Ghost was gone when the wildlings led their horses from the cave. Did he understand about Castle Black? Jon took a breath of the crisp morning air and allowed himself to hope. The eastern sky was pink near the horizon and pale grey higher up. The Sword of the Morning still hung in the south, the bright white star in its hilt blazing like a diamond in the dawn, but the blacks and greys of the darkling forest were turning once again to greens and golds, reds and russets. And above the soldier pines and oaks and ash and sentinels stood the Wall, the ice pale and glimmering beneath the dust and dirt that pocked its surface. The Magnar sent a dozen men riding west and a dozen more east, to climb the highest hills they could find and watch for any sign of rangers in the wood or riders on the high ice. The Therms carried bronze-banded warhorns to give warning should the Watch be sighted. The other wildlings fell in behind Jarl, Jon and Ygritte with the rest. This was to be the young raider's hour of glory. The Wall was often said to stand seven hundred feet high, but Jarl had found a place where it was both higher and lower. Before them, the ice rose sheer from out of the trees like some immense cliff, crowned by wind-carved battlements that loomed at least eight hundred feet high, perhaps nine hundred in spots. But that was deceptive, Jon realized as they drew closer. Brandon the Builder had laid his huge foundation blocks along the heights wherever feasible, and hereabouts the hills rose wild and rugged. He had once heard his uncle Benjen say that the Wall was a sword east of Castle Black, but a snake to the west. It was true. Sweeping in over one huge humped hill, the ice dipped down into a valley, climbed the knife edge of a long granite ridgeline for a league or more, ran along a jagged crest, dipped again into a valley deeper still, and then rose higher and higher, leaping from hill to hill as far as the eye could see, into the mountainous west. Jarl had chosen to assault the stretch of ice along the ridge. Here, though the top of the Wall loomed eight hundred feet above the forest floor, a good third of that height was earth and stone rather than ice; the slope was too steep for their horses, almost as difficult a scramble as the Fist of the First Men, but still vastly easier to ascend than the sheer vertical face of the Wall itself. And the ridge was densely wooded as well, offering easy concealment. Once brothers in black had gone out every day with axes to cut back the encroaching trees, but those days were long past, and here the forest grew right up to the ice. The day promised to be damp and cold, and damper and colder by the Wall, beneath those tons of ice. The closer they got, the more the Therms held back. They have never seen the Wall before, not even the Magnar, Jon realized. It frightens them. In the Seven Kingdoms it was said that the Wall marked the end of the world. That is true for them as well. it was all in where you stood. And where do I stand? Jon did not know. To stay with Ygritte, he would need to become a wildling heart and soul. if he abandoned her to return to his duty, the Magnar might cut her heart out. And if he took her with him... assuming she would go, which was far from certain... well, he could scarcely bring her back to Castle Black to live among the brothers. A deserter and a wildling could expect no welcome anywhere in the Seven Kingdoms. We could go look for Gendel's children, I suppose. Though they'd be more like to eat us than to take us in. The Wall did not awe Jarl's raiders, Jon saw. They have done this before, every man of them. Jarl called out names when they dismounted beneath the ridge, and eleven gathered round him. All were young. The oldest could not have been more than five-and-twenty, and two of the ten were younger than Jon. Everyone was lean and hard, though; they had a look of sinewy strength that reminded him of Stonesnake, the brother the Halfhand had sent off afoot when Rattleshirt was hunting them. In the very shadow of the Wall the wildlings made ready, winding thick coils of hempen rope around one shoulder and down across their chests, and lacing on queer boots of supple doeskin. The boots had spikes jutting from the toes; iron, for Jarl and two others, bronze for some, but most often jagged bone. Small stone-headed hammers hung from one hip, a leathern bag of stakes from the other. Their ice axes were antlers with sharpened tines, bound to wooden hafts with strips of hide. The eleven climbers sorted themselves into three teams of four; Jarl himself made the twelfth man. "Mance promises swords for every man of the first team to reach the top," he told them, his breath misting in the cold air. "Southron swords of castle-forged steel. And your name in the song he'll make of this, that too. What more could a free man ask? Up, and the Others take the hindmost!" The Others take them all, thought Jon, as he watched them scramble up the steep slope of the ridge and vanish beneath the trees. It would not be the first time wildlings had scaled the Wall, not even the hundred and first. The patrols stumbled on climbers two or three times a year, and rangers sometimes came on the broken corpses of those who had fallen. Along the east coast the raiders most often built boats to slip across the Bay of Seals. In the west they would descend into the black depths of the Gorge to make their way around the Shadow Tower. But in between the only way to defeat the Wall was to go over it, and many a raider had. Fewer come back, though, he thought with a certain grim pride. Climbers must of necessity leave their mounts behind, and many younger, greener raiders began by taking the first horses they found. Then a hue and cry would go up, ravens would fly, and as often as not the Night's Watch would hunt them down and hang them before they could get back with their plunder and stolen women. Jarl would not make that mistake, Jon knew, but he wondered about Styr. The Magnar is a ruler, not a raider. He may not know how the game is played. "There they are," Ygritte said, and Jon glanced up to see the first climber emerge above the treetops. It was Jarl. He had found a sentinel tree that leaned against the Wall, and led his men up the trunk to get a quicker start. The wood should never have been allowed to creep so close. They're three hundred feet up, and they haven't touched the ice itself yet. He watched the wildling move carefully from wood to Wall, hacking out a handhold with short sharp blows of his ice axe, then swinging over. The rope around his waist tied him to the second man in line, still edging up the tree. Step by slow step, Jarl moved higher, kicking out toeholds with his spiked boots when there were no natural ones to be found. When he was ten feet above the sentinel, he stopped upon a narrow icy ledge, slung his axe from his belt, took out his hammer, and drove an iron stake into a cleft. The second man moved onto the Wall behind him while the third was scrambling to the top of the tree. The other two teams had no happily placed trees to give them a leg up, and before long the Therms; were wondering whether they had gotten lost climbing the ridge. Jarl's party were all on the Wall and eighty feet up before the leading climbers from the other groups came into view. The teams were spaced a good twenty yards apart. Jarl's four were in the center. To the right of them was a team headed up by Grigg the Goat, whose long blond braid made him easy to spot from below. To the left a very thin man named Errok led the climbers. "So slow," the Magnar complained loudly, as he watched them edge their way upward. "Has he forgotten the crows? He should climb faster, afore we are discovered." Jon had to hold his tongue. He remembered the Skirling Pass all too well, and the moonlight climb he'd made with Stonesnake. He had swallowed his heart a half-dozen times that night, and by the end his arms and legs had been aching and his fingers were half frozen. And that was stone, not ice. Stone was solid. Ice was treacherous stuff at the best of times, and on a day like this, when the Wall was weeping, the warmth of a climber's hand might be enough to melt it. The huge blocks could be frozen rock-hard inside, but their outer surface would be slick, with runnels of water trickling down, and patches of rotten ice where the air had gotten in. Whatever else the wildlings are, they're brave. All the same, Jon found himself hoping that Styr's fears proved well founded. If the gods are good, a patrol will chance by and put an end to this. "No wall can keep you safe," his father had told him once, as they walked the walls of Winterfell. "A wall is only as strong as the men who defend it." The wildlings might have a hundred and twenty men, but four defenders would be enough to see them off, with a few well-placed arrows and perhaps a pail of stones. No defenders appeared, however; not four, not even one. The sun climbed the sky and the wildlings climbed the Wall. Jarl's four remained well ahead till noon, when they hit a pitch of bad ice. Jarl had looped his rope around a wind-carved pinnace and was using it to support his weight when the whole jagged thing suddenly crumbled and came crashing down, and him with it. Chunks of ice as big as a man's head bombarded the three below, but they clung to the handholds and the stakes held, and Jarl jerked to a sudden halt at the end of the rope. By the time his team had recovered from that mischance, Grigg the Goat had almost drawn even with them. Errok's four remained well behind. The face where they were climbing looked smooth and unpitted, covered with a sheet of icemelt that glistened wetly where the sun brushed it. Grigg's section was darker to the eye, with more obvious features; long horizontal ledges where a block had been imperfectly positioned atop the block below, cracks and crevices, even chimneys along the vertical joins, where wind and water had eaten holes large enough for a man to hide in. Jarl soon had his men edging upward again. His four and Grigg's moved almost side by side, with Errok's fifty feet below. Deerhorn axes chopped and hacked, sending showers of glittery shards cascading down onto the trees. Stone hammers pounded stakes deep into the ice to serve as anchors for the ropes; the iron stakes ran out before they were halfway up, and after that the climbers used horn and sharpened bone. And the men kicked, driving the spikes on their boots against the hard unyielding ice again and again and again and again to make one foothold. Their legs must be numb, Jon thought by the fourth hour. How long can they keep on with that? He watched as restless as the Magnar, listening for the distant moan of a Therm warhorn. But the horns stayed silent, and there was no sign of the Night's Watch. By the sixth hour, Jarl had moved ahead of Grigg the Goat again, and his men were widening the gap. "The Mance's pet must want a sword," the Magnar said, shading his eyes. The sun was high in the sky, and the upper third of the Wall was a crystalline blue from below, reflecting so brilliantly that it hurt the eyes to look on it. Jarl's four and Grigg's were all but lost in the glare, though Errok's team was still in shadow. Instead of moving upward they were edging their way sideways at about five hundred feet, making for a chimney. Jon was watching them inch along when he heard the sound - a sudden crack that seemed to roll along the ice, followed by a shout of alarm. And then the air was full of shards and shrieks and falling men, as a sheet of ice a foot thick and fifty feet square broke off from the Wall and came tumbling, crumbling, rumbling, sweeping all before it. Even down at the foot of the ridge, some chunks came spinning through the trees and rolling down the slope. Jon grabbed Ygritte and pulled her down to shield her, and one of the Therms was struck in the face by a chunk that broke his nose. And when they looked up Jarl and his team were gone. Men, ropes, stakes, all gone; nothing remained above six hundred feet. There was a wound in the Wall where the climbers had clung half a heartbeat before, the ice within as smooth and white as polished marble and shining in the sun. Far far below there was a faint red smear where someone had smashed against a frozen pinnacle. The Wall defends itself, Jon thought as he pulled Ygritte back to her feet. They found Jarl in a tree, impaled upon a splintered branch and still roped to the three men who lay broken beneath him. One was still alive, but his legs and spine were shattered, and most of his ribs as well. "Mercy," he said when they came upon him. One of the Therms smashed his head in with a big stone mace. The Magnar gave orders, and his men began to gather fuel for a pyre. The dead were burning when Grigg the Goat reached the top of the Wall. By the time Errok's four had joined them, nothing remained of Jarl and his team but bone and ash. The sun had begun to sink by then, so the climbers wasted little time. They unwound the long coils of hemp they'd had looped around their chests, tied them all together, and tossed down one end. The thought of trying to climb five hundred feet up that rope filled Jon with dread, but Mance had planned better than that. The raiders Jarl had left below uncasked a huge ladder, with rungs of woven hemp as thick as a man's arm, and tied it to the climbers' rope. Errok and Grigg and their men grunted and heaved, pulled it up, staked it to the top, then lowered the rope again to haul up a second ladder. There were five altogether. When all of them were in place, the Magnar shouted a brusque command in the Old Tongue, and five of his Therms started up together. Even with the ladders, it was no easy climb. Ygritte watched them struggle for a while. "I hate this Wall," she said in a low angry voice. "Can you feel how cold it is?" "It's made of ice," Jon pointed out. "You know nothing, Jon Snow. This wall is made o' blood." Nor had it drunk its fill. By sunset, two of the Therms had fallen from the ladder to their deaths, but they were the last. It was near midnight before Jon reached the top. The stars were out again, and Ygritte was trembling from the climb. "I almost fell," she said, with tears in her eyes. "Twice. Thrice. The Wall was trying t' shake me off, I could feel it." one of the tears broke free and trickled slowly down her cheek. "The worst is behind us." Jon tried to sound confident. "Don't be frightened." He tried to put an arm around her. Ygritte slammed the heel of her hand into his chest, so hard it stung even through his layers of wool, mail, and boiled leather. "I wasn't frightened. You know nothing, Jon Snow." "Why are you crying, then?" "Not for fear!" She kicked savagely at the ice beneath her with a heel, chopping out a chunk. "I'm crying because we never found the Horn of Winter. We opened half a hundred graves and let all those shades loose in the world, and never found the Horn of Joramun to bring this cold thing down!" 31 JAIME His hand burned. Still, still, long after they had snuffed out the torch they'd used to sear his bloody stump, days after, he could still feel the fire lancing up his arm, and his fingers twisting in the flames, the fingers he no longer had. He had taken wounds before, but never like this. He had never known there could be such pain. Sometimes, unbidden, old prayers bubbled from his lips, prayers he learned as a child and never thought of since, prayers he had first prayed with Cersei kneeling beside him in the sept at Casterly Rock. Sometimes he even wept, until he heard the Mummers laughing. Then he made his eyes go dry and his heart go dead, and prayed for his fever to burn away his tears. Now I know how Tyrion has felt, all those times they laughed at him. After the second time he fell from the saddle, they bound him tight to Brienne of Tarth and made them share a horse again. One day, instead of back to front, they bound them face-toface. "The lovers," Shagwell sighed loudly, "and what a lovely sight they are. 'Twould be cruel to separate the good knight and his lady." Then he laughed that high shrill laugh of his, and said, "Ah, but which one is the knight and which one is the lady?" If I had my hand, you'd learn that soon enough, Jaime thought. His arms ached and his legs were numb from the ropes, but after a while none of that mattered. His world shrunk to the throb of agony that was his phantom hand, and Brienne pressed against him. She's warm, at least, he consoled himself, though the wench's breath was as foul as his own. His hand was always between them. Urswyck had hung it about his neck on a cord, so it dangled down against his chest, slapping Brienne's breasts as Jaime slipped in and out of consciousness. His right eye was swollen shut, the wound inflamed where Brienne had cut him during their fight, but it was his hand that hurt the most. Blood and pus seeped from his stump, and the missing hand throbbed every time the horse took a step. His throat was so raw that he could not eat, but he drank wine when they gave it to him, and water when that was all they offered. Once they handed him a cup and he quaffed it straight away, trembling, and the Brave Companions burst into laughter so loud and harsh it hurt his ears. "That's horse piss you're drinking, Kingslayer," Rorge told him. Jaime was so thirsty he drank it anyway, but afterward he retched it all back up. They made Brienne wash the vomit out of his beard, just as they made her clean him up when he soiled himself in the saddle. One damp cold morning when he was feeling slightly stronger, a madness took hold of him and he reached for the Dornishman's sword with his left hand and wrenched it clumsily from its scabbard. Let them kill me, he thought, so long as I die fighting, a blade in hand. But it was no good. Shagwell came hopping from leg to leg, dancing nimbly aside when Jaime slashed at him. Unbalanced, he staggered forward, hacking wildly at the fool, but Shagwell spun and ducked and darted until all the Mummers were laughing at Jaime's futile efforts to land a blow. When he tripped over a rock and stumbled to his knees, the fool leapt in and planted a wet kiss atop his head. Rorge finally flung him aside and kicked the sword from Jaime's feeble fingers as he tried to bring it up. "That wath amuthing, Kingthlayer," said Vargo Hoat, "but if you try it again, I thall. take your other hand, or perhapth a foot." Jaime lay on his back afterward, staring at the night sky, trying not to feel the pain that snaked up his right arm every time he moved it. The night was strangely beautiful. The moon was a graceful crescent, and it seemed as though he had never seen so many stars. The King's Crown was at the zenith, and he could see the Stallion rearing, and there the Swan. The Moonmaid, shy as ever, was half-hidden behind a pine tree. How can such a night be beautiful? he asked himself. Why would the stars want to look down on such as me? "Jaime," Brienne whispered, so faintly he thought he was dreaming it. "Jaime, what are you doing?" "Dying," he whispered back. "No," she said, "no, you must live." He wanted to laugh. "Stop telling me what do, wench. I'll die if it pleases me." "Are you so craven?" The word shocked him. He was Jaime Lannister, a knight of the Kingsguard, he was the Kingslayer. No man had ever called him craven. Other things they called him, yes; oathbreaker, liar, murderer. They said he was cruel, treacherous, reckless. But never craven. "What else can I do, but die?" "Live," she said, "live, and fight, and take revenge." But she spoke too loudly. Rorge heard her voice, if not her words, and came over to kick her, shouting at her to hold her bloody tongue if she wanted to keep it. Craven, Jaime thought, as Brienne fought to stifle her moans. Can it be? They took my sword hand. Was that all I was, a sword hand? Gods be good, is it true? The wench had the right of it. He could not die. Cersei was waiting for him. She would have need of him. And Tyrion, his little brother, who loved him for a lie. And his enemies were waiting too; the Young Wolf who had beaten him in the Whispering Wood and killed his men around him, Edmure Tully who had kept him in darkness and chains, these Brave Companions. When morning came, he made himself eat. They fed him a mush of oats, horse food, but