Beth, the beautiful but blind beggar, loves stories from Westeros so no one bats an eye when she slips to the docks. There are new ships from White Harbor, or rather, returning to White Harbor after a six month voyage to the Slaver's Bay. She wonders if things really have changed that much that people are using slaves in the North now, and immediately cuts off that line of thought. Beth has never been to the North, she reminds herself, but she dreams of going everywhere, it's why she listens to the stories.
"Beth! Come here girl," calls one of the normal dock workers, Darren, and Beth feels her way over to him. "These gentlemen need someone to spread information for them. I know you work fast and ask the lowest prize on top of the gossip you're so fond of."
Beth smiles at where she thinks Darren is. "I like the stories from Westeros. When I have enough money saved, I'm going to buy passage there and visit the Wall and King's Landing and Dorne, you know this. They will smell so different from Braavos!"
Darren laughs good naturedly. "I'll leave you to your business then." Beth hears him walk away and patiently waits for the Westerosi to start talking.
"We need to get the word out there," one of them says in a thick Northern accent. "How fast do you work?"
"Depends. Do you want it to become a rumor that picks up over time or do you want everyone to know it right away? It'll be cheaper if you want everyone to know right away because that means less work for me."
"Something between those," says another. "We want everyone to know but it can take time."
"Three coppers for speed service, five for a mediocre and ten for a rumor. And you have to tell me what is happening over there."
"Fine," a third man says and Beth holds her hand out, feeling five small coins pressed in it. "We need you to spread the word that King Brandon Stark is looking for his sister Princess Arya."
Beth felt her heart freeze. Hadn't Bran and Rickon been killed by Theon Greyjoy? "Okay. Now tell me the story of King Brandon and his sister."
She sits there in the burning sun, so different from North even if they were on the same latitude as the Neck, listening how King Brandon had been crowned a week after King Robb died. About how King Brandon rode to the Wall on Night's Watch's call to treat with the Wildling King, giving them permission to inhabit a part of North in exchange for men fighting for his cause. How King Brandon had gotten Asha Greyjoy to swear allegiance to him and then had taken over the Iron Isles. Of how he saved his uncles from the Kingslayer whom he stripped of his knighthood. Of how he took the Twins and gave the Frey's their due. Of how he found his sister Princess Sansa in Vale pretending to be a bastard girl and all this with his little brother riding in front of him, sharing the saddle. How his forces were holding Riverlands easily against the army of Iron Throne and how Asha Greyjoy was looting the Lannisters of their gold and the Tyrells of their food. Beth asks of the Unsullied too and inwardly smiles at the answer. How King Brandon was now focusing on looking for his last missing sister.
"When are you sailing?" she asks after the gentlemen have ended their stories.
"Two days from now," man number one answers. "Why?"
Beth gives a mysterious smile. "You might have a new passenger by then," she tells them and feels her way to the streets.
Two days later when the ships bound to White Harbor leave, they have a young girl abroad with short dark brown hair and stormy grey eyes who carries a thin blade with the mark of Winterfell's old smith.