Chapter 50 (Patreon)

93 AC. King's Landing

Paxter Redwyne walked along the gallery of the Red Keep toward the small council chamber, trying not to look out of the windows that faced the bay. He already knew what he would see there. For the past two days he had barely left the harbor, and he had seen enough of that sight to last him the rest of his life: broken masts jutting out of the water, shattered hulls on the shoals, capsized boats flung far up the shore by the waves, and hundreds of men standing waist-deep in the water, hauling it all away with boathooks and ropes. The water by the quays was still murky with mud and splinters, and every morning the tide washed up barrels, scraps of sail, or the bodies of those few who had not been lucky enough to reach dry land.

Only a few months ago, when a letter bearing the royal seal had arrived on the Arbor, Paxter had considered himself the luckiest man in all the Reach. After Corlys Velaryon had resigned as Master of Ships amid scandal, the seat on the small council had stood empty for some time, and all manner of rumors had circulated at court about who would be given it. When the offer came to him, Paxter seized the opportunity without the slightest hesitation. A seat on the small council, command of the royal fleet, and the coming war for the Stepstones: any lord whose house had lived by the sea for centuries could dream of such things, and Paxter was no exception.

Upon arriving in the capital and taking over from the few who still remained in the fleet's administration, he was surprised to find himself developing a grudging respect for his predecessor. Corlys Velaryon, of whom the court had spoken with ill-concealed disapproval since that feast, had left behind an order the likes of which Paxter had never seen in any fleet in Westeros, including his own house's. Every ship had its place in the line and its own crew, and every captain knew whom he answered to and whom he commanded. Supply had been arranged so that provisions, pitch, rope, and sailcloth reached the shipyards and the harbor without delay, and the records were kept in such detail that one could learn from them how many nails had gone into repairing the deck of any single vessel. When Corlys left, he took all his stewards, clerks, and overseers with him, and at first Paxter feared that without those men everything would fall apart. Yet the system itself proved so well thought out that he had only to appoint his own trusted men to the vacant posts and carry on with what had been started.

The first months went splendidly. The new fleet sailed out into the bay for exercises, the captains drilled formations and maneuvers, Paxter gradually built a chain of command that answered to him alone, and he prepared for war with the Triarchy. The Lannister fleet, which had come to the capital at the king's command, dropped anchor beside the royal ships, and in the evenings Paxter took great pleasure in gazing out of the windows of the Red Keep at a harbor filled with hundreds of masts. It seemed to him that Westeros had not seen a mightier fleet since the Conquest.

And then the storm came.

Paxter still remembered waking in the middle of the night to a clap of thunder that rattled the glass in the windows, and how, running out onto the balcony, he saw the bay heaving with waves higher than any he had seen in a lifetime spent by the sea. He remembered running down to the harbor in the pouring rain, trying to give orders no one could hear over the howling of the wind, and watching helplessly as the harbor was torn apart. The old sailors said afterward that there had never been such a storm in Blackwater Bay, and by the very next day the septons in the city had begun calling it the wrath of the gods. Whatever its cause, by morning the royal fleet had ceased to exist. By some miracle the vast majority of the sailors had managed to save themselves, but the same could not be said of the ships. Now Paxter had to start all over again, and he had not the faintest idea where to begin.

Two knights of the Kingsguard stood at the doors of the small council chamber. One of them silently opened the door for Paxter, and he went in, trying to give his face a calm and confident expression that he did not truly feel.

Nearly every seat at the long table was already taken. At the head of the table sat King Jaehaerys, with Queen Alysanne at his right hand and the Hand of the King, Septon Barth, at his left, a stack of closely written parchments before him. Beside the queen sat Prince Aemon, Master of Laws, and his younger brother, Prince Baelon. Further along sat the Master of Coin, Martyn Tyrell; Grand Maester Elysar, fingering the links of his chain as always; and the Master of Whisperers, Gilbert Rosby, pale and coughing into a handkerchief, as ever. At the far end of the table, as if deliberately keeping together, sat Tymond Lannister, Boremund Baratheon, and Manfred Hightower. The lords were not members of the small council, but after the storm the king had invited them to the session, since the talk was to be of a war in which each of them had a stake. Paxter bowed to the king and queen, apologized for his lateness, and took the empty seat between the Grand Maester and Lord Hightower.

