The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones

by George R. R. Martin

  Other companies of note include the Bright Banners, the Stormcrows, the Long Lances, and the Company of the Cat. Other companies besides the Golden Company have been formed by men from the Seven Kingdoms, such as the Stormbreakers, which was founded in the aftermath of the Dance of the Dragons, or the Company of the Rose, formed by wild men (and, according to some accounts, women) from the North who refused to bend the knee, after Torrhen Stark gave up his crown, and instead chose exile across the narrow sea.

  The wars amongst Tyrosh, Lys, and Myr have not only fueled the births of the free companies in the Disputed Lands but have brought about the formation of fleets of pirates and seaborne mercenaries as well, sellsails ready to fight for whoever will pay. Most are based in the Stepstones, the isles that dot the narrow sea between the Broken Arm and the eastern coast.

  These pirate fleets make any journey through the Stepstones treacherous. It is said that the swan-ships of the Summer Isles sometimes avoid the Stepstones entirely, risking the deep sea rather than chancing an attack by corsairs. Others with less skill at sea, and vessels less fit for the deep ocean, have no choice. These pirate dens, when they grow too volatile and numerous, are sometimes swept clean by the fleets of the archons of Tyrosh or the triarchs of Volantis or even the Sealords of Braavos. But they always manage to return.

  A Tyroshi merchant. (illustration credit 167)

  In times past, the pirates have caused enough turmoil that royal fleets have been sent from King’s Landing and Dragonstone to deal with them. Lord Oakenfist himself spent more than one season hunting pirates, to great acclaim, and the Young Dragon intended to wed a sister to the Sealord of Braavos to seal an alliance with him, with the aim of removing the pirates that were hindering trade with the newly conquered Dorne. Grand Maester Kaeth discusses this at length in Lives of Four Kings, arguing that here King Daeron erred, for talk of a marriage alliance with Braavos, which was at that time at war with Pentos and Lys, emboldened the other Free Cities to lend crucial aid to the Dornish rebels.

  PENTOS

  Pentos is the nearest of the Free Cities to King’s Landing, and trading ships pass back and forth between the two cities on an almost daily basis. Founded by Valyrians as a trading outpost, Pentos soon absorbed the hinterlands surrounding it, from the Velvet Hills and the Little Rhoyne to the sea, including almost the whole of the ancient realm of Andalos, the original homeland of the Andals. The first Pentoshi were merchants, traders, seafarers, and farmers, with few of high birth amongst them; perhaps for this reason, they were less protective of their Valyrian blood and more willing to breed with the original inhabitants of the lands they ruled. As a consequence there is considerable Andal blood amongst the men of Pentos, making them perhaps our closest cousins.

  Despite this, the Pentoshi hold to customs very different from those of the Seven Kingdoms. Pentos counts itself a daughter of Valyria—and the old blood can indeed be found there. In elder days, the city was ruled by a prince of high and noble birth, chosen from amongst the adult males of the so-called forty families. Once chosen, the Prince of Pentos ruled for life; when one prince died, another would be chosen, almost always from a different family.

  Over the centuries, however, the power of the prince steadily eroded, whilst that of the city magisters who chose him grew. Today it is the council of magisters that rules Pentos, for all practical purposes; the prince’s power is largely nominal, his duties almost entirely ceremonial. In the main, he presides over feasts and balls, carried from place to place in a rich palanquin with a handsome guard. Each new year, the prince must deflower two maidens, the maid of the sea and the maid of the fields. This ancient ritual—perhaps arising from the mysterious origins of pre-Valyrian Pentos—is meant to ensure the continued prosperity of Pentos on land and at sea. Yet, if there is famine or if a war is lost, the prince becomes not a ruler but a sacrifice; his throat is slit so that the gods might be appeased. And then a new prince is chosen who might bring more fortune to the city.

