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The rain fell thick and fast. Cold, to the point of freezing when it hit the ground, and the canals still held the same frozen ripples that had graced the surface for weeks. A light fog had descended during the night, though the sun would no doubt disperse it when it finally rose. If it ever does.
The girl was late, running through the winding backstreets that crisscrossed the many canals of Braavos. Though day was yet to break over the city, the main streets where alive with activity. As she scurried across the Canal of Heroes she could see the Isle of the Gods through the mists, where all religions made their home, where all are free to worship the many aspects of the one true God.
The Moonsingers had just finished their devotions, the faithful spilling out of the silver dome in a flood of so many endless faces. Behind them the girl could see the glowing night-fires of Red R’hllor, the thousand flames of the eyes of death lighting the area in a cruel red hue. Further past lay the Lion of Night, who prowled the ghost grass of the far east, lying in wait for his prey to wander too near. At the shrine to Bakkalon, the Pale Child held his sword aloft, waiting to bring it down when the time drew close, while the Black Goat drank in the sacrificed blood of the condemned as the Qohorik priests circled his visage.
But the girl had no time to spare musing on the Great Truth of the Gods. Those thoughts were for the nameless acolyte. For the past moon she had been Eddara, daughter of a clerk of the Iron Bank, and the newest apprentice record keeper in the great institution. Almost two moons had passed since the brutal murder of the guard to the Westerosi envoy, not that Eddara had anything to do with it. It was Mercy who had killed him, though nobody knew it. Mercy hadn’t even been reprimanded by the Kindly man when she ended her time at the Gate early, simply saying that it was time for her next level of training.
Eddara had seen a few more name-days than the girl who had worn her face when a cart had crushed her leg, leaving her unable to walk. After a few moons on the streets she had gone to the Many-Faced God and embraced its eternal caress. She had been small for her age, with hazel cascade of hair that fell straight and true. Her eyes shone with the green of fresh leaves, and though plain faced she was not ugly.
Not that that mattered as she raced along the back-alley, through the wynds and closes. Pyrgos Alliosta was not a harsh taskmaster, but punctuality was important to him. More important than appearances anyway Eddara thought as she splashed through a puddle, spraying mud all over the hem of her dress. It was a modest thing, made of low-quality wool. Undyed but cut in a way that could pass as formal. It was something that she might have consented to wear before she lost her name, in the halls of a northern keep as Jon teased her taste in attire before mussing her hair. No, those are not my thoughts anymore.
The houses she passed were no longer the stramash of ramshackle wooden huts piled one atop one another that lined the poorer streets and canals of the city, those had made way for buildings of stone, grey and bleak and unyielding. The closer to the Bank you get in Braavos, the bigger the houses become. It was great manses that flew by now. Townhouses owned by Pentoshi merchants and the richest courtesans of Braavos.
She entered the bank through the side entrance, passing though a dozen guarded gates and reinforced doors before she reached the archives. It was a stupid job she had been given. As boring as it was tedious. The girl thought that the Kindly Man was testing her patience or her ability to work undercover. She was yet to receive more instructions in the moons-turn that she had been organising the records for the most powerful institution in the known world. Well, second most powerful, but only No One knew that.
The day was much like every other that she had been there, ferrying the myriad contracts and agreements from the negotiators to the Library of Records, or from the Library to wherever in the Bank they were needed. It had taken the girl around half a day to conclude that the organisational system of the Bank was stupid. Records were stored according to an arbitrary mixture of Date Signed, Date of Expiry, Location of Signatory, and Name of Signatory, then they were given a number to identify them by. It seemed to the girl that it was deliberately obtuse to make it harder for the Bank to be cheated.
The only good thing about the job was the cats. The numerous pitfalls and traps and hidden passageways built into the palace that was the Iron Bank made for the ideal habitat for rats to live, so to solve the problem the Keyholders had long allowed the feral cats to roam its marble halls. Eddara had never liked cats, but the Girl had a natural affinity to them.
It was mid-afternoon before she was given her first unusual task, to collect a voided contract from the archives that, from its number, she could tell had been made with a Westerosi institution and had been brokered and broken within a moons turn, not four moons prior. That alone was unusual enough, but to make it stranger she was to bring it to be reinstated.
