Ch. 11 — Pipe Dreams

"My lord," Ser Rodrik nods his head respectfully as Ned leans against the railing beside him.

"Ser," Ned says breathlessly, wiping sweat from his brow. "Your nephew has improved greatly," he confesses, looking back across the training yard. Jory Cassel is overseeing the training of younger guardsmen, still smiling after his bout with Lord Stark.

"Don't give him more credit than is due," Rodrik shakes his head, looking at Ned with disapproval. "It's only been a few weeks, and you keep irritating that cut."

"Not on purpose," Ned answers mulishly, though the wound over his belly still limits him at times. "I didn't think the boys would be so lively." Robb and Jon had been ecstatic with his return, and one of them may have kneed him in the gut trying to hug him.

"And the little lady Sansa? Was she too lively as well?" Rodrik arched an eyebrow at him.

He also may have lifted Sansa too high the other day and irritated the scab again. But he dismisses the thought. "I cannot let myself grow complacent. If we hear about those bandits again, I'm going to take a group out to search for them myself."

Rodrik huffs in annoyance. "Lord Manderly has always been quick to complain. He should send out his own riders to meet them."

"They are not only a threat to White Harbor," Ned reminds him calmly. "The last reports had them moving west, harassing travelers on the Kingsroad. Where do you suppose they'll show up next?"

"Hm," Rodrik taps his chin thoughtfully. "Barrowtown, I'd reckon. From there, either they'll get smart and head south, or they'll go north to Torrhen's Square."

"Aye, and it won't only be the lords complaining of bandits. There are farmers and traders at those ports, vulnerable to attack." Ned sighs, rubbing his shoulder. Jory landed a good hit on his right side, he's sure it'll bruise. "The longer they're out there, the more people we put in danger."

"Ah, yes," Rodrik agrees, but his voice takes on a peculiar tone. "Indeed, the smallfolk will be in danger. Farmers, merchants, even the local craftsmen—and craftswomen."

"Rodrik," Ned says in warning, eyeing the master-at-arms.

"My lord." Rodrik has his eyes trained on the sparring men. "There's been more speculation of late concerning your bastard."

This truly has gotten out of hand. He should have brought an end to these rumors as soon as they started, but what was he to say? He would not risk Jon's life by entertaining any rumors of his lineage and had decided long ago to never confirm or deny the hearsay about his son. But before Antonia, folk assumed that Jon's mother was already dead, and there was no greater story to the boy's existence.

Lord Stark has no idea where the whispers about Toni stems from, but now, people seem to think he's involved in some great and tragic romance. Ned's love life had never been the source of so much interest, not even after Ashara Dayne's abrupt death. He can only hope that by ignoring these rumors they will fade with time—but what if he is to see Antonia again? The rumors are sure to start up once more. As much as Ned tries not to think of her, he has a feeling that their paths will cross again (and again, and again).

Maybe it is a bit tragic. He thinks of her face, and what she might say to him if she catches wind of this gossip.

Ned leans back against the railing, sighing.

"Gods, Ned, you sigh like a lovesick girl." Ser Rodrik comments in a low, amused voice.

Lord Stark stiffens, and scowls at the master-at-arms. "Rodrik—"

"You there! Widen your stance, boy!" Rodrik walks away to interrupt the sparring match before Ned can get another word out.

"Were you really at Pyke? That would make you a Northern lass." Grumpy, her favorite patient, peers at her disapprovingly. "You'd look like the winter rose if you tried wearing a damn dress."

Toni hums, not really listening. She's heard this spiel about the way she dresses from everyone in Westeros, from Maester Luwin to the east district hookers. "Dresses aren't really my thing. Not good in a fight, either."

"You see? You've even got her wolf's blood."

"Wolf's blood?" Toi looks up in confusion. For one terrifying moment, Toni thinks he means werewolves. "You're joking, right?"

"Never mind you," Grumpy shakes his head and sucks in another rattling breath. She considers boiling tea for the patients to help with the cough. "Would you believe I was one o' those soldiers fightin' for this shithole city? Fat lot of good it did me once I caught death."

