The Valyrian freehold

The king's door has not seen our favor in some time. Though we reside in Sarnath with the high king. The palace holds a thousand rooms. What little we have are kept in these walls. Many have turned to plunder by sea in order to sustain us. Their pockets are filled while our coffers grow emptier. Due to the heavy downpour, our riverbanks glisten, but our battlefield lay empty. It is neither a good thing. Grazdan has permanently stopped all trade from Ye-ti and Leng. The King has refused all reports on his plan in slavers bay. All that we know from those who have remained in our corner is that Vigar has been removed from the king's hold, and some believe he is permanently dispatched in Astapor. His crimes are grave and if his grace succeeds hopefully his head will be placed on those very spikes that inspire fear in their hearts. The man behaves like a slave but more depraved than I or a child.

We once believed the silver sea was the womb of the world, but little of it we have seen. He kept this to himself. Here he resided with his council men and here they plotted ever so desperately, clinging onto the other for some sort of advantage. Most who have ventured these gates are gone now, their cities burned and buried. Their gods and heroes all but forgotten. He reminisced on the history as the ale slowly settled in. "Other people rose and fell and fought struggling for a place in the sun. This war has divided us into cities each grasping at very little. The high king must settle this matter before" .... "War is already upon us it is too late to intervene," the second councilman said.

"Their failings have led us here, good ser, and just as they were extinguished driven into exile or conquered and assimilated by the people who succeeded them, they still exist and so shall we, as we become a distant memory." The third man spoke. 

Dark eyes sunk into his as they converted. "What are we to do if this war depletes us of our steal, spider silks, horses, food, or our simple copper?" The first man asked with little concern. 

"You forgot to mention our chariots. They too are made from our gold and silver. I am as clueless as you," the second spoke. 

"All our cities are built along one river that connect to these lakes. We are descendants of the tall men and the fisher queens. What do we have to fear? It is the Gods who have chosen to make us small." The first replied again.

The third man refuted feeling ever the wiser. "Are the Gods truly to blame for all our problems. I seem to remember a time when your status used to come into quite a bit of controversy surrounding the king's legitimacy. We were all concerned about your prior establishments with the corsairs. Now they have come to our aid and here you sulk in your cups." 

"What use are wealthy friends if they will not put their wealth at your disposal? If you step in a nest of snakes, does it matter which one bites first? (G.R.R.M quote) "Well, it depends on which one has the largest bite. If it is lethal we can overcome, but if it is calm before the storm, then we are lost." The first man smirks at the seconds answer only taking short breaths before answering.

Accuse me, as you may, but it will not deter our enemies. I have members of my house scattered in our cities. I know little of them since this war began. I have no sons to carry on my legacy. No wife or daughter to contend with, just you and this high council of ever fleeting members. It is how our name came to be is it not?" He waited for no answer. "The small council. One by one, each day, they came and went to the burrowing cities, seeking more than the king could offer." Before the conversation could go any further, the mediator of the two chose to stroke both of their egos.

"Our monarch is our land, as long as he survives, so will our dynasty." They pondered this many a time when the nights were much warmer. "Do any of you remember the twin moons?" He asked as the moon graced them with its presence. 

"They say a great travesty befell the sheepherders. That the sky shined a thousand fires. Yet, they still exist. Sometimes, I can hardly imagine our forebearers once tilled the lands." The first man tilted his cup to find the shadow of the moon in its place.

"They have been sightings of wyverns in that area. I certainly do not understand how they have survived for that long in such harsh conditions. There are very few who believe they had a common kin among them with the Lhazareen. The second chimed in. "A primitive folk surrounded by Ghis and the Dothraki. Their deity is known as the Great Shepherd. They have copper skin and almond shaped eyes similar to the Dothraki, but they are squatter and flatter of faced, with short black cropped hair. A language of notes and songs. I do not find it hard to believe that some traveled to the peninsula in hopes of freedom from their captors. Speaking of which, have any of you been hearing the sound of bells chiming?" He received no answer only a slight nod. 

"I've heard that the Ifequevron or wood walkers or the children of the forest, whomever you know them as, have been making a scene as of late in these coming years. Those beyond the bone mountains have taken great interest in their power. I only meant to mention the stars for it is ever fleeting in our grasp. I do not think we will win this war. For I too have lost many to its plunder." The men could only offer so much solace.

