A Clash of Kings - Chapter 40

DAENERYS
The drapes kept out the dust and heat of the streets, but they could not keep out disappointment. Dany climbed inside wearily, glad for the refuge from the sea of Qartheen eyes. "Make way," Jhogo shouted at the crowd from horseback, snapping his whip, "make way, make way for the Mother of Dragons."
Reclining on cool satin cushions, Xaro Xhoan Daxos poured ruby-red wine into matched goblets of jade and gold, his hands sure and steady despite the sway of the palanquin. "I see a deep sadness written upon your face, my light of love." He offered her a goblet. "Could it be the sadness of a lost dream?"
"A dream delayed, no more." Dany's tight silver collar was chafing against her throat. She unfastened it and flung it aside. The collar was set with an enchanted amethyst that Xaro swore would ward her against all poisons. The Pureborn were notorious for offering poisoned wine to those they thought dangerous, but they had not given Dany so much as a cup of water. They never saw me for a queen, she thought bitterly. I was only an afternoon's amusement, a horse girl with a curious pet.
Rhaegal hissed and dug sharp black claws into her bare shoulder as Dany stretched out a hand for the wine. Wincing, she shifted him to her other shoulder, where he could claw her gown instead of her skin. She was garbed after the Qartheen fashion. Xaro had warned her that the Enthroned would never listen to a Dothraki, so she had taken care to go before them in flowing green samite with one breast bared, silvered sandals on her feet, with a belt of black-and-white pearls about her waist. For all the help they offered, I could have gone naked. Perhaps I should have. She drank deep.
Descendants of the ancient kings and queens of Qarth, the Pureborn commanded the Civic Guard and the fleet of ornate galleys that ruled the straits between the seas. Daenerys Targaryen had wanted that fleet, or part of it, and some of their soldiers as well. She made the traditional sacrifice in the Temple of Memory, offered the traditional bribe to the Keeper of the Long List, sent the traditional persimmon to the Opener of the Door, and finally received the traditional blue silk slippers summoning her to the Hall of a Thousand Thrones.
The Pureborn heard her pleas from the great wooden seats of their ancestors, rising in curved tiers from a marble floor to a high-domed ceiling painted with scenes of Qarth's vanished glory. The chairs were immense, fantastically carved, bright with goldwork and studded with amber, onyx, lapis, and jade, each one different from all the others, and each striving to be the most fabulous. Yet the men who sat in them seemed so listless and world-weary that they might have been asleep. They listened, but they did not hear, or care, she thought. They are Milk Men indeed. They never meant to help me. They came because they were curious. They came because they were bored, and the dragon on my shoulder interested them more than I did.
"Tell me the words of the Pureborn," prompted Xaro Xhoan Daxos. "Tell me what they said to sadden the queen of my heart."
"They said no." The wine tasted of pomegranates and hot summer days. "They said it with great courtesy, to be sure, but under all the lovely words, it was still no."
"Did you flatter them?"
"Shamelessly."
"Did you weep?"
"The blood of the dragon does not weep," she said testily.
Xaro sighed. "You ought to have wept." The Qartheen wept often and easily; it was considered a mark of the civilized man. "The men we bought, what did they say?"
"Mathos said nothing. Wendello praised the way I spoke. The Exquisite refused me with the rest, but he wept afterward."
"Alas, that Qartheen should be so faithless." Xaro was not himself of the Pureborn, but he had told her whom to bribe and how much to offer. "Weep, weep, for the treachery of men."
Dany would sooner have wept for her gold. The bribes she'd tendered to Mathos Mallarawan, Wendello Qar Deeth, and Egon Emeros the Exquisite might have bought her a ship, or hired a score of sellswords. "Suppose I sent Ser Jorah to demand the return of my gifts?" she asked.
"Suppose a Sorrowful Man came to my palace one night and killed you as you slept," said Xaro. The Sorrowful Men were an ancient sacred guild of assassins, so named because they always whispered, "I am so sorry," to their victims before they killed them. The Qartheen were nothing if not polite. "It is wisely said that it is easier to milk the Stone Cow of Faros than to wring gold from the Pureborn."
Dany did not know where Faros was, but it seemed to her that Qarth was full of stone cows. The merchant princes, grown vastly rich off the trade between the seas, were pided into three jealous factions: the Ancient Guild of Spicers, the Tourmaline Brotherhood, and the Thirteen, to which Xaro belonged. Each vied with the others for dominance, and all three contended endlessly with the Pureborn. And brooding over all were the warlocks, with their blue lips and dread powers, seldom seen but much feared.
She would have been lost without Xaro. The gold that she had squandered to open the doors of the Hall of a Thousand Thrones was largely a product of the merchant's generosity and quick wits. As the rumor of living dragons had spread through the east, ever more seekers had come to learn if the tale was true—and Xaro Xhoan Daxos saw to it that the great and the humble alike offered some token to the Mother of Dragons.
The trickle he started soon swelled to a flood. Trader captains brought lace from Myr, chests of saffron from Yi Ti, amber and dragonglass out of Asshai. Merchants offered bags of coin, silversmiths rings and chains. Pipers piped for her, tumblers tumbled, and jugglers juggled, while dyers draped her in colors she had never known existed. A pair of Jogos Nhai presented her with one of their striped zorses, black and white and fierce. A widow brought the dried corpse of her husband, covered with a crust of silvered leaves; such remnants were believed to have great power, especially if the deceased had been a sorcerer, as this one had. And the Tourmaline Brotherhood pressed on her a crown wrought in the shape of a three-headed dragon; the coils were yellow gold, the wings silver, the heads carved from jade, ivory, and onyx.
The crown was the only offering she'd kept. The rest she sold, to gather the wealth she had wasted on the Pureborn. Xaro would have sold the crown too—the Thirteen would see that she had a much finer one, he swore—but Dany forbade it. "Viserys sold my mother's crown, and men called him a beggar. I shall keep this one, so men will call me a queen." And so she did, though the weight of it made her neck ache.
Yet even crowned, I am a beggar still, Dany thought. I have become the most splendid beggar in the world, but a beggar all the same. She hated it, as her brother must have. All those years of running from city to city one step ahead of the Usurper's knives, pleading for help from archons and princes and magisters, buying our food with flattery. He must have known how they mocked him. Small wonder he turned so angry and bitter. In the end it had driven him mad. It will do the same to me if I let it. Part of her would have liked nothing more than to lead her people back to Vaes Tolorro, and make the dead city bloom. No, that is defeat. I have something Viserys never had. I have the dragons. The dragons are all the difference.
She stroked Rhaegal. The green dragon closed his teeth around the meat of her hand and nipped hard. Outside, the great city murmured and thrummed and seethed, all its myriad voices blending into one low sound like the surge of the sea. "Make way, you Milk Men, make way for the Mother of Dragons," Jhogo cried, and the Qartheen moved aside, though perhaps the oxen had more to do with that than his voice. Through the swaying draperies, Dany caught glimpses of him astride his grey stallion. From time to time he gave one of the oxen a flick with the silver-handled whip she had given him. Aggo guarded on her other side, while Rakharo rode behind the procession, watching the faces in the crowd for any sign of danger. Ser Jorah she had left behind today, to guard her other dragons; the exile knight had been opposed to this folly from the start. He distrusts everyone, she reflected, and perhaps for good reason.
As Dany lifted her goblet to drink, Rhaegal sniffed at the wine and drew his head back, hissing. "Your dragon has a good nose." Xaro wiped his lips. "The wine is ordinary. It is said that across the Jade Sea they make a golden vintage so fine that one sip makes all other wines taste like vinegar. Let us take my pleasure barge and go in search of it, you and I."
"The Arbor makes the best wine in the world," Dany declared. Lord Redwyne had fought for her father against the Usurper, she remembered, one of the few to remain true to the last. Will he fight for me as well? There was no way to be certain after so many years. "Come with me to the Arbor, Xaro, and you'll have the finest vintages you ever tasted. But we'll need to go in a warship, not a pleasure barge."
"I have no warships. War is bad for trade. Many times I have told you, Xaro Xhoan Daxos is a man of peace."
Xaro Xhoan Daxos is a man of gold, she thought, and gold will buy me all the ships and swords I need. "I have not asked you to take up a sword, only to lend me your ships."
He smiled modestly. "Of trading ships I have a few, that is so. Who can say how many? One may be sinking even now, in some stormy corner of the Summer Sea. On the morrow, another will fall afoul of corsairs. The next day, one of my captains may look at the wealth in his hold and think, All this should belong to me. Such are the perils of trade. Why, the longer we talk, the fewer ships I am likely to have. I grow poorer by the instant."
"Give me ships, and I will make you rich again."
"Marry me, bright light, and sail the ship of my heart. I cannot sleep at night for thinking of your beauty."
Dany smiled. Xaro's flowery protestations of passion amused her, but his manner was at odds with his words. While Ser Jorah had scarcely been able to keep his eyes from her bare breast when he'd helped her into the palanquin, Xaro hardly deigned to notice it, even in these close confines. And she had seen the beautiful boys who surrounded the merchant prince, flitting through his palace halls in wisps of silk. "You speak sweetly, Xaro, but under your words I hear another no."
"This Iron Throne you speak of sounds monstrous cold and hard. I cannot bear the thought of jagged barbs cutting your sweet skin." The jewels in Xaro's nose gave him the aspect of some strange glittery bird. His long, elegant fingers waved dismissal. "Let this be your kingdom, most exquisite of queens, and let me be your king. I will give you a throne of gold, if you like. When Qarth begins to pall, we can journey round Yi Ti and search for the dreaming city of the poets, to sip the wine of wisdom from a dead man's skull."
"I mean to sail to Westeros, and drink the wine of vengeance from the skull of the Usurper." She scratched Rhaegal under one eye, and his jade-green wings unfolded for a moment, stirring the still air in the palanquin.
A single perfect tear ran down the cheek of Xaro Xhoan Daxos. "Will nothing turn you from this madness?"
"Nothing," she said, wishing she was as certain as she sounded. "If each of the Thirteen would lend me ten ships—"
"You would have one hundred thirty ships, and no crew to sail them. The justice of your cause means naught to the common men of Qarth. Why should my sailors care who sits upon the throne of some kingdom at the edge of the world?"
"I will pay them to care."
"With what coin, sweet star of my heaven?"
"With the gold the seekers bring."
"That you may do," Xaro acknowledged, "but so much caring will cost dear. You will need to pay them far more than I do, and all of Qarth laughs at my ruinous generosity."
"If the Thirteen will not aid me, perhaps I should ask the Guild of Spicers or the Tourmaline Brotherhood?"
Xaro gave a languid shrug. "They will give you nothing but flattery and lies. The Spicers are dissemblers and braggarts and the Brotherhood is full of pirates."
"Then I must heed Pyat Pree, and go to the warlocks."
The merchant prince sat up sharply. "Pyat Pree has blue lips, and it is truly said that blue lips speak only lies. Heed the wisdom of one who loves you. Warlocks are bitter creatures who eat dust and drink of shadows. They will give you naught. They have naught to give."
"I would not need to seek sorcerous help if my friend Xaro Xhoan Daxos would give me what I ask."
"I have given you my home and heart, do they mean nothing to you? I have given you perfume and pomegranates, tumbling monkeys and spitting snakes, scrolls from lost Valyria, an idol's head and a serpent's foot. I have given you this palanquin of ebony and gold, and a matched set of bullocks to bear it, one white as ivory and one black as jet, with horns inlaid with jewels."
"Yes," Dany said. "But it was ships and soldiers I wanted."