His words stunned her for a moment. He looks so frail right now, but there is a hardness to his eyes. Toni knows enough fighters to recognize one. For a moment she thinks about asking for his name but dismisses it at once. "You did good work," Toni says quietly. "You can't see it now, but Lannisport is being rebuilt as we speak."

"Well," he grumbles, "There wouldn't be any rebuilding if we hadn't let it bloody fall."

He sounds… bitter. Toni doesn't like it.

"The Greyjoys are cowards," She continues flippantly. "They didn't come to Lannisport to conquer it, they came to burn it to the ground. The Lannister army held the line. Without you, there wouldn't have been anything to rebuild at all." And it's true. Lannisport has a long way to go, but its foundations are strong, and the people are still here. They can come back from this.

Toni can help them come back from this.

She watches Grumpy in silence. "Hm," he grumbles eventually. "What's your name again, girl?"

"Toni," she replies, amused. He's never bothered trying to learn it before. "Or Tanya," she adds.

In the morning, Toni wanders the eastern docks, talking to traders and salesmen. Then she goes to the western half of the port. The name 'Gill' keeps popping up. He's some great mason from Golden Tooth, the same one that redesigned Casterly Rock. He's rich as a mason (now a lord?) could possibly be, but his buildings are nothing to scoff at. His assistant shuts the door in her face, of course, but she gives her name before she's rejected.

She goes to two other masons and leaves with the same response, and by midday, Toni is fuming.

Rejection is not an option.

The problem is that she's more of a bauble to the people of Lannisport. A funny girl with funny hair, one who likes helping whores and the infirm. Toni already has designs in mind for half a block of apartments and stores; a payment schedule to work out the costs between builders, residents, and investors—but she's just some woman here. She's friends with bastards and fishermen.

No one will listen to her.

But she does what she can. The dock workers like her, as do the artisans and blacksmiths in the area. She works on the docks, on the boat, on the beach fixing nets. She looks after bastard kids and bruised call girls—that part pains her the most. No one protects the girls, and it's usually nobles that hurt them the worst.

Toni and Frenna return to a tavern, children thundering up the stairs. It's been expensive to stay here, but not uncomfortably so. Leta's cousin's husband owns the place. "Tell me about the city guards. You know a few that come by the House." The House being the pleasure house Frenna and her friends work at. It hasn't been fully rebuilt yet, but the girls are smart. They know their Johns and find places to meet some clients regularly. It's how they've kept afloat without proper housing these few weeks.

Frenna hums, fiddling with a lock of her curly hair. She's strawberry blonde, and if she had more freckles, she could be Pepper's sister. "What do you want to know?"

"Who's the nicest, who's the most talkative?" Toni supplies, and then asks, "Are any of your men from Cornfield, Tarbeck Hall, Feastfires?"

"Silverhill?" Frenna suggests, though she looks tense. "There's a Serret from Silverhill."

Toni shakes her head. "Too far. And I bet he's a dick, judging by the look on your face."

"That he is," Frenna agrees tartly. "Probably the richest one I've met, but foul as anything. I'm not sure what sort of folk you're looking for, Toni."

She shrugs. "I'm not sure either, but I'd rather know who's a friend and who's not."

"Oh, but what about the Paynes?"

"The… Pains?" Toni repeats, dumbfounded. "Is that another hall that Tywin fucked over, like Castamere?"

"No, silly," Frenna grins, "House Payne, of Lannisport."

Toni gives her a hard stare. "I thought the Lord of Lannisport died in battle?"

"Oh, he did. And he's got no heirs. There's still a few Paynes around, though. Ser Cedric, for one, and his sweet little squire." Frenna explains. As she talks, a few armored men shuffle towards the bar, so she keeps her voice down. "If Cedric hadn't pledged himself to Lord Tywin, he might've been Lord of Lannisport by now. He's the fourth son of a second son, so he never expected to inherit anything, but Lord Tywin's also too stingy to reward him with Lannisport for his service." The woman rolls her eyes. "If you're wondering who's the most talkative, it'd be Ser Cedric, but he's not a watchman."

Interesting. She'll keep an eye out for him, but for now, Toni needs better connections than that. "Are you sure you don't know any decent knights?"

