Chapter 75 - The Works of Dragonstone

Gella had the white salt ready before the carter came. Little jars stood on her bench, stopped and sealed. Outside, men were loading the sacks of common salt. She could hear Marda telling them to fetch another cart.

Perrin's instructions lay beneath an empty jar. Gella had needed a clerk to read them to her; she had set out the packing before he left so he could tell her whether she had missed anything.

Larra set the final jar on the bench. "Twelve."

"I have counted them."

"I counted too." Larra held up both hands, then two fingers.

At the small boiler, Vaela lifted crystals from the brine with her pierced scoop. She worked more slowly than Larra, but Gella no longer had to watch her hands.

"That's the last scoop from that pan."

Vaela held it above the brine. "Still wet." Another drop fell through. She waited, then tipped the salt into its basket.

Once Gella would have boiled away the last liquid. Jon had made her taste the bitter salt that came out at the end. Now they stopped sooner. Clean cloths strained dirt from the brine; covered baskets kept soot off the drying salt.

Larra had worked in a rich man's kitchens in Lys, where she had learned to keep vessels clean and say very little. Vaela had arrived on a later ship. Both had been slaves, bought and freed by Jon; neither had worked salt before.

Jon had questioned them himself and taken their oaths before permitting Gella to teach them. Now Larra could finish a batch alone, and Vaela was learning. Gella could finally leave the room without banking the fire.

Someone knocked. The carrier had brought their packing chest. Larra opened the door just far enough to point at the step.

"Here. We carry."

The guard knew the women; everyone else stayed outside. Gella helped Larra bring in the chest, and Vaela packed the jars with folded cloth between them.

"Has the carpenter brought your table?" Gella asked.

"This morning."

"If it wobbles, send it back before you pay."

"I paid."

"Then put wood under," Larra said, holding her fingers apart at one end.

"A wedge," Gella supplied.

Vaela laughed. She had scarcely spoken during her first days here. Now she had opinions about everything they bought.

Jon meant to show these jars to merchants and lords across the water. Until his ship was ready, they would wait in Blackburn's store with the other masters' wares. Gella still found the little sealed measures faintly ridiculous. The price Perrin thought they might fetch was less so.

She shut the chest and called for the carrier. Outside, he wedged it beside Marda's sacks and tied it down. Optio Dunstan sent two legionaries with the carts, then stopped another from following.

"You are for the east landing. Take the relief."

Jon had left fifty men here, with Dunstan over them and the village both. The optio heard complaints at Borren's old table, settled quarrels over nets and doors, and answered to Jon. Even he stayed outside Gella's workroom.

Tommen the sailmaker approached him with a woollen shawl beneath his arm.

"For Hessa. Can it go up with your man?"

"He leaves at dusk. Tell the guard who it is for."

Borren's sister was serving her sentence in the castle washhouse. Tommen had mended more sails this summer than in any Gella remembered, and his new roof kept rain off his cloth. Still, Borren had paid for his mother's shroud when Tommen could not. He had not forgotten.

Nor had Gella forgotten the people taken by the pirates. Jon had killed Borren, Orrick and the slaver for their part in it. Some villagers still left a bench when a prisoner's kin sat down. Others made room. Dry houses had not settled that.

Beyond the carts, the winch lifted seawater to the settling tanks. From there it flowed downhill to the boiling house. Gella remembered climbing that slope with a full bucket in either hand, then doing it again before her back stopped aching.

Broad iron pans stood over brick furnaces inside. Fires burned beneath them, with chimneys carrying the smoke away. Noll had helped build the first; the others had followed once it proved itself. Marda's fire tenders kept the boiling steady while other hands raked salt onto covered racks. Gella took some of the strong brine into her guarded room for the dearer white kind. The larger heaps went to fishermen, ships and village stores.

A fisherman waited at the weighing bench with an empty handcart.

"Another sack," he told Marda.

"You took two yesterday."

"Used both. We had a good catch."

As a boy fetched the salt, Gella asked whether his usual buyer was taking the fish.

"He offered less than last time."

"You agreed?"

"I told him to come back when he'd found the rest of his money." He grinned. "We packed the fish last night. They'll keep."

Before, he had sold a good catch cheaply rather than let it spoil. Salt had been too dear to preserve it all. Now his wife had hired her sister to help, and tomorrow he was taking their barrels to Blackburn, where other buyers would look at sound fish.

He paid and stopped to speak to the cooper beneath the next awning. The northerner had arrived with his wife, daughter and tools, and begun by mending tubs. New fish barrels now stood beside his bench. His daughter sorted hoops while he fitted a lid to a fresh barrel.

"Tell him I want mine first," Marda called.

"You both want them before everyone else," the cooper answered.

Gella left them arguing and went back for her assistants. Larra and Vaela shared a house in the new lower row with Larra's brother, who worked on the boats. Vaela had invited her to see the table. She repeated the invitation with an anxious glance at the drying salt.

"They're covered," Larra said. "Come and eat."

They locked the room and took the shore lane. Two rows of houses stood where nets had once been spread, their drains carrying water downhill instead of leaving it against the doors. A pale-haired woman beat a blanket over a rail while her neighbour, a local widow, complained about dust on her clean shirts.

The schoolmaster came to his door with the slates the children had left behind. Vaela stopped.

"I come after work. For the writing."

"Bring the words you want to learn."

"Salt. Jar. Weight." She frowned, then supplied the missing word. "Basket."

"We can begin with those."

Her Common was coming slowly, but she no longer let Larra do all the talking. Gella looked past her. A fisherman's grown son sat at a bench, labouring over figures.

"What do you charge her?"

"Nothing. Lord Jon pays me."

The fisherman's son was older than the master. He had set his cap beside his slate, and covered his work when a child came near.

"Out," the master told the child. "Your mother has been waiting since the bell."

Only when the boy had gone did the man uncover his slate. Gella knew how he felt. She could judge brine by taste and a pan by the sound it made over the fire; put Perrin's letter in her hands and she had to carry it to someone else.

"And what will you do with writing?" she asked Vaela.

"The book." Vaela mimed a pen. "I weigh. I write. You need no clerk."

Jon paid more for men and women who could keep books, read orders and oversee work. Word had reached every household; the master had begun teaching grown workers after their shifts.

Vaela watched Gella, waiting to see whether she had presumed too much.

"Learn properly, then. I won't have Perrin saying our weights are wrong."

"I know the weights." Vaela spoke carefully. "I learn the words."

"Aye. You know the weights." Gella had watched her catch a cracked weight before Marda used it. "When you can read his orders, you can answer them. I'll speak to him about the pay."

Vaela spoke quickly to Larra in their own tongue. Larra laughed and nudged her towards the master, but Vaela held up her empty hands. No slate, no chalk, and salt still drying on her cuffs.

Gella cleared her throat. "Have you room for another?"

"For you?"

Her face warmed. "I ought to be able to read it myself."

"There's room." He reached for a slate.

"After work," she said hastily. "We've not eaten yet."

The cooper's wife was selling bread from her doorway. She had begun baking for men who could not get home between shifts. Two labourers waited while she cut a loaf; she called to Larra to ask whether her brother wanted his usual one. Her northern speech made Vaela lean closer to catch the words.

Beyond the occupied row, carpenters worked on another roof of Eastcove tile. Nobody had been turned out to make room for the northerners. Gella had heard that fear often when Jon first came.

An old woman sat gutting fish outside a finished house. Her daughter, the boatman's wife, had asked Jon for a ground-floor room because she could no longer manage their stairs. Here she could come straight into the court. She looked up and asked when Gella would put meat on her bones.

"When you stop taking all the best fish."

"Come earlier, then."

Vaela was still smiling when she opened their door.

The table stood beneath the window, taking up more of the room than Gella had expected. Three stools stood around it and another beside the hearth. Larra pressed one corner, then the other. Neither moved.

"There," Vaela said. "No wedge."

Gella ran her finger over the planed surface. Larra had scrubbed finer tables in Lys. This one she could sit at.

Larra brought a pot of beans, onions and fish from the hearth. Vaela set bowls before them and an earthen dish of Marda's common salt. It was coarser and greyer than the white kind, but Gella no longer picked black specks from it. It seasoned broth without the old taste of smoke.

"Not the fine kind?" she asked.

"Too dear," Larra said, laughing. "For lords."

There was enough to season the pot and leave some on the table. Gella could afford a clean measure whenever she needed one now.

Vaela broke the bread. "My brother comes from Blackburn. Next free day." She glanced around the room. "He wants a house too."

"Tell him to ask," Larra said. "Lord Jon builds more."

Larra counted every purchase and distrusted anyone offering something cheaply. About Jon, she seemed to have no doubts at all.

