Aemon of Dragonstone

[aiwonder]

Otho found Jon at his desk, dressed except for his boots, with the Saltcliffe drawings spread beside the trays of dragonshell. His breakfast had gone cold.

"The cart is ready," Otho said. "Borren was to find our guides."

"Ask Tommen. Take the rods and cords and begin where we agreed. I shall come when the questioning is done."

"They will ask about Borren."

"Tell them he is in my dungeon. They will hear the rest from me."

Jon covered the shells and pulled on his dry boots. At the door Arthur told him Ethan was waiting below. The boatmaster had been asking for wine.

"Water will serve him. I want to see the passengers first."

* * *

Someone had washed Laro's hair and put a clean shirt upon him. The collar was gone. Linen covered the place where it had rubbed, and he sat with his neck carefully straight, following Arthur's sword until the knight stopped beside the door. Without the dirt and salt he looked younger. Jon disliked how much that changed the sight of him.

Lorren said he had slept and eaten a little. Mallador was still forbidden to use his injured arm; Denner was enduring his complaints. Jon drew a stool to Laro's bedside, with the maester beside him to help where Jon's High Valyrian failed to reach the boy's Lysene speech.

When Jon glanced at the bread upon the coverlet, Laro put his hand over it.

"Keep it. There will be more."

His father made rope in Lys. An uncle had found him a place upon a merchantman, and he had sailed hoping to bring home money. He remembered his wages and the first hot meal he had bought ashore. Then he reached the galley which had come alongside asking help for a sick man, and his voice dwindled.

Grapnels had come over the rail. He hid beneath a coil of rope; they found him there. He could not say how many moons had passed since. There had been too much time below decks. The master taken last night had not been among the attackers. Laro had seen him later, bringing provisions and carrying away cargo.

Yesterday that man had argued over whether he was worth more mending rope or sold ashore. Afterwards they lowered him into the boat by his bound wrists.

Laro lifted his hands to explain. Lorren eased them down, but Jon had seen the swollen band beneath the sleeve. The boy had listened while men discussed his price. One of them was downstairs asking for wine.

He was to wait with the cargo in the house ashore until another vessel collected him. Five captives remained upon the galley: two women and three men. Her figurehead was a swan with its neck broken off, pale wood showing through the paint.

"Give that description to Denys," Jon told the maester.

Laro caught the name and began speaking quickly, drawing his feet beneath the blanket.

"He thinks you mean to send him back to find them."

"No." Jon leaned nearer. "You are free, Laro. You will stay here while you recover. No one has bought you."

Even after the maester repeated it, the boy kept watching him, trying to discover what had been left unsaid. Jon told Lorren to send for anything else he needed and began to rise.

"My father."

He sat down again. Laro hurried through his father's name and the way to the workshop, then stopped because he had forgotten a turning. A yard where the ropes were laid out. A blue door beside it. His eyes followed the maester's quill as though an error might lose his father altogether.

"I shall send a letter with a ship bound for Lys," Jon promised.

"He cannot read."

"Then the man carrying it will read it to him."

Laro pressed the heel of his hand against one eye. "Tell him I tried to come home."

For a moment Jon heard his own son calling from another room, in a house he would never enter again. He had to swallow before answering.

"I will."

In the passage he stopped to unclench his left hand. He had spent years studying Rome and the wealth it had wrung from its slaves. He knew the arguments used to excuse it. Hearing them here, with a boy afraid his father would think he had abandoned him, made him sick with anger.

Daenerys's punishment of the masters of Slaver's Bay would look like child's play beside what he intended once he had the strength to reach them. He would ruin the men who owned the markets as thoroughly as those who kept the captives. It would take ships and armies and wealth he did not yet possess. He meant to acquire them.

The woman in the next room had paid for passage from Hull to Blackburn, where her sister had written that the castle was hiring servants. Once clear of Hull, the master went to the galley instead. She could wait while he collected his cargo, he said, or swim. When Laro tried to speak to her, he struck him with a lantern.

Her daughter pressed against her skirts. The woman drew her onto her lap and covered one small ear while explaining what she had heard: workmen would soon be along that shore, and the house must be emptied.

Jon asked Wylla to send for the woman's sister. Outside, Arthur closed the door softly.

"Borren said they paid for passage," Jon said.

"Some did."

Enough truth to hide behind. Jon went down to hear the rest.

* * *

Hewyn had built up the fire above the dungeon stair, though its warmth scarcely reached the guards at the door. Damp darkened the wall beneath the high window, where the maester settled to catch the light.

Rollam's chain caught upon his stool. He pulled at it in sudden panic until Hewyn freed the link. He could be little older than Laro; Jon wished that made his part easier to judge.

His uncle had fetched him and three other carriers after the meeting to clear the western smokehouse. Rollam knew the goods avoided Blackburn's dues. Five nights he had worked there, for six coppers each, once eight for staying until morning. His work was outside, he insisted. Yet he had seen a man try to leave and a sailor bring him back. He had also seen Borren pay Orrick, the guard who came ahead of last night's boat to say the patrol remained farther east.

The other carriers were questioned separately. One had taken bread inside after Borren locked the door. Another said he fled with Orrick because the man wore the castle badge. Ethan asked how he had seen it beneath the guard's cloak; the answer came less readily.

Jon sent Tomas and Marros to search the smokehouse by daylight and guard Borren's house. They were to take men who knew boats. Stolen cargo was to be found; the villagers' fishing gear left alone.

Hessa came in without her cap, trying to hide the short chain against her stomach. Before she sat, she asked for her son.

"He is in his cell. I have spoken to him." Jon waited until she sat. "Yesterday you said people paid for passage. Laro did not. Was he the first you had reason to doubt?"

"Borren said—"

"Tell me what you saw."

Before the last new moon there had been a woman beneath a boat, her skirts drawn over her feet. When she moved, Hessa saw blood upon one ankle and skin rubbed away around both. The woman watched a sailor by the steps the whole time Hessa brought her bread.

"Did you tell your brother?"

"He said she had hurt herself in the crossing."

"And you believed him?"

"He is my brother." She looked up, frightened and angry together. "He fed us when my husband did not come home. Found work for Rollam. What was I to tell him? That I thought he had become the sort of man who—"

"You could have come here."

"And said a woman's ankles were sore?" She turned to Ethan. "You sent men. They found nothing."

"I did not know there was a woman, Hessa."

Her expression faltered. She wiped her face, dragging the chain across her dress.

"You saw blood and the skin rubbed away," Jon said. "Do not call that a sore foot again."

"I was afraid."

"So was she. What became of her?"

Borren had said she went on. Hessa had not asked where. She remembered boats waiting beyond the rocks for word from the upper path; the maester wrote while Jon drew out what she knew. When he finished, she begged to see Rollam. Her son had only followed his uncle.

"When I have finished with the sailors. Until then you remain apart."

Borren tried to smile at Ethan when he entered. His swollen lip spoiled the attempt. He began about Rollam's innocence and his own help during the fighting.

"Mallador told me you knocked the knife aside," Jon said. "He also told me you struck him before that. Who told you the landing was safe?"

"Boats have landed there for years." Borren appealed to Ethan with a glance. Jon knew that look: a grown man hoping someone would take the matter out of the boy's hands.

"I asked about last night."

"Orrick passed upon his round."

At first the payments were fish and wine. When Jon mentioned the silver Rollam had seen, they became two stags whenever a boat came. Since spring, Borren admitted. The buyers had been coming for two winters.

"You remember that winter." He spoke to Ethan again. "Boats ashore with no canvas fit to put them out. I found men willing to advance what we needed."

"Who?" Jon asked.

"Merchants from Hull." His foot moved until the chain scraped. "You will need them for all that building. Send me back with Ethan and a guard. I can put the trade right."

"You are not going back."

"My lord, you have been here little more than a week. Men owe me, and I owe others. If you take me away—"

"You sat at my table yesterday and heard me promise work for your people. Then you helped bring a slave ashore." Jon rose. "Do not tell me what Saltcliffe owes you."

"I did not know about the collar."

"Who locked the people in your house?"

"I have kept goods there for half the village. Ask—"

Jon turned to the guard beside Borren. "Strike him."

The fist caught him across the mouth. His stool scraped sideways; the guard caught his shoulder before he fell. Borren bent over his manacles, coughing blood onto his coat.

Jon waited for him to raise his head. "Who locked the door?"

"I did. When the master told me. They owed him money for passage."

"One tried to leave. A sailor brought him back."

Borren said nothing. His bravado had gone, but he had yet to name anyone who paid him. Jon came round the table and asked about the woman with the raw ankles.

"Hessa told you?"

"Answer."

Borren claimed the master had said she tried to jump overboard. They tied her to stop her doing it again. He could not understand her speech; how was he to know what she had agreed to?

"There is a maester in this castle. You could have brought him to her. Instead you took their coin and locked her in."

Jon could smell the old sweat in his coat. He wanted to seize him by the throat. Somewhere there were other houses like that smokehouse, and men expecting the next payment.

"Who settled the money?"

"If I name a man, he will hear of it. My sister still has to live there."

"You took her son with you last night," Ethan said. "Do not pretend you were thinking of them."

At last Borren named Neresso, a merchant in Hull. Ethan pressed him until he described rooms above a warehouse beside the boatyards, with a carpenter working beneath. Neresso had bought fish first, advancing money for casks and canvas. Later he paid for storing cargo and finding carriers. Some goods returned to Hull; others went inland from Blackburn in carts. The woman had gone back to the larger ship two nights later. Borren denied knowing where it took her.

"Why risk another landing with my men measuring Saltcliffe?"

"It was to be the last. I sent word about the works. The master said he would clear the house."

"He brought more cargo."

"Until another boat could take it away." He looked towards the door. "Tomorrow night. If the weather held."

A larger vessel, with two masts, would use the same cove. Jon sent Denys the description and expected night; he would hear the sailors before trusting either.

"Give Ethan the carters' names. You no longer speak for Saltcliffe. No orders, no money collected in my name, no word sent out of this castle."

"Rollam, my lord. If I help you—"

"You will answer for your own deeds. So will he."

* * *

Voss brought irons found beneath the boat's forward boards. One cuff could have closed about a child's wrist. Jon had them laid upon the table. Denys had accounted for his patrols: none had been the vessel sighted outside the point. She might yet have been an ordinary trader bound north.

Orrick admitted six payments. He had obtained that stretch of coast by asking Torven to exchange his duties with those of a man whose child was ill. The illness was real; Ethan had sent to the house. When Tobin complained about the landings, Orrick warned Borren and led the searchers away from the smokehouse.

"Eleven years you have served here," Ethan said. "And sold us for two stags."

The guard kept his eyes down. Torven confirmed the exchange of duties; the searchers described where Orrick had led them. Ethan would examine the earlier changes with Torven.

The sailors followed separately. Lorren had the injured oarsman's leg supported while he answered. He named Neresso without prompting and described the carpenter sharpening tools while they rolled casks past his door. The mate admitted that the galley took merchantmen and bought stolen cargo. Other captains shared her stores and anchorages. He had seen three ships together, but did not know how many belonged to them. He also confirmed the collecting vessel expected tomorrow night.

Their master came last, one eye nearly swollen shut, still protesting that his goods were bought.

Jon touched the wrist irons. "You held a knife at a bound boy's throat."

"The boy was not yours."

"He belongs to no one."

Arthur moved from the door. The master followed him with his good eye until Jon struck the table with his left palm. The irons jumped.

"Look at me. His name is Laro. His father makes rope in Lys and has had no word of him for months. Did you strike him with a lantern?"

"He would not be quiet."

Jon stared. The man actually seemed to believe he had explained it.

"Have you nothing else to say?"

"In Lys, a master has the right—"

"I will hear no claim that gives you the right to sell a boy." Jon leaned over the table. "You brought him onto my land in a collar and drew steel upon my men. You will stay in those chains until I decide how you die. Tell me where the others were taken."

Confronted with his mate's account, the master described the broken swan and an anchorage well south where the galley had last watered. By now she might be anywhere upon the Narrow Sea. Jon kept him until the noon bell, extracting the captains' names and the ships they commanded.

When he was taken down, Jon dictated a letter to Lord Velaryon. Neresso was to be seized, his warehouse searched and any captives freed. Denys would send Black Tern that afternoon with another captain and a rested crew. He would stay to cover the harbour and prepare tomorrow night's watch while Voss slept. Men would wait at the cove whether the collecting ship came or stayed away; any who yielded were to be taken alive.

"And I want those people found. Send the galley's description with the ships trading east."

Laro's letter would go with the first trustworthy master sailing to Lys, with orders to read it aloud to his father. All eleven suspects had now been questioned. Jon allowed Hessa her guarded visit to Rollam, then left with Ethan. They would hear for themselves how much Saltcliffe depended upon Borren.

Outside, practice swords rang across the yard. Jon unclenched his aching jaw. Aries was beneath the eaves, chasing a hanging sack with his wooden sword until it swung back at his face. He seized it with both hands.

"Let it swing," Jon said. "That is what it is there for."

"I thought you had gone." The boy looked towards the horses being saddled.

Jon took a practice sword. His right knuckle protested, so he changed hands. "Show me."

"With your left?"

"His feet work," Arthur said. "Watch those."

Aries attacked eagerly. Jon gave ground until the boy reached too far, then touched his chest.

"Again."

"Have I done something?" Aries's point drooped. "You're cross."

Jon had ordered Borren to answer in much the same voice. He lowered his sword.

"Not with you. I'm sorry. It has been a foul morning."

"Should I fetch my cloak?"

"There is time. Try once more."

Jon showed him a shorter step. Arthur corrected his stance, and they crossed the yard slowly, until Aries began watching Jon's weight instead of staring at his sword. When the groom approached, Jon held up a finger.

This time Aries let him move away. When Jon came within reach again, the boy struck, glancing off his blade and touching his sleeve.

"There," Arthur said.

Aries turned, delighted. Jon tapped his unguarded shoulder.

"That one does not count. He was speaking."

"You can ask him to keep quiet."

The boy considered the Sword of the Morning and decided against it. Arthur laughed.

"It was well struck," Jon told Aries. "You made me come to you."

As they put the swords away, Aries asked why he had been sent to Gawen last night. He could have carried blankets. Tomas had gone.

"Tomas has had years of training. There were men waiting with knives." Jon straightened the fastening at the boy's wrist. "You will have your turn. Until then, you stay where I send you."

Aries held still, his mouth stubborn. "Was Rollam frightened?"

"Yes."

"His mother was crying. I saw them before Wylla sent me upstairs."

Jon remembered his own children listening in doorways while the adults thought them safely out of earshot. Aries had been left to make sense of chains and a weeping mother.

"She is being questioned too. Helping us last night did not answer everything about what she knew."

"Will you tell me what happens?"

"What you need to know. Fetch your cloak. You come to Saltcliffe today."

Arthur examined Jon's knuckle while Aries hurried inside.

"Let your page do the buckles. That will please him."

"He ought to be worrying about missed blows," Jon said. "I don't want him lying awake wondering whether men will carry him off and sell him."

"Nor do I." Arthur glanced towards the infirmary.

"Laro was watching your sword."

"I saw. I'll leave it outside when I next see him."

Jon nodded and took the reins, waiting for Aries's feet in the passage.

* * *

The cloud had broken by the time they reached Saltcliffe. Sunlight lay upon the wet roofs, and smoke from the boiling shed drifted through the racks of split fish. A girl upon an overturned boat was swinging a rope at the gulls. She stopped to watch the riders. One bird dropped behind her and stole a piece before her belated shout could trouble it.

Jon looked towards the path that passed west behind the headland. The hidden cove was out of sight. Borren had walked home from locking people in that shed and eaten supper among neighbours who thought they knew him.

Arthur, Ethan and Aries dismounted beside him. Otho came down from the marked ground with Tommen and two boatmen who remembered the worst winter water. The first soldiers were unloading tools. Around them, islanders waited with baskets forgotten at their feet; one man moved nearer his wife when Ethan approached.

"I have questioned Borren," Jon told them. "He took payment for secret landings and paid a man of the garrison to warn him when the shore was to be searched. Last night we found a boy with an iron collar at his throat."

A woman touched her own neck. Tommen said, "I heard he was in debt, my lord."

"He was taken from a merchant ship. Borren accepted silver to keep people locked up until another boat came for them. I will not hear it called a debt."

"He has lived here all his life," a boatman protested. "We would have known."

"You did not." Jon waited for the man to meet his eyes. "Borren no longer speaks with my authority. Neither does the guard who helped him."

Faces turned towards Ethan. He endured their scrutiny without defending his garrison.

"What of Rollam?" a woman asked. "He is Hessa's only boy."

"And what of the one in the collar?" someone called from behind the racks.

"I have questioned Rollam," Jon said over the rising voices. "I will decide his punishment. Otho directs the work here, and Ethan will see to the village until I appoint a headman. Bring us anything you know of those landings. Anyone sending warning to Borren's accomplices will answer for it."

He asked what had stopped while they waited for him.

"The casks," Tommen said. "And the fish. We cannot sell it."

Borren's house stood above the ordinary landing, well east of the hidden cove. Guards waited outside its store, where casks, nets and a wrapped roll of sailcloth stood beneath the loft. The headman had supplied half the boats with something they could not do without, advancing money through winter and finding buyers for their catch. Now the fishermen crowded into his doorway, unable to agree upon what they owed.

"He said a good season would clear it," one admitted. "Said that last year too."

"Did he give you the reckoning?" Ethan asked.

"He told me." The man glanced towards the shore. "There was the fish to sell."

Jon could have sealed the store and left the maester to untangle ownership. Meanwhile a boat would lose days at sea because its net was behind a locked door. Borren's neighbours would remember who had turned the key.

Ethan had begun asking who dealt directly with the buyers. The answers came more readily than anything said about the western cove. These men knew the price of a cask and which merchant would wait for payment; confronted with Borren's prisoners, they had scarcely known where to look. Jon watched their hands moving over the goods as they spoke. The village could manage without its headman. First he had to give them somewhere to turn when the arrangements they had lived by fell apart.

A familiar Blackburn buyer was due that afternoon. Jon established that he supplied ships at anchor and kept a stall beside the market; this was ordinary trade, quite separate from the vessel expected at the western cove. He told Ethan to hear the price and see the men paid, keeping Borren's portion aside until the debts were examined.

"You will not pay the same debt twice," he told the man who had borrowed through winter. "Tell Ethan what you received and what you have given back."

Tommen could finish the sail already cut. If its cloth proved stolen, Jon would bear the loss; the uncut roll must await the maester's examination. Nets and ordinary boat gear could leave under Ethan's eye. Wine, oil and foreign cloth seized at the western smokehouse would remain with the other evidence.

Outside, a fisherman asked about his imprisoned brother's children. Ethan went down to him, promising food before dark. Across the yard, Gella stood with her arms folded beneath her apron.

"The pan is boiling, my lord. If you still want to see it."

"I do."

* * *

The pan simmered beneath rafters wet with steam. A drop fell upon Jon's hair as he bent to inspect an old repair beneath the rim. Smoke caught his eyes; the man tending the fire shifted a piece of fuel and the draught drew it away.

Gella had chosen her two learners: a woman who had worked pans across the bay and an older boatman whose knee would no longer straighten. Neither looked like someone awaiting a marvel. They had already lost working hours to a young lord's promises.

"They want to know how you mean to make it white," Gella said.

"You will see." Jon gave Arthur his cloak, and the knight hung it clear of the smoke. "Show me where you are with this batch."

She drained a rakeful into a basket and scraped the last grains from the wood. Jon tasted the salt. Bitterness lingered after the first sharpness had passed.

"That is a good batch," she said, watching his face. "The fuel is dry today."

He remembered tipping too much salt into a pot and swearing over it. Such a cheap, careless waste in his old life. Here every grain represented water carried and fuel gathered, and she had made certain none remained upon her rake.

He could change that. After the morning, the certainty was a relief.

"Ladle out a little of that saltwater. We can try it today."

"In what? Those boilers you drew are not built."

"A clean cooking pot. Keep your pan working."

She sent her boy to borrow a sound earthenware pot. The pan held strong brine, seawater boiled down until much of its water was gone. They strained a little through clean cloth, catching ash and grit, then left it to stand. The finer dirt would sink while they looked over the new works.

Outside, Otho's cords marked the ground for the first furnace and boiler, above the ordinary spray. Jon brought the learners out to see them. Aries stayed with Gella to help carry clean water for washing the pot and tools.

The older worker looked from the nearest peg to the soldier standing at the far end.

"All of that? For one boiler?"

"One. More will follow when we can supply them."

"My wife will have something to say if you mean me to feed that fire."

"You will have men to carry for you, and others to relieve you. Bring her when we settle your work and pay."

The woman wanted to know how they would get so much water uphill. Jon showed her the cleaner intake, away from the fish washing, and where a timber frame would stand. Men would turn a winch to haul up buckets and empty them into a trough leading to the settling tanks. From there, the water could run downhill to the boiling house. He remembered pumps he had inspected in another life, but those required fittings he could not yet provide. Otho's carpenters could build the frame.

Otho wanted the rock uncovered before fixing the frame's footings. Jon agreed. They would use the loose stone for the road.

He could see the finished works clearly enough to grow impatient with the pegs at his feet. Once these men had learned, they could teach the next hands themselves. Without that, every undertaking on the island would wait upon his coming.

A boatman stepped across the cord ahead of them. "I bring her up here when the sea rises, my lord. Put that edge across the slope and it'll split her bottom."

The hauling way met the proposed road upon steep ground. It had looked easier on the drawing. Jon walked it with him, then moved the crossing lower, taking space from the store yard. Otho held a board while he amended the plan: paving flush with the slope, the drain covered beneath the crossing. The boatman followed the shifting cord with his eyes.

His wife had been waiting beside him. "And my mother? You mean to take us higher. She cannot manage many steps."

Gella sent Aries after them as Jon followed the woman through a passage hung with washing. Her mother's room opened upon a small yard fenced with broken oars. It was damp, cramped and convenient. Jon had seen enough old people measure a home by the few journeys they could still make unaided.

He gave the family a ground-floor room in the lower row, with a door into the court and a level way to the working yard. The woman made Otho show her where it would stand.

"You stay here until it is ready," Jon told them.

She looked uphill. "And the nets?"

"There will be room. Show Otho what you need to keep."

He would not let the new streets bend around every familiar fence. But he had promised to oversee the building, and he would have to return when the walls rose to make certain her mother could reach the room he had given her. The woman would believe him when she saw it.

Aries caught his boot against a basket on the way down and apologised to its owner. A boy behind her asked whether he was one of Jon's soldiers.

"His page." Aries straightened his cloak. "I ride with him."

"Do you fight him?"

"We practise. I caught his sleeve today." He glanced at Jon.

"He did."

Aries was showing the boy where his sword had landed when Arthur called him down the path.

* * *

Noll had brought scrap plate and a hammer. He laid them upon a trestle with the air of a man expecting an unreasonable request.

"The breadth you drew, I cannot beat it out with the hands I have. Every man wants nails as it is."

"Then we buy plate for the first boiler. Show me the sizes you can join."

The smith overlapped two pieces. Rivets would hold them; keeping brine inside through repeated heatings was another matter. Jon crouched opposite him and drew the supporting brickwork in the dirt. The iron needed room to move as it heated, and they must be able to reach the joints for repairs. Noll examined the plates again.

Otho unrolled the larger drawing. The long boiling house filled most of it, with room for the workers along the vessels and separate stores for fuel and finished salt. Jon traced the brine's course from the settling tanks. Men would bring water and fuel while others tended the fires and gathered the salt; the work would continue through changes of hands. Noll's finger stopped upon the furnace beneath the first great boiler.

"I have mended pans. I've never built anything like that."

"You will build the first with me."

"And the masons?"

"With me too. We shall test the joints with cold water, then watch them as it heats." Jon drew the sheet nearer. "Tell me where you doubt it."

Noll named a joint near the corner. Jon turned the plate and showed how it would sit upon the support. The smith listened without agreeing. When Otho began rolling the plan again, Noll stopped him; he wanted another look at the underside. Jon left it open. They could begin there.

For a while Jon's world narrowed to the metal between them. He had missed this during the questioning: a difficulty that yielded something when he looked closely enough.

The woman from the pan interrupted. "Where am I meant to stand?"

Otho showed her on the plan. She stepped back and swung her rake as she would beside the pan, showing how far its handle reached. A worker passing behind her would be struck. Jon shifted the vessel's outline to leave a wider passage.

The woman watched him as though she expected offence. Jon thanked her and had Otho measure the space she needed. She would have to spend her days working there.

Back at the shed, Gella showed Jon the dirt settled at the bottom of the pot. They carefully poured the clear brine into a bowl, leaving the dirt behind, then washed the pot and poured it back. She set it over a small fire, sheltered from the blowing ash. A gentle simmer would steam away the water and leave the salt behind. Jon left her to tend it and took Otho to the waiting men.

The foundations and road could begin now, with a modest roof to keep their fuel dry. The greater building would follow when the plates and timber arrived. Abel knew the cost was coming; hoped-for clock orders would not buy iron this afternoon. The interval would give Noll time to settle his requirements while brick and stone were prepared in the other villages.

Jon explained the first work plainly. The hired men must tell Otho which days their boats could spare them. Stone and earth were to be kept apart, and no one was to shift the house pegs without asking. When the road was cleared, Otho could carry on with the foundations without waiting for Jon's next visit. Anything beyond the agreed work must come to him.

The fisherman who had objected to the crossing offered his sons once they had finished with the nets.

"That will do," Jon said.

One of the sons was already among the men. He looked towards his father, received a nod and took up a mattock. Others began fetching their tools. Jon watched the first uncertainty pass into the familiar business of deciding who would carry and who would dig. They could doubt his white salt while opening a trench. He needed the work begun, and Otho now had enough hands to begin it.

He took Otho's spade in his left hand and put his boot upon the blade. The turf resisted. For an irritating moment everyone waited upon the strength of a twelve-year-old boy, and he remembered lifting far heavier things. Arthur moved closer. Jon pressed down and turned the sod himself.

"Keep that earth for the ground above the houses."

Otho passed the spade to a soldier, whose next cut came more easily. Jon's right knuckle stung; he had caught the shaft with that hand as the turf gave way. He flexed it once and left them to work.

* * *

They ate while the trial pot heated. Stools came from the houses, and someone added smoked fish to the food Wylla had packed. The older worker's wife brought bread. Finding him beside the salt shed, she asked whether he still meant to carry fuel upon that knee.

"I've done it all winter."

"And I have watched you trying to get out of bed every morning." She noticed Jon listening and fell quiet.

"He can tend the fire sitting," Jon said. "Others will carry the fuel."

"I'd be glad of that, my lord," her husband said. His wife took a stool beside him and broke the bread.

Tommen came down from the store. The buyer had offered less upon hearing Borren was gone. Ethan had threatened to send the catch to Blackburn to be sold beside the man's own stall, and a better price had emerged. Below them, casks rolled towards the water while Ethan listened to a woman holding up a fish by its tail.

The sailmaker took bread but ate little. His eyes kept returning to the guard outside Borren's house.

"Borren bought my mother's shroud," he said at last. "I could not pay him that moon. He never asked afterwards."

Jon lowered his cup. "I believe you."

"He came to see her too, when she could no longer get down to the shore." Tommen seemed offended by the easy answer. He had prepared for an argument.

"You want me to spare him."

"No. I don't—" He rubbed crumbs between his fingers. "I've known him since we were boys, my lord."

Jon remembered Laro clutching his blanket. All morning he had forced men to acknowledge what they had done, and now a kindness to someone else was supposed to weigh against it. The anger came readily. Recognising that Tommen had asked nothing of the sort took more effort. He was trying to save some portion of the man he had trusted.

"Borren had the key," Jon said. "Those people could not leave unless he opened the door."

"He told us they were waiting for passage."

"Some were. Others came in chains. He knew which was which."

A boatman called from the shore. Tommen lifted a hand without looking round. At length he admitted he had thought Jon mistaken, even after seeing the guards.

"I am not mistaken."

"No, my lord." Tommen rose, leaving the bread. "I had better finish that sail."

Jon let him go. He believed Borren had sat beside the old woman and paid for her burial without expecting anything back. It would not save him.

Gella's boy called from the pot. Much of the water had steamed away, and white salt crystals were gathering at the edge. Jon gave Gella a clean scoop. She lifted them into a cloth-lined basket and let the water drain through.

"More will come if we boil it down," she said.

"The water left in the pot holds much of the bitterness. Leave it."

"There is salt still there."

"Set it aside. We will see how much, and what use we can make of it."

She obeyed reluctantly. The new furnaces would use heat that her shed squandered, but she had today's fuel to reckon with. Until they had proved themselves, these white grains would have to earn their price.

They spread a little salt upon a dish beside the warmth to dry. Above them spades struck stone; casks were lowered into the buyer's boat. Jon passed the dish to Gella when the grains were dry.

She rubbed a pinch between finger and thumb. White lodged in the creases of her darkened skin. She held it nearer the light, tasted it, waited, then tasted again.

"Let me," the other woman said.

"Wipe your hands. You've been at the fuel."

Gella surrendered the dish reluctantly. Her companions tried it and looked towards the old pan where the batch had begun. At last she pointed uphill.

"The great boilers will make salt like this?"

"Yes. Once we have built them properly."

Noll picked up his plates and examined the holes again. Jon felt a pleasure out of all proportion to the few grains on the dish. He had imagined ships and machinery, streets full of work. For now, a woman who had spent her life boiling dirty salt was tasting what he could teach her to make, and a smith was looking afresh at the difficulty of containing it.

"Could I take some to Wylla?" Aries asked.

Most stayed with Gella. Jon wrapped a little for Aries, while Noll took darker salt to show beside it. The boy carried his packet as carefully as gold. Gella examined the water they had set aside. By the time Jon returned, he suspected she would have tried another pot herself. He hoped she did.

Before mounting, Jon returned to the hillside. The first foundation line lay open. Otho was showing the boatman's wife the lower row; her husband had brought their nets to show how much room they needed. Ethan would finish the payments and see the detained men's families fed. Choosing a new headman could wait until he knew who had helped with Borren's ordinary work without taking part in the landings.

Tommen walked beside the horses to the bend. "I'll have the sail finished when you come back, my lord."

"Good. I want to see it set."

He bowed and turned homewards. From the road, Jon could see Gella outside the shed with the dish still in her hands. Farther up the slope, the men were digging while soldiers carried the loosened stones aside.

* * *

The castle was taking supper when they returned. Aries had gone quiet on the last stretch of road, but the sight of Wylla restored him. He rescued the saddlebag from the groom and carried his packet of salt inside with both hands, explaining what it was before she had finished asking whether he had eaten.

Jon wanted water and a clean shirt. Denys was waiting, however, and he stopped in the passage to hear him. Black Tern had sailed for Driftmark that afternoon with Jon's letter and the captain Denys had chosen. Denys himself would remain to direct the watch. Fresh men were going to the western cove; they would look for the two-masted vessel tomorrow night, whether word of the raid had reached her or not.

"Five people still aboard that galley, if the boy is right," the captain said.

Jon stopped rubbing the soot from his cuff. Had they watched Laro being lowered over the side? Had any envied him?

"Unless she has put them ashore elsewhere. Have the incoming masters been asked about her?"

"My men have the description. So do the other captains."

"Send for me as soon as there is anything."

"At once, my lord." From the kitchen came Aries's voice, explaining the salt to Wylla. Denys glanced towards the door. "Did Saltcliffe give you what you wanted?"

"They are digging the foundations. We have white salt, though barely enough to cover your palm."

Denys went into the kitchen, and Jon climbed the stairs.

Arthur was outside Jon's chamber with Gawen, settling tomorrow's escort. Gawen shifted his sling and stepped aside.

"I need you for the crows," Jon told Arthur.

"After you eat."

He was hungry enough to agree. Washed and changed, he ate the stew brought to his desk. Beside his bowl stood the covered trays of dragonshell. Aries had asked again what he meant to do with the gold-coloured piece.

He lifted the cloth and turned the fragment beneath his fingertip. Candlelight moved across its raised pattern. He was glad he had brought it out of the mountain's bones and dust, though he still had no answer for Aries, or for Arthur's question in the cave.

He covered the shells and finished eating. If he waited for the island to give him a quiet evening, he would sail east no better prepared than he was now.

Arthur joined him in the room beside the western postern. Hugin waited upon the ledge. Munin came for the meat in Jon's hand, and he fed them both before settling upon the stool.

"Both tonight?" Arthur asked.

"I can move between them. I want to see how long I can stay with both, and how far they can go."

Arthur set water beside him. "For the expedition?"

Jon nodded. "I may need eyes ahead and behind us. Or help farther away than I can reach now."

He kept Valyria to himself. Flight would show him a coast, but there might be creatures in those ruins that could follow men where birds could not. Firewyrms came to mind, and the thought was enough to make him study the crows more soberly. They knew his touch. He had fed them, travelled with them, shared their hunger and delight in the wind. Whatever he encountered in Valyria would have no such reason to admit him.

He meant to strengthen himself while he had time to learn what he could bear. If his first struggle with an unfamiliar creature came when men were depending upon him, fatigue or a broken hold might kill them.

Munin opened her wings. Jon followed her over the wall, with the cliff passing beneath her left wing and the sea spreading to her right. Hugin came after them. At the first jut of rock Jon slipped into him; for an instant he saw Munin ahead, climbing above the spray.

The change was familiar. He returned to Munin, then tried to keep her sight while opening his attention to Hugin. That was harder. Sea tilted across the cliff. He let Hugin go, steadied Munin, and tried again with both birds gliding in the same direction.

For several wingbeats he could see through both. Munin flew low over the water. Hugin's shadow crossed the grass above the cliff, and Jon felt the wind differently against each pair of wings. Excitement nearly made him lose it. He eased back into Munin and let Hugin follow of his own accord.

At the southern headland he turned her in a wide circle, then went back to Hugin. Both answered readily. He sent them beyond the point.

They passed a sheltered inlet, then a pale rock standing alone in the sea. At each he changed birds, waiting until he could see clearly before asking more of them. Dragonstone dwindled behind him. Beyond the rock, drawing Hugin's sight into his own took an effort he had not felt nearer the castle. He tried once more, with Munin circling above a fishing boat, and felt a dull pressure gather behind eyes that were still closed in the postern room.

He fixed the pale rock in his memory. Tomorrow he would try that distance with one crow, then both, and find which effort had tired him.

He brought them home separately, taking Munin first while Hugin perched upon the headland. The wind opposed her now. When she gripped the window ledge, Jon left her and reached back for Hugin. Finding him again was easier than keeping both in flight. He brought the second crow along the cliff until Arthur's pale cloak showed within the window.

Jon opened his eyes. His shoulders ached from holding still.

"You had both?" Arthur asked.

"For a little while farther out." Jon took the water. "It became harder beyond the white rock south of the headland. I brought them back one at a time."

"You were gripping that stool."

"I felt it. I'll come before the yard each morning. I want to try that stretch while I'm rested."

"And stop there?"

"If I need to. Once I can hold them easily at that distance, I'll send them farther."

Arthur watched him rise, then moved aside. Jon fed the crows again before they left.

They found Aries at supper with Gawen. Wylla had spread the salt upon a dark plate. Aries pushed it towards Arthur.

"Try it."

"Let him sit down first," Wylla said, drawing the boy's supper back within reach.

Jon took the empty place. Eastcove would have him in the morning. Arthur tasted the salt, and Aries leaned forward to hear what he thought.

 

[aiwonder]

Jon sat beside the open window, his eyes closed and Arthur waiting by his stool. Through Munin's eyes he watched the white rock draw nearer. This time he reached it without the strain of last night's flight.

He let her settle upon it. Water broke below her claws, and a fishing boat moved slowly across the mouth of the inlet. He could distinguish the man at the stern from the one bending over the net. For a little while he watched them work, then brought her home.

The second flight was harder. Hugin flew above the cliff while Munin kept nearer the water. Jon held both for longer this time, until the two moving shores began to slide across one another. He released Hugin, waited for Munin's sight to steady, and reached for him again. By the white rock his neck was stiff and Arthur had spoken his name twice.

He returned the birds separately. There was no virtue in making himself useless before breakfast.

"The distance is easier with one," he said, opening his eyes. "With both, I tire sooner."

Arthur passed him the cup. "You were gripping the stool again."

Jon flexed his fingers. He had scarcely noticed them tightening; all his attention had been upon the birds.

"The same distance tomorrow," he said. "Until I can hold them without losing the shore."

Arthur nodded. Jon drank the rest of the water. In Valyria he might need to find a landing or a path well beyond the reach of his own eyes. He might also encounter creatures far harder to hold than birds that already came to his hand. For now, even these two could exhaust him.

In the yard, Aries waited with the wooden swords and his six friends. The centurions had released their pages to ride with Jon for the day. Geth and Timm were trying the balance of swords too long for them; Patch lay across Aries's feet, his pale throat turned to the sun.

Jon took a shorter sword in his left hand. His right knuckle still hurt when he closed his hand.

Aries glanced at the other boys and attacked too quickly. Jon turned the blow aside. Arthur corrected the boy's grip and made him try again. On the third exchange Aries caught Jon's sleeve.

"I got you!"

"You did. Keep your guard up."

Aries raised it, grinning. Nibs wanted the next turn, but the maester arrived with letters while Arthur was pairing the others. Patch lifted his head at the sound of the breakfast bowls.

"The last reply, my lord. From Sharp Point."

Jon handed his practice sword to Aries. They went beneath the covered walk, where breakfast had been set upon a narrow table. Wylla moved a bowl clear of the papers and put it before him.

Velaryon, Celtigar, Sunglass and Bar Emmon would come. The maester had kept the earlier answers together while they waited for the fourth. Each promised attendance and named the company that would need lodging. Jon read the assurances for himself, eating between letters.

Monford Velaryon would cross from Driftmark with his household. His acceptance was courteous and brief. Ardrian Celtigar required rooms suitable for his years and asked that his servants be allowed to prepare them. Guncer Sunglass wished to hear the septon's service during his stay. The answer from Sharp Point confirmed that House Bar Emmon would attend with its household and sworn men.

"They expect to be here within four days, my lord. The day before the gathering."

"Give Wylla the numbers. Tobin must know which ships to expect." Jon drew Monford's letter nearer. "This was written before Black Tern sailed?"

"Yes, my lord. There is no answer yet to yesterday's letter."

The invitation and the order concerning Neresso were separate matters. Monford had agreed to meet his young overlord; he had not yet told Jon what his men had found above the boatyards of Hull.

Arthur took the place beside him. "You will have more than building to discuss with them now."

"I meant to discuss their ships."

"And their service. Monford will want to know how often you mean to call upon it."

Jon looked towards the yard. Noll was arguing with a carter about a chest placed beneath the ironwork. Ewan had opened it himself and was lifting out the tools he wanted kept within reach.

"Then I shall tell him what I require." Jon turned back from the yard. "I need them ready to act when I call upon them."

"They have not seen what you built in the north," Arthur said. "Expect questions."

"They will get answers."

Jon left the replies with the maester. "The day before the gathering, you and Ethan go through the census with Otho and the masters. I want the craftsmen placed where their trades are needed, and the other willing hands sent where the work can use them. Keep the harvest requirements beside you. I will not have two foremen promising the same men different wages."

"And the men already upon the works?"

"They stay at work. We are preparing the larger parties."

Wylla had been studying the household numbers. "Some will come early. They always do."

"Have their rooms ready."

"I shall, if you leave me the women I have just hired. Tell Ethan I need them here."

"Then here they stay."

She pushed his bowl nearer. He finished it while Arthur went to the horses.

* * *

Ormond had gathered Eastcove beside the well.

Jon saw the folded housing order in his hand before he dismounted. Behind the headman stood men in clay-stained coats, women with baskets, and a cooper still wearing his leather apron. Children occupied the wall until their elders made them get down. The morning firing had begun; smoke spread above the low roofs and thinned as it reached the rising ground.

Otho waited with two assistants and a bundle of pegs. He had left a foreman at Saltcliffe to continue the agreed foundations. Here the cords lay coiled at his feet.

"They wished to hear it from you, my lord," Ormond said.

"Then read it."

The headman looked briefly at Ethan. Jon waited. At last Ormond unfolded the sheet and read the undertaking that no occupied house would be pulled down until its household had been shown a finished dwelling fit to receive it. Ethan would oversee the moves. The new houses were for the islanders as well as the people Jon had brought, according to the places assigned to them.

Ormond read the first part twice. No one hurried him.

"Those are my orders," Jon said when he had finished. "Keep that copy where your people may ask to hear it."

A man beside the cooper pointed uphill. "Are we all to go there?"

"The first rows will stand above the smoke. Come and see where."

Jon gave Bucephalus to the groom and took the lane through the houses. Arthur followed with the pages; Ewan and Noll came behind the cart. Hake held Patch by a short lead to keep him from the chickens beneath it. People left the well to walk with them, speaking quietly as they passed their own doors.

He had spent much of the survey looking past those doors. Now a woman stood upon one threshold with a sick child against her shoulder. A patched sail covered another roof. Ormond's brother had set a new lintel above his workroom and rubbed oil into the wood until it shone. The headman stopped there.

"He put that in last autumn."

His brother stood within the doorway, broad across the shoulders, pale hair tied back with a strip of cord. He looked at Jon without bowing until Ormond touched his arm.

"You will be able to use it again," Jon said.

"It fits this door."

"Show Otho its measure. He can allow for it in the new one."

The man glanced at the acolyte but did not answer. Jon went on. Saving a lintel would not make him welcome the loss of the house around it. He had seen men fight a road widening over a few yards of garden, and those men had lived long enough to watch governments come and go. These people expected their lord's decision to outlast them.

Beyond the last cottages, Otho opened the drawing upon a plank laid across two baskets. The survey marks remained where they had left them. An assistant pulled brambles clear of one while Jon followed the slope with his eyes.

"Begin with the road," he said.

Otho's men carried the cord uphill. One held its end at the old wall while the other walked away with the coil turning in his hands. The first pale line stretched across the rough grass. A second followed beside it, far enough away for laden carts to pass.

The villagers spread out along the cords. From the castle table it had been a narrow strip between buildings. Here a woman could stand in the middle and see how much ground Jon meant to keep open.

"That is a street?" the cooper asked.

"The main one. The shorter lanes leave it here and here." Jon walked to the first crossing. Otho gave him a peg, and he set its point against the ground. "Houses along the upper side. Their doors face the street. Courts behind them, with room for washing and the work that belongs at home."

"And my staves?"

"Your yard remains nearer the shore. You will not carry wet timber through the house rows."

The cooper called to his apprentice, who had stayed with the cart. They stood together examining the space between the proposed lane and the slope below.

Jon led the others down the side of the new street. A shallow gutter would receive the runoff from the roofs; the larger drain would take it away below the houses, clear of the well. He showed them where a person could lift a cover to clear a blockage. Otho set pegs at the changes of direction while the island mason checked the fall with him.

A girl carrying a water jar stepped across the cord and continued along the familiar track. Her mother called her back, embarrassed.

"She can cross it," Jon said. "The cord shows the edge of the road. It is not a wall."

The girl went on more slowly, looking over her shoulder. Aries moved out of her way. He had been keeping carefully inside the lines himself.

At the lower end, the new road met the lane to the boats. Ormond came forward before Otho drove the next peg.

"That is where the boats come up in winter."

"They keep the shore lane," Jon said.

"They do. But not that little turn." Ormond pointed at the bend. "You watched them carry nets through it. An empty boat is another matter."

Jon looked from the drawing to the ground. The lane was wide enough along its length. Its turn into the hauling ground had been drawn around a drying shelter, and a boat longer than a cart would cut across the corner.

"Which boat?"

Ormond called down towards the shore. Three men came from beside an upturned hull. They gave its length while Otho stretched the chain along the bend. Jon asked them to show where the bow went when they hauled it higher. One took the loose end of a cord and walked the curve, another followed at the distance of the stern, and the line swept through the proposed shelter.

"Move the shelter back," Jon said.

Otho measured from its rear peg. "There is room if we narrow the yard."

"Do it. Keep this turning ground clear."

Ormond watched the new peg go in, then looked back towards his brother's house. It still stood in the path of the future road.

"If you moved the road as well—"

"The road stays. You have my word about the houses, and I expect your help building them."

Ormond's mouth tightened. "Yes, my lord."

Jon called the mason to the first house row. Behind them, Ormond sent two men for spades.

* * *

Below the house rows, men had begun stripping turf from the ground reserved for the first large kiln. The other two sites were still grass. Otho had left room between them for fuel carts, and a broad stretch beside the road for drying sheds. Jon stopped there with Ewan and Noll while the potter caught up, his daughter carrying a basket at his heels.

The man looked along the cords. "All that for one firing?"

"For bricks and roof tiles," Jon said. "Saltcliffe needs them. So will Blackburn, and every house we build here. Your old kiln cannot supply all of them."

"It supplies the people who pay me."

"And it will go on doing so. I am paying for this one."

The potter gave him a doubtful look, then bent over the drawing Otho had spread upon a board. He had spent his life judging heat through a kiln mouth. Jon was asking him to trust passages buried beneath a chamber several times the size of his own, with shutters to direct the draught through them. He followed one passage until it vanished beneath the drawn floor.

"What stops the fire taking the nearest way out?"

Jon crouched beside a pile of old bricks and laid two short rows, bridging them with another brick. The potter came down beside him. With the drawing close at hand, Jon showed him where the heat would enter, where it would rise through the floor, and which openings they would close to make it reach the farther end.

"That closure will need to fit," the man said. "Leave a gap there and your far end will be cold."

"Yes. And we must be able to reach it when it needs mending."

Noll wanted to test the iron guides before trusting them in such heat; Ewan found too little room to remove the frame for repairs. Jon altered the drawing. Beside him, the potter lifted the top brick to examine their little channel.

"You have fired one of these before, my lord?"

"We built furnaces in the north. I shall direct the building and the first firing here."

The man's eyes rose to Jon's face. Jon knew what he was trying to reckon: years of learning, years of work, all somehow fitted into twelve years of life. Beside him, Ewan was already discussing the frame with Noll. The potter looked between the two northmen and back at the drawing.

"Then I had best be here for it."

"I want you here." Jon rose and brushed dirt from his knees. "Otho, send for me when they begin the heat passages. Nothing is to be covered until I have inspected it."

The potter led them back to his sheds, still asking about the firing. Beneath the first roof he had to turn sideways between racks of unfired pots. One board sagged under its load; he lifted it with both hands and told Ellyn to move the jar beneath it.

"You can give me a kiln as big as the castle. I shall still lose the ware if it has nowhere to dry."

Ewan took the village carpenter to the timber cart. There was enough to roof the first two bays of the drying shed; Jon had them begin there, so bricks could be shaped and dried while the foundations were dug.

Ellyn lifted her basket towards a bench. Her father caught her wrist before she set it upon a row of small clay horses.

"Mind those."

"I saw them." She moved the basket farther along. Aries had stopped beside the horses. There were birds too, some no larger than his thumb, waiting to go into a firing with the cups.

Ellyn showed Jon the notches distinguishing her clay samples. Her father warned that the lower seam grew gritty. Noll took two pieces to test in the smithy furnace before they used either clay to line the new kilns.

"Could I make one?" Aries asked Ellyn, touching a clay horse's tail.

"Leave those alone," her father said.

The boy withdrew his hand. Ellyn broke a little clay from a lump beneath a damp cloth and gave it to him.

"Use that. Over there, where you won't knock anything."

Jon left him with the other pages and took father and daughter to the old stone storehouse beyond the sheds. Its roof needed patching, but the walls were sound. Otho could put a lock upon the door and shutters at the windows. The small porcelain kiln would stand behind it, out of sight of the road.

Ellyn went through the doorway first. Daylight fell through a gap in the roof onto the empty floor.

"I could set a bench along here."

Her father remained beside Jon. "She will have to do more than set a bench."

"So will you. I am teaching both of you." Jon kept his voice low. "The mixtures and the firing are to remain here. You will swear to that before we begin. No visitors in the workshop, and no one taught without my leave."

"They'll come asking once they see the cups."

"Perrin will sell the cups. Send them to him."

For a moment the potter looked pleased by the thought of people seeking his work. Then Ellyn turned from the wall.

"Tomorrow, my lord?"

"Tomorrow afternoon. Otho will have the roof made sound. Begin with more samples of each clay, all the same thickness. We can test those while Marrec finds the stone for the mixtures."

"Tomorrow?" Her father stepped inside. "I have bowls waiting to be turned. You heard me promise the jars for Blackburn."

"I can do the bowls in the morning."

"And the next morning? And the day after? There are orders besides those."

She looked at Jon, then back at her father. "I tried to speak to you yesterday."

"You chose a fine moment. We had a firing to unload."

"I tried afterwards too." Her voice rose. "You said there was no use talking until his lordship came."

The potter glanced towards the men working outside.

"Everything you know, I taught you. Have you found so little worth keeping?"

"That isn't what I said." Ellyn's face had flushed. "I want to learn this as well."

Her father had agreed in the hall, but plainly he still expected to decide when she could be spared.

"Ellyn begins tomorrow," Jon said. "You will have her in the mornings for now, and Otho will send someone to help with the hauling. I promised to keep your customers supplied. I shall keep that promise."

The potter rubbed the dust from his palm. "You will need her longer when you fire."

"I will need you both. Arrange your orders with that in mind."

He showed them where the little trial chamber would stand. A larger kiln devoted to porcelain would come when they could produce good ware reliably. Until then the great works below belonged to brick and tile. He could afford spoiled cups in a small firing; he could not let them consume the fuel and labour needed to roof the island.

Ellyn would receive the wage of a potter's assistant from tomorrow, and a master's wage once she could oversee the work. Her father stayed to discuss the kiln's arch while she fetched her samples.

By the time they returned to the sheds, the pages had unpacked the food Wylla had sent. Geth was cutting bread upon a clean board; Timm and Hake had found benches for the men coming off the digging. From the houses came a jug of ale and a pot of fish broth. Jon realised how hungry he was when he smelt it.

Aries had used his clay to make a bird with a long beak. Tob and Wrenn were trying to persuade him it was a goose.

"It's Hugin," he said.

"Hugin has a neck," Wrenn answered.

Aries pinched the clay beneath the head. The beak drooped against the board. Ellyn sat beside him with her bowl and, after watching his attempt to lift it, gave him a small stick to prop it up while it dried.

"You can take that away later. Stop pulling at it."

He obeyed, reluctantly. Nibs had made a dog and put a pale scrap of clay upon its throat for Patch's marking. He kept looking down at the real dog beneath the bench, then adding more clay to the legs. Geth moved the board before a heavy paw could land upon it.

Jon sat with Arthur at the end of the bench. The children had spent the morning following them through measurements and arguments; now they were quarrelling over whether the crow could stand up. He watched Aries cup his hands around it as Wrenn reached across. There was a smudge of clay on the boy's nose.

Across from them, the potter cut bread for Ellyn and put it beside her bowl. She thanked him quietly. When Ewan asked about the clay bank, her father began describing the lower seam. Ellyn listened for a while, then reminded him where they had taken the last good load. He accepted the correction without looking at her. She bent over her broth.

Ormond had brought his brother to the meal. They sat near Otho, who shifted his drawing to keep an ale jug off it. The brother asked which of the marked plots would be his. Otho showed him, and he leaned across the sheet with his bread still in his hand.

"Will they begin those houses today?" Ormond asked.

"The first foundations," Jon said.

"Most of your men are down by the kiln."

"It needs more hands. There will be men on the houses as well."

The headman looked towards the slope. The digging there had stopped for food, leaving a short dark cut across the grass.

"We have waited through three winters for repairs. Now you ask us to wait while you build half the island."

Jon set down his cup. "I have brought the men and the timber. You have heard me order the work, and you have my word that no family leaves its home until the new one is ready. I will hear a fault in the plans. I will not spend every visit persuading you to let me begin."

Ormond's brother lowered his bread. The talk nearest them had ceased.

"The men will do as you command, my lord," the headman said stiffly.

"So will you."

Ormond bowed his head. Jon reached for his cup again, leaving him to his meal. He would not wring gratitude from the man, and had no time to try.

When the mason rose to return to the house ground, Ormond's brother went with him. The headman caught his sleeve.

"There is work waiting at home."

"It will wait until evening." He pulled his sleeve free. "If I'm to live in that house, I want to be there when they start it."

He took a spare mattock from beside the cart. Ormond watched him climb the slope and remained seated long after the men around him had gone back to work.

Otho spoke with Eastcove's foreman while Jon finished eating. Ewan would stay with the carpenter; Noll had Saltcliffe's fittings waiting at his forge. The old kiln could supply the first bricks. They would send for Jon when the new kiln's heat passages were ready to begin.

Their two hundred construction men were spread across the island. The census would give Ethan and the maester more labour to place before the gathering, after Jon's remaining village visits. He looked at the first trench and wished for the machinery he had once hired with a telephone call.

Ethan followed him towards the horses. Once they were clear of the sheds, Jon spoke about the workers for the private workshops.

"Gella has the salt refining. I shall teach the potter and his daughter the porcelain. When we have the means to bring freed men and women here, I want willing hands offered places with them."

"The people we took from Borren?"

"They have homes to return to. I mean others who want to settle here. Wages, a roof and a trade worth learning. We shall need more than the island can spare."

Perrin would arrange the search when the coin could bear it. Gella already had her guarded screen. Ethan would post a guard here when Ellyn began tomorrow. Deliveries stayed outside; Jon alone approved helpers for the private work.

Aries came running when the groom brought Bucephalus round. His hands were washed, though he had missed the clay upon his nose.

"Ellyn says we must leave them to dry. Can we come back for them?"

"When they are fired."

Nibs was less willing to leave his dog. Geth promised to come back with him, and Ellyn put both figures high upon a rack beyond Patch's reach. Her father called her to the wheel as the horses were led out. She answered at once. The bowls were still waiting.

Ormond stood beside the road to see Jon off. Above his shoulder, his brother was digging where the first house wall would stand. Jon returned the headman's bow and rode for the castle.

* * *

The boys argued about their clay animals for most of the ride. Aries wanted to paint his crow black; Nibs asked whether he could sleep with his dog once it had been fired. Arthur told him to ask Wylla. By the time they passed beneath the castle gate, Patch was trotting beside the horses with his tongue hanging out and the boys were looking for water.

Denys waited by the stable yard. He let the grooms take the horses before coming to Jon.

"The mate from the boat we took still says one ship. He and his master agree upon the lantern signal. The collector sends a boat in first, to see what is ready."

Jon's thoughts returned to the western cove. "Has anyone been near the smokehouse?"

"No one. Hewyn has the upper path, and Voss will take the boat as soon as its men land."

"Then we take their ship while they wait for it to return."

Denys unfolded his drawing against the stable wall. Salt Wraith would wait behind the southern headland, hidden from the approach. A second galley would lie farther offshore to close the route north. The collector had to anchor outside the cove's rocks; once her boat was inside, Voss would send a skiff round the headland to warn them.

"If she has heard about the raid, she may keep away," Arthur said.

"If she comes, I want her master alive." Jon looked at Denys. "You command the ships. I shall take the household aboard her."

The captain hesitated. Arthur did not.

"You can leave that to Tomas."

"I have led them in battle before."

"On ground that did not move beneath you."

Jon remembered wet decks and the sudden weight of a vessel meeting a swell. He had years of service Arthur knew nothing of, but none of it had put a sword in his hand at a defended rail. He looked again at the drawing.

"Then we choose where we board, and Denys gives us cover. I will not send them across alone."

Arthur's expression hardened. For a moment Jon thought he would argue before the captain. Instead he stepped nearer the drawing.

"I go beside you. Tomas takes the other side. You keep together once you are over."

Jon nodded. Denys had watched the exchange without speaking. Now he put a finger upon Salt Wraith's waiting place.

"Fifty legionaries, twenty-five in each galley, besides the crews and your household. We have enough to search her and take her if she fights." He folded the drawing. "We sail while there is still light."

Jon went upstairs to change. The day's drawings lay beside the covered trays of dragonshell. He began unfastening his clay-stained coat as Wylla came in with the water.

"Aries stays here," he said.

"They all do. Gawen has them." She looked at the mail waiting upon the bed. "Denys could have brought you this ship without taking you out in the dark."

"Perhaps."

She set the basin down more sharply than she needed to. Jon washed while she laid out his shirt. His right knuckle had split at the edge; she cleaned it and replaced the binding with a thinner one that would fit beneath his glove.

"Laro ate outside today," she said. "Arthur went to him without his sword, as he promised. They talked a little. And the woman's sister came from Blackburn to fetch her and the girl."

"How was she?"

"Crying before she'd crossed the yard. Both of them were." Wylla eased the glove over his hand. "They have gone home."

He sat a moment longer. He had ordered food and beds and letters yesterday, with the anger of the questioning still upon him. The woman had her sister now. Laro could sit in the sun. He wanted to bring the other five back with news as ordinary as that.

Wylla helped settle the mail beneath his black coat. Arthur came for him while he was buckling his sword belt, and she handed Jon the food she had wrapped for the boat.

"Eat before you get there."

"I will."

At the lower door, Tomas waited with the household. He checked Jon's shield strap while Arthur spoke with Denys's messenger. Jon flexed his bandaged hand beneath the leather. It would bear a shield. His sword would stay in his left.

"Ready?" he asked.

Tomas nodded. Above the doorway Hugin stirred, and Munin answered from the wall. They followed Jon down to the harbour.

The legionaries were embarking when they arrived. Hennet went up Salt Wraith's gangplank with Murch's men, carrying his spear low beneath the rigging. Across the quay, Mallador was arguing with the optio assigned to the other galley. His injured arm was bound against his body.

Jon stopped beside them. "What did Lorren tell you?"

Mallador's mouth tightened. "Not to use it, my lord. I can still give an order."

"He wants his ten," the optio said. "I told him he cannot board like that."

"Then he stays aboard your galley." Jon looked at Mallador. "Help keep the rowers covered. When we have prisoners, you can watch them from the rail. No climbing across, and that binding stays on."

Mallador glanced at the waiting men. One had his shield ready to hand him. He shook his head, and the man took it aboard with his own.

"Yes, my lord."

* * *

Salt Wraith carried them round the island beneath the last of the daylight. Jon stood near the stern with Arthur, Tomas and four of the household. Along the benches the rowers bent to their work, watched by the ship's master. Denys went forward to speak to the bowmen. The galley's replacement mast stood steady above them, its ropes creaking as she met the swell.

Behind the southern headland they shipped their oars and waited. Their consort lay farther offshore. The legionaries crouched beneath the rails, shields beside them. Neither galley showed a light towards the cove.

Jon ate the bread Wylla had given him. Tomas took the rest and shared it with the household, who were checking straps and shifting their feet upon the unfamiliar deck. The pages had been left in Gawen's care, still arguing over their clay figures. These boys were older and had trained for years, but Jon knew the face beneath every helm. He watched Tomas tighten his shield strap.

"Keep room to move your hand," Arthur told him.

Tomas tried the grip again and loosened it a little.

The headland grew black against the fading sky. Jon had begun wondering whether the collector had been warned when a skiff came round the point, its oars scarcely stirring the water. One of Voss's men caught the rope lowered from Salt Wraith.

"She is at anchor. Two masts. Four men have gone in with the boat."

Denys questioned him, then sent the skiff towards the consort. Jon put away the food and caught Arthur's eye. Hugin and Munin waited upon the stern rail.

"Stand close," he murmured.

He sat against the stern boards, sheltered by Arthur's cloak, and reached for Hugin. The crow rose above the cliff. Through his eyes Jon found the collector, then a second ship waiting beyond the outer point, her oars held still. From the galley, the headland hid her completely.

Munin took him farther out. A dark sail showed against the last grey light upon the water, well beyond the collector. Men were crowded along its rail. For a few heartbeats he held both birds, two waiting ships fixed against the coastline. The effort tightened behind his eyes. He released Hugin and brought Munin round towards the galley before opening his own eyes.

"There are three," he told Arthur.

Jon rose and called Denys over. He gave him both positions. The captain looked towards the empty water, then sent a man up the rigging.

"A sail beyond her!" the lookout called down.

"Another under the outer point," Jon said. "She has oars. It is an ambush. They mean to close behind us."

Arthur looked towards the headland. "Someone must have warned them."

"I will find out." Jon turned to Denys. "Warn the other galley."

Denys sent a shuttered signal to the consort, then strode along the benches. "Keep low until they come within bowshot. Shields ready at the stern." The legionaries moved into place. Arthur watched Jon until he had steadied his breathing.

"Can you fight?"

Jon drew his sword. "Yes."

They rounded the headland at a steady pull. The collector lay outside the cove, her stern lantern making a wavering line upon the sea. Beyond her, the smokehouse lantern opened and closed. Voss would let the boat reach the landing; Hewyn's men waited above it. Jon could do nothing for them from here. He watched the figures gathering along the ship's rail.

"They've seen us," Tomas said.

Three lights appeared at the collector's stern, one above another. They burned for a few breaths, then vanished. Denys went still beside the master.

A man in a pale coat climbed onto the raised stern and shouted towards the bow. Sailors ran to the windlass. Another began hauling on a line beneath the mainmast, and a sail rose slowly into the night.

Denys called across the water. "In Lord Black's name, keep your anchor down and lay aside your arms!"

"We are waiting for the tide!" the man upon the stern answered.

"Then you can wait while we come aboard."

The man turned away. Jon saw a crossbow rise beside him.

"Down!"

The bow snapped.

* * *

Hennet heard the bolt strike before he saw the man fall.

The rower pitched against the next bench, one hand clamped over his upper arm. His oar swung across another, and the long wooden shafts slammed together. The rower behind him screamed as the shafts trapped his wrist. Salt Wraith lurched beneath Hennet's boots; he caught the rail with his shield and nearly lost his spear over it.

"Lift them! Lift the bloody oars!" the master roared.

Two sailors dragged the wounded man clear. Blood ran from between his fingers onto the bare back of the man beneath him. Hennet could smell it through the tar and seaweed. He had been watching the merchant's lantern, waiting for someone to tell him when they would go aboard. Now men were shouting from every part of the galley, and he could not see the ship that was coming to kill them.

"Aft! Shields aft!"

The optio caught his shoulder and thrust him towards the stern. Hennet went with the others, stepping over a fallen oar. Beyond the rail a low, dark bow was growing larger. Its men had hooks ready. One wore a yellow scarf about his head; another stood with his mouth open, shouting something Hennet could not understand.

Their lord was already there. Hennet knew the black shield and the small figure braced beside Ser Arthur.

"Over the rowers!" Jon shouted. "Keep those shields up!"

Hennet set his shield beside the next man's. An arrow struck it so hard that the rim jarred his teeth. He ducked, then forced himself to look over it. The rowers had nowhere to go. They crouched between their benches while the master tried to bring the stern round, and Hennet could feel one man's shoulder pressing against the backs of his legs.

"Make room," he said. "I need to stand."

The rower crawled farther under the bench. Hennet widened his feet as he had been taught. He wished violently that the deck would hold still.

"Wait!" Denys called.

The pirate with the yellow scarf swung his hook. Hennet watched the iron turn above his head and thought of it catching his throat. It fell short, struck the water and vanished. The man hauled at his line, shouting at the rowers behind him to bring them closer.

"Loose!"

The bowstrings cracked above Hennet's shoulder. The man in the yellow scarf fell backwards. Another pirate dropped to his knees with both hands against his face. A hook struck Salt Wraith's rail and scraped along it; a sailor brought an axe down on the rope before it could tighten.

The pirate ship kept coming. Hennet thrust at a hand reaching for the rail. His point struck the wood instead. The hand disappeared. Someone beside him shouted in his ear to draw back, and he wrenched the spear free as a second volley went over them.

At last the enemy's bow swung away. Oars struck the water out of time; one snapped against Salt Wraith's side with a noise like a breaking branch. The low ship slid across the collector's bows, men falling against one another as its master tried to get clear.

Hennet wanted to shout after them. He wanted to thrust again and make certain they stayed away.

"Hold your places!" the optio shouted.

He held. He had ignored a halt once in an alehouse and paid for it upon the whipping block. Here there was a man beneath his shield who would die if he went chasing glory along the rail.

"Alongside the collector!" Denys called. "Bowmen, keep her stern clear!"

The galley turned. Lanternlight spread across a hull that seemed far too high. Above it stood men with stones, axes and crossbows. Hennet saw a red sleeve as a bowman leaned out; then a stone struck the man beside him, and the world narrowed to the thump of shields and the need to keep his head covered.

The inboard oars came in. Grapnels flew. One rope was cut and fell back among them, but another held. The sailors hauled until the two hulls struck together. Hennet felt the blow through the soles of his boots.

A ladder went up. The first soldier climbed with his shield above his head. He reached the rail, thrust once, then vanished as two hooked poles shoved the ladder sideways.

His cry came from below.

Hennet looked between the hulls. A face broke the black water and went under again. The ships drew apart upon a swell, then began to close.

"Rope!" he shouted. "Get him a rope!"

A sailor threw a coil. Hennet dropped his spear and caught the running end, bracing his foot against a bench. The man in the water seized it. For one dreadful moment his shield lodged against the hull and held him down.

"Let it go! Leave the shield!"

The man obeyed. Hennet and the sailor hauled together, dragging him clear as the ships ground against one another. A third man caught his belt and pulled him over the rail. He lay coughing water onto Hennet's boots.

"Breathe, you fool," the sailor said, his voice shaking. "You're out."

Hennet snatched up his spear. Lord Black had moved along the rail with Ser Arthur and Tomas. Above them, the collector's captain was drawing men towards the stern to meet Denys's boarders. For a moment the stretch beside the mast lay thinly held.

"The stern!" Jon called to the bowmen. "Keep those crossbows down!"

A fresh ladder rose. Hennet put his shoulder beneath one side while a sailor held the other. Jon climbed first. An arrow struck the planking beside the spearman waiting above him; the man flinched, and Jon drove his shield against the spear shaft and went over.

Arthur followed, then Tomas. A hooked pole reached for Tomas's helm. He twisted away, and the helm came loose with a strip of leather trailing behind it. It struck the galley's rail and vanished between the hulls. Hennet could hear fighting on the higher deck, close enough to distinguish the grunts between the blows.

"Across!" Jon shouted. "Come on!"

The optio pushed Hennet towards the ladder. He passed his spear up to the man above, took hold of the rungs and climbed. He did not look down this time.

* * *

Mallador could hear the shouting from Salt Wraith, but the sail bearing down upon his own galley hid her from him. He stood beside the stern boards, his good hand upon the rail. Without Denys's warning they would have had their backs to this ship, their bows pointed towards the collector.

"Here she comes," the master told the optio.

The optio turned. "Keep your heads down. Mallador, hold your ten here. Nothing gets through to the benches."

Mallador passed the order along. One man made the sign of the Seven. Another spat between his boots and rubbed his palms upon his coat. Twenty-five legionaries aboard, and he could not raise a shield. He could feel the binding drag at his upper arm whenever the galley rolled. It held the arm firmly against his body. He was beginning to be grateful for that.

The pirate swung alongside. Beneath her dark sail, a row of heads appeared above the rail.

"Oars in on that side!" the master shouted. "In, damn you!"

Wood rattled through the oarlocks. An arrow struck a bench where a rower's back had been. The man flung himself down, dragging his neighbour with him, and someone began shouting that they were too close.

"Shields!"

The front rank rose. Shafts knocked against wood; one struck the mast and hung there trembling. Mallador pressed himself behind the stern boards. He could see very little now except the backs of his own men and the sail looming over them.

Hooks struck their rail. A rope slashed across the deck and tightened, dragging a loose shield towards the side. Then the hulls met with a blow that drove Mallador's teeth together.

"Hold!" the optio roared.

A plank came down across the rails. The first pirate ran upon it crouching behind his shield. A legionary thrust at him, but the point glanced away and the man jumped, striking the deck upon both feet. Two more followed before the spearmen could close.

"They're over! They're over!"

Mallador caught the shouting soldier by his collar with his good hand.

"I can see them. Face them!"

He pushed him towards the passage between the benches. Four of his ten moved with him. The pirate who had crossed first swung an axe at the nearest shield, hooked its edge and dragged it down. His next blow struck the shield of the man beside it. A sword went into his thigh. He fell screaming; a second thrust silenced him, and the men behind him stumbled over his legs.

"Close up!" Mallador shouted. "Don't follow them out!"

One of his men had already stepped forward. A spear from the higher deck struck his helm and sent him reeling. Mallador ordered two men into the gap. His wounded arm throbbed with every shout. He wanted a shield himself. Every time he leaned out to see his men, he expected a point between his ribs.

The surviving boarders fell back to the rail. Their shipmates hauled them up while the legionaries thrust after them.

At the rail, a sailor swung an axe into a grappling rope. Before he could strike again, a pirate leaned over with a long spear and drove him back.

Mallador pointed. "Bowmen! Above the man with the axe!"

The nearest archer turned. His first arrow went high. The second struck beneath the pirate's chin, and the spear fell between the ships.

"Cut it!"

The sailor struck twice. The rope parted. Farther forward another snapped, and a cheer broke from the men holding the rail. The plank shifted beneath a pirate's feet. He dropped flat, clawing at its edges while his fellows seized his coat and hauled him back.

"Last rope!" the master bellowed.

It had caught beneath the broken end of an oar. Mallador sent two men to cover the sailor hacking at it. The pirate ship was pulling away already; the rope creaked, and the hooked iron tore a long splinter from the rail before the axe cut through.

Water opened between the hulls. The bowmen loosed into the retreating ship while the master called the rowers back to their benches.

Mallador counted his ten. The man struck upon the helm was sitting down, both hands over his face. Alive. He ordered him dragged clear of the oars.

"After them?" someone called.

"No." The master pointed inshore.

Salt Wraith lay against the collector beneath the headland. The smaller oared pirate was turning towards the collector's other side, men crowding her rail with hooks. Above them, steel flashed on the higher deck. Mallador could not tell whose.

"Bring us in beside that little bastard," the master said. "Outside her. She isn't getting away."

The optio called men forward. Mallador gathered those of his ten still upon their feet and moved them clear of the working benches. His arm burned beneath the binding. He kept it there as the rowers bent, the bow swung inshore, and the smaller pirate's stern came steadily nearer.

* * *

Jon could see the collector's mainmast over the shoulders of the men trying to drive him back into the sea. He had gained scarcely six feet from the rail.

A sailor came at him with an axe. He caught the blow upon his shield, felt the edge bite into the wood and drove his sword beneath the man's raised arm. The sailor fell against a cask. Jon pulled free and nearly went down with him as the collector rolled against Salt Wraith.

"Make room for the men!" he shouted. "Forward!"

Tomas fought beside him, bareheaded, driving a man with a hooked pole away from the ladder. The household held the opening behind them. Hennet thrust a spear past Jon at a pirate trying to reach their ropes.

More black coats followed. Casks and fallen cordage broke their line as soon as they reached the deck. Jon pushed them into the space they had, two shields abreast beside the mast, another pair towards the hatch. Arthur caught a legionary by the sleeve before he blundered across their points.

"Together!" the knight shouted. "Give each other room to strike!"

A lantern smashed somewhere above them. Burning oil spread across a folded scrap of sail, throwing yellow light up the mast. Smoke blew into Jon's face. A sailor beat at the flames with his coat while another dragged a bucket up from the side. Water hissed across the planks. Through the smoke Jon glimpsed a man still burning at the sleeve, battering his arm against the rail.

Near the stern, Denys's boarders had gained the rail. Jon heard him through the uproar, driving them towards the helm. For a moment it seemed they had the collector between them.

Then something struck her other side.

The deck heaved. Men staggered against the mast, and a fresh shower of hooks rattled over the far rail. Beyond it lay the smaller oared pirate, her bow coming level with the mainmast. The men aboard her were shouting to those upon the deck, waving them back from the ropes they meant to use.

They had come to reinforce their friends.

"Other side!" Jon called. "Hennet, keep that hatch clear!"

Hennet and two men moved across it. A pirate threw a plank between the ships; another caught it and dragged it into place. More men were gathering behind him. The plank sloped up from their lower deck to the collector's rail. Salt Wraith, the collector and the low pirate now rose and fell together, lashed into a tangle of grinding timber and taut ropes. Jon's retreat lay over the rail behind him. Ahead, the captain in the pale coat was forcing his way through his men.

"Take the boy!" he shouted in the Common Tongue. "Alive, if you can!"

Jon met him beside the mainmast.

The first blow jarred his shield against his chest. He struck back, but the man caught the sword upon his own and crowded him towards the mast. He was stronger, and he knew it. Jon gave ground enough to turn the next cut aside, then drove his point towards the man's belly. The captain knocked it away. Jon's edge caught his coat and opened the pale wool without reaching the flesh beneath.

To Jon's right, Arthur was fighting two men who had come down from the stern. One had a long knife and the other a bill whose hook kept reaching for the knight's neck. Tomas held the gap behind Jon. Beyond him Hennet's spear rose and fell above the hatch.

The captain came again. Jon struck low, trying to make him give ground, but the man stamped back and smashed the rim of his shield into Jon's. Pain flared through the bound hand. Jon's heel struck the mast footing. He stumbled, his shield dragged wide as the captain bore down upon him.

The sword rose above the pale coat.

Tomas stepped bodily between them. His own sword came up too late to stop the whole blow. Steel rang. The deflected blade cut across his forehead and down towards his left brow, and blood poured over his eye.

He drove into the captain before the man could draw back, shoulder first, forcing the sword arm wide.

Jon thrust beneath it.

His blade entered below the man's ribs. He pushed until the captain's breath broke against his ear, then tore it free. The man seized at Jon's coat. Jon struck him again and shoved him away. He fell beside the mast, the pale wool darkening beneath him.

Tomas staggered. Jon dropped his sword and caught him as his knees gave way. He slipped his other arm free of the shield, letting it fall beside the blade.

"Arthur!"

Arthur turned. The knife-man was down; the other fled towards the stern, dragging his bill behind him. The knight reached Jon in two strides. His face changed when he saw the blood.

"Hold them back!" he told the nearest household men. "Give him room!"

Jon lowered Tomas against the mast and pressed his cloak to the wound. Blood ran through his fingers. Tomas tried to push himself upright.

"Stay down." Jon's voice came out harsher than he meant. "Stay with me."

The boy's mouth moved. Jon bent nearer, but a roar from the far rail drowned the words.

The smaller ship's men were coming across their plank.

Hennet's first thrust knocked one back. Another clambered over the rail beside the fallen man, axe raised, and met the household's shields. They struck him down, but the plank shook beneath more feet. Upon the lower deck beyond it stood a broad man in a green coat, his beard threaded through a copper ring. A man in a rust-red jerkin repeated his orders and struck at the backs of sailors who hesitated.

"Captain says across!" the lieutenant screamed. "Move, you dogs!"

Arthur looked towards them, then back at Tomas.

"Press here." He placed Jon's hand more firmly over the folded cloak. "Do not lift it."

Jon could feel Tomas trembling against his arm. "Take their captain."

Arthur rose. "With me!"

* * *

Hennet moved aside as Ser Arthur came towards the plank. He had seen Tomas go down. Between the men crowding the deck he could still glimpse Lord Black kneeling beside him, one hand pressed to his head. He wanted to know how badly the boy was hurt, but Arthur was already at the rail.

Two of the household followed the knight. Hennet went with them, calling the legionaries nearest the hatch. Arthur struck the next boarder's sword aside and drove him back upon the plank. The man tried to retreat. The pirate behind him would not move, and for an instant the two blocked each other.

Arthur's sword took the nearer man beneath the jaw. He fell across the plank. The man behind him stumbled over his legs and caught desperately at the rope beside it. Arthur shoved the body clear with his boot.

"Back! Get back!" someone shouted from the lower ship.

Arthur crossed before they could pull the plank away, driving the stumbling pirate back before him. At the lower end the man fell among his own crew.

The grey-white cloak swung as Arthur ducked beneath the lieutenant's short pike. The point passed over his shoulder. He trapped the shaft beneath his arm, stepped off the plank onto the lower deck and cut across the man's face.

The lieutenant reeled against the rail. Arthur drove his sword beneath the red jerkin and left him dead against the timbers.

"Close behind him!" Lord Black shouted from the collector.

Hennet was already crossing. He planted his spear against the lower rail to steady himself, then jumped down beside the household. A pirate charged him as he landed. One of Tomas's men met the charge with his shield. Hennet caught his balance, drove his spear into the pirate's chest and had to wrench it free before the falling man dragged him down.

"Here!" the household man shouted. "Stay beside me!"

Hennet brought his shield up. The space between the rail and the first bench was scarcely wide enough for them both. Beyond it, Arthur was fighting his way towards the helm.

The captain in the green coat came down the narrow passage between the rowing benches with a curved sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. He had seen the lieutenant die. He did not rush. He waited for Arthur to step between two benches, where the knight could not give ground easily, then slashed at his head.

Arthur caught the cut and stepped onto the nearest bench.

The captain's dagger stabbed at empty air. Arthur's boot drove against his shoulder, sending him sideways into a rower who had not got clear. The captain tore himself free, roaring, and came back with the curved blade held low.

He cut for Arthur's legs. Arthur dropped from the bench on the other side and turned with him, using the timber between them. The curved sword struck wood. Before the captain could lift it, Arthur's blade flashed across his sword arm.

The dagger came up. Arthur knocked it wide with his hilt and drove his point beneath the man's chin.

For a heartbeat the captain remained standing, his open mouth red above the copper ring. Then his knees folded beneath him.

Arthur pulled his sword free.

"Down!" he roared at the men beyond the body. "Throw them down!"

The first axe fell. A sailor near the bow still had a spear raised; he looked past Arthur towards the sea and found the second Dragonstone galley coming alongside. Its bowmen stood above him with arrows drawn. There would be no escape that way.

"On your knees!" Mallador shouted from her rail. "Hands where we can see them!"

The spear went overboard. Along the benches, men let their weapons fall and raised empty palms. Arthur kept his sword towards them while the legionaries spread through the ship.

Hennet stopped beside the fallen captain. His own breath rasped inside his helm. He could hear the oars of Mallador's galley, the slap of water between the hulls, a man sobbing beneath a bench. Someone beside him began to cheer. Hennet looked back towards the collector, trying to find Tomas.

* * *

Jon heard the cheering from the smaller ship. The collector's own resistance had broken with her captain. Denys's men held the helm; the last men upon the raised stern were laying swords at their feet. For a while the only cries came from the wounded and from sailors warning one another about the ropes between the ships.

Jon looked down. Tomas was staring at him through his uncovered eye.

"Can you hear me?"

The boy nodded, then winced. "My eye."

"Don't touch it."

Arthur returned across the plank with a folded cloth stripped from a sailor's pack. Blood covered the front of his coat. He knelt and replaced Jon's sodden cloak with the cloth, working quickly while Jon held Tomas's shoulder. The boy made a low sound when the pressure changed.

"It was coming down on you," Tomas whispered.

"I know." Jon swallowed. "I saw."

The blade had been meant to split his skull. Tomas had known that when he stepped in. Jon looked at the blood upon the boy's cheek and could find nothing else to say.

Denys crouched beside them. "Both ships are ours. The other sail has broken away."

"Lorren."

"A skiff is already going." Denys turned at a call from the rail. "Here. Bring that plank here!"

Hennet came back from the smaller pirate and dropped to his knees beside Tomas, ready to lift when the sailors called. They eased Tomas onto the plank, bound him to it and passed him down to Salt Wraith. Jon watched from the rail. The wounded rower lay beneath a spare sail. Near him sat the man hauled from the water, coughing and shaking; another boarder held a cloth against his scalp.

Beyond the smaller pirate, Mallador stood at the consort's rail, shouting at a captive who tried to rise before the searching was done. His injured arm was still bound against him.

The third ship's sail was dwindling into the dark. Denys would not scatter his force in pursuit with wounded men and two prizes to secure. He ordered the prisoners stripped of their knives and the grappling ropes kept fast until each captured ship had a crew aboard.

The dead captain lay beside the mast. Two sailors held the collector's first mate upright, his wrists bound behind him. He strained against their grip as Jon approached.

"Who sent you?" Jon demanded. "Who told you we were coming?"

The mate gave a harsh, angry laugh and spat on the deck at Jon's feet.

"Ask him." He jerked his chin towards the corpse. "You cut him open."

Jon glanced at the sailor beside him. "Strike him."

The blow split the mate's lip. He sagged between his guards, then raised his head, breathing hard through his nose.

"Who warned your captain?" Jon asked.

The man stared at him and said nothing.

"Chain him apart from the others. I will question him myself tomorrow."

A sailor called from the stern hatch. In the compartment below, they had found an iron bar fixed near the floor and chains wrapped in sacking to silence them. No captives. Jon stood upon the ladder long enough to see the low roof and the space where people would have been made to crouch.

"Use those irons on the crew," he said, and climbed back into the night.

Voss's skiff had reached them. All four men sent to the cove were taken; Hewyn had caught the one who tried the upper path. Denys counted nineteen survivors in custody aboard the two prizes. Twenty-three prisoners altogether, besides those already in the castle.

"Keep them chained and apart from the prisoners in the castle," Jon said. "We question them tomorrow."

He still needed to find the galley with the broken swan. Its five captives were missing.

Denys divided prize crews between the captured vessels. Jon crossed back to Salt Wraith and knelt beside Tomas for the journey home.

* * *

Lorren met them at Blackburn with men carrying a litter. Jon walked beside it all the way to the castle. Tomas had stopped speaking, though his uncovered eye followed Jon whenever the torchlight reached him.

In Lorren's room, Wylla cleared a table and brought water while he cut away the makeshift binding. Arthur caught Jon by the sleeve before he could crowd closer.

"Let him work."

Jon stood back. The cut ran across Tomas's forehead towards the brow, its edges gaping beneath the blood. Lorren bent over it, and Jon made himself turn away until the stitching was done.

Ethan waited with Denys by the door. Jon gave him the news in a low voice: the ambush, the two dead captains and the captured ships. The maester must send the word to Velaryon before Monford sailed for the gathering. The prisoners were to be kept apart. After that he scarcely heard Ethan leave.

Tomas lay pale beneath the clean bandage when Lorren called him over. He would keep the eye. The wound would leave a scar.

Jon pulled a stool beside him. For years he had watched this boy train, eat, quarrel with the others and learn to command them. He had been proud of what they had become. Tonight he had felt Tomas's blood warming his hand.

"You saved my life," he said.

Tomas looked towards Arthur, then back at him. "I couldn't let him—"

"I know." Jon took his hand. "Thank you."

Arthur drew a chair to the other side. "I saw what you did."

Tomas tried to straighten. "Ser."

"Lie still. You have done enough standing in front of swords tonight." Arthur looked at Jon. Jon nodded.

"You have earned your spurs," Arthur said.

For a moment Tomas only stared. Then he tried to sit again, more urgently this time. Arthur laid a hand upon his shoulder and stopped him.

"You need not kneel," he said. "Stay as you are." He looked towards the door. "Bring his comrades in."

The household came in their stained coats, followed by legionaries who had fought beside them. Gawen entered with his arm in its sling. Aries slipped in behind him and stopped when he saw the bandage; Wylla kept a hand upon his shoulder.

Arthur drew his sword.

"Will you keep your sworn word, defend those who cannot defend themselves, and bear yourself with courage and honour?"

Tomas's answer was too faint for the men by the door. He swallowed and tried again.

"I swear it."

The blade touched his shoulders in turn.

"Then I name you Ser Tomas."

Tomas blinked hard, but the tears came. Jon stood and rested a hand upon his shoulder.

"Every day I live from this night is one you gave me, Ser Tomas. I will not forget it."

Hennet raised his fist by the door. "Ser Tomas!" The cry spread through the crowded room and into the passage, the men roaring his name.

 

[aiwonder]

Lorren called him ser as he tied the bandage.

Tomas had heard it half a dozen times since morning. It still made him want to look past the healer and see which knight had entered the room.

"Tell me if the light troubles you, ser."

"It doesn't."

"And if that changes, send for me. No getting up to see whether you can manage."

Tomas promised. Lorren gathered the soiled linen, set the water where he could reach it and went to the wounded legionary in the other bed. The man was breathing more easily now. He drank what Lorren gave him, lay back and was soon asleep.

When the healer left, Tomas listened to his footsteps until they faded into the castle passage.

The room had a ceiling higher than any at home. A stone beast crouched above the window, its open jaws black against the last of the evening light. Below it his sword stood within reach of the bed. Someone had cleaned the blood from the scabbard and rubbed the leather dry. Lord Jon had done it, Lorren said.

Tomas reached out and touched the pommel.

He remembered a pale sword above him, Arthur's voice, the pressure of a hand upon his shoulder. Some of the faces behind Jon had blurred together. He could recall Hennet shouting, though, and men taking up his name so loudly that Wylla had turned towards the door to hush them and then begun smiling herself.

Ser Tomas.

He whispered it again. He was a knight. Even now, he could scarcely believe it.

His mother had mended his cuff before he swore his first oath. He could still see her biting the thread, holding his wrist while she checked that the patch lay flat. When the choosing was over she had sewn the black badge onto his coat. At his new bed she had folded his cloak and touched his cheek, though the other boys were watching and he had wished she would stop.

He would have given a great deal to feel that hand now.

What would she say? Would she believe the first letter, or carry it to someone else to have it read again? He could write it himself. Once he would have needed another man to tell her even that he was safe.

He had not come to Jon expecting knighthood. A place, regular meals, wages to take home, work that might carry him farther than the same few roads. That had been enough to make him run until his chest hurt on the day Jon chose them. Olyver had lost a shoe; Tomas had taken his sack as well as his own, and by the end both burdens had seemed filled with stones.

Jon had remembered that.

Years later, when Gawen was given command, Tomas had wondered whether Jon remembered anything else. He was ashamed of the thought now. He had stood before the boy he served and asked whether he had given cause for doubt, unable to keep the hurt out of his voice.

Jon had said he had not.

Last night Jon had sat with Tomas's hand in his own, blood dried upon his sleeve, and thanked him. There had been nothing distant or lordly in his face then. Tomas remembered that part very clearly.

The door opened without a knock.

Olyver put his head around it, followed by Alasdair, Gage and Cressen. All four had washed. None had managed to make his boots quiet upon the stone.

"Lorren said a little while," Alasdair told the others.

"You have said that twice," Olyver answered. He stopped at the foot of the bed and bowed with such care that Tomas knew trouble was coming. "Ser."

"Don't."

"Was that too little? I've never had to bow to you before."

"You still don't."

"Good." Olyver sat down on the chest beneath the window. "I wasn't going to keep it up."

Gage grinned. Cressen stood nearest the door until Alasdair drew a stool forward with his foot and made room for him. Tomas wanted to ask about the fight, about who had been hurt and what he had missed after they carried him down from the collector. For once nobody was waiting for his questions or his orders. They had simply come to see him.

"You look dreadful," Gage said.

"Thank you."

"Better than last night," Cressen added quickly.

Olyver leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "He means you looked worse when you were covered in blood. Very cheering company we've brought you."

"I've had worse."

"When?"

"Whenever you complain about your boots."

Alasdair laughed. Olyver pointed at him. "You took those boots off at Runestone. You saw what they'd done to my heels."

"We all saw. You showed everyone."

Tomas was smiling before he could help it. The wound pulled as his face moved, and for a moment he shut his eyes. When he opened them, all four were watching him.

"It only hurts when I laugh."

Olyver nodded solemnly. "Then Alasdair can tell the next jest."

That made it worse. Tomas pressed a hand against his cheek, laughing through his teeth while Gage tried to quiet the others. The legionary beneath the shelves stirred, muttered something and went back to sleep.

After a while Alasdair asked whether Tomas remembered Arthur drawing Dawn.

"That, yes."

"Geth says you tried to get up."

"I thought I had to kneel."

"You'd have fallen on your face," Gage said. "Then Lorren would have had to start again."

Tomas glanced at the sword beside his bed. He had seen great lords stand to receive Arthur Dayne. At Runestone, men had pressed against one another for a glimpse of him fighting. That same man had laid Dawn against Tomas's shoulder and called him worthy.

He tried to explain it. "I thought, when he said it... I thought he meant when I was well. Some other day."

"He wasn't going to wait," Alasdair said.

Tomas nodded, though he still had not quite caught up with it.

Olyver looked around the room. "You'll want your own chamber now. Can't have a knight listening to Gage snore."

"He snores louder than I do," Gage said.

"A better chamber for both of you, then. At the far end of the castle."

Cressen smiled. "Finnan would have wanted the bed nearest the door."

The smile went before he finished saying it.

No one answered. Olyver lowered his eyes. Gage's hand, which had been resting on the bedpost, tightened around it.

"I wish they could have seen it," Cressen said. "Finnan. Keir and Struan too."

Tomas looked down at the coverlet.

He remembered Finnan scraping the burnt crust from the porridge pot, Keir's cup always in the wrong place, Struan drumming his spoon until somebody threatened to take it away. Memories from a hundred suppers came more readily than their faces upon the day they died. He was grateful for that, then ashamed to be grateful.

Cressen rubbed his palms over his knees. "I didn't mean—"

"I know," Tomas said.

He knew exactly what Cressen meant. There should have been three more men trying to squeeze through the door. Struan would have wanted to hear every word Arthur said. Finnan would have found something to mock before anyone grew too solemn.

Tomas had helped mend Struan's whistle. He could still feel the thin linen binding beneath his thumb. It hung beneath a name in the northern barracks now, far from this sea and this castle, and for a moment the distance hurt as much as the memory.

"They would have been proud of you," Alasdair said.

His voice was quiet. He had not been beside them in the wood. Tomas remembered how he had looked when the wounded came home, and how hard he had worked to find something useful to do for every man who returned.

"Finnan would have said you took long enough," Gage murmured.

Cressen let out a breath that almost became a laugh. "He would."

Tomas blinked until he could see them clearly again.

"I wish they were here."

"Aye," Alasdair said.

They let him say it. No one hurried to make the room cheerful again.

A little later there was a knock. Gawen came in with his left arm in its sling and a folded cloak over the other. The men began to rise, but he waved them down.

"Stay where you are. I've come to congratulate him, not inspect his visitors."

Gage brought him the chair. Gawen set the cloak across its back and studied Tomas's bandage before sitting.

"Ser Tomas."

It sounded different from him. Tomas felt his throat tighten.

"Ser."

"Arthur told me what you did. So did Hennet. Hennet's telling was rather longer."

"Was I taller in his?"

"By the end of it I thought you must have carried the captain under one arm and Lord Jon under the other."

Olyver made a pleased noise. "That's how I shall tell it."

"You will tell it properly," Gawen said, though he was smiling. Then he looked back at Tomas. "You did well."

Tomas had heard him say those words after a difficult turn upon a horse, or a passage at arms that had taken weeks to master. He had always wanted to hear them again.

"Thank you, ser."

Gawen glanced down at his sling. The smile faded a little.

"I wish I had been beside you on that ship. I would have liked to knight you myself."

"I wish you had been there too." Tomas hesitated, then looked up. "Though having Ser Arthur do it wasn't so bad."

Gawen laughed, and Tomas laughed with him, more carefully this time. Around them the others began smiling again.

"No," Gawen said. "I suppose the Sword of the Morning will serve."

Tomas remembered the bay he had ridden when Arthur first put him under Gawen's teaching. He had been so determined to do well with the lance that his whole body had stiffened. Gawen had taken it away and made him turn the horse without hauling at its mouth. Tomas had thought he was being sent back to a child's lesson. By the fourth circuit he had understood why.

"You taught me," he said.

"Some of it. Arthur might object if I claimed the rest."

"You know what I mean."

Gawen's good hand closed briefly around his forearm. "I do."

For a moment neither spoke. Then Gawen settled back in the chair.

"Lord Jon means to make you a landed knight," Gawen said. "You are to choose a name for your house, and arms to bear upon your shield."

Olyver opened his mouth. Alasdair put a hand on his knee without looking at him.

"A landed knight?"

"Aye. A holding of your own, in return for your service. He will settle the grant in time."

Tomas stared at him. Knighthood had been enough to leave him bewildered. Now there was to be land as well, and a name his children would carry.

"Here?"

"Elsewhere. He has not named the place." Gawen glanced at the others, then back at Tomas. "For now, think about what you would call your house. There is no need to choose tonight."

The room was very still. Olyver had forgotten whatever jest Alasdair had stopped him making.

Tomas tried to sit higher and stopped when the room tilted. Gawen steadied him until it passed. All at once he was glad to be lying down.

"He said that?"

"He did."

Land. There would be a place he could take his mother and say that she need not ask another man's leave to stay. He could scarcely imagine what such a place would look like.

"All I wanted," he began, and had to clear his throat. "When I went to him, I only wanted something more than the life I could see waiting at home. I thought if he kept me, if I learnt enough..."

Gawen waited. The others did too.

"He gave me all of it. A horse. Good steel. Men who listened when I spoke. I can write to my mother myself." Tomas looked at his companions. "I have you lot. And now this."

Olyver's face had lost its jesting look.

"I don't know what I could ever give him that would be enough."

"He is alive tonight," Gawen said. "Do not make what you did a small thing."

Tomas shook his head carefully. "I wasn't thinking of being rewarded."

"I know you weren't." Gawen leaned forward. "Jon knows it too. He has watched you serve him for years. Last night did not make him notice you for the first time."

The fear Tomas had carried from that conversation about the captaincy returned, smaller now and a little shameful. He had mistaken a change in his duties for the end of Jon's trust. Yet Jon was giving him a future he had never known how to ask for.

"I will not fail him."

Gawen nodded. He did not make Tomas swear it again.

"Then begin by letting that head mend. He will have work for you soon enough."

When Lorren returned, he found five visitors where he had allowed a little quiet company. Gawen accepted the blame and rose. The others followed, each finding something brief and awkward to say at the bed. Cressen gripped Tomas's hand rather than speaking. Tomas held it until Cressen was ready to let go.

At the door Olyver looked back.

"A boot," he said.

"What?"

"For your shield. Since carrying mine won you your first command."

"I carried your sack. Oren carried your boot."

"Then put two sacks on it."

Alasdair pushed him through the doorway before Tomas could answer. Their voices receded along the passage, arguing over whose account of the trial was worse.

Tomas lay looking at the empty chair. Tomorrow he would ask for ink. He would begin with the thing his mother needed to hear first: that he was alive, and being well cared for.

After that, he would tell her what Arthur Dayne had called him.

* * *

Below the hall, Drennan, the sail-mender from Saltcliffe, waited upon a stool in the guardroom, his hands chained. The captured first mate of the collector had named him as the man who warned the pirates of Borren's arrest.

He rose when Jon entered the guardroom. His wrists were raw where he had twisted them against the irons, but his clothes were clean. Pale hair hung about a narrow, weathered face. There was a small red puncture beside his thumbnail, the sort a man acquired working a needle through stiff canvas.

He looked like half the men Jon had passed on the road to Saltcliffe.

"My lord, there has been a mistake."

"Then explain it."

Drennan glanced at Ethan. Arthur closed the door behind them, and a garrison man took his place beside the prisoner.

"I went to see my cousin. I told your men."

"At Hull?" Jon asked.

"Aye."

"You told another man he lived down the coast."

"His boat was there. I meant to find his boat."

Jon stood across the table from him. "What is his name?"

Drennan answered. Ethan already had it. The maester had sent a man to ask after the cousin's household, but Jon did not intend to sit through another account of how a visit to a relative had brought Drennan alongside the collector before dawn.

He nodded to the guard.

The man brought in one of the prisoners caught at the cove. Drennan stared at him, and the other prisoner immediately began speaking.

"That's him. Little boat, brown sail, pale patch beside the mast. Came out with news of the shore."

"He has been told to say that."

"I saw you," the prisoner said angrily. "You asked where our captain was. Said Borren was in the castle and we were fools if we came ashore as before."

Drennan's eyes went from the prisoner to the door.

Jon waited until the guard had taken the witness out again.

"You warned them."

"I wanted them gone." The answer burst out of him. "They were to take their things and leave. Borren had brought them here. I wanted no part in what followed."

"So you rowed past my men to tell armed pirates where those men were waiting."

"I did not know they would fight."

Ethan made a disgusted sound. Drennan turned towards him, seizing upon the older man's attention.

"You know me. I've worked here all my life. I patched the sail on your stores boat last winter. Ask any man at the harbour what I—"

"Look at your lord when he questions you," Ethan said.

Drennan faced Jon again. For a moment the helplessness slipped, and something resentful showed beneath it. Jon knew what the man saw. A boy, hardly broad enough to fill the black coat, with a bandage on his hand and older men standing behind him.

"Why warn them at all?" Jon asked. "Why not bring what you knew here?"

"They owed me money."

There was the beginning of an honest answer.

"For sails?"

"Sails. Rope. Work upon the shore."

"What work?"

He would not answer that. Jon sent for Borren.

The former headman came between two guards, still wearing the coat in which he had been taken. One side of his mouth was swollen. He stopped when he saw Drennan.

"You told them?"

"You should have kept my name out of it."

"I never gave your name."

"They went straight to my shed!"

Jon let them look at one another. Then he asked Borren who had helped make the shore store ready for people.

"We stored cargo."

"You locked people in it. You have already admitted that. Who helped you?"

Borren looked at Drennan again. The sail-mender began shaking his head.

"Don't."

"Who?" Jon repeated.

"He brought the rope. Helped cover the openings so they couldn't be seen from the path."

"You told me it was for wine!"

"The first time." Borren's voice rose. "Tell him what you did when the woman started crying. Tell him why you went round to her door."

Drennan lunged at Borren. The guard caught his shoulder and forced him to his knees. The chain snapped tight.

Jon came around the table.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing."

"You heard her. You went to the door. What did you do?"

Drennan knelt with his hands against the seat of the stool. His mouth worked. Behind him, Borren watched with the ugly relief of a man whose accomplice had finally been caught.

"She wouldn't keep quiet," Drennan said. "I told her she had to. The boats were close. People could hear."

"Did she ask you for help?"

"I couldn't understand her."

"Did she try to get out?"

Silence.

Jon bent until the man could not avoid his eyes.

"Did she?"

"Aye."

"And you shut her in."

Drennan began to cry. Jon felt no satisfaction in it. The tears had come when the danger reached him. There had been none for the woman behind the covered openings.

He remembered Laro trying not to flinch when a hand came near his face. He remembered the narrow space beneath the collector's deck and Tomas lying against the mast with blood running between Jon's fingers. Drennan had seen the prisoners on shore. He had known what those ships served, and when soldiers came to stop them he had rowed out to give warning.

"No one mistook what was happening," Jon said. "You heard a woman begging to leave. You kept her quiet. Then you helped the men who had chained her."

"I have told you."

"Because you were caught."

Jon looked at Borren. "Did Orrick see them brought in?"

"He held the lantern at the door. He could see the ropes as well as I could."

Ethan nodded grimly. "He admitted seeing the woman. Claimed he thought she was a prisoner taken by a lord's ship."

"Then he should have brought word to you," Jon said. "Instead he took his money and turned the search away."

He straightened. Borren began speaking at once.

"My lord, I can still help you. Neresso has other men. I know the carters, where they—"

"You gave Ethan those names."

"There may be others."

"Then you should have remembered them while you could still bargain."

Arthur stood beyond the table, watching Jon rather than the prisoners. Jon made himself unclench his good hand.

He had wanted to seize Drennan and drag him through the castle to see the people left in Lorren's care. That would have made them a spectacle for their tormentor. They had endured enough without being summoned to prove their pain to him.

"The galley," he said. "The broken swan. What work did you do aboard her?"

Drennan raised his head. "Her sail."

"Describe it."

"Pale canvas. The upper corner tore. I had no length wide enough, so I joined two blue pieces across it." He swallowed. "They were to replace it at Hull."

"When did you mend it?"

He placed the visit between two landings Borren had already described. Ethan questioned him until the sequence was clear. Drennan had carried the sail back aboard himself. There had been armed men at the hatch and a woman sitting below the ladder with her wrists tied.

Jon made him continue. The galley put into ports as Fair Wind, a name Ethan took down for the searching captains. Her crew covered the broken swan with a hood of sailcloth when they did not want it recognised. Drennan had sewn that too.

"They need not show us the bird," Arthur said quietly.

"No." Jon turned to Ethan. "Send the false name and sail description to Denys and Driftmark. Tell them when he last saw that canvas; she may no longer carry it. Whoever takes the message is to explain the covered bow as well."

Drennan looked up with desperate hope. "I can show them. Take me on a boat. I'll point her out."

"You will stay here."

Jon went back to his place at the table. Ethan had the earlier accounts before him: Borren's payments, Orrick's altered patrols, the master's treatment of Laro. Each had been questioned separately; their own words had supplied what the others tried to hide. Drennan had filled another gap. There was enough to judge the local men without pretending he had found every hand in the trade.

"At dawn, I will take your head, Borren. Orrick and the master who held Laro will follow."

Borren stared at him. Orrick and the Lysene boat master taken with Laro on the first night still waited in the cells below.

Jon turned to Drennan.

"You remain apart until we have checked what you told us. If your answers prove useful, you live. You will work in irons. Lie to me again, and you join them."

Borren's face emptied.

"My sister—"

"Will answer for what she did. Your sentence is yours."

One of the guards took his arm. Borren planted his feet. He looked at Ethan, then Arthur, searching for someone who might tell the boy to reconsider. Arthur opened the door for the guards.

"Ask him what he took!" Borren shouted as they pulled him past Drennan. "Ask how much they paid him!"

"We shall," Jon said.

They took Drennan down by another passage. For a little while Jon could hear Borren calling from the stair. Then a door closed, and he heard only the wind at the high window.

Ethan remained beside the table. "And the collector's first mate, my lord?"

Jon looked at the purse lying among the prisoner's things. That morning the mate had thought silver might save him. He had spoken of the people beneath the galley's deck as if Jon were asking about a cargo of hides.

"Let him go hungry. No visitors, and no word to the other prisoners. He can sit with what he knows until Neresso is brought here."

"We have no answer from Lord Velaryon yet."

"Send another raven. When he comes, he is to bring Neresso under guard. I will question them both that day." Jon pushed the purse away. "We shall see how much defiance the mate has left by then."

The castellan nodded. He drew the account of the battle prisoners nearer: nineteen fit enough for the work already begun at Cinderwell, three wounded still under Lorren's care, and the first mate held separately. All twenty-three were accounted for.

"Feed the nineteen properly," Jon said. "I need them strong enough for the work still to be done."

Ethan's hand stopped above the page. "Work? You mean to keep them here?"

"In chains, as they intended for the people they carried. Two years upon the works. After that, they go to the Wall."

"Some will run if they can."

"Then their guards had better attend to their duty. Keep them together when they are moved. Otho is to have the labour he can use, with men watching them."

Jon had seen what those ships made of people. He had no intention of feeding their crews through idle months in a dungeon while honest men broke their backs hauling stone. They would help build the island they had chosen to prey upon. The thought left him coldly satisfied.

The other three would remain under guard while Lorren treated them. Hessa and her son were still held with the earlier prisoners; their questioning was unfinished. Jon would not let Borren's death become an answer to every question about his household.

Ethan put the accounts together. "Who takes Saltcliffe now?"

"Send for Hewyn. I want half a century posted there. Fifty men under a steady optio."

"To support the next headman?"

"There will be no next headman."

Ethan went still. Jon could feel his own anger rising again, as sharp as when Drennan had admitted shutting the woman inside.

"A headman, one of the garrison, a sail-mender with a boat. How many more took coin and looked away? Until I know, Saltcliffe answers to the optio. He answers to me."

"And the village's ordinary business?"

"Goes to him. The fishing continues. Gella's work continues. But his men will watch the landings and the coast, and only the helpers she has chosen are to go behind the screen where she refines the white salt. Put guards upon the salt stores and the carts when they go down to the boats."

The white salt could pay for more than the village understood. Jon would not teach Gella a process, build the means to enlarge it and then leave it among men who had already sold far worse secrets for silver. The optio need not know how she made it. He needed to know who was allowed through her door.

"Choose men who were not fighting last night," Jon added. "Hewyn will settle their duties. They are posted there, not available for Otho to borrow by the day."

"I will have him sent up." Ethan gathered Borren's earlier account. "Denys left orders for Qavo to examine both prizes. The captain he put over the watch will take the shipwright aboard in the morning."

"Have Qavo send me what each needs. Hull, rigging, oars, all of it. Begin the repairs he can make with what we have."

The collector and the smaller oared ship would give him two more vessels once they were sound. They needed crews as well as repairs. Jon told Ethan to have Denys's captain keep the prisoners clear of both hulls and put reliable men over the remaining cargo. The report would go to the acting admiral as soon as a boat could find him; the work need not wait for his return.

Arthur had listened without interrupting. Now his gaze fell to Jon's bandaged hand.

"You mean to do it yourself in the morning."

"I passed the sentence."

"I heard you." Arthur held out his hand, and Jon reluctantly let him examine the swollen knuckle. "You must be able to finish what you begin."

Jon closed his fingers. It hurt. He kept them closed.

"I can."

Arthur studied him, then released the hand. "I will have a suitable sword brought down."

Jon looked towards Ethan. "Make certain Saltcliffe hears the charges. I will not have Borren's friends tell them he died for hiding a cask of wine."

The castellan bowed his head. "They will hear them."

* * *

The yard was still in shadow when the prisoners came out.

Rain during the night had left dark patches between the stones. Jon stood bareheaded beside the block, his cloak folded over Arthur's arm. The sword from the armoury had a long hilt and a broad, freshly honed blade. He had tried its weight in private, with his left hand taking the stronger grip and his right bracing below it. Lorren had bound the knuckle again. Even so, a dull ache ran into his wrist whenever he tightened his fingers.

The island garrison brought the condemned men across the yard. Orrick searched the ranks for familiar faces. Some men looked back; others kept their eyes upon the block. His coat still showed the stitches where the badge had been torn away.

Ethan read the charges. The words carried clearly in the quiet: coin taken, patrols diverted, captives concealed, men warned against their lord. The slaver master listened without expression. Borren kept shaking his head.

Jon watched him. He remembered the women and children who had waited outside Saltcliffe's houses when the first arrests were made, unable to learn whether their fathers would come home. This man had been trusted to speak for them. He had used that trust to open a door to slavers.

When Ethan finished, Borren began talking at once.

"My lord, there are things I have not remembered. Give me another day. You need to know who—"

"You had the night."

"I can still name men."

"Then name them."

Borren's mouth remained open. At the edge of the yard, someone shifted upon the wet stone. He tried to give Jon a name already taken down in the cells. Ethan said so. Borren turned towards him with a look of desperate hatred.

The guards brought him to the block. He resisted until one caught his shoulder and made him kneel. Jon waited while they settled him. He could hear the man's breathing.

Eddard's voice returned to him with a clarity that made the cold yard seem briefly familiar.

The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.

Jon had heard those words as a child. He had watched Eddard stand where he stood now, grave and certain, while other men looked on. He had understood the duty long before this morning. Understanding it did nothing to lessen the weight of the sword in his hands.

Borren looked up once.

"My sister's boy. He did what I told him."

"He will answer for his own deeds," Jon said. "I have told you that."

Borren lowered his head. Jon set his feet, lifted the sword and struck.

The shock of it drove pain through his right hand. He held the blade steady while the guards moved forward. Arthur remained beside him, near enough to take the sword if he asked. Jon did not ask.

Orrick came next. Without the badge, he looked like any frightened island man. He glanced at the soldiers who had once stood beside him and began to say that he had never laid hands upon a captive.

"You were paid to keep them safe," Jon told him. "You took more to leave them to those men."

Orrick looked down. He had nothing else to say.

The guards brought him to his knees. Jon waited until they stood clear, then raised the sword and took his head.

The master who had held Laro cursed when his turn came. Jon caught the boy's name among the words and felt his grip tighten despite the pain. The man had cut Mallador while trying to escape the first night's raid. Now he spoke as if losing his freedom were an injustice greater than anything he had done.

Jon let him finish. Then he carried out the third sentence.

When it was over, he stood with the point lowered towards the stones. His breathing sounded too loud. Blood had run along the blade towards his hand; a guard brought water, and Arthur took the sword only after Jon had loosened his fingers from it.

Ethan asked about the bodies. Jon gave the order for burial and remained while the garrison lifted them. There were men watching from the castle doors who had never seen their young lord kill. He was conscious of them, but had no wish to look at their faces.

The first mate waited somewhere beneath their feet. Neresso was across the water. Others still thought themselves beyond his reach.

Jon washed until the water in the basin had to be changed. His knuckle had begun bleeding beneath the wrapping. Arthur helped him bind it, saying little, then left him to change for the ride.

Wylla met him at the stable door with bread and cheese wrapped in linen. She took one look at his face and put the food into his sound hand.

"Eat before you ride."

"I will."

"Here."

He stayed beside the door and ate. She waited until the first piece was gone, then folded the remaining bread into the cloth for him. Beyond her, Alasdair was settling the escort. He had Tomas's duties for the day, with Gawen remaining at the castle.

"How is he?" Jon asked.

"Tired of being told to lie still," Wylla said. "Lorren is pleased with him."

Jon nodded. He could still remember how little pressure it had taken to make blood well through the cloth over Tomas's brow. The captain who had done that was dead. The men who had helped bring him to their shore had begged for their lives that morning.

He had slept badly and his hand hurt. When a groom fumbled a buckle he nearly snapped at him, then saw that the lad was trying not to touch the bandage. Jon finished it with his left hand and thanked him.

Hamish waited by the gate with Otho, mounted upon a sturdy bay. Gerren's elder son had brought his sea chest south to help lay out Jon's fields; during the island survey he had spent more time beside the measuring lines than at the castle. Now dust marked the knees of his breeches and a short measuring rod was tied behind his saddle. He looked young among the weathered men who had come to Dragonstone with their trades, though he had followed a plough long before he had ever seen a ship.

"Have you everything?" Jon asked him.

"Otho has the drawing, my lord. The longer cords went ahead with his men." Hamish hesitated. "Am I to stay there tonight?"

"Yes. I shall introduce you to Dake, then we will walk the ground together."

Hamish settled his foot more firmly in the stirrup. He had wanted this work. Being given charge of it had made him quieter.

Ethan met them as the gates opened. He and the maester would follow later, after the farms' work was done, for the household gathering Jon had promised. Hewyn was choosing the fifty men for Saltcliffe. They would march before noon.

Jon mounted. Beyond the last houses the road rose into open wind, and he was glad of the cold against his face.

* * *

Dake was cutting barley when they found him.

He worked beside his elder son, gathering stalks against the sickle. Behind them two women bound the cut grain. A child collected fallen heads into a basket until his mother called him out of the horses' way.

Dake straightened as Jon dismounted. His eyes went to the fresh wrapping on Jon's hand, then to Arthur. Someone from the village must already have brought news of the executions. He gave his greeting carefully.

"My lord."

"Finish the row. We can speak while you work."

His son pointed out shade for the horses. Jon sent the escort there and walked along the cut edge with Hamish. Otho continued towards the queen's barn, where his labour party waited.

Heat was gathering in the hollow. Chaff clung to Dake's neck, and his hands were dark where the sickle rested. He looked Hamish over, taking in the light beard, the plain coat and the measuring rod.

"Another man to measure us?"

"This is Hamish, Gerren's son. He worked with me at Miller's Run." Jon waited until the headman faced him. "He will oversee the farms here."

Dake lowered the handful of barley he had been about to cut.

"Oversee them."

"Under my direction. You and your neighbours will give him what he needs to learn the ground."

Hamish inclined his head. "I shall need to see where the river leaves its banks, and which fields dry first. Otho showed me the wet hollow."

"Did he?" Dake's glance returned to the young man's face. "And how many harvests have you brought in without your father telling you where to begin?"

Hamish reddened. "I worked beside him. We both followed Lord Jon's plan."

"Then I hope you remember it."

Jon felt the first stir of irritation. Dake's son had stopped cutting to listen; one of the women bent very deliberately over her sheaf.

"He remembers it," Jon said. "He helped put it into practice. That is why I brought him."

Dake looked at him, then resumed work. The sickle moved too quickly through the next handful, leaving stalks that his son cut when he passed.

"Your men have put a cord across the cattle way."

"To mark the new lane," Hamish said. "They lift it when the herd comes through."

"I asked my lord."

Jon's jaw tightened. "And Hamish answered you. The cattle way remains open."

The headman muttered that he was glad to hear it. Jon kept walking. If he answered every sour remark as sharply as he wished, they would spend the morning quarrelling beside an uncut field.

From here he could see the narrow strips spread across the hollow, some ready to reap, others still pale green upon the higher ground. The divisions had given each family a share of good and poor soil. They also sent teams back and forth across the same ground while men waited for their neighbours to finish. He meant to change that as thoroughly as he meant to change the streets of Blackburn.

At the end of the row Dake tucked his sickle through his belt and came with them. His son followed a few paces, until Dake told him to keep working.

"I was going to ask about the teams."

"Ask after the row."

The son went back, visibly displeased. Dake watched him bend to the barley, then turned towards the ruined barn.

"We have teams already."

"Which will still be needed," Jon said. "Your privately owned beasts remain yours. We settled that."

"We settled a good many things at the castle."

Jon stopped. Dake took another step before noticing and turning.

"If you have a question, ask it. I have no patience for being made to drag one out of every answer."

The headman's face darkened, but he bowed his head. "No, my lord."

They went on to the queen's barn.

Three walls still stood, streaked with lichen. A rowan grew where carts had once crossed the threshing floor, and one of the old piers had settled towards the wet ground below. Otho's men were clearing fallen stone from the approach. They had kept clear of the standing crop.

The larger drawing lay upon a board set across two trestles. Jon held it down while Otho fetched stones for the corners. Hamish stood beside the headman, leaving Dake room to see.

"Six hundred and forty acres," Otho said. "The ground we have marked for the first estate."

Dake bent over it. "I reckoned near six hundred."

"We took the farther edges and the fields beyond the rise," Otho answered. "That is the measured ground within this line."

Jon followed it with a finger. "The best arable land around the village. There are other fields beyond it, and meadow and grazing besides. This is where we begin."

The river curved along the lower side of the valley, with the deeper soil upon its gentler slopes. Beyond the selected ground, broken hills divided the farther farms. Jon had no intention of pretending they were useless because they did not fit conveniently upon this sheet. Their time would come. These acres were close enough to work together and good enough to reward what he put into them.

Inside Otho's measured boundary, the old narrow strips remained faint beneath Jon's darker lines. Larger fields followed the slope. A cartway reached the barn without cutting through the houses; the new house ground stood higher, with gardens behind it and a separate way for cattle.

Dake found the wall that divided his father's old ground from a neighbour's.

"That comes down."

"After the harvest."

"And this one."

"Where we have marked it. The new boundaries follow the fields we intend to work, not the shares your grandfathers divided."

Hamish bent closer. "This turn stays wide enough for the oxen. If we leave the wall across it, every team will have to stop and go round."

"We have managed to turn an ox before," Dake said.

"I can see that. I am asking what happens when we work the whole length."

There was nothing insolent in Hamish's tone. Jon heard the effort it cost him to keep it that way. Dake's eyes narrowed at being answered, then shifted to Jon as if expecting him to put the young man in his place.

"The wall comes down where I have marked it," Jon said. "Hamish will see that the turn is kept clear."

He put more force into the name than he had intended. Arthur looked at him from the other end of the trestles. Jon drew a breath and moved his hand to the river.

"Now show him what the water does here."

They left the drawing weighted beneath the stones and walked upstream to the shoulder where Jon meant to take water into the new channels. The river ran clear over pebbles there. Farther down, alder roots gripped the bank and a narrow shelf overlooked the bend.

Dake pointed out a scar upon the opposite bank. Winter floods had cut it. He knew where the water spread and where it stayed swift enough to take a man's footing. Jon listened. This was knowledge he needed, and he would not throw it away because the man giving it had become disagreeable.

Hamish asked whether the highest stain had been left by the last great rain or an earlier flood. Dake answered, then looked annoyed with himself for doing so.

Otho took the height against the marked rod. Jon walked the proposed course with him, keeping it above the fields that would need water. They would bring a channel around the rise, with smaller cuts leading into the flatter ground and gates to close them when enough had passed. The drains would carry away what the soil could not take.

Hamish crouched at a shallow dip, looking back towards the river.

"This bank will need raising."

"Yes," Jon said.

"Or the water will leave us here."

He said it almost to himself. Jon remembered him as a younger boy running ahead of their first channel at Miller's Run, eager to see whether the water could truly reach his mother's garden. The first trickle had found a low place there too. Hamish had helped mend the bank until it held.

"Have it marked," Jon told him. "And bring the men who will tend the gates when we set them. They are to see why each one stands where it does."

Dake rubbed his chin. "And when the river is low?"

"We take less. Otho will keep measuring it. I mean to use this water properly, not promise you a second river."

They followed the bank down to the shelf above the bend. Here Jon showed them the mill site. Water brought along a separate race would turn the wheel, then return below it. Carts could approach from the barn ground without trying to climb the steepest part of the bank.

"Grain brought down from the stores," Hamish said, studying the slope. "Flour back up by that way."

"Once the road is made." Jon turned to Otho. "Set the working height before the foundations. The wheel and the water leaving it must both have room."

Otho had already marked two possible lines. He and Jon compared them while Dake watched the river. It was no broad northern water, and its strength would vary. The gates and channels had to serve both mill and fields. Jon would not have Hamish opening every irrigation cut while the miller wondered why his stones had stopped.

"My father would have liked a mill here," Dake said at last.

For the first time that morning his voice held something besides resentment. Jon looked at him.

"Did he ask for one?"

"He asked a good many things. Men came, looked and went back to the castle."

"Then watch what my men build."

Dake gave no answer. Hamish was looking at the water, perhaps wise enough to leave the moment alone.

They returned by the grazing below the wet hollow. The man who held it stood watching soldiers lift stones from the choked outlet. He met Jon with a question about how much of the upper ground would be drained through his meadow.

"None until this end is clear," Jon told him.

Hamish followed Otho to where the water could leave beyond the obstruction. He came back with mud upon his boots and asked the man to walk it with him. Dake remained beside Jon. His mouth tightened as his neighbour went with the younger man and began pointing out the winter pools.

"He will need you," Jon said quietly. "You know this valley."

"So you have said."

"And he knows the work I intend. You will learn one another's part."

Dake looked after Hamish. "If he can spare the time from telling us ours."

Jon turned fully towards him.

"Enough."

The word brought Dake's eyes back at once. Jon kept his voice low, though he wanted to raise it.

"You have had a remark for every answer he has given you. If he is wrong, show him where. I have heard enough about his age."

Dake's cheeks darkened. "As you say, my lord."

It was obedience of the narrowest sort. Jon let it stand and called Otho back to the barn.

By noon they had marked the mill ground and the first lengths of channel. At the queen's barn, men had cleared a passage wide enough for a cart. The old walls would be tested before anyone built upon them. Beside them lay room for a new covered threshing floor, with stores where clean grain could be kept dry and fodder sheds far enough away to leave carts clear access. The dairy would stand nearer the houses, reached without taking the dung carts through its yard.

Jon left room in the drawing around the threshing floor. Much of what he wanted there depended upon the Blackworks. Bennard was still laying foundations; Noll's men could not turn out every fitting he needed because he was impatient for it. For now, the farmers would see a larger, better arranged place to do their work. In time the work itself would change.

Dake came back from his house carrying the guano sack sent from Saltcliffe. His wife and younger son followed with food. She set bread, cheese and a bowl of beans beneath the surviving wall while the men found places to sit.

Dake loosened the sack several paces from the food. Even there, Arthur grimaced when the smell reached him. Dake almost smiled, then glanced at Hamish and fastened the mouth again.

"We were told to keep this dry."

"Do," Jon said. "At the next sowing, put the same seed in two small plots beside one another. Spread this on one and leave the other without it. I want to see the difference."

Hamish asked where the ordinary manure was kept. Dake pointed with a piece of bread.

"Behind the byre. I suppose that must move too."

"If the new drains would wash through it," Hamish said. "I'd rather see it first."

Dake's wife told him where the path was. He thanked her and sat. The elder son arrived last, hands washed but chaff still caught in his hair. He took a place beside his brother and listened as Jon spread the smaller field drawing upon a flat stone.

"The new divisions will let us keep each course together," Jon told Hamish. "Wheat, then turnips, barley and clover. Different fields in different courses, so we still bring in grain while the others carry fodder."

Hamish nodded. "Some of the upper ground will want longer under clover."

"We will judge it as we go. The deeper ground can begin sooner. Keep the present crops until they are gathered, then we set the next sowing."

Dake leaned over the drawing despite himself.

"You would put all that good ground to turnips?"

"When its turn comes. The beasts must eat as well. More fodder lets us keep more useful stock through the lean months, and the clover helps the ground recover."

"We eat barley."

"And we shall grow it. You can see it there." Jon held his irritation in check. "But scraping grain off the same tired ground every time is not the whole of farming. Hamish has seen what comes back when the crops are changed properly."

"I was there when Lord Stark's steward compared our returns," Hamish said. "He could find no northern barley reckoning better by the acre."

Dake stared at him. "No better?"

"That is what he said. We still bought grain. Less of it."

Dake looked at Jon, who nodded once.

"We shall buy grain here too," Jon said. "These are six hundred and forty good acres, not an island large enough to feed every man I intend to settle upon it. Better yields and proper stores will make us less dependent. They will not make ships unnecessary."

Dake's elder son shifted closer to the plan.

"And the new tools?"

"Will come as the Blackworks is ready to make them."

"Will we have enough teams for all this?"

"That is part of what they will change. Fewer hands will be needed to work more ground. As men can be spared, there is work waiting at the harbour and the forges. I shall need recruits for the legion as well."

Jon glanced towards the field where the uncut barley still stood. His father in his first life had worked more ground with a handful of people than Dake could have managed with every household in this hollow. He could not give them that farm. He could remember enough to begin changing this one, if he could find the iron, the timber and the time.

"The harvest keeps its hands until we know we can spare them," he added. "Hamish will not send men away because a tool looks promising upon my table."

The elder son nodded, then asked Hamish about driving an estate team. Dake interrupted before the young overseer could answer.

"He has driven ours since he was old enough. There is no need to make a trial of him."

"There will be different work to learn," Hamish said. "I should like men who know the beasts."

"Then there are plenty here."

"Good."

The younger son looked down into his bowl to hide a smile. Dake saw it. Jon watched the headman's face close, and set the drawing aside before the meal became another quarrel.

They spoke of the stock instead. Dake's wife knew which cows gave the most milk and which calved without trouble; her sons disagreed about the soundest young bull. Jon listened, asked to see the animals when the day's work allowed, and told Hamish to preserve the good breeding stock when they settled the estate's herd. Better feeding would show sooner. Better breeding would take patience, and he had no intention of selling their best animals while waiting for it.

When the family returned to the fields, Hamish went with Otho to mark the approach to the stores. Dake lingered beneath the wall.

"My son would have had my holding after me."

There was hurt beneath the resentment. Jon heard it and was tired of having to hear it through an insult to someone else.

"Your sons will have work and the chance to rise in it. You have heard what I intend to pay, and this evening we will settle the terms with every household."

"Under him."

"Under the man I appoint."

Dake looked out towards Hamish. The younger man had taken one end of the cord while Otho set the other. Two local carters stood watching; Hamish beckoned them over to ask about the turn at the barn. They went readily enough.

Jon saw Dake's grip tighten upon the sickle handle.

"You would rather they waited for you to answer every question," he said.

"I have lived here all my life."

"Then give him the benefit of it."

The headman bowed stiffly and went down towards the barley. Jon remained beneath the wall until his temper had cooled enough to return to the drawing.

Arthur came to stand beside him.

"He thought you would choose him."

"I know."

"His sons heard the appointment."

Jon looked up sharply. "I shall not ask his leave to make it."

"I did not suggest you should." Arthur's gaze dropped to the hand Jon had braced against the stone. "You are bleeding through."

Jon looked down. A small red stain had spread upon the fresh linen. He took his weight off it, annoyed with the wound and with himself. Arthur fetched Lorren's spare dressing from the saddlebag. While he loosened the old binding, Jon watched Hamish guide a cart through the proposed turn.

The young man stopped the driver, shifted the cord a pace and tried again. He had found a mistake without calling for Jon to settle it. That was what Jon needed from the men he brought south: enough knowledge to act, and the sense to ask when they reached its end.

He would not let Dake drive him out of the work through a day of sneers.

* * *

The households gathered when the last harvest carts had been brought in.

Some came still carrying tools. Children sat beside bundles of cut grain while the maester opened the old rent and service accounts upon a borrowed table. Ethan had the household names from the completed census. Hamish stood beside Otho's plan, his measuring rod laid beneath it.

Before they began, the maester handed Jon a letter from Driftmark.

Monford Velaryon's men had seized Neresso in his rooms above the warehouse by the boatyards at Hull. The rooms were being searched, the merchant held apart from his servants while their stories were examined. Monford would bring the prisoner with him when he came to Dragonstone. His captains also had the description of the broken-swan galley and were watching for her.

Jon read the letter twice. The man who had bought fish, advanced coin and then begun paying for human cargo was alive in a guarded room. He could name men the sailors had never met.

"Tell Lord Velaryon the collector's mate is being kept apart for the same questioning," Jon told the maester. "And send the new sail description and the name Fair Wind, if the earlier message has not reached him."

The maester nodded. Jon put the letter inside his coat and faced the waiting farmers.

Dake stood among them with both sons. His wife had found a place beside the other women. He had brought his neighbours as promised, though he had left Hamish to answer their first questions about the ground.

Jon began with what would happen to the crop they had already grown. It would be gathered under the terms on which they had sown it. The dividing walls marked for removal would remain until that harvest was in. When paid estate work began, the old labour dues and barley rents would end. Gardens, poultry and privately owned beasts remained theirs.

A man near the back interrupted.

"Whose barn does the next crop go into?"

"The estate's."

"And what do we eat?"

"Grain from the stores, as part of your pay, with coin beside it. The grain is settled in measures. A dearer market will not make your portion smaller."

The maester gave the rates prepared from the earlier returns. Jon had him explain them slowly enough for the men at the back to follow, including the additional hire for privately owned oxen. The estate would feed those beasts while it used them. A farmer asked twice whether the old rent truly ended when the whole crop went to Jon, and Jon answered him twice.

Hamish showed them the selected six hundred and forty acres. He pointed out the present cattle way, the barn and the river before explaining the unfamiliar lines. Jon could see men finding their own ground and drawing their neighbours closer. The mill made them look down towards the water. The new boundaries brought them back to the drawing.

"You will have word before a wall comes down," Hamish said. "The marks must be checked against what you have sown. I shall walk them with each household."

"With the headman's leave?" Dake asked.

Hamish looked at him. "Lord Jon has given the order."

"I heard Lord Jon. I asked who will settle it when your cord runs where it shouldn't."

"I will hear you and look at the ground."

"You will hear me." Dake let out a short, unpleasant laugh. "I've sons near your age. Now I am to stand waiting while you decide whether I know my own field."

The talk around the table died away. Jon felt anger rise so quickly that he had to take his hand off the drawing before he crumpled it.

"Dake."

The headman turned. There was still a challenge in his face, strengthened by the neighbours standing at his shoulders.

"My lord, these are men who have worked here all their lives. Set a man over them who has weathered more than his father's displeasure."

Hamish went red to the ears. Jon saw him draw breath and stopped him with a raised hand.

"You have spent the day trying to make him ashamed of an appointment I gave him," Jon said. "You have questioned his age, his experience and every answer that did not come from my mouth. Now you do it before the men he is to lead."

"I am asking who you expect us to trust."

"I expect you to obey him."

Dake glanced towards his sons. The elder was watching Jon; the younger had lowered his eyes. The headman's mouth tightened.

"I will take my orders from you, my lord. I will not have that lad—"

"You will obey."

Jon's voice cracked across the yard. He came around the table, and Dake took half a step back before setting his feet. Arthur straightened beside the maester. Alasdair's hand settled upon his sword belt.

Jon had told him plainly at the castle what would change. He had answered him again beside the fields, at the river and over their food. Still Dake thought he could choose which orders to obey. Jon's hand throbbed, and the memory of the morning's blood lay close beneath every word.

"Hamish speaks with my authority. When you refuse him, you refuse me."

"I have served this village—"

"Then continue to serve it. Help him learn the ground. Bring him what he needs. Stop trying to turn every man here against him because I did not choose you."

Dake's face flushed darkly. Someone behind him drew a breath, but no one spoke.

Jon stepped closer.

"I have already put one headman in chains and found him a traitor. I took his head this morning. Do not imagine I will suffer another man to use the same office to defy me."

"I have sold no one."

"Then obey the order I have given you." Jon held his gaze. "Obstruct Hamish, set men against him, and I will remove you. If it takes irons to make you obey, you will wear them. Have I made myself clear?"

Dake swallowed. His eyes flicked once towards Ethan, but the castellan did not intervene. Jon waited, breathing hard through his nose. He would have liked the man to answer quickly. He forced himself to give him the silence in which to do it.

"Yes, my lord."

"Who oversees these farms?"

The headman's jaw moved before any sound came.

"Hamish. Under you."

"Remember it."

Jon turned away before he said more. He went back to the table and made himself lay the drawing flat. The farmers watched him now with a caution that had not been there at the beginning. Dake remained where he stood, humiliated and angry, but silent.

Hamish's hands were still upon the edge of the board. Jon looked at him.

"Show them the first work."

The young man swallowed, then pointed towards the outlet below the barn. His first words came unevenly. He steadied as he explained where his men would begin and which ground they would leave untouched until the crop was in. He knew this part. Jon let him finish it without taking over.

When Hamish had done, a farmer asked whether the new cartway would block his gate. Hamish asked him to show where it stood. The man leaned over the drawing, and the ordinary questions began again, more cautiously than before.

Jon stayed while the maester compared each household's present obligations with the proposed pay. Dake brought his sons to the table when called. He gave the size of his family and the beasts he owned, listened to the reckoning and took his place again. He did not speak to Hamish.

By the time they finished, the barn's shadow lay well across the yard. There were boundaries still to settle upon the ground and particular services to untangle. Ethan and the maester kept those cases. The first men who wanted work upon the stores were told where to come when their own grain was secure.

Jon called Hamish aside while the table was being carried away.

"You remain here. Otho's foreman knows what can begin now. Keep the men upon the outlet, the barn ground and the approaches. The fields wait until the harvest is in."

"Yes, my lord."

"If there is trouble, send word. Do not let a man delay you for days because he thinks you will be too proud to ask for help."

Hamish looked towards Dake, who was gathering his sons to leave.

"I will need what he knows."

"Then ask for it. He has heard me."

The young man nodded. Jon could see the question he did not quite dare put, and answered it.

"I chose you because you have done this work with me. You know when to act and when to send for me. I shall return for the first ploughing, and we will settle the next sowing together."

Hamish's shoulders eased a little. "My father will want to hear."

"Write to him. And your mother. I promised she would hear from you."

That brought a brief smile. It was gone when he turned back towards the farmers, but he went to them without looking for Jon's leave a second time.

At the horses Arthur waited until they were out of easy hearing.

"He will remember the threat."

Jon looked back. Dake was walking home with his sons, his sickle hanging at his side. The elder tried to speak to him. Dake answered without turning his head, and the boy fell silent.

"He had warnings enough."

"He did."

Jon pulled his glove over the new dressing and stopped when it caught. Arthur held the reins while he worked it free.

Jon could not leave Hamish here with every man believing that appointment lasted only while its lord stood beside him.

"They will see the work continue," he said. "That is what I owe them now."

Arthur handed back the reins.

Beyond the barley, the last stones were being carried clear of the outlet. Hamish had joined Otho's foreman beside the barn, with two farmers following them to look at the proposed cartway. There was little upon the ground yet to show what Jon intended. Tomorrow there would be more.

Jon mounted. Blackburn would need him in the morning. Before the week was done, Monford would bring Neresso through his gates, and the man waiting hungry beneath the castle would have someone else to blame.

He meant to be there to hear it.

 

[aiwonder]

Jon woke with his right hand caught beneath him.

Pain went through the knuckle as he pulled it free. For a moment he lay still, listening to the sea beyond the window, and waited for the ache to settle. Yesterday's ride had left mud upon the boots beneath his chair. The clean clothes Wylla had laid out smelled faintly of the herbs she kept with the linen.

There was no blood upon them. He looked away from the folded shirt.

Lorren came while he was eating. The healer unwrapped his hand without asking whether it hurt, examined the split skin and made an irritated sound.

"You have opened it twice."

"I know."

"Then stop leaning upon it."

Jon put down his bread. "How is Tomas?"

"Better at obeying me than you are." Lorren wound fresh linen between his fingers. "He sat by the window yesterday. Not for long. If he tells you that means he is fit to ride, you did not hear it from me."

"And the man who went into the sea?"

"His breathing is easier. I shall keep him here."

Lorren reached for the last of his linen, then stopped. "One of the men from our lessons is going with the quarry party. I've given him dressings. If someone is hurt, he can do something while they send for me."

"Can you spare him?"

"Denner is staying. And it is no use teaching the others if we never let them out of this room." He tucked the linen away. "I have told him what he must leave to me."

Jon nodded. He remembered Hennet hauling at a wet sleeve between the grinding hulls. There had been moments upon that deck he could scarcely separate from one another, yet he could remember the pressure of Tomas's blood beneath his fingers with a precision he did not want.

Lorren tied the bandage and caught him testing his grip.

"Leave it."

Jon left it. He finished his bread with the other hand.

In the lower yard the nineteen prisoners stood ready for the road. The garrison serjeant was checking their irons while another man counted them. One pirate watched Jon cross the stones, then looked towards the place where the block had stood.

Jon saw where he was looking. He walked past without speaking.

Ethan waited at the gate with Otho's directions for the escort. He had slept little; the skin beneath his eyes looked bruised.

"The guards have their orders. Cinderwell and back before the gates are shut."

"No straying into the village."

"The serjeant understands."

Alasdair brought Bucephalus forward and held him while Jon mounted. He had taken Tomas's place among the escort. Twice he glanced back to count the men, as though Tomas might appear to ask him whether he had remembered.

"Voss is going along the western shore," Ethan said. "The mate gave him enough to find the inlet."

Jon turned in the saddle. "The one beyond the smokehouse cove?"

"Aye. There is meant to be a store above the tide. He will search it with men who know the coast."

The collector's first mate had offered more than Drennan's name when he thought he could buy his life. Until Voss found the store, Jon had only the prisoner's word that it existed.

"Have whatever they find brought here," Jon said. "The maester and Abel are to see it together."

"And the mate?"

"He stays where he is."

Ethan nodded. Neresso was already in Monford's hands. Soon the merchant would be here to answer the same questions, without knowing which lies his sailors had told first.

Arthur rode up on Jon's left. Beyond the gate, the road to Cinderwell lay pale between walls of dark stone. There was still much of the morning ahead of them.

Jon looked once towards the prisoners. "Send word if Voss finds people, or anyone guarding that store. Do not wait for me to return."

* * *
​

At Cinderwell the women washing linen heard the horses first.

They straightened over the troughs as Jon rode past, sleeves rolled above reddened elbows. Wet cloth snapped against stone. A little farther up, bean vines straggled across the lane and caught at Bucephalus's bridle until Jon pushed them aside. Smoke rose from the houses into a pale morning sky. Jon drew Bucephalus to a walk. He had spent so much of the previous day among barley and river mud that the sound of hammers upon stone seemed a change of country.

Merren met him beside a stack of dressed stone. He had put on the coat he wore to the castle, though dust already whitened its cuffs.

"My lord." Merren's eyes went to the fresh linen about Jon's hand. "My son was at the castle yesterday."

"Then he will have told you why those men died."

"He did."

The headman kept looking at the bandage. Jon could feel Arthur beside him, waiting. He had no wish to carry yesterday's executions from house to house like a threat.

"I have come for the spring and the quarry," he said. "Is the mason ready?"

"Aye, my lord. He has been waiting for you."

Beyond him Otho's assistant was setting a measuring rod against the upper end of the stone stack. Otho had come ahead with Bennard and Master Woods. A cart stood near the spring with dressed blocks for the permanent repair; the props beneath the damaged wall were still in place.

Jon dismounted. "Show me what the mason has done."

They climbed past the gardens. Two women waited at the basin with jars, talking over the sound of water. The village branch ran steadily. Beside it, the second outlet fed the covered channel carrying water towards the castle.

Otho knelt near the wall, scraping loose earth from a stone with the point of his trowel. He looked up when Jon approached.

"The wall can be rebuilt a little at a time. We will keep it propped while the mason works."

"And keep both outlets running?"

"With a wooden trough past the work. The mason has the boards."

The mason showed him the boards ready beside the wall. The trough would carry water around the repair and back into the basin. Jon checked where it would stand.

Merren's daughter stood there holding a narrow board. Cuts along its edge showed how high the water usually rose. She fitted it between two stones and waited for the water to settle.

"It hasn't fallen below that one," she said, showing Jon the lowest mark.

"Even when they draw at the castle?"

"Not since the leak was turned aside."

Her father looked pleased. "She checks before she takes the goats out. Again when she comes home."

Jon crouched beside her. A strand of weed caught upon the board and trembled in the current.

"Keep checking while the wall is rebuilt. If it falls, tell the mason at once. He is to stop and find out why."

"Will he listen?"

The mason gave an offended grunt. Merren opened his mouth, but Jon answered first.

"He has heard me tell him."

She glanced at the mason. He nodded towards the board, and she put it back against the stone.

Jon took the plan Otho held out and laid it across the cart. Cords marked the new house rows below the spring. The road from the quarry would lead straight to the stone-cutting sheds, leaving the women filling their jars clear of the carts.

Merren followed Jon's finger until it reached the wider space below the houses.

"That is more road than we have houses for."

"You will have more houses. And carts meeting upon it."

The headman looked down the slope. "Men will build their sheds against it."

"They will build where Otho marks. I will not clear a street only to have it choked with lean-tos in a year."

"If someone wants more ground, he comes to you," Jon said. "You bring the request to Otho. No one takes land simply because it stands empty."

Merren nodded, less readily this time.

A murmur rose from the lane below. The prisoner party had arrived from the castle.

The men walked in pairs between garrison guards, their ankle chains striking against the stones. One had wrapped cloth around the iron at his shin. Another stared at the spring until a guard told him to keep moving. The escort led them down the quarry approach, away from the waiting jars.

Merren watched them pass.

"Those are the men from the ships?"

"The nineteen fit for work."

"You mean to keep them here?"

"They work here under guard, and go back to the castle at dusk."

The headman waited until his daughter had gone back to the basin.

"Our men have been asking after the wages. I told them you needed hands."

"I do."

"These won't cost you any."

Jon folded the edge of the plan flat. "They must be fed and guarded. And none of them knows your quarry as your own men do."

"A man needn't know much to carry stone."

"The hands Otho has hired keep their places," Jon said. "I am setting the prisoners to clearing the old iron mine. They will shift the fallen rock and the waste choking its approach. Your people keep their paid work."

"And the men who only have their backs?"

"Will still be needed. The new works will need men to haul fuel and ore every day, besides those building them."

Two men beside the stone stack had stopped to listen. Jon spoke loudly enough for them to hear.

"I mean to take far more stone and iron from Cinderwell than you have ever sent out before. In time I shall have to bring workers here because your village cannot supply enough." He looked back at Merren. "We must build the works first, and the harvest still needs hands. Do not promise everyone a wage tomorrow. But nineteen prisoners will not leave your people idle."

Merren's shoulders eased. "Then the men I called for should still come?"

"Every man Otho has hired. At the wages agreed."

He handed the plan back to Otho and went down towards the quarry road. Merren followed, calling to one of the men at the stone stack to pass the word.

The guards had halted the prisoners beside an old loading platform. One of the pirates lifted his head as Jon approached and spoke with undisguised contempt.

"Slave work, then?"

Jon stopped in front of him.

"You boarded my ships with steel in your hands. You served men who kept chains ready for people they could sell."

"I never sold—"

"Two years upon the works, then the Wall. I gave you your sentence yesterday." Jon stepped closer. "Take a shovel."

The man glanced at the guards and lowered his eyes. The accusation stayed with Jon as he turned away. He had sentenced these men for their crimes, and he meant to make them work. He would also have to see that their guards did not use the sentence as leave to do whatever they pleased.

He called the escort's serjeant aside.

"Water and food while they work. If one is ill, Lorren sees him. If one refuses an order, bring the matter to me. If one tries to run, stop him. You are here to guard them, not find sport."

"Aye, my lord."

"And keep them on the ground Otho has allowed. No one goes down to the flooded quarry floor or into the mine until he says it is safe."

Beyond the platform, a man sat in the shade of a cart, with two wooden sticks he used as crutches propped beside him. His left boot had been slit open around his swollen foot. A younger miner waited at his shoulder, the same man who had guided Jon into the ravine during the survey.

"You asked to hear Caddoc," Merren said.

The seated man began to rise. Jon put out a hand.

"Stay there. Which part did you work?"

Caddoc pointed uphill with one of his crutches. "The stone quarry first. The iron mine in the northern face after. Near twenty years between them."

Jon sat on a squared block beside the cart. "Show me."

Caddoc had brought a piece of roofing slate. He drew upon it with a pale chip of stone, turning it towards Jon each time he added a line.

From the cart Jon could see both workings. The stone quarry was an open pit, its lower floor hidden beneath a dark pool. Farther north, above the water, a narrow path led to the iron mine's entrance. A short stretch of tunnel remained visible before fallen rock blocked it. Splintered roof props jutted from the rubble.

Caddoc marked the tunnel upon his slate. "The roof fell just inside. Buried the way through to the iron. We got everyone out, but no one would pay for new props and men to clear it."

"That is the prisoners' work," Jon told Merren. "Once Otho and your miners have secured the roof, the prisoners can carry out the fallen rock. Until then, they clear the path to it."

The old man drew a second line, lower down. "The quarry flooded because its drain was buried. Used to carry the rainwater out beneath the loading place."

The younger miner shook his head. "There's nothing there."

"Under the heap," Caddoc said. "I crawled in to clear it often enough. You were still carrying wedges for your father."

Jon looked towards the nettles growing over the dumped stone. They could search for the drain without entering the flooded pit.

"Show Otho where to look."

Caddoc glanced at his crutches. "Can't get over that heap."

"Stay here and direct him."

Otho took the younger miner down to the heap. Caddoc called directions until they reached the brambles beneath the platform. Jon gave them two prisoners to dig there. The other seventeen began clearing the mine path under guard, carrying the loose stone away in baskets.

A broad-backed villager beside the loading platform watched them take up their baskets. He had his coat under one arm and had not joined the other loaders.

"Did you hear what Lord Jon said?" Merren asked him.

"I thought you'd brought them for our work."

"They're clearing the mine. You're loading building stone, as we agreed. Put your coat down. The cart is waiting."

The man looked towards Jon, who nodded. He laid his coat aside and joined the village loading crew. Merren helped them draw a rope beneath the next block. Beyond the platform, the prisoners carried baskets between the mine path and the waste heap.

At the drain, one of the two prisoners began hacking at a buried slab. Caddoc struck the side of the cart with his crutch.

"Easy with that! You'll bring the drain's roof down."

Otho heard him and stopped the man. They cleared with their hands instead, drawing out roots and damp leaves until a gap beneath a flat stone appeared.

Jon went down to look. It was too narrow for a man to stand in, a drain built from flat stones and roofed with slabs. Water seeped between the rubbish blocking its mouth. Behind it, darkness extended farther than he could see.

"No one crawls in," he said.

Otho nodded. "If the quarry water is behind that rubbish, it may come out all at once."

"Then have everyone clear of it before you open it."

Jon stayed while Otho checked where the water would run. It would pass below the cart road, well away from the village spring. Only then did he let the digging resume.

On the way back he passed one of the prisoners who had been clearing the drain. A sharp piece of stone had cut his palm. Lorren's pupil knelt beside him, his sword pushed back out of the way, and took a clean dressing from its wrapping. A guard stood over them. The prisoner watched the man's hands without speaking.

Jon remembered two spearmen practising bandaging each other in the northern infirmary, one groaning until Lorren told him to save his breath. Here the pupil was speaking quietly to the prisoner while he worked. Jon watched for a moment, then went on.

When he returned to the cart, Caddoc was pretending not to watch him.

"You were right about the drain," Jon said.

"Aye."

"Why wasn't it kept clear?"

The old man rubbed dust from the slate with his thumb. "The lower stone cost more to lift. Fewer men came for it. Then the mine roof fell, and there wasn't coin to put either right."

"You told them about the drain?"

"I told Merren's father. He knew it as well as I did." Caddoc looked towards the prisoners. "He couldn't pay a gang to dig it out."

Jon glanced at Merren. The headman had heard. He was watching a block being levered onto the cart, his hands clasped behind his back.

"Can you come here while they clear the approach?" Jon asked Caddoc. "You need not climb. Otho will need what you remember."

"I can come if there's a cart."

"There will be. You will be paid for the day."

For a moment the old man said nothing. Then he turned his slate over.

"There's another place you'll want to look. Above the mine entrance. They threw ore in with the waste when they cleared the deeper seam. Might be some worth taking yet."

Jon shifted nearer on the block.

Caddoc marked the heap upon his slate. When Otho returned with the younger miner, Jon had them mark the places they could reach safely for samples. Reaching the deeper workings would take longer.

A shout from the loading place made them look round. The carter wanted the next block turned before they loaded it onto the cart. Four local loaders eased it back upon its wooden runners while the stone worker shifted a plank. They knew their work; no one hurried until he had taken his bar clear. Even so, by the time the stone lay where the carter wanted it, the men were breathing hard.

Jon watched them return for another.

"We will need lifting frames here, Otho. A crane at the loading place first."

"Like the one we used for the barrack roofs?"

"Woods can build from that pattern. It will need firm ground and room for the carts."

He remembered Theon working the handle in the North, astonished by the weight it raised. These loaders could use the same help. Caddoc pointed out a level place above an old wall, and Otho went to examine it. Jon sketched the crane beside the road while they waited.

When Otho returned, he approved the ground but asked for a wider approach. Jon assigned that work to the village building crew.

"Will it take the larger blocks?" Merren asked.

"That is what Woods will build it for. We will test it before your men use it."

Merren looked back at the loaders. One had sat down to pull a stone chip from his shoe; the others were waiting for him.

"And someone who knows how to work it," he said.

"I have men who can teach them."

Jon turned from Caddoc's drawing to Merren. "Find the miners who used to work here. Otho will need their help making the tunnel safe. They will be paid."

"They'll ask if there is more than a few days in it."

"Tell them what we intend to build at the mill. If that seam is worth working, I shall need their sons taught as well."

Merren asked the younger miner how many of the old hands were still in the village.

"Four who've worked the northern cut," the man said. "Perhaps six, if the brothers come back from Hull. There are some of the old miners from the lime pit, too."

Jon turned towards him. "Lime pit? Where?"

"West of the castle, my lord. Above the cove. The upper path goes past it."

Jon remembered the hollow beside the path, seen through rain on the night they took Borren. He had been hurrying towards the smokehouse then.

"They quarried stone there?"

"Limestone," Caddoc said. "For burning. Some of our men worked both places. My father did."

"Is there still stone to take?"

"Aye. They stopped paying for it long before they ran out. The face is under gorse now."

Jon looked at Otho. "Have someone who worked there show your assistant the pit. I want samples brought to the castle."

Merren frowned. "Eastcove already burns shells."

"They should keep doing so. We will need both." Jon turned back to Caddoc. "Who remembers the burning?"

The old man gave Merren two names. One had sons still living in Cinderwell; the other, he thought, had gone to Hull with his daughter. Merren knew which house to ask at.

In his first life, Jon had walked beneath Roman vaults built with lime and volcanic ash. Dragonmont might supply the ash he needed; now there was limestone close to the castle. He had to test both, but the discovery made him look again at the heaps of broken stone.

"I mean to use it for a stronger mortar," he told Otho. "One that will harden even in wet ground. Mixed with broken stone, it could give us foundations much faster than dressing every block."

Otho looked towards the village's marked house rows. "And Eastcove will supply the bricks above them."

"Yes. If we can make enough of both, we can build far faster. Have the lime burner try the stone. We will test small batches of the mixture before trusting a wall to it."

Merren had been listening closely. "You mean to use stone we throw away?"

"Some of it. Your masons will still be needed."

The headman glanced back at the quarry. "I'll find those men."

The first laden cart went towards the village as they took the path east. Its blocks were for the spring wall. Behind them the prisoners' shovels struck earth, and Caddoc called another warning from his place beside the cart.

* * *
​

Nettles grew thick against the burned mill's walls.

The fire had left black marks above the doorway. The old roof had fallen inward, and young ash trees had rooted among its charred timbers. Bennard's men had cleared the lower end since Jon's survey. A new trench ran beside the surviving wall; lengths of timber lay ready above it. Below them a separate stream, well away from Cinderwell's drinking spring, hurried through the abandoned mill channel and spilled into the wheel pit.

Master Woods stood beyond the doorway with two carpenters, measuring a span the new roof would have to cross. He lowered his end of the cord when he saw Jon, then gave it to his man and came over. The master carpenter had built Jon's first workshop in the North. Here the fire had left him little he was willing to trust.

Bennard stood in the pit up to his calves, arguing with a carpenter on the bank. Ewan's furnace man had worked the northern hammer long enough to know what its shaking could do to a poor foundation.

"The stones where the wheel will stand are loose. This end has to come down."

"There's good wall above it. We could shore it up."

"We'd still be building on loose stone."

Jon crouched on the bank above Bennard. The furnaceman pulled a loose stone out with one hand. Behind it, water had washed the mortar into a gritty hollow.

"Take this end down to sound stone," Jon said. "Save the good blocks for rebuilding."

The carpenter looked from the stone Bennard held to the wall above it.

"It is more work, my lord."

"And we would have to do it all again if that wall gave way."

Jon stood and took the drawing. Bennard had altered the waterwheel's design to make better use of the stream. Until the wall beneath it was rebuilt, the water would be diverted past the work.

"The hammer first," Jon said. "We need tools while the rest is being built."

Bennard nodded. "I've told them."

The timber cart arrived while they were measuring the hammerhouse. Ewan rode beside it with Noll, who had brought the smaller iron fittings from the castle forge. Henly and Emrick followed on foot, their coats over their arms. Jon had sent for both that morning; the acolytes had left their engine men cleaning and checking the legion's equipment.

Ewan dismounted and went straight to the load. He pushed one timber aside to examine the length beneath it.

"You have the best of them, Bennard."

"I asked for the best."

"So did the carpenter at Eastcove."

Bennard grinned. Ewan shook his head, but helped him slide the timber down beside the others.

"Can Eastcove spare you?" Jon asked.

"For today. Their carpenter has the mould and the first bench to work from. He made the last joints himself, and I've left him one of our men. He'll send if he needs me." Ewan looked through the mill's broken doorway. "I wanted to see this before anyone set a hearth."

Noll unfastened his leather roll upon a timber and spread out the iron fittings. His men were still making Saltcliffe's pieces at the castle forge. Here, Ewan set him to checking what the carpenters would need first.

Henly and Emrick joined them. Both acolytes knew forge work as well as the legion's war engines; Jon had brought them to help turn his drawings into working machinery. Woods called Emrick over to settle a fastening, while Henly fetched Bennard's drawing.

"The iron we ordered in the North should be here," Jon told Ewan. "Ask Marrec what has arrived. I want the forges working while the mine is cleared."

Ewan glanced at the road they had come by. "Is there better ore than the last lot?"

"Caddoc thinks so. He has shown us where to take fresh samples."

The old samples had given them poor results. Bennard would test the new ones before Jon committed men and money to the great furnace. Until then, purchased iron would keep them working.

Merren came closer as the carpenters unloaded. They laid two great timbers beside the marks for the hammer frame. The headman looked from them to the mill doorway.

"It won't fit."

"The hammerhouse is larger than the old mill," Jon said.

"I understood that. I did not think you meant the hammer itself would need all this."

Ewan squatted beside the frame marks. "A head that heavy needs sound timber to hold it, and sound ground beneath the anvil."

"How many men to lift it?"

"The waterwheel lifts it and lets it fall," Jon said. "The smith turns the hot iron beneath the blows."

Merren bent over the drawing. Beside him, a young man with a mason's mallet tucked through his belt frowned.

"It would beat the iron flat before he could move it."

"He learns when to turn it and when to draw it back," Ewan said. "No man works the hammer until he has been taught."

"Can he stop it himself?" the young man asked.

"From where he stands," Jon said. "That is part of the design. Ewan will choose and train the men who use it."

The young man did not look reassured. Jon knew enough injured workmen from his first life to take the question seriously. He told Henly to keep a barrier between the moving machinery and anyone walking through the shop. He would be there for its first trial.

The young man looked at Ewan. "You've seen one work?"

"I helped build one in the North."

The men beside the cart set down their wedges to listen. Ewan told them about the northern hammer: the heavy beating it spared his smiths, and the work that still needed a skilled hand. When one of the loaders asked whether he could learn, Ewan told him to come and watch the first trial. Merren moved closer to hear, and Jon left the questions to the smith.

Merren looked across the marked ground again.

"All this for your soldiers."

"Picks for the quarry," Jon said. "Fittings for Gella's works. Tools for the men making bricks at Eastcove. Nails, hinges, wagon tyres. We need those before I can arm another century."

"And then?"

"Then armour. Weapons. Work for the ships. And iron to sell when our own needs allow it."

Woods came over when Jon opened the quarry sketch. He recognised the lifting frame they had used in the North.

"You will build the cranes, Master Woods," Jon said. "Begin with the quarry. We will need another here for the heavy pieces, and more at the building sites. Blackburn's harbour will need them most of all; I want ships unloaded quickly."

"I'll need more carpenters for that."

"Begin with your own men. When Ethan, the maester and I go through the census, we will assign you more. Your deputy can keep the clockwork going with William."

Woods glanced at Ewan. "I'll need your ironwork."

"Send me what you need tonight," Ewan said. "Noll and I can go through it at the forge."

Henly and Emrick knew windlasses from their work on the legion's war engines. Jon set them to helping Woods with the cranes and teaching the first crews. Woods beckoned them over and spread the quarry sketch upon a timber. Jon left the three of them there and took Merren farther into the yard.

Beyond the planned forges, a cord enclosed the ground reserved for the furnace. Merren walked its length, then stopped.

"That whole square?"

"For the furnace, and room for the men working it."

Merren looked up the slope as though he might see the height of the thing in the air.

"The smoke will come into the village."

"The ridge will shelter you from most of it. That is why we chose this ground." Jon pointed out the fuel road, which would keep the carts away from the spring. Waste from the furnace would be kept clear of the stream as well.

"I've never seen a works built with so much empty ground about it."

"It will not remain empty."

Jon could almost hear the hammer pounding over the rush of the wheel. He looked back at the roofless mill, impatient to have it working.

In his first life a builder could buy the tools he needed. Here, Jon had to establish the workshops that would make them. Eastcove could not turn out bricks fast enough without better equipment; Saltcliffe needed its boilers; every new roof would need nails.

Behind him, the carpenter who had wanted to keep the old footing went back to the wheel pit with a crowbar.

They ate in the shade of the ruined wall. Merren had brought bread, cheese and onions; Noll cut his onion with a knife too broad for the task and offered half to Bennard. Arthur took the place from which he could see both approaches. Jon noticed it now in a way he had not before the fight aboard the collector.

Over the meal Bennard warned him that the island's charcoal would not supply the works he intended. Jon told him to give Marrec the quantities he needed. They would have to buy regular cargoes, and build somewhere dry to keep them.

Merren tore a piece from his bread. He watched a carpenter sight along one of the wheel timbers.

"Will you keep coming?"

"Yes."

"Lords say that."

Arthur looked at him. Merren swallowed the last of his mouthful.

"My lord. My father took men up to that drain twice. Once he had to turn them away without their pay. They remembered it every time he asked for anything afterwards." He brushed crumbs from his coat. "Caddoc makes it sound as though we all stood watching the water rise."

"He said your father knew what needed doing."

"He did. He couldn't make the coin come."

Jon looked down at the men still eating in the shade. Some would have worked for Merren's father. They would remember being sent home without their pay.

"I will be here when Bennard raises the frame, and again when the furnace is lined. If the spring falls while Otho is away, send to the castle." Jon leaned forward. "But I will not be here for every cart and every quarrel. You are the headman. I expect you to see that your people come when they are wanted. If there is trouble, I expect to hear of it."

Merren nodded slowly, then looked towards the carpenters still at their meal.

After the meal Otho found a better place for the hammer, where its weight would rest on firm ground and the smiths would have room to work. Jon altered the drawing with Bennard and Ewan beside him, while Woods measured for the new roof. By the time they agreed upon it, Jon's bandaged hand was aching again.

By late afternoon the burned timbers had been dragged out of the first bay. Fresh pale wood lay across the grass where the carpenter was setting out his joints. Upstream, men were opening the temporary channel that would carry the water past the wheel pit while its footing was rebuilt.

Jon left Bennard in charge at the mill. Woods and Otho went back to the quarry with the acolytes, while Ewan and Noll took the revised drawings to the castle forge. There was still work waiting for Saltcliffe. On the way through Cinderwell, Jon stopped once more at the spring.

The mason had diverted the flow into the wooden trough. It ran around the propped section with a hollow, rushing sound and fell back into the basin. Merren's daughter held her marked board at the village outlet. As Jon watched, she moved it a little, checked again, and nodded to the mason.

The women were still filling their jars below.

* * *
​

Voss was waiting when they reached the castle.

Salt had dried white upon his boots. One sleeve was torn at the elbow, and black grit had lodged in the seams of his hands. Behind him two garrison men were carrying a chest through the lower door.

"We found it, my lord."

Jon dismounted carefully. "Anyone there?"

"No one. Nor any sign that people were kept in that chamber."

"Show me what you brought back."

Voss led them towards the lower hall. The store lay beyond the smokehouse landing, he explained, behind a shoulder of rock that hid the inlet from the path. At low water they had been able to reach it along a ledge. Loose stones concealed the entrance, with a gap just wide enough for a man to squeeze through.

"The mate said it was dry," Voss continued. "That much was true. There are shelves cut into the back. Planks above the floor for the bales."

"Enough room for what came off one ship?"

"More than one, my lord. Some of the racks were empty. We found spare oars and cordage as well as the goods."

Arthur looked at Jon. Spare gear, empty racks, room for more cargo: the gang had expected to keep using this inlet.

"Did you leave a watch?" Jon asked.

"Four men on the path above. Out of sight from the water. The rest are bringing the last of it up."

"Keep them there. No fires after dark."

The recovered goods filled a room off the hall. It smelled of damp wood and old sailcloth. Abel stood beside the maester, weighing silver from an open chest. A second chest held plate and jewellery wrapped in cloth. Copper ingots lay near the door, and a guard was helping unfold a woollen bale to check it for rot.

Jon stopped beside the open chest.

They had been doing this on his own shore. Long enough to cut shelves in the rock, to learn which ledge stayed dry, to trust that someone would carry their goods away before an honest patrol came near.

"How much can we use?" he asked.

"The coin is still being weighed," Abel said. "Some is clipped. Some I must have valued before I give you a sum."

"And the copper?"

"Sound enough, by the look of it. Noll should see it."

Jon nodded. Noll could judge what they ought to keep and what to sell. Useful as the copper might be, it would not supply the hammer with iron.

Ethan came in behind them. "We should ask Drennan whether he knew about this store."

"Ask him. Separately from what he did at the smokehouse."

"He has asked whether the galley has been found."

"Give him no answer."

The castellan stopped beside the second chest. Jon followed his gaze to a woman's comb caught in the wrapping. Teeth were broken at one end. Beside it lay a pair of small bracelets tied together with thread.

He thought of the woman Drennan had shut behind a door because her crying could be heard from the path.

"Keep those apart."

The maester looked up from the scales.

"The personal things," Jon said. "Let Wylla show them privately to the people we brought out. No one is to drag them in here to pick through a heap before the guards."

The maester set the comb upon a clean cloth. Ethan moved a cup to make room.

"Some may have come from other ships," Abel said.

"Then we keep them until we know. Count what can be spent without that."

He had felt relief when he saw the chest. He still felt it, and hated that the money should make any part of this easier to bear.

Jon looked again at the bracelets tied with thread. Someone had kept them together through all this. He hoped Wylla would find their owner among the people they had rescued.

Abel waited until he looked back.

"This will help with the first purchases. I cannot yet tell you how many."

"Set aside the wages already promised. Then what Noll needs for the hammer, after he and Marrec have checked the iron we have."

"The furnace?"

"Not from money you have not counted."

Abel inclined his head.

At Cinderwell, Jon had stood upon empty ground and seen the buildings that belonged there. He could still see them. He could also see the fittings Noll had brought in a small leather roll, every one taking a man's time at the forge. The larger works would consume this silver long before the island earned it back.

The expedition remained necessary. Nothing upon this table changed that.

He took Voss aside before leaving.

"The people who used that inlet may not all have heard what happened. If a boat comes to the store, I want to know where she came from and who meets her."

"Take them, my lord?"

"If you can do it without losing the men. If she has a fighting crew aboard, send word and keep her watched. Do not let four men try what needed two galleys."

Voss glanced at the bandage on Jon's hand. "No, my lord."

* * *
​

The door to Lorren's room was half open. Jon heard Olyver before he reached it.

"Does your mother need to know what you had for breakfast?"

"I haven't written that."

"There's still room at the bottom."

Tomas sat propped against the pillows with a board across his knees. A sheet of parchment lay upon it, covered nearly to the bottom. Olyver had taken the stool nearest the window. His own hand rested around an inkpot so Tomas could reach it without turning.

Aries stood at the foot of the bed with Geth and Nibs. Patch had claimed the space beneath Olyver's boots and was refusing to move when the man shifted.

"Lorren allowed all of you?" Jon asked.

"He allowed them," Tomas said. "Olyver came to help."

"And has he?"

"He has opinions."

Olyver lifted the inkpot. "He would have spilt this without me."

Jon came nearer. Tomas tried to put the pen down and left a short black mark beside the last word. His face tightened with annoyance.

"You can copy it tomorrow," Jon said.

"I would rather finish. I've started it twice already."

Jon looked at the sheet, then away before he read anything Tomas had not offered him.

"Have you told her about the wound?"

"I've told her."

"How much?"

Tomas was quiet. Olyver stopped moving the inkpot.

"Enough that she won't hear the worst of it from someone else," Tomas said at last. "I told her Lorren says I'm mending. And that I can see properly."

"Good."

"I've told her about Ser Arthur. About what you mean to give me." He looked down at the parchment. "That took longer."

Aries had been peering around Geth to see the letter. At the change in Tomas's voice he became still.

"I keep writing it as if I have to persuade her," Tomas admitted.

"You needn't."

"I know. I only..." He lifted his eyes. "She'll think I've misunderstood."

"Finish it. I will put my seal upon it when you're done."

Tomas stared at him.

"Then she can blame me for the unlikely parts."

The smile came slowly. He looked down before Jon could see much of it, but his fingers had relaxed around the pen.

"Thank you, my lord."

Olyver cleared his throat and asked whether that meant Jon would take responsibility for whatever arms Tomas chose. The question drew the others in at once.

"A sword," Geth suggested.

"Every knight has a sword," Nibs said.

"Not upon his shield."

"They might. You haven't seen every knight."

"What would you choose, then?" Tomas asked Nibs.

Nibs considered. "A horse."

"Every knight has a horse," Geth said promptly. Tomas laughed, then winced and put a hand to his side.

"Neither of you is painting anything yet," he said. "Let me finish my letter." Olyver moved the inkpot within reach again. Aries stayed at the foot of the bed while Geth and Nibs began discussing colours.

When Lorren appeared in the passage, Jon sent the pages out ahead of him. Olyver stayed long enough to take the board off Tomas's knees.

Outside, Aries waited while Geth and Nibs went towards the stairs with Patch following.

"What is it?" Jon asked.

The boy glanced back at the sickroom.

"Will he have to leave us when he gets his land?"

"No holding has been chosen."

"But when it is."

Jon had thought of what he would give Tomas. He had spent less time thinking of what the promise sounded like to the boys who wanted him at the next meal.

"In time he may have duties elsewhere. He will still be one of us."

Aries rubbed a thumb along the seam of his cuff.

"For now, Lorren will scarcely let him reach the window," Jon said.

That brought a small smile. The boy asked whether he could bring him another sheet tomorrow. Jon told him to ask Wylla for it, but Aries lingered.

"Has Lord Arryn written?"

"Not about the children."

Aries looked down the passage. The others had gone around the turning.

"I thought we would know by now."

Jon had written again when they reached Dragonstone, asking after the wounded boy at Rilla's neighbour's house and the children made to fight beneath the city. Aries had carried that letter to Perkin himself. Each day since had brought some new demand upon Jon; the boy had been waiting through all of them.

"Come with me," he said.

They found the maester in his chamber. Jon asked him to send another letter to Lord Arryn that night. He wanted to know whether the children had been found, where they were being cared for, and to whom he should send the money he had promised.

"Have Abel set aside a purse for their food and lodging," Jon added. "When the answer comes, I want it ready to send."

The maester drew a fresh sheet towards him. Aries stood beside the table.

"Rilla, too," the boy said. "Ask if she's all right. She was afraid they would find out she'd told us."

"I will ask," the maester said.

Jon stayed until the letter was written. Aries watched the maester fold it, but had no more questions.

At the stair Patch came back for them, nails clicking upon the stone. Aries crouched to meet him and let the dog push his nose beneath his hand. Geth called from below. This time Aries went to join him.

* * *
​

Arthur found him in the little room beside the western postern after supper.

Hugin and Munin were upon the wall beyond the window. One had a scrap of meat; the other kept hopping nearer in the hope of stealing it. Jon waited until the quarrel was settled before sitting upon the stool.

Arthur put water within reach. "Where are you taking them?"

"Munin along the shore. Hugin over the ridge."

"Both out of sight of one another?"

"That is what I need to practise."

The birds had given him warning of the ambush. Without it, Denys would have had less time to ready his men, and the first boarders might have found them with their shields still stacked. Jon had thought often enough about what his gift could become. Now he had seen what a few moments' warning were worth.

He closed his eyes.

Cold air caught beneath Munin's wings. Through Hugin, he felt his claws leave the stone and the sea wind lift him. For an instant the two movements confused him. He held Munin level while Hugin climbed, then let the higher bird turn inland.

The castle fell behind them.

He had learnt to move from one bird's sight to the other without losing either altogether. Holding them upon different courses was harder. Munin followed the broken edge of the coast; Hugin crossed grass and the dark line of a wall. When Jon attended too closely to the wall, the shore vanished from his awareness.

He let Hugin circle while he searched for Munin's view again. Bloodraven had warned him about confusing one bird's senses with another's. He had to feel where each of them was.

He returned his attention to Munin: the wind rising from the water, the pull along the coast, the dark shapes caught among the rocks below. The shore came back. He held to that sense of her place while Hugin climbed farther inland.

Beyond the ridge, a cart was crawling along the Cinderwell road. Two men walked beside it. The bird's eyes found the pale load, the shadow beneath the axle, a hand raised to point up at him.

Stone for the castle. Men he might have passed a few hours ago.

He wanted to follow the road farther. Instead he turned Hugin home while Munin continued around the headland. As she flew farther from the castle, keeping hold of her grew harder. He nearly lost Hugin's view again.

Munin saw a narrow beach and a tangle of weed left by the falling tide.

Enough.

He turned Munin home and guided both birds back towards the castle. Only when he was sure of their course did he withdraw.

His left hand was gripping his knee. He loosened it.

Arthur waited while he drank.

