The carrack left us as close to Weeping Town as prudence allowed, easing away along a stretch of open coast directly south of the town. A thin headland reached westward like a pointing finger, forcing any ship bound for the harbor to swing wide around it before turning back east. I had no intention of doing so yet.
The ship would circle back and anchor in a sheltered cove nearly half a day behind us, where it would wait another half day before sailing openly for Weeping Town. That had been my request.
I would have a narrow window, one or two days at most, to learn what I could from my men already ashore, and to decide whether House Tarth would bend the knee or bare the sword.
Lord Selwyn would not gamble with my mother's life. If there was no clean way to take her back, he would sign the Whiteheads' cursed parchment and damn the cost. I didn't think the deal would stand in front of the Baratheons or the crown, but they'd have hostages by then. I expected the Whiteheads would insist on keeping Lady Addison until they had other assurances.
But if there was even a sliver of a chance, if we could seize the town quickly or crack the castle open just enough for a single woman to be spirited away, then we would take it. Everything depended on what I could do now.
Pate and I rowed in silence, muffled oars dipping gently into black water as we made for shore. Between us, wedged tight against the planks, sat my sea chest, heavy with clothes, supplies, and my greatest secret.
Well, two of them.
A week ago, the idea would have been unthinkable. I would have dragged Arianne to Father's cabin myself and locked the door with the both of them inside. But the world had shifted beneath my feet since then. We had learned what she could do when the glass candle flared to life in her hands, answering to her will bright and steady as it never did for me.
Against my better judgment, I had agreed to bring her. It hurt me to even think of her that way, but my sister was a valuable strategic asset. Especially with my second secret in hand.
For once, Arianne had cooperated. She had not made a sound as we left the ship. We had agreed, grimly, not to tell our father about her coming. Selwyn Tarth would have agreed far more readily with the man I had been a week ago than with the one I was now.
We made landfall on a narrow, hidden beach, no more than a crescent of pale sand between jagged rocks. Pate and I dragged the boat ashore and shoved it into the brush until it vanished beneath leaves and shadow, only then did we push inland, into sparse coastal forest where the air smelled like salt and pine.
Once we were deep enough to feel unseen, I cracked open the trunk. Arianne climbed out stiffly, and despite the tense situation, I almost made a joke about a magician's assistants. Her face was pale, looking a little sea sick from the cramped boat trip, but she did not complain. I was proud of her for that.
We took what we needed from the trunk—bundled clothes, some supplies, and food for us and the men, then abandoned the chest where it lay. If anyone found it, it would be nothing more than flotsam.
I tucked the glass candle inside my tunic, feeling its unnatural coolness against my ribs, and we set off northeast.
In his message, Jace had marked the general area where the camp lay, an hour and a half southeast of the town on foot. It was not an exact science like sending out coordinates, but I knew there would be signs. Marks only my men would know to leave.
We walked for some three hours beneath a, luckily, cloudless night sky. Again, Arianne uttered no complaints, even when she started huffing like a puffer fish, while Pate looked as cheery as always, which only made her huff all the more.
The darkness above bled slowly into gray, and by the time the sun began to creep up behind the trees, I saw the first sign, a broken sapling tied back with twine beside a tiny pile of stones.
Half an hour later, three men stepped out from behind the trees, bows raised but not aimed. They relaxed only when they saw my face, and I recognized the tall Codin and two of my father's men. I sighed, and Arianne almost sagged against me.
An hour after that, I stood beneath forest-green canvas stretched taut between poles, the command tent tucked into a thick copse of trees at the base of a steep, rocky hill. A massive boulder loomed behind it, shielding the camp from one side. It was a good spot, far from villages and roads and unwanted guests. The men had chosen well.
Arianne drew startled looks as we entered. There were eighteen men total here, and most of them had seen her before. And with my father's men here, who unlike the Companions were sworn to him and not to me, her coming would not stay secret for long after we returned.
If we returned, I corrected, then immediately blocked that line of thought. Can't do that when my mother's, and now sister's, lives depended on it.