Gella tasted the beans and added another pinch of salt.

"Next time, ask that baker to keep us two loaves."

* * *

Ellyn could feel the flaw before she saw it.

She ran her thumb around the cup's foot. A little ridge made it rock upon the table. She put it aside.

Her father watched from the doorway. "A man could drink from that. Put it on a cloth and he'd never know."

"Until he picked it up and put it down somewhere else. You'd send it back yourself."

"If I were a lord, I would."

He came in carrying a board of jar handles beneath a damp cloth. The guard shut the gate behind him.

Ellyn set six small bowls on a cloth, their curved sides a warm white. She compared their rims again.

Jon had inspected the pieces himself, holding them to the light and setting them side by side.

"The best matched set you can make. If you doubt the glaze, leave it out. This matters a great deal, Ellyn."

Perrin was taking other ware to show merchants. This set was to be kept apart. Jon had not told her who would have it.

"I need him back," her father said, nodding towards the young potter wrapping cups beside her. "Ten Blackburn jars waiting for handles. They'll be too dry to join."

The young potter stopped. Once he would already have followed her father. But Perrin's carter was waiting to take this case to Blackburn's carpenter, then the store.

"Finish these with me. I'll come and help with the handles when the case has gone."

"Those jars were promised first. The woman has sent twice."

"Put the wet cloth over them. We have six cups left to pack, and then you'll have both of us. She'll get her jars."

The larger kiln had given them three good firings. Marrec's imported stone filled the dry store. For two moons Jon had paid Ellyn a master's wage. Her father still fetched her whenever the old pottery needed hands, though he had stayed beside her through firings that yielded nothing worth keeping.

"She's taken lodgers," he said. "Harbour men. More mouths, more pots, and handles big enough for their fingers. Should I tell her to buy elsewhere?"

"No. I said I'd help."

He covered the handles. Once he had watched people pass with cracked bowls they meant to keep using. Now he counted orders after supper with little heaps of beans. She wished he could be glad of her cups without reckoning how long she'd spent away from his wheel.

A knock brought Ellyn to the gate. The carter waited outside with two baskets of fired jars on his handcart.

"Master," he called to her father. "Can that case ride on top of the jars?"

"It goes on the cart bed," Ellyn answered. "With sacking beneath it. Nothing on the lid."

"I'll have little room for the rest."

"Then you'll make two journeys."

He looked at her father again.

"You heard her."

Ellyn went back to the table before either could see her smile.

They wrapped the bowls separately. Her father set down his board and inspected the case, pressing two fingers into the shavings between the first pair.

"More here. The bowls will knock together on the road."

She held the bowl while he tucked cloth around it. He had packed ware for men who dropped it and swore it had cracked in the kiln.

Ellyn counted the cups as they went in, twelve with their handles turned into soft packing. Her father set the rejected cup upon the table and nudged its rim. It rocked.

"Ask Lord Jon if I may have this one," he said. "I should like to drink from something of yours before every piece worth having goes to a lord's table."

She looked up at him. "You made half the pieces here."

"And you keep finding fault with them. Will you ask?"

"Yes." She put it beside her drinking bowl. The young potter brought the lid.

Outside, the great brick kiln smoked. It scarcely stood idle between firings. Every village wanted bricks; Blackburn swallowed them by the cartload and still sent for more. Men unloaded tiles from one kiln and stacked the next firing in another. Tomorrow's load was promised to Saltcliffe.

Ormond was settling the wagonloads by the gate. He came over when the carter grumbled about making two journeys. Ellyn had heard fewer complaints from the headman since Jon had Borren put to death for helping the Saltcliffe pirates.

"The cooper has room for the jars," Ormond said. "Leave them under his shelter. Take this straight to Blackburn."

"He'll want paying."

"Then bring me his charge. You must be back before the kiln is unloaded." He turned to Ellyn. "Ready?"

She set the lid over the packed bowls and cups. "Ready."

Her father helped carry the case onto the sacking. Ellyn checked the rope and the clear space around the lid before letting it go.

Across the street, Ormond's brother stood beneath his old oiled lintel, set in his new house. He held a child while shutting the door with his heel. The child waved something sticky at Ellyn.

She raised her hand. The cart turned towards Blackburn and disappeared behind a laden wagon.

Her father was waiting beside the pottery door. Beneath the cloth on his board, the handles had begun to stiffen.

Ellyn took the board and rolled up her sleeves. The first handle cracked beneath her thumb.

"Too dry," her father said.

She put it aside and reached for fresh clay. "Pass me the water."

He set the jug beside her and sat at his wheel.

Ellyn drew a fresh handle through her wet fingers. Her father watched its curve as the wheel turned beneath his foot.

"Wider," he said.

She opened the loop. He held out three clay-stained fingers, and she widened it again, laughing despite herself.

"The harbour men are bigger than you," she said.

"Then make it for four."

She laid it beside the jar. When she looked up again, her father was looking towards the guarded workshop, where she had left his white cup.

* * *

Noll brought a boy to Ewan's bench and rapped the breastplate strapped around him.

"Look at his shoulder."

"I can see his shoulder."

"Then tell your lad why I sent it back."

The apprentice came from the next hearth, wiping his hands. Ewan made him loosen the strap. The plate dropped a little, and the recruit stopped holding his head sideways.

"He tightened it to keep the bottom from catching," Noll said. "Have him lift his arms."

The boy obeyed. One edge caught again. Ewan put his thumb against it and felt where it needed turning.

"Mark that. Take it off him."

"I followed the pattern."

"And now you've a man to fit it to."

The apprentice bent to the buckles. Behind him, the armourers' hall rang with hammer blows. Half-finished helmets stood along one bench, breastplates along another; farther down, men punched and closed rivets while a woman fitted leather straps. The finished pieces went through Noll before crossing the yard to the armoury. Its keeper had already sent twice that morning. The new centuries wanted their equipment.

Ewan wanted the keeper to come and stand here until a badly fitted plate pinched his own armpit.

"Stay with Noll," he told the apprentice. "Finish it properly."

Before going out, Ewan lifted the helm from the completed harness beside his bench. The steel shone deep red beneath its dragonglass finish. As he turned it towards the window, a lighter sheen travelled over the crown; bright steel bordered the cheek pieces. The breastplate and fitted limbs had taken the same colour. He had checked them together in daylight before allowing Noll to buckle the suit onto its stand.

Jon's armour had that shifting gloss in black. Getting it in red had taken moons of trials with Dragonstone glass, Jon coming down to examine the spoiled pieces with them. Mott had kept his secret; Ewan and Noll had worked out their own finish. Ewan ran a thumb over the helm once more before putting it back. He wanted Jon to see the whole harness in daylight. Noll could have it packed for the castle this afternoon.

Jon's own black armour had gone back to the castle on the morning cart. He was growing broader through the shoulders, and Noll had altered the fit and replaced the straps. At the last fitting Ewan had made him lift his sword and turn at the waist until he was satisfied nothing pinched.

Outside, a miner led a laden cart past the armoury. Caddoc rode beside the load with his sticks across his knees. He called Ewan over and held out a piece of brown-streaked iron ore.

"From the northern cut. Tell Bennard we've reached more of it."

The younger miner leaned against the wheel. Dust had settled in the creases beside his eyes.

"I've two picks to leave with you as well. Their points are worn blunt."

"Take sound ones from the tool shed. Leave those for sharpening."

He grinned. "My father used to mend his own until there was hardly a head left."

Then he glanced at Caddoc. "What about the other place?"

"Let Merren speak to Lord Jon."

"What place?" Ewan asked.

"An opening behind the old workings," the miner said. "We shifted some fallen stone yesterday. There's space beyond it, but we've not gone through."

"We may need Otho to see how to shore the roof," Caddoc said. "I've asked Merren to send word. No one goes through until then."

Ewan waved them through to Bennard's furnace. Cinderwell's mine lay above the village; its ore came down to the Blackworks, and tools went back up the same road. The quarry's stone carts took the other turning. These days Ewan could follow the local iron from Bennard's yard to a soldier's breast.

Two men were unloading steel bars from a cooled fireclay chest. The furnace's brittle iron had first passed through the finery hearths and beneath the hammer. Heating the bars with charcoal in sealed chests for days turned the iron to steel. Ewan's smiths then cut, stacked and welded it until it worked evenly. Every batch still had to pass Noll's tests. The sound steel filled racks along the wall, with another charge already in the heat.

Smiths newly come from Myr and Pentos had asked who supplied it. Ewan had taken them through the works and enjoyed their faces. Fine steel was familiar enough; making it steadily in such quantities was another matter. None had known a works outside Jon's service, in Westeros or across the narrow sea, that could match it. Men who had guarded a few good bars for their finest blades now watched Noll draw enough for another century's armour.

