The Merchant's House is the largest inn in Volantis. Located on Fishmonger's Square along the western shore of the Rhoyne, it is popular with foreign travelers[1] and is the first choice for shippers, captains, and merchantmen.[2]
Layout
The common room is a cavernous warren, larger than the great halls of many Westerosi castles.[2] The maze of the common room is built around a central courtyard. A trellis of flowering vines throws intricate patterns across its flagstone floor, and green and purple moss grows between the stones.[2] The dimly-lit interior of the common room has numerous private alcoves and hidden nooks which are ideal for discrete business. The widow of the waterfront has a customary table back by the courtyard where she is steeped in shadow. Slave girls serve flagons of ale, wine, and an iced green drink that smells of mint.[2]
The Merchant's House is famous for its locks, which are as secure as a gaol.[2] There are cheap rooms on the fourth floor, with iron rings set in the walls for chaining up slaves. One of the rooms, edged into a corner of the building beneath a sloping roof, has a low ceiling, a sagging feather bed with an unpleasant odor, and a slanting wood-plank floor. One window looks toward the Long Bridge and the Black Walls, and the other opens on Fishermonger's Square below.[2]
History
After the death of Triarch Vogarro, his widow took up residence at the Merchant's House west and set up her business in its common room.[2]
Recent Events
A Dance with Dragons
Prince Quentyn Martell and his companions, Ser Gerris Drinkwater and Ser Archibald Yronwood, stay at second floor of the Merchant's House while in Volantis. The innkeep advises them against traveling by foot, as persons of quality are expected to travel by hathay or palanquin.[1]
Prior to leaving for Yunkai, four Windblown serjeants set up a trestle table outside of the Merchant's House calling to every passing man and boy, looking for fresh meat to fill their ranks. Their presence hatches Archibald's plan for himself and his companions to join the sellswords as a means to get to Meereen and thereby Daenerys Targaryen.[1]
Ser Jorah Mormont takes his hostage, Tyrion Lannister, to the Merchant's House. He chains Tyrion to the wall in a room on the fourth floor and later takes the dwarf with him when he meets with the widow of the waterfront in the common room. Jorah seeks assistance in finding a ship to take himself and Tyrion to Meereen to meet Daenerys. The widow is reluctant to aid them due to Jorah's secretive attitude, but she ultimately offers them the information they need after Penny attacks Tyrion. The widow has the inn's landlord bring Penny up to her rooms.[2]
Quotes
Four stories tall, the Merchant's House dominated the docks and wharves and storehouses that surrounded it. Here traders from Oldtown and King's Landing mingled with their counterparts from Braavos and Pentos and Myr, with hairy Ibbenese, pale-skinned voyagers from Qarth, coal-black Summer Islanders in feathered cloaks, even masked shadow-binders from Asshai by the Shadow.[1]
—thoughts of Quentyn Martell
Their destination proved to be the Merchant's House, a four-story monstrosity that squatted amongst the warehouses, brothels, and taverns of the waterside like some enormous fat man surrounded by children. Its common room was larger than the great halls of half the castles in Westeros, a dim-lit maze of a place with a hundred private alcoves and hidden nooks whose blackened beams and cracked ceilings echoed to the din of sailors, traders, captains, money changers, shippers, and slavers, lying, cursing, and cheating each other in half a hundred different tongues.[2]
—thoughts of Tyrion Lannister