A Life in Westeros
Chapter 10 - Part 1
Inside the closed carriage, heavy curtains drawn tight against dust, prying gazes, and the occasional cold wind off the Trident, sat Barbrey Dustin.
She had been quiet since Harrenhal—quiet but watchful, the kind of silence that weighed more than words and carried its own sharp edge. In the capital she had played the game with practiced ruthlessness: sharp glances across crowded halls, whispered promises in torchlit alcoves, frantic fucks in stolen rooms where the risk of discovery only sharpened the pleasure. On the road it was different. No audience. No rush. No need to perform for anyone but each other.
The first night out she had climbed into his lap by the dying fire of a roadside camp, skirts hiked to her hips, and ridden him slow and deep until the only sounds were her soft, controlled gasps and the crackle of embers. She had whispered promises against his mouth—loyalty, land, heirs—each word punctuated by the roll of her hips. The second night she had knelt in the straw of a stable loft while the men stood watch below, taken him in her mouth with deliberate reverence, swallowed every drop while he gripped her hair and told her exactly what kind of lady she would be when they reached Greywater View: his lady, his partner, his weapon. The third night he had taken her ass—bent her over a scarred trestle table in the back room of a crossroads inn while the rest of the men stood guard outside. She had come so hard her teeth sank into her own lip, drawing blood; he had licked it off her mouth afterward, tasting iron and salt while she trembled beneath him, thighs slick and shaking.
Now, two weeks into the journey north, the morning sickness started.
She woke pale before first light, stumbled out of the inn on unsteady legs, and retched violently into the bushes behind the stable. The sound was raw—dry heaves turning wet, bile spattering the leaves in thin, sour sprays. The chill morning air made her shiver harder, gooseflesh rising on her arms beneath the dark wool gown. Adian followed without hurry, boots quiet on the dew-soaked grass. He leaned one shoulder against the rough timber wall of the stable, arms crossed over his chest, watching her with calm, unreadable eyes.
"Again?" he asked. Voice low. No concern. Just confirmation.
Barbrey braced one hand on a low branch, wiped her mouth with the back of the other. Her dark wool gown—practical for the road, high-necked and plain—clung to her from the chill and the faint sweat of nausea. She straightened slowly, color already creeping back into her cheeks.
"Third morning in a row," she said. Voice steady despite the lingering tremor in her hands. She pressed her palm flat to her stomach—still flat beneath the wool, no visible swell yet—and met his gaze without flinching. "It's not the road food. It's not nerves."
He studied her in the grey light: the way her breasts already looked a fraction fuller, straining slightly against the bodice when she breathed deep; the faint darkening of her nipples visible through the thin wool when she inhaled sharply; the subtle softening around her hips that had started in the last week. He nodded once.
"We'll stop at the next village," he said. "Send for a midwife."
The midwife was a hard-faced crone from a fishing village on the western fork of the Trident—grey hair scraped back in a tight knot, hands knotted and strong from decades of pulling babies into the world and laying the dead to rest. She poked and prodded Barbrey in the back room of the next inn while Adian waited outside with his men, leaning against the carriage wheel, arms still crossed.
The old woman emerged after twenty minutes, wiping her hands on a rag that had once been white.
"A month, maybe five weeks," she said curtly, voice like dry reeds. "Strong heartbeat already. She's carrying well—no bleeding, no fever. Feed her ginger and dry bread in the mornings. It'll pass."
Barbrey stepped out a moment later, color fully returned to her cheeks, eyes bright and sharp again. She met Adian's gaze across the yard and rested one hand on her belly—small, protective gesture, fingers splayed as though she could already feel the life beneath the skin.
"My lord," she said, voice steady and clear enough to carry to the men without shouting. "We marry as soon as we reach Greywater View."
Adian inclined his head—just once, decisive.
"We will."
The rest of the journey passed in charged silence. Barbrey's hand often found his in the carriage—fingers lacing through his without preamble, thumb rubbing slow, deliberate circles over his knuckles. Not affection in the soft, sentimental way most would understand it. Possession. A silent reminder: this child was theirs. This land would be theirs. This power was theirs.
Greywater View rose out of the bogs like a blunt fist of stone and timber—low, squat, unlovely, but solid as the bedrock beneath the sucking mud. From a distance it looked almost swallowed by the landscape: walls the color of wet slate blending into the grey-green reeds, roofs of thick golden thatch blending into the pale winter sky. But up close the changes were unmistakable. The tower had been half-rebuilt since Adian took possession two years earlier, and the work had never truly stopped. New walls of dark granite—quarried upstream near the Twins and hauled by ox-teams through the shallows—rose another two full stories, their mortar still pale and fresh between the blocks. Scaffolding of lashed reed poles and rough planks still creaked under the weight of teams of sweating stonemasons and reed-cutters who shouted orders in the guttural accents of the Neck. Men in oiled cloaks hauled baskets of fresh-cut blocks up rope-and-pulley rigs; others mixed limewash in wooden troughs, the sharp chemical tang cutting through the ever-present smell of peat and river mud.
