Now two children danced across the godswood, hooting at one another as they dueled with broken branches. The girl was the older and taller of the two. Arya! Bran thought eagerly, as he watched her leap up onto a rock and cut at the boy. But that couldn't be right. If the girl was Arya, the boy was Bran himself, and he had never worn his hair so long. And Arya never beat me playing swords, the way that girl is beating him. She slashed the boy across his thigh, so hard that his leg went out from under him and he fell into the pool and began to splash and shout. "You be quiet, stupid," the girl said, tossing her own branch aside. "It's just water. Do you want Old Nan to hear and run tell Father?" She knelt and pulled her brother from the pool, but before she got him out again, the two of them were gone.
- A Dance with Dragons
"Ethan Glover was Brandon's squire," Catelyn said. "He was the only one to survive. The others were Jeffory Mallister, Kyle Royce, and Elbert Arryn, Jon Arryn's nephew and heir." It was queer how she still remembered the names, after so many years." Aerys accused them of treason and summoned their fathers to court to answer the charge, with the sons as hostages. When they came, he had them murdered without trial. Fathers and sons both.
- A Clash of Kings
The Dornish garb was comfortable, but his father would have been aghast had he lived to see his son so dressed. He was a man of the Reach, and the Dornish were his ancient foes, as the tapestries at Old Oak bore witness. Arys only had to close his eyes to see them still. Lord Edgerran the Open-Handed, seated in splendor with the heads of a hundred Dornishmen piled round his feet. The Three Leaves in the Prince's Pass, pierced by Dornish spears, Alester sounding his warhorn with his last breath. Ser Olyvar the Green Oak all in white, dying at the side of the Young Dragon. Dorne is no fit place for any Oakheart.
- A Feast For Crows
Flowstone Yard was alive with battle joined, the blades clashed together like thunder though they called it practice. A hundred quarrels were being aired in the court, under the name of a mock fight.
Princess Elia's Dornishmen crossed spears with the longswords of the Marchers of the Reach, they had been fire and ice to eachother since Nymeria of the Rhoynar had been a babe in swaddling cloths. Blackwood men of Raventree Hall aired their ancient feud with the Brackens of Stone Hedge, their lords had both been the Kings of the Trident in the Age of the Heroes and they were forever quarrelling, Edmure told him.
If this was but play then Benjen wondered how much blood would be shed on the day of the great seven-sided mêlée. The squires and green boys had been relegated to the sides of the yard to watch the grown men. Next to Benjen, Edmure let out a sigh of pure envy.
"I would give anything to be him." He was looking at Lord Robert. He fought like a demon, swinging his massive warhammer against three others as lesser men might a sword.
Loyalty forced Benjen to say, "My brothers fight just as well."
It was not quite true and Edmure only sniffed in answer. Ned was holding his own against a man with a red castle sewn on his breast ably but that was all. He was not exciting to look at. Brandon was engaged in a friendly sparring match with a friend, Ser Elbert, Lord Arryn's nephew and heir who had been fostered at Winterfell.
They were all watching Lord Robert today. Ser Arthur Dayne was in attendance upon Prince Rhaegar and in his absence, Lord Robert was undoubtably the most dashing warrior.
Ethan, who stood on Benjen's other side and had a weakness for poetry (and for Lyanna), said that the way he moved reminded him of the way water flowed. He had been grieved to deliver his sweet lady to the great brute's hands at first but now he had apparently reconsidered his decision - Robert Baratheon had proved himself worthy of the Rose of Winterfell, the beauteous, the peerless Lady Lyanna.
"That is how a prince should be," Edmure said decisively. "Where d'you think Prince Rhaegar is? His place is here."
"He's a prince, isn't he?" Benjen said. "He can do whatever he wants."
Edmure shook his head. "Of course not. A prince should act like a prince, a king like a king. Elsewise they don't deserve the name. That's what my father says." He puffed up with the pride of the firstborn son, the only heir.
Benjen felt the pinch of jealousy. His lord father had never considered him important enough to include in his counsels, and he was a year older than Edmure the little braggart. But then he quickly suppressed it. After all, he wouldn't really want to be the first son like Brandon, it was hard work shouldering the responsiblities of a lord. Much easier being a third son, the baby of the family.
"Maybe he doesn't want to act like a prince," Benjen said thoughtfully. "Maybe he doesn't find it as interesting as Lord Robert does."
Edmure looked as though he wanted to say something nasty, but then he thought better of it. Even he was not so foolish as to impugn the prince's honour.
