Chapter IV: Weathering the Storm
Winter settled over Braavos, but Alayne hardly had time to notice it. She was simply too busy. People, it seemed, had noticed the Black Pearl’s visit to their shop. When the dress was delivered—a black one with dark red accents and dragons curling around the sleeves and shoulders—word of mouth spread even more. Soon enough, they had so many commissions, Mistress Sarnel had to turn some customers away. And many of them explicitly asked for Alayne’s work.
The other girls were thrilled, of course. The wives of the keyholders of Braavos were seen in their shop, and so were the popular courtesans of the city. Little Dia had to be taught not to stare at them all so openly. Alayne was less awed by the politicians of Braavos; she had dined with kings and queens, once upon a time. But she had enjoyed the quiet obscurity she had thrived in, and now she missed it. Westerosi dresses were in fashion, now, and her particular design skills were in demand. On some days, she had so much sewing and embroidery to do, she didn’t even have to do any chores, despite the fact that the other girls and Mistress Sarnel were all studying her methods.
What kept her going was the promise of home. She still dreamed of Winterfell sometimes, and of her parents and siblings. She would never see Bran and Rickon again, but Robb and Arya still lived. And she’d even like to see Jon again, to apologize for how she had treated him. He may only have been her half-brother, but he had always been a good brother to her, and she had repaid him with disdain.
But to make all these dreams reality, she needed money. She had saved up quite a bit already, enough for a cheap passage, but Alayne didn’t want to risk it after her last experience at sea. She wanted to make sure she had everything she needed. Enough for a ship to White Harbor, enough to pay her way to Winterfell, and enough to come back to Braavos, should anything go wrong. Who knew if her family even remembered her? Would her mother love a daughter that had done what she had done, that had lived as a bastard commoner for so long? Her head said yes, but her heart was not so sure. They had never come for her, after all.
And so Alayne sewed until she’d worn out more thimbles than she could count, until her hands ached and her eyes watered in the candlelight that they needed to use more and more these days. The sun set ever earlier, and Alayne wondered if Winterfell was now permanently covered in snow. She didn’t remember the last winter, as she had been too small, but she could picture it.
The first evening it snowed in Braavos, Alayne went out to the backyard with the other girls. They all admired the beautiful white flakes as the slowly fluttered down onto their heads. Dia even ran around trying to catch them with her mouth. Alayne just hoped she didn’t accidentally stumble into the midden while she was looking up. The entire scene reminded her a lot of home, with Arya running around and Bran following close behind.
“It’s going to become quite unpleasant very soon,” Mistress Sarnel warned them when they came back inside to drink some hot nettle tea. “Mark my words, give it a week, and you’ll curse the snow.”
They all nodded, but Alayne thought she was the only one who really believed her. Sera was old enough to remember the last winter, but she had been young, and it had been a short and mild one. And she had been in Braavos. People treated winter differently here. Back home in the North, the adults had never stopped complaining about the cold and the endless masses of snow.
“Will the canals freeze?” she asked. The others stared at her as if she had lost her mind.
“Maybe,” Mistress Sarnel told them, surprising the girls. “It happens every couple of decades, I think. My grandmother told me stories of walking over the Canal of Heroes once. But that’s only in very harsh winters. You should worry more about the sweetwater river and the fountains. Those are more prone to it than the sea.”
“A long winter follows on a long summer, they say,” Alayne pointed out, although she didn’t know who said it, only that she had heard it before.
“You mean it’s going to be this cold for years?!” Dia asked, mouth gaping.
Alayne shrugged.
“It’s a good thing I made you all sew new woolen dresses, isn’t it?” the mistress remarked. Shaena and Sera especially had griped about it, since she had made them work overtime and taken the cost of the fabrics out of their pay. They nodded grudgingly now, but wouldn’t realize how glad they were for their new dresses until the cold lasted long enough to creep through the walls, no matter how much wood was put in the fireplace.
“And you, Alayne, should consider finding a ship to Westeros, now that the autumn storms are over. If you don’t, you’ll have to stay all winter. Fewer ships make the journey then. The icebergs are dangerous and passage will become more expensive. It should become safer in Westeros now, too. Nobody sane fights a lengthy war in winter.”
