Chapter Sixteen – Turning Tides

The Crowned Kraken

"Out!" Fools and traitors and weak-minded snivelling vermin all.

"Out! Good for nothing fools, all of you! Out!" He flung his wine cup after the useless Goodbrother buffoon, the one bringing up the rear of his supposed council of war as they left out through the double doors. The cup smashed into shards against the vault above the doors of his chambers, spilling red like blood all over the stone. "Useless, all of you".

He turned towards the fire, staring into the flames like one of those damned red-headed whores from Volantis, those who worshiped their burning god R'hllor. All over Essos they prayed to the flames, ruins and magics built on stolen Valyrian slivers of empires long burned down. Shadows of greatness that had once spread its shadow all over the world, soaring in the heavens. Was that why they worshiped fire? Fire, fire that was nothing but cinders and embers and striking driftwood set ablaze? Fire that guttered out so quickly? Snuffed embers, drowned on the rising tides.

Or had it ever been alive? Before he had never doubted, not for an instant, never. But now he had lost. Lost the wars, lost his sons, lost his brother. For the second time. Now he doubted. Had the histories been lies, all? Had they ever been anything more to them than this? Had the fire of his people ever burned bright enough to cast any shadows over the world?

"Fool" he spat at himself, weak and witless and doubting. No doubt. Never doubt. He was Ironborn. His blood was salt and stone and iron. "What is dead may never die".

"What is dead may never die. It rises again, harder and stronger". And there she was. The only one left to him. "You shouldn't shout at the captains like that. Doesn't breed much for loyalty". In she walked, stepping over the pool of wine, her chainmail hauberk about her and her dirk and axe at her hips. "Father".

"Asha". Asha Greyjoy, his sole remaining child and heir. And more of a son to him than Theon had ever been. She certainly was enough of a man to outstrip Theon easily. "Are you here to bring me news of failure as well? Of defeat?" Bitter all of it, a thousand times worse than brine and rotten algae. "Did you fail at Stony Shore?"

"Did I fail at Stony Shore? Did I fail at running away, you mean?" In other times he would never have let her speak to him like that, would have struck her down and taught her humility and her place, but now he wouldn't. She was armoured and armed and the sole good captain he had left amongst his people, the sole remaining one who knew what she was doing when standing at the helm, and he was much too drunk. Where was his cup? Where had he- damn it all. "I did not" Asha went on as she walked on towards him. "I burned and reaved and made sure those few still living on those scorched green lands will never forget us. Or our sails".

"Burn their fields and poison their wells. If we are to run away from our conquests, then we'll make sure that they remember us". A retreat, they called it. A stratagem merely, something to allow them to fall back and regroup their fleet and gather their forces for the next attack. But he was fooling no one. He could spit and foam and hiss all he wanted, but he wasn't a fool or a madman. No matter what they said, on the decks and in the halls. They thought he didn't know, but oh he did, he knew all of it. They called him crazed and rabid, but he was neither. He was of his full mind, oh he was, and they would know it soon enough. He was Ironborn. He'd kill them all in time. A man was only as strong as his reputation. No one would give him anything that he could not take, and no one would besmirch his name. He would show them. He'd show them all.

All the world would fear the name Balon Greyjoy. Before he'd let them bring them down and strip the driftwood crown off his head he'd show them all.

"You are late" he told her as she moved towards the fireplace, the ancient stone fundaments of Pyke showing through and past the mortar. There was nothing he did not care for as much as these ancient rocks. Pyke was the Iron Islands. It was the Ironborn. Firm as the walls and towers of Pyke they had withstood the shock and power of all the world, of the Storms and the Rivers and the North and Dragons and the Iron Throne. Only by casting the towers back in to the sea from which they had been hewed they had bested them. Only might of kingdoms and empires a hundred times wealthier and larger than the Iron Islands had been able to bring them to their knees. And those who knelt could rise again.

What is dead may never die.

"A squabble between a few of my crewmen over a farmstead thrall" she noted absently, looking up at the great tapestry hanging above the fireplace and the kraken carved there in the stone. "They got to violence, blades were drawn. I had them strapped to the mast and lashed until they relearned to behave. Took a little while".

It was a large thing, gilded along the edges, ancient and great and fading in the colours despite the great care they had showed it through the ages, depicting a scene that had never happened. A fantasy, merely, but he had them bring it out and up from the storages of old Castle Hoare after they had killed three of his sons. Rodrik, Maron and Theon had all died that day, even though the last one came back as a shadow of a simpering tyke. The tapestry show the waters that had risen along with the Drowned God and the Ironborn, the walls of Winterfell drowning as the krakens assaulted the towers along with the hundreds of longships. Long tentacles grasped at the stone, ripping those towers down and breaking the ruins into dust. The fires burned in their precious godswood, their gods doing nothing to save them.

What gods? Nothing but wind and ghosts and idle nature and dying leaves. Illusions and nothingness, all of them. Only the Drowned God ruled in the waters, like how the Storm God ruled in the clouds. They were nothing before him and the Drowned God.

What is dead may never die.

"You should have been there". And she should have known her place. At his side, as his first warrior and captain. In the old days that would have been Victarion, but the black bastard of the Starks had cut off his head and sent it back to his ships at harbour at the edge of Cape Kraken. Rotten and half-decomposed, the bone showing in places, the head had been shown to by Victarion's only by the battered remnants of his helmet that where still around it. "Might have shown the fool boys a thing or two. They pushed for peace. Pah! Clemency! I'd be a sea-cow before I let this peace be made-"

"Do you think the sea could ever come to Winterfell, father?" she wondered, still looking up at that damned tapestry, watching the faces of the Starks scream as they were dragged down under. "Surely the waters are too far away. Too far from shore, watered by rocky streams and hot pools. Would the sea ever come to Winterfell as anything but a flash of a flood – there one instant and gone the next?"

