Braavos.
Rosie. (Margaery Tyrell)
"When I saw Meralyn's girls wearing those new dresses," her client said as she ran her long fingers along the gown presented on a mannequin, "I just knew I had to have one. Your work is truly exquisite, Lady Rosalind. The silk is like water under my fingers... They'd pay me fortunes to keep it on." The girl was young and lovely, no older than Rosie, with black hair, light brown skin, and full breasts stuffed into a dress that was two sizes too small.
"Thank you, Lady Bellegerre," Rosie said. She wasn't unaware of who this girl in her little shop was. "A woman of your renown complimenting my work... truly, an honour."
The Black Pearl was the most celebrated courtesan in the city, with no rival but the Nightingale, who was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world. The girls of House Otherys, descendants of the first Black Pearl—a smuggler—shared blood with the dragons of Valyria through Aegon the Unworthy. That was likely the thing that drew men to the Black Pearl more than any other prostitute in Braavos.
"You flatter me, my lady," said the Black Pearl, flashing a white smile. "One might think you are flirting." She turned away from the gown and looked at Rosie. "Did you know that the love goddess beseeches women to exhibit their sexuality to men and women both?"
"I did not know that," Rosie admitted.
"Hm," hummed the Black Pearl. "Well, now you do." She touched the gown delicately. "How much would you be willing to part with this beauty for, Lady Rosalind?"
"For you, my lady," said Rosie, "I will do so for fifty Heads."
The Black Pearl barked a laugh. "Ha! And ruin my image by thieving?" She jested. "No, give me the correct price. I would pay a hundred—a thousand! My barge and my services, too."
"The honour of dressing the Black Pearl amounts to a thousand sales," Rosie said. And it was true; if the other courtesans saw the Black Pearl in one of her gowns, they would come to purchase dresses of their own, and Rose's Salon would find itself heavily understaffed. "I will take seventy Heads, my lady, but no more than that."
"And what of my services?" The woman glided her hand up the front of her bodice, leaning forward and pulling the top down with a finger, giving Rosie a few of the top of her full breasts. "I'd be loathsome to leave you without a gift for being so generous with me."
Rosie smiled, "My love would have to join us."
The Black Pearl's indigo eyes flashed, dark with hunger. "Your love is the one people in the streets are whispering about," she said. "They say he's climbing the Sealord's ranks at an alarming rate. Qarro Volentin fears for his title as the First Sword. He told me as much."
"My Arthur is perfectly content as he is now," Rosie explained. "He does not care for serving as the First Sword. Too much time away from home—and the pay is not enough to leave me on my own for so long, he insists." It made her smile to remember their talk.
"Quite the man, then," said the Black Pearl, turning to the gown again. She cast a sneaky glance at Rosie. "Your Arthur is more than welcome to join us, Lady Rosalind. Alas, he's not here... unless you're hiding him, in which case, you're a cruel woman." Bellegere laughed as sweet as fireplums on a warm day. "Maybe when I return for my next gown?" It was more of an invitation than a jape—Rosie could hear it in the woman's tone.
"As exciting as that sounds, I will have to speak to my love about your offer before agreeing to anything," Rosie replied. "So, seventy Heads?" The Black Pearl flashed her pearly whites.
She'd been working on another gown of purple velvet and golden samite when a ding rang in her little shop. Setting her fabrics aside, Rosie got to her feet and crossed the private room to the painted-purple door. Arthur whirled as she pulled it open and smiled when he saw her. She greeted him with a kiss as she unbuckled his swordbelt and slid off his purple jerkin.
She folded his jerkin as he asked, "How was your day?"
"Lady Bellegere Otherys stopped by," Rosie said. "She bought my newest dress. The one I spent the last week making? Seventy Heads and a new friendship."
Arthur hummed and slid his arms around her waist, pulling her back against his front as he kissed her neck. He murmured against her as Rosie reached to weave her fingers through his hair, "Some of the bravos complain that their wives have nothing to do but complain." He chuckled. "I could mention that you need some help around here."
"More help means more dresses. More dresses mean more patrons. More patrons, more money, more money, more fabric to make more dresses, and so on," Rosie hummed, turning in his arms. The same sword still drifted deep in the sea that was his eyes. "You don't think they'll hate working for someone so much younger than them?"
"You just sold a dress to the most prominent woman in the city," her love said. "You should be charging them to work for you." She smiled and stood on her toes to kiss his lips. "Most of the bravos are my age or a few years older. Their wives would be the same or younger."
"Then maybe mentioning it wouldn't hurt," Rosie said thoughtfully. "Enough about me. How's your day been, my love?" He started sweeping the shop while she moved to the door to lock it for the day. Arthur told her Ferrego Antaryon invited him to the Sealord's Palace to speak privately, but he had put off accepting the invitation. "You must go. He's the Sealord!"
"Love, I can't make an enemy of the First Sword," Arthur said. "There's too many people in the city who love him. If Qarro challenges me, I'll have to kill him or be killed in turn, and we don't need that sort of trouble."
Rosie closed the shutters and latched them shut before turning and putting her hands on her hips. "So make the people love you more," she said. "Do what you did in that village along the Mander. Those people adored you even more than they did Margaery Tyrell."
"That's where the problems start," Arthur said. "Too much popularity too quickly for a simple guardsman will be seen as me reaching too high and will make enemies of the nobility."
