He watched the stars twinkle far above him. The stars were the same everywhere, here or in Westeros. The captain who took him aboard to bring him here had explained to him that stars could be used to navigate. He had watched the stars almost every night then aboard the ship, unable to sleep. He had no sea legs. If it were up to him, he preferred to stay on land and walk on both of his feet. He could ride a horse. He had learned it out of necessity, but he had only known two people to be a natural at it. One was a man of the North, the other a girl, no more than a child. Harwin was dead, and the girl...
Winter is coming. Winter has come and is here to stay for a long while yet. Gendry huddled in his fur cloak to protect himself from the freezing night. The wolf fur was warm though. There had been plenty of wolves killed, and yet the damnable pack that ravaged the Riverlands had been growing nevertheless. Winter and wolf, words and sigil of the Starks of the North.
He had cared little for that House. "You can still make swords if you want," she had said to him. "You can make them for my brother Robb when we get to Riverrun," seemingly not troubled that both Wolf and Lion raped and killed the same innocent folk who never asked for war. He had been so angry with her. And later he had been angry with her for suddenly preferring Beric's squire over his company - the little lady and the little lord. He had been angry with her for running away, for vanishing before they could have sold her safely to her uncle - his headstrong, murderous M'lady dressed like a boy. And then he had been angry at the Freys and the Lannisters. If it were not for them, the Hound would probably have delivered her safely to her beloved brother and mother.
Moved by Beric's ideals, he had joined the Brotherhood. So, he stayed with those who made him a knight. He had tried to assuage both his hatred for the Freys and the Lions by helping Lady Stoneheart to her victims as well as serve Beric's ideals by watching over the orphans with Willow. The Hound had slain Polliver and the Tickler in the company of a little boy in the same inn. Deep down, he hoped that perhaps one day she might turn up at their doorstep and find shelter with them. After all she was an orphan too after they cut her mother's throat at the Twins. Willow reminded him somewhat of her: as willful and as bossy. It dulled the pain of the certainty that Arya must have been dead, like so many others.
The first time he had killed, he drove a spear through a man's back. He barely knew why he had done that. He hated Brienne the Beauty on sight along with Ser Hyle and the Lannister squire when she arrived at the Orphan's inn. Knights traveling so carefree through the Riverlands by then could only be allies of the Freys or Lannisters, certainly those carrying a Valeryan sword. He had sent word out immediately to his brothers to come and fetch her. Not her kindness to the orphans, or her attempt to talk with him made him hate her any less. But before the Brotherhood could arrive, the remaining Brave Companions came, and she was intent on protecting them against these no-man's-friends. There had never been any love lost between himself and Biter or Rorge. He still delivered Brienne to his brother knights, but wanted nothing to do with the hanging. Lady Stoneheart's trials were a mockery in comparison to Beric's. She was not named Mother Merciless for nothing.
Lem had told him about her hanging afterwards. Once, Brienne had sworn fealty to M'lady's mother to bring her girls back to her, in exchange for Jaime Lannister. But the eldest daughter, Sansa, who had been a hostage at King's Landing had fled the capital when the false king Joffrey was murdered, before both Brienne and Jaime had returned. And of course, the youngest daughter Arya was nowhere near King's Landing. She was with me, on the King's Road, in Harrenhall, with the Brotherhood, first as Arry, then Weasel, and Nan and Squad. Brienne had searched all through the Riverlands and the Saltpans for Sansa, following around the Hound's trail, not knowing she was following Arya's trail. Lady Stoneheart had given her a choice – to bring Jaime Lannister to her or hang. She had chosen to capture Jaime.
"Keep your mouth shut about Arya to Lady Stoneheart," said Lem. She was not to know that her youngest daughter had been with them and that they had let the Hound steal her from them. That was fine by Gendry. The Hangwoman filled him with dread. More brothers left, and those who remained turned more and more into men Gendry disliked. Thoros had taken to drinking again and Lem started to act like the namesake of the helmet he had acquired. But Brienne did as promised. She lured Jaime Lannister into a trap. "The girl's been wed to the Bolton bastard", Lem told him afterwards, "Sent safely back to Winterfell." That was what Jaime had believed. Well at least, she will be happy to finally be back home, Gendry had thought. But it had made him bitter to think that another bastard got to marry her.