"There's Lady Lyanna," Ethan said suddenly. He was the same age as her and always kept his eyes open for sightings of Benjen's sister - a great pity since it made Lya vainer than ever. Most men tended to fall to the spell of his sister's charms, Benjen knew, though in his opinion she wasn't worth it. She was annoying. Even Edmure, who was so full of himself, was blushing like a beet. It did nothing for his looks, it made him look like a great tomato.
"My lady," he said, sweeping Lya a bow so low that his nose almost touched the curled toes of his boots.
She nodded at him, he was only small fry and today she was very becomingly dressed. "Hallo Ben," she said, cuffing his head. "Little Ethan."
Ethan who was too shy to string more than five words together in her presence only goggled at her.
"Your betrothed fights well, my lady," Edmure said, in an effort to be gallant. "You must be so proud of him."
Lya looked at him. "And why?"
Edmure was at a loss. He had said the right words but he did not know that only the wrong ones worked their magic where Lya was concerned. "Why because he is most valiant and gallant and- and-"
"He's good at whacking people. I am so very delighted." She turned her attention to their brothers. "So the Arryns arrived this morning did they? I remember Elbert well. And that one with Ned, he'll be a Redfort. Perhaps the one he and Robert were fostered with at the Eyrie."
"Shouldn't you be with Princess Elia?" Benjen asked, suddenly suspicious. "Or did she kick you out?"
"She couldn't stand my shining beauty. She feared that I might try to steal the prince away from her."
Benjen snorted. "You're not that pretty."
Lyanna shot him a wolfish grin. "Watch your tongue, little brother." Heedless of her pretty silk gown, she leaned against the railings of the court to watch. Her eyes missed nothing, from the absolute lack of style on Robert's part - which she was quick to point out - to the nearly demonic persistence of the Dondarrion who was paired with a Santagar.
"Did you enjoy yourself today, my lady?" Edmure wanted to know. "There are mummers and fire-eaters and a witch who can see your fortune in a drop of blood-"
"And now a juggling maiden." Lya snatched Ben's tourney blade out of his hand and tossed it in the air. With a dancer's grace she caught it hilt-first as it fell through the air. Ethan's eyes looked ready to pop out of his face.
Even Edmure looked suitably impressed. "Who taught you that, my lady?"
"No one. I taught myself when there was nothing to do but stare sullenly at my brothers playing with swords in the yard." She grimaced and added, "I'm clever that way."
"Just as clever as a mummer's monkey Father says," Benjen explained. "As bright and worthless as quicksilver. Quick to learn the things which are of no use at all. Singing and juggling, say."
She made a face. "Well at least I'm quick. Which is more than he says of you."
Robert had finished. His eyes went straight to Benjen's sister, very conspicuous in regal purple and shimmering silver. There was something quite predatory in the way he smiled at her, nothing like a stag at all. He strode towards them, his arm loped around the shoulders of the red-haired young man who had given him the hardest fight.
"Gods spare me," Lya muttered but she was wily enough to muster a sweet smile on her face. "Lord Robert," she said, curtseying. She was very much aware that most of the eyes on the yard were on her, the only noble lady present, and him, the finest warrior. Sensing her need, Benjen shifted closer to her, shielding her as best he could from prying eyes. He wished that he could keep her away from Robert Baratheon as well, she never seemed quite at her ease around him though they were to be wed.
Lord Robert nodded affably to the boys. If Ethan was tongue-tied in Lya's presence, then the same phenomenon befell Edmure when Lord Robert was around. Both boys stood as mute as statues and only Benjen spoke. "You were splendid!" he said earnestly, wondering why Lya was not madly in love with Robert. Ethan's sister Alannys was and Lya said the princess's ladies twittered about him constantly. What was wrong with his sister, he wondered.
Wilfulness, a touch of wildness, he thought sagely, remembering something his father had once let drop when he thought Benjen wasn't listening. The wolf blood.
"Thank you, lad. Lyanna - this is Ser Jon Connington, heir to Griffin's Roost. Ser Jon, this is-"
"The Lady Lyanna Stark of Winterfell, your betrothed whose beauty is already famed." There were griffins embroidered on the man's white surcoat, as red as the long hair that fell to his collar. He took Lyanna's hand to kiss it but there was only courtesy in his smile - he had not fallen prey to her yet. "I am charmed." He did not sound so. "It was an honour to fight against Lord Robert, my lady. You must be so proud."
