith in his own prowess, he had survived the march from Campora to Novodomo and the battle that followed after all, but he was morally certain that he would never be able to save enough of his pay to be able to retire, even with the increase that had come with his promotion. Eight-tenths of what he earned he spent, between the expenses of daily survival and those of maintaining even the slight dignity that came with being the youngest son of House Osgrey, such as treating the officers of his company to dinner every sennight. What remained he divided between the reserve of coin he kept in his purse and an account he had opened with the Iron Bank, but even if the investments he was considering paid off beyond his wildest dreams he would never be rich. That being so, he had resigned himself to spending the rest of his life as one of King Robert's paid men.
As much as his brothers might have rebelled against such a fate, however, Justan couldn't bring himself to do so. He was not so tempted by the finer things in life, and he had reconciled himself to the low odds of his being able to marry before he turned fifteen. Moreover, there was more to life than self-advancement. Justan sipped his wine and stared off into space, his mind racing down the halls of memory; he had seen the devastation of this town after Khal Pobo had sacked it, and the trail of bodies that his horde had left behind it in its retreat. He had heard the rumors of the fate that awaited the men and women and children who had survived that dreadful march, sold as slaves in Volantis save for some children sold on to Astapor to be made into Unsullied. What was a knight for, if not to stand against such evil? And if his duty as a knight was to die in battle against that evil, then so be it; he had made that bargain when he received the accolade, and affirmed every day when he put on his belt and spurs.
Other men might raise monuments to themselves, in the castles they built and the Houses they founded, but Justan's monument, and those of his comrades who shared his circ*mstances, would be a defended frontier and a people that never saw the smoke columns on the horizon that heralded the approach of invaders. He tightened his grip on his goblet; the Black Lion might have been driven away by politics, but there was a chequy lion still lairing on this frontier, and if it was littler than it's black cousin it's fangs and claws were not to be despised.
XXX
The sun was lowering towards the west, and the builders were packing up their tools for the day. What would be a squat tower overlooking the length of gently-shelving beach that would serve the village of Great Tide as a harbor had risen another foot and a half of mudbrick frame filled with rammed earth, and the evening would be spent maintaining tools and preparing for the next day's labor. Alfric Ironwyk, the only captain in the village with no ship of his own and hence the elected headman, was making his last inspection of the completed work, scowling as he did so. He had ample reason to, the God witness.
He was a reaver, the son and grandson of reavers, going back to time immemorial. He had sailed under Lord Goodbrother's banner from his boyhood, joining his father on reaving voyages that had ranged from the Orange Coast to the Pentoshi strand. He had visited every isle of the Stepstones and the Basilisks worth mentioning, and paid the iron price of his manhood before he had turned fourteen. When Balon had raised his banner he had joined him, and at Lannisport he had paid the iron price for five thralls to work his family's thorp or loan to his lord's mines in lieu of taxes and two blonde beauties to work in his house and be his salt wives: the thought of them prompted a reminiscent grin and licking of his lips. He had been toasted with honor by Lord Balon himself during the great feast at Faircastle, in what had to be the headiest moment of his life.
And then the Storm God had led Balon astray; it was the only possible explanation for how sour his, and the rest of the Ironborn's, fortunes had turned after that. He had barely gotten away from the Battle of Fair Isle with his life, been forced to run from the Battle of the Strait having lost his ship and half his crew, and nothing would ever allow him to forget the bowel-freezing terror of Whistling Slope, when the greenlander cavalry had gone through them like an axe through a pastry. Only the fact that he had been on the far side of the shield-wall from that charge had saved his life, that and knowing that the only thing to do was take to his heels and pray he outran the rest of his fellows. It had taken half the coin he had taken in a long history of reaving to pay the fine and the necessary bribes, afterward, but Lord Tyrell had swallowed his story that he had been an unwilling rebel, who only followed his lord's orders. He snorted to himself; as if any Ironborn would be so weak-willed as that. Lord Tyrell, though, had more wanted to be loved than feared, apparently, and he had accepted Alfric's excuse and the testimony of his neighbors. Alfric had put his hands between Lord Tyrell's and sworn to keep the King's Peace and obey the law thenceforward, but he had done so with bile in his throat and a prayer in his heart that Tyrell's brat would be strangled with his own intestines when the Isles reclaimed their freedom, which with the God's help would come soon.
But whether it came soon or late, he would not be there to see it. The day he had seen the last free longships on Great Wyk put to the torch by Stannis' men had been the day that he knew that he could not bear to live under the heel of the Storm God's Own. There was only so much a man could be asked to stomach, and the sight of the burning ships piled on top of the drowning of the Seastone Chair, the installment of the traitor Harras Harlaw as Lord Paramount, and the stifling of the God's priesthood had been the leak that sank the boat. And all it would take was one neighbor with an unsettled grudge to have him dancing the hangman's reel; possibly worse, if anyone found where he had buried his salt wives or his former thralls denounced him. The stories from Pyke about what happened in such cases had been vivid. So he had gathered up his wife, his two surviving sons, and his newly married and more-newly widowed daughter, his last three surviving shipmates from the old days, and their families, and they had pooled their last resources to buy passage to Myr, where they could live as men were meant to.
What they found had almost given the lie to the rumors of a promised land. Balon's name and memory were as odious here as they had been in Westeros, and boasting of being one of his men, much less of the wealth and thralls and salt wives you had taken, was a good way to make enemies. Being forced to swallow his boasts had robbed him of any special influence he might have hoped to command, and instead of receiving land and wealth and title from Victarion he had been given only an allotment of supplies and a paper granting him the right to resettle this fishing village, which he understood had been burned out in the early wars of the Kingdom. From a freebooting reaver, the terror of the world-ocean, he had become atrader, forced to haggle with the inhabitants of the neighboring villages instead of needling them into telling him the best fishing spots or cudgeling them into making this place habitable again. Even the Pioneer sergeant who had been sent out with them seemed to think Great Tide a backwater, staying only long enough to see the line of the wall and the foundation of this tower laid before riding on with the promise that he would be back 'soon' to check on their progress. There was hardly even enough to drink, at least of things that would get him drunk; water they had plenty of from the nearby stream.
He spat over the edge of the tower. He had earned a ship once before; he could do it again. But first this tower, and the wall around the village, however much the women and the lesser Ironborn under him complained of the tents they would be living in until their houses were built. He had been driven from one home; he would not be driven from this one so easily. He glanced out to sea, then tore his eyes away as he berated himself for stupidity. To look out at the sea and feel the urge to set sail, to prowl a wealthy coast or stalk the trade lanes for a rich prize, or sail to the Stepstones or the Basilisks in search of a good fight, or even just to chase the horizon and see what wonders the world might have, and only afterwards remember that without a ship those greatest pleasures were forbidden him . . . That way lay madness. He shook himself roughly, remembering his vow. He would survive, and see his children and grandchildren regain the prosperity that was due them, and teach them to always remember the crimes committed against them and the unbelievers who had driven them from their homeland. A homeland that they would reclaim, or build anew here under this slave-loving Baratheon's nose.
For now, however, he descended the tower and took the lane that led to his hut, the first one in the village to be finished. His wife was waiting for him, and the jug that would drown out the thoughts and the memories.
XXX
As the wedding party left the sept, Ser Joren Potts barked out a command and the double file of mounted knights that lined the pathway out from the door raised their lances to form an arch. Lord Corbray blinked in mild astonishment at the display of honor, and then led his new lady under the tunnel of lances with their dangling pennants with a smile on his face wider than any Joren had ever seen on his lord's face. As they came out from under the arch to be faced with the wildly cheering crowd, Joren barked out the command to recover and the lances swept back to the rest position, held vertical at each knight's side with the butt resting on the little shelf that projected from the outside of each right stirrup.
Joren flicked his eyes over and saw that Lord and Lady Corbray were now deep in the crowd of well-wishers, most of them bannermen come in from their estates and lords who had traveled from further afield, as well as merchants from Myr city who were business partners of either Lord Corbray or his new goodfather, while around them swarmed tenant farmers from the nearby estates and townsmen from the town that had sprouted up at the foot of Forlorn Hall. Compared to the royal wedding, this might be a paltry affair, but it was still the premier social event of the year, by a considerable margin, and only outright physical incapability would have prevented most of the attendees from coming. "Dismount and fall out," he said, pitching his voice to carry through the brabble of noise from the crowd. "Well done, sers. I'll see you in the lists."
There were smiles all around as the score of knights who had formed the honor guard handed their lances off to their squires and dismounted; it would be some time until the wedding party had taken its place in the stands overlooking the tourney field, and until then the knights would have the opportunity to eat and drink for the first time in hours. But they weren't only smiling at the prospect of jousting under their overlord's eye, where their prowess and chivalry would be seen and remarked upon by the man himself. The reorganization of the Army had not spared the chivalry, and the regimentalization had been cruelly indifferent to traditions and bonds of shared service forged in the wars against Tyrosh and Lys. But Lord Corbray had stepped up to protect companies and squadrons that had earned his particular favor, and Gallowstree Squadron had been one of them. Even if they had lost their archers to the mounted infantry, they had not only retained their identity but even received a promotion of sorts; from a relatively unremarkable country squadron, they were now, at least on the official rolls, First Squadron, Second Company, Sirmium Cavalry, second in precedence in that regiment only to the Royal company. For that, the men of Gallowstree Squadron would follow Lord Corbray to the Seventh Hell, much less his wedding.
The more so, for some of them, because none other than First Septon Jonothor himself had come south to officiate, at Lord Corbray's personal request. Lord Corbray's knights tended to follow their liege-lord's example in religion, as they did in almost all else, and the chance to beg a blessing from the First Septon of the Reformed Faith himself was not to be passed up. Indeed, at least a quarter of the knights had intercepted Jonothor as he exited the sept and were talking to him with the sort of deferential earnestness they usually showed only to Lord Corbray. Joren shrugged to himself; if his comrades wanted to fawn on a heretic, then they could enjoy explaining their behavior to the Father when they died. And he had to admit that Jonothor had all the dignity and presence you could want from a septon, and his sermon on marriage had been stirring stuff. He sighed through his nose; if only the man hadn't been tempted to stray, he would have been a true ornament of the Faith. But he had, so there they were.
Joren handed off his courser to his squire Kyllan, who had been unwontedly serious ever since the invitation to attend the wedding had arrived, evidently out of fear that he would do something wrong that would reflect on his knight, and strode off to find Dinora, handing his gauntlets to his page Draqo as he did. As his servant, she didn't have the social standing to join him in the front ranks of an event like this, and had been relegated to standing with the other smallfolk. He had not, he told himself sternly, had any cause to make a fuss about it; the situation was the way it was and there was only one way to change it, which he had resisted taking. His father had never held any great position of authority, but he had instilled in all his sons the importance of doing right by those you were in authority over, and seven timesnevertaking advantage of that authority. The fury he had been possessed by when Joren's older brother Jon had deflowered one of the serving maids had been epic; Jon had learned the hard way that just because his father was grey-haired and complained of stiff shoulders didn't mean he could no longer thrash his sons when they needed it, and the girl's dowry had been paid out of his inheritance. And even if his father hadn't been so strict, Joren doubted that he would have been able to bear using force of any kind against Dinora. She might have blossomed into a sprightly girl with a ready laugh, but he still remembered first seeing her as the terrified, staring-eyed creature that he had rescued from being possibly raped and certainly murdered by his own men. Moreover, it would have been unreasonable to expect a former slave to take on the duties of a landed knight's wife, even if Pottsdam was not remotely on the same scale as Forlorn Hall.
All that being said, he reminded himself, Dinora had been of material assistance in organizing the household the last time the neighbors had come to visit, according to his steward, and from what little she had said he gathered that she had been the personal body-slave of a rich merchant's wife; not strictly a noblewoman, but as close as the Tyroshi had come to it. She knew from prior observation what such a role entailed, and apparently had some idea of how to go about it. And what she didn't know she could almost certainly learn, especially since Pottsdam was not a great estate nor likely to be anytime soon. The state she would be expected to help keep would be at least an order of magnitude lower than that which Valyse Corbray, nee Forios, would be faced with.
In addition to which, and as much to the point, he could not deny the raw attraction in play. Or the fact that, if he read Dinora's glances correctly, it seemed to be mutual. And if a lord as great as Lord Corbray could marry the daughter of a merchant, then surely a landed knight could marry a former slave.
He would, he decided suddenly as he spied Dinora chatting with a group of other women who seemed to be shopkeeper's wives, ask her what her thoughts on the matter were, tonight after the jousting and the feasting was done. And if she was agreeable . . . he ran the calendar in his head. The circuit septon would be due at Pottsdam at the end of the month. He could carry a letter to Lord Corbray, bearing Joren's request for leave to marry.
XXX
The three newest officers of the Royal Fleet of the Kingdom of Myr lowered themselves into their chairs in the Oar and Anchor with stifled groans, their arms hanging limp at their sides. They had just completed their first patrol cruise, twenty days at sea in the galleySea-Hawk, and as the sun rose on the last day they had been cheerfully informed that it was traditional for new officers on their first cruise to join the rowers on the last day before landfall. Ivar, Lucas, and Dalton were all strong, hearty young men who had been seamen since they were old enough to keep their feet in a fishing boat, but there was a world of difference between rowing a fishing boat out to the grounds and rowing on a galley bench. A galley rower was less a person than a component of a living mechanism, as intricate and finely-made in it's way as any contraption out of the famous workshops of Braavos. Keeping the constant rhythm of the stroke, regulated by the beat of the oarmaster's kettledrum, was entirely possible if you let the beat and the rhythm subsume you, but it was still brutally hard work, even for men whose arms had been toughened by years of rowing and training at arms.
"I swear," Dalton said as their ale arrived, "that Captain Salter deliberately ordered as fast a pace as possible that last hour."
"Most likely," Ivar agreed, trying his level best to conceal his winces as he forced his arm to bring his tankard to his lips without shaking. "That way he could see what we were made of. Especially afterwards." Dalton and Lucas both nodded. After theSea-Hawkhad been rowed into the small cove that served the town of Stonemist as a harbor and been taken under tow by the harbor tug, they had still had to muster their sections and make sure they were fit for post-cruise inspection before the galley tied up at the dock. How they had managed, with their arms near-paralyzed from their exertions at the oars and only a fraction of the time that the other officers had to prepare their areas of responsibility for inspection, they still weren't sure, but they had done it, even if Captain Salter's judgmental look conveyed the impression that they had done so only barely and would be expected to do much better next time.
"At least we're done for now," Lucas said, staring avidly at the trays of food that the serving girls were bearing; they had been at the oars since an hour past dawn, with only one meal since, and rowing took even more fuel than fighting. There was a reason that galley rowers tended to leanness and the sort of muscle you only saw on fighting men otherwise. "Two days liberty before we get called back to the ship to stand watch, and eighteen days before we go back out on patrol."
Ivar shook his head. "Something will come up," he said flatly. "One of the men in our sections will do something stupid and have to go up before the captain, in which case we'll be called back to attend, or someone will get sick and we'll have to stand their watch, or one of the galleys down the coast will send a rave up saying they can't put to sea and can we cover their circuit, please, or some other damned thing will go wrong and we'll be called back to put it right."
His comrades nodded wearily; hadn't Captain Salter made a point of telling them that liberty could be canceled at captain's discretion? He wouldn't have done so if he didn't plan on doing so; it stood to reason. That said, at least Captain Salter was a decent sort. A captain's powers turned some men into tyrants, others they drove mad; the sagas were filled with examples, as cautionary tales to new captains and their crews to watch for the warning signs. Captain Salter, on the other hand, was as mild-mannered as a ship's captain could be and still run an efficient ship, and if theSea-Hawkdidn't have the spit-and-polish cleanliness of some of the galleys that they had seen in Myr harbor the deck was holystoned and swabbed regularly, the paint kept fresh, and they had seen with their own eyes that the ropes and sails had been taken ashore to be washed, carefully dried, and inspected for fraying and wear. Indeed, they had commanded the work party that had carried them to the warehouse that held the town's naval stores.
And while they could see the sense in each of the coastal settlements being required to provide at least one and as many as three or four galleys for service with the Fleet in return for the men who sailed them being exempt from Army service, especially given the downturn in trade and hence in the Kingdom's coffers, they could also see the potential problems. If a settlement fell behind in maintaining it's galley, then it fell to the other settlements to fill the hole that would appear in the patrol patterns, which would be especially difficult if the settlement in question was one of the new ones on the coast of the Western Marches. Lissus and Brivas provided and maintained four galleys each, they were told, but on any particular day half of them would be already on patrol, one would be laid up for essential maintenance, and two or three would be reprovisioning and refitting from their previous patrols. Youabsolutelyhad to keep up to date on maintaining a ship, especially a galley; a galley was, essentially, a single mechanism composed of a thousand moving parts or more, from the hull timbers to the crew members, and if one of those parts failed in the middle of even moderate weather . . . Galleys were built low and light, for speed's sake, and consequently had little reserve buoyancy. And while they were fairly stable along the axis of the beam, 'fairly' was not 'very' and it wasn't difficult for a galley to be in real danger of swamping if it was caught by an unexpected and sufficiently powerful gust or wave from the right direction and the captain and crew weren't up to handling sudden emergencies.
But whatever befell, Ivar knew, he and his ship-brothers would rise to the occasion. Even this day's rowing was preferable to remaining in the Isles, with Stannis' men watching their every move for even the faintest hint of disloyalty. Here they were not just men, butofficers, entitled to the respect of the men they led and the good regard of their superiors if they gave good service. And hadn't Queen Serina's letter of introduction said that she 'had every confidence in their ability, fidelity, and bravery'? A boast that someone else made on your behalf was still a boast, to be fulfilled or die valiantly in the attempt.
And while Ivar's uncle Lord Drumm would almost certainly have chafed at any of the Name enteringservice, like a thrall, an officer's berth in the Royal Fleet was a station far higher than that of any mere dogsbody. The Royal Fleet was the seaward shield of the Kingdom of Myr just as the Royal Army was its shield on land. They might not have the same roll of glistening battle honors that the Army might, but they had fought as hard and as long, and against even longer odds, than their landbound cousins ever had. If the First Slave War they had fought like weasels to hold the coasts against odds that had verged on the impossible; their enemies had outnumbered them by ten to one or more, and had traditions of fighting seamanship that approached those of the Ironborn for age and luridness. Tyroshi and Lyseni sailors had stood against dragonfire, in the days of the Targaryens, and the Fleet's first major victory had only been won by the grace of the gods. In the wars that had followed the Fleet had been unable to leave the Sea of Myrth, for that the slavers had effectively blockaded it, but at the same time they had held the slavers out of the Sea of Myrth, and prevented a repetition of the savage coastal raids of the first war. In the last war they had sailed to the Destruction of Tyrosh, but that had been a half-victory at best; the Tyroshi had been abandoned by their allies and caught at anchor in their own harbor besides, and without the aid of the Braavosi and the treachery of the pirates that Tyrosh had relied on the island might never have fallen. There was, Ivar reflected as their meal of grilled tuna and mashed turnips, complemented by the usual bread and cheese, arrived and they tore into it with only a hasty thanks-prayer to the God, still a debt unpaid, and would be for as long as even one Lyseni galley still dared the sea. The Fleet would not rest, he and his ship-brothers had been made aware, until that debt was paid in full, both principal and interest. Had not Robert King vowed that the Kingdom would liberate the seas and oceans, at his wedding? He grinned savagely to himself; Robert King might have been the one to make the boast, but it was the way of kingship that a king's boast was fulfilled by his men as often as by the king himself. And in return for that aid, the king was obliged to offer reward to those who had aided him best. And why could not one of those be Ivar Drumm? He concealed another smile with a forkful of tuna, imagining what it might take to go over the rail of a Lyseni galley.
Chapter 104: City Dreams
Chapter Text
Lady Orobin Shipwright had never been a passionate woman. Passionate women didn't last long as pleasure slaves; sooner or later they could no longer keep up the façade of graceful, sensual poise that the profession required, and when that happened the best they could look forward to was a beating. So Orobin had purged herself of emotions, until even the worst of the men her master had rented her to had been no more than a passing inconvenience to be endured, like monthly cramps or the infantile schemes of her fellows.
Very few men had been able to penetrate that veneer, instead of simply skating off it like water off a duck's back. Her master had been one of them, especially when his cruelties were worsened by his awareness that he would never reach what passed for the heights of his sordid trade. Franlan had been another, but for entirely different reasons. She had been a reward for him, her price paid by his master in recognition of his skill, but he had made little use of her. Where other men lusted for women, Franlan only lusted after his ships; their nights had been spent in conversation over wine as he rhapsodized on his quest to build the perfect ship, one that could trade and fight in any quarter of the world, from the Summer Sea to the Shivering Sea. It was endearing, in its way, enough so that when the Sunset Company had approached and Franlan had started to plot rebellion, Orobin had joined him. She had had only one condition; that when they triumphed and were free, he would marry her.
Freedom, after all, was all well and good, but she knew enough of the world to know that even the destruction of slavery would have limits. There would still be masters and servants, still be rich and poor, and, eternally, there would still be man and woman. And no man would admit a woman was his equal, especially if she was unmarried and had been something so unrespectable as a pleasure slave. Orobin had hadenoughof not mattering, of being at best a beautiful ornament and at worst a plaything. She would, she had decided in the nights of plotting, be someone whomatteredin the new regime, and the best way to do that was to marry, and marry someone important. A knight or a lord would have almost certainly been beyond reach; highborn did not marry slaves, this was as basic a fact as day and night. But a fellow slave, on the other hand, and one who had been instrumental in delivering the city . . .
Franlan had agreed, thankfully. And even more thankfully, he had quickly proved that he needed her. The downfall of the masters had made him drunk with freedom, mortally convinced that equality under law, complete and total, was just around the corner, if only the people reached out their hands and seized it. That conviction made him burn like a torch on those rare occasions when he turned his attention from the Port to politics, but it also frightened those who did not share it. So it fell to her to pour oil on the waters he troubled, to explain where he simply declared, to persuade where he simply argued, to plan where he simply acted.
In this she was helped by her colleagues and the women she had taken under her wing, many of them veterans of the pleasure-stables but others simply women who had been broken in the Sack and discarded afterward. None of them were truly her friends, what they had gone through was not conducive to friendliness, but they remembered who had protected them, or who had gathered them up and rebuilt them, and who had helped them advance themselves by whatever means they had chosen. Even those that had married werehersas much as they were their husbands. The web of her influence, of the ears that would hear her words and the mouths that would pass them on, was as wide-reaching and formidable as any in Myr, especially in the city. Especially since she had made herself the chief advocate of the Moonsingers at Court. The Moonsingers were not the most politically-inclined of sects, but they welcomed her advocacy on their behalf, especially in a court so dominated by the Andal Faith's sects and the worshippers of R'hllor. And all the more so for that Queen Serina so rarely combined her faith with her politics, at least in public; she had imbibed the full measure of Braavos' impulse to toleration, and the necessary corollary attitude that religion and politics were separate and irreconcilable realms.
Franlan, of course, knew little enough of her efforts in either regard, and cared less; for him, the smallfolk, the people, as he called them, were the be all and end all of politics. From the productivity of the people all else flowed, from food to money to swords to ships. That being so, the good of the people was the overriding goal of political enterprise. Orobin snorted to herself, half fondly and half exasperatedly; she could see his point, but she could also see the point he missed, which was that uniting the people into a coherent organization capable of pursuing and achieving political goals was a fool's errand. The average smallfolk was too wrapped up in the business of survival to have time and effort to spare for politics. Moreover, such a system inevitably excluded the nobility, thereby making them nervous, and when people got nervous, eight times out of ten they eventually became violent. Considering the martial inclinations and abilities of the Myrish nobility, such an event would almost certainly end very badly indeed.
Which was why she was making her way down to her husband's office at the docks, even though ostensibly it was nothing more than the sort of visit that a dutiful wife made to a hardworking husband, and made all the more virtuous by the fact that she was pregnant. Her mouth quirked in a half-smile as she stroked her rounded belly; getting Franlan to sire a child on her would have been nigh-impossible if her years as a pleasure slave had not made her so skilled at cajolery. Not that her husband was a sword-swallower. He just loved a well-made ship, or any other well-made creation of men's hands and minds, more than he loved women. He might not care about leaving a legacy for his children to inherit, but she certainly did; she had every intention of having a plenitude of children and grandchildren to ease her old age and carry on her work. Which was the other reason for her visit. She didn't just need to remind him to moderate his declarations on the indispensability of the people and their government's requisite duty of care, she needed to remind him that the Great Council was in the process of making recommendations for next year's budget, and that they needed to finalize how much money they would ask for the Fleet. The Iron Legion might be the pride of the Royal Army, but House Shipwright's power was tied to the Port of Myr city, and hence to the Fleet. It was the only reason she could bring herself to stomach Victarion Greyjoy; he might be one of the Kingdom's paladins, but she did not forget, and could not forgive, what he and his Ironborn had done to the city's women during the Sack.
But, she reminded herself, she didn't have to like the people she allied her House to. She just had to be able to do business with them. Much had changed since her days as a pleasure slave, but some things continued unchanged.
XXX
The junior lieutenant of the Royal Company of the City of Myr Infantry Regiment of the Iron Legion, by virtue of that rank nominally in command of the Regiment's recruiting office, couldn't help co*cking an eyebrow as the next applicant stormed into the sparely decorated ground floor room of the barracks that served as the recruiting office with purposeful stride and stamped to a halt in front of the desk with his back rigid and his shoulders thrown back in proportion to the out-throwing of his chest. What there was of it. "Your name, citizen?" he asked politely, quelling a smile with the ease of long practice in dealing with the antics of his century.
"Daario Bahaan, ser!" the boy standing in front of his desk belted out.
"No need to shout, young man, I'm not deaf," the lieutenant replied. "Want to join the Legion, eh?"
"Yes, ser!" Daario replied, less loudly but no less fervently. The lieutenant couldn't help a quirk at the corner of his mouth as he surveyed the raw material; at five foot four inches, if that, Daario was short even for a commoner, for all that his limbs seemed straight and well-formed enough. What there was of him, on the other hand, appeared to have a decent bit of muscle on it; the hands and forearms especially. Which reminded him . . . "Bahaan," he said slowly. "Any relation to the baker of that name?"
"My grandfather, ser," Daario replied, his eyes still fixed on a point over the lieutenant's left shoulder.
"Good man," the lieutenant said with an unfeigned smile. "One of the best; half the Regiment gets their bread from him, or near enough." As the young man's chest swelled even more, hopefully involuntarily, he struck with his next question. "And how old are you, Daario?"
"Fifteen, ser."
The lieutenant nodded. "Recruits under the age of seventeen who are in trade must have the permission of their parents or guardian and of their master to enlist," he said, quoting King's Regulations; the article, he had been told, had been added at the application of the guilds, in order to prevent their apprentices from deserting en masse to join the colors at the first rush of youthful exuberance. "Do you have that permission? In writing?"
The door was blown open."Daario Bahaan!"The wildcat screech came courtesy of an old woman who came through the door like a whirlwind, marched up to the desk, and seized Daario by the ear, eliciting a yelp of pained surprise and an unstiffening so immediate that the lieutenant almost feared for Daario's skeleton. "What in the deepest pit of Hell do you think you are doing?!" the old woman, who the lieutenant took to be his would-be recruit's grandmother, demanded. "Sneaking off when there's work to be done?! To play at soldiers?! Without telling us?! For shame, young man, for shame! Your mother has been worried sick! And your father is like to tear his hair out! We had thought you had fallen in the harbor or gotten robbed in some alley or were outdrinking, with those young scapegraces who call themselves your friends! And now we learn that you want to go off and get yourself killed! As if you didn't have a perfectly good trade and quite enough work to be getting on with already . . ." The tirade continued unabated as the old woman, even shorter than Daario and at least four if not five times his age, bodily dragged him out of the recruiting office and was only cut off when the corporal on duty closed the door behind them. Daario had not so much as tried to get a word in edgewise.
"I'll take that to mean 'no'," the lieutenant said dryly, provoking a short laugh from the corporal and a smile from the century's senior sergeant, who between them made up the other two-thirds of the recruiting party; he knew without a doubt that the relation of this particular anecdote would provoke howls of laughter in both the sergeant's mess and the enlisted men's dining hall. "Pity; the lad seemed keen enough, for all that he was hardly the size of a fish supper."
"The little ones are always the ones to watch closest, ser," the sergeant said knowingly. "They're the ones who always have to prove that they need to be taken seriously."
"Like enough," the lieutenant said. "Ah, well. Perhaps we'll see him again in two years, when he's properly of age."
Two sennights later, as the company marched out of the Great Eastern Gate for five day's maneuvers, a word and a nod from the sergeant directed the lieutenant's attention to the fact that Daario Bahaan had marched out of the city with them. He narrowed his eyes at the young man, watching him strut along with the rest of the column, and then tipped his head to one side in a soldier's shrug. "Put him with the fifes and drums," he said, and at the sergeant's mildly shocked look tipped his head again. "We can't very well detail someone to frog-march him back into the city," he pointed out. "And you know as well as anyone that the Legion doesn't turn away anyone who's willing to pay the iron price for their freedom. He's too young for spear and shield yet, but he's old enough to carry a drum. I'll tell the Captain we've picked up a stray, and we'll let the drum-sergeant sort him out."
The sergeant nodded. The Legion didn't turn away recruits who showed themselves to be willing and able. And if young Bahaan's family objected, then that would be the Captain's problem. Smoothing the ruffled feathers of irate parents and grandparents and making whatever amends were necessary with the appropriate guild were as much the Captain's responsibility as the maintenance of good order and discipline, if not more so; much of the daily necessities of order and discipline could be, and were, handled by the sergeants, after all. In the meantime, it was the job of the lieutenant and the sergeant to find young Bahaan a berth where he could be of use to the Company while he learned how to be a soldier. The drums would do nicely for the purpose, and they would see how he reacted to five days of outdoor living under Legion discipline. It was a pity that there was little rain in the forecast; nothing tested new recruits like field maneuvers with the heavens pissing all over them.
XXX
"Well done, very well done indeed," Ser Brynden said expansively as he poured wine for both of them. "His Grace is most pleased with the report; makes his job and Ser Gerion's and Ser Wendel's a damned sight easier. Or Ser Wendel's will be easier once he returns from the Summer Isles, and gods grant that turns out half as well as this does." He passed over one of the glasses and raised the other. "To your report, Petyr."
"To the Kingdom's increase," Petyr replied with a smile as he returned the toast. There was, he knew, an official letter of thanks from King Robert now sitting in the file that held the record of his doings in the Kingdom's service, and his account at the Iron Bank branch was now several hundred gold crowns fatter, but praise from Ser Brynden was sweeter than both. His memories of his father were few enough, and hazy enough, that all too often he found himself superimposing Ser Brynden's qualities on the old man's face.
And this day was already better than expected. When Ser Brynden had summoned him to the modest manse he kept in the city instead of War House, he had anticipated that Lysa's death would dominate the conversation, but thankfully the matter had been shelved at the luncheon they had shared with no more than a toast to her memory and the rest of her soul and a moment's silence before Ser Brynden had asked after the survey. Not that Petyr didn't care about Lysa, but she had never held so much as a candle to Cat. Cat had had the strength and playfulness and pride of her namesake, compelling even at her most undignified. Lysa, on the other hand . . . Lysa had always seemed brittle, underneath the cheeriness and the love of romance. Even at that age, he had known that brittleness was undesirable, especially as a character trait, and so he had never harbored more than a certain brotherly affection for the younger Tully daughter. And that affection had been tested to no small degree by Lysa's clumsy attempts at courting him.
So his feelings at her death had been mixed, to say the least. There had been grief, he knew himself well enough to know what he felt when he felt it, but it had been a dull and remote species of grief, doubtless made so by the years since they had last spoken and the distance he had sought to put between them before their last parting. If anything, his passions regarding Lysa's death were aimed at Jaime Lannister; how typical of the Black Lion, to plunge ahead blindly without regard for what his actions wrought in the world. It was always thus with the nobility, all impetuousness and no forethought, for good (as little as they did) and for ill. But it was worst with the high nobility, the Lannister's and Stark's and Martell's and Arryn's and Baratheon's, and yes even the Tully's, for that the social heights they occupied made them even less likely to look down and think about how their actions would affect those beneath them. Of course, he allowed, they had never had to worry about where their next meal was coming from, so the habit of watchful prudence had never set into them. Although there were exceptions, as there were to every rule. One of them sat before him.
Ser Brynden set his glass back on the table and steepled his fingers as he sat back in his chair. "I said when I offered you the survey job that there would be a reward in it for you, and there is," he said. "Two in fact, and you may choose between them. The first is a post in the King's household; his steward needs a new deputy. It's clerk's work, but it pays well and you'll be in His Grace's direct service, with all that that implies. The other is a new government office we're forming that I think will be more suited to your particular talents."
Petyr raised his eyebrows.Thatwas new. Then again, he'd been back in the city for less than two sennights; he had yet to fully catch up on the news. "What kind of office?" he asked.
Brynden's face sobered. "It has recently come to His Grace's attention," he replied, "that not all of the Kingdom's wars can be fought with sword and lance on the field of battle. Some of them will have to be fought with daggers and ballestrinos in back alleys and servant's passages. To this end, Ser Gerion and I have been directed to form a new office that combines some of the responsibilities of our separate Masterships. The aim is to build a unit of soldiers who can infiltrate an enemy city, kill, burn, or otherwise destroy whatever target they've been sent after, and then get out with no one the wiser as to how they did it. Now I'm aware that you have little enough skill at arms, but this kind of war will not be fought with weapons alone; the weapons and those who wield them will need to be guided to specific targets, and sorting out which targets will be more valuable than others will take a cunning mind. Even so, I will warn you that this will be dangerous work; the magisters of the slaver cities have been playing this game of shadows for as long as we in Westeros have been playing the game of thrones. We had considered asking the Braavosi for aid in this, but it is the King's opinion that we are too greatly indebted to the Titan already, and that as a matter of honor we must look to our own people and our own resources to fight this war. In all our discussions, your name stood out as the only one that might be able to match the cunning that the magisters will be able to bring to bear. In addition to which . . ." He paused, then continued. "What I am about to tell you is a Crown secret, and must not leave this room without permission. Understood?" At Petyr's nod he opened a drawer of his desk and drew something out of it. "Catch," he said, flipping it over with his thumb; Petyr caught it two-handed. "Know what that is?"
Petyr looked. "A silver shield," he said uncertainly. At Ser Brynden's gesture he turned it over, and his lip curled involuntarily at the sight of the score-line across the face of the coin and the dull metal within. "Acounterfeitsilver shield," he corrected himself. "Thin coat of silver over tin, by the look of it."
Ser Brynden nodded. "Since the new coinage came out, we've started to stop accepting foreign currency," he explained. "These days, if you try to pay your dues in foreign coin it just gets exchanged for our coin, instead of the foreign coin being accepted as payment. We melt down the foreign coin for the metal and re-mint it in our coinage. Once that started happening,those," he indicated the counterfeit in Petyr's hand, "started cropping up. At first it was only a dozen or two at a time, but in the past month the City Watch has collected more than a hundred. The people who had them have been interrogated, of course, those that were taken, but they all claim not to know the source of the false coin. The usual story, I'm told, is that they were slipped into pay packets, and the people who received them assumed they were meant as gratuities."
"What kind of people are these that are receiving them?" Petyr asked. "Day laborers, merchants, guildsmen?"
"Small business owners and their workers, for the most part," Ser Brynden answered. "Many of them in the field of physical labor; carters, porters, fetch-and-carry men, that sort."
Petyr nodded. "Exactly the sort of people you would target if you wanted to inject a large amount of counterfeit currency into the money-pool quickly," he mused. "When you spend eighty to ninety percent of what you earn, coin flows through your hands like water, and it goes everywhere. Bakeries, grocer's shops, taverns . . ."
Ser Brynden nodded. "You see the danger that arises," he said. "If the smallfolk lose faith in our currency, then the King is less by the amount of money he has sunk into launching it. Which means that the budget for the Army, the Fleet, the salaries of the civil service, foreverythingis reduced, in proportion. It could be as bad as the Expulsion was, if not worse." He leaned forward in his chair. "Your mission, if you accept it, will be to find the source of these counterfeit coins. If its here in the city, then you and the rest of the new unit will cooperate with the Watch to lance the boil. If the coins are being smuggled in from overseas, then the more martially inclined members of the new unit will go a-voyaging. What say you?"
Petyr couldn't help a savage grin.Herewas the opportunity he had not dared hope for, to tie his name to the Royal Army. As a mere clerk, he would have been anonymous, invisible, and as far as the martial nobility were concerned a man beneath regard because his calluses came from the quill and not the sword. But as a soldier in the shadow war that Ser Brynden described, even if he never took the field himself, he would be entitled to at least a modicum of the respect due a theoretical equal, and which no amount of money would ever be able to buy. And if this first mission was in the city, then why should henottake the field? He might be no great shakes at swordsmanship, but he could use a knife well enough, and whatever sword-swingers he was partnered with would undoubtedly be the better for having someone along who knew what questions to ask of which people. "I accept, my lord," he said firmly, placing the counterfeit on Ser Brynden's desk. "When do we start this hunt?"
Ser Brynden smiled the smile of an old hunting dog that had scented prey. "We already have," he said, picking his cane from where it hung off the edge of his desk by the handle and levering himself to his feet. "Come with me and I'll introduce you to some of the other hounds we're setting on this scent."
Chapter 105: Into the Shadows
Chapter Text
Adaran was not entirely clear as to why he had been told to appear at War House by noon today, nor why he had been ushered into this cellar room, but he thought he could guess. Two of the other men in the room, both hard-looking men with full beards and flat, suspicious eyes, were unknown to him, but he recognized the others. Tychan Breakchain, Sarra's Will, and Silent Jorro he knew from the tourney on the occasion of his sister's wedding, where they had placed highly in the race-in-armor and in the archery contests. Tychan's squad had been one of those chosen for the Brotherhood of the Broken Chain, and Will and Jorro both served in the City's regiment of the Legion. All three of them were known to be good men of their hands, and the two men that Adaran didn't know also had that look. The one with the longsword on his hip had scars on his hands that could only have come from fighting without gauntlets, as did the one who appeared to favor a long knife; both of them had the restless, flickering eyes of men who lived by their wits and their weapons and expected every man's hand to be against them. Tychan, by contrast, had simply sat in one of the provided chairs and folded his massive arms over his chest, regarding them all with an impassive stare that was matched only by Jorro's. The crossbowman had also sat in one of the chairs and folded his arms, while Will stood behind him with his thumbs hooked into his belt and his fingers drumming unrhythmically against the leather. Adaran sucked one of his teeth meditatively. All in all, and even discounting his own not-inconsiderable skills, he would have been hard put to assemble a better collection of fighting men without drawing on the chivalry.
Which made the presence of Petyr Baelish, who he recognized from the presentation of his survey to the Court, all the more puzzling. Baelish was a man of the quill, not the sword. And yet he had walked into the room at the side of none other than Ser Brynden Tully, as confidently as a man walking to dinner, and had taken a chair with comfortable ease, folding his hands in his lap and regarding the other men with an inscrutability that Adaran thought was remarkably impressive considering how out of place he was.
"Gentlemen, good afternoon," Ser Brynden said, taking a seat. "You have been called here because the King has need of your services in an area outside the usual profession of arms. You are aware, I trust, that there have been multiple attempts on the part of the slaver powers to assassinate members of the royal family." There was a wave of nods around the room, accompanied by a wordless growling rumble from Tychan that drowned out Adaran's. At least Ser Gerion had let him kill the handler of the last group to try assassinating his sister when the questioning was finished, although by then it had been more akin to putting down a crippled beast than killing a man. "What is not so common knowledge," Ser Brynden went on, "is that these assassination attempts are only a small part of the shadow war being waged against this Kingdom. Counterfeiting, sabotage, blackmail, espionage, attacks under false flags, all of these and more are being carried out or planned on a daily basis, both here in the Kingdom and against our assets abroad. This is not a war that can be fought openly, so His Grace has decided to fight the slavers at their own game. Your mission will be to attack and either kill or destroy foreign enemies engaged in acts of war against this kingdom. Some of this work will be within the Kingdom's borders, but we expect much of it to take place abroad. Perhaps in the very heart of the slaver cities."
"Let us be clear about one thing, gentlemen," Ser Brynden Tully said, leaning over his cane and glowering around the circle of faces. "This war will be as dangerous as any battle, and it will be long and drawn out. It is entirely possible that you will not see victory within your lifetimes. It is even more possible that you will be captured by the enemy, in which case there will be almost no possibility that you will be either rescued or ransomed. If you are not killed resisting capture, then you will almost certainly die under interrogation, with all the unpleasantness that such a phrase implies. If you do not wish to run that risk, then you may walk away now and no one will think less of you. Refusal of this assignment will not be held against you either by War House or by the office of the Fist. This option will be renewed after each mission. But if you go on a mission, you are in it for the whole haul; lose your nerve partway through and you will be considered a deserter, subject to the regulations governing such. You don't have to choose now, but inform me before the end of today."
The man with the longsword that Adaran didn't know cleared his throat. "And if we refuse to join this unit, will we not be killed?" he asked in a grating voice with an accent Adaran had never heard before. "To preserve the secret?"
Ser Brynden shook his head. "This unit is not expected to be secret," he replied. "The Office of Foreign Inquiry will be announced with the next budget and the Special Branch thereof shall be on the books openly. His Grace himself told me that he will be taking a personal interest in the doings of both the Office as a whole and of Special Branch especially."
Thatraised eyebrows. The King was known to take a personal interest in the welfare of his soldiers; many were the stories of how he would walk through the camps of his armies to hold informal reviews and hear the words of officers and soldiers alike. But that interest, Adaran knew, tended to be general, except in such special cases as tourney champions and men recommended for one of the medals that Serina had instituted. Even so, that interest was a key component in the respect that the Iron Legion held for the dynasty; men always fought better when they knew their leaders cared whether they did well or not, and would reward those who distinguished themselves. Knowing that King Robert would take a personal interest in your deeds, on the other hand . . . That was as good as being told that you were on the fast track for promotion, if not some greater mark of favor.
"In the meantime," Ser Brynden continued, "I shall introduce you all to each other." He nodded at Baelish. "Petyr Baelish will be your liaison with me and Ser Gerion; your orders will come through him and he shall have general powers of command. He is also highly skilled in clerk's work, and in cases involving such work he shall direct your inquiries."
He indicated Adaran with a flick of his cane. "Adaran Phassos will be your leader in the field. He is a veteran of the Destruction of Tyrosh, and Ser Gerion has been training him for command of independent operations." At the inquiring looks of the other men Ser Brynden sighed. "And, yes, he is the Queen's brother, but that has no bearing on his being given command. Of all of you, he is the man most qualified, and that is the only quality that was considered. On that you have not only my word, but His Grace's."
He then pointed a thumb at the two men that Adaran did not know. "Willet Longsword and Hokkan son of Trakhar will be your primary scouts. They come to us from the service of Lord Branton, but before that they were warriors of the Painted Dogs in the Vale; they have ample experience of stealthy movement in enemy country. Master Willet also has no small degree of skill with a blade." Adaran nodded to himself. He had heard of the mountain clans of the Vale from Ser Gerion; if even half of his stories about the unceasing war between the clansmen and the knights of the Vale were true, then no wonder that Willet and Hokkan had so much the look of warriors.
Ser Brynden pointed at Tychan. "Tychan Breakchain is a soldier of the Legion, and also a member of the Brotherhood of the Broken Chain. For situations where physical force becomes necessary, you will find few men to better him." Tychan's dour expression lightened minutely at this praise as Adaran remembered the race-in-armor and the push-of-war at his sister's wedding. Tychan had figured prominently in both events, and in the latter he had been the only man left standing when the Braavosi marines had run over the rest of his squad.
Last to be indicated were the two archers. "Sarra's Will and Silent Jorro will be your archers. There will undoubtedly be situations calling for a crossbow and situations calling for a longbow, so it was decided to recruit one of each, and those from among the best." Silent Jorro remained impassive, but Sarra's Will flashed a grin.
"There might be another member or two added to your roll, but it will take some time to sort through likely candidates," Ser Brynden finished, levering himself to your feet. "Your first mission will start two days from now; come to this room at the third hour past dawn to receive your orders. Until then, I recommend that you spend some time getting to know each other. Just remember that you will be on duty in two days, so no injuries that won't heal before then, if you please. If you must pick a fight in a tavern, then I would recommend the Barrel's Bottom, in Waterfront. One more fight won't go amiss in that cesspool."
XXX
Despite it's reputation, in some quarters, as a hive of the unchained masses only barely held in check by their rulers' superior skill at applied violence, Myr city was one of the most well-ordered cities in the world, if only because it would take a special class of fool to risk rousing the ire of the Iron Legion by committing some flagrant illegality. The Watch might have charge of law and order in the capital, but it was widely believed that if the Legion felt that the city's criminals had gotten out of hand, then even King Robert might have difficulty restraining them. Assuming, of course, that he was so inclined in the first place. But even Myr had its stews, and of those the clutch of narrow streets and winding alleys that formed the triangle where Waterfront, Cheapside, and Flash Districts all came together was the most notorious. It was less dangerous than Flea Bottom in King's Landing, or the dockside streets of Oldtown, but if you wanted to find Myrish criminality on display, then you went to the Rat's Nest, as that tangle of human habitation was known. There you could find almost every species of criminal life, from petty thieves and loan sharks to second-story men (and a few women) and pickpockets to hired murderers. The only breed of criminal that didn't dare show it's face openly in Myr city was the kidnapper; too many of them had worked for the slavers, in years past, and people had long memories.
You could also find specific people, if you knew where to look and who to ask. Thanks to some helpful tips from the City Watch, Petyr Baelish was in possession of both. Which was the only reason he was walking into the Lizard's Innards, as the tavern of the Dragon's Entrails was more popularly known. It wasn't quite the lowest dive in the city of Myr, but it was well down the list and what it lacked in squalor it made up for in the unsavoriness of its clientele. It was the sort of place where the greatest deterrent to a fight breaking out wasn't the bouncers or the barkeep, but the other patrons. Ordinarily, Baelish wouldn't have gone within eyeshot of the place of his own will, but there were three things propelling him forward. Firstly, he had Tychan and Willet with him, in order to dissuade any casual robbery attempts and make anyone who objected to his presence think twice about registering that objection. Secondly, he knew that he wouldn't be able to command the respect he needed from these men if he shied at the first fence. The Lizard's Innards might be dangerous, but it was still within Myr city, and theoretically subject to Royal law. If he, a servant of the Crown, died in there, someone would feel the consequences. Tychan and Willet, and the other members of Special Branch, would not have that assurance in some of the places they would go.
Third and most importantly, he knew what to say to who. Which was why he strode up to the bar and told the bartender, "I want to talk to the Kindly Man."
The bartender, a heavyset, broad-shouldered woman whose fundamentally unimpressed look was probably permanently affixed to her face, raised one side of her unibrow. "You have an appointment?" she asked, her tone implying her lack of confidence that he had any such thing. "No appointment, no talk."
Petyr reached into his belt pouch (slowly; this was the Lizard's Innards) and produced a small medallion like a double-sized coin, planting it on the bar and sliding it forward. The bartender looked down, saw the crowned stag that was the royal emblem, and blinked, visibly taken aback. "Don't usually see King's men here," she observed, one of her hands dropping beneath the bar. "And when we do, they want people whether they want to be wanted or no."
"We don't want anything but a talk," Petyr assured her, keeping his own hands on the bar and his tone light. Tychan and Willet were taking care of the necessary intimidation well enough; there had been a general scraping of chair legs against the floor that had stilled when the two big men had turned outward and casually opened their cloaks to reveal their blades. "If we wanted anything more," he went on, injecting a lightly humorous note into his voice, "then surely you would agree that we would not be asking politely, nor would there be only three of us."
The bartender shrugged. "That's as may be," she allowed. "Well, we'll see what himself says." She gestured at one of the serving girls, who scuttled into the passage behind the bar that Petyr assumed led to the kitchen. "You might as well sit," the bartender went on. "Himself isn't the sort of man to rush. Especially for people who don't make appointments."
"And how might we go about making appointments, in order to spare us all any future unpleasantness?" Petyr asked as he took one of the stools at the bar, with Willet and Tychan sitting on either side. The bartender's look implied that such a question was so singularly stupid as to not be worth answering.
Soon enough to be either a very good sign or a very bad one, the serving girl came back and whispered in the bartender's ear. The bartender's frown deepened for a moment, then she turned to Petyr. "Himself will see you," she said grudgingly, her tone suggesting that her employer was a fool for considering it. "Only you, and only if you come immediately."
Tychan and Willet rose from their seats with wordless growls, but Petyr stayed them with a spread hand to either side as he deployed his best 'working smile', as he called it. He had, as it happened, anticipated such a maneuver, and how it might be countered. "But of course," he said, rising to his feet. "I have no reason to suspect that the Kindly Man would be a poor host. Remain here, gentlemen, and remember that you are guests; comport yourselves accordingly if you please."
Tychan and Willet sank back onto their stools, both giving him looks that said as plain as day that they thought him mad. On the face of it, Petyr reflected as he followed the serving girl down the corridor behind the bar, they had reason to. 'Divide and conquer' was a strategy as old as war, and one that only fools did not fear. If the Kindly Man decided his interests would be better served by having them all killed, then Tychan and Willet could easily be dispatched by either crossbowmen or simply a sufficient number of thugs, and he himself could just as easily be taken and tortured, either for information or simply to send a message, before their bodies were dumped somewhere.
That being said, Petyr's words had, he hoped, thrown an unexpected weight onto the scales. Guest right was notquiteas sacrosanct, or as ferociously defended, in Essos as it was in Westeros, but that was no longer true in Myr; the Sunset Company and the subsequent migrations had imported not just fighting men, but attitudes. As far as the native-born were concerned, some of those attitudes ranged from the mildly odd to the downright incomprehensible, but many of them were adopted regardless, partly in genuine admiration and partly from a desire to ingratiate themselves with their new overlords. Among those had been the belief that guest right was inviolable. If the Kindly Man did order their deaths, or their capture preliminary to their deaths, then it was at least even odds that the men who had just heard him claim hospitality would at least refuse to have any part of it, and possibly object.
All of which aside, he reminded himself as they came to a door at the end of the hallway, balking at the danger presented by the Kindly Man's conditions would have been a mortal blow to his attempts to establish his primacy among his new companions. He might never be able to lead them into action in foreign lands, so he had to be able to meet every danger that arose at home with complete equanimity. Above all else, he knew, fighting men respected courage, even if it was not paired with any great skill at arms. And since so many of his superiors were such men, he had to take every opportunity to display that courage if he wanted to continue in their good favor and rise ever higher.
He had known when he accepted Ser Brynden's offer to lead this unit that he was forswearing all hope of a safe career, and accepted the risk as fair. Nothing hazarded, nothing gained, after all.
That said, he hadn't anticipated that his first battlefield would be a kitchen, or that his first foe would be a cook. A cook wearing a length of obnoxiously orange silk wrapped around his head and face, which seemed no impediment to his skill at kneading bread dough. Of course, silk of that weave could be seen through, provided you weren't trying to see very far or in any great detail, while still obscuring what was behind it.Very clever . . .Petyr allowed as he gave a bow. "I trust I address the personage known as the Kindly Man?"
"You do indeed," the Kindly Man replied, his soft-looking hands unceasing in their shaping of the dough. "To what do I owe the honor of the great surveyor calling upon so humble an abode as mine?"
Petyr concealed a smile at that thrust. He hadn't told anyone in this establishment who he was, which meant that the Kindly Man had known who he was solely on the basis of description. Revealing that was so casual a display of the depth of his knowledge that it almost counted as a threat. Almost. "I am here," he replied, "on the business of His Grace the King, whose humblest servant I am."
The Kindly Man clicked his tongue lightly. "Truly we live in an age of miracles," he said sardonically. "Rulers rarely look upon places like the Rat's Nest, unless to decry them with the words of priest and poet or to scourge them with the staves and swords of their guards."
"King Robert is a rare ruler indeed," Petyr countered, "as both a king and as a man, as the world well knows. Some men might be blind to the dangers that lurk in the shadows but he is not one such. Nor does his Council neglect that enemies at home may be as dangerous as enemies abroad." He reached into his pocket (slowly; he was certain that there was someone watching him with a crossbow) and withdrew the counterfeit shield that Ser Brynden had given him. The Kindly Man's hands paused as Petyr placed the coin on the table and slid it through the coating of flour, the brass under the coat of silver gleaming dully.
"Skillful work," the Kindly Man said, picking up the coin and holding it close to the silk around his head. "But not of my hands, nor those of any I might command."
"I did not say it was," Petyr replied. "What little we know of you indicates that you are a man of no small intelligence; you are sufficiently powerful that few would challenge you, inside the law or out of it, but you have not reached for the level of dominance that would unite your opponents against you, or risk the attention of the Watch and the Legion, regardless of consequences." As the Kindly Man bowed in acknowledgement of the compliment and placed the coin back on the table, Petyr went on. "A scheme like this, on the other hand, would certainly have come to light sooner or later, and it touches not just the city but the Crown. It takes a very brave or a very stupid man to beard King Robert in his own capital, and while I do not doubt your courage I have a higher opinion of your intelligence than to think that you would fall so low."
The Kindly Man tittered. "Your reputation for flattery is insufficiently expansive, Master Baelish," he said. "Your reputation for cleverness likewise; I assume you have come to see if the beasts of the forest know more about the doings of their own kind than any hunter could?"
"Your words, my lord, not mine," Petyr said with a smile; he would have to remember that turn of phrase. Now to add some spice to the honey. "I can think of only a hand of men, maybe a hand and a half, who know more of this city's underworld and it's happenings than you. On the other hand, I can think of a great many more who could damage much of your enterprises within a day with sufficient motivation, and destroy them outright in a sennight."
"And here I thought we would be friends," the Kindly Man replied, a pout entering his voice. "Do you truly think I am so craven that mere threats will move me? There may be no honor among thieves, but there is pride, and I am no mere thief. What does His Grace have to offer in exchange for the information you seek?"
Petyr spread his hands. "What can His Grace offer that you would want?" he asked. "Recognition as lord of the Myrish underworld you would not welcome, for the same reasons you have not sought it out before now. Official tolerance of your activities you have already, for various reasons. Money? Even if His Grace could stomach bribing, forgive me, a criminal to keep the peace in his own capital, I doubt that you are so much a slave of mere money."
"Indeed," the Kindly Man replied. "And so my price is this: that I might claim a boon of His Grace. Aught within his power to give, to be rendered up at request. Nothing too extravagant, of course; I'm a reasonable man. But what I ask, I must be given. I am not so inconsequential that I may be fobbed off with a trifle, not when I know who changes Her Majesty's chamberpot and the gambling debts her brother has accrued these past sennights."
Petyr paused, considering. There was a reason that a boon was a dangerous thing to grant, especially to someone you weren't sure of. Once given a boon could not be canceled, and once claimed it must be honored. Practically, of course, no one given a boon used it to claim the giver's lands, or wife, or anything else so unreasonable, but theoretically a boon was a note of hand with the amount line left blank to be filled in by the recipient, and so open to a potentially catastrophic degree of abuse. The tales were full of examples of boons unwisely granted and the consequences thereof, including some in recent history. It was the boon that Aenys Targaryen granted Goren Greyjoy that had led to the Expulsion of the Faith from the Iron Islands. Moreover, a boon could not be given on behalf of someone else; it could only be given from one person directly to another, and from thence it could only be passed on to an immediate descendant, a son or a daughter. And even then, it became as likely as not that the giver would consider the boon void, especially if the descendant in question did not measure up to their progenitor. Petyr knew little enough of the law of arms besides the basics, but even he knew that much. Taking King Robert's name in vain in such fashion would be . . . the kindest term was 'unwise', especially for a man with any ambition.
All that being said, he could see no other option. The Kindly Man was not known for moderating his bargains, and he knew that he didn't have time to start from first principles in trying to untangle the knot that was the city's underworld to find these counterfeiters. He needed the Kindly Man's help, and if this was the only price he would accept for it, then he would take the responsibility for it with Ser Brynden, who had promised broad latitude in the execution of orders. "It will be for His Grace to grant or to withhold," he said, choosing his words with care. "But I shall lend my voice as strongly to your support as I may, and acknowledge as openly as you wish that a debt exists between you and the Crown. Provided, of course, that your information is of material benefit to our inquiries."
The Kindly Man nodded. "In that case . . ." he said, raising his hands from the dough and slapping the flour off of them. "Before I give my advice, I have two questions. Firstly, what sort of people are these counterfeits coming from? Secondly, what amounts are they being found in? Is it one or two coins at a time or are they being found in bulk?"
"Small merchants and their workers, for the most part, in the pay packets of the workers," Petyr replied. "And usually in middling amounts; rarely less than five, rarely more than twenty. Of course, these are the sort of people who receive most of their pay in copper, and it's a rare counterfeiter who targets copper coins; not enough profit."
"Indeed," the Kindly Man mused, picking the counterfeit shield back up and rolling it over his fingers like a fair magician. "In my experience, there are two ways to play the counterfeiting game, the slow way and the fast way, and this is the slow way. The fast way would be to make a large batch of counterfeits and exchange them for genuine at a bank, or gamble them away in the upper-class gaming houses; people of the sort you describe will gamble copper and save silver, but knights and nobles will gamble silver and save gold. For the pattern you describe . . ." he rolled the shield onto his thumb and flipped it at Petyr, who caught it two-handed, "I would look at the merchants paying out the false coin and ask where they got them. Was it payment from a customer? A bribe? A gift? Ask especially what moneychangers they use; such men might be paid in gold, but they do not pay their workers in gold, and so they must change their gold for silver and copper."
Petyr bowed. "My thanks, my lord, for your assistance," he said politely.
"One other thing," the Kindly Man said, his hidden eyes seeming to seek out Petyr's. "When you close in on your prey, whoever they might be, remember this; he is playing the slow game. This means one of two things, if not both. Firstly, that he is smarter than the average counterfeiter, smart enough not to be carried away by the thought of fast and easy profit. That intelligence will make him cautious, but it will also mean that he has likely laid plans for his escape in advance; you would do well to take the time to stop up any likely boltholes. Secondly, and conversely, that profit does not motivate this counterfeiter at all; he may be making a profit by this scheme, but that is incidental. It's true purpose, and his true aim, is not to make money but to harm the Kingdom. That being so, his motive will be either revenge or simple enmity, whether that be personal hatred or professional antagonism. Such a man, if cornered, will be far more dangerous than a mere counterfeiter."
Petyr nodded. He could certainly see the sense in that line of reasoning. "Then it is fortunate," he replied with a slight smile, "that my comrades are dangerous men themselves."
XXX
"We modified them to include a safety catch," Maester Gordon said as one of his assistants demonstrated the use of a ballestrino. "Otherwise carrying them spanned and loaded proved too much an exercise of faith. Push down the lever on the side, the catch is released, and you're ready to shoot." His assistant suited word to action, sinking the bolt into the midsection of the target dummy. "They're very short-ranged," Maester Gordon went on apologetically. "No more than ten yards, and the accuracy drops off precipitously after five or six yards. The draw's just too short for the string to impart much power to the bolt, no matter how heavy the draw-weight, and the bolts don't have the dimensions and proportions to sustain straight level flight over any great distance. This is either a weapon of last resort or a tool of assassination. For further questions about their use, ask Lieutenant Phassos," he indicated Adaran. "He conducted the initial tests and wrote the first report on these for Ser Gerion."
Adaran shrugged slightly at Hokkan, Jorro, and Sarra's Will, who were looking at him with more interest than they had previously shown on this tour of the Office's equipment section. Maester Gordon's brief, it seemed, had expanded beyond merely being the Royal Chronicler. Adaran had only known him in passing, but his reputation among the Legion approached that of the Captains, and was even greater among the Pioneers. That reputation had only increased with his resignation, since he had not only had the wisdom to resign when he was no longer fit for field command but had nominated a freedman to replace him.
Adaran had assumed, with everyone else, that Maester Gordon had been content with his demi-retirement and the opportunity to chronicle the life and times of King Robert; by any measure such an opportunity was a scholar's dream, and Maester Gordon hadn't stopped being a scholar during his time commanding the Pioneers. That said, he decided, a man could find himself with too much free time in such a post, especially since much of the work of collecting information could be delegated to scribes and students. And for a man who had given so much to the Kingdom as the Sunset Maester, as he was called, and who evidently was still possessed of the desire to serve, a peaceful retirement would not make for a happy soul. He might not be able to lead his beloved Pioneers in the field any longer, but Maester Gordon still possessed an active mind and an evident desire to make its fruits be of some immediate use to the Kingdom. This, Adaran realized, was how the old man fought the wars now, with this basem*nt beneath War House as his lair and with his mind and the skill of his hands placing weapons in the hands of younger and fitter men.
"For longer range work, we are currently developing a crossbow that can be easily disassembled into its component parts and reassembled again which I believe Master Jorro may find of particular interest. In addition," Maester Gordon went on, "one of your armorers came up with this." He walked over to a nearby table and held up what looked like a regular civilian doublet. "Triple-layered, with a layer of fine mail-mesh between the middle and inner layers," he explained. "Developed from the mail-shirt that Her Grace wore on her wedding day; too expensive in both time and skill of manufacture for issue to the Legion, but perfect for this application. Almost as flexible as cloth, but proof against cutting blows and any but a determined thrust. Won't do anything about percussive blows, except for the padding provided by the cloth, but better than nothing, and much less obvious than wearing armor openly. Not fashionable enough to wear at Court, however. In addition . . ." he laid it back on the table, "it comes with a knife sheathed at the lapel, another at the wrist, and a third at the back of the collar." He pulled each blade out and laid it on top of the garment as he named them, Adaran and his comrades leaning in to inspect them. "These are meant to be secondary to whatever blades you carry as part of your disguises," Maester Gordon said, "but in the event that you find yourself separated from those blades, you will not be weaponless. The padding of the doublet and the flatness of the blades should disguise them from most searches."
"That said," Maester Gordon continued, his normally jolly face turning grave, "it is likely that you will find yourself in situations that you cannot fight or talk your way out of. In which case," he picked up a coin from the table next to the doublet. "This coin has a hollow interior," he explained, "containing a needle and a reservoir filled with a poison taken from the organs of pufferfish. If you find yourself cornered, and unable to escape," he pulled on the side of the coin and drew out the needle, "don't hesitate to spend the coin. It will be somewhat painful, but you will be dead within minutes, and before your captors will be able to extract much in the way of useful information from you."
Sarra's Will co*cked an eyebrow. "Tested this, have you?" he asked sardonically.
Maester Gordon shocked them all by nodding. "On captured spies," he said simply. Sarra's Will went pale, while Silent Jorro co*cked an ironic eyebrow at him. Adaran eyed the coin, his feelings philosophical. He had said often enough, in his bravo days, that he was willing to die for Holy Freedom, and that resolve had been tempered by his service at the Destruction of Tyrosh, but the death he had reconciled himself to had been a death in battle, blade to blade in the heat of action. The death the coin represented, a course deliberately chosen and meant as much to spite the enemy as to serve the cause, was an entirely different animal. On the other hand, dead was dead, as his sergeant in the Legion had told him, and how someone got that way didn't make much difference when all was said and done. And if it didn't kill instantaneously, then presumably he would be able to offer a suitable taunt or two before he expired. His old sergeant would be infuriated at the unprofessionalism, but Adaran decided he didn't care. If he found himself using the coin, he would take the opportunity to tell the slavers exactly what he thought of them. "We are in the process of developing other devices that may be of use," Maester Gordon said, "but these are all that we have ready for use at the moment."
"We will await them with eagerness, maester, if they're all as clever as these," Adaran said with a bow.
"Whatever you do with them, be sure you bring them back," Maester Gordon replied, sheathing the needle and placing the coin back on the desk. "The Kingdom will be better served by the living than by the dead, and I have known enough martyrs for one lifetime. If your mission ends in your death, then it will be because something or someone failed. I will do my utmost to ensure that your equipment doesn't fail, but making sure thatyoudon't fail will be up to you."
"All things are as the gods will them," Hokkan said, fingering the wrist knife of the doublet. "But what men can do, we shall, as warriors always do."
"May the gods grant that it be enough," Maester Gordon said darkly.
Chapter 106: Resurgence
Chapter Text
"If a man, or a group of men, habitually creates problems for you and yours, remember that dead men rarely create problems."
Saying attributed to Donys Rahtheon
"What do you mean, the slaves are revolting?" Ser Arthur Dayne asked incredulously as he strode down the corridor of King Viserys' manse, his squire and page hustling along behind him.
Donys Rahtheon smiled faintly. "The slaves have always beenrevolting, ser, especially the night-soil gatherers," he said calmly. "Smell one sometime.Thistime, they arerebelling."
Arthur glowered at his King's Master of Coin and Whispers. "Do not, I pray you, make a jest of this," he snapped. "Or do I need to remind you that we have less than a hundred men to defend this manse and its grounds, against the gods know how many thousands of slaves?" He glanced at the window they were just passing, half-expecting to see the city in flames. It wasn't, but there were more threads of smoke rising from the western half of the city than were normal.
"The rebellion is not in this quarter," Donys replied, his voice still calm. "It started with the porters and thehathaydrivers in the southwestern wards, I am told, and from there spread to the night-soil gatherers and the sweepers. It has yet to cross the river, and I doubt it will before the rest of our men arrive. There is enough blood in the west-bank quarters for the slaves to spill that they will be some hours in the doing, I deem."
Arthur frowned. "I don't suppose," he said slowly, "that our men are already marching into the city?"
"The Militia seems curiously paralyzed," Donys said, his face and voice expressing sorrow at the frailty of mortal men. "The rank and file of the Militia fear to leave their homes defenseless in case their own slaves join the revolt, and there appears to be the most unconscionable lack of leadership . . ."
XXX
Garello Maegyr hadn't stopped cursing under his breath since he rode over the Long Bridge to take command of the counterattack against the slave rioters. The Militia companies that he had run across had been laughably understrength and almost uniformly devoid of their commanding officers, while the men and officers who had joined the standards were made shaky by the absence of their fellows and shakier still by the rumors that their officers had been assassinated by their slaves; a rumor that Garello could believe, having come within a hairsbreadth of being stabbed in his own bed by one of his body-slaves and only preserved by the intervention of his concubine. Many of them were good for no more than standing at street corners and providing a façade of protection against the rebelling slaves, while the slave mobs were too numerous for him to even threaten when he had only a hundred retainers and younger scions of the Old Blood under his direct control. They had managed to crush a few isolated bands, but the throngs of slaves that roamed the streets were thousands strong; even with no more martial implements than kitchen knives and gardening tools their numbers made them a match and more than a match for his men.
So they had been forced to ride on, while behind them the slaves ran rampant over whole wards, turning the streets into charnel houses in a saturnalia of drunken bloodlust. He had seen a burgher, caught and pulled down by his pursuers as he tried to reach the line of horses, be literally cut to ribbons as he begged for rescue, for mercy, and finally for death. He gnashed his teeth at the memory; it was the ancient imperative of his House that the Old Blood held their power and their privilege in order to protect the lower orders from their enemies. This rebellion, and his impotence in the face of it, seared his soul like wildfire.
He had lost count of how many messengers he had sent cantering back to the Long Bridge with messages detailing the scale and virulence of the rebellion and his incapacity to suppress it without reinforcements from the East Bank and the Inner City. He had also lost count of how many return messages he had received telling him that the Militia companies of the East Bank were wholly committed to preventing an outbreak of rebellion in those quarters, especially since the Red Temple had refused to loan the services of the Fiery Hand to the City. The Fleet was not sitting idle, but the port admiral had refused to detach any of the marines and armed sailors under his command from the defense of the waterfront without written orders to that effect from the Master of Sailors, who Garello was told had refused to issue such orders without the request of the Triarchs, on the grounds that it was not the duty of the Fleet to police the city. If the Fleet was truly needed, then the Triarchs could declare martial law and summon them in, but until they did the Fleet's hands were tied. Garello gnashed his teeth sullenly; he had given the Fleet its share of credit for the victory of Dagger Lake in his report, but evidently they thought they deserved to be reported as having walked on water and won the battle singlehandedly. A plague take all politicians, especially those supposedly in their country's service.
Nor had the Unsullied been released. When he had asked, he had been reminded that a third of them had been sent out to the vassal towns under trusted officers to help disarm their companies of tiger cloaks; those that remained were being held in reserve within the Black Walls, against direst emergency. Garello's lip twisted savagely. Gods and devils, the direst emergency was running riot in their very streets and the Triarchs were sitting on one of the best weapons against it! Never before had he come so close to considering his granduncle either a fool or a coward. The only thing that prevented him from doing so was the knowledge that the other officers of the Unsullied had apparently been assassinated by their slaves as so many of the Militia officers had been, and that aside from himself the only persons remaining with the authority to take command of them were the Triarchs themselves. Never before had he considered that the Unsullied's greatest strength, their unyielding discipline and unquestioning adherence to orders, would at the same time be their greatest weakness.
Fortunately, not all was lost. The services of the Exile Company had been requested and, for a wonder, responded to promptly, but it would take time for their bandas to march into the city from their camp outside the walls, and meanwhile Viserys Targaryen had less than a hundred men to protect himself and his Court. Garello spat. Heknewthat relying on the Exile Company would be dangerous, but needs must when the devil drove, and all that. And even at worst, he knew Viserys, and Ser Arthur and Magister Rahtheon; they were reasonable men, and could be bargained with.
He was so deep in thought that he never saw the crossbow bolt that slammed into his throat and dropped him into the street to choke his life out in gouts of crimson spittle. In a ground-floor room down the street, Stallen Naerolis respanned his crossbow, killed the horse of one of the young gentlemen who crowded around their dying commander, and then abandoned the crossbow as he made his way to the basem*nt and the tunnel that came up in a tavern a block away. There was nothing more that needed to be done, and in the dress of a burgher of middling prosperity he would be beneath notice so long as he didn't make himself noticeable. The knife at his hip and the staff he snatched from where he had left it leaning against the wall were understandable, especially given the riots, but a crossbow would not be.
XXX
"So the Triarchs have called upon our services in putting down this riot," Donys finished explaining, "and our men are already marching in through the gates of the northeastern quarters. They should be here within two hours."
Arthur nodded. "If I might have a word in your ear, my lord," he said, taking Donys' arm and towing him into a side room. In a blur of motion he closed the door in the faces of his squire and page, seized Donys by the collar of his doublet, and propelled him against the wall to stand tiptoe with the point of Arthur's dagger under his nose. "You planned this," Arthur snarled. "It is all too convenient. The slaves in revolt, the Militia useless, the Fiery Hand neutral, and we the only military force the Triarchs can call upon. This is one of your plots, Donys, and it has endangered the life of our King."
"I took every measure to reduce the danger as much as possible," Donys said with admirable self-possession for a man a dagger-flick away from death. "Only the slaves in the western quarters were incited, my efforts to disrupt the Militia were focused on the companies of the western quarters, and the neutrality of the Red Temple assured that the revolt would not spread across the river until the Company arrived, at which point it would be too late for the slaves of the East Bank to rebel successfully. High Priest Benerro is an intelligent man, and a reasonable one; he knows that we will be more amenable to him and his than the Triarchs have been."
Arthur blinked; the enormity of the scheme was only now beginning to clarify in his mind. Donys' last words had confirmed it. "You're mad," he said softly. "You think we can takethe whole goat-humping city?"
Donys co*cked an eyebrow. "And why not?" he asked calmly. "We're a quarter of the way there already. And the conditions are perfect; people's minds have been focused on the need for strong and imaginative leadership, which the Triarchs have failed to give them to the necessary degree. The Rape of Tyrosh has shown that the Usurper and his dogs will not be sated with anything less than the annihilation of their enemies, so that they might live alone in their paradise of freedom. The Destruction of Qohor has shown that the Dothraki have abandoned the arrangements of these past centuries in favor of their old urge to conquer. The people of Essos are caught between the abolitionists on the one hand and the screamers on the other; this is not the time to trust in the old formulas, as the Triarchs have chosen to do, but to carve out a new way with fire and sword. Men forced to such a path will make choices they never thought possible. And the situation as it currently stands cannot be bettered; the Usurper and his dogs are held at bay by the Lyseni, while the Dothraki are too far away to threaten us before we solidify our control. The Lyseni will leap at the opportunity to finally make an alliance; the gods know they have begged one of the Triarchs long enough. Even Norvos may be swayed to our side if we show ourselves to be strong enough. This opportunity will not come again, ser, and we must seize it. It is our duty to our King."
Arthur shook his head. "Have you not considered, you fool, that they might see though this stratagem of yours and set the Unsullied upon us for it?" he demanded.
Donys nodded as much as he could with a dagger point hovering below his nostrils. "That is the great gamble," he admitted soberly, "but a safe one for all that, I deem. Bethink you, ser knight; without their Captain-General, who should be dead by now, the Unsullied have no one to give them orders. The only other agency vested with the authority to command them is the Triarchs, and they will not bestir themselves. For one thing, they are too concerned with the possibility that a rebellion will break out behind the Black Walls to deprive themselves of their best defense. For another, none of the Triarchs is a man of blood; even Malaquo Maegyr, the only tiger among them, has never led men into battle. I doubt he will find the courage to risk his hide now, even from behind a shield-wall of Unsullied. Moreover, either all of the Triarchs must lead the Unsullied or none of them can; to be the man who refused to lead the city's defenders against their enemies when other men went would be disgrace. Political suicide, even. And they are too wary of each other's ambitions to allow each other out of their sight in command of an army. So even if only one of them is too afraid to ride out, then they are paralyzed. As for naming a surrogate to command in their stead . . ." Donys shrugged. "Who would they pick? Garello was the only proven commander among the pack of likely candidates, and choosing an unproven man when the wolves are at the door requires more faith than the Triarchs are willing to exercise. And none of the likely candidates is fully acceptable to all of the Triarchs; those Malaquo favors are distrusted by the elephants, and those the elephants favor Malaquo holds in contempt. Nor will they risk elevating an unknown man, and granting entry to the arena of power to whatever faction he might represent. And remember, the Triarchs, their families, their friends, and their livelihoods are safe behind the Black Walls; they believe they have thetimeto deliberate. If they are given a day, maybe two, to negotiate, they might be able to choose a man, but they do not. Destiny is turning upon every hour, ser. Shall we not seize it, for the glory of our king?"
Arthur held Donys on tiptoe a moment longer, and then let him down again. "We shall seize it, with a hand of iron," he said. "But mark me, my lord," he tapped the point of his dagger on the end of Donys' nose, "next time,you will tell mewhat you are plotting, when it touches on the King's safety. I have an oath registered in the Heavens to guard my King with all my strength, all my wits, and all my courage, to the last drop of my heart's blood in the last ditch. I have kept it across the half the world and gone into exile to keep it; I will not be made forsworn byyou. I have killed men slowly for less cause."
Donys nodded. "After this is concluded, there should be significantly less need for such secrecy as we have practiced these past years," he said. "Let us win this throw of the iron dice, ser, and I will include you in all my thoughts, as you include me in yours."
Arthur nodded and sheathed his dagger. "So long as we understand each other," he said briskly. "Now let's make this city ours."
XXX
In the field, knights rarely led the way into hostile territory. They simply weren't as suited to the reavers' work of scouting as light horse were unless they left much of their armor off, which rather defeated the point of them having that armor in the first place.
This, however, was a different situation entirely. It was known where the enemy was, what kind of force they had, and what was to be done once contact was made.
So when the Exile Company marched over the Long Bridge to put down the slave rebellion, it went with its knights and men-at-arms in the lead, three hundred and fifty armored men (only two in three of them born in Westeros and worshippers of the Seven) marching ten abreast with the sunlight glancing off their armor and their poleaxes and heavy spears sloped back over their shoulders. As they marched, they sang, but not a hymn to the Seven or the Red God."Instead of water we'll drink ale/And pay the reckoning on the nail!/No man for debt shall go to jail/While he can our standard hail!"It was a tune that had migrated over from the Golden Company, a banda of which marched under the dragon standard with barely a twinge of irony, so deep had the roots of comradeship grown already. Behind them marched the first batch of infantry, crossbowmen and spearmen recruited from the City and the villages the Company had passed through during its service with the Triarchs. They were less heavily armored than the men-at-arms, but their mail-shirts and brigandines gleamed from hours of work with oiled rags and cloth-brushes, and they held up their end of the tune with lusty bellows."We'll break windows, we'll break doors/The Watch knock down by threes and fours/Then let the doctors work their cures/And tinker up our bruises!"
In the middle of the procession of armed men was the great dragon banner, held in the fist of Ser Garin Uller, and just ahead of the banner rode King Viserys on an iron-grey light courser, wearing his arms on a watered-silk surcoat over his boy-sized armor. For a lad who had yet to raise a beard worth shaving, he carried himself with immense dignity, his face set in a determined mien; he had been heard to tell the Company, as they assembled in the square outside his manse, that it was their duty not just as obedient servants of the City to restore law and good order in the face of anarchy, but also as righteous and gods-fearing men, for above all the gods commanded their mortal creations to obey righteous authority, on pain of correction on earth and punishment in the afterlife. The Company had cheered him to the echo, not just for those words but also for his declaration that having been driven from one home he would not suffer himself to be driven from another, nor would he suffer any man under his leadership to be so forced into exile. After so many years in the City's service, so many men recruited from either within the City or it's subject towns, and so many wives and lemans taken by both local recruits and the Westerosi exiles from the local women, the Exile Company was as Volantene as could be asked for when so many of it's members were first-generation exiles. Low Valyrian was spoken as readily as Common around both campfire and council table, Rhoynish wine was as favored a drink as Stormlands ale, and dishes that had originated in the Crownlands had been adapted to take more eastern spices in a single serving than would have been seen in a whole menu in King's Landing. To all intents and purposes, Volantis was the Company's home, and they had been ordered to defend it against the worst kind of disorder; that of the slave let loose from its bonds and given license to do as it would. The native-born knew well that there could be only one answer to such, and the exiles had imbibed their attitudes in full measure.
So when the Exile Company met its first mob of rebellious slaves after crossing the Long Bridge, they didn't pause to give the warning to desist and disperse required by Volantene law. Visors closed in a rippling clatter of steel, poleaxes and spears swung down to the level, and the charge of the knights and men-at-arms was no less impactful for being made afoot rather than ahorse. Within moments the mob of slaves was either dead, dying, or in panicked flight down the neighboring streets, and the rest of the Company was fanning out to follow up their first victory. The spear and crossbowmen fanned out by bandas to clear the streets, squads of knights at their head, while behind them the Old Myrish and Tyroshi and Ironborn exiled sailors that had made up the rear of the column secured a market square where Viserys planted his standard and set up a command post, which he quickly left under the care of Ser Arthur Dayne while he took the rest of his Kingsguard into the streets to oversee his men at their efforts.
XXX
There was an old lament in the Dornish Marches, both Reacher and Stormlander, that Ser Barristan had memorized before he turned twelve; how could he not, when it was sung every time that men had a few too many tankards of an evening? It was long and rambling, telling the tale of centuries of treachery and deceit and murder along the border, but the refrain of the song, that sent the thread of it spinning back through the years of revenge and reprisal, was always"How did it come to this?"
That ancient question haunted Ser Barristan's mind as he rode beside his king through the streets of the west bank neighborhoods of Volantis. How had he and his fellow Andals, men who had been raised from the cradle to abhor slavery, come not only to tolerate it but to defend it? Wherever King Viserys rode, through these streets that now ran with the blood of slaves who had struck for their freedom, it was the Westerosi members of the Company that he saw at the forefront of the counterblow. When the royal party had stopped to watch a banda clear a row of houses, it was the knights, men who had sworn to defend the weak, who led the way through the barricaded doors to root out the slaves, and who had taken the lead in executing those that were taken alive. A few had been preserved, at the King's order and the urging of the Essosi members of the company, but nine in ten of the slaves that Barristan had seen taken prisoner had been cut down on the spot, or hanged from the lampposts that lined the streets, or thrown from upper-story windows to shatter their bones on the cobblestones. And those slaves that had been preserved, he knew, had only been saved to be executed later, for Volantene law decreed that no slave who rebelled should be suffered to live, but must die horribly as an example to others.
Barristan's gorge rose at the thought, but he bit back the bile and rode on, thinking furiously.How had it come to this?Where had the Company gone from being the army of a wrongfully-exiled monarch sworn to reclaim his birthright to being no more than another collection of sellswords to be set to the distasteful task of crushing rebellious slaves? Had it been when they had allowed their first Essosi recruits to keep their slaves after swearing their oath to the King? Ser Lysyllo Agah, who rode at the king's left hand as Barristan rode at his right and who was the first Essosi in history to wear the white cloak of the Kingsguard, was also the first slave owner to wear the cloak; his body slave, a hulking Meereenese who was apparently a veteran of the fighting pits, even now rode at his shoulder with his great scimitar sloped back against his shoulder. Barristan had protested the decision to allow slaves in the Company, but the King and Ser Arthur had overruled him. It was enough, Arthur had said, to ask men to fight and die for a cause they were not born or bound to without asking them to give up their wealth for it. And a king, Viserys had added, was bound to respect the rights of his subjects, including their right to own property. Moreover, the Company were guests in the City, and it behooved a guest to not quibble about his host's mores.
Barristan grimaced; the duty of a guest was all well and good, but some things a man couldn't be expected to swallow. That being said, he was not merely a man, but a Kingsguard. His oath was unarguably specific on the subject of obedience, as it was in all regards.I shall obey all commands given me by His Grace the King, executing them faithfully and expeditiously in every particular.The consequences of breaking that oath were not just death, but damnation. And even if he was willing to risk such, he was not such a cur as Jaime Lannister, to forswear himself. As it was said in the Marches, his oath was a word that had gone out from him. Until he fulfilled it, to the last jot and tittle, his word came not back to him.
And at least there had been one good thing that had been done recently. Urrigon Greyjoy might have stayed no longer than a sennight to repair and reprovision his ship before sailing on, but before he had left he had accepted the king's offer to take in his niece Asha. The Basilisk Isles, he had known, had been no place for a girl, even an Ironborn one, and so when the king had offered to see Asha properly educated and betrothed in return for Urrigon flying the dragon banner on his voyages and joining the king's service at call, he had jumped at the opportunity. Asha was a handful, both in her physical person and in her opinions, but there was time yet to make her into a proper lady, rather than some ill-mannered harridan. Finding a governess with the necessary degree of rigor had been a matter of trial and error, but persistence and patience had won out, as they usually did, and Asha's stubbornness had eventually been worn down. The last formal dinner that the king had hosted had even seen her be almost demure, and a far cry from the sharp-edged crosspatch that she had been when she first came to the Court.
He shook his head, snapping a curse at himself in the privacy of his mind. He was on duty, and his king was wandering through a dangerous city; he was not supposed to be reminiscing. But putting aside reminiscence meant devoting his attention to what was going on around him, especially the lifeless eyes of the dead slaves that he could not help but feel were actively accusing him.Why have you forgotten your oath to defend the weak, ser knight?he could hear them say.Why have you forgotten that the gods abhor slavery, and prescribe death for the slaver?Somehow, he guessed, replying that he had sworn an oath would not satisfy them.
And the fact that the best answer he could give did not answer the question weighed on him like a slaver's manacles.
XXX
The tailor sat in the back room of his shop, trying desperately to draw some comfort from the familiar surroundings; the chair with its seat worn smooth by countless hours of work, the table with its array of drawers holding all the needles and pins and thread and other tools a tailor could ever want or need, the shelves lining the walls loaded down with orders in the process of completion. It was impossible. All he had to do was look at the spear leaning against the wall by the doorjamb to be reminded that the world was ending.
His sons and sons-in-law had the watch; three of them had trained with the Militia, and Varan had marched with the Grand Army to Dagger Lake. They had tried their best to teach him how to use the spear in the hours since the slaves had rebelled, but it had quickly become apparent that even as simple a weapon as the spear was largely beyond him. He was a tradesman, had been so since he was old enough to hold a needle and stitch a seam, not a soldier and certainly not a warrior, to take a barbarian's delight in violence. Blood stained, and there was almost always a better way to get what you wanted. Why, he could count on his own hands the number of times he had beaten the trio of slaves his family owned and have fingers to spare, and under the law he held their lives in his hand, to dispose of as he saw fit. It simply wasn't in his nature to be a man of blood.
All of which was worth nothing at all in this new world that had come about. Ever since Robert the Bloody had seen how much greater, how muchbetter, Essos was than the benighted and savage west and decided to take it for himself, violence had become the order of the day, from the horrible, terrifying news from the Disputed Lands to the war upriver, and the creation of the Militia to replace the tiger cloaks. He had prayed, oh, how he had prayed, that his family and his city might be spared both foreign invasion and servile insurrection, but evidently his prayers had been in vain. Now here they were, the young men watching the street from behind the shuttered windows and barred door, the women and children tucked away in the cellar, and the slaves locked in the back storeroom where they couldn't make trouble. He, in the meanwhile, had been quietly deemed useless in a fight by the younger men and told to keep out of the way until one of them needed to be relieved from watch or until the slaves came, in which case he was to stay in the rear rank and do his best.
It would have galled him, had he been able to focus enough to be galled. He had tried to do some work, for slave revolt or no, there were still orders to be completed, but the look of contempt he had been favored with when one of his sons-in-law had walked in on him had been so withering that he had put it back on the shelf and not even looked at it again. Pacing would only make him tired and even more useless, his wife had snapped at him to either do something useful or go away the last time he had poked his head in the cellar to check on the women and children, and he was too distracted, tooafraid, he had to admit, to pray.
Thatsparked an ember of resentment that burned through the fog of worry. He was a citizen of the greatest city in the world, a landowner and voter, a master of his guild respected the length and breadth of the west bank of the city for the quality of his craft, with a shop that had been in the family five generations and would, with the gods' help, be so for as many generations again, if not more. He should not be made to feel like a child, helpless before the storm that threatened his family.
He was just starting to stew about it when the noise of a crowd came through the walls of his shop. In a surge of panicked energy he sprang to his feet, snatched up his spear, and stormed into the front room, already prepared to fight like a cornered weasel. What he saw stopped him in his tracks. The shutters had been taken off the windows, the door was open, and his sons and sons-in-law were standing the street cheering themselves hoarse. He strode out after them, about to demand to know what was going on, when for the second time in as many minutes he was stopped dead in his tracks. The street wasfilledwith soldiers; spearmen, crossbowmen, and men-at-arms with their swords and poleaxes resting on their shoulders, all striding along with the easy confidence of men who had just won a victory of some sort. A few slaves in their midst, dragged along by their manacles, gave a hint as to what that victory had been, and the sight of them flooded the tailor with relief. The rebellion was broken! They were saved! He laughed aloud and, helpless to stop himself, danced a little jig before joining his sons in cheering the soldiers.
He was just about to try to collar one of the passing soldiers and ask what company they served when the answer rounded the corner. Seven men on horseback, six of them riding the massive warhorses that he was told were called destriers and wearing unembellished white cloaks, while the seventh, not quite a man, this, but not a mere boy either, rode a palfrey and wore plain black with red trim and the emblem of a three-headed dragon on his chest that in every way matched the banner that one of the whitecloaks held in his gauntleted fist. The tailor choked in surprise for a moment, almost appalled that he had been cheering foreign mercenaries instead of true sons of the City, before deciding that it didn't matter. The foreigner who claimed to be a king had just saved the City from servile revolt; exceptions could be made. Evidently his neighbors felt the same way, because the cheers changed from general acclaim to specific adulation. "Viserys!" the cry went up. "ImperatorViserys!Ave, ImperatorViserys!" augmented by shouts of "Triarch Viserys!AveTriarch Viserys!" Even the occasional shout of "King Viserys!" did nothing to halt the storm of praise. As the boy-king rode by, gravely acknowledging the applause with dignified nods and lifts of his hand in salute, the tailor remembered old tales he had heard of how the fighting-men of the Targaryen's homeland offered fealty and fell to his knees, raising his spear across his leveled palms. The pride of a citizen be damned; he knew who he owed his life and his prosperity to.
XXX
Two days later . . .
The place where the Triarchs decided to receive Viserys Targaryen was deliberately chosen for its atmosphere. The reports of the acclamation that the Targaryen received wherever he went within the City, of the palm leaves strewn before the hooves of his horse, of the canopy of estate reportedly being made for him by the Guild of Weavers, Tailors, and Embroiderers, and of the healths drunk toImperatoror Triarch or even King Viserys in every tavern and inn and wineshop on the west bank, were deeply troubling. Victorious generals, especially those who had preserved the City from some great disaster, were entitled to adulation, of course, but not to such a degree, and especially not when they were foreigners. Foreigners, it was accepted, might hold positions of leadership in the armies of the City, but they did notcommandthem. That honor was reserved for the Old Blood. And yet the Militia had, it was reported, voted almost unanimously to elect Viserys Targaryen as its Captain-General. So the Triarchs had decided that they would not receive the Targaryen in the triumphalistically decorated Hall of Victories, or in the lavishly mosaiced and muraled Hall of Welcome, designed and decorated specifically to impress foreign dignitaries with the wealth and splendor of the Queen of Cities. Instead he would be received in the Chamber of Inquiry, where the Triarchs received information from spies, officers of the Watch, and lawyers charged with the investigation of crimes serious enough to warrant the attention of the Triarchs. As such, the chamber itself was undecorated, but the passageway where people waited before entering was bedecked with frescos depicting the consequences of violating the law of the City and arousing the ire of its authorities. The last fresco before the iron-bound and soundproofed door, commonly calledthe Perjurerafter its supposed subject, was representative of its fellows, showing a man's tongue being torn out with red-hot pincers. The whole ensemble of passageway, chamber, and reception (those giving evidence were not permitted stools but were required to stand, unless they were physically incapable of doing so, and the Triarchs habitually wore masks and all-concealing robes when hearing evidence) was meant not to impress, but to intimidate. It almost always worked, even on the most loyal and zealous of the City's servants.
So it was a great shock to the Triarchs when Viserys Targaryen appeared to be utterly unconcerned by his surroundings when he entered the Chamber. It was known that he was unusually self-possessed for a boy of his years, but even the boldest might tremble to be called to the Chamber of Inquiry. That said, no one ever came to the Chamber of Inquiry in the presence of their bodyguards, each of them in full armor with longswords and daggers on their hips. The only reason Viserys's men had joined him for this audience was because he had claimed to be unable to prevent them from following him; their oath, after all, was to protect him wherever he went, whether that was the Palace of Order, the Red Temple, or the deepest of the Seven Hells. Even in the Great Sept of Baelor, the holiest ground in Westeros and in the very heart of their capital, the Targaryen kings had always been accompanied by their whitecloaked bodyguards. And such bodyguards . . . Ser Arthur Dayne and Ser Barristan Selmy were worth legions in their own right, by virtue of their reputation if nothing else, and Ser Tomas Shett, Ser Garin Uller, and Ser Ethyn Celtigar had famous names for prowess and valor in their own rights, but even more troubling was the presence of Ser Lysyllo Agah. Agah had been not just a citizen, but a scion of one of the City's most eminent families, before he had sworn himself to the Targaryen's service after the River War. And yet he wore the armor of an Andal knight and the white cloak of the Kingsguard as if he had been raised to them, instead of to the silks and satins of the Old Blood. If the Exile Company could work such a transformation on such a man . . .
It was enough to make Triarch Nakiphos Ormyrion open the questioning on a less confrontational note than had been intended, once the pro forma congratulations had been delivered and accepted. It helped that the Targaryen greeted the Triarchs with the appropriate respect and accepted their congratulations with the prescribed degree of humility; men who remembered their manners could be expected to be reasonable. "We have received reports," he said delicately, "that you have received honors of an extraordinary degree from the people of the City. And that you have done nothing to mitigate this, let us sayunseemly, adulation."
"Unseemly?" Viserys asked, lifting an eyebrow. "We had been under the impression that men who saved the City by their arms were deserving of praise from the citizens. Were we misinformed?"
"You were not, unless it was to the degree of praise to be given," replied Triarch Vogaphos Drennyris, adopting a fatherly tone. "A triumph over rebellious slaves is typically rewarded by an ovation, and perhaps the grant of an office of trust and profit. Not by the granting of the honors you have been offered. By law, such honors as those are reserved to anImperator, or even a Triarch."
"By law," Viserys replied, a stony note entering his voice, "our father should yet sit the Iron Throne, his rule over the Seven Kingdoms uncontested and unquestioned, to be passed to our brother Rhaegar in the fullness of time. Yet this is not the case, because our father and our brother proved too weak to defeat those who rebelled against them, and so, by law, we are an exile under penalty of death. If our House has learned one thing over these past years, my lords, it is that the law is whatever the strongest party in the land says it is."
Thatwas certainly bald enough, enough so to make the Triarchs sit back in their chairs, thinking furiously. They had opted to enter the Chamber alone, and leave the Sword-Bearing Guards without, as a gesture of strength; at the end of the day, the Targaryen was a mercenary in their employ, after all, and if he chose to make himself difficult then the Guard could be summoned at the pull of a bellrope. But now, with six armored killers standing in relaxed but nonetheless ready postures not ten feet away, their gauntleted hands resting on the hilts of their longswords, that decision was rapidly assuming the appearance of a miscalculation. Especially if, as seemed likely from the reports of their spies, the slave revolt was no spontaneous eruption, but deliberately orchestrated by parties inimical to the City. Suspicion had fallen on Robert the Bloody and the Kingdom of Myr, naturally, but now the Triarchs couldn't help but wonder if their enemies were altogether closer to home.
"What do you want, Your Grace," Malaquo Maegyr finally asked, employing Viserys' honorific for the first time. His colleagues turned to him, but he silenced them with a glare that communicated itself even through their masks.I know what I'm doing, that glare stated,so shut up and let me do it."You have served the City faithfully and well these many years," he went on, "and made no secret of your ultimate ambition to retake the Iron Throne of your fathers. But that must necessarily be some years in the future yet. In the meantime, what is it youwant?"
Viserys lifted his chin, unable to conceal the flash of triumph in his eye.By the Gods, I've got them, just like Uncle Donys said I would . . ."We have sworn," he said as gravely as he could muster, "on the memory of our father, our mother, and our niece and nephew, and the ashes of our brother, to restore our House to the Iron Throne, and to raise our House to such heights as even the greatest of our forefathers never dared attempt. What we want, therefore, is whatever will aid us in that quest."
Malaquo nodded. "In that case, Your Grace . . ."
Some hours later, as the Triarchs took a restorative drink in Malaquo's private solar, Nakiphos threw back his wine and glared at him with accusation in his eyes. "Well done, Malaquo," he said bitterly. "You've gone and pissed away more than three thousand years of privilege and tradition, all to make us slaves of a boy who did nothing more than cow a slave riot. Well f*cking done, old man."
Malaquo shrugged, forcing his hand not to tremble as he took a sip of his own wine. "Horonno made his name putting down a slave revolt," he said calmly. "Remember how he ended?" Nakiphos and Vogaphos nodded; every child in Volantis knew the story of Horonno. Schoolmasters and tutors used it as a parable, to illustrate how hubris led to destruction. "Horonno won more victories than any captain of the City before or since," Malaquo went on, "made a name to last a thousand years, was returned as Triarch for forty years running. Never was a man so loved by the people of the City. Yet when he overstepped the bounds of the law, the same people who loved him so turned against him and he died, not as a king, but as a criminal. He too was a victorious captain, with the love of his soldiers, and yet it was his own bodyguards who first arrested him when he sought to make himself a dictator."
Malaquo shrugged again. "The people have had a terrible fright these past days," he said equably. "It is natural for them to cling to whatever might offer them safety and security. When they recover their senses, and with them their courage, they will remember the law, and the proper order of things. Horonno was overthrown and destroyed within a hand of days for his attempted usurpation. A boy who has yet to grow his first worthy beard, and a foreigner at that?" His mouth quirked in a half-smile. "He may last a sennight. But I doubt it."
"What if he does last a sennight?" Vogaphos asked. "What if he lasts a month? Or a year? What is endured comes to be accepted, as the saying is, and the longer the endurance the greater the acceptance."
Malaquo shook his head. "It will not come to that," he said firmly. "We have the Unsullied back in order, and the centuries in the field have been ordered by messenger bird to return to the City at speed. And even if they are wrested from us, all will not be lost. The people will not allow a tyrant to claim power over them. Trust in our people, old friend; they will not forget the law, even if we must put it aside for a time. The Targaryen is young; he will overreach himself, as all young men do when they get drunk on their own glory. And his advisors?" He shrugged. "Dayne is a man of the sword, not the mind, and Rahtheon failed once at the Great Game; he will fail again. All we need do is be patient, and the Targaryen will fall as rapidly as he has risen."
After his audience with the Triarchs, 'honors flew like snow about the Exile King and his captains', in the phrase of a contemporary historian. Viserys Targaryen received the first triumphal procession ever awarded to a foreigner by the Triarchs, at the end of which he was declared Master of Arms and Men, Proconsul of the Western Territories, Prefect of the Black Walls, and Captain-General of the City, along with a host of other, more honorary titles. Nor did the honors stop there; the Wards of the west bank voted to reward Viserys and his officers out of their own funds, granting them manses and commercial privileges with an enthusiasm that bordered on the profligate. Before the sennight was out it was announced that Viserys had decided to marry, and had successfully sued for the hand of none other than Lessaena Maegyr, reportedly the favorite granddaughter of the Triarch of that name. Within a month, the rumor in the streets was that Viserys would stand for election as a Triarch, with the support of his grandfather-in-law and the other two Triarchs; it was equally widely rumored that those men would employ their influence to ensure that there would be no other candidates of any merit or noteworthiness. By every measure, the star of the Targaryen's was in the ascendant as it had not been since before Aerys the Mad took the Iron Throne.
The reaction of Volantis' neighbors was mixed. The Lyseni embassy in the City all but sabered it's way to the front of the line to be the first to offer Viserys their congratulations on his good fortune; after years of being stymied by the Triarchs on the terms of an alliance, they were willing to jump at any chance to actually negotiate instead of outright surrender. The bearded priests of Norvos sent formal congratulations on the suppression of the slave revolt, while also proffering their hopes that ' the City maintain its old reputation for good government and orderly transfer of power.' The Pact of Six Cities, when the news finally reached them, sent Viserys a robe of honor and an elaborately decorated harpy's fingers, as a token of recognition of how he had, in their view, preserved the natural order of the world against chaos. The reaction of Robert of Myr, on the other hand, was reportedly of such vitriol that it was unfit to print, while no official reaction at all came from Braavos . . .
The Dragon in the Wild: House Targaryen in Exileby Maester Harmon
Chapter 107: Blood in the Shadows
Chapter Text
The moneychanger's office was small, as befitted a junior partner in an undistinguished counting house. The most impressive furnishing in it was the counting table, with its top chequy-patterned with light and dark strips of wood to represent denominations, the scales in one corner to measure the weight of metal in any given batch of coin, and the raised lip running around the sides to ensure that nothing fell off. Otherwise, the chairs were plain wood, the window a plain sheet of translucent horn, and the strongbox a clumsily if sturdily made assemblage of iron. Two or three normally sized men might have sat in it comfortably, but four filled it almost to the corners, especially since Adaran and Hokkan had chosen to stand instead of sit and were leaning against the walls, regarding the moneychanger with impassive looks.
Petyr, for his part, was sitting in one of the chairs with his hands folded neatly in his lap and a pleasant half-smile on his face as he began to wrap up his story of how he and the rest of Special Branch had followed the trail of the counterfeit currency. "We required the merchants who had paid out counterfeits to furnish us with the names of the moneychangers they used," he said calmly, "and there we found the common point of reference. All of them used your services, Master Hartyr."
"Coincidence," Ilen Hartyr said with a smile that Petyr could tell was forced and a wave of a hand that trembled only slightly but still noticeably. "We serve many merchants for their fiscal needs, my lord, and the other partners and I divide up the work as we must, to even the load."
"Once might be chance," Petyr observed, "and twice might be coincidence, but three times is fate, the hand of the gods, or enemy action, as the saying is. Forgive me, but I doubt the gods much concern themselves with the affairs of moneychangers. The affairs of those who knowingly pass counterfeit coin, on the other hand . . ."
"'Knowingly'?!" Hartyr yelped. "I know the law, my lord, and I'm as loyal a subject of His Grace as you! I would never . . ."
"Lie to one of his officers?" Petyr interrupted smoothly. "The merchants' records didn't just name your counting house, they named you, specifically. Your signature is on the receipts."
"You lie," Hartyr began, then stopped abruptly as Adaran drew his parrying dagger and started cleaning his fingernails.
"I came here yesterday to change my coin," the young Braavosi said coldly. "And I made sure that you were the one whose services I used. We compared the signature on that receipt to the other signatures of yours that we have, and they match precisely. As for the coin I received?" His brown eyes were as pitiless as frozen mud. "Half of the silver was fake; a thin coat over brass. Between the two of us, whose word do you think a court will believe? Assuming, of course, that we decide to take it to a court and not settle for a more informal resolution."
Hartyr's face went white; Queen Serina was well-loved by the people of the City, both for being the Queen and for being a Queen who supported their trade with her own coin. And Adaran was not just her brother, but a known favorite of the King and the Hand, as well as being a respected veteran of the Legion. Which fame was only enhanced, in some quarters, by the report that his exile from Braavos had been the result of his zeal for Holy Freedom and his unwillingness to wink at those who supported the slavers even tacitly. If he let word slip that he had not just been cheated but given counterfeit coin, and by a moneychanger whose family were Freeborn from before the Siege, at that . . .
"It need not come to that, of course," Petyr said soothingly. "Tell us how you come by the counterfeits, give evidence against any counterfeiters that we take, and the law will be merciful. Keep your silence, however . . ." he shrugged theatrically, "and I am afraid that I will be unable to help you. My comrades were selected for their zeal more than their judgment, alas, and to them it matters little whether an enemy of the Realm dies under the executioner's axe or on a common blade."
"I am a citizen," Hartyr spluttered faintly. "I have rights under the law. You can't . . ."
"I have my blades and leather for a knotted cord,feartaic," Hokkan said in his thick accent, giving his native tongue's term for a sub-chief. "Leave me here with him while you drink a glass of wine at the shop down the street; he will talk. And that quickly, if he is such a fool that he cannot tell the difference between this place and a court of law."
Hartyr regarded Hokkan with naked fear; the former hillman was a frightful figure, with a beaky nose over a face that was already craggy despite not yet being thirty, and not a hint of civilized feeling to be found in his black eyes. The way he was tapping his fingers against the hooked hilt of his long knife with its slightly curved and thick-spined blade was not calculated to reassure either. Not when that hilt was worn so smooth that it was obvious even to such a stranger to violence as Hartyr that it was well-used. "You can't . . ." he tried one last time.
Petyr reached into his doublet and extracted a folded paper, which he held out to Hartyr. "I trust you recognize the King's seal when you see it?" he asked. At Hartyr's convulsive nod he turned to Adaran. "Lieutenant Phassos, do you witness that this seal is unbroken and that I am now opening it?"
"I witness it," Adaran replied formally.
Petyr gently pried the seal loose by its attached ribbon and unfolded it, clearing his voice as he did."It is by my order, and for the good of the Realm, that the bearer of this has done what has been done. Robert, King of Myr,"he read aloud.
If Hartyr hadn't already been sitting down, he would almost certainly have collapsed. As well he might; that letter was as good as a death sentence, in his circ*mstances. "What do you want to know?" he whispered.
Petyr smiled thinly."Everything,"he said intently.
XXX
Hokkan son of Trakhar had not been the best tracker of his band of the Painted Dogs. That honor had gone to a wrinkled old man who could have trailed a gopher to its hole in the pouring rain and learn more about his quarry from a single print than Hokkan could from the whole trail. But even that old greybeard had allowed that Hokkan was a talented apprentice, with the potential to become competent.
He hadn't had much opportunity to practice that craft since coming to Essos, with the kingdoms at peace. The hardest job of tracking he had done had been seeking out a stag that the Andal lordling he and Willet had sworn to had taken it into his head to hunt, and it just wasn't the same as trailing a party of pilgrims along the mountain trails of the homeland, or concealing the band's own trail from a war-band of Andal knights and their damned huntsmen. He spat involuntarily; the men the Andals who had invaded the homeland employed as huntsmen were renegades from the clans and the halfbreeds they spawned, as often as not, and the tie of blood added an extra spice to the stew of hatred.
Fortunately, he was not disguised as anything but himself, so the spitting was not likely to give him away. Myr city saw many peoples, from as many lands, and Robert-ri'slaw was that differences of custom were to be tolerated so long as the law was obeyed and the peace kept. And he knew enough of the world to know that people looked at him and saw a savage who could barely be trusted to eat with knife and spoon, instead of resorting to his fingers. It might have made him angry, but for two things. Firstly, he was a Painted Dog, and so the opinion of these soft lowlanders was worth as much to him as the opinion of a goat to a shadowcat. Secondly, Willet had told him that things would be different in the future. With some luck and the favor of the gods, they wouldmakethem so.
Ruthlessly he dragged his mind back to the task at hand. What he was doing was not tracking, strictly speaking, but it was as close as you get to it in a city. And that near-similarity made it all the more important to cultivate the focus that the task required, for forgetting the differences would mean failure.
For one thing, he was not following his prey by its tracks. He had the man in his sight, and had so for half the morning already. The moneychanger had told them that he received the counterfeits from a courier who came by every morning, and it had been decided to follow this courier in hopes that he would lead them to the rest of the counterfeiting ring. Hokkan and Willet had volunteered, as being the men most experienced in tracking, and after a night spent crouched in the alley near the counting house they had been rewarded with a sight of the courier himself. They had risen and followed, Willet splitting off to parallel the man's movements on the next street over, while Hokkan remained on his tail. In essence, it reallywasn'tmuch different from following a deer or a mountain goat back in the homeland; half the effort consisted of not spooking the beast you were tracking. That being so, Hokkan had decided to act like a paid fighting man with the day to himself; gods knew Myr city had enough swordsmen lying around, competing for increasingly rare places in the Iron Legion and the fighting-tails of the Andal nobles. So he had shambled down the street at an easy stroll, stopping here and there to buy a pastry or a stoup of wine from one of the small merchants that sold such along the streets, keeping his prey in the corner of his eye but never staring at him directly. Men, like beasts, could feel it when you stared that them too intently and too long. If the man he was tailing stopped to look back, the most he would see was a semi-barbarian swordsman walking down the streets trying not to gawp too openly at the wonders of civilization and scowling at those who pressed him too close. Nothing remarkable, in a city where warriors from half the races of the world had come to seek their fortunes.
In time, the man came to an unremarkable-looking house at the end of a side street, knocked on the door and went in. Hokkan's ears pricked; he had seen the way the man knocked at the door, twice in quick succession, then three times at a more measured rhythm, and then an open-handed slap. That was no ordinary request for entry, that was a signal to whoever was inside. He scanned the house for other signs, saw nothing, and then saw the chimney. Smoke was billowing out of it; nothing openly unusual, perhaps, since even on a warm spring day people would still light fires to cook, but the smoke coming out of the chimney had the look of charcoal smoke rather than wood or peat smoke. Charcoal was more expensive than either, for the time and skill and materials it took to prepare it, and so out of reach of the average household in such a neighborhood as this except for special occasions. On the other hand, smiths used it as a matter of course, as it burned hotter than peat and more controllably and evenly than wood. Hokkan wandered over to the house and munched his latest pastry absentmindedly as he scanned for a window that would lead to the cellar. Annoyingly, there appeared not to be one, so he couldn't try to listen for the sounds of a smith at work. What the walls of the house would not mask, the noise of the street would.
That said, he was ever more certain that this was the place. Ambling down the street with the same casualness as before, he met Willet at the end of the block. "I will watch the place," he said softly in their lilting native tongue, which they spoke between themselves. "Bring the others."
Willet bared his teeth. "Like hunting bears in their cave, eh, brother?" he said with an edge of anticipation in his voice before turning about striding down the street. Hokkan shrugged to himself (the likeness was apt enough, but not something to joke about) and walked across the street to a small tavern with a pair of tables along the side of the street. A growling word and a silver piece to the barkeep saw him installed at one of those tables with a pitcher of watered wine and a plate of scones and he settled in to wait. It would be some time before Willet could gather the others from the nearby Watch house, but Hokkan could lie in wait for an Andal caravan or pilgrim party for a day and a night in pelting rain. By comparison, this was nothing.
XXX
Adaran strolled up to Hokkan and grasped his hand, doing his best to project the image of a soldier of fortune meeting an old comrade. "What's toward?" he asked in an undertone.
Hokkan indicated the middle house on the next block down with a jut of his chin. "The man I followed went into that house there," he replied. "He has not left since. Charcoal smoke has been coming out of the chimney steadily for the past hour and a half; either they're freezing in there or they're running a forge. What word from thefeartaic?"
"He's bringing a group of Watchmen to close off the alley behind the house and make sure none escape," Adaran replied. "He says that we are to wait a half-hour, and then storm the house. You and Tychan will go in the back, with Will watching the windows with his bow, and Willet and I will go in through the front with Jorro in the house across the street to cover us with his crossbow. He is already in position."
Hokkan grunted acknowledgement and shambled across the street, whistling tunelessly to himself as he joined Tychan at the entrance of the alley. Adaran turned to Willet. "I say we finish the wine and the scones while we wait," he said nonchalantly.
The big hillman nodded. "Enough for energy, not enough to make us slow," he agreed with a glance at the plate and the pitcher. He sat down, nudging the scabbard of his longsword aside with his foot as he did so, and started nibbling at one of the scones as Adaran poured for them both. As they waited they exchanged stories of their homelands, Willet proving as interested in Adaran's stories of Braavos as Adaran was in Willet's stories of the Mountains of the Moon. He no longer wondered at the collection of scars he had seen on Willet's body when the pair of them had gone to one of the city's bathhouses, or at the man's instinctive wariness around knights, not after hearing Willet's tales of raid and counter-raid in the misty mountain passes and rainy fells.
Adaran had just finished describing the festival of the Unmasking when Petyr Baelish walked up to their table. "All is in readiness," he said softly. "Hokkan and Tychan will go in through the back in the time it takes to say three credos."
That was all the information that Adaran and Willet needed. They stood, Adaran leaving a silver shield on the table for the serving girl, and strode across the street, their off-hands around the throats of their scabbards. It was less nerve-wracking than the advance to contact at Iluro, and much less so than advancing down a street in Tyrosh during the Destruction, but Adaran could still feel his heart speed up and his eyesight sharpen as they approached the house; even if they were in the heart of Myr city, they were still approaching an unknown number of enemies and trusting speed and shock to make up for their lack of numbers. On the other hand, they had known what they were getting into when they signed up, and neither he nor Willet were the sort of men to live and let live when the enemy was within reach.
At the door of the house Willet undid the throat-tie of his cloak and let it fall, revealing his longsword and the short-handled sledgehammer he had been holding against his side. He glanced at Adaran, who nodded briefly, and then spun the sledgehammer up over his shoulder and swung it through a short, vicious arc that ended at the door handle. As the door was battered inward, Adaran dropped his own cloak, drew sidesword and parrying dagger, and stormed through the door with a shout of "In the King's name!"
The announcement of lawful authority did nothing to deter the pair of men who leaped from a table with swords half-drawn. Adaran advanced with a smooth pair of passing steps and lunged, the point of his sidesword going over the arm of the right-hand man to skewer him through the ribs while his parrying dagger rose to ward against the other man's sword. That man managed to actually draw his sword and make a panicked, clumsy blow that Adaran caught on the guard of his dagger and was raising his arm to make another when there was a roar of exertion and the sledgehammer pinwheeled past Adaran to strike him in the side under his armpit with acrunchof breaking ribs. The man collapsed with a breathless cry as Adaran withdrew his sword from the first man's rib cage, and then Tychan and Hokkan were barreling into the room through the back door, short sword and long knife shining in their hands. Adaran cast his eyes around the room. "There!" he cried, pointing his sword at a door; the house had only one story, so that door led either to another room or to the cellar. "Through there, at speed!"
Tychan nodded, passed his short sword to Hokkan, set himself, and charged the door with shoulder lowered. Just as he launched himself off his feet, intending to batter the door down by main force, it was opened from the other side and he hurtled through it with a startled oath, colliding into whoever had opened the door and bodily driving them back through the door in a commotion of falling bodies and surprised obscenities. Hokkan stormed after him, grumbling about clumsy oxen and sons of donkeys as he went, and then Adaran rushed through, his blades poised to cover against low blows as he hastened down the stairs.
What he met at the bottom was a scene of pandemonium. Tychan had risen from his fall down the stairs in the middle of what was evidently a forge and was roaring like a bear as he laid about him with his fists; as Adaran watched he caught the arm of a man swinging a hammer at him by wrist and elbow, broke it in at least three places with a twist and jerk of his massive hands, and then lifted the screaming man by the front of his apron to throw him into the glowing coals of the forge. Beside him Hokkan, looking even more like a miniature troll than he usually did with his short, thick-bodied build, was keeping three other men at bay with the pair of blades in his hands, whirling them through a web of flourishing cuts as he snarled and snapped at them; a slashed corpse at his feet gave credence to his display. Adaran pitched into the three men that Hokkan was holding off, stabbing one through the throat as he missed his cover and driving the other two into a corner with a series of flashing thrusts to win room. A flicker of motion out of the corner of his eye almost made him wheel around with his heart in his throat, but then a yipping howl announced Willet's arrival down the stairs and he turned back to see that one of the men he had been facing had gone down under Hokkan's blades. The last man threw a thrust with his own sword that made Hokkan throw himself back with a curse, and then Adaran was blade to blade with him. The man was good, but not as good as a man who had finished his education in arms in the household of Ser Gerion Lannister and won his spurs in the Destruction of Tyrosh, and four passes later Adaran had run him through the bicep, forcing him to drop his blade, and kicked him back into the corner, where he could finally get a proper look at him. What he saw made him blink. His beard might have been shaven, but there was an unmistakable shadow of dye along his jaw that even the fiercest washing could not entirely remove. "A long way from Tyrosh, are we not?" he said, forcing his voice to calmness.
The other man spat at his feet. "You would know, murderer," he snarled in an unmistakable accent. "You destroyed it, gods witness."
"Surrender," Adaran replied. "Surrender and I will speak for you to His Grace. You need not die today, or even tomorrow or the next day. His Grace can be merciful, to those who renounce their errors."
The Tyroshi's face twisted in a hateful grimace. "You would know not to speak to me of mercy, bastard, if it wereyourfamily who died when the Inner City burned," he ground out. "You think we have been defeated? Wait and see. While even one of us draws breath we will remember what you did to us, and hate you to our dying breaths." Then fast as a striking viper he uncoiled from his crouch, drawing a dagger and thrusting for Adaran's belly, but Adaran was ready for him. A cross-parry from his own dagger blocked the Tyroshi's thrust and he spun his sidesword up to throw a punch with the hilt at the man's face, but a moment before the punch went home the point of a longsword snaked in front of it and buried itself five inches deep in the Tyroshi's face.
XXX
"Unfortunately, the man died almost instantly," Petyr said calmly. "Especially since we are almost certain that he was the ringleader, and the man who knew most about the smuggling operation that would have been necessary to bring in sufficient silver bullion to maintain the counterfeiting scheme."
"Unfortunate indeed," Robert replied. "What of his accomplices? Were any taken alive?"
"Three, one with a badly broken arm and some severe burns, the second with a shattered left jaw, and the third with four broken ribs and three more cracked. I understand that they are undergoing interrogation even now, which I do not doubt will yield results. Not great results, perhaps, but results regardless."
"Regardless of whatever results those interrogations produce, how do you plan to proceed?" Ser Gerion asked.
"We seized certain documents from the house that may provide useful evidence," Petyr answered. "If we find leads worth pursuing, we shall investigate them further, but in the meantime our next quarry shall be the smuggling operation that would have been the necessary corollary to the counterfeiting ring. When Lord Blacksail is next in the City, we shall enlist his aid on that front; even if his knowledge of the likely players is out of date, as is possible, I am confident that his expert knowledge will prove useful."
Robert nodded. "He should be in the City for the celebration when Our child is born," he said, feeling the now familiar rush of elation at the thought. Mere months, by Maester Antony's reckoning, and he would be a father again. "Ser Gerion, make a note to extend him an invitation in Our name, in recognition of his service to the Realm. Are there any other questions?" As heads were shaken around the Small Council table he nodded again. "We thank you for your efforts, Master Baelish, and wish you better luck with your next quarry."
Baelish withdrew, bowing as he went. As the door closed behind him Ned was the first to speak. "So," he said bluntly, "we have failed to tear out the root of this conspiracy."
Ser Gerion raised an eybrow. "Total success was never to be reasonably expected," he said. "Our enemies have been playing this game for long centuries, and while we chose our men carefully they are only taking their first strokes in waters that our enemies have made their homes in."
"And even by the harshest measure, this was still a success," Ser Brynden added. "The counterfeiting ring was broken, its operatives either slain or taken, and their forge with its store of silver bullion seized. It will take them some time to establish a new ring, and in the meantime we can redouble our vigilance against a repetition. I for one am well satisfied with Petyr's performance in this matter; he has tasted enough success in it that he will hunger for more, while failing to a degree that will spur him to learn from his mistakes."
Robert couldn't help but consider the Blackfish more closely as the discussion turned to the finer points of how each man's department would adjust to the new reality of the shadow war. The old knight was the last of the major captains of the original Sunset Company to remain out of the marriage market, with Victarion declaring his intent to seek a bride; Lannister didn't count at the moment, not after his foolishness in the affair of Lysa Tully and the fact that he was effectively exiled and under a cloud of royal displeasure. Ser Brynden's inveterate bachelordom was famous, of course, and had been even before the Company sailed, with explanations as many as they were varied. The most common theory was that he had loved a lady in his youth who had died tragically and that he had sworn to honor her memory by living in chastity until he was reunited with her in the Heavens. Second most common, and to Robert's mind more likely, was the theory that he had been enamored of a tradesman's or a peasant's daughter that his brother Hoster had banished to a motherhouse upon learning of the affair, and that his bachelordom stemmed from anger at his brother's interference. The quiet but persistent rumors that he was a sword-swallower Robert dismissed out of hand; he had known a few such men, from time to time, and Ser Brynden just didn't seem the type.
For his part Robert had seen nothing to confirm or deny either rumor, and for his money it mattered little. Ser Brynden might have an estate sufficient to his dignity as a senior royal officer, but he rarely visited it, leaving it to the management of his steward while he carried out the duties of his office. His income relied primarily on his salary as a royal officer and some investments he had made in the City, and while it was a perfectly respectable fortune it was not so great that its inheritance was a matter for the Crown's close attention. That said, Ser Brynden was still an old friend and a worthy vassal, whose arrangements for his legacy were deserving of at least some inquiry, and if he truly meant to leave no heir of his body then his defense and advocacy of Baelish took on a different complexion entirely. He would, he decided, discuss the matter with Serina and Ned, and possibly Ser Gerion, after this meeting.
He rapped the table to bring the meeting back to order. "All this is very well, and I trust will be pursued diligently," he said, "but we have other matters that call for our attention. Ser Gerion, what news have we from King's Landing, pending my brother's official response to the Targaryen's apparent coup in Volantis?"
Ser Gerion smiled thinly. "Outrage and contempt, Your Grace," he said with every evidence of satisfaction. "Fighting as a sellsword in wars between slavers is one thing, but fighting to continue to hold men in bondage is another matter entirely. Not since Maegor the Cruel and Aegon the Unworthy has a Targaryen been in such bad odor with the Faith; my last news indicated that the High Septon was seriously contemplating excommunicating Viserys and all who follow him. The maesters of the City have issued a manifesto declaring Viserys' actions to show the true colors of the Targaryen dynasty as descendants of Valyria, oldest and most terrible of the slaver nations. The smallfolk have been observed to spit at the name of Targaryen, and the masters of the guilds have passed resolutions declaring the hostility of their trades to slavery in general and Viserys Targaryen in particular, for betraying the strictures of the Faith and the laws of Westeros in such fashion. As for sentiment beyond the City's walls . . ." Gerion shrugged. "I admit my information is less complete, but I doubt that the Targaryen's will find much welcome anywhere in Westeros after Viserys's actions."
"Or that if they do, it shall be a warmer welcome than they will find bearable," Ned said with an edge of grim anticipation in his voice, provoking a wave of hard chuckles from around the table. Robert nodded, feeling the fury that was his bloodline's gift stir at the memory of receiving news of Viserys's coup. He had honestly thought the Targaryen's to be done and dusted; Rhaegar had been dead, depriving them of their king, Viserys had been a boy, and Marq Grafton had stolen their fleet and murdered some of their best officers in his betrayal. He had fully expected that the remainder would wither away into sellswords and bandits, with Viserys reduced to a beggar as his protectors deserted him.
He should, upon reflection, have known better than to discount Arthur Dayne and Barristan Selmy. He had grown in wisdom since the Peace of Pentos, but if any men could still make a fool of him, they could. And he did not appreciate being made a fool, any more than he appreciated the way the Targaryen and his exiles were bringing disgrace on the very concept of knighthood by fighting for the slavers. His hand rose unconsciously to finger the gold dragon that still hung on the chain around his neck. He had paid one debt already, he reminded himself. In the fullness of time, he would repay this one too, and more besides.
"What of Braavos?" asked Franlan Shipwright.
"Sealord Antaryon has confirmed his intent to resign, and preparations for the election continue apace," Ser Gerion reported. "The Sharks continue to hold the edge among the smallfolk for the nonce, but the Whales are gaining traction among the merchants and the better sort of burghers by pinning the blame for the Expulsion on the war the Sharks championed. Their message the past few months has been that they do not doubt the justice of our cause, but rather they doubt the wisdom of pursuing such a precipitate course of action as war. Their current favorite for the Sealord's Chair, Radalfos Solazzo, is of the opinion that economic pressure to abolish slavery will work just as well as naked force, and in the meantime is less likely to lead to the same level of death and destruction as outright war. In the meantime, he says, the Commune will be best served by eliminating piracy from the Stepstones and enforcing those terms of the Peace of Pentos that yet remain operable."
"Tach," Ned said disdainfully. "Are the Whales truly such fools as to think the slavers will give up their slaveswillingly? Did they learn nothing from their subordination of Pentos, and the dodges it's magisters concocted to allow them to retain slavery in all but name?"
Gerion shrugged again. "It may just be an excuse to justify avoiding another war before Braavos has rebuilt its trade and recovered its strength, but the Lorathi edict of emancipation would appear to lend credence to the argument."
"Despite the fact that the Lorathi were spurred by the fear of Braavosi galleys bearing Legion spearmen, not of embargos and tariffs," Franlan spat. "Truly the Braavosi are a nation of craven shopkeepers."
Robert fixed the Lord Captain of the Port with a baleful eye. "No man who was at Tyrosh would speak so of the Titan's children," he said mildly, making Franlan flush; he hadn't been at Tyrosh, nor had he seen action since the Siege and the Sack. Reminding him of it was a good way to make him take the wind out of his sails.
Gerion nodded. "Braavos has been instrumental in our success thus far," he said. "And the Whales, I am told, are of the mind that this generation has extirpated slavery in four of the Nine within eight years; a greater accomplishment than all preceding generations put together. Now is the time to consolidate the gains that have been made, they say, lest they be lost through hastiness and lack of consideration. In addition to which," he went on with a slow smile, "the Braavosi tell me that we may have a new ally in the near future, in the city of Norvos."
Thatmade the Small Council sit up and take note. "Alliance?" Ser Brynden asked sharply. "Not merely neutrality? With a slaver state?"
"The destruction of Qohor has focused minds on the Upper Rhoyne as much as on the Lower, and the situation in Volantis has focused them even more," Gerion explained. "With Qohor at their side the Norvoshi might have been able to stand off both the Dothraki and the Volantenes, and maintain their freedom along the upper branches of the Rhoyne. Alone they have not the strength to fight either, much less both, and they fear that even if Volantis is willing and able to aid them against the Dothraki then they will insist upon terms closer to vassalization, or even outright annexation, than to alliance. We, on the other hand, do not have Volantis' record of demanding submission in return for protection, and the thought of being able to call on the Iron Legion for aid if the Dothraki come is doubtless an appealing one."
"Are they willing to pay the price for that aid?" Victarion asked, scowling. "If Norvos frees their slaves, then I say take them in and welcome. If they do not, or if they make some weakling's promise as the Lorathi did, then I say that Norvos is not worth the bones of a single legionary."
Gerion spread his hands. "To that I cannot speak. But if the bearded priests choose to take that step, then I recommend that we follow the lead of the Braavosi, and welcome them."
Robert nodded. "I will not quibble if the bearded priests pledge abolition," he declared, "so long as they keep their word. But let us await developments, and see what comes. Now I was told there was some news from further north?"
Gerion nodded. "The King of Saath has expelled the Lorathi from his city, apparently at the instigation and with the support of the Shadow Council of Ibben," he said. "This, I deem, is driven largely by Lorath's accession to Braavos on the question of slavery; the Shadow Council may well be drawing a line across the Shivering Sea and telling the Braavosi, 'Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further . . .'"
XXX
To understand the position that Norvos found itself in during the early years of the Generation of Blood, and especially their long neutrality despite being courted by both the abolitionist alliance and the slaver bloc, it is necessary to possess some understanding of Norvos' government and culture.
While Norvos had a Council of Magisters as the other Free Cities did, that Council's role was not executive or even legislative, being instead a mere advisory body to the government of the Faith of the Unspeakable One, more commonly known in those days as the Bearded Priests. This has led to the oft-repeated maxim that Norvos was 'a religion with a state', which like most maxims had a germ of truth at its core, but the degree to which that was true could vary widely from time to time. What is most remarkable is that even at both its most secular and most religious, Norvos remained equally opposed to monarchy and to oligarchic democracy alike. Monarchy was opposed on the grounds that mortal ambition inevitably led kings to attempt to usurp dignities and powers reserved to the Unspeakable One, with equally inevitable drastic consequences, and so it was best to prevent temptation from eventuating in the first place. Oligarchic democracy, on the other hand, was considered irreconcilable with the Unspeakable One's command that his earthly followers submit to righteous authority; how on earth could even the laity of the faith, educated in the One's precepts, have the requisite knowledge and discernment to infallibly choose righteous leaders from among themselves, or even from among the elite, who it could be argued were more liberally blessed by the One than their proletarian co-religionists? Such at least were the official explanations, which were doubtless informed and reinforced by centuries of persecution under the dragonlords of Old Valyria and centuries more of simmering rivalry with Volantis and the other Free Cities.
As a result, the government of Norvos consisted not of a single Council under a Gonfalonier or an Archon or some other single leader, but rather was composed of a series of committees, all interconnected but at the same time compartmentalized and largely autonomous within their particular bailiwick. Over all stood two executive bodies. The first was the Three Voices, who were considered the living embodiment of the world-famous Bells and were responsible for the promulgation of the decisions of the various departments, the enforcement of law and order, and judgment of common crimes. The second, the Triad of Justice, Mercy, and Grace, had jurisdiction over major felony crimes and the prison system, as well as being responsible for matters touching on the citizens and subjects of foreign powers living in Norvos that were too sensitive for the Committee on Foreign Persons to handle. Major questions of state, such as declarations of war or alliance, were settled by special meetings between the Three Voices and the Triad, with the High Priest presiding over and refereeing the discussion, although he was not allowed a vote. Even the city's military exhibited this somewhat schizophrenic tendency to segregation, consisting as it did of the Holy Guard, tasked with the security and order of the city's temple complexes, and the Common Guard, which patrolled the city streets and the hinterlands, with both branches of the Guard having separate and co-equal commanders for their cavalry and infantry branches.
While this system undoubtedly fulfilled its intended purpose of forestalling autocracy and populism alike to an admirable degree, it also readily fostered gridlock. The special meetings of the Three Voices and the Triad which determined the city's response to major questions of policy did not take place in a vacuum, but were informed and influenced by the responses of the myriad of committees to those questions; simply reading through the stacks of memoranda produced could be an ordeal, if surviving records are anything to go by. Getting dozens of civil servant-priests to reach consensus on any question save one of absolutely immediate emergency was a major exercise at the best of times, and made even more so by the fact that each committee was composed of clerics of a religion that had a proud tradition of stubborn endurance in the face of adversity. It was, in sum, not a system that made for an agile and readily responsive government.
This systemic inertia was compounded by the fact that Norvos' risk of social volcanism was not nearly as high as those of its sister cities. Where the other Free Cities (Braavos excepted, of course) had substantial slave majorities, in Norvos the relative proportion of population stood at two free to one slave. Furthermore, while Norvoshi slavery should not by any means be viewed as benevolent, the scriptures of the Unspeakable One emphasized the necessity of justice and mercy in the exercise of power, and consequently the yoke lay lighter on slaves in Norvos than it did in Volantis or Lys. Slave craftsmen who reached journeyman rank commonly had a percentage of the wages due their owner withheld on the understanding that in time the amount withheld would be paid to the master as the slave craftsman's purchase of his freedom. Likewise, domestic slaves were commonly freed on the death of their purchaser, unless they were bequeathed to an heir, while manumission as a reward for long and exemplary service was also common. The child of two married slaves was considered free from birth, although these were commonly raised as wards of the master of the slaves in question and slaves could only marry with the permission of their masters, which was rarely granted. Marriage between a slave and a freeborn citizen, while considered socially suspect and exceedingly rare among the upper and upper middle classes, resulted in the legal emancipation of the slave in question; any children of such a union were considered freeborn, and could freely inherit from either parent. In addition to which, Norvos had the usual proportion of 'privileged' slaves, some of whom enjoyed a higher standard of living than many freeborn burghers; some of these 'privileged' slaves, despite being the legal property of the Faith of the Unspeakable One, paradoxically came to occupy important stations in its government.
As a consequence of all this, Norvoshi society did not view slavery as an immutable state to which one could be condemned forever by an accident of birth, or even by a whim of circ*mstance. Slavery, rather, was a state to which anyone could fall (one punishment on the Norvoshi law books for certain moderately serious felonies was for the perpetrator to be sold into slavery and their price given to the person they had wronged as restitution), and from which anyone could rise, given hard work and the favor of the Unspeakable One. The fact that there were so many avenues of emancipation for ambitious and intelligent slaves also reduced the risk of upheaval by acting as safety valves on a boiler did, allowing for a safe release of pressure from the combustion chamber without risking the health and efficiency of the machine as a whole.
This combination of a sluggish system of government and an unusually stable form of slavery meant that Norvos was essentially incapable of making a quick decision about what should be done about the events of the 280s, with their incapability compounded by a lack of urgency within their own city on the subject of abolition. By the time the committees finally started to come to a consensus, two of the Free Cities had been forcibly conquered, two more had been outright destroyed, the second era of Braavosi colonialism had dawned, and Viserys Targaryen had made his grand entrance onto the political stage. This consensus, however, was still in the building stages when it was preempted by a special meeting of the Three Voices and the Triad, which took the extraordinary step of issuing a decree on the matter of abolition. This decree, one of only a handful of examples of its kind, would send shockwaves through Norvoshi society . . .
Bleeding Essos: A Student's Guide to Essosi States and Peoples in the Generation of Bloodby Professor J Candrelli
The Faith of the Unspeakable One might forbid the keeping of ornamental plants as an unbecoming frivolity, but it had no such prohibition against ornamental stone. This, Vano Torvin reflected, was most fortunate, for otherwise the Garden of Stone would be damning evidence of hypocrisy, instead of a much-needed source of tranquility and inspiration for meditation.
Originally inspired by tales of similar gardens in far Yi-ti, the Garden of Stone had been developed to such a degree that the rare merchants and adventurers from that half-mythical land who came to Norvos almost always petitioned to see it, and were almost uniformly admiring in their assessments. The artificial 'river' of light gravel, bounded by darker pebbles and carefully raked to give the impression of waves, the painstakingly placed boulders that gave the impression of mountains surrounding the gravel river, and the small heaps of flat stones placed within the 'river' to symbolize rapids and waterfalls, all met with praise. For his part, Vano suspected that the praise was at least partially bolstered by the reminder of home that it represented for men so far from anything resembling it, but he loved it nonetheless. It had been both soothing balm and intriguing exercise for a mind that had spent all its life laboring in the service of the Unspeakable One and His City, and now its serenity felt like the very hand of the One resting on him in benediction for his latest triumph on His behalf.
As the Voice of Narrah, it was his duty to secure the future of Great Norvos. An easy enough task, in normal times, but those times had vanished with the arrival of the Sunset Company, and the Peace of Pentos had been their final death-knell. Others had rejoiced that the wars appeared to have come to an end, but Vano had seen beyond the surface as a lifetime in the One's service had trained him to do. The Peace of Pentos had not destroyed the new Kingdom of Myr, nor even crippled it. Far to the contrary, it had confirmed the upstart kingdom's existence, and that had been enough to tell him that the wars had only just begun. And that had made him know fear, not for himself, but for his city and his faith, for the first time in many years.
He hadknown, as only a man of marrow-deep faith could know, that Great Norvos was the greatest of the Free Cities. The protection of the Unspeakable One and the guidance of His scriptures had preserved it from the designs of the Valyrians, for all their sorcery and their dragons. And after Valyria had fallen they had kept the City and its inhabitants from falling prey to the myriad pitfalls of the world. The Qohori had become enthralled by their sorcery, the Braavosi entranced with the pursuit of money, and the other Free Cities consumed by the cruelty that their twisted versions of slavery fostered, but Great Norvos remained pure, its people upright and honorable and God-fearing, and in time they would throw down their rivals and rule supreme over all, while the Unspeakable One smiled down upon them from His seat in Paradise.
The return of the Andals had changed that. Great Norvos knew the Andals of old, of course; they had been near-neighbors and old enemies, after all. A proud folk, quarrelsome and stubborn, but valiant and war-wise enough that under Qarlon the Great they had broken the armies of Great Norvos and driven its people within the walls to suffer a siege. It had taken the might of Valyria's dragons to break them in the field, and even after Qarlon and his army burned they had fought on; even though they had no skill in sorcery like the Rhoynar, they had defied the dragonlords nonetheless, with nothing more than their blades and their faith in their seven gods. And when the dragonlords had finally driven them from Essos, they had made a new home across the Narrow Sea and raised mighty kingdoms for themselves on the graves of the Children of the Forest and the First Men. Now they were back, with their ancient valor and faith, and possessed of a might that was not to be found in Valyria's children. They were not ruled by greed, or by obsession with the faded glories of bygone days, but by the idea that it was the inalienable right of man to live and die free without ever suffering the shackle and whip, and it possessed them with a fervor fit to match their goal of remaking the world in their image. Such a people, led by such a man as Robert Baratheon, who was quite possibly one of the few monarchs in history not to make a lie of his claims of superiority, who could inspire even the Braavosi to remember honor, was a threat. And not just to their foes, either. A strong man in the grip of fury was dangerous to foe, friend, and disinterested bystander alike; strong kingdoms were no different.
There had been only one sure way to avert that danger, and so Vano had, somewhat to his own surprise, become an advocate of the abolition of slavery. He had never cared much about the institution one way or the other before then (how could he, when it was something that was justthere?) but his duty as a Voice was clear; he was to take all measures to safeguard and strengthen the City and the Faith that lay within his power, and the abolition of slavery would do precisely that in the most dramatic fashion that could be asked for. And while it was true that the scriptures not only acknowledged the existence of slavery but set mandates for the conduct of both slave and master, careful exegesis had shown that the scriptures contained no explicit endorsem*nt of slavery, and it was wholly erroneous to conflate regulation with endorsem*nt. As his friend the Master Archivist Mycan Banderis was fond of putting it, the scriptures contained prescriptions on how to punish murder and adultery and kidnap as well as on how to regulate slavery, but claiming that those prescriptions constituted a hope that such behavior would be commonplace in a God-fearing society would be laughable.
Moreover, he had slowly come to believe, Great Norvos might be greater still for having abolished slavery. Which was more likely to produce more, a slave whose daily bread was assured whether he worked long and hard or short and poorly, or a free laborer or farmer or artisan whose whole livelihood sprang from the work of his hands? Who was more likely to fight hard in the City's service, a slave bound into the ranks who cared nothing for what he fought for, or a free man who fought for his home and family and the temples of the Unspeakable One? Which, when you got right down to it, was more pleasing in His eyes, a slave who worshipped him for fear of punishment if he did not, or a free man who worshipped him from respect and love? All these arguments and more he had made time and again, perhaps not with Mycan's passion but certainly with intellect and wisdom enough, but always circling back to the argument that overrode all others for him. Westeros and Braavos had foresworn slavery from their outset, and now they bade fair to bestride the world as the Titan bestrode the entrance to the Lagoon of Braavos. Was not Norvos Great, great enough to defeat these upstart realms at their own game, through their faith in the Unspeakable One and their trust in the righteousness of their cause?
It had taken years, years of argument and debate and cajoling and sometimes outright threatening, but now it was done. The majority he and his supporters had cobbled together was a narrow one, but enough to approach the Braavosi with an offer of alliance, with abolition as a graduated process taking place over a twenty-year period as the necessary concession. He privately doubted that they would get away with such a gradual approach to the question, especially since they would not allow the Braavosi to dispatch inspectors to monitor their progress, but it was a good position to start haggling from. He had already instructed the ambassador that he could go as low as twelve years without needing to consult with the Combined Council.
Doubtless there would be howls of outrage from those who opposed even the idea of abolition, but they no longer had a choice in the matter. By ancient law, a bare majority of the committee chairs could vote to declare an emergency and invest the Combined Council with the power to rule by decree. It was an artifact of the Century of Blood, when the Combined Council had more closely resembled the Councils of the other Free Cities and the High Priest had been something very near to an elected king, and rarely used since, but the law was still on the books and still operative, and even counting only those who could be trusted to remain loyal through any discouragement his faction had enough votes to pass such a declaration. Let them defy the Combined Council after such a vote, if they dared, and it would be seen how much they could endanger the City and the Faith with their heads mounted above the gates. Not that Vano expected any such trouble; the opportunists and bystanders would start flocking to his party, once they showed that they had the momentum to be worth following, and the moderates among the anti-abolitionist faction would turn their coats quickly enough. Especially when they were presented with the choice between maintaining at least some of their wealth and influence under the new order, or being left to howl at a closed door for whatever scraps were allowed them.
And once the shock faded even the most reactionary of the anti-abolitionists would have the chance to see what Vano himself had seen, that this was not just a time of great upheaval but, for those who dared to seize them, a time of great opportunities. Long had Great Norvos been hemmed in by the sorcerers of Qohor and the depredations of the river pirates that Volantis occasionally armed and roused against them. Now Great Norvos' vassal towns extended from the Qohori frontier to the Upper Rhoyne; Ny Sar had already been claimed by an advance party of the Common Guard, and more and more submissions came in by the month. Already the River Darkwash, long barred to them by Qohori border fortresses, had come under their sway, the surviving Qohori settlements along its banks renouncing their goat-demon in return for the protection of the Unspeakable One. The treaty that would be taken to Braavos would stake Great Norvos' claim not only to Dagger Lake, but to Selhorys, to Qohor itself, and to the whole upper watershed of the Rhoyne and its vassal streams. Let Norvos give up slavery and it would gain an empire that dominated the Upper Rhoyne. Once that was assured . . . Vano bared his teeth in a slight smile. The Braavosi would forget their newly-remembered devotion in due course and go back to chasing rumors of wealth halfway around the world. Robert Baratheon might die a giant but his heirs would degenerate, as all such false gods would that owed their elevation solely to men. Its new allies might rot away, but Great Norvos would endure in faith, and rise to become the sole power on the western half of the continent.
Great would be the rejoicing of Great Norvos' people then, to finally realize the ancient dream that the faith would spread across the land and rise to unchallengeable power, and great the Unspeakable One's favor on those who had engineered the fulfilling of His covenant. Vano couldn't help a smile of anticipation. Surely even those who had been most put in fear by the Rape of Tyrosh, and those who had most fervently seized upon it as a reason to forswear contact with the abolitionist states altogether, could see that even such regrettably uncivilized savagery as that of the Andals could not but lead toward such a consummation? It was well known that the Unspeakable One could turn even the blackest evil to the service of His good, in the fullness of time.
The hope thus inspired was almost enough to mask the tinge of regret as he remembered the look on certain of his colleague's faces when the vote on the declaration had been passed. In truth the law allowing for the assumption of emergency powers by the Combined Council was a relict; a throwback to the unsettled times of the Century of Blood when kingdoms had risen and fallen by the month in spouting blood and leaping flame and made obsolete by the settling of the political landscape afterwards and the advent of peace. The only reason it was still on the books was that no one had seriously thought that circ*mstances would ever warrant its use. And even when its implementation was perfectly justifiable, as now, actually doing so resembled arbitrary rule more than anyone was comfortable with; even, to be entirely honest, himself. The Unspeakable One had no love for the man who overreached the boundaries He placed on human endeavor, and the people of Great Norvos had no love for those who thought to play the tyrant. Necessity was certainly an unanswerable argument, but that was exactly why it was the favorite argument of such men. He shook his head, irritated at himself. Trying to untangle that philosophical rat's nest could wait for another day. This was his day of triumph, by the One, and he would not waste it in self-condemnation. A hot bath, a massage, and a good meal with some of his friendlier colleagues was in order; he had already sent one of the two protectors his office entitled him to to convey invitations. He smiled faintly at the memory of the minor argument that had taken. Kortan and Mylo were good men, but young and still brim-full of the dignity and stiffness that the training schools instilled in their graduates. Their duty, they had both insisted, was to guard him well at all hours, regardless of conditions, and given the likely repercussions of the day's events they had come very close to refusing his order. It had taken his promise to remain in the Garden until Kortan returned and to not go more than arm's-reach from Mylo before Kortan had finally gone, promising expedition in his errand. Old Talin would never have argued with him so, but Talin had grown gray and stiff in service and had been semi-retired to the training school; there were times when Vano desperately missed his old protector's dry wit and subtle turns of phrase.
The sound of feet on the pathway behind him made him turn to see that he and Mylo were no longer alone. Manto Kivus, Head of the Committee on Lands Touching the River, and his protector were halting at the distance prescribed by the complex etiquette of the Temple and making his bow of salutation, which Vano returned, if more stiffly. Manto had been a bitter enemy during the long debates leading up to the final vote, being a fervent advocate for the retention of slavery as vital to the economy and the social fabric of Great Norvos, but that seemed to have changed. His usually scowling face was composed to blankness and the hands that had so often been balled into fists were folded in the sleeves of his robe. Doubtless, Vano surmised, he had finally come to his senses and come to salvage what he could from the wreck of his faction's position. He told himself sternly that whatever he said, he would not gloat at Manto's defeat. Just because he had beaten him didn't entitle him to be rude, after all, as the senior of the two of them, both in rank and in years, it behooved him to set an appropriately dignified example.
Which made it all the more surprising when Manto's first words were, "I am sorry, Honored Voice." He was just about to ask what on earth Manto had to be sorry for when Manto's protector lunged and buried his axe to the eye in Mylo's skull. Vano was still gaping in shock at the sudden and violent death of one of his closest friends when Manto's protector wrenched his axe free of the dead man's head and swung it again.
Manto looked down at the Voice's shattered corpse and shook his head sorrowfully. A terrible act, to be sure, but one that could no longer be avoided if the City was to survive and maintain its ancient liberties. "Cruel necessity," he murmured to himself, before stalking away with his protector striding at his heels. The night's work had only just begun, and there was much left to do before the City could be considered saved.
Chapter 108: The Games Begin
Chapter Text
The Dothraki were rarely subject to sickness. How could they be, when they lived on the clean plains under the purifying sun instead of packing themselves into stinking cities where the streets flowed with sh*t? And when someone did become sick, there were ways of isolating them from the rest of the khalasar, attended only by the shaman and the oldest of the mercy-men, until the illness ran its course and the person either died or healed. These ways had worked for time out of mind, until they were embedded in the collective soul of the nomads.
Which had made the plague that had struck Drogo's khalasar all the more frightening. As they rode away from the ruin of Qohor it had struck, inflicting a cough that quickly turned bloody and a fever that burned the sufferer's flesh away. As it was rare for a Dothraki to be fat, this latter symptom was especially dangerous; within three sennights of its appearance almost two thousand of the khalasar had died from this almost visible withering of their frames, and many more were on the verge of death. Even more alarming was the fact that it had infected their horses. The same cough and fever that had struck the khalasar went through their herds like wildfire, until almost a quarter of the horses were reduced to skinny, shambling, coughing ruins of their former proud selves. Even isolating the sick had not prevented the spread of the disease, and the formerly triumphant progress of the khalasar across the plains ground to a halt on the banks of a stream so small it did not even have a name.
It was the shaman, his already-lean frame made almost skeletal by his labors among the sick and his dancing and drumming to divine the cause of the disease, who discovered an answer. The Black Goat of Qohor, he explained, had been angered by the ruin of His city, and in revenge he had sent this plague upon its destroyers. The fact that none of the slaves they had taken from Qohor had fallen prey to the illness proved its origin Fortunately, he had claimed, there was a cure. Each family in the khalasar must choose the richest piece of loot it had taken from Qohor and give it up to be burned. This offering to the horse god would invoke Its protection against the Goat, while also weakening the Goat's ability to sustain the plague it had sent. Drogo had sent his riders through the camp, ensuring that no one held back, for the shaman had explained that doing so would render the ritual powerless, and ensure the Goat's ability to continue and even worsen the plague.
Drogo had endured many glares, and many insults, from the same people he had led to the greatest victory of their people over the walkers in generations, when he had put the torch to the pyre of wealth, but it had worked. Those who had been too far gone in the grip of the disease had died, but others had recovered, and not one man or horse more had developed either the fever or the cough. Indeed, those who recovered seemed even stronger than before, now, as if the sickness had burned whatever weakness they possessed out of them.
So it was a khalasar like none other that Drogo led into Vaes Dothrak under an angry sky muttering with distant thunder. The riders sat their horses silently, sitting tall and grimly proud as they rode under the arch of the two stallions. Instead of chanting the praises of their khal and his warriors as they entered, the women of the tribe were also silent, walking behind their men with their children, letting the air of pride they wore speak for itself. Straight through the great city of the plains they marched, clearing the streets before them with the wave-front of pride and strength that seemed to travel before them and drawing the people of the city after them by the awe of the spectacle they presented, from children to warriors to greybeards. Even foreigners joined the throng, drawn by the magnetism of the silent khalasar and the khal who rode at the head of his people like a brazen image, bare of any decoration save for the copper bells that tinkled in his braid and dressed only in the loose trousers and sleeveless leather vest of a warrior prepared for battle. At last they came to the foot of the path up the Mother of Mountains where, in defiance of uncounted years of tradition, the dosh khaleen had descended to welcome them. There Drogo halted his horse and gestured sharply to his riders, for there was another thing the shaman had said must be done in order to break the power of the Black Goat. One by one each rider in Drogo's khalasar rode by the dosh khaleen, casting to the earth at their feet the spiked helm of an Unsullied and the braid of human hair that had adorned the spears of the eunuch-warriors. As the last helm clunked into the dirt, joining a pile that stood almost as tall as a short man, Drogo rode his horse a pace forward. "Behold the remains of Qohor," he declared, "which with the god's help we have broken into the dust. Khal Temmo is avenged."
There was a moment of silence, followed by an earsplitting thundercrack, and then one of the dosh kahleen stepped forward and raised her hands in salute; Jeshi, oldest and most revered of the only body of people that the Dothraki universally respected. "See, O People!" she cried in the high, wavering singsong that shamans used when invoking the power of the god. "Ahrakkarhas risen up from among you! He rides upon the storm-wind, and the bells in his hair shall be as the stars of the sky! His shadow shall fall like death upon the walkers, and at his name the strongest among them shall be afraid! His horses shall trample down the cities, and none shall be found to stand against them! He is Drogo, son of Barbo, khal of khals, favored of the god, the Stallion Who Mounts the World!"
The bloodscream that rose from seventy thousand throats outrang the thunder as Drogo's heart swelled to bursting.Tremble, dogs,he thought at the walkers that huddled in their cities on the shores of the poison water.Tremble, for death is come upon you. Tremble!
XXX
The following is an excerpt fromIron Flash, the fifth instalment of the Flash Papers by George Dand
Now, if you've read my previous memoirs, you know that my relationship with the gods is, shall we say, complex. On the one hand, I've seen too many things that can't be rationally explained to discount them. Look at what I did in Tyrosh, for instance. And I'm morally convinced that the Lord of the Seven Hells exists, given some of the things I've seen, and the existence of a thing logically implies it's opposite, I suppose. On the other hand, I find it difficult to believe that the gods much care what we do here below. If they did, they'd have done something about some of those things I've seen, and not relied on cretins like me to take out the trash for them.
All that being said, while the gods might or might not be so many myths,religionis most certainly as real as rocks, and just as dangerous. Especially when someone decides to take one up and start beating people over the head with it. Which, now that I think on it, is not that bad a metaphor for what happened in Stannis' court during the early nineties.
