There was no safe anchorage at Pykexy, but Theonxy Greyjoyxyxy wished to look on his father’s castle from the sea, to see it as he had seen it last, ten years before, when Robertxy Baratheonxyxy’s war galley had borne him from the island to be a ward of Eddardxy Starkxyxy. On that day he had stood beside the rail, listening to the stroke of the oars and the pounding of the master’s drum while he watched Pykexy grow smaller and smaller in the distance, until it vanished beneath a green horizon. Now he wanted to see it grow larger, to rise from the sea before him.
Obedient to his wishes, the Myrahamxy beat her way past the point with her sails snapping and her captain cursing the wind and his crew and the follies of highborn lordlings. Theonxy drew the hood of his cloak up against the spray, and looked for home.
The shore was all sharp rocks and glowering cliffs, and the castle seemed one with the rest, its towers and walls and bridges quarried from the same grey-black stone, wet by the same salt waves, festooned with the same spreading patches of dark green moss, speckled by the droppings of the same sea birds. The point of land on which the Greyjoys had raised their fortress had once thrust like a sword into the bowels of the ocean, but the great waves had hammered at it day and night until the land broke and shattered, thousands of years past. All that remained were three bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water like the pillars of some sea god’s temple, while the angry waves foamed and crashed around them.
Drear, dark, forbidding, Pykexy stood atop those islands and pillars, almost a part of them, its curtain walls closing off the headland to guard the foot of the great stone bridge that leapt from the clifftop to the largest islet, dominated by massive bulk of the Great Keepxy, whose walls still bore the scars of Robertxy Baratheonxyxy’s assault. Further out were the Kitchen Keepxy and the Bloody Keepxy, each on its own stony island at the end of a high, vaulting bridge. Towers and outbuildings clung to the stacks beyond, linked to each other by covered archways when the pillars stood close, by long swaying walks of wood and rope when they did not. The Sea Towerxy rose from the outmost island at the point of the broken sword, the oldest part of the castle, round and tall, the sheer-sided pillar on which it stood half eaten through by the endless battering of the waves. The base of the tower was white from centuries of salt spray, the upper stories green from the moss that crawled over it like a thick blanket, the jagged crown black with soot from its nightly watchfire.
Above the Sea Towerxy snapped his father’s sigil on a long banner with three tails. The Myrahamxy was too far off for Theonxy to see more than the cloth itself, but he knew the device it bore: the golden kraken of House Greyjoyxyxy, arms writhing and reaching against the black field. The banner streamed from an iron mast, shivering and twisting as the wind gusted, like a bird struggling to take flight. Best of all, the direwolf of Starkxy did not fly above, casting its shadow down upon the Greyjoyxy kraken.
Theonxy had never seen a more stirring sight. In the sky behind the castle, the fine red tail of the comet was visible through thin, scuttling clouds. All the way from Riverrunxy to Seagardxy, the Mallisters had argued about its meaning. It is my comet, Theonxy told himself, sliding a hand into his fur-lined cloak to touch the oilskin pouch snug in its pocket. Inside was the letter Robbxy Starkxyxy had given him, paper as good as a crown.
“Does the castle look as you remember it, milord?” the captain’s daughter asked as she pressed herself against his arm.
“It looks smaller,” Theonxy confessed, “though perhaps that is only the distance.” The Myrahamxy was a fat-bellied southron merchanter up from Oldtownxy, carrying wine and spice and seed to trade for iron ore. Her captain was a fat-bellied southron merchanter as well, and the stony sea that foamed at the feet of the castle made his plump lips quiver, so he stayed well out, further than Theonxy would have liked. An ironborn captain in a longship would have taken them along the cliffs and under the high bridge that spanned the gap between the gatehouse and the Great Keepxy, but this plump Oldtowner had neither the craft, the crew, nor the courage to attempt such a thing. So they sailed past at a safe distance, and Theonxy must content himself with seeing Pykexy from afar. Even so, the Myrahamxy had to struggle mightily to keep itself off those rocks.
“It must be windy there,” the captain’s daughter observed.
He laughed. “Windy and cold and damp. A miserable hard place, in truth … but my lord father once told me that hard places breed hard men, and hard men rule the world.”
