30.05.275Isthmus, Watch in the Greywater
My dear diary. I want to confess to you. I'm fucking stunned. Just incredibly fucking stunned. I saw Volantis, the heir to Valyria, the pearl of bygone times.
I saw Braavos, the island wonder, the silent ruler of all Western Essos and an unshakable colossus towering over all the Free Cities.
I saw Qarth, a city of great wealth and luxury, whose architecture is considered a wonder of the world, the navel of the earth, the gateway between north and south, the bridge between east and west. But it wasn't them that impressed me the most, it was this... floating city. Yes, a city. The ancestral seat of the main family of the Neck, the Reeds, was a huge, elongated column stretching across small rivers, swamps, and seasonally swollen streams.
Consisting of houseboats and floating islands called crannogs, the castle constantly moved around the Neck following its core – the main Reed estate. This three-story mansion itself was not very good protection, but it did not need it.
During these three days spent here, I have long understood that the swamps are impregnable. Any army would perish here, any stranger would die from local diseases, any knight would fall under the water along with his horse and armor, becoming food for the local alligators and lion-lizards. The only ways to subdue the lake people were tons of wildfire, which could burn everything here, and dragons, for whom a column of lights against the background of a gloomy swamp was a very good target.
I take my hat off to the Starks – how they managed to defeat and overthrow the Lake Kings, I simply cannot imagine. Traders were incredibly rare in this part of the continent, so the Reeds invited me to their place right away, without making the traditional "greeting" of nobles – making them wait for "some merchant" until the gentlemen deign to see him.
Ailis Reed, already quite an old head of the family, greeted me and Oberyn very cordially. He fed us a hearty dinner (when I asked whose meat it was, he looked closely at the lion-lizard head made on the wall), listened to stories about our journey, told us about the interesting features of life in the swamps and even asked the Dornishman if he liked the local girls (this womanizer managed to find whores even in a place where there are no brothels).
We moved on to discussing business only a few hours after the meeting, sipping a low-alcohol liqueur with a very interesting earthy taste. The Lake dwellers needed everything. Iron, flour, fabrics, salt, coal. And all this was on my ships. But Reed was no simple nut to crack – unlike the Skagosians, he knew the value of his things and didn't want to give them to me just like that.
The bidding began, and ended only the next morning, after which I gave this small green-eyed Jew all the contents of the ships' holds and paid him a bag of a hundred golden dragons on top. In exchange, the locals would catch me 14 of the largest and strongest male lion lizards within a week, delivering them to pre-made cages, they would fill all the vacated space with their poisons and rare plants (after visiting the local healers, I realized that I didn't even know half of the plants) and would let two hundred local archers go sailing with me, whose fame as poisoners and excellent shooters, not much inferior to the inhabitants of the Wolf Forest, was known throughout the North and the Riverlands. So, a week later, we left this strange and in its own way magical land.
14.06.275King's Landing
My first visit to the capital of Westeros was memorable for only two events - an accidental fall from a blow from a mast that had come off its settings and the subsequent swim in the water of the King's Landing port, which was fifty percent shit and sewage. So for the entire two days we were here, I spent in my cabin washing off the lingering smell of a freshly dead cat and refusing to go outside. I already hated this city in absentia. The second event was Oberyn.
He apparently decided to repeat his Volante feat and sneaked into the Sept of Baelor and slept with one of the septas. Thank all the Gods, he was not caught in the process of whittling his descendants and was caught only when he was leaving the women's wing of the temple. Naturally, he managed to get away and before he was caught by an angry crowd of septons, we had to sail away very quickly. P.S. Somehow, through Zhoen, who had once been here with his master and more or less knew the main places of the capital, I managed to give that septa a bag of coppers with gold and silver hidden underneath. If she is not a fool, she will immediately understand the hint and quickly leave the city.
06/28/275Volantis
As much as I would not like to look into this place, but there is such a thing as necessary - the ships were already running out of supplies, and our plans to replenish them in Lys went down the drain. An epidemic of Grayscale broke out there, unexpectedly breaking out in the port area of the city. Some merchants met along the way said that this was sabotage by Mir or Tyrosh, and some believed that this was a way for the local council of masters to get rid of the slums that had grown sharply in the port areas in recent years.
One way or another, we had to go to Volantis to sell some of the goods in the form of plants and poisons (although Lys is famous for its poisoner guilds, Volantis is not far behind, having its own markets for substances from the excess concentration of which people die). And there a surprise awaited us. The daughter of Toragos, whom Oberyn had spoiled almost ten months ago, gave birth to a girl who was named Nymeria.
You should have seen Oberyn's face. Such a mixture of shock, disbelief and joy was probably on his face for the first time. Although I understand him myself - I had the same emotions when my beloved wife told me about her pregnancy or my children told me that I would once again become a grandfather ... Wonderful memories that, unfortunately, are slowly fading, but thank God they are not forgotten. They are one of my greatest treasures and I simply cannot lose them. Because of this little bundle of laughter and joy, who would grow up to be a beautiful and smart girl in the future, and now simply adores lying in my arms (Here, only wet nurses know how to handle children properly, and I had more experience than most of the local "professionals"), my ships even had to be delayed for three days while Oberyn and Belicio decided what to do with the child. At that time, I visited Atraxes Belroy, through whom I was able to sell most of the poisons and rare plants at a very favorable price.
The rest that followed further improved my mood. I don't know where Atraxes found a virgin with a Valyrian appearance in Volantis, but she turned out to be very good in bed. In the end, Oberyn and Toragos agreed that Nymeria would be raised here until she was three, under the supervision of nurses and a mother who rarely visited, and after that, Oberyn would take her away for good.
12.07.275Meereen
City of Golden Pyramids greeted us very warmly. The owners of the Fighting Pits, as soon as they saw the lizard lions sitting in cages and tearing the pieces of meat thrown to them onto the British flag, were ready to kiss me. And when I showed them a whole batch of stimulants and poisons of similar action, which could turn any person into a raging berserker for a while (I barely persuaded Reed to sell them to me), then...
I was scared for a moment. With such anticipation, looking first at the poisons, and then at the gladiators training nearby... I'm afraid to imagine what kind of money the owners of the arenas will receive thanks to my gifts. As a result, having stayed in the city for almost a week and sold all the goods I had brought, I was already planning to sail away, when I heard interesting news - at the Skahazadhan River spill closest to Meereen, one of the largest khalasars of the Dothraki Sea, led by Khal Bharbo, had stopped camp for trade.