It was spring, and Pup had gone into the mountains with his father and five-year-old Gregor and some men to hunt wolves. The Clegane men liked to hunt, and the small folk expected that the landowner would keep the wolf packs in check, protecting the new lambs and calves.
When they returned to Clegane Keep after a fortnight, laden with furs, Piety rushed to greet them.
"You should not leave me alone so long." she scolded her husband. By the Seven, she had missed him. She sent the servants scurrying to draw hot baths for the men and prepare a welcome feast.
When dinner was over, and the guests and children put to bed, Piety and her husband retreated to their bedroom.
"I have something to show you." she said. "A merchant came through, and I bought a few things that we needed."
Pup was pleased. He had left her enough coin to run the household while he was gone, and extra coin in case she had opportunity to buy herself something pretty.
He imagined she'd bought herself dresses, but instead she surprised him with a stack of books upon her winter clothing chest.
She had an atlas, a star map, children's primers for different ages, a dictionary, two books on the history of the Westerlands, nine volumes of poetry and songs from the old Kingdoms of Westeros, a richly illustrated book of knightly adventures, a bestiary of Essos, botanicals, a gospel of the Stranger, and many small books with colorful woodblock printed pages, no doubt for Lanna Grace.
"This is the new library of House Clegane."
He laughed, "More pictures than words here, woman. Not showing much faith in your men folk, are you?"
He opened one of the little books, "Valyrian, is it? Once upon a time..." he tapped the page, "I can sound that much out."
"Yes, how did you...?" and she stopped. Many knights did not know Valyrian these days. She did not think that a man of humble birth such as her husband would have been taught the language, but she was ashamed to assume so casually.
"My grandmother spoke Valyrian. Taught it to Father and then to me when I was small. I stopped speaking it altogether when I squired. My accent was so bad, I was ashamed to try it again in front of learned folk. Not what you'd call high Valyrian, I am sure. You speak it well?"
"I do."
"Then you should talk to my father with it. He would be pleased to hear his mother's tongue. You always find new ways to please him."
"Maybe some of his mother's favorite fey tales are in these books." she smiled.
"Doubt it. She couldn't read, so her stories weren't from books... and slaves have different tales than other folk."
Piety looked at her husband with her big golden eyes.
"My grandmother was a slave, a brown-skinned Ghiscari." he looked her square in the eyes. Six years and two children, and he was just starting to talk to her about who he was. Piety realized that he had been even slower to share himself than she had been. She hadn't even been trying to guess at his heart, yet he always guessed at hers before she opened it up to him.
"What was she like?" Piety asked, meeting his stare.
"Tough as boiled leather, except with Father and me. Cooked us up food so spicy, it'd peel your tongue. I think she was pretty back in the day, but it did her no good so she didn't miss her looks when she got old. Oh, how she hated winter. Hated the cold, and all that white."
"What did she like, besides you and your father and spicy food?"
"Dogs. Summer while it lasted. Dornish wine when we could get it."
"Tell me one of her fey tales."
"They're slave stories. You won't like them."
"But I want to hear it." she insisted. She did want to know the stories he grew up with.
"All right. Do you want it in common tongue or Valyrian? If I use the second, you can judge how bad my accent is."
"Valyrian, please."
Once upon a time, there was a slave girl in Astapor. Not long after her red flower first bloomed, her Master made her with child. She birthed a strong boy that she loved. Her Mistress also had a boy soon after, but he was not as strong and handsome as the slave's child. Mistress was jealous of the slave girl, because she was pretty and the Master always picked her bed before his wife's.
One day, the Mistress told the slave girl to go to market and fetch honey. The slave girl cried, "Please, Mistress, the Unsullied are in the market today."
"Unsullied?" Piety asked.
"The story will explain." he promised.
"Go." ordered Mistress. The slave girl begged to leave her son at home, but the mistress said 'no', the slave baby would cry for his mother, and wake the Mistress' baby. So the slave girl put her son in a covered basket and carried him to market as carefully as she could so that no one would see him. She gave him a piece of gizgarfo to suck on so he would not cry.
"Gizgarfo?"
"The root of a reed plant from the east. It was the sweetest thing a slave would have to eat." Pup explained.
She had almost reached the honey trader when an Unsullied novice saw that the front of her blouse was wet with milk. He took the basket from her arms, and took out her son. The slave girl begged the novice not to do it, to spare her son and find another, but he had trained his whole life to be Unsullied, and he could only be true Unsullied if he was blooded. Unsullied don't blood by killing a fox, or a bear, or a man. They are only blooded by killing a baby. It must be a slave baby, of course, and they must pay for it, but slave babies come cheap in Astapor. The novice cut her son's throat and made the mark on himself like his Masters told him. He gave her a silver coin and said, "This is for your Mistress."
The slave girl took her dead baby home and laid him before the Mistress, and gave her the silver coin. Mistress slapped the girl and said, "You forgot my honey."
The slave girl said, "Yes, Mistress." and left the house, but she did not go far. She crept back inside through a window, took Mistress' sleeping baby, and put it in the sling that once carried her own beloved son. She went back to the market and bought honey and waited in the center of the square. Soon another novice came to her. She did not beg, but handed the baby over. The novice became Unsullied when he cut the child's throat, made the mark on himself and handed her a silver coin, "For your Mistress."
The slave girl threw the dead baby in the harbor, so that Mistress would have nothing to bury. She knew the Master and Mistress would have to bury her child with honor and gifts and prayers, to hide the great shame that their own child's body was lost. She crept back into the house and left the honey and the second silver coin in the free-born child's cradle for his mother to find.
Piety was crying.
"I told you, you would not like it."
"I don't like it. Don't ever tell it to our children."
"I won't." he promised.
"I am glad you told me. Now I know."
"Know what?"
"Know where your anger comes from."
"Aye, some of it." he looked down.
"What happened to her?"
"To who?"
"The slave girl, afterwards?"
"It's a fey tale, not a real girl." he assured her, "Nothing more to tell."
He hated to see her cry. Not when she was smiling every day now, happy to be alive. Happy with him, maybe, or at least he liked to think so. She did not need to hear the rest of the story.
The slave girl ran back to the harbor and looked at the ships about to sail for faraway lands. One ship was loading pretty dogs to cross the Narrow Sea. The slave girl had a way with dogs.
She walked boldly up to the ship's Captain and said, "My Master sends me as a gift, to tend the dogs for their new master." The Captain knew he should not believe the girl and should send a message to the Kennel Master. But the girl was young and pretty. This would be a very long sea journey. It would not seem so long with her in his bed. So he took the slave girl and the hounds to Lannisport.