It was high in the archives, requiring a ladder to reach, but it had not been left there long enough to collect dust. The girl almost slipped off wooden rung when she read the contract. She wasn’t meant to, and if officials from the Bank caught her it would mean her death, but as a faceless man, the risk was part of her job. The hand that was scrawled across the page was one that she would recognise in a million years. Eddara didn’t know it. Neither did Mercy or Beth. Not Cat nor the ugly girl nor the faceless acolyte had ever seen that handwriting before. The memory that almost dislodged her from the ladder belonged to Arya Stark.
The Night’s Watch it said. and the quill that wrote it could only have belonged to Jon. With a jolt she realised that this must have been one of the last things he wrote before his murder.
It was only a few days after the girl had begun working at the Bank that she learnt of the death of the Lord Commander. Eddara did not grieve, could not grieve. Why would the daughter of a Braavosi clerk who had never been to the sunset kingdom feel anything at the death of the leader of an obscure army that guarded the world from grupkins and snarks. But Arya did. That was the day that the last Stark had died. She thrown herself into the Kindly Man’s task, never before had she been so determined to become no one. Even at the time it had felt like a seismic shift had occurred inside her. That night the girl had thrown Needle into the Moon Pool, though it was still in the fountain last she checked. She had not been the Night Wolf in her dreams since.
And now those three words were threatening to undo it all. He died, she thought, And so did Arya. He died. But still, she could not help herself from opening the document. It was long, filled with minutia and technicalities. Written in jargon that the Girl could not possibly comprehend, but it was Jon. Her last connection to the person she once had been. As she rerolled the parchment tears clouded her vision. She took a moment for her eyes to clear before heading deliver it.
She lingered by the doorway, hoping to hear what they were saying. The girl told herself that she was doing it for the God of Death, to gather information for the House of Black and White. But that was a lie. She knew it was. The worst lie is the one you tell yourself. She did not care.
The door was thick. Oak and Iron, sturdy and soundproof. But the cats knew ways around it unknown to man. She slipped her skin. If someone found her, she would pretend to be ill. She had done it before, though never as Eddara. It was a small cat she wore now. Young, scarce more than a kitten, but sly and sneaky. Like me. She slunk into the room and found the two men, two bankers, already deep in discussion.
“-claims that Bowen Marsh as acting Lord Commander lacked the authority to void the contract. Now that he his back in command he intends to honour it.” It was a tall man who was speaking, with the dark skin of a summer islander, but a thick Braavosi accent that indicated him as a native of the secret city. The other was smaller, slightly portly, with a shock of ginger hair. He spoke with the voice of Stormlander. “What does Nestoris say? Trust that fool to mess up yet another deal.”
So, Jon’s replacement has similar views to him, in this at least. It felt comforting to the Girl to know that not everything Jon had done would be undone.
“Oh, come off it, any man would have been duped by those books; Baelish is a master of financial shithousery. It is only due to Tycho’s work that we know quite how deep his schemes go. Thanks to efforts to redeem himself Baelish will be delt with as soon as he returns from the North. But that is unrelated to this contract. My recommendation is to side with the Lord Commander. This is a large deal with an old institution that has a long and storied history of quick repayment.”
The fat one laughed. “Aye, I suppose so. Do we have any chance of renegotiations? Clause Seven C seems to favour the Night’s Watch far more than I am happy with.”
She knew that No One would hove no stake in this deal, but that did not stop her feeling proud that Jon had won some small victory over the Iron Bank. No. She scolded herself, but it was half hearted at best.
The taller one thumbed through the document before looking up at his colleague. “Did you not read Tycho’s notes. Snow haggles harder than a Pentoshi Fishmonger in a Lyseni pleasure house. He even managed to get King Stannis to back down, multiple times. We won’t be getting better than this.”
Snow?
“I suppose so.” The ginger responded. “I may complain about his common sense, but few drive a harder bargain than Nestoris. And this deal was made before Snow spat death’s face, who knows how ruthless he’ll have become.”
