“There you are, then.”
“There I am,” the man agreed, in a doubtful tone, “but where am I going to be if she… if I… after we…?”
“… do the deed?” Cersei gave him a barbed smile. “Lying with a queen is treason. Tommen would have no choice but to send you to the Wall.”
“The Wall?” he said with dismay.
It was all she could do not to laugh. No, best not. Men hate being laughed at. “A black cloak would go well with your eyes, and that black hair of yours.”
“No one returns from the Wall.”
“You will. All you need to do is kill a boy.”
“What boy?”
“A bastard boy in league with Stannis. He’s young and green, and you’ll have a hundred men.”
Kettleblack was afraid, she could smell it on him, but he was too proud to own up to that fear. Men are all alike. “I’ve killed more boys than I can count,” he insisted. “Once this boy is dead, I’d get my pardon from the king?”
“That, and a lordship.” Unless Snow’s brothers hang you first. “A queen must have a consort. One who knows no fear.”
“Lord Kettleblack?” A slow smile spread across his face, and his scars flamed red. “Aye, I like the sound o’ that. A lordly lord…”
“… and fit to bed a queen.”
He frowned. “The Wall is cold.”
“And I am warm.” Cersei put her arms about his neck. “Bed a girl and kill a boy and I am yours. Do you have the courage?”
Osney thought a moment before he nodded. “I am your man.”
“You are, ser.” She kissed him, and let him have a little taste of tongue before she broke away. “Enough for now. The rest must wait. Will you dream of me tonight?”
“Aye.” His voice was hoarse.
“And when you’re abed with our Maid Margaery?” she asked him, teasing. “When you’re in her, will you dream of me then?”
“I will,” swore Osney Kettleblack.
“Good.”
After he was gone, Cersei summoned Jocelyn to brush her hair out whilst she slipped off her shoes and stretched like a cat. I was made for this, she told herself. It was the sheer elegance of it that pleased her most. Even Mace Tyrell would not dare defend his darling daughter if she was caught in the act with the likes of Osney Kettleblack, and neither Stannis Baratheon nor Jon Snow would have cause to wonder why Osney was being sent to the Wall. She would see to it that Ser Osmund was the one to discover his brother with the little queen; that way the loyalty of the other two Kettleblacks need not be impugned. If Father could only see me now, he would not be so quick to speak of marrying me off again. A pity he’s so dead. Him and Robert, Jon Arryn, Ned Stark, Renly Baratheon, all dead. Only Tyrion remains, and not for long.
That night the queen summoned Lady Merryweather to her bedchamber. “Will you take a cup of wine?” she asked her.
“A small one.” The Myrish woman laughed. “A big one.”
“On the morrow I want you to pay a call on my good-daughter,” Cersei said as Dorcas was dressing her for bed.
“Lady Margaery is always happy to see me.”
“I know.” The queen did not fail to note the style that Taena used when referring to Tommen’s little wife. “Tell her I’ve sent seven beeswax candles to the Baelor’s Sept in memory of our dear High Septon.”
Taena laughed. “If so, she will send seven-and-seventy candles of her own, so as not to be outmourned.”
“I will be very cross if she does not,” the queen said, smiling. “Tell her also that she has a secret admirer, a knight so smitten with her beauty that he cannot sleep at night.”
“Might I ask Your Grace which knight?” Mischief sparkled in Taena’s big dark eyes. “Could it be Ser Osney?”
“It could be,” the queen said, “but do not offer up that name freely. Make her worm it out of you. Will you do that?”
“If it please you. That is all I wish, Your Grace.”
Outside a cold wind was rising. They stayed up late into the morning, drinking Arbor gold and telling one another tales. Taena got quite drunk and Cersei pried the name of her secret lover from her. He was a Myrish sea captain, half a pirate, with black hair to the shoulders and a scar that ran across his face from chin to ear. “A hundred times I told him no, and he said yes,” the other woman told her, “until finally I was saying yes as well. He was not the sort of man to be denied.”
“I know the sort,” the queen said with a wry smile.
“Has Your Grace ever known a man like that, I wonder?”
“Robert,” she lied, thinking of Jaime.
Yet when she closed her eyes, it was the other brother that she dreamt of, and the three wretched fools with whom she had begun her day. In the dream it was Tyrion’s head they brought her in their sack. She had it bronzed, and kept it in her chamber pot.