"To the Kings health then." The first councilman rose his cup, and they soon joined in. Kings is only a word, but fealty, loyalty, service those I must have. Sorcery is the sauce fools' spoon over failure to hide the flavor of their own incompetence. (G.R.R.M quote)

Our gestures never touch the sky, for we are not even permitted from leaving the grounds, without the orders of our Masters. Today I may hold my head high for I have been given the day to rest. It will not last long for their is always something to do.

I have nowhere to go. The only place I can linger is among my brothers. No words are spoken as they shift in their stance to give me room to stand. Two men each patrol the terrace, one in front and the other facing towards the city gates. These are the positions that give us awareness to any battle or foe. 

We watch as the women and children bathe. Their water is murky, a brown filled slop of dirt. It mirrored the grain of sand at my feet. They stripped themselves bear. The scars that linger are even dire than the water they reuse. They are told to be grateful, that their masters are snakes, that their life is a privilege itself. If they are found risking it, they are beaten with an inch of their life. And we are still expected to stand. If they stumble, they are beaten, and their wounds begin again. So, no one tries and if they succeed, they are hanged beyond the city wall, it is never empty, for they point the way. The slaves most of them, the unshaven and unwashed stared at the riders with dull resentment from behind the line of spears.

When we are asked to pray, I ask for the happiness of my master because I know the Gods will never grant it. They beat us, starve, interrogate, pleasure and amuse us for this reason alone. I have served two kings and one God. I see no difference between the two.

They are deadly because of the inhumane ways they can make a boy become a cold thing. What makes any man weary is when those dead empty eyes give no hint to his intentions. In the keep a man did best to hold his tongue. There were rats in the walls, and little birds who talked too much. 

I watched as the coin rolled out of the boys' hand spiraling onto the floor. Spinning on the head of the harpy's finger. A disfigured mother took the coin starring at it with awe, as her boy looked upon it with envy. He had to take the beatings for his sister's failings. "Next time I see that mouth droop open, I'll pull out your tongue and feed it to my bitch." He twisted her ear between his fingers to make certain she'd heard, and told her to get back to those steps, he wanted them clean down to the third landing by nightfall.

What is mostly inside some doors hold memories, others of pleasure and some of horror, but never loneliness. You may never know if the washerwoman means to kiss you or kill you or whether the serving boy is filling your cup with ale or bale. I could read they're thoughts. Sweet smells are sometimes used to cover foul ones, the food smelt pleasant when served. Though it looked the same. The taste could be peculiar. The other lords took no notice but my master, so I refused to intervene. He gave it to the dogs and watched as the hours past and took hold of it. By then they had eaten they're fill. I could say nothing as they cried in pain.  

Another day came to pass, with the death of the masters, Vigar himself was on edge. He required release. "His breath smelled near as foul as the dead men in the cages, and his little pig eyes were crawling up and down. Vigar had the merchant's tongue ripped out with hot pincers. "I'll put a leech on your eye to drain the bad blood. Think of it as your daily supper. For you can still use your hands." 

"They fight with reckless courage, every man out for glory. You mustn't be like them," he taunted me. It is rare to find loyalty amongst themselves, the Unsullied knew. Want is a dangerous thing for a pirate but it can make any man become a fool in sheep's clothing. You must still be watchful of the sneers bite lest you be lured in by its ungodly nature. 

I could read the slaves thoughts, hear their whispers. "They're highborn, all but ...., they get drunk on words instead of wine."  They treat us as filth but they scrap it off each other's backs and call it a blessing as another stabs them in the back. What good is being a Highborn? Give it as they may have the flouriest of lives and sweets to fill their belly. Another more formidable foe will come forth to take all that they owe. Only then will I beg for my freedom or be forced to return to the gallows. Where I bled faster than any Lord and watch the latest reaping of another harvest that are carried by our own hands.

Another day pass and still no answers.

Even in the back of night, the kitchens were never still; there was always someone rolling dough for the morning bread, stirring a kettle with a long wooden spoon, or butchering a hog for breakfast.

He watched as the slaved labored in his masters' quarters. She spent the next few hours tending to his whims. She swept out the old rushes and scattered fresh sweet-smelling ones, laid a fresh fire in the hearth, changed the linens and fluffed the featherbed, emptied the chamber pots down the privy shaft and scrubbed them out, carried an armload of soiled clothing to the washerwomen, and brought up a bowl of crisp autumn pears from the kitchen. When she was done with the bedchamber, she went down half a flight of stairs to do the same in the great solar, a spare drafty room as large as the halls of many a smaller castle. The candles were down to stubs, so she changed them out. Under the windows was a huge oaken table where the lords wrote his letters. She stacked books, changed the candles, put the quills and inks and selling wax in order. (G.R.R.M quote (Arya was talking about the lord in Harrenhal as she served under him)

Another day approached them in almost a whisper. "I bring dire tidings", Vigar spoke to the flowery men.