The captain’s face was as green as the sea when he came bowing up to Theonxy and asked, “May we make for port now, milord?”
“You may,” Theonxy said, a faint smile playing about his lips. The promise of gold had turned the Oldtowner into a shameless lickspittle. It would have been a much different voyage if a longship from the islands had been waiting at Seagardxy, as he’d hoped. Ironbornxy captains were proud and wilful, and did not go in awe of a man’s blood. The islands were too small for awe, and a longship smaller still. If every captain was a king aboard his own ship, as was often said, it was small wonder they named the islands the land of ten thousand kings. And when you have seen your kings shit over the rail and turn green in a storm, it was hard to bend the knee and pretend they were a god. “The Drowned Godxy makes men,” old Kingxy Urron Redhandxy had once said, thousands of years ago, “but it’s men who make crowns.”
The Myrahamxy was rounding a wooded point. Below the pine-clad bluffs, a dozen fishing boats were pulling in their nets. The big merchanter stayed well out from them, tacking. Theonxy moved to the bow for a better view. He saw the castle first, the stronghold of the Botleys, a lesser house sworn to his father. When he was a boy it had been timber and wattle, but Robertxy Baratheonxyxy had razed that structure to the ground. Lordxy Sawane had rebuilt in stone, for now a small square keep crowned the hill. Pale green flags drooped from the squat corner towers; the Botley banner, he knew, emblazoned with a shoal of silvery fish.
Beneath the dubious protection of the fish-ridden little castle lay the village of Lordsportxy, its harbor aswarm with ships. When last he’d seen Lordsportxy, it had been a smoking wasteland, the skeletons of burnt galleys lying black on the stony shore like the bones of dead leviathans, the houses no more than broken walls and cold ashes. After ten years, few traces of the war remained. The smallfolk had built new hovels with the stones of the old, and cut fresh sod for their roofs. A new inn had risen beside the landing, twice the size of the old one, with a lower story of cut stone and two upper stories of timber. The sept beyond had never been rebuilt, though; only a seven-sided foundation remained to show where it had stood. Robertxy Baratheonxyxy’s fury had soured the ironmen’s taste for the new gods, it would seem.
Theonxy was more interested in ships than gods. Among the masts of countless fishing boats, he spied a Tyroshixy trading galley offloading beside a lumbering Ibbanese cog with her black-tarred hull. A great number of longships, fifty or sixty at the least, stood out to sea or lay beached on the pebbled shore to the north. So many, he thought, uneasy. Theonxy could not recall ever seeing this many longships in Lordsportxy before, save on the eve of his father’s ill-fated rebellion. And some of the sails bore devices from the other islands; the blood moon of Wynch, Lordxy Goodbrotherxy’s banded black warhorn, Harlawxy’s silver scythe. He searched for a glimpse of his uncle Euronxy’s Silencexy. Of that lean and terrible red ship he saw no sign, but his father’s Great Krakenxyxy was there, looming over the lesser craft, her bow ornamented with a grey iron ram in the shape of its namesake.
Had Lordxy Balonxy anticipated him and called the Greyjoyxy banners when he received Robbxy’s message from Riverrunxy? His hand went inside his cloak again, to the oilskin pouch. No one knew of his letter but Robbxy Starkxyxy; they were no fools, and only a fool entrusted his secrets to a bird. Still, Lordxy Balonxy was no fool either. He might well have guessed why his son was coming home at long last, and acted accordingly.
The thought did not please him. His father’s war was long done, and lost. This was Theonxy’s hour—his plan, his glory, and in time, his crown. Yet if the longships are hosting …
It might be only a caution, now that he thought on it. A defensive move, lest the war spill out across the sea. Old men were cautious by nature. His father was old now, and so too his uncle Victarionxy, who commanded the Iron Fleetxy. His uncle Euronxy was a different song, to be sure, but the Silencexy did not seem to be in port. It is for the good, Theonxy told himself. This way, I shall be able to strike all the more quickly.
