Chapter 11
274 A.D.
— Careful! Careful, f*ck, I said! These aren't sacks of grain! This is expensive merchandise! Damage it and you'll spend your whole life as a cabin boy! — Life goes on, people die, generations change, but some things remain unchanged. For example, until the end of time, in all worlds, there will be captains and first mates scolding careless sailors for their mistakes.
Standing on the bridge of the Black Panther, I waited with slight excitement for departure. No matter how much I admired the wild and beautiful nature of the North, I quickly got tired of it. I do not argue, it has its own unique charm, expressed in the silence, peace and harmony between man and his foremother. But all this is not for me. I have always loved brighter landscapes, when the world around played with all possible colors, showing everyone around life in its true splendor. For me, there is nothing more beautiful than the green meadows of the Expanse, with their soft and juicy green grass and constantly swaying foliage in the gusts of wind, or the hills and forests of the Western Lands, which have long since become home, where I spent my entire second childhood and with which too many pleasant moments and memories are associated.
We spent almost four days on Bear Island, three of which were spent searching for that very bear.
All this dancing around Old Jeor, in the form of explaining my intentions and how I make money, was for this moment. You can't just sail to the Mormonts and say "catch your totem animal and bring it here."
This is Westeros. The home of lords and knights, people who live first and foremost by the laws of honor and duty. You can't just go to a representative of a noble house, no matter if it's a Lannister, a Fowler or a Mormont, and demand that they sell their symbol. It's like asking the Targaryens to give you the skull of Balerion the Black Dread or asking the Boltons to sell you their famous family cloaks made from the skin of the Starks. That is, it is a very strong insult to the entire family.
A reason is needed. A very good reason that will satisfy all the canons of local honor. And I found this reason, or rather two. The first is, naturally, food sold at reduced prices (although in fact I bought it twice as cheap) and a promise that after showing the "proud symbol of the Mormonts to the overseas merchants" I will take it back to Westeros and release it somewhere in the North. Without observing these two points, Mormont would not only refuse my offer, but would not sell a single skin.
- Mr. Felix, they brought him! - I was distracted from thinking about the difficulties in relationships between people by the voice of Edward, who had already finished supervising the loading of the last bales of fur and was currently pointing towards the forest.
And there was something to see. In a huge cage, ordered in Old Town and specially placed on the ship, which several dozen men rolled towards the ship with the help of previously placed logs, sat a real monster. A huge hairy monster inspired fear with its very appearance. Brown fur, tangled in many places and hanging in clumps, sharp and long black claws, a mouth capable of biting off the head of an adult in one bite... an old, but still at the peak of its strength, seasoned beast. One and a half times larger than its relatives, it lay calmly on the bottom of the cage and, with a hidden threat in its gaze, examined the surroundings. I did not delude myself that it would remain calm for long. Even from here, almost two hundred yards from the ship, I saw impressive marks left by claws on the walls of the cage. Not big enough to break the cage and escape from captivity, but big enough to easily tear a person to pieces.
"And how did they even catch it?" I thought, watching as my "goods" were slowly rolling up to the prepared raft, on which it would be delivered to the ship. I even wondered how the future triarch would support it. There is not enough meat on it. Although, remembering how much money I was promised for this beast, I should not even think about spending money on it.
Yes, I had no intention of honoring the second clause of the treaty with Mormont. The deal for this bear had already been made, and an ambassador from one of the Volantis triarchs had hinted very clearly what would happen to me if things went wrong. And death would be a release, not a punishment.
No matter how much I try to cheer myself up, I am still a nobody in this world. Yes, I own three fast ships, yes, I have a good crew of four hundred loyal sailors, yes, I have good friends who will easily go through fire, water and copper pipes with me... but that's it. For most of the inhabitants of Westeros, I am just a dropout who quickly fled the Citadel, and the second son of a poor hedge knight who once got lucky at a tournament. In Essos, the first thing they look at is the depth of the interlocutor's wallet, and I was not doing well with that. The money that I had saved up for almost 16 years was almost completely spent, and there were no new sources of income. I only had 300 gold dragons left, half of which would evaporate on the way to Volantis. So this bear was my most important and risky investment. If he gets to the Free Cities alive, I will become very rich.
"A dangerous beast." A loud and familiar bass voice sounded near me, causing me to flinch for a moment. "Strong. It's not for nothing that she is one of the wives of the bear king."
