Part MMMCCXXV: Of Trade and Tears
Of Trade and Tears
Twenty Fifth Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC
"I will ensure your people have ample trading partners, and give you personally all you will need to forge ties between the tribes, to assuage pride or ward against folly," you assure him. A warning must still be given for all the unexpected responsibility. "But I do not want to arm raiders, Mance. Tools you will get. If someone threatens you for which force alone compels you to fight and die or flee, bronze arms and arrows I shall grant you. Enough to begin to fight against man and simple beast, but not enough to allow breakaways to do more harm than good."
The not quite King Beyond the Wall ponders the matter for a long moment before nodding. "Fair point, though to be fair in turn I have to warn you, there's smiths among the clans, not many and not skilled outside the Thenns who kept to their vales, but they know how to forge a skinning knife into a spear point and with so many tools of steel around they'd have cause to sharpen their skills. I can't go looking through every forge day and night, or it would undo all the good of trying to bring them together."
"But you'd be able to tell if any of 'em have gone raiding?" Vee half asks. "Track 'em if you have to?"
"For reasonably large groups, certainly, and if they try to sneak out in dribs and drabs I'd know sooner rather than later. The Free Folk aren't what you call good at keeping secrets, we live too scattered to have much use for the skill usually." A clever point again, the man seems particularly skilled in holding up a mirror to his people and reading all he finds there, good and bad. Almost he reminds you of Rhango, if more glib in his manner.
"Good enough," you nod, handing him a stone of far-speech and explaining its purpose. "Send word if there should be more fools than you can reasonably handle... or if worse than men come upon you."
Silence falls then, but it is not a grim thing despite your last words. Mance sighs in relief as though the weight of a mountain was lifted from his shoulders. "Thank you, Your Grace." Then the mask of wit and roguish charm slips right back on. "I won't be doing any kneeling though until all the folk of Hardhome that want to leave are on Essosi land."
"That will not be for some months yet so you have the time to persuade them, use it wisely, and if you need any more particular help that is not urgent enough to use the magic of the stone I will send a raven."
With affairs of state resolved the remainder of the meal proves pleasant, though both you and Lya spend most of it answering questions so you do not have much time to ask many more of your own. If nothing else Yara's curiosity means that Sorcerer's Deep had gained its second skin-changer after lady Alysane Mormont. How would they react to one another, you wonder, the Northern warrior and Free Folk Spearwife yet so alike in the manner of their magic. You make a mental note to ask someone diplomatic make the introductions. Perhaps Danar Crowl, he likely comes the closest to bridging the divide with a silver tongue besides.
For now you have other matters to attend to.
***
The hour is far later in He'Nekar, the evening tide already bearing the bustle and profit of trade to a place that had once been visited only by those who braved the Demon Road. It brings other changes too, of course, already the old tongue of the city's eldest inhabitants is drowned out at the docks by accents from Volantis and Mantarys, even from as far away as Pentos and Braavos. However, there is one thing that had not changed with the influx of new people to the colony, the settlement's devotion to the Weeping Lady in her older form as a goddess of death. Traders and craftsmen alike had been impressed to find here a folk who already knew something of magic and owed by the scale of the ancient tomb-haven in which the Fourth Kinship had made its place.
So it is that you step into the Refuge of the Weeper. It had been mended here and there by skilled hands, but they had been discrete, the ancient hall and its statue of polished black stone are still here and Niselys still serves. Though you had not come in your own form so as not to cause a disturbance in the temple, the priestess picks you out at once, she had obviously been expecting you. The eyes of the gods in their own places of power will not be mislead even by such wards as you wear it seems.
The thought proves truer than you had first thought for after leading you into an alcove behind the statue she turns to you, form growing indistinct as though seen through a veil, or you suppose through tears. "A pity upon all the world that there must be wars, the wars of gods most of all, but you are right in your task. She must be put back."
The priestess, or rather the One who speaks through her, stretches out a hand, her meaning obvious. Light flows like water between her palms and when she hands it back, you feel it heavier. One step closer.
What do you do next?
[] Return to the Riverlands to speak to the Ghost of the High Heart
[] Speak with the Red Priests of Volantis and commune with the Red God himself to ask for aid against Tiamat
[] Have a personal meeting with the Chosen of Smith
[] Speak to the Mallery brothers and see if you can contact Mother Earth through the younger of the two
[] Write in
OOC: And here we are. Not the most exciting update I'm afraid but it does move things along.
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