"Well?"

"I lost the coast for a moment when Hugin crossed the ridge."

"But you brought them both back."

"Yes."

"Then remember that part as well."

Outside, one crow landed with a scrape of claws. The second took longer. Jon watched the empty stretch of wall until Hugin settled beside his companion.

The expedition would take him beyond familiar coasts. He would need to work at greater distances, to follow one creature without abandoning another, to return to his own body with strength left to act. Birds were a beginning. They were not the most dangerous things that might live in the country he meant to enter.

He had no certainty that a firewyrm's mind would yield to him at all.

He did not mention that to Arthur.

"Again tomorrow," he said.

"After sleep."

Jon was tired enough not to argue.

In his chamber the covered trays had been moved to make room for Otho's drawings. Wylla had kept the cloth over every fragment. Jon lifted a corner and turned the gold-coloured piece of dragonshell into the candlelight.

The broken edge pressed against his thumb. He loosened his grip before it cut him.

He still had no use for it. Yet he could not bring himself to put the shells away in a chest. They had lain among bones beneath the mountain while kings fought over the island above them. Now they lay beside his plans for the island.

Jon set the fragment down and drew the Cinderwell plan closer.

He added the old lime pit beside the western path, leaving room for Otho's measurements when they came. Beneath it he wrote the names of the men Merren was to find. He wanted the samples soon. If the stone and ash proved suitable, the builders could start using the new mortar while the mine was still being cleared.

Blackburn waited for him in the morning. Beyond that were the labour allocations, the lords coming to hear him, and Neresso.

He moved the candle nearer and finished the alterations while he could still remember exactly how Bennard had placed the hammer frame.

 

[aiwonder]

Aries swung at Jon's head. Jon stepped inside the blow, touched the boy's ribs with his wooden sword and drew back.

"Again."

Aries looked towards Arthur, who motioned him forward. By the bench, Geth was explaining the mistake to Nibs. Nibs had been caught the same way and did not much care to hear about it. Patch slept beneath them, out of reach of the swords.

Jon held his bound right hand against his belt. The knuckle still ached, and Lorren had forbidden him a shield. Even closing his fist hurt. He waited while Aries shifted his grip.

"I might catch your hand," the boy said.

"Keep your eyes up. I'll mind my hand."

Aries struck. Jon turned the blade aside with his left and stepped forward, stopping his point beneath the boy's chin.

"You watched my sword all the way," he said. "What were my feet doing?"

Aries looked down. Arthur took Jon's place and repeated the step slowly, bringing his foot beside the boy's.

"He was here before you began to move. Try it on me."

Jon sat upon the bench while they practised. The first time, Arthur caught Aries on the shoulder. On the second, the boy made him give ground before he was struck.

Jon knew the mistake well enough. His heel had caught beside the collector's mast, and the captain had been upon him before he could pull free. He remembered the sword coming down. Years at sea in his old life had made him too sure of his footing; none of those years had been spent fighting in this body.

Arthur beckoned him back into the yard.

They used no shields. The knight struck lightly but gave him little rest between blows, pressing him whenever he tried to settle behind a parry. Jon yielded a step, then another. The bench caught the backs of his legs.

Arthur lowered his sword. "You knew it was there."

Jon glanced behind him, annoyed with himself. "I thought I had more room."

"You had room to turn. You kept going back."

They returned to the middle of the yard. By the time Arthur called a halt, Jon was breathing hard and Aries had forgotten his own failures in watching them.

"Next time, begin with me against the bench," Jon said.

"Tomorrow. Give me the sword."

Jon surrendered it. His hand needed rest, and Tobin would be waiting below.

Wylla had left bread and eggs in the hall. Geth came in rubbing his knee. "Nibs tripped me."

"You ran into me," Nibs said.

"You stuck your leg out."

"Sit down, Geth." Wylla drew a stool away from the table. "You can tell him from there."

Jon let them argue. Aries joined in with his mouth full, taking Nibs's side, and earned a rebuke from Wylla. After the boy's silence since the battle, Jon was glad to hear him making a nuisance of himself again.

Gawen sat at the end of the table with his left arm in its sling. Alasdair, who was taking Tomas's place beside Jon, brought him the names of the morning's escort. Gawen sent two back to their beds.

"They asked to come," Alasdair said.

"They were on watch half the night. Choose someone who has slept. And tell the grooms which horses you take. I had a man hunting through the stables yesterday for two already saddled below."

Alasdair went to change the escort. Gawen looked at the bread on Jon's plate.

"Is that all you're having? You'll get little chance to eat once Tobin has you."

Wylla put another egg beside the bread. When Gawen reached for the loaf, his face tightened; she passed it to his sound hand.

Lorren saw him wince from the doorway. "Still waking you?"

"Only when I turn onto it. I slept better."

The healer came round the table and loosened the sling. Gawen supported his forearm while Lorren felt about the shoulder, answering his questions between clenched teeth. There was less swelling, though one touch made him flinch sharply.

Jon put down his bread. He could still see Robar's broken lance and Gawen falling backwards from the saddle. At least the knight had some colour now. At Runestone, while the maester cut away his mail, he had looked close to death.

"Can he do more?" Jon asked.

"Walk. See to his men. Nothing that puts a strain on this arm." Lorren settled it in the sling again. "No shield, Gawen, and no lifting."

"Can I at least teach the boys?"

"With your voice. Arthur can show them the blows."

Aries grinned into his bowl.

"I'll have you after supper," Gawen told him. "We can go over what you learnt this morning."

"Arthur said I did better."

"Then you should have no trouble showing me."

Aries bent over his breakfast. Lorren went to claim the bread Wylla had saved for him, and she began gathering the empty dishes.

Gawen caught her eye. "Will you be sorting linen again tonight?"

"There is still a basket to finish."

"May I come down? I'm tired of sitting up here."

She paused beside his chair. "You needn't spend your evening watching me fold sheets."

"I'd like the company."

Wylla glanced along the table. Jon was cutting his egg, giving it more attention than it needed.

"Come after supper," she said. "I'll be there."

Gawen watched her carry the dishes away. When he turned back, he found Jon smiling at him. The knight raised an eyebrow, and Jon reached for his cup.

Alasdair returned as they finished eating.

"Ser Tomas asks to see you before you ride, my lord. Alone, if you have time."

Jon pushed back his stool. "Is he worse?"

"No, my lord. He told me to say so."

"Tell Arthur where I've gone."

Lorren followed him out. Tomas had persuaded the healer to let him walk into the little room adjoining the sickroom. There were no stairs, and Olyver would stay beside him.

"Let him try for himself," Lorren said. "He knows Olyver is there."

Jon cleared a stool from the way and waited. Tomas appeared in the doorway, one hand upon the frame, his shirt loose over his breeches. The bandage still covered part of his forehead. Olyver followed within reach, though Tomas waved away the offered arm.

"You could have stayed in bed," Jon said.

"I've had enough of that bed."

Tomas reached the chair and lowered himself carefully, gripping the table until he was seated. Lorren looked in to ask whether his sight was clear. Satisfied with the answer, he took Olyver away and left the door ajar.

Tomas laid a folded sheet upon the table.

"I've been trying to choose a name. Gawen says I ought to have arms of my own as well."

"Let me see."

Tomas opened the sheet. It held several names, two heavily crossed out, and a clumsy drawing of a shield. He covered the writing with his palm.

"Olyver helped. I copied some of them, but…" He glanced at the door. "I'd rather you chose, my lord."

Jon drew his chair closer. "The name as well as the arms?"

"Both."

"Your children will bear them. You needn't give me the choice because I've promised you land."

"It isn't that." Tomas took his hand from the page. "My mother mended my cuff for the choosing. She thought you'd turn me away if I looked too ragged." He smiled at the memory. "Then she sewed your badge onto my coat. I wore it home to show her, though she'd put every stitch in herself."

Jon remembered the boys trying to stand straight as he walked among them, and Tomas, already taller than the young lord offering him a wage.

"I've worn your colours ever since," Tomas said. "Now I'm to put something else on my shield, and I don't know what. I keep writing down names that sound like knights from a song." He pushed the sheet towards Jon. "You knew me before any of this. I'd be proud to have my name from you."

Jon looked at the crossed-out words.

"Are you certain?"

"Yes, my lord." Tomas's voice caught. He swallowed and tried again. "I want you to do it."

Jon reached across with his good hand and clasped his wrist.

"Then I will. Give me until tonight."

Tomas bowed his head. For a moment he seemed unable to speak, and Jon sat with him until he looked up again.

"I thought you'd tell me I had to choose for myself."

"You asked me, Tomas. That is enough." Jon drew the paper towards him. "May I keep this until tonight?"

Tomas nodded, wiping his cheek with his sleeve. Jon folded the sheet into his coat and called for Olyver. On the walk back Tomas accepted a hand at his elbow. The small effort had tired him more than he cared to admit.

His letter lay ready beside the bed. Jon had promised to seal it, and Wylla brought wax when Olyver sent for her. She held the parchment steady while he pressed his seal into it with his left hand.

"Ask Marrec for a captain bound for White Harbor," Jon told Alasdair once the wax had cooled. "Someone he trusts. Keep this until we know who will carry it."

Alasdair wrapped the letter in oiled cloth. Tomas watched from his pillows, and Jon promised to return after supper.

Jon left Tomas resting and went down to the horses.

* * *
​

Blackburn lay along the harbour below the castle, its houses and workshops crowded close to the water. Jon kept Bucephalus at a walk as they came down among them. Beyond the roofs he could see masts swaying, and farther along the shore, the two ships they had captured.

Porters crossed the road ahead with sacks upon their shoulders. A woman sitting outside her door gutted fish into a bucket while a boy rinsed the baskets beside her. She looked up as Jon passed and nudged the boy, who scrambled to his feet. Jon nodded to them and drew Bucephalus aside to let another laden man through. Arthur and the household rode behind him.

Closer to the quays, he could hear sailors calling across the water and the knock of a loose rope against a mast. Fresh tar caught in his throat. He watched a crew hauling on a line, their backs bending together, and for a moment remembered standing aboard a very different ship, waiting for her to come alongside. He had missed being among ships more than he had expected.

From the saddle he looked along Blackburn's waterfront to the empty shore beyond. He could picture vessels crowded there, their crews coming ashore to spend their wages, merchants seeking him out because there was good trade to be had. Ships passed Dragonstone every day on their way to King's Landing. He meant to give their captains reason to stop here. The little fishing settlement could become a city; he wanted to live long enough to ride through it and scarcely recognise the place.

Tobin joined them by the merchant quay, walking beside Jon's horse. He pointed out Lord Grafton's first grain ship waiting beyond the harbour entrance. The collector still occupied the berth she needed.

Jon turned towards the repair beach. Qavo was waiting there, his men at work on the smaller captured ship. Jon dismounted and gave Alasdair the reins.

The smaller prize lay in the shallows beside the repair beach, steadied by ropes to the shore. Her damaged rail had been removed. Moro, Qavo's son, pointed out where the hulls had struck during the fight and showed Jon the broken oar. At her side, Hobb was picking old caulking from a leaking seam.

"A new rail, an oar and the ropes they cut," Qavo said. "A few days, if the wood comes and the weather holds. I still have to look at the steering."

Hobb straightened. "I'll need help fitting these planks."

"Tobin will find you men," Jon said.

Denys's harbour-watch captain joined them from the larger prize, where sailors were unloading stores under guard. Jon told him to begin gathering a crew for the smaller ship. Denys would choose her master; once Qavo was satisfied with the repairs, they could try her close inshore.

"Find out whether she can keep up with the patrol before you send her out with it."

They went aboard the collector. Jon climbed the plank with his left hand on the rope rail and Arthur close behind. The burned sail had been cleared away, though soot streaked the side. Beside the mast lay a heap of fresh shavings. Jon slowed as he passed it. They had scrubbed away the blood.

Qavo lifted a loose deck plank and drove his knife into the curved brace beneath the beam. It sank with little resistance.

"Rot. This was here before the fight."

"Have we anything to replace it?"

The shipwright reached under the beam and followed the curve of its wooden brace. "One piece. The timber we chose for your first hull."

Jon crouched to look. The straight lengths would be little use here; too much wood would have to be cut away to make the bend. He had ordered two new warships, but this one could be at sea long before either was ready.

"Use it. Give Marrec the measurements for another."

Qavo called over a carpenter and showed him where to begin. Jon told him to open any other place he distrusted, then followed the captain below.

The hold still stank despite the washing. An iron bar ran beneath the low beams where the captives had been confined. Pale scratches marked the wood above it.

"Ethan has seen this?" Jon asked.

"Yesterday, my lord. He had the bars and fittings examined."

"Take them out and keep them for him. We can use the space for stores."

The captain glanced along the low hold. "Some of the crew will have to sleep above, then."

"Find them room."

Jon had studied the slave trade in his first life, following its routes across maps. Even in a child's body he had to stoop to reach the hatch. Somewhere beyond the bay there were people still shut in such a place, waiting while Denys searched for them.

He reminded the captain to keep the cargo guarded and send Denys word of the repairs. Arthur was waiting beside the mast when they came up.

"I saw you stop here," the knight said quietly.

Jon looked down at the scrubbed deck. "I remember losing my footing here."

"I could see him coming at you." Arthur's hand closed upon the rail. "There were men between us. I couldn't get past them."

"I know." Jon stood beside him. "Tomas reached me."

Arthur nodded without looking away from the mast. They stayed there until the carpenter asked them to move.

Tobin met them at the foot of the plank. The grain master's boat was coming in again.

"He wants to know how much longer."

Qavo came down behind them and inspected the berth Tobin meant to clear. "Fasten the planking first. You can tow her once that's done; we'll finish the brace over by the repair beach."

"Beside the smaller prize?" Tobin asked.

The captain agreed. His men could finish unloading while the carpenters worked, then help the towboats move her. Jon sent word to the grain master that he had the next berth.

"Settle tomorrow's berths between you tonight," he told Tobin and the captain. "If you cannot agree, take it to Ethan."

* * *
​

Marrec had spread his timber offers across a table in Qavo's shed. Broad Oak had sailed for the first cargo. House Massey offered standing trees; House Wylde claimed its timber was cut and seasoned.

"Has anyone seen it?" Jon asked.

"No. Only the letter from Rain House."

Qavo came in while they were reading, having left his carpenters securing the collector for towing. His daughter Naella translated his questions for Marrec, then followed as her father led them to the covered racks.

Two planks were missing.

"For a shed door," Qavo said, pointing to the empty place.

Otho, newly arrived with the harbour drawings, swore and sent an assistant to recover the wood.

"Find who took it too," Jon said. "No foreman takes timber from these racks without Qavo's leave."

Marrec folded the offers. "Who will inspect the timber? Qavo has both prizes to see to."

"One of his men, then. Someone who knows what he will accept."

Qavo objected to losing a carpenter while both prizes needed repair, but eventually gave Marrec a name. The buyer would inspect the wood before paying. Ordinary building timber must be bought separately; Jon would not pay a shipwright's price for every roof beam.

"Abel will want to know where the money is coming from," Marrec said.

"Bring him both prices. We will go over them tonight."

The recovered silver already had more claims upon it than Jon liked. Clock orders brought money in, but it would take far greater earnings to pay for the expedition he had yet to mention to Arthur.

Marrec went to speak to the captain of a timber boat, taking Otho with him. Inside the shed, Jon waited while Naella shut the door. Moro laid out the drawings for the two ships Jon meant to build without oars. His father had strengthened the rudder's support. Jon marked out more room for the helmsman, then followed Qavo's finger to the side of the deck.

"You have reckoned the soldiers' weight across the whole deck. When another ship comes alongside, they will all run here."

Jon remembered the lurch of a deck beneath men rushing to one rail. Qavo was right; the trial would need to allow for it.

"We will try her with weights in sheltered water. Shift them across and see how she bears it."

He would attend the trial himself. Both building places could be prepared, but the second hull must allow for whatever they learned from sailing the first. Until then, Denys would have the prizes.

Jon looked again at the drawings. He had spent so long working out how to have these ships built that it was easy to forget what another lord would pay for them. If Qavo could make them sail as he intended, they would change far more than his little fleet. Merchants would want them; lords would want ships that could catch them. He meant to be the only man who could supply either.

"These designs stay here," he said in High Valyrian. "No copies for another yard, and no ships built from them without my leave."

Qavo rested his hands on the table. "The men who build them will know."

"Then choose men who will keep an oath. I will pay them well enough to stay." Jon looked from the shipwright to his children. "From you three I must ask more. Your service for life, and your word that you will never give what I teach you to another master."

Qavo drew Naella closer to the table. "My children are making their lives here. What will they have from you?"

"A house, wages of their own, and my protection. You will have charge of my yards for as long as you can do the work. When you cannot, you will still be provided for."

"And if one of us breaks this oath?" Naella asked.

"Whoever betrays it forfeits what I have given them. Sell the drawings, or teach another lord how to build these ships behind my back, and the punishment is death."

She glanced at Moro. Her brother was looking down at the plans. Jon waited; he wanted the words understood before anyone spoke them.

Qavo came round the table and knelt. In his own tongue he swore to serve Jon for the rest of his life and keep the work entrusted to him secret. Moro followed him. Naella took a little longer, then knelt beside her brother and made the same promise. Arthur stood witness by the door.

Jon bade them rise and promised that he would keep his part. Afterwards Moro fetched a chest for the drawings. Qavo locked it himself and put the key inside his tunic. The models and the full-sized patterns would need just as much care once the work began.

When Otho returned, Jon drew the harbour sheet towards him. "You will oversee the villages and the building of the new works. I will give you the plans and go through the work with you. Bring me anything you cannot settle; I will come out when you need me. When the works are ready, I will test them with the masters. Blackburn and the harbour I will take myself."

Otho left one of his assistants with him to take measurements and carry instructions to the foremen. Jon added Qavo's dimensions to the plan, allowing room beside the hulls for lifting frames and timber carts. A great shed would cover the first two slips, with boarded walls and doors opening towards the water. No keel would be laid until it was enclosed. The shore watch would guard the entrance, and Qavo would say who could pass. Once Jon had drawn in the shed, there was too little room left for Moro to shape the frames.

"Come outside," Jon said.

They passed the repair beach and the three marked slipways. The harbour-watch captain followed with his list of stores from the collector. Aries followed close behind Jon. Geth had taken Patch back to the castle.

Jon walked beyond the last stake towards the rough shore. Otho started to remind him where the yard ended.

"I know. Qavo, show me how much ground you will need."

The shipwright considered the shore, then took Moro down to the water. Jon followed them with his eyes. Where two ships would rise this year, he wanted rows of hulls, sheltered working places and timber enough to keep the men employed.

Jon marked where he wanted the depths taken, including the rocks Tobin pointed out near the headland. Each sounding must come with the state of the tide, so he could work out how much water would remain beneath a loaded ship at its lowest ebb. He would use those figures to place the quays and reckon their height above the seabed. Denys and the pilots must go over the approach with him.

Behind Jon, the captain was telling Tobin that the collector's stores were ashore. Her opened joints were still being secured. Tobin went to keep the towboats ready.

Aries watched Moro carry the cord farther along the beach. "How many ships are you going to build?"

"Two to begin with."

Moro called for someone to hold the far end. Aries scrambled down to him.

The captain showed Jon a sound shed above the shore. A messenger had spent half the morning looking for the captain between the prizes.

"Use it for your shore watch," Jon said. "Have every message brought there, and leave word where you can be found."

Jon reserved the adjoining ground for Denys's headquarters and crews' quarters, with a muster court between them. The chart room and captains' chambers could wait; for now the shore watch needed men on duty day and night and a signal mast where it could be seen from the water.

Tobin returned as they were considering the approach. Harbert already had boys coming for lessons with the sounding line; there would be more new hands to teach when the yards opened.

Jon looked at the steep path, imagining Harbert trying it with his crutch.

"Give him a level way in and somewhere under cover to sit. Ask him what else he needs."

"I'll bring Mira down to see it," Tobin said.

These were quarters for the fleet. Marros kept the castle garrison, and the legion remained at Black Fields. The merchant road would pass outside the naval gate, where Tobin's carters could reach the public quays freely.

Behind the gate, towers and a barrier across the entrance would protect the fleet's water. Jon's arsenal plan reached inland from the slips: sail lofts, rope walks, anchor smiths, armourers, bowyers and fletchers, with ground for assembling and testing fighting engines. Timber and ready stores needed shelter above the storms' reach, arms secure under lock. He kept pitch and oil behind a wall, away from grain and sailcloth.

Qavo returned with wet boots and a far larger boundary than the first stakes had enclosed. Aries came after him with mud on one knee. Beside the fitting-out berth, the shipwright marked space for the mast crane and a clear way to bring in the masts.

"No houses along here," he said.

"Reserve it," Jon told the assistant.

Marrec had caught up with them. He studied the empty ground. "The men I bring will ask where their own houses are. Their wives will ask before they leave."

"Tell them when we can have houses ready. Until then, we pay for lodging and their passage here. I want masters who will stay to build the next ships and teach other men."

The wages and terms must come to Jon before promises were made. Abel would reserve money for the first recruits after tonight's count.

Qavo began naming men he trusted. Each would have to swear to keep the work secret before he was admitted to the building shed. Naella wrote the names down, pausing when her father remembered that one still had a merchant's hull to finish.

"Find out when he is free," Jon said. "We need not ask him to abandon it."

"Come to the castle tomorrow," Jon told Marrec. "We need ships sent out to find more men. Engineers, and acolytes willing to leave the Citadel, as well as craftsmen."

Dragonstone's craftsmen and the trained men he could bring from the North would not be enough for the yards and the growing town. Otho would be occupied with the villages; Jon needed men in Blackburn who could take a survey and follow his calculations without his standing beside them. He would have to look across the narrow sea as well. Skilled slaves could be bought in the Free Cities; he meant to raise that with Marrec tomorrow, when they could speak privately.

Jon sent for the clearing foreman and showed him where to begin on the three slips. Planks stacked on the third went back to the racks; that slip would remain outside the shed, free for repairs or a later hull. The assistant stayed to set the shed's corner stakes while the remaining men went to the merchant road.

* * *
​

The man Otho had sent for the planks brought them back, still uncut. Behind the weighing shed, Tobin was directing handcarts towards the stores while a carter hauled his load of pitch up to the ground set aside for it.

Broken barrels and old nets choked the passage behind the stores. Cleared, it could take handcarts; a working smokehouse blocked larger wagons.

"The smokehouse stays until its replacement is ready," Jon said. "Have the rest cleared this afternoon."

Jon traced the handcart route on his drawing and gave it to the foreman. Tobin stayed to show him where the cargo had to pass while Jon went uphill with Arthur.

Sailors were eating fish beside a brazier. Jon bought two skewers, and Aries took his too eagerly, shifting the hot wood between his fingers. Geth returned from the castle without Patch; Arthur bought him one before he could ask.

Cords marked the first court of the covered market Jon intended to build. An onion seller wanted to know whether buyers would still enter from the landing. Her husband brought their basket over and set it beside the cord, showing Jon where they hoped to have their stall.

By the time Tobin and Otho caught up, several sellers had joined them. With baskets beside the proposed entrance, there was scarcely room for two laden people to pass. Jon widened it on his drawing and had the cord moved. Once they were satisfied, he continued uphill. They could go on trading at their old stalls until the market was built.

Above the market, a netmaker and his daughter waited beside the cords marking their new house. Their old home stood in the path of a planned street. Her child slept against her shoulder. The old man stood where his workroom door would be, looking down towards the boats.

"Will they know where to find me?"

Tobin promised to show his customers. Nets could be brought up without crossing the cargo road, and the workroom would be wider than the old one. The netmaker paced it out while his daughter stood at the far cord.

The assistant caught up with them. Jon left him marking out room for the old man's bench and nets.

Farther uphill, a foreman was arguing with a man who had driven two posts across the line of a future street. Rafters and thatch lay ready beside his house.

"It is on my own doorstep," the man said as Jon approached. "My daughter's coming from Eastcove. Her husband has work here. Where are they to sleep?"

"You cannot build into the street."

"It's one room, my lord."

"And when your neighbour wants another? The posts come out. My man will show you where you can build."

The man looked from the stakes to the little heap of roof timber. Jon told the foreman to take the matter to Ethan if the plot had no room. The family must have lodging until the new row was ready; they could keep every piece of wood. He waited until the man laid down his mallet and began loosening the first post.

"Mark the next ward as well," Jon told the assistant when he rejoined them. "They need to see where the streets will be."

Jon had him take the fall along the proposed cart road with a builder's level and a measured cord. He divided the fall by the distance, checked it again, then lengthened the turn across the hillside. Loaded wagons would have an easier climb that way. The calculations were familiar from his work as a civil engineer in his first life; he wrote the figures slowly with his left hand while the assistant watched. On the drawing, broad streets crossed the slope, with narrower ways leading downhill. Courts behind the houses would give families space for washing and children somewhere to play. Aries asked whether they could have fruit trees there. Jon pointed out the ground he had left for planting.

The sewers took longer. Jon counted the house plots that would feed each line and worked through the quantities of water they would need. He allowed for the next wards, then checked the fall along the first street against the depth at which the drain would have to run. A hollow midway down would leave filth standing beneath the houses. He raised that stretch on his drawing and marked places where men could open the drain to clean it. Rainwater would run separately. When he traced the waste line down to the shore, Tobin stopped his finger beside a beach where people gathered shellfish.

"The tide brings it back across the landing," Tobin said, following the line with his finger.

Jon drew another possible course around the rise and marked the heights he needed measured. If it gave him enough fall, it would spare a long cutting through rock. He would walk it with the surveyors and Tobin, checking the outlet against the high tide. Until those figures were in his hands, he would not send masons away from repairing the harbour arm.

The first houses would have lined privy pits. Carts could empty them from the back lanes and carry the waste away from homes and wells. Jon had the men who would do the work examine those approaches before the assistant marked the nearby foundations. Market and harbour dues would pay for the public privies and their keepers.

Higher springs would feed covered water tanks. Jon added the households' daily needs, allowed for the workshops and animals, and wrote the total beside them. He sent two men to time how quickly the springs filled a vessel of known size; he needed to know whether they could supply what he had reckoned. Rain gathered from roofs could serve washing and fire buckets. He kept the drinking-water pipes apart from the waste drains and gave the assistant the measurements for the first row.

The netmaker's daughter had come back with another question. Her father wanted timber walls because he could mend them himself.

"Brick on stone," Jon told her. "We have too few trees for wooden houses. He will still have wood for his floors, roof and doors."

"We have little enough brick either," Otho said. "The potter's next loads are for the kilns."

Only the first new kiln had foundations begun. The other two sites were grass, and the drying bays remained unfinished. Marrec brought out an offer for bricks already fired. Once the potter's customers and kiln builders had their share, they would have to buy what else the houses needed.

Jon took the brick sizes from the offer and worked out what the first row would consume, allowing for doors and windows, then adding a margin for breakage. He showed Marrec the total. The offered cargo would not cover it. Otho had stone for the footings, but reminded them that the roof timber must arrive while the walls were going up. Marrec amended his purchases beside Jon's figures.

"Fuel too," he said. "Bennard and every kiln burner on the island want the next shipload."

"Bring me their needs and the prices," Jon said. "Allow for the village work Otho has already begun. Abel must know what each will cost."

He would not have materials scattered among unfinished rows. They must complete this one, and Marrec must continue seeking brickmakers capable of running the new kilns.

The woman had waited beside them, rocking the child when he stirred.

"Ethan will tell you when the house is ready," Jon said. "You can stay in your old home until then. After that, the street goes through."

"Can we take the door? He made it."

Otho glanced at the workroom plan. "We can fit it."

She went to tell her father. Jon sent the list of other households in the streets' path to Ethan. They needed somewhere to move, help with their belongings and a place to keep working. Refusals were to come to Jon after Ethan had heard the difficulties.

"I will hear what has been missed," he told the assistant. "But the houses must move."

Tobin asked for guards of his own. Sending to the castle was little use when a quarrel could begin and end while the messenger climbed the road.

"Blackburn will have the Black Cloaks," Jon said. "Their captain will answer to Ethan."

Jon reserved ground above the market road for barracks and a drill court, enough for two hundred men as the city grew. For now, Ethan could rent rooms and begin choosing recruits. Marros would lend instructors, but the Black Cloaks would have their own captain. Posts at the quays and ward gates would follow the growing streets.

The Black Cloaks would keep order in the public harbour and streets. Sailors outside the naval gate and lords' retainers must answer to them, Jon's men included. They would wear black wool with plain iron clasps and carry ash-grey staffs. Jon wanted men paid by him, taking no gifts from merchants. Tobin was to send Ethan names and trades that evening.

There were more demands for builders everywhere Jon looked. Hamish could not lose his harvest hands. Two hundred legionaries were already divided among the island's works, with another fifty at Saltcliffe, and none was excused his training. They needed more men from outside the island.

They went back down to the harbour arm, where a mason was levering a loose stone out of the damaged wall. He rejected it for a crack and chose another from the recovered pile while his apprentice measured the gap. The next quarry blocks should arrive roughly fitted, the mason said; he could not waste the low tide cutting stone they had paid to bring downhill.

Those sizes would go to the active upper quarry. The spring wall still had its promised load; Blackburn would take what the crews could cut and cart next. Nothing would come yet from the flooded lower quarry or its unfinished crane.

Under the mason's shelter lay limestone from above Borren's cove and ash from Dragonmont. Merren was seeking burners to make lime from the stone. Until they were found and a kiln ready, the limestone could remain in its sack. The masons already had lime made from burned shells.

Jon had the mason measure the shell-lime while a labourer sifted the ash. He chose two proportions to try and wrote them beside equal-sized moulds. He remembered the volcanic ash in Roman mortar, but this was ash from Dragonmont. They would compare both mixes with a third sample of their ordinary mortar, made and kept beside them.

"We keep some damp and some in water," Jon said. "Give them time to harden. Then we can see what we have."

He wanted mortar that would hold beneath the harbour water and cheaper foundations than cut stone. They would have to prove they could make it reliably first.

"None of this goes into the arm."

The labourer carried the samples under cover. Outside, the mason called for a bar. The recovered block settled into place, and Jon left the men racing the returning tide.

* * *
​

The collector was moving when Jon returned to the landing. Men hauled from the shore while boats kept her bow clear. Tobin kept the quay clear while they worked.

She settled beside the repair beach, and a boat went out to guide in Grafton's grain ship. Her master came down with the letter as soon as she was fast. Grain dust clung to his coat. He gave Jon a brief bow and watched the berth behind him while Jon read.

This was the first of four deliveries agreed after Runestone.

"Half the usual harbour dues on the grain," Jon told Tobin. "For the year, as agreed."

"There's lamp oil below it," the master said.

"Ordinary dues on that. Marrec may want to buy it for the workshops."

Tobin would check the account before Abel paid the balance. Jon wanted sailing dates for the remaining cargoes.

A handcart carried six sacks through the cleared passage to the grain store. The fish sellers continued working beside the landing. Tobin sent two idle men to help with the next load.

Inside, the keeper opened a sack. Grain dust and dry boards took Jon back to his family's barns. He rubbed a few kernels between his fingers while the man dug down to check the grain beneath. When the sack had been tied again, Jon told him to make room for the later cargoes. Even a good harvest from Hamish's farms would not feed all the men he intended to bring here.

Woods met him outside with Henly and their quarry-crane drawing. Henly and Emrick had helped build the legion's war engines. Emrick remained at Cinderwell; both would assist the master carpenter and teach the men to use the lifting gear.

Tobin took them beside the scales and pointed out where he wanted the harbour crane. Woods watched a sling of sacks turn above the grain ship, then looked along the cart lane.

"Every cart would pass under the load." Woods pointed to a stack of barrels. "Move those and put it there. We can bring a cart alongside."

Henly held the drawing against the shed while Woods marked the larger crane. It could lift heavy casks and bundles ashore without tying up so many men with each load.

"The quarry comes first," Jon said. "Ewan needs the ironwork list tonight. Henly, see Marrec about rope."

Jon marked where the ground must be opened to examine it once the cargo was ashore. Then he took Woods south to see the other ground he had reserved. Qavo and Moro were stretching a cord far beyond the old yard boundary.

The carpenter stopped. "All of this?"

"Eventually. The first three slips stay where they are."

Qavo showed him where lifting frames would stand beside the rising hulls, tall wooden legs supporting the rope that would haul a beam up and lower it across the ship. The frames could be moved along the slips as the work advanced. Woods raised the planned roof of the building shed to leave room above them, then kept a clear way for the timber carts.

The mast crane would stand outside, where the ships could be brought after launching. Crouching over the drawing, Woods sketched wheels large enough for men to walk inside, winding the rope to raise a mast above a waiting ship. Jon could almost see it hanging there, the crew below guiding its foot into place.

Jon and Woods went to inspect the shore before choosing where it would stand.

"Farther back," Woods said. "This edge will not bear it."

Jon sat on a timber and began reckoning from the weight of the heaviest mast and how far the crane must reach over the water. The farther out it carried the load, the harder it would pull against the base. He sketched a broader footing and marked where trial pits must be dug to find firm ground. Woods bent over his shoulder, settling how the timber frame would be braced and how the winding gear would hold when the men stopped turning it. He would build the crane; Jon would finish the calculations once they had examined the ground. They reserved space to test it with stone, barely lifted at first, and gave Marrec the sizes of timber required.

They returned to the merchant shore, where Otho joined them. Jon spread his plan across a stack of boards and checked the quay lengths against the ships Tobin expected to bring in. On the drawing, warehouses, customs and weighing rooms lined the broad cargo road behind the deep-water berths. He left separate stairs for passengers and small boats, then marked where later cranes could stand without blocking the carts.

Tobin pointed beyond the damaged arm. "A bad easterly will empty those berths, deep or not."

Jon's drawing showed two longer walls sheltering the enlarged merchant harbour. He shifted the proposed entrance while Tobin described how the easterlies drove the sea into the present one. The fleet kept its guarded southern basin, the fishing boats their northern landing.

"Finish repairing this arm first," Jon said. "Then take your soundings. Denys and the pilots must see the entrance before any stone goes into it."

Jon began a rough reckoning of stone for the shallower stretch, leaving the deeper lengths until the soundings were taken. Much of the wall would lie beneath the water; the quarry would have to supply far more than its visible height suggested. Once they knew what ground lay beneath it, he could calculate how broad its foundations must be. The first wall would also change where sand settled. They must watch that before he fixed the second one's course. Otho took down the likely demand on the quarry so he could plan the village deliveries around it.

"The Gulltown captains will like it," Tobin said. "Lord Monford may like it less."

Marrec had the same concern. Some of the masters they needed worked in Monford's yards. He might willingly sell timber, but men taking their families to a rival harbour were another matter.

"His ships will have a market here. So will his timber," Jon said. "Put that business before him tomorrow. I mean to build this harbour."

Tobin returned to the unloading. Near the weighing shed Perrin brought Jon the Braavosi captain's clock account. The captain had accepted William's price for a finished clock for his employer, and Abel held the advance.

"The man who wanted our workmen?" Jon asked.

"And still wants the clock sooner than William promised."

"Lady Merryweather's goes first."

Perrin had already told the captain so. There was also an enquiry aboard Green Gull, brought by Aron of Lemonwood in Princess Arianne's name. Arthur looked round at that, but did not know the merchant.

They found Aron beside the weighing shed, separating broken roof tiles from a damaged bundle. He wiped his hands and bowed to Jon, then to Arthur.

"An enquiry from Sunspear, my lord."

Jon opened the letter inside the shed. Arianne wanted a clock with a face visible from a lower court and a bell that could be heard in the hall. Aron watched Arthur while Perrin cleared a place to sit, then noticed Jon's bound hand.

"They say you took those ships yourself."

"My men and I. Have you seen the court where the princess wants her clock?"

Aron had. He drew the archway on a sheet held flat by a broken tile, glancing towards Arthur as he worked.

"You may remember it better, ser."

"It has been years. Tell us what is there now."

Perrin noted the measurements and particulars Aron could not supply. Those questions would return with William's offer. When the merchant asked whether he might promise the clock by year's end, Jon refused to give a date before William had considered it.

"He has other orders. Speak to him before you sail. Perrin will arrange it."

Outside, Otho was examining the surviving tiles. Aron left the drawing to answer him, briskly counting intact bundles and offering his cargo for the new houses. Jon left Otho to judge the tiles and Marrec to settle the price.

Aron bowed again to Arthur as they left.

"They will be glad to hear you are well, ser."

"You may tell them so."

The clock enquiry and cargo were real enough. Jon wondered how much else Aron would describe in Sunspear: the captured ships, the growing harbour, Arthur standing beside him.

Tobin caught them at the horses. The grain master hoped to sail tomorrow, and other Gulltown captains would follow if there were berths for them. Jon told him to keep the cargo quay clear and repairs in their own water.

Alasdair brought Bucephalus round. He still had Tomas's letter inside his coat. Marrec had found no trusted White Harbor captain yet, and the grain ship was going back to Gulltown.

"Keep it until he does," Jon said. "Tobin, we need prices for the Watch's supplies as well. Have Marrec ask what fish and cloth we can spare, and give Abel the cost of the rest. This grain stays here."

Carriage on to Eastwatch must be settled before they paid. If the same captain could take Tomas's letter, Alasdair must bring him to Jon before handing it over.

"Tell Tomas we are arranging it. We have no ship yet."

At the upper turn Jon looked towards the southern shore. He could imagine a hull rising on the first slip, ribs taller than the men fitting them, and felt the old longing to be aboard. Then Bucephalus began the steeper climb. His hand ached, and Tomas was waiting for the answer he had promised. He settled the reins in his left hand and rode home.

* * *
​

Abel was still weighing the recovered coin when Jon returned. Light from the open shutters fell across two trays: sorted coins in one, a heap of clipped silver in the other. The maester sat beside him with a sheet of figures.

"Marrec has sent the accounts for his purchases," Abel said.

Jon lowered himself onto a stool. "There will be more. How far have you got?"

Abel showed him. The foreign coins had to be reckoned against one another, the clipped ones weighed. There were chests still awaiting a final check, and the plate and copper needed valuing. Across the room, the personal belongings had been wrapped and set apart. Jon left them untouched.

"Bring in the remaining clerks," he said. "Finish the coin tonight, and make a list of everything else. Leave the maester to check the weights. Keep those bundles for Wylla's enquiries."

Abel called one of the clerks over. Jon waited while he divided the work, then had him set aside the wages already promised. Noll's hammer iron came next, after Noll and Marrec had checked what could be taken from the stores. The clock advance was already in hand, but part of it would go towards the grain balance and the purchases agreed with Marrec.

The maester laid the settlement returns beside the plan. Blackburn held fourteen hundred and thirty-eight people, the largest of the five villages. Eastcove had five hundred and seventy-seven; Cinderwell four hundred and ninety-eight; Saltcliffe four hundred and nine; and Wyrm's Rest three hundred and forty-four.

Another seven hundred and thirty-one were entered under the castle, garrison and harbour quarters. Six hundred and eighty-seven lived outside those settlements, scattered among farms, quarries, kilns and small coves around the island. With the seven hundred and forty-six newcomers entered on their own roll, the total came to five thousand four hundred and thirty. Jon went over the figures with Abel. Even bringing every spare hand to Blackburn would leave them short of the men he needed.

Jon listed the work that could begin at Blackburn: hiring skilled masters, clearing and drainage, stone and timber, and the enclosed shed Qavo needed before he could begin the new hulls. The first masters would need wages and lodging while their workshops were built.

"Reserve enough to begin," he said. "Show me what each will cost. I will decide how much more we can undertake when I've seen the whole account."

"Bennard will ask about the larger furnace."

"He has leave for the first repairs. The enlargement waits for its own reckoning."

Abel made a note, then returned to the harbour plan. "We could let some of these plots while the larger works wait. That would bring in rent this year."

"And put houses where the streets and yards must go?" Jon drew the plan back towards him. "In two or three years, the houses, workshops and harbour I am building here will bring in many times that paltry rent. I will not spoil the layout of a whole city for a few more coins now. The ground stays clear."

Outside, servants were carrying supper towards the hall. A clerk glanced up from his tray, and Jon called for food and lamps to be brought in.

"Bring me the count before the builders arrive tomorrow."

He left Abel dividing the last chests among the clerks. Arthur was waiting by the western postern, where there was still light upon the sea. Hugin stood on the sill of the little room beside the door; Munin perched on the wall outside.

Jon sat and fed them. The birds quarrelled over a scrap until Arthur separated them, and then Jon sent both out above the harbour.

Munin followed the road behind the stores. Through his eyes Jon found a cart waiting while two men shut warehouse doors. Hugin banked over the repair beach, tilting the shore beneath him. For a moment Jon lost the cart. He steadied Hugin and found it again through Munin, beside the bend he had ridden past on his way home.

Knowing the ground helped. He held both views for a little longer, then brought Hugin round from the headland and called them home. Watching through both birds at once had left him exhausted yesterday, and he stopped while he still felt well.

Arthur held out a cup when Jon opened his eyes. As he drank, claws scraped upon the sill. Both birds had returned.

* * *
​

After supper, Jon went to his chamber to wash the dust from Blackburn off his hands. Arianne's letter lay on the table. Seeing the sun and spear upon it brought back the question he had nearly put to Aron: was the princess betrothed?

A harmless enough enquiry, except that he knew what the answer ought to be.

In the books, Willem Darry had promised Viserys to Arianne. Oberyn had signed for Dorne, with the Sealord of Braavos as witness. Jon remembered the agreement clearly enough, but not the year. It might already have been made.

Or it might never be made here. Arthur was alive; Jon held Dragonstone by Robert's gift. He had learned too much of this world's differences to trust every remembered event. Qavo had known the royal children in Myr, yet the men being sent after them had only old reports and a quay to begin from. Jon could not even say where his aunt and uncle were sleeping tonight.

That troubled him more than the marriage. If Doran had already secured Viserys for his daughter, why had the children been left so poor? A little coin sent quietly would scarcely have brought Robert's armies down upon Dorne. Jon dried his fingers, anger rising with the old questions. He would find out what help had actually reached them.

Doran had held men back while Elia and her children were in the Red Keep. Jon had argued with Arthur about it before. Lewyn and the men who died at the Trident had done their duty; he had never blamed them for the spears their prince kept at home. Doran had preserved his own strength, and Jon's father had gone to the river without it.

Mace Tyrell had kept his strength too, feasting outside Storm's End until the war was lost. The Tullys owed their rule of the riverlands to his family, yet Hoster had joined those tearing it down. Robert had killed Rhaegar and accepted the bodies of his children, then married the daughter of the man who had sent their killers. Jon could sit at his table and take the lands he offered; he had not forgotten how Robert had won the crown.

It was Tywin he hated most. His brother and sister had been small enough to carry. Men had murdered them and laid them before a new king, and the men responsible still held lands and honours. No useful marriage or offer of soldiers would make Jon forgive that.

Doran might still have uses for Dragonstone even if he believed Jon to be no more than Arthur's nephew. Ships could carry Dornish soldiers past the mountain passes; a rich port at the mouth of Blackwater Bay could supply them. Jon glanced out at a cart struggling up the lower road. He would be doing the building and paying for it. Doran could afford to wait and see what came of the work.

When he took the throne, the Martells would answer to him. Doran's support would give him no right to dictate who Jon married or how he ruled.

For now he had a letter about a clock. It was signed by Arianne, and he would answer her. He remembered her anger at being kept ignorant of her father's plans; she might not be that woman yet, but there was no reason to begin by treating her as though her own enquiries required Doran's answer. The thought of Quentyn troubled him too. The boy was still alive, years from the journey Jon remembered. He hoped he would have no cause to make it.

A knock interrupted him. Arthur entered with the cloak Jon had left at the horses and hung it beside the door.

"Tomas is awake."

"In a moment." Jon sat on the edge of the bed. "How well did you know Doran?"

Arthur looked at the letter. "He never took me into his confidence, if that's what you mean. I knew Lewyn and Elia far better."

"Aron watched you more closely than he watched me."

"He knows my name." Arthur drew the stool near. "And there are people at Sunspear who will be glad to hear that I'm well."

Jon had spent the ride back from the quay wondering what the merchant would report. It had not occurred to him to ask whether Arthur wanted news in return.

"Would you be welcome there?"

"By some."

"And the others?"

Arthur looked towards the window. "I was in Dorne when Elia died. Her children were in King's Landing. They have a right to ask where I was."

Jon laid the towel aside. For a while he could hear the cart outside, its wheels grinding over the stones.

"What would they say if they knew about me?"

The knight turned back.

"They cannot have loved Rhaegar for what he did to Elia," Jon said. "Even if I were useful to them, that would remain."

"You were an infant."

"Would Doran care?"

"I don't know." Arthur leaned forward. "But if he asks you to answer for Rhaegar, I will be there."

"Doran has cause to hate the Lannisters too," Arthur said.

"He had cause to send more men before they reached Elia."

"And I have not asked you to forget it. Dorne has stood apart since the war. He may need an ally badly enough to offer terms worth hearing."

"My ships and my gold. I can see what he would gain."

"And you might gain a safe harbour, if Dragonstone ever fell. Somewhere to gather your men." Arthur leaned back. "Dorne's passes and dry country would make it hard for an army to follow you inland. I would hear what Doran offered."

"He would ask a great deal for that."

"Then we find out how much. He gains nothing by letting your ships and wealth fall into Lannister hands."

"The days when kings bargained with their own vassals are done," Jon said. "Doran will bend the knee or fall. So will the rest."

"You know you're making this harder for yourself," Arthur said. "Why? Kings have won wars by bringing the great houses to their side. Keeping those houses in balance is how they have held the realm together."

"When my ancestor came with his sisters and their dragons, he did what no king had done," Jon said. "He brought six kingdoms beneath one house. My house. He made vassals of kings and established a new order."

"He had dragons, Jon."

"Aye. He had the strength to enforce it." Jon met his eyes. "That is why I am building my own strength. We assume that because a thing has always been done one way, there can be no other. If no man has done it, we say it cannot be done. I intend to change that. I will establish a new order through my own might, Arthur. There is no other path for me."

Jon reached for Arianne's letter and folded it.

"Aron can have William's price and drawing. Nothing else. Let him sell his cargo. If the voyage pays, he'll come again."

He would bring news as well as tiles, and there were other ways to hear what happened in Dornish ports. Ships being hired and stores bought in quantity would be harder to hide than a letter at Sunspear.

"Have Ethan tell Marrec to ask his captains for news of unusual purchases. Ships, provisions, large companies seeking passage. I want to know who is paying."

As the knight rose, Jon remembered the captain Denys had been choosing for Myr.

"Ask Ethan whether our man has sailed. If he hasn't, tell him to listen for anyone else seeking the children. He needn't approach them."

"You think Doran is looking?"

"He may be. I would be, in his place."

Others might be searching as well. Jon remembered Illyrio's hospitality and Varys's shifting service, and somewhere beyond them a boy being taught to bear Aegon's name. He had never been certain whose son that boy was, even in the books. He had no report of him here. Viserys and Daenerys were missing people whom Qavo had known; they must come first.

"Our captain is not to delay his search following someone else's servant," he added. "Finding the children is his task."

"When Denys returns, he stays here until we have divided the work and settled the money," Jon said. "I want him with Ethan, Abel and Marrec when we decide which men and ships we can spare."

Afterwards Jon meant to send him east. While following reports of Viserys and Daenerys, Denys could seek out engineers and craftsmen willing to come to Dragonstone. He would need coin and clear terms to offer them. Tomorrow's reckoning would tell Jon what he could spare for the voyage; Denys would have his instructions before he sailed again.

Arthur agreed. Jon got to his feet.

"And bring me the reports on Oswell and Gerold tomorrow. We said we would take this up once we were settled. Ask Ethan for the old ones too; a name he passed over may mean something to you."

"There are men they could have gone to," Arthur said. "I can give Ethan names. Places where they might have found help."

"Only men you trust. Denys can tell us which ports his captains know."

Neither knight had been pardoned. Jon wanted no open letter with their names upon it travelling from port to port.

"If they are with the children, they will stay with them," Arthur said.

"I would not ask them to leave." Jon hesitated. "But they may know more about what was sent to my uncle Ned. What my mother thought he had received."

"I want to ask them that myself," Arthur said.

Arthur had already told him all he could remember.

"Tomorrow, then. We shall read what Ethan has together."

They parted in the passage, Arthur going to find Ethan while Jon continued to the sickroom.

* * *
​

Olyver met him at the door and went to wait along the passage. Tomas had a writing board across his knees.

"Did you get any rest?" Jon asked.

"Lorren saw to that." Tomas watched him take out the folded page. "Have you decided?"

Jon sat beside the bed. "I have."

Jon drew the lamp closer and unfolded the sheet upon Tomas's board. Beneath the crossed-out names he had drawn a shield. A silver gauntlet held a black heart, its edge picked out in silver against the black field. The fingers were clumsily drawn; he had managed them as best he could with his left hand.

"Sableheart," Jon said. "You told me you did not want to put my colours aside. Sable is black."

Tomas studied the shield. His thumb passed over the gauntlet, following the fingers where they closed about the heart.

"I cannot adopt you into House Black," Jon said. "But I would gladly have you for a brother. I wanted you to keep something of my name when you took your own."

Tomas looked up. Jon's gaze caught upon the bandage. He remembered his shield dragged wide, the sword above him, and Tomas stepping into its path. He had been certain the blow would kill him.

"I owe you my life, Tomas. I would be proud to have your house beside mine."

For a while Tomas said nothing. Then he looked down at the words Jon had written beneath the shield.

"Our Hearts Hold Fast." He read them softly, then nodded. "Aye. I like those."

"Ser Tomas Sableheart." He tried the name once more, smiling now. Then he reached for Jon's left hand.

"Thank you, my lord."

Jon returned the grip. Tomas held on for a moment before releasing him.

"We'll have a painter draw the arms properly," Jon said. "You can send a copy to your mother."

"I'll have to write again." Tomas smiled down at the sheet. "She'll want to know all of it."

"Alasdair can put another page with your letter. Marrec hasn't found a captain yet."

Aries knocked and came in carrying a bowl of broth from Wylla. He set it on the chest, then noticed the drawing.

"Are those your arms?"

Tomas turned the board for him. "Lord Jon chose them."

Jon gave the boy his chair. Aries leaned over the sheet, studying it, then asked if he might try drawing the shield.

"Geth showed me how to make the sides match."

"Fetch some paper," Tomas said. "Don't try on this one."

The boy hurried away. Tomas watched him go, still holding Jon's drawing. Laughter rose from the hall below, followed by the scrape of a bench.

He began asking about Blackburn: which prize would sail first, and whether Qavo was still willing to build without oars. Jon told him about the repairs and Grafton's grain ship at last taking the collector's berth.

"I'd like to see her in daylight," Tomas said.

"The collector?"

"When Lorren lets me. I don't want to remember her only as the place they carried me off."

"We'll go together."

They were still talking when Aries returned with paper and an inkpot clutched against his chest. His first shield came out too broad. Tomas turned the sheet, set a finger where the point should fall and helped him begin another.

Jon watched until Tomas laid down the quill and eased back against his pillows. His hand had been steadier today. At the door, Jon turned when he called.

"You'll tell me if they find the other prisoners?"

"As soon as I hear."

Lorren was coming along the passage. Jon asked him to give Aries time to finish the outline, then went downstairs.

In the linen room Gawen sat beside Wylla, a basket at her feet. She had stopped folding. They were talking too quietly for Jon to hear, her hand resting in his sound one.

Wylla looked up. For once she did not rise to ask whether he needed anything. Jon smiled and went on.

* * *
​

Back in his chamber, Jon sat over the harbour plan with a piece of dragon eggshell in his left hand. The other fragments lay beside the lamp. He turned it idly between his fingers as he checked the figures he had brought back from Blackburn.

A knock brought his head up.

"Come in."

Alasdair opened the door. "A boat from Captain Denys, my lord. The messenger's in the hall."

Jon laid the fragment beside the others and went down with him. The sailor stood beside the hearth with salt dried white along his coat. He held the back of a chair as he handed Jon a message in a leather wrapping. Arthur joined them while Jon broke the seal, and called for food and drink.

Denys's scout had found a galley near the creek beneath the split cliff. She had arrived earlier than the mate had said. The covered bow and joined blue patch at the top of her sail matched the mate's description. The scout had seen a boat take water out to her. Two people on her deck had their hands bound, though he had not got near enough to count everyone aboard.

Denys had gone to join him. He meant to catch her as she left, before she could turn back into the creek. The men and boats for the next relief were to be kept ready at Blackburn. If pursuit drew him farther south, he would send word through the agreed coastal boats.

"When did he send you?" Jon asked.

"Before dawn, my lord. The wind was against us round the point."

"Had he seen her himself?"

"Not then. The scout's boat had just come in."

Jon handed Arthur the message and sent Alasdair for Ethan.

"Eat," he told the sailor. "Afterwards, tell the maester where Denys last lay and which boats are carrying his messages. There'll be a bed for you."

Aries came down from Tomas's room as a servant brought the bread. He stopped on the stair, looking from Jon to the door.

"Are you going out again?"

"No. Denys is there. I'm staying here."

The boy let go of the stair rail. Jon drew a chair towards the hearth for him.

"You can stay and listen."

Aries sat, watching him. When Ethan and the maester arrived, Jon had the message read out and ordered the harbour captain told to hold Denys's relief ready. They were to carry provisions for a longer search. The other patrols would keep to their stations.

"Lord Monford is still expected tomorrow," the maester reminded him.

"We shall be ready for him."

Jon looked at the sailor, who was eating too fast to pay them much heed. His news was many hours old. Denys might already have taken the galley and be bringing people out of her hold. Five of Laro's companions were still missing; the scout's sighting could tell him nothing of them.

"Tell Lorren," Jon said. "If Denys brings back wounded people, I want warm rooms and men ready to carry them."

He turned to Aries. "Go and tell Tomas they've found a galley that may have the missing people aboard. We're waiting for Denys to send word."

Aries ran upstairs. Ethan sent the orders down to the harbour, and Jon stayed with the sailor. The man had no more news of the prisoners. When he reached for the empty jug, Jon filled it and let him finish his meal.

 

[aiwonder]

Sarro's rings had sunk into his fingers. Flesh bulged on either side of the gold, pale where the bands pressed it, and one of the rubies was smeared with oil from Vhalar's fish. A bead of juice clung beneath his lower lip. He caught it with his tongue and reached for another piece.

The fat slug had helped himself before the servant had finished pouring.

Vhalar watched him eat from across the table. Below the terrace of his fort lay Bloodstone's eastern anchorage, loud with hammers and the calls of men hauling a galley ashore. He had come up from the morning muster without taking off his mail. Sweat was drying beneath it, and a split in his knuckle stung whenever he bent his hand. His forearms rested bare upon the table, dark with old scars below the sleeves. Sarro had needed to stop twice upon the steps. Now he sat in the shade, a gold chain disappearing into his collar, making a meal of another man's breakfast.

"Try the wine," he said. "It cost me enough."

Vhalar drank. Arbor gold. Good, too, damn him.

Through the openings in the parapet he could see Sarro's four ships. All four had clean hulls and well-kept rigging; their crews had furled the sails quickly yesterday, without half the shouting he heard from worse captains. They lay clear of his own vessels, where they could get under way without waiting for anyone to move.

Sarro had chosen those berths himself.

"Moreo sent a boat to you."

"He did." Sarro sucked oil from his thumb. "He wanted to know why I had come."

"What did you tell him?"

"That you had asked me. Should I have lied?"

Vhalar set his cup down.

"I want your four ships off the western landing while I take Moreo's camp. If his men put out to sea, catch them."

"I'll show myself there," Sarro said. "Crews armed, all four banners up. If anyone runs for the open sea, I'll turn towards him."

"And if he keeps coming?"

Sarro picked a fishbone from his lip and laid it beside his plate. "I let him pass. I am not losing a ship to win you a camp."

"His sons may return."

"Then I'll make the same show for them. If they want a fight, you'll have to give it to them."

Vhalar looked past him at the four ships. Moreo would have to judge their intentions from the beach, with Vhalar's men coming at him. The sight of them might keep him ashore long enough.

"Your first mates will hear the plan at sunset," he said. "See that they are here."

Sarro nodded and reached for the wine. He had never pretended to be a fighting man. He hired those, paid them well and stayed where his captains told him to stay. Last autumn he had carried cargo into Tyrosh beneath the very nose of a captain whose merchantmen he had robbed. Vhalar had heard about it from a man who had helped him sell the goods. The fat slug knew what he was.

Moreo would have known it once. Twenty years ago the old Lysene had taken ships out in weather that sent younger men crawling for shelter. He and Vhalar's father had divided prizes upon this terrace, quarrelled over the division, and tried to rob each other of them the following season. Moreo had always come back smiling. Age had caught up with him at last. At their last meeting he had needed two men to help him into his boat. Vhalar's father was dead; Moreo's time was passing too.

His sons had left him what they did not want and sailed east to raid near Slaver's Bay. A pair of vain little shits. The younger was a whoremonger, a drunkard and a coward, dining and drinking on his father's gold. His brother had lost two ships taking a third. They would quarrel over their father's chair while better men took the ships from under them.

Vhalar meant to be there first.

His father had left him eight galleys and ten longboats, besides the vessels that worked the northern stores. He had men enough to take Moreo's camp. Keeping ships off the western landing would cost him galleys he needed elsewhere.

Rolo. That young whoreson still held the south beach.

Vhalar remembered the boats coming back overloaded, wounded men lying between the feet of the rowers. His father had been dying upstairs while captains decided which son of a bitch was likeliest to pay them. Two of Vhalar's best had died getting the others away. Drazen had gone back for the wounded and the pay chest while men who had eaten at this table changed their colours.

He would have Rolo in time. The Myrishman had good crews and the appetite to use them; of the three men upon Bloodstone, he was the one who would fight hardest to keep what he held. Moreo's harbour and ships would give Vhalar the strength to finish it. With Sarro's four showing themselves off the western landing, he could leave galleys watching the south beach while he took his men against Moreo.

"Moreo's lieutenant has offered to let my men through," he said.

Sarro stopped with the cup halfway to his mouth.

There. That interested him more than all the ships in the harbour.

"The man who keeps his boats?"

"Yes."

"He has served Moreo half his life."

"Then he knows what will be left of it under those sons."

Sarro lowered his cup. "What have you promised him?"

"His command."

"You must be very sure of him."

Vhalar ran his tongue along the broken tooth at the side of his mouth. He was sure the lieutenant wanted to live. The man still lowered his voice when he spoke of Moreo, though they had met with miles of water between them and the old pirate. Fear did not disappear because a man's knees had begun to fail him. But he had asked twice whether Vhalar meant to give his ships to someone else. That worried him more than betraying the captain he had followed for twenty years.

"He has sent me the watch," Vhalar said. "His own men will be beside the boats. When I land, they stay out of my way."

"Unless Moreo has made him a better offer."

"Moreo cannot give him better sons."

Sarro's mouth twitched. "Let my first mate speak to him."

Of course. Put the two of them together, and Sarro would have a way into the western landing whether Vhalar took it or not. The man never reached for one thing when he could close his fist upon two.

"Tonight. One man, and he goes with mine."

"He asks his own questions."

"He may ask them."

"And if he comes back unconvinced, my ships stay where they are."

Vhalar let him wait for the answer. Somewhere below, a man called for more rope. Sarro's eyes remained upon him. He had offered the four ships if the lieutenant's word proved good. They were worth letting him ask his questions. Vhalar could settle what else he learned by choosing the men who went with him.

"Agreed."

"Good." Sarro broke another piece of bread and pressed it into the juices upon the dish. "Now, the money you already owe me."

He put the bread into his mouth before Vhalar could answer. Oil ran to his chin. A little glisten of it remained there when he wiped his mouth, and Vhalar found himself watching that instead of the man's eyes. Sarro was buying himself time to consider what he had just been told. Let him chew. He would still have to name a price.

"Drazen is bringing it."

"Your clerk tells me there is money coming from Tyrosh as well."

"Five weeks. Six, if the factor is slow buying grain."

"I will be in Tyrosh myself before then. My brother has freight waiting."

"Drazen will be here first."

"You expect him first."

Vhalar raised his eyes. In the doorway his clerk had stopped writing. The guard beside the stair shifted his weight and then stood still.

He could drive the knife beneath Sarro's jaw before the chair went over. The thought came readily, accompanied by the remembered feel of a man struggling against his arm. Sarro had lifted his chin to contradict him. There was room enough beneath it.

The fat slug watched his hand. He had another morsel poised between finger and thumb, but for once it did not reach his mouth.

Vhalar put the knife beside his plate.

"You will be paid when he comes. Until then, tell me what it costs to keep you here."

Sarro set the morsel down and wiped his fingers upon the cloth. "I have four crews drawing wages whether we sail or sit here. Grain will pay them as readily as a prize. I can go back to carrying it whenever I please."

"Then you lose nothing by giving me a price."

Sarro inclined his head. "For how many days?"

He looked past Sarro at the water. No dark sail beyond the headland. Drazen had been ordered to gather the treasure from the cove upon Dragonstone and the other hiding places along the Westerosi coast. Pello and the collectors were to account to him and put what they held aboard his ship. Vhalar's cousin Neresso had been told to settle every balance he could through Hull and the other ports. Coin, this time. He had no use for another hold full of goods while captains stood before him asking for their shares.

Drazen would bring it. He had brought the wounded off the south beach when there had been little profit in that.

"When Drazen returns, you receive what I owe you and the hire for all four ships begins," Vhalar said. "We sail within ten days of that. Name the price."

Sarro named his hire, then broke another piece from the bread. "And a quarter of the treasure. Coin and goods."

Vhalar shoved his chair back and stood. His hand struck the table hard enough to make the cups jump.

"For nothing?" He leaned across it. "You risk none of your men, none of your ships, yet you ask a quarter from me?"

"I ask for no ships." Sarro pressed the bread into the fish juices. "Isn't that what you really need, Vhalar?"

The fat slug put it in his mouth. Vhalar stood over him while he chewed, his palm flat upon the table. Sarro seemed in no hurry to move his plate out of reach.

"I hear things," he said when he had swallowed. "Rolo has more men and ships each season. Fifteen galleys now, they tell me, and ten fast ships. Against your eight galleys and ten longboats."

Vhalar's fingers curled against the wood. Fifteen galleys. He would have that count checked.

"The men call him Redaxe Rolo." Sarro smiled up at him, a glisten of oil upon his lower lip. "I'm doing you a favour, Vhalar. Some coin for me, and you keep Moreo's ships. His men, too. Enough to deal with that young upstart, yes?"

He reached for another piece of fish.

The fat slug had chosen his moment well. Vhalar needed those crews as much as their galleys. With Moreo's men under his command, he could strike at Rolo and still leave enough strength to hold the fort. Sarro knew it, and sat there eating as though they had been discussing the price of grain.

Vhalar took his hand from the table and drew his chair forward.

"A quarter of the coin and goods," he said as he sat. "Every ship comes to me."

"Agreed." Sarro lifted the fish to his mouth. "But you must pay for the waiting."

Vhalar rose. Sarro's servant straightened at the stair.

"Stay there."

He went inside. The clerk bent over his writing so quickly that his sleeve dragged through the wet ink. Vhalar passed him without speaking and took the chest key from his belt.

His father had worn it about his neck, beneath his clothes, as though his own son would steal from him. At the end the cord had lain against a chest wasted to bone. Vhalar could still see the rise of it beneath the filthy linen, and the patch of dried piss at the old man's hip. The servants had tried to change the bedding. He had struck one and sent the rest away.

The old bastard had been dying for days. He had shouted for captains who were long dead, cursed the Archon, cursed his son when Vhalar came to his bed. An admiral of Tyrosh, a veteran of Maelys Blackfyre's war, and he could no longer lift himself clear of his own piss.

Vhalar had reached for the key. The hand that caught his wrist had seemed too thin to hurt him.

It hurt. Even then, it hurt.

His father dragged him down until he could smell the stale wine in his beard.

"Power is not a means, it is an end."

Vhalar had bent close, waiting for more. Some last demand, perhaps. Another voyage against Tyrosh, another promise that he would drag the men who had voted against his father out of their houses.

The old man's mouth worked. Nothing came. Vhalar watched him struggle for breath. It would have taken so little to press the linen over his face. No one in the fort would have dared ask why.

He had not needed to. Before sunset the old bastard was dead. Vhalar had taken the key and ordered the bed burned.

He turned the key in the chest now. The lock grated.

His tongue found the broken tooth again. His father had given him that for asking, before the servants, why a captain who had deserted them was dining at their table. Vhalar remembered the taste of blood, and trying to hold it in his mouth while the admiral ordered him to answer.

"Look at me when I speak to you."

He had looked. The next blow had sent him against the wall.

A moon later the captain was dead, his mate bought and his crew paid from the admiral's chest. Vhalar had understood the delay then. He had used the same method himself, more than once. That much the old bastard had taught him well.

Silver shifted beneath his hand. There was enough to buy Sarro's patience for a week. The rest had to wait for Drazen. He took a bag and locked the chest again.

Above him, a guard crossed the wall walk. The stones beneath the man's feet had been laid for Daemon Targaryen's garrison, paid for with Corlys Velaryon's gold. His father had found broken walls and roofless barracks here after Tyrosh took his command and seized the family warehouses. Backing the wrong man for Archon had cost him the city; he had made men throughout these waters pay for it ever since. He had restored the fort, gathered the ships and established the trade that Neresso now kept upon the western shore.

All that work, and still he had called Tyrosh home. Still he had spent good plunder upon schemes to get back among men who had spat him out.

They could keep the fucking warehouses.

Vhalar had a fort, ships and men who obeyed him. With Bloodstone his, there would be other islands to take and harbours where he could put his own captains. Let the merchants of Tyrosh come to him when they wanted passage. He would enjoy hearing what they offered.

Outside, Sarro had finished the fish. Vhalar dropped the bag beside his plate.

"Seven days, beginning today. Your men take water and provisions from my stores. If Drazen has not come by then, you may sail."

Sarro loosened the cord. "Have your clerk weigh it."

Vhalar called the man out with his scales. Sarro watched each little pile, picking out a clipped coin and pushing it back. Then another.

"We take those here," the clerk began.

"He gets the full weight," Vhalar said. "Replace them."

The clerk found sound coins in the bag and laid them in the pan, keeping his eyes upon his work.

Sarro reached for the silver. Vhalar caught his arm, his fingers closing hard above the wrist. Sarro flinched and tried to pull away.

"Look at me."

Sarro raised his eyes. Vhalar bent towards him without loosening his grip.

"Take my coin and break your word, and I will hunt you down. Tyrosh, Lys, wherever you run. If it takes the rest of my life, I will find you and cut your throat myself."

Sarro swallowed. His eyes went to the stair. "My mate must be satisfied," he said, more quietly. "I have promised you no battle. And if Drazen has not come in seven days, I sail."

The pulse beneath Vhalar's thumb was racing. He smiled. So the fat slug could be frightened.

"I know what we agreed." Vhalar tightened his grip. "Keep your word."

For a moment Sarro was silent. He managed a tight smile. "And you keep yours. My captains remain mine, and the hire begins when Drazen returns, even if we are still in harbour."

Still bargaining. With Vhalar's hand upon him, the fat slug was still bargaining.

"You will have what I promised."

Vhalar released him and sat. Sarro flexed his fingers, then drew the silver towards him and began putting it into the bag.

The fat slug expected to sail away with his hire and a quarter of the plunder. He had houses to go back to, merchants who would welcome him, that brother finding freight. Vhalar could not cut his throat and expect four ships to fall into his lap. He would need Drazen to find out which of those captains belonged to Sarro through gratitude, which through debt, and which would take another man's gold.

There would be time while they prepared against Moreo.

Once the western landing was his, Sarro would have a place under him if he swore for it. A good place. Vhalar had work for a man who could deal in cities where his own name closed doors. And if he refused, there were quiet ways to kill a man, once his captains had ceased to need him.

"Your first mates at sunset," he said. "All four."

"They will come."

The servant brought Sarro's cloak and helped him rise. Vhalar watched the gold chain lift clear of his collar, then settle into the flesh again. His father had worn a chain like that in Tyrosh. He had kept it long after the office it signified was gone.

Sarro went down the steps with one hand upon the wall. Halfway to the landing he stopped, turned back and raised a hand. Vhalar returned the gesture.

Then he called his clerk to bring the ship accounts outside. He would choose the vessels for the western attack before the first mates came, and settle which galleys stayed to watch Rolo. Drazen would find them ready when he came home.

* * *
​

Alasdair had to knock twice. When Jon called him in, the boy looked at his face and reached for the washing cloth.

Jon had fallen asleep over the last drawing, his head resting on his good hand. The lamp had burned out. He rubbed at his cheek and found ink on his fingers.

"Abel is downstairs, my lord."

"How long?"

"Long enough for Wylla to feed him."

Jon straightened, his neck stiff. The drawing beneath his sleeve was stained, but the measurements were clear.

Alasdair set a basin on the chest. Beside it lay six sheets for Otho, tied separately from the harbour drawings. Jon had worked through the weight the hammerhouse supports must bear and marked the order of the work. Otho could begin the foundations while Noll made the fittings, but Jon would inspect the channel and wheel before they put either to use.

"Take these to Otho at Cinderwell. Give them into his hands." Jon separated one sheet from the others. "This is the alteration to the spring wall. He must read it with Emrick before they lay another course there."

"Shall I bring Otho back with me?"

"No, let him stay with the work. Tell him to send for me if anything is unclear. And bring back the measurements from the lower end of the channel. I want those before Woods cuts the axle supports."

Alasdair rolled the sheets while Jon put on his coat. In his first life, other engineers would have checked his figures. Here he had spent half the night going over them himself, trying to find what he had missed before Otho built it in stone.

The harbour plans stayed on his table. He laid a weight across them and put the wrapped eggshells into the chest.

"Gawen has chosen the men to ride with you," Alasdair said.

"Good. Tell them we are going to Black Fields."

Alasdair nodded. At the door, Jon remembered something else.

"Tomas's letter?"

"Still with me."

"Leave it with Gawen before you go. He has another page to put with it."

* * *
​

Abel had brought no chest of gold. He had brought three books, a little set of scales and a foreign silver coin so badly clipped that scarcely half its king remained.

"Six hundred and forty dragons," he said. "That is what the recovered coin comes to at the weights the maester and I have allowed."

Jon turned the silver piece over with his thumb. It was warm from Abel's hand.

"After the losses?"

"After clipping, bad silver and the cost of changing what we cannot spend here. Marrec has agreed the rates. I would not put the plate into that sum yet."

"Nor the things Wylla is keeping."

"Those are entered separately." Abel opened the first book. "The ships are entered separately as well."

Jon put the clipped coin back beside the scales. Repairs would consume money before either prize added to the fleet.

They had taken the small hall, where the morning light was better. Ethan sat beside the maester with the village returns. Perkin, the legion's quaestor, had brought his pay book and was checking the work rolls at the other end. Arthur stood by an open window. Otho had gone to Cinderwell before sunrise; his requests filled most of the sheet Hewyn was holding.

Jon sat and drew his bread nearer. Wylla had put it where he would have to move the plate to reach the papers.

"Begin with what is already promised."

Abel did. The money for the household, provisions and the men already in Jon's service had been put aside before the earlier allowance for the works. Of the three thousand eight hundred dragons then free, Jon had committed twenty-eight hundred and kept a thousand against need. There were purchases still to arrive against that allowance. A ship being late did not make its payment available for something else.

"The first kiln, the millwheel, the water works and the first houses remain within it," Abel said. "So do the timber and fittings already ordered for Qavo."

There were two hundred dragons from the Braavosi clock buyer. Eighty could go against the balance on Grafton's first cargo, with the rest held for the clock's materials, wages and carriage. Jon had wanted some of that remainder for another cargo of brick. William would still need to finish what the merchant had bought.

"Leave it with his order," Jon said.

Abel drew a line beneath it. "That leaves the six hundred and forty."

It seemed a smaller sum now that it lay beside so many things needing to be paid for. Jon had been turning the island over in his head all night, adding furnaces and quays to empty ground. He could spend this money before he finished his bread.

"The men who took the prizes will have sixty," he said. "Denys and Perkin can bring me the division. Include the wounded."

Perkin wrote the sum. "From the coin, my lord? The two ships remain yours?"

"They remain in the fleet."

The collector would cost him more before she earned anything. Jon wanted her all the same. Qavo could have her ready long before either of the new hulls, even with the brace they had found rotten beneath her deck.

His eyes went to the harbour drawing Ethan had brought down. Beneath the planned shed, two narrow outlines marked ships that did not yet exist.

He had meant to have them before Valyria.

He had drawn faster ships, better fitted to his purpose. Now the cost of finishing them lay among the houses, furnaces and wages. The island's revenue would not arrive merely because he needed it; some was still growing in Hamish's fields.

He might have to make the voyage in the ships he already owned.

He would have the soundest hulls opened and examined, and fill them with stores and spare rigging. His years at sea had taught him what to look for. Beyond the Smoking Sea, that might still count for very little.

"My lord?"

Abel had his quill poised above the next line. Jon put the drawing aside.

"Hold a hundred and forty for hiring," Jon said. "Wages and lodging. When it is promised, no one takes on another man without coming to me."

Abel entered it. Noll's return lay beside his book: a further hundred and eighty for the hammer's heavy fittings, timber and carriage. Some iron could come from stores, but the parts that had to be ordered were dearer than Jon had hoped.

"And Bennard's furnace?" Abel asked.

"Waits."

Marrec had brought fuel prices. The charcoal could come from the mainland, burned and bagged. Coal was offered through the trading ports, though none of the sellers had sent a sample.

"A small lot of coal to try," Jon told him. "Charcoal for the smiths until we know what they can use. The kiln burners can take dry brushwood and the offcuts from our yards."

"There is brushwood going with Grafton's next cargo."

"Ask the freight. Cheap fuel does us little good if it costs twice as much to bring here." Jon pushed the furnace drawing back beneath Noll's return. "And leave the building timber for Qavo and Woods."

They allowed a hundred and twenty for fuel and carriage. Abel checked the sums, then looked up.

"A hundred and forty remains."

"Keep it for Marrec's search."

Hewyn leaned back. "You will pay passage for more smiths before we have room for the ones here?"

"If we wait until their houses are finished to start looking, we may have empty houses for a year." Jon reached for Otho's list. "What does he want from you?"

"More men than I have offered him."

Hewyn passed it across. Cinderwell wanted stone hauled for the hammerhouse; Eastcove needed its drying shelter finished. Every village had asked for men, and Blackburn's list ran onto the back of the sheet.

"Two hundred," Hewyn said. "That was the number. Your foremen have begun asking my officers for more."

"They are to ask Otho. He brings it to me."

Jon worked through the parties with him. Sixty would go to Blackburn, fifty to Cinderwell, forty-five to Eastcove, twenty to Saltcliffe and twenty-five to Wyrm's Rest. Their officers would rotate whole groups, keeping enough of each century at Black Fields to train.

Ethan struck one cartwright's name from two village requests. He already had damaged wagons waiting in his yard. Hamish could spare nobody from the harvest yet, and Jon left the fishing crews alone. There were five thousand four hundred and thirty people on the island; seeing their names divided between households and trades made it plain how few could be moved without leaving another job undone.

"The fifty guarding Saltcliffe stay where they are," Jon said. "Write it where every foreman can see it. They are not part of the twenty."

Hewyn bent over Perkin's shoulder until the distinction had been entered.

The nineteen fit prisoners remained another matter. Their guards and food still cost money; their labour did not give Otho nineteen trained masons. They would continue on the quarry approach and mine path, clear of the flooded ground. The village workmen kept their paid places.

"And no more men are to be taken into the legion for now," Jon said.

"I have twelve already," Hewyn said. "They have given their names. Some have been waiting since we landed."

Jon glanced down at the work parties. Twelve he could spare.

"Take them, then. But that is all for now. I need hands for the works, Hewyn. The rest of the legion will have to wait."

Hewyn nodded. Perkin entered the twelve in his book and passed it to Abel so he could allow for their pay and keep.

"Does that include the Black Cloaks?" Perkin asked.

"No new levy for them either. Ethan and Marros will choose from the men already serving here. Bring me the names before moving them."

Arthur had come away from the window. He looked over the work parties, then at Jon.

"You ought to see what those men are being asked to do at the camp before you take any more of their time."

"I will. This morning."

Hewyn folded Otho's requests and took the written division with him.

They left in ones and twos. Ethan took the new assignments to have copies made. The maester went to finish the notices for the villages. Abel stayed while Marrec shut the door.

"The hundred and forty will begin the search," Marrec said. "It will not bring you all the men Qavo names."

He took a letter from his purse. It had come with his Lysene correspondence, from a merchant who had found sailcloth for him before. There was a millwright for sale, a man said to have built mills as well as tended them.

"He has a wife and two children. He also wants his widowed sister brought with him, and a nephew he has been teaching. The merchant spoke to him. He will not leave either behind."

Jon passed the letter to Abel. Beside the names were the asking prices, with passage reckoned underneath. Abel checked them against the allowance.

"We could bring them all, if these prices hold. There would still be something for enquiries. But we would have to leave the smith in Myr."

That offer lay farther down the letter. Qavo needed another smith; Ewan's men were already struggling with the repairs. Jon read it before returning to the millwright. The nephew was sixteen and had worked beside his uncle for four years.

"Find out whether he can do what they claim. Have a millwright question him, and see his work if there is any to see. If he is worth bringing, and the whole party can be brought within our allowance, choose him."

"The smith may be sold before we can return to him."

"I know." Jon left the letter with Abel. "We need someone who can teach. Make certain the millwright understands that before you agree to anything."

Marrec drew a second sheet towards him to write the reply. Jon waited until he had finished the conditions.

"They are to be freed, Marrec. Paid work, lodging until we have houses ready, and no debt for their purchase or passage. His family must hear the offer too. If they leave us afterwards, we lose the coin."

Abel looked up, then added that beneath the terms. Those admitted to the secret works would swear the masters' oaths; Marrec was to explain those before seeking an answer.

Marrec would also send enquiries north and ask his correspondents in Oldtown about acolytes willing to leave. Neither place could supply everyone Jon needed, but letters could travel with ships already bound there.

Denys would choose the vessels and men after his return. Jon meant to keep him here for tomorrow's meeting with Abel, Ethan and Marrec. Until they had heard him, no ship was to be taken from a patrol or promised for the eastern voyage.

When the merchant left, the hall seemed unexpectedly quiet. Jon finished the cold bread and went to find Ethan.

* * *
​

Hessa had been waiting in the little chamber off the hall. Rollam was brought from another room when Jon sent for him. The guard placed the boy beside his mother and remained at the door.

Seventeen, Jon remembered. Old enough to know why a man would try to run from a boat. Young enough that his mother's hand went straight to his sleeve.

Ethan set their accounts before him. Jon had read them again in the night. Rollam had carried Borren's goods on five nights, taking six coppers for most of them, eight for one. He had known they were avoiding the harbour dues. He had seen a sailor stop a man who wanted to leave. Hessa had fed a woman whose ankles were raw and bloody, and accepted her brother's explanation because accepting it let her stay beneath his roof.

"Is there anything in this you say is false?" Jon asked them.

Rollam shook his head. Hessa stared at the table.

"Hessa."

"No, my lord." Her fingers worked at the cloth of her son's sleeve. "But I never sold anyone. I told you that."

"I have not said you did."

She looked at him then, with hope so sudden that he almost wished she had kept her eyes down.

"You knew enough to ask what was happening," Jon said. "You saw what had been done to that woman. You helped Borren keep it hidden."

"I was frightened of him."

"And she had reason to be frightened of you."

Hessa's hand stilled. Beside her, Rollam had begun to breathe through his mouth.

Jon let the silence stand. Fear and dependence explained much. Neither put the woman with the bleeding ankles back where she belonged. He would not hang Hessa for her brother's trade, but he would not let her walk from the castle with nothing lost because Borren had given the orders.

"For ten years you will work where Ethan assigns you, without wages. You will be fed, clothed and housed. At the end of those ten years, your service is done."

Her face had gone slack. "Ten?"

"Ten."

Ethan wrote the term and the day it began. Jon waited until Hessa was looking at him again.

"You will work in the castle washhouse to begin with. You will not be set over anyone, and you will not be sent among the people brought out of Borren's hands."

Rollam swallowed. "May I stay with her?"

"You will go to the legion."

The boy's eyes moved to Arthur. There was no help in the knight's face.

"For ten years too?"

"For life." Jon spoke before Hessa could begin. "For the first ten years, you will receive food, clothing and shelter, but no wages. After that you draw a soldier's pay. Your service does not end with it. When you are old or hurt, there will still be work you can do."

Hessa made a small sound. Rollam had let go of her hand.

"You said you would take us alive."

"I did. You are alive."

"He is my only son." Hessa caught Jon's eye. "His father died fighting the ironborn. Borren was all we had."

"His father did not make these choices for him."

Jon rose. Hessa began to speak again, but he turned to Ethan.

"They may speak together before he goes," he told Ethan. "Have someone remain with them."

Outside, Arthur waited until the door was closed.

"You have given him a long service for five nights' work."

"Five nights he admits. I judged him on those."

"I heard you."

Jon looked back towards the door. He could hear Hessa crying now, with Rollam saying something too low to make out.

"He took their money. He saw a man being held and said nothing. I am not asking you to like the sentence."

Arthur studied him for a moment. "Hewyn will need to know what he is receiving."

"I will tell him myself."

Ethan caught up with them at the foot of the stair.

"The collector's mate has asked twice whether you mean to hear him today."

"When Lord Monford brings Neresso."

"He says he has more to tell."

"Then he can keep it in his head until they are both here." Jon turned to him. "I want their accounts separately, before either learns what the other has said. Let him wonder how much Neresso will give us."

Ethan's mouth twitched. "He has had time to wonder."

"A little more will do him no harm. Feed him. Keep him apart. And do not tell him which answers I mean to compare."

* * *
​

Tomas was trying to write his new name when Jon came in. He had filled half a sheet with it. The first attempts were cramped; the last had grown so large that there was scarcely room for Sableheart before the edge.

"My mother will think someone else wrote it," he said.

"She'll recognise that hand." Jon pointed to the letters crowded against the edge.

Tomas looked at the end of the name and laughed. Jon took the chair beside him. He had asked Gawen to join them, but the older knight was still in the passage speaking to Wylla.

"Any word from Denys?" Tomas asked.

"Not yet."

The pleasure went from Tomas's face. He laid down the quill.

"He'll send as soon as he can," Tomas said.

"I know." Jon moved the inkpot away from the blanket. "There is something else I wanted to speak to you about. You will need a page."

Tomas glanced towards the door, where Olyver usually waited.

"Olyver has duties of his own," Jon said. "I mean a boy for you to teach, as well as someone to carry your messages and help with your gear."

"I'm scarcely able to look after my own gear."

"Then you can begin by telling him how."

Gawen entered with Wylla and two boys. The taller had pale hair cut roughly above his ears, the shorter a dark head and grey-violet eyes. Both wore clean clothes that had plainly belonged to other children. The smaller boy was holding his cuffs clear of his hands.

Ethan had found them work in the household after their parents died. Daemion, the taller, was ten and carried fodder in the stables. Haerys was nine. He had been helping in the kitchens and had tried more than once to follow the pages into their lessons. Their families were of the island's old Valyrian stock, Wylla had told Jon when he asked her that morning. Neither had kin able to keep him.

Jon had seen Daemion often without knowing his name. He was usually disappearing beneath a bundle of hay.

"You know Ser Gawen," Jon said. "And this is Ser Tomas Sableheart."

The boys bowed. Haerys nearly struck the table with his forehead and came up scarlet. Tomas pretended not to notice.

"Wylla tells me you would like to serve as pages."

"Yes, my lord," Daemion said at once.

Haerys nodded, then remembered to answer aloud. His eyes kept returning to the bandage on Tomas's brow.

Jon explained what would be expected of them. They would serve their knights, care for what was entrusted to them, and attend lessons with the other boys. They would learn to read and reckon as well as ride and use a practice sword. They would earn their squires' places when their knights thought them ready.

Daemion listened solemnly until Jon reached the riding. Then he asked whether he would be allowed on a horse before he was a squire.

"When the groom says you are ready," Gawen told him. "Have you ridden?"

"Only when they were taking the horses down to water."

"With leave?"

Daemion's ears reddened. Wylla looked away, and Jon suspected she already knew the answer.

"You will ask next time," Gawen said. "You can begin by coming with me after this. There is a saddle I want looked over, and I cannot work the buckles with this arm."

The boy stared. "Am I to be yours, ser?"

"If you can learn to ask before borrowing a horse."

"I can."

Haerys looked at Tomas. The young knight had gone quiet, watching Gawen as though there were a trick to this that he hoped to learn by seeing it done.

"And Haerys will serve you," Jon said to him.

Tomas sat a little straighter. "I'd be glad of him."

The boy came nearer when Wylla touched his shoulder. He noticed the shield drawn on Tomas's board and bent to see it.

"Is that your hand?"

"A gauntlet," Tomas said. "It will look better when a painter does it."

"Aries drew that one," Jon said.

"Better than mine, then."

Haerys traced the shape in the air, careful not to touch the page. He asked what the words beneath it said. Tomas read them to him.

"Our Hearts Hold Fast."

The boy whispered them once to himself. Tomas offered him the sheet, then stopped when Haerys reached for it with the hand he had been chewing.

"Wash that first. There is a basin there."

Haerys hurried to it. Water splashed over the rim. Tomas smiled, then looked at Jon with an uncertainty the boy could not see.

"What if I teach him badly?"

"Ask Gawen. Or Arthur. You had to learn too."

Jon could remember Tomas waiting among the boys in the North, trying to stand as though he already belonged beside a lord. Now someone smaller was waiting for a word from him. He wanted more of that: children from the island growing into men whose place did not depend upon a great house finding them useful for a season.

Gawen took Daemion away to the stables. Before he went, he gave Jon a sword wrapped in cloth.

"Hewyn has found someone for it. Ask him when you reach the camp."

Jon knew it as soon as he felt the plain pommel through the wrapping.

"The boy's family?"

"His mother can barely keep him in boots."

Jon nodded and took the sword. Haerys had returned to Tomas with dripping hands held out for inspection. Tomas gave him a cloth and asked him to fetch the writing board once they were dry.

"I'll come back before supper," Jon said.

"Bring news."

"If I have it."

Tomas nodded. He watched Jon go, but by the time the door closed he was showing Haerys how to keep the board level without gripping the wet edge of the page.

* * *
​

The road to Black Fields was full of men coming the other way.

Jon drew Bucephalus to the verge as Murch came round the bend at the head of his ten. They carried picks and shovels, with their food tied at their belts. Hennet grinned up at Aries before lengthening his stride to catch the others. Jon had known those faces in the North, when Malcolm's First Century was still learning to keep its line. Murch was keeping them together now, calling the rear men forward as the road narrowed towards Blackburn.

Beyond the rising ground, tents stood in rough rows beside stacks of timber. Norren, centurion of the Third Spears, was counting grain into the covered store. He sent a man farther inside with his sack, away from the damp boards by the door. Most of the camp still lived under canvas.

Hewyn met them at the horse lines, finishing an answer to a runner before coming to Jon. His appointment as primus pilus had made him senior centurion of the cohort without relieving him of much of his old work. Arthur held Bucephalus while Jon dismounted. Aries took the reins; Colin and the other household men led their horses after him.

Farther along the lines, Ser Vaelor Scales was examining a saddle with Aleyx Waters, his squire. Marros had spared the knight from the garrison to help train Jon's mounted men. For now, Vaelor had more to say about the mounts than the riders. He greeted Arthur, then called Aleyx back to show him something beneath the girth.

"The twelve are here," Hewyn said.

The volunteers waited near the entrance, their bundles at their feet. One had brought a spear with its head wrapped in sailcloth. Several had the fair hair common upon the island; a dark-haired lad at the end had eyes nearly the same violet as Jon's. He wanted more men of that blood in his ranks. If he could buy families free in Essos, there would be room here for those willing to serve.

"Have Perkin take their names and swear them," he said. "These twelve. No others until I give leave."

Hewyn sent his runner for the quaestor. As they moved towards the practice ground, Rennick brought the Second Spears past them for their march, halting briefly while a man bound a split sandal.

Malcolm's First Spears were forming against Gerralt's Fifth Sword-and-Shield Century. Men were missing from Malcolm's line. The others closed the gaps at his order, shields knocking together.

"Some of your work parties," Hewyn said.

"They will rotate. Otho has two hundred, not as many as his foremen can find work for."

"I shall want the First together again before the week is out."

"Set the parties accordingly. Ethan is sending him your copy."

Heward rode along the front, his bad leg stiff in the stirrup. As campidoctor he could stop the drill, and Malcolm watched for his signal. Jon watched the men. He could see which were following the order and which were waiting to be pulled along by a neighbour.

The first advance broke at the left. A young spearman moved too soon; when the man beside him tried to catch up, a swordsman put his shield into the opening. Two more pressed after him. Malcolm called a halt before the struggling men brought down the file.

Heward had the section put aside its weapons and walk the movement. The young man kept looking sideways until the instructor stopped him again. Gerralt's men waited, sweating beneath their shields. One sat and began binding a finger while his companion held the end of the cloth.

"We can give them another go after dinner," Hewyn said. "They'll be watching the gap now."

"Let them," Jon said. "Then change where the attack comes."

Arthur glanced at him. Upon the collector's deck there had been little warning of where the next man would come from. Jon stayed while the section tried again. It held together longer, though Heward was still correcting them when Brus brought the Sixth Sword-and-Shield Century up to relieve Gerralt's men.

Gerralt came over with a shield whose binding hung loose. Its owner followed, turning a blistered hand palm upwards.

"Cinderwell?" Jon asked him.

"Hauling stone, my lord. I meant to mend it last night."

"He came back after supper," Gerralt said. "Ate what was left and slept in his boots."

Jon took the shield by its sound rim. He had seen tired men overlook worse faults than this. The work would continue, but there had to be time between putting down a pick and taking up a weapon.

"Have the returning parties look over their equipment before they eat," he told Hewyn. "Give them time to mend it. If they come in too late, do it before drill."

Gerralt took the shield back. Seeing Colin behind Jon, he caught his former pupil's eye. Jon remembered the centurion's reluctance to lose him to the household in the North. He had wanted to give Colin ten men, once the lad learnt some patience in teaching them.

"Still keeping your own shield up?"

"You can ask Ser Arthur."

"I was asking you." Gerralt looked towards the twelve, now gathering round Perkin's book. "We have some who have never held one."

Arthur gave Colin leave to help while they remained at the camp. Hewyn put four of the recruits with him and sent the others to two waiting veterans. There was no swordwork yet. They fetched practice shields and stood awkwardly with them while Colin showed his four how to hold their arms.

Jon followed Hewyn to the forge shelter with the damaged shield. Three of Ewan's experienced apprentices had charge there. Their master and Noll were at Cinderwell, working on the hammer and the new works; these men had the camp repairs under Ewan's directions.

The eldest took the shield and put it beside two pieces of harness. A pick head was heating in the hearth. Beyond it lay fittings from the works, each with a request that its owner needed them first.

At the far bench a younger boy was sorting nails against a wooden measure. He pushed the short ones into a separate pot, then brought the smith a handful of the right length.

The apprentice lifted a fitting from the bench. "That came from the crane," he said. "I've no pattern for it. The man said Lord Jon wanted it."

"Send it to Ewan with the measurements. He gives you your work here. Hewyn may put a weapon or harness ahead of it for a man going on duty."

The apprentice found the chalked board that had come with the iron and tied them together. Rymond, centurion of the Fourth Spears, arrived while he was doing it. His men were carrying stores by hand because their wagon had been taken to the works. Hewyn sent for it and kept Rymond beside him until they had agreed which days it could be spared.

On their way back Jon passed Colin's recruits. One was holding his shield almost flat against his chest.

"Out," Colin told him. "Like I showed you."

The boy pushed his arm straight. Colin caught the rim before it struck his neighbour.

"Not that far. Here—"

Arthur stopped beside them. "Let him see your arm."

Colin took a spare shield and stood beside the boy. He moved slowly this time. The recruit copied him, lost the position when he adjusted his feet, and looked unhappily at Colin. Jon saw the young guardsman begin to speak, then reset his own shield instead.

"Watch the elbow. We'll do it again."

Rollam arrived as the men were going to eat.

The guard brought him to Hewyn with Ethan's order. His clothes were bundled beneath one arm and his wrists were still tied. Jon took the officer aside and told him what the boy had admitted, then waited while he read the sentence.

"Ten years without wages," Hewyn said quietly.

"Food, clothing and shelter throughout. After that he draws ordinary pay. He serves for life."

"Has he been taught anything?"

Jon called Rollam closer. Hewyn asked about weapons, running and swimming. The boy knew nothing of a spear. He could swim, and seemed anxious to make certain the officer understood that much.

"Then you can begin with the rest," Hewyn said. "You sleep where your decanus puts you, eat with your ten and answer at the count. If you are missing, we look for you."

Rollam glanced towards Jon.

"If you try to leave the island, you come back before me," Jon said.

The boy nodded. Hewyn called for a decanus, but Rollam stayed where he was.

"My lord. When can I see my mother?"

"You may go to the castle when Hewyn can spare a guard. Your duties come first. You return with the man who takes you."

"Will she know where I am?"

"Ethan will tell her." Jon turned to Hewyn. "Arrange it with him. And have Rollam taught. He is to serve as a soldier, not spend the rest of his life carrying things because no one will train him."

Hewyn folded the order. The decanus cut the cord from Rollam's wrists and told him to pick up his bundle. Rollam rubbed one wrist, looking from the officer to Jon as though there might be something more. Then he followed the man between the tents.

Jon sat to eat. Aries brought the wrapped sword from the saddlebag and laid it beside his bowl. He had been quiet since Rollam's arrival.

Hewyn sent for Darys, one of the young trainees already attached to the camp. He came from the cooking fire still chewing and swallowed when he saw who was waiting. His boots were much mended. He had no sword belt.

"Ser Gawen and I spoke of him," Hewyn told Jon.

Jon unwrapped the blade. Beside him, Aries stopped breaking his bread.

"This belonged to Keir," Jon said. "He served in my household. His mother asked that it go to a boy whose family could not buy him one."

Darys looked at the plain pommel, then at Hewyn.

"Go on," the officer said.

"I could pay something. When I have it."

"She gave it," Jon said, and held out the scabbard.

Darys took it in both hands. He eased the blade free far enough to see the steel, then pushed it carefully home. Jon remembered Keir's mother keeping the belt. She had made herself leave the sword upon his table, though her hand had gone back to it before she left.

"Keep it clean," he told Darys.

"I will, my lord."

Hewyn sent him to the storekeeper for a belt. Aries watched until the tents hid him.

"Will he use it?" he asked.

"When he has been taught."

The boy pushed a crumb across the table with his thumb. "Keir was very quick."

"He was."

Jon waited, but Aries said nothing more. At the northern camp Keir had pulled him beneath his shield. The spear had taken Keir high in the chest. Jon remembered Aries reaching for him before Rylas dragged the boy clear. He put his bread down.

Darys returned with a belt stiff from long disuse. He tried it standing beside Hewyn, who was listening to a report from the stores. The scabbard hung badly; when he shortened the strap, the buckle caught against its mouth. He glanced towards Jon and tried the other hole.

Aries slid off the bench.

"You have it twisted."

Darys looked down. Aries took the scabbard's weight while he unfastened the strap, then passed the end back through the loop. His fingers stayed clear of the hilt.

"There. Try it now."

Darys drew the sword a hand's breadth and sheathed it again. "That's better."

He thanked Aries and went to show a companion waiting near the tents. Aries returned to his place beside Jon. He did not watch them draw the blade.

Colin rejoined the household men at the horses. His four recruits were going with the others to see where they would sleep. One tried to give back the practice shield he was still carrying; Colin pointed him towards the rack, then waited while he put it away.

Aries had Bucephalus ready. He held the reins while Jon mounted, then climbed onto his own horse. Beyond them, the decanus led Rollam out of a tent and towards the cooking fires.

* * *
​

They came back through Blackburn in the afternoon. The grain ship had finished unloading, and men were carrying the last empty sacks away from the quay. Farther south, a few of Qavo's men worked upon the smaller prize. Jon could see the pale wood where part of her rail had been replaced.

Tobin was at the harbour arm with the masons. He came to meet them when Jon dismounted, wiping stone dust from his hands.

"Your sixty will be welcome."

"Keep the skilled men where they are. Let the soldiers clear and carry."

"The mason has already told me." Tobin pointed to the damaged stretch. "He wants the loose stone out before he lays more. Some of it has gone deeper than he thought."

Jon went with him along the sound part of the arm. Water stirred between the fallen blocks. He could picture the shape below it from yesterday's measurements, but the exposed face was worse than the drawing suggested. A layer that looked firm from above had opened along a joint.

He crouched and followed it with his eyes, then asked for the mason's cord. Arthur took his elbow as he stood again.

"You need not climb down there to see it."

"I wasn't going to."

Arthur kept hold of him until he had stepped away from the edge.

Jon measured the damaged length from safe ground and worked through the additional stone with the mason. The width at the base mattered more than the neat face people would see above the water. They marked the portion that must be opened at the next low tide. Tobin would have the loose blocks carried clear so the men laying the repair could reach sound ground.

The longer harbour walls remained lines on Jon's paper. He wanted them badly enough to find himself looking past the broken arm towards the ships beyond it. He made himself return to the measured cord. Those ships would have to use this entrance for a long while yet.

Harbert and one of his learners were waiting at the shore-watch shed. The old man began to rise when Jon came in, bracing a hand upon the table, but Jon pulled up a stool before he could get to his feet.

He remembered Harbert's name upon Denys's list from Fair Isle: a broken hip and leg, a wife and two daughters waiting at home. Jon had ordered his pay continued whether he worked again or not. Catelyn had made him add someone to help his wife lift him. Now Harbert had a boy's work spread before him, and little patience with the figures.

"You let her drift here." He put a finger upon the drawing. "Which side of the mark were you?"

The boy hesitated. "Farther out."

"Then we still need the depth here."

Jon sat with them and brought the measurements back to the same tide mark. The boy had been practising inside the old harbour. A ship following his drawing would pass nearer the shallows than his boat had gone. He marked the stretch to measure again.

The survey for the new entrance would wait until the arm was repaired. Jon left Harbert the crossings he wanted measured when the men could be spared.

Alasdair found them as they were returning to the horses. He had dust up the backs of his boots and Otho's answer tucked inside his coat.

"He has the plans. Ewan and Noll were with him when I left."

"The spring wall?"

"Emrick went straight out to it. Otho wants you to see the hammerhouse channel when it is cleared. He has marked the place."

Jon opened the sheet. Otho had put a cross where the new course met harder ground, with a note asking whether the turn could be eased. Jon would need to see the cut. He told Alasdair to send word that the men could continue above it, leaving that reach until he came.

Merren reported that small carts could now pass along the quarry path; the heavier loads must wait upon the crane. Saltcliffe's optio had asked after Gella's fittings. Jon sent the question on to Noll, then returned Otho's sheet to Alasdair.

"Make sure every foreman has his copy of the assignments tonight."

They left the harbour and rode uphill. William heard them outside his workroom and opened the door before Jon could knock.

"If you want a date for the Dornishman, I haven't got one."

"I wanted to see the clocks."

"Then you may come in."

Lady Merryweather's stood upon the bench, its case still open. The weighted bar moved steadily above the wheels. William let Jon watch it for a while before showing him the new bearing.

"Three nights with this one. It no longer grips when the room cools."

"How much does it lose?"

William showed him his notes. The rate still changed, but it no longer lurched after the coldest hours. He wanted another comparison before closing the case for its final trial. Jon had handled instruments in his old life that would have made this look like a child's toy. Here, watching the teeth advance beneath the bar, he felt an affection for it out of all proportion to its accuracy.

"Good," he said. "Send for me before you pack it."

Perrin had cleared a corner for the order book. The Braavosi advance was entered at the top; the enquiries from Pentos, Myr and Tyrosh followed beneath it. Only the first had brought them money.

"The Pentoshi wants a month named," he said. "Myr has yet to send the size. But this one may answer quickly."

He laid the Tyroshi letter before Jon. The buyer would have the carved case made at home. He also wanted to send a man with the ship that collected the clock, to learn how to tend it.

"He offers more for the teaching," Perrin said. "An advance with his acceptance."

William left the bench to read the letter.

"Ask what the man knows already. If he knows his trade, I can show him how to tend this one. Someone there ought to. If they send it back for every fault, it will spend half its life at sea."

"He needn't stand at that bench to learn it." Jon indicated the unfinished parts beside the other workman. "Show him on the clock he is buying. No drawings go with him."

William read the offer again. "He asks to be taught to replace a wheel."

"Fit one we send him, yes. Make one, no."

Perrin drew his ink closer. "He may not pay the extra for that."

"Put those terms in the letter."

The extra money would have helped with the brick he had refused himself that morning. He left it out of his reckoning. William had taken years to train, and Jon meant to keep the manufacture here.

William returned the letter to Perrin. "Write out what I will show him. I don't want him arriving with a chest of tools and another promise."

"Let me see it when you have both agreed," Jon said. "And the Pentoshi?"

William could give him a range of dates if his two workmen were left at their benches. Men downstairs kept asking to borrow one for an afternoon. Jon confirmed that they were to stay, then asked about learners for the new rooms in Blackburn.

"Two," William said after considering it. "If Ethan can find two who can count and use their hands. More would only keep the others from working."

Their wages would come from the hiring allowance. William would choose them himself; a larger workshop would be of little use until he had people to put in it.

Aron's rough drawing lay beneath the book. Jon left the Dornish enquiry with William to price once the missing dimensions arrived. He would promise no date yet.

Perrin began their answer. William returned to Merryweather's clock, and Jon left him to his work.

* * *
​

The harbour signal came while Jon was washing the dust from his face.

Alasdair met him outside the chamber. "Denys, my lord. His ship is coming in."

"The galley?"

"Not with him. A boat came ahead with word. He has people aboard."

Jon was already moving. He sent Aries to Tomas and went down with Arthur, leaving the horses this time. By the time they reached the quay, Lorren's men were waiting with a litter. Wylla stood beside them with a bundle of cloaks.

Denys came over the side before the passengers. His coat was torn at one shoulder. He looked tired enough to sleep standing, but he smiled when he saw Jon.

"We have her."

Jon caught his arm with his left hand. "All five?"

"Five. Two women and three men. They gave me names for Laro." Denys took a folded sheet from inside his coat. "The galley is following under a prize crew. I brought these back in my own ship. She was fit to make the passage sooner."

Arthur took the account. Jon released Denys's arm and looked towards the rail. A woman was standing there with a sailor beside her, staring at the quay. She would not take his hand. After a moment he stepped back, and she began the descent herself.

Laro had come down with Wylla. He had kept behind the bearers until he saw her face. Then he called a name and pushed past them.

The woman stopped halfway. One hand tightened upon the rope. Laro said it again, laughing now, though the sound broke in his throat. She hurried the last few steps and caught him so hard that he stumbled.

Jon stood aside. Behind her came a man with one foot wrapped in linen, leaning upon a sailor. Two others followed. The last woman had to be brought down with help; Lorren went to her at once, speaking gently while he examined her.

All five. Jon counted them twice before he could stop himself.

Denys had caught the galley outside the creek before dawn. The scout had stayed with her when she began to move, and the warning had given him time to come across her course. There had been fighting, men hurt on both ships. His account named those of his own crew who needed tending. The galley's master and surviving fighting men were under guard aboard their prize.

"I left a man who knows that coast with them," he said. "They are taking her slowly. She will come in when she comes."

"And you are staying."

Denys looked at him in surprise.

"For now," Jon said. "Eat, sleep and let Lorren look at that shoulder. Tomorrow I need you with Ethan, Abel and Marrec. We have set money aside for the eastern search, but I will not choose ships without hearing you."

"I thought you might want me out again by nightfall."

"You have men still coming home. See to them first."

Denys nodded, and Jon went to Laro.

The young man was trying to speak to everyone at once. He brought one of the rescued men forward, then stopped when he saw Lorren's litter being lifted. His friend said something sharply in Lysene. Jon caught enough to understand that Laro was being told to let the healer work.

"There is a room ready," Jon said in High Valyrian. "You can go with them."

Laro answered too quickly. Jon asked him to slow down, and the second time understood his thanks.

"Tell Tomas they are all here," Jon said to Alasdair. "Tell him you saw them."

He waited until the last had left the quay, then went back to the castle behind them.

Lorren kept him out until he had finished. Jon used the time to read Denys's account with Arthur. The rescued people had come from the same galley the mate had named. Whatever Neresso said when he arrived, they would now have living witnesses to set beside the ships and the goods.

"The mate will hear the ship came in," Arthur said. "Men talk."

"Let him hear that much. No names, and none of what Denys has written." Jon folded the account. "He can imagine the rest."

When Lorren let him enter, Laro was sitting upon a stool between two of the beds. Someone had brought broth. The woman who had embraced him at the quay held hers in both hands, breathing in the steam.

Jon stayed near the door until she looked up. Without the crowd and the ship behind her, she seemed smaller. The borrowed cloak had slipped from one shoulder. Wylla put it back without interrupting what Laro was saying.

He made the introductions slowly enough for Jon to follow. There were trades among them: a woman who had woven cloth, a man who had worked with rope. Others had only the work they had done in their homes and aboard the ships that took them. Jon did not ask them to make an account of it for him now.

"If you have families to send to, the maester will write for you," he said. "Laro has already given us word for his father in Lys. Yours can go with it, if that is where it must be sent."

The man with the bound foot asked who would pay the captain.

"I will."

He looked at Laro, who nodded hard.

The weaver set down her bowl. She had no husband to send to. Her sister had gone to Tyrosh years before; she did not know whether the woman still lived there. Jon listened while she tried to explain where the sister had worked. One of the men remembered the name she could not find.

"Tell the maester when you have rested," Jon said. "We have letters going east. He can put the enquiry with them."

"If she is there, can I go to her?"

"When you are well enough to travel."

The woman looked at Laro until he repeated it in Lysene. Then she drew the bowl back onto her lap. Jon sat when Wylla brought him a stool.

"There is work here too, if you want it. We need people who can weave, make rope, build and teach. You may stay on Dragonstone."

The man beside Laro looked towards the door. "For how long?"

"As long as you choose."

"And what would we owe?"

Jon heard the care with which he asked it. He had been explaining wages all morning to men who expected wages. He began again, more slowly.

"You will be paid for your work. While you are ill, you stay here and are fed. No debt is being kept against you for it. If you wish to go home when you are well, we will find passage."

The man looked at Laro again. This time the young Lysene answered at length. Jon understood most of it: the opened door, the letter to his father, the meals he had been given without being told what they cost.

He let Laro speak. When he had finished, the weaver asked whether there were other women working at the looms here.

Jon repeated the question to Wylla.

"There are," she said. "I can take her to them when Lorren says she may go."

He gave the woman her answer.

"I could show them what I know," she said. "While I wait for word."

Jon had been hoping she might stay. Instead he told Wylla exactly what she had offered. Wylla nodded and asked which cloth she had worked with. For the first time the woman answered without looking to Laro, using her hands when she could not find a word Jon knew.

No one agreed to settle that evening. One wanted his mother found; another asked how far it was to Lys. Jon answered what he could. He had expected relief to leave them easier in the room, but every offer still had to be examined for what lay behind it.

He stayed until Lorren returned. At the door, Laro caught his sleeve.

"My father will think I am dead."

"We will send the letter."

"Soon?"

Jon put his good hand over Laro's. "I will ask Marrec tonight."

Laro nodded reluctantly and went back to his friends.

* * *
​

Ethan had the guest list spread beside the harbour chart when Jon found him. Through the open door, servants were carrying bedding towards the chambers set aside for the visiting households. Gawen stood in the passage with Daemion, showing him which men were to be sent to Marros and which messages belonged with the household guard.

The boy repeated a name wrongly. Gawen made him say it again before letting him go.

Jon watched him run off, then went inside.

"Monford?"

"The lookout has a sail coming from Driftmark. If it is his, he will be here before dark." Ethan drew a chair away from the table. "The other households have sent their numbers. There is room, though Lord Celtigar's men will have to share more closely than they asked."

"They may complain to you after they have slept in the beds."

"They generally do."

Jon sat. His hand had begun to throb again, and he rested it against his leg beneath the table. Ethan noticed but did not comment.

He had laid four older packets beside the acceptances. Velaryon, Celtigar, Sunglass, Bar Emmon. Jon recognised the seals. These were the letters Ethan had kept while Jon was still in the North, with notes of ships arriving and men sent to speak on their lords' behalf.

"You have watched them longer than I have," Jon said. "What were they doing before I came?"

Ethan drew the Velaryon packet nearer.

"With Lord Monford, much what he is doing now. Watching the water, watching Hull, and making certain no one forgot how much of both he understood."

"Did he object to the grant?"

"He swore when he was required to swear. They all did. But an oath to a lord in the North left him little to alter here." Ethan found a letter and flattened its curled edge. "His captains came to us about patrols. Sometimes they asked what we meant to do. Sometimes they told us what had been done."

Jon read the passage Ethan indicated. It concerned a merchant stopped and searched in waters both islands' ships used. The captain had sent his account after bringing the vessel into Hull.

"Was he wrong to stop her?"

"No. That is why I sent thanks instead of a quarrel. But I kept the letter."

Jon looked up at him. Ethan's crooked hand rested beside the seal.

"He will not like Blackburn growing at Hull's expense."

"He will like ships buying from him," Ethan said. "He will like good patrols. He may like your harbour well enough until one of his masters brings his family to live beside it. Then he will want to know whose servant that man is."

"A free craftsman may take work where he is offered it."

"Tell him that before Marrec hires someone who owes his yard another year's work. It will spare you an argument worth hearing."

"Have the agreements checked. The work here goes on."

Ethan turned to the next packet. Celtigar's steward had asked who would receive the island accounts under the new grant and which older obligations Jon meant to recognise. He had been courteous, persistent, and much more interested in the sums than in the absent boy whose seal would stand above them.

"He will have heard about the clocks," Jon said.

"And the prizes. Men who heard that you took two ships will have made four of them by now."

Jon thought of Abel's six hundred and forty dragons, each portion already spoken for. "He can hear the true number from me."

"Let him hear what you intend as well. He will try to work out what you can afford whether you tell him or not."

The Sunglass letters were more formal. There were questions about the oath, the witnesses and the arrangements for worship while the household visited. Ethan had answered them carefully. With Bar Emmon, most of the correspondence had passed through captains: shelter in bad weather, reports from the coast, a request that a fishing boat detained for unpaid dues be allowed to sail.

Jon read that one twice. The request had come before the payment.

"Did you release her?"

"After he paid."

"Did his lord write again?"

"No." Ethan gathered the loose pages. "They were learning what they could ask of me. Now they will learn what they can ask of you."

Outside, someone opened the door to a guest chamber. Light moved across the passage as a servant carried a lamp inside. Jon could hear Gawen answering a question, his voice patient until the same question came again.

"They will ask what they asked of you," Jon said. "I would rather hear it from them than have their captains settling it among themselves."

"And the first time one tells you his father was promised otherwise?" Ethan asked.

"He brings the promise. We read it. I will honour what I owe, and he will do the same." Jon put the letters down. "I will hear their counsel. I will not haggle over whether my commands bind them."

Ethan gave a slow nod. He did not offer another caution. Instead he showed Jon where the households would sit, which chambers were ready, and where Marros would receive their armed retainers. The renewed oaths would come before the dinner, as the summons required. Guests would be welcomed at the public landing. The new naval ground was to remain under its own watch.

Arthur joined them before they had finished. He brought the old reports Jon had asked for, folded inside a plain cover. Ethan shut the door before putting the guest list aside.

There was little certain about Oswell or Gerold. Arthur set aside one account after reading the description, then kept another to compare with a name Ethan remembered.

"This man knew Gerold before the war," he said. "If he is still where the letter says, I would trust an answer from him."

Jon drew the account nearer. Most of it concerned a ship's movements. There was nothing upon the page to tell him where his uncle and aunt slept, or who stood at their door.

"If your man finds either knight, can he reach the children?"

"We must ask." Arthur rested his hand upon the table. "Gerold and Oswell went to Dragonstone when I took you north. We divided the duty. I stayed with you; they went to the queen and Viserys. I hope they are still with him."

"And Daenerys."

"And Daenerys. But finding them will be the beginning. A merchant may hear where they have been. We need someone who can remain with them until there is a ship to bring them away."

Jon thought of Laro asking how soon his letter would leave. He had been able to put his hand over the boy's and promise to speak to Marrec. His own kin were somewhere beyond that same water, with no one here able to promise him even an address.

"Denys is to bring them here, if he can find them."

"You also need him to choose the men for the ships, see to the prizes and find workmen in Myr. He cannot leave a child in an inn while he goes looking for a glassmaker."

"Then he does not." Jon looked up from the report. "Marrec has merchants for the workmen. If Denys finds my family, everything else on that voyage waits."

Arthur held his gaze, then nodded. "He will need to hear that from you."

"He shall, when we meet with Abel and Ethan. We have not settled his sailing." Jon pushed the account back to Arthur. "Prepare what he needs to ask your man. Keep the children's names off the page. We can give Denys those instructions ourselves."

Ethan drew the private papers apart from Marrec's list. Arthur took a clean sheet, but sat for a moment before beginning. Jon left him to it. He still wanted to know why no word had reached Ned. That could wait until his uncle and aunt were found.

Arthur helped Ethan sort what Denys could carry openly from what must be given to him by word. Jon sent for Marrec and asked that Laro's letter take the first trustworthy passage towards Lys, without waiting for Denys's own voyage. The Watch's fish and cloth could also be bought within the provision allowance once carriage north was agreed. Tomas's letter would go with that cargo if its captain could be trusted; until then, Gawen would keep it.

Marrec went to the harbour before the light failed. Jon stayed with Ethan, going over the households once more. He wanted the men at the landing to know whom they were receiving. No one was to turn a visiting lord's request into an order for the workmen, or take a boat from Denys because a retainer claimed his master needed it.

Alasdair knocked while Ethan was sealing the last instruction.

"Ships off the headland, my lord. The watch has made out Lord Monford's banner."

Jon got to his feet. The ache in his hand had become a steady pulse.

"Have men waiting at the landing," he told Ethan. "Neresso comes up separately under guard. When I send for the mate, bring him to the room beside the hall. Keep the doors shut between them."

Ethan took the prisoner's accounts from beneath the guest list and went to give the orders. Arthur stayed while Jon straightened his coat.

In the passage, Daemion stood beside Gawen with a lamp held carefully in both hands. Tomas's new page had joined him. Haerys saw Jon and came forward, remembering his bow this time.

"Ser Tomas asks whether you are coming back."

"Tell him I will come when Lord Monford's business is done." Jon paused beside the boys. "Did he have the news?"

Haerys nodded. "Alasdair told him. He made him tell it twice."

Jon smiled and sent Haerys back to him. Arthur was waiting at the window overlooking the bay. Jon joined him there.

Beyond the harbour arm, the leading sail came clear of the headland. Others followed. Down at the landing, the watch was making room for Lord Monford's boats.

 

[aiwonder]

Monford Velaryon came ashore before the last light had left the water.

He rose in the stern as his boat touched the steps, brushed aside the sailor's offered hand and climbed to the landing. His sea-green cloak hung open over his sword. For a moment he stood looking at the vessels drawn up beyond the harbour, while his men came ashore behind him.

"Lord Monford."

The Lord of the Tides turned. He had his house's pale hair, tied at the neck, and a narrow face reddened by the passage. He bowed to Jon, then inclined his head to Arthur.

"My lord. Ser Arthur. I had hoped to find you both in better repair."

"The hand will mend. Welcome to Dragonstone." Jon looked towards the second boat. "You have brought Neresso?"

"With my captain. He conducted the search." Two sailors were lifting a small chest clear of the wet steps. Monford beckoned them forward. "His books and letters. Some money. The goods remain under guard at Hull."

"Give the chest to Ethan."

Monford glanced past Jon. The castellan had brought men of his own to receive the prisoner; at Jon's nod, two stepped forward to take the burden.

"I would hear the charges myself."

"You shall hear him answer them."

The lord allowed the chest to pass. Beyond the landing, a porter shouted for room to bring a laden cart through. Men who had stopped to watch the arrivals drew aside, craning for another look as they returned to work.

"You have kept them busy," Monford said. "There was little enough doing when I last came here."

"There will be more when the new yard is ready."

"And four prizes to put in it, I hear."

"Two from the fight. Denys brought word of a third today. The fourth escaped."

Monford looked towards the repair beach again. "My steward's man had a richer tale. Gold enough to build another castle."

"I have one castle to put in order. It will take its share."

The second boat came alongside. Neresso sat between two guards, hands folded beneath the loose sleeves of a brown robe. His beard was trimmed and his hair carefully oiled, but he had lost a slipper coming down from the ship. He put his bare foot upon the step and winced.

"My lord." He was looking at Monford. "I have done all your captain asked. My rooms have been opened, my servants—"

"You will answer Lord Jon."

Neresso looked past him. His eyes went from Jon's face to the bandaged hand, then to Arthur. Jon let him look.

"Ethan will have water brought to you," he said. "We shall speak when your papers are ready."

"There has been a mistake about the men I employed."

"You may explain it then."

Ethan took the guards uphill with the chest. Neresso tried to catch Monford's eye once more before they led him away.

Jon followed at an easier pace, Arthur beside him and Monford on his other hand. Their households came behind. At the turn in the road, the lord stopped to examine the ships below.

"Which is the collector?"

Jon pointed with his left hand. "The two-master."

"A useful hull. Has anyone examined her lower timbers?"

"Qavo thinks she can be saved."

"Qavo is here?" Monford turned from the beach.

"He is building for me."

The wind caught Monford's cloak. He drew it back over his shoulder. "He would not settle in Hull."

A younger man had come up beside the visiting captain. His hair was almost as pale as Monford's, though strands had escaped its tie and were blowing across his mouth. He pushed them aside to look down at the collector.

"My brother, Aurane Waters," Monford said.

Aurane bowed. "My lord. I heard you had to tow her home. How much of her steering is left?"

"Enough to reach the beach. She will need work."

"I should like to see her when she comes off it."

Jon took another look at him. Aurane Waters. He remembered what the man had done in the books: persuaded Cersei to pay for ten new dromonds, picked the captains himself, then sailed off with the whole fleet when the Faith arrested her. One of the ships had even been called Sweet Cersei. The magnificent bastard had robbed her and taken her name along for the voyage.

Jon had laughed when he read it. He could feel the same amusement returning as Aurane studied his captured ship with such innocent interest. He would enjoy having this one about. He would also remember to count his ships.

"You may have the chance," he said.

Monford resumed the climb. His younger half-brother fell back beside the captain.

"Your merchant has been asking after men in my yards," the lord said.

"Marrec has my orders to find shipwrights."

"Some of those men learned their trade at my expense. I fed their families through winters when there was scarcely work for half of them. They owe more than a few days' labour."

"If they are bound to you, tell Marrec for how long. He will make no offer until he knows."

"And afterwards?"

"Afterwards I shall employ any who wish to come."

Monford looked at Arthur. Arthur walked on without answering.

"You will have every yard upon these coasts bidding against the others."

"I need men to build my ships, Lord Monford. I shall pay them to do it." Jon stepped aside for a servant coming down with an empty basket, then continued uphill. Monford followed without pursuing the matter.

At the castle, Marros received the visiting guards and showed them where they would eat and sleep. Monford's captain went to join Ethan. Servants took the sea-green cloak and brought water for the lord to wash before leading him to supper.

Jon had ordered fish, bread and onions cooked in butter. He had eaten little since morning, and the smell made him hungry enough to reach for the bread while Monford was still drying his hands. Arthur cut a piece for him without comment.

"The others come tomorrow?" Monford asked.

"Their chambers are ready."

"Celtigar has been asking what all this work costs. He takes an interest in your harbour."

Jon drew his plate nearer. "Have some fish before it goes cold."

They ate. Monford asked after the passage from the North and the tournament at Runestone, and Arthur answered him while Jon finished his first helping. When the lord enquired after Gawen, Jon told him the knight was up and about, though his arm still troubled him.

"Tomas must keep to his bed a while longer."

"The lad who stood between you and the captain?"

"Ser Tomas now. I knighted him."

"My pardon. The news had not reached me." Monford lowered his cup. "A brave deed. I hope he mends."

"So do I."

Arthur passed the onions. Monford took some and began speaking of a mast one of his captains had lost in rough weather off Massey's Hook. He gave the course and the wind, moving a fish bone across the table to show where the vessel had turned. Aurane, seated farther down, corrected the captain's name. Monford accepted it and went on.

"How heavily laden?" Jon asked.

Monford supplied the cargo, then the amount. Jon considered the turn he had shown.

"He should have shortened sail."

"He should. I have a mast for him at Hull. He will pay for it." The lord set down the bone. "There are lengths there which might serve Qavo. Sound timber, well seasoned. You could lose a year waiting for some of it."

Jon wiped his fingers. "Send Marrec the list and your price."

"I would have my own man speak with Qavo first. He knows what is in the yards. Let them look over the drawings together."

"Qavo can tell him what timber he needs."

"There is more I could offer. Men to work it, fittings already made. I should want the first vessel you can spare when your own are finished."

Aurane reached for the wine and filled his brother's cup. Jon watched the dark stream settle. Seasoned wood and trained men would bring his ships forward by months. Monford had chosen his offer well.

"Qavo's drawings remain here," he said. "Your man will have no need of them."

Monford set his cup down untasted. "A shipwright must know what he is supplying."

"Lengths and sound timber. He shall have the measurements for those."

"My own ships have claims upon the best of it. I might set some aside if I knew there would be a vessel for Driftmark at the end."

Jon thought of the bare ground below the castle and the drawings upstairs. Qavo had sworn lifelong service for the charge of those ships; his family had given their own promises. Jon meant to enclose the yard before the work began. He would not then open it to Monford's men to save a season. Once they had worked beside Qavo with those drawings before them, he would have given away years of his own knowledge.

"Finish your ships," he said. "Marrec may bid for what you can spare. I make no promise of a vessel."

"You will pay dearly for timber elsewhere."

"I shall decide what I can afford when I have the prices."

Monford studied him across the remains of supper. Jon reached for his bread. The lord could keep his timber until it rotted if those were his terms; Jon had not come to Dragonstone to build Velaryon's fleet for him.

Ethan entered as Monford took up his cup.

"The chest is open, my lord. The captain is ready."

Jon put down the bread and rose.

"Before we hear him," Monford said. "Neresso lived under my protection. His warehouse pays dues at Hull. My merchants will want to know why I delivered him here."

"Then hear the evidence with me. You will be able to tell them."

"An accusation from men you have taken prisoner?"

"Two men, questioned apart. Your captain searched his rooms."

"That does not make him guilty."

"No. It is why he will be heard."

Ethan closed the door. Monford remained seated, his cloth beside his plate.

"If I yield a merchant whenever another lord accuses him, there will soon be no end of accusations."

Jon rested his good hand upon the back of his chair. "You brought him to your liege to answer for crimes upon Dragonstone. He will answer here. If he is innocent, he leaves with you."

Monford glanced towards Ethan. The castellan stood waiting by the door.

"And if I have something to say in his defence?"

"Say it. Bring anything that bears upon the charge." Jon waited until Monford looked back at him. "Your protection will not buy him free of it."

The lord folded his cloth and left it upon the table. When he rose, Arthur opened the door.

"Let us hear him," Monford said.

* * *
​

The papers smelt faintly of damp wool.

Ethan had spread Neresso's books and letters upon the table. Monford's captain had found the books in the merchant's room and the letters in a locked box beneath his bed. Neresso had made no attempt to destroy them.

He came in wearing the robe in which he had been arrested, now dry. He had combed his beard with wet fingers. Jon received the deeper bow; Monford received the longer look.

"May I sit, my lord?"

Jon indicated the chair. Arthur stayed by the door while the merchant settled himself.

Neresso readily admitted supplying Pello, the collector's dead captain. He paid Borren for the use of the store and sent canvas, rope and oil from Hull. When Pello lacked coin, he paid in goods. Neresso opened his book and showed them the entries.

"I have dealt with him for nearly four years. Other captains use the store as well."

"Give Ethan their names."

He gave three. Then he explained the wool, the copper and the silver, naming buyers and prices with the ease of a man in his own counting room. He had been trading before Jon was born and seemed determined to remind him of it.

Jon stopped him at an entry for passage across the narrow sea.

"Who were these people?"

"Men seeking work. I found them berths when they could not pay for themselves."

"And who paid you?"

"The men who took them into service."

Jon left his finger upon the page. "A woman was brought ashore here with her ankles raw from irons. Hessa fed her. Two nights later she was put aboard another ship."

"I was not on Dragonstone."

"Was she seeking work?"

"I never saw her. I cannot tell you what happened to her."

"We found chains aboard Pello's ship," Arthur said.

"Ships from the east carry slaves. Selling a man rope does not make me answerable for everything he does with it."

"And arranging their passage?" Jon asked.

Neresso looked towards Monford. "I can answer for my own dealings. I cannot answer for every story told against a captain who is dead."

"Then answer for these." Jon tapped the book.

"I have."

For the first time he sounded irritated. His hands remained flat upon his knees.

Jon asked who stood behind Pello's voyages. Neresso named two merchants in Tyrosh and gave Ethan directions to their counting rooms. On the passage payments he would say no more. Jon sent him back under guard.

At the door Neresso turned to Monford. "There is other men's property in my warehouse. Goods held against debts. They will need my books."

"We shall have copies made," Monford said.

He waited until the merchant had gone. "He will say he trusted his captains."

"Do you believe him?"

"No. But some men in Hull will say you killed him for his warehouse. Others owe him money and will be glad to believe the charges."

"Then they can hear the evidence. Bring the mate."

* * *
​

The mate had been fed and shaved. A raw nick showed beneath his jaw. He looked over the papers before sitting, but Jon had closed Neresso's books.

"You gave us Drennan and the store," Jon said. "Where was Pello taking you afterwards?"

"South. He chose the ports."

"You were his mate. You knew where you were bound."

The man rubbed his wrist. Arthur pulled out the chair beside Jon, and he glanced round at the scrape of its legs.

"Bloodstone. The eastern anchorage, below the old fort."

"Who holds it?"

"Vhalar."

Monford leaned forward. "I heard Rolo of Myr had driven him off."

"Rolo took the south beach while Vhalar's father lay dying. Vhalar never lost the fort."

Ships were easier to speak of. At Jon's questioning the mate named eight galleys and ten longboats, all Vhalar's, inherited from his father. The two northern collectors Jon had captured were additional vessels, as was the third ship that had stood farther out during the fight.

"When did you last see those eighteen?" Jon asked.

"Before we sailed north."

He could give no reliable number for the garrison. Jon stopped him when he began counting sailors twice and asked what he had seen ashore. The mate described barracks, a repaired wall and guarded steps above the water. A spring supplied the houses below the fort. Monford questioned him about the shallows and made him trace the headland in a patch of spilt water.

Jon knew Bloodstone from histories of Daemon's wars. None told him where a boat could land now. He asked about the path behind the houses, but the mate had never followed it. Ethan left that part of his sketch unfinished.

"What did you carry back from the northern stores?" Jon asked.

"Coin. Supplies. Whatever Pello was sent for."

"Where is the coin?"

"Drazen took it."

He was Vhalar's lieutenant, the man sent to collect from the northern captains. The mate had helped carry chests onto his sailing ship at their last meeting before Dragonstone. He had seen bags of gold and silver opened for the reckoning, and other chests already below. He did not know their worth. Borren's store had not yet been emptied when Jon's men came ashore.

"Drazen was aboard the ship that waited farthest out?" Arthur asked.

"Yes." The mate looked between them. "Did she get clear?"

"She did."

He drew his hands off the table.

"Then he'll be going back."

"To Bloodstone?" Jon asked.

The mate stared at the closed books. Ethan waited with his pen above the page.

"My woman is there."

"Does Drazen know you lived?"

"He'll find out. And if your ships turn up asking after the fort, Vhalar will know someone talked." He looked at the guard. "I'm saying nothing more while she's there."

Jon sent the guard into the passage and waited for the door to close.

"Tell me her name."

"Let me fetch her."

"You are staying here."

"Then bring her away first."

"How do you expect us to find her?"

The mate had offered silver readily enough after his capture. He had spoken of the people in the hold as cargo. Now he sat with his jaw clenched, unable to trust them with one woman's name.

Jon let the silence last. He studied the sketch, weighing what it would take to land men at Bloodstone and seize the anchorage.

"I will try to save her," Jon said. "That is all I can promise."

"How?"

"That is for me to decide."

The mate stared at him. His eyes went to the door, then back to Jon. At last he leaned forward.

"Merra. Her brother is Tero, a caulker. Two fingers missing from his left hand. The pitch sellers below the fort know him."

Ethan took the names and directions on a separate sheet, then folded the sheet and set it apart from the account. Jon poured water with his left hand. The mate drank before he would look at him again.

"What did Vhalar want the money for?"

"Moreo. I heard him say Moreo had held the western landing long enough. I was at the fort with Pello."

"Has he attacked?"

"I don't know. The captains were talking of it when we left. Pello said Vhalar meant to move once the collections came south."

Money was short then. Some crews were still waiting to be paid. Besides Drazen's collections, Vhalar expected a Tyroshi factor with the proceeds of copper and silver sold in the east. The factor was buying grain as well. Pello had received word at Hull and meant to be back before him.

"Did he give a day?"

"No, my lord."

Jon told Ethan to have the other prisoners questioned separately about Drazen's cargo. Then he drew Neresso's book towards him.

"What did this man do for Pello?"

"Sold what we brought. Took his share. He's Vhalar's cousin."

Monford's hand stopped beside the sketch.

"Who told you that?"

"Pello. They quarrelled over eight bales of wet wool last autumn. Neresso wanted his money. Pello said being Vhalar's cousin didn't spare him his share of a loss."

He remembered Neresso sending his clerk Harro to inspect the bales. Monford's captain confirmed that Harro was under guard at Hull. Ethan found the eight bales in the book, with part of the loss charged to Neresso. Jon left the page open.

"Did he see the captives?"

"Once. In a lighter at Hull. He said two were too old for the price."

The captain looked up from the book.

"Where did Pello get his captives?" Arthur asked.

"Men ashore brought some. We took others from fishing boats. Pello chose who went south."

"And you?" Jon asked.

"I did what I was told."

"Did you guard them?"

The mate looked at Ethan's folded sheet.

"Yes."

Jon thought of Laro running to meet the woman from Denys's ship. Five brought home. There were families still watching for boats that would never bring anyone back.

"How many does Vhalar hold at Bloodstone?"

"Two hundred. Three, perhaps. I never counted them."

That was when he had last sailed. They were kept in two long sheds behind the storehouses, below the fort. Buyers came from Lys and Tyrosh. Vhalar kept shipwrights and smiths for his own use; others hauled timber in chains. There were women and children among them, and some spoke the Common Tongue.

Jon had him mark the sheds and the guards upon Ethan's sketch. Then they went through the northern landings and the approach to Dragonstone. Drennan had warned Pello in time for him to try to empty the store. They had expected watchmen or a searching galley. The attack in the dark had caught them unready.

"Had Vhalar ordered you to take me?"

"We didn't know you were aboard."

"Pello called for me to be taken alive."

"He saw your sword. The knights trying to reach you. He thought you'd fetch a ransom."

"Did he say that?"

"No. I heard him call for you alive. The rest is what I thought."

Jon sat back. He had wondered whether a man at court lay behind the attack. Nothing the mate had told him supported it. For now, he had a captain clearing stolen goods from a store and seizing his chance at a valuable prisoner.

When Ethan finished writing, the mate asked whether Jon would spare him.

"I have promised you nothing for yourself."

"But Merra—"

"I will try to save them both." Jon called the guard. "You will repeat your evidence before my lords tomorrow."

The mate watched Ethan put the folded sheet away before allowing himself to be led out.

Monford rose and stretched his legs.

"Moreo Vaharis holds the western landing. He raided with Vhalar's father. With Rolo in the south, that is three pirate fleets on one island."

"What does Vhalar prey on?"

"Merchantmen, mostly. They strip the holds and take the crews. Ransom for those who can pay. The slave markets for the rest." He looked at the sketch. "We need to know where those eighteen ships are now."

Jon nodded. "Bring Neresso back. And send for Abel."

* * *
​

Neresso drew the book towards himself as soon as he sat down.

"Eight bales of wool," Jon said. "You shared Pello's loss when they took water. What share did you take when a cargo sold well?"

"Whatever we had agreed. I put money into his voyages. That is hardly a crime."

"Did you know the ships were Vhalar's?"

"Of course."

"Your cousin."

Neresso looked at Monford. "His father was my uncle."

"You might have told me," the lord said.

"And would you have heard another word?"

His uncle had commanded ships for Maelys, he said, then lost his warehouses years later by backing the wrong man for Archon. He had fled Tyrosh with his ships and taken to plundering his enemies' trade. Vhalar had inherited the fleet and fort when the old man died.

"I sent provisions to my own blood. I have never hidden that I trade with his captains."

"You called it trade when they brought you stolen goods," Jon said.

"Then bring the owners here. I will answer for what I bought." He turned to Monford. "Your men watched the ships unload. You took your dues."

"Did I give you leave to sell men?"

"I found them passage."

Abel came in with his gown over his nightshirt. Jon gave him the books, showed him the six passages from Hull and told him what the mate had said. Ethan brought another candle while Neresso explained his expenses. Food, freight, the hire of the lighter. Abel listened and turned back through the accounts.

"The mate saw you inspect those people," Jon said. "You complained that two were too old for the price."

"A prisoner who hopes to save himself. What have you promised him?"

"An attempt to help two people at Bloodstone. Nothing for himself."

"He will still tell you what you want to hear."

"Harro and your boatmen will be questioned as well."

Neresso's thumb stopped upon the edge of the book. "They knew only what they were paid to do."

"Then you can tell us the rest."

"They were Pello's debtors. He had a claim upon their service."

"Did you see a judgement against them?"

"No. I had his word."

"Did any of them ask you to find them work?"

"Pello made the arrangements."

Jon waited until Neresso met his eyes.

"I asked you whether they asked for work."

"No."

Abel set the second book beside the first.

"Your expenses were repaid here," he said. "Food and passage, in full. This later payment was your profit."

"My fee."

"A share of what the buyer paid for six people. It is entered beside Pello's."

Neresso read it for himself. He turned back a page, then forward again.

"I advanced the money. I stood to lose it."

"You knew they were being sold," Jon said.

"They were sold in Tyrosh."

"And you arranged it from Hull."

For a moment only Abel's pages could be heard. Neresso looked to Monford, who left the book between them untouched.

"Lord Monford knows how long I have traded in his harbour. I have paid every due asked of me."

"You will answer Lord Jon."

The merchant straightened in his chair.

"Yes. I found the ship knowing they would be sold. I received a share. But I did not take them from their homes, and I never ordered Pello to take them. Write that too."

"Where did he get them?"

"He said a coaster. I do not know which."

"You said they were debtors."

"That was what he told me."

Ethan wrote down the answer. Jon made Neresso name the ship that had carried the six east and the buyer who had received them. Neresso supplied both, insisting that he knew nothing of what happened after the sale. When Ethan read his account back, he corrected the vessel's name and made him repeat the words concerning Pello.

Jon went on to the northern buyers of the stolen goods. Neresso supplied names and directions for men at Duskendale and Maidenpool, slowly at first, then more readily when he saw Ethan recording his help.

"Some bought without knowing where the cargo came from," he said. "You will ruin honest men if you seize everyone who traded with us."

"They will be questioned."

Monford knew one of the Tyroshi houses Neresso had named; he had bought pitch through them himself. Jon would have to separate the stolen cargo from the lawful trade.

They finished with the money sent south. Neresso produced a receipt for his payment to Drazen. He could not tell them what the lieutenant had collected elsewhere. For the Tyroshi factor there was a letter: copper and silver had been sold, grain was to be bought, and the balance brought to Bloodstone. Abel found the consignment in the book.

"When does Vhalar expect him?" Jon asked.

"Five weeks. Perhaps six, from now. It depends upon the grain and the wind."

"The copper was stolen?"

"Taken from a ship. I was not there."

Jon left Abel to check the remaining entries. They had no certain sum aboard Drazen's ship and no firm day for the factor's arrival.

Neresso watched the books pass out of his reach.

"You will need men in the eastern ports. I can write to merchants who would shut their doors to your captains. Have them watch for Drazen and the factor."

"And what do you ask?"

"Let me return to Hull, under Lord Monford's eye. Keep my goods until I have done what I promise."

"No."

"I am offering you a means to find them."

"Give Ethan the names. Any letter you send will be read." Jon stood. "Tomorrow you will answer the charge in my hall. If you wish to call a witness, name him tonight."

Neresso remained seated until the guard came beside him. Then he rose and straightened his robe.

"Lord Monford, I ask that you be there."

"I will."

He went without help, asking at the door for water to wash and a clean garment for the hearing. Jon nodded to the guard.

Abel needed more time with the books. Jon told him to have copies made so that the records of lawful business could return to Hull.

"My harbourmaster will answer for this," Monford said.

"Find out what he did. If he took money, bring him here. We still need to know which ships passed through."

The lord looked sharply at him. Jon held his gaze. He would not let the enquiry end with the punishment of a careless harbourmaster.

"Ethan will send a man with your captain," he said.

Monford inclined his head. "You shall have an account."

The passage was cold after the close room. A servant had fallen asleep upon a bench. He woke at Arthur's touch and hurried away for a candle while Jon drew on his cloak.

Monford lingered by the door.

"My father said he knew every master who came into Hull." He watched the servant disappear into the darkness. "I used to believe him."

Monford wished them good night and followed the servant towards his chambers. Jon waited until they had turned the corner, then took the sketch of the anchorage from Ethan and left with Arthur.

* * *
​

Arthur waited until the chamber door was shut.

"You need not go to Bloodstone."

Jon laid the sketch upon the table. "You have decided where I am going?"

"You asked about the fort long after you had enough to judge the men who served it." Arthur took off his cloak but did not sit. "We can clear your coast without taking a war into the Stepstones."

"And wait for Vhalar to send more men?"

"Make it costly enough and he may turn elsewhere."

"To a merchantman with fewer guards. Or a village farther south." Jon pulled out a chair. His right hand caught against the back; he stopped until the pain subsided. Arthur watched him sit.

"You have been through my plans," Jon said. "You sat with Abel this morning. You know what the works will cost."

"I know we left money against need."

"We did. It will not pay for every work I have begun."

"The eastern orders will bring more."

"They will. But in Essos it is still the smaller men placing orders. It will take time for the richer merchants and magisters to see the clocks and want their own. Then William has to make them. The money will come, but I cannot put men to work on the strength of orders we have yet to receive."

Arthur draped his cloak over the other chair.

"Then let the harbour wait."

"For how long? We need more workshops and trained hands before we can fill those orders. If I wait for the rich men to come to us before I build, I will have to make them wait in turn. You have seen how much needs doing here."

"And Bloodstone will pay for all this?" Arthur sat. "We have a prisoner's account of the place and a drawing that ends at the wall. Drazen may already have warned Vhalar. You could spend more fitting out than you bring home."

"If Drazen brings the money, Vhalar can move against Moreo. I mean to strike before he does."

"Drazen left before we knew his name. He may already be there."

"Then we have less time."

"Send a ship ahead. Find out whether Moreo still holds the western landing, and what stands between you and that fort."

"No. I will not wait for a man to go there and come back. If Vhalar takes Moreo's ships while we wait, we shall have those to fight as well."

"You do not even know how many men defend the wall."

"I know."

Arthur stared at him. "How soon?"

"The day after tomorrow. With the ships already fit to sail."

"You would put men ashore upon that account?" He pointed to the sketch.

"Yes. The longer I give him, the stronger he may be."

"Or we may arrive to find he has done it already. You are risking the men on a hope that he is slower than you."

Jon had considered that. Drazen had the better start, and no wounded men or household to settle behind him. Jon could lose the race before his ships left the harbour.

"We go now."

Arthur looked at the bandage resting in Jon's lap.

"You have another expedition planned. What became of finding your wealth in the east?"

"The expedition will have to wait."

"You spoke of finding buyers and bringing craftsmen here. I would sooner see you finish preparing that voyage than take on a pirate fleet because tonight we learnt where its master keeps his gold."

"And sail in what? The ships Qavo has not built?" Jon drew the candle away from the edge of the sketch. "I considered taking the vessels we have. They will serve in the Stepstones. For the voyage I intend, I want the new hulls."

"Then give Qavo time."

"He needs a yard fit to build them in. Workshops, materials, men who can do the work. He cannot make all of that from my drawings. The harbour need not be finished, but enough of the works must be. Until then the expedition waits."

"And while you wait, you would fight a war to pay for it."

"I would punish the man who sent slavers into my waters. Neresso did not act alone. Vhalar has people shut in sheds waiting to be sold, and ships crewed by the men who put them there. There is justice to be done there."

"There are slavers all across the eastern sea."

"This one has made himself my concern." Jon met his eyes. "And yes, I want his money. I want his ships. You need not make me confess it. They would help us here, and leave him unable to send another Pello north."

Arthur leaned back.

"Tomorrow I will ask the lords for ships," Jon said. "I expect excuses. Let Ethan take them down. I would sooner sail with our own men under Denys, but they shall answer me before one another."

"You have settled a great deal since supper."

"We learnt a great deal."

"And every answer has given you something else that cannot wait."

Jon looked up from the sketch. Arthur had left it untouched throughout the argument.

"What are you hurrying to get ahead of?" his uncle asked.

"You know there is more to prepare for than Vhalar."

"I remember the throne with nothing alive left to rule. You told me that dream. You did not tell me we were running out of days."

Jon could not have given him a day or a year he trusted. Too much had changed already. That uncertainty made the unfinished works harder to bear, not easier; he knew how long it took to turn money into something men could use.

"We have work enough for years," he said. "I will not let every chance pass because it comes before I am ready for it."

"A chance to gain something, or a chance to lose you?"

"Both. I know that."

Arthur's jaw tightened. He glanced again at Jon's hand, then made himself look away from it.

"When the time comes, I will explain," Jon said. "For now I need to get these things done. Every season we spend waiting is one we cannot use again."

"Is this something Bloodraven has told you? Or have you had another dragon dream?"

Jon folded the sketch along its old crease. He had told Arthur what he had seen. Explaining how much else he knew was another matter.

"I will tell you when I can."

Arthur remained seated. Jon let him weigh the answer without adding to it. At last his uncle reached for his cloak.

"I'll hold you to that."

* * *
​

By noon the yard was full of other men's colours.

A groom led away a horse beneath the red crabs of Celtigar. Beyond him, Lady Mylenda Bar Emmon brushed a speck from her son's shoulder. Duram endured it with his chin raised. His sword hung too high; as soon as she finished, he put his hand upon the hilt.

Jon waited at the foot of the steps with Arthur. Lorren had forbidden him to hold a sword, write with his right hand, or unwrap the dressing to see whether the wound looked better. Beneath the linen, it itched.

Lord Ardrian bowed over the hand Jon offered. He was broad through the middle, his beard neatly trimmed beneath pale brows.

"My lord. Two cases of wine from Claw Isle. Your steward has the tally."

Jon thanked him and sent Olyver to see the bearers in. Ardrian beckoned a square-built knight forward.

"My sister's son, Ser Corwyn."

Corwyn made his greeting, though his eyes had already gone to Arthur.

"Ser Arthur. Might I join you in the yard tomorrow?"

"If we have time."

"Thank you, ser."

He followed his uncle up the steps, looking pleased with the visit already.

Guncer Sunglass brought a septon and several of his household. Jon recognised the knight at his shoulder a moment before he bowed.

"Ser Eustace. You came."

"You asked me to, my lord. When my cousin said he was sailing, I begged a place."

"Have you recovered from your turn with Ser Arthur?"

"I have been trying to finish my attacks." Eustace glanced at Arthur. "He said I broke them off too soon."

"We shall see."

Guncer waited to present his septon, then his nephew, Ser Elyas. The younger Sunglass handed a bow case to a servant but kept a small leather satchel close against his side. Jon returned his greeting and asked after the book protruding from it. A table of the stars, Elyas said; some of the leaves had been spoiled during the crossing. He hoped Jon's maester might have a copy. Guncer brought the introduction to an end before his nephew could show them the damage.

Mylenda let her son speak first.

"Lord Jon. Thank you for receiving us."

The words had been practised. Duram got through them without looking at her.

"Lord Duram. Lady Mylenda. A good passage?"

"Very good," the boy said.

"He was on deck before dawn. He meant to have the first sight of Dragonstone."

"I saw the smoke."

"Your chambers look towards the mountain," Jon told him. "You may watch it from there."

Mylenda thanked him and called forward Ser Garon Bar Emmon. He carried a packet wrapped against the sea air.

"Our shipping accounts. Ser Garon has seen the work upon the galley himself. He can answer for the repairs."

Ethan received the packet.

"The master's estimate is folded inside," Garon said.

The castellan led them in. Jon waited for Duram to finish looking up at the towers, then went beside him into the hall.

The chair upon the dais had been made for a larger man. Jon had refused a cushion; two would scarcely have helped, and he had no wish to conduct the day's business perched upon a heap of wool. His feet reached the step. That would do.

Below him, the households found their places. The captured ships had been visible from the sea. Word of Neresso had travelled ahead of the guests from the yard, and several turned to look when guards took up their stations at the side door.

Arthur called Monford forward.

The Lord of the Tides knelt and gave his hands. He placed them carefully beneath Jon's bandaged right, without a glance at the wound. His oath carried through the hall. Men at the back who had been whispering fell quiet.

Jon promised him the protection and justice due from his lord, and raised him. Last night Monford had disputed the loss of a handful of workmen. Today he swore to put his strength at Jon's service. Before the afternoon was over, they would have to settle how much that meant.

Ardrian followed him, then Guncer. The septon watched Sunglass kneel before a lord who kept the old gods. Guncer spoke without hesitation; Jon received him with the same words he had given the others.

Duram came last, his mother a pace behind.

The hem of his cloak caught beneath his foot. Jon reached out and steadied him before he fell.

"Take your time."

The boy's ears reddened. He found the beginning of the oath and kept his eyes upon Jon until he had finished. Mylenda then gave her undertaking as regent, to govern Sharp Point in accordance with her son's sworn duty. She had made him speak for his house; when she spoke in her turn, there was no doubt who would have to find the men and money.

The hall stirred as they rose. Arthur stayed beside the chair, and the servants with the wine remained at the far doors.

"There is a judgement to be heard," Jon said. "Bring in Neresso."

The merchant wore a clean robe sent up from Monford's baggage. He had fastened it high at the throat and smoothed his beard. He bowed to Jon, then turned sufficiently to be seen by the other lords.

Ethan read the charges. Neresso had supplied Vhalar's ships, found buyers for stolen cargo, and knowingly arranged the transport of captives to be sold across the narrow sea. He gave the dates the books supplied. Where a witness remembered only a season, he said so.

Ardrian's steward began to write.

Neresso looked from Ethan to Jon.

"I have not denied my dealings with my cousin. I have given you the names of men who can speak to them. But I never sent Pello to take those people. I did not know where he had found them."

"You knew they were being sent for sale," Jon said.

"I arranged the passage. Pello had them brought to Hull. They were his."

"And you received part of what they fetched."

"For the passage, the food, the trouble of finding a ship. I explained the account last night."

Jon looked to Abel. The treasurer opened the book upon the table below the dais, but Ethan still had the dealings at the Dragonstone store to read. Neresso heard Borren's name and raised his voice.

"Borren paid the watchman. I did not. I knew nothing of that payment."

"We have no proof that you ordered it," Jon said. "Ethan, make that plain."

The castellan amended the account. Monford watched him write.

The mate was brought forward to describe the lighter at Hull. He kept his hands clasped before him as he told of Neresso looking over the captives and objecting to the value put upon two of them.

"This man was aboard the ship that fought you," Neresso said. "He would have carried you south himself if Pello had won. Now he hopes you will spare him for giving you a richer man."

"He has been promised nothing for himself." Jon turned to Abel. "Read the entry."

Abel gave the cost of six passages and the food advanced. Those expenses had been repaid. Then he read the sum left to Neresso from the sale, showing where it was entered apart from them.

"The better the price, the greater his return," he said.

"Without my money they would not have sailed," Neresso answered. "I stood to lose it."

"And expected to profit," Jon said.

"As any man would who advanced it. I did not take them from their homes."

He spoke towards Monford now. He meant to leave Pello with the blame for taking the captives and to answer only for the money. Jon had seen how carefully he counted even a small loss. He would have counted his share of these six people just as carefully.

Sunglass stepped forward when Jon invited questions.

"Were these admissions freely given?"

"I have been held under guard since yesterday," Neresso said. "And I had heard how the other prisoners were questioned."

"Were you beaten?"

"No."

"Threatened with torment?"

"No one needed to tell me what might follow if I displeased him."

Sunglass looked up at Jon.

"The mate was struck after we took his ship," Jon said. "I ordered it. Last night he was fed and questioned apart from Neresso. No one struck either man."

"I was there," Monford said. "Neresso disputed the account Ethan read back to him and corrected the vessel's name. He admitted arranging the voyage for a sale and receiving his part of the money. He also said that he had not known where the people were taken."

"That is what I have said here." Neresso faced Jon again. "I have helped you find the men you want. I have answered what I could."

Sunglass withdrew. Neresso watched him return to his place, then addressed the dais before another question could be put.

"If a fine is required, I can meet it. There are goods at Hull, debts owed to me. Men who will advance money upon my word."

"Some of those goods have owners," Mylenda said. "Their claims must be heard."

"Of course, my lady. I am speaking of what is mine." His courtesy remained exact. "Lord Monford knows how long I have traded in his harbour. I can pay."

Monford did not answer. Neresso had brought his appeal round to him again, in front of the other houses, but this time the Lord of the Tides kept his eyes upon Jon.

Jon rose, leaving his injured hand against his body.

"Neresso of Hull. You arranged for six people to be carried from Hull for sale, knowing why they were being sent. You received a share of the price. Your book records it, and you have admitted it before these lords."

"I have admitted no part in their taking."

"I have heard you." Jon waited until the merchant stopped trying to speak. "You will be beheaded at dawn."

Neresso stared up at him. Behind the lords, someone drew a sharp breath.

"Your property will remain under guard while claims are heard. Goods belonging to others will be returned where ownership is proved. What remains yours is forfeit. You may speak with the septon before morning, if you wish."

"Lord Monford."

The merchant's voice had changed. Monford met his eyes, but offered nothing. When the guards took Neresso's arms, his knees gave, and for several paces they bore most of his weight. Near the door, a woman drew a child out of their way.

Jon waited until they had gone. Abel's account remained upon the table below him. Six people had been entered there and a sum paid against them. Whether they still lived would take longer to discover. He would have Marrec begin today.

"My lords. We will speak in the council chamber."

* * *
​

Ardrian waited until the servants had set down the bread.

"You will have claims from every port between here and White Harbour. A man hears of a warehouse seized, and remembers a cargo he lost ten years ago."

"He will have to prove it," Jon said.

"That can be expensive work."

"Sharp Point can spare you some of it," Mylenda said. "We have Neresso's receipt."

Ardrian turned to her.

"Oak for our galley, ash for the oars. Paid for. He said the timber was at Hull, but when our master went to see it, the lighter had been delayed."

"Give the receipt to Abel," Jon told her.

"If he has sold it twice, my lord, I should like to know whose claim comes first."

Abel opened the smaller of the merchant's books. There were other advances, he said, and cargoes held against debts. Some of the goods at Hull had never been paid for. The coin in the chest would not cover the sums already claimed against it.

Ardrian listened with his bread untouched. Jon had seen him look at the chest when they entered; now he looked at Abel's list.

"Nothing is to be spent from it until the claims have been examined," Jon said. "Lady Mylenda's with the rest."

She accepted that. Beside her, Duram picked at a crack in the crust of his bread. He had said nothing since Neresso was taken away.

Denys brought the chart to the table. His coat was fastened loosely over the torn shoulder. Monford moved a cup so that he could unfold it without reaching across, then remained standing beside him.

"The people he sold," Sunglass said. "Will you seek them?"

Jon turned from the chart.

"We have the vessel's name and the buyer's. Marrec will make enquiries."

"And if the buyer will not give them up?"

"First we must find him."

Guncer did not look satisfied. He could offer a man or a ship if he wished to hasten the work. Jon turned back to Denys.

Denys laid a report beside the chart. The captured galley had been sighted from the headland; she should make the harbour that afternoon.

"Is that the galley your admiral took?" Ardrian asked.

"Yes," Jon said. "He brought our five missing people home on his own ship. The galley is following. Drazen escaped."

"With a warning for his master," Monford said. "If he has any sense."

"And the collections," Denys added. "We must expect Vhalar to have both by now."

Jon asked him to give the account. Vhalar commanded eight galleys and ten longboats, apart from the northern collectors and Drazen's vessel. The mate had known the captains when he sailed; he could not say where they were today. He placed Vhalar at the eastern anchorage beneath the old fort, Rolo upon the southern beach, and Moreo Vaharis at the western landing. According to Pello, Vhalar meant to move against Moreo once the collections came south.

Neresso's payment to Drazen was entered in his books. The mate had helped carry other chests aboard. Neither knew the value of the whole cargo, and it might already be spent. The separate Tyroshi consignment would bring proceeds from copper and silver, with grain bought for the fort. Neresso expected it in five or six weeks. They did not yet have the factor's sailing date.

Denys laid Ethan's sketch beside the chart. He went through what the mate had said of the sheds: two or three hundred captives at his last visit, some kept to work, others awaiting buyers from Lys and Tyrosh.

"From our coasts?" Sunglass asked.

"He heard the Common Tongue among them," Jon said. "He could not tell me more."

Sunglass bent over the sketch.

The houses had ships enough between them. Jon knew the numbers from Ethan's reports. Their captains would look to Driftmark or Claw Isle when Denys gave an unwelcome order. He preferred his own command. He would ask all the same, and remember their answers when they next came seeking a favour.

"You mean to take it," Ardrian said.

"I mean to take the anchorage."

Duram broke his crust. In the pause, the sound was surprisingly loud. Mylenda put a hand beside his plate and he laid the pieces down.

Monford looked from the fort to Jon.

"Daemon chose that place for a base. Stone above, galleys below. You will not take it by climbing over a rail."

Monford's eyes went once to the bandage. Jon left his hand where it was.

"I mean to strike before he takes Moreo's fleet as well."

"Has he not taken it already?"

"We do not know."

"Then send men to find out."

"They would need time to reach Bloodstone and return. I intend to sail tomorrow."

Monford set down his cup. "Without anyone having seen the defences?"

"Without waiting for scouts. I will take the ships we can make ready."

"You have not seen the place, you do not know its strength, and you will be putting men ashore before you can judge either."

"I may find more than I expect. I may also find him before he has swallowed Moreo's camp. That is the chance I mean to take."

Sunglass looked towards Arthur. Jon's uncle did not speak in his support.

Ardrian addressed Ethan across the table. "With the yard being built? The houses? Can you spare the men for this?"

Ethan looked to Jon.

"What ships can Claw Isle have ready?" Jon asked.

"My armed ships guard trade. Several are promised to voyages already paid for. Calling them home would break those agreements."

"When are they due back?"

"The first should return before the month is out, if the winds hold. But she is promised to a second convoy."

"And another?"

"My lord, merchants pay for safe passage. I cannot take their silver and leave them to the very men you wish to punish."

"Then name the first you can spare."

"Before we name ships," Monford said, "we should know what they are being asked to do. Burn a pirate's boats? Take his fort? Hold Bloodstone?"

"His anchorage," Jon said. "We take his fleet and free the people he holds there."

"And when you have them?"

"Leave. With the captives, the ships and what we can carry. I have no intention of playing conqueror."

Not yet. Jon looked down at Bloodstone. He wanted that anchorage, and disliked the thought of leaving it for another pirate to claim. But Dragonstone was already consuming his money and every trained hand he could find. He could not afford to keep a garrison supplied so far from home, or spare the ships to defend it. In five or six years, perhaps, with a larger fleet and the income to maintain it, taking the Stepstones need not be beyond him. He would plan for that properly.

Monford drew out his chair and sat.

"Then send to the Hand. The Free Cities will hear that a Westerosi lord is attacking Bloodstone. Tyrosh has merchants who sell to these pirates and buy their plunder."

"Some may have bought my people."

"They will not put that in their letters."

Sunglass leaned forward. "Your cause against Vhalar is plain. The men who lend him money may care more about what they stand to lose."

"And ask their archon to recover it," Monford said. "Sailing home will not necessarily end the quarrel. Lord Arryn should know what you intend before Tyrosh sends him its own account."

Denys spoke before Jon could answer. "If Drazen has brought the pay, Vhalar need not wait for the Tyroshi cargo. Moreo's ships could be his before that factor leaves port."

"Waiting may give you a sound ship in place of a hurried repair," Monford said. "You have a prize coming in today. Have you examined her keel?"

"No."

"Then we do not yet know whether she adds to your strength or your shipwright's work."

"Qavo examines her when she comes in," Jon said. "Denys will reckon only the ships fit to sail."

Monford continued before Ardrian could take up the objection.

"Make your ships ready while your men find out what is there. You need not sail before Lord Arryn has answered."

That was the restraint they wanted him to accept: a raven to King's Landing, an answer, perhaps another letter explaining why the first answer would not serve. Meanwhile Drazen could be paying crews upon Bloodstone, and another ship could be loading captives for Lys. Jon had waited upon distant decisions in his first life. The men who made them seldom had to mend what happened while they considered.

"I will send him an account today. I mean to leave on the first tide after dawn, once Neresso's sentence has been carried out. The ships that can sail will go with me."

"Then you ask us to commit our crews tonight," Mylenda said, "to an attack for which you cannot tell us the enemy's strength."

"I have told you what we know. I am asking whether you will send them."

Sunglass folded his hands upon the table.

"My oath requires me to defend these coasts. My ships will answer for that. I cannot leave Sweetport Sound bare while we discover how many enemies this raid will bring us."

"Nor can I leave our merchants without their escorts," Ardrian said.

"And Sharp Point has one galley under repair," Mylenda said. "You have heard what became of the timber for her."

"Our cog has carried men," Duram said.

His mother turned towards him. For a moment Jon thought she would silence the boy outright.

"Between our own ports," she said. "Where her master knows the water, and can put in if the weather turns." She faced Jon again. "She may serve here. I cannot pledge her to Bloodstone."

Duram kept his eyes upon his plate. Jon turned to Monford.

"Driftmark?" Jon asked.

"When the Crown has settled what is to be done," Monford said. "I will not lead my men into a quarrel with Tyrosh upon the strength of a prisoner's account."

"Enter their answers, Ethan."

Jon took his hand off the chart while the castellan wrote.

"Then I shall take my own ships and men. I will command them."

Ardrian began to speak, but Jon was already turning the chart towards the Gullet.

"Your coasts will require a guard. You have all agreed upon that."

He waited until Ardrian's attention followed his hand.

"Two armed vessels from Driftmark. One each from Claw Isle, Sweetport Sound and Sharp Point, with fit crews and provisions for forty days. Send the orders today. Ships already in your harbours are to come here at once."

"The same ships cannot—" Ardrian began.

"You have told me your merchants cannot be left to these men. I agree. One armed ship will join the patrol. Your officers will help search the landings."

"Claw Isle as well?"

"All four coasts. Lord Sunglass has acknowledged the duty. I require the same service from you."

Guncer looked at Ardrian. He did not withdraw the offer.

"One vessel," Celtigar said at last. "You will have her name."

Mylenda asked whether her armed cog would serve until the galley was fit. Jon agreed. Garon was to go through the repair account with Ethan, so that they would know when to expect her replacement.

Monford let them finish.

"Who commands these patrols?"

"Denys will draw their orders. He is my acting admiral. Before we sail, he will choose a captain to command in his absence, subject to my approval. One of my armed ships will remain until your patrol is assembled."

"Driftmark supplies two of the five ships. My masters know these waters and have served beneath my house for generations."

"Then give Denys the names of the men you trust with the duty."

Monford looked down the table at the admiral. "You would choose between them?"

"I would want to speak with them first," Denys said. "A captain who knows one approach well may know little of another. Their orders must cover all four coasts."

Jon waited. Monford could offer a good man and give him the chance of command, or keep him at home to make a point.

"My captains will report here," he said.

The assent was curt.

Ethan began to set out the searches ashore. Harbour officers would supply the names of masters who had traded with Neresso, including those whose dealings appeared lawful. Local men would lead the examination of the smaller landings, with Jon's officers beside them.

"Hull has already been searched," Monford said.

"Neresso's rooms," Ethan replied. "We need the men who brought his goods through the harbour."

"My harbourmaster can find them."

"He can begin today," Jon said. "Your captain takes the names back with him. My officer will hear what they say."

"Is my harbourmaster accused as well?"

"He has questions to answer. So did one of my guards."

"Hull trades with half the narrow sea. Men who have bought a coil of rope from Neresso should not have their doors broken because your officer does not know them."

"Then let yours show him which door to knock at," Sunglass said. "Mine will have to do the same."

Monford turned sharply towards him. Guncer went on.

"I would sooner have my own man present than learn afterwards what was asked in my harbour."

"There will be no seizure for having dealt with him," Jon said. "No ship detained merely because a name is in his books. Ethan will put that in the order. Where there is evidence, I expect it brought here, with the man who can answer it."

"And until then the harbour remains under my officers."

"They continue their duties. My men go with them."

Monford considered the words. "Copies of the statements to me."

Jon agreed. The originals would come to Dragonstone. Ethan recorded both provisions, and Monford watched him do it.

Ardrian asked about masters who had changed their ships' names. Denys wanted descriptions of the hulls, old ports and known associates, not merely lists to be compared by a clerk. For a while they spoke of particular anchorages. Mylenda named a creek that could take a laden lighter at high water. Monford corrected its depth. She named the master who used it, and he asked that the man be sent to Denys.

They knew their waters. Jon listened and let Ethan fill the page.

Ardrian asked about prizes.

"If my captain takes a raider, Claw Isle will expect a return. His crew cannot spend forty days earning nothing while another crew takes their place upon a paid voyage."

"The prize terms will be settled before they sail. Identifiable goods go back to their owners upon proof. The taking crew receives its reward, with provision for the wounded. Captured hulls come here for judgement."

"And a share of what is taken at Bloodstone?"

"No."

"Our ships will be guarding your waters while yours go south. That frees men for your expedition. The service has a value."

Jon heard Mylenda shift beside him. It was a better claim than he had expected Ardrian to make.

"It does. Your people will have the same protection as mine, and your crews the same terms upon patrol. If you want a share of what is taken at Bloodstone, send a ship to take it."

Ardrian looked towards Monford. The Lord of the Tides was reading the search order.

"We shall need the patrol terms in writing," Celtigar said.

"You shall have them."

Jon had Ethan include the conduct expected of the captains. A merchant who stopped for examination did not become a prize because his cargo was valuable. There would be no reward for accusing an innocent master. Ardrian asked who would hear disputed seizures; Jon answered that they would be heard here, with the captains and claimants present.

"There is one further matter," Jon said. "I will have a man from each of your households with me. Aurane Waters. Ser Corwyn Celtigar. Ser Garon Bar Emmon. Ser Elyas Sunglass."

Mylenda looked up from the repair account. Monford's face had lost the guarded satisfaction it wore when the patrol orders were settled.

"Aurane has duties upon Driftmark."

"He will have duties aboard my ships. So will the others."

"You have heard why we cannot furnish an expedition," Sunglass said.

"I have heard why you cannot spare ships. I am requiring four men. Their passage and provisions will be at my charge."

"Ser Garon is needed for the galley," Mylenda said.

"The master is to answer for the work. Garon will give Ethan the accounts before he leaves."

She put down the paper. "He has served this house well."

"Then you have sent me a useful man."

Ardrian looked towards the door. His nephew was somewhere in the castle, hoping for a place in Arthur's practice yard.

"Corwyn is a knight of my household."

"He remains one. He will answer to my officers while he serves with me."

Jon would give them no second command aboard his ships, nor any promise of a share for the houses that sent them. Four men could be taught his way of doing things without four fleets demanding to preserve their own. And they would see Bloodstone for themselves. When their kin spoke of what Jon had risked and what he had won, there would be someone at each table who had been there.

Monford leaned back. "You ask us to trust our blood where we will not send our ships."

"I am going with them," Jon said. "They will serve under the same orders as my own men."

"Elyas is young," Guncer said.

"Denys will give him duties fit for his experience. He will learn the rest."

Sunglass glanced at Arthur. "Will they be under your eye?"

"When they are with me," Arthur said. "They will obey the captain when aboard."

Sunglass considered him, then nodded. "Elyas will report to your admiral."

Monford waited until the others had finished. "I will speak with my brother."

"Tell him to report to Denys before supper. All four are to come."

Ethan entered the four names beneath the patrol orders.

By the time the papers were gathered, the servants had twice come to the door and been sent away. Ardrian drew his chair back.

"We should send a joint account to Lord Arryn," he said to Monford. "The judgement, and our concern about extending the fighting. There may be arrangements with Tyrosh we have not heard."

Sunglass agreed. Mylenda offered her steward to make a fair copy.

Jon let them settle which clerk would write it. Forbidding the letter would only give Arryn another reason to mistrust what he was doing.

"Ethan. Send for Stewart."

Ardrian stopped speaking.

"My account goes today. The evidence, Neresso's sentence, the patrols, and the force I am preparing. Each lord's answer to my request for ships. Lord Monford's presence at the questioning is to be included."

"I witnessed the evidence against Neresso," Monford said. "I have pledged no ships to your expedition."

"The letter will distinguish them."

He would read it himself. Arryn should have the evidence before he was asked to restrain a child carried away by his first victory. Jon could imagine Stannis asking for the ships' names, Robert asking whether the slaver was dead yet. Let them have the names, the crimes, and the four refusals with the reasons given for each.

Ethan opened the door for the servants. The fish had waited through the whole council. Jon lifted the cover from his plate; the butter had begun to set along the edge.

* * *
​

The council broke apart slowly.

Sunglass went to find his septon. Mylenda sent for Garon and the repair account. Monford remained with Ardrian near the door until the Celtigar steward arrived with fresh parchment. Neither lord had forgotten the letter.

Ardrian paused beside Jon on his way out.

"Your father was said to know the value of patience."

Ned Stark had endured a great deal in silence. Jon had seen the effort it cost him. Ardrian made it sound a pleasant habit.

"He also expected his orders carried out."

"Of course, my lord."

Ardrian bowed. Jon waited until he had gone, then turned to Denys.

"Show me what we can sail."

The admiral spread his roll beside the chart. These were the ships Jon had intended to use. He read down the names with Denys, marking those whose readiness still had to be settled.

"Qavo must examine the galley before I can give you a proper reckoning," Denys said. "Even if she is sound, she needs a crew. I cannot put the same oarsmen into her and the ships we have."

"Send for Hewyn. I want all six centuries ready to embark, with their centurions. The fifty at Saltcliffe stay with their optio. No one is to draw upon them."

"And the works?" Ethan asked.

"Recall the two hundred. Send riders now. That includes the twenty working at Saltcliffe, not the fifty guarding it."

Ethan had yesterday's assignments beneath his hand. "Otho will lose his haulers. Some of the stonework will stop."