At the old mill the river turned the great wheel. Water spilled white beneath its paddles, and the heavy hammer rose and fell inside the rebuilt house. Ewan paused at the doorway. The smith drew his glowing bar back, turned it, and offered another face to the blows. Behind the barrier, a learner watched his hands.

Ewan had come south with Jon after helping him build the northern Blackworks. He had thought them big until these roofs went up. Here Noll's armourers had a longer hall, and the other smiths had room to keep ploughshares in the fire while helmets, swords and spearheads were being made across the yard. Ewan had insisted on wider passages too. He remembered asking for more space beside the northern hearth; here two men could carry a bar past the benches without everyone stopping to let them through. Woods had grumbled over the extra timber. Ewan had refused to narrow the passage.

Two ploughs of Lord Jon's new pattern stood outside those shops. Their curved boards, made to turn the soil over, were already fitted; the iron shares were still needed. The carter eating beside them raised his bread when he saw Ewan.

"Master Hamish said before noon."

"So you told me at breakfast."

"He told me twice too."

Ewan went inside. At the nearest hearth a smith was finishing the second share. Farther along, a man and his daughter sorted nails into kegs for Blackburn, keeping the bent ones in a shallow tray. The daughter had been cutting nails to length when Ewan first took them on; now her father asked her which keg belonged to which builder. She could read the labels.

An apprentice brought the first share out to the waiting plough. Ewan watched him fit it, checking the iron sat firmly against the wood. Hamish's carter had brought back their last share, its point worn almost away. They had more ground ready than teams to turn it.

"That stays here," Ewan said, catching the apprentice before he threw the old share into the scrap basket. "Bennard wants to see how it wore."

The lad laid it beside the door. A bundle of fittings for the seed drills waited there too, its cord tagged for Wyrm's Rest. Ewan told the carter to take it with the ploughs.

Above the shops, Cinderwell's new houses climbed towards the older lane. Smoke rose from their chimneys. Merren came down between them with a girl carrying a basket, and stopped to watch the men lift the completed plough onto the cart.

"My sister says your hammer woke her before dawn."

"Your sister wanted hinges yesterday."

"She has them. Now she wants sleep."

The girl laughed and opened the basket. The smell of warm bread reached Ewan through the smoke. Men were coming out of the shops with their dinner cloths. A pale-haired smith called to his wife from the doorway of a new house; she pointed to the pot she was bringing, as though he could not possibly wait to see it.

When Ewan had first come, families had asked whether Jon's prisoners would take their work. Now Merren kept asking when another son or brother might start. They still had quarrels over wages and who got the better house. Ewan heard them at his bench often enough. But the man carrying bread to the nail makers had once been going to Hull because there was nothing here for him.

Noll appeared with the recruit. The breastplate sat lower now. The boy lifted both arms without being told.

"Better," Ewan said. "Which century?"

"Mallador's, master."

He was Merren's height and narrow through the chest. His mother came out of the lane carrying an empty bowl, saw him, and stopped. She put out a hand to the plate.

"Mind the oil," the boy said.

She wiped her fingers on her apron and touched it anyway.

Noll took him towards the armoury for the rest. The apprentice followed, trying to look as though he had not noticed Ewan watching.

"Next one," Ewan called. "Fit it before you polish it."

The lad nodded.

Beside the nails, a second carter waited with the small box for Lord Jon's display. Ewan opened it himself. A pair of hinges, a sound knife, and a few nails laid against a cloth: little enough to show for all the noise around him. The new centuries had first claim on the armourers. The red harness was going to Jon for the showing, but the plain plates upon Noll's benches were for his soldiers. The ploughs went to Hamish; the kegs would be emptied into Blackburn's roofs before the next load was ready.

He worked each hinge upon its pin, then closed the lid and handed it over.

"Blackburn's store. Keep it dry."

The carter tucked the box beneath his seat. As he drew away, Bennard shouted from the furnace yard for Ewan to come and look at something. Ewan took a piece of bread from Merren's basket and went to see what the man wanted this time.

* * *

Dake leaned upon the plough handles as the oxen came round. The share entered cleanly, and a strip of dark earth rose against the curved board and turned over upon the grass.

"Let her take it," the northern ploughman called. "You're lifting her out."

"I know what I'm doing."

"Then stop doing it."

Dake eased his grip. His old share had worn crooked, dragging him sideways whenever it struck a root; this one held its course. He crossed the place where his father's wall had stood. He had helped build it, and could have found its line with his eyes shut.

At the turn he gave the handles back. The northern man tightened a wooden wedge above the share. The iron came from Cinderwell now; a worn share could go to the smith instead of being nursed through another sowing.

"Tell the smith to send the spare before we need it," Dake said.

Beyond the ditch, Marten, his elder son, was following the seed drill over ground already ploughed and broken fine with the harrow. Maelor, one of Jon's freedmen, walked at the oxen's heads. A wheel rattled over the earth, turning the grooved axle beneath the seed box. Grain dropped through the tubes into narrow cuts; the little harrow behind covered it before the birds could take much interest.

Dake stepped over the ditch and raised his hand. Maelor halted the beasts.

"Something broke?" he asked.

"Keep them standing."

Dake knelt and scraped back the earth. He found barley buried at much the same depth along the row. Marten watched from beside the box.

"It was feeding when we started."

"And it is worth knowing whether it still is." A damp lump had clogged one tube before, leaving a bare line through the rising crop. "How much seed left?"

His son lifted the lid. When scattering seed, men overlapped their casts to avoid bare patches. The drill used less. Dake had watched the seed weighed out and the unused grain weighed back, then walked the first green rows looking for thin places that ought to have proved the saving foolish.

"Enough to finish," Marten said. "Hamish has looked at the upper field. We can take it there tomorrow."

Maelor pointed towards the turning. "That corner? Soft." He searched for another word, then pressed his heel into the soil.

"Leave it," Dake said. "Come through the gap above it."

Marten explained more slowly, pointing out the way. Maelor led the team past the wet patch. The drains had made most of this ground fit to work after rain; the hollow still needed its outlet cleared of rushes.

Dake found Hamish at the gate with a mill hand. Jon had brought Gerren's elder son from the North and set him over these farms. Dake had scarcely been able to hear an order from him without taking offence. Now he waited while Hamish agreed to keep water in the mill race until the waiting grain was ground.

"The young turnips want water," Dake said when the miller had gone.

"They'll have it this afternoon, when we open their gate." Hamish wiped a muddy finger along his breeches. "The lower beds had theirs yesterday."

Behind them the team passed the old boundary without stopping. Once Dake had waited upon neighbours, borrowed beasts and turned back at walls while good light went. Today men who would have followed scattering seed were hoeing vegetables and repairing the cattle fence.

Hamish pointed to a sack beside the gate. "More guano from Saltcliffe. That goes with the next dressing. Have the carters put the rest under cover."

Dake checked the sack was tied. The trial plots had been cut and threshed separately. Both had received the same seed and water; the ground dressed with guano had given nearly twice the grain. He had demanded they check the weights, then asked whether the plots had truly been equal. He had helped measure them himself.

Now he had the carters fetching guano for more ground. Water and drains had already improved fields beyond the trial plots. Thin patches where barley used to yellow and die had carried heads worth cutting. At threshing, they had run out of sacks and fetched more from the other store. Dake had stayed until they finished tying them.

Hamish drew him towards the gate and pointed beyond the rise.

"Lord Jon wants the next ground opened there. The drains are through. Otho's men can start shifting the stone when you have the carters ready."

"You have more barley in the barn than ever came off these fields."

"And more people eating it. We need the acres as well as the better crops."

Dake looked towards the dark ditches beyond the estate's first boundary. Meadow he had crossed ankle-deep in water had dried enough for a team; men were dragging brush and stone from the slope above. He knew where good soil lay beneath them. He had never had men to spare for opening it.

His grandfather had lost a boot in that meadow. Dake could still see him hopping upon the bank, one woollen stocking black to the knee, while a small boy who was meant to be helping laughed until he cried. Afterwards the old man had made him wash the stocking.

If only he could see it now. He would have walked every ditch and wanted those barley sacks opened. Dake wished he had been there to help empty them.

"My grandfather would have asked whether you'd mixed two harvests together," he said.

Hamish glanced at him. "You nearly did."

"I asked about the weights." Dake let himself smile. "He'd have brought his own."

Dake nodded towards the nearer fields. "There's barley ground there. You have it under clover."

