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Many men come and some men go from the House of Black and White. Most come in silence, lost in their own cares and seeking communion only with He of Many Faces, fueled by anger or despair or a thirst for vengeance. Others come haltingly, their bodies wracked with pain, driven to find peace beyond the stark black and white doors. Still others came with another purpose entirely - to make an offer of themselves for the services of one of the most beloved servants of the Many-Faced God, spoken of only in whispers and glimpsed only in nightmares, the Faceless Men.
It was to this final class of petitioner that the man draped in a thick brown robe belonged, cowl pulled up against the cool night mists rolling in off of the sea, spilling over the stone steps like a rising tide. His frame was bulky and amply-padded, and even the voluminous robe strained in places over his shoulders and around his girth. Yet he ascended the stairs toward the temple doors with grace belying his size, steadily and swiftly, the moon-faced doors opening silently to permit his entry.
Within the temple his pace slowed as he circumnavigated the pool at the center of the vast room. Other figures moved here – a few resting in alcoves, their faces slack as they dreamed of the peace that lay beyond while others prostrated themselves before the statues surrounding the room. He moved around the pleading figures quietly, as if barely noticing them, making his way finally to the stern leonine countenance carved of ebony at the far end of the pool. The man pulled back his hood and met the unblinking stone gaze of the Lion of Night thoughtfully, a small smile playing about his lips as he reached to stroke his golden, forked beard. From within his robes he pulled out a single slender coin and placed it in the lion-man’s upturned palm where it rested on the arm of his throne. It was not the space of a breath from when the coin clicked softly against stone before a man in stark priestly robes stood at his elbow, his weathered face set in a mild, paternal smile.
“So kind of you to come,” the visitor to the temple said, pursing his lips in mock disapproval, a hint of dry humor edging his voice as he continued to peer up at the statue. “I was beginning to think you had forgotten me.”
“He of Many Faces forgets no-one, low-born nor high, poor nor draped in riches, the smallest of the small nor…” The benevolent priest paused, then. “Well. His eye falls upon us all, in turn. Why have you come so far, Illyrio Mopatis, Magister of Pentos?” The portly man knew better than to object to the use of his name and title in this public, if strange, place by those who served the Many-Faced God, and certainly to take no offense at the man’s slight, but he grimaced all the same.
“Making a simple offering to he who guards my wealth, of course,” he replied, schooling his features into evenness once more, pulling at the oiled locks of his beard. “A mere token for his apparent efforts, as my riches continue to multiply, and fortune continues to favor my enterprise.” The priest, meanwhile, reached out and took the coin from the statue’s hand and secreted away in his own robes. He nodded to the small robed child, fragile in appearance, who tended the pool of water at their feet before delicately waving at Illyrio, beckoning him to follow as he turned to a dim hallway leading deeper into the recesses of the temple.
“Come, magister, and we will speak of your…enterprise.”
A man found the ways of the Westerosi uncouth and ill-formed, and chose his words with precision and care when among by them, drawing their attention like freshly-painted marble statue amidst those washed pale gray by rain and wind. Such affectations were all to a man’s own design and purpose, like his parti-colored hair and striking features, and just as much his swift blade and free hand with foreign coin. A man found such games strange, in truth – many tools were given to His servants in their work, but such ostentatious attention-seeking was uncommonly used, and rarely for so long a period as this, from the dockside in Lorath all the way to King’s Landing, weeks of travel.
Yet, a man’s instructions were as clear as polished glass – to make the kill as a marked and remarkable foreigner, not to blame accident or happenstance as was the usual manner of His servants. It would mean that a man would never again wear this face or use these swift hands, and it was a terrible pity, but the price had been paid – would be paid in full, one day - and he had his duties, odious as they sometimes were. Time was precious, but great care had been undertaken - a careful dance - to lay this trail, and now, soon, the hardest part would come.