The king waited for him to sit, then swept his gaze over those assembled and opened the session without wasting time on lengthy preambles.

"First of all, I want to know how matters stand in the city itself," Jaehaerys said, folding his hands on the table before him. "I am told the lower districts were badly flooded, and complaints are still coming from Flea Bottom. Aemon, what do you know of how the clearing of the streets is going?"

Prince Aemon nodded and drew one of the sheets toward him, though it was plain he remembered everything he needed without notes.

"The districts near the harbor and the streets running down to the Blackwater had the worst of it," he replied. "During the storm the water rose so high that it flooded cellars and ground floors, and when it receded, many streets were left choked with mud, seaweed, debris, and filth from the sewers. The townsfolk and the City Watch have been clearing the wreckage since the morning after the storm, and I have ordered that they be given carts and men from the barracks. If nothing changes, the streets will be entirely cleared by the end of the week. Several old houses collapsed, and there are wounded in the lower districts, but on the whole the city suffered far less than one might have expected after such a storm."

"Good," the king said with a brief nod, then turned his gaze to Paxter, who felt his back stiffen involuntarily under it. "Lord Redwyne. What can you report on the state of the fleet?"

Paxter hesitated for a moment, searching for words, but quickly understood that no words could soften what he had to say.

"There is no fleet anymore, Your Grace," he said, trying to keep his voice even. "The shipwrights and I have inspected every vessel we could find, and not one of them can be repaired. The ships that were thrown ashore are so badly broken that it would be easier to take them apart for planks than to try to restore them. Those that were moored in the harbor itself were dashed against the stone piers, and most of them sank right at the quays. The workers are now trying to raise them from the bottom, or at least break them up, but the work is going slowly. Because of the wreckage, merchant ships cannot enter several sections of the harbor, and their captains must either ride at anchor in the bay and wait their turn or unload into boats."

Queen Alysanne frowned and leaned forward, resting her palm on the edge of the table.

"And when will you be able to clear the harbor, Lord Paxter?" she asked. "The merchants are frightened enough by the storm as it is, and if they begin to avoid King's Landing, the city will feel the economic consequences very soon."

"I will need time, Your Grace," Paxter answered honestly, turning to the queen. "The sunken ships are heavy, many of them lie on the bottom right up against one another, and some are tangled together by their masts and rigging. They have to be dismantled underwater and hauled out piece by piece. But the work would go much faster if I were given as many laborers as possible. Right now the men working in the harbor are mostly sailors left without ships and hired porters, but there are not enough of them."

The king answered almost at once, giving the queen no chance to ask her next question.

"You will have as many laborers as you need, Lord Redwyne," Jaehaerys said, tapping his fingers lightly on the table. "You have my approval, and I want this taken in hand immediately. If merchant ships cannot enter the capital's harbor, it will strike not only the treasury but the prestige of the city itself. King's Landing cannot afford to look as though its harbor is closed. Lord Tyrell, see to it that money is set aside from the treasury to pay the workers."

Martyn Tyrell nodded briefly and made a note on his sheet without arguing, though his face made plain that the new expenses pleased him not at all.

Tymond Lannister, who until then had sat silently in his place, gloomily studying his cup of wine, at last could hold back no longer and spoke, addressing everyone present at once.

"It is all very well that the city was not badly hurt by this cursed storm," he said, setting his cup aside. "But can anyone here tell me what we are to do now? We no longer have a fleet to invade the Stepstones. No matter how many men we muster, if we cannot carry them to the islands and support them at sea, bringing in supplies and reinforcements, the whole venture is not worth a broken penny. I lost more than half my fleet in this bay, Your Grace. More than half. And I cannot spare any more ships without leaving the coast of the Westerlands bare before those filthy ironborn, who are only waiting for us to weaken our defenses."

The king looked at Lannister with evident displeasure.

