Varys folded his hands and inclined his head. "Lord Hand, you've given us back the will to win. King's Landing is unbreakable."
Tyrion slid off his chair, limped over to fetch a flagon and two cups, and poured as he spoke. "What I fear most is a traitor within the walls. A friend once told me that strongholds are most often taken from the inside."
Lord Gawen had said as much in the last Small Council before he sailed from the city (Ch. 186). At Tyrion's hint, Varys's eyes flickered.
Accepting the cup, Varys sipped and nodded. "Lord Gawen is a rare friend."
Tyrion drank, peering over the rim to study the eunuch's face. Hm. Looked honest enough.
"Well, then…"
Leaning a hip against the table, he asked plainly, "My friend, what's your aim?"
His gaze sharpened. "Why bring me this tale?"
Varys set the cup down and sighed. "My lord, I fear for the Queen Regent. From what I learn, the rumor is already loose within the Red Keep."
Tyrion swirled his wine, thinking. "And when my sister hears, what will she do? Will she believe it?"
Varys sighed again. "That is the very thing I fear. We both know the Queen Regent prefers her feelings to reasoned surmise."
He added softly, "In such disorder, the Crab Claw must be kept steady."
Tyrion drummed his fingers. "In truth, everyone knows Lord Gawen is the keenest sword in Cersei's hand—everyone but Cersei."
Varys dipped his head. "So long as the Crab Claw stands firm—even doing nothing—it binds Dragonstone. I suspect that is why this mischief began in the first place."
Tyrion tasted the summerwine. "Given her nature, she'll command him back to court—sense be damned."
He glanced at Varys's now-grave face. "Tell me, should Lord Gawen come?"
The pupils narrowed. After a silence, Varys said helplessly, "There's no other way, my lord."
One of Tyrion's brows climbed. "Your reasoning, Lord Varys?"
Varys spoke carefully. "In short order you seized the city's tiller and—while holding the helm—struck a delicate balance with the Queen Regent. One must admire your art."
Tyrion grinned. "But?"
Varys's eyes widened a fraction, then he smiled. "Cersei may stomach you awhile for war's sake. Lord Gawen she will not. Whether or not she knows he is her sharpest blade, he is hers—a sworn vassal—and she will brook no mediation from you."
Tyrion shrugged. "The lioness's roar—it's a family matter. Fairly said."
"Borrowing Ser Jaime's words," Varys murmured, "loyalty fears no trial. When Lord Gawen stands before her, her doubts will die."
"I put more faith in Gawen's bedside manners with my sister," Tyrion said, smiling.
Light moved in Varys's eyes. "I hear her temper runs high today. Perhaps you might help the Queen Regent… proactively."
Tyrion's eyes quivered; his grin widened. Varys's smile deepened in turn.
Western coast of the North, the Stony Shore — aboard the warship Deep-Drinker
The gray-haired veteran said, "This is a day for victory, yet there's no smile on your face. The living should laugh—dead men cannot, boy."
To prove the point, he smiled himself.
His name was Dagmer, and the ugly twist of his mouth tugged at a thousand memories in Theon—childhood rides on a shaggy pony over lichen-crusted walls, the thunk of axes biting a target, catching Dagmer's blade on his own, a gull's wing clipped mid-flight by his shaft, a longship's tiller held firm through snarled reefs. That crooked smile had been with him through it all—more than his father's, more than Eddard Stark's.
"By rights," Theon snapped, "my sister's task should have been mine. We're going to talk, Uncle Dagmer."
Uncle only by courtesy. Dagmer was but one of Balon's men, said to carry a thread of Greyjoy blood from some furtive tumble four or five generations back. No matter—Theon had always called him uncle.
Dagmer's mouth turned wry. "The Stark boy is your friend. They kept you ten years, Theon."
"I am no Stark," Theon said, eyes hard. "I am Greyjoy. I am heir to the Iron Islands. If I don't win a shining prize, how will the ironborn accept their prince?"
"Our charge is raiding the Stony Shore," Dagmer tried again. "You're young. There'll be battles enough."
"To raid and harry—that's all," Theon said slyly. "So what difference who does it? You're bored of the reaving game yourself, are you not, Uncle?"
Dagmer hesitated, tempted despite himself. "What do you mean to do?"
Theon's mouth curled. "If my sister can take a castle, so can I."
Dagmer drained his horn and tossed it aside. "Asha has four, five times your men."
Theon lifted his chin. "Asha is only a woman, and I've four times her cunning and five times her courage."
