Noonlight spilled through the high, arched windows of New Castle, fractured into colors by the tinted glass, until the whole hall shimmered like a thing half-dreamed.
The floor beneath Wynafryd's slippers shimmered like the bed of the sea. Ruby shelled crabs, starfish of coral hue glimmered amidst curling fronds of black stone kelp, their polished surfaces catching the play of torchlight like sunlight through shallow water. Along the walls, pale marble sharks glided through sculpted waves. The shimmering silk of Naath drooped from the rafters like veils of mist, threaded with silver and tiny pearls.
The Merman's Court had never shone so bright.
Behind the dais, a vast tapestry stretched from floor to beam, so finely woven it seemed to move in the flicker of the lights a kraken of black silk and a grey leviathan of silver thread, locked forever in their endless struggle beneath storm-tossed waves.
And at the heart of it all sat Arthur.
The merman's throne, once of plain oak, had been refashioned of blue marble and silver steel, the sigil of their house carved deep into its back. He had never wanted the grandeur, Wynafryd knew that. A lord's seat, not a king's, he had said, though even kings might envy the sight of him now sitting upon that shining dais.
A peasant stood before the throne now, a man with windburned cheeks and calloused hands, twisting his cap between his fingers.
"Milord," he began, his voice rough and uncertain. "I'm Ben, a farmer by trade. I come from a village called Whitehills. It lies east o' the Sheepshead Hills."
Arthur leaned forward slightly, his tone gentle. "Aye, I know it. Near the Broken Branch, is it not?" He turned toward the row of counselors below the dais. "That would fall under the shire of Aberdeen's bounds. Who's the sheriff there?"
Ser Thomas More, the High Steward, rose from his seat, "My lord, It is Ser Johann Black, and Whitehills itself also lies within his landed villages."
Arthur nodded. "A good man. What's the trouble then, Ben?"
The peasant hesitated, his eyes darting toward the guards at the foot of the dais. His hands trembled slightly. "No, no, milord, no trouble at all."
Arthur's brows drew together. "No trouble?"
The man's voice came quick and nervous, "None, m'lord. Ser Johann keeps our lands safe and sound. No wolves nor bandits, and the justiciars bring fair judgment, as ever they do. The gods bless you for it, m'lord."
Wynafryd's quill hovered, though she did not write. The man's fear was plain enough to her, though Arthur's expression softened rather than hardened. He's lying, she thought. Or frightened.
Arthur, too, seemed to sense it. He leaned back in his seat, fingers steepled, studying the man with that calm, unblinking gaze of his, the one that had made even lords shift uneasily in their boots.
"Whitehills has naught but good fortune, then?" Arthur asked mildly.
"Aye, m'lord. Truly. I don't bring no trouble," Ben swallowed. "I only have something to beg of you, m'lord."
Theomore Lannister, the maester of White Harbor, golden-haired, round-bellied, and cold cunning, looked up from his parchments, his chain glinting in the torchlight. "Go on, man. Speak."
The man swallowed hard, twisting his cap between his hands until it nearly tore in two. "Lord Arthur," he stammered, "I beg you… take my daughter's maidenhead, as your right of first night."
The hall erupted.
A dozen courtiers barked laughter before the words had even finished leaving his mouth. A few knights smirked behind their beards; one young squire gave a shrill whistle until Ser Donnel Locke's glare shut him up. Wynafryd's stomach turned. The sound of laughter in that moment felt obscene.
"Seven save us," she muttered under her breath.
Arthur did not move. His face remained as still as carved marble, but Wynafryd saw his hand flex once, on the arm of the merman's throne. Beside him, Ser Donnel shifted his weight and frowned deeply.
"First night has been abolished for centuries," Wynafryd said sharply. Her voice carried more than she had intended. "You insult this court and your lord both by speaking such filth."
Archsepton Berlan was quick to follow, his tone like sour wine. "Aye, my lady speaks true. How dare you soil the name of Lord Arthur Manderly with such base talk, you wretched fool?"
Arthur raised a hand. The noise died at once, as if the sea itself had stilled at his command.
"Let him finish," he said, calm but cold. His eyes never left the man. "Tell me true. What is it that you seek?"
Ben looked up, face streaked with fear and desperation. "Milord, I only want grandsons," he said. "Strong and brave, like you. I have no sons, only two daughters. You can have both of them if you want."
The court exploded in laughter once more. Even Maester Theomore gave a scandalized chuckle. Wynafryd felt her jaw tighten, her quill splintering slightly between her fingers.
