The Arms of the Kraken (song of ice and fire) Read online

  She caught the woman's nose between thumb and forefinger, and pinched. "You will do as I say. And if this babe dies, no one will be sorrier than you." Three-Tooth squealed and promised to obey, till Asha let her loose and went to find her uncle.

  It was good to walk these halls again. Ten Towers had always felt like home to Asha, much more so than Pyke. Not one castle, ten castles squashed together, she had thought, the first time she had seen it. She remembered breathless races up and down the steps and along waflwalks and covered bridges, fishing off the Long Stone Quay, days and nights lost amongst her uncle's wealth of books. His grandfather's grandfather had raised the castle, the newest on the isles. Lord Theomore Harlaw had lost three sons in the cradle and laid the blame upon the flooded cellars, damp stones, and festering nitre of ancient Harlaw Hall. Ten Towers was airier, more comfortable, better sited.. . but Lord Theomore was a changeable man, as any of his wives might have testified. He'd had six of those, as dissimilar as his ten towers.

  TheBookTowerwas the fattest of the ten, octagonal in shape and made with great blocks of hewn stone. The stair was built within the thickness of the walls. Asha climbed quickly, to the fifth storey and the room where her uncle read. Not that there are any rooms where he does not read. Lord Rodrik was seldom seen without a bool in hand, be it in the privy, on the deck of his Sea Song, or whilst holding audience. Asha had oft seen him reading on his high seat beneath the silver scythes. He would listen to each case as it was laid before him, pronounce his judgement… and read a bit whilst his captain-of-guards went to bring in the next supplicant.

  She found him hunched over a table by a window, surrounded by parchment scrolls that might have come from Valyria before its Doom and heavy leather-bound books with bronze and iron hasps. Beeswax candles as thick and tall as a man's arm burned on either side of where he sat, on ornate iron holders. Lord Rodrik Harlaw was neither fat nor slim; neither tall nor short; neither ugly nor handsome. His hair was brown, as were his eyes, though the short, neat beard he favored had gone grey. All in all, he was an ordinary man, distinguished only by his love of written words, which so many ironborn found unmanly and perverse.

  "Nuncle." She closed the door behind her. "What reading was so urgent that you leave your guests without a host?"

  "Archmaester Marwyn's Book of Lost Books." He lifted his gaze from the page to study her. "Hotho brought me a copy from Oldtown. He has a daughter he would have me wed." Lord Rodrik tapped the book with a long nail. "See here? Marwyn claims to have found three pages of Signs and Portents, visions written down by the maiden daughter of Aenar Targaryen before the Doom came to Valryia. Does Lanny know that you are here?"

  "Not as yet." Lanny was his pet name for her mother; only the Reader called her that. "Let her rest." Asha moved a stack of books off a stool, and seated herself. "Three-Tooth seems to have lost two more of her teeth. Do you call her One-Tooth now?"

  "I seldom call her at all. The woman frightens me. What hour is it?" Lord Rodrik glanced out the window, at the moonlit sea. "Dark, so soon? I had not noticed. You come late. We looked for you some days ago."

  "The winds were against us, and I had captives to concern me. Robett Glover's wife and children. The youngest is still at the breast, and Lady Glover's milk dried up during our crossing. I had no choice but to beach Black Wind upon theStonyShoreand send my men out to find a wet nurse. They found a goat instead. The girl does not thrive. Is there a nursing mother in the village? Deepwood is important to my plans."

  "Your plans must change. You come too late."

  "Late and hungry." She stretched her long legs out beneath the table, and turned the pages of the nearest book, a septon's discourse on Maegor the Gruel's war against the Poor Fellows. "Oh, and thirsty too. A horn of ale would go down well, nuncle."

  Lord Rodrik pursed his lips. "You know I do not permit food nor drink in my library. The books-"

  "-might suffer harm." Asha laughed.

  Her uncle frowned. "You do like to provoke me."

  "Oh, don't look so aggrieved. I have never met a man I didn't provoke, you should know that well enough by now. But enough of me. You are well?"

  He shrugged. "Well enough. My eyes grow weaker. I have sent to Myr for a lens to help me read."

  "And how fares my aunt?"

  Lord Rodrik sighed. "Still seven years my elder, and convinced Ten Towers should be hers. Gwynesse grows forgetful, but that she does not forget. She mourns for her dead husband as deeply as she did the day he died, though she cannot always recall his name."

