Matteno of Myr
They left the Tarth lady's room with Lenora throwing a fit with each step, stomping the stone like every step had a different face underfoot, first Addison Tarth's, then the Lord Selwyn's, then the boy's, over and over again.
Behind her, Matteno followed her along with the three guards, though he tried not to imitate the nervous shuffling they all seemed to favor. He figured the castle's inhabitants feared Lenora just as they feared him, which he thought was greatly amusing. She was not an easy woman to love.
Lenora did not slow until they reached the first turn of the corridor, and then she stopped so abruptly that one of the guards nearly walked into her back.
She turned on her heel, her face tight with fury. "Do not follow me," she snapped. "Any of you."
The guards froze. One opened his mouth, thought better of it, and bowed his head. They backed away at once, grateful for the excuse to leave. None of them looked at Matteno.
Matteno, for his part, did not stop. He walked on at her shoulder, unbothered, unhurried. His eyes flicked down the long line of her back, the way her bodice pulled tight as she breathed. Anger did so suit her, he had always thought so.
He felt the familiar stir low in his belly and did not bother to hide his grin. His Westerosi bitch was furious. And the Tarth boy had come. A wondrous night to be had.
Lenora sensed him before she saw him. She shot him a glare over her shoulder, eyes blazing. "I told you not to follow me."
"You tell me many things, love," Matteno said with a lazy shrug. And I choose to listen to so very few, he thought, though he left it unsaid.
She huffed, clearly debating whether it was worth the effort to argue. Then she turned away and continued down the corridor at a brisk pace.
"On your head it be," she said.
He liked it when she pretended she was not pleased he was there.
They passed through a lesser stair and into a narrower section of the keep, far from the lord's wing. Matteno took note of it absently. He had always found it curious where Lord Elmar chose to sleep.
A small room tucked away by the servant's quarters, like a man who did not care much for comfort or display. Or perhaps like a man who had grown tired of sleeping beside his wife.
Inside, the room was cramped, barely large enough for the bed, the small table, and the chest at its foot. Lord Elmar Whitehead sat on the edge of the mattress, bent slightly forward as a page worked at the straps of his armor. The old man was already half-dressed for war, mail shirt settled heavy on his shoulders, breastplate resting nearby.
Matteno took him in with a practiced eye. Elmar was old, yes, white hair thick and uncut, beard streaked with grey, but age had not softened him the way it did many of these Westerosi lords.
His chest was broad, his belly rounded but solid, his arms thick with muscle that had not gone to fat. His legs were tree-trunks beneath the greaves. An ox of a man, Matteno thought. Slow in the marital bed, perhaps, but not weak.
Lenora did not bother with greeting. "You have heard, then."
"Aye, my lady," Elmar said without looking up, his voice calm as the page tightened a strap. "I have heard."
"And?" Lenora demanded. "What are we to do?"
Elmar tested the fit of his armor with a small roll of his shoulders. "A man's sins catch up to him, no matter how fast he runs," he said. "As do a woman's."
His eyes lifted then, sliding over Lenora's face before moving to Matteno. There was no fury in them. No jealousy. No heat at all. Just a flat, assessing calm that Matteno found more unsettling than anger would have been.
"We have made our bed of thorns," Elmar continued, "but I will not lay down to be strangled by it. I will meet what comes with my sword in hand and let the gods decide my fate."
Lenora's mouth tightened. "And the men?" she pressed. "What is to be their disposition? They could have an army in the woods, for all we know."
Elmar snorted softly. "Yet we do not know. For we lack even bannermen to warn us." His gaze flicked back to her. "You have notably seen to that."
Lenora bristled, color rising in her cheeks. Matteno could almost taste her fury, sharp and intoxicating. His pants tightened.
"An army needs to eat," Matteno said, stepping forward just enough to remind them both that he was there. "If they had one in the countryside, villages would be raided. Farms stripped bare. The peasants would be at your gates by now, screaming for protection."
Elmar chuckled. "Your pet pirate speaks true."
Despite Lenora's glance, as if watching to see how he would react to that, Matteno only shrugged. He had fucked the man's wife under his roof more times than he cared to count; he could afford the insult.
If anything, he found a grim sort of respect in Elmar's composure.
"Do with the men as you wish," Elmar went on. "My knights and I will make our stand here. Perhaps this Galladon Tarth will grant me a fitting end, if he is half as formidable as you have painted him. If not, I will make do with Selwyn. A good boy, if not half the warrior his own father was."
Lenora's hands curled into fists. She looked ready to strike him.
