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Chapter 56: We Do Not Sow
"And now the fun begins..."
– Ser Harras the Knight
It was always the ravens. They settled on the gables of the church even before the injured became the dead. Even before Rike 'the Red' Myre had finished taking fingers from hands, and rings from fingers. Ser Harras leaned back against the gallowspost and looked to the birds, a dozen of them in a black line, wise-eyed and watching.
The town-square ran red. Blood in the gutters, blood on the flagstones, blood in the fountain. The corpses posed as corpses did. Some comical, reaching for the sky with missing fingers, some peaceful, coiled about their wounds. Flies rose above the wounded as they struggled. This way and that, some blind, some sly.
All were betrayed by their buzzing entourage, ruining what semblance of mummery they'd put on.
"Water! Water!" It's always water with the dying. Strange truly, it was killing that gave most a thirst.
Such was the fate of Brighton. Two hundred dead farmers lying with their scythes and axes. Harras had tried to warn them in his own way. He'd spoken to their leader, Bovid… or was it David? Whatever the old man's name was he'd given them a chance. It was more than most got, in truth, they had purpose beyond raiding.
"Kneel and submit," he'd told the farmers. "Kneel and live, or stand tall and die well…"
They had chosen blood and slaughter, and they'd gotten it. The choice was one he could respect. It was the right one. They'd have killed them all regardless.
War was a thing of beauty. Those as said otherwise were like to be losing. If he bothered to go over to old Bovid, propped up against the fountain with his guts in his lap, he'd probably take a contrary view though. Then again, look where disagreeing had gotten him, soon-to-be some lucky raven's lunch given some minutes.
"Shit-poor farm maggots," Myre discarded a handful of fingers over Bovid's open belly. He came to Harras, holding out his takings, as if it were his fault. "Look here Knight! One gold ring! One! A whole village and one fecking gold ring. I'd like to set the bastards up and knock'em down again. Fecking bog-farmers!"
He would too: he was a tough bastard, and greedy as the tide with it.
Ser Harras held his eye. "Settle down Myre, we're not here for farmers gold…"
The Knight gave him a warning look. His cursing tainted the air; besides, a man had to be stern with folk like Red Rike – one of the King's creatures – all malice with no heart nor head. Harras gave him a look that promised a swift end. In a fair fight, no man here could hope to best him… but then again, no Ironborn truly fought fair…
The farmers had fought fair. David, Javid, or whatever his name was; he'd fought fair with the rest of them. Ask them where fighting fair had gotten them.
Red Rike grumbled, but quickly stowed away his bloody gold ring and thrust his ugly iron knife back into his belt. House Myre's blazon boasted ten nooses on white, with a border of red blood; they served as unruly vassals of Harlaw. "First and Last" were their words, meant to threaten a man's hanging – their first and last – with ten nooses on their banners for each of the petty kings of old they'd once hung… though the jest remained how the Myre's in truth hanged ten peasants instead of kings…
When the first Myre led his raiding party ashore, it was said, the average andal farmer was far richer than the Myre's. They mistook the farmers for Kings.
Not a story one told in the presence of a Myre if one wished to keep living however, what they lacked in wealth they made up for in savagery.
Jakin Orkwood came up then and flung an arm around Myre, clapping his gauntlet to shoulder-plate as if they were the best of friends.
"Ser Harras is right, Little Rikey, there's treasure aplenty to be found ahead! Present too!"
He called Rike Myre 'Little Rikey' on account of Jakin's being a whole head taller than the rest.
Always making jokes, this one; it was likely to get him killed one of these days soon as his luck ran out.
"What treasure?" Myre wanted to know, still salty as the sea.
"When you get farmers, what else do you always get, Little Rikey?"
Rike treated them to his ugly face. It was brutal more than ugly, in truth. All scarred and red with ruin.
"Cows?" he guessed, uncertain of the answer. "Pigs?"
Jakin pursed his lips, too thick and fleshy for his mouth.
A man could forgive him his ugliness as thanks for his humour and his work with that flail of his.
"Well," he chuckled. "You can have the livestock Little Rikey. Me, I'm going to find a farmer's daughter, before the others use them all up…"
They went off at that, Rike doing that laugh of his, "hur, hur, hur," as if he was trying to cough a fishbone out from that fleshy throat of his.
Ser Harras watched them force down the door to one home opposite the church of the seven andal gods, a fine house too, high roofed with wooden slates and a little flower garden in front that had been all but trampled. The Knight looked to the ravens, then to Gemit Wynch and his half-wit brother Mikard taking heads, the half-wit with the cart and Gemit with the axe. Wynch chopped with practiced precision, chop and chop and chop, all while Mikard Pyke laughed in his dim-witted manner.
"B- Boy…"
It was Yavid… or was it Tavid?
His voice was all hollow-like and weak.
Harras went to stand before him, leaning on his family sword.
Nightfall was sharp and thin, forged of Valyrian steel, its pommel was moonstone and its handguard a mess of twisted silver barbs.
The pommel was a thing of his own addition, upon his cousin's gift of the blade and naming as Heir to Harlaw he'd had the moonstone added.
"Speak your peace quickly, farmer," Harras spoke to the barely living old man. "Wynch is coming with his axe. Chop-chop now…"
He didn't seem too worried about the fact. It was dreadfully hard to worry a man so close to the worm-feast, with nothing left to lose.
It did – Harras could admit – irk him to be called "boy" at his age. Near six feet, tall, heir to a great house at twenty-and-one. He was no boy…
Had those seven andal knights of Grimm thought him a boy when they'd fought outside the gates? Could a mere Boy slay five and maim two?
When he'd walked up to Grimston by his lonesome, he'd planted his standard beneath the castle and challenged the Grimm's to come out and face him. One son did, and then another, and another. He slew them all… well, near enough, two yielded in the end. When the seventh man went down, Lord Grimm's septon decided the gods had spoken and promptly surrendered the castle. And now, thanks to Euron Greyjoy, he was Lord of Greyshield on top of being Harlaw's Heir.
No matter what his cousin Hotho the Humpback might whisper in his cups, the fool, his status as Heir would not be questioned. The Reader wouldn't allow it.
And this farmer, half dead already, dared to call him Boy? It was an insult he'd not soon forget… though one supposed the man would die regardless…
"Do you have daughter's farmer?" Harras asked, plainly. "Hiding in the cellar perhaps? Red Rike will snuff them out I'm sure…"
The old dying man looked up sharp at that, pained and sharp. "H-how old are you, boy?"
Again with the insult. "Old enough to slit you open," he answered, letting his anger flare. He didn't like getting angry. It made him angry. The old man didn't seem to catch that however, or he did and simply didn't care so close to deaths door. He didn't seem to even realise it was Harras himself who opened him up in the first place.
"Eighteen summers, no more. Couldn't be more… so young…" His words came slow, from blue lips on a white face.
Wrong by years. It was his smooth face; handsome he'd been called by some. It was the andal bloods doing.
The cart creaked up behind him, and Wynch came along with his axe dripping red.