"Lord Tywin don' like our kind, m'lady," she reminds Toni worried. "And his men are loyal to 'im first. You won't get far talkin' to his men."

"So there aren't any guards you like?" Toni asks desperately. "None that fancy you, none that would turn a blind eye for your sake?"

Frenna tilts her head. "I don't know what you mean. What would they need to do that for?"

Toni shrugs again, feeling a little helpless. "I'm only asking."

There's an old training yard near the cliffs, beyond the docks, and Toni carries swords for the hedge knights that practice there. When she has time, she practices with them, learning more about the fighting styles they use—but mostly she's interested in the swords, and pesters the local blacksmith about his work.

"You could make the steel harder than that if you're using it for a sword," She points out to the blacksmith, Arty. "Higher carbon ratio would help."

"It's strong enough as it!" Arty barks at her. "I've told you before, it can't be done without makin' it too brittle."

"Wanna bet, old man?" Toni laughs as he blusters, but misses Jorgen terribly.

Three of her patients die. The frumpy woman that kept ordering leeches pulls through, but Happy, a sweet old lady with the gentlest voice, passes away overnight in silence. Dopey, being dopey, manages to break his leg trying to sneak off to see his young wife. Since he's recovered from the illness, the sisters have been urging him to leave, as a broken leg could be cared for at home. Toni uses her savings for supplies and space in an artisan's workroom and returns to the tents with a proper wheelchair, one with buckles so Dopey's poor wife can bind him to his seat.

Grumpy lives. Toni doesn't get to see him off because apparently he woke up one morning and decided he was done with being deathly ill and simply walked away, that stubborn fool.

The pox dwindles, with no new cases in the past week. Toni isn't certain if that's a good way tracking the virus, but the fact is that there are only half as many ill people in the tents now, and more Silent Sisters have arrived from Oldtown to help care for the rest of the infected.

She sees off Sleepy with a bottle of Dornish red and for a moment, she feels proud of herself.

He dreams of Antonia more often than he ought to. Of course, he ought to not think of her at all. Just a strange woman he knows nothing about.

But Ned does know things about her. He knows she is familiar with warfare. He knows she is educated and well-raised by the way she speaks, but also foreign and perhaps unaccustomed to the Seven Kingdoms. He knows she is strong and quick-thinking, making her a fine soldier. And he knows the ferocity of her spirit. That was plain to see from the moment they met, and it is perhaps why she is so hard to forget.

He still remembers the look on her face on the beach. Gods, he will never forget her face.

He never knew that eyes—her eyes, brown eyes, dark and thoughtful and secret—could strike him as profoundly as a blade. She looked at him with pain and love and passion and he ceased to think, at that moment, of anything but her.

And thus, she curses him. He returns home to greet his wife and his newest babe, and thinks of Antonia. He sits with his sons and teaches them of the horrors of war; Robb asks him about his scar and Ned thinks of Antonia.

He looks at Jon and wonders if Antonia would protect him as fiercely as she protected Talla.

He deals with the grievances of the people and thinks of Antonia petitioning for better steel trade or the building of better roads. (She would come alone and look him in eye, Ned knows this for certain). He talks with Maester Luwin about restocking the supply of herbs, and he thinks of Antonia, picking cicely to use after her next bar fight.

Worst, though, is Catelyn. He does his husbandly duty, of course, but he cannot shake the guilt hanging over him, following him as closely as a shadow.

I did not kiss her, did not touch her, and yet…. He can hardly face Cat. For the sake of their children, he does not avoid her, but the friendship between them has waned, as it did when Ned came home with Jon. Catelyn is a shrewd woman, and though Ned has not been unfaithful, she knows that something stands between them.

He sits in the godswood beneath the oldest heart tree. A hot spring stretches in front of him, the water disturbed and frothing while his children play. He rarely gets time for these little pleasures, and so he watches them indulgently as Robb coaxes little Sansa to dip her feet in.

His wife comes and sits at his side wrangling with Arya, the squirmiest babe he's ever seen. Only a year and a half and tiny as a doll, but this child wants nothing more than to dive head first into the water. His wife hums with amusement.

