Long Bridge

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The Long Bridge is an old bridge that joins the two halves of Volantis across the mouth of the Rhoyne. It is a great span with a road supported by massive piers that the Valyrians built at the height of their glory.

It’s gateway is an arch of black stone carved with sphinxes, manticores, dragons and other strange beasts. The road is just wide enough for two carts to pass abreast. Buildings rise on either side of the roadway. One can buy almost anything in the shops on the Long Bridge. In the center of the bridge the hands of thieves and the heads of executed criminals are displayed.

Crossing the Long Bridge

After fruitlessly attempting to buy sea passage to Meereen Quentyn Martell and his companions cross the Long Bridge in a hathay pulled by a dwarf elephant.[1] Near the western end the traffic becomes thicker. Wyans and carts and hathays crowd the streets, all of them coming from the bridge or making for it. Slaves are everywhere, as numerous as roaches, scurrying about their master’s business.

Months later a fettered Tyrion and his captor Ser Jorah Mormont walk over the Long Bridge on the way to the Merchant's House. [2] Buildings rise on either side of them: shops and temples, taverns and inns, cyvasse parlors and brothels. Most are 3 to 4 stories tall, each floor overhanging the one beneath it, their top floors almost kiss.

To Tyrion, crossing the bridge feels like passing through a torchlit tunnel. Along the span are shops over every sort: weavers and lacemakers display their wares cheek by jowl with glassblowers, candlemakers, and fishwives selling eels and oysters. Each goldsmith has a guard at his door, and every spicer has two, for their goods are twice as valuable.

Here and there, between the shops, a traveler might catch a glimpse of the river he is crossing. To the north the Rhoyne is a broad black ribbon bright with stars, five times as wide as the Blackwater Rush at King's Landing. South of the bridge the river opens up to embrace the briny sea.

At the bridge’s center span, the severed hands of thieves and cutpurses hang like strings of onions from iron stanchions along the roadway. Three heads are on display as well – two men and a woman, their crimes scrawled on tablets underneath them. A pair of spearmen attend them, clad in polished helms and shirts of silver mail. Across their cheeks are tiger stripes as green as jade. From time to time the guards wave their spears to chase kestrels, gulls and carrion crows paying court to the deceased. The birds return to the heads within moments.

Farther on Ser Jorah stops to consider and jeweled tiara displayed upon a bed of purple velvet, he passes it by and a few steps later stops again to haggle over a pair of gloves at a leatherworkers stall.

From the far end of the Long Bridge it is only a short walk for them through the teeming waterfront districts of the west bank, down torchlit streets crowded with sailors, slaves, and drunken merrymakers. Not far is Fishmonger’s Square and their intended destination - the Merchant's House.

Recent Events

A Dance with Dragons

Qyenten Martell and his companions cross the Long Bridge in a hathay pulled by a dwarf elephant to get to the Merchant's House.

Tyrion and his captor Ser Jorah Mormont cross the Long Bridge in order to get to the Merchant's House and the widow of the waterfront.

References and Notes