"Did I not give you an army, sweetest of women? A thousand knights, each in shining armor."
The armor had been made of silver and gold, the knights of jade and beryl and onyx and tourmaline, of amber and opal and amethyst, each as tall as her little finger. "A thousand lovely knights," she said, "but not the sort my enemies need fear. And my bullocks cannot carry me across the water, I—why are we stopping?" The oxen had slowed notably.
"Khaleesi, " Aggo called through the drapes as the palanquin jerked to a sudden halt. Dany rolled onto an elbow to lean out. They were on the fringes of the bazaar, the way ahead blocked by a solid wall of people. "What are they looking at?"
Jhogo rode back to her. "A firemage, Khaleesi."
"I want to sec."
"Then you must." The Dothraki offered a hand down. When she took it, he pulled her up onto his horse and sat her in front of him, where she could see over the heads of the crowd. The firemage had conjured a ladder in the air, a crackling orange ladder of swirling flame that rose unsupported from the floor of the bazaar, reaching toward the high latticed roof.
Most of the spectators, she noticed, were not of the city: she saw sailors off trading ships, merchants come by caravan, dusty men out of the red waste, wandering soldiers, craftsmen, slavers. Jhogo, slid one hand about her waist and leaned close. "The Milk Men shun him. Khaleesi, do you see the girl in the felt hat? There, behind the fat priest. She is a—"
"—cutpurse," finished Dany. She was no pampered lady, blind to such things. She had seen cutpurses aplenty in the streets of the Free Cities, during the years she'd spent with her brother, running from the Usurper's hired knives.
The mage was gesturing, urging the flames higher and higher with broad sweeps of his arms. As the watchers craned their necks upward, the cutpurses squirmed through the press, small blades hidden in their palms. They relieved the prosperous of their coin with one hand while pointing upward with the other.
When the fiery ladder stood forty feet high, the mage leapt forward and began to climb it, scrambling up hand over hand as quick as a monkey. Each rung he touched dissolved behind him, leaving no more than a wisp of silver smoke. When he reached the top, the ladder was gone and so was he.
"A fine trick," announced Jhogo with admiration.
"No trick," a woman said in the Common Tongue.
Dany had not noticed Quaithe in the crowd, yet there she stood, eyes wet and shiny behind the implacable red lacquer mask. "What mean you, my lady?"
"Half a year gone, that man could scarcely wake fire from dragonglass. He had some small skill with powders and wildfire, sufficient to entrance a crowd while his cutpurses did their work. He could walk across hot coals and make burning roses bloom in the air, but he could no more aspire to climb the fiery ladder than a common fisherman could hope to catch a kraken in his nets."
Dany looked uneasily at where the ladder had stood. Even the smoke was gone now, and the crowd was breaking up, each man going about his business. In a moment more than a few would find their purses flat and empty. "And now?"
"And now his powers grow, Khaleesi. And you are the cause of it."
"Me?" She laughed. "How could that be?"
The woman stepped closer and lay two fingers on Dany's wrist. "You are the Mother of Dragons, are you not?"
"She is, and no spawn of shadows may touch her." Jhogo brushed Quaithe's fingers away with the handle of his whip.
The woman took a step backward. "You must leave this city soon, Daenerys Targaryen, or you will never be permitted to leave it at all."
Dany's wrist still tingled where Quaithe had touched her. "Where would you have me go?" she asked.
"To go north, you must journey south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow."
Asshai, Dany thought. She would have me go to Asshai. "Will the Asshai'i give me an army?" she demanded. "Will there be gold for me in Asshai? Will there be ships? What is there in Asshai that I will not find in Qarth?"
"Truth," said the woman in the mask. And bowing, she faded back into the crowd.
Rakharo snorted contempt through his drooping black mustachios. "Khaleesi, better a man should swallow scorpions than trust in the spawn of shadows, who dare not show their face beneath the sun. It is known."
"It is known," Aggo agreed.
Xaro Xhoan Daxos had watched the whole exchange from his cushions. When Dany climbed back into the palanquin beside him, he said, "Your savages are wiser than they know. Such truths as the Asshai'i hoard are not like to make you smile." Then he pressed another cup of wine on her, and spoke of love and lust and other trifles all the way back to his manse.
In the quiet of her chambers, Dany stripped off her finery and donned a loose robe of purple silk. Her dragons were hungry, so she chopped up a snake and charred the pieces over a brazier. They are growing, she realized as she watched them snap and squabble over the blackened flesh. They must weigh twice what they had in Vaes Tolorro. Even so, it would be years before they were large enough to take to war. And they must be trained as well, or they will lay my kingdom waste. For all her Targaryen blood, Dany had not the least idea of how to train a dragon.
Ser Jorah Mormont came to her as the sun was going down. "The Pureborn refused you?"
"As you said they would. Come, sit, give me your counsel." Dany drew him down to the cushions beside her, and Jhiqui brought them a bowl of purple olives and onions drowned in wine.
"You will get no help in this city, Khaleesi." Ser Jorah took an onion between thumb and forefinger. "Each day I am more convinced of that than the day before. The Pureborn see no farther than the walls of Qarth, and Xaro . . . "
"He asked me to marry him again."
"Yes, and I know why." When the knight frowned, his heavy black brows joined together above his deep-set eyes.
"He dreams of me, day and night." She laughed.
"Forgive me, my queen, but it is your dragons he dreams of."
"Xaro assures me that in Qarth, man and woman each retain their own property after they are wed. The dragons are mine." She smiled as Drogon came hopping and flapping across the marble floor to crawl up on the cushion beside her.
"He tells it true as far as it goes, but there's one thing he failed to mention. The Qartheen have a curious wedding custom, my queen. On the day of their union, a wife may ask a token of love from her husband. Whatsoever she desires of his worldly goods, he must grant. And he may ask the same of her. One thing only may be asked, but whatever is named may not be denied."
"One thing," she repeated. "And it may not be denied?"
"With one dragon, Xaro Xhoan Daxos would rule this city, but one ship will further our cause but little."
Dany nibbled at an onion and reflected ruefully on the faithlessness of men. "We passed through the bazaar on our way back from the Hall of a Thousand Thrones," she told Ser Jorah. "Quaithe was there." She told him of the firemage and the fiery ladder, and what the woman in the red mask had told her.
"I would be glad to leave this city, if truth be told," the knight said when she was done. "But not for Asshai."
"Where, then?"
"East," he said.
"I am half a world away from my kingdom even here. If I go any farther east I may never find my way home to Westeros."
"If you go west, you risk your life."
"House Targaryen has friends in the Free Cities," she reminded him. "Truer friends than Xaro or the Pureborn."
"If you mean Illyrio Mopatis, I wonder. For sufficient gold, Illyrio would sell you as quickly as he would a slave."
"My brother and I were guests in Illyrio's manse for half a year. If he meant to sell us, he could have done it then."
"He did sell you," Ser Jorah said. "To Khal Drogo."
Dany flushed. He had the truth of it, but she did not like the sharpness with which he put it. "Illyrio protected us from the Usurper's knives, and he believed in my brother's cause."
"Illyrio believes in no cause but Illyrio. Gluttons are greedy men as a rule, and magisters are devious. Illyrio Mopatis is both. What do you truly know of him?"
"I know that he gave me my dragon eggs."
He snorted. "If he'd known they were like to hatch, he'd would have sat on them himself."
That made her smile despite herself. "Oh, I have no doubt of that, ser. I know Illyrio better than you think. I was a child when I left his manse in Pentos to wed my sun-and-stars, but I was neither deaf nor blind. And I am no child now."
"Even if Illyrio is the friend you think him," the knight said stubbornly, "he is not powerful enough to enthrone you by himself, no more than he could your brother."
"He is rich," she said. "Not so rich as Xaro, perhaps, but rich enough to hire ships for me, and men as well."
"Sellswords have their uses," Ser Jorah admitted, "but you will not win your father's throne with sweepings from the Free Cities. Nothing knits a broken realm together so quick as an invading army on its soil."
"I am their rightful queen," Dany protested.
"You are a stranger who means to land on their shores with an army of outlanders who cannot even speak the Common Tongue. The lords of Westeros do not know you, and have every reason to fear and mistrust you. You must win them over before you sail. A few at least."
"And how am I to do that, if I go east as you counsel?"
He ate an olive and spit out the pit into his palm. "I do not know, Your Grace," he admitted, "but I do know that the longer you remain in one place, the easier it will be for your enemies to find you. The name Targaryen still frightens them, so much so that they sent a man to murder you when they heard you were with child. What will they do when they learn of your dragons?"
Drogon was curled up beneath her arm, as hot as a stone that has soaked all day in the blazing sun. Rhaegal and Viserion were fighting over a scrap of meat, buffeting each other with their wings as smoke hissed from their nostrils. My furious children, she thought. They must not come to harm. "The comet led me to Qarth for a reason. I had hoped to find my army here, but it seems that will not be. What else remains, I ask myself?" I am afraid, she realized, but I must be brave. "Come the morrow, you must go to Pyat Pree."

Categories: A Clash of Kings

A Clash of Kings - Chapter 39

CATELYN
Two days ride from Riverrun, a scout spied them watering their horses beside a muddy steam. Catelyn had never been so glad to see the twin tower badge of House Frey.
When she asked him to lead them to her uncle, he said, "The Blackfish is gone west with the king, my lady. Martyn Rivers commands the outriders in his stead."
"I see." She had met Rivers at the Twins; a baseborn son of Lord Walder Frey, half brother to Ser Perwyn. It did not surprise her to learn that Robb had struck at the heart of Lannister power; clearly he had been contemplating just that when he sent her away to treat with Renly. "Where is Rivers now?"
"His camp is two hours ride, my lady."
"Take us to him," she commanded. Brienne helped her back into her saddle, and they set out at once.
"Have you come from Bitterbridge, my lady?" the scout asked.
"No." She had not dared. With Renly dead, Catelyn had been uncertain of the reception she might receive from his young widow and her protectors. Instead she had ridden through the heart of the war, through fertile riverlands turned to blackened desert by the fury of the Lannisters, and each night her scouts brought back tales that made her ill. "Lord Renly is slain," she added.
"We'd hoped that tale was some Lannister lie, or—"
"Would that it were. My brother commands in Riverrun?"
"Yes, my lady. His Grace left Ser Edmure to hold Riverrun and guard his rear."
Gods grant him the strength to do so, Catelyn thought. And the wisdom as well. "Is there word from Robb in the west?"
"You have not heard?" The man seemed surprised. "His Grace won a great victory at Oxcross. Ser Stafford Lannister is dead, his host scattered."
Ser Wendel Manderly gave a whoop of pleasure, but Catelyn only nodded. Tomorrow's trials concerned her more than yesterday's triumphs.
Martyn Rivers had made his camp in the shell of a shattered holdfast, beside a roofless stable and a hundred fresh graves. He went to one knee when Catelyn dismounted. "Well met, my lady. Your brother charged us to keep an eye out for your party, and escort you back to Riverrun in all haste should we come upon you."
Catelyn scarce liked the sound of that. "Is it my father?"
"No, my lady. Lord Hoster is unchanged." Rivers was a ruddy man with scant resemblance to his half brothers. "It is only that we feared you might chance upon Lannister scouts. Lord Tywin has left Harrenhal and marches west with all his power."
"Rise," she told Rivers, frowning. Stannis Baratheon would soon be on the march as well, gods help them all. "How long until Lord Tywin is upon us?"