"And the clover feeds the cattle. That ground gets its turn at grain; we can't keep taking because the last crop was good." Hamish rested an arm upon the gate. "Lord Jon told us we'd still be buying food. People are coming faster than we can open land."

Dake remembered telling Jon they ate barley when he showed him turnips upon the drawing. He had thought of his sons waiting upon grain ships because their own harvest belonged to the estate. Now the barns were fuller than he had known them, yet carts still brought sacks from Blackburn.

He rubbed the guano dust from his fingers.

"Bring the stone carts behind the old byre tomorrow. I'll have men there to show where the load can go. Before they pile it across another drain."

Hamish nodded. On the way to wash, Dake passed the new cheesehouse. Milk pails stood upside down upon a rack outside; inside, women worked along benches set aside for curds and presses. His wife had made cheese beside her hearth, with the same pot she needed for supper.

A northern cheesemaker drew a frame strung with fine wires through the set curd. It left neat pieces behind it. Lord Jon had sent the pattern, along with measured scoops for the rennet and orders to weigh the salt. Dake had thought the weighing foolish until he tasted two cheeses from different days and found them much alike.

At the next bench a girl turned the screw of a wooden press. Whey ran into the trough below. There were several presses now, with clean cloths waiting for the next filling. A woman carried an older cheese into the cool room, where rows of them rested upon shelves marked with the day they had been made.

Dake stopped at the door. The room smelled sharp and milky, but none of the cheeses had the swollen, splitting rind he remembered cutting from his wife's poorer batches. They were losing fewer that way. More milk came in from the clover-fed cows, and more of it reached a table as something people wanted to eat.

His younger son called from the house row. His wife was carrying bowls outside. Dake went to wash.

Four tables stood along the new brick houses. Dake brought out the loaves while his wife set her pot upon a board.

Steam rose thick with the smell of pork and leeks. Dake peered in. There were turnips too, and barley swelling in the broth, but his spoon struck meat before it reached the bottom.

"Leave that," she said.

"I was looking."

"You look with a spoon now?" She took it. "The women bought the pork between us. You can thank them when you've sat down."

Once she would have boiled the same bone for tomorrow's pottage. Regular wages bought a piece worth cutting, while their grain portion came from the estate stores. Grain cost more in Blackburn now; his household's measure stayed the same. He checked whenever it was issued.

The mill clattered below them. His father had asked for one. Dake had fetched the flour for these loaves himself, passing imported grain beside the sacks from their own fields.

His wife buttered a slice generously. The red cow had held her milk better since they began feeding cut clover with the fodder. Dake had complained about giving arable ground to beasts; his wife brought that up whenever she had butter to spare. He took the bread before she could begin.

Beside her chair waited two small cheeses from the cheesehouse, packed in a straw-lined basket for Jon's display. The carter stood waiting in the lane.

"Only those?" Dake asked Hamish as the overseer came up.

"Only those. The rest stays for the island."

His wife handed the basket to the carter. He would leave it with the other samples in Blackburn's store until Jon's ship was ready. He was still securing it when the field hands came in.

Marten brought Maelor to the bench beside his mother. Dake moved over. The freedman set a cup before him with a careful nod, and Dake pushed the bread within his reach.

"The oxen settled?"

"Water. Then feed." Maelor wiped his palm upon his knee. "Your son showed me."

Dake's wife filled their bowls. A woman moved aside for Hamish. Dake was still headman, but questions about the estate went to the overseer, even from men who had once waited outside Dake's door. Marten waited until Hamish had answered her.

"I'll try the work you spoke of. If you still want me."

"At the mill?" Hamish leaned forward. "Come when the first grain arrives tomorrow. You'll learn the weighing before you touch the accounts."

Dake put down his spoon. "What's wrong with driving the team?"

"Nothing," Marten said. "But Maelor can take it with another man now. I want to learn this."

The lad's colour rose. "Hamish needs a man who can weigh grain in and flour out, and keep the figures. That's why I've been going to the lessons."

Dake had pictured him taking over his holding, adding a room when he married. Now the walls were gone and his son was choosing work Dake could not teach him. Hamish sat quietly, leaving the lad to speak for himself.

"Lord Jon pays more for men who can do it," his son added.

"When they can," Dake said.

"His present wage while he learns," Hamish answered. "More when I can trust him with the book. He'll begin beside the miller."

"And if you need him back in the fields?"

"Then he'll come. Today you finished with men to spare. That won't be true every day."

Dake looked at his son. The lad held his gaze, plainly braced for another objection. Dake picked up his spoon. The pork came apart against the side of the bowl.

"Mind he teaches you the weights properly," he said.

His son let out a breath. "I will."

Maelor had followed only part of it. Marten explained with his hands, balancing one palm against the other, then pretending to write. The freedman nodded and reached for the butter.

When his wife went for the second pot, Dake caught Marten's sleeve.

"How late do the lessons keep you?"

"Until the light goes."

"I'll see to the beasts at home. You can show me what you've learnt afterwards."

His son nodded, more carefully this time. Dake let go and held out his bowl to his wife.

"A little more of that. And don't fish the meat out first."

* * *

From his window, Terys could see the old landing steps between the roofs of Blackburn's new warehouses.

A boat was coming in, its passengers crowded about their bundles. Farther north, fishermen were already carrying baskets ashore. The gulls followed them, screaming over the net ground. Smoke rose behind the fishing houses, where the new smoking sheds had been working since before dawn.

Terys pulled on his boots and went down to buy bread.

The baker's shop beneath his room was crowded. He waited behind a mason powdered white to the elbows and two women talking in the Valyrian of Lys. One had a child asleep against her shoulder. They were asking about rooms. Terys told them which row had roofs now, then had to admit he did not know who would be given them.

"Ask at the headman's house. Take someone who speaks Common."

"Will you?"

"Not well enough for that. The schoolmaster will know someone."

She thanked him anyway. He bought an extra piece for Nymos, who was waiting outside with their tools.

They went down through the market, past stalls being uncovered and a butcher hanging joints from hooks. Beneath the long tiled roof, a cloth seller shook out a bolt while his wife swept yesterday's mud from their little enclosure. The permanent shops stood behind the stalls, their fronts still smelling of fresh-cut timber. An island woman sold eggs from a basket between two of them. She had scarcely set it down before someone stopped to buy.

Nymos stopped at the cloth. He touched a length of blue wool, then asked Terys to find out its price. The seller answered slowly, counting on his fingers. Terys passed it on in Valyrian.

"For a coat?" he asked.

"After the next pay." Nymos rubbed the wool between finger and thumb. "Do you think there's enough?"

Terys held it against his shoulders. The seller's wife came over with her measuring cord, turning Nymos towards the light. He stood very still while she measured him, then held out his arms for the sleeves.

There were empty places yet. At the far end, carpenters were raising the next covered walk. Beyond that stood only posts and cords, marking where another court would go. Terys had seen markets in Lys that could swallow this one. He had never seen one growing beneath the hands of men he knew.

A carter called for room. Terys drew Nymos aside while the mule turned into the wider entrance. The road behind the warehouses took the heavy loads; this way brought people up to the sellers. Even now, before all the stalls were filled, he was glad the two were separate.

Above them, the first rows of brick homes shone with fresh limewash over dark stone footings. Red tiles covered family rooms above the shops. Through an open passage Terys saw women washing at a cistern, their children playing round a heap of tiles that had yet to reach a roof. A northerner shouted from an upstairs window for someone to keep them clear. From the court came an answer in Common, then laughter in a tongue Terys did not know.

His room was smaller than most of those. It was his, with a shutter he had made and coins beneath the bed. He had begun buying things without wondering where he would hide them.

At the landing, the passengers were coming up the steps.

He had stood there with everything he owned in a bundle. In Lys they had promised freedom upon landing. On the voyage he had wondered what a carpenter fetched in Westeros and whether his new master would let him keep his tools.

Then a man speaking his own tongue had told him he was free. Terys had asked him to say it again. Nobody made him open his mouth or turn to show his shoulders. There were questions about his trade, an offer of work and a place to sleep. At the week's end Woods paid him.

He still remembered counting those first coins.

Woods was beside the harbour crane, arguing with Tobin. Terys stopped beyond the ropes while a sling of timber came ashore. Men guided it down beside a wagon; behind them, another cart passed along the road without going beneath the load.

The master carpenter saw him and beckoned.

"Leave two men here when you've sorted your timber. Tobin needs a loading platform at the next store."

Terys looked towards the quay they were building. "Masons need all six."

"For the lifting, yes. Afterwards, give me two. You'll have them back before noon."

Tobin had gone to meet the boat. Woods waited while Terys explained to Nymos, who understood scarcely any Common yet. Around them the crane ropes slackened. Men climbed onto the wagon to free the sling.

