It had taken him a while, but Gendry had figured it out. He supposed he shouldn't be so hard on himself, for it seems he had figured it out well ahead of any of the other men in the camp. It was a good thing too.
The small boy who had threatened to skewer Hot Pie, the one who seemed so full of rage that he could barely contain it, was actually a girl.
It was pretty obvious when he really thought about it. Even if you ignored the fact that she would run off on her own to take a leak, or that she never changed her clothing in front of the others, it was still fairly obvious that she was a girl. A short haircut and some dirt couldn't hide the fact that she had feminine features, and even if she did reach the Wall it would only be harder to hide as she grew older.
Her eyes were large and wide, her eyelashes fanning out across her lids. Her nose was small and her lips were full, her face soft and round. If she really did happen to be a boy then she was the most feminine one he had ever seen.
It made him think about why a girl like her was here. She wouldn't be accepted at the Wall, so why try to go there at all? He supposed if she was an orphan like he was then it was a better fate than ending up working at a brothel for the rest of her life, but he doubts she had even flowered yet so that wouldn't have been an option for her anyways. So why would this angry little girl lump herself in with thieves, rapists, murderers, and worse? He may have thought she had a lover at the Wall she wished to reunite with, but she was far too young to have a story such as that.
Yoren knew. That much he was sure of. He would catch the older man keeping a close eye on her, he would watch her from a distance as she did the tasks he had set them to for the day. He never came up to speak to her, but she seemed to know that he was aware of her real identity if her returning glances were anything to go by. Why Yoren hadn't done anything about it was beyond Gendry, he would spend his nights contemplating what her goal could possibly be by going to the Wall.
Little by little, Gendry found himself watching over her too. He was never too far away, a horrible thought tugging in the back of his head that if he had figured out her secret then it wouldn't take long for someone else to as well. Especially a particular man in the cage they had been carting along, he would often catch the hooded man following the young girl around the camp with his eyes. He had no doubt as to what some of these men would do to her if they discovered her true gender, some of them even watched her like a hawk already as she made for a rather pretty boy. Gendry's tall form often scared them away from trying anything stupid, so he hovered by as much as he could.
It was on one of these days he found her talking to the man in the cage who had been keeping close watch of her, seeming to argue with them as the man behind him spat in rage. However her stalker seemed calm, giving her a small smile as he spoke again. Gendry's pace quickened as he cut in front of their conversation, relieved when she began to follow him without prompting.
"Yoren said none of us were to go near those three" he scolded.
"They don't scare me" she bit back. Gendry felt his heart jump a bit in his chest, why did she feel the need to have to be so brave?
"Hmmm? Then you're stupid. They scare me" he responded, and he wasn't lying. Those men were in a cage for good reason, he wasn't fool enough to go near them.
She couldn't argue any more before the gold cloaks interrupted them. He had barely turned around to see where his small companion had gone when she had ducked down behind him, hiding from the men she was convinced were looking for her.
Why would the Queen send gold cloaks all the way here for a little girl? The brief thought crossed his mind that maybe she had killed someone, she certainly seemed tough enough, but he couldn't get the thought to resonate with his head. But then they announced the name of the person they were looking for, and it wasn't a girl's.
It was his.