Fire & Blood (A Targaryen History #1) - George R.R. Martin Page 0,279

one lord or another, only for them to fall in battle. With winter at hand, strong backs and willing hands would be welcome in many a hearth and home.

In the end, more than a thousand northmen accompanied Black Aly and her nephew Lord Benjicot when they returned to the riverlands after the royal wedding. “A wolf for every widow,” Mushroom japed, “he will warm her bed in winter, and gnaw her bones come spring.” Yet hundreds of marriages were made at the so-called Widow Fairs held at Raventree, Riverrun, Stoney Sept, the Twins, and Fairmarket. Those northmen who did not wish to marry instead swore their swords to lords both great and small as guards and men-at-arms. A few, sad to say, did turn to outlawry and met evil ends, but for the most part, Lady Alysanne’s matchmaking was a great success. The resettled northmen not only strengthened the riverlords who welcomed them, particularly House Tully and House Blackwood, but also helped revive and spread the worship of the old gods south of the Neck.

Other northerners chose to seek new lives and fortunes across the narrow sea. A few days after Lord Stark stepped down as the King’s Hand, Ser Marston Waters returned alone from Lys, whence he had been sent to hire sellswords. He gladly accepted a pardon for his past crimes, and reported that the Triarchy had collapsed. On the point of war, the Three Daughters were hiring free companies as fast as they could form, at wages he could not hope to match. Many of Lord Cregan’s northmen saw this as an opportunity. Why return to a land gripped by winter to freeze or starve when there was gold to be had across the narrow sea? Not one but two free companies were birthed as a result. The Wolf Pack, commanded by Hallis Hornwood, called Mad Hal, and Timotty Snow, the Bastard of Flint’s Finger, was made up entirely of northmen, whilst the Stormbreakers, financed and led by Ser Oscar Tully, included men from every part of Westeros.

Even as these adventurers prepared to take their leave of King’s Landing, others were arriving from every point of the compass for Prince Aegon’s coronation and the royal wedding. From the west came Lady Johanna Lannister and her father, Roland Westerling, Lord of the Crag; from the south, twoscore Hightowers from Oldtown, led by Lord Lyonel and the redoubtable Lady Samantha, his father’s widow. Though forbidden to wed, their passion for one another had become common knowledge by this time, and so great a scandal that the High Septon refused to travel with them, arriving three days later in the company of the Lords Redwyne, Costayne, and Beesbury.

Lady Elenda, the widow of Lord Borros, remained at Storm’s End with her infant son, but sent her daughters Cassandra, Ellyn, and Floris to represent House Baratheon. (Maris, the fourth daughter, had joined the silent sisters, Septon Eustace informs us. In Mushroom’s account, this was done after her lady mother had her tongue removed, but that grisly detail can be safely discounted. The persistent belief that the silent sisters are tongueless is no more than a myth; it is piety that keeps the sisters silent, not red-hot pincers.) Lady Baratheon’s father, Royce Caron, Lord of Nightsong and Marshal of the Marches, escorted the girls to the city, and would remain with them as their guardian.

Alyn Velaryon came ashore as well, and the Manderly brothers returned once more from White Harbor with a hundred knights in blue-green cloaks. Even from across the narrow sea they came, from Braavos and Pentos, all three of the Daughters, Old Volantis. From the Summer Isles appeared three tall black princes in feathered cloaks, whose splendor was a wonder to behold. Every inn and stable in King’s Landing was soon full, whilst outside the walls a city of tents and pavilions arose for those unable to find accomodations. A great deal of drinking and fornication took place, claims Mushroom; a great deal of prayer and fasting and good works, reports Septon Eustace. The tavernkeepers of the city waxed fat and happy for a time, as did the whores of Flea Bottom, and their sisters in the fine houses along the Street of Silk, though the common people complained about the noise and stink.

A desperate, fragile air of forced fellowship hung over King’s Landing in the days leading up to the wedding, for many of those crowding cheek by jowl into the city’s wine sinks and pot shops