All along the south coast of Cape Wrath rose crumbling stone watchtowers, raised in ancient days to give warning of Dornishraiders stealing in across the sea. Villages had grown up aboutthe towers. A few had flowered into towns.
The Peregrine made port at the Weeping Town, where thecorpse of the Young Dragon had once lingered for three days on itsjourney home from Dorne. The banners flapping from the town’sstout wooden walls still displayed King Tommen’s stag-and-lion,suggesting that here at least the writ of the Iron Throne mightstill hold sway. “Guard your tongues,” Arianne warned her companyas they disembarked. “It would be best if King’s Landing neverknew we’d passed this way.” Should Lord Connington’s rebellion beput down, it would go ill for them if it was known that Dorne hadsent her to treat with him and his pretender. That was anotherlesson that her father had taken pains to teach her; choose yourside with care, and only if they have the chance to win.
They had no troublebuying horses, though the cost was five times what it would havebeen last year. “They’re old, but sound,” claimed the hostler. “you’ll not find better this side of Storm’s End. Thegriffin’s men seize every horse and mule they come upon. Oxentoo. Some will make a mark upon a paper if you ask for payment,but there’s others who would just as soon cut your belly open andpay you with a handful of your own guts. If you come on any such,mind your tongues and give the horses up.”
The town was large enough to support three inns, and alltheir common rooms were rife with rumors. Arianne sent her meninto each of them, to hear what they might hear. In the BrokenShield, Daemon Sand was told that the great septry on the Holf ofMen had been burned and looted by raiders from the sea, and ahundred young novices from the motherhouse on Maiden Isle carriedoff into slavery. In the Loon, Joss Hood learned that half ahundred men and boys from the Weeping Town had set off north tojoin Jon Connington at Griffin’s Roost, including young Ser Addam,old Lord Whitehead’s son and heir. But in the aptly named DrunkenDornishman, Feathers heard men muttering that the griffin had putRed Ronnet’s brother to death and raped his maiden sister. Ronnethimself was said to be rushing south to avenge his brother’s deathand his sister’s dishonor.
That night Arianne dispatched the first of her ravens backto Dorne, reporting to her father on all they’d seen and heard.The next morning her company set out for Mistwood, as the firstrays of the rising sun were slanting through the peaked roofs andcrooked alleys of the Weeping Town. By midmorning a light rainbegan to fall, as they were making their way north through a landof green fields and little villages. As yet, they had seen nosigns of fighting, but all the other travelers along the ruttedroad seemed to be going in the other direction, and the women inthe villages they passed gazed at them with wary eyes and kepttheir children close. Further north, the fields gave way torolling hills and thick groves of old forest, the road dwindled toa track, and villages became less common.
Dusk found them on the fringes of the rainwood, a wet greenworld where brooks and rivers ran through dark forests and theground was made of mud and rotting leaves. Huge willows grewalong the watercourses, larger than any that Arianne had everseen, their great trunks as gnarled and twisted as an old man’sface and festooned with beards of silvery moss. Trees pressedclose on every side, shutting out the sun; hemlock and red cedars,white oaks, soldier pines that stood as tall and straight astowers, colossal sentinels, big-leaf maples, redwoods, wormtrees,even here and there a wild weirwood. Underneath their tangledbranches ferns and flowers grew in profusion; sword ferns, ladyferns, bellflowers and piper’s lace, evening stars and poisonkisses, liverwort, lungwort, hornwort. Mushrooms sprouted downamongst the tree roots, and from their trunks as well, palespotted hands that caught the rain. Other trees were furred withmoss, green or grey or red-tailed, and once a vivid purple.Lichens covered every rock and stone. Toadstools festered besidesrotting logs. The very air seemed green.
Arianne had once heard her father and Maester Caleottearguing with a septon about why the north and south sides of theSea of Dorne were so different. The septon thought it was becauseof Durran Godsgrief, the first Storm King, who had stolen thedaughter of the sea god and the goddess of the wind and earnedtheir eternal emnity. Prince Doran and the maester inclined moretoward wind and water, and spoke of how the big storms that formeddown in the Summer Sea would pick up moisture moving north untilthey slammed into Cape Wrath. For some strange reason the stormsnever seemed to strike at Dorne, she recalled her father saying. “I know your reason,” the septon had responded. “No Dornishmen ever stole away the daughter of two gods.”