"Useless," she snapped. "Useless, feckless old man. I am done with you, do you hear me? Done. I have tried to elevate our house, to raise our station, so that the name of Whitehead would not be relegated to distant tables at high feasts. So that we might be seen with a measure of respect." Her voice rose, sharp and bitter. "But you have no ambition. None. A craven, you are. A craven!"
Elmar did not interrupt her. He did not even look at her as the page finished tying the last strap and stepped back. He simply reached for his helm.
"The only thing you have done," he said calmly, "is doom our house. And I have let you." He stood, towering in the small room, armor creaking softly. "We both deserve what is to come. Leave me now, woman."
She stared at him for a long moment, chest heaving. For once, Lenora Whitehead obeyed her husband and turned to leave.
Matteno followed, already smiling. She stormed down the corridor, skirts snarling around her legs. The castle seemed to recoil from her passage, servants flattening themselves to walls, a pair of guards stiffening as she passed like men bracing for a blow.
At the corner, she seized the nearest guard by the front of his surcoat and dragged him half a step off his feet.
"Send the men out," she screeched. "I want Galladon Tarth captured, do you hear me? I want him strung up in front of me. I will have him cut piece by piece before his mother, and I will send every single one of them as gifts to his fool father."
The guard stared at her, eyes wide, clearly struggling to understand the torrent of words crashing over him. He nodded anyway, as if afraid that any delay might see his head torn from his shoulders, and turned to flee down the corridor.
"Stop," Matteno said calmly.
The guard froze mid-step, looking between them like a trapped animal.
Lenora rounded on Matteno at once. "Do not interfere," she hissed. "You heard what I said."
Matteno stepped closer, his expression easy, almost indulgent. "Do not be foolish," he said. "The boy may not have an army, but he has men nearby. And his father may have fooled your spies on that pretty little island of his. For all you know, ships could be over the horizon even now with enough men to storm the town, if not the castle."
Her eyes flashed. "Is that not all the more reason to capture the boy now," she shot back, "before his father's army arrives?"
Matteno smiled then. "And leave the town unprotected? Send your men scurrying into the woods while the gates stand thinly held?" He spoke to her the way one did at a child reaching for a knife by the blade. "No. Put your men on the walls. Fortify the gatehouses leading out of town. Arm whatever townsfolk you can trust not to turn those weapons on you the moment the fighting starts."
He paused, then added lightly, "Leave the docks to my men."
Lenora narrowed her eyes, suspicion sharpening her features. "Do you think me a fool, Matteno?" she demanded. She always smelled treachery when he offered wisdom. "That you will not run at the first chance like the mercenary bastard that you are?"
Matteno laughed under his breath. Gods, she was beautiful like this, her plump lips curved in a snarl, cheeks brightened by fury. He reached for her before she could pull away, one hand fisting in her hair, the other hard at her waist, and kissed her fiercely.
It was rough and unpretty, teeth clashing, breath stolen, a kiss meant to bruise more than comfort. Lenora stiffened in surprise and then melted into it, fingers digging into his shoulders like she wanted to tear out his limbs.
In his mind, even as he tasted her, Matteno knew it would be the last. The grave his Westerosi bitch had dug for herself was too deep. He had no intention of standing beside her when the dirt began to fall.
He broke the kiss himself and rested his forehead briefly against hers, smiling. "I have accounts to settle with the young Tarth boy," he said soothingly. "Give me a handful of men. Your best trackers. Hounds. I will go into the woods and bring him to you by morning, to do with as you wish."
Lenora searched his face, hungry for reassurance, for control. At last, she nodded. "Very well," she said. "Do it."
Smiling, he turned and walked away. Inside, the decision had been made long before he spoke. He would kill the boy, of course. A clean death in battle, fitting for a warrior, and far kinder than what Lenora had planned.
Then he would take his ship and leave these shores behind. There was nothing else for him here now. No profit worth the risk. Adarys would have to find another attack dog, even if it meant Matteno would have no place to return to in Tyrosh.
In the yard below, as six men gathered and a tracker brought forward his hounds, Matteno pulled his first mate aside. "Ready the ship," he murmured in bastard Valyrian. "Quietly. Keep the illusion that the docks are ours for as long as you can."
The first mate's eyes flicked toward the castle, then back to Matteno. He nodded once.
"And if it comes to battle," Matteno added, "put the Magisters' men in the front. Let them bleed first. When the line breaks, you turn away and set sail, even if I have not returned. You know where to find me should it come to it."
xxx
POWER STONES PLEASE!
Read ahead if you want. Chapters on [PATREON] are longer than on Webnovel, which are divided in 2 or 3. Patreon is roughly 25-30 Webnovel chapters ahead, or 10 regular (longer) chapters.
- patreon(dot)com/pathliar