The Lion and the Rose: South

[Garlan Gunter]

A Device for the Succession and Governance of Driftmark

Lord Monterys Velaryon, Master of Driftmark, Lord of the Tides, does hereby declare his trusted and well-beloved uncle, Aurane Velaryon, Lord Regent of Driftmark and Admiral of Blackwater Bay, to be his sole and undisputed heir until such time as he should produce lawful issue.

Furthermore, Lord Velaryon announces his own betrothal to the Princess Loreza of House Martell, and that of his aforesaid trusty uncle and regent, Aurane Velaryon, to the Lady Brienne, of House Tarth, and heiress to the Sapphire Isle. The weddings are to be celebrated at Driftmark upon the arrival of the brides

Finally, Lord Velaryon, at the advice of his uncle and regent aforesaid, announces the intention of retiring, for his own greater safety and that of his bride, upon a tour of the Free Cities, trusting in his uncle the Lord Regent and Admiral to safeguard his dominions until his education be complete and the war concluded.

Long live the true king!

[Garlan Gunter]

A Further Declaration, for the Avoidance of Doubt

House Velaryon forthwith hauls up the dragon banners of House Targaryen. We are the Old, the True, the Brave, as we have ever been! To be certain, Lord Monford Velaryon burned fighting for Lord Stannis on the Blackwater; but Lord Lucerys was Master of Ships to King Aerys before him, and at the time of the Blackwater no true dragon claimant was to be found in Westeros.

Now affairs are quite different. Fire and Blood.

Signed in the sight of the old gods and the new,

Lord Monterys Velaryon, Master of Driftmark, Lord of the Tides

Aurane Velaryon, Lord Regent of Driftmark

[Garlan Gunter]

THE LORD OF THE TIDES




The old, the true, the brave. Lord Monterys Velaryon was but young, seven at his last, late nameday, when mourning black for his lord father palled over the sea horses of an island lorn and bereft. Neither did he feel so very brave, now, though some tremor of courage had thrilled through him in the grey morn not long since, when he rode at the poop deck of his uncle’s flagship, Seasmoke – once the King Robert – to visit Crackclaw Point. But he did hope, at the very least, to be true.

His father been true and brave both, but he had fallen all too young, blazed to death in the cause of Lord Stannis. A grim time had succeeded, when the fortress of Driftmark was cramped with hard-faced Stormlanders, scheming Reachmen, and Queen’s Men with half-mad glances in their sharp eyes. That was before the young lord’s bastard nuncle had come back.

Smile at Aurane if you will, but pay him small heed. He is the pleasantest and the lightest of your grandsire’s follies, so Monterys’s own father had half-jibed, half-warned him with a queer grin, when he was scarce more than a babe. His grandsire, Lord Lucerys Velaryon, Master of Ships, had fought for the Dragon Kings to the end, and drowned for them. His father, Lord Monford, had served the stags warily but truly, and had burned for them. As for Aurane, he seemed much as his trueborn brother had warned, a genial, witty spirit, more like a young cousin than an uncle, free as the wind and of little more weight. Only we Velaryons made our fortunes by the winds. Father should have guessed they would blow his bastard brother back some day.

Aurane Waters, not even a knight but known all over the Narrow Sea for a skilled sailor, had gone away for a mariner when hardly a man grown. When Lord – no, we called him King in those days – Stannis had called the banners, Aurane returned for the first time, a sellsail captain with a pointed beard and half a dozen fast galleys. He followed my father to Dragonstone and the Blackwater, and after Maester Falgird got that raven, we never expected either back. Only defeated men had come then, stern King’s Men and Queen’s both, who insisted on naming Monterys as Lord. They had authority for that. More than a few of them had seen his father die.

But it was not the last men heard or told of the Bastard of Driftmark. He was noised to have been made a captive, to have forsworn the beaten cause of Stannis before the Iron Throne. He was seen at court; he had won the false king Joffrey’s favour there; he was sure to be named Master of Ships, even as his father Lord Lucerys had once been. And then, on the night the sky turned red, Aurane Waters returned to Driftmark.

Stannis’s garrison had not expected an attack so soon, nor in such force – all the might of a ruined capital in freefall, carried on vast dromonds built like fortresses. The stag in its fiery heart was seized down, and nothing succeeded it. The seahorse flew alone. Lord Aurane – he called himself lord, admiral and regent all now – was whispered to be Tommen’s man still, to have heeded the false king’s spymaster, Qyburn, close at his side. But if that were so, he did nothing to prove it, save to give Qyburn, lord or not, hard lodgings, worse by far than Maester Falgird’s.

When Aurane joined his nephew – and it was not infrequently – he was as jolly a nuncle as ever. On the whole, Monterys preferred this new life, with close kin at his side again. The old maester seemed less happy, especially whenever the Lord Regent saw Qyburn alone. For himself, Monterys rather liked Qyburn, whether villain, traitor and sorcerer or not, with his funny white robes and his friendly, intriguing, grandfatherly smile. But Lord Aurane kept his young lord and ward out of the old spymaster’s way quite as firmly as Falgird could have desired.

That was the argument that had brought him here, a lord hiding in his own castle solar, nestled behind a faded tapestry where the Sea Snake’s vessel had conveniently see-through rigging. For Monterys was interested enough in the one Falgird called false master to a false king to want to observe his speech to his nuncle in secret. To prove the maester’s fears misguided once and for all.

No doubt they had much to discuss, Uncle Aurane and Qyburn. The former goldcloaks, Velaryon men, everyone said it was past time for the Regent to choose a new king. The fate of Claw Isle was a warning. That must have been what his nuncle had been about, conferring that morn with the Crackclaw petty lords. And it was the bastard’s voice that came first now, fair as a lute, stinging as a knife-cut.

“Our preparations were made. That old fool’s hoard was our best hope. You ought to have foreseen this. It is to foresee such things that I feed you, rather than the fishes upon you.”

He was an elegant figure, Uncle Aurane, in the slashed silk coloured for Driftmark with a splash of crimson samite thrown boldly over one shoulder. He was grinning, as ever, but he was angered for all that, angry as, Monterys realised now, he never let himself appear before his nephew.

“You might use gentler courtesies with me, Lord Waters,” the spymaster replied in his appeasing voice, kindly, weary, reasonable. “I am as much a lord as yourself, after all.”

“Aye, and we both know how much that is. Enough prating, old man. I have a leal garrison and a scatheless fleet. You have a price on your head for murder, banditry and the gods know what else, in any man’s dominion but mine. Have a care.”

Qyburn’s smile and his temper matched the bastard’s, Monterys saw with a quiver, as well as a dancer’s, or an adversary with blade in hand. “Who slew the Knight of Flowers, my lord of the Waters?”

Aurane’s gesture was dismissive enough to make the tapestry skew. “The avenger of King Joffrey. Ser Loras was Kingslayer the Second, sure as my mother whored in Hull, and I was fond of that bloodcraving whelp. He had hinted I was to have Dragonstone when the war was done.” The bastard’s laugh was hollow. “Now it’d seem Dragonstone‘ll have us soon enough, unless I sharpen our game fast. Some crossbowmen killed Tyrell. I don’t know whose they were, and I don’t know where you are. Or won’t, soon enough. Understood? The Dornish do not love you, Qyburn. Nor does ‘Aegon Sand’. If I mean to declare for this new dragon…”

“If…?” the older man, with his oddly youthful quickness of thought, retorted with a sourness that sat strangely amid those mild wrinkles.