What happened, you see, was that Queen Cersei went through a whole string of misfortunes one after the other in the span of a handful of months. First, her pregnancy proved to indeed be twins, but neither of them were the second prince that everyone had been praying for. Now two new princesses is nothing to sneeze at, marriage alliances being as valuable as they are, but they don't do anything to secure the line of succession. If anything they make it overcomplicated, for the same reason they're so valuable. The last thing a sole male heir needs is a group of ambitious in-laws who view his sisters as pathways to the Throne, especially when he's the sole male heir of a new dynasty that came to power by the sword. Moreover, and here I have to slip into conjecture a little, but conjecture based on more than twenty years observation and knowledge of the people in question . . . To my mind, part of the reason for Queen Cersei's pridefulness was that she saw herself as her father with different plumbing. She didn't justthinkthat she was the smartest, cleverest, and most forceful of her siblings, sheknewit. So failing to measure up to Lord Tywin's level of competence, even if it was by chance rather than intent, was a hard blow for her.
Add to which the fact that, by all reports, Cersei came within a shaved hair of dying in the delivery of the twins, and again shortly thereafter from childbed fever. Nothing like a near-death experience to make one remember the religion they were raised in. I've seen more than forty battlefields, in my time, from skirmishes between patrols to clashes between armies, and I've never seen men pray as fervently as they did on those fields. And gods know it's always the most bloody-handed killers who are the most devout of men, either to the gods or to their choice of devils. Look at Lyn Corbray, or Ned Stark. Combine that with the fear (false, but no one knew that at the time, did they?) that Queen Cersei would no longer be able to bear children, and you had a recipe for potential disaster right there.
Then there was that absolute balls-up with Jaime Lannister refusing to come home and hieing himself back to Myr. By all reports, Queen Cersei loved no one in the world as much as her brother, except maybe her children, and the very idea that he might turn his back on her I'm sure never once crossed her mind. And then he didn't just do exactly that, but he turned heretic into the bargain. I wasn't in the room when Cersei got wind of her brother's conversion, but I could hear the screaming and ranting and crashing of breaking knickknacks three corridors away. If I ever needed proof that His Nibs was a braver man than I could ever be, I got it when he went straight into the chamber Cersei was destroying and told her to cease and desist. I wouldn't have done it for a lordship and a pension.
Given all of the above, it's probably not surprising that Queen Cersei got a bad case of religion, but I think even those who thought worst of her were surprised by how bad a case of it she got. Before the month was out she had her own confessor, as opposed to sharing one with Stannis, her ladies were required to attend Divine Office with her daily and twice on Fathersday, all courtly love was banned except for the most chaste of gestures on pain of queenly displeasure, and gods pity anyone who even hinted that the Great Sept might not be all it was cracked up to be. At first I thought that it was just one of those phases people go through from time to time and that it would be over as soon as His Nibs got her pregnant again, but then Septon Colyn came up for trial. If I doubted that Cersei's newfound devotion was sincere, I didn't doubt it after she summoned me into her presence the day before I was to give evidence to the Most Devout. She all but instructed me to dig Colyn's grave, even if that meant perjuring myself, and the look in her eyes reminded me of the look in Colyn's during some of his wilder sermons.
Of course I bowed and said that I would do my humble best; what else was I supposed to do, with the Queen looking at me like that and three Stormguard knights within two arms-lengths? There are times when I can be as dense as a short plank, but you just don't naysay an enthroned monarch if you know what's good for you. And I knew as well as anyone that Colyn needed to be found guilty. It wasn't just the Faith that needed it, but the Realm at large and especially the Vale. Jon Arryn had handed in his papers after His Nibs returned from Balon's Rebellion, citing age and exhaustion and the need to set the Vale back in order. As well he might; he had personally interviewed me on my experiences in Gulltown and I hadn't minced words regarding his nephew's incompetence. If Denys and Gerold Arryn weren't reined in, then Gulltown would erupt into full-blown revolt sooner or later, and it just might take the rest of the southern Vale with it. If Colyn were convicted and sentenced without a hitch, then at least Lord Arryn would have the Faith united behind him, and that's not the sort of following wind to sneeze at. If, on the other hand, there appeared to be any hesitation on the part of the Faith to either convict or sentence Colyn . . . well, I doubted it would do much to change the minds of my former fellow heretics, their minds already being made up, but nothing shakes loyalties like a display of uncertainty. If Stannis and Robert were so loved by the men who followed them, it wasn't just because they gave them victory so often; it was also because no one ever saw either the elder Baratheon brothers at a loss, at least not in public. When the world's going to hell around you, it's really comforting to see someone who at least has an idea of what to do next.
Well, I did my part to convict Colyn anyway. Or tried, at least. See, under the rules of theological inquisition, the accused has the right to hear the evidence against them and confront the prosecution's witnesses. And when I took the stand and was sworn in, Colyn immediately started tearing into me. Virtually every sentence out of my mouth was met with a shout of "Objection!" and the claim that since Colyn knew me to be such a masterful liar, my evidence could not be trusted. The fact that his objections had been overruled almost from the start by the High Septon's ruling that, since I was incognito on the official business of the Iron Throne, my lying during that time had been under orders and therefore excusable, didn't have much effect. The revelation that I had slept with one of Colyn's followers, on the other hand, certainly had an effect. Not that my testimony was thrown out or anything, but the Most Devout viewed me with a jaundiced eye through all the rest of my testimony. I advanced the explanation that I had done so as part of the ruse under which I had joined Colyn's little band, in order to prevent Kathryn from becoming suspicious, but apparently it didn't help much. No sooner had the prosecution rested its case than I was told, by no less than Lord Tarly himself, the new Hand, that as soon as Colyn was safely hanged I would be going to the Iron Isles. The Queen, he said in that stony voice of his, was of the view that any man who had carnal knowledge of a heretic was a man who was not welcome at Court until he had done penance for it, and a few months attached to the Knights of the Sea, as a junior recruit, would be just the thing, in the Queen's estimation. Her initial impulse, he said, had been to make me undergo a test of faith in front of the Most Devout, but His Nibs had talked her down from it on the grounds that I was one ofhisknights and he had every confidence in my loyalty. Which, for a wonder, he was right about; I wouldn't have unhitched my fortunes from Stannis' for a throne. Not only was he the best bet on the table, but he had definitively proven that double-crossing him was bad for your health by then and the whole world knew it. I might have objected, but for two things. Firstly, butting heads with a queen just isn't done when you're only a landed knight. Fighting above your weight rarely ends well. Secondly, I got the hint that Tarly was just passing on Stannis' orders; Tarly was as strong-minded as any lord, but he was far more a natural lieutenant that Jon Arryn could ever have been. Which is why he got the Handship instead of Mace Tyrell, I dare say.
And I was glad enough of an excuse to leave, to tell the truth, with the Court in such upheaval. Stannis had had to replace not only his Hand but also his Master of Laws, since Lord Bolton opened one Small Council meeting by submitting his resignation on the grounds that Queen Cersei had tried to convert his son. An infestation of priests he could live with, I'm told is what he said, but not an attempt on his son's faith. Since he could not challenge the Queen to a duel, he and his people were going back to the Dreadfort, where he wouldn't have to worry about people trying to twist his son's arm into abandoning his faith. His Grace, I heard later, was wroth, in that cold fashion of his, as well he might since Cersei had trod on the very edge of the laws of hospitality and deprived him of one of his most useful ministers into the bargain. Add the fact that His Nibs didn't have a candidate lined up and ready to step into the office and everyone and their brother was in town, jockeying for the post. I don't know if you've ever lived in a city suddenly stuffed full of lords vying for royal office, but you can take it from me that it's not a pleasant experience. Not a moment's peace to be found amid all the strutting and chest-thumping and occasional dueling between vassals, even without the Faith sticking their oar in by making their own recommendations.
So I packed my bags, took on one of my goodfather's distant cousins as a squire, said my goodbyes to Maryam while my valet Baldwick packed my bags, and hit the road for Lannisport and a ship to Pyke. I thought it would be easy traveling, but, in the event, I turned out to be hilariously wrong . . .
XXX
Jaime Lannister had some experience of sea voyages, of course, but none like the voyage from Myr to the Summer Isles. Instead of only a few days sailing as part of a fleet, this voyage constituted several sennights of confinement in what amounted to an extremely well-engineered wooden box, with nothing else to see but ocean after they cleared the Stepstones. Even without Ned Stark's antipathy to the waves, it was terribly wearing to be a speck on the surface of the world, with nothing on any side but the abyss and whatever monsters might live in it. Fortunately, he was not a naturally anxious man, or he would have eaten his guts out with nerves.
Unfortunately, he had found himself isolated in more ways than one. Ser Wendel Manderly might be entirely courteous in their interactions, but the other functionaries attached to the embassy seemed to view him as an unnecessary and distracting appendage at best, with attitudes ranging downward from there to barely-disguised loathing; it seemed that not only had he provoked a suicide but he had supplanted none other than Victarion Greyjoy on this particular mission, and the Lord of Ironhold was famously popular. Moreover, there was an astonishing lack of good swords attached to the embassy; Ser Wendel was a perfectly adequate man-at-arms with a surprising turn of speed for a man his bulk and Roryn Pyke was a fine, if unsophisticated, man of his hands, but they were the only three knights or equivalents thereto on the embassy, with the other officers being gentlemen-at-arms at best. Apparently, Ser Wendel had explained, it had been decided that this was an embassy of peace and friendship, not intimidation, and so only a pair of knights and a single Ironborn housekarl would be necessary. And since one of those knights was arguably the best knight of his generation, it couldn't be argued that the chivalry of Myr was poorly represented.
It was a somewhat flattering explanation, but the problem was that there was virtually no one for Jaime to hone his skills against. When the daily sparring hour arose he had to resort to facing men two or three at a time to get an adequate degree of practice, and finding that many men who were willing to pit themselves against him and keep it a clean fight was difficult. There was a species of politics on the training ground that was just as serious as that at Court, and every master-at-arms knew better than to let people with a mutual grudge train against each other. The one bright spot was Darabhar Xhan, who had the strength and the speed to give Jaime a decent fight and a fighting style unfamiliar enough to make it interesting, but there was a catch involved. Darabhar had joined the embassy as an advisor and teacher, and took his duties in that role seriously enough that he had quickly taken a personal interest in Jaime's scholarship. Only if Jaime had paid sufficient attention at his lessons, either with Darabhar or with the Braavosi secretary attached to the embassy who had spent a decade in Tall Trees Town, would he consent to spar. It was enough to make Jaime want to spit; to be punished or rewarded over hislessons? Did so many truly think him so childish?
It hadn't helped matters that the few times they had sighted potential enemies, none of them had been willing to fight. TheNutmegwas a Summer Islander ship, flying the colors of one of the many Princes of those Isles, and all of them were, for now at least, neutrals in the war between slaver and freeman. And while the Summer Isles were famously insular, taken as a whole, they were not so inconsequential that provoking them to war was done lightly. The swan ships were arguably the finest warships on the world-ocean, and the slavers knew from bitter experience the power of the goldenheart bows that were the favored weapon of the Islanders. So there hadn't even been a fight in which to vent long-bottled emotions.
In sum, even if the embassy had been bound for Lorath, the sight of land would have made Jaime offer thanks to the gods. The fact of their true destination was even greater cause for rejoicing.
Jaime had heard much of the Summer Isles, of course. What young man hadn't heard of the sultry islands where the people's most favored deity was a love goddess whose first commandment wasAll acts of love and pleasure are my rituals?You could not devise a land more suitable for adolescent fantasies if you tried.
Significantly fewer stories were told about the martial culture of the Isles. Fortunately, the embassy had had Darabhar Xhan to tell them what to expect. "When visitors come from outside therohe,the territory of the people," he had said, "they are challenged to prove whether they come in peace or war. The challenge also tests the, hmm, steadiness, of the visitors, to see whether they are worthy of the people's regard."
It was a warning that had been welcome when the embassy had gone to present its credentials to the court of Molanta Chonaq, Princess of Tall Trees Town. No sooner had the embassy, all dressed in their finest except for Jaime, Roryn, and the two squads of Legion infantry who were the embassy's defense in their armor, turned onto the wide lane leading to the Princess's hall than the gate had opened and a trio of warriors had sprinted out, shrieking battle cries. Only the strength of discipline had prevented the legionaries from forming a shield-wall in front of the embassy and kept Jaime's sword in its sheath and Roryn's axe on his shoulder, but the embassy had come to a halt in the middle of the lane and waited patiently while the warriors paraded before them, whooping and flourishing their long spears through cuts and covers as they pranced stiff-legged and leaped and crouched. There were more than a few parallels, Jaime mused, to fighting-co*cks reacting to the appearance of a strange bird, but saying so would probably be impolitic.
As the warriors slowed their frenetic exertions, the gate opened and an elderly woman in a feathered cloak with an erect bearing that could only be described as regal strode forth. "Who comes?" she cried, in the high, wavering style the Summer Islanders used for such ritual challenges but in Common Tongue, doubtless as a gesture to the foreigners. "Who comes to be the guest of Molanta, daughter of Lorana, daughter of Lalhola, Princess of Tall Trees Town? Who comes to beg the friendship of the Princess, Guardian of the People, who keeps these lands and these waters on behalf of the gods? If they come in peace, then let them be welcome, for our fires are warm and our storehouses full to feed guests. But if they come in war, let them beware! Our bows are strong, our spears are long, and our warriors hunger for the flesh of enemies!" As she sang-chanted, the warrior in the center drew a wooden plaque from the back of his kilt and slowly placed it on the ground in front of the embassy, lolling his tongue and bulging his eyes in a ferocious grimace. If an Islander warrior stuck out his tongue at you, Jaime remembered the Braavosi tutor explaining, it was not a childish insult but a declaration that the warrior would eat your corpse after he killed you. It was rarely done, he had hastened to add, but not unknown, even in these more civilized days.
Ser Wendel, who had stood with his hands folded before him and a calm expression on his round face, stepped forward as Darabhar Xhan, the only Summer Islander among them and so the only one with the knowledge to answer the ritual challenge, cleared his throat. "It is Ser Wendel Manderly son of Wyman, son of Wymarc, Ser Jaime Lannister, son of Tywin, son of Tytos, and Roryn Pyke, son of Andrik, son of Donnel, who come," he replied in the Summer Tongue, drawing starts from the audience; it was traditional for a woman to make thekaranga, the call, but none of the women attached to the embassy had a word of Summer Tongue between them and Ser Wendel had decided that it would be better to break with tradition than to risk a misunderstanding. "They come in peace," Darabhar continued, following the script he and Ser Wendel had drawn up between them on the voyage south but chanting in the Summer Tongue, "as ambassadors of King Robert of Myr; Robert, son of Steffon, son of Ormund, Robert the Strong, whose hammer breaks the chains of slaves and shatters the armies of the slavers! They come to speak with his voice, to see with his eyes, to hear with his ears, that he may make friends with Princess Molanta and the people of these lands and waters." As Ser Wendel knelt, his cloak pooling around his feet, to pick up the plaque while continuing to stare the central warrior in the eye, the warrior threw his head back, let out a high whoop, and then turned and pranced back towards the gate.
Jaime let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. That was the first part of thepowhiri, the traditional welcome, done to satisfaction. Now they simply had to enter the hall, listen to the Princess and Ser Wendel make speeches at each other for a few minutes, share dinner, and then the business could start. Hopefully, he mused, a demonstration of prowess would be called for. The warrior who had lain down the plaque had been a likely-looking fellow, almost as big as Darabhar and apparently able to jump chest-high from a standing start while whirling his spear through a flourish-cut. The Summer Isles had no true equivalent to the tourney, Darabhar had told him, but perhaps he could introduce it.
XXX
Radalfos Solazzo knew full well the causes of his lack of contentment, but he still couldn't help but wonder at it. He had reached the pinnacle of power in Braavosi politics, receiving the hat and scepter of the Sealord at a younger age than any electee in the past century, despite the odds against his election being described by even his closest advisors as laughably long. He was not unpopular, not by any means, but he simply didn't have the name and fame, or the alliances, that were normally associated with those who clawed their way to the Sealord's chair. He had always been a man of moderation, in personal habits, business, and politics alike. He had grown his family's fortune the safe way, building on the web of customers and contracts his father had bequeathed him rather than chasing down elusive rumors of great profits that could only be had by bold action and the favor of the gods. 'Steady as she goes' had been his motto as a captain on his father's ships, and he had kept that motto when he ascended into the Sealord's Council, enough so that some had taken to calling him 'Solazzo the Slow'. The naturally-resulting japes had never grated on him as they might a more prideful man; he knew that none met their destruction so readily as those who rushed ahead heedlessly.
It was for that reason that he had been so aghast at the Sack of Myr.
He had never loved slavery, despite the accusations of his detractors. He might have called slaveowners friends, before the wars broke out, but he had always been mindful that slavery was not just economically questionable but socially unsound; from considering only a certain subset of people to have only monetary value to applying that view to all of humanity was but a short step, and a potentially disastrous one for anyone with any access to power. The greatest atrocities were always committed when people weren't viewed as being entirely and equally human. Look at Valyria. But burning out the pollution of slavery by setting the whole world on fire, condemning the good along with the bad? That was the act of a madman, not a hero.
So he had joined the Whales, even though Robert the Bloody's wars had been far more successful than any man of any wisdom had foreseen. He was willing to admit that there was some satisfaction to seeing the slaver cities proved to be the empty shells that they were; it had long been a tenet of Braavosi civic belief that slavery hollowed a city, rotting away the virtue of its citizens until even the masters were slaves to cowardice and greed. But the Sack of Myr, and then the Destruction of Tyrosh, had horrified him. There had been men and women in those cities that he had known for thirty years or more, with whom he had shared both triumphs and disasters, whose children he had played with, and Robert the Bloody and his band of murderers had killed them like rats and divided their goods for spoil. It was simply unbecoming of any man who claimed to be civilized to act with such mindless savagery. Even the Dothraki were not so blind to reason. It was one of the reasons that he had, privately of course, welcomed the news of the Expulsion; it was a fitting penance for the Commune's sins in facilitating the massacres of Myr and Tyrosh, and hopefully it would be a sharp enough blow to bring the Commune to its senses.
It had certainly been sharp enough to force old Antaryon's resignation, and open the way for his own candidacy, which he had advanced by walking the knife's edge. He would not, he had made known, countenance the ideas of his more extreme fellows among the Whales to relax the First Law in the Commune's possessions overseas, or pressure the Kingdom of Myr to return certain frontier zones to the slavers. To do that would be to spit on the graves of the brave men who had done so much to advance the cause of Holy Freedom, and was not to be thought of. But neither would he countenance further adventurism; the Commune and its Andal allies had been unbelievably fortunate thus far, and a wise man did not push their luck further than it could go. If surrendering the progress made so far would be an insult to the valiant dead, then losing it through hastiness and lack of consideration would be folly. Not one step back in fear, but not one step further in rashness had been the slogan he had adopted, and the people had heard him.
As well they might. Seven years of blood and thunder were enough for one lifetime; let the next seven years be ones of repair and regrowth, in order to balance the ledger of blood. And not just for Braavos. King Stannis of Westeros might have beaten down all who had risen against him thus far, but his treasury needed peace as desperately as his soldiers did, in order to recover from the last three years of near-constant war. King Robert of Myr had also needed peace, however loath he might have been to admit it in public, in order to turn his kingdom into a proper state and not merely a landed army with no more than a fig's-leaf of true moral justification; Robert and his tame priests might fulminate about the holy mission of their kingdom as they liked, but Radalfos knew how little difference there truly was between a peasant farmer and an enslaved fieldhand. Fortunately, Braavos had been perfectly placed to profit from both kingdoms' period of enforced idleness. His own house currently held an array of highly-profitable contracts with Lord Stark in the North of Westeros, so much so that one of his cousins had become a resident agent in Winterfell, both to oversee those contracts and to offer financial and scholarly advice to Lord Stark, while another cousin had taken up residence in White Harbor. The cousin in Winterfell had even been engaged as an occasional tutor for Lord Stark's heir.
Even the slavers had seemed inclined to peace. The Lyseni were evidently restraining themselves to patrolling their own waters, except for their pet pirates, while the good sense shown by the Lorathi had been seconded by the bearded priests of Norvos. That alliance would not just have seen slavery driven out from yet another city-state, if more gradually than by force of arms, but it would have been just the thing to shore up the Commune's eastern flank. And nothing could have been better suited to demonstrate the viability of negotiation as an alternative to violence.
So the news that the pro-slavery faction in Norvos had pulled off a coup had made Radalfos want to strangle every idiot one of them with his bare hands. All the pieces so neatly lined up, and all dashed to pieces by one act of rash stupidity. His jaw clenched with renewed fury as he wished, with all the fervor of prayer, that the dead Voices and Tribunes be gnawed at by vermin in hell for eternity; why, in the names of all the gods, could they not have controlled their own buggering city? He spared a curse for the Tribune of Mercy, who had endorsed the coup. Whether he was sincere in his support or whether he was a captive in his own palace was irrelevant; the Sharks had wasted no time in declaring that the coup proved that negotiation with the slavers was a fool's errand. How could the slavers be negotiated with, when they had proven themselves willing and able to kill their own for daring to consider even gradual emancipation?
The Voice of Noom was also deserving of a curse or two, in Radalfos' opinion. The old man had managed to escape the purge of the abolitionist faction with a handful of followers and his lone surviving bodyguard, but instead of rallying a counter-coup or taking shelter in the Braavosi enclave the fool had fled the city, turning up three sennights later at the fort outside Ghoyan Drohe requesting asylum. And the idiot commandant of that border post overlooking the old ruins had not only been soft-hearted enough to grant it, but stupid enough to let it be known that the Titan would shelter anyone fleeing the tyranny of the slavers, whether slave or free. That was not a position that could simply be abandoned, even if the commandant who adopted it had absolutely no authority to do so and doubly not on behalf of the Sealord and the Council.
Hence the dilemma that so disturbed his equilibrium. He could not disavow the commandant's actions and retain a shred of honor, much less the support of the Sharks that had agreed to support his government after he ratified the Commune's de facto recognition of the Norvoshi government-in-exile that was forming in Ghoyan Drohe. At the same time, he could not fight the war he had all but declared on the new government of Norvos with that declaration of recognition; the treasury just wasn't in a position to fight such a war, especially given the suspicious and begrudging nature of the peace with the Lyseni and the new coldness the Ibbenese were displaying. So now he was faced with the same warm peace that the Kingdom of Myr was facing on its southern border; the frontier garrisons had already sent reports of skirmishes between rival Norvoshi factions in their border districts and standoffs with contingents of Norvoshi Common Guards that often seemed unsure of which way to jump, the whole affair being complicated by the raids being launched over the border by the Norvoshi exiles and by ad hoc warbands made up of the settlers that had been invited to colonize that frontier. On top of which, the Podesta of the enclave in Norvos had sent word that his office was being swarmed with more asylum seekers than the enclave could comfortably shelter and requested instructions as to whether he should negotiate an evacuation or start turning people away. Either way, he had added, the pro-slavery faction in Norvos was making increasingly virulent threats about smoking out traitors, and he doubted his ability to fend off any attack more serious than the average mob. It was the sort of fluid situation that could lead to either a new round of conquest that would expand Greater Braavos to the upper reaches of the Rhoyne, or to catastrophe.
Radalfos glanced at the fireplace of the Sealord's office, home to one of its more unusual decorations. The back wall of the hearth was etched and inlaid with a lighter stone than the brick that constituted the rest of the structure to show the skyline of Braavos, where it would be illuminated by the flames. Apparently some long-dead Sealord had ordered it made so, as a reminder to his successors of the consequences of failure. A reminder given new teeth by the events of the past years, and the attempt that the Tyroshi had made against the city.
Radalfos snarled. His plans for de-escalation might be dead and buried, but he had more cards in his hand than that. By all the gods, he vowed, he would not allow these mad wars to destroy his city and its liberties. Even if he had to fight them himself against every other corner of the world arrayed in arms against him. He emptied his glass of the last finger of brandy and rang a handbell for his secretary. There was much to do.
XXX
The Coup would mark a dark chapter in the annals of Norvoshi history, as the unusually bloodless politics of that most peculiar of cities were shattered by unprecedented violence. To make matters even worse, the violence was compounded by mutual incompetence. Although Norvoshi scholars and apologists for the faith of the Unspeakable One have attempted to characterize this as stemming from the innocence fostered by the classical Norvoshi approach to politics, the truth is rather less flattering; both sides were not only amateurish in both planning and execution, but they were also, to use a modern phrase, gun-shy.
That it was the abolitionists' fight to lose cannot be disputed. Later events and surviving primary sources both indicate that despite the rhetoric of the reactionaries, neither the common citizens of the city nor the Guards had much loyalty to the institution of slavery, especially if it came at the cost of domestic violence. If the abolitionist leaders had protected themselves better, or if the Voice of Noom had chosen to stand and fight rather than flee, it is entirely possible that the plotters would have faltered and the Coup smothered. As it was, the news that the Voice of Noom had fled the city sparked panic among his fellow abolitionists, with many either surrendering or choosing to join him in exile in the belief that the day was lost.
The plotters also made a number of serious errors. To begin with, they prioritized their targets by the rank they held rather than by their fervor for the cause of abolition. It was this that allowed Mycan Banderis, who held the position of Master Archivist at the time, to survive the attempt on his life by overpowering his would-be assassin and rally his juniors to follow him in a running fight to the Braavosi enclave, which resulted not only in his surviving the Coup but in his personal prestige skyrocketing. In addition, the slaughter of many public figures who were known to be moderates, or who only supported abolition on the basis of pragmatism, alienated many who would have otherwise have welcomed the maintenance of the status quo, even at the cost of significant bloodshed.
The most serious error of all that the plotters committed, however, was their claim that their actions were committed solely to maintain the position of peace and prosperity that Great Norvos had occupied for so many centuries. The sennights immediately after the Coup gave the lie to this protestation; not only did the plotters confiscate or sequester the property of many of their victims, but they proved unable to wholly control either the City or its further hinterland. The neighborhoods surrounding the Braavosi enclave quickly became a no-man's-land of ambuscades and skirmishes between abolitionist gangs who used the enclave as a base and their pro-slavery counterparts, while the further reaches of the Norvoshi hinterlands proved to be only conditionally loyal to the City at best. The settlements on the Upper Rhoyne and the Axe would straddle the fence until the arrival of abolitionist envoys supported by Braavosi regiments and galleys persuaded them to change sides. The villages of the Darkwash outright refused to acknowledge the coup, although at the same time they did not declare for the government-in-exile either, choosing instead to name themselves a 'free confederation'. Only the districts closest to the city, with the highest proportion of landed aristocrats (and, not coincidentally, of slave-worked plantations owned by those same aristocrats) were solidly behind the plotters.
Within a matter of months, the border between Braavos and Norvos resembled that between the Kingdom of Myr and Lys, with raid and counter-raid flying across the moorland. The stories of those raids are beyond the scope of this work and deserving of more clinical research than has been done heretofore, considering the legends that have sprung up around them, but a surviving letter of Sealord Solazzo from the period refers to the border country as 'a debatable land, where there is little law beyond that of the sword and the torch.'
It was this instability that put Norvos on the cyvasse board of the Slave Wars in earnest, despite the best intentions of slaver and abolitionist alike. The last holdout of the mores of the Free Cities had been caught in the whirlpool, and the Generation of Blood had finally become all-consuming . . .
- History for Dummies: The Generation of Blood
Chapter 109: Pieces on the Board
Chapter Text
Khal Drogo bared his teeth in the smile of a well-fedhrakkaras he cleaned the blood from his arakh. The smoke-colored Valyrian steel had sheared through Khal Jhovago's ribs and cleft him to the breastbone with no more effort than it would have taken to open his belly, somewhat to Drogo's surprise. Cutting through a man's rib cage was difficult even at the best of times, given the way they formed a protective cage around his organs. Not for the first time he gave thanks to the god that it had accepted the belt he had taken from the Qohori as a sacrifice instead of demanding the blade.
He would have been willing to give it up, of course, but the shaman had advised him to keep the blade. The god, the old man had claimed, meant to make Drogo the arakh of his people, that he might put fear in the livers of their enemies and lead the People to glory. As such, he had explained, when loot was taken from the enemy Drogo should claim only weapons and armor, leaving gold and silver and other valuables for his riders. Thus he could show the god that he adhered to its will regarding his destiny, and show the People the depth of his devotion to the struggle for their greatness.
Khal Jhovago had doubted that devotion, enough so to challenge him to single combat between their khalasars. Now Jhovago was food for worms, along with his bloodriders who had tried to avenge his death, and his khaleesi would warm Drogo's bed tonight before she went to the dosh khaleen. Drogo licked his lips slightly; Jhovago's khaleesi had a name for beauty. Tomorrow morning Jhovago's khalasar would join his, the riders pledging arakh and bow, and together they would ride against the walkers. But not west, not yet. Drogo had seen how many walkers there were, in the years before the wars; even those along the great river alone numbered almost as many as the whole of the people, and while the wars and his destruction of Qohor had doubtless reduced those numbers, the cities of Volantis and Braavos and Pentos and Lys had not been so harrowed by war, and the inhabitants of those cities weremany. Even if they all stood in line and waited for Drogo and his warriors to cut their throats, Drogo's whole khalasar would collapse from exhaustion before the killing was even halfway done. No, Drogo would need more warriors, which meant that he would need to bring more khalasars under his banner. Which meant in turn that he would need to fight more battles like this one, or else persuade the khals who doubted him that it would be better to be a ko in his horde, with the right to claim a share of the loot of the rich cities of the coast, than a corpse feeding worms and beetles. The khals whose khalasars primarily roamed the plains would be most difficult, as it had become the way for them to pass leadership of the khalasar to their eldest son rather than to he that proved the strongest, but they would swear, lest he cut out their tongues and hamstrings and leave them for the jackals. And then he would need the food to feed them, and the weapons to arm them.
He knew where he would find the food. The Lhazareen had always been a people made to be the prey of any who befell them, but Drogo had another use for them than as slaves. Mutton was not as healthful as horse, or gazelle or antelope, but a man could live on it if he had to. If the Lhazar could be made to drive sheep to Vaes Dothrak, there to be slaughtered and the meat dried, then they could live free, knowing that failing to provide the necessary number of sheep would see the raids begin again. Omber would be another source of food, when he told the princes of that kingdom of weaklings that their gifts would go to him alone and no other khal. The weapons would be more difficult, but there too he had an idea. The Ibbenese might cower behind their walls, but they relied on the land outside it for the plants that fed them. The threat of those lands being torched, with worse to come when their walls were breached and the riders let loose in the hole they cowered in, would see the forges of New Ibbish produce arakhs and arrowheads for the horde that Drogo would assemble. They might even produce armor as well, if they could make a steel dress that a man could move in and that would not exhaust the horse that had to carry it.
Drogo's smile took on an edge of anticipation. His plans would take years to come to fruition, but the People could be patient at need; did it not take years to raise and train a horse before it was ready for battle? With the lamb men and the grass men feeding his horde and the hairy men arming it, he would be poised to sweep over the walkers like fire over the plains. And where a grass fire passed, nothing survived in its wake. So it would be with the walkers. He had sworn it, when he went up the Mother of Mountains to stand at the edge of the Womb of the World and commune with the horse god. Such an oath, sworn in such a place, could not go unkept. Neither the god, nor he himself, would allow it.
XXX
Ser Justan Osgrey sipped from his canteen, cast a glance around to make sure that none of the soldiers under his command were within earshot, and grimaced. "That was too close," he told his co-commander. "Too damned close by half. If your horse-holders had been a few seconds slower even once, or if my men's horses had lost their wind an hour earlier . . ."
Desmond Marsh nodded, a grim cast to his normally sardonically amused features. "We'd have been eaten alive," he concurred. "When I find the person who first told me the Lyseni were all brothel keepers who'd never held a blade in their lives, I'll make him eat his words. That lot weresoldiers, by the gods. And not sellswords, either; that was the Bright Lady on the one standard, and the other one wasn't any sellsword sigil that I've ever heard of. You think they might have copied our organization, recruiting by districts?"
Justan nodded back. "Possibly," he allowed. "And they're doing it well. A bit loose, but well-disciplined for all that. Good horsem*n, too, at least those that we faced. If they had a bit less armor, we'd never have been able to outpace them the way we did. And the one time it came to handstrokes . . ." He paused, remembering the ferocity of that swirling, snarling melee when the banda of Lyseni horsem*n had come out of that gully to catch his men from the side. "If they had preceded their charge with a javelin volley, or outnumbered us at all, they'd have either broken us or held us long enough for their friends to reach the fight and cut us to ribbons. How'd they do against your archers?"
Desmond let the apple in his throat flutter before lowering his canteen with a grimace. "Better than I would have thought," he admitted. "They didn't have the armor to rush us from the front, but you wouldn't have known it from how they acted. Got within ten yards of the line, once, before they finally lost heart. They had some kind of light crossbow, too, that their men could load and loose from the saddle. Not very accurate and they had to slow down to load them, from what I could see, but they didn't have to be. Bit rattling, the first time they opened up; we weren't expecting them."
"Well, we'll see if Maester Gordon can't come up with something like," Justan replied, taking a swallow from his own canteen. "In the meantime, I say we keep going back to the border as fast as we can. I don't know about you but I saw at least three smoke columns. Beacon fires, or I'm an Unsullied; I don't know about you, but the thought of getting into a fight at uneven odds doesn't appeal to me, even if we can outfight them man for man. And we won't be able to sack any plantations before that column or another one like it comes along, if that first one is anything to go by."
Desmond scowled, then nodded unwillingly. "Agreed," he spat. "When I saw that place I thought I was looking at one of our fortified villages. Moat, rampart, palisade, tower by the gate . . . Someone's been giving them ideas."
"Us, more than likely," Justan said. "We've made it work against them often enough, the past few years." He took another swallow from his canteen and corked it. "Mount up," he said. "We push on at half-pace through the night. Hour at dismounted walk, hour at mounted walk, half-hour's rest every two hours."
Desmond sucked a tooth. "Hard on the men, not giving them a night's sleep after a day like today," he noted. "Hard on the horses too, pushing them like that." Men could push themselves past the point of exhaustion, if they had to, but horses were not nearly so enduring. If you pushed them too hard they simply keeled over and died.
Justan nodded; he could feel the fatigue from a day-long running fight seeping into his bones like poison. "Harder still to let the Lyseni kill or take them," he countered, levering himself to his feet. "Both for them and the kingdom. The horses we can replace, come to that; the men, not so easily."
Desmond got to his own feet, swaying only slightly. "Plenty of time to sleep when we get home, I suppose," he said. "And a sleepless night here and there never killed anyone. At least, not as dead as an arrow in the chest or a sword in the guts. Let's get them moving again."
XXX
Captain Ser Akhollo Freeman was not a man to be easily unsettled. Neither his first life as a Dothraki or his second as a slave had been kind to people who easily lost their countenance. By the time he had entered his third life as a soldier and then bloodrider of King Robert, he had so mastered himself that he could not remember the last time he had felt anything approaching uncertainty. Admittedly, that had been helped by the fact that he had resigned himself to his likely fate years ago; King Robert was not a monarch to sit back and let his warriors do all the fighting for him, anymore than the khal his father had ridden with had been, and such men could go through bloodriders like water, if their enemies were strong and fearsome enough. The slavers might not be particularly strong or especially fearsome, but they were many, and even the mightiest of warriors could be worn down by enough lesser ones. So Akhollo had accepted that he would likely die in battle, and decided that if he died fighting for Holy Freedom and in defense of his king then it would be a death becoming a warrior. If that meant that he died young, unwed, and childless, that was also acceptable, if it meant that King Robert lived to sire a fitting heir.
Which was precisely what made the current situation unsettling.
The newest member of House Baratheon of Myr was being presented to Court, and Akhollo was standing not six feet away, both as dictated by his duty and as granted by his king's regard for him as a comrade. King Robert was always a sight to behold, but today even more so than usual. He wore only his usual subdued finery, but the sheer joy and fatherly pride seemed to have made him swell even taller, and the expansive mood he had been in since Grand Maester Antony and Doctor Marino had first admitted him to the birthing chamber two sennights ago had only improved since. It helped that the labor had gone well and smoothly, and both the Queen and the child were in excellent health; the child, Akhollo knew, already seemed to have her father's lungs.
The child being presented to the Court with great ceremony and greater festivity was a daughter, yes, but that meant less than it would have on the plains. The fact that King Robert now had a legitimate heir had done a great deal to ease the nagging fear that the Kingdom would revert to Stannis of Westeros, or become the fief of Renly. Stannis might be a worthy king in his own right, but he had been as much rival as ally, and the Reformists could not forget how closely Stannis had tied the Iron Throne to the Great Sept of Baelor. And Renly was not just a boy still, if a boy approaching the threshold of manhood, but a boy who was being groomed to become a ko of his brother Stannis. The thought of becoming a mere appendage of the Seven Kingdoms, especially an appendage that would be subject to the Great Sept, had not sat well with anyone; even the Baelorites had looked askance at the idea of pledging fealty to a man who had yet to defeat the slavers in battle.
And Akhollo doubted that the traditional objection to a female heir would be much concern. The Andals had a tradition of warrior women; did not Lady Mormont wear armor and fight in the first rank with Lord Stark's bloodriders? Were not so many of the Royal Army's scouts women, and possessed of courage and prowess that only fools and the blind would dispute? And had not King Robert already said that he would teach all his children everything he knew of rulership and war, without distinction? Even if he had no sons by Queen Serina, he would not allow his daughter to grow up as the sort of weak and sheltered thing that other Andals were content to make of their daughters. And even if Princess Cassana never took the field, she would have to learn to fight well enough to defend herself against assassins. The Brotherhood would fight to the death for her, as they would for any scion of the royal line, but they were still mortal, and so imperfect.
The problem that arose was that little Cassana's birth meant that Akhollo's mission had been accomplished, to some degree. King Robert finally had a legitimate heir of his body, and one strong enough that there was every likelihood that she would live to adulthood, if the gods willed it so. Grand Maester Antony and Doctor Marino had declared that there was nothing that would prevent Queen Serina from bearing more children in the future. If the current warm peace continued, then it was unlikely that King Robert would take the field again; kings led armies, not raiding parties. And if King Robert did not take the field, then Akhollo would not either; his oath forbade him from leaving his king's side for so long. All of which meant that, for the first time, Akhollo was being forced to contemplate the possibility of dying of sickness or old age, rather than at the hands of an enemy. His liver immediately rebelled at the thought; there was no honor to dying in bed, even if you considered sickness an enemy. In that much, at least, he was still Dothraki, even if his name was cursed among the People as a traitor. He shrugged in the privacy of his mind; he owed the People nothing, not when his father and his khal had been killed and he sold into slavery by another khal. He had learned to hate the man who condemned him to the life of a field hand, and by extension to hate the way of life that encouraged a man to sentence his own people to the cruelties of the slavers.
It was in those years that he had learned to consider himself a dead man walking, in order to bear the shame of the brand and the pain of the lash. He had let every blow and insult he had suffered embed itself in his soul, until the day came when he could repay them as befitting. But not in some foolish gesture of defiance that would end in his death. No, Akhollo had decided even then that he would not die before he made his name a thing of terror to the slavers, and he could not do that if he died a nameless slave. He could live a hundred lifetimes, he knew, and not be able to repay King Robert for the chance to fulfill that long-ago pledge to any god that would hear him. In this life, he repaid by turning his back on his former people. It was the tramp of the Legion on the march that was the beat of his heart now, not the rumble of the hooves of the khalasar, and it was the battle songs of Holy Freedom that were the music of his soul, not the drunken chants of vain conquest that he remembered from his childhood. He had fought with all his strength at Tara, when Khal Zirqo had threatened to destroy all that King Robert had built, and when the dead were disposed of his grief had all been for his fallen brothers of the Legion, not for any of the slain riders.
But for all that, he could not ignore the fact that he could not reconcile himself to the thought of dying in bed, surrounded by the trophies of his victories. The blood of the Dothraki still flowed in him, even if he had turned his back on the People and the Great Grass Sea, and with that blood flowed the knowledge that the only worthy death was to be found with your teeth in the enemy's throat. Moreover, he had to consider how the royal family would be protected after he was dead. By the time Princess Cassana was of an age to rule, if the gods willed that she should take the throne, he would be past forty, old enough to start slowing as the battering of his previous years began to take effect. He didn't need to look any further than Ser Brynden Tully to be reminded that even the greatest warrior could not defeat time and old age. The thought that he would one day be incapable of fulfilling his oaths was . . . not quite unthinkable, but certainly one that his mind shrank from. There would have to be someone to take up his sword and wield it with the same ferocity and loyalty that he had shown, and while he had every faith in his brothers of the Legion, he knew that the men of later days would not feel the same depth of attachment to the dynasty that he did. They had not fought at Tara, or stormed the walls of Myr, or destroyed Tyrosh, or stood at Novadomo, where King Robert had earned the loyalty of his soldiers by fighting at their side. And even if those future legionaries were made of the same metal as he and his brothers were, who was to say that they would be forged to the same temper?
No, he decided, it would have to be his son that took up his sword; a son trained from his first steps to carry the banner of freedom against its enemies. Which presented another problem; to the best of his knowledge he had no sons. He had not lacked for the company of women in the past, but he had never considered becoming a father. His own father had died in battle, and he had been unwilling to subject a child of his to the pain he had felt. He might be reconciled to his fate, but a child would not be, and by the time that child was old enough to understand there had been every possibility that he would have already died.
But, he told himself sternly, things had changed. He might fulfill his oath to Robert, but someone would have to swear an oath to Cassana, and keep it as he had done. He would, he decided as he stood beside the throne watching the lords of the kingdom come forward to make their bows, seek Robert's permission to marry, and father a son as swiftly as he might. And he would make that son a living shield to defend the Princess and any siblings she might have against every foe.Free, but Loyalwere the words he had chosen when Robert had made him a knight, and he would make them true.
XXX
For a man who had been so close to the center of power of one of the richest states in the world, he certainly didn't look like it at first glance, Syrio Forel reflected as he considered his apartment.
It was a small suite in a neighborhood respectable enough to be moderately expensive, consisting of a bedroom and a sitting room with a small hearth. The furnishings were solidly made but not fine, the wardrobe held the only four suits of clothing he owned (three for everyday, one for formal occasions) besides his fencing leathers, and the floor was plain wood with what looked like only one coat of varnish; as little as could be gotten away with, considering how damp an environment Braavos was. The most expensive thing in it, he was quite sure, was his sword and dagger, both masterpieces of the bladesmith's craft that would command the monthly rent of the apartment three or four times over, despite their lack of decoration.
He shrugged to himself. It was hardly luxurious, but then again, he wasn't in the market for luxury. He did not mean to be here for any length of time, after all.
It was tradition that a new Sealord chose a new First Sword, the reasoning being that a man who had been as closely connected to his charge as the First Sword had to be should not be asked to transfer that depth of fealty at the drop of a hat. In addition, Syrio suspected, it was probably feared that if the new Sealord had been an opponent of the previous, and had come to power by ousting them, then the temptation on the part of the First Sword to avenge their principal's downfall would prove overpowering. It was a baseless fear, in his case, as he did not much care about Solazzo one way or the other, but better to be safe than sorry, he supposed.
The difficulty was that, for the first time in more than two decades, he found himself at a loose end. For most of his life he had been focused on improving his swordcraft, and then he had spent ten years as Sealord Antaryon's First Sword. It had been a heady experience for a relatively young man from a moderately wealthy merchant family whose prior experience of the halls of power had always come at three or four steps remove, and it had broadened his horizons considerably. At the same time, however, it also narrowed his options for what to do next. A First Sword might leave the office behind him when his principal's successor was elected, but he still bore the title, after a fashion, and was expected to comport himself accordingly. Which rather shut the door on resuming the life he had led before his selection as First Sword, which was that of a freelance bravo with no greater goal than fame and fortune. Nor would he resume that life even if it was open to him; he knew too much of the world, now.
Nor did the traditional career of the former First Sword, that of swordmaster to the sons of magisters and wealthy merchants and tradesmen, appeal. Doubtless there were worthy specimens among such younkers, but many of them were not much more than better-fed bravos in more expensive clothing. Sifting through so much chaff in search of one or two kernels of good wheat would be not simply thankless, but unimaginably dull.
Not that he had a shortage of options. Sealord Antaryon might have stepped down and gone into seclusion at his family's estate on the mainland, but he had offered to find Syrio a place in the government of Pentos, where he could continue to draw the pay due a servant of the Titan and eventually earn a pension and perhaps a plot of land that would allow him to marry. He had been incredibly flattered, and told the old man as much, but he had refused; he was a swordsman, not a pen-pusher, and he knew that he had neither the head nor the heart to be a cog in the mechanism of governance. And Pentos, he suspected, might prove a backwater over the next few years, even with the coup in Norvos. The true co*ck-pit of action was in the south, where King Robert fenced with his enemies over an ever-more-embattled borderland, and he was, at heart, a man who lived for the clang of sword on sword, whether those swords were made of steel or of thought.
Of course, it wouldn't do to become too close to the Myrish. Fighting the good fight for Holy Freedom was well and good, but he was past thirty, and he knew that he was already having to work harder than he had to maintain the height of speed and endurance he had reached in his younger years. And while he had been an exceptional duelist and bodyguard, he had never been a soldier, and he knew enough to know that it called for a completely different set of skills. One that he was too old to learn at the expense of the skills he already had.
That said, he reminded himself as he set about brewing a cup of broth, King Robert had instituted a royal bodyguard on his wedding day. And while they were all doubtless worthy men who would die for their principals as gladly as they would kill for them, they hadn't had the time to learn nearly as many tricks of the bodyguard's trade as he had, and certainly not nearly a tithe as many as his predecessors had developed. He would, he decided, give the letter that he had received from Queen Serina a second look.
XXX
The King's Landing Commandery of the Royal Order of the Crown was not what anyone would call glamorous. It was squarely built, blocky, and stood on the edge of Flea Bottom like the watchtower it resembled, albeit one only two stories high. Yet it had an undeniable aura of power, one that was only reinforced by the low wall that encircled it, the royal banner that flew from the roof, and the pair of sergeants standing guard on the gate, their poleaxes at rest arms. Neither King Stannis nor any of his works were guilty of excessive decoration, yet no one dared question the strength behind them.
The lack of ornamentation was maintained within the main dining hall, which was decorated with only a handful of hangings and a single small tapestry showing the Battle of Tyrosh. Loras had heard that another tapestry was being made to depict the Order's deeds in the Upper Mander Rebellion and a third to show Balon's Rebellion, but it took time to make such things. Meanwhile, these gifts from minor lords would have to serve to lighten the otherwise somewhat oppressive atmosphere of the hall. His lord father had warned him that few seats were as beautiful as Highgarden, but sometimes it was still a shock how barren some places could seem.
Not that his attention was on the décor. Not when there were three knights sitting at the officers' table and he and two other squires were standing ready to serve. Only hard-learned discipline kept him from snorting; as if the men at that table could be so casually defined as 'three knights'. The Masters of the three Royal Orders were no mere knights, to lumped in with others of the class that had produced them. When such men gathered over Dornish cheese and peppers, Blackwater crabs with melted butter and watercress, and Harlaw mead, the fate of kingdoms could turn on what they said. And gods knew they looked it. Loras' master, Ser Harold Jordayne, was the most genial of the three, with his tanned face habitually creased in a slight smile behind his mustachios, as if he found the world faintly amusing, but the smile did not conceal the cunning light in his eyes. Ser Jacelyn Bywater, the host of this little convocation, was more overtly pugnacious, with his lantern jaw and heavy brow giving him the look of a man with no time for obstacles and no patience to pretend otherwise. But most impressive of all, to Loras' eyes, was Ser Rickon Riverbend. The Master of the Order of the Sea, visiting the capital for the first time since his installation, looked every one of his forty-odd years, but they seemed to sit on him gracefully enough. But more than his surprising handsomeness was the air of calm, well-ordered power that seemed to hang around him, livened by what Loras would swear was tension, like some great cat surrounded by dogs. Strange that a man who occupied such a height of power should be anything approaching nervous, but then he had risen from the taint of bastardy and the poverty of a hedge knight solely on the strength of his merits. A man with such a background, who had nothing to fall back on save his courage and his prowess, Ser Harold had told him, had to be mindful of all that he said and did, lest he fall as swiftly as he had risen.
Loras would agree, except that the thought of Ser Rickon falling was laughable. The man was one of the great knights of the age, a man that the singers were already comparing to Ser Duncan the Tall. Of a certainty, what Loras had heard of his personal habits bore out the comparison; he didn't drink, didn't wench, didn't lord it over those he was set over. If anything, he seemed to comport himself as a squire entrusted with a task, expecting nothing more than acknowledgement of work well done. Loras came out of his reverie to find Ser Rickon returning his gaze and quickly glanced at the floor.
There were men, he knew, who would consider these men to lesser because they were only knights, and because the best-born of them was only a cousin of a minor house who had stood to inherit nothing in the way of land or wealth. Such men, Loras decided, were fools. These men might have been born a poor cousin of a minor lord, a bastard of a minor landed knight of no repute, and a commoner who had been raised to knighthood for service, but they commanded strong armies, held mighty fortresses, and answered to none save the King, to whom they had the right of direct access and appeal. Even now they were discussing how best to coordinate their efforts to carry out royal policy, as well as the placement of men under their command. Ser Rickon was apparently in desperate need of knights that could command a ship, Ser Jacelyn wanted to send some knights that he thought were growing soft either to Dorne or to the Isles, and Ser Harold wanted to send some overly prideful Dornish officers of his Order north, where the smallfolk would be less deferential and their comrades less inclined to indulge their pretensions. Loras knew how power worked, from listening to his father and mother and grandmother, but these were men who by all rights should have lived and died in obscurity deciding the fates of men and provinces, and planning what they would say when they were called before the Iron Throne a week from today. It was heady stuff, by any measure, but especially for him.
Loras Tyrell was a third son, and from his childhood he had known that he could not expect to inherit much beyond a stipend, a suitably fine set of armor and weapons, a horse from his father's stables, and the Tyrell name. He had never been bitter about it, he loved his brothers too much for that, but he had also known that he would always be last in his family's fortunes; if he wanted more, he would have to take it for himself. And the only proper way to do that, of course, was to earn it by courage and prowess, as a true knight did. The Kingsguard had been his dream, until the Targaryen's had fallen. Oh, he had made the maester howl when he learned the Kingsguard had been declared disbanded, chasing him through Highgarden with his toy sword and screaming that he was a liar. When he had finally calmed down and been ready to listen to his father, the revelation that the Kingsguard had brought shame upon the memory of the heroes who had worn the white cloak, that they had provenfalse,had been world-breaking. In that hour he had sworn to hate the last surviving Kingsguards for so defiling the laws of chivalry as to be party to kidnap and rape, like common brigands, and he had needed a new ambition to fill the hole that betrayal had left in his soul. The Stormguard had been a natural replacement, until he had joined the Order of the Sun as Ser Harold's squire. Ser Harold, and his fellow Masters, had come from nearly nothing, yet they were powers in the Seven Kingdoms that only the greatest or the most foolish would dare to cross or gainsay. He had seen with his own eyes the respect and influence that Ser Harold commanded in Dorne, from the Tower of the Sun to the markets of Planky Town. Ser Jacelyn Bywater was virtually the human incarnation of King Stannis' will in the Crownlands, the iron fist of his law and justice by land and sea. And Ser Rickon . . . Ser Rickon was the next thing to a triarch in the Iron Islands, alongside Ser Kevan Lannister and Lord Harlaw, whose banner of the scythe and seven-pointed star had replaced the Greyjoy kraken in the great hall of the Red Keep. Why would Loras want to be a mere bodyguard, minding women and children as often as the King, when he could join one of the landed Orders, rise through its ranks, become an officer that even lords had to bow and speak softly to? If men so lowly-born as these men could rise so high, why could not he, the son of Lord Tyrell, rise even higher?
His dreams were not of the Kingsguard now, or even of the Stormguard. They were of his brother knights chanting his name as he led them to victory over the rebel, the heretic, the Targaryen, and any other who threatened the King's Peace. They were of lords beneath ancient and mighty banners, even the Tyrell rose, saluting him in respect and gratitude as he rode past them to lay the tattered banners of the King's beaten enemies at his feet while the crowned stag waved triumphant over all. He might be the youngest son of House Tyrell, he swore as the Masters moved on to the subject of trade over fruit pie and wine, but he would not be the least of them.
Chapter 110: Renewal and Regression
Chapter Text
Ivar Drumm knew he had not been invited to the launching of the Kingdom's newest warship because of anything he had done. He had just finished his first term of duty as a prospective officer and was now officially a commissioned officer of His Grace's Fleet, albeit one of the most junior ones and one that had yet to see a sea-fight that consisted of more than two or three ships that were, at least officially, nothing more than pirates. At least he had seen combat; the idea of getting this far and only having escorted merchants and couriers up the coast to Pentos and Braavos was almost physically painful.
No, he was here because His Grace's government wanted to make this an occasion with a suitable degree of spectacle, which meant an appropriate number of officers in their best armor standing at parade rest along the side of the slipway as Septon Jonothor and a priest of the Drowned God blessed the new ship and Lord Victarion and the Lord Captain of the Port made speeches to the assembled people. Since Ivar was currently between assignments, he was surplus to requirements at Ironhold, and had been dispatched upcoast to help make up the numbers. At least it was a pleasant day to stand beside the sea, with the salt-laden breeze preventing the heat from becoming overpowering. And King Robert would be holding an informal reception afterwards, and while the promise of free food and drink was certainly appealing to a man who had to contribute a portion of his pay to the budget out of which he and his fellow officers were fed, even more valuable would be the opportunity to show to advantage not only before Lord Victarion and Lord Captain Franlan but the King himself. A man always did his duty, of course, but all things considered it was best if that duty was done under the eye of those who could best reward its being done well.
And he wasn't entirely disinterested in the proceedings, either, although Lord Captain Franlan's speech was, in his opinion, overlong even if it extolled the Fleet. Although there would always be a special place in his heart for the longship, he had to admit that the new ship was a beauty. To be sure, she was larger than every other galley in the Fleet, being almost two hundred feet long and fifty feet wide as opposed to the more usual hundred and sixty and thirty feet, but she was clean-lined and likely to be able to keep pace with the smaller galleys despite her greater weight. The pair of masts would certainly help the ship's thirty oars, each meant to be handled by four rowers, to maintain a fighting speed. But what truly caught the eye was the sextet of scorpions that she had been fitted with, two in the forecastle where they could shoot over the bows, one on each forward quarter, and one amidships on either side. It was a heavier complement of artillery than almost any other warship in the world was capable of carrying and was meant to cripple the smaller galleys of the slaver nations and soften them up for a boarding party. Ivar approved; whatever was said about the Lyseni, the ones who went for pirates were a wily bunch, and as dangerous as any animal you cared to name when brought to bay. And if he was running the Lyseni fleet, he would be shipping men on those pirate vessels, in order to season them for the war that everyone knew was coming down the pike.
Ivar flicked his eyes over to the line of civilian spectators and concealed the urge to smile. Lord Captain Franlan might be a bore of a speaker, but getting the opportunity to look at his lady wife made up for it. Even with a baby in her arms and still carrying the marks of pregnancy she was beautiful enough that the rumors that she had been the loveliest pleasure slave in Myr before the Sack were probably not far off the mark.Down, boy, he told himself sternly; starting an affair with the wife of such a high officer as the Lord Captain would be an exercise in idiocy of the first water, especially for a junior lieutenant. whor*s would have to suffice, until he made his name and became a lord himself.
The Lord Captain finally stopped speaking, only to hand over the podium to King Robert. Ivar braced himself for another interminable speech, only to find his preparation wasted as the King's entire speech lasted no more than ten minutes. This time he didn't bother concealing the urge to smile; at least the King knew that there were some things that didn't need to be chewed to death. King Robert, having thanked the shipyard workers for their industry, praised the Fleet for its bravery, and declared his confidence that the Kingdom would grow ever stronger on the waves, stepped back from the podium and strode over to the prow of the ship, where the Lord Captain handed him a bottle. The king accepted it with a nod, then turned to the ship. "I name theeTara!" he cried, and threw the bottle at the prow, where it broke in a shower of glass shards and a spray of wine.
Ivar's smile grew as he joined the cheers as the shipyard workers eased the great galley down the slipway to the water. The business with the bottle, he had heard, was a Braavosi tradition, and fitting enough, in his mind; only a fool did not respect the sea, and a ceremonial libation to it could only help. As the ship slid into the water and the gathering began to break up into the less restrained atmosphere of the reception, Ivar put his best smile on and went forth to make his bows. A fighting man expected to earn advancement by his deeds in action, but it never hurt to give your superiors the respect they were due.
XXX
Urrigon Greyjoy had rarely known a more peaceful place than the deck of his longship, theSea-Hound, under a starry sky on a clear and balmy night in the southern latitudes. But all the outward tranquility was worth nothing when there was no peace in his own mind.
All his life he had trimmed his sail to follow the headings set by others. As a boy he had followed Aeron into mischief, then Victarion into adolescent devilment when they could steer clear of Euron, and then Balon into more settled service to their House and the legacy of the Lord Reapers. He had held to that loyalty through the long years since he came to manhood and became captain of his own ship. When Victarion had sailed east Urrigon had wanted to sail with him, but Balon had taken him aside and convinced him that there would be no glory in the train of Robert the Brief, only inglorious defeat and unmanly death as the Andals wasted the lives of good Ironborn in their mad quest for glory.
Even when Harras Harlaw had returned to the Isles, laden with wealth and honors such as no Ironborn had ever possessed, Urrigon had kept faith with his brother. He had been at his side through every hour of planning for the rebellion, the glorious rising that would see the Iron Throne broken and the Ironborn restored to their rightful place as kings of the sea. It had taken Aeron's death to shake his faith in his brother. Driven from Fair Isle, no longer confident of victory, he had gone to see the one man who might,might, be smarter than Balon, and pled for advice. The Reader had, quite calmly, told him that the Ironborn were doomed, and then told him how to best escape it, asking only that he take Asha with him. Once again he had followed orders, and seen them fulfilled.
And from that day forward, nothing had gone right.
Viserys had accepted his alliance, but the required payment had soured the taste of it in his mouth. He would never, he knew, forget the look of utter betrayal on Asha's face as he handed her over to the Young Dragon's court; he had not had the heart to tell her that she would never set foot on a ship again unless it was to return to Westeros and the Isles. It had taken one of Viserys' men-at-arms to carry her from the hall, cursing him for a traitor the while in language that no girl of her years should have known. She had broken one of the maids' fingers when they had tried to escort her away, before rounding on him with an accusation of selling her for the favor of a sisterf*cking dragon. "This mummery does not amuse us, my lord," had been Viserys' sole comment when order had been restored. Ser Arthur Dayne, who had been most eager for the alliance, had regarded Urrigon as he might regard something unwholesome he had found on the sole of his boot.
It had been the need to wipe out the stain of that embarrassment that had driven him to the Basilisk Isles; Viserys would forgive much of a man who brought a fleet to his banner, especially one made up of the corsairs, notorious across three oceans for ferocity and cunning. His father, and Balon after him, had maintained contacts among the four corsair lords who effectively ruled the Basilisks, and if even one of them could be swayed then even the handful of longships under Urrigon's command could prove decisive
The plan had faltered almost from the outset. No sooner had Urrigon landed at Port Plunder than he had learned that Tomas Vane, the most highly-regarded of the corsair lords, had been murdered by his bastard in a quarrel over the division of loot, his fleet tearing itself apart between the bastard and Vane's first mate, a black-masked man named Roberts. Redbeard Rumblood, second among the lords, had welcomed Urrigon with a feast, heard out his proposal for alliance . . . and then delivered a calmly scathing appraisal of the chances the fleets of the slaver cities would have against Braavos and her allies. Even the corsairs respected the purple sails of the Titan's galleys, and now that they had every forest in Westeros at their disposal . . . Rumblood had made a counteroffer to take Urrigon on as one of his officers, if he would forswear his loyalty to Viserys and renounce all respect for law. Urrigon had, respectfully, refused.
His last hope had been Chang the Immortal, the most notorious pirate to ever sail from Yi-Ti. Chang was famous for audacity, earning his title by seeming to survive every disaster that his bold stratagems landed him in, somehow managing to hack his way free of lost battle and sinking ship alike only to rise as swiftly as he had fallen. Half mad and all bloodthirsty, he had plundered his way across the Jade Sea for twenty years before he made those waters too hot to hold him and took his fleet to the Basilisks; he would have been the perfect ally. He had even been receptive, nodding and making approving comments throughout Urrigon's appeal, until Yama Swiftspear, Chang's daughter and heir-apparent, had spoken, reminding her father of the failure of Balon's rebellion and Urrigon's desertion. Surely, she had declared, such a coward did not deserve to be the ally of the mighty Chang, who had never run from a fight.
Urrigon had been escorted from Chang's hall by the eunuch swordsmen that guarded Chang's concubines that very hour, and by the time theSea-Houndwas ready to leave port every other ship that had followed him to the Basilisks had abandoned him for one of the other lords. He had not dared approach the shadowy self-proclaimed Pirate Queen; to be scorned by a woman at that juncture would have caused his own housekarls to cut his throat.
He had needed a new plan, and desperation had given him one. The Summer Isles were rich enough that even a single ship with a skeleton crew could make a worthy reaping, and the Islanders were arrogant enough that they likely wouldn't consider a single, obviously undercrewed longship to be a significant threat. It helped matters that Rumblood had given him enough gifts, hoping to sway his allegiance, that he could claim to be a trader until the time was right. And the crew of the swan ship that had intercepted him off the coast of Walano had certainly seemed to fall for it. The captain had even offered, with some gentle mockery, to loan him a hand or two of crewmen, in case they came upon a storm. Urrigon had refused with as much dignity as he could muster, but the laughs of the Islanders had still rankled. When the time came for axe and brand, he had rued, he would do his best to see that captain fittingly paid for his jests.
What he had found out in Lotus Port had driven such thoughts out of his head. None other thanJaime Lannister,of all people, was in the Isles as an ambassador for Robert of Myr, doubtless seeking to sway the ships and spears of the Isles to his king's cause. Surely, Urrigon had reasoned, the Drowned God was offering him an opportunity for redemption. The fame of killing the Black Lion would wipe out, in an instant, all the humiliations he had suffered in the Basilisks. Reavers and pirates the world over would flock to his standard, eager to bask in the reflected glory of the man who killed one of the greatest champions of the age. And Viserys would give anything,anything, he was sure, to the man who laid the skull of his father's murderer at his feet.
So he had sent a message bearing his defiance and his challenge to Tall Trees Town, with orders to place it in the hands of Jaime Lannister and none other. He would take revenge for Tywin's destruction of his people, restore his honor, and deal a blow to the enemies of his new king, all with the same stroke of his sword. And if, as the God might will, he died . . . well at least he would make a line in the Black Lion's song, which was a fate any man of worth could be happy with.
XXX
Jaime had never considered himself a likely drunkard. There had been times, when he had served on Aerys' Kingsguard, that he had needed a glass or two to put Queen Rhaella's screams out of his head, but he disliked the fuzziness and lack of control that came with drunkenness. And even in a life as pain-filled as a knight's, a hangover was something special.
That said, he had never been in a situation quite like this before.
There were, it had turned out, very specific rules about who could fight who and under what circ*mstances in the Summer Isles, except in the rare duels or in war. The rules that applied to an emissary, such as himself, were so restrictive as to preclude even sparring, lest an accidental injury be inflicted on a person astapuas an ambassador.
Jaime bared his teeth slightly; that bloody term again. There were times it seemed like you couldn't throw a stone without hitting something consideredtapu.
And it hadn't been like there had been anything else for him to do of any worth. The contribution of the Islanders to the wars would be commercial and naval, both of which were safely in the hands of Ser Wendel Manderly and Roryn Pyke. All there had been for Jaime to do was show his face at the seemingly endless procession of banquets and audiences with the Princess and the slightly-less-formal meetings with her senior advisors, mind his manners, and occasionally relate an anecdote or two of his experiences in the wars. The one bright spot had been when Urrigon Greyjoy, of all people, had shown up at the Isles, whether to raid or to trade was anybody's guess, and he had demanded satisfaction from him for the destruction his father's men had wrought in the Iron Isles. Not that it had been a particularly bright spot; Urrigon might have been a fine seaman, but his sword-craft would have been laughable had it not been so pathetic. The preliminaries had taken longer than the actual duel. At least the Princess had appeared suitably impressed.
If only Urrigon hadn't accused him of causing Lysa Tully's suicide right before the duel began. There were, it seemed, two different kinds oftapu,one that came with connotations of reverence and respect and one that came with connotations of revulsion and fear. Provoking a suicide, it transpired, was a surefire way to land in the latter category. Before the duel, he had been somewhat popular with the younger warriors of Tall Trees Town; the very next day, none of them would join him as he watched the Islander warriors at practice on one of the city's training fields, as had become his habit. A few of them wouldn't even look at him. To make matters worse, Ser Wendel had contracted some strange disease and died suddenly (much to the consternation and embarrassment of the Islanders, who seemed to think it a failure of hospitality that their healers couldn't save him), leaving Jaime the senior officer of the embassy; Roryn Pyke might have the name, but he was a fisherman's bastard grandson who had become one of the gentry for service, not a lord or even a knight. And Princess Molanta, it had been explained, could not associate with someone as badlytapuas he was; she could not, one grizzled old chieftain had said, even look at him, lest the bad luck that had attached to him infect her, and through her all of Tall Trees Town.
Jaime took a pull at the bottle of arrack, his second of the day. At least the arrack didn't care what a mess he had made of his life. Couldn't be a lord, couldn't be an emissary . . . He was starting to wonder if he could still be a knight. The mere thought of it made him take a second pull too soon after the first, making him cough as the alcohol rasped at his throat.
The noise of the door opening drew his attention, and he turned his head to see Darabhar Xhan standing in the doorway to his chamber; the big Islander wore the same blankly neutral expression he had taken to wearing around Jaime recently, but there was something else under it. Jaime blinked through the muzziness inspired by the arrack. If he didn't know better, he would swear that Darabhar looked worried. "You have a visitor, Ser Jaime," he said in his deep, rumbling voice.
Jaime co*cked an eyebrow. "That so?" he said in a tone that would have been sardonic had he not pronouncedsoassho. "Who is he, that he doesn't care abouttapu?"
"Jadhanal Rhoqu," Darabhar replied. "He is . . .tohunga."
Jaime blinked, then barked a laugh. "And what in the hellsh," he asked, "would I want with a mashter craftshman?"
Darabhar shook his head. "Atohungais anyone who has mastered their skill, their path in life. Rhoqu istohunga ahurewa; you would say . . . high priest."
Jaime smiled, suddenly past caring how such an expression might be taken. "Tell thish Rhoqu," he said, trying to enunciate and failing, "that I already have sheven gods to worship and I can't find the time to worship another one. He'sh about twenty-five, twenty-shix yearsh too late." He turned away from the door, ignoring Darabhar's sigh and the sound of the closing door, and was in the middle of taking another drink when the door slammed open.
The shock made Jaime start, spray a mouthful of arrack across the table in front of him, and spend at least half a minute coughing before he turned to the door, ready to rebuke whoever had intruded on his privacy, but the sight of the man standing in the doorway made him stop short. He wasn't particularly tall, perhaps a head shorter than Jaime, but the cloak of starkly-dyed black and white flax over his shoulders made him look almost as broad through the shoulders as he was tall, and he had an air that immediately reminded Jaime of his father in a bad mood. What truly caught Jaime's attention, however, was the man's face.
He had heard, and Darabhar had told him, that the Islanders practiced facial tattooing, but even after so much time in the Islands seeing a man's face almost covered by an intricate web of lines and whorls was a shock. It also, Jaime had found, could make even a mild frown imposing. The glower on this man's face could probably have split an oak plank at ten pacesbeforehe was tattooed.
It certainly made Jaime feel more sober than it had in two days.
"So," the man said in a gravelly voice that conveyed . . . not so much disdain as a complete lack of impressment at what he was seeing. "You're thetapu Pākehā." He narrowed his eyes, giving Jaime the impression that he was being minutely inspected and found wanting. "And no wonder, either. Ach, what a mess." He peered at Jaime a moment longer, then nodded and turned. "Come," he said over his shoulder. "We have a great deal to do, and not much time to do it in."
Jaime blinked, then drew himself up. "And why should I go with you?" he demanded.
The Islander stopped, turned on his heel, strode over to Jaime, and seized him by the ear with a grab-and-twist that made Jaime yelp in pained surprise as his head was dragged down to the level of the Islander's. "Because you have spent quite enough time feeling sorry for yourself," he snapped, "and not nearly enough time considering how to get yourself out of the mess you have gotten yourself into. Fortunately, helping people solve problems like the one you have is part of my skill. But this is not the place. Now come."
Jaime could not remember the last time he had been physically dragged someplace; he assumed it must have been in his childhood. Certainly no one had dared try it since he was old enough to wield a sword. But his sword was leaning against the wall of his chamber, along with his dagger and the Islander did not seem inclined to tarry as he hauled him down the stairs, through the hall of the building the embassy had been given for the duration of their stay, and out into the street. Once out of doors, the Islander continued up the street, still dragging Jaime by the ear. "Your friend, the wanderer, he told you aboutmana, yes?" he demanded.
Jaime struggled to concentrate against the pain in his ear and the side of his head and the difficulty of keeping his balance while half-bent and moving at a brisk march. "Power of some sort, isn't it?" he asked finally.
"Power, energy," the Islander, who he assumed was thetohungaDarabhar had been talking about, said impatiently. "Manais in everything that lives, boy. Every man and woman, every creature in the sea, every bird in the air, every beast on the land, every tree and stone and blade of grass hasmana. But it doesn't just stay in one place; under the right circ*mstances it can be, hmm, transferred? This language of yours is so imprecise about some things." He clicked his tongue impatiently. "Even inanimate things can gainmana, especially things that are used with great skill and great, hmm, intention. The instruments I use in my rituals, they have gainedmanafrom me, as your sword likely has from you. People can gainmanaalso, and done properly, with the right, hmm, intention, it can strengthen themanaof the receiver. Like a stream flowing into a river. Do it improperly, however, and the receiver'smanabecomes, hmmmm,muddiedis the closest term in this language. Ordisrupted." He tweaked Jaime's ear. "You, boy, have picked up a great deal ofmanafrom somewhere and done so very improperly indeed. It must be sorted out if you are to be madenoaagain."
The idea of yet another person meddling in his life made Jaime's stomach rebel. "Getoff!" he roared, reaching up to his ear to try and break the other man's hold. The Islander countered his grab, and a very confused minute later Jaime was flat on his belly, his face pressed into the packed earth of the road, with the Islander lying across his back with one of his arms twisted into a shoulder-lock.
"Are you done, boy?" the Islander demanded crossly. "Before you decide, know this; I, Jadhanal Rhoqu, was a champion wrestler long before I became a servant of the gods. Twice did I break a man's back in single combat with no weapon save what the gods gave me at birth. Why do you think I did not fear to take you, when you would not come?"
"f*ck. You." Jaime snarled, spitting dirt. "I've had one old bastard try to tell me how to live my life. I'll not let it happen again."
"So instead of heeding the wisdom of your elders, you blunder about like a drunken ape," Jadhanal said dryly. "How well has this gone for you, and for those around you? How well have you served your king, this Robert the Strong of whom I have heard so much, since you decided to heed no counsel but your own?"
Only a warning tightening of the hold on his arm kept Jaime from trying to writhe out from under the Islander and resume the attack. Instead he had to settle for a caw of bitter laughter. "How well do you think?" he asked, putting as much sarcasm as he could into that one sentence.
"Hmm," Jadhanal replied. "Do you wish this to be the end of your story, Jaime son of Tywin, son of Tytos? Would you have yourwhakapapa, your lineage, end with you so weak that an old man can wrestle you to the ground and keep you there, followed by you drinking yourself into an early grave? Or would you cast out whatever has brought you as low as this, and become again the man you were at Tyrosh and Novadomo? The man your king needs you to be, if he is to make use of you in his wars."
Jaime blinked. "How do you know what I was at Tyrosh and Novodomo?" he demanded.
"I did not turn my back on the world of men entirely when I went to serve the gods," Jadhanal answered. "I know that the way of things is being changed before our eyes, and that the time comes swiftly when we must decide if we will change with it. I also know that our people will take much convincing before they sail to war, and that Princess Molanta's word will weigh heavily on those scales. I also know thatyouare the only man who can convince the Princess that war is a risk worth taking; your friend, the Ironborn, he is wise in his way but we remember the raids his people have committed against us too well. And he does not believe in these wars the way you do. You haveseen, have you not, how men are degraded when they are enslaved, and how they are restored when they are freed? You haveseen,have you not, how those who enslaved them are rewarded for their cruelties, and how those who free them are given loyalty unto death?Thatis what you must tell the Princess, but you cannot do so with this,pollution, upon you. Youmustbe madenoa, commonplace, if you are to remind my people that there is a time for war and fury as well as peace and harmony."
Jaime could not help a shudder as something he had thought dead stirred in his chest. "How do you know all this?"
"It is part of my skill, and my gift, to see into the hearts of others," Jadhanal said. "Even more so to listen and to learn, the better to guide those the gods send to me for aid. But all the guidance I can offer is nothing unless the person is willing to be guided. Let me guide you, Jaime Lannister, and we will see what sort of man you become. At the very least," he added with a gentle edge in his voice, "it will be a better man than the one currently under my hold."
Jaime took a shuddering breath, then another, then tapped the dirt in submission. "Can't guide me anywhere if you keep my face in the dirt, can you?" he asked.
"Not very far, perhaps," Jadhanal replied as he let go of Jaime's arm and got to his feet. "But even the longest journeys begin with single steps. Now get up, boy, and follow. This will not be easy, and now we have even less time to do it in."
XXX
The wine was flowing freely in Dragon House, as the palace Viserys had been granted within the Black Walls had been swiftly dubbed, but very little of it was flowing down the throat of Donys Rahtheon. He liked wine, but not to excess; drunkenness reflected poorly on a man's lineage and upbringing. And while others celebrated the Company's victory, he was already thinking ahead to the next moves.
Now that Viserys was a Triarch, steps could be taken to consolidate Targaryen rule over Volantis that would have been too blatant while Viserys was merely an exiled sellsword on the city's payroll. Steps such as placing Company officers in command of the Militia, and making the last arrangements necessary to fold the Golden Company into the Company's ranks. Captain Toyne would become Proconsul of the Western Territories, Ser Edwyn Saffron would fill the last open spot in Viserys' Kingsguard, and the Golden Company's other officers and notables would receive a variety of lesser honors and rewards. That would give Viserys the force he needed to solidify his hold on the City, even if the other two Triarchs became desperate and unleashed the Unsullied, thinking to capitalize on the apparent misstep of moving the Company's claim to legitimate power within the Black Walls and into the heart of the remaining strength of the Old Blood. The confined terrain of a city might play to the strengths of the eunuch soldiers, but the confusion attendant on street fighting would not. And with memories of the Company's destruction of the slave revolt still fresh, the people would remember who had rescued them while their supposed leaders had cowered behind the Black Walls.
That being done, and the City's vassal towns falling into line on the heels of the metropole thanks to the reforms to internal trade that Donys planned to oversee, their likely allies would have to be consolidated. He was already in negotiations with the Lyseni, who were doing a poor job of masking their desperation for an alliance against the Kingdom of Myr. Their Captain, Daario Naharis, might be doing better against the Andals and their pet slaves than anyone else had done, but he still had yet to defeat the Iron Legion in a pitched battle. Until that occurred, he judged, the Lyseni would remain desperate for an ally that could match the Legion, and the Exile Company was quite possibly the only force on the continent that could do so, especially if it was augmented by Unsullied. Which reminded him; he needed to send an emissary to Astapor and see what the going rate was for Unsullied by the century. As a Triarch, Viserys might be legally entitled to command the Unsullied already in the City's employ, but it would be good to have Unsullied without such divided loyalties. The Andal scriptures enjoined men to remember that they could not serve two masters, and Donys was willing to admit that they had a point on that matter. Norvos also needed seeing to, once things settled down there enough for the reactionaries to prove themselves sufficiently valuable as allies. And perhaps even if they didn't; there was no land route towards the Myrish heartland that was logistically sustainable for an army of sufficient size, and the only way to circumvent that gap that didn't run the risk of either the Braavosi fleet or an ocean storm was to sail up the Rhoyne and follow its western branches into Pentoshi territory. It was always more economical to move goods, especially food, long distances by boat than by wagon. Past a certain point, your draft animals simply ate everything they hauled.
That would bring them into more direct conflict with the Braavosi, of course, but Donys was willing to take up that gauntlet. Robert the Bloody and his pillagers had only been able to sail to Essos by the generosity of the Braavosi, so what had followed therefrom could be laid at the Titan's door as surely as Robert's. And the Braavosi would need to be cut back down to size anyway, if they were to learn to keep to their lagoon and mind their own ledgers. A Braavos returned to its mercantile ventures was a Braavos that House Targaryen could live with. A Braavos that remained an active participant in Robert the Bloody's mad crusade was not. Fortunately, unless Donys was greatly mistaken, the Braavosi were not likely to have the stomach to shoulder the main burden of the wars themselves. Centuries of being confined to the relatively unproductive lands of the far northwest of Essos, dependent on the sea and foreign trade for their daily bread, had bred an instinctive caginess in the children of the Titan. It made them good merchants and dangerous enemies, but it also made them leery of military adventurism. It was an expensive hobby, after all, both in money and in lives, and for so much of its history Braavos had had little enough of either to spare. Especially once they had become used to the wealth that had been brought by their mastery of seaborne trade. Once the Kingdom of Myr was thrown down, the Braavosi would come to their senses.
And the Kingdom of Myrwouldbe thrown down, if it was the last thing that he did in this life, Donys vowed, his fingers tightening on his glass. The fact that he had been forced to flee for his life a step ahead of an enraged mob was immaterial; Myr had been hishome, the home of his family and friends and neighbors and associates. And Robert Baratheon had not simply destroyed it, but raised an abomination from its ashes. Bedslaves, porters, cooks, even sweepers were now persons of wealth and importance in the Kingdom of Myr. Some of them had even been namedlords, if the reports that reached his ears were to be believed. Slaves, living in the manses of people they had not been worthy even tolookat, claiming dignities and honors as far above them as gold was above manure. It was not to be borne. Especially since he, Donys Rahtheon, could be said to be at least partly responsible for their being able to do so. It had been his sheltering and championing of Rhaegar that had brought Robert the Bloody's wrath on Myr, with all that had followed in its wake.
Donys had not lived as long as he had by not correcting his mistakes. He would correct this one as well, by whatever means became necessary. He owed it to his good-nephew, who would never sit securely on his throne while a single child of House Baratheon lived, and his granddaughter, who would not live in safety until Robert the Bloody's line was expunged. That being so, he decided, he would do his utmost to see both of these things done. Personally, if he had to.
Especially since he no longer had only his good-nephew and granddaughter to think about, he reminded himself as he glanced at where Viserys was overseeing the festivities from the high table alongside his new wife. It would be some time before Viserys and Lessaena would be likely to produce a child, but it would happen sooner or later, if the gods willed it so. And if they did not . . . there was always Asha Greyjoy, sitting by Lessaena's right hand and looking like a proper young lady by some miracle. It wasn't unknown among the Old Blood for a childless couple to adopt a bastard the man had sired on whatever lover he might have taken, provided the mother was well-born enough. The Greyjoy's might be glorified pirates, but the same could be said for many Andal nobles, and a gentleman remembered to make allowances.
Malaquo Maegyr had been reluctant to grant Viserys the hand of his favorite granddaughter; the old man had known how seriously the Andals took a blood feud, and as for the First Men, like Robert's pet madman Stark . . . Donys had had to give his personal assurance that not a hair on Lessaena's head would come to harm from Viserys' enemies before Malaquo would give his consent to the union. At least the marriage had bound Malaquo to the Company's fortunes. He doted on Lessaena, who reportedly resembled his late wife more than any other of his grandchildren, and the idea that his great-grandson would one day be not only a Triarch of Volantis but King of Westeros had caught the old man's imagination. Even the Valyrians of old had only managed to rule one continent. The prospect of doing them one better . . . that was enough to excite any man of ambition, and Malaquo had always had a tiger's hunger.
A hunger shared by many of the other men attending this celebration, Donys reminded himself as he scanned the room. The Golden Company might be two or three or even four generations removed from Westeros at this point, but they still remembered what they had lost when their forebears had been driven into exile, and although they were the soberest revelers in the hall he expected them to be the fiercest fighters when the time finally came to conquer Westeros. The more recent exiles would likely give them some stiff competition on that score, though, given the recentness of their own exile. The Essosi of the Company would probably be the hardest to bring to the necessary pitch of enthusiasm, Donys reflected as he watched them knock back the wine at twice the rate of the Westerosi exiles and three times the rate of the Golden Company men, with a correspondingly greater degree of exuberance. As far as they were concerned, Viserys had just won the prize of prizes, the jewel in the crown of mortal ambition. To be a Triarch of Volantis was to be one of the most powerful men in Essos west of Qarth; what rational man would want to reach still higher? What, come to that, was there that was even higher than the Triarchy to reachfor? There was a reason that Donys planned to advise Viserys to be sparing with the rewards where his Essosi-born followers were concerned. Men who were already lords on one continent were not likely to be tempted by the thought of gaining a lordship on another one.
XXX
The following is an excerpt fromIron Flash, the fifth instalment of the Flash Papers by George Dand
The first thing you have to understand about the Riverlands in the early nineties is that it was not a kingdom in the way the North or the Westerlands or the Reach was. In any of the other kingdoms if the lord paramount said "Jump," all the nobles would do was ask for direction, distance, and trajectory. In the Westerlands, they wouldn't even do that until they were already in the air. If the Tully's said "Jump," on the other hand, the first thing any of the river lords would ask was "Why?" The Tully's weren't royalty or the next thing to it from before the Conquest, like the other Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms, but simply the leaders of the rebellion against Harren Hoare that had attached itself to the Conqueror's coattails and been elevated for it, so they didn't have the same well of respect to draw on that the Stark's or the Lannister's or the Baratheon's did. And the rivermen have always been a fractious bunch; get five river lords in a room and ask them a question sometime. You won't just get five different answers, you'll get at least two feuds over the resulting arguments and you'd better have bouncers ready in order to prevent anyone from pulling a dagger. The only times the river lords ever united in my lifetime were for Robert's Rebellion and Balon's Rebellion; the first time because they were all at Riverrun and got swept up in the moment, and the latter because the one thing rivermen can agree on is that there's no death too bad for an Ironborn.
The second thing you have to understand is that the Riverlands in the early nineties was a kingdom in fear. There had just been a revolt of virulent heretics right next door, and while the Royal Army might have put them down and executed the ringleaders, it was known that some of their lieutenants had escaped the net. Reeves in the northern Reach had been catching Rymanist septons and begging brothers turned to preaching ever since Ryman himself got what was coming to him and so had their colleagues in the southern Riverlands, which had more in common with the northern Reach than the inhabitants of either would be willing to admit. By the time I was passing through on my way to the Islands, virtually every unfamiliar person passing through that region was being considered a heretic until proven otherwise. EvenIgot suspicious looks, and I was a belted knight traveling with my retinue (as small as it was) and wearing the king's livery badge as prominently as I could. Things came to a head at some village so small I forget the name, where what was probably the whole adult male population turned out with spear and bow and demanded my name, style, and business, after which they demanded I recite the credo. Of course I did so, there being no less than three war-bows within point-blank range of me, but after satisfying them that I was indeed a king's man and no heretic I demanded what they meant by it. What their headman told me afterward stuck with me through all that followed. "Which there's rumors as that Ser Wallford's been seen with heretics, ser," he said, leaning on his bill, "and as that he's turned heretic himself, or will soon. And what'll that mean for us?"
What indeed. See, a lord wasn't just a lord, in those days; he was also a major figure in the religious life of his bailiwick. Take me, for instance. I'm only conventionally pious, and that only in public, and I still read the scriptures and sit front and center at Divine Office, do my bit to help the septon with the parochial charities, and take a starring role in religious ceremonies that touch on my household. I was one of the groomsmen at my former squire's wedding, for instance, and godsfather to my father's steward's youngest son. If, for some unthinkable reason, I ever turned heretic, the pressure on the septon to do the same would be immense; his living was in my family's gift, after all, as is the case on almost every other lordship south of the Neck. Convert the lord and the septon, and you might as well convert the smallfolk while you're at it. People weren't nearly as mobile then as they've become since, and being given the choice between turning heretic themselves or being evicted would literally force them to choose between their faith and their livelihoods. And perhaps their lives as well; life on the road is hard even on the strongest, and when you don't know that your lord's neighbors haven't turned heretic themselves and won't give you the same choice if you try and flee to them . . . No wonder the people in that village were nervous.
Especially since there were new taxes being levied as well, the headman told me that evening over the pease pottage and weak ale that was the best food and drink my money could buy in that gods-forgotten place (the business over my credentials had taken enough time that I couldn't have gotten to Ser Wallford's castle before nightfall, and it seemed impolitic to feed the suspicions of the smallfolk even further). That much I knew already; I knew virtually nothing about the state of the Treasury andIknew that two wars in a year and a half had left it in desperate need of replenishment. What I hadn't considered was how the smallfolk would see it. Tax collection in those days wasn't a matter of royal officers fanning out across the countryside and making sure things are done by the numbers, the way it was in Myr. Instead, it was the lord's business to get whatever amount he owed out of his smallfolk and shipped off to King's Landing; how he did so was his problem. It's cheaper than maintaining an army of bureaucrats, but it also means that the smallfolk don'tknowtheir taxes are being assessed and delivered the way the king actually wants them. As my worthy headman put it, who was to know that Ser Wallford wasn't gouging them for more taxes than they owed and sending the excess to heretics? Or, for that matter, keeping it for himself against the day when he turned heretic himself and needed to buy sellswords for the rebellion that would follow?
Suffice to say, I left that nameless village with my retinue the next day with my head full of thoughts and my guts full of foreboding. One village might not mean much, especially when it doesn't have more than fifteen able-bodied men of military age, but if every village in the Riverlands was infected with the same fears, then we were riding through a wildfire keg with a slow fuse on it. I didn't know it then, of course, but Lord Tyrell had already told his castellans and reeves in the northern Reach to hold off on collecting the new taxes until the smallfolk had calmed down and sent reports to King's Landing warning of the discontent. Why Lord Tully didn't do the same, I still don't know, unless no one had told him what was brewing, which was possible. The river lords are an independently-minded bunch, all possessed of the notion that no one knows better than they do how to manage their own affairs. Which was true for the most part, but when it wasn't the results could be spectacular. As I found out for myself, the hard way.
We were spending a few days in Stony Sept, getting our horses re-shod and letting them gain some weight for the trip over the mountains into the Westerlands. I was in the main market with Baldwick, contemplating whether we should get a new pack-saddle, and then the next thing I know the market's being flooded with people in a state of panic. The only reason Baldwick and I weren't trampled is because the saddler's stall was at the edge of the market and Baldwick and I were quick-witted enough to flatten ourselves against the wall of the tavern the stall was placed alongside and inch our way into a nearby alley. Which gave us a perfect view of what happened next; the tail end of the crowd came stampeding into the market, followed by about a dozen knights on horseback and maybe threescore sergeants on foot, all in the livery of the landed knights and minor lords who lived around Stoney Sept. The market was small enough that the crowd filled it almost to bursting, but large enough that the knights and sergeants couldn't anchor their flanks on anything. Some of the braver souls in the crowd, realizing that their pursuers were now overextended and isolated, started to throw things; merchandise from the stalls and cobblestones, for the most part. Whoever was in charge of the knights was, evidently, as quick a thinker as I was; he knew that if he so much as wavered, the crowd would turn at bay and his men would be submerged. So when the knights spurred their horses into the crowd again, they used edge instead of flat and the screams went from burgeoning defiance to earnest terror. By the time the sergeants had formed a line the crowd was already wavering. When they went in with shields braced and spears at the charge, it broke like a vase struck by a hammer.
I was already thinking of Gulltown by then and the only reason I didn't get my retinue out of the town was because the gates had been closed and a curfew enacted by order of the Archsepton. The next day, a messenger in the Archsepton's livery came round the inn where I was staying and informed me that the Archsepton was levying all knights and men-at-arms in the town into his service to restore order; I was summoned by name, to serve as one of the Archsepton's captains in the hope that a name as famous as mine as a King's man and a defender of the Faith (ha!) would help to quell suspicions. Of course, I couldn't exactly refuse; if it got back to King's Landing that I had refused an Archsepton's order I would have been finished at Court. Cersei would have made sure of it. So I reported to the Sept with my retinue, only to find that all hell had broken loose overnight.
The smallfolk of the Riverlands, you see, aren't nearly as servile as their Reacher and Westerlander cousins are. The more or less constant state of minor war their lords lived in meant that the average Riverlander peasant had spent a respectable fraction of his life under arms at one point or another; a river lord's farmers are also his spearmen, and his shepherds and huntsmen are his archers. All of which is to say that when they were faced with the possibility of being forced to choose between their faith and their lives, and not knowing who to trust beyond a king who lived more than a hundred miles away and might side with the nobility even if they could appeal to him, the smallfolk of the Riverlands had the nerve and the ability to take matters into their own hands. In some places, I found out later, they were satisfied with making their lords prove that they hadn't turned heretic and didn't plan to, but those were the exception. Almost a fifth of the landed knights and minor lords of the southern Riverlands were killed or driven off their lands within the first sennight of the rising. Counting those who had been besieged in their own castles and tower houses, that proportion rose to almost half. By the time that Stoney Sept was sufficiently under control that the Archsepton could start dispatching patrols into the surrounding countryside, four days later, the rising had spread northward as far as Acorn Hall. I won't burden you with an accounting of what I saw on that first patrol from Stoney Sept to Hollow Hill, save to say that it was as bad as anything I saw anywhere else, and it was in the very heartland of the Seven Kingdoms. So yes, the reaction was bloody, especially against smallfolk taken in the act, but what else were we to do? The law had been set at defiance, the social order overturned and threatened with anarchy, and virtually no one was in the mood to listen to reason. In times like that, reason cedes precedence to naked force, at least until the other fellow stops fighting long enough to start listening to what you're trying to tell him.
Especially since it wasn't just the smallfolk that had flown to arms. Within the sennight there were lords in the field alongside their smallfolk, claiming to be defending the Faith and the Realm by purging them of suspected heretics. That these suspected heretics happened to be neighbors holding pieces of land that they wanted, they all later swore, was not a factor that entered their calculations. And if you believe that, then I'll tell you another one. All told, those first few sennights of leading my new company, twenty lances and half a hundred town militia, around the countryside were possibly the most exhausting sennights I've ever had. It was my first independent command, and that's always enough to keep you from getting a decent night's sleep. Add to which, as the forces of law and order, every man's mind and hand was against us until we forced them not to be. The smallfolk might be glad to see the Archsepton's banner, but they didn't like being told to stop this foolishness of rebellion and go back to their work; to their minds, they were fighting for their lives and their souls. The lords they had burned out or driven off might be glad to see us restore order, but they didn't like being told that they couldn't hang anyone who wasn't condemned by the Archsepton's court; they had just been the targets of a revolt that had threatened to kill them and their families, down to the children. The lords who had decided to take advantage of the chaos weren't glad to see us on any account; here they had thought to get one over on old enemies, make themselves rich, and receive the blessings of the Faith that were due its defenders all at the same time, and we were ruining the game. Fortunately, I was only dealing with the minor lords and the landed chivalry, and my little company was stronger than any two of them put together, especially after a sennight of marching through hostile country with danger behind every bush made us a company and not simply a gang of armed men.
Dealing with the more powerful lords, thank the gods, was work for people above my weight class. The Archsepton managed to keep the Piper's, the Wayn's, the Smallwood's, and the Ryger's away from each other's throats by threatening to excommunicate every one of them no matter who was at fault unless they stood down and joined him in restoring order, but virtually every other House in the Riverlands with a grudge (in other words, all of them) had apparently decided to make hay while the sun was shining. About the only House that didn't take the field was the Blackwood's, who limited themselves to patrolling their lands and telling everyone in earshot that they didn't care who worshipped what so long as they obeyed the law. Lord Tully, to give the old bastard his due, did his best to do what the Archsepton had done in the south, but he was already starting to fall sick then, and so he had to give command to his son Edmure. And while Edmure might have been a jovial and open-handed chap with his peers and those he considered his friends, he already hated Reformists like poison even then. With reason, I suppose, given what happened to his sister, but he still wasn't the person to send on a mission where dispassionate judgment would be more necessary than good leadership. Especially since he was a bit soft where the smallfolk were concerned. When he heard out the smallfolk of Sallydance and Lady of the Leaves and decided that their suspicions of Lord Lychester's heresy were in fact justified, he didn't just join them in the field against the Lychester's; he had Lychester himself arrested during a parley and sent him back to Riverrun in irons. Not, you may take as read, the sort of action to pour oil on troubled waters.
It was that, more than anything, I think, that truly set off the Trident Wars, which was probably one of the stranger wars I've ever fought in . . .
Chapter 111: Predictions and Visions
Chapter Text
Jaime bent the knee as Princess Molanta's scribe presented him with the copy of the treaty that would reside in Myr city. "On behalf of my king, I thank Your Grace," he said. "This alliance will do much towards advancing the cause of freedom and further curbing the designs of the slaver powers." It would do less than Ser Wendel, rest his soul, had hoped, being only a treaty to establish trade and the conditions under which Princess Molanta's subjects might take service with the Royal Navy and the Iron Legion, but it was more than Jaime had hoped for, even after High Priest Rhoqu had thrown his apparently considerable weight behind the embassy's case.
"And we thank you, Ser Jaime, for giving our ways the respect they are due," the Princess replied with a smile that reminded Jaime of his Aunt Genna; there were few enough of the Princess's Court present that they could be relatively informal. Most of them were smiling as well, probably calculating how much their merchants would be able to sell their spices, exotic hardwoods, and brightly patterned cloth for. "So many of your countrymen do not that to find one who does is . . . refreshing."
Jaime returned the Princess's smile as he rose from his knee. "For which courtesy Your Grace should thank High Priest Rhoqu as well," he said, indicating the broad figure that was standing off to one side, leaning on his ceremonial staff. "It is difficult to be improperly respectful when such a man as he is reminding you of your manners."
Princess Molanta laughed shortly. "We found this to be true as well, before we followed our mother to the throne," she said. "But we hope that you will continue in the wisdom he has given you, even when you are out from under his eye."
"I shall, Your Grace," Jaime replied. "Both from my duty as a knight and an ambassador, and from regard for the aid High Priest Rhoqu gave me when I needed it most." And also, he did not say, because he had felt the power behind Rhoqu's faith firsthand; power like waves crashing on the shore and the earth trembling beneath him where he had knelt in that glade beneath the Talking Trees while Rhoqu had chanted in the guttural, percussive tongue of the Isles and led him back through the halls of his memory . . .
Jaime shook himself. "Would Your Grace have me bear any word to Your fellow princes and princesses in the rest of the Isles?" he asked.
Molanta nodded. "My scribes will have letters prepared by the time you are ready to sail," she said. "And you may tell Jalabhar Xho, Prince of Red Flower Vale, that if he wants to play at war, then he may as well do it in Essos, where he can learn how to do it well."
Jaime bowed. "I shall relay your words exactly, Your Grace," he promised. He turned to High Priest Rhoqu. "Are you sure I cannot convince you to join me, my lord? Your words would do much to sway doubting hearts."
Rhoqu shook his head. "However much the world is changing, my place is here, in these lands and waters," he said. "And you know that you must make your own reputation now; it is not the way of men to lean too much on others, like a cripple on his stick."
Jaime bowed shortly. "Then with the gods' help I shall do so," he said, concealing the edge of anticipation in his words. Rhoqu might have declared himnoa, cleansed and commonplace, but he still had a debt to pay for the trouble he had caused. And a Lannister always paid their debts.
Rhoqu nodded. "There is one that I would send with you, however." He turned and gestured sharply, and a boy a few years younger than Jaime stepped forward. "This is Mantar, my brother's son," he said as the young man nodded. "He is a brash young man and full of opinions, but he has a good heart for all that, and wants to see the world and take a few slaver heads before he marries and takes up a craft."
"Does he?" Jaime asked, eyeing the young Islander. Despite his youth he was of a height with Jaime, and the muscle in his shoulders and torso was promising. "You can fight, young Mantar?"
Mantar nodded. "My uncle taught me to wrestle, and I can use a spear and a mace," he said confidently.
"Can you sew?" Jaime went on. "Do leatherwork? Cook? Care for a horse, or armor?"
Mantar shook his head. "I can sew, but not much more than a simple stitch, and not with leather," he admitted. "I'm better at weaving. No horses and not much armor in the Islands, and what I know about cooking my mother can fit in the palm of her hand."
"With room to spare," Rhoqu added, a twinkle in his eye belying his words. "My brother is a fisherman, Ser Jaime, not a warrior, but what he knows he has taught well to all his sons."
Jaime nodded. He liked Mantar's honesty, and he could see the callous and small scars on his hands that told of years of hard work. The guileless look in his eye was also promising, along with the reserve and confidence of the boy's bearing. "Then my only question is this," he said. "Will you obey me without question, and learn all that I teach you so that it becomes engraved on your heart?"
Mantar nodded. "I will, ser," he promised.
"Then I will do my best to make you a knight," Jaime replied. "And hopefully a better knight than the one that made me." He turned back to the Princess and bowed. "With your permission, Your Grace, I will have much to do and little time to do it in before we sail."
Princess Molanta nodded. "You may go, then, with our friendship," she said. "And tell King Robert this as well; Walano may not sail to war in earnest, but each ship that chooses to fly the crowned stag will go with my blessing and my prayers for their success. We are a people that love peace, but we know also that for there to be times of peace, there must also be times of war."
Jaime bowed, exchanged a few further pleasantries with the Princess and the other members of her Court, and then led the embassy out of the hall and back into the tropical sunshine. There was still the formal farewell and then half a dozen more courts to visit, each of which would require starting almost from the beginning and acting with the same respect and courtesy that Princess Molanta's Corut had required, despite the fact that none of them could match mighty Walano. Partly, in fact,becausenone of them could match Walano but would not be caught dead admitting it. Koj, in particular.
Nonetheless, Jaime could not help the feeling of satisfaction that stole over him. For the first time since Novadomo, he had indisputably done well. Even if it had taken some help.
He touched the short, broad, hooked wooden club that now hung from his belt, carved with a double spiral pattern. To everyone who asked he said that it was merely a memento given him by the priests of the Talking Trees, worn as a mark of respect. Which was true, but not entirely so. He hadseen, that endless day under the Trees,seenhis life literally pass before his eyes, stripped of falsehood and embellishment. As Rhoqu had told him when he had woken from the trance, shaking like a leaf as his mind whirled, he had done much that was worthy, more that was unworthy, and it was his fate to always have to choose the one or the other. And that carefully, for that a man withmanasuch as he bore could wield it for great good or for great evil, and which choice would lead to which would not always be clear. Hence the club, made from the fallen limb of one of the trees and, Rhoqu had explained, ataonga, a treasure of the priests. When in doubt, he was to remember what he was entrusted with, both by the priests of the Talking Trees and by his own people, and take the choice that was worthiest of that trust.
What might happen if he did not had been made clear to him, for he hadseenalso what might have been, in a different life where he had . . .fallen. Jaime stroked the pommel of the club. "The things I do for love," he whispered to himself. If he had come far from the despair he had felt, he had further still to go. As far as he needed, to not be the man who had saidthat.
XXX
"So then," Ser Brynden Tully said as he reined in his horse and brought the ride to a halt, "what is the significance of this position, here? Ser Joren, perhaps you could enlighten us."
Ser Joren Potts saluted and walked his horse forward to where he could get a good view of the stream the Ser Brynden was indicating with his cane. "Well, ser, to start with I wouldn't try to bring an army this way," he began, blinking away the sweat provoked by an unseasonably warm late-spring day. "It's in the wrong direction, and turning into the right direction would make the army, and it's supply train, cross two water features instead of having to cross one."
Ser Brynden nodded approvingly. "Indeed, given the way this stream flows at a right angle to the Poona River, where the border lies," he said. "What else?"
Joren stroked his short beard to give himself time to think. "If the enemy attacked first I would station a small force here to cover the flank," he said. "Perhaps two or three hundred mounted archers and light horse, in order to prevent any outflanking force from crossing the stream before reinforcements could come up from the main body."
"Only mounted archers and light horse?" Ser Brynden asked sharply. "No knights, no Legion companies, no heavy troops at all?"
"No need for them, ser, given how steep the banks are," Joren replied, gesturing at the stream's near-perpendicular banks. "Even if this stream dries out in high or late summer, as looks possible, the bed of the stream will still act like a moat for the covering force. And if the enemy comes in sufficient strength that knights and Legion companies are needed . . ." he shrugged slightly. "In that case, ser, the enemy will likely be making their main thrust here instead of the crossings of the Poona and the main body will be able to disengage from the Poona and wheel left to engage either here or just back from here, if the covering force can't hold the line of the stream. Although why the enemy would throw a bridge across the Poona and then wheel right and try to ford this stream in the face of opposition I can't imagine. Not when they could simply leave a covering force ontheirside," he gestured across the stream, "and start burning their way into the interior."
"Quite so," Ser Brynden said warmly. "Which is why we shall cross this stream and see what any forces stationed on the other side might do to prevent such a misfortune. Onward, gentlemen."
Joren blew his cheeks out in a relieved sigh as he let himself drop back into the column, flashing a smile at the approving nod of Ser Lyn Corbray as his liege-lord rode past. These rides were a new exercise that Ser Brynden had come up with whereby he and some of his staff from War House would join the chivalry of a given district on their monthly muster days to ride about the territory and speculate about how a theoretical enemy might act or react to certain circ*mstances on certain grounds and what could be done to counteract them, as well as bringing in knights and lords from outside a particular district to join in the rides and the discussions they provoked. Especially when the lords and knights in question were from interior districts, as Sirmium had become, instead of the simmering borders. It would not be enough, Ser Brynden had told the members of this particular ride before they set out from Oakenshield Castle, to simply fight valiantly; victory also required that men fightintelligently, and a man's mind required as much exercise as his muscles did. So instead of simply handing down recommendations, Ser Brynden would ask the knights and lords attending the ride for their opinions on what might be done in a given locality, and limit himself to ensuring that their reasoning was sound.
Joren was also of the suspicion, unproven but still strong, that these rides were being used to test which knights would be most suited to higher command. He could think of few other reasons why this ride included not only him, but so many others who might be only landed knights but nonetheless had names for martial cunning. Or for why there were so few men who didn't have such names and whose martial virtues were more prosaic. If it was so, then Joren found himself liking the idea of these rides even more. Not only did it provide men a chance to show their liege-lord and their king's officers their worth, but it could also serve as a means to rise that wasn't tied to the amount of available land.That, he was smart enough to know, was what the maesters called a zero-sum game; the gods weren't making any more new land, so the only real way to get more was to take it from someone else. And while Lys and Volantis and the other slaver states would certainly provide rich pickings in that regard, the day when those lands were carved up for spoil was some ways off yet. In the meantime, royal favor and office, and the benefits thereof, made a perfectly acceptable substitute.
Especially given the recent changes in his life. Dinora had accepted him, and the circuit septon had married them in Pottsdam's great hall not two months ago. Some of his comrades had made jokes about low-hanging fruit, but not after Joren had casually mentioned that Ser Lyn Corbray had offered to stand as godsfather to his first child; that was not a tie to be trifled with, even if the fact that Ser Lyn was a heretic would make it difficult. Regardless, the fact remained that there was a world of difference between the affairs of a bachelor and those of a married man who fully expected to have a significant number of children. Pottsdam was well-run, but Joren had learned from his father that even the most fertile land could only produce so much, and a wise man did not demand more of his smallfolk than the land could bear. The pay of a captain would go a long way to making good any shortfall between Pottsdam's incomes and the expenses of raising the sons and daughters Dinora would give him, and if a captain's banner came with advantages in Myr city and at Court . . . well, what kind of father would he be if he didn't scrape every advantage he could for his children? War was always the best way to advance oneself and one's House, but when war wasn't in the offing, then other means would have to do.
XXX
So it was that King Stannis called his banners and marched into the Riverlands, summoning all men to cease their violence and return to their true allegiance. In this he was joined by many great lords, among them Hoster Tully of Riverrun, Walder Frey of the Crossing, Jason Mallister of Seagard, Tytos Blackwood of Raventree Hall, and Archsepton Pawl of Stony Sept. But the hearts of men were hardened against his words, so that they obeyed him only grudgingly. Such was the will of the gods that after the aforesaid great lords it was the heretics who first obeyed the king's commands, claiming his protection against the predations of their neighbors. In time, the king in his wisdom saw that it was needful to act as a judge in a court, not a captain in the field, and so he summoned the lords of the Riverlands to Harrenhal, that each might argue their cases before him to be judged under the law . . .
Excerpted fromThe Deeds of King Stannis
Stannis had thought that he had prepared himself for what to expect from Archsepton Pawl. The oration on the duty of the Iron Throne to defend the Faith, to be the sword and shield that the Faith had laid down, had been entirely expected. What he had not expected was for the Archsepton to produce a small horde of smallfolk, bearing a petition written out by a pair of begging brothers that he had requested be read into the record. "Whereas," the Archsepton declaimed, "we most greatly fear that we shall be forced into heresy by our lords, to the danger of our souls, and further fear that we shall receive no aid from any other lord to prevent this, we petition, pray, and beseech His Grace the King to grant us protection against any attempt against our faith, our lives, and our livelihoods, from any person or party whatsoever, under the laws of the Realm."
Stannis's fingers clenched on the arms of the throne that had been set up for him in the great hall of Harrenhal. Theoretically the smallfolk had the right to appeal to the king for justice, but to the best of his knowledge it had never been exercised before, if for no other reason than that the odds of actually getting that appeal before the king were laughably long. Apparently, the gods or blind luck had decided to use some very crooked dice on that series of throws. "This petition, Your Grace," Archsepton Pawl went on, flourishing the sheepskin it had been written on, "bears the marks of eighty-six villages in the Riverlands, each of which has sent men to swear to their authenticity and the gravity of their claims. These are your people, Your Grace, your leal subjects, who come before you, to beg the justice they are owed under the laws of the Realm."
Stannis inclined his head in a fractional nod as the lords assembled in the hall murmured among themselves; even the densest of them could realize that here was something unprecedented. "We see," he said evenly, turning his gaze on the crowd of smallfolk standing behind the Archsepton, all in their drab best and with their caps in their hands, looking discomfited but determined. "And each of you goodmen is willing to swear thus? Think well before you do, for you are speaking in Court, and are under oath to speak the truth."
One of the smallfolk shuffled forward and went to his knees. "We all swear it, Your Grace," he said roughly. "And by the tax we pay and the loyalty we owe, we beg the King's Justice against our lords, who would make us either heretics or corpses."
Stannis could not help but be impressed by the man's self-possession. As well might a mouse speak to a terrier in a room filled with cats. "Then justice you shall have, under the law," he said. "That I will alleviate every burden and break every yoke I cannot promise, but any man who seeks to touch the faith of even the least of my subjects will answer for it." He turned his gaze back to Archsepton Pawl as the other smallfolk went to their knees. "Have you anything further to add, Your Excellency?"
The Archsepton bowed his head. "Saving only the right to rebut such errors as present themselves, Your Grace, I rest the case of the Faith, and yield the floor."
Stannis nodded as the Archsepton withdrew, the smallfolk he had brought huddling behind him.Probably as much as can be asked for. He raised a finger and Ser Jacelyn Bywater, who was acting as marshal of the Court, rapped the butt of the staff he was carrying against the floor. "The King calls upon Lord Hugh Lychester to come forth and speak," he declared.
There were angry mutterings from most of the other riverlords as Lychester, his heavyset frame reduced and the bags under his eyes deepened by his spell in captivity, took the floor; he wasn't the only man here accused of heresy, but he was certainly the most prominent. The fact that he had done nothing to allay the charges against him had not helped his popularity. It was only by Stannis' order that he was no longer in irons, and only by Stannis' declaration that he was a witness, and so under the protection of the Throne, that he was speaking today.
Lychester briefly knelt to the throne as he took the floor, then stood and seemed to collect his thoughts for a moment. "Your Grace," he said finally in a voice softer than seemed appropriate even to his diminished bulk, "Your Excellency, my lords, I stand before you today accused of heresy, and of breaking the King's Peace. I have been commanded to give answer to these accusations, and advised by many whose regard I hold dear," his eyes flicked towards Hoster Tully, who was seated at Stannis' right hand, "that my best course would be to admit my fault and cast myself upon Your Grace's mercy." He bowed. "I pray your pardon, Your Grace, but I cannot do this."
"Heretic!" Jonos Bracken roared, provoking an outcry that was only broken when Ser Jacelyn gave over pounding the floor and signaled the royal sergeants and Blackwood spearmen standing around the hall, whose combined spear-butts sounded like thunder against the flagstones. Stannis waited until the last murmur had died away before speaking. "You are here under our protection, my lord, and need no pardon until your guilt is proven," he said evenly. "Nonetheless, you owe us an explanation as to why you feel the need to refuse such sensible advice."
Lychester deepened his bow for a moment before straightening. "I must refuse it, Your Grace, because none of the fault for this affair is mine," he said, looking at Stannis with the eyes of a man past fear. "Yes, I am a Jonothorian, for that I have seen much in the Faith that cries out for reform. I have seen septons demand riches of the poor, humiliation of the justly proud, and degradation of the pure in return for performing the sacraments that should be at the service of every man and woman of faith. Yes, I am aware that heresy is a crime by the lights of the Faith, punishable by death. But I am not aware of any power the Faith has to arrest, question, or try me, or any other subject of the Iron Throne, for any crime whatsoever!" Archsepton Pawl seemed to swell in indignation but Stannis caught his eye and glared him into deflating. "I am your loyal subject, Your Grace," Lychester went on, "and I have obeyed your law in every thing and every word. Yes, I am a heretic, by the lights of the Faith, but I have made no effort to convert others, by example, persuasion, or force. I have made no outward show that I follow Jonothor's precepts, save only that I have striven to act in such wise as to prove my merits in the sight of the gods. I have no truck with the Rymanists, who would regard me to be as great an enemy as His Excellency the Archsepton, and as little deserving of mercy if ever I fell into their hands. When war broke out I sought only to keep the King's Peace within my lands and defend myself and my people against whatever enemies might arise. Your Grace, salvation might be the prerogative of the gods, but earthly justice is Your Grace's, to execute in accordance with the law. I have broken no law of the Realm, Your Grace, and so I beg your justice against those who have wronged me so."
Stannis had to make a conscious effort to loosen his jaw as the self-admitted heretic lord knelt again to angry grumblings from Jonos Bracken and his confederates.Damn it, man, would it have been too much for you to take the smart way out?Bracken and his followers might persist in their reflexive hatred of heresy, but there were others who seemed more receptive to Lychester's argument. Jason Mallister was stroking his beard meditatively as Tytos Blackwood whispered in his ear, while Walder Frey was looking at Lychester like a merchant examining a gemstone for flaws. He turned to Archsepton Pawl. "Your Excellency, I take it you have something to say in reply to these assertions," he said, forcing his voice to coolness.
The Archsepton all but dashed onto the floor. "Leaving aside, Your Grace, that this man has just admitted his guilt for you and I and everyone in this hall to hear," he declared, his face red with indignation, "his argument for his innocence is specious and deserves to be laughed out of this hall. It is wholly impossible," he went on over the applause led by Jonos Bracken, who Stannis was already marking down for some display of royal displeasure at earliest convenience, "wholly impossible for a heretic to abide by the King's Peace. The very fact of their heresy breaks the Peace, for what true child of the Faith can stand by and allow the scriptures to be corrupted, the sacraments blasphemed, and the commandments perverted? How can any belted knight, mindful of his vow to defend the Faith, let a heretic pass in peace, when to do so is to break the oath he swore at his knighting to the peril of his soul? How can any judge set aside the law of Jaehaerys the Conciliator, who commanded that secular courts give such aid to the Faith as the Faith shall request to maintain its purity against those who would subvert it? When Your Grace was crowned you swore an oath to defend and maintain the Faith; I summon you to remember that oath, and keep it as the worthiest of your predecessors did!"
Stannis struck the arm of his throne with an open palm, thecrackof flesh on oak silencing the Archsepton. "Do not think that you must remind me of what I have sworn, Your Excellency," he grated, his voice only barely restrained from a snarl. "I have engraved my oaths upon my soul, and will answer to the gods for how I discharge them. But I did not swear an oath to the Faith alone; I swore an oath to defend my leal subjects against their enemies, to maintain the Peace, and to cause law and justice to be granted toall," he looked pointedly at Lord Lychester, who was still on his knees, "my subjects. How, I pray you tell me, is it meet that I keep the one oath by allowing the other to be broken by any churl who perceives a deviation from the Faith in his neighbor? A deviation, mark you, that he cannot be qualified to identify, much less prove?"
"And where," Hoster Tully interjected as the Archsepton opened his mouth, "is the benefit to the Realm? How does it benefit the Realm to permit any lord to attack any other on no greater basis than suspicion? How does it benefit the Realm to permit such a war of all against all, where otherwise law-abiding men and women are attacked and outraged, and all because they are perceived to be heretics? I am no lawyer, but I know as well as any man that even a traitor may not be hanged without he be tried and condemned under law, and allowed to defend himself against his accusers. Shall we, Your Grace, my lords, allow this most basic principle of justice to be discarded, and the Realm made a land of blocks and gallows? Why did we rebel against the Targaryen's, if not to prevent exactly this?"
There was a wave of nods among some of the lords, and a few murmurs, but Jonos Bracken strode forward, shaking his blunt-featured head. "With all respect, my lord, Your Grace, it is not the same," he insisted. "The Targaryen's sought to degrade us, yes, but they did not threaten our faith. Nor did they seek to sow traitors," he glowered at Lychester, who returned him glare for glare, "among us, to wreak further corruption. Are we to tolerate heretics living openly among us, making mock of all that we hold sacred and luring our children away from the faith of their forefathers? Better, far better, I say, that these lands run red with blood than that we should be so disgraced!"
"If your children are so easily lured, Lord Bracken," Lychester replied coldly, "then perhaps it is for lack of a better example."
"Enough!" Stannis roared, surging to his feet. Bracken froze with his hand on his sword-hilt, visibly torn between exploding rage and sudden fear, before taking his hand away from his sword and bowing in a clumsy attempt at apology for coming so near to breaking the peace. "It is clear, my lords, that this is not a matter to be decided in a day," Stannis went on, "but this We shall declare today; that him that first breaks the King's Peace shall answer for it with his life," he glared at Bracken, who lowered his head further, "as shall he that provoked him," he turned his glare on Lychester, whose face went from belligerence to nervousness between one breath and the next. "All this talk of the Faith aside, there remains thelaw, and the law caresnothingfor distinctions of faith. The Father, in his aspect as Judge of the World, bears the scales to judge and the sword to punish, the Patriarchs tell us, but most important of all, He is blind. The law rests upon each head equally and falls upon each neck equally, and by all the gods, my lords, Weshalluphold Our oath to execute the law, without fear, feud, or favor." He swept his glare around the hall, trying to catch the eye of every riverlord in attendance. "If any should think to test Our earnestness in this, or Our forbearance," he said into the silence, making each word strike like a hammer against an anvil, "let him remember how many others have set themselves against Us, and what fates befell them."
There was a ripple of motion around the hall as the riverlords bowed. The only one that did not was Archsepton Pawl, who only inclined his head with a stony expression on his face. Stannis turned the full force of his glare upon him, and the Archsepton eventually lowered his gaze.Don't test me, septon,Stannis snarled in the privacy of his head.You and your overlords owe me too much for putting Ryman down like the mad dog he was, and you need me just as much as I need you. Perhaps even more so, now.
XXX
The following is an excerpt fromIron Flash
I had figured that His Nibs would make some kind of decree, but the Edict of Harrenhal stunned me, as it did everyone else. To be sure, most of it was taken up with the Iron Throne's duty of protection of the rights of its subjects and His Nibs' concern for the maintenance of the Faith, but those weren't the important parts. Those I remember as clearly as when I first read them. "We permit those of our subjects who practice the so-called Reformed Faith to do so within their homes and their hearts, upon condition that at all times and in all other respects they comport themselves as becomes loyal, obedient, and peaceful subjects, and refrain from troubling those of other faiths, whether by word or deed. In connection with this, we enjoin all our subjects of faiths other than the aforesaid Reformed Faith to cease, desist, and refrain from annoying, molesting, or compelling the followers of the Reformed Faith to do anything contrary to their consciences, as is currently the commonly practiced law regarding differences between the Faith and the worship of the Old Gods. Most especially we command that no person force another to convert from one faith to any other against their will, and that no child, by force or persuasion, be taken from its parent or guardian to be baptized, confirmed, or otherwise inducted into a Faith other than that which they were raised in, upon pain of Our especial displeasure and most severe chastisem*nt."
Even someone as dense as I could see this for what it was; a declaration, from no less a power than the King himself, that heresy was to be tolerated! Yes, it only did so on the condition that Master Heretic kept it to himself, but that wasn't the point. This was His Nibs saying, in a nutshell, that heresy in and of itself was no longer a crime, at least not as far as the Iron Throne was concerned. It immediately followed up by declaring that His Nibs considered himself the foremost protector of the Faith and that in the event that the provisions of the Edict were breached, then his sword would be the first that was drawn to correct and avenge, but even so, none of the septons I saw for the next few days looked happy.
Of course, on the other hand, it served its purpose of establishing peace. The Baelorites were at least reassured that the world was not to be turned entirely on its head, while the Reformists were reassured that they would at least have the right to exist, if not the right to publicly profess their heresy and get away with it. Even the smallfolk went away mollified, although that probably had as much to do with the public spectacle of Lord Lychester being made to apologize to his smallfolk for putting them in fear as it did with the actual fact of the apology and his subsequent assurance to adhere to the terms of the Edict. The low always love to watch the high and mighty be humbled. And, as much to the point, it kept the drain on the Treasury to an acceptable minimum; having to fight a third war in only four years would have brought His Nibs to the edge of bankruptcy, even with the Faith doing their bit to fill the kitty.
I mentioned all this to Lord Frey two days after the Edict was published when he invited me for a night of drinking in the suite he had been allotted, and had just finished by remarking that it looked like peace at last, when he interrupted me by laughing in that grating chuckle of his. "Heh, heh heh, heh," he said. "Peace? Don't fret yourself ser, this isn't peace. This is a truce for ten years."
That struck me. "A very specific prediction, my lord, if I may say so," I replied as politely as I could manage; a very thin skin, Lord Frey had.
He shrugged his sloping shoulders. "Or fifteen years, or twenty, or thirty," he allowed. "Or however long the King continues to sit the Iron Throne. Which, heh, I'm sure we all hope will be long and long. Especially Lychester and his lot, heh heh."
I covered the fact that I had to take some time to think his words through by taking a swallow of wine. "You think that Prince Lyonel will not uphold the King's edict when he takes the Throne, my lord?" I asked.
"Not with his mother bleating in his ear about his duty to protect, uphold, and advance the Faith, heh," Lord Frey replied. "Not if he wants to be confirmed and married in the Great Sept, and not if he wants to tax the Faith as much as Stannis does. Heh. Mark me, ser, it all comes down to money in the end. The Throne wants it, other people have it, so the Throne has to do what those people want in order to get it. Stannis might whisper in our little prince's other ear as hard as his mother does, but how long has he spent away from King's Landing and the prince already? Four, five years? A mother's words are not to be despised, when the father's words are so often absent and if the King is called away many more times . . ." he shrugged again. "Who can say that Lyonel will be as hard as his father, after having Queen Cersei for a mother?"
That remark stayed with me all that night. I knew something of Cersei by then; I had seen her in action at Court. She didn't tolerate rivals unless she was forced to it, and she didn't tolerate deviation in those set beneath her, either. His Nibs would raise a strong son, I could say that with certainty, but sons are not formed by their fathers alone. I should know, having my mother's wits. And with the King coming very near to making an enemy of the Faith with the Edict . . . The thought of Prince Lyonel coming to the Iron Throne at a young age, with Cersei as Regent, would have been enough to give even His Nibs the cold sweats. The other thing that Frey mentioned that kept me up that night was the mention that since no one could openly admit to being a Reformist, that meant that there was no acknowledged leader of the Reformists for His Nibs, or anyone else for that matter, to negotiate with except for Lychester. "And Gods know where he stands in whatever hierarchy the heretics have. Or how long he stays alive after this, heh heh. And even if he is their leader," Frey paused to take a sip of his wine, "how much unity can the heretics actually have? Eh? Look at this mess. All this fuss and not a single heretic leader to be found except Lychester, who doesn't have more than a hand or two of lances to his name. No leaders on our side either, mind, except young Edmure, and now we don't even have him anymore. Heh."
It was true, Edmure Tully was going to King's Landing. Officially he was going as a new subcommander of the goldcloaks, but little birds had told me that His Nibs had told him that he could come to King's Landing in a gold cloak or in a prisoner's irons, for arresting Lychester under flag of truce and without a royal writ, and it was only because of Lord Tully's previous services to the dynasty that he was offering the choice. The plan, if I had to guess, was that a few years of working under His Nibs' eye would teach Edmure to be a good little vassal and play by the rules. If it was, it certainly worked but not, I think, the way His Nibs intended . . .
Chapter 112: Opening Gambits
Chapter Text
It was with a sore head and a tender stomach that Ivar Drumm had reported back aboard theTaraafter the two days and nights' shore leave he was due as a junior lieutenant. Tyro-Martyros,he reminded himself- might still be closer to a military outpost than a proper city, but its waterfront district had, by all appearances, already fully recovered from the Destruction, thanks both to the Braavosi and the surprising number of Westerosi, primarily Gulltowners and King's Landingers, who had decided to take their chances on a potential boom town. As well they might, given how much traffic came through it, and not only from trade.
TheTarahad entered Martyros harbor in company with three other galleys of the Royal Fleet, the middleweightsLiberatorandChainbreakerand the lightweightWolfhound, after a two-month cruise of the Stepstones, the latest the Fleet had undertaken. These cruises, the captain had explained, were supposed to uphold the Kingdom's alliance with the Braavosi by sharing the burden of patrolling the islands and to increase the reputation of the Kingdom by demonstrating that King Robert's reach was not limited to the mainland. Ivar suspected, however, that the cruises were also meant to show that the Kingdom need not rely on its allies alone to patrol its seaward flank. The fact that the captain had ordered the squadron to make a show of itself as they passed Lyseni-held Skullstone, flying every flag and pennant in the lockers and with those crewmen and officers not immediately engaged in working the ship standing at the rails in battle order as they passed the harbor, was a powerful argument in favor, to his mind.
A bellow of "Master Drumm!" intruded on his reverie. He straightened from where he had been supervising a portion of the crew, also newly returned from shore leave, at sail-mending and turned to the sterncastle, where the captain was standing by the tiller. "Attend, if you please!"
Ivar trotted up the waist of the ship to the sterncastle and saluted. "Mark you that ship entering the harbor, Master Drumm?" the captain asked, pointing to a galley that was dipping its colors to the Bleeding Tower. "What do you make of her?"
Ivar saluted again, took the ship's far-eye from the offering hand of the bosun, and turned his gaze on the galley. What he saw made him frown. "Lyseni by the look of her lines and the rigging of her headsail," he began. "Not a warship, though; too small and too light even for coastal patrol. Not a chance they have more than four or five men aboard beyond the oarsmen and the sail-trimmers. And that's not a sail plan for a short-handed ship that might have to fight on short notice." Aside from the great square sail on the mast and the headsail rigged to the masthead and the bowsprit, there was a third lateen-rigged sail behind the mast that looked like it was rigged to the sterncastle and one of the beam rails as well as the mast. Getting that much canvas furled and stowed quickly and safely took a significant amount of manpower, more than a ship that size would be able to spare if battle was in the offing. "They're flying a white pennant as well," he went on, "and a seven-colored flag beneath." He lowered the far-eye and turned to the captain. "Do the Lyseni have ships specifically to act as cartels, ser?"
The captain tipped a hand from side to side. "They have galleys built for speed, like that one, to carry official dispatches and messengers when time is of the essence," he said. "One of them could be repurposed as a cartel."
Ivar nodded. "Then that's what that ship is, ser," he said confidently. "A Lyseni ship carrying dispatches to either the Braavosi or to us under flag of truce."
"Quite so, Master Drumm," the captain said with an approving nod, and Ivar felt a rush of triumph as he realized he had just passed one of the captain's impromptu tests. "And most likely those messages are being conveyed by hand of officer. An important officer, too, to merit passage on one of those ships; there aren't more than four or five of them under Lyseni colors. Either that or his messages are important." He shrugged. "Either way, let it never be said that the Fleet is lacking in manners. Dip the standard if you please."
"Aye, ser," Ivar said with another salute before turning to give the order to the bosun. A few shouted commands from the bosun saw the crowned stag flying from mainmast slide halfway down its line before climbing back up again. Strictly speaking, the royal standard was not to be dipped except to someone of equivalent rank to King Robert and certainly not to an enemy, but there was peace between the Kingdom and Lys these days, officially at least. And dipping your standard was the nautical equivalent of a polite nod in passing; everyone did it, although the usual protocol was that warships be dipped to first. That said, ships on the business of their sovereigns, like the Lyseni, were considered to have the same status as warships for such purposes, even if they were under flags of truce.
The Lyseni messenger galley cruised into the inner harbor without lowering her own standard by so much as a foot. Ivar bared his teeth and the bosun, a heavyset Sisterman with brawler's scars on his knuckles, voiced a wordless growl. "How rude of them," the captain said softly; only someone who knew him, as Ivar did, could have read the anger behind the tightness of his diction. "Master Drumm, enter a description of that ship into the log. We'll remember them the next time they cross our path, hmm?"
Ivar's grimace turned into a predatory smile. "Aye, ser," he said grimly.
XXX
Eddard Stark planted his fists on the table and stared at the map of the southern border country like it had personally offended him. "We've fought them for too long," he rumbled, half to himself. "Fight good swordsmen long enough, you become a good swordsman yourself, if you have any capacity to learn."
"Unavoidable," he heard Ser Brynden observe matter-of-factly. "The slaver cities might be weakened by the very institution they are based upon, but they are still among the richest, and hence strongest, states in this quarter of the world. If they were contemptible, then Rhaegar and his fellows would not have fled here after we drove them from Westeros."
"And even if Rhaegar had not fled hence, we would have had other cause to quarrel with them," Robert said. "Our friendship with Braavos would have seen to that. But that's beside the point. How do we react to the way the slavers have grown in strength and prowess over the past few years?"
"Become even stronger and better ourselves," Ser Brynden replied instantly. "Even if, by some miracle, we were to build a lasting peace with the slavers, we would have to do so anyway in order to prevent them from getting ideas."
"And the gods know that a lasting peace is an impossibility," Eddard added. "If it weren't for the raids we've authorized, the Legion would be grumbling even more than it is already. To say nothing of the volunteers we get from Westeros and Braavos."
There was a round of groans from the other men in the small council room deep within the Palace of Justice. The volunteers, men and a few hard women from Westeros and Braavos who had come either to seek fame and fortune in the Kingdom's wars or to fight the good fight, could often be of value in bolstering the ranks of the Kingdom's martial aristocracy. Enough so, in fact, that Ser Brynden had instituted an office specifically charged with receiving them at the docks and finding places for them, either in previously established companies or in ad hoc bandas. Their usefulness, however, was balanced by their deserved reputation for hotheadedness, overweening pride, and lack of judgment. There were reasons why, when they were grouped into ad hoc bandas where they constituted a majority, they were placed in the interior under the command of a seasoned and famous veteran who could make them behave themselves until they had the piss and vinegar knocked out of them by their training and a few cutting visits from the royal inspectors.
"Something my old master-at-arms taught me, and you, Robert, when we were in the Eyrie," Eddard said slowly. "Don't put your trust in a single blow; anyone can parry a single blow if they're fast and strong and skilled enough. Instead, throw two or three or more blows, all building on each other. As with swords, so with armies." He shifted around the table until he stood before the portion of the map that showed the border near Alalia. "Continue the raids but send out many of them at once. From Alalia, for instance, send them out thus, and thus, and thus, and thus, and thus." His hands described five thrusts across the border at separate points. "Let each raid be at least two and preferably three companies in strength, if not four, and let them have the means to attack and take these fortified plantations we have received reports of, either by escalade under cover of night or by escalade covered by bombardment. Let each column operate independently, but remain within one or two days' forced march of each other and come to each other's aid if summoned. If they are counter-attacked, let those columns that are attacked stand their ground and call on their neighbors for aid, while the rest continue on." He raked his fingers across the surface of the map. "Limit the depth of the penetration to ten days' march," he finished, "and let everything within the penetrated area be laid waste with fire and sword."
There was a moment's silence as the other high officers of the Kingdom's government contemplated his suggestion. "Sounds less like a raid," Victarion Greyjoy finally said, "and more like an invasion."
"An invasion aims to conquer and hold territory," Ser Brynden said. "Which won't be the case here." The aging knight limped over to Eddard's side and slashed his fingers across the border as Eddard had done. "Each time we launch such a raid," he went on, "let the companies along the rest of the border remain quiescent, so that the enemy can shift forces to react. Then, after we withdraw," he moved his hand back across the border, shifted it several-score miles westward, and jabbed across the border again, "we shift our forces to a different point on the border and do it again, into an area that they have weakened. And again, and again, and again, each time at a different point." The Blackfish's fingers danced over the map, describing raids launched from almost every town in the border country that could support the necessary forces.
"Won't they maintain their border garrisons as they are," Ser Mychel Egen asked, "and use their reserves to respond to us?"
Eddard shook his head. "Their reserves are companies of Unsullied and militia infantry and heavy horse," he replied. "Too slow to march out from their garrisons in the interior before we have turned around and are running for the border. Only the light horse companies they have stationed along the border have the speed to respond as quickly as their people will demand of them. And they will need to shift those companies anyway, in order to compensate for the losses we will inflict on them."
"In a phrase," Robert said, "stop poking and start stabbing." He laughed shortly. "I like it. It'll take time, and money, but our men will be glad for the victories."
"And what we carve out of the border the Lyseni will have to spend time and money rebuilding," Ser Gerion added. "And more time and money trying to build up their defenses along the rest of the border, in order to maintain the confidence of their citizens." Eddard glanced up to see the urbane Westerman nod. "I like it as well. The more money the Lyseni are forced to pour into defending the border, the less they will have to maintain their fleet in the face of ours and the Braavosi's. They are strong, but they cannot be strong everywhere. Not unless the Volantenes give them more help than I deem they will be willing to send so far afield." He clicked his tongue meditatively. "Of course, the Braavosi won't like this idea at all. Not when they've just gotten their Exchequer back on stable footing."
"The Braavosi won't be paying for this," Robert said flatly. "We will. So both the Sealord and the Iron Bank can walk on with their objections."
"Up until we have to ask them for another loan," said Ser Jaymes Whitefield, who as one of Ser Wendel Manderly's senior lieutenants was keeping his seat on the Small Council warm while he was in the Summer Islands. He was a good man and a fine knight, but no one would call him an optimist. "Which we will, if we try to launch more than one of these great raids a year. Even one may be more than we can afford, if Devil Daario lives up to his name."
"Even if he does," Ser Gerion replied, "he may find it a more expensive victory than he can afford. The Lyseni may claim to have many subjects under their banner, but at least three in every four and perhaps four in every five are slaves, who they not only dare not recruit and give arms but must guard themselves against. They may be able to place a larger portion of their men in the field than we can, but they have fewer men to begin with, even after emancipating their slaves in the border districts, and our numbers grow by the year, both from natural increase and from our volunteers. And bethink you, ser; employing multiple columns means that the Lyseni will have to split their army into as many or even more columns to counter us. As skilled as Naharis might be, he is still a man; he cannot be in more than one place at a time. If he attempts to pit his lieutenants against ours, then we shall cut them out from under him one by one until he stands alone, and gods have mercy on him when that day comes."
"May it come swiftly," Robert said. "Anything else?"
An hour's discussion later, Robert dismissed the Council and eyed Eddard skeptically. "And how much time have you spent with your wife and son today?" he asked pointedly.
Eddard shook his head. "A few hours in the morning," he admitted, "and they visited for luncheon."
"I know it's not for me to poke my nose into your domestic affairs," Robert said, "but I brought you back from the East because you had gotten things onto an even footing there again and you had spent too much time away from your family. I'm going up to my apartments, I'm going to have a good dinner and an hour or two of sport with my children, and then I'm taking Serina to bed and locking the door for the rest of the night. Do likewise, Ned, before I have to make it an order. The Army will look after itself for a night, and a few days after. Cassana's going to need more than one gods-cousin when she takes the Crown, as big as we're going to make the Kingdom between this day and that."
Eddard smiled. "Well, when you put it that way, Your Grace . . ." he said teasingly as he rose and bowed, before walking out the door as Robert shouted advice after him.
XXX
Donys Rahtheon dismissed his valet, poured himself a glass of wine, and sat back in the comfortably-upholstered armchair where he spent so much of his average day. It had taken months of careful wrangling, but it was done; Volantis and Lys were now formally allied. Or they would be, as soon as Viserys put his signature and seal on the parchment. He glanced at the short stack of parchment that now occupied the left-hand side of his desk, where it would remain overnight under armed guard before he took it to Viserys for his imprimatur tomorrow morning. Theoretically, such a treaty required the signatures of all three Triarchs and a vote of the Thousand, the ancient council elected from the patriarchs of the Old Blood that was supposed to act as an advisory and legislative body under the Triarchs, but the Thousand had not been assembled in more than a century and had not exercised their prerogatives for even longer. As for the other two Triarchs, one was an old dodderer who would never see eighty again and the other was a client of the Maegyr's; they would sign whatever they were told to sign.
And even if the other Triarchs and the Thousand tried to kick up their heels, a single reading of the treaty would show that they had little to make a fuss about; the Lyseni had been too afraid of having to fight the Myrish and the Braavosi alone to drive a hard bargain. Just to start with, the commercial agreements in the treaty heavily favored Volantis, from the mutual declarations of most-favored-nation status to the removal of tariffs that had long kept Volantene silk and wheat out of the Lyseni market. The military aspects of the treaty even more blatantly favored the City; in the event of war the combined armies of Volantis and Lys would be commanded by a Volantene general, the ships that Volantis would commit would form a separate squadron under their own admiral albeit under overall Lyseni command, Lys was bound to pay at least forty percent of the cost of any defensive war, Lys was even barred from undertaking any offensive action over the border, in order to ensure that war was not provoked until Volantis was ready. Baratheon and his Braavosi hirelings might be leashed by the need to rebalance their budgets for now, but Donys knew better than to assume that they would develop a taste for peace. Especially Baratheon, who might find peace necessary but would find an overlong peace unsustainable if he wanted to keep his martial aristocracy sated and his collection of insane slaves pacified. War in the Disputed Lands was inevitable, and the City would have to prepare.
The treaty would help with that also, as Lys would provide basing and provisioning for a squadron of up to twenty Volantene galleys to augment their own fleet. Those ships would give the Volantene navy experience beyond simply chasing pirates up and down the Rhoyne and patrolling the Orange Shore, and another clause of the treaty allowed for Lys to essentially rent up to a thousand men of the Grand Army for up to a year at a time, who would do the same for their landbound compatriots. As much as men might boast of their deeds in the River War, Donys knew enough to agree with Ser Arthur and Ser Barristan that the River War, and its predecessors, were not accurate harbingers of how a war against the Kingdom of Myr and the Braavosi would transpire. Such captains as Ned Stark and Lyn Corbray would not sit within the walls of a fort and wait to be besieged, nor would they content themselves with a single sortie. If the Grand Army wanted to pull its weight in such a war as the Iron Legion would fight, it would need to sharpen its mind and its nerves as much as its swords. And if they failed to do so, the same clause of the treaty that dictated a Volantene general command the united armies of the two cities also dictated that Captain-General Daario Naharis serve as his second. Even if Daario the Defiant had yet to win a major victory over the Iron Legion and its Westerosi confederates, he had done more against them than any other foe they had faced so far. Simply surviving against them as long as he had was a feat in itself.
It would be for Ser Arthur to make the Grand Army into a weapon that could match the Iron Legion, but this treaty would give him at least some of the tools he needed to do so. And if it entangled Volantis in Lys' internal affairs by offering the Conclave a guarantee of protection, then that was the cost of doing this sort of business. In truth, he suspected that particular clause was aimed more at Daario Naharis than anyone or anything else. Victorious generals had dissolved conclaves in order to set themselves up as tyrants before. And he had balanced it with a clause binding Lys to abide by the customs of Volantis' elections and abide by the results thereof. That would make one of the next stages in his plan substantially easier. Enough, perhaps, to make the concessions he had been forced to give the vassal towns to win them over worth it. Under the old system, the administration of justice in the hinterland and the vassal towns had been the province of judges sent out from Volantis to hear cases, determine guilt, and pass sentence, and against whom there had been no ready form of appeal. Under the measures he had recently gotten Viserys to approve, the vassal towns would have their own courts to judge misdemeanor crimes and a process would be delineated for the appealing of the verdicts on felony crimes. There were other measures, largely to do with the guilds in the vassal towns gaining some power to govern their own internal affairs, but those would be the most earth-shaking.
Donys grimaced as he took a sip of his wine. The lessons of history were clear; power once surrendered was not easily regained. Especially power that so obviously benefitted the people you had surrendered it too. That said, granted rights could always be revoked, and the vassal towns had fallen into line readily enough once he had thrown them that particular set of bones. If, in time, their allegiance granted more . . . well, there was no point crossing that bridge until they came to it, was there? No more than there was speculating how much easier it would be to get the Norvoshi to sign on to the Valyrian League now that it existed somewhere other than his imagination. Donys threw back the rest of his wine and stood. The guards in this wing of the Palace of Order would see to the safety of the treaty, and if by some appalling misfortune it came to harm then that was why there were scribes laboring away at fair copies. In the meantime, he would have a good dinner and then one of his small household's female slaves in his bed. He was in the mood to celebrate.
XXX
The judge raised an eyebrow. "This is a very generous offer you are being given, young man," he said in his most reasonable tone of voice. "It would be unwise to refuse it."
Norello Hestion folded his arms and sat back in his chair with an impressive scowl for a man of only twenty-three. "If the generosity being given to me is not also extended to my fellow citizens, then it is worthless," he said flatly. "I will not betray my city to save my own skin."
"I could have you beggared and imprisoned," snarled Larazo Ennaar. "Possibly sold into slavery, if you cannot pay the damages the court will assess. It is only because your father and I are old friends that I am being this generous to begin with. Take it and thank me, now, and I will not insist you thank me on bended knee."
Norello turned his scowl on the other man. "I and mine are trying to save the city," he spat. "Either help us do so or go suck slave-co*ck in hell and let us get on with it."
The judge forced back a groan with the ease of long years on the bench. On the face of it, the case was simple enough. Norello had made a series of speeches defaming Ennaar for various imagined crimes, all boiling down to failing to make a contribution to the defense of the city and its territories proportionate to his wealth and status. The fact and content of these speeches were not in dispute, as they had been made in public before sizable audiences and Norello himself had admitted to making them. On the face of it, Ennaar had an ironclad case for slander, with every likelihood of wringing a towering fine out of young Norello, or more properly his family. However, as was commonly the way with such disputes involving magisterial families, Ennaar had offered to accept an apology and a third of the legal maximum fine in return for dropping the charge. The judge had forgotten how many such cases he had seen settled in such fashion in this very office. It was such a routine matter that Norello wasn't even in manacles, not that there was much need for them in the first place as his offense hadn't been violent.
The problem was that while Norello's family were willing to front the monetary penalty, Norello himself was refusing to apologize. This despite the fact that old Lysor Hestion, the patriarch of that family, was present and looking more infuriated by the minute. "Damn you, boy," he was growling even now, "youwillaccept Magister Ennaar's offer, or by the gods I will . . ."
"Do what?" Norello challenged, turning to face his father. "Beat me like one of our slaves?" His scowl turned into a bared-teeth smile. "I think I would like to see you try it. When was the last time you tried to beat someone who could fight back, old man?"
The judge raised one hand to forestall the bailiff standing in the corner, who had put his hand to his truncheon, and the other to forestall Lysor, whose face had gone alarmingly red. "Masters, I must ask you to restrain yourselves," he said pointedly, sweeping Ennaar and the two Hestion's with one of his better glowers. "We may not be in court, but my clerk is nonetheless taking notation for the record. I should not have to remind you of the honor of your houses and the need for you to behave appropriately." Lysor subsided, his glare promising penalties unmentionable for his son once they were in private, while Norello leaned back in his chair, his arms still resolutely folded. Ennaar simply sat and fumed. "You are resolved upon this unwise defiance, Master Hestion?" he asked.
Norello lifted his chin. "I am no slave, to gainsay myself on account of threats," he snapped. "I said nothing that was not true, and I defy this coward," he jerked his chin at Ennaar, who seemed to inflate with indignation, "to prove otherwise."
"Coward, is it, you little sh*t . . ." Ennaar snarled, half-rising from his chair before the judge glared him back into it.
"In that case, masters, there seems no further point in continuing these discussions," he said. "My clerk will set a date for a trial and serve you notice in the usual manner. In the meantime, I bid you good day."
Norello stood, nodded shortly to the judge, and turned a look of disgust on Ennaar. "You should have spoken against the treaty when you had the chance," he said contemptuously. "Since you did not, prepare your ass." He turned on his heel and swept out of the judge's chambers, his father storming after him. Ennaar rose, bowed, and walked out after them, leaving the judge alone with his clerk and the bailiff, who he nodded to.
"See that they do not come to blows in the courthouse," he said wearily. "Once they are out of it, I really do not care what they do to each other." As the bailiff saluted and left, the judge sat back in armchair and blew his cheeks out in a sigh. "I really should have seen that coming," he said, half to himself, as he felt a weariness settle on him.
"Master?" the clerk asked gently.
"The treaty," the judge replied, pinching the bridge of his nose. "The mainland has been growing more restive by the month, with some justice. They look one way and see the Iron Legion over the border waiting for Robert the Bloody to order them to massacre and rapine, and when they look the other way they see the isles trying to carry on as they did before the wars, as much as that is possible. The pride they take in being the city's first line of defense against the abolitionist horde is thus tempered by resentment that the isles do not properly grasp the severity of the situation, or so they deem." He waved a hand brusquely. "Again, with some justice, it must be said, but they do not appreciate that it is the way of people to take refuge in the familiar in times as uncertain as these. And that people often forget what is not constantly before their eyes."
The clerk nodded hesitantly as he sanded the notation he had taken of the interview. "And the treaty is related to this, Master?" he asked.
The judge nodded. "Young Hestion and his ilk see it as a humiliation to so cast ourselves into the arms of Volantis," he explained. "By their lights, such a treaty would not be necessary if the people of the isles were willing to make the sacrifices that they have, both in treasure and in blood." He rubbed his eyes wearily. "By bringing this case to trial, I have given them a near-perfect platform to air their grievances in a way that not even the Conclave can sweep under the rug. I might as well have let Captain-General Naharis take the stand." He sighed gustily. "I hate political cases."
XXX
Jaime couldn't help a wistful smile as Stonehead faded down the horizon. The mountain, named for its uncanny resemblance to a human head, was the last he would see of the Summer Isles for many years, if not forever. He would love nothing more than to return someday, but he had much and more to do before that day came. To cover the sudden surge of ruefulness he turned and co*cked an eyebrow at Mantar, who seemed less interested in his receding homeland than he was in their modest fleet. "Look well, lad," he said easily, gesturing back at Stonehead. "It's the last you'll see of your homeland for many a year."
Mantar gave him the look of barely restrained skepticism that Jaimie had already learned was his reaction to things he considered foolish. "Not my homeland, ser," the fisherman's son said matter-of-factly. "My homeland is Walano, and I saw the last of that for many a year when the Princess saw us away from Lotus Port."
Jaime shrugged. "That's as may be," he allowed, "but you should still take a good look; I wished I had done, when I last sailed from Dragonstone."
Mantar bowed correctly, but his skepticism was still unabated if Jaime was any judge. Jaime's mouth quirked in a slight smile; Mantar was a good lad, a ready learner, and already a grim fighter, but even his sense of proper respect did not change the fact that he was, as his uncle had said, full of opinions and not shy about sharing them. Well, his reserved obedience was better than the heedless admiration that had blinded Jaime to so many of Ser Arthur Dayne's faults for so long, and his native intelligence meant that Jaime had had to redouble his own efforts to be a teacher worthy of his student. Especially since Mantar was old to be a page, and he would have to find some excuse to grant him the silver spurs of a squire soon enough.
And doubly so because the embassy was returning in near-triumph. The many Princes and Princesses of the Isles had largely followed Princess Molanta's example by granting good if far short of exceptional terms of trade and giving their blessing to any independent captain or footloose warrior to enter King Robert's service, and as the embassy had traveled southward through the Isles they had attracted a steady trickle of ships and volunteers. It seemed that the tale of his deeds in the wars had gone ahead of them, and the sight of the club that High Priest Rhoqu had given him was apparently enough to dispel any lingering doubts about whether he was stilltapuor not. The chilliest reception they had gotten had been at Ebonhead in the far south of the Isles, where the council of Princes and Princesses that ruled that trading port had debated the embassy's offer for three days and nights running before giving a reply that amounted to 'ask us again later', although at least they had been both amused and impressed by Roryn Pyke's valiant attempt to eat one of their famously spicy local stews.
Others had been more eager to join the wars. Four lesser Princes from the Singing Stones had declared outright alliance, although Jaime suspected their eagerness had as much to do with maintaining status among themselves as it did with any particular fervor, especially since between them the four princes could muster only two hundred and sixty-eight warriors besides the crews of their ships. Eight sellsail captains had also joined the fleet after lengthy inquiries regarding possible terms of service; they had refused to sign any contracts save with King Robert himself, but Jaime had little doubt that they would do so. Not after sailing the hundreds of miles north to Myr, and certainly not after they had been heard to boast in every port they visited of the glory and gold they would take from the slavers. The Prince of Koj had not committed himself or his people, but he had also declared in open court that he was neither a fool or a coward, to hold himself aloof from the changing tide, and sent an embassy in three ships under his aunt, a formidable woman who reminded Jaime of his aunt Genna, to see the Kingdom of Myr with their own eyes and send word of King Robert's worthiness as an ally. Jaime hoped the Kojites would be impressed; if any other Isle could match great Walano it was Koj, whose industrious people had built the Swan Nest where more swan ships were made than in all the rest of the Isles put together. Even Walano bought or traded for Kojite swan ships.
But most enthusiastic of all had been Jalabhar Xho of Red Flower Vale, who had either heard Princess Molanta's words a little too well or was simply too well known by that cunning Princess. No sooner had Jaime passed along her words than Jalabhar had sprang to his feet to declare by all the gods that he did notplayat war, like a child, and if any thought he did then let them follow him to Myr and watch him in action against the slavers. He had signed the treaty the next morning, committing Red Flower Vale to full alliance with the Kingdom of Myr and offering ten swan ships and a thousand warriors led by Jalabhar himself. Jaime smiled; Jalabhar might boast of his prowess and make extravagant speeches about aiding 'his fellow warrior-prince', but Jaime judged that he would be in for something of a shock when he met King Robert. One of the few pieces of advice that Ser Arthur had given him that he still considered sound was that the louder a man boasted the less reason he had to do so. The fact that Jalabhar had overridden his advisors' counsel in open court had not been promising, either.
He shrugged to himself; straightening the self-proclaimed foremost warrior-prince of the Isles out would be a matter for King Robert and Ned Stark, and impressing the Kojite embassy would be Uncle Gerion's task. For his part, he was bringing almost a score of swan ships and more than thirteen hundred warriors back to the Kingdom that he had left in near-exile. He had a long way to go before he finally made full atonement for his mistakes, but this was a good start. One that poor Ser Wendel, whose bones were resting in a lead-lined coffin in the hold of this very ship, would likely have been proud to bring back, even with his greater skill at diplomacy. But when he returned and went back to the frontier . . . He fingered the hilt of his sword and smiled predatorially. The slavers would rue the day that the Company of the Rose failed to kill him on the road south of Pentos.
Chapter 113: The Weight of Duty
Chapter Text
Victarion Greyjoy was not naturally given to introspection. He would live as long and as well as he lived, and when he died the Drowned God would call him home to His halls, to feast and fight as training against the day when the Storm God made his last attempt to seize the world for his own. More had not been required of him, not when he had so many brothers and nephews. His marriage, his future reaving career, whatever else he might have had to do, all of that had been for his father to decide so there had been no point, to his mind, in thinking about it too much.
The years since the fall of the Targaryen's, he reflected bitterly as he stared at the crudely-engraved monument stone that marked the spot where his reavers and the men of the Legion had held wassail the night before they stormed Myr, had changed so much. First his father had died from a Dornishman's arrow. Then Euron had fallen off Fair Isle, where Aeron had been taken by the sea. Rodrik had died fighting Stannis's fleet in the Straits, and Maron had been taken and executed after coming within double arm's-reach of Stannis himself. Balon himself had been killed only a few days later, and Theon had been taken back to King's Landing as Stannis' prisoner. And word had reached him just this morning that Urrigon was dead, having challenged Jaime Lannister to a duel and fallen at his hand. Asha would take the name of whatever husband Viserys Targaryen bound her to and Stannis would never let Theon sire legitimate sons. All of which left him, Victarion, as the last of the Name of Greyjoy.