"Leave him the craftsmen and the labourers who are not soldiers. Have him secure anything he cannot finish. I will take the centuries together."

"And the men Lorren is treating?"

"Stay. Hewyn is to bring me the fit roll, not six hundred names. Your garrison remains yours."

Abel had not closed his book.

"Keep the money already committed to the works," Jon told him. "Use the reserve for fitting out and hire. No promises against Neresso's goods."

"Hire?"

"Transports. Denys, see what merchant hulls are here and can sail with us. Enough for the men and their stores, with room to bring the captives back. We cannot reckon upon ships we have yet to take."

Denys looked down his roll again. "Their masters will want to know how near the fighting you mean to bring them."

"They are hired to carry us. No boarding, no place in the battle line. Our armed ships protect them. Settle their service with them before Abel pays."

"They will charge for the danger all the same."

"Bring me the price."

Denys put a finger beside two names on his roll.

"Not these by tomorrow. One needs work below the waterline. The other has too few hands."

"Leave them. And leave one armed ship for the coast until the lords' patrol arrives. Choose her captain today."

"That gives you fewer ships to take south."

"I know. The garrison and the coast must still be held."

Denys crossed out the names. "Fair Wind may have to stay as well. I will not know until Qavo has seen her."

"Then do not count her yet. Load the sound ships today. Food and water first; the men can bring their gear aboard while the stores are carried down."

Denys looked at the mate's sketch. "He may have every galley there. If we arrive without knowing, there will be little room to choose a fight."

Jon had no answer that would give them more room. The mate had left the inland ground almost blank, and could not put a number to the men within the wall. Sailing tomorrow would settle neither question. He had decided to go despite them.

"Give the captains the account we have," he said. "They are to know its limits. I will speak with them before we sail."

Arthur moved away from the table. He had argued the matter the night before; Jon could not mistake his silence for assent.

"Aron may know a pilot already here," he said. "Someone who has made that passage."

"Ask him today. We will not wait for anyone to be fetched from Dorne."

"And provisions on the southern coast?"

"We take what we need from here. If Aron knows reliable merchants along the southern coast, get their names in case we need to buy more on the passage. I will not have to beg Doran for provisions."

"I can ask without telling Aron our strength."

"Do that. It will not hold the ships."

Denys began marking the vessels to be loaded.

Jon watched his pen. He wanted the ships, the stores, and whatever remained of the money Drazen had carried south. Some of it might already be spent. The rest could leave aboard a fast vessel while Jon fought his way through the gate.

His injured hand had begun to throb. He shifted it beneath the table. Tomas had fallen across him on a deck scarcely wider than this room; he remembered trying to lift his sword with blood running over his fingers. He could feel Arthur watching him.

"Reckon food and water for three hundred more," Jon said. "And room to carry them. Some will be too weak to climb aboard without help."

Ethan brought him the papers for Hull. Harro and the boatmen would remain under guard while their statements were taken; the goods would stay sealed while Abel heard the claims. Jon approved both and asked after the collector's mate.

"Waiting," Ethan said.

"Five years' labour in irons, then the Wall. Have the sentence read to him."

Ethan set it down. "The others were given two years."

"He was their mate. He gave orders as well as taking them. His help has saved his neck."

"Shall I have him moved?"

"Keep him apart until we have finished checking his account. Drennan's bargain stands. Labour in irons while the rest of his story is tested."

"And the woman?" Arthur asked.

"I gave my word. Keep their names for me, Ethan."

Ethan kept the folded sheet with Merra's and Tero's names among Jon's papers. It did not go among those being copied for the lords.

Denys waited until Abel had gone to fetch Marrec.

"If I go south with you, I cannot make the other voyage first."

Jon had been reaching for the next paper. He left it where it lay.

Myr. Viserys and Daenerys. He had meant to send a man he trusted to find them, and now he was filling that man's days with another voyage. The children would have no way to know that anyone was looking.

"Speak to Arthur about his contacts tonight. Have the enquiries begun. If word comes while we are south, Ethan is to get it to me at the first opportunity."

Arthur nodded to Denys. Questions could go east while they sailed south. Bringing the children away would still require a ship and someone Jon trusted aboard her; that voyage would now have to wait. Jon disliked setting it aside, but he had given the orders.

"The craftsmen can be sought through Marrec's merchants," he said. "Keep to the allowance we gave him. Bring me any message that needs a ship of our own."

They would meet with Ethan, Abel and Marrec before supper, while the visiting lords were occupied with their letters. Jon asked Denys to have the first costs ready then.

A call from below drew him to the window. Fair Wind was entering the harbour beneath her prize crew. A boat had put off from the steps to meet her. She came sluggishly into the turn; Jon watched the men move upon her deck and the bow begin to answer, until the prize master had brought her safely past the shallows.

Yesterday he had considered taking a ship like her to Valyria. He had put that aside. Fair Wind might serve against the pirates if Qavo found her sound in time; the longer voyage would wait for the new hulls and the works needed to build them.

In his first life, he had known what a seaworthy ship could endure. He could remember the feel of one beneath his boots in weather that would drive these galleys to shelter. Those memories made Fair Wind's slow turn harder to watch. They gave him no vessel better fitted for the journey.

Below the castle the carpenters were still working. Jon could see one man steadying a timber while another drove the peg. He stood at the window a little longer, listening to the blows carry across the water.

* * *
​

Jon found Arthur in the passage with Corwyn Celtigar and Eustace Sunglass. Corwyn was asking about the fighting aboard the collector.

"Your practice will have to wait," Arthur told Corwyn. "There is too much to do before we sail."

Eustace nodded. Jon waited until they had finished before asking him where Elyas had gone.

"To trouble your maester. I warned him Stewart might be occupied."

"What does he want?"

"A star table. Sea water got into his satchel. He has been trying to make out the damaged leaves since breakfast."

Corwyn came with them as far as the turn of the passage, where Elyas had his satchel open. Garon Bar Emmon stood beside him examining a page. At Jon's approach Elyas closed the book over one finger and bowed.

"The maester has been sent for, my lord. I was told I might wait. I hoped to have a copy before we sail."

"He is writing for me. Ask him after supper."

Elyas accepted that without protest. Garon returned the page and showed Jon the folded account beneath his arm.

"Lady Mylenda has given me leave to take this to your admiral. I have sent for our galley master. He can explain the repairs, and answer to your castellan while I am south."

"Make certain Ethan knows where to find him."

"I will, my lord."

Aurane was coming up from the yard as they reached the stair. Salt water had dried along the edge of one boot.

"You went down to the galley," Jon said.

"I watched her come in."

"And?"

"Denys has men aboard her already. There are merchant masters waiting to speak with him on the steps. One wanted to know whether the galley was to be sold."

"She is not. He will have other business for that man."

"My brother wants to know which ship I will be aboard."

"When Denys has settled it, you can tell him." Jon looked from Aurane to the three knights. "Go to him now. We need transports. You know men who trade through your harbours. Find which have ships here, ready to sail, and bring their masters to him. Promise neither a price nor a share of anything we take."

"Our own houses' ships?" Garon asked.

"Merchant ships for hire. Your lady has given her answer about hers. Abel will pay from my purse."

"For how many men?" Elyas asked.

"Hewyn will give Denys the roll. He will tell you what he needs. You four will have places aboard my ships."

Corwyn inclined his head. Garon began to ask about a chest still aboard his lady's vessel, then stopped and said he would speak to the admiral. Elyas closed the fastening of his satchel.

Aurane looked down into the yard. Monford stood at the foot of the stair, waiting for him.

"He will want to speak with Denys himself."

"He knows where to find him."

Aurane bowed and went down. Corwyn and Eustace followed as far as the courtyard. Elyas handed his satchel to a servant and went after them; Jon sent Garon through the council-room door with the repair account before he joined the others.

Monford drew Aurane aside before the others reached them. His hand rested upon his half-brother's arm. Jon could not hear their words. Aurane pointed towards the harbour, then back at the stair. Monford shook his head and began to speak again.

Ethan found Jon there with Stewart's first draft.

"The evidence is copied. There is room for your seal when you are satisfied."

Jon took it in his left hand. From the lower hall came Ardrian's voice, asking a servant whether Lord Monford had finished with his clerk.

"Come with me."

In his chamber he read the draft with Ethan beside him. Stewart joined them with his pen and ink. The maester had set out the crimes and evidence plainly. Jon went carefully through the lords' answers to his request for ships. Each refusal was to stand with the reason given for it. If they later claimed he had denied them a part in the venture, Arryn would have their own words before him.

Stewart added the mate's estimate of the captives at Bloodstone and Jon's intention to free them. The five patrol ships would remain in home waters. The four men would sail upon Jon's ships, without vessels or crews from their houses. Jon read the passage concerning Bloodstone once more. Nothing in it pledged him to wait for an answer.

He pressed his seal into the wax with his left hand.

"For King's Landing," he told Stewart. "Send it now."

* * *
​

The first men recalled from the works reached the camp while Jon was there.

They came up the track in a dusty file, one carrying his boots by the laces. Hewyn sent them to eat before they fetched their arms. Behind the tents, someone was beating the dinner pot with a spoon; the cook had scraped it nearly clean and was shouting for more bread.

Jon had ridden the two miles from Blackburn with Arthur. Along the road they had passed carts going the other way, loaded with casks, sacks and bundles of firewood. Perkin had stopped one at the camp gate and was making the driver take off a broken barrel. Its wet trail ended in the dust beneath the axle.

"Empty it into the sound ones," the quaestor said. "We are not sending them short because you don't want to lift it twice."

The six centurions waited outside Hewyn's tent. Malcolm and Rennick stood together, watching their returning men. Norren had a roll open across his palm; Rymond was counting names against it. Beyond them, Gerralt and Brus had set two shields upon a chest and were comparing the space they would take in a boat.

Hewyn called them in. There was scarcely room for all of them beneath the canvas, so Jon had the table brought outside.

"The work parties will come in through the evening," Hewyn told him. "I have men waiting to put each back with his century. The Saltcliffe guards have been struck from the sailing roll."

"They remain under their optio. Ethan is to see that no foreman borrows them."

"And the thirteen at drill?"

"Stay with Heward. They are not ready."

Hewyn nodded. He had set Lorren's list apart from the rest. Jon saw familiar names upon it and left it where it lay.

"Denys is hiring transports," he said to the centurions. "Each of you goes with his own men. Hewyn will settle the divisions with him. Keep the tens together wherever the ships allow it. I want to know where to find a man when we put ashore."

"Are we to take the camp down?" Malcolm asked.

"Leave the tents standing. Ethan will have them watched. Arms, cloaks, blankets and what Perkin issues for the voyage. The spare kit goes by boat; no man is to arrive at the steps carrying a tent pole."

Brus looked towards the track. "Some of mine are still at Wyrm Rest."

"A rider has gone. Muster those you have. Send the others down when they have eaten and armed themselves. Do not keep a whole century here for ten men."

"The boats may part us," Rymond said.

"They will," Hewyn answered. "Put an optio ashore and another man you trust aboard. Count them at both ends. A boatload is not a new command."

Jon let him finish the arrangements. They had men to collect, equipment to issue and a road that would carry only so many carts abreast.

Rennick wanted to know whether the hired crews had been told where they were going.

"They will be told before they take my coin," Jon said. "They carry us and bring us back. We do the fighting."

"Then we shall need our boat order before the light goes."

"Denys will have it. Send a man to him now."

The centurions dispersed. Norren caught one of the returning workmen by the shoulder and turned him towards the bread. The man had begun to protest that he had already kept his comrades waiting. Norren put a loaf into his hands.

Jon stopped beside Heward on the way to his horse. The campidoctor was mounted, his bad leg hanging stiffly against the saddle. Rollam and the twelve volunteers stood before him with their practice shields. Several had turned to watch men putting on armour beside the tents.

"Eyes here," Heward said.

They turned back, reluctantly.

"You will answer to Ethan while I am gone," Jon told him. "Keep at it. I want them further along when I return."

"They will be." Heward waited until Jon had passed, then raised his voice. "Again. From the beginning."

By the time Jon reached Blackburn, soldiers were waiting above the harbour steps and a merchant was loudly refusing to put to sea.

He was a small man with a beard divided into two plaits. Corwyn stood beside him. Aurane had one foot upon a mooring post and was watching Denys examine the man's offer.

"I was told soldiers," the merchant said. "I have carried soldiers. I was not told Bloodstone."

"You have been told now," Denys answered.

"My owners did not give me leave to lose their ship."

Jon came down the last steps. The merchant bowed when Corwyn named him, then began again about his owners.

"You have not agreed to the voyage?" Jon asked.

"No, my lord."

"Then take your ship where they sent you."

The man looked at Denys, as though he expected some payment to be demanded for having wasted the admiral's time. Denys gave him back his paper.

Corwyn watched him go. "He carried men for my uncle last year."

"To Claw Isle," Aurane said.

"He said he had room."

"Tell the next man where we are going before you bring him here," Jon said.

Denys had four masters willing to hear the terms. Marrec knew two; Garon had found another discharging cargo, and Aurane had brought the fourth from a ship at anchor. Their offers lay beneath a stone on the admiral's sea chest. He had boarded each vessel himself and rejected the numbers one master claimed he could carry.

"He counted the space his men need to work the ship," Denys said quietly. "I did not."

"Will the four suffice?"

"With the places aboard our own ships. If their cargo comes ashore, and we stow for the people we may bring back as well as those we take."

The largest merchantman lay at the quay. Garon had found a dry place for her remaining bales, but its keeper would not open the doors without Marrec's word. Elyas stood beside the scales with the mate, reading back a tally as each load came over the side. He had tied his cloak out of the way. A smear of something dark ran from his wrist to the elbow.

Abel arrived with Ethan and Marrec before the first master had finished disputing the hire. Jon kept the meeting there. The men he needed were on the quay, and supper could wait.

The four masters heard the destination, then the service required of them. They were to carry the troops and stores, remain with the escort Denys assigned, and come in to a landing when he ordered it safe to do so. Their boats would help put men and provisions ashore there and bring them away again. None was hired to close with an enemy ship or carry soldiers into a defended landing.

"If there is no safe landing?" asked the oldest master. His cap had left a pale band across his forehead.

"You stay with your escort," Denys said. "I command the approach. My ships will have to clear the way."

"And if you cannot?"

"Then you will not be ordered in."

The master rubbed at the mark left by his cap. "I want that in the agreement."

"Put it in," Jon told Abel.

He had left a warship to guard the home coast. Now another would have merchantmen to protect while he sought a place to land. Asking the lords for their ships had cost him nothing; replacing the help they had refused was already costing money and strength.

The masters bargained over the advance, their daily hire and how long they were bound to remain. Abel made each say what provisions were included. Marrec settled the cost of storing the unloaded cargo, then brought out the other business Jon had asked for. The enquiries for craftsmen could leave with his ordinary letters. Denys and Arthur would speak that night about the children; Ethan would receive any reply while they were away.

When Abel showed him what remained after the first payments, Jon read the figures twice. The thousand dragons he had held back against need would no longer be a thousand. There would be more to pay when the ships came home.

"The works' allowance is untouched?"

"Untouched, my lord. Their advances come from the reserve."

Jon approved them. Abel took the masters aside, and Marrec sent a boy running to have the store opened.

The first century came down from the camp while the last bales were still passing ashore. Malcolm halted his men well short of the quay. Those behind him closed up until Hewyn waved them back, leaving a way through for the carts. Long shields turned edgewise to let a team pass; a driver swore at a man who stepped too close to his wheel.

The waiting soldiers had gone quiet. Jon could hear the clink of their equipment beneath the noise from the ships. Some watched the boats below them. Others looked out at the merchant hulls and tried to judge the distance.

At the steps, a sailor took the first man's spear before allowing him down. The next tried to follow with his shield upon his arm.

"Hand it here. Both hands for the ladder."

The soldier glanced at his optio, who nodded. He passed the shield down and descended. In the boat he sat where the coxswain pointed, holding his bundle between his knees. The next man took the place opposite him.

Brus brought a party down with round shields piled upon a handcart. His men wanted to load them together. The coxswain would take only half: the rest would leave him no room to work the oar. Brus looked at the boat, took hold of the uppermost shield and passed it back.

"Half, then. And no one goes without knowing which boat has his."

One boat pushed off; another came in. The movement made the first look suddenly small. Jon watched a man grip the gunwale until his comrade said something that made the others laugh. He loosened his hand without quite letting go.

Arthur stood beside Jon. His eyes followed the boat until it reached the ship.

"They will have time to learn the motion on the passage," Jon said.

"I hope they have time to keep a meal down."

Jon looked at him. Arthur had not meant it as a jest.

"Have Lorren speak with the officers before they board."

"I have."

Across the quay, Mylenda and Monford had stopped beside the empty handcarts, with Duram between them. Ardrian followed, complaining that someone had sent his boat to the wrong steps. Guncer joined them from the road.

Jon was near enough to hear Mylenda ask, "How many of those men were at the works this morning?"

"Two hundred have been recalled," Ardrian said. "My steward heard the orders going out."

A workman in a soldier's belt had come down the road at a trot. There was white dust in his hair. He stopped to ask where his century had gone, then hurried back towards the waiting ranks.

"He has spent the day hauling stone," Ardrian said. "Now he will spend the night finding his ship."

"Better that than finding his place in a line he has never stood in," Guncer answered. "They know their officers."

"Their officers know the shore," Monford said. He watched Brus pass another shield into the boat. "Denys will have his work with them."

"And with those masters," Mylenda said. "I heard one refuse the voyage."

"A sensible man," Ardrian said.

"A man whose owners had given him other business," Monford answered. "The others have agreed. Their ships are sound enough for the passage."

Ardrian looked at him. "You would go in one?"

"To be carried across the sea? Yes." Monford let a porter pass between them before continuing. "I would want to know where I could put my boats when I arrived."

Mylenda watched another file of soldiers turn off the road. "He will have emptied half his camp before the evening is out."

"He means to take the place," Guncer said. "I would be more troubled if he sent a handful."

"I would be less troubled if Garon were not among them."

Monford turned towards the merchantman at the quay. Aurane was aboard, bent over the rail while a mate showed him where to lead a line. For a while none of the lords spoke.

Jon left them to watch and went to see why the next cart had stopped.

Perkin and the oldest of the hired masters stood beside a stack of water casks. The master had set his heel against one and would not let the porters roll it towards the gangway.

"Below," he was saying. "You fill the deck with these and where do your people lie?"

"They need the water."

"They need somewhere to put their feet as well."

Jon looked from the casks to the open hatch. "Can they go below?"

"When those last bales are out. Your man wants to load over them."

Perkin had a soldier waiting at his elbow with another tally. "The boats are waiting for stores."

"Load the other ships while he clears his hold," Jon said. "We have paid for the space. Use it properly."

The master took his foot from the cask.

"And those you bring back," he said. "Three hundred, your admiral said. I won't fit them by throwing their water overboard."

"Nor will I ask you to. Set their room aside now. We keep it even if I find nothing worth bringing home but people."

Perkin nodded and sent the waiting soldier to stop the next cart above the steps.

The tide had fallen far enough to lengthen the ladders by the time Denys returned from Fair Wind. Qavo had found no reason she could not make the passage; the difficulty was still men. The prize crew could bring her into harbour. They could not fight her, and making up the numbers would weaken the galleys Denys already had.

"She stays," Jon said.

He disliked saying it. He had watched her come in and begun assigning her work before her ropes were fast. Denys crossed her from the sailing roll and passed it to Hewyn.

As the light went, lanterns were hung above the steps. The last work parties came down the road in separate groups, collected by men their centurions had left waiting. Jon saw Rymond turn a half-dozen towards a cart where bread and cold meat had been laid out. Further along, Rennick was counting men into a boat with a roll held close to a lantern.

Hewyn brought word from Saltcliffe. Its twenty workmen had returned; its fifty guards were at their posts. The optio had acknowledged the order to remain.

The lords went back to the castle before the loading was finished. Monford waited longest. Only after Aurane came ashore to speak with him did he turn towards the horses.

Arthur sent for horses. Jon had meant to stay until the last century was aboard, but Hewyn still had men to count and Denys had not finished with the masters. His presence was beginning to bring work to a halt whenever an officer turned to make a report.

"Bring the final rolls to me," he told them. "I will see the captains before we sail."

On the road up, he looked back. Boats were moving between the scattered ship lights and the crowded steps. Somewhere in the dark below, an officer called a name and waited for the answer.

* * *
​

At dawn, the septon finished his prayer beside the block.

Neresso's lips were still moving when the guards helped him kneel. Monford stood with the other lords beneath the steps. When the merchant looked towards him, he did not look away.

Jon waited until the septon had stepped clear. His injured hand lay against his chest. Arthur stood beside the block with a sword drawn.

Jon gave the nod.

The blow took Neresso's head cleanly. For a moment the yard was silent, then Duram made a small, choked sound and his mother drew him against her. A guard spread a cloth over the body.

Jon stayed until it had been carried away. Then he turned to Ethan.

"The island is in your keeping."

"Until you return, my lord."

Ethan walked with him to the horses. Behind them, the septon began another prayer.

The harbour boats were waiting when Jon came down. There were no companies on the road now, no carts blocking the steps. A porter was gathering the loose ends of rope from the quay. Out beyond him, men crowded the rails of the transports to watch Jon's party descend.

Jon and Denys had heard the final rolls and spoken with the captains before dawn. The admiral met him at the foot of the steps.

"The men are aboard. We can go."

Jon handed his reins to Ethan's groom. Arthur followed him into the boat, holding it steady while he found his seat. The four men from the visiting households came after them. Aurane glanced back once; Monford had ridden down behind them and was watching from above the steps.

The boat pulled away. Jon could feel the swell beneath it before they were halfway to the ship.

He climbed aboard with his left hand upon the rope. Hewyn waited by the rail, and beyond him the deck was crowded with men Jon had watched at drill in the North. They made room for him. Some grinned; others stood quietly with their shields against their legs. He recognised one of the men who had come back from the works last night, asleep beside his pack until a comrade nudged him awake.

Jon took his place beside Denys. Arthur remained close, his cloak stirring in the wind. Across the water, the first hired master was calling his men to the sheets.

"Take us out," Jon said.

The oars struck the water. Along the rail, men turned to watch the quay recede. Ethan stood at its edge with the grooms behind him; farther up, Jon could still pick out Monford's pale head among the departing lords.

One by one the ships followed them through the harbour mouth. The roll beneath Jon's feet grew longer as they reached open water. He waited until the last transport cleared the headland, then turned from Dragonstone and went forward.

 

[aiwonder]

Tero had promised to have the galley back in the water by noon. It was past noon, and she had not moved from the shingle.

Vhalar found the caulker beneath her stern, scraping pitch from the hull. Two fingers were missing from his left hand. Beyond him, chained men were dragging a heavy timber out of the galley's path to the water, urged on by an overseer with a whip.

"How much longer?"

Tero tapped a plank with his iron. A split ran through the wood.

"This needs replacing."

"You said noon."

"I found it after." He scraped away another strip of pitch, exposing the crack. "Launch her like this and she'll take water all the way across."

"Then replace it."

"I've been waiting for your carpenter to send the timber."

Vhalar looked towards the carpenter's shelter. The man beneath it hastily bent to the stack beside him.

"You. Bring it here."

The carpenter lifted a length of timber and hurried over. Vhalar made him stay while Tero marked where it needed cutting.

"By dark?" Vhalar asked.

"If he gets this fitted."

"He will."

While the carpenter carried the timber back, Vhalar looked across the anchorage towards the open sea.

Where in the seven hells was Drazen? His second knew they could not sail without the collections. The crews wanted their shares, and Sarro would charge him for every day his ships sat waiting.

A cry brought his head round.

The timber had shifted across the stones, trapping a slave's foot beneath one end. The others had stopped pulling. The overseer struck the man across the shoulders as he tried to wrench himself free.

Vhalar caught the overseer's raised wrist before he could strike again.

"He stopped pulling," the man said.

"Get the timber off him and put someone else on the rope."

Vhalar shoved him towards the sheds.

"Fetch more men. I want that path clear when the ship is ready."

The overseer hurried away. Two slaves lifted the end of the timber while a guard dragged the injured man clear. Then they took up the rope again.

From the shore, the two slave sheds looked much as any stores might: long roofs, small openings beneath the eaves, doors broad enough for a handcart. The bar across the nearer door was as thick as Vhalar's forearm. Someone inside had been coughing since he came down from the fort. He had told the keeper to separate the sick before the Lysene buyers came. If fever got among the rest, they would offer him half what the lot was worth and congratulate themselves upon their charity.

Goro was waiting beside the boats, his thumbs hooked into his belt. The captain had a new earring, a gold ring heavy enough to pull at the torn lobe. Vhalar had seen it upon a merchant taken off Cape Wrath.

"Your men ready?"

"They were ready yesterday."

"Then keep them ready."

"They want their shares."

"Have they sent you to ask?"

Goro took his thumbs from his belt. "I'm asking."

Vhalar looked at him until the captain glanced away.

It was the last day of Sarro's paid wait. Every man along the shore knew it. The four hired ships had taken their water that morning, and Sarro's boatmaster had asked whether the last of his provisions would be sent aboard before sunset. He had asked loudly, within hearing of Vhalar's captains.

"Drazen brings the coin, you get your shares," Vhalar said. "Until then, keep them sober enough to sail."

"They've been sober three days. They've nothing left to drink on."

"Sell that ring in your ear. I don't remember seeing it when we divided the last taking."

Goro's hand rose towards the ring, then stopped. Vhalar went past him to the end of the landing.

Four of his galleys were to go west, with six longboats carrying the men who would land first. Two more galleys would watch the southern approaches. Their captains had orders to send warning if Rolo moved and fall back beneath the fort, not give the Myrishman another pair of prizes. The remaining two would hold the eastern anchorage. Of the four longboats left there, two were to carry messages; the others would serve the fort and the ships.

He had gone over it until he could see every hull in its place. He still disliked the gap between the southern watch and the west. Moreo had chosen his harbour well. Reaching it by water meant taking the ships round the northern coast, leaving Rolo behind him with most of the island between their fleets.

A shout came from the wall above.

Vhalar turned. The lookout was pointing beyond the eastern headland. Below him, men upon the shore had stopped work and were looking out to sea.

A dark sail showed between two pale strips of water.

Goro came beside him.

"Is it—"

"Get your men off the landing."

The captain went to clear them. Vhalar stayed where he was.

The sail grew. He knew the patch near its foot, darker than the old cloth around it. Drazen had refused a new one before going north. There was good use left in it, he had said, and he could think of better things to bring home than a sailmaker's bill.

Now the yard hung crooked. As the ship came round, Vhalar saw fresh timber along a stretch of rail. A little water spilled from her side and flashed in the sun.

No collector followed her.

He waited until the ship had anchored. A boat went over the side. Drazen came down into it slowly, keeping one hand upon the rope while the other hung close to his body.

Drazen stepped ashore. His beard was full of grey salt, and there was a strip of dirty linen tied beneath his coat at the ribs. He looked past Vhalar towards the waiting men.

"The chests are aboard."

"How many did you leave behind?"

"None that we loaded."

"Pello?"

Drazen wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Not here."

Vhalar let him stand there a moment. Men were pretending to busy themselves with ropes and water jars. Goro had stayed close enough to hear.

"Get the chests off her," Vhalar told him. "Put my men aboard. No one opens a lid until the clerk gets there."

Goro nodded. Vhalar sent a man to tell Sarro that his money would be ready in the morning, then began the climb with Drazen beside him.

* * *
​

Vhalar kicked the door shut.

"Two ships missing, and you come limping back with half your rail gone. What the fuck happened?"

Drazen unfastened his coat. The linen beneath it had stuck to his side. He pulled it loose, grimaced, and left it alone.

"Pello had word there were men searching the shore. He waited for them to come for the store. Two galleys came off the cove, and he went out to take them. We went with him."

"Two?"

"Two."

Vhalar stared at him. Three ships against two. Pello had spent years taking merchants in those waters, cutting off the shoreward escape while another ship came at them from the sea. He had brought home men worth ransoming and holds that paid for whole seasons of drinking. Now Drazen was standing in front of him with blood dried into his coat.

"Did they catch you drunk?"

"They caught us expecting men who'd throw their swords down."

Drazen reached for the wine jug. Vhalar caught it first and set it out of reach.

"You boarded them?"

"I did. Put men over the rail and went after them. There were shields waiting between the benches. We couldn't get round them, and their bowmen had the men behind us ducking before they could cross. When we tried again, they cut the grapnels. I lost men getting back aboard."

"And Pello watched?"

"Pello had the other galley fast. Our third ship came in to help him. By the time I got clear, the galley I'd been fighting was coming round on her. They'd have had our third ship between them."

Vhalar waited.

"I cut away."

"You left them."

"There were men pouring onto Pello's deck. The other ship couldn't turn without fouling him."

"And yours could."

Drazen's mouth tightened. "Yes."

Vhalar went close enough to smell the sour sweat in his beard.

"So you watched them take my ships and ran."

"I had your chests under my feet." Drazen kept his voice low. "You sent me to bring the money home. It's down there. Would you rather it was in their hold?"

"Careful."

Drazen's eyes went to the knife at Vhalar's belt. He had enough sense to keep his own hands still.

Outside, a man shouted for the haulers to lift together. Vhalar could hear Goro bawling over him. The first of the chests had reached the steps.

"Pello dead?"

"I couldn't see him."

"Don't tell me you couldn't see a fucking thing."

"I saw men going over his rail. I saw the other galley closing. I didn't see Pello die." Drazen swallowed. "I had men of my own to get off that deck. Nine of them are dead. Seven there, two on the way back. There's another below who won't last the night."

Vhalar looked towards the window. Nine from the carrier, besides whatever the other two had lost. Men who knew how to come alongside without smashing their own oars, who would climb into a ship while her crew were still fighting. He could buy another hull. Filling it with men worth feeding took longer.

"Whose galleys?"

"Dragonstone's. They came out from the island."

Vhalar turned back.

"Stark's bastard?"

"Unless someone else has taken his harbour."

"Neresso said he was a boy."

"Then someone has found him fighting men."

Neresso's letter had been full of new dues, new harbour officers, what this little bastard might ask to see when he began poking through other men's business. Vhalar had told him to pay what he must and send the rest. He had expected the boy to be another mouth wanting silver.

"Was he aboard?"

"I never saw him."

"The money ashore?"

"Not loaded. Pello had sent four men in for it. They hadn't come back when we went out."

Vhalar picked up the cup and hurled it into the hearth.

"Fuck Pello."

It broke against the stone. Drazen did not look round.

"The coast was crawling with men looking for that store, and he sat there waiting for a prize?"

"He thought he could take them."

"He was there to bring in my coin. Not give the bastard two ships to carry it off in."

He could hear it already. In the drinking sheds, aboard Sarro's ships, in whatever stinking hole Rolo had chosen to eat in that night. Vhalar had sent three ships north, and a boy had sent one home. Every merchant who had paid to be left alone would wonder whether he needed to pay again. Every captain with a grievance would have something to say over his cup.

"I'll have him chained to an oar." Vhalar turned upon Drazen. "The boy and every bastard who was aboard those galleys. They can row my ships until their hands rot."

Drazen said nothing. He was looking at the broken cup.

"What?"

"If they've taken our men alive, they won't have to row far to find us."

Vhalar's hand closed upon his knife.

"You think I don't know that?"

"Pello knew about Moreo."

For a moment neither moved. Then Vhalar took his hand from the knife and went to the window.

The chests were coming up the steps. His men had crowded the landing below, watching each one as it passed. They would hear about the ships soon enough. A few already knew; Drazen's rowers had mouths, and there had been men waiting to take their ropes.

The last time Drazen had come back short of ships, Rolo had been behind him. He had saved the pay then, too. Vhalar had seen what happened to captains who could no longer give their crews a taking. They drank alone while their mates found other ships.

He was damned if he would sit here losing men to that Myrish cunt while Moreo's sons pissed away a fleet in the east.

"We take the western landing."

Drazen looked up. "After this?"

"Especially after this. Orros gives us the landing. We go up the hill, gut the old man and take the rest."

"And if a galley comes nosing round here while we're doing it?"

"Two stay under the fort. Two watch Rolo. Your ship stays here until she's fit to sail." Vhalar pointed towards the window. "There are men on those walls. What would you have me do? Sit behind them waiting to see who comes?"

"Get your money out of the chests and into their hands. My men are talking already."

Vhalar looked down at the landing again. Goro had stopped a sailor beside the nearest boat and was questioning him. The sailor was waving an arm out towards the sea.

"They'll get it tonight."

"And Sarro?"

"He'll get his. He's sat here eating my stores all week. Now he can earn his fucking hire."

Drazen eased his coat away from his side. The cloth came free with a small tearing sound.

"Moreo's crews won't like seeing you kill him."

"They'll like being sold in Lys less. They put their swords down, they sail for me. Any who'd sooner die with him can do it."

"You'll still have to pay them."

"With the old man's gold. What do you think I'm going there for?"

Vhalar pushed the wine jug across the table. Drazen found another cup and poured, keeping his eyes upon it.

"You take two of the galleys," Vhalar said. "Keep his ships off my boats while I land. If Sarro does his part, they won't know where to run."

"I can do that."

"See that you do. I'm short of ships enough."

Drazen drank. He had something more to say; Vhalar could see him considering whether to risk it.

"Out with it."

"Goro will want to call us cowards. Let him try getting his own men across a rail like that."

"Goro will take his share and get aboard when I tell him."

Vhalar opened the door.

"Go and see to your ship. And keep your men clear of Sarro until I've spoken to him. I'm not paying that fat fuck twice because one of yours sold him a story."

Drazen put down the cup. He left without another word.

* * *
​

Sarro came ashore the next morning.

Vhalar watched him climb the steps with his first mate at his shoulder and two armed men behind. He had taken his time leaving the boat. First he had looked over Drazen's ship, then along the anchorage, and finally out past the headland as though another sail might yet appear there.

The payment waited inside the fort. Vhalar had kept his own captains up until well past midnight, dividing the returned money and hearing their complaints. The men staying east would have shares in the western plunder too. He had settled that before any captain could carry the grievance down to his crew.

Sarro stopped in the doorway.

"Your messenger said you had my money."

"I have."

"Good." His eyes moved to Drazen, who stood beside the window in a clean coat. "A rough passage?"

"You've seen the ship."

Sarro waited. Drazen gave him nothing more.

"Where are Pello and the other ship?"

Vhalar pulled out a chair. "Sit down."

"I saw only the one coming in."

"I know what came in."

"Then you can tell me where the others are."

"It does not matter to the work you are being paid for."

Sarro remained standing. His first mate had stopped just behind him, close enough to hear every word.

"It matters to me. I like to know the odds before I put my ships among them."

"Your ships will lie outside Moreo's harbour and frighten men who do not know how little you mean to do."

"And if the odds have changed?"

Vhalar gripped the back of the chair.

Sarro saw it. He drew his sleeve over the fading marks upon his wrist but did not look away.

"Your man has brought back a damaged ship without the two that were to come with him. You have guards round his sailors. I can ask you here, or hear six different accounts upon the shore."

"The collectors were taken," Vhalar said.

"By whom?"

"Dragonstone's new lord."

"The Stark boy?"

"His men." Drazen spoke from the window. "Two galleys. We boarded one and were thrown back. The other took Pello alongside. When we got clear, both our other ships had enemies over their rails."

Sarro looked at him for a long moment.

"Did anyone follow you?"

"None that I saw. Once we left the coast, I lost sight of them."

The merchant rubbed a finger beneath one of his rings. Vhalar had seen him do it while counting a doubtful price.

"If prisoners were taken, they can tell the boy where you keep your ships. Where you mean to take them."

"Pello knew I intended to move against Moreo. He did not know when."

"And now—"

"Now I have the money and the ships are ready." Vhalar shoved the chair aside. It struck the wall. "I have waited for the collections. I have paid you to sit in my harbour. Your mate has spoken to Orros, my men have watched the landing, and Moreo's sons are still away. How much longer would you have me wait?"

Sarro spread his hands. "Long enough to know whether—"

"Until those two shits come home with another fleet? Until Orros decides he has waited long enough and tells the old man what we offered him?"

"He would be hanging from Moreo's wall before sunset."

"Then he had better open the landing when I come."

Vhalar turned towards the door.

"Bring it."

His guards carried in the chests and set them upon the table. The clerk opened them. Sarro's eyes went to the money despite himself.

"The old balance," Vhalar said. "Your hire since Drazen returned. The advance for all four ships. Count it."

Sarro did not move at once. The clerk laid his reckonings beside the scales.

"This is my part of the bargain," Vhalar said. "Unless you mean to go back upon yours."

One of the guards set his hand upon his sword. The other did the same. Sarro's first mate shifted, and Drazen moved away from the window until he stood between the man and the door.

For a moment no one spoke.

Sarro looked at the guards, then at Vhalar. His mouth tightened. The smile he had brought ashore was gone.

"One fourth," he said. "Of the coin and goods. And I will remember this."

"As long as you do your part, I will do mine."

"My captains remain mine."

"I have not asked for them."

"And if Moreo's ships stand and fight—"

"Drazen will fight them. You show your four where they can be seen." Vhalar leaned across the table. "Will your mate stand by what he told me?"

The lean man glanced at Sarro before answering.

"Orros will give you the lower landing. His watch, his boat crews. He promised no more than that. The men at the fort answer to Moreo."

Sarro pulled the discarded chair back to the table. He sat carefully, straightened the reckonings, and called his own man to the scales.

Vhalar let the counting take as long as it needed.

* * *
​

By afternoon the crews were carrying their gear aboard.

A man came down with a stolen bedcover wrapped round his shield. Another had three knives in his belt and no shoes. Goro stood at the gangplank and made each man show his weapons before he passed. Those who had spent their shares too quickly were borrowing from shipmates at prices they would curse when the next division came.

The repaired galley had floated level through the night. Tero came out of her hold with his lamp and told Vhalar where the new plank should be checked again after the passage. Vhalar sent him back to the yard. He would have more ships to mend soon.

Drazen had gone aboard one of the fighting galleys. His own vessel would remain beneath the fort while her rail and rigging were repaired. He would take two of the four westward galleys when they entered Moreo's bay, keeping the way clear for the landing boats. The other two would put Vhalar's fighting men ashore while their rowers remained at the benches.

The six longboats loaded last. Men sat upon shields and water casks, their spears projecting over the gunwales. Three carried ladders lashed above the thwarts, with axes and spare bowstrings wrapped in oiled cloth beneath them. Vhalar made one boatmaster put four men back upon the landing before he swamped himself. They went to the next boat, grumbling until its men made room.

He had promised them Moreo's stores, his gold, and a share in the taking. They had begun to argue over it before the first oar touched the water.

At the foot of the fort, the slave keeper asked for more guards.

"For what?"

"The men in the second shed have heard you are going."

"They have eyes. What have they done?"

"Nothing yet."

Vhalar made him open the door.

The smell came out first. Men sat shoulder to shoulder along the wall, their chains passing beneath an iron bar. A woman with a shorn head drew a child against her knees. Farther in, someone turned his face away from the light.

"Keep the yard clear," Vhalar said. "Bar both doors. If anyone tries to break out, call the fort."

He waited while the keeper counted the keys back onto his ring. The two galleys staying east were ready to move, and the ships watching Rolo had taken their stations beyond the southern point. He had left men on the wall who would hang for sleeping there.

When he reached his boat, Sarro's four ships were drawing clear of their berths.

The merchant stood upon the stern of the nearest, one hand upon the rail. Vhalar raised his sword to him. Sarro inclined his head and turned to his captain.

* * *
​

The western shore emerged from the dark in pieces: a pale line of surf, the low rock at the mouth of the bay, then masts rising behind it.

Vhalar stood beneath his galley's mast with his shield upon his arm. They had rounded the island's northern coast during the night, keeping the longboats close. Now the rowers held their oars just clear of the water while the masters judged the entrance.

Above the landing stood Moreo's fort. It was a squat place of weathered stone built around an older house, with a low outer wall enclosing the stores and a higher yard behind the gate. Vhalar remembered whitewash upon the house and a chained ape that had sat upon the wall while his father quarrelled with Moreo over a prize. The whitewash had washed away. A watch fire burned where the ape's chain had been fixed.

Nine galleys lay below it, six afloat and three upon the beach. One of those ashore had been stripped almost to her ribs. Smaller boats filled the landing beneath the stores. Men were beginning to stir among them, dark figures against the pale sand.

A covered lamp opened twice at the lower steps.

Orros.

Vhalar looked to starboard. Drazen stood upon the raised stern of his galley, waiting. Beyond him the fourth fighting ship kept station, her bowmen crouched along the rail.

Vhalar lifted his sword.

The oars dipped.

They were through the entrance before the horn sounded from the fort.

A man ran along the wall shouting towards the water. Another seized the rope of the bell beside the gate and began to haul upon it. Its harsh note carried over the bay. Doors opened beneath the stores. Men came out carrying swords, some bare to the waist, others fumbling with coats as they ran.

The watch at the lower steps stood aside.

Farther out, three of Moreo's galleys were already drawing away from their moorings. One had her oars out on only a single side and turned drunkenly until men ran to the empty benches. The largest was moving towards the boats coming in with Vhalar's men.

Vhalar pointed his sword at her.

"Drazen! Keep them off the landing!"

The lieutenant raised his arm in answer. His two galleys swung across the water. Vhalar climbed down into the longboat waiting alongside, and its men thrust clear with their oars. The other boats were already pressing towards the steps.

Vhalar could hear Moreo's bell above the oars. He drew his shield higher and called to the men waiting behind him.

"There's your silver. Follow me and take it!"

The first arrow struck the water a yard short of the bow.

Vhalar watched the next flight rise from the wall. He brought his shield over his head. Wood cracked above him; something struck the man behind and knocked the breath out of him. The rowers kept pulling. Beneath their feet, water washed over the stones they carried for ballast.

To their left, Moreo's largest galley bore down upon the outermost longboat. Her bowmen crowded forward, trying to shoot past their own sail. The boatmaster shouted to his men to pull, pull, and the longboat slipped across her bow with scarcely an oar's length to spare.

Drazen caught the galley as she tried to turn after it.

His ship came alongside hard enough to break the nearest oars. Vhalar heard the crash, then the shouts of the men whose handles had been driven back against them. Hooks flew across the narrowing water. Drazen's second galley held farther out, denying the next attacker room to come round him. Moreo's third galley was still turning behind the other two.

Vhalar's own boat struck the shingle.

He went over the side into water above his knees. For a moment the stones rolled beneath his boots and the weight of shield and mail dragged him backwards. A man caught his elbow. Vhalar shook him off once he had his footing and waded clear, his sword held above the spray.

"Up! Get up the beach!"

Another arrow hit his shield. It came from the upper gate, well above the stores. The bowman who had loosed it was already reaching for another.

Vhalar ran for the lower steps.

Orros waited beside them with a handful of armed men. He was broad through the belly, with a grey beard plaited beneath his chin and a spear held in both hands. Two bodies lay near him. One had fallen across a coil of rope; the other wore the same strip of blue cloth about his arm as Orros's men.

"The landing is yours."

"The gate?"

"Shut when the bell rang."

"How many above?"

"They are still coming out of the houses."

A bolt struck the step between them and broke against the stone. Orros flinched. Vhalar pushed past him, keeping close to the wall of the nearest storehouse. His men followed in knots, splashing ashore, stumbling with their shields, shouting to those still in the boats. One stopped to haul a fallen man clear of the water. Another took the dead man's belt before running on.

Goro reached him with blood upon his cheek.

"Some of them are making for the ships."

"Let Orros have them." Vhalar caught the captain by the shoulder and pointed up the lane. "You stay with me."

The gate stood at the head of a short climb between the stores. Two square towers flanked it, their upper chambers open towards the yard. Men stood along the wall between them. There were more appearing with every breath: one pulling a shirt of mail over his head, another carrying a sheaf of spears, a boy with a bucket who vanished behind the parapet as soon as he saw the beach.

Moreo had not been idle while his sons were away. The gate timbers were newer than the wall. Iron strips crossed them at a man's shoulder and near the ground. Vhalar could see the pale heads of the nails.

"Ladders!"

They came up from the boats on men's shoulders, knocking against the corners of the stores. A shaft caught one of the bearers in the thigh. He dropped, bringing his end down with him. The men behind cursed him and tried to lift it before another flight came.

"Shields over them!" Vhalar roared. "Over them, you fools!"

Goro dragged two men into place. Others followed, lifting their shields while the wounded bearer crawled aside. The ladder rose again.

The first reached the wall to the right of the gate.

A man in a red cap went up it so quickly that Vhalar thought he might gain the top before the defenders could shift. Then a spear came over the parapet and struck his shield. He caught the next thrust upon its rim, hauled himself another rung higher, and took a stone in the face.

He fell without a sound. The man below him screamed as both came down.

The ladder hung against the wall for an instant. A hooked pole caught beneath its upper rung and thrust it out. Men scattered as it fell across the lane.

Vhalar stepped over the red cap. It had rolled almost to his feet.

"Put it up again."

No one moved.

He looked at the nearest man. A broken tooth showed beneath a lip he had drawn back from his teeth. His eyes kept going to the wall.

"Lift it."

The man bent. Someone helped him. They dragged the ladder back against the storehouse, leaving two bodies beneath the gate.

Vhalar glanced up the lane. Sending another man into those spears would buy nothing. Moreo's bowmen could shoot down into the approach while his spearmen watched the ladders, and the new gate would hold against anything they could carry in their hands.

A shutter banged above him.

He looked up. The storehouse had a loft beneath its roof, with a broad opening where bales were hauled in from the lane. It faced the left-hand tower.

"Bowmen. In there."

The door was locked. Goro put an axe into the hasp. A second stroke broke it, and the men shouldered their way inside.

"Leave the fucking goods!" Vhalar shouted after them. "Upstairs!"

He sent another party to bring the heavy timber he had seen beside the landing, a spar laid out for repair. While they fetched it, his men gathered beneath the walls of the stores, breathing through open mouths. Those who had landed from the two galleys were joining them now. The lane grew crowded. A man at the rear called that they should try the other side of the fort.

Vhalar turned upon the voice.

"And give them time to bar that too? We go through here."

A bowstring sounded overhead.

The man in the left-hand tower jerked backwards. Another ducked behind the stone. Vhalar looked up at the loft. Two archers had found room at the opening; a third knelt at a narrower window. They could not reach the whole wall, but they could reach the men looking down beside the gate.

"Keep their heads down."

The spar came up the lane, six men to a side. Others held shields over them as they ran it against the doors. The first blow boomed through the gateway. Men upon the wall shouted and rushed towards it. A basket tipped above them. Stones rattled off the lifted shields; one struck the timber and glanced into a bearer's face.

"Again!"

The spar struck. The doors shuddered and held.

Vhalar seized the nearer ladder.

"Goro. The other one. Now."

They ran them up together, one on either side of the gate. A spear struck the ground near Vhalar's foot. An arrow passed his face so closely that he felt the fletching. The ladder hit stone, slid, caught beneath the coping.

He began to climb.

The shield dragged at his left arm. He could not hold it high and use the hand properly, so he hooked his fingers over each rung and pushed with his legs. The ladder shook beneath the men coming after him. Halfway up, he heard Goro bawling at someone to climb or be thrown up.

A face appeared above the wall. A young man with a pale beard and both hands upon a spear.

Vhalar stopped one rung short of its reach.

The young man thrust down. Vhalar raised his shield, took the point near its centre and felt it bite deep. The man tried to wrench it free. Vhalar dragged the shield down and to one side.

The young man lurched against the parapet.

Vhalar let the shield go.

He climbed the last rungs with his sword hand braced against the stone. The young man still had the spear, with the shield hanging from it. Vhalar struck him across the wrist and drove his shoulder into his chest before he could drop it and draw his knife. They fell together upon the narrow walk.

A boot struck Vhalar in the ribs.

He rolled into the wall. A second man stood over him with an axe. Vhalar caught the descending haft near the head; the edge hit stone beside his ear. The man hauled back, pulling him half upright. Vhalar went with it and thrust beneath his arm.

He did not wait to see him fall. The spearman had found his knife.

Vhalar kicked him in the face and rose.

The first of his men came over the coping. Then a second. Farther along, Goro had one leg across the wall and a defender beating at his helmet with a short club. One of the loft archers put an arrow into the defender's back. Goro dragged himself over, got both feet beneath him, and struck until the man stopped trying to rise.

"The stairs!" Vhalar shouted.

Three defenders barred the descent into the yard. Behind them, others were turning from the gate. Vhalar went for the nearest before they could gather. The man gave ground along the walk, keeping his buckler close. He was good enough to turn the first cut and quick enough to answer it.

Vhalar felt the point drag across the mail beneath his arm.

He crowded in. There was no room for the buckler to swing, no room for a proper stroke. He drove the pommel into the man's mouth, hit him again, then shoved him into the defender behind. Both went down the steps.

The third ran.

Below, the yard had filled with men. Some were coming towards him; others were trying to drag a laden cart across the gate passage. Vhalar could see the bar laid in its brackets behind the doors, thick as a man's thigh.

"Down with me!"

He took the steps two at a time. His side hurt where the boot had struck him. At the bottom a man lunged from behind the stair with a boathook. Vhalar turned the shaft with his sword, caught it under his free arm and drove forward until the man struck the wall. Someone behind Vhalar finished him.

The others came down in a rush.

They hit the men at the cart before it could be turned. A mule screamed and began to kick. Its driver dropped the reins and fled towards the house. Vhalar caught a swordsman turning to follow him and cut across the back of his knee. The man fell in front of the cart, and his companion stumbled over him.

"The bar! Get that bar up!"

Goro brought men from the other stair. They crowded beneath it, straining, while Vhalar and the others held the passage. Beyond the doors, the spar struck again.

"Stop, you bastards!" Goro shouted. "Stop hitting it!"

Someone outside heard him. The next blow did not come.

The bar rose out of its brackets and fell with a crash. Men hauled upon the doors. One opened barely a foot before the cart wheel caught it.

Vhalar put his shoulder to the cart. Goro joined him. A defender came at them with a spear and was dragged down by the men squeezing through the gap. The mule kicked again, broke its trace, and lurched clear. The cart moved.

The doors swung inward.

Vhalar's men poured through, shouting his name, the names of their ships, promises of what they would do to anyone still holding a blade. The defenders gave back towards the house. A few threw down their weapons. Others tried to reach the door beneath the right-hand tower and found it already crowded with their own men.

Vhalar caught his breath against the wall.

He had lost his shield. Blood ran from a cut across his knuckles, and his left side hurt when he breathed deeply. He opened and closed the hand until he was sure it would serve.

Across the yard, a shutter burst outward. One of his men had climbed through a window. Another was trying to follow, despite Goro's shouts.

"Leave the rooms!"

The captain caught the second man by his belt and dragged him down. The first had already vanished inside.

The house door opened.

Moreo came out with his sword drawn.

For an instant Vhalar saw him as he had been when his father was alive: broad across the shoulders, fair hair bound behind his head, laughing over a captured cog while the merchant's master begged them to leave him something to take home. He had cut the man's purse from his belt and tossed it back with a single copper inside.

Now the hair was white. His mail hung loose beneath a faded blue surcoat, and a man beside him had one hand beneath his elbow.

Moreo shook it off.

"With me!"

His men came down the steps together.

There were scarcely twenty, but they knew one another. They had stood beside him through years of boarding decks and breaking holds, and they came with their shields touching. The first of Vhalar's men met them alone and went down. The second tried to turn away and was thrust through from behind.

The men who had been shouting a moment before fell back into those still coming through the gate.

"Stand!" Goro bellowed.

Moreo's men drove into them. A short spear caught Goro high upon his shield and forced him backwards. Beside him, a man dropped his axe to clutch at his throat. Vhalar saw the opening widen.

He snatched a shield from the ground and ran into it.

The first blow drove the shield against his chest. He planted his feet, struck over its rim and felt his sword glance from a helm. The man before him came on again.

"Here!" Vhalar roared. "Close on me!"

Goro struck the spearman from the side. Another of Vhalar's men pushed in against his shoulder. The retreat stopped. Behind them, more men were coming through the gate than Moreo could kill.

The old pirate saw Vhalar.

"You."

He said it so clearly that Vhalar heard him through the shouting.

"Your father knew better than to come here."

Around him his men were giving ground, but Moreo stood where he was, with his sword held low.

"He should have come years ago." Vhalar forced the spearman's haft aside. "Your time is done, old man. Mine begins here."

Moreo stepped through the gap his men made for him.

He did not hurry. Vhalar had expected a shout, some curse upon his father or the faithless men who had opened the landing. Moreo only settled his shield and came within reach.

His sword moved.

Vhalar caught the cut upon his shield. The point slid over its rim and came for his face. He jerked his head aside, felt it scrape his cheek, and struck back too late. Moreo had withdrawn behind his own shield.

Vhalar tasted blood.

Moreo had seen him snatch up the shield. He struck at its outer edge again, drawing Vhalar's arm across his body, and thrust beneath it.

This time Vhalar was ready. He turned his hip and took the point along his mail, then brought his sword down hard upon Moreo's. Steel rang. Moreo gave half a step and recovered.

Behind him, one of his men fell. Another closed the space. They were trying to give their captain room to kill Vhalar.

Vhalar went forward.

He struck high, then at the knee, then high again. Moreo met the cuts without wasting strength. His breathing grew louder. Sweat ran through his white beard. He retreated a pace towards the house, and Vhalar followed.

The retreat was an invitation.

Moreo planted his rear foot and thrust as Vhalar stepped after him. The point slipped beneath the shield and scraped across the mail at his belly. Vhalar twisted away, forcing the blade down with the shield's lower edge.

Moreo drew back for another thrust.

Vhalar struck before it came. The old man caught the blow upon his sword, but Vhalar bore down upon it and drove his shield against Moreo's, forcing it back against his chest. Moreo tried to give ground. His shoulder struck the man fighting behind him.

Vhalar shoved harder. The old pirate's knee buckled, and his blade dipped as he struggled to keep his feet.

Vhalar drew back his blade and thrust beneath his chin.

Moreo sagged against him, his sword hand trapped between their bodies.

He pushed him away.

Moreo fell upon the stones at the foot of his own steps.

One of his men cried out and came at Vhalar. Goro caught him from the side. The others hesitated just long enough for Vhalar's men to force their way between them.

"Down!" Vhalar shouted. "Weapons down, and live!"

A sword rang upon the stones. Then another.

Two men tried to reach the house. One made it through the door. The other fell upon the steps, and the men pursuing him climbed over his body.

Vhalar dropped the battered shield and stood over the old man until his own breathing steadied.

The bell had stopped.

From the harbour came a different sound: men cheering, answered by shouts from the landing. Goro went to the gate and looked down. When he returned, he was smiling through the blood upon his face.

"Drazen has two of them fast. The third came back under the beach. Orros's men have her ropes."

Vhalar looked at the house.

"Get men through every room. Roofs, cellars, the stores below. I want the ones still hiding brought out before they find a bow."

"And those who put their swords down?"

"Keep them together. I'll speak to them when we're finished."

He would need them. Nine hulls, even if one was barely a hull at all. Moreo's crews knew the channels, the coves where traders sheltered, the prices paid for cargoes that had lost their papers. They would grieve for him until their next share was counted.

Vhalar wiped his sword upon the dead man's surcoat.

Outside the gate, someone had broken a wine jar. The red stream ran between the paving stones, and men knelt with their cups in it while others fought over the jars still whole. Goro struck one with the flat of his sword and sent him after the men searching the stores.

Vhalar let the rest drink.

They had climbed the wall. He could hardly tell them now that everything behind it belonged to him alone.

A woman ran out of the house carrying a bundle against her breast. Two men caught her at the steps. The bundle fell and broke open, spilling shirts and a little wooden box. She reached for it, and one of them pulled her arms behind her while the other kicked the lid apart.

Silver scattered over the stone.

"Shared taking," Vhalar said.

The man who had bent for it looked up. Slowly, he took his hand out of his belt pouch.

"All of it."

He set three coins beside the others.

Vhalar pointed towards the gate. "Take her down with the rest."

More people were being brought out: servants from the house, a cook with flour still upon his sleeve, two girls clinging to the same older woman. Below the stores, a door had been forced open upon the captives Moreo had not yet sold. They came into the morning blinking, their ankle irons scraping the steps. Vhalar's men drove them towards the landing beside the newly taken.

One of the cooks tried to explain that she was free. The man tying her wrists told her to explain it to the buyer.

Orros came up through the gate. He saw Moreo at the foot of the steps and stopped.

"Your men have the ships?" Vhalar asked.

"Those still at their moorings. We are bringing the crews ashore."

Orros kept looking at the body.

"He came out," Vhalar said.

"He would."

"Then you knew how this would end."

The grey-bearded man lifted his eyes.

"I knew what his sons would do to the place when he was gone."

"He is gone. Keep your men together. Goro will send someone down to count the prisoners with you."

Orros understood. Vhalar saw it in the slight tightening of his mouth. He had brought him the landing, and he would keep the command he had bargained for. He would not be left alone with the ships.

"Where did he keep the books?"

Orros pointed into the house. "Above the hall. Room to the left of the stair."

Vhalar sent for his clerk.

The old man would have gold. He had seen enough being carried out already to know that. The books would tell him where the rest of it lay: which merchants held balances, which warehouses received his cargoes, what his sons had taken away and when they meant to bring it back.

Sarro would have his quarter. He could count it beneath Vhalar's eyes.

Inside, the hall smelled of spilled lamp oil and the breakfast no one had eaten. A loaf lay upon the table with a knife still in it. Someone had pulled the cushions from a bench and slashed them open. Feathers clung to the blood upon Vhalar's boot.

He crossed to the stair.

"Captain!"

The shout came through the open door. Vhalar turned, annoyed, and saw a man stumbling across the hall towards him.

"Sails!"

"How many?"

The man bent, sucking at the air.

"Speak."

"Coming round the northern point. Sarro's gone—his ships are running."

Vhalar looked past him towards the bright doorway. His men were carrying Moreo's cups into the yard.

"Rolo?" He caught the man by his coat. "What do they fly? Did you see the axes?"

The man's eyes widened.

"Black sails."

* * *
​

While the fighting still crowded Moreo's gate, Sarro had watched from the shade beneath his stern awning.

His first mate stood at the rail with a Myrish glass. He lowered it when Sarro held out his hand.

"They're getting another ladder up."

Sarro put the glass to his eye. For a moment he saw only stone. He adjusted it until the gate came into view, with men packed into the lane beneath it and a heavy timber swinging between them.

"Which one is Vhalar?"

"The left-hand ladder. Near the top."

Sarro found him. A man in mail was climbing with a shield above his head. It was difficult to tell one dirty killer from another at that distance, but the men below seemed unusually anxious to follow him.

"He does like to be first."

"And you still get your quarter."

Sarro lowered the glass. His mate was smiling at the men struggling beneath the wall.

"When it is paid."

Sarro settled the glass against the rail. Farther inshore, Drazen's two galleys lay entangled with two of Moreo's, their oars overlapping across the water. Men were fighting upon the decks. The third defender had turned back towards the beach after Sarro brought his four ships across the mouth of the bay.

That had cost him nothing. He had ordered the turn while the galley was still far enough away to believe he meant to fight. Once she ran inshore, he had restored his course and kept his distance.

"Will she come out again?" he asked.

"Not through us."

"She might, if someone tells her captain what I promised Vhalar."

"Then let us hope he keeps his bargains to himself."

Sarro smiled.

On the wall, the man they thought was Vhalar disappeared over the parapet. Others followed. The glass would have shown more, but Sarro left it where it was. He disliked the way it made a battle seem close enough to touch.

He reached for his cup. The edge of his sleeve drew back above his wrist, and he stopped with his fingers just short of the stem.

Vhalar had looked at him across the breakfast table: attentive, almost pleased, his hand closing harder while Sarro tried to pull free. He remembered the cords standing in the pirate's neck and the small, ugly satisfaction of the smile.

He had known Sarro was afraid.

Sarro picked up the cup.

"Your boat was back before we sailed?"

The mate nodded. "Both men. They spoke to the captain you named."

"And no one else?"

"No one who knew why they had gone. They took the empty water casks with them."

Sarro drank. The wine had grown warm beneath the awning.

Rolo now knew where Vhalar meant to be, which ships he was taking, and when the attack would begin. Sarro had sent no plea for assistance. He had described an opportunity to a man who made his living from them. If the Myrishman could not work out what to do with it, the tales of Redaxe Rolo had grown in the telling.

There had been no reply. That still troubled him.

Fifteen galleys and ten fast ships, if the latest count was right. Rolo had taken the southern beach while the admiral lay dying, before Vhalar could put his father's captains in order. He had known whom to pay, where to land, which men might fight and which would wait to see who won. Sarro knew captains twice his age who still called it luck.

Those were the ones who worried him least.

"He won't pass up a taking like this," the mate said. "You've left him very little to do."

"He's left us without an answer."

"Perhaps he means to answer in person."

Sarro looked at him until the smile faded.

Rolo had once spent eleven days hunting a Pentoshi captain who had fired upon his boat while they were under a flag of parley. The grievance had been real; no pirate would have let it pass. Yet Rolo had abandoned a rich, slow convoy to pursue one damaged ship, followed her into shoal water at dusk and lost a galley on the rocks. He had gone on in the boats.

One of Rolo's men had told Sarro the rest when he brought the captured cargo to market. Rolo had taken the Pentoshi captain alive. The ship was sound enough to tow, her hold still half full. He had burned her with the captain bound to the mast and sat in a boat to watch.

Sarro had asked what became of the men from the wrecked galley.

The man had not known. He had been more concerned about the price of the cargo than the crew Rolo had lost. That, too, made the account easier to believe.

If Rolo had only been a madman, someone would have killed him before he gathered so many ships. But he could wait, buy a man's servant, learn where a captain drank and when a harbour chain was lowered. Sarro could follow such calculations. He could not know when the Myrishman would decide that watching a man burn was worth more than the ship beneath him.

He wanted Vhalar between them when they met.

"Keep a man looking south," he said. "And another on the northern point. I want to hear of a fishing boat if one leaves the rocks."

"Already done."

"Good."

The mate glanced towards the fort. A shout had risen from the shore, too distant to distinguish. Men were running through the gate.

"You judged the old man's strength well."

"We haven't seen him yet."

"His gate is open."

"And men are still coming out of the house. Keep watching."

Sarro took another drink and handed the cup away.

The mate was watching the house obediently.

Vhalar would have to leave men here. He could not take Moreo's ships, empty his stores, find his money, settle the crews and march back across the island before Rolo had heard the first rumour. Every prize would hold him a little longer. Every man he sent aboard a captured galley would be one fewer standing beside him when the Myrishman came.

And if Rolo took the eastern anchorage instead, Vhalar would have to fight to get home.

He wanted them fighting here, where Vhalar's men were already bloodied and scattered among the stores. Rolo might win, but he would lose men doing it. Better still if neither captain came out alive. Taking the eastern anchorage cheaply would only give the Myrishman another fort and more gold to hire with.

"If one of the captains asks us for passage," the mate said, "what shall I tell him?"

"That I am a merchant."

The mate smiled.

"At the usual rate?"

"You may begin there."

He liked that answer. Sarro could tell. By evening, if matters went well, his mate would be repeating it to the other captains as proof that Sarro had understood the whole affair before a sword was drawn.

Let him.

There were men on this island who would drink his wine and call him a peddler to his face. They brought him waterlogged silk, spoiled spices, frightened people whose names they had never troubled to learn, and demanded the prices they had heard paid in Lys. When he told them what the goods would fetch, they reached for their knives. Then their crews wanted paying, and they came back.

Vhalar had inherited ships. Rolo had taken them. Both still needed someone who could turn a stolen cargo into silver without losing half its value at the first quay.

They might remember that when there were fewer of them.

Movement showed upon the steps of the house. The mate raised the glass, then offered it to Sarro.

"The old man."

Sarro watched Moreo's last men drive into the yard. For a little while the attackers gave ground. He could not see individual blows clearly, only the knot of shields pressing forward and the crowd thickening about it.

Then it broke apart.

"Down," the mate said beside him. "I think he's down."

Sarro held the glass steady. Men were running towards the house. Others knelt upon the stones with empty hands raised above their heads.

It had been quicker than he hoped.

"A quarter of all that," the mate said. "And our men haven't lost a finger."

"Have the signal flags ready."

"To go in?"

"To clear the bay."

The mate turned his head towards him, then nodded as though it had been the answer he expected.

"Of course."

Sarro could send for his share later. He had already collected his hire, the old balance and the advance. Those chests were below his feet, guarded by men whose wages came from his purse. The money in Moreo's house belonged to him only so long as Vhalar cared to remember it.

He had not forgotten the fingers upon his arm.

Nor had he forgotten what Vhalar had said about finding him, no matter where he went. A man who made such a promise might decide, after winning a fort, that he need no longer pay for what he could take.

Let him try that with Rolo.

The mate moved away to speak to the helmsman. Sarro rested both hands upon the rail and looked over the harbour.

Moreo's storehouses had good roofs. The landing lay well under the headland, sheltered from the worst of the weather. Ships could be watered there; cargoes could be held until prices rose. With enough coin, he could buy the services of men who had followed a dead captain. He knew which of Moreo's creditors would welcome a sensible settlement and which of his sons would sell an inheritance before trying to defend it.

Sarro had always paid other men for a safe place to put his goods.

He looked again at the house above the yard.

"Sails!"

The call came from aloft.

Sarro smiled.

"Now it begins."

The mate returned to the rail and lifted the glass towards the northern point. Sarro watched the nearest galley in the harbour. Her men were hauling a body clear of the oars. They had not heard.

"Sarro."

Something in the mate's voice made him turn.

The glass remained against the man's eye.

"Those aren't red axes."

Sarro held out his hand. The mate did not seem to see it.

"They're black."

"Black?"

He snatched the glass and swung towards the headland.

A dark sail stood clear of the rock. Another followed. Below them, oars rose and fell together, carrying the leading ships beyond the shelter of the point. There were more hulls behind, larger and slower, with pale canvas drawing in the wind.

He lowered the glass.

"Signal the others. Out. Now."

"What about Rolo?" his mate asked.

"Let them kill each other!" Sarro screamed.

Perhaps there would still be something worth taking when the fighting was done.

Sarro looked once towards Moreo's fort. Men crowded the yard, carrying what they had taken. Somewhere among them Vhalar was counting his victory.

There was no time to send a boat.

* * *
​

Jon saw smoke above the western hills before the fort came into view.

At first it lay low against the roofs. Then the wind lifted it, exposing the pale wall and the ships gathered beneath it. Through the glass he could see men upon the landing, boats moving close inshore, two galleys locked together farther out. He could not tell whose men stood upon their decks.

Their course would carry them round the northern headland to Vhalar's anchorage on the eastern shore.

Four ships were turning away from the bay.

Denys had seen them too.

"They're making for open water."

Jon lowered the glass with his left hand. His right lay against his belt, the bandage hidden beneath the cuff. It had ached through the last two nights. He had stopped expecting it to be better by morning.

"Let them go."

Denys waited.

"Keep the transports with their escort. We take the eastern anchorage."

The captain went to give the order. Beyond the rail, the four hired vessels held their distance behind the fighting ships. He had kept room aboard them for the captives they meant to bring away.

He looked towards the hills. If that was Vhalar's doing, the attack had begun before they could stop it. Whoever had won, Jon would have to learn what remained in the eastern anchorage when the coast opened before them.

Arthur stood beside the mast, one hand resting upon his sword. He followed Jon's gaze, then looked back at the ships behind them. He offered no further objection. They had spent those words on Dragonstone.

Hewyn came forward with his helmet beneath his arm. Men rose from the benches and took up shields. Aurane had gone to the rail to help pass the last quiver forward; Corwyn stood clear of the sailors, tightening a strap that was already tight. Officers moved among the legionaries, checking that every man was ready.

Jon set down the glass.

"Prepare the men," he told Hewyn. "It's time for war."

Hewyn put on his helmet.

"Black!"

The legionaries answered him, their voices striking the deck beneath Jon's feet.

"Black!"

The next ship answered, and the next. Men lifted shields above the rails. Farther back, the legionaries aboard the transports took up the cry.

"Black! Black!"

 

[aiwonder]

The bell began before the fort came into view.

Jon heard it through the creak of the oars: a hurried, uneven clanging somewhere beyond the headland. Hugin lifted from the mast. The crow flew towards the sound, then turned back when the cliff hid the ship.

"Keep the boats aboard," Jon told Hewyn.

The centurion looked past him. Along the rail, men were waiting to lower the first boat. Malcolm had a foot upon its bench.

"Hold," Hewyn called.

Jon beckoned Arthur towards the shelter behind the mast. A coil of heavy rope lay against the boards there, out of the rowers' way. He sat upon it, keeping his right hand clear of his knee.

"Stay beside me."

Arthur looked up at the crow and moved between Jon and the men forward.

Jon closed his eyes and found Hugin upon the wind.

For a moment the height caught him. The ship lay below, her oars combing green water, and beyond her the hired transports were still coming round the point. He turned the crow towards shore.

The eastern anchorage opened beneath his wings.

Two galleys lay off the landing. Men were running along their decks; on the nearer one, an anchor cable rose dripping from the sea. A third vessel sat higher out of the water, with bare patches along her rail and men scrambling down from the rigging. Four longboats lay close to shore. Someone was pushing one clear with a pole.

The stone steps were where the prisoner had said. They rose from the water between a low wall and a long storehouse, then joined a lane which climbed towards the fort. From the ship they would look like the quickest way ashore.

Hugin passed above the storehouse roof.

Men were gathering inside its upper floor. Through a broken patch of tiles Jon saw a bow drawn from a bundle, a man's shoulder, the pale shaft of an arrow. Along the wall overlooking the steps, shutters remained closed. The men at the foot of the landing were few and badly spread. A man in a striped cap waved them back, leaving the lower steps empty.

Jon took Hugin higher.

North of the landing, the shore curved into a yard where timbers and unfinished boats lay above a strip of shingle. A low ridge of rock ran out into the water between the yard and the steps. The loft could command the landing. It could not command all that beach.

Beyond the yard stood the two long sheds.

One door was open. Chained men were being driven out in short files. The line faltered where the path turned towards the fort. A guard struck someone with the shaft of his spear, and the whole file staggered against the men in front. Jon could see no more beneath the shed's overhanging roof.

He sent Hugin towards the hillside. The fort had a broad gate looking down the lane and a squat tower at the far corner. A stone stair climbed beside a hall to the tower and the adjoining wallwalk. There were men upon it, looking out to sea. Houses crowded below its western wall. Among them a pale path wound away from the spring and vanished behind trees. He followed it as far as the first turn.

Nothing moved there that he could see.

He had already spent too long.

The rope beneath him pressed against his thigh. He opened his eyes to Arthur's cloak and the smell of wet wood. The bell was louder now. Their ship had cleared the point.

"Bowmen in the storehouse beside the steps," he said. "Behind the shutters. They are leaving the landing open for us."

Arthur turned towards the shore.

Jon rose and called Denys. He pointed with his left hand, tracing the low rock ridge as it came into view.

"The boats go north of that. Into the timber yard."

Denys studied the narrow beach. "It shelves unevenly. They may have to wade."

"Better than climbing those steps under the loft. Can you keep its men down?"

"For a little while. Those galleys will have something to say about it."

One was already moving. Her oars struck the water in a ragged beginning, steadied, and drew her away from the shore. The second followed with men still running to their places.

"Then take them," Jon said. "The transports wait until we have the landing."

Denys pointed out a patch of water to the ship's master and went forward, calling for the signal. Hewyn brought Malcolm to Jon.

"The sheds are beyond the yard," Jon told them. "They have begun taking people towards the fort. First Spears secure the beach. Brus comes behind you. Do not run up the lane after anyone who gives ground. I want room to put the rest ashore."

Malcolm looked once towards the sheds, fixing them against the fort above.

"What if they start killing them?"

"Stop them if you can reach them. Keep your men together."

The centurion nodded and went back to his boat. Hewyn followed him, raising his voice to reach the next group waiting by the rail.

Jon caught Elyas's eye.

"Stay with the ship's bowmen. Shoot where their captain tells you."

The young knight had the bow out of its case already. "Yes, my lord."

"Garon, you go with Hewyn. Carry his orders until we are ashore. Corwyn, with me."

Aurane came forward before Jon could call him. A sailor had thrust a rope into his hands; he was keeping its loose coils out from under the men bringing a boat aft.

"And me?"

"Help get them away. Then stay with Denys until he sends you."

Aurane glanced at the men getting into the boats, then down at the rope in his hands. He shifted it to his other hand and went back to the sailors.

The nearer pirate galley turned across their course.

A shout rose from her bow. Jon saw shields above the rail, a hooked pole, a bare arm pointing towards their ship. Denys gave an order to the master. Their own oars checked on one side, and the deck slanted beneath Jon's feet as the bow came round.

"Down there!"

Arthur's hand closed upon his shoulder. Jon crouched behind the rail as an arrow struck the deck where he had been standing. Another passed overhead. The legionary beside him lifted his shield, and a third arrow lodged in its rim.

The bowmen answered.

From below the rail Jon could see little of it: the bend of a bow, a sailor's bare feet, the dark shaft quivering inches from his face. Denys remained where he could see both ships. He shouted to the men at the forward oars, then to the bowmen. The master repeated him. The ship heaved through her turn.

Malcolm's boat dropped into the water.

The men went over quickly, passing shields down before them. Another boat struck the sea aft. The cliff had sheltered them from the swell, but the wake of the turning galley caught it broadside and drove it against the hull. Wood cracked. One man fell between the thwarts; his companions dragged him up by his belt.

"Hold her off!" Hewyn roared.

A boat hook caught the rail. The men shoved, the boat cleared, and the first oars dipped.

Through the gap beneath a raised shield, Jon saw the enemy draw closer.

Denys had kept their bow towards her. Now the pirate captain altered course, seeking their flank. A second of Jon's fighting ships came out from behind them, her bowmen standing above a line of shields. The pirate checked. Men aboard her began shouting in different directions.

The sea between the ships filled with arrows.

One of Jon's sailors dropped beside an oar. The rower behind him tried to catch him and lost his stroke; the next oar struck his. A mate shoved between the benches, hauled the wounded sailor clear and thrust another man into his place. The oars found their work again.

Malcolm's boats were beyond the galley's bow now. The low ridge of rock lay between them and the steps.

Jon stood.

"Get down," Arthur snapped.

"I need to see the beach."

Arthur brought a shield up beside him. Jon looked past its edge.

The storehouse shutters opened.

Men leaned out with bows. They had waited for boats at the steps and found them making for the yard instead. Some tried to follow them with their arrows; others turned upon the ships. Denys pointed, and the forward bowmen shifted their aim. Elyas loosed among them, fumbled his next shaft, then steadied himself and drew again.

The first boats grounded short of the beach.

Malcolm went over into water above his knees. His men followed, stumbling over stones they could not see. A shield floated free. A man reached after it until Malcolm caught his collar and shoved him towards shore.

Pirates were running out among the timbers.

There were more than Hugin had seen. They came from a shed open at both ends, carrying axes, spears, a ship's boarding hook. One flung a stone which struck a legionary on the helm. The man dropped to one knee in the water. His companion hauled him upright and they went on together.

The beach was too narrow for a full front. First Spears had to come in between a hauled-out boat and a stack of rough timber, with the next boat's men still wading behind them. A pirate darted between the hull and the rocks. Jon saw him strike at a soldier's leg, saw the soldier fall, and lost both beneath the shields which closed over them.

"Close up! Shields together!" Malcolm's voice carried across the water.

The leading rank stopped trying to advance. Shields pressed together above the wash. More men came in behind, and spearpoints appeared between the shoulders of those in front. The pirates rushed them before the line was complete.

Jon watched a long hook catch a shield and wrench it sideways. A sword followed, striking the breastplate behind it. The soldier reeled into his comrades. They held him up, and a spear came over his shoulder and drove the attacker against the hauled-out boat. The legionary got his shield back in front of him before the next man came. Another pirate climbed onto its keel, trying to reach over the line. A legionary struck at his feet. He jumped down on the shoreward side and disappeared.

The second boat reached the beach. Then the third.

Malcolm's optio stood behind the line, catching each arriving file and sending it to a place. One man started towards the fighting at the boat's keel. The optio seized his shoulder, turned him and pointed him into a gap. He went there. The next men followed him.

Brus came through the shallows with his round shield raised, beating men forward with the flat of his sword. He took his first soldiers to the northern end of the yard, where pirates were already trying to get round the spear line behind the hauled-out boat.

The fighting vanished behind the hull. Jon saw Brus's helmet once, a lifted axe, the underside of a shield. Then a pirate came backwards into sight and fell among the stones. Brus followed far enough to clear the end of the boat and stopped his men there.

Malcolm moved forward.

The spear line took three short paces out of the water. Men still arriving filled the ranks behind it. Another three paces brought the shields onto dry shingle. Malcolm called again, and the front advanced together.

The pirates gave ground among the timbers. One tried to rally them beside a stack of planks, but Brus had already brought his men round its far end. The pirate saw the shields turning towards him and ran for the houses. Others followed, leaving their wounded where they had fallen.

Malcolm halted at the mouth of the lane. Behind him the next boats grounded upon a beach his men now held.

Hewyn was ashore. He climbed onto a stack of planks and raised his arm towards the ship.

Jon breathed out.

"Have my boat brought alongside."

Denys heard him from the forward rail. "Not yet."

The pirate galley struck the ship that had come up beside them.

The sound carried across the water, a deep wooden crash followed by screaming. Oars lifted and broke between the hulls. Grapnels flew. Their consort slewed round beneath the blow, and for a moment Jon saw men upon both decks thrown off their feet.

Denys was already shouting to the master.

Their own ship gathered way.

Jon caught the rail with his left hand and stepped clear as sailors ran past him with axes and coils of rope.

Beyond them, Hewyn lowered his arm and began widening the foothold.

* * *

Vhalar had sent three men to the headland before anyone could tell him where the black ships were going.

He stood at the western landing with blood drying beneath his mail and watched a boat pull in from Drazen's galley. Behind him the fort bell had stopped. His men had found the rope and cut it.

They were still coming down from the houses with their arms full.

A man hurried past carrying a copper basin packed with cloth. Vhalar caught him by the back of the neck and drove him against the storehouse wall. The basin rang upon the stones.

"Whose boat?"

The man stared at him.

"Whose fucking boat are you in?"

"Goro's."

"Then find him." Vhalar released him. "Leave that here."

The man looked at the spilled cloth.

Vhalar drew his knife halfway from its sheath.

He went.

"Stack it inside," Vhalar told the men behind him. "Put two at the door. Anything stolen before it's divided comes out of the thief's hide."

That carried farther than an order to muster. Men looked round from the bundles in their hands. One began protesting that he had found his silver before the gate fell; his own boatmate struck him in the mouth and told him to shut it.

Drazen came up the steps holding his side.

He had washed the blood from his face. There was more on his sleeve, though Vhalar could not tell whose. He stopped where the landing met the lane and glanced at the goods accumulating outside the storehouse.

"Sarro?"

"Gone."

"All four?"

Vhalar nodded.

Drazen spat into the water. "He saw them before we did."

"What did you see?"

"Black canvas. Men along the rails. They kept going."

"Dragonstone?"

Drazen looked towards the empty northern water. "Could be. Too far off to swear to it."

Vhalar felt the cut in his cheek pull as he worked his jaw.

The boy had taken his ships. That much he knew. He did not yet know whether these were the same men or another captain come to feed upon Moreo. A black sail could be bought in any port. It was the way they had passed the western harbour that troubled him.

They had seen the ships crowded beneath the fort. Seen the boats hauling spoils. They had kept going.

Towards his money. His anchorage. The men he had left to hold it.

"How soon can you sail?"

"My two can go now. Of Moreo's pair, one has half her oars broken. The other has a dead master and a crew who keep asking whether Moreo is alive."

"Show them."

Drazen looked back up the lane.

"Have his head brought down," Vhalar ordered. "Let them see who pays them now."

A runner came off the road, bent double and gasping. Vhalar caught his shoulder and kept him upright.

"Which way?"

"Round the north. All of them."

"How many?"

The man tried to answer, stopped, swallowed. "I couldn't tell. Big ships behind the galleys. Some with pale sails."

"Did any turn?"

"No."

Vhalar let him go.

Drazen said nothing. He did not need to. The two galleys left in the east could keep a few raiders off the steps. They could not fight a fleet alone.

"Get your men back aboard," Vhalar told him. "Send a longboat ahead. I want to know what's in my harbour before I put a bow into it."

"And these?" Drazen nodded towards Moreo's ships.

"Leave guards aboard. Break the steering on the ones we can't use. I won't have one rowing after us with Moreo's sons' colours up."

Drazen gave a short nod. He had begun to turn when Vhalar caught his arm.

"If that is the boy's fleet, you'll get another look at them."

Drazen looked down at the hand, then back at him.

"I'll know them close."

"See that you do." He released him.

* * *

The pirate galley was still locked against Jon's second ship. Denys had brought his own across the enemy's stern.

His bowmen could shoot along the pirate deck now. Men who had been trying to force their way over the consort's rail turned and raised shields against this new danger. Others kept fighting, unaware of what was happening behind them.

A grapnel caught the pirate galley's stern rail. A sailor braced his feet and hauled the rope tight; Jon stepped over it as three men ran to help.

"Boats!" Denys called aft. "Get the last men away!"

Arthur went down first. Jon followed, lowering himself with his left hand while a sailor steadied his belt. The boat dropped beneath his foot, rose again, and he landed hard across a bench. His bandaged right hand struck the side. Pain ran from wrist to elbow; he held the arm against his chest until it eased.

Corwyn came over after him with his shield upon his back. A sailor caught the shield's rim before it struck Jon in the face.

"Sit," Arthur told him.

He sat.

Above them a man screamed. Something heavy struck the water on the far side of the galley. Jon looked up once and saw Denys leaning over the rail, pointing their boat towards the yard.

They pulled away through broken wood and floating arrows.

From this low in the water the fort seemed much higher. The walls which Hugin had crossed in a breath stood above two steep lengths of lane. Smoke was gathering beneath the storehouse eaves. Jon could hear fighting inside, though the shutters facing the steps were empty now.

They passed a dead man whose shirt had filled with air and held his shoulders above the water. Corwyn looked at him until the boat carried them beyond.

"Watch the shore," Jon said.

The young knight turned.

At the timber yard, legionaries stood waist-deep to steady the incoming boats. A man offered Jon his shoulder. He took it with his left hand and stepped into cold water, then climbed the loose stones to Hewyn.

The centurion had blood upon his chin. It was coming from a split lip.

"Malcolm has the lane," he said. "Brus took the back of the storehouse. They kept looking out to sea until he was at the door."

"Losses?"

"Five dead that I've seen. Wounded coming back now. There's still fighting above us."

A shout came from the loft. Two men appeared at a window. One held a bow sideways above his head; the other waved empty hands.

"Down the stair!" Brus called from within. "One at a time!"

Jon looked up the lane.

Malcolm's line stood below a bend, shields towards the fort. The men had dragged a handcart across a gap between two houses. Behind them, soldiers carried their wounded downhill upon spare shields. One man walked with them, holding a broken arrow against his cheek so that the shaft would not move. Blood and saliva ran from the corner of his mouth. He kept spitting red onto the stones.

"Clear the steps and signal Denys," Jon told Hewyn. "Tell him we have the landing and need the rest of the men. Gerralt's men stay below until we know what is coming out of that fort."

Hewyn pointed towards the sheds. "They've shut themselves in there with the prisoners."

Jon turned.

The nearer door was barred from within. Men were battering it with a length of timber, stopping between blows to listen to someone shouting on the other side. At the second shed, a guard lay facedown beneath the wall. Another had dropped his spear and was kneeling, hands clasped behind his head.

"Bring him here."

A soldier caught the kneeling man by the collar and hauled him over.

Jon held out his left hand.

"Keys."

"I haven't got them."

"Who has?"

"Dallo. Inside."

"How many with him?"

"I don't—"

The soldier tightened his grip.

"Six! Maybe seven. I came out before they shut it."

Jon looked at the barred door. A woman's voice rose behind it, high and desperate. Someone inside struck the wood with a weapon.

"Stop the ram."

The men lowered their timber.

Jon moved close enough to be heard without shouting. Arthur stayed beside him, shield turned towards the gap around the door.

"Who commands in there?"

A pause.

"Who wants to know?"

"Lord Black of Dragonstone. Open the door, put down your weapons and come out."

"We have people in here."

"I know."

"We'll cut them."

Jon looked at the black gap beneath the door. A pair of feet stood just inside it. Bare feet, toes pressed hard against the dirt.

"Then you will have nothing left to bargain with."

Someone spoke rapidly inside. Another voice cursed him quiet.

"What are you offering?"

"Your lives if you yield now."

Arthur glanced at him, but Jon kept his eyes upon the door.

"You'll take us off in chains."

"Yes."

Silence followed.

Up the lane a horn sounded. Jon heard Malcolm calling his men back a pace. He could not see the bend from here. Hewyn looked towards it, then at Jon.

"Go."

The centurion ran.

Something scraped against the inside of the door.

"Lift the bar. Weapons out first."

The bar thudded onto the floor inside. The door came outwards an inch. Jon stepped back and let Arthur take his place.

A spear slid through the gap and fell onto the dirt.

The first man came out crouching, his hands above his head. Arthur pushed him to a waiting soldier. Another followed. Then three together, crowding the doorway until Arthur drove them apart with the edge of his shield.

The last man wore a ring of keys at his belt.

Jon caught the ring with his left hand as he passed and pulled him to a stop.

"Which opens the leg irons?"

The man pointed with a shaking finger.

A voice inside began to sob.

There were six guards. Jon had them taken to the storehouse with the other prisoners, away from the people they had kept. Then he went inside.

The smell stopped him at the threshold.

It was hot beneath the roof. Bodies packed the shadow beyond the doorway, some standing, others sitting against the wall with their knees drawn up. A rusted chain ran through rings set low in the posts. At the far end a woman was trying to pull a boy behind her while the man beside her stared at Jon's sword belt.

He had no sword in it.

She pulled the boy back anyway.

Jon called into the shed. "You're being taken out of here. The keys are coming. Stay clear of the door."

A man spoke from the dark in a language Jon did not know. Three others answered him. The woman kept watching his empty belt.

Corwyn came in behind Arthur and stopped so suddenly that the soldier following nearly struck him.

Jon handed him the ring and showed him the key the guard had pointed out.

"Find someone who can make them understand. Start nearest the door. Take their names as they come out, if they'll give them. Keep families together."

Corwyn knelt beside the first man and fitted the key. The lock was stiff. He worked it back and forth while the man held his ankle steady with both hands.

Jon stepped outside. Boats were moving towards the stone steps.

The second enemy galley lay farther offshore, beyond the two still locked together. She had tried to come round towards the boats and found the transport escort between her and the landing. Now she was backing water, her forward oars fouled, while men upon the escort's bow shot down at her. Jon could not tell whether she meant to fight or flee.

A black pennon rose above the nearer captured deck.

The first galley had fallen.

Jon watched the signal long enough to be certain, then turned back to the camp.

At the open shed, a young woman was trying to carry an older man through the doorway. He could not put his feet beneath him. His heel dragged, caught in a rut, and both went down. A legionary bent to help. The old man struck at him with a hand so thin that the tendons showed.

"Give them room," Jon said.

The soldier drew back.

Jon crouched where the man could see him and pointed towards the water.

"Ships. We have ships."

The old man stared. The young woman answered in broken Common, "He thinks you sell."

"No." Jon shook his head. "No selling. Can you tell him that?"

She spoke into the man's ear. He kept his eyes upon Jon.

"Tell him again."

She did.

This time he let the soldier take his arm.

Jon rose. Two men were carrying someone out of a lean-to beside the sheds. A strip of filthy cloth hung from the injured man's foot. Beneath it the flesh had swollen around a broad dark bruise.

"Can't walk," one of them said. "There are others behind him."

"Lay them in the shade by the yard. Water first. Find doors we can carry them on."

A thin man with pitch upon his sleeves pushed through the people gathering at the doorway.

"There are some they took up," he said. "Before your boats reached us. Seventeen. The ones they thought worth keeping."

Jon looked at his hands.

Two fingers were missing from the left.

"Tero?"

The man stopped.

"Who told you that?"

"Where is Merra?"

Tero tightened his grip upon the short iron in his right hand. A caulker's tool. He had held it so low that Jon had not noticed it.

"What do you want with her?"

"Her man spoke to me on Dragonstone. He asked me to try to get you both away."

The iron did not lower.

"Is he alive?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Still on Dragonstone."

Tero looked past him at Arthur, the soldiers, the boats coming to the steps. Behind him a woman had emerged from between two houses. She had a bundle gripped against her stomach.

"Merra," he called.

She came no closer.

"You'll see him if you come with us," Jon told her. "Ask me about him aboard. I need the road behind these houses. Where does it go?"

Tero followed his pointing hand.

"The spring. Then inland. There's a track round the back of the fort."

"Can men come down it to this yard?"

"If they know the turning."

The horn sounded again above them.

Jon looked towards the lane. Men were backing round the bend, shields up. A stone bounced down between their feet. Malcolm came last, walking backwards until he reached the straight below.

Hewyn came down the lane to Jon.

"The wall commands that bend. I've pulled Malcolm clear of it."

"Are they still shooting?" Jon asked.

"Stopped just before I came."

He looked at the tower. A man had been standing there with a bow when Jon reached shore. No one stood there now.

Denys had signalled the transports forward. They drew in behind their escort, and the first began lowering a boat. Reinforcements were coming, but the men in the fort could see the same water Jon could. If they meant to strike before the landing filled, they would strike soon.

"Hewyn, hold the lane. Get Gerralt together as his boats arrive."

He turned to Arthur. "Come with me."

They went behind the caulker's shelter, where stacked planks screened them from the yard. Jon sat upon a block of timber. Arthur took his shield and stood at the opening.

Munin answered more slowly than Hugin had. She was upon the ship's rail, worrying at a loose bright nail while men hauled a wounded sailor past her. Jon drew her away from it and up into the wind.

The shore swung beneath her. For an instant his stomach turned with the change, though his body sat still upon the block. He steadied her above the sheds and climbed towards the fort.

Men crowded the inner yard.

He could not count them. Part of the yard lay beneath a roof, and others stood so close to the wall that he saw only spearheads and the tops of helms. Those nearest the gate carried shields. A man in a red cap moved among them, striking the shields with the flat of his sword.

The gate remained shut.

Munin crossed the wall and turned towards the houses.

Below her, another group was coming down beside the spring. They moved in single file until the path widened, then gathered behind a low wall. The foremost man crouched and looked towards the rear of the sheds. One of the others carried an axe across his shoulder. Jon counted eight before branches hid the rest.

He could not see whether they meant the landing or the sheds. Either would put armed men behind Malcolm while the gate opened in front of him.

He let Munin settle upon the corner of a roof and returned.

His good hand was clenched upon his knee. He opened it.

"Men coming by the spring," he told Arthur. "More waiting inside the gate. They're coming out."

Arthur moved from the shelter before Jon had finished rising.

"Hewyn!"

The centurion turned.

"Gerralt goes behind the sheds. Take Tero to show him the turning," Jon ordered. "Put Rennick across the lane below Malcolm. When they come out, Malcolm gives ground to him. Slowly. I want them clear of their wall before we stop them."

"Then First Spears comes round the sides," Hewyn said.

"Where the houses leave room. Don't send men through doors we haven't searched. Rennick takes them in front."

Hewyn looked once towards the hidden path, then began shouting for Garon.

A horn sounded inside the fort.

* * *

Vhalar was still at the western steps when Goro brought the first count. Drazen's boat was pulling away. Goro had lost his helmet and bound a strip of sailcloth about his forehead. A dark patch was spreading through it above his ear.

"Twenty-seven of ours dead," he said. "Three hundred and thirty we put ashore. I've got the names from the boats."

Vhalar looked at the men gathering beside the storehouse.

Three hundred and three left. Some sat on the stones while others tied up their wounds. One held his arm across his chest and watched blood drip from the end of his sleeve. Another lay upon a door with his leg crooked beneath a blanket. He would not be climbing over a rail again today.

"How many can walk?"

"Most. Not all can fight."

"Put the worst aboard first. Those who can hold a spear can hold a deck."

"And the men who surrendered?"

Vhalar turned towards the yard.

They had been penned against the lower wall, with their weapons piled beyond reach and six of his men watching them. Some still wore mail. Others had stripped it off in the heat and sat bare-chested among men they had fought beside that morning. One had a torn piece of shirt pressed to his mouth.

"Sixty-five," Goro said. "From the gate, the houses, the landing. We've stopped finding them now."

"Moreo had more than that."

"A hundred and fifty here, they say. His sons took the rest. Some are dead. Some got out over the wall. Orros says there are holes enough in these hills to hide a hundred men."

"Orros says a great deal."

The lieutenant stood near the prisoners. He had kept his sword. Vhalar's men had kept close to him.

Vhalar crossed the yard, pulling his helmet off as he went. Sweat ran into the cut upon his cheek. He wiped it away with the heel of his hand and looked over the surrendered men.

"Moreo's dead."

No one answered.

"His sons aren't coming to feed you. They're drinking somewhere with a cargo they haven't sold yet, and when they hear this they'll start asking which of you opened the gate."

A few faces turned towards Orros.

Vhalar let them look.

"You want to wait here and tell them?"

A man in a dented iron cap rose from the stones. He had grey in his beard and a raw graze along one side of his neck.

"You said we'd live if we put the swords down."

"You're breathing."

"And now you want us to fight your next battle."

"Now I'm offering you a place aboard."

"Chained to what?"

Vhalar came close enough to smell the man's sour breath. The other prisoners drew away from them.

"A share. The same as my own men. Moreo's silver is in that house. His ships are at those moorings. There'll be more before the day's done."

"Your men have taken our things."

"Then earn enough to buy better."

The man spat blood at his feet.

Goro moved, but Vhalar held him back.

He wanted the rest watching. They had seen him come over their wall. Some had seen Moreo die. Fear had got their swords onto the ground; it would not make them pull hard towards another man's fight.

He took a small silver cup from the heap beside the storehouse. It had been hammered thin, with Moreo's mark scratched clumsily into its foot.

"This came out of his house." He held it up. "How long were you waiting for him to pay you?"

Someone at the back laughed once.

"Ask Orros." Vhalar turned towards the lieutenant. "Did your old captain divide it fairly?"

Orros met his eyes. "His sons were paid before the crews."

"There you are."

Vhalar threw the cup to the grey-bearded man. He caught it awkwardly against his chest.

"Bring it when we divide the take. Say I gave it you against your share."

The man looked down at the silver.

"You can sit here until someone puts you at an oar," Vhalar shouted to the others, "or you can pick up those swords and come with me. I'll give you a share of what we take. Coin. Cargo. A berth in a ship that sails. Who's coming?"

No one moved at first.

Vhalar kicked a sword out of the heap. It skidded over the stones towards their feet.

"Up! You've pulled for Moreo's brats long enough. Take something for yourselves!"

The man with the cup bent and took the sword.

Others followed. Not all. A wounded youth shook his head when his companion caught his wrist; the companion let go and went without him. Two men kept their backs against the wall. One stared at the place where Moreo's blood had dried upon Vhalar's boot.

Goro began sending those who rose into groups among his own men.

"Six of theirs to a boat at most," Vhalar told him quietly. "One man you trust behind them. Orros stays where I can see him."

The lieutenant heard. He did not protest.

When no more would stand, forty-three of Moreo's men had chosen a share. The remaining twenty-two stayed beneath the wall, guarded, while Vhalar's wounded were carried towards the ships.

Up the lane, someone cheered as Moreo's head came into view.

Vhalar scarcely looked at it. He was watching the longboat leaving for the northern point, its rowers bent low. Soon he would know who had dared pass him and what they thought they could steal.

"Get them moving," he told Goro.

The silver cup had disappeared inside its new owner's shirt.

* * *

Jon watched Tero lead Gerralt through the gap beside the caulker's shelter. The centurion saw the low wall, looked towards the spring and brought his first files across the turning. His optio led the next men behind the shelter, out of sight of the path.

An axe showed above the wall. Then a man's head.

He had been looking towards the open shed door. He turned, saw Gerralt and shouted. The men behind him were already climbing over. One landed upon his knees; another shoved past with a spear and came straight at the black shields.

Gerralt caught the thrust and struck low. His men closed beside him. The raiders had room for only a few men abreast, and those coming behind could see little until they were already upon the waiting line.

Jon watched Gerralt's optio emerge beyond the shelter. He had kept his men together. At the centurion's shout they turned towards the raiders' exposed side.

A shout came down the lane. "The gate! They're coming out!"

"Arthur. The lane."

The knight looked from him to Gerralt's fight.

"Go. I'll stay here."

Arthur caught two legionaries standing beside the shelter. "With him." Then he went uphill at a run, shield upon his arm.

Jon remained where he could see both the landing and the rear of the sheds. Garon came back from Hewyn, breathing through his mouth.

"Rennick is moving up."

"Tell Hewyn to keep drawing them down. Rennick holds where he is until the horn."

Garon turned at once.

At the corner of the shed a pirate hooked his axe over a shield and hauled it down. His next blow struck the dark breastplate behind it, throwing the soldier to one knee. The quilted jack beneath the steel had not spared him the weight of it. His mouth opened, struggling for breath. His neighbour thrust over him, catching the attacker beneath the arm, and the optio's men struck the raiders from the side. Gerralt took his line forward while two men drew the kneeling soldier back. The man behind stepped into his place.

From inside the shed came shouting. The people nearest its rear wall had heard the fighting. They were pressing towards the door before all their chains were open.

"Keep that doorway clear!" Jon called.

Corwyn appeared with the key ring still in his hand. He looked at the fight, then back at the people behind him.

"They're pushing—"

"Take them out towards the beach. Keep them below the timber stacks."

"Most of them don't understand me."

"Find the woman who speaks Common. Make her understand. Go."

Corwyn disappeared inside.

Above them, the sound in the lane grew louder.

"Back! Keep the shields closed!" Malcolm brought First Spears down the lane a few paces at a time. His optio repeated each order from behind the line, keeping the rear files from crowding those before them. The pirates followed close, striking at shields and trying to thrust between them. "Halt! Set!" The front rank planted its feet and held until Malcolm called them back again. Arthur took his place at the outer edge, where the houses left room for a man to slip past.

Jon watched the interval between them and Rennick shorten. They had drilled this with blunted spears on level ground, stopped and begun again whenever the files tangled. Here the lane sloped, the stones were bloody, and men were dying. Still the officers' calls passed down the ranks. Malcolm halted them once more.

Rennick waited below them. His rear files had cleared a way for the men who would come back through. Hewyn stood beside the handcart, watching the bend.

The red-capped captain came into view, sword raised. "After them! Get to the fucking boats!" Those behind him pressed forward to share in the pursuit.

The lane above Malcolm filled with men pushing downhill.

Hewyn glanced down the lane. Jon raised his left arm. The horn sounded.

Malcolm's outer files turned towards the houses. His centre held while Rennick brought fresh spearmen through the space opening beside them. Then Malcolm drew his remaining men back through the gaps. One caught his foot beneath a broken shield; two companions hauled him clear, and Rennick's line closed behind them.

The pirates struck waiting shields and fresh men.

Their captain tried to pull them up. A man behind him shoved him forward, unable to see why they had halted. Spearpoints reached over the front shields. Jon saw a pirate lift his sword to strike and fall before the blow came down.

Hewyn sounded the horn again.

Rennick advanced. On his left, Malcolm's men came forward along the house fronts, catching those trying to get round the spears. The pirates at the rear began edging back towards the bend. Their captain struck one across the shoulders, but another ran past him. Then half a dozen went together.

At the sheds, Gerralt's men were driving the raiders back against the low wall. The optio's files had closed their way into the yard. The man with the axe shouted something in a harsh, unfamiliar tongue. Two of his fellows understood and scrambled back over the low wall. Another tried to follow. A legionary caught his ankle and dragged him down.

"Let the runners go," Jon called. "Hold the path."

Gerralt halted his men at the wall. Three pirates knelt before them with their hands raised; others were fleeing back towards the spring. A legionary tried to follow until his optio seized his belt and pulled him into line.

Behind the shields, two men lifted a wounded comrade clear. Corwyn's first group came out of the shed and passed towards the beach under guard.

Jon looked uphill.

The pirates in the lane were retreating towards the gate. Their captain had lost his red cap. He stood at the bend trying to stop them, one hand raised above his head, until Arthur came through the crush and struck the hand aside with his shield.

The man's sword met Arthur's.

Jon saw the first blow turned, the second caught close. Arthur stepped inside the third and drove him against the corner of the house. They vanished behind men running uphill. When Arthur reappeared, the captain did not. Four of the men he had tried to rally threw their weapons down as Rennick came upon them.

Hewyn called Rennick forward.

Jon started up the lane behind the moving ranks. His two guards came with him. He passed a man sitting against a wall with his helm in his lap and another crawling towards an open doorway. Neither looked up.

A broken chest lay in that doorway. Red silk spilled from it, a silver clasp bright among the folds. Men stepped past it to follow their century. Jon saw one look, then turn his face back towards his officer. The chest remained where it had fallen.

At the bend, he could see the gate.

One leaf was swinging shut. The other had caught upon men trying to get through. Those inside were pulling; those outside were pushing, shouting that their own were still coming. A wounded pirate lay across the threshold, both hands pressed over the loops of gut spilling from his belly. He tried to drag himself clear on his elbows.

Arthur reached them before the opening narrowed.

He drove his shield into the closing leaf. For a moment it stopped. Malcolm struck the wood beside him with his shoulder, and three more legionaries came after. The men pulling from inside gave ground.

A spear came through the gap and struck Arthur's shield. He let its point slide past him, trapped the shaft against the door with his shoulder and shoved again.

The gate opened far enough for a man.

Rennick went through first.

The soldiers behind him followed so quickly that Jon could no longer see the courtyard. Steel rang beyond the wall. Someone screamed for the gate to be shut. A body fell into the opening and was dragged aside by its belt.

Jon stopped below the threshold.

His right hand had begun to throb again. He kept it against his stomach and looked back down the lane. Boats still came to the landing; men still climbed the steps. The people freed from the sheds were gathering below the timber stacks, guarded from the path. Corwyn stood among them with his head bent close to the woman who could translate.

A runner came up from the water.

"Norren's ashore, my lord. Rymond's coming behind."

"Norren takes the spring path. Gerralt holds the timber yard once Norren relieves him. Rymond keeps the landing and the prisoners. Tell him to start sending the injured aboard. Brus holds his men below until I call for them."

The runner repeated the orders and went.

A bowman appeared upon the wall above the gate. He drew upon Jon.

One of the guards thrust his shield up. The arrow struck it with a dry crack. Jon stepped close beneath the stonework while the other guard shouted a warning. A moment later the bowman disappeared from sight, driven back by someone inside.

Jon waited until a soldier came to the gate and waved him through.

The yard smelled of dust and opened bowels.

Rennick had brought his front rank as far as the well. Beyond it the pirates were falling back towards the stone stair, dragging their wounded with them. One stumbled over a broken spear. The man beside him caught his collar and pulled him upright without lowering his shield.

"Keep them moving!" Hewyn shouted.

Arthur reached the foot of the stair with six men close behind him. He caught a descending sword upon his shield, thrust beneath it and drove the man back into those above. The pirates yielded three steps. Then a spear came down over their shoulders and struck the legionary at Arthur's side beneath the jaw.

Arthur caught him as he fell.

An arrow struck the stones beside Jon. His guard pushed him beneath the gate arch. From there he could see the bowman at an upper window, already reaching for another shaft.

The tower and the hall adjoining it occupied the far end of the yard. The stair climbed along the hall's face to an upper door. From the landing, a short passage led onto the wall beside the tower. Those who had escaped Rennick crowded the upper landing. A man in a leather jerkin shoved them towards the parapet, trying to clear the doorway. They could hold a narrow stair. There was no room for them to form another line across the yard.

Rennick's men advanced past the well under raised shields. They had more room now. Their ranks spread across the yard, pushing the last scattered pirates towards the stair and the kitchen door beneath it. A man flung down his axe and knelt. Two others ran past him and were hauled into the kitchen by their fellows.

The door slammed.

"Rennick, support Arthur," Jon called. "Malcolm holds the gate. Leave a way through for the wounded."

Hewyn repeated the orders. Malcolm's men drew against the near wall, panting. Some had been fighting since their feet touched the shingle. Sweat dripped beneath their helms; the quilted jacks were dark at the sleeves. One man bent forward, the short plates over his belly sliding against one another, and let his spear butt fall onto the stones. His optio touched his shoulder, pointed out his place by the gate and waited until he had taken it.

Arthur brought the wounded man back behind the shields. Blood welled between the fingers pressed to his throat. He tried to draw breath, and red froth broke over his knuckles.

"They can reach over us from above," Arthur warned. "They've packed the landing."

Jon took the glass from Arthur's belt and passed it to the guard beside him. "Keep that ready."

The man in the leather jerkin sent two bowmen towards the windows. Behind him, others were pulling a heavy table through the upper doorway. They turned it upon its side and began wedging it across the entrance.

A woman cried out behind one of the shutters.

Jon looked towards the sound. Fingers gripped the narrow gap between the boards. Then they disappeared.

He pointed to the pirate who had yielded beside the well.

"The people brought up from the sheds. Where are they?"

The man's eyes went to the hall.

"Above the kitchen."

"Which room?"

"End one. By the tower. They locked them in."

Jon turned to Garon. "Bring Brus up. Have him send men for the ladders in the timber yard. Tell Rymond the freed people and our wounded are to keep going aboard."

Garon glanced at the stair, where Arthur's men were hauling their fallen comrade clear.

"Now."

He ran.

Across the yard, Rennick pressed the pirates farther up the stair. One lost his footing and went down beneath the shields. The others closed above him.

"Hold there," Jon called. "Shields up. Let them wait for us."

Arthur looked round, then raised his sword to stop the men behind him. Those in front settled upon the steps they had taken. Jon pointed out the bowmen's windows to Hewyn. Legionaries with javelins moved beneath the opposite wall, ready for the next man who showed himself.

The pirates shouted down at them. No one came off the stair.

Brus came through the gate as a pirate leaned over the stair wall to thrust down at Arthur. Two javelins flew across the yard. One struck the stone beside his head; the other caught his upper arm. His spear fell among the shields below.

Brus's men had room to enter behind Malcolm, though they had to turn sideways to let two soldiers carry a wounded man out. Brus saw the blood upon Arthur's shield and started towards him.

Jon caught his sleeve with his left hand.

"Here."

He drew him against the wall. An arrow passed through the gateway and struck the lane outside.

Jon pointed. "The roof beside the kitchen. It reaches almost to the wallwalk. Get your men up there."

A timber lean-to stood against the wall, its low roof piled with bundles of firewood. Above it, three pirates watched the yard over the stone parapet. They had a clear throw at anyone crossing the open ground below. The hall hid them from the men fighting upon the stair.

Brus studied it. "We'll need shields over the ladder."

"Take the broad ones from Malcolm's rear rank. Hewyn will press the stair when you climb. If they turn on you, Arthur goes up. If they stay with him, you take the wall."

Brus nodded. "Who comes after me?"

"Your own men. Rennick stays in the yard until there is room above. Leave the gate clear."

The centurion went to choose his first men. Jon beckoned Hewyn beneath the arch and gave him the same order.

"No torches," he added. "There are people locked above that kitchen."

"I heard them." Hewyn wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "We can hit the pirates from both sides once Brus is up."

"Then keep Arthur's men fresh. He's been at the front since the bend."

Hewyn went across the yard behind Rennick's shields. A stone struck the well curb beside him and broke into pale chips. From the far wall, a legionary raised his javelin. The pirate who had thrown the stone drew back out of sight.

Jon's right hand was wet inside its bandage.

He pressed it against his stomach while one of his guards found a strip of linen. The man tied it over the dressing. Jon watched the stair throughout. Arthur still held the steps he had taken. Fresh legionaries were passing spare shields forward, and the men behind began taking the worst-damaged ones out of the line.

Beyond the gate, the first ladder was coming up the lane.

Garon ran ahead of it. "Aurane's coming ashore with word from Denys, my lord."

"Tell him I'll meet him at the steps."

Jon waited until Hewyn looked round.

"Send to me when Brus is upon the wall. No one goes through those upper doors alone."

"They'll go together," Hewyn said.

Jon went down with his two guards. Behind him came the scrape of the ladder being raised and Arthur shouting for the front rank to close.

* * *

Vhalar's galley had nearly reached the northern point when the longboat came back.

He knew something was wrong before its master shouted. The man stood in the bow waving both arms. Drazen's galley was farther out, keeping clear of the crowded longboats following the galleys.

Vhalar ordered the pace slackened. The messenger came alongside, caught a hanging rope and stayed in his boat.

"They're ashore."

"How far?"

"Through the gate. Black shields in the yard."

"The tower?"

"Ours still held it when we turned back. They were fighting on the stair. Black shields all the way down the lane, more by the boats. They've got both galleys."

A murmur passed along the deck.

Vhalar turned his head and it stopped.

"The carrier?"

"Still afloat. They're going aboard her."

"How many still fighting?"

"I couldn't count them. Some got out inland. We passed one of the message boats. They'd left before the fighting reached the steps."

Vhalar looked beyond the point.

He had left two fighting galleys and a fort with men enough to keep raiders off the steps. The galleys were lost, and the bastards were through his gate. But his men were still fighting. His cheek had begun bleeding again. He wiped it with two fingers, looked at the blood and rubbed it upon the rail.

"Bring Drazen alongside."

The master gave the signal.

His four western galleys and six longboats had gathered into a loose line. Moreo's prizes remained guarded beneath the western fort. Goro had left men there to hold the landing and guard the twenty-two of Moreo's men who had refused his offer; that was strength Vhalar could not bring to the east. Those aboard were tired. Some were wounded. Forty-three had been trying to kill him before breakfast.

The man with the silver cup stood near the mast, watching him.

Vhalar held his gaze until he looked away.

Drazen's galley drew close enough to speak across the water.

"They've got the landing," Vhalar called. "Our men still hold the tower."

"I heard."

"Could your boy do that?"

Drazen glanced towards the point. "The men who took our ships could."

Vhalar leaned upon the rail.

He wanted to drive straight into the anchorage and put his sword through whoever was wearing his silver. He wanted Sarro caught and stripped and dragged behind a boat until he stopped making bargains. He wanted the men at the oars to pull hard enough to break them.

He looked at the longboats.

Crowded. Low in the water. Easy to shoot into.

"No boats ahead of the galleys," he said. "Keep them behind us until I give the word."

Drazen nodded.

"When we clear the point, spread out. I want their ships looking at us. Give the men in the fort something to fight for."

"When do the boats go in?"

"When we have their galleys caught." Vhalar pointed towards the sheltered water beyond the headland. "Then we put our men into the yard."

"They've men waiting there."

"I heard. Keep those longboats clear until we can cover them." He looked towards the tower above the point. "The men up there only need to hold until we get in."

The cut in his cheek stung in the wind. He took a shield from the man beside him and tried its grip.

Vhalar raised his voice to reach the men at the mast. "If that little bastard is there, he'll live long enough to watch every ship he brought go down."

The grey-bearded recruit raised his sword. Others answered him, some eagerly, some because the men beside them had begun to shout.

Vhalar lifted the shield.

"Pull!"

The oars bit again.

* * *

Jon found a freed man sitting upon the steps, refusing to get into the waiting boat.

He held both arms around his knees. The sailor waiting below held out a hand. The man shook his head and began speaking so quickly that the woman translating could not interrupt him.

"His daughter," she told Jon at last. "She's still up there."

"Name?"

She asked. The man answered once, then again, louder.

"Some are still in the fort," Jon told her. "Ask him if she was taken up."

She spoke to the man. He nodded so violently that she caught his shoulder.

Jon gave the name to a soldier going up the lane. "Tell Hewyn. The people above the kitchen."

Behind them the next file had stopped. One of the men waiting could barely stand. A legionary put an arm beneath his shoulder while the sailor looked up from the boat, impatient to move.

"Use the other side," Jon told him. "Take those who are ready."

The sailor shifted the boat. The queue began moving again.

A little farther along the beach, men were loading the injured across two planks laid between a boat and a flat rock. The broken-footed worker lay upon a door. Tero held one end, his maimed left hand hooked beneath the edge. A sailor took the other.

Merra stood beside their bundle. When Jon came past, she caught his eye.

"What do we owe for the passage?"

"Nothing."

Her gaze shifted to the sailor helping her brother. "They know that?"

"They do." Jon beckoned the legionary at the planks. "See these two aboard together."

Merra loosened her hold on the bundle. Once the injured man was aboard, Tero took it from her and went ahead, then turned to offer his good hand. She glanced once towards the houses before she took it.

Corwyn came down with the count scratched upon the smooth side of a broken board.

"Two hundred and twenty-one from the sheds and the shore. Those are the ones we've counted. The seventeen taken up to the fort are still there."

"Anyone still missing?"

"Some are asking after people who were sold before today. Some don't know whether theirs were sold or moved. We're taking the names." He turned the board. "Twenty-six chained men in the galleys. The sailors counted those. The rest of the rowers say they were paid."

"Keep the paid crews apart until Denys has questioned them."

Corwyn nodded.

Two hundred and forty-seven freed, counting the rowers. Another seventeen above them, behind the men still fighting upon the stair. There was room aboard for them all, with Tero, Merra and the others asking passage, if he could get them out.

Jon looked at the boats instead of the board.

"How many aboard?"

"One hundred and sixty-one. More leaving now."

"Tell Rymond to keep the next file ready beside the steps. No pushing. Let the boatmen place them."

Corwyn went back up the landing, calling for the woman who had been translating. His sword had never left its scabbard. There was blood upon his knees from where he had knelt beside the chains.

Three women waited by the timbers in shifts torn almost to rags. One had grey in her hair. Beside her, a woman of perhaps thirty held hers shut with both hands. One eye was swollen shut, her cheek dark with bruises.

"The men you took." She spoke in Common, watching him with her one open eye. "They raped us."

A legionary looked towards the storehouse. "Fucking scum."

Jon's left hand closed until his nails hurt.

"Bring cloaks." Jon had to raise his voice to make the staring men move. "Ask who needs carrying."

The third woman still wore an ankle iron; its lock had seized. A soldier knelt to work it loose. As he lifted it away, she caught the knife at his belt and pulled it free.

He reached for her wrist. She screamed and stumbled backwards. Another man dropped his spear and went after her.

"Put it down," he pleaded. "We won't—"

She turned the blade upon herself before he reached her.

The first soldier caught her as she fell. He tore off his cloak and pressed it against the wound while the other took the knife away.

"Cloth," Jon ordered. "Fetch the men tending our wounded."

A woman in the waiting line began sobbing. The grey-haired one caught her arm and led her away. The bruised woman stayed, gripping her ruined shift, watching the soldiers try to save her companion.

Jon stood back to let help through. The legionary would not lift his hands until another man knelt beside him.

She died before they could carry her to a boat.

They covered her where she lay. The soldier sat back upon his heels, still holding the stained cloak. Her ankle iron lay open beside his knee.

Jon stared at it. He had counted her among the rescued. There was room aboard for her. He had brought ships, soldiers, everything he had thought they would need, and she had died at his feet.

His eyes went to the storehouse. The bastards inside would be listening for Vhalar, hoping to be rescued in their turn.

I'll kill them all. Every last one.

He took a step towards them. Corwyn moved with him, then stopped when Jon did. Uphill, steel rang against steel. There were still people locked above the kitchen.

"Get her aboard." His voice was harsh. Corwyn glanced at the wounded waiting by the steps. "After them. But she comes with us."

Beside the timbers, the bruised woman accepted a cloak and wrapped it round the one who was crying. Jon could not look at the storehouse again without wanting its door opened and the prisoners dragged out.

Aurane came ashore in the next returning boat.

He carried Denys's report, a waterskin and a bandage tied badly around his forearm. Jon looked at the bandage.

"Arrow?"

"Splinter. A grapnel tore the rail beside me."

"Can you use the hand?"

Aurane opened and closed it.

"Yes."

"The report," Jon snapped. Aurane straightened.

"One captured galley can row once we have men aboard her we trust. The other needs replacement oars and her steering mended. Denys says he can bring her off, but she'll need help if the wind comes against her."

"Our ship that took the blow?"

"Still making water. They have it under control, but Denys is keeping men at the pumps. She can fight. He says she ought not to take another like it."

"And the carrier?"

"Sound below the water. The rail is broken and her rigging is being repaired. He can put a crew aboard. He wants to know whether to bring her cargo out first."

"No. Put aboard enough to work her. If she has to be left, we take the portable goods then."

Aurane glanced towards the ship. Sailors were carrying a coil up her side while others cut loose the unfinished repair hanging above the deck.

"The longboats?" Jon asked.

"Two taken. Two got away before we had the steps. Denys has the captured ones carrying people now."

"Tell him to put a lookout high in every ship. We are through the gate, but they still hold the tower and the upper rooms. Vhalar knows we are here."

Aurane handed him the waterskin. Jon drank, then passed it to the nearest wounded soldier. The man took a mouthful and gave it to his comrade without being asked.

Garon came down while Aurane was returning to his boat. A wounded soldier had an arm across his shoulders. He helped the man to the shelter beside the steps before coming to Jon.

"Hewyn sent the count. Seventeen dead that they know of. Thirty-one wounded enough to need carrying or help. More coming down."

Jon looked up the lane. The first five had been lying upon the beach when he landed. Now men were being carried through the gate above him, and he did not know which would live to reach the ships.

"How far is Brus?"

"Brus has men on the wall, driving the pirates towards the tower. Ser Arthur's pushing up the stair."

Jon looked towards the storehouse. Rymond stood outside it, watching a file of prisoners being brought down from the loft.

"Stay with the lookout," Jon told Garon. "Send to me the moment he sees a ship."

He crossed to Rymond and gave him the order to bring their dead down when men could be spared to carry them. The wounded were to go first. The captured guards and bowmen were to be bound and sent under guard to the sounder captured galley, apart from the people they had kept in chains.

"Gerralt holds the yard beside you," Jon said. "If boats try to land, he stops them at the water. You keep this lane open and the people moving."

Rymond pointed towards the storehouse. "I've put shields across the passage behind it. Anyone coming from those houses meets us there."

"Good. Send to the gate if you need more men."

Beyond him, Gerralt's files were taking their places among the timbers. Norren had relieved them at the spring. The path, the sheds and the water steps each had men watching them now. Jon could bring fresh troops into the fort without leaving the boats exposed.

* * *

Vhalar saw the boats first as his galley cleared the northern point.

They were coming away from his landing, heavy with people. One turned awkwardly beneath its load. A woman sat in the stern with a child held between her knees; behind her, a sailor pulled at an oar tangled with the next man's. The pale-sailed ships waited farther out to take them aboard.

His master offered him the glass.

Vhalar raised it towards the timber yard.

Black shields stood among the hauled-out hulls. More men were coming down the lane, carrying something between them. A body. They brought it to the steps and waited while a boat was steadied below.

He moved the glass back to the yard. A soldier bent to help another man over a timber, and light caught the edge of a dark breastplate. The man beside him wore one too. So did the men standing behind their shields. Vhalar had paid a great deal for his own harness. These bastards had put steel upon the common spearmen.

At the yard's edge a man turned towards the sea and raised his arm. Heads followed. An officer came out between two hulls, pointed, and the nearest files moved down towards the shingle. Men farther back stayed where they were. At the steps, the next wounded man was being lowered into a boat.

Vhalar lowered the glass.

He knew how to catch a crew after a sack. Men carrying too much to fight, men with both hands upon a chest, captains shouting for oarsmen who had gone back for one last load. He had counted upon finding some of that here. His storehouses stood open. Yet the men who had taken them were waiting behind shields while others worked the boats.

His master pointed at the laden boats. "We could cut those off."

Vhalar looked beyond them. A black galley was turning out from the anchorage, keeping between the boats and his bow. Another followed her. The first had bowmen forward and shields along the rail.

"And take that one across our side?" Vhalar asked.

"If we pull hard—"

"She turns inside us. Look at her oars."

The master looked, then spat over the side.

Vhalar handed back the glass. "Take us farther out. Bow towards her. I want room to turn without putting a longboat under us."

The steering oars shifted. His men looked from the shore to the enemy ship. Near the mast, the grey-bearded recruit had stopped fingering the cup beneath his shirt.

"Shields forward!" Vhalar called. "Axes to the fucking rail! When we catch one, cut her oars before you climb."

Men began pushing through to their places. One stumbled over a wounded oarsman; Vhalar hauled him upright by the back of his belt and thrust him towards the bow.

He pointed to Drazen's ship and gave the signal to close the gap. No black galley would get between them and rake the longboats if he could help it. Once the fighting ships were caught together, the boats might have a way in. Until then their men would have to wait, however loudly the fort called for them.

A horn sounded ashore.

Vhalar looked up at his tower. A man upon it had seen him and was waving a sword. He could not hear the shout across the water.

"You'd better still be there," he muttered.

He took his place behind the forward shields. The black galley's bow came round to meet him.

* * *

The horn reached Jon at the bend below the fort.

He turned. At the timber yard, a lookout stood upon a stack of beams, pointing north.

The leading galley stood off the headland, her bow towards Denys's ships. Longboats followed behind her; more galleys were clearing the point.

Vhalar had come sooner than Jon had hoped.

"Tell the signalmen to warn Denys," he said to one of his guards. "Keep the transports covered. The boats go on loading."

The man ran back towards the water. A flag rose at the landing; Denys's ship answered.

Jon climbed the last stretch of lane.

Inside the fort, one ladder led onto the lean-to roof. A second stood upon it, propped against the wall, with two soldiers holding its feet. Brus was already upon the wallwalk. His men followed in pairs, turned behind their shields and went towards the tower.

The pirates between Brus and Arthur had nowhere left to stand.

One tried to scramble over the stair wall into the yard. He dropped his sword when Rennick's men levelled their spears at him. Another caught Arthur's blade upon his shield, backed a step and stumbled over the table wedged across the upper doorway. Hands reached out to drag him through.

Brus reached the head of the stair. Arthur stepped onto the landing beside him.

"Give me room!" someone shouted from within.

The table scraped backwards. Men crowded through after it, leaving two bodies upon the landing. Brus drove the last standing pirate into the doorway, then ducked behind his shield as a spear thrust from the darkness.

Arthur caught his shoulder before he followed too far. They formed their men into line across the opening.

Rennick began sending the surrendered men down to Malcolm. The yard was clear. Along the wall, Brus's soldiers occupied the places from which the pirates had thrown stones at them. Those still fighting were shut inside the hall and tower, with black shields outside their doors.

Jon crossed to the well under his guard's raised shield. Above, Arthur called for an axe. Jon could still see the open iron beside the dead woman's foot. The men behind that table had been driving captives up this very stair.

"Hewyn!" he shouted. "Get men through the kitchen below them. Search it first. Find the stair to those locked rooms."

The centurion called to Rennick. Men went to the lower door carrying a short beam from beside the lean-to.

From the tower roof came a shout. A pirate pointed out to sea, waving his sword. Others looked from the windows. A name passed from one opening to the next.

"Vhalar!"

The man in the leather jerkin appeared behind the overturned table. He was shouting for the others to follow him. Three came over it together, one scrambling onto the landing with his shield still caught upon its edge.

Arthur struck him back. Brus caught the next man's sword and thrust beneath it. The third tried to stop, but the men behind were still pushing. For a moment Jon saw the leather jerkin in the crush. Then a black shield drove against the doorway, and the pirates fell back inside.

"Close the gap! Keep them in the doorway!" Hewyn shouted.

The legionaries closed again. They had not given up a step.

Hewyn came back to Jon. "The lower door will go. I'll send the next men up that way."

"There may be someone waiting behind it. Keep the shields in front." Jon pointed towards the gate. "Vhalar's off the northern point. Malcolm stays here, ready if the shore calls. Finish this with the men you have."

Hewyn looked up at the crowded doorway, then towards the beam swinging against the kitchen door.

"Aye."

Jon returned to the arch. The path below was clear as far as the landing. Soldiers carried wounded men down it; boats waited at the steps. Through the open gate he could see Vhalar's foremost galley facing the black ships. The pirate would have to get past Denys, then force a landing against men already waiting for him.

Above Jon, an axe bit into the table. A spear came through the splintered wood in answer.

Garon appeared in the gateway, bent double from the climb.

"Two galleys south, my lord." He swallowed. "The lookout sent me. They're coming in fast."

Jon took the glass from his remaining guard. For an instant he thought Vhalar had sent them round to close behind him.

The southern ships were pulling hard. Men aboard the nearer one stood looking towards the landing. As Jon watched, her oars faltered. The second checked behind her, so close that her bow seemed almost to touch the other's stern.

Jon's ships lay between them and the landing. Above him, the defenders were still shouting Vhalar's name.

He lowered the glass.

Munin sat upon the roof below the gate, where he had left her after the second flight. He clicked his tongue and reached for her, urging her closer. She lifted from the tiles and settled upon the gatepost beside him. Hugin was circling over Denys's ship.

Jon turned towards Garon. "Get a signal to Denys. Two more from the south. I want—"

Garon was looking past him, out to sea. "More behind them."

Jon raised the glass again.

Beyond the two galleys, sails were opening round the southern point.

Behind him, Arthur called for another push.

* * *

Rolo had let the two galleys run.

All morning their oars had beaten white water along Vhalar's southern coast. One of his captains had called for leave to chase. Rolo had waved him back into line. Let the bastards exhaust themselves. He would catch them at their moorings, with the shore behind them and no room to turn.

Now they had stopped short of the anchorage.

His master leaned over the sun-split rail. "What are they waiting for?"

Rolo held out his hand for the glass. Salt grated beneath his thumb on the brass.

There were too many ships beneath the eastern fort. Black sails among them, and boats moving between the larger hulls and the landing. He followed a file of men up the lane. Black shields again. They passed through the gate without meeting a blow.

On the wall above them, more black shields faced inward.

Someone had got here before him.

Men pressed an upper doorway beneath their shields. A spear stabbed out and vanished. They gave it a little ground, then closed up again.

"Fetch the captain Sarro's men spoke to."

The man came aft in a faded blue coat, sweat dark beneath the arms. He had bought and sold prizes with Sarro for years, and had brought the two boatmen to Rolo before they returned west. He stopped at the head of the stern ladder.

"What did they say was left here?"

"Two galleys. Four longboats. Drazen's carrier."

"And those?" Rolo pointed the glass at the black sails.

"They said nothing of them."

"Did you ask?"

"I questioned them separately. Both gave me the same count. They went back before we began loading." He glanced at the ships. "These must have come after. Sarro would have told me."

"Would he?"

"We've dealt together for years. He knows what this could cost me."

Rolo laid the glass down and took his axe from beside the ladder.

The captain lifted his hands. "I've told you everything."

Rolo caught his coat, dragged him close and struck him in the neck. Blood sprayed across his cheek and mouth. He pulled the axe free as the man's knees gave way, then let him fall.

The master had stepped back. Along the rail, men stood watching the axe drip upon the deck.

"Get him out of the way."

Two sailors hurried to obey. The dead man's heels knocked against the ladder. Rolo picked up the glass. Blood ran beside his nose; he left it there.

The man might have been telling the truth. The southern watch had been where Sarro said it would be, and Vhalar was away in the west. Sarro had wanted Rolo to fall upon him there, after Moreo had done some of the killing. Rolo had chosen the weakened east instead. These strangers must have come while Vhalar was gone.

At the foot of the ladder, a sailor held a strip of dried fish between finger and thumb. His jaw had stopped moving. Rolo looked at him. The man swallowed and lowered his hand.

His master looked towards the landing. "Shall we put in?"

"Against those ranks? Fuck that. Keep the bowmen ready. No fire arrows. I want the ships whole."

The master called down to the bowmen. Along the rail, men plucked arrows from leather quivers and squinted down the shafts.

Below the fort, a boat drew away from the steps, green water slapping a hand's breadth below her gunwale. No shields along its sides. People huddled together while the oarsmen worked. At the stern of a transport, two men were hauling someone aboard in a sling.

Slaves. The strangers were taking Vhalar's slaves.

They were carrying the lame ones too, using good boat space on men who would scarcely fetch the price of their feeding. Another load came down the steps. Whoever commanded here meant to have them all. His fighting ships were coming out to cover the loading.

"Keep us beyond bowshot," he told his master. "Fast ships to seaward. Send two farther north. I want them across the merchants' way before they think to run."

The master followed his pointing hand, then looked back at the boats and nodded.

"Make the black sails come out after us."

"If they leave the merchants." Rolo lowered the glass. "And if they don't, we choose where to hit."

The master called the order to the signalman. He had stopped looking at the blood.

Rolo had brought six hundred fighting men in nine galleys and six fast ships. There was enough here to take Bloodstone, if he struck while its strongest crews were fighting one another.

Blue water showed between the ships, churned pale where the oars bit. Pitch and the sour stink of bilge came up from below. Rolo could already picture the captured hulls beneath the fort, his red axes flying from their mastheads.

They had laughed when he first came among these islands. The young Myrish bastard, too proud to wait his turn. Greybeards had patted his shoulder and told him to be patient. Then Vhalar's father had begun to die, and while his son sat waiting for the ships, Rolo had paid the right men and taken the southern beach.

Some of them still called that luck.

Vhalar had inherited ships, coin and crews who had made his father's name feared. The fool had mistaken it all for something he had earned. Moreo was an old man clinging to what his sons had not yet taken from him. Between them they had spent years fighting over pieces of Bloodstone. Now their fighting had given Rolo his chance to take the whole fucking island.

By nightfall he meant to have both forts, both harbours, every ship still fit to float. Sarro could come asking payment for his help. Rolo would decide what it had been worth.

Beyond Bloodstone, the nearest islands were held by Tregar Ninefingers, Qarro the Eel and Belaro the Gilded. Each on his own rock, each in the way. They would face him next. He wanted the whole Stepstones. Let them make their little agreements and swear to stand together; he knew what such oaths cost when a man's own harbour was burning.

Belaro had called him boy at their last meeting. Rolo would make him say it again.

"More galleys north!"

Rolo swung the glass towards the headland.

Four galleys, with longboats crowded behind them. He knew the broad stern of the nearer ship. Vhalar had come home.

Rolo laughed before he could help himself.

His master looked from him to the ships. "He could turn on us."

"He could. Put two galleys at the northern end of our line. Keep them close." Rolo watched Vhalar's bow. It pointed at the black ships. "But look where he wants to go."

Back to his fort, his silver, the men who ought to be holding his walls. Rolo could almost hear him demanding that someone give it all back.

The master pointed north. "Let him try them first. Wear each other down."

"While those boats finish loading?"

"We don't know the black ships."

"No. We know what they're staying for." He passed the glass to the master.

The master glanced at the transports, then at the bloody axe in Rolo's hand.

"We could lose ships."

Rolo turned his head.

The master had been there in the shoals, eleven days into the chase after the Pentoshi who had fired upon Rolo's boat under a parley flag. He had heard their galley break on the rocks and obeyed when Rolo ordered the boats lowered.

They had caught the Pentoshi alive. His ship could still be towed; half her cargo remained below. Bound to his own mast, he had offered the lot of it, and more besides. Rolo had sat in a boat watching the flames climb towards the bound man. Even then the fool had kept naming sums, as though they were haggling.

He remembered the moment the begging stopped.

"Keep your distance from the shoals, then."

The master swallowed. His throat worked above the salt-stiff collar.

Rolo rested a hand on his shoulder. Felt him stiffen beneath it.

"You saw the boats. You saw what holds them here. Keep the line together and we'll take them. Can you do that?"

"A-aye." His eyes flicked seaward. He drew breath and barked at the signalman. "Bring the outer galley closer. She's opening a gap."

Rolo took his hand away.

Good. He had no use for a man who could only tremble.

Ahead, one of Vhalar's southern watchers turned towards open water, saw the fast ships spreading to meet her and checked. Rolo's bowmen shouted at the sight. He went down from the stern with the axe hanging at his side. The crew made room along the deck.

At the bow he stopped beside the boatswain and pointed towards the ships beneath the fort. Men turned to listen. A few stared at the blood on his face until he looked their way.

"Take them whole. Crews that yield go in chains." Rolo lifted his voice above the oars. "Every chest comes aboard before a lid is lifted. You'll have your shares."

"And Vhalar?" someone called.

Rolo looked north. The man's galley was still bearing towards the black sails.

"Take him alive. I want him for myself." He grinned, blood wet between his teeth. "My last dog died. This one ought to know how to beg."

His grip tightened on the axe haft. Vhalar on his knees, trying to look proud with someone holding his hair. Rolo wanted to be close enough to see the bastard's mouth tremble.

A few of these men had served Vhalar's father. He could have more soon. Sound ships needed crews; captains who knew these waters were worth keeping, once they understood whose water it was.

He would take the ships and the slaves, the treasure in the forts and the goods in the sheds. By the time Moreo's sons came home, they would find his men upon their walls. Bloodstone would be his. The other islands would follow.

All of it. The wind cooled the blood on his face. He could hardly stand still.

He raised the axe.

"Close the way out!"

The boatswain struck his sword against the rail.

"RED AXE!"

The bowmen took it up. Men at the waist turned towards Rolo, blades lifted, and bellowed the answer. Across the water the nearest galley answered them. Another joined as the signals rose, her red axe shaking out above the deck.

Rolo climbed onto the bow platform so they could see him.

"RED AXE! RED AXE! RED AXE!"

Rolo smiled at the black sails and licked the dead man's blood from his lip.

 

[aiwonder]

The red axes kept coming.

Jon moved beyond the arch to keep the approaching ships in view. Another red axe appeared between the masts, then another, sunlight flashing along their wet oars.

"Who flies the red axe?" Jon asked the prisoners guarded by Malcolm's First Spears at the gate.

"Rolo," one answered. The man turned to look out to sea.

Rolo of Myr. The man who had taken Vhalar's southern beach. Two of his smaller ships were continuing north, beyond the fighting, towards the water Jon needed to get his people home.

Bastard. He was going round them.

Vhalar to the north, Rolo coming from the south and reaching past him. Four hired merchants trapped between men who would be glad to take them. Jon forced himself to count the rest: two captured galleys needing guards, one needing a tow; his own damaged consort taking water. Every gain had become another demand upon Denys, his acting admiral.

Four hundred and fifty fighting men had come with Jon to Bloodstone. Three hundred and sixty had been assigned to the landing, Arthur and the officers counted among them; ninety soldiers and bowmen had remained with Denys. The sailors were another reckoning. Hewyn's last report had taken seventeen dead and thirty-one men unable to fight from the shore force, and the men in the tower had not yet yielded.

Years of money and drill had gone into those men. Jon had armed them, fed them, watched them learn to trust the shield beside their own. Now seventeen were dead. One broken position, one panicked rush to the boats, and he could lose the legion here.

Find a way. He had come for wealth and ships, to build strength for the wars ahead. Losing the legion would leave him weaker than when he sailed. Rolo was not going to give him time to solve this. He would have to take it.

A black hull hid a laden boat. When it appeared again, it seemed scarcely to have moved. Move, damn you. People sat too low to see over its gunwale, trusting those ships to keep the red axes away. Denys needed a shore worth coming close to.

Behind him, the beam struck the kitchen door. Someone shouted to strike again.

"Garon. Stay where you can see the water. If those two turn towards the merchants, send straight to the steps."

The boy nodded, still breathing through his mouth. Alasdair waited beside Jon with the household guards. Jon handed him the glass.

"Watch the galleys coming from the south. Count them again."

He crossed the courtyard as a crash sounded from the upper landing. Vhalar's men had shoved the broken table towards Brus's swordsmen and were coming over it. Arthur stepped into the space beside the doorway.

The first pirate drove a spear at his face. Arthur caught the shaft against his shield and thrust over it. His sword entered the man's throat. He pulled it free as the pirate dropped, turning towards an axe already rising above the next man's head.

Jon's breath caught. The landing was too narrow to give ground.

Arthur went forward. The axe struck the upper edge of his shield; his sword cut beneath the pirate's lifted arm. He thrust the wounded man aside into the third attacker, followed close behind and turned a hurried sword stroke upon his own blade. His point went into the third man's open mouth.

The axe fell from the second pirate's hand. He folded across his companion's legs. Arthur drew his sword clear and faced the doorway again.

Three men down. Jon knew those movements from the practice yard, slowed for boys who still crossed their feet. He had never been able to make them fit together like that. Beside Brus, a legionary stared at the bodies with his mouth open.

"Arthur!" someone shouted from the stair.

"Ser Arthur!" Two more voices took it up. The man beside Brus gave a breathless laugh and raised his shield, his face suddenly fierce.

"With me," Arthur called. "Mind the door on your right."

The swordsmen went up behind him. One of Vhalar's remaining men flung his weapon out into the light; another backed farther into the hall. Arthur left Brus holding the entrance while a pair of soldiers brought the surrendering man down. They searched him upon the stair and took a knife from his boot.

Below them, a wounded legionary sat against the well, holding one hand beneath his breastplate. Jon looked from him to the dark doorway Arthur had entered. The cheering had helped the men. It had not made the next room safe.

Hewyn came away from the kitchen door. "It is splitting."

"Finish it. The room above the kitchen first. Keep men at the hall until the people are out."

The centurion looked seaward. "Do we bring the men down?"

"Not yet. Rennick holds what you take. Malcolm stays ready at the gate. I am going to the landing."

Hewyn turned back as the beam struck again.

In the lane, two soldiers carrying a wounded man had stopped to let another party climb. Jon waited against a doorpost. Blood dripped from the man's heel onto the dust. When he saw Jon, he tried to draw his feet beneath him.

"Stay with them. You are going to the boats."

He obeyed at once. That hurt more than a complaint would have. Jon had taught these men to trust him; this one had tried to stand because he was passing.

Keep your way out open. His old training supplied the words while he watched the bearers struggle downhill. Stop the boats and this lane would fill with men who could not fight or flee. He lengthened his stride.

At the steps, Rymond was trying to get a loaded boat away while sailors brought an empty one alongside. Jon waited until the first cleared.

Rymond pointed him towards Corwyn, who stood beside the translating woman counting people through the passage. The knight handed her his board and came over.

"I need an order written."

Corwyn glanced at the water. "For Denys?"

"Yes. Paper, if there is any in the storehouse. Ink."

A sailor brought paper and ink from the shore keepers' little room. While Corwyn tested the pen, Jon watched Vhalar's leading galley begin to turn. Rolo's two leading galleys were crossing the water ahead of her.

There. Let Vhalar face the man who had taken his southern beach. Denys could draw in while their bows were turned towards each other. The opening might last only minutes.

"Write this."

"The fort will be held. Bring the merchants and prizes closer by stages, as depth and room allow. Crews stay aboard. Keep the fighting ships clear to turn and go out again. Do not pursue Vhalar if he turns against the red axes. Give him no passage to our boats. Send word of the men you need from shore."

The pen scratched. Jon waited while Corwyn caught up.

"The damaged consort is not to take another collision. Do not let a prize prevent you saving one of our own ships."

Corwyn read the order back and hesitated over the damaged prize. Jon could see her broken oars catching at the water. Even damaged, she was a ship he would not have to buy for Dragonstone. He hated the thought of leaving her; he hated more the picture of Denys clinging to a tow while the merchants lost their cover.

"Leave it as I said."

"One more line. Fasten your reply to the crow and keep her beside you until she leaves."

He made a short, clumsy mark beneath the writing with his left hand and gave the pen back.

Munin had followed him down from the fort. She stood on the storehouse roof, picking at something caught beneath a claw. Jon clicked his tongue and held out his left arm. She came down with a clatter of wings.

Corwyn folded the paper small. A boatman gave him a length of thread, and he bound the packet to her leg while Jon steadied her. She struck once at his thumb.

"Mind your own claws," Jon muttered.

Aurane's boat waited below the steps, hemmed in by a ferry and a transport's stern. Beyond them, Denys's mast moved steadily across the other masts. Jon could not afford to have the order waiting here with the boats.

Jon lifted his wrist and sent Munin back to the roof.

"Corwyn, back to the count. Rymond, keep the landing moving."

He went behind the caulker's shelter, where Arthur had screened him earlier. Jon left his guard outside the gap between the stacked planks and settled where no passer-by could see his face.

Only then did he close his eyes. Munin's claws gripped the tiles; the paper brushed his leg as he lifted.

He rose over the roof. The ferry fell behind in a few wingbeats; sunlight ran along the crowded oars below him. Denys's flagship showed black shields at the rail. Jon took Munin round the mast and down to the afterdeck, clear of the men hauling there.

A sailor raised a hand to drive her off. Jon hopped her along the rail towards Denys and held the burdened leg clear. Denys caught the sailor's wrist. He bent over the crow, worked the thread loose and opened the paper.

Jon left Munin gripping the rail beside him.

The stacked timber pressed against his shoulder. Jon opened his eyes, steadied himself and came out to take the water his guard offered. The same boatman was still cursing the ferry below.

He turned to Rymond.

"Keep this passage open," Jon told the Fourth Spears' centurion. "No timber across the steps and no prisoners waiting upon them. I want the way to the ships clear even if we have to fight beside it."

"Are we staying?"

"Until we can leave without feeding those ships."

Rymond looked at the two fast ships drawing round the transports. They did not need to close the whole coast; a slow merchant trying to escape would give them something to chase.

"And the people already aboard?"

"Stay aboard unless Denys says their ship cannot be protected. We do not drag them through this twice because we have changed our minds."

A woman in the boat below cried out for her child. Jon waited until the child stood and she could see him.

Then he pointed to the timberyard.

"Fetch Gerralt. We need to make those approaches harder to cross."

* * *
​

The black ships were moving.

Vhalar leaned past the shield beside the steering platform. At first he thought their captain meant to turn across him. So. They would make him fight for that water too. Then the foremost vessel's bow came round towards the landing, and the ship behind her followed.

They were giving water.

Not much. Their decks still crowded with armed men, the ships stayed close enough to support one another. Beyond them, people climbed from a boat into a merchant vessel, hauled up by hands reaching over the rail.

People, not fighting men.

Vhalar's gaze went to the fort. His banner still hung above it. Then why withdraw?

A shout from the bow answered him. Two of Rolo's galleys had drawn ahead, crossing the water Vhalar needed to reach the black ships. Their bows were coming towards him. Behind them, two more began to close.

The first pair meant to check him. The next would make the check a battle. Rolo had chosen where he was to fight before Vhalar had given a single order.

Of course.

He had taken the western fort. Moreo was dead upon the old man's own steps. Vhalar had done that, with his cheek split and his men dying around him, and for a little while the victory had belonged entirely to him. Now his eastern landing was full of strangers, and Rolo was coming to profit from a morning's work he had not done.

The young butcher would stand among other men's dead and call himself lord of the island.

Vhalar looked south. He could not see the castle, but he knew its walls: Daemon's great stronghold, larger than either fort. His father's men had once watched those approaches. Rolo's stood there now. A failure. His father's contempt came back more clearly than the shouting on deck. You'll lose the lot. Vhalar pressed his tongue against his torn cheek. He had killed Moreo. Taken his fort. What more would have been enough? Drazen had already learned what it cost to challenge Rolo without enough strength.

There would be no rebuilding while Rolo waited at his shoulder.

Below the eastern fort, figures descended the lane in a steady, hateful procession. One boat drew alongside a merchant; another took its place beneath the steps. His people, his stores, whatever the thieves could carry. They scarcely seemed hurried. Men working beneath his walls as though his return had changed nothing. Vhalar wanted to put a sword through the first one he reached.

But they were preparing to depart. Rolo had brought men to stay.

A longboat rose beside the galley. Goro caught a rope thrown from above.

"The shore?"

Vhalar pointed with his sword. "There."

Goro studied the approaching galleys.

"He means to hold us here."

"The mad bastard means to take us here."

Goro spat over the side.

The nearest black ship still held between Vhalar and the merchants. Men watched from her raised stern. They could see Rolo's approach as clearly as he could.

"Keep the six boats behind us," Vhalar told Goro. "No landing. No running at those merchants. Carry word to Drazen and the others. We face Rolo."

Goro's eyes flicked towards the fort. "And them?"

"Let them carry."

The words tasted foul. He had given them leave to rob him, and Goro would carry that order from ship to ship. Vhalar watched for some sign that he thought it weakness. Goro was already shoving away, bellowing at his rowers before the rope had fallen clear. The familiar abuse carried across the water. Vhalar breathed more easily. Goro had work to do; he would do it.

"Bring us round," Vhalar told his helmsman. "Bow towards the nearer ship. Keep room for Drazen."

Men bent to the oars. Beyond the rail, Drazen corrected his course as Goro's boat approached him. The other two galleys followed more slowly, their captains needing time to understand what had changed.

The black ships could strike him now. Vhalar watched their bows while his own deck tilted through the turn. He hated having to wait upon that captain's choice, with his own men watching him for an order. Sweat ran into his cut cheek. They wanted to go back at the shore. So did he. But wanting his fort would not save it if Rolo broke his ships beneath him.

The black captain held his course.

Good. Keep your precious merchants.

Vhalar needed those ships afloat, drawing some of Rolo's attention. If the black commander escaped too soon, four galleys and six crowded boats would face everything Rolo had brought. He would have to hurt Rolo before that happened. Hurt him badly enough that taking the rest no longer looked easy.

The first enemy galley lifted over a swell. A bowman stood and loosed too early; his arrow fell short.

Vhalar lowered himself behind the shield.

"Steady."

His bowmen waited. The black ships slipped farther towards the landing. Vhalar let them go.

* * *
​

The kitchen door was down when Jon returned to the fort.

It lay across the threshold with the bar still fastened to one half. Rennick's men had dragged a dead pirate aside. Another sat beneath the lean-to, his wrists tied behind him, watching blood drip from his nose.

Hewyn met Jon at the doorway.

"There is a stair behind the hearth. Two men holding the top."

"The captives?"

"We heard them. The room is where he told us."

An axe struck above them. From the hall, Arthur called for the men behind him to press closer.

Jon stepped to the threshold. Burnt onions lay among the hearth ashes beneath a spill of greasy water. Beyond them, two legionaries waited with shields raised under the narrow stair. A spear point moved between the upper rails.

Rennick stood behind the leading shields of Second Spears. His first man climbed a step. The spear scraped across his shield and struck behind his heel.

"Hold there."

The second man put his shoulder beneath the first man's shield. They climbed together. When the spear struck again and caught in the wood, Rennick pushed a third man forward. They gained another step before the pirate tore it free.

A cry came from the room above. Jon moved towards it, and Hewyn's arm barred the stair.

"Let them have room, my lord."

Jon nearly knocked it aside. Then his right hand throbbed and he saw what Hewyn had seen: another body there would obstruct Rennick and turn a soldier from the fight to protect him. Two lives' worth of experience, and he had needed an arm across his chest to remember it.

"Tell them we are coming."

"Keep away from the door!" Hewyn shouted. "Back against the far wall!"

Someone inside repeated the warning in another tongue.

An axe came down. The first legionary's shield dipped, and the blade struck his breastplate with a flat, ugly clang. He sagged against the man supporting him. Rennick hauled him down as the next shield rose.

Jon knew the movement before he saw it. They had practised until they hated it; now neither man needed telling. For a moment he felt the clean satisfaction of seeing them do it well. The first soldier was still breathing below them. His fellows had given him the time.

A spear drove beneath the axe man's arm. He fell across the upper step. The defender behind him tried to hold, but Arthur's shouting came closer from the other side of the passage. He looked back.

The legionaries reached him while he was turning.

Jon heard a boot strike the wall, a shield scrape, a man choking. Rennick followed his men and called for the next pair. Hewyn let Jon climb only when word came that the passage was held.

Below, the soldier who had taken the axe was reaching for his shield. Hewyn made him wait until he could answer without gasping, then set him with the men holding the passage.

The air above the kitchen stank of sweat and stale food. A man lay against the wall with his hands upon his belly; another knelt beside his dropped weapon.

The captive room was at the end. Rennick tried the surrendered guard's keys while someone behind the door pleaded.

"Stand back," Jon told them. "We are getting it open."

The third key turned.

Rennick opened the door. For a moment nobody moved.

People sat crowded upon the floor. A woman held a strip of cloth against an older man's head. Two children crouched beneath the barred window; at the back, a young woman covered her mouth with both hands.

Jon lowered his voice.

"You are leaving this room. The soldiers will take you down."

The woman with the cloth looked at Rennick's bloody spear.

"Where?"

"Our ships. Away from here."

She spoke to the others. The young woman began to cry without uncovering her mouth.

"Two at a time," Jon told Rennick. "Carry those who need it. No one is to pull them along."

A soldier offered his hand to the older man. When he flinched, the soldier waited while the woman spoke to him. Then the man took the offered arm.

Arthur appeared at the passage entrance with two men. His black hair was wet against his forehead; a cut in his grey-white cloak showed the dark cloth beneath.

"They have fallen back into the tower. Brus is holding the door." He glanced into the room. "All of them?"

"We are counting."

Rennick waited until the last person crossed the threshold, then checked behind the door and in the recess where a bucket stood.

"Seventeen."

All of them. Jon closed his eyes and let himself believe it. Then the woman's scream at the landing came back to him. Seventeen alive here would not undo that. He opened his eyes.

"Get them down."

A girl stopped upon the stair when she saw the bodies. The woman with the cloth took her hand and drew her close. Jon followed them into the courtyard.

The father from the landing waited beneath Malcolm's guard. He had come up with men carrying empty stretchers, and Malcolm had kept him at the gate. At the sight of the girl, he pushed past the raised spear shaft.

"There!"

She turned. He caught her so hard that she gasped, then touched her hair and face, looking for hurts while she clung to his coat. A soldier asked whether she could walk. The father did not seem to hear.

Jon let them have the moment. The man's hands kept moving until his daughter caught one and held it still. Jon had boats to load, orders waiting, but for these few breaths he was content to stand out of their way.

Above them, someone in the tower shouted that he wished to yield.

A soldier beside Rennick spat blood onto the stones. The captive women watched the doorway from which they had come.

"Weapons down," Jon called. "One man at a time. Hands where we can see them."

"You will spare us?"

He wanted to go up and see which had turned the keys, which had dragged that girl into the room. They would beg now, with their knives on the floor and Arthur's sword at the door. The woman at the landing had begged too. His right hand closed inside its dressing, and pain caught his breath.

"You will live and work in chains. Come out."

The harshness stopped the nearest prisoner upon the stair. Jon pointed him towards Hewyn before he could say worse. He had spent too long making soldiers of these men to teach them that surrender lasted only until their commander grew angry. The pirate would live. Jon could endure the sight of it.

Arthur remained beside the upper doorway while Brus received the surrendering men. Hewyn sent soldiers to search each before allowing him down.

Jon turned to Malcolm.

"Take those people to Rymond. Seventeen alive. The father goes with his daughter."

The girl had begun to shake. Her father wrapped his filthy coat around her, and Malcolm cleared the gate.

Only when the last captive had left the courtyard did Jon look towards the tower.

The prisoners were still coming down.

* * *
​

The nearer watch galley tried to turn north before Rolo's ships reached her.

Too late. One of his galleys came up outside the turn, forcing her towards the second. Her oars rose unevenly. Half cleared the water; the rest vanished beneath the approaching hull, throwing men from their benches. Rolo struck the rail with his palm at the crack of breaking wood.

"There!"

The watch galley's bow swung away from the collision. Her men crowded forward, shields lifted towards the nearer attacker. They were still watching that ship when the second closed against their other side.

Hooks went over.

Rolo leaned out so far that his first mate reached towards his belt, then thought better of touching him. The watch captain ran aft to meet one boarding party, then turned as another came over the forward rail. What a busy man. A whole deck to defend, and only one pair of hands.

"They will take her," the mate said.

Rolo was already calling for a boat.

His flagship held astern of the struggle. The boat carried him beneath the nearer attacking galley's stern, where a rope ladder came down. By the time he crossed her deck, the boarders had stalled against shields upon the watch ship's raised afterdeck.

He shoved past a man clutching his forearm and stepped across the locked rails.

"Move."

A spearman thrust from behind the shields. Rolo knocked the point aside with his axe haft and crowded in before the man could draw back. The hooked blade caught the shield's upper edge. He wrenched it down, brought the axe free and drove it into the exposed neck. Blood struck his lips. The man fell against him, heavy and kicking; Rolo shoved him off and dragged the blade loose.

A sword came at his head. He ducked late. Steel touched his ear, and the sting brought a wild bark of laughter out of him.

"Again!"

The swordsman tried. Rolo caught the next cut upon the haft, drove a knee into him and struck as he doubled. The axe bit through cloth into his back. Rolo set a boot against him to pull it free, laughing harder now, fighting for breath between the bursts. The man was still moving. Rolo lifted the axe again.

A shield hammered his shoulder. He staggered against the rail, boots sliding in blood, and his laughter broke into a snarl. He wanted the man who had struck him. Wanted him looking when the blade came down.

One of his boarders caught that shield and hauled its bearer sideways. Rolo swung into the opening. The man dropped; the next two defenders recoiled down the steps and found Rolo's other boarding party behind them.

There. No room left. Rolo advanced with the axe low, grinning at the captain between them.

The captain let his sword fall.

Rolo's hands tightened. One more blow. He could feel it waiting in his shoulders, could see the bare place beneath the man's jaw. The bastard had been brave enough a moment ago.

"Alive, my lord?" a boarder asked.

Vhalar. Rolo wanted Vhalar to see this man rowing beneath his castle. He lowered the axe until its bloody edge rested against the captain's chest.

"You heard him. Tie him."

He searched the deck for another raised weapon. None. Men knelt among the benches, hands spread. It left him sour and breathless. He had scarcely begun to enjoy himself.

His boat took him back to the flagship while his men bound the survivors. Farther north, four of his galleys had reached Vhalar's four. The longboats waited behind them. The bastard had learned to keep his boats clear. Rolo scraped blood from his lip with his thumb and looked for the next weakness.

The other watch galley was escaping through water that should have held black hulls. Rolo straightened. The black warships were drawing towards the landing, leaving the passage to Vhalar open. Their armed decks still faced the sea. Behind them, a laden merchant moved shoreward.

"He is bringing them in."

The mate followed his gaze. "They cannot all beach there."

"He is not beaching them."

Men carried timber towards the shore approaches. Others passed back to the boats, with shields between them and the water. The black commander meant to load his spoils while the island's owners fought over the sea. Rolo could almost admire the insolence. As though he had brought a fleet to keep Vhalar busy for the thief.

He rubbed the haft of his axe. The merchants were slipping behind the escort, towards shore bowmen. But a low, crowded boat still laboured beneath the nearest merchant's stern. Which would the black commander save if Rolo reached them together?

One of the boat's passengers stood up. Hands reached to pull him down. Frightened already. He wished he could hear what they were promising one another. Safe aboard the great ship, perhaps. Almost there.

"Recall the two nearer fast ships. I want their captains close enough to hear me."

The signal rose. When they came within hailing distance, Rolo pointed towards the merchant.

"One presses her. The other goes wide enough to trouble the escort. Board her if her guards leave her. Otherwise make them turn. Keep your bows off the beach."

He made certain both captains heard.

"And no fire. Burn the taking and it comes out of your share."

The two fast ships farther north still worked against the transports' escape. The remaining pair held seaward. He left them there. Vhalar had to be broken while the black ships were still penned against their landing. Let him keep a fleet and he would come creeping back beneath Rolo's walls. Rolo wanted him brought ashore in chains, where every captain could see him.

The watch galley's torn banner came down. His men began passing their wounded across to the supporting galley. A broken oar knocked against the captured hull. They would have to drag the damned thing clear.

He called the boatswain. Guards aboard, their own wounded brought off, one ship to take the tow while the other returned to line. The boatswain repeated the orders and climbed into the message boat.

Northward, the second watch galley reached the passage the black ships had surrendered. Vhalar would have her after all.

Rolo turned towards the landing, pressing his tongue against the blood at his lip.

"Come on, then."

His fast ships were beginning their approach.

* * *
​

Denys had had time to read. Jon went back behind the caulker's shelter and left his guard outside. When the man's shadow moved clear of the gap, he closed his eyes and reached for Munin.

Tarred rope lay beneath her feet. A new packet touched her leg, and Denys stood close by with one hand on the rail. Jon lifted her into the wind. The flagship dwindled behind him; the storehouse roof rose above the boats. He landed beside Corwyn's counting board.

Jon was back in the yard when Corwyn brought the letter. The knight glanced from Munin to the crowded water.

"She found his ship among all those? And brought this straight to me?"

Jon held out his hand. "Is it his answer?"

"Aye." Corwyn glanced back at the crow. "Gods. How long did it take to teach her that?"

"Long enough. Let me read."

Corwyn surrendered the paper. Munin pecked at his counting board, and he moved it aside for her with unexpected care.

Corwyn's writing was on one side; Denys had used the other. The letters grew smaller where he had reached the edge.

Denys could bring the merchants closer, though not all beneath the shore bowmen. The water by the ridge had to be sounded first. Drazen's carrier and the prisoner galley would come behind the escort; the carrier had a working crew but damaged rail and rigging. The other prize needed towing. Their damaged consort would take her allotted station and keep pumping.

All ninety soldiers and bowmen left aboard were still at their duties. Jon read that line a second time. For once, a number that had not grown smaller.

The last lines were a request for soldiers.

Aurane came up from the steps while Jon was reading, Hugin perched upon his good wrist. Denys had sent the other crow back with him. Jon called Hugin onto his own arm, then sent him up beside Munin on the roof. Bowmen followed Aurane, their bowstrings wrapped against the spray.

"How many?" Jon asked.

"He says forty fit men would give him something he can use. More if you can spare them, but forty first."

Forty. Jon looked up the lane, already feeling the gap their departure would leave.

The fort gate was open. Rennick's spearmen held it now, and Hewyn had begun sending the men who had finished searching the upper rooms down to the courtyard. Those men had fought up the hill and through the doors. Some had sat where they stood when the order to halt finally came.

"Not the men who came out of the tower. I will give him men who can still lift their shields."

Aurane nodded towards the storehouse. "The six bowmen I brought are Elyas's. Denys wants them in the loft."

"Rymond holds the passage. Tell them not to waste arrows beyond their reach."

"They know."

Jon glanced at Aurane's bound arm. "And you? Stop pulling oars with that."

"I was climbing."

Jon smiled despite himself. Aurane could still find breath to be offended.

"Show me where Denys means to put the first merchant."

Aurane pointed beyond the wall. A boatman was lowering a weighted line ahead of the first merchant. The others held back while a black galley covered her approach.

Jon had served aboard ships in his first life. He knew the helplessness of water that offered no room to turn. Denys was preserving that room. Jon made himself study the gaps between the hulls instead of counting enemies again.

"That space stays open," he told Aurane, pointing. "No ferry waits there because the steps are busy. They wait farther in, or they come back to us."

Aurane went to speak to the boatmen.

Gerralt brought a carpenter from the yard. Jon pointed out the stacked timber, but the man shook his head.

"Those hold the long pieces. Shift them and the pile comes down. The short lengths are loose."

Jon had wanted a proper obstacle, something he could trust. There was no time to get the heavier beams free.

"Use the short ones. Across the approach from the houses. Leave the way to the steps open, with room for bearers."

Gerralt sent his optio for a work party.

"And the beach?"

"Keep your men there. Move the loose boat higher if it blocks them. We need a place to fight, not a heap they cannot see over."

"We cannot make a wall with that," the carpenter warned.

"A man climbing it cannot run at a spear. That is enough for today."

The first beam struck stone and split. The carpenter swore at the soldiers trying to lift it by the thin end, shoved them into new places and made them heave again. Above their bent backs, Gerralt's swordsmen kept their shields turned towards the water.

Jon squeezed into the lane behind them. At the first turn, a pair of soldiers had laid a beam across it.

"Not there. How will Malcolm get past you?"

They lifted it again.

Jon remembered boys stumbling over camp ditches in the North, their fellows laughing until Hewyn found his voice. He would gladly buy every one of those wasted afternoons again.

He sent Garon to Norren with orders for Third Spears to improve what cover already existed along the spring approach, without pulling his watchmen back into the houses. Norren was to send word of anyone moving inland, even if the men did not come towards the fort.

"Water."

Jon turned towards the storehouse passage. Rymond had put his prisoners beneath guard aboard the sounder captured galley as ordered. The men remaining ashore were those newly taken in the tower. They waited against the wall with bound wrists, separate from the people passing towards the boats.

One of the prisoners had lifted his head from the wall.

Rymond's nearest soldier looked towards Jon.

Jon remembered the dead woman's hand around the knife. This man had stood inside those walls while she suffered below them. Had he heard? Did he even remember? Jon wanted to tell him to choke on his thirst. The soldier still waited for an order.

"Give them water," he said.

The soldier fetched the bucket. Jon waited until it reached the bound men.

"Where does Rolo put his men ashore?" he asked the prisoner.

The man swallowed before answering. "South. Under the great castle. Daemon's castle."

"He holds it?"

"And the landing beneath it."

Jon looked towards Norren's path. Bringing the ships closer would not stop men coming inland.

"And Moreo?" Jon asked. "If a man crossed from here to his landing, would he pass that castle?"

The prisoner shook his head. "Not if he went above the spring. There are paths through the high ground."

The prisoner had never used the paths. Jon called the carpenter over.

"A track west, above the spring?"

"Woodcutters use it. Goes down to Moreo's stores."

"Can armed men pass?"

The carpenter looked up the hill. "Men can. A cart cannot. You would have to carry what you brought back."

Jon looked up at the ridge. Rolo's swift ships could watch the water all day; they could not stop men walking behind that high ground. But captives and chests would never come quickly back along such a path. Any ships they took would have to bring them.

"How long?"

"Most of what is left of the day, carrying shields. Less for men travelling light. I cannot tell you who is on it now."

"Show our scouts the way."

The carpenter's face closed. "I am not going down to Moreo's gate."

"Far enough to show the track. One man brings you back; the others go on."

After a moment the man nodded.

Garon had returned from Norren. Jon gave him orders for three scouts, one who could write. They were to take the carpenter, learn who held the western landing and find an approach. If the track was held, they turned back. No fighting for a better look.

Corwyn wrapped paper, ink and thread while Jon settled Hugin upon a carrying perch.

"These go with Garon," Jon told Corwyn. He turned to the boy. "At the first ridge, and each halt after it, Norren's man writes what they have learned and ties it to Hugin. Take him with you until he flies. Then wait in cover for his return. If the bird fails them at the western landing, one scout brings the report back; the other keeps watch."

Corwyn tested the wrapping, put the parcel in Garon's satchel and helped him take the perch. "You had better be worth the trouble," he told the crow.

Jon watched Garon climb the lane. Hugin would show him where the scouts had reached; their letters could tell him what the bird could not. They would not have to walk the whole road back before he could decide.

Vhalar had returned with ships, but Jon knew nothing of the men left behind. Moreo might still hold his walls. There might be two garrisons tearing at each other, or one victorious force too strong for anything he could spare.

Corwyn brought over the last of the kitchen captives' names. Jon waited while he checked a mark with Rymond, then asked him for another sheet.

"Ask Denys what sailors he could spare for a party going west on foot. Men who can rig and steer a captured galley. They stay at their work until he releases them. He is not to weaken the escort for it."

Corwyn looked towards the fight. "You mean to take more ships?"

"If we can bring them away. First I need to know what taking them will cost us. Get that to Denys."

Corwyn caught Aurane at his boat and gave him the message. Jon looked for Munin upon the roof. She could reach the western landing long before his scouts. He meant to see it himself as soon as he could leave the shore in steady hands.

Denys still waited for forty men. Norren held the inland path; Gerralt and Rymond covered the boats. Keep a reserve. The old rule pressed hard upon his eagerness. There was no fresh company waiting out of sight.

He left Rymond with the prisoners and climbed to the loft.

Norren's answer reached him at the loft: the three scouts had gone with the carpenter and Hugin. Six bowmen were taking their places among the shutters. Elyas had sent a man who knew his work; he kept two windows closed and shifted his fellows away from the light until they were ready to shoot. Jon watched him point out the passage below and the nearest ship.

The first merchant was reaching her station when the bowman nearest Jon pointed south. Rolo's two fast ships were coming towards the landing. Jon stayed at the shutter, following the nearer bow. Munin would have to wait.

* * *
​

Drazen's galley ground against an enemy ship. Broken oars jumped in their fittings; one shaft bucked between two men and sent them stumbling apart. Below his rail, a man kept screaming for someone to lift something off his leg.

Vhalar could spare no one. Another red-axe galley held his own vessel fast, her boarders fighting for a place upon his forward deck.

"Pull her away!"

His rowers strained, but two grappling ropes held. One stretched across the forward rail. The other vanished beneath the bodies at the boarding place.

A pirate in patched mail hauled himself over. Vhalar struck the fingers gripping the wood. The man fell backwards into those following him, and Vhalar drove his shoulder against a shield to make room for his spearman.

An axe bit the rail where his head had been. He trapped its shaft with his shield rim; the spear went beneath the attacker's raised arm. Vhalar stepped back, breathing hard, and shoved another shield into the gap. His sword was too long for the crush. Let the spears reach the men trying to climb.

Across the water, Drazen shouted with one hand pressed to his wounded side. His damaged oars could no longer answer every movement of the ship beside him. Rolo's captain kept pressing. Of course he bloody knew; every checked stroke advertised Drazen's weakness.

A horn sounded nearer the shore. Vhalar saw a familiar bow coming through the open water, her captain waving a shield above his head. One of his southern watch galleys. The black ships had yielded that passage, and she had used it.

"Here!" he roared, pointing towards Drazen.

Her bow turned. Relief came so sharply that he distrusted it. He wanted to shout the captain's name, to believe he had been given enough. His eyes went south instead.

The other watch ship had not followed. Rolo's men had passed over her rail, leaving her oars hanging unevenly. Taken, but not yet another ship coming at him. They would have to clear her decks, sort the surviving crew and mend what they had broken.

Five ships against the four Rolo had committed here. Five, if Drazen's could still be called a fighting ship.

Goro's longboat bumped against his quarter.

"I can put men across."

Vhalar's boarders had gained the enemy's forward rail, but could not push far enough to clear the grapples. Every moment there invited another arrow.

"One boatload. Not all."

Goro's mouth tightened. "There are men waiting."

"And there will be men needing boats. Keep room for them."

He pointed towards Drazen's damaged oars. Goro nodded and brought the boat beneath Vhalar's hull. The swell lifted a man's face level with the rail, then dropped him away beneath his reaching hand. Ropes went down. Reinforcements climbed wet and swearing, their shields hauled after them. Vhalar caught one by his coat and sent him towards the fighting before they could bunch beside the ropes.

Their weight told. A shield went over the enemy rail; another man followed. Someone began chopping at the forward grapple while the others held around him.

A cry rose from Vhalar's stern. He turned, expecting another ship.

His banner was falling.

Above the houses, the cloth descended from the fort's staff. It caught for a moment, hung crookedly, then disappeared.

A man was shouting beside him, but the words would not come through. His father had looked up at that banner from the yard. Vhalar remembered wanting him to see something worth approving of when he looked back down. Now the staff stood bare. You'll lose the lot. Even with men fighting at his rail, he wanted to answer. Tell the old bastard what he had won in the west. Make him listen, for once.

His teeth closed on his torn cheek. Blood filled his mouth.

The black bastard had finished.