"Of course, fool girl" he spat her way and looked around for his cup. Not the clay one – no, the other one, the new one. His Victarion one. He looked over the chambers, his chambers hung with the trophies of the raids of his youth, weapons and horns and banners and riches, all paid for with the Iron Price. That carafe, that one there, he had taken it along with a she-thrall off a Ghiscari trader when he had seen less than sixteen years. Oh, how sweet her screams seemed to him now. The wine too, the wine within – nothing better than to drink the wine of the conquered out of the Victarion cup. He drank deeply before he looked over to the fool girl by the fire, the only true son he had ever had. "All will drown when He Who Dwells Beneath rises. What is dead may never-!"

His words were cut short by a cough, some of the damned accursed bitter wine lodged itself in his throat. Was it- yes, it was Victarion, Victarion's fault. He always was a dull one, bitter and savage. It was his fault. His fault the wine was soured. His fault for dying and leaving the war in ruins.

"Water rises along the shore and the rivers. Winterfell's long inland". There she went again, with her mad muttering. She was going insane, wasn't she? They all were mad with cowardice. But not him. No, not him, not Balon Greyjoy, the Ninth of His Name Since the Grey King, King of Salt and Rock, Son of the Sea Wind and Lord Reaper of Pyke. He was the only who wasn't insane.

"We'll gather the ships" he told her, pointing to her with Victarion in his other hand. "Regather the fleet! Fly the Kraken, we will reave inland again! Remartial our men and strike at their hearts! The Glover and Tallhart and Bolton Northerners that cast us out left their castles untended! We'll take them all and burn them to the ground! Salt and Iron, we'll have it all!" Victarion sloshed wine over his hand as he showed her, try to show her, tried to make her see the scope of his vision. "Curse you, brother! Can't hold wine, can't swim, can't even kill the Black Bastard of-!"

"Father" Asha said aloud, finally letting up at the foolishness before the tapestry, turning to her with concern in her eyes, concern and dread. There was need for her to fear the Kraken. She was Kraken too, unlike the screaming Starks and the cowards. A mad Kraken, yes, but still a Kraken. "What did you do? That skull in your hand-"

"Victarion was my cup-bearer, fool girl" he told her and drank deep of that sweet wine that Victarion had made bitter. "It serves him justly. If he couldn't succeed in life he could serve well me in death". He held out Victarion towards her, showed her the uncle that had been so useless. "After they scooped all the grey and green and pink bits out they set his eyes with gold and lignite. So he wouldn't spill. But he keeps on spilling. Keeps on failing! Useless!"

"You made a drinking vessel out of your own brother's head?!" And now she was loud. Screaming like a woman. But no, she wasn't a woman. She was his son, his best son. Why was she a woman? And why did cowards pour into his chamber, Harlaw and Blacktyde and Botley and even some Greyjoy ones, coming to her back? Cowards merely. Cowards were deaf, they could not hear. They were too occupied with running to be able to hear anything. "The defeats, Victarion's and Theon's deaths – they've driven you mad! You're mad!"

"I am the only sane one. I am the only one sane of mind left. Here, take him" he said as he tossed Victarion to her, spilling wine like blood all over the front of her hauberk, before he turned towards his washing basin in the far corner, walking towards it. He had to get the red off his hands. Cursed Victarion and his cursed clumsiness. "We'll show them all, Asha. We gather the fleet, and first we take Bear Island, the Stoney Shore, Deepwood Motte. Then we make our grandest fire yet". As he put his hands in the water of the basin it darkened ever so little, from crystally clear to seeming more like the brine of the Drowned Men. "We set the ships for South, then North. We round Dorne and then up, past Tarth and King's Landing. We take White Harbour and sail up the Knife as far as Castle Cerwyn. And then Winterfell. I'll murder and rape and reave like-"

"Tristifer. Quarl. Seize him". Suddenly his hands were lifted from the sea and forced out, held in place by strong men with strong arms, and a strong hand, Asha's hand, grasped at his hair as he struggled. "You'd kill us all. You'd make us a flash flood, father, a storm. Raging and roaring and gone in an instant. We are the sea, and we rise slowly. We encroach. We eat away at them and swallow their shores one by one. We are not a storm. We are the sea".

"What is this?!" He heard his voice breaking, but it was of little matter. His hands were sticky with Victarion's blood, and he had to wash it off. Wash it off. "Wash it off, now!" It was all his fault.

"Is this your king?" She wasn't asking him, was she? No, she was speaking to the cowards.

"Fool girl, you're not my son. Cowards can't hear you" he told her, tried to make her see the folly of what she was trying to do. "They don't have ears! They dropped them when they ran away!"

"Is this your king?!" she asked them again, fool as she was. "Is this your king?! This shrieking, dull, rabid creature?! Lacking in wit and humanity?! You know what I am about to do!" What she was about to do? Talk, to cowards, as if they could hear her? She was the mad one. It was too funny. He couldn't help but laughing. "You know what I am about to be! Any of you take any fucking issue with this, step forth now! Or be forever named accomplishes in the task!" They did nothing, they answered nothing. Of course they didn't. They couldn't hear her. "I loved you once, father".

"You think to kill me, boy?!" he laughed at her, laughed at what she was trying to do. "Kill me?! I am the Son of the Sea Wind! Without me He'll come for you! Without me the Iron Islands will die!"

"What is dead may never die". She whispered that on her breath into his ear as her hands grasped his hair and angled his head by force. The water in his washing bowl seemed like the waves of the sea. He remembered the sea, the wind in his face, the screams in his ears. Like a scream her words rang through in his ears as the memories made him limp. "It rises again, harder and stronger".