"He wants another of these," Woods said, looking up at the great timber frame.

Terys followed his gaze. He had fitted some of its braces himself. "This is wrong?"

"No. He wants to unload two ships at once." Woods pointed along the shore. "Lord Jon left ground for more cranes. Tobin would have them all tomorrow."

There was a ship waiting beyond the working berth. Terys could see why.

They walked beside the stores, where grain was being carried in from the old weighing shed. The nearest building was long enough for several gangs to work beneath its roof. Its floor stood well above the quay, with broad doors facing the loading ground. Through the rear opening Terys saw a cart receiving sacks under cover. Oil and pitch went farther along, into their own store. He knew the separation because Woods had made him move a stack of planks meant for the wrong building.

"Roof on that one next," Woods told him, pointing beyond the finished stores. "Your gang, when the masons have the walls ready."

"With six?"

"I'll find you more. Teach them as you've taught these."

Terys looked at the walls. He had made fine chests in Lys. No one had ever given him men and asked him to roof a building like that.

"Where do we put the timber?" he asked. "The empty ground above the market?"

"No. His lordship wants it kept clear."

"For houses?"

"Something else. Otho has his lines. We build to them." Woods pointed behind the unfinished store. "There. Leave room for the carts."

Broad streets already ran past those empty plots. No cottage or stall had been allowed to creep onto them, though people were asking for both. Terys wondered what could need so much ground. From below, the spaces had made the new houses look scattered. Now he saw how much larger Blackburn might become.

Woods took him farther south to collect iron straps for their quay work. On the repair beach, a merchantman lay on stout props while men drove fresh oakum into her seams. A sail lay spread before a loft, its torn edge weighted with stones while sewing hands worked along it. Terys recognised a woman who bought bread below his room. She waved without getting up.

Beyond them rose the enclosed shipyard, its roof higher than anything along that shore. Timber carts waited outside its guarded gate. From within came the steady knocking of mallets. Terys had never seen the ship they were building there.

"Nearly ready," Woods said, noticing him look. "Qavo needs the mast crane finished before she comes out. Henly's bringing the gear down."

Terys watched men shifting a timber too large for his whole gang to carry. There would be more work here long after his store had its roof. He collected the straps and followed Woods back, passing sailors who had come ashore to eat while their ship was repaired.

At the unfinished quay, his men were laying out the next wooden platform for the masons to work from above the water. One carpenter came from the North, another from the island. Between them they could argue over a joint in words Terys barely understood. He settled it by laying the pieces together and showing where the brace would sit. Once the crosspieces were raised, he sent two men back to Woods.

Nymos brought over one he had cut too short.

"We can use it elsewhere," Terys told him in Valyrian. "Show me before you cut the next."

The younger man kept looking at the wasted end.

Once, in Lys, Terys had left a bloody thumbprint beneath a cedar chest. His master had beaten him with a cane. He had curled on the floor, covering his head; one blow split his knuckles, and the others kept coming after he stopped begging. Afterwards he had been made to scrape away the stain. The chest sold that afternoon.

He closed his hand over the crooked white scar, then took up the chalk.

"Here. Mark it with me."

By noon the masons were carrying their tools onto the finished platform. Beyond them the new quay ran back to the occupied berth; ahead, heaps of stone waited where the shore had yet to be built out. Across the water, waves broke against the repaired harbour arm. Farther out, blocks were being lowered for the longer wall that would shelter the new berths.

Terys stood a moment watching a mason kneel on boards his men had just fastened. Then Woods called him to the road.

Ellyn's box had arrived. He had made its stronger outer case under the lean-to, away from the quay work. The carter waited while Terys and Nymos lifted the closed box down and settled it into the padding.

This batch was to travel with Lord Jon. Other cases were already waiting inside the warehouse; none of these goods had been sold yet. Nymos drove the nails while Terys held the lid.

He had first seen Jon at a building yard and mistaken him for somebody's son come to watch. Then a mason bowed. Grown men had bought and sold Terys; the boy had spent gold to free him. Now he trusted men like Terys to build all this.

Thank you seemed little enough. He wished he could say more when Jon next came down, without another man speaking for him.

They carried the case into store, onto wooden supports clear of the floor. Through the rear doors Terys could see the market roofs and his own row of houses above them.

"Come to my room when we're done," he told Nymos. "We'll buy fish on the way."

"I'll pay for it."

"Then I'll buy the bread."

Woods was outside with the two men he had borrowed. Terys called them over and took Nymos with him to measure the timbers for the store. He wanted to know what they would need before the next cart arrived.

* * *

Lew, now Malcolm's optio, came with half a loaf and an order from his centurion.

"He wants your front rank changed after the first turn. Put the newest men opposite us. He says we have been making them look better than they are."

Hennet looked up from the letter across his knee. Wind had lifted its corner, smearing the last word against his thumb. "Does Mallador know?"

"I have just told him. He sent me to find you." Lew broke the loaf and held out a piece. "You missed the bread again."

Hennet took it, folded the letter and pushed it into his coat. He had been asking his mother again to come to Dragonstone. His sister had married and left home; he wanted the rest of the family here, his little brother too. His new pay would help them settle. He had been trying to explain that he was Mallador's optio now, deputy to the centurion of Second, when a decanus brought him a broken shield grip. Perhaps this time she would agree to come.

"Come over when yours are dismissed," Lew said. "Murch has onions for the pot. He says he is feeding us before we forget who taught us our trade."

Murch stood beside Third with two decanuses waiting on his word. Hennet remembered kneeling beside him and Lew after the alehouse brawl: six strokes apiece for himself and Lew, ten for Murch, and a sennight scrubbing latrines. Now Murch commanded a century. Lew had spent his afternoons teaching the island recruits until Malcolm asked for him as optio; Hennet had first led a ten before Mallador chose him as his deputy. His mother would scarcely believe it.

Lew hurried back to Malcolm.

Three spear centuries filled the nearer ground: Malcolm's First, Mallador's Second and Murch's Third. Three hundred men, half of the Second Cohort Jon intended. Beyond the ditch the older cohort's six centuries were at work, the round shields of its swordsmen moving apart from the long spear lines. Its roll held six hundred names. Hewyn had taken command of First Spears again when Malcolm moved over, serving as its centurion as well as First Spear of the cohort.

Hennet brushed bread from his lap and rose. Whenever Hewyn came to watch now, he found himself looking along his own ranks first.

Mallador met him beside the practice shields, pulling at the collar of his padded coat.

"Lew found you, then. Take the rear when we move. I want you watching the last men through the turn; they crowd whenever the front slows."

Hennet went along the ranks before they moved. Most had enlisted on Dragonstone: fishermen, field hands and men who had carried stone for Otho. Newcomers were doing their old work now. Northerners transferred from the older centuries stood among them, but there were fewer familiar faces than Hennet still expected to see.

A pale-haired lad in the second rank had his shield almost up to his eyes. Hennet pushed its rim down a little.

"Can you see them now?"

Across the ground, Malcolm's men were taking their places.

"Yes, Optio."

"Keep looking at them."

The lad's neighbour had shoulders broad enough to fill a doorway and a spear gripped so tightly that his knuckles showed white. He had come from the quarry. During his first drills he had fought every shove against his shield, even when the order was to give ground. He still looked offended when a smaller man moved him.

"Ease your hand," Hennet told him. "You have to carry it until we're done."

The fingers loosened. Hennet waited until the man met his eye, then moved on.

It was strange to have men older than himself straighten when he approached. Some had wives and children beyond the camp. They called him Optio without grinning, and expected him to know what to do. He had wanted the rank. Standing before Mallador when it was offered, he had thought of the pay, his mother's face when she heard, and having men listen when he spoke.

He had not thought how closely he would watch them afterwards.

The pale-haired lad had struggled to lift his shield at the end of his first morning. Now he could hold it through the drill. A fisherman farther down the rank, who had scarcely spoken above a mutter when he joined, was reminding the man beside him to leave room for his spear. Hennet passed without interrupting. They had heard that often enough from him.

Mallador called them forward. Shields lifted, and Hennet moved with the rear. Dust rose beneath their boots. Across the narrowing space, Malcolm's front rank lowered its blunted spears.

The first advance held. At the turn the leading men slowed, but those behind kept coming. A shield knocked against a man's back. He stumbled and tried to hurry, making the space ahead smaller still.

"Rear ranks, hold!"

Hennet caught the next man's shoulder before he drove into him. Mallador halted the century. Several of the newest men looked back, waiting to be shouted at.

Hennet brought their decanus beside him.

"Take them through it slowly. Stop them here if the front hasn't cleared."

