arse of Westeros” (as Lord Alyn was wont to call it) could fill a mighty tome all by themselves. For those seeking the details of the voyage, Maester Bendamure’s Six Times to Sea: Being an Account of the Great Voyages of Alyn Oakenfist remains the most complete and authoritative source, though the vulgar accounts of Lord Alyn’s life called Hard as Oak and Bastard Born are colorful and engrossing in their ways, albeit unreliable. The former was written by Ser Russell Stillman, who squired for his lordship as a youth and was later knighted by him before losing a leg during Oakenfist’s fifth voyage, the latter by a woman known only as Rue, who may or may not have been a septa, and may or may not have become one of his lordship’s paramours. We shall not echo their work here, save in the broadest strokes.
Oakenfist displayed considerably more caution on his return to the Stepstones than he had on his previous visit. Wary of the ever-shifting alliances and studied treacheries of the Free Cities, he sent scouts ahead in the guise of fishing boats and merchantmen to discover what awaited him. They reported that the fighting on the islands had largely died away, with a resurgent Racallio Ryndoon holding Bloodstone and all the isles to the south, whilst Pentoshi sellswords in the hire of the Archon of Tyrosh controlled those rocks to the north and east. Many of the channels between the islands were closed by booms, or blocked by the hulks of ships sunk during Lord Alyn’s attack. Such waterways as remained open were controlled by Ryndoon and his rogues. Lord Alyn was thus confronted with a simple choice; he must needs fight his way past “Queen Racallio” (as the Archon had named him) or treat with him.
Little has been written in the Common Tongue about this strange and extraordinary adventurer, Racallio Ryndoon, but in the Free Cities his life has been the subject of two scholarly studies and uncounted numbers of songs, poems, and vulgar romances. In his native city, Tyrosh, his name remains anathema to men and women of good blood to this very day, whilst being revered by thieves, pirates, whores, drunkards, and their ilk.
Surprisingly little is known of his youth, and much of what we believe we know is false or contradictory. He was six-and-a-half feet tall, supposedly, with one shoulder higher than another, giving him a stooped posture and a rolling gait. He spoke a dozen dialects of Valyrian, suggesting that he was highborn, but he was infamously foul-mouthed too, suggesting that he came from the gutters. In the fashion of many Tyroshi, he was wont to dye his hair and beard. Purple was his favorite color (hinting at the possibility of a tie to Braavos), and most accounts of him make mention of long curling purple hair, oft streaked with orange. He liked sweet scents and would bathe in lavender or rosewater.
That he was a man of enormous ambition and enormous appetites seems clear. He was a glutton and a drunkard when at leisure, a demon when in battle. He could wield a sword with either hand, and sometimes fought with two at once. He honored the gods: all gods, everywhere. When battle threatened, he would throw the bones to choose which god to placate with a sacrifice. Though Tyrosh was a slave city, he hated slavery, suggesting that perhaps he himself had come from bondage. When wealthy (he gained and lost several fortures) he would buy any slave girl who caught his eye, kiss her, and set her free. He was open-handed with his men, claiming a share of plunder no greater than the least of them. In Tyrosh, he was known to toss gold coins to beggars. If a man admired something of his, be it a pair of boots, an emerald ring, or a wife, Racallio would press it on him as a gift.
He had a dozen wives and never beat them, but would sometimes command them to beat him. He loved kittens and hated cats. He loved pregnant women, but loathed children. From time to time he would dress in women’s clothes and play the whore, though his height and crooked back and purple beard made him more grotesque than female to the eye. Sometimes he would burst out laughing in the thick of battle. Sometimes he would sing bawdy songs instead.
Racallio Ryndoon was mad. Yet his men loved him, fought for him, died for him.