“Do you think his brush with the blades will have made him less fearful of failing to fulfil his end of the contract? I mean, if a knife to the heart can’t stop him, what can?” The ginger man wore a concerned expression on his round face.
She didn’t breathe, didn’t move. Her whiskers twitched minutely before she crept closer. No, surely, they don’t…
At that his companion gave a chuckle. “Did you even read file? I mean honestly, he is his father’s son right down to looks. And Lord Stark never missed a payment, not even once.”
The shock of that statement knocked her from the mind of the cat. Her head was spinning as Eddara’s body regained consciousness. Lord Commander Snow, son of Lord Stark. Her mind raced as she took in that fact. Jon is alive.
The rest of the day passed in a blur. She didn’t even notice the boredom of her job as she ran the contracts back and forth. What had been rain that morning had changed to a flurry of snow. The wind howled with the power of a thousand wolf packs as sheets of white beat down on the streets of the secret city. The girl noticed none of that as she practically skipped to the Ragman’s Harbour.
Pynto’s wasn’t the type of establishment that people like Eddara was expected to enter, but that did not stop her. She wanted news from Westeros, from the North, the Wall, and Ragman’s Harbour was the port of call for all non Braavosi custom. The tavern was packed with people huddled to escape the blizzard that was beginning to howl outside.
She could see patrons from across the known world. Ibbanese whalers and Yitish traders. Merchants from Pentos and Lys and Myr and Tyrosh. Former slaves from Volantis, tattoos marked and removed. In the corner a mummer sang, her voice reverberated through the room with the melancholy deference of a dying songbird. "This is Me, For Forever", the song went, "One of the Lost Ones".
She began mingling though the scrum of bodies, the hulking ruck of ale and men and whores that Blind Beth and Cat and Mercy had gotten so used to, but was so foreign to Eddara. The Girl knew how to ferret out information. She had been doing it under various guises for a year now and had become quite proficient at it. "The One Without a Name, Without an Honest Heart as Compass". Finally, she caught the sound she was searching for, the common tongue slipped off the lips of a drunken sailor. She moved towards him, hoping to make out his words.
“-taken Winterfell!” He exclaimed to his companion. The girl was slunk off to the side, where she could hear clearly but would not be caught snooping. "This is Me, For Forever, One Without a Name". “Wha, From th’ Boltons? Are you sure he’s a stag an’ not a Reindeer” The man laughed heartly at his own joke. “I didn’ think he had it in ‘im to survive the North, ‘specially after the storms. Had half a Dragon on ‘im freezi’n to death”
"These Lines the Last Endeavour", “Aye, though he isn’t the only one who’s death was over reported,” A third voice had entered the conversation. “I have it on good authority that the Stag’s Onion Hand returned to White Harbour not three weeks ago. The First Mate, a former pirate – knew the guy well – swears blind he saw the man entering the Wolfs Den with the Biggest dog you ever seen. Large as a horse and black as pitch, he said. Had a wildness to it, too.” "To Find the Missing Lifeline". That caught the girl’s attention. She moved over to join the conversation. “Did he see anything else?” The question was almost frantic, forcing its way into the discussions before the topic could move on. That could only be Shaggydog. "Oh How I Wish, For Soothing Rain"," “Nout much, he said that the man’s son was with him, one of the younger ones, with a mop o’ dark red hair.” "All I Wish is to Dream Again". Could she accept this? She felt the wolf inside her baying to get out. The girl had only truly let go of Arya Stark after her family were dead, and now she threatened to return. But if Rickon survived, and Jon… something was happening with Jon. Could Bran have escaped? He died with Rickon, but Rickon may not be dead. "My Loving Heart, Lost in the Dark", Maybe Sansa was alive too, somewhere out there.