He showed him the place. The men at the rear had been trying to keep the same pace all the way round. They needed to shorten their steps while those ahead turned. Hennet walked beside them through the movement, then went back and watched their decanus give the order.

"Again."

The quarryman began to crowd the lad before him, checked himself and waited for room. Hennet saw his spear hand tighten.

"Ease that hand. No one's taking it from you."

A few men laughed. The quarryman glanced at his fist, then opened it, smiling despite himself.

The last rank came round without a collision.

"Back to your places," Hennet called. "We do it at the command now."

Hennet remembered the shield wall against Rolo's men: the blows jarring his arm, someone shouting close to his ear, his own breath hot inside his helm. He had wanted to draw back and had nowhere to go. The man beside him held; so had he. All those miserable afternoons repeating a turn or a halt had kept their line together when the pirates struck it. He looked along the recruits. They would need that obedience when they were frightened, not merely when Mallador was watching.

He checked the last rank once more.

Mallador brought them forward. This time the rear slowed in time. The newer men came round into the front rank to face Malcolm's spears, as ordered. Wood thumped against padded shields. The pale-haired lad flinched at the first blow, then set himself. Beside him the quarryman gave ground with his neighbours instead of planting his feet and fighting the whole opposing line alone.

At the halt, their points stayed level.

Hennet felt himself smiling. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve before the men saw it.

Mallador let them rest while Malcolm withdrew his century.

"Better," he told Hennet. "They'll forget it when they're tired."

"Two circuits?"

"Take them. Keep them together."

Hennet called the men back into their files. A few groaned when he pointed to the path around the field, but shields came up and spears settled against shoulders. He set off beside them.

For the first stretch the quarryman stayed near the front. By the far ditch he was breathing through his mouth. The pale-haired lad ran steadily beside him, his shield tucked close. Hennet shortened the pace before the rear began to fall away.

He had once hated the man who did this to him. There had always seemed to be another length of field, another hill, another order just when he thought they were finished. Now he watched for the open mouths and dragging feet. A man might be fit enough to carry stone all day and still have nothing left after a morning with a shield.

"Close up," he called. "Easy at the corner."

The first men obeyed. The rear caught up without breaking into a scramble.

Beyond the ditch, black-coated ranks stretched across the older cohort's ground. Hennet had been one face among them. He wanted a century of his own one day, more men to command when Lord Jon called for them. He could admit that to himself now. But he had to make soldiers of these first.

At the gate, three riders turned towards the field. He knew Jon's seat before he saw the white forelock. Arthur rode beside him, with Aurane on the other side.

Jon had trusted him with men who had never stood in a battle. Hennet had stood where they would stand, waiting for the order and hoping the men around him knew what they were doing. He would not let Jon down by sending them there unready.

A shield began to slip behind him. Hennet fell back beside its owner.

"Bring your arm in. There's another circuit yet."

The man adjusted his grip and kept running. Hennet stayed beside him.

* * *

Jon rode along the infantry ground with Arthur on his right and Aurane on his left. Mallador's century was running beside the ditch. Hennet's voice carried over the tramp of boots, harsher than Jon remembered it from the ships. He was near the rear, running beside a lad whose shield had begun to sag.

"He has found his lungs," Arthur said.

"I heard him from the road," Aurane said.

"You were meant to be listening to me."

"I heard you too. You want another sailmaker who knows his trade without telling the whole island how well he knows it. I know several who can sew. I make no promises about their tongues."

Jon smiled. He remembered Hennet by the hatch, frightened and holding where he had been told. Now he kept men of his own in place. There were faces in those ranks Jon had never spoken to. He disliked that, though he had wanted enough men to make it inevitable.

Hewyn came to meet them. His own First Century was drilling farther down the field. Across the new ground Malcolm had three centuries, half of what his Second Cohort would eventually become.

"How are the new officers managing?" Jon asked.

"Lew has a way with the island lads. He'll explain a thing three times without making a man ashamed to ask. Mallador is pleased with Hennet. He knows which men still need help."

Across the field Murch called a decanus over and pointed towards a ragged file.

"A moon ago he'd have gone to dress that line himself," Hewyn said. "Malcolm's been making him use his officers. He can't lead a century with his hands on every man's shoulder."

"And the men?"

"The Dragonstone lads keep pace with the northerners on the march now. Most hold their order when they're tired. Give them someone to chase and you'll still see gaps." He watched Murch's men straighten. "But fewer than last moon. They listen to the men who fought at Bloodstone."

A cart laden with bed frames was passing through the fort's gate.

"Otho has roofed Third's barrack," Hewyn said. "They can move in tomorrow. He's cut back that bank beside the horse lines too. Vaelor has room to turn his men now."

"Good. Settle the next intake with him before you take men from his works."

Beyond the infantry ground, new riders walked their horses between stakes. More experienced men lowered blunted lances at hanging targets. Hewyn walked beside Jon's stirrup to the rail.

"One hundred and ten recruits under Vaelor now," Hewyn said. "Young men, most of them." Jon had made Scales their centurion, with Hugh and the other knights to help train his horsemen.

Jon watched a rider round the last stake without crowding the next horse. He had cavalry at last. The beginning of it, anyway: men who could scout ahead and reach trouble before his infantry.

"Three new centuries and these," he said. "We have come some way."

"We have," Arthur agreed. "But you need experienced knights and men-at-arms among them. Vaelor cannot ride beside a hundred and ten young men. Even with Hugh, Corentin and Mael."

"Vaelor says the same."

"He knows what he's missing. If one rider loses his nerve, someone must keep the men beside him from following."

Hewyn rested a hand on the rail. "The new centuries have men from the First in every rank. We have fewer to give the horses."

Jon looked towards the beginners.

"Then we bring more in. Knights who need service, and men-at-arms who have fought from a saddle. Arthur, have Gawen and Vaelor examine them with you. Their horses as well as their stories."

"The king's tourney will bring plenty of men looking for a place," Aurane said. "Some have spent years waiting for a richer knight to die."

"Do you know any worth taking?"

"A few names. I'd ask about them before putting them in your colours."

"Find out who rode beside them. These lads will keep training; I'll have older hands among them before I ask them to charge anyone."

Hewyn returned to his infantry.

Ser Hugh Tollett waited farther along the rail. His brother and squire Eddison wheeled a well-bred bay at the far stake, lowered his practice lance and struck the hanging shield squarely. Hugh watched him ride clear.

"Better. Again, with your shield."

"The newest six need another fortnight on the level ground," he told Jon. "Vaelor has ordered the better men out with Corentin. You'll learn more on the lane than watching them pass a fence."

Ser Corentin of Wickenden waited upon a dark gelding, a white fox upon his worn shield. Ser Mael of the Ford was checking a rider's girth. Both had come with their horses, passed Gawen's trials and sworn their swords to Jon. Corentin was patient with effort and merciless with pretence; Mael could settle a frightened mount without humiliating its rider.

"I'll go with them," Jon said.

Hugh mounted, leaving Aleyx Waters and two older riders with the beginners. Vaelor joined Jon while Corentin led the men out in pairs, Mael following the last.

In the narrow lane Corentin drew the riders aside for a cart. Jon recognised Cinderwell's mark upon the iron hoops. A year earlier those would have come by ship. Beyond it, captured pirates and other prisoners broke stone under guard. Otho's gangs were widening the roads between the villages and digging ditches alongside.

Beyond the wall they spread out and trotted up the grassy rise. Wind pulled Jon's cloak from his back. Aurane drew level on the seaward side, riding rather better than he had admitted before their first outing. Jon had learnt to distrust such admissions. Aurane usually wanted a wager.

Below them Blackburn's roofs spread past the place where the road had once ended. Farther uphill, timbers lay across unfinished rooms.

"Will you joust with me before the tourney?" Aurane asked. "I hear Gawen had you riding at a quintain in the North."

"He did."

"Then let's see whether he taught you to stay in the saddle."

Jon smiled. "When there's time."

"Of course, my lord. I'll catch you soon enough when you've run out of excuses."

Jon laughed. He had come to enjoy these rides, and Aurane's company over supper. That suited Monford, no doubt. He had sent his brother to watch Jon, and letters went back to Driftmark. Jon knew it, but liked Aurane all the same. He remembered the boat coming back under fire. There would be a command for him in time.

Monford and the other old houses still saw Eddard Stark's bastard in the dragons' seat. Jon meant to honour their loyalty when he could stand before them as Aemon. Until then he ruled as Jon Black, and their distrust would not stop his work.

He let his horse lengthen its stride.

At the marker a horse shied. Its rider steadied it without crossing his neighbour, and Mael left him room.

