The Passage of time 2
279 AC.-1st moon, 281 AC.
Hook Bay had long been a place for broken things—broken ships, broken hulls, broken bones. The western coast was no friend to sailors, where the sea turned cruel as a mad king, and the rocks beneath the waves waited like knives in the dark. But where others saw peril, Hosteen saw promise, if seaguard can have a large port if the lannisters in the south can have one why not him.
They were building there now—sawyers and stonecutters, carpenters and masons, the sound of hammer and chisel ringing out from the misty headlands like a bell of dawn. A western port, Hosteen had declared, to match the one we've carved in the east. If House Mudd was to rise again in truth and not only in name, it must turn its face to every wind.
Already, Riverpeak commanded the inland rivers and the eastern sea. The Blue Fork bore goods from as far as Fairmarket and as deep as the Whispering Wood. From Riverpeak's docks, ships sailed to Gulltown, White Harbor, and Dragonstone, with the mudd coloured helms of House Mudd gleaming on their prows. Trade flourished in silks and spices, copper and glass, foodstuffs and furs. But to reach the ports of the west—Oldtown, Lannisport, the Shields and Fair Isle—a ship had to round the bottom of Dorne, a voyage of months, made longer by tolls, tempests, and the sharp-toothed smiles of greedy harbor lords.
A port at Hook Bay would change that.
"It is not enough to open one eye to the world," Hosteen had told his captains. "We must see with two. One to the east, and one to the west."
And so they built.
The cliffs above the bay were carved into terraces, stone by stone. Great chains would guard the harbor mouth, once the breakwaters were complete. Timbered piers thrust out like arms into the frothing sea, wide enough for the hulls of warships or the heavy bellied merchantmen from the Arbor. The deeper caverns carved into the rock would one day house salt stores, dry cellars, and armories. Barracks and beacon towers were being raised, and the earth had already been broken for a small sept, a great godswood, and a lighthouse that would burn by night.
In time, the harbor at Hook Bay would be more than a port. It would be a sword pointed west, and a jewel upon the tide.
The Ironborn would not like that, of course. The shores of Hook Bay had ever been prey to reavers from the isles but Hosteen did not fear them. "Let them try," he said. "They'll find more than fish and farmers waiting for them now."
And he was not alone.
The Alliance of Blackwood, Mallister, and Mudd had grown in quiet strength since the fall of House Frey. They were not bound by blood, but by trade, faith, and purpose. Lord Tytos Blackwood, now wed to Morya Byrne, brought his ravens and his ancient knowledge, his bows, and his stubbornness. His woodworkers worked day and night to produce planks for ships bows and arrows as well as support beams for various projects.
Jason Mallister, Lord of Seagard, gave his forges and shipwrights, and opened his harbor to those merchants who carried Mudd's seal. His conversion to the Old Gods had shocked the court at Riverrun and sent whispers rippling through the Trident, but those who knew him were less surprised. The Old Gods had many voices, and the river heard them all.
Seagard, Raventree, and Oldstones formed a trinity of trade and power in the north of the Riverlands, connected by mutual benefit and mutual belief. Even the Charltons at the Twins, ever cautious and newly risen, gave quiet allegiance to the triumvirate that had restored order after Frey's downfall.
The Brackens, once courted by House Mudd, had withdrawn in silence and growing bitterness. Perhaps it was the betrothal of Hosteen to Alysanne Blackwood that turned them cold. Perhaps they could not stomach the sight of their ancient foes in favor once more. No matter. They would come around, or they would rot alone in the marshes of the Red Fork.
Meanwhile, the western port rose, and the world came closer.
At Raventree Hall, beneath the whispering limbs of the great white tree whose leaves seldom fell, Lord Tytos Blackwood ruled with quiet purpose. He was no man for vanity, nor feasts, nor flattery, but the folk of the Blackwood vale spoke of him with a steadiness and reverence few other lords could command. His marriage to Lady Morya Byrne, daughter of a stalwart vassal house of his own, had proven fruitful. Two sons now played in the shadow of Raventree's high walls—Brynden, strong-willed and bookish, and Lucas, fierce-eyed and already fond of the sword.
Lady Morya was not famed for her beauty, but for her sharp mind and keener memory. It was said she knew every knight sworn to Raventree by name and could recite the holdings and incomes of each village between the Tumblestone and the Red Fork without once looking at a ledger. Between her council and her lord's stern patience as well as the new alliance, Blackwood lands had doubled their yield, their mills sang with grain, and their foundries burned hotter than they had in a generation.
