Theon

She was undeniably a beauty. But your first is always beautiful, Theon Greyjoy thought.

"Now there's a pretty grin," Dagmer Cleftjaw's voice said behind him. "I believe you like the look of her."

Theon turned to give the man an appraising glance. He found the hideous smile of Dagmer Cleftjaw a welcoming sight even though it made for a hideous sight. Under a snowy white mane of hair, Dagmer Cleftjaw had the most gut-churning scar Theon had ever seen, the legacy of the longaxe that had near killed him as a boy. The blow had splintered his jaw, shattered his front teeth, and left him four lips where other men had but two. A shaggy beard covered his cheeks and neck, but the hair would not grow over the scar, so a shiny seam of puckered, twisted flesh divided his face like a crevasse through a snowfield.

"Yes, she's a sweet sight," he told her, "and I mean to put her to good use."

"I have no doubt that you would," Dagmer said, smiling. He had no lack for smiles. "I can't wait to sail with you." A lesser man might have been afraid to show a smile as frightening as his, yet Dagmer grinned more often and more broadly than Lord Balon ever had.

Ugly as it was, that smile brought back a hundred memories. Theon had seen it often as a boy, when he'd jumped a horse over a mossy wall, or flung an axe and split a target square. He'd seen it when he blocked a blow from Dagmer's sword, when he put an arrow through a seagull on the wing, when he took the tiller in hand and guided a longship safely through a snarl of foaming rocks. He gave me more smiles than my father and my brothers together. Even today . . . he ought to have won a smile at least today where he'd won the command of his own longship, but instead all he'd gotten was a scowl that still doubted his skill at the command.

"You and I must talk, Uncle," Theon said. Dagmer was no true uncle, only a sworn man with perhaps a pinch of Greyjoy blood four or five lives back, and that from the wrong side of the blanket. Yet Theon had always called him uncle nonetheless.

"Come onto my deck, then. I must set sail soon. Your father has a command for me." There were no m'lords from Dagmer, not when he stood on his own deck. On the Iron Islands, every captain was a king aboard his own ship.

Dagmer's own longship the Foamdrinker was docked on the sea beside Theon's own Sea Bitch. Theon had known that his father had assigned Dagmer and the Foamdrinker for something important but he did not know what it actually was. He suspected that his wicked witch of a sister might know but none said anything to Theon Greyjoy, the last of Balon Greyjoy's children.

He climbed the plank to the deck of the Foamdrinker in four long strides, and Dagmer led him back to the cramped aft cabin, where the old man poured a horn of sour ale and offered Theon the same. He declined. "Where are you leaving to?"

"Your father has asked me to go to Old Wyk to roust the Stonehouses and the Drumms," the Cleftjaw said.

"To what purpose? Why are the longships hosting?"

"Why have longships ever hosted?" Dagmer asked. "I think you know the answer to it."

"Will father join the war?" Theon asked.

"I think you know the answer to it, Theon."

Did he? For days Lord Balon has gathered his best champions and his captains in his solar and counselled with them ever since word of the wolf King's return has reached Pyke. While both of his elder brothers were invited there had not been one for Theon Greyjoy. And worse was that even Asha had a place at his father's council.

"There is no man in the Iron Islands half so skilled with spear or sword, uncle. If I had a man like you in my service, I should not waste him on this child's business of heralding men. This is no work for Lord Balon's best man . . . "

Dagmer's grin twisted his lips apart and showed the brown splinters of his teeth. "Nor for his trueborn son?" He hooted. "I know you too well, Theon. I saw you take your first step, helped you bend your first bow. 'Tis not me who feels wasted."

"By rights I should have my sister's command," he admitted, uncomfortably aware of how peevish that sounded. "Even now she is sailing her Black Wind across the greenlands fancying to win a castle for herself, I think. She sits in my father's council where I should rightfully sit, goes on raids and wars with my brothers in my place. And I am here watching my ship stay anchored."

"You take this business too hard, boy. It is only that your lord father does not see the real you, yet. Your brothers were raiders while you were still an infant in swaddled clothes. He learned to rely on them and your sister long before you learned to fight, and they have never failed him."

"Nor have I. I have done all that he's asked of me however small that might be."

"Why do you tell me this?" Dagmer asked. "It was me who put your first sword in your hand. I know you are no craven."

"Does my father?"

The hoary old warrior looked as if he had bitten into something he did not like the taste of. "It is only . . . Theon, your father will see your worth."

"How can I do that unless I prove myself with some great deed?" Theon said tired and determined. "So I shall. I wish you good luck on the voyage to Great Wyk uncle."

He took leave of the ship and climbed down the way he had come.

Lordsport was as crowded as he'd ever seen it, swarming with the crews of the longships that lined the pebbled shore and rode at anchor well out past the breakwater. Ironmen did not bend their knees often nor easily, but Theon noted that oarsmen and townfolk alike grew quiet as they passed, and acknowledged him with respectful bows of the head. They have finally learned who I am, he thought. And past time too.

Lord Goodbrother of Great Wyk had come in the night before with his main strength, near forty longships. His men were everywhere, conspicuous in their striped goat's hair sashes.

