Chapter 61 - Interlude

Ser Baelor Hightower

The yard at the Hightower rang with the familiar music of steel on steel. Ser Baelor Hightower stood in the middle of it, sword raised, sweat tracing lines down his temples despite the cool morning air. The morning sun cut through the haze rising off the Whispering Sound and painted the practice ground in long shadows. Around him, men-at-arms drilled in pairs, the rhythm of their wooden swords mixing with shouted instructions from the master-at-arms.

He’d been working through forms with two of his household knights when the messenger arrived. After signalling, the young man waited patiently by the edge of the yard as Baelor finished his current passage, parrying a cut and turning it into a riposte that would have caught Ser Wendel across the ribs in a real fight. 

Getting a nod of acknowledgment from the knight, Baelor wiped his brow with a cloth and walked over to the messenger.

"My lord," the man said, bowing. "An envoy has arrived from Ser Galladon Tarth. He requests to meet with you at your convenience."

That stopped Baelor mid-motion. He hadn't exchanged letters with Ser Galladon since the news had spread about Lord Whitehead's death in King's Landing.

That story had reached Oldtown faster than most, told as a heroic tale of a Stormlander knight slipping past the king's own guards to end a man's burning. The Reach had received the tale with mixed feelings. Some of the older lords, still nursing prejudices against the Stormlords from generations past, had called it bloodthirsty. An act borne of vengeance more than any noble sentiment.

But Baelor knew better. He'd met Ser Galladon, traded correspondence with him, and thought he was observant enough to take the measure of the man. What Galladon had done at the burning was mercy. The brave kind of mercy that required standing before a king's mad fury and committing the act anyway. The kind worthy of a song, if anyone ever wrote one.

"Send him to my solar," Baelor said. "I'll be there within a quarter hour."

The messenger bowed and departed.

Baelor returned to the yard. He had time for one more bout, and he wanted to finish on a good note. 

xxx

The man waiting outside his apartments was somewhat familiar.

Two Hightower guards stood at either side, watchful but not threatening. The visitor was lean and dark-haired, dressed in good but practical traveling clothes. He bore no House sigil, but his bearing was that of a man comfortable in noble company without being noble himself.

He bowed properly when Baelor approached.

"My lord. I'm called Grey. I serve Ser Galladon Tarth."

Baelor inclined his head and gestured for the man to enter. The guards remained outside as Baelor closed the door behind them.

"Be welcome, Grey. I'm glad to hear word of Ser Galladon at last. It's been months since I've had any direct news. How can I be of service?"

Grey produced a small leather satchel from beneath his cloak. "My lord sent three letters. One for yourself. One for your lord father. And one for your sister, Lady Malora."

Baelor took the satchel, raising an eyebrow as he registered what had been said. He had not known Ser Galladon was exchanging letters with his father at all. Much less with Malora.

In truth, he didn't think Malora exchanged letters with anyone. His sister had a famous aversion to most forms of social engagement. The idea that she might have struck up a correspondence with a Stormlander knight was... surprising. Then again, she was the one who’d found out Ser Galladon had been coming to Oldtown at all.

He kept his expression neutral.

"You have my thanks. Do you require food and lodging? Our hospitality is yours for as long as you need it before you journey back."

"You are kind, my lord. But I will be staying in Oldtown for some time now. Ser Galladon has arranged for me and five others with me to study at the Citadel."

Baelor blinked. That was another surprise.

The Citadel accepted anyone who came to their doors, but only in theory. Studies there cost a great deal of coin and required either personal sponsorship from a great house or letters from established maesters. Smallfolk could hardly afford it. The sons of minor lords might attend if their families could spare the expense, but six men at once being sent from a single house?

"Lord Tarth is sponsoring the studies, then?"

"Ser Galladon himself, my lord. With his lord father's blessing. He believes that men of practical skill and proper learning will serve House Tarth well in the years to come."

Interesting. Most lords sent their sons to the Citadel only if they had no other use for them. The Tarths were apparently investing in trained men they could rely on. That was forward-thinking. The kind of thing that would matter ten or twenty years down the line, when those men returned with their chains.

Something to mention to his father, to be sure.

"In that case," Baelor said, "allow me to assist. The Citadel can be slow to process applications when they don't recognize the names involved. I'll write a letter of recommendation to Maester Loren. He's a friend of the family and will see your group received fairly and promptly."