"Take his head," Ser Harras told them. "Leave his fat belly for the ravens…"
Eighteen? Ha. At eighteen he'd already won tourneys and knocked andals off their high horses.
In a few more years now, he'd be Lord of Ten Towers and Lord of Greyshield both… perhaps more…
King Euron had gifted him the Shield Island for his seizing of it, to be sure, but it was a modest holding to be passed down to his second or third sons or perhaps to any salt-sons he might have – it would not serve as his seat forever – if it even held that long. He was not wholly sold on the King's plans…
That said, news of the Redwyne Fleet's destruction had emboldened most men. Who could stop them now? Nobody, most thought.
Whoever it was who sunk the Redwyne's if he were a betting man, he'd wager, whatever fleet was so formidable might just be notable.
That was not a popular thought to have though, so Harras had kept it to himself. Such was a sea on the horizon to sail when they reached it.
Brighton burned well. All the villages burned well in truth, filled with houses of thatch and wood and hay and meat; all beautifully flammable – once upon a time this place had been a thriving village not far from the Honeywine River – that was to be their heading, into the Bright Valley that served as an agricultural capital for the Reach.
"Who'd ever want to be a damn farmer?" Wynch liked to ask stupid questions. Any question really, come to think of it – the man was always full of little questions.
"Who indeed?" Harras nodded toward Red Rike, rolling in his saddle, almost tired enough to fall out, wearing a stupid grin and a bolt of rich samite cloth over his iron half-plate. Where he found samite in Brighton of all places they'd never know. Lucky bastard.
"Little Rikey does enjoy his simple pleasures," Jakin mused with a smirk.
He did. Red Rike had a hunger for it. Hungry like the fire they'd set behind them.
The flames ate up Brighton. Harras had put the torch to the thatched inn himself, and the fire chased them out in its fury.
Rikey wiped at his sweat, smearing himself all over with sootstripes. He had a talent for getting dirty, did Rikey.
"The first one screeched like a barn owl; bloody hurt my ears she did – but her sister was quiet enough…"
Ser Harras doubted either of those poor girls were quiet when the fire reached them.
Gemit Wynch rode up and spoiled Rike's dark telling of his newest misadventure.
"The Reacher's will see that smoke from ten miles," he said. "We shouldn'ta burned it..."
He shook his head at that, his stupid mane of ginger hair bobbing this way and that in the breeze.
"Shouldn'ta," Gemit's idiot brother joined in, calling from the old grey. The grey wouldn't leave the road. That horse was cleverer than the halfwit.
Gemit always wanted to point stuff out. "You shouldn'ta put them bodies down the well, we'll go thirsty now!" and "You shouldn'ta killed that priest, old way says we should drown em!" and "If we'd gone easy on em, we'd have gotten a ransom from Old Lord Florent!"
Ignoring that by all reports the Florents were either dead or in exile, their lands amuck with bandits and the like.
Harras ached to put Nightfall through Gemit's throat. Just to lean out and plant it in his neck. It would be easy too.
"What's that?" He'd ask the man. "What say you, Wynch? Bubble, bubble? Shouldn'ta stabbed your apple?"
"Oh no!" He cried instead, all shocked-like. "Quick now, Little Rikey, go piss on Brighton and put the fire out!"
"Reacher's will see it," said Gemit, stubborn and red-faced. Wynch's all went red as beets if you crossed them. Most men cowered at that, but not Harras, that red face just made him want to kill the man even more. He didn't though. A man had responsibilities as a leader. The responsibility not to kill too many of your own men.
After all, if a man gets all his men killed, who was he going to lead then? The dead may never die but neither could they fight afterwards…
The column bunched up, the way it always did when something was amiss. Harras pulled on his reins, and his horse stopped with a snicker and a stamp. He watched Gemit and waited. Waited until everyone who was anyone had gathered around on this lonesome road, and until Gemit got so red you'd think his ears would bleed.
Those ears were near as red as the bloody moon on House Wynch's banners, silver and red on a field of eerie purple.
"Where are we going, my friends?" Harras stood in his stirrups so he could look out over their ugly faces.
"Shouldn't you know that Harlaw?"
Jakin earned some chuckles at that.
Red Rike looked confused, furrowing his brow.
Fat Terren Saltcliffe looked dumbstruck, and on his left the others stood. Silence.
"Ser Gemit can tell us," Harras suggested aloud. "He always knows what should be and what is!"
Ser Harras smiled, his hand itching, eager as fire to drive Nightfall through the man and end his constant whining.
"Honeyholt, on the River, tis our way," he said, all stubbornly reluctant, not wanting to agree to anything.
"Well and good. How are we going to get there? Near a hundred of us on our fine oh-so-stolen horses?"
Gemit set his jaw. He could see where I was going. He just didn't want to admit it.
"The River!" Red Rike yelled out happily at his knowledge of the great plan.
"Just so Rikey," Ser Harras hummed. "We are Ironborn, are we not!?"
"Why the delay then eh Knight?" Jakin asked, leaning forward on his saddle.
"Fine question," Harras smirked at him. "Any ideas Gemit?"
The man grew redder and redder in his forced silence.
"Nothing to say?" the Knight's smile held a scythe's edge.
"What if the Reacher's find us?" Fat Terren asked quietly.
"We'll be long gone," Harras assured them all. "No concerns there, Salt."
"They're coming anyway," he argued. "It's what the King wants, isn't it?"
Terren's chins quivered when he spoke, but he wasn't stupid. Just rather fat.
Euron had allowed ravens to fly from the Shield Islands and lured the Reachmen into one trap already.
"Just so," Harras agreed. It was true enough. "No witnesses to be had nor scent to follow, by the end… not that it'll matter…"
He swung Nightfall then, in a flash too quick to see, the thin Valyrian steel cut through meat and bone like it were a hot knife through butter. Gemit's head slid gracefully from his shoulders to be shortly followed by his limp body, hitting the muddy path below his horse with a wet thud. Nobody uttered a word. He shouldn'ta kept talking.
Harras hadn't needed to kill the man, in truth; he'd done it because he wanted to. Gemit had talked too much, too freely, too arrogantly. And besides, with all that red blood gushing to his skull, Harras considered it a service to have set it free. Five minutes down the road and further into the valley they could hear the slow-flowing waters of the Honeywine. From here the river flowed south to Honeyholt, then continued on to Oldtown and into the Whispering Sound; then to the very Sunset Sea.
"We seize the boats," Ser Harras ordered when they came across the first fishing village with its small but thriving wooden docks. "Then burn the rest lads…"
The village of Sweetwater burned worse than Brighton had, but burn it did, as Harras and his raiders sailed merrily down the Honeywine; having tied the corpses of slain fishermen to their stolen horses to send them galloping into the west for anyone who might try to follow – they'd find no trace, except perhaps for Gemit's corpse.
None of that mattered though. It was cool and dim as the day grew older, the sun began to fall from the sky, casting longer shadows, their glory laid close ahead.
The Bright Valley was wide and vast, green littered with blues and reds and yellows and purples from every flower the reach could bring to muster; it was rich soil untouched by the likes of them for centuries – although there was a time when Ironborn regularly raided up the Mander, back before the dragons came.