Which meant also that he was now faced with completely uncharted waters. He had never seriously considered seeking out a wife. His office as Master of Ships was not hereditary, and his duties with the Fleet had kept him from putting down many roots in Ironhold, which he had largely left to the stewardship of either Dagmer or Roryn Pyke. The God witness he did not lack for the company of women, he had paramours enough, but he had yet to sire a son on any of them, and in time he had expected to name one of his captains as his heir, or simply to leave the matter in King Robert's hands. And in his heart of hearts he could not find it in himself to usurp Balon's right as head of the House to arrange his marriage. To do so would have been as much as to declare that Balon was dead to him, and despite their feud he had still been his brother.
Not that he would grieve for him; by all accounts Balon had gone mad long before he had died on the Mastiff's blade, raving to the last. Only a madman could have led their people to such disastrous defeat that they were now prisoners on their own islands. Nor would he shed a tear for Urrigon; at least Balon had had the pride to stand and fight. Urrigon had shown himself to be a coward when he fled the Battle of the Straits, and then he had shown himself to be a traitor when he sold Asha to the Targaryen's. Victarion would have had to kill him with his own hands if he had ever dared show his face in Myr. And by all reports, Ser Jaime had killed Urrigon in a straight fight, even if only a lawyer could call it fair. Indeed, it could be said that he owed Ser Jaime a debt for sparing him from having to become a kinslayer.
Which still left him facing the fact that the line and Name of House Greyjoy was in danger of extinction and he was guilty of dallying. It was time, and past time, that he married. Hence his trip outside the walls of the city to this place where he had made the boast that had already become a legend; the city was simply too noisy for him to do the thinking he needed to do. He had already requested to meet with Robert King and Ser Gerion over dinner tonight to discuss his options, but he wanted to give it some thought himself beforehand, so as not to look too great a fool.
Attracting a wife would be no great difficulty. He was still young and handsome, the wars, his lordship, and high office had made him rich, he had power and influence only a few steps below that of the King himself, and he had one of the most famous names in the world; was it not known that mothers in Volantis used his name to threaten their children into behaving, and that those Tyroshi who yet lived had vowed to boil him in oil if ever he was taken alive? He was, arguably, the most eligible bachelor on the Narrow Sea. No, the difficulty would be in choosing between the women who would throw themselves at him, or who would be thrown by their parents.
First there would be the desperate, Ironborn Houses that had been reduced to poverty or driven into exile by the failure of Balon's Rebellion. For such as they, a marriage to Victarion would be a literal Godsend, restoring rank, wealth, and respect at a single stroke, earning him the eternal loyalty of whatever House he chose to rescue thusly. It would do much to forestall the mutual resentment and recriminations that had been building between the Ironborn who had immigrated to Myr before Balon's folly and those who had done so after, as well, which was not an outcome to be despised. There was no breed of war worse than civil war. On the other hand, such Houses would not be able to bring anything to the table themselves beyond the swords of their menfolk and the womb of whatever woman he married, and those would be few and chancy, respectively. Forbye, to align so with people who had rebelled against Stannis would do nothing to help and potentially much to harm Robert King's attempts to reconcile with his brother. Attempts that had only just begun, thanks to Stannis' edict of protection for Jonothorians who lived in Westeros, and would be vulnerable to any sudden shock. The survivors, those who had lost much but not all in Balon's Rebellion, would be under much the same circ*mstances regarding benefits and detriments.
A second option would be one of the new lords of the Isles. The various branches of the Harlaw clan had sent many a maiden to try and mend the rift between the Isles and the East. The newly risen Ironmaker's had sent two of their finest to convey Lord Alfric's regards; no doubt Alfric hoped to increase the already precipitous ascendance of his House even further. Taking either a Harlaw or one of the Ironmaker maids would give him access to their family's ships, men, and gold, and help close the division between the Isles and the East before it became irrevocable. On the other hand, those Houses were oceans away, and would perforce be more attentive to matters in Westeros than in Essos. And allying with Stannis's supporters made Victarion's stomach rebel; he had heard the stories of what the greenlanders had done on Orkmont and Saltcliffe and Blacktyde and Old Wyk, not to mention Pyke itself. All might be fair in love and war, but some things simply could not be allowed to pass unchallenged. Forbye, Ser Harras Harlaw was greatly changed from the man who had fought so well and won such glory at his side, by all reports. The massacre of his family, it seemed, had struck him hard, enough so that he skulked in Grey Garden well his cousins squabbled over Ten Towers and Stannis' new Order ran roughshod over their people. And whatever Robert King's intentions he and Stannis would likely remain rivals. Their heirs certainly would be, barring some unlikely chance. That being so, tying himself to one of Stannis' vassals would likely prove inconvenient and embarrassing.
Then there would be the offers from his own followers, the fellow lesser sons, impoverished adventurers, and hungry bastards that had first followed him to Myr and would deserve such a reward for their years of service and loyalty. The benefits were obvious, but little that he did not already have. Had they not stood with him against Dagmer? Were not their swords and sails already his to command?
Which left everyone else. Greenlander lords of Myr seeking an alliance with one of their king's original captains, merchant families with more ambition than sense, a handful of Braavosi Houses hoping that one of their daughters in a lord's bed would lead to some advantage of trade, even a company of Lorathi sellswords who had presented him with a girl they claimed was the fairest maid of their misty islands. Victarion snorted; whoever he married, it wouldn't be the Lorathi girl; their way of talking annoyed him no end. And Lorath was not a power worth allying with in any case; they were simply too far away. A greenlander's daughter, or a Braavosi's, would make more sense, if he could find one suitable to be a Lord Reaper's wife.
Victarion's gaze swept over the monument stone, tracing each line of the runes chiseled into its face that told the story of what had happened here. Stones such as these were not meant to be glorious in themselves; it was the story they told that gave glory and fame to those who had been part of it. It was time to stop being the stone, he knew, and become the story. His captains were all worthy men, but when the sons he would sire came to a man's age, with him to train them and Robert King and Princess Cassana to command their allegiance . . . then the world would see in full what the Ironborn could do in a worthy cause.
XXX
Daario pressed his fingertips against the front corners of his temples in an attempt to stave off the headache he felt building behind his eyes. "Don't f*cking tell me . . ." he half-commanded, half-begged his scribe.
"Master Hestion took full advantage of his opportunity to address the court, master," his scribe said with gentle implacability; Daario had manumitted him, but the habits bred by a life of slavery died hard. "His speech was wide-ranging, but the gist of it is that he accused the Conclave and the Gonfalonier of selling Lys into slavery to the Volantenes, condemned the inhabitants of the isles as fools and cowards, and ended by declaring that the only men left in Lys were those under your banner."
Daario groaned. "Of course he did," he grumbled. "Because I didn't have enough problems already. You may go." As his scribe-slave bowed and left the room, Daario took his hands away from his temples, slumped forward in his chair, and beat his forehead against the surface of his desk. "Hestion, you stupid, pompous, hotheaded, heedless, ignorant . . ." eventually he left off, leaning back in his chair and rubbing at his forehead. He had had a feeling this day was going to be a bad one.
When he had heard that Norello Hestion had been summoned to court for his slanders against Magister Ennaar, he had known to expect trouble; Hestion had been merely the loudest of an ever-growing clique of young magisters from the mainland. Where the islanders had reacted to the Slave Wars by trying to carry on with business as usual to as large a degree as possible, in an admirable but to Daario's mind misguided attempt at stoicism, Hestion and his fellows had taken the opposite approach. Where before it had been the fashion for Lyseni magisters to pride themselves on the softness of their hands, the smoothness of their skins, and their disdain for the crudities of physical violence, the younger magisters claimed such attitudes to be symptoms of a decadence that was intolerable, even dangerous, under current circ*mstances. Instead Hestion and his comrades prized the ring of callus around the thumb, web of the hand, and forefinger that came with wielding a sword, the battering their features took from spending long hours in the saddle in all weathers, and the skill they were beginning to acquire with sword and spear and mace and poleaxe. There was an old Valyrian philosopher, Daario had heard once, who had claimed that after a sufficiently long period of time in opposition enemies inevitably came to resemble each other; if that philosopher were alive today, he would undoubtedly take Hestion and his fellows as proof of his theory.
Ordinarily, he would have welcomed such a change in attitudes as being most gratifying, after enduring the veiled disdain of his employers for almost all of his adult life. The problem was that the youngsters embracing those attitudes were adopting them with the zeal, and the contempt for holdouts, of religious converts. Their common refrain of "safety and security by any means necessary" was not calculated to win debates by convincing doubters, but by rhetorically clubbing them into the ground. The budget that the Conclave had announced for the next year had drawn their particular ire by not having any increases earmarked for spending on the army or the fleet; more than one, Daario knew, had written to the Conclave and the Gonfalonier or made public speeches predicting disaster unless the purse strings were opened wide to spend on arms, ships, warhorses, armor, and fighting men. That such expenditures could only be funded by increased taxes on the city proper and the other isles of Lys, the mainland being already taxed to what conventional wisdom considered the limit, they declared to be immaterial. If the islanders did not have the stomach to fight for their city, then they should at least be generous in their support of those who did.
This was hardly an attitude calculated to win support in the isles, even if it weren't accompanied by disparaging comments about the prowess of the islanders when they did take the field. Daario knew that only a handful of the men under his command called the isles of Lys home instead of the mainland, but he also knew that the fleet was predominately manned and officered by islanders, and he also knew that they had paid in blood for their successes against the Myrish, the Braavosi, and the Westerosi. Those of his men who knew as much as he did, which he had tried to make sure was as many as possible, apparently didn't care. They knew that their homes, families, and livelihoods were in peril of being sacked and massacred by Robert the Bloody's killers, and they didn't see the islanders lining up to fight by their side to forestall that evil day. Attitudes had consequently hardened, and when mainlander and islander met these days the islander was usually greeted with contempt, disguised to varying degree depending on the mainlander in question. The islanders, for their part, returned contempt with icy scorn; a familiar rejoinder was that at least on the islands they remembered the etiquette that became the scions of Valyria. Daario had found himself spending as much time pacifying disputes between mainlanders and islanders visiting the mainland as he did training and leading the army, and even more time writing to the Conclave defending his more vocal subordinates from various charges brought against them by outraged islanders.
That alone would have made his position precarious, for the islanders in question tended to be men of influence, but another of his innovations had made the ground under his feet even more shaky. When he had taken service with Lys, the Stormcrows had come with him, and quickly found themselves serving a dual role. On the one hand, many of their officers and senior sergeants had been parceled out through the various companies that Lys had raised to act as trainers and advisors to the aristos who nominally commanded them. Which in practice meant that the Stormcrows thusly dispatched usually ended up doing the actual work of commanding while the aristos in question devoted their time to the social scene and only returned to the company when a campaign was in the offing; it was a common enough occurrence when a Free Company took a long-term contract. On the other hand, they had also been the force that Daario knew and trusted best, and which was most immediately responsive to his leadership; if he had been an Andal lord, they would have been considered his household men, his fighting-tail. As a result, he had had to keep their numbers up even while sending many of them some distance afield, and the easiest way to do that had been to promote those who remained even further and fill the void with fresh recruits that could be seasoned by their veteran comrades. This he had done, taking advantage of the situation on the mainland in order to recruit from the younger sons of the magisterial families. He hadn't intended to convert so many of them to the life of arms, the plan having always been to recall the detached Stormcrows when their companies were sufficiently trained, but the repulse of Ser Lyn Corbray's raid had bound the new Stormcrows into the company with bands of iron, and made true believers of them at the same time.
It had been gratifying at the time, but it had made the Conclave nervous; too many of the Band of Nine had been charismatic captains who had built up a following that was loyal to them before the governing body of their particular city. The fact that so many of the newer Stormcrows had taken up the cause of militancy had made matters even worse. A rabble-rouser or an editorialist was one thing, but a rabble-rouser or editorialist who made his speeches while wearing the colors of his company or who prefaced his signature with his rank was another matter entirely. However many times Daario had written to the Conclave reassuring them that he had discipline well in hand, and however many times he ordered his men to keep their opinions to themselves in public, he had sensed the Conclave's patience with him shortening by the month. Hestion's summons to court for slander had been meant to warn him as much as to punish the young man himself, if Daario was any judge; Hestion was a corporal in the Stormcrows' red banda, and the bailiff had waited until that banda had been assembled for pay parade to serve him the notice of summons.
Which meant that he was now faced with a choice. His first option was to order Hestion to be drummed out of the company for disobedience of orders, which strictly speaking he was entitled to do as Hestionhaddisobeyed an order but was hesitant to do; Hestion was popular, and discreet enquiries by way of the sergeants had informed Daario that Hestion was considered among the men to have committed the crime he was charged with while defending the honor of the army, the company, and of Daario himself, which taken all together made it a ticklish situation. His second option was to keep Hestion in the company come what may, which would send an even more disconcerting message to the Conclave. It could, in fact, be said that to choose such a course would be as much as to give Hestion's words his imprimatur. Option the third, to await developments and react accordingly, also had merits but was tantamount to gambling with the Conclave's remaining support for him. If Hestion were found not guilty, which Daario considered unlikely but not impossible even if he had been tried in the city, then the Conclave would be justified in considering itself to be under threat from an army that considered them worthless and had a replacement leader already lined up and waiting, whether said leader knew it or not. Under those circ*mstances, it would be an easy step to ordering him killed, regardless of the military situation; men in fear of their lives could not be expected to behave rationally.
Daario wearily drew a sheet of paper out of one of the drawers of his desk and dipped his pen in the inkwell; normally his scribe did his writing for him, but this was not a normal letter he was writing. If he did not convince the Gonfalonier and the Conclave that he had no designs on the rulership of Lys, then his life might be measured in days.
XXX
Tyrion Lannister popped a handful of wakebeans into his mouth and chewed, grimacing as he did so; the little brown beans, a recent import from the Summer Islands, did wonders for one's wakefulness and mental alertness, but even after roasting they were irredeemably bitter. Some of his classmates at seminary had experimented with grinding the beans and steeping them in hot water, where they could be flavored with honey, but Tyrion considered that particular innovation to be inefficient and time-consuming. Besides, he had developed a taste for the whole bean, and the bitterness could be easily washed away with a well-watered draft of Arbor Gold.
And the gods knew that he needed as much wakefulness as he could get. Even at seminary he had never worked as hard as he did now.
After Balon's Rebellion his father had named him Steward of Lannisport, the latest in a line of office-holders stretching back more than nine hundred years. The nature of the office had varied with the nature of the lords, and before them the kings, who had reigned from Casterly Rock; Stewards had been everything from glorified couriers between the Rock and the city's aldermen to the next thing to an independent lord. His tenure, judging by the instructions he had received from his father, was to be closer to the latter. He had been charged with overseeing House Lannister's affairs in the city, maintaining the peace and order of the city, ensuring its defense against enemies both foreign and domestic, and, to use the phrase of the charter his father had had drawn up, 'take such other measures as the good of the city and the honor of House Lannister shall warrant.' Which was almost terrifyingly vague, when you thought about it, but which so far Tyrion had chosen to take as approval to continue his oversight of the city's rebuilding. Urban planning had been made fashionable among the learned by King Stannis' efforts to rectify the failures of the Targaryen's to adequately plan the growth of King's Landing. And what hadn't found its way into even the seminary's discourse Tyrion had read about during his study of the Free Cities, which he had undertaken to better understand the world his brother had been banished to. Lannisport was hardly the barely-restrained chaos that King's Landing was, but it had long been considered a poor second to Oldtown. Tyrion had ideas about how to change that.
And he might not have much time to implement them. The wife that Father had found for him after he had been laicized, a Crakehall girl named Amely, was not pregnant yet but she would be soon enough, the gods willing, and he was under no illusions as to how long it would take Father to send him back to the Faith if he fathered a healthy son that lived past the age of five. He might be Father's heir, but only for lack of other options. Cersei had not only failed to produce a spare so far, but she had become 'Baelor with breasts and Maegor's temper', as one of Tyrion's former classmates had said in a recent letter. And Jaime . . . Tyrion closed his eyes for a moment to fight back the familiar wave of sorrow that came whenever he thought of his brother. Jaime was lost, thanks to Jonothor's temptations and, he suspected, Father's obstinacy. He didn't know exactly what had passed between them on Dragonstone, no one did, but the fact that Father refused to discuss it with anyone confirmed in his mind that whatever had happened had been singularly painful. He didn't talk about Mother's death, either.
Not that he would necessarily object to taking the cowl again; he had enjoyed his time in the Faith. Even if he had no real call to ministry, the attraction of a life where he could be judged on his mind rather than his body was undeniable. And while he and Amely were reasonably friendly given the haste of their betrothal and marriage, they were by no means a love match. He knew that she had had her heart set on Addam Marbrand before Tywin had made her father an offer that he couldn't refuse, and he expected that once their marriage was annulled she would find some way to make that dream come true; Addam might have married a Lydden girl recently, but women died all the time in childbed and Amely was both patient and iron-willed. She certainly wasn't shy about draggin him into bed when she decided that he was failing to properly balance the duty of attention he owed to his work against that which he owed to his wife. If she found him repulsive she concealed well enough that he could not for the life of him notice, and he repaid that mummer's skill by making sure that she seemed as pleased by their bedplay as he was. She also kept his household in good enough order that he only needed to keep a light hand on the reins, even if she had no appetite for politics beyond that which normally belonged to ladies. It was a far cry from what he had heard of Father's relationship with his late lady mother, but he had little to complain of in his marriage, even if it was wholly an artifact of politics.
That said, he had found that he had a taste for wielding authority, these years since he had first taken over this office. To have only to give the word and have men leap into action, whether with brick and mortar or sword and shield . . . well, he understood some of the stories about Aegon the Unworthy in a different light, after tastingthatdrug. And above that, there was the fact that he had finally received what he had longed for but dared not hope for ever since Jaime had donned the white cloak. He was no longer simply 'the Imp', but Lord Tyrion Lannister, heir of the mighty and dreaded Tywin, and so the courtesy that was shown to him was no longer the strained and formulaic stuff that was the only variety he had been shown previously. He had power now that no longer relied solely on coin and fear of his father; had not the Council of Aldermen recently voted a resolution praising him for the work he had already done to rebuild the city, and had not the city's knights sworn fealty to him as Father's representative? For that alone he would do anything in his power to advance Father's plans, toprovethat he was worthy to take Jaime's place as heir, and Father's as Lord of the Rock. He didn't have Jaime's prowess or reputation for heroism, or Cersei's beauty, but the Seven had blessed him with a keen mind and a loyal heart, and he would exert both to the utmost to show Father that he deserved to sit the Lionseat after him.
He had already done two things that he had known were necessary to achieve that goal. The first, ending his correspondence with Jaime, had been the hardest thing he had ever done in his life, but the necessity had been unimpeachable. Father had cut out the tongue of the last minstrel to sing the praises of the Black Lion in Casterly Rock, and even leaving aside the unnecessary savagery of the punishment he could understand its logic. The simple fact was that Jaime had turned heretic, and heresy could not be tolerated. Stannis might have given Jonothorans the right to be heretics in the privacy of their homes and their minds, but the laws against the open practice of heresy remained in force, and one of the few unequivocal instructions Father had given him was that anyone foolish enough to break them was to be given a fair trial and hanged at sunrise the next day. And even if Jaime hadn't turned heretic, he had still turned his back on him,his brother, and that he could not forgive, no matter how much he might respect Jaime's ideals.
The second, falling in line with Father's policies on the Faith, had been easier but not by much, partly because he found himself of two minds on the matter. The idea of reforming the Faith, he knew, was hardly novel; there had been no less than four General Councils within the last ten centuries, although there had been none since the Conquest. And while the importance of combating heresy was self-evident, it had to be said that Jonothor, at least, might have a point. The gods knew that there were good and worthy men in the North who would laugh in your face, at best, if you asked them to pray to the Seven. And he knew as well as anyone who had studied theology that the Seven bestowed their blessings, not on a select few as the Old Faithers claimed, but on all mankind. It logically followed that the Seven would have no problem allowing sufficiently worthy persons who had never worshipped the Faith in their lives to enter the Heavens. That said, it didnotfollow that the Faith had to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up, with all the upheaval and dislocation that would follow such a drastic measure. It was, all told, a very thorny question indeed, and one that he had yet to fully puzzle through. Which was why his thoughts on the matter were confined to his private papers, until such time as he might come to some solid conclusion. And even if he did, he would likely have to sit on it until he found himself with more freedom to act. His conclusions so far were unlikely to meet a warm reception among the Most Devout, much less with Father. Even Aunt Genna, who had given him the instruction necessary to do the Steward's job well and who he suspected was his most stalwart supporter, had all but told him outright to keep his thoughts on the Faith to himself until Father died.
He shrugged and opened one of the folders that his secretary had brought in over luncheon. Questions on the nature of salvation could wait. The state of Lannisport's sewers could not.
Chapter 114: The Gathering of Blades
Chapter Text
Ser Cortnay Penrose couldn't help an unsettled feeling as he surveyed the scene before him. Ordinarily, the training grounds of the Red Keep were where he came to relax, as being the one place where his word was law. By King Stannis' decree, the Lord Commander of the Stormguard was also chief master-at-arms to the dynasty and the Court, although appointed subordinates would do the bulk of the actual work, and as such within the training grounds and the salle d'armes of the Red Keep the Lord Commander outranked every man, woman, and child who set foot therein except the reigning monarch. And within those boundaries, the monarch was the Lord Commander's equal, not their superior. How else were the members of the dynasty, and the lords and knights who would stand beside them in battle, be properly trained, unless the Lord Commander could give them orders and expect them to be obeyed? The one time someone had been foolish enough to test that authority, Ser Cortnay had ejected him from the training grounds and ordered him to never return; Stannis had upheld the ruling, adding a harsh word of his own for the fool who thought he could flout a king's express command, and the man in question had eventually left Court in disgrace.
But the days when the Red Keep's training grounds were a scene of martial harmony appeared to be over. Ser Cortnay had never tolerated faction on the grounds, but even he could see the divisions that were forming.
On one side of the great paved square was a cohort of men wearing red and gold to varying degrees, usually either as squares of cloth or ribbons affixed to their clothing or as articles of clothing themselves; one pair of young dandies swaggering swords with each other were wearing matched doublets quartered in the two colors. Many of them were Westermen, either bannermen of Queen Cersei's father or members of the wider Lannister clan, but others were Rivermen, most notably Edmure Tully, who wore a pair of red and gold ribbons twined about his right arm, and the few Valemen who had remained at Court after Jon Arryn had gone back to the Eyrie. The colors the Queen's Men wore, Ser Cortnay had heard explained, symbolized the blood they were willing to shed and the coin they were willing to spend to defend the Faith, or so they claimed. Ser Cortnay was skeptical of their ability to do either, unless the blood in question was their own; half of the men who wore the red and gold had yet to see a pitched battle such as Tyrosh or Tickclose Field, or even a hard campaign against an equal opponent. Balon's Rebellion, in his opinion, did not count as such, given that Balon's madness and the imbalance of force between the two sides that had led to the Ironborn's swift defeat. That said, he had no doubt at all of theirwillingness; they certainly trained themselves hard enough. Especially young Edmure, who seemed to have no recreation from his duties with the City Watch other than training and prayer. And rather than the High Septon, the Tully heir was most often seen in company with Most Devout Hugar, who had quickly become one of the more vocal mouthpieces of the Faith on the need to combat heresy by every means available.
And Edmure, he knew, was one of the more intelligent and reasonable of the Queen's Men, in that he knew when to keep his tongue behind his teeth and heed Stannis's orders to the letter. Others simply had such a reflexive hatred of heresy and heretics, or such a blind loyalty to the Lannister family, that reason was forced to play second fiddle.
On the other side of the square was another group of men, distinguished by the livery badge of a rampant stag that each of them sported in varying styles. Most common were plain cloth badges affixed to the doublet, but the wealthier among them wore metal versions of the badge, ranging from lead up to gilded copper or silver but most popularly iron. They called themselves Kingsmen, and claimed that the King's evident valor, justice, and prudence were sufficient to convince them of the rightness and righteousness of his policies, as should be the case for all leal subjects. The fact that many of them were Stormlanders who were ancient bannermen of the Baratheons, Reachmen who took their lead from Lord Tyrell in hitching their fortunes to Stannis's, Rivermen who had followed the example of the Reachmen for various reasons, or Crownlanders who owed all they had to Stannis's will added a spice of regional jealousies to the stew of bad feeling developing between them and the Queen's Men, made all the more piquant by the fact that more than a few of them were scions of houses that Stannis had thrown down for rebellion. Those young but rapidly growing men, the sons of Norcross, Norridge, Graves, Inchfield, Redding, Leygood, Qorgyle, Uller, and Dryland, among others, knew as well as anyone that their survival depended on Stannis's good graces; without his protection their lives would not be worth an onion, as the Dornish saying went. It was a common refrain of the Queen's Men that a rebel was as bad as a heretic, for had not the Lord of the Seven Hells rebelled against the Father at the dawn of creation?
And one of them, Ser Cortnay reminded himself, was still an outright pagan. Theon Greyjoy was young still to wield a proper sword, but he was swinging a waster at the pell with commendable energy under the eye of one of the subordinate masters-of-arms. Ser Cortnay's eye caught the shadow of a bruise around the young Ironborn's left eye and pursed his lips; he knew that even being a king's ward would not deter a determined bully, but he would have thought that even a stupid bully would be smart enough not to leave such an obvious mark. King Stannis had a famously attentive eye, especially where the health of his charges was concerned. Their treatment reflected on his justice and his mercy, after all. That being said, Ser Cortnay was not so bad a student of human nature that he could not see the advantage to the dynasty that followed from young Greyjoy falling in with the Kingsmen. Theon was only a year or two older than Prince Lyonel, and for all the faults of the Ironborn, they were as true to their given oath as any breed of men, especially to those who conformed to their particular ideals of lordship. Look at how Euron had served Stannis, or how Victarion served Robert of Myr. And even if Prince Lyonel turned out to be only half the warrior-king his uncle was, Ser Cortnay could see as well as anyone that with no living family this side of the Narrow Sea, Theon would have no anchor for his loyalties beyond the dynasty. Men who found themselves with only one option tended to latch onto it with a death-grip.
A flicker of motion caught the corner of Ser Cortnay's eye; he turned, watched, and grimaced. The third party of men in the square were quite possibly the biggest headache of them all. Lord Renly had come north from Storm's End to visit his brother's Court, and he had brought with him the company he had formed in mimicry of the cavalry of Myr. It was a small company, only twenty lances, but each lance was made of picked men, either from the knights sworn directly to Storm's End or from the younger sons of the nobility of the Stormlands, and reportedly trained according to the instructions of King Robert's famous, and notorious, chivalry. They certainly seemed to consider themselves to stand above the common run of their fellows, with their gold-trimmed black co*ckades and their insistence on doing everything in near unison. Stannis had done them the honor of reviewing them upon Renly's arrival and had been heard to remark favorably on their discipline and their evident loyalty to Renly. To Ser Cortnay's eye they seemed well-trained, at least; he had seen them take their horses for exercise outside the city and had been struck by how well they maintained their alignment even at the canter. How they would perform in battle was anyone's guess. Where exactly they stood in the web of faction that was being woven through the Court, outside of their obedience to Renly and Renly's vocal loyalty to his brother, was also a mystery, and one that made Ser Cortnay deeply uneasy. Twenty well-trained and disciplined lances was the sort of force that could win battles, if not wars, and not all wars were fought in the field.
Although such a war might not be too far off. The Riverlands had settled down as much as that restless land ever did, an abortive rising in the Iron Islands, sparked apparently by despair at the terms of the peace that had ended Balon's Rebellion, had just been put down by the Knights of the Sea with Ser Harry Flash reportedly striking down the ringleader in single combat, and the other kingdoms were quiet, but Ser Cortnay had no delusions about the peace being anywhere near permanent. There was simply too great an undercurrent of suspicion afoot that anyone might be a heretic until they proved themselves otherwise to allow for the normal rhythms of peace to develop, even leaving aside the old trends that had dragged Westeros into civil war in ages past; Reachman against Stormlander, Reachman and Stormlander against Dornishman, Westerman against Reachman and Riverlander, Riverlander against anyone that crossed them. Only the Northmen appeared to be steering clear of the growing factionalism; Lord Bolton had taken all his men home with him when he resigned, and Brandon Stark had reportedly told Stannis that he would not ask another Northman to travel to a place where he might have to choose between his duty, his faith, and his life. No one, not even the few remaining Ironborn, were sufficiently foolish as to attract King Stannis' ire by starting a war without his leave, but Ser Cortnay knew about the grey hairs and the lines on the king's face that he hadn't had when he was crowned. The Throne changed men, that was widely known, but it also aged them before their times, and as strong as Stannis was he was rapidly approaching the point where not even flatterers could call him young.
Ser Cortnay shook his head; that was a problem for the future. For now, he simply had to prevent these three factions of heavily armed and highly trained young men from killing each other where official notice would have to be taken. Which meant that he could no more afford to look weak, or old, or distracted, than Stannis could, despite the fact that he was old enough to be an uncle, if not a father, to most of the men here. A difficult conundrum, that.
XXX
Radalfos Solazzo looked at the handbill lying on his desk with an anger that was all the greater for having a new target. Simply the content would have been sufficient, as it was nothing less than a blatant call to the people of Norvos to commit insurrection.Great Norvos is enchained by her so-called allies!it read.Remember the honor of your ancestors! Be of stout hearts and fight for your City and your freedom! We have lost a battle, but we have not lost the war!And more in such vein. But what truly roused Solazzo's anger was the last line, printed in half-sized type.Produced in Ghoyan Drohe by order of Mycan Banderis, Chief Archivist, for the government of Free Norvos.
Solazzo pinched the bridge of his nose against the headache he felt building behind his sinuses; he had been assured, in writing, less than a month ago, that the head of the Norvoshi government-in-exile was the Voice of Noom and that Mycan Banderis was his faithful subordinate. This, it seemed, was no longer the case. The report that had accompanied this handbill, written by the captain of the fort at Ghoyan Drohe, disclosed that the Voice of Noom had been effectively sidelined by the Chief Archivist, on the grounds that the Voice, while a worthy and godly man, was not the man to lead Great Norvos in war. That required a younger man, with more fire in his belly and less residual good will towards the enemy. So the Voice of Noom was now First Servant of the Unspeakable One, in practice a figurehead, while Banderis had taken the title of Chief Minister of Norvos. It was, in effect, another coup, although this one was at least bloodless, and Banderis was friendly to Braavos.
Which didn't make up for his belligerent tendencies. The captain's report included the transcript of a speech that Banderis had given after sidelining the Voice, given in Ghoyan Drohe but addressed to the Norvoshi people at large. The most damning line came in the second-to-last paragraph.Therefore do I, Chief Minister Banderis, in consultation with the First Servant of the Unspeakable One, declare a war of faith against the traitors and foreigners who have usurped the power of the god. I declare them to be excommunicate and attainted and command all true servants of the Unspeakable One to do them such harm as they are able. I summon to the banner of the god all those of His servants who reside without the city, that His rule over His city might be restored and those who blaspheme against Him be thrown down and destroyed.
This speech, which was an even more naked call to insurrection than the handbills were, had apparently already been reproduced in hundreds of copies by the same printer who had made up the handbills. And how in the seven hells of the Andals a printer had managed to set up shop in Ghoyan Drohe undetected was yet another matter to be enraged by; by Braavosi law, no printer could operate without a special license, and such licenses were only valid within the geographical bounds specified therein. Solazzo knew for a fact that no such license had been issued that allowed a printer to set up shop in Ghoyan Drohe. He had helmed the Committee of Information for eight years prior to his election, after all, and while printer's licenses were issued under the Sealord's signature they only came to his attention by the Committee's nomination. And while printers tended to be an adventurous lot, as was usually the case with the practitioners of new arts or sciences, they knew better than to risk the Titan's ire.
On the other hand, he reminded himself, Banderis' incendiarism could prove useful. The Commune's spies reported a great deal of disaffection in Norvos, especially in the city where the ratio of slave to free had been more nearly equal and there had been a relative dearth of people whose revenues relied on slaves. Slaves could be made to work in manufactories, but the combination of Norvoshi law and the high wages that skilled laborers were paid meant that such slaves tended to be emancipated in relatively short order. And the guilds who controlled the manufactories preferred to give open places in their workforce to freeborn men, the better to prevent their professions from becoming tainted by association with bondage. The use of chattel slaves in mass was rarely profitable except on large landed estates where they could be put to work on crops that required much manual labor and could be sold for high profits. In Norvos that meant largely flax, cotton, and wool, to feed the workshops where their famous tapestries and rugs were produced. The disconnect thus created, between the countryside which relied on mass slave labor to produce goods and the city which relied on the countryside's goods for its livelihood but looked askance at the mass slavery that fed it, made for disagreements even under normal circ*mstances. In a civil war, they made for the foundation of an edifice of hate. One that Braavos would do well to shore up and contribute to, if the Norvoshi exiles were to pull their weight in this war.
Nor were the Norvoshi the only factor in play. The Windblown had been travelling through the western part of the Norvoshi hinterland, having taken a long-term contract with the city a few sennights before the vote on abolition. When the coup had hit, they had found themselves responsible for law and order in those districts, and a suddenly vital piece on the gameboard that the Upper Rhoyne had become. The Tattered Prince was known to be true to his contracts, like all mercenaries of his station, but he was also known to be willing to interpret those contracts creatively when it benefited him and his company to do so. It was also known, his file in the city archives said, that he still harbored an abiding ambition to hold power in his native city of Pentos. Solazzo was of the opinion that that ambition was largely rooted in a desire to kill the men who would have made him a disposable puppet, and if that was so then the fact that those men had almost certainly died after the Commune's incorporation of Pentos would mean that the Prince's ambition was now rootless. Even so, and to an extent even if it wasn't, such an ambition could be worked with. The post of Viceroy he could not have, the Commune had made that mistake before and learned from it, but there were other positions that such a man could hold. And the Prince was an old man, who would likely be willing to take the chance to earn a wealthy and dignified retirement. He would know how rare such a thing was for sellswords, even ones as distinguished as he was.
Solazzo swept the handbill and the captain's report into the outbox on the side of his desk and began to scratch out ideas on a sheet of paper. It would be for his Council to decide what moves to make regarding the Norvoshi and the Windblown, but he could still tell them what measures he would be most willing to sign his name to. The Sealord was supposed to be the figurehead of the Commune and the Council the rudder, but in practice the Commune often took the Sealord's expressed wishes into account. As an Andal sellsword had once quipped in Solazzo's hearing, "If the lord ain't happy, then ain't no one happy."
XXX
Jaime Lannister sighed contentedly as he sat back in an armchair and looked out the window of the antechamber to the royal apartments in the Palace of Justice. He had never considered Myr city his home, having spent as much time in the field as in the city during his exile. His longest permanent residence had been in Alalia but he had few fond memories of that town; most of them had to do with papers and self-righteous slaves-turned-burghers. Nonetheless, Myr citywashis home, now, and it was good to be back.
Especially since the embassy and the fleet that had attached itself to them had returned with such fanfare. Word had preceded them by dispatch galley from Martyros, so King Robert and Uncle Gerion had had the chance to muster a reception at the docks and an impromptu procession to the Palace of Justice where Jaime had officially returned his ambassador's credentials to King Robert and Queen Serina and the kingdom's new allies had been welcomed. There would also be a banquet tonight where the principal captains among the Summer Islanders would be formally presented, and a tournament in three days' time where the Islanders could demonstrate their prowess. Jalabhar Xho had already been heard to boast that he would sweep all before him in the archery and gods pity any who opposed him on foot with spears. Jaime snorted softly, half in fondness and half in exasperation; Jalabhar really needed to learn that it was better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt, as his brother had once written him.
The door to the royal apartments opened and Ser Richard Horpe stepped in. "His Grace will see you now, Ser Jaime," the scar-faced young knight said formally. "In private," he added, with a meaningful glance at Mantar who returned it with a stoic impassiveness that he had undoubtedly learned from his formidable uncle.
"Of course," Jaime replied, rising to his feet. "Await me here, Mantar," he said to his squire, "and try not to take any heads while I'm gone." Mantar gave him a pawky look that he mollified with a bow that was very correct for being so recently learned. The former fisherman was a little overwhelmed still by the sheer scale and busyness of Myr city, even if it was easily comparable to Lotus Port, but he was as earnest as only the young could be and had firm ideas on the proper behavior of guests. Which he was apparently classing himself as, at least until his and Jaime's status in the kingdom was clarified.
Which was likely what this private audience was going to be about, Jaime reflected as he followed Ser Richard through the door. Open court was as much a show as any mummer's performance, and King Robert doubtless wanted to make sure that they would both be reading from the same script. Which he was well within his rights to do, Jaime reminded himself. Robert didn't know what he had gone through under the Talking Trees and couldn't be expected to know the significance of the club that High Priest Rhoqu had given him. Jaime could claim that he was a changed man until he was blue in the face, but he would still have to earn back men's trust in him. However long that might take.
He followed Ser Richard in to a private solar to find King Robert setting aside a sheaf of papers as he rose from behind a desk. Jaime couldn't help a surge of relief. His ordeal had shown him many things, but one of the worst had been the sight of King Robert as a drunken, bloated wreck who still sat the throne only for fear of what his heir (nothis son, Jaime reminded himself) might do with it. Seeing him as the trim, vigorous warrior he was meant to be was more reassuring than Jaime had imagined.
He covered up his thoughts by bending the knee. "I have returned, Your Grace," he said formally.
"Indeed, you have," Robert replied, gesturing him to his feet impatiently and leading him back out into the main solar that Jaime last been in when he had been sent to the Islands. "And under better circ*mstances than I would have expected. Even after poor Ser Wendel's death you managed to gain us a whole slew of treaties, agreements, and understandings with the Summer Islanders, as well as bearing yourself well in a deed of arms that enhanced the security of the Kingdom and, I am told, has placed Lord Greyjoy in your debt." He gestured Jaime into a chair by the fireplace and sat across from him as Ser Richard poured them each a glass of local wine and retreated to stand by the door. Robert raised his glass. "To your success, Ser Jaime," he said graciously. "And to Ser Wendel Manderly, gods rest his soul."
Jaime raised his own glass. "To a fine lord and a worthy knight," he replied, trying not to think too much of the look on the face of Ser Wendel's steward when he had handed over the casket containing his lord's bones.
They each sipped at their glasses, then Robert leaned back in his chair and crossed his ankles comfortably. "Now to business," he said. "First off, the kingdom will be going into battle soon; our festivities here will provide some cover for this in addition to welcoming our new allies."
Jaime raised an eyebrow. "Battle, not war?" he asked curiously.
"You recall the Great Raid that Corbray made when he was made Lord Lieutenant?" Robert asked. Jaime nodded. "It will be along those lines, but more focused. As much an invasion as a raid, really, but we will be seeking to pillage and burn, not to seize and hold, so the name of raid remains accurate."
Jaime nodded again; he could see the logic. "And the Lyseni will not respond to us in kind?" he inquired. "Or use the pretext to declare open war?"
Robert shook his head. "They may, but we doubt it; they have become little more than an appendage of Volantis under the terms of the treaty they have signed, according to the Office of Foreign Inquiry. And Ser Brynden is of the view that the Volantenes will want some years yet to prepare before they dare seek cause for war against us. Forbye, the Office tells me that the Lyseni are almost at each other's throats, according to the news from their spies over the border. No, Lys will not escalate matters beyond raid and counter-raid."
"And how are the festivities to cover for this raid?" Jaime asked.
"Ser Brynden tells me that it is too late in the planning stage to insert you or our new allies into the raiding force that will go over the border," Robert replied, almost apologetically. "However," his bluff features took on a surprisingly sly look, "if it became known that the Black Lion had returned and was riding to Alalia in company with some other famous knights and a banda of warriors eager to wet their spears with slaver blood, it might serve to draw the Lyseni's attention away from Oakenshield and the massing of the true raiding force, or at least to keep them guessing as to which is the true thrust and which a feint."
"And in the meantime," Jaime said with a smile, "I will have time to understand how things have changed in my absence, our new allies will have time to get used to conditions here and how we do things, and we will have time to take their measure." He bowed in his seat. "Very clever, Your Grace."
"Much of it is Ser Gerion's or Ser Brynden's thoughts," Robert said. "And Ned owes me a crown; he wagered that you would make more of a fuss about being left behind. Don't worry, we plan to make more of these raids in the future; you will have plenty of opportunities to prove your worth in the field. Along with the worth of this new sigil of yours." He pointed at Jaime's surcoat, which thanks to a fast-working tailor's shop in Martyros was now green instead of red, with the lion worked in black instead of gold.
Jaime's mouth quirked in a rueful grin. "After all that has passed, the Lannister sigil seemed inappropriate," he explained. "So I had it changed in Martyros. Green, for the fields of Essos that we have already liberated and will in the future, and black for . . . well, the obvious reason."
Robert laughed. "A new sigil for a new beginning; I approve, even if the heralds will complain about how much it looks like that of the Mormont's. And fitting as well, given the other item I wish to discuss. As you know, Ser Wendel had no children; not even a bastard, as far as we can tell. He was to see about marrying on his return, but obviously this is no longer possible. His will is already being executed as to the disposition of his fortune and the establishment of the captain of his household men as a landed knight on a parcel of his former lands. As for the remainder of his lands, and the bannermen sworn thereto, his will grants the Crown the right to determine an heir in the event of his death without heirs, and his papers include a letter from Lord Manderly in White Harbor declaring that House Manderly will not seek to contest any such determination."
Jaime's mouth tightened; he could already guess where this was going.
"Ser Wendel was a Jonothorian," Robert continued, "one of the highest ranking lords who had joined that sect. In the interests of maintaining that balance of power, and also of demonstrating that you have fully returned to our good graces, I would like to see the black lion flying over White Den."
Jaime drummed the fingers of his off hand against his glass as he marshaled his thoughts. "I am of course greatly honored, Your Grace," he began, "but I feel that to be made a lord so would honor me too much. My time in Alalia proved that I am a mediocre administrator, too mediocre to be trusted with one of the finest estates in the Realm. And doubtless there are many who would object to my inheriting such an estate, even if I have made at least partial amends for my foolishness, and others who have done more to deserve such a reward of the Crown."
"True," Robert allowed. "But they are not the Black Lion. Nor do they command more than a fraction of the support that you could among the people of this kingdom. Between the Legion, the city commons, the smallfolk, and those of the nobility and chivalry who follow Jonothor, anywhere from half to two-thirds of the population considers you to be the greatest knight of the age. And if you consider the matter from their perspective, they are not far wrong. Where others who led the fight for freedom accepted power and wealth for doing so, as Ser Lyn Corbray or Eddard Stark or even I have done, you turned your back on the greatest fortune in the known world and a position of power only a step below a throne. And whatever your true motives might have been, as far as they are concerned you did so for the Realm, for Holy Freedom, and for the people you helped liberate." He aimed a finger at Jaime. "That is a reputation to conjure with, ser, and one that the Crown cannot afford to allow to languish in self-imposed poverty. Sending you into exile may have satisfied those that wanted your head after Lysa Tully's death, but it also provoked no end of grumbling among those who thought you a hero. If we are to harness the depth of feeling, and the loyalty, that those people possess, then wemustmake you a lord, and a powerful one at that, in order to demonstrate that we no longer hold your ideals against you."
Jaime sat back in his chair, thinking furiously. He could certainly see the logic of Robert's argument, even if he instinctively shrank from the idea of becoming his father after all. Those who wanted his head had been thrown their bone with his exile, now it was the turn of those who considered him a hero to be appeased. He knew he had no head for the management of estates, but he also knew that Robert would say that there was a reason stewards existed. And even if the son he and Cersei had spawned in that other life had proved to be the Mad King come again, High Priest Rhoqu had told him flat out that madness was the natural result of inbreeding; there was no reason to suspect that his children by a woman other than Cersei would be anything other than sane and healthy. But there were other reasons . . . For a moment his stomach rebelled against oathbreaking, then he fingered the hilt of the club at his right hip.Your oaths to Aerys became worthless the day he burned his first man, anyway,he told himself sternly. "There are things I have not told you, Your Grace," he said slowly. "Things regarding why I slew Aerys the Mad."
Robert frowned, leaning forward in his chair. "I'm listening," he said intently.
"Aerys was always mad for fire," Jaime said, his guts twisting as he remembered those fateful days, "but after the Rebellion broke out he lost his reason completely. He ordered the pyromancers to begin stockpiling wildfire in their guildhall, intending to field it against you and the other Lords Declarant. The Hand, Lord Chelsted, would have none of it; too volatile to survive the journey up the Kingsroad and into the hedgerows, he said, and too dangerous to king's man and rebel alike in that maze. Aerys fumed, but he relented, and simply ordered it stashed at the wall towers after your parley with Chelsted. When my father entered the city, and revealed his true colors . . ." Jaime had to fight for a moment to control his gorge. "Aerys went wode, screaming for Rossart to use the wildfire against my father's troops in order to drive them from the city. Chelsted objected, saying the wildfire would burn the city along with any traitors, but Aerys would not relent this time. At his command Chelsted was stabbed in the back by Rossart's apprentice, and Aerys ordered Rossart to burn them all." He stared into the fire, unaware of the way the silver goblet in his hand was creaking in his grip. "I could no longer stand idle. I killed Rossart as he turned to leave the room, and his apprentice died three steps from the door. I turned to see Aerys running for the door at the other end of the chamber." Jaime tore his gaze away from the fire to look Robert in the face. "I knew what he wanted to do, and what he was capable of doing," he said simply. "I also knew I couldn't catch him before he could give me the slip; I was in armor and he wasn't. So I threw my sword across the chamber." He looked down at his goblet, swallowing as he remembered how he had felt when he had crossed the chamber and pulled his sword out of the Mad King's back; not triumphant, not horrified, not even surprised that he had actually managed to throw his sword twenty feet and bury it half its length in a running man's torso. The only thing he had felt, or recalled feeling, was numbness. "I saw what power did to Aerys, Your Grace," he finished. "And I saw what it was doing to my father. If I fear anything, I fear such a thing happening to me, when I have fought so hard to regain my honor."
Robert nodded. "Septon Jonothor has often warned me that power corrupts, and that the greater the power the greater the degree of corruption," he replied. "Serina is of much the same mind, as it seems are most Braavosi, hence their many laws surrounding the proper conduct of the Sealord and his councilors. When the Brotherhood of the Broken Chain was formed I had them swear another vow in secret; that they neither hesitate nor show mercy if the day came when they had to protect the Kingdom from the King. But I think you will have little to fear from such corruption, if you mean to serve me more as a captain than as a lord. And it is time that you showed courage in the council chamber as well as in the field. So I place the choice before you, ser; become Lord of White Den, even if only in name, or quit my service."
Jaime placed his goblet on the table beside his chair and knelt. "I accept, Your Grace," he said. "Although I pray that I be remembered as the most reluctant of lords."
"Come, Ser Jaime, save some titles for these worthier men you talk so much of," Robert said with a smile, which Jaime returned. "And speaking of reluctance, shall I assume that you will take your sweet time finding a wife?"
Jaime bowed his head. "I have loved a lady,par amours, from my boyhood," he said. "But she is another man's wife, and in any case, word has reached me of her . . . unworthiness." He hadseenwhat Cersei had become before the end; it had sickened him almost as much as what he himself had done. "So now I find myself alone and without the first notion of how to proceed."
Robert nodded. "Then I will make a bargain with you," he said. "You will have three years to mourn the loss of this lady of yours and find a new one. I ask only that you inform me of your choice before you make any public announcements. If, at the end of those three years, you have not made a choice, then Serina and I shall choose for you." Robert smiled. "You may be assured we will exercise all due diligence and care in making sure that our choice is worthy of you; it would not do for one of my greatest captains to be subjected to an unhappy marriage."
Jaime bowed his head and raised his folded hands, and Robert stood and placed his own hands around Jaime's to accept his oath.
XXX
In the basem*nt of a tavern in Oakenshield, Petyr Baelish leaned back in his chair and crossed his ankles. "So, gentlemen," he said, "let us go over the plan again. Six days before the raid begins . . ." he pointed at Willet and Hokkan, who were both squatting on their hams by a row of barrels.
"We lead the team over the border, dodging patrols as we go," Willet answered. "We have the reports from the border companies on the patterns the Lyseni patrols generally follow, and there will be an incursion over the border twenty miles away to draw attention away from our point of entry."
"Gods willing," Petyr agreed; that was the part of the plan he liked least, but it was the necessary first step that all the rest of the plan flowed from. "Those six days will allow us to get into position near at least one major plantation. The day the raid launches . . ." he pointed at Adaran, who was leaning against a wall dominated by shelves holding crates of foodstuffs.
"We release our spies to act on their own initiative," Adaran said. "Those spies will either infiltrate the plantations in question or attach themselves to any refugee columns that may develop. They will have ten days to observe, after which they will extricate themselves and make their way back to the border. During those ten days, we . . ." he pointed at Sarra's Will, who was sitting on a low stool next to Silent Jorro.
"We will be doing what damage we can to the Lyseni," the stocky archer took up the thread of the plan. "We will lay ambushes, destroy bridges, collapse culverts, sow caltrops, start grass fires, whatever our evil little minds can think of."
"Taking care that you are not captured, killed, or otherwise rendered ineffective," Petyr supplied. He would remain in Oakenshield for the duration of the raid, as he had no talent for action in the field and remained a poor hand with knife or sword, despite the lessons he had been taking from Adaran. There was a risk, of course, that these men would lose what respect they had come to feel for him by his absence from the field, but they also knew that he would be a liability in the field. Adaran, for one, appreciated that he was not endangering them by trying to become something he was not, and given Adaran's prestige among the other men that was no small thing. And Ser Brynden had explicitly stated that Adaran would command them in the field anyway, while Petyr's role would be more general. "On the tenth day . . ." he pointed at Tychan Breakchain, who was sitting in a chair that looked dangerously near to collapse under his bulk.
"We attach ourselves to one of our columns and march back to the border with them," the big legionary rumbled. "Or we start making our own way back. Whichever we choose, we return to the border by day fifteen to twenty."
"Where we collect the reports of our spies and send them back to War House by special courier," Petyr said, completing the plan. "And finish by throwing as grand a party as we can manage out of Office funds." He uncrossed his ankles and leaned forward. "If anyone sees any part of the plan that they think won't work, or is too risky, speak up now and we'll change it."
Adaran shook his head. "I like it," he said. "Flexible enough to allow adaptation in the field, while still giving us defined goals."
Petyr looked around the ring of faces. Tychan Breakchain shrugged his massive shoulders, his rugged face impassive. Silent Jorro shook his head and went back to the small block of wood he was carving in the shape of a bird. Sarra's Will also shook his head. "I like it too," he said. "Tells us what to do, but gives us enough slack to choose how to do it." Willet shrugged. "It's a good plan," he said. "As good as any I can think of." Hokkan looked up from where he was whetting his long knife only long enough to shake his head before going back to running his hone over the thick-spined blade.
"Alright then," Petyr said as he stood to his feet. "I suggest we all make an early night of it; you'll have more than a few sleepless nights ahead of you."
Hokkan set down his hone, tested the edge of his blade with his thumb, and grinned at Adaran. "I will show you how to cut throats!" he said cheerily. "The point goes in behind the windpipe with an outward thrust, and the heel of the blade parts the neckbones! That is the way to cut an aristo's throat!"
Chapter 115: Blood on the Barrows
Chapter Text
The dispatch rider reined in in a cloud of dust. "My lord," he threw off a salute as his foam-flecked horse lowered its head and blew gustily, "Ser Justan Osgrey begs leave to report; his column is under attack by an equal force and he is withdrawing towards the west."
Ser Lyle Crakehall nodded; he had been waiting for the shoe to drop for days now. He had felt that the raid had been going too smoothly since their third day over the border. "What manner of force, and how commanded?" he asked briskly.
"Light horse and middleweight cavalry, like the Northmen," the rider replied. "And commanded vigorously; when I left they were pressing Ser Justan closely, for all the archers could do. Ser Justan says to tell you that he will make a fighting withdrawal towards the Barrows, where he will turn and give battle."
Lyle nodded, stroking his beard with gloved fingers as he stared eastward and consulted the map in his head. The Barrows were a pair of burial mounds, allegedly occupied by anyone from two kings of the First Men from the days before their migration over the Arm of Dorne to two lovers from enemy families who had committed suicide rather than be forced apart from each other; they had given their name to the plantation that stood in their shadow. That plantation had been stormed and burned out two days ago, but the wall that had surrounded it was still intact and would be as good a place as any to make a stand. Especially if help was coming soon, and Lyle's column was only a day and a half's march southward.
He turned to his officers. "Turn the column around," he ordered. "We're going back to the Barrows. Have the light horse concentrate their scouting efforts to the east and send out dispatch riders to inform Ser Justan that we will meet him at the Barrows."
"Ser Justan sets himself up as the anvil and we play the hammer?" asked Ser Jaymes Westerling, a nephew of old Ser Elys, who had been killed at Tara.
"Or he plays the man who leads the cow into the slaughterhouse while we play the man with the mallet and the knife," Lyle replied to a round of chuckles from his officers. "Ser Ivynn, have your men take extra care to see without being seen. Be bad manners to spoil the surprise."
"Like ghosts in the wind, they'll be, my lord," Ser Ivynn Stabler said with a lupine grin; the former Pentoshi stable-slave might have started his life of arms as a groom and valet to a conroi of landless men-at-arms, but he had survived Tara and the Siege of Myr, been knighted after Narrow Run, and received the Distinguished Service Star for his actions at Novadomo. Strictly speaking he was entitled to a place in one of the Royal companies of the heavy cavalry, but Lyle judged that the light horse suited him better. The light horse companies might have been regimented and made almost respectable under King Robert's patronage, but they retained the habits that had become ingrained during their more freebooting days, and Ser Ivynn combined the judgment of a lawyer with the instincts of a goshawk, especially where slavers were concerned. When the Barrows had been stormed, the owner had made the mistake of trying to flee rather than surrender or go down fighting, and Ser Ivynn's riders had run him down within two hundred yards of the plantation's back gate. The thing that had been dragged behind their horses back to the plantation had been hardly recognizable as a human being.
"Well, let them be quiet and careful ghosts and they'll get their share of the fun," Lyle said mock-chidingly. "In the meantime, let's hop to it, gentlemen."
XXX
Ser Justan Osgrey knocked the brim of his kettle hat up so that it hung off the back of his head by the chin strap as he wiped his brow with a hand only recently freed from its gauntlet. The kettle hat was more open than most helmets, being essentially a metal bowl with a wide brim and a plated chinstrap, but it still caught the heat of the sun as well as any other helmet. The arming cap and coif didn't help that matter either.
And the day was hotter than even the sun could make it. The Lyseni cavalry that had come hammering at the flank of his column the day before yesterday had pursued him all the way to the Barrows and were now holding him in a near-siege within the walls of the sacked plantation. They had even tried scaling the wall the night after his men had gone to ground in the plantation, probably on the theory that they would be tempted to let their guard down after two days of hard fighting on the move and the security offered by the walls. Fortunately, he had seen to it that half the men had remained awake and alert on watch, and the attempted escalade had been driven back with loss. The Lyseni, balked of what was probably their last chance at an easy victory, had decided to start the day with a light bombardment; each of them, it seemed, had a goat's-foot crossbow and a plentiful supply of bolts, and had nothing better to do than to snipe at every head that poked itself above the lip of the wall.
Justan's three companies of light horse and one of mounted infantry, on the other hand, were running short of ammunition after having to spend them like water to keep the Lyseni at bay the last two days. Neither bolt nor javelin could be recovered from the field when every minute had to be used to cover the distance to the Barrows, and the light supply carts had been filled with food more than ammunition. Captain Ilryos Revyn had reported at dawn that his men had ten bolts apiece and no more; Justan had ordered that they be saved to use against any assault that tried the walls, with none to be loosed except on order. The light horse were down to their last javelins, which he had ordered reserved to use as spears. At least there was plenty of food still; the supply carts had all come through intact. And while the men were tired they were still in fine fettle otherwise; the Lyseni might have pressed them hard but they had not driven them, and a few sharp melees had taught them to keep a respectful distance. Justan might have been tempted to stand and fight it out, but Ser Brynden's orders had been to withdraw to the support of the other columns in the event that they were engaged by equal force, on the grounds that only a fool took a fight at even odds, regardless of the other respective merits of the two sides.
He glanced around the wide courtyard surrounding the manse of the plantation and smiled at what he saw. The men were dusty and battered, but there was still a spring in their step as they saw to their horses and their equipment, apparently heedless of the peril posed by overshooting Lyseni quarrels except to make jokes about the poor accuracy and volley control of the slavers; a favorite seemed to be that crossbows weren't the only weapons the Lyseni were over-hasty and inaccurate with. The sergeants and underofficers were reinforcing the mood by striding about with lazy purposefulness and having an occasional word with men who seemed to be slacking. One pair of junior lieutenants were standing in the shade of the remains of the mansion's porch, idly discussing the weather. Justan replaced the gauntlet on his hand and pulled his kettle hat forward so that it sat snugly on his head again, then resumed the posture he had taken in the center of the courtyard with his feet shoulder-width apart and his hands clasped at the small of his back. He might be a poor knight, but he was still a knight, and the spurs and belt came with obligations. Among which was not voicing the wish that the Black Lion could have come on the raid after all; a chequy lion would have to do.
Justan glanced at one of the walls as a brief squall of bolts came whickering over it and twitched his lips in a slight smile. There was a certain irony to the fact that the same walls these men's comrades in Ser Lyle's column had stormed three days ago were now a vital part of their plan for victory. His father, he suspected, would have been amused.
XXX
The dispatch rider went from a canter to a dead stop not six feet from Lyle's charger. "Ser Ivynn begs leave to report, my lord," the wiry woman said as Lyle's charger started and whickered annoyance at the courier's lighter horse, which whickered back with what Lyle would swear was superiority, "and the Lyseni made him before he was fully in position. His company is now racing to cut off the enemy retreat, but he recommends an immediate attack in order to fix the enemy until he does."
Lyle calmed his horse with a pat of his gauntleted fist and chewed his lip momentarily as he checked the angles in his head, before dismissing them with a shrug. "Nothing for it then, I suppose," he said lightly as he turned to his trumpeter. "Sound advance to contact." As the trumpeter raised his instrument and sent the two-short-one-long notes of the Royal Army's signal to attack sailing away Lyle turned to his retinue. "Helmets and lances, gentlemen," he said crisply, "and remember to not be greedy; plenty of honor on the field for everyone." The men-at-arms and knights of his household chuckled; it was a common joke in the Army that knights craved the honor of close combat like normal men craved food and would go to any lengths to acquire as much as they could get. Like most such jokes it had an element of truth to it, enough so that there were several ordinances in the King's Regulations stipulating under what circ*mstances knights could seek out enemies of suitable rank to engage in single combat between opposing forces. Not that Lyle considered such an event likely here; his men were not only thoroughly disciplined, but the Lyseni were unlikely to have anyone worthy of such a challenge, being only light horse.
And in any event, things were now moving too rapidly for such a challenge and combat to take place. The two cavalry companies under his command were now trotting up the low ridge separating the column from the Barrows, with the Legion company jogging along behind them with a clatter of armor and shields. As the column crested the ridge, the sight that greeted them made Lyle grin like a wolf faced with a lame deer. The Lyseni had evidently failed to breach the wall around the plantation, and a significant number of them had already moved to intercept Ser Ivynn's light horse. The rest of the Lyseni, it seemed, had only now realized the pickle they were in, with the wall to their front, an enemy force of equal number and heavier equipment in their rear, and zero time to decide what to do about it. As Lyle watched, the Lyseni companies became a muddle of disorder, while the men on the edges began to stream away in what looked for all the world like panicked flight. "General attack!" he roared at his trumpeter. "Sound the charge, man!"
It was a significant gamble, he knew, but almost all of the dice had already landed in his favor. His light horse were on the enemy flank and moving to cut off their retreat. His heavy cavalry might be slower off the mark than the enemy, but they would be very nearly as fast once they were at speed. He had heavy infantry following behind to support in case the enemy managed to survive the shock of his men-at-arms. The enemy was disordered and liable to panic at the next shock. And unless he missed his guess, Ser Justan Osgrey would even now be ordering his men to mount up and sortie, which would be the final blow to the enemy's cohesion. And as the cavalry's chargers lumbered into the canter and the lances swung down, Lyle saw through the rapidly rising dust that the Lyseni nearest the wall were suddenly recoiling away from it. He laughed aloud, shaking his lance in the air with joy at his enemy's downfall. The Lyseni might have proven to be apter students at war than anyone could guess, but even the Legion could not recover from such disorder. Not with mere seconds left before the swords started swinging. "We've got them now, boys!" he exulted. "At them!"
"None so Fierce!" his men chorused as they closed their visors.
XXX
Ser Ivynn Stabler could not help a gleeful laugh as he blocked a frantic blow and swung the edge of his falchion into the Lyseni trooper's face, dropping the slaver into the dust to scrabble at the ruin of his eyes. He might not have been able to completely cut off the retreat of the Lyseni light horse, but he thought he had timed his turn into their fleeing ranks beautifully. A few hundreds might escape, but hundreds more had become so much meat on the chopping block for the Royal Army, either pinned against the Barrows or caught here in the base of the valley. And both the slavers and Ivynn's light horse knew that asking or giving quarter was not in the cards. Even if it was the custom for cavalry in hot pursuit to give quarter, a fifth of Ivynn's troopers were former slaves, and their comrades had absorbed their attitudes towards their former masters.
Attitudes that Ivynn did his level best to encourage. Anyone who wanted could see the scars around his neck from the collar and the ones on his back from the lash, even if they couldn't see the scars on his soul from watching his sisters be sold to a brothel and his elder brother to a quicksilver mine; he knew his brother was dead, no one survived more than three years in a quicksilver mine, and he suspected his sisters had either died or been moved beyond even King Robert's reach years ago. He had sworn on the day he was freed that for every hair on the heads of his sisters and brother he would take a slaver's life in vengeance, and by his reckoning he had a long way to go yet before that vow was fulfilled
So he spurred his horse ever deeper into the Lyseni ranks, his falchion rising and falling like a butcher's cleaver as he hacked at the slavers. Some of them might escape, but these would not. Not with four hundred Myrish light horse in their midst like wolves among sheep. In a melee such as this only the enemy's horses would be spared, and that because King Robert had made it a policy of his government to pay a bounty for captured horses; the royal stud farm had been started with the surviving war horses of the Sunset Company and a handful of studs imported at reportedly hideous expense, but it was always in search of new bloodstock. Ivynn struggled to retain enough awareness to maintain his judgement of the situation; it had been drilled into him time and again that only a fool pressed an advantage beyond its worth. The Kingdom of Myr might be better able to absorb losses than its enemies, but it would not do to take unnecessary losses by stretching his company too far and too thinly. At the same time, it behooved him to do all the damage he could to the slavers and his men were currently smiting them hip and thigh, as a septon would say. A few minutes more, he decided as his falchion hacked through a Lyseni trooper's neck, and he would sound the recall.
XXX
Adaran stepped out from behind the rock, raising his unspanned crossbow over his head in a gesture of peaceful intent. "Ho, friends!" he called to the squad of light horse that had entered the boulder-strewn field a few minutes ago, keeping his other hand well out away from his body as he did so. One of the things that had been drilled into him in Ser Gerion's household was that dead was dead, whether it was an enemy or a mistaken friend that killed you and whether it was a great battle or a worthless dust-up that they killed you in. And light cavalrymen tended to be rather free with their weapons, especially in enemy territory.
These ones reacted entirely as he expected them to, with a sudden rush and encirclement that ended with four javelins pointed at his chest while the rest of the squad scanned outwards for any threat. "Friends, are we?" said one of the horsem*n in a strong Pentoshi accent. "What's your name, then?"
"Adaran Phassos, Captain, Special Branch, Office of Foreign Inquiry," Adaran replied. "If you'll let me reach into my belt pouch, I can give you my credentials."
"Like I'd trust someone I just met in enemy territory," the horseman scoffed. "Check his pouch, Cutter."
One of the horsem*n returned his javelin to the bucket hanging before his left leg, dismounted, and cut Adaran's pouch off his belt with an obviously practiced flick of a long knife, stepping back out of reach before dumping the contents on the ground and kneeling to paw through them. Adaran couldn't help a grin; inconvenient as it might be, it was good to know that he was making contact with veterans, and ones canny enough not to take his accent as proof of identity. It was a rare Braavosi who served the slaver cities these days, after the Commune had so definitively placed its bets, but that simply made those that remained all the more dangerous. For one thing, they would be the sort of men who could not have expected mercy even before the Slave Wars, men who had betrayed the Commune or had fled its lands a step ahead of the Watch for crimes that would have seen them to the gallows. For another, they would be ready-made spies. Cutter rifled through the handful of silver and gold coins that Adaran had carried over the border in case bribes had become necessary, discarded Adaran's honing steel and tinderbox, then paused as he found and opened the folded piece of paper. "Can't read it, corp," he said, "but it's got the King's seal on it, plain as day."
"Give it over," the evident corporal said, keeping his javelin trained on Adaran's breast as he took the paper in his other hand. "In the King's name, do not impede the bearer of this, who is my goodbrother,"he said skeptically. "If you're the King's goodbrother, then what are you doing out here?"
"Helping pave the way for you," Adaran said calmly. "Or who do you think set that grass fire two days ago?"
"That was you?" the corporal asked. "What the hells did you do that for, you mad bastard?"
"There was a company of Lyseni infantry coming on you from that side, and the fire was the quickest and easiest way we could think of to delay them," Adaran replied. "We didn't think it would get that big, but in our defense, we gauged the wind as best we could."
The corporal stared at him. "'We?'" he said coldly. "There's more of you?"
"Let me call them out," Adaran said, putting fingers to his mouth and whistling sharply. The rest of Special Branch emerged from the cover they had taken behind the rocks, with Jorro, Tychan, and Willet taking the bolts out of their crossbows and pulling the trigger levers to unspan them while Sarra's Will ostentatiously took his arrow off the string and replaced it in his arrow bag.
The corporal scowled at the way they had emerged on two sides of his squad, almost perfectly set to catch them in a raking crossfire if they didn't mind the risk of hitting Adaran. "Well," he said unhappily, "I suppose you can explain to the captain why he's been sucking smoke for three days now. You on foot?"
Adaran shook his head. "We have mounts," he said, nodding to where Hokkan was bringing the horses out of the creek bed behind them. They were bred from Dothraki steeds captured at Narrow Run and Novadomo, small but tireless, hardy, and fast. Their stubborn temperaments were considered a necessary trade-off.
The corporal's look soured even further; a fine time he would have explainingthisto his sergeant, much less his lieutenant and captain. "All right, get mounted and fell in," he grumbled.
Adaran nodded and gestured to his men. "Mount up and fall in, lads," he said loudly. "And stay sharp. It's not over until we're back at Oakenshield and having a drink at Baelish's expense."
XXX
Victarion's approving look slid off his face as the lieutenant who had just finished giving his report walked down the beach to the ships, being replaced with a scowl as he surveyed the wreck of Flayer's Haven. "Six ships sunk or taken and one of the richer targets of this cruise emptied before we get here?" snarled Ragnar Crowfeeder, who was now his second since Roryn Pyke had to be left in Ironhold as its steward. "It has to be Saan."
Victarion ran a thumb over the pell of his axe meditatively. "Must it?" he asked. "The Lyseni were good seamen even before these wars, and those that are still alive after eight years of fighting us, the Braavosi, and Stannis' men are either the best or the luckiest of that breed."
"The Lyseni would have landed marines to search the island for survivors," Ragnar pointed out. "Saan wouldn't have taken the risk. He was always canny, and more so ever since he sent Rackham to the stranglers. After a victory like this he would not have lingered and risked being caught with half his men on shore. Not when he knows that he can't expect mercy from any brother of the coast."
Victarion nodded. "Mayhaps," he agreed. "Which doesn't change the facts worth a damn." Flayer's Haven had been targeted as a nest of pirates who had signed articles with Lys, as part of the Fleet's initiative to complement the raid out of Oakenshield with a sweep of the Stepstones. Victarion had considered that six middle-weight galleys would be sufficient force to take and burn the place; the tower had been made of wood, not stone, and the latest word had been that only five captains used Flayer's Haven as a base, none of them commanding a ship larger than a middle-weight galley.
According to the lieutenant's report, they had walked in on a Lyseni squadron visiting the Haven. Three galleys had been taken or sunk in the sea-fight that had followed, and the other two had been deliberately grounded by their captains to allow their crews to continue the fight on the island. Of those, one man in three had been killed or taken, but the pirates and their Lyseni masters had fled the island immediately after burning the two grounded galleys to charcoal; one had hogged her keel in the run up the beach, while the other had broken a third of her scantlings. So the landed crews had taken possession of the Haven and awaited the rest of the Fleet, which had arranged to meet at Flayer's Haven after conducting their own attacks.
It was a defeat by any measure, but one that would be offset by the success of the attacks against the other three nests that had been targeted. There had been little plunder worth the time and no captain of sufficiently worthy name to carry the head of back to Myr in a bag to be mounted on a pike along the harbor mole, but six ships sunk, eight taken, and three pirate hives burned out would still make for good hearing at Court. And even if the lieutenant Victarion had just spoken to hadn't been willing to swear that he saw Lyseni banners in the squadron that had defeated him, Victarion had found other proofs that the slavers were employing pirates as sellsails, which would be another stick for Robert King to prod the Braavosi back to war with. All of which left aside the eight hundred slaves they had liberated. Some would be too broken in body and spirit to be more than beggars in Myr city's alleyways, but others had the fire that would make them good men of war. Men who would sail or march against the slavers in good time, after they had regained their health and had time to think about what they wanted to do with their freedom.
All the same, Victarion couldn't help a vague sense of dissatisfaction. He had gone this whole cruise without facing a single enemy of name or worth axe to blade. To be sure that was not supposed to be his role now and Ser Brynden had counseled him to remember as much before he sailed, but there was little glory to be found in smoking out pirates that fought like rats when cornered, and about as skillfully. Wielding a fleet as his weapon had a satisfaction of its own, but it wasn't the same as dueling a famous enemy and overcoming him by your own might and main and battle-craft, or doing so with a handful of men against a greater number of sufficiently fearsome enemies, as he had done at Tyrosh and Novadomo. And if Saan had been here, as Ragnar suggested, that made it all the more frustrating; Saan had a name that was famous from Oldtown to Meereen for wiliness and skill in battle, following in the wake of his father and grandfathers who had made the Saan name one of the most feared on the waves. He would be a foe worth killing, as the saying went.
Victarion shook the discontent out of his head. Saan would keep, unless he proved craven and ran as he had run from Tyrosh. In the meantime, the Pioneers were completing the destruction of Flayer's Haven as a developed harbor; combustibles had been piled through the tower, the huddle of buildings along the shore of the little bay, and along the piers. Once the fuses were lit, Flayer's Haven would be reduced to ash and charcoal. By then the fleet would be on its way back to Myr and they would have to keep a weather eye. Even if the Lyseni squadron that had beaten them here steered clear of them, they would still fall upon any other prey that they happened upon. Hopefully they would find something other than scraps.
Chapter 116: Balancing the Ledgers
Chapter Text
"Overall, the raid went very well indeed, Your Grace," Ser Lyn Corbray said. "I have my report and the reports of the other column commanders for your perusal," he touched the stack of parchment he had placed on the table between them, "but the gist of it is that we sacked and burned at least five large plantations and six smaller estates, inflicted heavy loss on the Lyseni, and handily defeated them when they attempted to fight us off."
Robert nodded. "How would you rate the effectiveness of the Lyseni, my lord?" he asked.
Lyn grimaced; that was the one piece of less-than-good news. "Good, Your Grace," he allowed. "They were disciplined, marched and fought and withdrew as companies, and did their level best to give as good as they got. When Ser Lyle caught them with their pants around their ankles at the Barrows, they reacted quite correctly by fleeing as fast as they could; judging by his report a significant fraction of them escaped. As for the ones my column and that of Ser Desmond Marsh faced . . ." he shrugged. "They were not strong enough to bring us to battle or to do more than harass our outriders, but they did that with commendable vigor. Were it not for the activities of Special Branch, we may have had even more trouble than we did."
"I heard from Ser Lyle," Robert said, "that there were relatively few slaves on the plantations that were attacked; was this true with your column as well?"
Lyn nodded. "Interrogation of prisoners revealed that the plantations had received warning of our incursion by beacon fire and dispatch rider," he explained, "and that many of the plantation owners decided to evacuate their workers south. And these, we found, were mostly slaves who had been emancipated and were being paid a wage; Naharis' doing, under his authority as Captain-General. Consequently, we did not liberate as many as we had hoped, although some slaves were able to break away from their columns and hide until we arrived, or seek us out. Others attempted to do as much but were discovered. I will leave to Your Grace's imagination what punishment the Lyseni inflicted upon them."
Robert frowned thunderously; he had seen how the Myrish, and later the Tyroshi, had treated slaves taken in the act of defecting. The Lyseni's reputation for cruelty was not as prominent as that of the Tyroshi, but it was a close contender. "I assume that details of all this will be in the reports?" he asked.
"As accurately as we can discern, Your Grace," Lyn replied. "I believe that Ser Lyle's captain of light horse had his men collect the right ears of their slain enemies in sacks, to ensure that the count of them was accurate."
"Ser Ivynn Stabler is the man's name, yes?" Robert inquired. At Lyn's nod he stroked his beard. "He sounds quite the fellow," he mused. "A trifle harsh, perhaps, but thorough. Understandably so, if he is a freedman as I have heard. Forbye, what make you of Ser Lyle's performance?"
"Quite competent, Your Grace," Lyn said. "He can be criticized for joining the charge at the Barrows, but the battle was essentially won by then so he can be forgiven. Better to have to restrain the stallion than to prod the mule, as the saying is."
"So long as the stallion pays proper heed to bridle and spur," Robert observed. "Which Ser Lyle does, from what I've heard." He nodded decisively. "We'll make the announcement sometime within the next month. Anything else, my lord?"
"Just one question, Your Grace," Lyn said. "What exactly was Special Branch up to in front of Marsh's column?"
XXX
"We crossed the border as planned, without much difficulty," Adaran said as he stood at parade rest before Petyr's desk. "I would recommend, however, that future incursions of the type we undertook consist of no more men than were in our squad. If there were more of us, then the likelihood that we would have been discovered would have risen exponentially. As it was, we had two close brushes with Lyseni light horse patrols and a third encounter where we had to kill the two men who stumbled across us."
Petyr nodded. "And what happened then?" he asked.
"We scouted the plantations nearest the line of march that Captain Marsh's column planned to follow," Adaran continued, "and planted the spies who would infiltrate any refugee columns from those plantations nearby where they would be in the likely path of those columns. We have heard back from three spies who missed their chance to infiltrate and returned over the border, but the other five we have yet to hear from. It may be some time before we can determine their fate, but I think it likely that they were successful."
Petyr nodded again; he was not so sanguine, but it wouldn't do to show doubts in front of a subordinate. Even one such as Adaran. "And your other missions?" he asked.
"We managed to ambush three Lyseni scouting parties without loss, while inflicting eighteen counted deaths and between fifteen and twenty wounds," Adaran replied. "We also sowed caltrops in one ford and burned two bridges along the flank of Captain Marsh's line of march and set a grass fire that we believe blocked the advance of at least one company of Lyseni infantry. What damage or casualties that fire inflicted are unknown at this time."
"If they are known, they are not known to us," Petyr observed. "Doubtless the Lyseni know what hurt it did them. Captain Marsh had hard words to write to me about your recklessness, by the way; he claims that if you had misjudged the prevailing winds then the fire would have turned upon his column rather than the Lyseni."
"Captain Marsh can consider whether it best served the Kingdom's interest for that fire to have blocked the advance of the Lyseni on his flank, or for the Lyseni to have approached to the point where he would have had to turn and fight in order to win time and space to retreat on Lord Corbray's column," Adaran observed coolly. "He may also consider by what means a Lyseni infantry company could have gotten so close to his column unobserved except by us."
Petyr smiled slightly; he had already told Marsh as much, but it was good that Adaran had had a defense ready against such an accusation. Armies had politics all of their own, just as deadly as those at a court could be. Even an army as ostensibly unified as that of Myr. "In that case, nothing more remains to be done on this matter than to submit your report to Ser Brynden," he said. "Which I shall do posthaste, with my endorsem*nt of your actions in the field. I trust the other members of Special Branch are in a mood to celebrate?"
Adaran smiled. "Willet and Sarra's Will went on a reconnaissance of Oakenshield's taverns last night, to choose which one would be most suitable for the revel we have planned," he admitted. "They recommended the Spear and Star, on account of the quality of both its wine and its serving women."
"And doubtless also for the fact that it does not cater to officers," Petyr observed dryly as he reached into a drawer of the desk he was sitting at. "This should be enough for a few rounds," he said, drawing out a small bag of silver and placing it on the desk, "but I trust you will understand if I do not partake. It is not my victory to celebrate, after all."
"We'll raise a toast to you, at least," Adaran said as he plucked up the bag. "It was your mind that conceived of the raid and your words that persuaded the King to authorize it. Permission to carry on?"
"So granted, and convey my satisfaction to your men, Captain," Petyr said easily as he acknowledged Adaran's salute and watched him march out the door.
XXX
. . . This concluded the incursion of the Myrish forces into the City's territory,Daario Naharis wrote carefully. He could write, but not easily. Writing was what scribes were for. That said, there were things that you simply had to write yourself. Like this report.In the course of this incursion, twelve large and eight smaller estates were overrun and destroyed almost in their entirety, save for their defensive works; these being made of rammed earth, they could not be destroyed quickly. Those elements of the defensive works that were made of wood, however, were burned. I regret to report that despite the efforts made at evacuation, at least one hundred freeborn citizens are known to have been killed, while at least two hundred more remain unaccounted for and are presumed dead.
Daario put the quill back in its inkpot to let it collect a new load while he stretched the beginnings of a cramp out of his hand, grimacing as he did so. Before the Sunset Company came, that last sentence would have stated that the freeborn citizens in question had been captured and were being held for ransom, or presumed as much in the absence of evidence to the contrary. One more rule of the wars, thrown out the window by the arrival of Baratheon and his madmen.
He picked up the quill again.As regards the losses sustained by the City's armies, these are substantial. The companies that attacked the easternmost column of the enemy force and were entrapped at the Barrows have been so reduced that their survivors have been consolidated into a single overstrength company. The companies facing the other columns suffered lighter casualties on account of their inability to bring the enemy to battle on favorable terms, although the skirmishing between the enemy's columns and the City's companies was fiercely fought. A full report of the loss of killed, wounded, and missing by companies is still being tabulated, but the current estimate stands at around three thousand five hundred men killed and perhaps twice as many wounded, of which at least one quarter will be rendered permanently unfit for further duty even with the best of care. Another quarter, perhaps, will be unfit for duty for the next month or more.
In addition,Daario wrote on after refilling his quill,perhaps a quarter of the freedmen working on the estates that were targeted are unaccounted for. Pending further evidence, these are presumed to have defected to the enemy, or to have attempted to do so but failed at cost of their lives. It has further come to my attention that the enemy sought to plant spies in the refugee columns headed south, by slipping infiltrators amongst the freedmen. Efforts to root out these spies are continuing apace, but I recommend that measures be taken in hand within the City and in its possessions nearer the coast to more diligently attempt to root out such infiltrators. Interrogation of those spies that have been taken alive has thus far proven largely fruitless, as the enemy has taken measures to ensure that none of them knew more than was necessary to their mission, but efforts on that line are still proceeding; I shall inform Your Excellencies immediately if important information is brought to light thereby.
Not that he had much hope in that regard. Even the most skilled torturer could not make someone reveal what they did not know. And while Lys had gained the services of certain Tyroshi who had specialized in such methods of interrogation, it had been discovered that they could not be used on agents of the Kingdom of Myr. The Rape of Tyrosh meant that, as far as the Myrish were concerned, the Tyroshi exiles could not be trusted to maintain the necessary degree of professionalism.
He reloaded his quill and began to write the section of the report that he had to write on his own. Saying it out loud would be too baneful to his pride.I regret to report, Your Excellencies, that I cannot guarantee the integrity of the border against such raids as this. Smaller raids can be warded off with companies of light horse alone, but incursions of this nature require the use of heavy infantry and cavalry to defeat. Such companies, however, are not mobile enough to march forward from garrisons in the interior to respond to a sudden incursion fast enough to entrap the encroaching force and bring it to battle before it has the opportunity to retreat across the border. And if they are positioned along the border, where they can react and respond in time, they will necessarily be spaced far enough apart that the enemy will have the opportunity to engage and destroy them individually, before they can march to each other's support. I am willing to admit that this presumes the enemy to be capable of extraordinarily bold and decisive action in the face of uncertain information. Recent history, however, would appear to encourage that the enemy's capabilities be overestimated, especially as regards their willingness to take risks in pursuit of a telling victory and make such a gamble pay off.Which was an unsubtle way of telling the Gonfalonier, and the Conclave, that if they didn't think that Robert the Bloody or his captains would take the opportunity to bite off an isolated company and eat it alive, then they were fools. The men who had conquered Myr and stormed Tyrosh would not balk at such a tempting morsel as a relatively isolated company, even one garrisoning a fortified estate. Especially not when they had the Iron Legion to storm the walls with.
And while he was still wiling to guarantee at least a stalemate against either a full-scale invasion or smaller raids than this one, this type of large raid combined the difficulties of facing both. A wholesale invasion might be too large to fight easily, but its size made it slow to react and difficult to control, and hence made it possible to lure it into giving battle on chosen ground at favorable terms. A smaller raid, on the other hand, was far more mobile and reactive, but it could be countered by a force of similar composition, mobility, and size, assuming relative parity of skill on the part of commanders and soldiers. A large-scale raid like this latest one, however, that was large enough to brush aside or crush the light forces that Daario had stationed to guard the border but remained nimble enough to avoid a general engagement that did not favor it, could not be countered so easily. Especially if the Myrish remained disciplined enough to keep their penetrations short and shallow, in order to be on their way back to the border by the time his reserves were arriving.
Consequently, he wrote on,one of three steps must be taken. Firstly, we must increase the proportion of cavalry to infantry in the army, with the attendant costs and risks that such a transformation would entail.Horses wereexpensive, military horses even more so, but worse than the cost in money was the cost in time. It took years to take a raw recruit and make him a competent cavalryman unless he already had some skill with horses, in which case it took only months, and it took years more to make a competent cavalryofficer; during those years a newly-raised cavalry company was at best useless in the field and at worst an active menace. Robert the Bloody, damn him, could draw on a continent's worth of men who were all butbredto be cavalrymen and cavalry officers, in the form of the knights and nobility of the Seven Kingdoms that had either already sailed East or were willing to do so in defiance of King Stannis and the Great Sept. Lys had no such resource.
Secondly, the Conclave must authorize preemptive raids across the border, in order to regain the initiative.Which was unlikely; the Gonfalonier had told Daario in as many words that whatever he did, he was not to cross the border except in hot pursuit, and that as little as possible. Any preemptive incursion, even a reconnaissance, could be taken as an excuse for open war. And while Braavos might have lost its stomach for war for the time being, the Myrish might not need the Braavosi in order to take the mainland, or at least ravage it. Either outcome would produce the same result in rendering the mainland incapable of supporting the Isles, in which case Lys would be forced either to rely on convoys from Volantis to provide food, or to weigh the relative merits of surrender and starvation. The isles of Lys were not as overpopulated as Tyrosh isle had been, and the agriculture that remained on the islands could be supplemented by fishing, of course, but even the best efforts would be unlikely to be able to feed the population of the isles, the army and fleet, and the refugees that would flee to the isles all together. And under such conditions, even the idea that scarcity was possible might be fatal, if it led to riots. Frightened people were rarely rational people.
Thirdly, additional light forces must be brought to bear on the frontier, in order to allow weight of numbers to compensate for weight of metal.Which would mean bringing in the Volantenes, which would be a different kettle of fish entirely. But the thing about such kettles of fish, Daario had learned in his years as a sellsword, was that having them was generally better than not having them, so long as you could think on your feet fast enough.
Whichever option is chosen,he concluded fully conscious that he was probably writing his death warrant but no longer caring,the choice must be made swiftly. I hope I need not remind Your Excellencies that victory and defeat both build upon themselves; a force that is victorious once is more likely to be victorious again, and vice versa. If the City's armies suffer many more defeats such as this one, then it will be only a matter of time before I cannot guarantee the security of the mainland, even with the extraordinary powers you have seen fit to give me.
I remain, in the meantime, your obedient servant,
Daario Naharis, Captain-General.
The Conclave might execute him for what he had just written, but Daario doubted it. Not only was he still the best captain that Lys had, but there were other factors as well. As one of his first sergeants had taught him, back when he had first become a sellsword,When in doubt, consider the politics.
XXX
The Conclave of Lys, like most bodies of governance, prided themselves on the dignity of their offices and the comportment of the men who held them. They were not Braavos the rich, or mighty Volantis, but they were Lys the Lovely, the fairest land under the heavens, and the men charged with leading and protecting that land were expected to behave accordingly. In public, at least; what a man did in his own home among his own family and slaves was his affair.
The years since the landing of the Sunset Company, however, had eroded those standards. Enough so that when Vyrenno Phasselion called the Conclave to order, he almost dreaded what his Councilors would have to say about the current situation. Fortunately, there had been no need for the borders on the table-map to be repainted, but the faint cross-hatching the Cartographer's slaves had made along the border with wax pencils remained unchanged, as did the position of the carved figurines denoting the known positions of both friendly and enemy forces. To judge by the look of his Councilors, however, one would think they had suffered an Iluro or a Solva.
"It must be admitted that we have suffered a defeat," Salleqor Irniris said finally, "but I would like to begin by observing that the scale of the defeat was not severe. The borders have fallen, as we knew they would, but the loss is not permanent. Our territory has been restored, and thanks to the efforts of the army the majority of our citizens' lives and property were preserved. Indeed, I would be willing to hazard that this raid cost Baratheon at least as much as it has cost us."
Lazero Dynoris scowled. "I hope you are not seeking to trivialize the deaths of so many of our citizens," he snapped. "Or must I remind you that one of them was my cousin?"
"You need not, and I mourn for him along with you, Salleqor replied smoothly. "But I would temper grief with reason."
"Reason?"Tregesso Naeroris said incredulously. "We have bent policy, custom, and law all to breaking point at the behest of a foreign sellsword in the name of security. And now, when faced with his first serious test, he admits that he has failed and warns us that he will fail again. How are we supposed toreasonin the face of such an obvious failure of investment?"
"'Man cannot tell, but the gods know, how much the other side was hurt'," Syrys Eranen quoted from a popular philosopher of the old Valyrians. "Baratheon must pay his soldiers, and handsomely, to put them in the field and keep them there, on top of the expense of keeping them fed and housed even when they do not fight. In the past he could make war pay for war by means of loot, either of wealth or of land and people. But in this instance, he was forced to abandon the land, the estates he plundered held little in the way of portable wealth, and the evacuations prevented many slaves from defecting to his banner. I have calculated the numbers as well as any man here can, and I will wager that Baratheon cannot mount another such raid this year, and most likely not next year, without risking bankruptcy. My sources in Braavos tell me that he cannot expect another loan from the Iron Bank, Braavosi queen or no, and that he is coming to the end of his cheap credit."
"So," Tregesso replied sullenly. "We have a year's grace, maybe two. Shall we simply buckle ourselves down to rebuilding the borders for the, what is it, fifth time now? What will change in a year or two that will tip the scales in our favor the next time the Andals come over the border?"
"In a year we will have the Volantenes . . ." Syrys started, to be cut off by Lazero's snort.
"And how long," Lazero demanded, "do you think it will take for the Volantenes to turn our alliance into our annexation, when they realize we cannot defend ourselves?"
"Better the Volantenes than the Myrish," Salleqor said waspishly. "We cannot allow pride to blind us to our duty to protect the city from barbarians."
"A barbarian is a barbarian, whether he wears a stag or a dragon on his chest," Tregesso grumbled. "And why should we worry about barbarians when our own Captain-General plots against us? Or do you really think he has not been behind the riots?"
"You think that Naharis can inspire a riot from more than two hundred miles away?" Syrys asked wryly. "When there is hardly a single soldier of his army on the isle and the fleet and marines remain unquestionably loyal to us? He's a sellsword, not a wizard."
"Enough!" Vyrenno snapped, making the Councillors sit up; none of them could recall hearing him raise his voice in public. "This bickering is pointless," he said flatly. "Whatever role Captain-General Naharis may or may not have in the unrest surrounding the trial is irrelevant to the matter at hand; to wit, that he cannot guarantee the security of the border without reinforcements. We have the means to acquire those reinforcements by invoking our treaty with the Volantenes. I move that we do so, in order to uphold our oaths to protect the City and its citizens, prevent the spread of abolitionism into our lands, and begin to lay the groundwork for the defeat of Baratheon and his bandits. All in favor, make it known."
The Councilors glanced at each other; this wasnothow such matters were supposed to be undertaken. There was a form, and a method, but apparently the Gonfalonier had decided to jettison both in favor of swift action. Eventually, enough of them shrugged and voted in favor to pass the proposal. Times were different, after all, and sufficiently so to border on being desperate. And near-desperate times, they all knew, called for desperate measures, if only to prevent them from getting worse.
Chapter 117: Plots and Preparations
Chapter Text
Essosi philosophers considered slavery to be the single greatest gift of the old Valyrians to civilization. By designating some men to labor and others to freedom from labor, they claimed, the Valyrians had made it possible for men to devote their time to music, art, literature, the sciences, and the worship of the gods. If slavery did not exist, such partisans declared, then the whole of humanity would be nothing more than a faceless rabble doomed to eternal toil, incapable of even obtaining the fruits of higher civilization, much less appreciating them.
Ser Myles Toyne, Lieutenant-General of the Grand Army of Volantis and Captain-General of the Exile Company, begged to differ. Slavery was all well and good, but he was a soldier, not a philosopher. And any soldier would agree that the single greatest dispensation of old Valyria was the dragon roads. Wide enough for three wagons or eight men to travel abreast of each other, raised off the surface of the earth and cunningly sloped to allow rain and snowmelt to run off them, impervious to the harshest abuse of weather and traffic alike, the dragon roads were what allowed armies to function away from the river Rhoyne and its vassal streams. They, and they alone, could carry the weight oflogistikathat an army required without turning into either a quagmire or a cloud of dust. Not that the lesser roads the Valyrians had cut away from the main trunk routes were incapable of supporting armies, but they were not the supernaturally durable highways that mocked rainstorm, blizzard, and drought alike and could stand up to the abuse that a wagon train could inflict.
Which made the lack of dragon roads in the Disputed Lands a problem that defied easy solution. It was an unfortunate quirk of history, Ser Myles reflected, that the Valyrians had never had to deploy an army to the Disputed Lands, as they had had to do along the Rhoyne, along the frontier of Andalos, and around Slaver's Bay. There had simply never been an enemy in these districts that could not be defeated with a dose of dragonfire, or simply overawed into submission. If there had been, then doubtless a dragon road would have been laid, in order to allow Valyria's armies to march in and lay waste to the landscape as had been the wont of the dragonlords. But dragons had no need of roads, and the cities of the Disputed Lands had been connected by ship far more efficiently than would have been possible even with a dragon road, so a dragon road had never been considered necessary. And while the Quarrelsome Daughters had not neglected the roads that the Valyrians had laid, those roads were mere rammed earth topped with gravel and cobblestones rather than supernally durable dragonstone, and so were vastly more vulnerable to erosion.
And the Quarrelsome Daughters had never maintained the roads that lay in the interior of the Disputed Lands. They had never had sufficient motive to do so, when the ownership of them could change from year to year. The roads along the coast and leading inland remained in good repair, but the roads of the interior had long since degenerated to lightly-graveled tracks, which could support large armies only with great difficulty or great good luck as to weather. Captain-General Naharis had outright told him that he had argued against initiatives to maintain or upgrade the roads within twenty miles of the border, in order to deny the Royal Army of Myr an easy way to support an overland invasion.
"This measure, combined with the neglect of previous centuries," he dictated to the scribe-slave that was writing his report to King Viserys and Magister Rahtheon after a long sennight of consultations with Naharis and others, "militates against deploying the bulk of the Grand Army to the Disputed Lands. That some forces will need to be deployed here is uncontestable, but these forces must be limited in number and weight of necessary supplies, in order to avoid placing too great a demand on thelogistikaof our allies. I recommend that no more than three or four companies of horse or mounted infantry be deployed to the Disputed Lands, this being the number that can most likely be supplied at a level necessary to undertake offensives into Myrish territory."
"Furthermore," he said on, "this degree and type of force, if ably commanded and endowed with even a normal measure offortuna, should be sufficient to enable our allies to withstand large raids such as the one they have most recently been subjected to. The great want in the interior of the Disputed Lands is for light horse to patrol the border and scout the advance of enemy forces, and after this for cavalry of sufficient weight to face the knights of Myr in open battle while at the same time being light enough to maintain a significant degree of mobility. Making good our ally's deficiency in this regard will relieve them of the need to fear a large-scale invasion overland and allow them to focus their energies against attacks by sea, which will necessarily be of more immediate concern to the Conclave here."
Myles paused in order to allow his scribe-slave to stretch his hand and reload his quill before continuing to dictate. "The security of the border will also relieve the political pressures our allies face. The trial of Norello Hestion came close to inciting open defiance of the Conclave from their holdings on the mainland, and only the fact that Captain-General Naharis ordered the army to accept whatever decision the Court issued prevented such a breach. The cleverness of the Court in ordering Hestion to serve without pay on the border for the remainder of his life in lieu of paying a fine to Magister Ennaar also did much to prevent an eruption, but it remained a close-run thing. I witnessed no less than five demonstrations against the Conclave among the coastal towns here, at least three of which came within a hair's-breadth of devolving into riots. As the main grievance that sparked these demonstrations was the lack of apparent concern that the isles held for the plight of the mainland, relieving that concern will do much to fulfill our obligation to maintain the government of Lys, while also potentially swaying the hearts of the mainland Lyseni towards King Viserys. What that may lead to I will leave to the King's and to Magister Rahtheon's judgment."
"As regards the forces of Lys and the effectiveness of Captain-General Naharis," he continued, "my impressions are these. Firstly, that while Captain-General Naharis has yet to score a telling victory against the Kingdom of Myr, he has at least held them to a stalemate on the border prior to this new Myrish policy of large raids, and seen off smaller raids in a convincing fashion. Secondly, that the army he has built is possibly the best that Lys can raise. I have observed them in camp, on the march, on patrol, and in training, and at all times I saw them act with discipline and diligence. I have yet to see them in action, but I doubt not that they will bear themselves well if the odds are anything near to even. I must add, however, that the army's effectiveness is contingent upon its continued command by Daario Naharis. He is to them not so much their captain-general as their talisman. Even those soldiers that were defeated in the last raid claim that if Naharis had led them, they would have been victorious. It is in him that they place their trust and to him that they give their loyalty, more than to the Conclave. Furthermore, the measures that Naharis has implemented in securing the border, namely the replacement of slaves in the border districts with hired laborers, the establishment of watchtowers, patrols, and beacon fires, the preparations for evacuation of civilians and laborers from invaded areas, and the general disposition of his forces, have all proven effective when tried. I would advise, therefore, that Naharis be brought into our councils and confidence, and that in military matters we confer directly with him without reference to the Conclave. This will ensure that his experience of fighting the Myrish is fully exploited, and also that the cooperation of his army will be more easily secured."
"I will sail back to Lys isle in two days' time in order to review their fleet and to consult with the Conclave prior to returning," he went on, "but as I have little experience with ships I do not expect my advice on such matters to be of much assistance. Admiral Hotion's report will be of more use, especially as he remained on Lys isle while I sailed to the mainland." He waved a hand at his scribe-slave. "Add the usual salutations and write up a fair copy for my signature and seal by the end of the day."
"Yes, master," the scribe-slave replied, rising with a bow and leaving the study of the small manse that Myles had been given for the duration of his stay in Crotona, one of the main seaport towns of the Lyseni mainland. As he went, Myles poured himself a tumbler of fortified wine and pulled out a map of the Disputed Lands. The bulk of the Grand Army might never come within a hundred miles of the Lyseni-Myrish border, but the part of it that did come thither would have to be active and enterprising, and be seen to be so, in order to maintain the faith of the Lyseni in the alliance. And also to convert those who regarded it as a thinly disguised annexation; he was aware of how many pawky glances he had been the subject of when he had observed the Lyseni armies. What was called for was either the entrapment and destruction of a Myrish raiding force, or the launching of a raid into Myrish territory. But where? He sipped his wine and leaned over the map, absently drumming his fingers against the desk as he dived deep into contemplation.
XXX
It was not until the khalasar had left the Khyzai Pass that Drogo called Khal Ematto into his tent to give his next command. "Take one-third of the khalasar," Drogo said as they shared a bowl of airag, "and ride to the Omber. Choose one of the princes there and destroy him. Kill his men, take his women and children as slaves, and make his land grass for horses. Then tell the other princes that their gifts shall go to me and to me alone, and that if they refuse then the first prince's fate shall be theirs. Tell them also that if any other khal demands gifts of them they will refuse and call on me, or you in my name, for aid against them, and we shall answer with bow and arakh."
"I hear and obey, khal of khals," Khal Ematto replied as he considered the potential fruits of such a raid against the Omberese as Drogo had commanded. The Omberese had no great name for wealth, but of the walker nations that bordered the plains they had one of the best reputations for comeliness; Omberese women fetched high prices in the marts of Volantis and Lys. Ematto's name meant 'the smiler', in reference to the scars along his cheeks that gnarled his mouth into a twisted semblance of a smile. When he actually smiled, the result could be disconcerting even for Drogo. "Where shall we meet after this is done?"
"Vaes Dothrak, for the year's-end festival," Drogo said. "I will take the rest of the khalasar and ride the eastern plains, and bring the khalasars there under my banner. After we combine again we shall ride west, to the great river."
Ematto nodded. "Is there anything else you would have me do, great khal?" he asked. "Before we leave the lands of these walkers for good, perhaps?"
Drogo shook his head with a scowl. "There are oaths of peace between me and the walkers of the Pact," he said sternly. "Him that makes me an oathbreaker will die for it, and die a dog's death. We are not these walkers."
Ematto bowed where he sat, his smile sliding off his face. He knew well enough that when Drogo used that tone, he was being utterly serious. And while he was rightly feared for his skill with the arakh, Drogo's skill was greater than his could ever hope to be. Even if what he had so obliquely suggested could be said to be in the service of honor and the god.
For after Drogo had sworn his oaths with the Pact of the Six Cities, the ambassadors of the Pact had put on an entertainment for him and his riders. It seemed that a certain pirate, named Rumblood, had attempted to raid the Pact, had been defeated, and had been captured as a result of his defeat. The magisters of the Pact had sentenced him to die, but when they had learned of Drogo's subjugation of the Lamb Men and sent ambassadors to speak with him, they had smelled an opportunity to demonstrate what fates their enemies could expect. Once the negotiations were finished, a makeshift fighting pit had been erected, into which had been loosed a tiger that had been starved on the journey to the Pass. Rumblood had been forced into the pit as well, with no more than a breechclout and a wooden sword to defend himself with; but the pirate had proven himself both courageous and quick-witted. He had broken the sword so that it formed a point, had waited for the beast to pounce, and as it pounced he had rammed the sword down its mouth and out the back of its throat. Neither Drogo, his khals, nor his bloodriders had been able to restrain themselves from giving the bloodscream as Rumblood had struggled out from under the tiger's corpse; he might have been a walker, but he had just demonstrated skill and bravery of the sort that even a fighting rider of the People would be proud to own.
Which had made what happened next all the worse, for the magisters had apparently foreseen that the tiger might fail. A pack of red wolves had been loosed into the pit, and while Rumblood had managed to strangle one he could not fend off all of them. As his screams dwindled amid the snarling of the feeding wolves, Drogo and his men had sat in silent anger while the magisters gloated. If Rumblood had been Drogo's prisoner, and Drogo had decided to give him a death-duel rather than simply kill him, then if Rumblood had killed Drogo he would have earned the right to go free unmolested; when the god chose to demonstrate his favor in such fashion, wise men paid heed. That the magisters had refused to do so only proved their vileness, as if any true man of the People needed to be reminded of it. If Rumblood had been doomed to die, then one of them should have been man enough to do their own killing, instead of leaving it to the beasts.
"Make the walkers of the Omber kneel to my standard," Drogo said after the pause of remembrance, "and then meet me in Vaes Dothrak and we shall ride west against the walkers of the coast. And when they are dead and their cities grass for horses, and the Volantenes have bowed to us . . ." Drogo shrugged. "Then what need will we have of the Pact?"
Khal Ematto's laugh rang through the tent like the caw of a carrion crow.
XXX
Archsepton Olan loved Braavos more than he had ever expected to. When he had initially been sent here, in a thinly disguised exile that his enemies in the Faith hadn't bothered concealing their glee over, he had feared it would be purgatorial. It was almost as far from King's Landing as a septon of his rank could be sent on any kind of pretext, among a people who seemed to care more for their profits than their souls, and with virtually no connection to the centers of power and learning that were the heart of the Faith. But over the years, Olan had come to appreciate the charms of the Secret City. If its people worshipped money more than their gods, they were permissive, even indulgent, towards those who felt summoned to lives of greater moral rigor, and considerate of men far from home so long as they played by the rules. While his colleagues had bowed and scraped to the last decrepit scions of the Targaryen's, fearing always that the next king might prove to be Maegor come again, Olan had become a fixture of the halls of power in Braavos. He had never been more than a minor player, due to the relative dearth of followers that he could command, but that weakness could be an asset to a clever man who could build a name for fair dealing; Olan had quickly become known as a man who could mediate a quarrel, resolve a dispute, or take custody of a contested asset until its ownership was resolved. He had a standing appointment with the Chief Moonsinger to discuss matters that touched both their flocks, as he did with the city's High Priest of R'hllor. Even the office of the Sealord had requested his counsel on a few occasions, and Olan had won the right to offer the Sealord a blessing for wisdom on the occasion of his election.
But then Robert Baratheon had abjured the Iron Throne for his mad quest of vengeance. At first matters had gone well; the seizure of Pentos and the taking of Myr had sparked interest in the Faith among the Braavosi such as Olan had never before seen. The fact that Myr had been made its own ecclesiastical province, with its own archsepton and radianors, had been a setback, but one that Olan had been prepared to swallow. The scandal that had sent him to Braavos was not the sort that would be swiftly forgotten, if it would be forgotten at all, and at least he had been granted authority over the Merryweather Sept in Pentos; the Most Devout had considered that the Archsepton of Myr had quite enough on his plate combating heresy without having to divide his attention between two realms, and Olan had been the senior septon in Essos for more than two decades before the Sunset Company sailed. And Olan had had quite enough to be getting on with in Braavos as well as in Pentos, for his long and patient efforts at proselytization had finally started to bear fruit. For almost the whole length of his tenure, the number of native-born Braavosi who kept the Seven could fit in a single row of pews with room to spare. Now, thanks to Robert's victories and Stannis' growing repute, the Braavosi finally seemed to be ready to enter the Light of the Seven. True, many of them were young bravos who took ship for Myr almost immediately after their baptism, but in many ways those were exactly the kind of converts that Olan had hoped for. Those that returned would be hardened in their faith, and would raise their children in the Faith after them. There was more than one way to skin a cat, and Olan knew that when it came to playing the long game the Faith had all the advantages.
But now the crows of heresy had come to roost even in Braavos. The proof of it was not a hundred feet from where he sat in his gondola in one of Braavos' less affluent neighborhoods. A building that had been an abandoned and dilapidated storehouse was being renovated by a crew of industrious-looking men, each with his belt of tools and evident task. Most prominent to Olan's eye was the stonemason perched on a scaffold over the broad double doors, painstakingly chiseling a seven-pointed star into the façade above the lintel under the eye of a straight-backed man with a shaved head wearing robes clearly modeled on those of a septon. This man's robes, however, were black instead of a proper white or grey, or even the dull brown of a Jonothoran. Olan's fists clenched. He had prayed that Ryman's death would strangle his heresy in its infancy; clearly the Seven in their wisdom had not seen fit to grant that prayer.
The heretic priest must have felt Olan's glare upon his back; he turned, sweeping the canal with a searching gaze that quickly lighted on Olan. As well it might have, as Olan had not bothered to disguise himself or his gondola, which bore the three stars he was entitled to bear as an archsepton. The heretic's gaze turned caustic for a moment before schooling itself to blankness as he gave the half-bowing nod that was the universal greeting between clergy of different sects in Braavos. Olan forced himself to return it. As much as he wanted to order his servants to descend on the nest of heresy with fire and sword, his hands were bound. By Braavosi law, no religious group could use force against another except in immediate self-defense, on pain of death for the offenders and banishment for their co-religionists until such time as they denounced the misdeed and repented for it. And the High Septon's instructions were explicit; while all efforts were to be made to prevent the encroachment of heresy into Braavos and sway back to the true Faith any who strayed, Olan wasnotto provoke the Titan's displeasure. The Faith did not have so many footholds in Essos that it could afford to lose one., especially one where a rupture would be so dangerous to the policy of King Stannis. Who despite his weakness at Harrenhal, Olan reminded himself, was still the most powerful of the Faith's defenders, and one of the most fearsome.
No, Olan decided as he ordered his boatmen to return to the Sept, he would stay his hand for now. In truth, all he needed to do in any case was wait. Heretics were all outlaws at heart, who could no more live quietly among civilized men than so many wolves among sheep. He had had decades to learn how to work within the bounds of the Titan's laws, the Rymanists had not. Sooner or later they would misstep, and the sheepdogs would be loosed upon them. Olan smiled; he had seen turbulent and over-troublesome sects driven out of Braavos before. Young Solazzo might not be a man of blood and fire by inclination but he was learning quickly, and in any case he was of the same mind as Olan as far as unruly sectarians were concerned. In the meantime, he would set men to observe, record their observations, and pass them on to the Watch. The Titan's laws were inflexible, but so long as they stayed within their confines people like him were expected to writhe for advantage. A little covertcy would be considered perfectly normal even by the most scrupulous Watchman.
XXX
Meanwhile, in Westeros
Sandor Clegane, now Lord of Clegane and Lionswood, the Mastiff of the West, the Krakenslayer, and more other honorary titles than he could be bothered to remember, imagined that there were men who would be thrilled to be granted a private audience with Tywin Lannister. He suspected that most of them were not men who knew Tywin Lannister.
At least it was a relief from his present circ*mstances. Before Balon's Rebellion he had almost sworn off tourneys and feasts in order to escape the hordes of marriage-minded ladies and lords in search of living vicariously through his anecdotes. Now that he was a certified hero, and the man who had slain Mad Balon on his own throne in single combat no less, he couldn't so much as visit Lannisport to consult with his factor without being besieged. His elevation to proper lordship meant that instead of the wives and daughters of other landed or household knights, wealthier merchants, or minor lords, he now had to deal with their counterparts higher up the food chain. Not the great houses, like Crakehall or Banefort or Marbrand, but Westerling, Broome, Dogget, Falwell, Lefford, Payne, Sarsfield . . . Virtually every other noble house of the second or third rank had invited him to consider marrying their daughters or sisters, in hopes of hitching their fortunes to a rising star that was so obviously in good odor with Lord Tywin. Even an Osgrey had shown up at Lionswood Keep with a pair of female cousins; he had claimed that they were merely passing by on their way to Lannisport to do some shopping, which Sandor would have been more inclined to believe if he hadn't known that Lionswood Keep was two days out of the way between Standfast and Lannisport. And marriage offers hadn't been the only sort of request to be showered on his head. It seemed that everyone with even a modicum of noble blood and a son of the right age had asked him to take their boy as a page, probably in the hope that he would turn them into the next great paladin of the West.
Sandor restrained himself from spitting on the floor at the last second. A hero he might be, even if only by blind luck, but a knight in the mold of Ser Rickon he was not. He knew himself well enough to know that he could never train a squire as Ser Rickon had trained him; he hadn't the evenness of temper for it.
Only three things had kept him from handing his fiefs back to Lord Tywin and sailing east to see if the Braavosi could do with another sword. The first was his duty to his smallfolk; there was still much to do to remedy the years of Gregor's misrule. The second was the fact that he was morally certain that if he did go east then Lord Tywin would have him killed. After Jaime Lannister's defection, the Old Lion was not in the mood to lose another champion. The third, though he would never admit it to another living soul, was that he would be damned before he let a crowd of popinjays drive him into exile. So he had gritted his teeth and resigned himself to the life of a new lord who was also an acknowledged hero. He had been able to beg off attending some tourneys as being too busy putting Lionswood in order, but he had fought at others and done well; with Red Rain in his hand it was a rare swordsman that could stand against him, and he was a good enough jouster that even such champions as Addam Marbrand had to respect him. Such performances had made the task of recruiting enough men-at-arms to fill out the ranks of his newly expanded fighting-tail even easier; apparently at least one duel had been fought between two knights that had wanted the same place in his service. When Sandor had heard he had immediately resolved not to take either of them. He wanted competent, sober, and steady men for his service, and had no need of hotheads. Ser Thomas Cutler was quite enough a fire-eater for one retinue, enough so that Sandor had made him his right-hand-man on the theory that at least that way he could be sure that Cutler behaved himself.
News of yet another rebellion in the Isles had made him almost dread the summons to war; fighting aside, he would be stranded amid every knight in the West, most of whom would have all the time in the world to waste his. Fortunately, the summons had never gone out, as the Order of the Sea had taken matters in hand well enough. Sandor suspected that Ser Rickon's captainship was more responsible for that than the rumors that Ser Harry Flash had managed to root the ringleader out of his hole and kill him in single combat in the middle of rescuing a fisherman's daughter, but his fellow lords seemed to prefer the tales of Ser Harry's derring-do to examining Ser Rickon's careful preparation and swift reaction to the first rumors of the rising. Sandor snorted; as if he needed more proof that his fellow lords could no more make war than so many tomcats. Any fool could fight. Waging war took brains.
Finally, a colorless equerry came to fetch him from the antechamber and bowed him into Lord Tywin's study with a murmur of "Lord Clegane, my lord." Lord Tywin looked as hard as Sandor remembered him from Pyke and Orkmont as he stood from his desk, although there seemed to be a few more lines on his scowling face. As he made his bow and they exchanged pleasantries while the equerry poured them each a glass of wine and withdrew, Sandor couldn't help a sudden twist of apprehension. When he had last spoken to Lord Tywin, it had been to refuse to sell him Red Rain, and to defend his decision to spare Theon Greyjoy. Tywin's offer had been offhanded, but Sandor's explanation for sparing Theon had been accepted with a curtness that bordered on ill grace, and the Old Lion was famous for the way he could nurse a grudge. Sandor willed the apprehension away; his conscience was clear on the matter of the Greyjoy's, both elder and younger, and since Theon was now a King's Ward, there was little that Tywin could do to punish him over the matter without it touching King Stannis.
"I have heard, my lord," Tywin said in his level voice, "that while your lordship thus far has been exemplary, you still have yet to take a wife or even to seriously seek one out. Allow me to be blunt; are you a sword swallower?" His expression hardly changed as Sandor choked on the sip he had just taken of his wine and only avoided spraying it across the desk by a hasty and barely-successful effort. "I'll take that as a no. In that case, Lord Clegane, I must remind you that this sluggishness will not serve."
Bloody hells,Sandor thought amazedly.Tywin Lannister's poking his nose into my love life?
"Given . . . recent events . . . you are now the foremost champion of the Westerlands," Tywin continued. "As such, your status reflects upon me. Your apparent reluctance to marry might be a matter for mere gossip in a knight, but in a lord it is indicative of weakness, and so not to be tolerated. Is there any lady in particular that has caught your eye since your elevation?"
Sandor shook his head. "No, my lord," he admitted. Morag, the maidservant who had led him and his men to Balon's throne room and followed him back to the Westerlands, shared his bed occasionally, but even he knew that she would be a bad choice of wife.
"In that case," Tywin said, "I shall make you an offer. You may leave the work of choosing a wife to me. I shall take two or three years to sift through the most promising candidates, and at the end of those years you shall marry the lady I choose for you. Naturally my selection will be based primarily on policy, but you have my word that I shall also do my best to ensure that the lady in question in palatable. You will need to sire children on the lady in question after all, so my choosing one that you could not bear to do the deed with would be counterproductive, as well as insulting to yourself and a needless strain on your loyalty to me."
Sandor nodded; he could already see the benefit to him. It would take a person of rare courage to try and go over Tywin Lannister's head by contacting him directly with any offers of marriage, and no one would approach Tywin with an offer unless they were serious about it and willing to make it a good one. It would, in fact, solve most of his social problems at a stroke. Of course, his future wife would be Lord Tywin's agent as much as anything, but such divided loyalties would have been inevitable even if he had chosen his own wife. At the least she would have had her father and any brothers she might have had whispering in her ear, as well as any uncles. "And what service would I do in return, my lord?" he asked.
"Travel to King's Landing and help represent my interests at Court," Tywin replied, to Sandor's shock. "My daughter has served well in the past, but in recent years she has become . . . inconsistent. Her newfound devotion does well to bind the Faith to House Lannister, but it also blinds her to other currents, both at Court and elsewhere. Ser Damon does his best to keep her on an even keel, but he has his own duties to attend to, and even at the best of times he is not the most forceful of men."
Whereas Queen Cersei has a will you can straighten horseshoes on,Sandor thought to himself as he nodded and made diplomatic noises.And a temper that can burn a hole in an oak plank at five paces, to hear Ser Rickon tell it.
"You, by contrast," Tywin continued, "have the name and the presence to make yourself a true counterweight to Cersei. You can remind these Queen's Men, as they call themselves, that they must grow fangs before they can call themselves lions in truth, and hold them to discipline in the meantime. Furthermore, while my grandson is still a boy, he will soon be a man; it will be good to have a true champion of the West for him to look up to while his father and mother feud over him. I am aware, of course, that you have no head for intrigue and no patience to pretend otherwise, but I have other men for that. Your task will be to act as my gauntlet, both to protect and to strike. Whispers and plots are not to be despised, but they rarely retain their effect when faced with the prospect of sudden and overwhelming violence, applied by a man who knows how to implement it."
Tywin leaned back in his chair. "And while I'm sure it need not be said," he finished, "I will say it anyway; serve me well at Court and you will be richly rewarded, even beyond your marriage. I always pay my debts."
Sandor sipped his wine as he considered. The pitfalls were plain to see, and the fact that Tywin wanted to send him indicated that he expected those pitfalls to be the least of the likely dangers. For another thing, while Ser Damon and the Queen would continue to be the faces of the Lannister faction at Court, he would be prominent enough that he could expect to be specifically targeted. At the very least he would have to bid farewell to any thought of a quiet life in obscurity. That said, accepting it would solve too many problems for him to ignore, even if he could do so without offending his liege-lord. And while there would be even more sycophants and poseurs at the Red Keep than there were in Lannisport, at least he would be able to knock some sense into some of them. And those he wouldn't be able to bring in line could have it impressed upon them that the Mastiff was not to be f*cked with.
"I will need some time to set my affairs in order before making such a journey, my lord," he began. "But once the arrangements are made . . ."
Chapter 118: A Matter of Princes
Chapter Text
Jaime Lannister had foreseen that his return to Myr might entail long spells of onerous duty, as part of his repentance for the difficulty his renunciation of his inheritance had caused. He had even considered the possibility that he might be relegated to an office in the bowels of War House, where his days would be consumed bypapers. In comparison with that dread possibility, the duty of squiring the Summer Islander princes that had followed him from the Isles had come as a pleasant surprise, even with all the trials that had arisen therefrom. Gods knew he would never take a valet or steward of his for granted again, after having to keep four crowned heads fed, watered, entertained, and out of trouble. Thank all the gods that Chonda Zham, the emissary from Koj, had remained in Myr city, where she was Uncle Gerion and King Robert's problem; her resemblance to Aunt Genna was stronger than Jaime found comfortable, and made worse by a prickly sense of pride that had required Jaime to tread lightly in his conversations with her.
By comparison, managing the other five princes was child's play, if occasionally difficult. Zantar Salas was the least trouble of all of them, partly because he was aptly nicknamed 'the Silent'. Jaime suspected that this was due only partly to personal preference, with the other part being due to the reason he had joined the Kingdom's cause. Before his elder brother's unexpected death had propelled him to his humble throne, Zantar had been in training for the priesthood, and his mentor had specialized in negotiating with the slavers for the ransom of Summer Islanders that had been taken in the occasional raids on the Isles. That experience had added a personal leavening of hatred to the more general dislike that the Summer Islanders had for the slavers, although unlike a Westerosi Zantar chose to let his frowning silences convey the depth of his loathing rather than any spate of florid insults and lurid threats. Taquor Dar and Tarano Rhosaq might live for the feud between them, but in and of themselves they were good men, if inclined to crustiness. By this point, Jaime was willing to trust either of them with money, strong drink, or a woman's honor, but at the same time he was not willing to trust them in each other's company unsupervised, for fear that their habitual insults would suddenly turn deadly. Jalabhar Xho was a braggart, but he had a good heart and enough sense to know when to climb down; Jaime suspected that the latter trait was due largely to an incident at Court where only some fast talking on Jaime's part and a fulsome apology had prevented a duel with Ser Akhollo Freeman, as well as Jalabhar's subsequent realization that a wildcat should walk quietly when it found itself among lions. The one that had most surprised Jaime was Balabos Rhosas, for although he was the oldest of the princes, he possessed the most colorful history, having been a merchant and sell-sail for twenty years before coming to his small throne by the death of his uncle and the absence of any more suitable heirs. Judging by his stories, Balabos had been everywhere and seen everything on the world-ocean, although where exactly he had gone and what exactly he had seen and done changed from one story to the next and he reacted to any challenges to his narratives with florid outrage. But for all his tall tales and extravagant outbursts, Balabos was invariably the most courteous and genial of the princes, and with his twinkling eye and jovial manner reminded Jaime of no one as much as Maester Gordon. And on those rare occasions when he became serious, even Jalabhar paid attention.
As was happening now, as they watched the Alalia Regiment of the Iron Legion at its monthly exercises. "Ku," Balabos said softly as he watched the infantry maneuver, fingering his short beard, "but that's fine infantry. Even the Imperial Bodyguard of the azure emperors of Yi Ti do not compare. The Imperials have better discipline, or did when I saw them, but they had not taken the field for two generations even then."
"Whereas these men have both discipline and experience of war," Jalabhar said, stroking his own beard in imitation of Balabos; Jaime noticed the slight smile on the old prince's face as he noticed his younger counterpart's mimicry. "And these men are newly mustered, Ser Jaime?"
"Alalia was liberated and brought into the kingdom some years ago, and it's first Legion company was mustered in the last days of 284," Jaime replied, "but there have been changes since. Some men have been made unfit for service by wounds or age, others have gone elsewhere, new men have taken their place, and of course the companies were regimented two years ago, causing even more change. Perhaps a quarter to a third of the men in this regiment are old veterans, while another third or so have seen action but less of it, having taken the King's shield since the Destruction of Tyrosh."
"And the men who have not seen action may as well have," Tarano rumbled, "what with having so many veterans in their ranks. They have that effect, like yeast on bread."
"You would know this from experience?" Taquor asked sardonically. "Only I doubt it, if so; gods know you have little enough of your own."
"And what's the scar on your arse from, if not from my spear?" Tarano shot back before turning to Jaime. "He was running like a frightened rabbit at the time," he explained, "and try as I might, I couldn't catch up to him. So I just gave him a cut with my spear, to remember me by."
"Your obsession with my arse, and it's decorations, is unworthy of your line, you old bugger," said Taquor. "But then, I suppose there has to be a reason your nephew stands to inherit, rather than any son of yours."
"The last time I saw men like these," Balabos said breezily, cutting off Tarano's splutter, "they were Unsullied that had just fought off a corsair raid. Less than a dozen left of more than a hundred, there were, standing in a street with corsair corpses thigh-deep in front of their shields. Though I'd back these men over Unsullied any day of the month; the eunuchs haven't the brains the gods gave sheep. Why," he went on with a chuckle, "I once heard a master demand of his Unsullied which of them had failed to prevent his wife's lover from slipping through their patrol, and the silly buggers responsible raised their hands!"
Jaime grimaced through the inevitable chuckle that arose. "Brains aside," he interjected, "the Legion has something the Unsullied can never have; they have spirit. The Unsullied have the spirit beaten out of them in their training, so they will stand and fight to the death with the best of them, but they have no enterprise in them. The Legion, on the other hand . . ." He clicked his tongue. "I've seen a Legion century hammer through twice it's number faster than it takes to say it, seize a position, and then hold that position against three separate assaults before they were relieved. The Unsullied could do the last, but they could never do the first."
There was a wave of nods from the princes, most enthusiastically from Jalabhar, and a considering look from Balabos which Jaime took as a good sign. The old prince might play the jester, but Jaime doubted that he had lived to his age as a merchant, sellsail, and prince simply on the strength of his jokes. And he had seen the callus on Balabos' hands; only some of it was the result of handling ropes, or he was no judge of fighting men. Jalabhar might have sailed to Myr for pride's sake, and Tarano and Taquor because they each could not allow the other to do them one better, but Balabos had sailed for a different reason. He was sixty years old, he had told Jaime, and while he had been a good prince his first love was and would always be adventure. Every year he had sat his throne he had yearned a little more for the days when he was simply a merchant venturer, taking on the worst that the world could throw at him with his wits, his seamanship, his crew, and his spear, and making a profit in spite of all. So he had surrendered his throne to his son and followed Jaime to Myr, where a greater adventure than any other waited for him.
Or so he had said, when Jaime had inquired after his motives on the voyage to Myr. On the other hand, Jaime had heard him tell Jalabhar that he had been bored out of his mind as prince and sailed on a whim, and tell Tarano that of all villains he hated slavers the most and could not bear the thought of passing up an opportunity to strike the slaver cities a blow, after so many years of pretending not to care that the merchandise he had carried for them was the product of slave labor. Jaime shrugged to himself; whatever Balabos' true motives, he was almost certainly a canny strategist and dangerous fighter, to have lived so long in an adventurous life. He would be, as uncle Gerion had been fond of saying, a handy fellow to have in a tight corner, and Jaime had the feeling that tight corners would come thick and fast in the coming years.
XXX
Halfway down the rank of the first company he was inspecting, Robert turned his horse to a stop with a barely-perceptible shift of weight and pointed at the man before him. "Your kit," he said.
The man bowed in the saddle, dismounted in a fluid motion, and began pulling equipment off his horse. The two buckets that hung off his horse's withers came off first and were emptied to show twenty javelins, fifteen of which were light affairs with wooden shafts and leaf-shaped steel heads while the other five, being made from a single piece of iron with deceptively thin shafts and small, pyramidal heads, were meant to penetrate armor. "In addition," the light horseman's captain explained at Robert's elbow, "they can be used in the melee as a light lance." The soldier nodded agreement as he added a coil of rope with a grapnel, his gambeson and light mail-shirt, steel bridle gauntlet, kettle helm, hooded woolen cloak, and a long-hafted battle axe to the array laid on the grass.
Robert smiled slightly as he looked over the soldier's kit; all of it was clean, the weapons obviously sharpened, and laid out neatly and efficiently. "Your name, soldier?" he asked.
"Essino Unchained, Your Grace," the horseman replied, his gaze fixed over Robert's left shoulder. He was a slim and wiry man, with the copper skin and almond-shaped eyes of the Dothraki, but his black hair was cropped short and his left cheek was marred by a brand in the shape of an uppercase letterRin Valyrian script.
Robert indicated the brand. "Tried to run, did you?" he asked.
Essino nodded. "Tried once, Your Grace," he said. "Succeeded the second time, after Alalia. But I have sworn to run no more, unless Your Grace's officers order it."
The captain at Robert's elbow nodded. "He made that oath when he enlisted, Your Grace, and I felt I had to insist on the caveat," he added. "In the interest of discipline."
Robert nodded. "Very good," he remarked, glancing at Essino's horse; it was a stocky creature, with a large head, a barrel-shaped body set on strong legs, and a long mane and tail both tied in simple braids. "A Dothraki beast, I take it?"
"His dam was taken at Novadomo, Your Grace, and put to a courser stallion," the captain replied. "Most of the company's mounts are at least half plains-bred; we found that they have better stamina than comparable horses of pure Westerosi blood."
Robert nodded. "Hybrids are often more vigorous than purebreds, I learned from my first stablemaster," he observed. "Although how they are raised and trained also has an influence." He gestured to Ser Richard Horpe, who was acting as his squire for the day. "Stag crown," he ordered, making the pock-faced knight fumble in his purse and produce one; part of a new mint, and at five crowns' worth the most valuable coin the Royal Mint made. Essino took it, slipped it into a small leather pouch at his belt, and bowed deeply.
Robert rode on, his entourage following him and leaving Essino to reassemble his equipment and remount his horse. It was possible, he supposed, that making such inspections as this could lead to charges of royal favoritism, given that they were almost exclusively made to the companies of Myr city and its near vicinity, but that was inevitable. And on those occasions when he left the capital, he made a point of inspecting the local companies, with their captains and lieges in tow. They served both to satisfy in his own mind that the Army was in proper condition, and also to impress on the soldiers that the King took an interest in their well-being and state of readiness.
And there were other benefits, he reminded himself as he finished inspecting a legionary and instructed Ser Richard to give him another stag crown. Of his three children, two were in his entourage, although Stalleo was sitting in the third rank on his little pony while Cassana was being held atop a heavy courser in the first rank, with Ser Akhollo's arm securing her in the saddle as effectively as any leather strap. Stalleo was there because he would turn seven before long and would have to choose between entering the Faith and going for a soldier; this excursion, and the time he had been allowed to watch both the Legion and the cavalry at their monthly exercises, was all meant to give him some idea of what a soldier's life would look like. Cassana, on the other hand, was there as her first formal appearance, in order to introduce the Army to their next monarch and, by law, their next Captain-General; the monarch could designate such subordinate officers as it pleased them to lead the Army in the field, but the ultimate authority of command rested on the monarch's shoulders, and Robert knew that it was best to broach the idea of Cassana taking up that mantle now, while there was time to bring the recalcitrant around to the idea.
The unfortunate fact was that the most recent example of a queen ruling in her own right was Rhaenyra Targaryen, who was no one's idea of a good example. Admittedly, much of that had been due to circ*mstances beyond her control, but the preexisting prejudice against a female ruling in her own right had only been reinforced by the discouraging precedent that Rhaenyra set. Essos's history was more promising in that regard, but at the same time less useful; the Rhoynar aside, all of Essos' female rulers had been slaveholders, and Braavos had never elected a woman as Sealord. What legitimacy Cassana would have would derive almost entirely from what Robert could leave her, especially since it was entirely possible that Serina would birth a son a few moons from now. The pressure to set Cassana's claim aside in favor of a legitimate son, or even in favor of Stalleo, would be immense, but Robert and Serina had made more than a few plans in that regard. If Serina's new pregnancy resulted in a son, then he would be named the heir, but if it did not, then the next new year's celebrations would see the noble guests and the guilds of Myr city pledge homage to Cassana as Princess of Brivas, which would be the title of the heir apparent thenceforth. Stalleo, it had been decided, would be the first to do so, followed by Mya, so that there would be no doubt as to the relative positions of Robert's legitimate and bastard children. And once Stalleo decided on a career, he would be kept as far away from Court as duty and decency would allow, on the theory that keeping him out of sight would keep him out of the mind of any would-be plotters.
Robert concealed his distaste behind a practiced smile as he rode off the field, ending the review; he hated the idea of sending his son out from under his eye in such a way. But there was nothing else for it.
XXX
Meanwhile, in Westeros
Renly Baratheon waited until Randyll Tarly had left his wing of the Red Keep before allowing himself to give in to the fury. Two broken chairs and an upended desk later, he had calmed down enough to summon Ser Balon Swann, who was the second-in-command of his company, and the commanders of its three bandas, Ser Francis Errol, Ser Jaymes Cafferen, and Ser Davyd Swygert. "It seems that Ser Carlus Storm will no longer be with us," Renly began without preamble once everyone had filed into his study. "He has received orders to report to Master Jordayne and serve a term with the Order of the Sun."
There was a round of winces. "And Ser Lorent Lorch?" Balon asked gently.
"Has received similar orders," Renly replied. "To serve Master Riverbend in the Order of the Sea."
Davyd opened his mouth, closed it to think visibly for a moment, then shrugged. "Seems fair enough," he allowed. "They're both gone from Court, everyone goes home equally unsatisfied, and the matter ends there. No fuel, no fire."
"It would be, if Ser Carlus were actually the heretic that Ser Lorent accused him of being," Francis replied, drumming his fingers against his thigh. "Instead His Grace has shown us that we cannot depend on him to protect us however scrupulously we obey the law."
Renly's look made Francis quail. "Have a care how you speak of the King, ser," Renly growled. "However just your words might or might not be, he is still the King, and my brother."
"With respect, my lord, Ser Francis has the right of it," Balon said. "In law, Ser Lorent should have been bade to prove his words, either with evidence or upon his body, or withdraw them. Instead, we are shown that so long as the Queen and the High Septon present a united front, His Grace is either unwilling or unable to defy them."
Renly leaned back against the edge of his overturned desk. "There is some truth in that, it seems," he admitted heavily as he looked at his lieutenants. Balon with his rectangular frame, square face, and reassuringly competent air. Francis, whose thatch of blond hair and slightly too-open face made him look like a yokel until he went into action, at which point he transformed into a wild man out of the tales of the Andal conquest. Jaymes, whose spidery fingers never stood still unless they were wrapped around a weapon. Taciturn Davyd, who only seemed to come properly to life with a sword in his hand or at the head of his banda. Good men to ride to battle with.And possibly to defy a throne with.
Renly shoved the thought out of his head ruthlessly. He loved his brother, and was no traitor. Not unless Cersei made him one. And in that case, that would be Cersei's problem. "So here is what we shall do," he said. "We will continue as we have before, but the emphasis of our training will change. No more open-field maneuvers. From here on, we focus on the joust and foot combat. And tell the men," he looked his lieutenants in the face, "that the next time someone falsely accuses them of heresy, they are to put a glove across the lying bastard's face. And when they meet on the field of honor, they are to put him in the ground; I care not how ugly they make it. In fact, the uglier the better."
Jaymes whistled. "His Grace won't like that above half," he pointed out. Stannis, it was known, hated dueling, although Jon Arryn and Randyll Tarly had convinced him not to forbid it.
"Leave His Grace to me," Renly said, raising a gloved fist. "Understand me, gentlemen; we have the right to defend ourselves, even if His Grace will not for reasons of state. So we shall do so to the best of our abilities, I shall defend us from His Grace's displeasure, and the Lord of the Seven Hells can take him who is in the wrong."
And if Cersei wants to play the game of thronesa outrance,Renly told himself as his lieutenants bowed and left him,then far be it from me to disappoint a lady.
XXX
Of all the things Ser Cortnay Penrose had expected to happen of an evening, he had not expected Prince Lyonel to request a moment of his father's time. In the normal run of things, Lyonel did not interact much with his father outside of meals and the hour they spent with each other every two days where Lyonel told his father how his lessons were progressing. Those reports were usually to the good, for Lyonel was a voracious student, but occasionally he had to explain to his father why he had lost his temper with one or another of his tutors, and then Stannis had to give one of his lectures about the need for a prince to control himself. Of all people, he would say, the one that could least afford to lose control was the one with the most power; when someone with as much power as a prince lost his head, people died.
These lectures usually had the desired effect, for as short-tempered as Lyonel could be he yearned above all else to win his father's esteem, and he seemed to have gotten it into his head that the best way for him to do so was to give Stannis as little cause to criticize him as possible; Princess Joanna, by contrast, seemed determined to keep herself in the forefront of her father's mind and did so by whatever scheme she could think of. The last one had involved a prank wherein the Queen's confessor had found his vestments dyed a garish orange, and for which the Princess was still doing penance by trying to launder the dye out of them. So when Lyonel had sent one of his servants with a request for a few moments with his father, Ser Cortnay had been intrigued, and when Lyonel had arrived and explained the reason for his request, he had become interested. "If I may ask, Your Grace," Lyonel had asked, "why did you send Ser Carlus and Ser Lorent away from Court?"
That had been new. Lyonel was growing fast, but he was still young enough that his court did not mix much with Court proper; the little circle of young lord's sons and daughters that had been placed around him was meant to be training for the real thing when he reached his majority. Not that it didn't have its little dramas and minor crises, but it was understood that such things carried less weight among boys under the age of fifteen than they did among grown men and women. And Stannis had evidently caught the seriousness of his son's manner, for he had sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers. "I sent the knights you named away from Court," he began, "because it was the only way I could see to settle the matter without making it worse. If they had been allowed to remain, then sooner or later one of them would have demanded their rights under law, and that would have provoked a crisis even I could not settle easily."
"What rights did Ser Carlus have?" Lyonel asked. "He was a heretic."
"Anaccusedheretic," Stannis said severely. "Not a proven one. And even if he was, he would still be entitled to the protection of the law against such complaints as Ser Lorent's, especially since he was in all other respects a worthy and law-abiding gentleman."
"Then why, Your Grace, did Ser Carlus not take the test of faith that the High Septon offered?" Lyonel asked, looking bewildered. "If he was not a heretic, then he should have had nothing to fear."
"He wanted to, but your uncle Lord Renly would not allow it," Stannis answered. "He claimed that the word of a belted knight should be enough to silence any doubter." He glanced towards one of the walls, and Ser Cortnay knew he was looking towards his brother's wing of the Red Keep. "My guess, though, and here I must conjecture, is that Renly feared that the High Septon would not remain impartial, with the Queen your mother making her opinions on the matter known."
Lyonel blinked. "My moth- . . . The Queen sought to intercede?" he asked.
"She claimed that she believed Ser Lorent's accusations," Stannis replied, his face settling like cooling metal, "and that until they were disproved to her satisfaction, she wished Ser Carlus to leave Court." Ser Cortnay couldn't help a wince as he remembered the fight that had ensued when Stannis and Cersei had retired for the night after Cersei had made that little announcement; he hadn't seen Stannis that angry in years. He knew that he would always remember Stannis' roar of "Isummon and dismiss, woman,not you! That is not your prerogative!" "That, as much as anything, forced my hand," Stannis went on. "At that point, the only two other options were to force Renly to allow the test of faith to go ahead, and take whatever results chance gave, or require Ser Lorent to withdraw his accusations on pain of my displeasure."
"Then why did you not do so, Your Grace?" Lyonel asked. "If you ordered him, then Ser Lorent would have had no choice . . ."
"That is false," Stannis interrupted. "He could have persisted in his accusation, confident in the support of the Queen and the High Septon, and demanded that he be given the chance to prove his words. Which would have meant either bringing Ser Carlus before a tribunal, despite the fact that the only charge against him was heresy and so insufficient under the Edict of Harrenhal, or allow Ser Lorent and Ser Carlus to duel, and deal with whatever outcome arose therefrom." He shook his head. "Neither was a risk I was willing to take, for the sake of peace. Bethink you, my son, if Ser Carlus were found guilty of heresy, what would Renly have been forced to do?"
Lyonel frowned. "He would have to expel him from his service," he said. "What godly man would allow a heretic to serve him?"
Stannis shook his head. "Not so," he said. "Under the terms of Ser Carlus' oath to him, Renly would be obligated to protect him, for Ser Carlus had sworn only to be Renly's man, not to keep the Faith under the same doctrines that the Great Sept espouses and endorses. Which would not only make Renly vulnerable to charges of heresy himself, but oblige him to take vengeance on Ser Lorent and all who backed him, lest his other vassals believe that he was unwilling or unable to protect them."
Lyonel blinked, his mouth open. "Uncle Renly would have been at feud with the High Septon and the Queen?" he asked dumbfoundedly.
"Just so," Stannis replied. "And the Realm would have started to divide. Those who fear or resent the growing power of the Great Sept, or the Queen's interference in matters of faith, or simply have no reason to love me, would flock to Renly's banner, while those who would believe the Faith to be in danger, or who are beholden to your mother the Queen or your grandfather Lord Tywin, would line up behind Cersei and the High Septon. And I would be powerless to prevent the eruption; on the one hand I could not raise my hand against Renly without being condemned as a kinslayer, and on the other I could not set myself against my Queen and the High Septon, without being damned as an oathbreaker."
Lyonel stood stock-still for a moment, then nodded. "I see, Your Grace," he said slowly. "But then why did you not simply order Ser Carlus to take the test of faith and order the High Septon to allow Ser Carlus to pass it?"
"Because then I would be as great a tyrant as the Rymanists claim I am, and a fool besides," Stannis said. "Ser Carlus may be my subject, but he is Renly's vassal; it is for Renly to command him, unless something occurs to break the tie between them. And matters of faith are, by law, the High Septon's preserve; it is for him to determine the course of the Faith, and the proper doctrines of its execution. For me to interfere in either Ser Carlus' relations with Renly or with the running of the Faith would be at odds with the law." Stannis stood from his chair, walked around his desk, and placed his hands on Lyonel's shoulders as he looked him in the eye. "If you learn nothing else from me, my son, learn this. It is not enough for the King to be right; he must beright in law. He cannot enforce the law, if he does not obey it himself. He cannot constrain others to obey the law, if he is not willing to constrain himself to obey it. He cannot levy the punishments prescribed by law on his enemies, if he is not willing to do the same to his friends. That, more than anything, was the mistake made by Aerys and Rhaegar; they believed that they could act as they pleased regardless of law, and let that belief blind them to the hatred that their lawbreaking was building against them among their vassals."
Lyonel nodded. "I understand, Your Grace," he said. "But if it is for the Faith to determine doctrine, then why the Edict of Harrenhal?"
"Because the Faith is not the law," Stannis replied. "The Faith may declare a man heretic, but even a heretic may not be harmed except by the King's leave after the due process of the law. And since it is not for me to open windows into other men's souls, I decided that the state of a man's soul was not the concern of the Iron Throne, so long as he kept the peace and obeyed the law."
After Lyonel had made his bow and left, Stannis turned to Ser Cortnay and raised a brow. "Well, ser, what think you?"
"I think that the Prince is growing as fast as we might wish him to, Your Grace," Ser Cortnay replied. "But perhaps some more seasoning might be in order before he enters Court proper."
"Indeed," Stannis said pensively. "His reflexive aversion to Ser Carlus as a heretic, in spite of the lack of evidence, was troubling." He drummed his fingers against his thigh. "How is our young squid doing these days?"
"Theon Greyjoy, Your Grace?" Ser Cortnay shrugged. "He is doing well. The other wards like him well enough, now that he has settled in and proved himself to them. A quick student, and an eager one. I had it in mind to take him as a page."
"Pray do," Stannis said, "and see that he is introduced to my son's court." At Ser Cortnay's surprised look he tipped his head. "I cannot place a worthy Jonothorian in my son's court," he explained, "so a worthy pagan will have to do. It will be good for him to learn that men of different religions can be men of worth regardless."
And Theon was the only pagan at Court these days, since Lord Bolton had returned to the North and taken his men with him. Moreover, he was a pagan who owed everything, including his life, to Stannis. Cersei would, of course, be livid that her son would be required to take a pagan into his affinity, but after the mess she had made with Ser Carlus, a reminder that it was Stannis who decided who entered or left his son's court was warranted. Ser Cortnay bowed with a grin at his King's cleverness. "I shall arrange, Your Grace."
Chapter 119: Plots and Plans
Chapter Text
"Your Grace, our findings all support three salient points," Ser Myles Toyne said, bracing himself for what he knew would be the hard part of his report on his expedition to Lys. "The first of those findings is that we cannot support Lys directly with anywhere near the full strength of the Grand Army."
Viserys frowned. "Captain-General, that is unacceptable," he said flatly. "We have given our word and pledged our honor to support Lys with all our strength."
"Honor, Your Grace, fills no bellies," Myles replied. "An army, as we all know, fights rarely but eats daily. As it stands, between its own produce and imports from foreign lands, Lys can feed its people and its army while maintaining a reserve against famine. It cannot, however, do so while hosting a second army, much less one as large as the Grand Army, meaning that we would have to make up the shortfall ourselves. In order to feed even twenty thousand men, perhaps a quarter of our full strength, we should have to transport a minimum of twenty tons of foodevery day. That, before we consider arms, armor, and other equipment, much less the feeding and maintenance of horses, mules, oxen, and elephants. Even if there was a road between Volantis and Lys capable of supporting such traffic, which there is not, Lys is simply too far away for so much materiel to be transported overland. The draft animals and drovers would eat all that they hauled before they got halfway. And to resort to transport by sea would be to risk that necessary supplies would be intercepted by the Myrish fleet, or by the Braavosi, or by sellsails from the Summer Islands, leaving aside the danger of storms." Myles shook his head. "Your Grace, it will not do. And all of this leaves aside the second salient point, which is that Lys cannot be relied upon to sustain a serious defeat."
"My sources in Lys say otherwise," Magister Rahtheon interjected. "Your Grace, the Conclave of Lys has done everything short of declare a war of faith against the Kingdom of Myr, and by all reports there isnodesire for a rapprochement with the Baratheon either in the Conclave or even among the people."
"And do those sources draw their information from the isles, my lord, or from the mainland?" Myles answered. "Your Grace, Lys is a nation on the brink of division. The mainland resents the isles for failing to do their part to defend against the Legion's raids, while the isles disdain the mainland for squabbling over politics in the face of such a threat. If the Myrish inflict a defeat upon the Lyseni that puts the mainland at serious risk of being overrun, then it is entirely possible that the mainland will seek to conclude a separate peace with the Myrish, even if they must secede from the overlordship of the isles to do so."
"And we cannot do our part to prevent such a defeat from ever occurring, because of the difficulties in supplying the necessary force," Viserys said, nodding. "A very pretty dilemma we find ourselves in."
"Which brings us to the third salient point, Your Grace," Myles said, overrunning Rahtheon's attempt to reenter the fray. "The abolitionists cannot be defeated in Lys, but theycanbe defeated elsewhere." He took a map from one of the slaves that was waiting upon them and unrolled it over the table to show the central part of western Essos between the Rhoyne and the Narrow Sea, from Andalos and the Hills of Norvos in the north to the Flatlands and the headwaters of the Lhorulu in the south.
Rahtheon opened his mouth to object, then closed it, frowning, before he finally nodded. "Yes," he said slowly, "I believe I begin to see."
"I do not," Arthur Dayne said sharply. "How does it profit us to avoid confronting our enemy face to face?"
"Because, Ser Arthur, the Myrish are not as great a threat as they are merely by their own endeavors," Rahtheon replied, preempting Myles. "Their exchequer is underwritten by the Iron Bank, and the greater part of their strength at sea is contingent upon their alliance with Braavos."
"Which can only afford to pay for its adventurism through its possession of Pentos and its hinterland," Myles added. "Remove that, and we knock the pillars out from under Braavos' treasury. Do that, and we shackle the Kingdom of Myr to its own borders; they cannot maintain their army at its current sizeandmount campaigns of conquest out of their own coffers, not without beggaring themselves. And if they raise taxes to make up the shortfall, then Baratheon must produce victories to justify them, or he will begin to lose the support of his people. And even the Lyseni can deny him victory, while we undertake this plan." Myles took a pointer and ran it up the Rhoyne. "In the river we have a conduit for supplies better even than a dragonroad. In Ny Sar we have a location that can be made a stronghold and a base of supply; our new colonists in the Golden Fields and our vassal towns can be instructed to send a portion of their harvests thither, and Norvos can be induced to send supplies and begin to prepare the ruins for occupation by an army. When all is ready, we march up the Rhoyne," his pointer followed the course of the river northwestwards, "to Ghoyan Drohe, and either take it by assault or invest it with a portion of our strength. From thence we follow the dragonroad to Pentos city and take it."
Arthur laughed. "Of all the plans, I've ever heard, this must be the boldest," he said. "How are we to take a city as great as Pentos in the face of a Braavosi army backed by an enthusiastic militia, when we have no fleet to blockade the city with and little time to prosecute a siege?"
"Speed and shock action," Myles replied, "backed up by as heavy a siege train as we can muster. The Sunset Company took Myr with a pair of siege towers and no artillery. By the time we march on Pentos, I mean to have no less than fifty pieces of artillery, and sufficient ladders and siege towers to allow our numbers to be used to proper effect."
"And while Myr city may be a most difficult city in which to foment treachery," Rahtheon added, "Pentos is less hardened. The Braavosi are diligent overlords, but not ones that are easy to love if even the slightest disagreement arises. And every side has it's traitor."
Viserys ran his eyes over the map, then turned to Arthur. "Ser Arthur, what say you? Can it be done?"
Arthur stood to lean over the map, planting his fists on the table as he studied it. "With the help of the gods, yes, Your Grace," he said finally. "It will need to be done swiftly, to prevent the Braavosi from reinforcing the city with sufficient power to resist us, but we have the men and the means to afford to be bold. The refinement I would suggest would be to induce the Lyseni to press the southern marches of the Kingdom of Myr at the same time that we launch our attack, in order to prevent them from reinforcing the Braavosi."
"And when it is done," Viserys said, a smile spreading across his features, "we shall have Baratheon in a vise between Pentos and our army in the north and the Lyseni to the south." He nodded. "We approve of this strategy my lords. See that it is taken in hand presently."
"I must add, Your Grace, that this strategy will take at least a year, and more likely two or three, to implement," Myles said warningly. "Norvos has joined the League, to be sure, but it will take time to rebuild the ruins of Ny Sar sufficiently to make them useful to our armies. In the meantime, we should take steps to ensure that Myr's attentions are focused upon Lys."
"Then we had better begin at once," Viserys said rising from his chair. "As for focusing Baratheon's attentions on Lys, you need not fret, Ser Myles. I have an idea or two that I have been developing with Lord Rahtheon."
XXX
As the doors of the Small Council Chamber closed behind Mycan Banderis, Robert sat back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach as he surveyed his councilors. "Well, my lords, what think you?"
Franlan Shipwright was the first to speak up. "Either he is a mummer among mummers," the Lord Captain of the Port said, "or he is telling the truth. Or what he sincerely believes to be the truth anyway."
"I am not convinced," Eddard Stark replied flatly. "Even if Ny Sar is unfortified and the way thence open, forgoing the use of the dragonroad would halve the weight of supplies that we can hope to carry overland, if not cut it even further, and reduce the force we can bring to bear in proportion. Even if the valley of the Noyne proves to be the soft underbelly that he claims, exploiting it will be difficult with such a reduced force, if not impossible. If it were possible, then Banderis would have convinced the Braavosi to undertake it, and not come crawling to us."
Ser Brynden Tully nodded. "I do not doubt that the Archivist is a worthy man, and committed to the cause of Holy Freedom," he added, "but I doubt he has much knowledge of war. Seizing Ny Sar would be a bold stroke indeed, and one that would allow us to outflank the forts the Norvoshi placed on their western frontier, but it would also place the border forts onourflank, and place our supply lines at the mercy of an enterprising commander willing to take the risk of descending on the Rhoyne." Ser Brynden shook his head. "Even if the garrisons of the border forts fight as fiercely as Banderis says they will, taking the dragonroad straight to Norvos is the better way. It will be slower, and bloodier, but far less risky."
"It will also be more expensive," Ser Jaymes Whitefield interjected; he had been named Master of Coin after Ser Wendel's death, but he was largely a figurehead in that position. Most of the real work was in the hands of freedmen and Braavosi immigrants. Ser Jaymes held the Mastership largely because he had learned at least a few things from Ser Wendel, and because Robert had not been blind to the fact that naming an outright commoner, as most of the treasury's more skilled officers were, to the Small Council would invite unnecessary controversy. Lord Shipwright might have been a slave, but he was a certified hero of the Conquest, which could not be said for the other likely candidates for the Mastership of Coin. "And a longer war will bring more devastation on Norvos, which would leave them ill-suited to repay the costs of their liberation. Your Grace, my lords, if we wish to maintain a war footing for more than a year or two at a time, then we need Norvos, and we need them as intact as we can get them, both to levy contributions and establish trade."
Ser Gerion Lannister steepled his hands. "The Office of Foreign Inquiry tells me that the cabal that seized Norvos has largely put their differences aside," he said. "Indeed, they mustered enough unity of purpose to accept an alliance with Volantis and entry into the Valyrian League. That said, they still have yet to muster more than a plurality of the populace to their side; the divisions there remain sharp. The Darkwash is an independent realm in every way that matters, now. The settlements along the Noyne are more firmly behind them, given the multitude of plantations along its banks, but even there men have taken to the wild and raised the banner of Free Norvos. Perhaps we could sway the men of the western hills to our side? If bribes do not avail, then we might offer them a revision of the laws under which Norvos governed them, to increase their status and their wealth."
Ser Brynden shook his head. "From what I have heard, the men of those hills remind me of the Riverlanders," he said. "Proud, stubborn men, the sort that cherish a feud the way merchants cherish profits. Try and sway them from their allegiance with bribes, and they'll likely put a glove across your face. No, we should count on having to cut and burn our way through the hills, and paying in blood to do so. The river, on the other hand," Ser Brynden leaned forward in his chair, hands folded on the head of his cane, "interests me on reflection. The Braavosi have little influence over the Rhoyne below their fortress at Ghoyan Drohe, but you can load much more in the way oflogistikaon a boat than you can on an oxcart, and move it much more efficiently. The power of the Volantenes lies not only in the numbers of their armies, but also in their ability to use the great river to carry the supplies for those armies, even against the current. Well, rivers carry logistics both ways. If we were to establish a lodgment in the hills, one that could provide a shield between the border forts and the river, then we could move a force down the Rhoyne to Ny Sar, take and fortify it, andthenmarch up the Noyne as Banderis suggests."
