A/N: warning—we don't get very far here, but I couldn't help myself. I just love detail! Glorious, superfluous, ridiculous detail... And subplots. I like those a lot, too.
Be still, be still,
and know.
Arya was awakened the next morning by a maid delivering breakfast to her room and building up her fire. Shifting under her sleeping furs, the girl rubbed her eyes and shook off the last fleeting images of her dream. It had been a wolf dream, and in it, she had hunted and eaten her fill in the rolling, wooded hills surrounding Raventree Hall. She had always loved being a wolf; loved the feeling she had when she ranged with her cousins and stalked her prey. Never was she freer than when she wore Nymeria's skin. She wondered if her father had felt the same freedom when he mounted his horse and rode through the gates of Winterfell and into the wide world, never asking permission or taking anyone's leave.
Arya leafed through the memories she had stored up of her father, here riding off with Jory Cassel to tend to some business in Winter town, there taking a small party to hunt in the wolfswood. Often, his youngest daughter would watch him go, her wide grey eyes staring hard at him until the gates closed and hid him from her view. She always thought he cut an imposing figure on his mount, Ice strapped to his back. There was no doubt in her mind that her father was the strongest, most fearsome man in all Westeros. All of Ned's children had loved and admired him, but Arya wanted to be him.
The girl was still conjuring the image of Eddard Stark, lordly and powerful, seated high on his bay stallion when the maid, noting that Arya's eyes had opened, bobbed a little curtsy and greeted her.
"Good morning, m'lady. Lady Blackwood took the liberty of having your breakfast sent up. There's so much bustle in the great hall just now with the preparations for the feast, she reckoned you'd rather eat in peace in your chambers. Otherwise, you'd have to listen to the steward barking orders while the kitchen boys swept under your feet."
"How thoughtful. Please thank your lady for me," the girl said, trying to remember her courtesies. Such adherence to custom and civility had never been her strength, but doing so after having just torn the throat from a buck was particularly challenging. Still, the assassin was only too grateful to have her breakfast in her chamber. She was quite relieved that she wouldn't have to waste her energy thinking of appropriate conversation to share with Lady Blackwood across a breakfast table (and likely horrifying the woman in the process), but she didn't suppose telling the maid to thank her lady for that would be in keeping with the Bear's direction to be the gracious lady they need you to be. She had once been a passable boy joining the Night's Watch, a convincing cook in a popular Braavosi inn, and a cupbearer to not just one, but two odious men. She supposed could be Lady Arya, at least for another day.
But oh, how it grated.
The girl sat up in her bed, feeling remarkably rested. It was the most refreshed she remembered being in a long time, even if her hip still bore some of the soreness from her fall from Bane several days past and her muscles were a little stiff after her exertions the previous evening. Though she had been disciplined in her sword practice aboard Titan's Daughter, the deck was not of a size to support the sort of expansive wildness she and her brothers had engaged in when availed of Lord Blackwood's training yard. The mild ache in her arms and back reminded her that she should always be striving to do more, and do it better.
It was the best sort of pain.
Words spoken in an accented murmur echoed distantly in her head. A man believes that sometimes there is a great lesson in pain. She had been sitting in his bed when he spoke them, as she recalled. She smiled, but the pang she felt stopped her from delving deeper into the memory. She did not wish to waste the unexpected good humor she possessed in that instant, for happy moments were few and precious of late. The Cat supposed she owed her brothers her gratitude, for sparring with them had left her feeling more content than she could remember since before her journey over the sea.
However, she knew it wasn't just a satisfying duel that had her mood lighter than usual. Her mind felt clear as well; much more so than it had been in a while. The oppressive weight she carried just over her heart had lessened too, just a bit, and she felt as if she could breathe easier, somehow. Her wishes and plans hadn't changed, but for some reason, they seemed more attainable; she felt more capable of attaining them. Though unsure of exactly how it had caused this shift, Arya thought her turn in the godswood might have had something to do with it.
Perhaps it was the promise of gaining a like-minded ally in Tytos Blackwood.
Perhaps it was some blessing from the gods themselves.
Or perhaps she was merely deceiving herself.
The girl drew in a deep breath and then let it hiss slowly from her nose, thinking. Another trip to the godswood was in order, she decided. She wished to be sure of what it was she had felt the night before. But first, her muscles cried for relief.
After she had eaten, she dressed quickly and made her way to the training yard again, her steps uncharacteristically jaunty. The previous evening's exercise had left her in need of stretching and she had always found that more of the same helped her most. A boy, young enough to still have the pleasant roundness of a babe about his face, stood in the same corner most recently occupied by herself and her brothers. He held a wooden sword in his hand and listened to the instruction of a greybeard who Arya took to be the master-at-arms. Two household guards were striking at a training dummy in turn while Rider and Fletcher sparred somewhat lazily with blunted blades on the far side of the yard. Arya spied a few training swords leaning against the near wall. They were extras that the orphans had brought out with them, likely in anticipation of being joined soon by the others in their party. She picked two up, one in each hand, and approached the soon-to-be knights.
"Shall we?" the girl asked them, swinging the heavy steel and feeling the weight pulling pleasantly at her shoulders. She resisted the urge to moan.
The orphans glanced at each other nervously.
"I'm not sure you'll find us much challenge, m'lady," Rider finally said.
"I'm not sure you're finding each other much challenge right now," she countered, raising her swords. "Come on, then. I need the exercise."
The boys looked at each other and shrugged, then entered their stances. "Be gentle with Fletcher, m'lady," Rider pled, but his tone suggested his words were a jape. "One of the kitchen maids has caught his eye and he's not like to impress her if you give him a knot on his head or a busted nose."
"I'll be sure to bust only your nose, then," Arya promised, sliding next to Rider swiftly and elbowing him hard in his ribs. "Never let your guard down," she advised as he let out a grunt of pain and she slipped beyond his reach. "Not even to tease your friend." Fletcher burst out laughing then.
"You make an enviable comrade in arms, m'lady," Fletcher said with a small salute to her, "but Rider's skill at saying foolish things far outweighs his skill with a sword. Go easy on him!"
Arya grinned. "That was going easy."
As they sparred, the pace was such that the Cat was able to lecture the boys without sacrificing too much breath. She told them that dueling could be graceful, depending on the style of the fighters, but that battle was a brutish business, with as much hacking and punching and barreling into an opponent as precise cutting and parrying. She warned them to be on their guard for just such moves as she had demonstrated on Rider.
"A mailed fist to your nose will ruin your day," she said, "and make it unlikely that you can employ these fine cuts you're learning quickly enough to save you. You must always be aware of your opponent's position." The lesson was one that had been drilled into her relentlessly by a certain handsome assassin. To demonstrate her point, Arya used her two swords in concert to strike hard at Rider. He blocked her but her momentum was so great, she was able to drive him backwards for several steps. Fletcher approached quickly from the rear but before he could raise his blade against her, she kicked hard behind her, her foot connecting solidly with the center of his belly. The boy dropped to the ground, groaning and holding his middle. Arya raised one eyebrow, saying, "A boot to the gut will ruin your day, too."
"That's not swordfighting!" Rider protested, dropping back and lowering his sword.