Night greeted them quickly with the shadow of Honeyholt atop its small cliffside, ruling over its small port on the banks of the Honeywine.
House Beesbury ruled from here, their banners of yellow-and-black flying proud atop their modest castle.
"Beware Our Sting," Harras muttered their words, his voice quiet as they sailed their fishing boats down the river.
Lord Beesbury would feel their sting soon enough. It was no border-castle, this hold of honey atop its perch, they'd grown fat and soft over years nestled safely behind the great shadow of Hightower. Torches burnt atop the walls, though barely any men patrolled them, the port was as slow as the rivers flow and its people sleepy.
It was a thing of ease to ground their boats along the honey shore just north of the castle, with unmarked sails and no lit lanterns they made for solid ground.
The dimwit fell when they climbed upward, no doubt making a fine red splat upon the rocks below them.
Harras only hoped his dull-witted groan hadn't alerted anyone to their uninvited arrival with rope and hook.
It was a short climb with twenty of his best, the rocks were jagged and solid; the guards above half asleep or wholly absent.
By their records the bulk of the Reacher's were either at Highgarden, by Oldtown, or lingering in King's Landing – though those wouldn't remain forever. "This way lads," Harras whispered after pulling Nightfall free from one guard's neck and gently laying him down on the ramparts without making a noise.
He'd never been to Honeyholt before, but these andals all thought alike. Finding the gatehouse was an easy affair once you held an edge to a couple throats and whispered promises of life and safety. It wasn't wholly a lie neither, as Harras vowed on his honor as a knight to free the guardsman; he freed him with a swift cut and that was that.
The two guardsmen at the gate were felled one by one by some well-placed bolts courtesy of Jakin and Rike, smooth and easy, they died gurgling on warm crimson.
Honeyholt was by all accounts a small keep atop its hill, once the drawbridge was lowered and the portcullis raised, the castle was all but theirs already – though not quite.
"Saltcliffe," Harras greeted Fat Terren as he led the bulk of their raiders quickly across the drawbridge to their side, into the courtyard like an iron tide up onto the shore.
His had been an easy command to choose. As much amusement as sending a man named Saltcliffe to scale a Cliff might have gotten the lads, his bulk made for poor climbing skills; though the fat man made up for it with a notable wit about him. "Knight," Fat Terren clasped his arm, looking slightly out of breath.
"Take half the lads to the barracks," Harras ordered with a whisper and a nod. "I'll fetch the Lordling…"
Into the keep prober they went. One, two, three, four, and-
"GUARDS!" One andal screamed when he turned the corner.
"Shit," Harras cursed aloud at that. "Rikey! Now!"
Red Rike yelled and hurled one of his axes through the air.
It landed with a dull THUD and andal man went to his knees, an axe deep within his skull.
"And now the fun begins," Ser Harras supposed with an annoyed groan. Things had been going so smoothly too…
"About time," Rike scoffed, yanking his axe free from the andal skull and stealing a signet ring from the dead man's finger.
"The Lordling is Mine!" Harras flicked Nightfall about and jolted forward over the dead noble's corpse.
A tune of clashing steel soon filled the castle, with shouts and screams clinging to the air; Ser Harras counted five, six…
Where was the seventh? He lowered a bloodied Nightfall, disappointed as no more guards stood between them and their aims.
"Shame," he muttered. There was always a seventh… the andals loved to use that number…
When they wrote the history of his exploits, he'd lie and say there were seven.
"COME ON TH-" Rike's voice halted, eyes darting about after knocking in the door.
"Wrong room," he complained with a huff. "Your guardsmen bloody lied Knight!"
"No," Harras moved across the room, eyeing the paintings hung on the wall; of hunts and a woman with honey-brown hair. The bed was unmade and the sheets missing with a rich-looking scabbard and sword laying against a nearby wall. It was the window that drew his eye, wide open, letting a cold draft into the warmth of the nearby fire.
Ser Harras leant over the window frame, looking down to see an old man appearing to dangle about halfway down the tower.
"Found him," Harras muttered, unimpressed by the sight.
Rike let out a sharp "HA" as he took looked over the window.
"H- Help!" the man cried up. "I have kin in Highgarden! They'll pay for- ARGHHHHHHH!"
"Oops," Rike chuckled, having landed his axe against the bedsheets that once held up the Lord of Honeyholt.
Or at least, who Harras assumed was the late Lord of Honeyholt. Warryn, he seemed to recall the name… or was it Ben?
Oh well. It hardly mattered anymore, now did it?
"That was my kill," Harras snarled in mild annoyance.
"King said no survivors." Rike shrugged. "Ain't no use for em, he said…"
King Euron planned to sell the Shield's smallfolk at Lys as slaves, but the smallfolk of Honeywine weren't to share that fate.
"Go find Salty for me," the Knight rolled his eyes at Rike's antics. "We meet in the hall – wherever in the hell that actually is…"
To say Honeyholt's great hall was great might've been akin to lowborn sellsword claiming Highgarden. It was simply Not in every sense of the word.
Ser Harras sat his arse upon the oaken throne of his recent conquest and found it comfy with pillows. Too comfy even, as he shifted in the chair and found it near impossible to sit at ease. "Ser Knight!" Jakin's voice greeted him then as he strode into the hall with open arms and blood splattered across his face.
"Knight," Fat Terren looked no worse for wear neither as he shoved some young girl ahead of him.
"Lookie what I found," Rike was giggling with glee. "Might be this trip ain't been so bad after all Knight!"
The girl had honey-brown hair atop her a heart shaped face, with chestnut eyes and a river of tears.
"And does she have a name Rikey?"
"Dunno," Rike shrugged. "Who cares?"
"I do," Harras leant forward on the oaken chair. "You, girl, speak…"
"L- L-"
"L, L, L," Rike mocked, laughing and pushing the girl to the floor of her father's hall.
"Might be she loves you Knight," Jakin earned himself another wave of laughs.
"Your name girl," Harras was away, lifting her chin up with Nightfall's tip.
"L- Lexise," she managed with a gulp. "B- Beesbury… my father is-"
"Flattened on the ground somewhere I believe…"
"I-" Her eyes widened at that news.
"You're a pretty thing, aren't you girl?"
"Fuck off," Rike butted in. "She's mine, I found her first Harlaw! Me!"
Nightfall raised up, away from the girl to point at Red Rike's heart – if such a thing existed at all.
The Knight's sword gleamed and rippled in the moonlight.
"This one's too pretty for the likes of you Rikey…"
"He's got ya there Little Rikey," Jakin laughed, as did the others.
"Bastards," Rike snarled. "You've no right to-"
"I've this," Harras motioned to his sword. "That's all the right I bloody well need, Rikey; don't forget it…"
Red Rike's face turned beet red, just as Gemit's had before he lost his head. Not a fate Rikey wished for himself no doubt.
"Find another," Ser Harras declared. "Take my share of the gold for her, if you wish, but the girl is mine."