"That gelding would have bolted a moon ago," Vaelor said. "We're getting them used to flapping cloth and the sound of shields. Some still kick when another horse comes close. They must learn to bear that before we bring the line together."

Farther back, another rider hurried to close a gap and crowded the horse ahead. Mael called him out to try again at a walk.

"Would you trust him out on patrol?" Aurane asked.

"With Corentin. Not alone," Vaelor said. "He knows these roads better than any of us. We can use that."

Jon glanced back. The lad had fallen in behind Mael and was keeping his distance now.

"Put him in Corentin's party, then."

They walked the final stretch back. Jon dismounted while the men saw to their horses.

"The better riders can begin island patrols," he told Vaelor. "An old hand with each party. Have them speak to the headmen. I want to hear of a failing bridge or a stranger buying horses before the next market."

Vaelor handed his reins to a groom. Jon stopped him before he could follow the men.

"You're coming to King's Landing with me. Gawen too. I want you both riding in the lists. I'll enter as well."

Vaelor looked back. "I'll have my destrier ready, my lord."

"Room for another?" Hugh asked. "I'd like a chance at that purse."

"Next time, Hugh. I'm leaving the riders with you, Corentin and Mael. Keep their training going while we're away."

Hugh's smile faded a little. He looked towards the practice stakes, where Eddison was waiting with his lance across his saddle.

"Eddison comes with us," Jon said. "Aleyx too. There's a squires' melee. I want them both in it."

Hugh beckoned his brother over and told him. Eddison broke into a grin, then bowed to Jon.

"Aye, my lord," Hugh said. "Bring us back those older hands."

"I mean to."

"Take me with you," Aurane said. "I can introduce you to some of those men. Besides, I'd like to see Gawen in the lists."

"Come, then. Arthur will want those names before we sail."

Jon left Hugh to choose between a dealer's mounts and sent him to Perkin for the purchase money.

* * *

Aries waited in the castle yard with two wooden swords. Jon took the heavier one and closed his right hand firmly about the grip. The cut had healed to a pale scar. There was no pain now, even when he tightened his fingers and gave the blade a hard turn.

"Ser Gawen said I did well this morning," Aries said. "He said my footwork was much better."

"Good," Jon said.

Aries was smiling now. "I'm going to get a point off you today."

Jon raised his blade. "Come on, then."

Aries set his feet. Jon touched blades and drove him towards the yard's centre. The boy had grown into his shoulders; his sword no longer dragged his arm after it when a stroke was turned aside.

Jon pressed harder. Aries caught one cut, stepped clear of the next and waited through an opening he would once have lunged at. When he struck at Jon's ribs, he kept his balance. Jon turned the blow and answered; Aries retreated a short step instead of throwing himself backwards.

"Better."

Aries did not look towards Arthur. Jon let his sword swing too far, and the boy struck his upper arm before withdrawing with his guard up.

"He'll tell that one over supper," Aurane said.

"Tell them what happens next," Jon replied. "Again."

Aries earned no second touch, but Jon had to work for the stroke that caught his hip.

"You crossed your feet," Arthur told him. "You saw his arm and forgot where he put his foot."

Jon showed him the step. On their second slow attempt, Aries kept his balance and turned out of reach. He was breathing hard, trying not to grin.

He handed Aurane his sword while he wiped his palms.

"Shall I tell Gawen?" Aurane asked.

"Tell him I got my point."

"And what happened after," Jon said.

Aries glanced at Arthur. "He can ask Ser Arthur about that."

Aurane laughed.

Darys brought water, his pale hair escaping its tie. Alasdair had relieved him at the gate. Keir's sword hung at his side, and he kept his dusty black sleeve clear of the cups.

Hewyn had recommended him to fill Fergus's place in the household. Alasdair had worked him hard, and Arthur had tested his swordplay and judgement before Jon accepted his oath. One of Dragonstone's own Valyrian lads now stood among his northern household men.

"Marrec and Perrin are coming up," Jon told him. "Have their things brought to my workroom."

"The samples, my lord?"

"And whichever bundle of complaints Otho sends."

Darys grinned. Aries drained his water and asked to try the step again. Arthur took back the wooden sword and put him in place.

Aurane asked whether Jon meant to dine before the masters came.

"I've something to do first. Then Ethan is coming up with the accounts. I'll see you at supper."

"Shall I keep you anything?"

"Something you haven't bitten."

"Such an exacting host." He left with Darys, asking whether the kitchens had forgiven Denys's men for borrowing their largest pot.

* * *

The egg stood in the light from the narrow window, its dark-red scales edged with copper.

The king's letter lay open on the table beside the egg, its broken seal stamped with a crowned stag. Robert had invited him to the tourney at the moon's end.

Jon drew away the egg's linen cover and rested his hands beside the padded cradle. From this angle the curve was almost whole, its scales running from broad base to narrow crown. Some seams vanished when he leaned back.

Then he turned the cradle, and the holes came into view.

One lay low on the far side; two smaller gaps interrupted the upper curve. He had filled another four days ago, then searched until the candle guttered.

He tried a loose red fragment against the lower opening. Its colour and thickness matched, but the far edge left a gap.

"Damn you."

He set it down before irritation made him force it.

Other trays held smoke-grey, green, gold and blue fragments, remnants of several eggs jumbled together long before he found them. He had sorted them by daylight and lamplight. The red egg was the nearest he had come to recovering something whole.

He touched a copper edge. Cold. Through the hole he could see the padding beneath. A mended shell was still a shell. Yet dragons had hatched from stone, and he knew too much to regard it as a pretty ruin.

Every chamber where fragments had been found had been searched again, its earth sifted and rubble turned. The men brought him old nails, beads and a cracked gaming piece. Nothing completed the shell. Jon stood looking at the gaps until footsteps sounded outside.

He put the loose piece in its tray and covered the egg. His black notebook went into its locked drawer before he called for the door to be opened.

Ethan, Abel and Arthur arrived with the masters. Otho brought drawings while Darys helped Marrec lift the armour chest onto a bench. Jon cleared a place for Perrin to unpack Ellyn's cup.

Light softened its thin edge. Jon turned it in his hand, looking for the slight unevenness she had shown him after the firing. He liked that she had pointed it out before he could find it himself.

Gella's white salt came next. Marrec opened the smaller padded case and lifted out a helm, deep red beneath its glassy finish. The rest of the harness lay in the chest, each piece wrapped against its neighbours.

"Ewan wants you to see it all," he said.

Arthur lifted the breastplate. Jon ran his thumb over its smooth finish while Arthur tried the gauntlet, slowly closing his fist.

"Noll has been busy."

"The new centuries have kept him busy," Jon said. "This is the one I asked him to spare."

Abel opened his book beside the porcelain. William's latest clock ticked on the wall, ready for its buyer.

"And where is this one going?" Abel asked, looking at the red steel.

"King's Landing. With me."

Ethan glanced at Arthur, then drew the map of the bay towards him.

"When?"

"Before the tourney. I want the gifts presented before the lists open." Jon set the cup beside the helm. "Ellyn's twelve cups and six bowls are for the royal family. She knows they matter; she needn't worry about whose hands will hold them."

"And the armour?" Abel asked.

"This for the showing. Another made to Robert's measure, as my gift. Pack white salt for the royal kitchens too. Enough for them to serve it."

Abel ran a finger down his page. "We have paid for the work already. Giving it away will not put the wages back."

Jon remembered Osric's account of Robert showing the clock at the feast. Men who would have barred an unknown craftsman from their halls wanted what the king possessed. Osric had spent the evening taking names.

"The clock did," he said. "Let Robert wear our armour and his guests eat from our porcelain. When someone asks where it came from, I mean to be there."

Perrin drew his writing board closer. "The men who buy your clocks will receive my letters. Their stewards know the seal."

"Write to them. Find a room near the harbour before the city fills. We'll lay everything out there after I've been to the Red Keep. Invite the merchants as well as the lords' men."

Perrin looked again at the red harness.

"Shall I offer the harness for sale?"

"Take orders. An armourer goes with us to fit men and take their measures. Ewan sets the dates, allowing for our own soldiers first." Jon shook a little salt onto a plate. "Have their cooks taste this. Put food in the bowls. I don't want everything shut in cases while a merchant tells them what it is."

"Hamish is sending cheeses," Marrec said. "We can feed them something of our own."

"Take those, and common salt for the shipowners. The white is for wealthy tables."

"Until now, porcelain this fine had to come from the far east," Marrec said. "Few merchants bring any this far. Those who do ask a fortune."

"Then price ours accordingly," Jon said. "The white salt too. They won't find better. If a buyer wants cheap salt, show him the common kind."