“Never mind that. I trust Falgird with the ravens, not the likes of you. I have another task in mind for you. And it’s not educating my lord nevvy, either. Monterys, come out of there at once. You forget I grew up here too, e’en if my times in the solar were scarcer. No child of Velaryon, baseborn or no, is ignorant of the old Seasnake’s Rigging trick.”

His thin, pale face reddening fast, the young Lord of the Tides obeyed his uncle.

“No harm done, my lord,” Aurane Waters declared equably. “Run along back to the maester. Ask him to tell you about wooing highborn brides. You’ll find his answers useful sooner than you expect…and amusing at once, I do not doubt.”

[Garlan Gunter]

Proclamation to those few, brave captains who still dare to fly the stag and fiery heart at sea

You have fought honourably and well. At hand is a new employer who richly appreciates such service. Raise the dragon and join my fleet, and you shall receive more than reasonable remuneration.

Persist, however, in sporting the colours of the usurper Lord Stannis, and I will find you, I shall sink you, wheresoever you swim.

Vowed in the light of the Seven, Aurane Velaryon, Grand Admiral of the Narrow Sea, Lord Regent of Driftmark, Captain-General of the Stepstones, Lord of Bloodstone, Captain of the Seasmoke, commonly known as the Lord of the Waters

[Garlan Gunter]

THE ONION HAND, pt I



Gulltown was a place of by-names, catcalls and dubbings that squawled around the docks, the fishmarkets, and the high, cramped windows of the back alleys. Davos Seaworth had learnt many such in bygone days when he smuggled goods under his own sail, not policy for a king’s. The trick of his ears had not deserted him. The court, for instance, improvised at Gulltown, had many familiar names. ‘Steward’s Court’, or ‘Ladies’ Court’, ‘Stripling’s Court’, or ‘Castellan’s Court’, several called it, with so many of the true lords and knights off at war in the riverlands – and now further south still. And it was ‘the Court o’ the Crowded Chair’, for its single lord’s high seat, alternately occupied, dependent on fiendish complicated precedent, by Lord Grafton of Gulltown, lately slain at Dragonstone and succeeded by a squire; Bronze Yohn Royce, Lord Regent of the Vale and Master of Laws; by the king himself; and, today as on many other day, by the Hand of the King; Ser Davos of House Seaworth, Lord of the Rainwood and Admiral of the Narrow Sea. A sour joke that last title is now.

His own latest by-name, too, Davos knew well enough. It would hardly have taxed a singer’s originality. The proud local nobles who spoke ever louder to the effect that Bronze Yohn should be raised to his own place as Hand sneered at the onetime smuggler as Davos Onionhand. He did not blame them, but to think of so much seething and scheming made him old, weary and half-done. And the Valelords were supposed to be the loyallest and most honourable of allies.

“Shall I call them in, Lord Hand?”, today’s household knight enquired. He looked to be a Sharp Point man, near as far from home as Davos himself. That made him feel a deal better. He misliked having a guard too large and frequently changed to know its men, but the more old Stormlanders and Crownlanders about him, the firmer he felt. “Ask their lordships’ pardons for a moment longer, ser. I need to clear my thoughts.”

Would that it were so easy. The Iron Throne was a twisted mess in an ashen ruin now, and Lord Grafton’s chair was ample and comfortable, but it did little to allay Davos’s troubled conscience. Winter has left quite the bite in the air, even here, at a mighty lord’s hearth in a prosperous city. How fierce must its mauling be on the isle I left behind…

There was still a long, dull unpredictable ache where one of those thrice-damned unicorns had caught him in the back of the leg as he tried to buy off a headman by signing with a foreshortened hand. His shoulder-blade had taken a hatchet’s force, not for long or at any great depth, but enough to inconvenience a man some decades out of youth. What more could I have done? Well, I could have succeeded, and then today’s session of the court would be a deal easier. Time to get down it.

“I’m ready to see Lady Waynwood now, alone,” he called out, already somewhat hoarse, when the swordfish knight returned. The sentinel looked hesitant.

“Ser Harlan Hunter and young Sunderland’ll wait easy enough. But Lord Shett won’t like that, ser. He’s waited with Lady Anya all this time.”

“Alone,” Davos repeated, without sympathy. Lord Shett, Bronze Yohn’s favoured lieutenant, as new to lordship as Davos himself but a damn sight prouder of his vaunted nobility, was not among Davos’s favourite companions of a morning, either. In truth, few of the Valemen were.

But when Lady Anya made her entrance, firm and dignified as ever despite her tiny stature, she was not alone. A taller and plumper figure with an easy smile linked her arm, with a generous cask of dark wine in her free hand.

“I thought you and her ladyship might appreciate something to slake all your dry counsels,” Myranda Royce said boldly with a curtsey that revealed far too much for Davos’s peace of mind. Then she released Lady Waynwood, deposited the wine and turned her heel. I can hardly complain of the lack of privacy, but that girl has made some kind of point just the same. Davos felt the well-known jolt of pain, not from the unicorn wound but from Marya. If I had had time to take her and the little ones north, I should sleep sounder…and safer from the likes of Lady Royce of the Gates of the Moon.

That set him to thinking, as Lady Waynwood drily reported news of confusion in the North he knew all too well already, of another woman, one he had never met and only dimly heard of. The Skagosi magnar, killed by some woman, another stranger, they said. What if it was the wildling woman with the boy? But to find out, I should have had to die. And that would have been of small aid to the king. So he reassured himself, but it felt hollow, and he wished he were back in simpler times, saving a king’s bastard from flames, not trying to pull a king’s brother out of frying pans.

Lady Waynwood’s business passed with refreshing speed, though she seemed a trifle evasive, to Davos’s mind, on the subject of her Frey wards. Some few Riverlanders still called the boy, Sandor, Lord of the Crossing, even with the Twins overthrown, and that might cause trouble down the line. But if so, after all, it was little concern of Davos's. He got Lord Shett out of the way as quickly as he might, disbursing more of the Iron Bank’s gold for strengthened watches. He was about to see the others, whoever they had been, when the King entered young Lord Grafton’s high hall.

[Garlan Gunter]

THE FALSE SEPTON, pt I



Aurane Waters had always done himself proud on his flagship, Qyburn reflected, but now that the lad was lording himself about harder than ever, the wine was almost obnoxiously good – sour and dark in plenty from now-friendly Dorne, and more sweet delights, every quart of them taken by force, from the Reach than seemed quite conceivable. And the Seasmoke’s bridge was comfortable, too, with its silks and cushions and Myrish hangings, and wenches, even of the odd youth, of clean and sly demeanour who looked like they would answer to any request, no matter how sudden or importunate. It might all be a Lysene merchant-prince’s pleasure galleas, yet for now, the Narrow Sea is ruled from this cabin.

Waters (internally Qyburn granted him none of his subsequent flummeries) was being downright bloodthirsty with his fleet again. The Bastard of Driftmark was not, strictly speaking, a good cyvasse player, being rash, inclined to think of short-term gain, and easily bored, but he had a certain unorthodoxy of style that could reap unexpected rewards, and he had also a disarmingly fluent habit of conversation in the very midst of his manoeuvres. Nonetheless, he only won when Qyburn let him – which was often enough, to be sure. For the present there were few feasible choices of patron to be found, and Qyburn saw every reason in keeping his young employer flattered and entertained – especially on this day of all days. Qyburn was a reasonable and amiable man, not one to pour cold water on a wedding.

