After The False Spring - The South

[Garlan Gunter]

THE LORD REAPER



His had been a life led long among warlike men. He had striven to excel among them, in deed, in cause, in repute, even in appearance. It had taken striving; for in truth the hard, barren ferocity of the dedicated warmonger had never animated him, even for as much as some drunken hour’s length.

If that truth were known, though, he would not sit here Lord of Pyke. Still less if another truth came to light, that the little robed man with the chain about his neck who had come to the Isles in his third rock wife’s retinue was by far the more belligerent of the two of them.

“You say Lord Piper awaits my answer?” Quellon asked wearily, though it still gave him a faint, guilty access of strength to watch the way all men paled and fawned at his voice, even now. “Why should he care for it either way? I am no liege of his. Let him await Lord Tully.”

“No liege, my lord,” Maester Korigan was insisting, “but something so much more. A good-son.” What did Korigan know of good-sons, and indeed of bloody sons themselves, Quellon thought with bitterness? The maester was a ludicrous looking fellow in truth, round faced and prone to sweat, a man to shout at servants and run out of breath, to trip on steps and wince at candle-flames. But he had proven himself far from incapable, the Lord Reaper admitted perforce, and his little black eyes glittered with forethought, as well as a motiveless violence the old lord secretly found just the wrong side of troubling. Who did Korigan truly represent, or for that matter resent? How had this worm of discord wriggled out from between the plump young paps of the third Lady Greyjoy?

“Lord Piper has not one high lord to think of, my lord,” Korigan persisted with that indecent zeal of a man who thought out wars but never swung a blade in them, “not even two, but three. Pinkmaiden’s lands abut the borders of Lord Tywin Lannister’s domains.” A good thought, Quellon conceded, and such pretty words. That was what one paid these mice for. He did not interrupt the bouncy little fellow’s flow as yet. “Should the Starks be driven to rise by this…should the Tullys stand with them…your good-father must wonder what exactly Lord Tywin, who seeks at all costs to regain the office of Hand, might do. He must wonder what his powerful good-father might risk to protect him…for what prospect of gain.”

Lord Quellon had a fairly shrewd log of the chart towards which the maester listed, but that did not make him like it the more. Nonetheless, this fevered scheming turned out to be far preferable to what followed it.

“Father!” came that predictable word, invested with all its old pride and petulance. His eldest son Balon had taken it to his curdled head to join them, already called by so many an eager fool Balon the Brave for climbing a cliff, cleaving a few poltroons on distant rocks and stealing a brace of their their pox-ridden women.

Nor had Balon been so very friendless on his journeyings so far. Quellon’s far-off kinsman on the distaff side Dagmer Cleftjaw, undoubtedly the most genuinely formidable as well as merely gruesome-looking fighter the Isles could presently boast, had accompanied him. Quellon liked Dagmer well enough; some krakens had a certain saucy wit about them, others were dour as a grotto’s pillar, and whoever Dagmer’s much boasted Greyjoy foremother had been, he at least was, it seemed, of the first kind. Dagmer was as loyal as he was deadly, and no drear company either.

Nonetheless, Lord Quellon’s son and heir Balon had somehow turned out to be of the dour-pillar variety, and two hungry for blood and blade-edges with it. Often Quellon wished his heir’s favoured companion could have been not the rugged and lethal Cleftjaw, but the sensible young Lord of Harlaw, Rodrik, whom the Ironborn with their uncouth lust for alliteration were already prone to dubbing in idleness ‘the Reader.’ Quellon himself read quite as much as any scythling pup, but he was scarce fool or oddity enough to do so where anyone could watch him, least of all his maseter, not even his wife, and never in a thousand winters his sons. At any rate, with such a friendship in mind Quellon had seen his heir wed to the young Harlaw’s sister Alannys, who seemed fairly high-spirited and intelligent into the bargain. But the hoped for friendship had scarce ensued, so Quellon was unsurprised when Dagmer, not Rodrik Harlaw, entered a few paces behind Balon, his head bowed whether in respect or sensitivity about his rather uncourtly visage.

Nor was Quellon unduly taken aback by Balon’s next words. “Father! What are you doing? Will you say nothing? Do you do naught but moon with the maester over potions of micelings day and night? There is to be war in Westeros!”

They were in the best Quellon could do by way of a fashionable castle solar by Pyke, and the fire beneath the tentacles was generously piled, yet to his annoyance, even his slight woe of foreboding, Quellon could feel the chill his son’s blazing words cast. To look at, there was no question where the authority lay in this room. Beside Lord Quellon even Dagmer looked like something of a trifler. Scarce one among the Ironborn could match their lord for the height of his stature, the power of his limbs, even yet, and Quellon knew well, too, he had a masterful stare that he could in no wise let up. But his son’s fury and fervour depressed him, not because of its substance – that, as usual, was nonsense – but because of what it stood for. A temper in the Isles moving towards his son, and that son’s road; a young, fierce folk yearning for a very Old Way.

“If we had wars in the realm every time you gave the word, my boy,” Quellon mused with deliberately slighting insouciance, “there’d be none of us left to fight ‘em. Nonetheless, I’ll not have you tell your friends I left you unheard. Whom would you have me slaughter today?”

The young, spare man glowered up, and up, at his sire, then looked away for now, beaten again for the moment, as he always had been yet, reddening as he redirected that hateful flintiness upon the maester. Balon had small liking for that order in general, and nothing but loathing for this one in particular, as for all creatures of his reviled step-mother, even his poor little brief, dead youngest brother Robin. Quellon actually chuckled aloud as he thought that his heir and his maester, who wasted so much pointless fiery air in worrying at each other’s counsels, in fact, in their different ways, would pursue courses leading to a mightily similar result. Only Dagmer noticed his lord’s laugh, and looked up curiously, showing off a fine view of that long-axe’s legacy. Few men ever laughed in Balon ‘the Brave’’s ambit, and Quellon felt younger and stronger for having demonstrated that he was still firmly among that few.