He moved to his desk, took out parchment and quill, and wrote a brief but warm letter. He sealed it with hot wax and pressed his ring into it. The Hightower seal carried more weight at the Citadel than even the three-headed dragon.

Grey took his leave with another round of bowing and thanking, and the guards escorted him back down through the keep.

Baelor stood at his desk for a moment, turning the satchel over in his hands. Six men to the Citadel. Letters to his father and his sister. The Tarths were truly becoming more than the minor coastal house they'd been when he was a boy.

He cracked the seal on his own letter and read it.

He read it twice.

Then he gathered the other two letters and headed for his father's solar at a brisk walk.

xxx

His father's solar occupied much of the upper levels of the Hightower's central tower. The windows looked out across Oldtown and the harbor beyond, the Honeywine winding through the city like a silver ribbon, the Whispering Sound stretching to the horizon. It was the most impressive office in the Reach, perhaps in all of Westeros outside of the infamous painted table in Dragonstone.

Baelor entered without ceremony. He'd long since stopped needing to be announced.

Then he stopped short.

Malora was already inside.

His sister stood near their father's desk, speaking in that low, intense way she had when something occupied her mind. Lord Leyton listened with the patient attention he reserved for his children, even when their topics ranged into territory most fathers would find difficult to follow.

She looked up at his entrance, her dark hair pulled back severely, her expression already faintly annoyed at being interrupted.

Baelor almost laughed.

Given the contents of the letter still folded in his hand, the timing was either gods-sent or perfectly cruel. He wasn't sure which.

Malora caught his amusement immediately, the way she caught everything. Her frown deepened.

"What?"

"I have letters for the two of you," Baelor said.

Malora's frown deepened further. "From whom?"

He held up the satchel. "Ser Galladon Tarth."

Lord Leyton's face shifted into mild interest. "Ah. For the betrothal, I expect."

He took his letter from Baelor and began breaking the seal with a small knife from his desk.

Malora went very still. "Whose betrothal?"

Lord Leyton looked up from his letter, mild surprise on his face. "Yours, of course."

"What?" The word came out as a hiss. Sharp enough that even their father blinked at her.

"Isn't that what you wanted?" his father asked, his tone perfectly reasonable. "Ser Gerold wrote to me from King's Landing about your fascination with the boy. Speaking with Lord Selwyn Tarth seemed the next reasonable step. I sent him a letter weeks ago suggesting an exploration of possible terms."

Malora's eyes went wide. Wider than Baelor had ever seen them. She snatched the letter Baelor was still holding out to her, ripped through the seal, and began to read.

Her face went through a remarkable sequence of colors. Pale. Then flushed. Then red enough that Baelor wondered if she might actually catch fire from sheer mortification.

She finished reading. She stared at the parchment. She read it again, faster this time.

Then she jumped up from the chair she'd been sitting in, the chair scraping across the floor with an awful sound, and rushed out of the solar without excusing herself.

"Malora!" Baelor called after her.

She didn't look back. The door slammed behind her hard enough that several papers fluttered on Lord Leyton's desk. 

Sighing, Baelor waited quietly in the sudden silence, looking at the door his sister had just disappeared through as his father finished reading his own letter at his own pace. He set it down on the desk with a small sigh when he was done.

"A misunderstanding,” he breathed out. “A shame, truly."

"Was it?" Baelor asked. Ser Galladon had explained his side of the story in his letter, but Baelor didn't remember the last time he'd seen his sister so flustered. He smiled at the door. "I think she likes him."

Lord Leyton studied him. "You don't seem bothered by this."

"I would have appreciated hearing about it before." Baelor shrugged. "But Ser Galladon is a good man. And if Malora wants it, then that's all that matters."

His father hummed thoughtfully. "That's why I wrote in the first place."

He was quiet for a moment, fingers tapping lightly against the desk as he considered.

"I will write back to Lord Tarth. Offer him a better dowry, perhaps. His house has certainly grown in prominence recently."

Baelor shook his head. His father wasn’t the best at reading people. He didn't think coin was the issue at all. If anything, he didn't think Ser Galladon believed Malora had any wish for a betrothal in the first place.

"Not yet, Father. I will speak with Malora first." He paused, the next thought already forming. "We received invitations for Lord Baratheon's tourney once he returns from Essos, no?"

Lord Leyton nodded, but he did not seem enthused by it. 

