Sloe-Eyed Maid
The Sloe-Eyed Maid is a trading ship. Daenerys Targaryen looked to gain passage on the ship when trying to flee Qarth. After leaving Qarth Sloe-Eyed Maid made for Braavos at some point, but a gale swept her into the Bite and she smashed up against some rocks. She may have been lured by a false light. Lord Godric Borrell plundered her [1] helping himself to forty chests of pepper. Not to mention cloves and nutmeg, and a pound of saffron.
Interestingly, the tale of Dany attempting to gain passage on her eventually reached all the way to Westeros, and the ears of Davos Seaworth when he was at the Lazy Eel in White Harbor.
Recent Events
A Clash of Kings
When Daenerys Targaryen wanted to leave Qarth, she found the Sloe-Eyed Maid in the harbor. She considered it too small for her purposes.[2]
A Dance With Dragons
While Davos is in White Harbor, at a winesink named the Lazy Eel, amongst the patrons talk turns to the Targaryens and the Mad King’s daughter, none of the patrons are sure what the name of the princess was. Davos mentions that her name was Daenerys and that he doesn’t know what became of her.
A Braavosi oarsman immediately says he does know what became of her, and recounts a tale he heard from the captain's steward of the Sloe-Eyed Maid. In Qarth, Daenerys tried to gain passage on the Sloe-Eyed Maid, but the captain rejected her:
When we were down in Pentos we moored beside a trader called the Sloe-Eyed Maid, and I got to drinking with her captain’s steward. He told me a pretty tale about some slip of a girl who come aboard in Qarth, to try and book passage back to Westeros for her and three dragons. Silver hair she had, and purple eyes. ‘I took her to the captain my own self,’ this steward swore to me, ‘but he wasn’t having none of that. There’s more profit in cloves and saffron, he tells me, and spices won’t set fire to your sails. [3]
Davos already knows what had befallen the Sloe-Eyed Maid. The gods were cruel to let a man sail across half the world, then send him chasing a false light when he was almost home. That captain was a bolder man than me, he thinks.[4]
Earlier on while Davos is sharing sister's stew with Lord Godric Borrell in Sweetsister Lord Godric tells him of the spices he took off of a sloe-eyed maid, he laughs and says:
Davos thinks to himself not as treacherous as men.
References and Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 9, Davos I.
- ↑ A Clash of Kings, Chapter 63, Daenerys
- ↑ A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 15, Davos II.
- ↑ A Dance with Dragons, Davos II, p.200