Revelling in another routed troop of cavalry that could, if Qyburn had so chosen, have cost him his last dragon in six moves, Aurane swilled back some of the gold, lolled on a velveteened couch and grinned. “Well, we haven’t done too badly for ourselves lately, eh, my lord of whisperers? I think I shall grant you Claw Isle when all this is over, you know. In a token of your skilful energy…and initiative.”

At that the bastard’s smile grew mocking and perilous, and Qyburn knew he was being accused – yet also grudgingly thanked. He had disobeyed Waters’s command to have the kraken horn blown, judging the time ill-chosen even if the promised effects proved true. And indeed, the new Velaryon fleet had triumphed anyway, in a manner some rampant kraken could surely only have hindered – and Aurane had preserved a critical bargaining point, one that was to be exchanged today.

“You would need the Queen’s permission for that, of course,” Qyburn observed mildly. “Do not stretch your credit on my account, my lord of Velaryon.” Conserve the courtesies everywhere save where they matter, the mind. Waters made an impatient gesture. “I shall have won her Dragonstone. She can spare you an islet, with the Red Crab long since made into Stannis soup.”
“My lord is most kind,” Qyburn replied quietly, “though in truth I am no seeker after lands and gold, only knowledge.” The callow bastard lordling smirked, and Qyburn felt a queer sensation, almost pity. For all his opportunism and his cunning – nay, because of them – Aurane Waters is a fool, and he cannot imagine that I speak the truth.

For the moment the cyvasse was forgotten – Qyburn allowed it to rest so. He could tell Aurane was growing confidential, and indeed the admiral next commanded, “Take it out. Let me look upon it again before I trade it, and tell me once again, properly this time, how you came by the knowledge of…that.”

Qyburn slid over to the secret drawer they had agreed, of whose existence only he and Waters knew. Driftmark and especially Bloodstone were lightly held sham castles; the admiral kept his growing treasury on his flagship, but this drawer was another concealment altogether. From it the former Maester drew a long, twisting object, in truth more sailor’s hornpipe than horn, of ivory, ebon, brass and lacquer, in the form of a kraken’s long arms reaching out, with a small red crab – clearly a later adornment – skittering over one sinister eye, while a merling hand grasped a single one of its tendrils as hard as a riding crop.

“A fine thing,” Aurane breathed his greed, as if already distracted from power by riches. “It would have been simpler, when it was used last,” Qyburn reminded him in a gentle tone. “Only the beak of the kraken, only the reed and the horn are the true enchantment. The rest would need to be stripped off to draw on its power. Apprise the Princess of as much…”

“…when the time is right,” Aurane finished with a laugh that would likely not have disgraced his whore of a mother. “And it is true you were attired…”

“As a septon and mendicant, yes, my lord. I arrived as the Faith was splitting, a traditional septon in flight from fanatics, ready to heal the wounds the demon worshippers had left.”

“You know your prayers?” Waters smirked.

“Perfectly, lord admiral. I rode for long years with a septon among the Brave Companions, a man named Utt, pious enough, at any rate, in his speech.”

“And then…”

“The islanders were sorely in want, my lord, after the stag’s raiders came. But it was as we had heard. They had kept from him their last, their most dangerous treasure. I spoke to them twofold. To the fearful I explained that the horn was a mischanced thing of demoniac wrath, that would be safer with a servant of the gods. To the bold I revealed that to fight demon worshippers, one sometimes needs demon powers. I told them I purposed revenge on the false king and his red god.”

“And that was true enough!” Aurane remarked, delighted at his own quip. But at that point one of the wenches, a pretty thing with a touch of Yi-Ti about her cinnamon face, peeked nervously in.
“The boatswain, admiral my lord, he says six sails. Squid sails.”

“She is here,” Waters muttered with a new solemnity. “Qyburn, attend me above. We shall watch them approach.”

***

They stood at the poop deck, the young man and the old; Aurane was the slighter and shorter of the two. Both were splendidly garbed, Qyburn in the gold-whorled white robes that had adorned him at court, Aurane draped in his groom’s cloak of silver and sea-green, with a doublet of slashed cream and black beneath. The black might seem a gloomy choice, but it was shrewd, and Waters’s own; he certainly knew how to dress. Black could compliment the Queen’s house, the bride’s, and any number of recent deaths; and it well set off the groom’s lank silver-golden mane.

“Six longships only,” Qyburn pondered. “One is a fine vessel, the equal of any of yours save this Seasmoke. But besides, you have at least twenty ships at this spot, almost fifty more within reach…”

“Aye, and she a hundred and fifty not so very much farther. Are you addled, old man?” Waters snapped, before remembering himself. “Besides, are you seriously suggesting I should be interested in capturing my accorded bride?”

“It is as well to consider unexpected eventualities,” Qyburn whispered back, though he was thinking, It might have served you better had you kidnapped that Maid of Tarth. Aurane’s irritation did not fade, but, characteristically, it had a touch of humour to it. “Stop lingering here with your demented advice. I have a true task for you. You swore you knew your Seven-Pointed Star?”

“Well, I assuredly know Utt’s.”

“That will serve. Go below and dress yourself in septon’s attire. I have one saved specially.”

That made Qyburn look askance. “You would undermine your marriage into a Great House with this tomfoolery? Why?”

“Mainly because it amuses me to do so. But we are to be wed under her god as well as mine. And none will know you, for the present. An hour may come when it suits me to declare the Seven-blessed marriage no marriage at all, and myself still free to take a wife of the true rite.”

Can he still hope for the Queen Dowager and heiress to Dorne? Or better still…but these are perilous thoughts indeed. Qyburn smirked silently as he obediently glid below deck. I am a master of perilous thoughts. Valyria, even bastardised, cleaves to Valyria, it seems. Of course the boy can never quite give up hope of wedding the queen, until it kills him.

[Garlan Gunter]

THE ONION HAND, pt 2

The Hand immediately relinquished his chair, but King Stannis made no move to take it, simply striding up, briefly taking Davos’s (unmaimed) hand, and then pacing away. Stannis Baratheon was looking better now, bulked up from the grim wraith he had become at the Wall. Confidence and strength animates him; he’s less blazed and sapped by the Red Woman’s exactions.

“Many grave petitions outstanding, Lord Hand?” he enquired, his humour evident only to the oldest of his servants. “Saw a few minnows yet to come, and I warn you, I’ve leaving them to you still. You can’t cozen me onto that seat today. I have wars to plan, lands to regain.”

“I’ve not forgotten, Your Grace.”

“Of course you haven’t. The word from the south is good in many respects. But my squire stills asks in vain after his mother.” The king’s voice was warm and direct. Davos remembered King Robert slapping him on the back long ago with a dubious joke about Marya and Black Betha’s rivalry, and Lord Renly’s painstaking, mostly smooth efforts to recall his youngest sons’ names ( occasionally he thought Steffon and Stannis had been called Robert and Renly). Stannis was different, as his next words distinctly indicated.

“If she still lives, you’ll have her back soon enough. I too know what it is to lose a wife and child, and I had not a tenth, a hundredth of the affection for my queen I know you bear your carpenter’s daughter.”

“We’ve been married a long time,” the Hand admitted in a low voice.

“Even so. You’ve been her servant even longer than mine. But I need you, I trust you, to care for the realm. You may trust me to look to her…if anything remains that can be done.” Davos had learned almost to feel comforted by the very bleakness of Stannis’s consolation.

