Chapter 21: Chapter XX: Concerning TidesChapter Text
Chapter XX: Concerning Tides
To our Master of Ships, Lord Admiral and beloved uncle, The Most Noble Lord Alyn Velaryon, Lord of the Tides and Master of Driftmark.
Since by the unjust action of the magisters of Lys, who has sailed against our ships without grievance or just cause, we are not bound to observe peace with the Free City of Lys, and war between us now has begun, we have proposed to fight against Lys and all its citizens by means of your help and counsel.
The Lyseni have taken to harassing the good merchants of our realm, and seizing their goods in a piratical manner, yet lacking cause for reprisal. Until full satisfaction is made to our subjects, we have ordered the arrest of all Lyseni merchants in our ports and of all the goods of the inhabitants of the Free City of Lys which we find in our jurisdiction in reprisal for the malefaction of said city.
Your person being at such time, engaged in war on behalf of our crown, for which you have our utmost gratitude, we have asked our trusty cousin, Ser Herman Harte, to oversee the affairs of your office, that, on account of distance, you find yourself unable to. Ser Herman, has been instructed to oversee that the goods of Lyseni merchants be placed in the custody of our officials, and we have sent royal words for such matter to White Harbor, Gulltown, Driftmark and the Weeping Town, to Oldtown, Lannisport, Lordsport and Seagard.
We have granted letters of reprisal to our subjects deprived of their lawful goods, so that they might proceed to be compensated for their losses. The properties and goods seized shall bring satisfaction to our merchants, and all goods that shall exceeds the amounts unlawfully and maliciously seized shall remain in the custody of our loyal servants, as our own retribution for the cost that war with Lys has forced upon us.
We commend and command the acquisition of the Stepstones, a deed on which you have foreseen the king's desire. It is our desire that our Lord Admiral and the ship-borne warriors and mariners he commands to root out from these isles the bandits of the sea, the sons of perdition which have made their nests here. In these islands much evil can be done, if they remain in the hands of evil men.
As they profess no loyalty or fealty to any king, prince, magister or archon, and have preyed equally upon any peaceful merchant ships that passed through the islands, we condemn them as enemies of all mankind, As we have asserted our sovereignty upon these islands, these villains are now our subjects, and subject to our law and authority. We condemn their malefactions and command you to treat them as out of the bounds of any court, hated by all honest folk, and "Outlaw!" shall be cried against them, and from such time forwards it is lawful for anyone to slay them. I remove their bodies and goods from the state of peace and rule them strifed, I proclaim them free of any redemption and rights. They shall not have peace and company on any roads, and shall be deprived of water and hearth fire, of bread and salt.
Upon the purging of these isles, we command that you fortify them, leaving them garrisoned in strength, for we mean to use them when we shall march upon Dorne, and bring to heel those murderous curs.
The Prince Martell has professed himself unbowed and bowed to our august brother, he has professed himself unbent, but bent his knee, he has professed himself unbroken, but broke his sworn oath. For that we shall break him, and we shall break and sunder Dorne.
When you shall pronounce your service done and commands fulfilled we shall summon you to the Red Keep, to present yourself to the Iron Throne and pay homage to your lawful sovereign as Lord of the Stepstones and Warden of the Narrow Sea, in recognition of your great deeds done in our service and the claim that your sadly passed lady wife, the princess Baela, possessed, as eldest child of our illustrious grandsire, the Prince Daemon Targaryen, once crowned as King of the Stepstones and the Narrow Sea. If the Seven see fit that you should wed again, and a second wife shall bestow you sons, you shall not pass these lands and title upon such heirs, but shall leave heir of this fief your daughter, the Lady Laena. And if the gods take our beloved cousin, without heirs of her own body, upon your own death, such titles and lands shall return to our royal person.
Hear and obey.
May the Seven have you in their keeping.
Written in the day of the Feast of the Stranger, in our royal castle,
Baelor, First of His Name, by Divine Grace King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm.
The septas were not pleased when Laena preferred sailing to needlework, the feel of the sea wind, cold and salty, upon her face rather sitting and gossiping with her handmaidens. It was her father that taught her sailing and fighting, that turned a blind eye and deaf ear to the protestations of the septas.
It was her father that understood that her spirit roamed beyond the fetters of the hearth. Were she another's man daughter, she would not have been treated such but would have been married off at the soonest opportunity. Yet here she was, eight and twenty, and still unwed. Her father never forced her hand to find a husband, nor did he keep her in Driftmark, for fear of losing his only child. It was to her late mother she owed such. Dead four and ten years ago, when Laena was not even a maid of age, she had left this world with words of warning towards her husband if he ever sought to shackle her daughter. And so, for the love she bore her mother, Alyn Velaryon denied her nothing.