“Why is the question, not who,” Balon was haranguing away now at the maester, for want of a better ear. “Our, my people must fight for our freedom, our ways, when the opportunity falls ripely at hand. No more shall we waste long passages reaching burned strands in the East. We will reave where the Greyirons and Hoares reft.”

“Ah, the Hoares,” Quellon mused, as if just awoken from a pleasant light slumber. “They had a mighty fleet indeed, allies who sided with them for want of better, subdued beachheads, a plan, withal. Have you, my son?”

There was a light cough, lighter even than the old lord’s momentary laugh, and a younger Kraken entered, a flatterer bearing a horn sigil on either side of him. Ever since Balon took his Harlaw wife, Euron had been seen much among the Goodbrothers. His laughing blue eyes gleamed. Now he was a kraken with wit, not a pillar, Quellon had to admit. Too much hells-damned wit, and insolence with it.

“I do hope all is well here, father, brother? Someone might want to see what’s happened to our lady step-mother, or dear Alannys. They could be of use at the moment,” the little slitherer murmured with maladeptly covered glee. “Victarion seems to have knocked Urri out cold again. I couldn’t say exactly why…”

“Enough of that,” Balon cut in, leaving his father with mixed feelings. It was good that Balon bothered to look to his younger brother’s welfare, good, too, that he saw through Euron’s oozings, but it was Quellon’s place, not Balon’s to reprove him. “Where’s Aeron?”

“Our most amusing little brother?” Euron answered with a flash that maddening grin. “Why, I am afraid I have not the faintest idea…”

Balon let himself be drawn off by Euron to investigate. “Go with them,” Quellon ordered Dagmer briskly, practically the only blood he could trust in this sort of mess. “And you, maester, off back to the ravenry. I’ll see you again at dawn.” A short night’s sleep should mature fewer of these accursed plans in that greenlander’s sweat-seeping skull.

[Garlan Gunter]

THE AMBASSADOR



The envoy from the isles reflected amusedly, not for the first time, that his countrymen would envy him now…but for all the wrong reasons. Their eyes would flick, mingling greed and contempt, from the sable at his neck to the velvet at his seat, the bright wine in his hand and the very light that caught the manse through a pane of Myrish glass. All this spoke of gold and gems and more gold, of a land where iron was tawdry and all but obsolete, little better than rust. But few, it might be none, among the Ironborn would know of the most precious object in all the room, all the spacious house – the overworked, spiderstained scroll over which he frowned. It was said, and it seemed to Lord Rodrik to be plausibly suggested, to be a copy of some part of the lost writings of Septon Barth. And here it was, to be found for any fool’s looking at the residence of some distant kinsman of Lord Tywin, a man who would not merit command of a ship were he on the Isles.

In other respects Rodrik was not wholly easy in his heart to be here, for all its comfort and interest. He was a young man still, midway through his twenties, but already a father to twin sons, the fruit of his young marriage to a Merlyn lady who had not survived the twofold burden. He had scarcely known the first Lady Harlaw, but he was fond of his boys; yet it was obvious that they would be a hindrance as he came to the West a-wooing. Few potential good-fathers liked to be reminded of living heirs, nor brides of deceased forerunners, at that. But he missed the twins with a stinging pain. Curious, Rodrik thought, the emotions twins seem to stir.

He could not have turned down Lord Quellon’s command, though he knew himself more hostage than suitor or envoy in truth. But he trusted his good-brother’s father – a good deal more than he trusted that dour hunting kraken fools named Balon the Brave – and hoped that the Lord Reaper would see to his interests, just as Rodrik intended to serve him well here. The Harlaw’s involuntary rival Gorold Goodbrother seemed pacified for the moment, pleased with his daughter’s Tyrell marriage and disposed to be friendly. Harlaw could wait; and a rich dowry would benefit the whole island, as a smooth mission would aid the Isles in general. There was work to be done here.

If only Rodrik could keep his intellect firmly on the task in hand…some among the Ironborn thought him, he knew, a wandering, impractical spirit, half-mad and ill-fitted for rule, because he openly seemed to prefer reading and learning. If they only knew how such reading sharpened his resolve, steadied his nerve, clarified his predicament…while it was the life outside, men, yes, and women too, that could derange the neat, orderly world Lord Harlaw preferred to build about himself.

It must have been near a month now since he first had seen her…no, he must not think on it…

“Lord Harlaw, I hope I do not disturb you at your study,” his host enquired, passing in with his lank golden hair drooping into his eyes, his rotund figure wobbling. The Lannisters of Lannisport seemed more burgesses than warriors, not that Rodrik minded that – he felt a good deal the more secure under a mere penny-pincher’s roof. Even this lesser Lannister, he noted though, seemed as mildly amused at his reading as any among the Ironborn. These people had wealth, in wisdom as well as gold, at their command, but scarce any idea as to its proper use. “Lord Tywin asks that you might come to the Rock, for the feast of the lords’ leave-taking.”

Lords Lefford, Banefort, Crakehall and all the rest of them…many had assembled, and now they were off back to their keeps, privy commandments presumably well hidden under their rich folds of vair and ermine. Rodrik had forgot the feast, but not for long. “I wait as ever at Lord Tywin’s commandment. I shall present myself within the hour, if I might trouble you for a fast stallion.”