he forced down every spoon. He ate again at evenfall, and the next day. Live, he told himself harshly, when the mush was like to gag him, live for Cersei, live for Tyrion. Live for vengeance. A Lannister always pays his debts. His missing hand throbbed and burned and stank. When I reach King's Landing I'll have a new hand forged, a golden hand, and one day I'll use it to rip out Vargo Hoat's throat. The days and the nights blurred together in a haze of pain. He would sleep in the saddle, pressed against Brienne, his nose full of the stink of his rotting hand, and then at night he would lie awake on the hard ground, caught in a waking nightmare. Weak as he was, they always bound him to a tree. It gave him some cold consolation to know that they feared him that much, even now. Brienne was always bound beside him. She lay there in her bonds like a big dead cow, saying not a word. The wench has built a fortress inside herself. They will rape her soon enough, but behind her walls they cannot touch her. But Jaime's walls were gone. They had taken his hand, they had taken his sword hand, and without it he was nothing. The other was no good to him. Since the time he could walk, his left arm had been his shield arm, no more. It was his right hand that made him a knight; his right arm that made him a man. One day, he heard Urswyck say something about Harrenhal, and remembered that was to be their destination. That made him laugh aloud, and that made Timeon slash his face with a long thin whip. The cut bled, but beside his hand he scarcely felt it. "Why did you laugh?" the wench asked him that night, in a whisper. "Harrenhal was where they gave me the white cloak," he whispered back. "Whent's great tourney. He wanted to show us all his big castle and his fine sons. I wanted to show them too. I was only fifteen, but no one could have beaten me that day. Aerys never let me joust." He laughed again. "He sent me away. But now I'm coming back." They heard the laugh. That night it was Jaime who got the kicks and punches. He hardly felt them either, until Rorge slammed a boot into his stump, and then he fainted. It was the next night when they finally came, three of the worst; Shagwell, noseless Rorge, and the fat Dothraki Zollo, the one who'd cut his hand off. Zollo and Rorge were arguing about who would go first as they approached; there seemed to be no question but that the fool would be going last. Shagwell suggested that they should both go first, and take her front and rear. Zollo and Rorge liked that notion, only then they began to fight about who would get the front and who the rear. They will leave her a cripple too, but inside, where it does not show "Wench," he whispered as Zollo and Rorge were cursing one another, "let them have the meat, and you go far away. It will be over quicker, and they'll get less pleasure from it." "They'll get no pleasure from what I'll give them," she whispered back, defiant. Stupid stubborn brave bitch. She was going to get herself good and killed, he knew it. And what do I care if she does? If she hadn't been so pigheaded, I'd still have a hand. Yet he heard himself whisper, "Let them do it, and go away inside." That was what he'd done, when the Starks had died before him, Lord Rickard cooking in his armor while his son Brandon strangled himself trying to save him. "Think of Renly, if you loved him. Think of Tarth, mountains and seas, pools, waterfalls, whatever you have on your Sapphire Isle, think..." But Rorge had won the argument by then. "You're the ugliest woman I ever seen," he told Brienne, "but don't think I can't make you uglier. You want a nose like mine? Fight me, and you'll get one. And two eyes, that's too many. One scream out o' you, and I'll pop one out and make you eat it, and then I'll pull your fucking teeth out one by one." "Oh, do it, Rorge," pleaded Shagwell. "Without her teeth, she'll look just like my dear old mother." He cackled. "And I always wanted to fuck my dear old mother up the arse." Jaime chuckled. "There's a funny fool. I have a riddle for you, Shagwell. Why do you care if she screams? Oh, wait, I know." He shouted, "SAPPHIRES," as loudly as he could. Cursing, Rorge kicked at his stump again. Jaime howled. I never knew there was such agony in the world, was the last thing he remembered thinking. It was hard to say how long he was gone, but when the pain spit him out, Urswyck was there, and Vargo Hoat himself. "Thee'th not to be touched," the goat screamed, spraying spittle all over Zollo. "Thee hath to be a maid, you foolth! Thee'th worth a bag of thapphireth!" And from then on, every night Hoat put guards on them, to protect them from his own. Two nights passed in silence before the wench finally found the courage to whisper, "Jaime? Why did you shout out?" "Why did I shout 'sapphires,'you mean? Use your wits, wench. Would this lot have cared if I shouted 'rape'? "You did not need to shout at all." "You're hard enough to look at with a nose. Besides, I wanted to make the goat say'thapphireth. "' He chuckled. "A good thing for you I'm such a liar. An honorable man would have told the truth about the Sapphire Isle." "All the same," she said. "I thank you, ser." His hand was throbbing again. He ground his teeth and said, "A Lannister pays his debts. That was for the river, and those rocks you dropped on Robin Ryger." The goat wanted to make a show of parading him in, so Jaime was made to dismount a mile from the gates of Harrenhal. A rope was looped around his waist, a second around Brienne's wrists; the ends were tied to the pommel of Vargo Hoat's saddle. They stumbled along side by side behind the Qohorik's striped zorse. Jaime's rage kept him walking. The linen that covered the stump was grey and stinking with pus. His phantom fingers screamed with every step. I am stronger than they know, he told himself. I am still a Lannister. I am still a knight of the Kingsguard. He would reach Harrenhal, and then King's Landing. He would live. And I will pay this debt with interest. As they approached the clifflike walls of Black Harren's monstrous castle, Brienne squeezed his arm. "Lord Bolton holds this castle. The Boltons are bannermen to the Starks." "The Boltons skin their enemies." Jaime remembered that much about the northman. Tyrion would have known all there was to know about the Lord of the Dreadfort, but Tyrion was a thousand leagues away, with Cersei. I cannot die while Cersei lives, he told himself. We will die together as we were born together. The castleton outside the walls had been burned to ash and blackened stone, and many men and horses had recently encamped beside the lakeshore, where Lord Whent had staged his great tourney in the year of the false spring. A bitter smile touched Jaime's lips as they crossed that torn ground. Someone had dug a privy trench in the very spot where he'd once knelt before the king to say his vows. I never dreamed how quick the sweet would turn to sour. Aerys would not even let me savor that one night. He honored me, and then he spat on me. "The banners," Brienne observed. "Flayed man and twin towers, see. King Robb's sworn men. There, above the gatehouse, grey on white. They fly the direwolf." Jaime twisted his head upward for a look. "That's your bloody wolf, true enough," he granted her. "And those are heads to either side of it." Soldiers, servants, and camp followers gathered to hoot at them. A spotted bitch followed them through the camps barking and growling until one of the Lyseni impaled her on a lance and galloped to the front of the column. "I am bearing Kingslayer's banner," he shouted, shaking the dead dog above Jaime's head. The walls of Harrenhal were so thick that passing beneath them was like passing through a stone tunnel. Vargo Hoat had sent two of his Dothraki ahead to inform Lord Bolton of their coming, so the outer ward was full of the curious. They gave way as Jaime staggered past, the rope around his waist jerking and pulling at him whenever he slowed. "I give you the Kingthlayer," Vargo Hoat proclaimed in that thick slobbery voice of his. A spear jabbed at the small of Jaime's back, sending him sprawling. Instinct made him put out his hands to stop his fall. When his stump smashed against the ground the pain was blinding, yet somehow he managed to fight his way back to one knee. Before him, a flight of broad stone steps led up to the entrance of one of Harrenhal's colossal round towers. Five knights and a northman stood looking down on him; the one pale eyed in wool and fur, the five fierce in mail and plate, with the twin towers sigil on their surcoats. "A fury of Freys," Jaime declared. "Ser Danwell, Ser Aenys, Ser Hosteen." He knew Lord Walder's sons by sight; his aunt had married one, after all. "You have my condolences." "For what, ser?" Ser Danwell Frey asked. "Your brother's son, Ser Cleos," said Jaime. "He was with us until outlaws filled him full of arrows. Urswyck and this lot took his goods and left him for the wolves." "My lords!" Brienne wrenched herself free and pushed forward. "I saw your banners. Hear me for your oath!" "Who speaks?" demanded Ser Aenys Frey. "Lannither'th wet nurth." "I am Brienne of Tarth, daughter to Lord Selwyn the Evenstar, and sworn to House Stark even as you are." Ser Aenys spit at her feet. "That's for your oaths. We trusted the word of Robb Stark, and he repaid our faith with betrayal." Now this is interesting. Jaime twisted to see how Brienne might take the accusation, but the wench was as singleminded as a mule with a bit between his teeth. "I know of no betrayal." She chafed at the ropes around her wrists. "Lady Catelyn commanded me to deliver Lannister to his brother at King's Landing -" "She was trying to drown him when we found them," said Urswyck the Faithful. She reddened. "In anger I forgot myself, but I would never have killed him. If he dies the Lannisters will put my lady's daughters to the sword." Ser Aenys was unmoved. "Why should that trouble us?" "Ransom him back to Riverrun," urged Ser Danwell. "Casterly Rock has more gold," one brother objected. "Kill him!" said another. "His head for Ned Stark's!" Shagwell the Fool somersaulted to the foot of the steps in his grey and pink motley and began to sing. "There once was a lion who danced with a bear, oh my, oh my..." "Thilenth, fool." Vargo Hoat cuffed the man. "The Kingthlayer ith not for the bear. He ith mine." "He is no one's should he die." Roose Bolton spoke so softly that men quieted to hear him. "And pray recall, my lord, you are not master of Harrenhal till I march north." Fever made Jaime as fearless as he was lightheaded. "Can this be the Lord of the Dreadfort? When last I heard, my father had sent you scampering off with your tail betwixt your legs. When did you stop running my lord?" Bolton's silence was a hundred times more threatening than Vargo Hoat's slobbering malevolence. Pale as morning mist, his eyes concealed more than they told. Jaime misliked those eyes. They reminded him of the day at King's Landing when Ned Stark had found him seated on the Iron Throne. The Lord of the Dreadfort finally pursed his lips and said, "You have lost a hand." "No," said Jaime, "I have it here, hanging round my neck." Roose Bolton reached down, snapped the cord, and flung the hand at Hoat. "Take this away. The sight of it offends me." "I will thend it to hith lord father. I will tell him he muth pay one hundred thouthand dragonth, or we thall return the Kingthlayer to him pieth by pieth. And when we hath hith gold, we thall deliver Ther Jaime to Karthark, and collect a maiden too!" A roar of laughter went up from the Brave Companions. "A fine plan," said Roose Bolton, the same way he might say, "A fine wine," to a dinner companion, "though Lord Karstark will not be giving you his daughter. King Robb has shortened him by a head, for treason and murder. As to Lord Tywin, he remains at King's Landing, and there he will stay till the new year, when his grandson takes for bride a daughter of Highgarden." "Winterfell," said Brienne. "You mean Winterfell. King Joffrey is betrothed to Sansa Stark." "No longer. The Battle of the Blackwater changed all. The rose and the lion joined there, to shatter Stannis Baratheon's host and burn his fleet to ashes." I warned you, Urswyck, Jaime thought, and you, goat. When you bet against the lions, you lose more than your purse. "Is there word of my sister?" he asked. "She is well. As is your... nephew." Bolton paused before he said nephew, a pause that said I know. "Your brother also lives, though he took a wound in the battle." He beckoned to a dour northman in a studded brigantine. "Escort Ser Jaime to Qyburn. And unbind this woman's hands." As the rope between Brienne's wrists was slashed in two, he said, "Pray forgive us, my lady. In such troubled times it is hard to know friend from foe." Brienne rubbed inside her wrist where the hemp had scraped her skin bloody. "My lord, these men tried to rape me." "Did they?" Lord Bolton turned his pale eyes on Vargo Hoat. "I am displeased. By that, and this of Ser Jaime's hand." There were five northmen and as many Freys in the yard for every Brave Companion. The goat might not be as clever as some, but he could count that high at least. He held his tongue. "They took my sword," Brienne said, "my armor..." "You shall have no need of armor here, my lady," Lord Bolton told her. "In Harrenhal, you are under my protection. Amabel, find suitable rooms for the Lady Brienne. Walton, you will see to Ser Jaime at once." He did not wait for an answer, but turned and climbed the steps, his furtrimmed cloak swirling behind. Jaime had only enough time to exchange a quick look with Brienne before they were marched away, separately. In the maester's chambers beneath the rookery, a grey-haired, fatherly man named Qyburn sucked in his breath when he cut away the linen from the stump of Jaime's hand. "That bad? Will I die?" Qyburn pushed at the wound with a finger, and wrinkled his nose at the gush of pus. "No. Though in a few more days..." He sliced away Jaime's sleeve. "The corruption has spread. See how tender the flesh is? I must cut it all away. The safest course would be to take the arm off." "Then you'll die," Jaime promised. "Clean the stump and sew it up. I'll take my chances." Qyburn frowned. "I can leave you the upper arm, make the cut at your elbow, but..." "Take any part of my arm, and you'd best chop off the other one as well, or I'll strangle you with it afterward." Qyburn looked in his eyes. Whatever he saw there gave him pause. "Very well. I will cut away the rotten flesh, no more. Try to burn out the corruption with boiling wine and a poultice of nettle, mustard seed, and bread mold. Mayhaps that will suffice. It is on your head. You will want milk of the poppy -" "No." Jaime dare not let himself be put to sleep; he might be short an arm when he woke, no matter what the man said. Qyburn was taken aback. "There will be pain." "I'll scream." "A great deal of pain." "I'll scream very loudly." "Will you take some wine at least?" "Does the High Septon ever pray?" "Of that I am not certain. I shall bring the wine. Lie back, I must needs strap down your arm." With a bowl and a sharp blade, Qyburn cleaned the stump while Jaime gulped down strongwine, spilling it all over himself in the process. His left hand did not seem to know how to find his mouth, but there was something to be said for that. The smell of wine in his sodden beard helped disguise the stench of pus. Nothing helped when the time came to pare away the rotten flesh. Jaime did scream then, and pounded his table with his good fist, over and over and over again. He screamed again when Qyburn poured boiling wine over what remained of his stump. Despite all his vows and all his fears, he lost consciousness for a time. When he woke, the maester was sewing at his arm with needle and catgut. "I left a flap of skin to fold back over your wrist." "You have done this before," muttered Jaime, weakly. He could taste blood in his mouth where he'd bitten his tongue. "No man who serves with Vargo Hoat is a stranger to stumps. He makes them wherever he goes." Qyburn did not look a monster, Jaime thought. He was spare and soft-spoken, with warm brown eyes. "How does a maester come to ride with the Brave Companions?" "The Citadel took my chain." Qyburn put away his needle. "I should do something about that wound above your eye as well. The flesh is badly inflamed." Jaime closed his eyes and let the wine and Qyburn do their work. "Tell me of the battle." As keeper of Harrenhal's ravens, Qyburn would have been the first to hear the news. "Lord Stannis was caught between your father and the fire. It's said the Imp set the river itself aflame." Jaime saw green flames reaching up into the sky higher than the tallest towers, as burning men screamed in the streets. I have dreamed this dream before. It was almost funny, but there was no one to share the joke. "Open your eye." Qyburn soaked a cloth in warm water and dabbed at the crust of dried blood. The eyelid was swollen, but Jaime found he could force it open halfway. Qyburn's face loomed above. "How did you come by this one?" the maester asked. "A wench's gift." "Rough wooing, my lord?" "This wench is bigger than me and uglier than you. You'd best see to her as well. She's still limping on the leg I pricked when we fought." "I will ask after her. What is this woman to you?" "My protector." Jaime had to laugh, no matter how it hurt. "I'll grind some herbs you can mix with wine to bring down your fever. Come back on the morrow and I'll put a leech on your eye to drain the bad blood." "A leech. Lovely." "Lord Bolton is very fond of leeches," Qyburn said primly. "Yes," said Jaime. "He would be." 32 TYRION Nothing remained beyond the King's Gate but mud and ashes and bits of burned bone, yet already there were people living in the shadow of the city walls, and others selling fish from barrows and barrels. Tyrion felt their eyes on him as he rode past; chilly eyes, angry and unsympathetic. No one dared speak to him, or try to bar his way; not with Bronn beside him in oiled black mail. If I were alone, though, they would pull me down and smash my face in with a cobblestone, as they did for Preston Greenfield. "They come back quicker than the rats," he complained. "We burned them out once, you'd think they'd take that as a lesson." "Give me a few dozen gold cloaks and I'll kill them all," said Bronn. "Once they're dead they don't come back." "No, but others come in their places. Leave them be... but if they start throwing up hovels against the wall again, pull them down at once. The war's not done yet, no matter what these fools may think." He spied the Mud Gate up ahead. "I have seen enough for now. We'll return on the morrow with the guild masters to go over their plans." He sighed. Well, I burned most of this, I suppose it's only just that I rebuild it. That task was to have been his uncle's, but solid, steady, tireless Ser Kevan Lannister had not been himself since the raven had come from Riverrun with word of his son's murder. Willem's twin Martyn had been taken captive by Robb Stark as well, and their elder brother Lancel was still abed, beset by an ulcerating wound that would not heal. With one son dead and two more in mortal danger, Ser Kevan was consumed by grief and fear. Lord Tywin had always relied on his brother, but now he had no choice but to turn again to his dwarf son. The cost of rebuilding was going to be ruinous, but there was no help for that. King's Landing was the realm's principal harbor, rivaled only by Oldtown. The river had to be reopened, and the sooner the better. And where am I going to find the bloody coin? It was almost enough to make him miss Littlefinger, who had sailed north a fortnight past. While he beds Lysa Arryn and rules the Vale beside her, I get to clean up the mess he left behind him. Though at least his father was giving him significant work to do. He won't name me heir to Casterly Rock, but he'll make use of me wherever he can, Tyrion thought, as a captain of gold cloaks waved them through the Mud Gate. The Three Whores still dominated the market square inside the gate, but they stood idle now, and the boulders and barrels of pitch had all been trundled away. There were children climbing the towering wooden