The going was much slower here than it had been in Dorne.Instead of proper roads, they rode down crookback slashes thatsnaked this way and that, through clefts in huge moss-coveredrocks and down deep ravines choked with blackberry brambles.Sometimes the track petered out entirely, sinking into bogs orvanishing amongst the ferns, leaving Arianne and her companions tofind their own way amongst the silent trees. The rain still fell,soft and steady. The sound of moisture dripping off the leaveswas all around them, and every mile or so the music of anotherlittle waterfall would call to them.
The wood was full of caves as well. That first night theytook shelter in one of them, to get out of the wet. In Dorne theyhad often travelled after dark, when the moonlight turned theblowing sands to silver, but the rainwood was too full of bogs,ravines, and sinkholes, and black as pitch beneath the trees,where the moon was just a memory.
Feathers made a fire and cooked a brace of hares that SerGaribald had taken with some wild onions and mushrooms he hadfound along the road. After they ate, Elia Sand turned a stickand some dry moss into a torch, and went off exploring deeper inthe cave. “See that you do not go too far,” Arianne told her. “Some of these caves go very deep, it is easy to get lost.”
The princess lost another game of cyvasse to Daemon Sand,won one from Joss Hood, then retired as the two of them began toteach Jayne Ladybright the rules. She was tired of such games.
Nyrn and Tyene may have reached King’s Landing by now, shemused, as she settled down crosslegged by the mouth of the cave towatch the falling rain. If not they ought to be there soon.Three hundred seasoned spears had gone with them, over theBoneway, past the ruins of Summerhall, and up the kingsroad. Ifthe Lannisters had tried to spring their little trap in thekingswood, Lady Nym would have seen that it ended in disaster.Nor would the murderers have found their prey. Prince Trystanehad remained safely back at Sunspear, after a tearful parting fromPrincess Myrcella. That accounts for one brother, thoughtArianne, but where is Quentyn, if not with the griffin? Had hewed his dragon queen? King Quentyn. It still sounded silly.This new Daenerys Targaryen was younger than Arianne by half adozen years. What would a maid that age want with her dull,bookish brother? Young girls dreamed of dashing knights withwicked smiles, not solemn boys who always did their duty. Shewill want Dorne, though. If she hopes to sit the Iron Throne, shemust have Sunspear. If Quentyn was the price for that, thisdragon queen would pay it. What if she was at Griffin’s End withConnington, and all this about another Targaryen was just somesort of subtle ruse? Her brother could well be with her. KingQuentyn. Will I need to kneel to him?
No good would come of wondering about it. Quentyn would beking or he would not. I pray Daenerys treats him him more gentlythan she did her own brother.
It was time to sleep. They had longleagues to ride upon the morrow.It was only as she settled down that Arianne realized EliaSand had not returned from her explorations. Her sisters willkill me seven different ways if anything has happened to her.Jayne Ladybright swore that the girl had never left the cave,which meant that she was still back there somewhere, wanderingthrough the dark. When their shouts did not bring her forth,there was nothing to do but make torches and go in search of her.
The cave proved much deeper than any of them had suspected.Beyond the stony mouth where her company had made their camp andhobbled their horses, a series of twisty passageways led down anddown, with black holes snaking off to either side. Further in,the walls opened up again, and the searchers found themselves in avast limestone cavern, larger than the great hall of a castle.Their shouts disturbed a nest of bats, who flapped about themnoisily, but only distant echoes shouted back. A slow circuit ofthe hall revealed three further passages, one so small that itwould have required them to proceed on hands and knees. “We willtry the others first,” the princess said. “Daemon, come with me.Garibald, Joss, you try the other one.”
The passageway Arianne had chosen for herself turned steepand wet within a hundred feet. The footing grew uncertain. Onceshe slipped, and had to catch herself to keep from sliding. Morethan once she considered turning back, but she could see Ser Daemon’s torch ahead and hear him calling for Elia, so she pressedon. And all at once she found herself in another cavern, fivetimes as big as the last one, surrounded by a forest of stonecolumns. Daemon Sand moved to her side and raised his torch.“Look how the stone’s been shaped,” he said.“Those columns, andthe wall there. See them?”