"I will ask you, Lord Tymond, not to speak in such a manner of another of the Seven Kingdoms," Jaehaerys said reproachfully. "The Iron Islands are part of this realm, and their people are as much my subjects as the people of the Westerlands."

Boremund Baratheon, sitting beside Lannister, merely snorted and leaned back in his chair.

"With all due respect, Your Grace, Lord Tymond spoke nothing but the truth," he said, making no effort to hide the contempt in his voice. "All the ironborn are in truth filthy pirates, no better than the slavers who have dug themselves in on the Stepstones. Why, those at least don't deny that they're brigands. These ones raid our shores and then send their lords to court in clean doublets, calling themselves loyal subjects of the crown."

Queen Alysanne gave her half-brother a stern look, then addressed everyone at the table.

"I understand that some lands of the realm bear the ironborn an old and not always groundless enmity," she said calmly but firmly. "Yet I ask all of you to restrain such remarks, at least on this council. We have not gathered here to list grievances." Then the queen turned to Paxter. "Lord Redwyne, your house possesses one of the largest fleets in the realm. Could the Redwynes provide their ships for the invasion of the Stepstones?"

Paxter felt the blood rush to his face. He had expected this question since the start of the session and still found himself unprepared for it.

"I fear not, Your Grace, at least not in the form the crown requires," he replied, embarrassed, trying not to look away. "My house's ships are not suited to a war of this scale. Yes, they could carry an army, if we were allowed to land on the Stepstones unopposed. But my ships could not give the Triarchy's fleet a proper fight. Most of them are merchantmen that carry wine from the Arbor to Oldtown and the Free Cities. We have few warships, and they are good for little more than scaring off the ironborn, should they ever grow so bold as to come all the way down to the Arbor."

Prince Aemon gave his father a long, disappointed look, which plainly said that he had foreseen all of this on the very evening the Velaryons left the capital. The king noticed the look but pretended not to. Aemon then turned to Lord Hightower, who had not yet said a word.

"Lord Manfred, and what do you say?" he asked. "Oldtown has one of the richest harbors in Westeros. How many ships can your house put to sea?"

Manfred Hightower did not answer at once. For some time he silently regarded his hands folded on the table, as if counting something in his head, and then slowly raised his eyes to the prince.

"Enough to guard our own coast and escort merchant convoys, Your Grace," he said in his usual even voice. "But not enough to force the Triarchy into a battle in which we would have the advantage. According to the latest reports, they have more than a hundred ships in the Stepstones, and they know those waters far better than our captains do. I am not certain that even with the support of dragons we could prevail everywhere at once. Dragons can burn a ship, but they cannot be in ten places at the same time, and the Triarchy will strike wherever the dragons are not."

Lord Hightower added nothing more, but it was clear to everyone present that the number of ships his house could put to sea gave him no confidence that anything would be left of his fleet by the end of the campaign. Paxter noticed Martyn Tyrell give a barely perceptible shake of his head, while Grand Maester Elysar stopped fingering the links of his chain for a moment.

Silence fell over the chamber, broken at last by Boremund Baratheon. He straightened in his chair and swept a heavy gaze over those assembled.

"Well then, it seems I'll have to say aloud what everyone here is thinking but no one dares to say," he declared. "We need Corlys Velaryon's fleet."

Prince Baelon, sitting beside his brother, looked warily at his uncle and shook his head.

"After certain events, I do not think it a good idea to ask Lord Corlys for help," he replied cautiously, plainly unwilling to remind his father of that evening in front of outsiders. "You know perfectly well yourself under what circumstances he left the capital."

Boremund raised his eyebrows in bewilderment, as though the prince had said something foolish.

"And who here is talking about asking?" he said. "Everyone knows how large the Velaryon fleet is, and it's well trained besides. Corlys Velaryon built the royal fleet himself, and no doubt he built his own every bit as well. The king doesn't need to ask for anything. It's enough simply to command Velaryon, and he can't refuse his liege lord."

Prince Aemon turned sharply to his wife's brother, his face showing undisguised irritation.

