And there is beauty in a failure
And there are depths beyond compare
"Arya, what are you doing here?" the dark knight hissed.
Gendry was up and off his bed in an instant, covering the distance between them in two or three long strides. The girl tensed, her fingers ready to pluck the dagger hidden in her sleeve, all instinct. She was indelibly branded by lessons learned during her time among the assassins, moving and reacting intuitively, all consideration and reasoning secondary. Hesitation was pain; hazard; death. The memories lived in her, informing her; directing her: A blind girl, hit with a staff repeatedly, unexpectedly, until she borrowed the eyes of the temple cat and learned who assaulted her. An acolyte, sorting goods in a storage room, alerted by the prickling of tiny hairs on her neck moments before she felt a knife's blade cold against her throat. A servant in the home of a wealthy man, pinned and threatened by a Faceless sellsword who endeavored to teach her caution.
An apprentice, ready to step into the order which had sheltered and trained her, stunned by a command to take the life of her master, the only man she had ever loved.
She had learned her lessons well.
Be aware, always, and trust rarely.
Even as her old friend gripped her shoulders, she stayed her hand, but it was not without effort, so sharp and deep were those lessons she had learned. Still, it was mostly concern (albeit some consternation as well) which Arya read in Gendry's expression then, not anger; not menace. She relaxed marginally. He meant her no harm.
"You should be resting!" the dark knight chastised his friend.
"Resting?" Arya snorted. "Why would you say…"
He cut her off. "Why are you here, m'lady?"
She narrowed her eyes slightly at that last. "I'm here to save you, stupid."
The knight shook his head and scoffed. "It's too late for that, m'lady. All you'll do is get yourself discovered here, and force your mother's hand."
"As if I could," the girl grumbled, bitter.
"This is no jape!" Gendry admonished. "We can ill afford the scandal it would bring if someone sees you here! You can ill afford it."
"Scandal?" Arya laughed. "Have you always been so dramatic?"
The large man grunted and released Arya's shoulders, turning his back and walking to his bed. He sat down heavily. The girl kept her place, staring at the blacksmith-knight, befuddled. He shook his head slowly, his jaw set.
"You weren't there, m'lady…"
"Don't call me that."
Gendry blew out a frustrated breath. "You'd fainted, or nearly so. Ser Jaime had already carried you off to your chamber before…"
"I never!" she interrupted. "It wasn't a… faint." No, it wasn't a faint. It was something entirely indescribable, closer to drowning; to sinking through a quicksand wholly composed of ice crystals; to trying to breathe in the center of a cyclone. It was closer to all those things at once than to a faint. She frowned and her tone of voice marked her as fairly insulted. "And Ser Jaime did not carry me…"
"…before Lord Smallwood gave his evidence."
This drew Arya up short.
So, it was not merely some misunderstanding or misinterpretation on her mother's part, it seemed. Lord Smallwood had spoken against Gendry at his trial, convincingly enough to inspire a judgement against her friend.
Convincingly enough to make Gendry fear some sort of scandal, for her sake.
"Yes," the girl breathed softly, remembering what had passed between Lady Stoneheart and herself when she had visited her earlier. "Yes. My mother said something about… a plot."
Gendry looked up at her sharply before speaking. "Lord Smallwood said that I had…"
When he didn't continue, Arya made impatient noises, then prompted, "You had what?"
The knight cleared his throat. "That I'd tried to… misuse you. He said my behavior towards you was an affront."
"Misuse me? What does that… What could he mean?"
"He said I had tried to take liberties…"
"Liberties?"
"…that I was reaching above my station."
"Why would he…" Arya's voice trailed off as she thought of the feast at Raventree Hall. She had danced with Gendry, and though he had taken no liberties, their heated exchange in the midst of the party could have been mistaken as something more sinister than it was, she supposed. Particularly by men with an agenda not furthered by her friendship with an unacknowledged bastard, and one only newly made a knight.
"Lady Stoneheart… or, your mother, rather, was unhappy at the testimony."
"Yes." Arya nodded slowly. "She said as much when I spoke with her…"
"You spoke with her? When?"
"Tonight. After supper. I tried to talk her out of her decision to punish you."
"Arya…" He sounded peeved.
"But she wouldn't listen. She was convinced you only left the Hollow Hill so that you could win me somehow, and claim whatever inheritance I might have for yourself."
The knight's expression became anguished at her words.
"M'lady, you know that's not so. I would never…"
The girl crossed the chamber and dropped to her knees before her old friend.
"I know," she assured him. "I wouldn't be here if I thought you were so devious."
"You shouldn't be here at all," the knight warned. "You, coming here… it only lends credence to this slander. Lord Smallwood has many convinced I've manipulated you for my own purposes. Your mother chief among them."
"You? Manipulate… me?" Her laugh made clear how ridiculous she found such a notion. But then, these men needed to believe she could be so easily controlled, didn't they? The idea was, after all, convenient to their plans. "But surely not the Brotherhood? Who would believe it of you, knowing you as they do?"
"It doesn't matter. The power rests with your mother, not with those who follow her."
Perhaps, she thought as she turned the idea over in her head. But there was always such a thing as mutiny; as insurrection. Even the powerful Dragons had been overthrown in the not-so-distant past, and all that remained of the legacy of Aegon the Conqueror had been laid to waste with a warhammer's blow.
"Mmm." Arya's gaze drifted off to the right and she looked thoughtful. "But Lady Brienne supports you, I'm sure of it. And Thoros. And Harwin, no doubt. Probably most of the others as well." She wondered how she could turn this support to their favor; turn it into action.
Into insurrection.
"You may be right, but in this place, their faith in me counts for little and less. What matters is what Lord Smallwood thinks, and Ser Brynden, and the men loyal to them. And, of course, Lady Stoneheart."
He spoke truly, she realized, and it was almost as if she could feel an undercurrent dragging her along a course of someone else's choosing; an undercurrent made entirely of the ambitions and machinations of men whose true motives remained shrouded by the gossamer veils of protection and loyalty and concern.
The protection demanded by the innate frailty of women.
The loyalty owed the only certain heir to the empty throne of the King in the North.
The concern lavished by wiser men on a naïve girl whose young heart was sure to be fickle and faint.
The girl sneered at the idea of it; the idea of her own assumed fragility; of her supposed inheritance; of the confidence any man here could have that he understood or could ever have charge of what lived in her heart, no matter the sincerity of his concern.
What lived in her heart was hers, and hers alone.
And it was not fickle. And it was not faint.
By all the gods, I am yours.
She closed her eyes for a moment and the sadness crashed over her like a powerful wave during a storm at sea; the type to capsize a warship and drag the sailors down to their deaths. Breath held, she did not indulge it for long, three beats of her heart, maybe four, and then she pushed it back, tamping it down and replacing it with contempt.
For that was what she felt for all these considerations of reputation and scandal, the illusion of which had led to Gendry's wrongful conviction.
Such stupid Westerosi concerns; such hypocrisy. It was astounding that anything was ever accomplished in this sanctimonious kingdom, so much time was wasted fretting over these superficial and pointless matters.
Liberties. Reaching above one's station. Insupportable ambitions. The imagined effrontery of a bastard pursuing a match with the daughter of a great house; the disdain for the very idea of his blood, mixing with hers, producing heirs who would hold such great power, yet somehow be less noble, less legitimate…
And certainly less the issue of a Riverlord. Any Riverlord.
A great game of Cyvasse was being played, and she, its most valuable piece.