The tavern was of some quality, good enough for wealthy merchants and minor nobility, and a man had enjoyed a fine glass of Volantene wine, paid for with a heavy coin worth several times the actual value of the drink as he lounged lazily in the lush common room. Rakishly posing, his feet propped up on a stool, a man waited patiently for the arrival of the petty lordling who would serve as his unwitting foil tonight. It was a moderately pleasant wait, at least, thanks to the wine, and the swinging hips of the silk-clad whores who worked the room, though they knew better after the past week than to approach a man directly, after they had been firmly told that they would be paid well for bringing a man wine and food, but not their bodies. A writhing armful of woman could be far more of a complication than the faint dulling of the edge of a man’s senses from food and drink and, with regret, it could not be risked.
As was his habit, Moros Slynt pushed his way into the common room with a pair of fellow squires, all three of them equally ugly of face, crass and loud. Yet the barman had no desire to gainsay them, not with Lord Janos so firmly in the good graces of the Queen. The youths jostled through the crowd to secure their drinks, and Moros tried to cover his blush at getting an eyeful of one of the tavern’s whores with a forced leer.
A man let out the smallest of sighs. This would be easy, but the necessity was deeply unfortunate. He rose to his feet and strolled casually past the three, using cover of the crowd to hide his purpose until he had found his way to the far end of the bar, setting down his wineglass and stretching his generous mouth into a smile.
“Are three boys certain they should be drinking the barkeep’s fine wine from the East, or should they return home to gulp their mothers’ milk?” he said, the sing-song lilt to his voice carrying it above the murmur of other conversations and noise of movement, his accent and fighting words both serving to turn heads, including those of the three gawky young men to whom he addressed his reproach. Moros’ already squat face seemed to compress even further as his thick brows drew down.
“What are you on about?” the boy scowled. “I’ll have your tongue out for that, you ugly fool. Watch your bloody mouth.” A man affected an expression of delighted surprise.
“A boy will have my tongue? With what blade?” With a soft hiss of steel, a man drew the elegant dagger he had lifted from the boy’s belt and balanced it, point down, on an outstretched finger. Wise in the ways of such matters, the other patrons of the tavern began to sidle away from the bar and the immanent conflict.
“With this? A man does not think it so.” With a furious roar, the little lordling charged like a wounded bull, and a man had only to step aside nimbly and bring down the pommel of the swiftly-grasped blade down on the boy’s head. A second of the youngsters received a swift backhand that sent him reeling when he belatedly tried to come to the aid of his friend. The third froze, mouth hanging open like a fish. A man gently reached out, blade in hand, and caressed the boy’s cheek with the edge, opening up a shallow cut that welled up red. A man smiled wider yet, carried the blade to his mouth, and kissed the blade to his lips, smearing them with scarlet.
“A boy ought to run.”
When the boy returned with a knot of gold cloaks long minutes later, a man’s smile did not change when they clapped irons around his wrists.
In a plainly-furnished kitchen, the warm air smelling of bread and salty fish broth, the priest sat at a rough wooden table and gestured for Illyrio to join him. The magister gingerly settled his prodigious weight on a rough-hewn bench across from the priest as the other man folded his hands into his sleeves.
“Your plots spawn plots which beget further plots,” the priest said, a hint of humor curling the corners of his mouth up into something resembling a smile. “What stymies your intricate machine now? What single man has but breathed on your spider’s web and caused it to tremble and threaten to spill? A criminal in the cold? A silver boy withering in the sun? A lame Dornishman all alone? A fallen woman who never fell? A bear dancing to two different songs? Or is it any of a hundred others? I would be delighted to know.” It took every bit of self-control Illyrio possessed to keep his expression still at the other man’s colorful litany, though the list made his heart freeze in his chest between beats far longer than it ought.
“A wolf,” he said, capitulating to the other man’s playful attack. “A dogged wolf at the door, prying it open.”
“Ah.” The priest did not seem in the least surprised, but then, he never did. “The wolf might well smell out the truth with his keen, stubborn nose, but that is not the difficulty, is it? The wolf might be a sheepdog after all and set right the sheep, and that your plan cannot abide.”
“I have a savior to offer them. They must need saving first.”
“Just so,” the priest confirmed with a tiny nod, falling silent as a stone-faced woman brought bowls of broth and chunks of bread to the table, setting them before each man before returning to her labors. The priest tucked into the food with restrained pleasure, chewing a bite of bread and sipping the salty broth laden with chunks of shellfish before continuing to speak.