A man began shouting that they had to go ashore before everything was carried away. Vhalar seized him by the shoulder. Mail cut into his fingers. He wanted to shake him until his teeth broke. Look what you have let them do. For a heartbeat he could not separate the man's alarm from his father's voice.

Then the enemy bowmen rose beyond the rail. Vhalar shoved him down behind a shield.

"Get down, you fucking fool! Shields towards that ship!"

Rolo's bowmen were aiming at the longboat. Arrows struck the raised shields like hard rain upon a door. One caught a man climbing from Goro's boat. He dropped between the hulls; two men snatched his belt as the galley lifted. Vhalar planted himself beside them, shield over their heads. They dragged the man across with his heels scraping the planks. Vhalar was shouting for the next shield before the rescuers had drawn breath.

His men looked to him again. The same rage, and beneath it the question he could not let them ask: where could they go if both fort and sea were lost?

He pointed to the ropes.

"Bring our men back! Cut the grapples once they are clear!"

The first men did not hear. They were roaring as they gained another pace. Vhalar pushed forward, struck a shoulder with his shield and dragged the man round by his mail. He shouted into his face until the order passed along the line.

The forward grapple parted. A sailor at Vhalar's rail chopped through the second as the last boarder stumbled back. His galley pulled clear with a wrench that sent men sprawling. Beside Drazen, the arriving watch ship checked the enemy's attempt to follow.

His first mate called for men to clear the broken oars.

Vhalar bared his teeth at the fort's bare staff. The black men could carry for now. He would remember the boats, the unhurried figures beneath his walls. He wanted their commander close enough to hear him ask whose fort it was. Instead he turned to the ships he could still command.

Moreo's surviving galleys remained in the west. He had left men guarding them, waiting for his return to divide the taking. His taking, paid for on Moreo's steps. Those hulls could replace what this fight was costing him, if he brought enough men out to crew them.

Red axes lay between him and the northern passage. His longboats would never make it alone. He had to bring the fighting ships clear together, with enough oars left to keep Rolo from running them down.

Someone was calling for help aboard Drazen's ship. Vhalar wiped blood from his mouth and turned towards the voice.

* * *
​

The first arrow struck the shutter beside Jon's face. A pale splinter spun past his eye and struck the wall behind him.

Alasdair caught his shoulder and pulled him down. A second arrow came through the opening and broke against the back wall.

"Stay below it, my lord."

Jon crouched beneath the window with his heart thudding in his wounded hand. The arrow had passed his eye. For a moment he had thought this life was ending too. The bowmen stepped round him, taking aim at the fast ship pressing the ferry and its companion threatening the outer merchant.

The bowman nearest Jon waited for a gap between the shutter and its frame, then rose and loosed.

The others followed at their own pace.

From below came Rymond's voice, ordering men away from the exposed end of the passage. Someone shouted that a boat was still at the steps.

Jon crawled to the stair rather than stand beneath the window again. His right hand struck the wall. Pain ran up his arm, sharp enough to make his eyes water.

He cursed and kept moving.

Outside, a ferry lay with its stern rope fouled about the lower post. A soldier was trying to free it while the rowers held her off the stone. There were wounded men in the bottom. One had begun struggling to sit up.

"Keep him down!" Rymond shouted.

The fast ship's bow swung towards them.

She could not reach the ferry without coming closer to the wall and crossing the space covered by the nearest black galley. Her captain was trying to make one of them move first.

An arrow hit the man at the post. He folded against the stone and slipped into the boat.

Rymond started down.

"Shields with him," Jon ordered.

Two spearmen followed the centurion. Their shields covered the lower steps while Rymond bent over the rope. He drew his knife, sawed once and let the boatmen haul the ferry clear. A man aboard caught the wounded soldier beneath the arms before he could slide over the gunwale.

The black galley outside them advanced.

Not far. Enough to put her bow across the fast ship's approach. Bowmen stood behind her forward shields; at the rail, sailors waited with hooks.

The pirate captain checked his oars.

The fast ship backed away, shooting as she went. An arrow struck a spearman high in the thigh; Rymond helped his companion drag him up the steps. The other pirate had failed to draw the escort off the merchant and was withdrawing too.

The ferry reached clear water. Jon let out a breath, then looked back at the fast ships. Their captains had seen the shutters open and the escort move. They were learning, and he would have to be ready when they returned.

"They will try again," Rymond said.

"Then mend what they found," Jon told him. "No rope left around that post. Put the waiting boats where the wall covers them, not at the end of it."

Rymond sent a man for another length of rope. Jon knelt beside the wounded spearman until the bearer arrived.

The arrow had entered above the knee. Blood ran into the man's boot while he tried to hold the leg straight. When he saw Jon, fear hardened into anger.

"I had him covered."

"You did."

Jon put his good hand upon the trembling shoulder. He wanted to promise that the leg would mend. He knew too little to say it.

"Did the boat get clear?"

Jon looked towards the ferry. She had reached the merchant. Men were lowering a sling.

"Yes. Stay still now."

The bearers lifted him. Jon stood and found Arthur coming down the lane with Malcolm.

Arthur looked first at the shutters, then at the injured men being carried past.

"The tower is searched. No one left fighting."

"Hewyn?"

"Putting Rennick at the gates and taking the wounded down. Brus has men resting in the yard. Hewyn has checked the shore roll: seventeen dead. Thirty-one unable to fight."

"Two more here," Rymond told him.

He turned to the man taking the injured spearman's shield up the lane.

"Tell Hewyn. Both men are going aboard."

Malcolm added, "They found the strongroom. Chests, plate and books. It is guarded."

Chests. Coin, perhaps enough to make this bloody venture worth the risk. Jon felt a fierce pleasure. He wanted the lids thrown back, wanted to see how much of Vhalar's wealth was coming home with him.

This was why he had come. Ships to move his men, wealth to keep building when trade faltered and prices rose. He could almost see the strongroom spent on Dragonstone: crews paid, grain stored, more men armed. He had been given another life; he meant to be ready for the wars in it.

At the steps, the bearers shifted their grip, waiting for room. Jon decided which load went first.

"Nothing comes down without Hewyn's leave," he said. "The lane belongs to the wounded until he has them clear."

Malcolm nodded.

"Denys needs forty men."

The centurion looked seaward, measuring the distance to the nearest fighting ship.

"I have them."

"From those who were held at the gate. Leave your optio with the rest. Hewyn takes over the reserve here."

Arthur's eyes stayed upon the ships.

"Which ship?"

"Denys will choose. He asked for men he can board with."

"Then I go with them."

Jon looked at him. Arthur had spent much of the morning fighting where Jon could not follow. There was blood dried along his sword arm, though none seemed to be his.

"You have just come out of the tower."

"And Malcolm needs men who have boarded before."

Arthur's certainty steadied Jon and irritated him. He wanted that sword aboard Denys's ship. He wanted it here too.

Jon turned to Malcolm.

"Can your men fight?"

"They have had water. They are not fresh, but they can fight."

"Leave anyone who cannot keep his shield up. Forty, counting you. Arthur goes with you."

Malcolm went to gather them.

Arthur waited until he was out of hearing.

"You mean to help Vhalar."

Four red-axe galleys were engaged in the north. Vhalar had gained one of his southern ships, but one of his original galleys was answering her oars badly. More of Rolo's ships waited to the south.

"If Rolo finishes him, every ship he has can turn upon us."

"Vhalar will remember what we took."

"Then let him hate me from the deck of a ship still fighting Rolo. I need him alive long enough to keep half those red axes away from our boats."

Arthur looked back towards the boats.

"What do you want Denys told?"

Jon wanted Malcolm's men near enough to call back and Arthur beside him. Give the objective. Let the man on the spot do his work. Easy to remember from his first life; much harder with the men already gathering at the steps.

"Keep the merchants covered. If he can strike one of Rolo's ships without losing that cover, he is to do it. A ship going to help in the north would serve. He does not have to take it. Stop it reaching the fight."

"And if there is no opening?"

"He keeps his ships together."

Arthur nodded. "I will tell him."

"Malcolm commands the soldiers; Denys decides where the ship goes. Neither you nor Malcolm chases a prize beyond Denys's support."

"I have heard you."

Jon glanced at the boats. The first was being loaded. "Stay a moment."

Munin waited on the roof. Jon led Arthur into the shore keepers' little room. Beyond the open door, Malcolm called another file down to the steps. Jon waited until they had passed.

"I need to see the western landing."

Arthur shut the door and stood with his back to it.

Jon sat beside the bare table. A few minutes with someone he trusted between his helpless body and the world. He had been wanting them since the carpenter spoke of the track. He closed his eyes.

The storehouse dropped below Munin. Jon turned her inland, climbing above the spring and the scrub that hid the footpath. Ridge followed ridge. In the hollows he lost the track altogether; his scouts would have to feel their way through that ground. He could pass over it.

The western shore opened beyond the last rise. Moreo's walls stood above crowded moorings. Jon brought Munin lower. Hulls lay close together, some with broken rigging trailing into the water. Three galleys at the outer moorings rode level, their masts still standing. He went round them once, searching their decks. Men moved beneath an awning; others carried something through the shore gate.

Three worth looking at. Jon circled again. Men could reach these overland and come back by sea, behind the ships barring his departure. Let Rolo watch the crowded eastern landing. Jon wanted him looking there when another galley came upon his rear. He could almost hear Denys demanding to know who would crew her.

He wanted to go lower, to discover how many men watched the gate and what they had left in the stores. A roof swallowed the carriers; the wall hid the ground beneath it. Three level hulls did not tell him whether their steering gear worked or whether another fifty men waited indoors. His scouts still had work to do. He could send them towards something he had actually seen.

Jon turned Munin east. Wind pressed against her wings as he crossed the ridges again. At last the eastern fort rose ahead, its bare staff above the roofs. He brought her down to the storehouse before letting go.

Arthur stood at the door, listening. Outside, an oar knocked against stone.

"Last boat," he said.

Jon pushed himself upright. "Three galleys worth taking a closer look at. The men must find a way to reach them."

Arthur opened the door a little, checked the passage and let him through.

At the steps, Jon held Arthur's gaze. Come back, he wanted to say, as though the man could promise him that. He stepped aside.

Malcolm's men had gone in separate loads. A soldier with a torn sleeve still waited above the steps, arguing to follow; his blood-soaked dressing showed beneath it. Malcolm's optio sent him back to the wounded.

Arthur went in the last load.

He sat beside the stern with his sword between his knees. As the boat drew away, he looked up towards Jon once, then turned to the ship ahead.

Jon watched until they reached her side.

Beyond the boats, a red-axe galley pulled away from Rolo's southern group and made north. Denys's flagship began to draw out to meet her. A cheer went up along the wall. Jon turned at the sound; black shields crowded her bow.

At the steps, bearers waited with a wounded man while a boatman held an empty ferry against the stone. Jon heard the cheering and wanted, briefly and bitterly, to be one of the men making it. They could watch Arthur go out and believe that settled the matter. Jon still had to get that man off the shore.

"Wounded first," he told Rymond. "Lower him in the sling. Take him straight to the merchant."

Then he went to find Hewyn.

* * *
​

Goro's boats were in trouble.

Two lay beside Drazen's damaged galley, taking aboard men who could no longer stand. Another had been caught farther out, its rowers backing water while a grappling line dragged at its bow. Vhalar had held boats back for this. They were meant to get his men clear.

Goro was there, hacking at the line.

Rolo's nearest galley kept pressing. Beyond the ships already engaged, another enemy vessel was coming north. A fifth. If she reached the outside of the fight, the boats would have nowhere to go.

Vhalar sent a man to hurry his rowers. His galley began to draw round, but a shattered oar fouled the water beside her. The stroke broke. Men cursed below.

He needed his bow across that galley's approach, his shields between her archers and Goro. He could see exactly where to put her and could not make her go. The broken shaft dragged beside him, close enough to see, beyond anything his sword could put right.

Then the approaching galley's bow swung. Vhalar thought her captain had chosen to come straight at him, until her stern guards turned the other way.

A black ship was closing behind her. Beyond it the merchants remained covered. Their escort had sent one ship out and kept the others in place.

Fresh shields crowded her deck. Soldiers standing close, not sailors snatching weapons. A pale cloak lifted among them. Fresh men, while his own were being lowered into boats. How much had the black bastard kept back?

Rolo's captain continued his turn to face her, carrying his ship away from Goro's boats.

Now.

"Clear those oars!" Vhalar pointed at the galley whose grapple still held Goro. "Across that one's bow. Give the boats room!"

His men dragged at the broken wood. One stripped off his shield to reach farther, swearing as the galley rolled. The obstruction came free, and Vhalar's ship answered.

He brought her close enough to force the enemy's bowmen to attend to him. Arrows struck his forward shields. His archers rose behind them and answered.

He did not need another prize with Goro dead and those boats under water. He needed Goro away from it.

The grapple parted. Goro dropped his axe and struck a rower's shoulder with his open hand. The oars caught together. Another boat followed under cover of Vhalar's hull, loaded low with wounded men.

A pirate leaned far over his rail to cast another hook. A bowman beside Vhalar loosed; the man disappeared backwards before it left his hand.

"Keep coming," Vhalar muttered.

The boats scraped past. Goro scowled over the rower's shoulder as though he meant to frighten the boat into moving faster. Vhalar felt a grin pull at his split cheek. It hurt. He kept watching until the last boat was sheltered behind his hull.

* * *
​

Denys watched the red-axe galley's bow come round towards him.

Her captain was trying to deny him her side, turning hard enough that the outer oars flung white water behind them. Farther north, Vhalar's ships were in a knot of shields, broken shafts and crowded boats. Denys wanted this galley kept out of it.

Behind him the merchants remained covered. His nearest captain knew his orders: hold the passage, watch the fast ships, cover the flagship's return if needed. Denys had still made him repeat them like a boy on his first deck. He glanced astern, annoyed by the comfort it gave him.

A pennant lifted from the covering galley's stern. He faced forward.

"Bring her alongside the bow. Easy now. I want her rail, not her bottom."

The first mate relayed the order. The oars on the closing side came in; the others checked the ship's way. Denys felt her answer through his knees and grinned at his mate. There was pleasure in having a ship do exactly what he wanted. He had almost forgotten.

Malcolm stood with the leading shields. Arthur was beside them, his grey-white cloak tucked clear.

"Take the forward deck," Denys called. "Break the nearest oars. When I call you back, you come."

Malcolm lifted his hand.

Arrows struck shield and helm. Denys's bowmen answered, driving pirates back from the forward benches, but one crouched behind his shield above the crossing.

The hulls struck.

Denys caught the rail. Grapples went over while the ships were still grinding together. The enemy bow rose beside them, close enough for him to see pale scrapes in its tarred planks where another ship had marked them. Malcolm's leading man stepped across, drove his shield against a spear and slipped. The man behind caught his belt while Arthur crossed beside them.

Arthur struck the spear aside and shouldered through, bringing two shields after him. Denys saw black hair, bright steel and a pirate's blue sleeve twisted beneath a shield rim. Then Malcolm was over and the soldiers crowded into the opening.

The second rank stopped at his shout and turned to cover the boarding place. Denys let out the breath he had drawn to bawl for those shields. They were leaving a way back. He began to see what Jon had bought with all that drilling.

South of them, another red-axe galley was coming. Not close enough yet.

A shout drew him back. A spear had found a gap in Malcolm's shields. One soldier folded over it, clawing at the shaft in his thigh. His comrades caught him as it came free. On Denys's rail, a man rose to cover them and an arrow struck beneath his jaw. He dropped without a sound.

"Get him down."

A sailor dragged him clear. Blood spread between the planks. Denys wanted him lifted more gently; the thought came with absurd sharpness while men were fighting across the gap.

The nearest rowing benches lay abandoned, their oars still jutting through the side. Malcolm blocked the passage aft with shields. Two soldiers dropped behind them with axes.

Wood shuddered beneath the blows.

Rolo's pirates came at them with a roar. Arthur met the foremost behind a raised shield. A legionary reeled against the platform's edge; Malcolm hauled him upright by his harness as the next shield took his place. Arthur's sword flashed beneath an enemy arm. The pirate fell and checked those behind him.

Denys could hear the axes beneath the screaming.

One oar broke. Its outer length fell across the blade beside it. Another hung crookedly through its fitting. Men farther aft were still rowing, driving their own oars against the wreckage.

Enough. Malcolm's shields were gaining ground, and Denys followed them with his eyes. A few more paces and they might hold the whole foredeck. He could see how to do it; that was the trouble. The oars were broken. He had what he had come for.

"Back aboard!"

The call vanished beneath a crash of shields. Denys thrust a sailor towards the rail.

"Tell the centurion. We leave now."

The man bellowed until Malcolm turned. His hand went up. Most of the shields began to move, but one soldier was still pressing forward beside Arthur. Malcolm caught his arm and dragged him back. Arthur glanced towards the approaching galley, then covered the place the man had left.

The axe men climbed out. Their comrades passed the wounded soldier across first. Another had an arrow in his forearm and could not grip the rail. They caught him beneath the arms. A third fell as the ships rolled apart, his foot trapped between the rails. They pulled him clear, screaming.

Denys looked south. The galley was closer. Each cry behind him pulled at his attention.

"Cut those hooks!"

The pirates' grapples held them together. One line parted under an axe; another stayed taut while the last black shields backed towards the crossing.

Arthur struck a reaching wrist, turned the next thrust and came over after Malcolm. An enemy shield hit the rail where he had stood.

The last rope parted.

"Back water!"

His mate had the order ready. The gap widened beneath a rain of arrows. A hook struck the bulwark and fell short of catching. Denys watched it splash between the ships.

The red-axe galley tried to follow. Her forward oars struck the broken shafts, churning foam against her side. Men were dragging wreckage inboard. She would row again; she would not reach Vhalar's boats now.

Malcolm came aft, one hand upon the rail.

"All forty accounted for. One dead. Three cannot fight."

Arthur followed, breathing hard, his sword still bare.

The dead soldier lay beside the mast with the arrow beneath his jaw. Someone had put a folded cloak under his head as though he might wake with a sore neck. Denys could not stop looking at the cloak. Someone had found time for that.

The southern galley was still coming.

"Under our escort," he told the mate. "Keep the wounded clear of the oars."

He wanted the red-axe captain dragged across his deck. He wanted payment for the man by the mast and every sailor bailing water from the damaged consort. The four merchants waited behind him. For one shameful instant he resented them for needing him now.

He took his ship back to them.

* * *
​

The black ship withdrew, leaving Rolo's galley afloat, her banner flying and her men struggling with the damaged oars. The black soldiers had fought aboard and come away without the prize. They had chosen when to stop. Vhalar watched the water widen behind them with a hatred almost as sharp as envy.

Below him, Goro was binding his forearm. The last wounded men had been lifted clear of Drazen's rail. The black captain had bought them that much.

A bowman shifted his feet, following the black ship with his weapon. For a moment Vhalar wanted him to loose. He caught the man's elbow before he drew.

"Leave her."

The bowman looked at him.

"While she fights Rolo, leave her. Pass that along."

This had not been kindness. The black commander's merchants still lay beneath the landing; his boats needed water in which to move. He wanted Rolo occupied, and Vhalar's men were doing the occupying.

Heat climbed his neck. The bastard stripping his fort wanted him alive. Just alive enough, just strong enough to keep Rolo busy while the last of his wealth went down those steps. He had understood the choice and made it himself. That made the humiliation worse.

Goro was still fumbling with the binding. Vhalar wiped his own cheek too hard and felt the wound open again.

He called for Goro, then pointed towards Drazen and the watch galley. His captains were to watch him. He would decide when they moved, before Rolo or the black bastard decided it for them again.

There was room to draw his ships together.

Farther south, Rolo's remaining vessels were still coming.

* * *
​

The galley Rolo had sent north came back into view with a ragged gap in her oars. His banner still flew; men dragged broken shafts clear of the benches. But she had lost her place, and Vhalar's ships were drawing together while the black warship pulled away.

Rolo had brought his own bow round when the black soldiers crossed the rail. He had enjoyed that crossing. More of them, yes, crowd aboard and fight for the afterdeck. He would catch the thieves with half their strength upon a ship they could not yet sail.

Now they were going back.

His fifth galley should have reached the northern fight. Instead, her crew were clearing wreckage while Vhalar brought the watch galley into his line.

A messenger climbed aboard, wet to the thighs. Rolo heard him out.

"Another galley?"

"Her captain asks it, my lord. Until he can clear the benches."

Four were already committed north. Taking one out to nurse the damaged ship would give Vhalar still more room.

"He keeps his decks and clears his oars. Then he joins them. Tell him."

The messenger hurried back to his boat. Rolo bared his teeth at the black warship returning without a prize.

"You spiteful little shit."

A ship within reach, men already across her rail—and her commander had abandoned the taking. Broken a few oars and left Rolo to watch Vhalar recover. Rolo hated him more for that than he would have for stealing the galley. At least a stolen galley would have slowed the bastard down.

"They could not hold her!" a man near the mast laughed.

"They weren't trying to, you witless cunt. Look at the oars."

The man's mouth shut. Those beside him went still, waiting to see where Rolo's anger would fall. He could have kept them waiting. Instead he turned away. Vhalar was not going to stop while he made a fool of one of his own men.

Black shields lined the returning warship. The shore was feeding soldiers back into the ships. Fighting at the fort had stopped; the merchants lay closer to the landing, still covered by armed hulls. His fast pair had gained nothing. One hovered off the outer merchant beneath a warship's watch. The other had found men waiting behind the shore wall.

Rolo laid his axe across the rail. More soldiers were coming down from the fort towards a waiting boat, yet the shore remained guarded. He could use men who moved like that. Irritating to find them wearing another man's colours.

He could make their commander need them somewhere else.

"Bring those two back here."

The boatswain glanced north.

"The pair at the landing. Leave the others where they are."

The recall signal rose. Beyond the flagship, the captured watch ship laboured behind the towing galley, guarded and useless for the present fight.

Every ship Rolo sent north would make the merchants easier to move. Every ship he held here was one Vhalar did not have to face. He looked beyond the landing to the rising ground and laughed straight into his first mate's wary face.

He had been staring at ships. The black bastard had put half the fight ashore for him.

"Eighty," Rolo told the boatswain. "From us and the galley beside us. Boarders, not oarsmen."

"We will be short here."

"I know what eighty means."

Six hundred fighters had come with him. Some were dead, others hurt or guarding the prize. Eighty ashore would thin his fighting decks further. He caught himself choosing where he would stand if those black shields came over his rail, then counted the men he would keep. Enough. The thief could start spending his own.

"Bring that galley close enough to hail."

Rolo gave her captain his share of the levy while the fast ships came alongside. Ropes shifted, men cleared the rails. When both their captains could hear him, he pointed south.

"Forty in each. South to our landing beneath the castle, then inland. Find his guards before you commit. I want you behind his shore position, not dying in front of it. Send a boat back when the men are landed. And send word of what you find before you attack."

The captains nodded. Men crossed with shields slung and weapons held clear of the gap. They would still be finding their way through the hills when the next grapples went over.

One boarder grinned up at Rolo and raised an axe. He knew that grin: a man already spending his share. Rolo grinned back. He wanted the black commander watching his merchants when the shouting began behind him, having to call soldiers away from the boats.

And if the stubborn bastard held? Rolo looked towards the northern pair. He could offer him a passage. Draw the fast ships aside, let a merchant through. Men who would not leave a wall under threat might leave it eagerly enough for home. He imagined the last crowded boats pulling away, the warships turning to follow their charges. A lovely time to break a promise.

He ran his thumb along the axe haft. Vhalar would have to be dealt with first. He would not have the old bastard at his back while he reached for those laden ships.

Rolo waved the first fast ship away, then turned towards Vhalar's banners and ordered his own oars kept ready.

* * *
​

While Rolo was calling back his fast ships, Aurane returned to the landing. Jon could still see the pair beyond the boats. Jon watched a boatman rinse blood from the empty sling; the wounded spearman had been delivered to the receiving merchant, and the ferry was back for another load.

"Denys is back inside the escort," Aurane told him. "The galley he struck is still Rolo's. She will not catch anyone until they clear her oars. The carrier is in, and the captured longboats are towing the damaged prize closer. Slowly, but she is coming."

"Our men?"

"One of Malcolm's men dead. Three too hurt to fight. Ser Arthur is unhurt. Malcolm has sent a boat to take all four straight to the merchant receiving our wounded."

Aurane gave him the four names. Jon's first relief had been for Arthur; he was ashamed of how quickly it had come before the rest. He read the dead man's name twice, then passed the strip to Corwyn.

"To Hewyn. These are Malcolm's men."

Corwyn called one of Rymond's runners and sent him up the lane with the strip.

The flagship had returned without a prize. Jon had told Denys that was enough. He would not send men out again to make the death feel better by adding a captured hull.

"Can Denys spare the soldiers back ashore?"

"He wants to keep them for now. He says the next ship may come to him."

"He keeps them."

Aurane handed him Denys's answer about the west. Twelve sailors could be spared once the carrier's rigging was secure and the ferrying finished. None would leave their present work unfinished.

"Enough for three galleys?" Jon asked.

"To get their sails set, if the gear is sound. They will not row three galleys out of a fight."

Twenty-six men had been freed from the captured rowing benches. Some could scarcely stand; others might know those western ships. Jon would have to make them believe refusal was safe.

"Ask whether any of the freed rowers wish to go. Only those fit for it. Tell them there may be fighting."

"They have their passage already," Jon added. "Refusing changes nothing. If none will go, Denys tells me what the twelve can bring away."

Aurane tucked Denys's answer away again.

"He wants warning before the western party comes round the island. Their hulls will be strange to him. A letter by your crow will do, if it reaches him first. Otherwise they send a boat ahead and wait to be recognised."

"He shall have their instructions in writing. So shall Brus. The bird can bring their position and what they have taken."

Through the glass, Jon found two of Rolo's fast vessels drawing back towards the larger galleys. A transport's sail hid what they did next.

"Tell Denys those two have drawn in to Rolo. He is to watch what comes out again."

Aurane climbed back into the boat. The oarsmen pushed off before he had settled upon the bench.

Corwyn was waiting with his count.

"All seventeen are aboard," he said. "With the others, two hundred and sixty-three alive."

Corwyn's list kept the free passengers separate. Tero and Merra were together; the father and daughter had gone to the same ship.

"The woman?" Jon asked.

"Aboard. Wrapped, as you ordered."

He nodded once. Wrapped. A small, decent thing, and hopelessly less than he had meant to do for her.

"Give Hewyn this count as well," Jon told Corwyn, returning the paper. "The free passengers stay on their own list."

Corwyn tucked it away.

Two hundred and sixty-three living people aboard, the fort held, and room for Denys to move. Jon made himself acknowledge what they had gained as he climbed towards the gate. Along the lane, work parties were fixing short timbers across the approaches from the houses.

Hewyn met him beneath the gate.

"Two hundred and seventy-five available ashore," he told Jon. "That includes three scouting west and the six bowmen Denys sent."

"A hundred and twenty-one still with him."

Hewyn glanced at Malcolm's names on the strip and nodded.

Three hundred and ninety-six of the four hundred and fifty remained available. Eighteen dead; thirty-six unable to fight. The legion could survive these losses. Jon would not let his hunger for a greater victory turn them into its destruction.

Brus's swordsmen rested in the yard, shields within reach. One slept while his neighbour held both their water skins. Hewyn had forty gathered as his remaining reserve.

"Norren has seen no men coming from inland. He has his watch beyond the houses. The spring is held."

"Show the reserve's optio where to go if Norren calls," Jon ordered. "No looking for the path with the enemy upon him."

"The western scouts have Hugin," Jon told him. "Norren sent them above the spring, clear of the southern road."

Hewyn looked back towards the men resting in the yard.

"You want Brus."

"Thirty fighting men under him, plus the sailors Denys can spare."

"Those are the men I would send to Norren."

Jon looked at the reserve. Seeing those western hulls had made him hungry to send the order. It had given Hewyn no more men.

"They wait until the shore can spare them and the scouts have found an approach."

Corwyn came through the gate with his count as Hewyn called Brus over.

"You are to take Moreo's fort," Jon told the swordsmen's captain.

Brus glanced seaward. "I thought we wanted the ships."

"And his treasure. I will not leave a garrison above the moorings to shoot our sailors while they load it."

Moreo had robbed these waters for years. Jon wanted his hoard paying for the legion when they sailed home.

"Let me go with him," Corwyn said.

Jon looked at him. Ink marked the knight's fingers; his sword still hung at his side. He had kept the landing moving when men were shouting over one another and frightened people crowded the steps. Now he stood very still, waiting for Jon's answer.

"Brus commands."

"I heard you." Corwyn met his eyes. "I am asking to fight."

Jon held his gaze, then glanced towards Alasdair and the household men at the gate. His bodyguard would stay with him. He nodded. "Go with Brus. Give Rymond the count before you leave."

Corwyn gave a runner the count. His hand went briefly to his sword belt as Brus turned to include him.

"Twenty-eight swordsmen, you and Ser Corwyn," Jon told Brus. "One of your men must be able to write. Hugin is with the scouts; take paper and ink when you join them."

"And bring the prizes back here?" Brus asked.

"Keep the laden ships clear. If you can man a galley to fight, bring her behind Rolo. Denys will give you the course. If Rolo attacks our departing ships, strike his rear."

Thirty men gone from his defence, with no certainty Brus could take the fort or crew a fighting ship. Jon's stomach tightened. A delay could leave him choosing between those men and the transports. He had spent too much on this legion to gamble with it lightly.

Yet a galley behind Rolo might turn an attack on the merchants into their chance to escape. He could not let the bastard dictate every move. He needed those scouts before he dared commit.

His letters must tell Denys which ships could fight, who crewed them and where they waited. Brus needed word of any change in Rolo's position. Jon would bring the letters himself, reaching for Hugin at agreed halts. He would have to find the time and privacy for it here.

"And if we are driven off before he comes?" Hewyn asked.

"Denys gives him a place beyond the fighting and a time to wait. He takes the people and treasure there. The same if he cannot crew a fighting ship."

Jon sent Brus to feed and rest his men. He needed the scouts' report and enough time to get the party across the hills. Rolo was unlikely to give him either willingly.

From the wall, Jon could see Vhalar's five galleys drawing together behind their longboats. One worked unevenly. Rolo's main group still lay south; he could scarcely distinguish the fast vessels against their sides.

Munin had followed him back to the fort. She sat upon the gatepost, head turned towards Jon.

Jon took the glass from his guard.

"Keep the stair clear. I need a moment above."

Alasdair put one of the household at its foot. Beyond the turn in the wall, Jon found a place hidden from the courtyard and sat with the glass beside him. He waited until the footsteps below had stopped before reaching for Munin.

The sea opened beneath him.

He sent Munin south.

From above, the crowded ships separated. Two fast vessels lay beside Rolo's galleys. Men were crossing into them. Not prisoners: they carried shields and kept their weapons. One boat already sat lower in the water beneath its load.

He took her higher as the ropes came free. The vessels pulled south together, away from Vhalar.

Was Rolo sending them inland? Jon thought of Brus's waiting swordsmen and felt abrupt gratitude towards Hewyn. The man had made him wait. He would remember that when an objection next irritated him.

He followed as far as the headland. Beyond it lay Rolo's landing beneath the old castle. He could take Munin farther, but his men needed the warning now. He turned her back towards the fort.

Jon opened his eyes with a sick taste in his mouth. He took up the glass and went down to Hewyn.

"What of Rolo?" the centurion asked.

"Those two fast ships have men aboard. They are going south."

"His own landing?"

"I think so. He may be coming inland. I could not count the men."

"Send word to Norren. No chasing scouts into the trees. If men come, he is to keep them in front of him and send back at once."

Hewyn called the order to a runner.

Corwyn was tightening his sword belt beside Brus's men in the yard. Jon called Alasdair over and dictated the warning for Denys, adding that he must watch for the vessels returning. Munin settled nearby while Alasdair folded the note and tied it to her leg.

"Have Rymond warned as well."

Alasdair sent a household man towards the landing. Jon returned to his screened place on the wall. The guard remained below. Only then did he sit and reach for Munin.

The flight to the flagship took him above boats he had no time to count. Denys saw the crow coming and cleared a place at the rail. Jon waited until the paper was in his hand, then left Munin beside him.

Back in his own body, Jon heard Hewyn giving orders at the gate. He stood when the dizziness eased.

He left the strongroom under guard, with orders that nothing moved without Hewyn's leave, and took the centurion with him to Norren's position.

Norren met them beside the spring. His men had worked a few loose stones into the broken wall above it. Beyond them, two watchmen stood where the track passed into scrub.

Norren pointed above his watch. "They took that turn. One brings the carpenter back once he has shown the track. The other two go on. None back yet."

Jon followed the path with his eyes until the scrub hid it. Hugin was somewhere beyond those ridges. Soon he would need another quiet place, a few more minutes in which to find out whether the scouts had stopped to write.

"Who watches the southern road?"

Norren showed him the two men beyond the wall. They could see the lower bend without standing against the sky. Farther on, the ground dropped into a hollow. Jon could see how men might gather there unseen.

"Put another pair where they can watch that hollow. They fall back when men come. No fighting for the lookout."

Norren beckoned his optio and pointed out the ground.

A horn sounded below. Jon turned sharply, searching the strip of sea between the roofs. He could see a black bow, men along a rail, the red axe beyond them. No messenger came running up the path.

Jon turned back to the broken wall. Denys had his warning. Rolo's men still had to land and cross the hills; he would use what time remained.

Jon stepped behind the broken wall. He imagined Rolo's men coming up the track, then looked for the ground on which his own could meet them and still get away. His legion would leave this island. He still meant to take the pirates' wealth and ships with it. For now, he needed to keep the next man alive.

"Show me where your men fall back if they press you," he told Norren. "Then show me where we stop them."

 

[aiwonder]

Hugin's wings were still beating in Jon's ears when he returned to his body behind the screened wall. He opened his eyes, waited for the stone to stop seeming so close, then rose and went down to the gate.

The crow landed ahead of him with blood on his beak and a letter tied beneath his leg.

The crow shook a scrap of flesh onto the wall and began wiping his beak against the stone. Something small had died in the hills while he waited with the scouts. Jon held out his left wrist.

"Alasdair. The thread."

His guard worked the knot loose. Below the broken wall, Norren's men watched the southern track through gaps in the scrub. Nobody had come up it. That empty ground had begun to trouble Jon almost as much as a column of shields would have. Rolo had sent men south. They had gone somewhere.

The letter was short, the writing cramped to save paper. The two scouts had found a sheltered hollow above the western stores. Men bearing Vhalar's colours held Moreo's fort and watched the ships below it. The upper track was clear as far as the hollow. A man who had fled the fighting told them Moreo was dead.

Jon read the last line again. The fort had changed hands, and Vhalar's men now guarded the ships and wealth Jon had come to take. He could hear Hewyn's objection already. Thirty men might rush a gate. If they found it shut, they had neither the tools nor the numbers to break it.

The first scout had brought the carpenter back earlier. The carpenter was with Norren now, showing the optio where the track divided. Jon turned to the sea. A red sail moved across the narrow opening between two roofs; beneath it, the sound of horns rose and died.

He wanted Arthur beside him. He wanted Malcolm's men back, and Brus's swordsmen still asleep in the yard. Out beyond the roofs, another horn sounded. Rolo would not stay occupied with Vhalar forever.

"Have Brus brought to the gate," he told Alasdair. "And tell Hewyn I have the report."

By the time Jon reached the courtyard, the sailors Denys had released were climbing the lane. Twelve of them, with bundles of cordage and tools carried between them. One had slung a sailmaker's bag over a shoulder that had already bled through his shirt. Jon stopped him long enough to ask whether he could use the arm.

The man raised it, scowling. "Aye. Just don't ask me to carry your chests."

"Brus will find someone else for those."

Ten of the freed rowers waited nearby. An eleventh had come as far as the gate and changed his mind. Brus pointed him back towards Rymond without argument. The man stood uncertainly for a moment, then went downhill. Nobody called him a coward. Jon saw the others watching him go, and was glad he had stayed to see it.

Hewyn had the scouts' letter in his hand when Brus joined them. He read it, looked once at Jon, and passed it to the swordsmen's centurion.

"Thirty swords," Hewyn said quietly. "If Rolo breaks through at the landing, I'll need those men to drive him back."

"Brus may take Moreo's ships and bring them up behind Rolo."

"May. I know where I can use his men here."

Jon pointed seaward. "The merchants have to pass those red sails. We could hold this fort until dark and still lose them all on the water. Brus goes west."

Hewyn looked towards the swordsmen waiting by the gate. His mouth tightened, but he gave a short nod.

There would be hills between them soon. A letter might reach Brus quickly; a reserve would not. Jon watched the centurion reading. Once Brus passed the gate, Jon would have to trust his judgement.

Brus finished reading. "We'll look over the fort before we go down to it."

Jon nodded. "And if it cannot be taken, you tell me. Don't spend thirty men proving it."

"I won't."

Corwyn stood with the swordsmen, shield on his arm and a javelin in his hand. One of Brus's men was showing a sailor how to lash his bundle high enough to clear his knees. Another checked the strap beneath his neighbour's shield. They looked ready. Jon distrusted how much comfort that gave him.

Jon took the pen Alasdair offered and signed the reply to the scouts with his left hand. The scouts were to wait in their hollow for Brus. Alasdair tied the paper to Hugin's leg. The crow went back onto the wall while Jon withdrew behind the stair. When he reached for the bird, the courtyard opened beneath him, and the men he was sending west became black heads and upturned faces.

He carried the letter over the ridge himself.

When he returned to his body, Hewyn was giving the last orders. Brus passed through the gate. Corwyn followed among the shields, then the sailors and the men whose wrists still showed the marks of the irons. The track took them uphill until the scrub hid the last man's bundle.

Jon stood long enough to hear their feet fade.

Then Garon came running from the seaward wall.

"My lord. The red-axe flagship is moving."

* * *
​

The messenger's boat came up from the landing beneath Rolo's castle and pulled alongside his flagship.

He watched its bow rise beside the galley. The messenger waited for the next swell before catching the rope, then came over the rail on his belly. Sensible. A sailor who had tried jumping from a boat earlier was still having his ankle bound.

"All eighty men are ashore below the castle, my lord."

"And the way inland?"

"Our scouts found soldiers with black shields guarding the spring. More behind them, building up the walls beside the path to the eastern fort."

Rolo looked towards the ridge above the eastern fort. The black bastard had guarded his inland approach too. Rolo's men would have to fight through those walls before they could fall upon the landing from behind. He rubbed the dried blood below his ear until the skin stung.

"How many?"

"They could not get close enough to count. A watcher came down from the western hill while we were landing. Vhalar's fleet has left Moreo's harbour. The watcher reckons only fifty of Vhalar's men are holding the fort."

Fifty. Rolo turned towards the northern ships. Vhalar had gathered his longboats behind three hulls; the other two were struggling to keep their places. He would run soon. With strangers in his eastern fort, where else could he go but back to the old man's harbour?

"Take the eighty west," Rolo told the messenger. "Twenty more from the castle guard go with them. I want Moreo's gate and the ships beneath it."

The man caught his breath. "All of them?"

"The sound ones. The chests. Whatever Vhalar left men to guard. Tell your captain he can have first choice of the silver if he gets there before that cunt." Rolo pointed towards Vhalar's banner. "Keep a watch on the water. If he comes home, I want a welcome waiting."

The messenger repeated the order. Rolo made him repeat where the twenty were to come from, then sent him back over the side. His boat shoved clear, the rowers bending south. The men in the hills would have their work. He had his here.

Vhalar's galley had begun to turn behind her fellows. The longboats were moving with her. A man amidships waved a shield, trying to bring the farther galley round.

No. Rolo had spent too much of the morning watching other men decide where to fight.

"There. His stern."

The first mate followed his pointing axe. Water opened between Vhalar and the battered galley nearest him. A narrow gap, growing wider as the two ships pulled apart.

"We can reach him," the mate said.

"Then fucking reach him."

The stroke quickened. Men left room along the centre of the deck as Rolo went forward. His shoulder hurt where the shield had caught him aboard the watch ship. He rolled it once and tightened his grip. Vhalar had men at his rail now, pointing towards them. Rolo could see the broad shield lifted upon the raised stern.

He grinned. Look at me, you old thief. Look what is coming.

The battered galley swung across his bow.

Her surviving oars pulled out of time, blades striking the broken shafts still dragging beside her. She had only the narrow gap to cross. Her bow swung into it, and her crew raised their shields along the rail. Rolo saw the man beside her steersman and struck his axe haft against the wood.

"Drazen."

Behind the intervening hull, Vhalar was disappearing.

The first mate bellowed for the rowers to slow her. Rolo's galley shuddered. She turned just enough to scrape along the other ship instead of driving straight into her side. Oars snapped beneath them. A handle flung a rower backwards from his bench, and the rails came together with a crash that rattled Rolo's teeth.

He caught himself upon the bow timber. Drazen had stolen the opening. The bastard could barely row and had still found enough strength to get in his way.

Hooks struck wood. Men pulled the two ships close while bowstrings snapped behind Rolo. An arrow passed beneath his arm. The pirate next to him sat down abruptly, staring at the shaft in his belly.

Rolo stepped over his legs.

There was Drazen, above the crowded benches, posting three shieldmen at the foot of the steps to his raised stern. Blood had darkened the side of his coat. He kept his sword low and waited while his men met the first boarders.

Vhalar's second. His oldest captain. Rolo felt his anger loosen into something far more pleasant.

"Drazen!" he shouted. "Losing another ship for him?"

The old captain turned his head. Rolo raised the axe so he could see it.

"Come and take her," Drazen called back.

Oh, gladly.

Rolo crossed the locked rails behind two of his shieldmen. The first man took a spear in the shoulder and went down between the benches. Rolo caught the shaft before it could be drawn back, hauled its owner against the rail and struck him above the collar. The dead weight dragged at his weapon. He wrenched it free as his men crowded past.

Drazen came down a step to meet them. His sword went over a lifted shield and into the face behind it. The boarder fell backwards into Rolo. He shoved the man aside and laughed at the old captain's expression.

"There you are."

Drazen's shield caught the first axe blow. He turned it as the edge struck, keeping the blade from biting deep, and thrust beneath Rolo's raised arms. Rolo twisted. The point tore his coat and scraped his ribs. He slammed the axe haft down upon the sword and drove forward, but Drazen was already behind his shield again.

Someone was screaming by the mast. A red-axe boarder tried to climb across a bench and was dragged down by two men beneath it. Rolo's fellows fought for the passage while he forced Drazen up the steps, one pace, then another. At the top the old captain stopped yielding.

Their weapons struck so close to Rolo's face that he smelt the old blood upon the shield leather. Drazen shoved him back with it. Pain ran through his shoulder. He snarled, caught the next sword stroke upon the haft and kicked at the captain's forward leg. Drazen drew it away. His return cut opened Rolo's sleeve above the wrist.

Blood ran over his fingers.

Rolo looked at it, then at Drazen. The laugh came out of him before he could stop it. A proper cut. The old bastard had some life left.

"Again," he breathed.

Drazen gave him no answering boast. He drew a short breath, and Rolo saw his elbow press against the stain in his coat.

There. He began to strike towards that side. Drazen caught the blows, saving his sword for the moments when the axe went wide. Rolo let the next thrust pass his shoulder and stamped forward, close enough to shove the haft beneath the shield's lower edge. Drazen broke the contact and cut at his hand. Rolo laughed again, though he had to snatch his fingers clear.

Below them, one of Drazen's men called for him. The captain glanced past Rolo, then set his feet more firmly. No boat coming for him now. No chest of silver worth carrying home. Rolo wanted to ask how much Vhalar paid for this, but Drazen's sword was moving and he needed his breath.

He struck high. Drazen lifted the shield, stepped to his left and answered with a thrust. Rolo turned to keep him in front and backed into the side rail. For an instant the point lay against his belly. Rolo knocked it down with the haft and threw his weight into the shield. The old captain grunted. His wounded side folded, only a little, but enough.

Rolo edged sideways until the raised timber beside the steering platform lay behind Drazen. He struck at the wounded side again, then crowded him before he could answer. One pace back, then another. Drazen's heel struck the timber. He stumbled, caught himself, and brought the sword up between them.

Rolo's axe broke his guard. The haft smashed into his mouth, and the shield sagged. Rolo struck the arm behind it, laughing through his teeth as Drazen went down upon one knee.

* * *
​

Drazen was on his knees.

Vhalar saw him between the lifted shields on the stern of Drazen's galley. She lay little more than an oar's length behind his own ship, with Rolo's bow locked against her farther side. Men were still fighting below the raised deck. A sailor climbed over a bench with a knife in his teeth; someone caught his ankle and pulled him out of sight.

"Bring us back alongside!"

His first mate caught his arm. Vhalar struck the hand away.

"You heard me!"

"Our oars will foul hers if we go alongside. Another of Rolo's galleys is coming round us."

Drazen still had his sword. Vhalar could see it moving beneath the broken edge of his shield. He had seen Drazen fight like that a hundred times. Short thrusts. Nothing wasted. Drazen had taught men half his age how foolish it was to reach too far for a kill.

Get up, you stubborn old fuck. Get up.

Rolo stepped aside from the thrust. He brought the axe down upon Drazen's sword arm, and the weapon dropped upon the deck. Drazen reached for him with the other hand. Rolo hit him across the face with the haft.

Vhalar had one foot upon the rail before his mate and the nearest bowman dragged him back. His ship was moving. Drazen's was not. Black water opened below him, stirred white by the strokes of his own oars.

"Loose!" he shouted. "Shoot the bastard!"

A bowman rose and drew. A shield lifted beside Rolo; the arrow struck it and hung trembling. The next man could find no clear shot through the men upon Drazen's stern. He loosed at the boarders below instead.

Rolo caught Drazen by the hair and dragged his head down against the rail. The old captain's hand struck the wood. Once. Vhalar could not hear what he said.

The axe rose.

"No."

It fell. Rolo hauled the head sideways and struck again. When he straightened, Drazen's body remained against the rail.

Someone beside Vhalar made a small, choking sound.

Rolo turned. Even across the water Vhalar could see his teeth. The Myrishman lifted what he held, higher, shaking it by the hair until the face turned towards them.

"Vhalar!"

His name carried over the fighting. Rolo was laughing. Men thrust and died upon the steps beneath him, and he stood above them with Drazen's head in his fist, delighted.

Vhalar could not make his hand open upon his sword. He had known that face before his father had let him command a boat. Drazen upon the afterdeck, unpicking a knot with his thick fingers while the old lord shouted that his son was useless with a rope. Drazen had passed it back when the shouting stopped. Try it again. Here. With that hand.

He could remember the fingers more clearly than the face. A nail split down the middle. Tar worked into the creases. Those hands were somewhere beyond the rail now.

So you watched them take my ships and ran.

He had said it with Drazen bleeding beside his table. Had moved the wine out of his reach and made him stand there. Your chests are aboard. The old man had brought the fucking silver home and Vhalar had made him ask for a drink.

"My lord."

Rolo lowered the head. A shield hid him. Vhalar moved along his own stern to see past it.

His mate came with him. "Look at the other ships."

"I'll have his hands cut off."

"We are losing the outer galley."

Vhalar turned upon him, ready to put the sword through anyone who said another word. The man did not step back. Blood ran from beneath his cap and down the side of his nose.

"There."

Beyond Drazen, two red-axe ships had caught the farthest of Vhalar's galleys. Her men were leaving over the shoreward rail. A longboat lay beneath it, crowded so low that a man climbing down put a foot into the water before he found a bench. Her captain was already in the boat, held upright by two of his own. Enemy shields crowded the abandoned stern.

Vhalar's other surviving galley had turned to cover the fleeing longboats. The southern watch galley drew away on the opposite side of his flagship, her bowmen shooting back at the pursuers. They were waiting for him to move.

Three. There would be three, if he let them get clear.

"Drazen held them," the mate said. "We have to go. There are too many."

Drazen had held them. As though that settled what was owed. Vhalar wanted to strike him for putting it so plainly.

A longboat bumped their side. Goro looked up from beneath the rail, one hand white about a rope. He had lost his axe. Blood had dried in a broad smear from his ear to his collar.

"Get these men aboard!" he shouted. "We cannot take another."

His eyes went towards Drazen's ship. He stopped speaking. For a moment Vhalar thought he had not understood what he was looking at. Then Goro bent to the man lying at his feet and hauled him upright with a violence that made him cry out.

"Climb," he said. "Come on. Climb."

Vhalar looked back. His father's banner was gone from the eastern fort. Drazen was dead. He could hear the old lord's contempt as clearly as when he had stood upon this deck alive: always reaching for more, never able to hold what was put into his hands.

He had taken Moreo's fort. Killed him before his own men. There was still something his father had never given him, something he had won with his own sword. Fifty men guarded it. Ships lay beneath the walls. He could gather what remained, mend what could be mended, and find Rolo when he was paying for this day's fighting.

But Drazen would not be standing beside the next chart. There would be no low, unwelcome voice telling him what he had forgotten.

He looked towards the axe above the enemy shields.

"I'll come back," Vhalar said. His voice shook with the effort of keeping it low. "I'll kill him. Him and every bastard who follows him."

The mate turned at once. "North! Keep the watcher with us. Give the others the signal!"

The horn sounded above Vhalar's head. His ship answered her oars. He could stop it. One word and they would hear him; one word would put them back against Drazen's dead men and Rolo's living ones.

He said nothing.

Goro came over the rail behind the last wounded sailor. He stayed crouched a moment, both hands upon the deck. Then he rose and went to help clear the passage for the men still climbing out of the second boat. No curses. Vhalar had never heard him move among his men so quietly.

The mate ordered the emptied longboats cast loose. They fell astern, bumping together in the wake. Whatever boats had failed to reach the three surviving galleys would have to find their own way out.

The other two galleys followed the turn. A torn banner lifted above the nearer stern, and a captain waved his sword to show that he had seen. His men were carrying a sailor from the oars while another climbed over him to take the empty place. On the watch galley, three shields rose together against a last flight of arrows.

Vhalar went to the forward rail. The red-axe fast ships north of them had begun to move across their way. He pointed towards the narrow space beside the shoreward one.

"Keep together. If he comes across us, put the bow through him."

His bowmen crowded forward. The fast ship kept turning across the opening. Behind Vhalar, the rowing master's count faltered.

"Keep pulling!" Vhalar roared. "Bring the watcher closer!"

His mate waved her in with a shield. The count resumed. The watcher drew close behind his stern. The enemy's side was before them now, near enough to see men bracing for the blow.

"Hold her straight."

Vhalar's steersman held. At last the fast ship stopped turning across them. Men upon her deck stumbled as her rowers pulled her back. Water opened before his bow. Arrows hissed past. One rang against Vhalar's shield. He stood behind it until all three galleys were through.

The northern point lay ahead. Beyond it was the long coast to Moreo's harbour. Vhalar looked back once, searching the clutter of hulls for Drazen's stern. Another sail crossed it. He could see only Rolo's red axes and the black ships nearer his stolen fort.

He turned away before either fleet could see him wipe his face.

* * *
​

By the second ridge, Corwyn would have given a silver stag for the horse he had left on Dragonstone.

Sweat ran beneath his collar. The javelin Brus had given him caught in every thorn that his shield missed, and the track had narrowed until men had to turn sideways between the rocks. Somewhere below lay the sea, bright and level and quite useless to them. Corwyn shifted the shaft to his other hand. Ahead, a swordsman ducked beneath an overhanging branch without breaking stride.

He had imagined a rather different visit when his uncle brought him to Dragonstone. Arthur Dayne in the practice yard, perhaps an invitation to dine beside him afterwards. Ardrian had found him polishing a nick from his sword and asked whether the wine sent ahead would receive half so much attention. Corwyn had scarcely heard him. He had been deciding what to ask the Sword of the Morning without sounding a fool.

Arthur was out upon the water, and Corwyn was climbing a hill with a northern centurion who had made certain his javelin was sound before letting him take it.

"Wait for my order to throw," Brus had told him. "We have one apiece."

Corwyn had trained with throwing spears. He knew how much room a man needed to cast one. He had yet to understand how thirty of them were meant to take a fort.

The path fell away into a gully. A man near the front slid on loose shale and caught himself with his shield; those behind stopped at once. Nobody shouted for him to get on. A second soldier climbed down beside him, felt the ankle through his boot and helped him put weight upon it. Corwyn waited, hunched against the steep bank with his sword hilt digging into his ribs. Below them, one of the freed rowers began to breathe noisily through his mouth.

"Sit that rower down," Brus called back. "Water, a little."

"We shall lose the light at this pace," Corwyn said when the centurion reached him.

Brus looked along the file. Twelve sailors and ten freed men followed the swordsmen, carrying water, rope and the things they would need if the western ships proved worth taking. The rower had folded onto a stone, knees drawn up, while a sailor loosened the bundle across his shoulders.

"He came out of a slave galley this morning," Brus answered. "Have yours while we wait."

Corwyn almost said that he did not need it. Then he remembered the sweat running into his eyes and drank. The water tasted of warm leather. He passed the skin to the swordsman below him, who took it with a nod and measured his swallow carefully.

The pause lasted less time than Corwyn had feared. The stumbling swordsman came up with his javelin again, walking without a limp. Another man had taken his shield until the track widened. At the gully's far lip a soldier held out a hand to Corwyn. He accepted it and hauled himself onto firmer ground.

"Mind the edge, ser. It gave way under him."

Corwyn planted his next foot farther in.

They found Norren's two scouts beneath a stand of crooked pines. One had stripped bark from a dead branch for Hugin's perch. The perch was empty.

"Sent the crow back with our report," the older scout told Brus. "We stayed here so he could find us again."

The carpenter had gone east with the third scout. The remaining pair had seen the western roofs from the ridge beyond. Men still held the gate. They had been unable to get close enough to count them without showing themselves on bare ground.

Brus crouched beside them, asking about the last stretch. Corwyn lowered his pack and listened. Below the trees, the hill descended through scrub towards a pale shelf of rock; beyond it rose another ridge. Everything smelled of pine sap and hot dust. He could no longer hear the fighting at the eastern anchorage.

"Is this his doing?" he asked quietly.

Brus looked up. "What?"

"Taking Moreo's ships. Coming behind Rolo. I heard the orders, but—" Corwyn stopped. He had been about to say that Jon was twelve. Brus knew his lord's age.

"He gave them."

"Arthur had no part in it?"

"Arthur was at sea when Lord Jon chose us." Brus pulled a thorn from his sleeve. "Hewyn wanted more men kept at the landing. So did I. The ships won't come round the island because we wish for them, though."

Corwyn could still see Jon looking at him when he asked to go, the bandaged hand held against his body. The boy had made him wait for an answer. It had annoyed Corwyn then; he had mistaken the silence for uncertainty about a knight's proper use. Thirty swords to find their way through an island full of enemies and put ships behind a fleet. He had wanted a chance to fight beside Arthur. Jon had given him something rather more alarming.

* * *
​

Denys knew which red-axe galley would come for him before she broke away.

Her captain had been easing her out of the line, a little with each stroke, while the others held their positions. Now her bow came round towards the flagship. Along her rail, men stood with shields over their heads. Forty, perhaps. Behind Denys, the wounded were being lifted from a boat into a merchant ship; farther astern, the consort's pumps kept spilling water over her side. A rich enough prospect for a man who thought he could take the ship guarding them.

"He sees the pumps," his mate said.

"He sees us looking after them." Denys watched the approaching oars dip together. The captain had kept his rowers fresh. This was not the crippled galley they had struck earlier. "Warn the merchant. She is to hold her course."

His mate hurried away. Denys could turn across the enemy's approach, but his stern would sweep towards the boat beneath the merchant. He could back away, but that would leave the consort exposed. He glanced at the people crouched in the boat, then at the growing line of shields.

"Malcolm. Starboard. Keep them off the hatch."

The centurion brought his men across without crowding the sailors hauling in the loose gear. Thirty-six still fit from the forty Jon had sent him. Beside Malcolm, Arthur settled his helm and tucked the torn grey-white cloak beneath his belt. Denys remembered the folded cloak under the dead soldier's head that morning.

Come, then, you greedy bastard.

A horn sounded beyond the approaching ship. A recall pennant jerked up. Her captain looked towards it, plainly enough for Denys to see the turn of his bright helm. Then he faced Denys again and lifted his arm.

"Bows!"

Denys's archers rose behind the shields. Their arrows met the enemy's above the narrowing water. One struck the steering platform with a hard knock; another hung from the mate's sleeve, pinning cloth to the rail. He tore himself loose and went on shouting. On the other ship, a bowman folded backwards into the men waiting to cross.

"In starboard oars. All the way in."

The starboard oars slid in beneath the rail. Men at the last benches struggled with a shaft caught under its neighbour. Denys sent two sailors to help, then ordered the other rowers to check their stroke. The flagship shuddered as she slowed. Across the water, the enemy's oars on the side facing him slid in almost together. Her captain knew his work. He meant to lay his forward deck beside Denys's mast and force enough men across to split the defenders.

A grapple struck, skittered and caught. Another followed. An axe parted the first rope; the second tightened, dragging a broken rail inward. More hooks came through the arrows. The hulls struck with a crash that threw Denys against the steering platform. Someone below screamed. The ships ground together, the enemy's bow lifting beside the mast.

"Hold there!" Malcolm bellowed.

The first boarder jumped into a spear and fell between the hulls. The next landed behind a great round shield, took a thrust upon it and drove forward. Two more came over his shoulders. A black shield dipped as its bearer stumbled over the broken rail. An axe struck the man at the side of his neck, and suddenly there were pirates on Denys's deck.

Six. Eight. Too many to push straight back.

Malcolm pulled the nearest men across the hatch, barring the way below. A sailor ran aft with blood down his face. Behind him a legionary went to one knee, his right leg dragging, while the pirate who had stabbed him lifted a hooked spear to finish it.

Arthur stepped past the withdrawing sailor.

His shield caught the descending shaft low, carrying the hook clear of the wounded man. He went in along it, so close the spearman had to pull his hands back. Arthur's pommel struck his mouth. The man reeled; Arthur cut across the exposed side of his face and was already turning as an axe rang upon his shoulder.

Denys's stomach clenched. The armour held. Arthur had turned with the blow, letting it slide, and the axe man found himself too close to lift the weapon again. Arthur drove his shield against the man's chin and put his point through the gap at his collar.

"Take him!" he called.

The legionary still on his knee thought the words were for him and tried to rise. Arthur braced his shield against the wounded man's shoulder until another soldier took his weight, then parried a sword coming over the dying axe man's shoulder. Steel grated. The wounded man went back between the black shields. Arthur stepped back with him, drawing the swordsman forward, then stopped with his point raised.

The pirate's own hurry carried his face onto the point.

Denys had been reaching for his sword. He found it half drawn and pulled it free. There was work enough for him without staring like a boy at a tourney.

"Keep the bowmen aft. Shoot along their deck. Mind our men!"

A thrown spear struck a legionary beneath the arm as he raised his shield. He fell beside the hatch. Malcolm put another man over him and advanced the line. The pirates had thought they were through. Now they had shields before them, their own dead underfoot and Arthur coming along their flank.

A pirate swung at Arthur's knees. Arthur drew his leading foot back, let the cut pass and struck the forearm before it could recover. A second pirate rushed his open side; a legionary's spear stopped him. Arthur moved with that spear, filling the space beside its bearer. He was never where Denys expected him to remain. Yet he never took the place another man needed.

"Arthur!" a sailor shouted.

"Ser Arthur!"

Malcolm's men took it up as they drove the surviving boarders against the rail. A pirate tried to climb back, caught his foot and hung there. His companion shoved him down between the ships to make room. Arthur killed the shoving man before he reached the other deck.

The enemy captain was at the crossing now, a long sword in his right hand and a shorter blade in his left. He struck aside one of Malcolm's spears with the short blade and cut its bearer across the fingers. When the wounded soldier withdrew, the captain pointed his longer sword at Arthur and called something that brought his men forward again.

Denys knew the kind. A captain whose men had seen him win often enough to stake their own necks upon it. He had picked his place well on the higher deck of the enemy bow. Any man crossing from the flagship would have to climb into those blades.

"Can we cast off?" Denys demanded.

His mate looked down the locked rails. "Three lines forward. One under their bow. We'd have to send a man between them."

Across the rail, the captain kicked a body out of the crossing and called up two fresh shields. Men rose from shelter behind the bow. Denys looked astern. The merchant had drawn past the worst of the danger; the boat followed beneath her shelter. If those fresh men crossed, Malcolm would have to clear the flagship's deck all over again.

"Malcolm! Take her bow. Keep a way back."

The centurion heard. Two shields locked at the rail, sheltering a third man as he thrust across. The enemy captain turned the spear down with his long sword and pressed its shaft across the nearest shield. Arthur came beside them, put a foot upon the broken rail and crossed while that blade was still low.

He landed close. Too close for that long blade to rise cleanly. His shield struck the captain's breastplate, making room for the first two legionaries, and the captain yielded a pace without losing his feet. The shorter sword caught Arthur's thrust and turned it away. His long sword came down upon Arthur's raised shield, biting into the upper edge.

A good stroke. Denys saw the force in it, the captain's feet set to follow. Arthur let the shield fall outward with the blade. The captain pulled his sword clear and cut back at Arthur's head.

Arthur stepped inside it.

The long blade swept behind his shoulder. His shield rim crushed the captain's left fist against the man's breastplate; Arthur's sword, drawn close beside his hip, went up beneath the man's jaw.

The captain stood a moment, mouth open above the steel. Arthur pulled free and let him fall.

Denys heard himself shout with the others.

Arthur was already calling for the shields.

Malcolm crossed with the next file. Arthur turned from the body to cover him, and the black shields spread across the captured bow. They did not pour down among the benches. They held the passage above the rowing benches while the bowmen on Denys's ship swept arrows towards the enemy's stern. Men who had been running forward ducked beneath the rail. One dropped his sword and held up both hands.

With Malcolm's shields across the bow, Denys looked back at the dead captain. Two blades ready and men at his back; Arthur had gone through him in the time Denys needed to draw breath.

Cries for quarter rose from farther aft.

Denys sent his mate over with sailors and six more soldiers. "Steering gear first. Leave the rowers where they are. Anyone reaches for a weapon, put him down."

He stayed where he could see the merchant, the consort and the men still fighting near the enemy's mast. One pirate tried to rally the others there. Arthur advanced behind a shield, and the fellow threw his axe away before he reached him. Two more followed. Farther aft, the men guarding the steering platform backed down when Malcolm's spears came level.

Denys lowered his sword. His hand ached from gripping it.

The enemy's oars remained drawn in. Faces watched from the benches, angry and frightened. There were no chains upon the rowers. One of them began demanding his wages until a soldier told him to hold his tongue. Denys sent his steward across to sort the surrendered fighting men from the sailors. Weapons in one heap; fighters bound; rowers kept at their benches under guard until the mate had counted them and found who could be trusted to speak for them. He promised none of them a place amongst his own crew.

Arthur returned while they were passing the wounded aft. Black hair clung to his brow when he took off his helm. A fresh dent marked his shoulder; his cloak had come loose and hung dark with another man's blood.

"Your arm?" Denys asked.

Arthur rolled the shoulder once. "It will bruise."

Malcolm came behind him, looking towards the bodies beside the hatch. "Two dead. Four more cannot fight."

Denys had watched both men fall. Hearing the number still struck him. He looked at the wounded legionary Arthur had brought out. The man was conscious, shivering beneath a cloak, with two sailors holding his splinted leg as the bearers lifted him. A little farther forward, a boy was trying to wipe blood out of the seam between two planks. He had no hope of getting it all.

"Send their names to shore. All six."

Malcolm nodded and went to his men. Across the rail, the steward was arguing with a bearded sailor who kept pointing towards the dead captain. Denys thought he knew the complaint. Another man wanting his wages from a dead captain.

The bearded rower stooped to take the dead captain's cloak. A spear came down across his chest, and he straightened with both hands spread.

"For his arm!" He pointed past the captain now, towards the prisoners. "Look at the blood."

One of the bound fighters had sunk against a bench. His sleeve was black from elbow to wrist; blood dripped from his fingers. Denys could see the wetness spreading beneath him. The steward glanced towards the wounded being carried across the flagship, then back at the man.

"Wait your turn."

The bearded rower said something in his own tongue. Three rowers rose behind him. The guards lowered their spears, and Denys put a foot upon the rail.

"Sit down!"

A man came out from behind the captured galley's mast before Denys could cross. Denys knew the bloody face. One of his sailors, sent over to help clear the ropes. He had a knife in his hand.

"That one. He did this."

Arthur went over first and caught his wrist before the knife reached the prisoner. The sailor drove forward against him, swearing, trying to get his free hand about the bound man's throat. Arthur forced the knife hand against the bench. Two more rowers stood. The knight could hold the man or turn towards them; he could not do both.

"Denys."

Denys crossed. "Two men here. Take him."

The soldiers pulled the sailor back. His knife stayed in Arthur's hand. The sailor stared at Denys with blood in his teeth.

"You saw what they did."

"I saw."

He had seen the axe go into the legionary's neck. The man had made a small, foolish movement afterwards, trying to lift the shield that could no longer help him. Denys wanted the sailor to stop looking at him. He wanted the prisoner to bleed somewhere he need not watch.

"Take him back to our ship. Have his face bound. Keep him there."

"And this bastard?"

Denys looked at the wounded pirate. He was listening. His bound hands twitched against the planks.

"Alive, if he can be kept so."

The sailor spat between Denys's boots as they took him away. Arthur handed over the knife and leaned briefly upon the bench. At Denys's gesture, the standing rowers sat.

"Who is he to you?" Denys asked the bearded rower.

"My wife's brother."

The man did not claim him innocent. Denys was grateful for that much.

"Can you stop the bleeding?"

"With cloth. His hands must come round in front."

The mate shook his head. "Loosen one and they'll all ask. I need these men guarding the rowers."

Denys looked at the two soldiers holding the gangway. He had meant to bring them back. The merchants still needed shields; every man left here would be missed somewhere else.

"Those two stay. One watches him while the bonds are changed. The other watches the remaining prisoners." He pointed to the captain's cloak. "Use that."

The bearded rower knelt. Arthur helped turn the wounded man while a soldier worked at the knot. Neither could manage it gently; the pirate cried out, and the rowers stirred again, but they stayed upon their benches.

Denys waited until the first strip of cloth was tight. Then he touched the bearded man's shoulder.

"Tell them I need her to row."

The man looked at the bandage, then at the soldiers staying beside it. He called down the benches. Hands went to the oars, slowly. Several men still watched Denys as though they expected the knife to come back. Denys took Arthur back across the rail with him, leaving the two black shields at the gangway.

"She'll row," the mate called. "Steering's sound. Enough hands, if we keep spears on them."

Denys looked along his new galley's side. A sound hull, with both banks of oars intact. She was fastened to him already, her fighting men beaten and his own men aboard. He would keep her while they sorted the ropes and set guards who knew their business. He would not go a ship's length out of his way for another.

"Bring her with us. Slowly. We stay beside the merchants."

The mate grinned. Denys found he could answer it. Then he put his sword away and called for a fresh cloak for the shivering legionary.

* * *
​

By the time Jon had Denys's account of the captured galley, the blood on the landing steps had dried brown.

Fresh water ran over it from a split bucket. The sailor carrying the bucket cursed and set it down beside the wall; farther out, men upon the new prize were hauling a red-axe banner beneath the rail. Jon watched it disappear. He had wanted ships. There was one more, won within sight of the people she had come to take.

Two more of his men were dead.

Aurane had brought their names with the report, and four names beneath them for men who could no longer fight. Jon held the paper against the wall with his good hand.

Aurane touched the first name. "Harl. The one with the torn ear."

Jon remembered him at once. Only that morning he had watched Harl help lift a freed woman into a boat. The man had held her arm until she found her footing, grinning at something she said. Jon saw the smile now, absurdly clear, and had to look away from the boats. He read the name again.

"Arthur?"

"Alive. So is Malcolm." Aurane looked back at the flagship. "I saw the end of it. They were cheering him on both ships."

Jon could hear something of that cheering still. A name rose across the water, broken by distance and the creak of the ferry's tackle. Men upon the landing had stopped to listen. He let them have the moment before he sent them back to the boats.

"Tell Denys I have his report."

A runner came up from Rymond before Aurane could leave. Two families had come out of the houses above the landing and asked to go with the ships. Twelve people. They were waiting by the storehouse, carrying what they could. The older woman spoke for them.

"She says they washed clothes and sold fish to the garrison," the runner told Jon. "They've been shut in a cellar since the fighting started."

Jon looked down the lane. He had come for the pirates' wealth, and every hour another person needed something from him. Twelve more mouths, more room in the boats. He could tell them to go back to their houses. They had survived under Vhalar; perhaps they would survive under Rolo. The thought was mean enough that he disliked hearing it in his own head.

"Have Rymond search their bundles and count them separately. They can come. The wounded still go first." He turned to Aurane. "Tell Denys about them. And that I expect them treated as passengers."

The runner went back down. Aurane watched him a moment, then resumed his report.

"Denys wants the wounded taken off his flagship before he shifts the prize. He has her rowers apart from the fighting men, but he'll need guards aboard her."

"He keeps the guards he needs. Rymond will have the boat ready."

Aurane went down the steps. Jon waited for the boat to clear, then sent the names to Hewyn.

The sea had changed while he watched the shore. Vhalar's ships were pulling north, three galleys moving together through the wreckage of the larger fight. Rolo's men were clearing the deck of a galley they had taken from him. A body hung from her side, caught by something Jon could not see. He lowered the glass before he could make himself look for its face.

Vhalar was leaving him.

The water between the fleets was widening. Every free red-axe deck would soon be looking this way. Denys had one more ship to guard, and Brus was still on foot in the hills. Jon called for Alasdair.

He called to the bowman Elyas had put in charge of the loft above the landing. "Keep your men under cover until they can hit something. I don't want a man showing himself to loose at a distant sail."

The bowman passed the order through the loft. Jon went up the lane with Alasdair beside him. At the gate, Hewyn listened as Jon repeated Aurane's account, then looked towards the path Brus had taken.

"Still no sign of Rolo's men on the inland track," he said.

"I'm going to have another look."

Alasdair stopped at the turn in the stair. Jon went on alone to the screened stretch of wall, where Munin had returned to wait. He sat with his back to the stone. For a moment his right hand beat painfully beneath the dressing, and he found himself resenting the bird for the ease with which she could leave it all behind.

Then he was looking down upon the fort through Munin's eyes.

The southern landing lay beyond the headland. Jon kept Munin high until the castle's shadow reached beneath her. The two fast ships were there, close inshore. Men moved upon the beach, but the shields he had followed earlier had gone inland. He found them by the dust rising where a low road crossed bare ground.

They were marching west.

Jon took her across their line of travel, circled, and went lower. Red cloth hung from a spear near the head of the column. Men carried axes and short ladders. A few lagged behind with sacks slung between them; the officer at the rear cuffed one and sent him hurrying after the others. Too many for a handful of scouts. Near a hundred, though scrub kept swallowing sections of the road before he could finish counting.

They were going to Moreo's harbour.

Of course they were. Vhalar had brought his strength east, and Rolo wanted the island. Jon had not been the only man to notice what that left behind.

Brus could come down out of the hills into those shields, with Corwyn and the sailors behind him. Jon had to get the warning to him before the centurion left the scouts' hollow.

He turned Munin back.

Hewyn was waiting below when Jon came down. Alasdair took one look at his face and reached for the writing things.

"Rolo's landing party has not come up the track," Jon said. "Why should he send them against these walls when Vhalar has emptied Moreo's harbour for him?"

Hewyn looked west. "You think he's after the same ships?"

"And cutting off Vhalar's way home. Warn Brus to allow for a hundred men if Rolo adds any of the castle guard to those he landed. He must learn where they are before he descends."

"Call him back?" Hewyn asked.

Brus would have to cross the same hills to return, while Rolo gathered his ships off the landing. A recall would not put him back in the yard before the next attack. Jon looked at Alasdair's waiting pen.

"Tell him what is coming. He is to keep the sailors out of sight and see the ground for himself. If he has to withdraw, he withdraws."

Alasdair wrote, his paper braced upon the flat of a shield. Jon watched the warning take shape.

"That is enough."

He added his name with his left hand. The first letter sprawled. He made the others smaller, his jaw clenched against the pain in his bound hand.

During a lull before Aurane's arrival, Jon had brought Hugin back from the scouts with a second note. They were still in the hollow above the stores, waiting as ordered. He had kept the crow at the fort while the landing demanded him. Now he wished he had sent him back sooner.

Alasdair tied the warning to Hugin's leg. Jon carried the bird to the stair, left his guard at the turn, and sat down again. A horn sounded out at sea. He forced himself to leave it for Hewyn.

The ridges passed beneath Hugin, green scrub giving way to pale rock, then scrub again. In one hollow a goat lifted its head and bounded away. Jon searched the next rise for the twisted pine the scouts had marked in their letter. He found the tree, then a shield held low beneath it.

Brus had reached them.

Jon brought Hugin down onto the bare branch the scouts had stripped for a perch. The swordsmen's centurion reached for the packet. Corwyn stood beside him, dust upon his face, looking from the crow to the hills behind it.

Jon waited until Brus had the letter open. He could not stay in the bird while his men at the landing waited for orders. He let Hugin go.

Back against the stone, he opened his eyes to the horn sounding again.

* * *
​

They brought Vhalar the count after the three galleys had drawn beyond bowshot of the pursuing ships.

The first mate had sent a boat between them while the crews caught their breath beneath the shelter of the northern headland. Now he stood beside the steering platform with a strip of bloodstained cloth wound around his forearm. Vhalar had not seen him take the wound. He could not remember whether he had ordered that boat out or merely watched it go.

"A hundred and seventy-five who can still fight," the mate said. "Across all three. Sailors besides."

Vhalar looked at the nearest galley. Men sat with their backs against the rail, heads bent. One was holding a shield across his knees as though he had forgotten how to put it down. They had hauled survivors aboard until the rowers scarcely had room to work, and still there had been hands reaching after them.

"And the hurt?"

The mate gave him that count too. Vhalar made him repeat it. A man with a bound arm might stand in a gate. A man whose belly had been opened would only die more slowly aboard a crowded ship. He hated himself for making the distinction while Drazen's blood was still wet upon Rolo's axe.

Drazen would have known which hull could take another wounded man without sending a boat twice. Vhalar almost spoke his name before he caught himself.

The mate waited for his orders. Beyond the headland, Rolo's larger ships were turning back towards the eastern landing. Vhalar stared until he could distinguish the captured galleys among them. Somewhere amid those hulls lay what was left of Drazen. He had no ship to spare for fetching it.

"Moreo's harbour," he said. "Keep together round the northern coast."

"We left fifty there."

"I know what I left."

The mate shut his mouth. Vhalar looked away first. He could not keep punishing the man for having survived long enough to speak to him.

He would not turn back into those red sails. The thought hurt almost as much as the leaving. A hundred and seventy-five men could die very quickly if he fed them to Rolo's whole strength; they could still kill a great many people if he chose where to spend them. He rested his hand upon the rail until the shaking stopped.

"Water for the wounded before we move. And have the captains watch my ship. Nobody goes ahead alone."

The mate went. Vhalar stayed at the stern, looking east, until the headland hid the red axes.

* * *
​

Corwyn watched Brus read the warning.

Hugin sat upon the bare branch, cocking his head at the men beneath it.

"How in the seven hells did he find this place?" Corwyn asked.

"He flew back to Lord Jon from this tree, ser," the scout answered.

Corwyn had seen ravens come home to a castle. This bird had come to two men beneath a tree.

Brus frowned over the warning, then handed Corwyn the note.

Rolo's landing party had not come against the eastern fort. Jon feared they were making for Moreo's fort instead. Brus was to allow for a hundred men if they had brought any of the castle guard with them, keep clear of the lower road and learn where the pirates were bound. The hand was the same neat one Corwyn had watched Alasdair use in the yard. At the foot Jon had added his name, awkwardly formed.

Corwyn read it again. "A hundred."

"And thirty of us." Brus took the paper back. "Better to learn it here than meet them on the road."

He had the scouts show him where the woodcutters' track bent away from the road. While one marked the turn in the earth, the man carrying their ink wrote a short answer against his shield. They would keep to the high ground and stop beneath the last wooded ridge. The scout bound the reply to Hugin's leg and settled him on the perch again.

Corwyn glanced back at the bird as they left the hollow. Hugin watched them go, the roll showing pale against his feathers. Brus was already sending the scouts ahead. He warned the sailors to stay close, then went to help the exhausted rower shoulder his bundle.

By the time they reached the last ridge, the trees' shadows stretched far across the track. Corwyn's thighs trembled whenever he stood still. He was pulling his helm straight when the nearer scout came back at a crouch.

Brus raised his hand. The file stopped among the trees.

Then Corwyn heard the shouting.

* * *
​

The linen slipped through Rolo's fingers. He caught the end between his teeth and pulled until the cut above his wrist burned. Drazen had left him something to remember him by after all. Every time he gripped the axe, warm blood crept beneath the wrapping.

Across the water, men were hanging black shields along the rail of the galley his captain had just lost.

His galley. His rowers, his rigging, his good sound oars. The dead captain had been saving coin for a younger wife. Now some black-cloaked bastard would have the purse as well.

"You watched him go over?"

The captain who had come across in the boat nodded. His first mate waited beside the rail. Two other captains stood by the mast, waiting for their landing orders. The visiting captain's ship had been nearest when the fool broke away to attack the black ships. He had not followed, which had pleased Rolo until the man began explaining why.

"They had a knight aboard."

"Oh, a knight." Rolo spat the linen from his teeth. "Fetch every purse, then. We must buy him off."

The captain's face darkened. "I saw him fight."

Rolo held out his arm to the sailor waiting with fresh cloth. The man wound it tight. Too tight. Rolo let him.

"Tell me."

"Took an axe on his shoulder and kept coming. When our lads got across, he was in amongst them. Never hurried. They kept shouting his name." The captain glanced towards the black ships. "Arthur. That's what they called him."

"And our brave husband?"

The captain touched the soft place beneath his own jaw.

Rolo pictured it. A man who did not hurry when steel was coming at his face. Drazen had been like that before the wound in his side began to drag at him. He flexed his fingers; the sailor flinched and stepped away.

"You should have gone to help," said Rolo's first mate.

"And left another ship for him?" The captain rounded on him. "You were near enough to row."

Rolo laughed. Both men stopped.

There it was. Another hour and every captain would remember how he could have saved the day, if only some other bastard had done his part. They would quarrel over the prizes, over the wounded, over whose tired rowers must tow whose broken hull. Beyond them the black ships would creep away with everything worth carrying.

"Leave the knight my ship for now," Rolo said. "I'll take her back with the rest."

The mate looked towards the galley they had lost. Rolo caught him by the shoulder and turned him the other way, towards the nearest galley taken from Vhalar. Men were still dragging splintered oars from her side.

"That one. Have her brought across our bows."

"She's barely worth the tow."

"Then you won't mind putting her nearest their arrows."

The captured hull would do useful work before anyone asked him to pay for her repairs. There was room behind her high side to gather boats; the black archers would have to move to see his men climbing into the boats. Rolo watched the thin flag hanging above her deck.

"Leave Vhalar's colours where they are."

The mate grinned. "Think they'll let her in?"

"I think they'll look twice." Rolo shoved him towards the steps. "Move." He took up his axe as the mate went down.

The visiting captain stayed where he was. "My men have earned a turn ashore."

Earned. Rolo's ribs stung beneath his shirt. He wanted the boats away, and this bastard had decided to haggle with him in front of half the deck.

"Yours can still pull a full stroke. Keep her seaward of those merchants. I want their knight watching you while we land."

"While the others have the stores?"

Rolo looked past him. The sailors had stopped passing shields down to the boats. Even the man holding the bloody cloth was listening.

Then Rolo smiled. "Aye. You've earned it. Go ashore."

The captain let out a breath. "My men will remember—"

Rolo caught his shoulder and drove the axe into the side of his neck.

The blow tore at Rolo's wounded wrist. He laughed through the pain, holding the captain upright for a moment while the man's fingers scrabbled at his coat. The body sagged. Rolo let it fall, planted a boot against the breastplate and wrenched his axe free.

The captain's first mate had pressed himself against the rail. His hand hovered beside his sword.

"Go on," Rolo said, still smiling.

The hand fell away.

Rolo stepped over the body. "You've got his ship. Will you obey my orders, or are you going to fucking whine too?"

"I'll obey."

"My lord."

"I'll obey, my lord."

Rolo turned towards the watching men, the bloody axe hanging at his side.

"I'll hear no more talk of treasure or sailing home until we've killed those black-cloaked bastards! I want their heads on stakes along this shore!" He thrust the axe towards the eastern fort. "The black bastard's beside his fucking knight's!"

"Red Axe!" a pirate roared.

Another took up the cry, beating his axe against his shield. Men crowded the rail, shouting towards the black ships, and the deck shook beneath their stamping feet.

"Red Axe! Red Axe!"

The two captains by the mast exchanged a glance. Rolo caught it. Neither had joined the shouting.

"Something to say?" he snarled.

One shook his head. The other glanced at the body between them, then raised his fist and bellowed with the crew. Rolo watched until the first followed him.

"Then get your men into the boats. Wait for my signal."

Rolo turned back to the new captain and shifted the axe into his other hand. Fresh blood showed through the bandage.

"Keep her seaward of the merchants. Watch my stern. When the bowman lifts his shield overhead, bring your men to the rail with their hooks. Make that knight think you're coming aboard."

The man nodded quickly.

"Say it."

He repeated the orders, stumbling once when his eyes dropped to the body. Rolo waited until he had finished.

"If the black ships try to leave, sound your horn. Keep clear of their hooks. I've given the bastard one galley today. Don't give him another."

"No, my lord."

"Then get off my fucking deck."

The two waiting captains were already climbing down to their boats when the new captain hurried after them. Rolo turned upon the sailors still staring.

"Those shields won't carry themselves."

They went back to work. Two men dragged the body clear of the steps. Rolo rested the axe against his shoulder and looked towards the shore, his smile lingering as the boats filled beneath him.

Out on the water, a towline tightened. Vhalar's captured flag lifted in the wind.

* * *
​

The first boat went down from Rolo's flagship with shields already aboard it.

Jon watched through the glass while men climbed after them. Another boat lay alongside the neighbouring galley. Beyond those two, crews were clearing wreckage from a captured vessel, hauling broken oars out through the same places where they had been driven in. Rolo had won himself work as well as ships. It would not occupy him for long enough.

"How many?" Hewyn asked.

"I can't see the boats behind the hulls."

That was the answer to too much today. He could fly over them and count, perhaps, while another man made the decisions at his shoulder. Hugin had not yet returned from the west. Munin rested upon the battlement with her head tucked beneath a wing. Jon felt the ache behind his eyes and lowered the glass.

"Enough to come ashore."

Vhalar's blue banner lifted above the captured galley. For a moment Jon could see it clearly against the water, then the hull turned and hid the boats again.

"Vhalar?" Garon asked.

"His banner." Jon followed the towline to the red-axe ship drawing her forward. "Rolo has the galley."

Garon nodded, but someone farther down the wall had already shouted Vhalar's name. Jon heard the name repeated below, then a woman's cry. The twelve islanders were still waiting by the storehouse. A man saw the blue cloth and started down the steps, clutching his bundle. His family followed; the other family crowded after them.

Rymond shouted for them to wait. The ferry was still coming alongside. Those crowding onto the steps could not see that; they could see only the backs of those ahead, and Vhalar's banner coming towards the shore they had meant to leave.

Jon handed Hewyn the glass. "Keep watching those boats."

He went down with Alasdair. Halfway along the lane a wounded legionary lay upon a door, waiting for the sling. His bearers had set him against the wall to let people pass. Now one stood over him with his shield turned sideways, trying to keep feet away from the injured leg. The wounded man swore whenever somebody touched it. A little girl had been squeezed against his other side; he caught her sleeve before she fell beneath the crowd.

Harl had caught the woman's arm like that. Jon swallowed and looked for a way through to the girl.

"Back up!" Rymond roared from below. "The boat isn't in!"

A sailor had his boathook braced against the stone, holding the ferry clear while another struggled with a rope. One man tried to jump the gap. Rymond caught his belt and hauled him back onto the steps. The man struck out at Rymond, sobbing with anger.

Jon felt his own temper rise. He had given them leave to come. He had asked only that they wait while his wounded were carried down, and now—

The little girl cried out. He saw her mother trying to reach her through a wall of bodies, heard the terror in her voice, and the words he had meant to shout stuck in his throat. He had been a father. He knew what she could see of this battle.

"Alasdair, four men. Clear that doorway behind us. Bring the people at the back through it."

The household captain sent his nearest guards into the storehouse. Jon climbed onto the low stone beside the wounded soldier, steadying himself with his left hand. A helmet struck his bandaged fingers as someone turned below him. Pain flashed up his arm.

"Stop pushing! The boats are coming back."

Few looked up. The older woman who spoke for the two families was pressed against the opposite wall, trying to make herself heard. Jon caught her eye and pointed towards the space Alasdair's men had opened.

"Take them that way. Away from the steps."

She shouted in another tongue. An older man answered furiously, pointing at the blue banner. She shouted back, then thrust a hand towards the wounded legionary. Whatever she said made two men near him turn. One bent to take the end of the door. The other pulled a sack out of the way and pushed it beneath the soldier's head.

Space opened by inches. The wounded legionary let go of the girl's sleeve as her mother reached her. She dragged her daughter close, kissing her hair while she scolded her. Rymond got the man who had tried to jump onto the level ground. His hands stayed open when the fellow struck him again.

"Give him room, Rymond," Jon called. "Let him breathe."

He had practised moving men through narrow passages in another life, with lights above them and instructors waiting to stop the exercise. Here the walls pressed close, the words were wrong, and frightened people could hurt one another while he worked out what to say. His trained men could give ground together. These people needed somewhere they could see to go.

The household guards brought them into the open storehouse. The woman went among them, pulling one man back from the doorway, making another sit. Jon stayed on the stone until the way below was clear enough for the bearers to lift their door. Two of the islanders took the front corners without being asked.

"That one's first," Jon told the boatman.

The woman looked up sharply. "They think you will take your soldiers and leave them."

"I am staying here." He pointed to the mother. "She and the child go with him. Then the boat comes back for the others."

The woman translated. She watched until the mother was seated in the ferry before turning to the people in the storehouse again. Jon could not blame her for wanting proof.

Rymond came up the steps with his lip bleeding. "I could use those four until they're aboard."

Jon looked towards Alasdair. The captain nodded once.

"Keep them," Jon said.

The ferry pulled clear at last. He watched it pass beneath the bows of the nearest escort, painfully slow with the wounded man lying along its middle. Rolo did not have to kill everyone upon this landing to beat him. Frighten them badly enough, make the boats stop coming, and all the ground his men had taken would become a place to die.

Jon climbed back towards Hewyn. His hand throbbed with every step. Behind him, the woman was calling the next people forward, one family at a time.

Below the fort, Rymond's men had taken the last bound pirates off the landing. The wounded from Denys's ship were already aboard the merchant receiving them. The water between the steps and the nearest hull looked temptingly narrow. A man could begin to believe that getting everybody across it was the whole of escaping.

Then a fast ship moved in the north, red cloth showing between her mast and the sun. The pair guarding that water had not gone away.

Jon went down the wall to where he could see the streets below. Men looked up as he passed. Some straightened; one stood too quickly and had to catch the parapet. Their faces were grey beneath the dirt. He knew the feeling. There was always another thing to do before a man could lie down.

"Water up here," he told a runner. "Give them bread if there is any left in the kitchen."

He stopped beside the man who had nearly fallen. The legionary had a shallow cut beneath his eye, clotted dark against his cheek.

"Can you hold your place?"

"Aye, my lord."

Jon waited. The man drew a breath, set his feet properly and lifted his shield. That would have to do. Nobody ashore was fresh enough for the fight Jon would have preferred.

At the gate, Alasdair had the household close, black shields scarred pale where the paint had been struck away. Beyond them Norren's runner waited for Hewyn. The spring and upper track remained quiet. Rolo's hundred had gone west, but the men still afloat were turning towards the boats Jon needed to leave.

He had wanted to make the pirate divide his strength. He had succeeded. Now he had to live long enough for it to matter.

"Tell Norren to hold his men where they are until we know where Rolo means to land," Jon said. "Rolo can still send men up that track and come in behind us."

Hewyn sent the runner. Below them, Gerralt called his swordsmen off a cart they had dragged across one of the lower approaches. They knelt behind it with their shields propped against the timber.

Jon looked west. There was nothing to see but the ridges.

Brus had the warning. He would be looking at the ground now, hearing men shout whom Jon could not hear, deciding whether the risk had become an opportunity or a grave. Jon wanted the ships and the wealth. He wanted Corwyn back with something better to say of his service than that a boy lord had sent him into a hundred axes.

More than anything, he wanted another hour.

A shield rose above Rolo's stern. Out beside the merchants, a red-axe galley turned her bow towards Denys's ship. Men crowded her rail with shields and grappling ropes. Along Denys's facing rail, black shields rose to meet them.

The boat beside Rolo's flagship shoved clear. A second followed. Their oars rose white, dipped, and began carrying them towards the eastern shore.

Jon turned to the men at the wall.

"Stand ready."

* * *
​

The first dead man lay across the lower wall with his boots still on the outside.

Corwyn could see the backs of his legs through a break in the scrub. Flies had settled upon the bare strip above one boot. Farther along, a second body lay in a spill of grain beneath a split sack. Someone had tried to carry off the grain while men were fighting over the storehouses.

The fighting had reached the gate above the stores now.

He eased forward beside Brus. Below their hiding place, a low wall enclosed the western stores and the open ground above the moorings. The road entered at its southern end. Men with red axes painted on their shields were passing through that opening, turning uphill between the buildings. At the head of the rising lane stood two square towers and an intact gate. Behind them, beyond another wall, Corwyn could see the upper windows of Moreo's old house.

"Vhalar took all this," he murmured.

Brus nodded. A horn sounded from the gate, three ragged notes almost drowned by a crash of wood.

A long spar struck the doors again. The men carrying it staggered back as a stone came down from one tower. It missed the spar and hit a pirate's shoulder. He fell sideways, dragging the man behind him down. Above them, a defender leaned between the merlons and thrust his spear at a ladder just appearing against the stone.

Corwyn had feared seeing red axes above those towers. The march had seemed endless after Jon's warning. Yet Vhalar's men still held, and the pirates who had beaten them here were spending their strength against the doors.

One of the scouts crawled close enough to whisper. "We saw near fifty of Vhalar's men fall back from the stores when the attack began. Fewer now."

Vhalar's colours still flew from the western tower. Corwyn watched a man beneath them draw his bow, loose into the packed lane, and bend for another arrow. The gate shook. Something heavy slid against it from within.

"It will hold a while," Brus said.

"You are certain?"

"They've no room to draw that timber back properly."

A knot of pirates near the foot of the lane were shouting at those ahead to pull back. Nobody did. The wounded man beneath the tower tried to crawl, only to be kicked onto his side when the spar came down again. From their flank, Corwyn could see how tightly the attackers had crowded between the walls. Men at the rear strained to learn what was happening at the gate. One stood on a barrel, his axe held high, bellowing for more shields.

There were too many. Even with the dead upon the ground, far too many.

Corwyn drew back into cover. The soldiers waiting behind him watched his face, then their centurion's. He made himself take his hand from his sword.

"If they turn on us here, they'll come up the slope after us."

Brus looked at the trees behind their party. "We won't stand here."

He went back to the sailors himself. Corwyn heard him give the older of Norren's scouts charge of the hiding place. The twelve sailors and ten freed rowers were to stay beneath the ridge with both scouts. If men came searching, they were to withdraw along the track. No one was to come down because he heard shouting.

The sailor carrying the rope looked towards the noise. "And if you need us?"

"I'll send for you."

"I have a knife."

"Keep it." Brus touched the coil. "I need you and this rope aboard a ship."

The man settled back, unconvinced but obedient. One of the freed rowers was rubbing the scars at his wrist. Corwyn wondered how much of the exchange he understood. Enough, perhaps, to know they were not being pushed towards another man's spear.

The rower caught Brus's sleeve as he turned away. Corwyn saw him release it at once, as though he expected a blow.

"The oars," he said. "You must find the oars."

"We have sailors for that."

"Aye. Tell them. When they lay a galley up, the good ones go under a roof. Leave them lying out and every boatman takes one." He pointed towards the buildings below. "They may have locked them away."

Brus looked back at the bundle of tools. "You know ships?"

"I shaped oars. Before." His fingers closed over the scar at his wrist. "A bent one will pull. A split one can break in your hands. I can tell which to leave."

Corwyn glanced at the harbour. He had thought of the ships as theirs once they could reach them. Now he imagined men dying while someone searched a locked store for the means to leave.

Brus called the sailor with the tool bag over. "Keep him with you when I send for you. Have an axe ready."

The rower nodded, then opened his hands and held them steady for the sailor to see. The man put the bag between them and showed him what Denys had sent. Corwyn left them arguing quietly over which tool would open a nailed door fastest.

Brus returned with his optio. They followed Corwyn along the ridge until they could look past the outer wall. A broad-roofed store stood nearest the hillside. Its upper door opened upon a loading platform reached by a few shallow steps. Beside the building, a narrow passage ran uphill between its wall and the next store, joining the lane partway towards the gate.

Corwyn watched a pirate run into it, bend out of sight, then reappear with a skin of water. No second man followed him. Whoever had taken the stores was thinking of the gate now.

"There," he whispered. "That passage puts us beside them."

Brus studied it. "It does."

"They'll have to turn from the doors."

"Or send those fellows to meet you." Brus pointed with two fingers.

At the lane's foot stood a group who had not joined the attack. Some were drinking, others examining their weapons. More than a score, Corwyn reckoned, though the corner of the store hid a few. A bareheaded man in a red sash walked among them, striking shields with the flat of his axe to make their owners look at him.

Corwyn had seen them without giving them enough weight. His cheeks warmed beneath the helm. "We wait until he sends them up."

"Aye. If he does."

Another crash came from the gate. This time wood broke. The shout that followed ran down the lane and brought the men below onto their feet. Corwyn leaned forward, but Brus's hand closed upon his arm.

Atop the tower, Vhalar's bowman reached for another arrow. A second man appeared beside him with a round stone and dropped it straight down. The attackers recoiled. A broken length of ladder came tipping out above their helms.

"The ladder," Brus said, releasing him.

Corwyn had thought it was the door.

They waited while the red-sashed man shoved two of his followers uphill. Only two. Corwyn's pulse beat against the leather beneath his jaw. He could not bear the thought of reaching those gates after Rolo's men had taken the towers and could turn their bows upon Jon's soldiers. Neither did he want to be caught halfway across the open ground because he had mistaken the sound of breaking wood.

Brus asked his optio a question too low for Corwyn to hear. The man answered with a glance along the buildings. The centurion considered it, then looked at Corwyn.

"Can you bring eight men through there?"

"Yes."

"Stay together. If you see a man running, let him run. When the pirates turn towards you, I want your shields across the mouth of that passage."

Corwyn looked again at the passage. Two men could stand abreast at its narrowest point; it widened where it met the lane. He pictured himself coming out alone, sword raised, and the pirates closing upon the black shields behind him.

"I will."

Brus gave a brief nod. "Watch for us at the foot of the lane. No shouting until I call."

The optio touched the men he wanted upon the shoulder. Eight moved towards Corwyn, carrying their javelins close against their shields.

"Five behind me," Brus told his optio. "As Lord Jon drilled us. They wait for my call."

The optio drew five aside from the remaining swordsmen and set them behind Brus's leading men. Corwyn lowered the last thumb of his visor and found that his mouth was dry again.

The oldest of his eight caught the lower edge of his shield.

"Mind that, ser."

The red crab on his shield showed between the branches. Corwyn turned the painted face against his thigh. The soldier let go without comment, then stooped to loosen a stone which would have rolled beneath the next man's boot. He set it carefully in the dust.

They descended behind the store. The roof hid the towers, but the shouts were louder here. Corwyn heard a man pleading, then a curse and the thump of the spar. Somewhere close, a wounded pirate breathed with a wet whistle. Corwyn found him beneath the loading steps, staring at the shaft through his belly. The man's eyes followed them. His lips moved, but no sound came.

A soldier pressed a hand between Corwyn's shoulders, urging him on. He moved. There was nothing he could do for the pirate in that passage; knowing it did not make the eyes easier to leave.

A low heap of broken jars barred the way. Corwyn stepped over them and turned to take the next man's javelin, so he could climb without striking its head against the wall. The soldier passed it across. By the time the last man joined them, Corwyn's gauntlet was white with lime from the masonry.

The end of the passage lay six paces ahead. Beyond it, men shouted up the lane. Corwyn crept close enough to see one pirate's back, sweat darkening the shoulders of a patched blue coat. A whetstone hung from his belt. He was staring uphill with his mouth open, unaware of the men within a sword's length of him.

Corwyn could kill him now.

He could almost feel the stroke. One quick step, the edge beneath the helm, and the man would never turn. His fingers tightened upon the javelin instead.

At his shoulder, the older swordsman watched the lane's foot through a crack between buildings. Corwyn looked where he looked.

Two pirates came out of the lower store dragging a sack of old rope that left a black smear upon the stones. A third followed with a lighted brand. At the gate, men were pulling the broken ladder aside to make room for them.

Corwyn smelled tar. They had tired of battering the doors.

The torchbearer crouched behind a raised shield while his companions hauled the sack uphill. An arrow struck the shield and made him flinch. He kept the flame low. Whoever commanded them had thought to give him cover.

Corwyn searched for Brus. The centurion was still behind the store corner. Surely he could see them. The pirates would burn their way in, and those crowded backs would disappear through the gate.

Above, Vhalar's bowman shifted to the nearer opening and drew upon the torchbearer. The man carrying the sack dropped flat, dragging his burden with him. Shouts came down for shields, more shields. The waiting men began to move.

The red-sashed man shouted back and waved his axe uphill. He seized one of his men by the collar and shoved him towards the gate, roaring for the rest to follow. They went reluctantly at first, then faster as those above called down. The blue-coated pirate joined them. Their boots scraped and knocked upon the stones. More shields crowded past the passage until Corwyn could see little beyond wood and iron.

He waited for Brus.

The last pirates started uphill. Below them, through the open space they had left, Corwyn saw a black shield appear beside the store corner. Another came level with it. Brus's men crossed the foot of the lane in a close, deliberate rush, their javelins drawn back.

One pirate turned. He saw the black shields and flung out his hand.

"Behind!"

"Now!" Brus roared.

Corwyn stepped into the lane and cast. His javelin struck the blue-coated man beneath the raised arm, turning him against the soldier beside him. More shafts flew past. A shield rang; another jerked backwards with a man attached. The pirates nearest the passage wheeled in a crush of shoulders and lifted weapons.

Corwyn drew his sword. A broad man with a hooked blade came at him, kicking the fallen javelin aside. Corwyn took the first cut upon his shield and thrust at the exposed thigh. The pirate stumbled without falling. Corwyn started after him.

"Close, ser!"

The word came from beside his ear. He checked his step. The shield on his left settled against his own as an axe struck where his shoulder would have been. He felt the blow through both men, hard enough to jar his teeth, and saw the axeman trying to wrench his weapon free.

"Next two, behind us!" Corwyn shouted to his men. "Hold here!"

He drove his sword over the joined shields.

Below him, Brus bellowed for the line to come on. Black shields struck the rear of the red axes, and the lane filled with men turning from the gate to meet them.

 

[aiwonder]

The axeman would not let go of his weapon. Corwyn felt him wrenching at the head caught between the shields, saw the tendons stand out in his neck, and thrust beneath his raised elbow. The point struck mail. He drove harder. Beside him, the older swordsman shoved forward with a grunt, turning the pirate just far enough for Corwyn's blade to find the opening.

The man fell against them, dragging Corwyn's sword down with him. Corwyn braced a foot and tried to wrench it free.

"Let him drop, ser."

Corwyn pulled free and stepped back into the passage. The corpse slid from the shields. Another man came over it, putting a boot upon his companion's back, and the older legionary cut at the knee before Corwyn could lift his sword again. The pirate screamed and fell across the first.

Already there was scarcely room to move his feet. The passage opened partway up the lane: Brus fought at its foot, Moreo's gate stood above it. Corwyn had chosen the passage for cover; now its walls robbed him of every long stroke he knew. He kept his elbow close and the point forward. Beyond the two corpses, sunlight caught a spearhead above the press. Men he could not reach were trying to kill him over the heads of those he could. His visor smelled of his own breath. Someone struck its side hard enough to ring his ears.

"Back a pace!" he shouted.

They gave ground together. The next pair of swordsmen stepped up behind them, ready to take their places. Corwyn could hear Brus below, bellowing the same short order until it carried through the lane.

"Close ranks!"

The red-sashed pirate had turned his men from the gate. He was no longer trying to shout over everyone. He caught shoulders, struck helms with the flat of his axe and shoved men into a line facing downhill. Shields settled beside shields. The first shock had killed some and frightened the rest; it had not emptied the lane.

The brief pleasure of the ambush drained away. There were still too many.

An arrow came down from the tower. It struck a pirate high in the back and drove him onto one knee. Another shaft broke against a shield above Corwyn's head. So much for saving Vhalar's garrison. The bastards on the wall were shooting at anyone who gave them a clear mark.

"Under the eaves!" Corwyn pulled his left shoulder back. "The bowmen can see us."

The older soldier glanced up and obeyed. Corwyn wanted to ask his name. The man had caught his shield before he could charge out alone, and Corwyn had almost shaken him off. He had been more careful to learn the names of his uncle's dinner guests.

The red sash moved nearer.

"There!" the pirate shouted, pointing his axe towards their passage. "Drive them out of that passage!"

Three men broke from the uphill crowd. One had a long spear. He stayed behind the other two and thrust between their shoulders, making Corwyn give another step. The spearhead scratched along the wall beside his helm. He could not reach its bearer. When he tried to strike the shaft, the man drew it back and thrust at the legionary beside him instead.

"I'll pin the spear," Corwyn said. "Kill the man behind it."

He turned the crab towards the spear and let the next thrust come. The head struck near the rim. Corwyn bore down upon the shaft, trapping it against the stone, while the swordsman beside him cut the forward pirate's hand. The fellow recoiled. Corwyn's companion thrust through the space he left and caught the spearman beneath the chin.

The shaft went slack. Corwyn shoved it out of the passage.

One of his men laughed, a single disbelieving sound. Then a stone from the tower struck the store's shallow loading steps behind them, scattering chips across their legs, and the laughter stopped.

Below, Brus's front rank had halted. Corwyn could see black shields through the legs and swinging weapons ahead of him. They were close, much closer than when the fight began. Yet the pirates had room now to brace themselves against the slope. A man at the rear dragged the battering spar away from the doors and tried to turn it across the lane.

If they got that timber between themselves and Brus, the centurion would have to climb it under their blades.

Corwyn leaned forward. The older soldier caught his shield again.

"I see it," Corwyn said, too sharply. The man's hand stayed upon the rim. Corwyn looked towards Brus. "We wait for his word."

Only then did the soldier let go.

Brus shouted for his optio. Five shields came out from behind his line and crossed to the store opposite Corwyn's passage. Keeping below the fighting, they reached its lower door, tore it open and vanished inside.

For a few breaths Corwyn could make nothing of it. Then something struck the shutter across the lane. It burst outward. A swordsman leaned through the opening and hurled one of the pirates' abandoned javelins into the men trying to move the spar.

The nearest turned his shield towards the window.

"Now, ser!" Brus roared.

Corwyn went out with the older soldier beside him. This time the men behind knew he was going. They followed close, shields striking the pirates' flanks before those men could turn back from the window. Corwyn hit a round shield with his own and drove until the man holding it stumbled against the spar.

The timber dropped upon somebody's foot. The cry was lost beneath the crash of Brus's line coming uphill.

Corwyn saw the red sash between two helms. Its wearer had understood. He was trying to get behind Corwyn's men, towards the mouth of the passage they had just left.

Corwyn turned with him.

The axe came low. He caught it on the shield, felt the hooked edge drag his arm down, and saw the pirate's knife coming for his throat. He jerked back. The point scraped the lower edge of his visor. The man smelled of onions and hot leather.

There was no room to swing his sword. Corwyn struck with the pommel instead. Once against the cheek. Again, harder, as the pirate tried to turn his face away.

The knife cut Corwyn across the wrist between glove and sleeve.

He shouted, more angry than hurt, and shoved his shield into the man's mouth. The pirate staggered. A black shield struck him from the other side, pinning his knife arm against the store wall. Corwyn shortened his grip and drove the point beneath the breastbone.

The red-sashed man seized his sleeve. For an instant they stood together, close enough to embrace. Then the fingers loosened.

Corwyn let him fall. He dragged his sword free and found he was still shouting, though the man beneath him had stopped moving. He shut his mouth. His wrist hurt now, a hot wet sting beneath the glove.

"Shields up! Hold the lane!" Brus called.

Corwyn looked downhill. Pirates were climbing through a broken shutter, dropping onto the low roof beyond it. Others had found room between Brus's men and the outer wall. One threw his shield away to squeeze through. A legionary turned after him.

"Leave him!" Brus caught the soldier's belt. "Keep the lane."

Corwyn stared at the escaping men. They were running towards the southern road, towards other red axes somewhere beyond the hills. He wanted them stopped. He had seen what they meant to do to the gate; he had felt the knife at his throat.

Then he saw what pursuing them would leave. Eight men beside him, one with blood running into his boot. Brus's ranks stretched across the slope. The towers above them still held bowmen.

He faced uphill again.

The sack of tarred rope had caught fire.

Flames climbed the heap pressed against the gate. A pirate stamped at them and set his own shoe alight. He went stumbling down the lane, beating at his leg. Someone upon the wall emptied a bucket. Water struck the stones short of the fire and ran beneath the bodies.

"Down with your weapons!" Brus shouted to the pirates trapped at the doors.

A man thrust at him over a companion's shoulder. Brus knocked the spear aside and stepped back beneath his shield as an arrow came down.

"Or stay there and burn."

One sword fell. Then a shield. The men nearest the flames pushed those ahead of them until three came sprawling into the lane with empty hands. Brus's soldiers dragged them clear and shoved them against the store wall. Others followed. One tried to hide a knife beneath his thigh; the optio kicked it away and put a sword against his neck.

Corwyn looked for the older swordsman. Blood showed at his collar, but he shook his head when Corwyn pointed.

"Not mine, ser."

"Your name?"

"Edden." He tilted his shield towards the tower. "Mind that one."

Corwyn moved beneath the eaves. "I owe you."

"Calling the spear helped," Edden said. "Keep telling us before you move."

Corwyn had hoped he would speak of the captain. He nodded instead. When Edden stepped beside him, Corwyn raised his shield to cover them both. The older man kept his eyes upon the tower.

Above them, a man shouted from the tower for the black shields to stand back. Brus lifted his head.

"Tell your bowmen to stop shooting and we'll put that out."

The man disappeared. Another arrow struck the lane.

"Back into cover," Brus said. "They can think about it."

He sent a soldier back up the hillside to the hidden sailors. The younger scout was to stay with them; the older was to return to the hollow and watch for Jon's crow. Everyone else waited until Brus called.

Corwyn went with his men beneath the store roof. Through the smoke, Vhalar's blue banner cracked once above the gate. Edden eased the glove off Corwyn's wounded hand and checked the binding beneath it. Corwyn held still for him and watched the doors. He wanted them open before another shaft found one of his men.

* * *
​

The first arrow struck the water short of Rolo's boats. Jon watched the little splash disappear beneath a lifting oar.

"Wait," he said.

The bowman beside him lowered his hand. From the loft window, Jon looked across the timber yard to the sea. Stacked wood crowded its northern end; at the southern end, stone landing steps descended to the ferries. From the yard, the lane climbed between the houses to the fort stair. At the foot of that stair, a path branched off towards the landing steps, skirting the yard behind his defenders. Wounded men were still passing that junction. Below, Gerralt's men knelt behind the hauled-out hull and the timbers dragged across the yard. Beyond them, boats lifted and fell, shields covering the men crowded between the rowers.

Jon could see the tops of helms. Very little else.

The captured galley still carried Vhalar's banner. Her tow had brought her across the water beyond the landing, far enough out to keep her keel clear. Archers rose behind her rail. Jon ducked before the first shafts reached the loft.

One came through the shutter and buried itself in a roof beam. The bowman beside him swore. Below, a man cried out in the yard.

Rolo had found a use for the prize. Her high side hid the boats while the men aboard her kept Jon's archers looking through narrow openings. Jon could not see her towline now. It had done its work.

"Only the boats," he told the bowman. "Let that ship waste her arrows on stone."

"Aye, my lord."

The man waited, fingers resting upon the string. Jon kept looking beyond him, from the boats to Denys's hulls and back to the northern end of the yard. Rolo was spending men to get ashore. He would want something better than a pile of dead pirates for them.

At the landing steps, the last of the twelve islanders was getting into a ferry. Alasdair's four guards stood above them with shields raised. The older woman had made the men go first this time. She stayed until a sailor offered his hand, then climbed down without taking it.

Jon had been ready to send a guard down to hurry her. He let the order die. She had helped get the families out of his wounded men's way; she could have those last few moments on her own feet.

An oar struck the ferry's side. The boatman cursed, thrust it clear and pulled. Jon watched until the boat passed beneath the escort's bow, then forced himself to look back at the attackers.

The nearest boat turned towards the timber yard. A second followed. A third kept coming towards the landing steps, its bow crowded with shields.

"Now."

The shutters opened. Six bowstrings sounded close enough together to seem one noise. Along the fort wall, more archers loosed. A shield jerked in the nearest boat. One man toppled backward across an oar and was shoved down by those behind him.

They kept coming.

Jon went down the loft stair. Alasdair met him at the bottom, helmet on, shield in hand.

"Hewyn's below."

"Norren?"

"Still by the spring. Nothing moving along the upper track."

The upper track ran through scrub behind the fort, passing the spring above the northern houses. Norren held the walls beside it. Jon resented every shield kept from the shore, but pirates coming down that path could take his defenders from behind.

They reached the bend where the lane met the timber yard as the leading boat grounded.

A pirate jumped too soon. He went into water up to his breast and vanished beneath the shields lowered over him. Two men stumbled after him. A third waited until the boat lifted, then sprang into the shallows with his sword above his head.

"Hold!" Hewyn shouted.

The spearmen stayed behind the timber. Jon saw the urge to run in the way one man leaned forward. His neighbour put a hand against his shoulder and brought him back.

The last pirate found his footing in the shallows. He raised his sword, shouted back towards the boat, and came on.

He reached the first obstacle almost alone.

Three spears struck towards him. He caught one upon his shield and knocked another away. The third entered his thigh. He fell across the timber, clawing at the ground beyond it, while the men coming after him tried to climb over his body.

The bowmen loosed again.

For a moment Jon thought they would turn. He could see what the men in the boats could not: the waiting spearpoints, the swords behind them, Gerralt's shields covering the passage between the yard and the houses. There was no prize here they could simply climb aboard and take.

Then the second boat struck farther north, beyond the end of the timbers. Men spilled out beside the stacked lengths of wood. The stacked timber hid them from the loft's archers. Jon had used the same shelter when he landed.

Of course Rolo had seen it.

"Hewyn."

"I see them." Hewyn waved to Gerralt's nearer group. "Across to the timber stack. Keep your right flank beside the spearmen."

The swordsmen moved around the obstacle, shields facing the pirates climbing ashore. One caught his heel upon a plank. The man beside him took his weight without breaking stride, and Gerralt shoved them both into place. Jon had stopped drills for less. He watched the joined shields settle and felt a savage pleasure at the sight. Let Rolo try them. They had cursed Jon for those afternoons in the yard; he would gladly hear them curse him again on the voyage home.

He wanted the pirates driven back before the next boats arrived. Eighteen household shields waited uphill of the bend. He knew how quickly they could cross the yard; he had almost given the order when another boat's bow appeared behind the captured galley. Where was that one going? Keep a reserve. He had learned the rule in another life and drilled it into his officers here. Now Gerralt was paying for every moment Jon obeyed it. He kept his hand down and the eighteen where they were.

Hugin still had not come back.

The acknowledgement was waiting upon a bird's leg in the hills. Jon had sent thirty men to open his way off the island. A shut gate could leave Brus with nothing to show for the gamble while Rolo wore down the men Jon had kept. He needed to know. If the western attack had failed, there was still time to give another order.

"You have the yard," Jon told Hewyn. "I'm bringing in the scouts' answer. If Gerralt needs the reserve before I return, send for me."

Hewyn nodded and turned back towards the shouting.

Jon went into the little room behind the loft. A broken shutter lay across a flour bin. Alasdair stood in the doorway while Jon sat beneath the wall, pressed his left palm against his knee and closed his eyes.

Pine needles. A bare branch. The ache in his hand disappeared.

Hugin lifted his head. The hollow was empty except for the older scout, who sat beneath a tree with his spear across his knees. Far below, beyond the ridge, men were shouting. Jon could not tell whose voices they were.

He took Hugin above the pines. Smoke rose beside the western gate. Black shields moved among the stores below it; one vanished beneath a roof before Jon could follow. He banked once, trying to see past the eaves. Nothing. Brus's men had reached the fighting, but a crow's glimpse would not tell him who held that lane. Hewyn was waiting for an order on the other shore.

He turned the crow east.

The eastern shore opened beyond the hills, bright water crowded with hulls. He kept the crow low over the roofs and brought him to the loft. When Jon returned to himself, his jaw hurt from clenching it.

Alasdair let the bird settle upon his shield and untied the paper.

Brus had received the warning and was going to look at the western gate. Nothing more. The note had been written before the battle Jon could hear through Hugin.

Jon folded it and put it inside his coat. Black shields among the western stores: he could hold on to that much. Brus was still at his work.

Outside, Hewyn called for Jon. He rose, waited a breath for the dislocation of the flight to pass, and went out after Alasdair.

* * *
​

Rolo's boatman wanted to put him ashore beside the landing steps at the southern end of the yard.

"There are spears beside the fucking steps," Rolo said. "North."

The man hauled upon the steering oar. An arrow struck the shield above Rolo's head and made the fellow holding it grunt. Rolo pushed the edge higher with his axe haft.

"Keep it up. You can lie down when we're there."

The first boats had gone too close together. He could see their sterns knocking as the men ashore tried to haul them clear. A captain was shouting for another boat to come alongside, as though the beach were a quay and somebody might politely move to make room.

Rolo caught his boatman's sleeve and pointed past them.

"There. Beside the loose planks."

They went in at an angle. The keel grated. Rolo waited until he could see stones beneath the water, then climbed over the side.

The cold struck through Rolo's boots. His wounded wrist gave beneath the axe, and he caught the haft with his other hand. A pirate glanced at the bandage. Rolo held his stare until the man looked away, then flexed his fingers below the gunwale. Drazen again. The old bastard had made him earn that head; now he was making him earn every stroke that followed. Rolo grinned despite the pain. He had liked Drazen better at the end.

A spear came over the stacked wood.

Rolo knocked it aside with the axe and drove his shoulder into the pirate ahead of him, shoving the man behind the timber before the next thrust found him. The fellow turned, ready to curse, saw who had pushed him and swallowed the words.

"Good cover," Rolo told him. "Use it."

He crouched beside the stack. A boat scraped ashore behind him. More shields came over its side, wet men breathing hard, one bleeding from an arrow through the meat of his arm. Rolo caught that man before he could stumble past.

"Can you hold a shield?"

The pirate nodded.

"Then cover him." Rolo pointed to a bowman trying to keep his string out of the water. "Shield up. He needs both hands."

The man obeyed. Rolo looked round the end of the stack.

Spears waited behind timber, with black swordsmen in the gaps where the long shafts could not turn. Above them, the lane climbed between the houses towards the fort. A path branched off behind the black shields and descended along the yard's southern edge to the landing steps. Two men were carrying a third down it. They passed behind the fighting without stopping. No overturned cart, no press of fugitives trampling the wounded into the stones. He had been looking forward to that part.

"Red Axe!" someone shouted from the boats.

The cry passed along the water. Men straightened behind their shields. Rolo could feel them waiting for him to go first, the eager ones and the men who had seen what happened to a captain who asked for his share too soon. He bared his teeth at them.

"Bring the next boats here. No more at those steps."

The boatman lifted an oar to signal. Nearly two hundred men had been ordered into the landing boats. Some still waited behind the captured galley, sheltered from the black archers. Others would never leave the shallows. His first mate remained aboard the flagship to keep the merchants penned in. He would not have the captains chasing plunder ashore while the loaded ships sailed away.

An arrow struck the timber a finger's breadth from his face.

Rolo laughed. He could smell the split wood. "That one wants me. I always get the shy ones."

His bowman peered over the stack. Rolo pulled him down by the collar.

"Find a gap. Don't give him your whole fucking head."

Farther south, a pirate tried to haul himself across the barrier by a spear shaft. The spearman let go. The pirate fell backwards among his fellows, and their rush stopped.

Rolo watched where they looked next. Towards him. Towards the boats. Anywhere but the spears.

He could drive them into the spears again. The eager lads would go first, and the clever ones would let them. Rolo knew that trick; he had lived by it before he had ships of his own. He pressed his thumb against the wound above his wrist and looked for another way. He wanted those black shields broken while he still had men fit to hunt the fools who dropped them.

Then he saw the open-sided shed behind the stack. Boat ribs hung from its roof. Beneath them lay loose planks, a rolled sail, coils of rope and a shallow trough dark with pitch.

"Get that sail."

Two men looked where he pointed.

"Up here. Between the stacks."

They dragged it across the stones. Rolo set them holding it upright with poles and broken oars, a filthy wall of canvas that hid the movement behind it. A shaft punched through almost at once. Another. The men flinched, but the bowmen above could no longer choose a face.

"Keep the bottom off the ground," Rolo said. "I won't have you tripping over the fucking thing."

He sent the next boatload round the northern end of the stack towards the houses, under cover until the first wall. The black swordsmen shifted after them. Rolo watched a man at the end of their line turn his head to see whether his neighbour had followed. There. A captain could order courage into a man all day; Rolo wanted him looking over his shoulder when the axe came.

One pirate came crawling back with blood running from his mouth. Rolo put a boot beside his hand.

"How far did you get?"

The man pointed towards the houses, coughing.

"Water for him," Rolo told the nearest sailor. "I need him talking."

A black shield appeared at the end of the stack. Its bearer had come to see what they were doing. Rolo sprang up before the man could draw back.

His axe caught the shield's rim. He jerked it down. The soldier braced himself, good feet, weight low, and thrust his sword towards Rolo's belly. Rolo turned the blade upon the axe haft. The point tore his coat. He stepped in close enough to hear the soldier breathe and drove his forehead into the man's face.

The headbutt jarred Rolo's own skull. He laughed through his teeth and smashed the flat of the axe head into the soldier's face. The man's knees gave and his shield dropped. Rolo drove the blade into his neck.

Blood thinned in the wash around Rolo's boot. He wanted the next man already. The dead soldier's companion stood just beyond the fallen shield, staring at the cut in his neck. Rolo lifted the axe slowly, letting him see what clung to its edge.

"Come and fetch him."

His men roared. The black swordsman shifted forward. Rolo felt himself lean to meet him, hungry for the moment the fellow forgot the shields beside him.

Another soldier caught the man's shoulder. A fresh black shield filled the gap, and the dead one stayed in the water.

Rolo spat blood from a bitten lip and pointed his axe towards the northern houses.

"Through the houses. Get behind them. I'll keep the spearmen fighting here."

* * *
​

The man upon Moreo's wall had a strip of cloth tied round his head. Blood had soaked through it above the ear. He stared down at Brus as though the centurion had asked him to open his own belly.

"You put that fire there."

"The red axes put it there," Brus said. "Their dead are lying in it."

Corwyn stood beside him with his shield raised against another arrow. Smoke rolled across the gate, thin where the wind caught it, black where the tarred rope still burned. They had pulled their wounded into the storehouse. Two swordsmen would not get up again. Three others could no longer stand in the line. The older man who had fought beside Corwyn was still on his feet, holding a cloth against the cut in Corwyn's wrist until Corwyn took it from him.

"They came to take your fort," Brus continued. "We came for the ships. Stop loosing at my men."

"Whose men?"

"Lord Jon's. Dragonstone."

The man's eyes moved to Corwyn's shield.

"Celtigar," Corwyn said. "Ser Corwyn Celtigar."

For once he was glad of the painted crab. The man above knew what it meant, even if he knew nothing of Corwyn himself.

"Vhalar will come back."

"He may," Brus said. "That gate is burning now."

A voice called from behind the parapet. The wounded man turned to answer, then vanished. Corwyn looked at Brus.

"If they bring more water—"

"Let them."

"We could get the ladder up while they're at it."

Brus glanced towards the bodies beneath the tower. Some wore red axes. Some wore nothing that named them. A broken ladder lay across three of them.

"You saw what happened to the last men who climbed."

Corwyn said nothing.

The centurion wiped sweat from his upper lip. There was blood upon his knuckles, rubbed into the creases. "We have the stores. We have the way to the water. They can't come down without passing us. Give them a moment to count who is left."

Corwyn had counted their own. Twenty-five of the thirty who had fought in the lane could still fight, himself and Brus among them. The two scouts were unhurt. The sailors were still hidden above it. If the men upon the wall knew that, their answer might be different.

Above the gate, the wounded man reappeared.

"Our captain's dead."

Brus waited.

"You let us go out with our weapons. We leave you the house."

"No weapons."

"Then we stay."

The gate gave a sharp crack. Both men looked towards it. Only the outer face was burning, but smoke had begun to creep through a seam beside the iron strap.

Corwyn looked towards the store loft facing the tower. Two of Brus's men stood at its window with shields and a bundle of recovered javelins. Neither threw. Above the gate, a bowman kept turning between them and the smoke rising beneath his feet. Corwyn had resented losing those two shields from the lane. Now he watched the bowman fumble a shaft against the stone and kept his own men under the eaves.

The wounded man looked across at that window. He licked his lips.

Behind him, a bowman called for shafts. Someone answered angrily that he had been given the last of them. The wounded man turned his head, listened, then looked down at the bodies beneath the gate. When he spoke again, he had stopped asking to keep his weapons.

"My lads live."

"Lay down your weapons and my men leave you alive," Brus said. "Your wounded get water."

"And after?"

"You answer to Lord Jon."

"Slaves?"

"Westeros has no slaves."

The man's eyes went to Corwyn. "You heard him, knight."

"I did. Lay them down. I'll see your wounded get their water." Corwyn kept his shield raised. The man looked at the crab again, then back at his face.

Someone behind him was weeping, quietly enough that Corwyn had not heard it before the bowstrings fell silent.

Brus turned away first. "Bring the wet sacks. Wait beneath the store roof until they call."

Corwyn went to fetch the men. In the storehouse, a swordsman clutched his wounded thigh while one companion held his shoulders and another tightened a leather strap above the wound. He had been quiet in the lane. Now he cried out.

"We'll get you aboard," Corwyn said.

The man looked from the crab upon his shield to his face. "Keep my sword, ser."

"It's beside you."

"Don't leave it."

Corwyn picked it up. As he straightened, the man let go of his leg and reached after the hilt. Corwyn bent again and laid it beneath his hand; his cut wrist left a smear upon the worn leather.

"It goes aboard with you."

The fingers closed. Corwyn eased the blade clear of the good leg before he rose. He could remember every blow he had struck at the red-sashed captain, but not where this man had stood when he was hurt.

A shout came from the gate.

The weapons went down first. Spears were lowered from the tower, then bows, then a rope with a bundle of swords tied to it. Brus made them stop while his men carried each bundle out of reach. Only then did he send the wet sacks forward.

Corwyn worked beside the soldiers, beating at the tarred rope while smoke forced tears beneath his visor. The heat had blistered the gate planks without burning through them. They dragged the sack downhill with a boathook taken from the stores and smothered it beneath wet grain. Steam rose around their boots.

Inside, men lifted the bar.

The doors opened a hand's breadth. Brus stood to one side and ordered the first defender out empty-handed. Then another. Corwyn counted seventeen who could walk without help. Nine more came slowly, leaning upon companions or carried on doors. None looked ready to defend a castle.

The man with the bloody headcloth was last. He had kept a knife. He drew it with two fingers upon the blade and put it on the ground before Brus.

"Water," he said.

Brus pointed towards the jars being brought from the store. The man walked past him without another word.

Across the courtyard beyond the gate, Moreo's house stood open, already half stripped. Cushions lay slit upon benches; a chest stood open with its hasp torn out. Someone had piled cups, candlesticks and folded cloth beneath the stair. Vhalar's men had begun the work before their captain took his main strength east. Corwyn saw a pair of silver basins and thought, absurdly, of washing his hands.

"Nobody fills a purse," Brus said behind him. "The wounded first. Find the people they locked up. Then we see what can float."

The younger scout came through the gate with the sailors. The ten freed volunteers followed, looking from the weapons upon the ground to the men sitting beneath the wall. One stopped so abruptly that the fellow behind struck his shoulder.

A prisoner had recognised him.

Corwyn saw the smile leave the prisoner's face. The volunteer stared a moment longer, then went past without speaking.

Below the house, they found the locked rooms.

The first man out tried to take the keys from Corwyn.

He caught Corwyn's wrist with both hands, speaking too quickly for him to understand. Behind him, people pressed towards the light. A woman called from the back. The man's grip tightened until Corwyn felt his cut open beneath the binding.

"Let go," he said. "I'll open them."

The man kept talking.

Corwyn put his sword upon the ground where it would not frighten him and held the keys up. "All of them."

One of the volunteers came forward. He listened, then pointed across the courtyard. "His brother's locked in that room. He wants you to open it."

Corwyn picked up his sword and went to the next door.

They found thirty-eight people in the rooms below the house and the locked store beside them. Some had been Moreo's captives. Others had been taken from the house when Vhalar came through the gate. There were servants still insisting that a mistake had been made, that they had wages owing, that somebody could tell these soldiers who they were.

Brus listened long enough to understand what they feared.

"Nobody here is being sold," he said.

The volunteer translated. An old man laughed once, bitterly, and asked something. The volunteer looked away before answering.

"He says they've heard that before."

Brus took the keys from Corwyn and gave them to the volunteer. "Then show him."

The man went back among the captives. Corwyn stayed until the brother came out. He could walk, though he leaned heavily upon the doorframe and kept asking after a shirt somebody had taken from him. His brother put an arm around him and began to laugh and weep at once.

Corwyn found himself waiting for the brothers to look towards him. The thought shamed him as soon as he recognised it. The elder had begun searching his brother's hair with trembling fingers, finding some hurt Corwyn could not see. Neither man had another glance for the knight with the painted shield. He left them together and went out into the courtyard.

* * *
​

Denys held his flagship between the merchants and the red-axe galley. For the third time, the pirate captain raised his hooks without throwing one.

The first time, Malcolm's men had come hard against the rail. The second, Arthur had ordered them to stay back far enough to leave the bowmen room. Now the hooks rose again, sunlight catching their curved points, while the rowers slowed the galley just beyond grappling range.

"He doesn't mean to board," Malcolm said.

"He means to keep us here."

Denys kept watching the space beyond the pirate's stern. Two more red sails lay farther out, with room to turn towards the merchants if he chased this fellow. On the northern water, the pair of fast ships still held their watch. Their oars rested above the surface. Fresh arms waiting for him to turn away.

Arthur stood beside the steering platform, his damaged shoulder lower than the other. He rested his shield's rim upon the rail. Someone else's blood had dried between his fingers.

"Can we get close enough to shoot at the men landing?" he asked.

"If I take us after those boats, her fellows can reach the merchants."

Arthur studied the gap, then looked back at the red-axe galley. "If he comes in again, I'll put arrows among his rowers."

The ferry carrying the last islanders passed close beneath their stern. The woman aboard it had one hand braced against the gunwale and the other upon the bundle in her lap. Denys pointed the boat towards the merchant receiving the families, then watched until a sailor upon her deck caught the line.

Another boat followed with a wounded man lying across its benches. Beyond it, smoke began to rise from the timber yard.

Whenever Malcolm's men shifted, Denys could see the broken rail where the last boarders had crossed, and the stain beneath it. He wanted this captain dragged across that rail. Let him look before Arthur cut him down.

The boat with the wounded man passed across his sight, low in the water. Denys watched its bow rise and settle while the pirate captain waited for him. If he closed, the second red sail could reach the merchants before he cut himself free. He kept his hand down, though Malcolm was watching for an order.

"Back us half a ship's length," he told his mate. "Leave room for the ferries beside the captured galley."

The mate looked towards the galley Arthur had taken. Her fighting prisoners were bound below the raised deck, apart from the paid rowers who remained at their benches. The two soldiers guarding the wounded pirate still stood near the hatch. They could not guard the whole vessel as well.

"Malcolm. Twelve to the prize. Keep the rest here."

"That leaves this rail thin."

"I can't bring the ferries alongside her with only two guards."

Malcolm looked towards the ferries, then chose his men. Denys had a boat brought alongside and waited while shields and bows went down. Across the water, the sailor in charge of the prize waited beside the steering platform.

"Bring her inshore of us," Denys called. "Slowly. I want her bow towards the merchants."

The sailor cupped a hand behind his ear. Denys repeated it, louder, and waited for the answer. Malcolm's first two men climbed aboard the prize while the others steadied their boat beneath her rail.

"Guard the steering oar and the hatch," Denys told the centurion. "Don't let the prisoners get at the boats."

Malcolm went forward to pass the order. The last of the twelve climbed aboard the prize, and their boat pulled clear. Denys watched the benches. He had taken the ship; whether he could use her was another matter.

When the sailor called for oars, the bearded rower stood. Denys could not hear what he said to the men nearest him, but he could see the gesture towards the bound wounded man and then towards the waiting oars.

The oars went out.

One stroke. A second, ragged along the after benches. Her bow began to turn inshore as ordered.

Denys let out a breath through his nose. A ship he could use a little, under watch. He would settle for that.

He pointed the next wounded ferry along the prize's inshore side. Her boatman saw the shelter and pulled towards it, ducking as an arrow struck the galley's outer rail.

The red-axe captain saw the movement. His galley edged closer, seeking a clear shot at the ferry. Men at his bow lifted shields. Behind them, a horn sounded once.

"Hold our stroke," Denys said.

An arrow struck the rail. Another passed over Arthur's head and rattled down among the benches. The knight did not look after it. He moved to the forward deck and pointed two of Malcolm's bowmen towards the enemy's exposed rowing side.

Their arrows made the pirate's forward shields turn. Denys brought his bow a little farther round. If the pirate kept coming, he would have to pass beneath the bowmen on Denys's forward deck.

The pirate captain slowed his rowers.

As the enemy bow sheered away, the wounded ferry slipped past the prize and reached the merchant. Men leaned down to take her line. Denys let himself smile. Let the bastard do some watching of his own.

"You could take him," the mate said quietly.

"Aye. And his friends could take the merchants." Denys pointed beyond the galley. "Watch the one with the torn topsail. He's waiting for us to turn."

Upon the shore, the smoke thickened. Denys could see men moving through it beside the stacked timber. A black line gave ground towards the houses, then stopped. He searched for Jon and found only helms and roofs.

Aurane came aft with a fresh strip of linen wound about one palm. He had caught it upon a splinter passing the last wounded man across. Denys had seen him hide the blood from the fellow being carried.

"Take word ashore," Denys told him. "The northern watchers are still there. This captain is holding us in place while Rolo lands. I can guard the boats, but Jon mustn't count upon me coming onto that beach."

Aurane looked towards the smoke. "Where do I find him?"

"Rymond will know."

Aurane turned to go. Denys caught his arm.

"If the steps are lost, you come back."

"I'll keep the boat off until I see who's holding them." Aurane glanced at the hand upon his arm. "And bring you an answer if I can."

Denys let him go. Arthur had returned from the bow. He watched Aurane climb down, keeping his bandaged hand clear of the rail.

"He knows boats," Arthur said.

"Aye." Denys had chosen him for it. He watched the boat clear their oars before turning back to the galley.

The enemy hooks rose again. This time nobody upon the flagship hurried to meet them.

* * *
​

From the lane's bend, Jon saw thin grey fingers of smoke crawl beneath Rolo's sail screen. Then the canvas bulged in a gust, showing the red glow behind it.

Rolo was burning the rubbish in the boat shed. Rope ends, shavings, scraps of wood dark with old pitch. The wind carried the smoke through the yard and into the faces of the men defending it.

Jon coughed. He could taste it upon his tongue.

"Back from the timber!" Hewyn called. "To the marked stones by the lane!"

Gerralt's men began to withdraw from the northern stack. They had to turn sideways between loose planks and the hauled-out hull. A pirate followed too quickly and took a sword through the face. The next kept behind his shield and waited for his fellows.

They were learning.

A spearpoint emerged from the smoke without its owner. It wavered, struck a black shield and disappeared. The spearman beside the shield bearer thrust towards it. His blade met timber. Somebody behind the smoke laughed.

"Don't stab at shadows," Hewyn shouted. "Let them come where you can see them."

The household reserve stood across the lane behind Jon, eighteen men whose faces he knew better than those of most of the boys he had grown up with. One was fastening a companion's chinstrap. The other tried to turn towards the fighting; the man caught the helmet's rim and pulled him back. Jon had seen him do that before a hundred drills. Down in the yard, a gap was opening between the retreating swordsmen and the spears that still held its southern end.

Thirty swords beyond the hills, eighteen shields behind him. Jon could have kept Brus and made Rolo pay for every foot of this yard. Then what? The transports would still have to pass those galleys. He had wanted Moreo's wealth badly enough to divide his legion for it; the ships in that western harbour might yet get the rest of them home. He would not let Rolo make the choice for him now.

An arrow struck the stones beside him. Alasdair lifted his shield and pushed Jon closer to the wall.

"My lord."

"Stay with me." Jon kept his eyes on the gap. "Hewyn. Take the household to Gerralt. Cover the spearmen while they fall back."

Hewyn turned. "All eighteen? That leaves us no household reserve."

"All eighteen. Keep them together." Jon pointed to the southern spears, their rear file bunching against the men retreating from the timber. "Make room for the spearmen to turn." He met Hewyn's eye. He could keep those eighteen safe behind him until the gap split his army in two. "Go."

The household men went down at Hewyn's call. Jon recognised a voice among them and could not place the name before smoke swallowed the speaker. A heartbeat later their shields struck into line beside Gerralt's.

The gap closed. Jon sent Garon up the lane to the houses overlooking the yard. The bowmen needed their upper windows, above the smoke. He caught the boy's eye until Garon repeated which houses, then let him run.

"Norren's runner," Alasdair said.

The man came down the lane at a stumbling trot. He had an arrow shaft tucked through his belt, cut short, its head black with pitch.

"Men coming uphill through the gardens behind the northern houses. They tried the wall below the spring."

"How many?"

"A score, perhaps more behind. We drove the first ones back."

Jon looked from the shaft at the runner's belt to the smoke. Rolo wanted him watching the yard while another party climbed behind it. He had left Norren upon the path against precisely that danger; hearing that the first rush had been beaten back brought a flash of satisfaction through his anger. The pirate would have to find another way round him.

"Tell Norren to hold the spring," Jon said. "Send word if they attack again. Nobody follows them downhill."

The runner went. Alasdair watched Jon a moment before turning back to the yard.

Hewyn's horn sounded twice. The southern spears began to give ground by files, passing through the space the household had kept open. They came out coughing, eyes red, carrying one of their own between two shields. Jon counted the shields without meaning to. He lost his place when another arrow hit the wall.

Rymond limped up the landing path to the foot of the fort stair. Jon went up the lane to meet him. An arrow shaft stuck from the outside of the centurion's calf.

"The steps are clear," he said. "Aurane's come."

"Sit down."

"There's a boat waiting—"

"Your optio can load it. Sit down, Rymond."

The centurion looked almost offended. Then his leg gave, and Alasdair caught him beneath the arm before he fell. Jon knelt beside him while a guard cut away the cloth around the wound.

Blood filled the heel of Rymond's boot. The guard pressed cloth against the wound, and the centurion's fingers dug into the paving. Even then he was trying to look past Jon towards the steps. All morning Jon had sent people down to him. Another family, another wounded man, another boat that could not wait. Rymond had found room for them. Jon put a hand upon his shoulder and kept him seated while the guard bound his leg.

"It missed the bone," Rymond said through his teeth.

"You'll tell me that again when someone has looked at it properly."

Aurane came up behind the guards. He gave Denys's message while the wounded centurion tried to stand and was made to stay down.

Rolo's two fast ships still blocked the northern route. Denys could cover the boats. He could not come onto the beach.

Jon looked towards the water. Denys had judged it as he would have; that left him no easy order to give, no ship he could call ashore without putting the transports at risk. Rolo had divided them neatly. Jon felt a cold anger at the thought of the pirate enjoying it.

"Tell Denys the landing steps are still ours. The yard is contested. He keeps the merchants close to shore, with room between them to turn. No pursuit if the galley facing him draws back."

Aurane repeated it.

"And take Rymond with you."

"My lord—"

Jon looked down at the centurion. "You've kept them moving all morning. Your optio knows his work. Let him do it."

Rymond shut his mouth. He watched the guards bring a door from the empty house beside them, then reached up and caught Jon's uninjured sleeve.

"Keep the way down open."

Jon put his left hand over the centurion's fingers. "I know."

A roar came from the yard.

The black line had bent where the yard narrowed into the lane. Jon rose. Through a gap in the smoke he saw a red-haired man wrenching an axe free from a fallen shield. Men surged around him, shouting the name Jon had heard across the water.

Red Axe.

Rolo was shorter than Jon had imagined. Broad through the shoulders, dark with sweat, the bandage at his wrist almost black. He laughed as a spear scraped his mail and struck its shaft aside so another pirate could get at the bearer.

Then the smoke closed, and Jon could see only the axe rising again.

"Alasdair. Back to the bend."

They reached it as the first wounded men came through. One had lost his helmet. Blood ran from his hair into both eyes, and he held his shield out before him like a blind man feeling for a wall. A household guard caught him and led him past.

Gerralt was drawing his swordsmen across the lane's mouth. His own shield hung crooked from a damaged strap. Each time he lifted it, the lower edge swung away from his leg.

Rolo's gaze dropped to Gerralt's exposed leg.

The pirate came in low, axe aimed beneath the shield. Gerralt jumped back. The blade bit the stone where his foot had been, throwing a bright chip against his greave. A legionary thrust over Gerralt's shoulder, forcing Rolo to turn. Rolo caught the sword against his haft and drove forward with both hands upon it, laughing again, a hoarse delighted sound that made Jon's stomach tighten.

Jon looked for a bowman with a clear shot at that open mouth. There was none. Black helms kept passing between Rolo and the windows, and the archers were still moving through the upper houses. His bandaged hand had closed without his noticing. He forced it open and looked uphill towards the fort stair.

Behind Gerralt, the lane narrowed between the loft and a stone store before climbing to the fort stair. A side passage descended beside the store from the houses below the spring. Jon had carried water down it. Sixteen spears could wait there out of sight while Hewyn drew the household up the lane. If Rolo followed, they could strike his flank. If he stopped, Jon would still have given his exhausted swordsmen room to withdraw. He looked at Gerralt's hanging shield and chose.

"Garon!"

The boy had returned from the bowmen. Jon caught him by the shoulder and pointed uphill.

"Norren sends sixteen spears down the passage beside the stone store. The sixteen stop at the corner until Hewyn calls. The others keep the spring."

Garon's eyes went to the fighting.

"Say it."

He said it. Jon let him go.

"Hewyn!"

The old soldier came back through the household line with his sword bare. He listened while Jon spoke, looking once towards the opening beside the store.

"He might stop short," Hewyn said.

"Then he stops while Gerralt gets his wounded through."

Hewyn looked back. The centurion was trying to lift his damaged shield again. "He'll want to bring his whole line back at once."

"You bring them. Slowly. The household covers them." Jon waited until Hewyn faced him. "Keep the passage clear for Norren's men."

Hewyn wiped his sword against his breeches. "Bowmen aren't all there yet."

Jon looked towards the shuttered windows. He wanted every archer there. He wanted Rolo farther uphill and Norren's men already waiting. Below, Gerralt's rear rank tried to lift a man whose legs kept folding beneath him. Jon could hear the centurion shouting for room. They would have to fight with what was ready.

"Once Norren's men are in place, bring the household forward. Don't wait for the bowmen."

"They won't need much persuading to believe we're tired."

Hewyn went down the lane and caught Gerralt's shoulder. The centurion listened, spat something red upon the ground and began to give the order.

Jon backed onto the lowest steps of the fort stair. Alasdair stood before him while the black line withdrew up the lane.

Jon had made them practise this with stones marking a doorway. He had walked down the ranks, pushing shields apart where they crowded and making men leave room for the wounded. Now a soldier fell at the lane's edge. His head struck the paving, and the line shuddered around him.

Jon started to shout. Gerralt was already calling for the rear rank to open. Two men dragged the fallen soldier through by his belt; another filled his place. Jon closed his mouth. The centurion had them.

He watched until the shields joined again. Years of pay, steel and patient, infuriating repetition, and these men were still holding for him. Rolo would gladly spend them until Jon had nothing left. The thought brought a hatred so clean that he could almost enjoy it. He would take the pirates' ships and their wealth and carry this legion home. Moreo's silver would train the men who came next; it could not teach them what Gerralt's soldiers knew now.

He let Gerralt give up the last stretch of yard and watched the side passage.

Rolo followed.

* * *
​

The black swordsmen were still fighting as they gave ground. Rolo had to grant them that. One stumbled over a fallen man and another caught his belt without lowering his shield. Their officer's shield strap had broken, yet he kept the useless thing high enough to make men aim at it.

Rolo went for his legs again.

The officer turned the blow upon his sword and stumbled sideways into the store wall. Rolo saw pale skin beneath the helm. His hands began the cut. Then a household shield struck across his path, and another man took the officer by the belt and dragged him clear. Rolo's axe crashed into the shield instead.

He twisted the haft, pulling its bearer towards him. His own man stabbed beneath the lifted rim. The soldier fell against the wall. Rolo wrenched his axe loose and looked past him for the officer. Let him see what his fucking rescue had cost.

"Come on!" Rolo roared. "They've no fucking room!"

His men crowded behind him. Too close. A shield struck his wounded wrist and sent pain up his arm so sharply that his fingers loosened.

"Back from me, you bastards!"

They gave him a little space. He rolled the axe in his grip and looked up the lane.

A boy stood behind a shield on the lower steps of the fort stair. Dark hair beneath the helmet, white linen round one hand. The guard before him was watching Rolo with the patient hatred of a dog that had finally seen what was scratching at the door.

"Lord Jon, up to the fort!" someone shouted.

Jon. So the little cunt had a name.

Rolo grinned at him. The boy did not grin back. He was looking past Rolo, towards the corner of the stone store.

Rolo stopped with his leading foot upon the threshold of a ruined shop. Above the stone store, a shutter opened. A bowman leaned into the gap. Farther up, another appeared at a window where there had been nobody a moment before. Other shutters remained closed. The boy's archers were still finding their places.

"Shields high!"

The first arrows struck as his men lifted them. One entered the side of the fellow beside him. The man made a small surprised sound and sat down upon the paving, still holding his sword upright.

Rolo looked towards the side passage. Black spearpoints moved in its shadow. He had followed the damaged shield because he wanted the officer under his axe, and the boy had let him. Fresh men were coming down beside the lane. Rolo's grin tightened. He could still reach Jon if he drove straight through—but his men were packed behind him, unable to turn their shields towards the spears. Another rush at Jon would leave those spearpoints at his back.

Jon was still upon the stair. For an instant Rolo wanted to throw the axe, to see the calm leave him as he ducked behind his guard. Too far, with a shield between them. Rolo spat at his feet and turned towards the nearer danger.

"Block that passage!" he shouted. "Shields towards the spears!"

The nearest pirates obeyed. Those behind could not see the new threat. They kept pushing uphill, certain the black soldiers were still retreating.

A short horn sounded.

The household line came forward.

Rolo met the first shield with his axe haft across his chest. The impact drove him back half a pace. He planted his foot, struck over the shield and felt the edge catch the man's helmet. The soldier sagged but did not fall; his companion held him up. Spearmen behind the swordsmen thrust past their shoulders.

Rolo knocked one point wide. Another caught his mail above the hip. He twisted away from it and laughed, the sound bursting out between clenched teeth. There was no room to draw a proper breath. The next man trying to kill him was close enough for Rolo to see a pale scar through his eyebrow, and for a moment he wanted nothing else in the world but to put the axe through it.

Then the waiting spearmen came out beside the stone store, into his flank.

A pirate turned too late. The first thrust took him beneath the arm. His falling shield struck Rolo's leg, and for an instant he could not move. He kicked free, caught the next spear shaft upon his axe and dragged its bearer towards him. The man let it go before Rolo could pull him out of line.

Another spear replaced it.

"Back to the yard!" Rolo roared.

Nobody moved.

He struck the nearest pirate across the chest with the flat of his axe head. "Back, you deaf shit! Keep facing their spears!"

The man stumbled, understood and began shoving those behind him downhill. Rolo stayed at the corner while two shields settled in front of him. A spear passed between them and scraped his ribs. He chopped through the shaft, then backed behind the two shields as another spear reached for him.

His men found room to move.

A sailor at the rear turned to run. Rolo bellowed his ship's name. The fellow looked back; so did the men beside him. They began shouting it themselves, dragging their shipmates downhill and holding shields over the ones who stumbled. Rolo backed with them. He could threaten a man tomorrow if he lived; for now he needed the bastard beside him.

Rolo backed downhill with his men, three steps, then a stop to knock another spear aside. His wrist had gone wet beneath the bandage. The blood made the axe haft treacherous. He wiped his palm upon his coat while the shields before him took the blows meant for him.

At the bend where the lane opened into the yard, the black line stopped.

One young soldier tried to follow. His officer hauled him back so violently that he nearly fell. Rolo had already shifted his weight to meet him. Now he eased back behind his own shields, cheated of the kill. Even that much, the boy would not give him.

The captain who had led the next boatload came up beside him, breathing hard.

"More from the ships?"

Rolo looked at the bodies in the lane. New men would have to step over them before they could reach the same spearpoints. The sea still lay behind him, and the merchant ships remained beyond his reach.

"Bring the wounded down to the boats. Hold this end of the yard." Rolo hooked a thumb into his collar and pulled the wet cloth away from his ribs. "No more men up that fucking lane. If they want us gone, they can come down and bleed."

"We can try the houses again."

"What stopped your men?"

"With another boatload, we could—"

"What stopped them?"

The captain's eyes dropped to the axe. Rolo remembered the men watching while he killed the last captain who had argued. This one had watched too. He was waiting for a safe answer to occur to him, and somewhere beyond the houses black soldiers were using the time.

Rolo lowered the blade. "Tell me what you saw."

"Spears," the captain said. "Behind the wall below the spring. My lads came back down."

"Want another try? You can lead it this time."

"The wall's too high."

"There. You do know something." Rolo jerked his chin towards the boats. "Get the wounded down."

Rolo wiped his axe upon a dead man's cloak. A ferry drew alongside a merchant ship. Men leaned over the rail to help those aboard it, and he looked back at the shields barring the lane. The boy would have to put his fighting men into boats eventually. Rolo knew the moment he wanted: the last few shields ashore, a boat too crowded to come back quickly, men turning their heads at every splash behind them. He let the axe rest against his leg. He could wait for that. He would enjoy watching them begin to understand.

Rolo looked towards his flagship and raised his axe until the signalman aboard could see him. He pointed seaward, then towards the merchants. His first mate answered with a lifted shield and turned to shout aft.

"Wait until his soldiers start boarding," Rolo told the captain. "Then we attack the men covering them."

"And until then?"

Rolo pointed to the space between the timber stack and the houses. "Bowmen there. Shoot at the landing steps whenever a boat comes in. Make them carry their wounded under our arrows."

The captain looked towards the lane they had just left. Rolo caught his sleeve before he could go. "Put shieldmen in front of the bowmen. If Jon comes down that lane, they hold him."

Above the roofs, the fort's black cloth lifted in the wind. Rolo wiped his mouth upon his sleeve and watched for the next ferry.

* * *
​

Jon found the dead household soldier beside the store wall. His shield lay across his legs, the torn strap tucked back through its buckle. Those hands had fastened another man's chinstrap before Jon sent the eighteen down. He crouched and reached for the shield. For an absurd moment he expected the man to take it from him.

"We have him, my lord," Alasdair said.

Jon held it while the bearers got their hands beneath the body. The dead man's mouth was open. He knew how that mouth had looked sulking over another drill; he could hear the complaint more readily than he could accept the silence. He wanted Rolo brought up this lane under guard. He wanted time alone with him. Beyond the bend, another wounded soldier called for help.

"With our dead," Jon told Alasdair. "His things go home."

He handed over the shield and stepped aside for the bearers.

Hewyn came back from the bend. The pirates held the outer yard around the northern timber stack, their boats drawn up beside it. Jon's shields barred the lane at the bend. Behind them, bearers could still turn down the landing path. Norren's sixteen stayed beside the stone store until the new line could be made firm; the rest still guarded the spring.

"They've stopped coming for now," Hewyn said.

For now. Jon looked towards the blackened shed. He could still hear men beyond it, dragging wood, calling for water, quarrelling over something hidden by the smoke. Rolo had not gone back to sea.

"How many?"

"Of ours? Eight dead that we've brought in. Thirteen too badly hurt to fight, Rymond among them. I'll have the officers check again when the last bearers are back."

Eight added to the twenty already dead. Twenty-eight, before Brus sent his losses. Jon watched the bearers turn down the landing path. He had wanted to count captured hulls when this was over. Hewyn stood waiting for the next order.

"Can we get them into the next boats?"

"The men who can sit, aye. We'll need space for the others to lie down."

"Make it. Leave the chests against the fort wall if you must."

"I've told them." Hewyn glanced towards the landing steps. "Rymond's optio has the loads in hand."

"Good. Hold the bend. They may try to draw you into the yard."

Hewyn gave him a tired look. "They can keep the bloody yard."

Jon almost smiled. He left Hewyn to it and turned to Alasdair. "I need a quiet room."

They went into the house behind the new line. Its owners had left a meal upon a shelf: hard bread, a broken onion, a little dish with salt clinging to its rim. Jon set the stool behind the wall where no one passing the doorway could see his face. Alasdair closed the door and stood before it.

"Hewyn has the street," his guard said.

Jon closed his eyes.

Munin crouched beneath the eaves above the fort stair. He lifted her into the light. The smoke stung even up here, and the bird fought the gust that carried it over the houses. Jon turned north, away from the crowding masts.

The two fast ships still watched beyond the headland. He kept high enough that the men aboard remained small dark shapes. Beyond them the northern coast opened in folds of rock and scrub.

Three galleys moved along it.

He had seen those three leave the eastern fight. They were still together. Men sat crowded beneath the rails, and upon the after deck of the leading ship a blue banner stirred above the steering platform.

Vhalar.

Jon followed the line of the coast with the bird's eye. The galleys had not yet rounded the point north of Moreo's harbour. There was still time, measured in oar strokes and the distance he would have to carry a warning.

He could not count how many men remained fit upon those decks. He did not need the number to know what three armed ships could do to Brus's party.

He returned to himself with his left hand clenched around the stool's edge.

"Alasdair. Write."

The household captain brought out the paper. He had kept it wrapped inside his coat, away from the smoke and blood.

"Three of Vhalar's galleys are coming along the northern coast. He may reach the harbour before you have the ships ready. Put someone where he can see them. I need to know what can sail, and how many hands you have for it."

Alasdair's pen scratched across the paper. Jon waited while he read the words back, then added, "Keep a way down to the boats. Don't let him shut the whole party inside the fort."

"Shall I tell him to leave the silver?"

"No." Alasdair's pen stopped. Jon could see Moreo's chests as clearly as the paper: hulls bought and repaired, iron paid for, men kept through another winter. He had crossed the water to take that wealth. There were wars coming, and Dragonstone would face them with what he managed to build. He would not come home poorer in men and empty-handed because Rolo had frightened him out of his purpose.

Something struck the house wall. Both men listened. A shout followed, then Hewyn's voice, too muffled to make out. Alasdair still held his pen above the unfinished letter. Jon looked at the words he had already dictated. Brus would read them with wounded men waiting to be carried. He might obey too well.

"The men come before an unready ship," Jon said. "Or treasure they cannot get aboard. Write it plainly."

Alasdair took fresh ink. "He'll want to know whether to come back over the hills."

"He sends word before he leaves, if there's time. If there isn't, he chooses how to get his men out." Jon waited until the last words were written, then held out his left hand for the paper.

Hugin had followed them from the loft and settled upon the sill. Jon steadied him while Alasdair tied the folded note. Then his guard took his place by the door, and Jon went west inside the bird.

At the hollow, the older scout rose as Hugin descended. He untied the note, read it with his finger beneath the lines and looked down towards the harbour. His mouth tightened.

The scout put Hugin upon the carrying perch and gathered his spear. As he started downhill, the crow shifted against his fingers, impatient with being carried. Jon settled him and let go. Brus would have the paper and a bird to bring his answer; Hewyn needed Jon back behind his own eyes.

When Jon opened his eyes again, someone was knocking.

Garon stood outside with a cup. The water shook against its sides.

"Hewyn said you were to drink."

Jon took it. Garon watched the water, his mouth working once before he pressed his lips together.

"Did Norren keep the spring?" Jon asked.

"Aye. The pirates went back down. His men are still there."

Jon drank and handed it back half full. "Then take a breath and have the rest. You've done what I needed."

Garon glanced towards Alasdair, then drank so quickly that he coughed. Jon steadied the cup with his left hand. He remembered telling men to send the boy with messages because he was small and quick; now he looked at the soot caught in his lashes and wished the day had required less of him.

A shaft struck the doorframe as Jon stepped outside. Alasdair pulled him back beneath the lintel. Across the yard, one of Rolo's bowmen ducked behind the timber, and a wounded man halfway down the landing steps cried out for his bearers to hurry. Jon waited for the guards to raise their shields, then went down to Hewyn.

* * *
​

Corwyn waited while Brus set the guards.

The eleven red axes who had yielded in the lane sat beneath the store wall, six of them wounded. Vhalar's twenty-six survivors were kept apart, their wrists bound where their injuries allowed it. In another room they had found the twenty-two of Moreo's fighting men who had refused Vhalar that morning. One called through the door that he had no quarrel with Dragonstone. Brus set another guard beside the first and told them to keep the door shut.

A sailor called up from the harbour steps for help with the oars. One of the men beside the door looked towards Brus.

"Stay there," the centurion told him.

Corwyn loosened the shield strap at his wrist. "I'll go."

It took men to watch them all. It took more to carry the wounded, search the rooms and keep an eye upon the road. Corwyn could see their victory consuming the small force that had won it.

"The ones who ran," he said. "They'll bring others."

"Aye." Brus looked south. "Let's see what can sail."

At the head of the harbour steps, two sailors were levering the lock off a store door. The freed oarmaker pressed his shoulder against it. The fastening broke with a crack like a bowstring snapping. He staggered through as the door flew inward, swore, and waved the sailors after him.

Inside stood racks of oars.

He ran his hand along the first shaft, turned it to catch the light and shook his head. The second he passed out. Then another. Soon the men behind him were carrying them down in pairs.

"Your name?" Corwyn asked when the man came out for breath.

"Bero." He was looking at the galley beside the landing. "The oars at her stern are wrong."

"Wrong?"

"Too long. They'll strike the next oars when the men pull."

He went down to the ships without waiting for leave. Corwyn followed, carrying the next pair. His shoulder ached before he reached the bottom. Bero took one from him, sighted along it and called to a sailor aboard.

Vhalar's men had damaged what they could not take away. One galley's steering oar lay split near its fastening. Another had half a bank of blades broken short. A third still floated level, but the sailor who had gone below her deck came back shaking his head at the water he had found. Of all the hulls beneath Moreo's fort, the sailors thought only two worth trying to bring away today.

"That one first," their senior man told Brus, pointing to the smaller galley beside the steps. "Replace her steering oar. We've got a shaft in the store that may serve. She'll move with sixteen men a side. I won't promise what speed."

Brus looked at the people coming down from the house.

The man who had caught Corwyn's wrist stopped beside Brus and pointed to his brother. A volunteer translated. "He says his brother can't row."

"Then we'll find him somewhere to sit," Brus said. "Can you?"

The man nodded, but did not reach for an oar. He waited for his brother, put an arm about him and took him down to the smaller galley. A sailor helped the limping man aboard. Only when he was seated did his brother come back for an oar.

Others had watched. Twenty-four of the newly freed could row and still had the strength; they agreed to take the benches. They went down in little groups, still calling back to people on the steps. With the ten volunteers from the hills, they had thirty-four rowers: enough for the smaller ship and two to spare. The twelve sailors were needed for rigging, ropes and steering.

There were not enough for the second ship. Corwyn looked towards the house where Moreo's old fighting men were guarded. A little while ago he had been glad to hear the door shut upon them. Now he was counting their hands.

"The fellow who says he has no quarrel with us," he said. "He may know how to row."

"Fetch him," Brus told a soldier. "Leave his wrists bound." He turned back to Corwyn. "We'll hear him."

Back at the oar-store, Corwyn could see the lane beneath the blue banner. He had thought thirty swords a madness when they left Jon. Fewer remained, but they had won the ships.

"Would you have brought us here," he asked, "if the red axes hadn't come?"

Brus looked up at the gate. "No."

"Jon sent you to take the ships."

"He sent me to bring them back," Brus said. "I'd have found a boat or waited for dark. I wouldn't have climbed that wall for him."

"And if there was no other way?"

"Then I'd have told him that." Brus took the far end of the oar. "Lift."

Corwyn lifted. His wrist stung; he shifted his grip before Brus could take more of the weight. He had wanted Jon to see a knight eager to fight, and still disliked the thought of coming back to him with nothing. At the water, the sailor pointed to a space beside the other oars. Corwyn laid his end there and went back for another.

By the time the older scout reached them, the sailors had laid the replacement steering oar across trestles and were shaving it to fit its mounting. Hugin rode upon the scout's perch with his claws closed upon the wood and his head turning sharply at every hammer stroke.

"From Lord Jon."

Brus took the letter. Corwyn waited while he read it, then saw the centurion's eyes go north.

"Vhalar?" he asked.

Brus passed him the paper.

Three galleys coming along the northern coast, perhaps before the prizes were ready. Corwyn read the order to keep a way to embark and looked at the men carrying silver down from the house.

They had just won the place.

He looked again at the last lines. Leave an unready ship if they must; leave treasure they could not get aboard. Brus was to judge for himself if there was no time to send again. Alasdair's neat hand made the words seem calm. Corwyn wondered what had been happening around Jon while he spoke them.

"Put a lookout on the ridge above the northern point," Brus told the scout. "I want warning before the ships round it and come into the harbour."

The younger scout took the duty. His fellow remained with the bird and the writing things. Brus dictated their answer: the red axes broken, the fort yielded, two dead and three unable to fight; thirty-eight people freed and fifty-nine fighting prisoners to guard; one galley being made ready, a second possible if they could find enough hands. Corwyn listened while the scout wrote. Hearing the day reduced to those few lines made him want to interrupt, to explain the passage, Edden's hand catching his shield, the wounded soldier asking for his sword.

There was no room upon the scrap for any of it.

The scout tied the answer beneath Hugin's leg. The crow pecked at the thread and then settled, waiting.

Corwyn stared at him. "How does he know when to go?"

"When he goes, I'm grateful," the scout said. "I haven't asked him why."

Brus had already turned back to the sailors. Corwyn stayed beside the bird for another moment. Whatever Jon had done to train it, he would have given a great deal to know it now. There were hills between them, a battle at the other end, and this ill-tempered little creature was the only reason the warning had arrived before the ships.

Hugin made a rough sound in his throat. Corwyn stepped away before he could be bitten.

Four men brought the silver down in a chest with its lid tied shut. They stopped at the foot of the steps to change their grips. Beside them, sailors aboard the smaller galley were clearing a place for the wounded while her steering oar was still being fitted.

The swordsman's bearers could not get past the chest.

"Set it down," Corwyn said.

One carrier looked towards the galley. "Here?"

"Against the wall." Corwyn took a corner of the door beneath the wounded man. "Let him through."

They moved the chest. He helped lift the stretcher aboard, holding steady while the sailors took its weight. The sword was tied along the man's good leg. His hand lay upon the hilt.

Up on the ridge, their lookout climbed towards the northern point.

* * *
​

Vhalar knew the western coast well enough to recognise where the shore bent out of sight. His father had made him name those points from beside the steersman, a hand resting upon the back of his neck. A wrong answer earned a cuff. Hesitation sometimes earned one too. He still remembered the flat little rock that vanished at high water, because he had missed it once and been made to name every turning twice on the way home.

Now three galleys answered his orders where there should have been more, and he could hear the old bastard asking him to count them. He kept his eyes upon the point. He had ships to save.

Goro came aft carrying a cup.

"Drink."

Vhalar looked at him.

"You've had nothing since the headland."

The captain's bandage had slipped over one eyebrow. He had lost the gold ring from his ear; the torn lobe was black with dried blood. Vhalar wondered whether he had noticed. He took the cup and drank. The water was warm and tasted of the cask.

Below them, a wounded man had begun calling for Drazen.

Nobody answered him. The same name came again, thinner, almost apologetic, as though he knew the captain was busy and resented needing him.

"Someone go to him," Vhalar said.

Goro sent a sailor. Vhalar watched the man kneel beside the wounded fellow and lift his head. He could still see Drazen reaching for the wine jug that morning, keeping his injured arm close, waiting while Vhalar demanded an account of every lost ship.

The old man had brought the money home. Vhalar had counted it before asking how badly he was hurt. He wanted to remember some other morning, Drazen complaining over bad wine, Drazen telling him there was time for another cast of the net. Instead he saw the jug moving away from the captain's hand and knew whose hand had moved it.

His thumb dented the thin side of the cup. He set it down hard enough that Goro looked at him, then turned to the other ships before the captain could speak.

"The other captains?"

"Holding with us."

"They stay there."

His first mate stood near the steering oar, his forearm newly bound. Vhalar had heard the men thank him for bringing them clear. They had fallen quiet when Vhalar approached. Now the mate watched the following ships, keeping all three upon the same course.

"You got us clear," Vhalar said, loudly enough for the men at the nearest benches to hear.

The mate looked up. A rower grinned at him. Vhalar regretted raising his voice.

"Keep the other ships with us."

"Aye, captain."

A hundred and seventy-five men could still fight. Vhalar left the mate at the steering oar.

The point north of Moreo's harbour drew nearer. Smoke lay beyond it, rising above the roofs of Moreo's house.

Vhalar went to the rail.

There had been smoke when he left. A cooking fire overturned, a store scorched while his men searched it. He had told Goro to stop them burning anything they might want to sell. This smoke was farther down, near the gate.

"Ease the stroke," he said.

The rowing master passed the order. Behind them, the other two galleys shortened their strokes to match.

Goro looked at the hill. "They may have been burning the dead."

"They may."

Vhalar held out his hand for the glass.

The upper gate came into view first. Blue cloth still showed above the tower, hanging almost flat against its staff. Below it, the lane dropped between the stores to the harbour steps. Men were carrying a chest down to the water. The familiar sight nearly made him lower the glass.

Then a shield turned.

Black.

He kept looking. Another beside the gate. A man upon the harbour steps with a red crab painted upon his shield. Bodies lay in the lane where Vhalar had fought Moreo that morning. Some had been dragged against the wall. Others were still where they had fallen.

"Turn out from shore," he told the mate. "Stay beyond arrow range."

The galley began to turn.

Goro had seen his face. "Rolo?"

"Black shields."

Goro swore. Vhalar wanted to strike him for finding so small a sound for it.

He had left fifty men here. He had climbed that wall himself, with his dead beneath it. The boy had taken the east while Vhalar was away, and now more of his black shields were carrying chests out of the west. The glass creaked in Vhalar's grip. He wanted the crab-shielded knight alive long enough to tell him how Jon had done it.

'You can take a thing. Can you keep it?' His father's voice again, sour with the pleasure of finding him wanting. Vhalar lowered the glass before he broke it. Behind him, a rower coughed until another man took his oar. The wounded lay where Goro had found space for them, and the two ships astern waited for his next order. He could put their men ashore and send them up the same lane. The black shields would be waiting above it this time.

He raised the glass again and looked north of the stores, where the rocks gave a boat somewhere to land out of sight of the gate.

"Boat down," he said. "Goro, take men you know. Go to the rocks north of the stores. Find someone who saw what happened. Stay clear of the harbour steps."

Goro looked towards the chest at the landing. "They could sail while I'm ashore."

"I can see them loading."

Vhalar had spoken too loudly. He loosened his grip upon the rail.

"Find what became of my lads. Ask whether the red axes have been here. Count the black shields if you can."

"I'll need a way back to you."

Vhalar looked at the rocks again. "We'll hold off the harbour. Come back if you find scouts."

Goro studied the water between the rocks and the galleys, then went to choose his men.

Vhalar returned to the glass. At the water's edge, the black soldiers had put the chest down to let a wounded man pass. He watched them lift the man aboard the smaller galley, careful of the stretcher.

Drazen had kept his wounded arm tucked against his ribs while Vhalar counted the silver. He jerked the glass away from the bearers and fixed it upon the ships beneath the fort.

Vhalar could bring the galleys closer and sweep those steps with arrows. The black shields would retreat behind the gate, and his own lads might still be alive in there. He wanted Goro's answer before he drove these bastards out of reach. The ships mattered too. He would be damned if he let Jon's men fire them and leave him more smoking planks.

Rolo was still in the east. The mad bastard would be hammering at Jon's landing, laughing while other men bled for his appetite. If he broke through, these black shields would have nowhere friendly to go. If Jon held him, he would still need the ships beneath Moreo's wall. Vhalar looked towards his own decks. Three galleys, with their oars out and men ready. Let Jon's captain try to bring his prizes past them while the boy fought for his boats on the other shore.

"Keep the three together," he told his first mate. "And watch their boats."

 

[aiwonder]

The bearers were halfway down the landing steps when an arrow struck the door beneath the wounded man. He tried to roll away. One bearer stumbled, and Jon saw the whole load tilt towards the water.

"Keep him flat!" Rymond's optio shouted.

The lower bearer braced himself against the step. His fellow caught the wounded soldier by the belt, and together they lowered the door into the boat. Only then did the optio turn towards the timber yard.

Jon had followed Alasdair to the turn in the landing path. The lane and its defending shields lay behind him, the boats below. Rolo's archers had moved along the yard's far edge to shoot across the open ground between the houses and the southern steps. If the bearers dropped their load, they would block the steps. If the boatmen refused to come in, the wounded would have nowhere to go.

"Shields along that side," he told Alasdair. "Get a door from the empty house. Stand it across the top of the steps."

The household captain sent two men. Jon pointed Garon towards the loft above the lane. Four bowmen still occupied its upper room; the window overlooked the ground the pirates had crossed.

"Tell them where those archers are. Have them watch the gaps between the shields."

Garon started uphill, then checked himself. "The gaps by the woodpile?"

"Between the woodpile and the first house. Go."

Another arrow struck a raised shield. The soldier beneath it swore at the man crowding against him. Jon caught the second man's shoulder and moved him back. There was room if they stopped crowding the bend. They had cursed him for practising this. Now he wanted to shake each man who forgot until the old lessons came back.

