OSWELL
He arrived in Pentos in as little as a fortnight from his departure thanks to steady winds and calm waves. He came with only a poor set of armor, his own white helmet with a black bat forged onto it, a spare set of clothes and the remains of his personal belongings that he could fit into his trunk.
Pentos itself was a port city protected by sea by the Bay of Pentos and protected by land by the tall wall which surrounded it. Stretching beyond it in the distance Oswell could make out what looked to be the beginnings of a great grassy plain, with a series of foothills near the city itself, forming a rough natural border to the east. Many of the buildings were made of sun-dried bricks, while stone and marble were reserved for the luxurious manses and places of the forty families and magistars. The city, though being more populous than King's Landing somehow managed to avoid the utter stench of the nearest Westerosi equivalent that Oswell had experienced in his life.
Upon arriving he was interviewed by the customs officer who rifled through his trunk and spoke with a broken and heavily accented common tongue. After his belongings were searched he was permitted to enter the city, and Oswell set out for the address that Prince Oberyn had suggested he go to first to establish a relationship with the one contact he did have in the city. Given the Dornish prince's reputation he should have been less surprised when he found himself near the end of a dead ended alleyway which was home to several of the more exclusive brothels. The one which concerned him, was the one with an image of a woman standing with one foot on land and the other in water painted onto its front. The woman in the painting was wearing nothing at all while holding a goblet in each hand as a kind of offering, surrounded by an indiscriminate night sky upon which shimmering stars seemed to pop forth to frame the woman. Though it was faded, Oswell could tell that the painter had been quite skilled and attached to their work, obviously having taken special attention to minor details which became more noticeable the longer you stared at it. The name of the business was likewise painted onto the wall of the building: Qēlosozi Ābra, or Starry Woman he loosely translated.
He heard a woman with dyed hair of violet shout to him from one of the windows in their bastardized Valyrian. Recalling what he could of his old maester teaching him and his elder brother Edmyre High Valyrian he could just make out that she japed with him about whether or not he wanted to do more than just look. He replied with what little High Valyrian he could muster in his mind to remember.
He spoke haltingly, but well enough, he thought, saying, "Rytsas… ābra brōzat Andella… undessun daor."
"Sparos iepagon Andella?" asked the woman.
"Azantys Vesterozi," he answered.
The woman answered with a smirk. Fearing he could carry the conversation no further he asked, "Quptenkos Ēngoso ẏdrassis?"
"Aye, when I must. Now why is a sellsword from the sunset kingdoms visiting my little brothel?" asked the woman, who seemed to identify herself as the bawd.
"I have a letter from a friend of yours."
"I fear you must have come to the the wrong brothel, for I have no friends in the sunset kingdoms," began the woman as she was about to close her shutters.
"He said to tell you that the fangs have come out."
At this the woman paused, before asking, "Wait there."
A few minutes later the woman opened the door and beckoned he enter. She immediately slammed the door shut behind him and motioned for him to leave his trunk by the door and led him through a series of rooms filled with women lounging about, entertaining men or themselves. They at last came to a room which was obviously her own, and she closed the door, locked it and motioned for him to take a seat.
"Your name?" asked Andella.
"Oswell Whent," answered Oswell, feeling no need to disguise his identity with his supposed contact.
Andella was silent for a long moment, pouring two glasses of wine and then offering one to him. He politely refused and she poured his glass back into the flagon, took a seat herself and began to sip at her wine as she spoke, "It has been some time since I heard of the Red Viper. He last came here when he was but…six and ten, I believe he said. He stayed here a week and then set sail to Volantis. Now you come to me saying that he is in trouble… tell me, why should I care whether or not he needs my help?"
Everything was going extremely quickly for Oswell, typically he liked to sit in the shadows and observe—that was how he truly could be of use—but this forthrightly speaking, this was not his forte.
"You obviously care a great deal considering you've brought me this far into your brothel at the mere mention of him…" and then an idea came to him, "did he perhaps steal your heart?" asked Oswell.
"A heart is a luxury no whore can afford. He did not take anything from me, Ser, instead he left something…" muttered the woman.
"A daughter?" asked Oswell, knowing that the Red Viper was well known for only having daughters.
"Is that why you've truly come, to collect my son?" asked Andella with all the ferocity of a Stark she-wolf.
"Truthfully I care not whether the Red Viper has four or a million bastards. I was sent by him to… investigate certain spheres of Pentos. He told me to speak with you before doing so, saying that this letter would explain anything I might fail to," and with that said, Oswell pulled out the sealed letter for her to read. She looked it over laughing at the sigil pressed into the wax of an orange speared sun, and she then opened it and read it. As she did she paled at its contents.
"Madam—" began Oswell.
"What he asks is… dangerous. I cannot assist you myself with such a task. It is too great for me to handle… but I might be able to point you in the appropriate direction…" mentioned Andella, rising and beginning to pace worriedly.
"Mayhaps we could discuss this another time? I must be on my way if I'm to find lodgings for the night…" suggested Oswell as he noticed the sunset through her open window.
"Aye, that sounds reasonable. Wait a moment," said Andella and she then walked over to the window which overlooked the back alley behind the building and called out to someone outside in a fast stream of words of the Pentoshi bastard Valaryian that Oswell could not make out.
A few moments later a young boy climbed through the window and Oswell stared at him. The boy, like his mother, had dyed his hair violet, but beyond that Oswell felt safe in saying that Prince Oberyn was indeed the father—the only parts of his mother in the boy seemed to be his lighter complexion than that of the Prince's and his mother's pale green eyes.
Andella spoke slowly in the common tongue, and said, "Obi, this man is in need of lodgings for this evening at an inn… take him to the Eight Swords."
The boy apparently understood the common tongue but seemed apprehensive to answer in it, simply nodding to acknowledge he understood her. Oswell then rose and took his leave of Andella, who dismissed him with a wave of her hand as she returned her attention to the letter he had brought her.
The Eight Swords Inn was a small ramshackle little place not too far from the Starry Woman. The illiterate sign was of eight swords bent and reforged into a wreath. It was on a larger and wider street, but it felt no less secluded with the way streets twisted and wound through the city. It was outside of the inn that the boy nodded his head toward the building and then hurried off into the milling crowd, vanishing as he did so.
The inn was owned by an old man called Foerys and his young daughter, Lysenia. Lysenia was a girl on the cusp of maidenhood, having long flowing silver blonde hair and eyes a dark mix of green and blue like the sea. She was the one in charge of receiving guests, running off to find her father when Oswell managed to pull out a bag of coin that the Prince had provided which "officially" came from him having sold most of his possessions before arriving in the Free Cities.
Foerys was quite an old man, who needed a cane to get around, though clearly he tried to inhabit any room he walked into with his presence. After haggling a decent weekly rate which could be charged, Oswell grabbed his trunk and climbed the stairs to the second floor and his room. It was a small cramped place with not much more than a straw mattress to sleep on, but it would have to do, for now.
After having settled in, Oswell left to purchase food before the street vendors closed up completely and after purchasing a loaf of bread and a honey apple, Oswell returned to his room to discover that in his absence someone else had entered his darkened room as he was shocked by the presence of a hooded figure in the room, who made his presence known by saying, upon the closing of the door, "Hello, Oswell…"