“You know the price He of Many Faces asks for this service. We have spoken of it before.” Illyrio shifted uncomfortably on the bench and did not touch the food.
“And I have said, I cannot give what I do not have…”
“But you will,” interjected the priest, his voice kind. “If you enter into this contract and offer the gift to those who are deserving, your plan will come to fruition. In a sense, we will be your allies, and does war not offer spoils to the victor? It will be within your control to give what we have asked for. You must only enter into the agreement,” he said smoothly.
“It could undo everything else,” Illyrio protested weakly. The priest shrugged a slender shoulder and took another bite of bread.
“Then your savior had best save them well.”
A man had made a pair of very unfortunate miscalculations.
The first error had been the lesser: In guaranteeing his arrest, despite having restrained his capability for violence mightily to avoid this very thing, a man had convinced the Watch of a very considerable danger he posed to the citizens of King’s Landing. He had also convinced them of his insanity, and in so doing, he had all but assured himself of an unfortunate fate in the black cells. This in no way prevented his plan from being enacted, but it required that a man expend energy and effort in terrifying and brutalizing the terrifying, brutal scum with whom he was imprisoned over several days to ensure their obedience and compliance. It was not a difficult task, but it was a distraction, particularly in the utter darkness. A portion of his mind was always given over to the task of minding the movements of the others, like wild beasts lurking outside the glow of a fire, in case they had not fully learned their earlier lessons in pain and fear. Such men required repeated instruction, a man knew well, and while in another time and place he would be glad to teach them, now it was only a complication.
The second error had been the far greater: In relying on his impeccable sources of information and his own not inconsiderable research indicating that the one to whom he must grant the gift would be sent north to the Wall, a man had not expected a headsman to send Lord Eddard Stark’s head bouncing down the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor on the orders of the boy-king. A man had not seen this event, but even in the pitch darkness of the black cells word had reached the prisoners there within hours. At no time had he been within striking distance of his target. The fact that Lord Stark was now dead was, at some level, immaterial – the contract had specified the way of his death, and public decapitation by the king’s headman had not been the means to the end. His responsibilities remained unfulfilled, and that burden lay heavily on his heart.
It was of little consequence to a man as he was herded, not unlike a farm beast, into a prison wagon to make the long trip north to the Wall. This he had expected, and Stark would receive the gift either on the long journey, if luck was with him, or once they had reached their destination, if all went to plan. Yet, it was certain now that it would not. Neither the distance nor the prospect of imprisonment for weeks, if not months, perturbed a man – like the constant uneasy presence of the violent creatures surrounding him in the filthy wagon, it was only a distraction. It had happened before a scant few times that death had found its way to a target of the servants of He of Many Faces before the servant could give the gift himself. Usually, no one was the wiser, because all assumed the death had been arranged thus. This time, however, the death had not been his gift, and it had all happened very much counter to the desires of all parties. It was, in truth, a situation without precedent. A man would have to invent a way to serve the wishes of the Many-Faced God as well as the will of his employer. It was not worrisome or wearying – simply a new pattern to be created from somewhat fragmented puzzle pieces, but this was for what a man had been born.
A whip cracked, and the heavy wagon rolled out from the dimly lit gatehouse that led into the dungeons, and a man found himself bathed in the thin light of morning. Turning his face up to the sun through the barred opening in the sturdy walls that contained him and the two brutes also dragged from the black cells, a man narrowed his eyes in thought as much as against the glare. There would be time on the road to consider the problem. Ideally, a solution would present itself long before the wagon crunched over snow and ice in the frozen North. Idly, a man allowed himself to study his travelling companions – the ones more man that beast, outside the wagon – without seeming in any way to look at them closely. The cunning Night’s Watch recruiter was a respectable but known quantity, and the various recruits were a smattering of children and near-men without purpose or control. They could be used, but deciding how would be the work of some time.
And then, a man saw a boy who was not at all, in fact, a boy, and he found himself smiling.
As silently and anonymously as he had entered the House of Black and White, Illyrio Mopatis left it, bundled in his brown robes and the hood drawn over his head. His nerves strained and hummed from the lengthy conversation he had just concluded with the benevolent-appearing priest, and though he tried to convince himself that the bargain was more than fair, everything about the deal he had struck made him uneasy. The tiny portion of soup he had been able to consume while supping with the other man seemed to sour in his belly.