Robert nodded. "In other words, the work of several campaigning seasons, and requiring substantial coordination with the Braavosi," he said. "And which will likely have to await the day when we settle accounts with the Lyseni for good and all. Even so, Ser Brynden, have your clerks study what such an undertaking would entail, and have them assume that we would make an incursion into the hills before marching down the Rhoyne. Better to make plans in advance of actually needing them. What's next?"
XXX
The tales surrounding Ironborn weddings, Davos Blacksail decided, were greatly exaggerated.
Take the one about how the groom was expected to physically carry the bride away from the ceremony while fighting off her family, for instance. The carrying part was true, or expected to be, but the fighting turned out to be nothing of the sort. Instead, it seemed that the custom was for the bride's family to follow the groom, loudly demanding that he give them their woman back, while the groom's party got in their way, with the inevitable result that both sides ended up trying to outdo each other with the color and inventiveness of their insults. Nor were there any ghoulish sacrifices to the Drowned God, simply a skin of fresh-drawn seawater poured over the bride and groom where they stood ankle-deep in the surf as the priest chanted in the Irontongue. The part where the bedding happened on the same beach where the ceremony took place where everyone and their dog could bear witness also turned out to be an embellishment, as a small tent had been erected for the purpose. The story about the witnesses shouting advice and encouragement during the bedding, on the other hand, had actually turned out to be true. Davos was not what he would consider a modest man, a life at sea had seen to that, but he had still found himself blushing at some of the suggestions. Especially the ones the bride's sisters and two of Lord Victarion's housekarls had supplied.
And far from the debauched revel that popular rumor portrayed, the wedding feast that followed had been remarkably civilized. To be sure, wine and ale and mead were flowing freely, and there had been two punch-ups that Davos had seen, but there had been little that would have been out of place at an Andal or First Man wedding, if different in style. The food had been more rustic than a mainlander lord would have considered fitting, even at the high table where Victarion and his new bride presided, and instead of bards singing to lute and harp the music was provided by skalds chanting to the accompaniment of small harps played with a bow or hand drums. The guest list, though, was one that any mainland lord would have committed murder to ensure for his own wedding. King Robert himself had attended, booming laughter as he traded reminiscences with Victarion while Queen Serina gossiped with Lady Rarena. Ned Stark and Gerion Lannister also made appearances to pay their respects, though Davos was glad that they did not stay overlong or mingle with the other guests much; Lannister was too smoothly genial for Davos to trust him easily and even at his most relaxed Stark was an intense, nay intimidating, figure. Jaime Lannister, on the other hand, had been a part of the wedding from the beginning, having stood by Victarion's side as he said his vows and led his guards as the carrying and bedding took place. Currently Ser Jaime was besieged by a lady captain of the Summer Isles, who had probably heard that the Black Lion was now the lord of a rich estate and apparently due to resume his place in the high councils of the Kingdom. Davos smirked at Ser Jaime's veiled discomfiture; if he had wanted to be shot of the marriage market, then he should have joined the Night's Watch. As it was, he should have remembered that rumors of wealth and royal favor always trumped scandal. Lord Captain Franlan Shipwright and his lady had also appeared to give their congratulations, but had not lingered; it was well known that it would take the direct intervention of the gods to keep Franlan away from his Port, and where he went Lady Orobin went abreast of him. Adaran Phassos had provided a few hours pleasant company as he plied him for stories of the smuggling trade, but Davos had not been unhappy to see Petyr Baelish make only a brief appearance. Whatever it was Baelish did for Ser Brynden, he was entirely too close to the Royal Inspectors for Davos to be comfortable in his presence; even now that he was on the right side of the law it's agents made him instinctively wary, and that wariness increased in direct proportion to their intelligence.
All in all, the company could make a man as dizzy as the mead could, if he let himself think that some of the most powerful, dangerous, feared, and respected men and women in this quarter of the world had come within a hundred feet of him. Davos had known that accepting a knight's fee would propel him out of the shadows and into the light of high society, but he had never dreamed that he would sail waters as rarefied as these. He was asmuggler,for the gods' sakes, and one that had been born in a dockside shack, at that. But his wits, his command of the more secretive ways of sailing, and his willingness to follow a run of luck for as long as it held had made him a landed knight, a lord in all but name, and one that could rightly claim a connection with such men as Robert the Strong. It was all very heady stuff.
Especially since the stories about how long an Ironborn wedding feast lasted had turned out to be alarmingly true. When an Ironlord married, it was considered an embarrassment if the feast lasted only two days and nights. Victarion's feast, as befitted his status and wealth, was on its fifth day, and it was only now , as the sun was going down, at the climax of the whole affair, the gift-giving.
And not just to the bride and groom, butfromthe bride and groom. As far as Davos could tell, everyone who gave Victarion and Lady Rarena a gift was receiving one in return, of varying degrees. Lord Salter, Lady Rarena's father, and his three sons had each received a suit of plate armor and a longsword, while the aldermen of Ironhold had each received an arm-ring made of braided strands of gold and iron, the ends of which were inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The man in front of Davos, one of Victarion's housekarls presenting a beautifully forged hunting knife for Victarion and a pair of equally well-made knitting needles for Rarena, received an arm-ring of plain braided steel strands, and seemed far more ecstatic than such a gift would warrant, bowing repeatedly to Victarion and Rarena alike before withdrawing with what Davos would swear was a tear in his eye.
Davos shrugged in the privacy of his mind and stepped forward to give his own gift, a small chest filled with saffron and nutmeg and cinnamon and other spices, the whole worth many times its weight in gold; cinnamon only came from the Summer Islands, and eight-tenths of the world's saffron was produced around Slaver's Bay, where the astonishing amount of labor needed to produce even a tiny amount could be had cheaply enough to keep the cost of production down. A pound of crocus flowers, with their stamens plucked and dried, produced just over half an ounce of saffron; the five pounds of saffron in the chest represented the yield of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of harvested flowers.
"Ser Davos," Victarion said as his steward accepted the chest and handed it off to a pair of servants, "you have always been a friend to us, even in times of great trial. And by your craft and your skill, you have played a part in two great victories and more smaller ones than I care to name. So I pray you accept this token of the debt we owe to you." He gestured to his steward, who presented an arm-ring of woven steel bands, worked so that the finial of one end formed the body of a kraken, its tentacles wrapping around Davos' forearm to terminate in an intricate knot. "Gold and silver for wealth, bronze and copper for craft," Victarion explained, "but iron and steel for honor, for trust, and for friendship. If ever you need aid of an Ironborn, show them this ring, and they will know that you are one who is an ally of our nation, and deserving of our aid and friendship."
Davos bowed. "I thank you, my lord," he said around a sudden lump in his throat, "and I wish you and your lady all happiness and good fortune." As he withdrew, he couldn't help but understand the euphoria of the housekarl who had preceded him. Wealth was all well and good, and necessary, but such a token given by such a lord . . . Reputation was worth as much as wealth, if not more, in the circles that Davos moved in now. His sons were already well provided for, Dale, Allard, and Matthos were officers in the Royal Fleet and due to gain command of their own ships while Maric had gone for a page at War House, but Lord Greyjoy's mark of favor would open doors for them that their father could never have moved. It was true that Lord Greyjoy and his Ironborn were considered the wildest and wooliest section of Myrish society, rivaled perhaps only by those Dothraki that had found themselves in the Royal Army, but the service they had given on the seas in the cause of Holy Freedom, and Lord Greyjoy's actions at Novadomo with his housekarls, had given them a sovereign reputation for zeal in Holy Freedom's service.
Davos was a relative oddity in the Kingdom of Myr in that he was a direct liegeman of the Crown; he owed respect and courtesy to the other members of the nobility, but in law only King Robert and his heirs had a claim on his service. That, he decided suddenly, was no longer so. If Lord Greyjoy ever found himself in need, then let him call on Davos Blacksail, or his sons, and the debt would be repaid with interest.
XXX
The Tattered Prince couldn't help a faint smile as he poured himself a glass of whine in his command tent. It was long and long since he had been courted this assiduously; for so many years he had just been another sellsword, if an abler one than many of his counterparts. Now, it seemed, Fortune's wheel had turned in such a way that he was being courted by men as far above him as he was above a common burgher.
If someone had told him twenty-six years ago that he would find himself in this position, he would have laughed in their face. Twenty-six years ago he had been a new captain, still finding his feet in command of the company he had started with four comrades-in-arms. The height of his ambitions had been to find a way, any way, to return to Pentos as a conqueror and take revenge on the magisters who had sought to condemn him to the gilded cage and inevitable humiliating death that was the Prince-ship of that city. In the meantime he had built his company, lance by lance, banda by banda, until with two thousand picked men under his forked blue and white banner he had entered the first rank of free captains. He could not have matched the Golden Company, either in strength or in reputation, but among all the other Free Companies his Windblown had had the greatest name for efficiency and discipline. His only fear, as the wheel of the years turned on and on, had been that he would grow too old to take his revenge, that however strong he might grow he would never gain the strength to seize Pentos in defiance of the Titan of Braavos, and the sellswords that the Titan's coin could attract. The axes around which Essosi politics revolved had been set in stone long ago, and a mere sellsword captain could not hope to break them.
Then Robert Baratheon had landed with his company, and all things had changed. At first, he had expected Baratheon to fail; the taking of Pentos had been accomplished by what amounted to treachery, and the Company of the Rose had fallen from the glory days of it's founding, when the Northern exiles had swept all before them with their unique brand of ferocity. He had expected that Baratheon would learn, to his cost, that Myr was an order of magnitude more powerful than Pentos, and that he would end his days either under Rhaegar Targaryen's sword or as a tributary of Braavos, with his company reduced to settlers in the Pentoshi hinterland. He hadnot, in a thousand years, expected the Battle of Tara, or the servile revolts that had shaken the Free Cities to their core. And now he couldn't help wondering if the prudence with which he had kept his company out of the meatgrinder of the Disputed Lands had actually been fearfulness; fearfulness at finding himself in a new Century of Blood where the old wars of trade advantages and border squabbles had become wars of extinction, where the only options were victory or death.
It had been an immeasurable relief to find that at least one of the Free Cities had retained its sanity. Norvos was a cheerless place for a sellsword, with its somber and priest-ridden people, but the bearded priests had a reassuring reputation for paying their bills promptly, and even after the coup one of the first things the reactionaries had done had been to assure him that his contract to serve the city as a paid captain, with special responsibility for the security of the western frontier districts, remained in force, and provide an advance on the next month's fee. He could have acted more boldly, it was true, either by following the ousted Voice and his councilors into exile on the grounds that they were still the legitimate government or else by snapping them up and delivering them to the reactionaries in so many sacks to stabilize the new order, but he had not lived so long as a sellsword by making such bold gambles. When in doubt, stick to the letter of your contract, had been his motto since he had first signed articles, and it had stood him in good stead over the years. Even if you never reached the higher levels of play, you at least kept your grubstake, and avoided losing everything to the turn of the wheel. Gods knew that the Braavosi would not have looked favorably on the man who delivered the Voice and his followers to the bear-pit, and he had always believed in keeping his options open.
Developments since, however, had soured his mind against his employers. Norvos had never been known for decisiveness, a fact they took perverse pride in, but the current amount of dysfunction was simply asinine. Some of the reactionaries wanted to make war, with varying degrees of severity based on which of them you asked, to bring the rebellious districts of the Little Rhoyne and the Axe, and the outright breakaway state of the Darkwash, back into the fold, while others thought simple negotiation would suffice. Yet others felt that only a close alliance with Volantis could safeguard Norvos now, while others still continued to delude themselves that a policy of strict neutrality was still their best hope of protection. The vote to join the Valyrian League had passed by less than a handful of votes, and no sooner had the treaty been ratified than the coalition that had passed it fragmented again, this time over the degree to which civil liberties could be infringed upon in order to protect the state.
The Tattered Prince rolled his eyes to himself. A little debate was all well and good now and then, buthonestly. . . The rub of it all was that the reactionaries didn't seem to understand that failing to unite now would doom them as surely as anything under the sun. Even leaving aside the perils of rebels and abolitionists and Volantenes . . . He flicked a glance at the eastern wall of his pavilion. That Khal Drogo had been named the Stallion That Mounts the World meant little and less to most magisters; what should they care what titles were heaped on the Butcher of Qohor by his fellow savages? But he had known many Dothraki over the years, even been blood-brother to a khal and been trusted with the safety of his children after he had died of a sickness. He knew the stories around that prophecy well enough to know that it was not to be taken lightly. And even without prophecy, or the rumors about how a plague had been stopped in its tracks, Khal Drogo's rise had been meteoric enough that only a fool would discount him. Sooner or later he would stop bringing the other khals under his banner, and when he did . . .
Well, Norvos wouldn't have a snowball's chance in one of the Andals' Seven Hells. His Windblown were the only force the reactionaries could muster that might stand a chance against a Dothraki khalasar, and even if they could be spared from Norvos' western border he would not willingly accept such a contest. Gods knew that the Lorathi company that the reactionaries had hired didn't have the numbers, the nerve, or the skill to face even a small khalasar, much less that of Khal Drogo. And while Norvos' walls were strong and the fate of Qohor had demonstrated how Khal Drogo rewarded treachery even when it benefited him, treachery would hardly be needed when Norvos was so sharply divided against itself. No, it was time to consider his other options more seriously. Donys Rahtheon, for instance, had already rewarded him with a great deal of money for his part in bringing Norvos into the Valyrian League, and promised him that Volantis would consider him to be Norvos' Captain-General with equal standing and powers to that upstart Naharis in Lys, rather than simply another captain in their armies, whatever the Norvoshi might have to say about the matter. He had even dropped a few hints that when Pentos was retaken and brought back under civilized rule, a certain sellsword could expect to be named its Prince, and to be a Prince in fact as well as name.
The Sealord, by comparison, had made a far more meager offer on the face of it. If he turned his cloak and brought his men and the districts under his charge into the abolitionist fold, then his company would receive a twenty-year contract at market rates, his officers would receive lands and wealth enough to set themselves up as wealthy burghers, the kind that could pay other people to do their work for them, and he himself would be Prince of Pentos. Only as a matter of form, of course, with no actual legal power of command, but with all the ancient and customary privileges of that office, certain commercial concessions, and estates and incomes enough to give him a wealthy and comfortable retirement. He snorted. He had not built his Windblown up from five desperate men, had not risen from a penniless exile to a feared and respected captain, simply to become a glorified prisoner of the Titan. And he was old enough that deflowering virgins had lost most of its appeal; these days he found he preferred women who knew what they were doing and had the spirit to do most of it themselves.
That being said, the Titan was still the safe bet. For all of Rahtheon's promises, his King Viserys had yet to demonstrate that he could defeat even Braavos, much less Robert the Bloody, and it would require a good many dice rolls to come up sevens in order for Rahtheon's promises to come to pass. Of course, on the other hand, Volantis was still the Eldest Daughter of Valyria, mightiest of the Free Cities; if anyone could defeat the abolitionists, it was Viserys, now that he had broken Volantis to his will. But even so . . .
He shook his head.Have done, old man, he told himself. There were many moves yet to be made in the game, and much that was now murky would be made clear in the fullness of time. In the meantime, he would do what he had always done; wait, patiently, for opportunity to present itself with an acceptable minimum of risk, and then strike.
Chapter 120: The League's Own
Chapter Text
Salladhor Saan had always prided himself on the fact that his courage ran cool rather than hot. For one thing, it was far more dignified for a man of his breeding to keep an even keel even in the face of great personal danger, rather than devolving into a ranting, raving beast as other men so often did when the battle-anger took them. For another, fighting at sea required not just valor, but intelligence, and especially for a captain who had to fight not just with his own person, but also with his ship and his crew. Some captains, like Bartoleo the Black and Nickolas Teach, might have the gift of combining fury with intelligence, but that had never been Salladhor's way. Not for him the roared curses of Teach or the sulfurous exhortations of Bartoleo, but the icy calm that let him calculate the effect of wind and wave and oar upon the course of the battle and allowed him to see not just the next blow, but the next four or five blows before they were even thrown.
Which was why the sight of the Myrish squadron shadowing his flotilla two miles off his windward beam produced no greater sign of disquiet than a slight pursing of his lips, for all that what he saw made him feel fear for the first time since he had fled Tyrosh. For one thing, none of the Myrish vessels were longships; all six of them were full-fledged galleys, and two of them were the new heavyweights that the Myrish had developed. One of them he recognized as theTara, while the other one was either theNarrow Runor theSolva. Whichever it was, either of them was a match for anything in the Lyseni fleet, or in the Volantene squadrons that had joined them for that matter, and the middleweights that clustered around them were not to be despised either. And not just for the fact that the Myrish marines had developed a lurid reputation for such a recently formed corps, but for what truly set Salladhor's teeth on edge.
The Myrish were not just sailing in company, but doing so in formation, with the heavyweights abeam of each other in the center and the middleweights arranged in a semicircle before them. The seamanship necessary to keep such a formation was an order of magnitude greater than that required for regular sailing; such a feat was easily as difficult as marching in formation for soldiers on land, with the added difficulty that sudden and errant changes of wind and wave could throw the whole effort into chaos. He couldn't help a feeling of foreboding as he lowered his far-eye. If the Ironborn and the freedmen they had introduced to sea-fighting had learned so much from the Braavosi so quickly, then it boded ill for the future wars. Especially since the lack of longships indicated that either the Ironborn had finally overcome their attachment to their traditional raiding vessels in favor of more powerful warships, or that the freedmen they had trained were now so numerous that their preference for galleys had taken precedence. Oh, he had no doubt that his fleet was still the superior of the Myrish for seamanship and discipline, but that superiority appeared to be diminishing more and more every year. The Myrish fleet would almost certainly never equal even his fleet, much less the Volantene fleet, for size, especially since they had to compete for funds with the Royal Army and the fortifications erected by the Pioneers, but they were not small enough to be easily discounted either, even if the skill and ferocity of the Ironborn and their freedmen proteges in boarding actions were not so proverbial.
And the Myrish would not sail alone either. The Braavosi might never again launch a fleet to equal the Great Armament, but they were unlikely to need to. Why had they funneled so much money into King Robert's treasury, if not to allow the Kingdom of Myr to shoulder the brunt of the wars? And while the fury that had led to the Great Armament had been spent in the Rape of Tyrosh, the Braavosi were a patient people, famous for their persistence and their industry, and they were still bound by the treaty that had been made when King Robert had wed Serina Phassos. If, when, the wars came again, the Myrish fleet would be joined by the Braavosi squadrons based at Martyros and Brivas, and that combination would be strong enough to render a battle of force against force too uncertain to chance. Salladhor had not risen to the heights he now occupied by being unwilling to gamble, but he always weighted the dice as far in his favor as he could before throwing them; as his first captain had taught him, fair fights were for suckers. Accordingly, in the event of war breaking out again, his plan had been to whittle down the Myrish and Braavosi fleets by means of what one of the Volantene captains had sneered at as 'pirate warfare'; using raids to draw single squadrons into positions where they could be isolated and destroyed by overwhelming force, harrying the seaborne commerce of the enemy to force them to dispatch squadrons to convoy their merchant ships, and not seeking a decisive battle until it could be had under conditions of numerical and material superiority.
That plan, however, relied on the Myrish being too rash and undisciplined to avoid the traps he would lay for them and the Braavosi being too few or too lacking in influence for their greater experience to be heeded. If the state of that Myrish squadron was anything to go by, those conditions would be disappointingly rare. And while Victarion had yet to win a victory at sea to equal his feats on Tyrosh isle or at Novadomo, only a fool gambled on the foolishness or incapacity of his opponent. Salladhor turned away from the sight of that almost offensively professional squadron and gave orders for the flotilla to continue on its current course but keep the Myrish under observation in case they made any aggressive maneuvers, his mind already churning. He was going to need a new plan.
XXX
Viserys Targaryen retired to his cabin aboard the river galleyPurebloodas he did every night, with Ser Arthur and Ser Barristan leading the way and his two pages at his heels. He had slaves, of course, but he did not trust them with his personal safety or his comfort. For one thing, his safety was the province of the Kingsguard. For another, trusting slaves more than his sworn bannermen would have been insulting to his bannermen, and the coalition that Uncle Donys and Ser Arthur had built was young enough that it needed all the help it could get to seal the cracks between its component parts. For yet another, he had no intention of repeating the foolishness of the Pentoshi, or the Old Myrish, or any other slaveholding class, by forgetting that he was at war with abolitionists. Even under normal circ*mstances, slavery was a weak reed; under the circ*mstances he found himself in, it could very easily become an active danger. Since he could not dispense with it, minimizing the danger it presented to him would have to suffice. Which was why his cooks, both of them slaves, always worked under armed supervision and tasted the food they made themselves before sending it to his table, among other precautions.
After he had gone through the nightly ritual of changing into his nightclothes, assisted by his pages, while Ser Arthur and Ser Barristan made sure his cabin remained secure, he dismissed both the two knights and the pages. The hour or two before he finally went to bed were the only time of day during this whole voyage up the Rhoyne that he had to himself, with no one intruding on his privacy with some request for something that he usually couldn't grant. That alone was enough to make his chest and shoulders feel lighter even than the removal of his brocaded and embroidered garments of state would account for, but there were other reasons he craved privacy, even if both his wife and his paramour had remained in Volantis.
Crossing to his desk, he opened a drawer and drew out two plain leatherbound volumes that stayed wherever he resided. The first and thinner volume, which he set aside, was a biography of his brother Rhaegar, but it was not the hagiography in all but name that was the official biography of Rhaegar the Exiled. No, this volume contained the whole tale of his brother's deeds, the craven and foolish as well as the valiant and wise. Viserys paused as he laid the volume on the desktop to run his fingers over the cover. When he had commissioned this version of his brother's history, he had given the scholars specific orders to include the full and unvarnished tale of Rhaegar's life, and placed everyone in his entourage who had known Rhaegar, even at most distant remove, under strict obedience to be wholly truthful in their answers to the inquiries of the scholars. Even so, he had eventually been required to question Ser Arthur and Ser Barristan himself, after the scholars had reported their evasions.
Having finally gotten the full truth from them, he could understand their unwillingness. Far from the spotless and romantic knight that he was portrayed as to the world, his brother had been revealed as a fool that quite possibly deserved at least some of the opprobrium that his enemies heaped upon him. The knowledge had been a relief in some ways, if only because it made his own flaws and mistakes seem all the more forgivable by comparison, but there were still days when Viserys was tempted to heap curses of his own on Rhaegar's name for his folly and its consequences.
But he would not read of his brother tonight; tonight was for the future, not the past. He opened the thicker volume at random and read.When Lord Baratheon was made aware of the usages that the Pentoshi made of their slaves,he read, his zeal to do his duty was replaced by a spirit of wrath. In this spirit, he gave orders to his men to redouble the strictness of the punishment they visited upon those who kept their slaves in a state of misery or suffering. The masters of pleasure schools and the houses they supplied especially felt his ire. On no less than four separate occasions Lord Baratheon visited death upon such men with his own hands, while others he threw to their own slaves to be murdered, claiming it justice for the injuries done to them.
Viserys nodded involuntarily. That squared with what he had learned of Robert Baratheon's habits before the Rebellion. A great and not especially choosy lover of women, but never one that could be accused of cruelty, unless it was cruelty by thoughtlessness.
This second volume was to Robert Baratheon what the first volume was to Rhaegar; a complete and unvarnished accounting of his life and deeds, both before and after his coronation in the ruins of Myr city. Ever since he had sailed from Dragonstone to join his brother in exile he had heard about Baratheon's faults; his choler, his crudity, his whor*mongering, and his bloodthirstiness most of all, but also his unchivalrousness in swearing revenge on Rhaegar in defiance of the expressed wish of Lady Lyanna and his foolishness in casting aside the Iron Throne to pursue that unworthy feud. But by the time that he had been forced to flee Myr for Volantis he had known that that was not the whole story of Robert Baratheon. No man who was such an unmitigated collection of sins could have mustered an army to follow him across the seas, beaten Rhaegar in open battle, reduced one of the mightiest dynasties in the world to hunted exiles, or made himself the king of one of the most energetic and puissant states this side of Slaver's Bay. So Viserys had commissioned this volume, and kept it updated on a regular basis, in order to try and discern how it was that Baratheon had transformed himself from a footloose adventurer to a mighty sovereign in such a short span of years.
Slowly but surely, page by page, he had begun to grasp the man behind the legend, the man that Ser Arthur was content to label usurper and madman and leave at that. Robert Baratheon, he had found, was a great warrior, a fine general, a competent administrator, and a mediocre statesman in matters not pertaining to war, but even his faults mattered little, because the one virtue Baratheon had that cast even his greatest faults into shadow was his charisma, the power of spirit that had bound lord and knight and soldier and priest and merchant and farmer alike to him in loyalty. The victories that Baratheon had won had only enhanced that charisma, and the reputation he had already had when he left Westeros, until by now the man and the legend were one and the same. Ser Arthur and Uncle Donys might scoff, but Viserysknewhe was right; who but a legend could cause even the wild Ironborn to swear fealty to him and fight by his side of their own will, as Victarion Greyjoy had done at Novadomo?
This, he was sure, was the greatest problem that would face him in the coming wars. His men were loyal, to be sure, but he had no great deeds to his name, certainly not to compare to the Fall of Myr and the Rape of Tyrosh. How could a man who was still not much more than a boy, as he knew himself to be, compare to a man who was a certified hero in the eyes of his followers, and whose captains were men of legend in their own rights? No, the name Viserys Targaryen would have to become a name to conjure with as well, if he was to ever hope to stand against Baratheon. Hence this voyage up the Rhoyne to parley with another legend.
Khal Drogo, he was sure, was a man who fully deserved his titles. But for all the savage splendor that attached to his name, he was still Dothraki, and so manageable. Uncle Donys had taught him what to do before he left Volantis, but he intended to use only a portion of that teaching, for he was certain that the old formulas by which the Free Cities had played off khal against khal would not work against a man who had set himself to the task of becoming khal of khals. No, a man like Drogo would not be swayed by attempts at bribery or appeals to his vanity any more than Robert Baratheon would be. So Viserys would offer more than mere strings of coins and bales of silks and petty flatteries. He had something of even greater value to offer.
His eyes flicked to the wall that separated his cabin from Visenya's. His niece's innocence and curiosity never failed to touch him. He could listen to her chatter for hours, on subjects ranging from the poetry of the Rhoynar to Lady Greyjoy's manners to the latest scandals among the Old Blood. By now she was as much a lady of the Old Blood as she was a Targaryen princess, and Viserys would have loved nothing more than to make her his wife in the ancient tradition. But he was already married, and even the blood of the dragon could not break the commandment to be faithful to one's spouse with impunity; Rhaegar had proved that, even if one was such a fool as to ignore the example of Maegor. And Robert Baratheon had discarded his paramour for a marriage of state, and prospered thereby. So Visenya would serve another purpose.
Ser Arthur would doubtless be wroth if he ever learned which of these two books he had taken inspiration from, and which warning. But Ser Arthur was a Kingsguard, not the King; a king had to take wisdom from wherever he found it, so long as it served his purpose. And besides, Viserys mused as he closed the book. Baratheon was blood of the dragon himself, diluted as that blood might be. These wars were, at their bottom, really nothing more than a family quarrel. Even if no one else seemed to see it that way.
He placed his books back in their drawer and closed it. There was a time and place for everything, as High Priest Benerro was fond of saying. The time forthatparley was some way off yet, but the time for his meeting with the Stallion That Mounts the World was fast approaching. He would do well to sleep as he could beforehand. Tired kings made for even worse problems than tired soldiers, as Ser Arthur was fond of saying.
XXX
Captain Nakano Sanolis dismounted from his charger, smiling broadly as he handed the reins to his body slave. His company, five hundred light horse recruited from the wealthier burghers of the west bank of Volantis city and the plantations nearest the city, had made a brave sight as they paraded down the main street of Crotona, where they had been met by a throng of cheering citizens and a formal welcome by the town fathers. Combine the rapturous welcome with the clear brightness of the weather and it was a day worth remembering. The only dark spot, oddly enough, had been the Lyseni soldiery, and he hoped to clear that up directly.
It was in that spirit that he walked over to the small knot of Lyseni soldiers, evidently off-duty given the lack of armor but still evidently soldiers judging from the weapons that they wore so casually, that had watched his company debouch from the parade route with the noncommittal stare that had been the common reaction of virtually every Lyseni soldier to his company's appearance. Understandably so, in his opinion; Lys was not even half as powerful as Volantis, but it was still a proud city with its own traditions of glory. Being reduced to begging for aid from a foreign power would weigh on anyone's soul, regardless of any expressions of mutual goodwill. The effort had to be made though, and as the stronger party it fell to him to make the first move, in the interest of graciousness. As he approached, the Lyseni straightened up and lost their distinctly unimpressed expressions, assuming a military posture that Nakano had to admit was at least correct, if not exact. Their bearing aside, they seemed a near-perfect collection of desperadoes; each of them had the roughened face and skin of men who had lived outdoors in all weathers for some time, their eyes flickered about restlessly even as they stood at attention, and they wore an almost alarming array of weapons as casually as burghers might wear eating knives. "Can we help you, captain?" asked the man wearing a sergeant's badge.
"I have a question," Nakano said with a smile; it never hurt to assume a man was friendly until proven otherwise, as his father had taught him. "Why is it that your fellow citizens cheer us but you, whom we have come to save, hold yourselves so aloof?"
The sergeant tipped his head to one side briefly in a soldier's shrug. "Islanders, that lot, sir, or about half of them anyway," he said dismissively. "Not our fellows. Otherwise . . ." This time he did shrug. "Let me ask a question of my own, sir; has your company seen combat? In the River War, maybe?"
"We assisted the Dragon Company in putting down the slave revolt some years ago," Nakano replied. "And we have served on the border with Mantarys since then, as well as on patrols along the Rhoyne." And they had done a damned fine job of it, too, enough so that Triarch Viserys himself had written a letter thanking the company for its services. That letter now had a place of honor on the mantlepiece of the inn that was the company's muster hall.
The sergeant nodded. "You hear that, lads?" he asked his fellows. "Our allies sent us their slave-catchers." There was a wave of muted groans from the other Lyseni.
Nakano drew himself up, trying not to be too offended by these upjumped peasants. Hehadheard the rumors about the state of morale in the Lyseni armies, but this was a bit much. That said, a gentleman didn't allow himself to become flustered easily, and while he was hardly a nobleman his family were still high enough, and held enough Valyrian blood, that they could look the Old Blood in the face. "It is rebellious slaves you face here, is it not?" he asked stiffly. "So we 'slave-catchers' should be perfect for the job."
The sergeant shook his head. "I don't know what you've heard in Volantis, captain," he replied, "but the Iron Legion aren't just rebellious slaves. Some of 'em were already hard bastards when they marched with Robert the Bloody when he took Myr city, and they've gotten harder still since."
"Ashardas they might be," Nakano interrupted smoothly, "my men are harder still. They aresoldiers, not slaves with delusions of grandeur."
"Legion are soldiers too," one of the other Lyseni said darkly. "Even if they are slave bastards. Wait till you see one of their companies coming at you like a millstone, sir, stepping over their dead and just walking through anyone that gets in their way. As for their cavalry . . ." A few of the Lyseni made warding or propitiary gestures against evil, including one who snapped his fingers, rapped the guards of his sword and dagger three times each in rapid succession, and spat into the dust at his feet.
Nakano blinked.A good thing we arrived when we did, he thought to himself. "Well, I am sorry that the enemy have had such an effect on you," he said, trying to imitate his father's most genial manner as he did so. "But I can assure you that you will no longer have cause to worry about the Myrish cavalry at least. Not with my men watching your flanks."
"Make a habit of doing the impossible, do they, sir?" a scruffy-looking man with a crossbow slung over his shoulder drawled. "Those f*cking knights of theirs don't stop unless you put a brick wall in their way, and even then I wouldn't put money on the wall. It ain't just the bastards themselves either; it's the way they come at you like a runaway wagon, knee to knee, like a f*cking battering ram of men and horses and steel. Scares you sh*tless before the first lances hit, so it does, and then theydohit, and it's like the fist of a god hitting you, and then the bastards are all over your ass like you're hiding free wine in it, and then . . ." He shrugged, spitting aside as he did so. "What the knights don't do, the Legion does," he snarled. "Saw it happen at Solva and Iluro, before I came over and joined Lys; I could see that Tyrosh was f*cked. Don't doubt that I'll see it happen again, and too close for comfort, too."
Nakano frowned. Really, this was enough and more than enough. "What is the name of your captain, soldier?" he demanded.
"Jaqys Irroyor," the sergeant said, shooting a significant glance at the scruffy crossbowman, who subsided with evident reluctance. "And meaning no disrespect, but he'll tell you the same things we've told you, sir. He'll just dress it up better, like."
"I will have words with him nonetheless, regarding the defeatism I have heard here today," Nakano snapped. "In the meantime, I will thank you to remain apart from my men. Whatever cowardice you may have been infected with,theyare not afraid of a rabble of slaves and the barbarians who call themselves their masters."
The sergeant looked him in the eyes. "They will be, sir," he said flatly. "Take it as scripture. They will be."
Chapter 121: Fault Lines
Chapter Text
There could not, Viserys knew, be a greater contrast than the one he and his interlocutor presented. They were both lean men with the thick wrists and callused hands of fighting men and sat their horses easily, but there the resemblance ended. Any man with eyes could see the telltale marks of his Targaryen heritage in his fair skin, pale lilac eyes, and silver-blond hair, and while no one would call him a big man he prided himself on the grace and skill with which he had been taught to wield a sword and ride a horse.
Khal Drogo, by contrast, was inches taller than Viserys, even with his bowed horseman's legs, and at least a third again his weight, most of it the slab-like muscle that corded his arms and torso under his copper-hued skin. Where Viserys was clean-shaven and wore his hair cropped above his ears, Drogo's mustachios reached to his chin and his black, bell-festooned braid hung down to the small of his back. Instead of Viserys' practiced poise, his seat was entirely natural, with the unconscious grace of a born horseman descended from uncountable generations of horsem*n. His black eyes, flat as two pieces of jet as he stared at Viserys, gave away nothing as the translators relayed the opening pleasantries, which he listened to for a short time before cutting off the stream of words with a curt gesture of a spade-like hand. "Enough," he rumbled, Viserys' translator-slave relaying his words rapidly as he overcame his surprise. "I know who you are, dragon-blood, and you know who I am. Why did you invite me to this meeting?"
Viserys lifted his chin; a gesture of respect and trust between equals among the Dothraki, he had been told, on account of how it exposed the neck. "I understand," he said calmly, "that you wish to avenge the defeats that the People have suffered at the hands of King Robert of Myr, whom I too am at feud with. We have a common enemy; it behooves us to make common cause against him."
Drogo's reaction as he listened to the translator's words was confined to a single lazy blink. "Have you no swords of your own, that you ask me for aid in this feud of yours?" he asked idly, although Viserys caught the note of contempt that had entered his voice.
Steady, nowhe reminded himself.This is the tricky part."For many years," he began, "I had very few swords, for King Robert had overthrown my father from his throne, chased me and my brother across the Narrow Sea, and hounded us from Myr, so that we arrived in Volantis as hunted men near to poverty. But by skill and strength and the favor of the gods, I now hold Volantis, and so my swords aremany. But so too does King Robert have many swords, and in the Braavosi he has more still. And I have no swords such as those that you command, khal of khals."
Drogo nodded. "This is true," he replied as his translator wound down. "But what is your feud to me? Your father's blood, and your brother's, is yours to avenge; this is the way of men. And I have no need of the swords that you command."
"Do you not?" Viserys inquired, raising an eyebrow as he gestured to the empty shell of walls not a mile distant. "Would you have had the strength to take Qohor, if it's gates had not been opened to you? Are your riders so much greater than those of Khal Zirqo and Khal Pobo, that they might defeat the Iron Legion even in open battle, much less when they have the walls of their towns and cities to hide behind? I am young, but my Kingsguard," he gestured at Ser Arthur and Ser Barristan, sitting behind him like icons of the more martial variety of saint, "are old in war, and they have never seen a city fall to an army of cavalry alone."
Drogo snorted. "Do you think that there are none in Myr who hate King Robert?" he asked. "Or that there are none in Braavos who will grasp at any straw if they think it will save their life? Every camp has a traitor, and every khalasar a coward; it is known."
"Perhaps," Viserys allowed, "but will those traitors and cowards do business with you, after you have demonstrated that you will reward treachery with death, even when it benefits you? Men open city gates because they seek to survive, and even those who would only do so from spite would seek to live long enough to enjoy their revenge. And why, khal of khals, should you be forced to trust to chance? In the Unsullied I have men that can storm any fortress on earth, and in my knights I have men that can fight the Myrish blade-to-blade as even the Dothraki cannot hope to do, on horse or afoot. As for Braavos," he gestured at the river beside them, "even if your khalasar can pierce the mountains that shield Braavos, can your screamers ride through the marshes that surround it, or swim the lagoon in which it sits? Braavos is a city that lives on the poison water that you hate so, and no men in the world are such sea-fighters as the Braavosi. Only in Volantis the great are their rivals to be found."
"If you are so strong, then why do have need of us?" Drogo demanded, dodging the question. "Do you fear this Robert, that you have not ridden against him?"
"No more than I fear any man born of woman," Viserys said, praying that Drogo would not detect the lie; he had learned too much of Robert Baratheon tonotfear him, although of course he could never admit it. "But a cunning warrior does not seek a battle he has not already won. Knights I have, and Unsullied, but what I do not have in sufficient numbers is cavalry like the Dothraki, to ride lightly and swiftly before my armies and strike like the lightning against the enemy's scouts, that I might blind Robert even as I learn all that may be learned of where his army is and where it seeks to go." He spread his hands, dropping his reins as he did so. "You have a problem; how to take Myr and Pentos and Braavos without relying on the treachery or cowardice of your enemies, and with a minimum of casualties among your riders. I have a problem; how to acquire the use of a large number of cavalry that I can use to blind my enemies while being my eyes and ears upon their movements. As my uncle is fond of saying: When men who can solve each other's problems meet, deals are made."
Drogo leaned back in his saddle with the unconscious ease of a born horseman, his gaze gone from inscrutable to plainly considering. "There is truth in what you say," he admitted. "But what do you have that I want or need and that you can give me? I am khal of khals, and wherever there is grass for horses I will have dominion. Will you give me the lands along the great river, where the grass grows so long?"
Viserys waved a hand. "These are matters for other men to speak of," he said. "Men of business, not khals and kings." The first phrase he said in Dothraki, earning him a surprised blink from Drogo; he fought back a grin at the sight. It had taken much practice to get the inflection right. Dothraki was not a subtle language, except for the tone in which the words were spoken. The tone in which he had saidmen of business, for instance, was the same tone used forvulture.Ormaggot. "But there is one thing you need and want that I can offer you." He snapped his fingers out to the side, causing Visenya to walk up beside him and lower the hood of her cloak. "I had heard that you had yet to take a wife," he said as Drogo's eyes snapped to Visenya's face. "This is Visenya, my brother's daughter, the last woman of House Targaryen. He who weds her will be as a brother to me, and share in all my good fortunes."
Drogo stared, holding Visenya's uncertain but brave gaze with his for an unbearably long moment, before turning back to Viserys. "She is young," he said. "Too young to bear children and live."
"She has bled," Viserys replied. "In two years, or three, perhaps, she will be ready to be wedded and bedded. Join me in defeating Robert of Myr, and bringing him and his under our swords, and she is yours."
Drogo's horse tossed its head, snorting with shocking loudness as Drogo held his gaze. "Share my fire tonight, and drink airag with me," he said finally. "We will speak further of this, and more besides." He turned his horse with his legs and he cantered back to the sprawling tents of his khalasar, his bloodriders close behind.
Viserys sighed in relief as he turned his own horse, gesturing for Visenya to walk by his side. He was through the door, at least. The hard part would be staying there. Fortunately, he had discovered that he could at least stomach the taste of airag on the voyage north, and it was a weaker beverage than wine or ale; he did not need to fear becoming drunk.
XXX
Robert Baratheon sipped at his cup of wakebean tea, pursing his lips involuntarily at the bitterness, then leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach. "You are resolved on this matter, then?" he asked, feeling the weight of defeat settle on him.
"I am," Chonda Zham replied, regal as a queen. "As long as Your Grace persists on this . . . inadvisable quest, I can see no benefit to Koj in a formal alliance, and I will advise my Prince accordingly. We will not forbid unattached warriors or free captains from taking service with your armies and your fleet and we will speak further on matters of trade, but an alliance that binds our spears and sails to yours . . ." She shook her head. "Your Grace knows our conditions for that already, and there is nothing to be gained by reiterating them."
"Indeed," Robert replied. "In that case, I will bid you good day, my lady."
Chonda rose and inclined her head elegantly. "Good day to you, Your Grace," she said. "But before I leave, I have a question." She indicated the statue that was the centerpiece of the garden that dominated the inner courtyard of the Palace of Justice with a flick of her chin. "How is it that, in all of Myr city, there is not a single statue of a statesman or a philosopher or a poet? Why is it only soldiers that are considered worthy enough of honor to be immortalized in stone?"
Robert glanced at the statue in question, which depicted the Warrior in the guise of a legionary, his spear poised to deliver the death-blow to the magister pinned under his booted foot. "Because all the statesmen and philosophers and poets in the world could not free even a single slave against their master's will or preserve their freedom against those who would re-enslave them," he replied, letting a grim note enter his voice. "Thatcould only have been done by soldiers."
Chonda nodded, her face grave. "Yet is it not the philosophers and poets that make a life of freedom worth living?" she asked. "And the statesmen that make it possible for freedom to exist without the need for soldiers?"
"It is," Robert allowed, "although I will say that I have never read or heard of a time where men lived free of war; even Valyria at the height of it's power was forced to maintain an army. But, and this, my lady, I know to be absolutely true, is that if you put all the poetry and philosophy in the world in one pan of a set of scales and place a spear in the other, it is the spear, even if it has only a shaft of cane and a head of bone, that will tip the balance."
Chonda smiled ruefully. "And so we return to the beginning of our argument," she said. "Which is really the same argument that statesmen and soldiers have been having from time immemorial. Good day, Your Grace." She bowed again and withdrew, the two Kojite warriors who had been waiting for her at the edge of the garden falling in on either side of her as she walked back into the halls of the Palace of Justice.
Robert blew his cheeks out in a frustrated sigh as he stood, hooking his thumbs into his belt. It would be a few days yet before wind and tide and diplomatic courtesy would allow for Chonda's departure, but there really would be little point in either Gerion or Serina trying a last-ditch effort to sway her, for all that Koj's fleet of almost a hundred swan-ships and thousands of warriors would have been an invaluable contribution in any future war. Her conditions had been as immovable as they were impossible; one last war against Lys in order to conquer their mainland possessions, and from thence the creation of a 'true and eternal peace', in which Lys would abolish slavery in return for Myr's protection against Volantis and Braavos alike. After which he would have had to forgo any further wars of conquest, contenting himself with maintaining and strengthening a kingdom that incorporated Myr's historical domains and the Disputed Lands. This, Chonda had allowed, would require that Robert forswear the vow he had made at his wedding feast, but it would lay the foundations for a kingdom that would last more than a few lifetimes, a kingdom that would be based on law, tradition, and institutions rather than mere passion and loyalty to a scant handful of mortal men. Whereas if he tried to fulfill that vow, she foresaw that Myr would collapse by the time his grandson took the throne, brought down by the burgeoning fault lines between classes and creeds, by bureaucratic inertia as the kingdom grew too large for its hero-king to manage effectively, and by eternally increasing debt as the endless wars drained the treasury and placed the kingdom ever more in hock to the Braavosi and other bankers.
Robert shook his head irritably as he strode away from the table and walked the paths of the garden. What Chonda foresaw was entirely possible; indeed it was one of the more common visions that kept him awake at night. But the antidote she offered was worse than the disease. The kingdomwasthe cause and the causewasthe kingdom, that had been so since he had sworn his coronation oath, if not since Tara. The one could not be uncoupled from the other without destroying both. Even if the nobility were willing to rest on past laurels and put down roots like turnips, the Legion would not be. And down that road even a man as brave as he could not walk. Not if he wished to be able to explain himself to the Father with a clear conscience when he died.
And if he was wholly honest with himself, he was willing to accept the possibility that his dynasty would not last more than a handful of generations if it meant that his oath was fulfilled. Freedom, he had heard Thoros preach, was not meant to be confined to one place and time any more than love was; freedom was meant to roll over the earth from horizon to horizon, subject only to the reasonable restrictions of social peace and tranquility. Robert glanced at the statue of the Warrior-as-legionary again and nodded. A Myr that rested on its past victories and forswore the marching songs of the Legion for the silence of the border castle would stagnate, and eventually become something that was unworthy of the bright days after the city was taken when all things seemed possible. On the other hand, a Myr that broke every yoke and struck off every shackle west of the Jade Gates, even if it died of the wounds suffered on that long march, would be a Myr that was worthy of its promise. As the old Valyrian poet had put in the mouth of a Rhoynish prince faced with certain defeat,Let me not then die inglorious, but let me first do some great thing that shall be remembered among men hereafter.
Robert clenched a fist. Men would remember the Kingdom of Myr for as long as men loved freedom and honor and courage. By all the gods, he would make sure ofthat.
XXX
Meanwhile, in Westeros
The following is an excerpt fromFlash Among the Snows
I hadn't particularly wanted to go to the North, of course; no one does unless they have to. Oh, the land has a certain rustic attraction to it and the people aren't without their charms either once you get used to them. Win a Northman's loyalty and he's your man through ice and fire, even more than an Ironborn, and gods witness that one of the most energetically satisfying tumbles I've ever had was with a woman of the Mormonts. But the people are shaped by the land; the reason the Northmen place such stock on loyalty is that the North is no place to go it alone. It snowsin summer, up there, and if you lose the road it's terrifyingly easy to get completely lost and never be seen alive again by mortal eyes. Combine that with the fact that it can be bloody difficult to get a Northman to like you, much less swear himself to you, and you can see why the North is not a popular destination for travelers outside of White Harbor, and that less so since Jonothor's heresy started taking root there. Not openly, of course, that would never have done, but Lord Manderly's stubbornness about the rights of his subjects to worship as they pleased so long as they behaved themselves and his flat refusal to allow the High Septon to send a committee of inquisition had raised more than a few eyebrows south of the Neck.
That said, going North was preferable to staying at Court, even with my reputation. Between Cersei and Edmure and their crowd on the one hand and Renly and his bunch on the other, King's Landing was getting too hot for me to stand, even with His Nibs doing everything he could to keep a lid on the pot. Of course, I'm a Baelorite, I've never had any truck with heretics, but I don't feel the need to shoveThe Seven-Pointed Stardown anyone's throat either. For my money, there's just no percentage in forcing someone to prove that they're as Faithful as the High Septon; just asking the question is liable to get people's backs up, and that's before you start quizzing them on the finer points of doctrine or canon law. And while you might think that my reputation would be enough to get people to leave me alone, you would be wrong. See, having a reputation like mine makes people want to have you on their side, especially if it looks like there might be sword-work in the offing. And when your reputation includes a spell in the service of the High Septon himself, even if only at second or third remove, that raises the pressure even more. To make matters worse, that part of my reputation made Renly's crowd leery of me, and my service in Gulltown made them leerier still. Entirely unnecessarily, I might point out, but I knew better than to offer any protestations. The Old Faithers in Gulltown had believed me when I said I was on their side, and look how well that went for them.
And of course the Mastiff had come to Court, to complete my discomfiture. Not that I ever had any feud or friendship with Ser Sandor Clegane, but the devilish thing about reputation is that it doesn't care about your inclinations. Put two men with reputations like mine and the Mastiff's in close proximity and the pressure for them to fight can become overwhelming, if only to see who comes out as top dog. Thankfully, Ser Sandor couldn't have cared less; he was there to knock the Queen's Men into some semblance of order, not fight duels with knights he hardly knew from Hugor, and he went about it with a vigor that made it clear even to the blind that he was Lord Tywin's dog and no one else's. Unfortunately, even his best efforts didn't help matters much. If anything, the thrashings he gave the Queen's Men simply made them a harder and sneakier crowd than they would have been otherwise. And the last thing that lot needed was for someone to show them how to properly beat the daylights out of someone.
So when His Nibs made it known that he wanted someone to go north and carry messages to Lord Stark, including the latest iteration of the legal instrument for the repossession of the New Gift and the compensation of the Night's Watch, I volunteered for it as being the only way to leave Court without having to make awkward excuses. See, the downside of being summoned to Court is that you can't leave at your leisure without unpleasant consequences. Generally speaking, you don't get permission to leave Court unless you're needed on your lands or there's some pressing business that one of the royals wants to send you on, and leaving without permission makes it look like you're running from something or someone. Many a good name has been ruined by a sudden departure from Court without official leave, or with official leave granted and acted upon with unseemly haste. And the best part about the job His Nibs was giving me was that while one part of it could have been done by any clerk, the other was delicate enough that only someone like me could be trusted with it.
See, there had been no Northmen at Court since Queen Cersei's rather harebrained attempt to convert Domeric Bolton had blown up in everyone's face. His Nibs, probably thinking that the presence of a third and, as far as questions of Faith were concerned, neutral faction at Court would help to calm things down, had composed a missive to Lord Stark asking him to name a special representative, essentially a councilor-without-portfolio, with such assistants and subordinates as Lord Stark should be pleased to name, to advise the small council and the Iron Throne on such matters as His Nibs would deem fit and proper. It was, in essence, a blank warrant with which Lord Stark could appoint what amounted to an embassy, which was enough to put my teeth on edge when it was spelled out to me and I had time to think about it. Mark you, no one knew then just how close the pyre was to being lit off, but even the biggest dunce could tell that something was just waiting for a spark to send it up in flames. The Northmen might care very little for the Faith, or for anything or anyone south of the Neck in general, but they have a famous name as men of war, and as men who held true to their oaths. If something did happen, then a body of such men who were neutral on the question of heresy within the Faith would have been just the thing with which to keep the peace at Court. Even the most flagrant hotspur tends to calm down when he finds a bearded Northman, veteran of gods know how many scrapes and set-tos and with the scars to prove it, looking at him as if he were a wildling in need of seeing to.
Well, the gods know I did my best, but in the end my efforts were in vain. Oh, Lord Stark was polite enough about it in public, and even in private, but his refusal was no less definite for all that. "With respect, Ser Harry," he told me as we took the air in the godswood, with him stumping along next to me on his canes, "but if I were to accept His Grace's offer, then the man I would send would be Roose Bolton. It wasn't just to keep him out of the North and let me get my feet under me that he was named Master of Laws; of all the lords in the North, he's the one best suited to King's Landing. But if I asked him now, he would refuse, on the grounds that his oath to me does not cover deliberately putting his neck on the block. And mark you, ser, whenRoose Boltonis not willing to take his chances . . ." he spread a hand illustratively as he balanced on his other cane. And the devil of it was, I couldn't help but agree with him. Of all the Northern Houses, the Bolton's have the greatest reputation for guile and deviousness, to say nothing of duplicity and outright treachery, and Roose not only had a full measure of the quality that had forged that reputation, but an icy will and a cold-blooded courage that even his detractors couldn't argue with. He was, in short, the best man available to represent the North in King's Landing. If even he thought that going to Court was too risky for a Northman, then good luck finding any other loon that would be willing to do it. "And besides," Lord Stark went on, his eyes turning hard, "we have other matters to concern ourselves with than King's Landing."
He gestured at the brand on his forehead and I understood immediately. See, by then word had reached even the North that Viserys Targaryen had become King of Volantis in all but title, and the reaction among the Kingdoms that had risen against them had been immediate. Viserys Targaryen the Exile Prince was of little account outside of wherever he took his company. Viserys, the First of his Name, King of Volantis, was a different matter entirely. Men had started voyaging to Myr in numbers not seen since Tyrosh had fallen, even with all the laws discouraging them from doing so, on the grounds that the business had to be settled once and for all. It certainly helped that the High Septon had declared Viserys, Ser Arthur Dayne, Ser Barristan Selmy, and the other Seven-worshippers in his service to be excommunicated, in public, on the steps of the Great Sept, and with the full rigmarole of bell, book, and candle, no less. Even I was impressed, and religion doesn't impress me easily. Nowhere, however, was the outcry more fervent than the North; it had been the kidnap of a woman of the Stark's that had started the whole affair, after all, and Stark is a name to conjure with in the North. When I sailed into White Harbor on my way to Winterfell, I had seen no less than five round ships that I had been told were loaded to the gunwales with men sailing to join Lord Eddard in Myr. The Iron Wolf, it seemed, was howling at the scent of his old prey, and his brother the Quiet Wolf had joined in the hunt-song. Lord Brandon couldn't go himself, of course, what with his knees and all, but virtually every footloose sword and spear in the North was sailing for Myr with his blessing and his exhortation to take a piece out of the dragon's hide, for the honor of the North and the memory of Lyanna the Fair and Rickard the Just. My second sennight in Winterfell, no less a personage in the North than Jorah Mormont, heir of Bear Island, visited Winterfell with three hundred Bear Islanders and clansmen from the mountain glens, all of them seething for Targaryen blood. If the Northmen are a wild and woolly crowd, the mountain clans and the Bear Islanders are the wildest and woolliest of them all, and what they lack in close-order discipline they make up for in ferocity, or try to at any rate. Like wildlings that way, although it can be more than your life's worth to say that where they can hear you.
Anyway, after that event I could no longer stall convincingly. I had ample proof that Lord Brandon meant it when he said that the North had no men to spare, even for the King, his maesters had finished poking holes in Stannis' offer for the New Gift and drafted their reply, and His Nibs was never one to tolerate idleness in his servants. Especially when they were carrying something that had been dragging on for most of a decade already and that he wanted to finish off. So I decided to follow the Kingsroad back to King's Landing, in the hopes that I could spin out my trip a little longer still and let events eventuate at Court without me. In hindsight, I should have known better than to think that a land as old as the North could be boring, but then, I was always prone to sudden attacks of dimness at inconvenient moments . . .
XXX
Ser Cortnay Penrose was not a man to second guess himself. Admittedly, that was probably due to the good fortune he had enjoyed as a result of the choices he had made thus far. He could very easily have remained a knight of little wealth and only moderate reputation, had he not accepted old Lord Steffon's offer of a place in the garrison of Storm's End. He might have died in action at Tara or Narrow Run or Novadomo, or been wounded and reduced to a cripple living on charity, if he had followed Robert overseas, but instead he had tied his fortunes to Stannis and now he was one of the leading men and foremost knights in the Seven Kingdoms, which meant that he was a contender for the title of first knight in the known world. And while Stannis had made his share of missteps and poor judgements, he had never given Cortnay cause to doubt his worthiness, his courage, or his hard-earned wisdom.
The first two remained unquestioned, of course. The third, on the other hand, Cortnay found himself doubting more and more every time he considered the most recent newcomer to Court, who was now standing at rigid attention before Stannis' desk.
Not that there was anythingwrongwith Brienne of Tarth coming to Court, quite the opposite in fact. Her father was one of Stannis' most loyal supporters, and a man that the Iron Throne owed a debt for his steadiness and vigilance in the uncertain new world that had emerged in the southern Narrow Sea. And even if Lord Tarth hadn't been such a worthy bannerman, Brienne would have been entitled to come to Court simply by virtue of her station and her House's long and warm relationship with House Baratheon.
Cortnay repressed a sigh as he regarded Brienne. No, there was really nothing wrong with her coming to Court, except . . . well, except the fact that the Maiden had evidently been busy elsewhere when Brienne's mother had prayed that her daughter might be a beauty. She was taller and more muscular than any girl and even many boys her age, and she was broad-shouldered and flat-chested enough that she could pass for a boy without much difficulty. Her shoulder-length straw-colored hair gave the impression that her head had suffered the attentions of a drunken thatcher, and not even a man in love would call her beautiful or even pretty with her broad features, wide mouth, and kinked nose, all under a heavy dusting of freckles. Only her deep blue eyes might be justly called beautiful, and they alone could not make up for the body they were housed in. Cortnay grimaced behind the blandly attentive mask of an Order Knight on duty. Even if Brienne wore the finest dresses ever made instead of the hose, shirt, doublet, and brimless cap of a page, this Court would eat her alive and laugh over the remains. And it was up to him to try and prevent that.
"Be welcome at our Court, Lady Brienne," Stannis said calmly, gesturing for her to stand at ease. "We trust your journey was not difficult?"
"Not worth mentioning, Your Grace," Brienne replied, flushing slightly at the involuntary crack in her voice. Cortnay couldn't help a wince;that,on top of everything. And judging by the size of her hands and feet and ears, she had a good deal of growing yet to do.
"Splendid," Stannis said, leaning back in his chair. "We trust your father told you why you have been sent here?"
"To serve Your Grace as a squire, and to attend upon Princess Joanna," Brienne said, avoiding the crack this time. Cortnay nodded to himself. The fact that she had recovered quickly was a good sign at least.
"Essentially correct," Stannis answered. "As you have chosen a martial path in spite of your gender, and as you have served your father well as a page, you will serve as a squire to Lord Commander Penrose here alongside young Greyjoy. Accordingly, we are obliged to remind you that you are to show Ser Cortnay and Squire Greyjoy the respect they are due as your seniors without regard to your station as heir of House Tarth, and that your duties must be executed as flawlessly as you may. It is the way of knighthood that a man must learn to follow orders before he can give them and that more is expected of a page or a squire than of a common servant, as they are due to receive more in the fullness of time. As to the other part of your duties . . ." the corner of Stannis's mouth quirked in what Cortnay knew was an involuntary tic. "Princess Joanna has been aware of the arrangement between us and your father that you will serve as her sworn sword when the time comes, and is quite enchanted with the notion of having a lady of the blade, as she terms it, in her court. Do not, I charge you, be taken in by her charms and her flattery; there is little malice in my daughter, but she is used to getting her way, even if she must force it to the detriment of others. No less a personage than Lord Lannister has found himself bending to her will on occasion, and we are sure that you are aware of his reputation. When the time comes for you to be her sworn sword in truth, it will fall to you not merely to protect her from others, but also from her own willfulness, as the other ladies of her entourage will not be able to. Saying no to your liege-lord is no easy thing, as Ser Cortnay will tell you, and even less so when said liege-lord is skilled in cajolery."
"With all respect, Your Grace," Brienne said, a stoic expression coming over her face, "if I were prone to flattery or to cajolery, I would not be here."
Stannis nodded. "Just so," he said with a hint of approval. "Nonetheless, I will not hide from you that this is a difficult path that lies before your feet, Squire Brienne, and while I shall ensure that your rights as my bannerwoman and as a member of my court are respected, I will not conceal from you that there may be circ*mstances in which my support may be proscribed, if not outright prevented. Your being here, even the fact of who and what you are, will cause offense to some and consternation to many, and you would be wise to not make more enemies than you must. Only a fool accepts a battle he cannot win, and refusing to admit that you are outmatched is not courage but a compounding of folly. That said," he rose, making Brienne snap back to attention, "to those who endure much and triumph, much is due in reward." Stannis made his way to a cabinet that stood in the corner between the great map of the Seven Kingdoms on one wall and the heavily-laden bookcase on the other and opened it to reveal an array of swords. Choosing a sheathed longsword, he carried it back to the desk, drew it, and laid it before him. "I trust that you have heard of the new sunset steel?"
Brienne nodded. "A new steel, developed by the Qohori exiles that have settled in King's Landing and Duskendale. My lord father's blacksmith says that only Valyrian steel compares."
Stannis returned nod for nod. "After the destruction of Qohor by Khal Drogo, those Qohori that lived outside the city found themselves cast adrift in the world. Some chose to settle on the Darkwash among the Norvoshi rebels, but many more chose to emigrate here, and brought the secrets of their forge-craft with them. Those pieces of Valyrian steel they possessed they forged into a new blade and presented it to me, as repayment for allowing them to settle here, but the secret of creating Valyrian steel anew was lost with Valyria; even the Qohori master smiths could only reforge it, and it grows rarer by the year as pieces are lost by varying means. This sunset steel that they have devised, however, theycanmake anew, and while it falls short of Valyrian steel it does not do so by much."
Cortnay flicked a glance at where Lightning rested on its stand. There had not been much in the way of special ceremony when the Qohori exiles had presented the longsword, but the fact that for the first time since Dark Sister disappeared with Bloodraven the King on the Iron Throne wielded a Valyrian steel sword had caused a stir. And Stannis, he knew, relished the fact that he alone among the Baratheon brothers possessed such a token of wealth and power; even Robert had not acquired a Valyrian steel weapon, for all his conquests. The fact that it had been presented as a gift from grateful subjects, rather than merely taken as spoils of war, Stannis found especially gratifying.
"The means and methods by which sunset steel may be forged are a royal secret, and only those who stand high in the Throne's service and esteem may bear it," Stannis went on, fixing Brienne with a piercing look. "Your father has always been one of my most loyal and most effective bannermen, Lady Brienne. Prove your worth as a squire and as a knight, and serve me and my daughter well, and this sword will be yours, along with my blessing as your father's heir. In addition, I will do my utmost to find a proper and worthy match for you when you come of age; your father has written me that your previous suitors have proven lacking or unacceptable."
Brienne's face visibly worked as she bowed; it was entirely possible, Cortnay reflected, that outside of her father no one had given her such a vote of confidence. And while as her father's eldest living child, she was certainly her father's heir presumptive, that was still well short of being recognized by the Iron Throne as her father's heir apparent. Such an endorsem*nt was no small thing for any heir, but it was exponentially more important for one so,unconventional,as Brienne. "I will not fail you, Your Grace, or Princess Joanna," she said thickly.
"I trust that you will not," Stannis replied, returning the sword to its sheath. "But first you must not disappoint Ser Cortnay, and so I will leave you two to become better acquainted."
Cortnay bowed, as did Brienne, and after he handed the duty of guarding the King off to Ser Jacen Landser he led Brienne through the halls of the Red Keep to White Sword Tower, already pondering how he was going to pick his way through this forest.
XXX
In Ser Edmure Tully's opinion, none of King Stannis' deeds was more worthy of praise than the founding of the Joanna Gardens. Esteem for the dragons had been higher in the Riverlands than elsewhere, thanks to Aegon's destruction of Harren the Black and the subsequent liberation of the Trident from the domination of the Ironborn, but the Dragonpit had been a visible reminder of the decay of the Targaryen dynasty from its old glories; he had only seen it at a distance the few times he accompanied Father to Court before the Rebellion, but it had had a notorious name as a haunt of beggars, thieves, and young nobles looking for more dangerous thrills than they could find on the Street of Silk.
The Joanna Gardens, by contrast, were an even greater statement of power than the Dragonpit at its height. In a city where space was at a premium, the fact that the Iron Throne had reserved the top of Rhaenys' Hill, almost a full hectare, solely for the recreation of the dynasty and its favorites was a subtly powerful statement of wealth. Walls of grey stone ten feet high surrounding the gardens and the four gates manned by specially picked goldcloaks under the command of either Order knights or knights of Stannis's personal retinue not only reinforced the statement of wealth, but added one of power; not only did the dynasty have sufficient wealth to create a playground for itself and its favored vassals, but it disposed of enough soldiers to station no small amount of strength to guard it against those unworthy of entry. Although, Edmure knew, there were practical reasons for such a guard to be placed. Much of the produce that the Throne donated to the Great Sept as charity was grown in the portion of the Gardens that was set aside for vegetables and fruit trees, which were a powerful lure to beggars and the starving. And the fact that so many of the great and wealthy patronized the Gardens made it the sort of prize the city's thieves lusted after like wolves lusted after fat and slow deer.
Not that there had been many such incidents, not after the first crew of rogues to try it had been apprehended and hanged from the Gardens' gatehouses. And Edmure himself had no fear of such, even though he was walking beside possibly the richest such prize in the Seven Kingdoms. He was wearing half-armor and wearing his longsword and dagger, as was his right as a high officer of the goldcloaks, and Queen Cersei had eight Stormguard knights trailing her by a dozen paces, as far as they could go from her side without a direct command from the King himself.
"I believe you received news of your father this morning," Cersei said to him, her tone letting him know that they were done with petty conversation; his eyes flicked about in sudden wariness, but aside from the Stormguards they were alone. The sun was setting rapidly, and few would dare to risk disturbing the Queen's recreation. It was known that she treasured the hours she was able to spend in the Gardens, and her wrath at being interrupted could be legendary. "How does he fare?"
"The maesters say he will rule for a time yet," Edmure replied, smothering the grief that threatened to come roaring back into his heart, "but they say that it is no longer a question of if his disease will kill him but when; it has progressed too far." He buried grief under anger. He knew that the first fruits of fault for Lysa's death lay with Jaime Lannister, but he was not blind to his father's part in the tragedy. Catelyn had told him some of what she knew of the rift between their father and their sister, when he had written to her in blind rage and black grief demanding answers, and Uncle Brynden had told him the rest when his letters had confronted him with what Catelyn had divulged. TheSeven-Pointed Startaught that no man was immune to folly, but those who did not admit their errors were truly deserving of the gods' despite and the scorn of men. His father's pride had killed Lysa, and his foolishness had led him to side with heretics against his own son; some things even a dutiful son could not forgive.
The Queen's hand on his arm stilled his thoughts. "Think not too harshly of your father, ser," she chided him. "He committed many sins, yes, but he had moments of virtue as well. He will answer to the gods for the first, but for raising you to be the man and the knight you are, I think he will spend only a short while in purgatory. Thus do the gods make use of even sinful men to advance their ends here on earth."
Edmure nodded. "That much is true, Your Grace," he admitted. "But even so, and may the gods forgive me, but I could almost wish that my father would die sooner. I can read the reports as well as any man; the heretics are gaining strength with each passing moon. The bandit gangs in the Riverlands almost all claim to follow Jonothor's teachings, as do those in the Reach. The Rymanists have resurfaced not just in Braavos but in Martyros as well, founding septs in defiance of the Faith. And this so-called Old Faith has reared its head not just in the Vale, but even in the Riverlands; Lord Mooton has sent word that their preachers have been seen and heard in Maidenpool, in spite of all his efforts to suppress them." He shook his head. "I fear that my father's vacillations are merely allowing this plague to take root and strengthen, when it would be mere child's play to tear it out now while it is still weak."
"Patience, Ser Edmure," Cersei replied soothingly, and softly enough that the Stormguards behind them could not overhear. "Time works in our favor as much as it does the heretics. Faithful men and women all over Westeros are being forced to watch scripture be profaned before their very eyes and do nothing. When the true nature of the heretics reveals itself, they will find that a great store of wrath has been built up for them, and when the folly of those who would tolerate heresy is forced to give way to wisdom . . ." She smiled the smile of a hungry vixen. "Then, Ser Edmure, we shall light a fire that will truly forge the Seven Kingdoms into One."
Edmure matched her smile for smile; he knew enough of her plan to know what place was reserved for him within it. The army of the Faith would need a general, after all, one that combined prowess with the fervor of a true champion of the Faith. And once the war was done and the cleansing over, who would dare deny that the man who had ensured the Faith's victory deserved torulethe Riverlands, rather than merely reign over them as too many Tully's had been forced to do? Let him have even a year to rule the Riverlands as Lord Tywin did the Westerlands, and he would give it unity, glory, security, and peace such as it had not known since the Justmans. Let his bannermen waste the lives of their subjects in their pointless pissing contests, or place them in fear of their souls by courting heresy, when he had had time to implement a few ideas he had picked up from his time among the goldcloaks. "And we are already making progress, Your Grace," he murmured back. "Ser Denys has written me from the Vale that he believes Lord Arryn will not be far behind my father; he has been forced to hold his court at the Gates of the Moon all year, as the air in the Eyrie is too thin for his old lungs. And while Denys has been denied too many posts, he is not without friends, friends who see that a lord who cannot ascend his own seat is not a lord to lead them in times of such danger as these. Even Ser Gerold's exile to fight the mountain clans has proved unexpectedly fruitful; the knights of the Vale find more to admire in a man who fights for land and Faith than in a man who has spent too long in a council chamber."
"And young Arianne shows no small degree of promise as well," Cersei said, answering Edmure's questioning look with an enigmatic smile. The newly acceded Princess of Dorne had only recently left the city after pledging her fealty to King Stannis and receiving Stannis' affirmation of her inheritance and accession amid great ceremony, but he had been unaware that the Queen had managed to draw her into her plans for the restoration of the Faith to its true place in the Kingdoms. He supposed it was possible that Arianne should be a true partisan of the Faith, but Dorne's support had always been a chancy thing to bet on. Even more so now, when so much of Dorne was truly ruled by the Knights of the Sun, who for their part were carrying on as if nothing had changed. "Combine that with the accession of two truly Faithful lords to Riverrun and the Eyrie and even the King will not be able to ignore us. Not when Lord Tyrell and my father add their voices."
Edmure glanced at her sharply. He knew nothing of the Queen's efforts to suborn the Reach, but he supposed that even Mace the Merciful could not tolerate heresy after the Upper Mander Rebellion. But if Tywin had been convinced . . . "Your lord father has joined us, Your Grace?"
"He will if he wants the Westerlands to pass to a true scion of House Lannister," she replied, stroking her gently swollen belly. "Even if the Imp sires a trueborn son, the lords of the West will not suffer themselves to be ruled by the spawn of a dwarf who cares more for papers than for swords. I am the only true cub of the Lion of Lannister; they will accept my second son as their lord with open arms." Cersei's smile widened. "Everything is proceeding according to plan," she said softly, before a glimmer of annoyance flickered across her face. "Everything, that is, except for my son's court."
Edmure grimaced. "What would Your Grace have me do?" he replied. "I have made many attempts to install pages and squires of greater suitability into your son's good graces, but none of them have managed to lodge themselves there. I fear that the prince's store of friendship is already fully invested in one of his agemates, and that is Theon Greyjoy."
"My son does not wish to be friends with a landless traitor, and a pagan at that, any more than my daughter wishes to be friends with a mannish freak," Cersei snapped, her voice never rising above a murmur but still sharp enough to make Edmure shiver. "That is my husband's doing, and proof of his folly, if only more would see it."
Edmure bowed in his stride. "As you say, Your Grace," he said, concealing his doubts. Princess Joanna might have the flexibility of a true courtier, but he doubted that Prince Lyonel could fake friendship any more than his father could. Unless young Greyjoy proved as great a traitor ashisfather, it was unlikely that anything short of death would separate them. Andthathe would not contemplate, even at the Queen's behest. He was no Gregor Clegane, to murder a child.
"Has there been any progress made in the matter of the widow and her goodbrother?" Cersei asked, changing the subject.
Edmure stiffened; even with the Stormguard out of earshot, this wasnotthe place to bring up that subject, even in code. "Inquiries are proceeding apace," he replied, "and what little I have already learned is enough to cause me to warn Your Grace to be most cautious on that front. Once the bottle is uncorked, what comes out will not be contained without bloodshed."
"Courage, ser; if we are to restore the Faith then we must tear out this corruption root and branch, without hesitation or misguided mercy," Cersei said. "Continue your inquiries and plumb this depth to its bottom. Then when the time comes to strike . . ." she reached out and tore a rose from its stem with a single grab—and—twist of startling violence, heedless of the thorn that pricked her hand. "Just so."
Edmure bowed. "It shall be done, Your Grace," he vowed, rising as Cersei made a gesture of dismissal. She would retire soon, for care of the child growing within her, and he had to return to his barracks and prepare for the next day's duties, both mundane and otherwise. There was much that had been made right about King's Landing, and the Seven Kingdoms as a whole, since the Targaryen's had been overthrown, but much yet remained if Prince Lyonel was to inherit the Kingdom he deserved.
Chapter 122: Accounts Payable
Chapter Text
Willet Longsword had to fight against long-ingrained instinct to stop himself from drawing his sword when the figure stepped out from the alleyway to bar his way. Two things stayed his hand; first, that the figure's hands were held out and were clearly empty. Second, that he recognized him. "Lieutenant," he said roughly, taking his hand from the hilt of his sword. "What brings you out at this hour?"
"You, and that letter you left on Master Baelish's desk," Adaran Phassos replied, lowering the hood of his cloak and regarding the hillman where he stood in the pool of light cast by a torch bracketed to the side of the building next to them. "Trouble in your homeland, is there?"
Willet nodded. "The Andals ride into the hills in ever greater numbers, my father has written to me," he admitted. "They even ride into the true mountains; a thing they have not done since my grandfather's time. The clans need every sword that they can gather."
"I see," Adaran said slowly. "Willet, you have been a good comrade and a good soldier, even if our cause was not yours. Will you be willing to swear an oath before you and Hokkan sail?"
Willet co*cked his head. "What kind of oath?" he asked hesitantly.
"That you will make no war against Stannis Baratheon, unless he first makes war on you," Adaran said, "and that in like fashion you do not draw your sword against Jon Arryn, unless he first attacks you and yours. I understand the feud that is between your clan and the Arryn's, but Jon Arryn is King Robert's foster-father, and Stannis is his brother. Imustask, for the sake of my duty to my goodbrother."
"You cannotunderstand . . ."Willet snarled, his sword hand spasming as rage swept through him, held back from eruption only by main will. "Can you make the Arryn's abandon the holy mountain, and tear down the castle they placed upon its peak?" he asked when he had finally mastered himself enough to speak, his voice thick with anger. "Can you restore our rivers and coasts to us, and ensure that we may live there without fear of the Andal knights and their priests? Can you restore even one of my murdered ancestors from the pyres where the Andals burnt them like refuse?"
Adaran shook his head. "I am not a god, to be able to do any of these things," he replied coolly. "Nor are you, to turn back the tide of so many years and make all as it was before the Andals came to the Vale."
"TheVale," Willet spat. "We never called it that. What name can you give your world?Wenever drew lines that only exist on pieces of paper and told other men they could not live within them." He shook his head. "When you can do any of these things, then ask me to swear that oath. Until then, do not ask me to forget six thousand years and more of murder, rape, and theft." He looked his erstwhile commander in the eye. "What kind of man," he asked softly, "can do that, and still call himself a man?"
"A poor one, I imagine," Adaran answered. "Or at least one who cares nothing for how his people would regard such a deed. You are set on this course, then?"
Willet put his left hand on the chape of his sword's scabbard. "I am," he said. "And so is Hokkan. Our ship is waiting for me and I must go. Are you going to stop me?"
Adaran co*cked his head, regarding Willet with a look calculating enough to put a shiver down his spine. The Braavosi was years younger than he, and positively slender by comparison, but Willet had seen him fight; Adaran was as quick as a striking shadowcat, and as canny a fighter as any lowlander that Willet had ever met. He was genuinely unsure which of them would triumph if it came to swords. "Will you swear that you will make war against none but those who first attack you and yours, and that you will bear no blood feud against King Stannis and his heirs?" he asked finally.
Willet shrugged. "It was not the Baratheon's who drove us into the hills and the mountains," he said. "If it was, I would not have served Robert King."
Adaran shrugged. "Then far be it from me to bar a free man from going where he will," he said. "I would only note that Jon Arryn is an old man; King Robert has had word that he did not ascend to the Eyrie this year but held his court at the Gates of the Moon, the air on the mountain being too thin for his lungs. But for all that, he is still as brave and cunning a captain as the Vale has ever produced. His nephew Denys, on the other hand . . ." he shrugged. "He is, shall we say, less impressive? Of a certainty, his prowess does not seem to equal his ardor."
Willet nodded. "I take your meaning," he said, before drawing his sword half out of the scabbard with his left hand under the guard to tap the knuckles of his right hand against the hilt and lay his fingers against the blade. "On the hilt and on the blade," he intoned, "in the sight of the gods and on my father's head, I shall make war against none but those who first make war on me and mine, and I shall bear no feud against Stannis Baratheon or his heirs, unless they first give cause for feud. May the gods turn their eyes from me and refuse my prayers hereafter if I fail in this."
Adaran bowed. "On behalf of His Grace, King Robert of Myr, I hear and acknowledge this oath," he said formally. "And in turn I swear this; that for his many services to the Crown Willet son of Anthor, called Willet Longsword, shall always be welcome in the Kingdom of Myr, even if every other man's hand be against him." He stepped aside and gestured down the street with his sword hand. "Safe travels, comrade."
Willet returned the bow slightly as he replaced his sword in its scabbard. "And you likewise," he said as he walked past, noting as he did how Adaran had opened his cloak and was showing his other hand, empty of crossbow or ballestrino. Of course, if he had refused to swear any kind of oath, then doubtless Sarra's Will or Silent Jorro was watching from somewhere with a clear line of sight.
He shrugged to himself as he walked on. He had sworn regardless, and would keep his word. The Arryn's and the other Andal lords were even now in the field against the clans, by all reports; any war he made on them would be in self-defense. And he truly did have no more of a feud against Stannis than he did against any other Andal. It was the Arryn's and their followers that had made the valleys run red with the blood of his ancestors, not the Baratheon's.
As for Jon Arryn himself, how humiliating would it be if the clans cut his bannermen out from under him one by one, while he could do nothing? It would take much skill, more courage, and some help from the gods, but skill and courage were something the clans had in abundance. As for the gods . . . Willet stroked the hilt of his longsword. The gods best helped those who helped themselves. If such men as he, Hokkan, and the dozen other clansmen that had answered the summons could not help themselves, especially after they had spent virtually every spare coin they had on armor and weapons and convinced a pair of freedman armorers to join them for friendship's sake, then they would deserve to live under the Andal yoke. Men had changed the world with less, and for less cause.
Behind him, Adaran Phassos shook his head in regret. Willet wasn't a paladin in the same mold as Jaime Lannister, but he had served the Kingdom well at risk of his life, despite the fact that as a mercenary the ultimate outcome of the wars mattered little to him. He deserved a better send-off than a few words in a dockside street in the middle of the night. That said, anything else would require King Robert, or his officers, to notice that they were condoning the voyage of men whose stated intent was to make war against House Arryn specifically and all of Andal Westeros in general. It wouldn't have done.
Adaran shrugged to himself as he turned up the street and began the walk back to his quarters. Either way, it was done now, and what came of it was no longer his problem. Gods knew he had enough problems on one continent without borrowing from another.
XXX
Gerold Dayne had known from his boyhood that he was the man who would redeem House Dayne's honor. Every time he practiced the sword and lance and poleaxe he dredged up all the judgmental looks and sly comments and unattributed rumors that he and his House had been subjected to since cousin Arthur had followed Rhaegar across the sea and placed them in the person of his opponent, the better to fuel the engine of hatred in his heart that drove him to become a man that could reclaim Dawn from Arthur's fouled grip. Cousin Gawen's maiming, the news that Viserys had become a Triarch of Volantis by crushing a slave revolt with Arthur at his side, all had gone to fuel the fire that drove him to train every hour of the day that could be spared, against any opponent that would face him.
When his father and master-at-arms had finally deemed him ready and given him the accolade, he had marched down to the docks the very next day and taken the first ship to Myr city, where he had sworn to remain until he could bring Dawn back to Starfall in triumph. His father had been unenthused at the idea of his heir going east-over-sea for an unknown and indefinite time, but eventually he had acceded, with two pieces of advice. First, that he remember that hate alone was no fit motive for knightly deeds. Second, that he take any opportunity to enter the service of Eddard Stark and learn all that the King's Fist had to teach him.
Gerold had not guessed, then, how difficult that might be. It was known that Lord Stark accepted only proven soldiers into his personal retinue, but what of that? Was he not the finest sword of House Dayne, home of the finest swordsmen in Westeros? Even the champions of the Order of the Sun could not face him and hope to triumph, and compared to Stannis the Grim's chosen men, surely those of Robert the Brief would be easy fare. But four long years had gone by before the chance had even arisen to try for a place, years in which he had been consigned to a volunteer's banda under one of Ser Brynden Tully's more dour and unhelpful captains. It had been like pulling teeth to get the man to eventually write and sign a letter of recommendation to Lord Stark, and only achieved after going two years without so much as a casual reprimand at inspection to sully his record. He had not spent so much time wielding a clothes-brush and a buffing rag since his page days. Even so, he doubted that he could have gotten so far as this without the second letter that had lain in his pack, which his father had written the day before he sailed and which, he had said carefully,mighthelp to sway Lord Stark's mind.
On paper, the process to get into Lord Stark's household was simple enough once your captain's letter of recommendation got you an invitation to try for a place. Present yourself at Wolf House with your equipment ready for inspection, run three courses with rebated lances against Lord Stark's household men, and finally hold the ring with sword, spear, or poleaxe against as many men as Lord Stark sent against you. If you comported yourself to Lord Stark's satisfaction then you received a probationary place in the household, and if you lasted there for six months then you were in for good.
The inspection had been easy enough, thanks to the care that Gerold had taken with his equipment in the days beforehand and his years of practice in the volunteer's banda. The vastly mustachioed sergeant had all but taken out a jeweler's loupe to examine his horse's tack and his armor, but eventually he had grunted and allowed that he would do. The jousting had also gone well, or well enough. He had kept his seat and unhorsed two of his opponents at least, even though the last impact had hit him hard enough to turn his vision gray for a split second and only good fortune and main will had allowed him to dismount without collapsing. Now he was standing in the ring, his longsword in his hands, slowly turning in place as he watched the men circling him with their weapons on their shoulders, waiting for their name to be called to step forth and test his skill.
A murmur of surprise made him turn and raise his eyebrows in astonishment; none other than Lord Stark himself had entered the ring, and that with his sword held loosely in the guard of the full iron gate. Gerold stared for a moment, then grinned behind his visor. Once within the ring, the only rules were that no one was to be killed or maimed, a prohibition helped by the fact that the fighting was all done in full armor. So, as soon as the King's Fist crossed the invisible line between being in and out of distance, Gerold pounced, his longsword flowing from short guard to the window and from thence into a feint- false edge reverso combination. It was one of his favorite moves, practiced until he could throw it fast enough to make his hands blur with the sliding forward step to give it power, and uncountered it could be a fight-ender. Even with the edge foiled by the helmet it could still hit hard enough to make a man's ears ring like septry bells, and dazed men were men who were half-beaten.
So engrossed was he by this vision of imminent victory that he didn't register that his blow had been covered until Lord Stark's armored shoulder rammed into his breastplate and knocked him back on his heels.
He backpedaled two quick steps, winning just enough time to regain his balance and wonder how Lord Stark had done that, and then the Northman was upon him and only honed reflex saved him from being thrown or beaten down. Two blows slipped through his covers to hammer shallow narrow dents into his left vambrace and the right side of his visor, but eventually he was able to bring Lord Stark into a close bind, dupe him into a half-turn, and then break apart with an explosive push and a frantic swipe that forced them back out of distance with each other. He spared a second to drag a breath into his lungs as deep as it would go, and then rushed forward to throw a forehand cut, a hammering fendente that would either blast Stark's sword out of his hands or at least beat it far enough out of the short guard he was holding it in to allow him to thrust for the visor or the gorget.
His blow hit nothing but air as Stark backstepped with appalling speed and only frantic effort pulled him up short enough to rob the stop-thrust that Stark had launched at his own helmet of most of its force. They exchanged a pair of cuts and covers which ended with Stark closing the distance again to land a pommel-strike on the left side of Gerold's visor that sounded like a hammer on an anvil through his helmet, Gerold won a heartbeat's breathing time by uppercutting Stark under his own visor with both hands clenched around the hilt of his sword and pushing him back, and then he decided to try something desperate.
He threw a lateral forehand blow at eye-level; Stark parried it. Gerold let go of his sword hilt with his left hand, snaked it between Stark's arms as he rotated his blade around Stark's to grasp it at half-sword, and then to his horror he saw that Stark had beaten him to the pivot-and-reach and now Stark's sword-point was in the gap between visor and breastplate pricking his throat and his left hand and sword were too far out of position to do anything.
He gaped behind his visor. He knew that there was a counter to that move, of course; every swordsman knew it, and discussed it and practiced it the way that septons discussed and practiced the sacraments. But actuallyusingit was almost unheard of. Aemon the Dragonknight had supposedly used it once, in his famous duel against Cregan Stark, and mad cousin Arthur was said to be able to use it, but no one Gerold had ever met had ever claimed to have used it or seen it used.
Around them men were swearing in delighted astonishment, but Gerold had ears only for the question that Lord Stark asked him. "Do you yield?"
Gerold knew he was beaten. Even with the prohibition against death and maiming, Stark's sword-point was too close to the big artery in his neck for him to try anything. And even if it wasn't, he had heard enough about these trials to know that there was more to them than the simple tests of prowess that they appeared to be. So although it burned his soul like acid to do so, he nodded carefully. "I yield, my lord."
They disentangled themselves and stepped away from each other, opening their visors as they did. Lord Stark's hard grey eyes were surprisingly somber for a man who had just done something that counted as a minor miracle of swordsmanship. "Report to my majordomo to receive your livery," he said shortly. "Then report to my solar tomorrow in the forenoon, and we shall speak further." He saluted with his sword; Gerold returned it. "Well fought, ser," he said, and turned to stride out of the ring, where his men greeted him with cheers and backslaps. Gerold took a moment to collect himself before exiting the ring and sheathing his longsword, taking deliberately slow and deep breaths to beat back the shock and fear that his defeat had inspired in him.Nowhe knew why his father had counseled that he seek service with Lord Stark rather than with King Robert or Ser Brynden Tully.
But as the fear faded, he couldn't help a smile. He had never wavered in his determination to restore House Dayne's honor and redeem Dawn from the madman whose hands soiled her, but there had been times when he had doubted his course. Four years of martial drudgery, surrounded by men who didn't know you from Hugor and didn't care, with no chance of glory except what you could scrounge from hunting bandits and suspected spies could do that to a man. There had been times, when he had to deal with the stunningly irreverent Myrish smallfolk and the positively presumptuous men of the Legion, when he had considered desperate measures.
But he had stayed the course, and found that behind the iron curtain this was indeed a land where legends walked the earth. And where, with the help of the gods, new legends could be made. No, he hadn't made a mistake, he decided. He was right where he needed to be to fulfill his quest. Compared to that, putting up with some uppity peasants was nothing.
XXX
Captain Nakano Sanolis considered himself an even-tempered man, but he had had a very trying few days that had culminated in what could only be described as a debacle. So when the whistles blew the long blast that signaled the end of the exercise, he allowed himself to indulge his spleen by tearing off his helmet, dashing it to the ground, and giving voice to a few sulfurous curses before accepting the return of his helmet from his body slave and riding over to where Captain-General Naharis had ridden out of the scrum while his Stormcrows and Nakano's company disentangled themselves from each other.
"All in all, not as bad as I feared," Naharis said as he handed his baton to one of his bodyguards and pulled off his ornately engraved helmet to smooth his mustachios, which contrary to rumor were only lightly dyed and that towards the ends. "But not as good as I hoped either. Can you tell me what your first mistake was?"
Nakano nodded sullenly as he pulled off his own helmet. "I should have paid greater attention to my scouts."
Naharis shook his head. "Your first mistake was twofold," he explained as he took his baton back from the bodyguard. "Firstly you did not detail enough of your men as scouts, and secondly you did not push them out far enough. By the time that your scouts detected our presence, we were too close for you to retain the option of avoiding battle; you had to engage us, if only to knock us back on our heels until you could get away. In addition," Naharis' eyes twinkled merrily, "having more scouts out would have allowed you to find us sooner, yes?"
Nakano ground his teeth. When he thought of how long he had spent buggering around the landscape like a lost drunkard looking for the Stormcrows . . . "Indeed, my lord. But if I had sent too many of my men on scouting duties, then the main body of my company would have been too weak to resist a sudden onset."
Naharis nodded. "That is a danger, yes," he allowed. "But one that you could have taken, as you could have surmised that we were not close enough to overwhelm you suddenly before your scouting parties could rejoin you, and perhaps tip the balance of the battle. Riding into the valley between these two hills without first sending scouts to their summits was also foolish; you knew that we were cavalry, so you could have expected us to close the distance between us fast enough to lay an ambush. Now as to what you did right . . ." Naharis leaned forward in the saddle. "The first thing you did right is that you kept control of your company, even after we sprang our little trap. The second thing is that you threw the whole weight of your company at one of our pincers instead of trying to fight in two directions at once. The third, and most important thing, is that youfought. Often when men are surprised like that they freeze, or try to run. Whether by instinct or by judgment, you realized that freezing was the wrong thing to do and that running would only allow us to run you down with minimal losses. By fighting you not only gave your command a fighting chance, you also seized the opportunity to do enough damage to us to potentially remove us from the campaign, thus potentially upending the enemy's plans."
Nakano bowed shortly, his sour mood lightening as the words sank home. "I thank you, my lord," he said. "And I shall order my men to redouble their training at arms. If they were more skillful, they would have had a greater chance of prevailing before the other pincer arrived and swamped us."
"Give it two or three days before you order such training, captain," Naharis said with glance at where their companies had largely sorted themselves out, the Stormcrows laughing and exchanging broad jests while Nakano's company muttered sourly to each other. "Your men will need to recuperate from these past days. And if I may suggest, set them exercises that are easy to master at first. Men who have failed at one thing tend to recover themselves best if they can get an easy success under their belt."
Nakano nodded. "By your leave then, my lord," he said, reining his horse around as Naharis waved him away. He was already dreading the letter he would have to write to his wife and his father explaining how Naharis had handled him like an errant schoolboy, but at least he would have the opportunity to redeem his failure before having to face them again. And thiswasjust a training exercise. Better to fail here than in battle, where the weapons would be swords and spears rather than batons. At least Captain-General Naharis had been reasonable in his criticism, and his words of praise would go some way to restoring the spirits of the men, who were casting surly glances at both the preening Stormcrows and their studiously composed officers. The gods knew he was going to need every bit of help he could get in that regard.
XXX
Jaime considered himself a decent sort in company, but he had to admit that Ser Wylis Manderly confounded his best efforts at being a good host. Oh, nothing had gone terribly wrong, but the Manderly heir was just so soft-spoken and well-mannered that Jaime couldn't tell whether he was talking too much or too little. Whichever it was, he reflected, he wasn't going to find out from Ser Wylis; the Manderly heir might have even more weight and less hair than his late brother, but his natural reserve combined with the sort of lordly bearing that came with being raised to rule either the second or third richest fief in the North, depending on the vagaries of the silver and wool markets, meant that Jaime didn't have a prayer of being able to read him.
The only thing he could be certain of, Jaime was quite sure as he and Ser Wylis made their final bows and Ser Wylis strode away, was that his stated purpose of coming to White Den to visit his brother's tomb was only the least part of his design. The true part of it, he could guess, was bound up in the person of the young lady that he had been left to escort through White Den's pear orchard, while her maidservant hovered at a respectable distance.
Melanie Manderly was, Ser Wylis had explained, the eldest daughter of the Whitespur Manderly's, a cadet branch of the House, and a dear friend of Ser Wendel from his younger days who had also come to pay her respects. Which was likely true, but didn't change the fact that it was a rather transparent fiction designed to get her close enough to him to provoke a courtship and eventually a marriage. He stifled a sigh as Melanie pulled down a branch of one of the trees and regarded the fruit with what he could tell was a practiced eye. He had thought that his disgrace would put paid to such offers, but he hadn't reckoned on the fact that what some regarded as disgrace others would regard as high honor. Of a certainty every Jonothoran lord in the realm had tried their level best to match him with any female relation they could scrounge up, as had almost every merchant family of Myr city except for those that had turned Baelorite. And that was leaving aside the foreigners. The Lorathi 'princess' who had showed up with a company of sellswords and the stated goal of finding a strong husband had at least proved a temporary problem, as she had found such a husband in only a short time; having a dowry of a hundred well-trained men-at-arms had probably helped tremendously. Captain Tiona of the Isle of Women, on the other hand, had proven far more persistent. Evidently she had decided that the Black Lion would be the perfect partner in her stated goal of avenging the conquest and expulsion of her Rhoynish ancestors and restoring the royal line of Sar Mell, of which she claimed to be the last living descendant. Even his most studious attempts at ignoring both her personal entreaties and her frankly suggestive letters seemed to be having only limited effect.
A soft "Ser Jaime?" brought him out of his reverie to realize that Melanie was looking at him with a raised eyebrow, having evidently asked him a question. He bowed shortly. "I'm terribly sorry, my lady; my mind was elsewhere."
"Evidently," Melanie said with a slight smile. "I asked if we could dispense with the coy pleasantries and speak plainly."
He nodded. "By all means."
"You find yourself in need of a wife that can get you an heir, and also of someone who can manage this fief for you, given your aversion to acting as a proper lord instead of as a knight errant," Melanie said bluntly, her blue-green eyes steely. "I am charged by my lord my uncle to strengthen House Manderly's ties to the Kingdom of Myr, and also to secure what cousin Wendel built here as an outpost of the merman's blood. It seems, does it not, that we are in a position to fulfill each other's needs?"
Jaime raised an eyebrow. "Forgive me, my lady, but it seems that the bargain would be unbalanced. Unless you can manage this estate as well as a man can."
Melanie's smile broadened across her round face. "I am the eldest of five children, ser, and my brother is the youngest of us; until he was born it was considered likely that I would inherit my father's fief. So my father taught me as he would have taught a son, until my brother reached the age of ten. And even after that, he gave me charge of certain accounts my family holds in White Harbor, all of which did well under my stewardship."
Jaime blinked. Well,thiswas new. And, he found to his surprise, more interesting than anything Captain Tiona had said to him about the glories of the kingdom they would raise along the Rhoyne. "So, what, you would run White Den for me while I gallivanted about as it pleased me?" he asked. "Forgive me, my lady, but I know better than to accept a bargain that appears too good to be true."
Melanie nodded. "You would, of course, have to show your face here and attend to its business on a regular basis," she replied. "Negligence is the worst of sins in a lord, and it spreads from top to bottom faster than any plague. And naturally, you would have to get an heir on me sooner rather than later." Her eyes sharpened. "In aid of which, if you are a sword-swallower then say so now and we need not carry this discussion further. You have my word no one will hear of it from me."
Jaime laughed. "Of all the sins in the book, that's one of the few that I've never been tempted by, my lady," he said. "And even if I was, well, I think we can both agree that it would be the least of my sins."
Melanie chuckled. "Quite so," she agreed. "That said, I think those sins you refer to are not so terrible as you think them. They were foolish, yes, but if more men were foolish in that regard then we might have a better world than one dominated by men who think cunning to be the same thing as wisdom."
Jaime's mouth quirked. "If any survived to see such a world," he replied. "I will need some time to think on your proposal before I give you an answer."
"Take your time, my lord, but think quickly, if you please," Melanie said, the smile leaving her face. "We are a long-lived breed, the Manderly's, both by the gods' favor and by judgment, and yet poor Wendel died young with no line to carry on his name and ensure his legacy would retain the place it deserves. So if you refuse me, then find another, Ser Jaime, and that quickly. The Stranger waits for us all."
As Melanie and her maidservant left, Jaime found his mind in a turmoil such as he hadn't experienced since the Summer Isles. It was true, he needed to marry; the demands of his station dictated it. On the other hand, he had never loved any woman but Cersei, and even with the news of her madness he knew that the odds of finding a woman that would equal her were vanishingly small. Of course, to put the matter bluntly, whoever he did end up marrying didn't need to be Cersei's equal, they just needed to be adequate to the task of being his wife. And Melanie was certainly that, if what he had just seen and heard was anything to go by. And while she couldn't compare to Cersei for looks, she certainly wasn't ugly by any stretch of the imagination.
He fingered the hilt of the club that Rhoqu had given him, which was scabbarded at his belt opposite his sword as always.When in doubt, choose the path that does the most good for the most people,Rhoqu had told him that endless day under the trees.Even if you are not one of those people. It is not for men as powerful as you and I to place our desires above the needs of others.
He shrugged to himself. Put that way, there really wasn't a choice, was there?
XXX
The Lumpy Donkey was supposed to have been called the Proud Steed, and would have been had the sign not been painted by the owner's goodbrother. A travelling septon who was an illuminator in his home septry had painted a new and much improved sign as partial payment for his room and board, but by then the name had stuck. Despite the inauspicious start, it was easily the best inn of the district, a fact reinforced by the tightly-fitted wooden floor, the profusion of chairs in lieu of benches, the coat of varnish on the bar, the lingering aroma of well-cooked if plain food and decent beer and wine, and the boards nailed in each corner to allow the patrons to play Three Holes without having to take their drinks and food out into the yard.
"Right hole!" yelled a man standing at a chalked line on the floor as a small sack filled with soil left his hand. He and his two fellow players, each with jacks in hand, eyed the sack like hawks watching a rabbit as it sailed through the air to smack against the board above the declared hole and slide down to flop through it, provoking a laugh and a small victory dance from the thrower.
"No throw," one of his fellows said stolidly, interrupting his celebrations.
"Piss off, Joro," he snapped. "My foot was behind the line!"
"You have to call before you throw, Vizo, you know that as well as I do," Joro replied.
"I did call!" Vizo retorted, a hint of whine entering his voice.
"After the sack left your hand," said old Gron, who was sitting at the nearest table. "I saw it as well as Hecron did, eh, Hecron?"
Big Hecron nodded, shrugging apologetically as Vizo glared at him. "Ah, the hells with it," Vizo said gustily, waving a hand in disgust. "Not like there's more than a penny on it."
"Don't mind Vizo," Joro told Hecron as Vizo went to retrieve his sack. "He hasn't been the same since that screamer rang his helm like a bell at Narrow Run."
"It was an exile at Tara!" Vizo said sharply. "And I put my spear up through his chin in the next minute, didn't I?"
"It was a screamer at Narrow Run, Vizo, and you fell like a tree," old Gron replied patiently, as if he hadn't said as much a dozen times before this month alone. "I was there, remember? Gods know my back's still sore from pulling your ass out from under the bastard after he fell on you, thanks to my spear in his guts."
"It was at Tara," Vizo snarled, "and you just want me to lose because you think yeomen are made of money."
"Cool off, Vizo," Rukh interjected from the table where he was nursing his tankard. "You ain't the only yeoman here, you're just the only one who can't hold his drink or his money."
Vizo would have spat if he hadn't caught the innkeeper's beady eye on him and contented himself with a snort. "Don't make it right that you all keep picking on me," he said defensively as he walked back to the line. "Yah, I don't break my back in some lord's fields, but I still owe him garrison-service and training time for the Militia, and I get the Lord Lieutenant's men coming around at tax-time. Left hole." He threw, and cursed as he missed. "Don't any of you try to tell me," he went on, glaring around the common room, "that you ain't bothered by the fact that we fought and died to throw our chains off and still ended up working another man's crop in the end."
"Stuff it, Vizo," Joro snarled. "Lord Irons is better than any master as was ever born. He was a hedge knight before he was a lord, lived job to job like any working peasant did; he knows what it's like to wake up hungry and go to bed hungrier. And even the lords that weren't hedge knights know better than to gouge us, with the inspectors keeping an eye on them."
Vizo shook his head. "It ain't Lord Irons I have a problem with," he said sullenly. "It's these young pissants newcome from Westeros, these raw eggs who think we care that they volunteered or that their who-f*cking-cares-how-many-times-great-grandfather killed some other old bugger centuries ago. Mark me, they'll be just as bad as the masters were if they ever get lordships."
"Ach, they'll learn," Rukh said confidently. "Either on their own or with the help of a boot to the head. The Captains didn't get this far without knowing how to break a fool to formation."
"S'not the raw eggs I'm worried about," Gron said gloomily. "It's the new lads in the Legions; ain't one of them hard enough to do for a virgin, much less a screamer or a sellsword. I was at Pentos, I was, right next to Akhollo when we raised our spears against the masters . . ." there was a round of stifled groans as Gron continued on the well-known story of his service and exploits for some time, ". . . and the young bucks these days act like the co*cks of the walk just because they made it through training? Bah!"
"They'll learn too, sarge," Hecron said stolidly. "I heard as Lord Iron's planning to hold a tournament with some of the neighbors now that harvest is almost in; the Legion games will give them a chance to see how it's done."
Gron snorted. "I'll believe it when I see it," he replied skeptically. "Anyways, I'm done for the night. Let's have the toasts, lads; early start tomorrow for the threshing."
The patrons of the Lumpy Donkey stood from their tables as the serving girls topped up jacks and tankards and mugs. What followed had the air of a rite as healths were drunk to the Legion, to the news that Queen Serina had recently given birth to a son, to good King Robert, and finally, with the usual laughter, to the hope that each and every slaver would have their turn getting buggered by a lumpy donkey.
Chapter 123: Sideshows in the East
Chapter Text
Khal Drogo's destruction of the Confederation of the Darkwash may have been a sideshow compared to the larger theaters of the Slave Wars, but it is noteworthy on three counts. Firstly, it saw the first widespread use of armor among the Dothraki since the Century of Blood; contemporary sources describe Khal Drogo, his bloodriders and senior kos, and his personal khalasar as being armored in sleeveless vests of what was either scale or lamellar armor and 'steel caps', probably cervellieres, with a distinctive notch at the rear to accommodate the warrior's braid. The effectiveness of this armor may be judged by the fact that even the most critical sources from abolitionist states of the period state that the Dothraki suffered only light casualties at Weeping Pines while describing the charge that broke the Confederation center as 'a steel wave', to quote one Braavosi source, a phrase previously used only to describe similar onsets by Westerosi-style knights and heavy horse.
Secondly, the Confederation's destruction put an end to abolitionist hopes of gaining an ally on the northern strategic flank of the slaver states; the fact that the Confederation was a slaver state itself and appears to have never seriously entertained the prospect of allying with the Braavosi-Myrish axis neither prevented such hopes from arising nor allayed the disappointment that attended their downfall. Dothraki legends often boast of making an enemy city or town 'grass for horses', but in this case the boast appears to have been almost literally true. The Confederation's capital at Mizan was razed to the ground and the skeletons of the buildings that did not collapse were pulled down with lariats; one Dothraki legend claims that Mizan was so thoroughly levelled that 'a herd of horses galloped across it and not one fell.' There is no evidence of organized human settlement along the Darkwash until almost half a century after the Confederation's fall, and the surviving letters of those settlers are full of amazement at how cleanly the land was swept of any sign of human habitation.
Thirdly, news of the Confederation's fall and the excesses that accompanied it spread like wildfire across Essos. Even in that bloody-minded age, the Dothraki had a reputation for brutality, and the deeds that were done along the Darkwash are largely responsible for perpetuating that reputation even into the modern day. The distance of time allows a greater degree of objectivity about such things, but at the time the reports of widespread massacre, rapine, enslavement, and destruction quickly grew in luridness until they almost surpassed similar tales of the Rape of Tyrosh. The truly interesting thing, however, is not the foreseeable reaction of shock and redoubled fervor and hatred in the abolitionist states, but the reaction provoked even among Khal Drogo's allies . . .
Between Grass and Sky: The Dothraki Reexaminedby Maester Hitchens
Ser Barristan Selmy was a past master of concealing his emotions. One did not enter the Kingsguard without being able to keep their countenance even under extreme provocation, and years in Aerys' service had given him more practice than he would ever have wished in maintaining the famous mask of the Kingsguard, both in public and in private. But Aerys was dead, and he had to believe that his second son was a better man. So, once he had dismissed his squire and his valet for the evening, he drew out a sheet of parchment, filled his quill with ink, and began to laboriously write.
Your Grace,his letter began after the traditional salutations,I write this letter to inform you of the happenings of the past few days. As Your Grace is doubtless aware, your ally Khal Drogo's destruction of the Darkwash was most thorough, but it was not entirely complete. Some persons managed to escape the nets of his riders, and many of these have come here to Fort Dagger for sanctuary. Khal Drogo, hearing of this, demanded that these fugitives be surrendered to him in accordance with the agreement Your Grace concluded with him, whereby all the country and peoples north of Dagger Lake that was not allied with Your Grace were given over to the khal of khals as his lawful prey.
He paused to take a breath and fight back a flood of memories all the more terrible for their rawness, and wrote on.This was done, in accordance with your commands, amid scenes of lamenting that moved even the hardest of hearts. Such is the contempt of the Dothraki for the Qohori people that only two categories of people were preserved; comely young women, to be taken as concubines, and metalsmiths, to forward Khal Drogo's plan of improving the arms and armors of his riders. All others were put to the sword without distinction and without mercy, and their bodies left on the plain where they were massacred. When I asked the khal that Khal Drogo had sent with his demand what he proposed to do with the bodies, he replied that he proposed to let them lie for the jackals and vultures, if they could bring themselves to stomach such fare. It fell to the men of my command to give the unfortunates burial, although their numbers and the heat of these recent days compelled us to place them all in a common grave to prevent their putrefaction and the subsequent spreading of disease.
Your Grace, I am compelled to protest the orders that caused this most horrible scene to come to be. It is certainly the duty of a knight to obey his liege-lord, but it is also his duty to give succor to the weak and defenseless, and either to defend them from their oppressors or avenge them. These orders that compel us to forswear that duty, and which make us party to massacre and enslavement, make us unworthy to bear the title of knight, and must work to render that title odious among men of good will. Common soldiers must obey such orders, for such is the condition of their service, but knights are commanded to obey not only their oath to their liege-lord, but also their oaths to the Seven, to wield their powers with justice, mercy, and wisdom. In the absence of direction to the contrary, I will continue to obey these orders as my oath to Your Grace obliges me, but I beg Your Grace, upon bended knee, to withdraw them, or allow us at least to save those that Khal Drogo would otherwise command to be slain. If we do not, I greatly fear that grave perils will alight upon Your Grace's repute as a wise and merciful king, and upon our souls at the Day of Judgment.
I remain, your obedient servant,
Ser Barristan Selmy
Ser Barristan set down his quill and stretched his hand absently, his mind whirling. Simply writing such a letter was bad enough; actually sending it could be construed as threatening mutiny. Aegon the Unworthy's Kingsguards had not resorted to such drastic measures, and even on his worst day Aerys paled by comparison to the Unworthy. Oh, Aerys had been mad, but even his madness could be sated, or allayed, or redirected. Aegon the Unworthy's greed and caprice had been unstoppable.
At the same time, not even the Unworthy had ordered that innocent people be handed over to the Dothraki, even if it was only for lack of opportunity. Ser Barristan had stood outside the door of the royal bedchamber too many times to be able to forget Queen Rhaella's screams; now he feared that they would be joined by the screams of the girl who had thrown herself to her knees to clutch at his stirrup and beg for rescue before a Dothraki screamer dragged her over his saddle and rode away. And those would be the least, compared to the cries of the people the Dothraki hadn't wanted as the arrows slashed through them.
Yet even if he removed the cloak from his shoulders and broke his oath, what could he do? Where could he go? Neither Stannis nor Robert would show him mercy; the only difference between them would be that Stannis would have him beheaded after a swift trial before a competent magistrate, while Robert would simply have him killed on sight. The Braavosi would hand him over to Robert, as would the Lorathi in order to keep their peace with Braavos. Entering Lyseni service would merely make explicit what had up to now been only implicit in his service to Viserys, that he fought for slavery against freedom, as would entering the service of any other power east of Myr. The Summer Islands might provide a refuge for a time, but only until whatever prince took him in decided to curry favor with Robert. And he would not turn pirate or corsair; even now he had enough honor left to reject a life of unalloyed predation upon any too weak to resist.
Ser Barristan didn't know how long he sat staring at the letter before folding it, sealing it, and placing it in a drawer of his desk without having decided whether to send it or not. With the gods' favor the morning would bring clarity. Assuming of course that his memories would let him sleep.
XXX
Viserys Targaryen was fully aware that, like all leaders who come to power by military success, he had to continue delivering like successes in order to stay in power. Accordingly, he did not sit idle following his parley with Khal Drogo, but raced back down the Rhoyne to join his army on the eastern frontier of Volantis. The Kingdom of Myr and the Commune of Braavos might be beyond his strategic reach for now, but Mantarys was still defiant of Volantene pretensions to overlordship of the whole western shore of Slaver's Bay, her previous defeats notwithstanding. Reducing Mantarys to her proper obedience would not only affirm Viserys's right to rule Volantis, but do so in a way that combined traditional Volantene interests with a typically Westerosi way of displaying royal legitimacy, to wit, conquering the enemies of the realm.
What Viserys was unaware of when the Grand Army of Volantis marched, however, was that Mantarys had new reason to believe that it could successfully hazard battle even against the Grand Army . . .
"What on earth," Viserys demanded flatly, "isthissupposed to be?"
The sergeant that had deposited the little corpse on the central table of Viserys' command tent bowed again. "This is one of eight such creatures that our scouting parties have encountered over the past two days, Your Grace," he replied. "Five of them escaped us, and two more were cut to pieces after our men caught them. This is the only one that we have taken intact, thanks to the fact that it was shot dead at distance and our men's tempers had cooled by the time they reached its corpse."
Viserys nodded absently, his attention fixed on the little carcass in front of him while his officers murmured uneasily. At first glance it resembled a monkey, but the resemblance failed at closer examination. No monkey ever bred had sported such bulging eyes, a mouth so full of needle-like fangs, and paws whose digits were so tipped with thorn-like talons. Nor was any monkey as obviously muscular as this creature; its thinly furred body was so packed with muscle that the cords were easily discernible through its hide.
"Not for nothing was Mantarys named the City of Monsters in ancient days," Ser Lysyllo Agah said uneasily, fingering an amulet while his body slave glowered at the creature's body. "Such creatures as this were reportedly common in that city before Valyria fell, but in recent times the powers of their magicians had waned until they were only capable of producing freaks for the grotesqueries of the city's masters. If they can produce such things asthis, though . . ." He turned to Viserys. "Your Grace, we must consider the possibility that not all the forces that Mantarys will field against us will be entirely human."
Viserys looked up from the beast's corpse, glanced at Lysyllo, then turned his gaze back to the sergeant. "Our men have been able to kill these things?" he asked. At the sergeant's nod he turned back to Lysyllo. "Ser Lysyllo, it is well known that anything that lives must die. Even monsters such as this," he gestured at the monkey-thing that lay on his table, "must breathe. Anything that breathes must bleed when steel is put to it, and anything that bleeds can be killed." He turned back to the sergeant. "Tell your comrades," he commanded, "that they are to fear Mantarys's monsters no more than they fear Mantarys' fighting men. Have them spread the word everyone they meet, and assure them that when we force Mantarys to beg for peace, there will be a reckoning for the men that profane nature in this fashion."
As the sergeant withdrew with another bow and a slave gingerly picked up the monkey-thing's carcass and took it away to be burned, Ser Arthur Dayne stepped forward. "Your Grace," he began, "given this new revelation, I must counsel against . . ."
Viserys cut him off with a gesture. "Given this new revelation, ser, it is all the more important that I ride at the head of my knights," he said. "I will not ask the men who follow me to face perils I am not willing to face myself."
Ser Arthur accepted his reproof with a short bow while the other officers nodded approvingly and the council of war moved on to other topics. They were less than twoscore miles away from Mantarys, and Mantarys' army was close enough that battle was likely within the next few days. Even the news that the City of Monsters might live up to its ancient dread did not change the fact that the Grand Army of Volantis was finally in a position to fully reduce Mantarys to its proper station of obedience.
XXX
Ser Arthur Dayne could not remember the last time he had been afraid. Even in the flight from Myr he had been too busy to acknowledge the fear until after they had cleared the harbor, and at Chroyane he had been able to summon faith in both the Seven and in his own prowess to keep the dread of the mists at bay. And while he was certainly wary of Greel the warlock and his compatriots, that wariness was tempered by the knowledge that Greel could not hope to defeat him man-to-man, for all his incantations and flummery. But now he was afraid, because the Mantarysians had offered to settle the war by single combat between champions, and his king had taken up the gauntlet.
It should have been an absurdity; if Arthur or Myles Toyne or anyone else had been in command, the Mantarysian herald would have been told that his master should stop taking military advice from minstrels. But Viserys had accepted, and for reasons that Arthur could not only understand but approve of, for all that it made his skin crawl to let his king risk himself so. As Viserys had admitted to Khal Drogo in their parley outside ruined Qohor, his forces might be blooded but he himself had yet to prove that he was a worthy heir of the Conqueror in his own right. If he was to lead them against Robert the Bloody, then he would do well to prove his worth beforehand, to show his men that he could lead them against the Usurper and his executioners and expect to win. The khal, perhaps unsurprisingly, had not only approved of the idea wholeheartedly but made it a condition of the alliance; let Viserys prove himself 'a true khal of walkers', and Khal Drogo would happily fight by his side against Robert of Myr and his Braavosi hirelings. For his own part, Arthur could accept that he cast a long shadow in terms of fame, and that it was time for Viserys to step out of it and forge one of his own. So when Viserys had accepted the challenge he had not objected, confining himself to helping Viserys arm and giving him some last words of advice.
If Viserys' opponent had been another man, he would not have feared; his king was not the sort of swordsman that could become Sword of the Morning, but he had been trained by some of the best knights in the world, and in his plate harness he was all but invulnerable to anything but a lucky blow with a sword. This, after all, was what he and Barristan and his other sworn brothers had spent so long training him for. But it was not a man that had strode forth from the Mantarysian lines to do battle between the armies. In appearance it resembled descriptions Arthur had heard of the Brindled Men of Sothoryos, but no Brindled Man he had ever heard of had stood nine feet tall, or sported a hide covered in scales, or was gifted with tusks like a wild boar. It wore armor in the form of a great ring-mail hauberk, but the scales covering its bare arms and legs and head looked thick enough to ward a sword blow. It carried a sword proportionate to its size in one hand and a knob-headed club in the other, and the way it carried them indicated that it had at least enough intelligence to use them effectively.
Arthur looked at where his king sat his destrier, lance in hand and black enameled armor glinting in the sunlight, and found himself praying as he had not done since Rhaegar's death. Size and strength were not everything in a battle, but they certainly helped, and speed and skill could only do so much. And even disregarding his oath, Viserys was the closest thing he could ever have to a son. But when the trumpets of the heralds blew and Viserys raked back his spurs to charge the monster that faced him, Arthur could not help joining in the mighty shout that rose from the ranks of the Grand Army.
As Viserys thundered across the field, his lance drifting down to couch under his arm, the creature facing him lumbered forward with a bellow of defiance, breaking into a shambling run as it co*cked its club behind its shoulder while it held its sword in a low guard. Arthur's heart sank as he realized the training and native intelligence that had to be behind such a posture, but what he saw next made him shout in elation; Viserys' lance swung up as a touch of rein and spur made his horse crayfish to the left, and the creature's club struck nothing but earth while Viserys's lance transfixed its right upper arm. The beast staggered at the impact, roaring in pain and thwarted rage as its sword dropped from a suddenly nerveless hand, but it kept its balance enough to hurl a swiping blow of its club at the hind legs of Viserys's horse as it tottered, and with a scream of pain and terror the destrier collapsed. Viserys sprang free of the foundering horse in time to prevent a broken leg, and while the monster howled over its impaled arm Viserys rolled to his feet and collected a battle-axe from the saddlebow of his mortally wounded steed, casting aside his shield to wield it two-handed. Arthur shouted approbation; the beast's scales might foil a sword's edge, but an axe's edge was far less easy to ward thanks to the concentration of weight and force over a relatively small area.
The next sixty seconds were like something out of a chanson as Viserys dueled the monster axe to club, dancing away from the ponderous blows of his opponent and leaping in to hew at its legs while the Grand Army chanted his name with increasing fervor. But then the monster got lucky; a frantic blow of its right fist knocked Viserys from his feet, axe flying from his hand. Only a desperate roll to the side kept Viserys from being hammered into the earth by the monster's next blow, and when he got to his feet and drew his sword Arthur could see his legs wobble. The monster lumbered forward, hooting savage anticipation as it swung it's club up for a colossal blow, but what happened next made the seventy thousand men watching from both sides of the battlefield exclaim in astonishment. Viserys threw caution to the wind, dove inside the reach of the monster's club, and rammed the point of his sword into its groin. The howl of unmitigated pain that burst from the monster's throat made men cover their ears, and the way it dropped its club and groped for Viserys with its bare hands spoke of a creature blinded by agony and panic. Viserys wrenched his sword free and sprang away from the beast's flailing paws, then darted back in again with a hacking blow at the monster's knee. The monster howled again as its knee gave way under the blow, then swung a last desperate blow with its left fist.
Viserys danced back again and cut at the monster's fist, and the monster screamed as the last two fingers of its left hand were gashed open to the bone even as Viserys' sword broke. Viserys threw the hilt into the monster's face, drew his dagger, and waded into it with hands flying. Under the assault of dagger and gauntleted fist the monster's howls turned to sobs, then to whimpers, and finally to silence as Viserys, covered with blood and roaring fury, buried his dagger to the guard in its eyes.
The Grand Army of Volantis bellowed triumph to the skies as Viserys stood from the monster's corpse, while the host of Mantarys quailed. When Viserys picked up his fallen battle axe and pointed it at the Mantarysians to spur the Grand Army into a thundering charge, neither the imprecations and blows of their officers nor the sudden loosing of the other monsters in their ranks by their wizard handlers was enough to prevent them from panicked flight. As he spurred his horse to Viserys' side, Arthur couldn't help reaching down from the saddle to roughly embrace his king. Let any deny that the Conqueror's heir was worthy of his crown now, if they dared.
The peace that was negotiated after the Battle of the Monsters is noteworthy on three counts. Firstly, for a dictated peace it was remarkably lenient. Mantarys was required to join the Valyrian League, and pay dues in the form of dedicating a percentage of its yearly revenue to the Volantene war chest and providing and maintaining five thousand troops to be attached to the Grand Army, but otherwise, the only outward sign of Mantarys' vassalage was the installation of a Volantene delegation to ensure that the terms of the peace were adhered to. Secondly, the Mantarysian school of magic was eliminated root and branch in a combined purge and manhunt that lasted a full month and which, surprisingly, was not only endorsed by actively supported by the Mantarysians themselves. How much this reaction on the part of the Mantarysians was due to a feeling of betrayal that the wizards had failed to live up to the promises they had made before the war as to the military value of their monstrosities or to revulsion at the full revelation of the horrors of the breeding pits beneath the city, is open to debate. Contemporary chronicles understandably focus on the reactions of the Mantarysian citizenry as the pits were uncovered and the creatures therein brought to light, but they do not sufficiently explain why the Mantarysian magisters threw their support so wholeheartedly behind the purge. The magisters of Mantarys, after all, were the ones who had protected and patronized the wizards even at their weakest, through the fashion for amassing grotesqueries. As none of the Mantarysian magisters is known to have recorded their reasoning, it is possible that we will have to rely on conjecture.
The third, and to outside observers, most important way in which the new peace was noteworthy related to Viserys Targaryen himself. Not only had he indisputably won his spurs, but his feat of arms won the only show of fealty that the former Golden Company had not bestowed on him. As part of the triumphal celebrations after the return of the Grand Army to Volantis, Ser Myles Toyne and the other officers of the erstwhile Golden Company, noting that Viserys had lost his sword slaying a monster, offered to replace it with a better one and presented him with Blackfyre. The significance of this may have been lost on most contemporary Volantenes (one chronicler scoffed at 'the great store that barbarians place on such trinkets') but those with more understanding of Westerosi history got the message well enough; Viserys was not only Triarch of Volantis now, but he was throwing down the gauntlet to both of the royal Baratheon brothers by declaring himself king-presumptive of Westeros. The reaction on both littorals of the Narrow Sea was as turbulent as might be imagined . . .
The Dragon in the Wild: House Targaryen in Exileby Maester Harmon
Chapter 124: Fermentations
Chapter Text
As the Braavosi ambassador bowed his way out of Ser Gerion Lannister's office, Gerion began counting down in his head.Five, four, three . . .there was a thud as Eddard Stark's fist slammed into the wall.Two-one.
"By all the gods, the impertinence of the man," Eddard snarled. "That arrogant pig. To tell me, to my face, that I had to think of statecraft rather than revenge . . ."
Gerion shrugged. "The Braavosi place less importance on blood feuds than we do," he reminded his colleague and unlikely friend. "Their blood runs less hot than ours, and so they take a more dispassionate view of such things. Especially when they conflict with reason and good business sense."
"Good business sense, my left foot," Eddard growled. "The Braavosi can read the signs as well as we can; the Targaryen is regaining his old strength. What in all the hells could the Sealord be thinking to believe that allowing him rebuild himself makes good business sense?"
"If I had to guess, I would say that he thinks he is obligated to his people more than he is to us," Gerion said, rising from his desk and moving to the sideboard to pour them each a glass of wine, a new vintage from one of the Kingdom's burgeoning vineyards. "That with my brother finally founding his own bank, the Iron Bank must compete with a near-peer for the first time since the Rogare's fell, and so their markets, and consequently their strength, are suddenly less sure than they might be. And also that their quarrel is more with the Lyseni and the cities of Slaver's Bay than with Volantis, and that they have more pressing concerns on their border with Norvos than Viserys Targaryen. Or are you going to tell me that you haven't heard the news that Norvos has decided to join the Valyrian League in full, after Khal Drogo's destruction of the Darkwash?"
"All the more reason to strike them now," Eddard snapped. "When I spy a serpent in my path, do I wait for him to strike first or do I smite him in his coil, before he can do harm to me and mine?"
Gerion shot a cool look at Eddard. "My friend, you know the state of the Army and the Fleet as well as I, if not better," he said baldly. "I ask you: Can we fight Volantis, Khal Drogo, the Norvoshi, and the Lyseni without the help of the Braavosi and hope to win?"
Eddard glowered thunderously at him for a long minute, then suddenly turned away to glare out the window. "No," he ground out, his honesty defeating his pride. "Not all at once, at any rate. Perhaps in a year or two, when Maester Gordon's experiments with mobile artillery have borne fruit, our new volunteers have had time to season themselves, and Lyn Corbray's raids have weakened the Lyseni too much for them to come over the border in any strength, if at all. Until then . . ." he drummed his fingers against the hilt of his sword. "We can sweep the Lyseni off the mainland and into the sea, for all Daario Naharis' pretensions, or we could if we did not have the Norvoshi and Khal Drogo hovering off the Braavosi border and waiting for us to turn our attention elsewhere in order to overrun Pentos. We could break Norvos' power and hang the braids of Khal Drogo and his kos from our standards, if the Lyseni and their friends of Volantis were not poised to take advantage of such a distraction to threaten the southlands." He shook his head roughly, like a wolf pestered by flies. "No, we need the Braavosi," he admitted. "And we need them with every sword and sail they can muster. Which we will not get while Solazzo the Slow feels he can still play for time and try to set the slavers at odds with each other."
Gerion walked over to him and handed him one of the glasses. "There is good news on that front, anyway," he told his colleague. "Queen Serina has had news from some old friends of hers in Braavos; the city is fermenting again. Fortunato Dandolo may have been forced into retirement by his age, but his son Lando has proven to be as forceful as the old man ever was, and he is whipping the Sharks to greater heights of indignation by the sennight, clamoring for the work started by the Destruction of Tyrosh to be finished by the deaths of Khal Drogo and Viserys Targaryen. Even some Whales are finding their minds focused by Drogo's destruction of the Darkwash and Viserys' purges in Mantarys. If that is how they treat even minor enemies, how shall they treat the nation that made possible the Destruction of Tyrosh and which has been the greatest ally of Robert the Bloody?"
Eddard nodded as he sipped at his wine. "So the protestations of the ambassador just now were a ploy," he suggested. "To buy time for Solazzo to either calm the storm facing him or find some way of harnessing it."
"So I would guess," Gerion agreed. "But I think it would tend more towards the latter. Solazzo might be slow, but he is not a fool; he knows as well as any that these wars must be fought to a finish. I would conjecture that he delays only to increase the strength of the Commune against the day of battle, as a ram would back in order to butt. The Braavosi have not fought a major land war in generations; it will take time for them to turn their collection of regiments into a true army in the mold of the Legion. If the slavers fall out with each other in the meantime, as I deem Solazzo also hopes, then so much the better."
Eddard nodded again. "So long as they see fit to join us when the swords are finally drawn in earnest," he said softly, his grey eyes looking eastward out the window. "And so long as that day comes swiftly, whether Solazzo wills it or no. I have waited years for the opportunity to take my revenge, my friend; I will not wait for as many years again. Not when my father and sister still wait for Targaryen heads to be laid at the foot of their statues in the crypts of Winterfell. Nor will I pass this feud on to my sons, not when I have it in my power to end it."
Gerion regarded his unlikely friend, hiding his thoughts behind the practiced mask of the veteran diplomat. He knew how much weight the Northmen placed on the importance of vengeance and respected it; he had ridden with Tywin when they had finally been able to take their revenge on the Reyne's and the Tarbeck's, after all, and he was not such a hypocrite as to deny that there had been a sweetness to watching the downfall of men and women who had done such harm to his family. He also knew, or guessed at least, that Eddard was hag-ridden by his failure to finish his feud in the pursuit from Tara, when Ser Arthur Dayne had faced not only him but Jaime sword-to-sword at the same time and won. He had hoped that Eddard's marriage and children would have lifted at least some of that curse, but evidently that hope had been in vain. "Patience, my friend," he settled for saying. "The Targaryen is too far for us to reach him at the moment, at any rate. But the Norvoshi and Khal Drogo will need his army to take Pentos. And when he comes within our reach . . ." He held up an elegant but still hilt-calloused hand in a claw and slowly squeezed it into a fist.
Eddard smiled in predatory anticipation.
XXX
Stallen Naerolis looked up as Noriros Brenion limped into the salon where he had been waiting for the past hour. "Well?" he demanded.
Noriros' face was studiously neutral. "You will go to Myr," he said. "To observe and report only. By the King's command, you are to undertakenodirect action ofanykind. Magister Rahtheon said to tell you explicitly that this was a direct order."
Stallen controlled the fury that his countryman's words spawned in his heart with reflexive self-discipline. "Magister Rahtheon knows that every day we delay is a day that the Andals and their slaves can rebuild their strength, does he not?" he asked, his voice dangerously soft. "That the longer we leave them in peace while the King celebrates his victories, the more Andals come across the water and the more wealth the Braavosi pile up in their vaults to pay them to go to war with us?"
"All this and more he knows as well as any man alive," Noriros replied in a tone meant to soothe but which only rasped Stallen's growing anger. "And better than many. But the King requires time as well, time to strengthen his hold on the city and the hinterlands, time to nurture his alliance with Khal Drogo . . ."
Stallen threw his wineglass across the room to shatter against the far wall in a spray of shrapnel and liquid. "The King requires . . ." he growled, his voice darkening by the word. "I require Robert Baratheon chained at my feet,beggingto be allowed to die. I require his armies shattered, his henchmen dead, and his works laid in ruins. I require . . ."
"As do I, my friend, as do we all!" Noriros snapped. "But we will have none of these things withoutpatience. Yes, the Andals gain in strength by the year, but so do we! In a year we will have stabilized the Lyseni enough that they need not fear even a full-scale invasion. In two years we will have Khal Drogo's friendship in deed as well as in name, when he marries the King's niece. In three or four years we will have turned Ghoyan Drohe into a storehouse that can feed the Grand Army, Drogo's horde, and the Norvoshi through a campaign that will retake Pentos . . ."
"Patience. . ." Stallen hissed. "Every day foryearsnow I have heard of nothing butpatience. Will patience avenge the losses we have suffered, or restore our homeland to us?" He advanced on his friend, who was leaning hip-shot against his desk to take the weight of his twisted leg. "Rahtheon says patience. I sayact, act, act!We have the advantage of numbers and position; let us use them! Now, before the Andals can remedy their weaknesses!"
"Damnit, Stallen, this is an order!" Noriros shouted; several hours of making similar arguments to both Rahtheon and he King, reminding them both of the general losses of the Old Myrish and of his personal losses, from his grandfather down to his infant nephew, had frayed his own patience to breaking point. "Do you want me to have to go back to Magister Rahtheon and advise him to prevent you from going within a hundred miles of Myr?!"
Stallen felt himself inflate by what felt like inches as wrath seared through his veins, making his hands twitch and his vision sharpen, then he mastered himself. "No," he said slowly, driving the anger back into its lair by main will. "I will carry out our King's orders faithfully. But tell our King, and Magister Rahtheon, and whoever you like," he looked Noriros in the eye, "that the day comes swiftly when I will have heard enough of patience. All the spying in the world will not fulfill the King's oath to restore our homeland to us unless it is acted upon with fire and sword. I will learn Myr city so well that I may lead the King through its streets blindfolded, but for the sake of all the oaths he has sworn, hemustuse what I have learned to strike the Andals down into the dust."
"Mind yourself, Stallen," Noriros said calmly. "Spies do not normally make demands of kings, even spies as good as you are." What he left unsaid was that Stallen was the only spy to have infiltrated Myr city (twice, now) and returned to tell the tale. Most of the others had either been snapped up by either the City Watch or the damnably effective Office of Foreign Inquiry, being subsequently executed and their corpses displayed for the edification of the mob, or had simply vanished without trace. A very few were still in place, but only by dint of extreme caution. There were times when Noriros suspected that at least one of them was being used to feed false information, based on what he heard in council, but that was Rahtheon's affair, not his, so he let it lie. "Your orders will be written up by this time tomorrow," he continued. "You will have the usual leeway with selecting your method of entry, your cover story, and your plan of exit. His Grace bids you good luck."
Stallen nodded and swept out of the room, leaving Noriros with a sense of foreboding as the door closed again behind him. Stallen was the best spy they had, the only spy who could do what Rahtheon wanted him to do this time, but if he was truly under such strain . . . He put it out of his mind. There was no one else to send. Not that had the combination of skill, discretion, and daring that would be necessary to pull off such a mission as this.
XXX
Ser Sandor Clegane looked at the missive that the maester of Antlers had given him, then pulled the missive he had been given in King's Landing out of his wallet, broke the seal bearing the royal arms, and compared them. Both read,By order of the King, impede not the bearer of this. Sent at noon on this day.He looked up at the small party that had followed him from King's Landing. "It works," he said simply, provoking a chorus of jubilation as grown men pounded each other on the back and cheered the success of their king's latest project while the maester rushed to send the reply that would signify success. That would be a repetition of the message followed by a passage from the Book of the Crone praising the wisdom of Hugor of the Hill, as a sop to the Faith who had wanted it to be the first message. Stannis, however, had pointed out that if such a message were used, then the fact that it was common knowledge would allow the operators to correct it even if it became garbled. No, the first message had to be something that no one but he and Sandor would know of beforehand, to ensure accuracy.
Sandor looked up at Antlers' keep and shook his head. Only a king like Stannis, he decided, could have seen the usefulness of such a thing and possessed the drive to see it implemented. On the uppermost level of Antlers's keep a twenty-foot mast had been installed, at the top of which was perched a movable wooden crosspiece about fourteen feet long with another wooden spar six feet long hinged at either end. By a system of cables, pulleys, and levers, the crosspiece and the spars could be shifted into different configurations, each of which could be used to represent a letter, a number, or even a whole word if a prearranged code was being used. Similar contraptions had been installed at every castle, town, manor, and Order garrison in the Crownlands, with men detailed to watch the towers next to them in the chain for the next signal. Tests such as this one had been conducted between stations as they were erected, but this was the first time that a message had been passed from King's Landing all the way to Antlers.
It wouldn't do away with dispatch riders and messenger ravens entirely, of course; night and fog and bad weather would render it almost useless, and in the event of war raids against stations that weren't defended would go a long way to disrupting it. The stations simply had to be within line of sight of each other, and even the best Myrish far-eye would only carry human eyesight so far. And even stations that were defended would still be vulnerable to siege engines or fire. On top of which was the sheer expense of building so many towers and training so many men to operate the contraptions and read their signals and paying them to do just that and nothing else from sunrise to sunset. Only the Crownlands under Stannis and the Westerlands under Lord Lannister, he reckoned, had the combination of wealth, dense population, and strong rulers to support them. The Reachlords would not allow the Tyrell's to get away with establishing such a means of control over them anymore than the Riverlords or the Valelords would, even if the Tully's and the Arryn's could muster the coin for such an effort. The North was too bloody big to make such a network practical, and the Stormlands were too prone to obscuring weather to profit from it. And Dorne was not only too poor for it, but what people it had were too densely concentrated to make it worthwhile. Something like seven in ten of Dorne's population lived either along the Greenblood or in the Red Mountains, where they could easily be reached by dispatch riders or ravens. And even in the desert, where there might be a need for it, such a network would simply be too vulnerable.
All the same, Sandor couldn't help feeling a chill underneath the elation of watching something new in the world take form. The message had been sent at noon from the station atop Maegor's Holdfast, and it was perhaps a quarter of an hour past noon now. The message had covered more than a hundred miles in fifteen minutes, faster than any raven hatched could ever hope to fly, much less than any dispatch rider could hope to ride. Ordinarily it took weeks to gather the forces that owed Stannis direct fealty; if the time in which the summons could be sent out could be cut to mere hours, then it might take only days for Stannis to muster his New Nobles, the Order of the Crown, and the burgher militias of the Crownlands. In war as in a duel, victory often went to him who struck first. Being able to gather his forces so quickly all but guaranteed that Stannis would be the one to strike first, and that with almost his whole strength concentrated into a single armored fist. Gods pity the rebel who tried to catch Stannis flat-footed, with such power behind him.
The Myrish exile who had first had the idea for this system was probably on his knees right now giving thanks to every god that could hear him for his success, Sandor reflected as Lord Winters, the former Northman who had been made Lord of Antlers after the revolt that overthrew the Targaryen's, invited all present to a celebratory feast. As he had heard it, the man had fled Myr city after the Sack and found himself in business in King's Landing, where he had become obsessed with finding ways to get an edge over his competitors. King Stannis had heard about the man's experiments with using flags and smoke signals to pass information more quickly than by dispatch rider and summoned him to the Red Keep to ask if he could make a system of transmitting information quickly and accurately that was more reliable than smoke signals and faster than ravens. The Myrman had risen to the challenge, spurred on by Stannis' promise that whatever he created would not be shared with the Kingdom of Myr, and the result was the chain of signaling stations that had spread out in a net across the Crownlands over the past few years.
Five hours later, after the feast had wound down, the maester pressed another missive into Sandor's hand. This one, after confirming the receipt of the message confirming that the system worked, went on to make the wine leave Sandor's brain entirely.Viserys Targaryen has conquered Mantarys. War between the League of Valyria and the Kingdom of Myr and its allies should be considered likely but not imminent at this time. Whether the Seven Kingdoms will join in such a war is unclear but not likely at this time. Take all necessary measures to prevent strife between citizens of the Valyrian League's member states and subjects of the Kingdom of Myr and its allies, if any such be within your jurisdiction. More information to follow as it becomes available.
Sandor handed the strip of parchment back to the maester to give to Lord Winters, staring out into the gathering evening as he did so. For his money it was unlikely that there would ever be a war fought between the Seven Kingdoms and the Valyrian League unless the Kingdom of Myr fell; the distances were just too great, at least for a land war. A war fought at sea over the Stepstones was possible, he supposed, in order for Stannis to claim at least some of the Stepstones and avenge his defeat off Tyrosh so many years ago, but Stannis had never hinted that such a thought had crossed his mind. That being said, word that war was becoming more likely by the year would likely spur even more men to sail for Myr to fight for Holy Freedom and their fortunes. He wouldn't go, of course, not when Lord Lannister would probably have him killed for it and not when he would have to contend against the memory of f*cking Gregor, but some of the men at Court likely would. Some of them would probably go to the ends of the earth rather than continue to live in a place where they were within reach of Queen Cersei.
XXX
The following is an excerpt fromFlash About Town
Overall, I had very few complaints about the year I was having. Yes, the Barrows had been the stuff of nightmares, especially what happened to poor old Baldrick, but after making my report to His Grace he let me go back to my estates to reacquaint myself with them while he hashed out the problem of the Barrows with Lord Stark via raven. Which I did, but not as much as I reacquainted myself with my wife and my daughter, who had been born while I was in the North. The only real wrinkle was George, my new, better-looking, but frankly witless squire; a cousin of my wife's family, of course. Be told; one of the dangers of gaining a reputation like mine is finding out just how wide your family tree might spread its branches and how many of the people in those branches 'need a relation's assistance'. Not that George was absolutely hopeless; he was eager to please and a tolerably quick learner, and what he managed to learn stayed learned. But when he came to me he couldn't evensew, for the gods' sakes, much less cook or serve or properly polish armor, and the less said about his skill with a sword the better. Not that there was much to say in the first place, but almost all of it was bad. The one bright spot in it was that he didn't know how to hesitate if you gave him written directions; he knew no other way of fighting than to go for his opponent's throat. Which is the sort of spirit you need to be a knight, but you also need to temper it with canniness.
I was just beginning to make a tolerably decent swordsman out of George, and my daughter was just learning to walk, when His Nibs saw fit to summon meagain. Of course he didn't say what he needed me for. It was just one of those little notes he would send out by raven sayingCome at onceunder the royal seal. Not exactly proper protocol, but that was His Nibs for you. If he knew he had you by the short hairs, like he did me, he didn't waste time mucking about. So I packed my necessities again, kissed my wife and daughter goodbye, got George into marching order, and went to King's Landing to find it in even more of a hubbub than usual, because none other than Gerion Lannister and Victarion Greyjoy had come to visit. I was as surprised as anyone and more than most, knowing as I did how close Stannis and Robert had come to breaking off relations entirely over Septon Jonothor. But once Lord Tarly explained to me what was going on, it made a lot more sense.
See, in those days the Kingdom of Myr was casting about for allies with something near to desperation. The Braavosi were their goodbrothers, of course, but they were still rebuilding from the Expulsion and it would be a while yet before they were ready to take the field again in earnest, at least as far as any aggressive moves were concerned. No one else in their neck of the woods was inclined to friendliness with them, not after Khal Drogo stomped the Darkwash literally flat. So Robert had decided to bite the strap and reach out to his brother, in order to at least make the Lyseni think about having to defend their isles from three of the four most powerful fleets in the Narrow Sea and make Viserys consider how he was supposed to win a war against the Iron Legion, the Braavosi regiments,andat least a portion of Stannis' army. Not that there was much chance of His Nibs sending an army, but the Fleet was much more likely to be deployed, hence Victarion's presence, with Gerion to smooth the waters for him with Stannis and Cersei, who was his niece after all.
The problem, of course, was that Victarion was a Greyjoy, and while he didn't much care about his brother's death hereallydidn't like what was being done to the Isles since Balon's rebellion and the failed rising afterwards. And people in King's Landing were more likely to spit on an Ironborn's shadow than give him due respect, even if he was a lord and a high officer of state, except for those who remembered Euron or who had to deal with young Theon. So your humble servant was brought in to squire Victarion around and generally smooth things over if they started to look ruffled. For a sennight or two, things looked to be going well; the most awkward thing that happened was a conversation that Victarion had with his nephew Theon where neither of them seemed to know what to say to each other. For my money, I think Victarion was simply amazed that his nephew hadn't been sent to the Wall yet.
Then, of course, Queen Cersei happened. Not that she did anything to Gerion or Victarion, as she hadn't gone completely wode. But marching into a Small Council meeting and declaring that you have unimpeachable proof of corruption in the Faith is a very poor way of inserting yourself into a delicate diplomatic process, even if you're right.
This, as my granny would say, was the way of it. Apparently in the northeastern Reach there was a knight named Ser Jon Vickers, of not particularly distinguished ancestry but significant wealth and land for his class, which was the lower tiers of the landed chivalry. He died of a sudden illness, leaving behind a young widow and his brother Willard, who promptly tried to claim his brother's land by marrying his widow. The widow in question told him to get lost, upon which Willard apparently asked himself why he was negotiating for what he could take. An affidavit in the local radianor's court that Jon Vickers, knight, had died without heirs and his widow was not pregnant, plus a healthy bribe, saw Willard Vickers declared his brother's heir and the widow committed to a motherhouse, from which she was eventually shuffled off to the Silent Sisters, suffering various unpleasant doings from her erstwhile goodbrother, the radianor, and a slew of other men in the local secular and religious hierarchy along the way. This had come to Cersei's ears (exactly how was never satisfactorily explained where I could hear it; funny how that happens, eh?) and she had deputized young Edmure Tully to investigate. He had done so, but political pressures had required that the inquiries be slow-walked. For one thing, the Archsepton of the Northern Reach had been curious as to what half a dozen royal knights were doing poking around the motherhouses in his bailiwick and the explanation that they were reconnoitering them on behalf of their aging mothers had only partially assuaged his curiosity. Eventually the widow, despairing at the slow progress of the investigation, had managed to kill herself, at which point Cersei and Edmure had decided to come forward with what they had. I didn't hear Cersei's speech before the Small Council, but I did see the placard under her name that Ser Edmure Tully had nailed to the door of every sept in King's Landing detailing the findings of the investigation, ending with the now-famous Accusations.
There was an uproar, naturally. Queen or no, second-in-command of the Master of Laws or no, you can't just accuse a knight of theft and rape, a radianor of judicial corruption and rape, an archsepton of complicity, and the High Septon of willful ignorance and expect things to go on as normal. His Nibs was fit to be tied, but there was nothing he could do with such a flagrant breach of law brought to his attention; hehadto summon the High Septon before him and demand that he explain how such a thing had come to pass on his watch. And by the time the High Septon got over the injury to hisamour proprethat such a demand entailed, King's Landing was on the verge of blowing up. I won't go so far as to say that peopleknewthat there were abuses being committed against the Silent Sisters, but I daresay enough peoplesuspected. After all, if you're going to prey on someone, then who better than someone prevented from speaking and kept isolated in a self-contained community except under very specific circ*mstances? It never got to the point of riots, but there was an ugly incident where a crowd pelted the doors of the Great Sept with brickbats, demanding answers, before they were shooed away by the Watch. As well they might, to my mind; many of the men among them had probably served against Ryman or Balon, or knew men who had, and now they were finding out that the Faith they had fought and bled to defend might not be so lily-white after all. Even I was taken aback, when I heard the full scope of the charges, and I've never been one to place much importance on the sanctity of the Faith.
Mind you, though, I wasn't surprised at the fact of corruption in the Faith, merely the extent of it. It's a law of nature that organizations become corrupt; His Nibs was the most fervently clean-handed and rigorous person I knew and even he had men in his service who owed their positions to birth or wealth rather than ability. The closest you get to an incorruptible organization is a gang of fanatics like the Myrish Royal Inspectors, and they come with their own problems. Even so, I had thought that the High Septon would run a tighter ship than the one that came to light after Edmure Tully and his subordinates gave evidence in open Court about what they had found in the course of their investigations.
Nor did it help matters that Prince Lyonel left Court in the middle of the whole business. The official word was that he had been dispatched to Pyke to relieve his uncle Kevan as Castellan and Warden of the Isles, in order to allow that worthy to enjoy the retirement his wounds entitled him to. Unofficially, I found out later, it was meant as a pointed reminder to Lord Tywin that just because the Isles were under Crown rule didn't mean that the laws against unfree servitude were in abeyance. Not that he was actually enslaving the Ironborn, of course, even Tywin wasn't that cold or that crazy, but the Ironborn he was sending down the mines probably wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. The problem, though, was that Lyonel leaving King's Landing at such a juncture looked like one of two things, depending on your sympathies. Firstly, that Stannis was sufficiently unsure of his ability to maintain control of his own capital that he was sending his heir to safety before it blew up. Or, secondly, that he was trying to carry on with business as usual in spite of the scandal of the century breaking out in the very seat of his power. On top of which, rumor quickly spread that His Nibs had argued with the Queen about sending Lyonel so far away, in the company of his pagan friend Theon to boot, whichalsoreflected badly on him. Whatever her interests in the matter were, Cersei had become the public face of the movement to reform the Faith from within, by then, and for His Nibs to be reportedly barred from her bed until Lyonel returned made for an inconvenient image. The fact that Stannis was apparently trusting an Ironborn, and a Greyjoy at that, with part of the duty of protecting his heir but not trusting his Queen to do her part to root out corruption in the Faith she so fervently believed in only compounded the unfavorable look of the whole affair.
In such a climate, the only thing to do was get Gerion and Victarion out of the city; when people get in that kind of mood, they stop being picky about their targets, and Greyjoy might as well have had a bull's-eye painted on his back. And as Gerion told me later, there was clearly no hope of Stannis involving himself in the wars in any meaningful way, not with such a crisis threatening to swamp him. Evidently His Nibs agreed, because he ordered me to take a score of knights, men I trusted to obey orders, and take ship for Myr to place myself at King Robert's service for a year. He might not, he told me, looking outrightoldfor the first time I could remember, be able to support his brother, but he could send him a token of what he wished he could offer if times were better, and if that token was led by a certified hero, then that would at least alleviate the disappointment. At the time I was happy to leave King's Landing; Myr might be a kingdom at war, or the next thing to it, but Volantis is hundreds of miles from where Myr's borders lay in those days, and all the fervor in the world can't overridelogistika. If I'd known what would be waiting for me in Essos, I'd have found some way, any way, of begging off. Of course, given what I ended up escaping in King's Landing, that might not have been the brightest idea I ever had . . .
Chapter 125: Stags of the Hill
Chapter Text
The various sections of the Red Keep each had their function, enshrined by years of tradition. The Great Hall was for public audiences, the Tower of the Hand for the offices of royal governance, Maegor's Holdfast for the private refuge and inner sanctum of the dynasty, and White Sword Tower, now Stormhaven Tower, the military nerve center of the royal government, due to how often the members of the Stormguard were used to command detachments of royal soldiers. But for public recreation, when the point was not for members of the dynasty to rest and relax but to rest and relax in company of their courts, the Maidenvault was the venue of choice. It was grand enough to remind those chosen to share in the recreations of the royal family of the dynasty's power, but not so overbearing as the Holdfast or the Great Hall. It was also, by tradition dating back to it's creation, considered the preserve of the princesses of the dynasty, and it was considered inappropriate for any non-royal man except for a member of the Stormguard to enter it without the invitation of the senior princess. Which was why Princess Joanna had waited until her father had decided to spend an hour in the Maidenvault before presenting her scheme to him; the only men present were Ser Cortnay and three other men of the Stormguard, and Stannis would presumably not feel the need to be seen to be able to control his daughter in front of them. "My lord father," she said brightly, "my ladies and I wish to go shopping in the city."
Stannis turned his attention from the game of cyvasse he was playing against Ser Cortnay Penrose to raise a mild eyebrow at his eldest daughter. "Oh?" he asked pleasantly. "For what, that you must go down into the city instead of summoning a merchant or two into the Red Keep?"
Joanna smiled as she spread her arms. "For whatever takes our fancy, subject of course to the limits of our purses," she said gaily. "The twins' birthday approaches swiftly, after all, and we must find suitable gifts."
Brienne of Tarth, standing an arm's-length from the Princess with one hand on the hilt of her sword and the other resting on the buckle of her belt, restrained herself from rolling her eyes at Joanna's breezy manner. The part about the twins' birthday was true, but it was also true that Joanna's little court was starting to suffer from frayed manners. There were only so many word games and only so much needlework that one could do, after all, and it was too long since there had been an excursion beyond the walls of King's Landing, or even to the Joanna Gardens. The keg of wildfire that the Queen had dropped on the city with her Accusations had seen to that, and the Queen's barely-concealed anxiety about her approaching confinement and resulting snappishness made matters even worse. None of Joanna's ladies had been pushed to active malice yet, but the temptation was growing by the day, as Brienne knew too well.
Most of the unkind words and barbed jests were made at her, after all, for all Joanna's protection.
Stannis stroked his short beard, visibly considering. "I suppose it could not hurt too much to make an excursion," he said slowly. "Provided it was a short one, with plenty of protection."
"Protection?" Joanna asked with a laugh. "What would we need protecting from that Brienne and our servants could not see off?"
"Anything more serious than the average thief, or a single man bent on violence," Stannis replied, stifling the titters of the ladies who were sitting around Joanna engaged in embroidering. "Brienne is very capable for a squire, but she is only one sword, who cannot go more than arm's reach from your side. Against a crowd, she would be able to do very little." He stroked his beard again. "And a crowd there may well be. You have heard, I trust, of the newest evidence that Ser Edmure's investigations have brought to light?"
There was a round of nods from Joanna and her ladies. "We all have, father," Joanna said, her tone turning solemn. "What his men had to say about the motherhouses in the central Vale . . ." she shuddered delicately. "Perfectly horrid, from what little we were told."
Stannis nodded. "Even more so, to those who heard the whole of it. And even where the whole is not known, rumor makes what little is known even worse. Such stories make people angry, and angry people care little about who they vent their anger on."
Joanna spread her hands. "Would it not be wise, then, to let us allay some of that anger with our coin?" she asked guilelessly. "Queen Serina did as much in Myr, I have heard."
"It is not the same," Stannis said. "The danger in Myr was a collapse of the markets, not the unrest of the smallfolk. I will not deny that men who are paid well for their goods in good coin are easy to soothe, but some men are not so easily swayed." He glanced at the cyvasse board where Ser Cortnay had advanced a light horse to threaten his catapults, blocked it with a spearman. "And it is not just the stories Ser Edmure's men tell that make the people uneasy," he went on. "It is rumored that if the High Septon does not bend to the will of Most Devout Hugar's faction, and implement an even more thorough investigation than Ser Edmure's and act on its findings, then he may be forced to resign."
