Dragonstone's harbour had never looked so small.
Jon stood beside the steering platform while the first of their ships turned towards the quay. Beyond her, fishing boats crowded close to shore, their crews watching the procession come in. Four captured hulls followed the merchants. The larger western prize still bore a ragged gap in her rail; farther back, the three galleys sworn to Jon's service flew Vhalar's blue banners, with Denys's ships between them. From the shore, it must have looked as though they had brought half the Stepstones home.
A cheer went up from one of the fishing boats. Someone aboard the flagship answered with a name and an insult, and laughter travelled along the rail.
Jon smiled. He had wanted to see this harbour full of his ships. He had spent hours drawing berths for vessels he did not possess, counting what each would cost to build and wondering where he would find the hands to sail her. Now oars rose out of the water one rank after another, and men he had never expected to command waited upon Denys's signals.
There was silver beneath the hatches, and strongboxes whose locks Abel would want opened before he believed any account of them. There were stores they could use, cargoes they could sell and sailors who knew waters his own men had scarcely seen. On the merchant decks, people climbed upon coils of rope to look past the shoulders in front of them.
He followed their gaze upwards.
The castle rose black above the roofs, its carved wings reaching from towers that no mason alive could make again. Higher still, a white wisp drifted from Dragonmont. He had grown used to that view since coming here. Today he could almost see it as the strangers did: a mountain breathing over a castle full of dragons, with a town huddled beneath its claws.
And all the ground beyond those roofs was his to build upon.
Arthur came to stand beside him, his arm resting in its sling. For a little while neither spoke.
"You'll need a larger harbour," the knight said.
"I needed one before we left." Jon looked towards the shore again. "Now I have more to put in it."
Aurane was waiting with Ethan below the castle road. Even at this distance Jon recognised his pale hair and the bandage round his hand. His boat had reached shore well ahead of them; carts stood behind the waiting people, and garrison men had kept a broad passage through the crowd. A woman hurried along it carrying blankets. Wylla followed her, stopped to speak to a carter, then turned towards the approaching ship.
Jon raised his sound hand. She saw him and stood very still before lifting hers.
The crew brought them alongside. Ropes slapped wetly against the quay, the hull settled against her fenders and, as soon as the gangplank was secured, Lorren came aboard with two helpers. Alasdair met him beside the wounded. One of the two badly hurt household men woke when they moved his pallet and tried to sit up; the companion beside him bent close, speaking into his ear until he lay back.
Jon went to them. Lorren was already examining the dressing.
"The beds are ready above," the healer told him. "I'll take these two first."
"Keep their companions with them. Send for me if either worsens."
Lorren nodded without looking up. Jon left him room to work and went ashore.
Ethan caught his left arm before Jon could greet him. The castellan's eyes travelled over his face, down to the bound hand and back again.
"Welcome home, my lord."
"It's good to be here."
For a moment Ethan held on. Then he released him, looking past Jon as the first bearers came down.
"Aurane brought what we needed. We've room for the worst wounded in the castle. Lorren has more beds below for the others."
"And the people aboard the merchants?"
"Tobin is clearing the stores by the harbour. Wylla has women seeing to food."
"They must all be under a roof tonight. Take names as they're settled, and find out who has kin elsewhere. Perkin has what we've learnt on the voyage."
"I'll speak with him."
"The fighting prisoners and the pirates who chose labour stay under guard. Marros is to keep them apart from the freed people. Otho can have their work once they're counted and fed."
Ethan acknowledged that with a short nod. He glanced towards the incoming galleys. "And those?"
"Denys has command of them. Four prizes and three in sworn service. Their accounts can wait until we've landed everyone."
Wylla reached him before Ethan could answer. She put both hands upon Jon's shoulders, searched his face, then drew him against her. He could smell soap in her sleeves. He had meant to say something reassuring; instead he stood there with his good hand at her back while she held him.
When she stepped away, she took the wounded hand carefully.
"How deep?"
"Deep enough to make writing troublesome. It's closing."
"Lorren will see it again." Her thumb rested beside the linen, well clear of the cut. "And you will eat something before you begin asking for every man in the castle."
"I've no intention of starving in my own home."
She gave him a look at that, but she was smiling now. Then Arthur came down, and her smile vanished at the sight of his sling.
"Your shoulder?"
"Bruised. Nothing broken."
"You can both tell Lorren how little is wrong with you."
A sailor pushed past them with his cap in his hand. The silver-haired woman waiting beyond the carts struck him on the shoulder, caught him round the neck and began to cry into his coat. He held her without speaking. Farther along, a little boy ran towards a man whose arm was bound against his chest, stopped short and waited to be shown where he could touch him.
Jon moved aside as the next stretcher passed. Behind it came Garon and Elyas, looking about for familiar faces. Across the water, Corwyn was calling something from the larger prize; a boatman shouted back that he would have to wait his turn.
The harbour grew noisier as the morning wore on. Men called from ship to shore, women searched the landing parties and children followed the carts until the guards turned them back. Abel's clerks took charge of the strongboxes as they came off, while Denys settled the order in which the merchants would unload. Their masters were already asking when they could return to their own trade.
Brus brought his twenty-two rowers to receive the pay promised them. Some had bundled their belongings; others stayed to speak with Denys about work aboard Jon's ships. Jon watched one man count his coins twice before wrapping them in a scrap of cloth. Brus said something to him, and the man laughed, showing a broken tooth. He tucked the money away and went towards the town without a guard following him.
Tero found Jon beside the last of the carts. The caulker carried their bundle in his good hand, with Merra close behind him. She looked past Jon towards the men along the wall.
"He's still here?"
"He is. Ethan will take you to him."
She caught her brother's sleeve. Tero shifted the bundle and put his arm round her. Jon called Ethan aside before they followed him.
"Pello's mate. Have them brought to him. The guard stays."
The rescued passengers were slower to leave the landing place. A woman sat upon her bundle even after she had finished eating. Two men argued over the direction of a home neither had seen for years. Near the wall, a girl clutched an empty bowl while Wylla tried to persuade her to stand.
"There's a room ready," Wylla told her. "You can rest."
The girl looked towards the building she indicated.
"Door?"
"A door. Come and see."