And then she pushed his face under the water and drowned him.

The Mother Lion

She sighed as she washed her face in the washing basin in the back of the Small Council chambers. She had faith in Joffrey. She kept faith in Joffrey. But sometimes were harder than others.

"Well" her vile imp of a brother said before he drank deeply from his cup, eyeing the stain of wine still marring the table despite the servant girl's attempts at wiping it up "that was certainly bracing". Vile creature, low and malformed, he had been the one to drive her son to such fierce anger. It was only in his nature, wasn't it? Joffrey would roar, for he was a lion despite his name. A lion, proud and strong. How could an imp possibly understand? "He was always bad, but now it's simply getting out of hand". He looked up and gave Lord Father a glance at the head of the table. "No pun intended".

"I know very well what you intended". Lord Father had grown snappish and brusque, more so than even before, ever since the Blackwater. One of Stannis Baratheon's marksmen had struck him with a quarrel to the thigh, and though he had shouldered through the pain and fought all the battle with the projectile still lodged there he been forced to do his ceremony of office riding, as he hadn't been able to stand. Even now he walked with difficulty, forcing himself along by the cane leant against the armrest of his chair, and his face was streaked with anger and agony when he thought that none could see. Perhaps that was why he was short of words of late. Perhaps that was why he had let her be on the council as an advisor even though he had sworn to dismiss her from it.

Perhaps he feared for the future of his works and his family. Perhaps he wanted her, at last, to be his successor and his heir. And perhaps the skies over King's Landing will be filled with swarms of flying pigs. Do not fool yourself, Cersei. Lord Father is as strong as ever.

"I intended nothing, Father, I assure you – but incidentally there is truth to my jest". That smug, devious creature – he had made Father rile Joffrey up. She knew he had. "All the rest of you'd agree, would you not?" Uncle Kevan, serving as Master of Laws, made a face where he sat next the Spider eunuch, looking across the table to the empty seat of the Grand Maester beside Aurane Waters. Aurane was a good choice for the position in her mind, even though Lord Father had his doubts. But by his inclusion they had earned the loyalty of the Driftmark fleet and all the ships of the Blackwater. "Then again, none of you would ever dare to speak against Tywin Lannister, Hand of the King".

"My Lord Hand, if I might offer a word of caution". Varys that, his voice silky and slick, entirely sexless just like the eunuch itself. Revolting creature. "Too much Milk of the Poppy can have ill repercussions on the body. Constant tiredness, spasms of the muscles and the limbs, sleeplessness – I fear that if we shall keep treating his moods with the Milk, he might be rendered" he paused, a mummers trick of theatre she found incredibly vexing "incapable of ruling".

"I know, Lord Varys – which is why we rule for him. The King is young, and impatient with youth. That someone told him that Clegane was captured by the Starks was unfortunate but inevitable". A thousand times more unfortunate for her stole. She had favoured that garment, and now it was ruined with wine. Thankfully none of it had gotten in her hair or on her dress. "But his name day is in a scant few weeks. The gifts shall be enough to mull him over and curb his fangs. Especially the ones by myself given".

"And might we ask what those gifts might be, oh Mighty Father?" Tyrion asked as she went to retake her place at Father's left hand, opposite Uncle Kevan.

"Your glibness does you no credit, Tyrion". She would have smirked at the creature that had lured the world to think him her brother had she not been angry still about the ruination of her best stole. "Fetch them". Father looked to one of the three of his manservants standing by the door to his private quarters, and the man hurried out, returning with a large box and another servant carrying the same a few scant moments later. "These will no doubt improve his mood. We shan't have to sedate him for a full four days or so by my reckoning".

"Is that-" Aurane Waters spoke up, rising from his chair aghast and agape as the boxes were placed on the council table and opened. "Is that Valyrian steel? Valyrian steel swords?"

They were, truly both of them were. Jaime, you should be here to see them. How her brother, her lover, her other half, would have marvelled. "From whence did you get them, Father?"

"Regardless of the whence, the getting must have cost a fortune". Her impish brother, in his greed, did take his duties as Master of Coin seriously. "They don't match the descriptions of any existing Valyrian blades. According to the chronicles I've read about them, that is Are they freshly forged?"

"They are". Though one was longer than the other by three inches and wider by half an inch, and though their hilts and scabbards were greatly different in everything but their colouring of gold and red, the blades were alike. The steel was grey as smoke, darkening to black in places, and red ripples ran through the steel, the colours of blood and night.

Aurane's eyes, so like Rhaegar's but not an inch of his nature's, were wide open in what she took to be jealousy. "No one's made a Valyrian steel sword since the Doom of Valyria!"

"There are three living smiths who know how to rework Valyrian steel. As to my knowledge. One of them, master armourer Tobho Mott, has a shop here in King's Landing. The largest building on the Street of Steel is his shop". Father paused and lifted one, the larger one, eyeing it with a hardly noticeable scowl. "Though he might not be as good as they claimed. He couldn't get the colouring right and said some nonsense about the steel resisting change".

Varys, as always, interjected where he didn't belong, where he wasn't needed. "Where did you get enough steel for two swords, my Lord Tywin?"

"The weapon was absurdly large. And the one to whom it belonged had no longer any need of it". That meant- she smiled. Oh, it was just too precious. From the ruin of the Starks they had gained their power, and from the ruin of Ice they had forged two new swords for their family.

"Father, was this wise?" Tyrion's voice grated harshly on her ears, and she wished she had her wine, but Joffrey had knocked over her goblet when he had thrown his own during his earlier tantrum. "You all do realise that this has killed any hope we had left of treating peace with the Starks? Did you smash Eddard's skeleton to powder while you were at it?"