"No," she agreed. "It's just fighting. Perhaps not useful in a tourney, but in a skirmish, it might save your life." She offered Fletcher a hand up. "Well, I didn't bust your nose at any rate."
"True," the boy wheezed, bending over after he rose, palms pressed into his thighs to support his weight. "Now, if you'll excuse me, m'lady, I have to find some place to vomit."
Rider burst out laughing but then said, "Pardon me for saying so, m'lady, but how does a person like yourself manage all this?"
"A person like myself?"
"Small, I mean. Fletcher has nearly a foot on you, and at least five stone on your weight. You just dropped him like a sack of rocks in a river. How?"
"Ah."
As Fletcher recovered, Arya explained how surprise could often times outweigh skill, how speed could counter strength, and how a person engaged in battle should never underestimate their opponent.
"Above all, there's want," she told her rapt pupils.
"Want, m'lady?" Fletcher's face wore an expression of befuddlement.
"Yes. Want. Sometimes, the want is the most important part."
"You've lost me," Rider said.
"In a fight, there's always someone who wants it more. Wants to win. Wants the glory. Wants to live. With all other things being equal, the victory goes to the one who wants it more, because the one who wants it badly enough will do anything, anything, to win."
"I'm pretty sure I want to not be kicked in the gut again more than anyone else here." Though Fletcher groaned as he said it, he looked much less green than he had only minutes before.
"Well, you can show me the depth of your want right now. Back in your stances. Let's dance."
Fletcher and Rider obliged her, though this time, they moved more warily. Fast learners, Arya thought. The trio had been trading blows for another half an hour, the girl calling out instructions to the boys before she attacked, helping them improve their responses, when Gendry showed up. The remaining orphans trailed behind him.
"M'lady," he greeted, bowing his head a little. Arya stopped sparring, nodding back silently, then handed her training blades to Little Nate and Stout Will. The boys began to fight excitedly and when Elsbeth grabbed a sword to join in, it quickly became a chaotic melee. The assassin and the blacksmith watched in silence for a few moments before he spoke again.
"You've been avoiding me, m'lady." He watched her push some damp strands of hair from her forehead as she considered her response.
She drew a breath in, then admitted quietly, "I have."
Gendry seemed stunned by her blunt honesty. "You have," he repeated, as if clarifying her statement.
"I have," the girl repeated, "but it was much easier before you came into the training yard just now."
"Oh?"
"Yes, there are no good hiding places here."
The dark knight burst out laughing. "I'll keep that in mind the next time I wish to speak with you and you seem reluctant. Get her to the training yard, you stupid bull." He smacked his forehead with his great palm as if he had only just realized some glaringly obvious truth. Arya smiled at his lighthearted mocking, looking sheepishly at her boots before moving her focus back to the battling orphans.
"You're working them very hard," she commented, moving off to the side and leaning against the wooden wall which provided the boundary for the yard. Gendry followed and stood next to her. She could feel him turn his gaze toward her profile.
"They welcome it, and we must take advantage of Lord Blackwood's hospitality," the knight remarked. "They've not had such fine equipment or such an ideal location for training before. They'll soon take their oath to Lady Stoneheart and they need to be ready for what that means."
"And what does that mean?"
"It means being ready to kill."
The girl nodded, watching Elsbeth duck a blow from Rider, then stumble and fall. Little Nate jumped to her defense, fending off her attacker. She repaid him by tripping him and rolling over top of him, threatening him with her training blade to secure his surrender. The archer looked up at Gendry then, basking in the approval she read in his face.
"She's certainly ready to kill," Arya remarked drily.
"Yes, Elsbeth will be fine," Gendry agreed.
"Little Nate might be in danger, though."
"He's capable enough with his sword. He just has a soft spot for Elsbeth."
"I know. That's what I mean. He's in danger of having his heart broken."
"Nah," the knight disagreed. "They're just young, and she's too enamored with the idea of adventure to think on love and family just yet. I once knew another girl like that." His mouth quirked into a lopsided smile and he gazed down at her. Elsbeth chose that moment to look to the dark knight again, and as Arya watched, a frown formed on the archer's flushed face.
"I don't know," the assassin said. "I don't think the odds are in Little Nate's favor."
"He's a good lad, and comely enough for a girl's fancy, I'd think. She'll come around to him in time."
"How can she," Arya asked softly, turning to look at the blacksmith, "when she's in love with another?"
The knight's dark brows knitted together and Arya believed his puzzlement was genuine. He truly had not noticed. "You think she..." His voice trailed off and he slowly turned his head towards the battling orphans, watching Elsbeth spar with the boys. A few seconds passed and then he shook his head. "No. You're mistaken." His words sounded sure, but as he leaned back against the wall and stared out toward the archer, his face betrayed his uncertainty.
"Would it be a problem if I weren't mistaken?"
"A problem? Of course it would be a problem! How do you think Little Nate would feel, if he thought... I mean, soon, we'll be riding together. He'll have to depend on me, and I'll have to depend on him! Besides that, she's just a child."
"I believe we are of an age," the assassin said, her voice light. She was having difficulty hiding her amusement at her friend's sudden discomfort. "Do you think me a child too, Ser Gendry?"
"You're different," the knight sputtered. "You've seen things. You've done things, and been places. You're highborn. It's just different."
"Is it? I hadn't realized."
He knew she was teasing him, but that didn't stop the heat from creeping up his neck. "Besides," he continued, "I've helped take care of her since she was near as young as you were when we met. And I've been her teacher. What sort of man would I be if I felt... like that about her?"
Arya's mind traveled to Braavos, along the bright canals and through the dim corridors of the House of Black and White. She thought of Jaqen's instruction and wisdom; his care and comfort. She thought of Jaqen's thumb tugging her bottom lip from beneath her teeth. She thought of Jaqen's whispered words and warm kisses and embraces in the stairwell.
"Is it so hard to imagine how it might happen?" she asked hoarsely. Her eyes had a faraway look as she spoke that caused Gendry to frown.
"I just don't feel that way about Elsbeth," the knight growled. "I never could. I hope to the gods that you're wrong and she doesn't either."
"Take heart, my friend," Arya said, snapping out of her reverie. "It may only be the idea of you that has her enthralled." She moved her gaze to the sparring orphans, watching as Elsbeth struck at her opponents and looked over and around them at intervals, seemingly trying to assess Gendry's level of interest in her actions. Arya made a humming sound as if considering new information, then added, "Then again, sometimes being in love with the idea of someone is more dangerous than being in love with the person themselves." She gave him a sympathetic smile, then patted his arm before walking away. Gendry watched her cross the yard and climb the steps to the tower in which her chamber was located. When she disappeared through the doors, he sighed.
"I know," the knight whispered in reply though she was not there to hear him.
Arya passed through the tower and exited the opposite side, a shortcut to the godswood shown to her by Lord Blackwood the night before (Should you wish to pray again, my lady). The assassin wondered if the Riverlander believed her to be more pious than she truly was. It wasn't that Arya didn't believe in the gods; on the contrary, she had seen too much of their power to doubt them. It was just that she thought the gods were possessed of a practical nature and didn't have time to be bothered with passive, ornamental devotion. Kneeling before a statue of the Mother, leaving trinkets at Bakkalon's feet, lighting candles for the Stranger; useless nonsense, all of it.