"You can't let your guard down that much," I thought, looking towards the guest who had approached. It was Jorah Mormont, the only son of a local lord. I hadn't spent much time with him, but even so, he left the impression of a true Northerner - taciturn, slightly rude, stern and distrustful of strangers. And all this was combined with an enormous love for his family, in whose presence he became a completely different person. I still remember how in the courtyard of the estate, he played with little Daisy, his niece, arranging a mock battle with children's maces. All northerners are like that - hard and cold on the outside and warm on the inside. - "Oh, I'm even envious. How I miss my inte... so stop! What⁈"
— It's a female⁈ — Judging by the way Mormont laughed, clutching his stomach, my dumbfounded look amused him greatly. Only after he had laughed heartily and straightened his back was he able to give a normal answer.
"This is one of the five wives of the Bear King," he said, more thoughtfully and with a new seriousness in his gaze. "In the North, every more or less large forest has its own king. A beast so superior in height and stature that his fellows seem like dwarfs against his background. According to legend, the beast kings are blessed by the Old Gods and guard their last altars, living in huge magical gods' groves. I don't know about the South, but in our country, besides the Bear King, three more are known for certain: a giant black wolf living in the Wolf's Forest and ruling the packs there, an old lion-lizard who has ruled the Wet Forest for several hundred years, and the Winter Fox, who lives in the forests of Karhold. According to legend, it was thanks to her and her ancestors that the Karstarks took their coat of arms – the white sun.
The story told was a revelation to me. Not a single book about the North that I read in the Citadel had mentioned these guardian beasts.
"It's true what they say - live and learn." I thought, thanking Mormont and heading with him to the ship's holds. I had to give the last part of the payment - a cask of golden Bor wine, bought on the ships' first voyage to Arbor.
After loading the last of the "live" cargo and saying goodbye to a satisfied Mormont, who looked adoringly at the barrel in his hands, preparations for departure began quickly. There were only two months left until the set deadline, and it would be better to hurry so as not to be late.
Twenty more Bear Islanders were sent on the voyage with me, wanting to see the world and earn money for their families. All of them were still young, but very experienced warriors, hardened by the inhospitable nature of the North and constant skirmishes with the Ironmen and the Wildlings. It was for this reason that I did not recruit a guard back in Oldtown. The Northerners, unlike the southern mercenaries, value their word above all else, not money. With them, I can be sure that I will not be betrayed or stabbed in the back at the most unexpected moment.
"Tough, battle-hardened, loyal to their employer, and honest to a fault," I thought proudly as I watched Victarion set them to work on the ship, under the supervision of more experienced sailors. "Almost perfect soldiers."
The departure was rather ordinary. There was no large crowd to see us off, only a few women whose sons and brothers were going with me came to the pier. Even Lord Mormont did not come in person, sending his son instead, who, judging by the look in his eyes, had already managed to taste the wine he had received.
"Northerners," I thought, walking in the hold and looking at our guest. "No matter how happy they are with the food we brought, for them we will still remain strangers who will have to leave. Maester Appin was right - in order to conquer the North, it must be completely exterminated and repopulated."
We are now heading for Darkwood, the castle of the Glover family, who control the largest forest on the continent. There we can easily get a good supply of foresters and mountaineers living in the nearby Northern Mountains, and sell off the remaining goods, of which there is still a lot. After all, lords are not traders, and I was able to easily fool the Old Bear, who was apparently proud that this time he got food for half the price.
"As an old saying goes, a deal is a good one when both parties feel they've cheated the other." A grin came to my face. Even in Oldtown, the difference in price between the skins bartered and the food sold was fifteen times greater. And it was still unknown how much they could sell for in Volantis, Volan Teris, Valisar, and Saroi.
All that's left to do is wait and hope for a fair wind.
*
We found ourselves near the Glovers' ancestral castle in just half a day and, like the Mormont estate, it was not very impressive.
The castle itself was a simple wooden fortress built in a relatively convenient location. On a hill with a flat top stood a simple large hall and a fairly high wooden tower, surrounded by low wooden walls. Under the hill, outside the fortifications, there was a courtyard with stables, a paddock, a forge, a well and a sheepfold, all made of the same wood. All this beauty was protected by a simple deep ditch, with a sloping earthen rampart and a palisade of logs. In short, it was a squalor, not a castle.
Because of this, my impression of the Glover family is not the most rosy. I expected much more from a house that owns some of the richest lands in the North. And here, the still growing mountains begin just a hundred miles away. What prevents them from ordering stone for construction from the same mountaineers and building themselves a normal castle? And don't tell me the famous "we have no money" here. The wolf forest is one huge storehouse of valuable resources that are not used at all. Honey, berries, furs, construction and ship timber… and this is only the first thing that comes to mind. In the same Oldtown, I saw how particularly cunning merchants with connections to the forest clans of the North sold wild forest honey more expensive than Beesbury honey - the most respected and ancient beekeepers in all of Westeros, tracing their lineage back to Garth Greenhand himself. And they sell their sweet amber, consider, for its weight in silver.
