Chapter 47: Five Stones

In the first year of the Old Watch lease, Pello secured passage out of Myr for Qavo Ryndoon’s household. Three days before they sailed, Daenerys was helping Salla mend a merchant’s sail on the Split Net’s roof, above a harbour white with summer glare.

“Keep the stitches straight,” Salla said.

“I know. Yesterday you made me unpick six crooked fingers of seam.”

The roof hatch lifted. Viserys climbed out, Ser Willem’s sword knocking against the frame, and held a parchment clear of the canvas. Qavo followed with his family and three apprentices. “Read it,” he said.

Pello had settled the claims of the lenders who had taken Qavo’s yard. Jon Black’s letter promised passage, bread and lodging for all eight of them, and wages for Qavo and his apprentices on Dragonstone. Daenerys looked from its plain black seal to little Tala, asleep in her mother’s arms. “Will she have a berth with you?”

“We have a cabin,” Qavo’s wife Anara said. “Small, the captain tells me, but it has a door. Naella and I will keep her between us.”

Salla added spare sailcloth to their bundle. “For beneath the berth, if the deck leaks.” Daenerys helped Qavo’s elder daughter Naella tie it in place.

Qavo folded the agreement and tucked it inside his coat. Then he looked at Viserys’s silver hair and the old sword at his hip. “Your island, is it? Shall I leave him my tools for you?”

Viserys’s fingers tightened upon the hilt and eased. “No. Make Lord Black pay dearly for good work.”

Qavo bowed before going down. Anara pressed Daenerys’s hand between hers; Tala slept against her mother’s collar.

The roof felt much larger. Daenerys took up the needle. Below, someone laughed as a basket caught against the stair.

“They will be well enough,” Salla said.

Daenerys nodded. Naella said rooms waited on the island. She tried to imagine entering because someone expected her, with no argument over what Viserys owed.

Her brother remained by the hatch until the voices below had faded. Daenerys watched him rub a thumb over the worn leather of Ser Willem’s sword grip.

“Qavo will have work,” she said.

“For Stark’s bastard.”

“Would you rather he stayed here with nothing?”

Viserys looked sharply at her, then away towards the harbour. “Stark was the usurper’s dog. Now his bastard is to have Dragonstone. A prince’s seat, given to a boy who had to be handed a name.”

“Lord Black paid for all of them to go.”

“Then they may thank him. I shall not.” His voice had risen; he lowered it when Salla looked up from the sail. “He has no right to that island. Nor did Robert have the right to give it away.”

Daenerys bent over her stitches. Viserys waited a moment, but she could think of nothing to say that would not anger him further. At last he went below.

Daenerys spent three coppers from her sail work on red pigment for the hatch. She painted while the light held, kneeling upon a scrap of canvas to keep the colour from her skirt. Viserys stepped over the wet edge when he came in. He looked at her stained fingers, then fetched the lamp from the shelf and set it where she could see her work.

That night Viserys counted five jewels into a scrap of wool and hid them again beneath the loft boards. The colour dried thin and uneven. It was not the door she remembered, but no landlord had chosen it for her. Before the week ended, Qavo’s household sailed west. Daenerys and Viserys remained in Myr.

* * *

Years later, as Jon prepared to leave Winterfell for Dragonstone, Obara’s spear struck the rim of Rhaenys’s shield and drove it against her mouth. She tasted blood. The butt caught her above the hip before she recovered, and she went down hard enough to lose her breath.

“You were watching the path,” Obara said.

Rhaenys lay still, looking through the branches of an orange tree. The Water Gardens were waking around them. A broom scratched along the arcade. Somewhere beyond the pool a little girl objected to having her hair combed. Nothing moved on the path from the outer gate.

“I saw your spear.”

“After it hit you.”

Nymeria laughed from the shaded bench, her long braid laid over lilac silk. Beside her Tyene cracked green almonds between two stones. Rhaenys got onto one knee and tested her teeth with her tongue. All still there.

“Again.”