"The Velaryons are not chained dogs, Uncle, for us to demand such a thing of them now," he said harshly. "Father publicly refused Corlys what he sought and humiliated him before the entire court. And now, when we have no ships left ourselves, you propose to command him to hand over his fleet, and you expect him to obey with gratitude?"

"I'm not saying Velaryon should be ordered to give up his fleet for nothing," Boremund objected, not in the least abashed. "We can give him a few of the smaller islands in the Stepstones so he calms down and stops playing the wounded innocent. Let him have his piece, since he wants it so badly, and the main islands will stay with those they've already been promised to."

Queen Alysanne turned sharply to her half-brother, and strong irritation sounded in her voice.

"Enough, Boremund," she said, in such a way that the Lord of Storm's End fell silent despite himself. "I ask you to stop and not raise the matter of involving Corlys in this manner. Not here, nor anywhere else."

Boremund spread his hands, making it plain with his whole bearing that he did not understand what he had done to provoke such displeasure.

"I was only proposing a way out of the situation we're in, Your Grace," he replied. "If anyone at this table has a better solution, I'd be glad to hear it."

No one answered. Tymond Lannister reached for his cup again, Manfred Hightower went on silently studying his hands, and Gilbert Rosby coughed into his handkerchief, the sound especially loud in the silence that had fallen. The king sat motionless for some time, gazing somewhere over the heads of those assembled, and then straightened in his chair.

"I thank you all, my lords," Jaehaerys said. "I need to consider everything that has been said here today. When I have reached a decision, I will inform each of you. This council is concluded."

The members of the small council and the invited lords began to rise from their seats. Paxter Redwyne bowed to the king and queen and was one of the first to leave the chamber, already working out in his head where to find so many laborers and how quickly he could clear at least the main quay. Martyn Tyrell and the Grand Maester followed him out, conversing quietly, and after them came Tymond, Boremund, and Manfred, who, judging by their faces, intended to continue the discussion elsewhere and in a different tone. Last of all, leaning heavily on the table, Septon Barth rose, but the king gestured for the Hand to leave them, and he, nodding in understanding, followed the others out. A knight of the Kingsguard closed the door behind him, and only the king, the queen, and their sons remained in the chamber.

Aemon was the first to break the silence. He leaned back in his chair and wearily passed a hand over his face.

"We've made a complete mess of this," he said, looking at the closed door. "There's no other word for it."

"That's putting it mildly," Baelon agreed with his brother, folding his arms across his chest. "We're left without a fleet on the eve of a war we started ourselves, and the one man in the realm who could help us now hates us."

The king gave his sons a heavy look.

"Mind your tongues, both of you," he said sharply. "And don't look at me so reproachfully."

"However we choose to put it, it changes nothing, Father," Aemon replied, not lowering his eyes. "Either way, we need Corlys's fleet. We needed it before, too, but then at least we still had our own ships and the Lannister ships. Now, with the royal fleet lying at the bottom of the bay, there's no point even starting this war without the Velaryons. You heard Redwyne and Hightower yourself."

Baelon shook his head, looking from his father to his brother.

"After that evening, Corlys will demand far too high a price for his help," he remarked. "All the more so now, when the entire war at sea will rest on him alone. He knows perfectly well that without him we can do nothing, and he won't miss the chance to remind us of it. Corlys is not the sort to forget a slight."

"Then we must find another way," the king replied, lacing his fingers together before him. "One that does not require us to drag Corlys Velaryon into the affairs of the Stepstones."

Queen Alysanne, who had been listening silently to her husband and sons all this while, looked at Jaehaerys with ill-concealed bitterness.

"Even if we began to discuss his part in the war with Corlys, he would agree to nothing but the Stepstones," she said. "Not a few small islands, as Boremund suggests, but the whole of the Stepstones, as he asked from the very beginning. And as far as I understand, you have no intention of giving him those islands."

The king turned sharply to his wife, and for the first time that day his voice carried the irritation he had so carefully held back at the council.

"I would look a fool before every lord in the realm if, after that ill-fated evening, I gave Corlys the Stepstones," he replied. "Every last knight would conclude that one need only insult the king at his own table to get what one wants. I will not allow such things to be said of me."