Deeds. Accomplishments. These were what the gods craved. Willing instruments, not wailing worshipers. Dieties had plans; intentions. For those to be realized, the gods demanded action, not babble, not candles. As far as Arya was concerned, praying was only for telling the gods what you required in order to do their work or for outlining your schemes so that they could smooth your way if they so chose (Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei...)
And, though the gods had a tendency to remain infuriatingly mute, in certain cases, praying might allow one to learn what was expected.
That was what had lured Arya back into the godswood. She'd felt something when she knelt by the heart tree the night before; an energy that merely hinted at the power which fueled it. It called to her. Or maybe she craved it. She wasn't sure which, but the draw was undeniable.
When she reached the enormous, dead weirwood, she found the smoothed seat on the tree root quite empty, unlike the previous evening. It seemed she had the garden to herself. Why, then, did she feel as though she were being watched?
It was a sense the assassin could not shake. She shivered, but she was not cold.
She circled the heart tree slowly, warily, like a wolf stalking her prey, staring up at the ravens perched upon the high, bare branches. The wind stirred her hair, lifting the wisps which had escaped her braid as she sparred with the orphans, but it moved quietly, for there were no leaves above her head with which it might whisper as it passed. The ravens themselves were extraordinarily silent, lending to the strange atmosphere in the godswood; an impression she could only describe as unaccountably eerie. The sensation seemed to increase with each step she took, compounding the feeling of portent which crept along the edges of her mind and seeped into her skin as she walked.
Finding, once again, the menacing face sculpted from the wide trunk, Arya stopped. She gazed into the narrowed eyes of the carving. The floors of those hollowed-out apertures had once collected a measure of sap, in a time long past, built up into rounded mounds. After centuries of curing, those mounds had grown as dark and hard as onyx. In the bright light of midmorning, the eyes seemed to glare down at her no matter where she stood. She felt no accusation in the gaze, though, only an allure; an expectation.
In the quiet of the godswood, with no soul in sight, Arya became quite convinced that she was not alone.
As she had in Lord Blackwood's presence the night before, the girl walked slowly toward the heart tree and sank to her knees when she was close enough to reach out to the smooth, white trunk. Hesitantly, she extended her hand, fingertips barely skimming the wood. The buzzing was there still. It moved through her fingers and into her palms, up her arms and into her core, growing stronger, warmer, until it felt as through her own heart quaked with it.
Her breath caught in her throat and she leaned forward, pressing her one cheek against the weirwood. Her eyes closed without her commanding them to do so and she maintained the posture, though for how long, she could not be sure. The feeling, the hum and the pulse and the crackling grip of it, did not abate but neither did it strengthen further.
Gradually, Arya became away that her knees were aching and she resolved to end her meditation, frustrated that she was no clearer on what she was feeling than she had been the night before. She opened her eyes and heaved a long sigh, sagging bodily against the white wood. She felt defeated, suddenly tired, and she pushed all her thoughts, all her useless questions from her mind, giving up her pursuit of enlightenment and seeking only peace, just for a moment. In the instant before she pulled away from the heart tree, she heard something; a strained voice. It whispered to her. The voice did not seem to emanate from anywhere around her, or even from within the tree itself; rather, it felt as though it had formed inside of her own skull where the strange buzzing and humming had come to nest.
"Arya," it said.
Startled, the girl pushed back with a gasp, jumping up and stumbling away from the tree as if she had been bitten. She nearly fell, but was able to right herself just in time. She whipped her head up, gaping at the immobile face two stories above her, unable to make her feet carry her away as she wished. Her legs behaved as if they had been plunged knee-deep into a sticky bog. After a minute, the sense of paralysis lifted and she turned and ran.
Across the garden, through the high, open window of a well appointed solar, shrewd eyes watched the scene unfold in the godswood below. After Eddard Stark's daughter bolted away from the great weirwood and found her path back through the doors of the north tower, those same eyes turned to the small group gathered around an oaken table, all attention now on the important discussion at hand.
By the time Arya arrived back in her chamber, she had nearly convinced herself that she was being stupid and she hadn't actually heard anything. Still, she couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that persisted and she shivered slightly as she pushed open her door. On the other side, she spied a tub which had been brought in and placed near her hearth. A servant boy was pouring the last of a considerable number of steaming pails into it. As she entered the room, he skittered out of her way and through her door with a quick, "Milady!" A maid awaited her, the same one who had brought her breakfast.
"I'm Lyra, m'lady," the woman said. "My mistress instructed me to help with your bath."
"My bath?"
"For the feast."
"But that's hours yet, surely. I had thought to spar some more once my men were available for it." Where were her brothers?
"Beggin' your pardon, Lady Arya, but Lady Blackwood said you'd want a bath before your fitting, and the seamstress is due here in less than an hour."
"My fitting..."
"Well, Lady Blackwood thought you weren't likely to have a gown of your own, traveling light as you are, so she's sent one of hers, only you're a mite smaller than she is, so she asked the seamstress to alter it for you."
Arya sighed. "This feast is certainly causing lots of undue trouble." For me, she thought.
"Oh, no, m'lady, the house is ever so excited! Why, we haven't had a real celebration here since before the war. We spent the whole year after the Red Wedding in mourning, for Lord Lucas, you see. He died at the Twins."
"A great many people died at the Twins," Arya said, pulling her boots off. She might had been one of them, had it not been for the flat of the Hound's axe ending her anguished sprint toward certain doom.
"Yes, indeed, m'lady, a great many," the maid agreed, a sad look on her face. "Lord and Lady Blackwood were just beside themselves when they learned of it. They set great store by their children, you see, and when Lord Lucas was killed, well, I don't like to remember how Lord Blackwood raged and howled! And Lady Blackwood cried for three moons without stopping if she cried for a day."
Arya shed her tunic and breeches then pulled her thin blouse over her head, batting away the maid's hands when the woman tried to help. The assassin dropped her clothes onto the floor in a pile. This maid (Lyra, she thought, committing the name to her memory) was certainly chatty, but it served as a distraction, and she wondered if she might just learn three new things by listening as she bathed.
The thought caused her to grimace. It had become second nature, this attention to detail, this unobtrusive observation of the conversations of others in hopes of gleaning something of import. But when she remembered the one who had instilled this trait in her, the one who expected her to report to him on all she had learned, she felt her hatred rising up like bile in her throat, thick and burning. Luckily, the maid chose just that moment to continue on with her prattle, relieving the Cat of the burden of thinking too long on the Kindly Man.
"There were plans for a great feast three years past now, to be thrown after Ser Brynden's wife had ended her confinement with their third child, but the babe came too soon and didn't live even a week. The poor child's mother followed him to the grave not two days later and so the feast became a burial."
"This house has known tragedy," Arya acknowledged, stepping into the tub and sinking into the steaming water. She did not add that in times such as these, there was not like to be a household anywhere in the seven kingdoms that hadn't been touched by sorrow or ill fortune in one way or another. Her own house could be held up as an example of just how profound were the depths to which a great family might fall.
"I'll say it has," Lyra said, dropping to her knees and soaking a sponge in the bathwater. "The day Ser Jaime took Lord Hoster away, I thought his mother would sink into madness. She screamed at Lord Blackwood for hours and hours. She screamed herself hoarse." She fished around on the floor by her knees for a chunk of soap and, finding it, worked a lather into the sponge.