Arthur smiled faintly, though it was not a kind smile. "Ben," he said softly, "either you are a fool or you are desperate beyond reason. I cannot grant such a request."
Yet the man did not stop.
"Please, m'lord," he said, dropping to his knees. "I beg you, take them and bless me with grandsons. I swear to all the gods, they're fair and maiden still, you'll not be disappointed."
The court laughed louder than before. Ladies hiding their smiles behind jeweled hands, young men snorting into their cups.
Then Arthur's voice cut through it all like a sword through silk. "Enough!"
Silence fell throughout the hall. Wynafryd's blood ran cold.
His eyes burned with wrath and something darker, "Do you even know what you are asking for?" he asked, his voice low and dangerous. "Are you mad, or do you think this a jest? I should have you condemned for this."
Ben broke then, all the defiance gone from him. He collapsed forward, weeping openly. "I only seek sons, lord. That's all I ever wanted. Me and mine, we owe it all to you. You gave us a home, you gave us lands, and said they were ours to tend, to farm, to reap what we sow. Told us we'd pay only a fair tithe and keep the rest. You gave us what no other lord ever did."
His words came in gasps, choked by tears. "We could eat till our bellies were full. We could clothe our children with what we sold in your markets. And you said—" The man's voice broke, raw. "You said those lands would pass from father to son, for generations."
The courtiers' mirth had turned to murmurs of unease. The torches hissed in the sudden quiet, their light catching the tears on the peasant's face like dew on rough bark. Wynafryd felt the ache of pity stir within her chest despite herself. A fool he may be, she thought, but not wicked. Only broken by want.
The silence lingered long enough that even the gulls outside seemed to quiet. At last Arthur spoke again, "Only the gods can give you sons, Ben," he said. "Not I. Forgive your lord, for he is only a man."
Ben lifted his face, streaked with tears and grime. "You are no less than a god to me, lord," he rasped. "You gave us all we have. And even the gods won't grant me sons anymore, milord. The healers say I've no strong seed left in me." He swallowed, trembling. "I only ask… when I die, take care of my girls, as you did me. If they lose the farm and have no help, they'll starve. I beg you, m'ilord…. I beg you."
Wynafryd felt her throat tighten. A moment before, she had thought him foolish, perhaps even mad. Now she saw him for what he was, a father broken by fear, pleading for his daughters in a world too cruel for gentle folk. Gods forgive me, she thought. I judged him too swiftly.
Her eyes flicked to Arthur. He sat tall in the merman's throne, a figure carved of pale stone and quiet strength. The light from the high windows caught the silver threads in his doublet. He did not smile, nor frown, but listened with that deep stillness of his that made men tremble before him.
Wynafryd's gaze swept across the court. The lords and merchants, the septon and the maester, none of them could ever truly understand what the man before them meant to say. They've never tilled a field or buried a child who starvedtodeath.Whatdotheyknowofwinter?WhatdoI?
She remembered the first years of Arthur's reforms, when the Manderly lands had still followed the old order. Nobles, Merchants, and Yeomanry owned the fields, while the smallfolk toiled for scraps. Then Arthur, barely more than a boy, had overturned it all. He'd divided their vast tracts of lands and bought off the rest from Yeoman and merchant holdings, granting farms to peasants who'd sworn him their life and loyalty.
He decreed no man could hold lands that feed thousands while one could not find the lands to feed himself. Each man would own his plot, reap what he sowed, and pay only a fourth of his yield as rent.
Foolish, many had called it. Generous, some had said. Wynafryd knew it had been neither. It had been clever.
Freed from the lash of old masters, the farmers worked like men possessed, tilling deeper, sowing wider. Crops fattened, and so did White Harbor's markets. Arthur had created fairs for the selling of their goods. The lords who mocked him soon found his coffers heavier than their own.
She glanced toward one of the aides, a red-haired woman with clever eyes, Ros, Arthur's newest appointment. A former whore from Wintertown, if rumor spoke true.
Wynafryd did not begrudge her presence, though she did not understand it either. Her cousin's kindness was boundless, but at times she wondered if he mistook mercy for wisdom. He would lift every beggar to his table if the day were long enough, she thought, and they would love him for it.
Ser Thomas More cleared his throat, "You have no other kin?" he asked. "No brother or cousin to inherit your holding when you pass?"
Ben shook his head. "None, milord. My brothers died in the war. When the Ironborn raided our shores and burned our old village, which lay in the lions' lands. Our Yeoman sold the lands to another, caring naught for the survivors. Thinking us too many mouths to feed, he sent us away."