"Give them a list of what we can supply and your direction in Blackburn," Jon told Perrin. "Promise deliveries we can keep. If those go well, we'll try Gulltown and White Harbour, then buyers across the narrow sea."

Arthur drew off the gauntlet. "Some will come to see you. The work will be an excuse."

"Then they'll see both."

"They will ask more than the price of a cup."

Jon met his eyes. Reports of his men, ships and spending had gone to his father and the Hand. Now they would have him within reach.

"I'll answer what concerns them. I want to speak with Lord Arryn while I'm there, and hear what is being said about Dragonstone."

Ethan smoothed the map. "Qavo still has men aboard the new ship."

"She's nearly finished. Let him finish her. Vhalar will take us on his galley."

Arthur's hand stopped beside the helm.

"Vhalar himself?"

"It's time I used him. He's been itching for a trip."

Jon turned the map towards Arthur. After a pause Arthur looked down.

"I'll settle the household guard with Alasdair."

"And speak with Denys about the crew. Allow for our tourney horses and the squires' mounts. Hugh, Corentin and Mael will stay to train the riders."

"Allow Gawen a few days ashore before he rides," Arthur said.

"And find somewhere to try those men Aurane recommended. He's coming with us."

The four prizes were repaired, Vhalar's three galleys under Denys's orders. Timber for Qavo's second ship lay ready, but Jon would see the first tried at sea before they laid another keel.

"I have men asking for bar iron already," Marrec said.

"Hamish is still waiting for ploughs." Ethan put a folded return beside Abel's book. "And I have houses waiting for hinges."

Jon pushed the iron offer back. "The island keeps it. The stone too."

Otho needed no invitation after that. He unrolled his drawing across the map, forcing Perrin to rescue the salt.

"These roofs first, then," the builder said. "Merren wants another workshop wall. Hamish wants a grain store. Both say they've been promised their turn."

"They have," Ethan said. "These people were promised somewhere to live."

Ethan indicated the houses. New arrivals shared rooms with barely settled families; headmen came to him asking for beds.

"How soon?" Jon asked Otho.

"Before the next moon is out, if the timber comes. These nearer houses can be finished sooner."

"Finish those. Ethan will give you the names for them. The grain store follows the roofs."

Marrec's return listed three thousand two hundred freed Valyrians, including children, and two hundred and eighty-seven northern settlers. Jon read the totals again. That morning he had walked streets which had not existed when he first came to Dragonstone.

Abel laid his second book beside the return.

"The next grain order is larger."

"Even after Hamish's harvest?"

"After it," Ethan said. "The villages are eating better. They are also feeding more people."

Hamish's report lay beneath the drawings: nearly twice the grain on the guano trial, more land under the plough, drains saving wet fields and irrigation carrying others through the drought. The cheesehouse wasted less milk too.

Dake, who had argued with Jon about food and resented Hamish's appointment, had signed the request for ploughs and seed drills. Even this harvest would not feed everyone coming here.

"Buy the grain. Wheat where the price is sound, barley and oats as well. Enough to outlast a missed sailing. Raise the orders as the ships bring more people."

"The fuel buyers want some of the same holds," Marrec said.

"Hire another. Don't bring me charcoal and tell me the grain had to wait." Jon tapped Hamish's request. "His tools come before anything offered abroad. Give him the men for the next clearing, and have the guano carts ready for the sowing."

Marrec drew a letter from beneath the return.

"The men in Lys want to know whether they should keep buying. They've found a mason who can set an arch. The seller knows what he's worth."

"So do I," Otho said. "Can he read a drawing?"

"I'll have them ask. There are smiths as well, though I'd sooner have one of Ewan's men look at them. Every man in the pen becomes a master when his owner names the price."

"Send someone who knows the work," Jon said. "Speak to the men yourselves. Find out who taught them and what they've made."

He drew the letter closer. There were ages beside some of the names, trades beside others. A woman who had woven fine cloth had been put down as a washerwoman. Further down, the mason's wife was mentioned without a name.

"Where is she?"

"In another house. They haven't found out which."

"Find her. Tell them both what waits here: freedom, paid work and a place to live."

Ethan pulled the housing return towards him. "Tell me before they sail. I can find room for children if I know they're coming. The headmen cannot keep putting beds into kitchens."

"You'll have word as soon as the purchases are settled," Jon said. "Marrec, keep looking. Valyrian men and women with trades, and labourers for the fields and works. Ask about their children and kin. Have your agents search beyond Lys."

Abel turned a page. "The next purse can go from what we have. After that, I shall want the offers on the remaining plate settled."

"Send it. Marrec, bring him the offers before we leave."

Some of the raid's thirty-eight thousand dragons remained in unsold goods. Repairs, housing and freed people's passage consumed the proceeds; clock orders paid wages between sales. Nine hundred legionaries, the garrison, household, sailors and cavalry needed paying. None could wait upon a lord's liking for porcelain.

"Have the headmen send the new arrivals to their schoolmasters," he told Ethan. "Grown men as well as children. A mason ought to be able to ask for his tools."

"Some come after work already. Others say they are too old."

"Tell them which jobs William is offering to men who can read and reckon. And what he pays."

Ethan smiled a little. "The masters have found that helps."

Jon paid a schoolmaster in each village to teach Common, letters and reckoning. He marked rooms near the works for further teaching. Cadan and Lucan could help, though neither could spend his days teaching sums.

"Keep those rooms in this year's work. For the guarded crafts, ask the masters for names from the freed households first. Men and women who learn quickly and can hold their tongues. William tries them before anyone enters his inner room."

Freed men and women did most of the guarded work. Their homes were here. Jon would reward that attachment; newcomers still needed his approval and an oath.

Before Otho could roll the drawing, Jon asked how far the water line could go.

"Beyond the court with a larger pipe. What are you putting there?"

"I'll need a place for boiling, away from the clean work. Leave a way for carts carrying fat and wood ash. Farther up, I want clean water and room under cover for drying."

Otho followed the slope with his finger. "Here. What will you be drying?"

"I'll show you when we're back. Marrec, find me some old linen. Worn sheets, shirts too ragged to mend. Have it washed and sorted. No wool mixed through it."

Abel's quill stopped. "You're buying rags?"

"Clean linen rags."

Marrec looked at him across the porcelain. "The sailmakers have offcuts. I can get you sound cloth."

"Save that for sails. Worn cloth will serve."

Abel waited, plainly expecting more. Jon drew the plan closer and marked the drying ground beside Otho's water line.

"For now, enough for trials. If they go as I expect, you'll be buying rather more of it."

Marrec added the linen to his list, slower than he had written the timber. "What else?"

"Wine. Some of those scented oils you trade in, and dried flowers. Small amounts. Learn what the sellers in King's Landing ask for their best oils, too."

"The wine goes with the rags?" Abel asked.

"Separate work, beside the grain mill at Wyrm's Rest." Jon put down the quill. "Find men who know how to draw spirits from wine, Marrec, and someone who blends scents. Bring me names while we're there. I have drawings to go through with them when we return."

Otho marked the unused ground. Abel had not closed his book.

"And what am I paying for before you leave?"

"The drawings and trial supplies. The larger works wait until I'm home." Jon looked at Otho. "Bring me the cost of that pipe tomorrow. Include the bathhouse line. Keep its ground clear, but the houses come first."

They would walk the court in the morning. The place of learning, bank, theatre and arena in his black book could wait; the men without roofs could not.

Ethan folded the house return into his papers.

"I'll have the headmen up before you sail. They can settle the lodgings with me while you're away. Otho sends his bills to Abel as usual."

"And send word if the grain is delayed," Jon said. "I'll be close enough to find another cargo."

Perrin, Marrec and Otho left discussing cargo and timber. Ethan stayed for Jon's correspondence.

"Send a raven to Winterfell," Jon told him. "Ask my father if Robb and Theon may join us for the tourney. Tell them I want them there."

Ethan noted it beneath the other letters. Arthur waited until he had gone.

"We should read Denys's packet tonight."

Jon glanced at the locked drawer. The enquiries for Viserys and Daenerys had brought nothing certain yet. He would hear them before he went among men who still toasted Robert's victory.

"After supper. Bring it here."

Arthur set the gauntlet back beside the helm. Through the open window came the rumble of a cart and a shout to clear the gate. The samples from the villages were still arriving.

Jon poured water into Ellyn's cup. Its rim was smooth against his lip. He drank, emptied the last drops into the jug and found the cloth Perrin had brought it in.

The royal set would travel in its own case. This one he wrapped himself, folding the corners over the handle so it could not knock against the thin wall.

"When Darys comes back, have him put this with my things," he said. "I'll take it to King's Landing myself."