Baelor chuckled. His father disliked leaving the Hightower more than Malora did these days. The fact that he'd written to another lord at all had been surprising; the fact that he was now considering increasing a dowry meant the situation interested him more than he was letting on.

"Mayhaps," Baelor allowed. "But being at Storm's End, it's a tourney I'm sure Ser Galladon will attend. Perhaps if Malora had the chance to meet him again, in person and away from letters and grand-uncles, we might learn more about what either of them actually wants."

Lord Leyton considered that, then gave a slow nod.

"Yes. That might serve us better than another exchange of letters." He set Ser Galladon's letter aside. "Speak with your sister. Find out what she truly wants. We will decide our next steps once you have."

Baelor inclined his head and left the solar to find Malora. 

It was going to be a long conversation, but Baelor loved his sister. And if there was a chance—even a small one—that her interest in Ser Galladon Tarth was something real, something that might bring her the kind of happiness she'd never seemed to seek out for herself, then he intended to help her find out.

xxx

Queen Rhaella Targaryen

With the help of two maids, Rhaella lowered herself into the bath.

The water was scalding. She'd asked them to make it hotter than was sensible, hot enough that the maids had hesitated before pouring it in, exchanging worried glances they thought she didn't see.

She winced as she settled into it. The heat bit at her skin of her inner legs, but that wasn't what made her flinch.

"Your Grace?" one of the maids asked. The younger one—Lyra, she thought, though she was bad with the new girls' names. "Are you well? Shall I bring oils or—"

"Leave me."

The word came out sharper than she'd intended. The maid flinched, the same way Rhaella had flinched at the water.

"Both of you. Out."

The maids curtsied and hurried for the door, gathering up the cloths and unguents they'd been arranging. The younger one looked back over her shoulder once, her face full of an awful pity that made Rhaella want to scream.

When the door opened, Rhaella caught a glimpse of a white cloak on the other side before it closed. 

She stared at it for a long moment.

Her whole life, those cloaks had meant safety. Protection. From the time she was a small girl following her mother through these very halls, the white cloaks had been there. Standing in doorways. Watching the corridors. Sworn to protect the royal family with their lives.

Now she didn't know what those words even meant anymore. She didn't know if she would ever feel safe in these halls again. In her own home.

She let out a breath, and it came with a sob.

She was crying.

Gods. 

She was pathetic, sitting alone in a bath, weeping into water that was too hot. She lifted one hand and pressed it against her mouth to muffle the sound. The cloak in the corridor outside might hear her otherwise, and she would not give those men the chance to hear her like this again.

It wasn't so terrible, a part of her mind told herself. Don't be foolish. You've survived worse.

But it had been terrible, and it had been the worst.

Aerys had been growing rougher and less caring ever since his return from Duskendale. The change had been gradual at first. A harder grip on her arm. Less patience for any sign of reluctance on her part. Then more. Then more again. Until she'd learned to lie still and silent and absent her mind from her body when he came to her chambers, the way the maids had taught her on her wedding night so many years ago.

But last night had been the first time she had truly cried out in pain. Loud enough that her voice carried beyond the bedchamber doors.

He hadn't stopped.

Ser Harlan Grandison and Ser Jonothor Darry had rushed into her bedchambers at once, swords drawn, ready to strike down an unseen attacker.

Only the attacker had been the man they'd sworn those very swords to.

Aerys hadn't even paused. Had hardly looked up from what he was doing. He'd merely waved a hand at them. A dismissal. As though they were servants who'd brought him the wrong wine.

The two knights had hesitated. Just for a moment.

And in that moment, through her cries, she had turned to them. She had pleaded with her eyes. Unable to form words. Unable to do anything but look at them and beg with everything in her face.

They had turned away.

They hadn't even had the courage to meet her eyes as they did it.

The door had closed. The white cloaks had vanished. And she had been alone with her husband again.

After that, she had not cried out loudly. She had forced herself to sob quietly as Aerys mounted her, pawing at her like a beast rather than a man, taking his pleasure with no thought for hers or for the simple fact that she was a person and not a thing.

Now, a day later, with the pain finally subsiding to a dull throb that the hot water did something to ease, her mind tried to make excuses for the kingsguard.

They had sworn oaths they couldn't break. They had sworn to protect the queen’s life but to obey the king's commands. The two oaths could conflict, and when they did, obedience won.

