A Feast for Dragons

thralls and salt wives. A Volmark clapped
Victarion on the back; two Sparrs pressed a wineskin into his hands. He drank
deep, wiped his mouth, and let them bear him off to their cookfires, to listen
to their talk of war and crowns and plunder, and the glory and the freedom of
his reign.
    That night the men of the Iron Fleet raised a huge sailcloth
tent above the tideline, so Victarion might feast half a hundred famous
captains on roast kid, salted cod, and lobster. Aeron came as well. He ate fish
and drank water, whilst the captains quaffed enough ale to float the Iron
Fleet. Many promised him their voices: Fralegg the Strong, clever Alvyn Sharp,
humpbacked Hotho Harlaw. Hotho offered him a daughter for his queen. “I have no
luck with wives,” Victarion told him. His first wife died in childbed, giving
him a stillborn daughter. His second had been stricken by a pox. And his third
. . .
    “A king must have an heir,” Hotho insisted. “The Crow’s Eye
brings three sons to show before the kingsmoot.”
    “Bastards and mongrels. How old is this daughter?”
    “Twelve,” said Hotho. “Fair and fertile, newly flowered,
with hair the color of honey. Her breasts are small as yet, but she has good
hips. She takes after her mother, more than me.”
    Victarion knew that to mean the girl did not have a hump.
Yet when he tried to picture her, he only saw the wife he’d killed. He had
sobbed each time he struck her, and afterward carried her down to the rocks to
give her to the crabs. “I will gladly look at the girl once I am crowned,” he
said. That was as much as Hotho dared hope for, and he shambled off, content.
    Baelor Blacktyde was more difficult to please. He sat by
Victarion’s elbow in his lambswool tunic of black-and-green vairy, smooth-faced
and comely. His cloak was sable, and pinned with a silver seven-pointed star.
He had been eight years a hostage in Oldtown, and had returned a worshiper of
the seven green land gods. “Balon was mad, Aeron is madder, and Euron is
maddest of them all,” Lord Baelor said. “What of you, Lord Captain? If I shout
your name, will you make an end of this mad war?”
    Victarion frowned. “Would you have me bend the knee?”
    “If need be. We cannot stand alone against all Westeros.
King Robert proved that, to our grief. Balon would pay the iron price for
freedom, he said, but our women bought Balon’s crowns with empty beds. My
mother was one such. The Old Way is dead.”
    “What is dead can never die, but rises harder and stronger.
In a hundred years men will sing of Balon the Bold.”
    “Balon the Widowmaker, call him. I will gladly trade his
freedom for a father. Have you one to give me?” When Victarion did not answer,
Blacktyde snorted and moved off.
    The tent grew hot and smoky. Two of Gorold Goodbrother’s
sons knocked a table over fighting; Will Humble lost a wager and had to eat his
boot; Little Lenwood Tawney fiddled whilst Romny Weaver sang “The Bloody Cup”
and “Steel Rain” and other old reaving songs. Qarl the Maid and Eldred Codd
danced the finger dance. A roar of laughter went up when one of Eldred’s
fingers landed in Ralf the Limper’s wine cup.
    A woman was amongst those laughing. Victarion rose and saw
her by the tent flap, whispering something in the ear of Qarl the Maid that
made him laugh as well. He had hoped she would not be fool enough to come here,
yet the sight of her made him smile all the same. “Asha,” he called in a
commanding voice. “Niece.”
    She made her way to his side, lean and lithe in high boots
of salt-stained leather, green woolen breeches, and brown quilted tunic, a
sleeveless leather jerkin half-unlaced. “Nuncle.” Asha Greyjoy was tall for a
woman, yet she had to stand on her toes to kiss his cheek. “I am pleased to see
you at my queensmoot.”
    “Queensmoot?” Victarion laughed. “Are you drunk, niece? Sit.
I did not spy your Black Wind on the strand.”
    “I beached her beneath Norne Goodbrother’s castle and rode
across the island.” She sat upon a stool and helped herself unasked to Nute the
Barber’s wine. Nute raised no objection; he had passed out drunk some time ago.
“Who holds the Moat?”
    “Ralf Kenning. With the Young Wolf dead, only the bog devils
remain to plague us.”
    “The Starks were not the only northmen. The Iron Throne has
named the Lord of the Dreadfort as Warden of the North.”
    “Would you lesson me in warfare? I was fighting battles when
you were sucking