As the Myrahamxy made her way landward, Theonxy paced the deck restlessly, scanning the shore. He had not thought to find Lordxy Balonxy himself waiting at quayside, but surely his father would have sent someone to meet him. Old Sylasxy Sourmouth the steward, or perhaps Lordxy Botley or Dagmerxy Cleftjawxy. They knew he was coming. Robbxy had sent word before Theonxy left Riverrunxy, and when they’d found no longship waiting at Seagardxy, Lordxy Jason Mallisterxyxy had sent his own birds to Pykexy, supposing that Robbxy’s were lost.
Yet he saw no familiar faces on the landing, no honor guard of riders to escort him from Lordsportxy to Pykexy, only smallfolk going about their small business. Shorehands rolled casks of wine off the Tyroshixy trader, fisherfolk cried the day’s catch, children ran and played. A priest in the seawater robes of the Drowned Godxy was leading a pair of horses along the pebbled shore, while above him a slattern leaned out a window in the inn, calling out to some passing Ibbanese sailors.
A handful of Lordsportxy merchants had gathered to meet the ship. They shouted up questions as the Myrahamxy was tying up. “We’re out of Oldtownxy,” the captain called down in reply, “bearing apples and oranges, wines from the Arborxy, feathers from the Summerxy Islesxy. I have pepper, woven leathers, a bolt of Myrish lace, mirrors for milady, a pair of Oldtownxy woodharps sweet as any you ever heard.” The gangplank descended with a creak and a thud. “And I’ve brought your heir back to you.”
The Lordsportxy men gazed on Theonxy with blank, bovine eyes, and he realized that they did not know who he was. It made him angry. He pressed a golden dragon into the captain’s palm. “Have your men bring my things.” Without waiting for a reply, he strode down the gangplank. “Innkeep,” he barked, “I require a horse.”
“As you say, m’lord,” the man responded, without so much as a bow. He had forgotten how bold the ironborn could be. “Happens as I have one might do. Where would you be riding, m’lord?”
“Pykexy,” Theonxy snapped curtly. The fool still did not know him. He should have worn his good doublet, with the kraken embroidered on the breast, that would have left no question.
“You’ll want to be off soon, to reach Pykexy afore dark,” the innkeep said. “My boy will go with you and show you the way.”
“Your boy will not be needed,” a deep voice called, “nor your horse. I shall see my nephew back to his father’s house.”
The speaker was the priest he had seen leading the horses along the shoreline. As the man approached, the smallfolk bent the knee, and Theonxy heard the innkeep murmur, “Damphairxy.”
Tall and thin, with fierce black eyes and a beak of a nose, the priest was garbed in mottled robes of green and grey and blue, the swirling colors of the Drowned Godxy. A waterskin hung under his arm on a leather strap, and ropes of dried seaweed were braided through his waist-long black hair and untrimmed beard.
Theonxy frowned at the prod of memory. In one of his few curt letters, Lordxy Balonxy had written of his youngest brother going down in a storm, and turning holy when he washed up safe on shore. “Uncle Aeronxy?” he said, doubtfully.
“Nephew Theonxy,” the priest replied. “Your lord father bid me fetch you. Come.”
“In a moment, uncle.” He turned back to the Myrahamxy. “My things,” he commanded the captain.
A sailor fetched him down his tall yew bow and quiver of arrows, but it was the captain’s daughter who brought the pack with his good clothing. “Milord.” Her eyes were red. When he took the pack, she made as if to embrace him, there in front of her own father and his priestly uncle and half the island.
Theonxy turned deftly aside. “You have my thanks.”
“Please,” she said, “I do love you well, milord.”
“I must go.” He hurried after his uncle, who was already well down the pier. Theonxy caught him with a dozen long strides. “I had not looked for you, uncle. After ten years, I thought perhaps my lord father and lady mother might come themselves, or send Dagmerxy with an honor guard.”
“It is not for you to question the commands of the Lordxy Reaper of Pykexyxy.” The priest’s manner was chilly, most unlike the man Theonxy remembered. Aeronxy Greyjoyxyxy had been the most amiable of his uncles, feckless and quick to laugh, fond of songs, ale, and women. “As to Dagmerxy, the Cleftjaw is gone to Old Wykxy at your father’s behest, to roust the Stonehouses and the Drumms.”