There was a shocked silence, broken only by muffled clatter as an embroidery frame fell from suddenly nerveless fingers. "But he can't," Brienne said without meaning to. She flushed at the outburst, and flushed even more as all eyes swiveled to her. "The High Septon is elected for life," she plowed on. "He cannot simplyresign."
Stannis shrugged. "There is precedent," he said calmly. "Admittedly, that precedent is seven hundred years old and has never been repeated, but it exists, even so. And even if it did not," Stannis smiled slightly at his daughter's sworn sword, "there is never precedent for anything until the first time it is done, as I'm sure you know."
Brienne accepted the mild rebuke with a short bow. "Even so, father," Joanna said, rallying. "It would behoove us to help maintain an air of calm amid the storm, would it not? We shall be circ*mspect in our choice of vendors and in our words, and we will take some of Ser Cortnay's knights with us to assist Brienne."
Stannis looked at Ser Cortnay, who thought for a moment before nodding. "You will take as many men as Ser Cortnay deems necessary," Stannis said as he turned back to his daughter, "and you will be as circ*mspect as you may without appearing timid. At the first sign of serious unrest, or at the discretion of the commander of your escort, you will return to the Keep at your best speed. Understood?"
It was said in much the same tone as he would have used to issue orders to the leader of a scouting party, but Joanna nodded, sinking into a curtsey as she did so. Brienne sighed softly through her nose. It would be good to get out of the Red Keep, even for only a little while, but whatever Joanna and her court did,shewould find nothing relaxing about this little excursion. King's Landing was a well-governed city, but even Stannis could not prevent it from being possibly the most dangerous city in Westeros, bar maybe Gulltown. Not that she feared footpads or cutpurses; they would know better than to seek such prey, lest the Watch and the Royal Orders descend on Flea Bottom in force. But a mob would not be so mindful of the peril attendant on attacking a princess and her ladies, and with almost a quarter of the Stormguard traveling across the continent with Prince Lyonel . . . Brienne resolved to wear at least most of her armor on the shopping trip, and touch up the edges of her sword and dagger beforehand. One of the things that Ser Cortnay was drumming into her that she had already taken to heart was that it was better to do something and not need to do it than need to do something and not do it.
XXX
Bronn was listening to his knight interview a grocer who supplied one of the motherhouses near King's Landing with half an ear while he calculated the odds that the man would know something useful when one of the archers of his squad entered the little shop and said the words that everyone of his rank heard at least half a dozen times on a good day. "Sarge, you'd better come quick. There's trouble." Bronn pushed himself off the wall he had been leaning against, gave Ser Gareth the nod-and-wave that saidI've got this, and walked outside to find that what Brown Bill had said was trouble was not in fact trouble at all. Not if you had the right attitude, anyway, and he certainly did. In fact, it was all he could do to keep from smiling. Wouldn't do to spoil the façade; it was one of the things he was paid to take care of, after all.
A squad of City Watch were lined up in the street outside the store, with their officer and his sergeant waving a piece of paper in the face of Bronn's corporal. Corporal Bones, to his credit, was doing a fine job of stonewalling, but Bronn could see the relief in his eyes as he turned around and saw him coming; Bones was a decent sort and a good soldier, but looking an officer in the face and telling him no didn't come naturally to him. On the other hand, if it did then he wouldn't have made corporal.
"Morning, squire," Bronn said jocularly as he walked up and waved Bones away, putting a bit of swagger into his last few steps and hooking his thumbs into his sword belt. "What seems to be the problem?"
The goldcloak officer was already red in the face; more so than could be accounted for by him wearing armor on a warm day. "We have a warrant to search these premises and question the people therein," he snapped, clearly irritated at saying something he had already said a dozen times, "in furtherance of investigating abuses on the part of the Faith." He snapped gloved fingers and his sergeant held out a sheet of parchment with an impressive-looking seal. "If you and your men do not cease to impede us from executing that warrant, you will be liable to arrest and imprisonment on charges of hindering the King's Justice."
Bronn took the warrant delicately and made a show of reading it, slowly. He was only literate enough to sign his name and puzzle through a simple message, and a warrant was beyond his ken. But he did know what to look for. "This is indeed a warrant," he said, maintaining his jocular tone. "But it has Ser Edmure Tully's seal on it. And it's dated from today."
The goldcloak officer arched an eyebrow. "And so?" he asked sarcastically.
"And so we have a warrant from the King to search the premises and question the people therein in furtherance of investigating smuggling and evasion of royal and city taxes," Bronn said, no longer bothering to conceal his grin. "Dated from two days ago. Meaning we have jurisdiction."
"Don't be ridiculous," the goldcloak officer spat. "Crimes committed within the city walls are under the jurisdiction of the City Watch, not the Royal Orders."
"The Royal Orders have jurisdiction," Bronn said easily, handing the goldcloak sergeant his warrant back, "wherever the Royal Orders find themselves to be. Especially when they have a King's Warrant saying that they do." He drew the scroll of parchment that the royal clerk had given Ser Gareth out of the pouch that hung from his swordbelt just behind his sword, unrolling it and holding it up in his left hand where not only the officer but every goldcloak in the street could hear it. "You do recognize the royal seal when you see it, don't you?
The goldcloak officer hesitated for a moment, his face turning from red to crimson, before shaking his head. "Damn you, man, you are hindering an investigation," he snarled. "I don't care if your warrant is signed by the gods themselves, abuses of the Faith take precedence over meresmuggling. You have no right . . ."
Bronn raised his right hand to stop him in mid-rant, then used the same hand to tap the front of his surcoat. "You see this livery, boyo?" he said calmly. "That means that I'm a King's man. Means I have the right to investigate whatever I like, whenever I like, wherever I like. It also means I not only can but am in fact under orders to tell you to f*ck right off. And if you don't," he dropped his hand to the hilt of his sword, "well then, I'll just have to use whatever force I deem necessary to make you f*ck right off. Understand me, boyo?"
The officer turned white, then purple, and seemed on the edge of reaching for his sword when his sergeant placed a hand on his shoulder and started whispering in his ear. Bronn held the man's gaze while he waited to see if his bluff worked. Technically, everything he had said was true, but no one had ever said it so baldly. Nor had anyone ever, to his knowledge, threatened a Watch officer with violence and gotten away with it. That said, he doubted that either Ser Gareth, their Commander, or anyone else in their chain of leadership would do much beyond scold him. The Watch was the Watch, but the Order held its authority and took its orders direct from the Iron Throne, both in peace and in war. And if the Watch didn't like the Order treading on its turf, then they could take it up with the King, and much good may it do them, especially with the Queen reportedly having just gone into labor. All the more so if it came out that the Watch had tried to interfere with an investigation that the Order was carrying out on the King's orders.
The goldcloak officer's face had returned to a more or less normal color by the time his sergeant stepped away, but he was still obviously inflamed. "Your name and style, ser," he ground out.
Bronn bowed shortly, not taking his eyes off the officer's. "Bronn Smith, sergeant, third company, Royal Order of the Crown," he said. "My knight is Ser Gareth Price."
The officer nodded. "I will mention your name and your knight in my report of this,sergeant," he said venomously. "My shift captain and the Lord Commander of the Watch will hear of this, and you will answer for your words and actions today."
Bronn smiled even more broadly. "At your pleasure,ser," he said, lacing the honorific with as much contempt as he dared. The officer glared at him for a long moment, then spun on his heel and marched away, bawling orders. The other goldcloaks fell in around him as he stomped down the street, followed by the sergeant who cast an apologetic look and a shrug at Bronn. Bronn shrugged back as he put the warrant back in his pouch.
"Bloody hells, sarge," Corporal Bones said shakily. "Aren't you worried about getting busted? Talking to an officer like that . . ."
"A goldcloak officer, not one of our officers," Bronn said casually. "'Sides, I've done more in the Crown's service in a year than he's done in his whole life, and I haven't taken a single bribe for it either." Neither had the goldcloak, probably, Lord Bolton's policy on corruption being what it had been, but the Watch's reputation was too old and too notorious on that score. For his part, Bronn had found Stannis' policy against taking bribes sufficiently exemplary to put the thought of it out of his head. Money was all well and good, but there was only so much a man-at-arms could do to earn a living with only their left hand. "Not so much as a bad inspection on my record either. I'm not worried about being busted."
"Suppose he calls you out, though?" Bones asked, clearly still nervous. "You disrespected him to his face in front of his men and all, sarge."
Bronn shrugged. "Well then, I'll just have to kill him, won't I?" he replied. "Shouldn't be too hard."
"What shouldn't be too hard, sergeant?" Ser Gareth said as he walked out the door of the shop, making the squad brace to attention as he pulled his gloves on.
"Nothing, ser," Bronn said, his tone and expression sayingI'll tell you later. Ser Gareth had been an officer long enough to know when a sergeant was telling him something without saying it; he nodded and ordered the squad back to the Red Keep. Bronn fell into step easily, his spirits high. Life in the Order could be tedious at times, but it had its compensations. It wasn't everyone who got to tell a goldcloak, and an officer at that, to f*ck off. He would have whistled, but breaking silence in the ranks was against King's Regulations. He was a sergeant; he was paid to set an example, among other things.
XXX
The High Septon was quite ready to be done with the day as he retired to his chambers, flanked by two of his more trustworthy attendants. Which was worrying, in a small way, as the day had been neither long nor particularly vexing. He was no longer young, but the heartiness of his youth had turned into a wellspring of strength that men a dozen years younger than he might envy. Certainly he was nowhere near as ruined a shell as his predecessor had been;hecould still walk under his own power, thank you very much.
It was this damnable factionalism that had sprung up in King's Landing that was to blame for his fatigue, he knew, especially since Queen Cersei and Ser Edmure had torn the lid off the corruption they had found in the northwestern Reach. His mouth thinned a little; all the outward show of anger he would allow himself, even in private. The heretics might want him dead, but at least they made no bones about their enmity. The Queen would happily see him dead if it meant that he could be replaced by someone like Most Devout Hugar, who had revealed himself to be Lord Tywin's over the past months. And she would do so while proclaiming to anyone who would hear that she was his greatest champion and most zealous advocate. Give him a declared enemy any day of the sennight, instead of these false friends.
Thank all the gods for the King. Without his support, he did not dare think what might have happened, especially since Lord Tywin's efforts to rein in his daughter had proven unsuccessful. Not that he would ever admit it. If Lord Tywin had a besetting sin, it was that he was brave to madness before anything but embarrassment; if it came out that his daughter was in open defiance of him and he could not control her . . . Quite.
Although come to that, he could wish that Tywinwastaken down a peg or three; was it so difficult to raise obedient children that he could only succeed with one out of the three he had spawned? And the one child that was properly biddable had been torn from a most promising career in the Faith for no better reason than pride. The loss of his eldest son to heresy had been a grave blow to Tywin's plans, as the High Septon knew perfectly well, but the man had nephews enough, did he not? There was no need to treat his one obedient son like a stud stallion, only to throw him back to the Faith once he had given his father a grandson that did not stand to inherit a throne.
Fortunately, he reflected as he reached his chambers and dismissed his gentlemen, he was not without allies other than the King, or without means of communicating with them. The Red Keep was not the only building in King's Landing to have its secrets; it simply had more of them than the rest put together. But while Baelor the Blessed had never seen the need for anyone to come and go from the Red Keep to the Great Sept in secret, the High Septon of the time and Prince Viserys, later Viserys the Second, had been more practical men. His guest rose from the seat she had taken as he entered and greeted her with a nod that could almost be described as a short bow. "Your Highness," he said respectfully. "Be welcome in King's Landing."
Princess Arianne Nymeros-Martell smiled as she dipped to one knee and kissed his ring. His courtesy was certainly appropriate, he had been born Matteo Santagar after all, but as High Septon he was at least her political and social equal, if not her superior. In matters of faith, of course, the relationship was much clearer. Especially since Arianne's mother Princess Mellario, and the rest of her regency council, had insisted that she take the instruction of the Archsepton of Sunspear seriously. The Dornish Faith was unorthodox, and proud of being so, but it knew who its masters were. Especially since the Red Viper's failed rebellion. "Your Holiness," she replied. "I regret that you have had such a trying time these past sennights."
"The service of the gods is trying even in the best of times, Your Highness," the High Septon said with a slight smile. "Especially in the higher offices; only fools or the corrupt think that either the red cassock or the white confer a life of leisure. But come, sit, and let us speak quickly; my valet will come soon to help me prepare for bed." As they sat, she lightly on the chair and he heavily on his bed, he raised an eyebrow. "Are you certain that the Queen still considers you a confidant?"
Arianne nodded. "She is not clever enough to distrust me," she replied. "Merely practical; I was not necessary for her plan, and so I did not need to know. She actuallyapologizedfor not alerting me that her Accusations were in the wind. And I suspect that Ser Edmure may have had a role in my remaining in the dark; heisclever enough to distrust me, or at least to not trust me fully when I have not proved myself."
The High Septon smiled faintly. "A good quality, cleverness, to have in a husband," he remarked. "Especially when said husband will be consort to a princess."
"Indeed, but he is not for me any more than Prince Lyonel is," Arianne said. "I know I must marry Dornish, and most likely to Lord Yronwood's son or nephew, whichever I find more to my fancy. Quentyn will be our offering to the Andals in this generation, and I hope he and the Morrigen girl have much joy of each other."
The High Septon nodded. "May the gods smile on their union and make it fruitful, for the peace of the Realm," he said. "But what do you have to report that it must be passed on in this way?"
"Ser Edmure will petition the King's leave to return to Riverrun soon," Arianne replied. "His father's illness is said to be accelerating. I would not be surprised if the new year saw a new Lord of Riverrun accept the fealty of the riverlords."
The High Septon stroked his chin, kept clean-shaven by the dictates of the Faith. Of all the clergy, only the chaplains of the Warrior's Sons had been permitted to grow beards, and that only when in the field. "I will have to arrange to say Divine Offices for the soul of Lord Tully, then," he said. "And mourn him; he was a good lord and a sensible man. But at least his passing will take Ser Edmure from Court and give him more to do than stir up trouble. The riverlords have ever been a fractious lot, and if Ser Edmure truly means to tear heresy out of the Riverlands root and branch, then he will have enough work on his hands for a dozen lifetimes."
"Perhaps, Your Holiness," Arianne agreed, her dark eyes troubled. "But I would advise you not to discount him. He is a most driven man, and his time in the King's service has not dimmed his zeal to extirpate heresy. If anything, it has only given him ideas about how to most effectively do so. And I hear from other sources that at least some of the Riverlords await his ascension with eagerness; Bracken, Vance of Atranta, Goodbrook, Hawick . . . even Lord Frey is said to be waiting eagerly for Ser Edmure to come into his inheritance, and when was the last time Walder Frey had anything good to say about a Tully? Unless Ser Edmure is unwise enough to ignite a civil war, he may be the most powerful Tully since Kermit."
The High Septon gestured acceptance. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, Your Highness," he said. "If Ser Edmure truly does become so powerful, then we shall cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, it is enough that he will be out of King's Landing. Anything else?"
As the Princess concluded her report and left by the secret passageway, the High Septon couldn't help a smile. Dorne might have been broken to the Baratheon bridle, but at least it's Princess was still formidable. How King Stannis had managed to make her his spy in the Queen's inner circle he could not guess, but he was certainly glad of it. And he knew what price he would have to pay for her service to the Crown, and considered it cheap. If Brother Doran of the Quiet Isle were to be laicized and returned to the world as Doran Martell, then it would only serve to cause even more political confusion. But if he were simply transferred from the Quiet Isle to the Martell's family chapel at the Water Gardens, which had been requesting additional hands anyway, well that was simply an internal matter of the Faith, and no business of anybody else.
And now the Queen would lose one of her principal champions within the next few months, with her pregnancy nearing its completion. The High Septon smiled, clutching his cane like a spear from the wilder days of his youth. He was old, but an old leopard was still a leopard, and he still had fangs left to him. If the Queen sought to drive him from his office, then she would find that out to her cost. He had always detested false friends.
XXX
One of the things that Sandor had learned very quickly after his elevation was that there was no way to escape the nobility's obsession with hierarchy and the ways in which it could be determined. Force of arms was one way, of course, as well as currying favor with your liege-lord, but it didn't stop there by a long shot. Whether you were rich enough to host a tourney or not was its own dividing line between levels of nobility, and even among those who could afford to host a tourney there were degrees of separation, based on the splendor and variety of events and the number and quality of combatants.
Even something like a banquet could raise or lower your status, depending on its quality, presentation, and how often you could give them. It was not unheard of for lower-ranked lords to run their coffers into the ground trying to provide revels above their station in vain attempts to increase their status. Which was one of the reasons Sandor gave his steward whenever the man inquired if he was ever going to put on a tourney or a banquet for the neighbors. Of course, for the high nobility had their own problems with the matter;theyhad to put everything they had into their tourneys and banquets lest it be rumored that they had gone soft. Even when the event being celebrated was something trivial like a younger child's nameday, there had to be multiple courses, entertainments, the whole ball of wax.
When Prince Lyonel Baratheon, heir apparent of the King on the Iron Throne and grandson of Tywin Lannister, arrived in Lannisport on his way to Pyke to take up a high office of the royal government on the heels of word that Queen Cersei had been delivered of a second son at long last, a major festivity was all but mandatory. And when the Lannister's threw a party, with the famously wealthy city of Lannisport and their own proverbially bottomless pockets paying the bills,everyoneknew about it, and most of them were invited.
As commander of the Prince's escort, Sandor had been roped into competing in the tourney, partially because he hadn't dared grumble. Not where the Prince and Lord Tywin could hear him, anyway. Wouldn't do for a knight as famous as the Mastiff to be visibly reluctant to compete in his liege-lord's tourney. And he had ended up doing surprisingly well in a contest that had included such names as Ser Addam Marbrand, Jason Mallister, Black Walder Frey, and Ser Arys Oakheart, along with virtually every other knight of any worth in the Westerlands, the northwestern Reach, and the western Riverlands. There had even been knights from the Order of the Sea and a few new nobles from the Iron Isles. He hadn't won, but he had given Ser Addam Marbrand the fight of his life in the final joust, and he knew he fully deserved the richly decorated close helmet filled with golden dragons that had been the prize for coming in second. And he had won the foot combat with the sword, thanks to Red Rain and Ser Rickon's training, and was now the richer by a destrier from the Lannister stud for it. All in all, he reflected as he sipped at his wine, he had very little to complain about. Especially since despite his victories he wasn't being swarmed by people seeking conversation, or even by a single marriage-minded woman.
No, they were all swarming around Prince Lyonel, who for his part was in his element chaffering away with anyone who approached him. The Prince might have his father's coloring and build, but he had a poise and handsomeness that reminded Sandor much more of his mother. The way he was handling the toadies and bootlickers and other courtiers, however, was all him. His parents tended to either suck people into their wake or else run them over; gently, perhaps, but no less definitively for all that. Lyonel, on the other hand, was gifted with an easy charm and a knack for conversation that could make anyone feel at ease. It was the only reason Sandor could not bring himself to like the boy. Outright enmity he knew how to handle, f*cking Gregor had seen to that. Jealousy, suspicion, and mistrust likewise, likewise, and likewise. But the way that Lyonel seemed determined to draw him into his orbit with friendly words and smiles while never coming straight out and saying what he wanted, made Sandor's neck hairs prickle. The kind of string-pulling that the King and Queen, or Lord Tywin for that matter, did could grate, to be sure, but there was an honesty to their manipulations. Unlike the way that Lyonel seemed determined on.
Why on earth, for instance, had he insisted on their going miles out of their way to visit Clegane Keep? Oh sure, it gave Sandor a way to look in on his steward and household after a long absence, and allowed Theon Greyjoy to thank Morag for keeping him safe during the storming of Pyke, but what had been in it for Lyonel?
Sandor shook his head and took another sip of his wine. Dealing with the high was getting to him, if he was suspecting the motives of the Prince for doing a favor to two of his liegemen. Even if Lyonel was playing some deep game, he was a decent lad who had the makings to be a good king. And besides, Sandor was in his debt for occupying so much of Lord Tywin's time; Sandor had been dreading giving his report on the situation in the capital.
"Deep thoughts, Lord Clegane?"
He blinked out of his reverie to notice that someone had approached him after all. Two someones, in fact, and quite a pair at that. "Lord Tyrion," he said gruffly. "Lady Amely. Forgive me; I was preoccupied."
"Evidently," Tyrion replied with a half-smile. "And please, call me Tyrion; it's my father who's the lord, and he's busy elsewhere." He jutted his chin over to where Tywin stood at Lyonel's right hand amid a throng of would-be cronies. "Winnowing the marriage market, at the moment, if I'm any judge."
Sandor blinked, then nodded. "I hadn't thought of it that way," he admitted. "But aye, probably. Not that it'll matter too much, since His Grace gets to decide who Lyonel weds."
Lady Amely laughed. "Oh, Lord Lannister will have his say in the matter, my lord, depend on it," she said teasingly. "Especially since His Grace has yettodecide who our prince will wed. And him almost fifteen!"
"Probably can't find anyone worthy of him," Tyrion mused, his mismatched eyes suddenly turning thoughtful. "Arianne Martell would be a good choice, but she has Dorne to rule, and resentment at the Dornish being brought into the royal fold provided much of the force behind the Blackfyres, after all. Margaery Tyrell would be ideal, I suppose, but she's already betrothed and due to be married next year, so there's that idea gone. Neither the Tully's or the Arryn's have a daughter of the right age and giving a royal wedding to one of their bannermen would cause more problems than it would solve. One of Brandon Stark's daughters would do nicely, but if he won't send even Roose Bolton to King's Landing these days . . ."
Sandor nodded. "Like throwing a side of beef between two packs of starving dogs," he said. "Even if she was let to worship the old gods in peace, her children wouldn't. Not the way things are now." It was, in fact, the main reason he was dreading an interview with Lord Tywin.
By any reasonable measure, he had failed in his task of calling the Queen's Men to heel. All he had done, in fact, was weed out the chaff and temper those who remained. It had taken him months to realize, as Ser Damon Lannister had, that the Queen's Men didn't follow Cersei because they mistook her for Lord Tywin; they followed her because they saw in her the champion of their ideals and the foe of all they hated. They followed her, in short, for theideaof her, more than for the rewards she could offer for serving her. His efforts to dissuade them had only succeeded in sifting out the fainthearts and the greedy while binding the die-hards even closer to each other and to Cersei. Having offered defiance to Lord Tywin Lannister, even if only at first remove, the only hope they had was to prevail. It was, he suspected, much the same with the King's Men, if not more so.
"Well, at least Princess Joanna is betrothed," Lady Amely said. "To Willas Tyrell, no less! I'm surprised we can't hear the Queen of Thorns laughing all the way from Highgarden."
"The Tyrell's have been loyal since His Grace was crowned," Sandor pointed out, feeling a bizarre urge to defend Stannis' decision. "Lord Tyrell has fought beside the King, what, three times now? His Grace pays his debts, and he owes the Tyrell's a big one."
"Big enough to warrant giving them a claim to the Iron Throne, even," Tyrion agreed. "Mind, the Tyrell's need Stannis as much as Stannis needs the Tyrell's. I imagine Mace Tyrell sleeps the more soundly of a night for knowing that he can call on the royal army for aid if the Rymanists ever raise their heads again. Speaking of which . . ." Tyrion leaned in. "I've had word from an old friend off mine from seminary, who went to the Vale after taking his vows. Ser Denys has said much about how the raids of the clansmen have decreased since Ser Gerold took the head of a warlord of the Burned Men named Timmet, but my friend has heard rumors of a man seeking to unite the clans. If this Timmet was as fearsome as Ser Denys claims, then it may be that the last obstacle to a union of the clans has been removed and between the clans and the Old Faith . . ." He spread his hands illustratively. "Well, Ser Denys would not have to make too many mistakes, would he?"
Lady Amely shook her head. "For my money the next war will come in the Isles," she opined. "My cousin serves in the Order on Great Wyk, riding patrols through the hills and enforcing the Iron Code. He swears that he can feel the hatred of the Ironborn on his skin when they think he isn't looking. But what think you, Lord Clegane? Where do you think the next war will come?"
Sandor shrugged, his enthusiasm for the conversation evaporating. "I don't know," he said shortly. "All I know is that someone, somewhere, will do something stupid and someone else will try to pour water on the fire only to find out it's oil. Then it'll be war, and only the fools and the scavengers will be happy about it." He bowed shortly and turned away. He would happily live out the rest of his life without fighting another war, but the odds of that were somewhere between hilarious and nonexistent. Whether it came in the Isles or in the Vale or anywhere else, the Prince would get involved and Sandor would have to go in right next to him; Theon Greyjoy was good, almost frighteningly good, but he was a swordsman, not a commander.
First, though, there would be Pyke. And while it would be good to see Ser Rickon again, Sandor couldn't help a thrill of dread at the thought of going back to that castle. Which was odd; he'd never been one to be afraid of places. Afraid of people, yes; Gregor had taught him fear, all those years ago, and only the mad did not fear Lord Tywin. But places had never held much dread for him. So why this unease at the thought of Pyke castle?
He chased away fear with a swallow of wine; it didn't matter. Where the Prince went, so did he; his instructions were explicit on that count. Even this . . . whatever-it-was he was feeling about Pyke didn't matter, next to that. Underneath the titles and the manors, he was Lord Tywin's dog still, and dogs obeyed.
The birth of Prince Gerold did what seemed the impossible, in that it silenced the factional feuding in King's Landing. Both Queen's Men and King's Men rejoiced that the succession was, at long last, secured, and Stannis struck while the political iron was hot. Renly Baratheon, his youngest brother, was made Master of Laws, while Ser Edmure Tully was mollified at being passed over for the post he must have coveted for so long by being named the new prince's godsfather. The feast that was held to celebrate the prince's birth, and the procession to and from the baptism, provided an important piece of political theater in that members of the King's Men and Queen's Men were seated next to each other, rather than to their comrades, and walked arm-in-arm in the procession. It is unlikely that a king as astute as Stannis could have believed that the hatchet was buried for good between the two factions of his court, but he almost certainly intended to present the appearance of such a reconciliation to the public and may have hoped that the appearance of reconciliation would lead to the fact of it.
If this was the case, he was to be disappointed . . .
Order, Counter-Order, and Disorder: the Crisis of the 300s and 310sby Maester Dickon
Chapter 126: Tremors
Chapter Text
Hizdahr zo Loraq smiled to himself as the Council of the Six Cities adjourned for the day. There was still work to do, of course, but it was work that had been long planned, and the toil was tempered by the satisfaction of having won a gamble.
It seemed that the Targaryen prince had become a king in truth, if not yet in name thanks to the sensibilities of his Volantene subjects. And in the doing his troubles had expanded with his horizons. He had still been at feud with Baratheon of Myr, of course, but his support for the Lyseni meant that that feud was no longer being conducted at double-arm's-length. And an enemy of Baratheon of Myr was an enemy of Braavos, these days, thanks to the alliance between the Kingdom and the Commune that had been solidified by Baratheon's marriage to a Braavosi noblewoman. And while Volantis was one of the greatest powers west of Qarth, Braavos was its equal, and Myr was a power in its own right thanks to the strength and discipline of its armies. Faced with such a combination, and with allies so weak and chancy, respectively, as the Lyseni and the Dothraki, the Targaryen had apparently decided that he needed more and stronger friends.
So the Targaryen had sent an envoy requesting the aid of the Six Cities, offering to pay handsomely in order to have the right of first refusal on all future sales of Unsullied. That having been agreed upon, the Targaryen had then offered an alliance of mutual defense. The distances involved would make timely support a questionable matter, the envoy had admitted, but this would be made up for the fact that only fools or the mad would dare take on Volantis and the Six Cities at the same time, and such persons would deserve to have their lands divided among their conquerors.
Hizdahr's smile widened; such language could only have been meant to refer to Baratheon of Myr, even if the time for explicit statements was yet to come. It would strain practicality to breaking point for the Six Cities to receive a parcel of the Kingdom of Myr's lands for their own; the distances involved would render direct governance impossible, and appointing a viceroy that would be acceptable to all parties would require a miracle. That said, if they could be assured a percentage of thepeople, not only at the time of division but as a tithe thenceforward . . .
His colleagues on the Council had seen the possibilities readily enough when he had laid them out like that, and in hopes of obtaining them they had resolved to be the best of allies. The first flotilla of ships would leave within the week carrying five thousand new Unsullied for the Targaryen's armies, the cream of their most recent crop. Assembling a brigade that consisted of troops from all of the Six Cities, as a further earnest of their friendliness, would take longer, but it would follow in the wake of the Unsullied, and do more to earn Targaryen's friendship than all the Unsullied in the world could. The Unsullied, after all, were now the Targaryen's to do what he pleased with, since he had paid for them. But six thousand volunteers, paid from the coffers of the Six Cities, would be cause for a debt greater than the Targaryen could hope to pay with coin alone. The Lhazareen were plentiful, but not so plentiful as all that, especially with Khal Drogo dipping his hands into the pool, and they were mediocre material. They could be made into Unsullied, but not ones that were good for much beyond fighting in the battle-line or standing at a door that you didn't want people wandering through as they pleased. The more martial peoples of the Narrow Sea would take more effort to break to bridle, but that same spirit would make them more effective than the Lhazareen. And if the methods used to create Unsullied proved insufficiently fruitful . . . well, Hizdahr had a few ideas of his own about how to improve the program. Tradition was well and good, but this was an age for innovation, as any fool could tell.
And thanks to his own efforts, he reflected as he followed his colleagues onto the veranda for aperitifs before dinner, he now had more resources to innovate with, as witnessed by the fact that they were in Yunkai instead of Meereen. Putting the seat of the Council on a rotation had been a masterstroke on his part, if he said so himself. It had taken more assassinations and other unsavory measures than a gentleman might consider palatable, thanks to the pride that still blinded so many men, but it came a step closer to turning the Pact from a loose alliance into a confederation of internally autonomous cities with a common foreign policy. And this, the first major act of the Pact as such a confederation, was yet another step down that road, which Hizdahr intended to walk to its end. He would trample on millennia of tradition, he knew, but his people, his city, and his culture would survive. That, he decided as he accepted a snifter of fortified cordial from a platter held by a slave, was worth as much opprobrium as his ancestors chose to visit on him in the afterlife.
XXX
Very few pirates would have the nerve to sail openly into Volantis harbor, even under flag of truce and carrying safe-conducts under the seals of the Triarchs. Such things only protected against official acts of violence, after all, and there were enough bone-breakers and throat-cutters in Volantis that even the Triarchs couldn't buy them all at once, although they could certainly buy enough of them to do for any pirate ever born. But if there was one quality that defined Chang the Immortal, it was audacity. On more than one occasion, upon learning that one or another provincial governor had placed a bounty on his head, he had walked into the governor's office and demanded that it be paid over to him. He had usually gotten it, too.
So when the formal letter had arrived from the Triarchs, bearing their seals and offering safe-conduct to discuss matters of mutual interest regarding the so-called Kingdom of Myr, Chang had decided to go for the gusto, as he usually did. Forty ships, each manned with the pick of the crews that swore allegiance to him, accompanied his great junk into Volantis harbor, each flying his banner of a yellow dragon on a blue background. That in itself, Roberts reflected as he watched his father-in-law sail up to the harbor and reef sails as lines were cast out to the tugs, was enough to tell anyone what Chang was like. By Yi-tish law, only the imperial house was entitled to fly dragon banners, and only the emperor was permitted to have a yellow dragon on his standard. Every time Chang hoisted that flag, he was, essentially, proclaiming himself emperor. A boast he had recently reinforced, when he had declared himself the Basilisk Emperor.
Roberts smirked behind his mask. As if any sane man needed such an ambition to spur him on. For his part, he had always found money and power sufficiently motivating. Let the emperors of Yi-ti keep their precious dragon banners to themselves, so long as those banners dipped at the sight of his ships. He was a third of the way there already, having married Chang's daughter Yama Swiftspear. His smirk broadened into a smile;thathad been a wooing for the ages, hadn't it just? Not enough that he had killed every rival for her hand by strength or by guile and laid the Pirate Queen's head at Chang's feet as a bride-price, but he had then had to duel Yama herself to prove his worthiness. Up and down the length and breadth of Chang's ship they had fought, his side-sword against her glaive, until at last they could fight no more for exhaustion. In a life spent at war, he had never faced someone who managed to both match him for strengthandbeat him for speed; only careful bladework and even more careful footwork had kept him in one piece. Yama had come to him that very night, as he recuperated aboard his ship theVulture, and informed him that she accepted his offer of marriage, conditional upon his acknowledgement of her as his equal and that there be no Andal nonsense about her vowing to obey him. He had agreed on the spot, of course; he was not such a fool as to quibble over terms when the prize was within his grasp.
Especially since it had made possible all the rest of his plans. He did not dare move against Chang, even in secret, but with Lady Luck's help he would not need to. Even if the Volantenes did not break their word in order to kill the most dangerous corsair on the world-ocean when he was within their power, everything he had heard of Robert the Bloody made him think that Chang would meet his match in the King of Myr, and if Baratheon did not kill him then Stark or Greyjoy or some other of his captains likely would, unless the Braavosi beat them to it. And with Chang dead, he would be the natural choice to assume command of his fleet, now that he was Yama's husband. They had already agreed that they would share equally in all things that came to them, and those captains that would not join them from loyalty would do so from fear of the revenge that would be taken on deserters. Chang had a reputation to conjure with, but his own was not far behind, nor was Yama's. And if, by some chance, Chang not only survived but triumphed, well that would still take years of hard fighting, followed by years of squabbling with the Volantenes and the Lyseni and the Dothraki over the spoils of conquest. Years in which he and Yama could tightentheirhold over the Basilisks, and the ships and crews that Chang would leave under their command. Yama was a dutiful daughter, but he knew that she occasionally chafed under her father's rule even so. A time of ruling in his name, out from under his hand and eye, should whet her appetite for ruling in her own right, and if she objected too much . . . Well, that was why Roberts had spent so long acquiring an immunity to the more common poisons.
He turned and gave orders to the helmsman that brought theVultureheeling about as Chang's junk tied up to the quay. He and Yama had much to do if their plans were to come to fruition, and time waited for neither men nor gods. He had come a long way from being a crofter's son from the Honeywine that had sailed east seeking fortune and glory and wound up a pirate lord, and he had farther still to go if his dreams were to be fully realized. If the Volantene's were so desperate for friends that they were willing to court one as mercurial as Chang the Immortal, then it would be foolish to forgo the opportunity offered by their distracting him.
XXX
Victarion Greyjoy stroked his beard meditatively as he stared at the priest before him who was the last prisoner scheduled to come before his court today.; the case he posed was tricky, and the more so for being religious more than simply legal. Apparently, he had been preaching a variant of the faith of the Drowned God when certain passers-by had taken it into their heads to object. Words had quickly turned to blows, but fortunately the Watch had been able to intervene before blades had been drawn. Exactly how what he had preached had caused such offense was a little beyond him; to his ears it sounded as if the priest had done nothing more than exhort people to honor the God by doing their utmost to attain excellence on their path in life. The part where he had used the seven gods of the Andals as examples of how each different path could be used to honor the God might ruffle some feathers, but surely nothing worth fighting over. In any case the Watch had decided to send the priest's attackers home with a mild beating for breaking the peace, while sending the priest who had apparently provoked the fight up for judgement.
If there was one thing he had learned when judging disputes such as this, it was to grasp the essential. "You did not strike the first blow?" he asked.
The priest shook his bearded head. "No, my lord," he said in a voice of a type that Victarion recognized instantly. Years of shouting over wind and wave roughened a voice like nothing else. He couldn't help an involuntary nod; at least this priest knew something about living as a man of his hands.
"You did not preach treason or sedition against the Crown, or disobedience to the King's laws?" Victarion pressed.
The priest shook his head again. "No, my lord."
Victarion spread his hands. "Then there is no crime here," he declared. "Under the law, each of us is free to worship as we choose, provided we obey the law and keep the King's Peace as we do so. Any who interfere with another's faith do so in breach of the law, and at their peril thereby. And freedom to worship, as other courts in the realm have decided, must include the freedom to attract fellow worshippers, either by preaching or by public example of good works." He sharpened his gaze on the priest. "This, then, is my decision; you shall go free this time, but I shall advise you to moderate your preaching, in order to avoid offending your neighbors. And in order to forestall any rumors that this creed you claim to have been inspired with is a danger to the realm, you will swear allegiance to the Crown, as do all of us who serve Robert King."
The priest bowed. "I will swear," he said. "What shall I swear by?"
"Ask not what you shall swear by," Victarion said, rising from his chair, "but what you shall swear on. And for that, I will not be satisfied by ought but iron and law." He drew his sword with his right hand and held out his left hand for his steward to place his copy of the Great Charter in it. Each great lord had such a copy, as a reminder of the contract that bound the Kingdom together, and it had quickly become tradition for witnesses to swear on it as well as on the scriptures or sacred things of their faith.
The priest might be a recent immigrant, by his own admission, but evidently he had learned as much already, for he stretched out his hands to touch both the small book and the blade of the sword. "With the gods and all here as my witness," he intoned, "I swear that I shall bear true faith and allegiance to Robert King and to his heirs after him. I shall keep his peace, obey his law, and pay his tax. I shall support him with my voice in peace and my arms in war, taking his friends as my friends and his enemies as my enemies. If I should forswear myself, then may earth and sea and sky cast me out, may every man's hand be against me, and may every god's curse be upon me. This I swear on the law that binds me to him and him to me, and on the holy iron that feeds and defends our people, binding me from this hour henceforth, until Robert King shall release me, or death take me, or the world end."
Victarion nodded as the priest bent to kiss the blade and the book.; it was differently worded than the usual oath of fealty, but it was close enough to suit. Especially since he had done so in open court, before half a hundred witnesses. "On behalf of Robert King, I accept this oath," he replied, "and in turn do I swear on his behalf that neither he nor I shall fail to reward what we are given; fealty with love, valor with honor, good service with good lordship, oath-breaking with vengeance. Any who do harm to you shall do harm to us, and at their peril." He sheathed his sword and handed the Charter back to his steward, who accepted it gracefully. "And now I say, go forth and cause no more strife in my city, or not so much that you must again come before my court."
As the priest bowed and left the hall, closing the court for the day, Victarion couldn't help a feeling of disquiet as he watched the man stride out. There was more to that man, he couldn't help thinking, than a mere deviation from the norm of the Drowned God's worship. He shrugged to himself as his housecarls cleared the hall of onlookers. Even if the priest did end up causing trouble, he couldn't cause too much, not after swearingthatoath.
XXX
His wife, Viserys Targaryen decided, was easily the most splendid woman in Essos, if not the world. Gods knew she looked it as she genuflected before each of the altars of the Temple of Growth in turn, the skirts of her purple gown briefly pooling around her feet before she rose and proceeded to the next. Ordinarily, he would have been at her side, especially since they were out in public and there many onlookers, but the husband's part in this particular rite was brief.Hewas not the one beseeching the gods for support through a first pregnancy and all those that followed, after all.
The thought was still enough to make his head spin when he thought about it. Lessaena waspregnant.He would be afather. Even his ascension as Triarch, and King in all but name, of Volantis, had not been such a heady drug. Not even his victory over the Ogre of Mantarys had left him so elated. Conversely, and perversely, he could not recall having ever been so afraid. Not for nothing, he knew now, did the poet describe having children as giving hostages to Fortune, and especially when their parents had such enemies as he and Lessaena did . . . He shoved the thought back down the recesses of his mind and distracted himself by glancing around the Temple of Growth. Here the Valyrians had worked their craft of stone-shaping much as they had on Dragonstone, but in an entirely different fashion. Dragonstone was a military outpost, meant to put the enemies of its holders in fear and trembling. The Temple of Growth, on the other hand, was a place of worship, and one to benevolent deities at that; here the stone had been molded in the forms of flowers and trees and all manner of growing things, and been combined with tilework and stained glass and painting in a union that combined the strengths of all the separate art forms into a whole that brought the glory of Valyria to life in splendor.
The septons and maesters of Westeros might castigate Valyria and its successor states as godless, but Viserys knew that was false. The Valryians had had gods aplenty, but they had not seen their gods as rulers to be submitted to. Rather had they seen their gods as superior beings that deserved respect more than slavish devotion; whether the respect was that due to a strong patron, a fickle but generous friend, or a cunning and deadly beast varied with the deity. Some had enough aspects as to merit all three at once. Viserys had been baptized and raised in the Seven, and would always honor them first, but the truth was that he found the gods of Valyria more compelling than the bloodless Seven, whose rewards were so rarely to be found or enjoyed in this life. Not that he would ever admit such; theology was a dangerous hobby even for regular men. For kings and princes it contained more snares than a poacher's lair. Gods all witness he had no wish to follow the example of Stannis, and be enmeshed in the webs of sectarian violence by clumsily meddling in the affairs of priests.
As Lessaena received the final benediction from the ancient high priestess of the Temple and rejoined him for the procession back to their manse within the Black Walls, Viserys couldn't help but muse on the city he had made his own. A Westerosi would consider it something akin to one of the Seven Hells, with its crush and noise and odor and mess. But for all that, and he could not deny that Volantis could be unsightly, there was so much more to it than the squalor of the poorer quarters. Here the blood of Old Valyria ran truer than anywhere else save perhaps for Lys, and here Valyria's heritage had survived in its purest and most abundant strain. The least manse within the Black Walls was fit to house the highest nobility of Westeros, and the meanest collegium worth the name could rival the Citadel as an institution of learning and thought. It would, he reflected as they came to their manse and retired to the gardens, be something of a let-down to go back to King's Landing, even with the supposed improvements that the Sour Stag had made to it. But anything the Usurper's younger brother could do, he could do better. Was he not the blood of the dragon?
"Deep thoughts, my love?" Viserys startled momentarily, then turned a smile on Lessaena, who had a teasing light in her eyes.
"Prayers as much as thoughts," he replied. "Although if the gods can be moved by anything, then your devotions would do the trick."
"You flatter me," Lessaena said, stroking her slightly swollen belly. "The gods act as they please; to sway them is all we can hope. But they are said to look kindly on new mothers, and the midwives and doctors agree that I should carry to term with no great difficulties. With the gods' help, little Aemon will be born strong, and healthy."
"May they make it so," Viserys said. It had taken some time to settle on a name that was neither too obvious, as Aegon had been, or ill-fated, as Daeron and Baelor had proved. Ser Arthur had suggested Rhaegar, but he had flatly refused; he would not speak ill of his brother, but he knew too much of his misdeeds to honor him more than appearances demanded. And it would do him no favors with his future subjects to name his heir after the man who had provoked a civil war. "What did you ask the gods for, besides the health of our child?"
"Peace," Lessaena said simply. "I would not have my son inherit his father's wars. It has been so long since the stag and the dragon faced each other in the field; cannot that feud at least be allowed to die a natural death?"
Viserys waited until they had strolled up to a fountain depicting two dragons in the throes of their mating flight before he answered, taking the time to marshal his thoughts. "If it were up to me, I would do so," he admitted. "But it isnotup to me, or not up to me alone. For a king to be overthrown is against nature, is a perversion of order. You've heard the reports from Westeros as well as I have; there has been nothing but fire and murder in the Seven Kingdoms since my father was murdered and my brother and I chased into exile. It is my duty, my obligation before the gods, to make an end of the strife and return the Kingdoms to their rightful obedience. And in order to do that, I must settle with Robert the Usurper. Either to some peace that we can both accept, or to his death." He sighed. "I fear it will be to his death; alive, he would remain an example to any who were displeased at my rule. But he has a kingdom of his own, now, and an heir to pass it to. With luck, he may prove reasonable, especially since the scales have been balanced between us."
"Many's the slip between cup and lip, husband," Lessaena replied. "So whatever you do, or try to do, make sure you come out of it with a whole skin. I want my son to have a father, not merely bodyguards and regents."
Viserys took his wife's hand and kissed it. "With the help of the gods, I shall," he promised. "For my people's sake, for your sake, and for our son's sake."
XXX
The following is an excerpt fromFlash About Town
I'd never been to Myr city before the Baratheon Conquest, so I have no basis for comparison, but from what I've heard I missed quite a lot. Of course the city had it's poor quarters, but the magisters had made Myr possibly the wealthiest city on the Narrow Sea proper south of Braavos, and they lived like it. I've read accounts of parties the magisters gave where thousands of florins were spent on the food, the entertainments, the gifts for the guests, the whole kitboodle. On the other hand, I've also heard from people who were at those parties about how the magisters would make their slaves available to anyone who wanted them, and how even a hint of reluctance was savagely punished. So make of that what you will. For my part, I've always preferred women that came to my bed of their own will; getting them there is more fun, and they're more fun once they're there. And when I've had to resort to whor*s, I've always paid them enough to make them at least pretend to be enthusiastic, which is as much as you can hope for.
Not that I had much opportunity for either in Myr city when I was there. The devilish thing about being your sovereign's representative is that you have to maintain a spotless repute; wouldn't do to drag said sovereign's reputation through the mud by playing the rake. So I had to stay away from both the brothels and the looser ladies of the Myrish nobility, much to my chagrin. Myr could be depressingly serious about its self-claimed holy mission, and it was sufficiently priest-ridden that even courtly love had to be entirely circ*mspect, but some of the women around Robert's court, oh my gods and little fishes . . .
But unfortunately there was war in the wind, and as Stannis's de facto ambassador and a knight of high renown for valor and prowess, I had to get involved. Which is why I was riding up the road towards Lion House that day when the world exploded.
George and I had only a corner away from Lion House on our way to consult with Ser Gerion Lannister about what part my men and I would play in any potential campaign when there was a sudden uproar ahead of us. Some of it was screaming, but most of it was yells of shock and roars of sudden fury; trust me when I say I know the difference, courtesy of a life in arms across a respectable percentage of the world. I immediately thought of Gulltown and Stony Sept and went for my arming sword, simultaneously blessing the fact that wearing half-armor and wearing sword and dagger counted as being politely dressed rather than heavily armed in Myr and wondering what in the hell was going on in such a law-abiding city to cause such a commotion, when a man came sprinting around the corner and ran smack into my horse. As I gentled her (I always ride mares; more manageable) I caught a good look at the man scrambling to his feet and felt my heart stop. Of all the people I didn't expect to run into in Myr city, Stallen Naerolis was well up the list.
I don't think he recognized me, because he was off the ground and down the street faster than a weasel, but whether he did or not, I knew he couldn't be let to get away. Keep in mind, the last time I saw Stallen he had been trying to burn Braavos to the waterline with wildfire, and the thought that he was here to try something else immediately crossed my mind. So I got my horse wheeled about, roared "On his heels! And take him alive!" at George, and put the spurs back.
Now you might not think it, but in a race between a man on foot and a man on horseback, the man on foot will almost always win, at least over long distances. Men can run for far longer than a horse can before its heart gives out; a maester once told me it's because we sweat so freely. Apparently there are certain tribes in the wild places of the world that hunt simply by running after their quarry, on foot, until it drops dead of exhaustion. In a sprint, though, a horse will beat a man every time. Stallen apparently knew that as well as I did, because he spun around and threw a knife,without hardly breaking strideas the gods are my witness, and either by great good luck or even greater skill that knife went half it's length into my horse's neck. I had to dismount, of course, because my horse started faltering almost immediately, but by the time I got up George had caught up to Stallen and was tackling him from horseback. I started running, shouting at him to look out, but I needn't have worried. Stallen was a spy and assassin, not a man-at-arms, and George was much more useful in a tight corner than he had been when he had first come to me. Stallen managed to wrestle to his feet and get three solid blows in thanks to being older, bigger, and more experienced, but then the training I'd given George kicked in. He wrapped Stallen's arm with his, broke it, knocked half the teeth out of his jaw with a short heavy punch, and had his dagger out and raised to strike when I tackled Stallen out of his grasp.
I knocked Stallen cross-eyed with a blow to the jaw that George hadn't broken and started getting George calmed down. I had just explained that we wanted him alive to interrogate about what his plans were when a mob came around the corner howling for blood. Thank the good gods that the goldsmith whose store we had ended up in front of had opened to his door to see what the hullabaloo was, and that he was an old soldier who reacted as trained when a knight started yelling at him. By the time the mob got to us, we had bundled Stallen into the store, locked and barred the door behind us, and were bawling at the crowd that everything was alright, we were just holding the prisoner for the Watch in the name of King Robert, gods all bless him.
Thankfully the Watch came pounding up only moments later, because the mob kept making ugly noises about burning us out of the store if we didn't bring the murderer out. Say what you like about Ser Mychel Egen, he trained his lads well; not only did they form a perimeter around the front of the store with their staves, but one of them also got hold of George's horse so we could throw Stallen over it. And they held that perimeter around us all the way to the Palace of Justice, with more Watchmen joining in as we went, for which thank the gods because by then word had spread and half the city was roused and looking for blood.
It was, I later heard Stallen admit after the questioners had done their work, pure chance. He had been spying out the city when there, before him, had appeared Ser Gerion Lannister, for once unarmored, and with not ten paces separating them with a clear line of sight. Drawing and loosing his ballestrino (taken from a captured operative of the Office of Foreign Inquiry we later discovered), had been a matter of instinct far more than conscious thought.
By then, of course, Ser Gerion had died; apparently the bolt had been poisoned. Have you ever seen a whole crowd of people stop dead in their tracks? I have, on a few far-separated occasions, and that was one of them. The Palace of Justice had been in an uproar, everyone going this way and that trying to coordinate a response, and when the messenger came in and blurted out the news for the world to hear, everyone froze on the spot. For a moment you could have heard a pin drop, then I heard a cold, cold voice say, "So, then." I turned and there was Eddard Stark on the stairs, with a look like the wrath of the Warrior on his face and Ser Brynden Tully and Ser Mychel Egen next to him, also looking like the anger was coming upon them. "The slavers have taken one of our best from us," Stark said, still in that icy voice that made my balls shrink just hearing it. "By all the gods, there will be an answer for it." He turned to Egen first. "Ser Mychel, inform the king, if you please." As Egen nodded and went clattering back up the stairs Stark turned to Tully. "Ser Brynden, we have work to do. Now."
As they came the rest of the way down the stairs and strode out the doors, headed for War House as I later learned, I slipped down to the kitchens and found myself a bottle of good wine, leaving a silver stag for the butler to replace it with. Ser Gerion had been a decent sort, and deserved a drink to his memory. And while it didn't seem like there was anything else for me to do at that moment, I could guess that I was going to be busy as a little bee for a while, so I might as well have a quiet drink while I still could . . .
Chapter 127: Tremors
Chapter Text
Within hours of Ser Gerion Lannister breathing his last the word of it was already winging across the Kingdom of Myr.We are attacked!the messages cried through the dry and formal phrases of the orders they bore.To arms, to arms, sons of Holy Freedom! Defend your King, your freedom, and your rights!In castles, fortified manses, and town halls across the Kingdom double-locked strongboxes were opened, the cipher sheets used to decode the messages, and the War Book opened.
What followed was the justification of years of work on the part of Ser Brynden Tully. The scrambling come-as-you-are, all-hands-to-the-pumps affairs that had been the early musterings of the Royal Army had grieved his orderly soul, and so he had given thought not only to how the Royal Army should fight but how it should prepare to fight. Those thoughts had been focused by the knowledge that in a kingdom as diverse as Myr, where half the nations of the world had come to seek fortune and glory in a worthy cause, such order as he sought to create could only be imposed from the top. The result was the War Book, which laid out detailed instructions for the steps to be taken at every stage along the road to war, from Increased Vigilance to Imminent Danger of War. Every period of training since had reinforced the need for the Book's procedures to be followed exactly, and accustomed the lords and officers it would direct and constrain to do so.
Those long months of training and drill paid off. Within hours of the wordsImminent Danger of Warbeing read from the page, Reserve companies were being summoned to the King's standard, with Militia companies ordered to hold themselves in readiness to take up their duties at a day's notice. Guards were posted at bridges, fords, and culverts to ensure that when the army marched its path would not be impeded by sabotage. The light two-wheeled carts and mules that the Royal Army preferred for its baggage trains were assembled in castle courtyards and town squares under guard while clerks and maesters began to calculate loads. Reserve companies were mustered into the King's service by the reading of the Articles of War and their equipment and that of the Royal companies inspected; defaulters were fined to make good the loss from stores and thoroughly ribbed by their comrades. Before the sennight was out, Ser Brynden could report to his King that the Royal Army would be assembled, armed, and fully ready to march by the end of the month.
The question was where they should march to. The assassin Stallen Naerolis had obligingly named Viserys Targaryen as his master when put to the Question, but at every extremity he had claimed to have acted without, and indeed against, orders in killing Ser Gerion. Ser Lyn Corbray sent word from Sirmium advising that the opportunity should be seized to conquer Lys; the nearest of the Kingdom's enemies would be finally eliminated and the Targaryen's deprived of any ally near enough to Myr to maintain a continuous threat of the sort that Daario Naharis posed. This was spoiled by a message from Naharis claiming to have known nothing of Stallen's mission in Myr city, expressing his shock and horror that any man would be so foolish, and offering to intercede with the Targaryen to effect some gesture of contrition and compensation. Such an offer might have been considered if Ser Gerion yet lived, but since his death Eddard Stark had come to dominate the Small Council and he set his face against any such possibility. The King was not a slaver, to value the lives of his people in money, he argued. Only blood could answer for blood. This argument found a receptive ear in King Robert, whose grief at the death of one of his oldest friends and foremost lieutenants had since given way to wrath. When a reply was sent to Daario Naharis, it not only rejected his offer of intercession but commanded him to pass along another letter to Viserys Targaryen with all speed, summoning him to answer for the death of Ser Gerion Lannister 'and the several other injuries and slights he has visited upon our Kingdom, our subjects, our allies and friends, and our person.'
When this letter reached Naharis, he reportedly went so pale with shock that the herald who bore the letter thought he might faint. But he rallied, and sent the letter on by the swiftest galley he could find, while he frantically threw himself into his own preparations for the storm that was evidently brewing.
XXX
Viserys Targaryen lowered the letter he had just finished reading aloud to his council with deliberate slowness to prevent his hand from shaking. Partly from anger at the presumption of Baratheon's tone, but partly also, he was willing to admit to himself if to no other living soul, from fear. He had expected this day to come, of course, but not so quickly.
"By all the gods, the arrogance of the man," Ser Arthur Dayne snarled. "To summon his rightful king like a criminal, or an erring servant."
"Arrogant, perhaps, but possibly justified," Donys Rahtheon replied gently. "Whatever Naerolis' motivations, he certainly exceeded his orders. Orders that I gave myself, through someone that I trusted to pass them along in their entirety." He turned a beady eye on Noriros Brenion, who raised his hands defensively.
"I did pass them on in their entirety," the former Myrman said sharply. "And added injunctions of my own against any reckless action. And if we're going to be assigning blame for this, then let the record show that I advised you that Stallen was becoming inpatient with the apparent lack of progress towards reclaiming Myr, and that he was becoming increasingly unpredictable as a result thereof."
"To assign blame is pointless," Viserys snapped, forestalling his uncle-in-law from making an undoubtedly barbed comment. "My lords, I am sure you all know that we must make some response to this letter, and to the situation that produced it. I ask you all; what should that response be?"
"War, Your Grace," was Ser Arthur's immediate answer. "Send a small force to Lys to complete our reinforcement of them against the rebels' raids, then take the rest of the Grand Army up the Rhoyne and put Ser Myles' plan into action."
Noriros shook his head. "Our preparations at Ny Sar are incomplete," he said. "It will take at least another year's preparation before we have enough stockpiled to feed the whole of the Grand Army through two year's campaigning. If we marched today we could take maybe thirty thousand foot and eight thousand horse, with perhaps ten or twelve elephants. And the only reason we would be able to take that many is because we can barge them up the Rhoyne and use the river for drinking water. Even so, we will have to hope that Pentos falls as quickly as we have planned; if they resist for more than a few sennights, then we will have to place our fates in the hands of Fortune."
Donys nodded agreement. "And delay not only allows us to bring the Six Cities and Chang into line with our plans, but it offers us a chance to drive a wedge between the rebels and the Braavosi," he added. "The Braavosi are reasonable people; they will recognize that Naerolis acted against his orders. If His Grace were to say as much, and offer compensation for it, then the Braavosi would have to look askance at Baratheon's rejection of such a reasonable offer. From such small beginnings are great discords brought into being."
"And every year we delay allows Baratheon to build his strength even further," Ser Arthur replied. "The Usurper's government is in disarray and the Braavosi are distracted by their internal politics. And Your Grace, my lords, remember the news we have received of what is happening in Westeros as we speak."
Viserys nodded. The report that King's Landing had been struck by riots had made for joyous hearing, especially when it came to light that they had been sparked by the unearthing of even more corruption within the Faith. Served Stannis right, in Viserys's opinion, for tying himself so closely to the High Septon.
"While Stannis's capital is in such turmoil, he cannot come to the Usurper's rescue," Ser Arthur went on. "That, more than anything, has been the great uncertainty in all our plans, my lords. Now that it is removed, we mustact, now, to seize upon the opportunity that the gods have placed before us. Remember, it will not only be our thirty-eight thousand that we field. It will also be Khal Drogo's thirty thousand, and the grass is long enough to feed their horses. The Norvoshi will also be with us with ten thousand men, and the Tattered Prince was always in the first rank of the sellsword captains. Give me thirty-eight thousand men of the Grand Army, thirty thousand Dothraki screamers, and ten thousand Norvoshi with the Tattered Prince to captain them and I do not fear the Usurper or the Braavosi."
Viserys nodded to himself as his Lord Commander's words warmed his blood. Seventy-eight thousand was possibly the mightiest host that had been put in the field since the Conquest of Westeros, if not since the Rhoynish wars of the old Freehold. The Braavosi garrison of Pentos could muster maybe twenty-five thousand if it stripped every village and hamlet of fighting men, and the Usurper's army of thirty-five thousand or so would necessarily be divided between Pentos and the Lyseni frontier, especially if Daario Naharis could be induced to abandon his habitual caginess. And making the war happen now would solve another problem he had foreseen.
Khal Drogo, like all such warlords, depended on victory and plunder to keep his warriors loyal. If his horde went too long without either, then it would necessarily start to fragment as khalasars broke off in search of prey. And so many nomads could not remain along the upper Rhoyne indefinitely, lest their horses eat the grass down to bare earth. Sooner or later, Khal Drogo wouldhaveto lead his horde away from the Norvoshi lands in order to find grazing for his herds, and once that happened questions would inevitably arise as to whether he should maintain his alliance with Volantis, even with Visenya being waved under his nose. He might even take it into his head to settle whatever insult the Six Cities had given him that Donys's spies had heard mentioned around the campfires, and that would be a fine dilemma to be on the horns of, wouldn't it?
Whereas if Drogo was told that Visenya's bride-price would be the destruction of Braavosi Pentos and the head of its Viceroy on a lance . . . Viserys nodded. "Ser Myles," he said, turning to the mercenary-turned-King's-man, "begin assembling the Grand Army at Selhorys to march up the Rhoyne to Ny Sar. Our ultimate objective will be the siege and capture of Pentos and the defeat of whatever force Robert Baratheon fields against us. Send a detachment of sufficient size to Lys to allow Daario Naharis to take the offensive over the Myrish border in order to pin their southern forces. Magister Rahtheon, send messages to Khal Drogo and to the Norvoshi telling them that we are marching to war. By the time the Grand Army reaches Ny Sar I want the Pentoshi frontier in flames and Ghoyan Drohe blockaded. Ser Arthur, if Ser Myles can spare you and Ser Barristan then I would like your assistance in breaking this news to the other Triarchs . . ."
XXX
As the days had passed, Ser Barristan Selmy had struggled more and more to contain himself; only the reflexive composure of the Kingsguard had allowed him to keep his countenance. But now, as the Grand Army marched north along the Rhoyne, he felt the pressure rise to breaking point. After Viserys dismissed him for the evening, he made his way to his room hard by the royal chambers, walking on reflex and dismissing his squire and page with a blind wave of his hand, to sit heavily on his pallet and put his head in his hands as the doom came upon him.It's happening again,he moaned in the privacy of his mind.Gods help us all, it's happening again.
That very evening, Viserys had issued the order that Barristan had prayed so fervently that he would not. As the final test of his worthiness to marry Princess Visenya, Khal Drogo was to be invited to raid Braavosi Pentos as ferociously as he could. Ghoyan Drohe was to be blockaded and left to the Grand Army and its siege train, but otherwise the Dothraki could ride where they liked within Braavosi Pentos so long as they did so with fire and sword, leaving not one living thing in their wake and passing all they learned of the enemy's movements to the Grand Army by swift riders. Barristan clutched at his head, heedless of the way his gauntleted fingers dug into his scalp. Viserys had, in short, given Khal Drogo permission to do to Braavosi Pentos what he had done to the Darkwash, multiplied many-fold. Instead of thousands slain or enslaved, it would be tens of thousands. The Dothrakikothat Khal Drogo had sent south with Viserys after their negotiations at Qohor, and to whom Viserys had passed the invitation, had said that when Khal Drogo was done Viserys might walk from Ghoyan Drohe to Pentos gates on the corpses of slain enemies without touching the ground.
Those enemies, Barristan knew, would include people who had never dreamed of holding a weapon in their lives, or were incapable of doing so. In his younger days, he had heard the stories of the Dothraki describing them as merciless savages, 'whose lone rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions,' as Maester Hooper had put it in his book, and dismissed most of them as hyperbole. And many of them were indeed hyperbole, as he had personal reason to know these days. But not all of them were, and especially not the ones about how they treated their enemies.
He could not, he knew, be a party to such a butchery. Not after Fort Dagger, where he had seen with his own eyes what the Dothraki did to enemies they only despised. What they would do to enemies theyhated, like the Braavosi and the Myrish, he could not bear to consider. Simply being associated with them now was hard enough, when they had only the Darkwash and Fort Dagger to answer for. And none other than Ser Arthur, his own sworn brother, had suggested that Khal Drogo's engagement to Princess Visenya, when it was announced, be prolonged as long as possible, in order to entice the khal to follow them across the Narrow Sea.
It had been long years since Barristan had set foot in Westeros, but it was his home in a way that the east could never hope to be. Not when he had learned every inch of the lands around Harvest Hall until he could have ridden from one end of them to the other in the dark, and done the same for King's Landing and Dragonstone and half the Crownlands. Its people were his people, and its gods his gods. The thought of Khal Drogo and his murderers being unleashed to run rampant over it . . . He shook his head numbly. It could not be borne.
And there was nothing he could do to stop it. Viserys had issued the invitation to rampage in front of half the high officers of the Grand Army, and the letter carrying the terms was going north by dispatch rider even now. Once given, a king's word could not be rescinded; he knew that as well as anybody and better than most, after so many years in the Kingsguard. A monarch could be many things, but they could not be unreliable, not if they valued their thrones. And while it was far from certain that Khal Drogowouldtake his horde over the Narrow Sea, that did not change the fact that the idea had been entertained in the first place.
Which left only what he was going to do. He took a ragged breath to steady his mind, then began to reason from first principles. Item the first, his king would order him to ignore the massacre and enslavement of thousands of innocents whose only crime was to have sworn fealty to the wrong lord, or simply to have been in the way. Item the second, to do so would dishonor his knighthood and stain his cloak. Rather than comply with such orders, the only honorable course would be to refuse them. Item the third, to refuse such orders would present him with the choice of casting himself on Viserys' mercy, or deserting and going into exile.
Once he fought down the reflexive revulsion at being faced with such a choice, he pressed on. Item the fourth, neither course was likely to end well. Viserys could not afford to have one of his Kingsguard so openly question his orders, especially when it touched upon his alliance with a foreign power. Even a trial would be too public. Far more probably, he would die in prison, be declared the victim of a sudden disease, and then hastily cremated to prevent anyone from noticing any marks of violence on his corpse, especially if Magister Rahtheon's advice was heeded as it so often was. And if he absconded . . . threescore-and-ten were the years of a man, said the Book of the Stranger. By that reckoning he had ten years or less left to live, even if he spent the rest of his life in comfort. As a masterless man, a wolfs-head on two continents with nothing of value but his armor, his weapons, and his skill with them, he would be lucky to live out one of those years. In Volantis and west of it every man's hand would be against him, and even if he survived to be taken prisoner then his death would not be long delayed, whether it came by the sword or by the rope. East of Volantis was a world of slavery, where any man he might sell his sword to would be a slaver worse than Khal Drogo for that he committed his crimes from habit rather than savagery. To sell his sword to such men would be to sell what remained of his honor. And to the south . . . He shook his head. Even now he had not sunk so low as to turn pirate.
Which, in the end, left only one course he could pursue, one that a traveler from far Yi-ti who had passed some time in Viserys' court a few years ago had described his master taking when the emperor had made a demand inconsistent with honor. The Seven forbade such a course, but Barristan had no hope of their mercy in any case. Not since Fort Dagger. Perhaps not since the slave rebellion in Volantis.
Half an hour later, all was in readiness. He had removed his armor, written a short note to his king and his sworn brothers explaining his reasons, and laid his white cloak on the ground to serve as a mat and, he hoped, his shroud. He knelt on the cloak, drew his arming sword from its sheath with slow deliberation, and placed the hilt on the cloak before him and the point against his chest under the breastbone. He closed his eyes, commended his soul to whatever god was willing to claim it, and threw himself forward.
XXX
The brightness of the day was matched only by the blackness of the mood that had gripped Myr city. Ser Gerion Lannister had, unlike most other Hands of the King or other such chief ministers, been much beloved by the people he helped his king govern. Well, he had been one of his king's captains from the beginning when their mission had been simple revenge, rather than the greatest crusade of modern times. And when they had gone from being adventurers under a captain to lords under a king, Ser Gerion had distinguished himself by the prudence of his counsel and by the dignity of the example he set for the other lords. It had become widely known that he had placed his steward under obedience to purchase no ornament or item of decoration worth more than twenty gold crowns, in order to enable him to better support his knights when they were summoned to war. And if that required him to dress more plainly than a lord of his station should and rely on the skill of his tailor rather than the richness of his clothes to declare his station, then that was only proper for a lord of King Robert's realm, who should be a soldier before he was a grandee. In Westeros the name Lannister might stand for wealth, pride, and wrath, but in Myr it stood for good counsel, devotion to duty, and rigor of conscience, and Ser Gerion was responsible for the greater part of that reputation.
So when the door of the prison wing of the Palace of Justice opened and the man who had killed Ser Gerion was brought out, he was greeted by howls of rage and a barrage of rotten vegetables, mud, and lumps of dung. If there had not been a line of soldiers on either side of the pathway holding the crowd back with their shields, the assassin would almost certainly have been plucked off the hurdle on which he was being drawn and torn to pieces by the crowd. It could be debated, however, whether the assassin would have cared or not; his body was marred by long hours of torture to induce him to give up any co-conspirators he had or any other secrets he might know, and his head lolled listlessly.
This last journey was short, for the scaffold had been erected in the great square before the Palace of Justice. On the steps leading up to the doors were arrayed the high officers of the Myrish government with men of their retinues, each with hard looks on their faces; Ser Gerion had been popular with his colleagues as well as the commons. Jaime Lannister looked especially wrathful as he glared at the assassin; it was barely two months since his uncle had stood by him at his wedding, and he had hoped to present him with a new niece or nephew before too long. Eddard Stark also had a look of glacial anger on his face. He and Ser Gerion had been their king's right and left hands for many years, and along the way they had become not merely colleagues but friends, to the point where they had stood as godsfathers to each other's daughters; already he had added Ser Gerion's blood to the debt that the Targaryen's owed him. King Robert and Queen Serina sat at the top of the steps, also wearing hard expressions, and in garb that made onlookers murmur. It was well known that King Robert habitually wore armor for official business, but Queen Serina was also wearing a mail shirt over her gown and a coif over her braided hair. Heads nodded in the crowd; if even the Queen had taken up armor, then surely His Grace meant what he said about making an end of the Kingdom's enemies. And if the King and Queen were simply worried about assassins in the crowd, well then that was simply sensible, wasn't it? Who had expected Ser Gerion to get shot down in the street in the middle of the city? Speaking of which, here's the bastard who shot his lordship being hauled up the scaffold now, so here's half a cabbage and aim for his head, eh, brother?
When the assassin was stood to his feet on the scaffold and the noose thrown over the crossbar of the scaffold, a royal herald stepped forward, gestured the crowd to silence, bowed to the royal couple, and opened a scroll. "Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye!" he cried in the loud-but-not-shouting voice of the professional announcer. "Whereas this man, Stallen Naerolis, a landless man and a subject of Viserys Targaryen, hath confessed to the cruel and unnatural murder of the most powerful and most gentle lord Ser Gerion Lannister, Hand of the King to our lord King Robert, it is the pleasure of His Grace the King that the said Naerolis shall be condemned to die this day, in the sight of the gods and of all men here. Whereas the said Naerolis committed this most heinous crime while he was in the service of the said Targaryen, and whereas the said Targaryen has refused to give satisfaction to our lord the king for this crime, His Grace declares that from this day there exists a state of war between the Kingdom of Myr and its allies on the one part, and the said Viserys Targaryen and all his servants, supporters, allies, and other friends on the other part." An outburst of bloodthirsty cheers greeted this announcement, and were only stilled by the King's Fist ordering the other heralds to blow a blast on their trumpets. "This war, His Grace declares," the herald went on, "shall continue until such time as the said Targaryen shall cease to be an enemy of this kingdom, or until he shall lie dead, and his servants, subjects, allies, and other friends shall likewise be reduced either to obedience to our lord the king or to death, as the chances of war may dictate. In earnest of which, and to demonstrate the fate that shall befall all who refuse to yield to his justice, His Grace the king commands that the aforesaid Stallen Naerolis shall, at this hour, be hanged by his neck until he is dead, that his head shall be struck off his body to be mounted at the Great Southern Gate, and that his body shall be removed from the city to be exposed to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field to serve as their repast, if they can bring themselves to eat the flesh of a spy and a murderer. May the gods have mercy upon his soul."
The herald closed his scroll, bowed again to the royals, and withdrew to a corner of the scaffold. The headsman, a Westerosi who had taken the post after his farm had failed, stepped forward, fitted the noose over Naerolis' head, and looked to the King. "By your leave, Your Grace," he called.
King Robert nodded. "Do your duty, ser," he replied.
The headsman bowed, turned to his two assistants, and gestured sharply. The assistants hauled on the rope and Stallen Naerolis shot into the air, his legs kicking as the instinct to fight for his life overrode the punishment his body and mind had suffered in the Palace of Justice's dungeons. For ten minutes he hung, his flailing legs subsiding to spasms, and then to twitchings of his feet, until at last he hung limp and his bowels, loosened by death, voided down his legs. The headsman, watching with professional judgement, gestured again to his assistants, who let the corpse fall, removed the noose, and hauled him over to the block where the headsman was waiting with an axe. There was a shining of sunlight on the blade as it rose, then athockas it struck home, and the headsman stooped and rose with Stallen Naerolis' head in his hands, showing it to each quarter of the crowd. "So perish all enemies of our lord the king!" he shouted with each presentation, to tumultuous approbation from the crowd.
XXX
The news that the Warm Peace had ended with the death of Ser Gerion Lannister and the mobilization of the Grand Army of Volantis in response to that of the Royal Army of Myr impacted Braavos as much as the other principal powers of the Narrow Sea and western Essos. The first effect was the removal of Radalfos Solazzo from the Sealord's chair and his replacement with Lando Dandolo on a 'Shark' platform. Solazzo had managed to drag Braavos back from the economic brink that the Expulsion had pushed it to and kept it on an even keel through the eruption of the Norvoshi Civil War, but when word leaked that he had sought to influence King Robert to accept mediation in the crisis arising from the assassination of his Hand, the Council of Thirty was sufficiently moved by the popular outrage that resulted to give Solazzo the choice of resigning or being impeached. Solazzo chose to resign, on the grounds that by resigning he would be able to preserve his family's political fortunes by taking sole responsibility for his misstep.
The minds of the Council of Thirty were focused not only by popular protests, but also by a clear-headed analysis of their potential future if they tried to back away from the Slave Wars. If the Kingdom of Myr were defeated as a result of their disengagement, then the enemies that the Commune had made earlier in the Slave Wars would be emboldened to take ever more punitive action against Braavos, who with Myr gone would be forced to rely on Westeros as a counterweight. Which was a course the Commune had pursued in the past, but which looked more and more unattractive the longer Stannis Baratheon sat on the Iron Throne. In Myr the Commune had an ally that was so nearly equal to them in population, military strength, and economic potential that the partnership they had formed was likewise a joining of equals, although Braavos' more advanced economy gave them an important lever with which to influence their ally's policies. An alliance with Westeros as united under Stannis Baratheon, on the other hand, was a far more lopsided proposition. Not only in population and force of arms, but more and more as an economic matter, as the opening of the Golden Lion Bank in late 301 had exemplified.
It would be some years, of course, before the Golden Lion Bank was able to directly challenge the Iron Bank as a peer competitor, but nonetheless it's early meteoric rise, fueled both by the endorsem*nt and backing of the Iron Throne and by the perception that banking with it constituted a gesture of loyalty to the dynasty rather than relying on foreigners, sounded alarm bells in Braavos. Westeros had long been considered an enthusiastic, but backwards continent, whose myriad of feuds and internecine squabbles would prevent it from ever seriously challenging Braavos on the wider stage of power. Stannis' relentless drive to increase the power of the Iron Throne, coupled with his goodfather's launch of a new bank with the proverbial wealth of House Lannister guaranteeing it's deposits, indicated that that backwardness might swiftly become a thing of the past. A committee headed by Councilor Bertone, formed immediately after the Golden Lion Bank's opening was announced to study it's potential impact on the political world of the Narrow Sea, reported that, barring unforeseen and unforeseeable events to constrain it, 'the establishment of such a bank, combined with other trends that have begun under King Stannis' rule, will likely lead to Westeros becoming a dominant power in the Narrow Sea, if not further afield. This increase in power must necessarily come at the expense of that of the Commune, especially in the field of commerce.'
Braavos' entry into the Fourth Slave War, therefore, was driven as much by deliberate calculation as by popular feeling. In a victorious war where Braavos had fought alongside the Kingdom of Myr, Braavos would be able to claim a much larger share of the spoils in terms of colonies and concessions from conquered nations, and make such a claim stick, than it could in a war it had fought in alliance with Stannis' Westeros. As a result, while popular sentiment about finishing the work begun by the Destruction of Tyrosh and expiating Braavos' years of complicity in slavery was exploited to spur recruitment, orders were drafted to their commanders to ensure that zeal for the abolitionist cause was not allowed to override the Commune's goal of maintaining their dominant position in the Narrow Sea and buttressing it against the apparently imminent challenge posed by Westeros.
Of course, the appearance of war on the horizon impacted the slaver states as much as the abolitionist bloc . . .
Profit vs. Honor: The Motivations of Medieval and Early Modern Statesby Maester Tookman.
Chapter 128: Smoke
Chapter Text
Ser Arthur Dayne had just finished disarming for the evening and dismissed his squire and page when his nose got a whiff of some unidentifiable odor. He paused, sniffed twice more before he recognized it as corpse-smoke underlaid by some cloying incense that made him want to dig the smell out of his nose, and casually reached over to where his rondel dagger lay in its sheath on his pallet; the quarters were too close for Dawn. "If you're going to sneak up on a Dornishman," he said casually as his hand closed around the dagger's ivory hilt, "it's best to do so from downwind."
There was a rueful little chuckle from behind his left shoulder, followed by raspy voice that was just a little too high-pitched for him to think that it came from a man. "I will have to remember that, ser whitecloak. It seems that even the most powerful of us grow too used to our own stench."
Arthur turned, concealing his reaction with the long-practiced skill of a Kingsguard. "Oh, it's you."
Greel the warlock bowed ironically. "Indeed," he replied. "Or at least the mortal carcass that houses me in this turning of the great wheel that we call Time."
Arthur shrugged in his mind, released his dagger, and began to unfasten his arming jacket; if Greel meant him harm, he wouldn't do it in person. The warlock knew that any physical contest between them could only end one way so long as Arthur was capable of breaking his wrist and claiming it was a handshaking accident. And poison would be more in his nature, anyway. "What do you want?"
"To tell you that it is done," Greel said, "and that your sworn brother's body was given to the fires when I was done with it. He will go to his seven gods as your late king did, soaring on wings of fire, as the saying is."
"If you must blaspheme, do not do so where I can hear you," Arthur replied sharply. There was only one sept in Volantis, and that only recently erected, but he made a point of attending Divine Office when his duties permitted. A thing that would be more difficult, since Barristan's unaccountable suicide. Only the fact that it unquestionablywasa suicide had prevented him from suspecting foul play. "You are certain that your scheme will work?"
"As certain as I can be, given the constraints I was compelled to operate under," Greel said, a small smile playing at the corners of his thin-lipped mouth. "Ser Barristan's assistance is what made it practicable, rather than simply possible; having lived so long in the city, he took some of its character into himself. You remember how he spoke with a King's Landing accent, rather than a Stormlander one? That is the sort of thing I refer to. That provided a conduit that allowed our efforts to be focused even across so many miles. As for its efficacy . . ." the warlock shrugged. "Short of going to King's Landing myself and placing the spell on the city directly, I can do no more. But I believe it will work, and strike the city hard, especially since I have heard that King's Landing is not a very clean city?"
Arthur shook his head. "The sewers of the city were last meddled with in King Jaehaerys the First's time," he said. "And since then the population of the city has grown many times. In Flea Bottom it is not uncommon for two or three or even four streets to share a single fountain that provides all their water."
Greel smiled in earnest then. "Excellent," he said. "So that weakness is largely averted."
Arthur paused in the act of shrugging off his arming jacket. "Weakness?" he asked.
"After the rising of the sun, nothing is so baneful to the Art as running water, ser knight," Greel explained. "For water washes away not merely literal pollution, but metaphysical influences as well; why do you think your Faith places such store by blessed water? Such a spell as my acolytes and I have performed would not normally be so vulnerable, but the distances involved mean that much of its power must be used in placing it upon the city, leaving less available for securing it's hold upon its victims. By my calculations . . ." the warlock shrugged again. "Submerging the victim in water would wipe away the magic instantly. Even a sprinkling would fatally weaken the spell such that the next sunrise would finish it off."
Arthur shucked off his arming jacket and turned to look Greel in the face. "You. Fool," he said flatly. "Your master stroke against Stannis depends entirely upon itnot raining?"
"If our efforts depended entirely upon magic, yes," Greel replied with remarkable equanimity. "But we are not creating an entirely new disease, ser knight; that has been beyond . . .anyone'spower, really, since Valyria fell. What we have done is take a pre-existing disease and, hmm,strengthenit, is the closest I can say in Common Tongue. Honestly, this language you insist on using; so limited." Greel clicked his tongue in mild irritation. "So even if the magic is washed away, the disease will yet remain, for the disease depends not upon the magic for its existence. And those who contract it will yet have to contend with it, even if they are so cleansed."
Arthur nodded slowly. "That makes some sense," he allowed. "But what, pray, is to stop Stannis from simply ordering the city to be wetted down from roofs to cellars? Gods know, he's hard enough to see it done, if it needs doing."
"That would require him to know that water is inimical to the Art," Greel pointed out. "And the Art is unknown in Westeros outside of legend and a few of the older rituals of the Faith; even those of your maesters who study the Art only fumble at its first principles, like infants learning how to walk." His thin smile widened. "And even in a land that knew more of the Art, they would not guess that such a plague was driven by magic, for magic has not been used thus in many centuries. Even a handful of years ago, I would not have attempted such a feat; magic lay too thin upon the world to attempt it with any hope of success. But in the last few years," he flicked his spidery hands irritably. "This language of yours . . . the best I can say in it is that the magic of the world hasthickened, like broth when more bones have been added to the kettle. What that may mean I cannot say, except that my calculations must be redone in light of such a development."
Arthur nodded again; Greel had lost him atthickened, but the warlock didn't need to know that. "Very well then," he said. "The spring rains in King's Landing will have passed anyway, and the fall rains will not come for some time yet. We will see what comes of this venture."
Greel nodded. "I await word of its effect with eagerness," he said, his smile widening even further to bare unnaturally sharp-looking teeth. "If it has the effect my calculations say it will . . ."
After Greel had left, looking like a weasel contemplating a large meal, Ser Arthur covertly made the sign of the seven-pointed star and spat to avert any evil the warlock might have left lying around. He did not trust Greel any more than he trusted a vicious dog, but if he was willing to bite only the enemies of King Viserys, then Arthur would tolerate him. But he wouldn't rely on him; for only one thing, he had never heard of magic defeating an army. For that, you needed an army of your own. Thankfully, he reflected with his own carnivorous smile as he continued preparing for bed, his king had one.
XXX
Adaran Phassos stifled a yawn by main force; in the past three days and nights he had slept perhaps six hours. Ser Gerion's murder had provoked a flurry of activity, and the muster of the Royal Army was the least of it. The Office of Foreign Inquiry had spent virtually every hour since the assassination running a fine-toothed comb through Myr city and its inhabitants, looking for any other assassins or spies it might have missed. Special Branch had been in the forefront of the effort, by dint of both its official remit and the fact that Master Baelish had volunteered them for the duty on the spot. The only days he had had off from the subsequent dragnet operation were the past four, in which he had escorted Ser Gerion's wife and children to his estate of Brightroar Keep.
Ser Gerion had been a very private man regarding his personal life, but it had been widely known that he had kept a mistress and had had four children with her. What had not been widely known was that they had apparently taken the time to get married some years ago, thus making their children legitimate. It had, in fact, been so unknown that only King Robert had known of it before Ser Gerion's will was read and Lady Amelia Lannister named regent for the eleven-year-old Lord Tytos Lannister until he came of legal age at seventeen. The will had also claimed that the marriage had been kept secret 'for reasons of state', named King Robert as the only witness, and named a septon that had died two years ago as the officiant.
Adaran shrugged. Whether the marriage had taken place at all, or if it was valid with only one witness, mattered not to him. Ser Gerion had been his patron in the early years of his exile, and a friend afterwards. One good enough that Adaran didn't care whether the will told the truth or if King Robert had lied through his teeth when he swore as much and endorsed the marriage and young Tytos' inheritance. What mattered was that he had seen Lady Amelia safely ensconced in Brightroar Keep with a good steward and a sound master-of-arms, and young Lord Tytos was performing well as a new squire in the household of Lord Crakehall out in Campora. The rest could be left to the septons to quibble over.
When a footman summoned him from the waiting room into his goodbrother's solar, he was taken aback at Robert's appearance. He was still well-dressed, of course, but his beard was more bristly than usual and there were bags under his eyes that had not been there before Ser Gerion was assassinated. After they had exchanged the pleasantries that were the prelude of any conversation, he found out why. "I need a new Hand," Robert told him bluntly as they sat down over a glass of wine each. "Your sister has been taking up the slack, but it won't serve forever. She's doing well, but the Realm won't stand for a woman as Hand, especially when she's already the Queen. Makes it look like the Crown is trying to rule by decree, instead of with the advice and consent of the nobility as expressed through the Small Council."
Adaran nodded. "And with things so unsettled now, it needs to look like the Crown hasn't even stumbled," he said. "Who were you thinking of naming to the post?"
Robert's mouth quirked in a half-grin. "You."
Adaran's wineglass fell from a suddenly nerveless hand. "Me?!" he demanded, forgetting all protocol, even that little that existed between a king and his goodbrother. "But Your Grace, I'm a soldier, not a . . ."
"Politician?" Robert asked with a raised eyebrow. "I know. Which is why I want you. Hear me out: All my best men are going into the field with me; I can only leave a few behind, and they're already filling important posts. Ser Mychel Egen is too deep in the Baelorite camp; the Jonothorians won't stand for him. Lord Captain Franlan hasn't the birth or the name as a fighting man, and he's too easily distracted, either by his ships or by whatever hare-brained idea came into his head of a morning. Master Baelish hasn't the name or birth either; those few who know enough of his service to respect him know him as an accountant and a spy.You, on the other hand, are respected as a veteran by both the chivalry and the Legion, your sister's marriage to me makes up for what little gap there is between your birth and the average nobleman's, and the schemers know that you learned how to find rats from Lord Baelish and how to kill them from Syrio Forel. You also follow the Moonsingers, so you have no factional axe to grind, and as my goodbrother your loyalty is assured even to the most skeptical." Robert made a calming gesture as Adaran continued to make egg-laying noises in appalled protest. "It would only be for the duration of the war, until I return and can take the time to make a better decision. In reality you would need to do little more than keep the Small Council in harness and moving all in the same direction. Ser Mychel and Ser Jaymes will have the governance of the Realm well in hand between them, and will merely need someone to keep them from becoming deadlocked. Once this war is done, you can hand in the badge, and go back to Braavos."
Adaran was about to object when his goodbrother's last words hit him. "My exile is lifted, Your Grace?" he asked dazedly.
Robert nodded. "You would be on parole for your good behavior for a span of some years," he said. "But otherwise, there is nothing barring you from returning to the lagoon and resuming your place as your father's heir. Cassana's place will be here; she will still be my heir if something happens to Steffon, the gods forbid. I'm told the Titan's law can make exceptions for those who have done good service to their country."
Adaran sat back in his chair, mind whirling. "Your Grace," he finally managed, "I am still a soldier. I would do more good in the ranks of the Legion."
Robert shook his head. "You've spent the last few years outside the regular structure of the Legion; it wouldn't do to throw you into a new company on the brink of the biggest war we've ever fought. No, if you would serve me in this war," he took the badge of the Hand out of his pocket and placed it on the low table between them, "then serve as my Hand."
Adaran stared at the little golden brooch with its device of the open hand, thinking furiously but unable to answer his goodbrother's arguments. It was entirely possible that hewasthe only compromise candidate readily available on short notice (which was a disquieting thought in and of itself; nothing he had seen had made him think the Realm wasthatbadly riven by faction). The fact that he had no side in the schism was also to the good; if, when, he had to say or do something unpopular, no one would think he was doing it to deliberately bite his thumb at the First Sept, at Baelor's, or even at the Red Temple. Even his relative inexperience with high policy might be to the good. Neither Ser Mychel Egen nor Ser Jaymes Whitefield would think he was playing some long game if he approved or denied any particular initiative.
And his sister needed him. His niece and nephew needed him. That, as much as anything, provoked him to finally pick up the brooch. "The King commands, the Hand builds," he said, quoting the proverb.
Robert smiled, easing some of the lines that hadn't been on his face a year ago. "Or, as they say in Westeros, the King sh*ts and the Hand wipes," he said, startling a laugh out of Adaran. "Now, first off . . .
XXX
The regiments of Myr city made a brave sight as they marched out of the city through the Great Eastern Gate, but Syrio Forel didn't care about them. He had seen enough of the Royal Army of Myr to know that if it was ably led, properly supplied, and facing anything near even odds then it had nothing to fear from any army this side of the Jade Gates. So instead of the leather-aproned Pioneers, the brightly-armored knights and men-at-arms of the cavalry, or the always impressive marching of the Legion, Syrio had eyes only for the men who formed a protective wall on either side of King Robert as he rode between the Pioneers and the First Cavalry Regiment.
What he saw made him smile. Despite the fact that they were still within Myr city, friendly country by any stretch of the imagination, they were maintaining their formation around their principal, the mounted officers were riding with drawn swords instead of cumbersome lances, and their eyes were everywhere under the raised visors of their helmets. He nodded to himself; the Brotherhood of the Broken Chain had learned well. Of course, they had had good reason to learn, and learn quickly. Stallen Naerolis was not the first assassin that the slavers had sent to Myr city, only the most successful. Syrio wasn't sure quite how many there had been before his arrival, but since he had entered King Robert's service no less than two dozen spies had been caught in Myr city alone, and at least half of them had been in possession of various tools of assassination. Only the multitude and variety of the nets that lay in wait for them, and the watchfulness of the city's population, had prevented them from being successful.
If anything, he reflected, King Robert was actually less safe now, in the middle of his army, than he was in the city. In the city, if the need arose, his movements could be restricted to the Palace of Justice, which could itself be sealed tighter than a miser's purse. In the field, he was exposed to anyone that could think of a suitably convincing excuse that might get them within bowshot of him. Syrio's nightmare in such a scenario was a supposed courier with a message to be hand-delivered to King Robert and no other, especially if there had been no way to arrange for such a courier's identity to be confirmed beforehand. In this instance, it had been decided that only a select number of dispatch riders would be entrusted with such messages, and their names and descriptions listed with the household, but that only covered couriers sent from Myr city or one of the towns. A courier who claimed to come from Braavos, on the other hand . . .
Syrio shook his head as the last of the regiments marched out of the city to the applause of the crowds that had gathered to see them off to the war. A man could go mad fretting about such things, as he knew all too well. The two squads of the Brotherhood that had gone to war with King Robert comprised twenty of the most professionally ferocious fighters in the whole Kingdom of Myr, drilled to within an inch of their lives to protect their King at any hazard against any danger under the sun. And in order to have the opportunity to try their luck againstthem, anyone who wanted to kill King Robert would have to get past the rest of the Royal Army first. And after all that, they would have to face King Robert himself, which would be no small feat. Even if they caught him in his shirt with no weapon readily available, he was still strong enough to be a formidable enemy. Syrio had once seen him straighten a horseshoe, bare-handed, to the applause of the Legion company he had been visiting at the time.
Besides, he had quite enough to be getting on with; after Ser Gerion's murder, King Robert had entrusted him with the security not just of the Palace of Justice, but of Myr city as a whole. The Office of Foreign Inquiry, the City Watch, the Militia companies that had taken up the duty of the city's garrison, every corps that was concerned with the safety of the city from foreign intrusion and infiltration now answered to him, for the sole purpose of protecting Queen Serina, Princess Cassana, Prince Steffon, and the other royal children and their mothers. If they could not assassinate King Robert, the slavers would certainly take the opportunity to kill his wife, his children, or either of his former lemans. Syrio's hand gripped the use-smoothened hilt of his sidesword as he bared his teeth in anticipation.Not while I have eyes to see, and a tongue to command, and hands to slay,he vowed. He had not failed Sealord Antaryon; he would not fail King Robert.
XXX
Donys Rahtheon wished the spectacle before him could lift his spirits the way it had lifted those of the Volantenes. Certainly the Grand Army was an impressive enough sight to work upon any heart. If the sight of fifteen thousand Unsullied, as many men of the Exile Company, and eight thousand City militia under the banners of their guilds and wards did not gladden the heart, then surely the sight of Viserys Targaryen did. His goodnephew cut a dramatic figure in his scarlet-and-gold-trimmed black armor; the poleyns, couters, and pauldrons were all cunningly engraved and subtly flared to suggest dragon wings, and the other pieces of his arm and leg harnesses were etched and inlaid to give the appearance of scales. Riding in the midst of his Kingsguard with his similarly adorned helmet off and held by one of his pages, he looked the very picture of a dragonlord of old reborn.
And even for those who didn't believe the legend that Donys had carefully begun to craft around the last Targaryen, the knowledge that the Grand Army was only a portion of the forces that Volantis was committing to this war should have swayed any doubters. Already six thousand men, half Unsullied and half militia from the vassal towns, had been dispatched to the Lyseni mainland to give Daario Naharis the force he needed to pin the southern armies of the abolitionists in place while Viserys flayed their northern strongholds. Khal Drogo would be waiting at Ghoyan Drohe with thirty thousand screamers, and the Tattered Prince would meet them at Ny Sar with ten thousand Norvoshi, all to be fed and resupplied at Volantis' expense.
It was, quite possibly, the greatest outpouring of military might since before the Doom of Valyria. And yet Donys felt no more assured of success no than he had at any time since Stallen Naerolis had so royally co*cked up.
Of all the abolitionists he could have killed, he had to pick the worst! Ser Gerion Lannister had been as unyielding on the subject of abolition as any of his fellows, but he had been the loudest and most consistent voice of reason on Robert the Bloody's Small Council. It was he that had been the steadiest hand on the leash of the Iron Wolf and the tether of the Kraken, who had soothed Robert the Bloody's furies with reasoned counsel and reminders of sober policy. Donys shook his head wearily, confident that everyone was watching the parade of the Grand Army out through the North Gates and not sparing a glance for an old man watching from the reviewing stand. There was literally no purpose that Ser Gerion's death served, except to spur Robert the Bloody to immediate war while doing nothing to weaken the war machine he had spent so much of his reign building. Killing Eddard Stark or Ser Brynden Tully, now,thatwould have been worthwhile. Stark was the inexorable will behind the Royal Army, while Tully was its brain and the keystone of the arch that linked the unnatural Legion to the knightly adventurers that had become Myr's new aristocracy. Greyjoy might be an upjumped pirate, but he was the one person that bound the wild Ironborn to Baratheon's banner and held the Myrish fleet to his cause. Bowels of hell, even Corbray or Lannister would have been a better target, for the high places they held in the Royal Army and the favor they enjoyed with Baratheon. Instead, thanks to the whim of Fortune and his own lack of discipline, Naerolis had killed the one man who might have been able to keep the Myrish out of the war.
Donys was not a man of war, but he knew better than almost anyone how strong the Grand Army was. He should, having been so involved in its creation and expansion. He also knew the strength of its allies, itslogistika,and its captains. If anyone was confident of success, it should be him. But he also knew that the Grand Army had no great victories such as Tara, Solva, Narrow Run, or Tyrosh to bolster its self-belief, as the Royal Army of Myr did, nor was it possessed of the same crusading zeal. The Grand Army was certainly united, but its loyalties were given to different things, depending on which contingent you were talking about. The Exile Company was loyal to Viserys Targaryen, personally, in his role as the head of House Targaryen and rightful King of Westeros, who had promised that those who followed him would regain their homeland. The militia were loyal to the city of Volantis to which they owed military service as citizens, of which Viserys was merely the foremost Triarch, albeit a Triarch more popular and charismatic than any since Horonno. And the Unsullied . . . the Unsullied were loyal to whoever held the scourge that served as their baton of command and proof of ownership. If it had more successes of the type it had gained against Mantarys, then those loyalties might start to merge, allowing the Grand Army to unite in fact rather than name. If, on the other hand, it met with a sufficiently shocking defeat, the cracks in its loyalties might turn into fissures.
Especially, he reflected as he glanced to his right, since Viserys' dynasty was not yet assured. Lessaena was now heavily pregnant, but it would be some sennights yet before her confinement began. All the omens pointed to her bearing a son, but omens had been wrong before, as Donys knew from personal experience. And there was nothing to guarantee that either Lessaena or her child would survive the birthing bed; not for nothing did certain cultures refer to childbirth as 'woman's battle'. At least there was more than one string to that bow. Visenya certainly deserved better than to be abandoned to the barbaric attentions of Khal Drogo, for all that her betrothal to him was a matter of policy. And if the Westerosi taboo against incest proved too strong to overcome, there was always Asha Greyjoy, who now looked the very model of a highborn young lady where she stood next to Lessaena and Visenya. It was true that the Ironborn, and especially the Greyjoys, were despised by almost all Westeros, but Asha could hardly be compared to the wild-blooded reavers of yesteryear. An iron-willed governess and a series of equally indomitable tutors had turned the scrawny, calloused, and uncouth semi-barbarian into a polished and accomplished young lady that any noble house would be proud to claim. And marrying her to Viserys would demonstrate to those houses that had suffered under Stannis the Grim's rule that a Targaryen restoration would allow the restoration of their houses as well, for if even the Greyjoy's were to be lifted up from where they had been cast down . . .
He had almost convinced himself that such a course of action would be worth considering further when Asha turned to look at him and he found himself remembering the writings of Archmaester Haereg. Asha Greyjoy stood as primly erect as Lessaena did, wore silks and velvets worth more than Pyke castle had been before its sack, could read and write and speak Common Tongue and both varieties of Valyrian like a native, but in her dark eyes there was still the sea; calm for now, but Donys knew as well as any merchant how quickly the sea could transform from placid tranquility to raging storm.
His mouth quirked as he looked away. Better, perhaps, for that plan to remain one of desperation, and in the meantime to offer prayers to whatever gods might be concerned that Lessaena survived giving birth to a healthy son. He was not devout enough to think that his prayers could claim any particular favor with the gods, but every little bit helped, didn't it?
XXX
Ser Lyn Corbray did not bother to hide the satisfied smile on his face as he reviewed his troops. The news that the Grand Army of Volantis was marching up the Rhoyne had sent King Robert, Lord Stark, and Ser Brynden hurrying north with the regiments from Myr city and the Northern and Eastern Marches to reinforce the Braavosi at Pentos. Which left no other alternative but him to command the Army of the South. No one else had the ability, the name, or the birth to lead roughly a third of the Royal Army. And with thirteen thousand Legion infantry, four thousand light horse and mounted infantry, and three thousand knights and men-at-arms under his command, led largely by men that he himself had groomed for their posts and who were used to following his orders, it would be a strange thing indeed if he could not finally bring Daario the Defiant to bay. At the feast he had given for the host's officers last night, he had sworn that, when he was done, the Disputed Lands would be disputed no longer.
As he rode towards the far left of the line, his smile faltered ever so briefly as he contemplated the one part of his army that he was not entirely sure of. Ser Jaime Lannister was not, strictly speaking, his liegeman, as the fief he had taken over from poor Ser Wendel was held direct from the Crown, but its location fell within the catchment area of the Army of the South, and so here he was, with the two squadrons of cavalry and the company of Legion infantry that he was obligated under the Charter to maintain in peace and lead in the Crown's service in war, but he had not come with those men alone. His time squiring around the princes from the Summer Islands who had allied with King Robert had resulted in those princes joining their meinies to his forces, and in a rare stroke of self-knowledge they had nominated him as their captain in order to prevent any pissing matches between themselves as to who had the right to command. The result was that Zantar Salas, Taquor Dar, Tarano Rhosaq, Jalabhar Xho, and Balabos Rhosas were arrayed at Lannister's left hand, and behind them were two thousand Summer Islander warriors, half of which carried the notorious goldenheart bows of the Islands while the other half carried either heavy spears or the long-handled maces that were the other signature weapon of the Islands. The Black Company, as some would-be wit had dubbed it, made a brave sight in their recently-purchased armor, but no one would mistake them for a regular body of troops; the looseness of their formation gave it away as much as the variety of their insignias did. Jalabhar Xho was wearing a great spray of heron plumes in the leopard-skin band of his helmet, and the warriors that he had brought to Myr with him could be identified by the similar heron plumes in their helmets, while Balabos Rhosas and his warriors apparently favored vulture feathers. Lyn shrugged in the privacy of his mind. If they could not hold a line like the Legion could, at least they would be good brawlers to send into a melee or over a defended wall, especially with Lannister at their head. Rhosaq and Dar looked to be good men of their hands as well, and Rhosas looked downright dangerous.
As he and his little party of squires and hanger's-on reached the end of the army and peeled away, Lyn's smile turned carnivorous. He already had a great name, great enough that his youngest brother Lucas had finally lost patience with Lyonel's dithering and followed their father's example by forswearing inheritance and station to find fortune and glory in the East; even now Lucas was riding North as one of the Blackfish's squires. How much greater would his name be if he could finally drive the Lyseni from the mainland for good, penning them on their isles where Greyjoy and the Braavosi could dig them out like clams from their shells?Count your days, Daario Naharis.
Chapter 129: Embers
Chapter Text
It was perhaps inevitable that legends would spring up around the Eastern Expedition, but few have led to the spilling of quite as much ink as its formation. While it was a modest force, it was still assembled, equipped, and embarked at what amounted to lightning speed. It is an often-overlooked fact that fighting a war takes significantly less time and effort than gathering and preparing the necessary forces; for the Eastern Expedition to be mustered and dispatched overseas in only a month was a record that would not be equaled for generations.
The traditional explanation for the speed of this most extraordinary mustering of Stannis's reign has traditionally been ascribed to one of three main factors, or otherwise to a combination of the three. The first is the chauvinistic belief that the speed of the muster was made possible by the superior fighting spirit of the Westerosi chivalry, who had longed to prove themselves the equal of their Myrish cousins since the Battle of Tyrosh and had finally been presented with the chance. The second is that it was made possible by the organization that Stannis had imposed on the Crownlands, which his vassals in the Stormlands and the Reach had copied where their resources and the compliance of their sub-vassals had made it possible. The third, and most incredible, is that the rapidity of the mustering was evidence of the direct intervention of the Seven, who chose the moment to move the hearts of men to set aside their quarrels and join their banners to the cause of Holy Freedom; the one cause, supporters of this theory invariably point out, that all sides of the Great Schism positively supported.
None of these explanations satisfies. In the first place, superior fighting spirit is no substitute for logistics, as anyone who has studied war knows. In the second place, although Stannis's efforts at centralizing the Crownlands had indeed inspired emulation, these attempts had not had the time to spread very far or sink in very deep. Even Edmure Tully, who was Stannis's most ardent admirer and who possessed a determination that even Tywin Lannister found remarkable, had been unable to impose his program of reform anywhere beyond his personal demesne by the time the Expedition was formed. The dilemma that made feudalism necessary, that higher authority had little access to wealth because it had so few tax collectors and had so few tax collectors because it had so little access to wealth, remained unbroken until Lyonel's reign; Stannis had only been able to establish direct rule in the Crownlands because he had access to the wealth and trade of King's Landing, easily the most prosperous city on the eastern seaboard of Westeros. As for the theory that the Seven chose to enact their will with the Expedition, examples of divine intervention are necessarily unprovable, and are in any case the province of theologians rather than historians.
A more believable explanation is that, far from being spontaneous, the Expedition was the result of long-laid plans on the part of a few key principals. Surviving documents from the time are rare, but there is a surviving letter from Lord Mace Tyrell to Ser Hugh Shaw that 'recommends, implores, and directs that you hold yourself in readiness to depart on the business of His Grace King Stannis on as short notice as you may contrive, regardless of destination, for the greater peace and security of the Realm.' This letter is dated some months before the Expedition's formation and would appear unrelated, but for the fact that it is dated barely days after one Ser Hugh's neighbors swore a complaint against him in their mutual liege-lord's court, alleging that Ser Hugh had become a Jonothorian. This is compounded by the fact that the letter goes on to state that Ser Hugh is welcome to commend his wife and his sons to the protection of House Tyrell in the event that he is so summoned, and that 'as you have ever been a good and trusty bannerman to us, you may be assured that we shall take especial care in this matter, and be joined therein by His Grace the King.'
One example does not a conspiracy make, but nonetheless it may be conjectured that Ser Hugh Shaw was not alone in the Eastern Expedition. Of the participants whose names have survived, almost a third had been accused of heresy in the past, while a similar percentage can be traced in the record as having some name and status among the Queen's Men. It is hard to believe that such a body of men could come together entirely of their own volition; it is more likely that they had been singled out by either Lord Tyrell, by Lord Renly Baratheon, or by Stannis himself as men that should be gotten out of Westeros as soon as a pretense could be found that could not be publicly refused, in order to weaken their respective factions while allowing Stannis and his chief lieutenants to be able to deny that they were doing any such thing. In that regard, the beginning of the War of Wrath was a heavens-sent opportunity, as being called to participate in such a war could not be refused without exposing oneself to accusations of either cowardice or sympathy with the universally condemned slaver cities.
The only part of the puzzle that does not suggest a deliberate plot is the appointment of Samwell Tarly to command the Expedition. For despite his later reputation, Samwell Tarly's only claims to fame before the Expedition were threefold. First, that he was the eldest son of Lord Randyll Tarly, Stannis' Hand. Second, that he was a courtier and close friend of Willas Tyrell, heir of Highgarden and the Reach, who had entrusted him with oversight of the Highgarden stud farm. And third, that despite being under the age of twenty he had already earned a name as a writer and thinker; the average young nobleman of the time did not correspond with archmaesters on history, philosophy, or music, much less all three at once, as Samwell did. Of military ability, on the other hand, Samwell Tarly had none by all reports, supposedly a matter of great chagrin to his martial father. Reports of their relationship have doubtless been exaggerated by bardic license over the years, but what is not exaggerated is the extent to which Randyll Tarly thought his eldest son unfit to inherit Horn Hill; surviving letters clearly indicate Randyll's wish to disinherit Samwell and send him either to the east or to the Wall. It can be taken as read that only the protection of Willas Tyrell prevented this from coming to pass. Even as prestigious a figure as Randyll Tarly could not openly antagonize his liege-lord's heir in such a way without consequences. Willas's motives in nominating Samwell to command the Expedition, and Stannis's in confirming it, remain unclear, unless he was meant to be solely a figurehead that would be acceptable to both the Reformists and the Queen's Men in the expedition; the Tarly's were a family of proven loyalty to King Stannis, while being famously orthodox in their beliefs.
Even if the Expedition was a colossal plot however (and if it was, it certainly deserves to be ranked among the greatest such), it would prove to be a mixed success . . .
In the Shadow of the Throne: Debunking the Myths of the Baratheon Dynastyby Maester Stern
XXX
Owen Merryweather didn't know who he had expected to command the force that King Stannis had sent to aid his Braavosi allies, but he hadn't expected the fat and moon-faced boy that came down the gangplank on shaky legs and gave a salute that Owen was almost too surprised to return. "Samwell Tarly of Horn Hill, my lord," the boy said, flushing at the quaver in his voice. "By order of His Grace the King, I pass command of the Expedition to you. My lord." He flushed again, his round face turning painfully red as he gestured impatiently at the stone-faced man-at-arms who stood at his shoulder, who opened a flat wallet and drew out a sheaf of papers that he offered with both hands.
Owen accepted the papers, glanced at the top one to confirm that it did indeed grant him command of the Eastern Expedition, and passed them to his squire. "Very well, then," he said calmly, suppressing his surprise that a man of his advanced years and mediocre martial reputation had been granted such a command. "I accept the command His Grace has seen fit to give me. What exactly do I have to command, Master Tarly?"
"One hundred and fifty knights, as many squires and men-at-arms, and two hundred archers," Tarly said quickly, drawing a surprised blink from Owen; either he had learned that by heart, or the boy had a head for numbers. "We have supplies for a sennight aboard the ships, but we have only enough horses to mount half the knights and men-at-arms. We were given to understand that there would be horses enough for the rest here in Pentos, as well as to mount the squires."
Owen nodded half to himself.Not just a good memory, then."There are, although some will have only the one," he replied. "The Braavosi are not a nation of horsem*n, and of the warhorses they do breed, most are brought by agents of King Robert."
"Then thank the gods that almost none of the horses died on the voyage," the Tarly boy said, nodding to the ship he had debarked from; the deck was already covered in horses and a crane on the dock was being rigged to lift them ashore. "If I told the knights they had to fight afoot, there'd be a mutiny."
Owen raised an eyebrow. "Discipline problems?" he asked lightly.
Tarly shook his head. "Not many; Ser Carlus Storm kept the King's Men in line and Ser William Doggett did the same for the Queen's Men. The problem is that there's almost an even split in numbers between them and, well . . ." He indicated himself with a wry gesture and Owen found himself nodding agreement; Samwell Tarly might have the birth to command the Expedition, at least as a temporary measure, but no knight would ever take him seriously. Which begged the question of what he was doing with the Expedition in the first place. Doubtless there was a story there.
"Well, they'll have to get over their differences quickly," Owen said, changing the topic; he had heard enough to confirm his suspicions that he had been granted the command primarily to keep the two factions represented in the expedition from each other's throats. "Khal Drogo is already over the border; our last report has it that he detached a force to mask Ghoyan Drohe and is leading the rest of his horde into the hinterland with fire and sword. The Viceroy plans to lead the army out tomorrow, in hopes that he can meet up with King Robert and offer battle."
Tarly nodded. "Will the khal accept battle if we offer it?" he asked, unable to conceal the nervousness in his voice.
"Oh, almost certainly," Owen replied. "He relies on victory to hold his horde together, after all." He flicked a hand. "But that will be for the council of war," he said. "What news from Westeros?"
XXX
Meanwhile, in Westeros . . .
The arrival of Prince Lyonel in the Iron Islands was met with the first tourney held in the Islands since Balon Greyjoy's accession to the Seastone Chair. The results of who won which competition are a matter of public record, but what interests us is that none of the competitors in the final rounds were Ironborn. This might have been expected for the joust or the foot combat, as these contests were open only to knights, but even in the commoners' event of archery the finalists were all men who had been born on mainland Westeros. If there was any consideration giving to establishing wrestling as an event, as had been done in Myr, no record of it survives. That even royalist Ironborn such as the Harlaw's were not permitted to potentially show up their greenlander patrons should dispel any doubts as to the nature of the Baratheon dynasty's rule of the Islands.
Although it has been the overwhelming consensus that the onus of the occupation's woes lies upon the Royal Order of the Sea and especially on its founding Master Ser Rickon Riverbend, this overlooks the degree to which the racist ideology underpinning the occupation permeated every level of the administration that Stannis Baratheon imposed on the Islands. The Order was certainly the most visible vehicle of the dynasty's policies, but it was hardly the only one and certainly not the worst. Riverbend was a stalwart servant of the dynasty, but his time as a landless sellsword on the edge of poverty gave him at least a degree of empathy for people faced with destitution, and he was known even in his own time as a man who set his face against corruption even in his own organization. By contrast, even such a moral mediocrity as Garlan Tyrell fares poorly under a modern lens, although the harshest thing that contemporary sources say of Tyrell is that he was blind to the corruption of his bailiffs and stewards. Such lords as Chester Mooton or Black Walder Frey, perversely, command more respect from a modern reader;theynever claimed that their rule had any goals other than to milk their lordships for every coin they could send back to the coffers of their families on the mainland.
Even Baratheon apologists, on the other hand, have nothing but condemnation for the rule of the Lannisters on Pyke and Orkmont. As far as Lord Tywin was concerned, the war had not ended with the Sack of Pyke; only the methods by which it was to be waged had changed. Nowhere else in the Islands was the policy of encouraging greenlanders to immigrate and become landowning farmers so assiduously pursued, or the policies intended to make the land for those farms available so rigorously pursued. Indeed, it was the extent to which the latter policies were driven that inspired Stannis Baratheon to remove Pyke from the overlordship of the Lannisters and place it directly under the stewardship of the Order. Officially, it was to grant Kevan Lannister an honorable retirement, but a surviving letter from Stannis to Tywin reveals the true motive as being Stannis' disgust at the lack of discrimination on display both in so-called 'bandit-hunting' campaigns and the number of crimes that were punishable by long terms of forced labor in the mines or the quarries. As Stannis put it, "Dead men cannot serve the Crown."
It was this division, among others, that ironically made rebellion possible in the first place. There was certainly fertile ground for rebellion among the Ironborn of the period, but a sufficiently ferocious policy of repression would have made it functionally impossible. The problem that the Baratheon dynasty faced was that how savage the repression was executed varied not just from island to island, but from fief to fief on those islands. Matters were further complicated by the growing tensions between the Queen's Men spearheaded by the Lannisters and the Riverlander houses, the King's Men helmed by Ser Rickon Riverbend and Garlan Tyrell, and the increasingly more isolated and beleaguered moderates who hoped to straddle the fence. The one thing that every greenlander house and institution imposed on the Islands agreed upon was that their new serfs were to be watched vigilantly and any open rebellion swiftly crushed. This was born out by the Drowned Men's Rebellion, where the swift and overwhelming response of the Order of the Sea convinced a critical mass of the Ironborn themselves to either stay neutral or weigh in on the side of the Baratheon's. As one exile of the period reportedly told Victarion Greyjoy on his arrival in Myr, the Ironborn submitted not because they did not desire freedom but because they could not guarantee success, and failure would only result in extinction.
This combination of a swift victory over the Drowned Men's Rebellion and the apparent reconciliation of most of the Ironborn to the impossibility of rebellion served to instill a false confidence in the greenlanders; Riverbend was not alone in telling Stannis that "Although individual disturbances are to be expected, there appears to be no risk of a substantial rebellion in these Isles." This, we now know, is false, but no one at the time knew that there was a surviving member of House Greyjoy, or at least a charismatic man who claimed to be such, still at large . . .
Seas of Blood: the Iron Islands under the Baratheon Occupationby Haldrick Greyspar
XXX
Theon Greyjoy was hardly what Grand Maester Pycelle called an empath, but even he could feel the mood of the people of Pyke town as he rode at Prince Lyonel's left hand in the middle of a clump of Order knights. The sullen, tamped-down anger of the poverty-worn men who watched them ride the streets of Pyke was almost a tangible thing, like the smell of smoke from a forest fire. The only question was whether they were more angry at Prince Lyonel or at him. King Stannis had broken the Isles with fire and sword, reducing its surviving people to cringing obedience or to far-scattered exile; that the Ironborn should hate his heir was nothing to be remarked at. But for them to see the last living son of their liege-lord riding at that heir's shoulder as his sworn sword . . . Small wonder that the hatred they usually concealed so carefully from the Order knights burned through their eyes when they looked at him.
Theon drummed gauntlet-clad fingers against the pommel of his saddle as he continued scanning the crowd. He hadtoldPrince Lyonel that these twice-sennightly rides through Pyke town were unwise, even with an escort, but his prince would not be dissuaded. "I can't be expected to rule these people if I don't see what their lives are like," he had said, calmly but sharply, the last time Theon had broached the subject. "And if they hate seeing me then let them hate, so long as they see that I am taking an interest in them, their town, and their doings. I don't require them to love me, simply to understand that I have more of an interest in them than House Lannister does." That those Ironborn who cared about the nuances of the matter hated them all the more on account of his being Tywin Lannister's grandson made no impression on him. Even if they were angry enough to kill him, which of them would be foolish or mad enough to dare, when they knew full well what even an unsuccessful attempt would bring down on their heads? Theon's mouth tightened involuntarily. He had been Ser Cortnay's squire for long enough to fully adopt his beliefs about tempting fate.
Especially since there were more people in the streets today than Theon could remember seeing any of the other times that they had ridden out. It was a market day, but that alone should not have brought out such a crowd.
It wasn't until they reached the market square that they found the reason for the anger. The signs of the baker's shops showed prices that had increased since the last market day; day-old loaves that had sold at two for a penny were now being sold at one for a penny. Fresh bread was now two pennies a loaf for maslin and three for wheat, instead of one and two respectively. Theon grimaced; anywhere else in the Seven Kingdoms a price jump like that would have started a riot by this hour of the day. Late summer to early fall was traditionally the lean time of year, when the stored grain from last year's harvest was running low and the year's crops hadn't yet been fully harvested and threshed and ground to flour. The Isles had usually been exempt from that rule, thanks to the sea-harvest of cod and herring and salmon and all the other myriad fishes of the sea, but no longer, with so much of that harvest being diverted to feed the garrisons. The Order of the Sea paid fair price, he knew, thanks to Ser Rickon's belief that it was unwise to borrow resentment when you didn't need to, but the other greenlander garrisons were not so generous. And money wasn't worth much when there wasn't much to buy in the first place. The muggy-hot weather wouldn't help either; hot days made for hot blood, as the saying went. If he had to guess, it was only the fact that the conquest of the Isles was so recent, with its attendant memories of devastation, that had kept a lid on the anger so far.
The hope that they might get away unnoticed by the crowd in the market square, however, died as heads began swiveling towards them. The resulting silence was only broken when a man in a townsman's shirt and breeches stepped forward, doffed his cap, and knelt in the street before the knot of horses. "Prince," the man said, his voice wavering at first but strengthening. "We ask justice of you, Prince."
Lyonel spurred his horse forward into the front rank of the Order knights, Theon staying at his side and glaring a knight into making room; a traitor's son he might be, and destined never to be a knight, but where his duty to his prince was concerned he gave way to no one. King Stannis himself had told him as much. "What would you have justice for, goodman?" Lyonel asked.
"These prices, Prince," the townsman said, twisting his cap in his hands as sweat ran down his face. "How are we supposed to feed our families when food is so dear? The merchants say the harvest has been bad on the mainland but it cannot be so bad as that, aye?"
Lyonel shook his head. "I've heard nothing to suggest as much," he allowed. "I shall make inquiries with my lords on the mainland, and see what might be done. In the meantime," he raised his voice, "you merchants might consider that charity is a saving virtue, as it is written in theSeven-Pointed Star, and that it is better to break even than to lose money because no one can afford your wares."
"And what of the other islands, prince?" came a hoarse shout, and a man in a mottled roughspun robe with a patriarchal beard stepped forward, making Theon's stomach turn over; he knew a priest of the Drowned God when he saw one. "Will you make your lords send food to them as well, and keep it out of the hands of the knights who already steal their bread and fish?"
The Order knights muttered angrily, but Lyonel silenced them with an upraised hand. "The other islands are not in my keeping, master priest," he replied, lowering his hand. "My charge from the King my father is that I rule Pyke and oversee the doings of the Order of the Sea, not that I rule the Isles as a whole. For the other islands you will have to ask the lords who rule them."
"The same lords that already reduce us to beggary, prince?" the priest demanded, his sunken eyes flashing anger. "Lord Harlaw, that hides in his castle and lets the greenlanders flay us with their taxes? Lord Tyrell, who cares not that our children cry with hunger so long as his own table is full? Lord Lannister and Lord Frey, who have men flogged for saying that they cannot feed their families with the pittance they are allowed for their work in the mines?"
The crowd was murmuring sullenly now and alarum bells were sounding in Theon's head, but Lyonel was unmoved. "If the treatment those lords give you is so terrible, master priest, then you may appeal to the Order," he said reasonably. "Ser Rickon Riverbend is a good man . . ."
The priest spat on the cobblestones. "An unbeliever," he snarled. "The pet of the Storm God's Own, who authored all our woes. This is the answer you give us, prince?" He thrust a skinny arm into the air, his face transfigured with hate. "Justice and bread!" he roared. "Justice and bread, justice and bread, justice and bread!"
The crowd took up the chant, but quickly dropped the first half. "Bread, bread, bread," rippled through the square, punctuated by a scrawny woman who dashed out of the crowd with a rotted cabbage and screamed, "Here's what your lords leave us to eat, prince!" and heaved it at Lyonel. It fell short to break open on the cobbles in a spray of brown-gray muck, but it was enough to set the crowd off and they surged forward, screaming "Bread, bread, bread!"
What happened next required no conscious thought on Theon's part; Ser Cortnay had trained him on what to do in a situation like this too many times for him to hesitate.First, abandon your horse. A knight on a moving horse is unstoppable; a knight on a stalled horse is a sitting duck.He rolled out of the saddle, slapped the beast on the haunch to send it startling into the crowd to buy an instant's breathing space as the Order knights surged forward, and got Lyonel out of the saddle by the simple expedient of putting both hands under his left stirrup and heaving him over the side of his horse, sending it also running into the crowd with a gauntleted slap to the hindquarters.Next, find a place to hole up, somewhere the enemy can only come at you from one direction.He got one hand on Lyonel's shoulder, the other under his opposite armpit, frog-marched him to a likely corner he had seen earlier, where a latrine had been built against the half-stone wall of an inn and deposited him there with a rough shout of "Down, highness."Next, fight until you can fight no more.
By the time the first spray of rioters reached them, Theon's arming sword was already in his right hand and his hand axe in his left, and Ser Cortnay's training had fully taken hold of him. It was not a conscious decision that made him meet the first man with a short, economical slice to the throat from the sword and the second with a hacking blow to the left knee from the hand axe, but conditioned reflex. The only thought in his head was the one that Ser Cortnay had hammered into him from the first day of training, when he began to make a living sword out of him;Protect the Prince.
Lyonel was one of only three friends Theon had in the wide world; the other two were Ser Cortnay and Brienne. Furthermore, Lyonel was his sworn lord, his ring-giver. He had sworn sacred oath, both in the Great Sept before the High Septon and King Stannis on the altar of the Warrior, and in the privacy of his chamber to the Drowned God, to defend him against every enemy, or die in the attempt. Thus, and only thus, could he prove that he was worthy of King Stannis' mercy and wash out the stain of his father's treason. So when the rioters, lapping around the edges of the knot of Order knights fighting for their lives, tried to reach his Prince, Theon met them with steel in his hands and murder in his heart, andProtect the Princeblared in his mind as he mounded their bodies at his feet. When his sword swept through one man's neck and curved down and around to open the big artery on the inside of another man's thigh,Protect the Princewas the only thought in his head. When his hand axe smashed a man's lower jaw in half in a spray of blood and bone fragments and teeth,Protect the Princesang in his ears. When his sword lanced out in a stop-thrust and jammed in a man's rib cage where it had split his heart in half,Protect the Princethundered through his mind as he abandoned the blade and took his hand axe in both hands to smite down a club-wielding lunatic in the mottled robe of a Drowned Man. When a cobblestone came sailing over the heads of the men in front of him,Protect the Princemade Theon stretch out his hand to snatch it out of the air and bring it down on a man's head, and never mind that the impact broke two of the small bones in his hand through the gauntlet and numbed his whole arm with shock. When two burly men came struggling over the mat of bodies with hammers in their hands,Protect the Princelet Theon ignore the pain to seize one of them by the throat with his broken hand even as his axe dashed out the other's brains, heave him off his feet, and dash him to the ground where a stamping kick could crush his face. Clubs and hammers and hatchets and knives all sought his life, but Theon was clad from head to toe in good steel, a gift of King Stannis to his heir's closest bodyguard, and Theon's trust in that gift let him devote all his energies to killing the scum,the bastards, that threatened the life of his lord and friend.Protect the Prince, Protect the Prince, Protect the Prince.
So deeply was he enthralled by the battle-trance ofProtect the Princethat it took fully five minutes for him to recognize that the Order garrison had sallied out from Pyke castle, sweeping the rioters off the streets with disciplined violence, and that the man in front of him with hands raised was none other than Ser Rickon Riverbend, who was shouting, "Friends, young Theon, friends! For the gods' sakes, man, we're friends, let us see the Prince!" Theon blinked, lowered his axe slowly as his mind finally registered the device on the knight's surcoat and his empty hands, and turned slowly. The sight of his Prince standing in the corner between the latrine and the inn wall, not a scratch on him and not a drop of blood on his sword, made relief strike him like a hammerblow and his knees almost buckled as the living fire of the battle-fury drained away. Ser Rickon pushed forward, stepping over the corpses that Theon had piled before him, and fell to his knees. "Your highness, are you well?" he demanded, anxiety tightening his voice.
"Yes, perfectly," Lyonel said, his voice wavering only a little before he mastered it. "Didn't even have to bloody my sword, as you see. Theon here didn't let any of them get close enough."
"So I see," Ser Rickon said, glancing behind him; Theon followed his gaze, and what he saw made him fight his gorge for a long moment. The mangled bodies were piled three deep where he had made his stand, and the ground fairly squelched with gore. Ser Rickon's squire Loras was looking distinctly green around the gills where Ser Rickon had left him on the other side of the bodies. "Clearly the Warrior showed master Theon great good favor this day," Ser Rickon added, then he turned back to Lyonel and bent his head. "Your highness, I will need a few days to see my successor properly installed, but I can write up my resignation as soon as we return . . ."
"Nonsense," Lyonel snapped, sheathing his longsword. "What happened this day was no fault of yours, Ser Rickon; this was a rabble-rouser inciting treason. If your honor requires you to offer amends, then find the traitor and his confederates, root and branch. Let none escape."
Ser Rickon stood and bowed from the waist. "No effort shall be spared, your highness," he said firmly, and turned away, calling for his officers as Loras trotted along behind him.
Lyonel stepped forward out of the corner and placed a hand on Theon's shoulder. "You saved my life today," he said softly.
Theon lowered his head. "I swore oaths," he replied.
"And fulfilled them," Lyonel said. "By the Warrior, Theon, I will see you knighted for this. Men have received lordships for less."
Theon raised his head and looked Lyonel in the eye. "My prince," he said, softly but firmly, "you know as well as I do that neither the High Septon nor the Most Devout will ever let a Greyjoy be knighted. It is as much as they can bear that I stand armed at your side."
Lyonel's face hardened. "And if the High Septon and the whole pack of the Most Devout all put together do me even a tenth of the good service that you have done me on this day alone . . ." he snarled, then looked away for a long moment as he mastered himself. "Be that as it may," he said finally. "I owe you my life. And since I have reached my majority,Isay who is in my squadron of the Stormguard, which has some places newly opened in it, thanks to this treason." He pointed, and when Theon saw what he indicated he was moved to sign himself with the seven-pointed star, even though he only made a show of heeding Divine Office to avoid making trouble. The Stormguards had apparently made their stand as their training dictated, in a pinwheel with each horses rear against another's left side, but that had not been enough to save them. "One of those places is yours," Lyonel promised. "And if the High Septon doesn't like it, then he can go suck an egg.Hewas not here on this day."
Theon bowed, his heart suddenly over-full. "I'm your man, my prince," he swore. "Of life and limb and earthly worship. It would be my honor to serve in your Stormguard."
Lyonel nodded. "In the meantime, we must see if there is more to this than one priest inciting a riot," he said. "Would not do to let treason take root in my first lordship, would it?"
Theon smiled, the blood painting his face making it the snarl of a demon. "Indeed not, my prince."
XXX
Any thought Lyonel might have had that the Bread Riot was an isolated phenomenon was dispelled by the days that followed. Riots broke out all over Pyke, and the mobs that they spawned were hardly the disorganized rabble that might have been expected. Even quarterstaffs could be lethal weapons if several dozen men were using them in unison and apparently at the direction of men who knew what they were doing, and quarterstaffs were not the only weapons the mobs were wielding. The Ironborn might have been forbidden weapons of a military nature under the Iron Code, but a harpoon could kill a man as easily as a tuna or a whale, a woodcutter's axe would cleave a human as easily as a log, and even a light bow of only forty- or fifty-pounds draw-weight, meant for hunting the elusive wild goats of the Islands, could kill a man, especially if he was only lightly armored.
Nor was Pyke the only island so affected. Before the sennight was out ravens had arrived from the other garrisons reporting widespread uprisings and a wave of assassination attempts. Chester Mooton had been stabbed by his leman and was reportedly hovering between life and death while his castle endured what amounted to a siege. Garlan Tyrell had come within an ace of being poisoned; only the fact that one of his pages had dared the other to drink from his goblet had saved his life. Black Walder Frey had not been so lucky. Upon hearing that there was a plot against his life, he had declared that with fifty men he could go wherever he liked in the Islands and none would dare resist, and the next morning he had set out to prove it. The resulting ambush had killed him and twenty of the fifty men he had set out with; of the survivors, only five men-at-arms and six archers escaped without wounds. From Great Wyk came the news that Alfric Ironmaker had been shot dead by persons unknown as he tried to cajole a crowd into dispersing; now half the island of Great Wyk was at war with the other half, as the Ironmakers and their client houses, along with the local garrison of the Order of the Sea, desperately fought to hold their own against a population that wanted their heads anyway they could get them. Ironborn converts to the Faith and the septs that ministered to them appeared to be singled out for particular violence by the mobs; a common trend seemed to be for the converts to be herded into the septs which were then set on fire, with any who escaped being beaten to a pulp by the mobs.
In all, it made for an alarming picture, made worse by the missive that was delivered to Pyke castle by unknown hands five days after the Bread Riot claiming responsibility for it all. "Wherefore," Lyonel read aloud, mastering disbelief as he did so, "we declare that these Isles are, and of right ought to be, a free and independent kingdom, owing allegiance to no king against their will and recognizing no Faith but that which they have practiced from time immemorial. In recognition whereof, and in order to prevent further bloodshed and destruction, we give you leave to quit these Isles with the honors of war and return to your own lands, where you may remain in peace as you leave us in peace. Should you refuse this most generous offer, we shall have no choice but to make war without mercy upon you and all who serve you, until the Isles shall be cleansed of the taint that you have inflicted upon them. Upon your head be the consequences of your choice, whichever it might be. Given under our hand by the will of Our Lord who Drowned for us, Aeron Greyjoy." He dropped the sheet of parchment on the table and looked at Ser Rickon Riverbend. "If this is a joke," he said with asperity, "then I must say, it is in very poor taste. Especially the part where they signed a dead man's name to it."
Ser Rickon, his grizzled countenance showing the strain of the past several days despite his best attempts to conceal it, shrugged. "Aeron Greyjoy's body was never recovered after the Battle of Fair Isle," he pointed out. "Until it is proved that this is some imposter that has stolen his name, we should assume that it is indeed Aeron Greyjoy who sets himself against us."
"I doubt it," Lyonel replied. "Theon told me once that Aeron wagered his ship against a flock of goats that he could douse a hearth-fire by pissing on it and won, hence its name ofGolden Storm. The only reason he did not commission a ram in the shape of his co*ck for it was that Balon threatened to hang him from the mast if he made an even bigger jest of himself than he already had. Not, I submit, the kind of man to write a letter like that." He indicated the missive. "Not that it matters," he went on. "If this rebel is indeed Aeron come back to life, then he will be entitled to have his head cut off with a sword when we take him instead of being hanged. Assuming, of course, that he is not killed in the course of resisting arrest. Either way, dead is dead."
"Men will fight harder for a son of House Greyjoy, your highness, than they will for a nameless adventurer," Ser Rickon said, no less firmly for being perfectly polite. "I would suggest that we hold up Theon as a counter-offer, but I can guess your royal father's reaction."
"Much less the High Septon's," Lyonel agreed with a grimace. "Besides, the Ironborn would not accept Theon as a lord, not after he's served as my sworn sword in such spectacular fashion." He shook his head. "No, we cannot defuse this revolt by offering a lord that would be acceptable both to us and to the Ironborn. Which leaves naked force."
Ser Rickon nodded somberly. "What measures do you suggest, your highness?"
Lyonel accepted a goblet of watered hippocras from Loras Tyrell with a nod for the squire, then walked with Ser Rickon to the map-tapestry of the Iron Islands and the western coast of Westeros that dominated one wall of the older knight's study. "Our first priority must be to hold Pyke, Harlaw, and Great Wyk," he started. "Those three islands have the most wealth, the most people, and, most crucially, the greatest number of loyalists. So on those islands at least we must act boldly."
"Of those, Pyke will probably be the easiest to subdue," Ser Rickon said, swirling the hippocras in his own cup. "If only because so much of the Order is here, along with your highness's retinue."
Lyonel nodded. "Ser Sandor and the men he leads are at your disposal," he promised. "Although I should warn you that he is unlikely to be, shall we say, gentle in his methods."
Ser Rickon shrugged. "There is a time for gentleness and a time for rigor," he said equably. "This is the latter, at least until the Ironborn return to their allegiance. And I trained Sandor to be a knight; he will heed my commands if he will heed any man's." He shook his head as his gaze strayed over the map. "If Lord Harlaw would bestir himself, then I would be as confident of holding Harlaw as I am of holding Pyke, but the man's melancholy has persisted since he was installed."
"Do you think he is incapable?" Lyonel asked, more sharply than he meant to.
"Not quite, no," Ser Rickon said after a moment's hesitation. "Not to the degree that Doran Martell was during his brother's rebellion. But he has not been the most forceful of lords during his tenure."
Lyonel clicked his tongue. "We shall see if he rises to the occasion," he decided. "If he cannot perform, then he can take a berth at Quiet Isle when this business is settled. On my authority."
Ser Rickon turned his searching gaze on the young prince. "You are so certain that the King will back such a drastic decision?" he asked.
Lyonel nodded. "When the king my father gave me this charge, he enjoined me to heed your advice, and the advice of our other leal lords, but he also enjoined me to remember that the power of decision wasmine. The lords on isles other than Pyke were to be trusted to rule their domains to their best ability, unless they did something especially egregious, but when the music stops the power to bind and loose in these Islands rests in my hand and none other."
Ser Rickon nodded slowly. "So be it, then," he said softly. "What of the other islands?"
"Old Wyk, thankfully, is a problem we can leave for later," Lyonel went on. "After Lord Stark's clearance of the island during the rebellion, there simply aren't enough people left on it to make it worth our while to throw resources at it until the other islands are secured. The garrisons on Saltcliffe and Blacktyde can hold their ground until we secure Pyke, Great Wyk, and Harlaw. As for Orkmont," he shrugged. "I am not inclined to save the Lannister's from the bed they made for themselves. If they are so dead-set on making a policy of cruelty then they can take it to it's conclusion if they like, and they can take the consequences."
"Consequences they aren't likely to feel, your highness, thanks to how rich Casterly Rock is," Ser Rickon pointed out.
"Ser Kevan must still show my lord grandfather that he can make Orkmont a profitable lordship," Lyonel replied. "If we offer amnesty to any rebel on Orkmont willing to relocate to one of the other islands, then I doubt that he will have the people to turn a profit for much longer."
Ser Rickon raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You're that willing to risk your grandfather's enmity, your highness?" he asked. "He will hardly take kindly to such an undercutting of his authority, even if Orkmont is the least of House Lannister's holdings."
"My lord grandfather knows that when he dies, his heir will still have to deal with the Iron Throne," Lyonel replied. "Which is to say, with either the king my father, or with me. Do you think that either Uncle Tyrion, Ser Kevan, or any of Ser Kevan's children can maintain House Lannister's position against the Iron Throne if we apply ourselves towards its reduction? Remembering, of course, that the fact that I will inherit the Iron Throne is the greater part of my lord grandfather's legacy."
Ser Rickon opened his mouth, then closed it as he considered. Tywin Lannister might be a name to conjure with for wealth, charisma, and sheer force of will, but neither Tyrion nor Kevan were. And while a power struggle between House Lannister and the Iron Throne would be, to a large extent, self-defeating, it would be more so for Lannister. The Iron Throne had friends beyond Casterly Rock; Mace Tyrell, most prominently. House Lannister did not; even their own bannermen followed them as much out of fear of Tywin's retribution as out of hope for reward. "Well, it will certainly be a gamble worth watching, your highness," he said finally. "Although by your leave, I will let your highness be the one to explain your reasoning to Lord Tywin."
Lyonel nodded. "The king my father said that part of my responsibilities would be dealing with the people that my decisions discommoded," he said calmly. "It would be a poor showing if I could deal with the Ironborn but not with my lord grandfather, would it not?"
XXX
The degree to which Lyonel's later policies were influenced by his experiences in the Pretender's Rebellion, or Aeron's Rebellion as it is known among Ironborn revanchists, is a matter of guesswork. His surviving letters indicate that he was distrustful of what would today be called popular opinion even before the Bread Riot of Pyke, probably due to his father's experiences as a monarch that was more respected and feared than loved. There are three things that we may take for granted that Lyonel learned from the Pretender's Rebellion. Firstly, he learned how effective a policy of exemplary violence followed by calculated mercy could be at restoring order, if not winning the love of the people it was inflicted upon. Secondly, he learned the usefulness of holding his subordinates' feet to the fire, given the performance of Lord Harras Harlaw after he received Lyonel's politely worded ultimatum to either put his back into suppressing the rebellion or be replaced by a Harlaw who would. Harras's energetic diplomacy might have been the last noteworthy feat of his rule of Harlaw, but it did much to keep the violence on that island to a comparable minimum, and also to allow Harlaw to maintain its distinction as the one isle in the Iron Islands to retain a significant degree of self-rule.
Thirdly, and most importantly, he learned the value in having a strong body of disciplined and well-ordered soldiers beholden to him alone, as evidenced by the fact that he gave the Royal Order of the Sea almost unlimited powers of rule over the isle of Pyke and greatly expanded their role in overseeing the governance of the other Islands. Of the three, this last is probably the strongest impression that was made upon him, judging by his letters to Stannis, Tywin, and others singing the praises of the Royal Order of the Sea. The partiality he displayed might have been explained by the fact that he was formally knighted after the final suppression of the Rebellion by Ser Rickon Riverbend, alongside Loras Tyrell, Lancel Lannister, and a score of other squires and men-at-arms that had distinguished themselves in putting down the Rebellion, but it does not explain why he so drastically increased their jurisdiction. Although government of the time ran on cronyism and insider favors far more than it currently does, Stannis had made a point of emphasizing competence over favor in his hiring and firing of royal officers, and Lyonel's later behavior indicates that he learned that lesson as well.
Whether there was any truth to the claim of the man who styled himself Aeron Greyjoy that he was indeed the brother of Balon Greyjoy of that name is also a matter of guesswork. It is true that Aeron's body had never been recovered after the Battle of Fair Isle, and accounts survive of escapes and survivals almost as improbable as the one that the Pretender claimed to have achieved by the Drowned God's grace. But as no remains have been found to genetically compare to known descendants of the Greyjoy family, the true identity of the Pretender remains as much a matter of religious or political belief as of historical inquiry. The official position of the Baratheon dynasty, that Aeron Greyjoy died off Fair Isle and that the man who met his end under the sword of Ser Sandor Clegane in a desperate and bloody last stand at Nagga's Bones was an impostor, has persisted unchanged since Lyonel's declaration to that effect in the early days of the rebellion. The contrasting position of the various Ironborn revanchist organizations, that the Pretender was indeed Aeron Greyjoy, the trueborn and true son of Quellon and brother of Balon, has also persisted unchanged from the days of the rebellion. Historians can only shrug and remark that the only thing that is indisputable is that the Pretender was a man of great charisma and ability to unite Ironborn from across the Isles without regard to class or station, plan a rebellion of such scope without drawing the attention of royalist spies, and muster sufficient force to give Lyonel three hard-fought battles at Short Beach, Six Pines, and Nagga's Bones. The atrocities that the Pretender and his forces committed against royalists of all descriptions when they had the opportunity, especially at Nagga's Bones, is also undisputed but we shall not examine such matters here, save to note that they undoubtedly hardened Lyonel's heart further against rebels, even ones that constrained themselves to follow the Law of War.
The Pretender's Rebellion might have made for an inauspicious start to Lyonel's tenure as viceroy of the Iron Islands in all but name, were it not for the news that reached Pyke even as the Pretender's body was being strung up for public display and eventual cremation . . .
The Life and Times of Lyonel the Magnificentby Archmaester Alfryd
Chapter 130: Ignition
Chapter Text
AN: Friends, the way we're going to do the next round of chapters begs some explanation. The Fourth Slave War (alias the War of Wrath, alias the Great War, alias 'that bloody mess') is taking place across three widely separated fronts, with a fourth arc in King's Landing happening concurrently to the war. Consequently, there will be two kinds of chapters going forward. Chapters like this one, with perspectives across all three fronts, show the events depicted therein happening either simultaneously or within a few days of each other. Major battles and other climaxes of action will receive their own chapters and will be labeled appropriately in addition to the regular title.
Clear as mud? Splendid. (In Heath Ledger's Joker voice) And here . . . we . . . go.
In Pentos . . .
Khal Drogo had all of the born and bred nomad's disdain for permanent structures. Why go to the time and bother of building something you wouldn't be around to use a sennight or two from now? A stoutly sewn felt tent with a good fire in the hearth was proof against even a winter storm on the plains and could be erected and dismantled in a matter of hours. Perfect for a people whose livelihood revolved around following herds of livestock over the plains.
But even so, he knew enough about buildings to recognize the worth of what he faced as he sat his horse in front of Ghoyan Drohe with his bloodriders and kos around him. A ditch eight feet deep surrounding a rammed-earth wall ten feet tall faced with stone and backed with timber, with a bastion tower half again as tall as the wall at each corner and two more flanking the gate, was not in the first or even the second rank of fortifications, but it still added up to a fort that could bite its thumb at anyone without a siege train or competent engineers and sappers. Perfect, in other words, for holding him and his horde at bay, because while Khal Viserys was acceptably generous with his gifts, he had not given him engines or men to work them as the Triarchs before him had given to Khal Pobo. At least in part, Drogo suspected, because Viserys did not trust him. Not until he had wedded and bedded Viserys' sister and made her his Khaleesi. Which was fair; Drogo didn't trust Viserys either. Not more than their alliance required him to, at any rate. And even once they became goodbrothers, he would still reserve some mistrustfulness for the Targaryen. Part of being a khal was that you could trust no one beyond your bloodriders and your Khaleesi, except perhaps your children.
Of course, the other part of why Viserys hadn't given him siege engines and men to work them was his part of the plan did not require them. Which was just fine with Drogo. He turned to the khals that were arrayed behind him. "Khal Qotho," he said, "your khalasar will remain here to mask the fort until the walkers of Volantis arrive. The rest of you will follow me deeper into the Pentoshi lands, and we will flay them with the arakh and the torch."
Khal Qotho frowned even as his fellow khals smiled like wolves scenting prey. He commanded the smallest khalasar that had rallied to Drogo's banner, only nine thousand People of which four thousand were riders, but even so being left behind was a mark of dishonor, albeit a mild one. "You may raid the lands round about as you wish," Drogo said, to salve the sting. "Only keep enough riders close to drown any attempt by the walkers within the fort to sally, and watch them closely. When Khal Viserys comes, you will be his eyes and ears, and your riders shall carry his words to me and mine to him."
Qotho's frown eased enough to let him lower his head in as near a bow as the Dothraki had. Put that way, being left here became the sort of assignment you gave a trusted man, instead of a weak one. The other khals paid him little heed as they crowded around Drogo while he laid out the plan of their foray into the Pentoshi hinterland. There was plunder to be had, slaves to be taken, and blood enough to be shed to sate even the most bloodthirsty screamer. But he who took the most and shed the most would be the one who was most likely to be taken into the circle of Drogo's kos, the men whose advice he heeded above all others and to whom he gave the richest gifts from his share of the spoils. And while it was known that Drogo was promised to wed the sister of Khal Viserys, that didn't mean that he couldn't take the sister or daughter of a favored ko as a concubine, that might bear him sons who would be wholly of the blood of the People, instead of half-breeds. That would count for something, in the fullness of time.
For his own part, Drogo anticipated the coming campaign as much as his khals did. The Braavosi were famed as a warrior nation wherever the poison water flowed, but on land their reputation was not so fearsome. They were merchants, held in contempt even by other walkers, and preferred to solve their problems with coins rather than swords. Even their destruction of Tyrosh did not wholly belie that reputation; had not they been joined in that feat by Robert Baratheon and his warriors, who alone among the walkers had a reputation as warriors that demanded respect? The traders could mutter as they liked about how the Titan had awoken; Drogo would prove that the bronze giant had feet of clay, as in the stories the missionaries of the Lord of Light liked so much. He would strip the land bare, setting light to the very plains if he had to, and he would force the Braavosi to make a choice. They could cower behind their walls, and prove themselves worthless, or they could come forth and face him in the field, where he would destroy them.
XXX
The Braavosi were not a nation famous for armies. The nature of their maritime empire meant that their regiments fought as marines aboard their galleys, or were broken up by companies to garrison islands that the Commune held as watering and careening stations, or were dispatched singly or in pairs to provide a garrison for the quarters that Braavosi citizens inhabited in foreign cities. The largest of those quarters, in Volantis, had been protected by two full-strength regiments and one that had only half its companies present, the others being deployed to various isles in the Stepstones or embarked aboard various galleys.
That, like so much else, had changed since the Sunset Company had made Pentos a Braavosi colony rather than a mere vassal. The treachery of Zirqo the Faithless had shown the Council of Thirty that their hopes of paying the Dothraki for peace were unfounded, and Narrow Run had shown that the Dothraki could be defeated in the field. So the garrison of Pentos had been expanded from a mere four regiments to twenty, fully half of the Braavosi army, and a training program was instituted to turn them from a collection of regiments into a true army. The result was even now marching out from Pentos city in a river of steel and leather; twenty thousand pikemen and crossbowmen, each man clad in munition plate to the degree that regulations prescribed for his station. The crossbowmen marched in open-faced morions, breastplates, and vambraces, with their crossbow slanted back over their shoulder, thirty bolts in a quiver at their right hip along with a dagger, and an arming sword and a buckler at their left hip; the pikemen added pauldrons, tassets, a gorget, and mail sleeves to the panoply, and exchanged the crossbow for a fifteen-foot pike and the morion for a visored sallet. In the midst of them was the Viceroy himself with his aides and half of his hundred-strong bodyguard, giving him fifty halberdiers and twenty swordsmen as his last resort and final reserve; the rest of his bodyguard were remaining in the city with his lieutenant, who would maintain the government while the Viceroy was in the field.
With them also marched the Eastern Expedition sent by King Stannis of Westeros, three hundred knights, squires, and men-at-arms and two hundred archers, led by Lord Owen Merryweather and the twenty knights and squires of his household. Compared to the drab, utilitarian munition plate of the Braavosi infantry they were a riot of color. Each belted knight wore a surcoat bearing his arms, as did the squires who followed at their shoulders, and even the archers and poorer men-at-arms wore the black-and-gold co*ckade they had been given before boarding ship in King's Landing, to denote that they were royal troops entitled to royal pay. Lord Merryweather had made a pretty speech before the army marched to the effect that the Seven Kingdoms owed the Commune a debt of blood and honor from the Battle of Tyrosh, and with the help of the gods the Expedition would discharge it.
Samwell Tarly certainly hoped so, as he rode in the second rank of the Expedition behind Lord Merryweather's left shoulder. He might have handed over command of the Expedition, but Lord Merryweather had offered to keep him on as what the Braavosi called a chief of staff, which essentially meant that he would be in charge of the Expedition's clerks and everything they oversaw. He had accepted; he might not be a knight, however much he dressed like one, butlogistikawas something he could do in his sleep and being a chief of staff was vastly preferable to being a commander. You had enough rank that most of the time no one gave you trouble, and on those occasions when someone gave you trouble that you couldn't handle yourself you could pass it off to the commander. And while no knight was seriously willing to consider him a worthy commander, they did seem to think that being a chief of staff was much more in line with what they thought of him; the formulaic and insubstantial courtesy he had received as a commander had given way to something nearing genuine respect, especially after he had found enough horses to give each archer a sturdy cob in addition to the chargers of the knights. His father would doubtless consider it to be of little worth, but it would be better than if he remained in Pentos. At least this way there was a chance he might get within shouting distance of the enemy, which would be as much as his father would dare to hope for by now. Let him pull that off and maybe Father would let him attend the Citadel properly, instead of simply corresponding with the archmaesters.
It would also repay Lord Willas' trust in him, although that was a debt that Samwell could never have paid even before the Expedition was assembled. There was no doubt in his mind that Willas' bringing him to Highgarden had saved his life, especially after Dickon had been born. Father had reportedly been overjoyed, or at least as joyful as he could show himself to be in public, at the prospect of having another healthy son, who would presumably not share his firstborn's unfortunate predilections. Samwell shrugged to himself; he had given up trying to please his father years ago. If he could not go to the Citadel then let him at least stay at Highgarden, where he would have interesting work that would keep him in books and Lord Willas would be his friend, and he cared not for Horn Hill. As far as he was concerned, Dickon was welcome to it.
First, though, there was this Khal Drogo to deal with, and reportedly Viserys Targaryen behind him. He gulped nervously and touched the little crystal that he wore on a thong around his neck. Thank the gods that there were all these other fellows that they would have to cut through before they got to him, and the Braavosi said that they would be collecting more from the towns and villages of the hinterland and that King Robert was even now crossing the southern borderlands. He could hold a sword and flail away with it, but even the most patient master-at-arms Lord Willas could find hadn't been able to make a warrior out of him. Fortunately, fighting the enemy face to face was not his job. Simply keeping the pay rolls in order enough for any man to be getting on with, without asking him to go blade-to-blade against Dothraki screamers.
XXX
In Lys . . .
The first little embassy entered the camp early one evening, before the torches were lit before Lyn's command pavilion. It was, in almost every way, alittleembassy, simply one middle-aged man and three of his sons, but its size belied its importance. The dissolution of regular law and order in the districts surrounding the border between Lys and the Kingdom of Myr, in raid and counter-raid and reprisal, had wrought changes upon the people that chose to continue living there, and those who immigrated thence from various points in Westeros and Essos alike. Instead of farming like their countrymen in the more peaceable districts, they lived by herding livestock, primarily cattle, sheep, and horses, over the countryside, bringing them into the villages and towns of the interior to trade for what they could not make themselves. Mainly for weapons and armor, because the borderers also lived bystealinglivestock, from each other occasionally but also from their counterparts over the border. The war between Lys and Myr had been a fitful one, stopping and starting over the years, but for the borderers it only ended when the winter snows were deep enough to render even the low hills of the border country impassable.
The result was that the people who lived on the Lyseni-Myrish border were among the most martial peoples in the world, hardy, war-wise, and perennially suspicious of anyone outside their own families. Those who lived on the Myrish side were somewhat more biddable, but they were still a proud and prickly bunch. So when Jon Rainwater rode up to Lyn's pavilion, Lyn strode out to meet him personally, took his hand and the hands of his sons in welcome as they dismounted, and led them inside where his valet had poured some of the best vintage that Lyn had brought. Lyn and Jon had worked together before, and Lyn had made a point of adding his own sweetener to the payments of gold and gear that King Robert had given in return for the services of Jon's family, but it helped to keep memories of gratitude as fresh as possible. Rainwater knew enough about wine to raise an eyebrow at the quality, and enough about royal officers to not waste time on small talk. "You want me and my men as scouts for your army, my lord?" he asked, leaning back in the camp chair he had sat down in gracelessly. "We can do it, right enough, if the pay's right."
Lyn nodded. "I do indeed want you and your men, but not just you and your men," he replied. "I want to raise the border."
The eyebrow Rainwater raised was almost entirely gray with only a few flecks of black remaining, and thick enough to give him the look of an old and ill-tempered owl. "How much of it?"
"All of it," Lyn answered. "Your people, the Gilmores, the Shardaqars, the Herons, the Bashaurs, the Shaers, the Pruetts, every sword and spear and bow of the border hills."
Rainwater smirked. "You sure there's going to be enough war to go around for all of usandyour army, my lord?" he asked skeptically.
"Yes," Lyn said, letting the bluntness of his answer say the rest of what he meant.