“There will no need of that,” the tubby Lannister smirked. “His lordship’s brother has come himself to escort the Lord of Harlaw.”

“Ser Kevan?” Rodrik enquired with a hopefulness he did not feel, but Gerion Lannister’s laugh quite drowned his idle query.

The envoy was still not quite sure whether he liked Gerion Lannister, though the youngest of old Lord Tytos’s get was obviously and eminently likeable. He was intelligent, talkative, odd, unexpected, humorous…and ubiquitous. Rodrik was beginning to develop the increasing suspicion that Lord Tywin had tasked his little brother with dogging the ambassador’s footsteps as some kind of joke; though Lord Tywin, notoriously, was unlike his brother not a man for jokes; so it might be the initiative was all Gerion Lannister’s own.

“We’ve missed your refreshing change of company up at the Rock, my lord,” the Laughing Lion was prattling as the fortress’s massive structure blemished the seascape ahead of them. “Now all our western lords save Farman and Brax are bound homeward, maybe they’ll find a permanent berth for you somewhere in there, ha! Or maybe not. Lord Farman’s used to offering slightly rougher hospitality to your people.”

Rodrik thought it best not to dignify that poorly judged witticism-cum-threat with a response, though he felt a twinge of regret as Gerion appeared to wilt in sincere grievance in the silence that well. I am becoming near as dull and prickly as my good-brother, Rodrik realised in dismay.

“Will all your family be assembled at the feast, my lord of Lannister?” Hardly glittering repartee, but it might serve to set some sort of conversation astir again.

“Oh yes, don’t you worry, my lord. You’ll get another fascinating chatter with my favourite nephew, I hope. And even a sight of my pretty niece.”

Lord Rodrik decided then and there that he definitely did not like Gerion Lannister.

It had been some two weeks into his visit to the west, and all had been proceeding, as much as could be expected, roughly to plan. Rodrik had already met Lord Tywin, judicious, preoccupied, taciturn but courteous; had enjoyed freer and more revealing access to the diligent Ser Kevan; had been honoured with an indistinct grunt that might have been a curse from the bellicose Ser Tygett; and had already seen enough of Gerion to make him wish himself firmly back at Ten Towers with his sons. He had achieved friendship of a sort with Lady Genna Frey, and noted well her cryptic words as to her lord brother’s ravenry. But his few receptions at the Rock had been brisk, and he had yet to be presented to the children of the household.

He had been taken as a special privilege to the library of the Rock, and even left there awhile with the maester, when a newcomer surprised them. The voice had been low, in one so young and fair, though by no means rough. “Maester Creylen. I don’t believe I’ve been introduced to this guest yet.”

The look of panic on the maester’s youthful face prepared him for the importance of the arrival, but not the awe-inducing wonder of the sight. She was more than half a girl still, he supposed, but tall beyond the queenliest of women, though her proportions were yielding enough for any singer’s syrup. Her bright hair ran free and defiant in curls that knew no master, three-quarters of the way to the gem-studded sandals at her feet, and her eyes had all the light of any eerie glint off Sealskim Point, yet all the verdance of the depths of Lordsport Harbour. Rodrik scarce needed to be told that he was now in the presence of the Light of the West, for it had left him – and he was not a man given to exaggeration half-blind.

“I – I believe,” he found himself saying with sudden and senseless boldness, “that I have the honour of addressing Lady Cersei Lannister? I am Rodrik Harlaw, emissary to your lord father from the Lord Reaper of Pyke.”

“Ah, the ironmen’s envoy,” Cersei breathed, though it already seemed something of disappointment had crept into her whisper. She neared him then, glanced over his shoulder at what he was reading, as he stood more stock still, fighting against the absurd instinct to tremble at the girl, him, lord of a rich isle, master of thousands and a dozen ships, a man, a father, a warrior of sorts, a scholar beyond this child’s conception.

“You are reading of Harmund the Handsome,” she murmured, “kin of ours, of a kind, if I recall the histories. No kin of yours, to look at you. Lord Quellon said he was sending his most charming and accomplished bnnerman.”

“My late wife said the same,” Rodrik said before he could stop himself, though he had not meant to speak of Lady Harlaw in the west, least of all to such a hearer. He scarcely thought of her now. How had those words come unbidden? “It’s true to say most would call me an ordinary man. Neither better nor worse than most.”

“Lord Farman would say you are better than most of your people, then,” Cersei sallied, and her laugh was a brief delight, before she passed on, and out.

Rodrik was still in a daze when his reverie was interrupted again, a tiny voice from a tiny figure.

“You found her clever, didn’t you?”

This time the maester was quicker to make the introduction. “Little lord, this is Lord Rodrik Harlaw, from the Iron Islands…”

“Ten Towers,” the malformed little boy rapped out, to some invisible cue. “On Harlaw. Richest and most populous of the isles…”

“You shouldn’t address him until you have been formally introduced, my lord. Lord Harlaw, this is Tyrion, second son of Lord Tywin…”

Aye, Lord Rodrik had heard of Lord Tywin’s Curse already. The boy was fiercely repellent, with his unmatched eyes and his curious waddle, on a certain, but quite obviously as quick-witted as any of his kin…and eagerer to show it.

“But you did, my lord, didn’t you? Think her clever? But she isn’t. She doesn’t really know about King Harmund at all. I do. And about Hagon the Heartless and the Shrike and Queen Lelia…”

“I’m sure you do,” Rodrik replied evenly, meaning to be kind, but he saw with gloom that the distorted child took it as a reproof. He would make it good if he could.