"It's the wolf's blood," she teases, holding Arya securely in place so the girl can kick water at her brothers. "Get him, Arya, he needs to wash his hair anyway," she cheers as another kick sends a spray of water over Jon, who cried out in dismay with a smile on his face.

Jon was not in the pool with them, though. Ned remembers Jon spent the day practicing with sticks in the training grounds. And Catelyn pulled Arya out of the water early, as she'd quickly tired herself out and needed a nap.

He doesn't look at his wife now but keeps his eyes on Robb and Jon as they act out a story to amuse Sansa and Arya. Today, it's a mythical tale of Bran the Builder, tricking giants into building the Wall and locking all the monsters out of the North.

"If the next one's a boy, we shall name him Brandon," Ned says, his arm wrapped around her waist. Catelyn had asked.

Instead of smiling, instead of nodding dutifully, she asks, "For you brother, or for tradition?" There are, indeed, many Brandon Starks in his family's history. Catelyn did not know this.

"Both," Ned answers, but in his heart, he knows it is only for his brother. "We can call him Bran."

"Maybe he shouldn't carry a name with so much history," she says kindly, knowing his thoughts. "Honor your brother, but don't burden your son with this."

It is good counsel. He heard something similar from Maester Luwin. "What about Howland?"

She snorts with laughter, resting her head on his shoulder. "I see you aren't a very creative man. Howland, after your crannog friend, Robb, after your king…"

"Anton," he suggests recklessly, finally looking down at her. "After my wife."

Toni rolls her eyes. "You know what?" She leans close, her voice a playful whisper, "I hope it's another girl."

They continue as they were, with four children squealing and play-fighting in the pool. Ned awakens from the dream so slowly, he doesn't realize it didn't happen until he sees Cat at breakfast, trying futilely to feed Arya mashed apples.

It's been two months since Toni settled in the Westerlands.

A merchant, his servant boy, and a Lannister guard have a disagreement one morning.

Maybe the guard was persuading the merchant towards a better price. Maybe he was within his rights to a discount and some respect for the honorable work he does to protect this trader's livelihood.

But where were the Lannisters when Lannisport burned? Honor and respect didn't hold the bloody gate when the Greyjoys came.

The merchant had a mouth, but was he disrespectful? Did he hear those nasty rumors floating around town, or was he sullying the Lannister name himself? What about the boy? Was he learning these false accusations too? A boy should have manners. A boy needed to be taught some manners. A merchant ought to know his place.

A city watchman deserves respect.

The girl is hysterical by the time she finds Toni. Tanya, they say, she helped in the sick tents, she's the closest healer on hand—what Toni sees is a young girl with blood on her hands, a desperate plea on her lips, and the fragments of a horrible story.

A merchant with a destroyed shop. A boy beaten half to death. A Lannister guard with a chip on his shoulder and bloody, damning knuckles.

Toni shouldn't care, she doesn't have to care. But she lives just a street away from that shop, and she could have protected them if she'd been given the chance. She should have protected them.

The girl guides Toni to the crumbling remains of a bathhouse. Some homeless men and women are huddled in corners, but she's been brought here because the boy is there, bleeding and bruised. Syra, someone cries, that's Syra, you must save him.

Toni steps around two sleeping girls and kneels at Syra's side. He's a strange-looking boy for the Westerlands, dark-skinned with coarse, curly hair. He came to Westeros after fleeing slavers in Naath. He works for a leather craftsman—and does an excellent job, incredibly skilled for someone so young.

Now he's deathly quiet, shaking in shock, and it's one of the worst sights Toni has ever seen.

Toni instructs others to get clean clothes, boiling water, any more medics or healers they know. She disinfects her hands with rum and orders someone to start making a paste from cicely. She looks over Syra, checking for broken bones, internal bleeding, and he screams about his hands, his hands, and she looks at them—

His hands are a mess. Not unfixable, but mangled and swollen and there's nerve damage—

"I can't work! I can't work, oh R'hllor, kill me!"

