The inn Merchant Sam had arranged for them was a good one by Volantene standards — three storeys of pale stone set back from the main road, with a shaded courtyard, and a proprietor who had learned long ago the art of not seeing, not listening, and not speaking.
Potted palms lined the wall, with the floor made out of pale blue and white tiles that made one feel cool in the heat of Summer just by looking at them.
But the Stark party was not in the mood to appreciate the beauty of the place's architecture at the moment.
Catelyn sat on the edge of the bed with Sansa tucked in her arms, her eyes fixed on Merchant Sam across the room, who, along with their guard Jory, was explaining in detail the events that had occurred to a stoic Ned.
Arya was sitting on a nearby chair with her arms folded defensively and staring at the floor with a miserable expression on her face. Daenerys silently stood beside her with a frown on her face as if she were thinking about something difficult.
"...And that was when we left to find you," Merchant Sam finished with a sigh, "But I do not think we need to worry much about that man any longer, My Lord. Having heard Master Qhoro's name, the man would be foolish to antagonise our party further, at least if he wants him and his family to keep on doing business in this city. The people here take their reputation and money very seriously, and our company has made that man too much gold for him to come to our defence over something this trivial."
Eddard nodded his head with his brows furrowed in thought, as the tension in his shoulders relaxed a little, but Catelyn, on the other hand, still looked very scared and panicked, having never imagined that her girls would get caught in such danger, where she had almost lost them, in just a matter of minutes. "How could something like this happen in broad daylight? Are there no guards, no laws in this city?"
"The rich and the Nobles make the laws here, my lady," Merchant Sam replied in a quiet voice, having a weak smile on his face, "There is no honour or morality to speak of in these cities. Anything they say goes here, and there is little one can do to resist their authority, especially if one is a foreigner."
This frustrated the woman more than anything. After all, having grown up as the daughter of a Lord, and then having become the wife of a Lord Paramount after getting married, she had never felt more stifled, more helpless than at this moment, of being no more protected than a... commoner, and she did not like this feeling one bit.
"And you, Arya, why did you go and do something like that?" Catelyn said as she turned her frustrations to her rebellious daughter, "Did I not tell you to be very careful out here before we set off? That you are not to make trouble for anyone, or make any of your usual pranks. So how could you do something so careless?"
"I was not playing around!" Arya shouted back hotly, "I was just helping her. I didn't know this would happen."
"Now, listen here, how could you not think—"
"Catelyn!" Eddard interrupted firmly, and as her angry eyes went towards him, she saw the grim expression on his face, which somehow looked even more sombre than usual, as he shook his head at her while tilting his head towards their daughter, and that was when the woman finally noticed the unshed tears in her little girl's eyes, and that... drained all the anger out of her.
Her brave little Arya, her fearless daughter who would not even flinch at the bruises she got while playing and training, was now feeling so wronged that she was crying... and that broke something in her.
"Oh, Arya, I am so sorry," Catelyn gushed as she crossed the room in a few steps and took her into her arms, hugged her tightly, and while Arya stubbornly struggled a few times because of pure stubbornness, she eventually gave in and began to wail earnestly on Catelyn's shoulder like the little girl she was.
"I-I just wanted to help her," she managed between sobs, "I just... and she was hungry, so I couldn't..."
"I know," Catelyn said soothingly as her hands moved in slow circles on her back, "You did nothing wrong by helping her. You were so brave, and I am sure that the girl was grateful to you..." She said comforting words again and again, her lips pressed against her daughter's head, inwardly blaming herself for getting angry at her.
"What was that man's name? Who was he?" Eddard suddenly asked Merchant Sam in a quiet voice, with such a frosty look in his eyes that it sent a shiver down the Merchant's back.
Seeing tears in the eyes of his little girls had set something off in the man's mind and had made his blood, which had not been stimulated since the time of the Rebellion, boil again with a deep desire for blood.
"I..." Merchant Sam hesitated here, very much unsure of how to answer the question, or if he even should give this worried father this piece of information.