Fresh thatch capped the roofs in thick golden layers—harvested only last autumn from the cleanest stands of bog-reed—and women moved across the sloped pitches like ants, weaving in extra layers of waterproof bog-moss and tarred rope to seal every seam against the endless damp. Smoke rose from half a dozen new chimneys: kitchen fires, smithy forges, the small glass-blower's furnace Adian had imported from Myr at ruinous cost. The entire compound pulsed with quiet, relentless industry. To the east, new wooden docks jutted thirty feet into the sluggish channel of the Trident fork—piles driven deep into the muck and braced with iron bands—where three flat-bottomed barges rocked gently at their moorings. Stevedores in sleeveless tunics loaded them under shouted direction: crates of salted pike stacked in neat pyramids, barrels of peat bricks bound with hemp, bundles of cured otter pelts destined for White Harbor's furriers and Braavos's cold markets. The barges would slip downstream under cover of night or fog, tolls paid at the official crossings but the real profit hidden in false bottoms and sealed casks.
Further out, in the reed-choked shallows where no deep-draft vessel could follow, smaller smuggling skiffs bobbed low in the water—narrow, black-painted hulls barely visible against the green-brown tangle. Their holds were packed tight: bolts of Braavosi silk dyed in forbidden Tyroshi hues, casks of Pentoshi sweet-wine laced with dreamwine for the highborn who craved sweeter sleep, sealed jars of Myrish glass that would fetch triple the price once they slipped past the royal toll stations downstream. Tolls on the main crossing brought steady, predictable coin—every merchant, every fisherman, every caravan paid the Frey levy or found their goods mysteriously lost in the bogs overnight, hulls holed by hidden stakes or crews vanished into the mist. But the illegal routes funneled fatter purses: forbidden books from the Free Cities bound in human skin, small quantities of Lysene poison distilled to kill without trace, the occasional crate of raw iron ore rerouted from Lannister mines and stamped with false seals before being sold to Riverlands smiths who asked no questions. Caravan masters paid in advance for safe passage—half in gold, half in promises—and Iron Bank factors in Braavos sent quarterly letters on fine rag paper, confirming new lines of credit secured against those same hidden profits. Sawmills on the western edge of the holding ground day and night, blades screaming through fresh timber for new storehouses and barracks; peat cutters stacked fuel in long black ricks for winter trade; a small but growing stable of swift horses—mostly dappled greys bred for endurance—stood ready in the new paddocks to carry messages or gold north to White Harbor or south to Riverrun as needed.
The air smelled of wet earth, smoke, tar, and the faint metallic bite of forge-work. Somewhere a hammer rang steadily on an anvil; a woman's voice called sharp orders in the old tongue of the crannogmen; children darted between the legs of workers, carrying water skins and small bundles of kindling.
Crannogmen watched them approach from hidden platforms in the reeds—small, still figures in mottled cloaks of moss and mud, faces painted with streaks of ochre and charcoal. Bows were half-drawn out of long habit before they recognized the banners on the carriage and the riders. The bows lowered. The figures melted away without a word—slipping into the green-brown tangle like ghosts, vanishing so completely that no ripple marked where they had been. Silent word would spread through the bogs within the hour: the new lord and his lady had returned.
Adian's core men were waiting in the yard: Juran, Ando, Dantis, Derrock, Arrel. Hard faces weathered by years of river wind and bog fever, loyal blades worn smooth at the grips from constant use, scarred hands resting easy on sword hilts and dagger pommels. They stood in a loose semicircle near the gatehouse steps—boots planted in the churned mud, cloaks thrown back to show mail shirts and the small iron badges Adian had given them: a single tower encircled by reeds.
They bowed when he dismounted—short, respectful, no flourish, no scraping. Juran stepped forward first, the oldest of them, hair streaked iron-grey, left eye milky from an old wound that had never quite healed right.
"Lord," Juran said, voice gravel from years of shouting orders over wind and water and the roar of barges. "Place is secure. Stores full—grain silos topped off from the last harvest, salt fish in barrels, smoked venison hanging in the smokehouses. No trouble from the south since the last Frey levy came through; the Blackwood men grumbled but paid. Reed men send word they'll speak when you call—old Howland's son brought the message himself last week, said the crannog-folk are watching the crossings like hawks."
Adian nodded once, handing the reins of his mount to a waiting stableboy who looked barely old enough to shave. Barbrey dismounted beside him—careful, one hand braced on the saddle pommel, the other resting lightly on the faint swell beneath her gown. She moved with the deliberate grace of a woman already feeling the weight of new life inside her.
Juran's gaze flicked to her—brief, respectful—then back to Adian.
"Dock crews report two barges already southbound with pike and peat; the third loads tomorrow for White Harbor. Smugglers brought in another run of Braavosi silk last night—six bolts, dyed in the new Tyroshi reds. Iron Bank letter came with the last raven; they've extended another line of credit, fifty gold dragons against next quarter's tolls and the glass shipment. No losses on the hidden routes since we sank that Bolton scout boat three weeks back."
Adian's mouth curved—just a fraction.
"Good. Keep the tolls steady; let the merchants complain but pay. Double the watch on the smuggling skiffs—no mistakes. And tell the reed men I'll speak to them at dusk tomorrow. Bring the old one if he'll come."
"Welcome home, wife," he said quietly. "We wed tomorrow. Quiet. Sept only. You five witness. No one else."
She looked up at the tower—its new walls rising stark against the grey sky, smoke curling from the chimneys, the distant ring of hammer on anvil, the low murmur of men and women at work—and smiled. Small, sharp, satisfied.
"Home," she echoed.
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