She should have protected this boy. She should have protected them all, and damn the consequences. It strikes her, then. Burning like lightning, resonating deep like thunder. All this time in Westeros, she has been trying to fit into a slot she cannot fill. It doesn't matter if the rules don't allow her to help, Toni shouldn't care that the guards are all corrupt and the system is against her. This world looks at her and expects an ordinary woman that can keep her head down and know her place, and Toni can't do that.

Toni is not just some woman, she is not just some commoner, she is Iron Man and an Avenger and she is going to help these people if it kills her.

Good luck trying to save the whole continent, Jorgen once said to her.

She's going to save the whole fucking world.

Toni is exhausted that evening, but she goes out anyway. She sidles up to Wylls, the owner of a modest market on the third dock, and buys him a pint of ale.

"Nothing for yourself, Tonya?" he asks, accepting the drink.

She shakes her head. "Too strong for me," she passes, "But I hear you have a stronger constitution."

"You're a gem, Tonsy," he dips his head in thanks, and his gaze lingers on her chest. "But whaddya want from me?"

"An investment," she says, and her smile is bright and hungry. "Times are tough these days, aren't they? Yet you still find it in your heart to share cod and lamprey with the girls."

It's an unsaid, unacknowledged thing: this port wouldn't survive without brothels, gambling rings, and underground fights. Lannister can boast all he wants about the perfection of his empire, but there is no escaping the dark underbelly of society.

The girls, the whores, the ones that dawdle by Wylls's marketplace and bring potential customers by. Sailors, traders, noblemen—they come ashore for all sorts of products, including the women. City watchmen have power over everyone, but the women have power too. A different sort of power.

Toni will take what she can get.

The merchant grins. "A girl thinks she can rule the world with her teats! I don't do business with whores, Toni."

"Yes you do," Toni arches an eyebrow, waiting for him to dispute it.

"Not this kind of business," Wylls rolls his eyes. "Though if you want a romp, you should consider speaking plainly."

"Your fish is the same as that Braavosi, Kyval, but he's drinking Arbor gold tonight because some nobleman bought all his snappers today on a whim." Toni sinks into the cushion next to Wylls and directs his gaze to the corner booth where Kyval sits. "The girls are an advertisement for everyone around them. But I'm coming to you instead of Kyval because you are not him. You don't spend your coin on cheap thrills, you spend it to make a profit. Invest, and I will deliver."

Wylls chortles. "What is there to invest in? Truly, Tonya, you have this much faith in your whores? "

They aren't hers. Toni wants to stab this man through the eye. She gifts him with a sweet smile instead. "If you change your mind, come find me here tomorrow night."

It's not only about whoring yourself. It's about eye candy. Toni has the other women wash their faces and tie up their hair neatly. The House is only half-built, but inside, they serve oysters and crawfish from the docks. Toni teaches her friends how to act in high society—the vocabulary, the accent, the way to hold your shoulders back and look as frighteningly beautiful and important as the Black Widow.

And when they hang around Kyval's stand, the girls do nothing overtly sexual. They just smile and allure. Good looks and sophistication can get a woman very far.

In the end, it's more of a coincidence than anything else, not that Wylls knows that. A petty lord has a thing for platinum blondes and flocks to Kyval's stand like a moth to a flame because today is Enya's day to make rounds.

Enya admires trinkets and other merchandise innocently. She's young but not new to her line of work, and not new to being seen as especially rare by her clients. Something about Blackfyre blood, whatever that means. The lord is only too happy to purchase two dozen lobsters from Kyval to please her. Enya leaves with the man, and Kyval leaves with too much coin to care.

Wylls gives her a hard look when she meets him the next night, his nostrils flaring as he tries to work out what she's done. "What's your game, Tanya? What're you trying to do here?"

"I know an opportunity when I see one, Wylls," Toni tells him. "Do you?"

Toni accepts Wylls' investment graciously. And Kyval's. And three other fishermen. She distributes the money in calculated purchases and payments. Toni's good at the numbers. Better than anyone, really. Enya asks that Toni keep track of her money—and Frenna's, and Katty's—to make sure that the women she lives alongside are cared for. Kyval, who is far more charismatic that Wylls, eventually goes to Toni in order to keep track of his profits as well. Many merchants end up referring her to Lannisport's Master of Coin for installments, and soon Toni builds up a reputation as a decent bookkeeper.