“To what purpose?” Theonxy asked sharply. “Why are the longships hosting?”
“Why have longships ever hosted?” His uncle had left the horses tied up in front of the waterside inn. When they reached them, he turned to Theonxy. “Tell me true, nephew. Do you pray to the wolf gods now?”
Theonxy seldom prayed at all, but that was not something you confessed to a priest, even your father’s own brother. “Nedxy Starkxyxy prayed to a tree. No, I care nothing for Starkxy’s gods.”
“Good. Kneel.”
The ground was all stones and mud. “Uncle, I—”
“Kneel. Or are you too proud now, a lordling of the green lands come among us?”
Scowling, Theonxy knelt. He had a purpose here, and might need Aeronxy’s help to achieve it. A crown was worth a little mud and horseshit on his breeches, he supposed.
“Bow your head.” Lifting the skin, his uncle pulled the cork and directed a thin stream of seawater down upon Theonxy’s head. It drenched his hair and ran over his forehead into his eyes. Sheets washed down his cheeks, and a finger crept under his cloak and doublet and down his back, a cold rivulet along his spine. The salt made his eyes burn, until it was all he could do not to cry out. He could taste the ocean on his lips. “Let Theonxy your servant be born again from the sea, as you were,” Aeronxy Greyjoyxyxy intoned. “Bless him with salt, bless him with stone, bless him with steel. Nephew, do you still know the words?”
“What is dead may never die,” Theonxy said, remembering.
“What is dead may never die,” his uncle echoed, “but rises again, harder and stronger. Stand.”
Theonxy stood, blinking back tears from the salt in his eyes. Wordless, his uncle corked the waterskin, untied his horse, and mounted. Theonxy did the same. They set off together, leaving the inn and the harbor behind them, up past the castle of Lordxy Botley into the stony hills. The priest ventured no further word.
“I have been half my life away from home,” Theonxy ventured at last. “Willxy I find the islands changed?”
“Men fish the sea, dig in the earth, and die. Women birth children in blood and pain, and die. Night follows day. The winds and tides remain. The islands are as our god made them.”
Godsxy, he has grown grim, Theonxy thought. “Willxy I find my sister and my lady mother at Pykexy?”
“You will not. Your mother dwells on Harlawxy, with her own sister. It is less raw there, and her cough troubles her. Your sister has taken Black Windxy to Great Wykxy, with messages from your lord father. She will return e’er long, you may be sure.”
Theonxy did not need to be told that Black Windxy was Ashaxy’s longship. He had not seen his sister in ten years, but that much he knew of her. Odd that she would call it that, when Robbxy Starkxyxy had a wolf named Grey Windxy. “Starkxy is grey and Greyjoyxy’s black,” he murmured, smiling, “but it seems we’re both windy.”
The priest had nothing to say to that.
“And what of you, uncle?” Theonxy asked. “You were no priest when I was taken from Pykexy. I remember how you would sing the old reaving songs standing on the table with a horn of ale in hand.”
“Young I was, and vain,” Aeronxy Greyjoyxyxy said, “but the sea washed my follies and my vanities away. That man drowned, nephew. His lungs filled with seawater, and the fish ate the scales off his eyes. When I rose again, I saw clearly.”
He is mad as he is sour, Theonxy thought, saddened. He had liked what he remembered of the old Aeronxy Greyjoyxyxy. “Uncle, why has my father called his swords and sails?”
“Doubtless he will tell you at Pykexy.”
“I would know his plans now,” Theonxy said.
“From me, you shall not. We are commanded not to speak of this to any man.”
“Even to me?” Theonxy’s anger flared. He’d led men in war, hunted with a king, won honor in tourney melees, ridden with Brynden Blackfishxyxy and Greatjonxy Umberxyxy, fought in the Whispering Woodxy, bedded more girls than he could name, and yet this uncle was treating him as though he were still a child of ten. “If my father makes plans for war, I must know of them. I am not ‘any man,’ I am heir to Pykexy and the Iron Islandsxy.”
“As to that,” his uncle said, “we shall see.”
The words were a slap in the face. “What does that mean, we shall see?” Theonxy said scornfully. “My brothers are both dead. I am my lord father’s only living son.”