Aemon looked at his father for a few moments, as though about to object, but in the end he merely looked away and let out a heavy breath.

"As you say, Father," he said, and frustration was clearly audible in his voice.

Septon Edwin had served in a small sept near the River Gate for more than twenty years. It was an old, poor sept, attended mostly by fishermen, boatmen, and fishwives from the fish market, and in all those years Edwin had acquired neither wealthy patrons, nor silk robes, nor the gold ornaments the septons of the great sept in the center of the city so loved to flaunt. The offerings his flock brought him he spent on mending the roof, on bread for the poor, and on candles, and when the money ran short, he went himself to ask the merchants for help. That was why, when a scandal broke out in the capital the year before over septons who had pocketed the offerings of the faithful and the money collected for orphans, Edwin's name never came up even once. There were few like him in King's Landing, and his flock knew it well.

On the third night after the storm, Edwin could not fall asleep for a long time. All day he had worked alongside his flock, clearing away the mud the water had carried onto the steps of the sept, helping bind the wounded, and pulling out those found beneath the ruins of collapsed houses in the lower districts. When at last he lay down, he fell asleep as quickly as if he had been struck on the head.

And he dreamed a dream unlike any he had ever had before.

He stood on a high shore, looking out at a sea that stretched to the very horizon. In the distance, on the opposite shore, rose three enormous pyramids built of many-colored brick, so tall that their summits were lost in the clouds. At their feet lay long, heavy chains, rusted and caked with dried blood, and Edwin somehow knew that these were the chains used to shackle men. And then the sea began to rise. It rose slowly and inexorably, without storm or wind, the water simply climbed higher and higher until it covered first the bases of the pyramids and then the pyramids themselves, up to their very peaks. Under the weight of the water the chains burst one after another, their links flying apart, and Edwin clearly heard the ringing even through the roar of the waves.

Then the vision changed. Now he saw a chain of rocky islands stretching across the sea, and the islands were full of armed men: filthy, weather-beaten, cruel, with faces that left no doubt about how they earned their living. Black flags hung over their camps, and at their landings lay ships on whose decks sat prisoners in irons. And again the sea began to rise. A great wave rolled over the islands from the east and swept the pirates from the rocks along with their camps, their flags, and their ships, destroying everything in its path. When the water receded, no one remained on the islands but the prisoners, who stood on the wet rocks, staring at their hands, from which the shackles had vanished.

Edwin woke in a cold sweat before dawn and sat for a long time on his narrow bed, staring into the darkness. The dream had been so vivid that he could still smell the salt and hear the ringing of bursting chains. He said a prayer to the Father and the Mother, then dressed and went to the sept, deciding that work would help him put what he had seen out of his mind.

But he could not put the dream out of his mind. What was more, the following night he saw it again, exactly the same, down to the smallest detail.

Four days after the storm, Edwin went to see an old acquaintance, Septon Loren, who served at a sept on the Street of Sisters. They had known each other since their novice days in Oldtown, and Loren was the only man in the city with whom Edwin could share something of this kind without fear of being laughed at. But no sooner had he begun to describe his dream than Loren went pale and cut him off mid-sentence.

"Three pyramids," Loren said, looking at his friend as though he had seen a ghost. "And chains at their feet that burst beneath the water. And then the islands, from which a wave sweeps away the pirates."

"How do you know?" Edwin asked, feeling a chill run down his spine. "I hadn't told you about the islands yet."

"Because I saw the same thing," Loren answered quietly, sinking onto the bench by the wall. "Two nights in a row. I thought it was just a bad dream after the storm, and I told no one, so as not to be taken for an old man who'd lost his wits."

They were silent for a long while, looking at each other, and then Loren suggested they carefully question other septons they could trust. Over the next two days the friends visited several septs in different villages near the city, and what they learned gave both of them serious pause. It turned out that four others had seen the very same dream: Septon Harold; old Septon Meryn, who served in the infirmary attached to the city's great sept and tended the sick; Septon Allard, who preached in the poorest quarters of Flea Bottom; and Septon Oswin, who instructed the novices. All six were known for living modestly, never taking more than their due, and never once being mixed up in embezzlement or any of the other ungodly dealings that had been so much talked of in the city in recent years. And all six had seen the same thing: three pyramids swallowed by the sea, broken chains, and a wave sweeping the pirates from the Stepstones.