Wylla offered her hand. After a moment the girl took it.
Later, going up to the castle, Jon passed the yard where the prisoners were held. Merra sat beside her man upon a bench. Their foreheads touched; his hands lay in hers, and the chain between his ankles rested upon the ground. Tero stood a little way off, looking out through the gate. He saw Jon and bowed his head.
Jon returned the greeting and went on.
By evening, Jon had reached the castle, washed and changed, and begun receiving the families of the island men who would not come home.
The sailor's mother would not take the chair Jon offered. Her grandson stood against her skirts, holding a fistful of the cloth. He had been crying before they came in; his nose ran, and he kept wiping it on his sleeve.
"There's men still coming up from the harbour," she said. "I saw them. Some of the ships haven't emptied yet."
Denys came forward from the window.
"Your son was killed beside the transports. The men with him—"
"Then ask someone else."
"They carried him under shelter. They stayed with him."
She stared at Denys, then looked past him towards the window. Outside, a cart rattled over the stones.
"I want him brought here."
The boy pulled at her gown. She shook him off without looking down.
"Do you hear me? Go and fetch him."
"He died of his wounds," Denys said.
"No." She caught his sleeve in both hands. "No, you listen. He's got a little boy. Look at him."
Denys looked. The child had begun to cry again, silently at first, his mouth open and his face wet. He reached for his grandmother's hand, but she was pulling at Denys now, trying to turn him towards the door.
"Fetch him. I'll wait here. I'll wait."
"Gran."
She struck Denys in the chest with the heel of her hand. He took hold of her wrist before she could strike him again. She tried to wrench free, stumbled against the chair and screamed for her son. The boy flinched from her. When a guard appeared in the doorway, Jon raised his hand.
"Send Wylla here."
The woman was on her knees now. Denys bent to help her, but she pushed him away, sobbing so hard she could scarcely get the words out.
"My boy. I want my boy."
Her grandson stood beside her, crying aloud. He tugged at her shoulder, then looked at Jon.
"She won't get up."
Jon crouched beside him. "Stay here. Someone's coming to help her."
The child pulled at her again. "Gran, please."
At last she turned and dragged him against her. He struggled in the tight embrace, crying that she was hurting him. She loosened her arms, but would not let go. By the time Wylla arrived, he had buried his face against her neck.
Wylla knelt with them. It took some time to get the woman to her feet. She refused the chair again and left leaning upon Wylla, her grandson clutching her hand. Jon could hear her weeping long after they had gone down the passage.
He sent Ethan to see that someone stayed with them that night, and to take the wages owed and grain to their house in the morning.
Others followed. A wife asked who had stood beside her husband. A father made Jon repeat an answer he seemed unable to retain. One man left without taking his son's purse, and Ethan went after him into the passage.
The supper left for Jon had gone cold by the time Alasdair joined him. The captain set Fergus's bundle beside his chair and unfolded a letter. There was a blot near the top of the first sheet; the writing grew smaller towards the bottom of the second.
"I've written to his mother too," Jon told him. "Read mine before it goes."
Alasdair nodded, but kept looking at his own pages.
"I keep remembering things she won't know. Things he did here."
"Put them in."
"It's already two sheets."
"Then use a third."
Jon pushed the lamp nearer. Alasdair reached for the ink, and they stayed at the table until the candles in the hall were being put out.
* * *
The household dressed together before the service.
There was less noise than Jon remembered from other mornings. A buckle fell beneath a bed. Somebody asked for a brush, and three men offered him one. Alasdair had laid Fergus's sword across the folded cloak they would send north. He moved it when Colin reached for the bench, then moved it back after Colin had found somewhere else to sit.
Tomas stood while Gawen straightened his collar. He had been left on Dragonstone to recover from his own injury. Yesterday he had demanded every account of the fighting, interrupting one man to question another. This morning he had nothing to ask.
"He was meant to tell me," he said at last.
Gawen's hands stilled.
"When he came back. What the fighting was like." Tomas looked towards the bundle. "He said he'd leave out the part where he shat himself."
Colin laughed once, before he could stop it. Alasdair bent his head. For a moment Jon thought the captain would laugh too, but when he raised his face his eyes were wet.
"He'd have left out a great deal," Alasdair said.
Jon sat on the end of the bench. He remembered Fergus as a smaller boy, fierce in defence of some possession none of the others wanted until he began defending it. Now the boy's things fitted inside a cloak. He had known men in his first life whose belongings had gone home in much the same way. That knowledge offered him nothing useful to say to Tomas.
He put his good hand upon the young knight's shoulder and sat with him until the others were ready.
Outside, the castle yard had filled. The sailors stood with their kin; the centuries gathered behind their officers, leaving places where wounded men could sit. Some had insisted upon coming down from the chambers prepared for them. Lorren had permitted those he thought fit and refused the rest, and Jon had upheld him. Two of the household remained upstairs. Wylla had promised that someone would sit with each while the others were below.
The representatives stood together near the steps. Corwyn's wrist was freshly wrapped. Beside him, Brus held Donnel's belongings. The knight said something too quietly for Jon to hear, and Brus nodded.
There were no bodies to bring home. Jon had told the families that himself. A black cloth lay over a table beneath the wall, with a place for the things that remained. Alasdair set down Fergus's sword. Other men came after him, some with bundles, one with nothing but a belt wound around his fist.
The septon prayed for those who had followed the Seven. When he had finished, the Northerners stood in silence for their own dead. Jon looked across the heads before him towards the dark slope of the mountain. The wind moved through the yard, lifting a corner of the cloth until Alasdair caught it.
Perkin read the names. At each one, a man from the dead man's company stepped forward. By the end their companions stood shoulder to shoulder around the table.
Jon had prepared words in his chamber. He found he wanted to look at the men instead of the sheet.
"You brought your wounded out of Bloodstone," he began. "You carried men who could no longer stand, and held the ground while they were brought behind you. Some of those who held it are named here."
He could see Gerralt among the officers. Farther back, a sailor had put his arm around a woman who kept her face pressed against his shoulder.
"I gave the order to land. These men went ashore in my service. Their families will receive their wages and the reward earned upon that voyage. Those who depended upon them will have help from my household. You will not have to stand at my gate begging for what is owed."