“Faces,” said Arianne. So many sad eyes, staring.
“This place belonged to the children of the forest.”
“A thousand years ago.” Arianne turned her head. “Listen.Is that Joss?”
It was. The other searchers had found Elia, as she andDaemon learned after they made their way back up the slipperyslope to the last hall. Their passageway led down to a stillblack pool, where they discovered the girl up to her waist inwater, catching blind white fish with her bare hands, her torchburning red and smoky in the sand where she had planted it.
“You could have died,” Arianne told her, when she’d heardthe tale. She grabbed Elia by the arm and shook her. “If thattorch had gone out you would have been alone in the dark, as goodas blind. What did you think that you were doing?”
“I caught two fish,” said Elia Sand.
“You could have died,” said Arianne again. Her words echoedoff the cavern walls. “…died… died … died…”
Later, when they had made their back to the surface and heranger had cooled, the princess took the girl aside and sat herdown. “Elia, this must end,” she told her. “We are not in Dornenow. You are not with your sisters, and this is not a game. Iwant your word that you will play the maidservant until we aresafely back at Sunspear. I want you meek and mild and obedient.You need to hold your tongue. I’ll hear no more talk of LadyLance or jousting, no mention of your father or your sisters. Themen that I must treat with are sellswords. Today they serve thisman who calls himself Jon Connington, but come the morrow theycould just as easily serve the Lannisters. All it takes to win asellsword’s heart is gold, and casterly Rock does not lack forthat. If the wrong man should learn who you are, you could beseized and held for ransom–“
“No,” Elia broke in. “You’re the one they’ll want toransom. You’re the heir to Dorne, I’m just a bastard girl. Yourfather would give a chest of gold for you. My father’s dead.”
“Dead, but not forgotten,” said Arianne, who had spent halfher life wishing Prince Oberyn had been her father. “You are aSand Snake, and Prince Doran would pay any price to keep you andyour sisters safe from harm.” That made the child smile at least.“Do I have your sworn word? Or must I send you back?”
“I swear.” Elia did not sound happy.
“On your father’s bones.”
“On my father’s bones.”
That vow she will keep, Arianne decided.She kissed her cousin on the cheek and sent her off to sleep.Perhaps some goodwould come of her adventure. “I never knew how wild she was tillnow,” Arianne complained to Daemon Sand, afterward. “Why would my father inflict her on me?”
“Vengeance?” the knight suggested, with a smile.
They reached Mistwood late on the third day. Ser Daemonsent Joss Hood ahead to scout for them and learn who held thecastle presently. “Twenty men walking the walls, maybe more,” hereported on his return. “Lots of carts and wagons. Heavy ladengoing in, empty going out. Guards at every gate.”
“Banners?” asked Arianne.
“Gold. On the gatehouse and the keep.”
“What device did they bear?”
“None that I could see, but there was no wind. The bannershung limp from their staffs.”
That was vexing. The Golden Company’s banners were cloth-of-gold, devoid of arms and ornament… but the banners of HouseBaratheon were also gold, though theirs displayed the crowned stagof Storm’s End. Limp golden banners could be either. “Were thereothers banners? Silver-grey?”
“All the ones that I saw were gold, princess.”
She nodded. Mistwood was the seat of House Mertyns, whosearms showed a great horned owl, white on grey. If their bannerswere not flying, likely the talk was true, and the castle hadfallen into the hands of Jon Connington and his sellswords. “Wemust take the risk,” she told her party. Her father’s caution hadserved Dorne well, she had come to accept that, but this was atime for her uncle’s boldness. “On to the castle.”
“Shall we unfurl your banner?” asked Joss Hood.
“Not as yet,” said Arianne. In most places, it served herwell to play the princess, but there were some where it did not.
Half a mile from the castle gates, three men in studdedleather jerkins and steel halfhelms stepped out of the trees toblock their path. Two of them carried crossbows, wound andnotched. The third was armed only with a nasty grin. “And whereare you lot bound, my pretties?” he asked.
“To Mistfall, to see your master,” answered Daemon Sand.
“Good answer,” said the grinner. “Come with us.”