On the evening of the sixth day after the storm, the six septons gathered in a small room at Edwin's sept. The doors were shut, the shutters closed, and seven candles were lit on the table, one for each of the Seven.

"I have lived in this world for nearly seventy years and never seen anything like it," said old Meryn, folding his gnarled hands in his lap. "Anyone might have a single dream. Even two men might, if they think too much about the same thing. But six servants of the Faith, who barely know one another, seeing the same thing down to the smallest detail? That cannot be chance."

"You believe it is a sign from the Seven?" asked Oswin, the youngest of those gathered, and his voice held both awe and fear.

"How else can it be explained?" Allard answered with a question of his own. "A storm such as even the old men cannot remember falls upon the capital and sinks the fleet the king assembled for war in the Stepstones. And a few days later, six of us dream of the sea destroying the pirates on those very same Stepstones. I am no maester and cannot read signs in the stars, but it seems to me the meaning is plain enough."

Loren rubbed his chin thoughtfully and looked into the candle flames.

"And the pyramids?" he asked. "I understand what the islands and the pirates mean. But what do the three pyramids and the chains signify? There are no pyramids in Westeros, nor on the Stepstones."

"But there are in Essos," Harold replied quietly. "I've heard from sailors that in Slaver's Bay the cities are built of colored brick, and that great pyramids stand there in which the richest slavers live. The chains bursting beneath the water are slave chains. And the three pyramids likely mean three cities. Astapor, Yunkai, and Meereen."

Edwin frowned, considering what he had heard.

"So the sea destroys the slavers first, and then the pirates of the Stepstones, who also trade in men?" he said slowly. "As though the Seven are telling us that their wrath is turned against those who keep men in chains."

"Or against those who serve them," Meryn added. "The pirates on the Stepstones have long been selling captives into slavery in the Free Cities. Everyone who has ever sailed across the Narrow Sea knows it."

For a time the room was silent. Then Edwin rose from the table.

"We cannot keep this secret," he said firmly. "But neither can we take it to the people in the squares. If we begin preaching about dreams and portents without receiving a blessing, we will be accused of troubling men's minds, or even of heresy. We must write to the High Septon. Let him judge what this dream means and how the Faith ought to act."

The others agreed with him. They spent the whole night writing the letter. Edwin moved the quill across the parchment while the others took turns adding the details each of them remembered, trying to leave nothing out: not the color of the brick the pyramids were built from, nor the ringing of the bursting chains, nor the faces of the prisoners on the wet rocks. All six signed their names beneath the letter, and in the morning Loren took it to a trusted messenger, who was to carry it to Oldtown as swiftly as possible.

For several days the High Septon had been unable to find any peace. He was a man no longer young but still hale, who had ascended to the highest seat of the Faith only a few years before and had since carefully avoided anything that might set the Faith against the crown. He remembered all too well what the struggle between the Faith and the Targaryens had led to under King Maegor, and he considered it his duty to prevent those bloody years from ever returning.

Yet the dream he had now seen for five nights in a row gave him no rest.

Every night he dreamed the same thing: three enormous pyramids of many-colored brick slowly sinking beneath the water, slave chains bursting at their feet, and a wave sweeping the pirates from a chain of rocky islands. At first he decided it was merely the result of weariness and the troubling news arriving from the capital. Then he began to pray, asking the Seven for peaceful sleep. But the dream kept coming, clear and distinct, and with every night it grew harder for the High Septon to convince himself that it meant nothing.

When a servant brought him a letter from King's Landing, sealed with a plain seal, the High Septon at first paid it little heed. He assumed it would concern the storm and the needs of the capital's septs, which required money for rebuilding. But as soon as he read the first lines, he went pale and slowly sank into the chair by the window, never letting the parchment out of his hands. He read the letter twice, then once more, peering closely at every word, as though hoping to find in it at least some difference from what he himself had seen. There was none.