And for the love she bore her father, Laena did not ask for naught, but for what her blood sang for. Her blood sang not for fire, even if she was her mother's daughter. A misshapen wyrm, blind and wingless had hatched in her crib, and tore a bloody chunk from her arm, and even now she bore the scar. Her father had hacked it to pieces, and her flame was extinguished when she was barely out of the womb. But for all that the song of fire had been doused before she could even understand its melody, she did not hear a sound of silence in her soul, but rather the melody of the sea.
Baelor had told her, at cousin Daena's wedding, that he had heard the music of the spheres in a dream, and a more wondrous harmony he could not ever conceive. She had not gainsaid him, but in her mind, nothing was more wondrous than the sea. The Seven might send the king visions of such wonderful music, but perhaps the Merling King had gifted her the longing and love of the sea she possessed.
It had stirred in her heart the moment her father first took her sailing. And no peace she would find afterwards under roof, or canopy or trees, but on a ship. It was years since Laena had slept in her chambers, for even when she was at Driftmark, she found no rest but in her hammock, in her cabin on the Moondancer.
For the yearning she was bestowed, Laena prayed not to the Seven, but to the Merling King and the Moon-Pale Maiden, gods of the sea, and closer to her heart and soul. She could only fathom the salt waves tossing and the towering sea, the song of the swan, the seagull singing instead of the laughter of men, the cry of the sea-fowl. The time for journeys came, and her soul called her eagerly, and sent her over the horizon, seeking foreign shores.
She was born to greatness, bold in her youth, graced with bravery by gods, and felt no fear as the sails unfurled, but wondered what fate willed for her.
She did not sail without purpose, either to travel to see some wonder, or for trade, or in her father's service. Such service now found her in the Stepstones, her ship but one of many in a great fleet. Great battles were not forthcoming, for the pirates were of many faces and many wills, and neither so unwise than to force a battle that would lead to great loss for them
The Westerosi ships were methodically clearing out the nests of the sea bandits, sailing in small convoys to avoid ambushes. They burned the ramshackle forts and the quays of would be corsair kings.
She came upon the ships of some Tyroshi pirate, eager perhaps to flee to the Basilisk Isles. The sea-robbers of the Stepstones preferred galleys, swifter to sail and thus to ambush, and easy to resupply in the archipelago. Her ship, and those of her father's fleet, were sailing ships, with no oars, slower but higher, and having thus an advantage over the lower ones.
They swarmed his ships and sent a veritable storm of arrows and bolt from bows and javelins upon the surrounded pillagers. Symon Overly, one of the archers upon her ships, sent each of his arrows with unrelenting accuracy, felling perhaps a few dozen of his foes.
They sent then grappling hooks, and boarded the ship, and relentlessly cut down their enemies, which fell as wheat before a scythe. They did not accept their surrender, and soon the last man fell, and was swiftly thrown overboard, and she claimed the ship as her own.
Fighting was her second love. She was grateful for the measure of strength and skill the gods gave her, and she put those to great use. To see a man cut down before her, and bring his doom to him gave her a sense of power before her own fate. She made death known to many, but the Stranger did not come for her, and she made her own path, as captain of her soul and master of her fate.
To fight and seek the death of another was to sail in an unknown sea, not knowing if a storm would bring her own death, her ship sunk in the deeps, or a strange wind would lead her to even stranger shores. But she sailed between life and death with the same fervour and skill with which she led her ship through the spears of the Merling Ling.
The barren sea monts rose from the wave above the father, some rising a hundred feet. For every spear that the eye could see, a dozen more were beneath the waves. To sail into the spears was treacherous, the bottom of her vessel liable to be ripped. But she sailed into them often, repeated testaments to her skill.
For the self-same reason she boarded enemy ships and gave battle to foes. It was not the spears in Blackwater Bay, but it was the same treacherous sailing boarding a ship, not knowing when a spear would strike and wound you, and your days upon the tides would be numbered.
But the peril of death, on sea or in battle, is what gave her pleasure. To take her life in her hands, and live by her own skill, and see the storm ends with her still standing, see the battle end and herself without a wound. She defied the fate of every man, time and time again, and fame, glory, and renown, which her father sought, meant nothing to her.
When she sailed, she imperilled her life, and surviving, gained the greatest prize of all – her life, time and time again.
And neither gods, kings or husbands would take this from her. For as long as her father lived, he would indulge her. And when the sad day of his passing would come, none could command her otherwise. For then she would be Mistress of the Tides, for all that she even now mastered them.
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