THE IRON CAPTAIN
The wind was blowing from the north as the Iron Victory came round the point and entered the holy bay called Nagga’s Cradle.
Victarion joined Nute the Barber at her prow. Ahead loomed the sacred shore of Old Wyk and the grassy hill above it, where the ribs of Nagga rose from the earth like the trunks of great white trees, as wide around as a dromond’s mast and twice as tall.
The bones of the Grey King’s Hall. Victarion could feel the magic of this place. “Balon stood beneath those bones, when first he named himself a king,” he recalled. “He swore to win us back our freedoms, and Tarle the Thrice-Drowned placed a driftwood crown upon his head. ‘BALON!’ they cried. ‘BALON! BALON KING!’”
“They will shout your name as loud,” said Nute.
Victarion nodded, though he did not share the Barber’s certainty. Balon had three sons, and a daughter he loved well.
He had said as much to his captains at Moat Cailin, when first they urged him to claim the Seastone Chair. “Balon’s sons are dead,” Red Ralf Stonehouse had argued, “and Asha is a woman. You were your brother’s strong right arm, you must pick up the sword that he let fall.” When Victarion reminded them that Balon had commanded him to hold the Moat against the northmen, Ralf Kenning said, “The wolves are broken, lord. What good to win this swamp and lose the isles?” And Ralf the Limper added, “The Crow’s Eye has been too long away. He knows us not.”
Euron Greyjoy, King of the Isles and the North. The thought woke an old rage in his heart, but still…
“Words are wind,” Victarion told them, “and the only good wind is that which fills our sails. Would you have me fight the Crow’s Eye? Brother against brother, ironborn against ironborn?” Euron was still his elder, no matter how much bad blood might be between them. No man is as accursed as the kinslayer.
But when the Damphair’s summons came, the call to kingsmoot, then all was changed. Aeron speaks with the Drowned God’s voice, Victarion reminded himself, and if the Drowned God wills that I should sit the Seastone Chair… The next day he gave command of Moat Cailin to Ralf Kenning and set off overland for the Fever River where the Iron Fleet lay amongst the reeds and willows. Rough seas and fickle winds had delayed him, but only one ship had been lost, and he was home.
Grief and Iron Vengeance were close behind as Iron Victory passed the headland. Behind came Hardhand, Iron Wind, Grey Ghost, Lord Quellon, Lord Vickon, Lord Dagon, and the rest, nine-tenths of the Iron Fleet, sailing on the evening tide in a ragged column that extended back long leagues. The sight of their sails filled Victarion Greyjoy with content. No man had ever loved his wives half as well as the Lord Captain loved his ships.
Along the sacred strand of Old Wyk, longships lined the shore as far as the eye could see, their masts thrust up like spears. In the deeper waters rode prizes: cogs, carracks, and dromonds won in raid or war, too big to run ashore. From prow and stern and mast flew familiar banners.
Nute the Barber squinted toward the strand. “Is that Lord Harlaw’s Sea Song?” The Barber was a thickset man with bandy legs and long arms, but his eyes were not so keen as they had be
en when he was young. In those days he could throw an axe so well that men said he could shave you with it.
“Sea Song, aye.” Rodrik the Reader had left his books, it would seem. “And there’s old Drumm’s Thunderer, with Blacktyde’s Nightflyer beside her.” Victarion’s eyes were as sharp as they had ever been. Even with their sails furled and their banners hanging limp, he knew them, as befit the Lord Captain of the Iron Fleet. “Silverfin too. Some kin of Sawane Botley.” The Crow’s Eye had drowned Lord Botley, Victarion had heard, and his heir had died at Moat Cailin, but there had been brothers, and other sons as well. How many? Four? No, five, and none with any cause to love the Crow’s Eye.
And then he saw her: a single-masted galley, lean and low, with a dark red hull. Her sails, now furled, were black as a starless sky. Even at anchor Silence looked both cruel and fast. On her prow was a black iron maiden with one arm outstretched. Her waist was slender, her breasts high and proud, her legs long and shapely. A windblown mane of black iron hair streamed from her head, and her eyes were mother-of-pearl, but she had no mouth.