structures, swarming up like monkeys in roughspun to perch on the throwing arms and hoot at each other. "Remind me to tell Ser Addam to post some gold cloaks here," Tyrion told Bronn as they rode between two of the trebuchets. "Some fool boy's like to fall off and break his back." There was a shout from above, and a clod of manure exploded on the ground a foot in front of them. Tyrion's mare reared and almost threw him. "On second thoughts," he said when he had the horse in hand, "let the poxy brats splatter on the cobbles like overripe melons." He was in a black mood, and not just because a few street urchins wanted to pelt him with dung. His marriage was a daily agony. Sansa Stark remained a maiden, and half the castle seemed to know it. When they had saddled up this morning, he'd heard two of the stableboys sniggering behind his back. He could almost imagine that the horses were sniggering as well. He'd risked his skin to avoid the bedding ritual, hoping to preserve the privacy of his bedchamber, but that hope had been dashed quick enough. Either Sansa had been stupid enough to confide in one of her bedmaids, every one of whom was a spy for Cersei, or Varys and his little birds were to blame. What difference did it make? They were laughing at him all the same. The only person in the Red Keep who didn't seem to find his marriage a source of amusement was his lady wife. Sansa's misery was deepening every day. Tyrion would gladly have broken through her courtesy to give her what solace he might, but it was no good. No words would ever make him fair in her eyes. Or any less a Lannister. This was the wife they had given him, for all the rest of his life, and she hated him. And their nights together in the great bed were another source of torment. He could no longer bear to sleep naked, as had been his custom. His wife was too well trained ever to say an unkind word, but the revulsion in her eyes whenever she looked on his body was more than he could bear. Tyrion had commanded Sansa to wear a sleeping shift as well. I want her, he realized. I want Winterfell, yes, but I want her as well, child or woman or whatever she is. I want to comfort her. I want to hear her laugh. I want her to come to me willingly, to bring me her joys and her sorrows and her lust. His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. Yes, and I want to be tall as Jaime and as strong as Ser Gregor the Mountain too, for all the bloody good it does. Unbidden, his thoughts went to Shae. Tyrion had not wanted her to hear the news from any lips but his own, so he had commanded Varys to bring her to him the night before his wedding. They met again in the eunuch's chambers, and when Shae began to undo the laces of his jerkin, he'd caught her by the wrist and pushed her away. "Wait," he said, "there is something you must hear. On the morrow I am to be wed..." "... to Sansa Stark. I know." He was speechless for an instant. Even Sansa did not know, not then. "How could you know? Did Varys tell you?" "Some page was telling Ser Tallad about it when I took Lollys to the sept. He had it from this serving girl who heard Ser Kevan talking to your father." She wriggled free of his grasp and pulled her dress up over her head. As ever, she was naked underneath. "I don't care. She's only a little girl. You'll give her a big belly and come back to me." Some part of him had hoped for less indifference. Had hoped, he jeered bitterly, but now you know better, dwarf. Shae is all the love you're ever like to have. Muddy Way was crowded, but soldiers and townfolk alike made way for the Imp and his escort. Hollow-eyed children swarmed underfoot, some looking up in silent appeal whilst others begged noisily. Tyrion pulled a big fistful of coppers from his purse and tossed them in the air, and the children went running for them, shoving and shouting. The lucky ones might be able to buy a heel of stale bread tonight. He had never seen markets so crowded, and for all the food the Tyrells were bringing in, prices remained shockingly high. Six coppers for a melon, a silver stag for a bushel of corn, a dragon for a side of beef or six skinny piglets. Yet there seemed no lack of buyers. Gaunt men and haggard women crowded around every wagon and stall, while others even more ragged looked on sullenly from the mouths of alleys. "This way," Bronn said, when they reached the foot of the Hook. "If you still mean to... ?" "I do." The riverfront had made a convenient excuse, but Tyrion had another purpose today. It was not a task he relished, but it must be done. They turned away from Aegon's High Hill, into the maze of smaller streets that clustered around the foot of Visenya's. Bronn led the way. Once or twice Tyrion glanced back over his shoulder to see if they were being followed, but there was nothing to be seen except the usual rabble: a carter beating his horse, an old woman throwing nightsoil from her window, two little boys fighting with sticks, three gold cloaks escorting a captive... they all looked innocent, but any one of them could be his undoing. Varys had informers everywhere. They turned at a corner, and again at the next, and rode slowly through a crowd of women at a well. Bronn led him along a curving wynd, through an alley, under a broken archway. They cut through the rubble where a house had burned and walked their horses up a shallow flight of stone steps. The buildings were close and poor. Bronn halted at the mouth of a crooked alley, too narrow for two to ride abreast. "There's two jags and then a dead end. The sink is in the cellar of the last building." Tyrion swung down off his horse. "See that no one enters or leaves till I return. This won't take long." His hand went into his cloak, to make certain the gold was still there in the hidden pocket. Thirty dragons. A bloody fortune, for a man like him. He waddled up the alley quickly, anxious to be done with this. The wine sink was a dismal place, dark and damp, walls pale with niter, the ceiling so low that Bronn would have had to duck to keep from hitting his head on the beams. Tyrion Lannister had no such problem. At this hour, the front room was empty but for a dead-eyed woman who sat on a stool behind a rough plank bar. She handed him a cup of sour wine and said, "In the back." The back room was even darker. A flickering candle burned on a low table, beside a flagon of wine. The man behind it scarce looked a danger; a short man - though all men were tall to Tyrion - with thinning brown hair, pink cheeks, and a little pot pushing at the bone buttons of his doeskin jerkin. In his soft hands he held a twelve-stringed woodharp more deadly than a longsword. Tyrion sat across from him. "Symon Silver Tongue." The man inclined his head. He was bald on top. "My lord Hand," he said. "You mistake me. My father is the King's Hand. I am no longer even a finger, I fear." "You shall rise again, I am sure. A man like you. My sweet lady Shae tells me you are newlywed. Would that you had sent for me earlier. I should have been honored to sing at your feast." "The last thing my wife needs is more songs," said Tyrion. "As for Shae, we both know she is no lady, and I would thank you never to speak her name aloud." "As the Hand commands," Symon said. The last time Tyrion had seen the man, a sharp word had been enough to set him sweating, but it seemed the singer had found some courage somewhere. Most like in that flagon. Or perhaps Tyrion himself was to blame for this new boldness. I threatened him, but nothing ever came of the threat, so now he believes me toothless. He sighed. "I am told you are a very gifted singer." "You are most kind to say so, my lord." Tyrion gave him a smile. "I think it is time you brought your music to the Free Cities. They are great lovers of song in Braavos and Pentos and Lys, and generous with those who please them." He took a sip of wine. It was foul stuff, but strong. "A tour of all nine cities would be best. You wouldn't want to deny anyone the joy of hearing you sing. A year in each should suffice." He reached inside his cloak, to where the gold was hidden. "With the port closed, you will need to go to Duskendale to take ship, but my man Bronn will find a horse for you, and I would be honored if you would let me pay your passage..." "But my lord," the man objected, "you have never heard me sing. Pray listen a moment." His fingers moved deftly over the strings of the woodharp, and soft music filled the cellar. Symon began to sing. He rode through the streets of the city, down from his hill on high, O'er the wynds and the steps and the cobbles, he rode to a woman's sigh. For she was his secret treasure, she was his shame and his bliss. And a chain and a keep are nothing, compared to a woman's kiss. "There's more," the man said as he broke off, "Oh, a good deal more. The refrain is especially nice, I think. For hands of gold are always cold, but a woman's hands are warm..." "Enough." Tyrion slid his fingers from his cloak, empty. "That's not a song I would care to hear again. Ever." "No?" Symon Silver Tongue put his harp aside and took a sip of wine. "A pity. Still, each man has his song, as my old master used to say when he was teaching me to play. Others might like my tune better. The queen, perhaps. Or your lord father." Tyrion rubbed the scar over his nose, and said, "My father has no time for singers, and my sister is not as generous as one might think. A wise man could earn more from silence than from song." He could not put it much plainer than that. Symon seemed to take his meaning quick enough. "You will find my price modest, my lord." "That's good to know." This would not be a matter of thirty golden dragons, Tyrion feared. "Tell me." "At King Joffrey's wedding feast," the man said, "there is to be a tournament of singers." "And jugglers, and jesters, and dancing bears." "Only one dancing bear, my lord," said Symon, who had plainly attended Cersei's arrangements with far more interest than Tyrion had, "but seven singers. Galyeon of Cuy, Bethany Fair-fingers, Aemon Costayne, Alaric of Eysen, Hamish the Harper, Collio Quaynis, and Orland of Oldtown will compete for a gilded lute with silver strings... yet unaccountably, no invitation has been forthcoming for one who is master of them all." "Let me guess. Symon Silver Tongue?" Symon smiled modestly. "I am prepared to prove the truth of my boast before king and court. Hamish is old, and oft forgets what he is singing. And Collio, with that absurd Tyroshi accent! If you understand one word in three, count yourself fortunate." "My sweet sister has arranged the feast. Even if I could secure you this invitation, it might look queer. Seven kingdoms, seven vows, seven challenges, seventy-seven dishes... but eight singers? What would the High Septon think?" "You did not strike me as a pious man, my lord." "Piety is not the point. Certain forms must be observed." Symon took a sip of wine. "Still... a singer's life is not without peril. We ply our trade in alehouses and wine sinks, before unruly drunkards. If one of your sister's seven should suffer some mishap, I hope you might consider me to fill his place." He smiled slyly, inordinately pleased with himself . "Six singers would be as unfortunate as eight, to be sure. I will inquire after the health of Cersei's seven. If any of them should be indisposed, my man Bronn will find you." "Very good, my lord." Symon might have left it at that, but flushed with triumph, he added, "I shall sing the night of King Joffrey's wedding. Should it happen that I am called to court, why, I will want to offer the king my very best compositions, songs I have sung a thousand times that are certain to please. If I should find myself singing in some dreary winesink, though... well, that would be an apt occasion to try my new song. For hands of gold are always cold, but a woman's hands are warm." "That will not be necessary," said Tyrion. "You have my word as a Lannister, Bronn will call upon you soon." "Very good, my lord." The balding kettle-bellied singer took up his woodharp again. Bronn was waiting with the horses at the mouth of the alley. He helped Tyrion into his saddle. "When do I take the man to Duskendale?" "You don't." Tyrion turned his horse. "Give him three days, then inform him that Hamish the Harper has broken his arm. Tell him that his clothes will never serve for court, so he must be fitted for new garb at once. He'll come with you quick enough." He grimaced. "You may want his tongue, I understand it's made of silver. The rest of him should never be found." Bronn grinned. "There's a pot shop I know in Flea Bottom makes a savory bowl of brown. All kinds of meat in it, I hear." "Make certain I never eat there." Tyrion spurred to a trot. He wanted a bath, and the hotter the better. Even that modest pleasure was denied him, however; no sooner had he returned to his chambers than Podrick Payne informed him that he had been summoned to the Tower of the Hand. "His lordship wants to see you. The Hand. Lord Tywin." "I recall who the Hand is, Pod," Tyrion said. "I lost my nose, not my wits." Bronn laughed. "Don't bite the boy's head off now." "Why not? He never uses it." Tyrion wondered what he'd done now. Or more like, what I have failed to do. A summons from Lord Tywin always had teeth; his father never sent for him just to share a meal or a cup of wine, that was for certain. As he entered his lord father's solar a few moments later, he heard a voice saying, "...cherrywood for the scabbards, bound in red leather and ornamented with a row of lion'shead studs in pure gold. Perhaps with garnets for the eyes..." "Rubies," Lord Tywin said. "Garnets lack the fire." Tyrion cleared his throat. "My lord. You sent for me?" His father glanced up. "I did. Come have a look at this." A bundle of oilcloth lay on the table between them, and Lord Tywin had a longsword in his hand. "A wedding gift for Joffrey," he told Tyrion. The light streaming through the diamond-shaped panes of glass made the blade shimmer black and red as Lord Tywin turned it to inspect the edge, while the pommel and crossguard flamed gold. "With this fool's jabber of Stannis and his magic sword, it seemed to me that we had best give Joffrey something extraordinary as well. A king should bear a kingly weapon." "That's much too much sword for Joff," Tyrion said. "He will grow into it. Here, feel the weight of it." He offered the weapon hilt first. The sword was much lighter than he had expected. As he turned it in his hand he saw why. Only one metal could be beaten so thin and still have strength enough to fight with, and there was no mistaking those ripples, the mark of steel that has been folded back on itself many thousands of times. "Valyrian steel?" "Yes," Lord Tywin said, in a tone of deep satisfaction. At long last, Father? Valyrian steel blades were scarce and costly, yet thousands remained in the world, perhaps two hundred in the Seven Kingdoms alone. It had always irked his father that none belonged to House Lannister. The old Kings of the Rock had owned such a weapon, but the greatsword Brightroar had been lost when the second King Tommen carried it back to Valyria on his fool's quest. He had never returned; nor had Uncle Gery, the youngest and most reckless of his father's brothers, who had gone seeking after the lost sword some eight years past. Thrice at least Lord Tywin had offered to buy Valyrian longswords from impoverished lesser houses, but his advances had always been firmly rebuffed. The little lordlings would gladly part with their daughters should a Lannister come asking, but they cherished their old family swords. Tyrion wondered where the metal for this one had come from. A few master armorers could rework old Valyrian steel, but the secrets of its making had been lost when the Doom came to old Valyria. "The colors are strange," he commented as he turned the blade in the sunlight. Most Valyrian steel was a grey so dark it looked almost black, as was true here as well. But blended into the folds was a red as deep as the grey. The two colors lapped over one another without ever touching, each ripple distinct, like waves of night and blood upon some steely shore. "How did you get this patterning? I've never seen anything like it." "Nor I, my lord," said the armorer. "I confess, these colors were not what I intended, and I do not know that I could duplicate them. Your lord father had asked for the crimson of your House, and it was that color I set out to infuse into the metal. But Valyrian steel is stubborn. These old swords remember, it is said, and they do not change easily. I worked half a hundred spells and brightened the red time and time again, but always the color would darken, as if the blade was drinking the sun from it. And some folds would not take the red at all, as you can see. if my lords of Lannister are displeased, I will of course try again, as many times as you should require, but -" "No need," Lord Tywin said. "This will serve." "A crimson sword might flash prettily in the sun, but if truth be told I like these colors better," said Tyrion. "They have an ominous beauty... and they make this blade unique. There is no other sword like it in all the world, I should think." "There is one." The armorer bent over the table and unfolded the bundle of oilcloth, to reveal a second longsword. Tyrion put down Joffrey's sword and took up the other. If not twins, the two were at least close cousins. This one was thicker and heavier, a half-inch wider and three inches longer, but they shared the same fine clean lines and the same distinctive color, the ripples of blood and night. Three fullers, deeply incised, ran down the second blade from hilt to point; the king's sword had only two. Joff's hilt was a good deal more ornate, the arms of its crossguard done as lions' paws with ruby claws unsheathed, but both swords had grips of finely tooled red leather and gold lions' heads for pornmels. "Magnificent." Even in hands as unskilled as Tyrion's, the blade felt alive. "I have never felt better balance." "It is meant for my son." No need to ask which son. Tyrion placed Jaime's sword back on the table beside Joffrey's, wondering if Robb Stark would let his brother live long enough to wield it. Our father must surely think so, else why have this blade forged? "You have done good work, Master Mott," Lord Tywin told the armorer. "My steward will see to your payment. And remember, rubies for the scabbards." "I shall, my lord. You are most generous." The man folded the swords up in the oilcloth, tucked the bundle under one arm, and went to his knee. "It is an honor to serve the King's Hand. I shall deliver the swords the day before the wedding." "See that you do." When the guards had seen the armorer out, Tyrion clambered up onto a chair. "So... a sword for Joff, a sword for Jaime, and not even a dagger for the dwarf. is that the way of it, Father?" "The steel was sufficient for two blades, not three. If you have need of a dagger, take one from the armory. Robert left a hundred when he died. Gerion gave him a gilded dagger with an ivory grip and a sapphire pommel for a wedding gift, and half the envoys who came to court tried to curry favor by presenting His Grace with jewel-encrusted knives and silver inlay swords." Tyrion smiled. "They'd have pleased him more if they'd presented him with their daughters." "No doubt. The only blade he ever used was the hunting knife he had from Jon Arryn, when he was a boy." Lord Tywin waved a hand, dismissing King Robert and all his knives. "What did you find at the riverfront?" "Mud," said Tyrion, "and a few dead things no one's bothered to bury. Before we can open the port again, the Blackwater's going to have to be dredged, the sunken ships broken up or raised. Three-quarters of the quays need repair, and some may have to be torn down and rebuilt. The entire fish market is gone, and both the River Gate and the King's Gate are splintered from the battering Stannis gave them and should be replaced. I shudder to think of the cost." If you do shit gold, Father, find a privy and get busy, he wanted to say, but he knew better. "You will find whatever gold is required." "Will I? Where? The treasury is empty, I've told you that. We're not done paying the alchemists for all that wildfire, or the smiths for my chain, and Cersei's pledged