The men upon the shore had spied their sails. Shouts echoed across the bay as friends and kin called out greetings. But not from Silence. On her decks a motley crew of mutes and mongrels spoke no word as the Iron Victory drew nigh. Men black as tar stared out at him, and others squat and hairy as the apes of Sothoros. Monsters, Victarion thought.
They dropped anchor twenty yards from Silence. "Lower a boat. I would go ashore." He buckled on his sword-belt as the rowers took their places; his longsword rested on one hip, a dirk upon the other. Nute the Barber fastened the Lord Captain's cloak about his shoulders. It was made of nine layers of cloth-of-gold, sewn in the shape of the kraken of Greyjoy, arms dangling to his boots. Beneath he wore heavy grey chainmail over boiled black leather. In Moat Cailin he had taken to wearing mail day and night. Sore shoulders and an aching back were easier to bear than bloody bowels. The poisoned arrows of the bog devils need only scratch a man, and a few hours later he would be squirting and screaming as his life ran down his legs in gouts of red and brown. Whoever wins the Seastone Chair, I shall deal with the bog devils.
Victarion donned a tall black warhelm, wrought in the shape of an iron kraken, its arms coiled downaround his cheeks to meet beneath his jaw. By then the boat was ready. "I put the chests into your charge," he told Nute as he climbed over the side. "See that they are strongly guarded." Much depended on the chests.
"As you command, Your Grace."
Victarion returned a sour scowl, "I am no king as yet." He clambered down into the boat.
Aeron Damphair was waiting for him in the surf with his waterskin slung beneath one arm. The priest was gaunt and tall, though shorter than Victarion. His nose rose like a shark's fin From a bony face, and his eyes were iron. His beard reached to his waist, and tangled ropes of hair slapped at the back of his legs when the wind blew. "Brother," he said as the waves broke white and cold around their ankles, "what is dead can never die."
"But rises again, harder and stronger." Victarion lifted off his helm and knelt. The bay filled his boots and soaked his breeches as Aeron poured a stream of saltwater down upon his brow. And so they prayed.
"Where is our brother Crow's Eye?" the Lord Captain demanded of Aeron Damphair when the prayers were done.
"His is the great tent of cloth-of-gold, there where the din is loudest. He surrounds himself with godless men and monsters, worse than before. In him our father's blood went bad."
"Our mother's blood as well." Victarion would not speak of kinslaying, here in this godly place beneath the bones of Nagga and the Grey King's hall, but many a night he dreamed of driving a mailed fist into Euron's smiling face, until the flesh split and his bad blood ran red and free. / must not. I pledged my word to Balon. "All have come?" he asked his priestly brother.
"All who matter. The captains and the kings." On the Iron Islands they were one and the same, for every captain was a king on his own deck, and every king must be a captain. "Do you mean to claim our father's crown?"
Victarion imagined himself seated on the Seastone Chair. "If the Drowned God wils it."
"The waves will speak," said Aeron Damphair, as he turned away. "Listen to the waves, brother"
"Aye." He wondered how his name would sound whispered by waves, and shouted by the captains and the kings.
If the cup should pass to me I will not set it by.
A crowd had gathered round to wish him well and seek his favor. Victarion saw men from every isle; Blacktydes, Tawneys, Orkwoods, Stonetrees, Wynches, and many more. The Goodbrothers of Old Wyk, The Goodbrothers of Great Wyk, and the Goodbrothers of Orkmont all had come. The Codds were there, though every decent man despised them. Humble Shepherds, Weavers, and Netleys rubbed shoulders with men from Houses ancient and proud; even humble Humbies, the blood of thralls and salt wives. A Volmark clapped Victarion on the back; two Sparrs pressed a wineskin into his hands. He drank deep, wiped his mouth, and let them bear him off to their cookfires, to listen to their talk of war and crowns and plunder, and the glory and the freedom of his reign.
That night the men of the Iron Fleet raised a huge sailcloth tent above rhe fideline, so Victarion might feast half a hundred famous captains on roast kid, salted cod, and lobster. Aeron came as well. He ate fish and drank water, whilst the captains quaffed sufficient ale to float the Iron Fleet. Victarion lost count of all those who promised him their voices. Many were men of note: Fralegg the Strong, clever Alvyn Sharp, humpbacked Hotho Harlaw. Hotho offered him a daughter for his queen. "I have no luck with wives," Victarion told him. His first wife died in childbed, giving him a stillborn daughter. His second had been stricken by a pox. And his third…
"A king must have an heir," Hotho insisted. "The Crow's Eye brings three sons to show before the kingsmoot."
"Bastards and mongrels. How old is this daughter?"
"Twelve," said Hotho. "Fair and fertile, newly flowered, with hair the color of honey. Her breasts are small as yet, but she has good hips. She takes after her mother, more than me."
Victarion knew that to mean the girl did not have a hump. Yet when he tried to picture her, he only saw the wife he'd killed. He had sobbed each time he struck her, and afterward carried her down to the rocks to give her to the crabs. "I will gladly look at the girl once I am crowned," he said. That was as much as Hotho dared hope for, and he shambled off content.
Baelor Blacktyde was more difficult to please. He sat by Vicfarion's elbow in his lambswool tunic of black and green vairy and plush sable cloak, looking more a green land lord than an ironman. "Balon was mad, Aeron is madder, and Euron is maddest of them all," he said. "What of you, Lord Captain? If I shout your name will you make an end of this mad war?"
Victarion frowned. "Would you have me bend the knee?"
"If need be. We cannot stand alone against all Westerns. King Robert proved that, to our grief. Balon would pay the iron price for freedom, he said, but our women bought Salon's crowns with empty beds. My mother was one such. The Old Way is dead."
"What is dead can never die, but rises harder and stronger. In a hundred years men will sing of Balon the Bold."
"Balon the Widowmaker, call him. I will gladly trade his freedom for a father. Have you one to give me?"
When Victarion did not answer, Blacktyde snorted and moved off.
The tent grew hot and smoky. Two of Gorold Goodbrother's sons knocked a table over fighting; Will Humble lost a wager and had to eat his boot; Little Lenwood Tawney fiddled whilst Romny Weaver sang "The Bloody Cup" and "Steel Rain" and the other old reaving songs. Qarl the Maid and Eldred Codd danced the finger dance. A roar of laughter went up when one of Eldred's fingers landed in Ralf the Limper's wine cup.
A woman was amongst those laughing. Victarion rose and saw her by the tent flap, whispering something in the ear of Qarl the Maid that made him laugh as well. He had hoped she would not be fool enough to come here, yet the sight of her made him smile all the same. "Asha, "he called in a commanding voice. "Niece."
She made her way to his side, lean and lithe in high boots of salt-stained leather, green woolen breeches and brown quilted tunic, a sleeveless leather jerkin half unlaced. "Nuncle." Asha Greyjoy was tall for a woman, yet she had to stand on her toes to kiss his cheek. "I am pleased to see you at my queensmoot."
"Queensmoot?" Victarron had to laugh. "Are you drunk, niece? Sit. I did not spy your Black Wind on the strand."
"I beached her beneath Nome Goodbrother's castle and rode across the island." She sat upon a stool, and helped herself unasked to Nute the Barber's wine. Nute raised no objection he had passed out drunk some time ago. "Who holds the Moat?"
"Ralf Kenning. With the Young Wolf dead, only the bog devils remain to plague us."