"Three days, perhaps four, it is hard to know. We have eyes out along all the roads, but it would be best not to linger."
Nor did they. Rivers broke his camp quickly and saddled up beside her, and they set off again, near fifty strong now, flying beneath the direwolf, the leaping trout, the twin towers.
Her men wanted to hear more of Robb's victory at Oxcross, and Rivers obliged. "There's a singer come to Riverrun, calls himself Rymund the Rhymer, he's made a song of the fight. Doubtless you'll hear it sung tonight, my lady. ‘Wolf in the Night' this Rymund calls it." He went on to tell how the remnants of Ser Stafford's host had fallen back on Lannisport. Without siege engines there was no way to storm Casterly Rock, so the Young Wolf was paying the Lannisters back in kind for the devastation they'd inflicted on the riverlands. Lords Karstark and Glover were raiding along the coast, Lady Mormont had captured thousands of cattle and was driving them back toward Riverrun, while the Greatjon had seized the gold mines at Castamere, Nunn's Deep, and the Pendric Hills. Ser Wendel laughed. "Nothing's more like to bring a Lannister running than a threat to his gold."
"How did the king ever take the Tooth?" Ser Perwyn Frey asked his bastard brother. "That's a hard strong keep, and it commands the hill road."
"He never took it. He slipped around it in the night. It's said the direwolf showed him the way, that Grey Wind of his. The beast sniffed out a goat track that wound down a defile and up along beneath a ridge, a crooked and stony way, yet wide enough for men riding single file. The Lannisters in their watchtowers got not so much a glimpse of them." Rivers lowered his voice. "There's some say that after the battle, the king cut out Stafford Lannister's heart and fed it to the wolf."
"I would not believe such tales," Catelyn said sharply. "My son is no savage."
"As you say, my lady. Still, it's no more than the beast deserved. That is no common wolf, that one. The Greatjon's been heard to say that the old gods of the north sent those direwolves to your children."
Catelyn remembered the day when her boys had found the pups in the late summer snows. There had been five, three male and two female for the five trueborn children of House Stark . . . and a sixth, white of fur and red of eye, for Ned's bastard son Jon Snow. No common wolves, she thought. No indeed.
That night as they made their camp, Brienne sought out her tent. "My lady, you are safely back among your own now, a day's ride from your brother's castle. Give me leave to go."
Catelyn should not have been surprised. The homely young woman had kept to herself all through their journey, spending most of her time with the horses, brushing out their coats and pulling stones from their shoes. She had helped Shadd cook and clean game as well, and soon proved that she could hunt as well as any. Any task Catelyn asked her to turn her hand to, Brienne had performed deftly and without complaint, and when she was spoken to she answered politely, but she never chattered, nor wept, nor laughed. She had ridden with them every day and slept among them every night without ever truly becoming one of them.
It was the same when she was with Renly, Catelyn thought. At the feast, in the melee, even in Renly's pavilion with her brothers of the Rainbow Guard. There are walls around this one higher than Winterfell's.
"If you left us, where would you go?" Catelyn asked her.
"Back," Brienne said. "To Storm's End."
"Alone." It was not a question.
The broad face was a pool of still water, giving no hint of what might live in the depths below. "Yes."
"You mean to kill Stannis."
Brienne closed her thick callused fingers around the hilt of her sword.
The sword that had been his. "I swore a vow. Three times I swore. You heard me."
"I did," Catelyn admitted. The girl had kept the rainbow cloak when she discarded the rest of her bloodstained clothing, she knew. Brienne's own things had been left behind during their flight, and she had been forced to clothe herself in odd bits of Ser Wendel's spare garb, since no one else in their party had garments large enough to fit her. "Vows should be kept, I agree, but Stannis has a great host around him, and his own guards sworn to keep him safe."
"I am not afraid of his guards. I am as good as any of them. I should never have fled."
"Is that what troubles you, that some fool might call you craven?" She sighed. "Renly's death was no fault of youts. You served him valiantly, but when you seek to follow him into the earth, you serve no one." She stretched out a hand, to give what comfort a touch could give. "I know how hard it is—"
Brienne shook off her hand. "No one knows."
"You're wrong," Catelyn said sharply. "Every morning, when I wake, I remember that Ned is gone. I have no skill with swords, but that does not mean that I do not dream of riding to King's Landing and wrapping my hands around Cersei Lannister's white throat and squeezing until her face turns black."
The Beauty raised her eyes, the only part of her that was truly beautiful. "If you dream that, why would you seek to hold me back? Is it because of what Stannis said at the parley?"
Was it? Catelyn glanced across the camp. Two men were walking sentry, spears in hand. "I was taught that good men must fight evil in this world, and Renly's death was evil beyond all doubt. Yet I was also taught that the gods make kings, not the swords of men. If Stannis is our rightful king—"
"He's not. Robert was never the rightful king either, even Renly said as much. Jaime Lannister murdered the rightful king, after Robert killed his lawful heir on the Trident. Where were the gods then? The gods don't care about men, no more than kings care about peasants."
"A good king does care."
"Lord Renly . . . His Grace, he . . . he would have been the best king, my lady, he was so good, he . . . "
"He is gone, Brienne," she said, as gently as she could. "Stannis and Joffrey remain . . . and so does my son."
"He wouldn't . . . you'd never make a peace with Stannis, would you? Bend the knee? You wouldn't . . . "
"I will tell you true, Brienne. I do not know. My son may be a king, but I am no queen . . . only a mother who would keep her children safe, however she could."
"I am not made to be a mother. I need to fight."
"Then fight . . . but for the living, not the dead. Renly's enemies are Robb's enemies as well."
Brienne stared at the ground and shuffled her feet. "I do not know your son, my lady." She looked up. "I could serve you. If you would have me."
Catelyn was startled. "Why me?"
The question seemed to trouble Brienne. "You helped me. In the pavilion . . . when they thought that I had . . . that I had . . . "
"You were innocent."
"Even so, you did not have to do that. You could have let them kill me. I was nothing to you."
Perhaps I did not want to be the only one who knew the dark truth of what had happened there, Catelyn thought. "Brienne, I have taken many wellborn ladies into my service over the years, but never one like you. I am no battle commander."
"No, but you have courage. Not battle courage perhaps but . . . I don't know . . . a kind of woman's courage. And I think, when the time comes, you will not try and hold me back. Promise me that. That you will not hold me back from Stannis."
Catelyn could still hear Stannis saying that Robb's turn too would come in time. It was like a cold breath on the back of her neck. "When the time comes, I will not hold you back."
The tall girl knelt awkwardly, unsheathed Renly's longsword, and laid it at her feet. "Then I am yours, my lady. Your liege man, or . . . whatever you would have me be. I will shield your back and keep your counsel and give my life for yours, if need be. I swear it by the old gods and the new."
"And I vow that you shall always have a place by my hearth and meat and mead at my table, and pledge to ask no service of you that might bring you into dishonor. I swear it by the old gods and the new. Arise." As she clasped the other woman's hands between her own, Catelyn could not help but smile. How many times did I watch Ned accept a man's oath of service? She wondered what he would think if he could see her now.
They forded the Red Fork late the next day, upstream of Riverrun where the river made a wide loop and the waters grew muddy and shallow. The crossing was guarded by a mixed force of archers and pikemen wearing the eagle badge of the Mallisters. When they saw Catelyn's banners, they emerged from behind their sharpened stakes and sent a man over from the far bank to lead her party across. "Slow and careful like, milady," he warned as he took the bridle of her horse. "We've planted iron spikes under the water, y'see, and there's caltrops scattered among them rocks there. It's the same on all the fords, by your brother's command."
Edmure thinks to fight here. The realization gave her a queasy feeling in the bowels, but she held her tongue.
Between the Red Fork and the Tumblestone, they joined a stream of smallfolk making for the safety of Riverrun. Some were driving animals before them, others pulling wayns, but they made way as Catelyn rode past, and cheered her with cries of "Tully!" or "Stark!" Half a mile from the castle, she passed through a large encampment where the scarlet banner of the Blackwoods waved above the lord's tent. Lucas took his leave of her there, to seek out his father, Lord Tytos. The rest rode on.
Catelyn spied a second camp strung out along the bank north of the Tumblestone, familiar standards flapping in the wind—Marq Piper's dancing maiden, Darry's plowman, the twining red-and-white snakes of the Paeges. They were all her father's bannermen, lords of the Trident. Most had left Riverrun before she had, to defend their own lands. If they were here again, it could only mean that Edmure had called them back. Gods save us, it's true, he means to offer battle to Lord Tywin.
Something dark was dangling against the walls of Riverrun, Catelyn saw from a distance. When she rode close, she saw dead men hanging from the battlements, slumped at the ends of long ropes with hempen nooses tight around their necks, their faces swollen and black. The crows had been at them, but their crimson cloaks still showed bright against the sandstone walls.
"They have hanged some Lannisters," Hal Mollen observed.
"A pretty sight," Ser Wendel Manderly said cheerfully.
"Our friends have begun without us," Perwyn Frey jested. The others laughed, all but Brienne, who gazed up at the row of bodies unblinking, and neither spoke nor smiled.
If they have slain the Kingslayer, then my daughters are dead as well. Catelyn spurred her horse to a canter. Hal Mollen and Robin Flint raced past at a gallop, halooing to the gatehouse. The guards on the walls had doubtless spied her banners some time ago, for the portcullis was up as they approached.
Edmure rode out from the castle to meet her, surrounded by three of her father's sworn men—great-bellied Ser Desmond Grell the master-at-arms, Utherydes Wayn the steward, and Ser Robin Ryger, Riverrun's big bald captain of guards. They were all three of an age with Lord Hoster, men who had spent their lives in her father's service. Old men, Catelyn realized.
Edmure wore a blue-and-red cloak over a tunic embroidered with silver fish. From the look of him, he had not shaved since she rode south; his beard was a fiery bush. "Cat, it is good to have you safely back. When we heard of Renly's death, we feared for your life. And Lord Tywin is on the march as well."
"So I am told. How fares our father?"
"One day he seems stronger, the next . . . " He shook his head. "He's asked for you. I did not know what to tell him."
"I will go to him soon," she vowed. "Has there been word from Storm's End since Renly died? Or from Bitterbridge?" No ravens came to men on the road, and Catelyn was anxious to know what had happened behind her.
"Nothing from Bitterbridge. From Storm's End, three birds from the castellan, Ser Cortnay Penrose, all carrying the same plea. Stannis has him surrounded by land and sea. He offers his allegiance to whatsoever king will break the siege. He fears for the boy, he says. What boy would that be, do you know?"
"Edric Storm," Brienne told them. "Robert's bastard son."
Edmure looked at her curiously. "Stannis has sworn that the garrison might go free, unharmed, provided they yield the castle within the fortnight and deliver the boy into his hands, but Ser Cortnay will not consent."
He risks all for a baseborn boy whose blood is not even his own, Catelyn thought. "Did you send him an answer?"
Edmure shook his head. "Why, when we have neither help nor hope to offer? And Stannis is no enemy of ours."
Ser Robin Ryger spoke. "My lady, can you tell us the manner of Lord Renly's death? The tales we've heard have been queer."
"Cat," her brother said, "some say you killed Renly. Others claim it was some southron woman." His glance lingered on Brienne.
"My king was murdered," the girl said quietly, "and not by Lady Catelyn. I swear it on my sword, by the gods old and new."
"This is Brienne of Tarth, the daughter of Lord Selwyn the Evenstar, who served in Renly's Rainbow Guard," Catelyn told them. "Brienne, I am honored to acquaint you with my brother Ser Edmure Tully, heir to Riverrun. His steward Utherydes Wayn. Ser Robin Ryger and Ser Desmond Grell."