"The world as I have seen it, allows no man to grow rich by kindness." He recognized it as another dog digging at his heel for scraps. They come in many shapes and forms. "Sheep are far more obedient than the litter of strays found in a common whorehouse. Before I left the service of the king, "I once fed him choice whisperers, sufficient enough so that he thinks I am his." 

Vigar stood watch with the slave master's company on the terrace, as the latest show in the Plaza of Pride. There the bronze harpy stood, too small to hold the newly bought Unsullied. Instead, they had been assembled in the Plaza of Punishment, fronting on Astapor's main gate, so they might be marched directly from the city once they're owner had taken them in hand. There were no bronze statues there; only wooden platform where rebellious slaves were racked, and flayed, and hanged. The Good Masters place them so they will be the first thing a new slave sees upon entering the city. 

Waves of heat rose off them shimmering to make the stepped pyramids of Astapor around the plaza seem half a dream. If the Unsullied felt the heat, however, they gave no hint of it. They could be made of brick themselves, the way they stand there. A thousand had been marched out of their barracks for their inspection; drawn up in ten ranks of one hundred before the fountain and it's great harpy, they stood stiffly at attention, their stony eyes fixed straight ahead. They wore nought but white linen clouts knotted about their lions, and conical bronze helms topped with a sharpened spike a foot tall. Kraznys had commanded them to lay down their spears and shields, and doff their sword belts and quilted tunics, so their owner might better inspect the lean hardness of their bodies. "They are chosen young, for size and speed and strength," the Master told them. "They begin their training at five. Every day they train from dawn to dusk, until they have mastered the shorts sword, the shield, and the three spears. The training is most rigorous," he said with pride. Only one boy in three survives it. This is well known. Among the unsullied it is said that on the day they win their spiked cap, the worst is done with, for no duty that will ever fall to them could be as hard as their training." Kraznys mo Nakloz supposedly spoke no word of the common tongue, but he bobbed his head as he listened, and from time to time gave the slave girl a poke with the end of his lash. "Tell him that these have been standing here for a day and night, with no food nor water. Tell him that they will stand until they drop if I command it, and when nine hundred and ninety-nine have collasped to die on the bricks, the last will stand still, and never move until his own death claims him. Such is their courage. Tell him that."

They watched and overheard the trade. The soon to be owner was a hungry belly imp. The day he purchased his Unsullied was the most prideful he had been. I pushed and tested every inch of his body to see how true the words of the slave masters spoke. When my hunger was finally satiated, that was when I noticed he had truly become numb. And I grew tired of his gestures. He started to become more willing in my acts of torture and I could have that. I waited for when his body could not membered my mechanisms and once he was comfortable. I began again. I haven't inflicted too much pain upon him recently, it seems the king's words haunt me still.

In Yunkai the wise masters allow their slaves to learn the way of the seven sighs and the sixteen seats of pleasure. The unsullied learn the way of the three spears. They are given new slave names every day. Most of those born free have forgotten their birth names. Now all that remained were the vermin.

 The riverbanks were strangely tranquil. The Worm, the Astapori called the stream. It was wide and slow and crooked, dotted with tiny, wooded islands. He glimpsed children playing on one of them, darting amongst elegant marble statues.

The tapestries were the most beautiful, in his eyes for they reminded him of the King. And now he found it difficult to bring the young prince to mind. It has been many long days, and he has found no answers. Only uproars from the slaves. 

Now as the march began, he could feel their eyes watching him, waiting for a misstep, or perhaps they wish for him to ask for their hand in his plight. I would sooner wed the black goat of Qohor than beg for their mercy. For fifteen years I protected him from his enemies, but I could not protect him from his friends. The Gods play cruel jests. 

The slave masters saw my apprehension and chose to impart some of their wisdom. "When selling bed slaves, fieldhands, scribes, craftsmen, and tutors, these men were rivals, but their ancestors have allied one with the other for the purpose of making and selling the Unsullied. Brick and blood built Astapor, and brick and blood her people."