But she was no one now, she was the one without a name. "For Hope I’d Give my Everything". “Do you have any other news from the North?” She shouldn’t have asked. Eddara wouldn’t care about some frozen wasteland off to the west of Essos. No One certainly didn’t. It’s just one question, and the Kindly man doesn’t have to know about it. "My Flower, Withered Between the Pages Two and Three", “Littlefinger finally bestirred himself from the Vale, marching on Winterfell now that the hard work has been done for him. He is claiming the North on behalf of the elder Stark girl, now that the younger is no longer held by the Boltons.” For a moment it seemed as though everyone in the tavern had stopped. She heard not a sound, Sansa is back in the North. The moment passed quickly, and the singer resumed her song. "The once and forever bloom gone with my sins". “I thought that the Vale was allied with the Iron Throne?” Eddara would definitely not know this, but the wolf within needed to press for more information. You’re supposed to be no one some small part of her protested, it was too late for the girl to return now. "Walk the Dark Path", She had made her choice and must live with it, no matter how much it would corrupt her. Had the Ghost of High Heart not seen this once, long ago? Had she not warned Arya of the darkness so deep within her heart? "Sleep with Angels",
And yet, the Kindly man was insistent that she could leave at any point. They would even pay for her passage home, should she agree to leave. But would she be accepted back? Rickon had hardly known Arya before they left, and would likely have forgotten her in the years since… and Sansa, they had never gotten on well. Arya’s perfect sister would hate what she had become. And fear her. I am no longer Arya, that girl is dead. She shook her head. No lie is more dangerous than a lie told to yourself. But she had carved out some kind of life here. Could she really destroy it all for the vague hope that her family would accept her? My last pack abandoned me; I will not let that happen again.
“I thought so too.” The man was laughing again. "Call the Past for Help", “But rumour has it he has been hiding Sansa as his natural daughter since the purple wedding.” She bit back a laugh of her own then. She couldn’t imagine Sansa living as a bastard, not after the way she treated Jon growing up.
“And what of the Wall, I’ve heard conflicting information about the aftermath of Lord Snow’s decision to bring the Wildlings south.” "Touch me With Your Love", “You certainly know a lot about the North for a Braavosi girl, don’t you Eddara? Do you have kin there?” He had a kind smile, but one that looked fake. “My father was a Northman.” she said. It should have felt like a lie, if Eddara had answered it would be, she was Braavosi born and bred. But she knew it to be true. “You didn’t answer my question.” "And Reveal to me My True Name".
He gave his kind smile again, the one that reminded her of someone “The Lord Commander was stabbed, I heard. Bad enough that he was pronounced dead. But He of Many Faces isn’t ready to claim him yet.” She smiled at that thought. "Oh How I Wish, For Soothing Rain".
She felt the tug of Nymeria again, and for the first time in weeks she closed her eyes and allow herself to be drawn in. "All I Wish is to Dream Again". For a second, she was running through the light snows that now coated the Riverlands. She was running north, she knew, though didn’t not know why. Her pack was with her, and that was all that mattered. It made her feel whole again, for half a blissful moment. Before she could even get accustomed to the taste of blood in her mouth, she opened her eyes back in Braavos.
“You should go home.” he said. “It’s late, I’m sure your family must be wondering where you are, and the storm will only get worse from here.” He was right, and in her heart, Arya knew it. "My Loving Heart, Lost in the Dark, For Hope I’d Give my Everything". She nodded slowly, reluctantly. “It’s hard,” She sighed, “I’ve been gone so long they wouldn’t recognise me. They would hate what I’ve become.” "Oh How I Wish, For Soothing Rain". “Of course I should go home, but it’s not that simple. I’ve changed too much to go back.” "All I Wish is to Dream Again". There was something reassuring in his face when he finally responded. “Oh, sweet child, but they have changed to.”
Out the window the snow was coming down in thick fast flurries, a reminder of summer snows in days long dead. "Once and For all, And All for Once", Yes, she thought, we have all changed. Somehow the tavern had only gotten busier since she had arrived. She would have to fight her way to the exit, but she was used to being under the feet of those bigger than her. "Nemo my Name Forevermore". She made her decision and turned to go. "Nemo sailing home", “Fair well, lovely girl, the Everdream leaves for White Harbour at high tide tomorrow, don’t miss it.” "Nemo Letting go".
She took one last look back before leaving for good, hoping to thank the man, but he was gone, in his place was a tall man with red and white hair. All men must die, she thought, but not today.