  "I am not certain she ever knew his name." Asha closed the septon's book with a thump. "Was my father murdered?"

  "So your mother believes"

  There were times when she would gladly have murdered him herself, she thought. "And what does my nuncle believe?"

  "Balon fell to his death when a rope bridge broke beneath him. A storm was rising, and the bridge was swaying and twisting with each gust of wind." Rodrik shrugged. "Or so we are told. Your mother had a bird from Maester Wendamyr."

  Asha slid her dirk out of its sheath, and began to clean the dirt from beneath her fingernails. "Three years away, and the Crow's Eye returns the very day my father dies."

  "The day after, we had heard. Silence was still out to sea when Balon died, or so it is claimed. Even so, I will agree that Euron's return was… timely, shall we say?"

  "That is not how I would say it." Asha slammed the point of the dirk into the table. "Where are my ships? I countedtwo scorelongships moored below, not near enough to throw the Crow's Eye off my father's chair."

  "I sent the summons. In your name, for the love I bear you and your mother. House Harlaw has gathered. Stonetree as well, and Volmark, Some Myres…"

  "All from the isle of Harlaw… one isle, out of seven. I saw one lonely Botley banner in the hall, from Pyke. Where are the ships from Saltcliffe, from Orkwood, from the Wyks?"

  "Baelor Blacktyde came from Blacktyde to consult with me, and just as soon set sail again." Lord Rodrik closed The Book of Lost Books. "He is on Old Wyk by now."

  "Old Wyk?" Asha had feared he was about to say that they all gone to Pyke, to do homage to the Crow's Eye. "Why Old Wyk?"

  "I thought you would have heard. Aeron Damphair has called a kingsmoot."

  Asha threw back her head and laughed. "The Drowned God must have shoved a pricklefish up Uncle Aeron's arse. A kingsmoot?! s this some jape, or does he mean it truly?"

  "The Damphair has not japed since he was drowned. And the other priests have taken up the call. Blind Beron Blacktyde, Tarle the Thrice-Drowned,.. even the Old Grey Gull has left that rock he lives on, to preach this kingsmoot all across Harlaw. The captains are gathering on Old Wyk as we speak."

  Asha was astonished. "Has the Crow's Eye agreed to attend this holy farce and abide by its decision?"

  "The Crow's Eye does not confide in me. Since he summoned me to Pyke to do him homage, I have had no word from Euron."

  A kingsmoot. This is something new… or rather, something very old. "And my uncle Victarion? What does he make of the Damphair's notion?"

  "Victarion was sent word of your father's death. And of this kingsmoot too, I do not doubt. Beyond that, I cannot say."

  Better a kingsmoot than a war. "I believe I'll kiss the Damphair's smelly feet, and pluck the seaweed from out between his toes," Asha wrenched loose her dirk and sheathed it once again. "A bloody kingsmoot!"

  "On Old Wyk," confirmed Lord Rodrik. "Though I pray it is not bloody. I have been consulting Haereg's History of the Ironborn. When last the salt kings and the rock kings met in kingsmoot, Urron of Orkmont let his axemen loose among them, and Nagga's ribs turned red with gore. House Greyiron ruled unchosen for a thousand years from Thar dark day, until the Andals came."

  "You must lend me Haereg's book, nuncle." She would need to learn all she could of kingsmoots before she reached Old Wyk.

  "You may read it here. It is old and fragile." He studied her, frowning. "Archmaester Rigney once wrote t
hat history is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will perforce happen again, he said. I think of that whenever I contemplate the Crow's Eye. Euron Greyjoy sounds queerly like Urron Greyiron to these old ears. I shall not go to Old Wyk. Nor should you."

  Asha smiled. "And miss the first kingsmoot called in… how long has it been, nuncle?"

  "Four thousand years, if Haereg can be believed. Half that, if you accept Maesfer Denestan's arguments in Questions. Going to Old Wyk serves no purpose. You will not want to hear this, Asha, but you will not be chosen. No woman has ever ruled the ironborn. Gwynesse is seven years my elder, but when our father died the Ten Towers came to me. It will be the same for you. You are Balon's daughter, not his son. And you have three uncles."

  "Four,"

  "Three kraken uncles. I do not count."