The other girls all looked at Alayne. She saw the curiosity in their eyes, but also the regret. With a pang, Alayne thought that she would miss them all very much. They were the first true friends Alayne had made since Winterfell, girls who really liked her even if they didn’t know all of her.
“Will you really leave?” Dia asked, looking unhappy.
Alayne hesitated, then she nodded. “I suppose so,” she said, sounding sad even to her own ears.
*
In all her time in Braavos, Alayne had never been to Ragman’s Harbor, the place in the city where foreign ships made port. She had walked to the markets, and past the houses of the rich, but she had avoided the less savory parts of the city. Ragman’s Harbor had a reputation for being full of cutpurses and other lowlifes, as well as sailors that hadn’t seen a woman for moons. And so, when Alayne went to seek passage on a ship, she was secretly relieved that Sera had decided to accompany her. Alayne suspected that Sera was as curious about the Westerosi as she had been curious about Alayne the first day they had met. Alayne was just glad she had someone with her when she approached strangers.
Ragman’s Harbor was as busy and cramped as any place in Braavos where many people congregated. When they reached the long quay, Alayne almost stumbled over a girl pushing a wheelbarrow full of cockles while trying to avoid the wild gestures of a man with a blue beard who was telling a story to another man. The tale was an emotional one, it seemed, but Alayne could barely understand a word of his Valyrian dialect.
“What do we do?” Sera hissed into her ear. She was gripping Alayne’s arms a little too hard as her eyes roamed over the ships and sails.
“Ask someone,” Alayne replied. She looked around to find someone who wasn’t busy and spied a man sitting in a booth, looking at thick sheaves of paper and books. She dragged Sera over to the man and cleared her throat. When he saw the two girls standing before him, he seemed so annoyed Alayne almost retreated.
“Are there any ships from Westeros?” she asked, a beat too late and a little too timidly.
The man shot her a look. “Are there stars in the sky?”
When he didn’t speak any further, Alayne said, with a little more steel in her voice, “Could you please point us to one of them?”
“And what do girls like you want with a ship?”
“I wish to buy a passage,” Alayne replied.
“Any place in particular?” It almost sounded as if he thought they were trying to run away with no clue what they were doing. Alayne was starting to get annoyed.
“White Harbor. The North in general,” she said, earning her a surprised glance from Sera.
The man just huffed and pointed at a large galley with faded gray sails. Alayne nodded at the man and walked away from him as fast as she could.
“The North?” Sera asked incredulously, as soon as they were out of hearing range of the man. “Why would you ever want to go there? It’s even colder there than here!”
That was true enough. “My father had enemies in the south,” she explained vaguely. “I’d rather not run into them. Last I heard the Starks were still in the North, and my father knew Lady Stark, once upon a time.”
Sera frowned. “Still, it’s cold there. And the people are probably barbarians.”
Alayne had to laugh at that. “You say that about all Westerosi here.”
“But they’re different.”
Alayne was about to mock her some more, but they had arrived at the ship. It looked drab, for all that it had once been an impressive galley. The crew looked little better, with drawn, sunken faces and clothes that had once been black. A couple crewmen lounging on the docks near their ship eyed them hungrily.
“Excuse me,” Alayne began, “where can I find your captain?”
“Tavern over there. Bugger me if I can tell what it’s called.” He nodded at a building with a group of exuberant—and likely drunken sailors—in front of it.
“The Outcast Inn,” Alayne informed them, having deciphered the washed-out letters. “Thank you.”
The inn was a rowdy place, that much they could tell even before they entered. The stench of beer wafted out the door, as did unintelligible singing in innumerable languages. There were black Summer Islanders in one corner admiring the barmaid, and some Braavosi gamblers in another. Only one table was not in a jolly mood. There sat three men in faded black and a woman in rough furs, cradling an infant. Alayne walked over to them, a curious Sera on her heels.
“Are you the captain of the Blackbird?”
One of the men—a middle-aged man with a large belly whom she presumed was the captain—exchanged a glance with the other two. One was young and fat; the other, a wiry man of about her father’s age. “Aye, what do you want?”