“Your sister lives.” Aeronxy gave Theonxy not so much as the courtesy of a glance.
Ashaxy, he thought, confounded. She was three years older than Theonxy, yet still … “A woman may inherit only if there is no male heir in the direct line,” he insisted loudly. “I will not be cheated of my rights, I warn you.”
His uncle grunted. “You warn a servant of the Drowned Godxy, boy? You have forgotten more than you know. And you are a great fool if you believe your lord father will ever hand these holy islands over to a Starkxy. Now be silent. The ride is long enough without your magpie chatterings.”
Theonxy held his tongue, though not without struggle. So that is the way of it, he thought. He almost laughed. As if ten years in Winterfellxy could make a Starkxy. Lordxy Eddardxy may have raised him among his own children, but Theonxy had never truly felt one of them. The whole castle, from Nedxy Starkxyxy himself to the lowliest kitchen scullion, knew he was there as hostage to his father’s good behavior, and treated him accordingly. Even the bastard Jon Snowxyxy had been accorded more honor than he had.
Lordxy Eddardxy had tried to play the father to him from time to time, but to Theonxy he had always remained the man who’d brought blood and fire to Pykexy and taken him from his home. As a boy, he had lived in fear of Starkxy’s stern face and great dark sword. His lady wife was, if anything, even more distant and suspicious.
As for their children, the younger ones had been mewling babes for most of his years at Winterfellxy. Only Robbxy and his baseborn half-brother Jon Snowxyxy had been old enough to be worth his notice. The bastard was a sullen boy, quick to sense a slight, jealous of Theonxy’s high birth and Robbxy’s regard for him. For Robbxy himself, Theonxy did have a certain affection, as for a younger brother … but it would be best not to mention that. In Pykexy, it would seem, the old wars were still being fought. That ought not surprise him. The Iron Islandsxyxy lived in the past; the present was too hard and bitter to be borne. Besides, his father and uncles were old, and the old lords were like that; they took their dusty feuds to the grave, forgetting nothing and forgiving less.
The path they rode wound up and up, into bare and stony hills. Soon they were out of sight of the sea, though the smell of salt still hung sharp in the damp air. They kept a steady plodding pace, past a shepherd’s croft and the abandoned workings of a mine. This new, holy Aeronxy Greyjoyxyxy was not much for talk. They rode in a gloom of silence. Finally Theonxy could suffer it no longer. “Robbxy Starkxyxy is Lordxy of Winterfellxyxy now,” he said.
Aeronxy rode on. “One wolf is much like the other.”
“Robbxy has broken fealty with the Iron Thronexy and crowned himself Kingxy in the Northxyxy. There’s war.”
“The maester’s ravens fly over salt as soon as rock. This news is old and cold.”
“It means a new day, uncle,” Theonxy promised.
“Every morning brings a new day, much like the old.”
“In Riverrunxy, they would tell you different,” he said. “I’ve heard it said that the red comet is a herald of a new age. A messenger from the gods, they say.”
“A sign it is,” the priest agreed, “but from our god, not theirs. A burning brand it is, such as our people carried of old. It is the flame the Drowned Godxy brought from the sea, and it proclaims a rising tide. It is time to hoist our sails and go forth into the world with fire and sword, as he did.”
Theonxy smiled. “I could not agree more.”
“A man agrees with god as a raindrop with the storm.”
This raindrop will one day be a king, old man. Theonxy had suffered quite enough of his uncle’s gloom. He put his spurs into his horse and trotted on ahead, smiling.
It was nigh on sunset when they reached the walls of Pykexy, a crescent of dark stone that ran from cliff to cliff, with the gatehouse in the center and three square towers to either side. Theonxy could still make out the scars left by the stones of Robertxy Baratheonxyxy’s catapults. A new south tower had risen from the ruins of the old, its stone a paler shade of grey, and as yet unmarred by patches of lichen. That was where Robertxy had made his breach, swarming in over the rubble and corpses with his warhammer in hand and Nedxy Starkxyxy at his side. Theonxy had watched from the safety of the Sea Towerxy, and sometimes he still saw the torches in his dreams, and heard the dull thunder of the collapse.