Obara waited for her to find her breath. Sweat darkened her leather coat; this had scarcely warmed her. This time Rhaenys watched the spear. She let the thrust glance away, stepped close and swung beneath the shaft. Her blunted sword left a chalk streak under Obara’s ribs.

“You might congratulate me,” she said.

“I shall when you do it twice.”

Rhaenys grinned, and her lip stung. On the next pass Obara drove her towards the wet marble, struck her thigh and caught her upper arm before she fell into the pool.

“Enough.”

“You said twice.”

“I did not say you had to manage it before breakfast.”

Joss brought water, favouring his bad leg as he crossed the sand. Rhaenys drank while Tyene examined her mouth. Her cousin’s fingers were cool and her face mild until Rhaenys tried to pull away.

“Hold still. You will live long enough to complain at supper.”

A page appeared under the arch before Tyene had finished. “Lady Deria, Prince Doran asks you to attend him after breakfast. Prince Oberyn has returned.”

“From Planky Town?”

The page nodded. Rhaenys was already standing. Obara caught the sword she had left against the bench; Nym followed her beneath the arcade, brushing sand from her sleeve.

Breakfast smelled of frying peppers and the river fish Mellario liked crisp enough to eat whole. Trystane flew a wooden dragon beneath the table while his mother read Quentyn’s letter. Arianne moved her cushion to make room, then saw the cloth at Rhaenys’s mouth.

“Obara?”

“I touched her once.”

“Tell Father. Obara may forget to mention it.”

Mellario lowered the letter and beckoned Rhaenys close. She turned her chin gently towards the light. Her fingers smelled of rosewater; years of being held through fevers and bad dreams made it difficult to resent the inspection.

“Ask Caleotte for something before you see Doran. Now sit and eat.”

Balerion came from beneath her chair, white showing about his jaw, and hooked a claw into Rhaenys’s gown until she gave him a fish. She had scarcely taken a mouthful herself when Oberyn arrived in his dusty yellow robe. He kissed Ellaria, answered Trystane’s questions about the cut beneath his eye and sat beside Rhaenys.

“What struck you?”

“A shield.”

“Was Obara holding the shield?” he asked.

“I was.”

“Ah.”

“You need not say anything else.”

He kissed her forehead. Orange-blossom oil clung faintly to his hair beneath the dust of the road. For a moment she was very small again, with someone smoothing blankets over her knees. She caught his sleeve without meaning to.

Oberyn looked at her hand. His teasing expression softened, and he stayed while she ate. Rhaenys wanted to ask about Myr, but servants crossed with dishes and Trystane kept bringing the wooden dragon to his uncle. When Oberyn rose, she followed him to the arch.

“Is there news?”

“There is a letter. We will read it with Doran.”

“From Myr?”

“Come after you have washed.” He brushed a grain of sand from her braid.

Nym helped her into a clean gown and combed her hair while Caleotte’s salve stung her lip. Through the window came splashing and a child’s delighted cry. Rhaenys kept looking towards the door.

“I shall find you afterwards,” Nym said. “We can swim when the heat goes.”

Rhaenys nodded, holding still for the last tie.

* * *

The western gallery was shaded with reed screens. Sea air slipped through them, stirring the tassels of the awning and bringing a little relief from the heat. Doran sat with one foot propped on a low stool. Red flannel swathed the swollen joint; the other foot, in a loose slipper, rested carefully beside his chair. His face looked tired.

“Has it been bad?” Rhaenys asked.

“Caleotte tells me it will improve if I keep still.”

“And have you?”

“I have been sitting here since dawn.” He glanced at the empty cup near his hand. “I had hoped to be right by now.”

Rhaenys joined Arianne on the cushioned bench. Oberyn pulled aside a screen to look at the water; Joss settled by the door, checking that its latch had caught.

Five river stones held Doran’s papers against the breeze. She and Arianne had found them by the Greenblood years ago and quarrelled over which was prettier. Doran had offered to keep them until they agreed. Two letters lay beneath them today, held by Arianne’s pale, egg-shaped favourite and the dark stone Rhaenys had wanted.

“This came by way of Lys,” Doran said. “It was written in Myr more than a moon ago.”

