Chapter Text
It had been an educational voyage. Arya had boarded the Petrel a somewhat more than mildly psychopathic, angry young woman. Three months on board with only a couple of days break in Oldtown, to make an essential modification to her half of the rear cabin and translate the chest full of what she considered useless clothing Sansa had had loaded on board for her into coin, had however changed her. She learned that a ship cannot be sailed by one person alone and that thus teamwork has value. She learned that although the sea and the weather are out to kill you every day you sail, you can’t fight them; you have to learn to use them, but most importantly she learned that there were people who seemed to care about her for no better reason than that she was around. She realised that she didn’t understand people, whether due to growing up in a disturbing manner or some innate personality trait. She thus decided to investigate people as much as geography on her travels.
As far as the sailing went it had been an uneventful voyage for 80% of the way. Arya took being attacked by a sea serpent in her stride, it was dead, she moved on. However in the last week they had been hit by three tropical storms in succession. The skipper had admitted he was amazed that the Petrel had survived all three unscathed, but it had and here they were sailing towards a pair of sizeable gates in a city wall.
The skipper had a few concerns, which he was discussing with Arya as they approached the city.
“The third storm, I’ve never seen lightening that sort of purplish colour, normally it’s blue/white and we came out of the third storm in a temperate climate despite the fact that we went in in the tropics. There’s something funny going on”.
“The weather is….”
“Yes, and just you remember who taught you that”
“Oh I’m unlikely to forget, like privy training it will stay with me forever”.
“See you’re even developing a sense of humour”.
“Only in the eyes of someone with as warped and twisted a mind as you”.
“We’ve spent three months in the same cabin and you’ve not taken your knife out to me once; you know you really quite fancy me”.
Arya doubled up with laughter, “If this is your last trip, you could always get a job as a player, you’d have a crowd in stitches as soon as you opened your mouth”.
“Well maybe this isn’t my last trip, we’re here, you’re about to get off and go and explore. Unless you decide quite quickly to sail up or down the coastline we’re all redundant, so we might as well find some cargo and get on with what we all consider a normal life. Now how are you going to get us into harbour”.
Arya realised she needed to think about the first statement but the second, the question, didn’t give her time. They were approaching the gates on a hard tack running as tight into the wind as a single square sail and a round hull would let you. Unless they were unbelievably lucky the ship would lose way the moment they came to the entrance and had to change course. There was a ship ahead of them obviously also heading into the same gate so it had to be a workable solution. “Well since the ship ahead’s heading in there can’t be a strong current outflowing at present, in fact if he’s a local it’s probably an incoming tide so one answer is we just drift in, but the other is we need the ships boat out to give us a pull, particularly if we need to swing round to find a berth”.
“So”
Arya put a whistle to her lips and blew two shrill blasts, “All hands!”, bodies started to appear from the fo’c’sle “Poitr get the boat over the side, Elog get a cable up for a tow line”. There were calls of ‘aye’ and within ten minutes the ship’s boat was in the water alongside with a suitable cable attached.
As the gate approached Arya looked at the skipper, who left his response just a long enough to see the look on her face that said ‘it’s time you took charge’, “I have the con”,
“You have the con” and Arya stepped over to the tiller bar to assist the crewman if he needed it. Since the man on the tiller was Haerd a 6 foot 4 inch man of considerable bulk and the wind was light this was unlikely, but it gave her the opportunity to watch the skipper and tillerman at work.
The gate came to within a couple of boat lengths and it was obvious the course of the river through the city required a turn.
“Hard to larboard”
“Hard to Larboard” the tiller went over and the ship turned, as it did the sail went slack.
“Drop the sail”, sheets were released and the mast slid down to the deck, they were drifting forward losing way but still making progress through the gate. The space was wide enough for a ship three times their beam and it was obvious watching bits of flotsam in the water that the tide was indeed running in. That didn’t stop the skipper walking over to the side.