the crown to pay half the costs of Joffs wedding - seventy-seven bloody courses, a thousand guests, a pie full of doves, singers, jugglers..." "Extravagance has its uses. We must demonstrate the power and wealth of Casterly Rock for all the realm to see." "Then perhaps Casterly Rock should pay." "Why? I have seen Littlefinger's accounts. Crown incomes are ten times higher than they were under Aerys." "As are the crown's expenses. Robert was as generous with his coin as he was with his cock. Littlefinger borrowed heavily. From you, amongst others. Yes, the incomes are considerable, but they are barely sufficient to cover the usury on Littlefinger's loans. Will you forgive the throne's debt to House Lannister?" "Don't be absurd." "Then perhaps seven courses would suffice. Three hundred guests instead of a thousand. I understand that a marriage can be just as binding without a dancing bear." "The Tyrells would think us niggardly. I will have the wedding and the waterfront. If you cannot pay for them, say so, and I shall find a master of coin who can." The disgrace of being dismissed after so short a time was not something Tyrion cared to suffer. "I will find your money." "You will," his father promised, "and while you are about it, see if you can find your wife's bed as well." So the talk has reached even him. "I have, thank you. It's that piece of furniture between the window and the hearth, with the velvet canopy and the mattress stuffed with goose down." "I am pleased you know of it. Now perhaps you ought to try and know the woman who shares it with you." Woman? Child, you mean. "Has a spider been whispering in your ear, or do I have my sweet sister to thank?" Considering the things that went on beneath Cersei's blankets, you would think she'd have the decency to keep her nose out of his. "Tell me, why is it that all of Sansa's maids are women in Cersei's service? I am sick of being spied upon in my own chambers." "If you mislike your wife's servants, dismiss them and hire ones more to your liking. That is your right. It is your wife's maidenhood that concerns me, not her maids. This... delicacy puzzles me. You seem to have no difficulty bedding whores. Is the Stark girl made differently?" "Why do you take so much bloody interest in where I put my cock?" Tyrion demanded. "Sansa is too young." "She is old enough to be Lady of Winterfell once her brother is dead. Claim her maidenhood and you will be one step closer to claiming the north. Get her with child, and the prize is all but won. Do I need to remind you that a marriage that has not been consummated can be set aside?" "By the High Septon or a Council of Faith. Our present High Septon is a trained seal who barks prettily on command. Moon Boy is more like to annul my marriage than he is." "Perhaps I should have married Sansa Stark to Moon Boy. He might have known what to do with her." Tyrion's hands clenched on the arms of his chair. "I have heard all I mean to hear on the subject of my wife's maidenhead. But so long as we are discussing marriage, why is it that I hear nothing of my sister's impending nuptials? As I recall -" Lord Tywin cut him off. "Mace Tyrell has refused my offer to marry Cersei to his heir Willas." "Refused our sweet Cersei?" That put Tyrion in a much better mood. "When I first broached the match to him, Lord Tyrell seemed well enough disposed," his father said. "A day later, all was changed. The old woman's work. She hectors her son unmercifully. Varys claims she told him that your sister was too old and too used for this precious one-legged grandson of hers." "Cersei must have loved that." He laughed. Lord Tywin gave him a chilly look. "She does not know. Nor will she. It is better for all of us if the offer was never made. See that you remember that, Tyrion. The offer was never made." "What offer?" Tyrion rather suspected that Lord Tyrell might come to regret this rebuff. "Your sister will be wed. The question is, to whom? I have several thoughts -" Before he could get to them, there was a rap at the door and a guardsman stuck in his head to announce Grand Maester Pycelle. "He may enter," said Lord Tywin. Pycelle tottered in on a cane, and stopped long enough to give Tyrion a look that would curdle milk. His once-magnificent white beard, which someone had unaccountably shaved off, was growing back sparse and wispy, leaving him with unsightly pink wattles to dangle beneath his neck. "My lord Hand," the old man said, bowing as deeply as he could without falling, "there has been another bird from Castle Black. Mayhaps we could consult privily?" "There's no need for that." Lord Tywin waved Grand Maester Pycelle to a seat. "Tyrion may stay." Oooooh, may I? He rubbed his nose, and waited. Pycelle cleared his throat, which involved a deal of coughing and hawking. "The letter is from the same Bowen Marsh who sent the last. The castellan. He writes that Lord Mormont has sent word of wildlings moving south in vast numbers." "The lands beyond the Wall cannot support vast numbers," said Lord Tywin firmly. "This warning is not new." "This last is, my lord. Mormont sent a bird from the haunted forest, to report that he was under attack. More ravens have returned since, but none with letters. This Bowen Marsh fears Lord Mormont slain, with all his strength." Tyrion had rather liked old Jeor Mormont, with his gruff manner and talking bird. "Is this certain?" he asked. "It is not," Pycelle admitted, "but none of Mormont's men have returned as yet. Marsh fears the wildlings have killed them, and that the Wall itself may be attacked next." He fumbled in his robe and found the paper. "Here is his letter, my lord, a plea to all five kings. He wants men, as many men as we can send him." "Five kings?" His father was annoyed. "There is one king in Westeros. Those fools in black might try and remember that if they wish His Grace to heed them. When you reply, tell him that Renly is dead and the others are traitors and pretenders." "No doubt they will be glad to learn it. The Wall is a world apart, and news oft reaches them late." Pycelle bobbed his head up and down. "What shall I tell Marsh concerning the men he begs for? Shall we convene the council... "There is no need. The Night's Watch is a pack of thieves, killers, and baseborn churls, but it occurs to me that they could prove otherwise, given proper discipline. If Mormont is indeed dead, the black brothers must choose a new Lord Commander." Pycelle gave Tyrion a sly glance. "An excellent thought, my lord. I know the very man. Janos Slynt." Tyrion liked that notion not at all. "The black brothers choose their own commander," he reminded them. "Lord Slynt is new to the Wall. I know, I sent him there. Why should they pick him over a dozen more senior men?" "Because," his father said, in a tone that suggested Tyrion was quite the simpleton, "if they do not vote as they are told, their Wall will melt before it sees another man." Yes, that would work. Tyrion hitched forward. "Janos Slynt is the wrong man, Father. We'd do better with the commander of the Shadow Tower. Or Eastwatch-by-the-Sea." "The commander of the Shadow Tower is a Mallister of Seagard. Eastwatch is held by an ironman." Neither would serve his purposes, Lord Tywin's tone said clear enough. "Janos Slynt is a butcher's son," Tyrion reminded his father forcefully. "You yourself told me" "I recall what I told you. Castle Black is not Harrenhal, however. The Night's Watch is not the king's council. There is a tool for every task, and a task for every tool." Tyrion's anger flashed. "Lord Janos is a hollow suit of armor who will sell himself to the highest bidder." "I count that a point in his favor. Who is like to bid higher than us?" He turned to Pycelle. "Send a raven. Write that King Joffrey was deeply saddened to hear of Lord Commander Mormont's death, but regrets that he can spare no men just now, whilst so many rebels and usurpers remain in the field. Suggest that matters might be quite different once the throne is secure... provided the king has full confidence in the leadership of the Watch. In closing, ask Marsh to pass along His Grace's fondest regards to his faithful friend and servant... Lord Janos Slynt." "Yes, my lord." Pycelle bobbed his withered head once more. "I shall write as the Hand commands. With great pleasure." I should have trimmed his head, not his beard, Tyrion reflected. And Slynt should have gone for a swim with his dear friend Allar Deem. At least he had not made the same foolish mistake with Symon Silver Tongue. See there, Father? he wanted to shout. See how fast I learn my lessons? 33 SAMWELL Up in the loft a woman was giving birth noisily, while below a man lay dying by the fire. Samwell Tarly could not say which frightened him more. They'd covered poor Barmen with a pile of furs and stoked the fire high, yet all he could say was, "I'm cold. Please. I'm so cold." Sam was trying to feed him onion broth, but he could not swallow. The broth dribbled over his lips and down his chin as fast as Sam could spoon it in. "That one's dead." Craster eyed the man with indifference as he worried at a sausage. "Be kinder to stick a knife in his chest than that spoon down his throat, you ask me." "I don't recall as we did." Giant was no more than five feet tall - his true name was Bedwyck - but a fierce little man for all that. "Slayer, did you ask Craster for his counsel?" Sam cringed at the name, but shook his head. He filled another spoon, brought it to Barmen's mouth, and tried to ease it between his lips. "Food and fire," Giant was saying, "that was all we asked of you. And you grudge us the food." "Be glad I didn't grudge you fire too." Craster was a thick man made thicker by the ragged smelly sheepskins he wore day and night. He had a broad flat nose, a mouth that drooped to one side, and a missing ear. And though his matted hair and tangled beard might be grey going white, his hard knuckly hands still looked strong enough to hurt. "I fed you what I could, but you crows are always hungry. I'm a godly man, else I would have chased you off. You think I need the likes of him, dying on my floor? You think I need all your mouths, little man?" The wildling spat. "Crows. When did a black bird ever bring good to a man's hall, I ask you? Never. Never." More broth ran from the comer of Barmen's mouth. Sam dabbed it away with a corner of his sleeve. The ranger's eyes were open but unseeing. "I'm cold," he said again, so faintly. A maester might have known how to save him, but they had no maester. Kedge Whiteye had taken Barmen's mangled foot off nine days past, in a gout of pus and blood that made Sam sick, but it was too little, too late. "I'm so cold," the pale lips repeated. About the hall, a ragged score of black brothers squatted on the floor or sat on rough-hewn benches, drinking cups of the same thin onion broth and gnawing on chunks of hardbread. A couple were wounded worse than Bannen, to look at them. Fornio had been delirious for days, and Ser Byam's shoulder was oozing a foul yellow pus. When they'd left Castle Black, Brown Bernarr had been carrying bags of Myrish fire, mustard salve, ground garlic, tansy, poppy, kingscopper, and other healing herbs. Even sweetsleep, which gave the gift of painless death. But Brown Bernarr had died on the Fist and no one had thought to search for Maester Aemon's medicines. Hake had known some herblore as well, being a cook, but Hake was also lost. So it was left to the surviving stewards to do what they could for the wounded, which was little enough. At least they are dry here, with a fire to warm them. They need more food, though. They all needed more food. The men had been grumbling for days. Clubfoot Karl kept saying how Craster had to have a hidden larder, and Garth of Oldtown had begun to echo him, when he was out of the Lord Commander's hearing. Sam had thought of begging for something more nourishing for the wounded men at least, but he did not have the courage. Craster's eyes were cold and mean, and whenever the wildling looked his way his hands twitched a little, as if they wanted to curl up into fists. Does he know I spoke to Gilly, the last time we were here? he wondered. Did she tell him I said we'd take her? Did he beat it out of her? "I'm cold," said Barmen. "Please. I'm cold.,, For all the heat and smoke in Craster's hall, Sam felt cold himself. And tired, so tired. He needed sleep, but whenever he closed his eyes he dreamed of blowing snow and dead men shambling toward him with black hands and bright blue eyes. Up in the loft, Gilly let out a shuddering sob that echoed down the long low windowless hall. "Push," he heard one of Craster's older wives tell her. "Harder. Harder. Scream if it helps." She did, so loud it made Sam wince. Craster turned his head to glare. "I've had a bellyful o' that shrieking," he shouted up. "Give her a rag to bite down on, or I'll come up there and give her a taste o' my hand." He would too, Sam knew. Craster had nineteen wives, but none who'd dare interfere once he started up that ladder. No more than the black brothers had two nights past, when he was beating one of the younger girls. There had been mutterings, to be sure. "He's killing her" Garth of Greenaway had said, and Clubfoot Karl laughed and said, "If he don't want the little sweetmeat he could give her to me." Black Bernarr cursed in a low angry voice, and Alan of Rosby got up and went outside so he wouldn't have to hear. "His roof, his rule," the ranger Ronnel Harclay had reminded them. "Craster's a friend to the Watch." A friend, thought Sam, as he listened to Gilly's muffled shrieks. Craster was a brutal man who ruled his wives and daughters with an iron hand, but his keep was a refuge all the same. "Frozen crows," Craster sneered when they straggled in, those few who had survived the snow, the wights, and the bitter cold. "And not so big a flock as went north, neither." Yet he had given them space on his floor, a roof to keep the snow off, a fire to dry them out, and his wives had brought them cups of hot wine to put some warmth in their bellies. "Bloody crows," he called them, but he'd fed them too, meager though the fare might be. We are guests, Sam reminded himself. Gilly is his. His daughter, his wife. His roof, his rule. The first time he'd seen Craster's Keep, Gilly had come begging for help, and Sam had lent her his black cloak to conceal her belly when she went to find Jon Snow. Knights are supposed to defend women and children. Only a few of the black brothers were knights, but even so... We all say the words, Sam thought. I am the shield that guards the realms of men. A woman was a woman, even a wildling woman. We should help her. We should. It was her child Gilly feared for; she was frightened that it might be a boy. Craster raised up his daughters to be his wives, but there were neither men nor boys to be seen about his compound. Gilly had told Jon that Craster gave his sons to the gods. If the gods are good, they will send her a daughter, Sam prayed. Up in the loft, Gilly choked back a scream. "That's it," a woman said. "Another push, now. Oh, I see his head." Hers, Sam thought miserably. Her head, hers. "Cold," said Barmen, weakly. "Please. I'm so cold." Sam put the bowl and spoon aside, tossed another fur across the dying man, put another stick on the fire. Gilly gave a shriek, and began to pant. Craster gnawed on his hard black sausage. He had sausages for himself and his wives, he said, but none for the Watch. "Women," he complained. "The way they wail... I had me a fat sow once birthed a litter of eight with no more'n a grunt." Chewing, he turned his head to squint contemptuously at Sam. "She was near as fat as you, boy. Slayer." He laughed. It was more than Sam could stand. He stumbled away from the firepit, stepping awkwardly over and around the men sleeping and squatting and dying upon the hard-packed earthen floor. The smoke and screams and moans were making him feel faint. Bending his head, he pushed through the hanging deerhide flaps that served Craster for a door and stepped out into the afternoon. The day was cloudy, but still bright enough to blind him after the gloom of the hall. Some patches of snow weighed down the limbs of surrounding trees and blanketed the gold and russet hills, but fewer than there had been. The storm had passed on, and the days at Craster's Keep had been... well, not warm perhaps, but not so bitter cold. Sam could hear the soft dripdrip-drip of water melting off the icicles that bearded the edge of the thick sod roof. He took a deep shuddering breath and looked around. To the west Ollo Lophand and Tim Stone were moving through the horselines, feeding and watering the remaining garrons. Downwind, other brothers were skinning and butchering the animals deemed too weak to go on. Spearmen and archers walked sentry behind the earthen dikes that were Craster's only defense against whatever hid in the wood beyond, while a dozen firepits sent up thick fingers of blue-grey smoke. Sam could hear the distant echoes of axes at work in the forest, where a work detail was harvesting enough wood to keep the blazes burning all through the night. Nights were the bad time. When it got dark. And cold. There had been no attacks while they had been at Craster's, neither wights nor Others. Nor would there be, Craster said. "A godly man got no cause to fear such. I said as much to that Mance Rayder once, when he come sniffing round. He never listened, no more'n you crows with your swords and your bloody fires. That won't help you none when the white cold comes. Only the gods will help you then. You best get right with the gods." Gilly had spoken of the white cold as well, and she'd told them what sort of offerings Craster made to his gods. Sam had wanted to kill him when he heard. There are no laws beyond the Wall, he reminded himself, and Craster's a friend to the Watch. A ragged shout went up from behind the daub-and-wattle hall. Sam went to take a look. The ground beneath his feet was a slush of melting snow and soft mud that Dolorous Edd insisted was made of Craster's shit. It was thicker than shit, though; it sucked at Sam's boots so hard he felt one pull loose. Back of a vegetable garden and empty sheepfold, a dozen black brothers were loosing arrows at a butt they'd built of hay and straw. The slender blond steward they called Sweet Donnel had laid a shaft just off the bull's eye at fifty yards. "Best that, old man," he said. "Aye. I will." Ulmer, stooped and grey-bearded and loose of skin and limb, stepped to the mark and pulled an arrow from the quiver at his waist. In his youth he had been an outlaw, a member of the infamous Kingswood Brotherhood. He claimed he'd once put an arrow through the hand of the White Bull of the Kingsguard to steal a kiss from the lips of a Dornish princess. He had stolen her jewels too, and a chest of golden dragons, but it was the kiss he liked to boast of in his cups. He notched and drew, all smooth as summer silk, then let fly. His shaft struck the butt an inch inside of Donnel Hill's. "Will that do, lad?" he asked, stepping back. "Well enough," said the younger man, grudgingly. "The crosswind helped you. It blew more strongly when I loosed." "You ought to have allowed for it, then. You have a good eye and a steady hand, but you'll need a deal more to best a man of the kingswood. Fletcher Dick it was who showed me how to bend the bow, and no finer archer ever lived. Have I told you about old Dick, now?" "Only three hundred times." Every man at Castle Black had heard Ulmer's tales of the great outlaw band of yore; of Simon Toyne and the Smiling Knight, Oswyn Longneck the ThriceHanged, Wenda the White Fawn, Fletcher Dick, Big Belly Ben, and all the rest. Searching for escape, Sweet Donnel looked about and spied Sam standing in the muck. "Slayer," he called. "Come, show us how you slew the Other." He held out the tall yew longbow. Sam turned red. "It wasn't an arrow, it was a dagger, dragonglass... He knew what would happen if he took the bow. He would miss the butt and send the arrow sailing over the dike off into the trees. Then he'd hear the laughter. "No matter," said Alan of Rosby, another fine bowman. "We're all keen to see the Slayer shoot. Aren't we, lads?" He could not face them; the mocking smiles, the mean little jests, the