Mistfall’s new sellsword masters called themselves YoungJohn Mudd and Chain. Both knights, to hear them tell it. Neitherbehaved like any knight that Arianne had ever met. Mudd worebrown from head to heel, the same shade as his skin, but a pair ofgolden coins dangled from his ears. The Mudds had been kings upby the Trident a thousand years ago, she knew, but there wasnothing royal about this one. Nor was he particularly young, butit seemed his father had also served in the Golden Company, wherehe had been known as Old John Mudd.
Chain was half again Mudd’s height, his broad chest crossedby a pair of rusted chains that ran from waist to shoulder. WhereMudd wore sword and dagger, Chain bore no weapon but five feet ofiron links, twice as thick and heavy as the ones that crossed hischest. He wielded them like a whip.
They were hard men, brusque and brutal and not well spoken,with scars and weathered faces that spoke of long service in thefree companies. “Serjeants,” Ser Daemon whispered when he sawthem. “I have known their sort before.”
Once Arianne had made her name and purpose known to them,the two serjeants proved hospitable enough. “You’ll stay thenight,” said Mudd. “There’s beds for all of you. In the morningyou’ll have fresh horses, and whatever provisions you might need.M’lady’s maester can send a bird to Griffin’s Roost to let themknow you’re coming.”
“And who would them be?” asked Arianne. “Lord Connington?”
The sellswords exchanged a look. “The Halfmaester,” saidJohn Mudd. “It’s him you’ll find at the Roost.”
“Griffin’s marching,” said Chain.
“Marching where?” Ser Daemon ask.
“Not for us to say,” said Mudd. “Chain, hold your tongue.”
Chain gave a snort. “She’s Dorne. Why shouldn’t she know?Come down to join us, ain’t she?”
That has yet to be determined, thought Arianne Martell, butshe felt it best not to press the matter.
At evenfall a fine supper was served to them in the solar,high in the Tower of Owls, where they were joined by the dowagerLady Mertyns and her maester. Though a captive in her own castle,the old woman seemed spry and cheerful. “My sons and grandsonswent off when Lord Renly called his banners,” she told theprincess and her party. “I have not seen them since, though fromtime to time they send a raven. One of my grandsons took a woundat the Blackwater, but he’s since recovered. I expect they willreturn here soon enough to hang this lot of thieves. ” She waved aduck leg at Mudd and Chain across the table.
“We are no thieves,” said Mudd. “We’re foragers.”
“Did you buy all that food down in the yard?”
“We foraged it,” said Mudd. “The smallfolk can grow more.We serve your rightful king, old crone.” He seemed to be enjoyingthis. “You should learn to speak more courteous to knights.”
“If you two are knights, I’m still a maiden,” said LadyMertyns. “And I’ll speak as I please. What will you do, kill me?I have lived too long already.”
Princess Arianne said, “Have you been treated well, my lady?”
“I have not been raped, if that is what you’re asking,” theold woman said. “Some of the serving girls have been lessfortunate. Married or unmarried, the men make no distinctions. “
“No one’s been doing any raping,” insisted Young John Mudd.“Connington won’t have that. We follow orders.”
Chain nodded. “Some girls was persuaded, might be.”
“The same way our smallfolk were persuaded to give you alltheir crops. Melons or maidenheads, it’s all the same to yoursort. If you want it, you take it.” Lady Mertyns turned toArianne. “If you should see this Lord Connington, you tell himthat I knew his mother, and she would be ashamed.”
Perhaps I shall, the princess thought.
That night she dispatched her second raven to her father.
Arianne was on her way back to her own chamber when sheheard muffled laughter from the adjoining room. She paused andlistened for a moment, then pushed the door open to find Elia Sandcurled up in a window seat, kissing Feathers. When Feathers sawthe princess standing there, he jumped to his feet and began tostammer. Both of them still had their clothes on. Arianne tooksome small comfort in that as she sent Feathers on his way witha sharp look and a “Go”. Then she turned to Elia. “He is twiceyour age. A serving man. He cleans up birdsh*t for the maester.Elia, what were you thinking?”
“We were only kissing. I’m not going to marry him.” Eliacrossed her arms defiantly beneath her breasts. “You think Inever kissed a boy before?”