"Treating with the Starks, pah" Father scoffed and lifted his gaze to give her a harsh look. "Your sister killed any hope of treating with the Starks the moment she let Arya Stark escape her". Ah. It ranked on her, that, but it wasn't her doing. It was her men who had been to slow and dumb and clumsy. Meryn Trant, if she recalled right. Yes, it was Ser Trant's fault. All of it. "It showed us liars. It weakened our standing. And now that Sansa Stark has slipped your bonds-"

"What about the burning of the Westerlands?" Tyrion pressed, and she wondered why Father hadn't strangled the foul thing in the crib after it had ended Mother's life. "I've had the words. I've heard them shouted in the streets. The Stark boy plunders, rapes and pillages as he damn well pleases". He narrowed his discoloured eyes at Father over the swords in what should have been their moment of pride. "Does it move you nothing that your own people suffer?"

"We've bought time enough to regroup and resupply with the burning of the Westerlands. What they've gained there will bog them down, and our agents in Highgarden will snuff their alliance with the Tyrells before it is even made whole". Father, of course, knew better than to engage the fool. He knew wars and battles better than anyone man alive, better by much than the boy Stark. "Before long we will have the Stormland troops ready to march, and with them on our side we will outnumber the boy Stark's army easily".

Uncle Kevan, always good and loyal to Father, cleared his voice and spoke up. "With the Tyrrel alliance broken we will cast their armies out of the realm, send them to their fey Gods when we hang them all as traitors".

"And what of Ser Gregor? Your champion, the Mountain that Rides?" Again, Tyrion, always with the questions, never knowing the patience of listening. And who cared at all for Gregor Clegane? Jaime was locked in with him. "Taking him hostage was a great offense. A blow to the family respect you value oh so highly".

"What about Jaime?" she asked Father, and he gave her a look of steel. But she had steel in her too. She had given birth to a king. She was a queen. "What about your son?"

"Neither of you know, but things have changed in the world". By the way he said it was something she knew, in her heart, would not end well for anyone, but they would no doubt have the best of it. "Dark things have awoken. It allows the Starks to win because they wield the darkness like a weapon" he went on, tapping the surface of the table with his forefinger in a rhythm she thought she could almost recognise. "We have weapons too. I have sent a man to free them".

He said nothing further on the matter. Apparently, that was not good enough for Tyrion. "And that is all you will tell us?"

"That is all you need to know. Any of you" he shifted his gaze from Tyrion to Uncle Kevan to Aurane to Varys to her to Pycelle's empty seat, the Grand Maester seeing to the comfort of his king. "Now, unless there were some other matter?" None spoke, and so he made a gesture, dismissing them all with a wave. "The council is adjourned. Ready kingly gifts for my grandson's nameday, to match or outmatch mine. You will be summoned when I have need of you".

Later, in her own solar in the Red Keep, decorated and furnished as befitted a queen, with food on hand, she thought on that meeting and Lord Tywin's ominous words. Dark things? Awoken? Surely it was foolishness, all of it. Perhaps he had hired the Faceless Men to get them back to her. She cared not. As long as she had Jaime back to her side, whole and safe.

"Vile creature" one of the Marbrand girls that served as one of her ladies-in-waiting whispered to the others around her, speaking of Tyrion as they paraded in turn her stoles before her, helping her chose what she was to wear to the supper that evening. "A horrible little thing"

"Every inch the scampering demon, especially after the Blackwater" Jocelyn Swift supplied in accord with the rest, dim-witted as the wench was she could nothing more than agree to anything.

"Methinks he wasn't wounded". That was the Estermont girl with eyes like a turtle, fittingly enough, speaking that strange Greenstone accent born of the island's relative isolation. "Me thinks t'was merely his impish nature, brought to the fore by the slaughter he there caused".

"I've heard he killed two hundred men on his ownsome in the battle" said the Brax girl last, the youngest of the lot, wide of eye and easily fooled by even the wildest of stories and most fanciful of notions "and ate them!"

She held up her hand and urged their silence all, and as a hush fell over them – at least they knew their place – Tyrek approached from aside, a pitcher of wine in his hand, ready to supply her new gilded goblet studded with rubies, one she kept in her own chambers most of the time. "More wine, my Queen?" She dismissed him with a wave, and he took that as an invitation as to leave. She almost wanted to smirk at it all.

"Hold a while, Tyrek" she said aloud as the maids showed her once stole after the other, and the young man paused in the doorway, looking back at her, his face a perfect mask of civility and servitude. Only his eyes betrayed him. Only his eyes showed a hint of fear. "That one" she chose one stole out of the rest – a golden thing with red trimmings of lace, opulent and imperial in manner – before she dismissed the servants, leaving her alone with Tyrek. "I have heard things. Things from men I trust. Men who claim that you are in league with a spider".

"My Queen-" he stuttered out as if it was a notion she had made up, dreamt up, wished into being. It wasn't. He, unlike what one of her people had reported, had been at the very thick of it at the riots after sweet, precious Myrcella had been shipped off to Dorne, sold for an alliance like a horse or a bag of beets. "I-" Tyrek swallowed hard, fear making him shudder. "I would never betray you-"

"Spare me the fictions, Cousin Tyrek. For being a spy you are a poor liar". He blinked up at her before he fell to his knees before her, shivering like a boy of three before a warhorse. "Your reasons for being Varys's agent do not interest me". She reached out and put her hand to his chin, angling his face up towards hers. "Only that you are".