"Why should I not be?" It was as though she was asking herself the same question. "You fight like a wildling, Robert," she teased him. "All brute force and no grace."
"I win like a wildling."
"Ah what is it to win if there is no pleasure to be found in watching you?"
Robert snorted. "That's what all the women say and yet they'd druther have me, brute as I am, than a graceful mountebank who lost."
"Why, have you known so very many women?" Lyanna's lips curled as the conversation grew bawdier. She was enjoying herself immensely.
Robert shot her a dazzling smile. "You would think me a poor sort of husband if I had not, sweetling."
Lyanna waggled her eyebrows before turning to Ser Jon. "You are one of His Highness's chiefest companions, are you not?" she asked him.
"I like to consider myself so, certainly, though few can claim the honour of being close to our silver prince's heart."
"Where is he today, do you think?" she asked lightly. She did not blush but there was a hint of embarrassment in her voice, Benjen could hear it though nobody else would think it to hear her. "I had thought to find him here, sparring with his noble knights as befits a prince. My Lady Princess sent me to find him."
Liar, she never did, Benjen thought. Why, Lya, you're in love with him yourself, aren't you like all the girls who aren't crazy about Lord Robert are? What fun to have something to blackmail her with.
She was twisting the hilt of Benjen's wooden tourney sword in her hands, though her smile was as relentlessly serene as ever.
"Did she send you here?" Ser Jon asked, looking astonished. "Her Highness would know that Prince Rhaegar is most often found in the library at this hour. Of a certainty he would not be able to resist the treasures of Harrenhal's bookhouses."
Lyanna's face fell ever so slightly. She liked libraries as little as Benjen and Brandon did, the musty smell of books made her head ache she claimed. They would often play truant and hide in the godswood when they should have been at their lessons in Maester Walys' tower. Father did not mind much, he would simply tell the beleaguered maester that a girl had no need to fill her head with book-learning and as for a third son... why he was worth even less than a daughter who could at least be married off for an alliance.
"She did not offer me instructions," Lyanna said. "I had merely thought that I might find him here."
"Well now you've learnt your lesson," Robert said affably. "My royal cousin is too high to concern himself with the baser matters that are so important to lesser men."
"His Highness is as at home on the courts as in the bookhouses," said Ser Jon stiffly, very much on his dignity. "Which can be said of few men. His devotion to duty is second to none. As you might well find out on the tiltyard, Lord Robert."
Robert nodded genially. "Perhaps on the tiltyard for I have no taste for jousting," he allowed. "Though I consider it unlikely on the day of the melee."
"Indeed." Ser Jon bowed to Lya. "I offer you my condolences, my lady. Fair as you are, I doubt that you shall be our Queen of Love and Beauty for your lord cannot hope to win when such fine warriors take the field."
"Fair as I am, they might still crown me over their own ladies," Lyanna said, eyes dancing. "Unless it is Prince Rhaegar who wins. His devotion to duty is second to none, I understand, and the gentle princess is his duty." She curtseyed. "I had best take my leave," she said. "Princess Elia will be looking for me."
"I shall accompany you," Robert said quickly. "There are all sorts of rough men about at a tourney as great as this one. And gods, this is Harrenhal after all. Ghosts. The easiest place in the world to get lost in."
"Thank you, no," Lyanna said, with a thin-lipped smile. She patted Benjen's tourney sword. "I have this to defend mine honour."
Robert threw back his head and roared with laughter.
"And this," she said quickly, grabbing Benjen's arm.
"Eh?" Benjen said.
"I do not think that it would be entirely proper for us to walk together, unchaperoned," she continued sweetly. "My brother must accompany me."
"He could accompany us," Robert said, still hopeful. "Then we would have a bloody chaperone."
She shook her head. "I need you to stay here," she said very earnestly. "To practice so that I might still have a shot at the Queen's crown. Can you do that for me?"
Robert took her hand and squeezed it. His eyes were very blue, very sincere. "For you, anything, my lady."
Behind Benjen, Edmure and Ethan gave happy little sighs, their romantic souls completely satisfied by this touching moment. Benjen rolled his eyes and to his surprise, caught Ser Jon doing the same.
"Sometimes the knights are the monsters, Bran. The little crannogman was walking across the field, enjoying the warm spring day and harming none, when he was set upon by three squires. They were none older than fifteen, yet even so they were bigger than him, all three. This was their world, as they saw it, and he had no right to be there. They snatched away his spear and knocked him to the ground, cursing him for a frogeater."