Capturing Jaime had been the last stroke for the Brotherhood. Jaime's army and the Freys finally joined forces to root them out. The Inn was put to the torch while he had been on an errant. He had returned to find nothing but burned rubble and children put to the spear. His last act there was to close Willow's dead eyes. The Inn of the Kneeling Man had also been put to the torch. There was nothing left anymore to stay for. Not long before the Freys and Lannisters purged the woods of the Brotherhood, Thoros had told him, while miserably drunk, that soon he needed to seek the Priestess of Light. "Find the Red Priestess Melisandre, Gendry, in the North."
But the only way there was by sea. He would be stupid to try to pass the Twins and the Neck. He had left years ago by the road and it had nearly cost him his own life several times. He knew of only one safe place, untouched by the war, even though he had no love for the seven Gods. He sought shelter at the Quiet Isle, while waiting for the arrival of a ship to take him North, in exchange for his skill. The silent brothers had no need for armor, helmets or swords, but their horses needed shooing. He recognized the Hound's destrier instantly. His owner had been long dead and buried already.
The Captain of the first ship he ever sailed on delivered him at White Harbor. There was war too in the North. He had been tempted to seek Winterfell. Perhaps M'lady could speak for him to her husband. After all Winterfell needed rebuilding. "Stay away from Winterfell," people told him. "It is not the Wolf banner that flies there anymore, but a Flayed Man." It had not solely been the Freys who betrayed the King in the North, but the Boltons of the Dreadfort as well. The legitimized bastard was a monster, people whispered. The Bastard had starved Lady Donella Hornwood once - ate her own fingers, the poor thing. He hunted women for sport with dogs. Ned's little girl had fared little better they said. But every time someone mentioned some of the most unspeakable tales, they would say, "The North remembers."
There were other rumors - that the youngest Stark boys that Theon the Turncloak supposedly had killed were not truly dead. They had been seen. And Stannis Baratheon was marching on Winterfell to oust the Boltons once and for all. The Trueborn King Stannis had already freed Deepwood Motte for the Glovers and had come to the Night's Watch aid against the invasion of wildlings. Mance Rayder, the King Beyond the Wall, had been given to the fire. But while they rooted for Stannis Baratheon, they had no love for him. He served neither the Old Gods nor the Seven. He believed in one god only - the Lord of Light – and was under the spell of a red sorceress.
Thoros of Myr had told him to find the red priestess, but White Harbor had been the most peaceful area he had been in for the past years. He was weary of war and not eager to walk right into the middle of a battlefield. The tale of M'lady had saddened him deeply. He felt ashamed that he had been so angry so often with her when she talked of her brother, when in fact he admired her for her courage and her obnoxious stubbornness, while her deadly determination for vengeance had scared him for her. He knew for a fact that she had killed long before he ever had. But every time he heard the phrase, "The North Remembers", he grew to understand more and more that Arya truly had been of the North – wild, headstrong, vengeful. A she-wolf they called it in the North. The other phrase he regularly heard was, "There must always be a Stark at Winterfell." It was as if the Starks were like gods almost to the common folk. All those phrases sounded like his own prayer, "The night is dark and full of terrors."
Only when he heard rumored that the sorceress was actually in Castle Black of the Night's Watch and that Lady Arya Stark had been rescued and sent to the Wall, Gendry finally found the determination to go there, together with new recruits of the Night's Watch. The recruits he had traveled with from King's Landing had been criminals and several poor buggers like him from Flea Bottom - downtrodden boys and men with no alternative. But the recruits from White Harbor were of a different cut. They saw the Night's Watch as an army to be proud of, even if it meant never to be wed or bed a woman. For the first time, since the Brotherhood of the Banners, he traveled with men who sought to protect the kingdom itself. And they would not be outlaws. It was even said that Ned Stark's bastard was Lord Commander, and he was young still.