contempt in their eyes. Sam turned to go back the way he'd come, but his right foot sank deep in the muck, and when he tried to pull it out his boot came off. He had to kneel to wrench it free, laughter ringing in his ears. Despite all his socks, the snowmelt had soaked through to his toes by the time he made his escape. Useless, he thought miserably. My father saw me true. I have no right to be alive when so many brave men are dead. Grenn was tending the firepit south of the compound gate, stripped to the waist as he split logs. His face was red with exertion, the sweat steaming off his skin. But he grinned as Sam came chuffing up. "The Others get your boot, Slayer?" Him too? "It was the mud. Please don't call me that." "Why not?" Grenn sounded honestly puzzled. "It's a good name, and you came by it fairly." Pyp always teased Grenn about being thick as a castle wall, so Sam explained patiently. "It's just a different way of calling me a coward," he said, standing on his left leg and wriggling back into his muddy boot. "They're mocking me, the same way they mock Bedwyck by calling him 'Giant." "He's not a giant, though," said Grenn, "and Paul was never small. Well, maybe when he was a babe at the breast, but not after. You did slay the Other, though, so it's not the same." "I just... I never... I was seared!" "No more than me. It's only Pyp who says I'm too dumb to be frightened. I get as frightened as anyone." Grenn bent to scoop up a split log, and tossed it into the fire. "I used to be scared of Jon, whenever I had to fight him. He was so quick, and he fought like he meant to kill me." The green damp wood sat in the flames, smoking before it took fire. "I never said, though. Sometimes I think everyone is just pretending to be brave, and none of us really are. Maybe pretending is how you get brave, I don't know. Let them call you Slayer, who cares?" "You never liked Ser Alliser to call you Aurochs." "He was saying I was big and stupid." Grenn scratched at his beard. "If Pyp wanted to call me Aurochs, though, he could. Or you, or Jon. An aurochs is a fierce strong beast, so that's not so bad, and I am big, and getting bigger. Wouldn't you rather be Sam the Slayer than Ser Piggy?" "Why can't I just be Samwell Tarly?" He sat down heavily on a wet log that Grenn had yet to split. "It was the dragonglass that slew it. Not me, the dragonglass." He had told them. He had told them all. Some of them didn't believe him, he knew. Dirk had shown Sam his dirk and said, "I got iron, what do I want with glass?" Black Bernarr and the three Garths made it plain that they doubted his whole story, and Rolley of Sisterton came right out and said, "More like you stabbed some rustling bushes and it turned out to be Small Paul taking a shit, so you came up with a lie." But Dywen listened, and Dolorous Edd, and they made Sam and Grenn tell the Lord Commander. Mormont frowned all through the tale and asked pointed questions, but he was too cautious a man to shun any possible advantage. He asked Sam for all the dragonglass in his pack, though that was little enough. Whenever Sam thought of the cache Jon had found buried beneath the Fist, it made him want to cry. There'd been dagger blades and spearheads, and two or three hundred arrowheads at least. Jon had made daggers for himself, Sam, and Lord Commander Mormont, and he'd given Sam a spearhead, an old broken horn, and some arrowheads. Grenn had taken a handful of arrowheads as well, but that was all. So now all they had was Mormont's dagger and the one Sam had given Grenn, plus nineteen arrows and a tall hardwood spear with a black dragonglass head. The sentries passed the spear along from watch to watch, while Mormont had divided the arrows among his best bowmen. Muttering Bill, Garth Greyfeather, Ronnel Harclay, Sweet Donnel Hill, and Alan of Rosby had three a piece, and Ulmer had four. But even if they made every shaft tell, they'd soon be down to fire arrows like all the rest. They had loosed hundreds of fire arrows on the Fist, yet still the wights kept coming. It will not be enough, Sam thought. Craster's sloping palisades of mud and melting snow would hardly slow the wights, who'd climbed the much steeper slopes of the Fist to swarm over the ringwall. And instead of three hundred brothers drawn up in disciplined ranks to meet them, the wights would find forty-one ragged survivors, nine too badly hurt to fight. Fortyfour had come straggling into Craster's out of the storm, out of the sixty-odd who'd cut their way free of the Fist, but three of those had died of their wounds, and Bannen would soon make four. "Do you think the wights are gone?" Sam asked Grenn. "Why don't they come finish us?" "They only come when it's cold." "Yes," said Sam, "but is it the cold that brings the wights, or the wights that bring the cold?" "Who cares?" Grenn's axe sent wood chips flying. "They come together, that's what matters. Hey, now that we know that dragonglass kills them, maybe they won't come at all. Maybe they're frightened of us now!" Sam wished he could believe that, but it seemed to him that when you were dead, fear had no more meaning than pain or love or duty. He wrapped his hands around his legs, sweating under his layers of wool and leather and fur. The dragonglass dagger had melted the pale thing in the woods, true... but Grenn was talking like it would do the same to the wights. We don't know that, he thought. We don't know anything, really. I wish Jon was here. He liked Grenn, but he couldn't talk to him the same way. Jon wouldn't call me Slayer, I know And I could talk to him about Gilly's baby. Jon had ridden off with Qhorin Halfhand, though, and they'd had no word of him since. He had a dragonglass dagger too, but did he think to use it? Is he lying dead and frozen in some ravine... or worse, is he dead and walking? He could not understand why the gods would want to take Jon Snow and Barmen and leave him, craven and clumsy as he was. He should have died on the Fist, where he'd pissed himself three times and lost his sword besides. And he would have died in the woods if Small Paul had not come along to carry him. I wish it was all a dream. Then I could wake up. How fine that would be, to wake back on the Fist of the First Men with all his brothers still around him, even Jon and Ghost. Or even better, to wake in Castle Black behind the Wall and go to the common room for a bowl of Three-Finger Hobb's thick cream of wheat, with a big spoon of butter melting in the middle and a dollop of honey besides. just the thought of it made his empty stomach rumble. "Snow." Sam glanced up at the sound. Lord Commander Mormont's raven was circling the fire, beating the air with wide black wings. "Snow," the bird cawed. "Snow, snow" Wherever the raven went, Mormont soon followed. The Lord Commander emerged from beneath the trees, mounted on his garron between old Dywen and the fox-faced ranger Ronnel Harclay, who'd been raised to Thoren Smallwood's place. The spearmen at the gate shouted a challenge, and the Old Bear returned a gruff, "Who in seven hells do you think goes there? Did the Others take your eyes?" He rode between the gateposts, one bearing a ram's skull and the other the skull of a bear, then reined up, raised a fist, and whistled. The raven came flapping down at his call. "My lord," Sam heard Ronnel Harclay say, "we have only twenty-two mounts, and I doubt half will reach the Wall." "I know that," Mormont grumbled. "We must go all the same. Craster's made that plain." He glanced to the west, where a bank of dark clouds hid the sun. "The gods gave us a respite, but for how long?" Mormont swung down from the saddle, jolting his raven back into the air. He saw Sam then, and bellowed, "Tarly!" "Me?" Sam got awkwardly to his feet. "Me?" The raven landed on the old man's head. "Me?" "Is your name Tarly? Do you have a brother hereabouts? Yes, you. Close your mouth and come with me." "With you?" The words tumbled out in a squeak. Lord Commander Mormont gave him a withering look. "You are a man of the Night's Watch. Try not to soil your smallclothes every time I look at you. Come, I said." His boots made squishing sounds in the mud, and Sam had to hurry to keep up. "I've been thinking about this dragonglass of yours." "It's not mine," Sam said. "Jon Snow's dragonglass, then. If dragonglass daggers are what we need, why do we have only two of them? Every man on the Wall should be armed with one the day he says his words." "We never knew..." "We never knew! But we must have known once. The Night's Watch has forgotten its true purpose, Tarly. You don't build a wall seven hundred feet high to keep savages in skins from stealing women. The Wall was made to guard the realms of men... and not against other men, which is all the wildlings are when you come right down to it. Too many years, Tarly, too many hundreds and thousands of years. We lost sight of the true enemy. And now he's here, but we don't know how to fight him. Is dragonglass made by dragons, as the smallfolk like to say?" "The m-maesters think not," Sam stammered. "The maesters say it comes from the fires of the earth. They call it obsidian." Mormont snorted. "They can call it lemon pie for all I care. If it kills as you claim, I want more of it." Sam stumbled. "Jon found more, on the Fist. Hundreds of arrowheads, spearheads as well..." "So you said. Small good it does us there. To reach the Fist again we'd need to be armed with the weapons we won't have until we reach the bloody Fist. And there are still the wildlings to deal with. We need to find dragonglass someplace else." Sam had almost forgotten about the wildlings, so much had happened since. "The children of the forest used dragonglass blades," he said. "They'd know where to find obsidian." "The children of the forest are all dead," said Mormont. "The First Men killed half of them with bronze blades, and the Andals finished the job with iron. Why a glass dagger should -" The Old Bear broke off as Craster emerged from between the deerhide flaps of his door. The wildling smiled, revealing a mouth of brown rotten teeth. "I have a son." "Son," cawed Mormont's raven. "Son, son, son." The Lord Commander's face was stiff. "I'm glad for you." "Are you, now? Me, I'll be glad when you and yours are gone. Past time, I'm thinking." "As soon as our wounded are strong enough..." "They're strong as they're like to get, old crow, and both of us know it. Them that's dying, you know them too, cut their bloody throats and be done with it. Or leave them, if you don't have the stomach, and I'll sort them out myself." Lord Commander Mormont bristled. "Thoren Smallwood claimed you were a friend to the Watch -" "Aye," said Craster. "I gave you all I could spare, but winter's coming on, and now the girl's stuck me with another squalling mouth to feed." "We could take him," someone squeaked. Craster's head turned. His eyes narrowed. He spat on Sam's foot. "What did you say, Slayer?" Sam opened and closed his mouth. "I... I... I only meant... if you didn't want him... his mouth to feed... with winter coming on, we... we could take him, and..." "My son. My blood. You think I'd give him to you crows?" "I only thought..." You have no sons, you expose them, Gilly said as much, you leave them in the woods, that's why you have only wives here, and daughters who grow up to be wives. "Be quiet, Sam," said Lord Commander Mormont. "You've said enough. Too much. Inside." "M-my lord - "Inside!" Red-faced, Sam pushed through the deerhides, back into the gloom of the hall. Mormont followed. "How great a fool are you?" the old man said within, his voice choked and angry. "Even if Craster gave us the child, he'd be dead before we reached the Wall. We need a newborn babe to care for near as much as we need more snow. Do you have milk to feed him in those big teats of yours? Or did you mean to take the mother too?" "She wants to come," Sam said. "She begged me..." Mormont raised a hand. "I will hear no more of this, Tarly. You've been told and told to stay well away from Craster's wives." "She's his daughter," Sam said feebly. "Go see to Barmen. Now. Before you make me wroth." "Yes, my lord." Sam hurried off quivering. But when he reached the fire, it was only to find Giant pulling a fur cloak up over Barmen's head. "He said he was cold," the small man said. "I hope he's gone someplace warm, I do." "His wound..." said Sam. "Bugger his wound." Dirk prodded the corpse with his foot. "His foot was hurt. I knew a man back in my village lost a foot. He lived to nine-and-forty." "The cold," said Sam. "He was never warm." "He was never fed," said Dirk. "Not proper. That bastard Craster starved him dead." Sam looked around anxiously, but Craster had not returned to the hall. If he had, things might have grown ugly. The wildling hated bastards, though the rangers said he was baseborn himself, fathered on a wildling woman by some long-dead crow. "Craster's got his own to feed," said Giant. "All these women. He's given us what he can." "Don't you bloody believe it. The day we leave, he'll tap a keg o' mead and sit down to feast on ham and honey. And laugh at us, out starving in the snow. He's a bloody wildling, is all he is. There's none o' them friends of the Watch." He kicked at Bannen's corpse. "Ask him if you don't believe me." They burned the ranger's corpse at sunset, in the fire that Grenn had been feeding earlier that day. Tim Stone and Garth of Oldtown carried out the naked corpse and swung him twice between them before heaving him into the flames. The surviving brothers divided up his clothes, his weapons, his armor, and everything else he owned. At Castle Black, the Night's Watch buried its dead with all due ceremony. They were not at Castle Black, though. And bones do not come back as wights. "His name was Bannen," Lord Commander Mormont said, as the flames took him. "He was a brave man, a good ranger. He came to us from... where did he come from?" "Down White Harbor way," someone called out. Mormont nodded. "He came to us from White Harbor, and never failed in his duty. He kept his vows as best he could, rode far, fought fiercely. We shall never see his like again." "And now his watch is ended," the black brothers said, in solemn chant. "And now his watch is ended," Mormont echoed. "Ended," cried his raven. "Ended." Sam was red-eyed and sick from the smoke. When he looked at the fire, he thought he saw Bannen sitting up, his hands coiling into fists as if to fight off the flames that were consuming him, but it was only for an instant, before the swirling smoke hid all. The worst thing was the smell, though. If it had been a foul unpleasant smell he might have stood it, but his burning brother smelled so much like roast pork that Sam's mouth began to water, and that was so horrible that as soon as the bird squawked "Ended" he ran behind the hall to throw up in the ditch. He was there on his knees in the mud when Dolorous Edd came up. "Digging for worms, Sam? Or are you just sick?" "Sick," said Sam weakly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "The smell..." "Never knew Bannen could smell so good." Edd's tone was as morose as ever. "I had half a mind to carve a slice off him. If we had some applesauce, I might have done it. Pork's always best with applesauce, I find." Edd undid his laces and pulled out his cock. "You best not die, Sam, or I fear I might succumb. There's bound to be more crackling on you than Bannen ever had, and I never could resist a bit of crackling." He sighed as his piss arced out, yellow and steaming. "We ride at first light, did you hear? Sun or snow, the Old Bear tells me." Sun or snow. Sam glanced up anxiously at the sky. "Snow?" he squeaked. "We... ride? All of us?" "Well, no, some will need to walk." He shook himself. "Dywen now, he says we need to learn to ride dead horses, like the Others do. He claims it would save on feed. How much could a dead horse eat?" Edd laced himself back up. "Can't say I fancy the notion. Once they figure a way to work a dead horse, we'll be next. Likely I'll be the first too. 'Edd' they'll say, 'dying's no excuse for lying down no more, so get on up and take this spear, you've got the watch tonight.' Well, I shouldn't be so gloomy. Might be I'll die before they work it out." Might be we'll all die, and sooner than we'd like, Sam thought, as he climbed awkwardly to his feet. When Craster learned that his unwanted guests would be departing on the morrow, the wildling became almost amiable, or as close to amiable as Craster ever got. "Past time," he said, "you don't belong here, I told you that. All the same, I'll see you off proper, with a feast. Well, a feed. My wives can roast them horses you slaughtered, and I'll find some beer and bread." He smiled his brown smile. "Nothing better than beer and horsemeat. If you can't ride 'em, eat 'em, that's what I say." His wives and daughters dragged out the benches and the long log tables, and cooked and served as well. Except for Gilly, Sam could hardly tell the women apart. Some were old and some were young and some were only girls, but a lot of them were Craster's daughters as well as his wives, and they all looked sort of alike. As they went about their work, they spoke in soft voices to each other, but never to the men in black. Craster owned but one chair. He sat in it, clad in a sleeveless sheepskin jerkin. His thick arms were covered with white hair, and about one wrist was a twisted ring of gold. Lord Commander Mormont took the place at the top of the bench to his right, while the brothers crowded in knee to knee; a dozen remained outside to guard the gate and tend the fires. Sam found a place between Grenn and Orphan Oss, his stomach rumbling. The charred horsemeat dripped with grease as Craster's wives turned the spits above the firepit, and the smell of it set his mouth to watering again, but that reminded him of Barmen. Hungry as he was, Sam knew he would retch if he so much as tried a bite. How could they eat the poor faithful garrons who had carried them so far? When Craster's wives brought onions, he seized one eagerly. One side was black with rot, but he cut that part off with his dagger and ate the good half raw. There was bread as well, but only two loaves. When Ulmer asked for more, the woman only shook her head. That was when the trouble started. "Two loaves?" Clubfoot Karl complained from down the bench. "How stupid are you women? We need more bread than this!" Lord Commander Mormont gave him a hard look. "Take what you're given, and be thankful. Would you sooner be out in the storm eating snow?" "We'll be there soon enough." Clubfoot Karl did not flinch from the Old Bear's wrath. "I'd sooner eat what Craster's hiding, my lord." Craster narrowed his eyes. "I gave you crows enough. I got me women to feed." Dirk speared a chunk of horsemeat. "Aye. So you admit you got a secret larder. How else to make it through a winter?" "I'm a godly man..." Craster started. "You're a niggardly man," said Karl, "and a liar." "Hams," Garth of Oldtown said, in a reverent voice. "There were pigs, last time we come. I bet he's got hams hid someplace. Smoked and salted hams, and bacon too." "Sausage," said Dirk. "Them long black ones, they're like rocks, they keep for years. I bet he's got a hundred hanging in some cellar." "Oats," suggested Ollo Lophand. "Corn. Barley." "Corn," said Mormont's raven, with a flap of the wings. "Corn, corn, corn, corn, corn." "Enough," said Lord Commander Mormont over the bird's raucous calls. "Be quiet, all of you. This is folly." "Apples," said Garth of Greenaway. "Barrels and barrels of crisp autumn apples. There are apple trees out there, I saw 'em." "Dried berries. Cabbages. Pine nuts." "Corn. Corn. Corn." "Salt mutton. There's a sheepfold. He's got casks and casks of mutton laid by, you know he does." Craster looked fit to spit them all by then. Lord Commander Mormont rose. "Silence. I'll hear no more such talk.