Inside the tent, space was tight with myself, Grey, and the twins. Too many bodies, and two of them children. A strange thing, to be planning a rescue with my little sister at my side. And a Pate.
A rough map of Weeping Town lay atop a makeshift table of tree stumps, tiny stones and sticks marking patrols and routes. Jace finished his report in a low voice, detailing guard rotations, numbers, and habits, then turned to what mattered most.
"Apologies, my lord, but I have not been able to get eyes into the castle," he said. "Nor have we seen Lady Addison."
"She's alive," Arianne said, adamant.
Jack and Grey gave her reassuring looks at that, as any would to a child hoping their mother still lived. But I knew better. We had seen it in the candle.
"Of course, my lady," Jace said evenly, then turned back to me. "Jack and I have had to be careful. We only go into town when the sellsail's longship leaves port. This Matteno of Myr nearly recognized me once in the Broken Shield."
The name, already penned in his message, sent my thoughts spiraling backward to the fighting above the Fair Winds, to the silver-haired pirate and his single-edged sword, to Captain Jerek dying with a blade in his throat. If he recognized Jack's twin, he might recognize me as well.
I had prepared for that. My hair, once gold as summer wheat, was now a dull reddish-brown. I imagined I looked like a taller Robb Stark now. Were the Weeping Tower Winterfell or Riverrun, I bet the gates would open for me no problem.
"What time does he usually leave?" I asked.
Jace shook his head. "He comes and goes as he pleases. No pattern we can rely on. We adapt to him, not the other way around." He gestured to the map. "I've sent some of the others in as loggers, selling firewood. They listen where they can."
I nodded, committing it all to memory. Knowing how I liked to do things, he had also prepared a detailed written report for me, which I would be digging in shortly.
Before that, I said what I had been thinking since the moment we even left Tarth.
"I want to see the town. And the castle."
No one argued. We would go that afternoon. The men filed out to make ready, leaving the tent suddenly quieter. Pate lingered near the flap, and I turned to him before he could exit himself.
"You have one duty, Pate," I told him. "You will stay here and protect her with your life." An idea I would be reinforcing to all the men in the camp.
My pimple-faced squire straightened at once, nodding so hard his copper curls bounced. "Aye, my lord."
He left with his chest puffed with purpose. Arianne, as was her wont, scowled at him.
"I do not need—"
"And you," I cut in, rounding on her, "will not cause trouble. You will not get in the men's way. And for the love of the Mother who bore you, you will not use the candle without me."
"But I can—"
"Aye," I said, softer now. "You can." I shook my head, exhaustion and fear tangling in my chest. "You can also have your brain leaking down your nose just as easily. Please, Ari. Just… please."
I tried not to think too hard about what happened on the ship. I had gotten carried away, too excited about what extended, reliable access to the glass candle would mean.
And after a disorienting start, we had seen much, though none of it made much sense. We zipped across the world like we had been launched from a slingshot, seeing images from the ship, from Tarth, a camp in the woods—which I imagined were my Companion's hideaway spot—and finally, after a spike of deep want and longing from Arianne, we were suddenly in a bare room where a woman was being held. Her face looked to have been almost blurred like a smeared painting, but I would recognize Lady Arianne Tarth even if she had no head at all.
Feeling sick, I had blinked and pulled out of the dizzying vision in the flames, but wrenching Arianne away had not been so easy.
My sister had never looked so small than when I held her that night, blood streaming down her eyes and nose, shaking and seizing, her skin cold to the touch. It made me physically ill to remember it.
She must have seen something in my face. Or, I suppose, my aura. In the end, it was enough that she gave me a solemn nod.
"As you wish, brother," she said, just as softly. "I promise."
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. I would have to leave the candle with her and trust her to be prudent. After all, even my first foray into the Weeping Town could be my last, and if anyone needed to have the glass candle were I to die, it was Arianne.
Nodding to her, I turned back to the map. The pieces were all there now. Guards, sellsails, spies. I looked at the final one sitting atop the castle, represented by cyvasse's queen piece.