He turned towards the men beside the table.
"You know things about them that I do not. How they worked. What they said when they were tired. Who they quarrelled with, and who they went to when they needed a friend. Tell their families. Write it if they are far away. I will send the letters."
Alasdair was looking at him now.
"We trained to come through such a fight together. Most of us did. We will learn from the men we lost, and we will keep faith with the people they left to us."
Jon stepped down. The sailor's mother he had met the night before stood near the front, her eyes swollen and her shawl slipping from one shoulder. Her grandson leaned against her leg. When one of his father's shipmates crouched to speak to him, the boy hid his face in her gown. She laid a hand upon his head and left it there. Jon greeted her, then stayed while the others came forward.
Food had been laid in the hall. Men ate with their families, and the returning household found themselves surrounded by those who had stayed behind. The first stories were hesitant. Then Garon corrected a sailor's account of a bowman who had refused to leave his perch, and the bowman, sitting three places down, objected so loudly that half the bench turned to hear.
"I was waiting for a clear shot."
"You were waiting for someone to carry your arrows."
"Well, you were there."
Garon spread his hands. Elyas laughed into his cup. Jon saw a few of the men who had stood rigid through the service begin to eat properly.
The great doors remained open. Light reached across the rushes and the ends of the benches; farther inside, servants moved beneath the carved beasts of Dragonstone with jugs and fresh loaves. The castle had held grander feasts. Jon doubted many had been so welcome. For the first time since the landing at Bloodstone, his men could leave a sword out of reach without looking for it every few moments.
He had Abel bring the rewards before the meal ended.
Every man who had sailed with him for Bloodstone would receive an additional month's pay. The dead men's portions went with their wages to their kin. Those still too badly hurt to return to duty would remain upon the rolls while they recovered; where a wound ended a man's soldiering, Jon would find him another place in his service. Perkin had already begun asking Lorren which men might teach, keep stores or work without worsening their injuries.
The cheer came from the lower benches, ragged at first, then taken up by men who had been discussing what the captured chests might contain since they came aboard. One sailor put down his cup and counted something upon his fingers. Beside him, his wife caught his hand and began counting for him.
Jon smiled at that. He wanted them to enjoy the money. Some would drink it; some would send it home; a few would buy a better coat and discover that it attracted more notice than a spear. They had earned the choice.
He called the four representatives forward before the hall broke up.
Garon looked surprised. Corwyn rose more carefully, keeping his wrapped wrist against his chest. Aurane glanced towards Elyas and found the other man as uncertain as himself.
"Your houses sent you with me," Jon told them. "I will tell them how you served."
He named Garon's run back for the bowmen, Elyas's work aboard the ships, Corwyn's service with Brus in the western harbour. When he came to Aurane, several of the men carried off in the last ferry lifted their cups.
"You brought the boat back when we needed it," Jon said. "I have not forgotten."
Four purses lay upon Abel's tray, twenty dragons in each. Jon gave them out himself. Their houses had sent no fighting ships and would receive no portion of the prizes for sending representatives. These men had stood in danger with his own, and he intended that their lords should hear it from him.
Corwyn closed his sound hand around the purse. "My lord."
His bow was stiff. Jon returned it with a nod, and called for wine.
The departures began the next morning. Denys had arranged passages for Sharp Point, Sweetport Sound and Claw Isle, keeping the gentlemen out of the way of ships still being unloaded. Aurane would make the shorter crossing to Driftmark and return after his visit. He was coming back to duty; the others were going home with accounts their lords had been waiting to hear.
Jon met them in the yard before they rode down.
Garon had acquired a better cloak and was trying to fasten his bag around a roll of papers. "Lady Mylenda will ask whether she should send a merchant to look at your goods."
"If she has one worth sending. Marrec will hear him when the lots are ready."
"She has three. None will thank me if I choose the other."
"Then let her choose."
Garon grinned and accepted his letter. Elyas asked after the star tables they had discussed aboard. Jon promised that a copy could follow once his own men had finished with them. The knight's pleasure was plain enough that Aurane nudged him with an elbow.
Corwyn waited until the other two had stepped aside.
"Denys has put his man over the prize," he said.
"You brought her home. He has her now."
"Aye." Corwyn looked down at the sealed letter Jon held out. "Will Lord Ardrian find my account agrees with yours?"
"You were in the western harbour. Tell him what you saw there."
The knight met his eyes. "Including what followed."
"Including that."
Jon let him take the letter. He had no intention of asking Corwyn to admire Vhalar or conceal his own objections. The man had obeyed when obedience had become disagreeable. Jon could value that without courting his approval.
"Brus spoke well of you," he added. "So have I."
Corwyn's expression altered. He tucked the letter beneath his cloak before bowing again.
They mounted. Aurane lingered beside his horse while the others settled themselves.
"Monford will want to know everything."
"Then tell him."
"He'll ask what you mean to do next."
Jon looked past him towards the harbour. The damaged prizes crowded the anchorage, and above the shore the unfinished yard stood open to the weather.
"For a start, make use of what we've brought home."
He watched them ride through the gate. At the bend Garon raised a hand. Aurane turned in the saddle, his silver hair bright in the morning light, then followed the others down the road.
Ethan waited until they were out of sight.
"The masters are here."
Jon turned back towards the keep. "Then we'll begin."
* * *
They had put the silver beneath the narrow windows of the council chamber.
The coin had already gone to the strongroom. Abel had kept out a few pieces of each kind: worn stags, heavy foreign silver, a thin gold coin with an unfamiliar face rubbed almost smooth. Beside them stood a broad platter, two cups and a little bowl with a dent driven through its flowers. They had been wrapped for the voyage in cloth finer than anything most of Jon's soldiers owned.
He picked up the bowl with his left hand. Its foot was uneven. Someone had tried to hammer it straight without taking much care over the work.
"Thirty-eight thousand dragons," Abel told him.
Jon looked up.
"Reckoned in gold dragons," the treasurer added. "Thirty thousand in the coins, once the foreign pieces are reckoned by weight. Another eight thousand in plate and the saleable goods, at the prices Marrec believes we can obtain."
"Believes?"