"Lord Hoster?"
"Hos, his parents call him. He's the third-born son. He was taken as hostage when m'lord finally bent the knee, and m'lady's grief was fierce. She raged like an autumn storm."
"At Lord Blackwood, you say?"
"Oh, yes, m'lady! It was awful. She kept saying, 'You let them kill Lucas, and now you're going to let them take Hos! You should just slit all our throats and be done with it!' Nothing could calm her. We feared she'd take ill. Maester Alfryd finally gave her sweetsleep at Lord Blackwood's insistence." The maid began lathering Arya's shoulders. "I've never seen a woman so wild with despair. They do set such a great store by their children."
"So you've said," the Cat sighed, closing her eyes as the maid worked the soap down her arms and scrubbed at her rough elbows as if trying to buff them back to smoothness. Arya thought Lyra had her work cut out for her, for she didn't think her elbows had been smooth since she was little more than a babe in arms.
"Of course, when Jaime Lannister joined up with the Brotherhood Without Banners, Lady Blackwood thought he'd bring Lord Hoster back home."
"He was here? Jaime Lannister, I mean."
"Oh, yes, many times. Lord Blackwood is a friend to the Brotherhood and allows them to shelter here whenever needed." The woman slid to the end of the tub and fished one of Arya's feet from the water, scrubbing at it, tickling her toes.
"Doesn't his liege lord take a dim view of his house feeding and supplying outlaws?"
"Well, m'lord says if Lord Frey won't do what it takes to keep the smallfolk safe in times such as these, we have to look elsewhere for what help we can get." She moved to Arya's other foot before adding, "Lord Blackwood is truly a good man, m'lady."
"Yes," Arya said softly, "I can see that."
Lyra stopped her scrubbing and leaned over the edge of the tub, dropping her voice lower. "He would never have bent the knee to the crown, only Lady Blackwood begged him to do it. Those Brackens had the castle under siege, and food was running low. Lady Bethany had taken ill and was doing poorly. M'lord bent the knee to save her, to save us all from starving, and to keep the Brackens from burning out all the villages. Turns out it was mostly too late for that, but he was able to protect those as took refuge in the castle. Only, he had give up Lord Hoster as a sign of his good will. That's what they call it. A sign of good will." The maid snorted derisively, applying more soap to her sponge before attacking Arya's legs with it.
"Lady Blackwood wished her husband to bend the knee but she didn't realize it would mean giving up one of her children," Arya surmised.
"It was Ser Jaime that parleyed with Lord Blackwood. Lord Hoster left under Lannister protection. So, naturally, when Ser Jaime turned up here a year later with Tom O'Sevens and Harwin, m'lady demanded to know where her son was."
"And where was he?"
"Ser Jaime said he'd been left in the care of his aunt and uncle and was most like still at Riverrun."
"It must be very hard to be parted from one's children."
"Especially if you know they're sleeping under the roof of your enemy."
The maid said it with what sounded like sincere emotion. Arya wondered if the woman had a child of her own or if she was simply that attached to the Blackwood children.
"How did Lady Blackwood take the news? That Hoster was at Riverrun, I mean."
The woman scooted around the tub, scrubbing at the girl as she went, working her way back to Arya's head. "Well, not too good, I can tell you. She's really a gentle lady most times, not prone to tempers, I mean. But when it comes to her children..."
"Yes, she sets a great store by them." Arya was gently prodding the maid to finish her tale. She was interested in what this woman knew of Jaime Lannister and thinking how she might exploit that knowledge and use it against his twin. The maid scrubbed hard at the back of Arya's neck.
"She screamed at Ser Jaime to bring her son back to her, and Ser Jaime said it wasn't possible, that he wasn't welcome in his uncle's house once it became known that he was riding with the Brotherhood. On account of how many Freys the Brotherhood had hung. Lannister men too, for that matter."
Yes, Tywin Lannister's sister had married into the atrocious Frey clan, Arya recalled vaguely as the maid rinsed the suds from her. She supposed taking part in Lady Stoneheart's harsh justice would feel like a betrayal when that justice was mostly meted out to those related to Ser Jaime by blood or by marriage. It might even label him a kinslayer. Kingslayer and kinslayer, she mused. Ser Jaime was building quite the reputation.
"He has a point, I suppose. I can't imagine Ser Jaime would get more than the short end of a rope if he dared show his face at Riverrun now, aunt or no."
"Well, I'm sure you're right, m'lady, but Lady Blackwood was having none of it. She banished Ser Jaime from the house and though she tolerates the rest of the Brotherhood for Lord Blackwood's sake, Ser Jaime is not to be received at Raventree Hall any longer."
"I imagine there are a good many houses in Westeros where Ser Jaime would find he's not welcome," the assassin replied. "Does he still ride with the Brotherhood?"
"Oh, yes, m'lady. Unless he's met with some ill fate. But if I had to guess about it, I'd say he's still as hale and hearty as ever. Men that rich and that beautiful don't seem to go easily, do they?"
Arya's face was pensive. She said nothing but made a noncommittal humming noise. Her father had been rich and handsome. Her mother was widely regarded as comely and had married into all the wealth of the North. Lyanna was a renown beauty and the only daughter of a great house, set to marry the son and heir of another great house. Wealth and beauty had not preserved any of them. To her, it seemed the only factor that truly played into a person's survival was his willingness to do whatever it took to guarantee it, no matter how heavy his purse or how winsome his face. She thought of the Kingslayer as she had last seen him, resplendent in his Kingsguard armor and white cloak, and suddenly felt impatient to be on the road again. Her mother awaited her, as did the brother of Queen Cersei.
"Shall we wash your hair now, m'lady?"
Arya was too lost to her own thoughts and plots to answer and merely leaned back so the maid could do her work.
The gown sent by Lady Blackwood was a fluttering, ivory affair with a layer of fine Myrish lace over the bodice. The sleeves were so long in the back that they nearly dragged the ground (in fact, prior to the seamstress's ministrations, they did drag the ground, by several inches. Lady Blackwood was either a good bit taller than Arya was herself or else she didn't mind dusting her floors with her sleeves as she walked). The dress was more suited to a wedding than a small, impromptu feast, the girl thought, but she supposed it would be unacceptably rude to chuck the thing into a corner and just wear her doe skin breeches and Jaqen's favorite blouse (though the idea became intensely appealing when Lyra returned and began cinching the protesting assassin into a corset she obtained from Bethany Blackwood, the lone daughter of the family).
"Is Lady Bethany some sort of wood sprite or starved waif?" Arya gasped as the woman pulled her in tighter. "How can she breathe in this?"
"She can't," the maid replied, chuckling. "She's a year or two younger than you, m'lady, but she got her growth early. Now, she's taller and broader than you by a bit. She outgrew this corset when she was two and ten, I think, but it looked about right for you."
