A Dance With Dragons

supposed to be dead.”
    Porridge for the dead man. Davos climbed.
    They emerged through another wall, but this one was lath and plaster on the far side. The room beyond was snug and warm and comfortably furnished, with a Myrish carpet on the floor and beeswax candles burning on a table. Davos could hear pipes and fiddles playing, not far away. On the wall hung a sheepskin with a map of the north painted across it in faded colors. Beneath the map sat Wyman Manderly, the colossal Lord of White Harbor.
    “Please sit.” Lord Manderly was richly garbed. His velvet doublet was a soft blue-green, embroidered with golden thread at hem and sleeves and collar. His mantle was ermine, pinned at the shoulder with a golden trident. “Are you hungry?”
    “No, my lord. Your gaolers have fed me well.”
    “There is wine, if you have a thirst.”
    “I will treat with you, my lord. My king commanded that of me. I do not have to drink with you.”
    Lord Wyman sighed. “I have treated you most shamefully, I know. I had my reasons, but … please, sit and drink, I beg you. Drink to my boy’s safe return. Wylis, my eldest son and heir. He is home. That is the welcoming feast you hear. In the Merman’s Court they are eating lamprey pie and venison with roasted chestnuts. Wynafryd is dancing with the Frey she is to marry. The other Freys are raising cups of wine to toast our friendship.”
    Beneath the music, Davos could hear the murmur of many voices, the clatter of cups and platters. He said nothing.
    “I have just come from the high table,” Lord Wyman went on. “I have eaten too much, as ever, and all White Harbor knows my bowels are bad. My friends of Frey will not question a lengthy visit to the privy, we hope.” He turned his cup over. “There. You will drink and I will not. Sit. Time is short, and there is much we need to say. Robett, wine for the Hand, if you will be so good. Lord Davos, you will not know, but you are dead.”
    Robett Glover filled a wine cup and offered it to Davos. He took it, sniffed it, drank. “How did I die, if I may ask?”
    “By the axe. Your head and hands were mounted above the Seal Gate, with your face turned so your eyes looked out across the harbor. By now you are well rotted, though we dipped your head in tar before we set it upon the spike. Carrion crows and seabirds squabbled over your eyes, they say.”
    Davos shifted uncomfortably. It was a queer feeling, being dead. “If it please my lord, who died in my place?”
    “Does it matter? You have a common face, Lord Davos. I hope my saying so does not offend you. The man had your coloring, a nose of the same shape, two ears that were not dissimilar, a long beard that could be trimmed and shaped like yours. You can be sure we tarred him well, and the onion shoved between his teeth served to twist the features. Ser Bartimus saw that the fingers of his left hand were shortened, the same as yours. The man was a criminal, if that gives you any solace. His dying may accomplish more good than anything he ever did whilst living. My lord, I bear you no ill will. The rancor I showed you in the Merman’s Court was a mummer’s farce put on to please our friends of Frey.”
    “My lord should take up a life of mummery,” said Davos. “You and yours were most convincing. Your good-daughter seemed to want me dead most earnestly, and the little girl …”
    “Wylla.” Lord Wyman smiled. “Did you see how brave she was? Even when I threatened to have her tongue out, she reminded me of the debt White Harbor owes to the Starks of Winterfell, a debt that can never be repaid. Wylla spoke from the heart, as did Lady Leona. Forgive her if you can, my lord. She is a foolish, frightened woman, and Wylis is her life. Not every man has it in him to be Prince Aemon the Dragonknight or Symeon Star-Eyes, and not every woman can be as brave as my Wylla and her sister Wynafryd … who did know, yet played her own part fearlessly.
    “When treating with liars, even an honest man must lie. I did not dare defy King’s Landing so long as my last living son remained a captive. Lord Tywin Lannister wrote me himself to say that he had Wylis. If I would have him freed unharmed, he told me, I must repent my treason, yield my city, declare my loyalty to the boy king on the Iron Throne … and bend my knee to Roose Bolton, his Warden of the North. Should I refuse, Wylis would die a traitor’s death, White Harbor would be stormed and sacked, and my people would