“Cast off”, from the tiller Arya had to imagine the boat pulling away from the side taking the lead and the slack on the cable until like a little water beetle ahead of them it would be pulling the ship. They passed through the walls and it was plain there were docks on both sides of the river. Their present course put the nearest one on their starboard bow.
“Arya get forrard and make sure the boat knows we’re going to starboard”.
“Aye, skipper” and Arya ran down the length of the deck to the fo’c’sle, up the steps and right to the bow. Now she could see the boat pulling firmly straight ahead “Boat Ahoy”, Piotr on the tiller turned to look at her “Bear starboard” and to reinforce the message she pointed towards the dock entrance the skipper wanted. The tiller went over in the boat and it turned into the entrance. Arya took a look at the approaching opening, turned back towards the skipper and tillerman “Hard a Starboard” and waved a hand over her head. She saw Haerd look at the skipper, he nodded and the tiller went over. Once they were in the dock the tidal flow was lost and it took the boats crew all their effort to get the Petrel alongside, but finally they bumped up against the dockside and Arya went over the side with a hawser for the bows.
She looped the hawser over the bollard on the dockside and stood up to look round, ‘Woa!’ the dock seemed to roll as she stood there. Elog was waving at her from the waist of the ship with a plank to put down so she went and grabbed the far end, settled it in place and ran back on board. The skipper was stood on deck as she arrived “That was strange, it was like the dock was moving”.
He laughed “That’s what months at sea does for you, it’ll wear off eventually but for now wherever you walk on land you’ll roll and everyone in a city like this will immediately mark you as a sailor. That’s your badge for now Arya, deep sea sailor, try not to besmirch it too much with your behaviour”.
“You mean don’t get roaring drunk, pick knife fights and try and sexually molest any woman, girl or small boy who comes within reach of my hands”.
“I’ll forgive you the rest it’s the knife fights I’m worried about”.
“You needn’t I won’t lose”.
“That’s what worries me, nothing reduces local hospitality like one of my crew killing people and we’re stuck here. Don’t come running back aboard shouting, ‘get us out to sea fast’, because it isn’t going to happen, we’re going to need the tide and just the right breeze or a couple of boat loads of locals pulling us”.
“Well it will be a test of your powers of persuasion then won’t it Marcus. Have three months been enough time for you to tame the savage killer that was Arya Stark on the dockside at King’s Landing”.
Marcus didn’t laugh and Arya realised that he wasn’t taking her good behaviour as a given, which was worrying because he’d spent the whole trip playing up everything that he found was good about her and downplaying all her faults. Arya did her best to sound less flippant, “I’ll try not to let you down”.
“Good, because…”
“Yes I know ‘I’ll be letting myself down’. As you said earlier, the best proof that I’ve a better control on my murderous urges than I used to is that I haven’t knifed you for endlessly repeating that sort of drivel”.
“You have a point. Now since no one has come to see us I propose to get everyone a meal on board and a rest. You won’t be on the dock watch rota so you’re at liberty to come and go as you please. I feel I have discharged my contract with your sister and delivered my passenger safe and sound”.
“Then I’m going ashore to find a tavern, you’re clearly right pickled cabbage is good for our health, but I’m sick of it. In fact it would be nice to think that cabbage doesn’t exist here”, Arya was to be sorely disappointed on this score; in years to come the sight of the Sto Plains would give her nightmares.
“Obviously I shan’t sail off without discussing it with you, but it is just possible someone will turn up and insist we move berth, so if we’re not here when you come back just work your way round the other docks ‘til you find us”.
“What if you’re across the river”.
“I’m pretty sure I saw a ferry row across behind us and if not there have to be bridges. Have you got any money”.
“Ah good point, let’s hope what we’ve got is worth something”.
“Gold’s always worth something”.
Arya disappeared into her cabin and came back out with a single dragon, and for the first time in months, her rapier, Needle, attached to her waist. She was idly flipping the dragon in the air as she walked down the gang plank. “Until later then skipper, I’m only going for a decent meal I’ll probably be back in less than an hour”.
“Have fun and be careful”.
“Oh I will”.