Asha is no common woman, Dagmer thought, but he let it pass. Ironborn wanted a king, not a queen.
"And your father…?"
"When I lay a whole kingdom at his feet," Theon cut in, "he'll thank me."
Pride blazed in his face. "What I do will be sung for a thousand years."
The old eyes brightened. Hair might whiten and teeth loosen, but the itch for glory never dulled.
"What part do I play?" Dagmer asked.
"To fill their hearts with fear, only your name will do…" Theon leaned close. "Draw Winterfell's garrison away, Dagmer."
Winterfell, three days later
"Maester Luwin, I dreamed of the raven again—the one with three eyes. It flew into my chamber and told me to come."
Maester Luwin tossed a log on the fire. "Bran, heed me—refuse it."
Bran Stark wore his mother's Tully coloring—chestnut hair and blue eyes. Since his fall from the broken tower (Ch. 149) he had lived, but lost the use of his legs. Servants bore him now.
He only nodded at Luwin's counsel, saying nothing.
The maester sighed. "Bran, dreams have no meaning."
"I heard the Children of the Forest know about dreams," Bran said, stubborn as only nine can be.
"The Children," Luwin said gently, "exist only in dreams. They are gone."
"What's this?" piped a small voice.
Luwin's study was a chaos of learning—books stacked higher than a boy's head, shelves of jars, furniture spattered with old candle-wax, star charts on the walls, rushes strewn with maps, quills and inkwells everywhere.
Four-year-old Rickon Stark stared wide-eyed at the black, glossy arrowhead he had fished from a pile.
"Glass—dragon glass?" Bran guessed.
"Its proper name is obsidian," Luwin corrected. "The gods' fires forged it in the earth's deep places."
"In elder days, the Children hunted with it—arrows and blades of black glass." He nodded to Rickon. "Careful. It's keen—don't cut yourself."
"Tell me of the Children," Bran said.
"What would you know?"
"Everything."
Luwin tugged at his collar of linked metals and began. "They lived in the Dawn Age, rulers before kings and kingdoms. No castles, no villages, no markets—only the Children upon the land we call the Seven Kingdoms. How long they ruled, whence they came—no man knows.
"They were small and beautiful and dark of countenance, quick and graceful, dwelling in deep woods, caves, fens, and secret towns high in the trees. They hunted with bows of weirwood and with nets, men and women alike. They worshiped the nameless old gods of forest and stream and stone. Their wise were the greenseers, who carved faces on weirwoods to watch over the wild."
"Some twelve thousand years ago the First Men came—on horseback with bronze swords and great leather shields—crossing from the east by the Arm of Dorne, then unbroken.
"They felled the heart trees for hearths and houses. War followed. The First Men were taller and stronger, and wood, stone, and obsidian could not match bronze; the Children bled.
"The songs say the greenseers raised the seas to shatter the Arm of Dorne—but too late. The slaughter went on until chiefs and heroes of the First Men met greenseers and wood-dancers of the Children upon the Isle of Faces in the Gods Eye, where they forged the Pact."
"A pact?" Bran asked. "What kind?"
"The First Men took coasts and plains and mountains and marshes; the forests were forever the Children's, and no man might cut a weirwood again.
"So ended the Dawn Age and began the Age of Heroes—and four thousand years of friendship. In time the First Men even set aside the gods they brought from the east to worship the Children's old gods."
"Then why do you say the Children are gone?"
"So long as the First Men's realms endured, the Pact held. But a thousand years ago the tall, fair Andals crossed the Narrow Sea—steel in hand, seven-pointed stars on their breasts—and—"
Knocking, urgent and hard, rattled the door.
"Maester—riders from Torrhen's Square beg aid! Benfred Tallhart says sea raiders have fallen on them—their captain is called Dagmer!"
"Dagmer Cleftjaw of the Iron Islands?!"
At first light the next morning, Ser Rodrik Cassel marched with eight hundred gathered from Winterfell and its lands. Only token men remained behind the walls.
Two dawns later, Theon came silent as shadow to a stretch of Winterfell's wall with some few dozen ironborn. A smile cut his face.
Under his lead, they slipped the moat unseen and crept up to the base of the curtain. Theon watched, neck craned, then signed with his hand.
Lean men opened their sacks and drew forth iron claws and coils of rope. Ropes slung, they ran, sprang, and bit deep into the mortar joints—again and again—until one by one they breasted the parapet.
Ropes flopped down in turn. With a grand sweep of his arm, Theon sent the rest up after them.
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