"Were they Walders?" It sounded like something Little Walder Frey might have done.
"None offered a name, but he marked their faces well so he could revenge himself upon them later. They shoved him down every time he tried to rise, and kicked him when he curled up on the ground. But then they heard a roar. 'That's my father's man you're kicking,' howled the she-wolf."
"A wolf on four legs, or two?"
"Two," said Meera. "The she-wolf laid into the squires with a tourney sword, scattering them all. The crannogman was bruised and bloodied, so she took him back to her lair to clean his cuts and bind them up with linen. There he met her pack brothers: the wild wolf who led them, the quiet wolf beside him, and the pup who was youngest of the four.
- A Storm of Swords
Bran heard Little Walder mutter, "Frogeaters," to Big Walder beside him. Ser Rodrik climbed to his feet. "Be welcome, friends, and share this harvest with us." Serving men hurried to lengthen the table on the dais, fetching trestles and chairs.
"Who are they?" Rickon asked.
"Mudmen," answered Little Walder disdainfully. "They're thieves and cravens, and they have green teeth from eating frogs."
- A Clash of Kings
"D'you really need me to defend your honour?"
Lya cuffed him hard. "Don't be stupid, pup. I had to take someone or he would have kicked up the greatest fuss and Brandon would have forced me to take him, just for a laugh."
"Why don't you want to take him?"
"Because he's stupid."
"Ned doesn't think so. He's always talking about Lord Robert."
"Ned's stupid. You're a little pest but I can deal with you. That's why I didn't take Ned, see?"
"I like Lord Robert too. He's very brave and strong."
"You're a moonstruck boy, of course you like him. You're half in love with him already - you and Ned should have been girls."
"Well you're stupid not to love him since you're to marry him. He can make you do anything he wants."
"Mind your tongue, little brother."
"Or what?"
She whacked him with the tourney sword. His tourney sword. "Or I'll do that again."
"That's not fair!" He sounded like a baby even to himself but that was what Lya did to him. "I don't have anything to fight you off with."
"Even if you did, I'd still win."
He had to admit that she had a point. "You never asked me if I wanted to come with you," he said petulantly. "That wasn't fair. I think I'll tell Father that you only dragged me along with you because you don't like Lord Robert. He won't be best pleased with you then."
She grinned at him. "Ah you wouldn't, Ben."
"I would too."
"You wouldn't," she continued serenely, as though he mattered as much as a squeaking mouse, "because we're going to have grand adventures together. That's why I picked you instead of Brandon or Ned or Robert. Remember, this is Harrenhal after all. Ghosts. The easiest place in the world to get lost."
When she talked like that, you could forget that she was a witch who called you names and sometimes a bitch who hit you and always won. There was magic in her voice, in the way she was always chasing adventures and making you chase them too.
"I bet you'd want to go adventuring in the Wailing Tower," he told her. "I bet you would."
"Oh? Why's that, child?"
"The libraries are in the Wailing Tower."
Lya only laughed and did not trouble to hide that she was blushing. "Perhaps I would."
Seeing that she didn't seem to mind his teasing much, Benjen tried another tack. "They say the kitchens here are as big as Winterfell's Great Hall," Benjen said. "D'you think we might sneak out a few tarts?" His stomach was rumbling. Brandon said that he was at the age at which he was always hungry and it was true too.
Lya laughed and ruffled his hair. "I'd rather hunt for bloodthirsty ghosts, but tarts might do in a pinch. Soon you'll be chasing after the sort of tarts I won't care to devour. I might as well make the most-" She stopped abruptly but she did not have to say anything. Benjen had heard it too.
It was a low, keening wail like an animal in pain and above it rose the sounds of revelry and cruel laughter, the thud of boots.
"Gods help them, I'm going to kill them," she snarled, an ugly look creeping into her face and Benjen was reminded of the day she had caught Ser Domeric whipping his horse. It did not help that the Boltons were honoured guests at Winterfell at the time, that the servants whispered that Lord Roose had come to ask for Lya's hand for his son, that she was only ten years old and half Ser Domeric's size. She had thrown herself at him like a small fury when she had caught him working out his rage on the poor beast, all lathered and bloody, and it had taken all three of her brothers to drag her off him.
Lya snatched up her skirts and all but flew, Benjen racing after her.
The sounds were coming from behind a clump of dense bushes, it was a lonely part of the vast grounds, far from the towers where no tents nor pavilions had been set up. There was a little clearing behind the bushes and there they saw what they had expected.