They arrived at Castle Black - through the harshest snow blizzards - with the Lord Commander, Jon Snow, in a sleep near death. Some of his men had tried to stab him. By some miracle he had survived, but not regained consciousness yet. It was whispered his soul lived in his wolf for the time being, a great white direwolf who rested by him in his chamber. And the red priestess saw to his needs. The rebels had been long executed, after a fight broke out over the assassination attempt, as well as between wildlings and brothers of the Night's Watch.
Despite the upset over the Lord Commander, and the disarray at Castle Black sheltering women and wildlings, the new recruits were welcomed and immediately put to training. Their numbers had dwindled to lower than four hundred. During the nightly ritual held for the lord of light, which Gendry attended nightly praying for the day his lady would come out, he caught the eye of the Red Priestess Melisandre through the flames. She often watched him from the landing upstairs of her room, when he trained as a recruit, until one night she invited him to her living quarters. She had wanted to know everything about him, about his parents, where he came from, and how he came to know the God of Light. It was the first and only time he ever came to tell his story, though he could not tell her who his father had been.
It was she who had brought him to meet the rescued Arya Stark. The girl had a disfigured face – her nose taken by frostbite. No wonder she always stayed indoors. A great pity, for she might have been pretty with one.
"That is not M'lady," he had said, and the girl started to weep. "Arya is younger, not as tall, and she has a different face." He felt ashamed to mention the poor girl's looks.
"You have not seen her for what? A year? Two years?" said Melisandre. "Girls grow and get older."
It had been more than a year. "Aye, but it is not she." The girl with the disfigured nose looked at him with pleading eyes. Arya would never have pleaded like that, nor weep. "Arya has grey eyes, short hair, like a boy, and full of anger. It is not she." Gendry knew then that Arya Stark had died at the Saltpans after all.
Melisandre had laid her hand on his shoulder and whispered into his ear. "And what makes you so sure that the Arya you met was the true Arya." Her soft breath had given him shivers across his spine. The hair in his neck had stood upright and he had felt a stirring he had not experienced before.
"Harwin!" he had said. "The son of the master of horses of Winterfell was a member of our Brotherhood. He identified her instantly. Used to help her learn to ride, and she was one of the best horse riders I knew, though she was not even ten."
The eyes of the girl in the room widened at the mentioning of Harwin's name. Her weeping became blubbering and she crawled to his feet, wrapping her arms around his legs. "Please, Ser, have mercy on me. Help me. I don't want to be sent back to my husband."
His heart broke for the girl. He had never seen someone to be pitied as this girl, and he had seen many girls and boys to be pitied.
Melisandre bowed over the girl and caressed her long dark hair. "Do not fear, little girl. We will not send you back. But you must tell me your real name."
"J-Jeyne Poole, My Lady."
"And how did you come to be Arya Stark?"
"I was the steward's daughter, Sansa Stark's best friend, raised along with Sansa and Arya to read, write, and embroider. I traveled with them to King's Landing. But after they came to kill Lord Eddard's men, they locked me up with Sansa, beat me and gave me to Lord Baelish. He had me trained and told me to pretend to be Arya Stark so I could be wed. They told me Arya was dead, and that I had to take her place, or I would be nothing more than a whore." She started to weep again, and the red priestess laid her to rest.
"We will not speak of it to anyone. You are safe. Rest, my dear."
"But w-what if Jon Snow wakes up? He will know too. He will be angry. He loved Arya the most."
"When or how he will wake again will be for the Lord of Light to decide. And he would not turn out his sister's best friend out into the cold." Melisandre stroked the girl's head. "You are still important and have a part to play. You may be the sole one who can ever identify Sansa Stark if and when she's found."