“Offer the girls a seat, Old Tattersalt,” the wiry man said. Alayne didn’t even have to wait for the captain to nod before Sera pulled some chairs from the other tables for them to sit in.
She composed herself carefully, to be sure she kept her northern vowels out of her speech. “I wish to buy a passage to Westeros. I was told you hail from there?”
The captain bellowed a laugh, the wiry man grinned, and the young one looked at her with pity. Only the girl seemed curious.
“I think you’ve got the wrong boat, then,” the captain said.
“Do you not travel back there?”
“Oh, we do, once Cotter’s done with his business. Fat lot of good that’ll do. No, you don’t want to go where we’re going.”
“We’re men of the Night’s Watch,” the fat man added helpfully. “The Blackbird will sail back to Eastwatch. Not a place a young woman like you will want to travel.”
That at least explained the black everywhere, Alayne mused. Sera asked them what the Watch was, and the young man patiently explained.
“I don’t care,” Alayne said. “I have a brother in the Watch; surely that counts for something.”
The men eyed her with varying degrees of surprise and pity, while Sera stared at her with raised eyebrows. Alayne had never mentioned a brother before.
“You don’t want to go to Eastwatch,” the wiry man reiterated. “You don’t want to go to the North. Been here a while, haven’t you?”
Alayne nodded.
“It’s no fit place for a young woman. It’s no fit place for anyone, truth be told. That’s why Tarly here takes his girl south with him. And your brother is probably dead, unless he was stationed in the Shadow Tower or Eastwatch. Not many of us left between the wildlings and worse. And soon enough, the rest of us will be gone too, along with the whole damn Wall.”
“Don’t say that!” the young man—Tarly—protested, while the girl rocked her child. “If anyone can stop the White Walkers, Jon can.”
The man who was obviously the small group’s leader snorted. “You and your faith in the Lord Commander.” He paused to shake his head in exasperation. “Stay here, girl. We sure won’t take you. The North is overrun with wildlings already, and I doubt Lord Stark will manage them. And worse is yet to come. There’ll be war in the North soon. The worst war any of us have ever seen.”
Alayne nodded and swallowed. It was too late. She didn’t know if she believed the talk about the White Walkers, but with the news of dragons in the east, who knew? Whatever had happened, the North seemed to be in dire straits, and she was afraid. Maybe her brother was dead. Maybe he still lived. Maybe he was the Jon Tarly had mentioned, but then again, it was a common name, and if there were wildlings in the North … at least here in Braavos, she was safe. And after everything, safety was what she craved the most.
“I thank you for your time and wish you good fortune,” she said to the men, who seemed to relax when she and Sera moved away from the table. Outside the inn, Alayne took a deep breath of the briny air. Braavos was to be her home a little longer, it seemed.
*
“I think it is time you left us,” Mistress Sarnel told Alayne one evening two weeks after she had returned from Ragman’s Harbor with the news that she would stay after all.
Alayne felt her stomach drop. “But I can’t go to Westeros! It’s too dangerous!”
Mistress Sarnel clucked with her tongue and leaned back in her chair. Her knitting needles clacked against each other while the sock she was working on grew. “I’m not talking about that, girl. I’m talking about the shop. We have more work than we can handle, and I don’t have the room to expand the business to suit our new needs. No room to store the fabrics for all your special orders, and no room for another apprentice to help with all the work. It’s as if I’m trying to run two shops in one house right now. My own and yours. And I regret to say it, but I have nothing more to teach you. I think you should leave the nest, so to speak.”
“But …” she didn’t know how, Alayne thought. Her whole life, people had watched out for her. Others had made her decisions for her, and taught her how to be what she was expected to be.
“It’s scary, I know. But I think you’re ready to go into business on your own.” Alayne gaped as she continued. “I won’t throw you out the door tomorrow. You have the funds to rent a little place, and I’ll send any customers asking for you your way. You’ll need to take in a girl or two to help you, of course. Maybe Sera would like to go with you. And if you need advice or just want to sit down with an old woman to drink tea, I’ll be right here. Although gods know, people your age should have different things on their minds.”