The gates stood open to him, the rusted iron portcullis drawn up. The guards atop the battlements watched with strangers’ eyes as Theonxy Greyjoyxyxy came home at last.
Beyond the curtain wall were half a hundred acres of headland hard against the sky and the sea. The stables were here, and the kennels, and a scatter of other outbuildings. Sheep and swine huddled in their pens, and the castle dogs ran free. To the south were the cliffs, and the wide stone bridge to the Great Keepxy. Theonxy could hear the crashing of waves as he swung down from his saddle. A stableman came to take his horse. A pair of gaunt children and some serving men stared at him with dull eyes, but there was no sign of his lord father, nor anyone else he recalled from boyhood. A bleak and bitter homecoming, he thought.
The priest had not dismounted. “Willxy you not stay the night and share our meat and mead, uncle?”
“Bring you, I was told. You are brought. Now I return to our god’s business.” Aeronxy Greyjoyxyxy turned his horse and rode slowly out beneath the muddy spikes of the portcullis.
A bentback old crone in a shapeless grey dress approached him warily. “M’lord,” she said, “I am sent to make you welcome and show you to chambers.”
“By whose bidding?”
“Your lord father, m’lord.”
Theonxy pulled off his gloves. “So you do know who I am. Why is my father not here to greet me?”
“He awaits you in the Sea Towerxy, m’lord. When you are rested from your trip.”
And I thought Nedxy Starkxyxy cold. “And who are you?”
“Helyaxy, who keeps this castle for your lord father.”
“Sylasxy was steward here. They called him Sourmouth.” Even now, Theonxy could recall the winey stench of the old man’s breath.
“Dead these five years, m’lord.”
“And what of Maesterxy Qalenxy, where is he?”
“He sleeps in the sea. Wendamyrxy keeps the ravens now, but he is gone south to Oldtownxy on some maester’s business.”
It is as if I were a stranger here, Theonxy thought. Nothing has changed, and yet everything has changed. “Show me to my chambers, woman,” he commanded. Bowing stiffly, she led him across the headland to the bridge. That at least was as he remembered; the ancient stones slick with spray and spotted by lichen and moss, the sea foaming under their feet like some great wild beast, the salt wind clutching at their clothes.
When he had imagined his homecoming, he had always pictured himself returning to the snug bedchamber in the Sea Towerxy where he’d slept as a child. Instead the old woman led him to the Bloody Keepxy. The halls were larger and better furnished, if no less cold nor damp. Theonxy was given a suite of chilly rooms with ceilings so high that they were lost in gloom. He might have been more impressed if he had not known that these were the very chambers that had given the Bloody Keepxy its name. A thousand years before, the sons of the River Kingxy had been slaughtered here, hacked to bits in their beds so the pieces of their bodies might be sent back to their father on the mainland.
But Theonxy was a Greyjoyxy, and Greyjoyxy’s were not murdered in Pykexy, except once in a great while by their brothers, and his brothers were both mercifully dead. It was not the memories of ancient murders that made him glance about with distaste. The wallxy hangings were green with mildew, the mattress musty-smelling and sagging, and rushes old and brittle. It had been years since these chambers had last been opened. The damp went bone deep.
“I’ll have a basin of hot water, and a fire in this hearth,” he told the crone. “See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill. And gods be good, get someone in here at once to change these rushes.”
“Yes, m’lord. As you command.” She fled.
After some time, they brought the hot water he had asked for. It was only tepid, and soon cold, and seawater in the bargain, but it served to wash the dust of the long ride from his face and hair and hands. As bondservants scurried about lighting braziers, Theonxy stripped off his travel-stained clothing and dressed to meet his father. He chose boots of supple black leather, soft lambswool breeches of silvery-grey, a black velvet doublet with the golden kraken of the Greyjoys embroidered on the breast. Around his throat he fastened a slender gold chain, around his waist a belt of bleached white leather. He hung a dirk at one hip and a longsword at the other, in scabbards striped black-and-gold. Drawing the dirk, he tested its edge with his thumb, pulled a whetstone from his belt pouch, and gave it a few licks. He prided himself on keeping his weapons sharp. “When I return, I shall expect a warm room and clean rushes,” he warned the bondservants as he drew on a pair of black gloves, the silk decorated with a delicate scrollwork tracery in golden thread.
