Chapter 6: Jorda
Those who are trained in the arts of healing can find many ways to further their skill: some can follow armies into battle and assist with the wounded, sick, and dying; some can go to a village and tend to the sick ones who live there; some can attempt to find their way into a court and assist the maester. Jorda, for all her skill and training, had found herself on a ship, being the personal physician to an insignificant lord.
She had been hired by men who said they were working for the maester of Herston Hall, and who said the lord was planning on taking a long trip out to sea, and required personal attention from a physician. They had sought her out, as she had a good reputation among the locals for her knowledge of herbs and wound treatment. Jorda couldn't blame them – she was, in fact, quite skilled at healing, especially for someone at her age. Maesters on their sixtieth birthday could only hope to come close to her knowledge and ability. However, she did not see being a personal attendant on a boat as a potential source of advancement, especially with a lord of such low rank – and a knight-turned-lord at that. If he had been Renly, or even King Robert himself, she might have cared, but he was the lord of Lockport and its surrounding lands...who would ever take being his assistant seriously? Still, there was good money in it, and she was promised more on the voyage back. In the end, she relented.
The ship was a Braavosi merchant vessel called the
Black Nightingale. Jorda thought it the dumbest name ever, but knew better than to tell the captain or any crewmen. When she first met the lord she was to serve, she immediately recognized the wounds of grayscale, which had claimed a good portion of his face. She knew the cures all too well: limes, mustard poultices, scalding baths – anything which would get into the skin, open the pores, and stop the decay. No doubt this lord, who fancied himself Lorys of the newly formed House of Threedrop, had received that treatment along the way, for the grayscale seemed to have stayed its course and not spread for quite some time. It was a pity to Jorda, since he seemed to be an otherwise handsome man, and the gray patches on his cheek marred the otherwise perfect face, but there was little she could do.
They set sail in January of 287 AL, heading north. The captain, who had some strange Braavosi name Jorda couldn't pronounce, nor care enough to remember, granted Lord Lorys his room, on behalf of the nobleman's dignity (as well as most likely some extra silver); Jorda was given a small room above the captain's quarters, just above the front door, which was usually reserved for the first mate. Over the next two months of sailing, Jorda quickly realized what it was like to be the only woman on a boat full of men, with not a female for miles around. Whenever she left her quarters, most of the sailors eyed her hungrily, like lions ready to devour a prey. It was most likely the fact that she was the personal assistant of a nobleman aboard the ship that stayed them from tearing her clothes off.
Lorys Threedrop was himself amiable enough to her. He spoke to her often about this topic and that, and had her check his health every now and then, to make certain he did not suffer from anything other than sea sickness. He often did these checkups without his tunic on, which she imagined was to show himself off – though she did not object to it for the most part: with the muscles and firm skin, he did not fail to offer her a pleasant sight on this long voyage. All the same, she did not have much to say to him, nor did she often linger long in conversation. She did not hate this lord, but neither was she enthused by his company.
Then, one night, she awoke in her bed to find him slipping into her bedsheets, completely naked. She could feel his body pressing against her as he said that he ached for his wife, and begged her to please him. It was a pitiful tale, and she didn't believe a word of it...but she had other things on her mind. She was still a maiden, and she knew, from her studies, that the first time would hurt. In her mind, she decided that now was the best time to simply let it be done, so she could enjoy the times after that. And so, she relented. She lay on her back and let Lorys have his way between her legs. She squinted her eyes hard and bit her lip as her maidenhead was taken from her. Her nails dug into his shoulders as he went at it, feeling that pain still. When he was finally done, he kissed her, and that hard, stiff flesh on his cheek was felt against hers, which was very strange – it was almost like kissing a statue. She asked him to do it again, which he was only to happy to oblige, and by then she found she could learn to enjoy it. Thanks to this nobleman, Jorda no longer had to worry about the pain of her first night with her husband.
For two more months they sailed, approaching Dragonstone. They had planned to sail out of the usual route, towards the northeast, and then approach the island from its east, in the hopes of avoiding the conflict and any danger that came with it. It was then, in May, that a call came from one of the crew. Jorda rushed out from her quarters to hear what was being said. The captain and Lorys were at the side of the left stern, gazing out at something in the distance. When Jorda took a few more steps forward, she saw that, to the west, was another galley, moving towards them. And fast.
"Is there a banner over them?" Lorys asked.
"I no can tell," the captain said, in that thick accent of his. "This ship I see, she is sailing without a standard. What ship flies without standard, this I ask!"