“Maester Creylen, fetch Archmaester Haerreg’s works, please. I have much to discuss with the young lord.”

And so it was that Gerion had found them, keenly absorbed, some four hours later, the whole broiling world beyond quite forgotten. Books could sharpen a head for business…but they could shelter readers too from a crueller world without.

[Garlan Gunter]

The Lord Reaper On Gods

 

Too long have the folk of the Iron Islands been shut from the best learning of the mainland, which can combine with our might to restore us to the greatness we deserve.

Septons as well as Maesters are to be comforted throughout the Isles, and the Seven honoured along the Drowned God. Some septons preach that our watery lord is an aspect of their Stranger, and this is no insult but an acknowledgement of the Drowned One's truth and power, be it true or no.

Whomsoever, be he lay, septon or Drowned Man, speaks ill of any of the Eight Gods shall have my law to reckon with.

A first proclamation to cement this law - there shall be an end to salt marriage from this day till the ending of the lands. My own son Aeron yesterday wed a Dornish maid by greenlands law. The offspring of salt wives and their mothers shall not lose their extant rights and protection, but no more such unions are sanctioned by Pyke.

Attested in the name of the Eight Gods,

Quellon Greyjoy, Lord Reaper of Pyke

[Garlan Gunter]

ALANNYS



They spent more and more time in the maester’s ravenry now, even when the maester himself was called aside to Lady Greyjoy’s bedside. Birds arrived thick, fast and ominous, almost all of them from Duskendale, where her lord good-father must have pressed dozens of maesters into his service. Few now bothered to write to Pyke directly. The strength of the Ironborn resided on the other side of Westeros, with its Lord Reaper.

Gorold Goodbrother was a jovial man by habit, always ready with a warm grin salted with a cynical jest, but this time a besetting glumness laid down even his infectious and playful temperament. As for Alannys, she gripped the old, wet stone of the casement, and for a moment of weakness could have wished herself a little girl back in Ten Towers.

She felt Gorold’s hand on her shoulder then, more tentative than usual. “You’ve barred the door?” she asked absently.

“Aye. Farce that it is, the maester’s long known to keep out of our way.” Alannys ignored the querulousness in his voice; it could scarce be blamed at such a time. She laid her own left hand on his, rubbing it faintly. Her voice seemed to come from ever further away. “Aeron will take this news about his brother hard.”

“You worry too much about your good-father’s krakens,” Gorold objected. “Your own children see you too rarely. Rodrik’s wilder than ever with Maron off in Winterfell, Asha is too damn clever, like your brother, and Theon…”

“Try and keep the pride out of your voice, it’s hardly the time for it,” Alannys cut back firmly. “We have no proof he’s yours.” But it was true she had her suspicions, and it had always made her the more fond, tender and protective towards her youngest child.

“Anyway, Aeron has his bride to play with now,” Gorold plodded on like the reliable plough-horse he could be when he was trying to be reassuring. “As well as a whole knot of playthings, Tyrell, Frey, Bolton, Manderly, and him the leader for a change. The Greyjoy in Pyke. I’ll wager he’s never had so pleasant a time in his life.”

“There at least you may be right,” Alannys murmured, though a frown seemed to have carved deeper across the high, strong brow from which she carefully brushed her horse-thick, strawy red-gold hair. None of her siblings, few even of her playmates on Harlaw had looked so outlandish. “Though it might be for reasons you’d be a fool to know. Aeron’s natural wit and temper surfaced when Euron left Pyke.”

“Aeron, Euron, even bloody Quellon, I’m sick of them all,” Gorold groused. “Did you not say a moment ago the door was barred.”

“It won’t remain so. This is not the time, not the time at all,” Alannys repeated. “My good-father writes that the Lord Regent has deprived him of his office and summoned him and Lord Botley to the capital. Victarion is to face trial for the murder.”

She turned then speedily, and raised arms that never disdained her share of fetching, carrying and toil to unbar the ravenry door herself, her long grey green apparel slicing an abrasive way through the rushes. Gorold loped behind, embarrassed, baulked, clearly sharpened to the state when she found him most amusing, and moving. There would be another such time for this, when the trouble was over. But would it be?

Dinner at the longhall of Pyke was a curious arrangement now. The highest place belonged by right to Lady Greyjoy, but the Piper woman rarely availed herself of it, keeping more and more to her chambers. After that, young Rodrik, her own and Balon’s eldest son and most undoubtedly his father’s, theoretically had the primacy, but more often and not he wandered about the castle and the island, missing meals, especially grand ones, or even sailed on visits to his cousin and fast friend, Harras Harlaw.

Little Theon and his elder sister Asha flanked their mother, Theon bemused, Asha as watchful as if she had given birth to him herself. It was Aeron who most enjoyed his unwontedly high place, with the noble wards below him, Gorold’s proposed good-son Leo Tyrell and the Northern boys, the quiet one, Domeric and the fat one, Wendel. Sharp-eyed Symond Frey was pinioned opposite the slouching figure of the sleepy Ser Stafford Lannister; little Willamen Frey, already as alert, clever and forward a child as any Maester Korigan had instructed, served as cup-bearer. After that the salt and Sylas Sourtongue divided the higher nobility from the household and the petty sworn men. The newly wed Lady Allyria Greyjoy avoided dining in public near as oft as the Piper woman.

Gorold Goodbrother, the lord deputy on the Isles while Quellon and Balon were at sea, had taken by Alannys’s consent to occupying the head of the board. His wife was off in Hammerhorn. Aeron’s protests on this point were loud, reiterative and tedious.

“You can’t let him stay there, my lady good-sister, he’s no Kraken. The high chair’s legs will rip his feeble limbs to pieces.”