Rhaenys took the offered page. Twice the writer had squeezed a word above the line. She went back to the description of a youth with silver hair and an old sword.

“He saw them?”

“He saw two people who may have been them. He did not speak to either.”

“The girl was sewing.”

“That is what he was told.”

The writer had seen the youth arguing with a merchant on a quay. A girl waited a little way off with a bundle under her arm. Men at a wine stall said they lodged in a loft and that she brought sail work home.

“What was the quarrel about?”

“He did not hear enough to know,” Doran said.

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She wanted a face to go with the words. Viserys was almost beyond memory, a pale boy among grown people; Daenerys had been born after Rhaenys escaped King’s Landing. The girl on the page had no Mellario to make her sit down and eat.

“There is talk of them leaving,” Oberyn said.

She looked up sharply. “Where?”

“A shipmaster told Aron, our trader in Planky Town, that Viserys had asked about passage to Tyrosh. A wool buyer said they meant to go to Pentos, but he had only heard it at supper.” Oberyn let the screen fall. “I trust the shipmaster more. Asking a berth’s price does not mean taking one.”

“The next ships may bring word,” Doran said.

Beyond the screen gulls cried. Rhaenys pictured a girl on the quay, waiting for a quarrel to end as the bundle grew heavy in her arms.

“Why do we not bring them here?”

Oberyn said nothing. Doran rested his hands on the arms of his chair.

“Because your uncle calls himself king.”

“He can call himself whatever he likes in a room.”

“He will not be content with a room.”

“Do you know that?”

Doran looked at her for a moment. “I know what he has asked of men who received him before. He wants ships, gold and soldiers. If I bring him to Sunspear, every lord in Dorne will hear of it. Some will expect me to give him an army. Others will write to the king before his ship has made fast.”

“Then not Sunspear.”

“Rhaenys.”

She turned towards Oberyn. “You have houses. Friends. There must be somewhere.”

He drew a chair beside the table, careful of Doran’s foot, and sat. “There may be. First we must find him, and then someone he trusts must persuade him to come quietly. I have not seen Viserys since he was a boy. I do not know whether he would listen to me.”

“Daenerys might.”

“She might. I would rather she had someone near her than another letter making promises from across the sea.”

That was better than Doran’s refusal, though she could not tell how much better. She picked up the page again. The stranger had found room for the colour of a merchant’s sail and three lines about a harbour due. He had not thought to describe whether the girl looked well.

“Can you send them money?”

“If we find a safe hand to carry it,” Doran said. “A purse sent carelessly may buy more trouble than food. There are men who would be interested to learn that I am paying for Aerys’s children.”

“You cannot wait until there is no danger at all.”

His fingers tightened on the chair. For a moment she thought she had angered him. Then he shifted his foot, slowly, and let out a breath through his nose.

“No. I cannot.” His voice had grown rough with the effort of keeping still. He looked down until the pain passed, then met her eyes again.

Rhaenys hated that she had made him answer while he was hurting. She also hated the relief she felt at hearing it. Arianne reached past her to move a cushion within his grasp.

“Let her read the next word you receive from Myr,” she said.

“You shall,” Doran told Rhaenys. “Whatever it says.”

She folded the letter and left it beneath the pale stone. Oberyn waited while Doran settled the cushion behind his back, then filled Doran’s cup.

Oberyn set down the jug. “There is nearer news. Our northern clockmaker is preparing to leave Winterfell.”

“Jon Black?” Arianne asked.

“Unless Lord Stark has another hidden away. Two captains lately in White Harbor told me: men booking passage, carters engaged, merchants asking where to send their repairs.”

“To Dragonstone?” Rhaenys asked.

“A Gulltown captain took water there last moon. He saw rooms being prepared for Lord Black’s household. They expect him before the year is out.”

Rhaenys looked down at the dark stone. She had known about Robert’s grant for years. It had been easier not to think of it while Jon Black remained in the North.

“It should have been Aegon’s.”

Oberyn’s face hardened. “Yes.”

“Father’s, and then his. Robert had no right to give it to Lord Stark’s bastard.” The last word came more harshly than she intended. She kept her eyes on the stone. “They murdered my brother, and now they are making rooms ready for someone else.”

