Matteno of Myr
Matteno leaned against the rail of his longship as it idled beyond the mouth of the Weeping Town's harbor, eyes narrowed against the late-afternoon glare. A lone vessel crept in from the west, a middling carrack by the look of her, riding a touch too high in the water.
He let out a grunt at the sight of it. As a sellsail, he had learned through a long and mostly inglorious career that boredom was the true constant of the sea. You sailed through empty stretches of ocean for half a hundred days for a single one of thrilling action.
Boarding decks, ramming ships, gutting feckless men. That's what Matteno was born to do. Not this, inspecting ships like some mild-mannered water bailiff.
When the carrack came close enough to hail, Matteno let his first mate do the talking. He was a wrong word away from cutting loose and, for now, he had to toe the line.
The captain protested weakly when told they'd have to come aboard. He spoke of rights and honest ventures and unjust piracy. If only he knew.
Matteno wished he could conduct his fair share of piracy, but the Westerosi bitch had been clear she wanted to keep a sense of normality over the town and its trade. Let the deal with Tarth be done quietly, she had said.
Soon enough his men crossed into the deck of the carrack and went about their business ferreting out anything inside the ship that could threaten that very same deal.
At first glance, Matteno himself could see nothing untoward about the ship beyond a distinct lack of deckhands. Strange, that. But not strange enough to be his concern. He had sailed with fools, drunkards, madmen, and men who thought the gods themselves would take the oars for them if they prayed hard enough.
Incompetent captains were as common as barnacles. Rolleo Drahiz being only the worst of them. If a man wanted to limp into the Weeping Town with half a crew and a prayer, that was his affair.
A few minutes later, his first mate returned above deck and signaled him negatively. Matteno sighed. He had been itching to cut a red smile on the mouthy captain's throat. Instead, he only named a fee to let the ship through.
When the captain readied himself to babble complaints again, Matteno put a hand over the pommel of his sword. That was enough.
He was only meant to inspect the ships, as the port town had fees of its own, but a pirate had to make his money where he could, even honestly as a mild-mannered inspector.
A few silver stags changed hands, pressed into Matteno's palm with the furtive urgency of a man who knew better than to argue further. Then he waved them through and turned away before the gangplank was even lowered.
Letting out another grunt, he settled himself at the helm, feeling a small part of himself die an ignoble death. Another exciting day in a contract he had no choice but to fulfill.
It would not be like this forever, he told himself. One day, he would rule these seas himself. From Pentos to Volantis, Sunspear to Braavos. They would know his name.
The longship continued its lazy circuit of the bay for another two hours, oars dipping in steady rhythm as the sun sank lower. Matteno used the time to look over his crew with a narrowed glance.
It was a habit he had picked up since that day. The day the Tarth boy had surprised them, bloodied them, and left him with fewer men than he liked to remember.
Nearly half his original crew lay at the bottom of the sea now, feeding the fishes. The replacements were capable enough with blade and oar, but they were not his. Not really.
He could see it in the way they watched him when they thought he wasn't looking, in how quickly they deferred to any mention of the Tyroshi magister's name. Their loyalty lay across the Narrow Sea, bought and paid for in coin he would never touch.
The magister. Matteno's jaw tightened at the thought of him. Karo Adarys. Unlike Drahiz, Adarys was not a fool hiding behind his perfumed silks and soft hands. He was a clever man, and a cruel one when debts came due.
It was Adarys who had bound him to this damp, miserable corner of Westeros. Adarys who had decided that the Whiteheads were worth the trouble. Pour enough gold and influence into a losing venture, and eventually pride demanded you see it through.
Which was why he now answered, however indirectly, to the Westerosi bitch. Lenora Whitehead.
He snorted softly. Easy on the eyes, that one. Aye, no denying it. Sharp cheekbones, long hair, a body that knew how to move. She was a good fuck when she chose to be. Unfortunately, she was the most vicious, grasping, vengeful cunt he had ever met, and Matteno had met many in his time.
Still, debt was debt, and the magister's leash did not slacken just because he disliked the woman at the other end of it.
Perhaps he would've chosen to run off on his debt to ply his trade in different waters, but the Stepstones were afire with Lannister ships razing every settlement they could find from Bloodstone to Grey Gallows.
And something else held him here. Lenora shared a target with him. He'd seen the pretty Tarth lady back at the Weeping Tower. A very pretty thing, tall and slender and like one of the statues lining the Artisan's Row in Myr.
Somedays, he wished he shared the same appetites as most of his men. He might've asked for the Tarth woman as part of his payment. Alas, Matteno was a man that needed a willing cunt to satisfy himself. He saw no enjoyment in fucking when there was screaming and crying of the wrong kind.
Lenora had been quick to offer him free rein to raid and capture slaves along her coasts, as she had to Rolleo, though she had grown careful recently. The Barartheons had noticed their movement, all courtesy of the Tarth boy. It had only further stoked her anger at him.
Perhaps, at least for that, he should thank the boy. Matteno did so enjoy to fuck her when she was wild and raging.
As dusk fell, he turned the longship back toward port. Weeping Town came into view like a wilted weed. Crooked rooftops, sagging docks, smoke rising from cookfires and tallow lamps. A shithole, plain and simple. But it wasn't his shithole, so he didn't lose sleep over it.