Well, she would turn the table over. She would knock the board to the ground and send the pieces flying. She would trample them to dust as she marched toward her goal of Winterfell, and blood, and vengeance.
Let them try to stop her.
"Arya, are you even listening to me?"
The girl blinked, and looked up at her friend, her fantasy of Grey Daughter plunged through Walder Frey's heart fading as she responded to him.
"I have done nothing to invite censure," Arya argued. "You have done nothing to invite censure."
And yet, here he sat, in a locked chamber, awaiting his punishment.
"Still, if you were discovered here, it would only affirm their suspicions."
"Well, they're planning to flog you and banish you anyway. Who cares what they think now?"
Gendry frowned at her and shook his head, his disapproval evident.
"What?" she demanded impatiently.
"I'll not justify their mistrust of me."
"Why do you give one bloody fuck what they…"
"Arya!"
Reputation. Even in the face of such futility. She nearly laughed. Westeros!
"You needn't concern yourself. No one saw me come, and no one will see me leave. Besides, what more could they do to you?"
The dark knight tilted his head and gazed down at the girl just beyond his knees. "Surely, you know," he replied slowly.
The girl shook her head
He explained. "It's not me I'm worried about."
There was an agonizing sincerity in his voice, and for a moment, her heart clenched. Remorse washed over her; for his plight; for her part in it. She pushed it aside, lest she lose her focus and drown in pity rather than moving to action.
No fretting Westerosi, she. Let others worry and ruminate while she solved the problem. The Braavosi way. The Faceless way. The blacksmith-knight could learn a thing or two from her.
"Gendry," the girl said quietly, "spare your strength. You need never waste it with worry for me."
"How can I help it?"
Arya sighed and pushed back from her knees to stand before the brooding knight.
"Pack what you need," she directed, suddenly commanding. "We're leaving." Her eyes darted around the room, trying to find a bag or a satchel they might use.
"We're leaving?" Gendry stood as well, his brow furrowed as he towered over her. "What do you mean?"
"I'll not let you be punished so unjustly," Arya said. "You'll leave tonight. I'll write a letter for you to carry with you." She looked around for the implements she would need. "You can ride for Wayfarer's Rest. I believe Lord Vance will allow you to shelter there until I can come."
"M'lady…"
"There's no time for arguing," she insisted. "We need to go to the stables, now, while the castle is quiet. I can get you past the gates. Nymeria will go with you and…"
"M'lady," he tried again, his voice more imploring. Arya would not yield and the pace of her instructions became more feverish.
"I've packed provisions, just a small satchel. I left it in the stables earlier. It should be enough to get you to Wayfarer's Rest, but you must ride hard. Once there, be patient. I don't know when I'll be able to leave this place, but I should be less than a fortnight behind you, and…"
"Arya," Gendry moaned. "Stop." The girl stiffened and glared at him.
"Are you not my sworn man?" she seethed, provoked by his obvious opposition to her plan. "Do you not owe me your obedience?"
"I am," he agreed, "and I do."
"Then why are you not packing? Why are you not making haste for the stables instead of resisting me?"
"I can't sneak out of here in the hour of the wolf and flee my sentence."
"You can," Arya asserted. "You can, and you will." Her determination was plain to read on her face.
"I will not."
The girl growled, frustrated. "She's banishing you anyway! Why do you need to stay to be flogged when you'll only be turned out, left on your own afterwards?"
"Why does any man need to uphold his honor?"
"Honor?" the girl spat. "What has this to do with honor?"
Gendry placed his hands on Arya's shoulders once again, but this time more gently. He gazed into her eyes long enough that she began to wonder if he had no answer for her. After a time, he spoke.
"If I run, how will it look? What will the Riverlords think? And the Brotherhood?" He sighed, adding, "What will Lady Stoneheart think?"
Reputation. Scandal.
"It doesn't matter!" she replied, defiant.
"But it does," Gendry said softly. "Because they will also think it of you."
Her look was incredulous. "Do you think I care about that?"
"You may not, but I do."
Arya breathed in and out of her nose sharply, then reached up for Gendry's face, trapping his cheeks between her palms.
"Maddening, obstinate, infuriating man!" she said in high Valyrian, shaking her head. Then, in the common tongue, she asked, "Why won't you let me protect you?" Her brows were drawn together in a worried line and her mouth turned down, waiting for him to offer any explanation which might make sense.
The knight smiled sadly at her. "M'lady, I'm your sworn knight. I'm supposed to be the one doing the protecting."
The Cat slipped past the heavy door and closed it silently. In two blinks, a quick jab and twist-turn of her hair pin and dagger engaged the lock once more. It was if she had never been there. She listened for the sound of footsteps or chatter in the passageway and hearing none, she turned and took a step, but then froze. Her neck prickled uncomfortably.
Disapproval. Annoyance.
The judgment radiated at her back like the heat from a brazier which stands too close. She pressed her lips together and spun around.
"What?" she barked down the dim passageway. From the deep shadow of a recessed doorway diagonally across from her, Baynard emerged, a small smirk playing on his mouth as he idly twirled a dagger, butt and blade tip trapped between his two index fingers.
"I'm just wondering whether you've slit his throat or fucked him. Or… could it be both?"
The girl stared hard at the assassin, then fixed her eyes on the turning knife.
"Neither."
"Pity. Either would have been a mercy," he replied lightly. "You could've put him out of his misery, one way or another."
The girl still held her own small blade in her right hand, hair pin cradled against her left palm. She placed her hands behind her back and advanced on the Faceless squire, her weapon now clutched in her left hand as the hair pin dropped soundlessly to the floor.
"You don't know what you're talking about," she murmured when she reached him.
"But I do, sister."
"Sister, is it now?"
The squire shrugged. "Economy of words, my lady. It's so much simpler to say than disgraced and exiled acolyte of the order or daughter of my father's vile murderer."
Quick as a snake, the point of her small blade nudged at the soft place between two of the boy's ribs, angled upwards, threatening his heart.
"Economy of words," she repeated, softly, her voice edged in danger. "Yet, it is no more difficult to say dead man than brother."
The Cat felt the pinch of her brother's knife at the base of her skull then, and he answered, "Perhaps not, but can you say either before I bury this dagger in your spine?"
The two assassins stared at one another, unmoving, for a long moment, contemplating their stalemate in their minds. Wordlessly, as if by mutual assent, they withdrew their blades from one another and took a step back. The Rat leaned casually against the wall to his right, his face once again shadowed in the recessed doorway from which he had emerged only moments earlier. Arya stood in the passageway, her back to Gendry's chamber.
"Why are you here, brother?"
The Rat shrugged. "Perhaps I came to spare your poor bastard from his fate tomorrow." He twirled his dagger once again. "Or, perhaps I wished to see for myself whether you were so stupid as to be here."
"Why should you care?"
The false-squire smiled slyly but did not answer her question. Irritated, the girl glowered at him.
"I know you have no real concept of loyalty, brother, but…"
The Rat's false face suddenly wore a serious expression as he interrupted her, "No, my lady, you are wrong. It's just that my loyalties lie with the order, not with the endless succession of comely men who slaver over you." His tone made his opinion of those comely men quite evident.
Arya bristled and her grip on her dagger tightened. "You understand nothing."
"I understand that we are wasting our time. We could have left the Riverlands long behind, but for all these feasts and hunts and jaunts in the training yard…"
"Jaunts?" she scoffed. "Perhaps if you jaunted more, you'd have a prayer of beating me."