"Honored," said Ser Desmond. The others echoed him. The girl flushed, embarrassed even at this commonplace courtesy. If Edmure thought her a curious sort of lady, at least he had the grace not to say so.
"Brienne was with Renly when he was killed, as was I," said Catelyn, "but we had no part in his death." She did not care to speak of the shadow, here in the open with men all around, so she waved a hand at the bodies. "Who are these men you've hanged?"
Edmure glanced up uncomfortably. "They came with Ser Cleos when he brought the queen's answer to our peace offer."
Catelyn was shocked. "You've killed envoys?"
"False envoys," Edmure declared. "They pledged me their peace and surrendered their weapons, so I allowed them freedom of the castle, and for three nights they ate my meat and drank my mead whilst I talked with Ser Cleos. On the fourth night, they tried to free the Kingslayer." He pointed up. "That big brute killed two guards with naught but those ham hands of his, caught them by the throats and smashed their skulls together while that skinny lad beside him was opening Lannister's cell with a bit of wire, gods curse him. The one on the end was some sort of damned mummer. He used my own voice to command that the River Gate be opened. The guardsmen swear to it, Enger and Delp and Long Lew, all three. If you ask me, the man sounded nothing like me, and yet the oafs were raising the portcullis all the same."
This was the Imp's work, Catelyn suspected; it stank of the same sort of cunning he had displayed at the Eyrie. Once, she would have named Tyrion the least dangerous of the Lannisters. Now she was not so certain. "How is it you caught them?"
"Ah, as it happened, I was not in the castle. I'd crossed the Tumblestone to, ah . . . "
"You were whoring or wenching. Get on with the tale."
Edmure's cheeks flamed as red as his beard. "It was the hour before dawn, and I was only then returning. When Long Lew saw my boat and recognized me, he finally thought to wonder who was standing below barking commands, and raised a cry."
"Tell me the Kingslayer was retaken."
"Yes, though not easily. Jaime got hold of a sword, slew Poul Pernford and Ser Desmond's squire Myles, and wounded Delp so badly that Maester Vyman fears he'll soon die as well. It was a bloody mess. At the sound of steel, some of the other red cloaks rushed to join him, barehand or no. I hanged those beside the four who freed him, and threw the rest in the dungeons. Jaime too. We'll have no more escapes from that one. He's down in the dark this time, chained hand and foot and bolted to the wall."
"And Cleos Frey?"
"He swears he knew naught of the plot. Who can say? The man is half Lannister, half Frey, and all liar. I put him in Jaime's old tower cell."
"You say he brought terms?"
"If you can call them that. You'll like them no more than I did, I promise."
"Can we hope for no help from the south, Lady Stark?" asked Utherydes Wayn, her father's steward. "This charge of incest . . . Lord Tywin does not suffer such slights lightly. He will seek to wash the stain from his daughter's name with the blood of her accuser, Lord Stannis must see that. He has no choice but to make common cause with us."
Stannis has made common cause with a power greater and darker. "Let us speak of these matters later." Catelyn trotted over the drawbridge, putting the grisly row of dead Lannisters behind her. Her brother kept pace. As they rode out into the bustle of Riverrun's upper bailey, a naked toddler ran in front of the horses. Catelyn jerked her reins hard to avoid him, glancing about in dismay. Hundreds of smallfolk had been admitted to the castle, and allowed to erect crude shelters against the walls. Their children were everywhere underfoot, and the yard teemed with their cows, sheep, and chickens. "Who are all these folk?"
"My people," Edmure answered. "They were afraid."
Only my sweet brother would crowd all these useless mouths into a castle that might soon be under siege. Catelyn knew that Edmure had a soft heart; sometimes she thought his head was even softer. She loved him for it, yet still . . .
"Can Robb be reached by raven?"
"He's in the field, my lady," Ser Desmond replied. "The bird would have no way to find him."
Utherydes Wayn coughed. "Before he left us, the young king instructed us to send you on to the Twins upon your return, Lady Stark. He asks that you learn more of Lord Walder's daughters, to help him select his bride when the time comes."
"We'll provide you with fresh mounts and provisions," her brother promised. "You'll want to refresh yourself before—"
"I'll want to stay," Catelyn said, dismounting. She had no intention of leaving Riverrun and her dying father to pick Robb's wife for him. Robb wants me safe, I cannot fault him for that, but his pretext is growing threadbare. "Boy," she called, and an urchin from the stables ran out to take the reins of her horse.
Edmure swung down from his saddle. He was a head taller than she was, but he would always be her little brother. "Cat," he said unhappily, "Lord Tywin is coming—"
"He is making for the west, to defend his own lands. If we close our gates and shelter behind the walls, we can watch him pass with safety."
"This is Tully land," Edmure declared. "If Tywin Lannister thinks to cross it unbloodied, I mean to teach him a hard lesson."
The same lesson you taught his son? Her brother could be stubborn as river rock when his pride was touched, but neither of them was likely to forget how Ser Jaime had cut Edmure's host to bloody pieces the last time he had offered battle. "We have nothing to gain and everything to lose by meeting Lord Tywin in the field," Catelyn said tactfully.
"The yard is not the place to discuss my battle plans."
"As you will. Where shall we go?"
Her brother's face darkened. For a moment she thought he was about to lose his temper with her, but finally he snapped, "The godswood. If you will insist."
She followed him along a gallery to the godswood gate. Edmure's anger had always been a sulky, sullen thing. Catelyn was sorry she had wounded him, but the matter was too important for her to concern herself with his pride. When they were alone beneath the trees, Edmure turned to face her.
"You do not have the strength to meet the Lannisters in the field," she said bluntly.
"When all my strength is marshaled, I should have eight thousand foot and three thousand horse," Edmure said.
"Which means Lord Tywin will have near twice your numbers."
"Robb's won his battles against worse odds," Edmure replied, "and I have a plan. You've forgotten Roose Bolton. Lord Tywin defeated him on the Green Fork, but failed to pursue. When Lord Tywin went to Harrenhal, Bolton took the ruby ford and the crossroads. He has ten thousand men. I've sent word to Helman Tallhart to join him with the garrison Robb left at the Twins—"
"Edmure, Robb left those men to hold the Twins and make certain Lord Walder keeps faith with us."
"He has," Edmure said stubbornly. "The Freys fought bravely in the Whispering Wood, and old Ser Stevron died at Oxcross, we hear. Ser Ryman and Black Walder and the rest are with Robb in the west, Martyn has been of great service scouting, and Ser Perwyn helped see you safe to Renly. Gods be good, how much more can we ask of them? Robb's betrothed to one of Lord Walder's daughters, and Roose Bolton wed another, I hear. And haven't you taken two of his grandsons to be fostered at Winterfell?"
"A ward can easily become a hostage, if need be." She had not known that Ser Stevron was dead, nor of Bolton's marriage.
"If we're two hostages to the good, all the more reason Lord Walder dare not play us false. Bolton needs Frey's men, and Ser Helman's as well. I've commanded him to retake Harrenhal."
"That's like to be a bloody business."
"Yes, but once the castle falls, Lord Tywin will have no safe retreat. My own levies will defend the fords of Red Fork against his crossing. If he attacks across the river, he'll end as Rhaegar did when he tried to cross the Trident. If he holds back, he'll be caught between Riverrun and Harrenhal, and when Robb returns from the west we can finish him for good and all."
Her brother's voice was full of brusque confidence, but Catelyn found herself wishing that Robb had not taken her uncle Brynden west with him. The Blackfish was the veteran of half a hundred battles; Edmure was the veteran of one, and that one lost.
"The plan's a good one," he concluded. "Lord Tytos says so, and Lord Jonos as well. When did Blackwood and Bracken agree about anything that was not certain, I ask you?"
"Be that as it may." She was suddenly weary. Perhaps she was wrong to oppose him. Perhaps it was a splendid plan, and her misgivings only a woman's fears. She wished Ned were here, or her uncle Brynden, or . . . "Have you asked Father about this?"
"Father is in no state to weigh strategies. Two days ago he was making plans for your marriage to Brandon Stark! Go see him yourself if you do not believe me. This plan will work, Cat, you'll see."
"I hope so, Edmure. I truly do." She kissed him on the cheek, to let him know she meant it, and went to find her father.
Lord Hoster Tully was much as she had left him—abed, haggard, flesh pale and clammy. The room smelled of sickness, a cloying odor made up in equal parts of stale sweat and medicine. When she pulled back the drapes, her father gave a low moan, and his eyes fluttered open. He stared at her as if he could not comprehend who she was or what she wanted.
"Father." She kissed him. "I am returned."
He seemed to know her then. "You've come," he whispered faintly, lips barely moving.
"Yes," she said. "Robb sent me south, but I hurried back."
"South . . . where . . . is the Eyrie south, sweetling? I don't recall . . . oh, dear heart, I was afraid . . . have you forgiven me, child?" Tears ran down his cheeks.
"You've done nothing that needs forgiveness, Father." She stroked his limp white hair and felt his brow. The fever still burned him from within, despite all the maester's potions.
"It was best," her father whispered. "Jon's a good man, good . . . strong, kind . . . take care of you . . . he will . . . and well born, listen to me, you must, I'm your father . . . your father . . . you'll wed when Cat does, yes you will . . . "
He thinks I'm Lysa, Catelyn realized. Gods be good, he talks as if we were not married yet.
Her father's hands clutched at hers, fluttering like two frightened white birds. "That stripling . . . wretched boy . . . not speak that name to me, your duty . . . your mother, she would . . . " Lord Hoster cried as a spasm of pain washed over him. "Oh, gods forgive me, forgive me, forgive me. My medicine . . . "
And then Maester Vyman was there, holding a cup to his lips. Lord Hoster sucked at the thick white potion as eager as a babe at the breast, and Catelyn could see peace settle over him once more. "He'll sleep now, my lady," the maester said when the cup was empty. The milk of the poppy had left a thick white film around her father's mouth. Maester Vyman wiped it away with a sleeve.
Catelyn could watch no more. Hoster Tully had been a strong man, and proud. It hurt her to see him reduced to this. She went out to the terrace. The yard below was crowded with refugees and chaotic with their noises, but beyond the walls the rivers flowed clean and pure and endless. Those are his rivers, and soon he will return to them for his last voyage.
Maester Vyman had followed her out. "My lady," he said softly, "I cannot keep the end at bay much longer. We ought send a rider after his brother. Ser Brynden would wish to be here."
"Yes," Catelyn said, her voice thick with her grief.
"And the Lady Lysa as well, perhaps?"
"Lysa will not come."
"If you wrote her yourself, perhaps . . . "
"I will put some words to paper, if that please you." She wondered who Lysa's "wretched stripling" had been. Some young squire or hedge knight, like as not . . . though by the vehemence with which Lord Hoster had opposed him, he might have been a tradesman's son or baseborn apprentice, even a singer. Lysa had always been too fond of singers. I must not blame her. Jon Arryn was twenty years older than our father, however noble.
The tower her brother had set aside for her use was the very same that she and Lysa had shared as maids. It would feel good to sleep on a featherbed again, with a warm fire in the hearth; when she was rested the world would seem less bleak.
But outside her chambers she found Utherydes Wayn waiting with two women clad in grey, their faces cowled save for their eyes. Catelyn knew at once why they were here. "Ned?"
The sisters lowered their gaze. Utherydes said, "Ser Cleos brought him from King's Landing, my lady."
