Serina Phassos sighed and shook her head at the sight of the black eye on her brother Adaran's face. "What was it this time?" she asked wearily. "Did someone compose an inferior sonnet to the Nightingale's eyebrow?"

Adaran gave her the sidelong look that every long-suffering younger sibling has given their nosy, interfering elders down the centuries. "No," he said, drawing out the word not quite long enough for insolence, "that slaver-lover Illyros Forin said that we should let the Kingdom of Myr fight its own battles. I disputed his position."

Serina cocked an eyebrow as she sat down at the table. "A fist is a tool of debate now?" she asked, glancing up as one of the kitchen maids brought in a basket of rolls. "Thank you, Minysa," she said politely, drawing a smile from the maid; the superiority of master to servant went without saying, as her mother had taught her, but a noblewoman of Braavos never treated the help like slaves. Part of that was knowing their names and thanking them for service done well and promptly.

"Seems to be working well enough for the Andals," Adaran replied, seizing a roll and splitting it in half with his knife. "The slavers operate on fear and power anyway," he went on, buttering his roll as he did so. "If you want to talk to them, it helps to speak their language."

Their father Ballario glanced up from his slice of frittata to fix Adaran with a look that was no less steely for being mild. "The Forins aren't slavers," he said brusquely. "I should know; I've been in business with them for forty years. Make sure you're certain of your target before you loose your words, boy."

Adaran returned his father's look. "I know they're not slavers, father," he said reasonably, "but what are we supposed to call those who do business with the slavers and close their eyes to the fact of slavery? Which is more vile; the one who commits a crime, or the one who stands aside and allows it to be committed?"

Ballario's gaze hardened. "Enough, boy," he said definitively. "I do not dispute the question, but I will not allow you to insult my partners under my roof." Adaran opened his mouth to continue the argument, but closed it as Ballario's gaze became adamantine. Standing from his chair he bowed shortly and strode away, his hand darting out to filch another roll as he went. Serina watched her brother walk away and sighed softly through her nose. The Moonsingers knew she loved her younger brother dearly, but he needed to learn not to provoke their father so.

Ballario blew his cheeks out as he leaned back in his chair. "I'm sorry you had to see that, my dear," he said to her. "Strife in a family is an ill thing, be it never so mild."

Serina shrugged slightly. "Better that I know of it, at least," she replied. "If only to know it exists."

Her father gestured acknowledgement. "Even so," he rumbled, in the mildly embarrassed tone that colored his words whenever such matters arose. He shook his head. "Adaran's a good lad, but he will let his heart run away with his head so. It's that damned faction he's fallen into, these Sharks as they call themselves. Pack of idle louts whose families don't give them enough work and let them run to mischief." He shook his head again, like a bull pestered by flies. "When I was a lad, young men of that age were kept too busy to get up to devilment."

Serina toyed with her frittata. "From what my friends tell me, the Whales aren't much better," she offered. "Nilona told me yesterday that her brothers have been present at four fights in the past six days, and three of them provoked by Whales."

The Sharks and the Whales were the two factions that had sprung up in Braavosi politics since the end of the First Slave War; the names had originated as derogatory insults that had quickly been adopted. The Sharks favored joining the Kingdom of Myr in their crusade against slavery, not simply with monetary aid but with arms. To the ships! was their cry. Spread the First Law at the sword's point! Remind the slavers why they fear the Titan! They were mostly young hotheads, as her father had said, but they also counted magisters among their number, and a frankly disturbing number of soldiers and fleet sailors eager to wipe out the stain of paying tribute to Khal Zirqo the Faithless.

The Whales, by contrast, preferred to keep their involvement in the fray to a minimum. They saw little point, or so they claimed, in spending Braavosi treasure and blood when the Kingdom of Myr not only did both so well, but placed their treasury effectively at the mercy of the Iron Bank. Let the Andals shoulder the burden they had assumed, they said, and let them carry Braavos to new heights of wealth and influence in the Narrow Sea.

Her father nodded. "And my own friends have told me of more such outbursts," he said. "Common brawls and proper duels both. No one has died yet, but the Night Watch fears the worst." He waved a hand. "But enough of such talk," he went on, his voice turning brisk. "You've had four days and nights to consider Magister Nestyris' offer on behalf of his son; what say you?"

Serina spread her hands. "If it is your will that I accept, father, than I shall certainly do so," she said guilelessly. "But is it entirely fitting for one of our house to marry a younger son of a family that only reached the rank of magister three years ago? You said yourself that you would have no tradesman for a son-in-law."

"Tradesman, bosh," Ballario replied. "The Nestyris's are perfectly respectable, and their second son is a good young man, or so I have heard."

"A good young man who has yet to make his first voyage," Serina rejoined. "Surely you would not force me to wed an untested youth, father?"