"I don't need to beat you, sister. I only need to see you safely to Winterfell."
"The road to Winterfell leads through the Riverlands, or did you not study a map of the Seven Kingdoms before we boarded Titan's Daughter?"
"Does it also lead through Ser Gendry's bedchamber?" he needled, raising his eyebrows. "I wonder what your Lorathi master would make of that."
The dagger flew from her hand almost before she even realized she had thrown it. It grazed the squire's ear and clattered off the stones of the wall behind him, coming to rest just beyond the heel of his left foot. A drop of blood swelled at the superficial wound and trickled down to his lobe, hanging there like a grotesque ear jewel before pulling free and falling to the ground. The boy laughed, a mean sound matching the condemnation in his eyes. Still, when he finally spoke, it was as if she hadn't threatened him at all. This annoyed her more than she could say.
"All this dawdling does not please the Many-Faced god," he said.
"Oh? And have you been much in communion with him of late?"
She'd be damned if she let him tell her what did or did not please their god.
"Not that I expect you to care, but I've been charged by the principal elder with delivering you north. I do not plan to fail in my duty."
"Ser Gendry is no threat to your mission," the Cat replied. "I don't see why he bothers you so."
The Rat straightened and walked toward his sister, coming to rest before her, just beyond her reach, his false eyes fixed on hers.
"It's not me he bothers," the assassin answered, his lips curling into a sneer, "it's you. And all the time you waste here and there, on him, on Brynden Blackwood, on any one of a number of these Westerosi knights and lords who would take you to wed and have you bear them Northern heirs, is time we might've spent riding for Winterfell."
"Northern heirs?" Arya repeated. "What are you going on about?"
The Rat continued, ignoring her question. "Honestly, I couldn't care less if you rutted with that bastard in the middle of the bailey yard for the whole castle to see. Or Ser Brynden, for that matter, or any one of his numerous brothers, so long as it didn't interfere with my duty. But it does." That last bit, he spat out, a simmering anger plain in his voice.
It was strange to hear him say it. It reminded Arya of something, some feeling she had felt in Braavos, when the handsome man had seemed to be protecting her from Attius Biro; protecting her virtue, if not her person. She couldn't quite place her finger on the reason for her unease, but it struck an odd chord with her now as it did then.
"You needn't worry," the girl said even as she scrutinized his false face, trying to discover the reason behind his concern. "That is surely the furthest thing from Ser Gendry's mind at the moment."
The false-squire snickered, saying, "It might be the furthest thing from yours, but I'm certain it's foremost in his."
"A man facing a flogging, and banishment?" she scoffed. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"But I do. You forget, I've ridden with the both of you, from the beginning."
"So?" Her look was sour.
"So, I've seen every look, every exchange, every nauseating sigh and longing glance. Lord Smallwood was right. That bastard regards himself far too highly and…"
"Lord Smallwood was right? What do you mean?"
"His testimony. What he told your dear mother," the Rat smirked.
"You stayed for that farce?"
"Oh, yes," the assassin laughed. "It was highly entertaining. The most fun I've had since we set sail, if I'm being honest."
"Honest," the girl muttered. "Not likely."
Her brother shrugged. "I always enjoy seeing those who suffer from unfounded arrogance disabused of their pretentions."
Arya's anger built. "You were there… You listened to those lies, and didn't speak up…"
"I heard no lies, my lady," her brother interrupted. "All that I heard was the truth; the same truth I'd seen with my own eyes."
The Cat shook her head in disbelief, staring at the Rat. He stopped his insufferable smirking, tilting his head to study her expression.
"You know, I'm never quite sure what to make of you, sister." He sounded fascinated as he made the admission, speaking slowly, softly, his eyes taking in the furrow of her brow, the slant of her mouth, the set of her jaw. He moved a half-step closer, bending slightly to peer more closely at her. "I don't know if you're really so absurdly innocent, or if you're just an excellent mummer."
The girl stared back at him, her mouth curling in disgust.
"You've hated Gendry since you laid eyes on him."
The Faceless-squire shrugged. "I can't deny it."
"You're actually pleased at this turn. You're happy for his suffering."
"Well, the landscape is rather dull here, and the days are grey. There's not much else for entertainment. A trial and a flogging help pass the time."
He was baiting her quite obviously but still, she continued.
"You don't care that an innocent man will be so unjustly treated…"
"Wait now, sister, I never said I believed he was innocent. Even you can't deny the desertion charge, and as for the rest…"
"Yes, the rest," she hissed. "The rest, which is nothing more than fanciful nonsense!"
"Poor sister." The false sympathy rolled off the Faceless assassin's tongue, thick and grating. "You've allowed him, him, a nobody, just an insignificant bastard, to distract you. You've allowed him under your skin."
"Don't be stupid. He's not under my skin."
"He is. He really is, and even though it's already too much, far beyond anything he should ever hope for, he wants more still." Her brother's tone spoke to his feelings about that. "He wants more of you. You know that, don't you?"
Arya couldn't quite understand the Rat's concern. It made no sense to her for him to make such an allegation. Her mind touched his briefly then, but all she got from that was his obvious annoyance with her and his disdain for Gendry. She wondered if it was purely envy. It had been obvious to her since their arrival at the Inn at the Crossroads that Baynard had a sort of animus for Gendry. At first, she had assumed it was merely to frustrate her, and perhaps it was also part of the assassin's face. But as time went on, it seemed to the girl that the Rat simply did not like the blacksmith-knight.
"Are you… is this because… you're jealous of Gendry?"
The slender man rolled his eyes. "Jealous? Of a lowborn bastard who styles himself a knight because some dead outlaw said it was so? Hardly."
"Well, then…"
"It's because he reaches too high." He said it as if it were the most justified and obvious thing in all the world. "He desires too much."
The Rat seemed to be parroting Lord Smallwood's beliefs.
To what end? What had the assassin to do with the master of Acorn Hall?
"Gendry is innocent of all this," she insisted, "but I don't expect you to admit it, even though you know it's true. Where's the fun in that? Poor, bored Baynard, with nothing better to do than foster his envy against better men."
"There's nothing innocent about him," her brother retorted, "and what's more, if he had his way, there would be no innocence left in you."
Arya shook her head, rolling her eyes. "Men. You always revert to the same ideas, no matter the evidence to the contrary."
"You would presume to lecture all of mankind for believing in the simplest of truths?" The Rat laughed, his contempt plain to read in his eyes.
"Truth?" she snorted mirthlessly. "You wouldn't recognize truth to save your own life. The only truth you know is the one that toddles down the path of your preconceived notions. You suffer from a lack of vision, brother. That's a grave deficiency for a Faceless Man."
"And you suffer from an inability to accept hard facts, if they do not support your own desires. Like it or not, accept it or no, you are nothing more than a mere woman to these people. And what is any woman good for in this world?"
"One of the greatest failings of men is that they can imagine no use for women other than to warm their beds or whelp their babes. You ought to know better." Without further comment, the girl stepped past the Westerosi assassin, retrieved her throwing blade, and continued down the passageway. The assassin called after her.
"Well then, what are you going to do, my lady?"
The Cat ignored him, leaving the Rat alone to skulk in the corridor and ponder the question.
Later that night, the Rat gave the Bear an abridged account of his earlier interaction with their sister. He wanted backup in the event that the Cat did something unwise (though his exact words were half-baked and moronic) that threatened their mission.
The likelihood of such an occurrence was high, the Rat suspected.
