She was undeniably a beauty. But your first is always beautiful, Theon Greyjoy thought. “Now there’s a pretty grin,” a woman’s voice said behind him. “The lordling likes the look of her, does he?”  Theon turned to give her an appraising glance. He liked what he saw. Ironborn, he knew at a glance; lean and longlegged, with black hair cut short, wind-chafed skin, strong sure hands, a dirk at her belt. Her nose was too big and too sharp for her thin face, but her smile made up for it. He judged her a few years older than he was, but no more than five-and twenty. She moved as if she were used to a deck beneath her feet.  “Yes, she’s a sweet sight,” he told her, “though not half so sweet as you.”  “Oho.” She grinned. “I’d best be careful. This lordling has a honeyed tongue.”  “Taste it and see.”  “Is it that way, then?” she said, eyeing him boldly. There were women on the iron Islands-not many, but a few-who crewed the longships along with their men, and it was said that salt and sea changed them, gave them a man’s appetites. “Have you been that long at sea, lordling? Or were there no women where you came from?”  “Women enough, but none like you.”  “And how would you know what I’m like?”  “My eyes can see your face. My ears can hear your laughter. And my cock’s gone hard as a mast for you.”  The woman stepped close and pressed a hand to the front of his breeches. “Well, you’re no liar,” she said, giving him a squeeze through the cloth. “How bad does it hurt?”  “Fiercely.”  “Poor lordling.” She released him and stepped back. “As it happens, I’m a woman wed, and new with child.”  “The gods are good,” Theon said. “No chance I’d give you a bastard that way.”  “Even so, my man wouldn’t thank you.”  “No, but you might.”  “And why would that be? I’ve had lords before. They’re made the same as other men.”  “Have you ever had a prince?” he asked her. “When you’re wrinkled and grey and your teats hang past your belly, you can tell your children’s children that once you loved a king.”  “Oh, is it love we’re talking now? And here I thought it was just cocks and cunts.”  “Is it love you fancy?” He’d decided that he liked this wench, whoever she was; her sharp wit was a welcome respite from the damp gloom of Pyke. “Shall I name my longship after you, and play you the high harp, and keep you in a tower room in my castle with only jewels to wear, like a princess in a song?”  “You ought to name your ship after me,” she said, ignoring all the rest. “It was me who built her.”  “Sigrin built her. My lord father’s shipwright.”   “I’m Esgred. Ambrode’s daughter, and wife to Sigrin.”  He had not known that Ambrode had a daughter, or Sigrin a wife... but he’d met the younger shipwright only once, and the older one he scarce remembered. “You’re wasted on Sigrin.”  “Oho. Sigrin told me this sweet ship is wasted on you.”  Theon bristled. “Do you know who I am?”  “Prince Theon of House Greyjoy. Who else? Tell me true, my lord, how well do you love her, this new maid of yours? Sigrin will want to know.”  The longship was so new that she still smelled of pitch and resin. His uncle Aeron would bless her on the morrow, but Theon had ridden over from Pyke to get a look at her before she was launched. She was not so large as Lord Balon’s own Great Kraken or his uncle Victarion’s Iron Victory, but she looked swift and sweet, even sitting in her wooden cradle on the strand; lean black hull a hundred feet long, a single tall mast, fifty long oars, deck enough for a hundred men... and at the prow, the great iron ram in the shape of an arrowhead. “Sigrin did me g............