To the east, across the rush of the Blue Fork and the long green leagues of the Trident, Seaguard too had risen—once again a true bastion of the western coast.
Jason Mallister, lean and still relatively young, ruled from his sea-facing halls with a cautious optimism.
His young son, Patrek Mallister, was the joy of his house, born of Lady Della Keath, a riverborn lady of middling rank but sharp wit. Jason had married her for duty, some said, but others whispered he had grown to love her for her clear eyes and calm tongue. Della brought strength to Seaguard not by sword, but through her family's influence along the coast and her sure handling of the holdfast when Jason rode south or south-west to council with Hosteen or Tytos.
The three lords—Blackwood, Mallister, and Mudd—formed a triad unlike any the Riverlands had seen in a hundred years. Their banners flew often together above Oldstones, Seaguard or Raventree Hall speaking of their many visits to one another, and if they don't meet in person their emissaries or ravens rode and flew between Raventree, Seaguard, and Oldstones their bond to one another and between their families was stronger than any to Riverrun or Kings Landing. Mutual defense pacts had been sworn between them beneath heart trees, and shared projects—like the bridge-fort at Dunmark between Mudd and Blackwood territories or the shared export to the north—showed a unity of vision rare among the often-fractious Riverlords.
Where the rest of the realm saw rising tensions—madness in the Red Keep, the shadow of fire in the east—these three kept the waters calm between them.
Yet perhaps the greatest stir among the gentry was not of steel or stone or land, but of faith.
Jason Mallister, had once been a follower of the seven as had his forefathers since the coming of the andals but in the recent years he had rediscovered the reason that the Old Gods had been worshipped before the andals, they existed they held the old magic that the seven rejected and with Hosteen right by his side he could not look away and so he had turned from the sept to the trees.
A year had passed before the whispering began in earnest. First, it was said he had asked a godswood planted in the Seaguard gardens. Then, that he no longer attended sept on the holy days. Then came word that a heart tree—slender and weeping red sap from fresh-carved eyes—had been planted behind his keep's high walls, in a quiet grove guarded day and night by silent men of the Old Faith.
In time, it was no secret. He did not denounce the Seven openly, nor cast out his septons, but he ceased to speak their names in his prayers. "The Old Gods hear my heart," he told one knight, when asked in confidence, "and my heart has grown tired of gilded masks."
For some in the Riverlands, this was cause for alarm. The Seven had held sway for centuries, and even the smallest septs held weight among smallfolk and nobility alike. But for others, it was less surprising.
After all, Hosteen Mudd—whose city grew like a second King's Landing and whose castle outshone Riverrun—had long walked the godswood and knelt beneath the weirwood boughs. His blood was old as stone, and the Old Gods had always lingered in his line. Tytos Blackwood, too, was a known worshipper of the trees, his house keeping to the ancient ways since the days of the Dawn Age. And from the Neck came the Reeds, green men and grey watermen, whose children still claimed descent from the crannog gods.
In such company, Mallister's conversion seemed less heresy and more kinship. He was, after all, a man of the rivers—and rivers remember the gods of the stream and stone.
Seaguard did not wither for its lord's change of faith. Its fields remained fertile, its walls well-manned, its people loyal. The septons grumbled, but none dared raise open protest. Not when the realm teetered on the edge of flame, and alliances meant more than altars.
And in the end, other than the Seven, the Old Gods made no demands for gold or war, only silence, and sacrifice, and truth.
So Jason built his heart grove, and knelt in it often. And those who saw him there—alone among red leaves and old stone—said he seemed a little less burdened, a little less afraid.
In the quiet turns of the year 280 AC, as winter winds softened and the Trident ran swift and silver beneath thawed skies, Hosteen Mudd honored his word.
He had sworn it in the godswood of Raventree Hall, beneath the white limbs of that ancient heart tree whose eyes had watched the rise and ruin of a thousand lives. Now, true to oath and spirit, he was betrothed to Lady Alysanne Blackwood, sister to Lord Tytos, daughter of House Blackwood, and proud child of the Old Gods.
She came to Oldstones not cloaked in silks nor swaddled in courtly airs, but riding hard on a chestnut mare, bow slung across her shoulder, hair loose to the wind. There was fire in her—quiet, banked, and dangerous—and a forest's depth behind her eyes. Hosteen, who had shared command of armies and judged lords, did not presume to command her.
Instead, he listened.