"What do you think she's up to?" the Westerosi assassin asked his Lyseni brother as they lay in the dark, stretched out in their bunks. The chamber was small, made smaller by the two narrow beds in it, but the linens were freshly laundered and the fire had been stoked. A false-knight purportedly of a minor, distant house visiting a modest castle with his squire (with little notice given of their arrival) could not expect courtesy beyond a pallet on the floor of a guard house or a place in the stables, especially when the castle was filled to the brim with guests of varying rank, nearly all beyond their own. They were quite fortunate that their accommodations were passably warm and comfortable, however humble or cramped.
"I don't know," the Bear admitted, "but I imagine we'll find out before long."
"We should be away…"
"There's no profit in rushing out of ready shelter and easy provisions. Rested horses, and perhaps a path that leads us through the hearths and homes of these Riverlords will make for an easier journey."
"Easier? Maybe. Longer and more tedious? Most definitely. I'll take quick over easy," the Rat groused.
The larger assassin turned his head to look at his brother, the Westerosi's false profile visible in the flickering light of the fire as it burned low. "Why are you in such a hurry, brother? What difference should it make when we arrive in Winterfell?"
The Rat grunted his frustration. "Just because you have no desire to quit this place, don't think I don't have better things to do."
"What better things?" Ser Willem scoffed.
The smaller assassin made no answer but after a moment, said, "Mark me, brother, I will leave this place as soon as ever I can. If you are wise, you will do the same."
"Hmm." The Bear shrugged, adjusting the pillow beneath his head. "Well, I've never been mistaken as wise."
"Nor are you like to be, if you throw your lot in with her."
With her. The contempt was heavy in the assassin's voice as he spoke, but there was something else, something beyond his contempt, that colored his words. The Bear furrowed his brow.
"What has you so unnerved?"
The Rat was quiet for a few moments, and then he turned to face his brother, bending his arm and propping his head up with his hand.
"Do you know the words of House Stark?" the Westerosi asked.
The Bear laughed, saying, "Do you think I haven't had them drilled into my head by our sister? In four languages? No, in five… Winter is Coming. Sōnar Māzis. Aheshke…"
Baynard interrupted him impatiently, asking, "And what do you think those words mean?"
"That… winter is… coming?"
The false-squire blew out a weighted breath.
"Winter isn't winter, brother. Those words are old, older than the North as an organized kingdom. Older than the Wall. Older than even the Starks."
"Older than the Starks?" The large assassin laughed. "So, people have been grimly saying Winter is Coming for more than ten thousand years?"
"Yes!" the Rat hissed. "And do you know why?"
The Bear grunted, shrugging in the firelight. "Because winter is coming, I suppose. They're not wrong. As house mottos go, theirs is pretty straight forward. One way or another, winter comes…"
"Did your master never speak to you about what lives in the North?" the smaller man prodded. "I mean the real North, the Frostfangs and beyond."
"Is there anything beyond the Frostfangs?" the Lyseni man laughed.
"This is no jape. My master taught me the histories of the first men and the tales of what lives beyond the Wall. Didn't yours?"
The Bear did not much like to think of his master. Not after the last command he had given his apprentice. Not after that night at the inn by the Moon Pool. His last night there. Her last night. But those were memories he did not wish to share with his brother then, and so he answered as nonchalantly as he could, after he swallowed the lump which attempted to form in his throat.
"No, not in any great detail. And why should he? Is someone like to visit the temple in Braavos and pray for the death of a giant? Or a mammoth?" The large assassin snorted, his best attempt at feigning amusement. "Maybe the sealord has reason to want the Thenns gone, offered as sacrifices to Him of Many Faces? Is he willing to pay for it, to open trading routes with the wildlings? Do you suppose we'll have many missions beyond the Wall?"
"Laugh all you want, brother," the Rat said bitterly, letting his head fall back against his pillow and staring at the shadows dancing on the rafters above. "But if you stay by her side, you're like to learn exactly what Winter is Coming means."
There was a warning in the false-squire's words, but he did not elaborate. The Lyseni considered what his brother had said, and he considered his sister, and all their long history together.
"There's no help for it, brother," he finally said.
"So, you'll stand with her," the Rat asked grimly, "come what may?"
The Bear gave an affirmative hum.
"And what will you do if the principal elder's next instruction for you is at cross purposes with our sister's desires?"
The large assassin laughed, the sound of it more genuine than before. "It's not already?"
"No," the Rat replied, his tone matter-of-fact. "No, it's not. Not yet."
"Then let us pray to Him of Many Faces that such a time never comes."
"Brother, when such a time comes, I fear not even Him of Many Faces will be able to save you. Or her."
Arya did not know if Gendry slept that night, but she certainly did not. Pacing her chamber, she ruminated, cursing her friend's unwillingness to leave when she had commanded him to; cursing her mother's unwillingness to bend when she had wanted her to; cursing her own inability to sway either of them to her will when she had most needed to.
Was there anything worse than feeling powerless?
She considered waking her mother and trying one last time to convince her to be merciful. She considered waking her brothers and pressing them into service, using their strength to subdue Gendry and ride away with him trussed up like a pheasant for roasting if need be, so long as he was removed to safety. She even briefly considered slitting Lord Smallwood's throat, but did not see any profit in it beyond a fleeting satisfaction, and perhaps a momentary distraction. She considered begging Ser Brynden to help her, but could see no way in which the heir to Raventree Hall could be useful in this instance, despite his insistence that he was at her service.
As the night skies gradually lightened to grey and the pale light of morning filtered through her window, the girl understood what it was that she must do. She only wished she'd had more rest before undertaking her task.
But perhaps if she'd had time to sleep on her plan, she would have awoken and thought the better of it. Or, perhaps not, as even she had to admit to a certain stubbornness in her makeup.
Once set on a task, she was determined to see it through. She was much like her father in that way.
Honor.
Reputation.
She chewed her bottom lip, thoughtful. She remembered her father, his sad smile and his eyes that were her eyes. She remembered his voice, low, calm, with a rasp that always made him sound a bit weary.
"Ah, Arya," he had said to her in Kings Landing. "You have a wildness in you, child. The 'wolf blood' my father used to call it."
He had not been wrong, and she could not be sure if that wolf blood had made for more trouble than it saved her from, or if it was the other way around. The girl slowed her breathing and stilled, her mind grasping for that memory, trying to call up her father's smell, trying to recollect the feel of his calloused palm as he took her hand in his own. She closed her eyes and tried to picture Ned's face as it had been in that moment.
Instead, it was a ghostly pale face that came to her, stern, expectant. A different memory altogether.
"You are my grey daughter," her father had said, his words echoing through the icy crypts. She had watched frost creep up his neck as he spoke. "My brave, winter girl."
Only a dream!
A nightmare.
A vision.
Her eyes flew open, as if she could stop herself from remembering her father's admonishment; from hearing it. But even as she looked wildly about her chamber in the rising light of the dawn, Eddard Stark's words sounded as loud in her head as if he had spoken them directly into her ear at that moment.
"You are my grey daughter. Come home."
The road to Winterfell leads through the Riverlands, she thought, but I cannot leave this land yet. My work here is not done.
She was still wearing the gown she'd been dressed in for supper the night before. Something far too fine for her task, a gown of Ravella Smallwood's, most like, or perhaps something belonging to her daughter, Carellan, sent back from Old Town after the girl's untimely death. Arya couldn't be sure. A brocade the color of butter with skirts that whispered as she walked, caressing the stone floors like a lover's touch, heavy, with shiny satin laces at the back and along the sleeves, it fit Arya as if it had been made for her especially.