The standard of Threedrop was sailing over the ship: a white banner with the three red drops of blood. Over time and due to weather, however, the standard had worn down, and become discolored. A thought occurred to Jorda's mind, and she stepped towards Lorys:
"M'lord...it could be they are of Stannis' men, and think we are a ship from Massey's Hook."
"And why would they?" Lorys asked.
Jorda pointed up to the standard. Lorys glanced up, and blinked twice in astonishment. She could tell he had figured it out: with the discoloring, the three blood drops of the House Threedrop banner could be mistaken three colored swirls of House Massey.
"Lower the standard!" Lorys cried out. "Lower the standard! Try to hail the ship!"
The captain was shouting now. He tried the Common Tongue, and he tried Low Valyrian of the Free Cities. Still the ship came, without a response back. Lorys watched with a frightened face, as something seemed to be realized by him.
"They're at ramming speed," he said, "Seven hells! They're going to ram us!"
The captain cried out a command to turn the boat. Jorda backed up, and felt the railing behind her. She gripped it with her hands, realizing that she had nowhere to run. She was trapped on a ship, surrounded by water, and the ship she was on was about to be destroyed.
The captain began to let out a cry, "Brace yourse-"
KERR-ACK!
The galley rammed right into the port side of the ship. The last thing Jorda remembered was Lorys: he was flying towards her, reaching out for her. He gripped her close to him, and the two of them went flying over the starboard side of the ship. Chunks of wood was flying about him, and several men already appeared to be impaled by the flying chunks of debris. Arrows flew from the galley, hitting the captain and many more sailors. That was the last thing she saw before she and Lorys fell into the water, and all she saw was blue.
A few seconds later, she broke the surface, coughing out water from her lungs. Lorys was struggling beside her to stay afloat, but that wasn't the first thing she noticed. Beside her, the Braavosi ship was sinking down into the water, split completely in half. It was an awe-inspiring sight, with the two large sections of a wooden vessel tumbling over and backward into the waters, filling with the sea and slowly descending into the depths. Men were trapped in some of the quarters and screaming for help; many more were toppling over the edge as the ship fell apart, their bodies riddled with arrows. Jorda could not see the captain, but could only assume he had not survived the arrow barrage.
Between the two chunks of what had formerly been the
Black Nightingale was the galley, sailing forward as if to further divide its victim. As it went by Jorda and Lorys, ropes were dropped down, and they both were helped onto the ship by the crew. Jorda was unsure why the galley would at one hand destroy their ship and then rescue them...but her question was soon answered when she and Lorys were suddenly shoved onto the deck of the boat and had their hands tied behind their back.
"Two survivors!" a great barrel-chested man with a bushy beard said, stepping forward towards them. "We'll take them back and let them decide what to do with them. Might be we can get a good ransom for them!"
He was speaking in the common tongue – that much Jorda recognized. He also had an accent of a Stormlander – that much Jorda also recognized.
"Untie us at once!" Lorys said. "Or I'll cut you as soon-"
"Shut that one up," the captain said. "In fact, shut them both up."
Jorda felt a gag placed around her mouth – a moist piece of cloth that tasted absolutely terrible, and which stunk just as bad. Lorys was gagged about the same time, struggling against his captors and groaning into the cloth, still trying to speak. The two of them were lifted up and carried towards the lower rooms under the deck, when one of the crew said:
"This one's a woman, captain! And she's already wet...what say we have fun with her?"
"None of that!" the captain said, much to Jorda's relief. "We'll let Stannis decide what to do with her."
Lorys seemed to be thinking immediately what Jorda was thinking, because they both began to cry out through their gags, trying to speak audibly to let them know that they were actually nobility, and loyal to the same blood as Stannis. For their trouble, Jorda had a fierce tug on the rope bound around her wrists, and Lorys was knocked in the back of the head, causing him too much pain and dizziness to complain. For the rest of the voyage, they were kept below deck, barely fed and forbidden from speaking.
In June of that year, they arrived in Dragonstone. Jorda had heard it was an imposing place to approach from the sea, but neither she nor Lorys had seen it sailing it, since they were kept in dark quarters with no windows. All they heard was the sound of the captain giving the docking orders, the movement of the crew, the activity of other ships nearby, and the sound of the docks. Then came the sound of footsteps of a crewman, opening up the top of their den and ordering them to their feet. The two captives were taken out and onto the deck, and from there onto the decks and towards Dragonstone.
The town they had to pass through was abuzz with activity, mostly from the soldiers and sailors who walked about with as many banners as there were faces. Stannis had obviously called his bannermen to come to his aid in this struggle, and here they were moving about the streets, armed with swords, spears, and the like. Jorda had never imagined she would ever be in such a situation: hundreds of miles from home, on Dragonstone, surrounded by the bannermen of the brother to the king. She saw more standards in this village than she had ever seen at home. Yet as amazing a sight as it was, it was also a reminder that there was a war going on – and Jorda and Lorys had become unintended victims of that war.