No amount of courage would see any other knight in the Seven Kingdoms defy the king when he was at that moment doing... what he had been doing. No knight in the realm would have intervened. Not Lord Tywin's men. Not Lord Arryn's. Not the Starks. The white cloaks had been bound by their oaths and there was nothing they could have done.

Wasn’t there?

She asked herself the question, and a memory came unbidden to her mind as she sank deeper into the bath.

The first time Aerys and his witch had burned a man at court, Rhaella had fled the throne room with Viserys in her arms. She had not been able to stand the smell of burning flesh. Had not been able to stand the look of avid pleasure on her husband's face. Had not been able to stand how all those knights, all those lords, all those great men with their oaths and their honor and their swords—how they had all stood by and done nothing.

But less than an hour later, after she'd been in her chambers and handed Viserys to his nurse, she'd heard that one of those knights had done something.

Ser Galladon Tarth had stabbed Lord Elmar Whitehead through the heart and cut short the burning. He’d given the dying man a swift end and damned Aerys's pleasure to seven hells.

Aerys would tell her later, in one of his rare moments of conversation, that the boy had done it to revenge himself on the lord. That it was murder, not mercy. The young knight had simply wanted to be sure his enemy died and had used the moment to do it.

But from nearly everyone else, she'd heard otherwise, that it’d been mercy instead of cruelty.

She would never truly know which version was true. The stories that traveled in court had layers and layers of telling and retelling. But she knew which one she chose to believe.

She knew which version best matched the young man she had met in the godswood that one afternoon. A young man who had run to help a crying child without thinking and had spoken with such genuine remorse for the people who had perished when he'd saved his mother. 

That memory brought a sudden pang of envy to her chest, sharp enough that she had to close her eyes against it.

Ser Galladon Tarth had burned down a town to save his mother. Her own son had not come to her after last night, despite sharing the same wing of this castle.

She shook her head against the thought immediately. No. I will not blame Rhaegar for Aerys's sins.

Her son had his own burdens. Whatever he was building, whatever he was planning, he could not afford to draw his father's suspicion. Aerys watched the prince more closely now than ever, sensing a rival, sensing the love the court was beginning to direct toward the younger Targaryen. If Rhaegar came to her chambers too often, Aerys would notice. If Aerys noticed, Aerys would act. Rhaegar protected her by keeping his distance.

Yes, she told herself. That's what it is. He is protecting me.

She sank deeper into the water until it covered her shoulders, then her neck. Steam rose around her face and she let her eyes close.

Slowly, the pain in her body became something distant. Something happening to someone else.

She must have drifted into sleep. The next thing she knew, a knock came at the door, sharp and sudden enough to startle her into wakefulness. Water sloshed around her as she sat up too quickly.

The door opened a crack.

"Your Grace." Ser Jonothor Darry's voice. The same man who had turned his face away last night. "Forgive the intrusion. Lady Melisandre is outside. She wishes an audience."

Despite the still-warm water, Rhaella felt a chill run through her.

"A moment," she said.

xxx

She had her robe tied tight when she allowed the woman in.

Melisandre was strikingly beautiful. The kind of beauty that drew the eye against your will, that made you want to look at her even when you knew you shouldn't. Tall and red and graceful, her hair like flame, her skin pale and luminous.

Were she anyone else, and had Rhaella ever felt anything resembling love for Aerys, she might have felt something at knowing how long her husband spent with this woman. Jealousy, perhaps. Or shame.

As it was, she felt only spite. And wariness.

"What is it you want, my lady?"

The words came out as cold as she could make them. It rankled her how at ease the witch seemed to be in Rhaella's own private chambers. As though she belonged there. As though the queen's spaces were as open to her as the king's.

"I wished to check on your health, Your Grace." Melisandre's voice was low and warm. The voice you used to soothe a frightened animal. "I imagine last night was... difficult."

Rhaella's jaw tightened.

"Men are creatures of passion," Melisandre continued. "And we are often made to suffer the brunt of those passions."

Fury rose within her at those words. The woman was as much to blame for her pain as Aerys was. Melisandre had whispered in his ear for months now. Encouraged his cruelty. Wrapped his madness in the language of holy purpose.

"How would you know?" Rhaella spat. 

Melisandre's smile was sharp. 

"I was not born a princess of the blood, Your Grace,” she said. “And the world can be quite cruel to a woman, before one learns to endure it."

"Is that what you're telling me to do, witch? That I should learn to endure this?"

Melisandre came closer.