“And would you be cut in half if you chanced to sit in my brother’s seat, then?” rejoined Alannys, thinking fondly of those ancient scythes. “I doubt it very much. The only man who has truly to fear where and when he takes his seat is Leo’s Nuncle Mace.”

“They say the throne rejects him, he gets cut all the time and bleeds like a hog,” piped in the rotund Wendel Manderly. Leo Tyrell barely bothered to spare him his contempt, and Alannys had a faint suspicion Domeric Bolton might have kicked him under the table, though she could not say she greatly cared just now.

“You came from the Ravenry, good-sister?” Aeron enquired. He had got irritatingly observant and more than a little ceremonious since accompanying Balon on the Starfall raid. Though little Aeron was by far Alannys’s favourite among her good-brothers – in many ways among all the brothers – and she was pleased to watch him thrive, sometimes she still preferred the shy, pert child he’d so recently been. Now he was all eagerness for blood and victory, more like her lord husband, whom he worshipped. “Will Balon take Storm’s End?”

“If he did, it would be…very remarkable,” Alannys soothed politely, though she drank back a horn of the castle ale with a rapidity that only Gorold noted. It was a great mercy the young nobles knew so little of how fast the realm was changing…so far.

Then her eyes met the slimy coolness of Symond Frey’s. He wrote to his lord father often enough officially, and more than he let on too. Of course he knew all. She beckoned to have her horn refilled…and from Willamen’s jumpy step, she knew his brother had let him know. Who else? Domeric Bolton always looked like he had quietly reckoned with everything, but surely that was just his habitual air, his unnerving though courteous glance…Leo Tyrell? He was only a minor kinsman of the Regent’s, but almost of age, soon to be wed…Alannys felt an ache for the newly confident Aeron. Was he the last of all his new playmates and admirers to know the true state of affairs?

Wendel’s belch brought her out of these gloomy reflections with fresh relief. If the Freys knew, they knew they were in grave danger, threatened, outlawed and despised. They would have no reason to let it spread. Ser Stafford Lannister must be well-informed, but his pride and stolidity would surely stop him making much use of the fact.

“Lord Goodbrother,” she found herself saying as if without volition. “The maester told us to expect a new bird at this hour. I want to see it immediately. Come with me.” She did not pause to see the effect of her clumsy falsehood, or who might watch them go.

Before they reached the ravenry they were hand in hand, and before the latch was lifted her bodice was unstringed. Gorold was shorter in stature than Quellon and Balon, but he well made up for it. He had strong, reliable arms, not unlike her own, and as he hurled her back upon the table where the dispatches rustled she felt she could be soaring, swimming…

…until she heard the sound of her youngest good-brother’s oath soiling the night, and saw the shadow of a squid tearing at speed back down the stairs.

[Garlan Gunter]

A response to Lord Stannis's Declaration

The latest young Stag declares his intention to overthrow the corrupt Lords of Westeros, and to put in their place the noble Lords of Westeros. All very well and good and fine, but how is he to determine which are which?

He makes mention of me and my sons. My family has just crushed a rebellion whose suppression was beyond his capabilities.

Lord Stannis might be better advised to ponder how his brother died, at whose hands, and why.

More timorous than his gallant, or rash, brother, he aims at the crown without daring to say as much, and so says nothing of moment instead.

Written in the Name of the Eight Gods and the Old,

Quellon Greyjoy, Lord Reaper of Pyke

[Garlan Gunter]

THE LORD CAPTAIN



Of late battle had come to Balon Greyjoy as a pleasing relief. It had been sweeter by far tearing down the gates of Starfall, hemming about the Dornish island prison, and finally reaching out to grasp a prize of note on the mainland, than it was every morn confronting whatever borrowed or captive maester would serve, and hearing maddening reports from the ravenry.

Victarion had never been a brother of signal cunning, no, but neither had Balon ever hitherto adjudged him imbecilic. Even Aeron, the young brother he had long sheltered and defended, was, Alannys reported, since his marriage behaving in such a disturbing manner she and Goodbrother had had him confined to his chambers. Worst of all, and Balon hardly dared admit as much even to himself, he no longer trusted his sire’s judgment. They had often disagreed, on a certain, but always Balon had grudgingly known his father had more to teach him, was still in the end the stronger the wiser. With this folly of false gods and the slipping away of the Royal Fleet, though, the original price of House Greyjoy’s shameful subservience to the Roses, Balon could no longer believe this. By the Drowned God, he had never thought the day would dawn when Euron would seem the most competent of the Kraken’s tentacles.

Always excepting himself. Balon had yet to fail, and did not intend to begin. He marched into the Lord’s hall of Griffin’s Roost with all the pride a master of the Old Way deserved, and sauntered as if without a care up to its high engriffined seat. It was an odder fit perhaps than the Seastone Chair he had sat in his father’s absence, but it had long been the boast of his people that they warmed the thrones of subdued lords wherever the sound of sea and foam were heard. Balon meant to see such days return.

The latest grey mouse was in his wake and none too tardily, bowing fulsomely low. Balon waved him up with disdain. “You will send to my brother and the Cleftjaw upon the Point directly,” he stated rather asked, to hear an echo of ‘directly’ like the murmur of a rip tide. He was already tiring of so spiritless a minion when the saltier diversion of the Wynch, a reliably blood-hungry lieutenant, arrived to vary the maester’s maunders. “Ah, Lord Wynch. The preparations are made?”

“As you willed it, Lord Captain.”

“Good. Maester, pass me my father’s dispatches.”

