Chapter 93: Bloody Street
There has been days after the fall of the Sythans, Braavos did not feel like a city that has been the same after the incident people call the Bloody Streets.
The streets were quieter than before, but it was not peace that had settled over them. It was fear. Fear had taken root in the stones and walls, in the markets, in the narrow bridges, in the mouths of men who had seen too much and those who had seen nothing at all yet still believed every tale they were told. The street where the first blood had been spilled had already earned a name.
Bloody Street.
The marks of the fighting were still there. Blades of dried blood blackening in cracks between the paving stones. Houses with smashed doors that had not yet been repaired. A wall where arrows had struck so thickly it looked as if a storm of iron had passed through it and lodged there. The merchants avoided that stretch of road if they could. Even the bravest of them did not speak loudly there.
And the man who had made the city whisper his name in terror was nowhere to be seen.
Bloody Hal had vanished from public view.
But would that make fear go away , No That only made the stories worse.
Some said he was still in his rooms, bleeding behind closed doors, too broken from the siege to stand. Some said he was torturing survivors somewhere in the dark, drinking blood from cups and laughing while men screamed. Some said the North had sent not a man but a demon and that the demon had grown tired and gone to ground.
The truth was simpler.
Artos was wounded. Tired. Resting because his body had finally demanded it.
But truth mattered less than fear, and fear had already done the work better than truth ever could.
If anything, his absence made him larger in the public mind. Men said only his injury had stopped him from killing more of the city.
Men said if not for the wound, Braavos would have become a slaughterhouse from one shore to the other. The northern brutes were feared in the markets now. The Valens were feared with them. Their presence in the city had altered prices, changed voices, and made even proud men step aside when they passed.
At the high tables and in the better houses, the mood was no calmer.
The fall of the Sythans had left Braavos shaken to its bones.
Those with influence were angry, frightened, and scrambling to keep their own names from being dragged into the same ruin. The Sealord was under pressure from every side now. From nobles. From merchants. From the Iron Bank itself. From a public that no longer believed the city had been well ruled, or even safely ruled. The elections loomed, and already men spoke as if he had lost them.
To prevent riots, and perhaps worse, Braavos had slipped into a kind of military lockdown. Guards stood thicker in the streets. Patrols moved in pairs. Gates were watched. Inns were watched. The docks were watched. No one trusted the city to trust itself.
The Sealord hated it.
He hated the fear. He hated the gossip. He hated that the city now seemed to lost its charm and become a City with fear all over it. But it was his decision obviously with a right price and he has been waiting for that price.
And he hated waiting.
So he himself goes to Lord Valen to discuss things .
The meeting took place in a hall . The Sealord stood with his hands clasped behind him, jaw stiff, eyes hard with the strain of the last few days. He looked like a man trying very hard not to show how much he had been shaken.
"Do you have any idea," he said at once, "what they are calling that street now?"
Lord Valen did not answer immediately.
The Sealord gave a short, humorless laugh. "Bloody Street. That is what they call it. As if the city itself were mocking me. As if the blood spilled there were a title worth hanging above the door."
Valen's mouth tightened. "Men name things in war. They always have. Not a thing to suprised or even care. People will cope through it."
"This was not war in the minds of the people," the Sealord snapped. "It was a spectacle. A noble family broken in public, their dead dragged through the streets, and all of Braavos made to watch. Do you understand what that looks like to the city? To the merchants? To the nobles sitting behind me while they wonder whether I might do the same to them if they displease me?"
Valen answered evenly. "It looks like you made a bargain and then found the cost unpleasant. You wanted the same for my family."
The Sealord's eyes flashed. "Mind your tongue, Valen."
"Why?" Valen asked, with a calm that made the insult sharper. "I speak the truth here. You let that Brat Glaro broke every rule of politics warfare. Especially after i supported you after every election."
The Sealord looked ready to speak again, but the doors opened before he could, and the room changed at once.
Artos entered slowly.
He was bandaged across the chest and wrapped at the side, his body still carrying the marks of the siege. He walked with the quiet stiffness of a man not yet healed, and perhaps not fully willing to admit that he needed healing at all. The room fell silent in the way rooms did when a dangerous man entered and everyone present understood he still had the power to kill.
Even injured, Artos looked like a threat.
The Sealord let out a dry breath. "At last. I had begun to think the great Bloody Hal meant to keep me waiting forever."
Artos gave him a flat look. "I Heard something worth to come here. You speak very biased Sealord. Don't blame the game but your bets in the game."
There was a flicker of irritation in the Sealord's face. He had expected a more submissive arrival, perhaps a wounded man humbled by need. Instead, Artos came in as though the city were still his to take if he chose.
Lord Valen, sensing the room tighten, gestured for Artos to sit.
The Sealord noticed the bandages then, and his expression turned mean with the satisfaction of a man who thought pain had finally made his opponent smaller.
"Still recovering, I see."
"Aye, but it seemed you are doing worse than me right now." Artos said.
That ended the game of smiles before it could begin.
The Sealord folded his arms. "Very well. Let us speak plainly, since subtlety has not served us these last few days. The city is in upheaval. The nobles are panicking. The Iron Bank is asking difficult questions. The people have begun naming streets after bloodshed. Do you know what that means, Hal? It means they believe I have lost control."
"You did lose control," Artos said laughing. "You let this happen. Like i said don't blame the game now."