Rainwater's smirk faded, then his eyebrow lowered, and within moments his craggy face was completely serious. "Gods, my lord," he said. "How big is this war going to be?"
"Master Rainwater, the Volantenes killed Ser Gerion Lannister, our King's own Hand, in the middle of Myr city," Lyn replied. "And the Lyseni are in it with the Volantenes up to their necks. For my part, I intend to sweep the Lyseni into the sea, but I invite you to guess at our King's desires regarding the Lyseni and the Volantenes."
Rainwater nodded. He had never met King Robert, but he knew enough about being a leader of men to guess how his king might have reacted to his chief lieutenant being murdered. He had only to think about how he might react if his brother was killed, or his son, or one of his wife's brothers. "I take your meaning, my lord," he said. He glanced down at the goblet he was holding in his lap for a long moment. "Raising the whole of the border will take some time," he eventually went on. "And some of the families might not come, or come with all their strength. The Shardaqars and the Gilmores don't trust each other much, and Jim Heron's youngest boy married a Lyseni girl from over the border five months ago. She'd been taken on a raid, but she still has family over the border. That just to start with; gods know what the Hoskills will do, for one thing. I don't think Will Hoskill knows himself what he'll do from one day to the next. You can't depend on him, my lord."
Lyn nodded. "So long as I can depend on you, Master Rainwater, I think the other families will answer their king's call well enough," he said, injecting confidence into his tone that he didn't entirely feel. The borderers could be chancy people; some of them famously disdained any promise made to anyone who wasn't one of them. Will Hoskill was one such, which was part of the reason why the Royal Inspectors had a warrant out for his arrest on various charges of robbery with violence. But the fact that Jon Rainwater seemed receptive was promising. The Rainwaters were easily the most powerful of the border clans, thanks to their habit of making themselves as useful as possible to the Crown. "Especially since I have our King's word that he is not minded to be overly fussy about what we do to the Lyseni, so long as we make them howl for the death of Ser Gerion. Or what happens to what we take from them."
Jon Rainwater's weather-beaten and vastly bearded face split in a wolfish grin. "Aye, that'll bring the men running, my lord," he said happily; he knew that Lyn meant that King Robert was willing to relax the usual strictures against private looting. Plunder was supposed to go into a common pot of which every soldier got a share after the Crown had taken its slice, but that was a regulation that the borderers had honored in the breach in past wars, which had made for friction with the Royal Inspectors and the regulars of the Royal Army. If it was being lifted, then it would be much easier to recruit the bravos of the border families to the King's standard. "And for the rest?"
"Pay at King's wages for a light horseman for every man," Lyn said. "Knight's wages for members of direct lines, and captain's wages for heads of families. Double wages for you, Master Rainwater, since I mean to make you my captain of the Border Horse, as I would call those families that answer the muster."
Rainwater nodded. "Then I'm your man, my lord," he said as he placed his goblet on the table. "I'll send my sons back out tonight, to bring the men in and send riders to the other families to bring them in."
"By all means, Captain Rainwater," Lyn said, rising as Rainwater did and shaking his hand again. "When your men come in, I'll introduce you to Ser Justan Osgrey, who commands the Army light horse, and we can work out a schedule of patrols for your men."
"I look forward to it, my lord," Rainwater said, his smile broadening to show teeth.
As Rainwater left, Lyn shook his head in amazement. Twenty years ago, Rainwater had been an itinerant herdsman on the Dornish Marches with no following beyond his family, only the barest beginnings of a name, and not much hope of advancing either. Now he was the unquestioned captain of three hundred riders who, in their own country, were some of the finest scouts and skirmishers in the known world, and a man who could speak proudly to a high officer of a king's government, knowing that his words would be met with respect. Of course, twenty years ago, Lyn himself had been the second son of a lord of middling rank and power, if of ancient and respected name, with few prospects beyond becoming some other lord's paid captain or a champion of the tourney circuit. And now here he was, the third or fourth most powerful vassal of the most renowned and puissant king west of Qarth, entrusted with a third of all the forces that king could muster. There were reasons he prayed to Fortune before any of the Seven, though not where any septons could hear him do so. He had his valet set out new cups and open another bottle of good wine while he sent his pages to summon his captains. There was the daily report of the business of their companies still to hear, and the sun was setting rapidly. Daario Naharis might not be a great general in the mold of King Robert but he was, in the memorable words of one of Lyn's archers, 'a cagy, sneaky, wily old son of a bitch,' and anyone who went up against him did well to keep all their affairs in good order.
XXX
The perfect irony of it all, Daario Naharis knew as he stared at the map of the Disputed Lands that covered the folding table in his command pavilion, was that twenty years ago he would have found the present situation enjoyable. A war between two rich states, and him the Captain of one of them, with the pay and perquisites due to such an exalted personage and the right to a share of any loot his army took? Win, lose, or draw, a single campaigning season would have set him up for life. Or at least for a few years, until he had spent enough on wine, women, and song to need to take a contract again.
That, of course, had changed since the Sunset Company had landed and overturned the cyvasse board. Now being the Captain of Lys meant that his army was the only thing standing between his adopted city and annihilation. Even if Ser Gerion hadn't been assassinated, and Robert the Bloody had been in one of his rare merciful moods, the Iron Legion would not have been so lenient. Not when so many of them knew what it was to be a slave in a Lyseni pleasure house. Under the circ*mstances in which this war had arisen, he had fully expected the Myrish to strike and spare not from the moment they crossed the border, both the Legion and the chivalry.
And they had, on those few Lyseni citizens they had been able to take. The evacuation of the border districts, except for the hard-bitten fighting men of the families who still colonized the debatable lands along the border line, had gone as planned, but there had still been a few that the patrols had missed, or not reached in time. One couple, apparently semi-nomadic shepherds, had reportedly been burned alive in their tent by the Myrish patrol that had stolen their sheep. That, and sundry similar incidents, had served to drive home to his army that this was no ordinary war, as if they had needed reminding, and they had set about fighting the war of patrols with a will.
The problem was they were not meeting with the degree of success that Daario had hoped for. He had trained his multitude of cavalry and mounted infantry companies for this very thing for years now, but it seemed the Myrish had been doing the same. Every patrol he dispatched to scout the enemy's line of march, every raid he sent to test their lines, every party he dispatched to remove food and forage and fuel from the enemy's path was met by a Myrish one doing the same thing, and so far the reports of the crossroads skirmishes and wayside duels and rustling and cutting-out expeditions that resulted showed that honors were more or less even. Which was not where Daario needed them to be; if he wanted to defeat Lyn Corbray, he needed towinthe war of patrols, and win it handily at that. The side that won the war of patrols not only earned an advantage in information about the country and the enemy, but they also earned an advantage in spirit over the enemy. An army that was forced to send their patrols out in groups of scores instead of dozens, or whose scouts no longer dared to move by night or challenge their enemy counterparts when they encountered them, was an army that had learned to fear its enemies. And such a fear could easily become a running sore to that army's spirit; men would desert more readily if they feared to face the enemy, and captains that had had their confidence shaken by a string of defeats in small encounters would be unwilling to take the risks that winning a great battle required.
Of course, Daario reflected, if his men were not winning the war of patrols, then at least the Myrish weren't either. There had been some minor blows landed against the fringes of his army, but the Myrish light horse and border riders had yet to score any great successes of the sort that could make an army believe their enemies to be lesser men. If his men had not been able to pierce the nets that the Myrish light horse had cast in front of their army, then neither had the Myrish been able to pierce the screen of light cavalry he had thrown out before his army. The Volantene companies were proving unexpectedly adept at the business of fighting to gain or deny information; for once the arrogance that came with being citizens of the greatest single city in the world was an asset, in that it meant that they were always willing to contest the field against renegade slaves and foreign adventurers. And for a wonder those that lived seemed to be making a habit of learning from the mistakes that killed their fellows, while retaining the spiteful pride that drove them into the field.
That unthinking assumption of superiority was likely to cause trouble in a great battle, of course, Daario knew. But such a battle was still a ways off yet. First he had toknowwhat the bastard that had stolen the name of Stormcrow was doing, where he was going, and how he might entrap him. He stared at the cluster of pins that marked the locations where his patrols had made contact with Corbray's across a third of the border.Come on, you wily old bastard,he snarled in the privacy of his mind.Give me something to work with.
XXX
On the waves . . .
Victarion Greyjoy couldn't help a predatory smile as the Royal Fleet left Myr city's harbor and formed into columns outside the breakwaters. From humble beginnings the Fleet had risen to the status of a Power in the Narrow Sea; ninety galleys, twenty of them heavyweights like his flagship theTara, and fifteen longships that would form his scouting element. Braavos and Volantis could muster many more galleys, of course, as could the Iron Throne if it was given time and funds to build with. But they could not call upon the thousands of Ironborn sailors that had come east-over-sea in the years since the Conquest, or upon the thousands of freedmen that those Ironborn had taught the ways of the sea over the years. That alone would have made the Royal Fleet a force to be reckoned with. When those men had been forged in the fire of more than a decade and a half of war only occasionally interrupted by peace, the result was a force that Victarion was willing to match against any fleet of even numbers anywhere in the world, and some that outnumbered him.
Like the Lyseni, for instance. By the Office of Foreign Inquiry's last report, Lys could put a hundred galleys in the water from their own resources, and the Volantene squadron that was now home-ported in the isles of Lys had been counted at thirty sail. But much of Lys' strength at sea these days were pirates that had fled the Destruction of Tyrosh, or been driven out of the Stepstones by the Braavosi in the years since; those were not men that could be relied upon to fight rail-to-rail, or rally from a defeat. The Volantenes and the native Lyseni would be tougher meat, but Victarion cared little for the odds. The Volantenes were known to be clumsy sailors, men who met the vagaries of wind and wave with brute force rather than the craft born of bone-deep understanding that every Ironborn possessed. And while the Lyseni had a better name as sailors, it was not that much better. And Victarion had seen the reports from the Office about the division that had plagued Lys since the first of the great raids. Of all the enemies he was likely to face, only Salladhor Saan had a name worthy of respect. True, Saan had fled like a startled hare from Tyrosh, but he could be forgiven for doing so; the Great Armament was not something that a sane man would have stood and fought against.
Victarion's smile widened as he looked south across the waves towards the isles of Lys. Saan had been a legend since his father Quellon's day, and rightly so. No one rose from being a deckhand to a pirate lord, unquestioned master of thirty fighting sail, without boldness, craft, courage, and luck. To be the man who finally ended that legend . . . A man's name could go around the world on the strength of such a deed. And if the new rumors that none other than Chang the Immortal had joined forces with the slavers were true, then so much the better. Another man might consider it hubris to think of breaking both Salladhor Saan and Chang the Immortal, especially when, like Victarion, he already had a famous name. But Victarion was not such a man. He knew, as did every son of his house, that the Drowned God loved best the man that strived, whether it was for wealth, for honor, or for glory, and the greater the striving the greater the God's favor, if He saw fit to grant it.
XXX
In King's Landing . . .
It was a common saying that King's Landing was 'the city that never sleeps', although whether that was a boast or a complaint usually depended on who was saying it. Even in the small hours of the night, there was activity on the streets. Gong-farmers, dunikin divers, rag-and-bone men, and all manner of other people whose professions involved the noxious, the unhealthy, or just the simply unsightly preferred to do their work by night, when their fellow burghers were less likely to have the Watch encourage them to take their work to a different neighborhood with a cudgel to the ribs. Carters delivering foodstuffs also habitually did their work in the small hours, when the streets were clear enough that their carts wouldn't get bogged down in the crowds with predictable effects on the inventory of their cargoes. Transfers of specie between merchant houses also sometimes took place by night, with one or two men driving a small cart loaded down with the coin and surrounded by a dozen or so other employees of the houses involved carrying various sharp, heavy, and pointy implements designed to discourage anyone from getting ideas. And of course, there were the burglars, the footpads, the smash-and-grab crews, and the bewildering variety of other men whose livelihoods tended to draw violent objections from the City Watch, and who consequently preferred to do their work under cover of darkness.
That was at night; by day the city was one of the busiest in Westeros, if not in the whole of the Narrow Sea. As the best harbor between Gulltown and Sunspear, with the most sophisticated and wealthiest banks and merchant houses, King's Landing was the portal through which almost all of eastern Westeros between the Vale and the Dornish Marches traded with points abroad. On any given day there could be anywhere between a dozen and a hundred foreign ships in the harbor, each loaded with wares to trade and seamen with pay to spend on wine, women, and song while their captains dickered with the city's merchants. Business slowed in winter, of course, but even when storms closed the Narrow Sea to trade, there was still a trickle of business to be done with coasters plying the runs to and from Saltpans or Maidenpool or Stonehelm. At the height of the commercial season thousands upon thousands of gold stags' worth of trade could be conducted in a day, especially when the Braavosi galleys came with manufactures, dyes, and jewelry to trade for grain, salt meat, and naval stores.
But not today, or for many days since, for no sooner had word come of yet another rebellion in the Iron Islands than plague had struck the city. At first glance it had appeared to be nothing more than redspots, but it had quickly become apparent that this disease was far more deadly. Strong men shat themselves to death in a matter of days, violently enough that at first the maesters thought it was the bloody flux that ailed them. Only the characteristic lesions that gave redspots its name argued against the diagnosis. Others died twitching and muttering fitfully as the fevers ravaged their brains, or drowned on dry land as their lungs filled with bloody fluid. By the end of the first sennight two thousand people had died in Flea Bottom alone and thousands more were sickening throughout the city. By the time that word of the epidemic reached the Red Keep, eight thousand were dead.
Stannis had acted with his customary swift ruthlessness. On the theory that this was some unholy union of redspots and the bloody flux, he decreed that the city was to be placed under quarantine. Each quarter of the city was to be cordoned off from the others, and within the quarters each parish was to observe a dusk-to-dawn curfew, with only one person from each household allowed to leave their dwelling during the day to conduct only the most essential business. Flea Bottom, where the plague had struck hardest, was locked down completely; the Watch patrolled the streets, their mail shirts, gold cloaks, and helmets augmented by cloth masks covering the mouth and nose and steerhide gloves with cuffs that could be tied off at the wrists, to keep the denizens indoors. No one was allowed to leave the city for any reason and the messenger ravens were grounded for fear that the letters they carried might be infected; only the semaphore continued to connect King's Landing to the outside world. The High Septon gave a sermon on the steps of the Great Sept urging compliance with the quarantine, lecturing on the duty of care that those who followed the Seven assumed for their fellow men. Well might he do so; a quarter of his canons had been stricken by the plague, and the Silent Sisters of the city had already lost a third of their numbers. Four days later the High Septon himself was on his deathbed, along with twenty other members of the Most Devout. Fourteen of them died, and their funerals were the shortest and most drab affairs that any of the high servants of the Faith had been granted since the Great Spring Sickness. The High Septon himself was buried with almost a complete lack of ceremony, having dictated when he first fell sick that no one was to risk themselves by gathering to see him committed to the crypts below the Great Sept.
Naturally, the imposition of the quarantine resulted in efforts to circumvent it. In Flea Bottom such attempts were easily dealt with; the Watch had been reinforced with Order archers who had orders to shoot breachers who did not obey commands to halt. In the more moderately affluent quarters of the city measures were less strict but still stringent; both the Watch and the Royal Order of the Crown had been specifically ordered by Lord Renly and by King Stannis to use whatever force they deemed necessary to maintain the curfew and restrict traffic during the day, and they were joined by many of the guild militia companies. The guilds knew how long it took to make a skilled apprentice, much less a journeyman, and they wanted the plague to burn itself out as quickly as possible before too many of their guildsmen died.
The most opposition was found in the wealthy neighborhoods around Aegon's High Hill and the Red Keep and came to a head on the fourth day of the quarantine. A party of nobles and wealthy merchants who lived within the city attempted to leave by the Lion Gate, and when challenged they produced a pass signed by Queen Cersei. The officer of the gate, a corporal in the Order of the Crown named Ser Matthias Stone, stood by his orders that no one was to leave the city and ordered the party to wait while he sent a runner to the Red Keep to seek clarification from the King. The nobles and merchants grew restive as they stewed under the punishing sun, and when the runner returned bearing the King's order to deny the pass and refuse them leave to exit the city, they exploded in protest. Ser Matthias reiterated his orders and commanded them to return to their homes as he sent the runner off again for reinforcements, but matters came to a head with lightning speed. One of the nobles tried to physically brush his way past Ser Matthias with an order to stand aside, Ser Matthias put him on the floor with a trip-and-throw straight from the Order's training yards at Rosby and ordered his sergeant to place him under arrest, and the rest of the party of would-be refugees boiled forward as fear gave way to anger.
Ten furious minutes later, all fifty of them had been beaten down and arrested, in return for no casualties among the garrison of the gate. But as they awaited trial in the local Watch house's lockup, half of them died of the plague over the next six days, as did ten of the thirty men who had stopped them from breaching the lockdown of the city. Ser Matthias was the first of them to die, expiring of a seizure brought on by the fevers. News of the incident cast an even deeper pall over the Red Keep than the plague had managed, broken only by a screaming row in the royal apartments that ended with an announcement that Her Grace the Queen had been ordered confined to her chambers until further notice. The Queen's Men attempted to assemble in the training yard of the Red Keep to demonstrate for her release, only to find that the King's Men had beaten them there. For a long minute there was a standoff between Queen's Men on one side and Order knights, royal hostages, New Nobles, and men of Renly's company on the other, every man of the latter wearing a mask of black broadcloath in addition to their armor, until the Queen's Men backed down, muttering in their beards. Matters were only fully calmed when the plague struck the Red Keep itself and attentions were focused on the need to contain its spread and impose a lockdown on the Keep.
This was only moderately successful; the need for the servants to continue moving about the Keep to perform the myriad tasks that allowed it to continue functioning defeated many of the measures. Renly Baratheon and his company locked themselves in their quarters, accepting food only through slots they cut in the doors, and escaped with only a dozen deaths. Damon Lannister and Randyll Tarly both fell sick, and while Damon recovered, weak as a kitten and faded almost to a shadow by the flux, Randyll died raving in a fever-fit. Ser Cortnay Penrose survived but remained bedridden, having escaped death by the very skin of his teeth. Even the most optimistic estimate of Grand Maester Pycelle was that it would be sennights if not months before he could take up his regular duties again. Half of the Stormguard were laid low; a quarter of them died. Queen Cersei was saved by the order that placed her under arrest in her chambers in the Holdfast, while Princess Joanna, the twins, and Prince Gerold were preserved by being isolated in the Maidenvault with only their closest servants. A third of the royal hostages, however, scions of the houses that Stannis had thrown down for rebellion and treason over the years, were not so lucky. A dozen of them died, in spite of strict obedience to the quarantine protocols, and a score of others would suffer the effects of the illness for years to come. Finally, two sennights and many deaths later, the plague seemed to pass from the Red Keep, leaving only one man still sick.
Chapter 131: Combustion
Chapter Text
In Pentos . . .
Drogo hated walled villages, he decided. Hated, hated,hatedthem.Especiallywhen they were peopled by religious fanatics.Is there something in the air in the lands across the poison water?he wondered idly as he cleaned his arakh.Something that makes the walkers who live there mad-dog insane when it comes to religion?
These particular walkers, it seemed, had been driven into exile for differing from their khal on matters of faith; the Braavosi had allowed them to settle in these lands and practice their faith in peace on the condition that they pay their taxes and keep the peace. But whatever guarantees the Braavosi had offered, it seemed the walkers hadn't trusted them. Every village they inhabited had been surrounded by a ditch and earthen rampart with a timber palisade, and when the horde had approached they had retreated within their walls and defied the People to come and get them. They had, of course; even if they hadn't accepted gifts to ravage this land, the insult to their pride could not pass unanswered. But the fact that each village had to be stormed meant that at each village the horde had to slow down while it was reduced. And when the riders went forward to haul themselves over the rampart and palisade on looped lariats, some of them were inevitably killed and wounded when the walkers fought back with their spears and bows and axes. Only a bare few of them had swords, but those that did used them well. And even getting enough riders over the palisade to open the gate proved insufficient to destroy the walkers; it was necessary to winkle them out of the warren of stoutly built huts clustered around a walled temple to their gods that they invariably retreated to when the walls fell. It was like digging out a marmot warren, but marmots didn't do their level-if-inexpert best to take you with them into the Nightlands. And at least you could eat marmots. Even the women of these walkers proved hard to subdue, either because they fought alongside their men or else because they killed themselves along with their children.
Drogo shook his head. Had no one told these walkers that it was better to be the slave of a bad master than khal of the powerless dead, as the saying was? It was all entirely baffling.
And it tooktime. Storming and clearing a village could easily take a whole day, and then much of the next had to be spent regrouping from the assault and dividing the spoils, as lackluster as they were. You would think the walkers were defending jewels beyond price, the way they fought, but all too often the only valuable things they possessed were their clothes, their weapons, and their tools. The weapons were alright, although the bows were either crossbows or the overgrown longbows that the walkers from across the poison water loved so much, and hence useless to fighting riders. The tools, on the other hand, were worthless as loot; no Dothraki would willingly take upfarming, and grub in the dirt for their food.
And even though he had split the horde into several parts so that the whole would not be bogged down, each of those parts reported encountering similar fortified villages all across their path, all populated by walkers who preferred to die fighting, or at least killing themselves, rather than to submit. Other villages, though, had apparently been found empty, as if the inhabitants had left in a hurry leaving everything but weapons and food. Drogo sheathed his arakh, spat on the corpse of the last man he had killed (by the robes and bald spot on the top of his head, apparently the priest of these walkers), and summoned messengers. He would have to tell his soon-to-be goodbrother that his horde had been slowed, although it burned like flames to admit it.
XXX
It was traditional for a siege to progress hand in hand with negotiations for the surrender of the place being besieged. As a general rule, both besiegers and besieged wanted to avoid the loss of life that an assault would entail, and doubly wanted to avoid the devastation of a sack if the assault was successful. However, the besieged garrison was still honor-bound to serve their realm to the best of their abilities, which meant combining negotiations for surrender with efforts to disrupt the besieger's preparations and prepare the place they were defending to repel an assault. At the same time, the besieging army wanted to end the siege quickly, before disease could set in or a relief force could arrive to raise the siege, which meant combining negotiations with bombardment and preparations to storm the place either by undermining or by escalade. The result was an intricate dance wherein offers of surrender were buttressed by raids against the besiegers, and offers of terms were reinforced by the ostentatious building of scaling ladders or trebuchets or siege towers.
Viserys Targaryen had decided to dispense with the dance. His plan depended on speed, in order to defeat the Braavosi in Pentos before Robert the Bloody could come to their aid. Taking sennights, if not months, to negotiate the surrender of Ghoyan Drohe would fatally unhinge the timetable he hoped to keep his armies on. So he had offered the Braavosi garrison at Ghoyan Drohe the stark choice of surrender or storm, and when the next morning broke with no sign of surrender, he gestured to Ser Myles Toyne, who passed the word for the Unsullied to storm the town.
The Unsullied stepped off in eerie unison on a front five regiments wide as the dully braying notes of their commander's horns died away, beating the hafts of their spears against their shields at every third step so that thechuff-chuff-THUD-chuff-chuff-THUDechoed even over the flatlands around the town. In the gaps between each regiment loped companies of crossbowmen who would suppress their Braavosi counterparts on the walls, while among them squads of their fellows had left their spears in camp to carry fascines and scaling ladders. Those men, Viserys had heard, had spent the night in prayer to their goddess; apparently for an Unsullied to let go his spear was the next thing to sacrilege, by their lights. Not for nothing, Ser Myles had said, did the Unsullied call their goddess the Lady of the Spears.
As they approached the ditch the Braavosi crossbowmen let fly a shower of bolts, in reply to which the Unsullied in the front rank of each regiment raised their shields to cover them from head to knees, while the ranks behind them raised their shields over their heads to form what they called 'the tortoise'. This was done without breaking step or even hesitating, making Viserys raise his eyebrows and purse his lips in astonishment, although he restrained himself from whistling. He had seen the way the Unsullied could change formations between one breath and the next, but never in the face of the enemy. When the Unsullied reached the ditch, the 'tortoises' opened to let through the fascine bearers. These leaped down into the ditch and began stacking their bundles of brushwood to form a temporary bridge. The Braavosi crossbowmen took them under fire instantly and many of them fell, but others leaped forward to take their place, and the Volantene crossbowmen were returning the fire with six ranks firing in volleys.
Within minutes, the fascines had bridged the ditch, and the 'tortoises' crawled across and opened again to let the ladder carriers through. The ladders swung upward, rocked to a halt against the walls, and the Unsullied began swarming up. Viserys' fists clenched on the bridle of his horse, then relaxed as he remembered why he had chosen the Unsullied for the assault. The danger facing an assault on a fortified place was that the attacking troops would lose heart and retreat from the walls, losing both men and spirit as a result of their failure. But the Unsullied would not,could not, lose heart; it was no longer possible for them to do so. They might be mediocre at the business of forcing their way onto a defended wall, where they would be forced to fight individually instead of in formation, but when there were fifteen thousand of them and they would justkeep on coming, regardless of how many of their dead comrades they would have to climb over . . .
Sure enough, the lodgments his Unsullied gained on the walls began to expand, slowly at first but then faster and faster. Suddenly, with an almost visible shock, the defense gave way and the Unsullied began streaming over the walls without stopping to fight as they pursued the Braavosi into the town. His captains began to offer their congratulations, but Viserys stopped them with a raised hand as something pricked at his nostrils. If he didn't know better, he would swear that he smelledsmoke. . . His heart sank as grey-black plumes began to rise from Ghoyan Drohe; he had been afraid of this. The Braavosi had to guess that he meant to use Ghoyan Drohe as a base for the campaign against Pentos. Burning the buildings that could shelter his men, and the granaries and storehouses that could supplement their rations, would damage his ability to do so, but not irreparably. If the Unsullied were caught in the fires, on the other hand . . . He gave orders to call the Unsullied back. Let the Braavosi burn if they were so determined to deny the town to him; now that it was taken, he had to preserve as much of his premier heavy infantry as possible.
But even as the couriers raced away and the horns began to sound, he couldn't help a feeling of triumph as the nervousness he had felt drained away. Of all the tests that he and his knights had faced so far, this was the greatest, the war against the axis of Braavos and the Kingdom of Myr under Robert the Bloody. It was also the one war he couldn't afford to lose or even stalemate; if he didn't drive them under in this first campaign, then the reinforcements they would beg for from Westeros would make good all their losses in a single season. And if, by some unlikely chance, he was defeated . . . Ser Arthur and Ser Myles assured him that he was much beloved by the army, but the army was not the people. If the people of Volantis began to see him as a failure, then it would prove difficult to maintain their loyalty, especially since his position as King-in-all-but-name of Volantis strained law and tradition to the breaking point. Only the clear and present danger posed by the abolitionists allowed him to retain his position and the powers that went with it.
But this first victory boded well for the rest of the campaign, and success would wipe out all the failures of his father and elder brother. Targaryen had been a name to conjure with even in the last days of his father's reign; how much higher would it soar when he threw down his House's enemies and restored them to the throne with not a single dragon to his name? The kings of his line had earned many epithets, but none had ever been called 'the Great'. Why should he not be called so, after doing all he planned to do?
It was even enough to make him forget Ser Barristan's suicide, at least for a few hours . . .
XXX
In Lys . . .
Lyn Corbray sat back in his chair and glowered at the map spread across his campaign table. "Damn, but they've gotten good," he muttered, half to himself and half to Ser Jaime, with whom he was sharing a nightcap after the evening command meeting had wrapped up. "Mind, they've had years to learn how to be good, but even so . . ."
"Of course they've learned," Jaime replied. "All the ones that couldn't or wouldn't learn are dead by now." He placed his goblet on the table and leaned forward, bracing his fists on the table as he joined Lyn in glowering at the map. "And we still haven't been able to pierce their screen."
He hadn't said it as a question, but Lyn replied anyway. "Rainwater sent one of his sons with two-score riders to try and slip through six days ago," he said. "They have not returned. Theycouldjust be cut off and taking the long way back, but I doubt it, after this long a delay." He shook his head. "At least they haven't been able to pierce our screen either."
"That we know of," Jaime reminded him. He shook his head, made shaggy by growth of a campaign beard; it had become the fashion among the chivalry to forego shaving while on campaign, partly for practicality and partly in grudging emulation of the Legion, among whom beards and moustaches were all but mandatory even in barracks. "If this keeps up, one of us is going to have to stop probing and start punching," he went on. "Even if it's just flailing blindly."
Lyn nodded. "We'll wait for Daario to punch first," he said calmly. "If we can't pierce his screen, any attempt he makes to concentrate enough force to pierce our screen will be noticed. And once he reveals himself, it will be that much easier to fight and finish him."
Jaime raised an eyebrow. "Bold to gamble that he won't be able to overrun us at the first onset, if he gets lucky," he observed mildly.
Lyn smiled slightly. "If Daario can break this army at the first onset, then I'll break my spurs myself," he replied. "This army's fought almost every year for the last five years, at least in some portion. The men know how to react to a crisis, and they know that their officers and their fellows know as well. And once Daario throws his blow, he won't be able to react fast enough to a counter-blow, not one as fast this army can throw. You know as well as I how disjointed his force is, Ser Jaime, for all his attempts to forge it into a single instrument."
Jaime nodded slowly. Hehadseen the reports, and marveled that Daario could forge a unified army out of Lyseni citizen militias, sellswords from half the continent, and Volantene regulars. That alone was enough to support Daario's claim to be a great captain. On the other hand, if that army was caught off balance and struck hard enough . . . "I agree," he said. "But I would have us push a bit deeper into the Lyseni hinterland over the next few days. If we are to await Daario's blow, it would behoove us to make him strike that blow under pressure, instead of letting him prepare it at his ease."
Lyn returned his nod. "And if our pressing him doesn't provide that pressure, the howls of the Lyseni citizenry will," he said. "Even if he can ignore them, he can't ignore the reaction such howls will provoke from the Conclave. Let's see, now . . ." he joined Jaime in leaning over the table, their fingers flying over the map as they discussed which target to strike for.
XXX
On the waves . . .
Salladhor Saan had never been one to be afflicted by pre-action nerves. But then, he had never played for stakes as high as these, or with dice that were quite this rigged. He looked back at his fleet and shook his head. On the face of it, the fleet he led was still one of the mightiest on the Narrow Sea; a hundred galleys, thirty of them heavyweights, and twenty-seven smaller craft that could be used for scouting or carrying dispatches. Only Braavos, Volantis, and the Seven Kingdoms could match such a fleet for numbers.
But numbers alone did not tell the whole story of his fleet. Of his thirty heavyweights, eighteen were Volantene and one was theSea Dragon, flagship of Chang the Immortal. Of the seventy other galleys only thirty-two were Lyseni. The rest were either more Volantenes or sellsails under half a dozen other banners. All of the smaller ships were sellsails, most of them pirates who had signed articles in lieu of facing the courts. The Lyseni and the Volantenes he could be sure of, some of the Lyseni were veterans of First Tyrosh, which was still the only clear-cut victory that the Free Cities had won against the abolitionists, but the sellsails and pirates were as brittle a reed as their landbound cousins. They would fight bravely and faithfully as long as it looked like they had a chance of winning, but if the tides of battle turned against them . . . Saan had ducked out of enough contracts in the past to know how easy it was, if you had a good lawyer. There was a reason that sellsail crews made a special effort to retain such people.
And if the Myrish joined forces with the Braavosi, the tides of battlewouldturn against them. Myr alone could almost match Lys hull for hull; Braavos could do so with ships to spare. If they managed to combine their fleets, he would not be able to dare give battle. Which was why, he reminded himself as he turned back to face the heading of the fleet, he was being so aggressive in the first place. The only hope he had was to catch the Myrish Royal Fleet alone and destroy it. If he could do that, then he could hold off the Braavosi by careful maneuvering until the rest of the Volantene fleet could arrive and reinforce them. They had already, he had been told, weighed anchor, but could not be expected for another two months, given the likely patterns of wind and wave between Lys and Volantis. Especially since such a fleet could only move as fast as its slowest part, and even among heavyweight galleys Volantenes had a name for being cumbersome. Volantene shipwrights were not quite as expert as their Braavosi counterparts, so like the Westerosi they built their heavy ships big and tough rather than lean and mean.
Of course, that depended on him being able to find the Myrish in order to fight them, and beat them once he had found them. He was reasonably certain of the former; there were only so many anchorages that could hold the Royal Fleet, and the sea-lanes between them were well known to every sailor. Beating them, on the other hand . . . Chang the Immortal might be sanguine about their chances, but then he was only in it for the increase of his purse and his name. Saan, who had the safety of his homeland to think of, found himself beset by doubts. The wild Ironborn that made up so much of the Royal Fleetlivedfor a good sea-fight; it was what their blastedreligionwas based on, for all love. And the freedmen that they had trained were, by all reports, as fanatical as their cousins in the Iron Legion. His Lyseni would fight as desperately as any cornered animal, and the Volantenes would fight also; Admiral Nestoyor was taciturn to the point of being monosyllabic, but he had a name as a hard and canny fighter, and his captains were cut from the same cloth. Chang the Immortal was as repute had made him, an iron-nerved daredevil who was willing to try anything once and whose self-confidence was fueled by a lifetime of beating long odds by strength and guile. The other sellsails, on the other hand . . .
Saan drove the dark thoughts from his mind with an effort of will. They would triumph, or not, as wind and wave allowed and their skill and Lady Fortune determined. And if they did not, well at least he would not allow himself to be named a coward.
XXX
In King's Landing . . .
Grand Maester Pycelle felt the patient's neck and counted pulses by force of long habit; the low count and thready feeling of the pulse under his fingers told him nothing he didn't already know. In the other victims of the plague, the fever had broken after only a few days and recovery had followed from there, if the flux and the cough hadn't killed them first. After a sennight of delirium, the odds of the patient waking again were, in his professional judgement, slim to nil.
It was, he reflected as he began to pack his instruments back into his satchel, quite unfair. Of course, the patient had been working himself like a dray horse in a coal pit for years now, and had been unsparing with himself even in the brief times when he was at peace. It was known that placing such demands on one's body made one vulnerable to disease; he had told the patient as much himself mere months ago. But he had been a vigorous man in the prime of his life, and if he was not quite as puissant as his elder brother he had still had a name for strength and prowess. He was, in fact, the last person who should have fallen to such a disease asredspots; it mostly afflictedchildren, for all love. By rights he should have died of old age, with his son ready to assume the throne and his grandchildren being reminded not to cry too much. At the least, he should have fallen in some epic battle, either at the head of a victorious charge of his knights or in a desperate last stand with his guards lying a ring around him.
But the Stranger cared not for a man's strength, or his wisdom, or his glory, as the septons said. And Pycelle had been a maester long enough to know that death came for everyone as it pleased. Never before had he better understood that peculiarly stoic prayer of the followers of R'hllor. "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord," he muttered under his breath as he picked up his satchel and walked to the door. When he opened it, he found Septon Neithan, the Red Keep's chaplain and King Stannis' confessor of many years, already wearing the purple stole that the regulations of the Faith prescribed for the performance of Extreme Unction. "I can do no more for him," Pycelle admitted, the words feeling like metal shards as he said them. "He is in the gods' hands, now." With that he stood aside to let the septon enter, and as Septon Neithan began to give King Stannis Baratheon the last rites of the Faith, he bowed his head and let his tears fall silently.
XXX
Renly Baratheon dried his tears and forced grief out of his mind with an effort of will. It was fitting that he should grieve at his brother's death, but not now. Not when Stannis's death had confirmed all his worst fears.
Ruthlessly he ordered his mind and reviewed his conclusions. First, there was no conceivable way in which his brother could have succumbed to the plague unless he had been poisoned. The plague might have been terrifyingly lethal even to strong men, but Stannis had been attended by the best maesters in the Seven Kingdoms, and while there were stronger men in body there werenonewho were stronger in mind and will. Even before he had been crowned it had taken almost a direct intervention by the Seven to change Stannis' mind once it was fixed on something. After his coronation his fixity of purpose had become a force of nature. The only thing that could have prevented Stannis from fighting off this disease with the same grim determination that had characterized all his doings as a king was deliberate murder.
Second, there was no likelier suspect for his death than Cersei. Their marriage had been dutifully affectionate until Ser Jaime had refused to return from his exile and the twins had been born, but afterwards it had been poisoned by Cersei's turn towards the Seven. She had never been able to understand that Stannis had to balance the needs and demands of the Faith against the needs and demands of keeping the Kingdoms prosperous and at peace, and from that lack of understanding had arisen at least half of the crises that had undermined Stannis's reign in the last few years. Cersei might prattle about simply giving the gods what they were due, and gods knew that he had no more truck with heresy than any son of the Faith, but how could devotion excuse Cersei forming her own faction at Court that appeared to have the express purpose of bringing about civil war?
Third, that civil war looked like it was already having the groundwork laid for it. Why else would Cersei have ordered that Stannis would lie in state for only seven days, instead of the traditional forty-nine? Why else should she have sent a message to the Most Devout urging the election of Most Devout Hugar, the face and voice of uncompromising reaction against the Reformed Faiths, as High Septon? Why else should she have had the semaphore send word to Antlers ordering that a raven be sent to Casterly Rock telling her father to be ready to call his banners to support his grandson's reign? All the signs pointed towards an unconscionably short period of mourning, followed by a lightning strike against known and suspected Reformists, all before Lyonel could return to King's Landing and be formally crowned and acclaimed. And while Cersei and her pet septons would no doubt bleat that they meant only to ensure that Lyonel inherited a kingdom purged of heresy and treason, what reason would there be for Cersei to lay down the power that such a crisis would accrue to her? Especially since she had already suggested, in tones forceful enough to make plain that it was not merely a suggestion, that he replace both the Commander of the City Watch and the Sheriff of King's Landing with men who were known to hate Reformists.
Fourth, there was no one to stand in the way of what was coming but him. Randyll Tarly was dead, and Ser Cortnay was still bed-ridden; their lieutenants were good men, but not the kind of men that would defy a queen. The semaphore had brought word that Hoster Tully had died eight days ago, and Jon Arryn was reportedly on his deathbed. The odds were that he was already dead. Brandon Stark was months away in Winterfell, and he had made it plain over the past several years that he would not involve himself in matters south of the Neck if the Faith was in any way involved. Arianne Martell had struck Renly as an intelligent, loyal, and forceful woman when they had met, but she had also aligned herself with Cersei during her visit to King's Landing, and in any case Dorne was not strong enough to counter the coalition Cersei was likely to unveil, even with the Royal Order of the Sun added to the scales. The only possible counterweight to Cersei, and through her Tywin Lannister, was Mace Tyrell, and Renly knew that that was a weak reed to base his hopes upon. For one thing, it would take sennights, if not months, for the strength of the Reach to muster and march up the Roseroad to King's Landing. By the time they had, Edmure Tully and Tywin Lannister would almost certainly have their own armies already stationed around the capital, and between them they would have enough men to defy even Highgarden. For another, while Renly had advocated for him as the next Hand of the King, that had only been in opposition to Cersei's nomination of Tywin. Renly could not bring himself to trust Mace; for all the loyalty he had displayed, he had never made the motives for his loyalty clear enough for Renly to discern them. If his motives had begun and ended at fealty to Stannis and devotion to the good the Realm, he had gone about it in too mercenary a fashion for Renly to tell. And if his motives had been simply to preserve House Tyrell's position as overlords of the Reach and maintain the Reach's integrity as the first among equals of the Seven Kingdoms, then it would be far easier to pursue that goal by going along with Cersei's plot.
And a coalition that combined Casterly Rock, Highgarden, Riverrun, and probably the Eyrie in an axis of intolerance would be a nightmare for the Realm, especially if they could take control of King's Landing and the royal government that Stannis had spent so long hammering into shape. If Cersei chose to repeal the Edict of Harrenhal and replace it with a decree that the Reformed Faiths were to be hounded out of Westeros, who would be able to defy her, withthatdegree of strength at her command? The Stormlands would have to knuckle under, with both their eastern and northern flanks exposed as they were. Dorne had its mountains and the desert, but the Royal Order of the Sun knew the land of Dorne as well as the Dornish themselves did, by now, and what little strength they lacked would surely be made good by Lannister and Tyrell levies. The Vale had been a dangerous place to be a Reformist even under Jon Arryn; under Denys it would be a bear pit. The North might hold out for a while, between the protection of the Neck and its ties to Braavos, but eventually it would be forced to submit. If not by weight of numbers, then by weight of wheat; the North still relied on southern food to see it through Winter, and if Cersei made delivery of that food contingent on the expulsion of heretics . . .
And while Robert might be persuaded to care about his nephew's inheritance, it would take him even longer to rally his forces and intervene than Tyrell. And that was in peacetime; gods knew how long the war he was currently embroiled in against the slavers would last. Until it ended, Robert would be able to send no help besides his prayers, not when his kingdom's very existence depended on victory. And even if he could intervene, his help would be a decidedly mixed blessing. The Kingdom of Myr might be half-Westerosi, but that could not compensate for the fact that it was, by every measure that mattered, a foreign realm. Even if the army Robert could deploy wouldn't be rife with heretics, the fact that most of its men would be either Essosi or Westerosi born on foreign shores would turn hearts and minds against it. No dynasty could prosper that had to rely on foreign swords; even if their aid gave Lyonel the victory, it would only give rise to claims that he was a puppet of Robert the Brief and his pet heretics, who would drain Westeros of men and gold to support Robert's mad crusade.
In fact, to sum up, there was no one who could avert the coming storm but him, and the men who followed him. For a brief moment he was consumed by appalled horror that the fate of the continent should fall upon his shoulders; he wasthe spare, for the Seven's sake, and not even that now that Lyonel was of an age to rule and Gerold showed every sign of being as healthy and vigorous as his brother. By rights he should only have to keep the Stormlands on an even keel until Gerold was of an age to inherit them, at which point he would be able to enjoy the fruits of being a brother to two kings and an uncle to two more. He'd never felt the need to be a father; his legacy would be that his nephews would never have to worry about cousins who were overly ambitious or dupes for overmighty bannermen. He would be a pillar of Lyonel's reign as long as he could, and when he was no longer fit to wear harness he would find somewhere comfortable to retire and swap lies with other veterans of royal service.
Then he glanced at the stand where his armor hung and felt resolve fill him. Spare or not, he was Renly Baratheon, brother of the two greatest kings since the Conqueror, men to whom he owed all that he was and could be. And in Stannis he had had not just a king and a patron but abrother.It had not been in Stannis's nature to be warm in his affections, but he had shown how much he cared about Renly's happiness when he hadn't pressed him to marry. Perhaps it was partly due to Renly's argument that his founding a cadet line would inevitably lead to trouble for Lyonel's sons, but he had ended the conversation by saying that he would leave the matter to Renly's discretion, so long as he remembered to ask Stannis' leave if ever he did decide to marry. That vote of confidence in his ability and prudence was the first indication Renly had had that Stannis considered him a man in truth, and not merely a younger brother, and he had loved him for it. He could not allow his brother's labors and his nephew's inheritance to be destroyed. By all the gods, he swore,he would not.
He went to his desk and started writing. The first letter, to Lyonel relating his suspicions about Stannis's death and affirming his loyalty and intent to preserve the Realm, was the easiest to write. The second, to his grandfather Lord Estermont to call the banners of the Stormlands and bring them to King's Landing to defend Lyonel's claim against any traitor that might appear, and the third to Lord Abram Gaunt to do the same with the banners of the Crownlands, flowed just as easily from his pen. The fourth, to Mace Tyrell, he found much more difficult. Eventually, after ruining four sheets of parchment with hesitations, he cut the knot by invoking Stannis's memory and Tyrell's loyalty to the dynasty. As he began signing and sealing the letters, his mind was already running ahead to consider how best to bring the Stormguard and the Order of the Crown on board. Their oaths were to Stannis, and after him to Lyonel, but in the meantime it would not be at all difficult for Cersei to commandeer their loyalty. That said, he could already think of a few lines of argument that might work . . .
Chapter 132: Deflagration (The Battle of Haven, Viceroyalty of Pentos)
Chapter Text
The town of Haven is, to this day, the single most populous settlement dominated by the Andalosi Old Faith. Partly this is due to the fact that, being built as it was on the supposed site of the first sept built by Hugor of the Hill, it was and remains a center of pilgrimage for many denominations of the Faith. Partly, however, this is also due to the fact that the Old Faith's insistence that no level of authority beyond local government is scripturally valid, thus effectively hamstringing the multi-tiered levels of governance that allow a town to become a city. Haven is considered the exception that proves the rule, as it is the customary seat of the General Council of the Old Faith, and so the closest thing that the Old Faith has to a capital.
Haven's importance to the Andalosi Old Faith also stems from the part it played in the Fourth Slave War, when Septon Deryk issued orders for the nearby villages to evacuate to Haven in order to concentrate their manpower. This, naturally, made it both a target for Khal Drogo, who hoped to break the will of the other Old Faith-held villages in the area, and a prime destination for both the Braavosi Army of Pentos and the Royal Army of Myr, who hoped to add the Old Faith's militia to their ranks . . .
An excerpt fromReformism for Dummies
There was, Drogo admitted sourly to himself, something to be said for the kind of fighting walkers did, at least if you were a walker yourself. If they did it right, then fighting them became a singularly frustrating experience.
And there was no question that the Braavosi were doing it right. Of the fifteen great banners of purple silk emblazoned with the emblem of the Titan that he was told each denoted a Braavosi regiment, only two had been laid at the feet of his horse. And that was only because their regiments had been caught flat-footed when the battle opened and had been swarmed under in a welter of gore and howling riders before they could do what the other regiments had done.Thoseregiments had formed themselves into densely-packed boxes that bristled pikes at the world in every direction, while behind the pikes the crossbowmen waited in ranks to deliver hammering volleys.
Once those boxes had formed themselves, the battle had become more of a stalemate than Drogo was comfortable with. It had come as an unfortunate surprise that there wasn't much to choose between a Braavosi military crossbow and a Dothraki bow when it came to range, and especiallyeffectiverange. The only way Drogo's riders could outrange the Braavosi infantry was if they used the lightest of their arrows at a high arc. And these 'flight arrows', many of them shafted with cane instead of oak or elm and headed with bone instead of iron, could not hope to pierce the plate armor of the Braavosi infantry at that kind of range. Theycouldhope to find a gap in the armor, but at such ranges a man might as well aim for the moon as for such a gap, especially given how much armor the Braavosi wore.
And if they rode closer to use heavy arrows along a flat trajectory, such thatcouldhope to penetrate the Braavosi armor, then that brought them within range of the crossbows. And while the armor that Drogo had acquired for his riders did much to alleviate the danger of such bolts, each attempt to close still produced a trickle of dead and maimed men. Even worse, however, was the flood of dead and maimedhorsesthat each such attempt produced. The horses had no armor, and Drogo was willing to bet his arakh against an eating knife that the Braavosi officers had ordered their crossbowmen to aim specifically for the horses. Each rider had his string of remounts, of course, but if too many horses were lost then the horde's mobility would be dramatically reduced. They might even, in fact, be made walkers themselves, which would be a humiliation too great to endure. And which would also leave them vulnerable to the wrath of the Braavosi; Drogo had no illusions as to the likely fate of his riders if they had to face the Braavosi on foot.
He might have tried to fix the Braavosi in place with part of his horde while he sent the other part sweeping around their flank to seize their baggage and strand them without supplies, but it seemed they had thought of that. The wagons that carried the Braavosi baggage had been marching in the center of their army and had formed themselves into a circle when the battle started. Even if his riders managed to break through the Braavosi, they would find themselves faced with what amounted to a makeshift fort almost as tough as Ghoyan Drohe had been for that it would be packed with desperate men who had all the supplies they would need. And while he could certainly encircle the Braavosi, he didn't want to drag this out into a siege; the grazing in this area was poorer than he had hoped, thanks to the damned walkers tearing up so much of the earth for their crops. If he tried besieging the Braavosi then it was possible that the supplies in their wagons might outlast the grazing for the horde's horses.
There was, in fact, nothing he could do to hasten the outcome of this battle unless the Braavosi panicked. Which was unlikely, in Drogo's opinion. The prisoners taken from the regiments that had been overwhelmed were being slowly cut apart, so that their screams might unman their comrades, but it was possible that that might make the Braavosi fight all the harder in order to try to avoid such a fate. And while the lure of breaking through to the walls of Haven might have proved overpowering to lesser men, the Braavosi seemed brave enough to stand and fight in the open, even if they weren't doing much actualfighting. The walkers within Haven had showed no signs of wanting to sally out; they had been perfectly content to hide behind their walls and pepper his probes with arrows and crossbow bolts; there was no hope of letting them sally, get close to the Braavosi, and then start to destroy them in hopes of provoking a stampede to rescue them that would disorder the squares.
And the word he had from the scouts he had sent southward had been distinctly unpromising . . .
XXX
Samwell Tarly couldn't help staring in amazement. The plan had actuallyworked, thank the gods.
There had been evidence that it should work, of course. Narrow Run and Novadomo had demonstrated that formed infantry with spears and crossbows, with good armor, good discipline, and good officers, had little to fear from cavalry if they kept their nerve. But those battles had been fought by the Iron Legion, arguably the best army in the known world, fighting under some of the best captains. The Braavosi had certainly said that they had learned from the example of the Legion, but saying was not the same as doing, as Samwell knew better than anyone.
So when the Dothraki had come boiling out of a fold in the plains with arrows flying and the bloodscream shaking the heavens, he had felt the usual fear flood his bowels and send his heart into his throat. And when the two regiments on that flank had been overrun, the urge to flee had been so great that only the fact that he was in the middle of the company had prevented him; there had been no roomtorun. Fortunately, everyone had been so busy forming the baggage train into the circle that they hadn't noticed. Or if they had noticed, no one had mentioned it.
Now, though, Samwell could feel the fear starting to leave him with an almost physical sensation. The Braavosi had proved that they could stand off the Dothraki as well as the Legion could, even if they couldn't maneuver against them in the way the Legion had reportedly done at Novadomo. And even if the Dothraki managed to make their way through the maze of squares and the overlapping fire of the crossbows within them, the Expedition had gotten the army's baggage train into the circle and made a fortress out of it. It had rankled with the knights that they had been consigned to guarding the baggage, instead of being placed in the vanguard, but Lord Merryweather had eventually convinced them that it was as high an honor as leading a charge. Without the supplies carried in these wagons, the army would die of hunger and thirst, assuming that the enemy didn't kill them first when they had no more weapons. The Expedition had, in fact, been entrusted with safeguarding the army's ability to fight, which meant that they had been entrusted with the safety and wellbeing of every man in the army from the Viceroy on down. Even the prickliest of the knights had started to mumble agreement, when it was put to them that way. Thankfully it had been Lord Merryweather who had advanced that argument, although it had been Sam who had suggested it the evening before. If it had come from him, it would have been dismissed as the bleating of a coward. From Lord Merryweather, on the other hand, it was the voice of sage experience, and so to be respected.
Although how much good keeping those supplies safe would do was an open question, in Samwell's mind. He knew, better than anyone, that the army only had food for five days and could drink the nearby Seven Stars Creek down to a trickle in six or seven days. The plan had been to top up the supply wagons from the storehouses and wells the Old Faith kept at Haven, along with incorporating their militia into the army, but the odds of breaking through to Haven unless the Dothraki let them were effectively nil at this point. And while their last word had been that the Royal Army of Myr was nearby and marching to meet them at Haven, they would undoubtedly have their own supply troubles and the same difficult in making the Dothraki stand and fight where they could be defeated that the Braavosi did.
Which was why Samwell's nerves were still jangling alarm despite the relative safety of his present situation. When the food started running low, it would inevitably be him that the men would blame along with his Braavosi counterpart, despite the fact that they had done everything they could to make sure the army would be well fed and watered for the duration of the campaign. If there was a sack of flour along their line of march that hadn't been appropriated and paid for by a promissory note on the army's account with the Iron Bank, it was in the famine reserves that even the army couldn't draw upon except in direst emergency. But even after taking measures that thorough, the inescapable fact was that fifteen thousand men ate several tons of foodevery day, before you counted their draft animals, and so the food that was gathered went quickly. All the Dothraki would have to do would be to encircle them and wait them out.
Samwell's horse shifted under him, jolting him out of his dark thoughts as he soothed it with a stroke and remembered what Lord Willas's septon had taught him about managing his fear. Everything he could do, he had done; the rest would have to left to the gods. Samwell glanced at where Lord Merryweather was sitting his charger and felt the fear ease a little more; Lord Merryweather looked as relaxed as if he was riding to the hunt on his own lands as he slowly rode along the line of wagons, trading remarks with the knights and the corporals among the archers. If someone as experienced as Lord Merryweather found so little to fear in their current situation that he could make jokes, then surely things couldn't be as bad as they seemed.
After all, Samwell reminded himself, Lord Merryweather was privy to information that he wasn't. Perhaps the Royal Army was closer than he had guessed, based on his estimates of how quickly they could march. In the meantime, there was no escaping the fact that armor did altogether too good a job at catching heat to be comfortable on a day as bright as this, even a brigandine with mail sleeves and faulds such as he preferred. Even simply sitting his horse and doing his bit to follow Lord Merryweather's example for the other knights left him sweating like the pig he resembled all too much. He sipped at his waterskin, grimacing at the silty taste of the water that had been stewing in the leather pouch for hours under a hot sun, and waited to see what would happen next.
XXX
A rider galloped up to Drogo and his kos and reined to a halt in a spray of dust and foam; his horse was panting like a woman in childbirth. "Great khal," the rider gasped. "Khal Matto says that he cannot prevent the other walker army from coming. Their riders are too many and their infantry are too well disciplined."
Drogo nodded. "I hear and understand," he said solemnly. "How long until they arrive here?"
"An hour at most," the rider said, his gasps for air already under control. "Less, if their riders trap a portion of Khal Matto's khalasar and destroy it, as they have come close to doing already."
Drogo nodded again. "Take one of my horses," he said, "ride back to Khal Matto, and tell him that he is to do all he can to slow the walkers without being trapped. Once his riders are within sight, we will begin to withdraw eastwards, and draw the walkers towards the army of Khal Viserys."
The rider nodded, and as he changed horses and rode away one of Drogo's kos dared to ride closer. "We are to withdraw, great khal?" he asked. "But surely the coming of these new walkers boots nothing."
"If they were any other walkers, yes," Drogo replied. "But these are the walkers who slew Khal Zirqo and Khal Pobo." At that the kos hissed, some of them muttering curses or spitting reflexively. "If we cannot destroy the Braavosi on the field, then we have no hope of doing so to these new ones," Drogo went on. "Fortunately, we have Khal Viserys to do that fighting for us. And when he has broken them, he will have us to run them down and complete their destruction."
The ko who had spoken nodded, a smile spreading slowly across his face as he contemplated such a hunt. "So in the meantime, we shall draw them on and harry their outriders, great khal?" he inquired.
"Their outriders, their foragers, any part of them that leaves their main body," Drogo said. "We shall make them blind and deaf to Khal Viserys' movements, until they are like a sheep stunned for the slaughter." He dropped his reins and clapped his hands for the knot of riders who waited nearby; they were all lean and wiry men, chosen for the speed of their horses. "Bear my words to the khals facing the walkers," he commanded. "They are to let their attacks against them diminish and prepare to withdraw, and to make it obvious enough to tempt the walkers to pursue us. We will draw them on, to a place where Khal Viserys can break them for us."
As the riders spurred away in plumes of dust and the ko withdrew, Drogo concealed triumph behind a fitting impassivity. This part of the plan had been the most dangerous of all; it was not the way of the plains to give way before an enemy. When no man could tell when or where he might meet another again, law and tradition demanded that the most be made of every opportunity for friendship or for enmity. If the other khals who had become his kos objected and demanded that he stand and fight here, then the odds that the Myrish would have been able to defeat him would have been too high. They had defeated both Zirqo and Pobo in a face-to-face fight, after all, the latter after he had harried them all the previous day.
So his plan from the beginning had been to entice the walker armies to chase him, lead them back to Khal Viserys, and let him have the glory, and the loss, of defeating them in the field. And after the pursuit that would follow was done, when the horde was strengthened by the slaves and booty they had taken and Khal Viserys' army was weakened by the losses they would sustain in breaking the unnatural Legion . . . Well, the god smiled most upon the man who took whatever opportunities presented themselves. What did he care for the lands across the poison water that Khal Viserys seemed so enamored of, if he could have the whole of Essos from the poison water to the Mother of Mountains under his knife?
Especially when the fame of killing the two single most famous fighting men the walkers could field would be his, or at least of ensuring their destruction; Khal Matto's riders had confirmed that the other walker army flew the banners of Khal Robert and his ko the Iron Wolf. A lesser man might feel dread at facing two such men, but not Drogo son of Bharbo. Khal Zirqo had been killed by treachery under a truce flag, and Khal Pobo had been half-mad after the death of his khal. Neither of them had commanded such a horde as he led, with armor that would give them a fighting chance at handstrokes against the walker cavalry and a better plan than relying on ferocity and the shock of onset.
The only pity was that the flag of the walker who had actually killed Khal Pobo with its poison-water-monster had not been seen; that would be another worthy scalp to take. But that walker was the ko of Khal Robert's ships, or so Drogo had heard, and would likely be facing his khal's enemies on the poison water. Drogo's smile widened; at least he would know the pain of losing his khal.
XXX
The scout, a converted Dothraki who made plain his allegiance by the seven-pointed stars tattooed on each cheek, leaped off his horse and rushed to the little command group, kneeling as he arrived. "It is as you supposed, your holiness," he said. "The savages are engaged in battle. I could not get close enough to see who they fought, but I can only imagine that it is either the Braavosi or the Kingdom of Myr."
"Did they leave no scouts behind them, brother?" Ser Jon Bay asked sharply. "No force to cover us?"
"No, ser," the scout replied. "All their forces seemed engaged against their enemies in the field or else held in reserve."
Ser Jon nodded. "Doubtless they think us so contemptible that they have no care for if we might sally or not," he said, before turning to his companion. "Your holiness, if we are to sally, it must be now."
Septon Deryk stood, his hands folded in the sleeves of his cassock and his somber, ascetically lean face thoughtful, for a moment that seemed to stretch an hour before nodding. "The gods best help those who help themselves," he agreed. "And a chance like this we will not see again. Form the company, Ser Jon, and let us go."
Ser Jon nodded, clapped a gauntleted fist to his chest in salute, and started shouting orders. The resulting flurry of activity was intense, but short; since the savages had ridden away he had ordered only a quarter guard to be maintained on the walls, with the rest of the men to rest in the space between the walls and the village under arms. Now, with the opportunity to either strike a decisive blow against the enemy, or at least to hold their arm while someone else did, everyone that could hold a weapon and march was falling into place. Literally everyone; two-thirds of the Old Faith's crossbowmen were women, and the rest were boys too young to hold a spear and shield in the line of battle but old enough to hold a crossbow steady and loose on the command of their corporals.
Ser Jon couldn't help a flash of worry as he took his place at the head of the company. Even with such desperate measures being taken, they had only two thousand fighters, and the twenty-seven knights at the head of the column included himself and his squire, who had been knighted that morning. And while every man and woman had a padded jack and a cervelliere, only the knights and some of the spearmen had much more in the way of armor; armor wasexpensive, especially plate. The plate harnesses that the knights wore could command the yearly revenue of the whole of Haven put together about six times over, and Haven was the wealthiest of the Old Faith's settlements. This was, by any measure, the maddest gesture since Robert the Strong had marched against Myr.
The worry began to twist in his bowels, gnawing at his resolution. And who was he to make such a gesture, much less lead it? He had been one of Robert's knights, aye, had fought at Pentos, Tara, and the Siege, been made a lord of broad acres with knights under him. But then he had failed, hadproven false,and Brus Buckler and the Inspectors had cast him down from the heights he had been raised to. By the time they were done with him, he had had only his courser, his sword, his armor, and his spurs to call his own, and he had been driven from the new kingdom in black disgrace. He had eked out a living as a hired man-at-arms to Lord Merryweather for a few years, but then the news of his son's death at Piper's Creek had finished his destruction; Lord Merryweather had finally dismissed him for drunkenness, and he had found himself a landless freerider who would never see forty again, with not a penny, a friend, or even a scrap of good reputation to call his own.
But then Septon Deryk stood in front of the company, a mail-shirt over his cassock, and Ser Jon felt the fear wither away as he knelt with the rest of the company. He had met the Septon on the road away from Pentos, and had considered robbing him for whatever he might have been carrying. But the Septon had invited him to join his fire, heard his confession, and at the end of it he had asked him a single question:Do you want to change?Septon Deryk had taken his flood of tears at the simple question to mean yes, and offered him absolution if he was willing to do penance; if he would serve the community that Septon Deryk hoped to found, defending it against its enemies and teaching it's people to defend themselves, then he would be rebaptized under a new name, and given a new life in the light of the Seven.
He had accepted, of course, and found himself reborn. He was no longer Ser Howyrd Skylark, deposed lord and failed knight, but Ser Jon Bay, champion of the Seven and defender of their people. The men and women behind him were not simply farmers and craftspeople taken from their fields and their workbenches by the extremity of their danger. They were the Seven's chosen, and with the Seven's help they would break in pieces the nations. And if it pleased the Seven that they should fail and fall, then that would be as They willed. Through faith, Septon Deryk had taught him first, men had the courage to accept all happenings with humility, according to the will of the Seven. Septon Deryk raised his crystal so that it threw a spray of rainbow-lit color. "In this sign, conquer," he commanded, his resonant voice rolling over the company in a baritone wave. "Now let us go forth, singing a glad song to the Seven as we go, and smite the evil that threatens our lands, our families, and our Faith."
Ser Jon Bay signed himself with the seven-pointed star, murmured "So mote it be" with the rest of the company, and then stood, raising his poleaxe. "Forward, Andalos!" he shouted, and the company stepped off as the gate opened. It was a meager imitation of the company he had served with in Myr, perhaps, but only in body. In spirit they were greater still, for that they fought neither for fortune nor for honor, like the great houses that stumbled towards righteousness like blind men. It was for their gods, their homes, and their children that the people behind him were marching to confront the savages that threatened them, singing as they went. "Into thy hands, o gods, we commend our spirits," he whispered.
XXX
Drogo had found the news so astonishing that he had had to ride and see for himself, and what he saw him his jaw drop in amazement. The walkers defending Haven had sallied! Barely two thousand strong and yet they had placed themselves squarely in the path of the horde and repulsed the first attempts to brush them aside. The shield-fort they had formed was small, but nonetheless bristling with spears, and the breeze carried the sound ofsingingto his ears.Singing,as if they had marched to a festival and not a battlefield! Then he caught the sense of the words; they were in the tongue the Andals spoke, of course, but he had heard them enough at the other villages these walkers had fought for to know them."A mighty fortress are the Gods,/A bulwark never failing . . ."
Drogo sat his horse in blank astonishment for a moment longer, then dread struck him as he comprehended the importance of their decision. Even a force as mobile as the horde required a road to reach its full speed, and the walkers had planted themselves squarely astride it. He would have to fight to drive them off it, if he wanted to maintain the pace that would keep the horde in the face of the other walker armies. But if he took the time to fight, then at the very least the Myrish would catch up to him; Khal Matto had reported that their cavalry were fighting him hard enough that he could not hope to slow them without reinforcements. And while the Braavosi would be slow, they would still be marching at his heels, and reach him eventually.
He was, in short, trapped. Unless he could break this box he found himself in.
He turned to his kos, whose disturbed mutterings at the situation they now understood themselves to be in died away as they saw his face. "Khal Awazzo, take your khalasar against these walkers," he ordered. "Destroy them if you can, but at least drive them off the road. Khal Jhasso, assist him with half your riders, and have the rest guide the other khalasars around these walkers and reunite on the far side of them. The rest of you, follow me against the Myrish walkers. We must knock them back on our heels to buy time for the rest of the horde to get past these walkers." He turned to his bloodriders. "Two of you ride to Khal Ramo and Khal Gosho," he said. "Tell them to leave only a few of their riders in the face of the Braavosi and lead the rest to join us against the walkers of Myr. Stay with them and guide them to the field."
As the men he had named spurred their horses away, he drew his arakh and cantered along the front of his khalasar, the light glancing like firebolts off the smoky-gray Valyrian steel of his arakh and the burnished coat of iron rings he had taken from a slain Andal knight. "Come, my children!" he cried. "Let us strike the walkers of Myr a blow that will shrivel their livers and make their ballocks drop off!"
As his khalasar rocked into a canter behind him with an ululating bloodscream that would have made a stone fearful, Drogo felt the dread die away. They were still in a tight spot, but with the god's help they would find a way out of it.
XXX
The following is an excerpt fromFlash About Town
When I saw the Dothraki come boiling over the ridge in front of us, I was morally certain that we were dead men. The Legion was good, the best army in the world at that time, but when several thousand Dothraki come pounding at you with that high yipping howl they call the bloodscream, turning the sky black with arrows as they come on, it goes right to your guts that you're f*cked, barring a miracle. It doesn't help if you know, like I did, that the Dothraki indulge in torture as a matter of course and have been known to be cannibals on special occasion.
Fortunately for me, the Legion pulled a miracle out of their collective hat. All King Robert had to do was give one set of orders and the Legion went from a column four companies wide to two lines of companies, staggered so that the back line could loose down the gaps between the companies in the front line, and by the time the light horse came galloping back through the lines the artillery was already opening up. They weren't heavy artillery, of course, nothing you'd use to knock down a wall with. But for knocking down a horse and rider at beyond bow range a cart-mounted ballista firing a three-pound bolt is just the thing. There were only a score of them, two broke down firing their first round, and they only got off two volleys before the archers and crossbowmen opened up, but that was enough to make little eddies in the Dothraki advance where the bolts had sent horses and riders tumbling to earth in falls that would have been spectacular if they hadn't been so terribly lethal. Even if the bolt had hit only the horse and missed the rider, falling from a galloping horse is just as sure a way to die as falling off a building and if the horse rolls over the top of you as you do . . .
But it wasn't what happened to the men and horses the artillery killed as much as what happened to the horses and men behind them that was important. See, a horse and man falling down in front of you means that there's suddenly a significant obstacle right in front of you, and if your own horse runs into them then you're going to go down hard too. It was less of a problem for the Dothraki then it would have been for, say, Andal knights, because their formation was looser, but those eddies I mentioned earlier were men reining their horses aside to swerve around the men and horses that had fallen in front of them. In doing so they made their neighbors shy sideways too, even if only by a little, and what was more important, it made them slow down. Then the archers and crossbowmen started to open up, and the eddies began to take hold of almost the whole leading edge of the horde. Now these Dothraki weren't the half-naked barbarians the Legion had fought at Narrow Run, Piper's Creek, and Novadomo, but however much more armor they were wearing their horses weren't wearing any at all, and I've never met the infantry archer that didn't shoot at the horse in preference to the man riding it if they could help it. It's why the next thing a knight buys after his armor is barding for his warhorse, to keep archers from doing evil things to one of their most important pieces of kit.
So by the time the Dothraki were within half-bowshot, there was even less order to them than there usually was and they were starting to turn and ride back the way they came, loosing arrows back over the rumps of their horses as they did. Without much effect, I might add; aside from the Braavosi, I've never met infantry that wore heavier armor than the Legion. Even the archers wore brigandines, if not breastplates, and by that time most of the spearmen were in half-plate, or at least ring-mail hauberks over brigandines with vambraces and gauntlets. That, besides shields and helmets. All of which is to say that, from the front, the Legion was almost impervious to arrows, except from very heavy bows at short range. Of course, 'almost' is not 'completely', but the trickle of men who dropped out of the line with arrows through gaps in their armor didn't stop the Legion from marching after the Dothraki, with the chivalry right behind them.
We had just reached the crest of the ridge when a bloodscream even louder than the first went up and the Dothraki came thundering back, and before you could say 'knife' they were into us. Khal Drogo, that sneaky son-of-a-bitch, had suckered us; lured us up onto the ridge where the rise of the land obstructed the line of sight of the archers and the artillery and his riders could get close enough to rush us before they could be slowed down by the volleys. If he had done it to any other army, he could have won the battle right there, by getting his riders into us before we could properly form and turn the battle into a general scrum of a melee instead of a clash of line against ordered line.
But the Legion, bless their murderous little hearts, were the most tightly disciplined army in the world that wasn't made up entirely of Unsullied, and when the Dothraki popped up right in their faces their first instinct was to close ranks and take the impact on their locked shields instead of flinching. And King Robert, who whatever his faults was almost as quick a thinker as your humble obedient, saw the opportunity right away and ordered his trumpeter to sound a general attack by the chivalry. I was still in the very act of pissing myself, the shock was that bad, but my horse caught the mood and charged right along with the rest of the knights, and from there reflex took over. I only managed to lance the one screamer who was unfortunate enough to be right in front of me, on account of the lance broke in this rib cage, but I broke the stump over another screamer's skull and then my sword came out and it was all cut and cover for a long handful of wild minutes. Beside me George was laying about him with a mace and having the time of his life, by the sound of it; the mad little bugger was actuallylaughing, gods help me. At that, he was probably doing better execution than I was, because these Dothraki were wearing mail and it takes a Valyrian or Sunset steel sword to have a hope of cutting through mail. Fortunately my sword was a newer type, with a stiffer blade and a stronger point than the swords my father and grandfather used, precisely because the prevalence of mail and plate made the point more important than the edge. Once I got enough of my wits back to remember that, I stopped simply battering at the barbarians and started killing them properly.
It only lasted a few moments though, because the Dothraki were streaming away again. I had just missed a thrust at a screamer that went pelting past me, whistling like a man possessed but probably just passing a signal, and I was just about to relax when I heard the trumpets soundingpursue, pursue, pursue.Robert had the bit between his teeth and he wasn't about to let the Dothraki get away if he could help it. I thought it was a stupid idea, when letting them bounce off the Legion had worked so well, but if there's one thing you learn in an army like the Legion, it's to follow orders instantly and without question. Which is why I yelled "Follow me, boys!" at the conroi of knights who had followed me to Myr and put the spurs to my horse to send him thundering after the Dothraki.
What followed was one of the more nightmarish fights I've ever been in, a running battle that covered almost four miles as the Myrish cavalry, knights and light horse and all, tried to run down the Dothraki. I still see flashes of it in my nightmares, mostly angry Dothraki spurring out of the dust with weapons raised but most especially the half-company of light horse that got cut off from all help and got swarmed under by howling barbarians, but my knights and I kept together and just bulled our way through any Dothraki that came at us. Between our armor and the barding of our horses we were almost immune to the Dothraki bows ourselves, and while we didn't have a single lance between us each man and beast of us outweighed a comparable Dothraki horse and rider by several hundred pounds. And knight's chargers are trained to run into and shoulder aside things that are smaller than they are, as long as they can see past them. One time I set my courser at a Dothraki, hit his horse broadside, and knocked him completely over. I can still hear the way he screamed as his horse fell on his leg and mashed it flat.
If they had been able to regroup, they might have turned the tables on us. We were cutting them up something dreadful and Ned Stark had already killed one of Drogo's subordinate khals in single combat, but we were spread out across several miles of front and we were no longer fighting by companies but by conrois, if that much. If Drogo had managed to get his men organized and turned back on us in concert, we'd have been meat on the chopping block. But two things had happened that we only learned about later. Firstly, the Braavosi had let Lord Merryweather and his knights loose once they saw most of the Dothraki in front of them ride away, and Merryweather had led his men right through the Dothraki in front of them and into the clump that Khal Drogo had started to organize around himself. Three hundred men-at-arms pitching into them like bouncers into a tavern brawl sent them scattering in all directions and apparently at that point Drogo decided he wasn't going to be able to beat us on this field, not if things like that kept happening. Never mind that Merryweather had died in that first brawl; he had had enough of his plans getting upended for one day.
Secondly, the Old Faithers had sallied out of Haven, the gods-mad bastards, and they'd put themselves astride the road that Drogo needed to use to get his horde away. Under most circ*mstances, Drogo couldn't have cared less, but if he was going to get his horde off the field in any kind of coherent order, he needed that road; splitting up and going cross-country is fine if all you want to do is get from one point to another, but if you want to fight, you need to keep your men together where you can control them. If Drogo let the horde break up and ride across country, he would lose all hope of controlling them with any kind of speed, and if he wanted to harry us the way he did, he needed his horde close to hand and readily responsive. So he put every man he could scrape together at the Old Faither's in order to knock them off the road except for his own khalasar, which he turned around and led straight at Ned Stark to try and knock him back long enough for his men to open the road.
The Old Faither's wound up getting pushed into the broken ground beside the road where the riders couldn't come at them, but Drogo's counterattack against Stark didn't work out quite as he'd hoped. He stopped them dead, alright, but Stark's household men were some of the deadliest fighters in Essos, if not in the world; if they had gone up against Stannis' Stormguard, I'd have called it even odds, and Iknewhow good the Stormguard were. Drogo's khalasar got cut to pieces in the fight that followed, and Drogo himself got killed by a Stony Dornish named Gerold Dayne, who was apparently Mad Arthur's cousin. And while the Old Faither's got pushed off the road, they didn't break, and while they couldn't block the road they could still rake it with fire for the better part of half a mile. I never did see that part of the battlefield, though, so I can't swear to how bad it was; a Dothraki whacked me over the helmet with an ironmallet, of all bloody things, in the last scrimmage my conroi and I got into, and by the time I got my wits straightened out the battle was over and it was time to pick the pieces back up . . .
XXX
Robert Baratheon sighed gustily as he saw Ned conversing with a dismounted knight who was leaning on his poleaxe; when he had had time to think he had feared the worst for his foster-brother. By rights he should have been dead at least twice over, the way he had thrown himself into the thick of the Dothraki during the pursuit. "Well done, Ned," he contented himself with saying as he rode up, wiping some of the gore off his war hammer as he did; there would be time later for hard words about running unnecessary risks. Especially since he knew for a fact that his beard wasn't the only one with grey hairs. "Well done indeed. Broke them right up, eh?"
"One of their khalasars at least, Your Grace," Ned replied. "Though I wouldn't have had the chance without this man here and his fellows. Allow me to present Ser Jon Bay, of the Knights of Andalos."
Robert nodded as the knight pulled his helmet off and bowed, then frowned in puzzlement. "Do I know you from somewhere, ser?"
The knight, a balding man of evidently Andal lineage with a small and neatly trimmed brown moustache and the sun-darkened and wind-roughened skin of a veteran campaigner, shook his head. "I doubt it, Your Grace," he replied. "I'm just a humble servant of the Faith who did his best to protect it's people and lead them in war."
"Well, you did a bloody good job of it, from what I can see," Robert replied, jutting his chin at the road. For three hundred yards the road was littered with the corpses of men and horses, many of them lying one atop the other. An agile man could have covered a hundred yards hopping from body to body without touching the ground. "I hope your lord will allow me to offer you some reward for this; your corking the bottle may well have been what let us destroy this horde."
Ser Jon bowed again. "I have no lord save Septon Deryk, Your Grace," he said. "But I will introduce you. As for the horde, I fear we did not destroy it; many thousands rode past us, both down the road and over the fields on either side."
Robert nodded. "Well, we gave them quite the basting today, at any road," he said, concealing his disappointment. If so many riders had escaped as Ser Jon claimed, then the horde could easily regroup and pose a further danger. And if, as he privately feared, they joined up with the Targaryen . . . He shrugged.Cross that bridge when you come to it, old man."In any case, let me meet with this Septon Deryk of yours, and we'll see what we can do with your men."
XXX
The aftermath of the Battle of Haven proved to have a sobering impact on both sides of the Pentoshi theater. When news of the disaster first reached the Grand Army, Viserys Targaryen was reported to suffer one of his few public losses of temper. His reported shout of "Khal Drogo, give me back my screamers!" is probably apocryphal, given its similarity to a like outcry from a Valyrian general in the Rhoynish Wars, but his outburst that "The khal of khals promised me mountains and performed only molehills!" is attested to by multiple credible sources. More troublingly, many of the surviving khals refused to rally to his standard. With Khal Drogo dead, there was nothing to bind them to the Targaryen cause beyond the attraction of gifts and the promise of loot, which could be found elsewhere at a much lower cost in blood than the one Drogo had just incurred.
On the Abolitionist side, the losses were fewer, but the strategic situation was more concerning. Although Khal Drogo's death had been confirmed and his Valyrian steel arakh presented to King Robert by Ser Gerold Dayne as a token of his latest victory, they did not know and could not guess whether another khal might take Drogo's place as khal of khals and rally the khalasars back into a single horde. Consequently, the allied armies were forced to remain in the area for some days, reorganizing themselves and trying to trail the various khalasars to see if there were any signs of them regrouping. In addition to this, the death of Lord Merryweather led to a minor political crisis in the Eastern Expedition that was only resolved by the nomination of Samwell Tarly to accede to the command, with Ser Harry Flash as his second. The Queen's Men among the Expedition came within a hair of mutinying, by some accounts, but they were mollified by Tarly's promise that his command would be temporary until they received word from King's Landing as to who should assume permanent command. That Ser Flash was named as second-in-command also went some way to soothing tempers, for although he was a famous King's Man he also had a sovereign repute as a servant of the Faith.
The Battle of Haven would, in any event, prove to be only the first of the great battles of the Fourth Slave War . . .
"The Battle of Haven";Number 57in Fish-hawk Man-at-Arms Battle Series
Chapter 133: Flashover (Battle of Claymoor Water, Mainland Lys)
Chapter Text
It is an indicator of the strengths and weaknesses of the military environment of pre-Conquest Essos that every phase of Daario Naharis' campaign during the Fourth Slave War is considered a masterpiece of its kindexceptfor the Battle of Claymoor Water. This is not an indictment of Naharis, but rather is meant to illustrate the environment that produced him. Before the Conquest, mercenary companies were paid by the month, with a bonus for victory and a cut of any ransoms taken, but there was no bonus offered as compensation for casualties. Indeed, it was not uncommon for companies who took casualties to have their pay reduced by the amount due to each man lost, the argument being that dead men had no need of pay. The only exception was that dead men received the pay of their last month alive regardless of circ*mstances, in order to help pay for their funerals and settle any outstanding debts. Consequently, it became the common practice among mercenary companies to avoid battle if at all possible. From the perspective of their captains, this had the twin benefits of preserving their men, who were after all their primary capital assets, and potentially prolonging the conflicts they were engaged in, allowing both them and their men to continue enriching themselves both by regular wages and by plunder.
The primary exception to this tendency to avoid battle was when the captain judged that victory would be swift enough and complete enough to justify the potential losses. It was this that informed Naharis' decision to strike the Army of the South's encampment at Claymoor Water . . .
From Calm to Storm: The Military Revolution in Essosby Maester Brand
Corporal Andrik Freeman, First Banda, Royal Company of the Alalia Regiment of the Iron Legion, couldn't help a feeling of foreboding as he jostled the collar of his breastplate to make it sit more comfortably over his gambeson and bent to scoop up his shield and spear. He had seen some places in his time with the Legion, but never a place as forebodingly dreary as Claymoor Fell. It was, campfire gossip had it, the southernmost edge of the uplands on either side of the border, and the steep descent from the moorland down to the plains that gradually leveled down towards the coast was responsible for the fog that coated the earth and prevented anyone from seeing more than a hundred feet. He spat uncaringly and glanced at where the rest of his section was getting the last of their armor on. After today's marching they would be out of the hill country, praise the gods, and the weather thereof could go hang.
Captain Hauser, the Company's commander rode up on his dappled palfrey; he was no knight, but being on horseback allowed him to move about the company quickly and see better than the banda officers. It also made him a visible rallying point for the Company, especially with the Company banners riding close behind him. "Your men ready, corporal?" he asked.
"Just a minute more, Cap'n," Andrik replied. "Ethyn was slow to get breakfast off the fire."
"Him and the rest of the cooks," Captain Hauser said sourly. "When the war's over we'll have to remind our men not to take too long over their cooking, eh?"
"Yes, ser," Andrik said. "Is it true that we're getting out of the hill country today, ser?"
Captain Hauser waggled his free hand to indicate uncertainty. "Maybe yes, maybe no," he answered. "Depends on what our scouts have to say about what Devil Daario's doing."
Andrik had just opened his mouth to reply when he heard the brassy scream of a bugle. He closed his mouth into a puzzled frown; the chivalry used bugles, but they were camped close enough that their calls would be louder than that. And it wasn't a call he recognized.
Captain Hauser, meanwhile, had gone white as a sheet. "Corporal, fall your men into line of battle. At the double," he snapped, and then turned to his trumpeter. "Sound 'To Arms'."
"Yes, ser," Andrik said even as the trumpeter started blowing. Turning to his section he roared, "Deploy in line of battle to my right, deploy! Form on me!" holding his spear straight in the air as he did.
The last of his men had just finished falling in and the rest of the company was starting to coalesce around the banners when there was a sudden swelling roar and armed men came pelting at them through the fog. "Stand to!" Andrik bellowed, bracing his shield and lowering his spear to the level, and then the charge hit and he was too busy to think for long minutes. There was only the surf-roar of howling men battering at his shield, the pistoning of his arm as he punched his spear at them, and the eternally comforting presence of his shield-brothers on either side of him. Dimly he heard a despairing shout of "We're flanked!" and the trumpet blaring out the call to form a rally square, and he began shuffling his men to the left, towards where Captain Hauser had been standing with the banners. Behind him he could faintly hear Lieutenant Collier's harsh baritone chant of "Front rank, take aiiim, loose! Reload! Rear rank, take aiiim, loose! Reload!" and the sergeants' mantra of "Close up, boys, close up! Stick together, courage now!" He risked his life to glance to his left and saw with knee-weakening relief that there were still banners to rally to, although he couldn't see Captain Hauser and what he could see of the Company looked dangerously small. Thanks be to the Warrior, the rest of First Banda had managed to get into ranks, but he could only see half of Second Banda and a glance to the right showed no sign of Third Banda at all, unless they had already peeled backwards to refuse the Company's flank.
A blow on his shield that shoved his feet back two inches through the packed dirt reminded him to keep his mind on his work and he went back to stabbing at the enemy, his spear punching back and forth and back and forth and back over the top of his shield, the shaft balanced on the rim to help ease the strain of holding six and a half feet of mountain ash topped by a foot of steel at the level. Around him the noise of the battle was building higher and higher and he could already feel the ache set into his arms and the dryness settle into his mouth, but he drove concern from his mind with the ease of long-practiced discipline and roared, "Close up, brothers, and let the bastards have it!" as he put his shoulder into his shield and continued stabbing.
Across the rest of the field a few other units were imitating the stand of the Alalia Regiment's Royal Company, but none had managed to rally so many of their men before the assault hit. To give only one example, the Sinuessa Regiment's Royal Company only managed to get two of it's three bandas into a fighting line, and its Reserve Company only got one banda into a coherent rally square. The rest of its bandas were fighting by platoons or by sections, where they hadn't been shocked into the panic that gripped some sections of the Army . . .
Daegon Melgaris had spent the morning in tightly controlled fear that this ludicrous plan that Captain Naharis had come up with would get them all killed. All well and good to say that they were going to march through the night to close the distance on the Andals and strike them at first light, but actually doing it . . . If they had been rumbled, they would have been dead men.
But they hadn't, and now the Andals wererunning!The Iron Legion wasrunning!Fear had turned to exultation as Daegon and his messmates plunged ahead into the fog, spears ready to plunge into any Andal or slave that stumbled or slowed. Some of their company had gotten hung up fighting a Legion company that had held together, but Daegon and his section had run on, the fatigue of the long night march forgotten as they egged each other on and pounded through the lines of campfires and half-struck tents.
Ahead of them loomed a knot of slaves around an Andal officer, possibly a knight judging by the quality of what little armor he was wearing. Daegon tucked his shoulder into his shield and pelted at them with a roar, his mates hard on his heels. His spear was shivered out of his hand as he rammed it against a shield, but the impact of his six foot-tall and fourteen stone-weight body sent him crashing through the shield-wall the slaves had tried to form. When he didn't die in the next instant, he swept out his short sword and started pressing the Andal, trying to bear him down the way the sergeants taught you to do. The Andal, clearly a seasoned adventurer by the grey in his hair and beard, fought back hard and cannily, landing a blow with his longsword that made Daegon see stars as it landed on his helmet, but then a spear lanced in from the side and ran him through the throat. The Andal dropped his sword and clutched at the spear desperately, but Daegon hit him a crashing blow over the head with his short sword and punched him down with the shield boss and then it was on, on, on again, with his messmates whooping victory and the Andals and the slaves fleeing before them . . .
Given the suddenness of the onset, it is not surprising that the Army of the South was temporarily driven out of its positions. This was, in fact, the exact effect that Naharis had been hoping to achieve. As his report after the battle elucidates "Knowing that my army was unlikely to withstand a traditional contest of battle, I decided to rely on surprise, and pray that the suddenness and the ferocity of the onset might panic the Legion into a rout."
Two factors, however, prevented the rout from becoming general. Firstly, the attack had struck the Army of the South while it was preparing for the day's march, meaning that everyone was awake and either partially or mostly armored. Secondly, the Army of the South had some of the finest combat leaders that the Abolitionist Alliance could field at its disposal . . .
A normal man would almost certainly have been put in paralyzing fear of his life and his reputation by such a blow, Lyn Corbray thought wryly as he spurred his borrowed destrier to its best lumbering speed. But not him; he didn't havetimeto be afraid.
He had spent the past five hours in one saddle or another, racing hither and yon over the field to try and bring some order out of the chaos that Daario Naharis had thrown his army into. Thank the good gods that his own Sirmium Regiment had managed to form a more or less coherent battleline before the attack had reached them. That at least gave him a foundation he could build on, even if they were being forced to give ground by the pressure that Naharis was bringing to bear. Across the rest of the campground-turned-battlefield, his men were fighting by companies, bandas, and sections, and sometimes by knots of die-hards from half a dozen units around whatever officer had managed to rally them. It was those men that Daario had been riding over the field to reach since he stumbled out of his tent, his squires frantically buckling on his armor as he roared for his horse and his knights. Alone in their little clumps, they could do nothing but fight and die where they stood. But if they could be gathered together . . .
He reined in in front of a cluster of Legion infantry and dismounted men-at-arms. "What unit, friends?" he demanded as his household men clattered to a halt around him.
"Fourth Banda, Royal Company of the Dubris Regiment, my lord!" yelled a man with a sergeant's shoulder-knot on his spaulder. "And men from the Alalia Cavalry!"
Lyn nodded. "Alright, you men are with me for the next while," he said, injecting calm authority into his voice. "We're going to march back up the Fell towards the rear of the camp; the Sirmium Regiment is holding a defensive line there that the rest of the army is rallying on. My knights will escort you there, but we'll have to step lively; there's slavers all over the bloody place."
"Don't we know it, my lord," the sergeant said dryly as he turned to his comrades. "Right, lads, you heard his lordship! Close column with crossbows in and shields out, move!"
In a handful of moments the knot of desperate men had resolved itself into a roughly-ordered column with spearmen leading and covering the flanks, the crossbowmen in the center with prods spanned and loaded, and the men-at-arms bringing up the rear where their heavier armor would provide more protection against an attack from behind. A few commands from Lyn sufficed to shake his household men into a screen on either side of the company; doing just this for the past five hours had reduced their numbers badly, but those who remained were the best, or just the luckiest and most bloody-minded, which amounted to the same thing in battle. Ser Joren Potts brandished his red-dripping sword to indicate that the left-hand screen was ready, to which Lyn replied with a shout of "Forward, march!" that made the little column step off. They would cut their way back through the scrum to reach their comrades, picking up whatever other survivors they could along the way, and that would do that much more to rebuild the army.
When a knot of Lyseni horsem*n loomed out of the slowly-clearing fog, Lyn raised Lady Forlorn and pointed it at them, provoking a series of brassy notes from his trumpeter that passed along his roar of "Enemy to the front! Charge!" Even as little as forty destriers made the earth shake at the canter, and at the shock of impact the Lyseni horse were scattered in all directions, some of them squalling in sudden terror. Lyn nodded to himself as he jerked Lady Forlorn out of a dying Lyseni; the confusion that Naharis had thrown his army into was affectinghisarmy as well. Like enough those men had thought they were perfectly safe with the enemy driven off and they could get on with some looting or looking for a surviving legionnaire or two for some recreational torture. That was already giving him ideas on what to do next, once he got the army back together . . .
XXX
Jaime Lannister couldn't help a laugh as he knocked up his visor and took a gulping breath. By the gods, but this was afight. A fight such as he hadn't had since Novadomo, if not since Tyrosh. He had almost forgotten how it felt.
After he had gotten his Legion company rallied and into line, Lord Corbray had told him to take the Summer Islanders to the left flank of the line the Sirmium Regiment was anchoring and keep the slavers from infiltrating through the broken ground around the Claymoor Water. The Water was only a narrow stream, but it was deep and swift-flowing and the land that shelved down to its banks was studded with boulders, many of them man-sized or larger. Not the place to form a shield-wall, but just the place to put two thousand infantry who were at their best in a disjointed brawl and give them leave to do their worst.
The Islanders had risen to the challenge with a will. Their archers were perched on boulders further back, where they could take advantage of the greater range and hitting power of their goldenheart bows, but the spearmen and macemen among them . . .Thosemen had pushed forward through the boulder field like weasels through tall grass, keeping in contact with each other by call-and-response chants in their guttural, percussive tongue, and when they found slavers who sought to use the cover of the boulders to outflank the line the Legion was building they tore into them with every evidence of glee. Taquor Dar and Tarano Rhosaq had appeared to be in some sort of competition with each other when Jaime had seen them last, trading chaffering insults and egging each other on as they counted their slain. Zantar Salas had for once abandoned his habitual taciturnity to plunge into a knot of Lyseni with a leonine roar and his long mace whirling. Balabos Rhosas and Jalabhar Xho had gone off into the boulders together, Rhosas with belligerent anticipation animating his square and battered face while Xho had been concealing nervousness behind bravado, but Jaime had heard their voices in the chants since, so whatever they were doing they were still alive.
A clump of half a dozen slavers, these ones in the colors of a Volantene company, came clattering around a boulder just ahead of him and Jaime closed his visor, raised his longsword, and waded into them. The first went down with the swordpoint in his throat, the second had his cut foiled by a raised vambrace and was cut down with a snapping forehand cut to the neck, the third was wrestled against a boulder and knocked senseless by an armored elbow, the fourth took the head of Mantar's spear in his face as he tried to take advantage of Jaime's preoccupation with the fifth, who took a thrust to the groin and had his head bashed against another boulder hard enough to crack his skull through the helmet, and the sixth had just turned to run when Mantar's spear came sailing past Jaime's head and lanced into his back. Jaime raised his visor again and co*cked an eyebrow at Mantar as he stalked past. "Mind your aim, there, squire," he said mildly. "No need to be greedy."
"The day I miss a spear-cast after your teaching, ser, is the day I open my own throat in shame," Mantar retorted as he tugged his spear out of the dying man's back. A Lyseni stumbled around the corner and had barely enough time to recoil in shock before the iron knob at the butt end of Mantar's spear whistled under the brim of his kettle helmet and smashed his jaw off his face. "How much longer are we going to have to do this, ser?" Mantar asked half-jokingly as he spun his spear back into a proper grip and finished the man with a thrust to the neck. "Only you'd think the slavers would have learned by now that they can't force their way through these boulders while we hold them."
"They don't have much of a choice," Jaime said as he finished the man he had knocked out of his senses with a stamp of his armored heel. "If they can't break the Legion from the front, then they need to hit it from the flank. And they can either try the boulders here, or they can go try their luck on our right, where our cavalry has room to work."
Mantar nodded. "Suppose so, ser," he said. "Only I'm getting a bit dry for this work, if it please you."
Jaime returned his nod. "The Lyseni must have been marching all night to get close enough to launch this attack," he replied. "And they've been fighting as hard as we have all day. Think about how drytheymust be by now."
Mantar smiled, teeth startlingly white in the ebony blackness of his face. "Dryer still when we drain the blood from them," he said savagely, turning towards the trio of sellswords who had rounded a corner three boulders ahead and were now starting to rush them."Hi, a!"he shouted as he charged, Jaime clattering behind him.
By mid-afternoon, the Army of the South had managed to establish a defensive line along the rear of their camp and repelled two hastily-organized assaults. Partly the success was due to the enfilading fire of the Summer Islander bowmen in the boulder field along Claymoor Water, but mostly it was due to the fact that Naharis's success had left his army almost as battered and disorganized as the Army of the South. After a long and fraught night march and a hard day of battle, Naharis's army was in no condition to mount a frontal attack against such a line as the Army of the South had mustered, especially when they still had pockets of Myrish soldiers behind them trying to cut their way through to their comrades.
Naharis, to his credit, realized this, and also realized that trying to push through the boulder field on the banks of the Claymoor Water would be unwise. Even if his men could defeat the Summer Islanders, the boulder field was too narrow to permit the passage of enough men quickly enough to outflank the Army of the South before they could feed in reinforcements or refuse the threatened flank. Consequently, he focused his efforts on the Army of the South's right flank, where the ground was more open and conducive to cavalry fighting . . .
Ser Joren Potts couldn't remember the last time he had fought like this. Tyrosh had been grimmer, but in that fight there had been the certainty of eventual victory and the wrath born of the Tyroshi's atrocities to spur a man onward. The fighting of the coastal war, when he had first come to Myr, had more in common with it; those had been grinding, brutal fights, seasoned by the knowledge that every heartbeat counted when you were riding to the rescue of a village or a refugee column menaced by slaver galleys.
Here, they weren't fighting for victory, whatever Lord Corbray might roar in the spaces between charge and countercharge. They were fighting fortime, time for more isolated pockets of legionaries and dismounted cavalrymen to fight their way through the maelstrom to the line that was holding together by discipline alone, time for the Lyseni to feel the weight of their labors and the fatigue that demanded rest, and above all time for afternoon to give way to evening and eventually to sunset. Every attack that was foiled, whether by a countercharge or simply by bluffing one, bought precious minutes in which the enemy had to regroup their men.
The shadows were already lengthening, he saw as he knocked his visor upwards; a glance at the sun showed that it was barely six fingers above the horizon. Only an hour left of sunlight; the slavershadto strike them soon or give up any hope of breaking them before sunset. A warning shout directed his attention across the field and he felt the grim satisfaction of a man who sees his prophecy of bad luck unfolding; the slaver cavalry was massing for another charge. And this time there would be no half-measures. Not when, as Joren could see, the slavers were bringing their light horse into the line. He sloped his war hammer, a deceptively small affair forged from a single piece of steel, over his shoulder and nudged his horse into line; there were no more lances left, and he had left his sword irretrievably embedded in a slaver's ribs. He had taken the hammer from a mortally wounded knight of his company who had begged him to take it and give the bastards hell with his last breath. Ser Ferris More, that had been, and Joren had hardly recognized him with half his face staved in by a slaver's spearhead.
The trumpets sounded and Joren's spurs went back automatically, sending his horse forward at the walk; this late in the day even the best horses were tiring, and every breath counted in a cavalry charge and melee. Across the field the slavers were also advancing at the walk, with a banner showing two crossed lighting bolts and four crows flapping at their head. Joren set his teeth; that was the standard of Devil Daario himself. "Hear me, Warrior and Stranger," he said under his breath. "If you bring Daario Naharis under my hand and allow me to kill him, I will build a chapel to you both at Pottsdam when I return from this war." The trumpets sounded again, this time for the trot, and Joren began to bob in the saddle with the ease of the lifelong horseman as his horse picked up the pace. The knights around him heeled their horses up to pace as well, and Joren felt cruel resolve fill his bones. They were the knights of Myr, the iron fist of King Robert the Strong; with such a captain as Lord Corbray at their head there was no force on earth that could stand against them. And Lord Corbraywasat their head, under his banner of the raven and sword. Joren could see him not ten feet away brandishing Lady Forlorn as he exhorted the knights that could hear him over the rumble of hooves to strike the strength out of the enemy.
The trumpets sounded the two rising notes of the charge and Joren felt the familiar surge of living fire in his veins as he leaned forward in the saddle and co*cked his war hammer back over his shoulder as his horse lurched into the canter. "Free or Dead!" he roared with the other knights around him; on this desperate day every man had adopted the Legion's war cry. Joren heard Lord Corbray's howl of "Feed the Birds!", and then he was guiding his horse ever so slightly to the left to let him avoid a head-on collision with the slaver cavalryman directly to his front and throwing a haymaking blow with his hammer, trusting in his armor to ward the slaver's counterstroke.
The slaver's saber rang off his breastplate with an unmusicalskringg!and the shock of his hammer striking home vibrated up his arm and then the whole world was a pandemonium of noise and violence on every side. Joren spurred his horse onward, knowing that to sit still was death in a cavalry fight, and laid about him with wordless roars as the fury took him. A slaver's axe bit on his backplate, and a franticreversoblow over his left shoulder buried the spike on the back of the hammer in the slaver's face. Ripping it free with frenzied strength, Joren turned his horse to the right to ride down a slaver rising dazedly from the ruin of his fallen horse and made blood and bone fragments fly as he caught the man alongside the head with an upswinging blow. A slaver cavalryman with a longsword loomed ahead of him, keening a howling war-shout, but a borderer came crashing in from the side and speared him out of the saddle, only to be cut down in turn by a slaver in the colors of a Volantene company who rode up and dashed his brains out with an axe. Joren caught up to the Volantene a handful of moments later; his first blow broke the man's shoulder through his spaulder, his second jammed the pyramidal spike atop the hammer's shaft into the Volantene's mouth as he screamed, his third caved in the man's whole face above his lower jaw. His horse stumbled with a despairing whinny and Joren frantically threw himself free of the saddle as it foundered. He stumbled to his feet, had barely enough time to sway out of the way of a slaver saber, and only escaped death a second time by sidestepping again and swinging his hammer into the mouth of another slaver's horse. The slaver, a Lyseni by his surcoat, sawed at the reins frantically as his horse reared with a scream of pain, but Joren rushed in to seize him by the elbow, drag him off his horse, and dispatch him with three savage hammer blows.
A crash behind him made him whirl to see that Lord Corbray had rammed flat a slaver cavalryman who had been riding him down from behind. As Joren watched, he slew two more in quick succession with snapping blows of Lady Forlorn, and then raised his visor to laugh. "THEY FLEE!" he bellowed. "THEY'RE RUNNING, BOYS!"
Joren wheeled around to see that it was true; the slaverswerefalling back! And doing so in what could almost be taken for fear, at that. One man that Joren could see had no weapon in his hands and was crouched low over his horse's neck as he frantically drummed his spurs against it's flanks to make it gallop. Relief turned his knees to water for a brief moment; the slavers were done. They had survived the day. Thanks to the gods and Lord Corbray. He rose, muttering a brief prayer of thanks to the Warrior, and turned to see that Lord Corbray had ridden up next to him and was holding the reins of a riderless horse. "Up you get, Ser Joren," he said with a half-smile. "Can't have a knight of your worth walking off this field, can we?"
Joren nodded, reaching for the reins, and then his eyes dropped and what he saw made his heart stop. "My lord," he said dully, pointing at Lord Corbray's hip.
Lord Corbray looked down and saw what Joren had seen; one of his faulds had come away, somehow, during the fight, and he had taken a wound. A bad one, too; his thigh was covered in a sheet of blood. "Oh," Lord Corbray said dully. "Well. That's vexing, isn't it?" He leaned in the saddle like a drunkard, and Joren barely had time to dash underneath him to break his fall.
With the failure of his last assault, Naharis called an end to further attacks against the reformed line of the Army of the South. His army was so disorganized by the chaotic fighting that unscrambling it would take most of the night, and there were still pockets of resistance to reduce behind his lines. This latter was complicated by the fact that while Naharis was willing to offer mercy to any man who surrendered, the Legion didn't trust him to hold to his word. Or, perhaps more accurately, they didn't trust that he would be allowed to hold to his word by the Conclave, which had after all decreed that any rebel slave taken in arms was to suffer death. As for the non-Legion portion of the Army of the South, the borderers had no room in their particular code of military ethics for such heretical notions as trusting an enemy, while the chivalry generally considered themselves obligated to stand with the Legion and fight it out. The few exceptions were universally condemned as cowards throughout the Royal Army, and later investigations by the Royal Inspectors into the conduct of those knights who had surrendered would be unsparingly harsh.
Across the field, the Army of the South found itself facing a crisis of command . . .
- Dawn Like Thunder: The Battle of Claymoor Waterby Maester Winston
Jaime strode up and went to one knee by the improvised sickbed that held Lyn Corbray. "Before you ask what happened," Lyn said as he saw him, "let me tell you. My fauld came loose somehow, and someone on the ground thrust up at me with a spear that managed to get under the lower rim of the breastplate. The maesters think it might have nicked my guts, judging by the angle and depth of the wound." He snorted to himself. "You know, I always thought I would end in a duel with one of Viserys' Kingsguard, and not because some slaver bastard got lucky."
Jaime grimaced; if the maesters were correct, then Lyn was almost certainly a dead man. A thrust to the belly was just as lethal as one to the chest, especially if it opened the bowels; infection was inevitable, and inevitably fatal.
"Whether they're right or not, I won't be able to lead the army tomorrow," Lyn said, his glassy eyes fixed on Jaime's face. "It has to be you, Ser Jaime. You're the only one with the name, the birth, and the ability."
Jaime's jaw dropped for a long second. "But I've never . . ." he started.
"Doesn't matter," Lyn insisted. "Naharis has his army right in front of us, and if I know this army, they'll have their tails up for tomorrow. Just lead them forward, and they'll break anyone Naharis puts in front of them."
Jaime considered a dozen things he might say, then settled for nodding reluctantly. It was a simple enough plan that even he could pull it off, barring catastrophe. And if a catastrophe that bad hit, then even Lyn wouldn't have been able to save them.
"After the battle," Lyn went on, sweat beading on his forehead, "pursue Naharis; don't let him breathe until you run him to earth. Let Rainwater lead the pursuit, or Myhaelis Shardauqar, if Rainwater falls; they won't steer you wrong, and they both want Naharis' skull for a goblet. Orders from the King about what to do next are in my tent, unless Naharis took them." He paused for a moment, gritting his teeth against what was obviously a wave of pain. "Send my body back to Sirmium," he said when he had mastered himself. "My will is there, and a copy's with the Royal Inspectors in Myr city. My estate is all accounted for and entailed, and it names my successor as head of the Knights of the First Sept. Send Lady Forlorn back as well; my son will want her, when he's of an age."
Jaime nodded; he had heard Lyn say that his wife was pregnant. "Is there anything you want me to tell your lady wife?" he asked.
Lyn shook his head. "Nothing I can say that she doesn't know already," he replied. "Always my lady more than my wife, anyhow. She'll know what to do, once she gets the news. Sensible woman." He reached out and took Jaime's arm. "One thing you can do for me," he said, a gleam lighting in his eyes. "Finish the job.All these years I've made the Lyseni howl and scream; silence them for good and aye. Pillage and burn from the hills to the sea, run the Lyseni off the continent, and give this land a new name. And kill that bastard Naharis if you can; I'll rest easy with his skull mounted on the wall above my grave in the sept at Forlorn Hall."
Jaime nodded. "I won't promise that I can kill Naharis, the sneaky bugger that he is," he said. "But the rest I'll certainly do, or I'll answer for it."
Lyn nodded. "Thought you would," he said, before gritting his teeth again. "If you don't mind, I'll take some of the milk of the poppy the maesters offered me earlier. Didn't want to cloud my wits until after I'd set you up with the army."
Jaime nodded. "I'll name one of my sons after you, when they come," he promised.
Lyn gave a short caw of laughter. "You won't be the only one, I'll warrant," he said with a smile that was half pain-filled and half sardonic. "But I'll take it as a serous compliment from you, instead of simple flattery."
Jaime smiled, rose, and withdrew with a short bow. As the maesters moved in he turned and strode towards the little clump of officers that constituted the command of the Army of the South. "Ser Lyn has passed command of the army to me," he said shortly. "Prepare your men; at first light, we attack."
Jon Rainwater raised a bushy eyebrow. "Slavers kicked all kinds of hell out of our men today, ser," he said, in a tone that made it clear that he was simply stating a fact instead of offering an opinion.
"Yes, they did," Jaime said. "And come the morn, we'll return the favor."
Chapter 134: Backdraft (Battle of Claymoor Water, Mainland Lys, Day Two)
Chapter Text
Lord Lannister swung himself into the saddle with a lightness that Ser Joren Potts couldn't help envying. There had only been time for a few snatched hours of sleep in the night before the army had to awaken again and get itself in order for this new day of battle. Joren could feel every ache and pain in his muscles and bones from the day before, and he was young and strong. What the older men like iron-bearded Ser Mikkel Bedvyr might feel like he didn't care to imagine.
But a look down the line of the army was enough to banish pain. Devil Dario had thrown the best and strongest blow he could hope to throw at the Army of the South the day before, and only a fool would deny that it was battered and bruised. But that same bruising had made it angry, like a proud man feeling a slight. And the news that Lord Corbray was down with what promised to be a mortal wound had fanned the sullen fire in the hearts of the men; Lord Corbray was the Stormcrow, the shield and sword of the southern kingdom. He had led these men in raid, battle and siege a dozen times or more. They wanted revenge for his blood.
Lord Lannister sat his horse like a graven image for a long moment, the remnants of gilding on his armor glinting even in the half-light of the early dawn, and then he walked his horse out in front of the line with his standard-bearer and raised a gauntleted hand. "Brothers!" he shouted. "These dogs of slavers feared us so much that they only dared attack us in our sleep! Imagine how they shall fear us now that we are roused in wrath!"
A bloodthirsty howl from the serried ranks, where men from half a dozen different companies might be clustered under a single banner and knights and men-at-arms who had no horses stood in the rear ranks of the Legion, ready to plug any gaps that opened or plunge into any general scrums that developed.
"Yesterday, we cried 'Free or Dead'," Lord Lannister continued. "But we are free, and will remain so until we die, and all know this! So today, we shall take a new cry, one that shall tell the slavers what we will do to any who would place chains upon free men!" He drew his sword and raised it overhead, and the rising sun flamed on the blade. "Feed the Birds!" he roared.
"Feed the Birds!" the Army chorused back, brandishing spears and swords. "Feed the Birds! Feed the Birds!"
"For our Stormcrow and revenge!" Lord Lannister bellowed, turning his horse to level his sword at the camp where the slavers waited. "At them!"
The infantry stepped off with a wordless roar and Joren spurred his horse forward, taking his war hammer off his shoulder as the chivalry rumbled forward, knights and squires and men-at-arms snarling fury around him. As one of the senior landed knights in Lord Corbray's former retinue, he was their second-in-command this day; Ser Henryk Ford had command, as the senior survivor of Lord Corbray's household knights. But Joren didn't think that there would be much need for orders this day. Every man knew what was to be done, and wanted it with all his heart. Lord Corbray had been the best of lords, after King Robert, and there was not a man of his knights that was not chanting "Stormcrow, Stormcrow, Stormcrow!" as they roweled their chargers into the canter.
XXX
"The sellswords folded!" Captain Nakano Sanolis yelled as he saw Captain-General Naharis come pounding up with his household. "Folded like ragdolls, the cowards . . ."
"I'll deal with the sellswords!" Naharis shouted. "In the meantime, get your company back in order and back in the fight . . ."
"They'vebeenin the f*cking fight!" Sanolis howled, indignation overwhelming the despair that had started to creep into his veins. "They've been in the f*cking fight for the last day and a half, while those cowardly f*cks in the sellsword companies looted the enemies we killed for them . . ."
"I said I'll deal with the f*cking sellswords!" Naharis roared back, his face stormy above his pointed beard and mustachios, which were in disarray from the hard days and nights that had brought them to this field. "But I can't do that without your company keeping those bastards," he gestured at the Myrish knights reforming in the distance, "from collapsing our flank! Now lead your men,Captain, or I'll find someone who will!"
Sanolis felt hot anger surge through his veins and turn his vision red for a long moment before discipline reasserted itself. "At your command,sir," he snarled as he wheeled his horse and started bawling for his men to reform,reform! They would survive this day where nothing was going right, and he would have a reckoning with this upjumped mercenary who thought he could speak to a scion of a proud house of the Old Blood like a master spoke to a slave.
Behind him, Daario Naharis shook his head in frustration; he knew he had just made a mortal enemy, but it couldn't be helped. Any other army would have broken under the beating he had given them yesterday, but thef*ckingabolitionists had somehow managed to pull themselves together overnight and now they were pressing him for everything he was worth. They hadn't broken his line yet, but only by a miracle. He had started the battle yesterday with thirty captains; by midnight he had had nineteen fit for duty, and four of those had already gone down, with the sun not yet at high noon. The lieutenants and corporals had taken similar casualties, and the companies they officered were becoming more rickety by the hour. The two companies of Unsullied that formed the center of his line were as steady as ever, of course, but they had already had to withdraw under cover of cavalry attacks twice to avoid being outflanked. Even the Unsullied couldn't hold a phalanx against attacks from front and flank at the same time, not unless they had time to form a hedgehog. And being forced back into the campground had disrupted their ability to form that phalanx, what with all the tents and other obstructions being in the way.
He wheeled his horse, swearing savagely as he did;damnLyn Corbray and every lord and knight of Myr to the deepest of their seven hells for pulling a miracle out of their ass like this. Was it too much to ask that Fortune favor him for once? "Follow me," he growled at his household, reduced to standard-bearer, trumpeter, and a handful of couriers; his Stormcrows were scattered across half the field acting as temporary officers. "I need to talk to the Black Hands." Their captain would have much to answer for if they had indeed folded as Sanolis said they had.
XXX
Jalabhar Xho had never felt so jittery, not even when he had first ascended his throne and had to make his first judgement; he had seen his father do it often enough, and spent years learning how to do it.Nothinghad prepared him for this.
Thisbeing something on the order of forty thousand men, more or less evenly divided, doing their level best to exterminate each other. Even the wildest imaginings of his youth had not encompassed such a scale of violence. Nor had he guessed what such slaughter would entail in sounds and sights andsmells.Gods, I was eager forthis?
Not that he could let it show, of course. He was the Prince of Red Flower Vale; he could not show weakness, and fear was weakness. And it wasn't just fear that was making his hands twitch as liquid fire seared along his nerves. It was also fury, and the savage elation that came with having the enemy under your spear. Beside him, Balabos Rhosas's battered face was split by a grin of murderous anticipation as he watched the Legion grind away at the battle-line the slavers had assembled. On the other flank, Ser Jaime was leading the cavalry in charge after charge to try and cave in the slavers' left flank and drive them into the Claymoor Water. So far he was being stymied in that effort, but to do that the slavers had had to pull more and more forces away from their right. At the start of the battle there had been two companies of horse positioned behind the slavers' right flank, ready to pounce on any attempt by the Islanders to leave the boulder field along the bank of the Water and do what the slavers had tried to do the day before. Now both of those companies were gone, except for a single banda that had spread itself out into a widely-spaced line to try and bluff that it was still a mighty force.
Of course, even a single banda of cavalry could still wreak havoc on infantry that wasn't formed to repel them, especially if they were busy fighting someone else when the cavalry hit. Although there were ways to counter that . . . Jalabhar glanced at Balabos, who caught his eye and shook his head. "Not yet," he rasped; everyone was hoarse and harsh of voice this morning, from all the shouting the day before. "Wait for them to stall the Legion, think they can still win. We'll shock the sh*t out of them."
Jalabhar nodded, fingering the arrows in the bag that hung at his waist. He was a fair hand with spear and mace, but he was best with the goldenheart bow that was the guardian of the freedom of Islands. It was a common saying that a Summer Islander archer carried forty men's lives in his arrow bag. Jalabhar had only half that many after yesterday's fighting, but he meant to make the saying true.
And even to his inexperienced eye it looked like he would have the opportunity soon. The Legion and the dismounted knights were doing everything that men could, but so far the slavers had managed to hold them to a bloody stalemate, if at the cost of giving ground. The Unsullied were upholding their reputation as the best defensive infantry in the known world, but the Lyseni and the sellswords fighting on either side of them didn't have the same ironbound discipline. What theydidhave was desperation; they had to know as well as Jalabhar did that if the Army of the South broke them then it would make mainland Lys a welter of blood from the border hills to the sea strand. Animals, Jalabhar had learned from his father and uncles on his first hunt, were never more dangerous than when they were cornered. Men, he had found, were no different.
Before his eyes the slow progress of the Legion slowed even further as a company of sellswords distinguished by red cloths wrapped around their helmets was committed. Jalabhar looked at Balabos again; Balabos shook his head again. "Not yet," he repeated.
XXX
"Blind me, gods," Daario Naharis whispered to himself as he saw a wave of bellowing warriors come boiling out of the boulder field on his right. The green banda of the Wild Hunt, the last cavalry reserve he had on that flank, rocked forward into the beginnings of a charge as the enemy broke cover, but Daario knew what was going to happen next even before it happened; no competent commander would have let his troops expose themselves to cavalry in that way if they didn't have a plan to deal with that cavalry. He flicked his eyes towards the boulders and saw, with sickening certainty that archers had been lifted up onto the boulders, where they could shoot over the heads of their comrades. He also saw, with numbing dread, that they were Summer Islanders; if the guttural war cry they had voiced hadn't given it away, the bows they bent would have; goldenheart wood had a distinctive sheen, even at this distance.
The strongest bows in the world were made from goldenheart wood; only weirwood and dragonbone compared. The charge of the Wild Hunt came apart before Daario's eyes as the yard-long shafts of the Islanders tore through their horses, spilling riders to the unforgiving earth. At the same time, the other Islanders went at the militia company that formed Daario's right flank with a roar and tore it apart. Even the Unsullied might have crumbled under that onslaught, pinned from the front by heavy infantry and caught in the flank by Islander headhunters. As Daario watched the debacle unfold he felt the abyss open beneath him. He had no cavalry still in reserve, nothing that could restore the situation quickly. His Stormcrows were holding his left against the Myrish chivalry by luck, guts, and the help of the remaining diehards in his cavalry companies, those that weren't temporarily commanding otherwise leaderless companies. Virtually all his infantry was in the line that had just ground the Iron Legion to a halt; his only reserve was one company of sellswords, the Maiden's Men, and the odds that they would be willing to charge into that maelstrom on a slim hope of restoring the balance were long; a sellsword's contract obligated him to be brave, but not suicidal.
There were, in fact, only two things he could do. He turned to one of his two remaining couriers. "Bring the Maiden's Men up and have them form a line a hundred yards behind where we are now," he said briskly. "Inform Captain Haegert that he has my express permission to use any means necessary to halt fleeing men and bring them back into order." As the courier galloped away he turned to his standard-bearer and trumpeter. "With me, gentlemen, and stay right on my heels if you please," he said, and raked his spurs down his horse's flanks.
He was shouting even as he reached the first fugitives from the flank's collapse. "Rally, boys! Rally on the Maiden's Men! Don't disgrace yourselves!" He turned his horse and began cantering the length of the faltering line. "Back, boys!" he roared. "Back, and rally on the Maiden's Men! Courage now, lads; keep with your officers!" His men obeyed, too well. Men began to stream backwards from the line, some discarding weapons and shields. Daario, seized by desperation, tore his helmet from his head and brandished it high, sunlight glancing from the burnished metal and horsehair plume streaming. "Rally to me, lads!" he bellowed. "Here is your Captain! Come on, lads, don't disgrace me, not now! Stand to your Captain, men!" Arrows and crossbow bolts began whistling past him but he cantered on, throwing caution to the winds as he resorted to beseeching for once in his life. "Rally to your Captain, men!" he begged. "For your homes, your families, and your lives, rally to me! To me, men of Essos! Don't disgrace your banners, rally to me!" He cast aside his helmet and seized a Lyseni banner from a fleeing standard-bearer, punching it into the air. "Rally to the Lady, men!" he implored. "Defend your Lady, don't let the foreigners defile her! Rally to me and the Lady, men of Lys, of Volantis, of Essos! Rally, rally, rally!"
Between his entreaties, his trumpeter blowingregroupuntil he was red in the face and gasping, and what he could only describe as a miracle, the burgeoning retreat slowed. Men began to clump together again, around lieutenants and sergeants and corporals. Instead of running they walked, many of them backwards to keep their shields and their spears towards the foe with one of their number facing rearwards and calling the step. Daario felt an arrowspangoff his pauldron but when it didn't go home in his head or neck he ignored the blow and rode on, bawling for his men to rally, to stand together, to hold fast for their gods, their families, and their freedoms.
XXX
Ser Joren Potts handed his helmet and gauntlets to his squire Draqos and knelt at Lord Corbray's bedside. "You called for me, my lord?" he asked.
Lord Corbray's eyes, already glassy with fever from the wound-rot that Joren could already smell from under his bandages, focused on him. "I did, Ser Joren," he said softly. "The day went well?"
Joren nodded. "We drove the enemy out of the camp, and down the Water for half a mile," he replied. "We nearly broke them entirely, but Devil Daario rallied them by some art of the hells. Lord Lannister thinks that he will withdraw, though, rather than risk another day of battle. Even the skeptics agree with him." He shook his head. "You should have seen it, my lord; the whole army was chanting your name as the slavers retreated. Even men I know are Baelorites. Every man I've spoken to thinks the Lyseni are finished if only Lord Greyjoy breaks their fleet as we have their army, for all Devil Daario can do."
Lord Corbray nodded. "A splendid day, then, and pass my compliments to the men for it. As for Naharis," his voice turned wry. "The Lord of the Seven Hells takes care of his own. But even Naharis won't push his luck too far; he's too much the sellsword. But enough of that; I would have you do me a service, ser."
Joren nodded. "Anything, my lord."
"Finish me off," Lord Corbray said bluntly. "I'd rather die with all my faculties intact, instead of going mad with disease."
Joren's jaw dropped. "My lord, is this even permissible?" he asked when he finally mastered his shock. "The Faith . . ."
"The Faith can lick my ass on this question," Lord Corbray said crudely. "A septon might be able to bear dying like a sheep, but not me. A son of House Corbray should only die on his own terms. Besides," he smirked crookedly, "I put in my will that if I took a mortal wound and one of my knights put me out of my misery, they were to be the first of my heirs to have their portion settled, after my wife and children. It's not much, just the rents of a few villages near Sirmium, but the lawyers won't be able to peel it off to settle any debts I've forgotten about."
Joren's jaw dropped again. "My lord, I've always been your man," he said. "But to put me in your will . . ."
"Is no more than you deserve, ser knight," Lord Corbray insisted. "You and I have had our differences, deny it if you like, but you never made a show of them. Nor did you ever let it affect your fealty to me." He reached out and clutched at Joren's arm. "You've always been one of the best of my knights, ser. Don't fail me now. There's no one else I would trust with this."
Joren hesitated, then drew his dagger. "Where do you want it, my lord?" he asked.
"Straight to the heart," Lord Corbray said, letting go of Joren's arm and plucking at his shirt. "And don't co*ck it up, ser knight; I've had enough pain and inconvenience for one lifetime already."
Joren gulped, whispered a prayer to steady his nerves, and then thrust.
Lord Corbray was a legend even before his final battle, but his death, coming as it did at the close of such a hard-fought victory, made him into a myth. The story that his last words were "Myr. The Army, Freedom. Lady Forlorn." is now considered an invention of various writers of chivalric propaganda in King Robert's court, but it was incontestably believed to be true until a few short decades ago. Even his rivals found themselves singing his praises. Septon Edmynd, one of the most prominent Baelorite septons in the Kingdom of Myr, offered a eulogy wherein he said of Lyn Corbray that, his heresy notwithstanding, he "by his zeal for glory, by the prudence of his counsel, by his heroic bravery in the field, and by the steadfast rigor of his rule, was one of the miracles of the Seven."
Champion or Charlatan?: A critical study of Lord Lyn Corbray and his deedsby Maester Gilbert, written forNew Medieval Studiesperiodical.
Chapter 135: Hot Spots
Chapter Text
"Gentlemen," Robert said as the last drinks were poured and the squires withdrew to the edges of the pavilion, "we find ourselves faced with a historic opportunity. It is not more than once in a lifetime that one's principal foe places himself within reach of your armies. And let none of us be mistaken; Viserys Targaryenisour principal foe. His stated goals encompass the deaths of most of the men in this pavilion, along with their wives and every member of their families, and the reduction to slavery of the people we have sworn sacred oaths to lead and protect. Let us, therefore, apply our energies not to forcing him to retreat, but to drawing him into a battle where we can destroy his army and kill him."
Matteo Contarenos, the Braavosi Viceroy of Pentos, nodded from where he sat at Robert's left hand. "I fully concur with this sentiment," he said firmly. "As does the Sealord and the Council of Thirty. A Volantis that accepts its traditional sphere of influence over the lower Rhoyne and restrains the adventuristic tendencies of the tiger party we can live with, especially if they make efforts towards the abolition of slavery. A Volantis that seeks to make itself the master of the whole continent west of the Great Grass Sea wecannotlive with, especially with a man such as Viserys Targaryen at its head."
There was a wave of nodding heads and approving murmurs around the table; many of the men sitting there were old enemies of the slaver cities, albeit some of them were only recent allies. Mycan Banderis was one such, having argued in favor of abolition even before the Sunset Company had landed in Pentos but only in the last few years come out in armed opposition to slavery's continued existence. A fact reflected by the relatively low number of men under his command; Free Norvos mustered barely a thousand men, many of them refugees twice over having lost their second homes in Ghoyan Drohe. Only the fact that Robert and Contarenos had hopes for a relatively smooth takeover of Norvos if Banderis was kept on their side had led them to offer him a seat at the council table. Samwell Tarly was another newcomer to the Slave Wars, both in his own person and in who he represented; Stannis of Westeros had fought precisely one battle against the slaver cities, off Tyrosh, and then only under the terms of the Peace of Pentos, which had named him as guarantor and enforcer of its terms. Since then he had held himself aloof, preoccupied by putting down revolts and managing the fallout from the schisms of the Faith. Which was probably why Samwell was letting Ser Harry Flash do most of the talking for him; almost alone among Stannis' knights, Ser Harry had a famous name as a champion of abolition. Contarenos had already invited him to dinner, as a gesture of appreciation for the man who had saved Braavos from wildfire.
"Let us, then, hear the report of the situation as it presently stands," Robert said, gesturing to Eddard Stark at his right hand. "My Lord Stark, how are we situated?"
Eddard stood, folding his hands behind his back. "Our combined armies number approximately fifty thousand men," he began. "The larger part of that number, twenty thousand foot and ten thousand horse, are men of the Royal Army. The remainder is the Braavosi Army of Pentos, as reinforced by the militias of the countryside and King Stannis's Expedition." There were murmurs around the table; that was easily the largest army fielded in western Essos since the Century of Blood.
"The Grand Army of Volantis, judging by the reports of our scouts and the interrogation of prisoners, is at least our equal in numbers," Eddard went on. "Of those, the majority will be Volantene militia, Unsullied, and the Targaryen's own Exile Company. We are reliably informed, however, that the Tattered Prince has taken the field at the Targaryen's side, with eight thousand Norvoshi and his own two thousand Windblown. We can also expect the survivors of Khal Drogo's horde to rally to the Targaryen's banner in some numbers, although what those numbers are will necessarily be unclear until we can actually engage the Targaryen in battle. We have also received reports that the Targaryen brought some number of war elephants up the Rhoyne, but he was forced to send them back southwards due to the destruction of the supply warehouses at Ghoyan Drohe."
The murmurs were silenced. Every man at the table was old enough in war to know that when it came to a fight even odds were sucker's odds. As Ser Brynden Tully was fond of saying, "If you find yourself in a fair fight, you've done something wrong."
"Furthermore," Eddard added, "it appears that the Targaryen is marching down the dragonroad from Ghoyan Drohe as swiftly as he can. At last report he was eight day's march away, making reasonable progress for an army of such size. We can expect heavy contact between our outriders and his as opposed to mere skirmishing within the next three to four days, and if we remain astride the dragonroad we will find ourselves in a pitched battle within five to seven days. Sooner, if we advance to contact."
There was a moment's silence that was broken by Ser Harry Flash, the new commander of the Expedition. "Would it be advisable to draw the Targaryen onwards into a zone we have denuded of supplies?" he asked. "Fifty thousand men must eat veritable tons of food every day. If we fall back before him, carting away all the food and forage we can carry and burning or spoiling the rest, it would do much to sap the strength of his army before the day of battle."
Ser Brynden shook his head. "He can ferry supplies up the Rhoyne from Ny Sar to Ghoyan Drohe," he said, "and use the dragonroad to cart them up to his army. And if we employ such a strategy, then he may decide to fall back, make Ghoyan Drohe a fortress and a supply depot as great as he has made of Ny Sar, and attack us again a year or two from now, after using his cavalry and whatever Dothraki gather to his banner to weaken us by raids. We cannot keep an army as large as this in the field year after year; we must use it while we have it."
Eddard nodded. "And do so while we have the impetus of our recent victory over Khal Drogo," he added. "After consulting with the Viceroy's officers and the local experts," he nodded to Septon Deryk, who was sitting on the council by virtue of his leadership of the Old Faith, "we have a plan." A gesture brought Ser Gerold Dayne forward with a map of the local area which he unrolled over the table; servants stepped forward to weigh down the corners with spare cups. "The Targaryen must keep his army on the dragonroad," Eddard said. "It is the only way he can bring up the necessary weight of supplies from Ghoyan Drohe to keep his army in the field. That means that we know, more or less, where he is coming from and what route he will take to get to us. And the best battlefield along that route, Septon Deryk's men assure us, is here." He pointed to a spot on the map two thirds of the way down the dragonroad from Ghoyan Drohe to Haven. "At this place, the dragonroad crosses the Agneiat River; it's small, compared to the Rhoyne or even the Blackwater Rush, but still a river for all that. There is a community of the Old Faith there by the name of Sixstars, or there was before the Dothraki came through."
Septon Deryk nodded. "We have not heard from them since the war started," he said. "And when I ordered that all outlying settlements evacuate to Haven, none came from Sixstars. It is possible that they have simply been cut off from communication, but I fear the worst."
"Whether they yet live or not," Eddard went on, "the ground there is reportedly favorable for the kind of army we field. The inhabitants of Sixstars took over a plantation that was abandoned after we liberated Pentos in 'eighty-nine; at last report they were replanting the flax and cotton fields in wheat and rye and bringing the woodlots back in order. My advice, Your Grace, Your Excellency, is that we march to Sixstars at our best speed and offer Viserys battle along the banks of the Agneiat."
Robert and the Viceroy exchanged looks; the Viceroy's mouth twisted in an uncertain grimace. "I confess that I know little of battle compared to Your Grace," he said. "But it seems to me that such a battle as Lord Stark seems to envision would be a great gamble."
"A gamble of the sort that we have consistently won, since we came to this land," Robert replied, stroking his short beard. "Due in no small part to Lord Stark's prowess in leading men." He looked at Eddard and Ser Brynden. "My lords, are you certain that we can win such a battle?"
Ser Brynden nodded; Eddard bowed. "Your Grace," Eddard said, "if I do not take Viserys Targaryen's head in this battle, then I give him leave to send you mine."
"Perhaps, but I do not," Robert retorted, drawing a laugh from the captains. "But let it be so; we will offer battle on the banks of the Agneiat."
Eddard's face split in a carnivorous smile.
XXX
In Lys . . .
"They're gone?" Jaime asked, dumbfounded. "All of them?"
The borderer, one of Jon Rainwater's two surviving sons, nodded. "The ashes of their campfires were still warm, my lord, but they were gone," he said. "My father and the other borderers are following their tracks now, to find their rearguard."
Jaime nodded. "Very well then," he said. "Wait for a moment." As Rainwater's son, who had introduced himself as Matthos, bowed and withdrew a pace, Jaime turned to his captains. "By the gods, gentlemen, but we've broken them," he said, excitement creeping into his voice. "We must follow."
Ser Joren Potts, who despite the small size of his holdings was one of the more famous and hence more prominent lords in the Army of the South, frowned. "We've lost almost a fifth of our men, my lord," he pointed out. "And those that still live will need at least a day or two of rest before they're fit for battle again."
"Naharis' losses are as bad or worse," Jaime insisted. "They must be, after how hard we fought him those two days. And his army doesn't have a tenth the staying power ours does, because it's notonearmy; it's three or four armies, all with different goals. The Lyseni citizens want to hold us at bay and keep their slaves, the Volantenes want the Lyseni to bear the brunt of the war so their city doesn't have to, the sellswords want to spend their pay, and the Unsullied just want to follow orders. If we press on and hit them,now, we can break them apart."
"My lord," Lord Brendan Naysmith asked tentatively, "what exactly are our orders from King Robert? Do they encompass the outright conquest of Lys the way Lord Corbray said they did?"
Jaime shrugged. "I searched Lord Corbray's tent after we retook it, but I did not find his orders from King Robert," he admitted. "Naharis has them now, I assume, or one of his soldiers, if he needed something to wipe his ass with. In any case, my lords," he said over the snickers, "do any of us have any doubt as to our King's desires regarding the Lyseni? I myself heard him pledge to liberate Lys, in his wedding day speech. We here are in a position to fulfill that pledge for him, if we are bold enough to seize the opportunity."
The lords still looked dubious, but the Legion captains were catching Jaime's mood; many of them were nodding agreement. "And once we get into the Lyseni interior, many of our problems will resolve themselves," said Captain Hyrios March of the Dubris Regiment. "Even in peacetime we had a trickle of escapees from over the border, for all Devil Daario could do to curb them. Once we enter the districts where he wasn't able to all but abolish slavery, they willfloodto us, when they see that we have come at last. They will not be trained soldiers, but they will learn, and willingly, to have the chance to avenge themselves on the masters."
"Consider also, gentlemen," interjected Balabos Rhosas, "how it will look to the Lyseni if we pursue them. Daario Naharis is their best captain, and he struck us with the hardest blow he could throw. If we show them that even such a blow, thrown by such a captain, could do no more than bloody our noses and make us angry . . ." He spread his hands. "That in itself will be a blow. I have fought across half the world for forty years, gentlemen, at every scale from armies of thousands to single ships, and I have seen time and again that men fight worse when their enemy appears invincible."
The lords exchanged glances, then nodded acquiescence. Jaime clapped his hands. "Excellent. Master Rainwater! My compliments to your father, and when he finds the Lyseni rearguard he is to press them as closely as he may. We are breaking camp now and will march to his support at our best speed." As Matthos Rainwater bowed and leapt back onto his horse, Jaime nodded to his captains. "Boots and saddles, gentlemen, and don't let the grass grow under you."
XXX
In King's Landing . . .
Brienne of Tarth could hear men speaking around her, but she cared nothing for what they said. Not when the evidence of her failure lay manifest before her.
When the riot had struck, she had acted as Ser Cortnay had trained her and Theon, putting herself between Princess Joanna and the danger and fighting like mad. She dimly remembered her sword breaking over a man's skull and having to rely only on her dagger and the plate armor that she had donned that morning on the force of habit and a hunch that there might be trouble in a city so recently torn by plague. But all her training, all her devotion, and all her fury had been unable to stop a cobblestone from sailing over her head and breaking the princess's skull. Now Princess Joanna lay sprawled inelegantly on the cobbled street, her laughing eyes staring lifelessly at a sky that suddenly seemed too bright and too cloudless.
It was not right, Brienne decided dully, that such an ill day should be so fair. But that was only the least thing that was wrong with this day. To begin with, her princess was dead, and she still lived.
"Squire Brienne," she heard someone say faintly. She ignored them. She had failed in her only task; she did not deserve the title of squire. She did not deserve tolive, now, without seeking vengeance on whatever dog had killed the princess. But who was there to be avenged upon? One cobblestone, thrown in a riot amidst a storm of cobblestones, could not be traced to a single hand. And many of the rioters were dead already; she had seen the charge that the Order knights and mounted men of the City Watch had delivered.
"Squire Brienne!" The tone of command made her head jerk upwards; for a wild moment she thought King Stannis had risen from the tomb he had just this day been interred in. But it was only Lord Renly, who was looking at her with the blank expression of a man faced with a hard deed that must be done. "We must take the princess's body back to the Red Keep," he went on, his voice lighter than the King's, now that Brienne cared to listen to it. "Will you assist me in doing this?"
Brienne could only nod; when she tried to speak shame strangled her. As Lord Renly gestured for a cart to be brought forward, Brienne dully wiped some of the blood from her dagger, sheathed it, and then eased her arms under Joanna's shoulders and legs. Two knights in Lord Renly's colors moved to help her but stepped back at her wordless snarl. She had failed once already; she would not fail inthis, the last duty that she could perform. Alone and unassisted she carried her princess's body to the cart and laid her on it, doing her best to arrange her body to give some semblance of dignity. Finally she stepped back and gave Lord Renly a wordless, miserable nod. Lord Renly stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Will you walk after her with me?" he said.
"I'm sorry!" Brienne burst out; she could no longer bear it. "I tried to protect her but I couldn't and now she's dead I'm so sorry my lord . . ."
Renly silenced her with a rough embrace. "There was nothing more you could have done," he said gruffly, grief coloring his own voice. "I saw how many men you slew to protect my niece; there are knights who have seen many battles that would not have done so well. You could no more have warded the stone that killed her than you could have warded a bolt of lightning."
Brienne shook her head dumbly against Renly's surcoat. "I could have donesomething," she said miserably, holding back tears by main will. "I could have seen it, reached for it . . ."
"Seen one flying cobblestone among dozens, through a visor, while fighting a mob," Renly replied. "Like enough, if you were the Warrior come to earth. Squire Brienne, what you did to protect my niece even the best of my knights would find difficult. Let the Queen say what she likes of this;Isay that you did all you could, and no blame attaches to you for this. Now let us take her home, you and I."
Brienne nodded, feeling the tears come in spite of the fact that her jaw was clenched hard enough to make her teeth creak. As they began the long walk up to the Red Keep, the cart creaking and thumping along in front of them, there was only one thought in her head as the tears began to stream down her cheeks.I will make amends for this. Cost what it may, Iwillmake amends for this.
XXX
Ser Bronn Smith watched the Master of Laws and the royal squire walk back to the Red Keep and shook his head. As if the day hadn't gone sideways far enough, without the most popular member of the royal family catching it.
And it had started so well, too, he reflected as he accepted a bottle from a harassed-looking corporal who almost addressed him as 'Sarge' before catching himself. The city had been hungry, in mourning, reeling from the plague, and looking for someone to blame for it all, but King Stannis's funeral procession had made it from the Red Keep to the Great Sept with all the ceremonial that the Iron Throne could muster on short notice. As long as he lived, Bronn knew, he would remember the Street of the Seven lined on either side with a solid wall of people in mourning colors, hats doffed as the carriage bearing Stannis's casket rumbled past them to the muttering of muffled drums. But once the service at the Great Sept was over and the royals had started to process back to the Red Keep, things had gone sideways, as if Stannis's burial had given people license to give voice to suspicions they would never have dared admit to while he still lived.
It had begun with someone throwing a lump of horse dung at Queen Cersei with a shout of "Kingslaying bitch!" The Queen had ordered that the man who insulted her be taken, the man-at-arms wearing her colors that had strode forward took a brickbat to the dome, and one of his friends had drawn his sword and started cutting.
What followed had been worse than anything Bronn had seen in all his years with the Order. He had seen skirmishes with bandits in the Kingswood, joined the Watch in manhunts through Flea Bottom, even served a term on the royal galleys in the Stepstones, but nothing had compared to thousands of people driven mad. Some had shouted for justice for the king's death, some had shouted death to Reformist heresy or Baelorite idolatry, and some had simply roared hatred of all and sundry. And Bronn, who had been knighted only the day before to replace Ser Gareth Price, who had died of the plague, had been in the thick of all of it with his squad, working minor miracles of discipline and prowess from second to second to hold the mob at bay while the royals retreated to the Red Keep. If Lord Renly and his knights hadn't been in full array and mounted on their warhorses, it would have been impossible; only their thundering charges had been able to drive the crowd back and give the Order infantry and the Watch space and time to fall back after the royals.
He knocked the top off the bottle, took a pull, and winced, both at the bitterness of the strong ale that was the Order's favored tipple and the bodies that still lay strewn across the street. The riots might have moved on for now, but only a fool would think they were done. He could hear distant shouting and see thin trails of smoke from down Flea Bottom way, and even if Flea Bottom wasn't the cesspool it was, this wasn't going to be a single outburst, not with the mood the city was in. And not just the city either; the Queen would still want blood for being called kingslayer and bitch before so many thousands, and the High Septon, until recently Most Devout Hugar, had already started calling for the city to be cleansed with fire and sword, or so Bronn had heard. As he might, given that he had come within an ace of being pulled down by the mob before two of Renly's knights had chopped him loose and herded him back into the Great Sept. The Baelorites would blame it on the Reformists, Bronn knew, and the Reformists would blame it on the Baelorites. And others would swear it was all the Lannister's fault for killing Good King Stannis and that Tywin the Terrible was on his way even now to sack the city a second time. Bronn glanced back up the street; the bitter jest was that he just might, and with good reason, once he learned about his granddaughter.
And he would learn, sure as death. Hadn't he heard that both the Queen and Lord Renly had sent for troops from outside the city to restore order? Word of why they were doing that would get out, and once it did . . . well, the news that had arrived this morning that the Point lords, of all f*cking people, had laid siege to Whispering Tower on Crackclaw Point would be just the beginning, that was for f*cking sure.The king's dead,Bronn thought sourly as he took another pull at the bottle.So all the little devils he tied in knots are coming out to play, and gods help the poor bastard who tries to stuff 'em back in the bottle.
The sight of a runner in an Order tabard, evidently searching for someone in charge of something, made him want to take the bottle and find a quiet corner somewhere, but he quashed the impulse and waved the lad over. A new knight he might be, but he knew what the Order expected of it's knights. "What's the trouble, lad?" he asked as the runner pounded to a halt, already bracing himself for the worst.
"Riot brewing at Little Qohor, ser," the runner gasped. "Some street preacher's whipping up a crowd by saying that the plague's the fault of slaver blood magic and the foreigners have to die beforethey get all of us. The Qohori and the other foreigners are putting up barricades, but . . ."
Bronn motioned for him to stop; he'd heard enough. "You can tell me the rest as we go. Sergeant Bones! Leave a squad here to help the Sisters and bring everyone else after me; I don't care if he's in the ground or not, King Stannis expects every man to do his duty."And we've got a whole bloody buggering shipload of duty to do, haven't we just?
XXX
"Gentlemen," Renly Baratheon began, forcing his voice to be steady despite the nerves, "before we begin, I must ask each of you; can any of you think of any way to avert the calamity that faces us other than this plan of ours?"
Every head present shook in denial; they had all had the same conversations over the past days, and come to the same conclusions. If they hadn't, they would not be here in this darkened room under Stormhaven Tower.
"Very well, then," Renly said. "Tomorrow, at noon, Ser Jacen Landser and I will take our lances and arrest the Queen and Lord Lannister. They will be confined to their quarters under guard until the King has returned and been crowned." Ser Jacen nodded agreement; as the senior surviving Stormguard, he had temporary command until Ser Cortnay could recover. His part in the arrest was to keep the Queen's squad of Stormguard from interfering, and swaying them to join the efforts that would follow.
"Simultaneously, Ser Jaymes Cafferen will secure the ravenry while Ser Davyd Swygert secures the semaphore. Meanwhile, Ser Dannel Tanner and Ser Balon Swann, with the assistance of Lord Qorgyle and Lord Redding, will arrest, disarm, and confine the Queen's Men." He turned sharp eyes on the four men. "I remind you, gentles, that our aim is to maintain the good government of the Realm, not to start a war. Take what measures you must, but spill as little blood as possible." Ser Dannel and Ser Balon nodded, as Renly had guessed they would; Ser Cortnay had trained the Stormguard to obey ordersverywell, and Renly had followed his example when forming his company. Square-shouldered Lucas Redding and hawk-faced Aron Qorgyle, on the other hand, simply inclined their heads, neither giving away a single hint of feeling. The sons of convicted and executed traitors, they had learned well that the best way to get ahead in Stannis' court was to keep your countenance and display absolute loyalty to the King. The reason they had not transferred that loyalty to Cersei was that Cersei had never bothered to hide her disdain for 'traitor-spawn'.
They also had the most to lose if the plan failed. If Cersei regained power, she would certainly declare what they planned to do to be treason. Renly might survive a little while, but Lucas, Aron, and the other hostages who had survived the plague would be lucky if they were simply taken to the training yard and beheaded. They would almost certainly, then, take every measure necessary to ensure the plan's success, even if that meant killing men who might have been spared with cooler judgment.
Renly dismissed the thought from his mind; he had to work with the tools he had. "Once the Red Keep is secure, Ser Ethyn Mooton and Ser Henry Ingulf will close the gates of the city to all traffic but incoming food convoys, and Ser Baelor will close the harbor. This will contain the spread of rumors until we can make our announcement, which will be made as soon as the Keep and the city are secure." Ser Henry nodded, while Ser Ethyn simply lifted his chin in acknowledgement, his drooping moustaches not hiding the set of his jaw. Renly felt a pang of regret; as the senior officer of the Order of the Crown in the city, Ser Ethyn's participation had been vital, and he hadn't hesitated to employ some rough leverage in securing it. Neither Master Bywater nor King Lyonel would be happy to learn that he had been taking bribes from a smuggler who moonlighted as an informant for one of Ser Henry's senior captains in the City Watch, after all.
Ser Baelor, on the other hand, simply nodded affirmation;hewas in no more doubt than Renly was as to their likely fates if Cersei was allowed to dominate the Court. Ser Baelor had spent too long as the master of ships to hand the royal fleet over to some Lannister cousin with even less worth than chin. And he had shared Renly's suspicions about Stannis' death.
"That announcement," Renly went on, "will be that I have assumed the regency, and implore King Lyonel to return to King's Landing with all speed for his coronation. In order to ensure that he receives the message, every castle and royal post in the semaphore web will be instructed to send identical messages." Tywin Lannister was formidable, but he could not stop more than fifty separate messages from reaching the king, even in the Westerlands. "At the same time, Lord Tyrell will be invited to the city to help restore order, join the planning for the coronation, and lend his wisdom to the regency council until the king returns. When the king returns, I shall step down from the regency, transfer all power to him, and tell him our suspicions of the true circ*mstances of my brother's death." Renly drew himself up. "Remember, gentlemen; the password for this operation will be 'fealty', and the countersign 'justice'. Let these principles mark all our conduct in this matter, and, gods willing, we will be seen safely through." He caught each man's eyes in turn as he looked once more around the room, feeling the weight of destiny already bearing down on his shoulders as he did so. "Long live the King," he said finally, knowing that there was nothing else he could say.
"Long live the King," his co-conspirators said in a solemn echo.
XXX
On the waves . . .
All wise men respected the dangers of the sea, but only those who loved her truly appreciated her beauty. Any man could respect the sea's majesty, or fear it's sudden changes in temper, but only a sailor could truly love it. Salladhor Saan had been a sailor from his earliest boyhood, had walked decks in every kind of conditions the world-ocean could offer, and he knew as only such a man as he could know what unique comforts she could offer for any situation.
Comforts he was desperate for, because he couldn't help the sinking feeling in his guts as he watched his captains take their longboats back to their ships. The council had gone well, in that everyone had comprehended their part in the plan and no one had seen any obvious flaws. But he had not lived this long without learning how to read men past their face value. Too often the truth of men was hidden below the surface. And the truth was that his captains didn't think they could win the battle that was facing them.
The fleet he led was a grand thing, one any man would be proud to command. The cream of a Free City's regular navy, buttressed by faithful sellsails and prodigal pirates who had rallied to the motherland's banner in her hour of need, a respectable portion of the navy of the First Daughter, and sellsails and pirates of half a dozen nations drawn by the promise of loot and culled of cowards and blatant opportunists by the travails of the past years. And to top it off, Chang the Immortal, whose name was legendary wherever saltwater ran for canniness, desperate valor, and savagery. If any cowards still lurked in the ranks of his fleet, the fear of Chang's wrath would keep them in line.
And it wasn't as if they faced another Great Armament; the Braavosi, he had heard, could not afford to raise such a force again. Indeed, the Braavosi had been forced to reserve a portion of their strength, for which he had been told that he could thank the Ibbenese. So long as they maintained their rumblings in the Shivering Sea, the Sealord would have to keep a third of his fleet closer to home, lest they ravage Lorath. Or, more alarmingly, challenge Braavos's holdings on the dreary northern coasts of the continent.
But even with that happy coincidence, the Braavosi fleet in the southern Narrow Sea was still strong, and it's purple-sailed galleys had won new laurels to burnish their already formidable reputation. And while Andal fleets were hardly respected among the hard-bitten fighting sailors of the Free Cities, the Royal Navy of Myr was no rabble of nobles' retinues commanded by a man chosen for his lineage rather than his ability. No, the Royal Navy was made up of Ironborn, a true sea-people, backed up by freedmen of the same fanatical stripe that made the Iron Legion the most notorious army in the known world. A gambling man might call it a fair fight, but Saan could feel that, at some point, the hearts of his men had shifted from seeking victory to seeking mere survival, and the different portions of his fleet were reacting to that shift differently.
The Lyseni captains had seemed resigned under the bravado, as if they expected to do no better than to die bravely and sell their lives dearly. The Volantenes had been more reserved, both about the battle and what might come after it. As well they might; won or lost, this next battle would not determine the fate of Volantis as it would that of Lys. And more than a few of the Volantene captains seemed to have a chip on their shoulders about having been pushed out to the frontier to act as a bloody earnest of their government's commitment to fighting the abolitionists. Saan had heard from his informants among their crews that some of them had openly cursed the Triarchs for sending them so far from Home with no mission other than to die gloriously.
Saan clicked his tongue to himself; the Volantenes betrayed their own foolishness by such gestures, and not simply because they undermined the morale of their crews. If Baratheon was not stopped here, they would face him in their home waters within the next decade, or his son in the decade after that. At least the pirates and sellsails under his command recognized the desperation of the hour. They had made life difficult for the Braavosi in the years since the Rape of Tyrosh, even taking slaves from the ships carrying colonists to Martyros and the other Braavosi isles of the Stepstones to feed the starving markets of Slaver's Bay. But for all they could do, they were losing. Year by year the Braavosi were edging them out of the islands, smoking out their harbors and running down those who fled. Unless that tide was reversed, as could only be done by a victory, the days of the Brethren of the Coast were numbered.
In point of fact, the only person who had seemed perfectly sanguine about the coming battle was Chang the Immortal. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, but the Basilisk Emperor's cheerfulness about the impending struggle came with its own problems. No man would claim to fear battle where others could hear him, of course, but likewise no man could honestly claim to enjoy battle, either. Not unless they were an Andal fanatic or some other species of madman. Chang was no Andal, but Saan suspected that he had come unhinged at some point in his long and wild career, to claim that he looked forward to crossing blades with Victarion Greyjoy and appear to mean it. And Saan had caught the sidelong looks of the other captains around his table at that pronouncement; clearly, they had all been thinking, either Chang was a mighty liar or manifestly insane. Neither was a comforting thought.
Saan strode back to his cabin, accepting the glass of brandy that his valet had left on the table for him. At any rate, it was out of his hands. He had been dealt his hand, he simply had to play it as best he could. And if it turned out to be a losing hand . . . he sipped his brandy meditatively and glanced at his armor where it waited on its stand. He had read enough of the classics to know what was expected of a man who failed in the service of his city. Fortunately, suicide would prove unnecessary, when there would be so many Ironborn willing to oblige him.
And best if itwasthe Ironborn; he had heard some deeply unpleasant tales about what the Myrish freedmen did to the sailors of slaver powers that fell into their hands. And the Braavosi wouldn't just kill him. They would ship him to Braavos and put him in the dock of one of their courts, where some gods-cursed judge could drone self-righteously about his crimes and the condign punishment they merited. The Ironborn would settle for simply killing him, taking his head for a trophy, and making a song of his end. Unpleasant perhaps, but at least it would be quick, and comparatively respectable. He had quite a fine head, after all, if he said so himself. And with Fortune's help, he would make a bloody song for the skalds to sing before his end finally came.
Chapter 136: Maelstrom (Battle of Bloodstone, the Stepstones)
Chapter Text
Salladhor Saan gnashed his teeth in impotent fury only barely concealed under the mask all captains learned to wear. He had feared that it would come to this.
His attempt to make a quick strike into the Sea of Myrth had gone awry within days. He had not expected the Myrish fleet to be so quick to sortie, or so quick to link up with the Braavosi squadrons at Tyrosh isle. He had ordered the fleet to come about and make for the Stepstones, thinking that the confusion imposed on the attempts of both fleets to maneuver by the profusion of islands and reefs and shoals would play to the advantage of his force. But in making the turn a Volantene squadron had arced too far outwards and become entangled with the Braavosi. Only warning shots from the scorpions mounted on the prows of the Lyseni galleys had kept the other Volantenes from going to the aid of their clumsy countrymen, and the Volantene captains had been conveying their displeasure with coldly correct signaling ever since.
While the Braavosi had overwhelmed the Volantene squadron, the Myrish fleet had begun the pursuit. They had not been able to close the distance, despite the stiff breezes that filled their sails, but Salladhor hadn't been able to get his fleet away either. His galleys were not much faster than the Myrish, especially when they had to reduce speed so as not to leave the remaining Volantenes in their wake, and there had been no opportunity to try and decoy the Myrish away in the night with rafts fitted with lights and sails.