Marrec drew the platter towards him. "This will fetch more whole than melted. The plain silver may not. A man buying a cargo of cloth will want his bargain, and I won't have one buyer name the price for all of it."
Thirty-eight thousand. The haul was worth more than the treasure they had found on Dragonstone. Jon set down the bowl and looked over the account again. There were sums beside the contents of the six eastern coin chests, more beside the money brought out of Moreo's strongroom. The plate occupied a separate sheet. He remembered the men labouring down the steps with it while others held Rolo back, the weight that had made every stumble dangerous. Here it lay in tidy columns beneath Abel's hand.
He could pay for timber before another buyer carried it away. He could bring craftsmen across the water with something better than a promise of future wages. Foundations that had waited while he chose which shortage to meet first could rise above the ground.
"There was more we could have brought away," Denys said. "Another day to empty the stores would have made this a longer reckoning."
Jon remembered how little room had remained in the last boats. He turned the sheet.
"And the ships?" Ethan asked.
"Not included," Abel replied. "Nor the books. I have put no price upon what our own people will use."
The distinction pleased Jon. Too many men would have counted every hull at the price of a sound ship and spent the same silver again in their heads.
Stewart had taken the books to a dry room. Some were accounts; others would have to wait upon a man who could read them. Denys had claimed the serviceable cordage and sailcloth for the ships. Arms were being sorted, sound pieces to the stores and damaged iron to Ewan. Goods that could be identified as another man's property were held apart. A merchant who could prove his claim would receive his goods, rather than pay Jon for the privilege of having been robbed by somebody else.
"Sell what we have no use for," Jon told Marrec. "In lots small enough to find more than one buyer. Keep the best cloth for the household's needs, and bring Abel the offers before you accept them."
He pushed the little bowl back towards the platter. He did not want a chamber crowded with another man's ornaments while his own masters waited for iron.
The table had been cleared for the rest of the business. Ethan sat at Jon's right, Arthur beside the hearth with his shoulder supported. Hewyn and Denys took places opposite one another. Otho arrived carrying the plans Jon had asked for, followed by Qavo and Naella. The shipwright gave the display of plate one incurious glance, then bent over the drawings as though the money would only become interesting when it purchased timber.
Abel waited until they had settled.
"Three thousand must be kept from the coin before we speak of new work. The outstanding hire, the rewards, the sums for the families and what is owed to the men. I have allowed room for further claims from the wounded."
"Keep it aside," Jon said. "The dead men's households are to have a year's wages in addition to the money already earned. Where that leaves children or an infirm parent without support, Ethan will see what more is needed."
Hewyn bowed his head slightly. Denys asked whether the same provision applied to his sailors.
"Every man lost in my service on this voyage."
Abel marked the account. What remained in coin was still more than Jon had expected to possess when he had set out. He let himself enjoy that for a moment before turning to Denys.
"Tell us what we can use."
The captain laid down a list of the ships, with notes in a hand much rougher than Abel's.
"Four prizes. I would keep all four, provided Qavo finds nothing worse when the damaged ones are opened. We paid enough to bring them here."
He touched the entry for the smaller western galley.
"She needs proper work upon the stern. The repair brought her home. It doesn't make her fit to chase another ship. The larger one wants a rail, oars and a number of lesser things. The eastern pair will be less trouble."
"Crews?"
"That is the greater trouble. Vhalar's three give us men as well as hulls, but I cannot put every sailor wherever I please and expect them to work together by tomorrow."
Jon could see Hewyn studying the list. The legion had rowed when there was no one else to do it. They had learnt what ignorance cost at a steering oar.
"The soldiers come ashore as the new crews take their places," Jon decided. "Keep the detachments aboard the three sworn ships. Take the rest out of the benches as soon as you can."
"I can begin with the men Brus freed. Several have asked to remain. Some of the people from the pens know ships as well."
"Offer them the usual pay. I want men who choose the work."
Denys nodded. "I also want time with the captains. Goro knows his business. So does Sallo. Moryn will need watching. None of them is accustomed to asking another man where he may sail."
"They'll become accustomed to it."
Arthur looked towards Jon, then back to the captain. There was no dispute to settle there. Denys had been given authority, and Jon expected him to exercise it.
They agreed that the first sound ships would take ordinary work close to the island. The crews needed to learn one another, and Denys needed to see who obeyed readily, who kept his mouth shut until an officer turned away, and who could be trusted with a boat full of stores. The damaged prizes would remain where the craftsmen could reach them. More distant voyages could wait.
"Five thousand dragons for the repairs, fitting out and stores," Jon told Abel. "Denys brings you the costs. Anything beyond that comes back to me."
"That will let us begin," Denys said. "If I can have the carpenters."
Qavo had been following through Naella. Now he spoke before she had quite finished.
"And when do I begin?" she translated.
Jon smiled. "That is the next matter."
Otho spread the yard drawing. They had to move the platter to make room. Qavo held down one corner with a calloused hand and pointed to the covered building in which the new ships were to be laid down.
The enclosure came first. Jon had agreed to that before the expedition, and the bargain still stood. No unfinished hull would be left open for every visiting sailor to study. Within the walls, Qavo and Moro would have room to work from the designs they had sworn to keep. Outside them, ordinary repairs could go on under other men.
"The first frames are cut," Otho said. "Woods can raise them when the iron fittings are finished. After that I need men roofing while the masons bring up the walls."
"Ewan has the order?"
"He has it. He also has the fittings for Bennard's hammer, work for the mill and half the damaged iron that has come off your ships."
"Finish the hammer and the first frames. We need Bennard's work at Saltcliffe and Eastcove as well as here. Marrec, keep him supplied with iron and charcoal until the mine can do its part. Noll can take the common repairs." Jon looked to Denys. "Send your needs through him. Qavo and Moro stay with the new ships. Use the carpenters who came with the prizes for work you can oversee."
Denys considered it, then nodded. Qavo asked a question through his daughter.
"What of another master? You promised to seek one."
Marrec answered this time. "I am seeking one. There are men willing to come. Few of them have built anything larger than a fishing boat."
"Then seek farther," Jon said. "The money is here now."
Qavo looked at him properly. For the first time since entering, he sat back from the drawing.