"Take me to him," she commanded.
They had laid him out on a trestle table and covered him with a banner, the white banner of House Stark with its grey direwolf sigil. "I would look on him," Catelyn said.
"Only the bones remain, my lady."
"I would look on him," she repeated.
One of the silent sisters turned down the banner.
Bones, Catelyn thought. This is not Ned, this is not the man I loved, the father of my children. His hands were clasped together over his chest, skeletal fingers curled about the hilt of some longsword, but they were not Ned's hands, so strong and full of life. They had dressed the bones in Ned's surcoat, the fine white velvet with the direwolf badge over the heart, but nothing remained of the warm flesh that had pillowed her head so many nights, the arms that had held her. The head had been rejoined to the body with fine silver wire, but one skull looks much like another, and in those empty hollows she found no trace of her lord's dark grey eyes, eyes that could be soft as a fog or hard as stone. They gave his eyes to crows, she remembered.
Catelyn turned away. "That is not his sword."
"Ice was not returned to us, my lady," Utherydes said. "Only Lord Eddard's bones."
"I suppose I must thank the queen for even that much."
"Thank the Imp, my lady. It was his doing."
One day I will thank them all. "I am grateful for your service, sisters," Catelyn said, "but I must lay another task upon you. Lord Eddard was a Stark, and his bones must be laid to rest beneath Winterfell." They will make a statue of him, a stone likeness that will sit in the dark with a direwolf at his feet and a sword across his knees. "Make certain the sisters have fresh horses, and aught else they need for the journey," she told Utherydes Wayn. "Hal Mollen will escort them back to Winterfell, it is his place as captain of guards." She gazed down at the bones that were all that remained of her lord and love. "Now leave me, all of you. I would be alone with Ned tonight."
The women in grey bowed their heads. The silent sisters do not speak to the living, Catelyn remembered dully, but some say they can talk to the dead. And how she envied that . . .

Categories: A Clash of Kings

A Clash of Kings - Chapter 38

ARYA
Confusion and clangor ruled the castle. Men stood on the beds of wagons loading casks of wine, sacks of flour, and bundles of new-fletched arrows. Smiths straightened swords, knocked dents from breastplates, and shoed destriers and pack mules alike. Mail shirts were tossed in barrels of sand and rolled across the lumpy surface of the Flowstone Yard to scour them clean. Weese's women had twenty cloaks to mend, a hundred more to wash. The high and humble crowded into the sept together to pray. Outside the walls, tents and pavilions were coming down. Squires tossed pails of water over cookfires, while soldiers took out their oilstones to give their blades one last good lick. The noise was a swelling tide: horses blowing and whickering, lords shouting commands, men-at-arms trading curses, camp followers squabbling.
Lord Tywin Lannister was marching at last.
Ser Addam Marbrand was the first of the captains to depart, a day before the rest. He made a gallant show of it, riding a spirited red courser whose mane was the same copper color as the long hair that streamed past Ser Addam's shoulders. The horse was barded in bronze-colored trappings dyed to match the rider's cloak and emblazoned with the burning tree. Some of the castle women sobbed to see him go. Weese said he was a great horseman and sword fighter, Lord Tywin's most daring commander.
I hope he dies, Arya thought as she watched him ride out the gate, his men streaming after him in a double column. I hope they all die. They were going to fight Robb, she knew. Listening to the talk as she went about her work, Arya had learned that Robb had won some great victory in the west. He'd burned Lannisport, some said, or else he meant to burn it. He'd captured Casterly Rock and put everyone to the sword, or he was besieging the Golden Tooth . . . but something had happened, that much was certain.
Weese had her running messages from dawn to dusk. Some of them even took her beyond the castle walls, out into the mud and madness of the camp. I could flee, she thought as a wagon rumbled past her. I could hop on the back of a wagon and hide, or fall in with the camp followers, no one would stop me. She might have done it if not for Weese. He'd told them more than once what he'd do to anyone who tried to run off on him. "It won't be no beating, oh, no. I won't lay a finger on you. I'll just save you for the Qohorik, yes I will, I'll save you for the Crippler. Vargo Hoat his name is, and when he gets back he'll cut off your feet." Maybe if Weese were dead, Arya thought . . . but not when she was with him. He could look at you and smell what you were thinking, he always said so.
Weese never imagined she could read, though, so he never bothered to seal the messages he gave her. Arya peeked at them all, but they were never anything good, just stupid stuff sending this cart to the granary and that one to the armory. One was a demand for payment on a gambling debt, but the knight she gave it to couldn't read. When she told him what it said he tried to hit her, but Arya ducked under the blow, snatched a silver-banded drinking horn off his saddle, and darted away. The knight roared and came after her, but she slid between two wayns, wove through a crowd of archers, and jumped a latrine trench. In his mail he couldn't keep up. When she gave the horn to Weese, he told her that a smart little Weasel like her deserved a reward. "I've got my eye on a plump crisp capon to sup on tonight. We'll share it, me and you. You'll like that."
Everywhere she went, Arya searched for Jaqen H'ghar, wanting to whisper another name to him before those she hated were all gone out of her reach, but amidst the chaos and confusion the Lorathi sellsword was not to be found. He still owed her two deaths, and she was worried she would never get them if he rode off to battle with the rest. Finally she worked up the courage to ask one of the gate guards if he'd gone. "One of Lorch's men, is he?" the man said. "He won't be going, then. His lordship's named Ser Amory castellan of Harrenhal. That whole lot's staying right here, to hold the castle. The Bloody Mummers will be left as well, to do the foraging. That goat Vargo Hoat is like to spit, him and Lorch have always hated each other."
The Mountain would be leaving with Lord Tywin, though. He would command the van in battle, which meant that Dunsen, Polliver, and Raff would all slip between her fingers unless she could find Jaqen and have him kill one of them before they left.
"Weasel," Weese said that afternoon. "Get to the armory and tell Lucan that Ser Lyonel notched his sword in practice and needs a new one. Here's his mark." He handed her a square of paper. "Be quick about it now, he's to ride with Ser Kevan Lannister."
Arya took the paper and ran. The armory adjoined the castle smithy, a long high-roofed tunnel of a building with twenty forges built into its walls and long stone water troughs for tempering the steel. Half of the forges were at work when she entered. The walls rang with the sound of hammers, and burly men in leather aprons stood sweating in the sullen heat as they bent over bellows and anvils. When she spied Gendry, his bare chest was slick with sweat, but the blue eyes under the heavy black hair had the stubborn look she remembered. Arya didn't know that she even wanted to talk to him. It was his fault they'd all been caught. "Which one is Lucan?" She thrust out the paper. "I'm to get a new sword for Ser Lyonel."
"Never mind about Ser Lyonel." He drew her aside by the arm. "Last night Hot Pie asked me if I heard you yell Winterfell back at the holdfast, when we were all fighting on the wall."
"I never did!"
"Yes you did. I heard you too."
"Everyone was yelling stuff," Arya said defensively. "Hot Pie yelled hot pie. He must have yelled it a hundred times."
"It's what you yelled that matters. I told Hot Pie he should clean the wax out of his ears, that all you yelled was Go to hell! If he asks you, you better say the same."
"I will," she said, even though she thought go to hell was a stupid thing to yell. She didn't dare tell Hot Pie who she really was. Maybe I should say Hot Pie's name to Jaqen.
"I'll get Lucan," Gendry said.
Lucan grunted at the writing (though Arya did not think he could read it), and pulled down a heavy longsword. "This is too good for that oaf, and you tell him I said so," he said as he gave her the blade.
"I will," she lied. If she did any such thing, Weese would beat her bloody. Lucan could deliver his own insults.
The longsword was a lot heavier than Needle had been, but Arya liked the feel of it. The weight of steel in her hands made her feel stronger. Maybe I'm not a water dancer yet, but I'm not a mouse either. A mouse couldn't use a sword but I can. The gates were open, soldiers coming and going, drays rolling in empty and going out creaking and swaying under their loads. She thought about going to the stables and telling them that Ser Lyonel wanted a new horse. She had the paper, the stableboys wouldn't be able to read it any better than Lucan had. I could take the horse and the sword and just ride out. If the guards tried to stop me I'd show them the paper and say I was bringing everything to Ser Lyonel. She had no notion what Ser Lyonel looked like or where to find him, though. If they questioned her, they'd know, and then Weese . . . Weese . . .
As she chewed her lip, trying not to think about how it would feel to have her feet cut off, a group of archers in leather jerkins and iron helms went past, their bows slung across their shoulders. Arya heard snatches of their talk.
" . . . giants I tell you, he's got giants twenty foot tall come down from beyond the Wall, follow him like dogs . . . "
" . . . not natural, coming on them so fast, in the night and all. He's more wolf than man, all them Starks are . . . "
" . . . shit on your wolves and giants, the boy'd piss his pants if he knew we was coming. He wasn't man enough to march on Harrenhal, was he? Ran t'other way, didn't he? He'd run now if he knew what was best for him."
"So you say, but might be the boy knows something we don't, maybe it's us ought to be run . . . "
Yes, Arya thought. Yes, it's you who ought to run, you and Lord Tywin and the Mountain and Ser Addam and Ser Amory and stupid Ser Lyonel whoever he is, all of you better run or my brother will kill you, he's a Stark, he's more wolf than man, and so am I.
"Weasel." Weese's voice cracked like a whip. She never saw where he came from, but suddenly he was right in front of her. "Give me that. Took you long enough." He snatched the sword from her fingers, and dealt her a stinging slap with the back of his hand. "Next time be quicker about it."
For a moment she had been a wolf again, but Weese's slap took it all away and left her with nothing but the taste of her own blood in her mouth. She'd bitten her tongue when he hit her. She hated him for that.
"You want another?" Weese demanded. "You'll get it too. I'll have none of your insolent looks. Get down to the brewhouse and tell Tuffleberry that I have two dozen barrels for him, but he better send his lads to fetch them or I'll find someone wants 'em worse." Arya started off, but not quick enough for Weese. "You run if you want to eat tonight," he shouted, his promises of a plump crisp capon already forgotten. "And don't be getting lost again, or I swear I'll beat you bloody."
You won't, Arya thought. You won't ever again. But she ran. The old gods of the north must have been guiding her steps. Halfway to the brewhouse, as she passing under the stone bridge that arched between Widow's Tower and Kingspyre, she heard harsh, growling laughter. Rorge came around a corner with three other men, the manticore badge of Ser Amory sewn over their hearts. When he saw her, he stopped and grinned, showing a mouthful of crooked brown teeth under the leather flap he wore sometimes to cover the hole in his face. "Yoren's little cunt," he called her. "Guess we know why that black bastard wanted you on the Wall, don't we?" He laughed again, and the others laughed with him. "Where's your stick now?" Rorge demanded suddenly, the smile gone as quick as it had come. "Seems to me I promised to fuck you with it." He took a step toward her. Arya edged backward. "Not so brave now that I'm not in chains, are you?"
"I saved you." She kept a good yard between them, ready to run quick as a snake if he made a grab for her.
"Owe you another fucking for that, seems like. Did Yoren pump your cunny, or did he like that tight little ass better?"
"I'm looking for Jaqen," she said. "There's a message."
Rorge halted. Something in his eyes . . . could it be that he was scared of Jaqen H'ghar? "The bathhouse. Get out of my way."
Arya whirled and ran, swift as a deer, her feet flying over the cobbles all the way to the bathhouse, She found Jaqen soaking in a tub, steam rising around him as a serving girl sluiced hot water over his head. His long hair, red on one side and white on the other, fell down across his shoulders, wet and heavy.