The three boys stood together in a half-circle around someone kneeling on the ground whom Benjen could not see from afar. They were squires some years older than him, tall and strong and well-armed. One wore a pitchfork, the other a pair of porcupines, the last the twin towers of House Frey. Judging from the richness of their attire and their voices, they were nobly born but that did not matter to his sister. She was far ahead of him now, lashing his sword like a demon in her fury, quite as wild as Lord Robert in the midst of the frey.
"That's my father's man you're kicking!" she howled.
She was one against three just like her betrothed had been, but she did not care. She caught the porcupine in the back of his knees, with an oof he fell to the hard ground. Before the others could react, she smashed her sword hard at the Frey's chest and he yelled in pain. The pitchfork squire went last, Lyanna hit him in the back of his head and he tripped and stumbled.
She was swift and nimble and her blows always hurt, Benjen knew from experience. Brandon had first taught her to wield a blade, though their lord father would have skinned them alive if he had heard. She was quick to learn and she never forgot a thing she found interesting.
"You want more of this?" she screamed, lashing out viciously when one of them tried to rise. She looked like a goddess of vengence, her eyes blazing like fire.
They scattered like autumn leaves, like cowards and it was only then that Benjen realized that he had been holding his breath, watching her as he had been watching Lord Robert.
Careless of her fine silks, she knelt on the ground next to the man Benjen had not been able to see at first. He had a man's face but he was no bigger than Benjen. A boy-man, he decided, scooting closer to his sister.
"Are you hurt?" he asked stupidly.
Lya swore viciously. "Of course he is, stupid!" She did not even bother to cuff his head, like she always did when she thought he was being stupid - and sometimes when she did not.
Benjen looked closer at the boy-man. He was as pale as the strips of linen that Lya was now busy ripping from her petticoat, his eyes rolled back in his head. There was blood dripping from his torn lips, bruises blooming all over his face. His tunic was torn and muddied, one sleeve slashed violently off. A dozen cuts bleed on his body where they could see, Benjen dreaded to think what lay beneath.
She was swearing under her breath, her hands trembling as she knotted a makeshift bandage. "Help me," she said tersely, leaning his weight on her body and trying to stand up. She was white with fear.
He shifted to accomodate her. "How could you tell that he was one of father's men? I've never seen him before..."
She nodded at the three-pronged spear that lay on the ground beside them. Benjen looked more closely at it and then the little man. He was clad in a leather jerkin and a tunic green as moss, sewn with bronze scales. A torn net and a battered leathern shield with neither sigil nor device on it lay beside him. It was plain to see that he could only be one of the little green men of the Neck, a crannogman.
"Oh don't pick those up, we can't carry him and it together," she hissed when he bent to inspect the curiously-made spear. She loped one of the poor man's arms around her shoulders, the other around Benjen's.
"Do you think we should move him at all?"
"We haven't any other choice have we?" she snapped. "Look at him, Benjen, he's one of the crannogmen and we're in the heart of the riverlands. They'd kill him for sport if they saw him and there'd be none to say naught to them, poor and friendless as he is. We can't wait long enough for him to be rescued or hope that someone else will for us. We have to do it ourselves."
His sister was always rescuing people - often in cases where they had no desire to be rescued. Like she had rescued Father from the clutches of Lady Elanor Dustin who had hoped to wed him, by setting the hounds on her. Like she had rescued Lady Catelyn Tully from the sin of vanity by burning off her hair when she was seven. This was one of the rare cases, Benjen thought, the rescue was perfectly justified.
"Where are we taking him?" Benjen asked, letting her lead. She was still swearing to herself, as though it might help.
"Our tent."
"D'you think Father will mind?" Benjen was doubtful. "We could leave him to be looked after by a maester. We could take him to Brandon and ask him what to do."
Lya shook her head, her eyes bright. "That would take too much time. And the maesters would not have any love for a crannogman, they would be as like to poison him as to save him and think they were doing everyone a service. You haven't heard how the Tully girls speak of the bogdwellers of the Neck. No, Ben, we have to do it ourselves. We have to save him."
"Once there was a curious lad who lived in the Neck. He was small like all crannogmen, but brave and smart and strong as well. He grew up hunting and fishing and climbing trees, and learned all the magics of my people."
Bran was almost certain he had never heard this story. "Did he have green dreams like Jojen?"
"No," said Meera, "but he could breathe mud and run on leaves, and change earth to water and water to earth with no more than a whispered word. He could talk to trees and weave words and make castles appear and disappear."