And then the king took his leave, as suddenly as if he expected the chair to pin him down like a spider’s web, or was loping to tidings of victory or emergency. Davos was taken by surprise by how lonely and chill he felt all on a sudden. Truly, without Stannis he was nothing, as friendless as powerless. “Call the rest of them in, ser.”

They proved to be three, not two; the narrow-faced knight of Hunter Bronze Yohn claimed had most like murdered his own father; a nervous boy who seemed startled by his own knight’s spurs; and the Red Woman. Davos scarce knew whether he did not feel colder still, for all the new source of heat and light in the dim hall.

“The Lady Melisandre required immediate access to your person, Lord Onionhand,” the Hunter smirked. “I hoped to do her and you both some small service. Come, Ser Galvin, I’m sure our own enquiries can wait a little longer.” The reputed murderer led the young Sisterman from the hall, apparently unconcerned by the granitic stare Davos directed at the back of his neck.

“The King has been here, Ser Davos.” It was not a question; those Melisandre was generally in the habit of answering, not asking.

“Right enough.” Davos silently blessed the hurry that had carried Stannis out of the chamber now. It was a great irony that he and the priestess, the king’s closest and oldest counsellors, both hated alike by the pride of the Vale, and, he had heard with grim amusement, widely spoken of as sinful lovers, in fact saw the king, if possible, separately, and each tried to guard him from the other. Ever since their arrival in the Vale, Davos had generally prevailed.

“He is about important matters of his own; it was you I sought, not him,” Melisandre now declared. Davos merely shrugged at that. This woman’s intentions tended to fold and unravel as fast as any development outside them could allow.

“I know that the king prefers tidings and counsel both from your voice,” she murmured now, with soft modesty, a mien that might be unexpected in one who watched her less closely, but which Davos recognised as only another trick. “A time will come when you will be needed to tell him the truth about the One Great Battle. It is not against the House Targaryen,” Melisandre caught her breath and glanced about her, just a touch mischievously, “and it lies now in the North.”

“The North?” Davos frowned his confusion and, almost, annoyance. “It is true the wildlings’ resettlement may yet present…uncertainties, and there is some disturbance about which Stark should rule now…” Disturbance I could have, should have settled. If I had followed my conscience, and the story of the new Skagosi queen, into the Feast of Fools, the cove from which no sailor returns. “Tell me, my lady, …do your flames tell you aught of Skagos?”

“Skagos? No. What a strange query,” Melisandre breathed, “from he who bears the gash of the unicorn, from he who traversed all that barbaric island, and saw all that there might be to see. Unless he didn’t. Leave your skein of lies and your web of guilt, Lord Davos. Seek the True Enemy, with me.” She extended her hand, shifted her magnificent, awful arms as he did not take it, and left the hall in turn, leaving Davos reeling back onto Lord Grafton’s chair, and reaching silently for that lesser Royce’s red wine. The terror of it is, I know exactly what she means. We did not sail to Eastwatch to save the North from wildlings, in truth, but the whole realm from…something else…

But then again, there had been no proof as yet of what no man wanted to prove; and had not the Red Woman just veered close to treason in her words on the Targaryens? Did not some Essosi sailors speak of the Dragon Queen as Azor Azai, and not King Stannis? Just what side could the shadowbinder now be on?

“Onionhand!” It was the grating voice of Ser Harlan again, entered without notice, leave, or regard. “Valeman or Crownlander, true men of all stripes, we should be drinking now and drinking of the best. The word is all abroad. Our Queen Ysilla is with child!”

[Garlan Gunter]

THE FALSE SEPTON, pt 2

Aurane has quite taken to his bashful bride. Qyburn felt, queerly enough, almost as grandfatherly as he had oft been told he looked, presiding over the union of two creatures so much slighter, shorter, younger and more powerful than himself.

From the first Asha Greyjoy, Princess and self-proclaimed Queen of the Iron Islands, had quite taken control of proceedings. The ceremony of the Drowning had been swift and perfunctory, leaving Waters’s long mane fitting his name, dripping all over his silk; then both captains made ceremonial entry onto the other’s flagship amid rowdy cheers, and jointly announced that they were doubly wed by the sacred power invested in captains about their own ships ever since the days of the Merling King. Finally it was the turn of the Septon, who awaited them back upon Seasmoke by the tiller. Qyburn felt conspicuous and unmanoeuvrable in his heavy white vestments, but in fact his solemn cowl and prudently confected horsehair beard of greying flax proved a disguise almost as complete as they were uncomfortable.

“Who comes here to be wed?”, he intoned, pleased by the combination of quaveriness and significance upon which he had settled. Then there was a somewhat fraught pause before Aurane gave his betrothed a grinning nod. At that she strode up as if she were grappling a seawall.
“I, Asha, last get of Balon Greyjoy, head of House Greyjoy and rightful Queen of the Iron Isles.”

Interesting, that ‘Queen’, and Aurane’s ears will have twitched too. Most like she does not truly intend to defy Daenerys…but she must keep queening it for the present to keep her men in line. Qyburn could not help applying a quick, testing needle, lasrgely because he knew it would irritate – though amuse – his mercurial patron. “A maiden pure and flowered, I trust?”

At that, Asha’s brow grew dark…and then, to Qyburn’s surprise and Aurane’s palpable relief, she threw back her head and laughed. “If that’s what you call it in the greenlands, let it be so.”

“Who comes to give you away?” Once again, Qyburn enquired out of mischief, and once again he was surprised, for someone did lurch up – an Ironman in a fine black and gold kraken doublet, identical to his Queen’s, with a quite definitely unsteady gait.

“I, D-dagon, o’ House Greyjoy…” Then his queenly cousin pushed him over and he fell, hard, to the deck.

“Dagon the Drunkard is not even my nearest kinsman aboard ship. I need no man’s word, and pledge myself on the terms we agreed.”

The cheers were uproarious now, and Aurane Waters looked upon his dark, hard, slim, sharp bride with something like passion in his restless eyes. Qyburn noticed that the Ironmen seemed as content as the Velaryon sailors and Stepstones pirates, with the exception of one raider, a beardless youth with something of Aurane’s good looks and a very cold stare. Among Asha’s grisly crew stood two highborn children who looked none too enthusiastic, either – little Lord Velaryon and his Sand Snake consort had been permitted to attend the wedding, but did not seem to dare either to smile, laugh, cheer or venture speech.

“And I, Aurane of House Velaryon, gladly accept her,” Waters answered with relish, that Velaryon cloak poised to swathe. “Read us your sermon, …septon, and make it speedy.”

***

By rights and tradition the feast preceded the bedding, but Waters and the Princess – or Queen, or Lady, or Captain – had urgent dispatch to attend to, and both retired to the Seasmoke’s bridge. Aurane may well be vain enough to believe already it’s the horn he was born with that fascinates her. Certainly, by the time they returned, their garb was almost ostentatiously dishevelled, and the beardless Ironman was biting his tongue even harder. A discreet enquiry of Qyburn’s had revealed him as one Qarl the Maid, one of Asha’s finest axes and hitherto well-known as her favourite. Might Waters have waded into deeper waters than he knows here?

“You aren’t much like the holy men I’ve known on the isles, even my nuncle,” he heard an uncompromising voice, and Asha Greyjoy was beside him, smirking and staring. Qyburn rearrayed the remains of his sanctimony.