She crept up quiet as a shadow, but he opened his eyes all the same. "She steals in on little mice feet, but a man hears," he said. How could he hear me? she wondered, and it seemed as if he heard that as well. "The scuff of leather on stone sings loud as warhorns to a man with open ears. Clever girls go barefoot."
"I have a message." Arya eyed the serving girl uncertainly. When she did not seem likely to go away, she leaned in until her mouth was almost touching his ear. "Weese," she whispered.
Jaqen H'ghar closed his eyes again, floating languid, half-asleep. "Tell his lordship a man shall attend him at his leisure." His hand moved suddenly, splashing hot water at her, and Arya had to leap back to keep from getting drenched.
When she told Tuffleberry what Weese had said, the brewer cursed loudly. "You tell Weese my lads got duties to attend to, and you tell him he's a pox-ridden bastard too, and the seven hells will freeze over before he gets another horn of my ale. I'll have them barrels within the hour or Lord Tywin will hear of it, see if he don't."
Weese cursed too when Arya brought back that message, even though she left out the pox-ridden bastard part. He fumed and threatened, but in the end he rounded up six men and sent them off grumbling to fetch the barrels down to the brewhouse.
Supper that evening was a thin stew of barley, onion, and carrots, with a wedge of stale brown bread. One of the women had taken to sleeping in Weese's bed, and she got a piece of ripe blue cheese as well, and a wing off the capon that Weese had spoken of that morning. He ate the rest himself, the grease running down in a shiny line through the boils that festered at the corner of his mouth. The bird was almost gone when he glanced up from his trencher and saw Arya staring. "Weasel, come here."
A few mouthfuls of dark meat still clung to one thigh. He forgot, but now he's remembered, Arya thought. It made her feel bad for telling Jaqen to kill him. She got off the bench and went to the head of the table.
"I saw you looking at me." Weese wiped his fingers on the front of her shift. Then he grabbed her throat with one hand and slapped her with the other. "What did I tell you?" He slapped her again, backhand. "Keep those eyes to yourself, or next time I'll spoon one out and feed it to my bitch." A shove sent her stumbling to the floor. Her hem caught on a loose nail in the splintered wooden bench and ripped as she fell. "You'll mend that before you sleep," Weese announced as he pulled the last bit of meat off the capon. When he was finished he sucked his fingers noisily, and threw the bones to his ugly spotted dog.
"Weese," Arya whispered that night as she bent over the tear in her shift. "Dunsen, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling," she said, calling a name every time she pushed the bone needle through the undyed wool. "The Tickler and the Hound. Ser Gregor, Ser Amory, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, King Joffrey, Queen Cersei." She wondered how much longer she would have to include Weese in her prayer, and drifted off to sleep dreaming that on the morrow, when she woke, he'd be dead.
But it was the sharp toe of Weese's boot that woke her, as ever. The main strength of Lord Tywin's host would ride this day, he told them as they broke their fast on oatcakes. "Don't none of you be thinking how easy it'll be here once m'lord of Lannister is gone," he warned. "The castle won't grow no smaller, I promise you that, only now there'll be fewer hands to tend to it. You lot of slugabeds are going to learn what work is now, yes you are."
Not from you. Arya picked at her oaten cake. Weese frowned at her, as if he smelled her secret. Quickly she dropped her gaze to her food, and dared not raise her eyes again.
Pale light filled the yard when Lord Tywin Lannister took his leave of Harrenhal. Arya watched from an arched window halfway up the Wailing Tower. His charger wore a blanket of enameled crimson scales and gilded crinet and chamfron, while Lord Tywin himself sported a thick ermine cloak. His brother Ser Kevan looked near as splendid. No less than four standard-bearers went before them, carrying huge crimson banners emblazoned with the golden lion. Behind the Lannisters came their great lords and captains. Their banners flared and flapped, a pageant of color: red ox and golden mountain, purple unicorn and bantam rooster, brindled boar and badger, a silver ferret and a juggler in motley, stars and sunbursts, peacock and panther, chevron and dagger, black hood and blue beetle and green arrow.
Last of all came Ser Gregor Clegane in his grey plate steel, astride a stallion as bad-tempered as his rider. Polliver rode beside him, with the black dog standard in his hand and Gendry's horned helm on his head. He was a tall man, but he looked no more than a half-grown boy when he rode in his master's shadow.
A shiver crept up Arya's spine as she watched them pass under the great iron portcullis of Harrenhal. Suddenly she knew that she had made a terrible mistake. I'm so stupid, she thought. Weese did not matter, no more than Chiswyck had. These were the men who mattered, the ones she ought to have killed. Last night she could have whispered any of them dead, if only she hadn't been so mad at Weese for hitting her and lying about the capon. Lord Tywin, why didn't I say Lord Tywin?
Perhaps it was not too late to change her mind. Weese was not killed yet. If she could find Jaqen, tell him . . .
Hurriedly, Arya ran down the twisting steps, her chores forgotten. She heard the rattle of chains as the portcullis was slowly lowered, its spikes sinking deep into the ground . . . and then another sound, a shriek of pain and fear.
A dozen people got there before her, though none was coming any too close. Arya squirmed between them. Weese was sprawled across the cobbles, his throat a red ruin, eyes gaping sightlessly up at a bank of grey cloud. His ugly spotted dog stood on his chest, lapping at the blood pulsing from his neck, and every so often ripping a mouthful of flesh out of the dead man's face.
Finally someone brought a crossbow and shot the spotted dog dead while she was worrying at one of Weese's ears.
"Damnedest thing," she heard a man say. "He had that bitch dog since she was a pup."
"This place is cursed," the man with the crossbow said.
"It's Harren's ghost, that's what it is," said Goodwife Amabel. "I'll not sleep here another night, I swear it."
Arya lifted her gaze from the dead man and his dead dog. Jaqen H'ghar was leaning up against the side of the Wailing Tower. When he saw her looking, he lifted a hand to his face and laid two fingers casually against his cheek.

Categories: A Clash of Kings

A Clash of Kings - Chapter 37

THEON
Theon wiped the spittle off his cheek with the back of his hand. "Robb will gut you, Greyjoy," Benfred Tallheart screamed. "He'll feed your turncloak's heart to his wolf, you piece of sheep dung."
Aeron Damphair's voice cut through the insults like a sword through cheese. "Now you must kill him."
"I have questions for him first," said Theon.
"Fuck your questions." Benfred hung bleeding and helpless between Stygg and Werlag. "You'll choke on them before you get any answers from me, craven. Turncloak."
Uncle Aeron was relentless. "When he spits on you, he spits on all of us. He spits on the Drowned God. He must die."
"My father gave me the command here, Uncle."
"And sent me to counsel you."
And to watch me. Theon dare not push matters too far with his uncle. The command was his, yes, but his men had a faith in the Drowned God that they did not have in him, and they were terrified of Aeron Damphair. I cannot fault them for that.
"You'll lose your head for this, Greyjoy. The crows will eat the jelly of your eyes." Benfred tried to spit again, but only managed a little blood. "The Others bugger your wet god."
Tallhart, you've spit away your life, Theon thought. "Stygg, silence him," he said.
They forced Benfred to his knees. Werlag tore the rabbitskin off his belt and jammed it between his teeth to stop his shouting. Stygg unlimbered his axe.
"No," Aeron Damphair declared. "He must be given to the god. The old way."
What does it matter? Dead is dead. "Take him, then."
"You will come as well. You command here. The offering should come from you."
That was more than Theon could stomach. "You are the priest, Uncle, I leave the god to you. Do me the same kindness and leave the battles to me." He waved his hand, and Werlag and Stygg began to drag their captive off toward the shore. Aeron Damphair gave his nephew a reproachful look, then followed. Down to the pebbled beach they would go, to drown Benfred Tallhart in salt water. The old way.
Perhaps it's a kindness, Theon told himself as he stalked off in the other direction. Stygg was hardly the most expert of headsmen, and Benfred had a neck thick as a boar's, heavy with muscle and fat. I used to mock him for it, just to see how angry I could make him, he remembered. That had been, what, three years past? When Ned Stark had ridden to Torrhen's Square to see Ser Helman, Theon had accompanied him and spent a fortnight in Benfred's company.
He could hear the rough noises of victory from the crook in the road where the battle had been fought . . . if you'd go so far as to call it a battle. More like slaughtering sheep, if truth be told. Sheep fleeced in steel, but sheep nonetheless.
Climbing a jumble of stone, Theon looked down on the dead men and dying horses. The horses had deserved better. Tymor and his brothers had gathered up what mounts had come through the fight unhurt, while Urzen and Black Lorren silenced the animals too badly wounded to be saved. The rest of his men were looting the corpses. Gevin Harlaw knelt on a dead man's chest, sawing off his finger to get at a ring. Paying the iron price. My lord father would approve. Theon thought of seeking out the bodies of the two men he'd slain himself to see if they had any jewelry worth the taking, but the notion left a bitter taste in his mouth. He could imagine what Eddard Stark would have said. Yet that thought made him angry too. Stark is dead and rotting, and naught to me, he reminded himself.
Old Botley, who was called Fishwhiskers, sat scowling by his pile of plunder while his three sons added to it. One of them was in a shoving match with a fat man named Todric, who was reeling among the slain with a horn of ale in one hand and an axe in the other, clad in a cloak of white foxfur only slightly stained by the blood of its previous owner. Drunk, Theon decided, watching him bellow. It was said that the ironmen of old had oft been blood-drunk in battle, so berserk that they felt no pain and feared no foe, but this was a common ale-drunk.
"Wex, my bow and quiver." The boy ran and fetched them. Theon bent the bow and slipped the string into its notches as Todric knocked down the Botley boy and flung ale into his eyes. Fishwhiskers leapt up cursing, but Theon was quicker. He drew on the hand that clutched the drinking horn, figuring to give them a shot to talk about, but Todric spoiled it by lurching to one side just as he loosed. The arrow took him through the belly.
The looters stopped to gape. Theon lowered his bow. "No drunkards, I said, and no squabbles over plunder." On his knees, Todric was dying noisily. "Botley, silence him." Fishwhiskers and his sons were quick to obey. They slit Todric's throat as he kicked feebly, and were stripping him of cloak and rings and weapons before he was even dead.
Now they know I mean what I say. Lord Balon might have given him the command, but Theon knew that some of his men saw only a soft boy from the green lands when they looked at him. "Anyone else have a thirst?" No one replied. "Good." He kicked at Benfred's fallen banner, clutched in the dead hand of the squire who'd borne it. A rabbitskin had been tied below the flag. Why rabbitskins? he had meant to ask, but being spat on had made him forget his questions. He tossed his bow back to Wex and strode off, remembering how elated he'd felt after the Whispering Wood, and wondering why this did not taste as sweet. Tallhart, you bloody overproud fool, you never even sent out a scout.
They'd been joking and even singing as they'd come on, the three trees of Tallhart streaming above them while rabbitskins flapped stupidly from the points of their lances. The archers concealed behind the gorse had spoiled the song with a rain of arrows, and Theon himself had led his men-at-arms out to finish the butcher's work with dagger, axe, and warhammer. He had ordered their leader spared for questioning.
Only he had not expected it to be Benfred Tallhart.