  "You do with me. So long as I have my nuncle of Ten Towers, I have Harlaw." Harlaw was not the largest of theIronIslands, but it was the richest and most populous, and Lord Rodrik's power was not to be despised. On Harlaw, Harlaw had no rival. The Volmarks and Stonetrees had large holdings on the isle and boasted famous captains and fierce warriors of their own, but even the fiercest bent beneath the scythe. The Kennings and the Myres, once bitter foes, had long ago been beaten down to vassals.

  "My cousins do me fealty, and in war I should command their swords and sails. In kingsmoot, though…" Lord Rodrik shook his head. "Beneath the bones of Nagga every captain stands as equal. Some may shout your name, I do not doubt it. But not enough. And when the shouts ring out for Victarion or the Crow's Eye, some of those now drinking in my hall will join the rest. I say again, do not sail into this storm. Your fight is hopeless."

  "No fight is hopeless till it has been fought. I have the best claim. I am the heir of Balon's body."

  "You are still a willful child. Think of your poor mother. You are all that Lanny has left to her. I will put a torch to Black Wind if need be, to keep you here."

  "What, and make me swim to Old Wyk?"

  "A long cold swim, for a crown you cannot keep. Your father had more courage than sense. The Old Way served the isles well when we were one small kingdom amongst many, but Aegon's Conquest put an end to that. Balon refused to see what was plain before him. The Old Way died with Black Harren and his sons."

  "I know that." Asha had loved her father, but she did not delude herself. Balon had been blind in some respects. A brave man but a bad lord. "Does that mean we must live and die as thralls to the Iron Throne? If there are rocks to starboard and a storm lo port, a wise captain steers a third course."

  "Show me this third course."

  "I shall… at my queensmoot. Nuncle, how can you even think of not attending? This will be history, alive…"

  "I prefer my history dead. Dead history is writ in ink, the living sort in blood,"

  "Do you want to die old and craven in your bed?"

  "How else? Though not till I'm done reading." Lord Rodrik went to the window. "You have not asked about your lady mother."

  / was afraid. "How is she?"

  "Stronger. She may yet outlive us all. She will certainly outlive you, if you persist in this folly. She eats more than she did when she first came here, and oft sleeps through the night,"

  "Good." In her final years on Pyke, Lady Alannys could not sleep. She would wander the halls at night with a candle, looking for her sons. "Maron?" she would call shrilly. "Rodrik, where are you? Theon, my baby, come to mother." Many a time Asha had watched the maester draw splinters from her mother's heels of a morning, after she had crossed the swaying plank bridge to the Sea Tower on bare feet. "I will see her in the morning."

  "She will ask for word of Theon."

  The Prince of Winterfell."What have you told her?"

  "Little and less. There was naught to tell." He hesitated. "You are certain that he is dead?"

  "I am certain of nothing."

  "You found a body?"

  "We found parts of many bodies. The wolves were there before us

  … the four-legged sort, but they showed scan! reverence for their two-legged kin. The bones of the slain were scattered, cracked open for their marrow. I confess, it was hard to know what happened there, it seemed as though the northmen fought among themselves."

  "Crows will fight over a dead man's flesh, and kill each other for his eyes." Lord Rodrik stared across the sea, watching the play of moonlight on the waves. "We had one king, then five. Now all I see are crows, squabbling over the corpse of Westeros." He fastened the shutters. "Do not go to Old Wyk, Asha. Stay with your mother. We shall not have her long, I fear."

  Asha shifted in her seat. "My mother raised me to be bold. If I do not go I willspend the rest of my life wondering what might have happened if I had."

  "If you do go, the rest of your life may be too short for wondering"

  "Better that than fill my days complaining to anyone who will listen that the Seastone Chair by rights was mine. I am no Gwynesse."

  That made him wince. "Asha, my two tall sons fed the crabs of Fair Isle. I am not like to wed again. Stay, and I shall name you heir to the Ten Towers. Be content with that."

  "Ten Towers?" Would that I could. "Your cousins will not like that. The Knight, old Sigfryd, Hotho Humpback-"

  "They have lands and seats of their own."