“I don’t,” Alayne objected. “And you’re not that old.”
“That’s kind of you to say, dear. You’re a good girl. Your parents must have been proud of you.”
Alayne doubted it. She hadn’t always been good, after all. Oh, she’d been the perfect daughter in the eyes of her parents, but when it counted … twice she had been selfish and it had only brought her pain. She’d lost Lady, and she’d betrayed her family when it had mattered the most. She’d always thought herself a better daughter than Arya, but now she was no longer sure.
*
“What do you think?” Alayne asked Sera as she showed her around the vacant shop one of Mistress Sarnel’s many acquaintances had found for her. It had been a book binder’s before. You could still smell traces of glue and paper, even though all the tools and furniture had been removed. The previous tenant had died without an heir. There were only empty rooms and scratched wooden floors. Despite the bright green door and freshly painted shutters on the outside, Alayne thought the house looked sad.
“It needs furniture,” Sera said, “but I think you can make it work. You should put one or two examples of your work on the left here, so that they can be seen when the shutters are open, and some sort of rug in the middle to be more welcoming. A selection of fabrics in the back here, and you can start working.” Her eyes sparkled. “This is so exciting!”
Sera was genuinely happy, Alayne thought. She was a truly good friend.
“We,” Alayne told her. “I thought we could make it work together.”
“What?” Sera asked wide-eyed.
“It’ll be tight, of course, and we’ll have to save a lot of coin at first to repay the loan Mistress Sarnel has agreed to give me to help with the equipment. We’ll have to share a room too, but we’ll each get our own bed, at least. And we’ll have to do some of the chores, since I think we can only afford one apprentice to start with, but you’ve been with me all the way so far, and we’re friends. I think we can do this together.”
Sera kept staring at her and for a moment, Alayne thought she might say no after all.
“Yes!” Sera screamed and then she launched herself into Alayne’s arms. She hugged her tightly and spun her around on the dusty floor, laughing like a maniac. Alayne couldn’t help but laugh with her.
“Oh, this is going to be so wonderful! I still have so much to learn from you! And I’ll help with the furniture. My mother knows someone who works for her employers, maybe she can get us a good price. And we’ll get new dresses, now that we’re no longer apprentices. We can’t look like we’re wearing hand-me-downs if we’re working in our own shop!” Sera squealed, dancing around the floor, drawing circles in the dust.
“A seamstress always dresses carefully to show her talent, but she never shows up her customers,” Alayne quoted Mistress Sarnel’s words.
“Oh, don’t play daft,” Sera chided her. “Of course we’re not going to run around in bright yellow dresses with pearls on our collars. But I’d like something in deep violet, and you’d look perfect in dark blue. And we should add some of your embroideries—subtle ones, of course—to advertise.”
Sera painted a pretty picture, Alayne thought, and inevitably found herself drawn into her friend’s fantasy, where they wore beautiful dresses and ran a successful enterprise together that all the worthies of Braavos spoke of. And for the first time since King’s Landing, she didn’t want to give up on a dream. Instead, she grabbed it with both hands and refused to let go.
But first, her hand had to grab onto some heavier things. Sera’s mother’s friend did give them a good deal on the furniture, but tables, beds and chairs didn’t carry themselves. They couldn’t afford to hire help except for the heaviest items, and so Alayne and Sera carried their mattresses and small tables up the narrow steps of their new home. They fetched buckets and scrubbed the floors and walls until everything was clean except for them.
And after a week of work, when the bolts of fabric she’d ordered had been delivered and the rug lay in their parlor, when they had both taken a good soak in their new wooden bathtub, when the sign hung over their door, Alayne truly had her own place for the first time in her life. She stood in the middle of her new home and envisioned the dresses she would create for show. One tailored to fit her, and another for Sera. Pale green for Sera, Alayne thought, with beautiful lilies—
“Alayne! Come up here! We’re finally done and I’ve got us a bottle of Tyroshi pear brandy to celebrate with!” Sera called from upstairs.
Alayne shook her head and smiled. Her plans could wait another day.