“Feathers is a man. A serving man, but still a man. Itdid not escape the princess that Elia was the same age she hadbeen when she gave her maidenhead to Daemon Sand. “I am not yourmother. Kiss all the boys you want when we return to Dorne. Hereand now, though . . . this is no place for kisses, Elia. Meek andmild and obedient, you said. Must I add chaste to that as well?You swore upon your father’s bones.
“I remember,” said Elia, sounding chastened. “Meek and mildand obedient. I won’t kiss him again.”
The shortest way from Mistwood to Griffin’s Roost wasthrough the green, wet heart of the rainwood, slow going at thebest of times. It took Arianne and her company the better part of eight days. They travelled to the music of steady, lashing rainsbeating at the treetops up above, though underneath the greengreat canopy of leaves and branches she and her riders stayedsurprisingly dry. Chain accompanied them for the first four daysof their journey north, with a line of wagons and ten men of hisown. Away from Mudd he proved more forthcoming, and Arianne wasable to charm his life story out of him. His proudest boast wasof a great grandsire who had fought with the Black Dragon on theRedgrass Field, and crossed the narrow sea with Bittersteel.Chain himself had been born into the company, fathered on a campfollower by his sellsword father. Though he had been raised tospeak the Common Tongue and think of himself as Westerosi, he hadnever set foot in any part of the Seven Kingdoms till now.
A sad tale, and a familiar one, Arianne thought. His lifewas all of a piece, a long list of places where he’d fought, foeshe’d faced and slain, wounds he’d taken. The princess let himtalk, from time to time prompting him with a laugh, a touch, or aquestion, pretending to be fascinated. She learned more than shewould ever need to know about Mudd’s skill with dice, Two Swordsand his fondness for red-haired women, the time someone made offwith Harry Strickland’s favorite elephant, Little puss* and hislucky cat, and the other feats and foibles of the men and officersof the Golden Company. But on the fourth day, in an unguardedmoment, Chain let slip a ” … once we have Storm’s End . . .
“The princess let that aside go without comment, though itgave her considerable pause. Storm’s End. This griffin is a boldone, it would seem. Or else a fool. The seat of House Baratheonfor three centuries, of the ancient Storm Kings for thousands ofyears before that, Storm’s End was said by some to be impregnable.Arianne had heard men argue about which was the strongest castlein the realm. Some said Casterly Rock, some the Eyrie of theArryns, some Winterfell in the frozen north, but Storm’s End wasalways mentioned too. Legend said it was raised by Brandon theBuilder to withstand the fury of a vengeful god. Its curtainwalls were the highest and strongest in all the Seven Kingdoms,forty to eighty feet in thickness. Its mighty windowless drumtower stood less than half as tall as the Hightower of Oldtown,but rose straight up in place of being stepped, with walls thriceas thick as those to be found in Oldtown. No siege tower was tallenough to reach Storm’s End battlements; neither mangonel nortrebuchet could hope to breech its massive walls. Does Conningtonthink to mount a siege? She wondered. How many men can he have?Long before the castle fell, the Lannisters would dispatch an armyto break any such siege. That way is hopeless too.
That night when she told Ser Daemon what Chain had said, theBastard of Godsgrace seemed as perplexed as she was. “Storm’s Endwas still held by men loyal to Lord Stannis when last I heard.You would think Connington might do better to make common causewith another rebel, rather than making war upon him too.”
“Stannis is too far away to be of help to him,” Ariannemused. “Capturing a few minor castles whilst their lords andgarrisons are off at distant wars, that’s one thing, but if LordConnington and his pet dragon can somehow take one of the greatstrongholds of the realm … “
“…the realm would have to take them seriously,” SerDaemon finished. “And some of those who do not love theLannisters might well come flocking to their banners.”
That night Arianne penned another short note to her father and had Feathers send it on its way with her third raven.
Young John Mudd has been sending out birds as well, itseemed. Near dusk on the fourth day, not long after Chain and his wagons had taken their leave of them, Arianne’s company wasmet by a column of sellswords down from Griffin’s Roost, led bythe most exotic creature that the princess had ever laid her eyeson, with painted fingernails and gemstones sparkling in his ears.