So when I met the envoy of the Glover family, their future heir, who was even younger than me, my impression of this house was not the best.
Galbart Glover turned out to be a fourteen-year-old teenager, recently returned to his father's house from the Reeds' upbringing, and now learning the basics of running his house. According to him, the current Lord Glover mistook me for a middling merchant from the Western lands and sent his son to gain experience in dealing with foreigners. I would have lost all respect for myself if I hadn't taken advantage of such a chance. A young and inexperienced heir to a noble house can tell a lot about everything that happens on his lands, the main thing is to ask correctly.
And everything went like clockwork. Well-developed facial expressions, a friendly smile, several mugs of local ale and imported Arbor wine, and he considered me almost his best friend. From him I learned a sea of seemingly unimportant information, but if you dig hard enough, you could find a real treasure. For example, I learned that one of the forest clans engaged in beekeeping was on the verge of starvation due to the mistakes of its leader, who decided to save money and not stock up on food. This allowed me to come to a representative of this clan the next day and easily exchange ten bushels of grain for two hundred honeycombs, although under normal conditions the foresters would have demanded twice as much. The same story happened with three other clans, for various reasons, on the verge of starvation.
As a result, after three days of anchorage at Darkwood, the holds of my ships were filled with furs, honey, sealskin, ironwood products, and even a few narwhal horns found by the locals on the shore. And all this thanks to a simple conversation with the heir, who, judging by the rumors, got a slap on the wrist from his father when he found out how I knew about the plight of his subjects, on whom he himself wanted to profit.
As a bonus, my fighting force was replenished. After a little agitation in one of the inns, where I promised a salary in silver and the opportunity to see distant lands, almost all the local youth came running to hire me on ships. I even had to organize a small tournament, where sixty of the best archers and forty of the best warriors were selected. And if among the archers, all were foresters, who had been hunting in these forests since childhood and never parted with a bow, then most of the fighters were highlanders living in Stone Hill and visiting the Glovers.
So soon the ships, having replenished their supplies of water and food, finally set out for the south. The only ports I planned to stop at before arriving in Volantis were Lannisport and Sunspear.
And if after the Sun Spear fate gave me one big and significant headache that would haunt me for years, then before that there were only two incidents that seriously frayed my nerves.
*
The first occurred when my ships were rounding the Sea Dragon Cape, half a day after sailing. In the hold of the Purple Rhinoceros they found a boy, about ten or twelve years old by the look of him. He was sitting in the darkest and deepest part of it, tucked under the purchased furs and sleeping peacefully. At first they wanted to simply, without any sentimentality, throw him into the sea, so that he would not be an eyesore and not even tell me. But later, Hoare, who was the captain of the Rhinoceros, noticed that the boy was very tenderly pressing a small bundle to his chest, which turned out to be a chick of the Northern Eagle - a proud and dangerous bird that lives only in the North and beyond the Wall. Because of this, he decided to show him to me, just in case, and he was right.
One of the hired foresters recognized the boy and told him everything he could about him. As it turned out, the boy's name was Volkan and he was an orphan in one of the forest clans living under the care of the head of the village. But that was not the most interesting thing. The guy was a werewolf - a person who can inhabit the bodies of other living beings, take over their minds, control them from a distance and see through their eyes.
Back in Oldtown, I read a few old books about them. According to those records, a strong werewolf can possess any living creature, even a human, but usually he keeps only one "tame" beast near him, with which he has a strong spiritual connection. Werewolfism is one of the manifestations of magic that still remains in this world, a supernatural talent that all descendants of the Children of the Forest have inherited. In the Seven Kingdoms, werewolves are born, but they are killed as soon as they show even a drop of their gift. However, I heard that beyond the Wall they are not only left alive, but also highly respected as powerful sorcerers and wizards.
When the fact that we had a sorcerer on board reached the others, most of the crew immediately wanted to either drown him or kill him on the spot. It all depended on the religion of the person making the suggestion. Only my authority and a few personally beaten bodies were able to calm them down and make them listen. After all, where they saw a terrible sorcerer who should not have lived, I saw a perspective.
Yes, in theory this boy will be able to possess people and control them in the future, but even the books said that only the strongest of werewolves are capable of this. But there is one simple plus that outweighs any minus. Intelligence. After a conversation with Volkan, where I personally had to feed him, wash him and examine him for diseases, I learned that he already had his own tamed animal - that same eaglet. He could already look through its eyes when he slept, and soon he should learn to do this consciously.