- "Then stuff bread in your cars, old man." Clubfoot Karl pushed back from the table. "Or did you swallow your bloody crumb already?" Sam saw the Old Bear's face go red. "Have you forgotten who I am? Sit, eat, and be silent. That is a command." No one spoke. No one moved. All eyes were on the Lord Commander and the big clubfooted ranger, as the two of them stared at each other across the table. It seemed to Sam that Karl broke first, and was about to sit, though sullenly... ... but Craster stood, and his axe was in his hand. The big black steel axe that Mormont had given him as a guest gift. "No," he growled. "You'll not sit. No one who calls me niggard will sleep beneath my roof nor eat at my board. Out with you, cripple. And you and you and you." He jabbed the head of the axe toward Dirk and Garth and Garth in turn. "Go sleep in the cold with empty bellies, the lot o' you, or..." "Bloody bastard!" Sam heard one of the Garths curse. He never saw which one. "Who calls me bastard?" Craster roared, sweeping platter and meat and wine cups from the table with his left hand while lifting the axe with his right. "It's no more than all men know," Karl answered. Craster moved quicker than Sam would have believed possible, vaulting across the table with axe in hand. A woman screamed, Garth Greenaway and Orphan Oss drew knives, Karl stumbled back and tripped over Ser Byarn lying wounded on the floor. One instant Craster was coming after him spitting curses. The next he was spitting blood. Dirk had grabbed him by the hair, yanked his head back, and opened his throat ear to ear with one long slash. Then he gave him a rough shove, and the wildling fell forward, crashing face first across Ser Byam. Byam screamed in agony as Craster drowned in his own blood, the axe slipping from his fingers. Two of Craster's wives were wailing, a third cursed, a fourth flew at Sweet Donnel and tried to scratch his eyes out. He knocked her to the floor. The Lord Commander stood over Craster's corpse, dark with anger. "The gods will curse us," he cried. "There is no crime so foul as for a guest to bring murder into a man's hall. By all the laws of the hearth, we -" "There are no laws beyond the Wall, old man. Remember?" Dirk grabbed one of Craster's wives by the arm, and shoved the point of his bloody dirk up under her chin. "Show us where he keeps the food, or you'll get the same as he did, woman." "Unhand her." Mormont took a step. "I'll have your head for this, you -" Garth of Greenaway blocked his path, and Ollo Lophand yanked him back. They both had blades in hand. "Hold your tongue," Ollo warned. Instead the Lord Commander grabbed for his dagger. Ollo had only one hand, but that was quick. He twisted free of the old man's grasp, shoved the knife into Mormont's belly, and yanked it out again, all red. And then the world went mad. Later, much later, Sam found himself sitting cross-legged on the floor, with Mormont's head in his lap. He did not remember how they'd gotten there, or much of anything else that had happened after the Old Bear was stabbed. Garth of Greenaway had killed Garth of Oldtown, he recalled, but not why. Rolley of Sisterton had fallen from the loft and broken his neck after climbing the ladder to have a taste of Craster's wives. Grenn... Grenn had shouted and slapped him, and then he'd run away with Giant and Dolorous Edd and some others. Craster still sprawled across Ser Byam, but the wounded knight no longer moaned. Four men in black sat on the bench eating chunks of burned horsemeat while Ollo coupled with a weeping woman on the table. "Tarly." When he tried to speak, the blood dribbled from the Old Bear's mouth down into his beard. "Tarly, go. Go." "Where, my lord?" His voice was flat and lifeless. I am not afraid. It was a queer feeling. "There's no place to go." "The Wall. Make for the Wall. Now." "Now," squawked the raven. "Now Now" The bird walked up the old man's arm to his chest, and plucked a hair from his beard. "You must. Must tell them." "Tell them what, my lord?" Sam asked politely. "All. The Fist. The wildlings. Dragonglass. This. All." His breathing was very shallow now, his voice a whisper. "Tell my son. Jorah. Tell him, take the black. My wish. Dying wish." "Wish?" The raven cocked its head, beady black eyes shining." Corn? the bird asked. "No corn," said Mormont feebly. "Tell Jorah. Forgive him. My son. Please. Go." "It's too far," said Sam. "I'll never reach the Wall, my lord." He was so very tired. All he wanted was to sleep, to sleep and sleep and never wake, and he knew that if he just stayed here soon enough Dirk or Ollo Lophand or Clubfoot Karl would get angry with him and grant his wish, just to see him die. "I'd sooner stay with you. See, I'm not frightened anymore. Of you, or... of anything." "You should be," said a woman's voice. Three of Craster's wives were standing over them. Two were haggard old women he did not know, but Gilly was between them, all bundled up in skins and cradling a bundle of brown and white fur that must have held her baby. "We're not supposed to talk to Craster's wives," Sam told them. "We have orders." "That's done now," said the old woman on the right. "The blackest crows are down in the cellar, gorging," said the old woman on the left, "or up in the loft with the young ones. They'll be back soon, though. Best you be gone when they do. The horses run off, but Dyah's caught two." "You said you'd help me," Gilly reminded him. "I said Jon would help you. Jon's brave, and he's a good fighter, but I think he's dead now. I'm a craven. And fat. Look how fat I am. Besides, Lord Mormont's hurt. Can't you see? I couldn't leave the Lord Commander." "Child," said the other old woman, "that old crow's gone before you. Look." Mormont's head was still in his lap, but his eyes were open and staring and his lips no longer moved. The raven cocked its head and squawked, then looked up at Sam. "Corn?" "No corn. He has no corn." Sam closed the Old Bear's eyes and tried to think of a prayer, but all that came to mind was, "Mother have mercy. Mother have mercy. Mother have mercy." "Your mother can't help you none," said the old woman on the left. "That dead old man can't neither. You take his sword and you take that big warm far cloak o' his and you take his horse if you can find him. And you go." "The girl don't lie," the old woman on the right said. "She's my girl, and I beat the lying out of her early on. You said you'd help her. Do what Ferny says, boy. Take the girl and be quick about it." "Quick," the raven said. "Quick quick quick." "Where?" asked Sam, puzzled. "Where should I take her?" "Someplace warm," the two old women said as one. Gilly was crying. "Me and the babe. Please. I'll be your wife, like I was Craster's. Please, ser crow. He's a boy, just like Nella said he'd be. If you don't take him, they will." "They?" said Sam, and the raven cocked its black head and echoed, "They They They" "The boy's brothers," said the old woman on the left. "Craster's sons. The white cold's rising out there, crow. I can feel it in my bones. These poor old bones don't lie. They'll be here soon, the sons." 34 ARYA Her eyes had grown accustomed to blackness. When Harwin pulled the hood off her head, the ruddy glare inside the hollow hill made Arya blink like some stupid owl. A huge firepit had been dug in the center of the earthen floor, and its flames rose swirling and crackling toward the smoke-stained ceiling. The walls were equal parts stone and soil, with huge white roots twisting through them like a thousand slow pale snakes. People were emerging from between those roots as she watched; edging out from the shadows for a look at the captives, stepping from the mouths of pitch-black tunnels, popping out of crannies and crevices on all sides. in one place on the far side of the fire, the roots formed a kind of stairway up to a hollow in the earth where a man sat almost lost in the tangle of weirwood. Lem unhooded Gendry. "What is this place?" he asked. "An old place, deep and secret. A refuge where neither wolves nor lions come prowling." Neither wolves nor lions. Arya's skin prickled. She remembered the dream she'd had, and the taste of blood when she tore the man's arm from his shoulder. Big as the fire was, the cave was bigger; it was hard to tell where it began and where it ended. The tunnel mouths might have been two feet deep or gone on two miles. Arya saw men and women and little children, all of them watching her warily. Greenbeard said, "Here's the wizard, skinny squirrel. You'll get your answers now." He pointed toward the fire, where Tom Sevenstrings stood talking to a tall thin man with oddments of old armor buckled on over his ratty pink robes. That can't be Thoros of Myr. Arya remembered the red priest as fat, with a smooth face and a shiny bald head. This man had a droopy face and a full head of shaggy grey hair. Something Tom said made him look at her, and Arya thought he was about to come over to her. Only then the Mad Huntsman appeared, shoving his captive down into the light, and she and Gendry were forgotten. The Huntsman had turned out to be a stocky man in patched tan leathers, balding and weakchinned and quarrelsome. At Stoney Sept she had thought that Lem and Greenbeard might be torn to pieces when they faced him at the crow cages to claim his captive for the lightning lord. The hounds had been all around them, sniffing and snarling. But Tom o' Sevens soothed them with his playing, Tansy marched across the square with her apron full of bones and fatty mutton, and Lem pointed out Anguy in the brothel window, standing with an arrow notched. The Mad Huntsman had cursed them all for lickspittles, but finally he had agreed to take his prize to Lord Beric for judgment. They had bound his wrists with hempen rope, strung a noose around his neck, and pulled a sack down over his head, but even so there was danger in the man. Arya could feel it across the cave. Thoros - if that was Thoros - met captor and captive halfway to the fire. "How did you take him?" the priest asked. "The dogs caught the scent. He was sleeping off a drunk under a willow tree, if you believe it." "Betrayed by his own kind." Thoros turned to the prisoner and yanked his hood off. "Welcome to our humble hall, dog. It is not so grand as Robert's throne room, but the company is better." The shifting flames painted Sandor Clegane's burned face with orange shadows, so he looked even more terrible than he did in daylight. When he pulled at the rope that bound his wrists, flakes of dry blood fell off. The Hound's mouth twitched. "I know you," he said to Thoros. "You did. In melees, you'd curse my flaming sword, though thrice I overthrew you with it." "Thoros of Myr. You used to shave your head." "To betoken a humble heart, but in truth my heart was vain. Besides, I lost my razor in the woods." The priest slapped his belly. "I am less than I was, but more. A year in the wild will melt the flesh off a man. Would that I could find a tailor to take in my skin. I might look young again, and pretty maids would shower me with kisses." "Only the blind ones, priest." The outlaws hooted, none so loud as Thoros. "Just so. Yet I am not the false priest you knew. The Lord of Light has woken in my heart. Many powers long asleep are waking, and there are forces moving in the land. I have seen them in my flames." The Hound was unimpressed. "Bugger your flames. And you as well." He looked around at the others. "You keep queer company for a holy man." "These are my brothers," Thoros said simply. Lem Lemoncloak pushed forward. He and Greenbeard were the only men there tall enough to look the Hound in the eye. "Be careful how you bark, dog. We hold your life in our hands." "Best wipe the shit off your fingers, then." The Hound laughed. "How long have you been hiding in this hole?" Anguy the Archer bristled at the suggestion of cowardice. "Ask the goat if we've hidden, Hound. Ask your brother. Ask the lord of leeches. We've bloodied them all." "You lot? Don't make me laugh. You look more swineherds than soldiers." "Some of us was swineherds," said a short man Arya did not know. "And some was tanners or singers or masons. But that was before the war come." "When we left King's Landing we were men of Winterfell and men of Darry and men of Blackhaven, Mallery men and Wylde men. We were knights and squires and men-at-arms, lords and commoners, bound together only by our purpose." The voice came from the man seated amongst the weirwood roots halfway up the wall. "Six score of us set out to bring the king's justice to your brother." The speaker was descending the tangle of steps toward the floor. "Six score brave men and true, led by a fool in a starry cloak." A scarecrow of a man, he wore a ragged black cloak speckled with stars and an iron breastplate dinted by a hundred battles. A thicket of red-gold hair hid most of his face, save for a bald spot above his left ear where his head had been smashed in. "More than eighty of our company are dead now, but others have taken up the swords that fell from their hands." When he reached the floor, the outlaws moved aside to let him pass. One of his eyes was gone, Arya saw, the flesh about the socket scarred and puckered, and he had a dark black ring all around his neck. "With their help, we fight on as best we can, for Robert and the realm." "Robert?" rasped Sandor Clegane, incredulous. "Ned Stark sent us out," said pothelmed Jack-Be-Lucky, "but he was sitting the Iron Throne when he gave us our commands, so we were never truly his men, but Robert's." "Robert is the king of the worms now. Is that why you're down in the earth, to keep his court for him?" "The king is dead," the scarecrow knight admitted, "but we are still king's men, though the royal banner we bore was lost at the Mummer's Ford when your brother's butchers fell upon us." He touched his breast with a fist. "Robert is slain, but his realm remains. And we defend her." "Her?" The Hound snorted. "Is she your mother, Dondarrion? Or your whore?" Dondarrion? Beric Dondarrion had been handsome; Sansa's friend Jeyne had fallen in love with him. Even Jeyne Poole was not so blind as to think this man was fair. Yet when Arya looked at him again, she saw it; the remains of a forked purple lightning bolt on the cracked enamel of his breastplate. "Rocks and trees and rivers, that's what your realm is made of," the Hound was saying. "Do the rocks need defending? Robert wouldn't have thought so. If he couldn't fuck it, fight it, or drink it, it bored him, and so would you... you brave companions." Outrage swept the hollow hill. "Call us that name again, dog, and you'll swallow that tongue." Lem drew his longsword. The Hound stared at the blade with contempt. "Here's a brave man, baring steel on a bound captive. Untie me, why don't you? We'll see how brave you are then." He glanced at the Mad Huntsman behind him. "How about you? Or did you leave all your courage in your kennels?" "No, but I should have left you in a crow cage." The Huntsman drew a knife. "I might still." The Hound laughed in his face. "We are brothers here," Thoros of Myr declared. "Holy brothers, sworn to the realm, to our god, and to each other." "The brotherhood without banners." Tom Sevenstrings plucked a string. "The knights of the hollow hill." "Knights?" Clegane made the word a sneer. "Dondarrion's a knight, but the rest of you are the sorriest lot of outlaws and broken men I've ever seen. I shit better men than you." "Any knight can make a knight," said the scarecrow that was Beric Dondarrion, "and every man you see before you has felt a sword upon his shoulder. We are the forgotten fellowship." "Send me on my way and I'll forget you too," Clegane rasped. "But if you mean to murder me, then bloody well get on with it. You took my sword, my horse, and my gold, so take my life and be done with it... but spare me this pious bleating." "You will die soon enough, dog," promised Thoros, "but it shan't be murder, only justice." "Aye," said the Mad Huntsman, "and a kinder fate than you deserve for all your kind have done. Lions, you call yourselves. At Sherrer and the Mummer's Ford, girls of six and seven years were raped, and babes still on the breast were cut in two while their mothers watched. No lion ever killed so cruel." "I was not at Sherrer, nor the Mummer's Ford," the Hound told him. "Lay your dead children at some other door." Thoros answered him. "Do you deny that House Clegane was built upon dead children? I saw them lay Prince Aegon and Princess Rhaenys before the Iron Throne. By rights your arms should bear two bloody infants in place of those ugly dogs." The Hound's mouth twitched. "Do you take me for my brother? Is being born Clegane a crime?" "Murder is a crime." "Who did I murder?" "Lord Lothar Mallery and Ser Gladden Wylde," said Harwin. "My brothers Lister and Lennocks," declared Jack-Be-Lucky. "Goodman Beck and Mudge the miller's son, from Donnelwood," an old woman called from the shadows. "Merriman's widow, who loved so sweet," added Greenbeard. "Them septons at Sludgy Pond." "Ser Andrey Charlton. His squire Lucas Roote. Every man, woman, and child in Fieldstone and Mousedown Mill." "Lord and Lady Deddings, that was so rich." Tom Sevenstrings took up the count. "Alyn of Winterfell, Joth Quickbow, Little Matt and his sister Randa, Anvil Ryn. Ser Ormond. Ser Dudley. Pate of Mory, Pate of Lancewood, Old Pate, and Pate of Shermer's Grove. Blind Wyl the Whittler. Goodwife Maerie. Maerie the Whore. Becca the Baker. Ser Raymun Darry, Lord Darry, young Lord Darry. The Bastard of Bracken. Fletcher Will. Harsley. Goodwife Nolla -" "Enough." The Hound's face was tight with anger. "You're making noise. These names mean nothing. Who were they?" "People," said Lord Beric. "People great and small, young and old. Good people and bad people, who died on the points of Lannister spears or saw their bellies opened by Lannister swords." "It wasn't my sword in their bellies. Any man who says it was is a bloody liar." "You serve the Lannisters of Casterly Rock," said Thoros. "Once. Me and thousands more. Is each of us guilty of the crimes of the others?" Clegane spat. "Might be you are knights after all. You lie like knights, maybe you murder like knights." Lem and Jack-Be-Lucky began to shout at him, but Dondarrion raised a hand for silence. "Say what you mean, Clegane." "A knight's a sword with a horse. The rest, the vows and the sacred oils and the lady's favors, they're silk ribbons tied round the sword. Maybe the sword's prettier with ribbons hanging off it, but it will kill you just as dead. Well, bugger your ribbons, and shove your swords up your arses. I'm the same as you. The only difference is, I don't lie about what I am. So, kill me, but don't call me a murderer while you stand there telling each other that your shit don't stink. You hear me?" Arya squirted past Greenbeard so fast he never saw her. "You are a murderer!" she screamed. "You killed Mycah, don't say you never did. You murdered him!" The Hound stared at her with no flicker of recognition. "And who was this Mycah, boy?" "I'm not a boy! But Mycah was. He was a butcher's boy and you killed him. Jory said you cut him near in half, and he never even had a sword." She could feel them looking at her now, the women and the children and the men who called themselves the knights of the hollow hill. "Who's this now?" someone asked. The Hound answered. "Seven hells. The little sister. The brat who tossed Joff 's pretty sword in the river." He gave a bark of laughter. "Don't you know you're dead?" "No, you're dead," she threw back at him. Harwin took her arm to draw her back as Lord Beric said, "The girl has named you a murderer. Do you deny killing this butcher's boy, Mycah?" The big man shrugged. "I was Joffrey's sworn shield. The butcher's boy attacked a prince of the blood." "That's a lie!" Arya squirmed in Harwin's grip. "It was me. I hit Joffrey and threw Lion's Paw in the river. Mycah just ran away, like I told him." "Did you see the boy attack Prince Joffrey?" Lord Beric Dondarrion asked the Hound. "I heard it from the royal lips. It's not my place to question princes." Clegane jerked his hands toward Arya. "This one's own sister told the same tale when she stood before your precious Robert." "Sansa's just a liar," Arya said, furious at her sister all over again. "It wasn't like she said. It wasn't." Thoros drew Lord Beric aside. The two men stood talking in low whispers while Arya seethed. They have to kill him. I prayed for him to die, hundreds and hundreds of times. Beric Dondarrion turned back to the Hound. "You stand accused of murder, but no one here knows the truth or falsehood of the charge, so it is not for us to