"Your High Holiness, are you unwell?" the servant asked anxiously, noticing how the High Septon's face had changed. "Shall I send for a maester?"

"No, there is no need for a maester," the High Septon answered after a long pause, without taking his eyes from the letter. "Send for the septons of the Starry Sept whom I trust. All of them you can find before evening."

The boy bowed and hurried out, and the High Septon sat by the window for a long while afterward, gazing out over the rooftops of Oldtown and the darkening bay beyond. Seven men who served the Seven had seen the same thing. He could not count it a coincidence, however much he might have wished to. And if it was no coincidence, then the gods had spoken, and the Faith had no right to remain silent.

***

*93 AC. Driftmark*

The inner yard of High Tide had been full of noise since early morning. Servants hauled sacks of grain and barrels of salt beef from the storerooms, grooms loaded crates of arrows and bundles of spears onto wagons, and a long line of carts had formed at the gates, setting off one after another down toward the harbor of Spicetown. Corlys stood on the gallery above the yard, leaning on the stone balustrade, watching the bustle and checking the list in his hands from time to time.

Word of the storm in King's Landing had reached Spicetown just three days after it struck. It was brought by the captains of merchant ships that had been unable to enter the capital's harbor. By the end of the week, it was being talked about in every tavern in Spicetown. People said that the royal fleet had been wrecked down to the last ship, that the Lannister fleet had shared its fate, that it was still impossible to moor in the capital's harbor because of the wreckage, and that the king himself had not shown his face outside the Red Keep for several days. They also said that the sailors who had spent that night aboard the ships had nearly all survived by making it to shore, and many called it a true miracle.

Corlys listened to such talk with an impassive face. He had achieved his aim. The crown no longer had a fleet, and therefore no means of invading the Stepstones before the Velaryons had established themselves there for good. The Lannisters had lost more than half their ships, the Hightowers and the Redwynes would not risk their own fleets in a war they could not win, and the Baratheons and the Tyrells had never possessed a fleet worth speaking of. Now, whoever might wish to challenge the Velaryons for dominion over the islands would have to contend with the ships of Driftmark, and no one else in Westeros had ships like those anymore.

Yet destroying the fleet was only half the task. Corlys understood perfectly well that as soon as Westeros learned that the Velaryons had seized the Stepstones without the crown's leave, and before that had put the slavers of the three greatest cities of Slaver's Bay to the sword, he would be called a rebel, a traitor, and a bloodthirsty monster. The lords to whom the king had promised the islands would cry treachery loudest of all, and the king would have grounds to declare him a traitor. Corlys needed a power on his side, at the moment the news of his deeds reached Westeros, that no lord, not even the king himself, could afford to ignore. And in Westeros, that power was the Faith.

Septons preached in every town and every village of the Seven Kingdoms. Smallfolk listened to them, knights and lords listened to them, and even the Targaryens, for all their dragons, preferred not to quarrel with the High Septon after what the war with the Faith under Maegor had cost the crown. If the septons told the people that the destruction of the slaver cities and the driving of the pirates from the Stepstones had been pleasing to the Seven, no one would dare call Corlys a monster. And if anyone did dare, no one would listen.

Finding the right men had not been difficult. Corlys had decided from the very start that he had no use for the greedy and venal septons, of whom King's Landing had more than enough. Such men would gladly have taken gold and preached whatever they were told, but no one would have believed them, and after last year's scandal over the embezzled offerings, their words were worth nothing. He needed men whom their flocks respected and whom no one could accuse of self-interest. Over a few weeks, Aguilar and his people gathered information on the servants of the Faith in the capital, and Corlys chose six whose reputations were spotless. The seventh was the High Septon himself, whose word carried more weight than that of any lord in Westeros.