"I wish I could," Bran said plaintively. "When does he meet the tree knight?"
Meera made a face at him. "Sooner if a certain prince would be quiet."
"I was just asking."
"The lad knew the magics of the crannogs," she continued, "but he wanted more. Our people seldom travel far from home, you know. We're a smallfolk, and our ways seem queer to some, so the big people do not always treat us kindly. But this lad was bolder than most, and one day when he had grown to manhood he decided he would leave the crannogs and visit the Isle of Faces."
"No one visits the Isle of Faces," objected Bran. "That's where the green men live."
"It was the green men he meant to find. So he donned a shirt sewn with bronze scales, like mine, took up a leathern shield and a three-pronged
spear, like mine, and paddled a little skin boat down the Green Fork."
Bran closed his eyes to try and see the man in his little skin boat. In his head, the crannogman looked like Jojen, only older and stronger and dressed like Meera.
"He passed beneath the Twins by night so the Freys would not attack him, and when he reached the Trident he climbed from the river and put his boat on his head and began to walk. It took him many a day, but finally he reached the Gods Eye, threw his boat in the lake, and paddled out to the Isle of Faces."
"Did he meet the green men?"
"Yes," said Meera, "but that's another story, and not for me to tell. My prince asked for knights."
"Green men are good too."
"They are," she agreed, but said no more about them. "All that winter the crannogman stayed on the isle, but when the spring broke he heard the wide world calling and knew the time had come to leave. His skin boat was just where he'd left it, so he said his farewells and paddled off toward shore. He rowed and rowed, and finally saw the distant towers of a castle rising beside the lake. The towers reached ever higher as he neared shore, until he realized that this must be the greatest castle in all the world."
- A Storm of Swords
He was starting to come to.
The late rays of the afternoon sun slanted through the tent, tinting it gold and bronze. In this light, the gilded silver direwolf on the shield at the entrance was the colour of blood and fire. His sister's face was awash with the warm light, tender as a mother's as she watched over the crannogman who was still asleep on the furs.
They had gotten him back safely to father's tent and let him sleep through the morning and all the afternoon. They had not been disturbed - Ned shared Lord Robert's tent and Father was with Lord Tully and Lord Arryn.
She had thrown the tent upside down, hunting frantically through the chests for her herbs and potions, strips of linen and a bowl to hold clean, warm water. Benjen had helped her some, rushing to the stream to collect the water, sponging down the little man but he had not Lya's skill. As the daughter of a great castle she had learnt her possets and herblore in the stillroom, under Old Nan and the midwives of the winter town.
Women's knowledge of birth and death and everything that lay in between, it had been passed down from mothers to daughters in the North since the days of the First Men. Highborn southron maids were too fine to tend to their stillrooms by themselves but at Winterfell the Old Ways still ruled.
They had put him in Benjen's clothes for those were the only ones that would fit. Grand ones too, not plain, workday clothes which their father would have thought more suited to little crannogman, but which Lyanna did not. A tunic and doublet of linen, blue as a river, and trimmed with silver. Breeches of soft brown lambswool and high leathern boots with curling, gilded toes. He looked like a proper lordling now, he had a gentle face and the finery suited him well - far better than their rich garb had suited the squires who had set upon him.
He was opening his eyes now, they were as green as moss but wide and full of fear.
"Don't be scared," Lyanna said very softly, so as not to startle him. She was as gentle with him as she had been with the little fawn she had captured on a hunt once. "We found you when the squires were hurting you and brought you here to our tent."
His eyes darted here and there, as though he were looking for a way out. He saw the shield that leaned against the entrance. "Wolves," he muttered and then brought his hand up stiffly to his lips, as though surprised that it did not hurt to speak. They had been torn and bloody but Lya had smeared some foul-smelling salve all over them and they were all right now.
"Starks." Lya motioned to him and Benjen shuffled closer to kneel at her side. "I'm Lyanna and this is my brother Benjen."
"D'you remember anything at all?" Benjen asked curiously. Lyanna rose and began to fill a cup of weirwood bark with mead. There was bread too, apples and a sugar cone that she had intended for the horses.
The crannogman dragged himself awkwardly to a sitting position. "Enough," he said quietly, his eyes intent on Lya's face, "to know that I am forever in your debt, my Lady of Winterfell." He looked straight at her as though he would look into her heart. She blushed and looked down and Benjen was surprised. She never looks down like ladies are supposed to, never her, he thought, confused. She says it's because she's no true lady.
