Chapter 166: The Albatross

In the waters off Seagard, the damp cold of the spring sea wind swept the deck of the Seagard, flagship of Lord Jason Mallister, carrying its freight of salt and fish. The old sea commander stood on the high sterncastle in a heavy waxed cloak, eye narrowed to his far-glass, sweeping the mist-hung northern horizon. For a year his fleet had run like tireless hounds along the west’s maritime lifelines: warding off the ironborn remnant, for the Iron Islands had fallen into infighting between Asha’s faction and Victarion’s since the Crow’s Eye fled, and sporadic raids still came; watching for any Vale attempt at the North by sea; and keeping clear the secret artery of the New Soil work. Most supplies moved by the mixed land-and-sea route through White Harbor and Moat Cailin, but the sensitive cargoes, and the quiet passages of Grey Shadow’s people, rode a hidden route of Lord Jason’s own: Lannisport, north through Ironman’s Bay, around the eastern coasts of the Iron Islands, into Blazewater Bay and up the Fever as far as boats will go, then overland by the crannogmen’s ways to Moat Cailin, or to nameless landings farther north. Long, dangerous, and out of everyone’s sight.

“My lord! Sails, three points off the port bow! Ten miles, running southeast, and fast!” the lookout cried from the crow’s nest.

Jason swung his glass. Between mist and wave, black points resolved into three ships: slender, shallow-drafted, oddly rigged, their mainsails painted with the blurred figure of some great bird. Not ironborn longships; not the cogs or galleys of the Vale.

“Not ours, and no common traders,” he said, brow folding. “Fleet to come about and intercept. Battle order, but signal first for their identity. Archers and scorpions to stations; no man looses without my word.”

The Seagard squadron, five great war galleys and eight fast middleweights on this patrol, turned like a woken beast, oars biting white, and the signal flags ran up the mast. The strangers saw them, slowed, and did not run; and as the distance closed to five miles, then three, the details came clear. The ships were larger than they had seemed, their lines sleek and built for speed, and on each mainsail spread a great white bird, wings wide in an elegant glide: an albatross. Their colors rose as well, deep indigo, the same white bird worked upon it.

“An albatross banner? Whose arms are those, some city across the narrow sea?” the first mate wondered. “No Free City flies it that I ever heard. And look at them: too few on deck for traders, and every man moving like he was drilled.”

Then, at the bow of the largest ship, a figure in a dark blue cloak came to the rail and waved a small white flag, side to side, for peace; and up the mainmast ran a second banner: an oak tree, ears of wheat, and a strange sinuous long-bodied dragon of the eastern style. The arms of House Greyoak. Jason felt the cold walk his spine. A ship sent secretly by the duke? He had been told nothing. And his own people would fly their own banner first, not this albatross.

“Signal: state your identity and your business, exactly. And put a boat over for a close look.” In these waters, in these years, any anomaly could be a trap with teeth.

The boat went, armed, and came back with astonishment aboard. “My lord! Their leader names himself an envoy of the Albatross Merchant Guild. By their guildmaster’s order, on a matter urgent and secret, he must meet Lord Jason Mallister in person, to deliver a sealed letter for Lord Arthur of House Greyoak, Lord Paramount of the Trident. He says the matter touches the great safety of Dragonstone, the Vale, and the North. He asks a private audience. And he showed this, for a token.”

The officer handed up a token of ancient workmanship, of some material neither gold nor wood, warm to the touch: on its face an albatross rendered to the feather; on its back a complex device woven of vines and stars. Jason had never seen its like. “The Albatross Merchant Guild. Never heard of it.” He turned the token over, eyes hawk-sharp. “Touching Dragonstone, the Vale, and the North. And a letter for the duke that must pass through my hands.” He weighed it. Three ships, thinly crewed, ringed by his squadron: small scope for treachery. And they had found this stretch of sea, and known his name and his route, which was secret; such intelligence was not to be shrugged at. And the token itself made it impossible to file them under enemies or charlatans and be done.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Reply: I will receive their leader aboard my flagship. Two attendants only, submitting to search, bearing no arms. Their ships hold position under our watch. If they agree, let them come.”