I began to be filled with delight when I imagined that if I had a man on my team who could control a bird and see through its eyes. Pirates, storms, shallows and currents. All of this would be known in advance, significantly reducing the risk of traveling by sea. Beauty. When I told the rest of the team about the prospects, even they were inspired by the opportunities that had opened up. Only the foresters and mountaineers, who had never sailed on ships before and did not know about the dangers of sea travel, were against it, but no one listened to them.
Thus, the Black Panther team got its own ship werewolf, whose care and training were carried out by Joan, Rick and Dick, who frankly had nothing to do during the voyage, unlike the same Robin, who was constantly training with the foresters, and Piper, who helped the ship's carpenter.
*
The second incident came as we were passing Whisper Bay and preparing to pass through Redwyne Bay. Once through, my ships would finally enter the Summer Sea, a warm and friendly ocean as large as the Sunset Sea, and within which lay the famous Summer Isles. But when I and the rest of the crew were startled from our hammocks in the night by an ear-splitting roar of pain and despair, I had no time for such thoughts.
"The she-bear." Instantly popped into my head, quickly removing any hints of drowsiness or anything like it. If anything happened to her, my money would be gone.
Darting into the hold like a bullet, along the way grabbing one of the guys hired on Bear Island by the scruff of the neck, I considered the worst possible scenarios, starting with the terrible illness of my charge, ending with a shark squeezing through the hatch and starting a fight there.
Things turned out even worse.
When I burst into the hold with twenty crew members, I was confronted with the most terrifying picture - a she-bear covered in blood, lying on her side and roaring constantly. And just fucking awesome news from that same guy, still floundering behind me, with his collar still not loosened:
- She's giving birth.
"Mormont, you're a ******, son of a *********, may all the devils in Hell ***** you in all your..." - Such thoughts in my head were the most censored. This bastard simply slipped me a huge setup. I can't believe that a family that had lived for centuries next to bears could not determine the late stages of pregnancy in this female. It became clear why she was so sleepy, ate so much and barely moved. All her strength was spent on the children.
In that situation, I made the only choice possible at that moment.
- So! Quickly bring Robin and Joen here! - I yelled in a voice that almost turned into a roar, not inferior to the bear lying next to me. Only these two were able to get a silver link in the Citadel and had at least some practical experience in medicine. - We will deliver the bear.
The next few hours of my life are etched in my memory for a long time, no matter how much I wanted to forget them. I had already had experience of delivering babies, as did Joen and Robin, who had attended specialized courses at the university, but our previous charges could not break the spine of an unlucky person with a blow of their paw and at least understood what was wanted of them. The only thing we could do was pour a little poppy milk down her throat to reduce the pain and calm her down, wipe away some blood and pray. Seriously pray. The whole team.
Finally, after a few hours, it was all over. The bear remained alive, and now lay quietly with two little lumps at her side, constantly sucking her mother's milk.
Everyone on the ship breathed a sigh of relief. The most valuable goods remained intact and even increased in quantity. If Volkan does not fail and can lead us through the Narrow Sea without getting caught in a single storm or tempest, then the small ones have a good chance of surviving and being successfully sold for hard cash to that very triarch. And this can greatly increase the depth of my pocket.
That day, despite the tight schedule, all three ships docked at Sea Star, one of the many port towns on Arbor, and their crews were given leave. Then, I myself needed a good drink and to heal my nerves, and Arborsoke wine did the trick.
The ships left the island only two days later, with sailors as happy as cats who had been in a bath of sour cream. After all, I had to pay for all their pleasures, and it cost almost fifteen dragons...
"Eh... The lot of an honest captain and merchant is hard"
But a few days later we arrived at Sunspear, where a momentous meeting took place that would cost me many grey hairs in the future.
*
Sunspear, the ancestral seat of the Martells, from where they rule sandy Dorne, we saw at dawn. Standing on the shores of the Summer Sea, on the Broken Hand Peninsula, north of the mouth of the Greenblood River, it looked like a chimera, combining the cultures of two peoples - the Andals and the Rhoynar.
Back when I was a student at the Citadel, I studied the history and architecture of all the great castles of Westeros, such as Winterfell, Dragonstone, Harenhall, and many others. Sunspear was one of them.
Initially, before the Rhoynar migration, this castle had another name - the Ark of the Sands. A squat, unsightly building, shaped like a giant coin, it did not even know its future fate. When Mors Martell, whose coat of arms was a spear, married Queen Nymeria, "the sun of the Rhoyne", both symbols - the spear and the sun - were placed on the new coat of arms of the Martells, who ruled the Ark. After that, the castle received its current name.