Closer than was proper. Close enough that Rhaella could smell whatever perfume she wore, something smoky and warm, like incense in a temple. The woman dared even to lift one hand and brush her fingers lightly against Rhaella's shoulder through the silk of the robe.

A cloying warmth spread through Rhaella where the touch landed. Not unpleasant. But not natural either. It felt like the warmth of standing too close to a fire, when you couldn't tell whether the heat was about to comfort you or burn you.

It made her deeply wary.

She forced herself not to flinch away.

"Through the Lord of Light," Melisandre said softly, "all our sufferings serve a grand purpose, Your Grace. The grandest purpose of all."

Taking a deliberate step back, Rhaella broke the contact. "And what is that?"

"The fight against the Great Other. Against darkness itself."

Rhaella sneered, the expression coming easier than she'd expected.

"Is that what you whisper in my husband's ear, witch? Ancient tales and half-told prophecies? Is that what has made him so cruel to his own wife? His own—" Her voice caught. "His own sister."

The words came out choked. It took her a long second to recollect herself. She lifted her chin and met Melisandre's eyes directly.

"What is it you actually wish, my lady?” she asked. “You did not come here to console me. We both know that."

Melisandre studied her for a long moment. There was something in her gaze that made Rhaella feel as though she were being weighed. Measured. Assessed for some purpose Rhaella could not begin to guess at.

"I did not come to bring more tears, Your Grace. Only to warn you."

"Warn me of what?"

"That another shall be burnt today."

Rhaella's stomach sank.

She had thought herself prepared for the words. Had known something must be coming. Why else would the woman appear in her chambers without invitation? But hearing it spoken aloud still hit her like a physical blow.

Another. Another man would die screaming today. Another would be reduced to ash and bone and the awful smell that lingered in the throne room for days afterward. And one more time would Aerys seek her bed afterward. 

"Who?" she asked.

But Melisandre only looked at her for a long moment. The same weighing look. The same assessment. Whatever conclusion the witch was drawing, she shared none of it.

"Turn to the fire if you need its warmth, Your Grace." Melisandre moved toward the door. She stopped just before reaching it and turned back one final time. "The night is dark and full of terrors. But the fire burns it all away."

Then she was gone. The door closed softly behind her.

Rhaella stood in the center of her chambers, her hair still damp from the bath, her robe clinging where her skin was still wet beneath it.

She did not move for a long time.

Outside, somewhere in the castle, men were preparing a pyre. Inside, in her chambers, the queen of the Seven Kingdoms stood alone and tried to remember what it had felt like to believe she was safe.

She could not remember. 

Maybe she never had been.

xxx

Matteno of Myr

A moon's turn passed before Matteno reached the man he'd been sent to see.

A fortnight at sea from Pentos to Volantis, fighting against winds that seemed determined to push him back to where he'd come from. Then another fortnight ashore, kicking his heels through one delay after another, while Nyessos Vhassar's stewards invented increasingly creative excuses for why their master could not yet receive him.

Too busy. Indisposed. Attending to matters of state. Visiting his country estates. Hosting important guests. 

By the time the meeting was finally granted, Matteno had spent enough silver on inn-rooms and meals in western Volantis to feed a small fleet for a season. He was not in a generous mood. 

The morning of the appointment, he hired pall bearers to carry him to the meeting. Magister Illyrio had warned him about this, before he'd left Pentos. The Old Blood of Volantis cared deeply about appearances, even more than the Magisters of Pentos did, and walking on his own two legs across the city would mark him out as common. As nothing. As a man who could be ignored.

So Matteno hired the pall bearers. Four big men, freedmen by their tattoos, who carried his palanquin on poles across their shoulders. The thing was uncomfortable as a coffin and only slightly larger, but it lifted him above the crowds and let him be seen the way these people needed to see him.

From his inn in western Volantis, the procession started across the Long Bridge.

That bridge had been one of the wonders of the world when the Valyrians built it, and it remained impressive now even in its decay. Lined on both sides with shops and houses built directly into the structure, the bridge crossed the Rhoyne in a span so long he could not see one end from the other. The pall bearers shouldered their way through merchants hawking fruit and fish and silk and stranger things. The smell of unwashed bodies mixed with spice and rot and the river itself. Children ran beneath the palanquin and were cuffed away by his bearers without breaking stride.

