Kellan Turner had turned fourteen before the sea took him.
His family came from the Fingers. A Turner had earned his knighthood in the Blackfyre Rebellion, and ever since, the family had served House Coldwater of Coldwater Burn. The Coldwaters answered to the Royces of Runestone, the Royces to the Arryns, and the Arryns to King Robert in King's Landing. Kellan's place in that chain had once seemed perfectly clear to him.
His father, Jonard, held Saltmead for his lord: a little seaside village of rather more than a hundred people. He had been born there, grown up in its salt wind, been knighted at twenty-five, and inherited his father's holding at thirty-seven. Of his two younger brothers, one had gone to sea and died in a storm. The other had crossed to Essos to sell his sword.
The eldest inherited. The others went elsewhere, with whatever their father could spare to send them on their way.
Kellan was Jonard's third child and second son. Lannard was five years older, and for most of Kellan's childhood, the world had contained three great heroes. Father came first, because he protected everyone in Saltmead. Lannard came second. Kellan, naturally, was third.
Before he was tall enough to see over a table, he had followed his brother around with the wooden sword Father had carved for him, its point carefully rounded. They charged haystacks shouting, “For Coldwater Burn!” When the village children played at war, Kellan insisted on joining Lannard's side. If his brother charged, he charged. If Lannard ran, he ran. Whatever his brother shouted, he shouted too.
Then one day Lannard announced, “I am Lannard Turner, knight of Saltmead!”
“I am Kellan Turner, knight of Saltmead!” Kellan had cried.
His brother beat him for it. Kellan ran home in tears to tell Father, who beat him again.
After supper, Jonard called both boys before the family.
“There is one knight of Saltmead, Kellan, and that is me.” His father spoke each word distinctly. “When I die, it will be your brother. Lannard Turner. You will have a sword and a horse, and you will go out and find honor of your own.”
Kellan wanted to ask why. He was Father's son too. He had been born in Saltmead, just like Lannard. But he looked at Jonard's face and kept the questions to himself.
He had been eight. Lannard had been thirteen.
Five years later, Father paid ten golden dragons to send Lannard to another village, where an old comrade would take him as a squire. By then Kellan understood that nothing he did would make him the next knight of Saltmead.
On his fourteenth nameday, he received the promised sword, a wooden shield, and a thin horse. His uncle, home from Essos on a rare visit, would take him away.
As they rode out of the village, his uncle asked, “Do you hate your father?”
Kellan looked at him. “Do you hate Grandfather?”
His uncle burst out laughing. The scar across his face twisted with it.
“Cheeky little bastard. I might hate everyone else, but not him. You think looking after this miserable village is something to envy? I've killed more knights than you've got fingers and toes. All your father's taxes wouldn't buy me a proper night's drinking in the worst tavern in the Free Cities.”
Tamlin Turner had spent twenty-one years with the Second Sons. They were an old and celebrated sellsword company of the Free Cities, full of men whose elder brothers had inherited the lands and titles they could never have. According to Tamlin, even the Red Viper of Dorne had once fought among them.
“Always after women, that one. Knew how to use a spear, though.”
This time, the company had sent him west to escort an important passenger to King's Landing. The journey had gone smoothly, the task was finished, and he had a month before he was due back. After twenty years away, he had decided to find out whether his stubborn old father was still alive. A succession of ships and favorable winds brought him home in a little over a week.
He found Jonard worrying about Kellan. The boy might learn to make gloves, or perhaps their lord could find him a place in the guard at Coldwater Burn. Over roast lamb and the year's new wine, Tamlin offered another possibility.
“He's a sturdy little fellow.”
Jonard made a sound of agreement.
“Sturdier than his brother,” Tamlin said.
Jonard looked up from his cup. “You're sturdier than me.” He drank, and for a while neither man said anything.
“Let him come to the Free Cities with me,” Tamlin said at last. “Better than leaving him here to turn into jerky in the sea wind.”
“Which company are you with now?”
“The Second Sons.”
Now, on the journey toward White Harbor, Tamlin talked of little else. Kellan listened with a face he did his best to keep cold.
“A lad like you will be useful. Work hard, and you'll be a full man of the company before long. Food in your belly, pay in your pocket. Mind you, don't go wasting it. I'll keep it for you, and when there's enough, we'll find the best smith in the Free Cities. Get you proper armor.” Tamlin slapped his own chest. “Better than this. Better than your brother's.”
