A Feast for Dragons

chunk of stinky cheese, and half of
an eel pie. “Pynto is a very good man,” he announced, then settled down to tell
her of the time he seized the spice ship, a tale she had heard a dozen times
before.
    As the hours passed the tavern filled. Pynto was soon too
busy to pay her any mind, but several of his regulars dropped coins into her
begging bowl. Other tables were occupied by strangers: Ibbenese whalers who
reeked of blood and blubber, a pair of bravos with scented oil in their hair, a
fat man out of Lorath who complained that Pynto’s booths were too small for his
belly. And later three Lyseni, sailors off the
Goodheart
, a
storm-wracked galley that had limped into Braavos last night and been seized
this morning by the Sealord’s guards.
    The Lyseni took the table nearest to the fire and spoke
quietly over cups of black tar rum, keeping their voices low so no one could
overhear. But she was no one and she heard most every word. And for a time it
seemed that she could see them too, through the slitted yellow eyes of the
tomcat purring in her lap. One was old and one was young and one had lost an
ear, but all three had the white-blond hair and smooth fair skin of Lys, where
the blood of the old Freehold still ran strong.
    The next morning, when the kindly man asked her what three
things she knew that she had not known before, she was ready.
    “I know why the Sealord seized the
Goodheart
.
She was carrying slaves. Hundreds of slaves, women and children, roped together
in her hold.” Braavos had been founded by escaped slaves, and the slave trade
was forbidden here.
    “I know where the slaves came from. They were wildlings from
Westeros, from a place called Hardhome. An old ruined place, accursed.” Old Nan
had told her tales of Hardhome, back at Winterfell when she had still been Arya
Stark. “After the big battle where the King-Beyond-the-Wall was killed, the
wildlings ran away, and this woods witch said that if they went to Hardhome,
ships would come and carry them away to someplace warm. But no ships came,
except these two Lyseni pirates,
Goodheart
and
Elephant
,
that had been driven north by a storm. They dropped anchor off Hardhome to make
repairs, and saw the wildlings, but there were thousands and they didn’t have
room for all of them, so they said they’d just take the women and the children.
The wildlings had nothing to eat, so the men sent out their wives and
daughters, but as soon as the ships were out to sea, the Lyseni drove them
below and roped them up. They meant to sell them all in Lys. Only then they ran
into another storm and the ships were parted. The
Goodheart
was
so damaged her captain had no choice but to put in here, but the
Elephant
may have made it back to Lys. The Lyseni at Pynto’s think that she’ll return
with more ships. The price of slaves is rising, they said, and there are
thousands more women and children at Hardhome.”
    “It is good to know. This is two. Is there a third?”
    “Yes. I know that you’re the one who has been hitting me.”
Her stick flashed out, and cracked against his fingers, sending his own stick
clattering to the floor.
    The priest winced and snatched his hand back. “And how could
a blind girl know that?”
    I saw you
. “I gave you three. I don’t need
to give you four.” Maybe on the morrow she would tell him about the cat that
had followed her home last night from Pynto’s, the cat that was hiding in the
rafters, looking down on them.
Or maybe not
. If he could have
secrets, so could she.
    That evening Umma served salt-crusted crabs for supper. When
her cup was presented to her, the blind girl wrinkled her nose and drank it
down in three long gulps. Then she gasped and dropped the cup. Her tongue was
on fire, and when she gulped a cup of wine the flames spread down her throat
and up her nose.
    “Wine will not help, and water will just fan the flames,”
the waif told her. “Eat this.” A heel of bread was pressed into her hand. The
girl stuffed it in her mouth, chewed, swallowed. It helped. A second chunk
helped more.
    And come the morning, when the night wolf left her and she
opened her eyes, she saw a tallow candle burning where no candle had been the
night before, its uncertain flame swaying back and forth like a whore at the
Happy Port. She had never seen anything so beautiful.
    ----

    A GHOST IN WINTERFELL
    The dead man was found at the base of the inner wall, with
his neck broken and only his left leg showing above the snow