Hewyn reached him before he could give another order.

"They're holding below the bend," the first spear said. "No movement up the lane."

"They can hurt us from there."

"Aye." Hewyn looked at the boat pulling away from the steps. "They know it."

From the loft came the hard snap of a bow. A pirate near the woodpile dropped his shield and sat down abruptly. The man beside him pulled him back by his coat. The next arrow from the yard went high.

It gave Jon room to breathe. Not much. Men were still bleeding for the length of time it took a boat to cross a harbour.

"How many fit men still on this shore?"

"Two hundred and twenty-two," Hewyn said. "The wounded go down first. Then I can start sending the others."

His men waited against the houses behind the shield line, leaving a narrow passage for the bearers. At the water steps, the wounded lay waiting for the next boat.

"Keep arrows going up to the loft," Jon told Hewyn. "And have the optio hold four of the largest boats beside the prize. Empty, with their boatmen aboard."

Hewyn frowned. "We're already leaving wounded waiting for boats."

"The others can keep ferrying. Those four are for the last men. Once they leave the line, they cannot wait for a second crossing."

"And if the ships call for another load?"

"They use the other boats. Have the optio count the places before we send the last groups down. Boatmen, shields, room for wounded men to lie flat. Then he brings all four in."

Jon watched the bearers turn another door on the narrow steps. A petty officer had once made him count the places in a boat twice while Jon argued about the damaged machinery they were leaving behind. He had hated the delay. Now he counted how many seated men would have to move to make room for that door.

"Where is Norren?"

"His sixteen are beside the store. The rest still have the spring."

"Leave them there for now. I want the upper path watched until the fort is empty."

Hewyn returned to the line. Alasdair waited with his shield towards the yard while another ferry came in. A crow called from the fort roof. Hugin was still in the west. If Brus had written an answer, Jon could bring it back.

"I need that room again."

Alasdair took him uphill. Inside the house, the onion still lay upon the shelf. Flies had found the bread. Jon sat where the wall hid him from the door and closed his eyes.

The world returned brighter and farther apart. Below the crow's perch, men were lifting pale wood towards a galley's stern. Jon recognised the western harbour steps. Corwyn's crab shield leaned against the store wall, a chest stood clear of the path and three wounded men were aboard the smaller ship. Beyond the harbour mouth, blue cloth moved above a steering platform.

Three galleys.

Vhalar had beaten the repairs.

Jon wanted to fly out and count the enemy, but Hugin carried a message. Hewyn needed his orders. He lifted from the perch, and a soldier called after the bird as it climbed above the stores.

The hills rose between the harbours. For a little while there were no wounded men beneath him, only scrub, pale stone and the movement of his own shadow. Then the eastern smoke returned. He brought Hugin to the familiar window and let go.

Alasdair had the bird before Jon had quite recovered the room around him. Paper crackled. His guard read Brus's report aloud.

The fort taken. Two dead, three unable to fight. Thirty-eight people freed. Fifty-nine fighting prisoners. One ship repairing, another that might sail if hands could be found.

Jon held out his hand for the paper.

He had sent thirty-two across those hills. Thirty still lived. There was victory in that small scrap, and Moreo's wealth beneath it, and the hulls he had hoped might break Rolo's grip. Now Vhalar stood between all of it and the sea.

A knock sounded. Alasdair opened the door a hand's breadth.

"Pirate with a white rag," Garon said. "Hewyn wants to know whether to hear him."

Jon looked up.

"The red-haired one sent him. He says his captain will speak."

Of course he would. Rolo had found how much a landing boat mattered, and now he wanted to discover what Jon would pay for one more crossing.

"Tell Hewyn to keep him below the bend. No one comes through our shields."

Garon ran. Jon carefully folded Brus's report, damp where his fingers had held it.

"Get the empty oil jars," he told Alasdair. "And the full ones from the kitchen. Put them where they can be seen at the fort gate."

His guard studied him. "The stores?"

"If Rolo wants them, he can leave us time to go."

There was enough coin waiting beside that gate to keep his men paid through winter. He wanted every chest aboard. He wanted the plate too, and the books that might tell him which ports had bought the people crammed beneath his merchant decks. He had not spent years building a legion to leave it broken on a pirate's beach; neither had he crossed the sea merely to burn the things he needed.

Alasdair opened the door. Two bearers were bringing a wounded man past it, and he turned sideways to let them through.

"Wait until they've cleared the lane," Jon added. "Then send the jars up."

* * *
​

Goro returned with blood upon his sleeve, and Vhalar's hand closed upon the rail before he saw that it was dry.

"Whose?"

"One of ours. Found him against the back wall of the northern store. He'd crawled out of the lane after the red axes came."

"Alive?"

"For a little while."

Goro climbed over the side, cursing the sailor who reached to help him. He put the dead man's belt beside the steering platform, folded around a short knife, before speaking again.

The red axes had reached the fort first. They had broken the men Vhalar left outside the gate, then the black soldiers had fallen upon them from the stores. Goro had found their dead in the lower lane. He had seen black shields above the harbour steps, more at the gate, and men carrying oars between them.

"How many?"

"I counted twenty-three. There'll be others inside. Thirty, perhaps forty."

"And my garrison?"

"Some are living. I saw them being brought up to the gate. Bound, but walking. Others were carried."

Vhalar looked past him. The small galley still lay beneath the steps, her replacement steering oar across two trestles ashore. A man shaved its shaft, stopping to try the fastening while another leaned from the stern to watch.

They were repairing what Vhalar had broken.

"Any archers?"

"Didn't see bows. Saw them gathering spears from the dead. The knight was there."

"The crab."

Goro nodded.

Vhalar raised the glass. The young knight stood bareheaded beside the water, hair stuck to his forehead, his crab shield against the store wall. He helped a sailor lift a chest over the galley's rail. Vhalar had fought for that harbour. Now these black-clad bastards were emptying it while he watched from outside.

He had killed Moreo for that fort. Stark's boy had sent others to take it from him.

Vhalar lowered the glass. He looked down at the boats waiting alongside his ship, avoiding Goro's eye. Let the knight try carrying that chest with arrows coming at him.

"Bring us in until the bowmen can reach those steps."

His first mate glanced towards the other ships.

"With us," Vhalar said. "Keep them across the way out. Nothing leaves that harbour."

The mate raised his arm. The rowing master's count changed, and the galley moved beneath Vhalar's feet. He let out the breath he had held since the headland. Here was something that still did what he asked of it.

The first arrows fell short. The second flight struck stone and wood. A man carrying a sack dropped it upon the steps and scrambled for the store wall. The oarmaker caught the steering shaft before it could roll from its trestles. Two black shields came down to cover him.

"The steps," Vhalar told the bowmen. "Keep them off the steps. I want those ships sound."

Goro followed his gaze towards the rocks north of the stores.

"I can bring twenty through there. Their lookout has seen me by now."

"Then he can watch you come back." Vhalar pointed towards the harbour. "Thirty with me. We take the landing while you come behind the stores. Once the boats have put us down, they fetch fifty more."

Goro looked at the little space between the moored hull and the stone steps. "Wait for my shout before you go up the lane."

Vhalar turned to snap at him, then followed his gaze. Goro was watching the men above the steps, waiting for one of them to turn towards the rocks. He meant to get behind them before Vhalar drove them uphill. Vhalar glanced at the dead man's belt beside the steering platform. Goro had friends in that garrison too.

"I'll hold the steps," Vhalar said. "You make sure I hear you."

Seventy-five fighting men would remain aboard the three galleys after the second landing, enough to keep the black ships penned and watch the sea behind them. He told his mate where to hold, made him repeat the order, then took his shield.

Goro fastened the dead man's belt around his own waist.

"His brother's aboard the watcher," he said when Vhalar looked.

"Give it to him when we're done."

He went down into the boat before Goro could answer. The man ahead of him held out a hand; Vhalar took it, found his footing and turned towards the steps. Black shields were withdrawing uphill. The passage from the water was opening.

"Pull."

* * *
​

The boy had put oil jars at the fort gate.

Rolo watched soldiers carry a jar and bundles of straw past the doorway, taking their time, making certain he could see. His jaw tightened. How many jars were empty? And what good would knowing do him if the one beside the grain was full?

"Shall we try the houses again?" the captain beside him asked.

Rolo looked at the man's shield. An arrow had passed through its upper edge; the point nearly touched his cheek whenever he raised it. He had not noticed.

"Break that off."

The captain stared, then followed his gaze. He lowered the shield and snapped the shaft with both hands.

Rolo let the captain stand with the broken arrow. Another rush might drive the black soldiers into the fort, where they could burn the stores before his men reached them. He needed to get the boy out of there.

His wrist throbbed beneath its filthy bandage. He rubbed the dried blood from his fingers, watched it fall in little black curls, and called for two shields.

The young lord waited above the bend in the lane. The black soldiers had opened enough room for him to be seen without leaving a gap in their line. A broad man stood at his shoulder; farther down, an older soldier kept his sword in his hand, watching Rolo's axe.

That must be the one giving the orders when the boy hid indoors. Rolo smiled at him first.

"You've made me walk uphill."

"You asked to speak," the boy said.

The voice was younger than Rolo had expected, but the boy watched Rolo's axe without flinching. Dirt caught in the pale streak above his forehead. He held a bandaged hand close to his body. Rolo made himself look away. A man noticed when you kept looking at what hurt.

"I asked you to come down."

"I'm here."

Rolo laughed. The black soldiers did not. He liked that less.

"Leave the people and the silver. You can take your soldiers home."

"No."

"Then leave me the ships."

"No."

"You practise that?" Rolo leaned against the nearest shield. "Someone sits you in a chair and has you say it until you sound like a lord?"

The boy's mouth tightened. Rolo felt a small, mean satisfaction.

"You can have the fort standing," the boy said. "The stores I haven't carried away. The boats left on the shore. My people leave with me, aboard the ships we hold."

"Your people." Rolo glanced towards the water. "They were somebody else's this morning."

"They're mine to protect now."

There it was. Rolo had heard lords dress ownership in prettier clothes, but the anger in this one sounded real. He pictured the boy trying to choose which boat to save while the others burned. He wanted to hear him give that order.

"And if I say no?"

"Then you'll be taking that gate through smoke."

The older black soldier shifted slightly. The boy had not raised his voice or looked towards the jars. Rolo glanced towards them himself. A man was carrying another bundle past the grain store.

He wanted to hit the boy. Not with the axe. With his hand, hard enough to see that solemn little face change. He let the wish pass through him and smiled instead.

"You leave me an empty shell and expect thanks."

"You came for the island. I'm leaving it."

A gull landed on the loft roof and shook something wet from its beak. Down by the yard, one of Rolo's wounded called for water, again and again. Another rush would mean more wounded. His captains knew it. He could make them go, but they would remember being sent uphill for nothing.

Rolo pointed past the boy's shoulder towards the ships.

"The low galley at the mooring. The one your men keep bailing. She stays."

The boy turned just enough to speak to the man beside him. Rolo could not hear the words. He watched the household captain shake his head, then point down towards the landing.

"That one," the young lord said at last. "After her people and goods are off."

"And the fort stays whole."

"If we leave without an attack."

Rolo lifted his eyebrows. "You think I'd give my word and come after you?"

"Yes."

For a moment he could only stare. Then he laughed so hard his ribs hurt. Some of the men behind his shields joined him, uncertain at first, then louder when he did not stop them.

"Then why are we talking?"

"Because you can stop your archers while we load. You can move the ships north of us out from the coast. My man will send one merchant ship through. If she passes, the rest begin to leave. When my last men go, the fort is yours."

Rolo's laughter died. He looked towards his waiting galleys. There would still be boats to catch after the merchants passed, and the little lord had a troublesome habit of staying beside his wounded.

"Your bowmen stop too."

"When yours move back."

"I want no black shields left in the fort after you go."

"You'll see the last of them leave."

Rolo let the silence last. He turned the axe in his hands, testing his sore wrist against its weight, until the broad man beside the boy lowered his gaze to it.

"Done."

He heard his own men breathe. The boy watched him a moment longer, then nodded to the old soldier. Neither side lowered a shield until Rolo had walked back beyond the bend.

At the timber stack, the waiting captain opened his mouth.

"Take the archers behind the wood," Rolo told him. "They keep their bows."

"And the ships?"

"A boat to my first mate. The northern pair move seaward. Leave a way along the shore, wide enough for the merchants. Let the first ones through."

The captain looked towards the oil jars at the gate. Rolo caught his chin and turned his face back.

"Listen to the rest."

The man went still.

"When the long horn sounds, the ships close again. No racing off after the first fat merchant. The last boats are where I want them looking." Rolo released him. "Have him send the boat back when he understands."

The captain went quickly. Rolo sat upon a timber and pulled the wet bandage from his wrist. He bit the inside of his cheek until the pain eased enough to enjoy the thought of that little lord hearing that horn.

* * *
​

The arrow struck the steps where Corwyn had been standing. He heard it break as he ducked behind his shield, then the sailor beside him shouted that the boats were coming.

Brus caught the man by the shoulder and sent him down to the galley.

"Finish the steering oar. Get the others aboard."

The spokesman for Moreo's captured soldiers stood against the store wall, rubbing the red marks left by his bindings. Twenty-one men waited behind him. Corwyn had been counting them when the arrows came, wondering how many would reach for a knife once their hands were free.

Now they were looking at Vhalar's boats.

"The same wage as the other rowers," their spokesman said. "Passage to Dragonstone. No irons."

"You keep off the weapons," Brus told him. "You pull when the sailor gives the stroke, and you don't leave a bench because you hear fighting. Do that and you leave this island as free men. I'll answer for the bargain."

The man looked towards the blue banners. "Cut the others loose."

A soldier drew his knife, and the men offered their wrists one after another. Corwyn kept his hand upon his sword.

"Oars," Brus ordered. "Help the sailors."

One of the freed men caught a replacement shaft before it could fall. Another joined him, and together they carried it towards the water. Corwyn let his sword hand fall.

The sailor at the smaller galley's stern shouted that the new steering oar still would not sit true. Bero knelt over its fastening with a mallet. Another shaft struck the hull beneath him.

"Leave the steps!" Brus called.

His men came back beneath their shields. A sailor pulled the gangplank onto the smaller galley. Those aboard crouched behind the bulwark; Corwyn glimpsed the wounded swordsman's hand upon the hilt tied beside his leg, then a raised shield hid him.

There was no getting them out now. The three hostile galleys had spread across the harbour mouth. Even a sound ship would have had to fight her way through them.

The first landing boat struck stone. A blue shield rose over its side.

"Up the lane," Brus said. "Between the stores."

Corwyn backed with the line up the uneven stones where they had trapped the red axes. Now the fort gate was behind him. Six legionaries guarded the bound prisoners beneath it. Five men, including the optio, barred the northern store's back door. Their scout had seen Goro coming off the rocks; if his men broke through, they could strike the shield line from the side. Brus counted the men left to hold the lane.

Fourteen shields settled across the lane. There was room for only a few men to stand abreast; the others crowded behind, waiting to replace them. Edden, the older swordsman who had fought beside him at the western gate, stood upon Corwyn's right. Donnel, the young soldier who had helped him carry the wounded, stood upon his left, swallowing so hard that Corwyn could see his throat move.

* * *
​

Vhalar left five men at the landing to keep the rowers aboard. He brought the rest up between the stores, pointing two shields towards the open window above them. The black soldiers had used it once already.

"Close up. Wait for Goro."

The crab knight stood in the front rank, blood drying upon one sleeve. Beside him, a young soldier swallowed and tightened his grip. Vhalar brought his men within a spear's reach. Behind the northern store, Goro shouted. Something heavy struck the door.

"Now!"

They met with a crash that jarred Vhalar's shoulder. He thrust beneath his shield; a blade turned his point. Beside him, two of his men caught the young soldier's shield with a hook and hauled it sideways. Vhalar stepped into the opening and drove his sword low into the man's belly.

The crab knight struck at him. Vhalar knocked the blow aside and shoved the dying soldier into him. The knight stumbled; a grey-haired swordsman caught his belt. Another shield filled the gap, but the whole rank had moved uphill.

Vhalar went after them.

"Together!" someone behind him shouted.

He waited for the shield beside his own. At the back door, a man was calling for help. Too few voices answered. Vhalar grinned and drove forward again, forcing the knight against the men behind him. The knight's shield rim caught him beneath the jaw.

His teeth shut upon his tongue. For a moment he could hear nothing but his own breath. The mouths before him moved without words. Blood ran warm inside his cheek.

He was back in the yard at home, trying to get up. His practice sword lay beyond his fingers. His father caught him by the collar and hauled him to his feet.

"You stepped back."

The first blow turned his head.

Vhalar thrust beneath the crab knight's arm. His point scraped mail and bit through the padding. He wrenched it free as the knight twisted away.

"Weak boy. Stand and face me!" his father shouted.

He had raised an arm against the next blow. His father struck it down, hit him again and dragged him upright before he could fall. A sailor stood by the yard gate, looking at the ground.

"Look at you. A failure."

The knight's sword struck his shield. Vhalar swung at his face and made him duck. For a moment he saw Drazen's face as Rolo had held it up by the hair. Rolo had laughed while Vhalar's own men dragged him back from the rail.

Weak.

Drazen had come back to him bleeding, and Vhalar had made him beg for a cup of wine.

Failure.

Vhalar struck again. The knight's sword arm dropped against his side. Above his shoulder stood the fort gate, the walls Vhalar had climbed and won. Jon's men had carried his chests out through that gate.

WEAK. FAILURE.

Vhalar stepped past the man on his left, who was still fending off a spear, and followed the knight uphill.

"Vhalar!"

He heard that. Goro had come round the waterside corner of the store. Behind him, his men were still battering the door.

"Back! You're ahead of your men!"

The man on his left was a pace behind him now. He could fall back and let him draw level.

WEAK. WEAK. WEAK.

Vhalar drove his shield into the knight's, forcing him uphill. Let Goro see him bring this one down.

"Come on!" he shouted to his men.

A spear jabbed past his shoulder and rang against the knight's helm. The grey-haired swordsman struck it aside. Vhalar pressed harder. He could feel the knight's shield arm yielding beneath his weight.

"Take him!" the centurion called.

The knight bent his knees. His shield dropped beneath Vhalar's, then thrust upwards. Vhalar lurched forward and planted his foot wide to keep his balance.

A sword went into his thigh.

He roared and smashed his shield into the grey-haired man's helm. The man reeled against the wall. Before Vhalar could finish him, the crab knight dropped his sword, let his shield hang from its straps and seized Vhalar's sword wrist in both hands.

Vhalar tried to wrench free. His wounded leg folded.

"Through!" the knight shouted. "Let us through!"

The black shields parted behind him. A hand caught Vhalar's collar and another closed above his elbow. He kicked at a knee, dragging the knight sideways, but the centurion drove his shield into the pirates coming after him.

"Forward! Hold them there!"

Vhalar fell upon the knight behind the closing rank. His sword scraped stone beside the young man's head. Someone stamped upon the blade. The knight twisted his wrist until his fingers opened.

He let go of his shield's grip and punched the bastard in the mouth.

The knight drove a knee into his wounded thigh. Vhalar could not hold back the cry. The grey-haired swordsman dropped beside him, blood running from beneath his helm, and pressed a blade under his jaw.

"Move again."

Vhalar swore at him. Beyond the shields, Goro was trying to force his way uphill through the crowded men.

The centurion's line was yielding. One black soldier staggered back clutching his shoulder; another lay against the store with a spear through his throat. The rear door cracked beneath a fresh blow. A little longer and they would have broken through.

"Your captain's alive!" the centurion bellowed. "Come another pace and he won't be."

He pulled two men apart to show them. Vhalar tried to rise, and the blade lifted his chin. His men stopped. He could see their faces between the shields.

"Goro!"

Goro turned and shouted to the men behind the store. The blows upon the door ceased.

More boats were leaving the galleys. The centurion sent a scout up to the fort for one of Vhalar's captured men.

"Tell them to stay out," he told Vhalar. "You have men alive up there. I'll give them back. But you tell those boats to stay out."

Vhalar looked at the crab knight. Blood covered the young man's teeth. He was shaking, but his hands held firm, and his knee pressed harder into Vhalar's leg.

"Call them back."

The centurion beckoned the other scout close.

"Back to the hollow. Wait for Jon's crow. We need to know what's happening in the east."

* * *
​

Rolo's archers withdrew first. Jon watched the last one lift his quiver from beneath a shield and carry it behind the timber stack. The man did not unstring his bow.

"Keep ours in the loft," Jon told Hewyn. "Out of the windows."

The silence made the yard seem larger. Men bent beneath shields all afternoon began to straighten. One of Gerralt's soldiers sat staring at his knees until the centurion touched him with a boot.

"Eat something while you've time."

The soldier fumbled for his pouch. Jon remembered him complaining about the hard bread before they sailed. He would have given him fresh bread now, and a bed, and a month without the sound of a horn. Instead he looked past him to count the boats.

"They'll break it," Alasdair said.

"Perhaps."

His captain raised an eyebrow. Jon was too tired to pretend with him.

"Yes. When they think they can win more by breaking it."

"Then we should keep the fort until dark."

"And get the last men down those steps in the dark? With their ships waiting somewhere we can't see?" Jon rubbed his forehead with his good hand. He wanted to snap at Alasdair for finding one more difficulty. That was what the man was supposed to do. "We use the time. Keep the soldiers armed in the boats. Nobody leaves a shield ashore to make room for silver."

The first chest came down between two bearers, scraping the wall at one corner. Behind it, another pair carried a man with his leg splinted between boards. The chest bearers stood aside without being told.

There would be money for iron, another hull, stores laid in before the next war drove prices up. Men would rightly call this a raid for plunder. Jon had wanted the silver before he saw the prisoners' scarred wrists. He still wanted it. He could hate the men who filled those chests and find work for every coin inside them.

"Alasdair. The paper."

Inside the house, Jon dictated the agreement for Denys: one merchant through first, the fighting ships beside the troop boats, four ferries kept for the last men. Alasdair read it back.

"If the pirates close before we're aboard, he holds the passage for the boats. Even if they attack one of our merchants, he stays until the last boats are through."

Alasdair glanced at him. "Some of his own sailors are on those merchants."

"I know. Write it."

From here the merchant decks were distant brown shapes. Denys would hear the people upon them calling for help. Jon had ordered him to leave them to their escorts and keep the landing open.

Munin waited beneath the eaves. When the note was tied, Jon settled behind the closed door and took her out over the water.

The northern ships were pulling away from the coast. Beyond them, the red galleys facing Denys made room grudgingly; one turned only after a boat from Rolo's flagship reached her.

Jon brought Munin to Denys's after rail. Aurane reached for the thread with his sound hand. Jon released the crow and came back to his own aching hand, the cramped room and Alasdair waiting with a cup.

"Now Brus," he said.

This note took longer. Jon stopped Alasdair: it sounded too much like an order to win a battle he could not see.

"No. Say that if he gets clear, he takes the northern coast. Both ships if he can crew them. He waits behind the last headland before this harbour, where the pirates cannot see him from the landing."

"And then?"

"If Rolo keeps his word, Brus joins the convoy. If he attacks, Denys will call with three long blasts. Then Brus comes round behind the galleys closing on our boats. He strikes at their sterns, makes them turn. He isn't to board them."

Vhalar might keep Brus in the west until night. Even if the ships came, their decks would be crowded with wounded men and freed people. Jon watched the pen, wanting to recall the order. Those survivors faced another fight, but making the galleys turn might give Denys time to get the last boats out.

"Add that Denys must still be holding here," he said. "If we're already away, he follows us. No fighting for a harbour we've left."

Hugin complained when Alasdair tied the note, then settled upon Jon's knee. Jon ran a finger down his neck until the crow pecked him.

He carried the warning west inside Hugin. At the hollow, the older scout waited, spear against a tree, fresh blood dried upon one sleeve. He rose at the sound of wings. Jon set the crow upon the perch and released him as the scout reached for the paper.

By the time Jon returned to the landing, a square of pale cloth showed above Denys's stern. The message had been read.

At the steps, Rymond's optio checked each boat. Six coin chests waited against the wall beside the wrapped books. Two men brought the heavier plate chest down last and set it clear of the wounded.

"Room?" Jon asked.

"In the next boat after them." The optio pointed at the waiting bearers. "The plate waits."

"Good."

Far below, boats towed the first merchant clear of the crowded anchorage, her sail hanging loose. When she had room, her crew hauled the yard round. The canvas filled and she moved along the coast.

Jon watched the nearest red galley.

It stayed out.

For the first time since Rolo appeared, a ship full of people was leaving the island. Jon followed her until the northern rocks hid her lower hull. He wanted to believe the rest could be as simple.

"Hewyn," he called. "Start bringing the men down."

The first group came through the houses in two files, leaving room for bearers. At the landing turn, an optio sent down one boatload at a time. Shields remained along the lane and beneath the loft; the men boarding came from the ranks behind them.

Across the anchorage, soldiers climbed the sides of the troop transports. Jon watched one deck fill with black shields. The ferries came back for more.

* * *
​

Vhalar's leg was bound with a strip of his cloak. He watched the blood darken it, then tried moving his foot. Pain turned his stomach.

"Stay still," the grey-haired swordsman said.

Vhalar would remember that face.

Goro stood beyond the black shields. The centurion had propped Vhalar against the store wall where his men could see him. Each time he slipped, the swordsman caught his collar and hauled him upright.

"The boats are going back," Goro said.

"Keep the ships across the mouth. No one advances."

Fifty men waited in those boats; seventy-five more remained aboard. Goro still held the northern side of the stores. The black soldiers could barely stand, but their blades remained steady enough. Another attack would get Vhalar killed. Waiting might get him freed.

The sword pressed beneath his jaw.

"You kill me," he told the centurion, "and you have nothing to bargain with."

"Twenty-six of your garrison. Nine need help walking. Your wounded in the lane, too." The man turned towards Goro. "You can take them aboard. Or wait for Rolo to send ships round."

Vhalar watched Goro. Drazen would have found something else to offer them.

Goro glanced towards the wounded. "We need those men aboard before he comes."

"Then take them," the centurion said. "Your ships clear the harbour mouth. You leave our way north open."

"And him?"

"He comes to Lord Jon. Alive in my keeping. After that, he answers to my lord."

"For a rope?"

"I don't decide that."

This bastard could bargain away his life without once troubling to look important. He would carry Vhalar home like the silver and say he had obeyed.

Vhalar turned towards the young knight beside him. "You took me. What's your name?"

The knight straightened. "Ser Corwyn Celtigar."

"Then you answer for me. Goro will take a knight's word."

Corwyn glanced at the centurion. Vhalar saw the pause and pressed him.

"Or does he command you?"

"Aye. Brus commands here." Corwyn wiped his bloody mouth. "You heard his promise. I'll see it kept."

"Say it to my man."

The knight faced Goro. "He stays alive in Brus's custody. You have my word."

"And your lord?" Goro asked.

"I cannot promise his judgement."

Goro looked at Vhalar, propped against the wall.

"Then I'm coming to hear it."

The centurion frowned. Goro pointed towards the ships.

"You have my captain. I'm not sailing out of sight of him."

Below them, two men stopped upon the steps to shift a wounded sailor's weight. Brus watched them, then looked towards the galleys still blocking his way out.

"Clear the mouth. Wait off the western point until we've passed. You can follow beyond bowshot. One ship closes on us, he dies."

Goro's mouth tightened. He nodded.

Vhalar looked down at the blood beneath his leg. Goro had told him to come back. He had heard him. Now his men waited for his orders while a common soldier decided what to do with him.

Beyond Goro, two pirates were carrying a third downhill, a helmet beneath the wounded man's head. They stepped carefully around the dead, watching for any movement that hurt him.

Rolo would take the three galleys if he could.

"Take them. The garrison. All the wounded. Leave nobody here for that mad bastard."

"I'll speak to him about your ransom," Goro promised.

Goro's torn ear had begun bleeding again. Vhalar remembered the gold ring that had hung there that morning; a foolish thing to remember with the crews waiting upon his word.

"Keep the ships together," he said. "Whatever they ask for me, keep them together."

Goro nodded once.

They brought the garrison down in groups. Vhalar counted until a man stumbled and showed the raw bandage beneath his tunic. Then he watched their faces instead. Some looked towards him. More looked at the boats.

Two galleys drew west with the garrison and most of the wounded aboard. The third stayed across the harbour mouth. Below Vhalar, Goro stopped at the steps while men carried the last wounded down.

"Have her turn," Brus called. "Then you can follow in your own boat."

"When I see those men aboard." Goro pointed to the loaded boat pulling out to the galley. "They can't climb a rope. She stays until they're up."

Brus watched the ship, then beckoned two shieldmen down beside him.

"You stay here until she turns. Your boat can follow her out."

Goro's hand closed on his sword belt. Vhalar held his breath. Those men were already clear of the steps; Brus could not call them back. But Goro remained within reach of his shields.

"Aye," Goro said.

The galley's crew lifted the wounded over her side. Goro counted them across the rail, then raised his arm. Oars stirred; her bow turned west. Brus stepped aside to let him reach his boat.

One of the departing men called Vhalar's name. He lifted his chin before the swordsman's hand could make him do it.

* * *
​

The first merchant passed the northern point with every man upon her deck watching the red sails farther out.

Denys watched them too. The two fast pirate ships had pulled away from the coast as promised. One began to follow the merchant on her seaward side, keeping well beyond bowshot. Her fellow stayed behind her. They had opened the passage; they had not gone away.

"She's through," his mate said.

"Send the next."

The signal cloth rose. A second merchant moved towards the point, her sail filling. A guard urged the people crowding her rail back. Among them, the islander woman still held her bundle against her breast. She watched the shore as the fort slipped astern.

A shout drew his eye back to the leaking galley Jon had promised Rolo, moored farther down the landing, apart from Arthur's prize. Her old seams had opened as the boats brought more weight aboard. Despite the full buckets passing over her side, she sat lower than an hour ago.

For once, Denys begrudged the pirate nothing.

"Get the last men off her," he called. "Prisoners first. Bring the men bailing when they're clear."

The prisoners came up under guard, stumbling where their bound hands made the short ladder awkward. They were divided between boats already waiting beside her. A sailor tried to come down with a coil of good rope over his shoulder. The knot caught beneath the rail. He hauled at it, swore, and looked towards the flagship.

"Leave it," Denys shouted.

The man left it and climbed down into the boat, still muttering.

Ser Arthur stood beside the steering platform, working the fingers of his sword hand. His shield rested against his leg. When he moved his other shoulder, the skin tightened about his eyes.

"You could have that looked at."

"After Jon comes aboard."

Denys glanced towards the black line still holding the lane above the steps. "Aye."

The pirate galley still waited seaward of the flagship. Her captain had drawn his men back from the rail, but the hooks they had displayed all afternoon lay beside their feet. Other red sails waited behind her. Denys hoped the agreement disappointed him.

"Keep the signal up where their captain can see it," he told the mate. "Let him know we've heard the terms."

The mate followed his glance. "You believe them?"

"The first merchant is through. That's all we know. Keep your eyes on that galley."

The crippled prize's last men left her. The sailor in charge lingered beneath the stern rail, looking along the deck, then climbed into the boat. Denys waited until it was clear before sending it on. The abandoned hull sagged at her mooring. Drazen's carrier and Arthur's captured galley would go home with them, if he could keep them.

Arthur's captured galley lay between Denys's flagship and the shore, close enough to cover the ferries coming from the steps. The twelve soldiers Malcolm had sent aboard her still guarded the steering platform and the prisoners beneath the raised deck. Two were bowmen; Denys had put them at the inshore rail to watch the timber yard. Her borrowed crew had found something like a common stroke. Denys would need it when the shore party came down.

"Keep her there," he told the mate. "If the archers start again, her bowmen cover the steps. She goes with the last loaded ferry. We follow both."

Aurane brought Jon's note aft, marked by the crow's foot. Denys reread the last lines. Boats for the covering men. Ships ready before the line came down. No one was to be left on those steps calling after a boat that had already gone.

He looked up. Aurane had already turned towards the boat tackle.

"Which one?" Denys asked.

"The broad ferry. She'll take shields without putting everyone against one side."

"Keep her outside our oars until you're called in. If the other boats crowd the steps, wait behind Arthur's prize. They'll see you from the landing."

Aurane nodded. "I'll take the boatmen who brought Rymond out."

The wounded centurion lay beneath a stretched sailcloth nearby, his leg raised upon a folded cloak. He opened his eyes at his name.

"My optio will be the last at the steps. He'll want to count them before he gets in."

"Then your optio can count in the boat," Denys replied.

Rymond's mouth moved, almost a smile. "Tell him that."

"I will," Aurane said.

Blood had soaked through the fresh linen near Aurane's thumb. Denys nearly told him to remain aboard. There were men enough to steer a ferry; surely he could send someone else.

Aurane saw where he was looking and curled his fingers, testing them.

"I can hold the tiller."

"Have someone else take the lines."

"Already chosen him." Aurane beckoned a boatman with a coil of rope over his shoulder. The man came over, grinning at something Aurane said too quietly for Denys to hear.

Denys watched him cross the deck. He had been glad of Aurane when captains needed persuading and ships hiring. Now, with Rolo's hooks a short row away, he could think of a dozen reasons to give the work to someone else.

"Keep one boat at the steps when the others fill," he called.

Aurane looked back over the rail. "Have you forgotten I've Velaryon blood? We know the sea." He grinned and climbed into the boat.

He sent his boatmen to their places and took the tiller himself.

The next merchant was moving. Beyond the point the first had drawn farther north, and the transport escort held between her and the watching pirates. Soldiers lined the troop transports behind them, their shields hung ready along the rails. More than a hundred fit men had been afloat even before Hewyn began sending the shore force across. They were spread among the fighting ships, the escorts and the prizes with prisoners aboard. Now the transports were filling too. Denys sent them north as they were ready; bringing their men back would mean sending loaded boats through the galleys waiting to close upon him.

Denys folded Jon's message along its old crease. Below the inshore rail, Aurane's ferry pushed clear, turned, and settled into its place beneath the captured galley's stern. Aurane raised his sound hand.

Denys answered, then looked back at the hooks.

* * *
​

The third galley cleared the harbour mouth and joined the others off the western point. The lookout upon the ridge lowered his arm. Brus called the rowers to their places, and Corwyn began unfastening a harbour rope.

"Not that one," the sailor at the bow shouted. "The other rope. Leave me that one until we're clear of the steps."

Corwyn hauled the wrong rope back aboard and felt his face grow hot. The sailor took it without comment.

Goro had followed the last galley in his boat. Before leaving, he had touched the dead man's belt and looked up towards Vhalar. Corwyn had helped bring the captive aboard afterwards. Now Vhalar sat bound beside the smaller galley's stern, watching his ships.

Bero kept his hand against the replacement steering oar's fastening while the sailor tested it.

"She'll make a broad turn. Haul her round hard and you'll tear this loose."

Brus looked at the wood beneath his fingers. "Tell me before we ask too much of her."

"I will."

The sailor eased the shaft back. Bero stayed beside him.

Across the strip of water between the prizes, men lowered the second galley's oars. There were too few rowers to work them all, so the sailors had left empty places at either end and matched the working oars on each side. She would move, but slowly.

Twenty-two of Moreo's men sat upon those benches. Beside them were the two freed rowers the smaller galley did not need, and eight legionaries with their shields stacked within reach. One legionary's oar struck his neighbour's. The man beside him swore, caught the shaft and showed him how to keep it clear.

Brus divided the sailors between the ships. Each deck would have six fit fighting men. He gave Corwyn command of the second galley, with three bowmen and two guards, and kept two bowmen aboard his own. They had found bows in the stores and gathered arrows from the dead. Edden watched the bound red-axe men beneath the smaller ship's forward rail, while a guard stayed close to Vhalar. The other red-axe captives went aboard Corwyn's galley.

Twenty still fit, out of the thirty-two who had crossed the hills. Four dead lay wrapped beneath the forward shelters, two in each galley. Eight wounded had places made for them, including the three hurt in the first fight. Corwyn had helped carry the last aboard and had been afraid to ask whether the man was breathing until his eyes opened.

The freed brothers sat close enough to see each other. One pulled an oar; the other lay with his bad leg stretched beside a chest. He kept a hand upon its corner each time the hull moved, as though he could steady the ship that way.

Moreo's portable wealth filled the spaces Brus had allowed it. Coin, small silver vessels, sealed packets taken from the strong room. A carved chair remained beneath the gate, along with the heavy things no man could carry without leaving another man ashore. Corwyn had coveted a silver lamp until he tried lifting it with his cut wrist. It was still in the house.

The older scout brought the crow aboard upon its perch. He had fetched Jon's letter while Goro's last boats loaded. Brus had read it twice before passing it to Corwyn.

They were to wait behind the last headland before the eastern landing. Three long blasts from Denys would call them out against the sterns of the galleys attacking the last boats. Otherwise they were to join the convoy.

Corwyn had looked from the letter to their benches. He had thought they were escaping.

Brus dictated his answer. Two prizes ready to row; Vhalar taken; his man Goro following with the three galleys, beyond bowshot, to discuss a ransom. Two more dead, five more wounded, everyone aboard. The scout tied the paper to Hugin's leg. Brus moved the perch beneath the steering platform, clear of the ropes.

"Will he find Jon from out there?" Corwyn asked.

"I'd rather he left from a ship than from a fort we're abandoning." Brus checked the knot beneath the bird's leg. "When he goes."

Hugin stared at Corwyn, who withdrew his hand before the beak opened. There had to be a trick: some faint call, some manner of feeding that taught a crow where to fly. Jon would not be getting this creature back without questions.

Brus went forward and told the rowers where they were going.

One of Moreo's men called across from the other galley that he had bargained for Dragonstone.

"So have we," Brus answered. "The rest of our men are at the eastern landing. We help them clear, then we all go."

"Red axes there?"

"Aye."

The man stared at him, then looked towards the heads bent over the wounded. He spat into the water and took his oar again. Corwyn was grateful that Brus had not called it an easy passage.

The younger scout ran down from the gate and crossed the plank. Sailors took in the last ropes. Vhalar cursed beneath his breath as the count passed along the benches.

Corwyn went to the rail beside Brus.

"Did Jon know we'd have to buy our way out with a man's throat?"

"No."

"But he expects us round the island."

"He expects me to decide whether we can get there."

Corwyn looked from the centurion's torn sleeve and bloody jaw to the loaded decks. The men trying their oars had brought more aboard than he would have believed possible.

"Can we?"

Brus watched the coast ahead. "We'll know more at the point."

Corwyn tightened his shield straps and crossed to the second galley. Brus's rowers found their stroke first. The smaller ship moved out, then eased while Corwyn's mixed crew struggled after her. Both hulls cleared the harbour mouth and turned north. Beyond the point, Goro's three galleys began to follow, keeping their distance.

* * *
​

Rolo let the grain carriers pass.

They came down from the fort in pairs, their backs bent beneath sacks. He could have put arrows into them. Instead he watched the number of black shields above the lane diminish and listened to the captains beside him discover how much restraint they possessed when he was holding the axe.

One had begun to complain about the people aboard the merchants. A look silenced him. The next complaint concerned the silver, and that man took care to make it sound like a question.

Rolo pointed to the pale head moving above the landing steps.

"There."

The captain followed his gaze. The boy had come down with his last guards. He spoke to the officer loading the boats, then turned uphill as more soldiers descended. They were bringing their spring watch in; Rolo recognised the long spears he had seen above the northern houses.

No more jars went up to the gate. No more bearers came out of it.

"The boy?" the captain asked.

"His men go aboard. He stays until they do."

A fine habit. Lords ought to encourage it in one another.

Rolo stood, stiff from the timber, the cut beneath his shirt pulling. His first mate had sent the boat back; the ships knew to close at the horn. Some merchants were already beyond the point. Let them go. The boy was down from his fort now, with more men waiting on the steps than the boats alongside could take.

Rolo grinned and tightened the fresh strip around his wrist with his teeth.

"Shields first. The bowmen come to the end of the stack when we move. Shoot at the men waiting by the boats. I want them climbing over one another."

A captain swallowed.

"They'll fire the fort."

"The gate's empty. He'd have to send men back." Rolo pointed his axe at the shields below the bend. "Keep them here."

He glanced west. Still no word of Vhalar, his three galleys or the raiders sent after him.

But the little lord was here.

Rolo raised the axe. The horn beside him sounded its long, ugly note.

He ran before it ended.

The men carrying shields reached the lane first. Rolo went between them as the black line turned, and the first spear came so quickly that its point struck sparks from his mail. He knocked the shaft down, stamped upon it and drove his axe over the shield in front of him. The soldier caught the blow high. His knees bent beneath it, but he did not fall.

"Again!" Rolo shouted, laughing now. "Come on, you hard little fuckers!"

A second pirate struck the shield from the side. Rolo wrenched his axe loose and chopped at the space that opened. The edge entered below the soldier's helmet. Hot blood splashed his knuckles. He dragged the man forward by the lodged blade, using his falling weight to pull at the black line.

Another shield filled the gap.

For an instant the denial enraged him more than the whole afternoon's fighting. He had killed the fellow properly. His friends were supposed to notice. They were supposed to flinch.

They noticed. One of them screamed something at him, a name perhaps, but the shields stayed together.

Rolo put his shoulder beneath the axe haft and shoved. The men behind drove with him. This time the line yielded a pace. Over its rim he could see the landing path, a boatman turning at the horn, the boy being pulled behind a raised shield.

There. Let him count the boats now.

At the southern steps an arrow struck a sailor who was holding a ferry steady. He fell against her gunwale. The boat swung out, its stern catching the bow of the one waiting behind. Oars lifted in a tangle. Men shouted from both boats, each trying to push the other clear.

Rolo saw the boy look towards them.

He hit the shields again.

* * *
​

Jon started down towards the jammed ferries. Above him, Norren's men were hurrying from the store to join Hewyn at the lane bend.

"Hold the bend!" Jon called. "Garon, get our bowmen shooting from the loft. Then come straight back."

Sixty-four fit men had remained ashore when Rolo broke the truce, Norren's sixteen among them. The rest of the eastern force had crossed, including the spring watch. Hewyn had kept shields in the lane while each group went down. The optio had checked the places in the four reserved ferries. They could take these last men together, but the first two were jammed at the steps.

Alasdair caught his shoulder. "Behind me."

At the foot of the path, the first ferry still slewed across the landing, her wounded boatman folded over the gunwale. Aurane's broad boat was trapped behind her, rowers holding their oars clear of the stone.

Rymond's optio had one foot in the water. He pushed at the nearer bow without moving it.

"Leave that oar!" Jon shouted. "The one caught underneath. Let it go."

A sailor stared at him, then released the shaft. It slid between the boats. The ferries lurched apart, and the optio shoved the first away from the steps.

"Get him into the bottom of the boat," Jon called, pointing at the wounded boatman. "Fill the other places. Then make for the prize."

The sailor looked at his remaining oars. There were not enough to pull evenly. Aurane leaned over his own stern and caught the smaller boat's painter.

"Take my spare pair!"

The oars passed across. The optio rushed the waiting soldiers down, then caught the next man by the chest before he could crowd aboard. The ferry pulled away full, carrying several men meant to cover the others. Jon let them go. The remaining boats had room; calling anyone back would jam the steps again.

A crash sounded uphill. Hewyn's men yielded a pace at the bend, then held. Norren brought his remaining spearmen into the lane behind them. Two soldiers were trying to carry a wounded man past the spears. There was scarcely room to turn.

Jon looked seaward. Red galleys were turning towards the passage Denys had kept open. The nearest was already bearing down upon Arthur's captured galley, which sheltered the boats. Beyond her, Denys's flagship began to turn.

Brus should have reached the point by now.

Should. He had sent orders across a hill and trusted two broken ships. Vhalar might be standing over their ashes.

"Alasdair. The store doorway."

Alasdair pushed him into the shallow recess beside the landing path, where the stone wall hid him from the passing men, and stood over him with his shield raised.

Jon closed his eyes.

Hugin clung to a moving perch. Below him, a rower's scarred back rose and fell. Brus stood beside the newly fitted steering oar while a sailor tested its turn.

They had come.

Relief struck so sharply that Jon nearly lost the bird. The headland still hid the eastern landing. Corwyn's galley followed Brus; farther astern came three more hulls. Folded paper pulled at Hugin's leg.

Jon launched from the perch. Brus called up after him, his words lost in the wind. No time to circle. He flew round the point.

Rolo's northern watchers were well out from shore, turning towards the convoy. The coastal water remained clear. The nearer red galley had committed herself southwards towards Denys and the ferries; her stern faced the headland. Jon carried Hugin to the landing-store roof, then down to Alasdair's waiting arm.

The world shrank. His guard was already taking the paper.

"Two prizes," Alasdair read. "Vhalar taken. His garrison returned for our passage. Goro follows with the three galleys, beyond bowshot, to discuss his captain's ransom."

For a heartbeat Jon stared at him. Vhalar taken. Brus had brought a pirate lord out with the silver.

A spear scraped down the wall outside. The household captain pushed Jon lower.

"Tell Denys they're behind the point," Jon said. "Three long blasts will bring them in. Send Hugin to his ship with that paper."

Alasdair turned the note and added the words. Jon counted his breaths, hearing Hewyn call for the left side to hold. Rolo's laughter sounded as if he stood in the doorway.

He took Hugin once more, flying across to Denys's after deck. As the captain reached for the bird, Jon released him and dragged himself back to the pain in his hand.

That was all the looking he could afford. Three long blasts sounded from Denys's flagship.

"Back to Hewyn."

They emerged among the bearers. One man pressed both hands where his ear had been. Jon let him pass, then saw red shields at the bend.

Hewyn had abandoned it. His men now stood across the narrower lane between the loft and store, barely a dozen paces from the path down to the boats.

"I told you to hold the bend." Rolo was that much nearer the steps.

"And who would carry them?" Hewyn pointed with his bloody sword. "Four shields across here. I could spare six men."

The bearers hurried past. Hewyn had made the choice while Jon sat helpless behind Alasdair.

Jon swallowed the order to retake the bend. He had taught Hewyn to judge the ground.

"Aurane's below. Send them straight down."

"Go with them."

Rolo's axe rose beyond the shields. A household guard fell. Rolo called something, and the red shields drew back a pace. Jon thought they were tiring. Two household men stepped forward to cover their fallen companion while another caught him under the arms.

One guard shifted his shield to let the bearer through. Rolo struck its edge and drove into the gap, his laughter rising above the clash. He had given them just enough room to come after their friend.

"Norren! Spears over them!" Jon pointed. "Let the swordsmen bring him in."

The long shafts met Rolo as he reached across with the axe. He knocked one aside, but the second drove him back. The soldier was dragged clear, leaving a dark smear down the paving. Jon kept Norren's spears behind the household, ready to cover the next bearer.

Jon wanted every bow turned upon that laughing face. The soldier sagged between his friends, his heels dragging over the stones.

"Keep shooting at their archers," he told Garon, who had returned from the loft. "Send two bowmen down with the next boat. The other two stay until the galley's bows take over."

The boy looked towards Rolo. Jon caught his sleeve.

"The archers. They can reach the boats."

Garon nodded and ran.

Behind them Aurane shouted that the next ferry was ready. Hewyn sent men from the rear by pairs, keeping the four shields across the passage and fresh men behind them. The bearers went with each group. One carried a dead soldier's feet against his breast while his companion struggled with the weight beneath the shoulders. Rolo saw the ranks thinning and drove harder. Norren took a thrust upon his shield and turned it aside for the swordsman next to him. The man killed the pirate reaching after it and stepped back into place.

At the steps, the optio laid the dead beneath the benches and sat the wounded between men who could support them. The second ferry left. He beckoned the third in while Aurane held his broad boat clear of the steps.

A warning horn sounded beyond the northern point. At the back of Rolo's men, someone shouted towards the harbour.

Beyond the yard, a galley's blue banner came into view close against the shore. Black shields lined her deck. The next hull followed, Corwyn standing behind the painted crab. The nearest red galley's crew scrambled aft as arrows struck around her steering platform. She had been closing on the ferries. Now her helmsman was looking behind him, and her oars faltered.

"There's Brus," Alasdair said.

Arthur's captured galley drew towards the steps while the red ship struggled to regain her stroke. From there her two bowmen could shoot past the store corner into the timber yard. The first shafts struck around the stack; a pirate dropped behind it, and another ran for the houses. Garon came out of the loft with the last two bowmen at his heels.

Three more blue banners appeared beyond the point. Rolo swung round. "Vhalar, you bastard!" A captain caught his sleeve and pointed at their landing boats beside the timber stack. Rolo shoved him towards the yard.

"Get our boatmen aboard and pull clear of the shore! The rest of you, forward!"

He struck a shield hard enough to throw its bearer against the man behind him. Norren's spear caught beneath the axe haft and held it long enough for the soldier to recover. The pirates at Rolo's back shoved forward, but only four could reach the black shields between the walls.

The third ferry shoved off. Aurane brought his broad boat alongside the steps before it had gone a length, and the optio caught the line thrown to him.

"Last boat!"

Jon looked at Hewyn. "Bring them down."

Gerralt took the middle of the shield line. Hewyn drew the spearmen out behind him a pair at a time, sending them straight to the steps. Rolo pressed after each movement. Gerralt gave ground by single paces, with the shields still touching, until his men stood beside the door Jon had ordered brought from the empty house. It screened the top of the steps from the timber yard. The path narrowed to two men abreast at the stairhead.

The last two bowmen were already in Aurane's ferry. One loosed towards the yard while the other crouched beside a wounded man to keep clear of his fellow's string. Arrows from the galley struck above them. Jon saw a pirate try to reach the open side of the landing and stumble back with a shaft in his shoulder.

"At the water!" Rolo shouted. "Get your bows down to the water!"

His archers began edging away from the stack, looking for a shot past the door. Hewyn caught Norren's arm and sent him down. Alasdair brought Jon after them. Gerralt and the last shieldmen still faced the pirates.

The last wounded man lay in Aurane's ferry with a cloak beneath his head. The optio counted the men coming down the steps, pointing each to a place without letting anyone stop beside the gunwale.

Jon turned to look for Gerralt. Alasdair put a hand between his shoulders.

"Get in. You're blocking him."

Jon stepped into the ferry and caught the rail as it dipped beneath his weight. Behind Alasdair, Hewyn held his shield over the optio while the man cast off the line. Only Gerralt and two guards remained above them.

Gerralt's borrowed shield split across its boss beneath Rolo's axe. He thrust over it, forcing the pirate to pull his head back, and shouted to the guards. They heaved the door sideways into the passage. Its edge struck the nearer wall and jammed across the way. A pirate caught it before it fell; the men behind him crashed into his back.

The guards came down the steps with Gerralt behind them. A boatman held the ferry against the steps with his pole until the last man jumped. Aurane put the tiller over.

"Push! Give me room for the oars!"

The pole scraped stone. The ferry swung clear, and the rowers pulled. Above them the door fell with a crash. Rolo came through it, dragging a man out of his way, but the first stroke had already carried the boat beyond his reach. An arrow struck a raised shield. Another skipped from the water beside Jon's hand.

Jon looked back. Rolo stood on the steps, shouting for his bowmen, axe in hand. Behind him the fort gate remained open, the stores standing, the jars unlit. The island was his to take.

Jon turned towards Denys's ship and put his sound hand beneath a wounded man's shoulder.

* * *
​

The pirate captain had driven his rowers back to the stroke. His galley came on again, turning across the water between Denys and the landing.

An arrow struck the man beside her steering oar. He fell across its shaft. Another glanced from the stern rail, and the helmsman ducked, leaving the great oar to drag.

Denys looked past her.

The two western prizes drew in behind her, a blue banner above the nearer ship's black shields. On the slower second galley, a red crab flashed upon a knight's shield. Farther north, Goro's three fighting galleys held beyond bowshot, clear of the passage along the coast.

Denys stared. "Brus."

Arthur had seen them. "Those are Corwyn's colours."

Thirty swords and two scouts had gone into the hills; now their ships came at the pirates' backs. Denys could see scarcely half a dozen black shields on either deck.

"Forward together," he told the mate. "Bring us alongside that bastard. Keep our inshore side clear."

The mate bawled the stroke. The flagship moved, her bow rising through the wash of the nearest galley. Denys pointed towards the shore. Aurane's broad ferry had left the steps. Shields crowded her gunwale; a pale head showed between two of them. Jon was aboard.

The pirate captain saw the ferry too. He shouted towards his steering platform, urging his galley across the water the little boat would have to cross. The helmsman hauled the fallen man off his oar. Behind him, Brus's bowmen loosed again.

"Stay on him," Denys said. "He doesn't get round our stern."

An arrow took one of Malcolm's bowmen beneath the jaw. He sat down hard against the rail, both hands closing upon the shaft. The bowman beside him reached out, then looked at Arthur.

"Keep shooting," Arthur told him.

The man turned back with his mouth twisted. Denys gripped the rail, watching the pirate captain point his sword at Aurane's boat. All afternoon he had shown his hooks and let other ships keep him safe. Denys wanted to put a spear through him.

"Steady," he said, before the mate could ask him how much closer. Then, as the hulls drew together, "Oars in! Both sides. Leave room for the ferry."

The mate passed the order. Oars scraped inboard, and the flagship glided against the pirate. Wood grated along her outer side. The enemy rowers had been too slow; two of their shafts broke between the hulls, their splintered ends springing above the rail. A hook flew over Denys's forward deck and caught. Another fell among the shields. Malcolm stamped a foot upon its line while a soldier hacked at the rope.

"Archers, stern!" Arthur called. "Keep their helmsman down."

He left the forward deck and came aft. At the inshore rail a sailor was leaning out with a boathook, trying to catch Aurane's ferry as the ships' wash pushed her away.

"Not her gunwale," Arthur said. "The rope. Take the rope."

The boatman Aurane had chosen threw it. The coil struck the flagship's side and dropped. Arthur put his shield down, caught the line with both hands and hauled. His face whitened. A sailor took the strain beside him, then another, bringing the loaded ferry beneath the rail.

"Make her fast fore and aft," Denys said. "Don't let her swing under us."

The ship lurched. On the outer side, pirates came over the damaged rail.

Malcolm met the first with two spearmen. Their points drove him backwards into the man climbing after him, but a third dropped farther aft, beside the mast. One of the legionaries turned to face him. The pirate's sword went under the shield and into his belly.

Arthur snatched up his own shield.

The swordsman pulled his blade free and came at him, his next cut already rising. Arthur stepped inside it. His shield rim caught the man's wrist; his point entered beneath the lifted arm. He drew back as the pirate folded, turning towards a second man whose axe was coming over his head.

Denys saw the blow coming and thought it must strike the injured shoulder. Arthur gave it the shield's sloping edge. The axe skidded down, wrenching his arm low, but his sword was already moving beneath it. He cut the man's forward knee and, as he fell, drove the point into his throat.

The third pirate had a short spear. He thrust over his dying fellow, using the body to keep Arthur back. Arthur's blade struck the shaft aside. He did not follow it. He waited while the spearman dragged the point round for another thrust, then advanced as Malcolm's nearest soldier raised a shield against it. The spearhead struck black-painted wood. Arthur went past the shield's edge and cut across the pirate's exposed neck.

Three men lay between him and the mast. He had barely crossed the width of the deck.

"Arthur!" someone roared.

The name ran forward. Men who had been looking back towards the ferry turned their shields upon the outer rail again. Malcolm shoved one into place beside him, and they drove at the boarders together.

Arthur paused, sword low. His shield arm shook as he lifted it. He drew breath through his teeth, then went to help Malcolm hold the crossing.

The mate caught Denys's sleeve. "The ferry."

Jon was still below, pushing a wounded man towards the sailors reaching down. Alasdair braced a shield over both of them. Men were climbing the short ladder one at a time; there was no room to hurry them without putting someone into the water. Beyond the ferry, Arthur's captured galley had begun to pull north with the last of the other boats sheltered beside her.

"Bring the wounded over this rail," Denys told the sailors. "Two men to every lift."

An arrow struck Alasdair's shield. Jon flinched beneath it, then put his sound hand under the wounded man's shoulder and pushed again. Denys caught the man's belt. For a moment the weight hung between ship and boat; then the sailors dragged him aboard and laid him clear.

Coming up behind the pirate, Corwyn brought his bow beside her last oars on the seaward side. A hook caught the pirate's after rail. Two sailors made the rope fast around a stout post. At Corwyn's call, his rowers reversed their stroke. The line drew taut, checking the pirate's stern. Her last three oars struck Corwyn's bow and were dragged inboard. With Denys alongside, she had little room to turn. Brus's two archers loosed at the men gathering to cut the rope. One fell across the steering platform; the others crouched behind their shields while their captain screamed at them.

A second pirate galley tried to come to his aid. Denys filled the water beside the first ship; Corwyn's bow lay close behind her stern. The newcomer turned away from the shore to seek room.

Brus turned towards the coastal passage. A man caught the helmsman's arm and pointed at the steering oar's rough fastening. The helmsman eased it back and called for the outer oars to pull harder. The laden hull swung slowly, its bow clearing the pirate's stern.

The way north was open between the fighting ships and the coast.

"Send the inshore galley ahead," Denys ordered. "The boats with her."

The mate raised the signal cloth and shouted until the sailor aboard Arthur's captured galley looked back. Her bow turned towards the point. The ferries followed close to her inshore side, their boatmen pulling hard.

A spearman beside the mast tried to stand and fell against it. His leg would not bear him. Another legionary crawled clear of the crossing with one arm bent horribly beneath him. Malcolm had already sent two men away from the forward rail with arrows in them; now he called for someone to take the injured spearman's place.

Denys looked at the bowman beside the rail and the stabbed soldier by the mast. Neither moved.

"Jon!" he shouted. "Aboard."

Jon waved the next soldier towards the ladder, then the boatmen. Denys was about to curse him when the pirate captain stepped onto his own rail.

Arthur turned towards him. The man's sword struck his shield. Arthur gave ground half a pace, set his heel, and caught the returning cut upon his own blade. The pirate had seen what happened to his men. He stayed upon his own rail, reaching across the gap, while two of his fellows dragged a hooked line tighter.

Malcolm raised his spear to cover Arthur's flank.

They could take him. Denys knew it. Another push, Arthur over the rail, Malcolm after him, and the captain who had tormented their boats would be theirs.

Jon caught the top of the ladder. Alasdair came behind him, then Aurane, last of all, with the ferry's towrope over his sound wrist. A sailor took it and secured it at the stern. The lines holding the empty ferry alongside were released, and she dropped back on the towrope.

"Cut away," Denys ordered.

Arthur looked back once.

"Everyone's aboard. Cut us loose."

Malcolm struck at the hands hauling the nearest line. Arthur turned the captain's blade, stepped back, and brought his sword down upon the taut rope. The first stroke opened it. The second parted it, sending one of the pirates sprawling. Sailors pushed with poles. The hulls drew apart amid the snapping ends of broken oars.

Across the pirate's stern, Corwyn's men cut their own grapple. Brus waved from the leading ship as she straightened into the coastal passage. Corwyn brought his bow round towards the northern point and followed him.

"North," Denys told the mate. "Behind them."

The flagship began to turn. Her outer oars went out between the broken shafts and caught the water. Aurane bent double beside the ladder, holding his bleeding palm against his chest. Denys pulled him clear of a sailor carrying a spear.

"You came back."

Aurane looked up, breathless. "I had your ferry."

Denys almost laughed. Then he saw the second pirate galley coming round the seaward side of the fight.

Her captain had abandoned his damaged fellow. Corwyn was nearer, his few black shields gathered at the bow. A hook flew across his after rail. It caught beside the steering platform, and the pirates hauled their line tight.

Corwyn's stern swung seaward, dragging the oars sideways. The rowers lost their stroke, shouting across the benches. One legionary reached for his shield.

"Keep rowing!" Corwyn roared.

Brus was ahead in the passage, with the coast on one side and Corwyn's galley behind him. His helmsman leaned on the steering oar; Bero seized his shoulder and shook his head. Even if the fastening held, Brus could not bring his bow round without blocking Corwyn's escape. At Corwyn's stern, a sailor hacked at the taut rope as the pirates hauled themselves closer.

"Hold here," Denys ordered. "Bowmen, their forward deck."

The mate looked towards the open water ahead.

"Corwyn's still caught. Hold."

Denys pointed out the pirates hauling at the grapple. There was clear water between those men and the western prize. Malcolm brought the bowmen to the rail; their first arrows made two pirates drop the line and stoop behind their shields. The others kept hauling.

Corwyn ran aft. His red crab shield struck a spear thrust across the narrowing gap. A pirate stepped onto the rail behind the spearman, reaching for the prize's side. Corwyn's sword caught his hand. He fell back aboard his own ship, screaming, and the knight set his shield beside the sailor cutting the rope.

The sailor chopped twice against the rail. Fibres parted beneath his blade.

The captain behind Denys shouted for fresh hooks. An arrow struck the flagship's stern. Arthur started towards it with his shield low, but Malcolm sent two soldiers past him. Jon waited beside the ladder, sword drawn. Denys wanted him below, every ship beyond that damned point.

"Again!" he shouted to the archers.

Their arrows struck the pirate bow. The sailor beside Corwyn drove his blade down once more, and the rope parted. Its loose end whipped into the water. Corwyn's stern swung free; men at the benches dragged their oars clear and found the stroke again.

"Now," Denys told the mate. "Get us after him."

The second pirate captain had to turn to follow. Denys brought his flagship up on Corwyn's seaward side, shielding the prize with his own hull. The pirate could come against them if he liked. There would be no frightened handful waiting for him this time.

He held away. Beyond him, Rolo's larger galley raised a signal and turned towards the timber yard. Men were gathering at the water there, their boats coming in to fetch them.

The western prizes passed the northern point. Ahead, the merchants had the distance the truce had bought, sails dark against the evening sky. Denys watched Corwyn's uneven oars until the galley reached Brus. Both were still moving.

"Keep pulling," he told the mate.

Behind them a horn called across the water. Denys faced forward.

* * *
​

Rolo came over his flagship's rail with blood drying between his fingers. A sailor reached for the axe. He drove the haft into the man's chest and kept it.

"The fast ships can catch them," his mate said.

Rolo looked north. Beyond the damaged prizes, three blue banners moved with the black ships. He knew those hulls. Vhalar's remaining galleys, sound and crowded with men. They had followed the raiders round the island without striking at them once.

So the little shit had made his bargain. Rolo had killed Drazen, and Vhalar had gone running to the boy.

The big black ship turned enough to show the shields along her rail. The men who had held the landing were aboard now. Rolo's fast ships would reach them alone, with Vhalar's three waiting nearby. One of his own galleys was clearing broken oars; boats still crossed between the others and the shore.

"Call them back."

The mate hesitated. Rolo caught his collar.

"Together, you deaf cunt. Bring the ships together."

The horn sounded. Rolo let him go and looked towards the fort. Whole walls. Stores unburnt. His men upon the steps. He would not empty the harbour chasing silver and leave Vhalar a way back in.

"Get our men off the beach. Leave enough to hold the fort. Lookouts on the ridge. I want warning if those blue sails turn." He wiped his hand down his shirt. "And I'll have a count of what's still mine."

Rolo watched the black sails draw away. "I'll remember that boy lord." A cruel smile spread across his face. "Once I've more men in that fort and my ships are ready, I might pay him a visit."

* * *
​

The northern headland passed astern.

Jon watched until the fort disappeared. After a day spent looking towards those walls, their absence unsettled him. Beyond the point, red sails were moving towards the shore instead of after them.

Denys kept the flagship behind the slower vessels. The merchants were already spreading too far apart; he sent a signal forward, and the nearest shortened sail. Jon waited for him to finish before asking about the prizes.

"Two from the eastern fight," Denys said. "Both western hulls. That makes four brought away. The leaking one stays with Rolo."

Jon looked along the line. Four ships he had not owned when they came to Bloodstone. One carried men who had been chained that morning, pulling beside others who had bargained for their passage. The rough new steering oar aboard Brus's galley dipped, rose, and dipped again. She was slow. She was theirs.

Denys returned the note Hugin had carried to his ship. Alasdair brought it to Jon. Jon read it properly at last. Vhalar under guard. The new captives embarked. Moreo's portable silver and coin taken; the heavier furnishings left. Two more dead beyond the hills, five more unable to fight.

From the second galley ahead, Corwyn looked back towards Jon. He lifted his crab shield, then lowered it quickly, favouring his wrist. Jon raised his good hand in answer. Brus's ship held nearby, keeping the pair together. A bound figure sat beneath her after rail between two black shields, one leg stretched stiffly before him.

Vhalar lifted his head.

Vhalar looked from Jon to the wounded men along the rail, then back to Jon. His mouth moved, but the words did not carry. Jon held his gaze until the distance between their ships widened.

"His wounds get looked at," he told Alasdair. "Two guards with him. No knives within reach, no talking to the rowers."

Alasdair nodded. "I'll send a boat across once we're clear."

Jon looked towards the three blue banners following them. "Tell Goro he can come alone to discuss the ransom. His ships keep their distance." He folded the report and put it away.

Hewyn found him there with the count from the lane. Four dead, eight more unable to fight. All brought off. His voice was hoarse; he swallowed and began again when Jon missed the last words.

Near the mast, sailors were spreading a blanket over the soldier who had taken the sword in his belly. They had laid his helmet beside him. A few paces farther on, Arthur sat with his shield across his knees while someone loosened the straps from his injured shoulder. He looked up at Jon, started to rise, and stopped when Jon shook his head.

Garon was asleep against a coil of rope. His mouth hung open. Jon stepped around his legs and leaned against the rail.

The coin chests were aboard. The books too, and the plate that had waited behind the wounded. There would be iron bought with that silver, more ships repaired, men trained and paid. He could see the work already. He wanted to begin it. The wanting survived the blood upon the deck, and for a moment he was ashamed of how fiercely it survived.

Hewyn came back carrying the sword of the household man they had found beside the stone store. Jon held the scabbard while Hewyn slid the blade home, then took the weapon so Hewyn could wrap the man's other things. Jon had promised to send those belongings home. He could still keep that promise.

Behind Goro's three galleys, no red sail had cleared the point.

"Course for Dragonstone?" Denys asked.

Jon passed Hewyn the sheathed sword. "Keep the slow ships with us."

"I will."

"Then Dragonstone."

 

[aiwonder]

Jon remained at the rail as the fleet drew away from Bloodstone. Behind Goro's three galleys, the sea was clear of red sails. He checked again when a sailor shouted from the steering platform, then made himself listen. The man was calling for a line to be eased.

They were going home. He had given the order himself. For the first time since they had landed, he could think beyond the next few moments, and his thoughts went straight back to the fighting.

He had ordered Denys to hold the passage for the last boats, even if a merchant came under attack. Those ships carried people who had trusted him to get them off the island. He had left their safety to the escorts because taking Denys away would have trapped the rearguard ashore. Given the same choice, he would give the same order. He was grateful he had not been made to watch what it might have cost.

The merchant sails moved ahead of them, their decks crowded with the people they had freed. Some of those people had helped carry his wounded down to the water. They were alive because his men had held. Jon watched the nearest ship rise upon the swell and felt a fierce relief that they had managed to bring her out.

Then a cry came from beneath the sailcloth behind him. A wounded man was being moved, and every shift of his weight hurt. Jon looked down at his own bandaged hand. He had wanted ships and silver to hasten the work on Dragonstone. The men groaning upon this deck had paid for that haste, and the covered bodies near the bow would never come home to see what he built.

He went back over Hewyn's withdrawal, the way the narrower line had freed men to carry the wounded. There had been no time to ask Jon's leave. Hewyn had judged what was needed and done it. Jon needed to hear the rest from him, and from Brus and Denys, while they still remembered where the plans had held and where they had nearly failed. He owed the men more than relief that the fleet had escaped.

Alasdair came to him while he was still watching the ships. He had finished counting the household.

"Fergus is dead, my lord. Two others badly hurt. I've accounted for the rest."

Jon turned from the rail. The captain had taken off his helmet. His hair lay flat against his forehead, and his eyes were red.

Alasdair reported on the wounded. The man struck on the helm was still dazed; the one Rolo had caught with his axe lay beneath the sailcloth, with someone pressing a folded dressing against his wound. Several others needed cuts bound or armour loosened before they could rest. Alasdair had set the sound men to helping them.

"None of the wounded stands guard tonight," Jon told him. "Tell Hewyn what men you need to relieve them."

"Some will say they can manage."

"I want them resting. Tell them that comes from me."

Alasdair nodded. He glanced towards the bow.

"Fergus is there. Hewyn has his things wrapped."

Jon knew where he lay. He had stood over him beside the stone store, held his shield while the bearers lifted him, told Alasdair where to take him. There had still been men coming down the lane then. He had given the order and turned back to them.

Now he could look along the deck without looking for another attack. Fergus lay among the covered bodies, beyond the men who might yet live.

"I called for him," Alasdair admitted.

Jon looked back.

"When we were laying out the wounded. I needed someone to help with a man's armour, and I called for Fergus." He swallowed. "I knew where he was. I'd helped carry him."

Jon remembered the sleeping hall at Winterfell, Fergus arguing for the bed against the wall while the others were still bringing in their bundles. Round cheeks, uneven front teeth, a grin he could never quite hide when he thought he had got the better of someone. Rylas had told him to wait for winter before deciding he wanted the wall.

He had been so pleased to have a bed of his own.

Jon drew a breath and found he could not finish it. He gripped the rail with his good hand until the tightness in his throat eased.

"He was fastening another man's chinstrap before I sent them down," he managed. "I saw him stop to do it."

Alasdair rubbed a hand across his mouth. For a moment Jon thought he meant to speak. Instead he looked towards the bodies again.

"Can we take him home?"

Jon had brought Finnan, Keir and Struan back from the wolfswood. Their families had been able to touch them, dress them, choose where they would lie. Fergus's family would receive a bundle of clothes and a sword.

"We can't keep him through the voyage." The words came reluctantly. "We'll bury him at sea with the others."

Alasdair's face tightened. He nodded once, then stood with his head bent.

Jon put his hand on the captain's shoulder.

"His family will hear from me. I'll tell them what happened, and what I saw him do. His wages and his belongings go to them."

"I'll take care of his things."

"I know you will."

Alasdair pressed his lips together, trying to master the trembling in them. When he lifted his face, tears had run through the dirt on his cheeks. Jon's own eyes stung. He kept his hand where it was until Alasdair could speak again.

"I'll see to the men."

"Eat with them first. They've had enough orders for a little while."

Alasdair wiped his face with his sleeve and went forward. Jon watched him stop beside the wounded guard and crouch to hear what he was saying. Then he looked for Arthur beneath the shelter.

The knight sat with his armour piled beside him. His sleeve had been cut open, exposing a broad bruise across the shoulder. The man tending him was folding a length of linen into a sling.

Jon stopped beside the chest. He had seen Arthur reach the ship, had watched him sit down, and still needed to hear how badly he was hurt.

"Is it broken?" he asked the man.

"I don't believe so. He'll need to rest it."

"You heard him."

"I hear him very well." Arthur's gaze dropped. "Your hand is bleeding through."

Jon looked down. A little red had crept around the bandage beneath his thumb. He had not felt it start again.

"I was coming to have it seen to."

"Were you?"

Jon sat on the chest beside him. "Eventually."

They waited while the man fitted the sling around Arthur's arm. Beneath the shelter, someone began to snore. Another wounded man called for him to stop, then gave a weary laugh when the snoring continued.

"I thought we were going to lose you in that boat," Arthur said.

Jon turned towards him. "When that galley crossed our path, I wasn't sure we'd reach you."

"And then you stayed below. I could see Alasdair's shield, but I couldn't see you."

"The wounded couldn't climb. Someone had to help lift them."

"I know why you stayed." Arthur looked down at the blood on Jon's bandage. "I kept expecting them to carry you up next."

Jon had known the risk. He had also known that scrambling over the wounded to reach the ladder would help no one.

"I'm glad it was you holding them off," Jon told him. "You and Malcolm gave us the time we needed."

Arthur nodded. He sat back against the mast while the man finished knotting the sling, and some of the strain eased from his face.

The man with the linen turned to Jon, who offered his right hand.

Taking the old dressing off hurt more than he expected. He gripped the edge of the chest and watched the sea until the man had finished. The fingers of his right hand would not close without pulling at the cut.

"I wanted to stay with Gerralt."

Arthur looked at him. "At the steps?"

Jon nodded. "Rolo was still at them. Alasdair put me in the boat, and I went."

"You were hurt."

"So were they."

Arthur was quiet for a moment. "Gerralt needed the stair clear to get his men down."

"I know." Jon looked at his open hand. "I still wish I'd been beside them."

He let the man ease his fingers apart to clean the wound. He could remember the sound of Gerralt's shield splitting, and the boat dipping as the last man jumped aboard.

Across the water, Brus's prize laboured after the merchant ships, her replacement steering oar moving cautiously. Corwyn's larger galley kept close beside her. Farther astern, three sound galleys followed beneath blue banners.

Those ships had men enough to work their oars. Jon had counted the places left empty aboard his own prizes.

"He's still following," Arthur observed.

"Goro wants his captain back."

"And you?"

Jon looked towards the shelter. Hewyn knelt beside a wounded spearman, holding a cup while the man drank.

"I want to stop coming home like this."

Arthur's expression changed. "You brought us out of a harbour they had closed around us."

"After taking us into it."

"Aye."

Jon turned to him. Arthur held his gaze. There would be no comfort in pretending that the decision had belonged to someone else.

"They went where you ordered," the knight continued. "They'll want to hear what you have to say about it."

"I know."

The fresh dressing was pulled tight. Jon hissed through his teeth.

"A little looser," Jon told the man. "It's pulling at the cut."

By the time the bandage was finished, Denys had shortened sail. The merchants ahead were answering his signal; their scattered hulls drew into a closer company. Bloodstone lay low behind them in the fading light. No red sails followed.

Aurane came aft carrying a bowl in his sound hand. Salt had dried white along the seams of his coat. His pale hair was stiff with spray, and a streak of soot crossed one cheek.

"Eat," he told Jon.

There was boiled barley in the bowl and something that might once have been onion. Jon had not noticed his hunger until he smelled it.

"You brought the ferry back."

"Denys has mentioned it."

"You brought us back in it."

Aurane's smile faded a little. He looked towards the bodies near the bow, then back at Jon.

"Most of you."

"You brought everyone who reached those steps. I saw you waiting."

For a moment Aurane seemed uncertain what to do with the praise. He scratched at the dried salt beneath his collar.

"Denys would only have sent me back for you."

Jon smiled despite himself. "Sit down. Have you eaten?"

"He has," Denys called from the steering platform. "Twice. Don't let him tell you otherwise."

Aurane looked offended. "The first bowl went over the side."

"You dropped it."

"With this hand. Which your lord has just been thanking me for using."

Arthur made a small sound that might have been a laugh. Jon ate before the barley could cool. Around them, men who had heard Denys began arguing over whether Aurane ought to be charged for the bowl.

Ser Elyas Sunglass brought Ser Garon Bar Emmon over once there was food for him. Guncer's nephew had spent the fight with the ship's bowmen; the fingers of his drawing hand were raw, and he kept them curled away from the hot bowl. Soot had settled into the creases beside his nose. Both knights paused when they saw Jon seated there.

"Sit," Jon told them. "You can give me your reports after you've eaten."

Garon thanked him and lowered himself onto a coil of rope. He had slept there briefly after the escape; now he held the bowl between both hands to steady it. Elyas sat beside him.

"The men from the loft?" he asked.

"Off with us," Garon answered. "I went up for the last of them."

Elyas let out a breath. "I sent them, and then I couldn't see where they were."

"They knew their work." Jon rested his bowl upon his knee. "Your man kept them shooting where we needed them. Ask him what he saw when he's rested. I want to hear it."

Elyas nodded, rubbing his fingertips together. Garon began to eat. After a while he asked whether Elyas's new star tables had survived.

"In the chest."

"You should put your next meal there before Aurane finds it."

"If you've strength for that," Aurane replied, "you've strength to fetch my supper."

"Your third," Denys called without looking down.

Garon smiled at that, then glanced towards Jon before returning to his food. Elyas shifted closer so the wind did not take the warmth from their bowls. Jon remembered Mylenda's objections when he had named Garon for the expedition, and Guncer reminding him of his nephew's youth. He had insisted that their houses send men. Now those men had fought under his orders, and their families would hear how he had used them.

"When we're home, you'll each tell your house what happened," he told them. "What you saw yourselves. If there's something you need to ask me first, ask."

Garon swallowed before answering. "Lady Mylenda will want to know what it cost us, my lord."

"Then tell her. Hewyn will have the full count. Ask him when he's rested."

Garon looked towards the covered bodies at the bow. "Yes, my lord."

The boat from Goro's galley reached them before the last light had gone.

* * *
​

Goro left his sword with Alasdair and came aboard alone. His boatmen waited below the rail.

He was broader through the shoulders than Jon had expected, with a heavy nose and black beard flecked with grey. A torn ear had been bound in a strip of dirty cloth. He touched it when he looked towards the wounded, then stopped himself.

"Where is he?"

"Aboard the smaller western prize. His leg has been dressed."

"I want to see him."

"You may, before you go back."

Goro studied Jon's face. His eyes paused at the white forelock, then at the fresh bandage. Jon knew the look by now: the quick reassessment when a man came close enough to see how young he was.

"Brus gave his word he'd be brought to you alive."

"And he has kept it."

"The knight gave his word too."

"Vhalar stays alive while we discuss his ransom. You have my word."

Goro's mouth closed. He looked towards Alasdair, who remained beside the surrendered sword.

Jon set his empty bowl down. "Sit."

They used two low chests near the after rail. Denys remained within hearing, occupied with the men bringing in the boat's painter. Arthur stayed beneath the shelter. Jon had no desire to pack his cabin with wounded men merely to make a prisoner's ransom look grander.

"What can you pay?"

Goro looked at the strongboxes lashed beneath the steering platform.

"I imagine you've already counted most of it."

"There are three ships behind you."

"They have crews."

"I can see them."

"Then you can see what happens if I hand you their ship and tell them to swim."

There was anger in the answer, but Goro kept it under control. Jon had expected a man pleading for his captain. This one had come ready to bargain.

"I have ships with empty benches," Jon replied. "What I lack is men who know their work."

Goro glanced at Corwyn's galley. Even in the dusk, her uneven stroke was plain.

"Some of those men were in Moreo's garrison."

"They rowed for Brus."

"Against us."

"To get off that island."

Goro tugged his coat straight where the sword belt had creased it. "And when you reach home?"

"They were promised their freedom. They'll have it."

"He promised wages too."

"Then they're owed wages."

Denys looked over. Jon beckoned him closer.

"Brus freed twenty-two of Moreo's men to help crew the western prizes. He promised them the same wage as the other rowers, and passage to Dragonstone. Pay them from the captured silver when we make harbour. If any want to stay, you can ask them then."

"Some will." Denys glanced towards the slow galley. "They'll want different oarsmen beside them."

"Let them teach the soldiers while we're at sea."

Goro waited until Denys had gone back to the steering platform.

"You mean to buy mine as well."

"I mean to employ them."

"And Vhalar?"

"That depends on what he has to say."

The pirate leaned forward. "He won't thank you for taking his ships."

"He needn't thank me. I want men who can sail. He knows these waters and the men who prey upon them. That may be worth more to me than a ransom."

Goro's gaze moved across the flagship: the damaged rail, the men sleeping beside their shields, the black cloth above the stern. Jon let him look.

"You have money now," Goro allowed. "A crew eats after the money's spent."

"My ships will still need crews. I have a harbour to repair and trade to establish. There will be work."

"He'll ask what command he keeps."

"He can ask me."

"And if the answer displeases him?"

Jon looked towards the three galleys. "There are other men I can speak to."

Goro went still.

"Bring the other two captains tomorrow," Jon continued. "I'll hear what each of you wants. Your ships stay where they are tonight. You can see Vhalar now, with his guards present."

"He won't speak freely with your men listening."

"They can stand far enough away for you to speak quietly."

Goro rose, but did not turn towards the ladder.

"Those wounded aboard our ships. If their arms don't heal straight, or a leg won't bear them—does your work include them?"

Jon followed his glance. A lantern had been raised aboard the nearest galley. Beneath it, two men were holding a third upright while someone changed the cloth beneath him.

In another life he had read of Pompey settling surrendered pirates in towns, giving them land to work. It had been easy to admire the policy across two thousand years. Here a man wanted to know whether a cripple would be fed next month.

"If they enter my service, I'll keep them while they heal. Afterwards we'll find work they can do. A man needn't pull an oar to earn his keep."

Goro looked down at his own hands.

"I'll tell him."

* * *
​

Vhalar held his bound hands up to the lantern beneath the smaller prize's after shelter. He had worried at the knot until a nail split, and the rope was tighter than before. He pulled again. The cord bit into the raw skin beneath his thumbs.

"Fuck."

He dropped his hands onto the blanket. A roll of the ship dragged the coarse wool across his wounded thigh, and he braced himself against the deck until the pain eased. The pallet stank. Someone had folded a cloak beneath his head as though he were an honoured guest. He shoved it aside.

Moreo had died on his own steps. Vhalar could still see him there, and remember looking past the body towards the harbour. His harbour. With the stores and silver, he could pay the crews and replace the men lost on Drazen's voyage. Rolo would have to watch him grow strong again.

He had seen to the repairs himself. He had stood over the carpenter, found the coin for Sarro, placed every ship where he thought it would do most good. He could picture the southern watch even now, the water he had left between those ships and his own. Perhaps another galley there would have been enough. He tried to decide which one he could have spared.

Rolo would be drinking in that fort now. The Stark boy had the silver. Vhalar had been given a cup of water because someone had decided he should have no wine.

He stared at the rope joining his wrists and gave a short, wheezing laugh. He pressed his fists against his mouth, but the guard had already turned.

"Fucking fool," he muttered.

He struck the deck beside his hip. Pain ran through his hands, and he sat looking at them until the guard lost interest.

Goro had called him back. He had heard him plainly, but the knight was faltering and Vhalar had wanted to finish him. He remembered the blade beneath his chin afterwards, his own men watching him struggle to get up.

"The old bastard was right." He had barely breathed the words. Saying them aloud made him want to strike the deck again.

He heard Goro speaking to the guards beyond the shelter. Vhalar dragged the discarded cloak behind his shoulders and forced himself upright against it.

Goro crouched beside him. Vhalar's eyes went to the fresh cloth around his ear.

"They gave you that?"

"A woman in the boat. It was bleeding down my neck."

"You look well cared for."

Goro looked at the untouched cup beside the pallet. He lifted it.

"Drink."

Vhalar knocked his hand aside. Water spilled across the blanket.

The guards moved. Goro raised his empty hand towards them without turning his head.

"Leave us."

"We stand here," the older swordsman answered.

Vhalar knew that voice. Grey hair, a bandage around his brow, the same bastard who had put the blade into his thigh. He wanted to know the man's name, but nobody had given it to him.

Goro set the cup upright.

"How much?" Vhalar demanded.

"He hasn't named a ransom."

"Then why were you over there so long?"

"He wants our ships in his service."

Vhalar stared at him. For a moment the sounds of the deck seemed very far away: the oars, the water, somebody coughing forward.

Then he laughed.

It hurt his leg. That made him laugh harder, until Goro caught his shoulder and pressed him back against the rolled cloak.

"We give him the ships, and he lets me crawl after them?"

"He spoke of command."

"My command."

"Under his."

Vhalar looked past Goro at the black shields. The men carrying them watched without expression. They must have heard. Tomorrow they would tell it over their food: the pirate lord begging a child for permission to keep his own deck.

"Get me aboard my ship."

"I can't."

"You have three galleys. They can scarcely row this one."

"He has more ships than we do, and more men. Trained men. You saw what they did on the island." Goro lowered his voice. "Our decks are full of wounded. We would have to fight through his fleet to reach you. You would be dead before we touched the rail."

"Then find something else."

The answer came as readily as it always had. Drazen would have bowed his head. Drazen would have stood there taking the insults until he found the words Vhalar wanted.

Goro did not bow.

"There is nothing else tonight."

Vhalar gripped the rope about his wrists. His tongue found the swollen place inside his cheek where the crab knight had struck him. Behind his eyes rose the yard at home, his father reaching for his collar. He drove the memory away before the hand could close.

"We can go to Tyrosh."

"With what to pay the harbour men?"

"There are captains who know me."

"Aye. And they'll want to know what you've brought them."

"Three galleys."

"And which will you sell to pay them? You told me to keep all three."

Vhalar turned his face away.

Beyond the open side of the shelter, one of his blue banners rose and dipped in the lantern light. He had stood beneath it that morning. Men had moved when he lifted a hand. He had been angry then too, but there had still been things to take, men to strike, a fort he could win back if he drove hard enough.

Now he could not reach the rail without help.

"Drazen would have found the money."

Goro's face hardened. "Drazen is dead."

"I saw him."

"So did I."

Vhalar looked back sharply. Goro's jaw worked beneath his beard.

"I brought his men off the island," he continued. "What was left of them. Some can't walk. One keeps asking if we've seen his brother. I've told him twice."

Vhalar wanted him to stop.

"You think I don't know what we've lost?"

"Then think about the men who are still here. Of every four who followed you, one is left with us. We have only three galleys left. Rolo has the fort, the harbour and the stores."

"The ships are sound."

"Aye. The men aren't. I need somewhere to take them."

The older guard glanced towards them. Goro waited until he looked away.

"I called you back in that lane."

"I heard you."

"Then why didn't you come?"

Because the knight was yielding. Because Rolo had laughed. Because Drazen had begged for wine and Vhalar had made him beg again. Because there had been a moment when killing the man before him seemed easier than enduring another word from the dead man in his head.

"I thought I could break them."

Goro sat back upon his heels. It was the first answer Vhalar had given him that did not demand something impossible.

For a while neither spoke.

Vhalar caught Goro's sleeve and drew him closer. The guards remained at the edge of the shelter. He waited until Goro bent his head before speaking again.

"Let him feed the men and mend the ships," he whispered. "Once I'm back on my feet, we needn't stay where he puts us."

Goro's eyes narrowed. His reply was scarcely louder. "You mean to take what he gives you and run."

"I mean to command my own men again."

"Then think where you'd take them. Rolo has our harbour. Turn on the boy as well, and we'll be looking for somewhere to put in with two fleets hunting us."

Vhalar let go of his sleeve and looked towards the blue banner beyond the shelter. The ship was still his. He would remember that, whatever words the boy demanded tomorrow.

"Has he offered you my ship?" Vhalar asked at last.

"He wants the captains aboard tomorrow."

That was answer enough.

Vhalar looked at him until Goro met his eyes.

"Will you go?"

"I came this far for you."

"That isn't what I asked."

Goro picked up the cup. There was a little water left in it. This time Vhalar let him hold it while he drank.

"I'll hear him," Goro replied. "You should too."

* * *
​

At dawn, Jon stood before the men who had brought their dead aboard the flagship.

Brus's boats had come across while the fleet lay under shortened sail. The bodies from the western fight had been laid beside those from the eastern landing. Their companions had washed what they could and wrapped them in spare sailcloth. The men who had wanted time alone had been given it.

Corwyn stood beside Donnel. A strip of white linen disappeared beneath Corwyn's sleeve; dried blood remained in the corner of his mouth. When Jon approached, he straightened as though he had been caught neglecting some duty.

"He kept hold of his shield," Corwyn murmured.

Jon looked down.

"After he was struck. I tried to get it out of the way so we could pull him back. He wouldn't let go."

Brus stood on Donnel's other side, his torn coat fastened crookedly. "You brought him in."

Corwyn nodded, though his face showed no comfort in it.

Jon moved along the bodies. He knew some of the men well enough to remember their voices immediately. With others he had only fragments: a question after drill, a grin when the pay was counted out, a man stopping to tighten another's loose strap. He wished he had paid better attention.

The surviving household gathered close. Alasdair held Fergus's wrapped sword and cloak. Gerralt still carried the two pieces of the shield Rolo had split. He looked down at them, then laid them beside his feet. Garon and Elyas stood farther back with the men they had served beside during the fighting.

Jon faced the men.

"I ordered you ashore. I sent some of you over those hills, and I kept others in the lane while the boats filled. The men lying here went where I sent them."

He had meant to speak steadily. He stopped until he could.

"When the line gave ground, you stayed together. When a man fell, you brought him back. The people aboard those merchant ships are alive because you held long enough to put them there. So am I."

Alasdair kept his eyes upon Jon. One of the younger household boys drew close beside him, his mouth trembling.

"You've heard me curse you for a crooked shield and make you do the same thing until you hated the sound of my voice. Yesterday you used what we learned. You gave one another time to live."

Jon looked down at the wrapped figure nearest him.

"I wanted to bring every one of you home. I'll have to face their families and tell them why I couldn't. Their wages will go home. Their belongings will go home. Their families will have my help."

He raised his eyes again.

"There will be a funeral at Dragonstone. Their kin on the island will hear from us there. For any whose families are still in the north, we'll send their belongings and letters telling what happened. They won't be left waiting for a son who isn't coming home."

Hewyn took off his cap. The men who followed the Seven murmured their prayers; Jon bowed his head for his own, though the words he found were only the names he knew.

They committed the dead to the sea one at a time. Friends carried each burden to the rail. Jon took the wrapped sword from Alasdair, who went to help carry Fergus to the rail.

When the last body had gone, the household remained gathered beside the empty space. Jon stayed with them until the sailors needed the deck.

Corwyn found him afterwards beneath the steering platform.

"I hear you're keeping Vhalar."

"I mean to hear him."

"He's already been heard. He had plenty to say with our men's blood still on his sword."

Jon let the anger pass without answering it. Corwyn's injured hand had curled beneath his opposite arm.

"He was brought to me alive, as promised. What becomes of him is my decision."

"Then don't put him over the men who carried our dead down those steps."

"He won't command them."

"And if he refuses your terms?" Corwyn asked.

"He remains my prisoner."

"While his men wait for us to sleep."

Jon turned fully towards him and held his gaze.

"Enough, ser. I have heard your objections. I will decide whether Vhalar enters my service."

Corwyn's jaw tightened. "My lord, I don't trust him."

"Then watch him, and bring me anything I should know. But when I give an order, I expect it obeyed."

For a moment Corwyn said nothing.

"Is that understood?"

"Yes, my lord."

Jon dismissed him with a nod. Corwyn bowed and left, his injured hand pressed against his coat.

* * *
​

Garon was waiting near the forward rail when Corwyn returned. Elyas stood beside him with a clean cloth wrapped around his drawing fingers. Aurane had come down from the steering platform to ask where Corwyn needed to go.

"The larger prize," Corwyn told him. "When the boatmen are ready."

Garon moved aside to let two sailors carry a bucket past. They were washing the place where the bodies had lain. He had avoided looking at the water after the last burial, but the splash beside the hull made him turn.

"Did you speak to him?" Elyas asked Corwyn.

"He means to offer Vhalar service."

Aurane looked aft. "And the three ships?"

"Those too." Corwyn pressed his injured wrist against his coat. "We've barely buried the men we lost."

Garon had watched the western men bring their dead aboard. He had seen Corwyn remain beside the bodies while the others went to find food.

"What did Jon tell you?"

"That Vhalar won't command our men. And that the decision is his."

"He needs sailors," Aurane replied. "You've had trouble enough keeping your prize moving."

Corwyn's face tightened. "I know what she needs."

Aurane stopped watching the prize and looked at him. Garon kept quiet; the Celtigar knight looked ready to quarrel with anyone who made the bargain sound easy.

"I told him I didn't trust Vhalar. He told me to report anything I saw."

"Then do," Garon urged. "He'll have to hear it."

Corwyn glanced at him. "He heard me well enough. He still means to do it."

For a while they watched the sailors work. At Sharp Point, Garon had been useful with accounts and repairs. When Jon called for a man from each house, Lady Mylenda had objected to losing him and spoken of his good service. He had been proud to hear that before the others, even while hoping Jon would name someone else.

He had never intended to spend a battle running between a shield line and a loft with arrows striking the walls. Twice, perhaps three times, he had almost stopped in a doorway instead of going on. When Jon sent him again, the boy lord was still there among the men defending the steps. Garon had gone.

He could remember the orders now more clearly than Jon's face.

"What will you tell your uncle?" he asked Elyas.

Elyas looked down at the cloth around his fingers. "That I did what the captain told me."

"About Jon."

The younger knight took time over that.

"I thought he'd keep me close. Have me carry things, so my uncle could hear I'd been useful without being in anyone's way. Instead, he put me with the ship's bowmen and told me to obey the captain. When Denys needed men ashore, I sent a man who knew where to put them."

Elyas glanced towards the after shelter, where the wounded lay.

"I'm glad I did. I'd have been trying to learn the work with men waiting on my orders."

"You'll learn," Aurane offered.

"I'd like to learn before he sends me."

Garon understood that. He would have liked a great many things explained before the first arrow had passed his head.

Aurane leaned his sound hand upon the rail. "Monford told me to bring him an account of Jon. What sort of man he is, how he commands. I'll tell him he stayed ashore while we loaded the wounded."

"He sent me back for the last bowmen," Garon recalled. "I thought the boats would be gone when I came down."

"I was waiting for you."

"I know that now."

Aurane's expression sobered. "We weren't leaving you."

Garon nodded. He had been too breathless to thank Aurane at the steps. He did so now.

Across the deck Jon stopped beside a wounded spearman. He crouched to hear him over the work around them, one bandaged hand resting upon his knee. Garon watched the soldier speak. The man's voice carried no farther than the shelter.

"What sort of man," Elyas repeated quietly. "He's just a boy. Look at him."

"He remembered he was our lord well enough," Corwyn muttered.

"That isn't what I mean. When he speaks to me, I keep forgetting how young he is. Then I look at him and wonder why I'm standing there as though my uncle had summoned me."

Garon rubbed a patch of dried mortar from his sleeve. "I wanted him to promise the boats would wait when he sent me back. He'd already turned to the next man. He was certain I'd go."

"You did go," Aurane observed.

"Aye. But I'd like to know how he was so certain."

Near the shelter, one of Jon's household was helping a wounded man adjust his sling. He had a boy's face too.

"Some of his own men can scarcely be older," Garon continued. "They stood in that lane with Rolo coming at them. When the order came to fall back, they went by pairs. I was afraid they'd all turn and run."

"They came aboard where they were told," Aurane replied. "Even the ones who'd seen the other boats leave. Monford will understand what that means."

Corwyn looked towards his prize. "One of Brus's men fell beside me. Another had his shield in the gap before I could turn. There were more behind him, waiting to come forward."

"Will you tell Lord Ardrian that?"

"Of course I will." Corwyn turned back to Garon. "It takes drilling to do that with men trying to kill you. I never said they couldn't fight."

"Jon spoke of drilling them himself," Elyas put in. "How long can he have been doing it?"

Aurane followed his gaze across the deck. "Monford will ask me that too."

Garon had expected Jon to talk about the prizes that morning. Four ships were a thing to put before the lords who had refused him theirs. Instead he had stood before the bodies and named the orders he had given. Garon would tell Mylenda that, though he did not yet know what she would make of it.

"Do you think he'll take us out again?" Elyas asked.

"Ask him," Corwyn answered.

Garon looked at him. "Would you go?"

Corwyn shifted his feet. A boat had come alongside, and one of her men was calling for him.

"If I'm ordered. Lord Ardrian sent me to serve under him." He looked towards Jon. "I won't tell Ardrian I like this bargain."

"Nor should you," Garon agreed.

Corwyn went to the ladder. Aurane caught his elbow when he tried to put weight upon the wounded wrist; the knight accepted the help without speaking. Then he was down in the boat, calling to his men to make room.

Garon watched him go. He still had a report to carry home for Lady Mylenda. It would be harder to write than the reckoning of a damaged galley, and he meant to get it right.

Beyond Corwyn's boat another approached, bearing Vhalar and his guards.

* * *
​

They carried Vhalar aboard upon a door.

He had demanded to climb. The first attempt to stand had left him shaking against the guard who caught him, and Goro had ended the argument by calling for the bearers.

Now he lay beneath the eyes of sailors who had heard him curse all the way up the side. The boy lord waited beside a table lashed near the after rail. He wore black, with a clean strip of linen around one hand. In daylight the pale streak in his hair looked almost white. His face was too young for the stillness with which he watched them approach.

Vhalar looked for the man who would do the talking for the boy.

The knight beneath the shelter had dark hair and a grey-white cloak drawn over his knees. Vhalar knew him by the way the men gave him room. The household captain stood nearer, broad across the chest, one hand resting on his sword belt. Neither moved forward.

"Put him here," Jon directed.

The bearers settled the door upon two low chests. Someone had placed a folded cloak where Vhalar's head would lie. He pushed it away and forced himself up upon an elbow.

"A chair."

Goro opened his mouth.

"Give him one," Jon ordered.

Getting him into it hurt worse than the climb would have done. He knew it, Goro knew it, and the boy had the sense to say nothing while he swallowed his cry. They placed another chest beneath his leg.

The two other captains waited on the far side of the table.

Moryn, who had captained the second galley through three winters, had a square face weathered dark and a thumb missing from his left hand. He looked at Vhalar's bindings before he looked at Jon. Beside him stood Captain Sallo, younger and narrow-faced, with neat black whiskers and a blue scarf wound about his throat. Sallo's eyes had already measured the strongboxes beneath the platform.

They should have been standing behind Vhalar.

Goro took a place beside his chair.

"Loose his hands," Jon told the guard.

The broad man hesitated only long enough to look at Vhalar's face. Then he cut the rope. Vhalar rubbed his wrists and kept his gaze upon the lord.

"Name your ransom."

"You heard what I offered Goro."

"I heard you want my ships."

"I want your ships and the men who know how to use them. You know where the raiders water, where they sell their prizes and which captains can be bought. I have work for that knowledge."

Vhalar leaned back carefully. "Then you should have come to me before you burned your men getting into my fort."

The household captain's expression hardened. The boy's did not.

"You couldn't keep it."

Vhalar moved before he meant to. His foot struck the chest supporting his leg. Pain ran through him, and Goro caught his arm.

He shook him off.

Jon had seen Goro steady him. Vhalar hated the boy for it.

"Rolo has it now," he forced out. "You left the gates open for him."

"Yes."

"He'll be drinking my wine."

"Then listen while he's occupied."

Sallo's whiskers twitched. Vhalar turned upon him, and the younger captain became solemn.

"I can put you back at sea with pay and a harbour behind you," Jon continued. "There will be a holding on Dragonstone for you, granted for your service. A house and land enough to support it. You will hold it of me."

Vhalar had prepared himself for threats. He watched the boy, waiting for the rest.

"Land gives you something you can keep without a sword in your hand every hour of the day. My protection gives you time to build upon it. Power and legitimacy, Vhalar. You need both if you mean to leave your children more than a ship somebody stronger can take."

His father had used those words.

For an instant Vhalar could smell the lamp oil in the fort's upper room. He had been young enough then to resent every evening spent there. Beyond the shutters, men were singing in the yard. He had promised to meet them after his father finished with the reports.

The reports covered half the table. There were letters from Tyrosh, the last reckoning of their stores and a chart held flat beneath a cup. His father had set little piles of coins beside the names of captains whose service he hoped to buy. One pile was scarcely worth gathering.

"A few more years," his father told him. "Another safe anchorage. Ships we own outright, with crews who have been paid. We build carefully, and when the right men in Tyrosh quarrel, we shall be ready."

He drew a letter from beneath the chart and smoothed a bent corner with his thumb.

"If my time comes before then, it will be your honour to take back what is ours."

Vhalar leaned back in his chair. He could hear the song clearly now; someone in the yard had forgotten the words and was being jeered at by the others.

"Why would we go back?"

His father's thumb stopped.

"What?"

"To Tyrosh. Why spend all this to go back? We live like kings here. We take what we want. Nobody summons you to answer for it, and nobody tells us what we may do with our own ships."

He had expected an argument about duty. There had been so many of those that he scarcely listened to the beginnings any more. When his father pushed back his chair, Vhalar rose too, glad to escape the room.

"Sit, boy."

Vhalar sat.

His father came around the table. The gold chain of his old office gleamed at his collar. He did not shout. That had been worse. He stopped close enough that Vhalar had to tilt his head to meet his eyes.

"You foolish boy. You think this is a life for us?"

"We have more here than—"

"Our family was noble when Tyrosh was an outpost of the Freehold. Before those merchants learned to put on purple robes and call themselves our betters. You would have our descendants grow old in this place, fighting every new thief who finds a boat?"

Vhalar looked past him at the letters. He hated the names in them: men who had taken years to answer, men who wanted silver before they would remember an old friendship. He hated being told to revere a city he knew chiefly through his father's losses.

"Then we take the rest of the islands."

His father's expression changed. Vhalar mistook it for interest and hurried on.

"You were an admiral. You know more than any of these captains. Get them under one command. Build the forts properly. Make the merchants pay for safe passage. If the sea's ours, Tyrosh will have to deal with us."

His father laughed. Once, without pleasure.

"Take it over. Have you learned nothing at this table?"

Vhalar's face burned. "You keep telling me to think."

"And this is what you've thought of."

His father caught the chart by its edge and drew it towards them, scattering one of the smaller piles of silver. A coin struck Vhalar's knee and rolled beneath his chair.

"Who buys your plunder? Who sells you grain when the stores run low? Tyrosh. Lys. Myr. Men who are pleased enough to profit from a hundred captains who cannot agree." His finger came down upon the straits. "Let one man claim a kingdom here and decide what passes between their ports. See how long they remain content."

"If we're strong enough—"

"Strong enough to fight all of them? To feed these islands while their fleets close the harbours?"

Vhalar had no answer ready. His father watched him try to find one.

"We need power, yes. And legitimacy. Allies who have something to gain by seeing us restored. A place they will acknowledge as ours, so every bargain need not begin with a threat. This cesspit will give us ships and silver. It will not give us that."

He went back to his chair and gathered the spilled coins. Vhalar remained seated, staring at the chart. From the yard came another burst of laughter. He no longer wanted to join it.

"Tomorrow," his father added, "you will read those reports again. All of them."

Goro touched his elbow.

Vhalar jerked away. The deck shifted beneath his chair, and pain ran up his wounded thigh. Across the table, Jon was waiting.

His father had spent years asking men in Tyrosh to remember who they were. The boy offered him land in a country where their name meant nothing. Vhalar could almost hear what his father would have called that.

Yet the holding would be his. He would not have to beg some Tyroshi merchant to restore it.

"What land?"

"Land I hold. We'll choose the holding when we reach the island. Its bounds and what you owe me will be written plainly, before you swear for it."

"And until then?"

"You swear to serve me at sea. I'll keep you and your men fed, repair the ships and pay the crews. Any command I give you depends upon your obedience."

"A lord's tame pirate."

"A captain in my service."

"That's what you'll call it."

"It's what you will be. You'll guard the ships I send out, escort men and goods where I order, and fight when I command it. You will take no merchant for your own profit. You will sell no captives."

Moryn shifted his weight. Sallo looked away from the strongboxes at last.

"And the prizes we do take?" the younger captain asked.

Vhalar rounded upon him. "Did he ask you?"

"I did invite him," Jon replied. "A man who takes an enemy ship in my service will have his reward. I'll settle what the crews receive before I send them to fight."

"Promises," Vhalar spat.

"You are welcome to ask Brus's men what happened to theirs."

"They're your men."

"Ask the twenty-two he freed to row beside them."

Goro spoke before Vhalar could answer. "Their freedom stands. I heard him confirm it."

Vhalar stared at his lieutenant. "You heard a boy speak."

"I heard him give the order."

The distinction stung because Goro had once trusted his orders in the same way.

Vhalar looked north, where the merchant hulls waited beneath slackened sails. The people crowding their decks had watched his ships depart with the black fleet. Some would put ashore at the next harbour. Others would reach Dragonstone. Wherever they went, they would talk.

"Rolo first," he demanded. "Turn back while he's still counting what he's stolen. He hasn't had time to put the forts in order."

"No."

"You have soldiers. I have three ships fit to fight."

"And wounded men aboard every one of them."

"He'll be stronger if you wait."

"So will I."

Vhalar glanced towards the dark-haired knight, waiting for him to counsel the boy. He merely watched.

"Rolo put Drazen's head over his rail," Vhalar continued. "He held him by the hair so we could all see."

Goro's face had gone rigid. Moryn lowered his eyes.

"I mean to kill him," Vhalar said.

Jon rested his sound hand flat upon the table.

"I mean to take his ships, break his hold on those harbours and make the passage safe for mine. I'll have timber and grain coming through these waters. Men taking goods to ports they've never seen. Rolo would rob them, and do to their captains what he did to yours. I won't spend years building a trade so he can take his cut with an axe."

Vhalar listened despite himself.

"If you serve me, you'll help prepare for that," Jon went on. "You'll tell me what he needs to hold Bloodstone, which of his captains hate one another and where we can hurt him. When we go back, we go with men enough to finish it."

"And I get Rolo."

"If he falls into our hands alive, you'll see him answer for what he's done. I won't promise to keep him breathing in the middle of a fight so you can have your turn."

That answer was almost easier to believe than a promise.

Vhalar looked at the bandaged hand upon Jon's lap. "He hurt you."

"He killed my men."

There was enough anger in those four words to quiet the table.

Vhalar pictured the head again. Drazen's beard, thick with blood. One eye half open. He tried to picture Rolo laughing as he held it up. Instead he saw the cup he had kept from Drazen when the man came back to him beaten.

"I could find ships elsewhere."

"Then tell me who will give them to you."

"You don't know everyone in the Stepstones."

"That's one reason I want you."

The boy answered too quickly. Vhalar had wanted to make him admit ignorance, and somehow the admission had become part of the offer.

"I have friends."

"Will they help you when Rolo tells them you brought me in?"

Vhalar stared. "I brought you in?"

Jon pointed past him. Three blue banners stirred above the waiting galleys.

"He saw your ships follow mine. He saw them come round the headland while his men were trying to reach our boats. What story do you think he'll tell?"

"That I was taken."

"Perhaps. He could also tell them you made a bargain with me and sailed away while your men died. He has your fort. He'll find listeners."

"You arranged this."

"Brus allowed Goro to follow because he wouldn't leave you. I learned of it while Rolo was driving us down the lane."

"And now you'll use it."

"Yes."

Vhalar's face grew hot. He looked towards the captains, but neither met his eyes.

Goro did. "He'll make it worse than it was," he admitted. "You know he will."

Vhalar heard Rolo laughing over the story. The lordling who had lost his castle, the coward who had crawled to a child. He could deny it in every harbour from Tyrosh to the Summer Sea and still hear the laughter when he turned his back.

"I won't have you buying my men in front of me."

Jon drew his hand back from the table.

"You are my prisoner. Those three captains are here to hear an offer. I would rather have your knowledge as well as theirs, but I can employ them without you."

Vhalar looked at Goro.

His lieutenant's face gave him no easy answer.

* * *
​

Jon had pressed hard enough.

Vhalar sat very still, his face pale beneath the anger. The skin around his mouth was swollen from the fight. He kept rubbing one wrist with the fingers of the other hand, though the rope had been off for some time.

Jon had seen wounded men snap at anyone who tried to help them. Vhalar had done it every time Goro touched him. He could bear an enemy's threat more easily than his own man's concern.

But three crews were waiting, and Jon had already buried men that morning. He would not spend the day coaxing a pirate through his wounded pride.

He turned to Moryn.

"Your ship. Is she sound?"

"She'll need two new sweeps and work on the upper planks. They've been letting water in when the sea rises. She'll make the voyage."

"And her men?"

"Tired. Angry. Some have silver put by. Some have nothing."

"Will they work for regular wages?"

"Some will. Some would sooner take their chances in another port."

"Men who refuse service aboard my ships will serve as labourers on Dragonstone. My men promised you peace, and I will keep that promise. But I will not turn pirates loose upon my lands to prey on my people. You will serve me one way or the other."

Moryn rubbed the stump of his thumb. "Brus's twenty-two can walk away."

"Brus promised those men their freedom. He made no such promise to you."

Sallo stepped nearer. "And if we stay at sea, who pays when a mast breaks? Last winter we spent more on timber than the voyage brought us."

"I pay for repairs to ships in my service. You answer for keeping them fit."

Vhalar's head turned towards him. Sallo saw and reddened, but did not withdraw the question.

"I have men who've followed me seven years," Moryn added. "I won't swear them into a lord's quarrel without telling them what it is."

"Then tell them. Those who sail for me will escort my ships, protect my waters and fight the men who attack us. Every man will swear to me, whether he serves aboard ship or works ashore. All will be subject to my command and my punishments."

"The lash?"

"For offences that merit it. Denys will have the rules read to your crews before they swear."

Moryn nodded. He seemed more comfortable with a punishment he understood than with another promise of generosity.

Goro moved at last.

"Vhalar comes with us."

Jon met his eyes. "That is his choice."

"Alive and free to take the service you've offered."

"If he swears it."

"You won't have us sail north and find a gallows waiting for him."

"I offer him my protection in return for his oath. I will keep my word."

The two captains watched Goro. He had given them something they could accept without abandoning the man who had led them.

Jon let the silence hold. Beyond the rail a boatman coughed and spat into the sea. A sail cracked as Denys's mate called for the yard to be brought round. Vhalar kept his eyes on his hands.

"Goro keeps his ship," Vhalar said. "Moryn and Sallo theirs."

Jon looked along the three captains.

"They keep their commands. Their men will be divided among the fleet. I'll put my own sailors aboard in their place, with one of my officers as first mate on each ship. Denys gives the sailing orders."

Vhalar let out a short laugh. "No trust?"

"You've given me no cause to trust you."

Goro glanced towards his galley. "You'll leave us enough men who know the ships."

"Choose them with Denys. The rest go where he needs them."

"And the holding?" Vhalar asked. "I won't have my children turned out when I die."

"Your lawful children may inherit it, under the same obligation. They'll owe me service as you do."

"Then have that written with the bounds." Vhalar kept his eyes upon Jon. "My father spent half his life asking men to return what they'd taken from us. I won't leave mine the same work."

"It will be written. Yours to hold while you keep your oath, and theirs after you if they keep it too."

Goro looked sharply at Jon. Vhalar did not move.

"I want to see it."

"You shall."

"Before I swear for land I've never walked."

"I said as much."

"And Rolo."

Jon leaned forward.

"You don't leave my service to chase him because a fisherman brings you a rumour. You don't draw my ships into a fight I've forbidden. Help me build the strength to destroy him."

Vhalar looked beyond him towards the strongboxes.

"You offer to buy me with my own money."

"I offer you more than you can recover by refusing."

The pirate closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, he looked at Goro.

"What do you say?"

Goro's expression softened.

"Take it."

Vhalar exhaled through his nose. "I will serve."

Jon pushed back his chair and stood. He looked from Vhalar to the three captains, then raised his voice so the men by the rail could hear.

"Your days of raiding and slaving are done. You will fight the enemies I name. Any man who robs a merchant or sells a captive will hang from the yardarm. If his captain ordered it or helped conceal it, the captain will hang beside him."

Sallo glanced up at the yard. Jon turned his eyes upon Vhalar.

"If you run to escape the rope, I will put enough silver on your head to make your own crew bring it to me."

Vhalar sat with his head lowered, his fingers digging into his good knee.

"Look at me when you give your word."

The anger returned at once. Jon waited through it.

At last Vhalar faced him.

"I will serve you, Lord Jon. I put my ships and men in your service. I will obey your commands at sea, keep faith with your people and take no prize without your leave." His eyes narrowed. "And you will keep what you've promised."

"I will."

Jon did not ask him to kneel upon the wounded leg. There were witnesses enough. Goro was already looking towards the waiting ships.

Moryn gave his word after Vhalar. Sallo followed. Goro was last, and his oath included no flourish.

Denys came down from the steering platform when Jon called him. The sailor glanced at the four men, then at Jon, and waited.

"Three more galleys for the passage. Have the crews hear the terms and swear before you move them. Then divide the men among our ships and send sailors back to fill their places. Choose a first mate for each captain from your officers."

Denys nodded and looked at Moryn. "I'll need some of your experienced hands aboard the prizes."

"Which one first?"

"The larger western galley. Her men have strength enough. They keep spending it fighting their oars."

Moryn glanced at Goro, then at Vhalar. The pause was small, but Jon noticed it.

"Send them," Vhalar ordered. "Men who can teach without starting a fight."

"That narrows the choice," Moryn muttered.

Sallo laughed before remembering where he stood. Goro's mouth moved at one corner.

"You'll be fed before you go back," Jon told them. "Then bring Denys the names of the men who will sail and those who will work ashore."

Vhalar watched the captains follow Denys towards the rail. He remained in his chair with his leg stretched before him, his wrists reddened, his expression difficult to read.

"You could have offered less," he remarked.

Jon looked down at him.

"I want you thinking about the work, not the first harbour where you can slip away."

"And if I do?"

"Then I'll have you hunted down and hanged."

Vhalar held his gaze, then looked away first.

* * *
​

By afternoon, with the men sworn to Jon, boats were carrying crews from the three galleys to ships throughout the convoy. Other boats returned with sailors Denys had chosen to fill their places.

The newcomers brought their own rolls of bedding and surrendered their knives to the guards until they reached their stations. Jon watched from the flagship while Denys's men counted them aboard. A few carried tools. One had a wooden bowl tucked into his belt and complained loudly when a wave filled it. Across the water, Goro met his new first mate at the rail. Denys had already sent the other two officers to Moryn and Sallo.

Goro gave Denys the names of the men who had refused to remain in the fleet. They would work their passage to Dragonstone, then be set to labour ashore under guard.

Brus came aboard to report before returning to his soldiers. He had slept at last, though someone had plainly had to persuade him to change his torn coat.

"The twenty-two know you'll honour it," he told Jon.

"Did they doubt you?"

"They doubted whether my lord would let me give away men he could have kept bound."

"You needed rowers."

"Aye. They needed to live."

Jon looked towards the western prize. An older sailor was standing over one of the benches, showing a legionary how to recover his oar without striking the man behind him. The legionary listened with visible resentment. Then he tried again, and the blades entered the water together.

"They earned what you promised," Jon replied.

Brus nodded. He did not seem surprised by the answer, and Jon was glad of that.

Arthur was waiting by the cabin when Jon turned from the rail. Denys stood beside him. Neither had a report in his hand.

"Before he goes back to his own ship," Arthur told him.

Jon glanced towards Vhalar, still seated near the after rail. Goro had come back to speak to him. Alasdair remained close enough to reach him before he could rise.

"Inside, then."

Denys shut the cabin door. Arthur lowered himself onto the bench, careful of his shoulder. Jon drew the chair towards the table and sat.

For a moment the loudest sound was the door of a locker knocking against its frame. Arthur pressed it shut with his good hand.

"Do you believe him?"

"No. He wants what I offered. That will not keep him faithful."

Denys leaned against the table. "His captains still have their commands, and those men won't forget who they followed because you've moved them to another deck. On the island he had more enemies than he could manage. Now you're bringing him somewhere he can count yours."

"And where I can pay his captains, provision his ships and give his crews something they won't want to lose."

"Some of them," Denys allowed. "Goro followed him out of that harbour for nothing."

"For Vhalar. Not for nothing."

"Which ought to concern you."

"It does." Jon shifted his bandaged hand away from the table's edge. "I need sailors, and they know the waters I mean to trade through. They've sworn to me, but I'll have to learn which of them mean it."

Arthur watched him. "And while you learn?"

"They sail where Denys puts them. The first mates answer to us. Their sailors work among ours, and ours aboard their galleys. Vhalar has no authority over the legion, and no leave to take those three ships away on his own business."

Denys folded his arms. "A first mate can't watch every man aboard."

"Nor do I expect him to. But he can see who passes orders and who obeys them, and warn the other ships. I'm not calling it proof against mutiny."

"Then don't put them all astern with their decks out of our sight. Two among the convoy. Goro stays close with the tow, where I can watch him."

Jon nodded. "Do it."

Arthur's gaze did not leave his face. "You spoke of leaving children a holding. He may be thinking about what he can take before he ever sees it."

"He may."

"You watched him swear after you threatened to take his command away. A man can mean an oath for as long as the threat lasts."

Jon looked towards the closed door. The grain in the wood blurred for a moment with weariness; he blinked and brought Arthur back into focus.

"I think he'll test us. Once his leg heals and he feels less beholden to Goro, he'll look for a way to take more than we've agreed. Perhaps he'll try to leave. Perhaps he'll go after Rolo when I've told him to wait. Perhaps he'll find someone who promises him a better bargain."

Denys pushed away from the table. "How much freedom will you give him?"

"Very little. I mean to limit what he can take with him, and learn who approaches him. If he means to betray me, I want to learn his plans without alerting him."

Arthur's expression hardened. "Some lies will get past us."

"Then the precautions must hold regardless. He won't control his own supplies or pay. He won't be given all my plans because he knows a few harbours." Jon leaned forward. "I'll go through the rest with both of you at Dragonstone, before he's given any independent command. In detail. If you find something that won't hold, we change it."

Arthur rubbed his brow. "Corwyn will carry his complaints to Lord Ardrian. The other houses will hear of this too. They may resent seeing pirates given land and command."

"Then let them resent it. They chose not to come. Their opinion of this bargain is irrelevant. I am their lord, and I will decide what becomes of my prisoners."

The locker door began knocking again when Arthur rose. This time he left it.

"I'll need soldiers aboard all three," Denys said. "Until we know their men."

"Take them from Hewyn." Jon stood and turned to Denys. "I'm putting Vhalar and his captains under you. Their crews as well. I trust your judgement. At any sign of deceit, deal with them as you see fit. You need not wait for my leave."

Denys held his gaze, then nodded. "Aye, my lord."

Arthur opened the door and paused as Goro's voice reached them from the deck.

"I'll have Alasdair keep men with Vhalar until he's settled aboard."

Jon nodded. "Do. The new first mate should know who's been visiting him."

Arthur went to speak with Alasdair. Denys remained to settle the ships' positions, while outside Goro asked again why the boats were being kept waiting.

Before sunset, Goro's galley took the smaller western prize in tow. Bero stayed beside the rough steering oar while the line came taut. The crew shouted across the water, arguing about the turn. On the second attempt they found it. The prize followed steadily, and the men who had been rowing since morning laid their oars inboard.

Corwyn remained aboard the larger galley. He accepted Moryn's sailors, heard what their oldest man had to say and moved the guards as Denys had ordered. When Vhalar was carried back to Goro's ship under Jon's escort, Corwyn watched across the gap with his mouth set hard.

He raised no hand in farewell.

Vhalar passed no orders to the soldiers. When Denys called across, Corwyn turned away from the rail to answer him.

That evening, with the convoy making better time, Denys brought one of the captured books to the cabin.

"You wanted these kept dry." He set it upon the table. "This one is worth the trouble."

The cover was stained, its leather worn smooth where a thumb had opened it many times. Inside were purchases of grain, cordage and pitch, sums paid to captains, cargoes sold beneath names that changed from one page to the next.

Jon bent over it. Here was a price for timber in Tyrosh. There, a payment to a merchant who had supplied the western fort. Beside an entry for people sold, someone had drawn a neat line through a debt.

He stopped turning the page.

Denys followed his gaze.

"We'll need someone who knows the names," the sailor observed.

"Vhalar will know some. Goro too."

Jon laid a strip of clean cloth between the pages to mark the place. He had wanted these books while arrows struck the landing. Now he had them, and the men who might tell him where the entries led.

The silver would buy timber for his harbour and iron for his smiths. The ships would carry it. He could picture new masts above Dragonstone's quays, crews waiting for their wages, carts climbing from the water with goods that had never reached the island before.

He wanted to show Ethan the captured hulls. He wanted to see the smiths' faces when he told them what they could purchase. For the first time since leaving Bloodstone, anticipation came without his having to force it.

Then Denys laid his own account book beside the captured ledger.

"Food for the voyage. Timber. Sailcloth. The wages you've promised. Shall I begin taking it out of the silver now, or wait until you've spent it all in your head?"

Jon looked up. Denys's face remained solemn.

"You've been talking to Arthur."

"I've been listening to you."

Jon laughed, and his hand hurt when he reached for the book.

"Sit down. Tell me what it costs."

They had scarcely begun when Garon knocked. He carried a borrowed scrap of parchment and the names of the hired merchant captains. One had asked him when he could expect the return of his ship to his ordinary trade.

"I told him I would ask you. He wants more for every day we're slow."

Denys reached for the parchment. "They all do."

"He agreed a voyage, though. I heard him say it when we arranged room for his cargo." Garon remained standing while Jon read the names. "If you pay him for days as well, the others will ask."

"Did you tell him that?"

"I told him I'd ask you," Garon repeated. A little colour returned to his face. "I thought he ought to wait for his answer."

Denys drew the lamp nearer. "Sit here, Ser Garon. Tell me exactly what he agreed."

Jon made room. Before long Garon was arguing for an allowance for damaged fittings, but none for days lost to headwinds. He had soot still beneath his lashes and a tear in his sleeve, but his voice had steadied. Jon let him finish before asking what repairs the ships would need when they reached Dragonstone.

* * *
​

They went north with the slowest ship setting their pace.

At the first sheltered anchorage, the carpenters refitted the western prize's steering oar while her people rested ashore and soldiers watched the approaches. Fresh water came aboard in casks. Men who had wanted another voyage found that what they wanted first was sleep upon ground that did not move.

Jon heard the crews' grievances, paid for food and sent the fit men back to their drills when they began picking quarrels from idleness. The wounded watched and offered advice until Hewyn told them he would remember every correction when they could stand again.

Vhalar remained aboard Goro's galley. When Jon sent for him to examine the captured books, he came with a stick and two men ready to catch him. He identified a captain's false name, disputed a price and refused at first to discuss a harbour whose lord had once given him refuge.

Jon left that question for another day. He marked the answer Vhalar did give, and asked the next.

Goro proved easier to deal with, though he argued hard for his men. He brought the wounded men's needs before the captains' comforts and came back twice about the promised wages of a sailor who had died after the battle. Jon ordered the man's earned pay kept for his kin. After that, Goro began bringing solutions with his complaints.

The cut on Corwyn's wrist closed slowly. He spent the voyage learning the larger prize from the men Denys had placed aboard her. Jon heard him give an order sharply enough to turn heads, only for a sailor to correct it. Corwyn glanced towards him, his mouth tightening, then passed on the correction.

One clear evening Elyas brought his star tables up to the rail. Garon stood beside him while he matched the marks on the page to the sky. When Jon approached after the watch had changed, Elyas lowered the table and straightened.

"Carry on," Jon told him. "Which one have you found?"

Elyas showed him. Away from the lanterns, Jon could see stars too faint to show themselves above a city in his old life; they crowded the dark between the familiar bright ones.

Elyas pointed one out, lost it when a cloud passed and began again. He was less certain than he had sounded over supper. Denys paused beside them long enough to correct the direction of his finger, then left him to find the next for himself.

They stayed until Garon began yawning. Elyas folded the table carefully before taking it below.

The sea gave them calm days and contrary winds. At night Jon sometimes woke with the long horn still sounding in his ears. He would lie listening until the creak of the ship and the ordinary steps above him became familiar again.

Alasdair kept Fergus's sword with the belongings they would take to his family. He began laughing with the household before the voyage ended, though once Jon found him alone with the bundle open before him. Alasdair started wrapping it again when he saw him.

Jon sat beside him and held the cloth while he tied it.

When Dragonstone finally rose ahead, the sight drew men to the rails of every ship.

The mountain appeared first, dark against a pale morning sky. Then the castle took shape upon the lower heights, its towers and twisted stone figures emerging as the fleet drew nearer. Smoke trailed above the island. Fishing boats turned towards them, and one made for the harbour with her crew pulling hard.

Jon stood at the bow. His bandage had been changed again that morning. Behind him, men were straightening coats, putting away gear and calling across the water to friends aboard other ships.

Aurane came to stand beside him.

"They'll have seen the extra hulls."

"They'll see the wounded too."

"Aye."

Jon looked back along the convoy. Four prizes, three blue-bannered galleys and the merchants crowded with people he had promised to bring here. Goro's ship had drawn level with the larger prize. Vhalar stood at her after rail with one hand braced upon the wood, his wounded leg held stiff. He was looking at the castle.

The fishing boat reached the harbour mouth. Men began gathering along the quay.

"A boat ahead," Jon told Aurane. "Tell Ethan how many need carrying. Have carts brought down, and beds made ready. Tell him we'll need to arrange the funeral once the wounded are ashore. I'll speak to the families first."

Aurane went to pass the order. Jon watched the harbour grow nearer until he could distinguish faces among the people waiting.

He had wanted them to see what he had brought home.

Now he looked for the families.

 

[aiwonder]

Dragonstone's harbour had never looked so small.

Jon stood beside the steering platform while the first of their ships turned towards the quay. Beyond her, fishing boats crowded close to shore, their crews watching the procession come in. Four captured hulls followed the merchants. The larger western prize still bore a ragged gap in her rail; farther back, the three galleys sworn to Jon's service flew Vhalar's blue banners, with Denys's ships between them. From the shore, it must have looked as though they had brought half the Stepstones home.

A cheer went up from one of the fishing boats. Someone aboard the flagship answered with a name and an insult, and laughter travelled along the rail.

Jon smiled. He had wanted to see this harbour full of his ships. He had spent hours drawing berths for vessels he did not possess, counting what each would cost to build and wondering where he would find the hands to sail her. Now oars rose out of the water one rank after another, and men he had never expected to command waited upon Denys's signals.

There was silver beneath the hatches, and strongboxes whose locks Abel would want opened before he believed any account of them. There were stores they could use, cargoes they could sell and sailors who knew waters his own men had scarcely seen. On the merchant decks, people climbed upon coils of rope to look past the shoulders in front of them.

He followed their gaze upwards.

The castle rose black above the roofs, its carved wings reaching from towers that no mason alive could make again. Higher still, a white wisp drifted from Dragonmont. He had grown used to that view since coming here. Today he could almost see it as the strangers did: a mountain breathing over a castle full of dragons, with a town huddled beneath its claws.

And all the ground beyond those roofs was his to build upon.

Arthur came to stand beside him, his arm resting in its sling. For a little while neither spoke.

"You'll need a larger harbour," the knight said.

"I needed one before we left." Jon looked towards the shore again. "Now I have more to put in it."

Aurane was waiting with Ethan below the castle road. Even at this distance Jon recognised his pale hair and the bandage round his hand. His boat had reached shore well ahead of them; carts stood behind the waiting people, and garrison men had kept a broad passage through the crowd. A woman hurried along it carrying blankets. Wylla followed her, stopped to speak to a carter, then turned towards the approaching ship.

Jon raised his sound hand. She saw him and stood very still before lifting hers.

The crew brought them alongside. Ropes slapped wetly against the quay, the hull settled against her fenders and, as soon as the gangplank was secured, Lorren came aboard with two helpers. Alasdair met him beside the wounded. One of the two badly hurt household men woke when they moved his pallet and tried to sit up; the companion beside him bent close, speaking into his ear until he lay back.

Jon went to them. Lorren was already examining the dressing.

"The beds are ready above," the healer told him. "I'll take these two first."

"Keep their companions with them. Send for me if either worsens."

Lorren nodded without looking up. Jon left him room to work and went ashore.

Ethan caught his left arm before Jon could greet him. The castellan's eyes travelled over his face, down to the bound hand and back again.

"Welcome home, my lord."

"It's good to be here."

For a moment Ethan held on. Then he released him, looking past Jon as the first bearers came down.

"Aurane brought what we needed. We've room for the worst wounded in the castle. Lorren has more beds below for the others."

"And the people aboard the merchants?"

"Tobin is clearing the stores by the harbour. Wylla has women seeing to food."

"They must all be under a roof tonight. Take names as they're settled, and find out who has kin elsewhere. Perkin has what we've learnt on the voyage."

"I'll speak with him."

"The fighting prisoners and the pirates who chose labour stay under guard. Marros is to keep them apart from the freed people. Otho can have their work once they're counted and fed."

Ethan acknowledged that with a short nod. He glanced towards the incoming galleys. "And those?"

"Denys has command of them. Four prizes and three in sworn service. Their accounts can wait until we've landed everyone."

Wylla reached him before Ethan could answer. She put both hands upon Jon's shoulders, searched his face, then drew him against her. He could smell soap in her sleeves. He had meant to say something reassuring; instead he stood there with his good hand at her back while she held him.

When she stepped away, she took the wounded hand carefully.

"How deep?"

"Deep enough to make writing troublesome. It's closing."

"Lorren will see it again." Her thumb rested beside the linen, well clear of the cut. "And you will eat something before you begin asking for every man in the castle."

"I've no intention of starving in my own home."

She gave him a look at that, but she was smiling now. Then Arthur came down, and her smile vanished at the sight of his sling.

"Your shoulder?"

"Bruised. Nothing broken."

"You can both tell Lorren how little is wrong with you."

A sailor pushed past them with his cap in his hand. The silver-haired woman waiting beyond the carts struck him on the shoulder, caught him round the neck and began to cry into his coat. He held her without speaking. Farther along, a little boy ran towards a man whose arm was bound against his chest, stopped short and waited to be shown where he could touch him.

Jon moved aside as the next stretcher passed. Behind it came Garon and Elyas, looking about for familiar faces. Across the water, Corwyn was calling something from the larger prize; a boatman shouted back that he would have to wait his turn.

The harbour grew noisier as the morning wore on. Men called from ship to shore, women searched the landing parties and children followed the carts until the guards turned them back. Abel's clerks took charge of the strongboxes as they came off, while Denys settled the order in which the merchants would unload. Their masters were already asking when they could return to their own trade.

Brus brought his twenty-two rowers to receive the pay promised them. Some had bundled their belongings; others stayed to speak with Denys about work aboard Jon's ships. Jon watched one man count his coins twice before wrapping them in a scrap of cloth. Brus said something to him, and the man laughed, showing a broken tooth. He tucked the money away and went towards the town without a guard following him.

Tero found Jon beside the last of the carts. The caulker carried their bundle in his good hand, with Merra close behind him. She looked past Jon towards the men along the wall.

"He's still here?"

"He is. Ethan will take you to him."

She caught her brother's sleeve. Tero shifted the bundle and put his arm round her. Jon called Ethan aside before they followed him.

"Pello's mate. Have them brought to him. The guard stays."

The rescued passengers were slower to leave the landing place. A woman sat upon her bundle even after she had finished eating. Two men argued over the direction of a home neither had seen for years. Near the wall, a girl clutched an empty bowl while Wylla tried to persuade her to stand.

"There's a room ready," Wylla told her. "You can rest."

The girl looked towards the building she indicated.

"Door?"

"A door. Come and see."

Wylla offered her hand. After a moment the girl took it.

Later, going up to the castle, Jon passed the yard where the prisoners were held. Merra sat beside her man upon a bench. Their foreheads touched; his hands lay in hers, and the chain between his ankles rested upon the ground. Tero stood a little way off, looking out through the gate. He saw Jon and bowed his head.

Jon returned the greeting and went on.

By evening, Jon had reached the castle, washed and changed, and begun receiving the families of the island men who would not come home.

The sailor's mother would not take the chair Jon offered. Her grandson stood against her skirts, holding a fistful of the cloth. He had been crying before they came in; his nose ran, and he kept wiping it on his sleeve.

"There's men still coming up from the harbour," she said. "I saw them. Some of the ships haven't emptied yet."

Denys came forward from the window.

"Your son was killed beside the transports. The men with him—"

"Then ask someone else."

"They carried him under shelter. They stayed with him."

She stared at Denys, then looked past him towards the window. Outside, a cart rattled over the stones.

"I want him brought here."

The boy pulled at her gown. She shook him off without looking down.

"Do you hear me? Go and fetch him."

"He died of his wounds," Denys said.

"No." She caught his sleeve in both hands. "No, you listen. He's got a little boy. Look at him."

Denys looked. The child had begun to cry again, silently at first, his mouth open and his face wet. He reached for his grandmother's hand, but she was pulling at Denys now, trying to turn him towards the door.

"Fetch him. I'll wait here. I'll wait."

"Gran."

She struck Denys in the chest with the heel of her hand. He took hold of her wrist before she could strike him again. She tried to wrench free, stumbled against the chair and screamed for her son. The boy flinched from her. When a guard appeared in the doorway, Jon raised his hand.

"Send Wylla here."

The woman was on her knees now. Denys bent to help her, but she pushed him away, sobbing so hard she could scarcely get the words out.

"My boy. I want my boy."

Her grandson stood beside her, crying aloud. He tugged at her shoulder, then looked at Jon.

"She won't get up."

Jon crouched beside him. "Stay here. Someone's coming to help her."

The child pulled at her again. "Gran, please."

At last she turned and dragged him against her. He struggled in the tight embrace, crying that she was hurting him. She loosened her arms, but would not let go. By the time Wylla arrived, he had buried his face against her neck.

Wylla knelt with them. It took some time to get the woman to her feet. She refused the chair again and left leaning upon Wylla, her grandson clutching her hand. Jon could hear her weeping long after they had gone down the passage.

He sent Ethan to see that someone stayed with them that night, and to take the wages owed and grain to their house in the morning.

Others followed. A wife asked who had stood beside her husband. A father made Jon repeat an answer he seemed unable to retain. One man left without taking his son's purse, and Ethan went after him into the passage.

The supper left for Jon had gone cold by the time Alasdair joined him. The captain set Fergus's bundle beside his chair and unfolded a letter. There was a blot near the top of the first sheet; the writing grew smaller towards the bottom of the second.

"I've written to his mother too," Jon told him. "Read mine before it goes."

Alasdair nodded, but kept looking at his own pages.

"I keep remembering things she won't know. Things he did here."

"Put them in."

"It's already two sheets."

"Then use a third."

Jon pushed the lamp nearer. Alasdair reached for the ink, and they stayed at the table until the candles in the hall were being put out.

* * *
​

The household dressed together before the service.

There was less noise than Jon remembered from other mornings. A buckle fell beneath a bed. Somebody asked for a brush, and three men offered him one. Alasdair had laid Fergus's sword across the folded cloak they would send north. He moved it when Colin reached for the bench, then moved it back after Colin had found somewhere else to sit.

Tomas stood while Gawen straightened his collar. He had been left on Dragonstone to recover from his own injury. Yesterday he had demanded every account of the fighting, interrupting one man to question another. This morning he had nothing to ask.

"He was meant to tell me," he said at last.

Gawen's hands stilled.

"When he came back. What the fighting was like." Tomas looked towards the bundle. "He said he'd leave out the part where he shat himself."

Colin laughed once, before he could stop it. Alasdair bent his head. For a moment Jon thought the captain would laugh too, but when he raised his face his eyes were wet.

"He'd have left out a great deal," Alasdair said.

Jon sat on the end of the bench. He remembered Fergus as a smaller boy, fierce in defence of some possession none of the others wanted until he began defending it. Now the boy's things fitted inside a cloak. He had known men in his first life whose belongings had gone home in much the same way. That knowledge offered him nothing useful to say to Tomas.

He put his good hand upon the young knight's shoulder and sat with him until the others were ready.

Outside, the castle yard had filled. The sailors stood with their kin; the centuries gathered behind their officers, leaving places where wounded men could sit. Some had insisted upon coming down from the chambers prepared for them. Lorren had permitted those he thought fit and refused the rest, and Jon had upheld him. Two of the household remained upstairs. Wylla had promised that someone would sit with each while the others were below.

The representatives stood together near the steps. Corwyn's wrist was freshly wrapped. Beside him, Brus held Donnel's belongings. The knight said something too quietly for Jon to hear, and Brus nodded.

There were no bodies to bring home. Jon had told the families that himself. A black cloth lay over a table beneath the wall, with a place for the things that remained. Alasdair set down Fergus's sword. Other men came after him, some with bundles, one with nothing but a belt wound around his fist.

The septon prayed for those who had followed the Seven. When he had finished, the Northerners stood in silence for their own dead. Jon looked across the heads before him towards the dark slope of the mountain. The wind moved through the yard, lifting a corner of the cloth until Alasdair caught it.

Perkin read the names. At each one, a man from the dead man's company stepped forward. By the end their companions stood shoulder to shoulder around the table.

Jon had prepared words in his chamber. He found he wanted to look at the men instead of the sheet.

"You brought your wounded out of Bloodstone," he began. "You carried men who could no longer stand, and held the ground while they were brought behind you. Some of those who held it are named here."

He could see Gerralt among the officers. Farther back, a sailor had put his arm around a woman who kept her face pressed against his shoulder.

"I gave the order to land. These men went ashore in my service. Their families will receive their wages and the reward earned upon that voyage. Those who depended upon them will have help from my household. You will not have to stand at my gate begging for what is owed."

He turned towards the men beside the table.

"You know things about them that I do not. How they worked. What they said when they were tired. Who they quarrelled with, and who they went to when they needed a friend. Tell their families. Write it if they are far away. I will send the letters."

Alasdair was looking at him now.

"We trained to come through such a fight together. Most of us did. We will learn from the men we lost, and we will keep faith with the people they left to us."

Jon stepped down. The sailor's mother he had met the night before stood near the front, her eyes swollen and her shawl slipping from one shoulder. Her grandson leaned against her leg. When one of his father's shipmates crouched to speak to him, the boy hid his face in her gown. She laid a hand upon his head and left it there. Jon greeted her, then stayed while the others came forward.

Food had been laid in the hall. Men ate with their families, and the returning household found themselves surrounded by those who had stayed behind. The first stories were hesitant. Then Garon corrected a sailor's account of a bowman who had refused to leave his perch, and the bowman, sitting three places down, objected so loudly that half the bench turned to hear.

"I was waiting for a clear shot."

"You were waiting for someone to carry your arrows."

"Well, you were there."

Garon spread his hands. Elyas laughed into his cup. Jon saw a few of the men who had stood rigid through the service begin to eat properly.

The great doors remained open. Light reached across the rushes and the ends of the benches; farther inside, servants moved beneath the carved beasts of Dragonstone with jugs and fresh loaves. The castle had held grander feasts. Jon doubted many had been so welcome. For the first time since the landing at Bloodstone, his men could leave a sword out of reach without looking for it every few moments.

He had Abel bring the rewards before the meal ended.

Every man who had sailed with him for Bloodstone would receive an additional month's pay. The dead men's portions went with their wages to their kin. Those still too badly hurt to return to duty would remain upon the rolls while they recovered; where a wound ended a man's soldiering, Jon would find him another place in his service. Perkin had already begun asking Lorren which men might teach, keep stores or work without worsening their injuries.

The cheer came from the lower benches, ragged at first, then taken up by men who had been discussing what the captured chests might contain since they came aboard. One sailor put down his cup and counted something upon his fingers. Beside him, his wife caught his hand and began counting for him.

Jon smiled at that. He wanted them to enjoy the money. Some would drink it; some would send it home; a few would buy a better coat and discover that it attracted more notice than a spear. They had earned the choice.

He called the four representatives forward before the hall broke up.

Garon looked surprised. Corwyn rose more carefully, keeping his wrapped wrist against his chest. Aurane glanced towards Elyas and found the other man as uncertain as himself.

"Your houses sent you with me," Jon told them. "I will tell them how you served."

He named Garon's run back for the bowmen, Elyas's work aboard the ships, Corwyn's service with Brus in the western harbour. When he came to Aurane, several of the men carried off in the last ferry lifted their cups.

"You brought the boat back when we needed it," Jon said. "I have not forgotten."

Four purses lay upon Abel's tray, twenty dragons in each. Jon gave them out himself. Their houses had sent no fighting ships and would receive no portion of the prizes for sending representatives. These men had stood in danger with his own, and he intended that their lords should hear it from him.

Corwyn closed his sound hand around the purse. "My lord."

His bow was stiff. Jon returned it with a nod, and called for wine.

The departures began the next morning. Denys had arranged passages for Sharp Point, Sweetport Sound and Claw Isle, keeping the gentlemen out of the way of ships still being unloaded. Aurane would make the shorter crossing to Driftmark and return after his visit. He was coming back to duty; the others were going home with accounts their lords had been waiting to hear.

Jon met them in the yard before they rode down.

Garon had acquired a better cloak and was trying to fasten his bag around a roll of papers. "Lady Mylenda will ask whether she should send a merchant to look at your goods."

"If she has one worth sending. Marrec will hear him when the lots are ready."

"She has three. None will thank me if I choose the other."

"Then let her choose."

Garon grinned and accepted his letter. Elyas asked after the star tables they had discussed aboard. Jon promised that a copy could follow once his own men had finished with them. The knight's pleasure was plain enough that Aurane nudged him with an elbow.

Corwyn waited until the other two had stepped aside.

"Denys has put his man over the prize," he said.

"You brought her home. He has her now."

"Aye." Corwyn looked down at the sealed letter Jon held out. "Will Lord Ardrian find my account agrees with yours?"

"You were in the western harbour. Tell him what you saw there."

The knight met his eyes. "Including what followed."

"Including that."

Jon let him take the letter. He had no intention of asking Corwyn to admire Vhalar or conceal his own objections. The man had obeyed when obedience had become disagreeable. Jon could value that without courting his approval.

"Brus spoke well of you," he added. "So have I."

Corwyn's expression altered. He tucked the letter beneath his cloak before bowing again.

They mounted. Aurane lingered beside his horse while the others settled themselves.

"Monford will want to know everything."

"Then tell him."

"He'll ask what you mean to do next."

Jon looked past him towards the harbour. The damaged prizes crowded the anchorage, and above the shore the unfinished yard stood open to the weather.

"For a start, make use of what we've brought home."

He watched them ride through the gate. At the bend Garon raised a hand. Aurane turned in the saddle, his silver hair bright in the morning light, then followed the others down the road.

Ethan waited until they were out of sight.

"The masters are here."

Jon turned back towards the keep. "Then we'll begin."

* * *
​

They had put the silver beneath the narrow windows of the council chamber.

The coin had already gone to the strongroom. Abel had kept out a few pieces of each kind: worn stags, heavy foreign silver, a thin gold coin with an unfamiliar face rubbed almost smooth. Beside them stood a broad platter, two cups and a little bowl with a dent driven through its flowers. They had been wrapped for the voyage in cloth finer than anything most of Jon's soldiers owned.

He picked up the bowl with his left hand. Its foot was uneven. Someone had tried to hammer it straight without taking much care over the work.

"Thirty-eight thousand dragons," Abel told him.

Jon looked up.

"Reckoned in gold dragons," the treasurer added. "Thirty thousand in the coins, once the foreign pieces are reckoned by weight. Another eight thousand in plate and the saleable goods, at the prices Marrec believes we can obtain."

"Believes?"

Marrec drew the platter towards him. "This will fetch more whole than melted. The plain silver may not. A man buying a cargo of cloth will want his bargain, and I won't have one buyer name the price for all of it."

Thirty-eight thousand. The haul was worth more than the treasure they had found on Dragonstone. Jon set down the bowl and looked over the account again. There were sums beside the contents of the six eastern coin chests, more beside the money brought out of Moreo's strongroom. The plate occupied a separate sheet. He remembered the men labouring down the steps with it while others held Rolo back, the weight that had made every stumble dangerous. Here it lay in tidy columns beneath Abel's hand.

He could pay for timber before another buyer carried it away. He could bring craftsmen across the water with something better than a promise of future wages. Foundations that had waited while he chose which shortage to meet first could rise above the ground.

"There was more we could have brought away," Denys said. "Another day to empty the stores would have made this a longer reckoning."

Jon remembered how little room had remained in the last boats. He turned the sheet.

"And the ships?" Ethan asked.

"Not included," Abel replied. "Nor the books. I have put no price upon what our own people will use."

The distinction pleased Jon. Too many men would have counted every hull at the price of a sound ship and spent the same silver again in their heads.

Stewart had taken the books to a dry room. Some were accounts; others would have to wait upon a man who could read them. Denys had claimed the serviceable cordage and sailcloth for the ships. Arms were being sorted, sound pieces to the stores and damaged iron to Ewan. Goods that could be identified as another man's property were held apart. A merchant who could prove his claim would receive his goods, rather than pay Jon for the privilege of having been robbed by somebody else.

"Sell what we have no use for," Jon told Marrec. "In lots small enough to find more than one buyer. Keep the best cloth for the household's needs, and bring Abel the offers before you accept them."

He pushed the little bowl back towards the platter. He did not want a chamber crowded with another man's ornaments while his own masters waited for iron.

The table had been cleared for the rest of the business. Ethan sat at Jon's right, Arthur beside the hearth with his shoulder supported. Hewyn and Denys took places opposite one another. Otho arrived carrying the plans Jon had asked for, followed by Qavo and Naella. The shipwright gave the display of plate one incurious glance, then bent over the drawings as though the money would only become interesting when it purchased timber.

Abel waited until they had settled.

"Three thousand must be kept from the coin before we speak of new work. The outstanding hire, the rewards, the sums for the families and what is owed to the men. I have allowed room for further claims from the wounded."

"Keep it aside," Jon said. "The dead men's households are to have a year's wages in addition to the money already earned. Where that leaves children or an infirm parent without support, Ethan will see what more is needed."

Hewyn bowed his head slightly. Denys asked whether the same provision applied to his sailors.

"Every man lost in my service on this voyage."

Abel marked the account. What remained in coin was still more than Jon had expected to possess when he had set out. He let himself enjoy that for a moment before turning to Denys.

"Tell us what we can use."

The captain laid down a list of the ships, with notes in a hand much rougher than Abel's.

"Four prizes. I would keep all four, provided Qavo finds nothing worse when the damaged ones are opened. We paid enough to bring them here."

He touched the entry for the smaller western galley.

"She needs proper work upon the stern. The repair brought her home. It doesn't make her fit to chase another ship. The larger one wants a rail, oars and a number of lesser things. The eastern pair will be less trouble."

"Crews?"

"That is the greater trouble. Vhalar's three give us men as well as hulls, but I cannot put every sailor wherever I please and expect them to work together by tomorrow."

Jon could see Hewyn studying the list. The legion had rowed when there was no one else to do it. They had learnt what ignorance cost at a steering oar.

"The soldiers come ashore as the new crews take their places," Jon decided. "Keep the detachments aboard the three sworn ships. Take the rest out of the benches as soon as you can."

"I can begin with the men Brus freed. Several have asked to remain. Some of the people from the pens know ships as well."

"Offer them the usual pay. I want men who choose the work."

Denys nodded. "I also want time with the captains. Goro knows his business. So does Sallo. Moryn will need watching. None of them is accustomed to asking another man where he may sail."

"They'll become accustomed to it."

Arthur looked towards Jon, then back to the captain. There was no dispute to settle there. Denys had been given authority, and Jon expected him to exercise it.

They agreed that the first sound ships would take ordinary work close to the island. The crews needed to learn one another, and Denys needed to see who obeyed readily, who kept his mouth shut until an officer turned away, and who could be trusted with a boat full of stores. The damaged prizes would remain where the craftsmen could reach them. More distant voyages could wait.

"Five thousand dragons for the repairs, fitting out and stores," Jon told Abel. "Denys brings you the costs. Anything beyond that comes back to me."

"That will let us begin," Denys said. "If I can have the carpenters."

Qavo had been following through Naella. Now he spoke before she had quite finished.

"And when do I begin?" she translated.

Jon smiled. "That is the next matter."

Otho spread the yard drawing. They had to move the platter to make room. Qavo held down one corner with a calloused hand and pointed to the covered building in which the new ships were to be laid down.

The enclosure came first. Jon had agreed to that before the expedition, and the bargain still stood. No unfinished hull would be left open for every visiting sailor to study. Within the walls, Qavo and Moro would have room to work from the designs they had sworn to keep. Outside them, ordinary repairs could go on under other men.

"The first frames are cut," Otho said. "Woods can raise them when the iron fittings are finished. After that I need men roofing while the masons bring up the walls."

"Ewan has the order?"

"He has it. He also has the fittings for Bennard's hammer, work for the mill and half the damaged iron that has come off your ships."

"Finish the hammer and the first frames. We need Bennard's work at Saltcliffe and Eastcove as well as here. Marrec, keep him supplied with iron and charcoal until the mine can do its part. Noll can take the common repairs." Jon looked to Denys. "Send your needs through him. Qavo and Moro stay with the new ships. Use the carpenters who came with the prizes for work you can oversee."

Denys considered it, then nodded. Qavo asked a question through his daughter.

"What of another master? You promised to seek one."

Marrec answered this time. "I am seeking one. There are men willing to come. Few of them have built anything larger than a fishing boat."

"Then seek farther," Jon said. "The money is here now."

Qavo looked at him properly. For the first time since entering, he sat back from the drawing.

Jon had spent enough evenings with him to know what that silence meant. The old shipwright had heard fine intentions before. A house could want a fleet for twenty years and never put enough timber in one place to build it. Jon drew the account towards the yard plan, allowing the man to see both together.

"Ten thousand for the works," he told Abel. "The yard, the timber for the first two hulls, the forge work and the housing Otho needs to bring in more hands. Pay for what must be bought now. The rest is held until the work reaches it."

Qavo spoke to Naella, who pointed at the second building place. "He asks whether you still mean to wait upon the first ship's trials."

"Before we lay the second keel, yes. Buy the timber for both. We will know what needs changing before he begins her."

Otho lifted his eyes from the plan. "That includes the brick we could not afford?"

"And the roof timber. Finish the rows already begun. Cinderwell will supply us in time; the houses cannot wait for every kiln to be built."

"I could put the men on the roofs in Eastcove who are now waiting upon brick."

"Then do it."

Otho began turning through his sheets. Qavo was talking to Naella again, more quickly now, counting something upon his fingers. The room had changed. They were no longer telling Jon why a task had stopped. They were deciding which men to send to it.

He leaned over the harbour drawing beneath Otho's hand. Beyond the yard lay the shore he had reserved for later quays, storehouses and lifting frames. He could picture a laden merchantman lying against stone while a crane took her cargo straight into waiting carts. Ships would come for repairs and provisions, stay to buy what Dragonstone made, and carry the island's goods farther than any of its fishermen had travelled.

He had seen harbours in his first life that seemed to have no end. This one could not become such a place in a season. Yet he knew how much lay between an idle shore and a busy one, and for once he could meet more than a single part of the cost.

"The new quay follows the yard," he said. "I want its ground kept clear. Stores behind it, a road wide enough for the carts, and room for the lifting gear. Do not let somebody put a cheap shed across the place because it is empty today."

Otho looked almost offended. "It is on the drawing."

"It has been on drawings before."

Ethan laughed softly. Otho laid his palm over the proposed quay as though shielding it from an unseen builder, and Jon let the matter rest.

Hewyn had waited through the discussion of timber. Now he reached towards the edge of the table.

"My lord, those are men I will need back."

Otho stopped turning his sheets.

"You will have them," Jon told the primus pilus. "The legion has vacancies to fill and work to do before it sails again."

"I can train the thirteen already at Black Fields. They will not fill every place."

"Count them first, then take the remainder from Dragonstone. The dead men's places and those Lorren says cannot be filled by the men who held them. Do not strike a wounded man off because he needs another month to heal."

Hewyn nodded. "I will have the numbers with Perkin."

"And Rollam remains under the sentence already given," Jon added. "Being counted among the trainees changes nothing of that."

"My lord."

Otho waited until the primus pilus had finished. "You closed the ranks to the island because the building needed the men. It still does. If the new roofs make them think the work is done, I'll lose the best of them."

"I am opening the ranks because they are my people, and I need soldiers. You will have other hands."

Jon turned to Marrec.

"Six thousand dragons for purchases and passage. Valyrian men and women. I want skilled people for the works, and labourers to carry, dig and learn. Smiths, carpenters, masons, weavers, men who understand ropes and sails. Send men who know those trades to judge what they are buying."

Marrec's gaze moved to Abel. The treasurer had already dipped his pen.

"That will reach beyond the few enquiries we have made," the merchant said. "Lys will give us the best choice of the people you want. A master craftsman will cost more than several field hands."

"Then pay for a master when you find one. I want teachers as well as hands. Otho should not have to ask me for another man every time a mason falls ill."

"And the millwright who will not leave his family?"

"The terms we discussed stand, if he is worth the price. Do not make a whole household a condition of the other purchases. Buy the men and women we need."

Jon tapped the list beneath Marrec's hand. "Gella needs helpers at the salt works. So do the potters. Have Perrin give you their requirements. Ellyn's father cannot fill his old orders, teach her and train every new hand himself."

Marrec made a note. "And upon landing?"

"They are freed. Paid service, a place to live, and the same law as the people already here. Those admitted to the secret works take the masters' oaths. Make the terms known before they board."

Jon had no intention of filling his workshops with men waiting for the first chance to run from them. He could offer steady bread, wages and work worth learning. On an island where every industry wanted more hands, he had room to give an able person a future. He expected the bargain to attract enough of them.

"How many can we receive?" Marrec asked Ethan.

The castellan drew one of Otho's sheets towards him. "Not six thousand dragons' worth at once. We are still settling those already brought home."

He described the rooms now occupied near the harbour, the families placed with willing households and the unfinished houses that could be made ready first. Some of the freed people wanted passage away, and he was arranging it. Others had already asked for work. A carpenter had been given tools that morning; by noon two of the men lodging with him had followed him to Otho's foreman.

"Let the first party be sixty at most," Ethan said. "We can have room for them without putting another bed into every passage. Send notice before they sail. After the roofs are on, I can receive more."

Jon approved it. The money would be drawn as Marrec found people and passage, with enough left for their food on the voyage. There was no need to spend it all upon the first seller who heard that Dragonstone was buying.

"Those already here are to be placed first," he added. "Find out what they can do, and where they mean to stay. If a man has spent his life in a vineyard, he need not be sent to break stone because that is where someone happens to want him today."

"And the pirates ashore?" Otho asked.

"Marros keeps them under guard. Heavy work, in separate gangs. They do not choose their own movements, and they do not lodge with the people they helped enslave."

There was a short silence after that. Jon let it stand. He had made the distinction aboard and would not have it blurred for the convenience of a foreman.

Then he returned to the matter between Otho and Hewyn. Labourers whose work could be covered would enter training first. A craftsman admitted to the legion would remain at his trade until another man could take it. Otho and Hewyn were to settle those cases together, with Perkin marking when the man's military pay began. Neither was to spend the next month sending the same dispute up to the castle.

"You will both have more men when this is done," Jon finished. "For now, give one another enough time to make it work."

Hewyn put out his hand for Otho's sheet. The builder passed it over, reluctantly, and began naming the jobs that could not stop. Jon listened until he was satisfied they were discussing particular men. Then he turned back to Abel.

"Five thousand for the ships, ten for the works, six for the buyers. With the first three held for what we owe, that leaves six thousand of the coin untouched."

"It does," Abel replied. "And the proceeds of the goods, when sold."

"Keep the reserve. Grain, another bad voyage, something the men find when they open a hull. We will not have to halt everything because the first estimate was wrong."

The treasurer's face eased. Jon suspected the reserve had pleased him more than the entire heap of captured plate.

Stewart came in as Otho and Hewyn moved their chairs together. He waited beside Jon until the question about a mill cart had been settled, then put two letters into his hand.

"Lord Arryn's reply, my lord. And your father's. The second arrived yesterday."

The Hand had received both accounts of the vassals' gathering. He wanted the expedition's outcome and cautioned Jon against making a quarrel with Tyrosh. Ned referred to the copy Arryn had sent north. His letter was shorter, and more plainly worried. Jon read the last lines twice before folding it.

"Ethan has already sent word that we are home," he said. "Give them the report: the fighting, what we brought away, our losses and the men still recovering. Include Vhalar's submission and the limits upon his command. My father's copy is to carry the ships fit for service and the men under arms, as the king required."

"And the concerns raised by your vassals?"

"They will have the facts."

Stewart inclined his head. Jon would add a few private lines to Ned before the letters were sealed. There was no purpose in arguing an expedition already finished with men who had remained at home.

By the time the chamber emptied, the drawings had changed. Otho had marked the first houses to be roofed. Denys had taken the list of available carpenters. Marrec carried a commission large enough to justify sending trusted men across the sea instead of asking favours of passing captains. Qavo paused at the door to speak to his daughter.

"He asks whether he may send for the timber now," Naella told Jon.

"Today."

The old shipwright bowed. It was a small movement, soon over. Then he caught Moro waiting outside and began talking before his son had even fallen into step.

Denys had stayed behind with Ethan and Arthur. Jon waited for the voices in the passage to fade before asking about Myr.

"Nothing yet," Ethan said. "I would have told you."

"Arthur?"

"The enquiries have gone. I can send again, through another man."

"Do. We have the coin to pay for haste." Jon looked to Denys. "Keep a sound ship ready. When we know where the children are, I want you able to go. This does not wait upon Qavo's work."

"I'll see to her."

"And any word of Oswell or Gerold comes straight to me."

Arthur nodded. Jon gathered Ned's letter from the table. He could write to Winterfell and know it would reach his father. Somewhere across the sea were a boy and a girl he could not even send a letter to. For days he had been occupied with men close enough to give orders to, and that distance had been easy to forget.

He laid the letter beside the reports he still had to finish.

"Send yours tonight."

* * *
​

At Driftmark, Monford read Jon's letter twice before setting it beside the wine.

"He commends you highly."

Aurane shifted his bandaged hand upon his knee. "I brought his last boat off."

"So he writes. Show me where."

The afternoon was well advanced before his brother finished with the fighting. Aurane drew the landing and the harbour mouth upon a scrap of parchment. Monford asked where Denys had kept his flagship, how many boats remained beneath the steps and which way the western prizes had come. He stopped Aurane whenever an account of someone else's fighting crept into his own.

"Did you see that?"

"Brus told us afterwards."

"Then leave it. What could you see from the ferry?"

Aurane marked the passage between Denys and the shore. "Their galley was coming across here. Denys kept between her and us. Brus's bowmen were shooting into her stern."

"Brus's prizes were the ships with damaged steering?"

"One had a new steering oar lashed in place. The other was short of rowers."

"And Jon had left his escape dependent upon them?"

"Denys was holding the passage before they came. We had boats waiting for the men ashore."

"Whose order?"

"Jon's. I carried his note to Denys."

Monford glanced at the letter beside his cup. "Orders agreed with Ser Arthur before he went ashore, perhaps."

"Perhaps. Arthur wasn't there when the boats fouled one another. A boatman had been shot. His ferry swung across the steps and caught mine." Aurane pointed with his sound hand. "Jon saw the oar trapped between them and ordered the sailor to let it go. I passed over our spare pair. We got the first load away."

"And his men waited while you did this?"

"Their optio kept them back."

"With pirates coming down upon them?"

Aurane looked up. "Aye. You asked what I saw. I saw men close enough to jump into my boat stand where they were told. Hewyn sent them down in groups, with the wounded among them. The last shieldmen came after Jon."

Monford considered the drawing. Outside the window, a sailmaker was gathering his work from the paving below. Two apprentices folded the long cloth between them, taking their time over it.

"Good officers," his brother said. "Stark chose well."

"Jon chose them."

"With his father's leave."

Aurane let that pass. "He has trained with them for years. They know him."

"They know his father keeps a great castle and the king gave him another. Men have followed less promising boys."

"They weren't looking towards Winterfell when Rolo came at them."

Monford's eyes returned to him. Aurane had spoken more sharply than he intended, but he was tired of hearing every man credited except the one who had stood beside him.

"He is twelve," Monford said.

"I know. At supper yesterday, washed and in a clean coat, he looked it. Then he stood to thank the men and the hall quieted."

"A bastard home with a victory. He will want them to hear of it."

"You needn't explain bastards to me."

"You have Velaryon blood."

"Enough for this conversation, at least."

His brother left the wine untouched. "Mind your tongue."

Aurane looked down at the drawing. For a while Monford asked only for the losses. He wrote the figures himself, stopping to distinguish the dead from men whose recovery was still doubtful. Then he counted the captured ships.

"Four prizes," Aurane told him. "Vhalar's three have sworn service besides. Denys has divided their crews and put his own officers aboard."

"Seven hulls added to Dragonstone, and Robert sent none of them." Monford laid down the pen. "How much coin?"

"I haven't seen the reckoning."

"Enough to pay those men?"

"They received an extra month's wages yesterday. The dead men's portions went to their kin."

"And you?"

"Twenty dragons."

Monford gave him a long look. Aurane felt his face grow hot.

"For going back under their bows," he said. "He gave the same to the others."

"I did not say you hadn't earned it." Monford drew Jon's letter nearer. "He makes certain their lords hear of their service, too. Corwyn will carry his purse home with that story. So will Garon and Elyas. We sent him four men and no ships. Now he can thank us very generously."

Aurane had been pleased by the letter. He still was, though he wished his brother had left it alone.

"Would you rather he hadn't thanked them?"

"I would rather know what he means to ask next."

"He's building a yard. Finishing the houses above the harbour. He has enough work without finding a quarrel with you."

"A yard to build his own ships, with captains he has raised and men whose wages he pays. He may soon have less need to ask."

Monford rose and went to the window. Beyond the roofs lay the masts of their own ships, the pale seahorse showing upon a furled banner.

"Our house came from Valyria, Aurane. We served the dragons before there was an Iron Throne. We married into their line and carried their armies across the sea." He turned back. "Now the usurper gives their seat to Stark's bastard and expects us to be grateful for a letter. The boy is no Targaryen. Robert's seal cannot make him one."

"It made him Lord of Dragonstone."

"I know what it made him. I bent the knee."

The answer was quiet enough that Aurane wished he had kept his own voice lower. Monford shut the casement. He checked the latch before returning to the table.

"You have grown familiar with him."

"We were aboard the same ships."

"He speaks to you when there is no duty to discuss?"

"Sometimes."

"Good. Keep his company when you return."

Aurane leaned back. "You told me to watch him before we sailed. I've brought you the account."

"You have brought me a battle. I want to know the boy. Who can persuade him? What does he want that Glover or Ser Arthur will not give him?"

"He doesn't tell me everything."

"He might, if you stopped treating this as a duty to finish." Monford pushed the letter towards him. "He likes you. You went back for him when you might have stayed aboard. Make something of it."

Aurane did not pick it up. He remembered the ferry dipping beneath the last men, Jon reaching beneath a wounded man's shoulder as arrows struck the water. Monford had asked where everyone stood. He had not asked what it had felt like to bring them off.

"He will know if I start questioning him."

"Then don't question him as I have questioned you. Ride with him. Sit beside him at supper. He is surrounded by men who teach him and boys who call him lord. Be an older friend he can speak freely with."

"And tell you what he says."

"Yes."

The plain answer annoyed Aurane more than the excuses he had expected.

"You have just heard what he did. Do you still think him so easily led?"

"I think a boy of twelve may be very clever and still want someone he admires to think well of him. He has learnt how to give orders. That does not mean every wish in his head is beyond our reach."

"He'll not take an order from you because I give it a kinder voice."

"Then give him sound advice. When he needs a pilot, know a good one. When his captains want repairs, remind them our yards are close. Let him find that turning to Driftmark saves him trouble." Monford tapped the drawing. "He has more ships now. He will need people who know what to do with them."

"Denys knows."

"Then ask him what he is short of. Offer something he needs before you tell him what Driftmark wants."

Monford took a fresh sheet from the chest beneath the table.

"I'll send a carpenter to look at the prizes and give an honest price for the repairs. You may tell Jon so. I will come myself when the work is settled."

"To watch his men drill?"

"Among other things." Monford dipped the pen. "Write each week. His ships, his intentions, who has his ear. If he begins speaking of another voyage, I want to hear before the merchants in my harbour do."

"He may not welcome you knowing all his business."

"Then remember whose brother you are before deciding what to leave out."

Aurane watched the pen move.

Monford sanded the letter and folded it. "You can be of real service to this house."

Aurane took the offered paper in his sound hand.

"I'll write."

* * *
​

The following morning, Vhalar had his chair brought to the window before Jon arrived.

From there he could see a strip of sea beyond the orchard, and the road by which Ethan had brought him yesterday. The cart had followed the boundary as far as the upper field. He had made the castellan stop at every turn, then paid for the few yards he had walked with a sleepless night and a swollen thigh.

It was good land. That had annoyed him almost as much as the pain.

The house stood behind a low stone wall, with a garden on its sheltered side and a barn large enough for the crops of both fields. Inside, the walls were whitewashed, the floor laid in broad flags. Someone had lit the hearth before his arrival. His bed had been set in the lower chamber until he could manage the stairs. There was even a little room upstairs where a man could shut himself away from his household.

He had asked to see that first. Goro had refused to carry him.

Now his captain stood by the window, watching three riders come up the road.

"You could put a table up there," Goro said, glancing towards the ceiling. "Keep your charts dry."

"I know what a room is for."

"Then you won't need me to arrange it."

Vhalar looked at him. Goro's mouth twitched beneath his beard, though the cloth over his ear spoiled the effect. Vhalar turned back to the window before either of them could mention it.

Jon dismounted beside the gate. One of his black-clad boys took the reins; Ethan followed him into the house with a roll of parchment beneath his arm.

Vhalar reached for his cane and stood. He would receive the boy on his feet, even if he had to lean against his own table to do it.

"You have seen the bounds?" Jon asked.

"Every stone your castellan could find."

"And the house?"

"I have seen enough."

Ethan spread the grant upon the table and read it aloud. The house, garden, orchard and fields were named, their limits set down as Vhalar had inspected them. He listened for the passage about his lawful children. It was there, with the same obligations laid upon them that he would undertake himself.

He bent over the writing when Ethan finished. The boy's seal hung beneath it. In Tyrosh, men with finer seals had found reasons to forget his father's name. Here, this child had put the promise into his hands within days of making it.

He disliked being impressed.

"My heirs hold it after me," he said.

"While they keep faith, as you must." Jon met his eyes. "Your service at sea remains under Denys."

Vhalar's thumb rested against the parchment. A house and land would not restore the freedom he had enjoyed in his fort. He knew whose silver the boy was spending, too. Yet Ethan had brought him here without demanding another coin, and no former owner had appeared at the gate to curse him out.

He had spent years taking places he could only keep by frightening the next man who wanted them.

Goro stood quietly beside the hearth.

Vhalar straightened as far as his leg allowed.

"I swear to hold this land of Jon Black, to answer his summons and render the service written here. I will keep faith with him and uphold his peace."

"Then I grant you this holding upon those terms," Jon replied. "You have my protection while you keep them."

Vhalar bowed his head. He felt Goro watching, and kept it lowered for the proper moment before looking up again.

Ethan left the grant with him. There were questions about finding hands for the fields, which the castellan would settle with him once he had decided what he wanted. Jon stayed only long enough to hear them. The island's lord had other men waiting upon him.

When the riders had gone, Goro drew out the chair.

"Sit before you fall."

Vhalar sat. For a while he watched the empty road, the parchment lying across his knees.

"Shall I have that put away?"

"I can do it."

He folded the grant carefully, keeping the seal clear of the crease. Across the room stood the chest Ethan had provided for his belongings. Vhalar studied it, then held out his hand.

"Give me the key."

* * *
​

By the end of the first week, the road above the harbour was busy from dawn.

Timber carts came down towards the yard, their drivers walking beside the wheels where the slope steepened. Men from the ships carried damaged fittings to Noll. Twice Jon had to draw his horse aside to let a load pass, and the second time he remained beside the road to watch where it went.

The first houses Otho had chosen stood above the stores. Their walls were up, but several had waited for roofs while the same men worked elsewhere. Now a carpenter knelt across a beam with a mallet tucked into his belt. He had pale yellow hair cut badly above one ear. Two labourers below were passing up a length of wood, arguing over which end he wanted first.

"The other," the carpenter called. "Unless you mean me to put the roof in the street."