"About right if you're trying to strangle me to death," the girl winced as the maid finally tied the laces. The bones of the thing dug into her ribs, restricting their movement severely. She had a fleeting, irrational fear that this instrument was meant to hobble her; that it was some part of a sinister plot to prevent her return to Westeros from interfering with greater plans. It was a stupid worry, she knew that, of course, which was why she dismissed the thought instantly. The idea was merely a product of her typical intense dislike for the things other ladies accepted as routine. There was no denying, however, that if an attack were to come, her ability to respond to it would undoubtedly be compromised while imprisoned in the damnable contraption. Arya recalled that the only faint of her entire life had been instigated by just such a device.
"Oh, it's not so bad, once you adjust," the woman soothed, patting the corset over the girl's entrapped belly and pinched waist, assessing the shape the thing had created. As if she were nothing more than a lump of potter's clay to be molded into a pleasing form. The girl sneered at the idea. It left an unpleasant taste in her mouth. Lyra slipped the newly-altered dress over the assassin's head, lacing the back of the bodice up deftly.
"Adjust? I don't think you can adjust to having the life crushed out of you," Arya groused.
"You're just not used to wearing one. Soon enough, you won't even notice it."
Arya found the idea that she could grow accustomed to the almost claustrophobic grip of a completely unnecessary garment ridiculous and burst into her unrefined, barking laugh. Almost instantly, laughter turned to wheezing and she wrapped her arms around her middle, gasping, "Why would I ever want to get used to this?"
"Because of that," the maid said, turning Arya to face herself in a long dressing mirror. She nearly didn't recognize the woman in white who stared back at her with wide, grey eyes. Arya was aghast. Truly.
"I look like... like a... lady."
"So you do!" the maid said happily, mistaking the girl's horror for delighted surprise. "I'll bet it's a relief, too, after all that time on the road with those men. You must have been dying to get back into your gowns. Now, we'll have to arrange your hair first, but then I've got a little kohl for your eyes, and there's a beet stain for your lips and cheeks."
"No!" Arya sputtered instantly with alarm. "No stain. No kohl."
"But it's the fashion now, m'lady. I know they said you've been over the sea for several years, and you've only just returned, so you may not know what's fashionable just now in Westeros, but trust me, no lady goes to a feast with a bare face these days!"
"I will not be painted like some whore in a winesink or a street mummer," the girl insisted.
"Please, m'lady, it's just for the feast, and we haven't dressed ladies for a feast in so long. Charla gets to dress Lady Bethany and Morraine is dressing Lady Blackwood. I can't have them showing me up!"
Arya nearly threw the woman out of her chamber, but finally gave in to her pleading. Her brother's words rang in her head. Smile and be the gracious lady they need you to be. This was just another face, another disguise.
It was to be a very literal one, as it turned out.
"No stain on my cheeks, though," the girl warned. She could not fathom a reason why she should wish to look permanently embarrassed. She honestly did not understand how anyone could find such a thing fashionable. The maid huffed but agreed and set about her work, brushing out Arya's damp tangles. The woman then began twisting and braiding and pinning the girl's chestnut locks for what felt like hours (but wasn't, of course), chatting all the while, meandering from topic to topic. This was how Arya heard the news of the arrival that day of several more guests, including members of the Brotherhood—Tom O'Sevens and Lady Brienne, stopping en route to the inn where they were meant to relieve Harwin and find news of Gendry, if they could. It was pure chance that they had discovered the dark knight and the Northman sheltering under the same roof.
"Imagine," Lyra said, "what luck! And they arrived in time for the feast. It's sure to be a jolly party now, with Tom O'Sevens."
"You watch yourself around him," the assassin warned. "He has more bastards than scruples."
The maid pretended to be scandalized, but then laughed heartily. "So you know Tom of Sevenstreams, m'lady?"
"I knew him when I was a girl," she explained vaguely. "But you said there were others. How is it they were able to get here so quickly, when the feast was only decided upon yesterday afternoon?"
"I don't think they were invited for the feast," Lyra replied. "I'm not even certain they were expected. At least, Lady Blackwood hadn't mentioned it to me, and the steward seemed surprised when they rode through the gates."
"Well, who are they?"
"I didn't see them myself, m'lady, but I've heard the names of some Riverland lords being mentioned throughout the castle."
Arya vibrated with her impatience. "Which lords?"
"Oh! Lord Vance, and Lord Smallwood, m'lady. There may be others, but those are the names I've heard."
Smallwood. Acorn Hall, the girl thought. She had spent time at Acorn Hall, a lifetime ago. So had Ser Gendry. But even when she was under that roof, Lady Smallwood had not known who she was. Now, with the arrival of Lord Smallwood at a feast being given in her honor, Acorn Hall would know of the survival of Arya Stark. First, the Blackwoods. Now, the Smallwoods. Soon, news of her would spread through the Riverlands. She needed to consider what that would mean for her.
"Vance," the Cat murmured, trying to place the name.
"Lord of Wayfarers Rest, m'lady," the maid said helpfully.
Wayfarers Rest. Not just a house, but a great house. Her situation was becoming more complex by the minute, it seemed.
Arya wasn't sure where the loyalties of Wayfarers Rest had lain during the war of the five kings. As one of the Tully bannermen, she supposed it was like to be on the side of the Starks, but then again, the Freys had been Tully bannermen as well, and that had not amounted to much in the end. Not much that was good, anyway. She might have taken comfort in the wisdom of Lord Blackwood, for if he had invited Lord Vance, then surely the Lord of Wayfarers Rest could be trusted. But, the maid had said that the arrival of the lords was unexpected and therefore, Lord Blackwood could not have properly vetted his guests. The girl narrowed her eyes a bit, thinking she would have to learn what she could of House Vance during the feast.
And perhaps keep her dagger close.
Lyra, unaware of the assassin's private deliberations, began to talk to the girl about the family which hosted her. Arya then learned more about House Blackwood and the many Blackwood children than she would have ever wished to know. She learned that Hoster Blackwood, the third-born, was a lad of great intelligence and would have made a fine maester had his mother been able to bear parting with him at ten and four, when he asked to be sent to the Citadel.
"Lord Blackwood was of a mind to let him go, but his lady wouldn't allow it."
No, how could she? Arya thought wryly. She sets such great store by her children.
The maid continued on, telling Arya that Bethany Blackwood was the sixth child born to her mother, the second youngest of the clan. She was also the only daughter. Since there were over nine years between her and the youngest of the children, she had spent most of her life being the baby of the family. As such, she was doted upon a great deal by her father and older brothers, lavished with the finest dresses and poppets and sweets. She wasn't spoiled by any of it, Lyra assured the lady as she twisted one thick braid around the back of Arya's head, but was as sweet a child as there ever was, only sometimes prone to periods of melancholy.
"Got worse after Lord Lucas was killed, poor dear," the maid revealed in hushed tones, digging into Arya's scalp with a pin and tucking in a bit of loose hair. "He was her especial favorite. There was at time after we heard of what happened at the Twins that m'lord feared the girl might do herself some harm and set his guards about her, day and night."
Ser Brynden, Lord Blackwood's heir and a knight of some distinction, was often away, tending to his father's business and his lands. The Blackwoods were struggling to set things right after the great pillaging and scorching that had occurred over the years in the name of the crown. Dealing with the aftermath of the war on Blackwood land was Ser Brendyn's primary duty. Even now, he was away, overseeing a timber delivery meant to restore Pennytree, a nearby village, but he was expected to return in time for the feast.