Melisandre had invited him every night again to learn more about Thoros of Myr, how he had been able to revive Beric so many times from the dead, and that the dead Lady Catelyn could have been brought back to the living. One night, Gendry had found the courage to ask her why she did not do the same for Jon Snow. She took him to see the sleeping Lord Commander. The white wolf had followed his every move when he entered the room. Gendry had been surprised to see a man so young to be at such a high ranking position already. Jon Snow looked no older than him. But he understood why Melisandre could not bring Jon back from the dead. He was not dead.
"Tell him your stories," Melisandre had said. "Tell him of Arya. It might revive him."
He had done as the priestess had commanded. He visited the Lord Commander daily under the guidance of Melisandre, telling stories – fearful ones, angry tales, and funny stories. He confessed all his feelings, his annoyance, his admirations, his fears, his hurts and finally his love for M'lady to the sleeping Jon Snow. It was by retelling it all, reliving all the small moments he had laughed with her, pestered her, but also chided her that it finally dawned on him that he had loved Arya Stark. It was an innocent love born out of companionship and hardships. They had been children. And yet, though there had been no desire for her, he had felt miserable about himself around her, for he wished he could wed her one day and there would never be any chance for it, him being a bastard from Flea Bottom. The more he had grown to love her, the more he was angry with her, the more he realized his wish was pure folly and a fantasy that could never become a reality. That was why he begged the Brotherhood to accept him. He wanted to hurt her feelings, because she was inadvertently hurting him. He wanted her to go away and leave him be. But since the day she vanished he had carried with him the guilt that his anger and choices might have caused her to run away and be lost forever.
When he confessed all those buried feelings he had never been able to admit to himself before to Jon Snow, the white direwolf, Ghost, had come to him and laid his head against his. He had wondered then whether Jon Snow's soul was truly inside the great beast and if it was a sign from Jon that he understood and forgave him. He never knew, and he still did not. By the time he was sent away on his mission, Jon Snow still slept.
He had made the vow of the Night's Watch, without regret. He would neither marry nor lie with a woman and bastard a child. He was Ser Gendry of the Hollow Hill of the Night's Watch now. But it had been Melisandre who had given him his mission, by the leave of the Acting Commander. She had told him of the eternal battle between The Lord of Light and The Great Other. The cold children of the Great Other were gathering an army of wights North of the wall, and the Long Night was almost upon them.
She had told him, "You are a man of the Night's Watch, but also the sole one who truly believes in the Lord of Light. You have seen his miracles. Your work for the realm does not lie here at the Wall, but in Essos. You are the sole man who can steal the Darkheart of the Great Other away from him."
"And who is it that I must steal from the Great Other and where can I find this Darkheart?" he had asked.
"You must go to Braavos, Ser Gendry. The person you seek is a member of the guild of the House of Black and White, training to become a Faceless Man, an assassin who bestows the gift of death for the Many Faced God. I have seen the Darkheart often in the flames, but did not know who it was until you appeared. You must find Arya Stark, Ser Gendry, and return her to the light, to life, love and her brother."
So he took the last ship from Eastwatch to Braavos, before Eastwatch was attacked, without much advice, other than that he had to go to the temple of the Lord of Light to learn more about the guild and cult of the Faceless men and that he had the license by the Acting Commander to do all what was necessary to find Arya.
Braavos was like King's Landing, except that it smelled better, there often was a fog and it was much colder in Braavos. And of course there were the canals, with bridges and the barges for transport. Nobody knew he belonged to the Night's Watch or that he was one of the knights of Hollow Hill. But they did jokingly called him Ser Blacksmith of the Light. Most of the time he seemed to have forgotten what he was here for. He was nowhere closer to the goal of finding Arya than when he first started out. Worse, at his first visit of the Temple of the Lord of Light he learned that it was an impossible task. One could not enter the House of Black and White, unless if it was to ask for the "gift", pay for the gift, or to become a Faceless Man. He was not keen to die and he was too old to enter the guild as an apprentice. And Faceless Men could assume any identity they wanted. If Arya was here, he would never be able to recognize her. She could be sitting right outside the shop, amongst the whores who always came to tease him, and he would never know it.