Long Bridge

The Long Bridge is the great stone span that connects the eastern and western halves of Volantis, the oldest and proudest of the Nine Free Cities. Built by the Valyrian Freehold at the height of its power, the bridge is a fused-stone roadway supported by massive piers, wide enough for two carts to pass abreast, and lined with shops, stalls, and houses that rise three or four stories on either side, so that crossing it feels like passing through a torchlit tunnel. It serves as the city's central artery, a marketplace, a place of public punishment, and a symbolic threshold between the ancient Valyrian heart of Volantis—the Black Wall—and the teeming, polyglot waterfront districts of the west bank.

Architecture and Construction

The Long Bridge was raised by the Valyrians at the height of their glory, its fused stone roadway supported by massive piers that rise from the river. The road is just wide enough for two carts to pass abreast, so whenever a wagon headed west passes one going east, both must slow to a crawl. Buildings rise to either side of the span—shops and temples, taverns and inns, cyvasse parlors and brothels—most three or four stories tall, each floor overhanging the one beneath it, so that the top floors almost kiss. Crossing the bridge feels like passing through a torchlit tunnel. Along the span are shops and stalls of 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 may 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.

A Place of Punishment and Display

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, their cheeks marked with green tiger stripes. From time to time the guards wave their spears to chase away the kestrels, gulls, and carrion crows paying court to the deceased. The birds return to the heads within moments. The woman was a slave who raised her hand to her mistress; the older man was accused of fomenting rebellion and spying for the dragon queen; the young one killed his father. Tyrion Lannister, crossing the bridge in chains, gives the rotting head of the patricide a second look and thinks, "Why, it almost looks as if those lips are smiling."

A Market and a Thoroughfare

The Long Bridge is not merely a crossing but a marketplace in its own right. A leatherworker's stall offers gloves; a jeweler displays a tiara upon a bed of purple velvet. The bridge is thronged day and night with merchants, slaves, sailors, and travelers. When Tyrion Lannister crosses it in fetters, a boy tries to reach into his purse, but a hard elbow puts an end to that and spreads the thief's bloody nose across half his face. The gateway to the Long Bridge is a black stone arch carved with sphinxes, manticores, dragons, and creatures stranger still. Beyond the arch stretches the great span. A third of the way out, a wagon laden with melons gets its wheels tangled with one piled high with silken carpets, bringing all wheeled traffic to a halt. Much of the foot traffic stops as well, to watch the drivers curse and scream at one another.

Symbolic Threshold

The Long Bridge marks the boundary between two Volantises. East of the river lies the oldest, richest part of the city, enclosed by the Black Wall—a great oval of fused stone two hundred feet high, raised by the Valyrians when Volantis was no more than an outpost of their empire. Outlanders, foreigners, and freedmen are not allowed inside the Black Wall save at the invitation of those who dwell within, scions of the Old Blood who can trace their ancestry back to Valyria itself. West of the river lie the teeming waterfront districts, where sailors, slaves, and traders mingle in a cacophony of foreign tongues. The bridge is the only connection between these two worlds. When Tyrion Lannister crosses it, he is moving from the realm of the Old Blood into the chaotic, polyglot west bank, where the Merchant's House and the slave markets of the waterfront await. The severed heads and hands at the center serve as a grim reminder of the law that binds both sides of the river.