Jon had spent enough evenings with him to know what that silence meant. The old shipwright had heard fine intentions before. A house could want a fleet for twenty years and never put enough timber in one place to build it. Jon drew the account towards the yard plan, allowing the man to see both together.
"Ten thousand for the works," he told Abel. "The yard, the timber for the first two hulls, the forge work and the housing Otho needs to bring in more hands. Pay for what must be bought now. The rest is held until the work reaches it."
Qavo spoke to Naella, who pointed at the second building place. "He asks whether you still mean to wait upon the first ship's trials."
"Before we lay the second keel, yes. Buy the timber for both. We will know what needs changing before he begins her."
Otho lifted his eyes from the plan. "That includes the brick we could not afford?"
"And the roof timber. Finish the rows already begun. Cinderwell will supply us in time; the houses cannot wait for every kiln to be built."
"I could put the men on the roofs in Eastcove who are now waiting upon brick."
"Then do it."
Otho began turning through his sheets. Qavo was talking to Naella again, more quickly now, counting something upon his fingers. The room had changed. They were no longer telling Jon why a task had stopped. They were deciding which men to send to it.
He leaned over the harbour drawing beneath Otho's hand. Beyond the yard lay the shore he had reserved for later quays, storehouses and lifting frames. He could picture a laden merchantman lying against stone while a crane took her cargo straight into waiting carts. Ships would come for repairs and provisions, stay to buy what Dragonstone made, and carry the island's goods farther than any of its fishermen had travelled.
He had seen harbours in his first life that seemed to have no end. This one could not become such a place in a season. Yet he knew how much lay between an idle shore and a busy one, and for once he could meet more than a single part of the cost.
"The new quay follows the yard," he said. "I want its ground kept clear. Stores behind it, a road wide enough for the carts, and room for the lifting gear. Do not let somebody put a cheap shed across the place because it is empty today."
Otho looked almost offended. "It is on the drawing."
"It has been on drawings before."
Ethan laughed softly. Otho laid his palm over the proposed quay as though shielding it from an unseen builder, and Jon let the matter rest.
Hewyn had waited through the discussion of timber. Now he reached towards the edge of the table.
"My lord, those are men I will need back."
Otho stopped turning his sheets.
"You will have them," Jon told the primus pilus. "The legion has vacancies to fill and work to do before it sails again."
"I can train the thirteen already at Black Fields. They will not fill every place."
"Count them first, then take the remainder from Dragonstone. The dead men's places and those Lorren says cannot be filled by the men who held them. Do not strike a wounded man off because he needs another month to heal."
Hewyn nodded. "I will have the numbers with Perkin."
"And Rollam remains under the sentence already given," Jon added. "Being counted among the trainees changes nothing of that."
"My lord."
Otho waited until the primus pilus had finished. "You closed the ranks to the island because the building needed the men. It still does. If the new roofs make them think the work is done, I'll lose the best of them."
"I am opening the ranks because they are my people, and I need soldiers. You will have other hands."
Jon turned to Marrec.
"Six thousand dragons for purchases and passage. Valyrian men and women. I want skilled people for the works, and labourers to carry, dig and learn. Smiths, carpenters, masons, weavers, men who understand ropes and sails. Send men who know those trades to judge what they are buying."
Marrec's gaze moved to Abel. The treasurer had already dipped his pen.
"That will reach beyond the few enquiries we have made," the merchant said. "Lys will give us the best choice of the people you want. A master craftsman will cost more than several field hands."
"Then pay for a master when you find one. I want teachers as well as hands. Otho should not have to ask me for another man every time a mason falls ill."
"And the millwright who will not leave his family?"
"The terms we discussed stand, if he is worth the price. Do not make a whole household a condition of the other purchases. Buy the men and women we need."
Jon tapped the list beneath Marrec's hand. "Gella needs helpers at the salt works. So do the potters. Have Perrin give you their requirements. Ellyn's father cannot fill his old orders, teach her and train every new hand himself."
Marrec made a note. "And upon landing?"
"They are freed. Paid service, a place to live, and the same law as the people already here. Those admitted to the secret works take the masters' oaths. Make the terms known before they board."
Jon had no intention of filling his workshops with men waiting for the first chance to run from them. He could offer steady bread, wages and work worth learning. On an island where every industry wanted more hands, he had room to give an able person a future. He expected the bargain to attract enough of them.
"How many can we receive?" Marrec asked Ethan.
The castellan drew one of Otho's sheets towards him. "Not six thousand dragons' worth at once. We are still settling those already brought home."
He described the rooms now occupied near the harbour, the families placed with willing households and the unfinished houses that could be made ready first. Some of the freed people wanted passage away, and he was arranging it. Others had already asked for work. A carpenter had been given tools that morning; by noon two of the men lodging with him had followed him to Otho's foreman.
"Let the first party be sixty at most," Ethan said. "We can have room for them without putting another bed into every passage. Send notice before they sail. After the roofs are on, I can receive more."
Jon approved it. The money would be drawn as Marrec found people and passage, with enough left for their food on the voyage. There was no need to spend it all upon the first seller who heard that Dragonstone was buying.
"Those already here are to be placed first," he added. "Find out what they can do, and where they mean to stay. If a man has spent his life in a vineyard, he need not be sent to break stone because that is where someone happens to want him today."
"And the pirates ashore?" Otho asked.
"Marros keeps them under guard. Heavy work, in separate gangs. They do not choose their own movements, and they do not lodge with the people they helped enslave."
There was a short silence after that. Jon let it stand. He had made the distinction aboard and would not have it blurred for the convenience of a foreman.
Then he returned to the matter between Otho and Hewyn. Labourers whose work could be covered would enter training first. A craftsman admitted to the legion would remain at his trade until another man could take it. Otho and Hewyn were to settle those cases together, with Perkin marking when the man's military pay began. Neither was to spend the next month sending the same dispute up to the castle.
"You will both have more men when this is done," Jon finished. "For now, give one another enough time to make it work."
Hewyn put out his hand for Otho's sheet. The builder passed it over, reluctantly, and began naming the jobs that could not stop. Jon listened until he was satisfied they were discussing particular men. Then he turned back to Abel.
