A Dance With Dragons

when it came clattering to a stop.
    And when all the coins had been counted and tasted, the old man would scrawl upon a parchment, stamp it with his seal, and give it to the captain. Else he’d shake his head and shove the coins back across the table. Whenever he did that, the other man would get red-faced and angry, or pale and scared-looking.
    Cat did not understand. “They pay him gold and silver, but he only gives them writing. Are they stupid?”
    “A few, mayhaps. Most are simply cautious. Some think to cozen him. He is not a man easily cozened, however.”
    “But what is he selling them?”
    “He is writing each a binder. If their ships are lost in a storm or taken by pirates, he promises to pay them for the value of the vessel and all its contents.”
    “Is it some kind of wager?”
    “Of a sort. A wager every captain hopes to lose.”
    “Yes, but if they win …”
    “… they lose their ships, oftimes their very lives. The seas are dangerous, and never more so than in autumn. No doubt many a captain sinking in a storm has taken some small solace in his binder back in Braavos, knowing that his widow and children will not want.” A sad smile touched his lips. “It is one thing to write such a binder, though, and another to make good on it.”
    Cat understood. One of them must hate him. One of them came to the House of Black and White and prayed for the god to take him. She wondered who it had been, but the kindly man would not tell her. “It is not for you to pry into such matters,” he said. “Who are you?”
    “No one.”
    “No one asks no questions.” He took her hands. “If you cannot do this thing, you need only say so. There is no shame in that. Some are made to serve the Many-Faced God and some are not. Say the word, and I shall lift this task from you.”
    “I will do it. I said I would. I will.”
    How, though? That was harder.
    He had guards. Two of them, a tall thin man and a short thick one. They went with him everywhere, from when he left his house in the morning till he returned at night. They made certain no one got close to the old man without his leave. Once a drunk almost staggered into him as he was coming home from the soup shop, but the tall one stepped between them and gave the man a sharp shove that knocked him to the ground. At the soup shop, the short one always tasted the onion broth first. The old man waited until the broth had cooled before he took a sip, long enough to be sure his guardsman had suffered no ill effects.
    “He’s afraid,” she realized, “or else he knows that someone wants to kill him.”
    “He does not know,” said the kindly man, “but he suspects.”
    “The guards go with him even when he slips out to make water,” she said, “but he doesn’t go when they do. The tall one is the quicker. I’ll wait till he is making water, walk into the soup shop, and stab the old man through the eye.”
    “And the other guard?”
    “He’s slow and stupid. I can kill him too.”
    “Are you some butcher of the battlefield, hacking down every man who stands in your way?”
    “No.”
    “I would hope not. You are a servant of the Many-Faced God, and we who serve Him of Many Faces give his gift only to those who have been marked and chosen.”
    She understood. Kill him. Kill only him.
    It took her three more days of watching before she found the way, and another day of practicing with her finger knife. Red Roggo had taught her how to use it, but she had not slit a purse since back before they took away her eyes. She wanted to make certain that she still knew how. Smooth and quick, that’s the way, no fumbling, she told herself, and she slipped the little blade out of her sleeve, again and again and again. When she was satisfied that she still remembered how to do it, she sharpened the steel on a whetstone until its edge glimmered silver-blue in the candlelight. The other part was trickier, but the waif was there to help her. “I will give the man the gift on the morrow,” she announced as she was breaking her fast.
    “Him of Many Faces will be pleased.” The kindly man rose. “Cat of the Canals is known to many. If she is seen to have done this deed, it might bring down trouble on Brusco and his daughters. It is time you had another face.”
    The girl did not smile, but inside she was pleased. She had lost Cat once, and mourned her. She did not want to lose her again. “What will I look like?”
    “Ugly. Women will look away when they see