Rike replied with a "Hmpf" and holstered his bloodied axe before storming his way out from the hall.
"T- Thank you my lord!"
Harras ignored the weeping girl entirely.
"The rest of you, we split the gold and silver; but be quick about it! Orkwood has command!"
A wave of "Aye Knight" and "Aye" and hushed grumbles of "Lucky" and "Bastard" responded to that.
"Come on lads," Jakin Orkwood was all smiles. "With me! Lord Knight wants some alone time with his new wife!"
The Beesbury girl paled at that suggestion. Wife? She looked up pleadingly with wide chestnut eyes as Orkwood led the raiders away.
"Come," is all the Knight offered her. The andal girl followed him like a lost puppy, helpless to do anything but follow this stranger. She cried when they came across the skull Rike had split open in the hallway before; apparently belonging to her brother from all the sobs and wails. Only the threat of death had silenced her once more.
"M- My father's chambers…"
"So it was him," Harras hummed. "I did wonder – he was trying to flee out the window…"
"F- Father…. ran…"
"Aimed to leave you behind it seemed, my dear girl..."
"W- What…"
"Speak freely," Harras bid her plainly.
"W- What is to become of me…"
"You may call me Ser," he told her. "Some call me Knight as well, or Harras, but I will be Lord Harlaw to you."
"L- Lord Harlaw," she muttered, trembling, her dress slightly torn from Rike's ill-treatment having dragged her into the hall.
"Did he ruin you? Hurt you? The ugly one, with the axe and the foul face?"
Her eyes widened at the notion, shaking her head fiercely in its fierce denial.
"Good," that was good. There was a chance – however unlikely as it required some base wit – that Red Rike might have taken her before he'd deemed to show her off to them in the hall; like his prized new possession. Had he done so, Harras might have been rid of her, and thrown to the mercy of his raiders.
As it stood, her face was pretty if not spoiled by tears; nor did the rest of her features displease him at all.
"You're to be my Salt Wife," he told her then. "Do you know what that is girl?"
"Y- Your…."
She didn't want to say it.
"My whore," Harras shattered her hopes.
"I-" She lowered her head. "I don't want to-"
"I don't care," his tone was cold. "The others might tell you fancy stories of the old way, they'd call you saltwife and treat you as little but some lovely holes – likely to be bored of you within the year; if not far sooner – you'd end up dead or fat with little Pyke's and discarded when you're no longer pretty…"
She'd burst into tears halfway through his little rant. That annoyed him to no end, he rolled his eyes at it all. He'd only told it true.
"My mother was a Serrett you know," Harras sighed and lifted the girl up from the floor; to place her on her father's bed.
"S- Serrett?" She stumbled over the word. "T- That- That-"
"Is a noble house from the Westerlands, aye, the very same."
He didn't like to see her cry. It was odd honestly, she looked ugly when she cried… that was surely the reason he cared…
"I was raised there for a time; I rode in tourneys and was squire to Lord Serrett's eldest son – right prick he was – but one day he knighted me…"
His time at Silverhill were some of his fonder memories, in truth.
It wasn't something he talked about often.
"I- I- I thought that… well…"
"That the Drowned God has no use for Knights?"
She whispered a "Yes" as if the andal seven might strike her down, or perhaps fearing he might strike instead…
"They don't," he shrugged. "It was my mother's wish. My father and I loved her more than… well… that's not important, is it?"
He'd taken his mother's sigil as his own, quartered: a silver scythe on black, against peacocks on cream.
The moonstone in Nightfall's pommel was for her memory. It was a precious gem to the Faith of the Seven.
And now precious to him too, for different reasons.
"M- My mother died when I was little…"
"Mine died in the birthing bed," Harras said quietly. "My new sister died with her…"
"I- I'm sorry Lord Harlaw…"
"Harry," he blurted out suddenly.
She dared to look up at him, her eyes red and sore.
"She called me Harry. In private, you may call me that; if you wish…"
Why had he told her that at all? He huffed and stood up from the bed.
"Take off your dress Lady Lexise…"
"I-" She blinked, afraid. "Lexie… my mother called me-"
"I'll not hurt you," he vowed. "The others would, not I; but you will obey me…"
"Y- Y- Yes," she managed to spoke, more a squeak than anything. She was awkward and clumsy as she removed her ripped dress.
Harras had never taken a Saltwife before, in all honesty… it had been a subject of mockery for him once upon a time, until he cut those men down.
The girl sat on the bedside weeping – try as she might to appear brave – she was a mess of a thing.
It tugged at his heart, this girl he barely knew and should care nothing for…
"Damn it all," the Knight of Grey Garden mumbled in frustration. "Damn it…"
Honor had never been a scruple of his, the Isles viewed such things as weakness… but still… he'd found there was room for simple chivalry at times; away from battle and in the comfort of a feathered bed – it was no weakness to him if he acted the role of Knight – as much of a knight as he was anyway…
The girl was staring blankly at him now.
"M- M- My Lord? Should-"
"Get some sleep," he sighed in defeat. Damn it…
He had some cursed weakness for crying maidens.
"I- I don't underst-"
"Sleep," he barked, harsher than he'd intended in truth.
She jolted back, fleeing across the bed; only to find no covers.
Harras wandered to the balcony to breathe the night air into his lungs, as some old thoughts nagged at his skull.
The moon was bright, shining across the Honeywine to paint its lazy waters silver. The girl didn't take long to fall asleep, covers or not, she curled up into a ball with her ripped dress and cried until sleep took her. Only then did Harras join her, sleeping on his own side of the bed, wondering why he'd been so quick to speak of the past.
Come the morning Red Rike and the others had finished putting Honeyholt to the sword, sparing only the few Saltwives they'd wished to keep for themselves.
When the dawn rays shun through his windows Ser Harras awoke to find the Beesbury girl sound asleep, muttering sweetly; he found his cloak and threw it over her before making way to the balcony. The sun was rising, the Honeywine a beautiful gold, and Longships were coming down from the North. They had made it…
Ser Harras Harlaw strapped his sword to his belt, left his cloak over the girl, then made for the seat of Beesbury.
There he sat waiting as Heir of Ten Towers, Knight of Grey Garden, Lord of Greyshield and of Honeyholt.
That night, when the tide came rushing back into the prison cell, he prayed that it might rise all night, enough to end his torment. "I have been your true and leal servant," he prayed, twisting in his chains. "Now snatch me from my brother's hand, and take me down beneath the waves, to be seated at your side…"
No deliverance came. Only the mutes, to undo his chains and drag him roughly up a long stone stair to where the Silence floated on a cold black sea.
And a few days later, as her hull shuddered in the grip of some storm, the Crow's Eye came below again, lantern in hand. This time his other gripped a dagger.
"Still praying, priest? Your god has forsaken you."
"No," he denied. "You're wrong..."
"It was me who taught you how to pray, little brother. Have you forgotten? I would visit you at night when I had too much to drink. You shared a room with Urrigon high up in the seatower. I could hear you praying from outside the door. I always wondered: Were you praying that I would choose you or that I would pass you by?"
King Euron pressed the knife to Aeron's throat.