"Don't worry. I won't be impulsive." Eddard replied in a calm voice, as if he could read the man's mind, "I just need to know the name of the bastard who tried to lay his hands on my girls."
"I do not think the information would be of much use to you, My Lord," Merchant Sam replied with a wry look on his face.
"What do you mean?" Eddard asked with narrowed eyes.
"I mean, I just do not believe he is going to survive for long,"
"Why would he not—" he began to ask, but that is when he noticed a detail that he had subconsciously ignored until now, "Where are Tweety and Gan?"
Merchant Sam simply shrugged again with a helpless look, as if the answer was obvious, and finally seemed to realise something, and the tension in his shoulder went away.
Jon, who was often even more protective of the girls than he was, had probably learned the entire sequence of events by now, so Eddard knew that his wrath for that man would be even more blazing than his and now understood why the Merchant said that that shopkeeper would not survive for long.
"I... don't want to stay here anymore. I don't like it here." Arya suddenly mumbled against her mother's shoulders, having finally calmed down under her gentle care.
"Of course, we will leave if you want to," she promised as she turned her head to her husband, "My Lord?"
Eddard simply nodded his head without arguing and turned to the Merchant, "Sam..."
"We can set off at the first light, My lord," Sam answered without any hesitation, "I will have men notify the ships right away."
Even though this rash decision may cost them a few hundred gold dragons because of the potential goods they could have purchased after coming all the way, or the gold they could have earned by offloading the goods already on their ships, he did not think it would matter much.
After all, Jon had already made it clear to him before the trip that no amount of money mattered when it came to the comfort of his family, and Merchant knew that he just needed to follow their orders, whatever they may be.
'I just hope nothing else goes wrong,'
...
"Did you manage to send the letter?" Rhiso asked the servant the moment he set foot inside his luxurious villa. As a man who currently owned more shops in the city than he could visit in a week, he lived a very leisurely life, and there had rarely been times when he carried the sense of anticipation he felt at this moment.
"Aye, Master," The Servant replied immediately, "And I used the fastest bird, so it will surely reach him in just a few hours."
"Good, good," he exclaimed in an excited voice as he took back his seat on his comfortable chair while pouring himself a glass of red wine, "My brother would surely be very happy with the valuable prey I have scouted out for this time, wouldn't he?"
"I am sure, Master," The servant cum butler replied before a hesitant expression appeared on his face as he asked, "But master, these people only have a total of four ships with them, three of which are not even trade ships, so they are bound to not have much cargo on hand. Then, is it really fine to have your brother make the trip with his whole fleet... Are you not worried that he would be angry with you because of this?"
"That would indeed be true, if the targets were the goods..." he said with a lazy smile on his face, "But this time the value lay not in the cargo but in the people on board, and you should understand that some people are worth more than any treasures out there..." he let off with a nasty smile on his face as a look of understanding appeared on the servant's face.
Their conversation was suddenly interrupted when one of the thugs that the shopkeeper had under his employ entered the villa with an urgent expression on his face.
"Master, the lookouts you told me to send to that inn just arrived to tell me that the servants are carrying the goods back to the ships. And when I sent them to inquire at the port, they told me that they had completed the procedures to depart the next morning."
"Running away, are we?" Rhiso had a surprised expression on his face, as he had not expected these people to be just easily startled cowards who got scared away with just a little interaction.
'Alas, their vigilance would not help them much this time. After all, no matter how much a prey struggles, its end has been destined from the moment its scent is caught by a predator...'
Rhiso leaned back in his chair and smiled with satisfaction, imagining all the various favours he could ask for by bringing those girls to those higher-ups, not to mention the sheer ransom the boy could be forced to pay because of them by using them properly.
He mused as a look of anticipation appeared on his face, because the wealth of that company was already a very famous tale all over Volantis, and now he was going to take a large piece of that, 'Oh, dear brother, we are surely going to earn big this time.'
///
You know where to go if you can't wait...
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