Disclaimer: These characters referenced are the creation of GRRM, the king of fiction. Long may he reign!
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Why does no one ever check the socks? The gravedigger shook his head and pocketed two more gold dragons. Of the four bodies he buried today, three had undiscovered coin. Most were silver or coppers, but, in his two years on the Quiet Isle, he had come upon quite a bit of gold and jewels, too. Thieves always concealed their valuables best, but since the start of Winter even the common folk had taken to sewing coins into small clothes and linings and employing hidden pockets.
After he'd rolled his first few bodies into the ground and heard the familiar jingle, he began shaking and checking them, and the more he discovered, the more carefully he checked. They won't be needing this where they're going, he told himself, but someday I might. He had discovered a small, empty coin purse on a young girl one day, and began keeping the coins in it. It filled quickly, and soon he began to separate his stashes; coppers in a wooden box near the digging tools in the shed, silvers in a small pouch behind a loose stone in the wall of the sept, gold in the coin purse hidden under a loose board in his room, and jewels in a pack under the hay in Stranger's stall. He had few occasions to spend any of it, since his food and clothes were provided by the Faith, and there were no whores, wagering, or winesinks on the Quiet Isle. A handful of times, he sneaked out to a winesink, but he drank less than ever and always came back. He once mused that he'd managed to accumulate more wealth in his novice robes than he ever did in his armor. Excepting, of course, for the money he'd won at the Tourney of Hand, and lost to the fucking Brotherhood Without Banners.
The memory made him bitter, and as he dug the last grave, his mind wouldn't clear, flashes of the past beating on him colder and harder than the sleet that had begun falling. The wolf-bitch, the Little Bird, the Imp, the Mountain, faces of people he killed, regrets, and mistakes whirled around him. He envied the dead their quieted minds. He dug more furiously, sweating under his robes despite the bitter chill, but the thoughts just came faster, the memories more vivid. He kicked the body into its grave and instantly regretted it. Fuck! Tonight, he resolved, a winesink.
The Elder Brother was so busy attending the ill and dying, that he'd hardly notice, and he was already in the habit of ignoring the gravedigger's occasional disappearances. Still, the gravedigger didn't want to head back up to his room or the sept, mostly for fear he'd waver in his resolve and spend the night sober, fighting a room full of ghosts of his past. Finding a buyer for the jewelry would just slow me down, he decided. So, he took the heavy box of coppers. Years ago, he would have mocked a man who arrived at a winesink with half a stone's weight in coppers, but times were hard, and coin was coin.
As he settled into his corner seat at the winesink, a slim, black-haired serving girl had just finished serving the table next to him, and greeted him with an empty tray. "Always a pleasure to serve a Brother of the Faith! What can I get you?" He sat the heavy box on the table and opened it, "Two flagons of Dornish Red, and you'll have to count the coin yourself. Then, I want to be left alone for the rest of the evening." She frowned until he finished, "Take another flagon's cost for your troubles." She smiled, and began counting the coins onto the tray. She made quick work of counting, and within a short time, she was back with the wine. The crowd was growing, and he knew that could only mean there would be a singer. Gods, I'll need to get pissed drunk if I'm going to sit through a singer.
The singer was a soft-looking, handsome boy, with ringlets of blonde hair falling into green eyes. Pretty enough to be a fucking Lannister, the gravedigger thought, as he drained the wine cup and poured again. The room quieted as the boy played a soft, short tune on his small harp. He stood and began with a very somber speech, "I usually begin by asking for requests, but I have a request from a land far away to play a special song. Tonight is the first time this song has ever been sung in all the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. " The ladies were already swooning, and the men's attentions captured for the moment. Well, at least it's not "The Rains of Castamere" or worse, "Florian and Jonquil."
"You see, I've just returned from my travels, where I met a bard known only as the Fiery Mermaid," the crowd was pulled in further, and he began speaking dreamily with a faraway look, " . . . A maiden with eyes like the sea and hair like the sunset, beautiful but a tormented and lonely soul. "
Echoes of "Why?" filled the room. He continued, "Her life is filled with so much pain and grief that her only release is her songs. She has lost all-her family, her fortune, her home, and even her true love. Her only remaining gift is her Maidenhood which she has vowed to maintain until her death. She has written many beautiful songs, but she asked me to sing this particular one on her behalf her in the Seven Kingdoms. Could I play it for you all?"
There came cries of "Yes" and "Please do." Some of the women had already dreamily cocked their heads . Oh, this lad is going to drown in coin tonight. "The song is called, 'The Little Bird and the Hound'." The gravedigger almost laughed. Here I am trying to forget both of those things: a little bird and life as a Hound. What will his next song be called, "The Mountain and the Fire"? Fuck, now this blonde bugger even has my attention.
The melody was mournful, even without words. The song began by telling the story of a restless little red bird, bored by life in the woods where she lived who rode out into the great forest on the horns of a stag which was actually a lion wearing a stag's skin. When he caged her, she mistook his motive, believing he saw her as precious, blinded as she was by the gold of her cage bars. Soon, she saw his blood-stained teeth and understood that she was to become a meal. The pride of lions kept a vicious old hound dog who fell in love with the bird's song and beauty. She fell in love with his gentle strength and that love gave him the courage to escape. As he pried open her cage for them to run away together, he looked wild, shaking and thrashing at the cage bars, and she was too scared to fly away with him. She sang to him one last time, and he ran off without her, angry.
The gravedigger was getting hot and dizzy, and a little nauseous. I've only had half a flagon, it can't be the wine. The scarf covering his face and his hood weren't helping. The middle part of the song told of how the lions decided she wasn't a big enough meal to be worthy of them. So, they gave her to a lion with broken legs who couldn't hunt for himself. She thought herself rescued when a man with small soft hands took her from the broken lion, but he turned her black with ink and handled her too often. She finally broke free of them all and went searching for her hound. The gravedigger leaned forward in his seat, tense, fists clenching, toes curled in his boots.
In the final verses, the bird finds the dog's grave, singing a dirge there, then flying off to a warmer place where she was finally safe, but always missing the woods that were her home. The singer then stood and spoke, a last line, "of all that she had lost and all that she found, the thing she cherished most in life always was her hound." The singer cried, and the crowd cheered, and coins poured in from all directions. He announced that he would need a short break after such a taxing performance, and conversations began all around about love and friendship, loss and regret, sacrifice and duty, all the usual topics enjoyed by most drunks.
The gravedigger followed the singer and the serving girl outside, behind the winesink. He waited a moment, as the boy whispered in her ear some nonsense about not having regrets. He watched the boy's hand go down the front of her dress, and cleared his throat. The girl blushed and ran off. "Um, now tell me brother, what grievous sin have I committed that brings you out into this cold night . . ." He stopped talking when felt the tip of the dagger. "Answer me, boy or I'll cut that pretty voice right out of your throat. Where'd you hear that song?"
"I . . .It was like I said . . . when I started the song . . . the Fiery Mermaid . . ." The dagger went deeper into the singer's throat, blood began to trickle, and the boy's bladder let go. The stink of blood and urine was rising in the cold. The Hound growled, "You and I both know there's no such thing as mermaids! Where'd you hear the fucking song?"
"She's not! Not a mermaid, I mean! Gods don't kill me! Please! She's a girl. . . a woman. . . speaks the common tongue . . . from the North maybe . . . red hair, blue eyes." He pulled the dagger back but left it poised and flashing in the singer's line of vision. "Where'd you meet this girl?"
"Across the narrow sea," he squeaked. "Oh, Gods, you're him! You're not dead!" The recognition flashed in the boy's eyes.