"I would see you wed to a good man, and that quickly," her father said seriously. "You and Adaran are the only heirs in the direct line of this house, and I know my cousins for the spendthrift wastrels they are. I will not suffer them to lay claim to your inheritance, girl, or Adaran's."

Serina bowed her head. She knew the law; in the event that a minor child had no living parents, custody passed to their nearest living relative, with preference shown to the male line. And with custody of their persons came control of their inheritance and their betrothal and marriage until they came of age. Her father was past sixty, and the brown had long since leached out of his hair and beard; she and her younger brother had been born late in their parents' lives, and their mother had died birthing a stillborn daughter. If, all the gods prevent, her father died before either of them attained their majority, then they would certainly be at the mercy of their father's cousins, the best of whom simply had a weakness for gambling that was matched by his ineptitude. The thought of their house being mortgaged or even sold in order to pay off his debts, or of being forced into a marriage to one of their cousins' more unsavory business partners, simply did not bear thinking of.

And while Adaran might be able to resist or flee, she would have no such recourse. Indeed, even the worst case would appear to outsiders to be only the fulfilling of familial obligation. At sixteen she was old to be unbetrothed; the average age of betrothal among the Braavosi magisters was fourteen or fifteen, for girls and boys both. This, it was acknowledged but never explicitly stated, was so that young men going on their first voyage in the City's trading fleets had something more than mere filial obligation and patriotic duty to prevent them from jumping ship in a foreign land for romance's sake or, even more shocking, bringing a foreign bride back to the City. It happened on occasion, but social opprobrium meant that such marriages rarely prospered.

All of which meant that she had to either marry or at least become betrothed, and soon; even a marriage of convenience would be better than one of force. The problem was that none of the unattached men of her age and station were men that she could consider living the rest of her life with without being bored out of her mind.

And while some of her friends might come near to swooning at the thought of being carried away by some dashing, handsome, chivalrous Andal knight, much to the vexation of their brothers and cousins, Serina had no such illusions. Her station and her family's wealth meant that she had to marry for the sake of advantage more than anything, and a rich lordling who had turned his back on land and fortune to fight in a worthy cause, or a hedge knight dreaming of fortune and glory, would have little to offer her family.

And besides, for her to succumb to such fantasies would smack of hypocrisy. Had she not called two of her closest friends a pair of fools just yesterday for dreaming too long on the thought of marrying Jaime Lannister or Robert Baratheon?

XXX

Eddard looked across the training yard to where Robert was exercising at one of the pells and frowned pensively. Ordinarily, when Robert was at the pell, he fought the man-high oak post almost as if it were a living opponent, dancing about it on the balls of his feet and darting back and forth to strike at it with his hammer, surprisingly light-footed for a man his size. Today, however, Robert had simply squared up to the pell and was methodically beating at it with his hammer, chips flying from where the blunt serrations on the striking face of his hammer had gouged at the wood.

It wasn't like Robert to practice so sloppily; there was always the temptation for a man as large and strong as Robert to neglect their mobility in favor of raw strength and heavy armor, but their masters-of-arms had never let Robert fall into that trap. And Robert had continued those habits after leaving the Eyrie. Something, therefore, was out of joint.

He turned to Saul, who had recently become his squire and was almost painfully keen to learn how to fight. "Pair with Daimh, tell him I said he was to teach you the guard of the boar," he said. Saul nodded and trotted over to where Daimh was supervising some of the newer household men at drill, while Eddard walked across the yard towards Robert, shouldering his longsword. "If you're trying to cut that thing down, I would suggest an axe," he said lightly, making Robert pause and look at him dully. Eddard blinked; Robert looked terrible. His face was drawn, his eyes red, and he looked more subdued than he had since King's Landing. "Are you all right, brother?" he asked. "You look like someone drank all your beer."

Robert let the haft of his hammer slip through his fingers until the butt hit the ground and folded his hands over the hammerhead. "I asked Alaesa to marry me," he said wearily. "She refused. Said she wasn't cut out to be a queen and anyway women like her didn't get to be queens. They just got to live in comfort all their days and bear the children that men didn't feel like giving their wives."

"Ah," Eddard said, nodding in acknowledgement, before gesturing with the hand that wasn't holding his longsword on his shoulder. "Well, as hints go, at least it's pretty clear . . ."

"Damn you Ned, it's not funny," Robert snapped, a thread of anger entering his voice. "I swore, after Pentos, that I wouldn't treat a woman like a whore. If I keep Alaesa as a mistress, I would be doing exactly that, and I wouldn't even be able to have the excuse of ignorance this time." He sighed gustily, looking down towards the short-mowed grass. "She's the only woman who's been able to make me laugh, actually laugh, since Lyanna," he said softly. "I know I have to marry, and that quickly, but I don't want to marry some brainless bint with nothing of worth but her name and her womb. I'm owed a bit more happiness than that, surely?"

Eddard nodded again, then jerked his head towards the rest of the yard. "Come on, let's spar."

Robert shook his head. "I'm not . . ." he began.