"Then do it slowly," she countered. "Go to the Moon Pool, fight the bravos, build your name up over time. People still talk about the previous First Sword, Syrio Forel. I heard that's what he did. He built up, let's say, collateral with the commons and the nobility."
"I'm already exhausted as it is," Arthur said. "Going out at night to thrash poxy bravos around might just be enough to tip me over the edge and into the grave." He went to her and cradled her face in his hands. "And I don't need you worrying yourself until you follow me into it."
Rosie put her hands on his chest and sighed. "You still have to meet with the Sealord."
"I know this," he said.
She smirked at him. "The Braavosi dialect is rubbing off on you."
"I spend a lot of time with drunk Braavosi," he smiled.
Rosie laughed and kissed him before taking his hand and leading him into the back room. "I think you need some rest, my love," she pointed out, feeling his gaze on her behind. "You're exhausted, aren't you? Surely too much so for sex."
"Don't underestimate me."
She giggled. "Never."
Invigorated, he scooped her into his arms, and Rosie squealed excitedly. Arthur hurried up to the room in their little house, dropping her onto the feather bed before crawling over her and kissing her brow, cheek, chin, and left open-mouthed kisses along her neck. Rosie sighed contentedly and pulled his face to kiss his lips, relishing the taste of him.
"Oh," Rosie said as Arthur moved back to her neck, his lips delightfully cool on her sensitive skin. "The Black Pearl offered to share me with you."
"Fuck the Black Pearl," he murmured against her skin. She giggled when he suddenly froze and lifted himself above her. "This is some wicked offer to test my loyalty to you, right?"
"No, not a test," she said, laughing at the suspicion in his eyes. "No sooner than she stepped through the door, she started flirting with me. It was quite flattering, really. I might have flirted back a little."
"Should I feel jealous?"
"You should," she said, "but you aren't."
"I know you better than anyone," he explained, his lips moving to her ear. "There isn't a part of you that I'm unfamiliar with... I know where Elinor liked my kisses." He kissed her so softly behind the ear she giggled. He slid her nightgown over her head. "Where Lady Margaery liked to be bitten." He took her hardened nipple into his mouth and bit down gently, and she whimpered. He moved again to her lips to whisper, "And how best Rosalind likes to fuck."
She'd freed him from his britches when he was on her breasts, the tip of his manhood sliding into her slowly and filling her wholly. "How," she gasped, "does Rosie like it, Arthur?"
"Hard."
She really did.
Braavos.
Arthur. (Nolan)
He dreamt the same dream again as he and Rosie lay in their bed after their coupling, his arms wrapped around her and her fingers laced with his over her stomach, and as he had in each dream, Arthur found himself scaling the King's Cliffs. Every night, he would climb a little higher and hear the voice more clearly, but he never reached the peak. A fortnight ago, the exile stood at the base of the daunting mountain for what felt like days. And a week later, he had climbed more than halfway. Now, he could almost reach the last foothold, almost taste it.
But, as always, the whispering voice shouted and flung him from the side of the cliff, and he would fall for hours, waking in the instant before he splattered onto the earth. His love would still be asleep, and Arthur would cook them breakfast, thinking, wondering, praying to his old gods for an answer but receiving none, and his head would only clear when Rosie wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed his shoulder, asking about what he was cooking.
After eating, dressing in the Sealord's bravos' garb, Arthur buckled his swordbelt around his waist and kissed his love's head before turning to leave. "Ah uh," she sounded, snapping her fingers and tapping her lips. Arthur chuckled and returned to her to kiss her lips. "Better." He rolled his eyes and left for work.
Walking the streets in the Sealord household's garb gave him some benefits—he was saved from suffering hawkers and whores alike selling their wares and was free to walk in peace, learning the streets and canals of Braaovs to the best of his abilities. Arthur could gladly say he knew the fastest way to get from one end of the city to the other without buying passage aboard a ferry. Right under the sweetwater river, there was a street where children played in the shadow of the massive grey stone canal, and it took him straight to the Moon Pool, where he could veer north to find the Sealord's Palace or walk into the Iron Bank.
But Arthur found that he had to sit by the Moon Pool and look up at the King's Cliff behind Lord Antaryon's court for a while before he could even stomach the thought of entering the Sealord's Palace and putting up with the men given to him for training. He knew what was up there—everyone in the world did—but why he felt the almost uncontrollable urge to test his luck and take it for himself, he'd never know if he lived to be a thousand.
"There will come a day when the born king returns," the old crone from the Mander village's voice echoed in his head, not for the first time since arriving in Braavos. "And when he does, the world will be cleansed of all evil." She was fond of that story.
The woman had been small and grey as a mouse, with a voice no louder than a whisper, but whenever she told that damnable story, it was as if she shouted it right into his head. "Shut up, you witch," Arthur grumbled, rising from the marble fountain. "It's not me. It can't be." He wasn't even going to think about it. Arthur decided that he would ignore it now and forever.
"Ah, but only if you could."
He whirled and drew his blade.
The old crone smiled at him.
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A/N: Ooh, there's a witch! Spooky~!
Anyway, how are you liking it so far? It's not too fast-paced, is it? I don't want to write a hundred chapters for this book, so I'm getting things going early on. If you want, I'm open to taking suggestions for how this should go, so comment any ideas! Also, about that bit at the start with the Black Pearl, I'm not sure if I'm going to go through with it. Depends on you, really.
Thanks for reading!
—Lazarus—
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