The Sealord's face darkened. "I let you act against the Sythans. I allowed Valen to move. I tolerated violence that should have never touched the city at all, because you promised me something in return."
Artos looked at him and spoke with more intensity than Sealord. "And you took the bargain because it served you."
"It served Braavos."
"IT SERVED YOU," Artos repeated, and there was no softness in it. "Braavos is only useful to a Sealord if that Sealord still sits in his chair."
Valen exhaled quietly but did not interrupt.
The Sealord stepped forward. "Do not lecture me on rule. I am the one who must answer for the consequences of your bloodletting."
"YOUR BLOODLETTING," Artos corrected. "You let Glaro do this. You let the Sythans do this bullshit . You took gold and looked away until it became convenient to see again."
The Sealord's jaw flexed. "And now I am the one being blamed by every noble in the city."
"Then perhaps they are angry at the right man for once," Valen said.
The Sealord spun on him. "You forget yourself, Valen."
"No," Valen said. "I remember every part of this. I bore the very brunts of this."
For a moment the hall was silent except for the muffled sounds of the city outside.
Then the Sealord said, with tight control, "The city does not forgive spectacle. It does not forgive public blood. It does not forgive a noble house being torn down in the open while the Sealord stands by. The elections are close. Every man in Braavos now thinks he can smell weakness on my robe."
"And yet you still sit the chair," Artos said.
The Sealord's mouth tightened. "Fine. The Sythans are gone. Now my deal. I think it's enough time , atleast give me something solid for me to pay back some pressure."
Artos did not answer at once.
When he did, his voice had changed.
"The Sythans were the cost you paid for the price, price that is support of the Iron Bank and influence of the Valens especially now that it has fear and respect among Nobles" he said.
That made both men look at him.
Artos went on. "You wanted the Pentos deal brought here. You wanted Iron Bank support behind it. You paid the price for all this by allowing fall of Sythans and I paid the price by accepting a campaign against the Dothraki for Pentos. This was the price i paid. So be a little patient."
The Sealord's expression shifted, just slightly.
Valen watched him closely.
Artos continued, "You knew what we wanted. You knew what Braavos could gain. The Pentoshi need gold, ships, arms, and men with enough teeth to make the bargain real. The Iron Bank is willing to fund it because profit lies in victory and in trade that stays open after the smoke clears. A lot of gold will move. A lot of power with it. And Braavos will have a hand in all of it."
The Sealord said nothing.
Artos took another step, and despite the bandages, the room seemed to move with him.
"You let the Sythans fall because you needed this deal to come alive in the city," Artos said. "You took the political wound now because you know what comes after. If this campaign happens and even if it fails Iron Bank will benefit regardless by intersts on gold they lend, the Sealord of Braavos will not be remembered as the man who lost a noble house. He will be remembered as the man whose city helped fund the campaign that changed the eastern trade routes and put the Iron Bank behind him."
The Sealord stared at him, anger and calculation mixing badly on his face.
"You speak of it as if it is already done."
"It will be done," Artos said. "Lysandro Vex has agreed."
At that, the Sealord's eyes sharpened. "Vex."
"Yes," Artos said. "He has the influence, and he has the means. He will come to Braavos and make the request formally. The loan will be large. The terms will be clear. The Iron Bank will hear profit before you left that chair of yours."
The Sealord gave a slow, incredulous breath. "And you expect me to believe this will calm the city?"
"No," Artos said. "I expect it to save your seat. You don't need public but the Iron Bank gold and influence"
Valen could not help a short, rough laugh at that, though it was mostly from the sheer bluntness of it.
For the first time since Artos had entered, the Sealord looked as if he understood that he was not dealing with a brute alone. The man before him was bandaged, tired, and still standing after a siege. He was dangerous. Something that understood what it cost to win and what it cost to ask others to pay.
When he spoke again, his voice was smaller, though he tried to keep it hard. "The city is already unsettled. They call the street Bloody Street. They say your name as if it were a curse. They say if not for your wound, there would be no city left to govern."
Artos gave a tired exhale through his nose. "Then let them say it. It helps you in the end . Afterall we support you. So it will balance out after the deal."
The Sealord studied him a moment longer, then asked, "And what of your part in this? You look half dead already. Will you even able to participate"
Artos did not answer right away.
His eyes drifted, for a moment, to the side window, to the light outside, to somewhere past the city's walls and beyond the harbor where other roads waited.
Another war.
Pentos.
The thought came with a weariness so deep it almost made him laugh. He had barely finished tearing one city apart and already another was rising to meet him. Never in his life he thought he would be weary from war and not excited.
He sighed.
It was a small sound, but it altered the room more than any raised voice could have done.
Lord Valen noticed it at once. The Sealord did too.
Artos looked back at them, his expression unreadable.
"We will handle the rest, you don't need to worry. Help us arranging a meeting with Bank and Usm" Valen said quietly, as if he understood something had shifted.
Artos nodded once, though his mind had already begun to drift.
Seraphine came to him in that drift, though He saw her as she had been days earlier, and his thoughts went to the conversation they had shared then, to something left unfinished between them. He did not speak of it. The memory only hung there, half-formed and private.
The Sealord was still talking, still weighing the balance of Braavos, still trying to drag the future into a shape he could survive.
Artos heard none of it clearly anymore.
He was already thinking of Pentos.
And of what waited there.
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