"I could kill your former master. Though to an Ironborn it is a great sin to kill your king, and a greater one to kill your brother. I could kill him with these very hands." He spanked her again, hard. She let out a little yelp of pain, eyes prickling with unshed tears.
...
Asha should have supported me when I'd asked, Victarion suddenly thought. With her voice behind him, he would be the one wearing the driftwood crown, not Euron. What had she been thinking? Even though she was Balon's spawn, and even though she had the Boy King's seal of peace, she must have known a woman stood no chance of sitting the Seastone Chair.
Mercifully, she had at least had the good sense to flee after the Kingsmoot, slipping away with her meagre group of ships. Victarion shuddered to think what Euron would have ordered his mongrels to do to her had she stayed.
The Crow's Eye spits on the gods, Victarion thought, just as I spit on his gift. He would think nothing of raping his own niece. Nothing of having her ripped apart like young Lord Blacktyde.
"Up!" Victarion commanded. The girl jumped to her feet. "You will clean yourself," he said, his hand grasping her roughly by the cunt and pulling her close. "I'll have you again as soon as I'm back," he told her, his other hand grabbing her face and making her gaze meet his.
She nodded sharply, eyes wide with fear, and Victarion grinned and stroked her hair soothingly, almost lovingly, before letting her go. He snatched himself up a second skin of wine, then turned sharp on his heel, departed his cabin and clambered up the steps back onto his deck.
"Where are we?" he asked Nute, spying land in the distance.
"Lord Hewett's Town, Lord Captain," Nute answered. The castle loomed in the distance, scores of longships already moored in the harbour. At a quay were three great cogs and a handful of smaller ones for transporting back the plunder and storing provisions for the rest of the fleet.
"Drop anchor and get a boat ready," Victarion commanded. The men worked quickly and before he knew it he was ashore, the Iron Victory standing still in the sea behind him, rocking gently side to side, waiting patiently for his return like a leal wife. Ahead was Lord Hewett's Town, oddly still and silent.
Smoke trailed up from some burning buildings, but most of the place looked unchanged. Doors had been broken down, to be sure, and the occasional corpse dotted the streets, but far less than Victarion would have expected from a settlement of this size.
Again, his gut twisted in anticipation. Victarion took another swig of wine to calm his nerves.
Lord Hewett's castle sat atop a small hill, the crest of the island, with thick walls and heavy oaken gates. Atop the towers the kraken of House Greyjoy flew, banners cracking against the stone as the wind flapped them. On the ramparts wandered ironborn with spear in hand, in the yard sparred ironborn with spears, axes, and swords. A feast was well underway by the time Victarion got to the hall.
Ironborn filled the tables, drinking and shouting and japing with each other. They boasted of the prizes they had won, seemingly so easily, and loudly wondered as to what conquests the future would hold for them.
Every man was bedecked in stolen plunder. Long necklaces of pearls, tapestries torn off the walls and worn as cloaks, rings, armour, and all the like. They ate off plates of solid silver; glorious platters bedecked with only the finest that Lord Hewett's larders had to offer. Only the Reader sat unadorned, unmoved by the revelry, quiet in his corner with his little circle of followers.
I shall have to keep an eye on him, Victarion resolved. If he cannot be swayed by the Euron's conquests then he might well be willing to help me overthrow the Crow's Eye.
Women served the food, wandering from place to place with platters in their arms. They wore the clothes of servants, one and all; not a single highborn maiden to be seen. Many were red in the face. The rowdy ironmen had little regard for their modesty, no matter the age.
Women as old as forty and girls as young as ten got the same treatment. Bottoms were pinched and groped and spanked, dresses pulled down to reveal ample bosom. One man was bold enough to cut away a girl's dress completely with his blade, leaving her bare. The men laughed and jeered as she was forced to stand and take it, squirming, eager hands wandering wantonly over her flesh, pulling and twisting and kneading.
Euron sat at the head of the hall, a cup of wine held loosely in one hand. He sat alone, without hostage. Lord Hewett, it seemed, was absent. He lifted himself from his seat as Victarion arrived, commanding silence as he rose. "I swore to give you Westeros," he said to the assembled captains, "and here is your first taste. Oh, a morsel for now, nothing more, but with much to come! What the kraken grasps it does not let go... These isles were once ours, long ago, and now they are again.
The whole of the Reach lies before us! Yet we must not be sure to get ahead of ourselves. To hold our current conquests we will need strong men," Euron shot Victarion a look. "Men like Andrik the Unsmiling, Harras Harlaw, and... Nute the Barber!"
Nute's eyes grew wide as he balked. "Me...? A lord?" he asked, as though it was a cruel jape.
Victarion stood stunned. He had expected the Crow's Eye to give these isles over to his own creatures, but as he thought on it the horrible reality became clear. Andrik was the right arm of Dunstan Drumm. Harras the chosen heir to Harlaw. And Nute was - had been - Victarion's best man. His most trustworthy. Euron was consolidating his power.
A round of cheers went up for the newly appointed lords, cups banged on the table surface. When the tumult died, Euron spoke again. "We will sail again on the morrow, our fleet newly-laden with every scrap of provision we can strip from this land, and we will head east to win our dragons, leaving behind only those needed to hold these isles and secure our conquests. When we return, Westeros will be ours!"
"And when exactly is that, Your Grace?" the Reader asked, his tone cutting. He eyed his prospective heir balefully. "Your dragons are a world away, and autumn is already upon us, and winter not too long after that. The Redwyne fleet still guards the Reach coasts from the Arbor, the Dornish coasts are high and barren and lacking in many suitable landing sites and even less places where we might quickly plunder and take succour to replenish ourselves.
And then sit the Stepstones, and the Free Cities, who are no friends to us. If a thousand ships set sail, no more than three-hundred might make it that far, and that will leave us dangerously weak. And that's just from depletion. What if we are struck by a storm, or run across an unfriendly fleet along the way?"
Euron smiled a thin smile, blue lips stretching disconcertingly wide. "I have taken the Silence on far longer voyages than this, and ones more dangerous. Or have you forgotten that I have sailed to Valyria, to the Smoking Sea?"
"Have you?" the Reader questioned, and the hall fell still at his gall.
"You would do well to keep your nose in your books, Lord Harlaw," Euron retorted, his tone dangerous at the insult. "As for the journey, you will note the women who walk between the tables in this hall. The price of flesh is rising, on account of Daenerys Targaryen's conquests in Slaver's Bay. Lys lies on our way, and the Lyseni are always willing to trade for slaves.
From there we could replenish the holds of our ships. After thoroughly tasting the women we mean to trade, of course." His words were accompanied with a lecherous grin that was returned by many of the captains in the hall.
"So we are slavers now?" Victarion interjected. They took thralls, of course, but thralls were not slaves. They could not be bought or sold, only stolen. And the children of thralls were born as ironmen, free men. The ironborn were not slavers.
"Highgarden's close," one man suddenly said, half-drunk. "Slaver's Bay is far. Seems to me if we want gold we should go there."
"And Oldtown is richer, the Arbor richer still," another man chimed in. "With more beautiful girls than here."
"And better defended, too," Euron pointed out. "Much better defended. Already, ships mass in the Mander. It would be a foolish fight to pick, less quick conquest and more grinding siege. A fight more taxing on our fleet than any voyage east."
"A fight well worth it for the ripest fruit in all of Westeros!" one man bellowed. "If not Oldtown or Highgarden than at least the Arbor! We want the Arbor! The Arbor!" The other captains took up his call. "The Arbor! We want the Arbor! The Arbor!"
...
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