It would not do to ruin so fine a thing as she had ruined the acorn dress she had once been loaned in this same house (a dress which had once belonged to a precious daughter, long gone). Was she not older now, and wiser, and more understanding of what such things sometimes could mean to a person? What was simply a ridiculous outfit to her might be Carellan to another, and that was something with which she could sympathize.
She knew what memories such things could hold. She recognized how precious things could become, when the ones whose memories were most closely aligned with them were lost. How well she understood now that belongings, objects, could become so much more to a person, in the right circumstance.
Needle.
Frost.
Grey Daughter.
And so, she disrobed, clumsily, awkwardly, with no maid to help, clawing at the laces at her back to loosen them and slip the gown and its underskirts off, letting them fall to the floor. The chill of the room hit her naked flesh as the last of her undergarments were shed, but she did not rush to dress. Rather, she let the cold prick at her skin, and her fatigue receded. She felt alert, then; alive.
She felt resolute.
After a moment, she found her breeches, and pulled them on, and pulled on something of Salty with them: a girl filled with excitement, anticipation, thinking only of the adventures to come, and nothing of the pain she had left behind. And she slipped on a too-large blouse, its scent of cloves and ginger long since faded, but the feel of it, and the memory of the perfume it once carried, filled her with her master's courage; with his belief in her; with his expectation.
You haveall the instinct you could ever require. Your task is to learn to heedit.
She closed her eyes and clenched her left hand into a tight fist, pressing it hard against her belly, pushing into her gut as her master once had.
This is where your strength should flow from, lovely girl.
He had tried to teach her the importance of intuition; of trusting her gut. She was trusting her gut now, and she hoped it would not lead her astray.
A girl must obey. Whatever the thing is, she must do it. A girl must swear to a man.
"I will do my duty," Arya breathed then, her voice catching a little. "I will do my duty, whatever is asked."
The main yard would be where it would happen, she knew. It was the only place that would accommodate a crowd, really; the only place Gendry's humiliation could be maximized.
And why endorse such a sentence, why carry it out, except to humiliate and make an example of him?
Arya beat him there. In fact, she beat most of them there, save a few people unknown to her, and the Kingslayer. The golden knight looked grim, leaning against a newly-placed post which could only have one purpose. The girl stared at it a moment, frowning, but then approached Ser Jaime and began speaking to him. When Gendry was led to the yard, hands unnecessarily bound, he pulled up sharply when he saw the pair of them talking in the center of the yard.
Though perhaps arguing would have been a better word.
"My lady, your mother will certainly never allow it," the golden knight stressed, his voice rising with his exasperation. Apparently, they had been disagreeing for some time.
"Fine, where is she then? I don't see her here to object." Arya spun in a small circle, arms raised with palms turned upward in a questioning gesture. She was making a show of it, her eyes roaming the yard, and the raised galleries and balconies surrounding it. There were many faces there, and more streaming in, but her mother was not among them.
"I'll not allow it, then!" the Kingslayer declared.
"You don't have the authority to stop me."
"The devil I don't!" Jaime growled, one clenched fist and one golden hand coming to rest on his hips as he stepped closer to her, trying to intimidate her into rethinking her foolishness.
Four household guards of Acorn Hall along with Thoros and Lady Brienne brought the blacksmith-knight to the center of the yard, drawing up even with Jaime and Arya. They all surrounded the crude post that had been placed there, ignoring its awful implication.
"M'lady," Gendry entreated, "Please. I don't want you to see this. What are you doing here?"
Ser Jaime answered for her. "What she's doing here, bastard, is trying to take your punishment. The little fool wants to be flogged in your place!"
There was an uproar then, the growing crowd gasping and muttering and shouting. Gendry and Brienne cried out angrily against the idea. Ser Willem, who had just appeared at Arya's side, reprimanded Ser Jaime for his disrespectful address of his lady. The household guards declared that their master would allow no woman to be treated so inhumanely behind his walls. Harwin emerged from the crowd and pled with Arya to be reasonable and leave, calling her little lady as he had when she was young. For his part, the Kingslayer asserted that if Arya wanted to behave like a little fool, then no one, anointed knight or not, would stop him from proclaiming her stupidity for the whole kingdom to hear. Amidst the chaos, only Arya was silent, waiting for the furor to die down.
"Lady Arya, let's be away from here," Ser Willem implored her quietly as the crowd raged and bickered and gossiped in turn, but she just shook her head. Baynard slid next to her then, flanking her, leaning in to whisper in her ear.
"It would've been better if you'd just fucked him."
She drew in a sharp breath, but ignored her Westerosi brother and spoke to the assemblage once they had quieted some.
"Ser Gendry is my sworn knight," Arya reminded them all. "As such, it is my sacred duty to guarantee his safety and protection, as much as I am able."
"A place by your hearth, meat and mead, my lady," Brienne reminded her. "These are what you must pledge to your knights in return for their service. Not… not this."
"A place by my hearth, meat and mead at my table, and to ask no service that may bring dishonor to them," the girl corrected. "Allowing Ser Gendry to suffer such an unjust punishment would greatly dishonor him."
All their voices rose again, arguing for or against her, acknowledging or dismissing her right to interfere with Lady Stoneheart's justice. Thoros said that though he might not agree with Lady Arya's planned course of action, he could not deny her right to take it. The Lady Brienne reminded everyone in a serious voice that this sort of punishment had been known to kill men, and she could not stand by and allow Arya to be subjected to such cruelty herself. The Kingslayer spewed a steady stream of expletives, underlining his disbelief that they were even discussing such a thing. Baynard sneered, somehow managing to impugn both Gendry and Arya for putting themselves in such a position. The Bear beseeched his sister discreetly to give up her tampering in the matter. Gendry simply said, "M'lady" in urgent voice, shaking his head at her. For her part, Arya loudly insisted she intended to protect those who were in her service.
"He has not been released into your service." Lord Smallwood's voice rang out, clear and deep. The crowd quieted and turned to see him, standing on the western gallery, Lady Stoneheart at his side. He bent to move his ear closer to her pale lips which breathed out something quietly and it became obvious to them all that he was speaking for the leader of the Brotherhood Without Banners. "Lady Arya, your lady mother reminds you that Ser Gendry is a knight of the Hollow Hill and is under her authority."
"He swore himself to me," the Cat replied, unperturbed. "Weeks ago, at the Inn at the Crossroads."
"But he was not free to do so, my lady," Lord Smallwood said. "Another example of his faithlessness, I'm afraid."
The bastard knight stiffened then, raising his chin defiantly. "I will not allow anyone to stand in my stead," he said in a growl.
"Gendry, this is not your decision to make," the girl spat, pushing past him, putting herself between her friend and the disdainful gaze of her mother and Lord Smallwood. Arya was startled when Gendry pushed past her the next instant, as if he meant to stand between her and her mother's disapproval.
"Yes, m'lady, it is." He looked over his shoulder at her as he spoke, and his dark brows drew together, his blue eyes pleading with her to be silent. She ignored him and moved to stand at his side.
"Lady Stark, was it not your fondest wish to teach me grace, and kindness?" Arya gazed up at her mother, trying to find Catelyn's eyes in the shadow of her raised hood. "Did you not often tell your daughters that a lady's duty was the betterment of her household? That the welfare of those who served her family was her responsibility?"
