“It would have gone more quickly if the Hand had sent to the Street of Flies for butchers,” Mushroom observes, “for it was butcher’s work they were about, hacking and cleaving.” Forty thieves had their hands removed. Eight rapers were gelded, then marched naked to the riverside with their genitals hung about their necks, to be put aboard ships for the Wall. A suspected Poor Fellow who preached that the Seven sent the Winter Fever to punish House Targaryen for incest had his tongue removed. Two pox-riddled whores were mutilated in unspeakable ways for passing the pox to dozens of men. Six servants found guilty of stealing from their masters had their noses slit; a seventh, who cut a hole in a wall to peek upon his master’s daughters in their nakedness, had the offending eye plucked out as well.

Next came the murderers. Seven were brought forth, one an innkeep who had been killing certain of his guests (those he judged would not be missed) and stealing their valuables since the Old King’s time. Where the other murderers were hanged straightaway, he had his hands hacked off and burned before his eyes, then he was hung by a noose and disemboweled as he strangled.

   Last came the three most prominent prisoners, the ones that the mob had been waiting for: yet another “Shepherd Reborn,” the captain of a Pentoshi merchantman who had been accused and found guilty of bringing the Winter Fever from Sisterton to King’s Landing, and the former Grand Maester Orwyle, a convicted traitor and a deserter from the Night’s Watch. The King’s Justice, Ser Victor Risley, attended to each of them himself. He removed the heads of the Pentoshi and the false Shepherd with his headsman’s axe, but Grand Maester Orwyle was granted the honor of dying by the sword, in view of his age, high birth, and long service.

“When Our Father’s Feast was done and the mob before the gates dispersed, the King’s Hand was well satisfied,” wrote Septon Eustace, who would depart for Stoney Sept the next day. “Would that I could write that the smallfolk returned to their homes and hovels to fast and pray and beg forgiveness for their own sins, but that would be far from the truth. Flush with blood, they sought out dens of sin instead, and the city’s alehouses, wine sinks, and brothels were crowded unto bursting, for such is the wickedness of men.” Mushroom says the same, though in his own way. “Whenever I see a man put to death, I like to have a flagon and a woman afterward, to remind myself that I am still alive.”

King Aegon III stood atop the gatehouse battlements throughout the Feast of Our Father Above, and never spoke nor looked away from the bloodletting below. “The king had as well been made of wax,” observed Septon Eustace. Grand Maester Munkun echoes him. “His Grace was present, as was his duty, yet somehow he seemed far away as well. Some of the condemned turned to the battlements to shout out cries for mercy, but the king never seemed to see them, nor hear their desperate words. Make no mistake. This feast was served to us by the Hand, and ’twas he who gorged upon it.”

By midyear the castle, city, and king were all firmly in the grasp of the new Hand. The smallfolk were quiet, the Winter Fever had receded, Queen Jaehaera hid in seclusion in her chambers, King Aegon trained in the yard by morning and stared at the stars by night. Beyond the walls of King’s Landing, however, the woes that had afflicted the realm these past two years had only worsened. Trade had withered away to nothing, war continued in the west, famine and fever ruled much of the North, and to the south the Dornishmen were growing bolder and more troublesome. It was past time the Iron Throne showed its power, Lord Peake decided.

   Construction had been completed on eight of the ten great warships commissioned by Ser Tyland, so the Hand resolved to begin by opening the narrow sea to trade once more. To command the royal fleet, he tapped another uncle, Ser Gedmund Peake, a seasoned battler known as Gedmund Great-Axe for his favored weapon. Though justly renowned for his prowess as a warrior, Ser Gedmund had little knowledge or experience of ships, however, so his lordship also summoned the notorious sellsail Ned Bean (called Blackbean, for his thick black beard) to serve as the Great-Axe’s second-in-command and advise him on all matters nautical.

The situation in the Stepstones as Ser Gedmund and Blackbean set sail was chaotic, to say the least. Racallio Ryndoon’s ships had been swept from the sea for the most part, but he still ruled Bloodstone, largest of the islands, and a few smaller rocks. The Tyroshi had been on the point of overwhelming him when Lys and Myr had made peace and launched a joint attack on Tyrosh, forcing the Archon to recall his ships and swords. The three-headed alliance of Braavos, Pentos, and Lorath had lost one of its heads with the withdrawal of the Lorathi, but the Pentoshi sellswords now held all the Stepstones not in the hands of Racallio’s men, and the Braavosi warships owned the waters between.

Westeros could not hope to prevail in a sea war against Braavos, Lord Unwin knew. His purpose, he declared, was to put an end to the rogue Racallio Ryndoon and his piratical kingdom and establish a presence upon Bloodstone, to ensure that never again could the narrow sea be closed. The royal fleet—comprised of the eight new warships and some twenty older cogs and galleys—was nowise large enough to accomplish this, so the Hand wrote to Driftmark, instructing the Lord of the Tides to gather “your lord grandsire’s fleets and put them under the command of our good uncle Gedmund, so that he may open the sea roads once again.”

   This was no more than Alyn Velaryon had long desired, as the Sea Snake had before him, though when he read the message the young lord bristled and declared, “They are my fleets now, and Baela’s monkey is more suited to command them than Nuncle Gedmund.” Even so, he did as he was bid, bringing together sixty war galleys, thirty longships, and more than a hundred cogs and great cogs to meet the royal fleet as it swept out from King’s Landing. As the great war fleet passed through the Gullet, Ser Gedmund sent over Blackbean to Lord Alyn’s flagship, Queen Rhaenys, with a letter authorizing him to take command of the Velaryon squadrons, “so that they may benefit from his many years of experience.” Lord Alyn sent him back. “I would have hanged him,” he wrote to Ser Gedmund, “but I am loath to waste good hempen rope on a bean.”

In winter, strong north winds oft prevail upon the narrow sea, so the fleet made splendid time on its voyage south. Off Tarth, another dozen longships rowed out to further swell their ranks, commanded by Lord Bryndemere the Evenstar. The tidings that his lordship brought proved less welcome, however. The Sealord of Braavos, the Archon of Tyrosh, and Racallio Ryndoon had made common cause; they would rule the Stepstones jointly, and only such ships as were licensed to trade by Braavos or Tyrosh would be allowed to pass. “What of Pentos?” Lord Alyn wanted to know. “Discarded,” the Evenstar informed him. “A pie split three ways offers larger slices than one cut into quarters.”

Gedmund Great-Axe (who had been so seasick during the voyage that the sailors had named him Gedmund Green-Sick) decided that the King’s Hand should be informed of this new alignment amongst the warring cities. The Evenstar had already sent a raven to King’s Landing, so Peake decreed that the fleet would remain at Tarth until a reply was received. “That will lose us any hope of taking Racallio by surprise,” argued Alyn Velaryon, but Ser Gedmund proved adamant. The two commanders parted angrily.