Another spoke of his troubling youth. It seems they wanted me to know how they overcame such hardships in the face of adversity. 

"I was an orphan boy apprenticed to a traveling folly. Our master owned a fat little cog, and we sailed up and down the narrow sea performing in all the Free cities. One day at Myr, a certain man came to our folly. After the performance, he made an offer for me that my master found too tempting to refuse. I was in terror. I feared the man meant to use me as I had heard men used small boys." I swallowed thickly, feeling as though I should flee. The memory of the king and the boy came to mind in such a vivid way. "But in truth the only part of me he had need of was my manhood. He gave me a potion that made me powerless to move or speak, yet it did nothing to dull my senses. With a long-hooked blade, he sliced me root and stem, chanting all the while. I watched him burn my manly parts on a brazier. The flames turned blue, and I heard a voice answer his call, though I did not understand the words they spoke. "The mummers had sailed by the time he was done with me. Once I had served his purpose, the man had no further interest in me, so he put me out. When I had asked him what I should do now, he answered that he supposed I should die. To spite him, I resolved to live. I begged, I stole, and I sold what parts of my body still remained to me. Soon I was as good a thief as any in Myr, and when I was older, I learned that often the contents of a man's letters are more valuable than the contents of his purse. "Yet I still dream of that night, my lord. Not of the sorcerer, nor his blade, nor even the way my manhood shriveled as it burned. I dream of the voice. The voice from the flames. Was it a god, demon, some conjurers trick? I could not tell you, and I know all the tricks. All I can say for a certainty is that he called it, and it answered, and since that day I have hated magic and all who practice it." 

It seemed the master viewed his methods of control as acceptable. He wondered what secrets he has heard. Before he could inquire, he spoke again. "When I was a young boy, before I was cut, I traveled with a troupe of mummers through the Free Cities. They taught me that each man has a role to play, in life as well as mummery. So, it is at court. The King's justice must be fearsome, the master of coin must be frugal, the commanders of the armies must be valiant... and the master of whisperers must be sly and obsequious and without scruple. A courageous informer would be as useless as a cowardly knight." (G.R.R.M quotes (Lord Varys life story as a eunuch, he's speaking to Tyrion in a brothel)

I replied by saying, "A eunuch has no honor, and a spider does not enjoy the luxuries of scruples," my lord. The man took no offense. "There is a saying in Qarth. A warlock's house is built of bones and lies. All across the east, their power and wisdom are revered." He was not telling the whole truth of it, but they understood well enough. No matter the hatred for a thing, that does not mean it won't be useful. "Does my lord prince believe me now? Will he trust my words, no matter how queer they sound in his ears?" They did not answer but he knew the truth of it.

"The bloody flux is spreading in the stews along... there's no food to be had for copper nor silver."

They did not take his warning seriously instead they chose to make a joke out of it. "A peasant may skin a common squirrel for his pot, but if he finds a gold squirrel in his tree, he takes it to his lord, or he will wish he did." 

"Is that meant to be amusing. I find it rather lacking the other day as I watched pampered men drown in their cups." He scoffed as he took another sip of his wine. He could feel the moment becoming rather bleak. If this was any sort of entertainment he was already bored. They probably suspected him of the crime. Do they naught understand the predicament he was in?

There is a flagon of good arbor gold a little way from him. The tart persimmon wine stood from a tall silver flute. He much rather preferred that than the tart.

"Is each of us guilty of the crimes of the others?" I think naught. I will not divulge our kings wishes."

"A fat man always sits comfortably, I am thinking, for he takes his pillow with him wherever he goes. A wise man could earn more from silence than from song." He could not put it much plainer than that for someone in this place knows the truth of the deaths of those slave masters and the coming and going of the foreign dignitaries. It seemed someone was trying to distract them with a game of cat and mouse. Vigar was too exhausted from this little game. No matter how long he chased the answers seem to vanish. He could only set his eyes on the Valyrian's. It seemed they had taken them for fools. 

Trailing's from his spies have informed him that Grazdan had caught some traitors in his rank, among the Sarnor soldiers. They were sending messages to their liege. Grazdan ordered that the deserters serve them best as a lesson. Break their knees with hammers. They will not run again. Nor will any man who sees them begging in the streets."  This is how he saw them; the hungry belly low life's who know nothing of sacrifice except for the eunuch. He could not say that he wished them well, only that he wanted to return to Ghis, to continue to serve his King from a watchful gaze. The princeling must want to know the end of his story, he thought.