They were eventually brought to Dragonstone itself. Jorda's tired eyes looked up at the sight, noticing the famed gargoyles which lined the walls and peered down in great numbers, while towers that resembled dragons rose high from the walls. It was said that the Valyrians built it with technology and architecture long since lost, and whether or not this was true, the fortress was most definitely an imposing sight. Great black walls shot up from the stone, in ways that few in Westoros could mimic, and those gargoyles...always the gargoyles everywhere, looking, peeking. They were too stiff to be alive, and too real to be stone. Jorda felt a shiver run through her spine, wondering if these beasts were to come to life at any moment and strike down against them all as punishment.
They were let in through the portcullis, under the gate, and into the inner courtyard. The first person they met was obviously a man of some importance. Jorda didn't know this because of his banner, or any special knowledge she had of uniforms; it was because the man was perfectly clean and surrounded by other soldiers.
"So, what have we here?" the man asked.
"Couple o' survivors," the captain said, laughing, "Massey's men...caught 'em out at sea."
The sailors took off the gags, and Jorda felt relaxed that, for the first time that day, she could open and close her mouth at her liesure. Lorys was less pleasant:
"I demand to see Lord Stannis at once."
The clean man just laughed at that, reaching out and swiping Lorys mockingly across the nose, "And who is asking to see him?"
Lorys grinned wickedly, and a gleam seemed to rise up in his eyes, "Lord Lorys, of the House of Threedrop, bannerman for Lord Renly of the Stormlands, who is brother to the king and Lord Stannis..."
Every mockery and laughter in the area immedidately stopped. The clean man probably would have dropped his jaw to the ground if his body permitted it to do so. He glanced to the captain, who was staring back at him with wide eyes as big as saucers. Jorda was quite certain both men suddenly felt very mortified...and very, very stupid.
"M'lord," the captain said, "a thousand pardons! A thousand, thousand pardons!" He bowed very low.
"Take me to see Lord Stannis," Lorys repeated, "and we'll see what mercy he knows."
Jorda had only heard stories of Stannis from his time in the war, and his service to the king. She had heard he was a capable man, but not a very likeable man. When she was brought before him at Lorys' side, Stannis was seated upon a throne designed to look like a dragon, wearing armor and looking as grim as any human could. Jorda hesitated for just a moment as she entered the room, unsure if they were catching him unawares or in the middle of another meeting. As she quickly realized, that was simply how he looked. The officer who had met them outside, as well as the ship captain, came in behind the two, and only when they entered did
"You are Lord Lorys, of the House Threedrop?" Stannis asked, in a rather matter-of-fact manner that was only a borderline question.
"I am, your highness," Lorys replied, standing tall and looking, in Jorda's mind, overly dignified. "I was traveling here on a peaceful mission, when one of your ship attacked mine. We were unarmed and sailing in peace, and we were attacked without even being hailed or given the option of surrender. After this, I, a neutral lord, and my assistant, an unarmed physician, were tied up, kept in dark quarters, and treated like prisoners."
Stannis appeared to grind his jaw together, and his stern eyes turned towards the ship captain, "Is this true?"
The ship captain stirred uncomfortably in his position, leaning from boot to boot, "We thoughts 'em for a Massey vessel, m'lord..."
"I am certain the next of kin for every sailor under my employ –
and my banner – will be only more than happy to hear that."
Stannis' teeth seemed to be grinding so hard that Jorda very nearly expected to see sparks fly out from his lips. His fingers were balling themselves into fists and then let go again. He turned from the captain to Lorys and said:
"I shall deal with this later. In the meantime, you have my utmost apologies, Lord Lorys Threedrop, and I shall happily make amends. Please inform me of the costs for ship and crew and-"
Lorys grinned, and Jorda knew he was up to something, "Actually, Lord Stannis, I would like to offer you to forsake any monetary or personal payment, and simply receive one favor from you..."
Stannis stared hard at Lorys, so hard that Jorda took one step to the side, as if arrows were about to shoot out of the Baratheon's pupils. "And what favor would that be?"
Lorys crossed his arms, "I would like free reign to travel about Dragonstone Castle."
Stannis' expression seemed to only grow worse, and his voice began to growl, "What are you driving at, Threedrop?"
"Simply free reign to move about your Dragonstone Castle, with no one to interfere my personal assistant and I, and we are allowed to look under any nook and cranny which we like. Do you agree? I promise I have no interest to look into your personal quarters. After this, I will be more than happy to forget that all my men were brutally murdered because of a war they had no part in."