Balon took the parchments in mailed fingers and riffled at their edges. He was not the dullard he liked to irritate his father by appearing. Just like maesters, paper and quill had their uses, distasteful though such might be to those who were born to the longaxe’s song, the prow’s kiss and the rope’s thresh. He had read all his father had written, and much that he had not written. He knew when to obey, …and when to withhold. “Wynch, call in all the captains. I have an announcement for them.”

Balon missed the Cleftjaw, who would like have brought the other raiding masters in with him already, but at least Wynch was curt about his business. Soon the Griffin’s Hall was about half-filled with its unexpected visitors and captors, harsh men all, ringed about, with grey, hard, storm-flecked stares. Balon felt justly proud of them.

“Captains of the Isles. Sons of the Ironborn. Banners of the Kraken. Children of the Drowned God.” As he named their god alone, contrary to his father’s new practice, there was a satisfied hum that grew to a ragged cheer. “My father bids me take the Griffin Lord’s head, and send it to the Rosy Regent. He gives this command in the name of the Eight Gods and the Old.” As Balon had well known it should, a wounded groan rang about the gables.

“House Greyjoy is leal to King Viserys,” he went on firmly, subduing his restive hearers, if perchance only for a time. “And I am my father’s son. But it was not he who gave us this ripe Roost. Nor was it I. It was He Who Dwells Beneath the Waves alone. And he must have his due.”

“The Griffin to the seas!” Wynch cried, as he had been instructed, and the chord was well struck, re-echoed as sweetly as Balon could have dreamed to hear. He allowed himself a fleeting smile as he nodded.

“The traitor Jon Connington is still a lord born and a fine offering. We shall give him to the waves within the hour. When the God is sated, the Roost is yours to do with as you will. I allow right of pillage without reservation. Then we shall raze this Stormlander midden…and then, make no mistake, we sail. The Iron Fleet returns to her rightful realm, the oceans of which she is the Drowned God’s chosen Regent.”

The acclaim was thunderous, not least from the Wynch who had played his part so finely. But it was not the last mummery, of course, to be performed.

They marshalled there, lords, captains, raiders all, to watch the tall, vigorous red-haired man weighted about with stones and irons meet his end. Balon had not bothered to interrogate his victim, leaving the Wynch to make that arrangement too, but he was impressed by the way in which the sacrifice died, composed, just contemptuously defiant enough, fearless, aye, lordly as the holy salten water whelmed him amid the cheers and catcalls of his conquerors.

Wynch must have told him a pretty tale as regarded his three children…and Balon would keep his side of the bargain. Three young Griffins would make useful leverage, alongside the captive Estermonts, in the matter of Lord Stannis. In the meantime, red-haired Ser Ronald looked quite kin enough to the former Lord of this petty fortalice to pass for him…and the Krakens still had uses enough for Jon Connington.

They put to sea all of them after the day of pillage, and Balon watched the Roost blaze amid a sunset stained by smoke, warmed with surging joy by the helm of his Hunting Kraken. Mayhaps he might converse with his true prisoner soon. There was small hurry about the business, after all.

[Garlan Gunter]

BALON GREYJOY, GRIFFIN'S ROOST: 'Do these Starks think themselves Kings again, to wash their daughter's bastard's name so white?'

EURON GREYJOY, BEFORE HARRENHAL: 'It seems the lady gave birth to twins after all - Brandon Stark and Aegon Snow!'

VICTARION GREYJOY, AT SEA: 'The girl is mine, sealed by blood and worthy in battle, and one day yet she shall well know it.'

[Garlan Gunter]

A GODLY PROCLAMATION



My father was punished by divine wrath not for treason with House Frey, but for forsaking true religion. The Faith of the Seven and its marriages have no place on the Isles.

The sacred custom of saltwivery is hereby restored.

Long be the praises to He Who Reigns Beneath the Waters.

Attested in my name and faith,

Balon Greyjoy, Lord Reaper of Pyke, Son of the Sea Wind



LESSER PROCLAMATIONS OF THE FLESH

My brother Euron I name Lord Captain of the Iron Fleet in my stead.

My brother Victarion I name Lord of Pyke in my stead, until such time, close at hand, as I return thither.

[Garlan Gunter]

AN IRON KING ARISES



Lords of Westeros!

My father Lord Quellon is no more, and though he was a man of cunning and prowess much of his policy by necessity returns with him to the Drowned God's watery halls. I am not he.

But I do not forget him, nor do I forget that the Tyrell Regent was set up with his help, and then that he was basely baulked of his rightful reward to the last.

My people have naught now to do with the wars in which my father embroiled himself. They need peace, good, godly order, and a King they know.

I return home with all speed to sit the Seastone Chair as Iron King, King of Salt and Rock, Son of the Sea Wind, and all my eldern titles of Pyke.

In the wars surrounding me I do not choose to play a willing part. The Iron Throne is naught to me nor mine. But should anyone hinder my homeward passage, be assured he will well know the day when he regrets it.

Furthermore, in consequence of the shiftless Tyrell's footling, strife-addled government of the capital, and of Lord Stannis's victory on the field my people respect - that of battle - House Greyjoy advocates that Lord Stannis should be accepted as Regent in Tyrell's place. But I do not go so far as to deny the boy-king his throne, remembering what my House owes the dragons that once were.

As a show of good faith to Lord Stannis, I release this day to Lord Swann my hostages of Houses Estermont and Connington, kinsmen and rebels to House Baratheon alike, without differentiation.