"Pray to me. Beg me to end your torment, and I will."
"Not even you would dare," said the Damphair. "I am your brother. No man is more accursed than the kinslayer."
"And yet I wear a crown and you rot in chains. How is it that your Drowned God allows that when I have killed three brothers?"
Aeron could only gape at him. "T- Three?"
"Well, if you count half-brothers. Do you remember little Robin? Wretched creature. Do you remember that big head of his, how soft it was? All he could do was mewl and shit. He was my second. Harlon was my first. All I had to do was pinch his nose shut. The greyscale had turned his mouth to stone so he could not cry out. But his eyes grew frantic as he died. They begged me. When the life went out of them, I went out and pissed into the sea, waiting for the god to strike me down. None did. Oh, and Balon was the third, but you knew that didn't you? I could not do the deed myself, but it was my hand that pushed him off the bridge."
The Crow's Eye pressed the dagger in a little deeper, and Aeron felt blood trickling down his neck.
"If your Drowned God did not smite me for killing three brothers, why should he bestir himself for the fourth? Because you are his priest?" He stepped back and sheathed his dagger. "No, I'll not kill you tonight. A holy man with holy blood. I may have need of that that blood… later. For now, you are condemned to live…"
"A holy man with holy blood," Aeron thought when his brother had climbed back onto the deck. "He mocks me and he mocks the god. Kinslayer. Blasphemer. Demon in human skin." That night he prayed for his brother's death. It was in the second dungeon that the other holy men began to appear to share his torments. Three wore the robes of septons of the green lands, and one the red raiment of a priest of R'hllor. The last was hardly recognizable as a man. Both his hands had been burned down to the bone, and his face was a charred and blackened horror where two blind eyes moved sightlessly above the cracked cheeks dripping pus.
He was dead within hours of being shackled to the wall, but the mutes left his body there to ripen for three days afterwards.
Last were two warlocks of the east, with flesh as white as mushrooms, and lips the purplish-blue of a bad bruise, all so gaunt and starved that only skin and bones remained. One had lost his legs. The mutes hung him from a rafter. "Pree," he cried as he swung back and forth. "Pree, Pree!"
Perhaps that was the name of the demon that he worships.
"The Drowned God protects me," the priest told himself.
He was stronger than the false gods, stronger than their black sorceries. The Drowned God would surely set him free.
In his saner moments, Aeron questioned why the Crow's Eye was collecting priests, but he did not think that he would like the answer. Victarion was gone, and with him, hope. Aeron's drowned men likely thought the Damphair was hiding on Old Wyk, or Great Wyk, or Pyke, and wondered when he would emerge against this godless king.
Urrigon haunted his fever dreams. "You're dead, Urri," Aeron thought. "Sleep now, child, and trouble me no more. Soon I shall come to join you."
Whenever Aeron prayed, the legless warlock made queer noises, and his companion babbled wildly in his queer eastern tongue, though whether they were cursing or pleading, the priest could not say. The septons made soft noises from time to time as well, but not in words that he could understand. When Euron came again, his hair was swept straight back from his brow, and his lips were so blue that they were almost black. He had put aside his driftwood crown.
In place of the driftwood crown, he now wore an iron crown whose points were made from the teeth of sharks. "That which is dead cannot die," said Aeron fiercely. "For he who has tasted death once need never fear again. He was drowned, but he came forth stronger than before, with steel and fire."
"Will you do the same, brother?" Euron asked. "I think not. I think if I drowned you, you'll stay drowned. All gods are lies, but yours is laughable. A pale white thing in the likeness of a man, his limbs broken and swollen and his hair flipping in the water while fish nibble at his face. What fool would worship that?"
"He's your god as well," insisted the Damphair. "And when you die, he will judge you harshly, Crow's Eye. You will spend eternity as a sea slug, crawling on your belly eating shit. If you do not fear to kill your own blood, slit my throat and be done with me. I'm weary of your mad boastings."
"Kill my own little brother? Blood of my blood, born of the loins of Quellon Greyjoy? Who would share my triumphs? Victory is sweeter with a loved one by your side."
"Your victories are hollow. You cannot hold the Shields..."
Something glinted in his eye, as if he were the sole listener to some grand mummers play.
"Why should I want to hold them?" His brother's smiling eye glittered in the lantern light, blue and bold and full of malice. "The Shields have served my purpose. I took them with one hand and gave them away with the other. A great king is open-handed, brother. It is up to the new lords to hold them now. The glory of winning those rocks will be mine forever. When they are lost, the defeat will belong to the four fools who so eagerly accepted my gifts."
He moved closer. "Our longships are raiding up the Mander and all along the coast, even to the Arbor and the Redwyne Straits. The Old Way, brother…"
Madness. "Release me," Aeron Damphair commanded in his sternest voice, "or risk the wroth of god!"
Euron produced a carved stone bottle and a wine cup. "You have a thirsty look about you," he said as he poured. "You need a drink; a taste of evening's shade."
"No." Aeron turned his face away. "No, I said…"
"And I said yes." Euron pulled his head back by the hair and forced the vile liquor into his mouth again. Though Aeron clamped his mouth shut, twisting his head from side to side he fought as best he could, but in the end, he had to choke or swallow.
The dreams were even worse the second time. He saw the longships of the Ironborn adrift and burning on a boiling blood-red sea. He saw his brother on the Iron Throne again, melted and twisted, and Euron was no longer human. He seemed more squid than man, a monster fathered by a kraken of the deep, his face a mass of writhing tentacles. Beside him stood a shadow in woman's form, long and tall and terrible, her hands alive with pale white fire. Dwarves capered for their amusement, male and female, naked and misshapen, locked in carnal embrace, biting and tearing at each other as Euron and his mate laughed and laughed and laughed…
Aeron dreamed of drowning, too. Not of the bliss that would surely follow down in the Drowned God's watery halls, but of the terror that even the faithful feel as the water fills their mouth and nose and lungs, and they cannot draw a breath. Three times the Damphair woke, and three times it proved no true waking, but only another chapter in a dream. But at last, there came a day when the door of the dungeon swung open, and a mute came splashing through with no food in his hands.
Instead, he had a ring of keys in one hand, and a lantern in the other. The light was too bright to look upon, and Aeron was afraid of what it meant. Bright and terrible. Something has changed. Something has happened. "Bring them," said a half-familiar voice from the hapless gloom. "Be quick about it, you know how he gets."
"Oh, I do," Aeron thought. "I have known since I was a boy…"
One septon made a frightened noise as the mute undid his chains, a half-choked sound that might have been some attempt at speech. The legless warlock stared down at the black water, his lips moving silently in prayer. When the mute came for Aeron, he tried to struggle, but the strength had gone from his limbs, and one blow was all it took to quiet him. His wrist was unshackled, then the other. "Free," he told himself. "I'm finally free…"
When he tried to take a step, his weakened legs folded under him. Not one of the prisoners was fit enough to walk.