Jon recognised him from the people brought off the merchants. A woman sat in the doorway beneath him, sorting the household's few possessions while a child slept against her knee. For the moment they lodged in a crowded room farther down the road. Ethan had told them which house would be theirs when it was finished, and they had begun bringing things up whenever they came to look.

Otho's foreman saw Jon watching and came over.

"He knows his work, my lord. I've put two lads with him."

Jon glanced up again. The carpenter had set down his own tool to show the younger labourer how to offer the timber without trapping his fingers. The older man below was listening as well.

"Good. Let him get on with it."

He rode towards the yard with Arthur. The knight had left his sling behind that morning, though Lorren's instructions still prevented him from reaching for anything heavy. When a wheel caught in a rut ahead, he watched the carters free it with the air of a man enduring a personal insult.

"You could order them to pull harder," Jon suggested.

Arthur looked at him. "I was considering ordering you off that horse to help."

"My hand."

"A most convenient wound."

The cart came free. They waited while the men settled the load, then followed it down.

Woods had chosen the morning to raise the first frames of the enclosed yard. The great timbers lay joined upon the ground, ropes running from them through the tackle above. Seen at that size, the lines Jon had drawn in the North seemed almost impertinent. He had put them upon a sheet in a few moments. Men had quarried stone, carried earth and cut trees to make the place where they would stand.

Qavo waited beside the foundations with Moro and Naella. He had a small piece of wood between his fingers and kept turning it while Woods checked the lifting ropes. When Jon dismounted, the shipwright pointed towards the cleared ground beyond the first frame.

"He has marked where the keels will lie," Naella said. "He wanted you to see the room."

They walked along the outside of the stakes. The two building places stretched ahead of Jon, wider and longer than they had seemed upon the drawing. Here a ship could grow beneath a roof while rain beat harmlessly above her. Tools would have their places. Timber could come in at one end, men could work along either side, and the finished hull would have a clear way down towards the water.

He found himself smiling before Qavo had finished pointing.

"Now you believe there is enough space?" Naella asked.

"I always believed it."

Her father said something dryly. She laughed.

"He says you have added three things since the space was measured."

"Then tell him to stop giving me reasons."

Qavo understood the smile. He put away the little piece of wood and led them back out of the lifting ground.

Hewyn arrived while Woods was setting his men along the ropes. He had come from Black Fields, where the first island applicants had presented themselves that morning. Jon asked how they had done.

"Several worth keeping. Several who believed your silver would make the training easier."

"They've learnt otherwise?"

"Heward is helping them."

Arthur's mouth twitched. Hewyn handed Jon the revised roll. The recovering men remained where they belonged. The thirteen trainees were accounted for, and the new applicants had been entered against the vacancies Lorren and the primus pilus had agreed could be filled.

There were still too few. Jon had expected that. At least now Hewyn could choose from his own island, and Otho knew when he would lose the men he accepted. Marrec's first letters had gone across the water. The purchases would follow, then the ships carrying the people. Each part would take time, but somebody had been given the means to do it.

Jon returned the roll. "Bring Alasdair the names of men you think fit for the household. He and Arthur will see them before I decide."

"Aye, my lord."

Woods called for silence around the ropes.

The watching men stepped back. Jon stood with the others while the first team hauled. The frame lifted slowly from the supports beneath it. A man at the side line paid out rope, watching the timber above his head. Woods stopped them, corrected the pull and waited until both ends rose together.

The upright passed before Jon's view of the sea.

He watched it climb, heard the strain in the ropes and the calls travelling along the line. Men moved at the foot of the frame with poles and wedges. When it stood, they braced it before Woods allowed anyone to release the tackle. The ropes slackened. The timber stayed where they had put it.

Someone cheered. Ewan, who had come down to watch his fittings take their first load, let out a long breath and began laughing at himself.

Jon went beneath the frame when Woods called them forward. The space overhead was enormous. Beyond it lay the anchored ships, the moving boats and the crowded quay; farther out, the sea shone where the sun had broken through the cloud.

Arthur stopped beside him.

"How long before you mean to sail again?"

Jon looked along the stakes towards the water. He wanted the new ships badly. He wanted to stand upon a deck built from his own plans and see Dragonstone fall astern, bound for ports that were still names upon a chart. There were things farther east that he did not discuss even with Arthur.

But the last voyage had shown him what his force could do, and what it could barely survive. He had no wish to repeat it with fewer friends around him.

"When these are ready," he answered. "And the men who will sail in them."

"That will take moons."

"Then I'll spend them here. Hewyn shall have time to train the new men properly, and Qavo will have time to build."

Jon rested his good hand against the nearest upright. He wanted to see this yard in the rain with a sound roof overhead, and the first keel resting where Qavo had set his stakes. There would be a great deal between this morning and that one. For once he could look forward to the work without wondering where he would find the silver to begin it.

Qavo called to Moro, who came over with a measuring cord. Otho was directing the timber cart towards the next building place. Jon watched the men settle to their work, then stepped aside to let them carry a brace past.

Above him, the first frame stood against the open sky. He could still see the whole harbour between its posts.

 

[aiwonder]

Gella had the white salt ready before the carter came. Little jars stood on her bench, stopped and sealed. Outside, men were loading the sacks of common salt. She could hear Marda telling them to fetch another cart.

Perrin's instructions lay beneath an empty jar. Gella had needed a clerk to read them to her; she had set out the packing before he left so he could tell her whether she had missed anything.

Larra set the final jar on the bench. "Twelve."

"I have counted them."

"I counted too." Larra held up both hands, then two fingers.

At the small boiler, Vaela lifted crystals from the brine with her pierced scoop. She worked more slowly than Larra, but Gella no longer had to watch her hands.

"That's the last scoop from that pan."

Vaela held it above the brine. "Still wet." Another drop fell through. She waited, then tipped the salt into its basket.

Once Gella would have boiled away the last liquid. Jon had made her taste the bitter salt that came out at the end. Now they stopped sooner. Clean cloths strained dirt from the brine; covered baskets kept soot off the drying salt.

Larra had worked in a rich man's kitchens in Lys, where she had learned to keep vessels clean and say very little. Vaela had arrived on a later ship. Both had been slaves, bought and freed by Jon; neither had worked salt before.

Jon had questioned them himself and taken their oaths before permitting Gella to teach them. Now Larra could finish a batch alone, and Vaela was learning. Gella could finally leave the room without banking the fire.

Someone knocked. The carrier had brought their packing chest. Larra opened the door just far enough to point at the step.

"Here. We carry."

The guard knew the women; everyone else stayed outside. Gella helped Larra bring in the chest, and Vaela packed the jars with folded cloth between them.

"Has the carpenter brought your table?" Gella asked.

"This morning."

"If it wobbles, send it back before you pay."

"I paid."

"Then put wood under," Larra said, holding her fingers apart at one end.

"A wedge," Gella supplied.

Vaela laughed. She had scarcely spoken during her first days here. Now she had opinions about everything they bought.

Jon meant to show these jars to merchants and lords across the water. Until his ship was ready, they would wait in Blackburn's store with the other masters' wares. Gella still found the little sealed measures faintly ridiculous. The price Perrin thought they might fetch was less so.

She shut the chest and called for the carrier. Outside, he wedged it beside Marda's sacks and tied it down. Optio Dunstan sent two legionaries with the carts, then stopped another from following.

"You are for the east landing. Take the relief."

Jon had left fifty men here, with Dunstan over them and the village both. The optio heard complaints at Borren's old table, settled quarrels over nets and doors, and answered to Jon. Even he stayed outside Gella's workroom.

Tommen the sailmaker approached him with a woollen shawl beneath his arm.

"For Hessa. Can it go up with your man?"

"He leaves at dusk. Tell the guard who it is for."

Borren's sister was serving her sentence in the castle washhouse. Tommen had mended more sails this summer than in any Gella remembered, and his new roof kept rain off his cloth. Still, Borren had paid for his mother's shroud when Tommen could not. He had not forgotten.

Nor had Gella forgotten the people taken by the pirates. Jon had killed Borren, Orrick and the slaver for their part in it. Some villagers still left a bench when a prisoner's kin sat down. Others made room. Dry houses had not settled that.

Beyond the carts, the winch lifted seawater to the settling tanks. From there it flowed downhill to the boiling house. Gella remembered climbing that slope with a full bucket in either hand, then doing it again before her back stopped aching.

Broad iron pans stood over brick furnaces inside. Fires burned beneath them, with chimneys carrying the smoke away. Noll had helped build the first; the others had followed once it proved itself. Marda's fire tenders kept the boiling steady while other hands raked salt onto covered racks. Gella took some of the strong brine into her guarded room for the dearer white kind. The larger heaps went to fishermen, ships and village stores.

A fisherman waited at the weighing bench with an empty handcart.

"Another sack," he told Marda.

"You took two yesterday."

"Used both. We had a good catch."

As a boy fetched the salt, Gella asked whether his usual buyer was taking the fish.

"He offered less than last time."

"You agreed?"

"I told him to come back when he'd found the rest of his money." He grinned. "We packed the fish last night. They'll keep."

Before, he had sold a good catch cheaply rather than let it spoil. Salt had been too dear to preserve it all. Now his wife had hired her sister to help, and tomorrow he was taking their barrels to Blackburn, where other buyers would look at sound fish.

He paid and stopped to speak to the cooper beneath the next awning. The northerner had arrived with his wife, daughter and tools, and begun by mending tubs. New fish barrels now stood beside his bench. His daughter sorted hoops while he fitted a lid to a fresh barrel.

"Tell him I want mine first," Marda called.

"You both want them before everyone else," the cooper answered.

Gella left them arguing and went back for her assistants. Larra and Vaela shared a house in the new lower row with Larra's brother, who worked on the boats. Vaela had invited her to see the table. She repeated the invitation with an anxious glance at the drying salt.

"They're covered," Larra said. "Come and eat."

They locked the room and took the shore lane. Two rows of houses stood where nets had once been spread, their drains carrying water downhill instead of leaving it against the doors. A pale-haired woman beat a blanket over a rail while her neighbour, a local widow, complained about dust on her clean shirts.

The schoolmaster came to his door with the slates the children had left behind. Vaela stopped.

"I come after work. For the writing."

"Bring the words you want to learn."

"Salt. Jar. Weight." She frowned, then supplied the missing word. "Basket."

"We can begin with those."

Her Common was coming slowly, but she no longer let Larra do all the talking. Gella looked past her. A fisherman's grown son sat at a bench, labouring over figures.

"What do you charge her?"

"Nothing. Lord Jon pays me."

The fisherman's son was older than the master. He had set his cap beside his slate, and covered his work when a child came near.

"Out," the master told the child. "Your mother has been waiting since the bell."

Only when the boy had gone did the man uncover his slate. Gella knew how he felt. She could judge brine by taste and a pan by the sound it made over the fire; put Perrin's letter in her hands and she had to carry it to someone else.

"And what will you do with writing?" she asked Vaela.

"The book." Vaela mimed a pen. "I weigh. I write. You need no clerk."

Jon paid more for men and women who could keep books, read orders and oversee work. Word had reached every household; the master had begun teaching grown workers after their shifts.

Vaela watched Gella, waiting to see whether she had presumed too much.

"Learn properly, then. I won't have Perrin saying our weights are wrong."

"I know the weights." Vaela spoke carefully. "I learn the words."

"Aye. You know the weights." Gella had watched her catch a cracked weight before Marda used it. "When you can read his orders, you can answer them. I'll speak to him about the pay."

Vaela spoke quickly to Larra in their own tongue. Larra laughed and nudged her towards the master, but Vaela held up her empty hands. No slate, no chalk, and salt still drying on her cuffs.

Gella cleared her throat. "Have you room for another?"

"For you?"

Her face warmed. "I ought to be able to read it myself."

"There's room." He reached for a slate.

"After work," she said hastily. "We've not eaten yet."

The cooper's wife was selling bread from her doorway. She had begun baking for men who could not get home between shifts. Two labourers waited while she cut a loaf; she called to Larra to ask whether her brother wanted his usual one. Her northern speech made Vaela lean closer to catch the words.

Beyond the occupied row, carpenters worked on another roof of Eastcove tile. Nobody had been turned out to make room for the northerners. Gella had heard that fear often when Jon first came.

An old woman sat gutting fish outside a finished house. Her daughter, the boatman's wife, had asked Jon for a ground-floor room because she could no longer manage their stairs. Here she could come straight into the court. She looked up and asked when Gella would put meat on her bones.

"When you stop taking all the best fish."

"Come earlier, then."

Vaela was still smiling when she opened their door.

The table stood beneath the window, taking up more of the room than Gella had expected. Three stools stood around it and another beside the hearth. Larra pressed one corner, then the other. Neither moved.

"There," Vaela said. "No wedge."

Gella ran her finger over the planed surface. Larra had scrubbed finer tables in Lys. This one she could sit at.

Larra brought a pot of beans, onions and fish from the hearth. Vaela set bowls before them and an earthen dish of Marda's common salt. It was coarser and greyer than the white kind, but Gella no longer picked black specks from it. It seasoned broth without the old taste of smoke.

"Not the fine kind?" she asked.

"Too dear," Larra said, laughing. "For lords."

There was enough to season the pot and leave some on the table. Gella could afford a clean measure whenever she needed one now.

Vaela broke the bread. "My brother comes from Blackburn. Next free day." She glanced around the room. "He wants a house too."

"Tell him to ask," Larra said. "Lord Jon builds more."

Larra counted every purchase and distrusted anyone offering something cheaply. About Jon, she seemed to have no doubts at all.

Gella tasted the beans and added another pinch of salt.

"Next time, ask that baker to keep us two loaves."

* * *
​

Ellyn could feel the flaw before she saw it.

She ran her thumb around the cup's foot. A little ridge made it rock upon the table. She put it aside.

Her father watched from the doorway. "A man could drink from that. Put it on a cloth and he'd never know."

"Until he picked it up and put it down somewhere else. You'd send it back yourself."

"If I were a lord, I would."

He came in carrying a board of jar handles beneath a damp cloth. The guard shut the gate behind him.

Ellyn set six small bowls on a cloth, their curved sides a warm white. She compared their rims again.

Jon had inspected the pieces himself, holding them to the light and setting them side by side.

"The best matched set you can make. If you doubt the glaze, leave it out. This matters a great deal, Ellyn."

Perrin was taking other ware to show merchants. This set was to be kept apart. Jon had not told her who would have it.

"I need him back," her father said, nodding towards the young potter wrapping cups beside her. "Ten Blackburn jars waiting for handles. They'll be too dry to join."

The young potter stopped. Once he would already have followed her father. But Perrin's carter was waiting to take this case to Blackburn's carpenter, then the store.

"Finish these with me. I'll come and help with the handles when the case has gone."

"Those jars were promised first. The woman has sent twice."

"Put the wet cloth over them. We have six cups left to pack, and then you'll have both of us. She'll get her jars."

The larger kiln had given them three good firings. Marrec's imported stone filled the dry store. For two moons Jon had paid Ellyn a master's wage. Her father still fetched her whenever the old pottery needed hands, though he had stayed beside her through firings that yielded nothing worth keeping.

"She's taken lodgers," he said. "Harbour men. More mouths, more pots, and handles big enough for their fingers. Should I tell her to buy elsewhere?"

"No. I said I'd help."

He covered the handles. Once he had watched people pass with cracked bowls they meant to keep using. Now he counted orders after supper with little heaps of beans. She wished he could be glad of her cups without reckoning how long she'd spent away from his wheel.

A knock brought Ellyn to the gate. The carter waited outside with two baskets of fired jars on his handcart.

"Master," he called to her father. "Can that case ride on top of the jars?"

"It goes on the cart bed," Ellyn answered. "With sacking beneath it. Nothing on the lid."

"I'll have little room for the rest."

"Then you'll make two journeys."

He looked at her father again.

"You heard her."

Ellyn went back to the table before either could see her smile.

They wrapped the bowls separately. Her father set down his board and inspected the case, pressing two fingers into the shavings between the first pair.

"More here. The bowls will knock together on the road."

She held the bowl while he tucked cloth around it. He had packed ware for men who dropped it and swore it had cracked in the kiln.

Ellyn counted the cups as they went in, twelve with their handles turned into soft packing. Her father set the rejected cup upon the table and nudged its rim. It rocked.

"Ask Lord Jon if I may have this one," he said. "I should like to drink from something of yours before every piece worth having goes to a lord's table."

She looked up at him. "You made half the pieces here."

"And you keep finding fault with them. Will you ask?"

"Yes." She put it beside her drinking bowl. The young potter brought the lid.

Outside, the great brick kiln smoked. It scarcely stood idle between firings. Every village wanted bricks; Blackburn swallowed them by the cartload and still sent for more. Men unloaded tiles from one kiln and stacked the next firing in another. Tomorrow's load was promised to Saltcliffe.

Ormond was settling the wagonloads by the gate. He came over when the carter grumbled about making two journeys. Ellyn had heard fewer complaints from the headman since Jon had Borren put to death for helping the Saltcliffe pirates.

"The cooper has room for the jars," Ormond said. "Leave them under his shelter. Take this straight to Blackburn."

"He'll want paying."

"Then bring me his charge. You must be back before the kiln is unloaded." He turned to Ellyn. "Ready?"

She set the lid over the packed bowls and cups. "Ready."

Her father helped carry the case onto the sacking. Ellyn checked the rope and the clear space around the lid before letting it go.

Across the street, Ormond's brother stood beneath his old oiled lintel, set in his new house. He held a child while shutting the door with his heel. The child waved something sticky at Ellyn.

She raised her hand. The cart turned towards Blackburn and disappeared behind a laden wagon.

Her father was waiting beside the pottery door. Beneath the cloth on his board, the handles had begun to stiffen.

Ellyn took the board and rolled up her sleeves. The first handle cracked beneath her thumb.

"Too dry," her father said.

She put it aside and reached for fresh clay. "Pass me the water."

He set the jug beside her and sat at his wheel.

Ellyn drew a fresh handle through her wet fingers. Her father watched its curve as the wheel turned beneath his foot.

"Wider," he said.

She opened the loop. He held out three clay-stained fingers, and she widened it again, laughing despite herself.

"The harbour men are bigger than you," she said.

"Then make it for four."

She laid it beside the jar. When she looked up again, her father was looking towards the guarded workshop, where she had left his white cup.

* * *
​

Noll brought a boy to Ewan's bench and rapped the breastplate strapped around him.

"Look at his shoulder."

"I can see his shoulder."

"Then tell your lad why I sent it back."

The apprentice came from the next hearth, wiping his hands. Ewan made him loosen the strap. The plate dropped a little, and the recruit stopped holding his head sideways.

"He tightened it to keep the bottom from catching," Noll said. "Have him lift his arms."

The boy obeyed. One edge caught again. Ewan put his thumb against it and felt where it needed turning.

"Mark that. Take it off him."

"I followed the pattern."

"And now you've a man to fit it to."

The apprentice bent to the buckles. Behind him, the armourers' hall rang with hammer blows. Half-finished helmets stood along one bench, breastplates along another; farther down, men punched and closed rivets while a woman fitted leather straps. The finished pieces went through Noll before crossing the yard to the armoury. Its keeper had already sent twice that morning. The new centuries wanted their equipment.

Ewan wanted the keeper to come and stand here until a badly fitted plate pinched his own armpit.

"Stay with Noll," he told the apprentice. "Finish it properly."

Before going out, Ewan lifted the helm from the completed harness beside his bench. The steel shone deep red beneath its dragonglass finish. As he turned it towards the window, a lighter sheen travelled over the crown; bright steel bordered the cheek pieces. The breastplate and fitted limbs had taken the same colour. He had checked them together in daylight before allowing Noll to buckle the suit onto its stand.

Jon's armour had that shifting gloss in black. Getting it in red had taken moons of trials with Dragonstone glass, Jon coming down to examine the spoiled pieces with them. Mott had kept his secret; Ewan and Noll had worked out their own finish. Ewan ran a thumb over the helm once more before putting it back. He wanted Jon to see the whole harness in daylight. Noll could have it packed for the castle this afternoon.

Jon's own black armour had gone back to the castle on the morning cart. He was growing broader through the shoulders, and Noll had altered the fit and replaced the straps. At the last fitting Ewan had made him lift his sword and turn at the waist until he was satisfied nothing pinched.

Outside, a miner led a laden cart past the armoury. Caddoc rode beside the load with his sticks across his knees. He called Ewan over and held out a piece of brown-streaked iron ore.

"From the northern cut. Tell Bennard we've reached more of it."

The younger miner leaned against the wheel. Dust had settled in the creases beside his eyes.

"I've two picks to leave with you as well. Their points are worn blunt."

"Take sound ones from the tool shed. Leave those for sharpening."

He grinned. "My father used to mend his own until there was hardly a head left."

Then he glanced at Caddoc. "What about the other place?"

"Let Merren speak to Lord Jon."

"What place?" Ewan asked.

"An opening behind the old workings," the miner said. "We shifted some fallen stone yesterday. There's space beyond it, but we've not gone through."

"We may need Otho to see how to shore the roof," Caddoc said. "I've asked Merren to send word. No one goes through until then."

Ewan waved them through to Bennard's furnace. Cinderwell's mine lay above the village; its ore came down to the Blackworks, and tools went back up the same road. The quarry's stone carts took the other turning. These days Ewan could follow the local iron from Bennard's yard to a soldier's breast.

Two men were unloading steel bars from a cooled fireclay chest. The furnace's brittle iron had first passed through the finery hearths and beneath the hammer. Heating the bars with charcoal in sealed chests for days turned the iron to steel. Ewan's smiths then cut, stacked and welded it until it worked evenly. Every batch still had to pass Noll's tests. The sound steel filled racks along the wall, with another charge already in the heat.

Smiths newly come from Myr and Pentos had asked who supplied it. Ewan had taken them through the works and enjoyed their faces. Fine steel was familiar enough; making it steadily in such quantities was another matter. None had known a works outside Jon's service, in Westeros or across the narrow sea, that could match it. Men who had guarded a few good bars for their finest blades now watched Noll draw enough for another century's armour.

At the old mill the river turned the great wheel. Water spilled white beneath its paddles, and the heavy hammer rose and fell inside the rebuilt house. Ewan paused at the doorway. The smith drew his glowing bar back, turned it, and offered another face to the blows. Behind the barrier, a learner watched his hands.

Ewan had come south with Jon after helping him build the northern Blackworks. He had thought them big until these roofs went up. Here Noll's armourers had a longer hall, and the other smiths had room to keep ploughshares in the fire while helmets, swords and spearheads were being made across the yard. Ewan had insisted on wider passages too. He remembered asking for more space beside the northern hearth; here two men could carry a bar past the benches without everyone stopping to let them through. Woods had grumbled over the extra timber. Ewan had refused to narrow the passage.

Two ploughs of Lord Jon's new pattern stood outside those shops. Their curved boards, made to turn the soil over, were already fitted; the iron shares were still needed. The carter eating beside them raised his bread when he saw Ewan.

"Master Hamish said before noon."

"So you told me at breakfast."

"He told me twice too."

Ewan went inside. At the nearest hearth a smith was finishing the second share. Farther along, a man and his daughter sorted nails into kegs for Blackburn, keeping the bent ones in a shallow tray. The daughter had been cutting nails to length when Ewan first took them on; now her father asked her which keg belonged to which builder. She could read the labels.

An apprentice brought the first share out to the waiting plough. Ewan watched him fit it, checking the iron sat firmly against the wood. Hamish's carter had brought back their last share, its point worn almost away. They had more ground ready than teams to turn it.

"That stays here," Ewan said, catching the apprentice before he threw the old share into the scrap basket. "Bennard wants to see how it wore."

The lad laid it beside the door. A bundle of fittings for the seed drills waited there too, its cord tagged for Wyrm's Rest. Ewan told the carter to take it with the ploughs.

Above the shops, Cinderwell's new houses climbed towards the older lane. Smoke rose from their chimneys. Merren came down between them with a girl carrying a basket, and stopped to watch the men lift the completed plough onto the cart.

"My sister says your hammer woke her before dawn."

"Your sister wanted hinges yesterday."

"She has them. Now she wants sleep."

The girl laughed and opened the basket. The smell of warm bread reached Ewan through the smoke. Men were coming out of the shops with their dinner cloths. A pale-haired smith called to his wife from the doorway of a new house; she pointed to the pot she was bringing, as though he could not possibly wait to see it.

When Ewan had first come, families had asked whether Jon's prisoners would take their work. Now Merren kept asking when another son or brother might start. They still had quarrels over wages and who got the better house. Ewan heard them at his bench often enough. But the man carrying bread to the nail makers had once been going to Hull because there was nothing here for him.

Noll appeared with the recruit. The breastplate sat lower now. The boy lifted both arms without being told.

"Better," Ewan said. "Which century?"

"Mallador's, master."

He was Merren's height and narrow through the chest. His mother came out of the lane carrying an empty bowl, saw him, and stopped. She put out a hand to the plate.

"Mind the oil," the boy said.

She wiped her fingers on her apron and touched it anyway.

Noll took him towards the armoury for the rest. The apprentice followed, trying to look as though he had not noticed Ewan watching.

"Next one," Ewan called. "Fit it before you polish it."

The lad nodded.

Beside the nails, a second carter waited with the small box for Lord Jon's display. Ewan opened it himself. A pair of hinges, a sound knife, and a few nails laid against a cloth: little enough to show for all the noise around him. The new centuries had first claim on the armourers. The red harness was going to Jon for the showing, but the plain plates upon Noll's benches were for his soldiers. The ploughs went to Hamish; the kegs would be emptied into Blackburn's roofs before the next load was ready.

He worked each hinge upon its pin, then closed the lid and handed it over.

"Blackburn's store. Keep it dry."

The carter tucked the box beneath his seat. As he drew away, Bennard shouted from the furnace yard for Ewan to come and look at something. Ewan took a piece of bread from Merren's basket and went to see what the man wanted this time.

* * *
​

Dake leaned upon the plough handles as the oxen came round. The share entered cleanly, and a strip of dark earth rose against the curved board and turned over upon the grass.

"Let her take it," the northern ploughman called. "You're lifting her out."

"I know what I'm doing."

"Then stop doing it."

Dake eased his grip. His old share had worn crooked, dragging him sideways whenever it struck a root; this one held its course. He crossed the place where his father's wall had stood. He had helped build it, and could have found its line with his eyes shut.

At the turn he gave the handles back. The northern man tightened a wooden wedge above the share. The iron came from Cinderwell now; a worn share could go to the smith instead of being nursed through another sowing.

"Tell the smith to send the spare before we need it," Dake said.

Beyond the ditch, Marten, his elder son, was following the seed drill over ground already ploughed and broken fine with the harrow. Maelor, one of Jon's freedmen, walked at the oxen's heads. A wheel rattled over the earth, turning the grooved axle beneath the seed box. Grain dropped through the tubes into narrow cuts; the little harrow behind covered it before the birds could take much interest.

Dake stepped over the ditch and raised his hand. Maelor halted the beasts.

"Something broke?" he asked.

"Keep them standing."

Dake knelt and scraped back the earth. He found barley buried at much the same depth along the row. Marten watched from beside the box.

"It was feeding when we started."

"And it is worth knowing whether it still is." A damp lump had clogged one tube before, leaving a bare line through the rising crop. "How much seed left?"

His son lifted the lid. When scattering seed, men overlapped their casts to avoid bare patches. The drill used less. Dake had watched the seed weighed out and the unused grain weighed back, then walked the first green rows looking for thin places that ought to have proved the saving foolish.

"Enough to finish," Marten said. "Hamish has looked at the upper field. We can take it there tomorrow."

Maelor pointed towards the turning. "That corner? Soft." He searched for another word, then pressed his heel into the soil.

"Leave it," Dake said. "Come through the gap above it."

Marten explained more slowly, pointing out the way. Maelor led the team past the wet patch. The drains had made most of this ground fit to work after rain; the hollow still needed its outlet cleared of rushes.

Dake found Hamish at the gate with a mill hand. Jon had brought Gerren's elder son from the North and set him over these farms. Dake had scarcely been able to hear an order from him without taking offence. Now he waited while Hamish agreed to keep water in the mill race until the waiting grain was ground.

"The young turnips want water," Dake said when the miller had gone.

"They'll have it this afternoon, when we open their gate." Hamish wiped a muddy finger along his breeches. "The lower beds had theirs yesterday."

Behind them the team passed the old boundary without stopping. Once Dake had waited upon neighbours, borrowed beasts and turned back at walls while good light went. Today men who would have followed scattering seed were hoeing vegetables and repairing the cattle fence.

Hamish pointed to a sack beside the gate. "More guano from Saltcliffe. That goes with the next dressing. Have the carters put the rest under cover."

Dake checked the sack was tied. The trial plots had been cut and threshed separately. Both had received the same seed and water; the ground dressed with guano had given nearly twice the grain. He had demanded they check the weights, then asked whether the plots had truly been equal. He had helped measure them himself.

Now he had the carters fetching guano for more ground. Water and drains had already improved fields beyond the trial plots. Thin patches where barley used to yellow and die had carried heads worth cutting. At threshing, they had run out of sacks and fetched more from the other store. Dake had stayed until they finished tying them.

Hamish drew him towards the gate and pointed beyond the rise.

"Lord Jon wants the next ground opened there. The drains are through. Otho's men can start shifting the stone when you have the carters ready."

"You have more barley in the barn than ever came off these fields."

"And more people eating it. We need the acres as well as the better crops."

Dake looked towards the dark ditches beyond the estate's first boundary. Meadow he had crossed ankle-deep in water had dried enough for a team; men were dragging brush and stone from the slope above. He knew where good soil lay beneath them. He had never had men to spare for opening it.

His grandfather had lost a boot in that meadow. Dake could still see him hopping upon the bank, one woollen stocking black to the knee, while a small boy who was meant to be helping laughed until he cried. Afterwards the old man had made him wash the stocking.

If only he could see it now. He would have walked every ditch and wanted those barley sacks opened. Dake wished he had been there to help empty them.

"My grandfather would have asked whether you'd mixed two harvests together," he said.

Hamish glanced at him. "You nearly did."

"I asked about the weights." Dake let himself smile. "He'd have brought his own."

Dake nodded towards the nearer fields. "There's barley ground there. You have it under clover."

"And the clover feeds the cattle. That ground gets its turn at grain; we can't keep taking because the last crop was good." Hamish rested an arm upon the gate. "Lord Jon told us we'd still be buying food. People are coming faster than we can open land."

Dake remembered telling Jon they ate barley when he showed him turnips upon the drawing. He had thought of his sons waiting upon grain ships because their own harvest belonged to the estate. Now the barns were fuller than he had known them, yet carts still brought sacks from Blackburn.

He rubbed the guano dust from his fingers.

"Bring the stone carts behind the old byre tomorrow. I'll have men there to show where the load can go. Before they pile it across another drain."

Hamish nodded. On the way to wash, Dake passed the new cheesehouse. Milk pails stood upside down upon a rack outside; inside, women worked along benches set aside for curds and presses. His wife had made cheese beside her hearth, with the same pot she needed for supper.

A northern cheesemaker drew a frame strung with fine wires through the set curd. It left neat pieces behind it. Lord Jon had sent the pattern, along with measured scoops for the rennet and orders to weigh the salt. Dake had thought the weighing foolish until he tasted two cheeses from different days and found them much alike.

At the next bench a girl turned the screw of a wooden press. Whey ran into the trough below. There were several presses now, with clean cloths waiting for the next filling. A woman carried an older cheese into the cool room, where rows of them rested upon shelves marked with the day they had been made.

Dake stopped at the door. The room smelled sharp and milky, but none of the cheeses had the swollen, splitting rind he remembered cutting from his wife's poorer batches. They were losing fewer that way. More milk came in from the clover-fed cows, and more of it reached a table as something people wanted to eat.

His younger son called from the house row. His wife was carrying bowls outside. Dake went to wash.

Four tables stood along the new brick houses. Dake brought out the loaves while his wife set her pot upon a board.

Steam rose thick with the smell of pork and leeks. Dake peered in. There were turnips too, and barley swelling in the broth, but his spoon struck meat before it reached the bottom.

"Leave that," she said.

"I was looking."

"You look with a spoon now?" She took it. "The women bought the pork between us. You can thank them when you've sat down."

Once she would have boiled the same bone for tomorrow's pottage. Regular wages bought a piece worth cutting, while their grain portion came from the estate stores. Grain cost more in Blackburn now; his household's measure stayed the same. He checked whenever it was issued.

The mill clattered below them. His father had asked for one. Dake had fetched the flour for these loaves himself, passing imported grain beside the sacks from their own fields.

His wife buttered a slice generously. The red cow had held her milk better since they began feeding cut clover with the fodder. Dake had complained about giving arable ground to beasts; his wife brought that up whenever she had butter to spare. He took the bread before she could begin.

Beside her chair waited two small cheeses from the cheesehouse, packed in a straw-lined basket for Jon's display. The carter stood waiting in the lane.

"Only those?" Dake asked Hamish as the overseer came up.

"Only those. The rest stays for the island."

His wife handed the basket to the carter. He would leave it with the other samples in Blackburn's store until Jon's ship was ready. He was still securing it when the field hands came in.

Marten brought Maelor to the bench beside his mother. Dake moved over. The freedman set a cup before him with a careful nod, and Dake pushed the bread within his reach.

"The oxen settled?"

"Water. Then feed." Maelor wiped his palm upon his knee. "Your son showed me."

Dake's wife filled their bowls. A woman moved aside for Hamish. Dake was still headman, but questions about the estate went to the overseer, even from men who had once waited outside Dake's door. Marten waited until Hamish had answered her.

"I'll try the work you spoke of. If you still want me."

"At the mill?" Hamish leaned forward. "Come when the first grain arrives tomorrow. You'll learn the weighing before you touch the accounts."

Dake put down his spoon. "What's wrong with driving the team?"

"Nothing," Marten said. "But Maelor can take it with another man now. I want to learn this."

The lad's colour rose. "Hamish needs a man who can weigh grain in and flour out, and keep the figures. That's why I've been going to the lessons."

Dake had pictured him taking over his holding, adding a room when he married. Now the walls were gone and his son was choosing work Dake could not teach him. Hamish sat quietly, leaving the lad to speak for himself.

"Lord Jon pays more for men who can do it," his son added.

"When they can," Dake said.

"His present wage while he learns," Hamish answered. "More when I can trust him with the book. He'll begin beside the miller."

"And if you need him back in the fields?"

"Then he'll come. Today you finished with men to spare. That won't be true every day."

Dake looked at his son. The lad held his gaze, plainly braced for another objection. Dake picked up his spoon. The pork came apart against the side of the bowl.

"Mind he teaches you the weights properly," he said.

His son let out a breath. "I will."

Maelor had followed only part of it. Marten explained with his hands, balancing one palm against the other, then pretending to write. The freedman nodded and reached for the butter.

When his wife went for the second pot, Dake caught Marten's sleeve.

"How late do the lessons keep you?"

"Until the light goes."

"I'll see to the beasts at home. You can show me what you've learnt afterwards."

His son nodded, more carefully this time. Dake let go and held out his bowl to his wife.

"A little more of that. And don't fish the meat out first."

* * *
​

From his window, Terys could see the old landing steps between the roofs of Blackburn's new warehouses.

A boat was coming in, its passengers crowded about their bundles. Farther north, fishermen were already carrying baskets ashore. The gulls followed them, screaming over the net ground. Smoke rose behind the fishing houses, where the new smoking sheds had been working since before dawn.

Terys pulled on his boots and went down to buy bread.

The baker's shop beneath his room was crowded. He waited behind a mason powdered white to the elbows and two women talking in the Valyrian of Lys. One had a child asleep against her shoulder. They were asking about rooms. Terys told them which row had roofs now, then had to admit he did not know who would be given them.

"Ask at the headman's house. Take someone who speaks Common."

"Will you?"

"Not well enough for that. The schoolmaster will know someone."

She thanked him anyway. He bought an extra piece for Nymos, who was waiting outside with their tools.

They went down through the market, past stalls being uncovered and a butcher hanging joints from hooks. Beneath the long tiled roof, a cloth seller shook out a bolt while his wife swept yesterday's mud from their little enclosure. The permanent shops stood behind the stalls, their fronts still smelling of fresh-cut timber. An island woman sold eggs from a basket between two of them. She had scarcely set it down before someone stopped to buy.

Nymos stopped at the cloth. He touched a length of blue wool, then asked Terys to find out its price. The seller answered slowly, counting on his fingers. Terys passed it on in Valyrian.

"For a coat?" he asked.

"After the next pay." Nymos rubbed the wool between finger and thumb. "Do you think there's enough?"

Terys held it against his shoulders. The seller's wife came over with her measuring cord, turning Nymos towards the light. He stood very still while she measured him, then held out his arms for the sleeves.

There were empty places yet. At the far end, carpenters were raising the next covered walk. Beyond that stood only posts and cords, marking where another court would go. Terys had seen markets in Lys that could swallow this one. He had never seen one growing beneath the hands of men he knew.

A carter called for room. Terys drew Nymos aside while the mule turned into the wider entrance. The road behind the warehouses took the heavy loads; this way brought people up to the sellers. Even now, before all the stalls were filled, he was glad the two were separate.

Above them, the first rows of brick homes shone with fresh limewash over dark stone footings. Red tiles covered family rooms above the shops. Through an open passage Terys saw women washing at a cistern, their children playing round a heap of tiles that had yet to reach a roof. A northerner shouted from an upstairs window for someone to keep them clear. From the court came an answer in Common, then laughter in a tongue Terys did not know.

His room was smaller than most of those. It was his, with a shutter he had made and coins beneath the bed. He had begun buying things without wondering where he would hide them.

At the landing, the passengers were coming up the steps.

He had stood there with everything he owned in a bundle. In Lys they had promised freedom upon landing. On the voyage he had wondered what a carpenter fetched in Westeros and whether his new master would let him keep his tools.

Then a man speaking his own tongue had told him he was free. Terys had asked him to say it again. Nobody made him open his mouth or turn to show his shoulders. There were questions about his trade, an offer of work and a place to sleep. At the week's end Woods paid him.

He still remembered counting those first coins.

Woods was beside the harbour crane, arguing with Tobin. Terys stopped beyond the ropes while a sling of timber came ashore. Men guided it down beside a wagon; behind them, another cart passed along the road without going beneath the load.

The master carpenter saw him and beckoned.

"Leave two men here when you've sorted your timber. Tobin needs a loading platform at the next store."

Terys looked towards the quay they were building. "Masons need all six."

"For the lifting, yes. Afterwards, give me two. You'll have them back before noon."

Tobin had gone to meet the boat. Woods waited while Terys explained to Nymos, who understood scarcely any Common yet. Around them the crane ropes slackened. Men climbed onto the wagon to free the sling.

"He wants another of these," Woods said, looking up at the great timber frame.

Terys followed his gaze. He had fitted some of its braces himself. "This is wrong?"

"No. He wants to unload two ships at once." Woods pointed along the shore. "Lord Jon left ground for more cranes. Tobin would have them all tomorrow."

There was a ship waiting beyond the working berth. Terys could see why.

They walked beside the stores, where grain was being carried in from the old weighing shed. The nearest building was long enough for several gangs to work beneath its roof. Its floor stood well above the quay, with broad doors facing the loading ground. Through the rear opening Terys saw a cart receiving sacks under cover. Oil and pitch went farther along, into their own store. He knew the separation because Woods had made him move a stack of planks meant for the wrong building.

"Roof on that one next," Woods told him, pointing beyond the finished stores. "Your gang, when the masons have the walls ready."

"With six?"

"I'll find you more. Teach them as you've taught these."

Terys looked at the walls. He had made fine chests in Lys. No one had ever given him men and asked him to roof a building like that.

"Where do we put the timber?" he asked. "The empty ground above the market?"

"No. His lordship wants it kept clear."

"For houses?"

"Something else. Otho has his lines. We build to them." Woods pointed behind the unfinished store. "There. Leave room for the carts."

Broad streets already ran past those empty plots. No cottage or stall had been allowed to creep onto them, though people were asking for both. Terys wondered what could need so much ground. From below, the spaces had made the new houses look scattered. Now he saw how much larger Blackburn might become.

Woods took him farther south to collect iron straps for their quay work. On the repair beach, a merchantman lay on stout props while men drove fresh oakum into her seams. A sail lay spread before a loft, its torn edge weighted with stones while sewing hands worked along it. Terys recognised a woman who bought bread below his room. She waved without getting up.

Beyond them rose the enclosed shipyard, its roof higher than anything along that shore. Timber carts waited outside its guarded gate. From within came the steady knocking of mallets. Terys had never seen the ship they were building there.

"Nearly ready," Woods said, noticing him look. "Qavo needs the mast crane finished before she comes out. Henly's bringing the gear down."

Terys watched men shifting a timber too large for his whole gang to carry. There would be more work here long after his store had its roof. He collected the straps and followed Woods back, passing sailors who had come ashore to eat while their ship was repaired.

At the unfinished quay, his men were laying out the next wooden platform for the masons to work from above the water. One carpenter came from the North, another from the island. Between them they could argue over a joint in words Terys barely understood. He settled it by laying the pieces together and showing where the brace would sit. Once the crosspieces were raised, he sent two men back to Woods.

Nymos brought over one he had cut too short.

"We can use it elsewhere," Terys told him in Valyrian. "Show me before you cut the next."

The younger man kept looking at the wasted end.

Once, in Lys, Terys had left a bloody thumbprint beneath a cedar chest. His master had beaten him with a cane. He had curled on the floor, covering his head; one blow split his knuckles, and the others kept coming after he stopped begging. Afterwards he had been made to scrape away the stain. The chest sold that afternoon.

He closed his hand over the crooked white scar, then took up the chalk.

"Here. Mark it with me."

By noon the masons were carrying their tools onto the finished platform. Beyond them the new quay ran back to the occupied berth; ahead, heaps of stone waited where the shore had yet to be built out. Across the water, waves broke against the repaired harbour arm. Farther out, blocks were being lowered for the longer wall that would shelter the new berths.

Terys stood a moment watching a mason kneel on boards his men had just fastened. Then Woods called him to the road.

Ellyn's box had arrived. He had made its stronger outer case under the lean-to, away from the quay work. The carter waited while Terys and Nymos lifted the closed box down and settled it into the padding.

This batch was to travel with Lord Jon. Other cases were already waiting inside the warehouse; none of these goods had been sold yet. Nymos drove the nails while Terys held the lid.

He had first seen Jon at a building yard and mistaken him for somebody's son come to watch. Then a mason bowed. Grown men had bought and sold Terys; the boy had spent gold to free him. Now he trusted men like Terys to build all this.

Thank you seemed little enough. He wished he could say more when Jon next came down, without another man speaking for him.

They carried the case into store, onto wooden supports clear of the floor. Through the rear doors Terys could see the market roofs and his own row of houses above them.

"Come to my room when we're done," he told Nymos. "We'll buy fish on the way."

"I'll pay for it."

"Then I'll buy the bread."

Woods was outside with the two men he had borrowed. Terys called them over and took Nymos with him to measure the timbers for the store. He wanted to know what they would need before the next cart arrived.

* * *
​

Lew, now Malcolm's optio, came with half a loaf and an order from his centurion.

"He wants your front rank changed after the first turn. Put the newest men opposite us. He says we have been making them look better than they are."

Hennet looked up from the letter across his knee. Wind had lifted its corner, smearing the last word against his thumb. "Does Mallador know?"

"I have just told him. He sent me to find you." Lew broke the loaf and held out a piece. "You missed the bread again."

Hennet took it, folded the letter and pushed it into his coat. He had been asking his mother again to come to Dragonstone. His sister had married and left home; he wanted the rest of the family here, his little brother too. His new pay would help them settle. He had been trying to explain that he was Mallador's optio now, deputy to the centurion of Second, when a decanus brought him a broken shield grip. Perhaps this time she would agree to come.

"Come over when yours are dismissed," Lew said. "Murch has onions for the pot. He says he is feeding us before we forget who taught us our trade."

Murch stood beside Third with two decanuses waiting on his word. Hennet remembered kneeling beside him and Lew after the alehouse brawl: six strokes apiece for himself and Lew, ten for Murch, and a sennight scrubbing latrines. Now Murch commanded a century. Lew had spent his afternoons teaching the island recruits until Malcolm asked for him as optio; Hennet had first led a ten before Mallador chose him as his deputy. His mother would scarcely believe it.

Lew hurried back to Malcolm.

Three spear centuries filled the nearer ground: Malcolm's First, Mallador's Second and Murch's Third. Three hundred men, half of the Second Cohort Jon intended. Beyond the ditch the older cohort's six centuries were at work, the round shields of its swordsmen moving apart from the long spear lines. Its roll held six hundred names. Hewyn had taken command of First Spears again when Malcolm moved over, serving as its centurion as well as First Spear of the cohort.

Hennet brushed bread from his lap and rose. Whenever Hewyn came to watch now, he found himself looking along his own ranks first.

Mallador met him beside the practice shields, pulling at the collar of his padded coat.

"Lew found you, then. Take the rear when we move. I want you watching the last men through the turn; they crowd whenever the front slows."

Hennet went along the ranks before they moved. Most had enlisted on Dragonstone: fishermen, field hands and men who had carried stone for Otho. Newcomers were doing their old work now. Northerners transferred from the older centuries stood among them, but there were fewer familiar faces than Hennet still expected to see.

A pale-haired lad in the second rank had his shield almost up to his eyes. Hennet pushed its rim down a little.

"Can you see them now?"

Across the ground, Malcolm's men were taking their places.

"Yes, Optio."

"Keep looking at them."

The lad's neighbour had shoulders broad enough to fill a doorway and a spear gripped so tightly that his knuckles showed white. He had come from the quarry. During his first drills he had fought every shove against his shield, even when the order was to give ground. He still looked offended when a smaller man moved him.

"Ease your hand," Hennet told him. "You have to carry it until we're done."

The fingers loosened. Hennet waited until the man met his eye, then moved on.

It was strange to have men older than himself straighten when he approached. Some had wives and children beyond the camp. They called him Optio without grinning, and expected him to know what to do. He had wanted the rank. Standing before Mallador when it was offered, he had thought of the pay, his mother's face when she heard, and having men listen when he spoke.

He had not thought how closely he would watch them afterwards.

The pale-haired lad had struggled to lift his shield at the end of his first morning. Now he could hold it through the drill. A fisherman farther down the rank, who had scarcely spoken above a mutter when he joined, was reminding the man beside him to leave room for his spear. Hennet passed without interrupting. They had heard that often enough from him.

Mallador called them forward. Shields lifted, and Hennet moved with the rear. Dust rose beneath their boots. Across the narrowing space, Malcolm's front rank lowered its blunted spears.

The first advance held. At the turn the leading men slowed, but those behind kept coming. A shield knocked against a man's back. He stumbled and tried to hurry, making the space ahead smaller still.

"Rear ranks, hold!"

Hennet caught the next man's shoulder before he drove into him. Mallador halted the century. Several of the newest men looked back, waiting to be shouted at.

Hennet brought their decanus beside him.

"Take them through it slowly. Stop them here if the front hasn't cleared."

He showed him the place. The men at the rear had been trying to keep the same pace all the way round. They needed to shorten their steps while those ahead turned. Hennet walked beside them through the movement, then went back and watched their decanus give the order.

"Again."

The quarryman began to crowd the lad before him, checked himself and waited for room. Hennet saw his spear hand tighten.

"Ease that hand. No one's taking it from you."

A few men laughed. The quarryman glanced at his fist, then opened it, smiling despite himself.

The last rank came round without a collision.

"Back to your places," Hennet called. "We do it at the command now."

Hennet remembered the shield wall against Rolo's men: the blows jarring his arm, someone shouting close to his ear, his own breath hot inside his helm. He had wanted to draw back and had nowhere to go. The man beside him held; so had he. All those miserable afternoons repeating a turn or a halt had kept their line together when the pirates struck it. He looked along the recruits. They would need that obedience when they were frightened, not merely when Mallador was watching.

He checked the last rank once more.

Mallador brought them forward. This time the rear slowed in time. The newer men came round into the front rank to face Malcolm's spears, as ordered. Wood thumped against padded shields. The pale-haired lad flinched at the first blow, then set himself. Beside him the quarryman gave ground with his neighbours instead of planting his feet and fighting the whole opposing line alone.

At the halt, their points stayed level.

Hennet felt himself smiling. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve before the men saw it.

Mallador let them rest while Malcolm withdrew his century.

"Better," he told Hennet. "They'll forget it when they're tired."

"Two circuits?"

"Take them. Keep them together."

Hennet called the men back into their files. A few groaned when he pointed to the path around the field, but shields came up and spears settled against shoulders. He set off beside them.

For the first stretch the quarryman stayed near the front. By the far ditch he was breathing through his mouth. The pale-haired lad ran steadily beside him, his shield tucked close. Hennet shortened the pace before the rear began to fall away.

He had once hated the man who did this to him. There had always seemed to be another length of field, another hill, another order just when he thought they were finished. Now he watched for the open mouths and dragging feet. A man might be fit enough to carry stone all day and still have nothing left after a morning with a shield.

"Close up," he called. "Easy at the corner."

The first men obeyed. The rear caught up without breaking into a scramble.

Beyond the ditch, black-coated ranks stretched across the older cohort's ground. Hennet had been one face among them. He wanted a century of his own one day, more men to command when Lord Jon called for them. He could admit that to himself now. But he had to make soldiers of these first.

At the gate, three riders turned towards the field. He knew Jon's seat before he saw the white forelock. Arthur rode beside him, with Aurane on the other side.

Jon had trusted him with men who had never stood in a battle. Hennet had stood where they would stand, waiting for the order and hoping the men around him knew what they were doing. He would not let Jon down by sending them there unready.

A shield began to slip behind him. Hennet fell back beside its owner.

"Bring your arm in. There's another circuit yet."

The man adjusted his grip and kept running. Hennet stayed beside him.

* * *
​

Jon rode along the infantry ground with Arthur on his right and Aurane on his left. Mallador's century was running beside the ditch. Hennet's voice carried over the tramp of boots, harsher than Jon remembered it from the ships. He was near the rear, running beside a lad whose shield had begun to sag.

"He has found his lungs," Arthur said.

"I heard him from the road," Aurane said.

"You were meant to be listening to me."

"I heard you too. You want another sailmaker who knows his trade without telling the whole island how well he knows it. I know several who can sew. I make no promises about their tongues."

Jon smiled. He remembered Hennet by the hatch, frightened and holding where he had been told. Now he kept men of his own in place. There were faces in those ranks Jon had never spoken to. He disliked that, though he had wanted enough men to make it inevitable.

Hewyn came to meet them. His own First Century was drilling farther down the field. Across the new ground Malcolm had three centuries, half of what his Second Cohort would eventually become.

"How are the new officers managing?" Jon asked.

"Lew has a way with the island lads. He'll explain a thing three times without making a man ashamed to ask. Mallador is pleased with Hennet. He knows which men still need help."

Across the field Murch called a decanus over and pointed towards a ragged file.

"A moon ago he'd have gone to dress that line himself," Hewyn said. "Malcolm's been making him use his officers. He can't lead a century with his hands on every man's shoulder."

"And the men?"

"The Dragonstone lads keep pace with the northerners on the march now. Most hold their order when they're tired. Give them someone to chase and you'll still see gaps." He watched Murch's men straighten. "But fewer than last moon. They listen to the men who fought at Bloodstone."

A cart laden with bed frames was passing through the fort's gate.

"Otho has roofed Third's barrack," Hewyn said. "They can move in tomorrow. He's cut back that bank beside the horse lines too. Vaelor has room to turn his men now."

"Good. Settle the next intake with him before you take men from his works."

Beyond the infantry ground, new riders walked their horses between stakes. More experienced men lowered blunted lances at hanging targets. Hewyn walked beside Jon's stirrup to the rail.

"One hundred and ten recruits under Vaelor now," Hewyn said. "Young men, most of them." Jon had made Scales their centurion, with Hugh and the other knights to help train his horsemen.

Jon watched a rider round the last stake without crowding the next horse. He had cavalry at last. The beginning of it, anyway: men who could scout ahead and reach trouble before his infantry.

"Three new centuries and these," he said. "We have come some way."

"We have," Arthur agreed. "But you need experienced knights and men-at-arms among them. Vaelor cannot ride beside a hundred and ten young men. Even with Hugh, Corentin and Mael."

"Vaelor says the same."

"He knows what he's missing. If one rider loses his nerve, someone must keep the men beside him from following."

Hewyn rested a hand on the rail. "The new centuries have men from the First in every rank. We have fewer to give the horses."

Jon looked towards the beginners.

"Then we bring more in. Knights who need service, and men-at-arms who have fought from a saddle. Arthur, have Gawen and Vaelor examine them with you. Their horses as well as their stories."

"The king's tourney will bring plenty of men looking for a place," Aurane said. "Some have spent years waiting for a richer knight to die."

"Do you know any worth taking?"

"A few names. I'd ask about them before putting them in your colours."

"Find out who rode beside them. These lads will keep training; I'll have older hands among them before I ask them to charge anyone."

Hewyn returned to his infantry.

Ser Hugh Tollett waited farther along the rail. His brother and squire Eddison wheeled a well-bred bay at the far stake, lowered his practice lance and struck the hanging shield squarely. Hugh watched him ride clear.

"Better. Again, with your shield."

"The newest six need another fortnight on the level ground," he told Jon. "Vaelor has ordered the better men out with Corentin. You'll learn more on the lane than watching them pass a fence."

Ser Corentin of Wickenden waited upon a dark gelding, a white fox upon his worn shield. Ser Mael of the Ford was checking a rider's girth. Both had come with their horses, passed Gawen's trials and sworn their swords to Jon. Corentin was patient with effort and merciless with pretence; Mael could settle a frightened mount without humiliating its rider.

"I'll go with them," Jon said.

Hugh mounted, leaving Aleyx Waters and two older riders with the beginners. Vaelor joined Jon while Corentin led the men out in pairs, Mael following the last.

In the narrow lane Corentin drew the riders aside for a cart. Jon recognised Cinderwell's mark upon the iron hoops. A year earlier those would have come by ship. Beyond it, captured pirates and other prisoners broke stone under guard. Otho's gangs were widening the roads between the villages and digging ditches alongside.

Beyond the wall they spread out and trotted up the grassy rise. Wind pulled Jon's cloak from his back. Aurane drew level on the seaward side, riding rather better than he had admitted before their first outing. Jon had learnt to distrust such admissions. Aurane usually wanted a wager.

Below them Blackburn's roofs spread past the place where the road had once ended. Farther uphill, timbers lay across unfinished rooms.

"Will you joust with me before the tourney?" Aurane asked. "I hear Gawen had you riding at a quintain in the North."

"He did."

"Then let's see whether he taught you to stay in the saddle."

Jon smiled. "When there's time."

"Of course, my lord. I'll catch you soon enough when you've run out of excuses."

Jon laughed. He had come to enjoy these rides, and Aurane's company over supper. That suited Monford, no doubt. He had sent his brother to watch Jon, and letters went back to Driftmark. Jon knew it, but liked Aurane all the same. He remembered the boat coming back under fire. There would be a command for him in time.

Monford and the other old houses still saw Eddard Stark's bastard in the dragons' seat. Jon meant to honour their loyalty when he could stand before them as Aemon. Until then he ruled as Jon Black, and their distrust would not stop his work.

He let his horse lengthen its stride.

At the marker a horse shied. Its rider steadied it without crossing his neighbour, and Mael left him room.

"That gelding would have bolted a moon ago," Vaelor said. "We're getting them used to flapping cloth and the sound of shields. Some still kick when another horse comes close. They must learn to bear that before we bring the line together."

Farther back, another rider hurried to close a gap and crowded the horse ahead. Mael called him out to try again at a walk.

"Would you trust him out on patrol?" Aurane asked.

"With Corentin. Not alone," Vaelor said. "He knows these roads better than any of us. We can use that."

Jon glanced back. The lad had fallen in behind Mael and was keeping his distance now.

"Put him in Corentin's party, then."

They walked the final stretch back. Jon dismounted while the men saw to their horses.

"The better riders can begin island patrols," he told Vaelor. "An old hand with each party. Have them speak to the headmen. I want to hear of a failing bridge or a stranger buying horses before the next market."

Vaelor handed his reins to a groom. Jon stopped him before he could follow the men.

"You're coming to King's Landing with me. Gawen too. I want you both riding in the lists. I'll enter as well."

Vaelor looked back. "I'll have my destrier ready, my lord."

"Room for another?" Hugh asked. "I'd like a chance at that purse."

"Next time, Hugh. I'm leaving the riders with you, Corentin and Mael. Keep their training going while we're away."

Hugh's smile faded a little. He looked towards the practice stakes, where Eddison was waiting with his lance across his saddle.

"Eddison comes with us," Jon said. "Aleyx too. There's a squires' melee. I want them both in it."

Hugh beckoned his brother over and told him. Eddison broke into a grin, then bowed to Jon.

"Aye, my lord," Hugh said. "Bring us back those older hands."

"I mean to."

"Take me with you," Aurane said. "I can introduce you to some of those men. Besides, I'd like to see Gawen in the lists."

"Come, then. Arthur will want those names before we sail."

Jon left Hugh to choose between a dealer's mounts and sent him to Perkin for the purchase money.

* * *
​

Aries waited in the castle yard with two wooden swords. Jon took the heavier one and closed his right hand firmly about the grip. The cut had healed to a pale scar. There was no pain now, even when he tightened his fingers and gave the blade a hard turn.

"Ser Gawen said I did well this morning," Aries said. "He said my footwork was much better."

"Good," Jon said.

Aries was smiling now. "I'm going to get a point off you today."

Jon raised his blade. "Come on, then."

Aries set his feet. Jon touched blades and drove him towards the yard's centre. The boy had grown into his shoulders; his sword no longer dragged his arm after it when a stroke was turned aside.

Jon pressed harder. Aries caught one cut, stepped clear of the next and waited through an opening he would once have lunged at. When he struck at Jon's ribs, he kept his balance. Jon turned the blow and answered; Aries retreated a short step instead of throwing himself backwards.

"Better."

Aries did not look towards Arthur. Jon let his sword swing too far, and the boy struck his upper arm before withdrawing with his guard up.

"He'll tell that one over supper," Aurane said.

"Tell them what happens next," Jon replied. "Again."

Aries earned no second touch, but Jon had to work for the stroke that caught his hip.

"You crossed your feet," Arthur told him. "You saw his arm and forgot where he put his foot."

Jon showed him the step. On their second slow attempt, Aries kept his balance and turned out of reach. He was breathing hard, trying not to grin.

He handed Aurane his sword while he wiped his palms.

"Shall I tell Gawen?" Aurane asked.

"Tell him I got my point."

"And what happened after," Jon said.

Aries glanced at Arthur. "He can ask Ser Arthur about that."

Aurane laughed.

Darys brought water, his pale hair escaping its tie. Alasdair had relieved him at the gate. Keir's sword hung at his side, and he kept his dusty black sleeve clear of the cups.

Hewyn had recommended him to fill Fergus's place in the household. Alasdair had worked him hard, and Arthur had tested his swordplay and judgement before Jon accepted his oath. One of Dragonstone's own Valyrian lads now stood among his northern household men.

"Marrec and Perrin are coming up," Jon told him. "Have their things brought to my workroom."

"The samples, my lord?"

"And whichever bundle of complaints Otho sends."

Darys grinned. Aries drained his water and asked to try the step again. Arthur took back the wooden sword and put him in place.

Aurane asked whether Jon meant to dine before the masters came.

"I've something to do first. Then Ethan is coming up with the accounts. I'll see you at supper."

"Shall I keep you anything?"

"Something you haven't bitten."

"Such an exacting host." He left with Darys, asking whether the kitchens had forgiven Denys's men for borrowing their largest pot.

* * *
​

The egg stood in the light from the narrow window, its dark-red scales edged with copper.

The king's letter lay open on the table beside the egg, its broken seal stamped with a crowned stag. Robert had invited him to the tourney at the moon's end.

Jon drew away the egg's linen cover and rested his hands beside the padded cradle. From this angle the curve was almost whole, its scales running from broad base to narrow crown. Some seams vanished when he leaned back.

Then he turned the cradle, and the holes came into view.

One lay low on the far side; two smaller gaps interrupted the upper curve. He had filled another four days ago, then searched until the candle guttered.

He tried a loose red fragment against the lower opening. Its colour and thickness matched, but the far edge left a gap.

"Damn you."

He set it down before irritation made him force it.

Other trays held smoke-grey, green, gold and blue fragments, remnants of several eggs jumbled together long before he found them. He had sorted them by daylight and lamplight. The red egg was the nearest he had come to recovering something whole.

He touched a copper edge. Cold. Through the hole he could see the padding beneath. A mended shell was still a shell. Yet dragons had hatched from stone, and he knew too much to regard it as a pretty ruin.

Every chamber where fragments had been found had been searched again, its earth sifted and rubble turned. The men brought him old nails, beads and a cracked gaming piece. Nothing completed the shell. Jon stood looking at the gaps until footsteps sounded outside.

He put the loose piece in its tray and covered the egg. His black notebook went into its locked drawer before he called for the door to be opened.

Ethan, Abel and Arthur arrived with the masters. Otho brought drawings while Darys helped Marrec lift the armour chest onto a bench. Jon cleared a place for Perrin to unpack Ellyn's cup.

Light softened its thin edge. Jon turned it in his hand, looking for the slight unevenness she had shown him after the firing. He liked that she had pointed it out before he could find it himself.

Gella's white salt came next. Marrec opened the smaller padded case and lifted out a helm, deep red beneath its glassy finish. The rest of the harness lay in the chest, each piece wrapped against its neighbours.

"Ewan wants you to see it all," he said.

Arthur lifted the breastplate. Jon ran his thumb over its smooth finish while Arthur tried the gauntlet, slowly closing his fist.

"Noll has been busy."

"The new centuries have kept him busy," Jon said. "This is the one I asked him to spare."

Abel opened his book beside the porcelain. William's latest clock ticked on the wall, ready for its buyer.

"And where is this one going?" Abel asked, looking at the red steel.

"King's Landing. With me."

Ethan glanced at Arthur, then drew the map of the bay towards him.

"When?"

"Before the tourney. I want the gifts presented before the lists open." Jon set the cup beside the helm. "Ellyn's twelve cups and six bowls are for the royal family. She knows they matter; she needn't worry about whose hands will hold them."

"And the armour?" Abel asked.

"This for the showing. Another made to Robert's measure, as my gift. Pack white salt for the royal kitchens too. Enough for them to serve it."

Abel ran a finger down his page. "We have paid for the work already. Giving it away will not put the wages back."

Jon remembered Osric's account of Robert showing the clock at the feast. Men who would have barred an unknown craftsman from their halls wanted what the king possessed. Osric had spent the evening taking names.

"The clock did," he said. "Let Robert wear our armour and his guests eat from our porcelain. When someone asks where it came from, I mean to be there."

Perrin drew his writing board closer. "The men who buy your clocks will receive my letters. Their stewards know the seal."

"Write to them. Find a room near the harbour before the city fills. We'll lay everything out there after I've been to the Red Keep. Invite the merchants as well as the lords' men."

Perrin looked again at the red harness.

"Shall I offer the harness for sale?"

"Take orders. An armourer goes with us to fit men and take their measures. Ewan sets the dates, allowing for our own soldiers first." Jon shook a little salt onto a plate. "Have their cooks taste this. Put food in the bowls. I don't want everything shut in cases while a merchant tells them what it is."

"Hamish is sending cheeses," Marrec said. "We can feed them something of our own."

"Take those, and common salt for the shipowners. The white is for wealthy tables."

"Until now, porcelain this fine had to come from the far east," Marrec said. "Few merchants bring any this far. Those who do ask a fortune."

"Then price ours accordingly," Jon said. "The white salt too. They won't find better. If a buyer wants cheap salt, show him the common kind."

"Give them a list of what we can supply and your direction in Blackburn," Jon told Perrin. "Promise deliveries we can keep. If those go well, we'll try Gulltown and White Harbour, then buyers across the narrow sea."

Arthur drew off the gauntlet. "Some will come to see you. The work will be an excuse."

"Then they'll see both."

"They will ask more than the price of a cup."

Jon met his eyes. Reports of his men, ships and spending had gone to his father and the Hand. Now they would have him within reach.

"I'll answer what concerns them. I want to speak with Lord Arryn while I'm there, and hear what is being said about Dragonstone."

Ethan smoothed the map. "Qavo still has men aboard the new ship."

"She's nearly finished. Let him finish her. Vhalar will take us on his galley."

Arthur's hand stopped beside the helm.

"Vhalar himself?"

"It's time I used him. He's been itching for a trip."

Jon turned the map towards Arthur. After a pause Arthur looked down.

"I'll settle the household guard with Alasdair."

"And speak with Denys about the crew. Allow for our tourney horses and the squires' mounts. Hugh, Corentin and Mael will stay to train the riders."

"Allow Gawen a few days ashore before he rides," Arthur said.

"And find somewhere to try those men Aurane recommended. He's coming with us."

The four prizes were repaired, Vhalar's three galleys under Denys's orders. Timber for Qavo's second ship lay ready, but Jon would see the first tried at sea before they laid another keel.

"I have men asking for bar iron already," Marrec said.

"Hamish is still waiting for ploughs." Ethan put a folded return beside Abel's book. "And I have houses waiting for hinges."

Jon pushed the iron offer back. "The island keeps it. The stone too."

Otho needed no invitation after that. He unrolled his drawing across the map, forcing Perrin to rescue the salt.

"These roofs first, then," the builder said. "Merren wants another workshop wall. Hamish wants a grain store. Both say they've been promised their turn."

"They have," Ethan said. "These people were promised somewhere to live."

Ethan indicated the houses. New arrivals shared rooms with barely settled families; headmen came to him asking for beds.

"How soon?" Jon asked Otho.

"Before the next moon is out, if the timber comes. These nearer houses can be finished sooner."

"Finish those. Ethan will give you the names for them. The grain store follows the roofs."

Marrec's return listed three thousand two hundred freed Valyrians, including children, and two hundred and eighty-seven northern settlers. Jon read the totals again. That morning he had walked streets which had not existed when he first came to Dragonstone.

Abel laid his second book beside the return.

"The next grain order is larger."

"Even after Hamish's harvest?"

"After it," Ethan said. "The villages are eating better. They are also feeding more people."

Hamish's report lay beneath the drawings: nearly twice the grain on the guano trial, more land under the plough, drains saving wet fields and irrigation carrying others through the drought. The cheesehouse wasted less milk too.

Dake, who had argued with Jon about food and resented Hamish's appointment, had signed the request for ploughs and seed drills. Even this harvest would not feed everyone coming here.

"Buy the grain. Wheat where the price is sound, barley and oats as well. Enough to outlast a missed sailing. Raise the orders as the ships bring more people."

"The fuel buyers want some of the same holds," Marrec said.

"Hire another. Don't bring me charcoal and tell me the grain had to wait." Jon tapped Hamish's request. "His tools come before anything offered abroad. Give him the men for the next clearing, and have the guano carts ready for the sowing."

Marrec drew a letter from beneath the return.

"The men in Lys want to know whether they should keep buying. They've found a mason who can set an arch. The seller knows what he's worth."

"So do I," Otho said. "Can he read a drawing?"

"I'll have them ask. There are smiths as well, though I'd sooner have one of Ewan's men look at them. Every man in the pen becomes a master when his owner names the price."

"Send someone who knows the work," Jon said. "Speak to the men yourselves. Find out who taught them and what they've made."

He drew the letter closer. There were ages beside some of the names, trades beside others. A woman who had woven fine cloth had been put down as a washerwoman. Further down, the mason's wife was mentioned without a name.

"Where is she?"

"In another house. They haven't found out which."

"Find her. Tell them both what waits here: freedom, paid work and a place to live."

Ethan pulled the housing return towards him. "Tell me before they sail. I can find room for children if I know they're coming. The headmen cannot keep putting beds into kitchens."

"You'll have word as soon as the purchases are settled," Jon said. "Marrec, keep looking. Valyrian men and women with trades, and labourers for the fields and works. Ask about their children and kin. Have your agents search beyond Lys."

Abel turned a page. "The next purse can go from what we have. After that, I shall want the offers on the remaining plate settled."

"Send it. Marrec, bring him the offers before we leave."

Some of the raid's thirty-eight thousand dragons remained in unsold goods. Repairs, housing and freed people's passage consumed the proceeds; clock orders paid wages between sales. Nine hundred legionaries, the garrison, household, sailors and cavalry needed paying. None could wait upon a lord's liking for porcelain.

"Have the headmen send the new arrivals to their schoolmasters," he told Ethan. "Grown men as well as children. A mason ought to be able to ask for his tools."

"Some come after work already. Others say they are too old."

"Tell them which jobs William is offering to men who can read and reckon. And what he pays."

Ethan smiled a little. "The masters have found that helps."

Jon paid a schoolmaster in each village to teach Common, letters and reckoning. He marked rooms near the works for further teaching. Cadan and Lucan could help, though neither could spend his days teaching sums.

"Keep those rooms in this year's work. For the guarded crafts, ask the masters for names from the freed households first. Men and women who learn quickly and can hold their tongues. William tries them before anyone enters his inner room."

Freed men and women did most of the guarded work. Their homes were here. Jon would reward that attachment; newcomers still needed his approval and an oath.

Before Otho could roll the drawing, Jon asked how far the water line could go.

"Beyond the court with a larger pipe. What are you putting there?"

"I'll need a place for boiling, away from the clean work. Leave a way for carts carrying fat and wood ash. Farther up, I want clean water and room under cover for drying."

Otho followed the slope with his finger. "Here. What will you be drying?"

"I'll show you when we're back. Marrec, find me some old linen. Worn sheets, shirts too ragged to mend. Have it washed and sorted. No wool mixed through it."

Abel's quill stopped. "You're buying rags?"

"Clean linen rags."

Marrec looked at him across the porcelain. "The sailmakers have offcuts. I can get you sound cloth."

"Save that for sails. Worn cloth will serve."

Abel waited, plainly expecting more. Jon drew the plan closer and marked the drying ground beside Otho's water line.

"For now, enough for trials. If they go as I expect, you'll be buying rather more of it."

Marrec added the linen to his list, slower than he had written the timber. "What else?"

"Wine. Some of those scented oils you trade in, and dried flowers. Small amounts. Learn what the sellers in King's Landing ask for their best oils, too."

"The wine goes with the rags?" Abel asked.

"Separate work, beside the grain mill at Wyrm's Rest." Jon put down the quill. "Find men who know how to draw spirits from wine, Marrec, and someone who blends scents. Bring me names while we're there. I have drawings to go through with them when we return."

Otho marked the unused ground. Abel had not closed his book.

"And what am I paying for before you leave?"

"The drawings and trial supplies. The larger works wait until I'm home." Jon looked at Otho. "Bring me the cost of that pipe tomorrow. Include the bathhouse line. Keep its ground clear, but the houses come first."

They would walk the court in the morning. The place of learning, bank, theatre and arena in his black book could wait; the men without roofs could not.

Ethan folded the house return into his papers.

"I'll have the headmen up before you sail. They can settle the lodgings with me while you're away. Otho sends his bills to Abel as usual."

"And send word if the grain is delayed," Jon said. "I'll be close enough to find another cargo."

Perrin, Marrec and Otho left discussing cargo and timber. Ethan stayed for Jon's correspondence.

"Send a raven to Winterfell," Jon told him. "Ask my father if Robb and Theon may join us for the tourney. Tell them I want them there."

Ethan noted it beneath the other letters. Arthur waited until he had gone.

"We should read Denys's packet tonight."

Jon glanced at the locked drawer. The enquiries for Viserys and Daenerys had brought nothing certain yet. He would hear them before he went among men who still toasted Robert's victory.

"After supper. Bring it here."

Arthur set the gauntlet back beside the helm. Through the open window came the rumble of a cart and a shout to clear the gate. The samples from the villages were still arriving.

Jon poured water into Ellyn's cup. Its rim was smooth against his lip. He drank, emptied the last drops into the jug and found the cloth Perrin had brought it in.

The royal set would travel in its own case. This one he wrapped himself, folding the corners over the handle so it could not knock against the thin wall.

"When Darys comes back, have him put this with my things," he said. "I'll take it to King's Landing myself."

 

[aiwonder]

"You will have to dine with them," Doran said.

Oberyn turned the king's invitation over. "I have managed it before."

"And afterwards?"

"Afterwards I shall complain to you. Would you prefer a letter, or shall I save it until I return?"

Doran waited. Beyond the closed door, the last of the servants' footsteps faded. The screens had been lowered against the afternoon sun; narrow bars of light crossed Oberyn's sleeve and the parchment in his hand. Below the gallery someone was teaching a child to swim. Doran heard the repeated instruction to let go of the edge.

Oberyn laid down the invitation.

"I know why you are sending me. You need not ask whether I can endure the sight of a Lannister every time we speak of King's Landing."

"I am asking whether you will speak to the men sitting beside them."

"Some of those men toasted Robert while Elia lay dead."

Doran's fingers stopped upon the loose tie of his robe. His brother had not raised his voice. He seldom needed to when he spoke of their sister.

"And some command men we will need."

Oberyn looked towards the screens. Doran let him. He could hear the child laughing now, breathless with the discovery that the water would hold him.

Rhaenys had learned in those pools. She had learned to ride here, to read a difficult letter without moving her lips, to strike Obara's shield and keep her feet beneath her. Through all those years she had answered to Deria Sand whenever a stranger called. Doran wanted more for her than another safe year in his gardens.

"If we are to bring her out of Dorne," he said, "we must have somewhere to take her. Lords who will receive her. Men who will hold a road while our own cross the mountains. I cannot obtain those things by sending another merchant to listen in a winesink."

"You could begin with the houses that fought beside us."

"Which of them would do so again?"

"That is what you want me to ask?"

"Not in those words."

Oberyn drew his chair closer. Its leg caught the corner of Doran's footstool, and pain shot through the swollen joint. Doran caught the arm of his chair before he could stop himself.

"Forgive me." Oberyn knelt to move the stool back.

"Leave the cushion."

"It has slipped."

"I know. Leave it."

His brother obeyed. For a little while they said nothing. Oberyn poured water into Doran's cup and put it where he could reach it without leaning.

"Stark will not abandon Robert," he said at last.

"I would be a fool to expect it." Doran took a careful drink. "Nor Arryn. Robert is still the boy they knew, whatever he has become to everyone else. And Hoster Tully has daughters married to both."

"A fortunate pair of weddings."

"Very. A quarrel between any two of those houses has a third to mend it. We must reckon with that."

It was easy to speak of the North as Stark and the Vale as Arryn. Letters arrived with one lord's seal; armies were counted beneath one banner. Yet lesser lords had sons to place, disputes their great lord had judged against them, old obligations which had become burdens. He had spent too many years hearing petitions to believe affection always followed obedience.

"Their bannermen need not love one another," he continued. "But displeasure is not enough. A man may curse his lord over wine and still ride when summoned. Find out what he would actually risk."

Oberyn took a mouthful of water. "For a princess he believes dead?"

"For a marriage. A wardship. Trade through his port. An acquaintance with you that he chooses to continue after the king's feast is over. Begin with something he can accept."

"You would have me come home with invitations."

"I would have you know whose invitation is worth accepting."

"And how much am I to offer in return? You cannot expect men to speak freely while I give them nothing."

"You may invite their sons here. Offer to show them our horses, our ports. A place in your company, if you think the man would be useful."

"My company?"

"You have seldom objected to finding it."

"Young lords require more attention than most." Oberyn considered him. "There are men who would send a son merely to get him out of their own hall."

"Then send that son home. I trust you to know the difference."

He meant it. Oberyn had lived among men Doran knew only through their seals. For this he needed his brother's judgement more than his obedience.

Oberyn set his cup down beside the king's letter. "An invitation from Mace Tyrell would be interesting."

"Would you go?"

"If he ever sent one."

"Willas writes."

At that, Oberyn's expression changed. "Willas writes more than his father would like, if his father knew how often."

"About horses?"

"Among other things. His last letter accused me of praising a mare I had never seen."

"Had you?"

"Her grandsire was excellent."

Doran found himself smiling. "That was not the question."

"Willas said much the same. He wants to see her walk before he pays for her breeding." Oberyn rubbed a thumb along the rim of his cup. "He has a better eye than most men who can still sit a tourney saddle. His father prefers to remember whose lance put him on the ground."

"Willas does not blame you."

"No. He is more gracious about it than I should be."

The ruined leg had given an old dislike a face and a name. Doran knew how often the story was repeated in the Reach, and how rarely anyone troubled to mention the letters that had followed it. Willas was Highgarden's heir. His friendship did not cease to matter because his father resented it.

"Write before you leave," Doran said. "Tell him you will be at the tourney. Ask whether there is anything you can do for him there."

"And wait for him to ask me to mend his sister's marriage?"

"There is no marriage yet."

"Mace intends there to be."

"So I hear. I would like to know what the king intends."

Oberyn sat back. The sunlight had moved from his sleeve to his hand.

"A Tyrell queen would make our task considerably harder."

"Yes." Doran was glad his brother said it plainly. "Mace would have good cause to defend his grandson's inheritance. We should discover how close he is to obtaining it before we count upon his discontent."

"And if Robert refuses him?"

"Then learn whether he blames Robert, Arryn, or the queen. There may be a difference between them that we can use."

"You are thinking of Willas for Rhaenys."

Doran looked down at the invitation. Prince Tommen's nameday, with a tournament and feasting to follow. Robert could summon half the realm to celebrate a child while Elia's daughter could not be called by her own name outside a locked room.

"I am thinking that she will need a husband, and that Highgarden has an heir. I have promised neither of them anything."

"You would hear her first."

"Yes."

Oberyn held his gaze until Doran added, "And I would expect you to tell me honestly what sort of man he is."

"That I can do."

"Rhaenys will have questions of her own."

"She asked what we would do if her husband's family helped win her throne, then expected to rule through her."

"What did you tell her?"

"That she should put the question to you."

Doran met his brother's eyes. "She would have Dorne behind her."

"She knows. She wants to hear how you mean to keep the crown hers."

"Then we shall discuss it this evening," Doran said.

"Keep writing to Willas," he continued. "Do not turn the first friendly letter into a bargain his father must approve. At court, speak to his brothers. See whether Lord Tyrell listens to his wife or his mother when they disagree. Find out who has been encouraging this royal match."

"And who wishes they would all go home."

"That may be easier to discover."

Oberyn laughed softly. He had begun to consider whom he would meet; Doran could see it in the way he studied the invitation again. His brother remembered faces, favours, the name of a man's favourite horse. Men who would weigh every syllable before the Prince of Dorne often spoke freely to Oberyn and regretted it later.

There were limits. Tywin Lannister would remember exactly whom he was addressing. So would the men responsible for Elia's death. Doran had not forbidden his brother to seek them out. To do so would only make Oberyn wonder what he was being denied.

"If you find a man willing to speak further, arrange a second meeting," he said. "You need not bring him to Sunspear at once. I can send someone to him."

"With what authority?"

"Enough to discuss what he asks. Any promise touching Rhaenys comes back to me."

Oberyn nodded.

Doran drew another letter from beneath the dark river stone beside his cup.

"Aron has sent word from Dragonstone. Lord Black has accepted the king's invitation."

"Then Arthur will be there."

"I expect so."

He passed the letter across. Below the news of the visit, Aron described occupied houses where he had sold roof tiles, a quay crowded with imported timber, and work still going forward beyond it. Eight moons had passed since the fighting at sea. Merchants had long since stopped arguing over how many pirates Stark's son had killed and begun asking what else he meant to buy.

Oberyn read the page once. "Ashara's boy is spending his prize money."

"Aron still finds buyers for his cargoes."

"Arthur used to complain of every journey that took him near a court. Now he has a lord who receives royal invitations."

"His sister's son," Doran said. "I doubt he considers it the same obligation."

"I should like to ask him."

"Do. Speak of Ashara. Of home. Find out whether he would welcome another visit." Doran waited until his brother looked up. "But you tell him nothing of Rhaenys."

Oberyn's mouth tightened. "I know."

"He might come here before you could explain why he must not."

"I know that too." He folded Aron's letter along its old crease. "She will ask whether I spoke to him."

"Then be able to tell her you did."

For a moment Oberyn looked as though he meant to say more. Instead he laid the report down and rose.

"I shall take Obara."

"Have you told her?"

"I thought I would wait until you had decided whether I was fit to be allowed among other people."

Doran reached for the little bell. "Send her in."

Obara arrived with dust on her boots and her hair bound back. She glanced at the royal seal as her father opened the door for her, then at the two cups on the table. Oberyn took his chair again. She remained standing until Doran waved her to the bench.

"Your father is going to King's Landing for the tourney. He wishes you to accompany him."

She looked at Oberyn. "When?"

"As soon as our passage is arranged."

"I shall need to send for my saddle."

"Send today," Doran said.

That brought her attention back to him. Obara had the patience to drill the same fault out of a girl's sword arm for half a morning, but little for a journey discussed without a departure.

"Does Deria know?" she asked.

"Not yet."

"She will want to come."

"She stays here."

Obara nodded. "I will tell her myself. And see that Nym keeps her practising while I am gone."

"Tell her I will come to her this evening," Doran said. "There are things she should hear from me."

He did not want Rhaenys learning of another journey from a servant carrying saddlebags past her door. She had waited for news from him often enough.

Oberyn asked his daughter to bring the writing case from his rooms. "I owe Willas a letter before we sail."

"About the mare?"

"About that too."

When she had gone, Doran rang for Caleotte. He drew the king's invitation towards him and turned it so the maester would see the date.

"Our answer goes today," he said. "My brother and his daughter will attend."

* * *
​

At Highgarden, Margaery had managed half a curtsy when the silk pulled tight beneath her arms.

"I cannot go any lower."

"That will do until she has loosened it," Olenna said.

The seamstress knelt beside the stool. Margaery raised her elbows while Alerie drew her curls clear of the collar. Gold flowers covered the green silk from shoulder to wrist. There were too many of them, but her granddaughter had chosen them herself and had already endured three women telling her where they ought to go.

"Let it out here," Alerie said, touching the seam beneath the girl's arm. "She must be able to reach across a table."

"And dance," Margaery added.

"And dance."

Willas sat by the open window with his bad leg stretched before him. He had surrendered his table to the sewing basket without complaint, though Olenna had seen him rescue a letter from beneath a length of ribbon. Beyond his shoulder lay the gardens, where Margaery and her cousins had spent half the summer riding whenever their septa looked elsewhere. Now there were gowns for mornings, gowns for suppers and a travelling chest nobody would let the girl pack herself.

A servant laid a heavy woollen cloak across its open lid.

"Are we staying for winter?" Margaery asked.

"Your father wishes to be prepared," Alerie answered.

"For several winters, by the look of the wagons," Olenna muttered.

Willas smiled down at his letter. Mace had spoken to the steward about extending their lodgings before speaking to his daughter. Olenna would have preferred the girl to hear of it at breakfast, when she had asked Alerie to tell her, rather than find out among the pins.

Garlan appeared in the doorway, his hair damp from the yard. He had dressed for supper but missed a spot of dried mud beside his ear.

"Have you come to laugh?" his sister asked.

"I was hoping to ask a favour."

"For the joust? I have begun one."

"Then I had better ride."

"You had better win. I pricked my finger twice."

He complimented the flowers and offered her his hand when the seamstress said she might step down. Margaery tried another curtsy upon the floor. This one succeeded.

Mace arrived before the woman had gathered her pins. He stopped in the doorway to admire his daughter, then made her turn so that he could see the back.

"Very fine. Though I shall never understand how a gown requires so many women to finish it."

Alerie drew a pin from her cuff and returned it to the seamstress. Mace stepped aside to let the woman pass, then kissed Margaery's brow.

"They have made you beautiful, sweetling."

"She was beautiful when they began," Alerie said.

"And now the prince will see it."

There it was. Her son's pleasure was so plain that Olenna almost softened towards it. He loved his children. He also wanted everyone in the realm to see what splendid children they were, preferably from below a dais.

Alerie sent Margaery behind the screen to change. Mace waited until the sewing women had gone, then shut the door and drew a letter from his belt.

"Renly will receive us when we arrive. He has offered to arrange a supper with the prince."

"Has the king asked to meet Margaery?" Olenna enquired.

"He invited us."

"He invited the realm, Mace."

His smile diminished. He unfolded the letter and began to read. Renly wrote warmly of their journey, of Loras's progress and of the welcome awaiting them. Several young nobles would attend the supper. There would be ample opportunity for Margaery to become acquainted with Joffrey.

"You see? Renly understands what I have in mind."

"I imagine the men loading your wagons understand it."

"Mother."

Willas held out his hand, and Mace passed him the letter.

"Robert need only meet her," her son continued. "There is not a girl in the realm better suited to his son. Her birth, her accomplishments, the strength of our house—"

"Yes, yes. You have been telling me since she could walk. Sit down, you great oaf. You are making her sound like a broodmare at a fair."

Mace glanced towards the screen and sat, offended. Alerie had pressed her lips together. Olenna knew that expression of old; her gooddaughter would chide her later, once she was certain she would not laugh.

Willas finished the letter.

"Renly says nothing of the queen."

"We shall pay our respects to her," Mace replied.

"Before or after she hears that her husband's brother has been arranging her son's company?" Olenna asked.

"He is the boy's uncle."

"And she is his mother. I would begin there."

Alerie held out her hand for the letter. "I shall write to her myself. Margaery ought to be presented before attending the supper."

"Certainly. There is no need to make a difficulty of it."

Olenna left that unanswered. Willas was looking towards her, waiting until his father had finished.

"I would ask Renly something first," he said. "Has Robert already approached Lord Stark?"

Mace turned in his chair.

"About Sansa," Willas added.

"There has been no announcement."

"Then we have time to discover whether there is anything to announce."

"The girl is younger than Margaery. She has been brought up in the North."

"She has been brought up by Eddard Stark," Willas replied. "That may matter more to Robert than anything else."

Olenna watched him lay his own letter beneath Renly's. She had spent years asking him to consider what another man wanted before telling her what Highgarden could offer. Mace still answered the second question whenever she asked the first.

"Lord Arryn would welcome the match," Willas continued. "He raised them both. His wife is Lady Stark's sister, and Lord Tully would have a granddaughter beside the throne. We would be asking Robert to disappoint people whose judgment he has trusted for years."

"The North cannot offer what we can," Mace insisted. "Stark is already loyal. A marriage to my daughter would bind the Reach to Robert's line."

"A sensible argument," Olenna said. Her son brightened. "Now tell me why Robert should prefer it to having Ned Stark for kin."

Mace's fingers tightened upon the arm of his chair.

"He wanted to marry Stark's sister," she continued. "He may be pleased enough to see his son marry Stark's daughter. If he were choosing solely to please himself, I would expect Sansa to be queen."

"You speak as though the matter were settled."

"It may not even have been discussed. Find out before you offer a dowry."

Margaery emerged from behind the screen in her ordinary gown. Garlan moved his cup from the window seat to make room for her.

"Renly believes the king can be persuaded," Mace said.

Willas glanced down at the letter. "He would gain a great deal by persuading him. Loras serves him already. If he helped Margaery become queen, Father would have reason to support him at court."

"And if Robert refuses?" Olenna asked.

"Renly still has our friendship."

"And your sister has been seen pursuing a prince who will marry somebody else."

Willas looked towards Margaery, then back to their grandmother.

"We need not let it become that public. Renly can arrange company for her without discussing a marriage. His help is still worth having."

"Of course it is. I want to know how much he has actually done before your father thanks him for a crown."

"I have promised him nothing," Mace protested.

"Then try to reach King's Landing with that distinction intact."

Her son reached for the wine. Garlan rose to pour it for him, and Olenna waited while they settled themselves. Outside the open window, a groom called for someone to hold a horse. Hooves struck the paving, followed by a short, indignant whinny.

"The queen might prefer another match," Willas said at last. "Lord Stark already has the king's ear whenever he wants it. If his daughter married Joffrey, that influence would continue into the next reign."

"Do you suppose she would welcome your father instead?"

"I think she might prefer a man who had to bargain with her."

Olenna lowered her cup.

Willas met her eyes. "Stark need only ask Robert. We would need her goodwill."

She considered that, then nodded. "Worth finding out. Your mother may have more to tell us after she meets the queen. But do not build your plans upon Cersei disliking a girl she has not met. She may find a northern girl with her father half a realm away less troublesome than a Tyrell surrounded by cousins."

"Then Mother's letter should concern the presentation," Willas said. "Nothing about remaining at court."

"For now."

Alerie had moved to the small desk beside the travelling chest. "I will send it this evening."

"And when she is received," Mace declared, "they will see how well she belongs there."

"When she is received, we shall thank the queen," Olenna told him. "You may leave the proclamation until later."

He shifted in his chair. "You make a simple visit sound like the negotiation of a peace."

"You ordered lodgings through the winter."

Margaery looked at her father. He spread his hands.

"Only should we wish to remain, sweetling."

"Will Mother stay?"

"If you do," Alerie assured her.

The girl relaxed a little. Olenna was glad she had asked. Mace had imagined his daughter in the Red Keep so often that it scarcely occurred to him she might have questions about living there.

"Robert has accepted our service since the rebellion," he said. "We joined him against the Greyjoys. He has no cause to mistrust us."

"He pardoned you. He still remembers which banners you fought beneath. And I would expect Stannis to have something to say about a Tyrell bride."

"We made our peace with Robert."

"Robert ate throughout the siege."

Mace's face darkened. Willas moved before his father could answer.

"Renly cannot speak for Stannis," he said. "Even if they both remember Storm's End."

Olenna gave him a brief nod. Stannis held the castle now, and the Stormlands with it. Renly's seat on the council made him useful, but his friendship would not quiet the brother who had nearly starved beneath Tyrell banners.

"I shall speak to Robert privately," Mace announced. "I can ask what he intends for the prince without committing myself."

"Then enquire. Leave the gold out of it until you have heard an answer."

"I know how to conduct myself."

"I have had many years to observe it."

A knock brought the steward with a question about the wagons. Mace gave an answer from his chair, found it insufficiently understood, and went out to inspect the arrangements himself. Garlan followed when he heard the horses mentioned.

Olenna waited until the door closed.

"You need not smile, Willas. He will be asking you how much he can afford."

"I shall tell him how much more he may obtain if he waits."

"Yes. He will listen to that."

Her grandson drew the letters together. "Loras should meet you before the city. You can speak freely on the road."

"Garlan has asked him," Margaery put in. "I shall ask too."

"Your letter may have more effect," Willas replied.

"Ask him about the prince," Olenna said. "His temper. His companions. What he does when he loses."

Willas nodded.

"He does not write much about Joffrey," Margaery admitted. "Mostly about Lord Renly and the yard."

"Then give him something else to write about." Olenna crooked a finger. "Come here, child."

Margaery came to stand beside her chair. Olenna took her hand.

"Your father has been praising you to everyone. What have you been doing?"

"I asked Loras whether the princess might like Megga and me to join her riding. And what Prince Tommen likes."

"Has he answered?"

"He said he would find out. I thought Myrcella might ask us to come again if she liked our company. Then Mother would have a reason to ask whether we could stay."

Olenna drew the girl closer and kissed her cheek.

"Well done, sweetling. You have given rather more thought to being invited than your father has."

Margaery smiled at once. Alerie looked up from her writing.

"You should have told me. I shall mention that you hoped to meet the princess."

"And Tommen?" Olenna asked.

"Everyone writes about Joffrey. I thought his brother might be pleased that somebody remembered him."

"He may be. Remember him after you have been introduced as well."

"I meant to."

Olenna squeezed her hand. "I believe you. And Myrcella must not find you forgetting her whenever Joffrey appears."

"That would be rude."

"It would. It would also make your father's intentions plain to a child."

Willas leaned forward. "Their friendship would still be worth having if the king chose Sansa."

Margaery's smile faded a little.

"So would hers," Olenna added. "Do not arrive thinking of the girl as your enemy. She has done nothing to you."

"I have never met her."

"Then you may find you like her. We shall learn what the king intends. In the meantime, your mother will approach the queen, your brother will ask the questions your father has forgotten, and you may enjoy the visit."

"And Father?"

"We shall try to keep him away from anyone who agrees with him."

Margaery laughed. Olenna released her hand, pleased to hear it.

Willas turned to the second letter. "Loras also expects Lord Black. With Ser Arthur."

"He will want another bout," Alerie said.

"He has mentioned it twice."

"He mentioned the first one often enough," Olenna recalled. Her grandson had sent a drawing to explain how the younger boy had got beneath his guard. "Perhaps this time he will spend less of the letter telling us why he should have won."

"There is a great deal being said about Dragonstone," Willas continued. "I should like a better account of what Lord Black has done there."

"We have one of his clocks," Alerie said. "We know what his work is worth."

"And now he has a fleet and Ser Arthur at his shoulder," Olenna replied. "Robert is fond of him. I shall be interested to see what he asks of that fondness."

"He is still very young."

"So I hear whenever somebody tells me what he has done." She glanced at Margaery. "Be courteous to him. And if Robert spends the feast praising him, watch the prince."

"To see whether he is jealous?"

"To see how he bears it."

Alerie finished her letter and laid it aside to dry. Supper would be served soon. From the passage came Mace's voice, asking a servant where his eldest son had gone.

"Here, Father," Willas called.

"Good. Come along. We shall eat together before everyone scatters."

Margaery went to the sewing basket and brought out Garlan's favour. One petal of the gold rose was larger than the others.

"I have promised him this," she told Olenna. "Must I give the prince something too?"

"Has he asked?"

"No."

"Then finish your brother's."

The girl folded the silk over her needle. Willas rose and reached for his cane; she went to take his free arm.

"Will you be lonely when we go?"

"With half of Highgarden finding reasons why I must settle something before Father returns?"

"In the evenings."

"A little," he admitted. "You will have to write."

"Everything?"

"As much as you wish."

They went out together. Mace was waiting in the passage, and Margaery stopped to show him the favour. He praised it extravagantly. Olenna heard him promise that Garlan would win, just as he promised that Joffrey would love her.

She took Alerie's arm and followed. Let him be right about the joust, at least. It would give them all a pleasant supper afterwards.

* * *
​

Robb caught Theon's sword against his shield and drove him back three steps before the edge of the well brought them up short.

"Yield."

"With that great thing on your arm? Give me one and try again."

"You chose to fight without it."

"I chose to show you how a man might fight without it. You were meant to learn."

Robb laughed and lowered the wooden sword. Theon immediately struck him across the thigh.

"And there is your lesson."

"That was after."

"After what? I had not yielded."

A pair of grooms had stopped beneath the arch to watch. Robb took his sword up again, but Martyn's voice carried across the yard.

"You have time to wash. You do not have time to begin another."

Theon offered his sword hilt first, all courtesy now that he had landed the last blow. Robb snatched it from him and took both to the arms rack. His leg smarted. He would have won the next exchange, shield or no shield, and Theon knew it.

They had been in White Harbor three days. Each morning the captain had wanted a different wind, and each morning Robb had thought of the tourney beginning without them. Today the ship would sail. Martyn had brought the word himself, finding them in Lord Manderly's yard before breakfast.

Robb pushed his wet hair from his forehead. Above the white walls, gulls circled in a sky clear enough to see for miles. There was no sign of the clouds the captain had objected to yesterday. He hoped the man had noticed.

A servant met them beneath the arch with a packet from Winterfell.

Robb broke his father's seal while Theon peered over his shoulder. The king's invitation had brought them this far south already; for a dreadful moment he imagined being called home. Then a second folded letter slipped from the first, and he recognised Jon's hand.

He caught it against his chest before it fell.

"Well?" Theon demanded.

"Jon wants us at the tourney."

"I told you he would be there."

"He asks Father to let us come." Robb grinned down at the page. "He does not know we have left."

"Does he ask for me?"

Robb held the letter just beyond his reach. "There is something here about keeping you away from the archery."

Theon caught his wrist. They struggled briefly over it until Robb saw the parchment beginning to crease and let go. Theon read standing in the archway, while a servant carrying a basket of linen had to squeeze past them.

"Gawen and Vaelor," he murmured. "He means to enter them both."

"And himself, I would wager."

Theon looked at him over the parchment. "You cannot ask him to stay among the squires merely so you can have another try."

"I can ask him to bring a sword into a yard."

That earned a grin. Robb had practised the answer to Jon's winning blow at Runestone so often that Ser Rodrik had begun attacking him from the other side to stop him expecting it. He was stronger now. His reach had grown. Jon would have improved too, with Arthur beside him, but Robb wanted to find out by how much.

He took the letter back. The last lines were hurried, squeezed beneath the rest. There was no question about ships or the men who had gone south to seek work. Jon simply wanted them with him.

Robb read those lines twice.

His father's note told him to present himself to the king and Lord Arryn promptly, and to remember that Martyn had charge of the escort. At the bottom Ned had added a message for Jon: ask about his hand, and tell him his father expected a proper answer.

"Still worrying over that?" Theon asked.

"Jon would say he was well if the hand fell off."

"He would want to know why you had not caught it."

Robb folded the letters together, smiling. He could hear his brother's voice now, quite plainly.

They washed, changed, and went up to take their leave of Lord Manderly.

Wyman sat by an open window with breakfast before him. He had been told of the sailing already, but insisted that they eat while the horses were taken down. The smell of hot bread made Robb realise how hungry the practice had left him. He took a chair when offered; Theon waited until their host waved him towards the other.

"Your father will have my letter before you reach King's Landing," Wyman told Robb. "And you will find rooms ready when you arrive. My man will meet you at the quay."

"Thank you, my lord. Jon is coming too. Father has sent his invitation after us."

"So I hear. With enough baggage to occupy a quay of his own, if the masters are to be believed." Wyman watched Robb spread butter over his bread. "What is he bringing?"

Robb paused. "He has not told me."

It was the third time someone had asked since their arrival. A shipmaster had wanted to know how many galleys Jon meant to build; one of Wyman's knights had asked about his fine white salt. Robb knew something of the plans, but nothing he could promise these men.

"Will you ask him to keep some of it for my buyers?"

Robb put down his bread. "I can ask him to speak with them. I do not know what he has promised already."

Wyman studied him a moment, then nodded.

"Tell him I have merchants at the tourney, and they have coin. I should like them to come home with something besides tales of what the men of Gulltown bought."

"I will tell him."

"Before Robert gets hold of him, if you can. The king has always liked a battle told over supper."

"The tale will have grown on its way there," Theon said. "It certainly has on its way here."

"Has it?"

"Last night the captain at your table gave Jon three thousand pirates to fight. He began with two, before they refilled his cup."

Wyman laughed. "Then it is fortunate he went to bed when he did."

Robb smiled, but the numbers troubled him. At Winterfell they had read the accounts eight moons ago: ships taken, men freed, men killed. Now strangers made the fighting larger every time they spoke of it. Jon might have to spend half the feast explaining what had never happened.

"He lost men," Robb said. "They never seem to add those."

Wyman's hand stopped over the dish.

"No," he answered. "They seldom do."

For a moment the only sound was a cart passing below the window. Robb looked down at his plate, wishing he had said it differently. He had not meant to rebuke his host. Wyman reached for his cup and let the moment pass without making him explain.

"Your father tells me you mean to compete."

"In the squires' melee, my lord."

"Good. We must have someone to cheer for. Though I advise you to leave a little time for the feast. A young heir does well to know the men with whom he may have to deal."

"Father said much the same."

"Then listen to him. He made friends in the Vale who have stood beside him ever since." Wyman turned towards Theon as well. "There will be men from every part of the realm. Find a few you like, and write to them when you come home."

"I shall begin with the ones who do not strike after yielding," Robb said.

"I never yielded," Theon replied, and Wyman asked for the account of their morning's practice.

By the time Martyn came to fetch them, Robb had eaten two pieces of bread and most of the fish. Their host heard that Tommen's nameday cloak had gone aboard safely, promised that any later letters would follow them south, and held out his hand.

Robb clasped it. "There is one I would like to send before we go. Would your maester send it to the Redfort for me?"

"Lord Horton?"

"Domeric Bolton. If he is still there."

Wyman nodded. "Ask for whatever you need."

They were given parchment in the next room. Through its open door Robb could hear Martyn answering Wyman's questions about the passage. Theon fetched his arrow case and sat beside the window, turning each shaft against the light while Robb drew a stool to the writing table. He put two aside with damaged feathers.

"Domeric meant to come north," Robb said. "He told us at Runestone. He was still speaking of it in his last letter."

"Perhaps Lord Redfort has found someone worth keeping him in the Vale."

"Then he can bring her."

Theon laughed. "Put that in. Lord Redfort will enjoy it if he reads the letter first."

Robb had begun with Domeric's name. He paused with the quill above the next line. They had promised another race beside the horse lines at Runestone. Domeric had been carrying his battered shield, pleased for them both despite his own defeat. Robb remembered telling him to come and speak to Father himself. He had meant it then, but there had always seemed to be time.

He dipped the quill again.

We are sailing for the king's tourney today. Jon will be there, and I would have you join us if Lord Redfort gives you leave. You spoke of coming home. Come by way of King's Landing, and we can make the passage north together afterwards.

He asked Domeric to stay at Winterfell before going on to the Dreadfort. There would be horses waiting, and Robb had not forgotten the race. He did not say he would win it. Domeric would know that was what he intended.

"Theon is coming as well," he read aloud as he wrote.

"Tell him I won at Runestone."

"He was there."

"Tell him I mean to win again."

Robb added that Theon expected them to watch him shoot. Theon closed the case, keeping the damaged arrows out, and came to read over his shoulder. He found nothing to object to, which was unusual enough to make Robb glance up.

"Will that do?"

"Aye."

Robb signed his name. When the maester came for the letter, he asked whether there was time for it to reach the Redfort before Domeric left. The man could promise only to send it at once. Robb watched him carry it out, then hurried after Martyn before the captain could begin calling for them.

Outside, White Harbor was bright with sunlight. Along the descent to the water, children pressed themselves against doorways to let the riders through. Theon had put on his fine black doublet, the golden kraken spreading across his chest. Robb noticed that he had cleaned the silver gull he had won in the Vale and fastened it where anyone could see.

"You have polished that again."

"It was tarnished."

"You polished it yesterday."

Theon looked down to adjust it. "Salt air."

At Wyman's table they had heard that Ser Harras Harlaw might ride in the king's joust. Theon had asked who brought the news and whether the man had seen him depart. He had said little about it afterwards.

"Do you know Ser Harras well?" Robb asked.

"I knew him. He came to Pyke when I was a boy."

"Will you speak to him?"

"Why would I not?"

"I did not say you wouldn't."

Theon kept his eyes upon the way ahead. A cart made them fall into single file; when the street widened again, he brought his horse back beside Robb's.

"He may have seen my mother."

Robb looked at him. Theon was still watching the street.

"I hope he has," Robb said.

Theon nodded. That was all. Robb let him ride without another question until the roofs gave way to the harbour and both had to draw aside for a team hauling a laden wagon uphill.

Their ship waited beneath the white merman. Men called from her deck as the last of the horses crossed the planks. Beyond her, fishing boats were working into the harbour, their crews shouting at one another over a tangle of oars. The smell of pitch and fish grew stronger as they approached the water.

Robb dismounted beside Martyn and gave his reins to a groom. The captain wanted them aboard. He sounded cheerful now that they could no longer ask him when he meant to leave.

Theon went ahead. Robb stopped long enough to draw Jon's letter from inside his coat.

For eight moons his brother had been safe on Dragonstone. There had been letters enough to prove it. Yet Robb still remembered standing beside Father while the names of the dead were read out, waiting for the list to end. Fergus had been among them. Fergus, who had ridden away in black with the others, and whom Robb had expected to see whenever he next saw Jon.

Someone else would be serving in his place now.

He had wanted to ask about that in a letter. Each time he began, the words had sounded stiff or prying, and he had written about the horses or Arya instead. He could talk to Jon when he was there. They could walk somewhere without an old knight listening over their shoulders, and Robb would not have to guess how his brother had taken a question by how long the answer took to arrive.

Theon waited at the top of the plank.

"Are you coming?"

Robb tucked the letter away and crossed to him. Below deck a horse stamped; overhead, a sailor was climbing with a rope looped over his shoulder. Theon caught Robb's sleeve and drew him out of the man's way.

"I want to see him," Robb said.

"So do I."

Theon's hand lingered upon his arm, then fell away. They went to the rail together while Martyn counted the men aboard.

The shoremen cast off. Robb watched the gap widen between the ship and the quay, one hand upon the warm wood. He wished Domeric could be certain to come. He wished Father had come, though he had understood the reasons when they were given.

Theon leaned beside him, squinting towards the harbour mouth.

"Jon had better have found us somewhere decent to practise."

Robb smiled. "He will have."

* * *
​

Daenerys caught the corner of the awning before it touched the puddle. She had washed it yesterday and spent most of the evening mending the tear. The sailmaker would make her wash it again if she brought it back dirty.

"Through here, girl."

She turned sideways between a stack of casks and the shop door. Inside, three men were stretching canvas across a table. The sailmaker cleared a place for her bundle with his elbow, knocking an empty cup to the floor. He left it there while he unfolded her work.

Daenerys held the other end. He pulled at the seam, looked closely at the corner she had patched, and grunted.

"Better. Do the others that way."

She waited while he found her coins. One had rolled beneath a weight. When he pushed them across the table, she counted them into her palm before putting them away.

There was another bundle beside his stool.

"Those too?" she asked.

"Tomorrow. I've yet to cut out the rotten parts." He turned to a man whose yellow beard was tied beneath his chin. "You can have this one now. Come back in two days for the rest."

"I'll be loading then."

"Send someone."

The man sighed and lifted the awning onto his shoulder. Daenerys moved towards the door to let him pass.

"At least leave me time to put the things up before King's Landing. Half the harbour is trying to get there."

"Then you'll have company." The sailmaker bent to retrieve his cup. "What is it this time?"

"A tourney for the little prince. Tommen. After the harvest."

Daenerys had heard sailors talking of a tourney that morning. She had scarcely listened until one had said the king would feed everyone who came. She wondered if he meant everyone, even the people who only stood outside to watch.

The captain shifted the bundle. "A stop at Dragonstone first, if the wind serves. I've cloth to put ashore in Blackburn."

Daenerys followed him out.

"Do you know Qavo Ryndoon?"

He looked down at her. "Who?"

"A shipwright. He went there from Myr. His daughter is my friend."

"There are yards at Blackburn. Someone will know him."

"Would you take a letter?"

He had started towards the quay. She went with him, keeping beside the wall as a cart passed. The awning hid most of his face.

"A small one," she added. "I could pay."

"Bring it here when I collect the rest. Put her father's name on it, and the yard. I'll give it to someone ashore."

"Could you bring an answer?"

"If there's one waiting when I come back."

He stepped off the kerb and shouted to a sailor sitting on a bollard. Daenerys stopped. She wanted to ask how long he would stay at Dragonstone, but the sailor was already coming for the bundle and neither man was looking at her.

Two days. She could write a little letter in two days.

On the walk home she tried to remember what Naella's handwriting had looked like. They had tied a bundle together when Qavo's family left Myr, struggling with the spare sailcloth Salla had given them. Naella had held the knots while Daenerys pulled. She remembered that clearly, and little Tala sleeping against Anara through all the noise of their departure. She could not remember whether Naella had written her name anywhere.

Perhaps she would not recognize Daenerys's writing either. She would have to say who she was at the beginning.

Before she went upstairs, she counted the money again beneath the arch. Bread, lamp oil, something to put by for the room. She could spare two coins if she took the other bundle tomorrow. Those she tucked into a fold of her sleeve. She had never paid anyone to carry a letter. Perhaps two would be too little. He might want more to bring an answer back, and she did not know how long that would take or whether she would still have work when he returned.

Viserys was in their room, cutting a frayed end from the leather on Ser Willem's sword. Beside him lay bread and a few olives in a dish. He looked at the empty cloth under her arm.

"Did he pay you?"

She showed him the coins.

"All of it?"

"Yes." She set the cloth on the bed. "May I have a little parchment?"

"What for?"

"I found a captain who goes to Dragonstone. He said he would take a letter to Naella."

The knife stopped against the leather.

"You told him our names?"

"I told him hers."

"And where we live?"

"No. I only asked if he could take it."

Viserys put the knife down. "You are not writing to Dragonstone."

Daenerys had been afraid he would say that. She had thought he might let her if it cost very little, but she had not asked the captain how much. She should have asked.

"It would go to the shipyard," she said.

"Who pays the shipwright?"

She pulled at a loose thread in the wrapping cloth.

"Who, Dany?"

"Jon."

"Lord Jon. Do you imagine Qavo would refuse him if he asked to see it?"

"I'm writing to Naella."

"Her father builds his ships." Viserys rose and went to the shutter. The room grew too warm when it was closed, but he drew it in until the noise from the street softened. "What would you tell her?"

She had thought of so many things on the way home. Now she could only think that he would object to each one.

"I wanted to ask if they were well."

"And tell her we are in Tyrosh. Then she tells her father, and he tells someone else. By the time it reaches the castle, they know which ship brought the letter and where its captain found you."

"He found me at the sailmaker's."

"Where you go every day."

"I needn't tell her about this room."

"You will put your name on it, won't you?"

She had to. Naella could not answer a letter without knowing who had sent it. Daenerys wished she had asked the captain more before coming home. He might have known a way to do it safely.

Daenerys looked at the cloth in her hands. She had been pleased that the sailmaker trusted her with more work. She knew the way without having to think about it, even when the carts blocked the usual turning.

"Naella wouldn't tell them to hurt us."

"She need only tell them where we are."

Outside, someone called for a boy to bring water. Viserys waited until the shouting stopped.

"Do you remember Narbo's house?"

"Yes."

"How kindly everyone spoke to us?"

"I remember the door."

That silenced him. Daenerys remembered it closing, and being on the wrong side when her brother called her name. She had no wish to remember the guards. She put down the cloth.

"Qavo wasn't there. Neither was Naella."

Viserys looked away. "You cannot know what people will do because you like them."

"She was my friend."

"Years ago."

Daenerys hated that answer most. She had worried about it herself. Tala must be much bigger now. Naella might have other friends, girls who knew her house and saw her every day. She might have forgotten the things Daenerys wanted to ask about.

"That's why I want to write."

He turned from her and opened the shutter again. Light fell across the bread. She had not eaten since morning, but she did not want to sit down and let him think they had finished.

"Your letters say where we are."

"My letters go to men I choose."

"You let Narbo know."

"Enough."

She flinched at his voice. Viserys saw it; his hand dropped from the shutter.

"You think I enjoy this?" he asked. "You think I wish to spend my days asking other men for what should be ours?"

"I didn't say that."

He watched her, waiting for something more. She wanted him to sit beside her and ask what she would put in the letter. Once he might have helped her choose the words. But if she asked now, he would want to tell Qavo things, and she would have to argue again.

Viserys returned to the bed. He broke the bread and held out the larger piece.

"Eat. You can think about it tomorrow."

"The captain comes back the day after."

"Then there is time."

She took the bread. He pushed the olives towards her and picked up the sword. Presently he asked whether the sailmaker had given her another bundle. She told him it would be ready tomorrow.

"Wait for me before you go. I'll come with you."

Daenerys nodded. She could still see the captain stepping down from the kerb, already turning away before she had finished asking her questions.

That evening she searched through the scraps Viserys kept beneath his writing things. There was a piece with enough clean space on the back. He had used the other side to add up the cost of their passage to Tyrosh. She remembered the voyage better than the numbers: sleeping with her ear against a bundle, waking whenever a foot struck it, then being afraid to move because someone might take the place.

She laid the parchment on the stool and began with Naella's name.

For a while she wrote only questions. Was Anara well? Had Tala learned to sew? Was their house near the yard? She wanted to know if Naella could see the sea from her window. By then she had used more than half the space without saying anything about herself.

She added that they were in Tyrosh and that she had work mending awnings. The letters were too large. Viserys always told her to leave room at the bottom, and now there was scarcely any.

She looked towards him. He had fallen asleep with one boot still on. The knife lay on the bed beside the finished sword. She moved it to the stool before returning to the last line.

She wanted to ask Naella to write back. To do that, she would have to tell her where an answer could find her. She held the quill over the parchment until a drop gathered at its point, then put it down.

There was room for the sailmaker's name, if she wrote small. In the morning she could ask whether he would keep a letter for her.

Daenerys left the space empty. She waited for the ink to dry, folded the parchment, and put it inside her sewing roll with the coins for the captain.

 

[aiwonder]

Vhalar spat a shred of dried meat over the side and told Goro to bring the oars in.

The wind had freshened while Jon was below. It filled the sail above Vhalar's galley and sent the loose ends of the ropes tapping against the mast. Cloud hung low over the mouth of the Blackwater. The water beneath it was green-grey, breaking white along the ship's side whenever her bow dropped into a wave. Jon steadied himself against a rail rough with dried salt.

The rowing benches filled the long waist of the galley, with scarcely room between them for a man to pass. Spare clothing and rolled blankets lay beneath the seats. Along both sides the oars rose together, shedding water across the hull. A sailor ducked under the loom of an oar and received a cuff from its owner for his trouble. The men drew the blades in, breathing hard; beneath the creak of the mast Jon could hear bare feet shifting upon the wet boards.

"He has been told twice," Goro said.

"Then find him work where he cannot trip a rower."

Goro caught the sailor by the sleeve and sent him forward. He did it without interrupting the orders passing down the galley. Jon watched the last oars settle before turning towards the raised stern.

Gawen emerged from the horse stalls, brushing straw from his knees. Aries followed with the empty water bucket, his sleeves rolled above his elbows.

"They have all drunk," Gawen told Jon. "Bucephalus is eating again. That bay will have to wait until we stop moving."

Arthur took the bucket while Aries pulled his sleeves down. He had found a place beside the mast where the boy could see the shore without obstructing the crew. Tomas moved aside to let Jon pass, the pale scar above his brow showing beneath his windblown hair. He left Darys by the after hatch and followed Jon as far as the stern steps. From there Ser Tomas could watch the length of the deck.

Vhalar moved his foot from the step. "My lord."

There was more colour in him than there had been on the voyage from Bloodstone. He had put flesh back over his cheekbones, though the broken tooth still showed when he spoke. His thigh troubled him after sitting; Jon had seen him work the stiffness out before dawn, one hand against the mast, his face turned from the benches.

"The horses?" Vhalar asked.

"Standing. Gawen thinks one dislikes the pitch of the deck."

"It can complain to the sea."

"He has tried that."

Vhalar's mouth moved at one corner. Beyond him, Goro and Denys's first mate stood beside the steersman, watching a small sail ahead. Goro pointed to something Jon could not make out. The mate leaned across him for a better look.

Vhalar pulled another piece of meat apart with his fingers. For a while they watched a fishing boat turn away from their course. Its patched sail had a narrow red border; a boy in the stern bent over a coil of line, paying it out hand over hand.

"You have plenty of men who can carry you across the bay," Vhalar said. "You could have left me counting water casks."

"Would you rather be there?"

"I would rather have something worth doing."

Jon rested his forearms on the rail. Below, Darys stood near the after hatch. Farther forward, a soldier in black helped a rower free the end of a blanket from beneath a chest. The galley had carried those men from Dragonstone as readily as it had carried its old crew.

"Marrec will need escorts if this visit brings the orders he expects," Jon said.

"For the salt?"

"The salt and the armour. Porcelain too."

Vhalar stopped pulling at the meat. "How much porcelain?"

"We have more aboard than the king's gift. Ellyn will be making more while we are away."

"I have taken ships with gold in the master's chest without finding so much as a porcelain bowl. Any we did take, I kept in my own cabin until it sold." He looked towards the after hatch. "All that way from the far east, and you have a woman making it a short sail from the men who will buy it."

"It took her a great deal of work."

Vhalar rubbed a fragment of meat from his thumb. He had seen the crates come aboard; only now, Jon thought, was he considering what might follow them. A captured chest could be sold once. The kilns would still be firing after Marrec had emptied his hold.

"Then give me one of those voyages," Vhalar said. "A long one. I am sick of coming home before the men have settled to their oars."

"When there is a voyage for you, Denys will give you your orders."

Goro called to Vhalar from beside the steersman. The wind had drawn farther round; the yard needed turning. Vhalar listened, looked at the sail and sent two men to help. He waited until the ropes were moving before returning to Jon.

Eight moons in Jon's service had given him plenty of time to make himself useful. The harbours and watering places Jon had demanded were already marked upon Denys's charts. Jon had sat over them with his admiral, reading Vhalar's account of the men who held each anchorage and the merchants who bought their prizes. There was knowledge there that would take another captain years to gather.

Denys had found him easier to employ than to please. He still complained about the officers aboard his old ships, though there were fewer quarrels now that the crews had learnt to work together. He brought the galley home when ordered, even when he thought there was reason to stay at sea. Jon cared more for that than the temper in which he obeyed. So far, Denys had found no cause to remove him.

The waiting was wearing on him. He had stood beside Goro while they were still being towed out of Blackburn, impatient to get the oars in the water, and had scarcely left the deck since. A voyage gave him something to attend to beyond his grievances. Jon doubted that carrying chests and horses would satisfy him for long. He wanted to take ships again, with men looking to him for the order to close.

Jon had read the old cargo accounts too, with their lists of captives and the sums paid for them. He had no intention of giving Vhalar back the freedom to choose whom he preyed upon.

Vhalar pushed the remaining meat back into its cloth. "You keep me close, Lord Jon."

Jon met his eyes. The creak of the steering oar filled the pause.

"I have given you work. Is there a difficulty?"

"No, my lord."

Vhalar looked away first, towards the shore growing out of the haze. He had asked for the three galleys together twice since their repair. Denys had sent the requests up with his own answer written beneath. Jon had agreed with it both times.

"Rolo has not stopped sailing because we have," Vhalar said.

"Have you news of him?"

"Nothing your admiral has not heard."

"Then bring me news when you have it."

"You said we would go back."

"We will. I have not named the day."

A gust lifted the loose end of Vhalar's belt cloth. He caught it and tucked it away with unnecessary care. Down the galley, Goro was making a man shift his feet so that another could pass with a bucket. Vhalar watched him, saying nothing.

"Goro has kept his crew together," Jon said.

"What remains of it."

"And taught the men put beside them."

Vhalar watched a pair of rowers adjust their bench cushion. One was a dark-bearded man from his old company; the other still wore his hair bound in the northern fashion.

"They learn," he admitted. "Once they stop telling us what they did on the last ship."

Jon let him have that. More than two dozen ships answered to him now, ten of them gained from pirates. Qavo's two galleons were not yet at sea. He had left Fair Wind behind before Bloodstone for want of a fighting crew; Denys would need more sailors before Jon gave him another handful of captured hulls.

Still, a few galleys sent hunting through the Stepstones could earn their keep. Vhalar knew those waters and the men who preyed upon them. Taken cargoes could pay for the voyages, and sound prizes would enlarge the fleet. Freed captives who wished it could come to Dragonstone. The pirates themselves could break stone for his roads.

Jon wanted marines of his own, a body of men who stayed with the fleet and learnt to fight aboard ships and storm a defended landing. Goro could teach them their work at sea. Men from the legion could sail beside them in turns, under their own officers, and carry what they learnt back to their centuries.

He would have to begin with few enough ships that Denys could still protect the island and escort Marrec's cargoes. Even a victory would take men from the hunting squadron: someone had to sail each prize home, guard its prisoners and keep a damaged hull afloat. Those men would need wages whether they found plunder or spent a moon chasing empty water.

And Vhalar would want Rolo. Give him ships and he would soon argue that settling his own quarrel served Jon's purpose. Denys would choose the crews and give the orders. Vhalar could earn a wider command by bringing back what he was sent for. Jon meant to build a navy he could use for years; he could afford to see how the man handled a few voyages first.

The near bank was clearer now, low ground above the water with cattle grazing behind a fence. Farther upriver, masts crowded the grey sky.

"Your father took a fleet into a king's war," Jon said. "He cannot have expected every captain to like his neighbour."

"My father expected men to do as he said."

"Did they?"

Vhalar turned his head. Jon thought for a moment he would refuse the question.

"While he could pay them. While he could win." He rubbed a thumb over an old scar on his forearm. "When the warehouses were taken, there were fewer men who remembered what he had done for them."

He had been particular about his own heirs when Ethan read out the grant. The house, orchard and two fields had been his since the first days after Bloodstone; his lawful children would hold them after him. Jon had given him the security his father had lost. What Vhalar wanted now was a chance to enlarge it.

Jon straightened from the rail.

"I may have something for you after this trip," he said. "A plan I mean to speak to Denys about."

Vhalar's fingers stopped upon the scar. "What sort of plan?"

"We will speak of it when we return."

Vhalar studied him, then glanced towards Goro. Before he could ask more, the captain called him to look at the traffic upriver. This time he went without another word.

Jon followed. Beyond the merchant ships, roofs climbed the hills in uneven brown and russet rows. The Red Keep stood above them on its river cliff, its pale red towers clear of the smoke trailing from the houses below. Yellow banners pulled from the battlements. Lower down, warehouse roofs hid the feet of the city walls; between the masts Jon could make out the dark mouths of their doors and men waiting with carts.

A broad merchantman was being towed across the reach ahead, moving slowly enough to seem still until he saw the strain on the towrope.

"We can pass astern," Goro said.

Vhalar watched the boat towing her. "Not with that line. Hold off."

The steersman eased them round. A moment later the towboat lost ground; the rope went slack, and the merchantman's stern swung into the water they would have crossed. Goro called for the oars again.

Vhalar did not look back to see whether Jon had noticed.

Jon left him to bring the galley in. By the mast, Arthur had pointed out the river gate to Aries. The boy was looking into the streets beyond it when Jon joined them.

"Will we see Rilla while we're here?" Aries asked.

Jon followed his gaze. Somewhere beyond those roofs was the cookshop, and the neighbour's room where a frightened boy had hidden with a hand too swollen to hold his food. That hand would have healed by now, well or badly. Aries had not forgotten Rilla's account of him, or the letters they had sent.

"I'll have Arryn bring the men he sent to her," Jon said. "We'll hear what became of the children and what has been done for them. Then we can go and see."

"Rilla too."

"Rilla too." Jon rested a hand on his shoulder. "Come with me when they give their account. You'll want to ask them yourself."

Aries nodded. A sailor called for room beside the mast; Arthur drew the boy back with him, and Jon went aft to fetch his cloak.

* * *
​

Aurane found him beneath the after shelter while they waited for space at the quays. Through its open side Jon could see a coaster unloading horses at the berth they had been promised. A blue chest bearing the crossed black warhammers of House Rykker hung from her hoist; below it, two men were trying to make a groom move his horse out of the way. The groom would not move until someone found its missing bridle. Goro had already sent a boat ashore to speak to the quay master.

Beyond the coaster, a lord's baggage covered most of the next landing: rolled carpets, tent poles bound in bundles, a dismantled bed with its carved posts wrapped in sacking. A bedpost caught one of the onion sacks stacked in their way. Onions rolled beneath the porters' feet, and the owner caught a man by the sleeve, demanding payment. Another ship was trying to discharge passengers into boats because there was nowhere left to put her alongside. Women held their skirts above the bilgewater; a mailed man sat with a small child on his knees while his sword belt rested across his shoulder.

Farther upriver the banks were bright with canvas. Jon could make out the larger pavilions above the smaller tents, and pennons moving where the water opened a view between the ships. The tournament grounds lay beyond the city walls. Even from here he could see carts filing towards them. He had brought a few chests to put before the king; half the realm seemed to have brought its household.

He had unwrapped Ellyn's cup while they waited. A small dark mark beside the handle had worried him until he rubbed it away with his thumb.

"May I?"

Jon handed it over. Aurane held it towards the daylight, turning it until his fingers showed faintly through the thin white wall.

"I still cannot believe you know how to make porcelain. I'm surprised some angry lord in the east hasn't sent an assassin after you." He studied the painted edge. "Where did you say you learnt it?"

"I never told you."

Aurane smiled. "No. You did not."

He asked easily, as he had asked after the ships and the men Jon intended to hire. Monford would be interested in this cup. Jon could almost hear the questions Monford would put to Aurane: how many kilns, how many workmen, how much was already promised elsewhere.

Aurane had also spent half the morning below with Eddison, who had been ashamed of being sick where the sailors could see him. Jon had heard laughter coming from the horse stalls before either emerged.

"Will your brother come to the showing?" Jon asked.

"Once he learns what you have brought." Aurane tilted the cup again. "He may pretend that he came to ask about the ships."

"Bring him. I would like to see his face when he sees these."

Aurane looked at him over the rim, then smiled and gave the cup back. "So would I."

Outside, a boatman shouted for someone to catch a line. The galley moved gently beneath them. Jon folded the cloth round the cup; Aurane caught one corner before it slipped into a puddle left by the last shower.

"Loras will be waiting to fight you," he said. "If Robb does not get there first."

"You seem very certain I shall have time for everyone."

"I intend to put my own name in early. You promised me a turn with the lances."

"I said when there was time."

"And here we are, with a whole tournament arranged to help you find it."

Jon laughed and passed him the wrapped cup while he fastened his cloak. Goro called from the stern that they were going in. Aurane rose with the bundle tucked beneath one arm and ducked under the low beam.

Behind him, a sailor was tying the cover over Tommen's gift. The wooden horse stood upon four broad wheels, its back low enough for a child to sit astride and push himself along with his feet. It was much larger than the little pull-along toy Aries had bought on their last visit. One painted ear showed through the cloth.

Jon tucked the ear safely beneath the covering. His son had broken one on the horse he had carved for him, years before this life. He remembered the child bringing it to him in both hands, certain that he could mend it. For a moment the noise of the quay seemed very far away.

"My lord?" the sailor asked.

"Keep it clear of the heavier chests." Jon stepped back. "It goes to the castle with Perrin."

Munin rattled the wicker beside his boot. Jon lifted the cover far enough to see her peering through the basket, Hugin's white wing feathers showing behind her. The other three crows stirred as he lowered it. He called a household man over to carry them ashore.

Aurane called back from beyond the shelter. "Come. Your men will want to see where their lord has gone."

* * *
​

Robb was standing on a bollard.

Jon saw him above the men waiting on the quay, red hair uncovered, one hand raised. Theon stood below him in a dark green doublet with a silver gull at the shoulder. He caught Robb's boot as the galley drew alongside and said something that made him kick out without looking down.

Jon waved. Robb jumped off the bollard before the first line had been made fast.

"Wait for the plank," Alasdair said behind him.

"I am waiting."

"On this side of the rail, my lord."

Jon stepped back, grinning despite himself. Beyond the waiting northerners, porters were carrying sacks beneath a warehouse hoist. Fishwives called their prices from baskets along the wall, competing with a herald proclaiming the king's tournament. The wind lifted the Manderly banner above Martyn's head and brought Jon a familiar glimpse of the direwolf beside it.

Tomas crossed first. Jon followed him down the plank and was scarcely ashore before Robb caught him hard enough to drive the breath from his chest.

For a moment he could see nothing but the wool at his brother's shoulder. He put both arms round him and felt Robb's grip tighten. There was more of him than there had been at Gulltown. He smelled of horse, clean linen and the leather dressing they used at Winterfell.

Jon had imagined this often enough to think he knew what he would say. He laughed instead, still short of breath, and Robb laughed against his ear.

"You took your time."

"We came when I said we would."

"He has been here since dawn," Theon said. "An hour ago he tried to claim a cargo of onions."

"It had a black sail."

"It had a filthy sail." Theon took Jon's hand and pulled him into an embrace of his own. His silver gull pressed against Jon's chest.

"Still wearing your winnings?" Jon asked when they parted.

"Someone must remind you that you did not win everything at Runestone."

Robb had caught sight of Jon's palm. He turned the hand over, his thumb stopping short of the pale scar.

"Does it hurt?"

"No."

"Father wanted a proper answer."

Jon closed his fingers round Robb's hand and squeezed. Robb returned the pressure, watching his face, then nodded.

"Good. I want no excuses when we fight."

"You had better have learnt to keep your feet."

"I have." Robb's grin returned. "Ser Rodrik has spent long enough knocking me off them."

"He asked for extra lessons," Theon confided. "I was quite concerned."

Jon looked at his brother again. The shoulders filling that new doublet had come from work. He remembered Robb rushing to catch him in the yard, still fastening his sword belt, certain he could win if they had one more bout. They had both changed since then. He was glad that part had survived.

The old gloves were tucked through Robb's belt. Jon recognised the cut beneath the right thumb, now neatly stitched with lighter thread.

"You have those still."

"They fit me now."

"They were mine."

Robb pushed them farther under his belt before Jon could reach for them. "You told me to keep them. You can afford another pair."

Jon let his hand fall, smiling. He had last seen those gloves raised from the deck of the ship carrying Robb away.

"You will have him to yourself soon enough," Wylis Manderly called. "Let the rest of us greet him."

The heir to White Harbor came forward with his daughters and Wendel. Sea-green wool stretched across his broad chest, and a silver merman fastened his cloak. Jon clasped his hand, then Wendel's. Wylla scarcely waited for their courtesies before taking his hand herself.

"You have grown," she said. Her eyes went from his shoulders to his face. "And handsome, too. You might have warned us."

Jon laughed, caught off guard. The wind had blown his white forelock across his eyes; he pushed it back and bowed over her hand. "It is good to see you, Lady Wylla."

Wynafryd's greeting was quieter. She held his gaze as she offered her hand, then glanced down with a small smile when he took it. He remembered dancing with the sisters at Winterfell, when all of them had needed reminding where to stand. Wylla was already asking whether Aries had come. Wynafryd stayed beside Jon until Domeric Bolton stepped forward.

"Robb's letter caught me before I left the Redfort," Domeric said, offering his hand.

Jon took it. "Then I owe him thanks."

The Redfort. Domeric going home.

Ramsay.

For a moment Jon scarcely heard the noise around them. He had forgotten. In the history he remembered, Domeric had returned from his fostering, sought out his bastard brother and died. He had known this boy at Winterfell, laughed with him at Runestone, and let that knowledge slip from his mind.

Robb's invitation had brought him here instead. A letter asking a friend to join them at a tourney might have saved his life.

"I shall go north with you afterwards," Domeric was saying to Robb. "Lord Redfort has given me leave."

There would still be a homecoming. Jon would have to speak to him before he left Winterfell for the Dreadfort. He could not let relief make him forget again.

And there was Jon Arryn. A season, perhaps a little longer, if events kept anything like their old course. Jon had spent so much time changing what stood before him that he had neglected dangers he already knew. He needed to think through the smaller events as carefully as the wars that followed them, while he could still remember which had led to which.

Domeric turned back to him. "Harry is coming too. Waymar Royce and Mychel Redfort as well. You will have company from Runestone."

"Harry the Heir?" Theon asked. "Has he brought enough gold?"

Jon remembered the dragon they had wagered by the fire. "He may prefer to keep it this time."

"He may prefer to win it back," Domeric said. "Mychel means to separate you and Robb in the melee. He told me to warn you."

Robb looked pleased at the prospect. "He can try."

Behind them Gawen was leading Bucephalus down the gangplank, with Aries and Bracken following. Wylla went to greet the boy. Martyn called for the other horses, and Wylis turned to Jon before they mounted.

"My father sends his greetings. He has buyers here, and would like some of your salt to reach White Harbor before everyone else has bought it."

"Have them speak to Perrin. We are arranging a showing."

"You will see us there."

Theon had wandered a few steps away to watch Vhalar speaking to Goro above the galley's stern. Robb followed his gaze.

"That is him?"

"Vhalar. The man beside him is Goro."

"And he brought you here?"

"Aye."

Robb looked along the galley, from the rowers at their benches to the men in black beside the hatch. "On his own ship."

"My ship," Jon said.

Vhalar glanced towards them. He inclined his head to Jon, then turned back to Goro. Robb watched him a moment longer before speaking.

"They were still talking about it in White Harbor," Robb said. "One captain swore there were three thousand pirates."

"The tale has grown."

"He made Rolo sound like a giant. Is he?"

"Shorter than I expected. Broad, though. Red hair and an axe. He laughed while he fought."

Robb looked at him. "Did you fight him?"

"Gerralt did. His shield strap had broken. The household got between them before Rolo could finish him." Jon could still see Gerralt trying to hold the loose shield between himself and the axe. "Norren sent the spearmen round a side passage. When they struck, we drove him back."

"I wish I could have seen that." Robb glanced towards the men still aboard, then back at Jon. "But he came after you again?"

"All the way to the boats. We had wounded men to carry. Every time we stopped to lift one, he was there."

Theon had stopped watching the ship. "How close did he come?"

"Gerralt had another shield by then. Rolo split it with his axe. We dragged a door across the passage while the last men got aboard Aurane's boat." Jon looked down at the water washing against the quay. "I heard it fall. Rolo came through with the axe in his hand, but the oars had caught. Another moment and he would have been in the boat with us."

Robb's mouth had opened. He shut it without asking his next question.

"Aurane kept the boat there for you?" Theon asked.

"Until the last man was aboard."

Robb looked past Jon to the galley, where Aurane was coming down from the afterdeck. Then his eyes returned to his brother's face.

"You might have written more about that."

"I meant to tell you when I saw you."

"It has been eight moons."

Jon looked at him. "I know."

For a while they stood beside one another as the sailors worked. A coil of rope dropped onto the quay beside them. Robb stepped out of the way without looking round.

"I should have been there with you."

Jon remembered looking for Fergus among the shields. He put a hand on Robb's shoulder. "I'm glad you weren't."

Robb looked ready to argue, but Perrin was calling from beside the carts. Jon sent Darys over to guard the wares being taken into the city. His brother watched the pale-haired islander lead two men away.

"Is that the lad you wrote of?"

"Darys. He took Fergus's place in the household."

Robb nodded slowly. "I kept looking for Fergus when you came ashore."

Jon's hand fell from his shoulder. He had caught himself doing the same, long after they had reached Dragonstone. Robb touched his arm, then went to greet Gawen.

When the horses were ready, Jon found Robb waiting beside Bucephalus.

"Ride with me," he said.

"Where else did you think I was going?"

* * *
​

The tournament had spread far beyond its grounds.

Pavilions crowded the riverbank outside the walls, their bright roofs rising above rows of smaller tents. A bronze Royce banner snapped over one enclosure; beyond it Jon saw Redfort's red castle and the golden roses of Highgarden. Carpenters were still at work on the stands. Through a gap in the canvas, two riders passed with blunted lances, watched by a line of men who had found time to stop unloading a wagon.

Robb slowed to look. "Do you see how far back they have put the seats?"

"You will have to fall handsomely," Theon said. "Or they may miss it."

"I was thinking of where to sit for the archery. Somewhere I can call advice."

Theon made an obscene suggestion about his advice. Wendel laughed; Wylis looked back towards his daughters, and Theon discovered something of interest beyond the river.

They rode beneath the River Gate with the direwolf and merman swaying above them beside Jon's black banner. A goldcloak struck the paving with the butt of his spear, calling for room. Beyond the arch, the street seemed impossibly full. Carts stood wheel to wheel; pedestrians squeezed between their shafts. A woman carrying bread upon her head turned sideways to pass Bucephalus, close enough for Jon to smell the warm loaves.

Robb looked up at houses leaning over the street, their upper storeys almost touching. Washing hung between them beneath a crimson banner bearing a golden lion. Farther along, a silver eagle marked a Mallister lodging; the Darry ploughman hung above a winesink whose benches had overflowed into the road.

"Is it always like this?" Robb asked.

"Worse for the tourney," Jon said. "But crowded enough without it."

"I thought White Harbor was crowded." Robb drew his knee in as a man squeezed past his horse. He looked down the next lane, then up at the people leaning from its windows.

Theon had turned to look too. "How do you ever find anyone?"

Before Jon could answer, a goldcloak's shout rose above the noise. Three men in rose-embroidered cloaks were arguing with him over a litter that could go neither forward nor back.

"How do they get through?" Wylla asked.

"They shout," Wendel said.

"That does not seem to be helping."

One of the litter bearers put his end down. The lady inside pushed the curtain aside and began shouting too.

Wendel gave Wylla a solemn nod. She laughed, and Wynafryd covered a smile with her glove.

They passed a cookshop with chickens turning above a bed of coals. Robb drew a deep breath, then turned his face away as a gust reached them from the gutter.

"Gods, that's foul."

"I could smell it from the harbour," Theon said, holding his sleeve beneath his nose. "I did not think it could get worse."

Wylla had hidden her face in her cloak. Wendel urged his horse past the drain, and the others followed as fast as the carts allowed. The stink clung to them even outside the bowyer's stall, where fresh wood shavings lay about a man's feet. Robb was still wrinkling his nose when a painted shield caught his eye. Beneath the armourers' signs, squires argued over prices and men hammered dents from their masters' chestplates.

A boy came out of an armourer's shop with a bundle of new lances, their painted shafts held awkwardly above the crowd. Robb turned in the saddle to watch him go.

"We should come back after we have found our rooms. I want to see who is practising."

Wynafryd drew her palfrey alongside Jon's. She asked which of the contests he meant to enter, and listened with a smile while Robb supplied his own intentions for the melee. Theon tried to join them, but a fish cart pushed between the horses. He had to draw back from its dripping baskets and wait for a gap.

Arthur was recognised outside an inn. A man rose with a cup still in his hand, calling his name; two boys climbed onto a barrel to see him. The recognition travelled ahead of them. Jon heard the Sword of the Morning named again, then Lord Black, and a question about the pirates. A woman came to her window with a baby against her shoulder. Robb turned when someone called Winterfell.

"Do they always do that?" he asked quietly.

"When they know who is passing."

Robb raised a hand. The man who had shouted waved back with both arms, grinning beneath a dirty wool cap. He began telling the people beside him something Jon could not hear.

The north was a long way away. For that man, a direwolf passing his door had been enough.

Near the fountain, a herald was reading the order of the contests. The nameday feast would be held on the morrow; the lists would open the day after. Theon drew rein to hear the archery announced, and Jon took the opportunity to call Gawen beside him.

"Have a look at the men seeking service while we are here. Hugh needs riders who can teach."

Gawen's eyes went to a knight waiting beside the herald. The man's chestplate was well kept, though the surcoat over it had been patched beneath one arm. His bedroll lay behind his saddle.

"There will be plenty looking."

"Find out where they served. I would rather hear from a man who rode with them than buy a good story."

"Vaelor will want to see them on a horse."

"So will I."

Tomas, riding close enough to hear, glanced back at the knight. He said nothing then, but Jon saw him look again before they moved on.

As they climbed out of the busiest streets, Robb began telling him about White Harbor and the journey from Winterfell. He had ridden part of the way with men whose fathers had served Ned for years without Robb knowing much more than their names. Now he could tell Jon which held land on a road he hoped to travel, and which had invited him to hunt.

"The Hornwood first, if Father gives me leave. I want to see the other houses properly. Hear what they have to say before I am expected to know the answer."

"And what does Father think?"

"That I should know more before I set off." Robb smiled ruefully. "Luwin agrees. They have found a great many books between them."

"He takes them away with him now," Theon said. "I have had to fetch him from the library."

"You can survive an afternoon without me."

"You said you would be an hour."

Jon listened as they argued. His brother was beginning to carry himself like a lord. He regretted how much of the change he had learnt through letters.

"Tonight, show me where you mean to go," he said.

"You will be busy."

"Then I will finish."

Robb looked at him before smiling. "I have brought the map."

Of course he had. Jon nudged his boot with his own as Wylis called them towards a turning.

The Manderly house stood behind a high wall on a quieter street. Its gates were open, a stone merman above them with water stains beneath his beard. Within lay a paved court, a stable and a pale front with shuttered windows. A lemon tree stood in a great pot beside the steps. Servants came down before Wylis had dismounted; one greeted him by name, while another took Wendel's reins without waiting to be told where he should stand.

"You are staying here?" Robb asked.

"We are," Wylis said. "You have the king's hospitality to endure."

"Is this your father's house?"

"It is. His men use it when their business keeps them here." He accepted a folded letter from the servant and glanced at the seal. "As you see, they have not waited for us to unpack."

Wynafryd was looking up at the windows. Wylla had already asked which rooms were theirs, whether the garden lay behind the house and whether Aries could come to see it. She asked the last question of Jon rather than her father.

"When we have leave to spare him," Jon said.

"I would like to," Aries said at once.

"Then we shall arrange it." Wylis touched his daughter's shoulder and turned her towards the steps. "After you have washed."

Wendel remained by the gate to finish speaking to Arthur. Two men in Redwyne colours were being shown into the court behind him. One knew Wylis well enough to complain about being kept waiting; Wylis replied that he should have come to White Harbor if he wanted to be certain of finding him.

Jon watched their greeting. The Manderlys had beds, servants and acquaintances here, business continuing whether a Stark came south or not. Their loyalty had not required them to shut their gates to the rest of the realm.

Winterfell relied upon them too readily. Wyman need not betray Ned to know things Ned never heard, or choose which opportunities reached him. When Jon ruled, he would have captains and merchants who answered directly to him. His own people would know the roads as well as the men offering to guide them.

Wylis came back to the gate. "My father asked me to bring you both to supper while we are here. Choose an evening before everyone else takes them."

Robb looked at Jon.

"After we know the order of the lists," Jon said. "I would like that."

They took their leave with Wylla still calling questions from the steps. At the corner, Aurane raised a hand to a party coming downhill.

Monford Velaryon drew his grey horse to a walk. The silver seahorse at his shoulder gleamed against sea-green silk. Lord Ardrian Celtigar rode beside him, with Ser Corwyn a little way behind; beyond them Jon recognised Guncer Sunglass and Ser Elyas. Lady Mylenda Bar Emmon had chosen a litter. Her son's young face appeared at its window when the horses stopped.

"Lord Black." Monford bowed from the saddle. "We heard your ship had come in."

"You have good ears."

"I have men upon the quays." His eyes moved to Aurane. "Though not the one I expected."

"I thought you might have a welcome for me before a complaint," Aurane said.

"I have had eight moons to prepare both."

Jon introduced Robb, then Theon and Domeric. Ardrian made much of Ned's sons being together, while Lady Mylenda asked whether the crossing had been rough. Her son was more interested in Gawen's sword until Ser Garon bent to speak to him through the window.

"Ser Garon," Jon said when the knight straightened. "It is good to see you."

Garon bowed. "And you, my lord."

Jon greeted Elyas and Corwyn as well. Robb looked from one to the other, recognising names from the account his father had read. The men noticed it. Corwyn sat a little straighter when Robb asked if he had commanded one of the captured ships on the way home.

"One of the first taken," Corwyn answered. "She needed more men than we had to spare."

"They brought her home sound," Jon said.

Corwyn met his eyes, then inclined his head.

"I hope your new ships will be as sound," Monford said. "My brother has been sparing with particulars."

"Qavo has work enough without visitors arguing over it. You may see them when they are ready."

"While they are building, my captains could carry your goods."

"Marrec will hear their terms."

Ardrian leaned forward in his saddle. "And this salt people are speaking of? White as sugar, they say."

"Made at Saltcliffe," Jon said.

"I have paid a great deal for salt that still left grit between my teeth."

"You will find none in this. Nor the bitter taste. Try it tomorrow."

Ardrian studied him, plainly weighing the claim. Lady Mylenda wanted to know if the rumours about white cups were true. Aurane answered that she should see one held to the light, earning a look from his brother.

"Perrin is arranging a showing," Jon told them. "You will all have invitations. We present the king's gifts tomorrow."

"Your own bannermen ought to have the first offer," Monford said.

"They may make their offers with everyone else."

For a moment no one spoke. Monford adjusted the reins between his fingers.

"As you wish, my lord."

Jon nodded. Beside Monford, Ardrian was studying the men of the household. He had sent a nephew to war and received him back with gold and a lord's commendation; even that had not made Jon welcome upon the seat Robert had given him.

They still saw Ned Stark's son. Monford's forebears had served dragons, and he resented serving the child of the man who had helped overthrow them. Jon understood the loyalty beneath that resentment. One day he meant to reward it. Until he could give them his true name, they would have to obey the one they knew. He would not let their pride obstruct the work while he waited.

Aurane brought his horse alongside. "I had better go with them. He will only find me later."

"You make it sound very burdensome."

"You are not the younger brother." Aurane glanced towards Robb, then thought better of whatever he had meant to add. "I will find you before the feast. We still owe one another a turn with the lances."

"You will have to get past Robb first."

"Gladly." Aurane grinned at Robb. Robb looked him up and down, then grinned back.

Jon watched Aurane join his brother. There would be questions once they were alone. Aurane had learnt to make his own sound like idle curiosity; Jon liked him too well to resent every one. Friendship did not make Monford's purpose less plain. Nor did it prevent Jon from having a purpose of his own for the man his brother had sent him.

The island party passed downhill. Jon turned Bucephalus towards the castle, with Robb riding close beside him again.

* * *
​

The bronze gates stood open beneath the crowned stag. From the approach, the Red Keep's towers had seemed apart from the city; inside, Jon found the same press of horses and people, better dressed and more determined to be served first.

Lannister guards waited beneath the stable arch while a train of mules was led out. Buckler's bronze buckles hung above a rack of shields; a page in Tyrell green ran between two men carrying a rolled carpet. Beyond the open colonnade, Jon glimpsed the practice yard and the flash of a blade. Robb turned towards the sound at once.

"Later," Jon said.

"I was only looking."

Barristan Selmy stood at the foot of the steps in his white cloak. He came forward when Arthur dismounted, and clasped his arm as he had on their first visit. Then he turned to Jon.

"Lord Black. Lord Arryn asks that you attend him when you have come in."

"I will go to him now, ser."

"He said you would." Barristan's eyes passed over his face and stopped briefly upon the white lock. "I am glad to see you well."

Arthur introduced Robb. Barristan's expression softened when he heard the name.

"The king will be pleased. He has been asking when you would reach us."

Robb bowed. "I have brought a letter from my father, ser."

"Keep it by you tomorrow. His Grace will want to hear the news from you."

Jon felt Robb look at him. Until this moment, the king had been a man in his father's stories, someone who sent commands and gifts from far away. Tomorrow he would have to speak to him.

"Does he ask many questions?" Robb said when Barristan turned to the servant waiting upon the steps.

"About Father? A great many."

"Theon says he remembers everything."

Theon had been unfastening his glove. He pulled at the fingers one by one before replying.

"I said he remembered what he wanted."

Jon looked at him. The last time Theon had stood before Robert, Pyke had burned and his brothers were dead. It was a different memory of the king from the one Ned had given his sons.

"You will not have to stand there alone," Jon told Robb.

"I know." Robb tucked the letter farther into his doublet. "I would still rather have met him before half the realm arrived."

The servant led them beneath the colonnade. Rooms had been set aside for Ned Stark's sons, overlooking an inner court, with space nearby for their guards. Other lords were lodging in the city, Barristan told them, but the king had been particular about this.

Robb went with Theon, Domeric and the northern men to see them. Jon sent his own household after them, leaving Tomas to settle the watch and Perrin to find a secure room for the gifts. Gawen took charge of the horses. Aries stayed with Jon and Arthur.

"For the children?" he asked.

"For the children," Jon said. "You may have to wait outside for part of it."

"I can wait."

He had waited long enough. Jon put a hand between his shoulders and guided him towards the stair.

* * *
​

Jon Arryn rose from his writing table when they entered. A clerk gathered the papers spread before him, leaving a patch of bare wood between the inkstand and a dish of untouched pears.

"My lord." Jon bowed. Arthur did the same beside him.

"Come and sit. You have had a long morning." Arryn waited for the clerk to leave, then took the chair opposite them. "How is your father?"

"Well, from his letters. Robb has brought one for the king."

"Then Robert may leave me in peace about it." He smiled, briefly, and asked after Ethan. There was nothing strange in his voice or his movements. His hands were steady as he poured water into a cup.

Jon accepted it and made himself stop looking for signs of a death that had not happened. There were things to learn before he could prevent it, and staring at Arryn's breakfast would teach him none of them.

The Hand laid out a familiar letter. Jon recognised Ethan's writing above his own signature.

"I have your accounts. The king was pleased with the ships, and with the end you made of those raiders." His finger rested beside the losses. "Your father was less pleased to learn how close you came to remaining with them."

"So he told me."

"He was not alone." Arryn looked to Arthur.

"We knew when we had to withdraw," Arthur said. "We had boats waiting and men to hold the way to them. It would have cost us more to stay."

"Yet this Rolo remains."

"He does," Jon said. "Denys receives word of him when there is word to be had."

Arryn set the letter down. "Are you preparing to go back?"

"Not now. I have men in training and ships needing crews. I will not take them out because Rolo wishes me to."

"Good." The Hand's expression did not invite an argument. "A pirate can abandon a harbour. You have people who cannot abandon their homes."

Jon took a drink. Arryn asked about the bereaved families, the wounded men still unable to work, and the division of the captured ships. Jon answered plainly. Arthur supplied the condition of a household man whom Jon had last seen walking with a stick.

"And Vhalar?" Arryn asked.

"Brought us here."

The Hand paused. "Did he?"

"Under Denys's orders, with our men aboard. He has served for eight moons. Denys sends me his reports."

"He has been given land."

"A holding, not command of the island. His men have been divided, and he cannot take a ship out upon his own authority."

"I asked because Lord Celtigar still finds it remarkable."

"He was invited to come. Ser Corwyn can tell him what happened."

Arryn regarded him for a moment. "Corwyn's account was rather more useful than his uncle's letter."

"Then you have what you need."

Arthur shifted his cup between his hands. Jon saw the movement, but his uncle said nothing. Arryn folded the letter along its old crease.

"You must judge the man's service. I would have you remember how much your neighbours have lost to men like him."

"I remember what I lost to them."

The words came harder than he intended. Arryn glanced at the scar upon his hand, then back at him.

"Very well." He put the pirate account aside. "Tell me about the people you are bringing from Lys."

Jon had expected the question. He set down his cup.

"What have you heard?"

"That ships are unloading slaves at Blackburn. That you are buying more. Your report says you have settled families, but merchants do not trouble themselves with the distinction when they repeat the tale."

"They are freed before they begin work. They are paid, they marry as they please, and their children belong to no one."

"Do they owe you their purchase price?"

"No."

"Can they leave?"

"Yes. Some have kin elsewhere. Those who wish to stay are given work and somewhere to live."

Arryn leaned back. "Put those answers in the next account. As plainly as you have given them to me."

"I will. One of the Most Devout has written to me about them as well. He commends the freeing of the slaves, and the homes and work we have given them. He wishes to speak with me while I am here."

"Then tell him what you have told me," Arryn said. "And why so many Valyrians?"

"Have you been to the villages, my lord?"

"Not for many years."

"Then you will remember their faces. Half the people calling these newcomers foreigners would mistake them for islanders if they did not hear them speak." Jon drew Ethan's fuller account from his doublet. "The captains find families who can settle together, and craftsmen who can teach the work. We have people who speak their tongues. That matters when a man is trying to explain that he has a wife still held in another city."

"And when your foremen need to make themselves understood."

"We have schoolmasters teaching the Common Tongue. The children learn it faster." He gave Arryn the account. "There are three thousand two hundred freed people now, counting the children. Two hundred and eighty-seven northerners have come as well. Most of those brought skills we needed, or kin willing to take up land."

Arryn read the totals twice. "That is a great many mouths for Dragonstone."

"Which is why you will find more grain ships in the harbour."

"Even after your harvest?"

"Even after it. The new fields will help, but I cannot feed people on what I hope to grow next year."

Arthur nodded when Arryn looked at him. "I have seen the houses. They are building more. There is work for the people Jon brings."

"I do not doubt the work. I am asking whether he can continue to pay for it."

"I can," Jon said. "And I mean to leave here with buyers for what they are making."

He told Arryn about the salt, the steel and Ellyn's cups. The Hand had heard of all three, but sat forward when Jon described how much they could sell without starving the island's own works. When Jon mentioned the royal gifts, his gaze went to the armour Arthur wore.

"For Robert?"

"A suit made for him. Perrin has brought it ashore. The armourer will see to any fitting it needs."

"You may find that the larger task."

Arthur smiled into his cup. Jon allowed himself a smile too.

"There is a gift for Prince Tommen as well. A wooden horse he can ride."

"You will please his father if it keeps him from asking for another pony." Arryn called the clerk back and gave instructions for the showing on the morrow. Jon waited until the door had closed again.

"There is another account I asked for, my lord. More than once."

Arryn's expression changed. "The children."

"Aries is waiting outside."

The Hand rang for his servant.

Aries entered carefully, as if the sound of his boots might disturb something. Jon drew a chair close to his own. A little later an older man in Arryn's colours came in carrying a thin packet tied with string. Arthur recognised him and gave him a nod.

"He was one of the men I sent to Rilla," Arryn explained. "The boy was taken to safety before they went to the cellar."

Aries gripped the edge of the chair. "Is his hand better?"

The man looked to Arryn, received permission to speak, and turned to the boy.

"Better than it was. Two fingers are stiff. He can use them, but he cannot close them all the way."

"Was a maester brought?" Jon asked.

"Yes, my lord. The bones had already begun to knit badly." He opened the packet. "The septa says he can hold a cup and dress himself. He is learning his letters with the others."

Aries bent towards the paper, though he was too far away to read it. "He does not have to fight?"

"No."

The man's answer was firm enough that the boy sat back. Jon rested his hand on the arm of Aries's chair.

There had been more children in the cellar than Rilla knew. Two had families nearby, frightened into leaving them with the keeper by debts that grew whenever they tried to pay. Others could give no useful account of where they had come from. One boy's information had led the men to another fighting place, and that to a third.

"Some of the keepers fled," Arryn said. "Others are in custody. The first arrests should have been made more quietly. Word went ahead of the men."

"Through the watch?" Arthur asked.

"That is one of the things still being examined." The Hand's face had grown severe. "I have kept my own men upon it."

"And Rilla?" Jon asked.

"Unharmed. Her nephew knows whom to send for if anyone troubles her. No charge bears her name."

Aries wanted to know where the children slept, whether the older ones still struck the younger ones, and who brought their food. The man answered each question as carefully as he had answered Jon's.

A septa named Meriane had taken charge of them in a house beside a small sept. Arryn had paid for the adjoining rooms when the second group was brought in. There were women to tend the youngest, and an old carpenter had begun taking two of the older boys to his shop. The man had been questioned before either was permitted to go.

"May we see them?" Aries asked.

"You may," Arryn said. "Ser Arthur will arrange it with my men."

"And Rilla," Aries added.

"And Rilla."

Jon asked for the expenses. Arryn's man found them at the back of the packet: rent, food, bedding, the maester's fee. It was a small account beside the cost of one of Jon's ships.

"I offered to pay for their care. You should have sent this."

"You should have had an answer," Arryn said. "I have no defence for that. The inquiry continued, and your letter waited for a full account when a partial one would have served you."

"Perrin will settle what is owed. Send him the costs each moon."

Arryn nodded to his man, who made a note. Jon asked him to wait outside with Aries; the boy could go over the septa's letter with him while the adults finished. Arthur saw them to the door.

The room seemed quieter after he had gone.

"How many of these pits are still running?" Jon asked.

"I cannot give you a number. We close one place and the men who profited by it find another cellar." Arryn looked down at the papers. "The watch can break up a gathering. Finding where the men have gone afterwards has proved harder."

Jon set his cup down too hard. Water ran across the table, soaking the edge of his cuff. Eight moons. Children had been beaten for men's amusement while he waited for a reply. He could still hear Rilla saying that the boy thought they would come for him.

"Then I will look while I am here."

Arryn looked up. "What do you propose?"

"I will speak to Rilla and the children. I want to see the places your men found, and hear what they know of the keepers who escaped."

"They will show you," Arryn said. "But if you find something, bring it to me. I will not have another warning sent ahead by men who think they are helping."

"You will hear of it." Jon drew his wet sleeve clear of the papers. He wanted the men who took the wagers as well as those who kept the cellars. Hugin and Munin could follow a man through streets where a guard in black would be noticed. First he needed someone worth following.

Arthur gave him a searching look. "We shall begin with Rilla."

"And the boy." Jon had promised Aries they would see him. He meant to see for himself where the children slept, who cared for them, whether they still feared a knock upon the door.

Arryn passed him a cloth. "Some have no one looking for them. Others have parents who cannot feed them. More arrive every day, hoping there will be work."

Blackburn could employ some of those families. Jon would have Marrec find out who wished to leave, once there were houses and grain enough to receive them. A factor in the city could arrange passage as well as buyers for his wares. He would need rooms and stores near the landing.

That would bring him among merchants with old claims and powerful friends. Petyr's reach through customs and lenders could make a newcomer very uncomfortable. Marrec would learn who owned the ground and who collected its dues before Jon bought anything. He would not let Littlefinger establish him here.

"There may be places on Dragonstone," he told Arryn. "I will have my people speak to yours before we promise anything."

Arryn nodded. Arthur waited until the Hand had set the children's account aside before speaking.

He lowered his voice.

"There is one other matter. The stores beneath the city."

The Hand rose and checked the door himself.

"Ser Barristan told me you would ask." He returned without sitting. "The Guild has removed jars from two of the places named. Some were sound. Some were not fit to be carried far."

Jon felt the old dread tighten beneath his ribs. Above those buried stores, the streets were filling with visitors.

"What of the others?" Arthur asked.

"The search continues. Walls have been built where there were passages, and houses stand over entrances no one remembers using. They will not give me an assurance they cannot support."

"Nor should they," Jon said. "We need to know where they have looked, not only what they have found."

"There is a record. Barristan has it, with the names of the men permitted to see it. Come to him after the feast tomorrow. I will join you."

Arthur agreed. Jon asked whether anything had been found beneath the Dragonpit. Arryn said that the survey there was unfinished; the broken approaches made parts of it unsafe even before they searched below.

Jon remembered how readily men put off a danger they could not see. He would keep this appointment, and he would hear the Guild's account himself before leaving the city.

When they rose, Arryn kept him a moment longer.

"Enjoy some of the king's hospitality, Jon. Your brother has come a long way to see you."

Through the door, Jon heard Aries asking the man to read a sentence again.

"I mean to," he said.

* * *
​

"Arthur."

The voice came from below. Arthur stopped with his hand upon the rail, and Jon, a step behind him, looked down into the light from the narrow window.

A tall, spare man stood on the landing. His pale red cloak had fallen back from a shirt of overlapping copper discs; silver showed among the black hair above his temples. He had a long, sharp face, and was smiling as though he had caught Arthur at something. Beside him, a broad-shouldered woman in riding leathers moved out of the path of a servant. Her brown hair was knotted behind her head. One callused hand rested upon the whip at her belt.

"Oberyn."

Arthur went down the remaining steps. The man caught him by both shoulders, looked at him for a moment, then pulled him into an embrace.

"You might have written."

"So might you."

"Then we shall drink to our failings. Yours first." Oberyn drew back, his hand lingering upon Arthur's shoulder. "It is good to see you."

Arthur laughed. Jon had heard that laugh seldom enough to recognise the change in him.

The Red Viper. Jon had expected to see him among the guests, with time to decide how he would approach him. Now the prince was looking past Arthur, and Jon came down the last steps to meet him.

"My nephew, Jon Black," Arthur said. "Jon, Prince Oberyn Martell."

Jon bowed. "My prince."

Oberyn returned the courtesy. His dark eyes lingered on Jon's face. "They have been making you older every time they tell the tale."

"Does that improve it?"

"It makes the pirates look better." His smile widened. "My daughter, Obara."

Obara clasped his hand, then looked from his sword to Arthur.

"The men at the quay said a pirate brought you here," she said. "The one you took in the Stepstones."

"Vhalar."

"What did he make of you?" Her eyes travelled from Jon's face to Arthur. "Did he know who was giving the orders?"

"He looked past me to my uncle. Arthur stayed where he was."

"I should have liked to see his face." Obara's mouth curved. "Did he beg?"

"He asked me to name his ransom, then told me I had lost too many men taking his fort. I reminded him he had been unable to keep it."

Obara laughed. Oberyn was still studying Jon. "Arianne will want that story. She is delighted with your clock at Sunspear, though I have cause to regret it."

"Is something wrong with it?"

"It tells her exactly how late I am."

"Was there doubt before?"

"There was room to argue." Oberyn shifted nearer the wall as two pages came down with an empty basket. "I looked inside the king's this morning. The keeper seemed afraid I meant to carry off a wheel."

"Did you?"

"Only in the interest of learning." Arthur made a sound beside him, and Oberyn smiled without turning. "I understood the weight and the wheels. But the bar above them, with a weight at either end—move those farther apart, and it should rock more slowly. Is that how you correct the hour?"

"Yes. The bar works two catches. They let the wheel pass one tooth at a time."

Oberyn held two fingers apart, considering the movement. "Without water to freeze, or sand to turn. I saw nothing like it at the Citadel."

"Nor had Maester Luwin. He helped us test the first."

"And you made it yourself?"

"Woods made the wooden parts, Mikken the iron. I showed them what I wanted. We spoiled enough pieces before it worked."

"Those are the pieces I would like to see." Oberyn lowered his hand.

Jon had almost begun telling him about the first crooked wheel. Six links at the Citadel; he had remembered the spear before the scholar.

"Doran would welcome a visit from its maker," Oberyn said. "And from you, Arthur. He asked me to remind you."

Jon had not forgotten his uncle's uncertainty when they had spoken of Elia, or the men Doran might have sent and had not. There were questions he would one day put to the Prince of Dorne. Oberyn had wanted to fight on after the war. He could hear this brother without forgiving the other.

"Arthur told me of the invitation," he said. "I have not forgotten it."

"I shall tell him so." Oberyn waited, but Jon offered no date. His gaze returned to Jon's face. "Does your uncle speak to you of your mother?"

Arthur's smile faded. Jon felt the familiar danger of a conversation in which every honest feeling rested upon a lie.

"When I ask him. I wish I could remember her."

"You should ask more often." Oberyn looked at Arthur. "There are people in Dorne who would be glad to speak of her."

"I mean to take him, when we can," Arthur said. "How is Doran?"

"His feet trouble him. Some days he cannot bear a shoe." Oberyn's hand fell from the fold of his cloak. "He still insists upon hearing everyone who comes to him."

"I am sorry."

"Write to him. He would welcome it." The prince drew his cloak back over his shoulder. "And spare me an evening while you are here. I have heard a great deal about your nephew. I should like to hear something about you."

Arthur turned to Jon. "Will you need me after supper?"

"Go. I shall be with Robb. Tomas and Gawen are here."

Oberyn looked from one to the other, then laughed. "All this time I have been asking the wrong man." He inclined his head to Jon with exaggerated courtesy. "Next time I shall come straight to you, Lord Black."

"After supper," Arthur said, smiling despite himself. "The gallery above the lower court."

"I shall be there." Oberyn stood aside for them. "And you must show me the king's clock, Lord Jon. I promise to leave the wheels where they belong."

"Find me after the gifts tomorrow."

"I shall."

Obara glanced towards the bright court beyond the arch. Steel rang somewhere below. "Are you fighting in the tourney?"

"In the squires' melee."

"Then we shall watch," Oberyn said. "I have seen what your craftsmen can do. I should like to see what Arthur has taught you."

He went on up the stair with his daughter. Arthur watched them until they turned out of sight.

* * *
​

Robb had changed before Jon reached their rooms. He wore an old practice doublet and the gloves he had refused to return. Theon lay across a window seat with one boot upon the wall; Domeric was telling him that the servants would be delighted to hear his views on their wine.

"At last," Robb said.

"I said I would come."

"You also said that at Winterfell. Sometimes it meant after dark."

Jon handed his cloak to Aries, then turned back to Robb. "Get your sword."

Robb lifted it from the bed and followed him to the door.

They went down together, Gawen and Tomas following. By the time they reached the practice ground, Jon had heard the first half of an argument about whether Theon had lost a bout fairly that morning. Domeric offered to settle it by fighting him again.

Aron Santagar was watching two squires at work when Arthur called his name. He turned with a smile, then saw how many had followed.

"You have brought your own tournament."

"Only part of it," Arthur said.

Santagar greeted Jon and asked after his hand. When Jon flexed it for him, he nodded towards the weapon rack.

"Blunts there. Keep clear of the far side until they have finished with the spears."

Beyond him a man in Caron colours was disputing a blow with Ser Brus Buckler. Lord Ralph stood nearby, declining to be drawn into it. Balon Swann saw Arthur first and came across with Lucan Marbrand. Jon remembered the young westerman fighting his uncle on their last visit; he had acquired a new scar at the edge of his chin.

Balon asked about the crossing, then the hand. Jon was beginning to think he should have left it ungloved all day.

"Well enough to disappoint Robb," he said.

"We shall see," his brother answered.

Balon stepped back to give them room. "Then I had better stay and watch."

Gawen joined Balon at the rail while Jon followed Robb onto the sand.

They had scarcely chosen weapons before someone called from the rail.

"Domeric! You might have told us you had found them."

Mychel Redfort came through the watching men with Waymar Royce behind him. Harry Hardyng followed more slowly, drawing off his gloves. He had dressed for the court in blue silk; the other two had sand upon their boots. Harry looked at Jon, then at the sword in his hand.

Harry leaned on the rail. "Which of you is winning?"

"We have not begun," Robb said.

Harry greeted Jon while Mychel asked whether they were entering together again in the squires' melee. Domeric told him he had delivered his threat.

"It was a promise," Mychel said. "You two shall not have an empty side of the field this time."

"Then I had better stand between you," Loras Tyrell said.

He had slipped through the gathering before Jon noticed him. Brown curls escaped the tie at his nape, and his rolled sleeves showed arms reddened by the sun. A wooden practice sword rested against his shoulder. He gave Jon's scarred hand a quick glance, then looked at his face.

"Renly said you had arrived. I thought you might come here."

"My brother, Robb. Theon Greyjoy, and Domeric Bolton." Jon made the remaining introductions while Loras shook hands, his eagerness making him move to the next before the first had quite finished speaking.

"You are all entering?" he asked.

"I have not come to watch," Harry said.

"Good. Nor have I."

Jon beckoned Eddison and Aleyx over from the weapon rack. They had been watching the company grow, waiting for a chance to join it.

"Two more for the melee," he told Loras, and gave their names.

Eddison had recovered his colour since leaving the ship. He shook Loras's hand and asked which weapons would be permitted. Aleyx stayed beside Jon while they discussed it, looking round the assembled young men. Before they had done, he had agreed to a bout with Waymar.

"Garlan," Loras called, lifting his sword.

The knight approaching them stood a head taller than his brother, broad through the chest and shoulders. Sweat had darkened the neck of his green practice coat. His brown curls were shorter than Loras's, his beard close trimmed, and two golden roses were worked upon his breast.

"Ser Garlan Tyrell. My brother."

Garlan the Gallant. Jon knew the name; several men along the rail turned to watch him pass. He greeted Jon and Robb courteously, then clasped Balon's hand across the rail.

"Are you riding in the joust?" Jon asked.

"I am. I hope to get a little practice before the feasting begins."

"You should see him with a sword," Loras told Robb.

"Perhaps they will, if you let them begin." Garlan smiled at his brother. "Who has already fought?"

"No one," Robb said. "Everyone keeps talking."

Garlan stepped out of their way, settling at the rail to watch.

Jon faced his brother.

For the first few passes, Robb gave him very little. He kept his shield close and turned Jon's first cut without lunging after it. Jon moved left; Robb followed with short steps, refusing the opening he had taken so often at Winterfell. Behind him, Theon called something unhelpful and was told to be quiet by three men at once.

Jon struck high and changed towards Robb's knee. His brother caught the second blow, shoved forward with his shield and made him retreat. There was more weight behind it than he expected. Sand shifted beneath his heel.

