He is afraid to dismount, lest he get his boots wet."I have the god's work to do." Aeron Greyjoy was a prophet. He did not suffer petty lords ordering him about like some thrall.

"Gorold's had a bird," said The Sparr.

"A maester's bird, from Pyke," Gormond confirmed.

Dark wings, dark words,"The ravens fly o'er salt and stone. If there are tidings that concern me, speak them now."

"Such tidings as we bear are for your ears alone, Damphair," The Sparr said. "These are not matters I would speak of here before these others."

"These othersare my drowned men, god's servants, just as I am. I have no secrets from them, nor from our god beside whose holy sea I stand."

The horsemen exchanged a look. "Tell him," said The Sparr, and the youth in the red cloak summoned up his courage. "The king is dead," he said, as plain as that. Four small words, yet the sea itself trembled when he uttered them.

Four kings there were in Westeros, yet Aeron did not need to ask which one was meant. Balon Greyjoy ruled theIronIslands, and no other. The king is dead. How can that be? Aeron had seen his eldest brother not a moon's turn past, when he had returned to theIronIslandsfrom harrying the Stony Store. Balon's grey hair had gone half white whilst the priest had been away, and the stoop in his shoulders was more pronounced than when the long-ships sailed. Yet all in all the king had not seemed ill.

Aeron Greyjoy had built his life upon two mighty pillars. Those four small words had knocked one down. Only the Drowned God remains to me. May he make me as strong and tireless as the sea. "Tell me the manner of my brother's death."

"His Grace was crossing a bridge at Pyke when he fell, and was dashed upon the rocks below."

The Greyjoy stronghold stood upon broken headland, its keeps and towers built atop massive stone stacks that thrust up from the sea. Bridges knotted Pyke together; arched bridges of carved stone, and swaying spans of hempen rope and wooden planks. "Was the storm raging when he fell?" Aeron demanded of them,