judge you. Only the Lord of Light may do that now. I sentence you to trial by battle." The Hound frowned suspiciously, as if he did not trust his ears. "Are you a fool or a madman?" "Neither. I am a just lord. Prove your innocence with a blade, and you shall be free to go." "No," Arya cried, before Harwin covered her mouth. No, they can't, he'll go free. The Hound was deadly with a sword, everyone knew that. He'll laugh at them, she thought. And so he did, a long rasping laugh that echoed off the cave walls, a laugh choking with contempt. "So who will it be?" He looked at Lem Lemoncloak. "The brave man in the pissyellow cloak? No? How about you, Huntsman? You've kicked dogs before, try me." He saw Greenbeard. "You're big enough, Tyrosh, step forward. Or do you mean to make the little girl fight me herself?" He laughed again. "Come on, who wants to die? "It's me you'll face," said Lord Beric Dondarrion. Arya remembered all the tales. He can't be killed, she thought, hoping against hope. The Mad Huntsman sliced apart the ropes that bound Sandor Clegane's hands together. "I'll need sword and armor." The Hound rubbed a torn wrist. "Your sword you shall have," declared Lord Beric, "but your innocence must be your armor." Clegane's mouth twitched. "My innocence against your breastplate, is that the way of it?" "Ned, help me remove my breastplate." Arya got goosebumps when Lord Beric said her father's name, but this Ned was only a boy, a fair-haired squire no more than ten or twelve. He stepped up quickly to undo the clasps that fastened the battered steel about the Marcher lord. The quilting beneath was rotten with age and sweat, and fell away when the metal was pulled loose. Gendry sucked in his breath. "Mother have mercy." Lord Beric's ribs were outlined starkly beneath his skin. A puckered crater scarred his breast just above his left nipple, and when he turned to call for sword and shield, Arya saw a matching scar upon his back. The lance went through him. The Hound had seen it too. Is he scared? Arya wanted him to be scared before he died, as scared as Mycah must have been. Ned fetched Lord Beric his swordbelt and a long black surcoat. It was meant to be worn over armor, so it draped his body loosely, but across it crackled the forked purple lightning of his House. He unsheathed his sword and gave the belt back to his squire. Thoros brought the Hound his swordbelt. "Does a dog have honor?" the priest asked. "Lest you think to cut your way free of here, or seize some child for a hostage... Anguy, Dennet, Kyle, feather him at the first sign of treachery." Only when the three bowmen had notched their shafts did Thoros hand Clegane the belt. The Hound ripped the sword free and threw away the scabbard. The Mad Huntsman gave him his oaken shield, all studded with iron and painted yellow, the three black dogs of Clegane emblazoned upon it. The boy Ned helped Lord Beric with his own shield, so hacked and battered that the purple lightning and the scatter of stars upon it had almost been obliterated. But when the Hound made to step toward his foe, Thoros of Myr stopped him. "First we pray." He turned toward the fire and lifted his arms. "Lord of Light, look down upon us." All around the cave, the brotherhood without banners lifted their own voices in response. "Lord of Light, defend us." "Lord of Light, protect us in the darkness." "Lord of Light, shine your face upon us." "Light your flame among us, R'hllor," said the red priest. "Show us the truth or falseness of this man. Strike him down if he is guilty, and give strength to his sword if he is true. Lord of Light, give us wisdom." "For the night is dark," the others chanted, Harwin and Anguy loud as all the rest, "and full of terrors." "This cave is dark too," said the Hound, "but I'm the terror here. I hope your god's a sweet one, Dondarrion. You're going to meet him shortly." Unsmiling, Lord Beric laid the edge of his longsword against the palm of his left hand, and drew it slowly down. Blood ran dark from the gash he made, and washed over the steel. And then the sword took fire. Arya heard Gendry whisper a prayer. "Burn in seven hells," the Hound cursed. "You, and Thoros too." He threw a glance at the red priest. "When I'm done with him you'll be next, Myr." "Every word you say proclaims your guilt, dog," answered Thoros, while Lem and Greenbeard and Jack-Be-Lucky shouted threats and curses. Lord Beric himself waited silent, calm as still water, his shield on his left arm and his sword burning in his right hand. Kill him, Arya thought, please, you have to kill him. Lit from below, his face was a death mask, his missing eye a red and angry wound. The sword was aflame from point to crossguard, but Dondarrion seemed not to feel the heat. He stood so still he might have been carved of stone. But when the Hound charged him, he moved fast enough. The flaming sword leapt up to meet the cold one, long streamers of fire trailing in its wake like the ribbons the Hound had spoken of. Steel rang on steel. No sooner was his first slash blocked than Clegane made another, but this time Lord Beric's shield got in the way, and wood chips flew from the force of the blow. Hard and fast the cuts came, from low and high, from right and left and each one Dondarrion blocked. The flames swirled about his sword and left red and yellow ghosts to mark its passage. Each move Lord Beric made fanned them and made them burn the brighter, until it seemed as though the lightning lord stood within a cage of fire. "Is it wildfire?" Arya asked Gendry. "No. This is different. This is..." "... magic?" she finished as the Hound edged back. Now it was Lord Beric attacking, filling the air with ropes of fire, driving the bigger man back on his heels. Clegane caught one blow high on his shield, and a painted dog lost a head. He countercut, and Dondarrion interposed his own shield and launched a fiery backslash. The outlaw brotherhood shouted on their leader. "He's yours!" Arya heard, and "At him! At him! At him!" The Hound parried a cut at his head, grimacing as the heat of the flames beat against his face. He grunted and cursed and reeled away. Lord Beric gave him no respite. Hard on the big man's heels he followed, his arm never still. The swords clashed and sprang apart and clashed again, splinters flew from the lightning shield while swirling flames kissed the dogs once, and twice, and thrice. The Hound moved to his right, but Dondarrion blocked him with a quick sidestep and drove him back the other way... toward the sullen red blaze of the firepit. Clegane gave ground until he felt the heat at his back. A quick glance over his shoulder showed him what was behind him, and almost cost him his head when Lord Beric attacked anew. Arya could see the whites of Sandor Clegane's eyes as he bulled his way forward again. Three steps up and two back, a move to the left that Lord Beric blocked, two more forward and one back, clang and clang, and the big oaken shields took blow after blow after blow. The Hound's lank dark hair was plastered to his brow in a sheen of sweat. Wine sweat, Arya thought, remembering that he'd been taken drunk. She thought she could see the beginnings of fear wake in his eyes. He's going to lose, she told herself, exulting, as Lord Beric's flaming sword whirled and slashed. in one wild flurry, the lightning lord took back all the ground the Hound had gained, sending Clegane staggering to the very edge of the firepit once more. He is, he is, he's going to die. She stood on her toes for a better look. "Bloody bastard!" the Hound screamed as he felt the fire licking against the back of his thighs. He charged, swinging the heavy sword harder and harder, trying to smash the smaller man down with brute force, to break blade or shield or arm. But the flames of Dondarrion's parries snapped at his eyes, and when the Hound jerked away from them, his foot went out from under him and he staggered to one knee. At once Lord Beric closed, his downcut screaming through the air trailing permons of fire. Panting from exertion, Clegane jerked his shield up over his head just in time, and the cave rang with the loud crack of splintering oak. "His shield is afire," Gendry said in a hushed voice. Arya saw it in the same instant. The flames had spread across the chipped yellow paint, and the three black dogs were engulfed. Sandor Clegane had fought his way back to his feet with a reckless counterattack. Not until Lord Beric retreated a pace did the Hound seem to realize that the fire that roared so near his face was his own shield, burning. With a shout of revulsion, he hacked down savagely on the broken oak, completing its destruction. The shield shattered, one piece of it spinning away, still afire, while the other clung stubbornly to his forearm. His efforts to free himself only fanned the flames. His sleeve caught, and now his whole left arm was ablaze. "Finish him!" Greenbeard urged Lord Beric, and other voices took up the chant of "Guilty!" Arya shouted with the rest. "Guilty, guilty, kill him, guilty!" Smooth as summer silk, Lord Beric slid close to make an end of the man before him. The Hound gave a rasping scream, raised his sword in both hands and brought it crashing down with all his strength. Lord Beric blocked the cut easily... "Noooooo," Arya shrieked. ... but the burning sword snapped in two, and the Hound's cold steel plowed into Lord Beric's flesh where his shoulder joined his neck and clove him clean down to the breastbone. The blood came rushing out in a hot black gush. Sandor Clegane jerked backward, still burning. He ripped the remnants of his shield off and flung them away with a curse, then rolled in the dirt to smother the fire running along his arm. Lord Beric's knees folded slowly, as if for prayer. When his mouth opened only blood came out. The Hound's sword was still in him as he toppled face forward. The dirt drank his blood. Beneath the hollow hill there was no sound but the soft crackling of flames and the whimper the Hound made when he tried to rise. Arya could only think of Mycah and all the stupid prayers she'd prayed for the Hound to die. If there were gods, why didn't Lord Beric win? She knew the Hound was guilty. "Please," Sandor Clegane rasped, cradling his arm. "I'm burned. Help me. Someone. Help me." He was crying. "Please." Arya looked at him in astonishment. He's crying like a little baby, she thought. "Melly, see to his burns," said Thoros. "Lem, Jack, help me with Lord Beric. Ned, you'd best come too." The red priest wrenched the Hound's sword from the body of his fallen lord and thrust the point of it down in the blood-soaked earth. Lem slid his big hands under Dondarrion's arms, while Jack-Be-Lucky took his feet. They carried him around the firepit, into the darkness of one of the tunnels. Thoros and the boy Ned followed after. The Mad Huntsman spat. "I say we take him back to Stoney Sept and put him in a crow cage." "Yes," Arya said. "He murdered Mycah. He did." "Such an angry squirrel," murmured Greenbeard. Harwin sighed. "R'hllor has judged him innocent." "Who's Rulore?" She couldn't even say it. "The Lord of Light. Thoros has taught us -" She didn't care what Thoros had taught them. She yanked Greenbeard's dagger from its sheath and spun away before he could catch her. Gendry made a grab for her as well, but she had always been too fast for Gendry. Tom Sevenstrings and some woman were helping the Hound to his feet. The sight of his arm shocked her speechless. There was a strip of pink where the leather strap had clung, but above and below the flesh was cracked and red and bleeding from elbow to wrist. When his eyes met hers, his mouth twitched. "You want me dead that bad? Then do it, wolf girl. Shove it in. It's cleaner than fire." Clegane tried to stand, but as he moved a piece of burned flesh sloughed right off his arm, and his knees went out from under him. Tom caught him by his good arm and held him up. His arm, Arya thought, and his face. But he was the Hound. He deserved to burn in a fiery hell. The knife felt heavy in her hand. She gripped it tighter. "You killed Mycah," she said once more, daring him to deny it. "Tell them. You did. You did." "I did." His whole face twisted. "I rode him down and cut him in half, and laughed. I watched them beat your sister bloody too, watched them cut your father's head off." Lem grabbed her wrist and twisted, wrenching the dagger away. She kicked at him, but he would not give it back. "You go to hell, Hound," she screamed at Sandor Clegane in helpless empty-handed rage. "You just go to hell!" "He has," said a voice scarce stronger than a whisper. When Arya turned, Lord Beric Dondarrion was standing behind her, his bloody hand clutching Thoros by the shoulder. 35 CATELYN Let the kings of winter have their cold crypt under the earth, Catelyn thought. The Tullys drew their strength from the river, and it was to the river they returned when their lives had run their course. They laid Lord Hoster in a slender wooden boat, clad in shining silver armor, plate-and-mail. His cloak was spread beneath him, rippling blue and red. His surcoat was divided blue-andred as well. A trout, scaled in silver and bronze, crowned the crest of the greathelm they placed beside his head. On his chest they placed a painted wooden sword, his fingers curled about its hilt. Mail gauntlets hid his wasted hands, and made him look almost strong again. His massive oak-and-iron shield was set by his left side, his hunting horn to his right. The rest of the boat was filled with driftwood and kindling and scraps of parchment, and stones to make it heavy in the water. His banner flew from the prow, the leaping trout of Riverrun. Seven were chosen to push the funereal boat to the water, in honor of the seven faces of god. Robb was one, Lord Hoster's liege lord. With him were the Lords Bracken, Blackwood, Vance, and Mallister, Ser Marq Piper... and Lame Lothar Frey, who had come down from the Twins with the answer they had awaited. Forty soldiers rode in his escort, commanded by Walder Rivers, the eldest of Lord Walder's bastard brood, a stern, grey-haired man with a formidable reputation as a warrior. Their arrival, coming within hours of Lord Hoster's passing, had sent Edmure into a rage. "Walder Frey should be flayed and quartered!" he'd shouted. "He sends a cripple and a bastard to treat with us, tell me there is no insult meant by that." "I have no doubt that Lord Walder chose his envoys with care," she replied. "It was a peevish thing to do, a petty sort of revenge, but remember who we are dealing with. The Late Lord Frey, Father used to call him. The man is ill-tempered, envious, and above all prideful." Blessedly, her son had shown better sense than her brother. Robb had greeted the Freys with every courtesy, found barracks space for the escort, and quietly asked Ser Desmond Grell to stand aside so Lothar might have the honor of helping to send Lord Hoster on his last voyage. He has learned a rough wisdom beyond his years, my son. House Frey might have abandoned the King in the North, but the Lord of the Crossing remained the most powerful of Riverrun's bannermen, and Lothar was here in his stead. The seven launched Lord Hoster from the water stair, wading down the steps as the portcullis was winched upward. Lothar Frey, a soft-bodied portly man, was breathing heavily as they shoved the boat out into the current. Jason Mallister and Tytos Blackwood, at the prow, stood chest deep in the river to guide it on its way. Catelyn watched from the battlements, waiting and watching as she had waited and watched so many times before. Beneath her, the swift wild Tumblestone plunged like a spear into the side of the broad Red Fork, its blue-white current churning the muddy red-brown flow of the greater river. A morning mist hung over the water, as thin as gossamer and the wisps of memory. Bran and Rickon will be waiting for him, Catelyn thought sadly, as once I used to wait. The slim boat drifted out from under the red stone arch of the Water Gate, picking up speed as it was caught in the headlong rush of the Tumblestone and pushed out into the tumult where the waters met. As the boat emerged from beneath the high sheltering walls of the castle, its square sail filled with wind, and Catelyn saw sunlight flashing on her father's helm. Lord Hoster Tully's rudder held true, and he sailed serenely down the center of the channel, into the rising sun. "Now," her uncle urged. Beside him, her brother Edmure - Lord Edmure now in truth, and how long would that take to grow used to?- nocked an arrow to his bowstring. His squire held a brand to its point. Edmure waited until the flame caught, then lifted the great bow, drew the string to his ear, and let fly. With a deep thrum, the arrow sped upward. Catelyn followed its flight with her eyes and heart, until it plunged into the water with a soft hiss, well astern of Lord Hoster's boat. Edmure cursed softly. "The wind," he said, pulling a second arrow. "Again." The brand kissed the oil-soaked rag behind the arrowhead, the flames went licking up, Edmure lifted, pulled, and released. High and far the arrow flew. Too far. It vanished in the river a dozen yards beyond the boat, its fire winking out in an instant. A flush was creeping up Edmure's neck, red as his beard. "Once more," he commanded, taking a third arrow from the quiver. He is as tight as his bowstring, Catelyn thought. Ser Brynden must have seen the same thing. "Let me, my lord," he offered. "I can do it," Edmure insisted. He let them light the arrow, jerked the bow up, took a deep breath, drew back the arrow. For a long moment he seemed to hesitate while the fire crept up the shaft, crackling. Finally he released. The arrow flashed up and up, and finally curved down again, falling, falling... and hissing past the billowing sail. A narrow miss, no more than a handspan, and yet a miss. "The Others take it!" her brother swore. The boat was almost out of range, drifting in and out among the river mists. Wordless, Edmure thrust the bow at his uncle. "Swiftly," Ser Brynden said, He nocked an arrow, held it steady for the brand, drew and released before Catelyn was quite sure that the fire had caught... but as the shot rose, she saw the flames trailing through the air, a pale orange pennon. The boat had vanished in the mists. Falling, the flaming arrow was swallowed up as well... but only for a heartbeat. Then, sudden as hope, they saw the red bloom flower. The sails took fire, and the fog glowed pink and orange. For a moment Catelyn saw the outline of the boat clearly, wreathed in leaping flames. Watch for me, little cat, she could hear him whisper. Catelyn reached out blindly, groping for her brother's hand, but Edmure had moved away, to stand alone on the highest point of the battlements. Her uncle Brynden took her hand instead, twining his strong fingers through hers. Together they watched the little fire grow smaller as the burning boat receded in the distance. And then it was gone... drifting downriver still, perhaps, or broken up and sinking. The weight of his armor would carry Lord Hoster down to rest in the soft mud of the riverbed, in the watery halls where the Tullys held eternal court, with schools of fish their last attendants. No sooner had the burning boat vanished from their sight than Edmure walked off. Catelyn would have liked to embrace him, if only for a moment; to sit for an hour or a night or the turn of a moon to speak of the dead and mourn. Yet she knew as well as he that this was not the time; he was Lord of Riverrun now, and his knights were falling in around him, murmuring condolences and promises of fealty, walling him off from something as small as a sister's grief. Edmure listened, hearing none of the words. "It is no disgrace to miss your shot," her uncle told her quietly. "Edmure should hear that. The day my own lord father went downriver, Hoster missed as well." "With his first shaft." Catelyn had been too young to remember, but Lord Hoster had often told the tale. "His second found the sail." She sighed. Edmure was not as strong as he seemed. Their father's death had been a mercy when it came at last, but even so her brother had taken it hard. Last night in his cups he had broken down and wept, full of regrets for things undone and words unsaid. He ought never