Lady Stoneheart took a step closer to the crude balustrade, and Arya saw her mother place her thin, white fingers there, curling them over the rough-hewn railing. The girl thought she finally had her attention, really had her attention. She thought that somehow, she was reaching that part of her mother that was still her mother.
"Wasn't that why you punished me so harshly when I would harass Septa Mordane? I just thought I was playing simple pranks, with no real harm, but you would get so angry, mother, do you recall? Once I placed a dead mouse in the septa's shoe, and you beat me with a strap and left me for a day without food, locked in my room. I suspect it would have been longer, had father not interceded. And do you remember why, mother? Do you remember what you told me?"
The grey lady did not answer, but stared and stared at her daughter. Arya couldn't see her mother's eyes, but she could feel them.
"You said that those with great favor and great power must exercise restraint and dignity, always. You said it was a terrible sin to baselessly persecute those who did not have recourse to resist, and that a lady would be known by her courtesy and forbearance. By her mercies."
Reputation, above all. Reputation, and honor.
The girl thought she could sense her mother bending; that the part of Lady Stoneheart that was her mother remembered those lessons, and understood that her daughter had finally learned them; had accepted them. Arya could almost feel that her mother knew she wished to show that she finally understood her responsibility, as a lady of the Stark household.
The girl took a step forward, then another, putting Gendry and the Brotherhood and the Faceless assassins at her back. For her, they had faded away. Lord Smallwood at her mother's side had faded away. The crowd, made of guests and guards and servants, whispering and murmuring, had faded away. There was nothing else, no one else, except for mother and daughter; Catelyn and Arya. The girl walked slowly toward her mother, until she stood just beneath her, her neck craned far back so she could stare up into Catelyn's shrouded face. She waited for Lady Stoneheart's voice to declare a reprieve for her friend. She waited for her mother to show mercy.
For reputation.
For honor.
For the love she bore her daughter.
Arya watched as her mother's hand left the railing, bent fingers rising to clutch her own throat, pressing into the soft, ragged flesh there, staunching her black wound to make herself heard. The whispering and murmuring stopped, and it seemed as if the assemblage drew a collective breath, waiting to hear the words she herself awaited.
The girl's heart fluttered, hope building almost painfully in her chest; hope not just for Gendry, but for herself, and for the regard her mother must still have for her; for the child Catelyn birthed, her own blood; her own daughter. Hope for the love her mother must still feel for her, no matter how deeply buried; hope that she had somehow awakened it, no matter how small a part, because it was love, and it would be enough. Hope for family; the family she had longed for and grieved and dreamed of finding ever since the day she rode out of Winterfell with her father, bound for King's Landing and the end of life as she knew it.
Pulling her lip between her teeth, Arya chewed, breathing out slowly; soundlessly.
"My judgement… against Ser Gendry… and his… punishment," Lady Stoneheart rasped, "is… final."
Not a sound was heard. Not a single noise. The words hung in the air for a beat, sounding foreign to the girl's ear. Her own disbelief did not allow her to accept them, or what they meant, for another beat. And then, all at once, they fell upon her like rain; like a shroud; like the fiery breath of a dragon in the sky, and they burned her just the same.
Arya sucked in her breath, fast and sharp, anger flashing across her face as she failed to rule it. Her teeth bared themselves instantly, unconsciously, like a snarling wolf, as she glared up at her mother. Breathing fast and hard, great pulls of air rushing in and out of her nose, her head swam a little. The girl's fists clenched of their own accord. Her fury was such that it nearly blinded her, a bright whiteness creeping into her periphery, crowding her vision; fury at her mother, yes, but mostly her fury at herself, for allowing herself to believe she could appeal to a mother's love when she ought to have known better.
When she ought to have remembered that even when they all still lived under Winterfell's roof, her mother's love for her was dubious, at best, and conditional.
When she ought to have remembered that the absence of love, of compassion, inside of her mother had nearly felled her once already.
When she ought to have remembered that heavy cold; that weighted hatred. The wholeness of it; the impossible totality.
Why had she allowed herself to hope?
"And if… my… daughter… wishes to share… Ser Gendry's fate," the grey lady continued, lifting her free hand to point accusingly down at Arya, "then… I will… not stop her!"
Despite Lady Stoneheart's difficulty with speaking, the crypt-like silence in the yard allowed her words to be carried to every ear. There were gasps, and stunned looks, and heads shaking in disbelief. Guards and outlaws, servants and lords, all stared at each other, and then at Lady Stoneheart, and then at Arya, dumfounded. After a moment, it was Gendry's voice which broke the silence.
"Get her out of here," he commanded, and when no one moved to obey, he roared. "GET HER OUT OF HERE!"
Ser Willem moved swiftly then, Baynard at his side, and the two assassins grabbed their sister's arms firmly, roughly moving her through the yard, the crowd parting to make a path for them, staring at the girl in shock as she passed.
"Let me go!" she insisted, half-mad with her rage; her disappointment; her hurt. "Let me go!"
"No, my lady!" Ser Willem barked, the very example of knightly authority. Her attempts to dig the heels of her boots into the ground and slow their progress were useless against the strength of her two brothers and they had her arms secured tightly enough that she could not reach any of her hidden daggers. Arya thrashed and tried to bite the Bear's arm as her brothers dragged her through a door and into the keep.
"Let me go!" she screamed, lifting her feet from the ground, forcing the men to support her weight as she kicked at them, hoping to cause them to stumble or drop her.
"Stop it, sister!" the Bear hissed, yanking her free from the Rat's grasp and slamming her back against the stone wall of the corridor they had entered. Her head cracked hard but she did not feel it. "Stop it!"
She ignored him, continuing her struggle even as he pressed his forearm into her throat. She screamed wildly, unable to control herself, despite her brother's force across her windpipe increasingly robbing her of her breath.
It was that feeling, that sense of powerlessness, she was unable to abide. It ate at her, pushing her further and further into despair; into a kind of madness. She was frenzied with it, inundated by all the memories of the times she had been made helpless.
A girl, small and defiant, standing helplessly by as a king questioned her sister, watching her sister lie in the great hall of Castle Darry; watching her father leave, dagger in hand, to raise his blade against a direwolf at the Queen's insistence.
An urchin, starving and filthy, crouched helplessly at Baylor's feet, watching Lord Stark forced to his knees on the steps of the great sept; watching Ser Ilyn raise her father's own sword against him.
An acolyte, bruised and broken, pulled helplessly away, watching her master on his knees in the main temple chamber; watching the foremost assassin among an order of assassins raise his longsword against the man she loved.
The pain of her memory was almost too much for her then, and she clawed at her brother's face, fighting for breath as she did. And then she heard it, the sound of it carried clear and awful through the small, grated window cut into the door they had entered. It was the sound of leather meeting flesh, followed by a deep, pained grunt that could only be Gendry's, and it echoed through the yard and into the corridor, the sickly horror of it paralyzing Arya.
The Cat was only vaguely aware of Baynard the squire as he moved to her side and dug his two fingers hard into that soft place behind her collarbone, uttering something under his breath, something guttural and sharp; something familiar. The language of Asshai'.
Arya's hands fell away from the Bear's face, the weakness of her limbs having only allowed her to do the most superficial damage. As one assassin continued to exert pressure on her neck while the other finished his blood spell, a tear formed in the corner of the girl's eye, trailing down her cheek before her lids fluttered closed and her world went black.