  The Free City of Pentos. (illustration credit 168)

  Given the risks attendant to the office, not all the nobles of Pentos are eager to be chosen to wear the city’s crown. Indeed, some have been known to refuse this ancient but perilous honor. The most recent and famous of these is the notorious sellsword captain called the Tattered Prince. As a youth, he was elected by the magisters of Pentos after a long drought and the execution of the previous prince in the year 262 AC. Rather than accept the honor, he fled the city, never to return. He sold his sword, taking part in battles in the Disputed Lands, then founded one of the newer free companies of the East, the Windblown.

  For most of its history, slavery was widely practiced in Pentos, and Pentoshi ships played an active role in the slave trade. Several centuries ago, however, this practice brought the city into conflict with her northern neighbor, Braavos, the “bastard daughter of Valyria,” founded by a fleet of escaped slaves. Over the course of the last two hundred years, no less than six wars have been fought between the two cities over this issue (and, it must be pointed out, for control of the rich lands and waters that lie between them).

  Four of these ended in Braavosi victory and Pentoshi submission. The last of them, concluded one-and-ninety years ago, went so poorly for Pentos that no fewer than four princes were chosen and sacrificed within the span of a single year. The fifth man in this bloody succession, Prince Nevio Narratys, convinced the magisters to sue for peace after a rare victory—one, it was rumored, that Nevio purchased by means of bribes. In the peace accords, Pentos was forced to make certain concessions—most notably the abolition of slavery and a withdrawal from the slave trade.

  These provisions remain the law in Pentos to this day though certain observers have noted that many Pentoshi ships evade the prohibition against the slave trade by running Lysene or Myrish banners up their masts when challenged, whilst in the city itself there are tens of thousands of “free bond servants” who seem to be slaves in all but name, for they are collared and branded much like their counterparts in Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh, and subject to similar savage disciplines. In law, these bond servants are free men and women, with the right to refuse service as they will … provided they are not in debt to their masters. Almost all of them are, however, since the value of their labor is oft less than the costs of the food, clothing, and shelter provided them by those they serve, so that their debt grows rather than diminishes over time.

  A further provision of the peace accords between Braavos and Pentos limits the Pentoshi to no more than twenty warships and prohibits them from hiring sellswords, entering into contracts with free companies, or maintaining any army beyond the city watch. Undoubtedly these are among the reasons that the Pentoshi are now notably less belligerent than the people of Tyrosh, Myr, and Lys. Despite its massive walls, Pentos is oft seen as the most vulnerable of the Free Cities.

  For this reason, its magisters have adopted a conciliatory attitude not only toward the other Free Cities but also with the Dothraki horselords, cultivating a precarious friendship with a series of strong khals over the years, and showering lavish gifts and chests of gold upon any who brought their khalasars east of the Rhoyne.

  VOLANTIS

  The greatest, richest, and most powerful of the Nine Free cities are Braavos and Volantis. And there is a curious connection between the two, for in many ways they stand in opposition to one another. Braavos lies in the far north of Essos, and Volantis to the far south; Volantis is the oldest of the Free Cities, and Braavos the youngest; Braavos was founded by slaves, whilst Volantis is built upon their bones; Braavos’s greatest might is at sea, whilst that of Volantis is upon the land. Yet both remain formidable powers, their histories deeply marked by the Freehold of Valyria.

  Ancient and glorious, Old Volantis—as the city is oft named—sprawls across one of the four mouths of the Rhoyne, where that mighty river flows into the Summer Sea. The older districts of the city lie upon the eastern banks, the newer on the west, but even the newest areas of V
olantis are many centuries old. The two halves of the city are linked by the Long Bridge.

  The heart of Old Volantis is the city-within-the-city—an immense labyrinth of ancient palaces, courtyards, towers, temples, cloisters, bridges, and cellars, all contained within the great oval of the Black Walls raised by the Freehold of Valyria in the first flush of its youthful expansion. Two hundred feet tall, and so thick that six four-horse chariots can race along their battlements side by side (as they do each year to celebrate the founding of the city), these seamless walls of fused black dragonstone, harder than steel or diamond, stand in mute testimony to Volantis’s origins as a military outpost.