On the eastern bank, things grew worse before they grew better. Eastern Volantis was a maze. Streets that twisted back on themselves. Alleys that ended in walls. Squares that emptied into more alleys. A man could be lost here for days if he didn't know his way, and Matteno suspected that was exactly how the Old Blood preferred it. Let outsiders wander and get robbed and learn their place. Let only those with proper guides and proper invitations reach the heart of the city.

His bearers knew the way. Eventually, the maze opened up onto the Black Walls. 

Matteno had heard stories of these walls his whole life. The fused-stone bones of the old Freehold, towering and impossibly ancient, raised by dragon fire when the world was younger. 

The reality was somehow both larger and more disappointing than the stories. Larger, because no description had truly captured the sheer scale of them. Disappointing, because the walls were dark and dull and ugly compared to the beauty of Myr and Lys.

The gate guards were slaves in fine livery, with brands burned into their cheeks to mark them. They took one look at Matteno's palanquin and the seal he held out, and they made him wait long enough that he almost thought it would take another fortnight before the bastards let him in.

Finally, they opened the gate, and inside the Black Walls was a different city. A different world.

Palaces rose from manicured gardens. Courtyards opened into more courtyards, each more lavish than the last. Temples to a dozen gods stood beside towers built for purposes Matteno could not guess at. Fountains splashed in every public space. Slaves moved everywhere—carrying parcels, attending to their masters, sweeping spotless paths with whisper-quiet brooms. The air smelled of jasmine and saffron rather than fish and shit.

He stared at it all, fascinated despite himself. He'd seen wealth in Pentos, in the manses of the magisters who'd hired him. But this was something else. This was wealth that had soaked into the very stones, that had been here for centuries, that owned itself the way a man might own a horse.

The pall bearers carried him through three more sets of gates before they reached his destination.

The manse of Nyessos Vhassar was even more ostentatious than its neighbors. Gold inlay on the columns. Marble in colors Matteno didn't have names for. Statues of slim Volantene men in stylized poses, every one of them with the family resemblance of the master who'd commissioned them—the same long nose, the same pointed chin.

Matteno had dressed his best for this. A new tunic in deep purple silk, with silver thread at the cuffs and collar. Boots of soft black leather. He'd had his beard trimmed by a barber who'd charged him three times what a Pentoshi barber would have charged. He'd combed his hair until it shone.

Looking down at himself as the pall bearers set him down, he thought he didn't stand out so badly. He had the coloring for it, at least, with the pale skin and silver hair of old Valyrian blood. He just lacked the dozen rings on each finger that the Old Blood favored. The collar of golden disks. The walking stick topped with the carved head of some forgotten ancestor.

He let himself be announced. The slave at the door took his seal and disappeared inside. Matteno was led through an entry hall, then a sitting room, then another sitting room, and finally into a third room that was clearly intended for guests important enough to wait but not important enough to be received quickly.

Vhassar made him wait for almost two hours.

There was food, at least. Honeyed figs and small cakes flavored with rose water. Wines from three different Free Cities. A platter of strange salted fish that he didn't recognize but ate anyway because the figs were too sweet for his stomach.

There were also pretty slave girls. Two of them, both young and trained in the arts of pouring wine and looking demure while not actually meeting a guest's eyes. They wore enough fabric to be technically clothed and little enough to make a man's mind wander. Good on the eyes, those, but Matteno knew better. Slaves made for boring lovers. 

And in the corner of the room, sitting cross-legged on a small cushion, there was a strange jester boy.

Matteno had not noticed him at first. The boy was small, hardly larger than a child, though something about his face suggested he might be older than he looked. The most striking thing about him was the tattoos. His entire face had been inked in a motley pattern of red and green diamonds, like the costume of a fool. The effect was deeply unsettling. The boy did not move. He did not speak. He merely sat in his corner and watched Matteno with eyes that seemed too old for the rest of him.

After the first hour, Matteno had simply decided to stop looking in that direction.

Finally, Vhassar appeared through a side door.

The man was as Matteno had been led to expect. Yall and reed-thin, with the long nose of his statues and the gold rings of his class. He wore a robe so heavily embroidered it must have weighed half a stone. His fingers gleamed. Even his sandals had gold thread in them.

He did not apologize for the wait.

"You," he said, glancing at Matteno without much interest. "What is it you want from me? Speak quickly. I have a hundred more pressing things to do today."