Theonxy returned to the Great Keepxy through a covered stone walkway, the echoes of his footsteps mingling with the ceaseless rumble of the sea below. To get to the Sea Towerxy on its crooked pillar, he must needs cross three further bridges, each narrower than the one before. The last was made of rope and wood, and the wet salt wind made it sway underfoot like a living thing. Theonxy’s heart was in his mouth by the time he was halfway across. A long way below, the waves threw up tall plumes of spray as they crashed against the rock. As a boy, he used to run across this bridge, even in the black of night. Boys believe nothing can hurt them, his doubt whispered. Grown men know better.
The door was narrow, made of grey wood studded with iron, and Theonxy found it barred from the inside. He hammered on it with a fist, and cursed when a splinter snagged the fine silk of his glove. The wood was damp and moldy, the iron studs rusted.
After a moment the door was opened from within by a guard in a black iron breastplate and pothelm. “You are the son?”
“Out of my way, or you’ll learn who I am, to your sorrow.” The man stood aside. Theonxy climbed the twisting steps to the solar. He found his father seated beside a brazier, beneath a robe of musty sealskins that covered him foot to chin. At the sound of boots on stone, the Lordxy of the Iron Islandsxyxy lifted his eyes to behold his last living son. He was smaller than Theonxy remembered him. And so gaunt. Balonxy Greyjoyxy had always been thin, but now he looked as though the gods had put him in a cauldron and boiled every spare ounce of flesh from his bones, until nothing remained but hair and skin. Bone thin and bone hard he was, with a face that might have been chipped from flint. His eyes were flinty too, black and sharp, but the years and the salt winds had turned his hair the grey of a winter sea, flecked with white-caps. Unbound, it hung past the small of the back.
“Nine years, is it?” Lordxy Balonxy said at last.
“Ten,” Theonxy answered, pulling off his torn gloves.
“A boy they took,” his father said. “What are you now?”
“A man,” Theonxy answered. “Your blood and your heir.”
Lordxy Balonxy grunted. “We shall see.”
“You shall,” Theonxy promised.
“Ten years, you say. Starkxy had you as long as I. And now you come as his envoy.”
“Not his,” Theonxy said. “Lordxy Eddardxy is dead, beheaded by the Lannisterxy queen.”
“They are both dead,” Lordxy Balonxy said. “Starkxy, and that Robertxy who took broke my walls with his stones. Once I vowed I’d live to see them both in their graves, and now I have.” He grimaced. “Yet the cold and the damp still make my joints ache, as when they were alive. So what does it serve?”
“It serves.” Theonxy moved closer. “I bring a letter—”
“Did Nedxy Starkxyxy dress you like that?” his father interrupted, squinting up from beneath his robe. “Was it his pleasure to garb you in velvets and silks and make you his own sweet daughter?”
Theonxy felt the blood rising to his face. “I am no man’s daughter. If you mislike my garb, I will change it.”
“You will,” Lordxy Balonxy agreed brusquely. Throwing off the fur robe, he pushed himself to his feet. He was not so tall as Theonxy remembered. “That bauble around your neck—did you buy it with gold or iron?”
Theonxy touched the gold chain, at a loss for words. He had forgotten. It has been so long … In the Old Wayxy, only women decorated themselves with ornaments bought with coin. A warrior wore only the jewelry he took off the corpses of enemies slain by his own hand. Paying the iron price, it was called.
“You blush red as a maid, Theonxy,” his father said. “A question was asked. Is it the gold price you paid, or the iron?”
“The gold,” Theonxy admitted.
His father slid his fingers under the necklace and gave it a yank so hard it was like to take Theonxy’s head off, had the chain not snapped first. “My daughter has taken an axe for a lover,” Lordxy Balonxy said. “I will not have my son bedeck himself like a whore.” He dropped the broken chain onto the brazier, where it slid down among the coals. “It is as I feared. The green lands have made you soft, and the Starks have made you theirs.”