  Only those who can trace their ancestry back to Old Valyria are allowed to dwell within the Black Walls; no slave, freedman, or foreigner is permitted to set foot within without the express invitation of a scion of the Old Blood.

  For the first century of its existence, Volantis was little more than a military outpost established to protect the borders of the Valyrian empire, with no inhabitants save the soldiers of its garrison. From time to time dragonlords descended to take refreshment or meet with envoys from the Rhoynar cities upriver. Over time, however, taverns and brothels and stables began to sprout up outside the Black Walls, and merchant ships began to call as well.

  Many of the Old Blood of Volantis still keep the old gods of Valyria, but their faith is found primarily within the Black Walls. Without, the red god R’hllor is favored by many, especially among the slaves and freedmen of the city. The Temple of the Lord of Light in Volantis is said to be the greatest in all the world; in Remnants of the Dragonlords, Archmaester Gramyon claims that it is fully three times larger than the Great Sept of Baelor. All who serve within this mighty temple are slaves, bought as children and trained to become priests, temple prostitutes, or warriors; these wear the flames of their fiery god as tattoos upon their faces. Of the warriors, little enough is said, though they are called the Fiery Hand, and they never number more or less than one thousand members.

  Blessed with a magnificent natural harbor and an ideal location at the mouth of the Rhoyne, Volantis began to grow rapidly. Homes and shops and inns spread up the east bank of the river and into the hills beyond the Black Walls, whilst across the Rhoyne on the west bank the foreigners, freedmen, sellswords, criminals, and other less savory elements threw up their own shadow city, where fornication, drunkenness, and murder held sway, and eunuchs, pirates, cutpurses, and necromancers mingled freely.

  In time the lawless city on the west bank became such a cesspit of crime and depravity that the triarchs had no choice but to send their slave soldiers across the Rhoyne to restore order and some semblance of decency. Strong tides and treacherous shifting currents made the crossings difficult, however, so after some years, the triarch Vhalaso the Munificent commanded that a bridge be built across the Rhoyne.

  Those same tides and currents, and the river’s width, made the building an epic task, requiring more than forty years and many millions of honors. Triarch Vhalaso did not live to see what he had wrought … but once completed, the Long Bridge had no rivals save for the Bridge of Dream in the Rhoynar festival city of Chroyane. Strong enough to support the weight of a thousand elephants (or so it is claimed), the Long Bridge of Volantis stands today as the longest bridge in all the known world. Lomas Longstrider named it one of the nine wonders made by man in his book of that title.

  For much of its early history, Volantis benefited from the trade between Valyria and the Rhoynar, waxing ever more prosperous and powerful … whilst Sarhoy, the ancient and beautiful Rhoynish city that had previously dominated that commerce, suffered a corresponding decline. Inevitably, this led the two cities into conflict. The long series of wars that followed, the details of which have been recounted elsewhere, culminated with the utter destruction of the cities of the Rhoyne and the flight of Nymeria and her ten thousand ships. Though the dragonlords of Valyria won the victory, it is rightly said that Volantis was the principal beneficiary. Sarhoy remains in ruins to this day, a desolate and haunted place, whilst Volantis, with its Long Bridge and Black Walls and huge harbor, ranks amongst the great cities of the world.

  Inside the Black Walls, Volantenes of the Old Blood still keep court in ancient palaces, attended by armies of slaves. Outside, the foreigners, freedmen, and lowborn of a hundred nations may be found. Seafarers and traders swarm the city’s markets and harbors, together with slaves almost beyond count. It is said that in Volantis, there are five slaves for every free man—a disproportion in numbers matched only by the ancient Ghiscari cities of Slaver’s Bay.