Lysono Maar spoke the Common Tongue very well. “I have thehonor to be the eyes and ears of the Golden Company, princess.”
“You look… ” She hesitated.
“…like a woman?” He laughed. “That I am not.”
“ …like a Targaryen,” Arianne insisted. His eyes were apale lilac, his hair a waterfall of white and gold. All the same,something about him made her skin crawl.Was this what Viserys looked like? she found herself wondering.If so perhaps it is agood thing he is dead.
“I am flattered. The women of House Targaryen are said tobe without peer in all the world.”
“And the men of House Targaryen?”
“Oh, even prettier. Though if truth be told, I have onlyseen the one.” Maar took her hand in his own, and kissed herlightly on the wrist. “Mistwood sent word of your coming, sweetprincess. We will be honored to escort you to the Roost, but Ifear you have missed Lord Connington and our young prince.”
“Off at war?” Off to Storm’s End?
“Just so.”
The Lyseni was a very different sort of man than Chain.This one will let nothing slip, she realized, after a scant fewhours in his company. Maar was glib enough, but he had perfectedthe art of talking a great deal whilst saying nothing. As for theriders who had come with him, they might as well have been mutes for allthat her own men were able to get out of them.
Arianne decided to confront him openly. On the evening oftheir fifth day out of Mistwood, as they made camp beside thetumbled ruins of an old tower overgrown by vines and moss, shesettled down beside him and said, “Is it true that you haveelephants with you?”
“A few,” said Lysono Maar, with a smile and a shrug.
“And dragons? How many dragons do you have?”
“One.”
“By which you mean the boy.”
“Prince Aegon is a man grown, princess.”
“Can he fly? Breathe fire?”
The Lyseni laughed, but his lilac eyes stayed cold.
“Do you play cyvasse, my lord?” asked Arianne. “My fatherhas been teaching me. I am not very skilled, I must confess, butI do know that the dragon is stronger than the elephant.”
“The Golden Company was founded by a dragon.”
“Bittersteel was half-dragon, and all bastard. I am nomaester, but I know some history. You are still sellswords.”
“If it please you, princess,” he said, all silken courtesy.“We prefer to call ourselves a free brotherhood of exiles.”
“As you will. As free brothers go, your company stands wellabove the rest, I grant you. Yet the Golden Company has beendefeated every time it has crossed into Westeros. They lost whenBittersteel commanded them, they failed the Blackfyre Pretenders,they faltered when Maelys the Monstrous led them.
That seemed to amuse him. “We are at least persistent, youmust admit. And some of those defeats were near things.”
“Some were not. And those who die near things are noless dead than those who die in routs. Prince Doran my father isa wise man, and fights only wars that he can win. If the tide ofwar turns against your dragon, the Golden Company will no doubtflee back across the narrow sea, as it has done before. As LordConnington himself did, after Robert defeated him at the Battle ofthe Bells. Dorne has no such refuge. Why should we lend ourswords and spears to your uncertain cause?”
“Prince Aegon is of your own blood, princess. Son of PrinceRhaegar Targaryen and Elia of Dorne, your father’s sister.”
“Daenerys Targaryen is of our blood as well. Daughter ofKing Aerys, Rhaegar’s sister. And she has dragons, or so thetales would have us believe.” Fire and blood. “Where is she?”
“Half a world away on Slaver’s Bay,” said Lysono Maar. “Asfor these purported dragons, I have not seen them. In cyvasse, itis true, the dragon is mightier than the elephant. On thebattlefield, give me elephants I can see and touch and sendagainst my foes, not dragons made of words and wishes.”
The princess lapsed into a thoughtful silence. And thatnight she dispatched her fourth raven to her father.
And finally Griffin’s Roost emerged from the sea mists, on agrey wet day as the rain fell thin and cold. Lysono Maar raised ahand, a trumpet blast echoed off the crags, and the castle’s gatesyawned open before them. The rain-soaked flag that hung above thegatehouse was white and red, the princess saw, the colors of HouseConnington, but the golden banners of the company were in evidenceas well. They rode in double column across the ridge known as thegriffin’s throat, with the waters of Shipbreaker Bay growling offthe rocks to either side.
