The Merman’s Court took up the hall of the New Castle.
Walls, floor, and ceiling were thick timber fitted close and painted with the sea: fish, whales, things with too many teeth.
“Grandfather.
Domeric writes again.
The iron is going up.” “Then let it go up.” Wynafryd’s eyes went wide.
“That is the third letter.
He thinks House Manderly will take whatever he names.
If we smile at this one, the next will not be far behind.” “I am glad my granddaughter keeps the house in her head.” Lord Wyman’s laugh filled the painted room.
“I am a Manderly woman.” The rest came smaller, for herself.
“Until I marry the villain.” Lord Wyman Manderly was too fat for a horse.
Men called him Lord Too-Fat-to-Sit-a-Horse and meant it.
He was near sixty, a belly first, fingers like sausages.
The smallfolk had another name: Lord Lamprey.
The shape looked like a joke.
The mind inside it was not.
“When the price rises, do we still eat?” The kindness in the question was real.
So was the volume.
She shook her head and then nodded, still angry.
“We eat.
Not as we did.
What one run paid us will take two.
That is not the worst of it.
We cannot let him set the number whenever he likes.
He is putting a hand on our throat and calling it trade.” “Then put the trade down,” Wyman said, unhurried.
“Let Ser Domeric give the iron to some other house.
White Harbor can live without it.” “What?” The heat went out of her and left a worse thing.
“Grandfather—he is the largest partner we have.
Nine parts in ten of what this city has become in three years came off those hulls.
We walk away from that, and what is White Harbor after?” He smiled as if she had finally found the door.
“There.
You see it.
We have no other road.
Ser Domeric has as many as he wants.
Braavosi merchants.
Great names in King’s Landing.
The Arbor’s fleet.
I can keep counting.” She let the breath go and put both arms around the thick one.
“Then tell me what we do.
Do we sit here and take it?” He patted her head and did not answer the question he had been given.
“What do you make of Domeric Bolton?” She took her time.
“He is quiet.
He has more gifts than a man needs.
Histories.
The harp.
A horse—he sits one as if he were born in the saddle.
Being near him is easy.
There is a pull in him.” “He is more than that.” “How?” Wyman drew a letter from his sleeve.
“Your uncle Wendel.
Read it.” She did.
Once through, her mouth changed.
“Is he truly as large as Uncle writes?” Wyman’s eyes went longer.
“Larger.
He spent Jorah Mormont’s pardon on the Old Bear at Castle Black.
He takes wildlings in chains beyond the Wall.
He broke the clans that would not bend and took in the folk who had nowhere else.
I remember the count when he opened those hills: fewer than three thousand souls.
He is climbing toward a hundred thousand and past it.
The Karstark war is the piece I still turn over.
He lost fewer than a hundred men and put Rickard’s host in the ground.
That is not a thing I expected from a boy with a new seat.” “That good?” She had never heard her grandfather praise a living man in that voice.
The shock was honest.
The private pleasure under it was also honest.
“The Bolton boy is not ordinary.
He sees past the next meal.
He has nerve.
He is smooth in a room and clean when the room is done.
He can fight.
I would not put a ceiling on him.” She lifted the letter.
“You still have not told me what to do with him.
Do we take the rise?” “Why not?
A merchant who means to last takes a profit he can live with.
And a man like that is wasted on cargo.
Why are we only selling him hulls?
Why are we not bound to him?” “Bound how?” The laugh came back.
“Why did he put the whole iron trade in our hands?
What in White Harbor did he actually want?” She went away behind her eyes.
The city’s old names rose with the question.
Before there was a White Harbor there was the Wolf’s Den.
Kin of the Kings of Winter and their sworn men had held the mouth of the White Knife from that pile of wet stone.
The Greystarks sat it longest.
After they were put in the ground the Den changed hands the way a cheap cup does: one house, then another, pirates, slavers, knights out of the Vale.
A thousand years before the Conquest the King in the North gave the land to House Manderly, and the passing stopped.
Under the merman the town became the city.
“The ships,” she said at last, not quite sure of the word.
“The ships.
House Bolton is one of the great names of the North.
On land, after the Starks, they have few equals.
They have no navy.
We are the only house above the Neck that keeps one.
That is what the boy bought.” “And the binding.
How is it done?” “How do lords bind one another, as a rule?” “Marriage.” “The oldest way that still works.
Before we offer it we measure one thing.” “What thing?” “His will.
What you weigh in his hand.
What this house weighs.” She nodded too quickly.
The light in her face was hunger and nerves together.
“And if he will not?
He looks at more girls than one.” “Don’t bleed over that yet.
Men move toward what keeps them alive.
Lords keep what serves them.
If there is no marriage, there can still be an alliance, so long as he needs our water.
Hold the iron.
Hold that line and the rest will not break.
A clever man with an appetite will not spit on Manderly goodwill.” Lord Wyman let the words sit in the painted hall, easy as a man who had already eaten.