Her hand went to her dirk at once… until the moonlight transformed the dark shape into a man in a sealskin cloak. Another ghost. 'Tris. I'd thought to find you in the hall.'
'I wanted to see you.'
'What part of me, I wonder?' She grinned. 'Well, here I stand, all grown up. Look all you like.'
'A woman.' He moved closer. 'And beautiful.'
Tristifer Botley had filled out since last she'd seen him, but he had had the same unruly hair that she remembered, and eyes as large and trusting as a seal's. Sweet eyes, truly. That was the trouble with poor Tristifer; he was too sweet for the Iron Islands. His face has grown comely, she thought. As a boy Tris had been much troubled by pimples. Asha had suffered the same affliction; perhaps that had been what drew them together.
'I was sorry to hear about your father,' she told him.
'I grieve for yours.'
Why? Asha almost asked. It was Balon who'd sent the boy away from Pyke, to be a ward of Baelor Blacktyde. 'Is it true you are Lord Botley now?'
'In name, at least. Harren died at Moat Cailin. One of the bog devils shot him with a poisoned arrow. But I am the lord of nothing. When my father denied his claim to the Seastone Chair, the Crow's Eye drowned him, and made my uncles swear him fealty. Even after that he gave half my father's lands to Iron Holt. Lord Wynch was the first man to bend his knee and call him king.'
House Wynch was strong on Pyke, but Asha took care not let her dismay show. 'Wynch never had your father's courage.'
'Your uncle bought him,' Tris said. 'The Silence returned with holds full of treasure. Plate and pearls, emeralds and rubies, sapphires big as eggs, bags of coin so heavy that no man can lift them
… the Crow's Eye has been buying friends at every hand. My uncle Germund calls himself Lord Botley now, and rules in Lordsport as your uncle's man.'
'You are the rightful Lord Botley,' she assured him. 'Once I hold the Seastone Chair, your father's lands shall be restored.'
'If you like. It's naught to me. You look so lovely in the moonlight, Asha. A woman grown now, but I remember when you were a skinny girl with a face all full of pimples.'
Why must they always mention the pimples'I remember that as well.' Though not as fondly as you do. Of the five boys her mother had brought to Pyke to foster after Ned Stark had taken her last living son as hostage, Tris had been closest to Asha in age. He had not been the first boy she had ever kissed, but he was the first to undo the laces of her jerkin and slip a sweaty hand beneath to feel her budding breasts.
/ would have let him feel more than that if he'd been bold enough. Her first flowering had come upon her during the war and wakened her desire, but even before that Asha had been curious. He was there, he was mine own age, and he was willing, that was all it was… that, and the moon blood. Even so, she'd called it love, till Tris began to go on about the children she would bear him; a dozen sons at least, and oh, some daughters too. 'I don't want to have a dozen sons,' she had told him, appalled. 'I want to have adventures.' Not long after, Maester Qalen found them at their play, and young Tristifer Botley was sent away to Blacktyde.
'I wrote you letters,' he said, 'but Maester Joseran would not send them. Once I gave a stag to an oarsman on a trader bound for Lordsport, who promised to put my letter in your hands.'
'Your oarsman winkled you and threw your letter in the sea.'
'I feared as much. They would not give me yours either.'
/ wrote none. In truth, she had been relieved when Tris was sent away. By then his fumblings had begun to bore her. That was not something he would care to hear, however. 'Aeron Damphair has called a kingsmoot. Will you come and speak for me?'
'I will go anywhere with you, but… Lord Blacktyde says this kingsmoot is a dangerous folly. He thinks your uncle will descend on them and kill them all, as Urron did. The Crow's Eye has been gathering men on Pyke. Orkwood of Orkmont broughthim twenty longships, and Pinchface Jon Myre a dozen. Left-Hand Lucas Codd is with them. And Harren Half-Hoare, the Red Oarsman, Kemmett Pyke the Bastard, Rodrik Freeborn, Torwold Browntooth…'
'Men of small account.' Asha knew them all, and liked none of them. 'The sons of salt wives, the grandsons of thralls. The Codds… do you know their words?'
'Though All Men Do Despise Us,'Tris said, 'but if they catch you in those nets of theirs, you'll be as dead as if They had been dragonlords. And There's worse. The Crow's Eye brought back monsters from the east… aye, and wizards Too'
'Nuncle always had a fondness for freaks and foots,' said Asha. 'My father used to fight with him about it. Let the wizards call upon their gods. The Damphair will call on ours, and drown them. Will I have your voice at the queensmoot, Tris?'
'You shall have all of me. I am your man, forever. Asha, I would wed you. Your lady mother has given her consent.' She stifled a groan. You might have asked me first… though you might not have liked the answer half so well.
'I am no second son now,' he went on. 'I am the rightful Lord Botley, as you said yourself. And you are-'
'What I am will be settled on Old Wyk. Tris, we are no longer children fumbling at each other and trying to see what fits where. You think you want to wed me, but you don't.'
'I do. All I dream about is you. Asha, I swear upon the bones of Nagga, I have never touched another woman.'
'Go touch one… or two, or ten. I have touched more men than I count. Some with my lips, more with my axe.' She had surrendered her virtue at six-and-ten, to a beautiful blond-haired sailor on a Trading galley up from Lys. He only knew six words of the Common Tongue, but 'fuck' was one of them, the very word she'd hoped to hear. Afterward Asha had the sense to find a woods witch, who showed her how to brew moon tea to keep her belly flat.
Botley blinked, as if he did not quire understand what she had said. 'You… I Thought that you would wait. Why…' He rubbed his mouth. 'Asha, were you forced?'
'So forced. I tore his tunic. You do not want to wed me, take my word on that. You are a sweet boy and always were, but I am no sweet girl. If we wed, soon enough you'd come to hate me.'
'Never. Asha, I… I have ached for you.'
She had heard enough of this. A sickly mother, a murdered father, a kingsmoot, and a plague of uncles were enough for any woman to contend with; she did not require a lovesick puppy. 'Find a brothel, Tris. They'll cure you of that ache.'
'I could never…' Tristifer shook his head. 'You and I were meant to be, Asha. I have always known you would be my wife, and the mother of my sons.' He seized her upper arm.
In a blink her dirk was at his throat. 'Take your hand away, or you won't live long enough to breed a son. Now.' When he did, she lowered the blade. 'You want a woman, well and good. I'll put one in your bed tonight. Pretend she's me, if that will give you pleasure, but do not presume to grab at me again. I am your queen, not your wife. Remember that.' Asha sheathed her dirk and left him standing there, with a fat drop of blood slowly creeping down his neck, black in the pale light of the moon.
THE IRON CAPTAIN
The wind was blowing from the north as the Iron Victory came round the point, and entered the holy bay called Nagga's Cradle.
Victarion joined Nute the Barber at her prow. Ahead loomed the sacred shore of Old Wyk and the grassy hill above it, where the ribs of Nagga rose from The earth like The Trunks of great white frees, as wide around as a dromond's mast and twice as tall.
The bones of the Grey King's hall. Victarion could feel the magic of this place. 'Balon stood beneath those bones, when first he named himself a king,' he recalled. 'He swore to win us back our freedoms, and Tarle The Thrice-Drowned placed a driftwood crown upon his head. 'BALON!' They cried. 'BALON! BALON KING!''
'They will shout your name as loud,' said Nute.
Victarion nodded, Though he did not share the Barber's certainty. Balon had three sons, and a daughter he