  The custom in Volantis is that the faces of all slaves are to be tattooed—marked for life to show their status, and carrying that burden of the past even if they are freed. The styles of tattooing are many, and are sometimes disfiguring. The slave soldiers of Volantis wear green tiger stripes upon their faces, which denote their rank; prostitutes are marked by a single tear beneath their right eye; the slaves that collect the dung of horses and elephants are marked with flies; fools and jesters wear motley; the drivers of the hathays, the carts pulled by the small elephants of Volantis, are marked with wheels; and so on.

  Slave markings of Volantis. (illustration credit 169)

  Volantis is a freehold, and all freeborn landholders have a voice in the governance of the city. Three triarchs are elected annually to administer her laws, command her fleets and armies, and share in the day-to-day rule of the city. The election of the triarchs occurs over the course of ten days, in a process that is both festive and tumultuous. In recent centuries, the office has been dominated by two competing factions, unofficially known as the tigers and the elephants.

  Partisans of various candidates—and of the two factions—rally on behalf of their chosen leaders, dispensing favors to the populace. All freeborn landholders—even women—are granted a vote. Though the process strikes many outsiders as chaotic to the point of madness, power passes peacefully enough on most occasions.

  After the Doom engulfed Valyria and the Lands of the Long Summer, Volantis asserted its right to rule over all the other Valyrian colonies throughout the world. Such was the might of the “First Daughter” that for a time she succeeded in establishing hegemony over several of the other Free Cities during the Century of Blood. Eventually, the Volantene empire collapsed of its own weight, brought down by an alliance of those sister cities that still remained free and the rebellion of those that had been subdued.

  Many Volantenes regard themselves as the natural and rightful successors to the dragonlords of old Valyria and desire to achieve dominance over the other Free Cities and, in time, the world. The tigers advocate achieving this dominance through war and conquest, whereas the elephants prefer a policy of trade and growing wealth.

  Since that time, the elephants—the more peaceable of the Volantene factions—have dominated the annual choosing and the office of triarch. Yet years of expansion under the tigers gave Volantis control over several lesser cities, most notable amongst them the great river “towns” of Volon Therys, Valysar, and Selhorys (each larger and more populous than King’s Landing or Oldtown). The Volantenes also control the Rhoyne as far as the tributary river Selhoru, and hold sway over the Orange Coast to the west. These lands are protected by slave soldiers against the Dothraki horselords, who sometimes test the Volantene defenses, and the other Free Cities, who attempt to grow stronger at the expense of their sister city.

  While Volantene elections are mostly peaceful, there have been significant exceptions. Nysseos Qoheros’s Journals contain a report of the Triarch Horonno, who had been returned as triarch for forty years running, for he was a great hero during the Century of Blood. After his fortieth election, he declared himself triarch for life, and though the Volantenes loved him, they did not love him so much as to see their ancient customs and laws usurped for his ease. He was seized by rioters not long after, stripped of rank and title, and torn apart by war elephants.

  The execution of the Triarch
Horonno. (illustration credit 170)

  BRAAVOS

  At the far northwestern corner of Essos, where the Shivering Sea and the narrow sea come together, the Free City of Braavos stands upon its famed “hundred isles” amidst the shallow brackish waters of a fog-shrouded lagoon.

  The youngest of the Nine Free Cities, Braavos is also the wealthiest, and in all likelihood the most powerful. Originally founded by escaped slaves, its humble beginnings were rooted in nothing more than a desire to be free. For a great part of its early history, its secret status made it of little consequence in the wider world. But in time it grew, eventually emerging as a power almost without rival.

  Neither prince nor king commands in Braavos, where the rule belongs to the Sealord, chosen by the city’s magisters and keyholders from amongst the citizenry by a process as convoluted as it is arcane. From his vast waterside palace, the Sealord commands a fleet of warships second to none and a mercantile fleet whose purple hulls and purple sails have become a common sight throughout the known world.