Victarion’s hands closed into fists. He had beaten four men to death with those hands, and one wife as well. Though his hair was flecked with hoarfrost, he was as strong as he had ever been, with a bull’s broad chest and a boy’s flat belly. The kinslayer is accursed in the eyes of gods and men, Balon had reminded him on the day he sent the Crow’s Eye off to sea.
“He is here,” Victarion told the Barber. “Drop sail. We proceed on oars alone. Command Grief and Iron Vengeance to stand between Silence and the sea. The rest of the fleet to seal the bay. None is to leave save at my command, neither man nor crow.”
The men upon the shore had spied their sails. Shouts echoed across the bay as friends and kin called out greetings. But not from Silence. On her decks a motley crew of mutes and mongrels spoke no word as the Iron Victory drew nigh. Men black as tar stared out at him, and others squat and hairy as the apes of Sothoros. Monsters, Victarion thought.
They dropped anchor twenty yards from Silence. “Lower a boat. I would go ashore.” He buckled on his swordbelt as the rowers took their places; his longsword rested on one hip, a dirk upon the other. Nute the Barber fastened the Lord Captain’s cloak about his shoulders. It was made of nine layers of cloth-of-gold, sewn in the shape of the kraken of Greyjoy, arms dangling to his boots. Beneath he wore heavy grey chain mail over boiled black leather. In Moat Cailin he had taken to wearing mail day and night. Sore shoulders and an aching back were easier to bear than bloody bowels. The poisoned arrows of the bog devils need only scratch a man, and a few hours later he would be squirting and screaming as his life ran down his legs in gouts of red and brown. Whoever wins the Seastone Chair, I shall deal with the bog devils.
Victarion donned a tall black warhelm, wrought in the shape of an iron kraken, its arms coiled down around his cheeks to meet beneath his jaw. By then the boat was ready. “I put the chests into your charge,” he told Nute as he climbed over the side. “See that they are strongly guarded.” Much depended on the chests.
“As you command, Your Grace.”
Victarion returned a sour scowl. “I am no king as yet.” He clambered down into the boat.
Aeron Damphair was waiting for him in the surf with his waterskin slung beneath one arm. The priest was gaunt and tall, though shorter than Victarion. His nose rose like a shark’s fin from a bony face, and his eyes were iron. His beard reached to his waist, and tangled ropes of hair slapped at the back of his legs when the wind blew. “Brother,” he said as the waves broke white and cold around their ankles, “what is dead can never die.”
“But rises again, harder and stronger.” Victarion lifted off his helm and knelt. The bay filled his boots and soaked his breeches as Aeron poured a stream of salt water down upon his brow. And so they prayed.
“Where is our brother Crow’s Eye?” the Lord Captain demanded of Aeron Damphair when the prayers were done.
“His is the great tent of cloth-of-gold, there where the din is loudest. He surrounds himself with godless men and monsters, worse than before. In him our father’s blood went bad.”
“Our mother’s blood as well.” Victarion would not speak of kinslaying, here in this godly place beneath the bones of Nagga and the Grey King’s Hall, but many a night he dreamed of driving a mailed fist into Euron’s smiling face, until the flesh split and his bad blood ran red and free. I must not. I pledged my word to Balon. “All have come?” he asked his priestly brother.
“All who matter. The captains and the kings.” On the Iron Islands they were one and the same, for every captain was a king on his own deck, and every king must be a captain. “Do you mean to claim our father’s crown?”
Victarion imagined himself seated on the Seastone Chair. “If the Drowned God wills it.”
“The waves will speak,” said Aeron Damphair as he turned away. “Listen to the waves, brother.”
“Aye.” He wondered how his name would sound whispered by waves and shouted by the captains and the kings. If the cup should pass to me, I will not set it by.
A crowd had gathered round to wish him well and seek his favor. Victarion saw men from every isle: Blacktydes, Tawneys, Orkwoods, Stonetrees, Wynches, and many more. The Goodbrothers of Old Wyk, the Goodbrothers of Great Wyk, and the Goodbrothers of Orkmont all had come. The Codds were there, though every decent man despised them. Humble Shepherds, Weavers, and Netleys rubbed shoulders with men from Houses ancient and proud; even humble Humbles, the blood of thralls and salt wives. A Volmark clapped Victarion on the back; two Sparrs pressed a wineskin into his hands. He drank deep, wiped his mouth, and let them bear him off to their cookfires, to listen to their talk of war and crowns and plunder, and the glory and the freedom of his reign.