They agreed at once. The man who stepped onto the Seagard’s deck was of middle years and middling build, with a face that would vanish in any crowd, and eyes that would not: extraordinarily calm, extraordinarily deep, the kind that seemed to read the inside of a man. He wore well-cut, unshowy dark blue seagoing clothes under a cloak of the same, and carried the settled ease of a man long acquainted with storms, and beneath it a restrained edge that sat oddly on a merchant. His two attendants had the look of guards and the posture of men entirely without hostility.

“Lord Jason Mallister.” He bowed with a hand at his chest, his voice even, faintly accented from somewhere unplaceable. “I am Elliott, leader of this voyage for the Albatross Merchant Guild. Forgive the intrusion; the reason for it allowed no choice. I thank you for receiving me.”

“Master Elliott.” Jason returned the courtesy with his eyes like knives. “The Albatross Merchant Guild. Forgive my ignorance; no such guild trades in the Seven Kingdoms.”

“Our guild does little of its work within the Seven Kingdoms, my lord, so your ignorance is natural.” Elliott’s slight smile held no surprise. “We are, let us say, travelers and observers, devoted to the keeping of certain ancient balances, and attentive to the movement of particular knowledge. Now and again we render small services to friends of like mind. Or a warning.”

“A warning.”

“Just so.” From his cloak Elliott drew a flat metal cylinder wrapped tight in tarred cloth, and offered it with both hands. “This letter my guildmaster has charged me to place in the hands of Lord Arthur of House Greyoak, Lord Paramount of the Trident. It concerns certain deeply troubling movements we have lately observed on the narrow sea and along the eastern coasts of Essos, touching Dragonstone, the Vale, and powers farther east; movements we judge a vast and gathering threat to the duke, to the North, and to the standing balance of all Westeros. My guildmaster ordered me across half a world, through the ironborn’s waters and everyone’s fleets, to see it delivered.”

Jason took the cylinder, heavy and cold, unmarked but for a delicate clasp that answered the token’s back exactly. “I’ll not open a letter meant for the duke. But you must give me cause to trust you, Master Elliott. A token and fine phrases could as easily dress an enemy’s lure.”

Elliott had come prepared. He produced a small sealed ball of wax. “Examine this, my lord. Inside are the positions of three obscure private harbors on the Vale’s eastern coast, and a summary of the ships that have called there these past two months from across the narrow sea, and of the special cargoes they landed: components of fine castle-forged weaponry in great quantity, a specially compounded burning oil, and parts that can only belong to large siege engines. The cargoes’ final destination runs inland, to the northern Vale, behind the Bloody Gate. Your experience will tell you what that means faster than I can.”

Jason cracked the wax. Within lay a tiny scroll of near-transparent paper written over in minuscule hand: dates, ships’ names, cargo types and quantities, recipients under codenames but described to the life. If true, no smuggler’s ledger and no merchant’s gossip could have compiled it. The Vale, which was to say Petyr Baelish, was secretly importing arms of high quality and in volumes far past any defensive need, and caching them within reach of the North. Set beside the Vale’s long covetousness and its late infiltrations, the purpose named itself: material preparation for armed intervention in the North at scale, and for war with whoever might stand in support of it.

“That is the tip of the iceberg, my lord.” Elliott’s voice stayed level, and carried weight beneath. “We have also found, in certain harbors on the rim of the Jade Sea, ships dressed as traders whose crews are soldiers to a man, using speech and battle-signs unlike any known free company; nearer, if anything, to the palace guards of certain ancient eastern kingdoms. Their courses also bend toward Westeros. And in Qarth our people have heard vague talk of a lost dragonlord bloodline, of eastern allies, and of a phrase that troubles my guildmaster more than the rest: three dragons, perhaps not all.”