"My Queen" he stammered out, powerless before her "I beg your most merciful clemency-"

"Enough. How you came out unharmed in the riots I do not know. Some eunuch trick, no doubt. He didn't geld you, did he?" Shuddering, trembling, he shook his head. "Good. It would be a waste of good Lannister stock, that". They were lions in a world of stags and wolves and sheep. They were kings amongst men. Blood best not diluted. "I must tell my Lord Father of this"

He shook his head hurriedly as if on reflex. "Please, have mercy! My queen, I beg of you-!"

"Do not beg!" It was revolting, seeming him crawl on the floor like a maggot. "We are lions! Begging is for lambs! We roar, and they cower!" No, she had to compose herself. This would not do. "I shan't tell Father – but you must do something for me. Go to Varys, as you did before. Do what he asks of you, as you did before. But now" she settled back into her chair, tapping the rim of her empty goblet "now you will tell me everything first". It never hurt to have agents in the enemy camp, after all.

"Y-your wish is my command, my Queen" he stammered out at last. "When have you need of me?" Tyrek stood and bowed before her, ever the faithful and perfect squire. He was quite a lot like Jaime, wasn't he? In appearance, anyway. Much like Lancel, before Lancel had died by the Blackwater by a Florent spear through his back. He did look a lot like Jaime had, when he and she were young. And he was married to a babe suckling still at the breast, was he not? Surely a boy his age has desires. Just like she did. She missed Jaime something fierce. It was as if she was only ever truly alive when her brother was inside of her.

But that would wait. As a reward, perhaps. "For now?" With a smile that made him blush and avert his eyes she extended her cup towards him. "Only more wine".

The Young Giant

"Should you really be drinking? Now, of all times?" Ebbert's voice grated more than usual. How about that. It seemed that working with the man made him even more vexing.

"Don't be such a worrywart, mate. One should always drink when dealing with matters of the head" Jon, called Smalljon by most, poured himself another mug by the wooden tap in the small barrel on the edge of the table and lifted it to his nose to smell once the pouring was done. "Ah, bloody good, this. Prime dry stout, as they made it back when the family lands were called Kingdom of the Shadow. Have a gander at this, will you?" he extended the cup towards Ebbert, who wrinkled his nose as he looked down into it. Wrinkling his nose, at stout? Bloody heathen. "Perfect, so it is. As black as Joffrey Lannister's heart, and as dry as his mother's cunt".

"Colourful epithets" Ebbert noted as the two of them turned back to the parchments rolled out on the table before them in Smalljon's own tent, erected a good distance from the walls of Red Lake castle and out of reach from the defensive measures the Reachmen could employ to try and ward off their assault. "You have a mind for them. I've noticed".

"You and everyone else, Maester. My great-uncles keep telling me I'm just too bloody clever". He took long draught from his cup and sighed with joy as the flavour came to him like a dream of Last Hearth. "We should probably get this sodding thing understood, sooner rather than later. Personally I don't see why we should bother laying siege to this sodding castle".

"I'm no Maester". Ebbert said first, shrugging it off even though it bothered him something fierce, plain as day. "It's because only half of House Crane has remained loyal to Lord Paramount Mace" Ebbert said, as if he didn't already know all of that. Long since told, actually. "The rest of the House, under Ser Parmen and Ser Rycherd, joined Stannis Baratheon after Renly's death. Parmen's a fierce warrior, even. He was the Purple of Renly's Rainbow Guard-"

Jon couldn't hold back laugh. "What part of him was purple, to earn him that name?" he said through his chuckles. "Parmen the Purple! Hah! No, I ken that. I ken also why. While the Tyrells set the courses for the wedding we put our swords to use, riding around the Reach to strike rebellious banners. I ken. His Grace wants to ingratiate himself to our new allies, and give his goodfather the Lord Pompous Ser Crane's head for a wedding gift. I don't question the King's orders. What I don't ken is: why us? Why do we have to stay here, in the camp, while his Grace and the rest of the guard are out riding and slaughtering? Why we, the spymasters?"

Why are we slavering to the whims of some fat Southron fuck?

"There need be no taking of heads" the sandy haired little man replied as he ran his fingers down the diagrams on the pages before them on the table. "And it's because I used to be a Maester. One that studied warfare". He put his thumb through one of the links in the chain around his neck, one that was often hidden at his collar unlike the rest, and pulled it into the fore. "Iron's for warcraft. However, it appears that my training in the matter of siege engines was less than adequate". He pulled his thumb out of the chain and ran his tired hand down his face. "Gods, I can't make heads or tails of this".

"Well, let's see here then" he leant past the Maester and looked over the drawing provided to them by Willas Tyrell, the cripple. Back in the Umber lands a man maimed like that would have been left to the wolves long since. "Well, these wheels as the bottom – those're men running in them? – they pull on this rope winch here then? And that winch pulls on the arm, lowering it to lock in the position here despite the counterweight. Once the arm is locked down the stone's placed here, then? And then, by this lever" he tapped the diagrams in one place before pointing to the pictograph in the corner, showing the trebuchet firing. "It rains death down on our enemies' heads. Bloody magnificent". He looked up at Ebbert, who was staring back at him. "What? Is there something in my beard?"

"You're shrewd" Ebbert said, as if it was a surprise. "Oddly shrewd. You never seem that way".

He looked back, raising his eyebrows before he drank deeply of his clay mug. "Those are fighting words, mate" he said at last before he put his hand atop Ebbert's head and turned his head forwards towards the diagrams again. "Now, you've got to figure out how it all fits together. How the cogs work and the what-nots. I can't do bloody everything around here myself".

"This is why you are here, Umber" Ebbert said aloud as he touched the edges of the parchments and drew out another one from the pile, the one displaying the schematics for a rope-suspended battering ram. "Now, this is just insulting. They don't think we know how to build wall breakers. Umber" he said before a long pause. "My father used to say that you lot have a certain low cunning – whatever that is supposed to mean".