He would soon have to choose his crew as well. There was Bluetooth, a skilled seafarer of his own, tall man in bearskin vest and raven-winged helm. He would have made a fine first mate. But Theon would be insulting him by offering a position as Bluetooth already captained a ship of his own.

His uncle Victarion had loaned him his own steersman, Rymolf Stormdrunk. A good and capable man, at least as long as he's sober. He saw more faces he knew, trying to find any of his friends from childhood those with whom he had played with but they were either dead or had grown to be strangers. There was Uller and Qarl and Skyte but all three served in different ships.

Lordsport had no lack of strong arms. Theon had given the matter no little thought. It was fighters he wanted, and men who would be loyal to him, not to his lord father or his uncles. He was playing the part of a dutiful young son for the moment, while he waited for Lord Balon to reveal the fullness of his plans. If it turned out that he did not like those plans or his part in them, however, well . . .

He could see that there were merchant ships in the seas as well, rocking high and empty by the quays. Lord Balon would not permit any ship to leave the island. None of the merchantmen that called at Lordsport had been allowed to depart again; his father wanted no word of the hosting to reach the mainland before he was ready to strike.

He had told Wex to wait at the inn with their horses. The common room was so crowded that Theon had to push his way through the door. Not a seat was to be had at bench nor table. Nor did he see his squire. "Wex", he shouted over the din and clatter. If he's up with one of those poxy whores, I'll strip the hide off him, he was thinking when he finally spied the boy, dicing near the hearth . . . and winning too, by the look of the pile of coins before him.

"Time to go," Theon announced. Wex grabbed up a fistful of coppers and came along without a word. That was one of the things Theon liked best about him. Most squires have loose tongues, but Wex had been born dumb . . . which didn't seem to keep him from being clever as any twelve-year-old had a right to be. He was a baseborn son of one of Lord Botley's half brothers. His brother Maron had found him to squire for Theon, most likely as a jape.

They had ridden in on a scrawny little garrons from Lord Balon's stable. The Iron Islands were too sparse and rocky for breeding good horses. Most of the islanders were indifferent riders at best, more comfortable on the deck of a longship than in the saddle. Even the lords rode garrons or shaggy Harlaw ponies, and ox carts were more common than drays. The smallfolk too poor to own either one pulled their own plows through the thin, stony soil.

The ride back to Pyke promised to be a as bad as the ride down had been. He took the road by the shore. The shore was all sharp rocks and glowering cliffs, and the castle seemed one with the rest, its towers and walls and bridges quarried from the same grey-black stone, wet by the same salt waves, festooned with the same spreading patches of dark green lichen, speckled by the droppings of the same seabirds. The point of land on which the Greyjoys had raised their fortress had once thrust like a sword into the bowels of the ocean, but the waves had hammered at it day and night until the land broke and shattered, thousands of years past. All that remained were three bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water like the pillars of some sea god's temple, while the angry waves foamed and crashed among them.

Drear, dark, forbidding, Pyke stood atop those islands and pillars, almost a part of them, its curtain wall closing off the headland around the foot of the great stone bridge that leapt from the clifftop to the largest islet, dominated by the massive bulk of the Great Keep. Farther out were the Kitchen Keep and the Bloody Keep, each on its own island. Towers and outbuildings clung to the stacks beyond, linked to each other by covered archways when the pillars stood close, by long swaying walks of wood and rope when they did not.

The Sea Tower rose from the outmost island at the point of the broken sword, the oldest part of the castle, round and tall, the sheer-sided pillar on which it stood half-eaten through by the endless battering of the waves. The base of the tower was white from centuries of salt spray, the upper stories green from the lichen that crawled over it like a thick blanket, the jagged crown black with soot from its nightly watchfire.

Above the Sea Tower snapped his father's banner. A long black cloth with the golden kraken of House Greyjoy, arms writhing and reaching in the middle. The banner streamed from an iron mast, shivering and twisting as the wind gusted, like a bird struggling to take flight.

Theon had never seen a more stirring sight. Inside his father would be with his brothers. Theon's own had left for their own adventures. Rodrik and Asha had circled past the Narrow Sea and Maron sailed the Sunset Seas with his friends. He never stayed far from the iron fleet. Even if they were home it would make no difference. None would like to miss him, except for Lady Alannys, his mother. He had once thought that he could rely on his uncles when his brothers had failed him. But that thought had soon proved worthless as well. Aeron was drunk on seawater and sanctity. He lived only for his god and spent too much time for the Drowned god to have any time for Theon. And his uncle Victarion, Lord Captain of the Iron Fleet, and a fearsome warrior. He had heard them sing of him in the alehouses. He was dutiful enough to follow his father's orders. Then there was Euron Croweye, the oldest of his father's brothers. He'd heard men say terrible things of that one.

He had not been seen in the islands for close on two years. He might very well be dead. If so, it might be for the best. Lord Balon's eldest brother had never given up the Old Way, even for a day. His Silence, with its black sails and dark red hull, was infamous in every port from Ibben to Asshai, it was said. No doubt a deed worthy of a song, Theon thought, but an adventure fit for a madman.