"Here," she muttered, suddenly as shy as a young maid with her first lover. "You should eat and drink. I fixed you up some but you'll need to restore your strength."
"Who are you?" Benjen asked curiously. "You're one of our lord father's men, aren't you?"
He nodded slowly and now his eyes slid to Benjen's face and he found himself squirming uncomfortably. But then the queer little man smiled and his face was lit up as bright as a rainbow. It was a smile that called for an answer.
"The years have passed in their hundreds and their thousands since my folk first swore their fealty to the King in the North," he said very formally. "Hearth and heart and harvest have my fathers pledged to Winterfell. And to you, my lady, I am bound by earth and water, bronze and iron, ice and fire. My name is Howland Reed and I am of the Greywater."
"The riverlands are not a kind place for crannogmen," Lya said. "The North would shelter you but the southrons do not understand your ways, Howland Reed. Why did you come here?"
"To learn, my lady."
"After you knew it wasn't safe?" Benjen demanded. Or are you as simple as you seem gentle?
He nodded. "There is more to life than being warm and safe, little lord. I would have gone through it again if only to see what I saw once again. It is a poor sort of life to be spent skulking in the shadows like spiders and hoping the great folk will let you dredge a living and make no note of you."
Lya was nodding as though she understood him. "Drink," she said very firmly, as though he was a child in the nursery and she his nurse.
He lifted his cup up gravely to toast her and then took a sip. "You have a good heart, my lady. Not many would have helped a bogdweller."
She tossed her head defiantly. "I am not many. I am Lyanna Stark of Winterfell." When she said it that way, it sounded almost like a battlecry.
"Why were they hurting you anyway?" Benjen asked curiously.
Lya made a face at him. "D'you think those animals needed a reason? They did it because they could, that's all." She shook her head in disgust. "Monsters. And them squires to noble knights, sworn to defend the weak and protect the innocent!"
"The world is full of monsters, my lady." Howland Reed handed the cup back to her. "But so long as we have our heroes, all is bound to be well."
"Heroes?" Lya smiled faintly. "I'm not a hero, I'm only a girl."
"Who says girls can't be heroes?"
They turned around and there stood Brandon at the entrance, watching them with his lips quirked into a little smile. He shouldered past Benjen and wrapped his arms around Lya, squeezing her hard. "I'm proud of you, little sister." Ned was behind him, he looked past Brandon and Lyanna to the little green man.
"You stupid," Lya said, laughing and punching Brandon's shoulder until he let her go. "How long have you been eavesdropping?"
"Long enough to know that my Lady of Winterfell is a hero," Brandon said pleasantly, tweaking her nose.
Ned was more practical. "The crannogmen never venture far from the Neck," he said suspiciously. "And Harrenhal is in the heart of the riverlands. Why did you come here?"
"Ned!" Lyanna scolded him. "You can't ask people questions like that."
But the little crannogman was smiling. "Black Harren's castle might be in the heart of the riverlands," he acknowledged. "But I ventured south to see for myself the heart of magic."
"What-?" began Ned, confused but Benjen and Lya, raised on Old Nan's hearth-tales were familiar with the phrase.
"The Isle of Faces!" Lya squealed.
"You never did!" Benjen exclaimed. "That's where the green men live!"
"It was the green men I went to find."
"Did you?" Lya demanded, wide-eyed as a child, quite forgetting that she was all of fourteen and often called herself a woman grown. "Did you really?"
"Bedtales," Ned said quietly, leaning back on his heels. "You know what they say about bogdwellers."
Benjen didn't know what they said and he was about to ask when Lya whirled on Ned like a wolf with teeth bared. "You be quiet, you stupid!" she snapped. "Just because the southrons have hammered their stupid ideas into your head for years doesn't make you as clever as you think you are! You know nothing, Ned Stark."
Ned, who was the timidest and most adoring of older brothers, held out his hands. "Peace, sister."
"Say you're sorry."
Ned's voice was very grave but his eyes danced. "I'm sorry."
"Not to me." But she was smiling now, just like Howland Reed who waved away Ned's apology wryly.
"The wolf pack," he said simply, biting into an apple. "When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives."
It was a queer thing to say, but somehow rather exciting. It was like something wizards told knights on their quests in the stories. Benjen shivered, imaging himself as the Last Hero on his quest to find the Children of the Forest. This is Harrenhal, he told himself. Things are always happening here. Perhaps he'd be part of a story of his own too, before the great tourney was over.