"Sounds like it's taken right out of Leechlord Roose's mouth" Jon shrugged back. He had heard much worse over his years, though most who had uttered such had never lived long enough to spread those words on to others. "No matter. You Whitehill lot out of Highpoint have had a good relationship with the Boltons over the years. Kinship at times, if I'm not mistaken".

"I'm not a Whitehill" the little man shot back defiantly, riling against those words just like little Hrimfrost, Jon's youngest brother. Though he might have another one soon, if Mother bore the child to term. If it was a boy in her belly. Which it might well not be. He'd like another sister. "I was born a Whitehill, to Ludd Whitehill. But I forswore that name when I first arrived at the Citadel. The name, and the family".

"You're not a Whitehill, and you're not a Maester. So what are you?" he drank again and found his mug all but empty. "More drink! You want one-" he paused and looked long at the man "oh royal scholar?" he made a face in disgust. "No, that was terrible. Royal Scholar's not right".

"Thank you, Umber – but I'd rather not" Ebbert sighed aloud and ran his hand down his face once again. "It's late, long past midnight, it's bitterly cold and I am sick at heart. I'll take my leave to sleep. And hopefully not dream too much of days long gone by and-" he made a face and shut up. Quiet, in a fashion as if he had something to hide. Well, he wasn't one to pry.

"Aye, that's the cost of the Weirwood rites, isn't it? Visions and dreams all abound as I am given to understand. I'd be careful indulging in those things if I were you". Ebbert reached for the parchments before he gave him a look. "Leave them. I'll look them over a few more times before I take my rest. And don't set yourself at a pin's fee, friend. You're wary and 'reft of sleep. Otherwise you'd be much shrewder than me. Former Maester and all".

"It is kind of you to say that" Ebbert inclined his head and gave him a small smile. "'Friend'. First time you've ever called me that. First time anyone's ever called me a friend in quite a long time".

"An honest mistake" Jon shot him a wink and took him by the shoulder, showing him out of the tent. "If you're bitter cold tonight you should have a woman warm your bed. Or man – I shan't judge. Cold is cold, and warmth is warmth". He saw how the former Maester blushed and chuckled aloud as they left the tent for the inner recesses of the camp beyond. The night wind was brisk and strong against their faces, and to the north lay Castle Red Lake and its walls. "But I suppose with the Citadel and the chains and all you've not been much around girls. Cursed oaths of celibacy, a pox on the world worse than pox! Now, what you want to do is-" he saw the guise that came over Ebbert's stare and let up with a smile. "Tomorrow, then. Now off with you. To bed!"

"Aye" Ebbert nodded and straggled away towards his tent, one amongst the many at the centre of the camp where the honour guard of Robb's army kept their rest. Each rider in the guard were allowed a few attendants from their own holdings, to keep their arms and armour and set their tent and horses for them, and Jon, Smalljon as they all called him on account of his father, had five of them, sitting around a campfire built between his and their tents. All good people from the Shadow, that Umber lands, and he was fairly certain that one of them, Boren, was at least half a clansman on account of how bloody dull he was. Not too dumb, just dull. Utterly bloody unspirited as a clansman was wont to be, given that the fuckers did nothing but tend their mines and their sheep, day in and day out in perpetuity.

The rest were not so bad, he thought as he went to the fire and gathered them up for a sip or a dozen from the barrel of stout he had bartered from a Condon man. Even Boren was good enough with the greatsword to be useful in the fray. Fand was a thoughtful sort, equally as tedious to be around as Boren without having the excuse of being as thick as a Bear Island man's skull, while Darran was quiet most of the time when he wasn't fondling his chain-hammer and Cass was – let's be honest here – a massive cunt. The only one of them who was any honestly good company was Mye Cranmer, their captain, the best bloody spearwoman in all of Father's army.

"So what were you all aflame about?" he wondered as he gathered them in his tent in a gathering of chairs and stools, cups and mugs in all their hands. "You all were talking loudly 'bout something. What was it?" He kept his eyes on Mye over the rim of his cup, on that woman whom he had learned the sword and riding with, the woman with the bright golden braids and the fierce dark eyes that had always been more of a sister to him than his own, especially that brat Rowra. Well, been a sister to him until he had gone to become a man. By then, though, he was equally a friend with the boring sodding clansman that had become her husband.

"There was this matter we were thinking on" Cass began slowly, as if taking a mummer's bloody pause, gesticulating wildly with his cup. "We'd actually sought your opinion, m'Lord. What-?"

"So, what do you think?" Mye asked, seemingly eager. "We've been betting on it, so we have. Now -there's a few different ways it can go". Oh, what by the blasted ancestors were they on about now? "I'd personally go with the Wylla woman. I heard that Lord Ned said she was 'is mother himself. Harwyn heard it, so he did, when he and the Usurper were out hunting. Wylla, a wetnurse at Starfall. Boren says it's just some odd Smallfolk lass from the South, that the Lord Ned forgot his honour in a weak moment with some baker's daughter or fisherwoman. Cass says it's Ashara Dayne, on account of him being besotted with her as a young-"

Jon couldn't help but scoff at the lot of them and drink deeply of his stout. "You lot honestly bet on whom I think mothered Lord Jon Stark?" Lord Snow, more like. He acquitted himself well enough, he supposed – but he was loath to trust the man until he had proven himself more thoroughly, Golden Tooth be damned. "I can't be arsed, honestly, and what does it matter either way?"

"Of course it matters!" Mye gasped aloud in protest, obviously taking some manner of offence that she shouldn't have. "It's his ma, isn't she? We'd all like to bloody know. Fand, Fand's got a good one. Tell Smalljon, will you Fand?"