“The gods call upon us to serve in many distinct ways, my lady.”

“I thought your gods regarded mine as a damp demon. You seem to have unusual…latitude. Tell me something. I owe thanks, my,” she laughed cruelly, “lord husband informs me, to his pet sorcerer, this Lord Qyburn, late of the court. Yet I see him nowhere. Where can I find him?”

“Most like ashore, my lady,” Qyburn muttered, fighting to keep his impassivity. “But I should not care to seek him out. He has served Lord Aurane well, they say, but it’s said too he is an odious sinner.”

“Is he now. Follow me within to the bridge, sinner. Not this one. Black Wind’s.”

That left him with little choice.

A short longboat ride later, they found the Lord of the Waters waiting below on his new bride’s vessel, turning over in his hands the kraken horn. His smile was as broad as ever but somehow fixed; a blustering look, Qyburn thought.

“From now on, my lord, you answer to us both. Don’t they say two hearts should beat as one? I say the same of minds. No more games, old man; give ear. We’re sending you on your travels again.”

“To Storm’s End?” Qyburn hazarded, trying to sound unconcerned still.

“To the Free City of Braavos.”

[Garlan Gunter]

Proclamation to the Ironborn

From Aurane Velaryon, Grand Admiral of the Narrow Sea, Lord Regent of Driftmark, Lord of Bloodstone, Captain-General of the Stepstones, Conqueror of Dragonstone, Lord of Stones and of Waters Alike, Consort to Asha of House Greyjoy, rightful Queen of the Isles

Your late Kingsmoot was invalid, as the legend of Torgon the Latecomer makes clear. But it was also the work of traitors and of fools.

I was a true friend to the Crow's Eye, though high in the councils of Aegon the Pretender. The boy-dragon smirkingly confided to me the following brag:

As for the Ironborn, I am sharing ravens with Aeron Damphair and Lord Captain Victarion to end the reign of Euron Crow's Eye and return him to their drowned god.

Those of you who follow the brothers of the late kings, Balon and Euron, and not Balon's true blood and heir, Queen Asha, defy most of your people's fleet and nobility; defy an ally to the mighty Dragon Queen; defy a princess with the power to raise Krakens from the deep; and all to defend a brace of mouldering traitors!

[Garlan Gunter]

--Lord Davos Seaworth, Lord of the Rainwood and Hand of the King

Ah, denial, the first stage in bereavement...

[Garlan Gunter]

Slightly borderline on where to put this POV, but since my boys are presently bearing a little south of the Sisters, I think it needs this thread.

***



THE MASTER OF SHIPS

It did not take an experienced captain – just a shrewd one – to know when men had been at sea too long, or at least felt they had. Through the Myrish glass he had looted at the Maester’s cell of Dragonstone, the Admiral could still discern the now distant flames of the Sisters, seeming to couple with the dreary mist. Damn the smugglers for fools. They could have joined us, bolstered us, kept me a power, and resisting did naught of good for anyone, except, it might be, this legendary foe in the North. Now we have their salt beef and grain and a few of their less web-toed women…and no friendly harbour for leagues around. But I had to reward the men, and teach a lesson to those who defied me.

Aurane Waters – no, to himself he’d never quite shed the name he’d been born to, either, even three legitimisations later - broke off from these disagreeable reflections, folding away the glass and stowing it in a pouch at his girdle. Even the very instrument began to annoy him, reminding him of the brief, delusive moment when he achieved his boyhood’s dream. I was Lord of Dragonstone, with a Sea Queen to wife and an army of the Isles’ maddest killers at my call. For a moment, only, and it had all been a shadow. Asha obeyed herself, the Dragon Queen to a slight extent, and himself not at all. Dragonstone remained swarmed over by sellswords chained to the West with fetters of gold.

Aurane was fairly sure, at least, that since the crushing of Pirkriff the Saltthumb’s cack-handed mutiny and his victories in the Narrow Sea his varied fleet, a few Driftmark men, Pentoshis, Volantenes and the pirates of the Stepstones, did now answer directly to him, would bide by him if it came to it even above the Dragon Queen herself. But it would not hurt, mayhaps, to make sure of that.

To wed the Imp after all! After she assured me she meant to see him and his brother punished!

In truth, Aurane could bear Lannister little personal ill-will. The dwarf had played his considerable hand well, and so far had proved a generous and fairly capable ally. It did smart that he had what the Admiral wanted…and deserved. Has the Queen mistaken that waddling aberration for the Blood of Old Valyria? Sometimes, on the cold nights sailing from the Sisters as he garnered his incrementally smaller fleet together, Aurane had to bite his cheek hard, as he came to the same inevitable conclusion, and sullenly blamed not the Imp, but the Queen.

“Admiral Waters.” Aurane turned feeling oddly reassured; he understood that form of address, knew its speaker, and felt reliability, not insult. After all, Lord, Velaryon and Master of Ships as the Queen might have painted him, this was the truer title. But it was only ever used by Thagbold the Stinger, who was not exactly your man for Westerosi protocol. Thagbold looked like a damn savage, and was wont to wear his unsavoury repute in place of practically any other garb. As they had sailed further north and Aurane’s own silks had succeeded to sables, ermines, miniver, the grim Bloodstone enforcer had slowly conceded to wrapping himself in some Sisterwoman’s thrice-woven plaid.

“I had not known you were aboard. Is all well upon the Scorpion?” Aurane asked half-idly. It had always been useful to him to sound idle…and to know men’s ships, their names, qualities, calibres, crews.

“Not well, but hard. Battle-ready. Blood-hungry.” Thagbold was in his way rather a curtly effective orator, Aurane mused.

“The men have seen a fight and indulged a little plundering when last we landed,” Aurane observed, keeping his expression absent, his voice careless.

“Call that a fight, a sack, a victory? One town half burnt, on a backwater in winter. I mind y’reasons, Admiral,” Thagbold admitted with an odd admixture of harshness and reason, “but there are still many, least among the Stepstones crews, took it hard when we past Gulltown intact.”

The Queen again, and her seven-curst trust in Bronze Yohn Royce. We all paid for that one, him, her, me, the Sistermen. “Well, the times come around, it seems, and we are to draw nigh it again. And so I need you to keep your men and your friends in line again, Stinger.”

He makes a much better gauge for the fleet’s temper than poor old Rynard ever did, but I have not given him the answer he wanted to hear.

“Admiral! You said we’d fight for Daenerys and plunder Westeros. Dragonstone and the Sisters are scoured and scant. The men will feel this hard.”

“I am the Master of Ships now, Captain Thagbold. I can no longer quite behave like a callow cabin-boy being birched by Pirkriff, nor yet like an enterprising young captain. Have you heard the stories out of the North? We have a realm to consider now.”

“S’not our realm. The Stones are no part of it. My men say it’s bad luck to think on Westerosi curses in winter o’ermuch, and leave it that,” Thagbold objected with rough uneasiness. “And the Queen holds you back from plunder…might be time to consider a Queen who needs y’more. One not yoked to Impish gold, with many foes who need a good sackin’.”

“You propose treason to a Small Councillor,” Aurane reminded the hardened corsair with the utmost geniality. “Get yourself back to your Scorpion, and tell your friends they can expect good news of a sort soon. Then bring me the Wavewatch.”

Thagbold clearly liked that little. Gerdan Wavewatch, once a black brother, was little liked or respected among the other Stepstones captains. For now, Aurane cared for that not a fig. It was old Gerdan’s navigation he needed, not a pretty face, a pleasant voice, or a leal heart. He greeted the sour-faced deserter a couple of hours later with unambiguous satisfaction.