After mooring, he left the ship in his first mate's hands and made his way to a tavern near the docks, one he'd been frequenting of late.
The ale at the Broken Shield was tolerable, and the wenches knew better than to slap his hands away too hard. In his mind, touching wasn't raping, and they should be glad for his attentions. He enjoyed the worried looks, the laughter of his men, the feel of warm flesh beneath his fingers, but he didn't take any of them upstairs. He had his Westerosi bitch for that.
Several minutes after he sat down, tankard in hand, he noticed a man at the bar rise and leave. A logger by his clothes, nothing remarkable there. But something in the man's face tugged at Matteno's memory. A line of the jaw, perhaps. Or the eyes.
He frowned. Recognition hovered just out of reach. Draining the rest of his cheap ale, he rose, waved away questions from his men, and followed the stranger.
Outside, the street lay empty, swallowed by the growing night. He saw no retreating back, heard no footsteps or voices. Just mist creeping in from the water and the distant creak of ropes and timbers.
He stood there for a moment, listening, then shook his head. He wouldn't lose any sleep over a logger he might've bumped against these last few moons he had stayed in town.
Returning to the tavern, he drank one more cup with his officers, and then, when the hour grew late, made his way uphill toward the Weeping Tower. The castle loomed over the town, a single wide drum tower and squat keep behind fifty feet high walls of dark stone.
The guards at the postern gate hated him, even as they waved him through. Everyone in the castle did. Matteno could feel it in every stiffened posture, every averted glance. Servants sneered when they thought his back was turned; washerwomen and scullions edged a step away as though he carried a disease.
But when he looked at them directly, they bowed and scattered like mice. Matteno smiled at that. Fear was honest, at least. So long as they feared him and not the other way around, he could live with it.
Lenora's chambers were lit when he arrived, golden light leaking from beneath the door and spilling into the corridor. He did not bother to knock. He never did. He pushed inside as though the room were already his, the scent of wine and warm oil thick in the air.
Lenora Whitehead stood near the table, a cup in one hand, her dark hair loose about her shoulders. She did not turn at once, but her mouth tightened all the same.
"Where's that old husband of yours?" Matteno asked, his Common accented but practiced.
She huffed, taking a sip of her wine. "Gone out on a hunt. Too ashamed to show his face in front of Addison." Lenora turned then, her eyes sharp. "As strong as his sword arm might once have been, Elmar has always been a weak man. Even now he dithers on about lost honor. I have led this house for nearly two decades while he wastes his days hunting and pretending not to see what has become of us."
Matteno stepped closer, crowding her space. In his mind, he thought that her rule of Weeping Town had done little besides sink the house deeper into debt with foreign masters. But he did not say any of that. He could not care less if all the Whiteheads in the world suddenly lost these heads they seemed fond enough to put on banners.
Instead, he reached for her, fingers hooking into her sleeve, and pulled her flush against him. "I see," he said softly, lips close to her ear. "He's never been man enough for you, has he?"
Lenora sneered up at him. "Is your mind always so filled with rutting that you are incapable of speaking of anything else?"
He laughed. "You've been wetter than a dockside whore every time I've taken you," he said. "Do not play the blushing maiden now."
"You're disgusting," Lenora snapped. She lifted a folded scrap of parchment from the table. "See this? I am not in the mood for it."
Matteno's eyes flicked to the note. "A message?" he asked. "What about it?"
"Selwyn Tarth has received my demands," Lenora said. "His son and one of his daughters will be coming here soon."
The words sent a sharp thrill through him, cold and hot all at once. Matteno felt himself harden despite himself, a cruel excitement coiling low in his belly. Lenora noticed, of course. Her lips curled and she shoved at his chest, breaking free.
"I did not know you fancied boys now," she said acidly.
"I fancy my blade slipping between his ribs and into his heart," Matteno replied without hesitation. "Aye. This is good news. Why are you being a bitch about it now?"
Lenora's eyes flashed. "My man in Tarth says they were raising a force of knights and men-at-arms, Matteno. Do you know what that means?" She stepped closer, jabbing a finger into his chest. "Can your lowborn brain think for once?"
Anger flared hot and fast. There were few things he despised more than highborn weaklings lording their blood over him. His mind was quick to turn dark. He would not rape her. He had lines, however thin, but he was not above striking a woman who forgot her place, and Lenora Whitehead was walking close to that edge.
"What of it?" he growled. "Speak plainly, woman."
"It means they knew," Lenora said. For the first time, a crack showed in her certainty. "They knew something had happened to Addison. Somehow, they got word. They must have their own spies here." She turned away, pacing once, then whirled back on him, fury overtaking fear. "This would have been far simpler if you had just killed the boy when you were ordered to. I would need none of this charade. There will be consequences for this when Lord Baratheon hears of it, even if I succeed."
Matteno's mouth twisted into a hard smile. "If Baratheon comes sniffing, he'll look to you first, not some Myrish sellsail. I will make sure to wave to your headless corpse as I sail away."
Lenora's breath came fast, her face flushed with rage. And something else. Her hand fisted in his tunic suddenly, and she surged forward, crashing her mouth against his, kissing him with the enthusiasm of a whore just shown a hint of gold.
Matteno laughed into her mouth even as he caught her by the hips. His Westerosi bitch was as predictable as a Lyseni in heat.
xxx
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