In the end, the mutes had to summon more of their kind. Two of them grasped by Aeron by the arms and dragged him up a spiral stair. His feet banged off the steps as they ascended, sending stabbing pains up his leg. He bit his lips to keep from crying out. The priest could hear the warlocks just behind him. The septons brought up the rear, sobbing and gasping. With every turn of the stair, the steps grew brighter, until finally a window appeared in the left-hand wall. It was only a slit in the stone, a bare hand's breadth across, but that was wide enough to admit a shaft of sunlight. "So golden," the Damphair thought, "so beautiful…"
When they pulled him up the steps through the light, he felt its warmth upon his face, and tears rolled down his cheeks. "The sea. I can smell the sea. The Drowned God has not abandoned me. The sea will make me whole again! That which is dead can never die, but rises again harder and stronger…"
"Take me to the water," he commanded, as if he were still back on the Iron Islands surrounded by his drowned men, but the mutes were his brother's creatures and they paid him no heed. They dragged him up more steps, down a torchlit gallery, and into a bleak stone hall where a dozen bodies were hanging from the rafters, turning and swaying. A dozen of Euron's captains were gathered in the hall, drinking wine beneath the corpses. Left-Hand Lucas Codd sat in the place of honor, wearing a heavy silken tapestry as a cloak. Beside him was the Red Oarsman, and further down Pinchface Jon Myre, Stonehand, and Rogin Salt-Beard.
"Who are these dead?" Aeron commanded. His tongue was so thick the words came out in a rusty whisper, faint as a mouse breaking wind.
"The lord that held this castle, with his kin." The voice belonged to Torwold Browntooth, one of his brother's captains, a creature near as vile as the Crow's Eye himself. "Pigs," said another vile creature, the one they called the Red Oarsman. "This was their isle. A rock, just off the Arbor. They dared oink threats at us. Redwyne, oink. Hightower, oink. Tyrell, oink oink oink! So we sent them squealing down to hell."
The Arbor. Not since the Drowned God had blessed him with a second life had Aeron Damphair ventured so far from the Iron Islands.
"Have your gods been good to you in the dark?" asked Left-Hand Lucas Codd. One of the warlocks snarled some answer in his ugly eastern tongue.
"I curse you all," Aeron said his own words.
"Your curses have no power here, priest," said Left-Hand Lucas Codd. "The Crow's Eye has fed your Drowned God well, and he has grown fat with sacrifice. Words are wind, but blood is power. We have given thousands to the sea, and he has given us victories!"
"Count yourself blessed, Damphair," said Stonehand. "We are going back to sea. Hightower's sons move down the Whispering Sound in hopes of catching us in the rear."
"You know what it's like to be caught in the rear, don't you?" said the Red Oarsman, laughing.
"Take them to the ships," Torwold Browntooth commanded.
And so, Aeron Damphair returned to the salt sea. A dozen longships were drawn up at the wharf below the castle, and twice as many beached along the strand. Familiar banners streamed from their masts: the Greyjoy kraken, the bloody moon of Wynch, the warhorn of the Goodbrothers. But from their sterns flew a flag the priest had never seen before: a red eye with a black pupil beneath an iron crown supported by two crows.
Beyond them, a host of merchant ships floated on a tranquil, turquoise sea. Cogs, carracks, fishing boats, even a great cog, a swollen sow of a ship as big as the Leviathan. Prizes of war, the Damphair knew. Euron Crow's Eye stood upon the deck of Silence, clad in a suit of black scale armor like nothing Aeron had ever seen before. Dark as smoke it was, but Euron wore it as easily as if it was the thinnest silk. The scales were edged in red gold, and gleamed and shimmered when they moved.
Strange patterns could be seen within the metal, whorls and glyphs and arcane symbols folded into the steel.
Valyrian steel, the Damphair knew. His armour was Valyrian steel. In all the Seven Kingdoms, no man owned a suit of Valyrian steel. Such things had perhaps been known four hundred years ago, in the days before the Doom, but even then, they would've cost a kingdom.
Euron did not lie. He had been to Valyria. No wonder he was mad…
"Your Grace," said Torwold Browntooth. "I have the priests. What do you want done with them?"
"Bind them to the prows," King Euron commanded. "My brother on the Silence. Take one for yourself. Let them dice for the others, one to a ship. Let them feel the spray, the kiss of the Drowned God, wet and salty." This time, the mutes did not drag him below. Instead, they lashed him to the prow of the Silence, beside her figurehead, a naked maiden slim and strong with outstretched arms and windblown hair… but no mouth below her nose…
They bound Aeron Damphair tight with strips of leather that would shrink when wet, clad only in his beard and breechclout.
The Crow's Eye spoke a command; a black sail was raised, lines were cast off, and the Silence backed away from shore to the slow beat of the oarmaster's drum, her oars rising and dipping and rising again, churning the water. Above them, the castle was burning, flames licking from the open windows.
When they were well out to sea, Euron returned to him. "Brother," he said, "you look forlorn. I have a gift for you…"
He beckoned, and two of his bastard sons dragged the woman forward and bound her to the prow on the other side of the figurehead. Naked as the mouthless maiden, her smooth belly just beginning to swell with the child she was carrying, her cheeks red with tears, she did not struggle as the boys tightened her bonds.
Her hair hung down in front of her face, but Aeron knew her all the same…
She'd been the poor naive andal girl who dreamed of becoming Euron's Saltwife.
"Falia Flowers," he called. "Have courage, girl! All this will be over soon, and we will feast together in the Drowned God's watery halls."
The girl raised up her head but made no answer. She has no tongue to answer with, the Damphair knew. He licked his lips, and tasted salt.
They were holding a riotous feast when Denys Drumm entered the hall. Ironborn filled the tables, drinking and shouting and jostling each other, boasting of the men that they had slain, the deeds that they had done, the prizes they had won. Many were bedecked with plunder. Fat Terren Saltcliffe had torn a tapestry off the walls to serve as cloak. Jakin Orkwood wore a shiny silver breastplate he'd looted off some andal knight. Red Rike Myre staggered by with a woman under each arm; rings on every finger.
All were eating off solid silver platters, cautery of House Beesbury, while Ser Harras Harlaw sat lazily in his oaken chair. He'd throw the pillows away.
He leaned forward in the chair as they approached, even if none of his men seemed to care in the slightest about the new arrivals.
Denys walked alongside his brother Dunstan, dressed in their chainmail and blood-red tunics; long cloaks at their backs that bore their sigil – a hand of white bone argent on dark crimson – the eldest Drumm beamed as he approached, pushing aside one drunk raider who muttered half-hearted apologies to the Heir.
"Knight!" Denys shouted above the raucous, his brother and their guard's standing vigil behind him.
"Drumm," Harras smiled despite himself. They'd been good friends once, long ago as boys, together with a young Rodrik Greyjoy.
"Father doubted you could pull it off," Denys smirked wickedly. "We half expected to have a fight ahead of us, too soon; the King wouldn't be happy…"
"Honeyholt is mine," Harras shrugged.
"Aye," Denys hummed, uncaring. "Here…"
A letter, sealed with black wax. "My Cousin?"