"Five thousand for the ships, ten for the works, six for the buyers. With the first three held for what we owe, that leaves six thousand of the coin untouched."
"It does," Abel replied. "And the proceeds of the goods, when sold."
"Keep the reserve. Grain, another bad voyage, something the men find when they open a hull. We will not have to halt everything because the first estimate was wrong."
The treasurer's face eased. Jon suspected the reserve had pleased him more than the entire heap of captured plate.
Stewart came in as Otho and Hewyn moved their chairs together. He waited beside Jon until the question about a mill cart had been settled, then put two letters into his hand.
"Lord Arryn's reply, my lord. And your father's. The second arrived yesterday."
The Hand had received both accounts of the vassals' gathering. He wanted the expedition's outcome and cautioned Jon against making a quarrel with Tyrosh. Ned referred to the copy Arryn had sent north. His letter was shorter, and more plainly worried. Jon read the last lines twice before folding it.
"Ethan has already sent word that we are home," he said. "Give them the report: the fighting, what we brought away, our losses and the men still recovering. Include Vhalar's submission and the limits upon his command. My father's copy is to carry the ships fit for service and the men under arms, as the king required."
"And the concerns raised by your vassals?"
"They will have the facts."
Stewart inclined his head. Jon would add a few private lines to Ned before the letters were sealed. There was no purpose in arguing an expedition already finished with men who had remained at home.
By the time the chamber emptied, the drawings had changed. Otho had marked the first houses to be roofed. Denys had taken the list of available carpenters. Marrec carried a commission large enough to justify sending trusted men across the sea instead of asking favours of passing captains. Qavo paused at the door to speak to his daughter.
"He asks whether he may send for the timber now," Naella told Jon.
"Today."
The old shipwright bowed. It was a small movement, soon over. Then he caught Moro waiting outside and began talking before his son had even fallen into step.
Denys had stayed behind with Ethan and Arthur. Jon waited for the voices in the passage to fade before asking about Myr.
"Nothing yet," Ethan said. "I would have told you."
"Arthur?"
"The enquiries have gone. I can send again, through another man."
"Do. We have the coin to pay for haste." Jon looked to Denys. "Keep a sound ship ready. When we know where the children are, I want you able to go. This does not wait upon Qavo's work."
"I'll see to her."
"And any word of Oswell or Gerold comes straight to me."
Arthur nodded. Jon gathered Ned's letter from the table. He could write to Winterfell and know it would reach his father. Somewhere across the sea were a boy and a girl he could not even send a letter to. For days he had been occupied with men close enough to give orders to, and that distance had been easy to forget.
He laid the letter beside the reports he still had to finish.
"Send yours tonight."
* * *
At Driftmark, Monford read Jon's letter twice before setting it beside the wine.
"He commends you highly."
Aurane shifted his bandaged hand upon his knee. "I brought his last boat off."
"So he writes. Show me where."
The afternoon was well advanced before his brother finished with the fighting. Aurane drew the landing and the harbour mouth upon a scrap of parchment. Monford asked where Denys had kept his flagship, how many boats remained beneath the steps and which way the western prizes had come. He stopped Aurane whenever an account of someone else's fighting crept into his own.
"Did you see that?"
"Brus told us afterwards."
"Then leave it. What could you see from the ferry?"
Aurane marked the passage between Denys and the shore. "Their galley was coming across here. Denys kept between her and us. Brus's bowmen were shooting into her stern."
"Brus's prizes were the ships with damaged steering?"
"One had a new steering oar lashed in place. The other was short of rowers."
"And Jon had left his escape dependent upon them?"
"Denys was holding the passage before they came. We had boats waiting for the men ashore."
"Whose order?"
"Jon's. I carried his note to Denys."
Monford glanced at the letter beside his cup. "Orders agreed with Ser Arthur before he went ashore, perhaps."
"Perhaps. Arthur wasn't there when the boats fouled one another. A boatman had been shot. His ferry swung across the steps and caught mine." Aurane pointed with his sound hand. "Jon saw the oar trapped between them and ordered the sailor to let it go. I passed over our spare pair. We got the first load away."
"And his men waited while you did this?"
"Their optio kept them back."
"With pirates coming down upon them?"
Aurane looked up. "Aye. You asked what I saw. I saw men close enough to jump into my boat stand where they were told. Hewyn sent them down in groups, with the wounded among them. The last shieldmen came after Jon."
Monford considered the drawing. Outside the window, a sailmaker was gathering his work from the paving below. Two apprentices folded the long cloth between them, taking their time over it.
"Good officers," his brother said. "Stark chose well."
"Jon chose them."
"With his father's leave."
Aurane let that pass. "He has trained with them for years. They know him."
"They know his father keeps a great castle and the king gave him another. Men have followed less promising boys."
"They weren't looking towards Winterfell when Rolo came at them."
Monford's eyes returned to him. Aurane had spoken more sharply than he intended, but he was tired of hearing every man credited except the one who had stood beside him.
"He is twelve," Monford said.
"I know. At supper yesterday, washed and in a clean coat, he looked it. Then he stood to thank the men and the hall quieted."
"A bastard home with a victory. He will want them to hear of it."
"You needn't explain bastards to me."
"You have Velaryon blood."
"Enough for this conversation, at least."
His brother left the wine untouched. "Mind your tongue."
Aurane looked down at the drawing. For a while Monford asked only for the losses. He wrote the figures himself, stopping to distinguish the dead from men whose recovery was still doubtful. Then he counted the captured ships.
"Four prizes," Aurane told him. "Vhalar's three have sworn service besides. Denys has divided their crews and put his own officers aboard."
"Seven hulls added to Dragonstone, and Robert sent none of them." Monford laid down the pen. "How much coin?"
"I haven't seen the reckoning."
"Enough to pay those men?"
"They received an extra month's wages yesterday. The dead men's portions went to their kin."
"And you?"
"Twenty dragons."
Monford gave him a long look. Aurane felt his face grow hot.
"For going back under their bows," he said. "He gave the same to the others."
"I did not say you hadn't earned it." Monford drew Jon's letter nearer. "He makes certain their lords hear of their service, too. Corwyn will carry his purse home with that story. So will Garon and Elyas. We sent him four men and no ships. Now he can thank us very generously."