"I hope he does, m'lady, so that you may meet him."
"Is he much like his father?" Arya asked curiously.
"I'd say he's Blackwood through and through on the inside, but he has the look of his mother about him. Fine cheekbones, blonde hair and the like."
Arya had been alluding more to his temperament, his bearing, and his cunning, for she found she liked those aspects of Lord Blackwood a great deal, but the maid was not to be blamed for thinking she meant Ser Brynden's appearance. After all, what else should a young maiden be concerned with when discussing a man in need of a new wife?
The fourth child, Ser Edmund, or Ben as he was called, was a handsome boy, and a knight like his eldest brother, but also a flirt and a rogue who ought to have spent more time on knightly pursuits than searching out new bodies to warm his bed (as far as the maid was concerned). His eighteenth nameday approached and soon, he would be expected to settle.
Yet another Blackwood son lacking a bride, the girl thought She was beginning to wonder how much having five unmarried sons had played into her host's warm welcome of her.
"He hasn't thought of how his behavior will limit his prospects," Lyra carped. "What fine lady would ever agree to a match with such a man?"
"Whichever fine lady has a father with the most to gain from the match, I suspect," Arya replied.
Lyra felt that it didn't help that Ser Edmund was pretty enough to make many of the maidens he pursued forget to ask him what his intentions were. The servant told Lady Arya that she was sure he'd sired more children than Ser Brynden, and Ser Brynden had been married for nearly six years before his wife passed. Lord Blackwood was wroth with Ser Edmund over his indiscretions. For his part, the lad was unrepentant.
"Many great families can claim bastards in their lines," the assassin said, thinking of her own beloved brother. "Some are even raised in the household, alongside the trueborn children. Why does it distress Lord Blackwood so?"
"Honor, m'lady. He considers that his son has dishonored the women, and not behaved as a knight should."
Arya laughed. "I've known a great many knights, and very few of them possessed any real honor." She thought of Ser Meryn, Ser Ilyn, and Ser Jaime. She thought of Ser Gregor and his men, of Ser Amory Lorch. She thought of the pillaging and burning and raping that had scarred the land and made its people bleed, terrors perpetrated by knights or those under their command. "Spending a night staring at a statue of the warrior then having some old septon annoint your head with oil doesn't magically confer honor on you."
"But knights take vows, m'lady."
"Words are wind," the girl said softly.
"Maybe in some places, maybe even in most, but here, in this house, Lord Blackwood takes the word of a man seriously, and to him, to break a vow puts a stain upon a man's name."
"Lord Blackwood is a rare man," Arya conceded, and she meant it. She had only known him a short time, but her impression of him, coupled with the maid's words, made clear to her why her father would have counted Tytos Blackwood among his friends. "He is an example to us all."
"He should be. If only it were an example Ser Edmund would follow."
So Ben Blackwood was the black sheep in the pen, the girl thought, stashing the knowledge away for later.
"I've no doubt that once the foolishness of youth loses its luster, Ser Edmund will begin to follow his father's excellent example."
"Perhaps he might reform if the right lady were to catch his eye."
The maid was not subtle. Arya laughed, saying, "I thought his problem was that too many ladies caught his eye!"
"But that's not love, m'lady." Lyra smoothed the braids and continued securing them in place. Arya's head was beginning to feel as restricted as her chest. The girl had lost count of the pins. She was certain they numbered in the thousands by this point.
"And love can make a man change his nature?"
"Why, I think so. Don't you, m'lady?" Lyra asked, her speech affected by the hairpin she held between clenched teeth as she prepared to use it. After a moment, she removed the pin and stuck it into the the girl's shining mane, adding, "If love can't make a man change, then what can?"
Arya shrugged a slightly, trying to hold still as the servant fashioned some sort of wide knot at the base of her neck with her braids. She was no expert on love, but she understood a thing or two about man's nature. People were who they were, bent and melded and made by all that afflicted them in life. Love, though... She furrowed her brow as she thought on it.
Love wasn't really some force of change, was it? It was an ache, a burden, an unhealing wound to be born all the days of your life. There was no choice to it and there was no magical transformation because of it. Could Ben Blackwood be reformed through love? No, that didn't seem likely to her, despite the maid's insistence. But then she thought of Jaqen. Had there not been some alteration in him when he decided that he loved her? Had he not defied his master for the first time in his life, and all for her sake; all because of the love he bore her? But, she supposed that was part of his nature, and always had been; doing what he felt was right and damn the consequences. Jaqen was an assassin, and a scrupulously moral man. A walking contradiction, just as he always had been. Love had not changed that one whit; it had only shifted the focus of his devotion a bit. And for that, he had paid a heavy price. They both had.
She closed her eyes, and he was there, whole and perfect, his bronze gaze hot on her skin.
"I'll just dab a bit of scented oil behind your ears and at your neck now, m'lady," the maid said, interrupting the girl's remembrance and her silent reflection on the transformative power of love. "It's some sort of spicy scent, foreign-like." It took a moment for Arya to leave Jaqen and realize what Lyra had said. When it sank in, the girl opened her mouth to protest, not wishing to smell of bouquets of decaying flowers or some sort of cloyingly sweet perfume that would announce her presence from twenty paces, but before she could stop Lyra, the deed was done. When the scent hit her nose, the Cat froze, her throat constricting. A traitorous tear sprang to her eye.
Ginger. Cloves.
Finally, when Arya's tongue began working again, she choked out her question. "Where did you get that?"
"Lady Bethany sent it. She has quite a collection, actually. She thought you might..."
"No, no, I mean, where did it come from? Where did Lady Bethany get it?"
"Oh. I see. This one was a gift from Ser Brynden. I told you how her brothers dote on her. He picked it up in Maidenpool, I think, on his last trip there. From one of the traders who comes over from Braavos twice a year."
"Ser Brynden? You're sure?"
Lyra seemed bewildered by the question. "Yes, m'lady. Quite sure." Arya's already pale cheek had gone a shade whiter, and it seemed to alarm the servant. "Do you not like it? Has the scent made you ill?" The woman bustled across the room to a little table where a goblet and a pitcher sat and poured Arya some water. Handing the cup to the girl and exhorting her to drink, the maid fretted, "Oh, dear! Lady Blackwood is sensitive to scents as well. She can only abide the lightest florals, or else she gets such an ache of her head..."
"No, no. That's not it," Arya assured the maid after she had taken a sip of the water and allowed it to settle in her belly. "I like it." The assassin was hoarse but she struggled to rule her face. It was just that she had allowed herself to think on Jaqen, and as the picture of him still lingered in her mind, to be confronted with his scent was... overwhelming. For just a second, it was as if he were there, as if she was in the bath in the temple, her master leaning against the copper tub, tracing the scar on her shoulder with his finger. She closed her eyes and bit her lip, in desperate need of distraction. She took a deep breath, then said, "You were going to tell me about the other children."
"Oh, oh, yes." The maid's worried expression dissolved as Arya forced her eyes open and settled her features into a look of interest. Satisfied that the noble was not about to succomb to a spell or fit, the woman continued with her chatter, telling the girl about the rest of the Blackwood clan.
