ADWD 26 – Les erre-au-vent

On délaisse La Compagnie dorée qui finalement part à l’ouest pour retrouver Quentyn et ses compagnons. Ils sont bien à l’est, engagés chez des mercenaires et en route pour voir Daenerys. Chose intéressante, on nous parle du Prince en guenilles qui avait été évoqué dans un chapitre précédent.

Point titre du livre

We’ll get provisions in Yunkai, maybe fresh horses, then it will be on to Meereen to dance with the dragon queen.

Quentyn et compagnie ont été embauchés mais ils ont caché leur identité et leurs liens.

In Dorne Quentyn Martell had been a prince, in Volantis a merchant’s man, but on the shores of Slaver’s Bay he was only Frog, squire to the big bald Dornish knight the sellswords called Greenguts. The men of the Windblown used what names they would, and changed them at a whim. They’d fastened Frog on him because he hopped so fast when the big man shouted a command.

D’ailleurs dans la compagnie, tout le monde ou presque a un surnom. On en profite pour nous balancer l’histoire de la compagnie (tiens, tiens Pentos) et du seul survivant parmi les six fondateurs

L’objectif reste clair : Daenerys. Mais il y a beaucoup de rumeurs sur elle

“Arch is the best fighter of the three of us,” Drinkwater had pointed out, “but only you can hope to wed the dragon queen.”

Wed her or fight her; either way, I will face her soon. The more Quentyn heard of Daenerys Targaryen, the more he feared that meeting. The Yunkai’i claimed that she fed her dragons on human flesh and bathed in the blood of virgins to keep her skin smooth and supple. Beans laughed at that but relished the tales of the silver queen’s promiscuity. “One of her captains comes of a line where the men have foot-long members,” he told them, “but even he’s not big enough for her. She rode with the Dothraki and grew accustomed to being fucked by stallions, so now no man can fill her.” And Books, the clever Volantene swordsman who always seemed to have his nose poked in some crumbly scroll, thought the dragon queen both murderous and mad. “Her khal killed her brother to make her queen. Then she killed her khal to make herself khaleesi. She practices blood sacrifice, lies as easily as she breathes, turns against her own on a whim. She’s broken truces, tortured envoys … her father was mad too. It runs in the blood.”

It runs in the blood. King Aerys II had been mad, all of Westeros knew that. He had exiled two of his Hands and burned a third. If Daenerys is as murdeous as her father, must I still marry her? Prince Doran had never spoken of that possibility.

Quentyn a sa première expérience de la guerre, ça le marque. Et pourtant on lui dit que ce n’était pas vraiment la guerre, mais quelque chose de bien moindre.

Le matériel est de mauvaise qualité mais il faut bien sacrifier au paraître pour ne pas se faire griller (oups foreshadowing)

 Greenguts’s mail was old and heavy, patched and patched again, much worn. The same was true of his helm, his gorget, greaves, and gauntlets, and the rest of his mismatched plate. Frog’s kit was only slightly better, and Ser Gerris’s was notably worse. Company steel, the armorer had called it. Quentyn had not asked how many other men had worn it before him, how many men had died in it. They had abandoned their own fine armor in Volantis, along with their gold and their true names. Wealthy knights from Houses old in honor did not cross the narrow sea to sell their swords, unless exiled for some infamy. “I’d sooner pose as poor than evil,” Quentyn had declared, when Gerris had explained his ruse to them.

Tiens j’ai appris une expression

It took the Windblown less than an hour to strike their camp

GRRM nous explique la géopolitique de la région avec les villes et les compagnies mercenaires. Puis, comme par hasard, on présente en détails « la Baleine jaune ». On la reverra (mais je ne sais pas si on saura d’où vient son argent)

On parlait de surnom, non ?

“Some say that herons are majestic,” said Old Bill Bone. “If your king eats frogs while standing on one leg.”

/

(sur les hérons)

Kicked up so much wind it blew me off my horse, but Cletus nocked an arrow to his string and brought one down. Tasted like duck, but not so greasy.

La référence aux Français dans Sacré Graal ? J’avais oublié

That dragon queen’s got the real item, the kind that don’t break and run when you fart in their general direction.

Quentyn se remémore l’escarmouche (la boucherie ?) contre Astapor

Mais le vrai projet se rapproche

There was much and more about this Quentyn did not like himself. Sailing on an overcrowded ship tossed by wind and sea, eating hard-bread crawling with weevils and drinking black tar rum to sweet oblivion, sleeping on piles of moldy straw with the stench of strangers in his nostrils … all that he had expected when he made his mark on that scrap of parchment in Volantis, pledging the Tattered Prince his sword and service for a year. Those were hardships to be endured, the stuff of all adventures.