Aurane had been pleased by the letter. He still was, though he wished his brother had left it alone.
"Would you rather he hadn't thanked them?"
"I would rather know what he means to ask next."
"He's building a yard. Finishing the houses above the harbour. He has enough work without finding a quarrel with you."
"A yard to build his own ships, with captains he has raised and men whose wages he pays. He may soon have less need to ask."
Monford rose and went to the window. Beyond the roofs lay the masts of their own ships, the pale seahorse showing upon a furled banner.
"Our house came from Valyria, Aurane. We served the dragons before there was an Iron Throne. We married into their line and carried their armies across the sea." He turned back. "Now the usurper gives their seat to Stark's bastard and expects us to be grateful for a letter. The boy is no Targaryen. Robert's seal cannot make him one."
"It made him Lord of Dragonstone."
"I know what it made him. I bent the knee."
The answer was quiet enough that Aurane wished he had kept his own voice lower. Monford shut the casement. He checked the latch before returning to the table.
"You have grown familiar with him."
"We were aboard the same ships."
"He speaks to you when there is no duty to discuss?"
"Sometimes."
"Good. Keep his company when you return."
Aurane leaned back. "You told me to watch him before we sailed. I've brought you the account."
"You have brought me a battle. I want to know the boy. Who can persuade him? What does he want that Glover or Ser Arthur will not give him?"
"He doesn't tell me everything."
"He might, if you stopped treating this as a duty to finish." Monford pushed the letter towards him. "He likes you. You went back for him when you might have stayed aboard. Make something of it."
Aurane did not pick it up. He remembered the ferry dipping beneath the last men, Jon reaching beneath a wounded man's shoulder as arrows struck the water. Monford had asked where everyone stood. He had not asked what it had felt like to bring them off.
"He will know if I start questioning him."
"Then don't question him as I have questioned you. Ride with him. Sit beside him at supper. He is surrounded by men who teach him and boys who call him lord. Be an older friend he can speak freely with."
"And tell you what he says."
"Yes."
The plain answer annoyed Aurane more than the excuses he had expected.
"You have just heard what he did. Do you still think him so easily led?"
"I think a boy of twelve may be very clever and still want someone he admires to think well of him. He has learnt how to give orders. That does not mean every wish in his head is beyond our reach."
"He'll not take an order from you because I give it a kinder voice."
"Then give him sound advice. When he needs a pilot, know a good one. When his captains want repairs, remind them our yards are close. Let him find that turning to Driftmark saves him trouble." Monford tapped the drawing. "He has more ships now. He will need people who know what to do with them."
"Denys knows."
"Then ask him what he is short of. Offer something he needs before you tell him what Driftmark wants."
Monford took a fresh sheet from the chest beneath the table.
"I'll send a carpenter to look at the prizes and give an honest price for the repairs. You may tell Jon so. I will come myself when the work is settled."
"To watch his men drill?"
"Among other things." Monford dipped the pen. "Write each week. His ships, his intentions, who has his ear. If he begins speaking of another voyage, I want to hear before the merchants in my harbour do."
"He may not welcome you knowing all his business."
"Then remember whose brother you are before deciding what to leave out."
Aurane watched the pen move.
Monford sanded the letter and folded it. "You can be of real service to this house."
Aurane took the offered paper in his sound hand.
"I'll write."
* * *
The following morning, Vhalar had his chair brought to the window before Jon arrived.
From there he could see a strip of sea beyond the orchard, and the road by which Ethan had brought him yesterday. The cart had followed the boundary as far as the upper field. He had made the castellan stop at every turn, then paid for the few yards he had walked with a sleepless night and a swollen thigh.
It was good land. That had annoyed him almost as much as the pain.
The house stood behind a low stone wall, with a garden on its sheltered side and a barn large enough for the crops of both fields. Inside, the walls were whitewashed, the floor laid in broad flags. Someone had lit the hearth before his arrival. His bed had been set in the lower chamber until he could manage the stairs. There was even a little room upstairs where a man could shut himself away from his household.
He had asked to see that first. Goro had refused to carry him.
Now his captain stood by the window, watching three riders come up the road.
"You could put a table up there," Goro said, glancing towards the ceiling. "Keep your charts dry."
"I know what a room is for."
"Then you won't need me to arrange it."
Vhalar looked at him. Goro's mouth twitched beneath his beard, though the cloth over his ear spoiled the effect. Vhalar turned back to the window before either of them could mention it.
Jon dismounted beside the gate. One of his black-clad boys took the reins; Ethan followed him into the house with a roll of parchment beneath his arm.
Vhalar reached for his cane and stood. He would receive the boy on his feet, even if he had to lean against his own table to do it.
"You have seen the bounds?" Jon asked.
"Every stone your castellan could find."
"And the house?"
"I have seen enough."
Ethan spread the grant upon the table and read it aloud. The house, garden, orchard and fields were named, their limits set down as Vhalar had inspected them. He listened for the passage about his lawful children. It was there, with the same obligations laid upon them that he would undertake himself.
He bent over the writing when Ethan finished. The boy's seal hung beneath it. In Tyrosh, men with finer seals had found reasons to forget his father's name. Here, this child had put the promise into his hands within days of making it.
He disliked being impressed.
"My heirs hold it after me," he said.
"While they keep faith, as you must." Jon met his eyes. "Your service at sea remains under Denys."
Vhalar's thumb rested against the parchment. A house and land would not restore the freedom he had enjoyed in his fort. He knew whose silver the boy was spending, too. Yet Ethan had brought him here without demanding another coin, and no former owner had appeared at the gate to curse him out.
He had spent years taking places he could only keep by frightening the next man who wanted them.
Goro stood quietly beside the hearth.
Vhalar straightened as far as his leg allowed.
"I swear to hold this land of Jon Black, to answer his summons and render the service written here. I will keep faith with him and uphold his peace."
"Then I grant you this holding upon those terms," Jon replied. "You have my protection while you keep them."
Vhalar bowed his head. He felt Goro watching, and kept it lowered for the proper moment before looking up again.
Ethan left the grant with him. There were questions about finding hands for the fields, which the castellan would settle with him once he had decided what he wanted. Jon stayed only long enough to hear them. The island's lord had other men waiting upon him.