Lord Alyn, just six and ten, was most like his brother Hos, more interested in books than in the other pursuits a fifth son might need to engage in to ensure his future. Finally, there was little Lord Robert, or Baby Bobbin as his sweet sister had dubbed him when he was born nearly five years earlier. He was a fierce little creature, with a mop of loose, blonde curls topping his head; a boy who loved the training yard the way Lord Alyn loved the family's library.
"He's still little more than a babe," the maid said, "but he'll be a great knight some day, that one."
Little more than a babe, and yet nearly two years older than Rickon had been when I last saw him, Arya thought. She hoped Baby Bobbin did grow up to be a great knight, but most of all, she hoped he grew up, a privilege denied to her own sweet baby brother.
As the girl tried to call up Rickon's face, the maid smoothed the last bit of dark chestnut hair and patted it, finally finishing it off with a golden laurel wreath hair ornament sent by Lady Bethany. Arya was about to tell her not to bother, that she had her own comb, a very unique cat, but what Lyra said next caught the assassin off her guard and she quite forgot to refuse the borrowed pin.
"It's so big on you, it nearly looks a crown!" the maid declared as she secured the adornment to the back of Arya's head. "There, it's done." The maid stood back and admired her handiwork, but then glanced out of the window and noting the position of the sun, cried, "Gracious! Close your eyes, I've got to get this kohl on you now or you'll be late!"
"Not too much," the girl begged, thinking of all the smeared kohl she'd seen ringing the eyes of the tired whores who patrolled Ragman's Harbor. "I don't want to scare anyone."
"As if you could," Lyra chuckled, lining the assassin's eyes with the stuff, "sweet thing like you."
Sweet thing. Arya smirked. If there was one way she would never think to describe herself, that was it.
After the kohl was applied, the maid rubbed the rich stain into Arya's lips and said, "There, now. All done." The girl rose from her stool and walked to her bed, reaching down for the boots she had left at the foot of it (and the small dagger in a concealed pocket inside her left boot). "My lady! What are you doing?" The woman seemed appalled.
"I quite forgot to pack my dancing shoes," the girl replied sarcastically. When the maid put her two fists on her hips in the stance of a mother scolding her wayward child, Arya sighed with exasperation. "These are the only ones I brought. Shall I go to the feast in my bare feet?"
"Lady Blackwood sent slippers for you! Here." The maid pulled out a pair of white shoes that seemed to be covered in the same sort of lace which adorned her bodice. There were silken ribbons threaded through several eyes along the edges, meant to function as laces and tie in delicate little bows. The assassin rolled her eyes.
"Lace shoes? And white? I'll ruin them for sure!"
Honestly, who decided such frippery should be put on someone's feet?
"No matter. They're too small for Lady Blackwood. They pinch at her toes too much for her to ever wear them again."
The girl sighed. "Fine." She left her boots (and the dagger therein) where they lay, deciding the knife used to carve the meat course would have to do if the need for a weapon arose during the festivities.
The slippers were slightly big on Arya, but she supposed that shoes a size too large were less offensive than dusty boots under her wedding gown (for that's what she had dubbed the ivory dress she'd been forced into). Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, the assassin asked sarcastically if she should wear a veil over her face to complete the look. The maid missed the jape.
"And hide those eyes and crimson lips? I think not, m'lady. Veils are out of fashion anyway, except for brides and septas."
Arya sighed.
"Are you ready to go down, m'lady? Should I fetch you an escort?"
"No, thank you. I think I can find my own way into the bear pit."
"Really, m'lady!" the maid chuckled. "What a notion! Anyone would think you weren't excited about a feast in your honor." Arya felt the gentle reproach in Lyra's words and resolved to be more grateful.
"Well, I do like the eat," she said grudgingly. She just didn't see why she needed to wear ill-fitting shoes, color her lips, and be trussed up like a roasting goose to do it.
"Well, you wouldn't know it to look at you, wisp of a thing that you are, but that's the spirit," the woman encouraged, guiding the girl to her door. "There's to be roasted boar and lemon cakes."
Lemon cakes. Arya felt a stab of something in her chest. Sadness? Longing? Normally, thinking on her sister caused some wistfulness, but rarely true sorrow. Sansa might be alive, after all, and if she was, her younger sister believed they would see each other again. And so the little wolf was not sure why the lemon cakes and memories of her sister should affect her so in this moment. Perhaps she was still raw from all the feelings the familiar perfume from Braavos had dredged up. There was no reason to mourn Sansa now. Just because no one was certain she was alive did not mean her death was a surety. Her sister might look every inch a Tully, but she had the North in her somewhere, and that made her strong. Arya would not bury her until she saw her bones with her own eyes.
Enough, she told herself, forbidding any further feelings of anguish. She pushed them away, neatly stacking the unwanted emotion with all the other things she could not allow herself to think about for fear of falling into despondency.
The maid opened the door, bidding the noble to enjoy the feast and to sample all the foods the cook had prepared, promising she was sure to be impressed. Arya thought she'd be lucky to force half a bite of each offering down her gullet with the way the corset was crushing her, but she merely smiled weakly and moved into the corridor, bound for the great hall.
Owing to how her feet slipped in the shoes, Arya had to be careful on the stone stairs. Her slow, cautious movements combined with the soft soles of the slippers rendered her as silent as a ghost without much effort at concealment on her part. This was perhaps why a well-dressed, golden-haired girl had not noted her presence as the assassin came upon her in a corridor on the lower floor.
"Oh!" the girl gasped as she turned and found herself not two feet from the Cat. The blonde girl clutched at her breast and moved back a step before regaining her composure. "Forgive me, my lady. You move like a wraith!"
"I have heard that before," Arya admitted, "but I should be the one begging forgiveness. I didn't mean to startle you."
The golden-haired girl, near a head taller than Arya, smiled down at her sweetly. "You're Lady Arya, I'd wager. Our illustrious guest. I'm Bethany Blackwood, at your service." The Blackwood daughter gave a pretty curtsy and the assassin wasn't quite sure how to react. She needn't have worried. Lady Bethany did not seem to need her guest's direction. She looped her arm through the assassin's and began leading her down the corridor at a pace perfectly suited to limitations imposed by their fine attire. As they made their way to the great hall, Arya could detect in the girl none of the melancholy nature to which the maid had alluded earlier. The Blackwood daughter seemed as happy as anyone had a right to be, considering they lived in a time of war. The Northerner also found her Southern companion amusing and quick of wit. It was a trait the young Riverlander had in common with her father.
"You're shorter than I would have thought," Bethany remarked, looking down on the top of Arya's plaited and smoothed hair. "After hearing of your daring deeds in the training yard, I thought you'd be monstrously tall and fearsome to behold." Nothing about the way she said it seemed calculated or malicious. The younger girl sounded pleased to find her companion so petite.
"And you're taller than I would have thought. After being squeezed into your tiny corset, I thought you'd be as diminutive as one of the children of the forest. I'm not sure how you ever got into this thing."
The maid must not have been exaggerating when she told Arya that Bethany Blackwood had outgrown the borrowed corset two years prior. She was certainly the larger of the two. Not plump or overly buxom, just pleasantly curved, with broader shoulders and the height advantage.