Entering their dreams had been a matter of only a few nights. To a man who wielded magic, the mind of a sleeper unprotected by any spell lay open like a book upon a table. Corlys had put no words into those dreams, no explanations, no voices from the heavens. He had shown them only images: the pyramids, the chains, the sea, and the pirates on the Stepstones. Corlys knew that a man believes far more readily in what he has worked out for himself than in what others tell him. The septons would fill in the rest without his help, and when the time came and the news from Essos and the Stepstones reached Westeros, he would see to it himself that they drew the right conclusions. Corlys felt no particular pangs of conscience about it. After all, he had shown them nothing but the truth. The slavers of the Bay truly had been destroyed, and the pirates of the Stepstones truly would soon be swept into the sea.

Footsteps on the stairs drew him from his thoughts. Daeron came up onto the gallery, brushing the dust of the road from his cloak as he walked. By the look of him, he had just returned from the Unsullied camp.

"If you keep standing here staring at the servants, they'll think you're displeased with something," Daeron said, stepping up beside his brother and leaning his elbows on the balustrade.

"I'm pleased with everything," Corlys replied, without taking his eyes off the yard. "I'm just making sure everything is going as we agreed. How are things at the camp?"

"Better than I expected," Daeron said, and genuine satisfaction sounded in his voice. "The Unsullied have rested after the voyage and went back to training the moment they'd recovered their strength. I haven't once seen them complain or ask for extra rest. Their commanders report that all of them are ready to board the ships on any day we command. I'll admit, it sometimes unsettles me to watch them. They're too obedient and too silent."

"That is exactly why we need them on the Stepstones," Corlys replied. "Where our own men would hesitate and look to their comrades, the Unsullied will simply march forward and do what they've been ordered to do. And what did Aguilar say?"

"He got back this morning," Daeron answered, lowering his voice even though there was no one near them. "Everything necessary has already been passed to our people on the islands. The day is set, and each of them knows what he must do. Aguilar says the pirates suspect nothing so far. They've heard about the storm in King's Landing, and according to our people, they've been drinking to celebrate for three days now. They reckon that since the king has no fleet anymore, there'll be no war this year."

Corlys smiled faintly.

"Let them celebrate," he said. "The more they drink, the less they'll look around them. And what are they saying in Spicetown about the storm?"

Daeron was silent for a while, watching the bustle in the yard, and then answered, choosing his words carefully.

"They say it was the wrath of the gods," he said. "That the Seven were angered at the king for how he treated our house at that feast, and sank his fleet. Some even claim they saw a seahorse glowing in the clouds above the bay that night." Daeron cast a quick glance at his brother and added more quietly, "Mother said nothing all evening yesterday, and when I asked her what she was thinking about, she said she was praying for the sailors who didn't make it to shore. Viserra hasn't been herself either."

"I know," Corlys replied, and for a moment his face grew grave. "I'll speak with them both before we sail. But right now we have no time to look back. We did what we had to do, and now all that remains is to see it through to the end."

"How long do we have left?" Daeron asked.

"A few days," Corlys answered, rolling up the list he held. "Veylor will be done with the provisions by tomorrow evening. The ships will be ready in two days. Another day to move the Unsullied from the camp to the ships in secret. And then we put to sea."

Daeron nodded and for a time silently watched the yard, where the servants were finishing loading the last wagon before sending it down to the harbor.

"Do you know what I'm thinking?" he said at last, without turning his head. "When we come back from the Stepstones, everything will be completely different. Either the Velaryons will become one of the most powerful houses in Westeros, or nothing will be left of us but a name in the maesters' books. There's no third way."

"There's no third way," Corlys agreed. "But I don't intend to lose, Daeron. Not after everything we've already done."

Daeron clapped his brother on the shoulder and went down into the yard, where Veylor was already waiting for him with yet another stack of papers. Corlys remained alone on the gallery. For a while longer he watched the last wagons roll out through the castle gates and down the road to the harbor, where the Velaryon ships lay at the quays, ready to take on warriors, weapons, and supplies. Beyond the harbor stretched the sea, calm and grey beneath a low sky, and somewhere far beyond it, to the southeast, lay the Stepstones.

Only a few days remained before they sailed. And then would begin the war that would decide the place of House Velaryon in Westeros for many generations to come.