A murmur rippled through the court, pity from some, discomfort from others. The Greyjoy Rebellion had left scars across the realm that the years of peace had not erased.
Maester Theomore spoke, his voice dry. "Why not marry one of your daughters to a good man?" he suggested. "Take him as your son, and let him inherit your lands when you are gone. Many do so. It is the way of the realm."
Archsepton Berlan, ever eager to agree with whoever spoke first, bobbed his tonsured head. "Aye, the maester speaks wisely. Such has been the custom since the dawn of time. The girl's husband will protect her."
Wynafryd felt the heat rise in her chest, a pulse of quiet anger that she dared not show. Theomore's tone always grated on her, slick and superior, as if all beneath his gilded chain were children to be lectured. The grey rat knows little of mercy, only gold and ink, she thought.
Wynafryd longed to speak, to cut through their cold logic, yet she knew too well how such words would be received. A lady who spoke too freely among men was soon whispered of, mistrusted, dismissed. Her fingers tightened around her quill, knuckles pale beneath her gloves.
Then, to her relief, another voice rose from the dais, a calm, measured one, "Mayhaps," said Grandmage Herman Miller, "for the hearts of men are oft as fickle as the winds, young Theomore."
The old scholar leaned upon his oaken staff, his long grey beard sweeping the parchment-littered table before him. His pale eyes glinted like chips of ice beneath the glow of the braziers.
He went on, "What guarantee is there that, once the land is his, the husband will keep faith? Many a maiden has found herself forsaken once her dower or lands were claimed. His daughters may yet face the fate he dreads, in want and in disgrace."
A murmur rippled through the hall. Wynafryd felt her anger ease, replaced by a quiet satisfaction.
Thank you, wise teacher, she thought.
Ben's head bobbed in fervent agreement. "Aye, milord! I've seen it happen, I have. I only wish to keep my daughters safe." His voice broke, rough with tears. "I don't want them ending up like that."
Arthur leaned back, "Do we have a precedent?" he asked, "Ser Henry?"
The High Justiciar stirred at the summons. Ser Henry Locke rose slowly from his seat, a solid man of square jaw and iron-grey beard, more soldier than scribe. His aides hastily handed him a sheaf of parchment, and he squinted down at the inked script before answering.
"Aye, my lord. There was the affair of one Violet," he began, tone formal. "Her suit lay against her husband, Dolton. This transpired in the shire of Cheltenham, east of the White Knife, my lord. Dolton, as it were, had been taken in and named the son of an aging farmer, the shire's seal upon the writ. Our Justiciar ruled, as is the way of law and ancient custom, that the lands should pass to him."
A few courtiers murmured approval. Maester Theomore nodded as if the world itself had been set right by that dry recital.
Arthur leaned forward, his gaze sharp. "Then why bring this to trial?"
Henry shifted uneasily. "My lord…" He glanced again at his aide, then down to the parchment as though the words might change if he stared long enough. "Because of the… previous claims. The husband had declared that the babe she carried was not of his seed. A charge of infidelity was brought before the Justiciar. Yet… The evidence presented was as thin as air; neither guilt nor innocence could be proven."
Arthur asked, low and soft. "And what became of her then?"
Henry replied, "As is our custom, the husband held the right to put her aside, should doubt plague his mind regarding the babe's true sire."
"Guilty or no," Arthur's voice changed, quiet yet cold. "She was cast out, and did then seek her lands?"
Henry bowed his head in silence.
Maester Theomore, ever eager to fill a silence, cleared his throat. "That is… the custom, my lord."
The court fell still. Even the banners along the hall's high windows seemed to cease their fluttering. Wynafryd could hear the crackle of the hearth behind the dais. Her stomach twisted. In her mind's eye, she saw a faceless woman kneeling on a cold earthen floor, her belly round, her tears soaking the dirt. A door closing. The sound of boots fading away. A home stripped, a child yet unborn condemned by a man's word.
Arthur said nothing. The light from the colored windows caught upon his face, turning his eyes to shards of pale seagreen glass, unblinking and hard. Wynafryd knew that look. It was the same look he had worn the night he ended the tax on grain, when half his council called him mad.
He will not leave it there, she thought, heart quickening. He never does.
Wynafryd's gaze turned to Ser Donnel, broad-shouldered and steady, his face stern beneath the neatly trimmed beard. She wondered, not for the first time, what sort of husband such a man would make. Would he have cast a wife aside as that farmer did? No, she thought. Never. Donnel Locke was a man of duty and honor. He would stand beside the woman he wed, through winter, through war, through ruin.