"I propose that Lord Ned isn't Jon's da at all – or, rather, was" Fand began to drone, the boring sort of man whose friends had permanently glazed-over eyes from merely being in his company. "I'd say that his Lordship was too honourable for even that. And that he lied about Lord Jon being his. And I'd say that the only one Lord Ned would lie for would be a member of his family that had been dishonoured and despoiled. Whose name would be besmirched otherwise".

"Where-?" Jon asked his sworn sword before he stopped in the middle of his query and thought hard on it. Very hard on it. And something occurred to him. "Are you bloody suggesting-?" he began to ask as he rose from his chair and towered over them. The mere suggestion would be enough to send anyone into a rage.

"It's common knowledge here in the South that Prince Rhaegar was sweet on Lady Lyanna" Fand hurried to explain as the berserker started to come out in the young Umber. "Amongst the gentry, anyway. He stole her away for a reason. I say they eloped, wed in secret in the Targaryen fashion, and fled to the Tower of Joy, just like everyone else says. Is it that much of a breaking of reason to suggest that she bore him a son there, a child Lord Ned named his own for the sake of kinship and his blessed Lady sister?"

"You are saying that Lord Jon is the son of Lady Lyanna and Rhaegar fucking Targaryen?!" That was when they all came to know that they had overstepped. Grossly. They knew it further when Smalljon Umber stepped forth and drove his fist into Fand's face with enough force to throw him off the chair and to the ground beyond it. "Is that what you say?!"

"My Lord!" Mye and the others jumped to their feet and raised their hands, urging caution in him with staying motions and calming words of apology. "We beg your pardon! We wouldn't-!"

"Up with you". He walked forth and pulled Fand to his feet, taking the man by his bleeding cheek with one hand and by the shoulder with the other. "That'll be enough of such accursed slander from out of you. Those words could have cost you your head elsewhere. I'm merciful enough to leave it at this". He turned his head and looked to the rest of them before he shoved Fand their way, the companions catching him with tender hands. "You view history thus, you lot. I view it otherly:

"I say that Rhaegar Targaryen stole a young girl away to a land she had never known for his own rabid reasons, away from her home, away from her family, away from all her friends and everything she had ever known. I say he raped her, again and again, as his kin murdered her brother and had her Lord father burned alive. I say that the dragonspawn killed her with his poison seed, or that his Kingsguard wardens slit her throat when she tried to escape him". He stopped, looking each of them in the eye in turn. "That is what I think happened. Speak never of this again. Not to me, each other or anyone else".

They all nodded, Mye doing so the slowest but doing so yet the same, and when they all seemed to be in accord he took their cups to refill along with his own. They didn't speak between themselves, though the looks they gave each other spoke volumes. Thus he decided to nip this foolishness in the bud, once and for all.

"It doesn't matter who Lord Jon's mother is" he told them as he doled out the cups and had them all sit back down again. "Not to us, and not in the eyes of the law. Or even if he's someone else's son on all accounts, even Lord Ned's. His Grace, the King in the North, legitimised him as his brother and heir either way. In such relation his blood doesn't matter, only his name does. No matter his blood – he's Northern, and he's a Stark. The Direwolf would not cleave to him otherwise. He might be anyone's son by blood: Lord Ned's, Lady Lyanna's, their brother Brandon's, Wylla the wench's or that of an Other even. But his name is Stark. That means that we'll die for him. The North Remembers!"

"The North Remembers" they repeated the personal proverb of Robb Stark after him and drained their mugs as one, even Fand. There were no hard feelings between the two, no sentiments of ill-will. Sometimes Jon raged. It was in a berserker's nature and his training. In the Umber lands this was accepted. And after one more cup each they all went to leave. Everyone except for Mye.

"Get your rest, captain" he told her as he made to pour over the diagrams and drawings and schematics provided by the Citadel through Willas Tyrell as she went to set all the cups aside. "I'll take those. Someone can-"

"I'll have Fand wash the mugs and dishes on the morrow" she told him as she piled it all on the stand in the corner, the one beside his armour and where his axe and mace were leant. "A little more lashing won't set him wrong. Pardons, Smalljon. I should have known not to have him bring it up, since your Lord father's views on the histories-"

"My father, who once thought to take a woman by force but realised the monstrousness of that act?" He smirked down at the papers before him, the expression morphing into a sad smile on my lips. "Mother told me once, how scared she was when first she saw my father. Standing in the doorway of the ruined mill they had taken shelter in from the storm. She thought he was giant. She, who had befriended actual giants. She'd tell me about them. About the creature upon our coat of arms. How few there were left in the world. No real giants-"

Her hand fell upon his upper arm and silenced him with a look. "Stop waxing so bloody poetic, m'Lord Umber". He made to correct her, but she scoffed and shook her head. "Aye, I ken, thine father's the sodding Lord, but you'll be Lord one day. A good one, too. One of the best. And that means to not wallow in your own remembrances".

He chuckled and shook his head. It was almost amusing, so it was. "Who can truly say what it means to be a good Lord? A good ruler?"

"Our King's one, isn't he?" she asked as if it was nothing, as if there was no doubt, no worries, no reason to drink one's nights away even though it was pathetic. "Isn't he?" she repeated when she saw the look on his face. "Isn't he? Come now, Umber, don't say that you are-?"

"Doubting?" he wondered, the smile gone from his face. "I am. Gods curse me, I am". She looked at him as if he had grown a second head, and so he sighed and explained. "'All Chains but One'. Though all other chains may break, all other oaths broken and all other men dead, the Shadow follows Winterfell. From the days of Hēhrfrast Umber and onto the end of time it shall be so. From the King-beyond-the-Wall they saved us, from the Wildling hordes. And in returned we chained our hearts to Winterfell". No matter what. "Forever". The words were whispered by his own voice in his mind.