In the year since the betrothal, they had moved not like fire and storm, but like river and bank—shaping one another slowly, intimately, over time. They walked often beside the Blue Fork, where the reeds grew tall and white cranes stalked fish in the shallows. She would skip stones, and he would try and fail to match her count.
He trained with sword and hammer, but she with bow—and in that, she was the master. Alysanne loosed arrows in clusters like flocks of birds, each shaft landing close enough to kiss the next. She corrected his grip with a firm hand, unbothered by titles. "You hold it like a sword," she told him once. "But a bow is not for killing. It is for waiting." That night, Hosteen dreamt of green leaves and the sound of a bowstring drawn taut.
There were other lessons as well.
They spoke often of their houses, of the Mudds who were kings and the Blackwoods who remembered them being kings. She showed him a tattered scroll, penned in the Age of Heroes, with an ink so faded it seemed like ghost-scratch. "Your forebear married a Blackwood, once, although it surly cannot only have happened once," she said with a smile, "before the Andals came. Maybe I'm marrying him again."
At her prompting, he shared more than he ever had—with anyone—of his dreams, of runes, of what legacy might mean beyond thrones and gold. In Alysanne, he found no flattery, no hunger for jewels or glory. Only honesty, and the cold clear voice of the woods. In Hosteen, she found not just power, but purpose.
They had not yet wed, but many who saw them together mistook them for husband and wife already. She had taken a small solar overlooking the Blue Fork, filled it with old tapestries of the Children of the Forest and carved a weirwood idol that stood upon a low stone plinth. She taught Hosteen her prayers, not in words but in silence.
He, in turn, made no demands of her time nor her body for it wasn't his and it wouldn't be if she were his wife. He knew the difference between possession and partnership, and with Alysanne, he wanted the latter.
Not all rejoiced at the future union, however.
House Bracken, long the bitter rival of the Blackwoods, watched the match with narrowed eyes and clenched teeth. Lord Jonos Bracken, a hard man with a temper like old steel—dull and deadly—had once entertained trade pacts with Oldstones. That traffic had withered now to near nothing, a trickle of carts where once a road thrummed with commerce.
Nothing was said outright. No ravens of insult, no calls to arms. The Riverlands, after all, were at peace. But the message was plain: the ancient war between stone and root had tilted once more toward Raventree.
It was a quiet war, for now.
Bracken riders no longer came to Riverpeak, and merchants with Bracken ties were taxed twice when they crossed Mudd lands. Old alliances were tested, severed, reforged. Jonos Bracken fumed within his high towers at Stone Hedge, grinding teeth and nursing grudges.
He dared not move—not yet. Not with Hosteen seated in the strongest keep outside Harrenhal, not with Blackwood and Mallister riding beside him, not with Riverpeak rising, and Hook Bay stirring with fleets.
Instead, he watched. And waited.
But in the Riverlands, feuds never slept. They only grew roots. And in time, they bore fruit.
And while the ream as a whole was at peace and flourished or so it seemed if one wasn't living in Kings Landing.
King Aerys, once called the Second of His Name, now wore a dozen darker titles in whispered corners of Westeros: the Mad King, the Scorched Dragon, the King of Ashes. Some said he no longer bathed for fear of poison in the water. Others claimed he burned his own councilors for speaking truths he did not wish to hear. A few—those most daring—swore his fingernails had grown long and claw-like, and that he spoke to shadows in his throne room when the moon was high.
The court at King's Landing was a hive of fear and flattery, where each smile could be a dagger in silk. Lord Tywin Lannister, once Hand of the King, had long since retreated to Casterly Rock, taking with him half the spine of the realm. The other half bent and broke as the king's paranoia festered.
From the Stormlands, riders came bearing reports of Lord Jon Connington amassing influence for the Prince and Lord Robert Baratheon caring not while still being in the Vale and having lord Buckler and Lord Stannis rule in his stead. From the Reach, the Tyrells sent fewer replies to the Crown's summons for gold. In the North, Lord Rickard Stark grew cold-eyed at southern madness but still wanted influence there to be recognized and had therefor betrothed his eldest son to Catlyn Tully and his only daughter to Lord Baratheon. Even the Vale, quiet and cloud-bound, stirred uneasily beneath its pale banners.
Across the sea, the Free Cities watched and sharpened their knives.
And yet in the Riverlands, the grain grew thick and the bells tolled for harvest, not for war.
All waited for the great tourney at Harrenhal that Lord Whent had announced a year earlier.