Then they had reached the Stepstones, and things had truly begun to go wrong. The Stepstones were hazardous ground for sailors, with reefs and shoals littering the channels between the islands. Only well-crewed ships with good captains who knew the safe channels or local pilots who knew the waters like their hands could traverse them at speed. Salladhor had such knowledge, of course; how could he not, when he had been born in these waters and sailed them all his life? The sellsails and returned pirates had had the knowledge as well, as had many of the Lyseni captains, from the shadow war they had waged in the Stepstones for so many years against Myrish and Braavosi and Westerosi ships. But the Volantenes, and many of Chang's captains, had not been so knowledgeable, and paid the price of ignorance in groundings and broken keels and torn-out bottoms. Nor had the weather been helpful, with misting rain and patchy fog that had disguised the contours of the islands and the lighter patches on the water that warned of sudden shallows; this was their first clear day in eight days. Chang himself had placed hisSea Dragonright behind Salladhor'sValyrianand stuck to him like glue all through the isles in a splendid display of ship-handling, but ten of his thirty ships had run aground or foundered on reef and shoal, and Admiral Nestoyor's Volantenes had lost fifteen ships, including two precious heavyweights.
The Myrish had lost ships too, Salladhor knew; he had seen at least two founder on the same reefs that had claimed ships from his fleet, and off Blackstone he had managed to turn on the vanguard of the Myrish fleet and savage it, taking three ships, sinking four, and sending the other three running in ignominious flight. But the vast majority had wound their way through the channels after him, thanks to the piloting of the Ironborn sailors who knew these waters as well as Salladhor himself did.
And now they had him cornered. Somehow, Victarion had managed to slip a squadron down the Worm's Gullet, cutting him off to the south as the bulk of his fleet was doing to the east. The looming bulk of Bloodstone blocked him to the west, and sailing north would only put him deeper into the sack. The only course that recommended itself was to turn on the southern squadron, destroy it, and then either turn on the rest of the Myrish fleet or make good the fleet's escape.
He began snapping out orders, confidence returning as he realized what a gift he had been handed. His fleet outnumbered the Myrish squadron by four to one or more, even if half its number were heavyweights. This was, in fact, the opportunity he had been seeking from the beginning of the war. And if one of the Myrish heavyweights was theTara,as appeared to be the case, then so much the better; let Victarion Greyjoy pay the price for his rashness.
XXX
Victarion Greyjoy smiled wolfishly as he saw the slaver fleet turn towards him. He had hoped that they would take the bait.
When Davos Blacksail had mentioned that he knew a fast way down the Worm's Gullet, he had known instantly that he had to take the chance. No other route had offered the opportunity to cut the slavers off from their last chance to turn southwards as a united fleet until they reached the Arm of Dorne. The only reason he hadn't considered it earlier was that the fastest way down the Gullet that he had ever heard of still consumed a full day, and the Gullet was not the sort of place where one took shortcuts. Not more than once, anyway; the reefs and sandbars saw to that.
But apparently Davos had learned a faster way during his smuggling years, and Victarion had leapt at the chance, leaving Roryn Pyke in command of the main fleet and following Davos'Shadowdown the Gullet at a speed that had bordered on the reckless, even with Ironborn sailors following the lead of a veteran smuggler. All the seamanship in the world couldn't change the fact that a heavyweight galley was a clumsy thing.
But they had come out the other side of the Gullet with the loss of only the middleweightWave-Wrestler, grounded on a sandbar thanks to a moment's inattention by her helmsman. Victarion had seen the man go sailing over the railing of his ship as theTarapassed them, and been able to clearly hear the ranting of theWave-Wrestler'scaptain across twenty yards of open water. Captain Salter would be eating his guts out with frustration as he kedged his ship off the bar; this was likely to be the greatest feat of fighting seamanship in the Navy's history so far, and he was going to miss it.
Victarion shrugged to himself; the fewer men, the greater share of honor, as any fighting man knew. Especially when they had such enemies to face. Salladhor Saan'sValyrianhe knew by sight of course, and Chang the Immortal'sSea Dragonhe knew by vivid description, but they were only the two most notorious ships in the slaver line, and some of their fellows approached their reputation in luridness after more than a decade of war. Nestoyor'sWave-Tigerwas famous the length of the Orange Coast as the largest fighting galley in Essos, of course, but it had no feats to its name to rival those ofBinder, Sea Scourge, Blood Rose,orDevilfish.Each of them was well known to the Fleet from the raids they had perpetrated on the coastlands during the early wars, and later in the Stepstones. To sink, take, or burn them would avenge years of wrongs; to do thatandtake or kill Saan and Chang . . . Mighty songs had been written for less. He took his helmet from his squire Egil, flexed his arms and shoulders to be sure that the plate harness was wearing was seated properly, and raised his axe so that the sun flamed along the fan-like blade. "The sharks are hungry, boys!" he roared, catching the attention of his crew and marines, augmented by men taken aboard before the squadron had sailed down the Gullet. "Let's sate them with the flesh of slavers!"
Ironborn and freedman alike howled bloodthirsty approval as the oarmaster hammered a quicker tempo on his kettledrum, the marines donned helmets and gauntlets and readied spears and axes, and the engineers in the bows hauled back the throwing arms of the scorpions. His personal skald, Bothi Silvertongue, leaped atop the capstan and drew his sword with a flourish, raising blade and shield high as he began to chant in the ancient tongue.
"Shields will shatter and shafts will break
Biter of helms harms the breastplates.
We wind, we wind the web of spears
As young war-king has waged before.
Forth shall we fare where fray lies thick
And friend and foe fix sword 'gainst sword!"
XXX
Huang Tai had always been able to master the pre-battle nerves that afflicted him. If he hadn't, he wouldn't have risen from being a mere deckhand aboard theSea Dragonto its master-at-arms, the agent and enforcer of the Basilisk Emperor's law aboard the ship. Pirates were an unruly bunch by nature at the best of times, and no one could hope to keep them in line who was suspected of even the least hint of cowardice.
But the opening moves of this battle were not promising. Their barbarian allies were simply rushing at the enemy pell-mell, without taking the time to form a proper line of battle. Well, the barbarian admiralhadsignaled the fleet to 'engage the enemy more closely', but this rush to contact was impetuous even for barbarians. And the enemy had proved to have heavy springalds in their bows and some idea of how to use them. Enough so that three of their allies' galleys were already wallowing drunkenly, having lost masts or swathes of oars to the heavy bolts. TheSea Dragonhad already been touched twice by those engines as well; not dangerously, as one bolt had simply imbedded itself in the starboard cheek of the bow and the other had, by some freakish chance, sailed down the length of the deck without hitting a man, spar, or rope to shatter the door to the Emperor's cabin.
The Emperor, on the other hand, seemed untroubled by the way events were unfolding, and Tai felt new confidence fill his veins as he heard the Emperor exclaim, "Onward, helmsman and oarmaster! The bolt has not been forged that can kill me!" The barbarians might be afraid of their enemies, however much they tried to hide it, but nether their allies nor their enemies had seen the Emperor in action. He had writ his name in blood across the Jade Sea and made himself master of the Basilisk Isles by might and craft and the favor of Heaven; these Stepstones would only be the latest chapter in his legend. The thousand gods witness that he was a man to inspire confidence, as well; a full head taller than any other man of Yi-Ti, wearing a full suit of lamellar armor lacquered sapphire blue except for the dragon that coiled across his breastplate in gold. His unbound hair streamed from under his heron-plumed helmet and his beard bristled over his gorget, giving him the look of an ogre about to go on the rampage. So tall he was that it was rumored one of his parents had been a barbarian, but never where he could hear it; the saber he was gesticulating so freely with was meant to be wielded with two hands instead of just one, and it was said that he had once split a man in half from shoulder to waist, through breastplate and gambeson.
And Huang Tai's pre-battle nerves had never been solely a matter of fear. He had gone to sea because he had been too restless to follow in his father's footsteps as a weaver, and become a pirate because he had been too hot-blooded to stomach life as a merchant sailor and too disputatious to serve in the navy of the azure emperor. No man joined the fleet of the Basilisk Emperor unless he loved danger, and only proven veterans of the pirate's life were taken aboard theSea Dragon. He drew his saber and gave it's edge a last brush of his pocket hone, did the same with his dagger and his boot knife, and took a boarding pike from the rack around the mainmast as he roared for the men to prepare themselves. Stealing from merchants and raiding the coastal towns that did not swear allegiance to the Emperor was all well and good. But a fight like this? This was why he had turned pirate in the first place, and pledged himself to the Emperor more than a decade ago.
XXX
Ivar Drumm might have been afraid, but for two things. Firstly, as an Ironborn and an officer of the Royal Fleet of King Robert of Myr, he would sooner eat his own feet than admit to fear. Secondly, he was too damnedbusyto be afraid.
"Stop faffing about and cut the damned thing free, man!" he roared at the sailor whose work gang was trying to haul the bowsprit back aboard the ship; a shot from a slaver scorpion had broken it cleanly in half. "Quickly, man; we haven't got all day! And the rest of you, get your weapons back on you and get to the rail! The slavers will be here shortly, and we need to welcome them as befitting!"
The gang boss, flushing with embarrassment, took his hatchet to the ropes that still attached the bowsprit to the ship while the sailors picked up the half-pikes and hand-axes they had dropped to grab at the ropes. They were working seamen, rather than marines, but in battle everyone aboard ship fought, even the rowers. The thought reminded Ivar to glance at the section of benches whose occupants he was responsible for as second mate; every man was still at his oar, but they had taken the time to don the walrus-hide jerkins that each sailor was issued for battle, their knives were loosened in their belts, and their hand-axes were resting between their feet where they could easily be snatched up and used. Against armored marines or knights they would die like flies, of course, but that was what theChainbreaker's own marines were for. For carving through the enemy's regular sailors, on the other hand, the rowers would do splendidly; pulling the great oars made a man immensely strong, and the discipline and teamwork that such duty required made a galley's rowers a very pack of human wolves when action beckoned. On theSea Hawk, Ivar had seen a group of rowers take on twice their number of Lyseni seamen and cut them literally into pieces.
He returned the fierce grin of shaven-headed Hyrum, the section's recognized leader by dint of being the most ferociously bloody-minded of the whole pack of them in battle, and turned back to his post in the bows. As second mate, he had responsibility for leading the defense of the forward third of the ship in action, as the first mate had responsibility for the midships and the captain for the stern as well as for fighting the whole ship. The rails had been reinforced with the straw-filled pallets of the crew, and the squad of marines under his command were crouching behind the improvised bulwarks waiting for the slaver galleys to enter bow range. Of the ten marines under his direct command, three were armored longbowmen, trained to shoot as fast as possible at close range; shooting from one galley to another at long range was made so difficult by the pitching and rolling of the decks that it was a waste of ammunition unless you were shooting something that could harm the whole galley. So the archers of the Royal Fleet, unlike those of the Legion, trained almost exclusively to shoot as fast as possible at targets within twenty yards. The other seven marines in the bows with him were equipped after the fashion of the Ironborn who had been the Kingdom's first fighting sailors; ring-mail byrnies that covered the wearer from throat to mid-thigh to wrists, worn over gambesons and reinforced with such pieces of plate harness as each marine liked and could afford out of their pay, along with nasal helms and heavy leather gloves backed with ring-mail for those men who could not afford plate gauntlets. For weapons they carried heavy spears and round shields, along with hand-axes and swords, except for two men who preferred the great two-handed axe that was the other principal weapon of the Kingdom's marines. Only two men in the whole squad, Corporal Joron and red-bearded Eldred, were true Ironborn, but the freedmen who made up the rest of the squad would not have been out of place on a reaver's longship. Their beards were forked or braided in the Ironborn fashion, and their expressions of wolf-life eagerness to come to handstrokes owed as much to the Ironborn urge for battle-fame and a death to be proud of as it did to the former slave's hatred of the slaver.
Ivar nodded, satisfied that the marines were as ready as they could be made, and turned his gaze to the engines that took up the rest of the space in the bows. What he saw made him nod again, this time in approval; the corporals who had charge of the scorpions had their crews well in hand, and while there was undeniable urgency in their barked commands and the movements of the men there was also the smooth efficiency of long training. As the five-pound bolts of the scorpions were the main long-ranged weapon of the galley, much time was spent in practice firing, and the fact that the bolts were fully capable of doing terrible damage to a galley meant that they were not constrained by the need to aim for individual men. As Ivar watched, the crew of the portside scorpion finished winding back the throwing arms and slapped a bolt into the firing trough, this one with a crescent-shaped head meant to sever ropes and shatter spars. The corporal sighted down the length of the bolt, adjusted the elevating screw at the back of the engine a quarter-turn, roared for his crew to stand clear, and pulled the lanyard. There was a greattung-WHACKas the throwing arms snapped forward to thud against the stops and the bolt went rocketing away; Ivar strained his eyes and saw it slam home along the rail of the great galley bearing down on them, sending splinters and part of a man's torso flying. "Good shooting, there!" Ivar roared. "Keep it up, lads!" The corporal waved acknowledgement as his crew leaped back in to wind the throwing arms back again and pull a new bolt from the chest along the rail beside the engine.
Satisfied that there was nothing left for him to do yet, Ivar took his own shield from where it hung on its strap over his back and slipped it onto his arm, tested the draw of his sword and his seax knife, and drew his hand-axe from its loop at his right hip and whipped it through a quick figure-eight to loosen the muscles of his wrist. The slavers would be upon them soon enough; at the speed at which each fleet was closing, they would be within bow range in a bare handful of minutes, and alongside each other shortly thereafter. The time spent in bow range would simply have to be endured; he had no talent for the bow. But when it came time to grapple rail-to-rail . . . His face split in a lupine grin under the face-mask of his helmet.
XXX
By all rights, Victarion's squadron should have been overwhelmed. Outnumbered by six to one and isolated from any support by the whole of the enemy fleet, the Myrish ships should have been swarmed under by the slaver galleys. Only two things turned the incipient massacre into a battle. Firstly, Victarion had held his squadron tightly together in the channel between Bloodstone and the reef that extended off the western coast of Coralstone, closely enough that each ship could support its neighbors on either side with archery and scorpion fire. Secondly, this compact formation left a space on either side of the squadron where ships could pass four abreast without running aground. Against any other opponent, this would have placed Victarion's squadron in danger of encirclement and accelerated destruction. Against the slavers, however, it proved a godsend; many of the slaver ships who ran the passage on either flank of Victarion's squadron, mostly either sellsails glancing nervously at the rest of the Myrish fleet closing behind them as fast as they could row or Volantenes who had become disaffected with Salladhor Saan's leadership, raised their sails and made for the horizon.
Some, however, turned in on Victarion's flanks, and the fighting in the channel reached a fever pitch of intensity that even the Battle of Tyrosh had not seen. Aboard theShadow, Davos Blacksail was struck by an arrow that went in through his open mouth and halfway out through his cheek; his only reaction was to bite the arrow in half, spit out the feathered end, pull the stub out through his cheek, and roar for his crew to fight on as he waded back into the fray, spraying blood as he plied his sword and dagger. A party of marines from theDubrisfought their way onto the bows of the Volantene flagshipWave-Tigerand managed to hack out a perimeter while a seaman kindled a fire in the ropes coiled on theWave-Tiger's bows behind them. By the time the last marine was overwhelmed, theWave-Tiger's forecastle was engulfed in flames; Admiral Nestoyor was forced to transfer his flag to theTiger Sharkas his erstwhile flagship burned to the waterline. On theLiberator, Lieutenant Dalton Pyke lost his left hand to a stroke from a Lyseni marine's saber; after having a torniquet applied and the stump bandaged and dipped in pitch, he went back into the fray with renewed ferocity, shouting for his right hand to avenge his left. TheIron Storm,grappled by three of Chang's warships, was dragged out of the formation and overwhelmed. When the battle finally ended it was found that her whole complement, officers, marines, rowers, and all, had fought to the last; her captain, Lucas Humble, was found with his hands locked around the throat of one of Chang's captains and eight separate mortal wounds on his body. The crew of theNovadomo,with every arrow, bolt, and javelin expended, resorted to throwing apples and ship's biscuits at the enemy while her marines and rowers held the rails with swords and daggers, having broken every spear and axe aboard.
But it was at the very center of the formation, where Victarion's flagshipTarawas engaged with Chang'sSea Dragon, that the greatest legend of that bloody day was being written.
XXX
Victarion Greyjoy was no longer laughing. He needed every breath to keep the weariness in his arms and shoulders at bay and propel his axe through the web of cuts and covers that had kept him alive so long. The slavers were easy to kill, for the most part, but there were so damnedmanyof them . . .
Well, he thought as he knocked his visor upwards and gulped down air, there were a sight fewer now than there had been. TheTara's deck was literally covered with corpses, many in the brightly-colored tunics that the Lyseni wore over their armor, others in the drabber surcoats favored by the Volantenes, and others in a riot of fashions from across half the world. Sellsails, those, most likely.
A great blowing of horns and thundering of drums caught Victarion's attention and he glanced towards the bows to see a new wave of men boiling over the two Lyseni galleys that had grappled theTara's bows so many hours before. Brigandines or scale, these men were wearing, with short-brimmed conical helmets and sleeves of patterned cloth under their bracers. He dragged down a last great breath, closed his visor again, and hefted his axe into a guard that slanted the haft across his torso; time it was to be economical with his blows, instead of the great smashing cuts of the first hours of the battle.
But instead of a final roar and the rush of onset there was another blowing of horns and the new wave of enemies stopped dead, forming a wall of men bristling with spears and swords. Victarion grimaced; these men were clearly disciplined. Then he looked closer through the eye-slits of his visor and his grimace turned to a frown. These men were neither Lyseni nor Volantene, from what he could see of their faces, and their armor was different too; scale, brigandines, or lamellar instead of ring-mail or plate, and their helmets had scale curtains that covered the sides of the head and neck down to the collar, framing their faces. He glanced at the banners flying above them and snarled recognition.Yi-Tish.
There was a ripple of movement and a tall man in lamellar lacquered sapphire blue with a dragon gilded across the cuirass and a great spray of heron plumes in his silvered helmet strode forth to gesture grandly with the two-handed saber he was carrying. "Barbarians!" he cried in Common Tongue with a slight sing-song accent. "Is Victarion Greyjoy among you? If he is, let him come forth and fight me, for I am Chang the Immortal, Son of Heaven, Basilisk Emperor, Lord of the Jade Sea, Bane of the False Emperors! If he is not, then let him weep and curse his fate when he hears of how I have killed you! For you at least shall be remembered in future ages whenever my tale is told, while he shall be forgotten before his bones whiten in his tomb!"
It took not a single thought for Victarion to step forward, despite the rippling growls of his huskarls. If Chang wanted to make it a single combat, then by all means; it would give his men a chance to get the rest of their breath back. And it would break the morale of his men all the more if Chang died before their eyes failing to make good on a boast. "I am Victarion Greyjoy!" he shouted as he raised his visor. "And I say to you, Chang, that your deeds and titles are worthless! In the East, you fought only thralls and rabble, but here you facemen, who fight not for fear of a master but for love of freedom! So come, dog, and fight a man if you dare!"
Chang stared goggle-eyed for a moment as his men hissed in shock that someone would speak to him so, then he sprang forward with a bellow of rage and a whistling overhand blow. Victarion slapped the blow aside with the head of his axe, slide-stepping forward and to his left as he did so, and threw a punching blow that sent the top of his axe toward Chang's face. If it connected, it would have stove in half of Chang's face, but Chang jerked his head aside in a lightning reflex and spun away, bringing his saber back up into a high guard with a whirling flourish.
Victarion closed his visor again and advanced with his axe slanted across his body. Chang drove in again with a feint that turned into a swooping flourish cut that came screaming at Victarion's neck. He caught it on the haft of his axe, trusting the iron langets to hold the haft together, and threw a cut of his own at Chang's face. Chang leaned back to let the cut go whistling past his nose and leaned back in with a thrust. Victarion swept his right foot back and twisted aside, hearing the unmusicalskringof the saber's edge sliding along his breastplate, and then pushed off his back foot in a lunge that drove the butt of his axe into Chang's breastplate.
Chang went stumbling back and Victarion pressed forward after him with a sweeping low cut that rang off the curtain of scales protecting Chang's left thigh, a high cut that collided against Chang's guard and bent his arms with the shock of impact, and a sudden rush that sought to bowl him flat with the haft of the axe and the more than three-hundred-pound weight of Victarion's body and armor. Chang surprised him by taking the impact head-on, bracing his saber with one hand on the hilt and the other on the spine of the blade as they strained against each other like bull elk in rut. For a moment, they stood locked together, two herculean forces balanced in perfect tension with each other as Chang began to cackle high-pitched laughter, then Victarion twisted, throwing their weapons off to the side as he made a short cut at Chang's face with the head of his axe.
This time Chang did not react fast enough and there was a spray of red as the edge of Victarion's axe gashed his cheek. Victarion punched the top of his axe head at Chang again, but Chang ducked under it and thenrolledunder Victarion's guard, agile as an acrobat. Victarion allowed the momentum of his blow to spin him around and catch Chang's overhand blow on the haft of his axe and was then entirely surprised when Chang leaped off the deck with both feet and drop-kicked him in the chest. He stumbled backward as Chang hit the deck and bounced back to his feet; only the fact that his back hit the rail of the ship kept him from falling. He reeled back forward to recover his balance as Chang came bounding in with another looping flourish cut that he blocked and countered with a stamping kick of his own that sent Chang sprawling backwards.
Chang rolled backwards to his feet with another whirling flourish of his blade, but Victarion could see doubt in his face through the slits of his visor. Victarion hunched his shoulders and strode forward again; Chang replied with a wordless shout and a barrage of flashing cuts interspersed with leaping kicks. Victarion blocked or dodged the cuts, absorbing the kicks on his armor, and realized what was happening. Like many corsairs who reached his degree of fame, Chang had not had to fight for as long or as hard as this for some time, perhaps for years, and when he had fought the strength of his reputation had done most of his fighting for him. Men fought poorly when they thought their opponent invincible; his father had taught him that when he was a boy. The flourishes and acrobatics were meant to increase that reputation, but they were also draining his strength far more than Victarion's own blows.
Victarion smiled behind his visor.Weren't expecting this, were you, Chang?he asked in the privacy of his mind. He knew Chang's reputation as well as anyone, but he also knew thathisreputation was equal to Chang's, if not greater. And unlike Chang he had spent most of the last two decades at war, leading his reavers from the front as they went over the rails or onto the beaches. He was weary, yes, but his arms were still iron, his legs still stood like pillars underneath him, and his lungs drank deeply and steadily of the iron-and-sewage-tainted air.
Chang might be a great warrior, but he had not spent the last fifteen years and more fighting for his life. Victarion had, and it had made him a master.
Victarion continued to counter Chang's blows, flowing from guard to guard with the unhurried speed that came only with long training, and then, in the breath between a forehand cut at his gorget and a spinning kick toward his midsection, he sidestepped and hacked down at Chang's outthrust leg. The curtain of scales foiled the edge of his axe, but seven pounds of steel propelled by such arms as Victarion's was not to be ignored. Chang's leg was slapped down towards the deck hard enough to leave bone-bruises, and Victarion's lowered-shoulder charge into Chang's back knocked him to the deck. Chang rolled onto his back with desperate speed and caught Victarion's descending axe on the blade of his saber, but he could not ward the kick Victarion drove into his right arm.
Chang's saber dropped from nerveless fingers, and only another desperate roll kept Victarion's next blow from splitting him like a chicken on the butcher's block. He came up with a dagger in his fist, but Victarion's next blow caught him on the side of the helmet. The helmet's chinstrap came loose and it went spinning away as Chang reeled drunkenly. Victarion cut low again, hands guiding the edge of his axe with the instinctive ease of thousands of hours of practice, and he was rewarded with a spray of blood as his axe took Chang's leg off below the knee. Chang fell, dagger forgotten as he clutched at his leg with a wordless scream of shocked agony. The wound was absolutely mortal, but Victarion had not lived so long at war by not making sure of his enemies. His axe spun upwards again, the butt slapping into his left hand as he raised it high, and then it came sweeping down and sheared through Chang's neck to send his head rolling away across the deck.
There was a moment's stunned silence, then Victarion's huskarls sent up a baying roar of triumph, thumping sword hilt and axe haft against their shields in acclamation as the rowers and seamen cheered like men at a tourney. Chang's men gave a howl of appalled despair at the fall of their emperor, which quickly turned to screams of fear as Victarion rose from over Chang's corpse like a steel-clad tiger from its kill. Victarion stood motionless for a moment, the blood hammering in his ears like battle drums in the exaltation of triumph, and then wordlessly pointed his axe at the Yi-Tish corsairs.
His huskarls surged forward with a bellow of triumphant bloodlust, the seamen and rowers racing after them, and the Yi-Tish broke like glass even before the wall of shields reached them. On an ordinary battlefield, most of them would have lived, but the two slaver galleys were too narrow to let so many flee at speed, and on either side there was only bloodstained water and sharks that were deep in the grip of the feeding frenzy.
When Victarion reached the logjam of men desperate to flee at the head of his huskarls, the screaming went from clamorous to deafening.
XXX
Salladhor Saan almost wept in frustrated rage as he watched Chang's squadron break irretrievably. Whatever had happened on theTara, it had broken their will for the fight, and now they were sailing past Greyjoy's blocking squadron as quickly as oar and sail could take them. Some had turned back, but that had taken them into the rest of the Myrish fleet, which was even now starting to tear into the rearmost ships of his fleet.
He glanced at the right, where the Volantene galleys had been stationed, and saw that they too were starting to break. Some were too hotly engaged against the blocking squadron, but the rest were hoisting sails while their rearmost squadron turned about and engaged the rest of the Myrish fleet; clearly they meant to buy time for their comrades to escape. A glimpse of theTiger Sharkconfirmed it; there under Admiral Nestoyor's flag were the signal pennons forRear squadron come about and engage the enemy more closelyandAll other ships disengage at best speed.
Salladhor's fingers spasmed on the hilt of his sword as he envisioned bloody revenge against the Volantene admiral for leaving him in the lurch like this, then emotion left him as he realized the full extent of the disaster. The rout of Chang's squadron and the flight of the Volantenes meant that now it was only his own Lyseni against the Myrish fleet. And the fact that Greyjoy's blocking squadron had survived so long meant that he was now well and truly between the hammer and the anvil. Even if he threw every ship he had left against the blocking squadron, he could not hope to destroy them before the rest of the Myrish fleet had all the time it needed to destroy him.
He looked towards the blocking squadron again and smiled ruefully as he caught sight of theShadow.Well played, my old,he thought ruefully.You chose your lords well, took the smart bet, and seized the opportunities you were offered. I should have taken the opportunity you offered me, Fortune witness, but here we are. Pirate's life.
He took a last breath of the salt sea air, glancing up at the brilliant blue sky, clear as a sailor could dream for, and began to give orders. The battle and the fleet were lost, and with them Lys' future as an independent city, most likely. The Volantenes might yet bail them out, but only in return for their vassalage. The Conclave would grit their teeth and do it, if it was the only way to avoid the fate of Tyrosh, but they would not be merciful to the man whose failure had driven them to such a pass. Well, that was alright; he had set his affairs in order before he sailed, and men he trusted would see that his women and children would receive their share of his fortune and get to a place of safety. And while it was a poor pirate who made a desperate last stand instead of taking any chance to escape, the traditions of the Brethren made allowances for men who were irretrievably trapped. Better to die by the sword than by the strangler's garrote or the hangman's noose, especially if you could take some of the dogs who had trapped you to hell with you.
He donned his spired and heron-plumed helmet as his faithfulValyrianforged forward through the ships, her signal pennants insistently fluttering outEngage the enemy more closely. A word to the helmsman and a gesture of his mail-clad arm sent them towards a galley flying an Ironborn sigil under the war banner of the Kingdom of Myr; it would be better to die on the sword of a fellow reaver than of an upjumped slave, after all. He made his way down the length of the deck to the bows, calling encouragement to the rowers as he gathered his crew about him, and as the ships came together with the dullCRUNCHof multi-ton weights of wood and metal colliding, he drew his sword, kissed the blade, yelled "Hell or plunder, brothers!" and vaulted the rail onto the enemy ship.
A lowered-shoulder charge and a pair of smashing cuts saw him through the rank of marines in the enemy's bows, and then he was among the enemy's seamen and rowers, like an armored wolf among jackals. Three rowers went down in quick succession to sweeping cuts of his sword and a seaman with a half-pike fatally misjudged the speed with which he could close the distance after parrying a thrust, and then a shouted command saw the Myrish step back grudgingly as a young man in the armor of a veteran reaver or an officer strode forward, his broad-bladed sword spinning a lazy circle in his hand before coming to rest co*cked over his left shoulder with his round shield forward. Salladhor bowed with a flourish of his sword, laughing as he did. "At your pleasure, sirrah!" he shouted. "Want my head, do you? Come and take it if you dare!"
The enemy officer, a true Ironborn judging by the blondeness of his beard, edged forward, glaring through the eye-sockets of his masked helm, and then sprang forward. Five passes later, Salladhor's hands were already numb at the strength of the younger man's blows, and his breath came short from the effort it took to counter the speed of him. Ruthlessly he dredged up every reserve of strength.I'll not die so easily, damn you,he snarled silently, and attacked with a looping cut that turned into a thrust for the younger man's eye-socket. The thrust was foiled by a slight raising of the shield, an adder-quick dagger thrust for the upper thigh under the lower edge of the shield was foiled by the man's tasset, and then the edge of the shield punched into his face. Stars exploded in front of his eyes as he backpedaled frantically to put his feet back under him, flailing his sword wildly as he did so, and then pain that redefined his understanding of the word exploded in his midsection.
He shook the last stars out of his eyes and looked downward to find that the reaver had put the point of his sword through mail-shirt and gambeson to run him through the belly. He bit back a scream, made a last attempt to thrust his dagger into the other man's eye, and felt the point scrape off the helmet as he was driven off the blade by the edge of the shield.
As Salladhor Saan took a last look at the perfect blue sky, Ivar Drumm raised his sword and brought it crashing down to take the head that began his legend.
XXX
Your Grace, I have the honor to report that the fleet you entrusted to my leadership has brought the combined fleet of the Valyrian League to battle and, after a hard-fought and bloody action, completely defeated them . . . The loss to our fleet has been counted at twenty sail sunk or burned, with as many more so badly damaged or with such heavy losses to their crews that they must be taken off the register of Your Grace's ships until they are repaired and recrewed. A list of the lost and damaged ships, and of the losses to seamen, rowers, and marines, is enclosed. The loss of the slavers, however, we have calculated as being at least sixty sail taken, sunk, or burned, with as many more badly damaged and great slaughter wrought among their crews . . . It is my pleasure to report that Salladhor Saan will trouble Your Grace's seas no longer, for towards the close of the battle he boarded Your Grace's shipChainbreaker and was killed in single combat by Lieutenant Ivar Drumm, an officer of the Fleet. It is this same Lieutenant Drumm that I send to Your Grace bearing this report, the head of Salladhor Saan, and the head of the Yi-Tish corsair Chang the Immortal, who I myself killed in single combat on the deck of theTara. Pending Your Grace's approval, I have given orders that Saan's ship, theValyrian, be submitted to the Fleet Yard to be refitted and relaunched under a new name, and that Lieutenant Drumm be promoted to Captain to serve as her first commander in Your Grace's service . . . I further commend to Your Grace's attention Ser Davos Blacksail, without whose knowledge and prowess this victory would not have been possible. I recommend that he be made a lord for his services to the Realm, and that his lordship be placed upon the western coasts or in the Stepstones, as being in the lands and among the people that know and love him best . . . The Fleet will lie at the harbor of Bloodstone for some days to refit, resupply, and reorganize, and from there we shall sail to the coast of the Lyseni mainland to carry out Your Grace's further orders. I remain, in the meantime, Your Grace's man, Victarion Greyjoy.
- excerpts from Victarion Greyjoy's report of the Battle of Bloodstone, preserved in the Royal Archives of the Kingdom of Myr
Chapter 137: Eruption (Renly's Coup, King's Landing and various points in Westeros)
Chapter Text
Edmure Tully stared in shock at the message he had received from King's Landing bare moments ago. It was from a lieutenant in the City Watch that he had cultivated during his time in the City, and had arrived using the raven that Edmure had given him as a means of sending him word in an emergency.
Which certainly seemed to be happening, judging by what the message said.Queen arrested by Lord Renly in name of King Lyonel. Lord L also arrested. Fighting in Red Keep between Queen's Men and Lord Renly's men. City gates and harbor closed until further notice. Royal children safe at last report.
Edmure's mind spun. Renly? Of all men to turn traitor,Renly?He would have sworn on theSeven-Pointed Starthat Renly Baratheon was loyal to his brother and the dynasty. Why else would he have refused to marry and father sons, if not for the sake of that loyalty?
Then he remembered the rumors that had swirled around the youngest Baratheon brother, and his jaw clenched in burgeoning fury. Clearly Renly had been tainted by his association with heretics. How else could this sudden treason be explained, if not by having the way cleared for it in Renly's mind by defying the authority of the Great Sept? From treason against the gods to treason against a mortal man was a short step and an easy one; hadn't Most Devout Hugar proved as much time and again in his sermons?
And now that treason had come to light, by striking its first blow against the Queen! Not enough that she suffer the loss of her royal husband and her daughter, but now she was insulted and imprisoned by her own goodbrother!Why am I a knight, if not for this?Edmure asked himself rhetorically as he turned to Maester Vyman. "Call the banners, maester," he commanded. "The assembly point shall be Stone Hedge. Inform my bannermen that they are to bring all the supplies they can, including siege engines."
Maester Vyman raised his snowy eyebrows. "Siege engines, my lord?"
Edmure raised the message. "King's Landing is in the hands of traitors, maester," he growled. "And I mean to root them out, no matter what hole they hide in."
Vyman had bowed and was about to walk away when Edmure raised a hand to stay him. "In the message to Lord Frey," he said, concealing his lack of enthusiasm for the subject he was about to broach, "tell him that I accept his offer, and recommend that he bring his daughter Roslin to Stone Hedge. Write to Archsepton Mikkel that I request his presence at Stone Hedge not just as effective lord of Stoney Sept, but as a servant of the Faith."
Maester Vyman bowed again. "I shall arrange, Your Grace," he replied.
Edmure sighed to himself as Maester Vyman strode off to the ravenry. Having Walder Frey for a bannerman was trial enough. Having him for a goodfather . . . But it was by such trials that the gods tempered their tools. And for his daughter to marry his liege-lord before his assembled peers and their armies would make it very difficult for Walder to hedge his bets. Not that he suspected Walder of heresy, but his father had told him how reluctantly Walder had joined the rebellion against the Targaryens, even after Rickard Stark's speech before the gathered lords.
Which served to remind him; he had to write a message to his goodbrother. Brandon Stark had been saying for years that the North had no interest in the internal matters of the Faith of the Seven so long as they did not disturb the peace north of the Neck, but this was no longer a question simply of faith. Now it was a question of who would be loyal to their king, and who would prove to be traitors. For his sister's sake, and those of his nephews, Edmure hoped that Brandon would prove true. The North's martial repute aside, it was against the laws of the Faith for brother to fight brother.
But if the gods willed it so, then so would it be, and not just with Brandon. His muster at Stone Hedge would show which of his bannermen were true; those who were not he would purge with fire and sword. If, as rumor had it, the Point Lords had risen again, then they would share Renly's fate; he would not make King Stannis's mistake and show mercy to proven traitors. As was said in the Book of the Father, "He who is not with Us is against Us, and he who does not gather with Us scatters abroad." The Tully's had never been so tempted by the sin of pride to think that they could be an independent kingdom, and so unlike their prouder brethren in the other Great Houses they had never considered returning the days before the Conquest when each of the Seven Kingdoms stood alone. House Tully had always kept faith with the idea of the Iron Throne, even if they had disagreed with it's occupant from time to time on matters of policy; he would keep that long-held faith, or die in the attempt.
XXX
Mace Tyrell leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his belly as his mother finished reading the message from Lord Renly. "I find it hard to believe that even Cersei would be so foolish as to murder King Stannis," Olenna said, frowning. "Surely, she should have guessed that Renly would suspect her."
"She may have thought that he would not dare act upon mere suspicion," Mace countered. "Renly has his own men, yes, and he can claim leadership of the King's Men in Lyonel's absence, but Cersei is not without allies."
"Allies that would be outnumbered, if Renly managed to bring the King's Men to his side along with his own company and the City Watch," Olenna replied. "And aside from these Queen's Men, the only real ally Cersei has in King's Landing is the conservative faction of the Faith. Which is now ascendant, with Most Devout Hugar's election to the crystal crown, but which has no men-at-arms to throw in the balance."
"The Faith has not needed men-at-arms to sway a contest in the past," Mace pointed out. "But this is irrelevant. The question before us is this; shall we answer Lord Renly's summons or no?"
Olenna's frown deepened. "A tricky question, indeed," she mused. "On the one hand, refusing to do so would cast doubt on our loyalty to the Throne, in that we did not strike against apparent treason when summoned. On the other hand, it is not at all certain that Renly has the authority to issue that summons, and answering it will make us mortal enemies of Tywin Lannister."
"Who will doubtless declare Renly's actions to be treason, and summon us to aid King Lyonel in rescuing his mother," Mace said, nodding agreement. "A very pretty conundrum."
"'Treason doth never prosper; what's the reason? If it prosper, none dare call it treason,'" said Willas, who had been staring out the window in silence since reading the message. As Mace glanced at his eldest son, Willas turned away from the window, revealing a face that had become drawn and gaunt since the death of his betrothed. He and Joanna had never met, but they had shared a lively correspondence, and both had been looking forward to their marriage. "But what is treason," he asked rhetorically, "but defiance of the king and making war upon him and his officers? A king, I should remind you, that we stillhave, and whose guidance we can seek."
"Lyonel is not king until he is crowned," Olenna replied. "And he cannot be crowned except on the Iron Throne, by the High Septon. For him to be crowned anywhere else, by anyone else, would cast doubt on the propriety of his coronation. And you may be sure that until he is crowned, Tywin Lannister will not let Lyonel out of his sight or reach."
Willas shrugged. "Does anyone, even Ryman's shade, deny that Lyonel is the trueborn and true son of King Stannis and Queen Cersei?" he asked. "And have we not heard from Garlan that he gave the Isles good lordship when he was there, and led his father's forces ably against this last rebellion? If he is to be our king, then let us act as if he is our king in truth as well as name,from this moment forwards, and take our direction from none but him."
"And if Garlan's impression that he is his own man proves false?" Mace asked. "If, in fact, he proves to be Tywin's puppet on the Iron Throne, with Cersei pulling his strings?"
Willas spread his hands. "That is a gamble we must take, my lord, if we are to play this game," he replied. "And mark you; if anyone can counter Tywin, it is us, and Lyonel will know that we have no ulterior motive spurring our loyalty to him. Cersei may seek to exalt Baelor's over all and reduce heresy to ash wherever found, and Tywin may plot to have his house bestride the Seven Kingdoms like a colossus, butwewill have no motive but the good of the Realm, for which we fought so long and so hard by his royal father's side."
"But we will have an ulterior motive," Olenna objected. "Unless you mean to tell me that you are willing to let this offer of Renly's pass you by, and the riches and influence it would win for us with it."
"An offer he does not have the power to give, as he is not the head of House Baratheon," Willas replied. "If one of the twins is to be my wife, then it will be for King Lyonel to declare it so, and confirm that the terms of the betrothal will remain unchanged in spite of all. And besides," his face darkened and he fingered the mourning band around his arm, "it is improper to speak of transferring my betrothal to one of the twins while Joanna's body is scarcely cold.That, more than anything, makes me suspect that Renly is not being entirely truthful with us; why should he make such an offer, one not within his gift, I remind you, unless he is so desperate for our support that he will pay any price for it? And why would he be so desperate unless he was unsure that he could prove his charges against the Queen before a court?"
"He may doubt that either the Queen, or Tywin, will allow him to swear a charge against her, much less take her to trial," Mace pointed out. "Can you imagine Tywin standing idle while his daughter is accused of murdering her husband?"
Willas shook his head. "I cannot," he allowed, "but nonetheless, Renly should have waited for King Lyonel to return before making his case, if he suspected Cersei so strongly. Even Tywin cannot stand against the Iron Throne, not after King Stannis' reforms; in the face of a warrant of arrest and formal charges he would have to hold his peace, lest he be justly accused of sedition and all the other Seven Kingdoms turn upon him. As it is, it isRenlywho is now in the wrong, for that he has arrested Queen Cersei without proper authority to do so."
Mace began to nod slowly as he digested the argument, feeling a flush of pride as he regarded his heir.I knew I had trained you well, my son. "Then we shall send a raven to King Lyonel," he said decisively, "informing him that we have called our banners and await only his word to tell us who to march against. And whichever he says," he reached up his arm and fingered his own mourning band, "wewillfind out who murdered my gooddaughter-to-be, and by the gods it will go hard for the guilty one."
Olenna nodded agreement as she touched her own mourning band; the wedding between Willas and Princess Joanna had been long and eagerly awaited, and due to take place barely a year from now. But now Highgarden was draped in mourning black instead of festal white and her musicians played laments instead of bridal songs, becausesomeonehad started a riot that had killed the Star of the City, as the Princess had been known. And whoever thatsomeonewas, Mace had vowed as he had comforted his grieving son, theywouldanswer for it. Highgarden grew strong to nourish and nurture, but even stronger to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
XXX
The mood in the Rock was sullen enough that Theon kept his hand on the throat of his sword's scabbard as he walked towards the Golden Sept. The rising of the false Aeron had strained nerves enough, even with how quickly Lyonel had put it down. Then news of the plague in King's Landing had arrived, and the Rock had been plunged into mourning first for King Stannis and then for Princess Joanna. On top of all that, the news that Queen Cersei had been arrested on suspicion of poisoning King Stannis, and that Lord Renly had done so in the name of King Lyonel, was enough to make even close comrades short-tempered with each other. Which was why Theon had spent those few hours that he was not at Lyonel's side with Lord Clegane; he and the Mastiff were hardly bosom friends, but Lord Clegane was the only person Theon had ever met who genuinely didn't care that he was Balon Greyjoy's son. And their service in the Isles had made them comrades, enough so that Theon was willing to bet that even his worst enemies wouldn't dare offer him a challenge-worthy insult where the Mastiff could hear them.
And insults there would have been, otherwise. The memory of Balon's surprise attack on the Westerlands was still raw, and being Lyonel's sworn shield offered only so much protection. On the other hand, being Lyonel's sworn shieldwasprotection from most people who might find his presence insulting, especially since Lyonel was now king in all but strictest law. And apparently word had spread of his stand on Pyke, and even the most prickly of the knights who called the Rock home had restrained themselves to glares and muttering asides to their friends. If Theon had been the sort to take offense easily, he would have heard at least five separate justifications for a death-duel by the time he reached the Golden Sept's doors, but that had never been his way. He had learned quickly that a man with few friends of uncertain availability had to pick his battles carefully, when he first came to the Red Keep; even the royal hostages hadn't liked him much, until he had proved to them that he was worthy to be the squire of so revered a personage as Ser Cortnay. And, deep down, he had accepted that he would meet with such enmity as a matter of course for the rest of his days, thanks to his father's treason, so there was no point taking it too much to heart.
As he entered the Golden Sept he knelt, signing himself and kissing the crystal he now wore around his neck; he didn't believe in the Seven much more than he believed in the Drowned God, but it was best to get in the habit of his new faith. His conversion was, after all, mostly a political move, so it behooved him to make as good a show of it as he could, to convince any doubters.
Lord Tywin, it seemed, would take more convincing than a single display of reverence, judging by the way his grief-sunken eyes were glowering as Theon rose and made his bows to his king and his host. Lyonel, on the other hand, let only a glimmer of emotion break through the mask that his parents had taught him to wear in public; he knew that Theon had converted for his sake rather than as a question of faith. He and Theon had argued long and fervently about it, in fact, but eventually Lyonel had accepted that it would look much better in the eyes of the Realm if it got out that the one confessed pagan in his retinue had converted to the Seven based on his example. And if the Seven chose to make an issue out of the deceit, Theon had pointed out, then they could take it up with him whenever he died; as it was his decision, then it would be on his head. "Theon," Lyonel said in the carefully emotionless tone that let him know that this was a matter of royal business, "we have two tasks for you."
Theon knelt. "Command me, Your Grace, and I shall see them done."
"First, you shall see that our household is prepared for the journey to King's Landing," Lyonel ordered. "My lord grandfather has called his banners, and we shall march with them to King's Landing to be acclaimed and crowned."
Theon nodded. "I shall begin immediately, Your Grace," he said. "If I may ask, has a decision been made regarding Lord Renly?"
"That will depend on what Lord Renly does when he receives the raven we have sent," Lyonel replied. "If he releases the Queen Dowager into the custody of the Faith until we have arrived and rescinds the decrees he has issued in our name, then we shall welcome him as a loyal, if overzealous, bannerman. If he does not . . ." Lyonel's mouth twitched slightly. "If he does not, then he shall be guilty of treason, and subject to the penalties prescribed by law."
Theon nodded again. Word that Renly had rescinded many of the restrictions that the Jonothorian Faith had been faced with in King's Landing and the Greater Crownlands, such as the right to join a guild or serve on juries, had been responsible for much of the sour mood around the Rock. Arresting the Queen on suspicion of poisoning the King was one thing, even if that Queen was Tywin Lannister's daughter. Legalizing heresy not just as a matter of private conscience, as the Edict of Harrenhal had done, but as a matter of public confession, on the other hand . . . "I understand, Your Grace," he answered. "And the other matter?"
"You will have heard, of course, of the death of our sister Princess Joanna," Lyonel said, his voice wavering with grief for a moment before it was mastered.
Theon bowed his head. "I have, Your Grace," he said, letting his own grief show in his voice. "I have lit candles and prayed for her soul, and paid to have Divine Offices said for her as well." Princess Joanna had been an impossible love for him, traitor's son that he was and promised to Willas Tyrell as she was, but he had loved her all the same. Lyonel and King Stannis aside, she had been one of his bare handful of true friends in the Red Keep, and no young man who had seen her at close quarters could help falling in love with her beauty, her wit, and her vivacious charm. The one thing that Queen's Men, King's Men, and Lord Renly's company had all agreed on had been that Princess Joanna was the true diamond of her father's Court, and that if anyone did her wrong then they would not live to regret it.
Princess Joanna was also the reason why his conversion was not entirely cynical. Unlike Queen Cersei, Joanna had demonstrated her faith by good works and wry humor. As she had put it, the Faith was better served by feeding one starving child in Flea Bottom than by imprisoning a hundred heretics, especially when those heretics mostly agreed with the Faith's doctrines. It had also been why she had made a point to befriend him, reminding doubters that the Book of the Stranger commanded that hospitality be shown and the hand of friendship extended toall,even former enemies. "For that which you do, even to the least of these, you do also to Me," she had reminded one Dogget cousin who had been especially skeptical.
"The circ*mstances surrounding her death remain . . . unclear, to put it charitably," Lyonel said. "Once we are acclaimed and crowned, we would have you and Lady Brienne uncover the truth behind her death, and bring the guilty ones before us for judgment."
Theon raised his head. "Would Your Grace have me arrest every man, woman, and child who threw a stone in that riot?" he asked carefully. "Because I doubt that even they would be able to say which of them threw the fatal stone, however harshly we put them to the Question."
Tywin looked very much like he wanted exactly that, but Lyonel shook his head. "To find the man, or men, who began the riot will suffice," he said. "We mean our justice to be inflexible, but exact, as our royal father's was."
Theon nodded. "Brienne and I shall need some commission of authority to make such an inquisition in King's Landing," he said. "And it will need to be above the power of the Watch."
Lyonel returned his nod. "We are aware of this," he said, reaching into his doublet and pulling out a folded parchment that he handed to Theon. "This is based on similar warrants issued by our uncle King Robert," he said, "and will suffice."
Theon accepted the parchment and unfolded it to readBy order of the Iron Throne, impede not the bearer of this, who is Our trusty and well-beloved servant."It will need to be signed and sealedafterwe are crowned, of course," Lyonel went on, "otherwise it will not be legally valid. Only a king can issue such a commission, and we are not the king until the crown touches our head."
Theon nodded as he refolded the parchment and handed it back. "That would serve nicely, Your Grace," he agreed. "And I swear to you; all that mortal might and craft can do, Brienne and I shall do to find the princess's murderer."
Lyonel inclined his head in acceptance of the oath. "We shall count upon you to remind Lady Brienne that the guilty parties are to be takenalive, if they are to face our justice," he said dryly. "Dead men cannot answer for their crimes."
"I shall do my utmost, Your Grace," Theon said. "Have I your leave to begin preparations?"
At Lyonel's gesture he rose, bowed again, and strode out after a final genuflection to the altar of the Father at the head of the Sept. While part of his mind began running down the list of preparations that would have to be made to get the household ready for the road, the other part was occupied with Brienne. If he had loved Joanna, Brienne had adored her, albeit as a younger sister rather than a wished-for lover. Combine that with how she would have taken her failure to prevent Joanna's death . . . Theon contemplated how he might feel about Lyonel's death in such circ*mstances and shied away from it instinctively. Some things were too horrible to contemplate. And the only friend Brienne was likely to have in King's Landing right now was Renly, who might well be false.
And Ser Cortnay, by last report, was still bedridden, and could not help, and as good as Brienne was, even she could not protect the twins and Prince Gerold alone, not if Renly indeed proved false. Theon's hand clenched around the throat of his scabbard.Hold fast, oath-sister,he said in his mind, hoping against hope that Brienne would hear him across the miles.I am coming as quickly as I may, with our king and his knights. And when we are together again and Ser Cortnay is well, we willseeabout these bastards who have harmed us so.
And it would not just be Renly and Joanna's killers that they would have to reckon with. Gods only knew what Edmure Tully was thinking, for all his protestations of loyalty, and word had come that the Point Lords had risen against the Royal Order of the Crown. Theon's hand moved from the throat of his scabbard to the hilt of his sword.Soon, oath-sister. The traitors and rebels have had their turn, but soon it will be our turn, and our king's, to raise the spear-din.A slow smile spread across Theon's face.We shall lay a feast for the eagles, oath-sister, when we are reunited. And how the little pigs will squeal when they hear how the old boars suffered under our blades.
XXX
Inside the Pearl Sept of Gulltown, all was joyous celebration. Ser Gerold Arryn, recently returned to the city from his unofficial exile in the Mountains of the Moon, was marrying the daughter of one of the city's richest merchant families, and virtually all of the city's leading notables had been invited. The mayor, the sheriff, the commander of the City Watch, all of the city aldermen, the harbormaster, virtually all the leading lights of the city had turned out in their finery to watch the Radianor of Gulltown say the Divine Office and administer the marriage vows.
It was, in the mind of Septon Luthor, perfect. All the rats were in the same trap, and only a handful of them were armed.
Clearly, Ser Gerold had thought that his knights and sergeants had managed to cow the city over the past few days. Gulltown's poor and it's middle-ranking men had had bitter memories of Ser Gerold's tenure as Watch commander, and those memories had been refreshed when Ser Gerold met their mutterings with force as naked as he had shown before. Mounted knights armed with longswords and sergeants with spears and halberds had been roaming the streets for almost a sennight now, trailing gangs of Watchmen as they ruthlessly broke up anything that even looked like a 'mutinous assembly'. Almost two-score men, women, and children had been killed in the street, cut down or ridden down, and as many more were reported to have died in the Watch's cells.
The city had been simmering with anger ever since, and doubly so when it had become apparent that Ser Gerold meant to make a public show of his wedding regardless of the blood his men had shed. Septon Luthor had been hard at work over those days, both in tending to the wounded and in finding weapons for the men who had pledged to accept his leadership if only he led them in expelling the now-hated Arryn's. Word that Denys Arryn, who had just been acclaimed as Lord of the Eyrie and Defender of the Vale, had appointed Ser Gerold his Captain of Gulltown had only fueled the anger. Jon Arryn had at least been polite in his contempt for the city and its guildsmen; Denys had never bothered to conceal his scorn for men who did more to earn their living than he did.
On top of this, the news that Stannis the Grim and the High Septon had died and that his brother, Lord Renly, was issuing commands that the Reformed Faith be granted the recognition that it was due, had been received as a sign. The greatest oppressor of the true Faith and his puppet in the Great Sept both struck down by a plague that could only be a manifestation of divine wrath, and the other gilded parasites in the Great Sept forced to recant the laws that had denied the Faithful their rights? Surely the Seven were making all things new before their very eyes. All that Faithful men were required to do now was seize the opportunity They afforded.
Which was why Septon Luthor was leading four hundred armed people through the streets of Gulltown towards the Pearl Sept. Many of them were poor men and women with no better weapons than staves or cudgels, but at least fifty were apprentices or journeymen, driven into the arms of the true Faith by the oppressions of the guild masters and the nobles, who had the jacks and spears that the militia companies of the guilds favored. But if the Seven's men were poorly armed this day, Luthor knew that the Arryn's and their guests were more poorly armed still; his spies had reported that none of Ser Gerold's guests had worn armor to the sept, and even the knights and sergeants were only carrying arming swords and daggers. And they had not posted sentries.
As they approached the last corner before the avenue that led to the Sept, Hubert Fry, one of his captains, quickened his pace to draw level with him. "Teacher, are there any in the Sept that we should give quarter to?" he asked.
Septon Luthor looked Hubert in his nervous eyes; he did not doubt the former tanner's devotion, not after helping him bury his daughter after she had gone under the hooves of an Arryn destrier, but Hubert was a meticulous man, who liked to have all things in order before he acted. And Luthor had to admit that what they planned to do would give pause even to the most ruthless of men. Open war in the name of the Seven was one thing; a massacre of unsuspecting men and women was quite another. No one could argue that the magisters of old Myr had deserved their fate, but the stories that had emerged of the Sack had painted even King Robert in a bad light. As for Victarion Greyjoy and Akhollo Freeman, they would never be able to wholly wash the stain of the Sack from their banners, no matter how much slaver blood they dipped them in.
That said, Ser Gerold and Lord Denys had clearly demonstrated their contempt for law, and for men who sought relief under its strictures. The Book of the Father was very clear; when a man could not appeal to the law, he had every right to appeal to the sword. And anyone who had so much as whispered opposition to Ser Gerold's policy of force had been refused an invitation. The only men and women within the Pearl Sept on this day were enemies of the Faithful, excepting only a few spies who risked their lives for love of the Seven. "Are there any among us that they would give quarter to, brother, if our situations were reversed?" he asked gently. When Hubert shook his head, he gestured slightly with one hand. "Then strike and spare not, brother, until the true Faith comes into its own. Not just today, but in all the days to come."
As Hubert nodded and withdrew, they rounded the corner to find the Pearl Sept before them. The doors were closed, but Luthor knew that they were not barred; friends among the Sept's deacons had seen to that. He paused for a moment as the awful magnitude of what he was about to do struck him, and then it was replaced by the serene certainty that he had felt ever since he had left Stoney Sept, inspired by Colyn's teachings and Ryman's courage. All his life he had railed in his heart against the injustices of the nobility; now, finally, it was in his power not just to condemn, but to avenge. "What has been need not always be," he murmured under his breath, and commanded his followers forward with a sharp gesture.
Of the attendees of Ser Gerold's wedding, only two would survive; Eric Hunter and his bodyguard Ser Harold Stone both managed to survive a daring leap from a window in the choir loft and lose their pursuers in a chase through the city's alleys. The other guests were massacred in what later scholars have described as "the most complete, violent, and sudden purge of it's kind in the Westerosi Wars of Religion." Ser Gerold's arrogance in failing to post sentries and not requiring his household men-at-arms to attend the wedding under arms is rightly blamed for the success of the attack, but focusing on Ser Gerold's failures alone does not give sufficient credit to Septon Luthor's success at using his spies to gather necessary intelligence and shape the battlefield by both opening the main doors and blocking other routes of escape from the Pearl Sept. At any rate, Ser Gerold was fittingly punished for his failure to understand the degree of hatred he had inspired among Gulltown's populace and take the danger they posed seriously. It was his, and his new wife and in-laws', defenestration through the rose window of the Sept, in a deliberate mockery of the Arryn tradition of executing particularly hated enemies by throwing them out the Moon Door, that caused the massacre to be named The Flight of the Arryn's.
The Flight of the Arryn's proved to be only the beginning, however, as Gulltown was quickly enveloped by a wave of street fighting and mob violence that lasted for five days. With Ser Gerold's death, leadership of the Arryn loyalist faction within the city devolved to Ser Jon Willow, who was the senior surviving officer of the city garrison and who, to his credit, responded to the crisis with energy and skill. He was, however, undermined by the loss of most of the loyalist leadership in the Flight and the attitude of the general population of the city. By this time, the Old Faith's hold on the city's poor and middle class was very strong, and even those who did not turn out to join Septon Luthor's rising in arms proved to have no love remaining for the Arryn's. These fence-sitters were quickly pushed into the struggle, however, by the brutality of the measures that Ser Jon ordered, which amounted to turning all of Gulltown into a free-fire zone. The breaking point came on the third day of the fighting, when a militia company of the Carpenter's Guild, having reportedly witnessed garrison troopers evicting their families, looting their houses, and torturing some of their relatives in the streets, changed sides and began killing every garrison trooper and knight in the Craftsman's Quarter.
This, followed by Ser Jon's order that the militia companies of the other Guilds were to be disarmed and their leaders taken into preventive custody, not only drove the rest of the Guild militia into open revolt but inspired a wave of desertions from the City Watch. Unlike the garrison, which was drawn primarily from the demesne lands of the Arryn's and the Royce's, the Watch was made up primarily of Gulltown citizens, and even those who were listed as 'foreigners' on its rolls had, in most cases, been longtime residents of the city and had married into local families. Some of the Watchmen who deserted simply went home and tried to ride out the storm, but many more joined their in-laws and neighbors in the rebellion, spurred not only by solidarity with their fellow citizens but by the opportunity to settle old scores with the garrison.
Ser Jon, whose remaining forces were now outnumbered by at least six to one, now had two choices. Firstly, he could pull his forces back to the harbor castle, which he had been careful to keep under his personal control, and endure a siege until he was relieved by Arryn loyalist or royal forces. Secondly, he could make one more counterattack aimed at the Pearl Sept, where Septon Luthor had established his headquarters after an iconoclastic 'cleansing of heretical trappings and unnecessary fripperies', and try to decapitate the rebellion. Most modern historians argue that Ser Jon should have taken the first option, but this ignores both the chivalric imperative to bring the enemy to battle and defeat him in the field and the aristocratic impulse to avenge an insult with fire and sword. After Septon Luthor sent a missive to Ser Jon that taunted him for his failure to hold the streets and accused him of cowardice for not leading his men in person, there was only one course that Ser Jon could take, under the Westerosi canons of knighthood. His attempt to ride through the streets to Pearl Sept at the head of his remaining knights and men-at-arms, however, got only six blocks from the harbor castle before it fell apart under sustained missile fire. Ser Jon himself, having been knocked unconscious by a roof tile and a fall from his saddle, was taken prisoner, as were twenty of his men; the eight knights and men-at-arms who made it back to the castle decided to abandon both castle and city the next day. As the remnants of the garrison sailed away, the harbor castle was formally surrendered by Maester's Theobald and Ralf as the senior remaining officials of the Arryn government; both maesters, and their assistants, then transferred their loyalties to Septon Luthor on the grounds that their service was to the city, whoever its master might be.
This not only gave Septon Luthor the kernel of a functioning bureaucracy, but allowed him to publish arguably the most important political and religious manifesto since Septon Jonothor'sProtestation, theCovenant of the Free and Reformed City of Gulltown. In addition to laying out the grievances that had driven the city to rebellion, theCovenantdeclared the public goals of Septon Luthor's new government. Firstly, it sought to establish Gulltown and the ancestral lands of House Grafton that surrounded it as a self-governing enclave, with no feudal obligations to House Arryn or religious duties to the Great Sept of Baelor. Secondly, it sought the recognition by King Lyonel of a new charter that would grant the Old Faith equal rights to the Reformed and Baelorite Faiths, affirm that Gulltown would have no overlord but the King, and ensure that the city's guilds would receive an expanded set of rights and liberties befitting their new status as the most powerful organs of social organization and governance in the city.
If Septon Luthor hoped to forestall a reaction by presenting Lyonel with a fait accompli and promising loyal submission in return for royal acknowledgement of the facts on the ground, he would be sorely disappointed. Lyonel might not have even been formally crowned yet, but he was the son of Stannis the Grim and the grandson of Tywin the Terrible, and proved it with his single-line response to theCovenant: "The Iron Throne does not negotiate with rebels and traitors."
The Mask of Chivalry: Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Westeros from the Blackfyre Rebellions to the Wars of Religionby Maester Marks
Chapter 138: Brushfire (The March to the Sea, Part One: Lyseni Interior)
Chapter Text
Captain Nakano Sanolis couldn't keep the consternation off his face as his men came pounding back up the road from Bagradas. They were supposed to be informing the town fathers that the army was coming down the road and would need supplies and food, not riding like Myrish borderers were after them. "What's the meaning of this?" he demanded as they drew rein before him.
"Word of Claymoor Water got here before we did, Captain," the corporal in charge of the detail said as he touched the brim of the straw hat he was wearing since there were no enemies close by; his helmet was hanging from his pommel where it could be readily snatched up in an emergency. "The townies panicked; half of them tried to run, the other half tried to pull a Night of Flames on their slaves. The slaves fought back, and now it's the town in flames, not the slave barracks."
Sanolis gaped for a moment before rallying. "Is there any chance we can restore order before the army gets here?"
The corporal tipped his hand from side to side. "I won't say it can't be done, Captain," he replied. "But I don't think it'll do much good. Most of the fighting is around the guildhall and the market quarter, including the town granary. I'll bet all the money in my purse against all the money in yours that most of the food in the town is already either eaten or spoiled, and what's left will take too long for us to round up and hand out to the rest of the army."
Sanolis concealed the sudden rush of dread that roiled his guts as he glanced back up the road. Somewhere, miles behind them, Naharis was shepherding the rest of the army down the road with Myrish light horse and borderers nipping at their heels. The army was holding together, but it needed food, forage, and new boots with something verging on desperation. What they really needed was to break contact completely and get somewhere where they could have a sennight to rest, refit, and reorganize, but that wasn't likely to happen anytime soon, so a square meal for man and beast and new boots would have to suffice. Bragadas was supposed to have twenty thousand rations of flour, salt pork, and small beer stored for army use, but if the town granary was on fire . . .
Sanolis turned back to face the town, mind racing.Think, you fool . . .he berated himself. "What day of the sennight is it?" he asked finally.
The corporal frowned. "Fourth or fifth, captain," he said doubtfully. "Why do you ask?"
"Markets aren't supposed to be held until the sixth day of the sennight," Sanolis said slowly. "And Lyseni law forbids livestock from being brought within town limitsexcepton market days."
The corporal, a former drover, nodded; there was a similar law in Volantis. "You think there might be drovers nearby with beef herds, captain?"
Sanolis shook his head. "Wrong time of year for beef," he said. "Sheep or goats, probably. And while the town might have heard about Claymoor Water, I doubt the news will have gotten much further."
The corporal nodded again. "I'll take my lads and look around for any drove-sign, captain," he said.
"Focus on the west side of town," Sanolis said. "I'll send other parties around the east side; they'll meet you on the road south. Speaking of which, for gods' sakes, make sure the road is still clear as far south as you can go. If you find people on the road, push them off it; the last thing we need is for the army to get stuck behind a broken-down wagon for the Myrish to catch up to us."
The corporal nodded. "I'll see it done, captain sir, don't worry," he said, reining his horse around and waving his hand around his head in a circular gesture. "Come on, boys, let's go!"
As the other foraging parties clattered away to the southeast, Sanolis took a wax tablet out of his saddlebag and began to scrawl a message. Naharis would have to know that the army could not expect to draw on the stores at Bragadas, and that Bragadas itself would have to be bypassed.
XXX
Jon Rainwater took a last swig of water from his canteen, stoppered it, and slung it behind the cantle of his saddle before drawing his saber with a flourish. "Come on, lads, let's have at 'em!" he shouted, drawing bloodthirsty yells from his borderers as they broke into a trot. Beside them the company of Army light horse that had been attached to his command began to trot as well, silent except for the jingle and clatter of their gear and the brassy notes of their bugles.
Ahead of them were the two companies of light horse that made up the slaver rearguard; one mostly Lyseni and the other mostly Volantene, both eked out with sellswords from half the nations in Essos, as they had found out from interrogating prisoners. They were hard men under able captains, as evidenced by the fact that two and a half days of fighting almost every hour on the hour hadn't broken them, but Jon could tell that they were nearing the end of their rope. Their maneuvers had gotten more sluggish since dawn this day, and he had seen that some of their mounts were only getting on by sheer heart. Of course, the same could be said for his force as well. His men and the Army troopers might be mounted on crossbreeds with a generous helping of Dothraki, but even purebred Dothraki steeds had their limits.
But they were fresher than the slavers, if only barely, and in spite of fatigue the men were still in good spirits. They had not broken their enemies, but they were driving them like cattle, and their new Captain-General had promised to pay a silver shield for every enemy head taken. So as the distance closed the borderers began voice the warbling, yipping whoop that served them for a war cry, while the Army troopers began the chant of "Stormcrow, Stormcrow, Stormcrow!" Lord Corbray's body had been sent back north to Sirmium, but the army he had led for so many years still burned to avenge his death, and Lord Lannister had promised to send a jar of seawater taken from the Lyseni coast to christen his tomb.
The distance was close enough now that Rainwater put his whistle between his teeth and shrilled out the signal for the canter, sheathing his saber and drawing his shortbow from its scabbard before his left knee. Only the strongest borderer could hope to draw a true Dothraki bow, but a shortbow could still send a bodkin through a mail-shirt and gambeson at forty paces, and a broadhead through a more lightly-armored man at fifty to seventy. Most of his borderers carried them by now, except for a few who still preferred the Dornish javelin or the light crossbows called latchets.
Even as Jon drew an arrow from the quiver, drew it back to his jaw, and sent it winging away he kept his eyes moving. The ground here was flatter than the border hills but even a slight depression could hide a squadron of horse from distant eyes, and as the commander it was his job to watch for danger. Especially when the enemy was starting to flee, making his borderers whoop all the louder and the Army troopers bay like hounds on the trail of a wounded stag. He had been twelve years old when he had seen his father ambush a pursuing band of Wyl brigands, back on the Dornish Marches, and the lesson had stuck fast.
So when the company of Lyseni cavalry came out of the copse of scrub pines that their rearguard was making for, it took not a single conscious thought for Jon to sound the retreat on his whistle; the Lyseni would be on much fresher horses, and if they had waited only as much longer as it took a bad septon to say the credo twice they would have been close enough to run his force down. As it was, his borderers came to a dirt-flinging stop, spun their horses almost on the spot, and began cantering back the way they came. Virtually all of them were on the same horses they used to cut lone animals out of their herds, and borderers rode lightly enough to make a knight look like he was standing still. The Army troopers, to give them their due, were acceptably quick on the uptake, or else it was all the formation training they did that had them wheeling about only a beat behind the Border Horse, even before their buglers sounded their own recall. Jon shrugged; if there was one thing to be said for the way the Army did things, it was that they trained people toobey, instantly and without question. Which normally made them the object of derision among the free border clans, but on the other hand it was what had seen them through that disastrous first day at Claymoor Water. That and Lord Corbray's prowess.
As they reined around and slowed back to a walk an acceptable distance from the slavers, Ser Justan Osgrey, commander of the First Company of the Royal Light Horse, trotted over and knocked the visor of his light sallet up onto his brow. "Damme, but that was close," he said. "A few more heartbeats and they'd have had us in the bag, neat as you please."
Jon nodded. "Whoever their captain is, he must have gotten impatient," he replied. "For which he'll get his ass chewed out by Devil Daario at some point, or I'll eat my hat."
Ser Justan returned his nod. "Aye, Devil Daario wouldn't have made that mistake," he said, smoothing his moustache with gauntleted fingers. "I don't know about you, Master Rainwater, but my horses are almost done in. Too done in to be able to tangle with that lot and come out of it well. Are yours any better?"
Pride almost made Rainwater nod, but honesty made him shake his head. "No," he admitted. "Especially since I'll bet you a crown against a penny that that lot," he jerked his chin at the Lyseni cavalry walking back towards the trees, "simply dropped out of the line of march and waited there for the fighting to get to them. They'll be fresh, or at least fresher than we are."
Ser Justan nodded again. "Right, then," he said. "Let's keep them entertained, shall we, and send riders back for your second company and the Third Light Horse to come up and take the lead. I'll include a call for Captain Marsh; we may need his mounted infantry to winkle those men out of that copse, if they decide to fight for it."
"Agreed," Jon said, gesturing for his younger surviving son Gelfred, who coincidentally was his lightest and fastest rider, almost as light as a jockey. Myhaelis Shardauqar would gloat insufferably at being asked to take over the pursuit, but as much as he hated to admit it there was no one outside his own family that Jon would trust with such a business more. He and Myhaelis had made many raids over the border together, and more against each other, so that they each knew how the other thought and fought as well as close cousins. Which they were, in fact; Myhaelis's third son had married Jon's niece, and Jon's youngest brother had married the youngest sister of Myhaelis' wife.
Both son and brother were dead now, slain in Devil Daario's ambush at Claymoor Water, so Jon reminded himself as Gelfred cantered back up the road to have a word with Myhaelis about not getting carried away when he came up. The blood of their kin cried out from the earth for vengeance, true enough, but that vengeance would go untaken if he or Myhaelis fell into another of Devil Daario's traps. Not that he expected to need to remind Myhaelis of that too sharply; they were both the type of men to think and fight with their brains rather than their balls. Which was why they were both still alive, wealthy, and powerful all at the same time, despite all that they had seen and done in their lives on the border.
XXX
Daario Naharis pursed his lips as he read the hastily scrawled message Captain Sanolis had sent back; what he really wanted to do was break the tablet in half between his hands, dash the pieces to the ground beside his horse, and swear loudly and long, but that was a luxury he couldn't afford. Being The Captain meant that he could no longer display such emotional turmoil openly, at least not where his men could see it.
Which was annoying in and of itself, because emotional turmoil he was experiencing in plenty just now. Damn it, he had givenspecific ordersthat there were to be no purges like the Night of Flames within a hundred miles of the border, for precisely this reason! Instead of being a supply base that would allow him to put his army back in sufficient order to fight another battle, Bragadas was now a co*ck-pit of street fighting that wouldn't be able to supply a company of horse, much less an army. Which threw not just sand but gravel into the gears of his plans, because Bragadas had been where he had planned to make his stand. The streams that flowed out of the border hills coalesced into a single river some ten miles from the town, and aside from a stone-and-timber bridge and a narrow ford two miles from the town there was no crossing within thirty miles that was practicable for an army. If he had been able to resupply, he could have done what he had done at the Turtle River, and used the river as a castle wall with only two narrow gates to negate the Myrish advantage in heavy cavalry. The Myrish might be able to force him away eventually, especially if their thrice-damned Pioneers managed to throw a bridge across the river far enough away that he couldn't shift a portion of his army fast enough to stop them, but it would have bought time for his men to rest, reorganize, and regain some of their spirit.
Well, that would have to go by the wayside, now, thanks to thoseidiotsin Bragadas. He couldn't hold the line of the river against a Myrish armyandput down a slave revolt, not when the slave revolt was destroying the supplies that would have enabled him to hold the river. He scraped the tablet smooth and snapped his fingers to summon an orderly. "Map," he demanded, and as the orderly handed it over he bent his head over it and pursed his lips again as he considered his options. The unfortunate fact was that Bragadas had the best ground to fight a defensive battle for miles in any direction. There were extensive rice paddies near Turiaso that could be promising, especially if he could somehow stall the Myrish army there long enough for the miasmas the paddies produced to infect the Myrish with the fevers that made them so dreaded among slaves. Only being sold to a pleasure house compared with the threat of being sold to a rice plantation.
The problem was that Turiaso was forty miles down the road, and while the villages between were prosperous, none of them was large enough to serve as the sort of supply base he had intended Bragadas to be.Needs must when demons drive, old son, Daario told himself as he folded the map again and began to scrawl orders, both on the tablet that Sanolis had sent to him and on others that he kept in his saddlebags. Turiaso would have to do, and his men would have to tighten their belts and step lively. Thank Fortune that his rearguard was holding as well as could be asked for. He was having enough problems keeping the army moving through the refugees that were starting to clog the roads without having Myrish cavalry breathing down the back of his collar. Sanolis was doing a fine job of driving the refugees off the road as he pushed his vanguard through them, but the gap between his vanguard and the main body was letting the refugees flow back onto the road after he passed them.
And it was only likely to get worse, he knew, as they went further south. When people saw his army march south without doing more than keeping the Iron Legion from pursuing too closely . . . He pushed the specter of mass panic out of his mind as he handed out the last orders to his couriers. Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof, as the Andal Faith put it.
XXX
Jaime Lannister didn't like complex situations. He had, after all, been raised and trained as a knight, and a knight's world was fundamentally a simple one. Obey your lord, be faithful to your lady and your brothers-in-arms, be harsh to your enemies, and don't gouge the smallfolk more than the necessities of war dictated. Add in devotion to the Seven and courtesy to your inferiors and that was the whole concept of chivalry summed up in simple terms. There wasn't much to negotiate in them, either, unless you found yourself in the service of a bad lord.
And the last time he had made a decision in a situation as complex as this one, he had come within a shaved hair of losing his king's confidence and starting a minor civil war. So now, outside the town of Bragadas, he found himself hesitating.
Ultimately, of course, the question was simple. Did he pursue Daario Naharis and his army further south? Or did he stop the pursuit here and solidify the gains he had already won? Taking the second option was certainly the wiser course. Bragadas was no city, but it was a populous and well-found town, situated in the middle of wide acres made fertile by the mountain streams that coalesced into the river that ran by the town walls. Once the damage caused by the attempted massacre and successful uprising was repaired and the town and surrounding villages resettled by freedmen and new immigrants, it would be sturdy a pillar of the Kingdom as Alalia or Dubris or Ceralia.
On the other hand . . . Jaime glanced southward down the road that had so recently carried Naharis's army towards the coast. On the other hand, Naharis's retreat and Bragadas' liberation were inseparably intertwined. Naharis had been forced to retreat because the revolt of the slaves had removed Bragadas' ability to quickly resupply his army, and Bragadas had been liberated because his army's pursuit of Naharis had provided the slaves with the hope they had needed to fight back against their masters. And Jaime had read the Office of Foreign Inquiry's reports on the Lyseni interior; the militarization of the Lyseni mainland might have made its freeborn inhabitants enthusiasts for the fight against abolition, but that enthusiasm was not matched by the terrain. The multitude of small rivers that made the Lyseni territories the most fertile part of the Disputed Lands might have formed a net that would ensnare his armies, if not for the scores of bridges that had been built across those rivers over the previous centuries. Even Devil Daario could not throw them all down, with Jaime's vanguard hard on his heels, and even if he tried Jaime's light horse and the teams from Special Branch attached to his army would surely be able to find alternatives, especially if the local slaves guided them.
And they would, of that he was as sure as anything. Hadn't the former slaves in Bragadas already steeped forward in droves to join the Legion, either as regular infantry or as guides? The slaves of the districts closer to the coast would provide yet more recruits and more guides, while Naharis' army would wither away. Retreats ground down even the best armies as men fell out from exhaustion or disillusion. An army like Naharis's? The Lyseni militia would want to split off to defend their home districts, the Volantenes would want to get to the coast to take ship back to Volantis, and the sellswords would just want to get out of it. Even if Naharis held them together, they would find their every move undermined by the same slave uprisings that would provide the Army of the South with new strength and new intelligence. And while Naharis might do his best to burn or spoil any supplies that lay in his path, he was unlikely to be able to destroy all of them. The Lyseni mainland was as rich as Myr had been, when the Sunset Company had marched through it after Tara, if not more so. Naharis had spent years urging the plantations to shift away from growing cotton or flax or other cash crops to growing wheat, rice, or livestock, the better to feed his army. If his men moved quickly enough, they would be able to reap the benefits of Naharis' years of preparation. Especially once word spread that the Army of the South was over the border with fire and sword and looking to make their stay permanent. Special Branch was already reporting that thousands of freeborn Lyseni were fleeing their homes, not wanting to gamble that the Legion would be in a merciful mood when it caught up to them. So many refugees clogging the roads would confound Naharis' efforts to salt the earth behind his army; no refugee would willingly see food put to the torch if there was any chance they could carry it with them.
Jaime hesitated a moment longer, then shrugged to himself.f*ck it, he decided.In for a penny, in for a crown. He gestured to one of his pages and sent him scurrying away with orders to bring his captains to his side. He would run Devil Daario to earth, as he had promised Lyn, and wash his hands in the waters of Lys' southern coast.
As a purely theoretical exercise, Lord Lannister's pursuit of Daario Naharis into the Lyseni interior was one of the more reckless gambles the Kingdom of Myr ever undertook. While Naharis' army was battered it was still a coherent force under one of the most able captains on the continent, operating on its home ground. Modern tabletop exercises conducted by the Royal Military Academy overwhelmingly suggest that the Army of the South should have come to grief shortly after it marched away from Bragadas, drawn away from its base of supply, tempted or coerced into battle on ground of Naharis' choosing, and either battered to pieces or forced to make a long and grueling retreat.
Military theory, however, rarely takes note of social factors, which as in the other Slave Wars proved vital to Lannister's campaign. Although still inherently classist, the Westerosi model of monarchy under which the Kingdom of Myr operated was still a vast improvement over the Valyrian system of chattel slavery that Lys was so inextricably tied into. While the Lyseni brand of slavery was not as harsh as that which was practiced in Tyrosh, it still resulted in the majority of the population being actively hostile or at least ambivalent to the same society that depended on their labor. Prior to the Slave Wars, of course, this had not been a factor; even officially abolitionist Braavos had little interest in fostering or supporting large-scale uprisings of the sort that would pose an existential danger to the ruling class. Indeed, in the small-scale wars between the slaver states prior to the Slave Wars it was not unheard of for belligerent states to pause hostilities and join forces to put down slave revolts before resuming the conflict.
The advent of the Kingdom of Myr, which had not only had no use for such niceties but actively encouraged and supported slave revolts as a key part of its foreign policy, spawned a variety of reactions among the slaver states that survived long enough to formulate new policies in response to the new paradigm. Tyrosh attempted to retain control by terror, which arguably backfired by making it the prime target of abolitionist rhetoric and military action. Lorath opted for a controlled emancipation, in hopes of making a soft landing that would allow them to avoid the fate of Tyrosh. Norvos also attempted a controlled emancipation, but was thwarted by the reactionary coup that plunged it into civil war. Volantis, by contrast, chose to increase the power and, crucially, the visibility of its military, in order to maintain control of its slaves by presenting the appearance of invincibility. Lys chose to follow the Volantene model, which Daario Naharis modified by making efforts to reduce the slave population in the districts where he could present such measures as militarily necessary. His efforts, however, were foiled by reactionary elements among the ruling magisters, with the result that Naharis' army became both the primary defense and the sole guarantor of social stability in the Lyseni mainland.
As a result of this policy, and of Naharis' failure to substantively reduce the slave population on the Lyseni mainland, Naharis found himself fighting two enemies when Lord Lannister marched south from Bragadas, and the Kingdom of Myr was only one of them . . .
Perfect Storm: the Fourth Slave War in Lysby Maester Baldwyn
Chapter 139: Crowning (Agneiat Creek and vicinity, Viceroyalty of Pentos)
Chapter Text
Durran Bahaan slipped his drumsticks into the bag attached to his side drum and hauled the baldric that held the drum over his head with a sigh of relief. Twenty-five miles in full kit was a long day even by the Legion's standards, even with the fifes and drums to set the pace and keep the men's spirits up. More than three years in the Legions had given him strength as well as a new name after too many jokes about the company having its very own Devil Daario, but he just didn't have the weight of muscle or the tested endurance of the older veterans, and the vigor of youth could only compensate for so much. And the day's work didn't end with the day's march, either, as he was reminded when Drum-Sergeant Tambor came up from the Captain's orders group. "Bahaan and Clerk, there's a stream half a mile that way," he said, gesturing back up the road they had just marched down. "Collect the canteens and refill them, before those buggers in the cavalry take their horses down to sh*t in it."
By the time Durran and Myles Clerk had staggered back, laden under the weight of ten full canteens, the nightly fire had been laid and Fat Conrad, the band's best cook, was working his usual magic with the twice-baked biscuit, beans, oil, and salted pork that was the Legion's daily fare on campaign. "Pity we don't have any onions," Fat Conrad was saying to Drum-Sergeant Tambor, as he so often did. "Fry up a treat with the pork, onions would, with some flour and some vinegar."
"Aye, well, we don't have any onions, do we?" Drum-Sergeant Tambor said in mock exasperation. "Nor likely to until we get back to barracks. Just do what you can with it."
"I was just saying, sarge," Fat Conrad said defensively as he turned his attention back to the kettle. He had been a cook before the Liberation, or so rumor said, and was good enough at it that the rumor was widely believed. As was the story that he had cut his master's throat with one of his carving knives.
Neithan Stone, a swarthy Dornishman who could play dancing tunes on his fife as well as simple marches, stood up and cricked his neck. "I'll have a stroll about, Drum-Sergeant, and hear what the news is," he said casually, and walked off. No sooner had he done so than a man in Legion armor walked up and introduced himself as Felix Wren, of the Tara Royals. "What's the news, lads?" he asked casually. "Any word as to where we'll fight the slavers?"
"Anywhere between here and the Seven Hells by way of Norvos," Drum-Sergeant Tambor said as he dipped his mug into the kettle of mint tea that Conrad had bubbling beside the stew kettle and passed it over. "Least as far as I know. Captain didn't know much, or if he did he didn't tell us."
"Well, I wouldn't be surprised if it was soon," said Felix, accepting the mug with a grateful nod and blowing away the steam. "Fella in the Ceralia Reserves told me that the light horse and mounted infantry have been fighting the Dothraki all day, up the road, and not getting the better of it either."
Myles Clerk snorted in disbelief. "In a pig's eye," he said. "How many times have we made the Dothraki turn tail, since Narrow Run?" Myles had been a street urchin in King's Landing before he had stowed away on a ship to Myr; a step ahead of the Watch, he maintained with a combative gleam in his blue eyes, and the skill and snapping ferocity he had shown in behind-the-barracks tussles with the other drummer boys and the older sons of the infantrymen backed up his tale that the Watch had been seeking him for accidentally killing another boy in a gang fight. Only Durran, with his baker's arms and shoulders, had been able to wrestle him to the ground and keep him there. They had become thick as thieves thereafter, once Myles got over his wrenched shoulder and Durran's black eye cleared up.
"That was armies against armies, lad," Drum-Sergeant Tambor replied. "'Tis a different matter when it's companies against companies, or squadrons against squadrons. And the Dothraki have beaten us afore, at Piper's Creek, albeit that was because Brus Buckler was a fool."
Felix nodded. "'Nother fella, in the Tara Cavalry, he told me that a squadron of the Fifth Light Horse got separated from their mounted infantry. Dothraki swallowed 'em whole." He took a gulp of the tea. "'Course, same fella also said that the rest of the Fifth then punched through the rest of the Dothraki and got a good look at the slavers. Haven't heard the same from anyone else, though."
"I have," said a man in Braavosi colors as he walked up. "Nerio Velcius, Braavosi Tenth Volunteers."
"Drum-Sergeant Tambor, City of Myr Royals," said Drum-Sergeant Tambor as he shook the newcomer's hand with more warmth than he would have a year ago. Any doubts the Legion had had about whether the Braavosi could be trusted to stand and fight had been laid to rest at Haven. "This is Felix Wren, Tara Royals. You said someone got a good look at the slavers?"
Nerio nodded. "Your Fifth Light Horse broke through their screen and saw what they could see, according to a man in the Fourth Mounted Infantry," he confirmed. "The whole Volantene army, maybe a day's march ahead of us."
"You hear what they had?" Felix asked.
Nerio waggled his head. "Mostly militia, was what I heard," he said. "Although the man also said that there were more Unsullied than he'd ever seen before."
"One's enough," Drum-Sergeant Tambor said sourly, staring at the fire. "I've seen Unsullied before, at Tyrosh and on the Lyseni border. Poor dumb bastards don't take their freedom even when you give it to them on a silver plate."
Felix nodded. "Slavers do things to 'em, when they're young; make 'em more like clockworks than men," he agreed. "Steal their f*ckingsouls, like. By the time the slavers are done with 'em and put 'em in the field . . ." He shook his head. "Can't free 'em," he said darkly. "Nothing lefttofree. Only thing you can do is kill 'em."
Nerio also nodded. "My father, he was on a ship that traded with Astapor, where the Unsullied are made," he offered. "He said that to earn their shield and their spiked helmet, they are sent to the slave market with a silver coin. They must use the coin to buy an infant from one of the slave-sellers and then kill the infant before its mother's eyes."
Durran clapped a hand to his mouth to suppress the urge to vomit, while Myles Clark and Fat Conrad stared at Nerio with their jaws hanging open. "You're serious?" Myles demanded.
Nerio raised a hand solemnly. "As my father told it to me, I have told it to you now," he said. "That was the last time my father sailed to Astapor. He told his partners in thecolleganzathat there were some things a man shouldn't be asked to bear."
There was silence around the fire for a long moment. "Well, we'll have to see about the slavers in Astapor, won't we just?" Fat Conrad said viciously as he turned his attention back to the stew.
"Lord of Light grant it happen in our lifetimes," said Symon Star, who had played the flute in a Lyseni pleasure house before he had been sold to a pleasure house in Alalia, and had strangled the madam of the house with his own hands before volunteering for the Legion. "But first we have to beat the Volantenes."
As the conversation droned on and Felix and Nerio drifted away to be replaced by other men from different companies seeking the news of the day, Durran shoveled down his portion of stew and tea, trying not to think too hard about what the coming battle would be like. He had seen some action before, when the company had spent a season on the Lyseni border, but that had mostly been a lot of marching except for the one time a Lyseni squadron tried to make a dash at them. This, if the news-seekers flitting from fire to fire were telling the truth, would be a battle with almost fifty thousand men on each side. And it was a point of Legion honor that news-seekers did not lie and were not lied to.
Durran glanced at his side-drum. Whatever befell, he would be by the Captain, with the rest of the band; they were the Captain's voice, drumming out his commands over the noise of battle. He might be young, and not yet considered a veteran by men who had fought at Tara, Narrow Run, Alalia, Novadomo, and Tyrosh, but he was still Legion. And Legion men, it had been hammered into him from his first day of training, did not fly from a fight.
XXX
The Tattered Prince couldn't help the brooding feeling that came over him as he stared into the fire his body slave had laid in front of his pavilion. Intellectually, of course, he knew that he should be as confident as any man about the outcome of the coming fight. Ten thousand Unsullied, as many Volantene Militia, the eighteen thousand men of the Exile Company, the ten thousand Norvoshi militia that he commanded and which were led by his Windblown, and two thousand Dothraki screamers that had rallied to Viserys' banner? That was easily the mightiest host the Free Cities had raised since the Century of Blood.
Which did not change the fact that so great an army had only been raised to face the greatest threat the Free Cities had faced the Century of Blood. The Kingdom of Myr might be only a bastard child of Westeros born of the rape of possibly the greatest of the Three Daughters, and it might be nothing more than a hive of robbers and runaways with delusions of grandeur, as he had heard his employers say repeatedly. But even the most purblind of his employers had to admit that when it came to war, Robert the Bloody and his killers had yet to meet their equals. Even if it was only due to the Braavosi that they could field armies, those armies had defeated every foe set against them. Daario Naharis might have held them in check in the south for years now, and Khal Pobo had beaten them at Piper's Creek and sacked Campora, but those setbacks had only spurred the Andals and their pet renegades to greater ferocity. And the Braavosi were not to be taken lightly either. On those rare occasions when the Commune resorted to arms, they made war the same way they did business; methodically, ruthlessly, and exactingly. Which was a pattern they were almost certain to uphold in this war. They had to know that their alliance with the Myrish had put a price on their heads that would only be lifted by destroying the other Free Cities.
And he was not certain that the Grand Army could repeat even Pobo's success. Pobo's victory had been due to weather, an innovative use of artillery, and the combination of luck and skill that allowed him to separate the Legion from the feudal cavalry. Whereas Viserys, to all appearances, seemed intent on simply battering the Myrish and the Braavosi flat. As plans went it had the merits of being simple and workable, especially with so many Unsullied to face the Iron Legion. And in the Exile Company the Grand Army had its own corps of Andal madmen. But it still hinged on being able to defeat the Iron Legion at what it did best, which was walk up to the enemy and punch him in the face until he gave way. The Unsullied would match them blow for blow until the last one of them went down, that could be taken as scripture. The Exile Company probably would as well, given how many feuds its men had with the Myrish; gods and devils knew they seemed eager enough to come to grips with the men who had driven them from their homelands, or the descendants of those men. But the Volantene Militia and his Norvoshi? That would be gambling long odds. The Volantene Militia were willing enough, but they were, at the end of the day,militia. They were shopkeepers, craftsmen, and farmers who trained a few hours every week and had a muster day once a month; pitting them against the Iron Legion would be like pitting a village bully-boy against a Meereenese pit champion. His Norvoshi were hardened by the civil war that had sputtered on since the coup, but he doubted they would be able to stand against the Braavosi, much less the Legion; too many of them were too worried about what their enemies might get up to back in Norvos without strong men to keep them in check. His Windblown were as good as any sellsword company on the continent, but the Myrish had beaten good companies before. They seemed, in fact, to consider it no great feat to have broken companies like the Second Sons and the Company of the Cat and the Long Lances, which had had famous names that were decades if not centuries old. The Dothraki would be all but useless in such a fight; they were raiders, not soldiers.
Not exactly the sort of hand that a gambler would be happy with, even a reckless one. And he had never gambled when he could help it, even in his younger days when every contract he took carried the risk of his nascent company being wiped out. All that being said, of course, he was still bound by his contract to follow Viserys Targaryen's commands as the Captain-General of the allied forces. And at least Viserys was wise enough to grant him considerable freedom of action on the field. The Myrish and the Braavosi might be formidable enough from the front, but between his Windblown, the Dothraki, and the thousand Norvoshi he had been able to turn into acceptably decent cavalry . . . The Myrish might have their own cavalry, but he'd never met a flank he couldn't turn, even on fields as cramped as the Agneiat was likely to be. After that . . . He shrugged. Fortune would grant or withhold her favor as it pleased her. A good captain did all he could to load the dice and stack the deck in his favor, but even after all the preparation imaginable a battle was an exercise in pure chance. The Free Cities had some high cards in their hand, but they would simply have to see whether the Braavosi and the Myrish had higher cards still.
XXX
Samwell Tarly had never been more than conventionally pious, but he had come to actually enjoy Divine Office since the beginning of the campaign. For one thing, the familiarity of the liturgy was incredibly reassuring, especially in this foreign land. For another, it was an hour out of his day when no one could barge in and ask him for something. Which was something that had become a common occurrence, since he had become the titular commander of the Expedition. And which would become more common still, unless he missed his guess.
Word of King Stannis' death and the apparent chaos in King's Landing had presented enough problems, but what eclipsed them all was the fact that his father had died of the same plague that had killed the king. And until it was declared otherwise, he had done so while he, Samwell, was still his heir. It had been his half-formed plan to renounce his inheritance to serve Lord Willas at Highgarden or, dimmest but dearest of all hopes, become a maester, but nothing had ever been done to legally advance that plan. To begin with, it would have required broaching the topic with his father, and Samwell could only have guessed how well that would have gone over.
Which left him firmly in the soup, because there was no way he could get out of it now. Dickon was a likely lad, but it would be years yet before he was ready to be a lord rather than a knight with delusions of grandeur. And for all their friendship, Lord Willas would never let him give up Horn Hill to be one of his scholars. He would, in fact, not let him give up Horn Hillbecauseof their friendship. It would be greatly to the advantage of House Tyrell for Lord Tarly to be a close friend of the next Lord Tyrell, instead of a boy who might become as arrogant and prickly as his father. He shook his head as he left the pavilion where the Expedition's chaplains had set up an improvised sept. No, he was, like it or not, Samwell Tarly, Lord of Horn Hill. However much the thought of actually ruling Horn Hill made him want to run until he got to the coast and then start swimming.
"Troubled thoughts, Lord Tarly?"
Samwell jerked his head up and saw to his shock that none other than King Robert was standing before him, flanked by Ser Akhollo and three other Brotherhood knights. "Y-yes, Your Grace," he said, flushing involuntarily at the stammer. "Just reflecting on my father's death, Your Grace," he added quickly.
King Robert nodded. "It's a hard, hard thing, to lose a father," he said consolingly. "Gods know I'll never forget that day at Storm's End." He gestured shortly. "Walk with me, my lord."
Samwell fell into step beside King Robert, not entirely believing that this was happening. He knew, of course, that the king made a habit of walking through the camps of his armies as his duties permitted; it was a great part of his legend, after all. But even the few times he had sat in council with the other commanders of the army had not prepared him for walking beside King Robert. Even with gray streaks starting to crawl through his beard and lines etching themselves on his face, Robert the Strong was a mighty figure, not just in body but in spirit. Samwell could feel the stares of the soldiery around them swinging towards them, like iron shavings towards a lodestone.
"I had heard rumors, my lord, that you and your father did not get on well," King Robert said softly in between nodding and waving salutes to the soldiers who stood to their feet or paused their work as he passed by. "That you even considered renouncing your inheritance."
Samwell flushed again. "Rumors, Your Grace," he said, more shortly than he meant to and instantly regretting it. "Nothing more." He directed a curse at Olenna Tyrell in the privacy of his head. Lord Willas and Lady Margaery had told him time and again that their grandmother's japes were harmless and he shouldn't take them to heart, but Samwell knew contempt when he heard it; living with his father had seen to that. He was morally certain that the Queen of Thorns had never been told something in confidence that she hadn't had bruited about. Quietly and deniably, of course, but made public nonetheless.
"Hmm," King Robert replied. "I had almost hoped that they were true."
Only Lord Willas' gentle training kept the dumbfounded look off Samwell's face as his head spun to face the king. "True, Your Grace?" he asked.
King Robert nodded. "Lord Gerion is dead, gods rest his soul, and more good men will die before this war ends," he said matter-of-factly. "Soldiers I have in plenty, but men who can think as well as fight, and not make fools of themselves to cause me trouble? No king can have enough of those. I haven't heard that you have any reputation as a fighter, but after seeing the way you've taken the Expedition in hand, and kept the King's Men and the Queen's Men from each other's throats?" he tipped his head to one side in a soldier's shrug. "I won't say I can see you wearing my Hand's badge, but men have risen high in my kingdom with less ability than you've shown. But now you're Lord of Horn Hill, so whether you loved your father or hated him I'll just have to look elsewhere."
Samwell's jaw dropped for a long moment at the greatest compliment that anyone had ever paid him. "You were Lord of Storm's End, Your Grace," he said when he had finally mastered himself, "and you renounced both Storm's End and the Iron Throne for your quest."
"Aye, I did," King Robert replied. "And it's only by blind luck and the favor of the gods that I wasn't punished for my pride. Few enough know this and fewer care, Tarly, but when I sat the Iron Throne I was a terrible king. The whole time Ned searched for Lyanna I was either angry and drunk or angry and getting drunk. Jon Arryn and the others had to run the Kingdoms for months with a king who couldn't be bothered to care. It wasn't wisdom that made me give Stannis the throne; it was anger, and nothing but." He shook his head. "It took Pentos to make a proper king out of me. First it showed me that there was something worth fighting for other than myself, and that I was doing wrong in how I treated the women in my life. Then, at the Conference, I learned that I could no longer rely on other men to do my work for me. Because when the music stops, it's the king who pays the bill, before his people and before the gods."
He stopped and turned to look Samwell in the face. "I won't tell you what you should or shouldn't do, Lord Tarly," he said. "You're not my bannerman, so it's not my place. But remember this; it's not what you do that will haunt you the most, it's what you don't or can't do. Men like us have the power to make a difference in this fallen world of ours. Sometimes we do it right, and our names are blessed for it, and sometimes we do it wrong and our names are reviled down the centuries. But unless you're a stone-cold bastard you have to make the attempt, or else that power becomes a curse."
Samwell nodded slowly. "My father once told me, Your Grace, that great power incurred great responsibility," he said. "Not just to other people, but to yourself and your family."
King Robert's mouth quirked in a half smile. "Sounds like he was a wise man, your father," he replied. "In his way at least. I believe your pavilion is nearby?"
Samwell looked around and saw that they were, in fact, only two 'streets' away from his pavilion. "Indeed, Your Grace."
King Robert nodded. "Then I'll leave you to your labors. Good afternoon, Lord Tarly."
Samwell bowed and mumbled "Good afternoon," as King Robert strode on, his knights closing around him.
XXX
Ser Garin Uller couldn't help a whistle as he looked across the field. "Ye gods and little fishes," he said wonderingly. "That's a powerful lot of them, isn't it?"
His king nodded absently, his reserved face sharpened in concentration as he calculated odds. Good odds, on the face of them, for all they were facing even odds, better known as sucker's odds. The abolitionists might be occupying a ridgeline that formed a capital V with Agneiat Creek, but it was low enough that it wouldn't pose a significant obstacle. The ground was reasonably flat as well, broken only by fences and sunken roads, although the way it alternated between crop fields, woodlots, and pastures might easily prove bamboozling. The Agneiat itself was not a significant obstacle either, being only sixty to a hundred feet wide, crossed by no less than three stout stone bridges, and fordable in many places besides, according to the scouts. The abolitionists might have anchored their right flank on the Agneiat, dominating the lower bridge from the rising ground above it, but past the round, low hill the marked the northern end of the ridge their left flank was hanging in the air like apiñata.
It was, in short, as good a place to fight a battle as any. And now that the abolitionists were here facing them, and the Grand Army was drawn up and ready to fight, it would take an act of the Seven to avert a battle anyway. King Viserys had made his name and come to power on his willingness to fight the abolitionists; turning away would undermine that name and power, potentially fatally. Ser Garin considered himself more crafty than bold, and the fact that he had escaped Dorne with his life and his arms despite having the King's Hounds hot on his trail bore out such a boast. But he could recognize when there was no choice but to fight.
Ser Garin pointed out the hanging left flank of the abolitionists to his king and received only a distracted grunt in reply. He turned to Ser Lysyllo Agah, who was riding next to him, and raised an eyebrow that saidWhat's eating at His Grace?Ser Lysyllo replied with a minute shrug that saidYour guess is as good as mine.Ser Garin concealed his disquiet behind the mask that Ser Arthur and Ser Barristan, gods rest his soul, had taught him to wear since he received the white cloak. The king should be eager to fight, given that the men across the field were the men who had dispossessed his House, killed his father, mother, brother, goodsister, niece, and nephew and driven him into exile. Gods knew he had often professed his eagerness to be at sword-points with Robert the Bloody and Mad Eddard.
But news had recently come from Volantis that Her Grace had been delivered of a son, promptly named Aemon Targaryen and proclaimed by Hand of King Donys Rahtheon as Prince of Dragonstone and heir to the Iron Throne, in accordance with the instructions the king had left before the Grand Army had marched. The celebration in the ranks of the Grand Army had been as loud and long as they could be in the near presence of the enemy, but Ser Garin had seen the king's face age a year when the news reached him. Fatherhood, he had often heard, changed men, but he had not expected the change to be so sudden. Of course, the king had never before had to consider the possibility that he might leave a child as fatherless as he had been in the early years of his exile, if the battle went poorly. And battles could always go poorly.
King Viserys stared across the field a moment longer and then turned to face his Kingsguard. "Ser Garin, attend," he said, making Garin heel his horse forward out of line with the rest of his brothers. "Ser Garin, my friend, I must ask you to do something very risky."
XXX
Ser Garin's announcement that Viserys Targaryen sought a parley between the lines, and that Eddard Stark was specifically requested to attend in addition to King Robert, was so unexpected that it was met with silence so dumbfounded that only Eddard Stark broke it."Why me?"he demanded, frowning like a heathen idol and suspicion writ plain in every line of his body.
Ser Garin, who for all the nervousness of his horse was showing only the saturnine serenity that seemed unique to Dornish nobles, shrugged. "You will have to ask His Grace the King, my lord," he replied. "He gives you his word that he will not offer such insult as Khal Zirqo did."
"I should trust the word of a Targaryen?" Eddard asked brusquely before turning to Robert. "Your Grace, you cannot seriously consider accepting."
Robert stroked his beard. "It does seem to place too many of our eggs into one basket," he agreed. "Even if we have officers who can lead this army in our absence." He stroked his beard a moment longer, then shrugged. "But even if Targaryen attempts any foul play, I doubt that any force he can smuggle close enough to the parley to ambush us can kill me, you, Lord Contarenos, and the knights of the Brotherhood before the rest of the army can come to our rescue. And if the Targaryen means to give our men the opportunity to rest after their exertions today, then it behooves us to take advantage of his generosity." He nodded to Ser Garin. "Inform your master that I shall meet him under flags of truce on this side of the Agneiat, two furlongs from the middle bridge, and that I shall be accompanied by Lord Stark, Lord Contarenos, the knights of my Brotherhood, and a herald."
Ser Garin bowed. "His Grace the King will find these terms most agreeable, Your Grace," he said before reining his horse around.
As the renegade Dornishman cantered away, Robert forestalled the rising brabble of remonstrations with a raised hand. "I thank you for your concerns for my safety, gentlemen, but my mind is made up," he said "Lord Tully, you shall have command of the army in my absence. Have the army rest on its arms; if the Targaryen proves treacherous, sound the attack immediately. And before I go to this parley, gentlemen, I have a few words for you to bear to your commands."
A hush fell over the tent as Robert drew himself up. "Tomorrow, we face the great battle of our time," he said intently. "Upon its outcome rests, not only the fate of the kingdoms and states we represent, but the fate of human freedom in this quarter of the world. If we are victorious, then the back of the slaver power will be broken, and our children and our children's children shall live free from this day to the end of days. If, on the other hand, we are defeated, then the lands we govern shall be cast into a second subjugation. One which, I deem, will be made so complete that it shall not be ended by human agency." He leaned forward, planting his sledge-like fists on the surface of the table. "It is forthis reason, gentlemen, that we are knights. So that when fate is balanced on a knife edge and all the future is uncertain, someone steps forward and fights for the right. Tomorrow, that someone will be us." He swept his gaze around the room, seeming to catch the eye of every man present. "Let us, then, brace ourselves to the duty that has fallen to us, and bear ourselves in such wise that a thousand years from now, the men of those future days will look back on this battle and say, 'This was their finest hour.'"
The gathered captains, many with sudden tears prickling their eyes, drew their swords as one man and raised them in salute with a roar that shook the pavilion.
XXX
It was a varied assembly that met the delegation of the allies on the road to the middle bridge over the Agneiat. Of the eight men who awaited them, the Tattered Prince was the man they recognized most instantly, clad as he was in his famous patchwork cloak. He and Viserys' herald, who was wearing a tabard with the Targaryen crest quartered with the arms of Volantis, bowed as the delegation rode up and dismounted, to which Robert replied with a polite nod. Of the other six, five wore white cloaks and impassive expressions, although Ser Arthur Dayne's mask cracked into a frown as he met Eddard Stark's gaze for a brief instant. The last man was facing back towards the Grand Army, showing only the black cloak draped down his back and shoulder-length silver hair tied back in a fighting-man's clubbed braid. "Curious, is it not?" he said lightly. "That a private quarrel should involve so many thousands?"
"Why did you invite me here, Targaryen?" Robert demanded.
"The same reason you accepted my invitation," Viserys Targaryen replied, turning to look Robert full in the face. Robert blinked; were it not for the evident youth of the man he faced, and the lines around the eyes that owed nothing to age and everything to life, he would have sworn he was seeing Rhaegar Targaryen as he looked at the Tourney of Harrenhal. "Curiosity. How is it that two men can be mortal enemies for so many years, without ever laying eyes on each other?"
"A wolf does not need to meet a jackal to know that they are enemies," Eddard Stark said curtly.
Viserys nodded slowly. "Perhaps not," he allowed. "But all things must come to an end." He brought his left hand to the throat of his scabbard. In the same instant Eddard Stark's hand flashed to the hilt of his longsword, Arthur Dayne's hand flew to the hilt of Dawn where it jutted over his right shoulder, and the knights on either side likewise put hands to sword hilts. Viserys smiled indulgently. "Peace between us this night, Lord Stark," he said calmly. "I but seek to allay suspicions. See you." With careful slowness Viserys hooked his left hand under the quillons of his sword to draw it half out of the scabbard, then took it by the blade with his right hand to draw it fully and hand it to Ser Garin Uller, who accepted it after a moment's puzzled frown. As the men on either side slowly relaxed, Viserys nodded. "Leave us, all of you, except Ser Arthur," he commanded. "This matter touches him as closely as ourselves."
Ser Garin's head swiveled to fix his king with a disbelieving gaze. "Your Grace . . ." he began.
"Obey, ser,"Viserys snapped, fixing Ser Garin with so fierce a look that Ser Garin subsided on the spot. Robert narrowed his eyes consideringly, then drew his own sword and handed it to Ser Akhollo.
"Withdraw up the road a space, and await us," he said, smiling in answer to Akhollo's remonstrating frown. "Ned can handle the whitecloak," he said with easy confidence, "and surely you don't think I need help to defeat a boy half my age." Akhollo hesitated a moment more, then accepted the sword with a silent nod. He then turned to face Ser Arthur, bringing a gauntleted finger up to tap the corner of his eye and then point at him. Ser Arthur replied with the lazy, bared-teeth grin of a confident predator. "Lord Contarenos, remain if you please," Robert added. "It may be that this will touch upon the profit and honor of the Commune."
Viserys consented with a nod, and after the Kingsguard and the Brotherhood knights had withdrawn he lifted his chin. "What terms will you accept to end this war, Your Grace?" he asked bluntly.
For a long moment, Robert thought he had misheard. "I beg your pardon?" he asked finally.
"Whatever other cause these wars may have," Viserys declared, "at their root they stem from this; that my brother Rhaegar absconded with your betrothed Lyanna Stark. Whether she was abducted, as is commonly believed, or whether she went with him willingly, as Ser Arthur has sworn to me, is irrelevant. Whichever occurred, my brother was in the wrong. But if you and I can come to some settlement of that quarrel, then we have it in our power to end this war here, where we stand . . ." Viserys' speech trailed off as Robert snickered, then chuckled, then finally broke out in guffawing laughter. He exchanged confused glances with Ser Arthur, then turned back to his counterpart. "Have I said something amusing, Your Grace?"
"You think this war is still aprivate feud?" Robert demanded, the grin sliding off his face. "Get this through your head, Targaryen: these wars ceased to be a privateanythingthe day the first slave was liberated. What is at issue here is not whose brother ran off with who's betrothed, or whose father killed whose, or even who gets to sit their ass in what chair. It is whether men will leave as free subjects, or as slaves. So it's not me you need to come to a settlement with, it'sthem." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the Iron Legion where it stood in serried ranks exuding silent menace. "And I can tell you already that there are no terms you can offer in good faith that they will be willing to accept. Unless you mean to tell me that you can abolish slavery in Volantis, exact fitting punishment on masters who abused the people they enslaved, and join us in carrying abolition into Slaver's Bay at swords-point without sparking a civil war." He nodded when Viserys pursed his lips silently. "I thought not. Besides which, even if I was willing to put aside our quarrel," he tipped his head towards Eddard Stark, "I'm not the only one you have cause for feud with."
Viserys nodded shortly, his jaw set. "Indeed," he said, turning to face Eddard. "My lord Stark," he said slowly. "The death of your father and the maiming of your brother I cannot apologize for except in manner; they were rebels taken in arms against their lawful king, but by their station they deserved a quick death rather than torment. The cause that drove them to rebellion, however, Iwillapologize for. My brother was a fool, and he did you and your House a great wrong when he absconded with your sister. Name what wergild you will, and I will pay it, to restore the honor that my brother defiled."
Eddard's craggy face was an edifice of hatred. "The North remembers, Viserys son of Aerys," he ground out, his voice as harsh as glacier ice grinding stone to sand. "It remembers a father burned alive, a sister and a niece dead in childbirth and discarded like trash, a brother maimed and branded, and the thousands and tens of thousands of other fathers and brothers and sisters who have died for your family's madness." He shook his head. "The only wergild I will accept is that blood pay for blood. This once will I offer; bend your neck and I will make it quick. You will die cleanly, and better than my father and my sister did."
"You'll have to kill me first, Stark," Ser Arthur Dayne snarled, taking a step forward truculently. "But first you'll tell me why my sister threw herself from the Palestone Sword when she heard you had chosen exile."
If Eddard had regarded Viserys with hatred, the glare he turned on Ser Arthur was one of deepest loathing. "Tell me,ser," he growled, loading the honorific with poisonous contempt. "When Rhaegar raped my sister, did you hold her down for him? Or did you stand at the door and listen, as you did when Aerys raped Rhaella?" Arthur flinched visibly. Eddard nodded, then spat at his feet. "You're not a knight," he rasped. "You're not even a man. You're just a mad dog to be put down. And may the gods grant that mine be the hand that does it." He turned back to Viserys. "What say you, Targaryen?"
Viserys lifted his chin. "If I thought that you would forswear any ill-will for my House thereafter, I would consider it," he said. "But a king's life is not his own to throw away without some great gain for his people, and I fear that giving you my life would do nothing to slake your thirst for vengeance. And I cannot, in any conscience, abandon my wife and son in such a way."
"Then when we meet tomorrow, I will kill you," Eddard said, his voice cold as a gust from the polar wastes beyond the Wall. "And if you think to escape, know this:there is nowhere under heaven where you can hide from me.Run you never so far, hide you never so well, I will find you. And your death will not be long delayed."
Viserys's eyes flashed fury. "The dragon does not fly, except in pursuit of its prey," he said with tightly controlled anger. "I will await our meeting with pleasure, Lord Stark, and may the gods defend the right." He glanced at Matteo Contarenos, who looked back at him with a stonily impassive eye and folded his arms eloquently, then turned back to Robert. "It seems we have nothing more to say each other, Your Grace."
"Nothing except this," Robert said, his face splitting in a reckless smile. "When you get to the Seventh Hell, tell your rapist bastard of a brother that Robert Baratheon sends his best regards."
For a brief moment hatred twisted Viserys' handsome face into ugliness, then he mastered himself with a long breath. "I expected better of a man of your renown than a guttersnipe's taunt," he snapped. "But then I suppose bastard blood will out, even if it takes centuries. I will look for you on the field, my lord Baratheon."
Robert's smile changed from reckless to carnivorous. "You won't have to look far, Targaryen," he promised. "Just make sure you can see past your Kingsguard."
Viserys' face worked as he visibly restrained himself from an outburst, then he spun on his heel and marched away, Ser Arthur Dayne following him after exchanging a final glare with Eddard. Robert blew his cheeks out in a gusty sigh. "Gods, but he's as much a prick as his brother was," he said dryly. "Just like old times, eh, Ned?"
"Too much, Your Grace," Eddard replied as he fingered the hilt of his sword. "But this time, I will not suffer my enemy to escape."
XXX
All the plans were laid, all the dispositions made. Everything that mortal hands and minds could do prepare for the coming battle had been done, as far as the men who possessed those hands and minds could act. Now, as the evening deepened into night, men began to prepare their souls for the coming violence.
In the camp of the Grand Army, the methods men chose were as varied as the nations that spawned them. The Unsullied gathered in silent clumps, creating makeshift shrines of their spears and their shields that they knelt before with bowed heads to remind the Lady of the Spears of their devotion and ask her aid in the coming battle. Those of the Exile Company who still kept the Seven, such as Viserys and Ser Arthur, heard Divine Office and confessed their sins, bending their heads to receive the blessings of their septons. Others who followed the Lord of Light gathered around the nightfires to pray, while other fires were used to make burnt offerings of birds and beasts to the gods of Old Valyria. Among the tents of the Norvoshi the bearded priests led their people in solemn rites to the Unspeakable One, while still others who put their trust in philosophy rather than divinity applied themselves to meditation, or one last inspection of their equipment before sharing a flagon of rough campaign wine with their friends. The acolytes that Greel the Warlock had sent north with the army did a roaring trade in amulets and charms, while a blind Rhoynish seeress toiled through a long line of men hoping for some hint that they would survive. Some, well-born officers of the Volantene militia for the most part, decided to make a show of the sangfroid that their stations demanded of them and put on a last party, swapping idle gossip and making blithe predictions of how many runaways they would kill on the morrow as their body slaves poured wine for them.
Across the field, the rituals were much the same. Robert Baratheon knelt to receive the sacrament of confession from Septon Matthos, who had become his confessor since officiating his marriage, while throughout the army thousands of knights and infantrymen did the same before their company chaplains. The nightfires of the R'hllorists drew thousands more, while the Braavosi called upon the scores of deities followed by the men in their ranks. Mycan Banderis and the Norvoshi under his banner held their own rites to the Unspeakable One in solemn conclave, while the followers of the Old Faith knelt to hear Septon Deryk's sermon and bowed their heads to receive his blessing. As always, the Northmen and those who had joined them in following the old gods stood apart; for them, this was not just a night for prayer and the fortification of their souls.
It was a night for making magic.
It was rare for such rituals to be undertaken; the faith of the old gods was so deeply personal and so loosely bound that it had become tradition for men to find their own paths to the gods, and invoke them or not as they found necessary and proper. But on the eve of so great a battle as loomed before them, against so hated an enemy as the Targaryen's and the slavers, it was only meet that the gods be invoked in all their power and dread majesty, that they might aid their people. And if there was one tradition that the North had maintained, it was that in such matters only a lord could stand forth and speak for his people before the gods.
So in a flickering circle of torchlight under the gnarled boughs of an ancient oak, Eddard Stark raised his arms and invoked death and destruction upon the enemies of his House and his people, naming terrible Names. Names that were forgotten in every land but the North, and even there only remembered by those families who had been highest in the service of the gods. All others had referred to them only by their epithets, to avoid calling their attention to trivial matters. Such deities as the Thunderer and the Long-handed, the Lady of the Ravens and the Hooded One, the Avenger and the Devouring Shadow, were not lightly invoked.
But even calling upon such grim deities was not enough for the flame of wrath that burned in Eddard's heart. And so, as his men looked on in shock and growing apprehension, Eddard did what not been done for a thousand years and invoked the gods who were before the gods, the gods of the high mountain fells and the empty plains and the deep woods, the gods of wolf and bear and eagle and raven, summoning them by the pact that was before the Pact to stand by the people who had pledged them worship in return for their protection in ages so distant they were only remembered in the oldest rhymes of lore.
As the last syllables of that blood-chilling formula died away, there was heard a softpad-padof paws on the dry grass, and to the amazement of the gathered warriors a wolf stalked out of the darkness and into the torchlight, a wolf such as no one there had ever seen. The wolves of Essos were a runty breed compared to their cousins across the Narrow Sea, but this beast was greater than they, worthy to be compared to the great howlers of the high North, and grey as Valyrian steel from snout to tail-tip. Seemingly unconcerned by the presence of so many heavily-armed humans, the wolf walked into the very center of the circle of torchlight and sat on its haunches, sweeping its tail around its paws with an air that only be described as lordly as it regarded Eddard with depthless golden eyes.And what will you give Us?every man and woman present heard a curious voice say, though the wolf's jaws moved not a whit.What price will you pay, for this aid you ask of Us?
Eddard Stark, knowing that only one price could pay for the aid he sought, named it without hesitation, adding only the condition that his vengeance be fulfilled before it was exacted.
The wolf blinked, and then it threw back it's great head andhowled.Long and loud that howl sounded over the fields by the Agneiat, and the hearts of the Northmen and their allies thrilled with lust for the coming battle, while across the Agneiat their enemies gripped their weapons and searched the darkness with staring eyes, gripped by the fear of men suddenly reminded why their ancestors had feared the night and its creatures.
And as the wolf faded away before the same astonished eyes that had seen it come, the voice that had spoken before spoke again, for what everyone there knew would be the last time they heard it as mortal men and women.Let it be done as you have said.
Chapter 140: Inferno (Battle of Agneiat Creek; Viceroyalty of Pentos)
Chapter Text
Lord Vernan Irons was old enough in war to know when listening to your feelings was a good idea and when it wasn't. So he knew that the presentiment that had lain on him since Haven was one that he should put out of his mind until he returned to his keep and hung his armor up for the last time. But the aches he had woken up with had only reinforced the premonition that this might be his last battle.
It was many years since he had met Lanard and Brynnan on the Roseroad, and he had not been a young man even in those days. His hair was entirely gray now, and his joints were stiff enough in the mornings that he wasn't able to arm without the help of his squire and page. At Haven he had come within an inch of dying when a pair of Dothraki had managed to come at him at the same time; only his armor and the training of his warhorse had kept him alive and let him dispatch them both. The company of cavalry he led might revere him and his name might inspire respect among the Legion and the chivalry alike, but the simple fact was that he was past sixty and war was a young man's game. Last night he had dreamed of that campfire on the Roseroad, and seen the shades of his dog-brothers waiting for him.
Well, if it came to that, he had few enough regrets. His Brienne was now a charming young lady who delighted in showing him her embroidery and his sons Lucas and Robert were both likely lads who bade fair to be good squires and better knights. A third son, Jon, was a babe yet but a lusty one, who his maester was confident would be as strong and healthy as his brothers. Young Lanard Axewell was also a strong lad who was making his first fumbling attempts at courting Brienne. His wife Emely and their good friend Jesmyn would be able to keep their Houses on an even keel if he fell, thanks to the strong foundation he had left for them and the justice of King Robert's law. But not seeing his daughter become a beauty and marry, or seeing his sons break their first lances or earn the belt and spurs of knighthood, or even just see his Emely a last time . . . That would be a heavy burden to carry to the Father's judgment seat.
He glanced up at his banner flying at the head of the company beside the royal standard with its simple device of a black bar across a brown field flapping against the cloudless sky and sighed, driving the fey feeling from his mind with an effort of will. The Stranger waited for every man, rich or poor, and when a knight accepted the belt and spurs he accepted that his fate was to live and die by the sword. And there were worse ways to die than in a battle as great as this, fighting for his king and Holy Freedom against a mighty opponent that would yield much honor from their defeat. The words that King Robert had said last night rang in his head. "Father, Warrior, and all the Seven," he muttered under his breath, "be with me and with us all in this hour of our need. And if this is the day you call me to you, let me die as a true knight, in the finest hour of my king and my brother knights." He signed himself, took a lance from his page, and raised it high as the bugles blew for his company to ride out and face a Volantene company of horse that was probing the center. "I Repay!" he roared, and the company roared the battle cry as they spurred their horses into a walk after him.
XXX
Durran Bahaan was so scared he barely had the spit to swallow. Which was, in fact, not that big a problem. For one thing, you didn't need spit to beat a drum. What the fifers were doing to keep their whistles wet enough to blow he couldn't imagine. For another, that same fear and Legion discipline were keeping him rooted to the spot behind the Captain, although that meant that he was exactly where he could see what was making him so afraid.
Across the field the Unsullied were on the march. Ten thousand men marching in lockstep so that the earth shuddered under their hobnailed sandals, the morning light flaming off the spikes atop their cap-like helms and the blades of the spears, all in total silence. All around Durran the Legion was singing, as they had been since the cavalry had made the first sallies and forays of the day so the kings could feel each other out. At the moment they were singing a hymn to the Lord of Light that was catchy enough that even the Legion's Faithful had adopted it, modifying the lyrics to suit their seven-faced god instead of the Lord. They hadn't changed the chorus, though, which was even now rising to the sky as the fifes shrilled and the drums, Durran's among them, hammered and ten thousand spear-butts thundered on the earth to keep the tempo."My heart shall sing of the day you bring!/Let the fires of your justice burn!/Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near/And the world is about to turn!"But across the field not a single drum beat, not a single instrument played, not a single voice sounded a cadence. The Unsullied simply marched, silent as so many statues, faceless behind their shields.
"Crossbows, advance!" the Captain ordered as the hymn came to its final thundering chorus, and Durran's drum joined hundreds of others in the quick rattle that sent the Legion's crossbowmen out in front of the shield wall to form a three-ranked firing line. As the Legion began to sing again, the lieutenants and sergeants of the crossbowmen began chanting the plainsong of commands. "First rank, take aiiiim! Loose! Reload! Second rank, take aiiiim! Loose! Reload! Third rank, take aiiiim! Loose! Reload! First rank, take aiiiim! Loose! Reload!" At each shout of "Loose!" the crossbow strings strummed their unmusical notes, followed moments later by a sound like a handful of gravel flung against a fence rail, multiplied a thousand times, as the bolts slammed home. Here and there Unsullied began to drop as bolts slipped past their shields to pierce their armor, but their fellows simply stepped over them, filling the gaps with smooth and unhurried speed so that the wall of advancing shields seemed not even to quake as the crossbows raked it with fire. As they came closer, still at a deliberate lockstep, the commands changed, and the crossbows began to fall back by ranks after each volley, reloading as they went. The last four volleys, delivered with the Unsullied barely fifty yards away, were scorchers; at such close range the bolts were only slowed by the shields and Unsullied went down in clumps. But still they closed up and came on, as grimly silent as when they started.
By this time the order had been given to "Prepare for push of war!", and the spearmen had started jogging in place, the singing replaced by a thunder of hobnailed boots and rattling armor as the spearheads waved above them. The crossbows filtered back through the ranks, frantically spanning their prods as they went, and regrouped behind the spears, where they began lofting their bolts over the heads of their comrades. Durran could hear Myles muttering "f*ck, f*ck, f*ck, f*ck, f*ck, f*ck, f*ck," under his breath next to him as their hands plied their drumsticks on pure trained instinct, both of them too scared to think. Then the Captain roared, "Spears will advance to contact! At the double-quick,charge!"and Durran and Myles and almost five hundred other drummers sounded the long roll.
The spears stepped off with a great roar of "Free or dead!", their jog in place letting them go from a standing start to a dead run despite the weight of armor and weapons. Across the rapidly closing space, there was a single barked command and the spears of the Unsullied swung down like the teeth of a harrow and they accelerated to their own jog, still in complete silence except for that one command.
When the two shield walls hit, there was a sound like the world's largest gate crashing closed, muffled only by the size of the thing. All along the front rank, men were shocked off their feet by the impact, and were quickly trampled unless they bounced back up immediately. Dozens, Durran could only guess, had died already as the long spears struck home, and a cacophony of grunting and yelling and roaring and screaming began to rise above the stour as the Iron Legion and the Unsullied ground to a halt against each other. Durran, Myles, and the other drummers, in the absence of other commands, began to beat out theDUM-tum-tum, DUM-tum-tum, DUM-tum-tumthat was the Legion's cadence for close fighting, the beat that drove the spearmen to put their shoulders into their shields andpushas they stabbed blindly with their spears or, finding their spears breaking, drew their short swords and stabbed with those. And meanwhile the crossbows shot, and shot, and shot, while from the slavers' side the Unsullied in the rear ranks began hurling javelins in eerily synchronized volleys.
One of those javelins missed Durran's left ear by inches, but he didn't notice. His world had devolved to his drum, his sticks, and the cadence that he was hammering out like a madman, unaware that his face had contorted in a bestial snarl. He was Legion, and the Legion was here tofight.
XXX
Nerio Velcius knew he was a brave man. As a much younger man, in a tavern in Tyrosh-that-was, he had once made a Yi-tish corsair back down with nothing more than an even stare and a hand on the hilt of his seaman's knife. But there was a difference between dock-and-canal-side brawls and the two duels he had fought andthis.
Thisbeing standing in the third rank of an infantry regiment, with the sun braising you in your own sweat under morion, cuirass, pauldrons, tassets, and buff coat, watching the enemy come your way. Volantene Militia, these were, by their banners, and equipped almost the same as Nerio's comrades were with pikes, crossbows, and short swords, with halberds in the hands of the sergeants. Nerio found himself muttering prayers as his regiment's crossbowmen moved forward and began volleying into the Volantenes, answered by the Volantene's own crossbows. Every rational and instinctive thought in his head was screaming at him to run as far as he could, as fast as he could, but he could not. The Tenth Volunteers were recruited from his ward of the city; many of the men around him had been recruited from the metalworks his father owned a share of and in which he had spent a grueling but rewarding summer working alongside the apprentices. His father had been adamant that his sons remember where their wealth came from, and both respect the men who made it and earn their respect in turn. His file-closer was one of the apprentices he had worked next to that summer, now a journeyman with two young children, and his sergeant was one of the senior journeymen who had been preparing to make his masterpiece. If he broke ranks and fled, he would have to live with their contempt for the rest of his days, if he could bear to even return home again bearing the name of a coward.
So as the Volantenes came trundling on, stepping over their fallen, Nerio held his place in the ranks, shuffling forward when the man in front of him took a crossbow bolt through the throat and collapsed to choke his life out in bloody gouts. And when the call of "Pike-points front, DOWN!"rang out he hefted his pike up and swung the point forward to the level with hundreds of his neighbors and friends and countrymen to form a hedge of steel-tipped wood. The Volantenes also leveled their pikes as the crossbowmen scuttle away to the flanks and edged forward. Nerio's teeth bared in a grimace as the two pike-hedges reached each other and began to interleave themselves, the silence broken only occasionalclacksas enterprising souls tried to beat aside the shafts of the men directly in front of them, then there was a great shout of "f*ck your mothers!" from the man in the front rank of Nerio's file and the unbearable tension of the slow approach to combat broke in a tidal wave of noise as both regiments lunged into each other. Nerio felt a shock through his hands as the point of his pike rammed into something he couldn't see past the bulk of the man in front of him, felt his ears ring as something whacked him on the side of his morion, and then the man in front of him was stepping forward and he followed like a boat being towed on a line, his arms and shoulders pistoning the fourteen-foot pike forward and back and forward and back as he gave voice to a keening war-scream.
XXX
The Tattered Prince was finding it difficult to keep up his façade of serenity. "Your Grace," he said finally, having struggled for an hour to put his request into properly courtly language, "it is not in my nature to beseech, but I beg you; let me lead my men against their flank. If I can unhinge them, then the day will be ours."
Ser Arthur Dayne shook his head. "I think it unwise, Your Grace," he said, as he had been saying for the last two hours. "If the abolitionists counterattack, we will need every man."
"Let them counterattack!" the Tattered Prince shouted, flinging reserve to the winds. "It will but put them deeper into the bag I mean to draw over them."
Viserys, a horse-length ahead of them, continued to stare at the melee that had developed where the Unsullied and the Volantene Militia had met the Iron Legion and the Braavosi. The clouds of dust and the crowding of the men prevented a good view of what was happening, but the banners, those crucial indicators of identity and movement, had not shifted a foot from where they had ground to a halt against each other. It was, the Tattered Prince felt, like watching four logs being fed into a fire ends-first, if the logs were the respective bodies of infantry, the fire was the scrum of combat, and the ashes were the bodies of the slain.
It was also, he knew, the most brutally expensive form of combat that there was; two great masses of good infantry locked together like stags in rut, neither willing to give way, with the only thought in their heads being to destroy their opponents in place. Every minute they delayed, hundreds of men were dying, men who by dint of their training and experience could not be replaced for years. It was an offense against everything he had learned in a lifetime as a sellsword, which emphasized above all the imperative to hoard the lives of your men like precious jewels, spend them only at great need, andneverspend them so profligately as this.
Viserys finally turned his horse to regard them both. "We will make efforts against both of the enemy's flanks," he decreed. "My lord Prince, do you lead your men against the enemy left as you have planned, and attempt to turn their flank. Ser Arthur, once the Prince's efforts are underway, we shall lead our reserve against the enemy right, where their lines will be weakest."
The Tattered Prince frowned. "They will be weaker, Your Grace, but the ground will be unfavorable," he averred. "The proximity of the stream will reduce the amount of force we can bring to bear against them."
"Which is why I pray you to press their left as hard as you may, my lord Prince, to pin as many of their reserves as you can," Viserys replied. "Much of their best infantry must be tied down facing the Unsullied and the Militia already. If you can pin down their cavalry, then they will have nothing left that can withstand us."
The Tattered Prince bowed in the saddle. "All that men can do, I and mine shall, Your Grace," he promised, reining his horse aside and spurring away.And devils take you, Ser Arthur, if your caution has cost us this battle,he thought savagely. It might be Ser Arthur's duty to be chary of his king's safety, but in a battle like this caution had to be thrown to the winds if it was to be won quickly. He could only pray that he had enough hours of daylight left to hook his cavalry around the northern end of the battle-line, get into the rear of the abolitionist left flank, and start killing people and breaking things loudly enough to draw their reserves onto himself in time for the King to make his attack on the abolitionist right.
XXX
Ser Brynden Tully narrowed his eyes at the column of dust rising behind the slaver lines. Unless he was seeing things . . . no, that dust column wasdefinitelymoving from right to left. He turned to one of the couriers that hovered nearby. "Orders; bring up the mounted infantry regiments from the reserve and have them take this position," he snapped. "Message to His Grace: Enemy is moving towards our left flank. I am taking light horse to investigate."
As the couriers galloped away, Ser Brynden gestured and his trumpeter brayed out theadvance, sending four companies of light horse into a walk-march in almost perfect unison. Ser Brynden couldn't help a thrill of pride. Let other men boast of the Houses they sired,thiswas his legacy; the finest fighting army since the fall of Old Valyria. An army in which even the light horse, always the most raffish and piratical element of any army, obeyed orders with steely discipline while still retaining the virtues of free men. If any doubted him, let them watch how the Legion was fighting the Unsullied. Any other infantry in the world would be giving ground and many of them would have broken and run, but the Legion was holding the Unsullied to a standstill and cutting through them like a saw through hard wood. Of course, the Unsullied were giving as good as they were getting, but the fact remained that simply standing and fighting toe-to-toe with the Unsullied for this long was already enough to make the Iron Legion a name of legend. And they showed no signs of letting up anytime soon.
But that could, and would, change in a heartbeat if the enemy managed to outflank them. There was no situation more deadly for heavy infantry than to be caught in a flank while being engaged from the front. Ser Brynden had seen it happen, once, in the War of the Ninepenny Kings, and the memory of the carnage that had resulted was as bad as any from these more recent wars. King Robert was hoarding the chivalry behind the center, to counter the Targaryen's main effort, but the four companies of light horse that Brynden had under his command would at least be enough to tell him whether this was that main effort or merely a probe. And if it was the main effort, then the mounted infantry would add enough weight to buy time for couriers to tell King Robert that the chivalry was needed on the left.
Ser Brynden smiled wolfishly. It had been too long since he had ridden to war, what with the wound he had taken at Novadomo and the time he had had to spend in his office dealing with papers. He had almost forgotten what it was like to ride at the head of well-ordered companies, with the wind in his face and the enemy before him, and his wits as deadly a weapon as his sword. As commander of the left wing, leading this effort in person was arguably a dereliction of duty, but there was nothing he could do to sway the Legion's fight against the Unsullied; the battle was too young for that yet, and the enemy would counter any move he made. What was important now was to learn what this new movement of the enemy's entailed, and decide what to do to counter it. And to do that, he had to get close enough to find out for himself, without having to wait for reports that could come too late or not at all.
XXX
The light horse of both armies were men as hard as any of their comrades in the infantry, if slightly different in manner. Where the infantry's pride was to stand face-to-face and slug it out until the last man fell, the light horse fought in what a contemporary chronicler called "a wolfish fashion, for they make sudden forays followed by sudden retreats, and aim not to strike down their enemy in one fell blow but to bleed him dry by a multitude of wounds, as wolves do when faced with an aurochs bull." Underlying this was the fact that when a light horse unit was caught out, it was not uncommon for its men to fight to the death; the independent nature of their work, far from the sight and control of any officers but their own, meant that light horse units were more readily given to casual atrocities than other units, and it was considered usual for opposing light horse units to have a 'no quarter, no survivors' attitude to each other.
So when the light horse of the Kingdom of Myr and the Grand Army clashed on the abolitionist left wing by the Agneiat, the result was a swirling, snarling brawl as fierce as the infantry fight in the left flank and the center. The Myrish Third Light Horse was cut to ribbons after it was caught in front by Norvoshi horsem*n and in the flank by Dothraki screamers, but they were avenged by a scorching countercharge from the First Light Horse that left Khal Drogo's erstwhile successor Khal Ematto dead and his screamers cantering for the rear in yipping dismay. When the Myrish mounted infantry entered the fray, the violence was redoubled; the mounted infantry didn't have the same quicksilver mobility as the light horse, but they had imbibed their comrades' attitudes in full, and their heavier gear meant that they could stand the fire of close combat for longer than the lightly-equipped horsem*n. The Fourth Mounted Infantry was overwhelmed by a combination of Dothraki mounted archery and a neatly timed charge by the Windblown led by the Tattered Prince in person, but when the Eighth Light Horse came riding to the rescue it was found that two dozen of the Fourth's spearmen and officers had managed to stand back-to-back around their standards; the Fourth Mounted Infantry lost more men as a percentage of the unit than any other at the Agneiat, but even their enemies acknowledged that they had earned the sobriquet of "Iron Fourth" which was later given them by the Legion.
But it was not the stand of the Iron Fourth, or even the way in which Ser Brynden Tully was managing to bring some orchestration to the efforts of the Myrish light horse and mounted infantry, that spurred the Tattered Prince's last great effort. The Tattered Prince knew as well as any man, and better than most, that the Grand Army was operating under a strict time limit; if they could not break the abolitionist armies while there was still light enough to pursue them by, then it was better than even odds that the abolitionists would be able to make good their escape. And the sun was already wearing past noon. So the Tattered Prince gathered his Windblown and as many of the Norvoshi horsem*n and Dothraki screamers as he could rally quickly and made one last attempt to punch through the screen that Ser Brynden Tully had erected around the abolitionist left wing . . .
XXX
Ser Brynden Tully craned his head around to look over his shoulder at the pursuing enemy; rather more difficult than it sounded when you were doing it in armor on the back of a cantering horse. What he saw made him grin in anticipation; the enemy were hot on their heels. The Windblown under their blue-and-white banner were still in neatly-ranked lines and holding themselves to a canter, but the Norvoshi riders around them had let their already-loose order fall apart completely as they spurred up to the gallop. His grin widened.Perfect,he told himself.
Of course, the surprise wouldn't be complete; the enemy already knew that the mounted infantry was on the field, after all. But even light horses like the ones the Norvoshi were riding took time to slow down or change direction, and more time to stop or change direction at any angle sharper than about ten degrees. The Norvoshi cavalrymen were gentry's sons, after all, not light-riding herdsmen who learned to ride cutting animals out of their herds.That's it, you dumb, heedless bastards, keep coming straight at us.
A glance ahead of him showed that the mounted infantry had reorganized themselves into a single line of squares. Risky, because if the enemy cavalry got in among them, they couldn't shoot at any who stayed in between them without risking hitting their comrades. But if the enemy cavalry got that far then the plan had gone to sh*t anyway.Steady, now, old son, just a bit longer . . ."Sound 'columns of troops'!" he shouted.
His last remaining trumpeter blared out the notes of the signal and the light horse went from a broad band into a dozen columns, each aiming for a gap between mounted infantry regiments. As Brynden's column thundered in between two regiments, close enough that he could have reached out and rapped the outermost rank on their helmets with his gauntlets, the mounted infantry's own trumpeters were blaring out the command for volley fire.
Almost a thousand crossbows, loosed nearly in the same instant, made a noise like a giant clearing its throat, and the sound of the bolts striking home a heartbeat later was a cross between hail on a shingle roof and hammers hitting meat in a slaughterhouse. Half the front rank of the enemy light horsem*n went down, or so it seemed, men either falling from their saddles or horses losing their footing with terrified whinnies as the bolts struck them. Brynden allowed himself a single whoop of triumph before shouting "Left wheel! Advance to contact!" At the brassy scream of the trumpet the light horse reined their horses around in dirt-flinging turns and went cantering back through the same gaps they had retreated through. Those that still had javelins co*cked them over their shoulders to throw, while others raised the swords or horseman's axes that they used for sidearms. Ahead of them the slaver light horse was shaken but still coming on; the Norvoshi had turned into a confused muddle but the Windblown had closed up and were lowering their spears for the charge. Brynden set his teeth; if his light horse had no javelins left, this would have been f*cking dicey. Accepted wisdom had it that lancers ruled supreme in a head-to-head contest, especially if they had heavier armor than their opponents, and the Windblown were mostly armored in half-or-three-quarter plate as opposed to the brigandines and light mail shirts of his light horsem*n. But lancers depended on cohesion not only to multiply the shock of their impact, but to prevent enemy horsem*n from getting in among them where a lance was much less handy than a sword. "Javelins, loose!" Brynden ordered, and as the javelins flew he roared "Charge!"
His light horse voiced a baying roar as they closed in, and the shock of impact was as ferocious as any Brynden had ever experienced. He fought with his usual cagy skill, keeping his shield up and his blows short and controlled instead of the haymaking swings that came so naturally to horsem*n, and he and his adjutants and trumpeter cut a hole through the Windblown like an ember through a snowbank. He cut down a Windblown wearing the shoulder knots of a lieutenant with a stiff-armed thrust to the face, made a corporal flinch aside with a snappingreversocut that distracted him from the axe blow one of his adjutants was throwing at his opposite shoulder, and then a sudden impact sent him reeling in the saddle, his shield dropping from his nerveless left arm. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the lancer that must have hit him lose his head to a blow from his trumpeter's sword, and then he saw the Dothraki cantering through the melee, teeth bared in a yipping howl as he drew the string of his recurved bow back past his jaw and the sunlight glinted off the arrowhead.Oh, fu-.
XXX
"It's true, Your Grace," the courier said, tears falling unheeded. "I saw his body myself. The Tattered Prince got away, but the light horse are swearing bloody revenge if he ever falls into their hands."
XXX
Viserys Targaryen peered at the turmoil off to on his army's right flank for a moment longer and then turned away. At this distance, and with so much dust being kicked up, there was no way to tell if the Tattered Prince had succeeded or failed. Not in time for it to matter, anyway. If the abolitionist's left flank was being pressed as hard as the Tattered Prince said he would press it, then Robert must surely have shifted his reserves to bolster it.
He turned his gaze towards the abolitionist right flank where it rested just shy of a stone bridge over the Agneiat. If he was going to win this fight, then he had to throw his blow now, while there was still daylight. And he had to use the best corps left to him. The great majority of the Iron Legion and the Braavosi heavy foot were engaged against the Unsullied and the Militia, those that remained would not equal even half of the Exile Company's strength. And the Old Faith militia that formed the rest of the abolitionist army would be no match for his veterans.
It was still risky, though. Robert had not committed his chivalry, and the knights of the Kingdom of Myr were possibly the best in the world. If they counterpunched him hard enough . . . For a moment Viserys quailed at the enormity of the risk. If he lost this battle, then he would almost certainly lose everything. King of Volantis he might be in all but name, but he knew how much the Old Blood resented his rise to power, and how easily they could turn the people against him if he was defeated. The thought of becoming a homeless exile all over again, bereft of power, followers, and quite possibly family, was daunting.
But not as daunting as the prospect of twenty more years of war. Robert had as good as told him that he meant to conquer all of Essos at least as far as Slaver's Bay in furtherance of his mad crusade. And while Robert might consider their feud to be nothing against that dream, Eddard Stark had shown that the hatred he bore House Targaryen remained undimmed. The specter of the Iron Wolf standing over his wife and son with raised sword hardened Viserys' resolve. "He fears his fate too much, and his rewards are small," he whispered to himself, quoting the Conqueror's last toast before landing at the mouth of the Blackwater Rush, "who dares not put it to the touch, to win or lose it all." He turned to Ser Arthur. "Ser Arthur, the Exile Company will advance against the enemy's right flank. I assume, of course, that you will wish to ride with me at the head of my knights?"
Ser Arthur looked him in the eyes for a moment, clearly weighing whether he should urge caution, then bowed in the saddle. "Wherever you lead, my king," he said.
"Let us to it, then," Viserys said, gesturing for his trumpeter to sound the advance.
XXX
When the Exile Company crossed the Lower Bridge it did so, in the words of a later commenter, "with its fangs out and its hair on fire". The few Legion and Braavosi regiments that had not been engaged against the Unsullied and the Volantene Militia found themselves facing odds of almost two and a half to one and were grudgingly forced to give ground. The Ceralia Reserve Company of the Legion found itself stranded and forced to make a hedgehog, as were the Braavosi Thirteenth Volunteers. The Norvoshi exiles and the Old Faith's company were more precipitate in giving ground, as they had neither the weight of numbers nor of metal to fight the Exile Company head-to-head, and the death of Ser Jon Bay removed most of their experienced leadership.
As the abolitionist right flank began to crumble under the weight of the Exile Company's infantry, Viserys led his knights across the bridge and began to deploy for the charge that, he hoped, would seal the fate of the abolitionist army. But the abolitionists had not been idle . . .
XXX
If he had been light enough, Samwell Tarly would have been dancing in the saddle with nervousness all day. But even the patiently rigorous tutelage of Lord Willas' master-at-arms had only been able to make him stout instead of fat, and so he sat his horse heavily and waited, nervously rubbing the pommel of his saddle as he did. It had been made worse by not having much of anything to do; the Expedition had been placed in reserve, and while the heavy infantry tore each other apart and the light horse fought their duels on the left flank, no messenger had come with orders since they had been posted behind the right flank.
But now the enemy was over the Agneiat in droves, and the flank he and his men were stationed on was collapsing before his eyes. The advance of the dragon banners was not very fast, but to all appearances it was unstoppable; the few Legion and Braavosi regiments that remained were being steadily beaten back, and the companies of the Old Faith and the Norvoshi exiles were only being restrained from rout by the impassioned example of Septon Deryk, who was walking his mule behind their ranks brandishing his crystal as he roared Scripture.
And that was just the work of the infantry. If the Targaryen heavy cavalry, even now coming over the Lower Bridge, was able to deploy and enter the fight, then there would be nothing to stop them from caving in everything up to the center of the army. Samwell glanced at Ser Harry Flash, who was calmly chewing at a biscuit as he viewed the battle with a calmly abstract air, as if it were a tourney he hadn't placed a wager on. Ser Harry caught his eye, read the question in it, and shook his head. "Not yet, my lord," he said. "We have no orders. And the time is not yet ripe, anyway. If you're going to goose someone, it's best to wait until they pull their trousers all the way down and have Wee Willie firmly in hand."
There was a chuckle from the knights close enough to hear, but Samwell had already turned his gaze back to the oncoming slavers, a wild surmise forming in his mind. Shortly after Haven, a courier had brought a missive for Ser Harry, addressed from King Lyonel, supposedly clarifying his chain of command and his instructions since King Stannis' death. Supposedly. But what if there had been more to it?
Samwell was no man of blood, but he had learned enough of strategy from Lord Willas and Lord Mace to be able to follow not just the previous wars but also this one. Khal Drogo's defeat had effectively barred the Targaryen from making too many permanent gains in this war. The best he could hope for, in fact, was to defeat this army in so convincing a fashion as to shock the remaining garrison of Pentos into surrendering on terms. And even then his ability to actually hold Pentos would be significantly in doubt, with his army so far from home and so much of it made up of Militia who would have to be released to their farms and shops sooner or later. And even if the Targaryen could take and hold Pentos, it would be years yet before he could challenge the Braavosi for mastery of the Narrow Sea.
So the Targaryen was no immediate threat to King Lyonel. But what of his uncle? His uncle who might object to whatever Queen Cersei had planned for the future of the Faith, who might side with Lord Renly, who would have a ready following among the Reformists who regarded him as their ultimate patron, the Northmen who were so dear to his heart, and the Ironborn who were kinsmen to so many of his sailors? If King Robert were to defeat Viserys so decisively as to break Volantis' power for a generation, then why would he not look westward if the Reformists or the Northmen appealed to him for aid? And how quickly would the jeers about Robert the Brief turn to admiration of Robert the Strong, once the Iron Legion's banners were raised on Westerosi soil? King Stannis had never feared his brother so, but King Lyonel might, with his throne shaking beneath him.
And if the plan was to ensure that both Targaryen and Baratheon lost this battle, Samwell's mind raced on as he looked back at Ser Harry, who better to carry out such a scheme than Ser Harry Flash? Ser Harry had a sovereign reputation for loyalty to King Stannis and for bravery, but that was not all he had a reputation for. He hadbroken hospitalityin Gulltown, to fulfill King Stannis' command to root out heresy. Compared to that, doing his level best to ensure that his king's allies suffered as much loss as he could and arrange for both Viserys Targaryen and Robert Baratheon to die would be small beer.
There was no proof, of course, and no time to gather proof. It could all be simply his fears making him paranoid. How long had he suspected Lord Willas' friendship to be all a ploy? But if it was true . . . If it was true, then Samwell Tarly knew he would never be able to forgive himself if he did nothing to prevent it. King Robert had shown him more kindness in one meeting than his father had in his whole lifetime. For a long moment he was torn between action and inaction, and then he heard his father's harsh shout break into his brain for the first time in years.Damn it, boy, DO SOMETHING!
"Prepare to charge!" he shouted. Or tried; it came out as an embarrassing squeak. He flushed, swore under his breath, spat, dragged in a shuddering breath. "Prepare to charge!" he shouted again, this time with a gratifying volume. "Helmets and lances! Squires to the rear rank!"
Ser Harry Flash, who had spat out a spray of biscuit crumbs, wheeled towards him as the knights began to prepare themselves and the trumpeter blared out his notes. "My Lord . . ." he began.
Samwell, suddenly seized by frantic anger, threw his best glare at one of the most famous knights in Westeros. "Do I command the Expedition or not, ser?" he spat.
Ser Harry paused, his face working, then nodded. "You do, my lord," he said formally.
"Then prepare to charge, ser," Samwell spat, taking his helmet from the Frey cousin who had become his squire since Lord Merryweather's death and jamming it onto his head. He waved off the lance, though; even the most patient training in the world hadn't made a jouster out of him. Instead he drew the mace that hung at his saddlebow and raised it high; Lord Willas' master-at-arms, having observed his tendency to forget all form and training and simply flail madly, had given it to him with the comment that a mace didn't care about technique. "For the King!" he shouted, those being the first words that entered his head. "Forward!"
XXX
Matteo Contarenos had not run so fast since he was a boy. Had hardly run at all, in fact, since he was a boy; it was considered undignified for a man of his station and years to be so visibly in haste. Yet here he was, blowing like a racehorse, his breath loud as a gale in the confines of his helmet, outstripping most of his guards as he raced into danger.
The infantry of the Exile Company were rolling up the flank of the army; King Robert had a plan for that. But first, the Exile Company's cavalry needed to be broken. And for that to happen, they had to be stopped. Gods all bless whatever had made Lord Tarly charge them the way he did; the portly young man had shown no evidence of possessing such brio before, but his charge had been a sight to see. It had only slowed the Targaryen's knights, though, and now the Westerosi were streaming back past them in flight. Which meant that now he and his guards had to step into the breach. They had no orders to do so; in fact, Matteo suspected they had anticipated their orders by a concerningly wide margin, but there were times when men had to act regardless of orders.
He had all of fifty halberdiers and twenty swordsmen, plus his own self, to try and stop a charge of almost four thousand heavy cavalry; the odds, on the face of them, were obscenely long. But there were three things that made him think it was possible. Firstly, he and all his men were armored in three-quarter plate made from the best steel that Braavosi armorers could forge, and Braavosi armorers had been second only to those of Qohor and Tyrosh before those cities fell. Secondly, they were few but they were tightly-knit; not as tightly-knit as Andal knights or Ironborn huskarls would be to their gold-giving lord, but they were all bound by sacred oath to serve and guard the Viceroy of Pentos, which was to say, him, with their lives. Thirdly, they had spent months training to fight heavy cavalry, from the day the first spy reports had come in indicating that the Targaryen would directly intervene in the wars. Which was why his swordsmen were carrying heavy spears in addition to their swords and bucklers and why, when he finally reached what he thought would be a good place and raised his own spear in signal, they fell into ranks around him, planting the buttspikes of spears and halberds under their right feet and leaning forward to brace for the impact, right hands reaching across their bodies to take hold of their sword-hilts; the shafts would likely break, in the collision, and when that happened they would need their swords quickly.
Matteo searched the dust cloud where the charge of the Westerosi knights had provoked a melee, and saw a fourth reason to think he and his men might be able to stop the enemy knights. Lord Tarly's charge had disordered the enemy, and now they were breaking into two clumps. One was pursuing the Westerosi knights, while the other was trying to reform even as it went back to trailing their infantry. Doing it well, too, but having to do it slowly, at the trot. Which meant that now, as they cleared the dust cloud to find him and his men in front of them, they would not have time to build up the head of speed that would allow them to shatter his tiny force.
They came very near to doing it anyway.