“You say you’ve actually been there? Did you stop long?” he asked, not quite able to contain a little mischief. “Long enough to partake of any local delicacies? Unicorn, perchance, or…longshank?”

Gerdan spat bleakly overboard. “I know how to get there, aye, and where to land a ship o’…sane…shape.” He slanders my beautiful dromond because he’ll never command a ship so mighty. “And no sane man’d want aught from the place. Little wealth…damn far north in winter…a populace o’ monsters and savages, with no discipline…”

“That will do, Captain Gerdan. I want the compass in your head, not the counsel. Just keep yourself alive and ready, and I assure you you’ll be much the richer for it. Talking of which,” yes, Aurane had decided, it was best to make sure of these womanish buccaneers now or never, “you can tell the boys after you’ve shown yourself out that it’s time to divide the first cut of the plunder.”

By the time the next night fell, the mists were as thick as ever, but the fires on the Sisters had either smouldered out, or faded over the horizon. Yet on the rag-tag Royal Fleet, the lights burnt bright, with song, dice, rum and brandy lurching with abandon towards the chill dawn.

[Garlan Gunter]

LORD FORLORN



“We have the Hand, my lord,” Ser Targon was repeating. The new-minted Lord Corbray paid him little heed, lingering at the tower window in Lord Grafton’s old Solar. Something out upon the sea seemed of greater interest to him.

“What is to be done with Ser Davos?”

“He was Lord Davos, for a time, wasn’t he,” Corbray muttered, still abstracted, “and now I am to be Lord Lyn. Most strange. Ah, yes, there were instructions regarding the Onionhand. Send him trussed up to the last ships that brought us here. The Lord Protector wants him, for some reason.”

“The Lord Pr…?”

“Aurane,” Lyn clarified, still absent, save in the frenetic fingers that played upon the ruby at his pommel. “The realm is to be Aurane’s, for the nonce. But the Vale is mine.”

Lyn was not ignorant of the doubt that flickered in the eyes of his hardiest lieutenant, the one-time hedge knight with his dose of Mountain blood they still called the Half-Wild. But it did not bother him. His men followed him not because they admired him, but because he was the most dangerous among them all, and he intended to win.

He was a son of the mountains and a bloodier of rivers, but the sea was calling him now. He still recalled the day when the fleet called at the Hook for him. It had all been arranged long since, aye, and yet he was still taken by surprise.

Well, they said the Velaryons came of the stock of dragonlords. He had naught to be ashamed about, no matter any man would dare tell him to his face, from the day he first grasped the Bastard of Driftmark’s hand and looked him in the face, hard black eyes to laughing ones of green-grey, until this very hour.

They had ridden the seahorse all the way to Dragonstone, and when that knot of misbegotten and abandoned sellswords were dispatched to the hells, their ships, their mines and their mountain seized, Waters, Velaryon, Aurane had led his ally into the Dragonfort and squeezed at his arse hard when the tides of business left them alone.

“I was wed not far from here,” the bastard had breathed, “but now the isle is mine in truth, I shall enjoy the bedding far more.” And neither had he lied. Aurane Waters had lied to the Pretender, the Crow’s Eye, to Lady Anya and the Imp and Queen Daenerys all, but never, Corbray was assured, to him. Not yet.

There was another interruption, and Ser Mychel Redfort stood before him, the lissom blademaster who had once proved so ready and precocious a squire. Redfort had behaved most…inconsistently, during his training, and after knighting him in tight-lipped recognition of his prowess Ser Lyn had seen and spoken with him but little. It was a queer jest of fate that had left this oh-so-gallant boy, along with Ser Targon, as one of Corbray’s most trustworthy seconds.

“Lord Shett is done to death, my lord.”

“Another ill-leapt-up lord,” Ser Lyn observed carelessly. “Ser Damon to us.”

“The maester says the order was not wisely given, and I agree, ser…my lord. We still hope for Royce and Coldwater to see merit in our position, and Shett was sworn to Runestone. The Lord Admiral was foolish to meddle in Vale matters such as that one.”

“The Lord Protector,” Lyn corrected again lazily, “and the order was mine. Aurane was under sail long since. I thought it meet to herald our coming with a sprinkling of dullard’s blood, too long flowing sluggish and comfortable in the wrong direction. It will show our peers what we are about.”

He ignored Ser Mychel’s look of unease veering upon disgust. That lad needed to be reminded of his place. Who was he? Merely a lord’s fourth son who had become prim about knightly exercises after he started going with a bastard, then got wedded himself by the bloody Royces. So come to think of it, Lyn thought in sudden amusement, we have both bedded with bastards in our time.

“You have the men readied for the next campaign, Ser Mychel?” he snapped, with a swift, impermanent assumption of business-like airs.

“They are almost fresh, their spirits high. We’ve hardly had to face a true fight yet, and they’re glad not to have switched allegiance after all. It’s easier to believe in Lady Waynwood’s misgovernment, among many who prefer the Royces or even remember Jon Arryn, than side with some dragon from the east again after so long.”

“Quite so, my keen Ser Mychel, quite so. But they like not our Protector?”

“It’s recalled he served Stannis long ago, on the Blackwater, …Lord Lyn. Most call him a necessary evil.”

“A necessary evil…” And Lyn laughed aloud now, a rare and hardly mirthful sound. “They speak truer than they know. Return to them, and send me the maester and some charts of the Waynwood domains.”

Ser – no, he must remember now, Lord, Lord of Ironoaks and liege of Gulltown, and Regent, aye, Regent of all the broad Vale of Arryn – Lord Lyn watched young Redfort depart with a loose grin, followed the proud sway of his tight receding rear, recognised that the boy hardly liked to be treated as a squire still, and laughed that fact to scorn.

[Garlan Gunter]

SEVEN DISPOSITIONS FOR THE UNITY AND SAFETY OF THE REALM







Issued by Aurane Velaryon, Protector of the Realm and Lord of Dragonstone.

Witnessed and sealed by Lyn Corbray, Regent of the Vale and Lord of Ironoaks Castle; Grand Maester Perestan; Lyonel Corbray, Lord of Heart’s Home; Wyman Manderly, Lord of White Harbor and Gulltown; Monterys Velaryon, Lord of Driftmark; Alys Karstark, Lady of the Karhold; Ser Harrold of Houses Arryn and Hardyng; Sers Wylis and Marlon Manderly; Ser Mychel Redfort; and Lord Qyburn, Master of Whisperers.

I – The Crown: House Targaryen forfeited its right to rule by tyrannous conduct, incest, madness, and defeat upon the field of battle. House Baratheon has only one legitimate heir of undisputed noble birth, Argella, as Shireen Waters, wrongfully held by the corrupt rebel Waynwoods, is widely known to be the unlawful progeny of a natural fool from beyond the seas. The Protector accordingly proclaims Argella of the Houses Baratheon and Royce, First of her noble Name, to be sole Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men.

II – The Governance of the Realm during the Queen’s Minority: Lord Velaryon of Dragonstone will continue to serve as Protector of the Realm until Queen Argella shall come of age or marry a suitor fit to rule and advise her. Lord Andar Royce of Runestone, the Queen’s closest kinsman, is invited to come to court and assist his niece in the capacity of her Hand.

