A Feast for Dragons

One of Gorold’s sons, the priest decided at a glance. Three tall sons had been born to Goodbrother’s
wife late in life, after a dozen daughters, and it was said that no man could
tell one son from the others. Aeron Damphair did not deign to try. Whether this
be Greydon or Gormond or Gran, the priest had no time for him.
    He growled a brusque command, and his drowned men seized the
dead boy by his arms and legs to carry him above the tideline. The priest
followed, naked but for a sealskin clout that covered his private parts.
Goosefleshed and dripping, he splashed back onto land, across cold wet sand and
sea-scoured pebbles. One of his drowned men handed him a robe of heavy
roughspun dyed in mottled greens and blues and greys, the colors of the sea and
the Drowned God. Aeron donned the robe and pulled his hair free. Black and wet,
that hair; no blade had touched it since the sea had raised him up. It draped
his shoulders like a ragged, ropy cloak, and fell down past his waist. Aeron
wove strands of seaweed through it, and through his tangled, uncut beard.
    His drowned men formed a circle around the dead boy,
praying. Norjen worked his arms whilst Rus knelt astride him, pumping on his
chest, but all moved aside for Aeron. He pried apart the boy’s cold lips with
his fingers and gave Emmond the kiss of life, and again, and again, until the
sea came gushing from his mouth. The boy began to cough and spit, and his eyes
blinked open, full of fear.
    Another one returned. It was a sign of the Drowned
God’s favor, men said. Every other priest lost a man from time to time, even
Tarle the Thrice-Drowned, who had once been thought so holy that he was picked
to crown a king. But never Aeron Greyjoy. He was the Damphair, who had seen the
god’s own watery halls and returned to tell of it. “Rise,” he told the
sputtering boy as he slapped him on his naked back. “You have drowned and been
returned to us. What is dead can never die.”
    “But rises.” The boy coughed violently, bringing up more
water. “Rises again.” Every word was bought with pain, but that was the way of
the world; a man must fight to live. “Rises again.” Emmond staggered to his
feet. “Harder. And stronger.”
    “You belong to the god now,” Aeron told him. The other
drowned men gathered round and each gave him a punch and a kiss to welcome him
to the brotherhood. One helped him don a roughspun robe of mottled blue and
green and grey. Another presented him with a driftwood cudgel. “You belong to
the sea now, so the sea has armed you,” Aeron said. “We pray that you shall
wield your cudgel fiercely, against all the enemies of our god.”
    Only then did the priest turn to the three riders, watching
from their saddles. “Have you come to be drowned, my lords?”
    The Sparr coughed. “I was drowned as a boy,” he said, “and
my son upon his name day.”
    Aeron snorted. That Steffarion Sparr had been given to the
Drowned God soon after birth he had no doubt. He knew the manner of it too, a
quick dip into a tub of seawater that scarce wet the infant’s head. Small
wonder the ironborn had been conquered, they who once held sway everywhere the
sound of waves was heard. “That is no true drowning,” he told the riders. “He
that does not die in truth cannot hope to rise from death. Why have you come,
if not to prove your faith?”
    “Lord Gorold’s son came seeking you, with news.” The Sparr
indicated the youth in the red cloak.
    The boy looked to be no more than six-and-ten. “Aye, and
which are you?” Aeron demanded.
    “Gormond. Gormond Goodbrother, if it please my lord.”
    “It is the Drowned God we must please. Have you been
drowned, Gormond Goodbrother?”
    “On my name day, Damphair. My father sent me to find you and
bring you to him. He needs to see you.”
    “Here I stand. Let Lord Gorold come and feast his eyes.”
Aeron took a leather skin from Rus, freshly filled with water from the sea. The
priest pulled out the cork and took a swallow.
    “I am to bring you to the keep,” insisted young Gormond,
from atop his horse.
    He is afraid to dismount, lest he get his boots wet. “I have the god’s work to do.” Aeron Greyjoy was a prophet. He did not suffer
petty lords ordering him about like some thrall.
    “Gorold’s had a bird,” said the Sparr.
    “A maester’s bird, from Pyke,” Gormond confirmed.
    Dark wings, dark words. “The ravens fly o’er salt and
stone. If there are tidings that concern me, speak