The passion that the assassins had for the secrets of the Maesters, and their insistence upon being granted access to every nook and cranny of the sprawling Citadel would be an ugly problem to manage even in the most ideal of futures. For ages, the Maesters had stood apart from the political concerns of the realm, serving the lands and crown rather than any particular man. That was unlikely to change; indeed, the Maesters were men like any other, and would welcome peace brought by a firm, just hand, and a king who was the ideal of everything they tried to teach any half-highborn boy across all of Westeros. To turn and rip apart that tradition would be risky – it would require every bit of clever expediency he could muster to help justify it. The argument could be made, perhaps, that a new era demanded new freedoms and openness – knowledge for all, not just the few. That could win the smallfolk, certainly, but the love of all the peasants in all of Westeros was of less concern than the antipathy of the Hightowers when it came to the security of the Iron Throne.
A better approach might be more specific - the assassins sent in the guise of scholars in the employ of the king, seeking information regarding the Targaryen dynasty, because the young king had a thirst for learning from the grandest plans and greatest follies of his forebears. The Maesters might well object that they could provide anything the king might wish in that regard, but surely two sets of eyes would be better than one? The damned bargain had said nothing about privacy, in any case. They would have their access to the Citadel, but they had never demanded, nor would they have it, entirely to themselves.
The thin light of dawn was beginning to thin the mists as Illyrio turned his feet toward the harbor and the snug ship that awaited him to return him with all haste to Pentos. He had letters to write, many of them, to be sent by raven and rider and ship across the Narrow Sea. It was always easier to beg forgiveness than to gain permission, and Varys would see the sense of it. Perhaps the servant of the Many-Faced God would even precede the missive he would send. It was not so terrible a bargain. Whatever secrets of ancient kings and powerful magics the assassins would earn for themselves were of no consequence. If magic had ever existed, beyond the tricks and trappings of the assassins themselves, it was gone from the world, now.
Kings no longer needed dragons to rule, but neither did they need fear dragonslayers.
The child had turned out to be a delightful, if infuriating, surprise.
The dour man, sallow of skin, with a scarred cheek and thick black hair, planted his boot heels firmly into the ribs of the slab-sided gray horse to hurry him along, the beast breaking into a shuffling trot for at least a few strides every time he made the effort. He had spent too long at Harrenhal, weighing and toying with his options, allowing expediency to be his watchword as he found service, of a sort, with the low men who populated the stronghold. At first he had stayed as much from indecision as out of respect for the debt he owed the girl, as he watched and waited for the opportunity to arise. This land had an overabundance of both kings and chaos, and it was not clear to him how he could serve the purposes of He of Many Faces by falling in with any of them. Yet it had seemed prudent to remain at least nominally on the side of the lion men, who held the capital and the most power of any individual faction, and it seemed quite unlikely that any of the other forces would ally against them. Those in power needed to buy favor to stay there, and the lions were great pragmatists. It had the feel of a path to what the high priest had convinced him was within their grasp from this contract – knowledge and power they had craved for centuries.
But then the girl had turned on him and reminded him forcefully, just as her father’s untimely death had done, that the appearance of things could be quite deceiving. The power of one child had wreaked havoc on the ill-fated fortress, and he would have lied if he had said he did not enjoy what he had done at her behest, though he cared not at all for those she had forced him to save. But she was a tiny, severe patron of the god, and he had been reminded of what his training had made of him. The gift was his to offer, and the power to free slaves from the tyranny of those who would rule them. It had been the impulse of a moment to invite her to come with him, once he realized where he must go. It was not the way such things were usually done, but for this little messenger who had saved him from the Red God and then reminded him of how to best serve He of Many Faces, he would make an exception. And yet, he had not been surprised when she rebuffed him. The gods had taken an interest in the child, but she was not yet ready to become an initiate. He could only give her the key and leave her to discover the path herself. She would, someday, and both Braavos and the high priest would welcome her.
He grinned, suddenly, a flash of gold bright in a white smile, and booted the gray horse again. Oldtown lay days and leagues ahead of him, and time had once more become precious. Rumors of dragons were once more being spoken.