Matteno felt the anger rise in him. He had practiced his composure on the ship from Pentos, had rehearsed the words and the cadence the way an actor rehearsed a part. He kept the mask in place now, though it cost him.

"Magister Illyrio Mopatis sends his regards." Matteno produced the letter from inside his tunic and held it out. "He has need of certain assistance in a delicate foreign matter. Your continued support of his interests would be appreciated, and his support of yours."

The words came out the way he had practiced them, smooth and diplomatic. Though what it really meant was that the man was incredibly indebted to Magister Illyrio. 

Vhassar took the letter. He did not open it. He glanced at it as though it were a stained napkin a servant had brought him by mistake.

Then he dropped it on the marble floor.

"I have no time for the magister's foolishness now. I am running a campaign to become triarch. Do you understand what that means? The elections are in two months. Every day until then is spoken for."

Matteno's jaw tightened. And who is funding your stupid campaign, fool? He kept his voice even.

"Magister Illyrio appreciates that you will be spending your time campaigning, my lord. But the matter is most urgent."

"Illyrio can wait a few months longer." Vhassar waved a ringed hand at him, the way a man might wave away a buzzing fly. "You may leave now. Return after the election is decided. We will discuss the magister's concerns then. Perhaps."

Matteno stared at him. 

The slave girls had drifted closer to the wall, sensing something in the air. The jester boy in the corner sat unmoving, watching.

The mask cracked. 

He crossed the space between them in two long strides. Vhassar's eyes widened, just starting to register that something was wrong. Matteno's hand came up and around, and he backhanded the Volantene across the face.

The blow was not as hard as he could have made it. He had not wanted to break the man's neck.

But it was hard enough.

Vhassar went down with a strangled cry, his fine robes tangling around him as he fell. One of his gold rings caught the light as he hit the marble.

Matteno looked down at him with naked contempt.

He wished he had been wearing more rings. The blow would have torn the man's face open, would have given him something to remember the conversation by. As it was, Vhassar would only have a bruise and the memory of being struck. Not enough. But more than nothing.

The slave girls gasped. One of them dropped the pitcher of wine she had been holding. It shattered on the marble.

Two of the household guards at the far end of the room started forward, hands going to the swords at their belts.

Matteno did not wait. He knelt beside Vhassar and pulled a thin blade from his sleeve kept hidden against his forearm in a sheath of soft leather. He pressed it against the side of Vhassar's neck, just below the ear, where the skin was thin and the blood ran close to the surface.

"Tell them not to move," Matteno said, low and conversational. "Or I open you up."

Vhassar was trembling now. His pale skin had gone whiter still. He raised a shaking hand toward his guards.

"Stop! Stop, stay back, do not come!"

The guards stopped. They did not lower their hands from their hilts, but they did not advance either.

Matteno smiled at them. It was not a pleasant smile.

"Now," he said, turning back to Vhassar. "You will help, you old peacock. Or don't tell me you don't want your daughter becoming Queen of the Sunset Kingdoms."

Vhassar's eyes, which had been squeezed half-shut against the blade at his neck, snapped open at that.

"What?"

There it was. The first real attention Matteno had managed to wring out of the man in their entire short acquaintance.

He grabbed the letter from where it had fallen, smoothed it against Vhassar's chest, and pushed it back into his hands.

"Read the letter," Matteno said. He gave the man a couple of light, almost playful slaps on the cheek. "Read it, Volantene. Read it slowly. Then we will talk about what your help is worth, and what the magister is prepared to do for you in return."

Vhassar's hands shook as he broke the seal. He had to read the letter twice. Matteno could see his eyes moving back and forth over the same lines, processing what was being offered.

Slowly, slowly, the man's expression shifted.

Greed. That was what Matteno was waiting for. The naked greed that even a triarch-in-waiting could not hide when the prize was a daughter on a foreign throne.

"This is..." Vhassar began. He had to clear his throat. "This is a serious proposal?"

"Magister Illyrio does not waste paper on jokes."

Vhassar nodded slowly. The trembling had not stopped, but it had become something different now. Not the tremor of fear. The tremor of a man who could feel a great current pulling at him and was deciding whether to let himself be carried.

"I will need... I will need to think on this. I will need to speak with my daughter. With my advisors."

"You will." Matteno withdrew the blade from Vhassar's neck. He stood, smoothing his tunic where it had ridden up. The slave girls flinched away from him. The guards did not move. "And you will do it quickly. The Westerosi will be coming soon enough.”