His limp body was being dragged from the surf when Theon returned to his Sea Bitch. The masts of his longships stood outlined against the sky along the pebbled beach. Of the fishing village, nothing remained but cold ashes that stank when it rained. The men had been put to the sword, all but a handful that Theon had allowed to flee to bring the word to Torrhen's Square. Their wives and daughters had been claimed for salt wives, those who were young enough and fair. The crones and the ugly ones had simply been raped and killed, or taken for thralls if they had useful skills and did not seem likely to cause trouble.
Theon had planned that attack as well, bringing his ships up to the shore in the chill darkness before the dawn and leaping from the prow with a longaxe in his hand to lead his men into the sleeping village. He did not like the taste of any of this, but what choice did he have?
His thrice-damned sister was sailing her Black Wind north even now, sure to win a castle of her own. Lord Balon had let no word of the hosting escape the Iron Islands, and Theon's bloody work along the Stony Shore would be put down to sea raiders out for plunder. The northmen would not realize their true peril, not until the hammers fell on Deepwood Motte and Moat Cailin. And after all is done and won, they will make songs for that bitch Asha, and forget that I was even here. That is, if he allowed it.
Dagmer Cleftjaw stood by the high carved prow of his longship, Foamdrinker. Theon had assigned him the task of guarding the ships; otherwise men would have called it Dagmer's victory, not his. A more prickly man might have taken that for a slight, but the Cleftjaw had only laughed.
"The day is won," Dagmer called down. "And yet you do not smile, boy. The living should smile, for the dead cannot." He smiled himself to show how it was done. It made for a hideous sight. Under a snowy white mane of hair, Dagmer Cleftjaw had the most gut-churning scar Theon had ever seen, the legacy of the longaxe that had near killed him as a boy. The blow had splintered his jaw, shattered his front teeth, and left him four lips where other men had but two. A shaggy beard covered his cheeks and neck, but the hair would not grow over the scar, so a shiny seam of puckered, twisted flesh pided his face like a crevasse through a snowfield. "We could hear them singing," the old warrior said. "It was a good song, and they sang it bravely."
"They sang better than they fought. Harps would have done them as much good as their lances did."
"How many men are lost?"
"Of ours?" Theon shrugged. "Todric. I killed him for getting drunk and fighting over loot."
"Some men are born to be killed." A lesser man might have been afraid to show a smile as frightening as his, yet Dagmer grinned more often and more broadly than Lord Balon ever had.
Ugly as it was, that smile brought back a hundred memories. Theon had seen it often as a boy, when he'd jumped a horse over a mossy wall, or flung an axe and split a target square. He'd seen it when he blocked a blow from Dagmer's sword, when he put an arrow through a seagull on the wing, when he took the tiller in hand and guided a longship safely through a snarl of foaming rocks. He gave me more smiles than my father and Eddard Stark together. Even Robb . . . he ought to have won a smile the day he'd saved Bran from that wildling, but instead he'd gotten a scolding, as if he were some cook who'd burned the stew.
"You and I must talk, Uncle," Theon said. Dagmer was no true uncle, only a sworn man with perhaps a pinch of Greyjoy blood four or five lives back, and that from the wrong side of the blanket. Yet Theon had always called him uncle nonetheless.
"Come onto my deck, then." There were no m'lords from Dagmer, not when he stood on his own deck. On the Iron Islands, every captain was a king aboard his own ship.
He climbed the plank to the deck of the Foamdrinker in four long strides, and Dagmer led him back to the cramped aft cabin, where the old man poured a horn of sour ale and offered Theon the same. He declined. "We did not capture enough horses. A few, but . . . well, I'll make do with what I have, I suppose. Fewer men means more glory."
"What need do we have of horses?" Like most ironmen, Dagmer preferred to fight on foot or from the deck of a ship. "Horses will only shit on our decks and get in our way."
"If we sailed, yes," Theon admitted. "I have another plan." He watched the other carefully to see how he would take that. Without the Cleftjaw he could not hope to succeed. Command or no, the men would never follow him if both Aeron and Dagmer opposed him, and he had no hope of winning over the sour-faced priest.
"Your lord father commanded us to harry the coast, no more." Eyes pale as sea foam watched Theon from under those shaggy white eyebrows. Was it disapproval he saw there, or a spark of interest? The latter, he thought . . . hoped . . .
"You are my father's man."
"His best man, and always have been."
Pride, Theon thought. He is proud, I must use that, his pride will be the key. "There is no man in the Iron Islands half so skilled with spear or sword."
"You have been too long away, boy. When you left, it was as you say, but I am grown old in Lord Greyjoy's service. The singers call Andrik best now. Andrik the Unsmiling, they name him. A giant of a man. He serves Lord Drumm of Old Wyk. And Black Lorren and Qarl the Maid are near as dread."
"This Andrik may be a great fighter, but men do not fear him as they fear you."
"Aye, that's so," Dagmer said. The fingers curled around the drinking horn were heavy with rings, gold and silver and bronze, set with chunks of sapphire and garnet and dragonglass. He had paid the iron price for every one, Theon knew.
"If I had a man like you in my service, I should not waste him on this child's business of harrying and burning. This is no work for Lord Balon's best man . . . "
Dagmer's grin twisted his lips apart and showed the brown splinters of his teeth. "Nor for his trueborn son?" He hooted. "I know you too well, Theon. I saw you take your first step, helped you bend your first bow. 'Tis not me who feels wasted."
"By rights I should have my sister's command," he admitted, uncomfortably aware of how peevish that sounded.
"You take this business too hard, boy. It is only that your lord father does not know you. With your brothers dead and you taken by the wolves, your sister was his solace. He learned to rely on her, and she has never failed him."
"Nor have I. The Starks knew my worth. I was one of Brynden Blackfish's picked scouts, and I charged with the first wave in the Whispering Wood. I was that close to crossing swords with the Kingslayer himself." Theon held his hands two feet apart. "Daryn Hornwood came between us, and died for it."
"Why do you tell me this?" Dagmer asked. "It was me who put your first sword in your hand. I know you are no craven."
"Does my father?"
The hoary old warrior looked as if he had bitten into something he did not like the taste of. "It is only . . . Theon, the Boy Wolf is your friend, and these Starks had you for ten years."
"I am no Stark." Lord Eddard saw to that. "I am a Greyjoy, and I mean to be my father's heir. How can I do that unless I prove myself with some great deed?"
"You are young. Other wars will come, and you shall do your great deeds. For now, we are commanded to harry the Stony Shore."
"Let my uncle Aeron see to it. I'll give him six ships, all but Foamdrinker and Sea Bitch, and he can burn and drown to his god's surfeit."
"The command was given you, not Aeron Damphair."
"So long as the harrying is done, what does it matter? No priest could do what I mean to, nor what I ask of you. I have a task that only Dagmer Cleftjaw can accomplish."
Dagmer took a long draught from his horn. "Tell me."
He is tempted, Theon thought. He likes this reaver's work no better than I do. "If my sister can take a castle, so can I."
"Asha has four or five times the men we do."
Theon allowed himself a sly smile. "But we have four times the wits, and five times the courage."
"Your father—"
"—will thank me, when I hand him his kingdom. I mean to do a deed that the harpers will sing of for a thousand years."
He knew that would give Dagmer pause. A singer had made a song about the axe that cracked his jaw in half, and the old man loved to hear it. Whenever he was in his cups he would call for a reaving song, something loud and stormy that told of dead heroes and deeds of wild valor. His hair is white and his teeth are rotten, but he still has a taste for glory.
"What would my part be in this scheme of yours, boy?" Dagmer Cleftjaw asked after a long silence, and Theon knew he had won.
"To strike terror into the heart of the foe, as only one of your name could do. You'll take the great part of our force and march on Torrhen's Square. Helman Tallhart took his best men south, and Benfred died here with their sons. His uncle Leobald will remain, with some small garrison." If I had been able to question Benfred, I would know just how small. "Make no secret of your approach. Sing all the brave songs you like. I want them to close their gates."
"Is this Torrhen's Square a strong keep?"
"Strong enough. The walls are stone, thirty feet high, with square towers at each corner and a square keep within."
"Stone walls cannot be fired. How are we to take them? We do not have the numbers to storm even a small castle."
"You will make camp outside their walls and set to building catapults and siege engines."
"That is not the Old Way. Have you forgotten? Ironmen fight with swords and axes, not by flinging rocks. There is no glory in starving out a foeman."
"Leobald will not know that. When he sees you raising siege towers, his old woman's blood will run cold, and he will bleat for help. Stay your archers, Uncle, and let the raven fly. The castellan at Winterfell is a brave man, but age has stiffened his wits as well as his limbs. When he learns that one of his king's bannermen is under attack by the fearsome Dagmer Cleftjaw, he will summon his strength and ride to Tallhart's aid. It is his duty. Ser Rodrik is nothing if not dutiful."
"Any force he summons will be larger than mine," Dagmer said, "and these old knights are more cunning than you think, or they would never have lived to see their first grey hair. You set us a battle we cannot hope to win, Theon. This Torrhen's Square will never fall."
Theon smiled. "It's not Torrhen's Square I mean to take."

Categories: A Clash of Kings

A Clash of Kings - Chapter 36

TYRION
Vrys stood over the brazier, warming his soft hands. "It would appear Renly was murdered most fearfully in the very midst of his army. His throat was opened from ear to ear by a blade that passed through steel and bone as if they were soft cheese."
"Murdered by whose hand?" Cersei demanded.
"Have you ever considered that too many answers are the same as no answer at all? My informers are not always as highly placed as we might like. When a king dies, fancies sprout like mushrooms in the dark. A groom says that Renly was slain by a knight of his own Rainbow Guard. A washerwoman claims Stannis stole through the heart of his brother's army with his magic sword. Several men-at-arms believe a woman did the fell deed, but cannot agree on which woman. A maid that Renly had spurned, claims one. A camp follower brought in to serve his pleasure on the eve of battle, says a second. The third ventures that it might have been the Lady Catelyn Stark."
The queen was not pleased. "Must you waste our time with every rumor the fools care to tell?"
"You pay me well for these rumors, my gracious queen."
"We pay you for the truth, Lord Varys. Remember that, or this small council may grow smaller still."
Varys tittered nervously. "You and your noble brother will leave His Grace with no council at all if you continue."
"I daresay, the realm could survive a few less councillors," said Littlefinger with a smile.
"Dear dear Petyr," said Varys, "are you not concerned that yours might be the next name on the Hand's little list?"
"Before you, Varys? I should never dream of it."
"Mayhaps we will be brothers on the Wall together, you and I." Varys giggled again.
"Sooner than you'd like, if the next words out of your mouth are not something useful, eunuch." From the look of her eyes, Cersei was prepared to castrate Varys all over again.
"Might this be some ruse?" asked Littlefinger.
"If so, it is a ruse of surpassing cleverness," said Varys. "It has certainly hoodwinked me."
Tyrion had heard enough. "Joff will be so disappointed," he said. "He was saving such a nice spike for Renly's head. But whoever did the deed, we must assume Stannis was behind it. The gain is clearly his." He did not like this news; he had counted on the brothers Baratheon decimating each other in bloody battle. He could feel his elbow throbbing where the morningstar had laid it open. It did that sometimes in the damp. He squeezed it uselessly in his hand and asked, "What of Renly's host?"
"The greater part of his foot remains at Bitterbridge." Varys abandoned the brazier to take his seat at the table. "Most of the lords who rode with Lord Renly to Storm's End have gone over banner-and-blade to Stannis, with all their chivalry."
"Led by the Florents, I'd wager," said Littlefinger.
Varys gave him a simpering smile. "You would win, my lord. Lord Alester was indeed the first to bend the knee. Many others followed."