Aegon had never been old enough to ride a horse, much less rule an island. Jon Black would arrive with ships and servants to open the doors for him.

“We have not forgotten whose seat it was,” Doran said.

“Everyone else seems willing to.”

She looked up at Oberyn. “And Arthur will go with him.”

“I would expect so.”

For years she had known Arthur lived. Once, being told he believed her dead had almost answered why he never came. Now she wanted to know why he stayed with Eddard Stark, what he thought of her father, whether he spoke of the children left in King’s Landing. Winterfell had been impossibly far away. Ships came from Dragonstone to Dorne.

“Would he know you?” she asked Joss.

“Yes, Princess.”

The answer was immediate. She pictured the two men meeting on a quay, Arthur seeing the scar and recognising him before he spoke.

“If you went to him—”

“He would ask where I had been. And whom I had brought out of the city.”

“You could tell him.”

Joss looked towards Doran but did not ask him to answer. “I could. Then he would want to see you.”

“Would you like to see him again?”

“Yes, Princess.” Joss drew himself a little straighter. “I would be honoured to stand before Ser Arthur and report that you are safe.”

“I want to see him too.” Rhaenys glanced at Doran. “But Uncle Doran is right to be careful. Arthur serves Jon Black now. If he leaves his lord and comes here, people will ask why.”

Oberyn’s chair creaked as he leaned forward. “Arthur would come if he knew. He might swear himself to silence and make every promise we asked, but I would not wager on his remaining in Dragonstone once he had heard your name.”

“We need a way for him to come without leading those questions to you,” Doran said.

Rhaenys turned back to Oberyn. “He knew my father.” The words came out smaller than she intended. “You knew him as my mother’s husband. Arthur was his friend.”

Oberyn looked down at his hands. The signet on his little finger had turned inward. He straightened it before answering.

“Yes. There are things he could tell you that I cannot.”

She had expected an argument. His agreement left her with nothing to push against. She wanted to ask Arthur what her father laughed at when he was among friends, whether he had talked of her, whether he had ever meant to come back. None of it belonged in a letter carried openly across the sea.

“Let us hear when he arrives,” Arianne said. “There will be merchants calling at Dragonstone who have no reason to hide it. Uncle, what of Aron? Is he still in Planky Town?”

“He means to sail with the Green Gull,” Oberyn said. “Morys is looking for a cargo north.”

“Then send him with something to sell.”

Doran considered it. “Oil should sell to a household preparing for a large arrival. Tiles too, if they are repairing the roofs.”

Rhaenys touched the dark stone. “He could tell us whether Arthur is there.”

“He can tell us what he sees,” Doran said. “I will not have him wandering the castle asking questions about Ser Arthur.”

“No letter to him?”

“Not yet.”

Arianne found her hand beneath the table and squeezed it. Oberyn let the silence lie a moment, then reached for a date.

“There is another reason to write to Lord Black. I could not finish my supper in Planky Town for hearing about his clocks. A merchant there believes that knowing Arthur entitles me to demand one for him.”

“The man with the pearls?” Arianne asked.

“Three fingers’ worth. Hightower has a clock, Tywin has a lion at the Rock, and now our friend cannot keep his accounts without one.”

“He told Mother the cost of new sails would ruin him.”

“He appears to have recovered.”

Rhaenys began to smile, then winced as the cut pulled. Arianne drew a clean sheet towards her.

“We should ask for one for Sunspear,” Arianne said. “Above the lower court, where it could be heard from the hall.”

“Must we buy it from him?” Rhaenys asked.

Arianne lifted her pen from the paper. “Who else makes them?”

Rhaenys had no answer. Across the table, Oberyn hid a smile behind his cup. She looked away before he could tease her.

“You have chosen the place already,” Doran said to Arianne.

“I have thought about it before today.”

“And the price?”

“I shall ask.”

Oberyn leaned back. “A sun, surely. With a spear through it.”

Rhaenys could see the golden rays against the pale stone, high above the crowd at an audience. “High enough to see from the steps.”