You'd think better finances would help, but not in Lannisport. Not within the feudal system. The taxes in Lannisport are steep, and lords have a vice grip on the economy. Smallfolk stay small because they're only left with enough coin to scrape by.

Toni sits down with Kyval, Wylls, and three other shop owners to convince them all the re-file themselves as a single business. Guilds are outlawed in Westeros, but to file under a singular business? All she needs is approval from the Master of Coin for the port. If she sends the request with a small bag of gold coins, within a week they could all be established as co-owners of the East Fishing Co.

"That is madness, Tanya," Wylls all but snarls at her, on the second night of negotiations. "You can't think that no one'll notice we're not paying our dues. It won't matter to change the words, Tywin will send out his dogs and hang us up by our toes!"

"Or he'll send the Mountain, and we'll be dead," Barth, another fisherman, cuts in. He peers at Tanya curious, smoking a pipe. "You must realize that already, though."

"He would notice," Toni admits, "If we were filing as a company in Lannisport." Then she looks pointedly at Kyval.

The others turn to him, interest and excitement rising in their eyes. The Braavosi pouts, and Toni grins, leaning back in her seat. "How well do you know Crakehall's lordship again, Kyval? Close enough for him to shave your balls if you asked it of him?"

The men roar with laughter; Kyval's been gloating over his trade deal with Crakehall for as long as she's known him.

They can file in Crakehall, and there's nothing that the tax collectors in Lannisport can do about it besides informing the Lannisport Master of Coin to notify the Crakehall Master of Coin to re-check his records and provide an accurate figure for the tax estimates of its trading ships. That alone would take weeks, even if someone notices them right away.

"It'll still get back to Lannister," Wylls points out, rubbing his bearded chin. "Them lords are quite careful with their coin, m'lady. Lannister like their gold."

"He'll get his gold. I'm careful with numbers," Toni replies. "But Lannisport's Master of Coin is not." And then she goes on to explain how completely fucked Lord Norrey's finances are because he spends everyone's money on Dornish wine and prostitutes from Kayce.

Toni will take what she can get.

She sits with Syra twice a week. Toni and two other local healers set the bones in each of his hands, and Toni casted each hand with a hardening poultice to keep him from moving them at all. There is no way of knowing how much damage was done, but Syra is young, and there is a possibility he can regain some dexterity with time and physical therapy.

The boy is despondent. Not angry, not frightened, but resigned.

Toni hates it.

"What do you care?" he demands, knocking her hand aside when she checks on his ribs. "What do you want?"

"I don't know," Toni snaps. "Validation, probably. You better fucking get better, kid."

"What's a kid?" Syra shoots back, still annoyed.

"A child," Toni rolls her eyes.

"I am not—"

"You're fourteen," Toni cuts him off. "You made it all the way to Westeros before you were twelve, you got yourself a skill set and a paying job before you've kissed your first girl, and now you're gonna waste away on my fucking cot just before your hands hurt?"

"My hands ARE RUINED!" He bellows. "YOU CAN'T FIX ME, YOU BITCH!"

Toni tosses aside the gauze in her hands, getting up into his face. "YOU WANNA BET, ASSHAT?!"

It's maybe her fifth month in Lannisport, though sometimes the days blur together for Toni.

Nothing's official and all the work she did could fall apart at the drop of a hat, and yet now she's the master of coin to everyone working on the east docks, from mariners to craftsmen, to armorers and prostitutes. She gives Norrey a warning, and the thought of losing favor with Tywin seems to be enough to make him cave. He still despises Toni, but since when is that new?

She's loved and hated and revered and cursed— Tanya the Bookkeeper, Tanya the Cunt, the gem of Lannisport.

Toni always did like being infamous.

She sits down with two masons, the same two she helped demolish a building with, and gives them the designs for two blocks of apartments and stores. She goes to the docks to shows them a payment plan between the merchants and the builders. She goes to the sailors of the East Company and writes proposals to expand their businesses northward. She approaches mariners and other local businesses, petitioning for money to build up a security detail that might actually protect their interests.

They listen, because they have to.