Doubter. Traitor.

"How could he?" It was pathetic, wasn't it, to doubt over something so puny? "His family keeps the loyalty of my House, forever. By his deeds he earned our love. He let us lead, let us be his heralds, let us pillage his goldmines and ward his family. And what did he then? What did King Robbard do with all his power and all our swords?" He bared his teeth and slammed his fist into the table, the wood creaking almost to the point of splintering underneath his hand. "He submitted to the Queen of Thorns. I saw it. Cowered to her every whim, like a dog! All Chains but One! My ancestors would weep if they knew we made ourselves subjects to some harlot of the bloody South!" He forced his breath out through his teeth. "All Chains but One. We didn't swear that for this".

"Oh, stop with the bravado and the self-pitying, will you?" Mye, clever as she was, showed him not an inkling of sympathy or gave him an inch of pull. "You think you're the only Umber man to think thus? To ever think thus? See, I think whatshisname, Harkwarg?" Not quite right, but close enough to the name to not cause offense or confusion. "The Umber Lord during Torrhen? I think he thought the same, but he didn't turn traitor. He never went against his king".

"Go against him?" No. The mere thought was absurd. Worthy of a man who had lost his wits. "Never. I would never raise my arms against Robb. His name is Stark". He looked to her, and by his look her courage fell, the shame and rage pulling on his face until the corner of his lips twitched. "But he isn't at his senses. Not in his right mind. His love for the Tyrell girl drives him to madness. If he had to he'd set our freedom at a whore's fee and sell it to have her. It's not love. Its slavery. Shackles. Only the Gods know how they turned his mind to their will, but it's not of honest nature. It's not love".

"Maybe you're just seeing things" she suggested, and by all the Gods and Ancestors he hoped that it was so. "Sorcery's everywhere, if the sodding Weirwood-lickers are to be believed. That doesn't mean that, that the Tyrells put a love spell on him or something equally inane". Well, when she said it like that it truly did sound foolish, didn't it? Like a child's notion or the invention of a truly shoddy bard. "Maybe he's just a boy in love. He's young, and even the old are driven mad by love".

"It's not love. It's madness" he shook his head and breathed out hard. "Love is something that grows. It's a seat planted in our hearts. And with years and spring and sunlight it grows. Grows from friendship and-". Gods, he was saying too much, wasn't he? He pried his eyes away from hers and looked back down on the parchments. It was safer that way. "It's not that. It's not this".

"Is that what you believe?" There was something in her voice besides the accusation and the anger and the confusion. "Is that what all the whores and slatterns you take to your bed believe?" Hurt, hurt, as if his words had offended her. "Is that what Mychel told you?"

"No". And that was what had offended her, wasn't it? What had hurt her? Mychel, the damn clansman. "He told me he loved you, had loved you since he first saw your face". Bloody boring one, that daft man. But, like with most clansmen, fiercely good with the staff sling and the greatsword. "With a quarrel in gut, underneath a tree in the fucking Whispering Woods, all he could think of was you". Bloody ancestors, even when winning the War they were losing it. Losing the people that mattered in it. "He was a good man".

"And a good husband". She didn't say it with any joy in her voice more than slight, her mirth drowned in guilt for some reason. "The marriage was my father's notion, his and Mychel's uncle Brandell's. Even though I couldn't return his-" she paused, and he looked to her, see her having turned her eyes off of him, gazing out into the darkness beyond his tent with a strange and uncharacteristic wetness in her eyes. "It's not important. Being with him was a good thing. Love is a good thing".

"Can you say that truthfully, given how he's traded his own brother's standing for a woman and a couple of wagons of fucking barley?" Like the North was something to be bartered away like a cask of stout. Like their freedom was. Like their sovereignty was. "Defies the point. He's not in love with her. He's a slave to her. To them. Shackled to them, by sorcery or love or madness, and all chains break. All chains but one".

"So" she swallowed and began her question again when the silence got the better of her. "What will you do about this supposed madness?"

"I'm his spymaster. I'll listen. I'll watch. I'll watch them all. If this madness goes on" he hated to say it, but he had to, he had to force it out because it was what he needed to do "if they keep ensnaring him in this madness" he bared his teeth and snarled like a beast, like a wolf, like a Direwolf. "I'll kill them. I'll kill them all".

"Ma always said that there's so few giants left in the world – but there are some. And we're as shrewd as we are strong" he told her as she watched him in silence, watching her back as the tears vanished from her eyes. "Low cunning, huh? I'll show those who would shackle us". The Tyrells, the Southrons, the Queen of Thorns, the Ironborn. He'd kill them all. "The Giant breaks all chains".

"All Chains but One".

END

A/N: … maybe with this chapter up and out I'll have courage enough to read the reviews I've gotten of late.

Anyway, I'm not quite happy with this chapter. Writing Balon Greyjoy as truly insane might be a little OOC – well, quite a bit OOC really – but the chapter took that turn and it was a joy to write. As for the Umber part of the chapter I also enjoyed. The Cersei one: not so much.

It's not that I dislike Cersei as a character. I do, but that's not the point. It's just that I can't seem to write her the way I truly want to without several chapters exclusively from her point of view to flesh out her particularly unique psychosis. Complicated and complex, most assuredly, and in a chapter such as this she comes across as nothing but a lusty drunkard and a truly awful person.

I'm going to take a break from writing this story for a while because of family reasons, reasons I don't want to expound upon, and to focus on my own original writing. I should be back to writing this story in a month or so.

Anyway, I hope that you've enjoyed this chapter. The best is yet to come.

Ta.