Doran looked between them. “Ask for a drawing as well. I should like to see what I am buying.”

Arianne dipped her pen. Rhaenys watched the words Lord Black take shape. Great lords paid him fortunes for his work; merchants pestered her uncle for an introduction. She wanted to see the clock herself, to hear it strike and look inside the case. That admission annoyed her. Arthur taught this boy and rode beside him, and he would soon live in her father’s castle. She still had to answer to Deria when a servant entered the room.

“Let us take the letter to Planky Town,” she said.

Doran’s eyes lifted. “Why?”

“To see the ship. And because I should like to go.”

“There will be a good many people at the quay.”

“They will see Deria Sand with her cousin.”

“I can speak to Aron about the cargo,” Arianne said. “I should like to choose it myself.”

Doran glanced towards Oberyn, who spread his hands. Joss came away from the door.

“I can take them with an escort, my prince. We need not remain on the quay after dark.”

Rhaenys held still. Doran shifted his heel upon the stool, considered her, then nodded.

“You ask no questions about Arthur before strangers. Joss decides when you return, and you do as he says.”

“I will.”

“You may dislike his answer at the time.”

“I still will.”

Doran settled back in his chair. Arianne resumed writing, and Rhaenys kept the dark stone enclosed in her hand.

* * *

After the girls had gone, Oberyn laid another report beside the Myr letter. Joss stayed by the door. There was still no name they could be certain belonged to the little girl murdered in Rhaenys’s place.

“A woman in King’s Landing remembered a Myria,” Oberyn said. “A scullion, near forty when the city fell. No child of that name.”

“No one who knew the girl?” Doran asked.

“Nor saw how she entered Elia’s rooms.”

“The sailor said the name once,” Joss said. “I can give you no more.”

“I know.” Doran read the account. “We may have been asking after the wrong person.”

Oberyn rubbed the cut beneath his eye. “Varys could answer.”

“And ask why we want to know. My order stands.”

“I have not approached him. There are still servants who left after the sack. I shall ask them.”

“Ask after the child as well as the name. We promised to look for her mother.” Doran returned the page. “Keep this with the other accounts.”

Oberyn put the report away. At Doran’s dismissal Joss went to find Rhaenys.

When the door had closed, Oberyn drew the Myr letter from beneath its stone. “Your answer about Viserys was not all for Robert’s sake.”

“No.”

“He will expect us to support him.”

Doran watched the doorway a moment longer. “I mean to see Rhaenys crowned. If Viserys comes to Sunspear calling himself king, some of our own lords may swear to him before she can show her face.”

“Many would choose Aerys’s son over Rhaegar’s daughter.”

“Then I shall not help him gather them.” Doran reached for his cup, found it empty and set it down again.

“Elia and her son are dead.” His voice remained low, but Oberyn put the letter down. “Her daughter should have what they took from her. I want our blood on that throne. If I ask Dorne to fight again, it will be for her. I will not have my sister’s murder end with us serving Viserys and her only living child still hiding here.”

He looked towards the door. “We must know what he would do if he learnt she lived. We cannot assume he would welcome a rival because she is his niece.”

Oberyn folded the letter. “Elia’s daughter would have my sword. You know that. But I want those two found and fed, whatever Viserys thinks he is owed.”

“So do I. Find someone who can remain with them, if they will allow it. He may promise money for their keeping. No ships, and no soldiers.” Doran leaned forward despite his foot. “And he is Prince Viserys in our letters. Neither king nor rightful heir.”

“I will choose the man myself.”

Doran nodded. Oberyn reached for the jug and filled his brother’s cup before taking the letter away.

* * *

Nymeria found her putting spare linen into a saddlebag. She stood in the doorway until Rhaenys looked up.

“You might have sent someone to tell me.”

“I only just came back. I am sorry.” Rhaenys put down the linen. “Come with us.”

“Ellaria is taking the youngest to Sunspear tomorrow. Someone has to keep the others from drowning.” Nym’s eyes dropped to the bag. “And you cannot put your good gown beneath those boots.”