Stannis considered Lorys for a bit longer, then looked away and waved his hand, "Give it to him. But maintain your supposed neutrality."
With that, they were dismissed, with the captain and officer remaining behind for what was most likely a berating of a lifetime. As soon as they left the room, Lorys reached into his vest and took out a parchment of paper. Jorda could tell it was crinkled and faded a bit from the brief time it spent in the water, but, amazingly enough, the ink was still fairly legible. Lorys took a few glances at it and nodded to no one. With no clear direction as to what he was doing, he waved vaguely down the hallway and began to walk on, a very confused Jorda following behind.
"Might I ask why you have decided to forsake the memory of every sailor who flew under your banner for the sake of a stroll around the most depressing and bizarre castle in history?" she asked.
Lorys turned and grinned at her as he walked, "We are not going on any stroll...you see, I am here for a very interesting treasure...one that may have been stowed away for quite some time."
He took them out of the Stone Drum, which was the castle's central keep, and out into the courtyard. Lorys looked about, as if confused, as he surveyed the walls and towers that lay before him.
"Supposedly, it is on this side, and said to lie 'in the belly of the beast.'"
Jorda glanced up at the tower not too far from them. It was a strange tower, winding and turning, and with odd shapes at the tops and sides. At that moment, she realized that it was shaped like a dragon crying out. Of course! She tapped Lorys on the shoulder and pointed.
"The Windwyrm," she said, remember the tower's name, "shaped like a dragon...in the belly of the beast."
Lorys grinned and nodded, rolling the parchment up and placing it back into his vest. Hurriedly he and Jorda made their walk to the tower, entering it and finding, near the so-called "belly" of the dragon, a large, vacant room, going just off the side of the narrow hallway. Lorys entered it quickly, reminding Jorda of something like a child smelling fresh pie from the bakery. He glanced this way and that, then pursed his lips and narrowed his brow. There was nothing in the room except stone: damp, wet, molded stone; from the cieling to the walls to the floor, nothing but stone. This did not seem to deter him, however, for he moved to the wall and began to feel around.
"Perhaps there is a loose stone somewhere – help me find it. The treasure may be hidden away in a secret passage."
Jorda laughed, "Now you have me feeling like I am part of some legend. This is not some cursed object you are asking me to find, are you?"
Lorys merely laughed in return, while Jorda obeyed without another word. Her little fingers ran along the crevices and nooks between the stones and hewed rocks, finding little else but dust, moisture, and, on occasion, a disgusting bug. Across the room, Lorys did likewise, and the two continued until they met each other halfway. Still not disappointed, Lorys bent down to his knees and began to crawl around the room, tugging and pushing on stones to try to find whatever it was he sought. Jorda pitied him, thinking his knees would go bad in a matter of minutes. That was before one of the stones budged.
"Aha!" Lorys cried out. He tugged on the stone, moving it out of place and to the side. He fidgeted around the empty hole it left, and found that an entire section of stone could be moved. He lifted it up and shoved it aside, and looked down. Jorda let out a gasp.
There, before her, was a Valyrian sword. She was aware that many noble houses across Westoros possessed him, but she had never seen one before in person – she certainly did not expect to see one now. Lorys bend down and picked it up, holding it and grinning broadly as he gripped the blade firmly by the hilt. After a swing or two to test its balance, he looked at the sword again, and smiled from ear to ear. He was the child who had finally gotten a chance to taste that hot pie in the bakery.
"So that is what you were seeking?" Jorda asked.
Lorys nodded, "And here I have found it. With this, I will be unbeatable in battle, and my house shall earn the respect it deserves. I have found much here in Dragonstone."
"You have," Jorda said. She thought a moment, and realized what she had experienced on this long trip. Certainly, she had experienced pain at the loss of her maidenhead, and she had nearly died in a naval attack out at sea (it was hard to forget
that), but she had found a lord who was cunning, brave, and ambitious enough to travel to a war zone and brave death in order to obtain a sword long hidden in time. After all this time, she had discovered that he was not just some insignificant lord, as she had formerly thought, but he was a lord destined for greatness, and under there would be glory and honor for all men who served him.
And all women, too.
"M'lord," she said, raising her skirt a bit as she bent down onto one knee, her head lowering, "I ask that I be the first to be blessed by this sword, in exchange for a pledge of allegiance.
Out of the corner of her eye, Jorda could see Lorys look at her in amazement. However, he was quick to break into a smile, stand tall, and plant the flat end of his sword from one of her shoulders to another.
"Arise, Jorda," he said in a loud voice that echoed from the walls, "you are now a woman in the full service of the House Threedrop."