But what must come next was plain betrayal. The Yunkai’i had brought them from Old Volantis to fight for the Yellow City, but now the Dornishmen meant to turn their cloaks and go over to the other side. That meant abandoning their new brothers-in-arms as well. The Windblown were not the sort of companions Quentyn would have chosen, but he had crossed the sea with them, shared their meat and mead, fought beside them, traded tales with those few whose talk he understood. And if all his tales were lies, well, that was the cost of passage to Meereen.

It is not what you’d call honorable, Gerris had warned them, back at the Merchant’s House.

Il va falloir déserter, mais au bon moment pour éviter d’être rattrapés. Et qui dit que Meereen les accueillera favorablement ?

A ce moment, leur employeur les convoque et il y a plein de Ouestriens dans la tente.

Petite pensée pour Stannis (la promotion en moins)

Sour and saturnine, with a maimed hand, Hungerford had been company paymaster for a time, until the Tattered Prince had caught him stealing from the coffers and removed three of his fingers. Now he was just a serjeant.

Point jeu de mot

Neither Caggo nor D’han was Westerosi, but both were captains and stood high in the Tattered Prince’s regard. His right arm and his left. Something major is afoot.

Et là, surprise, le Prince en guenilles leur demande de déserter sans rien dire. Pour avoir un pied dans chaque camp, donc le bon (et donc le mauvais aussi). Ohlàlà ça tombe bien quand même, c’est pile le plan de Quentyn

The Tattered Prince went on as if no one had spoken. “Webber, you nurse claims to lands lost in Westeros. Lanster, I killed that boy you were so fond of. You Dornish three, you think we lied to you. The plunder from Astapor was much less than you were promised in Volantis, and I took the lion’s share of it.”

“The last part’s true,” Ser Orson said. “The best ruses always have some seed of truth,” said the Tattered Prince. “Every one of you has ample reason for wanting to abandon me. And Daenerys Targaryen knows that sellswords are a fickle lot. Her own Second Sons and Stormcrows took Yunkish gold but did not hesitate to join her when the tide of battle began to flow her way.”

Un chapitre où ça avance, mais pas non plus ultra passionnant pour moi.

Il me semble que c’est Gerris Boisleau, et non Archibald Ferboys, qui propose le plan de rejoindre les Erres-au-vent.

And fires, fires everywhere. He could close his eyes and see them still: flames whirling from brick pyramids larger than any castle he had ever seen, plumes of greasy smoke coiling upward like great black snakes.

Quentyn traumatisé par les feux d’Astapor. J’espère que cela ne présage rien de sinistre…

« Daenerys may be halfway to Yunkai by now, with an army at her back, » Quentyn said as they walked amongst the horses.

« She may be, » Gerris said, « but she’s not. We’ve heard such talk before. The Astapori were convinced Daenerys was coming south with her dragons to break the siege. She didn’t come then, and she’s not coming now. »

« Wait till Yunkai. » Gerris gestured at the hills. « These lands belong to the Yunkai’i. No one is like to want to feed or shelter three deserters. North of Yunkai, that’s no-man’s-land. »

The gods are mad.

C’est indiqué sur le wiki

La version française du titre de ce chapitre peut étonner, puisque c’est le premier (et le seul) de toute la saga à être au pluriel. Il s’agit en réalité d’un choix de traduction, le titre en version originale étant The Windblown, invariable, et qui peut donc se traduire au singulier ou au pluriel. La traduction de Patrick Marcel a choisi la deuxième solution, mais toute la logique des chapitres par PoV plaide pour la première. L’édition intégrale en poche chez J’ai lu ou chez France Loisirs est d’ailleurs revenue sur ce choix, en traduisant ce titre par « L’Erre-au-Vent ».

Ce chapitre permet de découvrir une autre compagnie. On est plutôt sur le bas de gamme par rapport à la Compagnie Dorée. Mais au moins ils recrutent facilement, ce qui est bien pratique pour Quentyn et les dorniens.

En parlant de pratique, il est vrai que le deuxième ex machina intervient bien à propos dans ce chapitre et dans le précédent. En même temps, GRRM s’était tellement compliqué la vie, il fallait bien en sortir d’une façon ou d’une autre. Sinon c’est le tome 5 qu’on serait toujours en train d’attendre…