I'm coming, mom.
xxx
I got my first look at the Weeping Town as we approached the eastern inland gate. Two guards stood there, lazily leaning on their spears as if they were walking sticks rather than weapons, looking bored out of their minds.
Though equipped with conical helmets and hauberks under surcoats, both were a poor fit for their narrow frames. The links in the mail looked dulled by rust and neglect, the helmets too large, one slipping too low over the eyes, the other tipped back enough it looked like an iron pot on a child's head.
I counted a dozen ways to kill them as we passed.
Step inside the spear's reach, hook the shaft with my woodsman axe handle, and I could finish him with the backstroke. A hard shove would send the other sprawling into the mud, and the gap between his mail and helm was more than wide enough for the knife strapped to my lower back. Two less to worry about later.
The thought was harsh and cold, and I couldn't find it in me to feel bad about it.
But when I actually looked at them, really looked, they were just lads. Young men with nothing waiting for them elsewhere. No land, no trade, no name worth speaking aloud, they reminded me of the lads in the Companions. For them, signing up for a gig as a town guard meant coin, meals, a place to stand where someone might nod at you in passing.
Now, because of where they stood, they might have to die. Not because they were cruel, or corrupt, or even particularly loyal, but because I would not hesitate to kill every single guard in this town for my mother.
We came in as loggers, firewood piled high on a rickety cart drawn by a placid mule my men had bought from a village half a day's walk east of town a few days ago. There were three of us: Jace and I walking beside the cart, and one of Father's men driving it.
He was grey at the temples, shoulders slightly hunched, playing the part of a weary father well enough that I almost believed it myself. To an unobserving eye, we were just that, an old man and his two sons, come to sell wood.
One guard prodded the pile with his spear, barely glancing at our faces. The other waved us through with a lazy flick of his wrist, and just like that, we were inside.
The Weeping Town spread out wider than Dawnrest, its streets branching and bending like roots seeking water instead of our more strictly planned town. The buildings were familiar enough, timbered houses crowding close, their upper floors slightly jutting out over the road.
The better ones rested on stone foundations: inns, shops with painted signs, places that could afford to keep the damp at bay. Every roof was sharply peaked, steep enough to send the constant rain sliding off in sheets. It gave the whole town a hunched look, as though it were forever bracing itself for a blow.
We made first for the main square where merchants could set up their stalls.
I hadn't really known what I'd expected. Evil deeds abound, maybe. Twisted-faced guards shoving townsfolk aside, rich, foreign merchants swaggering through the streets, dangling food over starving mothers and their emaciated children. Just something obvious and rotten at the surface, some clear sign of wrongness I could point to and say there.
Instead, there were only people going about their lives, merchants hawking their wares, shoppers carrying baskets and arguing over prices, a group of women laughing too loud at bad jokes.
Even then, from Jace's message and now his extensive report, I knew better than thinking this was plain old normality. I could see it if I paid attention. The place felt… muted, somehow. There were fewer merchants than there should be for an important port town, fewer carts coming and going.
Father and I had talked about it aboard the ship, everything seeming obvious now that we had all the pieces of the puzzle. House Tarth's rise had not come from nothing.
Ships seeking Stormlander goods found Dawnrest the better port with fewer petty tolls, good accommodation, and fairer prices. Where once they had stopped here, they now sailed on to us. And our island's old dependence on the town's grain export had dwindled too, year by year, until whatever balance once existed had tipped and broken sometime in the last five years.
We just never expected a fellow noble Stormlander house would go to such lengths.
A few minutes later, Jace and I left our "father" to see to the firewood, to haggle and complain and play his part, while he led me down a side alley with an overly excited jerk of his head.
I followed him without question.
The inn squatted at the corner of a narrow street, its sign creaking softly in the damp breeze: a grinning man raising a tankard high. The Drunken Dornishman.
Jace pushed the door open, and warmth, noise, and the sour-sweet smell of cheap ale wafted out to meet us. I stepped inside after him and mentally prepared myself. This was where the real work would truly begin.
xxx
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