"Many," Tyrion said pointedly, "but not all?"
"Not all," agreed the eunuch. "Not Loras Tyrell, nor Randyll Tarly, nor Mathis Rowan. And Storm's End itself has not yielded. Ser Cortnay Penrose holds the castle in Renly's name, and will not believe his liege is dead. He demands to see the mortal remains before he opens his gates, but it seems that Renly's corpse has unaccountably vanished. Carried away, most likely. A fifth of Renly's knights departed with Ser Loras rather than bend the knee to Stannis. It's said the Knight of Flowers went mad when he saw his king's body, and slew three of Renly's guards in his wrath, among them Emmon Cuy and Robar Royce."
A pity he stopped at three, thought Tyrion.
"Ser Loras is likely making for Bitterbridge," Varys went on. "His sister is there, Renly's queen, as well as a great many soldiers who suddenly find themselves kingless. Which side will they take now? A ticklish question. Many serve the lords who remained at Storm's End, and those lords now belong to Stannis."
Tyrion leaned forward. "There is a chance here, it seems to me. Win Loras Tyrell to our cause and Lord Mace Tyrell and his bannermen might join us as well. They may have sworn their swords to Stannis for the moment, yet they cannot love the man, or they would have been his from the start."
"Is their love for us any greater?" asked Cersei.
"Scarcely," said Tyrion. "They loved Renly, clearly, but Renly is slain. Perhaps we can give them good and sufficient reasons to prefer Joffrey to Stannis . . . if we move quickly."
"What sort of reasons do you mean to give them?"
"Gold reasons," Littlefinger suggested at once.
Varys made a tsking sound. "Sweet Petyr, surely you do not mean to suggest that these puissant lords and noble knights could be bought like so many chickens in the market."
"Have you been to our markets of late, Lord Varys?" asked Littlefinger. "You'd find it easier to buy a lord than a chicken, I daresay. Of course, lords cluck prouder than chickens, and take it ill if you offer them coin like a tradesman, but they are seldom adverse to taking gifts . . . honors, lands, castles . . . "
"Bribes might sway some of the lesser lords," Tyrion said, "but never Highgarden."
"True," Littlefinger admitted. "The Knight of Flowers is the key there. Mace Tyrell has two older sons, but Loras has always been his favorite. Win him, and Highgarden will be yours."
Yes, Tyrion thought. "It seems to me we should take a lesson from the late Lord Renly. We can win the Tyrell alliance as he did. With a marriage."
Varys understood the quickest. "You think to wed King Joffrey to Margaery Tyrell."
"I do." Renly's young queen was no more than fifteen, sixteen, he seemed to recall . . . older than Joffrey, but a few years were nothing, it was so neat and sweet he could taste it.
"Joffrey is betrothed to Sansa Stark," Cersei objected.
"Marriage contracts can be broken. What advantage is there in wedding the king to the daughter of a dead traitor?"
Littlefinger spoke up. "You might point out to His Grace that the Tyrells are much wealthier than the Starks, and that Margaery is said to be lovely . . . and beddable besides."
"Yes," said Tyrion, "Joff ought to like that well enough."
"My son is too young to care about such things."
"You think so?" asked Tyrion. "He's thirteen, Cersei. The same age at which I married."
"You shamed us all with that sorry episode. Joffrey is made of finer stuff."
"So fine that he had Ser Boros rip off Sansa's gown."
"He was angry with the girl."
"He was angry with that cook's boy who spilled the soup last night as well, but he didn't strip him naked."
"This was not a matter of some spilled soup—"
No, it was a matter of some pretty teats. After that business in the yard, Tyrion had spoken with Varys about how they might arrange for Joffrey to visit Chataya's. A taste of honey might sweeten the boy, he hoped. He might even be grateful, gods forbid, and Tyrion could do with a shade more gratitude from his sovereign. It would need to be done secretly, of course. The tricky bit would be parting him from the Hound. "The dog is never far from his master's heels," he'd observed to Varys, "but all men sleep. And some gamble and whore and visit winesinks as well."
"The Hound does all these things, if that is your question."
"No," said Tyrion. "My question is when."
Varys had laid a finger on his cheek, smiling enigmatically. "My lord, a suspicious man might think you wished to find a time when Sandor Clegane was not protecting King Joffrey, the better to do the boy some harm."
"Surely you know me better than that, Lord Varys," Tyrion said. "Why, all I want is for Joffrey to love me."
The eunuch had promised to look into the matter. The war made its own demands, though; Joffrey's initiation into manhood would need to wait. "Doubtless you know your son better than I do," he made himself tell Cersei, "but regardless, there's still much to be said for a Tyrell marriage. It may be the only way that Joffrey lives long enough to reach his wedding night."
Littlefinger agreed. "The Stark girl brings Joffrey nothing but her body, sweet as that may be. Margaery Tyrell brings fifty thousand swords and all the strength of Highgarden."
"Indeed." Varys laid a soft hand on the queen's sleeve. "You have a mother's heart, and I know His Grace loves his little sweetling. Yet kings must learn to put the needs of the realm before their own desires. I say this offer must be made."
The queen pulled free of the eunuch's touch. "You would not speak so if you were women. Say what you will, my lords, but Joffrey is too proud to settle for Renly's leavings. He will never consent."
Tyrion shrugged. "When the king comes of age in three years, he may give or withhold his consent as he pleases. Until then, you are his regent and I am his Hand, and he will marry whomever we tell him to marry. Leavings or no."
Cersei's quiver was empty. "Make your offer then, but gods save you all if Joff does not like this girl."
"I'm so pleased we can agree," Tyrion said. "Now, which of us shall go to Bitterbridge? We must reach Ser Loras with our offer before his blood can cool."
"You mean to send one of the council?"
"I can scarcely expect the Knight of Flowers to treat with Bronn or Shagga, can I? The Tyrells are proud."
His sister wasted no time trying to twist the situation to her advantage. "Ser Jacelyn Bywater is nobly born. Send him."
Tyrion shook his head. "We need someone who can do more than repeat our words and fetch back a reply. Our envoy must speak for king and council and settle the matter quickly."
"The Hand speaks with the king's voice." Candlelight gleamed green as wildfire in Cersei's eyes. "If we send you, Tyrion, it will be as if Joffrey went himself. And who better, You wield words as skillfully as Jaime wields a sword."
Are you that eager to get me out of the city, Cersei? "You are too kind, sister, but it seems to me that a boy's mother is better fitted to arrange his marriage than any uncle. And you have a gift for winning friends that I could never hope to match."
Her eyes narrowed. "Joff needs me at his side."
"Your Grace, my lord Hand," said Littlefinger, "the king needs both of you here. Let me go in your stead."
"You?" What gain does he see in this? Tyrion wondered.
"I am of the king's council, yet not the king's blood, so I would make a poor hostage. I knew Ser Loras passing well when he was here at court, and gave him no cause to mislike me. Mace Tyrell bears me no enmity that I know of, and I flatter myself that I am not unskilled in negotiation."
He has us. Tyrion did not trust Petyr Baelish, nor did he want the man out of his sight, yet what other choice was left him? It must be Littlefinger or Tyrion himself, and he knew full well that if he left King's Landing for any length of time, all that he had managed to accomplish would be undone. "There is fighting between here and Bitterbridge," he said cautiously. "And you can be past certain that Lord Stannis will be dispatching his own shepherds to gather in his brother's wayward lambs."
"I've never been frightened of shepherds. It's the sheep who trouble me. Still, I suppose an escort might be in order."
"I can spare a hundred gold cloaks," Tyrion said.
"Five hundred."
"Three hundred."
"And forty more—twenty knights with as many squires. If I arrive without a knightly tail, the Tyrells will think me of small account."
That was true enough. "Agreed."
"I'll include Horror and Slobber in my party, and send them on to their lord father afterward. A gesture of goodwill. We need Paxter Redwyne, he's Mace Tyrell's oldest friend, and a great power in his own right."
"And a traitor," the queen said, balking. "The Arbor would have declared for Renly with all the rest, except that Redwyne knew full well his whelps would suffer for it."
"Renly is dead, Your Grace," Littlefinger pointed out, "and neither Stannis nor Lord Paxter will have forgotten how Redwyne galleys closed the sea during the siege of Storm's End. Restore the twins and perchance we may win Redwyne's love."
Cersei remained unconvinced. "The Others can keep his love, I want his swords and sails. Holding tight to those twins is the best way to make certain that we'll have them."
Tyrion had the answer. "Then let us send Ser Hobber back to the Arbor and keep Ser Horas here. Lord Paxter ought to be clever enough to riddle out the meaning of that, I should think."
The suggestion was carried without protest, but Littlefinger was not done. "We'll want horses. Swift and strong. The fighting will make remounts hard to come by. A goodly supply of gold will also be needed, for those gifts we spoke of earlier."
"Take as much as you require. If the city falls, Stannis will steal it all anyway."
"I'll want my commission in writing. A document that will leave Mace Tyrell in no doubt as to my authority, granting me full power to treat with him concerning this match and any other arrangements that might be required, and to make binding pledges in the king's name. It should be signed by Joffrey and every member of this council, and bear all our seals."
Tyrion shifted uncomfortably. "Done. Will that be all? I remind you, there's a long road between here and Bitterbridge."
"I'll be riding it before dawn breaks." Littlefinger rose. "I trust that on my return, the king will see that I am suitably rewarded for my valiant efforts in his cause?"
Varys giggled. "Joffrey is such a grateful sovereign, I'm certain you will have no cause to complain, my good brave lord."
The queen was more direct. "What do you want, Petyr?"
Littlefinger glanced at Tyrion with a sly smile. "I shall need to give that some consideration. No doubt I'll think of something." He sketched an airy bow and took his leave, as casual as if he were off to one of his brothels.
Tyrion glanced out the window. The fog was so thick that he could not even see the curtain wall across the yard. A few dim lights shone indistinct through that greyness. A foul day for travel, he thought. He did not envy Petyr Baelish. "We had best see to drawing up those documents. Lord Varys, send for parchment and quill. And someone will need to wake Joffrey."
It was still grey and dark when the meeting finally ended. Varys scurried off alone, his soft slippers whisking along the floor. The Lannisters lingered a moment by the door. "How comes your chain, brother?" the queen asked as Ser Preston fastened a vair-lined cloth-of-silver cloak about her shoulders.
"Link by link, it grows longer. We should thank the gods that Ser Cortnay Penrose is as stubborn as he is. Stannis will never march north with Storm's End untaken in his rear."
"Tyrion, I know we do not always agree on policy, but it seems to me that I was wrong about you. You are not so big a fool as I imagined. In truth, I realize now that you have been a great help. For that I thank you. You must forgive me if I have spoken to you harshly in the past."
"Must I?" He gave her a shrug, a smile. "Sweet sister, you have said nothing that requires forgiveness."
"Today, you mean?" They both laughed . . . and Cersei leaned over and planted a quick, soft kiss on his brow.
Too astonished for words, Tyrion could only watch her stride off down the hall, Ser Preston at her side. "Have I lost my wits, or did my sister just kiss me?" he asked Bronn when she was gone.
"Was it so sweet?"
"It was . . . unanticipated." Cersei had been behaving queerly of late. Tyrion found it very unsettling. "I am trying to recall the last time she kissed me. I could not have been more than six or seven. Jaime had dared her to do it."
"The woman's finally taken note of your charms."
"No," Tyrion said. "No, the woman is hatching something. Best find out what, Bronn. You know I hate surprises."

Categories: A Clash of Kings