"The Reader sends his regards," Denys gave a nod, passing over the letter.
"How goes the war?" Harras pocketed the letter for later. This was no place for reading.
Deny smirked at that. "Well," he motioned for his brother and men to help themselves to drink and food. "Father led the charge on Bandallon before we sailed onto the Arbor for good; bloody fine battle I expect – wish he'd let us follow him instead of going on this foolish mission, honestly; what's the King thinking, eh?"
"Plans sound," Harras didn't express how odd that was, coming from a madman.
"Oh aye," Denys huffed. "It's my fathers, after all, we hauled those longboats over fields and down roads just like Regnar Drumm did all those years ago…"
"Fuckers won't see us coming," Dunstan Drumm had wandered over, ripping flesh from a chicken leg.
"I'd hope not," Denys huffed. "No time to delay though, Knight, no?"
"No," Harras agreed. Their window of surprise was rapidly closing in around them.
Burning villages along the coast were one thing – they'd be expecting that – but there was no way to be certain none of the Honeyholt folk hadn't fled with news, or any farmers hadn't spotted Drumm and his merry band hauling lumber over those fields. They'd slaughtered all those farmers for good reason, but had they done enough?
"Have your fill," he told the brothers. "We'll leave soon…"
"Nothing standing between us and Oldtown eh brother?"
"Won't mean shit if Greyjoy doesn't fulfil his end," Dunstan grumbled.
"You worry too much," Dunstan rolled his eyes at that.
And he worried too little, Harras thought, but kept the doubts quiet.
He'd worry plenty for them all. If the King didn't do his part, then they'd be sailing down the still waters of the Honeywine to a glorious if not bloody end; as while the river flowed past and into the old city it was far from Honeyholt. The Hightower's had mustered their full might not a week south of them now…
"It'll pull through," Harras said plainly. And if not, the Reader had given him very clear instructions…
Harlaw would not meekly suffer another futile war…
"It best, or we're all fucked," Dunstan mumbled aloud.
"We have our tasks brother," Denys smirked confidently. "You afraid, eh?"
"Piss off Deny," his brother walked away, taking an absent seat and grabbing more chicken.
"He's got a point though," Dunstan whispered, as if he might be overheard among the shouting, cheering and yelping of serving lasses.
"Aye," Harras supposed he did indeed. That's why the Reader had his plans.
"What is dead may never die, eh Knight? No need to fret!"
Tell that to the dead, he ought to say… but he'd best not…
"What is dead may never die Deny," he said instead, not believing it for a second.
"Enough of that though," Denys chuckled, placing a hand on the Knight's shoulder and smirking. "I heard you caught yourself a Saltwife, eh Knight?"
"Word travels fast I see…"
"Your men grumble like fishermen."
That they did. "Only when I can't hear them…"
That made Denys chuckle, patting him on the back just like when they were kids.
"Go enjoy yourself mate," he bid him with a laugh. "God knows you bloody need it, sour bastard!"
Ser Harras merely scoffed and took his leave, not glancing back to see Denys Drumm taking the Beesbury throne.
He headed for the lord's chambers, up some short stairs and down some empty hallways; he pushed open the doors with a sigh.
"M- My Lord," greeted him, wide-eyed and clutching his cloak of black-and-silver around herself as if it would defend her against all evil things.
"Lady Lexie," he said kindly as he entered, closing the door shut behind him.
He headed for the nearest surface, a small vanity table that doubtless had once belonged to Lexie's mother.
It boasted a fine gilded mirror in the centre that revealed his messy raven hair and the beginning of some stubble on his chin.
"You-" the Beesbury girl dared to step closer. "You look tired…"
"Do I now?" She was right though…
One glance at the mirror confirmed as much.
There were shadows under his eyes, a sour look etched onto stone.
He ignored it, taking a dagger from his belt – making the Beesbury girl back away a step – he brought the blade to the wax and cut cleanly.
The letter was written on fine parchment, too finely made to be from anyone but the Reader and his vast library of mystery's and old magics that he so loved to read about. It was a plain enough message, calling him "Son" in one section oddly enough. That meant only one thing and it meant nothing good at all.
"You've a letter?" the girl asked, braver than she'd been the day before it seemed; but still uneasy around him.
"From my Lord Cousin," Harras didn't see the need to deny that much.
"I- I see… is he well?"
Harras scoffed. "He'll live for another hundred years, knowing him, I'm sure…"
The girl seemed to be saddened by that. Her father was dead, after all, as was her brother and mother. Did she…
"Do you have any family left to you, Lady Lexie?"
"I-" She balked at that. "Y- Yes… but I haven't seen them…"
"Where are they then?" Harras asked as his eyes scanned the Reader's letter.
The message was a dull one, but the use of "Son" meant there was some hidden meaning to be found. The Reader often bordered on paranoia…
He'd been schooled by his lordly cousin for a time, after his own father died in Balon Greyjoy's foolish rebellion he'd found himself hiding from the world for a time – only for his cousin to gift him books and company – then he was sent off to Silverhill to squire for his mother's family. The Reader said it would do him good, and it had done.
Lord Serrett had been a strict man, but he'd loved his little sister and welcomed her only living child with open arms.
"My sisters all married before me," the Beesbury girl was saying. "And my brothers…"
The words 'expect for the one with the axe in his skull' were left unsaid, but the girl no doubt thought them.
"My brother," she corrected herself with a heavy heart. "Richard, he's at Highgarden with our cousins…"
"Away from the fighting then," Harras offered. "That is good, isn't it?"
"I-" she lowered her head. "Y- Yes, he's safe… isn't he Ser?"
He smirked at that. "Aye, don't see any armies strolling up to Highgarden girl…"
And even if it did, the citadel of the Reach wasn't a place so easily taken. It rested on a broad verdant hill overlooking the Mander, surrounded by three ring of white stone whose crenelated curtain walls increased in height. Then between the outer and middle walls was a briar labyrinth which served to entertain as well as slow invaders. The oldest towers, squat and square, dated so far back as the Age of Heroes. Newer towers were taller and slender, dating from after the coming of the Andals.
One did not simply walk into Highgarden without an invitation, Harras had seen it once with his own eyes after all. It was equal parts fortress and garden.
"I've been there once," he told the girl. "Lord Tyrell was hosting a tourney and Lord Serrett wished to attend. I entered the Squire's Tourney…"
"Did you win… Ser Harry?"
"No," he shook his head, tossing his cousins letter into the fire.
The truth was, he'd gotten knocked on his arse by a young Garlan Tyrell; but it was a damn good fight. One of his best…
At the time he'd been furious of course, but then the Tyrell offered his hand. Harras had taken it and accepted the flowers praise.
"I went once too," she mumbled. "Father… he hoped one of my sisters might win the heart of Ser Willas or one of his brothers…"
"Not you?" Harras asked, turning away from the fire once his letter had turned to ashes.
"I was too young… and my sisters prettier than I…"
At that he scoffed. It was hard for him to believe, with her looks.
"Come then," he bid her. "You have fresh clothes, in your own chambers?"
"I-" she nodded frantically.