A pang stirred within her breast. She would have been happy with him, she knew. To wake beside such steadfastness, to find comfort in the silence of a man who did not need words to be kind. But such dreams were folly. Her worth was measured in banners and bloodlines, not the quiet wishes of her heart.
Arthur sat still for a time, his fingers drumming softly on the carved arm of the Merman's Throne. The murmurs in the hall quieted, as they always did when his gaze grew distant.
"Grandmage Herman," Arthur said at last, his voice resolute, "in light of what we've heard, there is need for change. Our laws of inheritance were not made for such men as Ben, nor their daughters. It is time they were."
The old scholar inclined his head gravely. His acolyte at once took up his quill, the scratch of ink on parchment cutting through the stillness.
Arthur rose to his feet. His voice carried through the great hall, "From henceforth, the lands granted by House Manderly to her farmers shall pass through their blood. Should a man have no sons, his daughters shall inherit his land and keep it in their line."
A stunned silence followed.
"My liege," said the Archsepton, "is it wise, by the laws and customs of the Andals and the First Men? Only women of noble birth may inherit the lands of their fathers, and that only when there are no sons. Would it be fitting for smallfolk to claim the same right?"
Maester Theomore, ever the echo, chimed in, "Aye, my lord. Customs dictate that lands pass from father to son. It is the way of all Westeros."
A ripple of unease spread through the hall.
Arthur's face was calm, "Father Berlan," he said, his voice soft yet filling every corner of the hall, "tell me, are we not all children of the Seven?"
The Archsepton blinked, uncertain, "Aye, my lord," he said slowly, "we are."
"And is it not the duty of a lord to care for his people, as the Father above cares for his flock? As Saint Hugor of the Hill cared for the first Andals,"
Berlan hesitated. "Aye, my lord, it is."
Arthur's gaze did not waver. "And did not my forebear, Saint Davos Manderly, do the same when he raised this city from the snows and gave shelter to his people in the darkest of times? When he built the Sept of Snows so the poor might pray beside the highborn?"
Berlan bowed his head, his great jowls quivering with the motion. "He did, my lord. He did indeed."
"Then I am merely following in their footsteps, Father Berlan," Arthur said softly, "It is true my decision goes against the custom of our people. But here they fail to provide an answer today. If Dolton's accusation was false? Then, by following the customs, my actions had been unjust to the daughter. The first night was a custom of our ancestors. Did that make the act just?"
For a long while, no one spoke. The words lingered in the air. The Archsepton said, "No, my lord, it did not."
Arthur's gaze swept across the court. "I follow our customs, our laws, so long, they are right and true," he said softly, "And where they fail to do so, it is our duty as honorable men, my duty as lord, to make a new one, A just one. Otherwise, how will I answer to our Father above? How will you?"
He paused, letting the words sink in. The hall had grown so still that Wynafryd could hear the faint whispers of the silk and the sigh of the sea beyond the walls.
Arthur went on, each word measured, unyielding.
"When a daughter inherits, her husband shall have rights to farm the land, but not to own it. His claim shall last only for as long as their marriage endures. If the woman dies before him, their children shall inherit the land thereafter. Until they come of age, the husband shall serve as custodian and keeper of the soil. When those children are grown, and the husband grows old, they shall tend to him, as good sons and daughters should."
Arthur continued, "Yet if the children perish before their father or the marriage produces none, the matter shall come before us. If the husband has been a just man, a faithful husband and dutiful father, we shall grant him the land, and it shall pass to his kin or his chosen heir. But if he proves false or cruel, the land shall return to Manderly keeping. This shall be the way of it."
For a moment, there was only silence.
Then Ben dropped to his knees before the dais, tears streaming down his face. "Seven bless you, my lord," he choked out. "Gods bless you, and House Manderly forever."
The applause began hesitantly, then spread through the hall in waves. Courtiers clapped, murmuring praise, though Wynafryd could see in many of their faces a thin veil of disapproval, smiles that did not reach their eyes.
They would not speak against him here, not in this moment, not when the smallfolk's cheers filled the chamber. But Wynafryd could almost hear their thoughts. It matters little; it is only peasants.
Arthur said nothing further, only motioned for the next petitioner to step forth. Wynafryd watched her cousin as he sat back upon the Merman's Throne, the light from the great stained-glass windows falling in shards of blue and gold across his fair hair. For a fleeting moment, she saw in him not only the Merman's heir but something rarer. A man who dreamt of justice, even in a world that laughed at the thought of it. Yet he carried that burden, each life, each cry for salvation, as if it were his own.
Still, Wynafryd knew better. He cannot save them all. No matter how much he wishes to.