Attested in my royal name and that of the Drowned God,

Balon of House Greyjoy, Ninth of His Name Since the Grey King, King of the Iron Islands

[Garlan Gunter]

THE CLEFTJAW



“So, my brother is a king now. What that make you, coz? Some kind of lord or prince?” Euron was joshing him, not entirely freshly. Euron rarely spoke but to jibe and jest, though he spoke nonetheless fluently and often. It all made a great change from the son of Lord Quellon the Cleftjaw had come to know best, dour Balon, who now called himself the Ninth of His Name Since the Grey King. But Dagmer bore no grudge and paid small mind. In this regard, perchance, he was well fitted to serve and complement this particular kraken.

“Matters little, but you’re a prince and lord both y’self now…Lord Captain,” he replied quietly through his usefully, imperturbably maimed grin. Much went unspoken in that moment. Dagmer was the most proven and renowned of House Greyjoy’s raiders. Euron was the veteran of one debacle, a battle needlessly lost because of the young Greyjoy’s failed ploy at sneaking about with knives by night. By all reason the Iron Fleet belonged to Dagmer, and both the man and the boy knew a lesser man would have resented that. But Dagmer knew he was kept more from the name than the substance. It was still he who would steady the fleet’s nerve and heighten its ambition, whether astorm or in the line of battle.

“Aye,” Euron answered with false carelessness, pouring a fresh cup of wine pilfered on Whent land. “And such a captain must see to his fleet. I had much unfinished business here elsewise. The black line of Harren’s monstrous fortress contains the House of my father’s slayer.” His flashing blue eyes narrowed as he stared beyond the tent’s scant aperture, across even fires, water-meadows and gentle slopes softened by a night of creamy starlight.

“You mourn him dearly, then?” Dagmer enquired, not bothering to conceal any curiosity, surprise, even a quite definitely sardonic note. Lord Quellon had always been good to him.

“Not unduly, no. But a name as my father’s avenger would have set me well with our people…and rallied their morale, to be sure,” Euron pointed out without delay or scruple.

“These damned Volantenes are no folk of ours. They care neither for my slain lord nor his sons,” Dagmer avowed with a curse and a hawk of rheum upon the grass.

“Aye. But for blood and victory. And there is the rest of my unfinished business. It seems Lord Arryn is quite determined to prove himself to the flowers at our expense. When he next hopes to come upon us, with whatever trouts he catches, we must be ready. That is why these rests must be scant indeed.”

“I know plenty of broken rest,” Dagmer growled, not unamiably, as he instinctively felt for the hairless ridges of his carven mouth.

“And of battle. My father left matters in a pretty state indeed. Whether my brother has just blunted or sharpened it, well, perchance it is too soon to say. But as it seems, every man is against us and we must be ready for aught at march or at sail.” Then Euron smiled, and drank deep. “I do not intend to fall, you see. I grow aweary of yearning for Pyke and the rest of my kin. Especially if my brother means to wear a crown. Why, a king must have heirs.”

“King Balon has four,” Dagmer insisted stoutly, most firmly disliking now whither this talk wended. “Rodrik, Maron, Theon…”

“And darling Asha, the daughter just wed to the west, whom my father would have had us bow to,” Euron murmured, somehow enjoying his own anger, feeding upon it and growing stronger. “While Maron was permitted to go a pawn into the northern wasteland. No, cousin Dagmer, you are fit indeed for counsel of battle, but this you have not considered. I said I missed my kin. Most dearly I meant my smallest, most comical brother.”

“They say Aeron went mad when he took the Dornish maid to wife,” Dagmer proceeded with care. “It was an unlucky match…”

“Perchance so, though my larger brother celebrated it lately with a fine libation of Starfall blood. But what of this, Cleftjaw?” Euron’s stare gleamed now as if the stars had kissed the sea. “What if my brother is no madder than I am? What if little Lanny is as false as they say he screamed she was ere they confined him? Where then does that leave Rodrik, and Maron, and Asha, and Theon?”

Dagmer did not fear the return of the Valeknights and the Trout scouts. This time they were ready. He did not fear lesser fleets abroad. His mind and his vessels were more than their equal. He certainly did not fear the callow high-born cousin beside him, the hollow Lord Captain. Did he? He kept looking at those glittering eyes, until he looked away, and his muttering had a surly catch.

“Victarion returns to see the Isles in order. He will scotch that report soon enough.”

“Will he.” Euron did not annunciate a question. “More of a slayer than a scotcher, my brother, I think. And should the new Kraken king fall…he will need an heir of age, not a child of doubted birthright.”

“He will not fall,” Dagmer stated simply, his words quiet and dull but confidence returning to them. “We march to ensure as much, …Lord Captain. And it is past time we kept doing so. You have drunk enough.”

“Enough? Of wine, it may be so…” Euron replied with a curious air of absence, but the Cleftjaw cared nought for it, rearing himself up to rouse the Volantene camp once more.

[Garlan Gunter]

DECLARATION REGARDING THE SUCCESSION TO THE TWINS





Symond, seventh son to the late and attainted Lord of the Crossing, Walder of House Frey, having received no word as to the intentions of his eldest unattainted brother, Ser Emmon, saving only the rights of the said Ser Emmon does this day lay claim to the Lordship of the Crossing, the towers of the Twins, and the overlordship of Houses Charlton, Haigh, and Erenford.

He admits the treason of his late father, but denies the slander of House Greyjoy's part in the plot, beyond his foster-brother Victarion's blind obedience, of which the law of gods and men has absolved the said Victarion.

In consequence of House Tully's harsh and indiscriminate punishment of his House, Lord Symond defies House Tully and declares his allegiance to his beloved foster-brother and guardian, King Balon of the Isles and the Rivers.