The gates stood open to him, the rusted iron portcullis drawn up. The guards atop the battlements watched him as Theon Greyjoy returned back. They liked to welcome my brothers and sister with laughter and greetings. Even with them away and Theon the only one at home none wanted to celebrate the last of Lord Balon's children.

Beyond the curtain wall were half a hundred acres of headland hard against the sky and the sea. The stables were here, and the kennels, and a scatter of other outbuildings. Sheep and swine huddled in their pens while the castle dogs ran free. To the south were the cliffs, and the wide stone bridge to the Great Keep. Theon could hear the crashing of waves as he swung down from his saddle. A stableman came to take his horse. A pair of gaunt children and some servants stared at him with dull eyes.

Theon returned to the Great Keep through a covered stone walkway, the echoes of his footsteps mingling with the ceaseless rumble of the sea below. To get to his chambers on the Sea Tower on its crooked pillar, he had to cross three further bridges, each narrower than the one before. The last was made of rope and wood, and the wet salt wind made it sway underfoot like a living thing. Theon's heart was in his mouth by the time he was halfway across. A long way below, the waves threw up tall plumes of spray as they crashed against the rock. As a boy, he used to run across this bridge, even in the black of night. Boys believe nothing can hurt them, his doubt whispered. Grown men know better.

The door was grey wood studded with iron. Theon opened the door and entered the chambers. His father was supposed to host a feast for his bannermen that night and Theon would be called forth to attend as well.

He took a cup of wine and went to the window seat, where he sat drinking and watching the sea while the sun darkened over Pyke. The water below turned from green to grey to black. By then he could hear distant music, and he knew it was time to change for the feast.

Theon chose plain boots and plainer clothes, somber shades of black and grey to fit his mood.

The long smoky hall was crowded with his father's lords and captains when Theon entered, near four hundred of them. Dagmer Cleftjaw had left for the Old Wyk to bring the Stonehouses and Drumms, but all the rest were already here-Harlaws from Harlaw, Blacktydes from Blacktyde, Sparrs, Merlyns, and Goodbrothers from Great Wyk, Saltcliffes and Sunderlies from Saltcliffe, and Botleys and Wynches from the other side of Pyke. The thralls were pouring ale, and there was music, fiddles and skins and drums. Three burly men were doing the finger dance, spinning short-hafted axes at each other. The trick was to catch the axe or leap over it without missing a step. It was called the finger dance because it usually ended when one of the dancers lost one . . . or two, or five.

Neither the dancers nor the drinkers took much note of Theon Greyjoy as he strode to the dais. Lord Balon occupied the Seastone Chair, carved in the shape of a great kraken from an immense block of oily black stone. Legend said that the First Men had found it standing on the shore of Old Wyk when they came to the Iron Islands. To the left of the high seat were Theon's uncles. His brothers' seats to his father's right hand were empty, so was his sister's, in the place of honor, beside Maron's chair. Theon's own chair was at the far end, the last of all the siblings'. "You come late, Theon," Lord Balon observed.

"I ask your pardon." Theon took the empty seat beside that of his sister's, not wanting to cause any measly qualms for his hurt pride.

He called in a servant girl and asked for wine. He'd drunk enough wine to float him through two meals.

The feast was a good enough, a succession of fish stews, black bread, and spiceless goat. The tastiest thing Theon found to eat was an onion pie. Ale and wine continued to flow well after the last of the courses had been cleared away.

Lord Balon Greyjoy rose from the Seastone Chair. "Have done with your drink and come to my solar," he commanded his companions on the dais. "We have plans to lay." He left them with no other word, flanked by two of his guards. His brothers followed in short order. Theon rose to go after them but then stayed back knowing that his father had not issued a summon to him.

About half an hour later he was approached by a guard in a black iron breastplate and pothelm. "You are requested by your father in his solar?"

"Me?" Theon was confused. His father had never requested his presence before.

"Yes, you." He turned and left without another word.

Rain was falling by the time he reached the swaying bridge out to the Sea Tower. Theon gritted his teeth and gripped the rope tightly as he made his way across.

The solar was as damp and drafty as ever. His father's chair was empty and the room was occupied only by his brother and uncles. Victarion was talking of tides and winds when Theon entered, but Lord Balon waved him silent. "We have our plans. It is time we did something in this war of the dragons and wolves."

"Will it be war, uncle?"

"Why do you think these lords are here," his uncle asked. "Dagmer will bring in the Drumms and Stonehouses. If the god grants us good winds, we will sail when they arrive . . . or so per your father's command."

"Where is father?"

"Talking with his captains." It was Aeron who answered. "He is giving them their orders to follow and he has a few for you as well. You are all here for that." He looked at Theon.

A ghost of a smile brushed his lips. Finally, something that will help me prove my worth. He was about to ask which side they'd taken when the door burst open and a guard in black iron helm and mail rushed in through it. "Lord Commander," he said looking at his uncle Victarion.

"What is it, man?" His uncle asked.

"It's the King," he grumbled. "It's your brother. He fell. He fell from the bridges while he was crossing it. A wind took him."