She crossed the room and began taking things out. Rhaenys let her. The boots went into a separate wrapping, and Nym fetched a scarf to keep the dust from her hair. When Rhaenys thanked her, she tugged the knot a little too tight.

“Bring me something.”

“What?”

“You are the one going to market. Choose it.”

“Will you tell Obara I shall miss the morning practice?”

“She will say you have chosen a very long way to avoid her.”

Rhaenys smiled, then caught herself before it hurt.

They rode in the long afternoon shadows. Arianne’s copper skirts divided over a chestnut sand steed; each uneven stride of Rhaenys’s grey awakened the bruise in her thigh. Joss went ahead with two guards at the forks, four more following behind. They stopped at an inn, then reached Arianne’s friends’ house upriver from Planky Town the next day.

At dawn a poleboat took them down between washing lines and barges. A woman rinsed a pot over her side; children peeped from behind wet shirts. Arianne called a greeting to their mother and passed Rhaenys cold chicken from the basket. For a little while Rhaenys watched the boatman’s bare foot turn whenever his pole bent and forgot to look for a ship that might have brought news.

Moorings thickened into Planky Town’s knot of boats, houses and stalls. Fish and river mud gave way to hot bread, then pitch warming in a pot. Rhaenys gathered her skirts at the landing. The plank dipped beneath her; Joss offered his arm without looking at her feet.

The Green Gull lay beyond the smaller craft, fresh paint shining on one side and weathered wood showing through the other. Men were carrying onions aboard in loose hampers. Captain Morys came down to meet them, a purple sash at his waist and a patch of sunburn where his collar usually covered his neck. The trader Aron of Lemonwood followed, smaller and more quietly dressed, his cuff mended with thread a shade too dark.

Oil jars were already being bedded in straw aboard the Gull, with roof tiles laid low amidships. In Aron’s chamber above the cooper’s shop, Arianne settled the price and quantity. Each hammer blow below shook the water in their cups.

The pearl merchant came in before they had finished, bowed to Arianne and immediately asked whether she had word of his clock.

“Have you paid an earnest?” Arianne asked.

“Not yet. They wanted the width of the wall, and someone to learn to tend it. Now they say they have work promised already.”

“You changed the case twice,” Aron said.

“Once. The second drawing was to show what I meant the first time.”

“Shall I tell them you no longer wish to buy?”

“Certainly not.” He looked at Arianne, who lowered her eyes to the account. “A word from your uncle would be much appreciated, Princess.”

When he had gone, she turned towards the open window to laugh. Rhaenys pressed a finger to her lip. She had counted four pearl rings; apparently the merchant’s fortunes had continued to improve since Oberyn’s supper.

When they returned to the ship, Arianne gave Aron the sealed enquiry for Sunspear’s clock, addressed to Jon Black or the man who managed his clockwork. If Jon had not arrived, his household on the island was to receive it.

Aron took them into his cabin and wrapped the letter in oiled cloth. Once Captain Morys had left them, he spoke of Doran’s other instructions.

“I can send word when their lord comes. A great household arriving is difficult to miss.”

“And whatever else you hear worth telling,” Arianne said.

He glanced at Joss. “There is nothing for Ser Arthur?”

Rhaenys felt the stone through her purse, among Mellario’s coins. There was paper on Aron’s table. A few words would be enough for Arthur to know she lived. She looked at Joss, then back at the letter already sealed.

“No,” she said before Arianne could answer. “Only the enquiry.”

Aron waited. Rhaenys kept her hand closed about the stone until he put the packet in his sea-chest. Only then did she stand.

On the way back she bought Nym a glazed bowl with blue fish about the rim. She had it wrapped twice and carried it herself.

The Green Gull left on the morning tide. Morys shouted at a poleboat whose owner shouted back and moved only when the Gull’s bow turned. The sail filled; its newly painted side shone against brown water. Aron stood near the stern, the letter stowed in his sea-chest below.

Rhaenys watched until she could no longer tell the people apart. Then Joss touched her sleeve. Their boatman was waiting, and Arianne had begun crossing the wet planks. Rhaenys took up Nym’s bowl and followed.