GOT: The Great — Chapter 286 - The Wall-Facer
Lightning tore across the northern sky. Blue-white light exploded through the clouds, carving the black towers of the Night Lamp out of the darkness.
6 heartbeats passed before the thunder rolled overhead, a drumbeat carried across the water.
Davos Seaworth pulled his cloak tight and followed two guards across a black basalt arch bridge.
Below, the sea caught the lightning's afterglow and turned lead-grey, breaking against the rock walls in bursts of white mist.
At the bridge's far end stood a rust-streaked iron portcullis. Beyond it, a seawater moat cut across the path, two chains thick as a man's wrist hanging taut from the walls above, holding the drawbridge suspended over the water.
Salt-frost had crusted over the chains. In the wind, they gave off a faint, grinding rasp.
The drawbridge opened into the main keep of Breakwater Castle.
The stone steps had been worn smooth and bright by the boots of generations. The walls wept moisture, cold and damp to the touch.
When the guards led him into the hall, the torches were dark. Twenty iron candle-stands lined the walls in two rows; only four held candles, and none of them were lit.
The only light came from two tallow candles on the long table, their thin flames bending back and forth in the draft seeping through the door.
Lord Godric Borrell sat behind the table. A bowl of sister's stew, half a black loaf, and a jug of ale were set before him.
He was a hulking man, shoulders wide as an oarsman's, with no neck to speak of. Coarse grey whiskers covered his face and jaw, threaded here and there with white. Above those heavy brows sat a bald head, and the thick, broken veins of a drinker's nose were plain to see.
His lips were thick. The hand resting on the table beside his ale jug had thin webbing between the middle three fingers.
Davos had come here often enough as a smuggler. It was a filthy, ugly little town, reeking of pig dung and rotting fish, and he had long since learned that some of the lords on the Three Sisters had webbed hands and feet.
"Lord Godric Borrell," Davos said. "We meet again."
Borrell wiped the broth from his beard with the back of his hand.
"Onion Knight." He set down his spoon and leaned back in his chair. "You've come to repay me for letting you go — already?"
The last time Davos had stood in this hall, Joffrey Baratheon was still on the Iron Throne, and Cersei Lannister was still Queen Mother.
His ship had struck a reef in the waters off the Three Sisters, and Borrell's men had pulled him out. Pulled him out, or seized him, it amounted to the same thing. Borrell had wanted to put him in a cage and send him to King's Landing, where the Queen Mother would have paid good coin for the Onion Knight.
But Davos had talked him out of it.
He had stood before this same long table and told Borrell the war was not yet over, and that backing the wrong side too early would cost him everything.
In the end Borrell had let him go. He had even sent a ship to carry him to White Harbor.
Now Davos was standing before this same table again.
"I've come to give you a chance to serve the new King of Westeros."
Borrell leaned forward.
"Until now, no king has ever thought to seek the support of the Sisters. The new king has three dragons — why would he spare a thought for a backwater like ours?"
Davos pulled out the chair across from Borrell and sat down, placing both hands flat on the table.
"Didn't you say it yourself? The Three Sisters nearly got wiped off the map for backing the Blackfyre rebellions. Twice."
"Now it's time to choose sides again. The new king is marching on the Dreadfort, and he needs allies."
Before entering Breakwater Castle, he had already persuaded the captains of the White Harbor fleet to bring their ships to anchor off the Three Sisters. He had told them this was to gain allies, that 23 warships were not enough to blockade the Weeping Water, and that a few vessels from the Sisters would improve their odds.
The captains had not objected. What they did not know was that Davos was running a second calculation entirely.
Borrell lifted the ale jug and took a long pull. Ale dripped through his beard and onto the table, and he smeared it away with his webbed fingers.
"You should go to Lysa Arryn. We fall under the rule of House Arryn of the Vale."
His tone carried a clear note of mockery. "That said, you've turned your back on Stannis Baratheon awfully fast. Gone to serve the new king before the body's even cold."
"Stannis burned my predecessor at Dragonstone. Lord Alester Florent. To summon a favorable wind to speed their march north."
"When the queen's men bound him to the stake, Lord Florent did his best to hold himself with dignity. Half-naked in the cold, his expression was proud. He said nothing."
"But when the flames reached his thighs, he began to scream. If what the Red Priestess said is true, it was his screaming that gave them fair winds all the way to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea."
Davos paused.
"Stay with Stannis long enough, and I might have met the same end."
"And as it happens — Stannis also burned his only daughter. To scatter a blizzard."
Borrell was silent for a long time.
"The Three Sisters will lend their aid when the new king has need of it. A king with three dragons, there's no way he loses, any way you look at it."
The corner of his mouth moved beneath his beard. "Davos, I'll count this as you returning the favor."
Then he added: "Our relations with White Harbor have never been good. Fighting alongside them, it won't go smoothly."
Davos knew the full history behind that.
Before House Stark had conquered them by fire and sword, the Borrell ancestors had been pirate kings. The Sistermen of the Three Sisters never robbed ships openly. They built signal fires along the coast marking reefs and shallows for passing vessels.
But on nights thick with fog, they would secretly light false signals and lure ships onto the rocks.
Once a ship went down, they would row out to "salvage" it. The cargo was theirs. Survivors who couldn't pay a ransom got their throats cut and were thrown back into the sea.
House Manderly of White Harbor despised these people with everything they had. The feud between the two ran deeper than any grudge in the North.
Putting White Harbor's warships and the Three Sisters' pirate fleet side by side was like loading dry tinder and a lit torch into the same hold.
"I am Lord Admiral," Davos said. "I will arrange for your ships to lead the vanguard."
"Your fleet engages House Bolton's ships first. The king will ride his dragon from above and burn the enemy vessels. In all likelihood, White Harbor's warships won't even need to enter the fighting before victory is secured."
Borrell's eyes caught the candlelight. If it went as Davos described, all the credit for kingmaking would belong to the Three Sisters.
"I will muster every longship that can put to sea."
Davos nodded, rose from his chair, and walked toward the door.
The moment he stepped outside, the sea wind hit him full in the face, salt and brine and, beneath it, the distant promise of a storm.
Lightning flashed in the north again, illuminating the broken merlons atop the Night Lamp's tower.
He stopped. Drew a long, slow breath.
Melisandre could see danger in the flames.
After Blackwater Bay, he had tried once to return to Dragonstone and put a blade in her. The witch had already seen it coming. He had barely come ashore before the guards dragged him into the dungeons.
This time was different. This time he would not go himself with a dagger tucked away.
He would make her see something else.
An old smuggler eager to win favor with a new king. Bringing the ships of White Harbor and the Three Sisters to blockade the Weeping Water, paving the road to comfort and security for whatever years he had left.
This time, he would not repeat his mistake. He needed a layer of fog thick enough to cover her sight, a plan that would make her mistake the real threat in her visions for a false one.
He called it the Wall-Facing Plan.
He was the Wall-Facer.
Davos Seaworth pulled his hood up and walked toward the harbor.
His fleet was waiting.
➤ Next: Sacking Bolton's Home