"Do you remember the ones who set upon you?" Brandon asked. "Could you point out their faces if you saw them again?"
"They were squires of the Houses Haigh and Blount and Frey," Lya told him. She had a head for sigils. "Blount and Frey are Lord Tully's bannermen-" she began hopefully but Brandon and Ned shook their heads together. Benjen's face fell, he had been hoping for vengeance, just like his sister had.
"So what do we do?" Benjen asked.
Ned rose to his feet. "Nothing," he said, quite calmly. "There is nothing we can do."
Lya was appalled. "Eddard," she yelled at him. "You can't just-"
Brandon put a hand on her shoulder. "Peace, little sister. We'll think of something." The look on his face was not very hopeful as he got to his feet and followed Ned. Benjen could tell that he had little intention of actually doing anything. "Where are you going?" he asked Ned.
"The banquet, don't you remember?" Ned asked, over his shoulder. "The King's great feast to begin tomorrow's tourney? We're all to go - best you begin to change, Ben. You too, Lya."
"I don't want to go," Lya said mulishly.
"What and have Good King Scab suspect of you treason, my little hero?" Brandon asked, laughing. "Faith, His Grace won't like it if we have a girl like you running amok, fomenting treasons and terror across the land."
"Oh stop it-"
"My lady," Howland said. "You really ought to go." For his pains, he was rewarded with a gargoyle's glare from his lady's face.
"She'll go only if you go too," Benjen said lightly. "Can't you see how madly she's fallen in love with you?" He had only meant to tease her but now, almost alarmingly, his sister's stubborn face brightened.
"Yes!" she squealed, tugging at his arm. "You should go too! You must!"
"My lady-" Howland's eyes seemed ready to pop out of his face. "With all due respect-"
"Lya," Brandon began warningly. "Do you really think that's wise?"
"Why not?" she demanded. She seemed determined to drag Howland out of the furs where he was burrowed like a winter mole. "He has as much right as any of father's men to go - and more than many of the lords who think themselves so great, who'll be at tables above the salt!"
"He's not really one of father's men," Ned had to point out. "Not truly."
Lya looked up at him. "He's my man," she said, a steely thread of determination running through her voice. "My man through thick and thin because he knows that I won't let him down." Now she had turned the poor man into her pet, her project, just as she had the fawn that she'd tamed.
"That's not very nice," Benjen objected. He liked Howland Reed and sometimes his sister's bright ideas didn't work out for the best. "You can't just bully him into going if he doesn't want to."
The truth of that seemed to have occurred to her as well since she now turned wide, limpid grey eyes on Howland Reed. "Of course you don't have to go," she said, "I won't force it upon you if you don't want to, but think for yourself, Howland. You said you came here to learn, to see everything that you'd dreamt of and more that you hadn't."
Well, he hadn't said those words out loud but Benjen had seen them in his eyes. He had to admit that Lya could be devilish cunning when she wanted to be.
"You'll never see another tourney as grand as this, not if you live to be a hundred. You'll never go to a king's banquet again, you'll never see Harrenhal in all it's glory ever again. What do you have to say to that? Are you just going to turn tail and cower like a whipped dog just because you've been hurt once? That's not like you."
"How do you know what he's like if you've just met him?" Ned asked her, very matter-of-factly but she ignored him, too busy weaving her spell over the poor little green man.
"Besides I'll be there, won't I? I'll look out for you, I'll protect you. Don't you believe me?"
"Our little hero," Brandon murmured. "Our knight in shining silks."
Howland Reed grimaced and then slowly grinned. It was a boy's grin, lighthearted and amused and brimming with mischief. "Does my lady leave me any choice?"
"There's always a choice when you're dealing with my sister," Brandon said sagely. "Turn tail and flee. It's always the best choice."
Solemnly Howland offered Lya his hand. "I would be honored to serve you as your man, Lady Lyanna," he said, very formally.
They heard a quiet chuckle from behind them and there stood their lord father, his face as light and merry as though he had shed ten years. "What's this now? I left my daughter to serve a princess and here I find her again commanding her own armies."
"Armies?" Benjen asked, laughing. "Howland's hardly an army."
Lord Rickard rested his hand on his youngest son's head. "The true devotion of one good, honest man can be as strong as an army of men who know you not, Benjen. Welcome to my daughter's service, Howland of the Greywater."
A/N: 48 Story alerts, please some reviews to match that?