III – The Royal Court and the Present Emergency: Dragonstone is the securest, the most ancient and the most indispensable royal seat and the Queen’s Court shall repair there for the present, although as the isle and castle are granted to Lord Velaryon and his heirs in perpetuity, it is intended to raise a great new city of Queen’s Haven once the war is done and the realm saved.

IV – The Governance of the Vale: Lord Corbray of Ironoaks Castle is named and confirmed as Lord Regent of the Vale and Warden of the East. House Manderly of Gulltown shall henceforth render tribute to Ironoaks. The New Citadel is confirmed in its rights, freedoms, lands, and royal protection. Houses Waynwood and Grafton are attainted for treachery against the true Queen and degraded to knightly rank, until such time as they redeem their once proud names. Lord Robert Arryn’s birth has been called into question in some quarters, who name him a bastard of the late Lord Littlefinger’s. The matter shall be investigated in full. It may be that Ser Harrold Hardyng, commonly called Arryn and the Heir, presently castellan upon Dragonstone, must be called to a higher dignity yet. If so, Lord Corbray of Ironoaks will continue to serve as High Steward.

V – The Rescue and Lordship of the North: The hated Lannisters and their Bolton catspaws drove House Stark into exile, but they could not destroy it. A legitimate and male scion of the House lives still. Rickon Stark is thus named Lord of Winterfell and the North; Lord Manderly shall act as Warden till the Stark of Winterfell be of age. The realm faces from the North a direr threat than it has witnessed for many thousands of years. The Protector shall not rest until this Army of Winter is staunched and thawed.

VI – An Offer to the Ironmen and the Crimes of the West: Lord Velaryon hails his lady wife Queen Asha with all friendship and connubial affection. If she declares herself a leal and trusty liegewoman to Queen Argella and her Protectorship, her royal style shall be confirmed. Her possession of Fair Isle and its attendant territories shall be recognised; the homage of Bear Isle shall further be granted to her; she shall be granted the stations both of Master of Ships and Wardeness of the West; and she shall be invited to pursue with righteous punishment the Queen’s foes of Casterly Rock, the Imp empoisoner of his own sire and sister, the Kingslayer, and the Mad Queen from the debauched East. The Rock itself and its riches shall be granted to whichever of the true Queen’s trusty subjects, whether it be Queen Asha, Lord Tyrell or another, can wrest it from the dwarf’s lusty thumb.

VII – The Red Faith will be supported and protected alongside the Seven and the Old Gods. It seems wise to the Protector to garner as many gods as needful for the struggle ahead.

Avouched, signed and sealed in the sight of the Old Gods and the New, and the Light of the Lord besides,

Aurane Velaryon, Protector of the Realm and Lord of Dragonstone
Lyn Corbray, Warden of the East, Lord Regent of the Vale and Lord of Ironoaks
Grand Maester Perestan of the New Citadel
Lyonel Corbray, Lord of Heart’s Home
Wyman Manderly, Warden of the North, Lord of White Harbor and Gulltown
Maester Falgird, acting for Monterys Velaryon, Master of Driftmark and Lord of the Tides
Alys Karstark, Lady of the Karhold
Ser Harrold Arryn, Castellan of Dragonstone
Ser Wylis Manderly, heir to White Harbor and Gulltown
Ser Marlon Manderly
Ser Mychel Redfort
Qyburn, lord by courtesy

[Garlan Gunter]

SUMMONS TO THE VALE BANNERS





Issued by Harrold Arryn, Lord of the Eyrie, Defender of the Vale and Warden of the East

Witnessed and sealed by Aurane Velaryon, Protector of the Realm and Prince of Dragonstone; Grand Maester Perestan; Lyonel Corbray, Lord of Heart’s Home; Jasper Redfort, Lord of the Redfort; Jon Lynderly, Lord of the Snakewood; Wyman Manderly, Lord of Gulltown and rightful Lord of White Harbor; Monterys Velaryon, Lord of Driftmark; Alys Karstark, Lady of the Karhold; Sers Wylis and Marlon Manderly; Sers Creighton, Jon, and Mychel Redfort; and Lord Qyburn, Master of Whisperers.

I hereby lay claim, as the next of kin to the Lord Robert of House Arryn deceased, to the ancient lordship of the Vale entire and undivided.

Further, I call all true bannermen who ever swore to the Moon and Falcon to answer my summons to the Eyrie, my rightful seat, where they are to do me homage.

If any do withhold either their presence or their homage, not excepting even my good-brother, Lord Royce of Runestone, I will name them recreant and false in this time of emergency, deprived of all titles, lands, honours, perquisites, and allegiances. Their bannermen are urged to desert any such reckless and selfish course and return to their proper service.

I command that the attack upon Lady Waynwood of Ironoaks by my good-brother aforesaid cease forthwith, and name the said Lady Waynwood, my foster-mother, High Steward of the Vale to rule in my stead whilst I am away at war.

For I myself do summon each one of my leal and able-bodied bannermen afterwards to come to the aid of the Riverlands, and resist the nameless threat to the north.

For the governance of the realm, I accept Aurane Velaryon as Protector of the Realm for the present time, but reserve the question of the crown and the regency both for a Great Council after the war is done. It may be that the time has come to assume the Falcon Crown's freedoms once more. But first the common enemy must at all costs be stopped.

I do confirm the grant of Gulltown to Lord Manderly, and summon his forces also to my side.

As High As Honor!

Avouched, signed and sealed in the sight of the Old Gods and the New, and the Light of the Lord besides,

Harrold Arryn, formerly Hardyng, Lord of the Eyrie, Defender of the Vale and Warden of the East
Aurane Velaryon, Protector of the Realm and Prince of Dragonstone
Grand Maester Perestan of the New Citadel
Lyonel Corbray, Lord of Heart’s Home
Jasper Redfort, Lord of the Redfort
Jon Lynderly, Lord of the Snakewood
Wyman Manderly, Warden of the North, Lord of Gulltown, rightful Lord of White Harbor
Maester Falgird, acting for Monterys Velaryon, Master of Driftmark and Lord of the Tides
Alys Karstark, Lady of the Karhold
Ser Wylis Manderly, heir to White Harbor and Gulltown
Ser Marlon Manderly
Ser Creighton Redfort
Ser Jon Redfort
Ser Mychel Redfort
Qyburn, lord by courtesy

[Garlan Gunter]

RAVENS ACROSS THE VALE

Lord Royce claims to have intercepted a letter I sent to the Enemy Beyond. He tells the truth, and yet he lies.

Indeed I did sent the missive, and what general of spirit would not, to gain knowledge of an unknown foe?

But the letter was not intercepted. For the correspondence continued:

"Qyburn,

You'd do well to advise your Lord of Waters that he is not in a position to demand anything.  I do not need him to hold the North.  Don't need him at all, really.  If your Lord of Waters does not leave Bear Island immediately then I will crush him like an ant.  That is not a matter over which there will be any negotiation.  However, if he serves me loyally and aides me against my enemies then there is much and more that I can offer him.  Ask your Lord of Waters what it is he wants from life.  Gold?  The secret to immorality?  Land?  He need only execute Rickon Stark to prove his loyalty and all those things and more could be his.  And if you are able to broker a successful agreement, I shall reward you as well.  You will be free to conduct whatever experiments you desire on any humans you wish without any restriction.  Oh and one other thing, just this once, I would like both your and Lord Aurane's signatures on the reply.  It is important that the Lord of Waters acknowledge that you have full authority to negotiate terms on his behalf, not that I doubt you, but all the same you'll have to indulge me in this. 