  True enough. Damp, decaying Harlaw Hall belonged to old Sigfryd Harlaw, the Silverhair; humpbacked Hotho Harlaw had his seat at the Tower of Glimmering, on a crag above thewestern coast. The Knight, Ser Harras Harlaw, kept court at Grey Garden; Boremund the Blue ruled atop Harridan Hill. But each was subject to Lord Rodrik. "Boremund has three sons, Sigfryd Silverhair has grandsons, and Hotho has ambitions," Asha said. "They all mean to follow you, even Sigfryd. That one intends to live forever." "The Knight will be the Lord of Harlaw after me," her uncle said, "but he can rule from Grey Garden as easily as from here. Do fealty to him for the castle and Ser Harras will protect you." "I can protect myself. Nuncle, I am a kraken. Asha, of House Greyjoy.' She pushed to her feet. "It's my father's seat I want, not yours. Those scythes of yours look perilous. One could fall and slice my head off. No, I'll sit the Seastone Chair."

  "Then you are jusf another crow, screaming for carrion." Rodrik sat again behind his table. "Go. I wish to return to Archmaester Marwyn and his search."

  "Let me know if he should find another page." Her uncle was her uncle. He would never change. But he will come to Old Wyk, no matter what he says,

  By now her crew would be eating in the hall. Asha knew she ought to join them, to speak of this gathering on Old Wyk and what it meant for them. Her own men would be solidly behind her, but she would need the rest as well, her Harlaw cousins, the Volmarks, and the Stonetrees. Those are the ones I must win. Her victory at Deepwood Motte would serve her in good stead, once her men began to boast of it, as she knew they would. The crew of her Black Wind took a perverse pride in the deeds of their woman captain. Half of them loved her like a daughter, and other half wanted to spread her legs, but either sort would die for her. And me for them, she was thinking as she shouldered through the door at the bottom of the steps, into the moonlit yard.

  "Asha?" A shadow stepped out from behind the well.

  Her hand went to her dirk at once… until the moonlight transformed the dark shape into a man in a sealskin cloak. Another ghost. "Tris. I'd thought to find you in the hall."

  "I wanted to see you."

  "What part of me, I wonder?" She grinned. "Well, here I stand, all grown up. Look all you like."

  "A woman." He moved closer. "And beautiful."

  Tristifer Botley had filled out since last she'd seen him, but he had had the same unruly hair that she remembered, and eyes as large and trusting as a seal's. Sweet eyes, truly. That was the trouble with poor Tristifer; he was too sweet for the Iron Islands. His face has grown comely, she thought. As a boy Tris had been much troubled by pimples. Asha had suffered the same affliction; perhaps that had been what drew them to
gether.

  "I was sorry to hear about your father," she told him.

  "I grieve for yours."

  Why? Asha almost asked. It was Balon who'd sent the boy away from Pyke, to be a ward of Baelor Blacktyde. "Is it true you are Lord Botley now?"

  "In name, at least. Harren died at Moat Cailin. One of the bog devils shot him with a poisoned arrow. But I am the lord of nothing. When my father denied his claim to the Seastone Chair, the Crow's Eye drowned him, and made my uncles swear him fealty. Even after that he gave half my father's lands to Iron Holt. Lord Wynch was the first man to bend his knee and call him king."

  House Wynch was strong on Pyke, but Asha took care not let her dismay show. "Wynch never had your father's courage."

  "Your uncle bought him," Tris said. "The Silence returned with holds full of treasure. Plate and pearls, emeralds and rubies, sapphires big as eggs, bags of coin so heavy that no man can lift them

  … the Crow's Eye has been buying friends at every hand. My uncle Germund calls himself Lord Botley now, and rules in Lordsport as your uncle's man."

  "You are the rightful Lord Botley," she assured him. "Once I hold the Seastone Chair, your father's lands shall be restored."

  "If you like. It's naught to me. You look so lovely in the moonlight, Asha. A woman grown now, but I remember when you were a skinny girl with a face all full of pimples."

  Why must they always mention the pimples"I remember that as well." Though not as fondly as you do. Of the five boys her mother had brought to Pyke to foster after Ned Stark had taken her last living son as hostage, Tris had been closest to Asha in age. He had not been the first boy she had ever kissed, but he was the first to undo the laces of her jerkin and slip a sweaty hand beneath to feel her budding breasts.

  / would have let him feel more than that if he'd been bold enough. Her first flowering had come upon her during the war and wakened her desire, but even before that Asha had been curious. He was there, he was mine own age, and he was willing, that was all it was… that, and the moon blood. Even so, she'd called it love, till Tris began to go on about the children she would bear him; a dozen sons at least, and oh, some daughters too. "I don't want to have a dozen sons," she had told him, appalled. "I want to have adventures." Not long after, Maester Qalen found them at their play, and young Tristifer Botley was sent away to Blacktyde.