The walk was short to her chambers.
"Now," Harras told her. "Grab something that-"
He frowned. What did andal women have in their closets?
He recalled Serretts's daughters and smirked, one had loved to go riding with him.
"You have riding clothes I assume, my Lady?"
She nodded meekly, confused. Why would she need-
"Pick those," the Knight ordered. "You'll be needing them."
"I-" She hesitated, clothes in hand; rich riding leather pants and a tailored yellow-black coat.
"Well," Harras leaned against the doorway. "Hurry up Lady Lexie…"
If she was waiting for him to be gentlemanly and leave, the girl was mistaken.
She gulped and turned away eventually, unlacing her dress and letting it slide to the floor.
Harras was a Knight, true, but that hadn't stopped him sleeping with Serrett's daughter as a squire and it wouldn't stop him taking in the view now. Her sisters were prettier, she'd said; but he doubted that. The girl was curvier than Alys Serrett had been, his eyes lingered as she pulled on her riding pants hastily.
"D- Done," she mumbled, head low, blushing like a bright red apple.
"Beautiful," Harras flashed his most charming smile to turn the girl redder.
"Are we going now, or is this a game Ser?"
The bee had its stinger after all, it seemed. Good.
"No games," he vowed with a smirk. "On my honor as a Knight."
She huffed at that notion. There was no honor is watching her undress. None at all…
He made a point to let her lead the way down to the courtyard, for no particular reason at all.
"Knight!" Denys voice greeted them, and the Drumm's smirk turned wicked at the site of the Beesbury girl.
"Ser," she curtsied for him like a proper noble lady. Deny burst into laughter at her expense.
"Hear that Harlaw?" he chuckled. "You may call me Denys the Knight from now on! Knight of Old Wyk!"
Some of his raiders were laughing aloud at that, sparing hungry glances at the noble girl in her riding pants.
"The andals will be simply furious to hear it Deny," Harras shook his head at the notion.
"As furious as this one's kin I wager when they learn you've picked her rosebud, eh, Knight?"
The girl blushed brightly like a red rose.
"She'll be leaving us," Harras declared plainly.
Oldtown would be no place for her, and to stay here would be unwise without him to protect her.
Denys blinked at them both, confused, he stared at the girl like she might be infected with some terrible disease.
"She given you the clap eh Knight? Is that it?"
"Tits too small," Dunstan Drumm commented.
"T- T- They are not- You-"
Denys was laughing heartily.
"Here," Harras handed her the reigns to a horse.
"I-" She held it steady. "I don't understand Ser…"
"Me nether," Denys huffed. "Tits or not, she's an arse on her, Knight…"
"Just go," Harras scowled. "Ride for your brother, or sisters, but ride Northward."
"I-" She blinked, seeming to wonder if it was a trick. Would they hunt her if she fled?
"No games," the Knight promised with a look. "Ride, your fate is your own Lady Beesbury."
"T- Thank you," she stared at him as if he'd grown a second head on his shoulders.
"Don't thank me," Harras told her. "Run girl, hear me? Run!"
She nodded, getting up into the saddle with surprising ease.
"Thank you Ser," she said again, snapping the reigns and riding away.
"Shame," Denys said, watching the girl ride away. "Her arse looked fine in those pants …"
"What if she warns the andals about us?" Dunstan asked, scowling at the loss of the girl.
"Her brother is in Highgarden, she'll ride there; it'll take her a week… maybe a little under…"
There was a chance she'd never even made it that far, in truth, but such was the way of the world.
A lone girl riding on these roads during war was hardly safe, but she seemed to ride that horse quite well.
Honeyholt was no longer safe for the likes of her...
She'd be fine. Probably. Maybe.
"If she stops at a closer castle…"
"She won't," Harras wagered easily, shrugging.
"If she does, they'll know we're coming," Dunstan argued, thinking it madness.
"It won't matter brother," Denys sighed. "We'll be long gone, and the girl doesn't know our heading… does she?"
"No," Harras scoffed at that. "What do you think I am Drumm?"
She knew he'd said Northward for a reason though, didn't take much to guess from that.
"You're a bleeding-heart Knight," Denys laughed as he walked away to his raiders.
"A bloody fool more like," Dunstan huffed, away to follow his elder brother. A fight laid ahead of them all.
Might be they were right though. His time in the greenlands had softened him to a pretty face, but he was still a better fighter than the lot of them…
Nightfall inched at his side and Harras held his hand over the moonstone pommel, smooth as marble, he glanced to the shore of the Honeywine and found it littered with longboats that only now began to raise banners of Drumm, Myre, Wynch, Saltcliffe, and lastly Harlaw and his own personal banner quartered with peacocks.
My Note(s): I've written some dark-ish themes these last two chapters huh? Ser Harras is – likely just because of Nightfall – one of my favourite Ironborn, even though we know next to nothing about him from the canon. His mother IS/Was a Serrett though, I've made the jump of logic in assuming he was influenced by the 'Greenlanders' as a boy and was returned to the Iron Islands later on once he officially became Rodrik Harlaw's Heir. That makes sense, plus the Reader is heavily anti-oldway too thus the marriage ties to House Serrett make sense also as Lord Harlaw isn't so opposed to the 'New Ways' and doesn't believe in the Old Ways. I'm happy with the reasoning.
That said I took a lot of creative liberties with Harras here sooo one could argue he's being OOC… but then we know very little about him… dunno if how I painted him will come across as intended exactly but it's not really important; even if I did find myself enjoying his character and exploring his past/story a little :) the whole Honeywine theory is my 'guess' at how Euron could end up taking Oldtown, taking from history, there's several records of "rolling" ships across small stretches of land from accounts of Russia to the Black Sea and even from the Shetland Islands; effectively just cutting down trees, stripping them of their branches, and 'rolling' their longboats across land.
So, in my mind, the Drumm's pulled this off covering the distance between the shore and the tip of the Honeywine; likely with longboats that are on the smaller side. If this happens in the books is entirely unknown – maybe GRRM would call the concept stupid – but I enjoy the idea, it effectively flanks Oldtown in the rear and takes them by surprise and I believe is potentially foreshadowed by the line "Hightower's sons move down the Whispering Sound in hopes of catching us in the rear" etc. Or maybe not…
Next up is Storm's End and the big reunion of Willam and his brother(s) as both parties end up heading to meet with the supposed Aegon Targaryen.
246vili: You may be the only review for last chapter :D can never tell if that's because nobody liked it or nobody had anything negative to say or if it was middle of the ground, but I'll put it down to being people not enjoying the Empire stuff? Ah well, appreciate you leaving a comment as always :) Artos will certainly not marry Yuanji though, he's old enough to be her father (not that the in-universe society would care ofc just look at Jon Arryn and Lysa Tully) and as you said he simply isn't interested.
His short time in the Empire is certainly already more than Artos can stomach, but for now he's Regent for the girl in all but name; that'll be explored later on whenever we return there in… I think it's Chapter 68/69-ish… if I don't add extra chapters before/after as I tend to do. Suko/Yuanji would make the most sense. If he ever returns home…