That night the men of the Iron Fleet raised a huge sailcloth tent above the tideline, so Victarion might feast half a hundred famous captains on roast kid, salted cod, and lobster. Aeron came as well. He ate fish and drank water, whilst the captains quaffed enough ale to float the Iron Fleet. Many promised him their voices: Fralegg the Strong, clever Alvyn Sharp, humpbacked Hotho Harlaw. Hotho offered him a daughter for his queen. “I have no luck with wives,” Victarion told him. His first wife died in childbed, giving him a stillborn daughter. His second had been stricken by a pox. And his third…
“A king must have an heir,” Hotho insisted. “The Crow’s Eye brings three sons to show before the kingsmoot.”
“Bastards and mongrels. How old is this daughter?”
“Twelve,” said Hotho. “Fair and fertile, newly flowered, with hair the color of honey. Her breasts are small as yet, but she has good hips. She takes after her mother, more than me.”
Victarion knew that to mean the girl did not have a hump. Yet when he tried to picture her, he only saw the wife he’d killed. He had sobbed each time he struck her, and afterward carried her down to the rocks to give her to the crabs. “I will gladly look at the girl once I am crowned,” he said. That was as much as Hotho dared hope for, and he shambled off, content.
Baelor Blacktyde was more difficult to please. He sat by Victarion’s elbow in his lambswool tunic of black-and-green vairy, smooth-faced and comely. His cloak was sable, and pinned with a silver seven-pointed star. He had been eight years a hostage in Oldtown, and had returned a worshiper of the seven green land gods. “Balon was mad, Aeron is madder, and Euron is maddest of them all,” Lord Baelor said. “What of you, Lord Captain? If I shout your name, will you make an end of this mad war?”
Victarion frowned. “Would you have me bend the knee?”
“If need be. We cannot stand alone against all Westeros. King Robert proved that, to our grief. Balon would pay the iron price for freedom, he said, but our women bought Balon’s crowns with empty beds. My mother was one such. The Old Way is dead.”
“What is dead can never die, but rises harder and stronger. In a hundred years men will sing of Balon the Bold.”
“Balon the Widowmaker, call him. I will glad
ly trade his freedom for a father. Have you one to give me?” When Victarion did not answer, Blacktyde snorted and moved off.
The tent grew hot and smoky. Two of Gorold Goodbrother’s sons knocked a table over fighting; Will Humble lost a wager and had to eat his boot; Little Lenwood Tawney fiddled whilst Romny Weaver sang “The Bloody Cup” and “Steel Rain” and other old reaving songs. Qarl the Maid and Eldred Codd danced the finger dance. A roar of laughter went up when one of Eldred’s fingers landed in Ralf the Limper’s wine cup.
A woman was amongst those laughing. Victarion rose and saw her by the tent flap, whispering something in the ear of Qarl the Maid that made him laugh as well. He had hoped she would not be fool enough to come here, yet the sight of her made him smile all the same. “Asha,” he called in a commanding voice. “Niece.”
She made her way to his side, lean and lithe in high boots of salt-stained leather, green woolen breeches, and brown quilted tunic, a sleeveless leather jerkin half-unlaced. “Nuncle.” Asha Greyjoy was tall for a woman, yet she had to stand on her toes to kiss his cheek. “I am pleased to see you at my queensmoot.”
“Queensmoot?” Victarion laughed. “Are you drunk, niece? Sit. I did not spy your Black Wind on the strand.”
“I beached her beneath Norne Goodbrother’s castle and rode across the island.” She sat upon a stool and helped herself unasked to Nute the Barber’s wine. Nute raised no objection; he had passed out drunk some time ago. “Who holds the Moat?”
“Ralf Kenning. With the Young Wolf dead, only the bog devils remain to plague us.”
“The Starks were not the only northmen. The Iron Throne has named the Lord of the Dreadfort as Warden of the North.”
“Would you lesson me in warfare? I was fighting battles when you were sucking mother’s milk.”
“And losing battles too.” Asha took a drink of wine.
Victarion did not like to be reminded of Fair Isle. “Every man should lose a battle in his youth, so he does not lose a war when he is old. You have not come to make a claim, I hope.”
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