When the girl came back to herself, she was confused, unsure of how much time had passed, and her head ached fiercely. She sat up in her bed, moaning slightly, and found that she was not alone.
"Oh, milady," the maid who had been attending her since her arrival said, "you're awake! I'm to tell Ser Willem…" The servant blushed as she pronounced the assassin's false name and rose from the chair where she'd been sitting as she watched the girl sleep.
"No," Arya wheezed, her throat uncommonly dry, "not yet."
The maid hesitated. "But, my lady, he was very insistent…"
"Water?"
"Oh, oh, yes, milady," the maid said, scrambling to pour some from a pitcher which sat on a table in the corner. She handed Arya a pewter goblet and the girl gulped its contents down, hoping it would make her head pound less savagely. Arya sighed, letting her head drop back onto her pillow.
"Ser Gendry," the girl said hoarsely, her throat sore. "Where is he?"
"Why, locked in his chamber, milady." The maid spoke cautiously, as if Arya might be trying to trick her with the question.
"So, not banished yet?"
"No, not until he's healed."
Healed. Arya shut her eyes then, squeezing them hard against the idea that the blacksmith-knight had been much harmed. The gesture was futile. If her mother and Theomar Smallwood were allowing him to stay and heal, it could only be a point of honor, and that must mean he had been left unable to ride. She felt nauseated at the thought of it.
"How long have I been here?"
"Since early this morning, milady. Your men brought you here after… well, after you left the bailey yard."
Arya grimaced, her annoyance plain on her face. "Yes, but how long ago was that?"
"Oh, hours and hours, milady. It's nearer to time for supper now. Shall I fetch a tray? Surely, you're hungry. You were already gone when I brought your breakfast, and you slept through the midday meal."
"Slept," the girl repeated, rubbing at her temples. Hours and hours? She suspected there had been more than just her brother's forearm against her windpipe to blame for her long bout of unconsciousness. Had he given her something to keep her slumberous and passive? She squinted, trying to remember, then vaguely recalled the Rat's grating voice, muttering near her ear.
Blood magic. Her head throbbed harder.
"I'll go now, and get you a tray, milady," the maid said, moving toward the door. "And I'll let Ser Willem know you awake now."
"No," Arya said, sitting up then. "No. Dress me for supper. I'll attend."
"But milady!"
"I'll attend," she said through clenched teeth, rising from the bed.
"Yes, milady. I'll need to fetch you a fresh gown, though…"
"No, never mind. I'll just wear what I have on."
"But, you can't," the maid insisted, aghast, looking at Arya's rumpled blouse and breeches. "What would Lord Smallwood say? What would people think?"
Reputation. Scandal.
"Why do you suppose I care?" the girl growled, sending the maid scurrying through the door.
"I'll go let Ser Willem know you're awake!" the servant called, desperation in her voice, retreating as fast as she could.
The Cat rolled her eyes in disgust and found her boots. No, she would not wait for the Bear to show up here and try to calm her; try to talk sense into her. She did not mean to let the Brotherhood, the Riverlords, or her mother go on pretending all was well. They would not shut her away so that they did not have to face her. She aimed to remind them at every possible turn that they had lied and schemed and stood by while an innocent man suffered, and that they had made a mockery of justice. They would not sit back in comfort, eating their supper and drinking their ale, japing and congratulating themselves on their plans and ploys. Not if she had anything to say about it.
But then another idea suddenly occurred to her.
"Wait!" she cried, stopping the servant's flight mid-stride. "Wait…." The Cat made a great show of defeat, hanging her head and sighing. "Fine. Fetch me a dress. Oh, and some scent."
"But you have scent, milady."
"Yes, I know, but there's something different, something Ser Brynden carries with him that he mentioned he particularly liked. Something for his sister, I believe, but he won't mind if I use a dab or two. Find him and ask him for it."
"Ser Brynden," the chambermaid repeated. "Yes, milady."
The Cat could well imagine the heir to Raventree Hall trying to puzzle out the request.
"And once you have it, see about a hair ornament from Lady Brienne."
"Lady… Brienne?" the maid repeated doubtfully. "She has… a hair ornament?"
"So I said."
"But… wouldn't you rather one of your own, milady?" the servant asked, sounding befuddled (no doubt attempting to work out how the knightly woman would even affix such an ornament to herself, so short was her hair). "That jeweled cat comb, or perhaps something of Lady Smallwood's? I know she has many fine…"
"No, there's a particular one of Lady Brienne's I'd like to wear. She offered to lend it to me. Just ask her, she'll know what you mean."
She wouldn't.
"And when you've collected those things, run and tell my mother I'd like to speak with her after the supper, if she would receive me in her chamber."
The servant swallowed. "Your… mother…"
It would take the feeble maid quite some time to work up the courage for that task, Arya was quite sure.
"Yes, now, be off or I shall be late for the supper!"
The servant scampered away on her fool's errands. The girl had likely just bought herself an hour. Time enough to see to her friend. And if anyone tried to stop her…
She pulled the boots on and then wrapped her sword belt around her waist, buckling it with a frown. Her head aching, her mood sour, she was spoiling for a fight.
Calm as still water, her little voice advised. You'll be no help to him if you're engaged in a duel in the corridor.
The Cat sighed, rubbing at her temples. Reluctantly, she unstrapped her sword belt and set it aside. After thinking for a moment, she fished in her pack for something she was like to find more useful. Securing it, she slipped the stoppered vial into her pocket.
Swift as a deer. Quiet as a shadow, she thought. Speed and stealth, not steel. And then she was off.
Jogging down passageways and stairwells, bursting outside and crossing the quiet yard, not looking at the post where Gendry had endured Lady Stoneheart's justice, she passed the darkened forge. A flash of memory caught her unawares, and she saw two children then, in her mind: a scrawny girl scrubbed pink and stuffed into a green dress embroidered with brown acorns, and a boy, who had seemed nearly half a giant to a small girl, strong and still growing.
"You even smell nice for a change," Gendry had said, sniffing at her.
"You don't. You stink!" Arya had shot back, shoving him as hard as she could. He stumbled back, bumping into the cold anvil, and she tried to run away, but the boy grabbed her arm. She had managed to trip him then, but he pulled her down with him as he fell and they rolled across the dirt floor.
That was some other lifetime, the Cat thought. Some other boy. Some other girl.
Gendry was a knight now, not a blacksmith's apprentice turned fugitive, and Arya was…
Well, she was something altogether different.
She pushed the memory aside, a slight frown marring her face, and found the kitchens. The room was too warm, and bustling with activity as the cooks and their help prepared the supper, scrambling here and there for this thing or that. The girl managed to slip in and grab what few things she could, and only a little kitchen boy seemed to notice her. She just smiled at him and made a silly face until he giggled and went back to drawing in the soot by the hearth with his dirty fingers.
Pockets now filled with a few spices, herbs, and a small jar of honey, the girl skirted household guards and servants, keeping to the shadowy doorways and alcoves as she made her way to Gendry's chamber. Every now and again, she would freeze, certain the light sound of her boot soles against the floor would alert someone to her presence, but she remained undetected.
The scuff of leather on stone is as loud as warhorns to a man with open ears, she recalled Jaqen saying to her once. Clever girls go barefoot.
But no one in Acorn Hall could compare to her Faceless master when it came to powers of observation.
No one here has open ears, the girl thought. Not really.