The Night's King"

"To the Bastard of the North,

I have no relish for fool's gold, nor land held at another power's whim, nor for the immortal 'life' you offer.

You may enjoy the bare shores of Bear Island, but you will never gain the allegiance of

The Bastard of the South"

The only way Lord Royce could have received his information is thus if he himself is a traitor, not only to Lord Harrold Arryn, but to all humankind.

Men of the Vale, whom do you trust? Your natural lord and the admiral who saved the northfolk of White Harbor, who has fought the enemy?

Or this ambitious and crabbed lord who harbours tree worship and the Seven only know what further atrocities?

Your rightful Lord marches on the Eyrie, Valefolk. I leave the decision to you.

Signed and sealed, Aurane Velaryon, Protector of the Realm

[Garlan Gunter]

ACT OF ATTAINDER AND DENUNCIATION

To Andar Royce, felon,

Thou art summoned to the Eyrie to answer for the crimes of rebellion, treason, breach of guest right, plotted usurpation, and alliance proven with the Enemy Beyond.

I, Harrold Arryn, Lord of the Vale, sentence thee to die.

Runestone I award to a true and faithful servant of the realm, Ser Davos Seaworth.

This I do proclaim, by the counsel and accord of Aurane Velaryon, Prince of Dragonstone and Protector of the Realm.

Signed in the sight of old gods and new, and the Lord of Light besides

Harrold Arryn.

[Garlan Gunter]

PYLOS



“Where is the boy?”

“Lord Monterys, my lord protector?”

“Monty? Seven, no,” the onetime Bastard of Driftmark almost yelped. They were of an age, Pylos reflected, though they had first met when Aurane Waters was a bold but callow sellsail, Pylos an unsure replacement for a Maester of legend. Waters had come a long way. Waters, Pylos reflected as he beheld the writhing of the waves, beyond the casement and the buttress and the monstrous gargoyles, tended so to do.

“The boy Hardyng,” the Protector insisted now. That tell-tale silvery hair was lank and wild grown know, and a heavy set gold cup of gold wine seemed ever to sprout in Aurane’s sword-hand.

“The Lord of the Vale is at the Gates of the Moon with his banners thus far gathered, my lord,” Pylos responded with careful formality. He had always known, disconcertingly, that he owed a part of his rapid preferment at the Citadel not to his talent, nor his learning, but merely to the fact that he ever knew how to behave, no matter how flailing the situation might seem. How to be a maester, even as a young man; how to cow the temper, guard the tongue, still the heart, steady the hand.

“Send him this. Now.” Aurane flung the command in the form of a paper dart, as was his wont. Yet when unfolded, it showed a neat enough hand, one that puzzled Pylos in his idle hours, of which this was far from being one. Aurane often enough cared to scribble his own dispatches, yet he had led most of his life at sea. Where had he learnt the knack? Sometimes it is the pettiest mysteries, Pylos mused, which are yet the least soluble. It was on this paradox he kept pondering as he unloosed the raven, not on the latest grandiloquent proclamation to which poor, up-jumped, frightened young Hardyng was to set his lordly new name.

“Ser Lyn growns fractious and crapulous,” Aurane complained, justifying in full Pylos’s suspicion that, wherever he had garnered his learning, he enjoyed altogether too much showing it off. “I must begone to…reassure him. Then I shall be asail. An admiral should ever be asail.”

“Quite so, my lord,” Pylos rejoined carefully, “though an admiral who serves as a Protector might be forgiven for lingering on the shore for a time.”

“Forgiveness,” Aurane spat suddenly in the vague direction of the nearest hearth. “You’re wrong, boy maester.” Pylos shrugged off the retort with quiet dignity, listening on to his now at least half-drunk present master. What was Waters drinking for? For what preparing? And yet, the realm being as it was, even Pylos scarcely blamed him.

“You’re wrong, boy maester,” the Protector pressed on now, and Pylos realised Aurane's scorn had long lost the power to sting him even mildly, as the Protector, himself scarce a man grown, rambled on. “For forgiveness in Westeros is dead and gone. Did the Starks get it? The Tullys? Has the Queen once forgiven in her pretty life? Do dragons forgive? Do Others? Do bloody Valemen?” Aurane hawked again, and he swigged, his pallor almost green tinged by the candlelight reflecting from the obsidian. The light in the Dragonmont’s strange, ancient solar hardly improved the sudden materialisation of Qyburn, Master of Whisperers.

“It is done, my lord,” the older man began at once to insinuate. “The repulsive charges have been quite…”

“Spare me,” Aurane rasped. “Go and attend on the little queen instead. Ponder your duty, there, while I go and ponder Ser Lyn’s.”

It was not just because Pylos scarce liked the sound of that that made him now determine, unasked, to follow Qyburn. The man was depraved, any perspicacious glance could tell quick enough, but Pylos could not help feeling his fascination…remembering the praises of Marwyn, as well as the fulminations of…

…as if on cue, a third Maester adhered to them now on the way to the Ravenry, all of him ajangle with cheap base metal, the nearest equivalent to the Grand Maester’s regalia that could be hammered up. “Perestan,” Qyburn was already mocking silkily, “a pleasure.” The Vale scholar seemed too demoralised even to sharply correct the unchained maester’s presumptuous address to ‘Grand Maester.’

“No word from Goldengrove as yet,” Perestan chattered indiscrimately to them both, a maester far his younger and a criminal disgraced. Pylos had rarely seen a man so diminished by power. “None from Sunspear. None even from the Riverlords…”

“But from Winterfell, certain letters,” Qyburn joked in what was, even for him, exceptionally poor taste. He managed to spark thus just a single ember of the broken-seeming Grand Maester’s wrath. “Certain birds…”

“You’re damn lucky to be alive, you…minion of the bloody fiends,” Perestan muttered darkly. “Don’t get too jolly, my lord. If the true enemy enters the Vale, your laughter will cease on a certain.”

“I always had but limited use for laughter,” Qyburn answered absently. “Why, behold. Here lies the Queen.”

“Surely she’s not dead already?” Pylos quipped uncharacteristically, before feeling inescapably guilty for letting slip that most inauspicious of quips. The look of the baby girl still astonished him on a sudden, frowning through her black brows, making him feel small, mean, even stupid.

Perestan’s old eyes goggled, and he murmured under his breath something that by way of a cough emerged as “Long may she reign.” Pylos seconded him with a respectful grunt of approval to which he did not for a moment trust.

“Her health is certainly good, Grand Maester,” Qyburn agreed, acting the physician, a role which for all his skill, for all his wizened kindliness of feature, in the end became him but vilely, “yet there is something else…something that swiftly reduces her...considerable looks…” His shrug was quietly, almost warmingly despairing.

And then, not for the first time and certainly not the last, an unknown rook ricocheted into the falcons’ enclosure. It was scarcely a matter of eggs, as the maesters at once, in their various ways, perceived. Amidst the chaos of the squall, Winter had somehow returned to the North.

It was not black, nor white, but a ghastly, deathly grey. Quickly Pylos struck it on the side of the head, with the silver, sharpened hammer all these maesters, even Qyburn, once of their order, had grown used to using lately upon the birds from Winterfell, ere they were set alight. At that moment, from somewhere above the ravenry, in some deeper chamber of the dragonglass, there cut in a scream more lamentable and abandoned even than the bird of illest omen.