Over time, its owners expanded and added to the castle, adding beautiful towers and buildings in the Rhoynar style. The castle's two main towers - the Tower of the Sun, topped with a huge dome of gilded crystal, and the graceful 150-foot-tall Spear Tower, topped with a spire in the shape of a real steel spear, adding another thirty feet to the tower's height - were built almost a thousand years ago, during Nymeria's lifetime. Also, some four hundred years BCE, when most of the Rhoynar had assimilated and merged into the local houses, the defensive Looping Walls were built to protect the rulers of the desert, surrounding all of Sunspear, winding throughout the entire Shadow City.
Looking at this beautiful castle from the bay of Shady City, I immediately remembered the old Disney cartoons about Aladdin and Jasmine.
"If Sunspear stood in the desert, it would be an exact copy of Agrabah," I thought, simultaneously giving orders to replenish food and fresh water supplies. We went to this city only for this, since we needed to hurry to Volantis. The elections of the triarchs will begin in two weeks, and the sooner we get there, the better. - "Just think. In Westeros, the land of knights and medieval castles, there is an entire kingdom that seems to have come from the pages of fairy tales about the magical East. Strange are the local affairs."
Within an hour, the food supplies were replenished and the barrels of fresh water were filled to capacity. Joen was even able to quickly run to the market and buy normal clothes for Volkan, which we had forgotten to do due to minor 'problems' on the same Sea Star. After he was washed, combed and dressed in normal clothes, which had previously been replaced by one large, shapeless sailor shirt and trousers, he even began to look like a young aristocrat - regular facial features, curly brown hair, coupled with a handsome face made the boy a real handsome man. Look how the girls on the docks stared when he was let out on deck.
- Captain, we are ready to sail. Shall we begin? - Edward finally said, coming up to me. He had already taken off half of his clothes and was now actively rubbing his sweaty forehead with a white handkerchief. What can I say, the climate in Dorne is not sugar. Even now, on the pier, where a pleasant sea breeze was blowing, at least somehow cooling the body, I felt that I was slowly starting to melt.
"About 35 degrees, no less," I thought, nodding my head to confirm the start of sailing. The sooner we get out to sea, the sooner this hellish heat will pass.
- Hey, you! Stop! - A shout suddenly sounded on the dock, attracting everyone's attention. The one who shouted was a soldier dressed in the traditional uniform of the Martell House Guard - a spear, a round shield, a pointed helmet and lamellar armor, covered with a large amount of yellow clothing, with images of a spear piercing the sun. He, along with his comrades - two of the same guards, holding some kind of constantly twitching bundle, were talking to Victarion, who had come down to them from the "White Tiger", judging by his gestures they would soon be heading towards us.
And so it happened. Soon the three of them approached the Black Panther's gangway and, not embarrassed by the not-so-kind looks of most northerners, climbed onto the deck.
"What do they want here?" I thought, as a bad feeling began to form in my soul.
"Who is Felix, the owner of these ships?" the soldier who had been talking to Victarion asked rudely, looking around the ship, apparently looking for the owner by his clothes. That was me. Well, good luck to him, because by my clothes, in which I always valued practicality more than appearance, I was indistinguishable from the other sailors.
"Okay, we need to find out why they came here."
"It's me," I finally responded, stepping down from the bridge and standing before the soldiers. They merely nodded their heads at my appearance.
"Are you sailing to Volantis?" The guardsman who was the chief of the three asked immediately, without even greeting him. The soldier himself had the most ordinary Rhoynar face and, apart from an interesting scar on his cheekbone, was not distinguished by anything. You see people like that once and forget them.
— Yes.
"You must deliver this man there and hand him over to the merchant Belicio Taragos, who lives on the Street of Blue Ribbons." At his words, the remaining two let go of the ends of the bundle, dropping a young, black-haired Dornishman who, judging by the smell emanating from him, was dead drunk. "You will be paid a hundred golden dragons for the delivery. Here is your advance."
"They work fast," I thought, accepting the purse handed to me, judging by the sound of it full of gold coins. "But why would the Martells need this… Unless…"
"Sail away immediately," he said finally, and quickly turned to leave.
"And who is he that House Martell's guards are accompanying him and paying such a large sum of money for his transportation?" I barely managed to ask before those sly Dornishmen ran off into the sunset. There was still a glimmer of hope in my soul that fate could not have let me down so badly.
But it was all in vain. The answer came immediately and after hearing it I realized how badly I was screwed this time:
— Prince of Dorne, son of Lethen and Edara Martell, Oberyn Martell.