“You’re wrong,” Theonxy said. “Nedxy Starkxyxy was my gaoler, but my blood is still salt and iron.”
Lordxy Balonxy turned away and warmed his boney hands over the brazier. “Yet the Starkxy pup sends you to me like a well-trained raven, clutching his little message.”
“There is nothing small about the letter I bear,” Theonxy said, “and the offer he makes is one I suggested to him.”
“This wolf king heeds your counsel, does he?” The notion seemed to amuse Lordxy Balonxy.
“He heeds me, yes. I’ve hunted with him, trained with him, shared meat and mead with him, warred at his side. I have earned his trust. He looks on me as an older brother, he—”
“No.” His father jabbed a finger at his face. “Not here, not in Pykexy, not in my hearing, you will not name him brother, this son of the man who put your true brothers to the sword. Or have you forgotten Rodrikxy and Maron, who were your own blood?”
“I forget nothing.” Theonxy might have reminded his father that Nedxy Starkxyxy had killed neither of his sons, in truth. Rodrikxy had been slain by Lordxy Jason Mallisterxyxy at Seagardxy, Maron crushed in the collapse of the old south tower … but Starkxy would have done for them just as quick had the tide of battle chanced to sweep them together. “I remember my brothers very well,” he said instead. Chiefly he remembered Rodrikxy’s drunken cuffs and Maron’s cruel japes and endless lies. “I remember when my father was a king, too.” He took out the letter Robbxy had given him, and thrust it forward. “Here. Read it … Your Grace.”
Lordxy Balonxy broke the seal and unfolded the parchment. His black eyes flicked back and forth. “So the boy would give me a crown again,” he said, “and all I need do is destroy his enemies.” His thin lips twisted in a smile.
“By now Robbxy is likely besieging the Golden Toothxy,” Theonxy said. “Once it falls, he’ll be through the hills in a day. Lordxy Tywinxyxy and his host are at Harrenhalxy, cut off from the west. The Kingslayer is a captive at Riverrunxy. Only Ser Stafford Lannisterxyxy and the raw green levies he’s been gathering remain to oppose Robbxy in the west. Ser Stafford will have no choice but to put himself between Robbxy’s army and Lannisportxy … which means the city will be undefended when we descend on it by sea. If the gods are with us, even Casterlyxy Rockxy itself may fall before the Lannistersxy so much as realize that we are upon them.”
Lordxy Balonxy grunted. “Casterlyxy Rockxy has never fallen.”
“Until now.” Theonxy smiled. And how sweet that will be. His father did not return the smile. “So this is why Robbxy Starkxyxy sends you back to me, after so long? So you might win my consent to this plan of his?”
“It is my plan, not Robbxy’s,” Theonxy said proudly. Mine, as the victory will be mine, and in time the crown. “I will lead the attack myself, if it please you. As my reward I would ask that you grant me Casterlyxy Rockxy for my own seat, once we have taken it from the Lannistersxy.” With the Rock, he could hold Lannisportxy and the green lands of the west, and the gold-rich hills that surrounded them. It would mean wealth and power such as House Greyjoyxyxy had never known.
“You reward yourself handsomely for a notion and a few lines of scribbling.” His father read the letter again. “The pup says nothing about a reward. Only that you speak for him, and I am to listen, and give him my sails and swords, and in return he will give me a crown.” His flinty eyes lifted to meet his son’s. “He will give me a crown,” he repeated, his voice growing sharp.
“A poor choice of words, what is meant is—”
“What is meant is what is said. The boy will give me a crown. And what is given can be taken away.” Lordxy Balonxy tossed the letter onto the brazier, atop the necklace. The parchment curled, blackened, and took flame.
Theonxy was aghast. “Have you gone mad?”
His father laid a stinging backhand across his cheek. “Mind your tongue. You are not in Winterfellxy now, and I am not Robbxy the Boyxy, that you should speak to me so. I am the Greyjoyxy, Lordxy Reaper of Pykexyxy, Kingxy of Salt and Rockxy, Son of the Sea Windxy, and no man gives me a crown. I pay the iron price. I will take my crown, as Urron Redhandxy did five thousand years ago.”