Chapter 138 – Rhaegar the Piper
Through the streets of Tyrosh, Rhaegar strolled at leisure. At the harbor stood the Weeping Tower, and within the city the Fountain of the Wine God.
Rhaegar had reached Tyrosh at dawn aboard a sleek Velaryon merchantman whose sailors and guards were all loyal and reliable, men who would never reveal the prince's departure from the Stepstones.
He arrived alone; Tyrosh lay close to Bloodstone, and the dragon could reach him with a call. Rhaegar had ordered his men to treat the beast well—sometimes the dragons flew out to sea near him to sport and fish.
Tyrosh was far larger than Sunspear, a bustling commercial port. Though it could not match King's Landing, its population was not far behind. The Three Daughters—Tyrosh, Lys, and Myr—each claimed vassal folk and towns.
Here, Rhaegar was no longer the Prince of House Targaryen; he had become Justin the Piper, a wooden flute his only instrument. A harp drew too much notice and was clumsy to carry; a flute was light and discreet.
He did not seek out Roberta Baratheon—no doubt she was harried enough. Golden coins from Myr and Lys were bribing Archons and wealthy magisters against the ruling Archon, and Tyrosh seethed. From the shadows he could aid her better; no one knew a true dragon had slipped into Tyrosh.
He learned the city had split into two camps. One, the opposition, longed for the past: reunite the Three Daughters and stand against the Iron Throne of Westeros. Its core were slavers in league with pirates and sellsword companies, merchants who had taken Lysene and Myrish coin. The other camp wished to keep things as they were, led by the Archon and his allies. They feared the other Two Daughters more than the Iron Throne. Rivalry, quarrel, war—such was the refrain since the Kingdom of the Three Daughters fell, and at sea they preyed upon one another.
Rhaegar wore soft blue calfskin boots, fine blue-wool hose, and a pale-blue silk tunic. His hair was dyed to match, crowned by a Tyroshi cap—though his hair was too short and the look slightly odd.
In Westeros, blue hair earned stones from boys and jeers from girls. In Tyrosh, blue was tame; the city reveled in every hue.
Tyroshi loved bright colors, dyeing hair and beards in blues, greens, chestnuts, pinks, purples, scarlets, and vermilions. Sailors and merchants sported forked beards, and the city's hundreds of vivid dyes clothed distant markets.
Rhaegar's eye was drawn to the inner wall, fused of black dragonstone. Tyrosh had been a Valyrian outpost, and the Black Wall was its proudest relic. Volantis, the eldest of the Free Cities, boasted a grander one. Mighty Old Valyria was gone, yet her works lingered.
Ships from every corner of the world came and went, carrying Tyrosh's famed dyes and pear brandy.
Rhaegar walked the crowded city, a pure, hard-edged merchant hub, loud and merciless. By contrast, Lorath, Qohor, and Norvos were shaped by faith—Norvos with its Bearded Priests, Qohor with the Black Goat. The Three Daughters shared a kindred spirit: Lys, Myr, Tyrosh. Though Lyseni resembled Old Valyrians and Myrmen the Rhoynar, all three mirrored one another in history, custom, politics, tongue, and commerce—slave-holding merchant cities that prized coin over blood, trusted sellswords more than citizens, and were ruled by councils of magisters. Lys and Myr had their councils; Tyrosh elected an Archon. All felt closer to Old Valyria than to Westeros.
Yet Westeros, Rhaegar reflected, had one virtue: it did not traffic in slaves on such a scale. He watched them in the street—poor souls. One day, slavery would end.
Yet from Rhaegar's observations, the three cities were subtly different. Tyrosh, serving as a military outpost, felt harsher. The Ninepenny Kings had once seized Tyrosh—unthinkable in the other Two Daughters. After the War of the Ninepenny Kings, the silver-tongued Archon Alequo Adarys still ruled Tyrosh as tyrant for years, until his queen poisoned him.
Rhaegar's gaze skimmed exotic temples and pleasure gardens, passing crowds of sellswords, slaves, and merchants; he ignored the men and women who winked at him. Finally he chose a tavern near the Fountain of the Wine God—well-placed, clean, and apparently sanitary—and wordlessly ordered the food.
The fare of the Three Daughters was unremarkable. Tyrosh's specialty was honey sausages laced with garlic and chili—tolerable in moderation, but Rhaegar found them cloying after too many. The wines were better: pear brandy, firewine, peppered liquor.
Amid Tyrosh's din and tumult, Rhaegar tasted a flavor far removed from Westeros.
He asked for the honey-garlic-chili sausages, a sweetly roasted sea fish, and a cup of honeyed pear water; in his leisure he rarely drank.
The liveliest talk in the tavern was of Tyrosh's present chaos—the whole city had become a bubbling pot.
With Westerosi now dominating the Stepstones, Tyrosh's importance soared; every faction wanted influence. From the chatter Rhaegar gathered that Princess Shireen Baratheon was under fierce strain. The scramble for power among the Three Daughters was bloody and brutal.
"Damn it, why won't the Archon fight the Westerosi? Have we proud Tyroshi forgotten when the Three Daughters stood united? If this goes on, I won't be able to buy slaves from Westeros!" bellowed a plump slave trader.
"It wasn't unity, it was chaos—each city grasping for more. What was so good about the old days?" an older Tyroshi remarked coldly.
"Cowards, all of you—scared of that Targaryen whelp and his three dragons!" the most belligerent slave-seller roared.
"Will you take the field yourself? No? Then of course you don't fear dragonfire. Besides, campaigning means hiring sellswords and spending coin. Life's good now—no expenses, the sea lanes open, money flowing in."
The crowd bickered on, and Rhaegar drank it all in.
"Pretty boy, give us a tune?" Two Tyroshi sellswords lounging nearby called out boldly.
Their garb was gaudy even by Tyroshi standards—four or five colors at once. Blue hair, lips, and a mustache forked into three purple-dyed prongs; jackets of bright yellow trimmed with Myrish lace; tight doublets bristling with brooches of strange gods; and worn bronze-colored boots.
"My, you two are in high spirits—but my fee isn't cheap," Rhaegar said with a smile. From their bearing they seemed captains of a sellsword company.
"What's your name? I haven't seen you in this tavern before," the older one asked.
"Justin the Piper, a wandering flautist," Rhaegar answered.
Even a piper must be paid.
"We'll cover your meal and add this!" the younger said, producing a purse.
"For a skinny piper, the lad can eat," the elder noted.
True enough; rune-magic demanded strength, and strength demanded food.
"Then I won't stand on ceremony!" Rhaegar accepted and began to play.
A wandering tune drifted through the tavern—melancholy and distant, suited for travelers with no home.
As the music flowed, the two mercenaries spoke of Tyrosh's coming conflict. The opposition had rallied behind a powerful magister; for sellsword companies, it was a chance for profit.
When the final note faded, Rhaegar put away the flute and quietly left.
Like the song, he vanished into Tyrosh's endless sea of faces.
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