Finally, Lord Symond embraces the true faith of the Drowned God, and dedicates his brother, Willamen, to the service of the Drowned Men.

Avowed under blessings of salt and stone and strength and steel,

Symond Frey, True Lord of the Crossing, Sworn Bannerman to Pyke

[Garlan Gunter]

LEAST OF KRAKENS




There were three of them confined to his scarce chambers now, and his wife was not among them; presumably Alannys and Lord Gorold had small desire to let him find an ally, even in the marriage bed. Aeron’s time with Allyria had been a curious one. She was a sharp enough girl to count herself fortunate that the youngest Greyjoy, not any more seasoned Ironman, had named himself her captor. She would not confess any softness towards him, but in the querulous complaints she had offered him towards his family and people there was closeness of a sort, a presumption that Aeron, for all his youth, could be trusted to protect her. Few had seemed to lay hope or trust in him before, save for perchance his good-sister Lady Alannys. And now Alannys was a queen and a traitress both, holding him in this musted cage under false pretences.

The Lannisters, Ser Stafford and his son Daven, had the freedom of the castle and the Islands themselves, and never visited here; Aeron had not set eyes on the younger one. Leo Tyrell was said to be under guard at Hammerhorn, and Symond Frey had become a close counsellor to Lord Gorold; calm, courteous Domeric Bolton, rumour had it, had already parlayed his way back home through the West. There remained only the younger Frey, quick-witted little Willamen, and the lumbering Wendel Manderly to bear Aeron fellowship. Had his despair been less, he would have found their contrast undeniably funny.

“We shall be back at the Twins before long,” Willamen was saying, mostly addressing himself, his own faltering courage. “If the attainder holds, the castles are Ser Emmon’s by right. If it is overturned, Black Walder may yet take them.” Aeron rather resented how much he involuntarily knew about House Frey’s lineage by now. “Either way, the Lannisters stand by our side.”

Willamen was relatively lucky. While young Manderly was held just as tightly as Aeron himself, Willamen, though under guard, was allowed out to confer with his brother at least every week. Most of the boys’ news came from the sharp-eyed and tongued young weasel, but the slight little Frey was not so very ill-natured, and had even passed on to Aeron what sounded suspiciously like an enquiry of concern from Lady Allyria. But his relative freedom made the Frey undoubtedly irritating during Aeron’s bleaker moods.

Wendel Manderly was, in his way, even worse company. He did not seem to care about his imprisonment, did not even seem surprised, but it had an evident effect upon him. Always evident in his gluttony, he now seemed quite without other interests in existence. Their fare was still adequate, sent from the high table at Pyke. Aeron scorned it with contempt whenever he could spare the strength. He would gnaw no more of that false bitch’s larder than he must.

Aeron’s own hopes were hard and uncompromising, unspoken but no secret for all that. Victarion was a brute, but a fair brute. He would stand with his blood. Unless Alannys gathered the guts or Lord Gorold the wits to have him murdered, Aeron would speak to his brother, the slayer of his good-brother, when the Lord Deputy of Pyke arrived at last. He would be believed. And the tables would turn.

When the commotion stirred among the armsmen at the threshold, Aeron looked for Victarion for the thousandth time. But it was only Symond Frey, an odd sight himself. When he wanted his little half-brother, he had him brought to the solar, never sought him out here.

“Lord Aeron,” Symond acknowledged his very notional host with that ever-present mockery of his. “I have come to a decision of which I thought it best that you should hear as well as Willamen here, for it will mean the loss of his company all too soon. I have decided, with your royal brother’s encouragement, to claim back our old seat.”

“You?!” Willamen spluttered. “What of Black Walder? Ser Emmon?”

“An outlaw likely dead already, and an old woman tied to an ogress in the West? I think not,” Symond answered, his sneer veering all the more stingingly over his thin face. “To fasten our alliance within the new Ironborn kingdom that shall gloriously arise, I have accepted conversion into the Drowned Faith.”

Willamen actually laughed at that, but Aeron did not. Silently he admired Symond’s effrontery; truly, here was a man who made the best of ruin and captivity. He had entered Lord Gorold’s trust, while noticing and appealing to the dour piety of the new king.

“The Drowned God appreciates gifts,” Symond went on, as if uninterrupted, “and, brother, just now you are all I have to give.”

Aeron smirked himself at the pallor of Willamen’s reaction. “What, brother? You mean to…have me drowned?! What kinslaying madness is this? We are both of the handful of our House still at liberty!”

Symond and Aeron were curiously at one in their mirth by now. “They won’t kill you,” Aeron reassured the boy. “Not for long, anyway.”

“You will join the Drowned Men,” Symond explained. “The first Riverman to join the service of the God for centuries. A fine portent, and a seal of trust. The priests will come for you at midnight.”

Anyone who trusted Symond, Aeron reflected, was likely salt-addled already. The elder Frey was already bowing and nodding his unctuous leave.

His last footsteps were oddly re-echoed by the Manderly’s belch. Aeron turned a disgusted glance on him…and saw to his slight alarm that the fat Northern lad’s eyes were glinting.

“Lord Aeron. Our Houses are foes, but you have been good to me in person. As for you, Frey, no God deserves to have you inflicted on his servants. Listen well. I have a plan…”

***

The Drowned Men proved just as amenable to the scheme as Wendel had guessed. A Greyjoy Prince was a far greater catch than a greenlander. So it was that it was given out and affirmed by the priests that Aeron Greyjoy had perished of a swift fever; that Willamen Frey’s body went unmarked into the brine; and that, while Queen Alannys wept guilty tears for Aeron, in deadly secret, the Damphair was born.