"Ser Rodrik?" Jon asked.

"Among others."

Robb came again before he finished speaking. Jon turned the cut and took one on his shield, then felt the blunt tap his ribs beneath his lifted arm.

Theon whooped. Robb backed away, breathing hard, his face alight.

"You have been working," Jon said.

"I told you."

Jon raised his sword. He had thought there would be time to feel out the changes in his brother before Robb punished him for it. That, too, was something worth learning.

The next exchange lasted longer. Robb made him earn the opening. When Jon finally drove Robb's shield aside and touched his shoulder with the blunt, his brother grinned through the sweat instead of demanding the point be fought again.

"Another."

"Two more," Arthur said from the rail. "Then let the others have the ground."

They obeyed reluctantly. When Jon stepped out, Loras was already pulling on his glove. He chose Mychel, to Harry's disgust; Domeric offered Harry a bout instead.

A silver eagle gleamed upon the breast of a man watching from the rail. He stood straight-backed and bareheaded, white showing in his brown hair, his blue-grey eyes following each stroke. The younger man beside him wore the same eagle; his collar stood open and his face was red from the sun. Jon guessed their kinship before Robb greeted them.

Lord Jason Mallister asked after Ned, then turned to Jon.

"Your brother said you would be difficult to catch. I see what he meant."

"He caught me once."

"You lifted your elbow after the first cut. He was ready for it." Jason glanced towards Robb. "Someone has been making you practise that."

Robb was still flushed from the bout. He listened closely while Jason pointed out where his foot had drifted too far forward. Patrek, his son, watched Loras and Mychel for a moment, then asked Domeric if he would take a turn when the ground was free.

Theon stood a little apart. His easy smile had gone when Jason approached. Jon remembered whose sword had killed Rodrik Greyjoy, and wondered whether Lord Mallister remembered every time he looked at the surviving brother.

Patrek did not seem to notice. He asked Theon whether he had brought a bow, and received a much more willing answer. Before long they were discussing the distance of the butts and arguing over which wind would trouble them. Jason left them to it. Jon was glad he did.

At the far end of the rail, Harras Harlaw waited while a squire fastened a strap at his wrist. He was tall and long-faced, his expression severe as he tested the fit. The silver scythe upon his clothing caught Theon's eye as he turned. He excused himself in the middle of a sentence.

"Ser Harras?"

The knight looked up. It took him a moment, then his expression cleared.

"Lord Theon. You have grown."

"I should hope so."

His smile had returned, though he straightened before offering his hand. Jon heard him ask after his mother, and stayed where he was. Harras answered more quietly. Whatever he said made Theon nod, looking down at the silver gull upon his shoulder.

"Write again after the contest," Harras told him. "Give her something to boast of."

Theon touched the badge. "She has heard about the last one."

"Then win another."

That brought a real grin. Theon led him over to meet Jon, and for a few minutes the scythe and direwolf stood together beside Mallister's eagle while Loras tried to put Mychel upon his back.

There were more familiar faces beyond them. Thoros of Myr leaned on the rail in his red robes, his shaven head shining in the sun. Beside him stood the slender, red-gold-haired Beric Dondarrion, the forked lightning bright upon his black surcoat. Thoros called advice that made Mychel laugh at exactly the wrong moment. Loras caught him with a sharp blow to the shoulder and then looked offended when the priest claimed half the credit.

Jon watched Garlan take the next turn against Lucan Marbrand. There was no flourish in the older Tyrell's work. He let Marbrand spend his strength, then moved inside a wide cut and ended the bout before the westerman could recover. Robb, wiping his face with a cloth, stopped speaking to watch the last exchange.

"I should like to try him," he said.

"So should I."

"You cannot fight everyone today."

Jon looked at him. Robb laughed.

William Mooton and his wife found Arthur while the younger men were choosing new opponents. A pearl net held Lady Mooton's hair beneath a light veil; she gathered its loose edge clear of the dusty rail before greeting Jon. She asked if the tales of his porcelain were true. Her husband waited until she had secured an invitation to Perrin's showing.

Then he drew a folded paper from his sleeve.

"I brought the copies, Ser Arthur. My brother's letters. I remembered you wished to see them."

Arthur accepted the paper carefully. "Thank you, William."

"There are names I could not place. Perhaps you could help me."

"Gladly."

Lady Mooton told him where they were lodged. They settled upon breakfast on the morning after the nameday, early enough to finish before the lists. Arthur asked leave to bring an old friend who had known Myles too. William hesitated when he heard Oberyn's name, then his wife touched his sleeve and he agreed.

Jon had heard enough to know what that hesitation cost. The king who had killed Myles would be feasting them tomorrow. Even a few family letters could become something to explain in the wrong company.

William turned to him as Arthur folded the letters away.

"My harbourmaster tells me Dragonstone has been taking more grain."

"We have more people."

"There are men in Maidenpool who would welcome a regular buyer."

"Have them send their names to Marrec. I would like to settle something before we leave."

"I shall." Mooton glanced towards the practice ground, where Robb was watching Garlan explain the last exchange to Marbrand. "Your brother seems pleased to have you back."

Jon smiled. "He has been waiting to hit me."

"Brothers often are." William's smile faded as he looked at the letters in Arthur's hand. His wife drew him gently towards the shaded walk.

By the time they went, Gawen and Vaelor had found Tomas beside the weapon rack. A knight with a brown horse was speaking to them. His shield had been painted over, leaving the old device showing faintly beneath the new coat. Vaelor asked him where he had served; Gawen wanted to know why he had left.

Jon waited until the man had gone before joining them.

"Worth watching?"

"Perhaps," Gawen said. "He says he has taught boys to ride. We shall see him at the lists."

"And ask the men who know him," Vaelor added. "There are two here from his last company."

Tomas looked as though he had something to say. Jon waited. The knight rubbed a thumb along the edge of his glove, glanced towards Arthur and then back.

"My lord. If you can spare me from the watch, I would like to put my name down."

"For the joust?"

"Aye."

"You need not ask as if you mean to steal the horse."

Gawen laughed. Tomas's ears reddened.

"I have practised against our own men. I should like to know how I stand against these." He nodded towards the field. "Men who have been riding in tourneys for years."

Jon looked at the scar above his brow. Tomas had earned his spurs in a fight where no herald could call an end. He had since spent much of his time watching other men do the things he wanted to try.

"Enter," Jon said. "Alasdair can arrange the watch. Have Arthur see you at practice before you ride."

"I will. Thank you, my lord."

Tomas was smiling when he turned back to Gawen. The two began discussing horses before Jon was out of earshot.

Aries met him at the edge of the ground, carrying the blunted sword Gawen had found for him.

"Have you a turn left?"

"For you?" Jon reached for his own. "I suppose."

"Gawen says I am quicker now."

"Then I shall have to be careful."

Aries took that very seriously. He pulled on his gloves and glanced towards Robb to make certain he was watching.

* * *
​

By the time they left the yard, Jon's shoulders ached pleasantly and Aries was insisting that his last blow had touched the doublet. Gawen said it had. Jon said they would have to try again to make certain. Aries turned at once to Robb. "You saw it, didn't you?"

Arthur left them after supper to meet Oberyn. Before he went, Aries reminded Jon of the dragon skulls. A servant found the man with the keys, and Robb and Theon came down with them beneath the castle.

At the foot of the stair their guide lifted his torch. Teeth appeared out of the darkness.

Aries caught Jon's sleeve. The skulls were black, the torchlight shining along a horn and the curve of a vast jaw. More lay beyond the first, growing larger as the light travelled over them. Even Theon was quiet beneath the greatest.

"How much did it eat?" Aries whispered.

Jon began to answer, then looked up into the jaws of Balerion. All of them could have stood inside. He thought of the broken egg waiting in his chamber on Dragonstone, and for a moment wanted nothing so much as to have it beneath his hands again.

Later he sat with Robb over the map he had promised to see. Theon stayed long enough to recommend three visits on the strength of daughters he had heard were pretty; Domeric corrected a road near the Dreadfort and asked where they meant to hunt. After they had gone, the brothers talked more quietly. Jon helped Robb put his questions in order for Ned, then listened as Robb told him of Arya's latest quarrel with her needlework.

He left well after the candles had burnt low. Robb was still talking from the doorway when Jon turned into the passage.

Perrin had finished laying out the gifts. Darys stood watch outside the room; within, twelve cups and six bowls shone softly beside the open salt box. One jar stood uncorked. Even by candlelight the grains were startlingly white, without the grey dust or dark flecks of the ordinary sort. Perrin had laid out a little spoon for the guests to taste it tomorrow.

Robert's armour occupied a broad stand near the window, the red finish dark in the candlelight. It was large enough to make Ewan's work for Jon look slight. Jon moved a candle nearer. Red gleamed along the curve of the chestplate; tomorrow, with the shutters open, the king would see it properly. An armourer would be there to mark any alterations he needed.

Tommen could have one when he was older. Jon meant to promise it before the court, where the boy's delight would do as much good as his father's approval. For now there was the wooden horse.

He drew back its covering. The painted head looked solemnly ahead, the mane carved in broad locks a child could grip without breaking. Jon pressed a palm upon its back and sent it rolling a foot across the boards. It was low enough for small feet to reach the floor on either side. Aries's little pull-along horse would have fitted beneath its belly.

Jon steadied the horse before it reached the table. Tomorrow Robert would watch his son try it. He hoped Tommen would be as certain of his steering as the boy who had left a mark in Jon's kitchen door.

He covered it again and told Darys to wake him if Perrin found anything amiss.

In his own chamber, Hugin stepped from the chair back onto his wrist. Jon felt the familiar pressure of the claws as he checked the water dish. Munin watched from the bedpost, her head tilted towards his moving hand. The other three crows had settled in their open baskets.

Arthur returned before Jon was asleep. He said little of Oberyn, save that they had spoken longer than he intended. Jon heard him moving in the adjoining chamber after the candles were extinguished, and the familiar sound let him rest.

He woke with something cold against his wrist.

A root had grown over the edge of the bed. White as old bone, it lay across his hand and disappeared beneath the coverlet. Jon pulled free and sat up.

The room was gone beyond the bedposts. A damp, earthy smell filled the darkness. Somewhere water fell slowly upon stone.

"You have kept me waiting," he said.

The red eye opened between the roots.

Bloodraven sat where the window should have been, his body sunk so deeply into the pale wood that Jon could not tell where flesh ended. The roots moved when he breathed. Jon could still feel the pillow beneath his head, though he was sitting upright. He held to that sensation.

"You remember how to wake," the old man said.

"I remember why I needed to."

Bloodraven watched him. In their last meeting he had shown Jon a throne and a kingdom dying around it. Jon had told Arthur everything afterwards. He had also asked for teaching, for something he could use before the disaster came.

"I have been working with the birds," Jon said. "I can hold five at a distance now. I am trying for more."

"Five will not be enough."

"I know. You told me I would need more." Jon drew his legs from beneath the blanket. His bare foot touched cold stone; beneath it he could still feel the warmth of his sleeping body. "I mean to go to Valyria. I will need them there."

"Valyria?"

The roots stilled against the old man's throat. For a moment Jon heard only the slow fall of water. Bloodraven's red eye did not leave him.

Then he lifted one thin hand. The wood drew aside beneath his fingers.

"Come here."

Jon stood. He did not move closer at once.

"No throne. No borrowed face."

The red eye remained upon him. Then Bloodraven lowered his hand to a root worn smooth beside his own.

Jon thought of the kitchen the old man had once taken from his memory, and of how long it had taken him to leave it. He kept the feel of the pillow, the warmth of the blanket, the quiet breathing from Arthur's chamber.

Then he crossed the stone and put his hand where Bloodraven had shown him.

Something beneath the wood began to move

 

[aiwonder]

The movement passed beneath Jon's palm and up his arm.

He followed it into the root. Cold earth closed about him; somewhere above, branches stirred in wind. He reached towards them and lost the feel of his hand. For a moment he could not remember whether he had been standing or kneeling. There was only the weight of earth and a faint, irresistible movement towards the light.

Jon pulled back. His knees struck stone.

The cave returned around him. Water dripped into a hollow beyond the roots. Bloodraven sat where the white wood had grown about him, his thin face scarcely distinguishable from it until the red eye moved.

"You forgot where you were."

Jon pressed his palm against his thigh. "I hold five birds at a distance now. I am working towards more. This is different."

"And when one is frightened?"

He remembered Hugin fleeing a hawk, five birds scattering, his own shoulder striking a wall. He had bitten through his lip before he could release them. Afterwards, Munin had perched upon his knee and picked at a loose thread while he sat waiting for the room to stop turning.

"That is why I need teaching. Especially if I am to use them where I mean to go."

Bloodraven's long fingers rested against a root. Jon waited for the refusal, or the warning he had already heard from every man who spoke of those waters.

"What do you expect to find?"

"Books. Gold. Enough to build what I have begun." Jon met his eye. "If you know something that would help, tell me."

Bloodraven looked down at Jon's hand.

"Feel your heart before you touch the root again. Your body is waiting in your bed. Remember how to find it."

Jon listened. At first the falling water distracted him; then he found the beat beneath his ribs, hurried by his stumble. He let it settle. When he could hold his attention upon it without forgetting the cave, he laid his palm against the wood.

Red light shone through the broken roof of a carriage.

Jon stood inside it, the floor tilted beneath his feet. His first glance found the doors. One had been driven inward until its bronze hinges stood crooked; a man hammered upon the other with both fists. Water lapped at the lower edge and came through in little spurts each time he struck it.

"Leave it," someone gasped. "Help me."

The king sat upon the rear bench beneath a fallen roof beam. He was a broad man, his wet golden hair plastered to his temples, a little silver showing in the beard along his jaw. A cut above his eyebrow had filled the wrinkles beside one eye with blood. His circlet had slipped down over the other. Small golden lions ran about it, their raised heads catching the red light when he moved.

A heavy chain lay across his breast. One of its links had snagged upon the torn velvet of his coat; beneath it, an emerald swung against a button as he strained forward. His left hand was trapped between the bench and the beam. Jon could see two rings beyond the wood, one broad and plain, the other set with a dark red stone. The fingers beneath them had swollen purple.

His right hand held a sword across his knees. Water trembled along the dark ripples of the blade. Rubies burned in the eyes of its lion pommel.

Brightroar.

Jon knew it before the man at the door turned.

The fellow was younger than the king. His hair had been shorn close, and a bronze collar lay against the raw skin at the base of his throat. Blood ran from his knuckles. He caught the beam with both hands and braced a foot against the bench.

"Lift," the king said.

The man pulled. Tendons stood out beneath his jaw; his foot slipped upon the wet leather, and he fell hard against the king's knees. Tommen cried out. The beam had moved scarcely the width of a fingernail before settling again.

"It will not lift, Your Grace."

There was a guard upon the forward bench, half hidden behind the man's shoulder. A broken spearshaft protruded from his chest. He had both hands cupped about it, as though he could keep the wound closed by holding everything still. His lips moved when the king looked towards him. Jon could not hear what he said above the water.

The man in the collar looked at the guard too, then reached for the shaft.

"Leave it in," Jon said.

Neither turned. The man drew back without touching it, perhaps afraid of making the wound worse, perhaps because he could think of nothing to do. Jon stepped towards them and caught his shoulder.

His fingers closed upon nothing.

The king's breathing had grown loud. He tried to pull his hand free, dragging his sleeve back until Jon saw the pale wrist and the wood pressing into it. A faint wet sound came from beneath the beam. Tommen stopped and bent his head.

"Then cut the hand off."

The collared man stared at him.

"Take the sword."

He thrust Brightroar's hilt towards the man. The carriage shifted before the fellow could grasp it. Water surged over the king's knees; he snatched the blade back against himself, and the man fell sideways into the broken door. The guard's head struck the wall. His hands stayed upon the spear.

Jon braced himself against the roof. His palms passed through it.

He could hear their breathing, smell the mud and old leather, but he could not move so much as a splinter. Still he tried the beam. He set his shoulder against it and pushed, furious at the ease with which he passed through the wood.

"Take it," Tommen said again.

The man crawled back. Water dragged at his coat. He reached for the sword, stopped, and looked from the king's arm to the beam above it. There was scarcely room to raise the blade. Tommen saw where he was looking and began to pull at the cloth about his wrist with his teeth.

Jon looked up. A roof rib had split close to its fastening. Every movement of the carriage opened the split a little farther. Beyond it lay a sloping surface of red glass, smooth enough to catch a wavering reflection of the water running over it. He could see no sky.

He had practised escaping flooded compartments. There had been men waiting beyond the exercise, hands ready to help if someone lost his nerve. He found himself searching for them now, for a hatch, for any space beyond the broken carriage large enough to hold a breath.

Water poured through the split.

The king flinched. His circlet slipped from his brow and struck the sword with a clear little ring before falling between his knees. It lay beneath the water, one lion's head caught against a fold of velvet. He did not look after it.

The collared man began to scream.

Jon tried to lift his hand from the root. He could no longer find it. His chest tightened with every breath the trapped men took; the roof seemed to descend towards his face. The man had both hands over his head now. Tommen was calling to him, first angrily, then with a change in his voice that made Jon reach for the beam once more.

"Your heart," Bloodraven said.

Jon heard hammering, water, the king calling for help. He tried to turn towards the voice and found only the bronze door.

"Find your own."

He stopped reaching for the carriage. Beneath the pounding in his ears he found another beat, quick but steady. He held his attention there. Wool brushed his wrist. His fingers were clenched in a blanket.

The screaming continued. Jon fixed upon the wool, the place where its edge scratched his skin. He could feel the root beneath his other palm now. He pulled away.

The carriage vanished.

Jon knelt before Bloodraven with his hand lifted from the wood. For several breaths he could only stare at his unbroken fingers. His left wrist ached, though nothing had touched it.

"Tommen Lannister."

"Yes."

His old knowledge had ended with a vanished fleet. He had just watched its king offer his hand for a chance to live. The man with the collar had not even been a name in the history Jon remembered.

Yet he thought of Tywin, of what recovering that sword would buy him. He could see the lion pommel as clearly as the swollen fingers. The thought shamed him without becoming less tempting.

"Where was he?"

"I have shown you what I can." Bloodraven's eye remained upon him. "You found your way back. Practise with one bird until fear no longer makes you forget it."

Jon lowered his hand. "Keep my own heartbeat beneath its own?"

"While it is calm. You will have little time to learn when it is frightened."

He rubbed his wrist. He meant to take men into those ruins. Arthur. Gawen. Tomas. He had been counting stores and measuring how much a ship could carry; he would have to explain to them why he believed they might come home. Whatever he remembered of this world, he had known nothing of that carriage.

"Show me again."

Bloodraven looked at the hand upon his wrist. "You are shaking."

"Then I shall wait until I stop."

He woke alone, his fingers tangled in the blanket. Dawn had not yet reached the shutters. A servant crossed the passage outside, a key scraping briefly in a lock farther along. Jon listened for water until the rustling of the crows brought him back.

He found his heartbeat and counted ten steady beats. Then he lit a candle and reached for his writing things. His first drawing put the doors too far apart. He crossed it out and began again, marking the broken hinge, the fallen beam, the place where the glass had shown through. Beyond that narrow opening he left the parchment bare.

By the time the shutters began to lighten, he had drawn the little lion upon the sword's pommel. He could still hear the king asking for help.

He set the inkpot upon the drawings and opened one shutter. Munin hopped onto the sill, spreading his wings in the cold air. Hugin remained beside the water bowl, watching his companion with one bright eye.

Jon drew his chair away from the table and sat with both feet flat upon the floor. He put two fingers against his wrist. Once he had found the pulse, he closed his eyes and reached for Munin.

His claws gripped the stone. Air stirred beneath his breast feathers; the open window pulled at his attention, though the bird had not moved. His heart beat so quickly that Jon could scarcely distinguish one stroke from the next. Somewhere behind it, much fainter, was the beat beneath his waiting fingers.

He held both. Munin turned his head towards the table, where the inkpot caught a little light. Jon let him look. He could still feel his own pulse, and the pressure of his heels against the floor.

Then something clattered in the court below.

Munin sprang inward from the sill. For an instant Jon had only wings, a white ceiling rushing closer, the need to turn. His fingers slipped from his wrist. He tried to find them and felt the bird's claws curl instead.

He held back the urge to force Munin down. Beneath the flutter of wings he found a heavier beat, then the chair beneath his thighs. He opened his eyes as Munin landed upon the bedpost.

The crow shook himself and began to settle his feathers. Jon stayed seated until his breathing eased. He had kept hold for perhaps seven breaths before the noise.

He tried again when Munin was quiet. This time he withdrew while the bird was still upon the bedpost, following his own pulse back to the chair. His hand remained steady when he reached for the quill.

***
​

Aries knew the way to the dragons now.

"Are you sure?" Gawen asked.

"I talked to the pages and servants," Aries said. "There's a shorter way past the kitchens."

Hot bread and singed feathers scented the kitchen court. Aries led them through it, waiting at every turn for the others. Men carried trestles towards the great hall. A woman bearing yellow flowers made Gawen step aside; two boys followed with a basket between them, arguing over which prince had the nameday.

"The little one," Aries told them.

"They are both little," one boy answered, and hurried on before his companion could strike him.

Tomas laughed without looking over his shoulder first. It was good to hear.

Hal had asked leave to visit his aunt after breakfast. Jon had promised Rilla a visit too, but the royal household had filled his day. He had asked Hal to give her his good wishes and ask after Benn. He hoped to see her before they left.

He walked beside Arthur through a passage opening onto the bay. The arches faced east, and between their pillars the water shone so brightly that he had to narrow his eyes. Below the walls, a fishing boat crept past a galley at anchor. Its sail looked scarcely larger than a napkin from this height. Washing flapped from a servants' window above them; a sleeve brushed the stone each time the wind turned.

Ser Vaelor Scales stopped to look out. He had come from the stables with Tomas and Gawen; Aries had persuaded them to join him upon learning none had seen the skulls. For a little while the knight watched the galley's oars. Behind them a kitchen servant hurried past with an empty basket, leaving the smell of onions in the warm passage.

"I was told you had horses to inspect," Jon said.

"They will keep until we return, my lord." Vaelor looked at Aries. "He was very particular that I should come."

"You said a whale was bigger."

"I said I had seen a whale."

Aries considered the distinction unimportant. He hurried ahead to the servant waiting with the keys.

Arthur had missed last evening's visit; he had been with Oberyn.

The servant opened the cellar door. Aries went down three steps, remembered himself, and waited for the lamp.

Daylight entered through narrow windows high in the wall. Last night the skulls had appeared one by one in torchlight; now Jon could see their ranks stretching across the cavernous room. Dust lay pale in the seams of the floor. The draught from the door stirred it about their boots, then died as the servant pulled the heavy wood closed behind them.

The nearest skull was small enough for Gawen to have carried beneath one arm. Beyond it the heads grew larger. Horns pointed into the aisles; jawbones rested upon wooden supports where the weight would have broken their joints. Light caught the ridges above empty eyes and left the jaws in shadow. At the far end, the room seemed to narrow about Balerion.

Gawen stopped on the lowest step.

"Gods preserve us."

No one laughed at him. Tomas took the lamp from the servant and raised it. A long black tooth shone above his head.

"That is not the largest," Aries said, almost reverently.

Vaelor walked past him, his boots loud upon the stones until he stopped beneath Balerion. Jon had seen him judge a mounted man with one glance at his seat and hands. Now the knight tilted his head back, trying to find the far side of a creature's mouth.

"There," Aries said.

"Aye." Vaelor let out a breath. "There."

Jon joined them beneath the great jaw. Seeing it again did nothing to diminish it. He could imagine muscles drawing the bones together, a tongue moving behind the teeth, breath hot enough to make men shrink away before the flame came. A whole horse could have vanished into that mouth. Men had climbed upon the living creature and asked it to carry them over cities.

He had known ships whose guns could destroy a town beyond the horizon, stood beside machines too heavy for a hundred men to shift. None of that made this ordinary. Balerion had been alive.

Jon put his hand upon the bone. It was cold and smooth beneath his palm. Along the edge of the jaw, a groove ran deep enough to take his finger. He followed it until it vanished into shadow, trying to imagine the living flesh that had covered it.

"Would you have ridden him?" Aries asked.

"If he let me."

The answer came so readily that Gawen looked at him. Jon tipped his head back towards the great horns. He was trying to imagine the first moment after the ground fell away: the castle dropping beneath his feet, the bay opening beyond it, the weight of something immense and living carrying him out over the water.

"You would have to hold on," Aries said.

"With everything I had." Jon heard the eagerness in his own voice and laughed. "Wouldn't you?"

Aries looked up once more. "I would want someone in front of me."

"That could be arranged."

For a moment Jon wanted it so badly that he could almost feel the wind. He kept his hand upon the cold bone.

Tomas came closer with the lamp. The flame trembled as he raised his arm, and the tooth above him seemed to move.

Gawen caught his elbow. "Mind your head."

"I can see it."

"I could not stop looking at the one beyond it."

Tomas lowered the lamp a little. The two young men stood shoulder to shoulder beneath the jaw. At their backs, Vaelor had taken off his glove to touch the bone himself. Aries watched each face in turn, plainly pleased that his descriptions had proved inadequate.

Aries tried to peer between them. Jon's first impulse was to lift him for a better look, as he had once lifted his own children. His hand moved before he remembered himself.

"Come round here," he said instead.

He took the lamp from Tomas and held it where Aries could see past the wooden support. The boy crouched, then turned his head to follow the row of teeth into the dark.

"They go all the way back."

"Aye. Take your time."

Jon waited until Aries had looked his fill before handing the lamp back. Tomas moved aside to let the boy stand beside him. Jon rested his hand against the jaw again.

"They hung above the hall," Arthur said.

His voice brought Jon back. His uncle was looking along the row, rather than at the greatest skull.

"All of them?" Tomas asked.

"All of them. You could scarcely look towards the throne without seeing their teeth."

Aries moved closer to Jon. "Did the king like them?"

Arthur understood which king he meant. "He liked men to remember them."

Jon looked from Balerion to the last hatchlings, scarcely larger than hounds. There was the end of an empire, laid out where servants might bring visitors for a copper. The Romans had quarried their ancestors' monuments for stone; Robert had at least kept these whole.

Back on Dragonstone, Jon's mended red shell stood in its cradle with daylight showing through the missing pieces. He had no creature sleeping inside it. No amount of wanting would turn an empty shell into an egg.

But there were others.

He remembered three eggs given to a frightened girl at a wedding. Fire, blood, a dead husband, a woman burned alive. He did not know which part had made the miracle possible, nor whether the people living it understood any more than he did.

He would not build a plan around putting Daenerys through it.

Their searches had found nothing certain. Qavo had given them places to begin, and captains were listening, but Viserys and his sister could pass between merchants' houses while a letter crossed the sea. In the history Jon remembered, the marriage to Khal Drogo still lay ahead. He should have time. He would be a fool to treat that memory as a promise.

He wanted them found before Illyrio could offer Daenerys as the price of an army. Viserys would be harder. Hunger and humiliation had helped make him cruel, but a roof would not make him reasonable. Jon would not place his people beneath his uncle's temper. Safety could be offered without obedience. Once he knew where they were, he could decide how to reach them and what he could safely tell them.

The eggs were another task. Find them, learn whether they could be bought or taken from Illyrio, and learn what waking them required. The books and ruins might hold answers. He would need better evidence than a half-remembered funeral pyre before he put anyone near a fire.

Gawen measured a tooth against his forearm without quite touching it. Tomas raised the lamp, and Aries insisted he had chosen a small one. Jon smiled despite himself.

Then a voice came from the stair.

"They have that effect upon almost everyone."

Lord Varys stood in the doorway in pale silk, holding a little lamp. Behind him the servant with the keys straightened hurriedly.

"Forgive me. I had no wish to disturb your pleasure."

Jon took his hand from the bone. Arthur had already turned.

"Lord Varys," Jon said. "Have you come to see them too?"

"Today I came to find you. Though I am glad your guide brought you down by daylight. One sees so much more."

His gaze travelled from Aries to Vaelor before returning to Jon. Gawen lowered his arm. The easy talk had stopped.

"Is something wrong?"

"Nothing whatever. The queen's steward asks that your larger gifts be brought into the hall before the meal. He has been told there is an object which will require rather more room than a necklace."

"My man Perrin has made the arrangements. If the steward wants them changed, I will have Perrin speak to him."

"I shall tell him. There is much curiosity about what you have brought." Varys came down another step. "Ships arriving with prisoners are common enough. Ships arriving with craftsmen, children, and gifts for a prince make a happier story."

"Some of the children were prisoners too."

"And fortunate to have found you."

Tomas shifted the lamp. Its light passed over the eunuch's powdered face; the pleasant expression did not change.

Jon remembered another cellar and two men discussing how long a war might be delayed. That conversation might not have happened yet, but Varys had ways through this castle which did not require a man with keys.

"They would have been more fortunate never to need finding," Jon said.

"Indeed. Their new lives have interested many people. You may expect questions today."

"Then those who have them can ask me."

Varys inclined his head. "A most agreeable answer." He looked up at Balerion. "His Grace could not bring himself to have these destroyed. For all the unpleasant memories."

"I am glad he kept them."

"You admire dragons?"

Jon glanced at the tooth hanging above Gawen. "Do you know anyone who could stand here and feel nothing?"

For the first time, Varys smiled without immediately speaking.

"Very few, my lord."

Varys offered them a guide to the practice ground. Jon thanked him and declined. They were collecting his brother on the way.

Varys stood aside as they climbed. Aries looked back twice. Jon took a last glance at the vast black head before following Arthur.

Outside, Vaelor drew a long breath of the warm air.

"I withdraw the whale," he told Aries.

The boy grinned all the way back to Robb's rooms.

***
​

Robb was fastening his sword belt while Martyn urged him to change his boots. Theon sat upon the window ledge eating an apple.

"Tell him," Robb said when Jon appeared.

"What am I telling him?"

"These are perfectly good."

Martyn held up the other pair. "These are broken in, my lord. The new ones rubbed yesterday."

Jon looked at Robb, who looked down, then surrendered by sitting on the bed.

Robb tugged one boot off and dropped it beside the bed. "You took a fleet against pirates, and I am still being told what to put on my feet."

"Bad boots would have troubled him there as well," Martyn said.

Theon bit into his apple to hide his smile. Robb reached for the old pair, his ears reddening.

"I would have come," he told Jon, more quietly.

"I know."

"I can do more than listen to the tale afterwards." He worked his heel into the boot. "Every man we meet asks about your ships. Then they turn to me and ask whether Father is well."

Jon sat beside him for a moment. He had enjoyed telling his brother what had happened at sea; he had not considered how often Robb must have heard others ask for the same story.

"You will have something to tell him after tomorrow."

Robb looked up. "If I beat you, I shall send a raven before supper."

"Tell him about the boots too," Theon said.

Robb threw the discarded boot at him. Theon saved his apple at the cost of a bruised shin.

"You took long enough," Theon said. "Have you bought the skulls?"

"I could not decide where to put them."

"Over your gate. No one would trouble you for a toll twice."

Aries told them how Vaelor had stopped beneath Balerion. Robb forgot his grievance and asked Arthur whether the dragons really had hung above the throne. He looked disappointed that he had never seen the hall that way.

"Father did," he said.

"Your father had other things upon his mind," Arthur answered.

Robb glanced at him, then returned to his bootlaces. Theon slid off the sill and took his sword. They left with Martyn and two northern guards.

Robb heard the swords before Jon did. He quickened his step beneath the colonnade, then stopped so abruptly at its end that Theon nearly walked into him.

"Seven hells. Where are we meant to fight?"

The practice yard lay open to the sun between walls of red stone. Men crowded its shaded edges, with squires crouching at their feet to buckle greaves and boys standing upon the lower rails to see over shoulders. Farther out, the earth had been churned pale and loose by horses. A lance broke beyond the press. One half spun above a rider's shoulder; the other dragged beside the saddle until he flung it clear. The applause had scarcely begun when a groom ran into the lane after a horse that had turned across it.

"Back, there! Leave him room."

Ser Aron Santagar caught a boy by the shoulder and moved him out of the groom's path. The boy stumbled into his friends. Santagar waited until the horse had been led away, then sent him to gather the broken shaft. His dark beard was neatly trimmed, his coat brushed and belted, but horse dust had spoiled one boot. By the gate, Barristan Selmy let another groom lead his mount through, then pulled it shut.

The mounted practice ran along the far wall, divided by a low timber barrier. Between it and the colonnade, separate patches had been left for swordplay. Every time a bout ended, someone stepped forward before the last pair had got their helms off. Water splashed beside Jon's boot. Its bearer murmured an apology and shouldered on, leaving a dark trail across the dust.

Robb turned towards the weapon rack, but a broad boy wearing the Crakehall boar backed across his path with two shields. He gave one to a younger Lannister and held the other while a boy in Brax colours struggled to lengthen its strap. Jaime Lannister stood behind them, showing Lancel how to settle an ash sword in his hand. Jon had seen the king's squire carrying cups on his earlier visit. Here Lancel scarcely took his eyes off his cousin.

"Never mind the rack," Theon said. "Find us somewhere to use them first."

"There," Robb said, pointing to a pair who were unfastening their helms.

"Someone has beaten you to it." Theon nodded towards the Bracken youth stepping into the vacant space.

A long-faced boy in Blackwood colours barred his way with the flat of a wooden sword. Jon could not hear the first exchange. He heard the next well enough.

"You have been standing there since we arrived."

"Waiting for you to finish hitting the ground."

Patrek Mallister reached between them and pushed both blades down. "Then take opposite ends and settle it. You are keeping everyone waiting."

The Blackwood went willingly enough. The other looked back at his companions before following. Robb grinned.

"Hoster Blackwood. The Bracken came with his lord's cousins."

"I might have guessed," Jon said.

Above the practice ground, women had begun filling a terrace beneath a yellow-and-white awning. A servant was bringing out another chair, though most of the younger ladies had left theirs to lean upon the stone balustrade. Myranda Royce's laugh carried over the blows below. She stood with Rowena Grafton, while Ysilla listened to something Wynafryd Manderly was saying. Wylla had found a place from which she could see the horse lane; she waved both hands when she caught sight of Robb.

He waved back and nearly walked into a shield.

"That will be difficult to explain tomorrow," Theon said.

Aurane lowered it. His pale hair had escaped its tie, and one sleeve was dark with sweat. "I thought you had all decided to sleep until the feast."

"Jon found the dragon skulls," Robb said. "Give him time and he'll try to put one back together." He nodded towards Aurane's shield. "Are you using that?"

"I have finished being beaten with it."

"By whom?"

Aurane pointed with his chin. Ser Garlan Tyrell was backing away from two men near the armoury door. A third waited behind them for room to strike. Garlan moved sideways as he retreated, forcing the nearer man across his companion's path; the third had to check his advance or hit his friend. Garlan's sword flicked against the first man's ribs. Then the other two were upon him, and Jon lost the blades among their shoulders.

"All three?" Robb asked.

"He says it is useful," Aurane answered. "I found it more useful when I was watching."

Domeric came away from the rail with a cup. "He lets one of you think he has him. Then the others discover they are in the way." Beyond him, Obara Sand was testing a spear's balance while her father spoke to Balon Swann. Oberyn saw Arthur and lifted a hand.

Robb took Aurane's shield. "You can tell me afterwards. Jon owes me a bout."

He said it loudly enough for Santagar to hear. The master-at-arms looked from them to the patch where the Blackwood and Bracken were striking at each other with more energy than judgment.

"Three bouts there already," he said. "They can yield the ground. Padded coats, helms and ash swords. If either of you wants steel, you may ask me again when these boys are no longer underfoot."

Robb was already reaching for a coat. Jon took the one beside it and found a split seam beneath the arm. He put it back. Aurane handed him another without being asked.

Arthur had stopped beside Yohn Royce. The old lord greeted him with a hand upon his shoulder, then moved aside to include Martyn in the conversation. By the time the Bracken boy had finished disputing the last blow, Jon and Robb were ready to take his place.

Robb held out his arm while Jon pulled the shield strap tight. "Do you still lift your elbow before you cut?"

"Do you still tell me what you are looking for?"

"Sometimes I tell you the wrong thing."

Harry Hardyng called to Mychel and Waymar and started round the rail towards them. Artys Elesham came close behind, still tugging his glove into place. Jon lifted his sword in greeting.

The Vale lads squeezed in beside Domeric. Harry put one boot upon the lower rail. "I have a stag on Robb."

"Didn't you learn your lesson at Runestone?" Jon asked.

"I did. I'm only risking silver this time."

Harry looked towards Robb. "Do not make me regret this."

Martyn came to the edge of the ground as Robb settled his helm. He checked the tie beneath his chin, then Jon's. "Three bouts. A clean blow ends each. You have a whole field to fight tomorrow."

Robb lifted his sword in salute. Jon answered. Around the timber the conversation continued; someone was trying to borrow Harry's gloves. Jon wanted a sword in his hand and his brother before him, with nothing to settle beyond which of them was quicker today.

Robb's first cut struck the upper half of his shield. Jon caught it squarely and thrust beneath the returning blade. His point met wood. Robb had turned his shield in time, and the answering stroke cracked across Jon's raised guard hard enough to jar his wrist.

He knew that strength. He had spent years learning not to meet it with his own.

Jon gave a pace, drawing Robb after him. The red-haired boy came readily, sword lifting beside his cheek. Jon waited for the shoulder to turn. At Winterfell that small movement had told him where the cut would fall before Robb knew he had given it away.

The shoulder turned. Jon raised his shield towards his left temple.

Robb's sword stopped above the rim. For an instant it hung there, and then the point dropped. The wooden edge slapped the outside of Jon's sword arm, just above the elbow.

"Robb," Martyn called.

Jon stepped back, his hand tingling. He had begun lifting his own blade too late; Robb was already out of reach, grinning beneath the helm.

"You remembered," Robb said.

"So did you."

Someone upon the terrace clapped. Harry held out an empty palm to Theon, who pushed it away. Robb glanced towards the sound, then caught himself and faced Jon again. He had earned the point. Jon disliked how much he wanted the next one.

The crowd beside the colonnade shifted. Fair hair showed above a green coat, and men who had been talking turned to bow. Joffrey came to the rail with Sandor Clegane behind him. The prince's riding switch tapped once against his boot as he looked over the practice ground. Jon lowered his sword and bowed with Robb.

"Lord Black." Joffrey's eyes moved to the ash blade. "I thought you had used steel against the pirates."

"I did, Your Grace."

"Then why are you playing with those?" Joffrey glanced towards the weapon rack. "Fetch them proper swords."

Robb's fingers tightened upon his hilt. Jon rested his point in the dust and waited for Santagar, who had already turned towards the prince.

"They will finish with the weapons they were given, Your Grace. They have two bouts left."

Sandor gave a rough laugh. "Put an edge on them. They'll soon stop leaving their arms out."

"Ash for the boys," Santagar said. "The steel is in use at the far end, if Your Grace wishes to watch."

Joffrey looked from him to Jon. He had expected the weapons changed; that was plain enough. Jon kept his face still. After a moment the prince leaned upon the rail and flicked the dust from his sleeve.

Jon took his place again. Robb's shield had risen almost to his eyes.

"You have already hit me," Jon said quietly. "There is no need to hide."

Robb let it fall an inch. "Come and try the other side."

This time Jon began. He struck at the shield rim, withdrew before Robb's sword could come down upon his arm, and tried the same place again. Robb gave him wood each time. He was waiting for Jon to reach farther.

Jon let the third cut turn into a thrust. The point went towards Robb's face and stopped short of the bars; Robb's shield jerked up to cover them. Jon was already stepping across to the sword side. He turned his wrist and struck Robb's ribs before the shield could come down.

Robb's breath left him with a grunt.

"Jon," Martyn said.

They separated. Robb pressed his elbow to the place, then rolled his shoulder and nodded when Jon looked at him. Above the rail Wylla called that he ought to have kept the shield lower. Her sister drew her back from the edge.

"Ask her to come and hold it," Robb muttered.

Jon laughed. The sting in his own arm had become a dull ache. He could feel sweat gathering beneath the padded collar, and beyond Robb's shoulder the sunlight upon the red wall made him narrow his eyes. They changed ends before the last bout. Robb took the brighter ground without complaint.

The next exchange was longer. Robb kept his sword close, cutting from the wrist instead of giving Jon those broad openings. The first stroke struck the shield. The next glanced from Jon's blade and slid towards his fingers. Jon snatched his hand back and thrust for the belly; Robb turned enough to catch it upon the lower corner of his shield.

Their feet scuffed across the dry earth. Jon worked towards Robb's sword arm, but Robb went with him, denying the easy step that had won the second bout. A cut at the head made Jon lift his shield. Robb struck the same place again and came forward behind it.

Jon braced for the weight.

It did not come. Robb checked just out of reach. Jon had leaned into the shove he expected, and for a moment his sword hand lay forward of the shield. Robb cut at it.

Jon turned his blade and caught the blow near the hilts. Robb stepped in at once, his shield coming across to pin Jon's sword hand between them.

Jon gave ground. The shield brushed his knuckles, but his wrist was clear before Robb could bear down. Robb reached after him. Jon knocked the extended blade down, stepped to his left and brought his sword back across Robb's exposed upper arm.

"Jon," Martyn called. "Two to one."

Robb stopped. For a moment he looked at the strip of ground Jon had given up, then lowered his sword. He took off his helm and pushed his damp hair back without looking towards the terrace.

"I thought I had you."

"You nearly did." Jon pulled off his own helm. "And you had me cleanly with the first. I was still watching your shoulder when you changed the cut."

"One out of three."

Jon caught his brother's forearm before Robb could turn away.

"You have got better. You kept me from your sword side in the last bout. I couldn't do what had worked before."

Arthur had come to the rail. "Your feet were better too. You came in behind your shield. It was reaching after him that gave him your arm."

Robb looked from Jon to Arthur. "Then I should have stopped."

"And made him come to you," Arthur said.

Martyn nodded. Robb looked down, tracing the last step with his boot, then returned Jon's grip before letting go.

Patrek leaned across the rail. "How did you turn the first cut? I thought you were going for his head."

"So did he," Robb said. A little of his grin returned. He raised the sword to show him, and Hoster Blackwood came closer. Martyn took the blade away before Robb could strike anyone by accident and let him demonstrate empty-handed. Jon accepted Domeric's water and stood back to give them room.

Joffrey had gone to the horse lane. Sandor followed a pace behind. A page climbed off the mounting block as the Hound approached, taking his cup and a forgotten glove with him.

Harry was counting silver into Theon's palm. He paused when Myranda called down to ask how much he had lost. Theon held the coins up for her to see, which brought a fresh round of laughter from the terrace.

Ysilla had moved to the balustrade beside her. She smiled when Jon looked up and touched two fingers to the bronze ribbon at her wrist. He lifted his cup in greeting. Rowena leaned near her ear; Ysilla gave her a small shove without ceasing to smile.

The attention had spread beyond the ladies he knew. A freckled girl beside Loras's brown-haired sister watched him over the terrace rail. Farther along, two golden-haired girls with lions upon their sleeves had abandoned a game of counters. One whispered to the other when Jon pushed the damp white forelock out of his eyes. He tried to fasten his loosened hair and found that he had lost the tie. Theon watched him search his sleeves with a broad grin.

Robb came back carrying his shield. "Your turn."

"I have given you all a great deal to watch already."

"You have given us a great deal to hear," Patrek said. "Come on."

Theon glanced towards the terrace, then took Jon's sword. "I hope your father has brought enough silver."

Lord Jason Mallister had stopped beside Yohn. He watched his son fasten the shield without joining the laughter. Theon's smile stayed in place, though he pulled his glove tight enough to make the leather creak. Jon remembered Seagard, and whose brother had died beneath Lord Jason's sword. He wondered how often Theon could look at a Mallister without remembering it too.

They began quickly. Theon was lighter on his feet, drawing back from Patrek's first cut and striking at the knee as the other boy recovered. Wood tapped padding. Patrek acknowledged it with a dip of his sword and began again, lower behind his shield.

Theon feinted high. Patrek hardly moved. The low stroke that followed cracked against the bottom of the shield, and Patrek came forward before Theon could draw it back. His answering cut drove Theon's sword across his own chest. Theon had to spring away to free it. Patrek followed and touched his breast before the shield rose. They stepped apart.

"He has seen that one," Robb said.

"You all have," Jon answered.

Theon found another. He struck twice above the shield, making Patrek raise it, then turned the next blow towards the exposed sword arm. Patrek caught it near his hilt. Theon twisted free and went in hard behind his shield, driving him back a step. A shout rose from the terrace. Theon heard his name and pressed farther.

Patrek's heel slipped. His weight went onto his rear foot, but his shield stayed between them. Theon reached around it for the ribs. Patrek turned with the cut, carrying the wooden blade past his side, and brought his own sword down upon Theon's shoulder.

Santagar called the halt. Theon stood with his sword still extended, looking at the place he had meant to hit.

"I shall have you at the butts," he said at last.

"If I am foolish enough to go there with you."

Patrek offered his hand. Theon took it, and the two came back arguing over the first blow. Lord Jason gave his son a brief nod. Jon moved aside to make a place on the rail; Theon sat heavily and reached for the water without looking up at the ladies.

Another pair took the ground before Theon had finished his water. Robb had to lift their borrowed shields off the rail to let the new fighters through. Behind them a servant raised his tray above the crush and called for room. Cups vanished from it as he passed; by the time he reached Jon, only the empty ones remained.

Jon let the noise wash over him while he loosened his coat. There were banners here he knew chiefly from accounts of the men who would die beneath them. They belonged to people who borrowed gloves, argued about horses and asked their mothers for more silver. He wanted Robert's crown. He could not afford to think of the families who held up that crown only as names to be moved about a map.

"You will need more than a good sword arm tomorrow," Arthur said. He was watching the boys make room for the next bout. "At melees as large as the king's, men stand with their countrymen. They know whom they can trust at their backs. It is often kingdom against kingdom until the field thins."

Harry turned to look across the yard. Jon followed his gaze. Lancel had put down the sword Jaime had given him and was calling the western boys away from the horse lane. The Crakehall came at once; the Brax boy held up a finger while he finished with the shield strap. When Lancel spoke, both bent closer to hear him over the blows.

Beyond them, Balon Swann had stopped a pair of boys to correct the way they were carrying their shields. A third waited with a cloak bearing the purple lightning of Dondarrion. He interrupted, pointing towards the mounted lane, and the others turned to watch the stormlander riding back along it. Across the lane the Reach boys had gathered about a shield laid on a barrel. Two red-haired youths were arguing over something marked upon its back. One called to a companion who was still practising; he finished his bout and joined them.

Patrek looked over Robb's shoulder at Hoster. The Blackwood had gone back to the boy from House Bracken, and the two were arguing again.

"I had better settle that before tomorrow," Patrek said. He went to them, catching the Bracken by the elbow when he would have walked away. Whatever their fathers thought of one another, Patrek plainly meant to have the riverlanders together.

Robb followed him with his eyes. "Jon and I will stand together."

"I know," Mychel said. "I spent most of Runestone trying to separate you."

"It will be harder this time." Robb turned to Domeric and Theon. "You two with us?"

Domeric nodded. Theon rubbed the shoulder Patrek had struck. "Provided you remember that I have a back as well."

"And me," Aurane said. "That makes five."

Harry came off the rail. "The Vale boys are with me."

Mychel nodded. Waymar was still counting the westermen; Artys followed his gaze and frowned.

"There are rather more of them."

"Then help us at the start," Jon said to Harry. "We will do the same for you. Nine is enough to make them think before they come at us."

Harry considered the other groups, then looked at Robb. "We stay close until the large companies are broken. After that, the Vale fights for itself."

"Agreed," Robb said. "But give us warning when you mean to turn on us."

"We say so and step apart," Jon said. "No one gets struck by a man he thinks is guarding his back."

Waymar nodded. At Runestone he had gone into the crush to pull Andrew Tollett clear. Jon remembered the iron-shod foot rising above the boy's neck. Knowing who would help him up mattered more than any jest about tomorrow's winner.

Harry held out his hand to Robb. "The North against the Vale at the end, then."

"If you get that far," Robb said.

"Keep Mychel from running away," Jon told Harry. "We shall find you."

Artys looked at the Redfort boy. "I shall mind the boundary this time."

"I never asked you to follow me over it."

The laugh went round them. Harry gave Robb's hand a last squeeze before letting go.

A groom called to Aurane from the horse lane and held up three fingers. Aurane answered with an impatient wave, then caught Jon by the sleeve.

"Our turn. We have the lane for three passes."

Jon looked towards the groom. "You have been arranging this?"

"Since before breakfast. I spoke to Ser Aron while you were still wandering about the keep."

Gawen had brought Jon's harness down with the horses. The borrowed coat came off, and for a few minutes Jon had only the breeze against his damp shirt while buckles were loosened and the pieces laid ready. He welcomed it. Then the weight settled over him again, breastplate against padding, black steel cupping his shoulders. Sunlight drew a smoky sheen across it as Gawen tested the fastening beneath his left arm.

Robb helped with the last strap, pulling it snug before he stepped away. "Keep your shield up. Aurane has been promising to knock you off since we arrived."

Jon looked towards the pale-haired boy, who was already calling for his horse.

At the lane, Ser Aron was explaining to a squire why a shaft split below the head must be put aside. Arthur took it, ran his thumb along the crack and passed it back. The next lance was sound. Jon received it after he was mounted and let the butt rest against his boot while the horse sidled beneath him.

Tomorrow's joust was for knights; the king's officers had barred boys under sixteen from it. Jon and the other young nobles belonged in the squires' melee. Here there were no heralds or prizes, only three practice passes upon a shorter course.

"Shield only," Santagar told them. "A clean break counts. Ride through, let the horse slow, then turn. I will have no one wheeling into the next pair."

Aurane nodded solemnly from behind the green shield with its silver seahorse. Jon knew him well enough to distrust that expression. He lowered his visor before Aurane could see him smile.

The horse's neck shone dark with sweat. Jon let it walk to the end of the barrier while Gawen came beside him, one hand loose upon the bridle. The lane seemed longer from the saddle, though not long enough to forgive a wandering lance. At its far end a groom stood clear of Aurane's horse and lifted an empty hand.

Jon settled the shield against his shoulder. The weight of the lance pulled at his right elbow. He brought the point higher, found the place upon Aurane's shield where he meant it to land and waited for Santagar's arm to fall.

The first strides threw him back against the saddle. He came forward with the horse, knees closing, the wooden barrier sliding past his left side. Aurane was approaching too quickly for the careful picture Jon had made of him. Green shield, the dark slit of a helm, a pale lance head shaking towards his chest.

Jon lowered his own point.

The impact knocked his shield towards his face. His lance scraped across Aurane's instead of taking it squarely; he felt the shaft bend, then spring straight as they passed. Aurane's point slid off the lower edge of the black shield. Both rode on with their lances whole.

At the end Jon raised his weapon and breathed out. Gawen caught the bridle once the horse had slowed.

"You looked at his point."

"I saw it coming."

"So did your horse. He kept going."

Jon turned his head. Gawen was smiling beneath his beard. Beyond him Loras Tyrell leaned upon the barrier, watching Aurane turn at the other end.

"He pulled his shield across too soon," Loras said. "You both did."

"Thank you," Jon answered. "I shall try to be less obliging."

He returned to his place. From the terrace came a call he could not make out. He kept his eyes at the far end while Aurane settled the green shield. This time Jon chose the centre of the seahorse and refused to look away from it.

The horse gathered speed. The lance grew heavier as he lowered it, its long shaft trembling with every stride. Jon brought his elbow closer to his body. The silver beast rose and fell before him, close now, close enough that he could see a scrape through its painted belly.

His point struck below it.

The shaft bowed and burst. Splinters flashed past his visor. Aurane's lance struck too low, skated beneath the black shield and went wide of Jon's thigh. Jon rode clear with the broken butt beneath his arm and heard Robb shout before he could lift his head.

Santagar held up a finger towards him. "One to Lord Black."

At the far end Aurane raised his lance in acknowledgment. Jon gave him a brief salute with what remained of his own. When the groom brought the replacement, he had to uncurl his fingers before he could take it.

"You are holding it as though someone means to steal it," Gawen said.

Jon loosened his grip. There was one pass left. Across the yard Aurane had stopped smiling. He settled his shield higher and tested its angle with a small turn of his elbow.

Jon knew what was coming. Knowing did not make the approach any slower.

They met level with the middle of the barrier. Both points found the shields. Jon heard his own lance crack, felt Aurane's blow drive through wood and padding into his shoulder, and for a dreadful instant the horse seemed to be going on without him. He clenched his knees and dragged his weight forward. The shield rim struck his helm. He could see nothing but black wood until he forced it down again.

The horse was still beneath him. He was still in the saddle.

At the end he lifted his visor and sucked in air. Across the lane Aurane had stopped with a broken lance across his thighs, one hand braced upon the saddle bow. Then he looked up and began to laugh.

"Two to one," Arthur called from beside the master-at-arms. "Lord Black."

Jon turned towards the sound. Robb was striking Theon's arm with an open palm; Theon was trying to keep him off long enough to collect a wager. Ysilla applauded from the terrace, and several girls beside her joined in. Others were leaning forward to see whether Aurane would dismount. An older lady on the terrace called down that she wanted that grey brought round again before anyone took it away.

Gawen took Jon's lance. "Stay there a moment."

"I can get down."

"Then do it slowly."

Jon passed him the shield first. His left shoulder protested when its weight lifted. He swung a leg over and landed with more care than he wished the watchers to see. The ground felt very still after the movement of the horse. Gawen watched his face while he loosened the strap at his throat.

"Lift the arm."

Jon did. It rose above his head, though the movement drew a sharp ache through the muscle. Gawen made him lower it again and took the helm without further comment.

Aurane came round the end of the barrier with his hair plastered to his brow. He was flexing his fingers.

"Eight moons," he said. "Eight moons waiting to give you a proper blow where someone could see it."

"You might have waited long enough to win."

Aurane put his head back and laughed. Jon caught his hand before he could clap the sore shoulder. They stood grinning at one another, filthy and winded, until the groom asked them to move out of the way.

Arthur joined them beneath the arch. He pressed two fingers lightly against Jon's shoulder through the padding and watched him wince.

"That is enough for today."

Jon had no wish to argue. The ache was spreading down his arm, and his right hand had begun to shake now that there was no lance in it. He let Gawen help him out of the harness. Beside him Aurane took off his own glove and found a blister rising at the base of his thumb.

Aurane wetted a cloth and wrapped it round his palm. Across the yard his brother raised a hand to call him over. Aurane's expression changed; he gave the spare cloth back to Gawen and went. Jon followed once the last buckle was free.

Lord Monford stood with a red-haired man whose cloak was fastened by a cluster of golden grapes. Two lanky youths waited beside them, so alike that Jon needed a second look to distinguish their faces. Loras came from the horse lane and supplied the names.

"My uncle, Lord Paxter. Horas and Hobber are my cousins."

Paxter greeted Arthur and Jon, then returned to a tale about a cargo refused at Duskendale. Monford knew the captain; at the merchant's name he shook his head, and Paxter laughed. They spoke easily of men and ships Jon had never heard of. Then Paxter turned to the voyages Monford's new associates intended to make.

"Where will your prizes be sailing, Lord Black?" Paxter asked.

"First I must have them fit to sail," Jon said. "Some came home badly knocked about."

Paxter waited, still smiling. He had not asked about repairs.

"There will be holds to fill on the return," Monford said. "If your factor gives my steward a reckoning of what you need from Pentos, we can see where the voyage might profit us both."

"I would rather hear what you have in mind yourself. Come to me after the jousting."

"Gladly."

Monford had offered a reason to meet again without answering the question about their plans. Paxter accepted it as readily as he had the talk of his captain. Jon listened more closely when they resumed.

Ysilla and Rowena came down from the terrace while the older men talked. Two girls followed them, with a maid carrying a basket and reminding Rowena that they had meant to fetch her mother's gloves. They stopped at the rail to let a groom pass.

"You kept your seat," Ysilla said to Jon.

"For a moment I thought I had left it behind."

"We saw."

He looked at her. She smiled, and Rowena's companion hid a laugh behind her fingers. Jon could feel the damp collar lying crooked against his neck. He straightened it with his good hand.

One of the twins had been about to speak to Ysilla. He waited while she asked Jon whether his shoulder hurt, then rested his forearms upon the rail.

"The short course helps. A horse has scarcely begun to run before you meet."

"Tell mine," Aurane said. He had returned in time to hear. "I should like him to take it more gently."

The other twin smiled. Loras was looking back towards Garlan and did not seem to notice.

"Horas," the first boy said to Jon. "We have not spoken."

"Jon Black."

"I had gathered that."

The smile had not left his face. Jon waited. Horas looked from him to the girls, then down at the black shield Gawen had set against the wall.

"You will find the lists different tomorrow."

"I shall be watching them," Jon said. "Like you."

Hobber turned a laugh into a cough. Horas's colour rose. "I meant the melee. There will be rather more to watch than one rider coming towards you."

"I hope there will," Robb said. He had come up with Theon and was looking frankly at Horas now. "We did not ride all this way for one."

"There is ground free beside the rack," Horas told Jon. "We might see what you have learnt before then."

Jon looked across. A boy was rolling up the sleeve of his practice coat, the arm beneath it red where a blow had landed. Beyond him three Reachmen were calling another of their companions over. He was tired, his shoulder hurt, and Horas was offering him a fight because Ysilla had asked after it. The recognition made the invitation less tempting, not more.

"Tomorrow," Jon said. "I have finished today."

"Already?"

"I have three passes in my shoulder already. You can have your chance in the melee."

Gawen lifted the black breastplate from the bench and turned it over to check a fastening. Ysilla had gone quiet. Rowena took the basket from her maid and asked whether they were going up to the keep.

"Tomorrow, then," Horas said.

He went to the rack. Hobber hesitated, gave Jon a brief nod and followed. A few moments later Horas was facing the boy with the rolled sleeve. His first cut made the other lift his shield; the second caught the exposed arm before it could withdraw. He stepped away at once, ready for the answer.

"He is good," Aurane said.

"I can see that."

Jon watched another exchange. Horas wasted less movement now that there was a sword in his hand. It would be foolish to mistake a boy's resentment for an inability to do anything about it.

Rowena's maid reminded her of the gloves. This time she listened. Ysilla offered Jon a last smile before following, and Horas missed the beginning of his opponent's attack while watching her go.

"That," Theon said, "I can understand."

Robb laughed. Aurane did not look quite ready to leave them when Monford called again.

"Will you sit with us tonight?" Jon asked him.

"If I am not wanted elsewhere."

"Ask your brother. I would like you there."

Aurane studied him for a moment, then nodded. "So would I."

At the armoury door Garlan had finished helping one of his opponents unbuckle a shoulder piece. He looked towards Arthur, saw him free of the older lords at last, and crossed the yard with his practice sword held by the blade.

"Ser Arthur, will you give me a bout?"

Arthur looked at the sword in his hand. "Have you enough left for one?"

"I have been saving it."

Jaime Lannister heard him from among the westermen. He left Lancel holding the practice sword and came towards them, his attention upon Arthur. Barristan was nearer the horse gate; he turned at Jaime's approach and asked Santagar to clear the ground beyond the armoury door.

Arthur gave Garlan a small nod. "One bout."

The young knight smiled and went to fetch his helm. Loras saw him coming and followed at once, asking something Jon could not hear. Garlan answered without stopping. He had a close brown beard and his brother's handsome features in a broader face; beside Loras's restless brightness, his composure had seemed almost quiet. Now he was testing the grip of his sword with unmistakable eagerness.

The word reached the horse lane before Garlan fastened his helm. Riders checked their mounts; boys lowered their swords and came towards the rail. Lancel brought the westermen behind Jaime. Patrek arrived between the Blackwood and Bracken, still talking to both. Paxter and Monford left their conversation unfinished. Balon Swann called the stormland squires out of their way, while Thoros abandoned his cup to follow Beric Dondarrion.

Above them, women pressed along the terrace. An older lord stood because everyone before him had. The boys who had been arguing over weapons now stood shoulder to shoulder with visiting lords. From the keep steps to the horse gate, everyone watched Arthur and Garlan.

Lyn Corbray stayed where he was. Lady Forlorn hung at his side, a red stone bright in the sunlight. Mychel had gone to him when summoned and now held his cloak. Jon remembered Runestone and watched Lyn's face as Arthur chose a practice sword. The knight's mouth tightened, then relaxed into a smile that did not reach his eyes.

Santagar sent two boys to move a rack away from the clear ground. The last pair of fighters yielded it willingly when they saw who wanted the space. Gawen took Arthur's grey-white cloak and helped him with the padded jack. Arthur bound back the black hair that had come loose at his neck, settled a plain helm and drew on his gloves.

"You are smiling," Robb told Jon.

"Am I?"

"Like you knew what would happen before the rest of us."

Jon looked towards Garlan, who was waiting with his sword upright in both hands. "I should like to see how long he makes Arthur work for it."

Loras heard. "Longer than you think."

"I hope so."

The two knights saluted. Sandor's mouth twisted.

"Pretty fucking manners. Are they going to kiss as well?"

Joffrey laughed. Sandor did not look at him. Garlan had taken his first step forward, and the Hound was watching the swords. Around them the talking stopped. A horse stamped beyond the ring of spectators; Jon could hear the leather of Garlan's glove tighten upon his hilt.

Garlan struck at Arthur's hands. Arthur drew them back and cut towards his head. Garlan's blade came up to meet it with a sharp ring. He stepped to his left as the swords parted, trying to reach Arthur's sword side before the older man could turn.

Arthur turned with him. His point caught Garlan's blade and pushed it past his ribs. The young knight withdrew before the counter could reach him.

The step gained him nothing. Garlan did not repeat it at once. He moved nearer, struck high and followed the checked blow with a thrust from below. Arthur caught both. Steel flashed between them, the blades meeting close to the hilts before sliding apart with a sound that set Jon's teeth on edge.

Garlan pressed harder. A cut at Arthur's left shoulder became a thrust towards his breast. Arthur took a pace back. Garlan followed, keeping the point before him, and Arthur retreated again.

"There," Joffrey said from beside Barristan. "He has him going back."

Jaime had ceased smiling. His eyes followed Arthur's leading foot.

Garlan began another thrust, then checked it. Arthur's sword had turned across his own, close enough to catch and carry it aside if he drove on. Instead Garlan drew away. The answering cut passed before his helm with room to spare.

"Why did he stop?" Joffrey asked.

"He saw where he was being led," Barristan said.

Joffrey glanced towards Sandor for an answer he liked better. The Hound's eyes remained upon Arthur. The prince turned back to the bout.

Garlan circled back towards the centre. His first rush had brought him close to the rack before he realised how far he had travelled. He looked down once to place his feet, then raised his sword again. Arthur waited.

The next attack came lower. Garlan cut at the forward thigh, made Arthur draw it back, and sent his point up towards the opening beneath the arm. Arthur turned it outward. Garlan followed the turn, stepping in until the swords crossed almost at the guards.

This time he had made the older man meet his strength. Arthur's boot scraped back through the dust. Garlan drove after it, shoulders behind his hands, trying to bear the blades aside far enough to bring his own point home.

Arthur yielded.

The resistance vanished so suddenly that Garlan's arms went forward beyond his balance. He caught himself with a long step and twisted after Arthur, dragging his sword around. The blade arrived just in time. Arthur's cut rang against it beside his ear.

Garlan had stopped the blow, but not comfortably. His right knee bent almost to the earth. He forced it straight and backed away with his sword between them. Jon heard Loras draw a breath beside him.

"He was waiting for the push," Robb murmured.

Jon nodded. He glanced at Robb, who had stopped rubbing his arm and was watching Arthur's feet. Both had been too eager for the last touch in their own bout. Jon had got clear in time; he could easily have been the one looking for his balance.

Arthur did not chase him. That seemed to irritate Garlan more than the counter. He shook one hand loose upon the hilt, took a breath and came forward again.

He showed Arthur a cut at the hands, much as he had begun. Arthur raised them out of reach. Garlan had already checked the stroke, ready to catch the return as it came down towards his head.

Arthur's sword began to fall. Garlan lifted his own across its path.

Before the edges met, Arthur stopped the cut and drew his point around the end of Garlan's blade. His hands came forward instead of down. The blunt tip struck the padded coat beneath Garlan's raised arms.

The young knight went still. Then he lowered his sword and looked at the point resting against his breast.

"I yield."

Arthur withdrew the blade. Garlan lifted his visor, breathing hard, and held out his hand. The applause broke around them as Arthur took it. On the terrace people straightened from the balustrade and began talking at once.

Garlan did not leave the ground. "Would you show me that last stroke again?"

Arthur raised his sword slowly. Garlan set his own across its path, as he had a moment before, and watched the blunt point travel round the end of his blade. He tried to follow it. His hands were too high; the point reached his coat while his sword was still coming down. This time it barely touched him.

Garlan lowered his hands and tried the defence again. Loras had come through the rail to see. When Arthur repeated the movement, Garlan caught the blade and held it away from his body.

"There," Arthur said.

"Thank you, ser."

Jaime watched Garlan try the movement once more with his own blade. Arthur took off his helm. Sweat shone in the hair at his temples, black threaded with grey. Garlan had made him work, and earned the applause that followed him off the ground.

Yohn reached over the rail to grip Garlan's shoulder. Balon Swann, beside him, offered the young knight his water. Lyn Corbray turned away and called for Mychel to bring his gloves. The ordinary work of the yard began again, though the men nearest Jon were still arguing over the last stroke.

"Your uncle made good use of the ground," Oberyn said. "Did you have much room to give way against the pirates?"

Jon turned. The prince had come from the spear rack with Obara beside him. She carried a blunted ash spear loosely in one hand. Oberyn's orange sleeves were pushed back from his wrists; he looked as though he had found the morning much to his liking.

"Not often. At doors, on stairs, I had men close behind me." Jon glanced towards Robb. "I could step clear of him. If I had tried that in some of those passages, I would have struck a wall."

Oberyn nodded. Beside him, Obara shifted the spear to her other hand.

"Have you fought one of these?"

"In practice."

She was taller than several of the men at the rail, long-legged and broad through the shoulders. Brown hair had been pulled away from her face; a strip of leather held it at the nape. The hand upon the spear was hard with old calluses.

"You are quick coming in past a sword," she said. "I should like to see whether you can get past my point. Will you spar with me before you leave?"

Robb stopped listening to Garlan.

"When I can lift my shield without regretting it," Jon said.

"Tomorrow, then?"

"After the melee. If you have not had to carry me off it."

Obara looked him over, taking the answer seriously. "Send word when you are ready. Bring the shield."

"I shall."

She nodded and went to ask Arthur about the final thrust. Oberyn watched her for a moment before turning back to Jon.

"My daughter is already planning your defeat," Oberyn said with a smile. "I would be careful what you show her tomorrow."

The prince drank from his cup. Beside him Robb was looking at the spear with an interest Jon was certain would become helpful advice before the day was out.

A page reached Barristan at the edge of the ground. The Lord Commander bent to hear him, then beckoned Jaime from the rail. Jaime exchanged a few quiet words with Arthur as he passed. The two white cloaks went beneath the colonnade together.

Their departure seemed to remind others of the hour. Santagar called for the borrowed swords. Grooms came to reclaim horses; ladies upon the terrace began finding the cloaks and gloves they had left upon other people's chairs. Someone was looking for a lost brooch. Aries had been watching from beside Gawen and now asked whether there was still time for one bout. Gawen promised him the quieter yard another day, then sent him to fetch Jon's belt.

Ysilla passed above them on her way to the stair. "Lord Black."

Jon looked up. She rested a hand upon the stone, leaning far enough to see beneath the awning.

"Save me a dance tonight."

"I shall."

Ysilla smiled. Rowena called her from the stair, and she went after her, glancing back once before the red stone hid her from view. Jon was still looking towards the stair when Aries came with his belt. He took it and began to buckle it, aware of Theon's grin beside him.

Behind them, the last pair unbuckled their helms while Santagar checked the returned weapons at the rack.

They were leaving the practice ground when a young man in Arryn blue came beneath the colonnade. He waited for a groom to pass, then bowed to Jon and Arthur.

"Lord Black. Ser Arthur. Lord Arryn asks you to attend him. His High Holiness is with him."

"Your name?" Jon asked.

"Hugh, my lord. His lordship's squire."

Hugh of the Vale. Jon looked again at the rough young face. He remembered a new knight dying beneath Gregor Clegane's lance, blood spilling through a gap in his gorget. Here Hugh wore a plain wool doublet and waited to be told whether his message had been understood.

"We will come." Jon gave his gloves to Gawen. "Tell Perrin we shall be a little longer. Robb, I will find you before we go into the hall."

"Lord Black. A moment, if you can spare it."

Petyr Baelish had come from the steps with a clerk beside him. He dismissed the man with a word and turned towards Robb. A silver mockingbird fastened his cloak; grey showed in the dark hair above his ears. His smile made the interruption seem a pleasure offered to them both.

"And this must be Robb Stark. Petyr Baelish. Your mother and I grew up together at Riverrun."

Robb offered his hand. "Lord Baelish."

"You have her eyes." Petyr held his hand a moment longer. "We were very dear friends. She could make me do almost anything in those days."

Jon had heard enough about that friendship in another life. Baelish had boasted in this very city of taking both Catelyn and Lysa's maidenheads. Robb knew none of it. He was smiling at a man who spoke warmly of his mother.

"Then you have something in common with our father," Jon said. "What can we do for you, Lord Baelish?"

Petyr's gaze shifted to him. "I wished to ask about those cups. Porcelain, I am told. I have seen merchants keep poorer pieces locked away, and you bring whole cases. How did you contrive it?"

"Better clay and a great many spoiled firings. Our potters put more work into them than the finished cups suggest."

"And the salt? White as snow, without a speck in it. You will have cooks quarrelling over that." Petyr looked from Jon's sword to his face. "A soldier, an inventor, and now a merchant. Dragonstone has kept you busy."

"The ships need something to carry when they are not chasing pirates."

"Then let us find them buyers. You have goods that would sell well beyond these shores. I know men in the Free Cities who could place them in houses where price is seldom the first question. A few introductions might spare you years."

Jon raised one brow. "In what capacity would you make them? As Petyr Baelish, or as the king's master of coin?"

Petyr laughed, spreading his hands. "The master of coin, naturally. The Crown has every reason to invest in promising endeavours. His Grace favours you, does he not? I should be remiss if I failed to consider how that favour might profit you both."

"I will think on it. We are expected by the Hand."

"Ah. The children in those fighting pits. A shameful business." His smile faded appropriately. "I hope his lordship has better news for you."

He stepped clear of the passage. "Until this evening, Lord Black. Robb, it was good to meet you. Give your mother my fondest regards."

Robb promised he would. Petyr went towards the yard, stopping beside a lord who had called his name.

Hugh waited ahead of them. Jon looked from the squire to Baelish and felt how little distance there was between the men he remembered and those standing before him. After the feast he would make time to set down what he knew. Arryn's murder, Lysa's part in it, the summons that had brought his father south: he had postponed them while ships and workshops demanded his attention. Keeping Arryn alive would be a beginning. Stannis already held a different seat; the old sequence could no longer be trusted. He wanted Robert's throne, but a civil war now could destroy his family and everything he was building before he was ready to contend for it.

"Petyr, was it?" Robb stopped at the stair that led to their chambers. "I shall write to Mother and mention him. An interesting man. What do you think he wanted?"

Jon watched Baelish's retreating back.

"Everything."

***
​

The High Septon occupied the broadest chair in Arryn's chamber. White silk lay in heavy folds over his belly, and a cushion supported one swollen foot. His great crystal crown rested beside a silver cup. Sunlight caught its points and scattered pale colours over the table.

Arryn rose to receive them. Arthur bowed beside Jon; the High Septon extended a soft hand and pronounced a blessing before inviting them to sit.

"One of my brethren wrote to you about the people brought from Lys," he began. "His account interested me greatly. Lord Arryn tells me there are now more than three thousand."

"Three thousand two hundred, counting the children, Your High Holiness."

"And you continue to bring them?"

"As we find room and work for them. Some have wives or children still held elsewhere. My agents ask after them."

The High Septon settled his hands upon his stomach. "A husband freed while his wife remains in bondage has little peace in his freedom. I am glad you have considered it."

"They remind us."

Jon remembered what he had read of the men who had held that office. Religious scruples had proved flexible enough when wealth or influence was at stake. This one had died in a riot; his successor's murder had cleared the way for the High Sparrow. For now, the old man sat comfortably in his white silk, taking an interest in Ned Stark's son and the people he had freed. What did he truly want?

"We hear much of your victories," the High Septon continued. "This deserves to be heard as widely. Your father's honour is well known, Lord Black. It pleases me to find it in his son."

Jon thanked him.

"Yet you keep Lord Eddard's gods, I understand."

"I do."

"The Mother does not withhold her mercy until a man knows her name." He smiled. "You have done a work dear to her. I would have the Faith help you continue it."

"What help do you propose?"

"Septons who can teach, septas who can tend the children. Men who will hear the newcomers' troubles and help them find their kin. There are charitable households throughout the realm who would gladly give to such a cause, if it were commended to them."

Arryn leaned forward. "That could be of considerable help. Your officers have homes to find and work to arrange. Men and women accustomed to caring for children would ease their task." He turned to the High Septon. "How would you provide for them?"

"Through a house at Blackburn. Lord Black might grant the ground and undertake its building. The Faith would appoint its keeper and gather alms. Each ship would deliver its people into his care until their needs were known and places found for them."

"My officers already receive them," Jon said. "They explain their freedom in their own tongues and find out what work they can do."

"And they would have assistance. You have many calls upon you."

"You could meet the proposed keeper," Arryn suggested. "His duties can be settled before he sails."

The High Septon inclined his head. "Certainly. I would also invite Lord Black to the Great Sept. We could give thanks for those delivered from bondage and announce the work before the congregation. Other lords might be moved to follow his example."

There it was, offered as generously as the teachers. Ned Stark's son before the altars, the High Septon blessing his work, the freed people entering a house governed by the Faith. By the time the tale reached Oldtown, few would trouble over who had begun it.

And what a triumph for the man who brought him there. The first to win one of Eddard Stark's sons from the old gods. Jon could imagine the claim travelling through the septs. Whether he had actually changed his faith might matter very little once enough people had heard it.

He had chosen the Valyrian families deliberately. He wanted them free, and Dragonstone needed their labour. He also meant them to become a loyal core of his own people. His forebears had remained a small Valyrian dynasty among far more numerous Andal subjects, dependent upon great houses with ambitions of their own. When he finally stood before these families as Aemon Targaryen, he wanted them to know the ruler under whom they had made their homes. Their children would grow up on his lands, with their future bound to the island's prosperity. He would not hand their settlement and schooling to men appointed in King's Landing.

"I thank you for the offer, Your High Holiness. My officers will continue to settle the newcomers, and I will choose the masters for their schools. We have no need of another house to direct that work."

The High Septon's smile faded. "Men serving the Faith must answer to it. I could not send a septon who would be forbidden to discharge his duties."

"Then I will find other masters."

"Jon," Arryn said, "you have found good use for learned men before. Surely their duties could be agreed without turning away everyone His High Holiness might send."

"I would have them teach children who keep different gods. I will not give the Faith charge of those schools."

"A septon teaches what is true, Lord Black. You cannot ask him to put the Seven aside when a child seeks instruction."

"Those who wish to hear him may do so. Their schooling will remain in my care." Jon set down his cup. "And I must decline the thanksgiving. I keep my father's gods. I would not have my presence before your altars taken to mean otherwise."

"We have welcomed men of your faith before," the High Septon said.

"I do not doubt it. But this would be a ceremony in my name."

The High Septon looked towards Arryn. The Hand said nothing. He had offered a way to continue the discussion, and Jon had refused it.

"My brethren will wish to hear more about these schools," the old man said at last. "One of the Most Devout will seek you this evening. I trust you will hear him."

"I will hear what he has to say."

He had agreed to nothing else. Yet the High Septon spoke as though the matter must remain open until Jon gave a different answer. His refusal would now be discussed by men who had a sept in almost every town of the south.

Arthur helped the High Septon rise. An attendant came forward with his crown; another took his arm. Jon bowed as their white robes passed through the doorway.

Arryn waited for the door to close. "I think you refused more than you needed to. The Faith could have spared you much expense, and those children need teachers now."

"I will pay for their teaching myself."

"Then see that you find the masters. It would be a poor bargain if the children waited while we argued over who should instruct them."

Jon inclined his head. Arryn had seen a useful offer lost. He could hardly tell him what else he meant those schools to serve.

The Hand nodded and moved a packet bearing the Guild's seal. "Ser Jaime's account has led us to two stores. The vessels have been removed, and the families above them are safe. The Red Keep is still being searched. Beneath the Dragonpit we have a blocked passage that cannot be entered until the masonry is supported. I have ordered the adjoining rooms emptied."

Arthur asked whether Jaime had been told.

"He has the report. We will speak further when the Guild knows more."

Jon glanced at the sealed packet, then back at Arryn. "And the fighting houses? I would arrange the visits you promised yesterday."

"You may visit the children. I have reconsidered the rest."

"You gave me leave to hear what your men had learned."

"And I withdraw it. They have work enough without a second party questioning the same people. You will not take your guard through those streets looking for suspects."

"The men who escaped have had eight moons to find other cellars."

"I know how long it has been." Arryn's voice hardened. "This is the king's city. The inquiry is mine. If you learn something, bring it to me, at any hour. You have no leave to pursue it yourself."

Jon could feel Arthur beside him, waiting. He understood the order. He also knew what an empty cellar meant when the men who had used it remained free. Arryn would not be moved by another argument now.

"You will hear if I learn anything," he said.

Outside, Hugh was waiting beside the door. Jon thanked him and followed Arthur towards their chambers. They still had to wash and see that Perrin had the gifts ready. Beyond that lay the feast, and after it the time Jon had promised himself. He would make it, however late the king kept them.

 

[aiwonder]

Wylla made him take the coat off again.

"It pulls when you reach."

"Only there." Jon lifted his arm to show her and regretted it. Aurane's lance had left a broad tenderness below the shoulder; the bath had done less for it than he had hoped.

"Let me take it out a little." She held out her hand.

He surrendered the coat. She had a needle ready, a length of black thread caught against her lip. At the window, Perrin kept his place on the list with a thumbnail while Gawen counted the men needed to carry the cases. Every box was below, every fastening checked. Jon had asked twice about the wheels of the little horse, until Perrin reminded him that they had rolled it through half the castle without losing one.

Now they were waiting for him.

Jon stood in his doublet while Wylla worked. The velvet was so dark that its folds disappeared unless he turned towards the light. Silver buttons closed it high at the throat. His coat, finer wool over a silk lining, had skirts divided for riding and a collar embroidered in black upon black. He had approved the leaves when they were scarcely more than chalk upon cloth. Upon his back they caught the light like wet foliage.

He had thought more about how the clothes would look than how they would feel. In his former life a coat this carefully fitted would have spent most of the year shut in a wardrobe. Here a lord was expected to wear his prosperity where other men could judge it. He meant them to judge the work well.

Wylla bit through the thread and beckoned him closer. This time she guided the sore arm herself.

"Now."

He reached for the window latch. The cloth gave with him.

"Better?"

"Much."

She smoothed the shoulder, then looked at the hair falling across his face. "Sit down. Your hair is still damp."

Hugin objected to being removed from the chair. Munin answered him from the bedpost, waking one of the three birds in the baskets. Wylla ignored the commotion. Her comb caught once; she set a hand against Jon's head to keep him still and worked it free. He closed his eyes. For a little while there was only the comb, the pull of fingers separating his white forelock, and the familiar sound of her setting things right about him.

Robb knocked while she was fastening the sword belt. He came in carrying Ned's letter flat against the folded cloak meant for Tommen. White edging showed at the wrists of his grey wool doublet, and a silver direwolf fastened its high collar. He tugged at that fastening while he waited for Jon to look round. His auburn hair had been combed smooth, though a damp curl was already escaping above one ear.

Theon followed in black velvet, gold braid running from his collar to the fitted waist. His belt buckle bore a little kraken, its arms spread across the leather. He brushed a pale thread from one sleeve, checked the other, then leaned over Robb's shoulder to look at the letter. His gloves were tucked beneath the belt; unlike Robb, he seemed entirely comfortable in the finery.

"Father says I am to put this into the king's own hands."

"Then do."

"I know that." Robb shifted the cloak. "Does he read them there, with everyone watching?"

"He may. You need not watch him read."

Theon reached for the letter. Robb drew it away.

"I was going to see whether Lord Stark had left room for the king's answers. He generally gives me more questions than parchment."

"You generally give him reason."

Jon smiled. Wylla caught his chin before he could turn towards them and straightened his collar. Her hands paused when she had finished. He covered one with his own, squeezed it, and rose.

Martyn took the cloak from Robb outside. Down the passage, Arthur waited beside the household men, speaking softly to the fitter who had come with Robert's armour. The man had a leather bag clutched between his knees. He stood as soon as he saw Jon and nearly upset it.

"You know the work," Jon told him. "If a strap wants moving, move it. That is why you are here."

The man nodded, less reassured than Jon had intended. Arthur picked up the bag and handed it to him.

At the end of the passage they heard the feast before they saw it.

The sound came through great doors bound with bronze: voices lifted above voices, the scrape of a stool, a trumpet trying a few notes and being answered by laughter. Warm air carried the smell of pepper and roasted onions into the cooler passage. A servant went backwards through the doorway beneath the front of a long platter, trusting the man behind him to keep them clear of the jamb.

Robb stopped just inside. Theon came up against his shoulder.

At Winterfell a feast grew noisy when the ale had gone round. Here men were already calling to acquaintances three tables away, though the king had yet to arrive. White cloth covered the tables nearest the dais. Lower down, a boy knelt on a bench to scour a wine stain with a handful of rushes while its owner argued that he had hardly touched the flagon. Sunlight fell in tall strips from the windows, catching the raised cups and leaving the faces beneath them in shadow.

Robert's hunting tapestries hung between the banners. One showed a white hart brought to bay beside a stream; the stitched water had faded almost to the colour of the animal. Under it a servant was trying to pass a bench whose occupants had all turned towards a dispute at the next table. He waited until a lady saw him, and her touch on her husband's sleeve did what his murmured requests had not.

"There are more people eating here than—" Robb began, then stopped counting.

"And more waiting to eat behind the screens," Theon said. He had found the servants' doors.

Jon looked past them to the Iron Throne. The royal table stood below it, screened from the lower hall by the breadth of the dais rather than any wall. Empty, the throne seemed less a seat than a heap left by some destructive labour. He followed a blade jutting from one arm and wondered how often a tired man had forgotten it was there.

He would have to sit upon it someday. This afternoon he had brought its present owner a gift.

Perrin found them before a steward could send them down the wrong aisle. Monford Velaryon had kept the place beside him, on Jon's left. Beyond the seahorse clasp at his shoulder, Ardrian Celtigar was refusing to move a dish until Mylenda Bar Emmon assured him that another would come. The Crownlanders stretched away past their company; Rosby's cough interrupted Lady Tanda Stokeworth often enough that she began waiting for it before she finished a sentence.

Robb sat at Jon's right. Wylis Manderly drew his chair nearer to make room, and Wendel leaned across the table to catch the bread before Theon could sit upon the end of it. The Vale company continued beyond them. Harry waved with his cup, received a look from Anya Waynwood, and lowered it without drinking. Mychel found this very amusing.

Across the aisle, a Marbrand youth had risen to let Myranda Lefford and Darlessa Marbrand reach Genna's company at the Westerlands table. Farther along, a man wearing the nightingales of Caron insisted upon demonstrating a horse's stumble with both hands. One Buckler laughed; another protested that the ground had been bad. The Stormlanders had heard the story before and intended to enjoy it again.

Aries arrived late enough to receive a reproach from Wylla Manderly.

"You said you were coming straight here."

"Ser Vaelor wanted to see the dragon skulls."

"You wanted to show him."

Aries glanced towards Jon, who was occupied with his cup. Wynafryd took her sister's elbow and made room for the boy. She wore green, with pearls drawn through her hair; when she leaned across to greet Jon, her gaze went to the arm he was keeping close.

"I saw Aurane's second pass."

Theon nodded towards Aurane. "He has been describing it ever since."

Aurane, sitting opposite, waited for Jon to defend himself.

"I won the other two."

"He describes those less often," Robb added, and Aurane accepted the bread with a dignity that made Domeric laugh.

Then the trumpets sounded properly. Men stood so quickly that a bench went over near the doors. The noise dwindled beneath the last bright note.

Robert brought his own laughter into the hall. Gold stags ran across his black velvet, and the belt under his belly shone with yellow stones. Renly walked beside him, listening with the bright attention that encouraged a man to make his story better. The brothers had the same smile, though Renly's sat upon a younger, unburdened face.

Cersei followed with the children. Tommen had his hand in Myrcella's and was attempting to see past everyone at once. Joffrey's blue silk was fastened with little golden lions. He bowed to the hall before his mother did; Jon saw Cersei's hand settle briefly upon his shoulder in approval.

Arryn brought Lysa and their son to their places. At the other end of the high table, Stannis waited for Selyse to sit before drawing out his own chair. Shireen leaned towards her cousin, her dark hair slipping over the grey ridges on her cheek. Renly said something to her and she smiled, then looked to her father to see whether he had heard.

The council found its places amid the last adjustments. Pycelle gathered his chain clear of a bowl. Varys helped a page retrieve a fallen napkin. Petyr Baelish, arriving with two gentlemen who had been contesting a seat, left one beside a man he plainly knew and conducted the other farther along. Both appeared pleased. Jon wished he had heard what Petyr had promised them.

Robert raised his cup to Tommen. The boy stood upon his footstool, accepted the cheers gravely, and sat before they had finished because Myrcella was showing him a dish of cherries.

The first dishes came while men were still drinking the toast. Trout lay in butter speckled with herbs, their crisp skins splitting beneath the serving spoon. Monford opened a pigeon pie; steam rose between them, rich with onions and gravy. Jon took fish before anyone could ask him a question. At the next table a girl was trying to eat a little bird baked into pastry without touching its protruding feet.

The herald had to call twice before the bearers could get through. Tommen's cherries were moved to make room for a silver cup, a painted shield, and a hunting horn which he blew before the giver had finished bowing. Cersei lowered it with two fingers. Arryn put a book before him instead, opened to a stag pursued by hounds. Tommen wanted to know whether the stag escaped. The Hand found the last page of the tale, considered it, and said they would read it together.

Then the Tyrell servants brought in a wicker cage. Its birds remained silent while Mace described the singing they had done at Highgarden.

Loras leaned towards his sister. Margaery shook her head at whatever he suggested, knelt beside the cage, and gave a low whistle. One bird cocked its head. She tried again. It answered so suddenly that Tommen laughed, and Myrcella came round her mother's chair to see.

"They sing to one another," Margaery told her. "If he begins, she usually follows."

Tommen attempted the whistle. Only air emerged. Margaery waited while he tried a second time, and made no pretence of hearing a sound that was not there.

"Loras was certain she would choose horses," Renly said to Cersei. "I begin to think she knew her audience better."

The queen looked past him to Alerie. "Your daughter has been well advised."

"She chose them herself, Your Grace."

Cersei inclined her head and summoned Tommen back to his place. Margaery rose at once, curtsying before she withdrew with her brother. Myrcella watched her go. Renly drew Loras aside to say something, and Mace remained by the dais until Robert asked about the Redwyne wine being brought behind him.

Jon wiped butter from his fingers. A cage could have been delivered by a servant. Loras had brought his sister with it, and Renly had made certain the queen noticed her. Margaery, meanwhile, was looking back to see whether Tommen had managed his whistle. Jon liked her better for that.

The preserved grapes sent with Paxter's wine were opened for the children. Joffrey took up the abandoned horn to explain how it should be held, but Tommen had turned towards the birds again. His brother set it down and reached for his cup.

When Winterfell was called, Robb wiped his fingers upon the cloth twice before noticing Jon watching.

"There is no gravy on them."

"I know." He rose.

Martyn followed with the cloak. Jon went with them, hearing the murmur change as men recognised his hair. Robert had seen Robb first.

"Ned's boy! Come nearer. Gods, look at you." He held out his hand for the letter, then caught Robb's forearm instead. "He has sent me a son and stayed at home himself. What excuse has he made this time?"

"He writes it better than I could, Your Grace."

Robert laughed and broke the seal. While he read, Cersei allowed Martyn to spread the cloak across the table. Thick northern wool, soft at the collar, with room for a growing boy. Tommen stood while Myrcella settled it about him. The hem nearly hid his shoes.

"Will it snow here?" he asked Robb.

"When winter comes, my prince."

"Enough to make a fort?"

"If it falls deep enough."

"There was snow at Storm's End," Shireen said. No one heard her except Jon and her mother. Selyse laid a hand beside her plate, keeping the little girl from leaning too far to call again.

Robert folded the letter only halfway. "You will sit with me later. Your father has written three pages and contrived to tell me nothing I want to hear." His hand came down warmly upon Robb's shoulder. "You can mend that."

Jon saw his brother straighten beneath it. He had imagined Robb meeting the king many times. He had not expected the small, private envy of watching Robert obtain that smile so easily.

"And you." The king's attention swung towards him. "Is this what I get for giving Ned's other son an island? News of fighting every time a ship comes in?"

"They had taken our ships, Your Grace. I could not leave them to take more."

Robert caught Jon's hand. His thumb passed over the old scar in the palm, and his grip eased.

"You have done enough fighting for one year, Black. Ned sends me boys and expects me to send them home whole."

"He gave us much the same instruction, Your Grace."

The king looked from him to Robb, then towards Arthur. "See that they remember it when the shouting starts."

"I want to see both of you upon your feet after tomorrow. Your brother tells me he is entering the melee."

Robb looked startled; he had told no such thing yet. Robert laughed at his face.

"Your father tells me, then. He tells me everything except what I ask him."

Tommen had discovered the covered horse.

He came down two steps before Cersei called him back. Jon turned, grateful for the interruption, and signalled to the household boys. Aries took one end of the cloth, Darys the other. The horse emerged nose first, its mane carved in thick curls, its wooden wheels painted to match the legs.

The prince stared. He looked at his mother, then at Jon, then at the saddle.

"It is for riding," Jon assured him.

Myrcella had already found the place for his feet. While a servant took the new cloak, she held the horse's head as solemnly as any groom. Jon braced its back and helped Tommen settle. The boy's small hand closed over his scar.

For a moment Jon remembered a different room, a child on a carpet, a toy held up for repair with such confidence that failure had seemed impossible. He had been a father before any of these people were born. The memory arrived with the warmth of Tommen's fingers and left him kneeling longer than he intended.

"Will it go?" the prince asked.

Jon made himself smile. "You must do that part."

One push sent the horse forward. Tommen looked back in astonishment and almost rode over Myrcella's shoe. She stepped aside, laughing. Barristan moved a stool out of his way; a lady caught up her skirts; the prince discovered speed.

"He will break his neck," Joffrey said.

"On that?" Robert looked delighted. "I have seen you fall farther getting into bed."

Joffrey's cheeks went pink. Jon caught Sandor's expression behind him: the scarred face had changed very little, but his eyes were upon the king. He took Joffrey's abandoned horn from a servant and held it without comment.

"He needs to learn the turn," Jon said, before the laughter could gather around the older boy. He walked beside Tommen and showed him how to push with one foot. Myrcella followed, determined to help.

The prince named the horse Thunder after Robert demanded a name twice. He resisted every attempt to bring it to a halt. Cersei finally sent Myrcella to take him between the tables, where there was more room and fewer steps.

Robert watched them go. Jon let him enjoy it before Perrin uncovered the armour.

Light ran across the red harness as the cloth fell away. The dragonglass finish gave the steel a deep, lustrous colour; a brighter sheen travelled over the breast's curve and broke along the fitted plates at the waist. In the hollows it darkened almost to black. Bright steel edged the cheek pieces and caught the sun in narrow lines. Robert came down from the dais without waiting to be invited.

He touched the breastplate, then lifted the helm. His thumb found the visor catch.

"For me?"

"I drew the design. My smith Ewan and his armourers made it to the measurements of your old harness. The fitter must see what wants changing."

"Then where is he?"

The man stepped forward so quickly that Arthur caught the bag slipping from his hand. Barristan made room. Robert was already undoing his cloak.

Arryn rose. "Your Grace, there are still—"

"They can watch."

They did. Renly came down to help until the fitter, discovering his courage, asked him to hold the helm instead. Robert endured the padded jack and the first straps, then began demanding that they hurry. Yohn Royce left his conversation to watch. Beside him, Balon Swann bent to see the wrist joints. Renly called Garlan Tyrell nearer and asked whether he had ever worn so fine a harness; Mace followed his son into the space that opened. Soon Robert was asking which horse Garlan meant to ride. Jaime leaned against the dais, his amusement growing when the king demanded a mirror.

The mirror quieted Robert.

He turned a little, feeling the weight. Light moved across the dragonglass finish with him, red deepening beneath his arms while his shoulders shone. The man in the glass was thick through the belly, his beard darker than the thinning hair above it. Yet the armour carried his shoulders well. He drew himself up and struck a fist against the open palm of his gauntlet.

The sound made an older knight behind Yohn laugh aloud. Jon looked round at him, then at the others. He knew what victories could buy a ruler, and how long men might remain loyal to the commander they remembered. Here they were, seeing that man again beneath the years of fat. Jon had supplied the armour. The affection in their faces belonged to Robert, and would still belong to him when the armour came off.

"I should wear this in a melee," Robert declared. "A proper one."

From between the tables Tommen called that his father had promised to watch with him.

The hall heard. Cersei sat back, her hands folded. Arryn remained on his feet.

Robert looked from one to the other and gave an irritated snort. "I can watch in armour."

Tommen considered this acceptable and returned to his horse. Renly laughed first; the king followed him, and the fitter was allowed to finish marking his adjustments.

Joffrey came down while the breastplate was being loosened. He asked where lions might be placed upon a smaller harness. Robert was still questioning Garlan about his horse.

"Ask the man," he said, without turning.

The boy's fingers tightened upon the stand. Jon brought the fitter nearer, but Cersei had risen before the man could begin. She asked whether the finish could be made green. Jon said there was green dragonglass, but his smiths had yet to finish a harness in it. The queen directed the answer to Joffrey, then said his present armour would be examined before anything was ordered.

She could protect his dignity when she chose. Jon remembered Gerren fighting for the place she had promised him in the prince's service, and how little that promise had survived his defeat. He gave her room to pass.

Balon Swann caught Jon before he could follow the queen. He wanted to know whether the armourers would take an order. By the time Jon had brought Perrin forward, a Marbrand knight had lifted the helm from its stand and was turning it beneath the window.

"Red alone?" he asked.

"The glass comes in black, green, red and purple," Jon said. "That does not mean we can make all four finishes. This one took moons."

Mace drew Garlan nearer at the mention of green. "With gold roses at the borders. You must send word when your smith has it right."

Garlan reached past him to touch the smooth cheek piece. "Will the green shine like this?"

Jon hoped it would. He said so, and left Perrin explaining how the fitter would take their measures after the morning's contests. Two more knights had come to listen. They made a place for Jon to leave, then closed it behind him.

At the royal table Cersei was holding a porcelain cup towards the light. Her fingers showed through its white wall. Beside her, Pycelle had a bowl almost against his nose.

"Who brought these from the east?" she asked.

"They were made upon Dragonstone, Your Grace. Ellyn, the potter in my service, made this set."

Robert returned without his breastplate and reached between them. "Pretty things." He held out the cup for wine, already asking Arthur when he could have the harness back. Cersei drew the remaining pieces clear of his elbow.

Jon stepped aside as the wine came. Below him Olenna had intercepted Perrin, who still carried a plain cup in its wrapping. Margaery leaned beside her grandmother to see it held against the light; one of her curls brushed the old woman's wimple and was impatiently brushed away.

"Four dragons for this little trinket?" Olenna turned it to examine the foot. "Have we become so short of silver?"

"We have silver," Alerie said. "I should like these."

"Then you had better ask whether there are any left after the queen's twelve." Olenna kept the cup when Perrin offered to take it. "Paxter should look at the packing. His factors will have seen what the eastern sort fetches."

Genna came to Alerie's other side with Darlessa Marbrand. The two women made room for Myranda Lefford, who had brought a bowl from the table and was comparing its depth with the silver dish in a servant's hands. He waited, uncertain whether he was meant to surrender that too.

"Let the man go, Myranda," Genna said, making room for him to pass.

Darlessa wanted a set for her solar; Myranda wanted to know whether the bowls must all have the same border. Jon answered both, raising his voice a little to be heard over Robert calling for his cloak.

"You can have your own designs. Arms, flowers, whatever the potter can work. We are preparing a finer sort with a dragonglass finish, like the armour. Those are not ready to offer yet."

Cersei set down her cup.

"The first will come to me. I shall choose for the royal household before you offer them elsewhere." She looked at the bowl in Myranda's hands. "A service for myself, and sets for the children. Your other customers can wait."

Myranda lowered the bowl. Olenna resumed turning her cup, now studying a part she had examined already.

Jon could hear Perrin behind him, explaining a fastening to one of the knights. He needed him here. The queen had made a request sound like an arrangement already settled, and every woman within reach was waiting to learn whether it was one.

"I can reserve the first service for Your Grace. Your steward can agree the price with mine. The children's designs can follow, but I must honour the orders already taken."

"The drawings will come to me," Cersei said. "Lions upon mine, with gold at the rims. You were particular enough about Joffrey's clock. I expect the same care."

Myrcella had come back to fetch her brother's cloak. She stopped beside the open case. "Could mine have flowers?"

"It could, my princess."

"We shall choose them together," Cersei told her. She began describing the size she wanted, keeping Jon there while Myrcella folded the cloak over her arm. Darlessa returned her cup to its cloth. Genna stayed beside her, speaking quietly, and when Jon was at last permitted to go she caught Perrin's sleeve herself.

Petyr Baelish was watching the women. His eyes passed over the porcelain, the crowded armour stand, then the cases still waiting to be opened. He had worn much the same look that afternoon, before there had been so many people offering to pay.

"Your man will have a busy morning," he said. "I could spare him some disappointments about who can pay."

He named a lord who had bought new horses while leaving a debt unpaid. Olenna asked whose debt. Petyr supplied the lender and the sum without appearing to search for either.

That was knowledge Jon could use. The lender might also be grateful to learn what Lord Black meant to sell, to whom, and how urgently he needed payment.

"I shall leave my steward to judge the promises he accepts," he said. "If you wish to order anything, he will be at the showing."

"I shall look forward to it." Petyr's smile did not alter. He moved aside for Ardrian Celtigar, who had followed the opening of the salt box as closely as other men had followed the armour.

Ardrian took a few grains upon his finger. He tasted them, frowned into the box and tasted again. Wylis Manderly bent beside him. Before either could ask a question, Robert called for some upon his meat.

A kitchen servant ran for a bowl. The cook came with it, flour caught in the creases of his hands. He bowed too low, tasted at the king's insistence, then forgot to be frightened long enough to ask how much there was.

"There is a course coming now, my lords," he said when Ardrian began to speak.

Robert waved him on. Perrin filled the bowl, and the sample went through the screens with two possible buyers still watching it. Jon found himself smiling after it. They would be arguing in the kitchens about how best to use what his people had made.

"When we last met, I bought a belt clasp," Tyrion said beside him. "You went away and acquired a fleet. I should have stayed for the rest of your shopping."

Jon looked at the buckle upon his crimson doublet. Mott had finished it. He remembered the close heat of the shop, and how their talk had soured before Tyrion left.

"There was rather more fighting than I wanted."

"I imagine there was." Tyrion's eyes lingered upon him before moving to the men gathered round the armour. "And now everyone wishes to know you. Have you managed to eat?"

"A little fish."

"You will be fortunate to get more. I have been trying to get a word with you since the armour came out." He shifted closer as a servant passed with a laden tray. "Be careful how much of this you encourage. They like being seen to know the young lord who has done so well. Refuse one of them tomorrow, and he will wonder when you became so pleased with yourself."

Jon followed his glance. One of the knights at the stand had begun speaking over Perrin's answer to another.

"I have no intention of seeking popularity at court. I am trying to improve my holding however I can."

"Perhaps I should have been born a bastard, then. I am rarely so humble."

Tyrion took a sip from the cup a servant offered him, watching Jon over the rim.

Jon let the smile stay upon his face. He had chosen every gift with this hall in mind. He wanted the talk to follow him home, wanted men to think of Dragonstone when they needed ships or work or a lord worth serving. Improving his holding was true enough; it was hardly all he intended.

"I cannot afford to refuse everyone who wants something," he said.

"No. But you need not agree merely because he has managed to catch you here." Tyrion nodded towards the fitter, who was trying to answer a question while packing his bag. "Let your men finish. Come and eat."

Jon took a cup himself. Their disagreement in Mott's shop remained, but Tyrion was making room for him beside the steps instead of asking him to account for it. He went with him.

Before they reached the tables, Tyrion asked whom he meant to back tomorrow.

"Arthur."

"Jaime," Tyrion said. "I shall enjoy taking your money."

Robert called the fitter back. Beyond him, Tommen had persuaded Barristan to watch a turn that required almost the whole aisle. Jon had meant the horse to win affection and the armour to win attention. Watching the old knight step solemnly clear, he was glad the boy had received his gift first.

Harry had taken Jon's place, though he had left the trencher untouched. Bread crusts lay in two uneven rows upon the cloth before him. Mychel Redfort moved a little heap of salt between them while Robb watched with his chin in his hand.

"There," Mychel said. "If we keep that side clear, you can reach us."

"Those are the Reachmen," Harry objected.

Robb picked up the nearest crust. "They have suffered losses."

"Mostly to Artys," Theon said.

Artys Elesham finished chewing. Harry surrendered Jon's chair and drew up a stool, making Anya Waynwood lift her skirts out of his way. Jon sat between his brother and Monford with a small, grateful sigh. Someone had put buttery onions upon his trencher. He had been smelling them for half an hour.

"We were deciding where to find one another if we are divided," Harry told him.

Robb moved the bread aside as a girl brought a capon between them.

Honey had darkened its skin almost to the colour of the dish. The girl held it steady while Jon cut, releasing steam and the smell of sage. Across the table Aurane shifted his cup away from Mychel's elbow; Domeric leaned back to let another servant through. For a little while everybody wanted something passed.

Harry waited until Jon had swallowed. "I gather the Vale men first. I will not have Mychel chasing after you while half my company are still fighting alone."

"We gather ours," Jon agreed. "Then we find you."

"And when there is nobody else left?" Artys asked.

Robb reached for the last crust. Harry caught his wrist.

"Then he can try that with a sword."

Anya looked round at the laughter. Harry put both feet upon the floor before she could comment on his stool, and Jon took another mouthful while he had the chance.

The benches had grown closer as people shifted to join friends. Wendel Manderly was defending the remains of an eel pie from a man who wished to carry it away; beyond him a Blackwood youth dragged a chair out of the passage with its Bracken occupant still sitting upon it. The Bracken boy got up at once, wine running down his sleeve. Neighbouring squires beat the table until Jonos Bracken turned towards them. Across the dish of beans, Tytos Blackwood beckoned his own youth back to his place. The boy obeyed, still grinning.

The arrival of the boar drew Robert's attention from his wine. He watched the carver work, called for a larger piece, then ordered a dish sent down to Ned's sons. Lord Grandison spoke of a hunt. Someone mentioned a ford, and within moments the king was back upon the Trident.

"You were nowhere near it. Yohn, tell him where you were!"

Royce answered. Men farther down called out places and names, disputing where a horse had fallen, where the river had been deepest. Robb turned upon the bench to hear. Jon had heard soldiers do this around other tables, in another life; even the contradictions were familiar. He was smiling when Robert began to describe Rhaegar's rubies.

Across the hall, Obara put down her cup. Oberyn leaned towards the man beside her and began speaking. The man kept looking past him towards the king, and Oberyn touched his sleeve to bring him back.

Jon bit the inside of his cheek.

Robb accepted the dish with thanks and offered him the first slice. Fat shone beneath the crushed pepper. Jon took it, unwilling to explain why he did not want it, and listened to his brother ask Yohn Royce a question. The king had all of Robb's attention now. Jon chewed; the pepper stung the place he had bitten.

Aurane reached for the wine. His fingers failed to close comfortably about the handle, and Monford took the jug from him before he could lift it.

"You have another hand."

"That one is holding my cup."

Monford filled it. Robb turned back at their exchange, his own cup forgotten.

"Alester told me you took the ferry back," he said to Aurane. "With your hand like that?"

"We were carrying the wounded out to the ships. Freed slaves, too; we had boys sitting between the stretchers." Aurane set his cup down. "There were still people coming down the steps when we pushed off. I took her back for them."

Robb glanced at Jon, who nodded. Aurane had gone back with that injured hand. Jon looked at the wine Monford had poured for him, then reached past it to move a dish so the servant waiting behind them could clear it away.

"Those poor souls." Lady Tanda had been listening from beyond Ardrian Celtigar. "Were there many children?"

Jon laid down his knife. "More than I would have wished to find there."

"And have you somewhere fit for them? I heard you had brought whole shiploads away."

"We have houses ready. Other families are sharing until the builders finish."

She leaned nearer, and Ardrian obligingly moved the dish between them. "How many altogether?"

"Three thousand and two hundred. Some came before the fighting."

Tanda's lips parted. She looked down at the food upon her plate before turning to her elder daughter. "Falyse, we must go through the linen."

"The old linen, I suppose." Falyse lowered her hippocras. "Unless you mean to empty our beds as well."

"Linen fit to be given. Sheets and blankets. Things we can spare."

"Then you had better look before promising them."

Tanda drew her younger daughter forward. The woman had been sitting behind her mother's shoulder, picking carefully at a small bone in her fish. She was fat, her green silk drawn tight across her upper arms; when Tanda spoke her name she set down her knife and looked up, uncertain whom she was meant to address.

"Lollys will help me. She has such a tender heart. Tell Lord Black what you were asking."

Lollys's brown eyes moved from her mother to Jon. "Who puts them to bed?"

He had expected another question about houses. "Their mothers, when we have found them. Other women care for those who are alone."

"But they would want their own mothers."

"Yes," Jon said. "They would."

She worried at the bone with the point of her knife. Tanda gently took the plate from her and passed it to a servant.

"It will be easier with proper beds," Tanda said. "They cannot all have brought their belongings. A blanket is something, even when one cannot do more."

"It would be welcome."

She smiled at that. "You must come to supper and tell us what is needed. Lollys would like to hear how the children fare, would you not, sweetling?"

Lollys nodded. Falyse drank again, watching Jon over the rim. He was not merely Ned Stark's bastard to their mother; there was an island now, and ships, and a place near the king. Tanda would be able to see her daughter well settled and do a kindness at the same time.

"I cannot promise an evening yet," he told her. "But I shall have an account brought to you."

"You can bring it yourself when you are free." She turned before he could answer, asking Mylenda Bar Emmon whether there were women in her household who could be spared to sort clothing.

Jon picked up his knife again. His boar had cooled. Robb offered him the capon, but he shook his head; he would finish what was on his trencher.

Mace Tyrell had stopped beside Wylis, with Alerie and Renly behind him. He caught enough of Tanda's explanation to announce that Highgarden could feed a king's host twice over; a few more mouths upon Dragonstone would scarcely trouble its granaries. Wylis said he would be glad to hear what could be sent by sea. Monford drew out a place for Perrin, who had come to see whether Jon needed him, and the talk moved to ports.

Jon left them to it. Monford knew the men who would have to put those promises aboard ships. He asked a question of Mace's attendant and listened while Lord Tyrell was still praising the harvest.

Renly found room beside Harry without asking anyone to rise. Soon Mychel was explaining the proposed alliance to him, while Alerie spoke to Wynafryd across the back of Robb's chair. Jon watched Harry straighten when Renly remembered something he had said earlier. The easy charm he remembered reading about worked very well at close quarters.

"Have you tried the Faith's houses?" Tanda asked him.

He turned back. "For what, my lady?"

"Finding their families. A septa I know found a boy's mother through a pilgrim who had come from Maidenpool. They had been looking for each other for months."

"Where we have names to send, we send them. Sometimes a child remembers a place better than a name."

Lollys had been following with an anxious crease between her brows. "Could you take him there?"

"One boy has asked me to. His name is Laro. He comes from Lys."

"That is across the sea," she said.

"It is. He remembers his father's workshop, and the shops beside it. We have sent letters."

She considered this. "Will his father come?"

Jon had imagined that readily enough: another man with a trade, another household on his island, a son grateful to the lord who had brought them together. He needed families who would stand by him when he claimed the name Aemon. He had allowed himself to think of Laro among them until the boy asked for passage home.

"If we find him, Laro wants to go to him."

"Oh." Her expression cleared. "Then he could show you the way."

Jon smiled, though his cheek hurt. "I hope so."

Monford had turned at the mention of Lys. He waited until Tanda began speaking again, then touched Jon's arm and quietly asked for the boy's account. He had a factor there. Jon thanked him and reached for his cup, finding it empty.

Tanda offered the jug before he could ask. "The septas will be such a comfort to them until then. I told Lord Guncer we could help with what they would need."

Jon kept his cup upon the table. "Which septas?"

"The teachers. His High Holiness—" She looked towards Guncer, who had turned from Mylenda to hear them. "You spoke to him today, did you not?"

"I did," Jon said. "I agreed to no house upon Dragonstone."

Guncer's kindly expression altered. "I understood you were to hear how it might be provided for."

"I agreed to listen. That was all."

Tanda held the jug a moment longer, then lowered it. Beside her, Lollys looked from one face to another. The discussion of shipping went on behind Jon; Perrin had to raise his voice to be heard over Renly's laugh.

"I should be glad of the linen," Jon added.

"Of course," Tanda said, but she did not resume her plans with Mylenda. Guncer was watching him. Jon had refused the High Septon in a quiet chamber that afternoon. Here there were blankets, children, a woman offering to help. He could already feel how the refusal would sound if he had to repeat all of it.

Guncer set his cup aside. "Perhaps there has been some misunderstanding."

"Perhaps."

The old lord nodded without seeming reassured. Jon wanted to make the distinction plain before another promise was made on his behalf. He also wanted to eat with Robb while the food was still warm. Before he could choose, his brother rose so abruptly that the bench struck Jon's knee.

Lysa Arryn had reached them with her little son clinging to her hand. She took Robb's face between her palms and kissed him. Theon leaned aside to inspect something under the table.

Pearls gleamed in Lysa's piled auburn hair; powder lay thick beside her nose without hiding the puffiness beneath her eyes. She kept Robb's hand when he tried to release it.

"Your mother is well?"

"Very well, Aunt Lysa. She sends her love."

"She should have come herself. I would have found rooms for her and the girls."

"Sansa would have liked that. She will want to hear about tonight." Robb glanced towards the dais. "I ought to remember what everyone is wearing."

"You may leave that to me. I will write to her." Lysa smiled and drew him nearer so she need not raise her voice. "And Arya? Would she have liked the birds?"

"She wanted to come for the fighting."

"To watch, I hope."

Robb laughed. "She did not say. She thinks it unfair that we can leave our lessons for a tournament when she must stay behind with hers."

"Mother." Little Robert pressed against her skirts.

"In a moment, sweetling." She freed her hand from Robb's to smooth the boy's hair. "And what did you tell her?"

"That we still had to do what we were told. She did not believe me." He was still smiling. "She would have believed it if she had seen Ser Arthur in the yard today."

Lysa laughed with him, her fingers moving through her son's hair. The boy watched Robb without smiling.

Jon watched her fingers. Poison, a letter to Catelyn, Petyr behind both: he remembered enough to dread her and too little to know how near any of it might be. Arryn was alive. Robb was laughing with his aunt. After the feast Jon would set down what he could remember and begin finding out which parts still held true. He would not let Baelish choose the hour of the war that might destroy them before he was ready.

Little Robert caught his mother's hand and tugged it down. She broke off to bend over him, promising that he need not stay much longer. Robb drew out a stool, but she would not sit. She wanted him to visit her, properly, where they could talk. Jon looked back towards Tanda while his brother promised. Guncer had left his place.

Servants were clearing the nearest tables now. Alester caught Jon's trencher before it could be taken; Rosamund told him to let the poor man finish. Jon ate the last of his supper standing, obliged to move when two men lifted the bench. Domeric followed the harper to the place being cleared for the musicians, tapping a rhythm against his cup.

The shifting benches brought Jon to the foot of the dais, where Ralph Buckler and Brus were talking. Brus lifted his recovered arm in greeting. Shireen saw Jon from the high table and beckoned him up. Her father stood beside her chair while Selyse examined the plate a servant had brought.

"Plain meat," she said. "I asked for none of this sauce."

Tall and spare in her gown, she held the dish until the man took it back. Shireen waited with both hands in her lap, her dark hair pinned clear of the grey ridges upon her cheek. She brightened when she saw Jon.

"Tommen says the horse can go upstairs."

"Someone would have to carry it."

She glanced at her father. Stannis looked towards the royal table, where Thunder had stopped against a pillar.

"He is to get off first," Jon added.

"Make certain he knows that," Stannis said.

Selyse returned the corrected plate to her daughter. Shireen began cutting her meat, but Stannis had turned his attention to the tables below the Crownlanders.

"The man with the open collar. That is your pirate?"

Jon followed his gaze to the man reaching for the wine.

"Captain Vhalar."

"I have heard of the holding you promised him." Stannis moved an empty chair out of a servant's way. "What punishment did you impose?"

"His pardon was part of the terms."

"So he lost nothing by entering your service."

"He surrendered his ships. He takes his orders from a knight of mine."

"And has land to look forward to." Stannis set the chair against the wall. A boy came past with a stack of trenchers, gravy running over his knuckles. "Ser Davos brought food through the Redwyne blockade when my men were starving. I knighted him and gave him lands upon Cape Wrath. He earned them. I also punished him for the smuggling."

Jon remembered that part very well. He had read it years before he had ever seen Storm's End: the onions, the salted fish, the first joints cut from the fingers of Davos's left hand. He had admired the knighthood and hated the rest. Hearing it from Stannis did not make him like it better.

"You took his fingertips."

"He had broken the law many times. He knew what he was doing."

"Ser Davos always comes to see me," Shireen said.

Her knife had stopped against the edge of her plate. She looked up at her father, then at Jon.

"When he comes home. He sits with me, even when everyone is busy."

Stannis's gaze dropped to her. "He is a good man."

Shireen nodded firmly, satisfied that this had been established, and returned to her supper. Jon watched her push a piece of meat onto her knife. She had spoken of Davos as readily as Robb might speak of someone from Winterfell.

"I would have left him his fingers," Jon said.

Stannis looked back at him. "Would you have punished him at all?"

Jon had been about to answer when he noticed Selyse listening. Ralph had stopped talking to Brus. This was becoming an argument about a man who was not there, and Jon was defending a very different one.

"Vhalar was still fighting when I made the offer. Accepting it gave him a reason to call his men off. I had wounded to bring home."

"You might have offered him his life. Must you give him land as well?"

"I meant to employ him. I wanted him to believe there was something to be gained by serving me."

There it was, without the wounded to shelter behind. He had needed them out alive; he had also wanted experienced captains for the ships he was taking. The bargain had served both purposes. He would make it again, though it sounded less generous spoken over a supper table.

"He has gained a great deal," Stannis said. "What does a man who has served honestly have to do to earn the same?"

"I gave him my word."

"Then keep it. I have said nothing of breaking it." Stannis's mouth tightened. "You asked too little of him before you gave it."

A servant bent to ask whether Shireen had finished. Stannis put a hand upon the back of her chair and told the man to leave her plate. She cut another small piece, watching the clearing floor beyond Jon's shoulder.

He moved aside so she could see. Tommen had got the horse free of the pillar and was trying to turn it. Jon would have to tell him about the stairs. He stayed another moment, until Shireen had swallowed, and asked whether she would help him explain it.

Robert announced the hunt while the servants were clearing the lower tables. He wanted Yohn Royce and Ned's boy, and enough hounds to find something worth killing once the tournament was done. Mace began offering horses before the king had finished. Renly added Garlan's name, and the invitation travelled through men who hoped it included them.

Robb went to the dais when Robert beckoned. He looked back at Jon with a grin that asked whether he could believe his luck.

Jon waved him on. A bench passed between them, carried by men who had to lift it over a guest reluctant to abandon his pigeon. The musicians were trying a slower tune beneath the noise. Genna Lannister had secured a chair beside the cleared floor and was directing Emmon to one on her other side. He came with almond cakes instead; sourleaf stained the corners of his mouth, and his explanation went unheard when she spotted a passing niece.

Ysilla caught Jon before he reached them.

"You promised," she said, putting her hand into his.

He had. Bronze ribbons moved at her wrist as she drew him towards the forming line. On the far side Margaery was waiting with Garlan; Andren Plumm listened earnestly to Elinor's instructions and started with the wrong foot. Ysilla lost her own place laughing. Jon steadied her, and she squeezed his fingers in thanks before the turn separated them.

The noise changed with every crossing. Near the musicians he could scarcely hear her; by the open doors a cool draught passed beneath his collar, carrying her perfume away with the smell of meat. She was telling him of Myranda's baggage chest falling into a ford. Three horses had been draped in drying gowns, and Ysilla had spent half the ride keeping a sleeve out of the mud.

"She said I stretched it," she told him as they came together again. "You saw her wearing it yesterday. Did it look stretched?"

"I was not looking at the sleeves."

"I shall tell her that."

"Please don't."

She laughed. When he took her back to Myranda, she was still telling him about the ruined gowns, and he stayed to hear Myranda dispute how many had been hers.

Obara stood at the edge of the floor with a hand extended towards him.

Obara could dance? He looked at her hand a moment too long. One eyebrow rose.

"Who told you a daughter of the Red Viper could not dance?"

"No one."

"Then come."

She knew the dance better than he did. He had barely found his place before she turned away with the next man, her plain dark skirts brushing his boot. When she returned, she glanced at his shoulder.

"Don't get too battered in the melee. I want you fit when you come against me."

"If I can lift the shield, I shall send word."

She nodded, satisfied, and passed beneath their joined hands for the turn. Jon watched her with her next partner. There was nothing hesitant in her movements; she came back to him smiling, plainly looking forward to the bout.

The last notes found them facing one another. Her father was waiting where they had left their cups. She kept hold of Jon's hand as they went to join him.

"You've fought pirates," she said, loudly enough for Oberyn to hear. "But never a Sand Snake."

***
​

Oberyn smiled at his daughter's boast. Jon shook his head at her, still holding her hand as they came from the floor.

Beside Oberyn, Garlan Tyrell was promising to send Willas's notes about the mare. His father heard his brother's name and looked round.

"I shall answer them," Oberyn said. "Tell him I have not forgotten."

Garlan thanked him. Mace's mouth tightened, but Renly was beckoning from the dais, where Margaery stood with Myrcella. The Lord of Highgarden went to join them. Renly had helped obtain a ride for the girls on the morrow, though Cersei had insisted upon a septa, grooms and Alerie accompanying them. Mace had thanked her as warmly as if she had invited Margaery to stay a year. Doran would want to hear of that. Oberyn let him go. Obara had nearly reached them.

Jon released her hand carefully as she stopped beside her father.

Oberyn handed Jon his cup. "Some of the people Vhalar sold are living on your island, I hear."

"Some."

"What did they make of his pardon?"

Jon's right hand closed about the back of an empty chair. He did not pull it out.

"They did not choose it. I did." Jon paused as a woman carrying an empty platter passed between them. "I needed the fighting to end. I offered terms he would accept."

The boy had answered readily enough until he was asked about the people who must live with his bargain. Oberyn knew how much could be excused by the need to end a war.

"My brother was offered peace," he said. "After our sister was murdered. After her children—"

Robert's laughter broke across the music. A great, full laugh, followed by the slap of his palm upon the table. Mace laughed with him.

A muscle pulled beside Oberyn's mouth. He pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek until it eased. At the high table the king reached for more wine.

"There was much to be gained by accepting it," Oberyn continued. "No more fighting. No more dead men. Lord Tywin's friendship."

Obara had gone very still. Beside her, Jon looked towards the dais. When he turned back, his fingers were white against the chair.

"I am sorry for your sister."

"So were many people."

The boy did not lower his eyes, but he had no answer. Oberyn could have asked whether Jon would have accepted such terms for his own family. He let the question go unspoken.

Myrcella came past them with a hand upon the wooden horse's bridle. Tommen pushed with one foot, his face solemn with concentration. Oberyn moved his boot clear of the little wheels.

"Where are you riding, my prince?"

"Back to Mother." Tommen glanced up at him, then bent over the horse's neck and pushed again.

Oberyn smiled and turned to Jon. "Who carved the head? He has caught the set of the ears very well."

Jon took a moment to answer. "A carpenter on Dragonstone."

"You must give him my compliments."

"I will."

Myrcella guided the horse towards the wider aisle beside the dais. Jon watched them go.

Tommen tucked his feet up as the horse gathered speed. Oberyn remembered Rhaenys demanding a turn upon his shoulders, once, before she had learned to hide her face from strangers. He could still lift her, though she would object now. Elia would never see how tall she had grown.

"Come," he said to Obara.

She fell into step beside him. Behind them Jon had not returned to the dancing, and at the dais Robert was beginning another story.

***
​

Jon reached for water and found he had taken someone else's cup.

"That one is mine," Jeyne Westerling said. She moved a clean one towards him, then glanced at his shoulder. "Does it still hurt?"

"More now."

"You were smiling after Aurane struck you."

"I wasn't going to let him see how much it hurt." He poured too much. Water ran over his fingers and into the rushes. Jeyne took the jug before he could make it worse.

At the high table Robert had drawn Robb's chair closer. His brother was listening with both elbows upon the table, unaware that Jon was watching.

Jon had read about Elia and her children in another life. Tonight he had dressed Robert in red steel and waited for his approval. He needed the king's favour; he meant to use it until he could take the man's throne. That explanation would not have improved Oberyn's opinion of him, even if it could have been spoken.

Genna patted the chair beside hers. Her broad, smooth face was flushed from the heat, and she had loosened the clasp at the throat of her gown. "Come and sit with us. Emmon, there is room on your other side."

Emmon moved with his dish. Tyrion sat across from her with a cushion beneath him and a little stool under his feet. He made no remark about the water upon Jon's sleeve, though Jon saw him notice it.

Darlessa was describing the porcelain to her husband. Tygett listened until she began explaining why she wanted a second set, then put down his knife. Genna caught Jon's eye while they were occupied.

Genna took an almond cake, broke it and offered half to Tyrion. "Tywin tells me you would not have his man taught to make clocks. Do you guard your potter's work as closely?"

"She teaches the people who work for her."

"We have good potters in Lannisport. One could stay upon your island for a time. I would see to his expenses."

Jon set his cake upon the plate. Mott had refused him much the same thing, and he had not liked hearing it. "I am not taking pupils for another lord's workshops, my lady. I would rather tell you here than disappoint someone you sent all that way."

"Then it was not my brother you objected to."

"Not in that."

Genna looked at him a moment, then nodded. "I shall tell him so. He will ask how much I offered you."

"The answer would have been the same."

"I know. He will ask all the same." She brushed a crumb from her skirt. "For myself, I shall be content with the cups. Darlessa has already found three uses for a second set."

Jon took up his cake again. He would have to speak to Ellyn before an offer reached her from someone else. Genna's attention had gone to Tommen, whose bridle was caught about a stool. The boy tugged at the horse while Myrcella pulled the ribbon from the other side, tightening it between them.

"Gerion would have ridden straight through," Genna said.

"He knocked over Father's chair once," Tyrion said. "I was hiding beneath the table. I thought the whole thing was coming down."

"You were not meant to be there."

"I know."

She laughed and laid her hand over his. A woman freed the bridle; Tommen rolled away, leaving the stool upon its side. Jon had been thinking about what these people might want from him. He looked at their joined hands and remembered that a man whose name meant a lost sword to him had once made them laugh.

"There has been no further word?" he asked.

"None beyond Volantis." Tyrion turned the cake over between his fingers. "Father's men found some of the crew who would not go farther. They could not say what happened after they left him."

Jon could still see Brightroar beneath the rising water of his dream. He had captains now who might ask questions in those ports. This was neither the place to explain how he knew what to ask nor the moment to turn Gerion into another undertaking.

"I should like to hear what they did learn," he said. "When you have time."

Tyrion looked up. "I shall find it for you."

Genna kept her hand upon his a little longer. Margaery came to join the girls while Myrielle, her braid threaded with red ribbon, tried to work out the next dance from Jeyne's demonstration. Cerenna had gathered her yellow skirts clear of her slippers to show them a different step. Genna settled the argument by telling her to begin again where Jeyne could see her feet. Jon remained while they disputed which turn came first. It was a relief to have nothing useful to say.

Beyond the Westerlands tables, Theon stood with a tall knight whose long face remained grave while he listened. A silver scythe was quartered with a peacock upon his coat. Ser Harras Harlaw, if Jon remembered the arms correctly. Theon had both hands about an empty cup and was speaking without the grin he had worn through supper.

Harras bent his head to answer. Jon could hear nothing over the music. Theon glanced down at the kraken upon his belt, touched it with his thumb, then looked up and asked something else. A servant offered wine; he shook his head without turning away from the knight.

Jon watched until a pair of dancers crossed his view. When they passed, Harras had laid a hand upon Theon's shoulder. Theon nodded, still listening.

Myranda Royce came round the end of the table and touched Theon's sleeve. He turned, but before he could speak she glanced towards Harras. The knight inclined his head to her and released Theon's shoulder.

"Will you dance with me?" she asked.

Theon set down his empty cup. "Gladly." He said something more to Harras, too quietly for Jon to hear, then offered Myranda his arm. She led him towards the forming line. He looked back once; when she spoke again, he bent to hear her.

Desmera Redwyne came for her cousin's opinion of the dance. She had a little golden grape caught in the embroidered cuff of her sleeve. Margaery freed it while Desmera asked Jon whether he could manage another dance.

"I am trying to remember this one."

"Then you may learn with me." She offered her hand before Cerenna could demonstrate again.

Horas stood beside the water with two cups. He held one towards Margaery; she was listening to Desmera and did not notice until he spoke her name. She thanked him and set it down, turning back to the others.

Horas looked at Desmera's hand upon Jon's arm. "A Redwyne is taught to fight from childhood, Black. You will find me rather different from your pirates."

Jon rose carefully. "I watched you fight this afternoon."

"We were going to dance, Horas," Desmera said.

Horas's mouth tightened. He looked past Jon towards the tables.

"Father wants you, Desmera."

She turned to look. Paxter stood with Monford at the end of the Crownlanders' table, his head bent to hear him over the music. Neither man was looking their way.

"What does he want?"

"He did not say." Horas moved aside, leaving her a way past him.

Desmera watched her father for another moment. Monford said something that made him smile; Paxter set down his cup and began to answer.

"I will speak to him after the dance."

"He asked for you."

"Then tell him where I am." She turned back to Jon, her hand still resting upon his arm. "Shall we?"

Jon offered his hand, and she took it. Horas remained beside the water as they found a place among the other dancers. Nearby, Roslin Frey was introducing a dark-haired girl to Robb. Little ravens were sewn upon her red sleeves; a black ribbon held her hair clear of a face still warm from dancing.

"Lady Betha Blackwood," Roslin said. She gave her friend a quick smile and left them together.

"I watched your first bout this afternoon," Betha told him. "I thought your brother had stopped your sword, and then you struck his arm."

Robb's hand went to the fastening at his collar. "I changed the cut. He had seen the other one too often."

She smiled. "Will you dance with me, Lord Robb?"

"Yes, my lady." He offered his hand at once. As Betha drew him towards a gap in the line, Robb turned back to Jon with a shy smile. Jon smiled back.

"Lord Tytos's cousin," Desmera murmured. "She asked Roslin to bring her over."

The music began before they could say more. Betha settled beside Robb in the line and spoke close to him; he listened with his head bent, then followed her into the first turn. Farther along, Myranda was laughing as Theon turned with her. He had found his grin again. They moved easily together, and when the line separated them she reached back for his hand before the next crossing brought them close.

Desmera waited until she had Jon's attention again. "I wanted to ask about the flowers."

For a moment he could think only of the cups. She shook her head when he began to answer.

"Real ones. What grows near your castle?"

He tried to remember what he had seen on his walks rather than what he had ordered planted. Grass in cracks, a little white flower beside a wall, coarse yellow blooms leaning away from the wind. He did not know the names. Desmera listened with increasing amusement.

"You could have invented something splendid. I have never been there."

"You might ask to see it."

"I should." The line took her away before she could say more. When she returned, she told him she painted the flowers at the Arbor. Her mother approved of the petals and corrected the leaves, even when Desmera had not asked her to look. "I have a drawing I should like your potter to see."

"Send it. I should like to see it too."

She smiled, then caught his sleeve as the dancers closed too quickly. They had to wait while the couple ahead of them found their places. Desmera used the pause to point out Betha, who was explaining something to Robb with both hands while he tried to follow.

Margaery waited with water when they came back. She gave the first cup to Desmera and asked whether she had found out what she wanted. Their exchange told Jon that the question had been considered before either girl approached him. Desmera began to describe the unnamed yellow flowers; Margaery offered two possibilities and was no nearer an answer when Garlan came to fetch his sister.

"Mother asks whether you have finished dancing."

"One more," Margaery said. She looked at Jon. "Unless you have promised it already."

He had not. She gave Garlan her cup and took his hand before her brother could decide whether he had been given an answer to carry back.

Renly watched them from beside Alerie. Loras had brought Myrcella to his mother to ask about the ride they had arranged for the next day; Cersei was listening from the dais, with Jaime standing close enough to hear what was promised. Jon knew some of the uses Renly had once imagined for his friend's sister. He could not yet tell how much of tonight's attention came from that purpose. Margaery, at least, had asked for this dance herself.

Margaery looked up at him as the first turn brought them close.

"You free slaves, make those lovely cups, and fight pirates," she said. "What else do you do for fun?"

Jon laughed. "I read. Mostly stories about long journeys. I used to stay up until it was almost morning."

He still read late, but there was usually a sum to check or a decision waiting at the end of it. He could not remember when he had last read simply because he wanted to know what happened.

"Elinor and I have a place in the garden where we take ours," Margaery said when the dance brought them together again. "You can hear people coming along the path before they can see you."

"Does that give you time to hide the book?"

"Sometimes. Mother had sent for us once, and we kept saying we would come when we had finished the page. There was a woman trying to escape, and we had to know whether she managed it."

"Did she?"

"Yes, but Elinor read the ending before I did. She kept trying to turn the page."

Her laughter upset the next step. He steadied her, aware that she was still holding his fingers when she had recovered.

"What was she escaping from?" he asked.

"Her uncle had shut her away. There was a man who meant to come for her, but she did not know what had become of him. Elinor wanted her to wait."

"And you?"

"I wanted her out of the tower. She had already spent half the book looking through the same window." Margaery glanced towards her cousin, who was dancing with Andren. "We argued about it all the way back to the house."

Jon took her hand again as the line brought them together. "I think I should have gone looking for him."

"You would have missed him. He was coming by another road."

"Did you still want them to find each other?"

"Very much. He had been trying to reach her all that time." Her voice softened a little. "But I wanted her to do something besides wait."

Jon smiled. "Then I had better read it."

"I could lend it to you," she said. "I brought it with me."

"I should like that."

On the next turn he saw Alerie watching. Margaery saw her too and smiled at her mother before returning her attention to him. Jon began a question, caught Alerie's eye again, and forgot how he meant to finish it.

"What were you going to ask?"

"When I might collect the book."

"I will have Elinor find it." Her hand settled more comfortably in his. "Ask me tomorrow."

The music ended with her hand still in his. Garlan was waiting, but Margaery stayed to ask where Jon would stand in the melee, then said she would know where to look. He watched her go until she looked back and caught him at it.

Robb found him beside the abandoned benches. Betha had gone to Roslin for water, but she kept glancing back towards him. Theon returned from leaving Myranda with her companions and asked whether Robb meant to dance again. Robb glanced towards Betha before answering, which was answer enough for Theon. Before he could pursue it, Robb began the story the king had told about Ned's lost boot. Wendel brought his cup to hear, and Aurane insisted upon knowing why Ned had been in the bush in the first place.

Robert supplied that detail from the dais, loudly and to Robb's delight. Jon laughed with the others, a little late.

He had considered armies, claims, which lords would yield and which must be beaten. His brother stood before him with a part of their father's youth no letter could have given him, impatient to hear more. Jon had not spent enough time imagining what it would mean to tell Robb that this man must lose his throne.

He had always pictured Robb beside him when the time came. Now he watched his brother lean forward as Robert resumed, eager not to miss a word, and felt how much he had been taking for granted. He would have to tell Robb who he was and what he meant to do. He would have to ask. Jon hoped his brother would choose him; he was afraid to think what he would do if Robb refused.

Betha returned before the story was done and stood beside Robb to listen. When the others began disputing where Ned could have lost the boot, she touched his sleeve.

"Have you promised the next dance?"

"No." Robb was already getting up. "I had hoped you would come back."

She looked pleased by the answer. "I wanted to ask whether you were going on the hunt."

"The king asked me. Will you be there?"

"If my cousin allows it. I shall ask him tonight." She put her hand into Robb's and waited while he made his way round the bench. He scarcely looked at Theon as they went back to the floor.

Jon remained upon the bench until Wynafryd offered to help him escape. They kept to a slower dance. She kept his hand low, sparing the shoulder, while Wylla Manderly corrected Aries through the turns nearby. He was listening to her as gravely as he listened to a master-at-arms.

By the time Jon and Wynafryd stopped, candles had burned into uneven pools along the tables. Tommen slept against Cersei with one hand closed upon her gown. Myrcella leaned over to show him something, discovered he would not wake, and carefully tucked his dangling foot back onto the chair.

For a moment there was a small head beneath his chin, fingers caught in his shirt. He remembered shifting that sleeping weight, careful not to wake whoever he held. There had been a voice beside him, low and amused. He could almost hear it beneath the music.

He tried to hold on to it. A chair scraped nearby, and he was standing in the hall with his arms empty.

"Jon?"

Wynafryd was watching him. Her smile had gone. He realised he was gripping her hand and loosened his fingers.

"Forgive me."

"Are you unwell?"

He shook his head. The answer he wanted to give would not come. His throat hurt; he swallowed and looked away from the sleeping boy.

"Only tired," he said, managing a weak smile.

Her eyes went to Tommen, then back to him. She did not look convinced, but she let him lead her towards her father.

Wylis rose as they approached. Jon thanked Wynafryd for the dance and released her hand. She stayed beside her father, watching as Jon returned to his place at the table.

He sat down and drew a cup of water towards him. Most of the nearby chairs were empty. Farther along the hall, Lady Tanda was speaking to Marrec, his steward, who had his tablets out to record what linen she could send. Jon drank slowly. By the time he lowered the cup, his hand was steady.

Guncer stopped beside Jon's table with a man in cream wool. A seven-pointed star hung upon the stranger's breast. He waited a pace behind the lord of Sweetport Sound.

"May we speak with you, my lord?"

Jon set down his cup. "Of course."

"This is Septon Halwin, one of the Most Devout. His High Holiness sent him to speak with you about the schools. He asked whether I might introduce him."

The septon bowed.

"His High Holiness told me to expect you," Jon said. He invited them to sit, and Guncer drew out the chair beside him. Halwin took the one opposite.

"There are two women who could come," the septon said. "Both have cared for children whose families are gone. One teaches letters. Lord Guncer tells me you have need of both."

"We do."

"I can give them passage," Guncer added. "Lady Tanda's linen can go in the same ship. There is room."

Jon looked at the old lord. "You have my thanks for that. But I agreed to no house governed by the Faith."

"I know, my lord." Guncer laid his hands upon the table. A moonstone caught the candlelight at his wrist. "I thought, if you heard what was needed, it might not seem so great a demand. There are children among them who have no one to teach them their prayers."

Halwin inclined his head. "The women would need lodging, and a room for their lessons. Somewhere to pray. It need not be a costly undertaking."

"Who would appoint the person in charge?"

"The Faith would choose a keeper. Someone accustomed to the work."

"And the teachers?"

"They would answer to the keeper. He would answer for them to us." Halwin rested his hands within his sleeves. "You would be welcome to see their work whenever you wished, my lord."

Jon could picture the house well enough: lessons, meals, women who knew a child's name and noticed when he was ill. In time the families would turn to its keeper with their troubles. The High Septon did not need Jon to kneel before him to gain a place in their lives.

He wanted those families safe and settled. He also wanted them to remember who had brought them there. He had chosen to build his future among them, and had no intention of giving the Faith the authority that went with caring for them.

"I will pay the teachers at my school and appoint those who oversee them," he said. "These women may take places there if they wish. They would answer to my steward."

Guncer's fingers moved against one another. "They would still be women of the Faith."

"Yes. I have asked no one to forsake it."

"Nor could they," Halwin said. "Their obligations are not mine to set aside."

"Then tell me which obligation prevents them from teaching in my service."

The septon glanced at Guncer before answering. "They have been offered for a house under our care. I cannot send them elsewhere upon terms I have not been given leave to accept."

"Then you must ask."

The music rose behind them. Halwin waited for it to soften before speaking again.

"I will carry your answer to His High Holiness."

"Please do."

The septon rose. Guncer made as though to follow, but Jon rested a hand beside his upon the table.

"A moment, Lord Guncer."

Guncer settled back into his chair. Halwin bowed to them both and withdrew among the guests leaving the hall.

For a little while Guncer watched him go. "I hoped this would please you, my lord."

"I know."

"The women do good work. I would not have brought him if I thought otherwise."

"I do not doubt their kindness." Jon turned the cup between his hands. "I cannot accept the terms."

Guncer looked down at the moonstone upon his wrist. Jon remembered reading what the man's devotion would cost him in another life. Here he sat beside his lord, disappointed by a refusal he did not understand. His faith was no pretence, and Jon could find no comfort in treating it as one.

"I ask nothing that would prevent you from worshipping," Jon said more quietly.

"I had hoped to do more than worship."

Jon stopped turning the cup. There had been no rebuke in the old lord's voice. He had offered a ship, his time, and people he believed could help.

"The linen will still need passage," Jon said. "And I would be glad of your help finding teachers who can accept my terms."

Guncer nodded after a moment. "I will speak to your steward about the ship, my lord."

He rose and bowed. Jon thanked him again before he left. He watched him cross the hall towards Marrec and Lady Tanda.

Across the hall the last dancers were arguing with the fiddlers for another tune. Jon searched for Robb among them. He wanted his chambers, the names he must set down, an hour in which nobody would ask him for anything.

Gawen came up beside him.

"There is someone waiting for you outside, my lord."

He leaned closer at Jon's look. "Hal. He came to the chambers and would not give his news to anyone else."

Jon saw the boy beyond the doors, his cap pressed flat between his hands. A household guard stood with him. Hal's face was streaked with the dirt he had tried to wipe away.

The wish for a quiet hour was gone.

Jon sent Gawen to fetch Arthur. He had turned towards the doors when Robb came up beside him, having left Betha with her companions.

"Who is that?"

"Hal. The boy who brought word of the fighting pitts."

Robb looked from him to the waiting child. "Is there another?"

"I have not heard him yet."

"Then I will hear him with you."

Jon began to object. Robb's expression hardened before he had a word out.

"You can ask me to wait here. I shall wait, and tomorrow you will tell me what you did after everyone went to bed. I had enough of that with the pirates."

"I am not taking you into a fight."

"I am asking to listen." He glanced towards Hal. "And if there is something I can do, I want you to ask me."

Martyn was already coming towards them. Jon remembered his promise to Catelyn, then the way she had looked when he made it. She had known her son. Robb would follow danger eagerly enough without Jon making exclusion into a challenge.

"Come, then. Martyn too."

Arthur joined them at the doors. He took one look at Hal and asked no question in the hearing of the hall. As they left, Robert's voice rose above the music, calling for a song he remembered. Robb looked back once before following Jon.

 

[aiwonder]

Hal waited until the music had faded behind two turns of the passage.

"There is a man my aunt knows," he began. "From the place where they kept Benn."

Jon stopped. A servant approached with a basket of empty cups against her hip; he waited for her to pass before opening his chamber door.

"Inside. Tell me there."

Arthur brought the lamp from the passage. The room still smelled faintly of Jon's bath. Wylla's sewing lay folded upon a chest, a length of unused black thread wound round the needles. Robb drew out a chair for Hal. Martyn came in behind him and stayed beside the door while Gawen shut it.

"Sit down. Did you run all the way?"

"Most of it." Hal took the water Jon poured and drank until he had to stop for breath. Dirt streaked his face. One knee showed through his torn hose.

Jon rested a hand upon the table. "Is Rilla hurt?"

"No, my lord. She was putting the stools inside when he went past. She caught my sleeve and pulled me behind the shutter. He's the one who wouldn't let her fetch Benn." Hal pinched the upper rim of his ear. "There's a piece gone here. My aunt said his face hadn't changed."

"Did he see either of you?" Arthur asked.

"He was looking across the lane. I waited until he'd gone round the corner."

"Then followed him," Jon said.

Hal's fingers tightened round the cup. "She told me to leave him. But if I did, we wouldn't know where he'd gone."

He had followed the man downhill, past the streets where Rilla bought her grain and vegetables, into lanes he knew chiefly from carrying food to customers. The man walked quickly. Hal lost him once behind a dray and found him again at a narrow crossing, waiting for the wheels to clear.

"How far from the shop?" Arthur asked.

"Past the lime sheds. Then farther down, where the covered gutter comes out. There's an old brewery beyond it." Hal looked from Arthur to Jon. "I can show you. I don't know what they call all the turnings."

At the brewery a man stood outside the front door with a cudgel through his belt. Two customers spoke to him before he let them pass. The torn-eared man went round the building instead. Hal followed as far as an empty stall, then crouched behind it.

"He stopped at the back door. Looked one way, then the other. I thought he'd seen me." Hal rubbed his thumb over the cup's wet rim. "Someone opened it from inside. He went in and they shut it again."

"What could you see beyond him?" Jon asked.

"Nothing. Only light."

"Did you see any children?"

Hal shook his head. "I stayed behind the stall. When he didn't come out, I went back to my aunt."

"And she sent you here?"

"She meant to send for the Hand's man. I said I'd come to you. You asked about Benn this morning." He looked at Jon with sudden anxiety. "You said you wanted to see him."

"I do. You were right to bring the news." Jon moved the water jug within his reach. "Finish that. We'll need the way again."

Arthur waited until Hal lowered his eyes to the cup.

"The Hand should hear this."

"That a man Rilla knows went into an alehouse?" Jon said. "We cannot tell him there is another pit."

"We can tell him where to look for a man his people are seeking."

Jon crossed to the chest. He laid Wylla's sewing upon the bed before opening it. "Then let us find out whether he is still there, and what they keep behind that door. Hal has seen no children. I won't send him through another telling of it only to have someone ask what he actually saw."

Arthur came to stand beside the chest. "That is not a reason to keep it from Arryn."

"I am not keeping it from him." Jon lifted out a plain black wool coat. "But I am going to look."

For a moment neither spoke. Robb stood beside Hal's chair, watching them.

"He expressly refused you leave," Arthur said.

"Three houses, Arthur. Eight moons. If this is another, I want to know tonight."

"So will he."

Jon spread the coat upon the bed. He could send Hal's account and wait here, with the music still coming faintly through the passage. Arryn would act; he had already acted. But the next decision would be Arryn's as well, and Jon wanted to stand where he could make it himself.

He took a sheet of parchment from the table. "Gawen, find someone to carry this to the Hand. We go to Rilla's first."

He wrote Hal's account, named the shop beneath it and signed his name.

"Tell him I am with Lord Black," Arthur said as Gawen took the folded sheet. "If we leave the shop, someone there will know where we have gone."

When the door closed, Jon looked at his uncle.

"You need not come."

"I am coming," Arthur said. "I'll try to keep this from ending with swords drawn. Give me your mail."

Robb moved away from the chair. "I'm coming too."

"You haven't asked me," Martyn said.

"I'm asking now." Robb's colour rose, but he faced the captain. "You heard what Hal said. They may be keeping more children there."

"And you have heard nothing about how many men are in that house, or who else uses the street."

"Then I'll stay beside you while we find out." Robb glanced towards Jon. "I don't want to be left in a shop and told afterwards."

Jon could imagine the knife they had failed to notice, his brother caught in a doorway too narrow for anyone to reach him. Robb was watching his face now, waiting for the refusal.

"If we find children, they may need bringing out," Jon said. "You could help with that. But Martyn decides where you go."

The older man studied Robb for a moment. "If I tell you to leave, you leave. Even if your brother stays."

"I will."

"And no running after anyone."

Robb nodded. "I'll stay with you."

Martyn turned towards the door. Jon caught his brother's sleeve before he followed.

"Dark wool. Leave the silver here. Your ring as well."

Robb slipped it off and laid it beside Wylla's needles. The little fastening at his throat had caught a curl; he winced as he pulled the hair free. For an instant he looked exactly as he had when they were small and late for the yard.

Hal rose as they left. "Should I fetch a sword?"

"You should wash your face," Arthur said. "And find a warmer coat. We need you to show us the way."

Alone with his uncle, Jon unfastened his feast clothes. The left sleeve resisted. Arthur eased it down his arm, then touched the shoulder lightly.

"Still that bad?"

"I can use it. I won't carry a shield."

He chose a padded jack and a short coat of mail, tightening his belt until it took part of the weight. Over both went the black wool, loose enough to hide the rings when he moved. Arthur checked the fastening beneath his arm while Jon drew his sword a hand's breadth and sheathed it again. His shining harness remained upon its stand.

Hugin hopped onto the chest and began pulling at a folded shirt. Jon held out his gloved wrist. The crow climbed upon it, claws gripping through the leather.

He could hold five now, and at a distance. That would be useful when there was daylight over the city. Tonight the windows showed him patches of lamplight with darkness between. A bird could get above a wall; it would not see through a closed door, or find a man in a lane where Jon could scarcely see his own boots.

"The small basket," he told Arthur.

His uncle fetched it. Munin shifted upon the bedpost as the lid closed over her companion, then settled again beneath her feathers.

***
​

The castle had not gone to bed.

Men carried trays back towards the kitchens, stepping aside for guests who had forgotten how wide their own shoulders were. Somewhere behind a closed door, a woman was laughing hard enough to lose her breath. At the head of the stairs a page lay asleep upon a folded cloak, one hand still curled round the neck of an empty jug.

Robb wore a charcoal wool coat over his mail, its cuffs turned back from his gloves, and a plain dark cloak. Without the feast's silver and fur he looked younger. Arthur and Martyn wore mail beneath their dark coats as well. Arthur had left his grey-white cloak in Jon's chamber; the one he wore now was brown, with a hood deep enough to hide his face. Jon drew his own hood forward over the white forelock.

Gawen returned with Tomas, who had left another man of the household in charge of their chambers. Both wore dark wool over their mail and plain cloaks over their sword belts. There were six of them armed, with Hal carrying Hugin's basket. They left their badges and the feast's finery behind.

The man at the gate knew Arthur. He raised his lamp, saw Jon beside him and looked towards the city.

"Will you want horses, my lord?"

"We will walk."

The guard's eyes passed over the others. He asked no further question, but Jon saw him speak to a companion as they went through. There would be no mystery about which way Lord Black had gone.

Below the castle, people were still making a night of the prince's nameday. A fiddler played beneath an awning while a woman in a yellow skirt tried to teach a carter the steps of a dance. He kept looking at his feet. When he trod upon hers she struck his shoulder, laughing, and made him begin again. Robb glanced back at them. He had left a different dance scarcely an hour ago.

Hal nearly walked into a man carrying spent rushes in a basket. The man swore, then caught sight of the men in dark colours and swallowed the end of it. Sour water leaked through the wicker and spattered Jon's boot.

"Mind the bottom," Hal told Robb.

Robb stepped over the spreading trail. Ahead, a row of lamps burned before a winesink; beyond it the street fell away into darkness broken by doorways. Hal kept to the wall until he reached a flight of shallow steps. He took these without hesitation, turning sideways where a woman had set out jars to catch the drip from a roof.

They came upon the Street of Flour while men were still unloading for the morning's baking. A sack split against a cart's iron binding. Flour poured over the wheel, and the man holding it called for his companion to bring a tub. Neither looked up at the armed party. Jon tasted the dust before the wind carried it off.

Below that street, Hal led them into Flea Bottom.

Robb drew closer when the paving gave way beneath their feet. The gutter here had spread across the lane, leaving a ridge of churned mud beside the wall. Hal knew where the firm places were. He stepped from a flat stone to a timber offcut, basket tucked against his ribs, while Hugin complained beneath the lid.

The smell of hot bread lingered for another dozen paces. Then they passed a low wall with scraps of hide hanging over it, and Robb pulled his sleeve against his nose.

"Gods."

Hal looked back. "Keep to this side. There's a pit behind there."

Something wet struck the ground beyond the wall. A man coughed, spat and began to scrape again. Even at this hour the tanner's work had not ended. Jon caught the stink of old urine, wet leather and something sweeter rotting underneath. It followed them round the turning, trapped between houses whose upper rooms leaned so far forward that he could scarcely see the sky.

A shutter opened above Arthur's head. He caught Jon's arm and pulled him against the wall as a woman tipped a basin into the lane. Water struck the gutter, carrying onion skins and a pale lump of fat. Across the way a man thrust his head out of a window.

"There's washing under there, you filthy bitch!"

"Then bring it in!" She shook the last drops from the basin. "Been hanging there three days."

He was still shouting when she closed the shutter. Hal hurried them past the sheet dripping from a line beneath his window. Robb lifted his cloak clear of the water; farther down, a drunk stepped straight into it and began swearing at his boots.

Jon had walked these lanes with Aries in daylight. He remembered flowers growing in a broken bowl and a man begging for time to find his rent. Now candlelight showed through gaps he had taken for cracks in empty sheds. People slept above the passages, beneath stairs, in little rooms squeezed between older houses. A child cried overhead. Someone began singing to it; below, a cobbler held a shoe between his knees and drove in another peg.

Arthur slowed at a covered passage. "Is the way through still open?"

"They've built a room across it," Hal said. "We have to go round."

Jon looked into the passage as they passed. At its far end, beyond a ladder and a heap of broken tiles, light showed beneath a new door.

The next turning brought them up against a quarrel. A man stumbled out of a doorway with his hand over his mouth. Two others followed. One caught his coat and pushed him against the wall while the second went through his pockets. A few paces away, a woman gathering empty cups drew back into her house.

"I paid on market day," the man said through his fingers.

"You paid for the stall." His captor pulled the coat tighter. "You've got a boy carrying round the lanes now. That's more."

"He's my son."

Arthur stepped into the lamplight. The man searching the pockets stopped. Jon had already put his hand upon his sword; he saw the nearer man notice it, then look past him at Martyn and Tomas.

"Let him go," Arthur said.

The man's coat fell loose. He slid sideways along the wall, stooped for his cap and began brushing it with a shaking hand.

"He owes," the other man said. He was watching Arthur now. "We've a right to ask for it."

"Then you have asked." Arthur waited until both had gone back through the door before turning to the man with the cap. "Who are they?"

"No one, ser. We've settled it."

Blood ran between his fingers. Jon offered him a clean cloth, but the man shook his head and backed away. He was looking over Jon's shoulder at the open doorway.

Robb started after him. Hal caught his sleeve.

"Don't. He'll think you want him to name them."

"We just saw them."

"And they saw him talking to you." Hal let go. The man was already turning into a narrower lane, his cap pulled low. "He has to put his stall out in the morning."

A cart laden with empty casks rattled towards them. Arthur moved the party behind a shuttered stall to let it pass. Its wheel scraped along the opposite wall, drowning Robb's first words. He waited for it to go by, then turned to Arthur.

"They make him pay to sell in the street? Can anyone do that here?"

"There are men who stop you if it's not your street," Hal said. "They'd beat you for asking."

Arthur glanced at him. Hal shifted the basket against his hip, looking from one face to another. He seemed to regret speaking.

"How far do their men collect?" Arthur asked.

"I don't know these ones. Down by the lime sheds it's the knight's men. They come up as far as the steps now."

"What knight?"

"The one with the dent across his breastplate. Aunt will tell you. She knows who comes round."

Robb looked back towards the door. "And the watch allows it?"

"A man has to complain," Arthur said. "Then he has to go home again. You saw how willing he was to speak."

"Father would hang them."

"He would have to catch them first," Jon said. "And keep someone here afterwards. Suppose we took those two away tonight. There may be another three who know where that stallholder sleeps. He needs to know what happens tomorrow before he can afford to help us."

Arthur watched the doorway until the cart had turned out of the lane. "Keep together from here. If someone asks for help through a door, call me before you follow. They used to draw men into the yards that way."

Robb drew his cloak back over his sword hilt. His anger had not gone; Jon could see him trying to make sense of the houses around them, of people close enough to hear a beating and unwilling to open a shutter.

"Was it like this when you lived here?" he asked.

"In places." Arthur rubbed a thumb over the worn seam of his glove. "I knew which streets to avoid after dark. Men told me where I could drink and where I ought to keep a hand on my purse. I listened to them."

He looked down the lane after the stallholder. "I wore a white cloak here for years. When I heard of trouble in these streets, I left it to the watch. I never troubled to find out whether they came."

Jon had heard his uncle speak bitterly of the court before. This was quieter. Arthur drew his hood forward and waited for Hal to lead them on.

Jon followed with the unused cloth still in his hand. He had been thinking of the city as something to be rebuilt once he held it: drains, sound houses, markets supplied at a fair price. A man who took part of every stallholder's earnings would take his share of those improvements too. Jon would be paying to enrich him unless he could put someone in these lanes whose orders mattered after sunset. He could imagine the men he would choose. He could also imagine how little he would like to hear that they had begun taking payment on their own account.

A girl stepped out from behind the stall with a basket hooked over her arm. She held up a dark end of bread.

"Still good, masters. I've half a loaf at home if you want more."

Her gaze settled upon Robb's boots, then the good wool beneath his cloak. He reached for his purse. Martyn caught his wrist, and the girl snatched the bread back as though she had been accused of stealing it.

"Wait," Jon said. He had put loose coppers in his pocket before leaving. He showed her one and pointed to the piece in her hand. She gave it to him, took the coin and slipped it into her bodice before anyone could change his mind.

Jon broke the bread and passed half to Robb. Its crust was hard, the crumb still soft. Beyond his brother a man lounged against a wall with a wine jar, watching Martyn release his wrist. Robb saw him too. He tucked the bread into his coat.

Hal was greeting a woman fastening her shutter. She wanted to know whether Rilla had kept any stew; when he told her there was broth, she sent a small boy running uphill with a pot. The boy squeezed past Robb, ducked beneath a bench two men were carrying and vanished round a corner.

Farther on, the noise outside a winesink forced them into single file. Two gold cloaks were trying to separate a pair of drunken carters while the owner pursued them with a broken stool. One prisoner had a fistful of the other's hair and would not let go. His captor drove a knee into the back of his leg. The grip loosened, and the second watchman hauled the other man clear.

"Now find his fucking knife," the first said, breathing hard.

The woman thrust her stool at him. "And who pays me for this?"

The other watchman took her lamp to search the gutter. Blood had dried upon his sleeve. A man at an upstairs window offered to come down and beat both prisoners himself; his wife dragged him back by his shirt. People laughed, crowding nearer, until the watchman straightened with the knife and shouldered a spectator aside.

Arthur drew Robb out of his path. The prisoners went past between the gold cloaks, one still protesting about his hair. Jon waited while the owner retrieved her lamp. The stool lay forgotten at her feet.

Neither watchman spared their party a second look. They had been busy enough with the knife. Jon looked towards the turning where the stallholder had disappeared, then followed Hal up the steps.

They climbed again, towards the edge of the quarter. The houses drew apart enough for the breeze to reach Jon's face. He could smell woodsmoke now, and warm onion broth.

Hal stopped at a corner and looked uphill. For a moment Jon thought he had lost his way. Then the boy pointed past a line of shuttered fronts.

"There. She has left the lamp."

Rilla's cookshop had a narrow strip of light beneath its door. A stack of stools stood upside down under the little overhang, their legs making a crooked fence against the wall. Hal tapped twice and called his name.

The door opened before he could knock again.

His aunt caught him by the upper arm and pulled him inside.

"Where have you been?"

"I told you—"

"You told me you were going to the castle. You did not tell me you would take half the night."

Then she saw Jon in the doorway, and the rest of the rebuke stopped behind her teeth.

"My lord."

"He had to find me at the feast."

Rilla looked from him to the cloaked men in the lane. Her hand remained upon Hal's arm.

"Come inside, then. There is no use letting the whole street count you."

The shop held the warmth of its hearth long after the cooking had ended. A pot stood beneath a cloth upon the table, and somebody had scrubbed a pale patch into the floor where grease had spilled. Rilla moved a stool with her foot to make room for Arthur, then let go of Hal long enough to shut the door.

Rilla was as narrow as Jon remembered, though she planted herself before them with her elbows out as if she meant to fill the doorway. Flour had dried in the creases of her wrists. Her hair was coming loose beneath its cloth, and she had rubbed one cheek red. Her eyes went to his sword.

"Have you told the Hand?"

"A message is on its way to him."

"Good. I don't want that man coming back to ask what I saw."

"Did he speak to you?"

"No. I was behind the shutter."

She beckoned Hal nearer, turned his face towards the lamp and rubbed the last dirt from his cheek with her thumb. He submitted for three strokes before pulling away.

"I washed."

"Poorly."

"Rilla," Jon said. "Tell me about his ear."

She described the same torn rim Hal had shown them. The man had stood two steps above her when she went to fetch Benn, close enough that she had seen the pale scar where the flesh was missing. He had told her the boy owed money and would not be leaving until he had earned it.

"He put a hand here." She touched the top of her chest. "Not hard. Just enough to let me know he could. I remember his face, my lord."

Jon believed her. He also remembered the part of Arryn's account in which the keeper had claimed the children were paying family debts.

"The old brewery," Arthur said. "Do you know it?"

"I bought spent grain there for my sister's pigs when the brewer was living. His sons sold the vessels after he died. People still drink in the front room."

"And behind it?"

"A yard, with a washhouse against the far wall. The ale went down into the cellars."

"Hal mentioned a knight," Jon said. "Men paying him for the right to sell in the lanes. Is the brewery in his part of the quarter?"

Rilla looked at Hal. He lowered his eyes to the pot.

"Beyond the lime sheds, yes. As far as the old well, last I heard." She took off the lid and dipped a ladle into the broth. "It wasn't his three years ago. Now the men who used to take money there either pay him or they've gone."

"Gone where?" Robb asked.

"I couldn't tell you, my lord. One used to buy his dinner here. I haven't seen him since the fighting by the well."

She filled a bowl, broke bread into it and handed it to Robb, indicating Hal's stool. He carried it over with both hands. Rilla watched Hal take his first spoonful before she went on.

"I've seen the knight once. Big man, with his nose broken sideways. Armour worth more than this shop. They say he fought for one of the companies across the sea."

"Who knighted him?" Arthur asked.

Rilla hesitated, the ladle resting against the rim of the pot. "I don't know. His men call him ser."

Rilla wiped a drop of broth from the table. "I saw him knock a man down outside a potshop. The man had an axe. He didn't get to use it." "I call him ser as well."

"Do his collectors come here?" Jon asked.

"They came up the steps a fortnight ago. Said if I paid, nobody would trouble Hal when he took food down there."

"But you paid," Hal said. He had stopped eating.

"For that week. I told you to stay this side afterwards." She bent to push a fallen ember back into the hearth. "He brings back more money when he goes down by the lime sheds. The men working there are hungry."

Hal moved his spoon through the bread. Jon had been about to ask how much she paid; he let the question wait.

"Does anyone take these demands to the watch?" Arthur asked.

"People say his men are left alone. One was taken for stolen wool; I saw him back in the lane two days later."

"Did anyone tell you why he was freed?"

"No. Perhaps someone paid. Perhaps the wool wasn't stolen. I have a shop to open, ser. I don't go asking."

She set the ladle down and faced Jon. "I know the man with the torn ear. I know what he did to Benn. I haven't told you the knight keeps children in that brewery, because I don't know that. Don't send anyone down there saying I do."

"I won't," Jon said. "Or use your name when I ask about him."

"They'll know somebody spoke."

Arthur had taken his hands from the back of the chair. He looked at Jon, then at the barred door. Rilla watched them both.

Hugin made a low, indignant noise from the basket Hal had left beside the hearth. Rilla looked down.

"You brought a bird?"

"He makes a fuss when I leave him," Jon said.

Arthur's gaze rested upon him for half a breath. Rilla appeared too occupied to question it.

"He'll make a fuss here if he finds the fat." She moved the basket away from a crock. "Your men will stay, won't they? Afterwards, I mean. When you've done whatever you came to do."

Jon turned to Gawen. "You stay with Rilla when we return. I'll have another man sent to relieve you." He looked back at her. "If the Hand has someone here before then, let him in."

"Someone who knows why he is here."

"He will know."

Rilla looked at Arthur, who inclined his head. She cut another piece of bread and laid it beside Hal's bowl.

Hal had begun to shake now that he was warm. Jon pulled a stool nearer the hearth for him, then looked down at the torn hose.

"Let your aunt see that knee before we leave."

Hal lowered his spoon. "I have to show you."

"I know. After that Gawen will bring you back."

"I could wait—"

"Here," Jon said. "For the Hand's men. They will need someone who knows the way as well."

Rilla said nothing, but she fetched a damp cloth for the scrape.

They left the shop while Hal was still chewing the last of his bread. Rilla caught his coat at the door and made him fasten it properly. She kept hold of him a moment after the fastening was done.

"With him," she said, looking at Gawen. "You come back with him."

Hal nodded. She let them out and lowered the bar behind them.

At first Jon recognised the way. They passed the turn where the woman had sent her boy for broth, then the passage Arthur had thought to use. Hal went straight past both. Soon the cookshop's upper window was lost behind roofs, and he led them down steps hollowed in the middle by years of feet.

The air grew warmer between the houses. Men slept in open doorways with their heads wrapped in their cloaks; one had tied a cord from his wrist to the handle of the basket beside him. A woman worked a knife through a fish at a low table, scraping the guts into a bucket between her ankles. Her little lamp showed silver scales upon her forearms. She lifted the bucket out of their way without looking up.

Hal took a narrow passage behind her stall. Robb had to turn sideways to clear a timber shore. From above came the slow rasp of a saw, then a man shouting for somebody to hold the other end. Arthur put a hand against the post as he passed, feeling it move.

"One at a time here."

Beyond it the lane broadened beside a row of lime sheds. Pale dust lay in the joints of the doors. The next yard held hides soaking in pits; steam or mist drifted across the wall, bringing a sharpness which caught in Jon's nose. Hal covered the basket with his coat skirt as they skirted a heap of scrapings. Hugin complained beneath it.

"Still farther?" Robb asked.

"Past the gutter." Hal pointed downhill. "Then we go round. That way takes you to the front door."

The covered drain ended beneath a house whose back wall stood upon two arches. Water poured into a channel choked with straw and broken crockery. A plank had been laid across it. Hal tested the nearer end with his foot, then crossed; Jon followed, keeping his sore arm close while the plank bowed under his weight. The far bank was slippery. Gawen caught the basket before Hal could set it down in the mud.

Here the noise of the nameday celebrations had thinned. A dog worried something beneath a cart. Two men sat in the light of a doorway throwing knucklebones; one drew his foot over the stakes as the strangers passed. Above them a woman shook a blanket from a window, waited for the dust to fall, and began beating it against the sill.

Hal slowed at the next crossing. He put a hand against Gawen's sleeve and pointed through the gap between two buildings.

A lamp hung beside a broad doorway. A man stood beneath it with a cudgel in his belt. While Jon watched, another man came up and spoke to him. The guard moved aside just far enough to let him through.

"That's the front," Hal whispered. "The passage beside it goes to the back lane. I went round the other way."

Arthur drew him away from the crossing before he could point again. They followed a blank wall and turned behind a line of shuttered stalls. Hal stopped at the last, where an awning had sagged over an empty bench. From its side Jon could see the back lane running towards a closed double gate. A smaller door had been cut into one leaf.

"There. He knocked on the little door. Then he looked along the lane." Hal bent behind the stall's end, showing where he had hidden. "I stayed down until I heard it shut."

The brewery rose beyond the gate, its upper windows dark. An elder bush grew from the broken crown of its chimney. Light escaped beneath the gate and along the washhouse roof at the yard's far side, but nothing inside could be seen from where they stood.

Jon turned to Gawen. "Take him back now. Tell Rilla where we are. If the Hand's people have reached her, bring them."

Hal glanced towards the little door. "What if he comes out?"

"We'll be watching." Jon took the basket from him. "You've done what I needed. Your aunt will be waiting."

The boy drew his coat together and went with Gawen. Arthur watched until they had passed the crossing, then sent Tomas to watch the front. Martyn took Robb farther along the rear lane, where they could see anyone approaching the gate.

Jon set the basket upon the bench.

Arthur glanced along the lane. "Here?"

"I only need the roof. Keep people away from this side."

He sat beneath the awning, drawing his cloak close. Arthur let a loose flap of canvas fall across the stall's open side, then took the end of the bench, screening Jon from the crossing. The others were out of sight. To anyone passing, he would be a man resting in the shelter while his companion watched the lane. Jon would have preferred a locked room, but he was not going to find one without questions.

Arthur lifted the basket lid. Hugin climbed onto Jon's wrist, then hopped to the edge of the stall. The white wing feathers caught the lamplight as he opened his wings.

Jon rested his hands upon his knees. The bench pressed against the backs of his legs; beyond Arthur's shoulder a shutter creaked in the wind. Then the weight of his mail receded, and the claws gripping the stall became his own.

He beat upwards through the awning's torn edge. A line of washing crossed the space above the lane. He veered beneath it and climbed past the eaves until the broken chimney rose clear.

At night the roofs were hard to judge. A lamp in an upper window made the slope below it seem lower; beyond that slope the next lane vanished altogether. He landed among the elder's roots, scraping his claws over brick, and turned towards the light below.

Two lamps burned in the yard. One hung above the brewery's side door. The other stood upon a cask beside a cart, throwing the horse's shadow across the washhouse wall. The driver was pulling a rope over bundles in the cart bed.

The double gate was shut. Jon could see the upper half and the rear lane beyond, but a sloping lean-to hid the corner where it joined the passage beside the brewery. He shifted along the chimney, searching for a clearer view. Mortar crumbled beneath one claw.

The washhouse door opened. A child came out carrying a bucket with both hands.

Jon leaned forward. The boy stopped at a word from inside. He could not have been more than eight; he wore no shoes, and the bucket dragged against his knee as he brought it to the cart. The driver drank from it and handed it back. For a moment another small face showed in the doorway.

Then a man appeared behind the second child. He pushed the boy out of sight and came into the yard, lifting his head to answer the driver.

A piece was missing from the upper rim of his ear.

Jon held the bird still. Below him the man put his hand on the first boy's neck and steered him back into the washhouse. The child went quickly, trying not to spill the water. The door closed behind them.

A shutter banged in the house beside the brewery. A woman leaned out and shouted about the horse. Her voice carried clearly; the driver's answer was lost beneath the overhanging roof. Jon could not make the bird's ears separate it from the clatter of a handcart passing in the lane.