She then thought of Syrio, and his powers of misdirection. The girl felt a rush of warmth, remembering her first dancing master. He had taught her how to exploit the trust people had in words, even when actions shouted a different truth, and he had taught her how to see that truth for herself, the real truth, no matter what she was told.
People will see what they want to, she thought to herself, slipping past another distracted servant hurrying down the corridor with a pitcher of wine. People will believe what is easy, and safe.
An angry assassin creeping through the castle was anything but safe.
No one here has the true seeing.
With Jaqen H'ghar and Syrio Forel as mentors, it was almost too easy.
She found the hairpin she had dropped the previous night, still resting in the middle of the corridor, and used it once again to gain entrance to her friend's room. He did not stir as she entered.
"Gendry," she called softly. "I've come to see about you."
The large knight lay on his belly, stretched out on the narrow bed, his still-booted feet dangling uncomfortably off the end. His face was turned away from the door, looking toward the fire, but she wasn't sure he was even awake until she heard him grunt.
"Is it very bad?" she asked, approaching him. A shirt had been thrown over him, like a light blanket, and she could see dark stains upon it. The girl winced noiselessly. "I'm going to remove this shirt," she warned, emptying the contents of her pockets onto the rough table near his bed. He did not answer her.
Gingerly, the girl grasped the edge of the tunic and lifted, pulling the material away from the knight's wounds. Where the shirt had become stuck in drying blood, she had to pull a bit more forcefully, causing her friend to hiss in pain.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I just need to see." As she finished carefully peeling the tunic away, tossing it aside, Gendry finally spoke.
"Why are you here, m'lady?" His words were slightly slurred.
"I'm here to tend to your wounds, stupid."
"The maester has already been here," the knight groaned, still facing the fire.
"And a fine job he did, too," the girl countered sarcastically. "He either wants you to die of festering, or simply doesn't care."
"He gave me something for the pain…"
"Milk of the poppy, no doubt, but that won't help you heal any faster, or keep your blood from becoming poisoned."
"Blood… poison…" he repeated lazily. His eyes were closed.
Arya sighed, inspecting her friend's back. Mostly, the skin was abraded and bruised, with angry welts rising in angled lines which crisscrossed each other down the center of his back. The flesh was laid open in several places, oozing a bit, but only two of the wounds were severe, deep enough to concern her. There, she could see the muscle beneath the skin. He would scar there, and badly, but with any luck, she would keep the wounds from festering, which was her primary concern just then.
Arya found a small plate that had been left for the knight, removing the uneaten bread from it so that she might use the platter to prepare the herbs she'd stolen. She chopped up the dried leaves and stalks with her dagger, then used the heavy hilt to crush them further. Tapping out a portion of the orange spice she'd been pleased to find already ground in the kitchens, she titrated as carefully as she could without tools for measuring and weighing. She pulverized the dried ingredients as much as she was able, mixing them together well before pouring the honey over the compound. The scent that rose to greet her brought her back to Braavos; to a dim workroom in the House of Black and White which was lined from floor to ceiling with shelves, occupying every inch of all four walls, save the doorway.
Shelves lined with bottles labelled meticulously in precise handwriting; shelves stacked with books filled with instructions and lessons and discoveries in different languages; shelves stuffed with scrolls she had only rarely been allowed to handle, so fragile and aged were they, with fading ink that told of secret spells and incantations from lands near and far.
Not all that she had learned during her time with the waif was for disabling or killing. Some of her concoctions might cause madness, or great pain, or a man's flesh to melt away from his bones, to be sure, but some of them would heal that same flesh. It was with these lessons in mind that she had set about grinding and mixing and titrating what she was able to pilfer from the kitchens. It wouldn't be much, staving off festering and rubor for a only short time, but it would have to do for tonight. She could do more for Gendry, certainly, but not until she could ride into the woods and find other things, plants and certain barks, things common in Westeros but whose combinations and value in healing was only well understood across the sea.
"I'm going to clean your wounds," the girl said, rifling through the blacksmith-knight's things for the cleanest of his shirts. There was a pitcher of water on the table, next to the plate she had used to make the healing salve. She wadded up one sleeve of the tunic and dipped it, wringing out the excess water. "It will hurt some."
She began dabbing at the wounds, ignoring how her friend flinched so she would not hesitate. Uncertainty and squeamishness would only serve to lengthen the process. Her touch was light and gentle as she cleaned the most severe of the wounds, but that did not stop Gendry from sucking his breath in, hissing and groaning in pain. Arya glanced at the knight's face. He grimaced slightly, but seemed to be trying hard to keep his face immobile.
"You don't have to be brave for me, Gendry," she scolded.
"If not for you, then for whom?" His voice sounded clearer; stronger. The milk of the poppy the maester had administered hours before was wearing off.
"For no one. You don't have to be brave at all."
He didn't answer her, but merely grunted.
Arya finished cleaning him and then fanned his damp skin, waiting for it to dry a bit.
"I've made a salve for you," she told him. "It will burn, though, there's no way around that, but it should keep you from falling ill, at least until I can make something better."
"Scratches and cuts, m'lady," the dark knight replied, attempting to push up from his prone position. "If there's ever a day I'm felled by scratches and cuts, then most like I'm not fit for this world, anyway."
Arya grabbed his neck, forcing him back down onto his belly, angry. "Stay still, you stubborn bull! Even small wounds can poison a man's blood, and these are no small wounds!" When Gendry stopped struggling, the girl released his neck, retrieving her stoppered vial, muttering, "Scratches and cuts. Your thrice-damned muscle is showing. Idiot."
The man huffed, demonstrating how silly he thought her concern, but even with that, his voice sounded ragged to her ear.
Men do not relish being made to seem weak before the eyes of women, her little voice reminded her.
Men are stupid, she countered.
"I've got something for the pain," Arya told him. "It's not milk of the poppy, but it will help."
He started to push up again, but was stopped by the girl's swift hand, pushing at his back between his shoulder blades, away from the worst of his wounds, but it still hurt, the pain catching him unawares. He gasped and fell back onto the mattress.
"I don't want you to make me sleep," the knight protested weakly once he had regained his voice.
"I won't. It dulls the pain, but it doesn't sedate you."
Gendry sighed, skeptical, but she laughed at him, telling him how silly he was not to trust her. Finally, he nodded his head in agreement. The Cat rounded the bed, standing between the knight and the fireplace, then squatted next to his head so she could place the vial to his lips. She used her other hand to pinch the corner of his mouth closed so he would not dribble the greenish syrup and lose his dose. She only gave him a small portion of the vial's contents, for though he was a large man, he was naïve to the effects of the potion and would only need a little for it to do its work. Stoppering the vial once again, the girl dropped down to the floor, sitting cross-legged before the fire, watching her friend. Gendry gazed at her, and his face was not so very hard to read.
Shame.
Anger.
Longing.
He said nothing, but seemed to be studying her even more intently than she studied him. On her face, he could read nothing, she was quite sure, her own shame and anger stuffed down deep, smoldering, waiting for those more deserving; her own longing reserved for moments when she was alone. After a few short minutes, the dark knight's eyelids began to droop. He fought his fatigue, trying to force his eyes to stay open.
"You… lied," he slurred, his eyes slowly closing. "You lied… to me."
"Yes," she agreed, standing up. "I'm a liar. Haven't I told you that already?"
Gendry groaned quietly in response.
"I'm an excellent mummer, when I need to be."
He didn't hear that last, as he had fallen into a deep sleep. She retrieved the small plate and began her work.
Black Sun—Death Cab for Cutie