The charge hit them at a trot instead of a canter, but seventy-one men being hit by three thousand men on as many horses were most closely similar to a pebble struck by a boulder. Matteo was buffeted almost off his feet by the shock of the impact; only the fact that he rebounded off the breastplate of one of his halberdiers meant that he kept his feet. All around him was a cacophony of screaming men and horses and steel striking steel and flesh, and for a moment he was paralyzed. Then the training he had subjected himself to for so many years kicked in and he found himself wading forward, jabbing his spear at the faces of the horses that loomed before him to make them rear and then driving forward again to thrust at their necks or bellies. He did this twice, spilling the riders to the unforgiving ground, before he found himself facing a horse in a trapper all of black save for shockingly crimson trim, ridden by a man armored in black-enameled plate that made him look uncannily like a dragon with a coronet around his helmet. A distant part of Matteo's mind saidHoly f*ck, that's the Targaryen himself, but the rest of him didn't care; he was roaring now, roaring as loudly and madly as any of his guards, despite having never been a man of blood by inclination. The black-armored knight raised his sword to smite down upon him, and Matteo lowered his head to accept the blow in order to plunge the head of his spear into the belly of the horse before him. The horse went down with a blaring scream, but as Matteo pressed forward to attack the black-armored knight that threw himself from the saddle one of the horse's flailing hooves caught him in the hip and knocked him flat on his arse.
He tried to get up, screamed as something grated in his pelvis, and then something hit him on the helmet and smashed him down into darkness.
XXX
Ser Garin Uller leapt from his horse and dragged it over to where his king was getting to his feet by the bridle. "Take mine, Your Grace!" he shouted. As Viserys hauled himself into the saddle Garin began to wave him on frantically. "Go, Your Grace, go! Don't worry about me, I will follow on foot!"
Viserys rose in the stirrups, raised his visor with the same hand that held the red-dripping Blackfyre, and peered through the chaos, lips moving in what Garin could tell were obscenities despite not being able to hear a word of them. "Damn it, this won't do," he finally said. "Trumpeter, soundrally on the banner!As loud as you can, man, we need every man we can!"
"No, for the gods' sakes!" Garin screamed. "On, Your Grace, on! We can break the enemy into pieces if only we move on now!"
"We must reorder ourselves, ser!" Viserys snapped. "Otherwise, their next counterattack will roll us up piecemeal! And get yourself a horse! Quickly, ser! You're my banner-carrier; you must keep up with me!"
Garin swore long and fervently under his breath as Ser Clarence Webber brought over a stray horse that had streams of rapidly drying blood streaking it's trapper. He was born of a people who lived for swift action and swifter reaction; he couldfeelthe initiative slipping away, like sand through his fingers. If there was one thing he had learned as a young man, it was that it was better to take a good-enough action immediately then wait to take a perfect action that would come too late to do any good.
XXX
For an unbearably long moment, the fate of half a world seemed to rest on the point of a single lance. For better or worse, that lance was in the hand of Eddard Stark, who pumped it in the air to signal the advance. "Forward!" he howled. "Justice and vengeance!"
"JUSTICE AND VENGEANCE!" chorused the men behind him as they snapped their visors down with the rims of their shields and nudged their horses forward into the walk as the trumpeter brayed out the signal. Ser Gerold Dayne felt his eyes widen and breath come more quickly as liquid fire seemed to race along his veins. This was what a knightlived for; a massed charge of lances across level ground against a foe of equal strength. Any knight worth the name, he knew, would give lands, wealth, even theirsouls, to be in this charge, and especially to be where he was now, only three places from Lord Stark's right shoulder in the leading rank. Behind him four thousand of the finest knights in the world were now nudging their horses up to the trot, their ranks as straight as a plumb-line even as the pace changed. To his left he could hear Lady Maege and Lord Jorah Mormont snarling behind their visors even over the rumble of sixteen thousand hooves, a sound eerily reminiscent of the bears on their shields, while to his right Ser Murtagh Whitefield, a volunteer from the Manderly lands, was promising the Warrior two candles of fine beeswax the length of his arms from wrists to elbows if he survived.
Ahead of them the Targaryen's knights were rallying, but Ser Gerold could tell that they were doing so too slowly. Lord Tarly and Viceroy Contarenos might have disobeyed orders, but they had broken the momentum of the Targaryen's advance. And in doing so they had turned a potentially equal fight into a fight where the odds were substantially stacked in favor of the Kingdom of Myr. Especially since, Ser Gerold realized as he scanned the enemy's lines, Lord Tarly's countercharge in particular had left many of the Targaryen's knights without their lances.
As the trumpet sounded the canter he heard an uncannily accurate imitation of a wolf howl, and realized with some surprise that it was coming from his own throat. The knights and lords around him took it up with only a hint of hesitation, and the unearthly hunt-and-blood-song rose even above the hoof-drumming that was making the earth shake beneath the advancing knights. He glanced to his left and saw Lord Stark raise his lance. "JUSTICE AND VENGEANCE!" he roared again. "CHARGE!"
There was a great baying howl as the lances swung down to form a streak of razor-edged steel in front of the still-perfectly-straight ranks of charging horsem*n, and Ser Gerold Dayne felt his whole world contract to the point of his lance and the knot of enemy knights that were even now riding out from around the dragon banner.
The impact, when it came, was tumultuous. Ser Gerold was never sure, thereafter, whether he had unhorsed his man or not; all he knew was that his lance exploded into myriad splinters and in the next instant his sword was in his hand and he was spurring deeper into the enemy ranks. All around him was uproar, like a tavern brawl in a smithy, and blows were raining on his armor even as he fought, his long and hard training at Lord Stark's hands bearing fruit as enemy knights fell away before him.
He had just dumped a knight with peaco*ck plumes in his helmet into the dirt when his horse screamed, rearing uncontrollably, and he had to throw himself from the saddle before it fell over backwards and crushed him. He bounced to his feet, ignoring the fact that the wind had been knocked out of him, and saw a white-cloaked knight rush at him, brandishing a banner like a spear. He beat aside the point that probed for his visor-slit, hurled himself forward, got his sword around the other knight's neck, threw him to the ground, kicked him in the helmet, and then saw the black-armored knight with a coronet around his helmet that was bearing down on him with sword upraised in both gauntleted hands. The realization that he had just put down a knight of Viserys Targaryen's Kingsguard and that Viserys himself was now coming at him registered only dimly; he was too deep in the battle-trance for conscious thought.
What happened when Viserys Targaryen tried to collapse his helmet with a crushing overhand blow had nothing to do with deliberate decision-making and everything to do with trained reflex. He raised his sword into a high cross-guard and was suddenly reminded that the Targaryen had a Valyrian steel blade when he felt it break his own blade like a stick and crash down on his right shoulder. The pain was staggering but long years of training pushed him through it to reach up and get his left hand on the cuff of the Targaryen's gauntlet as he tried to ride past him. The momentum of the horse jerked him off his feet, but he held onto the Targaryen's gauntlet like a limpet, and his own not-inconsiderable weight dragged the Targaryen half out of the saddle. The Exile King managed to grab onto the pommel of his saddle with his left hand to keep himself from falling, but either he hadn't been trained wisely enough or he wasn't canny enough to either accept the fall and fight on foot or let go of his suddenly-too-long blade for something handier in such an awkward position.
Ser Gerold Dayne, on the other hand, had learned precisely what to do in this situation. He let the stump of his broken sword fall, got his dagger in his fist as he scrambled to get his feet at least partially under him as the Targaryen's horse came to a slewing, squealing stop, and had just gotten the triangular blade into the Targaryen's visor slit when something crushed his already-battered right shoulder and a wave of pain drove him into darkness.
In Volantis, a shaven-headed warlock screamed denial and rage as blood streamed from his nose and eyes. In Oldtown, a stockily built archmaester poring over a tome jerked his head up with a frown, as a man does who thinks he hears alarum bells. In Asshai, a young shadowbinder clutched at a table as she staggered, gasping behind her mask as if she had been kicked in the belly. And in a cave in the far north of Westeros, an old, old man ranted at the uncertainty of fate and the interference of the gods as the dim figures watching him from the shadows glanced at each other nervously.
Robert Baratheon looked at the flank of the Exile Company like a man looking at treasure. Ned's glorious, brilliant charge had smashed the Targaryen's knights and was driving them back. Which meant that the flank of their infantry was now exposed, open to the gods and anyone with a free force and the ballocks to use it. And here he was, with his Brotherhood, those knights and squires of the Expedition that young Tarly and Ser Harry Flash had managed to rally, and the Expedition's archers still under his hand.
He reached his hand out for his lance only to find Ser Akhollo Freeman's hand staying it. "Please, Your Grace," Akhollo said, pleading for the first time since Robert had known him. "We cannot afford to lose you. Not with Ser Brynden dead and Lord Stark's fate still unknown."
Robert looked at the chief of his guards, emotions tearing at him. All the experience and instinct of a life spent in arms was screaming at him to take his men and crush that open flank like an eggshell. But . . . He had seen Ser Brynden's body being carried to the rear. The singers would recount that he had died valiantly, and would rest in his grave in satisfaction with the victory his blood had won. But Robert had seen only how his old friend and faithful captain had been diminished by his death, beyond even the slackness of his limbs. It was as if he had been made physically smaller by the loss of the spirit that had animated him so vividly for a man of his years. The thought of Ned being reduced in the same way . . . "What would you have me do, ser?" he asked finally, softly enough that only Akhollo could hear him.
"Let me lead this attack, Your Grace," Akhollo answered. "If the gods demand a blood-price for this victory, I can be more easily spared than you."
Robert's guts twisted at the idea of letting another man pay the price for him, but the stony expression on Akhollo's face, an expression which as good as said that he was prepared to knock Robert down and have the Brotherhood restrain him, made him nod. "Go then, and the gods speed you," he said. "And come back alive, ser. My children will need you, when they come of age."
Akhollo bowed in the saddle, snapped orders for two for two of the Brotherhood's knights to stay by Robert's side, and then led the rest of the army's last reserve away with a shouted command and a skirling blast on the trumpets. Robert turned away; barring a miracle, Akhollo would flatten the Exile Company where it stood, or drive it into a retreat that would let him ride it down into ruin. No, there was nothing he could do there.
In fact, he realized with a start, there was nothing left for him to do anywhere. Ser Vernan Irons was holding the left flank steady by his last report, the Iron Legion and the Braavosi had held the Unsullied and the Volantene Militia to a standstill all the long, bloody day, Ned had broken the Targaryen's cavalry, and now Akhollo was going to break the slaver's left flank. The whole day he had been dispatching reinforcements here and there from the reserve, sometimes leading them into place himself, and riding behind the lines encouraging the men. But now the reserve was empty, and his men would have all the encouragement they needed once Akhollo started rolling up the enemy's flank.
For a moment, Robert's soul rebelled at being forced into inactivity on the battlefield, then he tamped it down. Until Akhollo's attack actually went home, the right flank would still be shaky, with so few Legion companies and so many militia. With a curt "Follow me, sers," to the knights on either side of him and to Ser Dafyn Otley his banner-bearer, he began walking his horse towards where the right flank had established itself on the rim of a sunken road. Septon Deryk might have little love for him personally, but he would welcome the aid in inspiring his men.
XXX
Ser Clarence Webber reined in his horse barely a foot from Ser Myles Toyne. "Ser Myles!" he burst out. "We must retreat!"
Ser Myles frowned, shook his head. "We have them on the run," he replied, gesturing forward to where the Exile Company's infantry was trying to cross a sunken road in the face of determined, if largely inexpert, resistance. "Another hour, maybe two, and we'll be rolling their army up like an old carpet. I'll bring the heads of their captains to the king . . ."
"The king is dead!" Ser Clarence shouted, stunning everyone in hearing into silence. "The king is dead," he repeated. "The king is dead and the abolitionist cavalry is menacing your flank as we speak. We have to get out of this, while we still have something to get out of it."
Ser Myles Toyne had many faults. Being a slow thinker was not one of them. After staring at Ser Clarence for only a bare handful of heartbeats he turned and began roaring for his couriers, telling them to pass on orders to disengage and fall back to the dragonroad. "We'll need time to disengage, Ser Clarence," he said as his couriers scuttled away. "Time, and the abolitionists chewing on someone that isn't us."
Ser Clarence nodded. "Ser Arthur Dayne and Ser Edwyn Saffron will cover your retreat as much as they can," he promised. "But as hard-pressed as they are, that might not be very long. The True Myrish will hold the rearguard."
Ser Myles nodded. "And the Militia? And the Unsullied?"
"The Militia are being ordered to retreat as well," Ser Clarence assured him. "As for the Unsullied," he arched an eyebrow, the effect of which was largely lost under the brow of his helmet, "what of them?"
Ser Myles frowned, then nodded again. Losing the Unsullied would make this a disaster instead of a mere defeat, but there was sense in it. With Viserys dead, control of the Unsullied should, in law, pass to his newborn son, but actual control would be exercised by whoever the boy's regent would be. There was no point in risking that one of the other Triarchs would seize the regency from Magister Rahtheon or Ser Arthur, and use the Unsullied to avenge years of being relegated to the sidelines.
As for the Militia, it could be argued that they should be left to die as well; their loyalty to Viserys had been predicated on his being a Triarch of Volantis, and only a fool would think that the other Triarchs would not seize the opportunity to reassert control over the Militia. But even with Viserys dead, there were still ties of comradeship between the Exile Company and the Militia, and there was no point in making more enemies than they already had. And any of the Militia that kept their heads enough to obey the order to disengage and had the skill, courage, and luck to survive the retreat would be useful people to have around in the future, if a way could be found to retain their loyalty that didn't involve asking them to hail Viserys's son as King Aemon of Volantis, the First of His Name. The last person who had tried to make Volantis a monarchy had been torn apart by elephants in the great square before the Palace of Order, after being arrested by his own bodyguards.
As Ser Myles began the process of disentangling the Exile Company from its enemies, Ser Clarence wheeled his horse around and spurred back towards where Ser Arthur was desperately trying to hold the Myrish knights at bay, feeling a slight smile twist his face. King Viserys had changed many things, but he hadn't changed the nature of Volantene politics. Not inthatway.Thatmuch, at least, had survived the coming of the Andals, and this new age of blood.
XXX
Eddard Stark raised his sword vertically in the air to signal a halt, raising his visor to glare after the slaver knights. He hadn't seen the Targaryen since the charge, but hehadseen Ser Arthur Dayne; the mad knight was unmistakable, even with other knights wearing the white cloak. And what was happening was too familiar from Tara. Short, smashing counter-charges to disrupt the pursuit, followed by swift retirements in the confusion to shelter behind a screen of infantry until the pursuit drew too close again. His men were fresher now than those he had led in pursuit from the field of Tara had been, but such fighting would wear them down just as quickly.
He shook his head. Damned if he'd make that mistake twice. He called up the map of the surrounding countryside that he had spent so many evenings poring over. The dragonroad ran straight from the Agneiat to Ghoyan Drohe, but it did so from the Upper Bridge, a good two or three miles upstream from the Middle Bridge that the slaver knights were now retreating across. If the Targaryen was retreating to Ghoyan Drohe, and he had to be, there was nowhere else nearby that could serve as a base of supply, after Khal Drogo's horde had come through, then riding across country would let his knights outpace the slavers. With no wagons or other wheeled vehicles, they were fast enough that even the dragonroad wouldn't let the slavers keep ahead of them. If he could get the knights under his command to Ghoyan Drohe, and burn the boats that were supplying the Targaryen's army from Ny Sar . . .
The image of the Targaryen trapped and starving made him smile like a wolf scenting prey as he turned to his former squire, who had been knighted years ago. "Saul, inform the king that I am taking the knights across country in hot pursuit of the enemy; I mean to beat them to Ghoyan Drohe and destroy theirlogistika. Go, ser, go!" As Saul cantered away on his already foaming horse, Eddard wheeled and raised his sword again as he faced his knights. "Comrades!" he roared. "I mean to ford the creek, ride to Ghoyan Drohe overland, burn the Targaryen's boats, and trap him here for us to carve up at our leisure! Will I have to do it alone?"
The knights roared as they flourished their weapons. "On to Ghoyan Drohe!" "Death to the slavers!" "Stark,Stark, STARK!"
Eddard turned his horse again and pointed his sword towards the Agneiat and the fields beyond that led to the Rhoyne. "Follow me!" he roared again, and led the chivalry of Myr across country at a hard trot to spare the wind of the horses. They would need as many of the heavy chargers to survive the journey as they could, and they were already tired.
Eddard Stark's venture was not only unauthorized, but exceedingly risky. At a stroke he deprived the abolitionist army not only of its most powerful mobile strike force, but of one of the cornerstones of its tactical superiority. This would, in the event, not matter.
The Grand Army of Volantis had been broken by the rapidly spreading reports of Viserys Targaryen's death, which not only deprived it of its commander, but of its reason to continue the attack. The charge that Ser Akhollo Freeman led against the flank of the Exile Company's infantry, which in the vivid reportage of the time left the sunken road 'packed with the slain', was all that was needed to make the retreat wholesale. Ser Myles Toyne managed to lead a rump of the Exile Company's infantry away from the sunken road and back to the Middle and Upper Bridges, picking up survivors from the Volantene Militia as he went. Both bridges became 'scenes from a nightmare of the Hells' as the Grand Army tried to retreat through these two narrow chokepoints, but two things prevented the Grand Army from being annihilated on the field.
The first was the True Myrish component of the Exile Company. These men, having been driven from their homes twice over and just lost their last best hope of reclaiming their homeland, volunteered to form a rearguard at the Middle Bridge that repelled five separate assaults by Ser Akhollo Freeman's scratch force. They were, eventually, 'killed to the last man where they stood in their ranks', but they bought the Grand Army six valuable hours to get across the Agneiat and begin their retreat in earnest.
The second was the Unsullied. Having received no orders to retreat, they simply continued to fight as they had done all day, even as the rest of the Grand Army crumbled away around them. Theydidhalt their attempts to grind through the Iron Legion, but only because the Braavosi regiments started to curl in on their flank and forced them to adopt an all-around defensive posture. Surviving accounts of participants in the battle all agree that the Unsullied refused all offers to surrender on terms, although they differ on the manner of the refusal. Durran Bahaan'sTestament of Twenty Years in the Legionstates that the offers of surrender were met 'only with silence, a silence that would have proclaimed contempt if the Unsullied had been capable of feeling it', while Ser Harry Flash'sDawns and Departures of a Knight's Lifeasserts that the heralds who volunteered to carry the offer of surrender 'were answered with javelins'. We may safely disregard the report of Ser William Doggett, which has the Unsullied answer a single offer of surrender with the honors of war with 'We thank the King for his courtesies. But we are Unsullied. Unsullied do not surrender. They die.' Ser William had been injured, unhorsed, and briefly taken prisoner in Samwell Tarly's charge, and would not have been in a position to observe the last stand of the Unsullied.
Overseeing the destruction of the Unsullied and the True Myrish at Middle Bridge occupied King Robert's full attentions for the remaining hours of daylight. The True Myrish he later dismissed as 'mad dogs long overdue to be put down', but he admitted in a letter to his queen that the destruction of the Unsullied was 'the most grim and doleful scene I have yet witnessed . . . Even at the last, when less than a dozen of them were still on their feet and every one of those wounded, they would not surrender, but had to be clubbed and wrestled to the ground and bound hand and foot. Even then they snapped at our men like beasts, seeking to kill with their teeth since they were prevented from doing so with their hands. Of these last dozen, four have died of their wounds and the rest must be bound hand and foot in their sickbeds, to prevent them from attacking their doctors or tearing the bandages from their wounds in order to ensure their own deaths.'
Even so great a victory as he had won, however, did not end Robert's labors. There were decimated companies to reorganize, prisoners to secure (the Militia and the Exile Company having proven less fanatical than the Unsullied) and thousands of wounded men to arrange care for before he could lead the Alliance's infantry in pursuit of the Grand Army . . .
Place of Slaughter: the Battle of Agneiat Creekby Jaymes Sears
Chapter 141: Malice (Second Battle of Ghoyan Drohe, Viceroyalty of Pentos)
Chapter Text
The Dothraki outrider pounded up to the Grand Army's remaining commanders and reined in in a spray of dust. "The enemy's riders are flanking us to the south," he said without preamble or ceremony. "We think they are making for the river at Ghoyan Drohe."
Ser Myles Toyne felt the bottom drop out of his stomach at the news. "How fast are they?" he asked.
The Dothraki shrugged. "They are slow," he said with the professional judgment of a master horseman. "But not as slow as you. They will reach Ghoyan Drohe before you do."
Ser Myles turned to Ser Arthur Dayne, his face ashen. "If they beat us to the river by so much as an hour . . ." he began.
Ser Arthur nodded, life entering his eyes for the first time since the retreat had been sounded. "I will need the cavalry," he said. "The chivalry, the Windblown, the Dothraki, every mounted man we have left."
"They're yours," Ser Myles replied. "Just get there before the enemy does and hold Ghoyan Drohe and the river landing until we get there. Go ser, go!"
As Ser Arthur spurred his horse into a lumbering trot, yelling for orderlies as the Dothraki cantered away, Ser Myles took a deep breath and did his level best to restore the mask of unruffled coolness that commanders learned to don from their earliest days. The Grand Army had already been savaged in the battle; the Unsullied were gone, the Militia down to maybe half its original strength, the Company with maybe half its cavalry and two-thirds of its infantry left, the Windblown and the Norvoshi having left a third of their men dead or taken on the banks of the Agneiat. But even reduced, it could still be a formidable army, if it could break contact and gain a few days to rest and resupply.
But if the enemy managed to head them off . . . the whole campaign, and the future of the Grand Army's ability to operate in northwestern Essos, was predicated on holding Ghoyan Drohe as a base of supply. If it was snatched out from underneath them, then they would have to take it back, and quickly. Otherwise, they would be faced with the choice of either starving or surrendering.
And Ghoyan Drohe wasn't just their base of supply; it was their means of going home again. And it was vitally important that the Grand Army be able to go home. The Militia were cowed by their losses and the magnitude of the defeat but they were not yet utterly broken, on the grounds that they had been told that once the Grand Army reached Ghoyan Drohe, it would be sailing south posthaste. If they thought that meant that they would be able to return to their farms and shops, then that was an illusion that Ser Myles was willing to let them hold if it kept them tractable.
Because the Company was now the sole source of support for Queen Lessaena, her son Aemon, and Princess Visenya, the only survivors of the bloodline of Aegon the Conqueror. Bad enough that King Viserys had been beaten in the field by the enemy he had sworn to destroy. His death would wipe out any influence that House Targaryen had in Volantis as anything other than the owners of a portion of the city's armies. And not the largest portion, at that. Those Houses of the Old Blood that the King had sidelined in his rise to the Triarchy would not hesitate to employ whatever means were necessary to reduce House Targaryen to insignificance, if not outright penury.
Preventing that would take work, and be made all the more difficult by the sudden dearth of good captains at their disposal. Ser Lysyllo Agah had died in the first charge of the Andal knights, Ser Garin Uller in the second. Ser Edwyn Saffron had been caught up in the rearguard fighting and last seen fighting on foot with the True Myrish at the Middle Bridge. In fact, of the remaining captains, only he, Ser Arthur, and Ser Tomas Shett were of sure loyalty to the dynasty and sufficiently well-known to command the Grand Army. And Ser Tomas would have his hands full guarding the royal family; with news of Viserys' death, the odds that someone would try to force a marriage onto either Queen Lessaena or Princess Visenya, and use that marriage to seize control of House Targaryen's remaining assets, were vastly increased.
But first, the Grand Army had to get to the river and start sailing south.
XXX
Robert Baratheon stared down at the bound captive before him, the highest-ranking officer of the Grand Army to be taken prisoner, and considered what to do with him. Because what he chose to do would at least influence, if not dictate, what he did with the other prisoners he had taken.
On the one hand, if he chose to spare Ser Edwyn Saffron, then he could hardly execute the other prisoners taken from the Grand Army without being accused of injustice. Ser Edwyn was a knight of great skill and renown; he had had options other than swearing fealty to Viserys Targaryen. The common soldiers, whether they were poor archers from the Exile Company or Volantene militiamen compelled into the ranks, had had no such options to avoid serving a felonious lord. On the other hand, if he chose to execute Ser Edwyn, then his way was clear to spare the common soldiers under his prerogative of mercy, subject of course to reasonable measures to minimize their future threat to him and his kingdom. And Ser Edwyn's service of Viserys, being both undertaken freely and engaged in with such zeal as to advance him to the ranks of his Kingsguard, was sufficient grounds to have him executed as a party to an unjust, and thereby illegal, war.
All that being said, of course, it could not be denied that Ser Edwyn had displayed great courage and prowess in his defense of the Middle Bridge, and the Office of Foreign Inquiry's file on him claimed that he had only the one slave, who was 'reportedly treated well, and does not speak ill of him.' And all Robert had to do was look at the cornfield where the Unsullied had made their final stand to remind him that there had been enough death for one field. He turned to Ser Richard Shermer, who was now effectively his second-in-command with Ser Brynden dead and Ned haring off after the remnants of the Grand Army. "Ser Richard, see that this knight remains bound under secure guard," he said. "We have received word that the Night's Watch is requesting men in order to reopen two of the old forts along the Wall; doubtless Ser Edwyn will show the same valor and prowess against the wildlings that he showed against us." He turned back to his captive. "Ser Edwyn," he said with a glower, "we extend this mercy in recognition of your skill and your bravery, and because what report we have of you says that you are a trustworthy man. Break that repute by attempting to escape, and you will be subject to summary execution. Do you understand?"
Ser Edwyn glared at him sullenly until the Brotherhood knight standing next to him boxed his ear with a gauntleted hand. "I understand," the straw-haired knight said flatly, drawing another clout to the ear. "I understand,Your Grace."
Robert nodded. "Very well," he said. "Inform the other prisoners of the Grand Army that the same mercy I give to you I give to them, under the same conditions. Tell them further," he deepened his glower, "that they would be unwise to test the limits of my forbearance."
As Ser Edwyn was taken away, Robert turned back to Ser Richard. "Now that that's over," he said, taking off his glower with the ease of long practice in public performance, "what's next?"
Ser Richard drew a wax tablet out of the pouch by his knee and handed it over. "Here is the final list of dead and wounded knights and officers, Your Grace," he said. "The count of dead and wounded among the rank-and-file men is still being collected."
Robert took the tablet and stifled a groan as he ran his eye down the list of names. Ser Brynden Tully, Viceroy Contarenos, and Ser Jon Bay were only the most prominent names; somewhere between a third and a half of the company and regimental commanders in the whole army were dead or too wounded to lead. That proportion was even higher in the Iron Legion; there were companies being led by men who had been junior lieutenants or even senior sergeants at the beginning of the campaign. As for the knights and lords who had ridden in Ned's charge that remained with the army, every one of them was either dead or badly wounded. Ser Gerold Dayne had tried to rise from his sickbed to catch up to the pursuit, only to be tied down and told in no uncertain terms that it would already take a minor miracle to let him regain some use of his right arm after Arthur Dayne had mangled his shoulder; if he tried to do anything other than rest it was likely that the arm would be rendered completely useless. At worst, infection might set in and amputation would become necessary, and in that case his survival would be vanishingly unlikely. Robert grimaced; Ser Gerold had had a bright and promising future as a knight after Haven. If the rumors were true that he had put his dagger in Viserys Targaryen's visor-slit . . . The very sky might have been the limit, if his armor had withstood the edge of Mad Arthur's battle-axe.
And Ser Gerold was only most prominent man on the list, after Ser Brynden. Many of the names were of men that Robert only knew from the tourney circuit, the gossip mill of Court, or the reports of their seniors in the Army, but they were men he knew nonetheless. Men who had made him laugh, or growl, or glow with pride that such men had chosen to join the cause that he had made his life's work. Now they were dead, or so badly wounded that they might never take the field again, or even leave their chambers again unless they did so halting on a cripple's stick. And the tally was not yet complete, nor would be until Ned's pursuit of the rest of the Targaryen's army finally wrapped up. "Who's the most senior man left?" he asked.
"I am, Your Grace," Ser Richard replied. "And after me, Ser Vernan Irons."
"Seven Hells," Robert muttered under his breath. Ned's decision to pursue immediately hadn't just taken away most of his heavy cavalry, it had also deprived him of most of the men with the military and feudal rank to be given independent command. And he desperately needed such men; there were the prisoners to be escorted to Pentos and guarded until they could be shipped to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, the wounded who would have to remain on the field until they could be moved, the remaining infantry to be led in pursuit, and the next supply convoy from Pentos to be guided up from Haven. A convoy that would be desperately needed, from what young Tarly had said of the state of their supplies. He could see the sense in Ned's decision, of course, but oh gods, if only he could have borrowed a few of the lords he had made off with before he had ridden away . . .
Robert shook his head. There was no use in crying over spilt beer. "Ser Richard," he said firmly, the pieces fitting together in his head, "I pray you take charge of the prisoners and a sufficiently large escort to convey them back to Pentos city and guard them until they can be sent to the Night's Watch. Take also sufficient men from the light horse to detach from your column and guide the next supply convoy to the field here. Inform Lord Tarly that he shall have command of the wounded men we will leave here; once they are fit to be moved, they shall be dispatched to Haven, and from thence to Pentos, as they are able and resources are available to carry and guard them."
Ser Richard nodded, his eyes glazing out of focus as he committed the orders to memory and the scribes nearby began jotting them down on wax tablets; Ser Richard's lack of a left hand meant that he couldn't write in the saddle, even with a calm horse and the pommel of his saddle made broad and flat enough to act as a writing desk, as that of Ser Brynden's and Robert's own had been. "And the pursuit, Your Grace?"
"I shall lead it myself," Robert said. Raising a hand to forestall objections from both Ser Richard and Ser Akhollo. "There is no one else of sufficient name and worth to command the entirety of the army," he said. "Not with Ser Brynden and Viceroy Contarenos dead and Lord Stark absent. You know this as well as I, sers."
Ser Akhollo's mouth worked soundlessly for a moment before he turned away, scowling, while Ser Richard conceded the point with a bow. Lord Tarly might have made his name with his charge against the slaver knights in the battle, but he was still more an administrator than a knight. Ser Richard himself was likely only still alive and present because his missing left hand barred him from riding in the charge; he had served as Ser Brynden's second on this campaign, overseeing the administration of the Royal Army. Mycan Banderis had no following and precious little respect outside his own Norvoshi. Septon Deryk was similarly disqualified; even the Legion would not stomach having a septon of the Old Faith set in authority over them. Ser Vernan Irons was well respected, but jumping him from command of a single company up to command of a sizable fraction of the Royal Army would be unwisely precipitate, even if the Braavosi would follow him, which they wouldn't. And while the Royal Army would follow Ser Akhollo without question if Robert delegated command to him, the Braavosi would not. Or at least, not as readily as they would follow Robert. Robert was a king, after all, and married to the daughter of a prominent Braavosi family; Ser Akhollo had nowhere near the same level of clout, for all that he was Robert's closest bodyguard.
Nor could Captain Marco Bragadin of the Braavosi take charge of the army; he might be the senior surviving officer of the Braavosi still on his feet, but the Royal Army would not follow him for the same reasons that the Braavosi would not follow Ser Vernan Irons. And the Council of Thirty would be unlikely to look favorably on a regimental commander taking it upon himself to assume command of the combined army of the alliance without having received orders to that effect, especially since Robert was still alive.
Robert nodded decisively. "Let's get to it, then, sers. We have much to do before tomorrow." There was the list of casualties to compile, the new commanders to confirm in their positions, and the determination of which contingents were still strong enough to take on the pursuit and which would have to be left behind. And then the army would have to march, and march quickly; the enemy was already a day ahead of them.
XXX
Jorah Mormont sighed softly through his nose as he surveyed the scene before him and his fellows. A simple scene, for all the busyness of it. The slavers had beaten them to Ghoyan Drohe.
The walls of the town, reduced to an earthen berm with the palisade mostly reduced to charred stumps by fire, were bristling with men; stevedores and teamsters, they would be, the men entrusted with carrying the supply of the slaver army. Dangerous enough to be respected, fighting for their lives from a prepared position, but not truly dangerous. The mass of cavalry between the town and the river, however, was dangerous as few other forces of such size could hope to be. For all Mad Arthur's faults, he was still one of the deadliest knights of the age, and he had trained the knights of the Exile Company well. As for the lighter horsem*n on the flank of the knights, the Windblown were the only sellsword company to have retained their reputation for prowess since the beginning of the Slave Wars, and the Tattered Prince's reputation was second only to that of Devil Daario among those sellsword captains who still lived.
Of course, the chivalry of Myr had broken sellsword companies before this, and they had driven the Exile Company from the field only two days ago. But this was their second day with little food and little rest; the pace Lord Stark had set from the field of the Agneiat had prevented any supply from catching up to them, and the squires had not been able to do much in the way of foraging during the single three-hour stop that Lord Stark had allowed last night. Numerical and moral superiority meant little when men hadn't had a square meal or a solid night's sleep in two days. If they tried to fight now, it wouldn't be a battle. It would be a brawl.
Jorah walked his horse up to Lord Stark's side; their friendship from the old days of the rebellion against Mad Aerys gave him that right, even above his standing as a lord and his rank as commander of the volunteers from Westeros. "My lord," he began, "I would suggest that we withdraw. If we attempt to force a battle here and lose it . . ."
"If you are afraid of defeat, my lord, then you have my leave to depart," Lord Stark replied in a voice as hard as Northern granite. "But I will remain, with any brave enough to stand with me. I have debts to settle with the Targaryen yet, and I will not burden my sons with them."
Jorah side-stepped his horse a length away, suppressing the surge of resentment at the insinuation of cowardice. He had known what reaction his words were likely to draw; complaining about it would be like blaming a fire for burning the hand that he thrust into it. And while he had considered it his duty to counsel prudence, he had known that it was unlikely to find a receptive ear. Even if it was possible that Ser Gerold had managed to wound or slay the Targaryen, a rumor made plausible by the absence of the Targaryen's personal banner, the seven-swords-on-white banner of the Kingsguard was present, and only Arthur Dayne had the right to that insignia.
The sight of it was enough to make the blood boil, even in a man as level-headed as Jorah prided himself on being. The finer points of chivalric law meant little to the First Men and less to Bear Islanders, but Arthur Dayne's crimes went beyond the code of chivalry. It might have been Rhaegar Targaryen who had kidnapped and raped Lyanna Stark, and brought her to her death, but he could not have done it without Arthur Dayne. The Andals might consider obedience to one's liege-lord to be a mitigating factor, but the First Men did not; Arthur's adherence to Rhaegar and his abetting of his crimes made him as guilty as the Targaryen. And that left aside his crimes since Lyanna's death.Slaver,Jorah thought murderously as he glowered across the field at the white banner with its seven swords.Murderer. Kidnapper. Rapist. May the gods curse me and mine if you escape our vengeance.
Lord Stark drew his sword, paused for a moment as he regarded the blade, and then he raised it high, light flaming along the edges, before leveling it at the enemy. Jorah drew Longclaw as he heeled his destrier into a walk, resting the blade across the pommel as he allowed anger to banish fatigue and hate to replace hunger. Vengeance was waiting across the field, vengeance for the blood of Lyanna the Fair, who he remembered as a feisty and free-spirited young beauty, and Rickard the Just, who had accepted his oath and the oath of his father Jeor and given them good lordship. The gods that had watched him swear that oath were watching now, to see whether he kept the words he had sworn before their eyes or broke them. For honor's sake, for justice's sake, for his sons' sake, he would not break the faith his family had kept with the Stark's from time immemorial.
XXX
Ser Arthur Dayne had spent a lifetime learning how to read men's souls. When a man became a king's bodyguard, he learned how to tell sincerity from falsehood, earnest intent from empty display, truth from dissemblance, by a thousand different clues. How a man stood, walked, spoke (or didn't speak), ate, danced . . . how he dressed, even. The slightest clue could give away a potential threat, whether it was a lord considering rebellion or a simple assassin.
So when he saw the Myrish knights start rumbling across the field by the Rhoyne towards him and his men, what he saw made him pay attention for the first time since his king had died in front of him. What was driving that force forwards was not a knight's desire for honor, or an impetuous commander's recklessness, or even a professional soldier's devotion to duty beyond reason. None of them would have compelled such a course of action from men who had to be even more worn than he and his men were. No, what was driving that force forwards washate. Pure, naked hate, the sort that would allow a man to ignore a death-wound for the chance to put his hands around his enemy's throat, directed athim.
He was no stranger to fear; it had been his job to fear for the lives of his kings, first Aerys, then Rhaegar and Viserys. But fear for himself was something he had put behind him when he became a knight. Or so he had thought. But the sudden twisting of his guts argued otherwise.
He banished the fear with an effort of will. He was theSword of the Morning; he would not die at the hands of an upjumped barbarian with delusions of grandeur. Not when King Aemon needed his sword more than any of his kings ever had. He drew his riding sword (his battle-axe had broken when he struck down the knight that had killed King Viserys) and pointed it at the enemy. "For the King!" he roared. "At them!"
The remaining knights of the Exile Company heeled their mounts into a walk as he did, with the Windblown and the Norvoshi a beat behind them. It might have simply been an artifact of how much less time they had spent training in unison than the Company, but even so it made him snarl behind his visor. The Tattered Prince had been perfectly correct in his actions since the battle, but Arthur knew a man who was looking for a way to be circ*mspect when he saw one. No matter, he reminded himself as he urged his horse up to the trot. The Tattered Prince could hardly back out ofthisbattle, againstthisfoe. Eddard Stark was not known for being discriminate.
The Myrish knights were cantering now, and sending up the same wolf-howl that they had at the Agneiat. Arthur's teeth went on edge as he remembered unwillingly the words of that damned seeress the king had given audience to so many years ago.How few will be left to kneel before the conqueror,he heard her say again as he signaled the canter and leaned forward in the saddle, lowering his riding sword so that it lay parallel with his horse's neck with the point forward.Robert the Bloody might have made himself the conqueror,he thought grimly as he aimed himself at the armored figure whose surcoat matched the banner of the running wolf and whose helm, even at this distance, was uncannily similar to a wolf's head,but we'll make sure there are a damned sight fewer left to kneel before him, by the gods.
The shock of the onset, when it came, was as bad as any Arthur had felt in a life that had included two of the greatest battles of the age. All around him the din of weapons on armor rose as men raged at each other in the passion of close combat, but Arthur heard it only dimly; he was already too busy fighting for his life.
Stark, that canny bastard, had had the same idea he had, and put his sword into the neck of Arthur's horse in the same instant that Arthur did the same to his. Arthur abandoned his riding sword as he threw himself clear of the foundering horse, and by the time he got back to his feet, Dawn was flowing off his back and into his hands. He charged, as swiftly as he could in full plate over ground already littered with dead and dying men and horses, and managed to catch Stark before he could properly settle himself. The first smashing blow drove him back and Arthur pressed the advantage, sending Dawn flying into a barrage of cuts as he sank deep into the battle-trance. He wasn't trying so much to cut Stark down where he stood, even Dawn found it difficult to cut through good plate armor, but rather to drive him back and off his feet into the ground, where he could be dispatched the more easily.
So enthralled by this vision of victory was he that the blow that hit him in the helmet hard enough to snap his head back came as a complete surprise. As did the blow that struck his cuirass just short of the stop-rib below his gorget in the next heartbeat.
He saw the next blow coming just in time to catch it on Dawn's blade, but the kick that hit him in the poleyn was entirely unexpected, spoiling his balance enough that he had to quick-step backwards, and now it was Stark that was on the attack, with a fury that made Arthur blink behind his visor. This was not the pup he had faced at Tara, who had been saved only by Jaime's treachery. This was a wolf in the prime of its strength that faced him now, a wolf with the body and skill of a man, and suddenly the battle-trance was not enough. He could not find a gap in the rhythm of cut and thrust wide enough to throw a counterblow in safety, and so swiftly and so forcefully came the storm of blows that he was forced to give ground to not be overwhelmed where he stood. He tripped and fell backwards over the body of a horse, rolling backwards over his head with the unconscious ease that only long training could give, but Stark hurdled the dead horse and was on him again by the time he struggled to his feet.
Arthur felt himself blanch. Where in all the Seven Hells hadthiscome from? Any other man would be slowing by now, but Stark was still coming on, inexorable, every step a blow and every blow a step. The longsword in the Northman's hands was flying as fast as Dawn had ever flown in Arthur's, and each overhand cut that he threw at Arthur's neck crashed against his guard like a sledgehammer on a stake. Arthur snarled denial and redoubled his efforts, started to throw counterblows regardless of risk, and in growing dismay saw them fail one by one. He opened the arsenal of secret maneuvers that he had learned as a boy, when his father's swordmaster first suspected he might have what it took to be the Sword of the Morning, and ran through them all. The Window's Opening. The Snap of the Long Tail. The Lady's Reversal. The Breaking of the Iron Gate. In growing despair, he tried a move used only twice by the Starfire. Nothing worked!
He heard splashing over the sword-din and realized that his legs were wet to the calves; somehow they had come to the river. He grimaced behind his visor. There was nowhere left to go; if he gave ground much more, then the water would slow him too much. But it was only by giving ground that he had lasted this long. If he had stood and fought, he would have been overwhelmed where he stood.That said,he realized as he blocked another murderous thrust for his visor-slit and side-slipped the false-edge cut that flowed out of it,maybe I'm thinking about this the wrong way. Stark's sword was plain steel, after all; it could not hope to cut through armor the way Dawn could. So if he stopped parrying and trusted his armor . . .
There was nothing left but to try. He planted his feet in the shallows and swung, giving no thought to parrying the blow that Stark was throwing at his head. That blow made his ears ring and light stabbed at his eyes as his helmet came off, but that let him see that his blade had cut through Eddard's cuirass and into his side.
His triumph was short-lived; Eddard's left arm came down and wrapped around Dawn's blade, keeping him from ripping it free, and his right arm brought his longsword whistling back at Arthur's head. Arthur let go of Dawn with his left hand and brought it up to catch Stark's arm at the wrist and stop the cut dead, then a kick hammered into his breastplate and smashed him onto his back. By the time he sat up, spraying river water, Stark was upon him, gauntleted hands reaching between Arthur's to latch onto his throat. Arthur had to thrust his left hand behind him to keep Stark from driving him under the water as he scrabbled for his dagger with his right; he had no clue where either of their swords had gone. He had just got his dagger into his fist when Stark threw his whole weight upon him and drove him underwater.
Arthur stabbed blindly as black clouds began to billow in his brain and water burned in his lungs and sinuses; he felt the blade sink home twice but the iron hands at his throat did not loosen. In a madness of desperation he groped with his left hand until he found the bottom of Stark's helmet and pried it upwards, and even through the water and the haze in his vision the hatred on Stark's face redoubled his fear. With his last strength he brought his dagger up, put the tip under Stark's chin, andpushed, and then the black clouds overwhelmed his sight and he fell into darkness.
The Second Battle of Ghoyan Drohe was one of the most ferocious battles relative to its size of the Slave Wars, and quickly became one of the most legendary. Most of the legends, naturally, revolve around the famous duel between Eddard Stark and Ser Arthur Dayne, but some extend from the duel to the men fighting around it. The most persistent of these legends, thanks to its promotion by the followers of the Old Gods, is that the Old Gods laid a compulsion upon the Myrish combatants in general but most specifically upon Eddard Stark, in answer to the prayer he made before the Battle of the Agneiat, and that when Stark killed Ser Arthur Dayne the compulsion was lifted, with subsequent effects on morale that provoked the withdrawal of the Myrish from the field. A rationalist observer would note that the flanking attack launched by the Tattered Prince, which witnesses observed as "breaking the deadlock and scattering men and horses in every direction", and the decision of Lord Jorah Mormont to order a withdrawal, may have had rather more to do with the Myrish retreat than the sudden withdrawing of divine compulsion. However, this strictly rationalist view does not account for the apparition that took place the night before the Battle of the Agneiat, or for the events in the years following that by their nature do not admit of an exclusively rationalist view.
The most fertile ground that the Second Battle of Ghoyan Drohe provided, however, lay and continues to lie in the duel between Eddard Stark and Ser Arthur Dayne, especially its conclusion. That Dayne was killed is beyond dispute; multiple primary sources attest that his body was recovered from the shallows of the River Rhoyne and sent downriver to Ny Sar, although what happened to it afterwards remains disputed. Neither Eddard Stark nor Dawn, on the other hand, would be recovered from the river in the days following the battle. Dawn would resurface a few years later, under circ*mstances mysterious enough that they warrant an investigation on their own, but neither Eddard Stark nor his body has been seen since he drove Dayne into the shallows of the river. He would be declared legally dead eight years later, but it was one of the traditions of the Royal Army of Myr that he is not dead but merely resting in seclusion to recover from his wounds, and will return when the Kingdom of Myr faces its greatest danger . . .
Martial Myths: Traditions, Legends, and Tall Tales from Armies Around the Worldby Maester Pollman
Chapter 142: Nemesis (Third Battle of Ghoyan Drohe, Viceroyalty of Pentos)
Chapter Text
The Tattered Prince carefully concealed his dismay as he took his leave of Ser Myles Toyne. Ser Arthur might be dead, with his uncanny perception of other men's thoughts, but Ser Myles was no fool either, however much he might be acting like one now.
Not, admittedly, that he had much choice in the matter, given the state of the Grand Army. A bad defeat followed by two days and a night of forced marching with only four hours rest had brought them to Ghoyan Drohe in a state nearing collapse. Aside from the physical exhaustion, which was considerable, the men were morally exhausted as well. Everyone knew, had beenpromised, that this was the mightiest army to be raised since the fall of Valyria. And yet their enemies had not only matched their every move, but driven them from the field in disarray. Only the sacrifice of the Unsullied and the True Myrish had prevented the sort of immediate close pursuit that could have turned defeat into massacre. As it was, the army could not move further without at least a day to rest, eat a few solid meals, and reorganize itself; two or three days might prove necessary, given the battering they had suffered.
That was the infantry; the cavalry was not much better. The Myrish knights might have been forced to withdraw, but only after a grueling fight, coming hard on the heels of the defeat at the Agneiat and the forced march to get here before the Myrish did. Many horses had died in the hours immediately after the battle and many more were no longer fit to serve with the army, having had their wind broken by the rigors of the last few days. Only five hundred of his Windblown were still fit for mounted action; the rest would have to fight as infantry. The remaining knights of the Exile Company were not in much better state.
All of which would have been inconvenient, but potentially survivable. If not for the other problem that had arisen.
After Ghoyan Drohe had been taken at the beginning of the campaign, the Volantene river fleet had started sending ships back to Ny Sar as they unloaded, rather than waiting until they all unloaded and making the voyage as a group. The intent, Admiral Caerayan had explained, had been to facilitate a more-or-less constant flow of supplies up from the great depot at Ny Sar, and maximize the efficiency of the fleet's operations. Which had been fine, even admirable, at the beginning of the campaign when the concern had been to keep the Grand Army fed and able to exploit the victory they had all expected. But now, when the Grand Army had been defeated and the concern was to get them downriver and out of reach of the enemy as swiftly as possible, it meant that there were not enough boats on hand to lift the whole of the Grand Army downriver at once, even with the losses they had sustained. And attempting to lift only part of the Grand Army at any one time, Ser Myles had explained in an undertone, would be potentially disastrous. If the Exile Company was taken downriver while the Militia were left at Ghoyan Drohe, then the Militia would likely riot at the prospect of being left to face the abolitionists while the foreign mercenaries made good their escape. Conversely, if the Militia were lifted downriver while the Exile Company remained, then there would be nothing to stop the commander at Ny Sar from granting any requests by the evacuated Militia to be sent home to Volantis, thereby leaving the Exile Company high and dry.
What Ser Myles had not said, but which the Tattered Prince had guessed, was that in such a scenario the Exile Company would almost certainly be abandoned at Ghoyan Drohe, and possibly even forbidden from traveling downriver. The Old Blood still smarted from Viserys Targaryen's assumption of power, and had only stayed themselves from seeking revenge for fear of the reprisals that Viserys could inflict, thanks to the personal loyalty of the Exile Company, his control of the Unsullied, and his at-least-titular authority over the Militia. If news reached the Black Walls that Viserys was not only defeated but dead, with the Unsullied destroyed and the Exile Company grievously reduced . . . Well, it was unlikely that his wife and son would be killed, but the only way to prevent the rest of the Targaryen's power base in the City from being killed or exiled would be to get the remnants of the Exile Company into the City before news of the defeat did, so that Magister Rahtheon could have a corps of men-at-arms that he could use to overawe opposition.
The Tattered Prince spat. The inner workings of Volantene politics might be diverting, but they were not his concern at the moment. What was his concern was what to do now, given recent events. It could be argued that Viserys Targaryen's death voided his contract, although professional courtesy dictated that he remain at the service of Viserys's heirs or executors until either a new contract could be drawn up or the old one affirmed. The difficulty with playing by the old rules, however, was that no one else was. Ser Myles Toyne might have been a sellsword captain himself who knew how the game was played, but the past few years had seen him become a whole-hearted follower of the Targaryen's. If the Tattered Prince made any noises about renegotiating his contract, then it was entirely possible that Ser Myles would react violently.
Which left aside the question of the abolitionists. The Tattered Prince glanced westwards towards the road where he expected almost any hour to see the banners of the Royal Army. Eddard Stark might have been the most merciless of the abolitionists, but not by a particularly wide margin. And while Robert was reportedly capable of moderation, it remained to be seen how moderate he would think he could be with the Iron Legion close at hand baying for heads to mount on their spearpoints, especially since Eddard Stark's death gave him a personal injury to avenge. Doubly so with one who had been a notable leader of the Grand Army at the Agneiat, and who had come close to winning the battle for Viserys Targaryen by his conspicuous actions.
Come to that, the Tattered Prince decided, it would be best if any petitions were made at a later date, after tempers had had a chance to cool. And if Robert the Bloody proved intractable, the Braavosi could still be trusted to at least remember the old rules, and possibly to honor them if an old and respected adversary asked politely.
Eight steps later, the Tattered Prince had the germ of an idea of what to do if the abolitionists came down that road before the Grand Army would set sail down the Rhoyne. Ten steps after that, he had a plan.
XXX
Robert could feel the lines on his face deepen as he stared at the vista before him. Pushing the infantry on through the night, with only two one-hour rests, hadn't been enough to catch the enemy in the open field. The slavers had made it to Ghoyan Drohe, and the landing where their boats and river galleys could carry them back downriver to Volantis. Ergo, all the lives lost at the Agneiat and in the pursuit, Ned's among them, were for nothing.
That Viserys Targaryen may have died at the Agneiat didn't matter; the Targaryen had never been the greatest threat to the Kingdom of Myr. That place had always been reserved for the army he led and what it represented, the willingness of Volantis to take the fight to its enemies, rather than simply defend itself. So long as the Grand Army existed, that impulse would go undimmed, even if the Targaryen had been the most fervent advocate of fighting abolition on the Narrow Sea littoral rather than along the banks of the Rhoyne. The officers of such an army would not content themselves with being relegated to a purely defensive role, or a role that required them to play second fiddle to the Lyseni. They would agitate for the army to be used aggressively, and the Triarchs would have little choice but to heed them given their command of so many armed men. And while the Targaryen and his Kingsguards might have been the most capable captains Volantis had, they were far from the only ones.
Robert sighed through his nose and turned to Ser Akhollo. "Ser Akhollo, pass the word for the army to prepare to make camp," he said. "See that the usual sentries are doubled, and that care is taken against . . ."
"Your Grace," one of the other Brotherhood knights blurted out, "the enemy cavalry is moving."
"Wait," Robert said, surprise making him brusque, and turned back towards the enemy as he thrust out a hand. "Far-eye," he demanded, and as soon as it was slapped into his hand he raised it to his eye, scowling at the dust cloud rising on the slaver's right flank. "Yes, I see," he said intently as he tracked the movement, damning the northerly breeze for not blowing harder so he couldsee."Ah, there's the banner. Windblown, and no Targaryen banner beside it, so it's just the Tattered Prince. Not just cavalry, either; he's got foot with him. But what's he playing at? He can't be thinking of trying to turn our flank and cut us off, not all by himself." Most of the chivalry was reduced to fighting on foot after Ned's pursuit, having lost their horses either in the battle where he had been lost or in the night and day after from exhaustion, but those of them that had survived the battle and the pursuit were champing at the bit for another chance at the slavers now that they had gotten some sleep and a decent meal since rejoining the army. And the light horse had not been so reduced, either in men or in horseflesh. If they were told that the Tattered Prince was trying this, and riding at the head of his men to do it, they would be unlikely to wait for orders.
Robert lowered the far-eye for a moment, blinked twice rapidly, then returned it to his eye.Is that what I think it is?"If I didn't know better . . ." he said slowly, then he lowered the far-eye and held it out. "Ser Andrew, you have better eyes than I. What is the Tattered Prince flying next to his banner?"
Ser Andrew Morrigen, the youngest knight of the Brotherhood, took the far-eye and squinted through it for a long moment. "He's flying a white pennant, Your Grace," he said finally.
There was a moment of dead silence in the command group. "Why, in all the hells, would he do that?" Captain Marco Bragadin demanded.
"Why doesn't matter, my lord," Robert replied, resolve hardening in his heart as he spoke. "What matters is that those,people," he jutted his chin at the slavers, "just lost half their remaining cavalry, a goodly chunk of their foot, and one of their better captains." He turned his horse to face Bragadin, the knights of the Brotherhood, and his other captains. "Gentlemen, I'm sure you've all heard the rumors that Viserys Targaryen has been killed," he said. "I tell you truly; I do not know if they are true or not. But whether they are true or not doesn't matter. What does matter," he pointed behind him at the Grand Army of Volantis, "is that I am going to deprive the Targaryen and his heirs of that army. And I am going to do it by killing every mother's son of them. Return to your commands, gentlemen, and prepare for a general attack."
XXX
The combined army of the Alliance was in sorry shape. Their ranks had been grievously reduced by the battle at the Agneiat, and the forced march from that field to this had brought them to the brink of exhaustion. Many of their leaders were dead, wounded, or missing; there were companies the size of overstrength bandas commanded by senior lieutenants, and bandas the size of platoons commanded by senior sergeants. No rational observer would have guessed that they were still fit to fight, much less willing.
But as word spread through the combined army that King Robert intended to attack, a bloodthirsty growl rose from the ranks. The men had known as well as their officers that as bloody as the Agneiat had been, it hadn't settled anything, because the enemy had escaped. But now here they were, with their enemies pinned against the river and, rumor had it, most of their cavalry already running away. The greedy anticipation of predators facing wounded prey filled men's hearts, even among the Braavosi who saw only a chance to finish the job well begun at the Agneiat.
In the Iron Legion the blood was running especially hot. For most of the battle, the exhilaration of battle had deadened them to the horror of fighting the Unsullied, but the last hours of it had sickened them. The Unsullied were slaves, men the Legion had sworn sacred vows to liberate with all other slaves. But for all their efforts and entreaties at the end, when there had been no reason for the Unsullied to continue serving their masters, they had refused to accept their freedom. Even the half-dozen that had been captured had refused to hear a single word about freedom, even as they lay dying. Only two, it was known, still lived, and even now they had to be bound hand and foot to prevent them from killing the doctors who labored to save their lives.
It was an article of faith with the Legion that no slave would continue to live in slavery if freedom was offered them. For the Unsullied to be so broken in mind and soul as to demonstrate otherwise was not simply a crime, but a blasphemy. One that the Legion had been stewing about all through this march in pursuit of the masters who had brought the Unsullied to their killing field. Masters that were, even now, trapped against the river with, anyone with eyes could tell, not enough boats to carry them all away.
Set against such a possibility, even the rapidly-spreading rumor that the Tattered Prince was making good his escape did not matter. The Enemy was before them, and Vengeance beckoned as she had not done since Tyrosh.
Anger banished weariness, and the prospect of imminent revenge made men forget the losses they had already sustained. Men signed themselves after the fashion of their faiths, then tightened the straps of their armor. In the City of Myr Royals, Color Sergeant Aarawn Luck, who led the regimental color guard, kissed the blade of his halberd and rolled his troll-like shoulders. "Let's f*ck 'em up, boys!" he roared.
Grown men howled like wolves as the drums began to beat, the trumpets sent up their blaring challenge, and the Northern skinpipers began the skirling, droning wail of "Freedom's Hammer".
XXX
Ser Myles Toyne allowed himself only a single bellowed expletive at the back of the Tattered Prince's company before he began trying to restore the situation. "Strickland!" he shouted, bringing the senior lieutenant of the Exile Company's surviving knights to his side. "Every knight that still has a horse, get him on it and in formation behind the center. We'll need something to counterpunch with."
Ser Harry Strickland's normally affable face was ashen. "But we've just started loading the knights . . ." he began.
"Unload them, man!" Myles roared. "If we don't stop those bastards," he gestured at the abolitionists, "in their tracks, they'll kill everyone they don't drive into the river. Now hop to it, at the double!"
As Strickland scuttled away, shouting for his squire, Myles was already turning to the rest of the Company's officers. "Gentlemen, our main task will be keeping the Militia from panicking," he said. "If we keep the Militia in line with us, then we should have little to fear, even with this treachery. But if they break, then we're allf*cked. So if you see a Militia company start to buckle, reinforce them. If a Militia officer leaves the line, kill him where he stands and take command of his men."
Lysono Maar raised a hand. "How long are we to hold?" he asked.
"Until nightfall," Myles replied. To soften the round of winces, he gave them the punchline. "And then, once night falls, we get the Company onto the boats, bugger off, and the Militia can get f*cked."
Ser Henryk Sunglass raised an eyebrow. "Better not let the Militia hear you say that," he said in a voice that Myles could tell was being forced to be light.
"So don't say it where they can hear you," Myles snapped. "But pass the word among our men; hold until nightfall, and then we get out of this. Tell the older men that we're playing by Qohor rules on this one."
The faces of the officers were somber as they spurred back to their commands; Qohor rules, in the Golden Company that was, had meant no rules beyond the survival of the Company. Take what was needed, do what had to be done, and kill anyone who tried to stop you, got in your way, or even just looked at you funny.
It would probably, Myles knew as he shouted for couriers to carry orders to the Militia, be the end of Targaryen influence in Volantis once word got out that the Exile Company had left the Militia to the scanty mercy of the Iron Legion. At least, the end of any influence they had within the structure of power created by the Old Blood; the Old Blood might not care about the tradesmen and shopkeepers that made up the bulk of the Militia, but they had to pretend to care in order to maintain their followings among those tradesmen and shopkeepers. On the other hand, with so many of the Militia dead or taken, the Old Blood's grip on the City might be weakened enough for the Company to seize the City, depose the other two Triarchs, and proclaim a dictatorship, either under Myles himself or under Magister Rahtheon. And if that dictatorship managed to hold off the abolitionists well enough . . . Kingdoms had risen on lesser claims to legitimacy.
For that to happen, though, the Company had to survive. And that, Myles knew as he rapped out orders and sent couriers galloping away, was already unlikely, and becoming more so by the minute. He spared another curse for the Tattered Prince, and the Norvoshi that had followed him in his desertion. If he got out of this, he vowed, he would have a reckoning with that tricked-up old charlatan.
XXX
Another army might have made a better fight of it, one that was either more hom*ogenous or had had more time and opportunity to build a spirit of solidarity between its component parts. But the Volantene Militia had seen little of the Exile Company's fight to cover the retreat from the Agneiat, and nothing of the cavalry's fight to prevent Stark and the knights of Myr from destroying the boats. And they had already seen the Tattered Prince take his Windblown and the Norvoshi away from the fight, and learned at the speed of Rumor that he had done so under flag of truce. So when the Exile Company chivvied the Militia into forming the first line of the Grand Army, holding itself in the second line, the Militia immediately suspected the worst. Rumors began to run that the foreign sellswords meant to buy their lives with the blood of good citizens, and leave them to the mercies of the Braavosi and the Iron Legion.
Which was why the lines had barely come together before the Militia started to buckle. Men who had been through the hell of the Agneiat, endured the many hours of forced marching away from that bloody field, and who had thought themselves finally safe only to once again be cast into the fire found that they had spent their whole reserve of courage. They began to trickle back from the Militia's line, only to find that the Exile Company had closed up behind them, shields locked and spears leveled as they advanced. The fear of double-dealing foreign mercenaries seemingly confirmed, the militiamen panicked. Cries of "Treachery!" rang out along the line, and then a young lieutenant who was watching his already reduced company be caught between the hammer of the Iron Legion and the anvil of the Exile Company screamed, "Company, retreat at speed!"
The line of the Militia disintegrated as the cry of "Every man for himself!" spread like plague. Only it's long history of discipline, inherited from the Golden Company, saved the Exile Company from being infected by the panic. Bellowed orders and frantic trumpet calls started the Company shuffling to its left, turning from an extended line to a compact block, and then sent it back-stepping towards the southern section of the riverbank. Ser Myles Toyne had guessed that such a thing might happen, and he had arranged for the southern section of the beach to be occupied by ships whose captains could be trusted to keep their heads in a crisis.
By the time the Exile Company had closed up, the rest of the riverbank was already a scene from the lower levels of the Seven Hells. The abolitionists had suffered too many losses for them to consider mercy, especially when they had their enemy trapped where they were easy meat for the blades. The companies that found themselves faced with only the panicked and fleeing men of the Militia quickly sounded the high-racing triple notes of 'general pursuit', and legionary, Braavosi volunteer, knight, and light horseman alike broke ranks to plunge after the fleeing Volantenes like terriers after rats. The piers quickly became jammed, and men flooded into the shallows to try and claw their way over the railings of the ships that were anchored away from the piers. Some of the captains of the Volantene river fleet, faced with such a situation, held true to their duty and stayed at their moorings until they had filled their ships with frantic militiamen. Most, however, chose to err on the side of circ*mspection. They only waited until they had taken on a partial load of fugitives before slipping their cables and poling out into the river, or didn't even wait that long. Militiamen who saw their shipborne comrades casting off implored them not to leave, some with curses, some with prayers, some with abject begging. Other militiamen, quicker on the uptake or simply more bloody-minded, redoubled their efforts to get aboard the ships that were staying, and began to use their weapons to cut their way aboard.
By then the abolitionists were among them, and the slaughter was beginning in earnest. The light horsem*n and the few knights who were still mounted spurred their horses into the shallows and onto the piers, followed closely by their comrades in the infantry. Spears, swords, axes, maces, war hammers, pikes, and daggers quickly became red to the hilts as their wielders drove them into the Volantenes, deaf to the growing cries of surrender and pleas for mercy. The wolf had risen in the hearts of men, and a score of slogans gave voice to the thirst for vengeance. The Braavosi cried out the names of family members killed or impoverished by the Expulsion, or simply bellowed the name of Naerolis the Burner. The Legion howled the names of comrades killed at the Agneiat, or of countrymen enslaved by Khal Pobo after Piper's Creek and the Sack of Campora, or simply bellowed "Unsullied! Unsullied!". The light horsem*n screamed for Ser Brynden Tully, the Blackfish who had made them proper soldiers instead of regulated bandits. But it was the battle-roar of "Stark! Stark!" from the chivalry that slowly subsumed all others. The first sword of Holy Freedom after King Robert was missing, possibly dead, at the hands of thesebastards, and the Royal Army of Myr meant either to rescue him from whatever hole the slavers had damned him to or exact the blood-price of his vengeance.
The Royal Army did not find Eddard Stark that day, nor did they find his body, and so they slaked their frustration and their grief with blood. Survivors attested that the waters of the Rhoyne ran red for two leagues downstream, and that the bodies of the Militia so choked the shallows that a man could walk for a mile over water two feet deep without wetting his boots by jumping from body to body. Four Volantene river galleys lingered too long and were caught in the melee; three were boarded by Myrish knights and Braavosi infantry who had discarded their pikes for their swords, and the fourth, already overloaded, was capsized when a century of the Iron Legion laid hands on the rail and hauled with all their might. Lord Jorah Mormont would write to Lady Amarya Stark after the battle to express his regrets at the loss of her husband and assure her that 'thanks to the efforts of the army, your lord has been most terribly avenged. What of those who died under our swords and those who were drowned in the river, combined with those who were slain at the Agneiat, I doubt that one man in four of the Volantene Militia who marched out from Volantis will march back to it."
Down the riverbank, the Exile Company managed to stave off the fate that had befallen the Militia for almost two hours. Here the fight had not devolved to the stabbing, slashing, clubbing melee further up the bank, and the Exile Company managed to hold onto a perimeter against a company of the Iron Legion and another of Braavosi while they made a frantic effort to load their wounded onto the ships that Ser Myles had held apart for his men. The fight intensified as dismounted knights from the Myrish cavalry pushed through the Legion's ranks and began battering at the Company's shield-wall, roaring for their Lord Stark, but the Company not only kept its ranks closed up but, in a miracle of discipline, began to send squads back from the line to the ships, their comrades back-stepping to keep the perimeter small enough to be held. The Braavosi gritted their teeth and drove home their pikes, the Legion howled their war cries as they tucked their shoulders into their shields and pressed forward, and the knights wept with rage as they hurled themselves against the wall of shields, but the Exile Company were the heirs of Bittersteel, trained by Ser Arthur Dayne and Ser Barristan Selmy, and for long minutes they did not break.
In the end, it was Robert Baratheon who tipped the balance of discipline and fury and numbers and fatigue. For a day and a half, Robert had contained his grief and wrath at the loss of his best and oldest friend, the man who had stood by him in peace and war for almost thirty years and was his brother in all but blood. Now, seeing that the same men, the samebastards, who had killed his brother were making good their escape, he cast strategy to the winds and overrode all the objections of his bodyguards. He was, he declared, going to kill the f*ckers who killed his Fist, and if the Brotherhood wanted to protect him then they had better come with him. The addition of three knights and three Legion squads, all better rested than almost anyone else on the field by then, might have been a small weight to cast in the scales, but not when they were led by Robert the Strong, who proved the justice of his sobriquet when the first blow of his hammer split the shield of the spearman facing him and sent him reeling out of the line with a broken arm.
That momentary breach should have closed in the next heartbeat, but after so much desperate exertion for so long the reactions of the men on either side were slower than they should have been, and the breach stayed open long enough for Robert to drive himself into it with a roar that seemed to shake the heavens, the knights of his Brotherhood hot on his heels. The line of the Company cracked, then buckled as the Legion and the Myrish chivalry flung themselves forward with a wordless scream of desperate rage at the sight of their king endangered, and then broke entirely as the Braavosi followed with a bellow of "The First Law!" Ser Myles Toyne tried to lead a countercharge to restore the situation, but a command from Ser Harry Strickland saw the knights of the command group snatch Ser Myles off his feet and physically carry him aboard one of the galleys, ignoring the sudden torrent of outraged profanity from the veteran captain. Ser Harry then cut the galley's anchor cable with his own sword, roared for the captain to "Get out of it, man!" and turned back to try and rally a rearguard while his trumpeter sounded the retreat and the Exile Company, freed at last from the discipline that had held them together for three terrible hours, broke and ran for the ships.
When the roll was finally called aboard the ships later that evening, it was found that a full quarter of the Exile Company that had escaped the Agneiat had been left slain or taken on the riverbank. Combined with the losses of the Militia and the desertion of the Tattered Prince, Ser Myles Toyne had no option but to order an immediate retreat to Ny Sar. The Grand Army's part in the Fourth Slave War had come to a bloody end.
XXX
Before retiring, Robert had given strict orders that neither he nor any other man was to be awakened except in direst emergency. It was a directive that had been readily accepted by the other commanders, for the only accurate descriptor of the Army's state after the end of the battle was exhausted. Two great battles in four days, interrupted only by a forced march that had covered in two days and a night a distance that should have taken four days to traverse, had brought man and beast to the ragged edge of collapse. Only the need for sentries had prevented Robert from ordering that every man in the combined army spend the next twelve hours asleep.
So when he was shaken awake, his first reaction was of alarm. "The Tattered Prince?" he demanded, hauling himself upward as he shook away bleariness.
"Still marching upriver at last report, Your Grace," said the man who had awakened him, who Robert eventually recognized as Ser Vernan Irons. The one-eyed old knight was aptly named, in Robert's opinion; at least a decade Robert's senior, but he was still as fresh as any man in the army, to judge by appearances.
"Ned?" Robert asked next; the only corollary to his orders not to be awakened had been if Ned was found.
"Still no sign of Lord Stark, Your Grace," Ser Vernan replied. "But we have found something that requires your immediate attention."
Robert sighed gustily and knuckled his eyes.Damn it, what am I going to tell Amarya? Come to that, what am I going to tell young Bran and Niall and Geralt and Alys? 'Sorry, but I lost your father?'And that left aside the letters he would have to write to Edmure Tully and Catelyn Stark telling them that their uncle had been killed in his service.Started a war to avenge one friend and lost two others in quick succession. Well done, old boy."Alright," he said, heaving himself to his feet. "Let's go. But there had better be tea."
A few short minutes later, with his face washed, his spare shirt and doublet donned, and a mug of strong-brewed tea laced with honey gulped down, Robert set off across the camp with his Brotherhood in tow, following Ser Vernan towards the riverbank and drawing a growing crowd of curious eyes as he did so. The bank was quieter than it had been yesterday, but it was not still, even after so much slaughter. The only other order Robert had given, and set officers to enforce, was that the Army's dead were to be treated with respect. The slavers were to be free game for plunder, and even exhaustion could be trumped by greed. The camp followers and a few of the more unscrupulous soldiers were already picking the dead over for coin, jewelry, gear, and whatever other valuables might be found on their bodies. Robert couldn't help a grimace; it was the right of soldiers to plunder their slain enemies, but watching it being done was like watching usurers at work. It just felt . . .sordid.
At least the ships that had been taken the day before were still in one piece. As large real property taken in action, they now belonged to the Crown, after the value of their cargo was distributed to the men who had taken them, and they would be invaluable in the next stage of this war. If there was a next stage.
It was at the largest taken ship that Ser Vernan finally stopped and gestured, bringing a quartet of legionaries running onto the pier with a stretcher that they laid at Robert's feet. Robert looked at what lay on the stretcher, and hardly believed what he saw. "Remove his helm," he commanded. "I must be sure."
A Legion sergeant made quick work of the helm's straps and pulled it away to reveal the face of Viserys Targaryen. It was paler than Robert recalled, and the wound that killed him had made a ghastly ruin of his left eye, but between what was left of his face, his distinctive armor, and the surcoat and helm, he was unmistakable.
"I witness it, Your Grace," Ser Akhollo said, his voice rising in excitement. "Viserys Tagaryen is dead!" He threw back his head and gave voice to his yipping war-whoop, provoking an exultant cheer from the crowd that had gathered on the riverbank, but Robert barely heard it as he searched his enemy's face. At the Agneiat he would have sworn that he had faced the spitting image of Rhaegar, but now he saw more clearly just how young his enemy had been. A man in years, perhaps, but only of an age to lead a company, if he had served under Robert's banner. Not a man to trust with an army unless you had no other option.
"The armor is Ser Gerold Dayne's by right of the sword," Robert said finally as he looked up. "You men will be rewarded for the finding of him and for your honesty in dealing with his corpse. If any coin or jewelry was found with him, it is yours, save for any royal regalia. That shall revert to the Crown, and its value in coin remitted to you. Ser Vernan, we are obliged to you for bringing this to our attention. When we return to Myr, we shall arrange for a suitable reward for your diligence."
The legionaries bowed, grins splitting their faces as Ser Vernan nodded. "What of his body, Your Grace?" he inquired.
Robert glanced again at the body of the last prince of House Targaryen. "How is it that he is still here?" he asked finally.
"It seems that Mad Arthur wanted him taken downriver to Ny Sar to be cremated, according to the custom of the Targaryen's," Ser Vernan replied. "But it is accounted unlucky among sailors to carry a corpse, and with Arthur dead many of the captains saw their way clear to refuse to carry him. The captain of this ship eventually accepted a purse of gold for himself and a bonus for each of his sailors to carry the body, according to one of the galley slaves who survived. As for why the Exile Company did not take the ship under its especial protection . . ." he tipped his head in a knight's shrug. "The same slave told us that the captain had only just agreed to take the body onboard before the battle began, so there was no time to move the ship down to the place where the Exile Company made their stand."
"Throw him into the river, Your Grace," said Mycan Banderis, pushing his way forward through the growing cluster of notables on the pier. "Such an enemy of peace and law deserves no more mercy in death than he found in life."
Robert's stare made the Norvoshi archivist quail. "Find a Targaryen banner in good condition," he said, "if one can be found. If not, a plain winding-sheet will do. Wrap him in it and see him burned."
"I will see this done," said Septon Deryk, stepping forward as Banderis withdrew, "and say the Last Rites for him as well."
Robert raised an eyebrow. "You would say the Last Rites for the man who unleashed the Dothraki upon your people?" he asked skeptically.
Septon Deryk nodded, his face set with the calm of absolute certainty. "It is precisely for that reason that I must," he said firmly. "The sacraments are not a reward for virtue, but the bread of sinners; it is those who have sinned most who have the most need of them. And for all his sins, he was a man, no better or worse in his nature than other men. So I will say the Last Rites for him, as I would hope that he would have a septon say the Last Rites for me, if our fortunes were reversed."
Robert glanced at Captain Bragadin, who shrugged expressively and made a gesture that indicated that he washed his hands of the matter. He turned back to the septon and nodded deeply enough that it was almost a bow. "He's yours, then," he said. "Do as you will."
"There is one other matter, Your Grace," Ser Vernan said as he took a long, wrapped bundle from another sergeant of the Legion. "This was found with him."
Robert knew it was a sword in a heartbeat, and when Ser Vernan revealed the ruby-set pommel and the dragon-headed quillons of the hand-and-a-half hilt, he knew which one it was. Murmurs rose behind him as Ser Vernan stripped off the rest of the wrapping and knelt to offer it across his palms.Everyonewho knew about the Targaryen's knew aboutthatsword.
Robert took Blackfyre in unexpectedly reverent hands and drew it slowly, staring at the ripples that ran like smoke along the dusky blade. If any blade in the history of the Seven Kingdoms defined power, this one did. It was the sword of Aegon the Conqueror, Jaehaerys the Wise, and Daeron the Young Dragon, the sword that had been the greatest symbol of the Targaryen kingship short of their dragons. It had won their greatest victories, and been so bound up with the mystique of the dynasty that it had been considered a near-equal to the Iron Throne itself as a symbol of the Seven Kingdoms united under a single ruler. It was also, Robert knew, the sword of Maegor the Cruel, Aegon the Unworthy, and Daemon Blackfyre. If it had seen great triumphs, it had also seen great cruelties. It had served justice in its time, but the injustices it had served were greater, both in scope and in scale. It was, Robert realized as he ran his eyes down the blade to the dragon heads on the quillons, a sword that represented not just the quintessence of the Targaryen's, but of Old Valyria. Born of blood and unholy magic in the towers that the Freehold had erected on the massacre and enslavement of subjugated nations, it had been the sword of conquerors, tyrants, madmen, and traitors, and of good men who had become one or all of those things in the course of wielding it.How many thousands,he found himself thinking, have died for the madness of the Targaryen's? The madness that, more than anything but a dragon egg, this sword represents?
"By right, this sword belongs to Ser Gerold Dayne," he said finally, "but he has told me that he desires no sword as a prize but Dawn, taken from the dead hands of Mad Arthur Dayne, and if Blackfyre were to fall into our hands he commended it to me as he did the blade of Khal Drogo. Does any man here deny this?" At the murmurs of acquiescence, he drove the sword back into its sheath. "Then bear witness, all of you, to how I dispose of this blade, and the curse of Valyria."
He strode past Viserys' body to the end of the pier, and taking the sheath in one hand and the hilt in the other he raised Blackfyre over his head. "Ned, my brother!" he shouted. "You are avenged! Lyanna and Brandon and your father Rickard are avenged! The dragons are no more!" He shifted his feet, set himself, and with a great twist of his massive body and a herculean effort he flung the sword like a javelin. Blackfyre arced outwards, turned twice in midair, and then vanished into the Rhoyne with a splash that a more philosophical man might have considered ironically small for such a portentous weapon.
Robert turned, began to walk back up the pier, and then a rush of water and a great bellow behind him made him wheel back around as shocked cries rose from the crowd on the pier and the bank. A great horned turtle had broken the surface, and its man-sized head was thrown back in a surprisingly musical roar that even Robert could tell denoted challenge and assertion of mastery. At last, the roar ended, the great turtle glanced at the pier, atRobert himself, he somehow knew, with an eye as big as a man's doubled fists, and then slipped beneath the surface with a surprisingly small ripple for a beast the size of a small war galley.
"The Old Man of the River!" Robert heard someone exclaim in mixed wonder and fear. "Mother Rhoyne has accepted our king's sacrifice!" As the crowd on the riverbank began to babble among themselves about the meaning of this obvious portent, Robert cursed under his breath as sorrow flooded his heart. If Ned had been here, he'd have never let him hear the end of this.
Chapter 143: Burnout (March to the Sea part two; mainland and isles of Lys)
Chapter Text
As the delegation of magisters left him in the upstairs room of the commandeered inn that served as his command post, Daario Naharis sank into his chair, his mind a-whirl. He had guessed that the events of the last few sennights would drive men to desperation, but he had not foreseenthis.
The magisters who had just left had made him what, on paper, would have been the offer of a lifetime. In exchange for his services and his army, they would not only detach the mainland territories of Lys from the control of the Conclave but name himdictator. It was an old title, unused since the Century of Blood but still on the books, that would essentially make him king in all but name, with full powers of command over his army, all other forces that might be raised, and the whole apparatus of government. It was, quite simply, the highest that a sellsword could hope to rise.
The problem was that the magisters had made it plain that their ultimate goal was the negotiation of a separate peace with the Kingdom of Myr. It seemed that his defeat at Claymoor Water and the way that Lannister had outmaneuvered him at Turiaso (and how in all hells Lannister had known that there was a path through the rice paddies that would support heavy horse, he would very much like to know) had left the magisters of the mainland without hope that he could restore the situation militarily. Their offer to make himdictatorwas more to give them someone the Myrish could negotiate with that would be respected enough to get a fair hearing than it was a statement of confidence in his ability. Which would be galling enough, but was overridden by another problem, namely that Daario had no confidence that the Myrish would negotiate with him. Stark might be busy in the north at last report and Lyn Corbray might be dead, but Lannister had reportedly learned war from both of them, and learned it well if his performance since Claymoor Water was anything to go by. Whether he had learned from Stark that sometimes it was better to break the protection of parley if you could kill a hated enemy thereby remained to be seen, but Daario wasn't minded to take the chance. And even if Lannister didn't kill him, he had dealt the Myrish too many injuries to not be targeted by their assassins. Death in battle was one thing; death by poison or ballestrino was quite another.
And the fact that the magisters had made the offer meant that his own neck was on the line. The Conclave wouldn't care that he had rejected the offer; simply his receiving it would confirm their worst fears. Accusations of treason would follow, sure as mushrooms after rain, and there was only one punishment under Lyseni law for treason. Daario had no intention of putting his head into a strangler's noose, or of letting himself be flogged to shreds before the Temple of Trade.
Which would almost certainly be his fate, if he took the second option available to him. He glanced at the scroll that had been delivered by a harassed-looking courier two days ago. It seemed that the fleet had lost a great battle off Bloodstone some days ago, and the Conclave felt that the security of the isles was in imminent danger. Consequently, he was ordered to leave half his army on the mainland to garrison the seaport towns and take the other half back to the isles, there to assume command of the defense of the isles until the Volantenes could send a new fleet with a relief army that would allow them to resume the offensive. Not, he had to admit, the worst idea in the world, even if it did mean writing off everything outside the seaport towns as indefensible until the Volantenes arrived, and leaving the towns themselves vulnerable to the Myrish once they had the wherewithal to make or bring up siege engines. Of course, it assumed that the Volantenes would be willing and able to reinforce them, and that the new fleet would be able to keep open the sea-lanes between the isles and the seaport towns on the one hand and the isles and Volantis on the other. If the defeat off Bloodstone was as great as he feared, then that would most likely prove a forlorn hope. Not that it would be his problem; he would be too dead to care, thanks to the Conclave's executioners. And even if the Conclave didn't kill him, the temptation to buy their lives by throwing him to the Myrish would be overpowering.
There was, in fact, only one path available to him that did not entail surrendering his life to chance. And that was to flee.
For a moment he quailed; flight would entail breaking his contract, a thing he had done before, with Tyrosh, but doing it twice, with no greater goal than to save his own skin, would be the death of his reputation. But then he glanced out the window at the tents of his army and felt the germ of an idea begin to take root in his mind. The Conclave's order to split the army would work wonders to unite the army against them, if he spun it as the Conclave ordering him to sacrifice the mainland in order to save the isles; it would even be mostly true. For the Volantenes, it would be enough that the order did not specify that they be in the half of the army brought back to the isles. The islanders in his army might mislike it, but they would keep their peace in order to not draw the ire of their comrades. If he brought his army with him, and as many freeborn Lyseni as he could sweep up and convince to make the dash with him . . . Well, if he managed to make it across the Orange Shore to Volantis then he wouldn't be a coward seeking to save his own hide, but a hero who had salvaged what he could from the wreck of yet another Free City. Whether Viserys won or lost in the north, he would find it impossible to not give such a man a high place in the Exile Company, much less turn him away. It would take careful planning and a great deal of luck; the Orange Shore was populated, but only by small villages rather than towns. He would, at the very least, have to split the army into two or more columns to make them small enough to be able to subsist off those villages without overloading them. But, as poor old Prendahl had been wont to say, long odds were better than no odds at all. He snapped his fingers for his scribe and sent him running for his clerks. There was a great deal of work ahead, and not much time to do it in.
XXX
Jaime Lannister had to remind himself not to succumb to relief. After three sennights of hard campaigning, the hardest he'd ever seen in his life, the Army of the South had reached the sea. The war was not over, by any means. The towns that studded the inland districts and lined the coast still had to be reduced, which would mean either making siege engines, trusting to mining and escalade, or trying to find a balance between the Legion's unwillingness to offer mercy to slavers and the slavers' unwillingness to accept terms of surrender that deprived them of their slaves.
But that could be a problem for another day. For today, it was enough that Devil Daario was running eastward along the coast, the garrisons of the coastal towns were cowering behind their walls, and the Army of the South,hisarmy, now, was standing on the northern shore of the Great South Sea. They had been run ragged by the rigors of the campaign, with their boots starting to come apart and their horses in need of new shoes and a few days of rest and good fodder, but their spirits were high and victory gleamed in every man's eye as they stood on the white sand beach before them and gazed at the shimmering blue sea that stretched out to forever before them. Jaime walked his horse through the ranks and onto the hard sand below the high-tide mark, drawing looks of hungry anticipation; everyone expected him to make some kind of show to mark the victory. He dismounted, walked into the surf, drew his sword, raised it high, and then plunged it into the sand before him as a wave broke around his ankles.
The cheer that rose from the army, underlaid by a roaring guttural chant in Summer Tongue from the Black Company, was the sweetest thing Jaime had ever heard in his life. Mantar would tut at the way the seawater would mar both sword and armor, even after an immersion as temporary as this, but this, at last, was a feat great enough to cast all his previous misdeeds into shadow. Of all the knights of Myr, he was the first to wash his sword in the waters of the Lyseni coast. Now his sons would have a father to be proud of, when the Mother saw fit to send them.
In the ranks behind him, Joren Potts was already running through potential courses of action in his head as he thumped his gauntlet on his breastplate in approbation. The army had gone through the central Lyseni mainland like an auger through loam in its pursuit of Devil Daario, and while three towns had been taken by slave revolts or by escalade, there were still many towns in the interior and along the coast that had never had the Army of the South come within sight of their walls. Sooner or later, they would have to be reduced, either by assault or by negotiated surrender. A task that would be made easier, according to the Office of Foreign Inquiry's scouts, by the fact that the Lyseni had lost control of the countryside. The towns might hold still, but their garrisons controlled nothing beyond arrow range of the walls that their patrols did not stand on. And those patrols were being hunted through the countryside, both by escaped slaves and by outright bandits seeking to make hay while the sun was shining. Ensuring that the liberation of the former was permanent, and the enthusiasm of the latter cut short, would be a job and a half.
Their first task, however, would be to march west along the coast to the town of Sabratha; before sailing, Lord Greyjoy had told Lord Corbray that if he was victorious against the enemy fleet, then he would make for Sabratha and attempt to take it by ruse or by assault. If he had already done so, then the army would need to link up with him in order to continue liberating the rest of the Lyseni mainland and begin planning the assault on the isles of Lys that would complete the liberation of the Disputed Lands. If he hadn't . . . Joren smiled. It would be good for Lord Greyjoy to be reminded that the Fleet was not the sole source of dash and elan in King Robert's service.
XXX
Dale Blacksail had not been surprised when Third Sword Foscario had accepted Lord Greyjoy's invitation to join the revel he had planned for this night. The Braavosi prided themselves on their reserve, but the enthusiasm of the Ironborn for a good party was infectious. Especially when there was so much to recommend a good party.
The meeting between Lord Greyjoy and the Third Sword had taken place in the House of Order in Sabratha, in the room where the Governor had held private meetings. After Bloodstone, Lord Greyjoy had surmised that the slaver fleet would be too badly battered by their defeat to keep a properly comprehensive watch on the coast of the mainland. And if they had, then the arrival of the Braavosi fleet three days after Bloodstone was fought and won had given them the strength to break through any cordon that the slavers might be able to establish after such a defeat. So the combined fleet had sailed to Sabratha, reaching it three hours after dusk, and Lord Greyjoy had decided to strike while the fleet had the cover of darkness.
The resulting escalade, spearheaded by Ironborn men-at-arms and Braavosi marines, had found astonishingly few defenders as they swarmed over the wall and lowered the harbor chain to admit the fleet. After the last pockets of resistance were overwhelmed and survivors put to the question, it had been learned that Sabratha's garrison had been stripped twice over; once to fill out Devil Daario's army and again to reinforce the northwestern border, where the Lord Lieutenant of Brivas had been raiding as hard and as deeply as he dared. The last few regular soldiers had apparently marched away not four days ago, to join with soldiers from the other towns in the district in putting down slave revolts; it seemed that something near to a general uprising had occurred over the past sennight, after Devil Daario had reportedly been defeated in open battle on the frontier and driven back into the interior with Lord Lannister hot on his heels. Letters found in the Governor's offices had confirmed these admissions, with one missive from the Conclave outright telling the Governor that no forces could be spared for 'subsidiary areas of action' while Devil Daario's armies were in such desperate need of reinforcement.
Here, Lord Greyjoy had declared and the Third Sword had agreed, was proof that the Lyseni were broken. All that was needed was for the Army of the South and the combined fleet to make good their success by overwhelming the towns that still remained in Lyseni hands and making sure that Devil Daario couldn't interfere. The Third Sword had even suggested, in a fit of enthusiasm, that the whole of the Disputed Lands up to the Lake Country might be liberated, with a bit of luck, while Lord Greyjoy had declared that he even fancied their chances against the isles of Lys themselves, if the slaver fleet gave them the chance to consolidate their gains and ferry the Army of the South across the straits.
As Lord Greyjoy and the Third Sword walked off arm in arm, already swapping jests like old comrades, Dale swept the last few papers into the satchel that lived under his arm whenever he was doing his duty as Lord Greyjoy's second mate, left the satchel in the room that Lord Greyjoy had claimed for himself, locked the door and cast a stern glance at the pair of rowers standing sentry in the hall to work off some infraction that had displeased their oarmaster, and then started walking back to theShadow. His father hadn't joined the conference, although his rank and fame entitled him to, having pled a surfeit of duty in seeing to the replenishment of the fleet's supplies.
Dale shook his head as he stalked down to the docks. His father had much work to do, aye, and much to grieve as well. So did he, he supposed, with Allard blown in half by a scorpion's bolt and Matthos gutted by a Yi-tish pirate at Bloodstone, but after one evening of maudlin drunkenness he had put it behind him. Claymoor Water and the northern battles would leave many empty places among the high offices of the Realm, unless he missed his guess. None other than Lord Corbray was among the fallen of Claymoor Water, and wasn't that news to shock the world? That one of King Robert's original captains should be killed in battle by enemies he had beaten a dozen times before, and that his death should be avenged by his army before he even drew his last breath? Men were already making songs about it.
As they would make songs about whoever rose to take his place in the Realm's armies, and whoever filled all the other places that were likely to be left open by these wars. Dale remembered when his father had been a merchant captain with a sideline in smuggling; not quite poor, but not prosperous except by the loosest measure. Now he was a knight, with wealth and the favor of one of the most powerful and highly-placed lords in the Realm, and would be a lord himself if King Robert gave him the honor he was due. How many men could claim to have done half as much for the Realm as Davos "Scar-Cheek" Blacksail, outside of the Captains who had ridden in King Robert's train from Pentos to the Liberation?
Dale shrugged to himself as he snatched up an unattended bottle that a quick sniff told him was Volantene applejack. If his father was so lost to grief as to forego his chance to be not merely a lord, but a Lord Lieutenant, or even hold an office in the Mastery of Ships in Myr city itself, then he would take it instead. He did not have his father's name and fame, not yet, but he would; had his father not risen high by paying the iron price with luck, skill, and courage? He was already Lord Greyjoy's second mate, which any fool could see was a fast track to a captaincy. With any luck at all, he would be able to pick out his own ship to command when Lord Greyjoy thought him ready. And from ship command, all else flowed, in the Fleet that Lord Greyjoy had made. There was nothing a captain could not hope to achieve, if he had any luck at all and paid the iron price with his own might and main. Even if his father turned into another Harras Harlaw, he would still rise. He had sworn it, when his father had first unfurled the sunset banner of the Kingdom of Myr at theShadow'smasthead.
XXX
Vyrenno Phasselion waited for his moment with the patience of a fisherman, and then as Lazero Dynoris drew breath to continue his tirade he slapped the table with the flat of his palm, stunning the Chamber into silence. "Enough, masters," he said flatly. "Whether Daario Naharis is at fault for our present predicament, or whether anyone is at fault for it, is immaterial at the present moment. I put the question to you all: Is there any doubt that we are losing the war? Yes or no will do for answers."
The Conclave shook their heads slowly, many with sour expressions. A few were on the verge of tears. Syrys Eranen, ever the optimist, held out the longest, but eventually he too shook his head. "I hate to say it," he admitted. "But unless a miracle happens . . . we're f*cked. f*cked as badly as a new slave in a dockside brothel."
"If we send to Volantis. . ." Lazero started.
"The Volantenes will only help us again if we submit ourselves to be ruled from the City, whole and entire," Tregesso Naeroris snapped in an interruption that would have been unforgivably rude in less fraught times. "You know it, I know it, my cousin Naestor knows it, and he's as dense as any village idiot. And even if they did send a new fleet, you can bet your last bent copper that the Volantenes will not hesitate to throw us under the wagon in the next war, if the Myrish make it a condition of peace. So long as the abolitionist fleets bleed taking us, they will sacrifice us like a rabble piece in a cyvasse game. And even if the Six Cities offer us better terms, they will not be here before next year. By which point they will almost certainly be too late."
A gloomy silence settled over the Chamber. All the sacrifices they had endured, all the compromises they had made, all for nothing. Six thousand years of proud, vibrant, and above allbeautifulhistory, brought to an end by a band of unwashed barbarians, runaway slaves, and thrice-damnedBraavosi. It hardly bore thinking of.
But the more Vyrenno thought of it, the more he thought he saw something. It might not be a path to victory, or even to staving off defeat, but it might be the beginnings of an opportunity to achieve the latter.When acting like a soldier fails, act like a merchant; there's always a deal to be made.He raised his head slowly. "Masters," he said slowly, "it is true that we are going to lose this war, barring a miracle. But it occurs to me that we still have a chance to decide who we lose it to."
Lazero snorted crudely. "You mean, whether we lose to the Myrish or to the Braavosi?" he asked dully.
"That is precisely what I mean," Vyrenno said, the idea firming in his head even as he spoke.
Heads rose around the table, faces lit with the hope of trapped men presented with an unlocked door. Lazero leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. "Tell us more, Master Gonfalonier."
Lord Greyjoy and Lord Lannister's meeting under the walls of Sabratha would be a scene memorialized in tapestry, painting, and song for generations, although the elements emphasized would vary over the years. The Classicist school would focus on the men themselves, following that school's focus on persons of greatarete, to use the Valyrian term, while the Romantics tended to add a melancholy air to the scene that references the fact that Greyjoy and Lannister were two of only three of the Great Captains still living by this point in the war, although they would not be fully aware of this for some months yet until reports arrived from Pentos of the Agneiat and Ghoyan Drohe. Virtually all schools, however, take the artistic license of injecting an air of surprise into the meeting that was not present historically. Lannister was fully aware that Greyjoy was in Sabratha, as he had met Greyjoy's goodbrother Ingvarr Salter at the fishing village of Gigia, which Salter had occupied to serve as an outpost for the fleet moored at Sabratha.
Regardless of forewarning, the union of the Army of the South and the Royal Fleet at Sabratha was cause for what was widely considered 'the greatest wassail since the Liberation of Myr.' In spite of all the losses and trials of the campaign, both those known and those still to be learned of, the union of the Army and the Fleet signified that mainland Lys was now mortally wounded, and beyond even Devil Daario's ability to save, even if Daario had remained true to his contract. Surely the fall of Lys itself could not be far off.
Or so the soldiers and sailors thought; their commanders were being cruelly disabused . . .
Perfect Storm: The Fourth Slave War in Lysby Maester Baldwyn
Gian Foscario, Third Sword of Braavos, prided himself on his equanimity; in a world as uncertain and unpredictable as this, and especially in such a chancy field as war, a man showed his true worth by accepting disaster with the same calm as victory. That said, he had never found his self-possession as sorely tested as now. Victarion Greyjoy in a towering fury was enough to shake any man.
Nevertheless, he let the Ironborn's anger wash over him without taking hold before replying. "I understand your objections, my lord," he said calmly. "But my orders from the Sealord and the Council are explicit; I am to accomplish the defeat of Lys in the manner that seems to me to fulfill my assigned duty with a minimum of loss, both of lives and of material goods. Accepting the armistice the Lyseni have offered does exactly that."
"By the God, it does not!" Greyjoy thundered. "We are charged to liberate Lys and free every slave. Accepting their armistice not only leaves their fleet intact, it leaves every slave they hold still in chains! If we wipe our ass with this armistice,as we should,then we can take the isles, hang, gut, or burn every master on them, and liberate every slave between here and Volantis! Are we men ordogs, to flinch from our chance at the greatest victory since Tyrosh?!"
"We have already won that victory, my lord," Foscario replied, keeping his face schooled to blankness. "The Lyseni territories on the mainland are liberated, are they not? The slaves there are already freed, and if the Lyseni request their return as a condition of peace, then mine will be the first sword drawn in defiance. And bethink you, my lord Greyjoy; Lys confined to the isles is an empty shell. Without their possessions on the mainland, they have not the wealth or the men to raise and man the ships they need to rebuild the fleet you destroyed at Bloodstone. You may inform King Robert that Lys will trouble his lands no longer."
"Robert King's heart will be troubled the more," Greyjoy growled, "when he learns that I failed in my charge to liberate the slaves of the isles of Lys. And you forget, Third Sword, that the Lyseni do not need to rebuild their fleet, so long as their harbors can support a fleet sent by Volantis and the Six Cities."
"The Lyseni have promised that they will bar the Volantenes from their harbors, my lord," Foscario reminded him. "They have further promised that we may station officers in their ports to ensure their compliance with this promise, and report all their dealings with the Volantenes to us. And bethink you as well," he went on, "the Lyseni have promised that as a condition of peace they will import no new slaves from Volantis or other points eastward of their city, and our officers will be able to monitor their compliance with this as well."
Lord Lannister, who had thus far kept his silence, raised an eyebrow with a mocking smile. "Thus said aslaverto you? Doubtless they spoke truly." Lannister voiced a single caw of derisive laughter. "We are new to this land, Third Sword, but this much we have learned already; only a fool takes a slaver at his word when he says he means to free his slaves. The only way to ensure that a slaver will give up his slaves is to cut his throat and take them from him."
Foscario spread his hands. "The Lorathi have made substantial progress in manumitting their slaves," he said, burying his anger at being called a fool. "The Lyseni will act as they have done, now that they have been forced into a position of similar weakness."
"They would act more quickly still," Lannister replied in a voice like a schoolmaster stating the obvious, "with Lord Greyjoy's galleys landing my army on their precious isles."
"Would they?" Foscario asked, letting his voice sharpen. "Or would they commit another Night of Flames? Men driven to desperation, my lord, rarely act rationally. For my part, I am grateful the Lyseni have chosen to do what they have done, and I am minded not to spurn such a gods-sent stroke of good fortune as this. I would remind you further, my lords," he let his voice go past sharpness to hardness, "of two items. Firstly, that under the terms of our alliance, the isles of Lys are slated to come under the rule of the Commune, as Martyros and the isles of the Stepstones have. Consequently, with all respect, you have no legal standing to object to my accepting the armistice, as it touches only on the isles. Secondly, that without the support of my fleet, you have not the ships to land your army on the isles of Lysandfight a fleet action to prevent the slavers from forestalling such a landing. Furthermore, under the laws of war, I am required to keep my word, even to slavers; so long as they keep to the terms they have offered and I have accepted, I am obliged not only to keep the terms myself, but constrain my allies to keep them as well, so far as I am able."
"You speak of the laws of war," Lannister hissed. "The laws of war are for those who abide by them, my lord. I have fought in this land for twenty years, and I have never seen a slaver abide by the laws of war."
"Nor have I," rumbled Lord Greyjoy. "Laws of war, my arse, Third Sword. The slavers do not even follow the laws of nature."
Foscario returned their glares with a stare no less implacable for being placid. "These slavers," he said softly, "are attempting to follow the laws of war. Until I am satisfied that they have failed, Iwilluphold the armistice I have accepted from them. I would be shamed before my people and before my gods if I failed in this, my lords."
Greyjoy's black eyes bored into Foscario's like glowing coals. "This is your final word, then?" he growled.
Foscario lifted his chin. "It is, my lord," he said simply.
Greyjoy glared at him a moment longer, then nodded shortly. "Then for the sake of our alliance, I will accept it," he spat. "But be warned, Third Sword, Robert King will not be as understanding as I am. Nor will I brook interference with how we deal with those Lyseni on the mainland who continue in defiance of us."
Foscario shrugged. "I have accepted no armistice from the Lyseni of the mainland," he replied. "And under the terms of the alliance, the mainland is yours as the isles are ours. Do as you like with them. As to King Robert, if he decides he has no more confidence in me, then he may request that the Sealord replace me with another commander more agreeable to him. Until then, I will carry out my duty in accordance with my orders."
Greyjoy nodded again. "On your head the consequences, then, Third Sword of Braavos," he growled. He turned on his heel and stalked out of the room, Lannister on his heels. The pair of Legion captains who had also attended paused long enough to let Foscario see the rage in their eyes before following their commanders. Foscario waited until they were gone before letting out his breath in a wavering sigh of relief.
"Well, that went about as well as I expected it would," he observed to the only other Braavosi in the room. "A pity they could not be more reasonable, but then I suppose they have little reason to be."
Marcantonio Dorrma, theprovveditorethat the Sealord and the Council had dispatched with the fleet to act as their representative and watchdog, nodded. "Between their faiths, their obedience to their king's commands, and their history with the slavers, they have little reason to trust in diplomacy," he agreed. "They will learn, in time."
"A long time, most likely," Foscario replied, pouring himself a glass from the decanter of wine that had sat untouched on the table throughout the conference. "They have seen war work so well for them that they will see no reason for the discipline and patience required by statecraft." He drained the glass, then refilled it. "At least we have forestalled a Destruction of Lys," he went on as he refilled the glass. "Were you there when Tyrosh fell?"
Dorrma nodded. "First lieutenant on theDolphin," he said. "I didn't get close to the inner city before the Great Fire burned itself out, but simply seeing the glow of the fires reflected on the clouds was bad enough. As for the Temple of the Lady in the outer city . . ." he glanced out the window at the throngs of soldiers and sailors that clogged the streets of Sabratha. "The best that can be said for the Legion on that day was that they did not rape, or at least that very few of them did," he went on, his eyes haunted. "They were too busy killing to spare the time for it. Even babes at the breast did not escape their spears. You know what one of their officers told me, when I reproached him for letting his men kill infants? 'Nits make lice,' he told me, bold as brass." He took up a glass of his own and held it out. Foscario poured without a word. "At least," Dorrma said, "we have prevented such a thing happening again. It is a good thing that the First Law has been advanced so far, but such cruelties . . ." He shook his head. "Men should remain men," he said, "and not become beasts. Some methods are too foul to countenance, even against slavers."
Foscario shrugged. "As the Andal scripture says, 'As ye sow, so shall ye reap,'" he said. "It may be that we have only forestalled the Destruction of Lys temporarily. But at least I will be able to hold up my head proudly when I go before my ancestors."
Dorrma nodded. "And before the Sealord and the Council too," he said. "I will write them a report detailing your actions today, Third Sword, and I will tell them truly; never was a man more brave on the field of battle than you were today, in the face of our friends."
The armistice that eventually became the Peace of Sabratha is rightly regarded as one of the most punitive treaties ever agreed to. The clauses that reduced the Lyseni fleet to forty galleys, none of them larger than the MyrishLiberator-type middleweight, prohibited the import of slaves and set a deadline of fifteen years for the complete abolition of slavery, barred Lys from hosting Volantene warships or soldiers and bound them to a strictly neutral foreign policy, and the concession of a fortified ward on each of the Lyseni isles from which Braavosi officials could monitor Lys' compliance with the Peace, with hostages surrendered and slaves manumitted from every magisterial family as an earnest of good intentions, effectively reduced Lys to a third-rate power overnight. Sealord Dandalo typified the response to the Peace among the Braavosi when, after reading the terms that Third Sword Foscario andProvveditoreDorrma sent to him for his approval, he exclaimed, "This makes Lys a province of Braavos in all but law and name!" He was more right than he could guess, for the Peace also bound Braavos to guarantee the safety and independence of the isles of Lys, unless the terms of the Peace should be contravened by the Lyseni, and the clause that bound the Lyseni to a neutral foreign policy made the stipulation that 'Offensive military actions shall be undertaken only after consultation with the Sealord and the Council of Thirty, or their named representatives, and shall be conducted only in concert with and in the company of the armed forces of the Commune."
When Robert Baratheon read the terms of the Peace, his reaction was more reserved than Solazzo's, but more sharply pointed. The letter he wrote to the Council of Thirty indicating his acceptance of the Peace also stated that 'Until such time as We are satisfied that the terms of the Peace have been fulfilled and that slavery, bondage, and thralldom no longer exist on the isles of Lys, We shall continue to wear the Gold Dragon that was given Us by the Lyseni at the Peace of Pentos, in recognition of an oath unfulfilled.' His Hand, Adaran Phassos, is reputed to have shrugged and remarked, 'So much the better for our plans against Volantis.' Ser Jaime Lannister's reaction spoke for the Royal Army: 'This is a peace we accept because we must, not because we choose to. When the slavers break it, we will simply consider it one more sin that they will have to answer for at the points of our spears.' Victarion Greyjoy would make no public comment beyond regular toasts of 'Next year in Lys!' at official functions, to the annoyance of Braavosi delegates and the fear of Lyseni delegates, but he would spend the rest of his life training the Royal Fleet to make opposed landings against fortified settlements; precisely the sort of operation that an invasion of Lys would entail. Daario Naharis's reaction to the Peace is not reliably attested to, but the author believes that his most likely reaction would have been a heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving that Lys was no longer his problem.
For all that it ended the Fourth Slave War on its southern front, the Peace of Sabratha would come to be a thorn in the flesh of the Braavosi-Myrish alliance, most prominently in the rivalry it engendered between the Braavosi Navy and the Royal Fleet. The Braavosi perception of the Myrish as valiant and audacious but heedless and semi-barbaric amateurs on the one hand, and the Myrish perception of the Braavosi as skillful but plodding and risk-averse hyperprofessionals on the other hand, has its roots in the Peace of Sabratha and the dispute it spawned . . .
Blood Brothers: The Braavosi-Myrish Alliance and the World it Createdby Maester Churchill
Chapter 144: Endgame
Chapter Text
Edmure Tully had taken special care in dressing today; Sow's Horn was the border between the Riverlands and the Crownlands and, today at least, also the border between law and chaos. No word had come out of King's Landing since Renly's insane manifesto, and the other castles of the Crownlands had been as silent as the City. Today, then, would mark the true start of the campaign to put down Renly's treason and return the Crownlands to the King's Peace and the light of the Seven. One of the things that Edmure had learned from Stannis was that a man of high station, charged with a great task, had to look the part. Not only because others expected it, but because being richly dressed and well turned-out gave a man confidence like few other things could.
Which was why his squire and page had been up half the night with buffing rags and clothes-brushes until the plates of his armor gleamed even in the watery sunlight of this cloudy day and the cape draped over his shoulders almost glowed. His chaperon hat had also been carefully brushed and the eagle feathers jutting up from the band had been carefully trimmed to make them stand proudly. The lords riding a length behind him were also dressed in their martial finest this day, but Edmure was sure that he outshone them all. He certainly outshone the man waiting for him on the bridge across the small stream that marked the border, who was wearing plain armor embellished only by a black surcoat with the Royal Order of the Crown's arms and the insignia of a commander; without the surcoat, he would have been indistinguishable from a well-to-do household knight.
There was nothing wrong with the way he sat his horse, though, or the way that the thin line of spearmen and archers behind him stamped to attention as he saluted, for all that they were only a thousand strong, if that much. Edmure nodded. "I am Edmure Tully, Lord of Riverrun," he said; a touch obviously, perhaps, but some things simply had to be said. "Your name and style, ser?"
"Ser Stephan Banner, my lord," the Order knight replied, "Commander in the Order of the Crown and Castellan of Sow's Horn. What business does my lord have in the Crownlands?"
Edmure raised his chin. "My business, Commander, is the safety of the Realm," he said formally. "In pursuit of which, I and my fellow lords are bound for King's Landing to restore the King's Peace."
"King's Landing is under quarantine due to the plague, my lord," Ser Stephan said without missing a beat. "And the last report I had indicated that the King's Peace has not been breached. I regret that you have come so far from Riverrun in vain, my lord, but I fear I cannot allow you to pass."
For a long moment, Edmure thought he had not heard correctly, then he rallied. "My reports, Commander, indicate that King's Landing is in the grasp of a traitor," he said, raising his voice; he was speaking to his lords as much as to this upstart. "The Queen, the Master of Coin, and the Grand Maester have been placed under arrest, the High Septon and the Most Devout are besieged in the Great Sept, and the traitor has declared that heretics are to enjoy the same rights as the true Faithful. If these are not a breach of the King's Peace, Commander, then in the names of the Seven, what is?"
"I have received word that the Queen Dowager has entered seclusion at the Great Sept at the invitation of the High Septon, my lord, in order to pray for the souls of King Stannis and Princess Joanna," Ser Stephan replied, also raising his voice. Edmure gritted his teeth; clearly Ser Stephan knew how to play this game. "I am also informed that Lord Renly has done what he has done to secure King's Landing in order to hold it for King Lyonel, and to maintain the peace until he arrives and is crowned. I am further informed that under no circ*mstances am I to permit the approach of armed bodies of men to King's Landing, unless they are under the command of King Lyonel in person."
Edmure raised an eyebrow. "Informed by Lord Renly, I assume?" he drawled, injecting contempt into his voice.
"Informed by Lord Renly and by King Lyonel alike," Ser Stephan answered, making the lords behind Edmure stir in surprise as he gestured to the squire next to him, who produced a small scroll of the kind that messenger ravens carried. "King Lyonel further orders me to say," he went on as the squire rode forward and handed the scroll to Edmure, "that, regardless of Lord Renly's actions in King's Landing, I am to maintain the King's Peace within the area of my command by whatever means I deem necessary. Any who seek to break the Peace are to be considered traitors, and dealt with accordingly, whether they be heretic or Faithful."
Edmure had to remind himself not to gape as he unrolled the scroll and read it to find Ser Stephan's words backed up by Lyonel's seal; this wasnothow he had expected this to go. "We are going to King's Landing to preserve the Peace and defend the Faith," he said, anger coloring his voice. "Who are you, ser, to defy us?Whom do you serve?"
Ser Stephan lifted his chin. "We are all King's men, my lord," he said forcefully, "and I command you, my lord, in the name of the King, to come no further. If you do, then I shall be forced to consider you an enemy of the Iron Throne, and act accordingly."
Edmure felt himself inflate; by all the gods, to be spoken to in this fashion by thisgarrison commander . . .A sharp cough behind him made his head whip round to find Tytos Blackwood staring at him intently, and no sooner did he lay eyes on the old lord than he was reminded of the conversation they had had when Tytos had led his menie to Stone Hedge. Tytos had told him flat out that he cared nothing for heresy; his sole interest, he had said, was to make King Lyonel as strong and as just a king as Stannis had been. So if Renly was indeed the traitor he looked like, then well and so. But if he turned out to be acting in King Lyonel's interests as he said he was, then not a single sword, spear, or arrow would Raventree Hall raise against him.
Edmure would have tried to argue Tytos down, but for two things. Firstly, Tytos had brought seven thousand men to Stone Hedge; the largest single contingent of all his lords, and almost a fifth of the full strength of the army that now stood a mile behind them. It was more men than Edmure himself had brought from the lands around Riverrun, in fact. Secondly, Jason Mallister had said much the same thing. He had no fear of heretics, Jason had said, but he had every fear of what might be unleashed if the Edict of Harrenhal were to be repealed. As it stood, he had explained, everyone was assured that the Iron Throne would be on their side if they were attacked, and given Stannis' reforms over the past years, that was no small thing. If it were repealed, however, and the heretics suddenly made to believe that they had no protection beyond their own arms, would they not resort to any means necessary to defend themselves, whether fair or foul? Would they not even, perhaps, call upon Robert the Strong to protect them, as he did their co-religionists over the Sea? He might refuse, he might not even answer at all, but what if he did? He would do much to defend the Faith, Jason had said, but he would not risk bringing the Iron Legion to Westeros with fire and sword. Nor would he countenance anyone else running that risk.
Edmure did not think there was anything that would bring the Iron Legion to Westeros, but Jason Mallister commanded four thousand men; he had to take the old man's concerns seriously, and be seen to do so. Which meant in turn, he realized with slowly dawning revulsion, that his options now were sharply limited. If he chose to press on to King's Landing regardless of Ser Stephan's warnings, then Tytos Blackwood and Jason Mallister would both desert him; they had joined his army to ensure the safety of King Lyonel's reign, they would say, not to stamp out heresy. If Edmure disobeyed an order given by King Lyonel and relayed by one of his appointed officers, then it wasEdmurewho was now the danger to King Lyonel's reign, and the least they could do in their king's service was take their men home. They might even see their way clear to join their forces to Ser Stephan's. And even if they just went home, that meant that he would lose, at a stroke, a full third of his army. Twenty-two thousand men would be easier to supply than thirty-three thousand, at least, but it wouldn't be enough to besiege King's Landing, especially if Renly summoned an army up out of the Stormlands to rescue him.
And the lords that would remain with him would have their confidence shaken to the bedrock. Jonos Bracken would stay faithful through hellfire and brimstone for the Faith's sake, but Darry? Vance of Wayfarer's Rest? Smallwood? Cox? If they saw Blackwood and Mallister ride off, and do so with the law on their side, then they would start to wonder about the wisdom of following their example. After all, if Edmure was placing himself beyond the bounds of law, then that made him a traitor, didn't it? In that case, all who followed him would also be traitors, regardless of whatever reservations they might have had. Stannis had shown at Tickclose Field what reward traitors could expect from him; Lyonel would have every reason to follow his father's example, even without Tywin whispering in his ear. Even the Frey's might desert him, if they were faced with the choice of breaking the pact formed by his marriage with Roslin or being subject to that fate. Old Walder might think it a gamble worth taking, but Old Walder wasn't here; Stevron led the force that House Frey had put in the field, and Stevron was not the gambler that Old Walder was.
Edmure ran through scenarios in his head, discarding each in growing frustration, before settling on one that would at least let him keep his army in the field. It would even be in keeping with the rest of what was written on the scroll he had been given. "As the King commands," he ground out, "we shall do. But we shall remain here, until Renly proves his treason clearly enough for all to see."
Ser Stephan nodded. "That will be acceptable, my lord, so long as your men stay on the far side of the border," he said graciously. "If your army needs assistance with supplies, I can encourage the local villages to be forthcoming with offers to sell; the harvest this last year was exceptional."
Edmure restrained himself to a curt nod before reining his horse around sharply, then he reined around again as he remembered one of the other matters his lords had discussed with him on the road to King's Landing. "We had heard, ser, that the Point lords had risen again," he said. "If the King's Peace holds in the Crownlands, then I assume they are well in hand?"
Ser Stephan couldn't conceal the flush that rose above his gorget. "Commander Stone at Duskendale reports that he has the situation well in hand," he replied shortly, "and that he needs no further assistance at the present time."
Edmure nodded, concealing a smile. It was good to hear that at least one thing was going wrong for Renly.Seven Hells,Duskendaleis the front line of the rebellion?He knew enough of the geography of the Crownlands to know that if Duskendale was the front line, then the Order had lost control of Crackclaw Point. Losing the Point to any rebels would be humiliating enough. Losing it to the Point lords, who had lost so many of their men to the dragon's service and more to Stannis' policies, would be mortifying beyond measure. King Lyonel would not be pleased with the man who had allowed such a challenge to the Throne's authority to run rampant.
Not that it solved his most pressing problem, he reminded himself as he turned his horse again. Doubtless the f*cking villagers would gouge him for every stag they could; the commander hadn't said he would encourage them to sellcheaply, after all, and the sooner he ran out of money to feed his army the sooner he would have to send them home. At least Tytos Blackwood and Jason Mallister were keeping their faces acceptably blank as he forced his horse through the line of his bannermen; if they hadn't, the temptation to call them out would have been overpowering.
Stevron sidled his horse alongside Edmure's. "My lord," he said softly, "if you let me send outriders to infiltrate past Sow's Horn . . ."
Edmure shook his head. "The King has commanded me to wait at the border," he said, passing the scroll to Stevron, who read it with widening eyes. "He himself is coming, with Lord Lannister and the army of the Westerlands, and the Tyrell's are marching up the Roseroad with their army. Once they get here . . ." he trailed off; he didn't want to voice all his thoughts within earshot of Blackwood and Mallister. He would still have to keep them here until King Lyonel arrived, if only to see the look on their faces when he told them that he would no longer require their services.
XXX
Brienne of Tarth nodded politely as the septon approached, then stopped him cold with a hand to the chest when he tried to brush past her. "You know the rules," she said as firmly as she could while keeping her voice to the murmur that the situation demanded. "Anything you have to say or give to the Queen Dowager, you say or give to me, thenIsay or give them to her."
The septon glowered, but Brienne's even stare and the hand she casually placed on the hilt of her dagger made him subside. "Lord Tully has reached Sow's Horn with his army," he said as softly as she had, if more curtly. Curtly enough to be rude, but Brienne had dealt with rudeness every day of her life. "He is encamped there, and says that he awaits only proof that Renly has committed treason before marching on King's Landing."
Brienne nodded. "And the King?" she asked.
"Still marching down the Goldroad, at last report," the septon replied. "If he has not crossed the God's Tear by now, he will probably do so within the next day or two." At Brienne's raised eyebrow he shrugged and said, "I walked the circuit in that district for six years before I was called to the Great Sept. I know the road there, and the lay of the land. I doubt either has changed much."
Brienne nodded. Doubtless the septon didn't know how quickly, or how slowly, an army could march, but it would do little good to point that out. "I shall inform the Queen Dowager," she said, "once the day's prayers are completed." She waited until the septon nodded and turned away before going on. "And if you try to break the rules again, Septon Bedver, I will not be gentle in stopping you." She smiled at the septon's surprised look, and smiled wider as unease appeared in his face; it was not a smile intended to be reassuring. Or friendly. "I heard you answer to that name when the Queen Dowager was installed here," she told him. "And I do not forget a face.Ever."
Septon Bedver nodded jerkily and turned away again, walking as fast as he could without actually running. Brienne let her smile change into a smirk as she went back to her post; Ser Cortnay would have tutted over the indiscipline of threatening a septon, no matter how veiled it had been, but Ser Cortnay was still much weakened from the plague, by the last report she had of him, and making the septons jump and scurry was the only perk of this duty. It certainly made a change from enduring their sidelong glances and muttered conversations.
When she reached her place at the entry of the chapel to the Stranger that radiated off the apse that held the sanctuary of the Great Sept, she fell back into the rest position that Ser Cortnay had drilled her and Theon in, feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, left hand on the throat of the sword-scabbard, right hand on the buckle of the belt, back straight, and shoulders back. Someone could stand like this for hours, while still being able to spring into action at a moment's notice. Especially someone who had been trained by Ser Cortnay; one of his favorite exercises had been to have her and Theon stand like this in a busy corridor of the Red Keep with orders to apprehend someone answering to a particular description, and then not send the person in question down that corridor until a few hours had passed. It had been an exercise that rewarded patience and encouraged the ability to watch a crowd without appearing to do so.
Not that there was much of a crowd here to watch. There had been almost a hundred Silent Sisters at the Great Sept before the plague; now there were only fifty-two. There were more throughout the city, of course, but they resided at the city's smaller septs, serving the neighborhoods that had neither the rank nor the wealth to have their funerals at the Great Sept. And while the plague had lifted, that didn't mean that people were not still dying. People died by the scores every day in a city as big as King's Landing, from accidents if nothing else. And many of the Silent Sisters at those smaller septs had died from the plague; the Sisters in Flea Bottom had been all but wiped out. So there were only twenty Silent Sisters kneeling in their silent rows before the small altar of the Stranger that was a miniature complement to the one in the sanctuary. But Brienne had little interest in them. Her interest was bound up in the figure in the middle of the third row, who was wearing a plain wimple instead of the elaborate veils of the Silent Sisters and was kneeling with her back straight and her head raised proudly as opposed to the bowed heads of the Sisters. Queen Cersei had always worn arrogance like a garment, even as age, stress, and motherhood had started wearing away at her proverbial beauty, and she had seen no reason to moderate her pride simply because she was now sequestered in the Great Sept instead of Maegor's Holdfast.
Especially since her sequestration here was an artifact of politics. King Lyonel's command that she be transferred to the care of the High Septon had sparked a round of flurried negotiations between Lord Renly and the High Septon, both of whom had seen both danger and opportunity in Lyonel's dictum. Eventually, they had agreed to present the change in custody as the Queen Dowager's idea; the High Septon had made an excellent sermon about her decision to enter seclusion in order to pray for the souls of her royal husband and her daughter the princess and contemplate her new role as Queen Dowager, and how it should serve as a model for the city and for all the Seven Kingdoms to pray for the souls of the newly departed and contemplate the new world they found themselves in, where King Stannis the Grim was no more and his son Lyonel was now King. That Queen Cersei had wanted to do no such thing and done so only after Brienne had threatened to knock her down, bind her hand and foot, and deliver her to the Great Sept in a sack had not signified. Neither Lord Renly nor the High Septon had forgotten that it was the Queen's hastiness in ordering a man arrested that had sparked the Funeral Riots, and even the High Septon had admitted that for Lord Renly to rescind the rights he had granted the Reformists all at once would only spark further riots, which nobody wanted. So Queen Cersei had been placed in the care of the Silent Sisters, and Brienne had been named her keeper.
Queen Cersei had protested that idea, too, but her protests had not availed her there, either. The simple fact was that Brienne was the only person Renly trusted to keep the Queen safe and safely incommunicado, who could also have free run of the Silent Sisters' quarter of the Great Sept unescorted; she might wear hose under her armor, but she was still undeniably female, after all. And Brienne had quickly gotten over the indignity of becoming a glorified gaoler. At least it kept her mind off . . . She locked the thought away before it could overwhelm her. When the King returned, Theon would be with him, and they could get properly drunk together over their losses. It wasn't like she could get drunk with the Queen Dowager; for one thing, there was no alcohol allowed in the Great Sept, thanks to the constitutions set down by Baelor the Blessed. For another, Queen Cersei had made no secret of her disdain for Brienne. It was not seemly, she had said, loudly and often, that her daughter should be attended by such a creature as Brienne, that could not make up its mind whether it was man or maid. That Brienne, following Stannis' advice, had not only acted as if such insults were beneath her notice but had soundly thrashed the two candidates Cersei had nominated to replace her as Joanna's sworn shield, had only inflamed Cersei's enmity.
A lesser person might have been tempted to repay some that scorn given the change in their fortunes, but not Brienne. She had learned enough chivalry from Ser Cortnay to know that the worth of a knight was shown not only by how he treated his friends, but by how he treated his enemies. Resolve in war and defiance in defeat, but mercy in victory and good will in peace,thatwas how a knight showed their worth. And in any case, King Lyonel was unlikely to look kindly on someone who had abused his mother.
She would, she decided, tell the Queen Dowager that the King was closing on the city. She would not, however, tell her that Lord Tully had encamped at Sow's Horn. The Queen's gloating over what fate would befall Lord Renly and herself, she could ignore. Her self-pity on how the fates had conspired to surround her with dullards, fools, and cowards, on the other hand, was simply insufferable. Clearly, Her Grace had never found herself in a situation where she was truly the butt of Fortune's jokes. Brienne could have given her chapter and verse on that, if she thought she would listen. But she wouldn't, so Brienne held her peace and continued her vigil, adding her own prayers to the Stranger as she did. Joanna's willfulness and occasional bouts of hotheadedness had been exasperating at times, especially when Brienne had been forced to play the immovable obstacle. But she had always taken Brienne's part, even against her mother, and had not permitted her other ladies to make jests about Brienne where she could hear them. For that alone, she deserved well of the gods.
XXX
Tywin Lannister couldn't help the feeling of amusem*nt that stole over him as Edmure Tully read the letter he had given him after their bannermen, squires, and other lackeys had left them alone in Lord Tully's pavilion. He did, however, keep it concealed behind his best mask of impassivity; betraying amusem*nt at a fellow lord's discomfiture to his face would be unspeakably rude, and he had hopes for young Tully. He seemed much more amenable than his father had been. "The Vale?!" Tully finally burst out, in equal parts shock and indignation. "Why, for all love, is he sending me to the Vale?!"
"Do you want the official answer, my lord, or the unofficial one?" Tywin replied urbanely. "Because if you want the official one, all you need do is finish reading the letter."
Edmure waved a hand angrily. "The unofficial one, then," he snapped.
Tywin concealed a reflexive start of indignation behind the same mask he had concealed his amusem*nt; a gentleman made allowances, after all, and young Edmure was not only young and hotheaded, but suddenly having a very trying day. "The unofficial answer, my lord, is that the King does not believe he can trust you to be as discriminate as he would need you to be if he brought you to King's Landing." At Edmure's goggle-eyed look of outrage he raised a hand firmly. "Peace, my lord, I mean no insult. Nor does the King, for that matter. Bethink you, my lord, if you brought your army into King's Landing, what would be the first thing you would set out to do? Aside from faithfully execute the commands of our lord the King, that is."
"Arrest Renly for the traitor and heretic that he is," Edmure snapped immediately. "And arrest or put down every other heretic traitor that stands with him."
Tywin nodded. "Measures that would be thoroughly appropriate, if King's Landing were in rebellion," he allowed. "But King's Landing isnotin rebellion, my lord, however much it looks like it. Lord Renly has so far complied with the King's lawful commands, and caused the King's Peace to be kept within the city walls, even if he has failed to keep it in Crackclaw Point. The Reformists may have reared their ugly heads, but by the reports we have, they appear to have adopted a stance of watchful neutrality. Quite wisely of them, in my view; they must know that Renly's largesse towards them will not outlast Renly's tenure as Regent, which is now to be measured in mere days. So they had better make themselves out to be model subjects of His Grace, if they want him to continue his father's policy of toleration. If Renly yields the city and the Iron Throne to His Grace, as he has promised to do, and the King is crowned with a minimum of upheaval, then the dynasty will find itself on a very strong footing. If, on the other hand, you and I enter the city, with our armies, and it becomes known that at least one of us is bent on avenging insults to the Faith and the Queen Dowager with fire and sword . . ."
Tywin spread his hands. "The Reformists would certainly revolt," he went on. "Heretics they might be, but they are still men, and being men, they will doubtless prefer to die in battle rather than submit to slaughter. And how, in the midst of such fighting, would our soldiers discern a heretic in arms against the Throne and the Faith from a true member of the Faithful seeking only to protect his life and property? You know as well as I, my lord, how a soldier will react when faced with an armed man in a city he is attacking; he will kill him out of hand, steal his goods, and not bother with asking questions. So we should find ourselves fighting not just heretics, but our fellow Faithful, to the peril of our souls and, more immediately, of our credit with the Faithful in the rest of the Seven Kingdoms. Not to mention the communities of foreigners within the city, who will see only that the city is being torn apart around them and that the only way to preserve themselves is by fighting as brutally as everyone else around them. Doubtless we would prevail, but to what benefit, if we make a Tyrosh of King's Landing? You have lived in the city, my lord, you know as well as I how important it is to the Iron Throne that it remain peaceful, wealthy, and strong."
Edmure nodded grudgingly; it had been one of King Stannis' favorite sayings that the strength of King's Landing was the strength of the Iron Throne. Its trade paid for the Royal Orders, the Fleet, and for the subsidies that the Iron Throne paid out to the Lords Paramount when armies were raised at the Throne's command. Its guilds provided recruits for the companies that the Throne raised out of its own resources, and also provided the armor and weapons to equip them. The existence of the Great Sept brought tithes from every corner of Faithful Westeros to King's Landing, ensuring that the Faith always had a store of liquid wealth to draw upon if the Iron Throne suddenly found itself in need of a loan, and also provided the Iron Throne with a way of collecting information and disseminating its words to every corner of Westeros that did not rely on the semaphore or messenger ravens. "All the more important, then, that we take measures to ensure that King's Landing is truly loyal to the dynasty, my lord," Edmure said, staring intently at Tywin. "My lord, you have the King's ear. If you can convince him that his interests would be better served by rooting the heretics out of King's Landing before their poison can spread throughout the rest of the Crownlands . . ."
Tywin's raised eyebrow stopped him dead, although Tywin couldn't help a grudging degree of admiration at Tully's boldness.You're trying to subornme?For the Gods' sakes, boy,don't you know who I am?"The King," he replied mildly, "is of the opinion that his interests will be better served by coming to an accommodation with the Reformists than by extirpating them." A mistaken opinion, in Tywin's view, not that he would ever let on. House Lannister's interests would be far better served by presenting a united front behind his grandson's rule than they would be by his being a turbulent bannerman, however much the Faith might bleat at him about the necessity of stamping out heresy. "He is also of the opinion that his interests would be best served by making his entry into King's Landing as smooth as possible. Why do you think that I and my men have been diverted this far out of our way, my lord?"
Edmure frowned. "Did you not say that the King had commanded you to put down the Point lords?" he asked.
"He did," Tywin replied, leaving the wordsyou doltunsaid. "But he also made mention to me that given the delicate nature of the situation within King's Landing, it would be unwise to spark any painful memories. It's only been half a generation since I sacked the city, after all, and by all reports it was my daughter's actions that sparked the Funeral Riots." Not to mention what Lannister, and other Westerlander, soldiers had done on Pyke and Orkmont. That had been against Ironborn, to be sure, but if there was anyone worse than a heathen, it was a heretic. Most Devout Hugar had said as much to anyone who would listen, loudly and often, even before he was elected to the crystal crown. "Whereas, if he sends me to put down the greatest military threat facing the city, then not only am I kept in the background, but it goes at least some way to repairing House Lannister's credit with at least the wealthy burghers of the city, if not the rest of the smallfolk." Which was as good as to say that it would help repair the dynasty's credit with the burghers, given the extent to which House Lannister was bound up with the dynasty and the fact that no one was likely to forget it any time soon. His grandson had his father's black hair, blue eyes, and leanly muscular build, but his self-possession and sense of dignity were all Lannister. At least he appeared not to have inherited whatever quality had made his mother start a riot.
Edmure nodded slowly. "I see," he said unwillingly, as if the words were being dragged out of him with meat hooks. "So His Grace means to send us away and put all his trust in Tyrell for his safety?"
"Not all," Tywin replied. "My army will still be within a few days' hard march of the city, and I doubt the Point lords will give us much trouble for long. Aside from the usual scut work, of course." That made Edmure wince, at which Tywin's estimation of him dropped a point. A lord couldn't last in the game of thrones if he was overly solicitous of the smallfolk; he had learned that by watching his father. All the cheap gestures he had lavished on the smallfolk to win their love hadn't done a whit to protect him from the depredations of his bannermen, who had taken his largesse as a sign of weakness. And if the smallfolk of the Point were foolish enough to follow their lords to war against the Iron Throne twice in one generation, they deserved to be burned out and scattered to the four winds. Those who did not choose to die along with their lords, anyway. "And meaning no offense, my lord, but if Mace Tyrell and I cannot ensure the King's safety, then neither can you. In the meantime, you can help focus the minds of the Reformists in King's Landing on the importance of being good subjects by using their co-religionists in Gulltown to demonstrate what happens to bad ones. And if the heretics do not provide sufficient blood to slake the thirsts of your bannermen's swords, then there are others to whet them on . . ."
XXX
Willet Longsword was not immune to the feeling of exultation that had seized the other members of his warband. They had, after all, just struck the Andals the greatest blow they had suffered since the fall of the High King. He glanced at the row of heads mounted on spear-points next to his tent and smiled the smile of a sated predator as he beheld the face of Yohn Royce. Of all the Andal nobles in the Vale, only the Royce's had been as hated as the Arryn's; the High King had been a Royce, after all, and his descendants had turned on their kindred to save their own skins. Well, Bronze Yohn had been reminded how traitors were served in the mountains, and that the old magic would not protect traitors, however much they cherished the royal bronze.
He really should have known better than to leave his army's camp unguarded against attacks from behind, however much the Andals within Gulltown had drawn his attention with raids launched from behind their city's walls. The Royce's were one of the mightiest Andal Houses of the Vale, and Bronze Yohn had brought two thousand men with him to besiege Gulltown. But when surprised by men for whom ambush and sudden onset were the highest form of war, men who hated them with every grain of their souls, they had been chickens cooped for the fox. Many had escaped, of course; the small and stocky ponies that were the only horses that could survive in the mountains on grazing alone made fine pack animals, but they couldn't be cavalry mounts to save their lives. But with their lord dead and their camp taken, those who had escaped would run back to Runestone as fast as their feet could take them. Nor was there another Andal force anywhere nearby that could reach them before they had melted back into the mountains, even laden as they were with loot.
Willet had heard that the Andals of Gulltown had not only risen up against the Arryn's, slaying Ser Gerold of accursed memory among the clans, but against all the Andal lords of the Vale. Nor were they the only ones; Hokkan had learned from questioning prisoners that Lord Corbray's worthless brother was reportedly dead. It seemed that he had gotten into an argument with a peasant woman on a question of the Andal Faith, who had cracked his skull with a flung stool. Now Heart's Home castle was all but besieged, although whether it was Baelorites besieging Reformists or Reformists besieging Baelorites appeared to be open to debate, while a dozen lesser revolts had erupted in a blaze of rioting. A blaze, reportedly, sparked by embers from Gulltown. If that was so, he wished them success, but he would be damned if he lifted a finger to help them. An Andal was still an Andal, whether Baelorite or Reformist, and the Vale would not be free until the last Andal had been driven from her shores.
That said, the Andals of Gulltown might prove useful, if they distracted the other Andals from hunting him and his warband until the fame of killing Yohn Royce, scattering his army, and reclaiming the royal bronze had fully united the clans behind his banner. So far, only his own Painted Dogs, the Burned Men, the Black Ears, and the Moon Brothers had sworn themselves to him. The Howlers, the Milk Snakes, the Sons of the Tree and of the Mist, the Redsmiths, and the minor clans that had yet to establish their Names had been unwilling to pledge themselves until he had a victory to boast of. Well, he had that now, didn't he just? The head of Yohn Royce, pickled in cedar oil, would be a powerful totem for Hokkan to carry around the unpledged clans to show that he had been telling the truth when he had told them that the clans could liberate the Vale if only they stood together behind a single leader. And what Royce's head didn't say, the royal bronze that Willet now wore, having cut it off Yohn Royce's body, would say clearly enough for any fool to hear. As would the steel weapons in the hands of the warriors who had already bound themselves to him. Caldor son of Uthyr would lay his spear at Willet's feet and swear that the Howlers would follow him, or Willet would slay him as he had slain Shagga son of Dolf and take the chieftainship of the Howlers as he had that of the Stone Crows. And if any of the other clan chiefs were still foolish enough to deny him, after Caldor's death or submission, then they too would fall, and their warriors come under his banner.
He would need them, if he wanted to continue what he had started. None were fiercer than the warriors of the mountains, but the Andals were many, and their steel gave them armor and weapons that could not be matched with bronze or stone. It would take careful planning, hard fighting, and the favor of the gods to drive them out of the Vale. But Willet was no stranger to hard fighting, and the death of Yohn Royce showed that he could plan as well as any man. As for the favor of the gods, the gods best helped those who helped themselves, especially if they took heed of the signs the gods gave them. Willet tore his gaze from Royce's head and looked at the mountains above him, reading the signs with the ease of a man born, weaned, and raised in their shadow. The clans had no white ravens to tell them winter was coming, but they did not need them; they knew their mountains well enough to read the changes in season. Autumn was not here yet, but it was coming, and winter would not be far behind. Willet bared his teeth in a predator's smile. Summer was passing, and with the help of the gods, he would make it the last summer the Andals who polluted the Vale would ever enjoy.
XXX
The evening's conference among the assembled lords of Lyonel's host was on the verge of winding down when it was interrupted by an Order sergeant leading two archers escorting a fourth man swathed in a vast cloak with a deep hood. The sergeant stamped to attention at the edge of the table, shucked off his helmet, and bowed. "Your Grace," he said in a voice hoarsened by shouting orders, "this man approached our picquets and presented a pass stamped with the seal of King Stannis. As per orders, they summoned me to interview him. He refused to give his name, but provided a password verifying his identity as a King's messenger, and claimed that his message was for Your Grace's ears alone. He said also that this," he raised a small leather pouch, "would suffice as his credentials, but only if they were presented to Your Grace in person."
At Lyonel's gesture, Theon rounded the table and took the pouch as murmurs rose from the lords; a cloaked messenger refusing to give his name and style, with a message only for the King? Really, it was like something out of a romaunt, one of the ones that had more to do with courtly skullduggery than feats of arms. Theon opened the pouch, carefully, only putting his eye over the mouth when a gentle shake failed to produce a poisonous serpent or a cloud of poison; Ser Cortnay had drilled him and Brienne thoroughly on what kind of unpleasantness could be in a pouch even as small as this one. What he saw, however, made him blink in surprise before carrying back to the head of the table to show it to Lyonel, who also blinked. "My lords, I pray you leave Us," he said. "Lord Tyrell, I pray you remain, if you please. This matter may touch you as closely as Ourself." After the lords had filed out, casting speculative looks at the messenger, and the Order sergeant and the archers had been dismissed and marched out, Lyonel reached into the pouch and withdrew its contents. "It's a rare man who has access to this," he mused aloud, rolling the Great Seal in his fingers. "I can think of only three who would also possess the means and the nerve to leave a city under the next thing to martial law and approach an army of unknown friendliness by night. Of those three, two are known to be dead." He raised his eyes from the Great Seal to the messenger, who had not shifted an iota from where he had been left at the other end of the table. "Do take that off, my lord uncle; you must be sweltering in there."
The messenger lowered his hood to reveal Renly Baratheon, who had more lines on his face than Theon remembered but still had his ready smile. "Indeed, Your Grace," he replied. "Fortunately, I did not need to wear it all the way here. Simply on my way out of the city, and then in the approach to your camp here."
Lyonel placed the Great Seal on the table and leaned back in his campaign chair, folding his hands. "You address me as 'Your Grace'," he said. "Which argues that you have been telling the truth all this time, when you have claimed to be acting in my name. Yet how can this be, uncle, when I gave you no orders to do, well,anyof the things you have done since the king my father died?"
"There was no time to wait for orders, Your Grace," Renly said. "The Realm was in mortal peril from the instant your father's heart ceased to beat, and every hour counted. I had no choice but to act, and act quickly, to preserve the Peace long enough for you to return and assume the Iron Throne."
Lyonel steepled his fingers, a slight frown creasing his face. "Explain, if you please."
"Your Grace," Renly said, "you know as well as anyone that your father was not a man to be felled by a simple disease, much less a disease as childish as redspots. He could only have succumbed to it by foul means; some poison that did not need to kill him, simply weaken him enough for the pestilence to do its work."
"Did Grand Maester Pycelle find any evidence of such poison?" Lord Tyrell asked.
Renly shook his head. "He did not look for it," he answered. "The king had the plague, the plague evidently killed him, so no more needed to be done. Forbye, he feared to undertake a more thorough investigation, lest opening the king's body spread a new strain of the plague within the Red Keep."
"In other words," Lyonel said coolly, "you had only suspicion."
"Suspicion, Your Grace, reinforced by other events," Renly replied. "Your father had quarreled with Cersei before the plague struck the Red Keep; she had connived in an attempt to break the quarantine of the city your father ordered. After your father's death, Cersei wasted no time in exhorting the Most Devout to elect Hugar, a known hater of Reformists, to the crystal crown. Nor did she wait even a day to order me to dismiss the Commander of the City Watch and the Sherriff of King's Landing and replace them with men known to hate Reformists. This, before the king's will had even been brought forth, much less read and acted upon." He spread his hands. "These are not, I submit, the actions of someone with benevolent intent, Your Grace."
Lyonel tapped his fingertips against his chin, then flicked a glance at Lord Tyrell, who shrugged. "He makes a compelling argument, Your Grace," he admitted. "Even if your royal parents had fallen out, custom and law alike would have dictated that the Queen not take such actions until the King had been buried and his will produced and read. Although," he went on, looking back towards Renly, "I find it hard to believe that Cersei would have been so foolish as to poison the King. And you too, Lord Renly, have taken actions that would cast doubt on your motives. Or did King Stannis grant you authority to replace Princess Joanna as my son Willas' bride with one of the twins on his deathbed?"
"It seemed necessary, my lord, to ensure that you would continue to support the dynasty," Renly answered with what Theon considered admirable coolness for someone admitting to usurping his king's prerogative in that king's presence. "I apologize for my lack of faith in your loyalty, but I was a desperate man in the hour I wrote that letter. A man in danger of drowning will cling to any spar he can find that may keep his head above water."
"Even if it's not his spar to cling to," Lyonel observed dryly. "My siblings and my lady mother are well, I trust?"
"They are, Your Grace," Renly replied. "The twins and Prince Gerold escaped the plague, and I have taken every precaution I can think of to ensure their safety. The Queen Dowager is also doing well, at the High Septon's last report, and I have set Squire Brienne to act as her personal guard until you decide to make other arrangements."
Lyonel nodded, concealing the relief Theon knew he had to be feeling; he loved his sisters as well as any brother could, and despite his mother's . . .difficulties,he was a dutiful son, even if he was more Stannis' son than Cersei's. Hard luck for Brienne, though, to be Queen Cersei's guard; the Queen had never made a secret of her dislike for Brienne. Theon would have been tempted to call her out on it if his oath-sister had not asked him to let it lie; they had enough troubles already, she had argued, without him challenging the Queen. Lyonel tapped his fingers against his chin meditatively for a few moments, then lowered his hands to the table. "Whether your suspicions are justified or not, they must now be considered irrelevant," he said. "Your stated object in taking power in King's Landing was to maintain the King's Peace until I returned and could be crowned. And behold, I have done so. That I have a capital to return to is, it appears, largely due to your efforts, my lord uncle. For this you have our thanks. But not our forgiveness. Regardless of your motives, or the justness of your suspicions, the fact is that you illegally seized power in Our capital city and usurped powers reserved to Us. This cannot simply be overlooked."
Renly nodded, deeply enough that it could be called a bow. "I understand fully, Your Grace," he replied. "I ask only that any punishment you see fit fall upon my head alone. Those who acted with me did so only at my command, and some only upon pain of my displeasure."
Lyonel shook his head. "Some of those who followed you will also have to share in your punishment," he said. "The principals, at the very least. Simple obedience to orders ought not to constitute a defense to a crime, when the person receiving the orders knows them to be unlawful. Arthur Dayne made that mistake, to the death of his repute and the peril of his soul, along with the others of Rhaegar's Kingsguard."
Renly hesitated, then nodded again, his face set. "What is your will, Your Grace?"
"That you, and such others of your bannermen as We shall name, abjure the Realm," Lyonel replied. "That you remain abroad until such time as We give you leave to return, and that during your exile you take no service with enemies of the Seven Kingdoms, upon pain of death."
Renly blinked. "You would not send us to the Wall, Your Grace?" he asked.
"The Wall is for life," Lyonel said. "We do not mean to exile you until your dying day, my lord uncle, merely until justice is satisfied."And, Theon thought to himself,until Tywin Lannister no longer feels the need to have you killed for imprisoning his daughter.Which would probably be when Tywin died, knowing his reputation.
Renly bowed. "I hear and obey, Your Grace," he said formally. "I will need some time to settle my affairs in the Realm before sailing."
"You will have until Our coronation," Lyonel replied. "Until then, you and your confederates are to consider yourselves under arrest and confine yourselves to your quarters. You have Our word that you shall not meet with any insult or injury to your persons or your property during your arrest, and during your time abroad your property shall be under Our especial protection. Our only condition," he went on, "is that you name Ser Cortnay Penrose as steward of Storm's End. We have heard that he is still recovering from the plague; we would give him a less strenuous duty than leading our Stormguard."
Renly nodded. "It will also spare him the Wall, Your Grace," he said. "He has been talking about taking the black, since learning that he outlived his king."
Lyonel snorted indelicately. "As if I would let a man of his worth be wasted on the Wall," he retorted. "And when he is finally too old to serve, he will have earned a better retirement than freezing at the end of the world."
"Quite so, Your Grace," Renly said with a smile before he bowed again. "If it please Your Grace, I beg leave to return to the city," he said. "It would look mighty fishy if I was not there to open the gates and bid you welcome."
Lyonel nodded. "Indeed," he said. "And making this whole affair . . . less fishy . . . is the purpose of this whole affair, is it not? Safe travels, my lord uncle."
Renly bowed a third time, drew his hood up over his head, and strode out of the tent. Mace Tyrell co*cked an eyebrow at Lyonel. "You think Tywin will accept your sentence as justice, Your Grace?" he asked skeptically.
"I think he will accept that I cannot order my lord uncle's execution, when all his actions have been to preserve and uphold my rule of the Seven Kingdoms," Lyonel replied dryly. "It would be entirely the wrong note to strike at the beginning of my reign. And he knows that he will need my support to make sure the succession of the Rock passes smoothly, whether to Tyrion or to my brother Gerold. This way, justice will be seen to be done, harshly enough to fit the crime but leniently enough to demonstrate my mercy, and my lord uncle is gotten out of Westeros, so that my lord grandfather will not have to be reminded of his existence unless he chooses to be."
Mace nodded. "Gods grant that Tywin is in an understanding mood when he receives news of this, Your Grace," he said. After a moment's silence, he plowed on. "In light of Lord Renly's admissions, Your Grace . . ."
Lyonel raised a hand gently. "There will be time after I am crowned to discuss betrothing one of the twins to Willas," he said. "And in any case, an announcement will have to wait until the mourning period for Joanna has passed. But yes, we will have much to talk about, both on that matter and on others."
While the exact details of King Lyonel's meeting with the mysterious messenger are still unknown, the gist of what transpired may be inferred from what happened in the days afterward. Lyonel's first act after entering King's Landing and taking possession of the Red Keep was to accept his uncle's resignation as regent and his offer to go into exile, along with most of his senior knights. Queen Cersei was officially released from the custody of the Faith, but she quickly found that she had traded one gilded cage for another; Lyonel ordered that she remain under the close guard of Brienne of Tarth within the confines of the Red Keep. Those of the Queen's Men who had been imprisoned by Renly were also released, but any thoughts they might have had about retaking power were quickly stifled, both by Queen Cersei's continued confinement and the announcement that Grand Maester Pycelle would, at Lyonel's invitation, be retiring to the Citadel to work on a eulogistic history of King Stannis's reign. In addition, the King's Men not only had a new king to rally around, but hundreds of new members in the form of the Reachmen and Westermen who had followed Lyonel to King's Landing. We may thus conclude that Renly passed on his suspicions of Cersei's involvement in Stannis' death, and that whether Lyonel was convinced of his mother's guilt or not, he agreed that she should at least be kept out of the decision-making loop.
The mood outside of the Red Keep, ignorant of the politicking and jockeying for position in the new Court that was starting to emerge, was much more relaxed, but still wary. Stannis had not been loved, per se, by the citizens of his capital, but he had brought them peace, prosperity, and victory over the enemies of the Throne and the Faith, and for that he had been much admired. Lyonel's track record of governance was limited to his tenure in the Isles, but what little was known of his deeds there inspired confidence that he might be a worthy successor to his father. And after the nightmare of the plague and the confusion of the coup, having any king was preferable to having none. So the burghers of King's Landing, doubtless bearing in mind the adage that justice is only made possible by strength, pledged the city's allegiance to Lyonel, who promptly repaid them by reaffirming the rights and privileges of the city's charter.
Events outside the city, however, were beginning to accelerate, and it was clear that the full ritual of coronation would have to wait. For one thing, it would take time for the mourning period to Stannis and Joanna to pass, and for the lords of the Seven Kingdoms to travel to the capital to bear witness, as was their right. For another, the taking of the coronation oath and the pledging and receiving of homage, would have to wait until those lords were assembled in order to have what modern political scientists would call 'the critical mass of legitimacy'. There were three elements of the ceremony, however that could be done quickly, and it was decided to do these as swiftly as possible . . .
Lyonel the Magnificent: Westeros' First Modern Monarchby Maester Joubert
Five days after Lyonel Baratheon entered King's Landing, he entered the Great Sept in solemn procession to a psalm to the Father clad in one of his late father's robes of state, flanked by Damon Lannister in brilliant scarlet, Ser Cortnay Penrose in Stormguard black and leaning on his cane, Mace Tyrell in vibrant green trimmed with gold, and Theon Greyjoy in full armor. As the procession reached the altars, the escorting lords halted with a bow, and Lyonel strode forth alone to sit on the gilded chair that had been placed in the center of the altars. The High Septon stepped forward from the massed ranks of the Most Devout, flanked by the seven most senior deacons of the Great Sept, each bearing an ampulla.
Usually, the seven oils were blended, thanks to a decision by the last Great Council of the Faith acknowledging that this would make it easier for itinerant septons to carry them. But for anointing a king, each oil was applied separately. So each deacon stepped forth in turn to pour a measure of oil into the golden filigreed spoon that the High Septon bore and into which he dipped his fingers before making the sign of the seven-pointed star on Lyonel's forehead, mouth, ears, hands, and heart. As he did so he recited in a clear and carrying voice the prayers of consecration that the Faith had prescribed for kings from time out of mind, that Lyonel's mind be strengthened in truth and invested with wisdom, that his mouth give only true judgments, that his ears hear only truth and be closed to falsehoods, that his hands work only justice, tempered with mercy, and that his heart be opened to all the needs of his people.
When the last prayer was said, the High Septon and the deacons stepped back to be replaced by the lords who had escorted Lyonel into the Sept, each accompanied by a page bearing a particular item. First was Theon Greyjoy, who placed a sword across Lyonel's lap. No ordinary sword, this, but one with the point broken off and filed flat, to symbolize not only justice but the mercy without which justice was nothing more than naked force. Next came Ser Cortnay Penrose, who knelt carefully to buckle a pair of golden spurs around Lyonel's heels. Together with the belt of plates, the gilded spurs were the badge of knighthood, and the king was, when all was said and done, the first knight of the Realm, who all other knights acknowledged as their superior. Third came Damon Lannister, who presented Lyonel with a ring set with a gemstone for each of the Kingdoms to symbolize his marriage to the Realm; an emerald for the Reach, a ruby for the Westerlands, a sapphire for the Riverlands, a pearl for the Iron Islands, an amethyst for Dorne, an opal for the Stormlands, a diamond for the Vale, and a black onyx for the North, all surrounding a transparent crystal for the Faith. Fourth and last came Mace Tyrell, who placed in Lyonel's hand a scepter of ivory chased with gold and topped with a seven-pointed star carved from a single crystal, to symbolize both Lyonel's power of temporal rule and the protection of his rule by the Seven.
After Tyrell stepped back, the High Septon stepped forward again, holding the simple gold circlet crown that Stannis had always worn. This he raised high and declaimed "Oh Father, crown of the Faithful, bless we beseech thee and sanctify this thy servant our king, and as thou dost this day place a crown of pure gold upon his head, so enrich his royal heart with thine abundant grace and crown him with all princely virtues, through the grace of thee who art our King and Lord Eternal." As all present murmured "Amen," like the whisper of a giant, the High Septon lowered the crown onto Lyonel's head, saying "May the Seven crown you with a crown of glory and righteousness, that having a right faith and manifold fruit of good works, you may obtain the crown of an everlasting kingdom by the gift of Them whose kingdoms endureth forever." Then stepping back again, the High Septon raised his hands and proclaimed in a voice that thundered through the Sept, "Westeros, behold your king!"
All present fell to their knees in a rush of rustling cloth and a clatter of rattling armor. "Long live the King!" they cried, shaking the windows as the bells of the Great Sept pealed in a salute that rolled across the city as the other septs joined the cacophony. "Long live the King!Long live the King!"