"Best thing for you," Eddard said over him. "Get your mind off Alaesa for a little while at least."

Robert stood looking at the ground for a moment more, almost like one of the more brooding statues of the Warrior, before looking up and nodding. "Fine then," he said. "But not with longswords. I saw your match against Jaime; I'm not in the mood to look like an ox."

"Arming sword and buckler," Eddard promised.

A few moments later the two foster brothers were standing towards the edge of the training yard, having swapped longsword and hammer for their arming swords and a buckler apiece. The first exchange was slow and almost tentative, ending with a wrist cut from Eddard that came to rest on the inside of Robert's knee, but afterwards they became faster and more forthright, until eventually Eddard and Robert were throwing cuts almost as hard and fast as they would have thrown them at Tyroshi regulars and raising a discordant cling-ting-scring of metal on metal. Their last exchange ended in Eddard catching Robert's blade in an elegant bind, whereupon Robert dropped blade and buckler both to rush in, wrap his arms around Eddard's midriff, heave him bodily off his feet and throw him to the ground with a powerful writhing twist like a massive python, and almost draw his rondel dagger before he remembered that this was his brother-in-all-but-blood that was pinned underneath him. Slowly he got to his feet, hauling Eddard along with him.

"You really are getting better," he said. "You wouldn't have even tried that last bind when we were at the Vale."

"Of course not, since I only learned it two sennights ago," Eddard replied, handing sword and buckler off to Saul, who had been watching them wide-eyed along with all the rest of Eddard and Robert's households that were currently at drill. As Daimh and Ser Dafyn Otley roared the cheering men back to their exercises, Robert and Eddard strode over to one of the wooden benches that were scattered around the periphery of the training yard. Saul met them there with a canteen of watered wine each and hovered a moment more until Eddard raised an eyebrow at him and nodded towards Daimh. "Saul's a good lad," he told Robert. "A bit too eager, though. If he hadn't been under strict orders to remain with the baggage train he'd have jumped into Narrow Run with both feet, and him barely fourteen."

"Better to have to restrain the stallion than prod the mule," Robert replied. "He'll learn." He tipped back his canteen for a pull and wiped his mouth with his the back of his hand afterwards. "I'll ask Alaesa again tomorrow," he said. "Who knows, maybe she'll have changed her mind."

Eddard shook his head. "Only if you want to forfeit her regard for you," he said firmly. "You asked her, she said no, that ends the matter. Part of not treating a woman like a whore is respecting her choices." At Robert's raised eyebrow he shrugged. "I've only been married a few months, but I learned that much in the first sennight."

Robert shook his head. "Maybe I should take a tip from you," he said. "Go down to the docks, find a willing woman, and have her turn out to a desirable and worthy wife."

"You truly think so?" Eddard asked. "When I married Amarya, I was no one important; simply the King of Myr's mad dog who he kept around to set on his enemies. Who I married didn't matter to anyone but me." Which was no longer strictly true, given that Robert had granted him a wide swathe of lands bordering on the royal demesne around Myr city as a wedding gift. Calculating by acreage, Eddard was one of the two or three greatest men in the Kingdom of Myr. "You, on the other hand, are a king; who you marry matters a great deal indeed." He took a sip from his canteen. "If you want my advice, after Alaesa's refusal," he went on, "then I would recommend that you look to Braavos for a wife. At the moment the Braavosi see us as customers, and a proxy who can do the lion's share of the dying in this phase of their long war against slavery. If they see one of their own as our queen, and an heir to our throne that is half-Braavosi . . ." he shrugged.

Robert frowned. "You think that we might pull them into the war openly?" he asked.

"I think that it would make it harder for the peace party in Braavos, these Whales, as we've heard them called, to argue that we should be left to do all the fighting and dying if doing so weakens the position of a Braavosi citizen," Eddard replied. "And if Gerion can finagle a treaty out of them at the same time that unequivocally states that Braavos will join us in the event of war, then we will have won the most powerful navy in the known world to our side. You know as well as I, brother, how much we need such a navy."

Robert nodded. The Royal Fleet was growing again, but only slowly, and even after incorporating the remains of Erik Ironmaker's fleet it still numbered only one ninety-five longships and fifty galleys. "I will think on it," he conceded. "After I see Alaesa settled. And I say it now, Ned," he looked Eddard in the eye. "Whoever I marry, Alaesa's child will be a Baratheon. It was stories of my bastards that made Lyanna wary of marrying me; with the gods as my witness, I'll not sire another child without giving them my name. To shit with the consequences."

Eddard nodded slowly and deeply. "As you say, Your Grace."

Author's note: My beta reader and I considered not having Braavosian politics split between a peace party and a war party, but it just made too much sense not to put in. Braavos has been coexisting with the slaver cities for centuries; it stands to reason that at least some of the Braavosi magisters and trading cartels would be reluctant to go to war against their customers and business partners.