When the riders had gone, Goro drew out the chair.
"Sit before you fall."
Vhalar sat. For a while he watched the empty road, the parchment lying across his knees.
"Shall I have that put away?"
"I can do it."
He folded the grant carefully, keeping the seal clear of the crease. Across the room stood the chest Ethan had provided for his belongings. Vhalar studied it, then held out his hand.
"Give me the key."
* * *
By the end of the first week, the road above the harbour was busy from dawn.
Timber carts came down towards the yard, their drivers walking beside the wheels where the slope steepened. Men from the ships carried damaged fittings to Noll. Twice Jon had to draw his horse aside to let a load pass, and the second time he remained beside the road to watch where it went.
The first houses Otho had chosen stood above the stores. Their walls were up, but several had waited for roofs while the same men worked elsewhere. Now a carpenter knelt across a beam with a mallet tucked into his belt. He had pale yellow hair cut badly above one ear. Two labourers below were passing up a length of wood, arguing over which end he wanted first.
"The other," the carpenter called. "Unless you mean me to put the roof in the street."
Jon recognised him from the people brought off the merchants. A woman sat in the doorway beneath him, sorting the household's few possessions while a child slept against her knee. For the moment they lodged in a crowded room farther down the road. Ethan had told them which house would be theirs when it was finished, and they had begun bringing things up whenever they came to look.
Otho's foreman saw Jon watching and came over.
"He knows his work, my lord. I've put two lads with him."
Jon glanced up again. The carpenter had set down his own tool to show the younger labourer how to offer the timber without trapping his fingers. The older man below was listening as well.
"Good. Let him get on with it."
He rode towards the yard with Arthur. The knight had left his sling behind that morning, though Lorren's instructions still prevented him from reaching for anything heavy. When a wheel caught in a rut ahead, he watched the carters free it with the air of a man enduring a personal insult.
"You could order them to pull harder," Jon suggested.
Arthur looked at him. "I was considering ordering you off that horse to help."
"My hand."
"A most convenient wound."
The cart came free. They waited while the men settled the load, then followed it down.
Woods had chosen the morning to raise the first frames of the enclosed yard. The great timbers lay joined upon the ground, ropes running from them through the tackle above. Seen at that size, the lines Jon had drawn in the North seemed almost impertinent. He had put them upon a sheet in a few moments. Men had quarried stone, carried earth and cut trees to make the place where they would stand.
Qavo waited beside the foundations with Moro and Naella. He had a small piece of wood between his fingers and kept turning it while Woods checked the lifting ropes. When Jon dismounted, the shipwright pointed towards the cleared ground beyond the first frame.
"He has marked where the keels will lie," Naella said. "He wanted you to see the room."
They walked along the outside of the stakes. The two building places stretched ahead of Jon, wider and longer than they had seemed upon the drawing. Here a ship could grow beneath a roof while rain beat harmlessly above her. Tools would have their places. Timber could come in at one end, men could work along either side, and the finished hull would have a clear way down towards the water.
He found himself smiling before Qavo had finished pointing.
"Now you believe there is enough space?" Naella asked.
"I always believed it."
Her father said something dryly. She laughed.
"He says you have added three things since the space was measured."
"Then tell him to stop giving me reasons."
Qavo understood the smile. He put away the little piece of wood and led them back out of the lifting ground.
Hewyn arrived while Woods was setting his men along the ropes. He had come from Black Fields, where the first island applicants had presented themselves that morning. Jon asked how they had done.
"Several worth keeping. Several who believed your silver would make the training easier."
"They've learnt otherwise?"
"Heward is helping them."
Arthur's mouth twitched. Hewyn handed Jon the revised roll. The recovering men remained where they belonged. The thirteen trainees were accounted for, and the new applicants had been entered against the vacancies Lorren and the primus pilus had agreed could be filled.
There were still too few. Jon had expected that. At least now Hewyn could choose from his own island, and Otho knew when he would lose the men he accepted. Marrec's first letters had gone across the water. The purchases would follow, then the ships carrying the people. Each part would take time, but somebody had been given the means to do it.
Jon returned the roll. "Bring Alasdair the names of men you think fit for the household. He and Arthur will see them before I decide."
"Aye, my lord."
Woods called for silence around the ropes.
The watching men stepped back. Jon stood with the others while the first team hauled. The frame lifted slowly from the supports beneath it. A man at the side line paid out rope, watching the timber above his head. Woods stopped them, corrected the pull and waited until both ends rose together.
The upright passed before Jon's view of the sea.
He watched it climb, heard the strain in the ropes and the calls travelling along the line. Men moved at the foot of the frame with poles and wedges. When it stood, they braced it before Woods allowed anyone to release the tackle. The ropes slackened. The timber stayed where they had put it.
Someone cheered. Ewan, who had come down to watch his fittings take their first load, let out a long breath and began laughing at himself.
Jon went beneath the frame when Woods called them forward. The space overhead was enormous. Beyond it lay the anchored ships, the moving boats and the crowded quay; farther out, the sea shone where the sun had broken through the cloud.
Arthur stopped beside him.
"How long before you mean to sail again?"
Jon looked along the stakes towards the water. He wanted the new ships badly. He wanted to stand upon a deck built from his own plans and see Dragonstone fall astern, bound for ports that were still names upon a chart. There were things farther east that he did not discuss even with Arthur.
But the last voyage had shown him what his force could do, and what it could barely survive. He had no wish to repeat it with fewer friends around him.
"When these are ready," he answered. "And the men who will sail in them."
"That will take moons."
"Then I'll spend them here. Hewyn shall have time to train the new men properly, and Qavo will have time to build."
Jon rested his good hand against the nearest upright. He wanted to see this yard in the rain with a sound roof overhead, and the first keel resting where Qavo had set his stakes. There would be a great deal between this morning and that one. For once he could look forward to the work without wondering where he would find the silver to begin it.
Qavo called to Moro, who came over with a measuring cord. Otho was directing the timber cart towards the next building place. Jon watched the men settle to their work, then stepped aside to let them carry a brace past.
Above him, the first frame stood against the open sky. He could still see the whole harbour between its posts.