“It's Father's. Not Lannard's.”
“Same thing. And didn't your grandfather wear it before him?”
Kellan tried to imagine armor finer than the mail his family had handed down. What would it look like? How would it feel to wear it?
Despite himself, he smiled. By then Saltmead was far behind them.
* * *
The village wasn't even marked on most maps. Reaching the Free Cities meant taking a small boat to White Harbor, then finding a merchantman bound across the sea. Only the Rosewake could get them to Pentos before Tamlin's time ran out, and even she would call at Braavos first. The Second Sons were quartered in Pentos. Missing the deadline was not an attractive prospect.
The captain wanted two golden dragons apiece. In return for helping with odd jobs aboard, he offered a reduction of half a dragon.
Tamlin took this badly. His nephew was strong, willing, and quick at his work. Surely that was worth a whole dragon? The bargaining went on until they reached an arrangement that cut the passage price in half. Kellan would work with the sailors. Tamlin would serve as a guard, with nothing required of him unless pirates appeared.
Kellan knew small boats. The Rosewake was something else: a vessel that could carry what he guessed must be thousands of stone in cargo. When the boatswain handed him rags and ordered him to scrub the deck, he set to it willingly. He even volunteered to climb the mast and clean the crow's nest.
“The more you work, the more you eat,” his uncle told him. “Get our money's worth.”
They left White Harbor, passed Oldtown, and finished with the northern ports on their itinerary. The holds filled with goods. Their temporary passengers were sent below to sleep among barrels of wine.
This proved an unfortunate arrangement for the wine.
Tamlin used his dagger to pry the lid off a barrel of golden wine from the Vale. After drinking his fill, he fitted the lid back with what he evidently considered sufficient care. The captain smelled it on him anyway. Tamlin had to pay a golden dragon for the rest of the barrel, the price its contents would have fetched in Braavos.
Having paid, he drank a few cups each day until it was empty. By then the ship had left the northern coast and was heading east.
One morning, violent movement woke Kellan on the floor of the hold. Men rushed between the hatch and the deck, shouting. He sat up, still trying to understand why everyone looked so frightened.
Tamlin snatched up his sword. “Stay here. Don't move.”
He climbed to the deck and caught an old sailor by the collar. Rain drove across the planks, and he had to shout to make himself heard. “What's happening?”
“What's wrong with your eyes?” The man tore free, gray hair plastered to his forehead. “A storm! Pray to your gods!”
He ran to join the men struggling with the sails. A dozen heartbeats later, a flying rope caught him and swept him over the side. Tamlin saw him disappear into the water.
He fled below.
With his sword, he levered the lids off three more barrels and tipped them over. Wine spread across the floor, its rich smell filling the hold. When the barrels were empty, he tried to close them, but the ship lurched beneath him and his hands were shaking. The lids would not seat properly.
“Get some nails, you useless boy!”
Kellan stumbled to a wooden box and came back with a handful of nails as long as his fingers. Tamlin hammered them through the lids with his sword's pommel. His own emptied barrel made four. He gathered rope and lashed them together in pairs, hauling on each knot to test it.
Then he dragged Kellan close and bound him to one pair, passing the rope around his chest and belly.
“Bloody banks,” he muttered as he worked. “What does a soldier want with a bank? A hundred golden dragons in the Iron Bank. A hundred. Damn them.”
When Kellan was secure, Tamlin tied himself to the other pair. He turned and met his nephew's eyes.
“You have to live, lad.”
Kellan had never heard him speak like that. The boasting was gone; for the first time, he could see the concern plainly. Before he understood that his uncle was saying farewell, the Rosewake lurched again.
Something tore beneath them. The ship broke amidships, and seawater burst into the hold.
The barrels lifted Kellan with them as the cargo swept out. Timber heaved through the water around him. By luck, none of it struck him hard enough to kill him, and the barrels kept him from going under for good.
The sea still tried. He clung to the rope and fought to keep his side of the makeshift float uppermost. A wave rolled him, and he struggled back. Another filled his mouth with salt water. He could think of nothing beyond the next breath.
He had to live.
The effort used everything he had. By the time the rain slackened, he could scarcely move. He lay against the barrels while the current carried him, hungry and spent, until he slipped into darkness.