Bethany giggled lightly, a pleasant, tinkling sound, and said, "Yes, sorry about that. I worried it might be a tight fit. I did send the hair pin and the scented oil to make up for it, though. Lyra just thought my other corsets would be too large to do the job."
"What job? The job of suffocating me?"
Bethany Blackwood's eyes twinkled. "Oh, no, my dear Lady Arya," the younger girl said with mock seriousness, "the job of changing your shape into something wholly unnatural so that all the men who look upon you will go mad with love for you and marriage offers will fall at your feet like autumn leaves. Is that not the dream of every lady?"
Arya stared at Bethany for a moment until the Riverlander began chuckling delicately. Her face lit up with her merriment in a way that made her truly beautiful. After a second, Arya joined in, laughing at the absurdity in what Bethany had said. The Blackwood girl continued.
"How can men be expected to know they should want to pledge themselves to you if you are completely unfettered and capable of walking across the room without falling into a faint? Your comfort makes them too uncomfortable, my lady, for they are simple creatures, and will not know that they should idealize you if you are too self-sufficient, or too natural. That's the purpose of this, as well." She waved her hand around her face, indicating her kohl lined eyes and the pinkish stain on her cheeks and lips displayed there. She had been made up a bit more than Arya had, and it made her look older than her years. "It's important to emphasize the eyes, you see, so any possible suitors will get lost in them. The lips, well, I'm sure you can imagine exactly the point of emphasizing those."
"And the purpose of the perpetually flushed cheek?" the assassin queried, smirking at Bethany's satirical lecture.
"Oh, that's so every man who speaks to you can be flattered by your reaction to him, even if you can't manage to produce such a reaction out of genuine feeling. It is perhaps fortunate for those of us who stain our cheeks that men are less concerned with genuine feeling than just about anything else in the seven kingdoms."
"Surely not less concerned than they are for things of a domestic nature. Say, how their supper gets made? No man could care about such a mundane task as that."
"No, my lady, you are mistaken. I have it on good authority that salt is an expense and any man worth his salt will be concerned at the measure of it used in the making of his supper. It affects his coffers, you see, and there is nearly nothing a man cares for more than the size of his fortune."
Arya turned her gaze up to her companion's smiling face, and the assassin's grey eyes were practically luminous with overblown sincerity as she spoke. "My lady, you are truly a sage."
Unable to contain their amusement, the girls burst out laughing, knocking against one another as they continued down the passageway with arms still linked, nearly falling over as they did. The imbalance was as much from their merriment as their lack of breath inside of their respective corsets. The Blackwood girl continued to amuse her companion as they walked, painting vivid pictures of how women's fashion would evolve in order to better suit the ultimate goal of securing a husband.
"The more impractical, the better," she said before insisting the next trend would be stilts.
"Stilts?" Arya cried. "You mean like the stilt walkers you see at tourneys and faires? But why? Are outlandishly long legs somehow preferable in a wife?"
"The length of the leg is less important than the lack of balance, my dear," Bethany revealed. "When the inevitable fall comes, a man may be made to feel useful when he catches you."
"Ah, I see. It's this feeling of usefulness that is the goal, then."
"Well, no, but the congratulations the rescuer receives from his fellows on his heroism is much desired. He may even be toasted and rewarded with ale. A man loves ale even more than he loves recognition of his heroism."
"How is it you have become such an expert on the subject of men and their motivations?" the Cat laughed.
The Blackwood daughter's tone was almost pompous as she replied, "My dear, I've had long years to study the matter. I am ten and four, after all. Also, I have a great many brothers!" The two girls nearly collapsed upon one another then, Arya snorting and then wheezing in her corset while Bethany giggled, telling the assassin she had better learn to expend less breath while laughing or else she'd turn blue and pass out.
"Lady Bethany," the Cat began, still laughing a bit, "may I tell you, you're not at all what I expected?"
"Lady Arya, may I tell you, you're not the first person to say that to me?" The girl winked. "Only, when my mother says it, it always has the ring of disappointment about it. I rather like the way you say it." When the girl smiled at her, Arya felt there was genuine warmth behind the gesture.
How strange, the assassin thought. She couldn't recall ever having felt appreciated by another highborn girl, or even the daughters of the more elevated servants. Not when she was wearing her own face, at least (though with a false face, Lidia Biro had seemed to like her well enough). Then she remembered her crimson lips and dark lined eyes, the breathlessly tight corset and lace shoes and thought, But this isn't really my face.
The Cat studied the younger girl surreptitiously, and noted that though she had been made up to look older, beyond the beet stain and kohl, the tell-tale signs of youth could be found. There was a soft fullness to the face that time and age would change. Bethany had a sprinkling of freckles on her nose and cheeks, obtained, Arya suspected, while playing in the godswood during warmer times. Without the sheltering canopy of weirwood leaves, the garden was bound to be quite sunny in the summer and a young girl chasing her brothers around the great heart tree's trunk would have had no protection from the beams which kissed her skin and left their mark.
Arya's face was not altered in such a way (though she had marks elsewhere, in more hidden places, the likes of which she suspected Lady Bethany would never endure), her cheeks smooth and white despite her years in sunny Braavos. Much of her time over the sea had been spent in dim corridors and dark winesinks and hidden alleyways, slipping through shadows; being a shadow. Much of her duty there required the darkness and so she had spent little time basking in the warm, Braavosi sun. As a result, her face remained pale and unblemished, belying the incalculable burden of scars she carried within.
The two girls saw that Harwin and Lord Blackwood were cloistered together just outside the doors to the great hall. Bethany nodded to her companion, indicating that they should approach, and so they did, quietly, so as not to disturb the conversation of the men. It was Lord Blackwood who noted their presence first, smiling benevolently at his only daughter, who slipped her arm from Arya's and leaned toward her father, raising up on her toes to place a kiss on his cheek. Harwin, whose back had been turned to their approach, spun around and spied Arya.
"Milady!" He exclaimed, startled (though whether by her unannounced presence or her uncharacteristic appearance, she could not say). The Northman gaped at her a moment before remembering himself and bobbing his head to his host's daughter. "Lady Bethany. You are well, I trust?"
"Oh, yes, Harwin, ever so well." The smile that followed seemed less ebullient than what the Cat had witnessed as she walked the corridors with the girl. There was an undercurrent in the exchange that Arya didn't quite understand. For just an instant, she allowed herself to search for the reason, first in one trove of thoughts, and then in another. She was left with the impression that Harwin had been witness to some of the melancholy which Lyra had earlier described. It made her feel sad for her new friend. Lord Blackwood greeted her then, and she put her thoughts of Bethany's troubles aside for the moment.
"My dear, if you had a wreath of winter roses in your hair, you'd be unable convince anyone who knew her that you were not the Lady Lyanna, transported here from the tourney at Harrenhal nearly five and twenty years past," Lord Blackwood declared, kissing Arya's hand. "It's uncanny."
The assassin didn't quite know what to say, and so she merely murmured a greeting to her host and took his proffered arm, entering the hall with him.
"This may be a poor feast compared to what you are used to, my lady, but what we have, you and yours are welcome to."
Arya thought back to the last feast she had attended: the acolyte's feast in the temple which had exiled her. The fare there had been very fine indeed, but the wine, she could not recommend. She hoped this feast at least would have a happier outcome.
Be Still—The Fray