Within the castle proper, a dozen of the officers of theGolden Company had assembled to welcome the Dornish princess. Oneby one they took a knee before her and pressed their lips againstthe back of her hand, as Lysono Maar offered introductions. Mostof the names fled her head almost as soon as she had heard them.
Chief amongst them was an older man with a lean, lined,clean-shaved face, who wore his long hair pulled back into a knot.This one is no fighter, Arianne sensed. The Lyseni confirmed herjudgment when he introduced the man as Haldon Halfmaester.
“We have rooms prepared for you and yours, princess,” thisHalden said, when the introductions finally ran their course. “Itrust that they will suit. I know you seek Lord Connington, andhe desires words with you as well, most urgently. If it pleaseyou, on the morrow there will be a ship to take you to him.”
“Where?” demanded Arianne.
“Has no one told you?” Halden Halfmaester favored her witha smile thin and hard as a dagger cut. “Storm’s End is ours.The Hand awaits you there.”
Daemon Sand stepped up beside her. “Shipbreaker Bay can beperilous even on a fair summer’s day. The safer way to Storm’sEnd is overland.”
“These rains have turned the roads to mud. The journeywould take two days, perhaps three,” said Halden Halfmaester. Aship will have the princess there in half a day or less. There isan army descending on Storm’s End from King’s Landing. You willwant to be safe inside the walls before the battle.”
Will we? Wondered Arianne. “Battle? Or siege?” She didnot intend to let herself be trapped inside Storm’s End.
“Battle,” Halden said firmly. “Prince Aegon means to smashhis enemies in the field.”
Arianne exchanged a look with Daemon Sand. “Will you be sogood as to show us to our rooms? I would like to refresh myself,and change into dry clothes.”
Halden bowed. “At once.”
Her company had been housed in the east tower, where thelancet windows overlooked Shipbreaker Bay. “Your brother is notat Storm’s End, we know that now,” Ser Daemon said, as soon asthey were behind closed doors. “If Daenerys Targaryen hasdragons, they are half a world away, and of no use to Dorne.There is nothing for us at Storm’s End, princess. If Prince Doranmeant to send you into the middle of a battle, he would have givenyou three hundred knights, not three.”
Do not be so certain of that, ser. He sent my brother offto Slaver’s Bay with five knights and a maester. “I need to speakwith Connington.” Arianne undid the interlocked sun and spearthat clasped her cloak, and let the rain-soaked garment slip fromher shoulders to puddle on the floor. “And I want to see thisdragon prince of his. If he is truly Elia’s son…”
“Whoever’s son he is, if Connington challenges Mace Tyrellin open battle he may soon be a captive, or a corpse.”
“Tyrell is not a man to fear. My uncle Oberyn– “
” –is dead, princess. And ten thousand men is equal tothe whole strength of the Golden Company.”
“Lord Connington knows his own strength, surely. If hemeans to risk battle, he must believe that he can win it.”
“And how many men have died in battles they believed thatthey could win?” Ser Daemon asked her. “Refuse them, princess. Imistrust these sellswords. Do not go to Storm’s End.”
What makes to believe they will allow me that choice? Shehad had the uneasy feeling that Haldon Halfmaester and Lysono Maarwere going to put her on that ship come morning whether she willedit or no. Better not to test them. “Ser Daemon, you squired formy uncle Oberyn,” she said. “If you were with him now, would yoube counseling him to refuse as well?” She did not wait for him torespond. “I know the answer. And if you are about to remind methat I am no Red Viper, I know that too. But Prince Oberyn isdead, Prince Doran is old and ill, and I am the heir to Dorne.”
“And that is why you should not put yourself at risk.”Daemon Sand went to one knee. “Send me to Storm’s End in yourstead. Then if the griffin’s plans should go awry and Mace Tyrelltakes the castle back, I will be just another landless knight whoswore his sword to this pretender in hopes of gain and glory.”
Whereas if I am taken, the Iron Throne will take that forproof that Dorne conspired with these sellswords, and lent aid totheir invasion. “It is brave for you to seek to shield me, ser.I thank you for that.” She took his hands and drew him back tohis feet. “But my father entrusted this task to me, not you.Come the morrow, I sail to beard the dragon in its den.”
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