to have ridden off to fight his battle on the fords, he told her tearfully; he should have stayed at their father's bedside. "I should have been with him, as you were," he said. "Did he speak of me at the end? Tell me true, Cat. Did he ask for me?" Lord Hoster's last word had been "Tansy," but Catelyn could not bring herself to tell him that. "He whispered your name," she lied, and her brother had nodded gratefully and kissed her hand. If he had not tried to drown his grief and guilt, he might have been able to bend a bow, she thought to herself, sighing, but that was something else she dare not say. The Blackfish escorted her down from the battlements to where Robb stood among his bannermen, his young queen at his side. When he saw her, her son took her silently in his arms. "Lord Hoster looked as noble as a king, my lady," murmured Jeyne. "Would that I had been given the chance to know him." "And I to know him better," added Robb. "He would have wished that too," said Catelyn. "There were too many leagues between Riverrun and Winterfell." And too many mountains and rivers and armies between Riverrun and the Eyrie, it would seem. Lysa had made no reply to her letter. And from King's Landing came only silence as well. By now she had hoped that Brienne and Ser Cleos would have reached the city with their captive. It might even be that Brienne was on her way back, and the girls with her. Ser Cleos swore he would make the Imp send a raven once the trade was made. He swore it! Ravens did not always win through. Some bowman could have brought the bird down and roasted him for supper. The letter that would have set her heart at ease might even now be lying by the ashes of some campfire beside a pile of raven bones. Others were waiting to offer Robb their consolations, so Catelyn stood aside patiently while Lord Jason Mallister, the Greatjon, and Ser Rolph Spicer spoke to him each in turn. But when Lothar Frey approached, she gave his sleeve a tug. Robb turned, and waited to hear what Lothar would say. "Your Grace." A plump man in his middle thirties, Lothar Frey had close-set eyes, a pointed beard, and dark hair that fell to his shoulders in ringlets. A leg twisted at birth had earned him the name Lame Lothar. He had served as his father's steward for the past dozen years. "We are loath to intrude upon your grief, but perhaps you might grant us audience tonight?" "It would be my pleasure," said Robb. "It was never my wish to sow enmity between us." "Nor mine to be the cause of it," said Queen Jeyne. Lothar Frey smiled. "I understand, as does my lord father. He instructed me to say that he was young once, and well remembers what it is like to lose one's heart to beauty." Catelyn doubted very much that Lord Walder had said any such thing, or that he had ever lost his heart to beauty. The Lord of the Crossing had outlived seven wives and was now wed to his eighth, but he spoke of them only as bedwarmers and brood mares. Still, the words were fairly spoken, and she could scarce object to the compliment. Nor did Robb. "Your father is most gracious," he said. "I shall look forward to our talk." Lothar bowed, kissed the queen's hand, and withdrew. By then a dozen others had gathered for a word. Robb spoke with them each, giving a thanks here, a smile there, as needed. Only when the last of them was done did he turn back to Catelyn. "There is something we must speak of. Will you walk with me?" "As you command, Your Grace." "That wasn't a command, Mother." "It will be my pleasure, then." Her son had treated her kindly enough since returning to Riverrun, yet he seldom sought her out. If he was more comfortable with his young queen, she could scarcely blame him. Jeyne makes him smile, and I have nothing to share with him but grief. He seemed to enjoy the company of his bride's brothers, as well; young Rollam his squire and Ser Raynald his standard-bearer. They are standing in the boots of those he's lost, Catelyn realized when she watched them together. Rollam has taken Bran's place, and Raynald is part Theon and part Jon Snow only with the Westerlings did she see Robb smile, or hear him laugh like the boy he was. To the others he was always the King in the North, head bowed beneath the weight of the crown even when his brows were bare. Robb kissed his wife gently, promised to see her in their chambers, and went off with his lady mother. His steps led them toward the godswood. "Lothar seemed amiable, that's a hopeful sign. We need the Freys." "That does not mean we shall have them." He nodded, and there was glumness to his face and a slope to his shoulders that made her heart go out to him. The crown is crushing him, she thought. He wants so much to be a good king, to be brave and honorable and clever, but the weight is too much for a boy to bear. Robb was doing all he could, yet still the blows kept falling, one after the other, relentless. When they brought him word of the battle at Duskendale, where Lord Randyll Tarly had shattered Robett Glover and Ser Helman Tallhart, he might have been expected to rage. Instead he'd stared in dumb disbelief and said, "Duskendale, on the narrow sea? Why would they go to Duskendale?" He'd shook his head, bewildered. "A third of my foot, lost for Duskendale?" "The ironmen have my castle and now the Lannisters hold my brother," Galbart Glover said, in a voice thick with despair. Robett Glover had survived the battle, but had been captured near the kingsroad not long after. "Not for long," her son promised. "I will offer them Martyn Lannister in exchange. Lord Tywin will have to accept, for his brother's sake." Martyn was Ser Kevan's son, a twin to the Willem that Lord Karstark had butchered. Those murders still haunted her son, Catelyn knew. He had tripled the guard around Martyn, but still feared for his safety. "I should have traded the Kingslayer for Sansa when you first urged it," Robb said as they walked the gallery. "If I'd offered to wed her to the Knight of Flowers, the Tyrells might be ours instead of Joffrey's. I should have thought of that." "Your mind was on your battles, and rightly so. Even a king cannot think of everything." "Battles," muttered Robb as he led her out beneath the trees. "I have won every battle, yet somehow I'm losing the war." He looked up, as if the answer might be written on the sky. "The ironmen hold Winterfell, and Moat Cailin too. Father's dead, and Bran and Rickon, maybe Arya. And now your father too." She could not let him despair. She knew the taste of that draught too well herself. "My father has been dying for a long time. You could not have changed that. You have made mistakes, Robb, but what king has not? Ned would have been proud of you." "Mother, there is something you must know." Catelyn's heart skipped a beat. This is something he hates. Something he dreads to tell me. All she could think of was Brienne and her mission. "Is it the Kingslayer?" "No. It's Sansa." She's dead, Catelyn thought at once. Brienne failed, Jaime is dead, and Cersei has killed my sweet girl in retribution. For a moment she could barely speak. "Is... is she gone, Robb?" "Gone?" He looked startled. "Dead? Oh, Mother, no, not that, they haven't harmed her, not that way, only... a bird came last night, but I couldn't bring myself to tell you, not until your father was sent to his rest." Robb took her hand. "They married her to Tyrion Lannister." Catelyn's fingers clutched at his. "The Imp." "Yes." "He swore to trade her for his brother," she said numbly. "Sansa and Arya both. We would have them back if we returned his precious Jaime, he swore it before the whole court. How could he marry her, after saying that in sight of gods and men?" "He's the Kingslayer's brother. Oathbreaking runs in their blood." Robb's fingers brushed the pommel of his sword. "If I could Id take his ugly head off. Sansa would be a widow then, and free. There's no other way that I can see. They made her speak the vows before a septon and don a crimson cloak." Catelyn remembered the twisted little man she had seized at the crossroads inn and carried all the way to the Eyrie. "I should have let Lysa push him out her Moon Door. My poor sweet Sansa... why would anyone do this to her?" "For Winterfell," Robb said at once. "With Bran and Rickon dead, Sansa is my heir. If anything should happen to me..." She clutched tight at his hand. "Nothing will happen to you. Nothing. I could not stand it. They took Ned, and your sweet brothers. Sansa is married, Arya is lost, my father's dead... if anything befell you, I would go mad, Robb. You are all I have left. You are all the north has left." "I am not dead yet, Mother." Suddenly Catelyn was full of dread. "Wars need not be fought until the last drop of blood." Even she could hear the desperation in her voice. "You would not be the first king to bend the knee, nor even the first Stark." His mouth tightened. "No. Never." "There is no shame in it. Balon Greyjoy bent the knee to Robert when his rebellion failed. Torrhen Stark bent the knee to Aegon the Conqueror rather than see his army face the fires." "Did Aegon kill King Torrhen's father?" He pulled his hand from hers. "Never, I said." He is playing the boy now, not the king. "The Lannisters do not need the north. They will require homage and hostages, no more... and the Imp will keep Sansa no matter what we do, so they have their hostage. The ironmen will prove a more implacable enemy, I promise you. To have any hope of holding the north, the Greyjoys must leave no single sprig of House Stark alive to dispute their right. Theon's murdered Bran and Rickon, so now all they need do is kill you... and Jeyne, yes. Do you think Lord Balon can afford to let her live to bear you heirs?" Robb's face was cold. "Is that why you freed the Kingslayer? To make a peace with the Lannisters?" "I freed Jaime for Sansa's sake... and Arya's, if she still lives. You know that. But if I nurtured some hope of buying peace as well, was that so ill?" "Yes," he said. "The Lannisters killed my father." "Do you think I have forgotten that?" "I don't know. Have you?" Catelyn had never struck her children in anger, but she almost struck Robb then. It was an effort to remind herself how frightened and alone he must feel. "You are King in the North, the choice is yours. I only ask that you think on what I've said. The singers make much of kings who die valiantly in battle, but your life is worth more than a song. To me at least, who gave it to you." She lowered her head. "Do I have your leave to go?" "Yes." He turned away and drew his sword. What he meant to do with it, she could not say. There was no enemy there, no one to fight. Only her and him, amongst tall trees and fallen leaves. There are fights no sword can win, Catelyn wanted to tell him, but she feared the king was deaf to such words. Hours later, she was sewing in her bedchamber when young Rollam Westerling came running with the summons to supper. Good, Catelyn thought, relieved. She had not been certain that her son would want her there, after their quarrel. "A dutiful squire," she said to Rollam gravely. Bran would have been the same. If Robb seemed cool at table and Edmure surly, Lame Lothar made up for them both. He was the model of courtesy, reminiscing warmly about Lord Hoster, offering Catelyn gentle condolences on the loss of Bran and Rickon, praising Edmure for the victory at Stone Mill, and thanking Robb for the "swift sure justice" he had meted out to Rickard Karstark. Lothar's bastard brother Walder Rivers was another matter; a harsh sour man with old Lord Walder's suspicious face, he spoke but seldom and devoted most of his attention to the meat and mead that was set before him. When all the empty words were said, the queen and the other Westerlings excused themselves, the remains of the meal were cleared away, and Lothar Frey cleared his throat. "Before we turn to the business that brings us here, there is another matter," he said solemnly. "A grave matter, I fear. I had hoped it would not fall to me to bring you these tidings, but it seems I must. My lord father has had a letter from his grandsons." Catelyn had been so lost in grief for her own that she had almost forgotten the two Freys she had agreed to foster. No more, she thought. Mother have mercy, how many more blows can we bear? Somehow she knew the next words she heard would plunge yet another blade into her heart. "The grandsons at Winterfell?" she made herself ask. "My wards?" "Walder and Walder, yes. But they are presently at the Dreadfort, my lady. I grieve to tell you this, but there has been a battle. Winterfell is burned." "Burned?" Robb's voice was incredulous. "Your northern lords tried to retake it from the ironmen. When Theon Greyjoy saw that his prize was lost, he put the castle to the torch." "We have heard naught of any battle," said Ser Brynden. "My nephews are young, I grant you, but they were there. Big Walder wrote the letter, though his cousin signed as well. It was a bloody bit of business, by their account. Your castellan was slain. Ser Rodrik, was that his name?" "Ser Rodrik Cassel," said Catelyn numbly. That dear brave loyal old soul. She could almost see him, tugging on his fierce white whiskers. "What of our other people?" "The ironmen put many of them to the sword, I fear." Wordless with rage, Robb slammed a fist down on the table and turned his face away, so the Freys would not see his tears. But his mother saw them. The world grows a little darker every day. Catelyn's thoughts went to Ser Rodrik's little daughter Beth, to tireless Maester Luwin and cheerful Septon Chayle, Mikken at the forge, Farlen and Palla in the kennels, Old Nan and simple Hodor. Her heart was sick. "Please, not all." "No," said Lame Lothar. "The women and children hid, my nephews Walder and Walder among them. With Winterfell in ruins, the survivors were carried back to the Dreadfort by this son of Lord Bolton's.-" "Bolton's son?" Robb's voice was strained. Walder Rivers spoke up. "A bastard son, I believe." "Not Ramsay Snow? Does Lord Roose have another bastard?" Robb scowled. "This Ramsay was a monster and a murderer, and he died a coward. Or so I was told." "I cannot speak to that. There is much confusion in any war. Many false reports. All I can tell you is that my nephews claim it was this bastard son of Bolton's who saved the women of Winterfell, and the little ones. They are safe at the Dreadfort now, all those who remain." "Theon," Robb said suddenly. "What happened to Theon Greyjoy? Was he slain?" Lame Lothar spread his hands. "That I cannot say, Your Grace. Walder and Walder made no mention of his fate. Perhaps Lord Bolton might know, if he has had word from this son of his." Ser Brynden said, "We will be certain to ask him." "You are all distraught, I see. I am sorry to have brought you such fresh grief. Perhaps we should adjourn until the morrow. Our business can wait until you have composed yourselves..." "No," said Robb, "I want the matter settled." Her brother Edmure nodded. "Me as well. Do you have an answer to our offer, my lord?" "I do." Lothar smiled. "My lord father bids me tell Your Grace that he will agree to this new marriage alliance between our houses and renew his fealty to the King in the North, upon the condition that the King's Grace apologize for the insult done to House Frey, in his royal person, face to face." An apology was a small enough price to pay, but Catelyn misliked this petty condition of Lord Walder's at once. "I am pleased," Robb said cautiously. "It was never my wish to cause this rift between us, Lothar. The Freys have fought valiantly for my cause. I would have them at my side once more." "You are too kind, Your Grace. As you accept these terms, I am then instructed to offer Lord Tully the hand of my sister, the Lady Roslin, a maid of sixteen years. Roslin is my lord father's youngest daughter by Lady Bethany of House Rosby, his sixth wife. She has a gentle nature and a gift for music." Edmure shifted in his seat. "Might not it be better if I first met -" "You'll meet when you're wed," said Walder Rivers curtly. "Unless Lord Tully feels a need to count her teeth first?" Edmure kept his temper. "I will take your word so far as her teeth are concerned, but it would be pleasant if I might gaze upon her face before I espoused her." "You must accept her now, my lord," said Walder Rivers. "Else my father's offer is withdrawn." Lame Lothar spread his hands. "My brother has a soldier's bluntness, but what he says is true. It is my lord father's wish that this marriage take place at once." "At once?" Edmure sounded so unhappy that Catelyn had the unworthy thought that perhaps he had been entertaining notions of breaking the betrothal after the fighting was done. "Has Lord Walder forgotten that we are fighting a war?" Brynden Blackfish asked sharply. "Scarcely," said Lothar. "That is why he insists that the marriage take place now, ser. Men die in war, even men who are young and strong. What would become of our alliance should Lord Edmure fall before he took Roslin to bride? And there is my father's age to consider as well. He is past ninety and not like to see the end of this struggle. It would put his noble heart at peace if he could see his dear Roslin safely wed before the gods take him, so he might die with the knowledge that the girl had a strong husband to cherish and protect her." We all want Lord Walder to die happy. Catelyn was growing less and less comfortable with this arrangement. "My brother has just lost his own father. He needs time to mourn." "Roslin is a cheerful girl," said Lothar. "She may be the very thing Lord Edmure needs to help him through his grief." "And my grandfather has come to mislike lengthy betrothals," the bastard Walder Rivers added. "I cannot imagine why." Robb gave him a chilly look. "I take your meaning, Rivers. Pray excuse us." "As Your Grace commands." Lame Lothar rose, and his bastard brother helped him hobble from the room. Edmure was seething. "They're as much as saying that my promise is worthless. Why should I let that old weasel choose my bride? Lord Walder has other daughters besides this Roslin. Granddaughters as well. I should be offered the same choice you were. I'm his liege lord, he should be overjoyed that I'm willing to wed any of them." "He is a proud man, and we've wounded him," said Catelyn. "The Others take his pride! I will not be shamed in my own hall. My answer is no." Robb gave him a weary look. "I will not command you. Not in this. But if you refuse, Lord Frey will take it for another slight, and any hope of putting this arights will be gone." "You cannot know that," Edmure insisted. "Frey has wanted me for one of his daughters since the day I was born. He will not let a chance like this slip between those grasping fingers of his. When Lothar brings him our answer, he'll come wheedling back and accept a betrothal... and to a daughter of my choosing." "Perhaps, in time," said Brynden Blackfish. "But can we wait, while Lothar rides back and forth with offers and counters?" Robb's hands curled into fists. "I must get back to the north. My brothers dead, Winterfell burned, my smallfolk put to the sword... the gods only know what this bastard of Bolton's is about, or whether Theon is still alive and on the loose. I can't sit here waiting for a wedding that might or might not happen." "It must happen," said Catelyn, though not gladly. "I have no more wish to suffer Walder Frey's insults and complaints than you do, Brother, but I see little choice here. Without this wedding, Robb's cause is lost. Edmure, we must accept." "We must accept?" he echoed peevishly. "I don't see you offering to become the ninth Lady Frey, Cat." "The eighth Lady Frey is still alive and well, so far as I know," she replied. Thankfully. Otherwise it might well have come to that, knowing Lord Walder. The Blackfish said, "I am the last man in the Seven Kingdoms to tell anyone who they must wed, Nephew. Nonetheless, you did say something of making amends for your Battle of the Fords." "I had in mind a different sort of amends. Single combat with the Kingslayer. Seven years of penace as a begging brother. Swimming the sunset sea with my legs tied." When he saw that no one was smiling, Edmure threw up his hands. "The Others take you all! Very well, I'll wed the wench. As amends."