A slight man in a brown coat came out of the brewery. He kept one hand inside his coat until he reached the lamp, then took out a purse. The keeper joined him. A coin passed between them; the man in brown held a second where the other could see it, listened, and put it back into the purse.

The keeper reached towards him. Neither smiled.

Jon could wait to see what the money bought. He could also find himself following the brown coat into a lane without a single light. For now he had found the man Hal described, with children behind the door he guarded.

He left the chimney. Arthur's pale hand showed briefly as he raised the basket lid beneath the awning. Hugin landed upon the stall, claws skidding on the bare wood, and Jon came back to himself with his own hands clenched against his knees.

Arthur waited for him to breathe, then leaned close enough to speak beneath the sound of the gutter.

"Children?"

"Two that I could see. There may be more in the little house. The man with the torn ear puts his hands on them as though they belong to him."

Jon told him about the cart and the purse. Arthur's eyes went towards the gate.

"Did you hear what they were saying?"

"No."

"Then we still need to see what they do."

Hugin climbed into the basket. Jon closed it and put it beneath the bench. Arthur went round to the front, leaving Tomas where he could watch the crossing. Robb and Martyn came back to the shelter of the stall. A man brought out a bucket and threw its contents into the gutter; they drew back while the water ran past. Somewhere above, the woman had finished beating her blanket and was calling to a child to get into bed.

The gate remained shut.

Jon watched the small door in it. The mail had settled heavily upon his shoulder, and he shifted his belt beneath the cloak. Beside him Robb kept his hands away from his sword. Whenever steps approached, his fingers curled against his thighs.

Arthur returned before Gawen. "There's a stair at the back of the taproom. I heard something below, but couldn't make it out."

"Did they see you looking?"

"I bought ale. He was willing enough to let me in when I showed him the copper." Arthur rubbed the wet from his fingers. "The taproom door opens into the yard. We can reach it from there if we have to."

A while later two men came out of the front and turned uphill. Their voices reached the crossing before their faces did. One complained about a smaller boy falling too soon; the other told him he should have kept his silver. Robb turned towards Jon.

Martyn touched his elbow. Neither spoke until the men had passed.

Gawen returned by the lane they had taken from the lime sheds. There was mud up one side of his cloak, where he had slipped at the plank crossing. He caught his breath before speaking.

"Hal is with his aunt. No one from the Hand yet. She'll wait, and the boy will bring them this way."

Arthur drew him into the shelter of the stall and told him what they had heard. Jon was watching the gate when a bar scraped against the other side. One leaf swung inward, then the other. The driver came out to push a stone beneath it and went back to the horse.

Jon moved along the wall with Gawen. Martyn brought Robb behind them while Arthur and Tomas went to the passage beside the brewery. The woman in the opposite house was gathering washing from a line; at the sight of the armed strangers she went indoors, leaving the last shirt hanging.

Through the gateway Jon could see the cart. The horse blocked much of the yard, its ears twitching at a cry from inside the brewery. A man laughed. The animal stamped and pulled at the rope holding it to an iron ring.

Fingers appeared briefly at the washhouse's barred window, then withdrew.

"How long?" the man in brown asked.

"He's bringing them."

The keeper lifted the bar across the washhouse door. The first child came out sideways, dragging a foot. Another followed with an arm about his waist. A cloth had been bound round the smaller boy's head and slipped over one eye.

"Up," the keeper said.

The older boy looked at the cart. When the man reached for them, the younger cried out before his hand touched him.

Jon beckoned Tomas back from the passage. "Fetch Arthur."

Martyn drew Robb close enough to hear. Jon pointed towards a recessed doorway on the wider stretch of lane beyond the stall.

"Take them there when we bring them out. Keep them together, away from the gate. Leave the basket beneath the stall; I don't want it under our feet."

"And then?" Martyn asked.

Jon looked along the dark lane. Rilla's shop was a long way beyond the crossing, uphill all the way. "We'll need a cart for the ones who can't walk. Hold them there until we have the yard."

Martyn nodded. Inside, the keeper lifted the smaller boy by the arms and put him into the cart. His cry broke against the walls. Robb moved forward a pace, then stopped beside his captain.

Arthur came back through the passage with Tomas. "One at the front door, three inside," he said quietly. Then he looked into the yard, where the older boy was climbing after the younger.

"Can you hold the gate?"

"Yes."

"Gawen, stay with him. Martyn, the children. Tomas comes with me." Arthur looked once more at Jon. "Give us time to reach the front door. If they try to take the cart out before then, stop it."

Jon watched them go, then listened until their steps were lost in the noise from the taproom. The boy in the cart was whispering to the other one. Somewhere inside, coins spilled upon wood.

The keeper opened the washhouse again. Three children came out together, pressed so closely that one stumbled over another's foot. A girl followed, older than the others, perhaps ten. Her cropped hair stuck up at the back where she had slept upon it. She carried a little bundle against her chest.

"Leave that," the keeper said.

She held it tighter. He took it from her and shook it open. A shoe fell out, followed by a piece of comb and a ragged strip of blue cloth. The girl dropped to her knees to gather them.

The man in brown said something Jon could not hear. The keeper swore, caught the girl beneath one arm and hauled her towards the cart, dragging her feet through her spilled belongings.

Arthur would scarcely have reached the front door. Jon counted another breath. The keeper shook the girl when she tried to reach back for the cloth.

He had waited long enough.

Jon stepped into the gateway.

"Put her down."

The keeper stopped. The girl hung from his hand for a moment before he let her feet touch the ground.

"Private yard."

"I saw the children come out."

"Then you saw my business."

His gaze moved over Jon's cloak, the sword at his hip and Gawen behind him. He had been startled. Now he saw a young lord out with a servant, and his shoulders eased. Jon watched the contempt come into his face.

"Off home," he said. "Before your fathers hear where you've been."

The man in brown moved away from the cart. He did it slowly, making room, his hands visible at his sides. Jon watched him from the corner of his eye.

"You kept a boy named Benn," Jon said. "He has two fingers which will never close properly."

The keeper's hand tightened upon the girl. She made a small sound.

"Swords!" a man shouted at the front of the brewery.

"Stay where you are," Arthur said.

Something heavy struck the floor.

The man at the horse snatched the tether from its ring. He slapped the animal's flank and hauled upon the rein, turning it towards the open gate.

Gawen pulled Jon aside as the horse came forward. The cart wheel struck the gatepost with a crack. One of the children inside screamed.

"Hold him!" Jon shouted.

Gawen caught the rein near the bit. The horse threw its head, dragging him a step. Jon drew his sword and went for the driver, who had dropped the tether and was reaching beneath his coat.

The knife came out low.

Jon turned his hips out of its line and struck the man's forearm with the flat of his blade. The driver cried out but kept the knife. He drove forward again, trying to get inside the longer weapon. Jon gave ground until his back struck the gatepost, then stepped round it. The man's shoulder hit the wood. Jon brought the pommel down against his mouth.

The knife fell between them.

Jon kicked it beneath the cart and caught the man by the coat. He hauled him away from the wheel and drove him face first against the wall. The effort pulled at his left shoulder. Pain spread hot and sudden down his arm.

"Stay there."

The driver spat blood against the stone. Jon set the point beneath his ear and felt him become still.

Gawen had the horse stopped. The cart stood crooked across the gate, one wheel wedged against the post. Beyond it Martyn had drawn his sword. Robb was pulling the smaller child from the cart into his arms.

The keeper shoved the girl towards Jon.

She struck his knees. He caught her with his left arm without thinking, and his shoulder failed beneath the weight. He dropped to one knee to keep from dropping her. The driver twisted free.

For a moment there were too many things moving: the girl clutching his coat, the driver running towards the side door, Gawen trying to hold the horse and draw his sword together. Jon could hear fighting inside the brewery, boots scraping upon boards, a man choking off a cry.

The keeper came at him with a short club.

Jon pushed the girl behind the gatepost and raised his sword. The club struck across it, driving the edge back towards his face. He let the force carry his blade down, rolled his wrist and cut across the keeper's wrist as the man tried to lift the club again.

The club dropped. Jon rose into him, driving a shoulder beneath his chin, and they struck the side of the cart together. The children inside scrambled away.

The keeper clawed at Jon's hood. Cloth tore at the neck. His free hand found Jon's sword arm and held it against the cart rail.

He was stronger than Jon.

Jon stamped upon his instep and drove a knee hard into his thigh. The grip loosened enough to turn the blade. Martyn caught the horse's rein from Gawen. Before Jon could bring his blade up, Gawen hit the keeper from the side and pulled him away.

They went down beside the wheel. Gawen got his knee between the man's shoulders and dragged both arms behind his back. The keeper began to howl.

The cart had stopped moving. Robb was setting the smaller boy upon his feet in the recessed doorway beyond the stall. The older child had climbed down after him and was trying to pull him away.

"Wait," Robb said. "Wait, you'll fall."

The girl pressed herself against the gatepost beside Jon. She had both hands over her ears.

He lowered his sword. "Go to him. The boy with the red hair."

She did not move.

Jon crouched, keeping the bloody blade low and away from her. He opened his empty hand upon his knee.

"What is your name?"

She looked past him towards the little house.

"Is someone still in there?"

A shout came from the far end of the yard. The driver had reached the brewery's side door. He stopped so abruptly that his boots slid in the dirt.

Arthur came through it.

The driver raised both hands.

"Down," Arthur said.

The man went to his knees. Arthur held his sword low, its point steady, and glanced across the yard to Jon. Behind him Tomas dragged another man through the doorway by the back of his coat. A cut above Tomas's eyebrow had painted one side of his face red.

"Are you hurt?" Arthur asked.

Jon shook his head.

"Say it."

"My shoulder. Nothing new."

Arthur's eyes went to the sword in his hand, then the girl beside him. He nodded towards the lane.

"Get them clear."

Tomas took his prisoner back inside to join the others. Arthur made the driver lie face down, then cut a length from the cart's rope and bound his wrists before bringing him against the wall.

Jon looked round for the man in brown.

He was gone.

For one foolish moment Jon expected to find him pressed against the wall, waiting to be noticed. Then he remembered the horse, the gate, the girl falling against him. The man had been close enough to the opening to slip out while they struggled with the cart.

Jon went to the gate. Beyond Robb and the children, the lane turned sharply between two houses. A shutter banged somewhere out of sight. He could be ten paces away. Twenty. Running uphill towards the noise and company, or down towards the darker lanes.

Hugin was still in the basket beneath the stall. Jon could send him up, but beyond this yard there was scarcely a lamp to find the fugitive by. He would lose the man and leave his own body here among the children.

"Jon."

Robb had the bandaged boy seated upon his folded cloak. The older child stood over him, one hand gripping Robb's sleeve. He was speaking too fast for Jon to understand.

Robb looked up. "He says there are more below."

Jon looked once towards the turning, then went back into the yard.

The keeper lay beneath Gawen's knee. He had stopped shouting and was watching Jon with wet, furious eyes. Jon stood over him.

"Who was the man with the purse?"

"Don't know."

Gawen took a firmer hold of the wrist. The man gasped.

"You were taking his money."

"For the cart."

"It is not his cart?"

"Ask him."

Jon bent and caught the back of the man's hair. He lifted his head enough to make him look at the cart, the open house and the children waiting beside the wall.

"Where were you taking them?"

The man's gaze flicked towards the girl.

Jon saw it and let go. He had put her in the keeper's sight, waiting to hear how much she might already have told them.

"Take her outside," he told Gawen. "Arthur can hold him."

Gawen looked up. Arthur was already coming towards them. He took the prisoner's good wrist and drew it behind his back while Gawen rose.

The girl backed away from Gawen's outstretched hand.

"Leave me my things."

Her voice was hoarse, but the demand came clearly enough.

"Of course," Jon said.

He gathered the shoe, comb and cloth from beside the door. The cloth held two small bundles sewn into its corners. Coins, perhaps, or something she valued more. He did not open them. She took everything from him and tucked it against her chest, still watching the keeper.

"He cannot follow you," Jon said.

She looked at Arthur, at the pale blade now resting along his forearm, and allowed Gawen to lead her out.

Inside the brewery, a man lay across the threshold between the front room and the yard. Jon stepped round him. There was a broken stool beneath his hand and a dark wetness spreading under his throat.

Tomas stood over two prisoners beside an overturned table. A fourth man sat upon the floor clutching his leg, his face grey beneath a stubble of beard. None of them was looking at the dead man.

"He came at Ser Arthur with an axe," Tomas said when he saw Jon's glance. The man with the wounded leg had been guarding the front door; his cudgel lay beneath the table. "This one caught me before I could get past him."

Jon glanced at the cut above Tomas's eye. "Have it bound when they're secured. Where are the stairs?"

A stair descended behind the place where the ale casks had once stood. Lamplight showed below. Jon called down before putting a foot upon it.

"Come up. Leave any weapons where they are."

"There's only us," a voice answered.

Young. A boy trying to sound older.

Jon went down.

The cellar ceiling was low enough that Arthur would have had to stoop. A pair of lamps stood in wall niches, their smoke blackening the stone above them. Someone had swept a broad patch of earth clear and set benches around it. A rope hung between posts at either end. Upon one bench lay a little coat folded with both sleeves tucked underneath.

Two boys sat against the wall beyond it. One had his head upon the other's shoulder. The boy holding him stared at Jon's sword.

Jon sheathed it.

"Can he walk?"

"He says he can."

The other boy lifted his head. His lip was swollen. "I can."

"Good. We will go slowly."

Jon looked behind the benches and into the shallow recess beneath the stair. Nothing moved there. An empty jug lay on its side. A few copper coins had rolled into the dirt beside it.

He knew what the space had been used for before either boy spoke. The knowing did not prepare him for the little coat. Someone had folded it carefully before a fight, expecting to put it on again afterwards. It was a habit he had taught his own children, too long ago for their faces to come readily when he wanted them. He could remember a school jumper draped over a chair more clearly than the sound of his son's voice.

For a moment he could not make himself look away.

"Is that yours?" he asked.

The boy with the swollen lip nodded.

Jon picked it up and held it open. The child put his arms into the sleeves, flinching when Jon's hand passed near his face.

"I won't touch it."

The boy stared at him.

"Your mouth. I meant your mouth." Jon swallowed. "Come. There are people outside."

He helped them up the stairs, one hand upon the wall, the other ready beneath the weaker boy's elbow. Halfway up, the child stopped and began to tremble. Jon waited. He could hear Tomas speaking overhead and Robb's voice beyond him, asking somebody to stay beside the others.

"You can sit for a moment," Jon said.

"He'll be angry."

"Who?"

The boy would not answer.

Jon lowered himself onto the step below, leaving the way up clear. There was barely room for his knees. He waited until the child looked at him again.

"I need a moment myself," he said. He loosened his left hand upon his knee. "My shoulder hurts."

The child looked at it.

"Were you fighting?"

"In the yard this afternoon."

"Did you win?"

Jon almost laughed, and was glad that he did not. "Not the pass that did this."

The other boy slid down beside them. For a little while they sat upon the cold steps with their shoulders nearly touching.

When the smaller one tried to stand, Jon stood with him.

Outside, the yard was filling with voices.

***
​

The woman who had taken in her washing stood at her door with a lamp. Three neighbours had joined her. They kept their distance from Martyn's drawn sword, but none seemed inclined to go back indoors.

Robb had moved the children uphill as far as the wider mouth of the lane. Gawen stood between them and the watching adults. The girl with the bundle sat with her knees drawn up beneath her chin. The boy from the cart still had Robb's cloak beneath him.

There were six of them there. With the two Jon had brought from the cellar, eight.

"Those are the last?" Martyn asked.

"Below, yes. Has the little house been searched?"

Robb turned towards it. "I called. No one answered."

"Look inside."

Martyn went with him. Jon stayed beside the children, listening to the woman with the lamp ask Gawen whether there had been a murder.

"Stay back," Gawen told her.

"I live here."

"Then stay at your door."

"There are men with swords outside it."

Jon lifted a hand. "She may stand there."

The woman looked at him properly for the first time. His hood had fallen back during the struggle. The white in his hair caught her lamplight.

"You're the lord," she said.

"These children are coming with us. Give them room."

"Are they his?" She looked towards the yard.

"No."

"That's what he told my husband."

Jon looked at her. She drew the lamp nearer her breast.

"Not all of them," she added quickly. "Some were his sister's. He said."

The girl with the bundle was watching the woman's bare feet. She seemed unsurprised by any of it.

"The Hand's men will want to speak with you," Jon said.

The woman's mouth closed.

Jon heard Arryn's warning again. The woman had drawn back behind her door, leaving only her hand and the lamp in view.

"You need not tell me anything else tonight," he said. "Keep the lamp there, if you will. It helps."

She looked down at it, then rested it upon the sill.

Robb called from the yard.

Jon went back through the gate. Arthur had bound the keeper's hands with a length of cart rope. He stood him against the wall beside the driver. Tomas still watched the men inside.

Martyn waited at the little house's door. Within, Robb was kneeling beside a low sleeping shelf made from planks laid over bricks.

There was a child beneath it.

Jon could see a foot first, then a narrow white face when Robb moved the lamp. The boy had wedged himself behind a heap of sacking. One hand gripped the leg of the shelf.

"He won't come," Robb said.

Jon examined the shelf. The bricks beneath the far end were loose; lifting it carelessly would drop them against the boy's legs. He could have men support the planks and draw the child out, but the boy was already shaking at the sight of them.

Robb set the lamp down. "I tried to move the sacks. He thinks I'm pulling him out."

The boy began to cry without making a sound. His mouth opened and closed, but his grip did not loosen.

Jon crouched beside Robb.

"We have the others outside."

The child shook his head.

"You can come with them."

Another shake, faster.

From the yard the keeper shouted that they were stealing children who had been lawfully put in his care. The boy beneath the shelf pressed himself farther into the sacking.

Jon rose. He went outside, caught the keeper beneath the jaw and pushed his head back against the wall.

"You will keep quiet."

The man looked at the hand against his throat. He said nothing.

Jon held him a moment longer than he needed to. Arthur watched without speaking. When Jon let go, the keeper sagged against the wall and lowered his head.

Back inside, Robb had taken off his sword belt. It lay within reach beside Martyn's boot. He sat upon the dirt with his legs drawn up. Gawen had brought the girl back to the gate; she stood there holding her bundle, unwilling to come closer.

"He knows this," she said. She unwound the strip of blue cloth, hesitated, then held it out.

Gawen carried it to Robb.

"May I give it to him?" Robb asked.

She nodded. "Tell him it's Moll's."

"Is he afraid we'll make him fight?"

Another nod.

"He's slow," she said.

"Is he hurt?"

She shook her head. "He doesn't understand when they tell him things. Then they hit him."

Robb looked beneath the shelf again. He held the cloth where the boy could see it.

"Moll gave me this. She's waiting outside."

The fingers upon the plank shifted.

"I'll stay here," Robb said. "You can come to me."

Jon could hear someone calling for the watch in the lane. There would be questions about the dead man, about whose men had drawn steel, about why Lord Black was standing in a brewery with blood upon his sleeves. The man in brown was getting farther away with every breath.

Robb waited.

He had wanted his brother beside him when he took a crown. He had imagined Robb with a sword, Robb leading northern men, Robb standing against the men who would call Jon a pretender. He had spent less time imagining this: his brother sitting in the dirt, giving a frightened child room to decide.

"I'll see to the lane," Jon said.

Robb nodded without looking up.

Two gold cloaks had come through the growing crowd. One carried a spear; the other had his sword half drawn. They stopped at the sight of Arthur in the yard.

"What's happened here?" the spearman demanded.

Jon stepped forward. "Children were being kept here and made to fight. We have taken the men holding them."

The keeper found his voice. "They broke in. They killed Harrold."

The swordsman drew the rest of his blade. "Who gave you leave?"

"I am Lord Black of Dragonstone."

Both men looked at him. Recognition came to one sooner than the other. It did not make either lower his weapon.

"My lord," the spearman said carefully. "Is there a dead man?"

"Inside. He attacked Ser Arthur."

The man looked past Jon to the pale sword. Then he turned to his companion. "Fetch our captain."

"A message has gone to the Hand," Arthur said. "His men will be coming."

"Then I'll wait for them." The spearman glanced at the prisoners. "And no one leaves."

"The children need care," Jon said.

"I can see that, my lord." The man's eyes moved to the boy sitting upon Robb's cloak. "Let me get somebody who can answer for where they go."

Jon's patience thinned. He was about to tell the man that he could answer when he saw a familiar cap above the shoulders of the crowd.

Hal came through the crowd with three men behind him. "That's Rilla's boy," a woman said behind Jon. "I told you it was." Hal heard her, but kept going. The foremost of the men wore a dark surcoat with the falcon and moon upon its breast. He took in the children, the cart jammed in the gate and the blood upon Jon's sleeve before speaking.

"Lord Black. Lord Arryn sent me to Rilla's shop. You had already gone."

"They began loading children into a cart."

The man studied him. He was thick through the chest, with greying hair cut close and river mud upon his boots. "His runner found me at the river gate. We were questioning a carter about one of the closed houses." He looked past Jon towards the prisoners. "Which of these men had the torn ear?"

Jon pointed. The man's eyes narrowed, but he gave no name. "I am Ser Androw, of the Hand's household. I am to take charge here and bring you back to him."

The gold cloak lowered his spear a little.

"There is a dead man, ser."

"Then we will begin with him." Ser Androw looked at Arthur. "If you will show me."

Jon stepped aside and told Androw which prisoners had weapons, where the axe lay and that there were still children to bring clear. The knight sent one of his men to fetch the captain, then gave the other a place from which he could watch both doors.

Hal came to him before following the others.

"There is a man at my aunt's door," he said. "One of theirs. He said he'd stay."

"Good."

"Was it like Benn's place?"

Jon looked towards the children. "Yes."

Hal's face changed. He went to the girl with the bundle and crouched at a distance from her, speaking softly. She looked up when he mentioned his aunt's shop.

In the yard, Martyn came out carrying a rolled blanket. Robb followed with the last child against his chest.

The boy had one arm locked round Robb's neck and the other hand tangled in his hair. Robb's face was red with effort. He had left the sword belt for Martyn to bring.

"He came out," he said.

Jon put a hand beneath the child's dangling feet to keep them clear of the wheel. They were bare and cold.

"Will he let me take him?"

The small arm tightened at once.

Robb winced. "I don't think so."

"Then keep him."

The child pressed his face into Robb's shoulder. Jon looked at his brother above the cropped head, and Robb gave him a brief, exhausted smile.

Jon returned it.

***
​

By the time the watch captain arrived, the horse had been backed into the yard and the children were wrapped in whatever could be found to cover them. The cart's wheel had cracked against the gatepost; one spoke hung loose, and Martyn would not put a child into it. The dead man had a blanket over his face. His axe lay upon the table where Tomas had put it, beyond the prisoners' reach.

Ser Androw heard Arthur's account, then had Jon tell him what had happened at the gate. Jon described the knife, the keeper's club and the man in the brown coat. He could give no name for the fugitive.

"I saw his face when he came out. I believe I would know him again." Jon glanced towards Gawen. "The keeper admitted taking money from him. He said it was for the cart."

"I heard him," Gawen said.

Androw looked towards the man beneath the wall. "Orrel. We have been looking for him."

Jon turned. The keeper had his chin upon his chest and seemed determined not to hear.

"You knew who he was?"

"One of the children gave us his name and described him. We did not know he was here." Androw watched the keeper a moment longer, then went to speak with the watch captain.

Jon had expected a rebuke. The knight was concerned with keeping the prisoners apart and finding men to hold the brewery. Two neighbours were asked to remain; the woman with the lamp began telling the captain what her husband had been told.

Robb shifted the child higher against his chest. Jon went to Androw before he could enter the house.

"There are nine children. Where can we take them?"

"To Septa Meriane. She has the others. If she needs more room, the Hand will find it." He glanced at the boy clinging to Robb. "Can he walk?"

"He can," Robb said. "I'll carry him for now."

Androw sent a man ahead to warn the septa and left another with the watch captain. The prisoners would be brought to the castle separately. Taking a lamp from the brewery wall, he led the children away by a lane wide enough for two people to walk together.

Hal went beside Moll. She would answer him when she would not answer anyone else. The bandaged boy rode upon Tomas's back, his thin legs hanging on either side of the knight's sword belt. The others walked between the armed men. Whenever the lane widened, they drew closer together.

Gawen had found two more little coats beneath the bedding in the washhouse. Jon carried them over his forearm, with Hugin's basket in his other hand. One coat had lost a button. His thumb kept finding the empty hole.

Androw took them round the covered drain by a broader street. They passed a yard full of barrels and a row of ovens banked for the night. It was farther than the plank crossing, but the boys could walk without being lifted over foul water. A baker scraping dough from his forearms came to his door, saw the children and moved a basket out of their way.

They had climbed well beyond the brewery before Robb stopped. He put his back against a wall, breathing hard. The child clung more tightly when Martyn approached.

"I'm not taking him," the captain said. He slid an arm beneath the blanket, supporting the child's lower weight while Robb kept hold of his back. "Let your hands rest."

Robb nodded. The muscles in his forearms were trembling.

Jon set down the basket and took the glove from his right hand. "We can carry him between us."

"He'll think we're passing him away again." Robb looked down at the head beneath his chin. "Give me a moment."

They waited. Hal held Moll's bundle while she tucked the blanket more securely round the little boy's feet. When Robb moved off again, Martyn walked close beside him, one hand still taking some of the burden.

The house stood beside a small sept whose doorway was dark. Light showed in the adjoining windows. A woman in a grey wool gown came out before Androw reached the step, a shawl drawn over the cap which covered her hair.

She looked at the children first.

"Bring the two being carried in here," she said. "How many altogether?"

"Nine," Androw said. "I have sent for a maester."

"Good. The others through that door. There is water inside."

A second woman appeared behind her with a candle. Meriane began giving directions as she walked, lifting the latch of an inner door with her elbow because she had already taken the bundle from Moll. The girl tried to snatch it back.

The septa stopped.

"Yours?"

Moll nodded.

"Then keep it. I only meant to put it beside your bed."

Jon followed them into a room which smelled of soap, old wood and sleeping people, leaving Hugin's basket beneath a bench by the door. Straw mattresses lay close together along the walls. Two children had sat up beneath their blankets; another slept through the voices with his mouth open and one heel hanging out of bed.

Meriane drew a curtain across the far end of the room. She had the bandaged boy laid upon a mattress near the light and sent Hal to fetch another basin. When Jon offered the coats, she took them without looking at his face.

"Put some more water on, if you would."

He found the hearth in the next room and lifted the kettle with his right hand. An older girl showed him where the clean water stood. She had been roused from sleep and kept blinking against the lamp.

He wanted to tell her to go back to bed. There was work for her, though, and nobody yet to take her place. He held the kettle while she poured, then set it upon the hook and moved the embers beneath it.

When he returned, Robb was sitting upon the edge of a mattress. The child had finally released his hair, but still held a fistful of his coat. Moll knelt beside them, speaking in a low voice. Jon heard the name Will.

Robb glanced up. "She says he'll let go when he sleeps."

"We have time."

Across the room Meriane turned the bandaged boy's head towards the light. Her mouth tightened. She spoke softly to him and reached for clean linen.

Androw stood beside the door, waiting for Jon.

"The Hand asked for us back," he said.

"When these children are settled."

The knight looked at Robb, then back at Jon. "I can leave a man here."

"So can I. I am staying until I know they have what they need."

Arthur had come in behind him. He said nothing. Androw set his lamp upon a shelf and took off his gloves.

"Then I will send him word."

Jon inclined his head. He knew how that message would sound. He meant it nevertheless.

Meriane joined them after she had examined the two boys from the cellar. Up close, she had a narrow, lined face and a grey eyebrow which would not lie flat. A damp patch darkened one sleeve where a child had clung to her.

"Your steward sends the money for the beds, Lord Black. I shall have to ask him for more. Bedding, shoes, and bread for nine more mouths."

Jon took out his purse. "Buy what you need in the morning. Have the rest of the account brought to him."

She held out her hand for the silver, counted it and put it into the purse at her waist.

"Do you know where any of their families are?"

"Not yet. If they are beyond the city, we have ships going north and to the ports along the coast."

"That may help us, when we have names we can trust. Some of the children here were told to give a different one at every house." Meriane glanced towards the mattresses. "Others will not tell us about a brother or sister. They think someone will be sent to fetch them."

Moll was watching from beside the curtain. She lowered her face to the knot in her bundle when Jon looked across.

"Will they speak to the Hand's man?"

"Some will. He has been here. We let them rest between his visits."

Meriane thanked him for the silver and returned to the bandaged boy. Jon closed his purse as Gawen touched his elbow.

"My lord. Hal wants you."

A boy waited beside the kitchen door. He wore a shirt too large at the neck and held an earthen cup in both hands. Two fingers of the left remained awkwardly straight round its side.

"This is Benn," Hal said.

Jon crouched. The boy looked at his hair, then his face.

"You sent the pennies."

"For the maester."

"And the bed." Benn glanced at Hal, who nodded encouragement. "I sleep upstairs."

"Does your hand still hurt?"

"When it's cold." He raised it a little without taking it from the cup. "I can use it."

"I see that."

Benn looked towards the other room. "Did you get Orrel?"

Jon felt the last of his uncertainty about the keeper's name settle.

"Yes."

"Is he coming here?"

"No."

The boy waited.

"He is going to the castle," Jon said. "The Hand's men have him. He will not be brought here."

Benn's shoulders eased. He drank from the cup and wiped his mouth with the heel of his good hand. Hal began asking him about his letters, and Jon let them talk. Benn knew more now than Hal expected. He went to fetch the piece of wood upon which he practised, eager enough that he forgot to be quiet upon the stairs.

Jon rose and went to Robb.

Will was asleep at last. Moll had helped pry his fingers from the coat, one at a time. Robb stood carefully, rubbing the back of his neck. His hair stuck up where the boy had held it.

The maester arrived as they moved aside. He carried a leather bag and was still fastening his chain. Meriane took him straight to the bandaged boy, leaving Androw to close the door behind him. Jon watched him set down the bag and kneel beside the mattress before following Robb into the passage.

Robb leaned against the passage wall and flexed his hands. Pale crescents marked one wrist where Will's nails had pressed. He rubbed them with his thumb, then looked towards the closed door.

"When the fighting started, I thought I ought to go through the gate after you. Martyn would have stopped me, but I was nearly foolish enough to try." His hand fell to his side. "Then those two boys started pulling away. One could hardly stand. They were both trying to run."

"I saw you holding them when I came back."

"I couldn't make them understand. I kept telling them they were safe, with all that noise coming out of the house."

From the room came the sound of water being poured. Meriane was urging a child to take another mouthful.

Jon leaned against the wall beside his brother. His shoulder ached where the cloak pulled upon it.

"They stayed long enough for us to bring the others out. You kept them from running into those streets."

Robb nodded, though he was still looking at the door.

"I wanted to come because you were going," he said. "I was tired of hearing about things afterwards. I thought there would be more fighting."

He turned his wrist over. Jon waited while he worked at a patch of dried dirt with his thumbnail.

"Did you know we would find children like Will?"

"I knew what had been done to Benn. I didn't know about him." Jon looked towards the room. "When you called me, I thought there was another man in that little house. Then I found you kneeling beside the bed."

"I thought I could move the sacks out of his way. He was terrified I meant to drag him out."

"And you stayed with him until he came."

"Moll helped." Robb rubbed the back of his neck. His hair still stuck up where Will had gripped it. "She ought to stay near him. He listens to her."

"Tell Meriane before we leave."

For a little while they stood together, listening to the house. Martyn had Robb's sword belt over his arm by the outer door. Arthur was speaking quietly with Androw.

"Mother will be furious," Robb said at last. "With you first."

"Almost certainly."

His brother gave a small, weary smile. Then his eyes went back to the room.

"Will he remember us?"

"I expect so."

"I could come after the lists. I would like to see him when he isn't frightened of everything." Robb hesitated. "Would it upset him, seeing us again?"

"Ask Meriane. She'll have a better idea when he's slept."

Robb pushed himself from the wall and went to the doorway. Jon heard him lower his voice to speak to the septa. Her answer took longer than he had expected; his brother listened, nodding once. When he returned, he was trying to smooth down his hair.

"She says I can come, but I mustn't wake him. Moll can stay beside him too."

Jon waited while he took his sword belt from Martyn. Robb glanced once more through the doorway before following them out.

***
​

They called at Rilla's on the way back to the castle. Hal had fallen silent at last; she put an arm about his shoulders and took him inside without scolding. Gawen remained beside the Hand's guard until he could be relieved. Tomas took Hugin's basket from Jon and promised to arrange fresh men as soon as they reached their chambers.

Meriane had bound Tomas's brow. Jon's shoulder had stiffened during the walk; when he tried to lift his arm to settle his cloak, he could not bring it above his chest without pain. Later that day he and Robb were meant to enter the melee. Robb was walking with his hands open at his sides, too tired even to rub the cramped fingers. Jon would need someone to examine the shoulder before he put on armour again.

They passed the house where the men had held the stallholder against the wall. Its door was shut. A woman sat upon the step combing out her hair, a little heap of broken teeth from the comb beside her foot. She drew her knees in to let them pass.

Farther up, someone had scattered ashes over the worst of the gutter. Fresh footprints crossed them already. The girl who had offered bread was asleep beneath the shuttered stall, her empty basket held against her stomach.

A bell sounded over the roofs. In the east the sky had begun to grey, though the lanes still held their darkness. Above the Street of Flour, crows were gathering where a sack had split. One dropped from a roof to seize a scrap from beneath a wheel; another took its place before the carter had finished swearing.

Arthur walked beside Jon after the others had gone a little ahead.

"The man who escaped," Jon said. "He was paying Orrel. He could be warning another house already."

Arthur glanced back. "Androw will put that before the Hand. You gave him everything you saw?"

"Everything I could explain."

Androw had Orrel's admission and Gawen to confirm it. Jon had kept the earlier sight of the purse to himself. He could not explain watching that payment over a closed gate without revealing Hugin. The man's face he had seen for himself during the escape, and he had described it as well as he could.

Jon looked down the slope. He did not know where the buyer had gone, or whether the knight Rilla feared would so much as hear of the brewery. He wanted to find out. Soon men would be carrying the morning's food through those lanes, and the story of the raid would travel with them. A stranger could ask a question and be remembered. A crow on a roof would scarcely earn a glance.

He could watch the approaches in daylight. See who came to speak to the watch, who waited for them to turn away. There would be people looking for their children too; a frightened man at the door might have lost a son, not a purse of silver. Jon would need more than a hurried departure before he sent a bird after anyone.

The tournament would keep the court occupied for days. There would be hours between the lists and the feasts, and men about his own business who could carry messages without drawing attention. He would learn what Androw found first. After that, he could decide whom to follow.

Ahead of him, Robb stumbled on a broken stone and caught himself against Martyn's arm. Jon quickened his pace.

"The children are out," Arthur said. "Let that be enough for the walk home."

Jon's jaw tightened, then eased. Ahead, Robb had slowed beside Martyn. Jon let the roofs and the fugitive go for the moment and matched his brother's pace.

"Thank you," Jon said.

Arthur looked at him.

"For coming."

His uncle's face softened a little. "You knew I would."

Jon had. He had counted upon it before lifting the plain coat from the chest. That would have to be part of what he told Arryn, too.

At the castle gate the same guard raised his lamp. His gaze lingered upon Tomas's bandage, then moved to the falcon upon Androw's breast. This time he asked no question about horses.

Inside, the court smelled of damp stone and yesterday's rushes. Servants were sweeping beneath the gallery. A broken ribbon from the feast lay caught against a drain, its bright colour dulled by water.

Androw led them towards the Hand's chambers. A page opened the outer door before he knocked. There was light beyond it, and the scrape of a chair being moved.

Robb stopped beside Jon.

"I'll tell him I asked," he said quietly.

"I know."

Arryn stood at the table inside, dressed in the same clothes he had worn to the feast. His collar was unfastened. A cup sat untouched beside the lamp, and Jon's message lay open beneath his hand.

His eyes went first to Robb, then to the blood upon Jon's sleeve. He looked at Arthur last.

"The children?"

"Nine," Jon said. "With Septa Meriane. A maester was attending them when we left."

Arryn closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, he drew the letter towards him.

"Good. Now tell me why you took armed men into the city after I expressly forbade it."

Jon stepped into the room.

 

[aiwonder]

Jon stopped on the other side of the table. There was nowhere to put his hands that did not make him conscious of the blood upon them.

He had washed at the sept. A dark line remained beside his thumbnail. When he curled his fingers out of sight, the stiff cuff scraped his wrist; when he laid them flat, they looked like something he had brought for Arryn to examine. He left them at his sides. Behind the Hand, dawn whitened the narrow windows, though the candles still burnt upon the table. Wax had cooled over the edge of a letter.

"The man who had kept Benn was seen entering another house," Jon said. "I wanted to know whether there were children inside."

"You had my orders, Lord Black." Arryn touched the folded letter beneath his hand. "You sent word that you were already going."

"Yes."

"And took your brother with you."

Robb stepped forward. "I asked to come, my lord."

He held himself straight beneath the Hand's inspection, but the colour rose from his collar to his ears. There was dirt below one of them, where Will had slept against his shoulder. Jon wanted to point to it, to tell Arryn to look properly before he spoke of boys being led astray. The old man was looking already.

"I believe you did," he told Robb. "You will give your father your own account."

"I will."

"Both of you. I shall send mine with it." Arryn drew a second sheet from beneath the first. "Ser Androw sent this from the brewery. A man dead, others wounded, children taken to the sept. He tells me you remained until a maester came. How many men did you take?"

Jon named them. He had been composing a letter to Ned since the climb from the sept. With his own hurried message spread before him, he kept hearing how it would sound when read aloud at Winterfell. Robb had volunteered. Arthur had come. Jon had decided for all of them.

At Arthur's name, Arryn looked past him.

"You knew the order I had given."

"I did." Arthur stood with his hands loose at his sides. A pale thread of straw clung to the dark wool at his knee. "I advised Jon to bring the matter to you. When he meant to go himself, I went with him. At the house I heard enough to believe there were children below. Then they began loading the cart, and I helped take it."

"I am glad you were there when it came to fighting." Arryn laid the sheet down beside Jon's letter. "I should have preferred you here before it did."

A chair scraped in the adjoining room. Robb shifted, leather creaking at his waist, and someone beyond the door lowered his voice to speak to Hugh. Jon had stood through enough questions. There had been children behind those bars, and one of them might still die.

"If we had waited when they opened the gate, those children would have gone."

"I have not questioned your decision at the gate."

Jon's answer caught. Of course Arryn would keep him to the earlier decision, when Hal had only brought a man's name and a guarded door. Jon had wanted to look at the place. He still would, knowing this conversation waited at the end.

"I thought I could learn more by going there."

"So did my men. One spent yesterday finding the carter who supplied two of the houses we closed. Another is still trying to persuade a woman to identify a man she has seen beat her neighbour." Arryn leaned forward, the loose skin beneath his jaw settling against his collar. "They do not all return with children in their arms, Lord Black. Their work is necessary all the same."

"I know that."

"Then allow for it when you decide what is yours to do."

Jon pressed his tongue against the back of his teeth. A shout would have been easier to answer. Arryn spoke as though they had all the morning, while Jon could still feel the cart's rough wood beneath his hand and see the children waiting to be put into it. The old man's inquiries had not reached that yard in time. Jon's had. He would not apologise for the children being alive.

His shoulder throbbed beneath the mail. He eased its weight without quite lifting his arm, and Arryn turned the sheet towards the window.

"What did the watchmen do?"

"You have heard?"

"Androw arrived to find them there. He did not see what passed before."

Jon described the two men: where they had stopped, the one edging towards the gate, the other putting a hand upon his weapon. Arthur supplied what he had heard from the yard. When Robb said they had been counting the men with them, Arryn raised a finger.

"Did either say that?"

"No, my lord. He looked from Jon to Ser Arthur, then past me to Martyn. He looked at our swords."

"Tell Androw that. Let him hear exactly what you saw."

"They were ready to make trouble until they knew who we were," Jon insisted. "Your knight came, and suddenly they could not be helpful enough." He remembered the change in their voices with fresh disgust. They had counted his men before offering help. Whatever troubled them about the brewery, the cages had scarcely earned a glance.

"Their captain has orders to produce them. They will be questioned separately."

"By your men?"

"By mine." Arryn waited until Jon nodded. "The boy who guided you. Who knows where he lives?"

Jon told him about Hal and Rilla, the men who had taken money at her door, and the guards left at the cookshop. Rilla had to open her door again this morning. The men collecting money knew where to find it.

Arryn called for Hugh. The squire entered with a fresh candle and shears for the wicks, both of which he put down before the Hand had finished speaking.

"Find Ser Androw's man. The guard at the woman's shop is to remain until properly relieved. Her name and her nephew's are not to be given to the watchmen. Send someone to the sept as well, before the morning is out. The maester is to send word of the child with the head wound."

Hugh repeated the instructions. He stumbled over the last, cleared his throat and went out. Jon watched him shut the door carefully, so that the latch made scarcely a sound.

"There were people at the windows," he said. "They saw us take the children away."

"Which is why I shall not promise you that no one knows who helped you." Arryn rubbed the side of his nose. The skin beneath his eyes was dark, and Jon wondered how long he had been at this table before they came. "Your guard may remain at the shop. Your other men will attend your household and the tournament. They will not return to those streets to make inquiries."

"One man escaped. The slight fellow in the brown coat. He paid the keeper before they brought the children out."

"Androw has sent his description to the gates."

"He may not be leaving the city."

"He may not. We have prisoners who may help us find him." Arryn put the sheet down and looked directly at Jon. "If you learn where he is, send word. Do not send me another letter explaining what you have already decided to do."

Jon felt Arthur's attention settle upon him. "I understand."

"You understood yesterday."

Robb's boot moved upon the rushes. Jon kept his eyes on the Hand.

"I have no raid planned, my lord."

"Keep it so. If you disobey me again, I shall have to consider whether your household can remain in the city. I will not have rival bodies of armed men deciding for themselves which doors may be broken."

Robb drew breath to answer. Jon touched his sleeve, and his brother looked down at the hand before closing his mouth. Jon had earned the Hand's displeasure for himself.

He could imagine a lord before his own throne, blood still upon his coat, explaining why the king's order had been inconvenient. He would want obedience from that man. He would have it, too. But a king must answer for what happened while men waited upon his word. Jon had reached nine children whom Arryn's inquiries had not yet found. He could regret exposing Hal and Rilla, and see how badly they had known the streets, without wishing he had stayed in his chamber. Given the same night, he would go. He kept his mouth shut; another argument might cost him the men he needed.

"The children are not to be questioned again merely to satisfy a visitor's curiosity," Arryn continued. "They have told us what they can. Some have told us what they think we wish to hear. Let the septa have them for a day."

"I promised Will I would return after the lists," Robb said.

Arryn took his hand from Jon's letter. "Which is Will?"

"The boy who was hiding. He thought we would shut him up again." Robb looked towards Jon, then back at the Hand. "He would not come out while we stood over him. I sat down. After a while he let me carry him."

The old man's eyes rested upon the dirt below Robb's ear. When he answered, he addressed Robb alone.

"Go, if the septa says he may see you. Take Ser Martyn, and go by daylight. You need not ask him anything."

"I wasn't going to."

"Good." Arryn gathered the loose sheets, then looked up at Jon and sighed. "Your father used to stand before me with that same look. When he thought his honour was at stake, there was little talking him out of anything."

His voice had softened. "I am glad you brought those children out, Jon."

"But their rescue does not put this inquiry in your hands. The king has entrusted it to me. You will bring me what you learn and leave my men to act."

"Yes, my lord."

Hugh stood aside in the passage with a basin. Robb went past him, rolling one shoulder beneath his mail, while Arthur waited for Jon. Behind them, Arryn called for the next man. The candles would have burnt out before the Hand had finished, Jon thought. Robert might still be asleep.

***
​

A door opened as they reached the turning below the Hand's chambers. Varys came through it with a folded paper and very nearly stepped into Jon.

"My lord. Forgive me."

Yellow silk brushed against the doorframe as he drew back. His eyes passed over Jon's cuff, his dirty boots and the sword at his hip; then he looked into Jon's face with a concern so readily assumed that Jon distrusted it at once.

"You have had a busy night."

Robb stopped behind him. Martyn waited farther down the passage, beside a narrow window, and Varys inclined his head to Arthur before turning his courtesy upon Robb.

"And you, Lord Robb. I hear you carried one of the poor children yourself."

"He could not walk."

"How fortunate that you were there." Varys moved clear of the doorway. "A word, Lord Black, if I may. There is something about last night which you ought to hear."

Jon sent Robb ahead with Martyn. Arthur went as far as the window and stayed there, close enough to return at a call. A woman carrying folded linen passed between them; Varys waited for her to go, then moved towards an empty recess. He had chosen his place well. From the stair it would look as though Jon had detained him on his way to the Hand.

"Six swords, plain cloaks and a boy to guide you," he began. "You were seen leaving. Then at a cookshop, and later near the lime sheds. By the time the shouting began at the brewery, several people had taken an interest."

"Your people."

"Some of them."

The paper lay loosely in his hand, unsealed.

"Then you know what we found."

"I know what was carried out. I have not seen the cellar."

"But someone was watching while we were in it."

Varys stepped a little nearer. "Someone saw the man who ran away."

Jon forgot the paper. "The brown coat?"

"A slight man. He left before the watchmen arrived and went down towards the river, taking a great many turns along the way. He stopped at the house of an undercollector of the king's wine duties. They admitted him through the kitchen entrance." Varys's pale fingers rested upon his folded paper. "An unusual hour to settle a tax."

"Where?"

Behind the weighhouse near the river gate: a narrow house with two outside stairs and a red door upon the upper landing. Jon repeated the directions. He could already imagine the man in brown stepping inside, somebody shutting out the noise of the street behind him. Perhaps he had been given a cup, a chair near a hearth. The keeper had reached after his money while the children waited beside the cart. The man who had paid him might be sitting in a royal officer's kitchen.

"Who followed him?"

"Someone employed by a woman who keeps several houses of pleasure. The knight's men have lately begun asking money at her doors. She has guards of her own, and little wish to pay for his."

"She wants him gone."

"She wants her customers left alone. Men are being stopped outside her houses and made to pay before they can enter. Some decide they have spent enough already." Varys smoothed the edge of the paper beneath his thumb. "She was quite eager to hear what had happened at the brewery."

Jon recalled the shutters closing when he asked which way the fugitive had gone. Someone else had followed him through the dark for a woman whose customers were being robbed. Fear did not prevent people from resenting the men who frightened them, or from looking for a chance to hurt them in return.

"Is he even a knight?"

"He has a horse, good armour and men who call him ser. Beyond that, the accounts differ."

"You have not found anyone who knighted him."

"No." Varys glanced towards the sword at Jon's hip. "But tell a frightened man he is dealing with a knight, and he may hope there is a lord he can appeal to. Even that little hope makes a sword easier to endure."

"Is there?"

"His rivals have been asking that for some time. He had coin for followers before he had much to collect from these lanes. They would dearly like to know where it came from."

"And you?"

"There are several stories, my lord. I would sooner trouble Lord Arryn with a door his men can knock upon."

Jon studied the folded paper. The eunuch had told him where a fugitive had gone readily enough.

"How much of Flea Bottom does this man hold?"

"Less than he would have you believe. The woman's men still keep him out of several lanes. Near the slaughteryards, the butchers collect their own pennies from every barrow that passes. His men tried asking for a share last winter. Two of them were carried home."

Varys lowered his voice as footsteps sounded beyond the turning. A boy came past with a basket of rushes, watching Jon's sword until he nearly struck the doorpost.

"There are others," the eunuch continued when he had gone. "They quarrel over a yard, a stair, which door a carter uses. The knight has taken a good deal from them these past few years. Several people were pleased to hear that someone had broken into his brewery."

"Pleased enough to help find the children?"

"The woman helped find your fugitive. She may help again. I would hear what she asks in return before promising her anything."

Jon looked down the passage towards Arthur. His uncle had turned from the window and was watching them. Last night he had wanted someone to open a door and tell him where the children had gone. The woman's men might know. So might the butchers, and neither would need to care whether a child lived so long as the answer hurt their rival.

"Was the man still at the collector's house when your word came?"

"He was. I cannot promise you he has remained."

"And what has a wine collector to do with children in cages?"

"That is a question I hope the Hand will have answered. For now, I can give you the house."

There was a faint scent of perfume beneath the stale wool and sweat of Jon's own clothes. Varys stood within arm's reach, round-faced and solicitous, offering the first useful direction anyone had given him since the man escaped. It was infuriating how much Jon wanted to thank him.

He remembered Tyrion and the gold cloaks: Varys helping him remove Slynt, making himself indispensable while leaving Cersei's part for Tyrion to discover. Ned had been given warnings, too. Jon had read those conversations with the advantage of seeing what followed them. Here there was no next page to turn, only a man who knew something Jon needed and had chosen exactly when to offer it.

"Have you told the Hand?"

Varys lifted the folded paper. "I am going to him now. His men must find out whether your fugitive is still there. But you saw him at the brewery. Did he speak as a buyer, my lord, or did he give the keeper orders?"

The purse, the withheld coin, the keeper's fingers reaching for it: Jon had seen that exchange through Hugin's eyes. He kept his gaze upon Varys and gave him only what he could safely have learned in the yard.

"He wanted the children brought out. The keeper says the money was for the cart."

"And you believe him?"

"He was trying to give the least dangerous answer."

"Quite likely." Varys studied him for a moment. "Would you know the other man again?"

"Yes. I told Ser Androw so."

"Then you may be of help without another expedition into the streets."

Jon's jaw tightened. "You have spoken to the Hand already."

"I have spoken to people who saw two young lords return to the castle after a night of fighting. I should have been surprised if Lord Arryn welcomed you with nothing but thanks."

From the stair came a scuff and a man's laboured breath. Jon looked past Varys. A servant was carrying charcoal up towards the Hand's rooms, the basket wedged against one hip, and Arthur had moved from the window to let him pass. His uncle's gaze came back to Jon at once.

"Why bring this to me separately?" Jon asked.

"You were there, my lord. I wished to hear what you had seen before the story had been told over a dozen cups of wine." His eyes returned briefly to Jon's cuff. "And you are rather more likely to be approached by people with grievances against this knight. The woman might hesitate to come to the Hand."

"But she came to you."

"Her man did." Varys folded the paper once more. "If another comes to you, I should be glad to hear what he brings."

The request was modest enough after what he had offered. Jon could use the information without carrying every whisper back.

There was Illyrio behind the powdered face, and the boy being prepared across the sea. A Blackfyre purpose, perhaps. Jon remembered the arguments about Aegon, about Illyrio's wife and the eunuch's loyalties. They had been theories, argued by people who could shut the book when they were tired of them. He could not afford to turn a theory into certainty. Nor could he afford to forget that Varys might already be working towards a throne for someone else.

"If the man is found, send word through the Hand. I will identify him."

"I shall."

"And if he has gone, I would still like to hear it."

"Of course, my lord." Varys bowed. "You should wash before breakfast. His Grace will want the tale, and there are ladies who will find the state of that sleeve more distressing than anything you tell them."

He turned towards the stair, gathering his silk clear of the charcoal bearer's basket and letting the man squeeze past. Jon watched them go. Varys seemed to have time for everyone. Jon had spent the morning fighting an urge to hurry every man who answered him.

Arthur came back from the window. "What did he give you?"

"The house where the man in brown went. And something of the men who rule those lanes."

"Does he have proof?"

"Someone saw the fugitive enter. That is what Varys says."

Arthur glanced towards the stair. "And what does he want from you?"

"To hear who comes to me next." Jon started towards his chambers, and his uncle fell into step beside him. "I will send Androw the directions. Then we shall see how much his help is worth."

The ache returned to his shoulder as they walked. He had forgotten it while Varys was talking.

***
​

By the time Wylla had the mail off him, Jon was shaking.

The weight left his shoulders, and cold found the wet linen beneath it. He had crossed the castle without feeling the draughts; now the little current beneath his chamber door made him hunch in the chair. Wylla laid a blanket across his knees and drew a stool nearer for the basin. Its water was already pink. He watched a thread of blood come loose from his cuff and spread until he could no longer follow it.

"That sleeve is finished," she said.

"It can be mended."

She held it where he could see the torn seam beneath the arm and the blackened cuff. "I'll leave it for you, then. You can hear what the laundry women say. Lift your elbow a little."

He tried. She stopped him before he could lift it far, eased the cloth free herself and laid it over the stool. Jon let his head rest against the chair. On the window perch, Munin worked at the cord securing a little dish, tugging with an industriousness Jon resented. Hugin slept with his head turned back. At least one of them had the sense to be tired.

Arthur had brought a maester. The man pressed around the bruise below Jon's left shoulder, following the collarbone with careful fingers before asking him to raise his arm. Jon watched his own hand rise. A little higher, he thought; it ought to go a little higher than that.

"Again," the maester said. "More slowly."

The second attempt was worse. Jon lowered it before his hand reached the height it had managed the first time. The man felt along the joint while Jon held the chair with his right hand and kept his teeth together. Nothing was broken that the maester could find, but he made no cheerful promise upon the strength of it.

"You have made a bad bruise worse. Another blow may leave you unable to use the arm for a while. You should rest it."

"There is a melee this morning."

"So I was told." The maester looked towards Arthur. "I cannot make it sounder by giving him something which prevents him feeling it."

"No milk of the poppy."

"I had not offered it."

Wylla lowered her face over the basin. Jon caught the small crease beside her mouth before she turned away, and would have smiled if the maester's thumb had not chosen that moment to press beneath his collarbone.

When the man had gone, Arthur crouched beside the chair. Jon disliked having to look down to meet his eyes. It made this feel more like being put to bed after a childhood fall than a question about entering a tournament.

"Are you certain you mean to fight?"

"Yes."

"Then show me you can use a shield before you enter. If you cannot protect that side, you withdraw. You have no sleep in you, and this will not be three passes in the yard."

Jon looked at the spreading purple upon his skin. Beyond the window the castle was waking; he could hear hooves on stone, a shouted name, someone laughing. There would be boys dressing for the melee who had slept after the feast and dreamed of winning it. He envied them their uncomplicated morning. He wanted the victory just as badly, with the cellar still beneath his nails and a maester somewhere down the hill watching a child whose head had been broken.

"I will show you."

Arthur rose and brought him the bread. "First eat."

There was soft cheese upon the table and a pot of honey. The first mouthful stuck in Jon's dry mouth. He drank, took another, and discovered he was ravenous. By the time Aries appeared he had eaten half the loaf.

The boy had dressed in haste. One fastening at his collar was in the wrong hole, pulling the cloth crooked beneath his chin. Wylla reached to set it right as he came past her.

"They said you brought more children back."

"Nine."

"To Benn's sept?"

Jon nodded. Aries sat on the edge of the bed without asking and stared at the shirt draped over the stool.

"Is that yours?"

"The shirt is. Most of the blood is not."

Aries kept looking at it. Jon regretted the answer; he had meant to spare the boy worry about him, and had merely supplied someone else to worry about.

"Did you see Benn?"

"He was awake. Hal asked after his writing."

"He said he was going to learn my name. Before, I mean. In the letter." Aries found a loose thread upon the coverlet and drew it through his fingers. "Robb is going after the lists. I met him on the stairs. He told me about the other boy."

"We can ask the septa when it would suit her to have you."

"I could take the writing board I don't use. The edge is chipped, but it still works."

"Ask what they need before you empty your room." Jon put down his bread. He had asked after Benn's injured hand, but forgotten the boy's promise to learn Aries's name. "You may go with Robb if Ser Martyn agrees. The septa must say they may have visitors, though. Some are very ill."

Aries let go of the thread. "I'll ask."

Jon sent for Perrin while Wylla found fresh clothes. She brought fine black wool, buttons covered in the same cloth and a collar that would leave his neck clear. When she turned back a cuff, black silk caught the window light with a wet gleam. He could have worn that doublet to a feast. This morning he was grateful chiefly that it had no heavy embroidery to catch beneath his armour.

"Left arm first."

He let her guide it into the sleeve. The sound arm followed easily enough; then she worked the cloth over his shoulders. It was galling to need such care over something he usually accomplished while thinking of half a dozen other things.

Perrin arrived with a wax tablet. His greeting faltered when he saw the basin, and he drew the tablet against his chest.

"The men are bringing the chests up now, my lord. Shall I have them wait?"

"Have them taken back under guard. We will hold the showing on the first morning after the tournament."

"The whole showing?"

"Yes. I have had no sleep, half the household has been in the city, and I need my men rested. Tell the buyers there was trouble in the night and we helped bring children out of it. I will speak to anyone who has arranged to sail before then."

Perrin turned the tablet over. "Lord Baelish was expecting—"

"Tell him as well. And make certain we can still have the room."

"There are men waiting to be measured for armour after the contests."

"Keep those appointments. They need the armourer, not me standing over him."

Perrin scratched a note. "I'll put someone at the room, then, as well as sending round. There'll be men who arrive without hearing, or leave word with the wrong servant."

"Thank you. Tomas promised fresh guards for the cookshop. Has he sent them?"

"He was speaking to the men when I came up. I'll see that they've gone."

After Perrin left, Jon stood before the polished metal mirror while Wylla combed his hair. His face looked pinched, the white forelock too bright above the shadows under his eyes. Wylla dampened it and tried to lay it flat. There was comfort in standing still while someone else knew what to do.

"You'll be asleep in your dish before the king has finished eating," she said.

"I will try to stay awake."

"Try lying down when you get the chance. That would please me better." She smoothed his collar, though it needed no smoothing. "I'd have you in that bed now if anyone listened to me."

He caught her hand before she could draw it away. Her fingers were cold from the basin. For a moment she stood with them in his, her comb forgotten in the other hand, and he could think of nothing to promise her that he would keep. She squeezed his fingers and went to fetch his belt.

***
​

Theon was waiting with Robb beneath the gallery, dressed for a morning worth being seen in. His dark green doublet fitted closely at the waist, the gold cord at its throat newly tied; a kraken held his short cloak upon one shoulder. Beside him, Robb looked as though someone had poured him into clean clothes and sent him out before he was ready. Water still darkened the grey wool below his collar. He kept his hands behind his back, stretching the fingers which had cramped beneath Will's weight.

"I hear you found something better than sleep." Theon looked from Robb to Jon. He had not put on his gloves.

"Hal brought word after you had gone," Jon said.

"I was not in Pyke. I was down a passage."

Robb glanced towards a pair of servants crossing the gallery. "We didn't know what it would become."

"You knew enough to buckle on a sword."

Theon bent the fingers of one glove into his palm. Jon had expected a jest about missing the fight, something they could answer before going in to eat. He had no wish to explain himself again, with Arryn's questions still sour in his mouth, but Theon stood squarely in their way and waited.

Jon gave him the account: Hal's message, the watch upon the brewery, the cart coming into the yard. At the cages he faltered. He could describe the doors and the men defending them readily enough; he disliked bringing the cellar up here, where someone was beating dust from a hanging farther along the gallery and the smell of breakfast had begun to reach them. Robb took over. He told Theon about the boy who had hidden and the septa who had received the children.

The glove slowly opened in Theon's hand.

"And you didn't think I could help?"

"That was not it," Robb said.

"Then what was it?"

Jon could have answered for him. Haste, fewer men, the folly of taking every young noble in their company into an unknown street. He had made room for Robb all the same. Theon had been close enough to fetch, and neither of them had thought to do it.

"I should have told you."

Theon lifted his eyes from the gloves. For once he had nothing ready on his tongue. Then he thrust them into his belt, harder than necessary.

"I can keep quiet. Whatever else you think of me."

"I know."

"And I don't need Robb to hold my hand when someone draws a knife."

"I was holding a boy," Robb said. "He would probably have bitten you."

Theon's mouth twitched. "Sensible child."

He made way for them and fell into his usual place beside Robb. He would not answer the next attempt at a joke, but before they reached the hall he asked whether the children had families in the city. Jon told him what little they knew.

The room had lost its evening splendour in pieces. Half the candles were gone, the musicians' gallery stood empty, and a servant on her knees was picking crushed flowers from beneath the royal table. Daylight found the seams in the banners and a pale scrape where a bench had been dragged over the floor. Jon remembered looking up at those same hangings while the hall shone beneath them. This morning he wanted a place where he might sit without anyone asking him to account for the night.

The breakfast had spread well beyond the places laid for it. Knights ate standing beside their seated wives; boys in padded jacks reached between their elders for bread while squires tried to keep grease from the cloth. Genna Lannister caught Emmon by the sleeve and made him sit down again before he had finished his plate. Myranda Lefford leaned past her to call after a servant. Farther along the western table, a Marbrand youth had tucked a napkin beneath his collar, to the poorly concealed delight of the girl beside him. Through the propped doors came grooms, folded surcoats, a man carrying a helm under either arm. A small dog had found a sausage skin and was refusing to surrender it to an indignant page.

Jon might have enjoyed the disorder on another morning. He was still watching the dog when a man near the door recognised them and spoke to his neighbour. Heads turned ahead of their progress. Petyr Baelish broke off his conversation with a clerk; his eyes touched Jon's clean sleeve, then Robb's face. Jon wished Wylla had found time to wash the dirt from his brother's sword belt as well.

Their places remained beside Monford and the Manderlys. Wendel was cutting cold beef, Wylis had laid his cloak over his chair, and Wynafryd sat holding her cup in both hands. She watched Jon approach until he was near enough to hear her.

"You said you were tired last night."

"I was."

"You have found a poor remedy."

He had liked making her smile last night. Now she looked at him as though he had made a fool of her concern. Before he could find an answer, someone called Robb from the Vale end of the table. Harry rose to make room for Mychel, saw Jon behind him and stopped with his hand upon the bench.

Jon had barely drawn out his chair when Robert's voice reached them from the dais.

"There they are. Come here, you two. I have been hearing a damned good tale, and I mean to hear it properly."

A cup struck a plate behind him. The quiet travelled slowly through the room: a conversation stopped, a man turned to see why, another asked his neighbour what the king had said. Robb's ears reddened.

"Who told him?" he breathed.

Jon could have named several people who might have obliged the king. He could see one of them sitting at Robert's right, in fresh clothes and with the same weary eyes that had watched him across a table at dawn.

Robert had loosened his belt a hole. His black hair was still damp, and he held a piece of bread in a hand big enough to hide it. Eggs and little onions steamed upon his plate. Beside him Cersei, in crimson silk worked with gold at the neck, was finishing something she had been telling Myrcella. She made the boys wait for the end of it before turning her head.

"Flea Bottom," Robert announced. "At night, with the tournament in the morning. Ned will tear his hair out when he hears. How many were there?"

Jon stopped below the dais. "Nine children, Your Grace."

"The men, boy. How many men?"

Of course. Jon gave him the number at the brewery, and said that one had escaped. Arryn set his cup down.

"And you had Arthur with you." Robert found him near the doors. "That was better sense than some boys show on their first night's mischief. Come closer, Robb. You look as though you've swallowed a nail."

A few men laughed. Robb came forward with his chin raised, staring at a point beyond the king's shoulder. Jon knew that look from their childhood: his brother would endure almost anything rather than let people see him blush, and the effort always made it worse.

"Tell it from the beginning," Robert said. "What took you down there?"

Hal's name almost escaped him. Jon swallowed it. He had counted armed men in the brewery; he could not begin to count the listeners here, or guess which of them would repeat a helpful boy's name over supper.

"Someone recognised a man who had kept children in one of the houses the Hand closed. He went into an old brewery, deep in Flea Bottom. There was a guard outside. We went to find out what he was guarding."

"Another pit?" Renly asked.

"A place to keep them between fights, my lord. There was no fighting ground."

Renly turned towards Arryn. At the far end of the royal table, Stannis laid his knife beside the bread he had been cutting. Jon could see the hard line of his jaw above his collar.

"We watched the doors. Later a man came with money, and they brought a cart into the yard. They were loading the children when we went in."

"And the keeper drew on you?" Robert asked.

"He had a club. The driver drew a knife. There were armed men in the house as well."

"Did they know who you were?"

"Not at first."

Robert leaned towards him. "Go on."

A servant waited at the king's elbow with honeyed apples. The glaze gleamed upon their cut sides, and Jon caught the smell of cinnamon above the onions. He suddenly hated the broad polished table between them. He could still feel the low cellar over his head; here there was room for a man to stretch his legs beneath silver dishes while deciding which part of the rescue would make the best story. Robert wanted a fight. He would hear what the fighting had been for.

"We took the yard. When we had the house, we found cages below it."

Robert's bread stopped halfway towards his mouth.

"Cages?"

"Two in the cellar. Another in the washhouse. Some of the children could not stand, Your Grace. We had to carry them." Jon looked along the royal table. "They had been kept there to be brought out and made to fight again."

A knife fell against a dish at the neighbouring table. No one reached at once to retrieve it. Robert lowered the bread and asked how old the children were.

"I do not know all their ages. Younger than us. One girl might be ten."

Tommen was leaning forward to see between the adults. Cersei put a hand upon Myrcella's wrist and spoke to the septa behind them. The woman bent to Tommen, but he shook his head and kept watching Jon until his sister rose and offered her hand.

"You wished to see the horses," the queen reminded him. "Go with your sister."

Tommen obeyed, looking back once. Cersei followed the children with her eyes until they had passed the nearest table. When she looked at Jon again her lips were pressed together. He took the look as a rebuke for bringing the cellar into her children's morning. Let her be displeased. He had been summoned to tell it.

"Where are the bastards who did it?" Robert demanded.

"In custody," Arryn answered. "My men brought the prisoners up before dawn. They are being held apart."

"Then hang them."

"They must first tell us where the children came from, and where the cart was going."

Robert pushed his bread onto the edge of the plate. "Hear them, then. But I want them dealt with, Jon. I will not have this going on beneath my own walls."

Arryn inclined his head. Jon remembered the letters upon the Hand's table, the orders already sent while Robert slept. It must be a weary business, keeping a king's peace and allowing him to discover it anew over breakfast.

"Where was the Watch?" Stannis asked.

Jon described the two watchmen's arrival. He would gladly have repeated what he thought of them, but Arryn had been right about the distinction between what he had seen and what he believed. He gave the hall their questions, their hands moving towards their weapons, their sudden helpfulness when the Hand's knight appeared.

Stannis turned to Arryn before Jon had quite finished.

"They were sent for before you came down," the Hand told him. "Ser Androw is hearing the witnesses."

"Then let their captain account for his patrols as well. A house does not fill with prisoners in one night."

"Did the keeper own the brewery, Lord Black?"

Petyr's question came from beside the dishes, mild and businesslike. Jon had been following Stannis's anger; it took him a moment to turn towards the smaller man.

"I do not know."

"The old brewing yards are often let in pieces. The tax collectors may know who takes the rent." Baelish glanced towards Arryn. "I can have them bring what records they possess."

"Send them to me."

"Of course. Did you find any books there, Lord Black? Accounts, names of those who paid?"

"I was bringing children out. Your lordship will have to ask the men who searched it afterwards."

"Quite right. They were your first concern."

Petyr took a drink, letting the commendation settle upon Jon as though it had cost him something to bestow. An obliging little man, finding rent rolls while greater lords called for heads. Jon distrusted the ease of it. Petyr now knew that he had not read the keeper's accounts, and had arranged to supply the Hand with records of his own.

Jon wondered whether a clerk sent to the quays would reach the records before word of the inquiry reached the men who kept them.

"And how many did you kill?" Joffrey asked.

The prince had been turning a knife beside his plate. He laid it down now, his green eyes intent upon Jon in a way the cages had failed to make them.

"One man died fighting Ser Arthur. The others were taken."

"Only one?"

Robert swung towards his son. "Dead men tell us bugger-all. We need the rest to talk."

"I meant—"

"The prince asked how much resistance they offered," Cersei said. She spoke evenly, with her eyes upon Jon. "He has not had your account before this morning."

"Enough. One of my men was cut. We were fortunate it was not worse."

Joffrey looked down at his knife. Sandor's gaze remained upon the prince, the unburned side of his mouth dragging into a sneer. Jon found himself in agreement with the Hound. A little steel at breakfast, a little blood in a story, and Joffrey could imagine himself among the men who had earned the telling.

"Is the wounded man attended?" Barristan asked.

The old knight had not moved from his place beside the dais. Jon turned towards him with relief. "Yes, ser. A cut above the brow. The maester is more concerned for one of the children."

Pycelle stirred, his heavy chain slipping against the edge of the table. "A blow to the head can be treacherous. A child may seem to improve, and then—"

"There is a maester with him." Jon heard how sharply he had cut across the old man. He had no patience left for a list of the ways the boy might die; yet Pycelle could send help, and offending him would put none in the sickroom. "I would be grateful if you sent to learn what he needs."

"Certainly, certainly. A poor child."

Robert pushed his plate aside. "And you, Robb? What did you do while your brother was breaking heads?"

"I helped with the children, Your Grace."

"Come now. You need not be shy of telling me."

Robb reddened to the roots of his hair. He clasped his hands behind his back again, as he had in the gallery. Across the hall, Harry leaned forward; Jon spoke before anyone could turn his brother's discomfort into another jest.

"There was a boy who would not come out. He hid from the swords. Robb sat on the floor and took his off. When the boy finally came to him, he carried him all the way to the sept."

"How far?" Robert asked Robb.

"I don't know, Your Grace."

"Long enough that Ser Martyn offered to take him," Jon said. "The boy would not let go."

Robb looked at him then, pleading for an end to it. Jon stopped. He had wanted the hall to understand what his brother had done, and had succeeded chiefly in making Robb wish himself elsewhere.

The king beckoned him up the step. When Robb came within reach, Robert put that great hand upon his shoulder.

"Your father will be proud of that."

He said it quietly. Robb lifted his head, and the stiffness went out of him. His mouth opened before he found the words.

"Thank you, Your Grace."

Jon stood below the dais and watched his brother smile. Last night Robb had listened to the men of the rebellion; now Robert had given him a place in a story of his own. He would write to Ned about it. He would try to make the words sound casual, then repeat the king's praise exactly, and Ned would hear his pleasure through every line.

It hurt to know that so well. Jon wanted Robb beside him when he claimed his own crown. He had imagined what he would tell his brother, what truths and promises might persuade him; he had given less thought to having to ask him to turn against a man who could make him look like this. Robert had scarcely needed to try. A hand upon a shoulder, a few words about their father, and Robb would carry the morning home with him.

Jon could not even wish it taken away. His brother had sat on a filthy floor and coaxed a frightened child out of hiding. He deserved to stand before a king and hear that he had done well. For a moment Jon hated the future he wanted for requiring him to think beyond that.

"They disobeyed a clear instruction to go there," Arryn said.

Robert's hand remained upon Robb's shoulder. "Did they?"

"They did. I have spoken to them."

The king looked at his old foster father. A grin tugged at his beard, and Jon glimpsed the younger man who must once have stood before Arryn with an excellent account of why a forbidden thing had needed doing.

"You had cause to speak to me often enough."

"I remember."

Yohn Royce laughed, with several men near him. Arryn waited until they had finished. Robert released Robb with a final squeeze.

"Well, let us have no more night fighting before my tournament. Get some food into you both. I mean to see what Ned has taught his sons."

Jon bowed. At the side of the dais Lysa caught Robb's sleeve before he could descend. Her eyes went to the dirt in his sword belt, and she drew him nearer to speak. Jon could not hear the words. His brother bent his head through them with the patient misery of a boy who has just escaped one adult only to be caught by another. When she let him go, he hurried down the step.

Tyrion Lannister raised his cup as they passed. "To Lord Black. A useful night's work. I can seldom say as much for mine." A few cups rose with his. Jon inclined his head and followed Robb towards their seats, past the servant setting down the honeyed apples.

***
​

Margaery had meant to give Jon the book before he sat down.

Elinor had it beneath her shawl, a corner of blue leather showing against the cream wool. Margaery had marked a passage before dressing, certain she would make him laugh. Now she could scarcely remember what she had meant to say.

Jon reached his chair and lowered himself carefully beside Robb. His black sleeves were clean now. Margaery remembered the hand he had offered her for their dance, and tried to picture it holding a sword in that dark yard. A knife, Jon had said. A club. Men who had not known his name.

She had gone to bed pleased with the evening. He had gone into Flea Bottom. She knew its name from the warnings given to their servants; even the grooms were told to go there in company. Jon was not yet fourteen. He had taken his brother and a handful of men into those streets, and nine children were sleeping in the sept because he had.

When Robert had asked how many men, Jon had answered with the number of children. Then he had made them listen to what Robb had done. Margaery felt her cheeks warming. She wanted to tell him what she thought of him, and was suddenly afraid that she would sound foolish.

At the royal table, Garlan was asking whether the Hand meant to seek the children's families. Robert referred him to Arryn, then turned the talk to Garlan's horse. Father leaned forward to supply its breeding. Across the room, Jon held a cup without drinking while Robb spoke close to his ear.

Grandmother broke a roll beside her.

"You are watching the wrong table."

Margaery turned reluctantly. "Those children might have been gone by morning."

Olenna's fingers stilled upon the roll. "He did well. I have known men twice his age who would have left it to someone else." She glanced towards the dais. "Your father has scarcely stopped talking to the king. You might spare a little attention for the prince."

"I have not forgotten him."

"Then watch him. His father has been praising another boy, and he does not care for it."

Joffrey sat with a loose thread wound about one finger, drawing it tighter until the tip whitened. There were eggs untouched before him. When Robert laughed at something Garlan said, the prince pulled another thread from his napkin.

"He only wanted to know how many they had killed," Margaery murmured.

"I heard him. I want you to hear what he says when his father is not beside him."

Grandmother was watching her now. Margaery nodded; there would be questions later. She made herself look towards the prince, though her hand had strayed towards the book beneath Elinor's shawl.

Renly caught Father's eye over Garlan's shoulder.

"You should have him come and choose one himself, Mace. My brother has heard enough about your stables to think you keep dragons in them."

"If he has one fit to carry me, I'll ride it," Robert declared.

Father's chair scraped backwards. He checked himself halfway to his feet and settled with both hands upon the table. "Highgarden would be honoured, Your Grace. By you and all your family. We have room enough for the court, and my wife would see to everything."

Mother lifted her eyes from her cup. Margaery waited for some sign that the invitation surprised her, but Alerie only turned a little towards the queen.

"There is good hunting along the Mander," Father continued. "We have scarcely disturbed those woods this season. Garlan could show you—"

"I know what grows fat in the Reach." Robert pointed his bread at Renly. "You never come back thinner."

"They take very good care of me."

"Nor would Your Grace find our cellars wanting," Father put in. "Whatever wine you favour, we shall have it laid down."

He was smiling now, pleased by the laughter and the king's interest, and Margaery could picture the preparations beginning before anyone had agreed to come. The guest rooms opened, hangings shaken out, men sent hurrying to the stables. Mother would have to decide where everyone slept while Father told them how welcome they were.

Cersei waited for the laughter to finish. Sunlight caught the gold net over her hair; beside the king's loosened belt and damp collar, she looked as carefully dressed as she had at the feast. Margaery straightened without meaning to.

"A generous invitation, Lord Tyrell. I am sure Lady Alerie would receive us splendidly."

"It would be my pleasure, Your Grace."

The queen inclined her head to Mother, accepting the assurance. Margaery watched the two women across Father's broad shoulder. Alerie had scarcely spoken, yet the queen addressed her now, and Father had to wait until they had finished.

"We shall speak of it when the tournament is done," Robert said. "I have promised these lords a hunt here first. Royce will accuse me of fleeing south to find an easier boar."

"Only if Your Grace leaves me behind," Yohn called.

Father sat back laughing with the others. Renly stayed beside him to discuss the road, and already Father was describing where the royal party might break its journey. Margaery glanced at Mother, whose mouth had curved above the rim of her cup. Highgarden would certainly receive a letter.

"Are we still to ride this morning?" she asked when Alerie put it down.

"The princess is being readied. Her septa will accompany us, as the queen required. We shall have an escort and reach the lists before the boys begin."

Olenna held out her hand for her stick. "Then do not keep a princess waiting while you hunt for a book."

Elinor lifted the shawl. Margaery took the little volume and tucked the ribbon safely between its pages. Grandmother followed the movement with a glance.

"I know where it is," Margaery said.

"So I see."

She kept the book in her hand as she rose. Jon had scarcely touched his breakfast. There would be time to give it to him before she left, and perhaps to make him laugh over something foolish for a moment.

***
​

Oberyn had watched Arthur while the king questioned the boys.

His friend stood near the door in a cloak with dried mud along its hem. In the hard morning light every splash showed. He had found time to clean his sword, Oberyn would wager, and none to look at the rest of himself. When Jon spoke of the cages, Arthur lowered his eyes. Through all Robert's questions he offered no account of his own fighting.

Beside Oberyn, Obara pushed away her dish.

"I would have killed the keeper," she said.

"And the men who paid him?"

"I would have them too."

She looked towards the king as he laughed. It was not the first time Oberyn had heard her offer to settle a wrong with a spear. This morning he found little fault with the wish.

"We shall see whom he names."

Obara folded her arms and kept watching the dais.

Arthur approached as the dishes were being cleared.

Oberyn moved his cup to make room upon the table and beckoned him to sit.

"I must see Jon to the yard."

"Your nephew is eating. You may do the same."

Arthur glanced back before taking the end of the bench. Obara set a plate before him, leaving him to find an excuse for refusing it. He broke off a piece of bread. His first mouthful was so large that Oberyn put off his questions and pushed the cheese within reach as well.

Arthur ate. They had known one another too long for him to believe Oberyn had called him over merely for breakfast. Some questions from yesterday would have to wait; servants were still passing close behind him.

"Did he ask their names?"

Arthur looked up.

"The children."

"Those who could give them. Why?"

"Robert has had the fighting. I wondered what your nephew did afterwards."

Arthur swallowed and set down the bread. "He went below. I wished I had gone first."

Oberyn waited while a servant gathered the empty dishes. When the man had passed, he leaned nearer.

"A boy flinched when he tried to help him with his coat," Arthur continued. "Later, the keeper started shouting while Robb was trying to bring the little one out. Jon put him against the wall with a hand at his throat. I stopped him."

Across the room Robert laughed. Oberyn's jaw tightened at the sound. He looked towards Jon, who was listening to someone beside him, the blood washed away and his black sleeves clean.

"Did he fight you?"

"He let go when I took his arm. Then he helped with the children. Stayed until the maester came. There was no persuading him to leave."

Oberyn could picture the keeper clawing at Jon's wrists. He might have needed Arthur's hand upon his own arm, had he stood in that cellar.

Arthur looked towards Jon and smiled, the weariness easing from his face. Oberyn watched him. He had seen that pride after the boy's bouts; this was warmer, almost unguarded.

"Has the keeper named the men who buy the children?"

"Not to me. The Hand's men have him."

"There is no judgement in this city for men who hurt children."

Oberyn looked towards Robert. No one had needed a prisoner's confession to name Elia's murderers, yet the years had passed with those men alive. He set his cup down untouched.

"We look after our children in Dorne," he said. "Doran sets guards over the Water Gardens, for the grooms' children as well as ours. Here they are kept in cages for men to wager upon."

"Ask, when you see the Hand's men," Oberyn added. "I would like to know whom that keeper has been serving."

Arthur nodded.

Oberyn would tell Doran about the cellar. And Rhaenys—what would she make of the boy who had gone into it, and the care Arthur took of him? Oberyn glanced at his friend again. Whatever he thought of Jon's bargain with Vhalar, his niece ought to hear this too.

"When you have slept, come and see me," he said. "Without everyone waiting in a yard for you."

Arthur held his gaze. "I will."

Arthur glanced towards the doors. "I sent word to Lord Mooton. We have kept him waiting long enough."

"He means to recover the time from us. A longer visit, and your story about Myles."

"He shall have both."

Obara spoke before he could rise. "Tell your nephew he still owes me a bout. Winning this will not get him out of it."

"Tell him yourself," Arthur said, rising. "He has heard enough from me this morning."

She snorted. But when Arthur went back towards Jon, her eyes followed him, and Oberyn saw her measuring the boy's movements once more.

***
​

Wendel reached past Jon to clap Robb on the back. "Well done, both of you." Wylis asked after Jon's shoulder, looking him over as if he expected to find another wound beneath the clean doublet. Jon had managed three mouthfuls of eggs when Lady Tanda found him. He wished she would let him finish before asking whatever she had come to ask.

Both daughters were with her. Falyse carried her gloves; Lollys wound the cord of a small cloth bag about her wrist. Rosby's cough interrupted Tanda as he stopped beside them to speak to Wylis.

"Those poor children," Tanda began again. "To think what might have happened if you had not gone." She urged Lollys forward with a hand at her back. "Such a gallant young lord. Don't you think so, Lollys?"

Lollys's round face coloured. She glanced at Jon and down at her bag. "Y-yes. Very g-gallant, my lord."

"Thank you, my lady." Jon put down his spoon.

Lollys ventured another glance at him. "Can they have my blue coverlet?"

"Of course, my dear," Tanda said. "The linen can go to the sept as well. I shall tell Lord Sunglass we need not send it over the water."

Lollys edged nearer. Her yellow gown pulled tight across her middle; the cord had left a red line upon her plump wrist. She loosened it when Falyse touched her hand.

"The ones in the cages can have it?"

"Yes. We will send it with the linen."

"Will had nothing but his shirt," Robb said. "We wrapped him in a cloak."

Betha Blackwood had paused behind him to let Rosby pass. Her dark hair was braided back, a red ribbon worked through it and disappearing beneath her cloak. At the sound of Robb's voice she turned from Roslin Frey.

"Was that the boy you carried?"

Robb twisted round, then began to rise. She put a hand upon the bench before he could crowd Lady Tanda against the table.

"You need not get up."

He sat. "Yes. He fell asleep against me. I didn't want to wake him when one of our guards offered to take him."

"Then he shall have it," Lollys decided.

Tanda smiled at her daughter and began telling Wylis how the bundles had been packed. Jon watched her, ashamed of his impatience. She had come to give him something.

Aurane tried to tear his bread one-handed. Monford broke it for him without interrupting Celtigar. Aurane scarcely noticed. "You might have sent for me."

"With that hand?" Jon asked.

"I could have helped carry them." Aurane's face had lost its usual amusement.

Harry came round the bench with Mychel. "You could have found half the Vale awake. Waymar is still complaining that we heard it from the king."

"We went to look at a house," Jon said. "I did not know there would be a cart until it came."

Robb made room beside him, but Harry glanced at Betha and went round to the other side. Mychel followed, catching a loose shield strap against a stool. Theon caught the stool before it fell.

"I would have come," Mychel said, freeing the strap. He looked from Jon to Robb, waiting for an answer.

"We know," Robb told him.

Harry glanced at the girls, then back at Jon. "Only don't blame last night when I beat you. I won't have everyone saying you were too tired to fight."

"You still have to manage it." Jon smiled. Harry grinned back and reached for bread. Soon they were arguing about shields and where the smaller boys should stand when the larger companies met. Betha sat in the space Robb had cleared, gathering her cloak beneath her.

"Jon made rather more of it than he needed to," Robb told her, low enough that Jon could pretend not to hear.

"I am glad he told us. Will you let me know how the boy fares?"

"After I visit him."

"Thank you." She looked towards Roslin, who had joined Falyse in examining the stitching of a glove. "And Lord Tytos says I may ride out for the hunt, if there is a proper party of ladies going."

"Then I shall see you there."

Theon stopped arguing with Mychel. "So you do mean to speak to someone besides us today."

Betha's mouth curved. Robb kicked beneath the table; Theon pulled his boot clear and nearly struck Mychel instead. Jon caught his brother's eye across the commotion and smiled. Robb tried to look offended, but his mouth betrayed him.

Margaery arrived while Theon was protesting his innocence. She and Elinor wore riding cloaks, and beyond them Alerie stood near the doors with the princess's septa. A groom waited at her shoulder, trying to keep an armful of gloves and short riding whips from slipping to the floor.

"What you did last night was very brave," she said quietly.

Jon looked up. She held his gaze instead of looking towards the others.

"Thank you." He found himself smiling. She smiled back, then brought the book from beneath her cloak.

"Have you heard how the injured boy fares?"

"Not yet."

Her smile faded. "I hope they send good news."

"I brought you the book." Margaery set it beside his plate, safely beyond the butter.

He wiped his fingers before taking it. The blue leather had worn soft at the corners, and a ribbon lay between the pages. A faint crease ran down the spine. He turned it carefully in his hand.

"Has your knight found the right road yet?"

"You may discover that yourself. Elinor and I still disagree about what the lady ought to do."

"She ought to have a horse," Elinor said.

Margaery turned towards her. "You told me she should wait."

"I have thought about it."

Betha laughed. Robb looked down at the book, plainly wishing he knew enough to join them. Jon would have lent it to him then and there, had Margaery not rested one gloved finger upon the cover.

"I marked the passage. You may tell me I am wrong, but you must give me a better reason than Elinor's."

"I shall read it," he promised.

Perrin had reached them through the crowd. Jon held up a hand before he could begin and turned back to Margaery. She had come to speak to him; he could spare her more than the time before his next piece of business.

"Will you be watching us?"

"After our ride. Try to leave something for us to see." Myrcella called from the doorway. Margaery answered, then drew her hand from the book. "Keep the ribbon where it is. I shall know if you pretend to have read it."

Jon was still smiling as she left. Beyond her, Cersei inspected the escort assembled for her daughter. The queen spoke to Alerie, gave the septa a last instruction, and bent to kiss Myrcella's forehead. The little princess endured the arrangements with restless feet; only when her mother straightened did she turn eagerly towards the open doors.

"Lady Stokeworth has linen for the sept," Jon told Perrin. Tanda turned at her name, ready with the whereabouts of the bundles. He waited while Perrin heard her, then drew the man closer.

The room was confirmed, the buyers had been told, and the armourer would keep his appointments. Fresh guards had gone to the cookshop to relieve the men there.

"A lad has come back from the sept as well. The maester is staying with the injured boy. He asked for more clean linen; I've sent it."

Jon waited. Perrin had finished.

No improvement, then. He closed the book carefully. "Thank you. Have word brought to me if they send again."

Robb had heard. Betha's hand rested on the bench beside his, and neither was speaking now. Jon took the book with him when he left the table.

***
​

From his window the city looked almost manageable.

Sunlight lay over the roofs, catching a glazed tile here, a strip of lead there, and smoke rose thinly through it from a thousand hearths. Beyond the houses the river flashed between passing sails. The height spared him the blocked lanes and most of the stench. He could have stood here drawing orderly streets all morning and never come near the place he had walked through last night.

A bell sounded down the hill. Another answered from farther off. Jon set Margaery's book upon the bed and drew a clean sheet across the table.

Arthur was speaking to the men outside. He had allowed a little time before they went down to arm, provided Jon spent it sitting. Jon pulled his chair to the window and planted both feet upon the floor. Munin hopped onto his wrist, claws pricking through the sleeve, and pecked at a button.

"You have had the better night."

The crow tilted her head. Jon had held five birds before the hawk frightened Hugin and threw him back into his own body with blood in his mouth. This morning he had fumbled his belt twice. One bird would do.

He let Munin step onto the sill.

Light broke cold and sharp about him. The crow dropped, the roof rushed up, and Jon's stomach lurched in the chair. He kept hold of the pressure beneath his heels and the hard back against his spine while wings opened into the wind. Then Munin was rising over the lower roofs of the castle, and the kitchen wagon below had dwindled to a patch of sacks beside a wall.

The streets narrowed as he flew down the hill. Roofs crowded over them, one storey thrust beyond another until there was scarcely a thread of daylight between the eaves. From a horse Jon might have thought a lane ended at a wall. From above he could see the crooked continuation, but not always the passage that joined it. He began with the wider street and its raised gutter, found the sheds, then lost the covered drain beneath a run of patched roofing. Twice he chose the wrong turn and had to bring Munin round again.

At the brewery, men stood near the front entrance and a cart waited by the gate. A woman with a pail was pointing down the lane while one of the guards listened. The crow's view gave Jon her lifted arm and the impatience of her stance. Her words were lost at that distance.

He wanted to put a question to her. The urge was absurdly strong. Instead he took Munin higher and looked over the rear yard, smaller and meaner in daylight than it had seemed beneath their lamps. Tiles were missing along the washhouse roof. Behind it, two close walls enclosed a passage leading into a court he had not seen before. Shirts and a patched sheet stirred across the opening. A man carrying a basket on his back bent beneath the washing and vanished into the gap.

Jon followed the line of it until an overhanging roof concealed the passage. It ran behind the place where they had waited with the children. He needed to find its other end. Anyone who knew it might have passed behind their watch upon the gate.

When he returned to his own eyes, his chamber seemed dim and heavy. His left hand had closed upon the chair. He prised the fingers loose. Outside, Arthur called for a groom; they would soon be leaving. Jon rubbed his eyes, judging how much time remained. Another flight around the brewery might give him the passage's end. At the collector's house, the man in brown could be walking out of the door.

The roofs would still be there after the melee. He sent Munin towards the river.

Near the river the crowd spread out upon the quays, carts and people pressing towards the gates. He found the weighhouse readily enough; the houses behind it were more troublesome. Three had outside stairs. One upper door was red, while an awning hid another. Munin settled on a roof above them. Jon watched a man carry a bundle up the steps, waited for the door to open, and saw only the man's back before it closed again.

He stayed. A servant shook a rug over the lower rail; a woman carried a basket out beneath the awning. Neither was the man he wanted. His shoulder ached in the distant chair. When a knock reached him he dragged his attention home and called for another moment. The brewery passage would have to remain unfinished.

The pen felt clumsy between his fingers. He drew the brewery first, fixing the turns before memory straightened them to his liking. The rear passage stopped where the roof had hidden it. Beside that broken line he marked the place where his men had stood, angry at how little ground he had understood while standing in the middle of it.

Rilla's account put one boundary near the old well and another at the lime sheds. Between them, men collected money in the knight's name. Jon marked the well and wrote beside it: who takes the money? Farther down he added the place where they had found the stallholder being robbed. Hal had not known those collectors. Another pair of bullies, another master, perhaps the same one. He left room for a name rather than pretending he had it.

This was the part a drawing could not give him. Rilla knew which men entered a shop without paying, which neighbour would shut a door, who might speak once the guards had gone. Walls alone would not tell him which doors were dangerous. The woman who kept the pleasure houses would gladly see the knight lose his grip upon her customers. Jon doubted she would welcome another lord putting his hand where the knight's had been.

Below the first drawing he began a second around the weighhouse. The collector's house belonged there when he had established which one it was. Until then he had Varys's directions and a red door. Enough to begin with; too little to trust with his men.

He glanced towards Margaery's book. Beside it lay the paper he had meant to use after the feast, still blank. He had intended to sit quietly and set down the dangerous things he remembered, separating what could still happen from what his own presence had changed. Instead he had spent the night running after a man with a club.

Arryn had stood alive before him at dawn. Hugh had brought candles. Lysa had caught Robb's sleeve at breakfast, and Petyr had offered to find a landlord. They were becoming familiar people, occupied with ordinary business. That frightened Jon more than Varys's little warning. He knew what had followed Arryn's death. He could not allow a few mornings of seeing the old man over his papers to make him forget it.

His own preparations had scarcely begun. The realm could not be permitted to tear itself apart while he was still gathering the means to hold it. Nor could he assume the old sequence would repeat itself exactly and wait for a remembered sign. He drew the unused sheets nearer, setting them beside the map where he would have to look at them when he returned.

Another knock came. Jon covered the plan before answering.

Arthur entered with his gloves. He took in the open window and the pen between Jon's fingers. "How far?"

"The brewery. There is a passage behind it we did not see." Jon uncovered the drawing and turned it towards him.

His uncle bent over it. "Send a copy to Androw."

"I will. I have the line of the roofs, but I have not found where the passage comes out."

"Then tell him that." Arthur followed the broken line with a finger, stopping short of the wet ink.

Jon watched him reach the marked position of their men. "They knew every turning last night. We had one boy to guide us. Before I go anywhere again, I mean to know where I am."

Arthur straightened. "That was not what the Hand asked you to learn."

"I heard him."

"I know you did."

The map lay between them. Jon would send it to Androw, but it was his own ignorance that had brought him back to the window. He would keep his copy. After a moment Arthur held out the gloves.

"Come. We shall see what that shoulder can do."

***
​

They were held up at the city gate behind carts of bread and ale. One driver had worked a wheel into the rut beside another cart and could move neither forward nor back; he was blaming the other man loudly, while a woman with a basket upon her head slipped between the stationary wheels. Jon envied her freedom to pass. Every jolt of his horse carried up through the reins, and he had begun to resent the weight of his own left arm.

Arthur kept the boys together while the guards cleared a way. Once beyond the walls, the wind came off the Blackwater and cooled the sweat beneath Jon's collar. Pavilions stretched upriver, their ropes pegged into grass already churned to mud at the entrances. Smoke from cooking fires blew low across the road. Above it the royal standards moved over a yellow pavilion near the lists, and people beneath the gallery awnings stood to see who was arriving.

The grooms took their horses. Within the enclosure for the young competitors, every opening between the tents seemed to belong to someone carrying something too large to fit through it. Two squires with a chest shouted for room while a groom backed a restless horse across their path. A boy in a yellow padded jack stood with his arms spread as a woman sewed beneath one of them. He kept trying to see what she was doing and receiving a sharp tug at the cloth for his trouble.

Beyond him, a Bracken youth demanded to know who had moved his helm. A Blackwood boy lifted it from a bench and held it out in silence. The Bracken snatched it, red-faced, and began explaining why it had no business being there. Jon passed before he could discover whether the explanation would become a challenge.

The noise of the galleries rose beyond the tents: boots upon timber, vendors calling over one another, a hammer driving a peg home. Fried onions scented the breeze. His stomach, which had wanted another breakfast a short while ago, had tightened beneath his belt. He had fought men who meant to kill him. Apparently that did not prevent him being nervous about a field full of boys.

Ser Aron Santagar stood beneath an awning, checking the weapons as they passed. He took a sword from one youth and ran a thumb carefully along the blunt edge. A rough place caught at his skin. He pointed it out and sent the boy back to have it dressed down; the name of the armourer, indignantly supplied, made no difference.

Jaime Lannister listened at the far side of the yard while a young westerman described a bout with both hands. Jaime's eyes followed the flourishes. Jon suspected the boy would regret demonstrating so much if he was asked to repeat it with a sword. Beside Santagar, Barristan pressed upon the damaged rim of a shield. The split opened under his hand. He shook his head, and the shield was carried away.

Gawen found them at a bench. He had washed and changed since leaving the cookshop, but the rims of his eyes were red. He put down Jon's quilted jack and waited until a pair of boys carrying spears had passed.

"The relief was there before I left, my lord. The Hand's man stayed to speak with them. Rilla was making them eat." He moved nearer. "A butcher sent a cart round, too. Bones and a bit of meat for the pot. Wouldn't take a penny."

"From the slaughter lanes?" Varys had mentioned the men who took pennies from the barrows there.

"Aye. His lads wanted to know how long your men would be staying at the brewery."

"The Hand has men there."

"I told them. They offered to leave two at her door, to help ours. Very civil about it, they were." Gawen rubbed one eye with his knuckle. "Kept asking whether the knight had been taken."

Jon set his gloves down. "And Rilla?"

"Sent them away with their meat. Her usual lad had already turned back. They wanted another penny to let his barrow through." Gawen's mouth twisted. "She's boiling peas today. Says she'll not thank them for bones when they've kept her order from her."

Jon had been thinking of what the butchers Varys mentioned might know. Rilla had lost her delivery already. He imagined their men settling at her door, learning her customers, waiting for gratitude because they had brought her meat after stopping her from buying her own.

"Tell Perrin what they asked, and see that the Hand's man hears it. Our guards are not to accept other men to help keep the post."

"They haven't, my lord."

"Good." Jon took up his gloves again. "And Hal?"

"Wanted to come up and watch. His aunt told him to finish his bowl before he went begging for another favour."

"You should sleep."

"When you're armed." Gawen opened the jack and held it for him. "Left arm first."

Wylla had said the same thing. He obeyed more readily now, letting Gawen guide the sleeve up while he kept the arm low. The padding was warm almost at once. Arthur checked the straps as Gawen fastened them, and together they settled the armour into place.

Sunlight slid over the black dragonglass finish. In shadow it concealed the curves of the steel; where a ridge caught the sun, a hard bright line followed the movement of his body. Near the lower edge of the breastplate, the gloss dulled in a patch no larger than his thumbnail. He had seen it in the workshop and could find it now without looking. From the other side of the yard, nobody was studying that patch. A boy had stopped with his chin strap hanging loose to stare.

Horas Redwyne said something to Hobber behind him, then turned away. Let him. Jon had more interest in where the armour pressed beneath his shoulder than in whatever opinion Horas thought worth sharing.

Arthur passed him a light wooden shield. Jon slid his forearm through the straps, took the grip and raised it. Pain caught before the rim reached his chin. He lowered it, drew his elbow closer to his ribs and tried again.

"Keep it there," Arthur said. "Move your feet. Do not reach after the sword."

He took a practice blade from the bench. The first tap came from Jon's right, and Jon turned behind the shield. The second went low towards his knee; he stepped back and let it pass the rim. Arthur waited until he had settled, then struck firmly at the upper edge.

The jar ran up his arm into the bruise. Jon's teeth met. He kept the grip, but his uncle was watching his face.

"Again."

This time Jon kept the shield close and turned his hips with the blow. The pain was sharp, familiar now, and it eased when Arthur drew back. His hand still obeyed him. He flexed it once without releasing the grip and waited for the next stroke.

Arthur lowered the sword. "You can hold it. You cannot spend the morning catching blows on that side."

"I will keep moving."

"See that you do. A boy who finds that weakness will come back to it."

Robb had joined them beside the bench. His grey surcoat lay smooth over his armour, the direwolf clear upon his breast. He glanced at the shield and then at Jon.

"I'll be on your left."

"You need not—"

"That is where I was going to be."

Jon shut his mouth. They had agreed it before the night had given him anything to be defensive about. Robb was already turning to look for Harry. Jon let him go, grateful, and annoyed that gratitude should be so difficult to accept without an argument.

Arthur handed the practice sword to Gawen. "If the arm goes numb, or you can no longer keep that shield up, yield. I mean it."

"I heard you." Jon checked the strap himself before taking his blunted sword. He wanted to win badly enough that he did not trust himself to promise anything more.

Harry's Vale boys waited near the gate. Waymar pushed his hair back, then looked down at the helm under his arm as if remembering what was about to cover it. Artys Elesham knelt to tighten a fastening at Mychel's knee. Harry watched the companies crossing the yard, moving a little aside whenever someone came between him and the field.

Robb went to him. Domeric followed, speaking quietly with Aurane. Theon had claimed a place against the enclosure wall where nobody could jostle his sword arm. He pushed away from it as Jon approached.

"All here this time?"

Jon met his eyes. "All here."

Theon nodded and fell in beside him. Harry pointed with his helm towards the Reach company gathering beyond the awning.

"They have more than we do. Let them come to us. If they spread out to surround us, we move before they close it."

"And don't chase a boy because he falls back," Domeric added. "He may have friends behind him."

Aurane adjusted his shield. "Which side do you want?"

"Stay near me. Robb takes my left." Jon looked at Theon. "Keep an eye behind us."

"I was going to admire the ladies."

"You can do that facing the right way," Robb told him.

Theon grinned. His fingers were working at a fastening already pulled tight. Jon felt his own impatience answer it. Once they were moving, there would be less time to imagine the first blow.

Harry drew the other three Vale boys nearer. "When the larger companies are broken, we tell you before we part. As we agreed."

"We remember," Robb said.

"I want them to remember." Harry looked at Waymar, who rolled his eyes but nodded.

They put on their helms. Faces he knew disappeared behind steel, and the voices grew muffled. Jon heard his own breathing close about his ears. He flexed his left hand upon the grip, feeling the pull beneath his shoulder, and looked past Robb towards the opening.

Beyond it, the lists were bright with colour. Women leaned forward beneath the awnings, and men stood to let late arrivals pass. Somewhere in the stands Robert laughed. Jon recognised the sound before he could see the king.

Santagar called for them to make room for the herald. The nine boys moved together. At the gate Jon waited with his brother on his left and the weight of the shield held close against him. The herald unrolled his parchment.

 

[aiwonder]

The herald had to begin twice.

A man selling cherries beyond the fence shouted over the king's name, and somebody farther along the bank answered him with a price so insulting that half the commons laughed. Ser Aron Santagar turned towards the noise. The seller lowered his basket. Beneath the royal canopy, Robert leaned back in his chair and waved for the herald to continue.

Jon could see the field through the open gate, broad enough for a charge until he considered how many boys were waiting to make one. The grass had been cut short. Near the entrance, watering had left a darker strip beneath the turf, and a cartwheel had pressed a shallow groove across it. At the far end the ground rose towards the river fence. A dropped shield could slide back down that slope. So could a boy.

He tried to stop examining the ground and listen.

The herald read out the prizes: six thousand six hundred and sixty-six gold dragons and two-thirds of a dragon to the winner, half as much to the last boy defeated. He lingered over the king's generosity, then lowered the parchment a little to look at them.

"A yield ends the contest for the man who gives it. Call clearly, raise a hand or your weapon and withdraw under the marshals' protection. A dropped sword does not put you out. A broken or loose helm does. No thrust to the face or throat. No blow after a yield. Where a marshal puts his staff, you stop."

At the word man, the boy ahead of Jon straightened beneath a coat of mail that still had room for him to grow. His companion whispered something. Both looked solemn when Santagar glanced their way.

"Your fathers may dispute the result afterwards," the master-at-arms told them. "You will obey it while you are on my field."

Jon looked down as a loose end of silk stirred against his breastplate. The black dragonglass finish caught the sun along the curve of his shoulder; two ribbons were knotted at a fastening high upon his right arm, bronze beside green.

Ysilla had taken the bronze one from her wrist beside the tents. He remembered her holding it against the black steel, then looking up to ask whether he would wear it. She had stayed close while he answered, her fingers still upon the ribbon. Margaery had found him there a little later. The green silk had marked the passage in the small book he had brought down in his pouch; she had drawn it free herself and tied it beside Ysilla's. He could still picture her concentrating upon the knot, then smiling when she found him watching her.

Robb was straightening Betha's red favour above his gauntlet. She had given it to him at the tent ropes, and he had held his arm out so solemnly that Theon had begun to laugh. He had stopped when Myranda Royce called him over. Now a cream ribbon lay against Theon's dark sleeve, and he was looking towards the galleries as carefully as Robb.

They went through the gate.

The noise changed as Jon emerged. What had been a confusion beyond the tents became a wall of faces and lifted arms. Men were standing upon carts behind the common rail. A woman held a little girl astride her shoulders, one small shoe planted against her cheek. Farther up, beneath the awnings, ladies shifted their skirts to make space for late arrivals while servants struggled along the benches with cups. The wind lifted the edge of the royal canopy and laid a brief wash of sunlight across Cersei's crimson sleeves.

Joffrey sat beside her, a small coronet bright upon his yellow hair. Sandor Clegane stood behind his chair with one hand hooked into his belt. Jon looked for Arthur and found him near the gate, speaking to Barristan. His uncle watched the shield, then Jon's face. Jon flexed the fingers around the grip where Arthur could see.

Robb nudged him with an elbow.

"Over there."

Jon followed his glance. Wendel Manderly had risen to his feet before anyone had fought a stroke. Beside him, Wylis was trying to persuade him to sit down. Martyn stood at the lower rail with Tomas and several of the household, all of them turned towards the boys. Gawen had brought Jon's spare gloves for some reason. He held them folded in one great hand.

Robb lifted his sword. Wendel answered with his cup, slopping a little wine over the rim.

It was absurd how much better that made Jon feel.

The companies were finding places without being directed. Patrek Mallister pushed between Hoster Blackwood and the Bracken youth, turned the latter by the shoulder and pointed him towards the western boys. The Bracken answered sharply but moved. Hoster watched him go, then pulled a younger Riverlander closer rather than follow. Beyond them, Lancel had gathered the Crakehall and Brax boys around a shield painted with a golden lion. He was speaking quickly; the Crakehall nodded, while the Brax youth kept looking at the Reach.

Beyond Patrek's company, Eddison and Aleyx stood shoulder to shoulder, their shields touching. Aleyx said something through his open visor; Eddison nodded and moved half a pace back.

There were enough green shields at the other end to make Jon reconsider Harry's warning. Red and green apples stood beside roses, a crane beside a tower, and the grapes of the Redwynes moved towards the front. Loras was among them. His helm had a narrow gilt crest, without the extravagant flowers Jon remembered from another tournament that had not happened yet. Even at this distance he stood easily in his armour, shifting his sword from one hand to the other while a Fossoway youth spoke.

Horas looked towards Jon. This time he held the look.

"Leave him until we have room," Domeric murmured.

"I was looking at the rest."

"So was he."

Harry beckoned his own boys to a place on Jon's right. Mychel stood nearest the gap between the two companies, Artys beside him, while Waymar kept turning to examine their opponents. At the near side a Stormlander with a small shield was getting directions from the taller boy wearing Dondarrion's lightning. Several Crownlanders had come to stand close by them. Jon recognised the Rykker warhammers from the supper tables and a red chevron on white. He knew the lord who bore that last device; he could not have put a name to the narrow-faced youth behind the shield.

Aurane noticed him looking.

"Don't expect them to stand with us because we sailed here together."

"I wasn't."

"Good. The Rykker boy has been telling everyone he'll send me back to the ships."

Theon leaned forward. "What did you say to him?"

Aurane's mouth moved behind the open cheekpieces. "Nothing he liked."

Harry lowered his visor. "They've agreed something with the storm boys."

The boy with the lightning had reached across to tap the Rykker shield. Both nodded. An arrangement made with a few words, easily broken. Jon had spent years teaching men to dress ranks and listen for orders. These boys had been brought up to expect somebody to follow them, and most had never needed to obey anyone their own age. That would matter once the shouting began.

It would matter to his own company too, if he mistook friendship for a drilled century.

"Keep room to move," he told Robb. "If they press us, don't stand for the sake of it."

Robb settled his helm. "You keep up."

Jon smiled despite himself and lowered his visor.

The field shrank. There was Robb's grey shoulder on his left, Aurane a little behind his right, the bright grass ahead. He could no longer see the ladies or the king. He could hear his breathing and a faint creak each time he tightened his shield hand. The armour smelt of warm leather and the oil Gawen used upon the hinges.

A trumpet sounded.

For a heartbeat nobody moved. Then a boy somewhere to the right yelled, and the whole field seemed to answer.

The Reach crossed towards the western company at a walk that became a run. The Crakehall met them with his shield forward. Jon saw the collision lift him onto his toes; the boys behind him closed in, and the distinct colours vanished into a crush of shields, shoulders and raised swords.

"Here," Harry called.

The Stormlanders were coming at the space between the Vale and Jon's five. They had chosen it well. Mychel moved left to close it as Robb stepped forward, but a Crownlander ran past the first pair and made for Aurane.

Jon stepped across his path. He had time to see an open mouth behind a bar of steel before the boy's sword struck.

He turned his shield into the cut without lifting it far. The wood cracked against his forearm. His own blade met the returning stroke near the other boy's hilt, checked it, and slid down onto the knuckles of the sword hand. The boy swore and stumbled sideways, still holding on. Before Jon could follow, a second shield struck the first boy from behind and drove him back into Jon.

Jon tried to give ground. Someone's heel was under his boot. He could not lift his sword without striking the helm pressed beside it, and the shield was squeezing the breath from his chest. Robb's blade came down across the newcomer's arm. The boy twisted with a cry, taking the weight with him. Jon dragged his foot free.

"Room behind!" Theon shouted. "Move!"

Aurane backed away beside him, his shield knocking against Jon's sword arm. Jon went with him. Three paces, no more, before the attackers caught them. A narrow-faced Crownlander went round Robb's left; another boy thrust his shield into the gap. Robb's grey sleeve vanished behind it.

A blow caught the top of Jon's shield. Pain went down from the bruise in a hot streak. He let the shield sink rather than fight it and stopped the next cut with his blade, hard enough to feel the shock in his right hand too. His opponent wore three pale birds on a dark surcoat. Jon did not know the house. He knew the boy was taller, and that every time he recovered his sword he raised his elbow before bringing it down again.

Jon waited for the elbow. He stepped forward as it rose, cramped the swing with his shield held against his ribs, and drove his sword's rounded point into the padded belly below the breastplate. The boy folded with a grunt. Jon turned the next cut across his upper arm.

"Yield."

The boy shook his head and swung from the waist. Jon stepped outside it. Aurane's blade struck the boy's shield from the other side, and his resistance went out of him.

"Yield! I yield."

A staff appeared. Jon withdrew at once, giving the boy room to get past. He had expected to feel pleased with the first success. There was no time. The Rykker youth came through the opening behind the marshal, stopped short of the staff, then drove at Aurane as soon as it was lifted.

Harry was shouting to Mychel. Two Stormlanders were driving the Vale boys towards the rail on their right; another few steps would leave Harry with nowhere to retreat. He struck the nearest shield, turned, and called his company towards the river end instead. Artys went first. Waymar hesitated, sword still raised against an opponent who was backing away.

"Waymar!"

He came, angry at being called off, and the Vale company moved across Jon's right instead of being pinned against the rail. The Stormlanders followed. For a few breaths their movement drew some of the pressure away.

Jon turned his head, searching for grey. Six paces away Robb's sword rose between two helms, then vanished again. Domeric was nearer, a long blade scraping down his guard as he tried to get across. Behind them the Riverlanders were being driven backwards. Patrek shouted a warning that the hammering shields swallowed. Jon saw the apple shields pressing Hoster Blackwood and understood: another step back would crush them against the boys already fighting there.

Jon started to warn Domeric. Theon had seen it already.

"Behind you, Bolton!"

Domeric looked, struck the long sword aside and moved. Jon followed, but the boy in front of him refused to let him go. A cut struck his breastplate with a flat, startling crack. He felt the force through the padding and heard a cheer from the galleries. The boy cut again, trying to make him back into the Riverlanders.

For an instant Jon saw the brewery passage instead of the field: too little space, people behind him, somebody counting on his retreat. He swore, caught the next stroke on his sword and turned his body sideways to slip past a shield. He could not command a way through this merely by seeing that they needed one.

Robb made it.

His brother had stopped retreating. He struck the narrow-faced Crownlander's shield twice, driving him towards the taller Stormlander beside him. The two boys fouled each other's feet. As the Stormlander tried to recover, Robb went shoulder-first into the space between them.

"Jon! This way!"

Theon reached him first. His sword flashed low, across the Crownlander's thigh, and the boy went down onto one knee. Robb did not wait to claim him. He turned on the Stormlander, meeting the sword meant for Theon's back, while Domeric slipped through beside them.

Jon struck his own opponent once more and followed. Aurane came last, breathing loudly, his shield askew. The opening was narrow enough that Jon brushed Robb's arm as he passed.

"Keep going," Robb told him.

They went. The companies that had been driving them together struck each other instead. A Bracken shield crashed against the boy in Dondarrion colours. The Stormlander struck back at once, and the Bracken abandoned his retreat to answer him. Patrek's voice rose above them, calling his companion back.

Jon stopped only when there was grass between them and the nearest swords. His heart hammered under the breastplate. Robb bent briefly with his hands on his thighs, then straightened when he saw Jon looking.

"You all right?"

"Yes." Jon swallowed. "That was well seen."

Robb glanced back at the confusion they had left. "I wasn't staying in there."

From the galleries came a bellow of "Stark!" Jon could have picked Wendel's voice out of a storm. Robb heard it too. His sword lifted a little, almost before he meant it to, and another cheer answered from farther along the benches.

Theon caught his shoulder and turned him.

"Enjoy it later."

The Rykker youth had followed Aurane through the gap.

He came with two companions. One was small and fast, carrying a buckler scarcely larger than a plate. The other had already lost his shield and held his sword with both hands.

"Say it again, Waters," the Rykker called.

Aurane's sword came up. "You heard me."

The Rykker drove at him. Aurane met the first blow badly. The rim of his shield dipped; the Rykker boy struck at his hand and Aurane flinched, exposing his side.

Jon moved to help, but the small boy intercepted him. The buckler slapped his blade aside; a quick cut stung his thigh. Behind the little shield the boy was grinning. Jon let him come again, turned the sword outward and stepped past the buckler as it followed. His blow caught the boy in the ribs. The grin vanished. He retreated towards his friends, leaving Jon a clear view of Aurane.

Aurane was on one knee.

The Rykker youth had pressed his shield down and was trying to get a stroke beneath his raised sword. Aurane's bandage showed dark at the edge of his glove. He twisted free of the shield, swung once at the other's shin and missed. When the next blow struck his guard, his sword fell.

"Yield," he gasped. "Damn you, I yield."

The Rykker boy stopped. Whatever he had said about ships, he gave Aurane room to stand, then wheeled to meet Domeric. A marshal led Aurane out with a hand beneath his elbow. He looked back once, furious, and Jon lifted his sword to show that he had seen.

Robb and Theon drove the two-handed swordsman away together. He retreated into another fight, where a Riverlander caught him across the shoulder and made him call his yield. Jon followed the small boy towards Domeric. For a little while there were only the four of them, the Crownlanders and the hard business of finding room for their swords.

The small boy yielded after Robb caught him squarely upon the helm. The Rykker held on longer. Domeric made him retreat into the open, and when Theon came round his other side he called his yield and lowered the blade with a disgusted shake of the head.

A shout behind Jon made him turn.

Harry was coming towards them with Mychel. Artys walked between two marshals, holding a torn strap and trying to explain something. Waymar had stayed on the field, but he was well away from Harry now, fighting beside the Bracken boy against a pair of Reach youths.

"Artys's helm came loose," Harry said, breath catching between the words. "He wouldn't leave until they made him."

"Where are you going?" Robb asked.

"Where they aren't." Harry nodded towards the Reach. "Come on."

Jon looked past him. Loras had cut free of the larger struggle. Two boys lay near the river fence, one getting up, the other already raising his sword to yield. Loras turned towards a third before the second had finished speaking. He did not hurry; he simply arrived while the other boy was still trying to decide whether to attack.

Jon had seen that economy in Arthur, although Loras was quicker to press an advantage and less willing to wait. The boy's shield moved just far enough. His sword returned to guard before his opponent's had finished falling.

Then a Fossoway shield crossed Jon's view, and he had his own fight to attend to.

The apple upon the shield had been split by a cut. Jon put another across it and felt the boy behind it brace for a third.

He did not give him one. He backed away, drawing him towards Harry, then turned to meet the second Fossoway as that boy tried to come between them. Harry understood. His blade struck the first boy from the side while Mychel moved behind Jon to keep a third opponent out.

They gained a few paces towards the river. Jon took a blow upon his shield and heard Harry's sword strike the attacker before he could answer. Beside them Robb and Domeric drove another boy back. For a little while Jon could hear his friends calling to one another above the noise.

Then the western boys broke through the Reach.

The Crakehall was in front, broad shoulders hunched behind a shield that had lost most of its paint. Lancel followed with the Brax youth and another boy wearing a lion. A fifth dragged one foot. They had paid for their passage, but the boys who tried to follow them were paying too. The Crakehall turned without warning and struck a pursuer so hard upon the helm that a marshal hurried in before anyone could decide whether he had yielded.

"Leave him," Lancel called. "Keep together."

The command surprised Jon. In the yard Lancel had watched Jaime as if every careless word ought to be remembered. Now three boys listened when he spoke, and the fourth held his place despite the leg. Somebody in the western seats shouted his name.

The Reach pursued. The western company changed direction, making for the gap beside Harry, and the boys coming after them spread wider. Harry would have to meet the westermen or let them through his company. He raised his shield.

"Hold there!"

Lancel did not.

The Crakehall struck Mychel's shield with his own. Mychel skidded a pace, planted his foot and held. Harry hit the Crakehall's sword arm. Behind them the Reach boys arrived, and the space where his friends had been moving so neatly became a knot of strangers again.

Jon met a cut, answered it, heard Theon swear and lost sight of him.

A shield caught Jon in the back. He stumbled towards a boy with a crane upon his surcoat, who tried to drive his sword into Jon's breast before he recovered. Jon turned enough to take it on the steel at his side. He felt the rounded point slide and heard the scrape as it went past. He struck the boy's extended arm, then the edge of his shield, forcing him to turn away.

Behind him Theon was laughing, though it sounded strained.

"Come on, then. You wanted me."

The western boy with the injured leg had his blade raised to yield. Theon had turned from him to Lancel, who retreated with his sword held low. He looked frightened. Theon followed one step, then another.

"Don't chase," Jon shouted.

Theon stopped, but the Brax boy was already coming round him. Lancel's sword rose as Theon turned. It struck his ribs beneath the arm. Theon drove the Brax youth back with a furious cut, tried to recover his shield towards Lancel, and took a second blow across the thigh.

He went down hard upon one knee. The Brax boy put his point against Theon's breastplate and waited.

For a moment Jon thought Theon would try to rise into it.

Then his sword lifted.

"Yield." The word came through clenched teeth. "Yes, I said it. Get that thing out of my chest."

Lancel drew back. Theon pushed himself upright without accepting the marshal's hand, tested his leg and limped towards the gate. Ser Harras stood at the rail. Theon glanced towards him, then lowered his head and kept walking. Jon remembered the knight telling him to give his mother something to boast of.

***
​

Jaime watched Lancel draw the Brax boy back towards the rest of the westermen. He had expected his cousin to stand over Greyjoy enjoying himself. Instead Lancel had let the marshal through and looked for his companions.

Perhaps some of those questions in the yard had been worth answering. Jaime had grown tired of hearing how quickly he could beat this man or that. Lancel ought to remember what he had done today: make Greyjoy think him frightened, draw him out, and let another boy help him win.

Beside Jaime, Barristan turned towards an attendant. "Water for Greyjoy. Have someone look at that leg."

Arthur was watching his own pupil. Out on the grass, Black started after the departing westermen, checked himself and went back to Stark. His shield hung low.

"How bad is the shoulder?" Jaime asked.

"Bad enough. He is to yield if the hand weakens."

"He agreed to that?"

Arthur's eyes stayed upon the field. "He heard me."

Jaime looked at him. At thirteen he would have heard the warning too, then done precisely what he meant to do. He remembered very little of the men who had warned him before his first melee. He remembered everyone who had watched him win.

Black moved nearer his brother. The Stark boy shifted his shield to give him room, and Jaime saw Arthur's fingers loosen upon the rail. Jaime followed Barristan back to the royal seats, leaving Arthur at the rail.

***
​

Domeric touched his shield against Jon's to draw his attention.

"Higher ground."

The river end was clear for perhaps ten paces. Beyond it the fence was lined with servants and boatmen, their faces sunburnt, their hands white upon the rail. Domeric began moving that way, Robb between him and Jon. Harry followed with Mychel, calling to Waymar.

Waymar had acquired an unlikely companion. The Bracken boy was still beside him, both backing away from a Reach youth with a long-handled blunt axe. Hoster Blackwood ran across their path, struck at the axeman's exposed side and brought him round. The Bracken immediately closed from the other side.

The axe went down. Its owner tried to recover it and found three swords waiting.

He yielded so loudly that the men at the rail laughed.

"I had him," the Bracken told Hoster.

Hoster began to answer, but Patrek arrived, breathing hard. "Stay with us, Hoster."

"He was going to get behind you."

"So would the other one, if I hadn't stopped him." Patrek jerked his head. The Bracken boy looked as though he might object to receiving orders from a Mallister, but followed when Hoster did. Waymar watched them go before coming back to Harry.

"You might have called sooner," he complained.

Harry stared at him. "I did."

Mychel made a sound that might have been laughter if he had possessed the breath. Jon raised his visor just long enough to drag air into his mouth. The world widened and grew terribly bright. Sweat ran from his hair into one eye. He blinked it clear, saw a marshal looking towards him and lowered the steel again.

The slope was not steep, but it gave them firmer footing than the churned grass below. For the first time Jon could see more of the field. Across a gap in the fighting, Eddison was giving ground before another boy with a long axe. Aleyx stepped beside him and struck the hands upon the haft. The boy turned to answer. Eddison came in under the axe, shield first, and drove him sideways; Aleyx followed with his point at the boy's breast until the empty hand rose. Near the entrance, two attendants carried another boy between them with his feet clear of the ground. His shield remained where he had dropped it.

Jon had no idea how many were left. Fewer. He could hear individual swords now beneath the crowd.

His left arm shook when he held the shield away from his body. He brought it close and waited until it steadied. The fingers still closed properly. The pain was worse, but it remained pain, and Arthur had told him what else to watch for.

Robb saw him testing the grip.

"Give it a moment."

"They won't."

"No. But you needn't run down to meet them."

Loras was coming towards the slope with Horas and Hobber. A boy bearing a green apple remained beside them. From the other side, the Crakehall and Lancel had turned back towards the Riverlanders; neither could afford to let Patrek strike them from behind.

Harry looked along their company. Six now, with Waymar returned. More than the four approaching, though none looked fresh enough to enjoy the advantage.

"They'll try to draw us down," he said.

Loras stopped below the slope. His sword tip moved as he looked from one face to another. Then he stepped towards Mychel, struck once and withdrew before Mychel's answer reached him.

Mychel held his place.

The next attack came from Hobber at the opposite end. Domeric met him, but Horas moved with his brother, trying to pass Jon on the outside. Robb checked him. For a few strokes the Reach boys pressed both ends of the company while Loras waited in the space between.

Jon realised what he was waiting for a breath before it happened.

Waymar followed the green apple downhill.

"Mychel, close!" Harry shouted.

Mychel stepped into the gap. Loras arrived before his shield was settled. The first stroke hit the rim and turned it; the second caught Mychel upon the side of the helm. He reeled. Harry drove at Loras, who gave ground at once, leaving Mychel upright but badly placed.

The green apple struck him from the side.

Mychel called his yield and stood very still until the marshal reached him.

Waymar turned back, too late. Harry drove his own shield against Waymar's and shoved him into the vacant place.

"Here. Stay here."

For once Waymar said nothing.

Jon had no time to watch further. Horas had found his left side. He struck high upon the shield, stepped away from Robb's answering sword and came back to the same place. Jon lowered the rim a fraction, inviting the stroke to pass above it, then met Horas's blade with his own and struck across the exposed arm.

Horas retreated with a sharp breath. He looked at Jon's shield as he did.

He had noticed.

Domeric made Hobber give ground. Jon went with him, keeping the Redwyne brothers apart, and for three or four paces the slope was theirs again. Then Loras crossed in front of Harry and caught Domeric between two attacks.

Domeric saw him. He turned out of Hobber's reach rather than try to face both, and Jon moved to occupy the space he left. Loras followed Domeric, sword quick against his guard. One stroke drew the shield outward. The next came low. Domeric checked it and struck back, forcing Loras to take a short step away.

Jon could not have said which of them would win. That troubled him more than he expected. Domeric was good; he had been good before they came south. Yet Loras seemed to learn something from every stroke, changing the next before his opponent could settle into an answer.

Hobber struck Jon's sword aside. Jon turned back to him.

Hobber drew back from Jon's answering cut. Beyond him, Domeric pressed Loras with two short strokes, making him retreat. He followed with a third. Loras stopped giving ground and stepped past the falling blade; his sword caught Domeric beneath the raised arm. Domeric's elbow clamped against his side. Before he could turn the shield, Loras had his point against his breast.

Domeric lifted his sword to yield. Loras withdrew, touched the sword lightly with his own and turned away before the marshal had reached them.

That small courtesy cost him nothing. Jon resented him for having time for it.

Then Hobber came again, and resentment became a very poor substitute for attention.

The Redwyne's sword struck Jon's helm. Light jumped across his sight. He staggered, caught himself and found Robb's shield between him and the next blow.

"Back," his brother said.

Jon went back. He hated needing it, and went.

His vision cleared almost at once. He could hear Robb and Hobber fighting, Harry shouting somewhere on his right, a woman screaming a name from the galleries. He drew breath through his nose, felt no wetness there and raised his sword.

Hobber drove Robb towards him. Jon stepped aside, caught Hobber's next stroke upon his blade and held it long enough for Robb to strike beneath the arm. The Redwyne twisted away with a gasp. Robb pressed him once, twice, then stopped as Hobber raised his sword and called out.

A marshal stepped between them.

Across the field Lancel had lost his helm. He stood with both hands spread while Santagar pointed towards the gate. His mouth worked soundlessly at this distance. The Crakehall remained, now beside Patrek against the green apple and the boy wearing lightning. Hoster Blackwood limped towards the rail. The Bracken was already there, one hand held beneath his opposite arm, watching Hoster with an expression Jon could not read.

Harry came to stand beside Robb. Waymar was gone; Jon had not seen him fall or yield.

"Royce?"

"The Dondarrion boy," Harry answered. "Caught him turning." He drew a breath. "That leaves me."

Robb glanced towards Jon. They were three together, with six or seven other boys scattered across the grass.

Harry lifted his sword slightly.

"As we agreed?"

Robb nodded. "As we agreed."

There was no room for a ceremony. Horas was coming up the slope again and Loras had turned towards Patrek's fight. Jon moved to meet the Redwyne. Behind him he heard Harry's sword strike Robb's shield, and the men at the river fence began shouting for the Vale.

***
​

Margaery had lost sight of her brother twice, and both times somebody had chosen that moment to speak to her.

Now she stood, although her mother had already asked her to sit once. A lord in front of them kept leaning into her view. Through the space beside his shoulder she could see Loras turning away from a boy with a silver eagle upon his purple shield. The boy's sword was raised. He was leaving. Loras was still on the field.

"There," she said, touching Elinor's wrist.

"I can see him."

Elinor was standing too. Their abandoned cushions had slipped against the back of the bench. Somewhere beneath them a servant was trying to recover a fallen cup without putting his head between the knees of a shouting lord.

Mace had ceased to care where anyone sat. He was calling to Loras as though his son could hear useful instructions from this distance. Beside him Garlan watched in silence, one hand curled upon the rail. His sleeve had ridden back from a bruise Margaery did not remember seeing yesterday.

Jon stood near the river end with Horas before him. Dust dulled his black breastplate; a pale scar crossed the helm. As he turned beneath a blow, the green silk at his arm flickered into view beside Ysilla's bronze. Margaery had tied the knot herself, smiling at how solemnly he held still for her. Now she could see him struggling to lift the shield. He had kept that arm close at breakfast too.

"He's hurt," she murmured.

"Several of them are," Olenna replied. Her grandmother had remained seated, though she held her chin a little higher to see past Mace. "Your brother has taken his share."

Margaery looked for Loras. The Crakehall was driving him back, a much broader boy whose battered shield hid almost everything above his belt. She had missed the stroke that made her brother stumble. Her hand tightened upon Elinor's wrist. Loras recovered, struck at the edge of the great shield and slipped aside before the answer came.

"Come on," she whispered.

The Crakehall's reply rang across the grass. Loras went back a pace, then forward, and the western benches erupted in protest at something Margaery could not see.

A little farther along, Betha Blackwood had both hands pressed upon the rail. Robb Stark and Harry Hardyng were fighting directly beneath the river banners. Betha followed every movement; when Robb staggered, her lips parted. The woman beside her said something and drew her back from the edge. Betha let herself be moved but did not sit.

Robert's laugh rolled over the nearer voices.

"Still your rose, Baelish?"

Petyr stood below the king's chair, neatly dressed and apparently untouched by the heat. "Lord Mace's son has given me no reason to change my mind, Your Grace."

"My son will give you a purse for your judgement," Mace called without looking round.

"Then I shall hope His Grace is equally generous in defeat."

Robert slapped his thigh. "I'll take Jon Black. Five hundred. Against that knife you keep showing off."

Baelish's hand went to the dagger at his belt. Margaery saw the smooth black hilt before his fingers covered it.

"A dear little blade, Your Grace."

"Not if you're so certain."

For a moment Baelish looked towards the field. Jon and Horas had moved away from the slope. Loras was still circling the Crakehall. Then Petyr smiled and bowed.

"As you wish."

Margaery scarcely heard the rest. Loras had got inside the Crakehall's reach, and both boys were struggling so close that she could no longer see either sword.

She caught Elinor's hand without meaning to. Beside her, Garlan leaned forward.

***
​

Horas struck the shield again.

The rim knocked against Jon's breastplate. His elbow went back with it, dragging at the bruised shoulder, and for a moment he could do nothing but keep his teeth together. Horas was already drawing back for another. Jon turned away, letting the cut scrape down the shield, and retreated off the slope.

The Redwyne followed behind his own shield. He no longer reached after Jon with those long, impatient strokes. He crowded him, made him set his feet, then hammered the same high corner of the wood. Jon cut at his wrist as the sword came back. Horas covered it and struck his thigh instead.

The earlier bruise had stiffened. His leg nearly gave beneath the blow.

Over Horas's shoulder he saw Harry drive Robb backwards along the higher ground. A low cut, then a high one. Robb's shield rose. Jon looked for his brother's answer and lost his own.

Horas shoved the sword arm across Jon's chest. Steel cracked against his helm. His boot slid in the wet grass; he caught himself, felt the pull inside his thigh and heard a cheer from the Reach seats.

"Turn and fight, bastard."

Close enough to hear the satisfaction through the visor. Two days of Lord Black, and this was what Horas had been waiting to say.

Jon drove at him.

The first cut knocked the Redwyne's sword aside. The second struck his shield. Jon brought the third round harder, wanting the sound it would make against that grinning face, and Horas stepped inside it. His shield hit Jon beneath the left arm.

No breath came.

Jon stumbled away with his sword too far out to help him. Horas followed. Somehow Jon brought the blade back in time; the swords scraped together beside his visor, and their shields ground against one another as both boys tried to push.

He was close enough to see sweat shining on Horas's upper lip.

Tyrion had called him a bastard over wine, and Jon had kept smiling. Now the Reach was cheering while Horas drove him backwards, and he wanted the boy down, wanted those voices quiet. He was being childish. He had raised children in another life; he should know better than to lose his temper over a boy's insult. His left arm shook between their shields. He was spending what strength he had left trying to shove through Horas's guard.

Jon stopped pushing.

Horas lurched into the space he gave him. Jon turned sideways, letting the shield scrape past his chest, and pulled his sword free. He struck behind the Redwyne's knee as the boy went by.

Horas stumbled but stayed upright. He wheeled with his shield across his body, and Jon backed beyond the answering cut. Grass lay between them again. He dragged air into his lungs.

Jon kept him turning, meeting the closer cuts on his blade and letting the wider ones pass. Whenever he threatened the sword arm, Horas dragged his shield across to cover it. Jon waited for that movement, then struck the thigh below. The Redwyne swore and pulled the leg back.

Jon did not follow. Behind him Harry shouted something at Robb. Their swords clanged, and Jon kept his eyes upon Horas.

The Redwyne came in with a short cut across his shield. Jon turned with the stroke, hit the forearm as it passed and struck low again. Horas's knee bent. He drew back, pressing his lips together while he shifted his weight onto the other leg.

At the rail behind him the Dondarrion boy sat with a marshal crouched before him. The green apple had been left face down upon the turf; its owner was being taken towards the gate. Jon had missed both defeats. Farther along, the Crakehall's shield rang under Loras's sword.

Horas shortened his steps. His shield had sunk to protect the leg.

Jon raised his sword as though to cut over it. His forward thigh lay open beneath the lifted arm.

Horas struck at it.

Jon snatched the leg back and beat the descending blade towards the ground. The tip bit into the turf. He stamped upon the steel before Horas could recover it, turned outside the boy's sword arm and brought his point up against the breastplate.

Horas hauled at the hilt. Jon kept his weight upon the pinning foot. The blade flexed beneath his boot, but the point at the Redwyne's chest stayed still.

"Yield."

Horas tried to bring his shield round. His own extended arm was in its way. For a moment his eyes remained fixed upon Jon's through the bars of the visor.

The nearest marshal was coming towards them.

"I yield."

Jon lifted his foot as the staff passed between them. Horas snatched up the sword, wiped its wet end against his surcoat and walked towards the gate, favouring the leg he had tried to hide.

Jon let his sword point sag. He had wanted more from beating him than this aching arm and the chance to breathe. He took the breaths anyway.

Robb and Harry were still on the slope, but Harry no longer held the higher ground. Robb had worked round him. Now they fought across the slope, moving towards the river fence and back again.

The Crakehall called his yield.

Loras withdrew his sword while a marshal went to the western boy. Jon watched the Crakehall bend with his hands upon his knees. Apart from the fight at the river end, no other swords remained raised.

Loras turned.

One gilt ornament on his helm had folded flat. His green surcoat was torn beneath the arm, and pale wood showed through the ruined paint along his shield's upper rim. His breath moved his shoulders. Jon had scarcely finished his second breath when the Tyrell came past the marshal towards him.

He lifted his sword.

The books had made much of Loras Tyrell. Jon remembered flowers, victories, Jaime seeing himself in the younger knight. He had never read anything about the sound of Loras breathing inside his helm. Nor could he remember anything that would help him now.

Santagar moved aside to give them room.

Loras struck once at the shield and withdrew. Jon's answer passed in front of him. The next cut began towards the helm, then straightened into a thrust. Jon turned it with his sword and stepped right. His answering stroke met the green shield.

Loras moved round towards Jon's injured side.

The blow caught the top of his shield. Jon turned right with it, sparing the shoulder, and found the Tyrell's sword coming back towards his head. He ducked. Steel rang against steel; the cut glanced off his helm, leaving a thin ringing in his ears.

He had no time to clear it. Loras threatened the knee, drew Jon's sword down and cut high again. Jon stopped that one, but his blade was still above his head when the point drove into his breastplate.

He stumbled back two paces. The Reach benches roared.

Loras came after him. Jon struck for the leg and found empty air. He tried to close behind his sword; the Tyrell's shield stopped him, and a cut came round its edge. He had to back away again.

Every retreat gave Loras room for the next stroke. Jon could feel himself being driven across the field, could hear the cheers getting louder each time his feet hurried to catch up with him.

He caught a cut against the strong part of his blade, close to the hilt, and turned it outward. His own sword struck beneath Loras's raised arm.

The Tyrell grunted and drew away.

Jon went after him. One step, and Loras's sword came back across his head. He checked himself so abruptly that his heel dragged a strip from the turf. The cut hissed across the front of his visor.

His stomach tightened. He had almost given the boy his head for one good blow to the ribs.

They circled. Jon pressed the shield against his body to take some of its weight from the arm. His wet glove slipped upon the grip; he closed his fingers harder. The inside of his helm smelt of hot leather and his own breath.

"Highgarden! Highgarden!" The cry came from close behind Jon. He had almost reached the fence. He moved sideways, hearing the boards creak beneath the spectators leaning over them, and Loras came with him.

This time he waited until the sword moved before choosing his way back. He retreated along a curve. Two cuts struck his blade; the third swept past his shoulder. Jon answered low and caught Loras upon the forward thigh.

Loras's reply hit Jon's upper arm.

His shield dropped. He got it up again with a sound he would have been ashamed to hear from another boy. He retreated with his sword extended, making Loras go round its point.

Through the gap beside the marshal, Jon could see Arthur standing at the gate. His uncle's arms were folded tightly across his chest. Jon closed and opened his fingers inside the glove. They obeyed. He looked back before Arthur could raise a hand.

Loras shifted his sword towards the high corner of the shield. Jon's body was already preparing to turn right. Twice the next cut had found him there.

He made himself step left.

The blade passed behind him. Jon struck Loras above the sword elbow, but the Tyrell turned with him before he could strike again. The answering blow drove his shield back against his chest. Jon staggered, recovered and kept moving left.

Loras came with him, his sword held nearer his body now.

The cartwheel groove lay behind Jon. He glanced towards it, then at the gate beyond. Loras saw the glance and moved to cut him off. The boy would not walk blindly into bad ground. Jon felt a brief, unwilling pleasure at that, even with his arm hurting and his breath nearly gone.

He crossed the groove himself. His heel sank into the damp earth; he pulled it clear before Loras could close. The Tyrell followed at an angle and cut towards the shield.

Jon met the blade. Instead of knocking it away, he kept the swords pressed together as he stepped in. Loras began to draw his weapon back. Jon let it go, turned his wrist and struck hard across the outside of the sword hand.

The fingers held.

Loras drove his shield into Jon's chest. Air burst from him. The sword cracked against his helm before he could retreat, and for one frightened instant he thought his legs would fold.

He stayed up. Loras had stepped away too, opening his fingers and closing them again upon the hilt. Jon needed three short gasps before he could draw a proper breath.

At the river rail Harry struck high. Robb caught the blade on his shield and drove beneath it. Their shoulders met. Harry tried to turn, but Robb's foot had crossed behind his heel.

Both boys fell.

Jon heard the northern benches before he saw Robb rise. His brother still had his sword. Harry lay on his side with the shield trapped underneath him; as he struggled to free it, Robb set his point against the breastplate.

Harry's sword rose in yield. Robb drew back at once and lifted his visor while the marshal helped Harry up.

Loras raised his blade. Jon turned back, unable to spare his brother even a shout. His right hand ached around the hilt, and the shield straps had begun to chafe his forearm. Loras reset his own grip once before coming forward.

Jon let the shield sink a little.

Loras cut towards the opening above it. Jon began to turn right, then saw the angle change. The blade was coming round towards the other side of his helm, where his own turn would carry him.

He stopped with his weight upon his rear foot.

The cut passed in front of his face. Loras was already recovering it, but Jon's sword had never left its place. He struck the wrist again.

Loras's hand opened. The sword fell beside his boot and bounced upon the grass.

He thrust his shield at Jon and bent for it. Jon kicked the weapon farther away, then stepped towards the empty sword hand. The shield swung round. He drew back enough to escape the rim and laid his blade across Loras's exposed upper arm.

"Yield."

Loras wrenched the arm back and drove at him with the shield. Jon gave way. As the rim passed, he struck the outside of the Tyrell's thigh and stepped across his path to the fallen sword.

Loras turned with him. His empty hand closed, opened, closed again. Jon could hear his breath rasping through the visor. He still had the shield. He was still looking for a way past.

Santagar approached with his staff lowered.

"Yield, Loras."

The boy looked from Jon to the sword lying beyond him. One brown eye showed through the slit, furious and wet with effort. Jon held his blade ready. He had no wish to hit that hand again.

At last Loras raised it.

"I yield."

Santagar put the staff between them. Jon stepped back while Loras collected his sword in his left hand. The right stayed curled against his breastplate as he walked towards the gate.

Robb was coming down the slope.

He had lowered his visor again. A smear of earth crossed the grey wolf upon his shield; the hem of his surcoat hung loose where someone had cut through a fastening. Jon looked past him to Harry, who stood beneath the rail with one hand on a marshal's arm. Only the two of them remained.

From the northern benches came a shout of "Stark!" Someone answered with Jon's name. Wendel was on his feet, his face red, apparently prepared to cheer whichever boy was nearer. Even the men who had been calling for Highgarden leaned forward to watch.

Jon lifted his sword. Robb touched it with his own.

"Again," his brother said.

"Again."

Robb's helm dipped towards the shield Jon held against his ribs. For an instant Jon expected a question about the arm. None came. Robb set his feet and struck.

Jon turned the high cut with his sword and began the answer he had used against Robb a hundred times. His brother's shield was already waiting. The rim knocked Jon's blade aside, and the next cut struck his thigh where Horas had struck it.

His leg bent before he could stop it. He recovered behind his shield, dragging the foot back rather than lifting it. The bruise had stiffened beneath the padding; now the pull inside his thigh hurt whenever he tried to turn.

Robb followed, but not too far. Jon's answering cut passed short of him. He had been so pleased to see his brother still standing that he had begun as though they were back in the yard, with all morning to undo a mistake. Robb meant to win.

Jon struck at the shield, turned the blade and tried to reach the upper arm. Robb caught both cuts. The third Jon shortened, bringing the edge down towards the hand instead.

Robb drew it away and hit him in the ribs.

"I saw you do that," he said through the visor.

Jon heard Theon laughing beyond the fence. He tried to breathe deeply and regretted it. Robb had found the side Horas's shield had battered; drawing air stretched the hurt beneath his arm.

His brother gave him no time to settle. A thrust drove him back, a cut wrenched against his blade, and the wolf-painted shield blocked his way when he tried to turn out. Jon caught the next stroke on his own shield. Pain ran from shoulder to elbow. He pushed his sword forward to keep Robb away and let the shield rest against his ribs.

It would be a good victory for Robb.

The thought came with such relief that Jon almost let the point sink. His brother had beaten Harry, kept their friends together, fought his way here. There would be little shame in losing to him. Jon had lived a whole life before this one, had known victories and the fierce pleasure of achieving things no one in these stands would understand. He could still remember them. Robb had all that ahead of him.

A blade flashed towards his face. Jon met it late, close to the hilt. Their shields struck together, and through the narrow slit he saw his brother's blue eyes fixed upon him. Robb drove forward again. He had felt Jon falter.

Jon gave ground. His sword hand ached from gripping the hilt; the battered shoulder would scarcely bear another hard block. He could yield and be glad for his brother. He could let Arthur take this damned shield away.

Robb's next stroke hit his breastplate squarely. Jon stumbled, brought the point up from near the grass and heard the northern benches roar. His brother came after him with his shield high, quicker now, certain enough to press where he had waited before. He was beginning to believe he had won.

Beyond him, above the shouting faces, Robert sat beneath his crowned stag.

Jon wanted that man's throne. He would have to persuade men to risk their lands and sons upon a claim most of them had never heard. They would look for strength, for someone who could win. The triumphs of his other life would mean nothing to them. He needed victories they could see, every one he could earn, however small.

He could not give this one away.

Robb struck again. Jon went with the pressure instead of trying to stop it, backing at an angle so the following cut scraped across his chest. His answer struck the outer edge of the wolf shield. Robb turned it away and brought his sword over the rim, making Jon retreat once more.

When the shield came home, its lower edge dragged against Robb's hip. His brother hitched it up. There was a moment when the breastplate showed beside it, scarcely wider than Jon's fist.

Robb saw where he was looking and closed the gap. Jon's breath rasped inside his helm. He had found an opening; reaching it would be another matter.

"Don't let him rest!" someone shouted.

Robb needed no urging. He drove Jon towards the dark strip of watered turf. Jon felt the cartwheel groove beneath his heel and moved along it, keeping his feet apart. His brother followed on the firmer grass, struck high, then swept his blade low. Jon caught it close to his hilt and turned it outward. Robb recovered before he could answer.

For a breath they stood within reach, both struggling for air. Beyond Robb's shoulder Arthur stood at the gate with his arms folded tightly across his chest.

"I'm sorry, brother," Jon managed.

"For what?"

Jon drove forward. His blade cracked against Robb's, knocked the point wide and came straight back towards the helm. Robb threw his shield up. Jon reversed the cut before it landed, sweeping down beneath the lifted rim.

Steel struck Robb's thigh. His knee bent. He answered at once, a hard blow across Jon's breastplate that drove the breath from him.

Jon stumbled half a step and went straight back at him. His sword struck high, glanced from the iron rim and came round low enough to make Robb drag the shield down. Before his brother could settle behind it, Jon struck at the exposed sword arm. Robb caught the cut on his blade. Jon turned with the contact, forcing the swords outward, then tore his free and brought it back across the wolf's painted muzzle.

Wood splintered. Robb retreated, and Jon followed with everything he had left. His shoulder burned beneath the shield straps. He kept that arm tight against his ribs and worked the sword in short, savage strokes, turning his body behind each one. Steel rang against steel; the wolf shield jerked up, then sideways. A shout came through Robb's visor, lost beneath the next blow.

Robb struck back over the rim. Jon caught the blade close to his hilt and drove it aside, but the effort wrenched his wrist. His fingers hurt so badly that he could scarcely bear to close them harder. He did it anyway. The next stroke battered the shield towards Robb's chest. Another caught its outer edge as his brother tried to straighten it.

Jon's thigh pulled sharply. He shortened his step without breaking off, sword rising towards Robb's face. The shield rose to meet it. Jon dropped the point instead and struck the thigh again. Robb lurched, recovered and swung hard enough that Jon had to lean away. The blade scraped down his breastplate.

He had no breath left. He struck again.

The cut hit the shield's outer rim, turning it away from Robb's body. Jon let his blade slide free, drew the hilt to his hip and drove the blunt point into the opening. His whole weight followed it. The injured leg shook beneath him, but he kept going, forcing Robb backwards before the shield could close.

His brother recoiled onto the leg Jon had struck. The heel dug into the turf, the knee failed him, and he fell onto his back. His sword hit the ground and slipped from his hand.

Jon stopped above him, chest heaving. For a moment he could only watch Robb struggling to draw breath. His own arm would no longer hold the shield clear of his body. He let it hang against his side.

Robb rolled enough to free his shield from beneath him, then lay back and pushed up his visor. His face was flushed, his mouth open. Those blue eyes rose to Jon's.

Jon dropped his sword into the grass and stretched out his empty hand.

"Yield?"

Robb stared at him, breathing hard. Then his eyes closed. He let out a long breath, and for a moment all the disappointment showed plainly upon his face.

"I yield."

He looked up again. His mouth moved into a tired smile.

"I thought I had you."

He took Jon's hand. Beneath the dirt, Jon recognised the pale stitching below the thumb of the old glove he had given him. He braced his good leg and hauled, and Robb pushed himself upright. They stood with their hands still clasped, close enough that Jon could hear his brother swallowing air.

"So did I." Jon tightened his grip. "You can fight Loras first next time."

Robb laughed. Jon tried to join him, felt it catch beneath his ribs and laughed again despite the pain. They released their clasp, and his brother pulled him into an embrace, careful of the arm between them. Jon held him with his good hand at the back of his neck. The cheering swelled around them; Wendel's voice broke upon Robb's name, and someone by the gate began hammering the rail.

An attendant gathered the fallen swords while Santagar raised his staff towards the royal gallery. The herald took up Jon's name, his title, the victory. Robb drew back, still grinning, and turned with Jon towards the people cheering at the fence.

***
​

Robert's laughter reached Jaime before the herald had finished.

"They make them tough in the North, don't they?" The king slapped his knee and turned towards his eldest son. "Are you watching, boy? Neither one would give an inch."

Tommen was clapping beside Myrcella, who held the back of his tunic to keep him from leaning too far over the rail. Joffrey had been watching too. At his father's words he drew himself upright, his mouth tightening.

Cersei gave Robert an angry look.

"He has eyes, Robert." Her voice was cold. "You need not address him as though he were a fool."

The king snorted and turned back to the field. Jaime kept his face still. Below them, Arthur's arms had fallen to his sides. He watched the boys separate, rolled his shoulders once and went through the gate. Jaime had seen him wait more easily for grown men to come at him with sharpened steel.

***
​

Jon could no longer bear the shield. He loosened the grip, found that the arm straps still held it and swore under his breath.

A hand caught the lower rim.

Arthur had reached him.

"Let me."

His uncle loosened the fastening before lifting the shield clear. Jon's arm hung at his side, aching so fiercely that he had to wait a moment before speaking.

"I can feel it."

"I should hope so." Arthur looked into his visor. "Can you see me clearly?"

"Yes."

"Then stand still."

He lifted the visor, and air touched Jon's wet face. The field rushed back in colour: torn grass, the yellow canopy, a marshal carrying off a shield that had been split almost in two. Beyond the fence Wendel had abandoned any pretence of sitting. Tomas was shouting with both hands cupped around his mouth.

Arthur looked from Jon to Robb. His hand rested briefly at the back of Jon's neck before he reached to straighten the loose strap beneath Robb's chin.

"Well fought. Both of you."

His uncle was smiling, openly, and Jon had to swallow before he could answer. Beside him Robb stood a little straighter.

Gawen arrived with water, the spare gloves still tucked beneath his arm.

He worked the fastening beneath Jon's chin. The helm came away with a pull at his hair, and the wind struck his scalp so pleasantly that he closed his eyes. Martyn had reached Robb. When both boys were bareheaded, Jon could see the reddened cheek and the dirt caught in his brother's hair.

Jon drank too quickly, coughed and spilled half the cup down his breastplate. Robb laughed at him, then took the cup when Jon held it out.

"Slowly," Arthur said. Robb, who had begun drinking just as greedily, lowered it with water running down his chin.

Beyond them Garlan was kneeling beside Loras, examining the hand Jon had struck. Loras pulled it back, opened and closed the fingers, then held it out again when his brother spoke. The movement made Jon conscious of his own knuckles. Everything was beginning to hurt now that he had time to notice it.

Robb looked at the dent in Jon's helm, then at his face.

"Did I do that?"

"You never got that high."

Robb snorted, ran a thumb over the mark and gave the helm to Gawen. His own hung from Martyn's hand. He rubbed his damp hair back and stayed beside Jon while Gawen collected their swords from the attendant.

Boys who had yielded were gathering near the gate, some offering congratulations, some looking at the ground when Jon caught their eyes. Eddison stood with Aleyx beneath the rail, helping him ease off a dented helm. Both looked up at Jon's name. The little Crownlander with the buckler lifted it to show the fresh mark in its rim. Jon touched his own thigh and shook his head. The boy grinned again. Farther along, the Crakehall sat with a cloth pressed against his mouth while the Brax youth argued with an attendant about the cut which had made him yield. Neither looked happy. Both looked very young without their helms.

Loras came over with Garlan. The curls at his brow were pasted dark with sweat. A red mark crossed one cheek, and his lower lip had swollen where it had met his teeth. He had given Garlan the sword but kept the shield himself, as though surrendering both would be too much.

Loras stopped before Jon. For a moment neither spoke. Around them the other boys were congratulating Robb, and someone called for Loras from the Reach benches.

"Well fought," he said at last.

Jon offered his hand, saw which wrist Garlan had been examining and lowered it again. "And you."

Loras followed the movement. His mouth tightened, but he gave a short nod. Garlan spoke quietly beside him and took the shield. This time Loras let him have it, turning towards his father's voice.

Santagar came to find them. He glanced towards the gallery as he approached.

"His Grace is coming down."

Robert had left his chair beneath the canopy. At the foot of the steps he looked across the field towards Jon, then beckoned Barristan closer. The old knight bent his head to hear him. Arthur watched them for a moment before turning back.

"Kneel, Jon."

Jon looked at him. Arthur had put his hand upon his sword.

"On one knee."

The movement hurt. Jon set his right knee upon the grass, still trying to understand, and heard the steel come free above him. Robb had gone very still.

Arthur stood close enough that Jon could see the wear upon his sword belt. He had buckled it for him often enough, impatient to finish and get to his own lessons. Now his uncle rested the flat of the blade against his shoulder.

"You have learned to fight," Arthur said. "Last night you chose to use what I taught you for people who had no one to fight for them."

Jon swallowed. The hands resting upon his knee had begun to tremble.

"Will you defend those who cannot defend themselves, keep faith with those who trust you, and honour your sworn word?"

"I will."

Arthur touched his other shoulder. The blade lifted away.

"Then rise, Ser Jon."

For a moment Jon stayed where he was. Arthur sheathed the sword and offered him a hand. Jon took it, felt himself drawn up, and found the pride in his uncle's face harder to bear than the words had been.

He had pictured this before, though never at the end of a melee with his arm throbbing and grass caught in the straps of his greaves. Arthur had always been in those pictures. He had not realised how much it mattered until he looked past him and saw Robert approaching.

His uncle had seen the king coming too. Perhaps that was all there was to it. Jon could not help thinking of Rhaegar, and of how many promises Arthur was still keeping.

Robb caught his good arm. "Jon." His brother was grinning so broadly that for a moment Jon forgot everyone else. Then the people nearest the rail took up the name with its new title, and Robert reached them.

The king slowed. His eyes went from Jon to the sword at Arthur's hip. The smile remained upon his face for another instant before it vanished.

"You might have waited, Dayne."

Arthur inclined his head. "I have trained him since he first held a sword, Your Grace. It is an honour I hoped to give him."

Robert's mouth tightened. Then his eyes moved to Robb. He glanced once more at Arthur, and the corner of his mouth lifted.

"Keep that sword sheathed a moment, Dayne." His hand closed upon Robb's shoulder. "Come here, lad."

Robb went red. "Your Grace?"

"Did you think I came all this way to watch you drink water? Down on your knee."

Robert held out his hand to Barristan. The white knight drew his sword and laid the hilt into it. Robb knelt where Jon had knelt, his eyes fixed upon the king.

"I heard what you did last night," Robert told him. His voice carried now. "You helped bring those children out, and carried the frightened little one when he would go to nobody else. And I saw you this morning, keeping your friends together when half the field wanted to knock them apart."

Robb's lips parted, but he found no answer. Robert settled the blade upon his shoulder.

"Will you stand for those who need you, keep your word, and do your duty however hard it comes?"

"Yes, Your Grace. I will."

"See that you do." The sword touched his other shoulder. "Rise, Ser Robb Stark."

The king hauled him to his feet before he could rise unaided. The cheer from the northern seats carried over the rest. Wendel had both arms in the air; somewhere close by Theon was shouting Robb's name.

He turned towards Jon as the king gave the sword back to Barristan. They looked at one another, both smiling, and Jon remembered the boys they had been, striking at one another beneath Winterfell's grey walls. He had wanted this for Robb as well. His brother would remember the king's words all his life; when Jon asked him to choose, this morning would be among the things he asked him to turn against. He wished he had not thought of that now. Robb was still smiling at him, and Jon reached to clasp his arm.

***
​

Oberyn had watched Arthur through both knighthoods. The man had scarcely taken his eyes from Jon while Robert stood over the other boy. Now the brothers were grinning at one another, and Arthur smiled with them, without seeming to know he did it.

Obara leaned past her father. "They'll have him at a feast before I've had my bout."

"Look at his arm."

"I can wait until it mends." She sounded offended that he thought she would not.

Oberyn gave her shoulder a brief squeeze. Below them, Jon bent to hear something Robb said. Dirt streaked his white forelock. Without the helm he looked young enough to be sent away to wash by somebody's mother.

Rhaenys ought to hear that part as well. The letters would give her a victor, a rescuer, a young lord collecting honours in Robert's court. He could tell her how the boy had needed help to stand, and how Arthur had touched his neck before letting him go. He wondered what she would make of that care. His gaze stayed upon Arthur. When Dorne pressed Rhaenys's claim, the man would have to choose. Oberyn did not envy him that. He could see what the boy meant to him. But his niece came before Arthur's happiness, before the affection that had survived between old companions. Aegon. Elia. His fingers curled into a fist. He looked up towards the royal canopy, where Cersei sat with her golden-haired children and Jaime stood behind her chair.

Robert laughed and caught Robb by the shoulder again. Oberyn's jaw tightened. The king had always found it easy to rejoice over the children of men he loved.

Beside him Obara began applauding as the steward carried out the purses. Oberyn joined her. The boy had earned his victory. Doran would hear that from him too.

***
​

Jon watched the steward approach Robb with the prizes. The man bowed, addressed him as Ser Robb, and presented a purse with a sealed order for the balance of his winnings. More than three thousand dragons. Robb looked from the gold to the parchment, then back again. He had known the prize before entering; apparently that had not prepared him for being given it.

Jon received his own purse and an order for the remainder of his winnings. He could already think of uses for it on Dragonstone. Ten thousand promised to two boys for a morning's fighting, besides the jousts, archery, feasts and all the rest. Robert spent the realm's wealth as though the cheering would put it back. Jon watched him laughing with Robb and felt the irony settle. Soon enough, if his plans held, those debts would be his to settle. If Robert had borrowed the prize money, Jon might yet pay interest on his own victory.

He had wanted to win. For much of the contest he had wanted nothing else.

"Another thing," Robert said. "Baelish."

Petyr had come down from the gallery with the others. At the king's summons he stepped forward, carrying a dagger across his palms.

Jon's attention fixed upon the smooth black hilt. Dragonbone, perhaps. When Robert drew the blade, dark ripples ran through the steel. A Valyrian dagger belonging to Petyr Baelish, offered in a wager over a tournament: Jon felt his fingers tighten upon the purse.

"Your lordship has cost me a favourite possession," Petyr told him pleasantly.

Jon looked from the dagger to his face. "I did not know I was fighting for it."

"Neither did I, until His Grace proposed the wager."

"You backed the wrong boy." Robert turned the dagger in the light. "Valyrian steel. Worth a better wager than you made, Baelish."

Petyr's smile held.

Robert slid the blade back into its sheath and offered it hilt first.

"For the winner. Keep it."

Jon took it with his right hand. The hilt was warm from Robert's grasp.

"Thank you, Your Grace."

He could think of very little else to say. He remembered a bed, a sleeping child, a woman gripping a blade with both hands. Having the dagger did not mean he had prevented any of that. A man who meant to kill a child could find another knife. Still, he closed his fingers about this one with a satisfaction he could not show.

Petyr watched him looking at it.

"More to your taste than cups, Lord Black?"

"I hope the cups will serve me well." Jon looked up. "You still have the hall set aside for my showing after the tournament?"

Petyr's smile deepened at the mention of the hall. "Of course, my lord. The same hall, after the tournament. I have seen to it myself."

Robert turned back towards Robb. Petyr withdrew a pace. Jon watched him go, unsettled by the satisfaction in that smile.

Tyrion slipped between two lords to stand beside Jon. "Knighted at twelve. Daemon Blackfyre won his spurs at twelve, after a squires' melee." His eyes fell to the dagger. "A royal gift as well."

Jon stared at Tyrion.

"Don't spoil the day with that dragonspawn," Robert snapped, his face darkening.

Then he turned to the boys and smiled. He wrapped an arm about each, pulling them close. Jon stiffened beneath the weight on his sore shoulder.

"Boys of the North! Ned's boys." Robert laughed. "Gods, to see Ned's face when he hears of this! You'll write to him, Robb."

"I will, Your Grace." Robb's voice shook on the last word.

Robert released them. Nearby, Yohn Royce rested a hand on Harry's shoulder and bent his head to speak to him.

Up in the gallery Cersei remained in her chair. Joffrey had risen to look over the rail, his fingers closed about it. His mother touched his sleeve. He sat, and Jon could no longer see his face past the men standing before the royal seats.

Renly guided Loras through the gathering with a hand between his shoulders, Mace following close behind. As he brought Loras before the king, Arthur touched Jon's elbow. "Come. The maester is waiting."

He was grateful for the excuse. The king's pleasure had drawn people onto the field, and Jon could feel his arm stiffening while he stood. He bowed again, entrusted the purse to Gawen and carried the dagger himself.

Arthur looked at it, then at the way Jon held his left shoulder.

"We will admire that afterwards."

***
​

The awning trapped the smell of wet padding and a basin that needed emptying.

Tomas had found him a place on a bench. Jon laid the dagger beside him and sat while Gawen and Arthur began undoing the straps.

"You and I are knights now, aren't we?" Jon asked him.

Tomas smiled. "Yes, my lord. You made a fine showing."

"Aye," Gawen agreed. He eased Jon's arm aside to reach the last buckle. The breastplate shifted away from Jon's chest, still hanging from the one fastened strap, and cool air touched the damp linen beneath. Jon shivered, jerking the buckle in Gawen's hand and making him swear.

"Hold a moment, my lord."

"I am trying."

"I know." Gawen's voice softened. "Nearly done."

On the next bench Aurane watched a fresh bandage go around his hand. Monford stood over him, listening to an account that seemed to grow more detailed whenever Aurane approached the moment he had dropped his sword. Farther in, Theon had pulled his padded coat open and was examining a purple mark upon his ribs.

"I had Lancel moving," he insisted.

"You did," Domeric agreed. "Towards the other boy."

Theon looked up, then back at the bruise.

Domeric handed him a cup. There was no triumph in his face, only tired amusement. After a moment Theon took it.

Jon had expected the maester's examination to be worse than the fight. In some ways it was. There was no opponent to watch, no next stroke to keep his mind away from the thumb pressing into the bruise. He sat with his jaw clenched while the man asked him to lift the arm, close his hand, turn the wrist.

Nothing appeared to have broken. The swelling was worse. The advice had not improved with the result of the melee.

"Rest it."

Arthur answered before Jon could. "He will."

Jon looked at his uncle. Arthur held the look until he stopped considering an argument.

Gawen laid the black breastplate upon a folded cloth. In the shade the finish was still handsome. Where the sun reached it, every scrape was plain. One bright line crossed the place where Jon knew the earlier flaw had been; he could no longer distinguish it from the damage earned this morning.

Harry came in with Mychel and Artys. Waymar followed, telling Yohn that the boy with the lightning had struck while he was turning.

"Then you should have turned with your shield towards him," Yohn replied.

Waymar closed his mouth.

Harry sat beside Robb. Both had washed, though neither had got all the dirt out of his hair. He looked at Robb's scraped glove, then offered his hand. Both winced a little as their fingers closed.

"We should have stayed together longer," Harry told Jon.

"Until we'd beaten the Reach?"

"Until you'd beaten Loras, at least."

"Then you'd have had both of them to fight," Theon said. He nodded towards Robb. "You had enough trouble with one."

Harry began to answer, then stopped as Betha Blackwood came beneath the awning with Hoster and an older woman in black and red. Hoster's knee had been bound. He wanted to know whether the marshals had found the strap from Artys's helm; while Artys explained where he had left it, Betha stopped before Robb.

"Ser Robb." She dipped her head, smiling.

Robb looked up at her and coloured. He had put the red ribbon inside his helm when he took off his armour. He drew it out before setting the helm aside, then seemed to realise that he had cleared a place for her upon a bench full of discarded armour.

"Forgive me." He moved the shield as well.

She remained standing, but her smile widened. "My cousin said Hardyng would have you. Then there you were at the end, with your brother."

"I was wrong," Hoster said over his shoulder. "You needn't tell everyone."

"I have only told Robb."

Garlan ducked beneath the awning behind her, holding the canvas clear for Margaery and Loras. Betha moved nearer Robb to let them pass. Loras had a clean cloth wrapped around his wrist and stopped beside Jon's bench, looking at the maester as the man packed his things.

"Will the shoulder mend?"

"If he allows it."

Loras accepted that with a nod. He turned his own wrist carefully. "The first stroke hurt worse. I thought I could keep hold through another."

"You nearly did." Jon remembered the empty hand reaching for the sword, and how little time he had had to stop it.

Loras looked towards the field, where a groom was leading a restless horse past the awning. "I shouldn't have let you get so close."

"I couldn't reach you from anywhere else."

The corner of Loras's mouth moved. He seemed about to answer when Garlan asked Harry how he had fallen. Harry put a foot out to show him, and Loras turned to watch. Robb began explaining where his shield had been. Betha waited until he had finished, then touched his sleeve.

"Will you still go to see the little boy?" she asked quietly.

"Yes. Martyn is coming with me." Robb glanced towards the older woman. "After I have changed."

"Then I shall ask you about him when you return."

She touched Hoster's sleeve when he showed signs of settling into a longer account of the melee. Robb watched her go. Theon opened his mouth, saw Jon looking at him and closed it long enough to take another drink.

Margaery had stayed beside Jon's bench, waiting while he followed Betha and Robb's exchange. When he looked up, she gave him a small curtsy.

"Ser Jon."

He began to rise. She put out a hand at once, stopping short of touching his bruised shoulder.

"Please stay there. I wanted to congratulate you." Her smile came back as he settled. "I could scarcely sit still through that last bout. Every time your brother drove you back, I thought he had you."

"He came close enough."

"And you still won." She looked towards the field, where men were carrying the dividing barrier into place for the jousts. "I was sorry for Loras. He wanted it so much. But you were very good."

Jon accepted the compliment with a smile. She had wanted Loras to win; it was gracious of her to come and congratulate him anyway.

"Thank you."

"I was glad when your uncle drew his sword." She spoke more quietly now, her eyes returning to his face. "After what you did last night, you deserved that. Those children might still be there if you had left it to someone else."

He looked towards Arthur. His uncle was listening to Garlan, one hand resting upon the back of Robb's bench.

"I always hoped he would be the one," Jon said.

"He looked so proud of you."

Jon nodded, unable for a moment to say anything more. Margaery let him look. When he turned back she was still smiling, without the teasing he had expected after the curtsy.

He reached for his cup with the wrong hand and stopped with a sharp breath. She picked it up and put it into his right.

"Will you let him make you rest now?"

"I don't think he means to give me much choice."

"Good." She drew a stool nearer and sat while he drank. Across from them Loras was asking Harry to show the step again; the demonstration ended with Garlan catching his brother's shoulder before he backed into a basin. Margaery laughed, and Jon found himself laughing with her.

Arthur brought his clean shirt. Gawen helped him into it, left arm first, while the others made room for two more boys seeking water. A herald outside called for the first pair of knights. The crowd answered with a cheer quite different from the one Jon had received, deeper and more expectant. Great horses began moving towards the lists.

He had thought the noise would make it impossible to be tired. Instead it seemed to pass around him. Robb was still smiling. Theon had found someone else to argue with. For once Jon could sit among them without deciding what ought to be built, bought or prevented before the year was out.

Then Gawen stopped fastening his cuff.

"Mind the rope, lad."

Hal stumbled beneath the awning, catching himself against the pole. One of Jon's guards came after him with a hand outstretched, but the boy had already seen Jon and was trying to straighten. His hair clung wetly to his forehead. When he pushed it aside, Jon saw the swelling around his left eye, the bruise darkening beneath it.

"My lord—"

He could get no farther. He bent with both hands upon his knees, dragging breath through his open mouth. One knee had worn through his breeches; dirt and blood showed beneath the torn cloth. His jerkin hung from one shoulder, its fastening ripped away.

Jon rose, leaving his cuff open.

"Hal?"

"They came to the shop." Hal swallowed air. "My aunt—"

"Where is she?"

The boy tried to answer. His mouth worked, but all that came was another harsh breath.

"Alive, my lord," the guard said quickly. "At the sept. We brought her out."

Harry broke off in the middle of a sentence. Margaery rose and drew her stool towards Hal while Harry cleared a helm from the bench. Hal shook his head at both of them. He caught Jon's sleeve instead, leaving a dirty print upon the clean linen.

"They hit her. She wouldn't let go of the till." He squeezed his good eye shut. "He hit her, and she went down. I tried to get to her."

Jon covered the boy's hand with his own.

"Who did this?"

"One of the men that takes the pennies. There were others with him. Everybody'd gone to watch." Hal looked towards the field, where another herald was calling. His swollen eye watered. "She was on the floor. There was blood in her hair."

Arthur came beside them. "Did she speak to you?"

Hal nodded, then shook his head. "After. She did after. But when I called her—"

His fingers tightened upon Jon's sleeve. Jon could see him trying to master his face, biting his lower lip until it trembled. This was the boy who had asked for a sword last night, unwilling to be left behind.

"Our men?" Jon asked the guard.

"Fought them off. One took a cut across the arm. He's with her still." The man glanced at Hal. "They fired the upper room before we drove them out. We got everyone down. The neighbours helped with the water."

Jon looked again at the torn jerkin. There was soot upon it, worked into the cloth at the shoulder.

Beyond the awning, hooves hammered down the lists. The crash of a lance brought a roar from the crowd. Hal flinched, and Jon felt it through the hand still clutching his sleeve.

Rilla had caught his sleeve before he left her. Your man stays? She had needed to open the shop again in the morning. He had known it, and left her there while he came back to the castle.

His guards had stayed. She was bleeding all the same.

"Get the horses," Jon told Gawen.

Arthur reached for his cloak. Robb was already coming round the bench, and Theon pushed his cup aside to follow.

Jon loosened Hal's fingers only to take his hand. The boy looked up at him, his breath still coming too fast.

"She kept asking where you were."

Jon led him out beneath the ropes.