Chapter Eleven

Arya

It was three days after the kissing incident, as Arya had taken to calling it, that she was strolling around the gardens with Gendry in the mid-morning sun. The pair of them had been nothing but polite and respectful since their conversation in the dragon chamber. Although Arya understood the necessity of it, she hated the forced distance between them now. It did not help that she could still feel the pressure of his lips on hers whenever she closed her eyes.

"It's a beautiful day," Gendry observed as he led her around one of the many fountains in the expansive grounds of the Red Keep. "It feels like summer has lasted forever."

"Winter is coming," Arya said automatically, and was pleased to see Gendry's lips twitch as he fought off a smile.

"You Starks are always so grim," he teased. "Can't we just enjoy the sunshine without all the foreboding for once?"

Arya unhooked her hand from around his elbow and gave him an unladylike shove. It had about as much effect as trying to move a boulder by blowing on it. If anything, it was Arya who rocked back on her heels from the force of her push. She frowned at him in playful annoyance. "You're accusing me of being grim? You're the one who never smiles."

"You don't smile either," Gendry laughed. "You just glare."

Unconsciously proving his point, Arya scowled at him. When she realised what she was doing, however, her face relaxed into an easy grin. She stilled when she felt Gendry's rough hand cup her cheek, his thumb brushing softly against her bottom lip. There was some nameless emotion in the depths of his blue eyes; he didn't even seem to be aware that he had touched her.

"There," he murmured, voice husky. "That's better."

Arya felt an enormous pressure against her chest as she struggled for breath. Being this close to Gendry, gazing into his eyes… she felt as though she could catch alight at any moment. The thrill of danger sang in her soul when he was this close to her, but her father's warning words were still loud enough in the back of her mind for her to find the strength to pull away.

She stepped back, and Gendry's hand fell listlessly to his side. As if he had just awoken from a spell, he blinked and recovered his senses. His gaze dropped and he folded his arms behind his back, looking chagrined.

"Forgive me," he said, in that awful, formal voice Arya was coming to hate. "That was inappropriate, m'lady."

"Don't call me m'lady," she replied, without any real weight to the censure. The half-smile he shot her made her feel a little better. "Can I tell you a secret, Gendry?"

"Always."

"My father found out about Needle, and he let me keep it."

Gendry finally looked up, curiosity flashing in his cerulean gaze. "He did?"

"Yes, he said that as long as I don't stab my sister…"

"Something that will no doubt require all of your concentration and patience," he interrupted with a smile.

"Shut up," Arya continued, "but anyway, because my father knows that I have a sword, I was thinking that I may actually be able to practice swordplay."

"In King's Landing?" Gendry raised one dark eyebrow. "Arya, who will you find in the capital that is willing to teach a girl of noble birth how to swing a sword?"

"Well," Arya hopped up onto the edge of the fountain, sticking her arms out for balance as she walked along the narrow lip. Gendry stayed close by her side, not touching her, but ready to catch her out of the air should she slip. His watchfulness pleased and annoyed her in equal measure. "That is a problem. Normally, I would just ask my brother Jon, but he is away at the Wall now, and…" Arya trailed off, suddenly thinking of her poor brother stuck in the frozen wasteland of Castle Black.

She must have been preoccupied for quite a few minutes, because Gendry had to prompt her out of her reverie. "And?"

"And," she snapped back to attention, forcibly pushing Jon from her mind. It did her no good to worry about him without cause. "I was thinking that you might be able to teach me."

She said it so matter-of-factly that she was almost surprised when he shook his head.

"No."

"No? Why in the seven hells not?"

"Because," Gendry responded, with the air of one explaining something to someone particularly difficult. "You and I have a complicated enough friendship without adding more unfavourable activities to the list. And anyway, I'm not much of a swordsman. And," he pressed, when Arya opened her mouth to argue, "I couldn't swing a sword at you, Arya, even to train you. I don't ever want to hurt you."

"Oh," she said softly. It was comments like that, she thought, which knocked the breath right out of her. "I see."

The silence between them felt heavy and claustrophobic with the weight of the things that neither of them could voice aloud. When she felt almost as though she were about to suffocate, Arya broke the spell.

"I suppose I could always ask Joffrey."

It did the trick; Gendry gaped at her in abject horror. "Tell me you aren't serious!"

Arya laughed, the sound carrying on the gentle summer breeze. The expression on his face was priceless. "I'm not serious."

"By the Seven, Arya, don't even joke about that!" But he was laughing, too. When their chuckles finally quieted, Gendry added, "Anyway, you're already a better swordsman than he is with no training at all."

Arya choked on another bubble of laughter. "Lion's Tooth," she muttered, pressing one hand to her mouth.

Gendry stared at her for a long moment. Then he threw back his head and laughed so hard that he had to sit down on one of the stone benches to recover himself.

At midday, Arya was summoned to the Small Hall. The trestle tables had been dismantled and the benches stowed against the walls. At first, Arya thought that the hall was empty, until she heard a voice from the far corner.

"You are late, boy."

She turned in time to see a slight, bald man with a great protuberance of a nose step out of the shadows. In his hands he carried a pair of slim wooden swords.

"Tomorrow," he said, in the lilting accent of one of the Free Cities. "You will be here at midday."

"Who are you?"

"I am your dancing master." He tossed her one of the wooden blades. Arya made a grab for it, missed, and watched as it clattered to the floor a foot away from her. "Tomorrow, you will catch it. Now pick it up."

It was not just a stick, but a true wooden sword, complete with grip and guard and pommel. Arya stooped to pick it up, shifting its weight to both hands as she did so. It was heavier than it looked, much heavier than Needle.

The bald man clicked his teeth, shaking his head vehemently. "This is not the way, boy. This is not a greatsword that is needing two hands to swing it. You will take the blade in one hand."

"It's too heavy," she protested.

"It is heavy as it needs to be to make you strong, and for the balancing. A hollow inside is filled with lead, just so. One hand now is all that is needing."

Arya took her right hand off the grip, feeling the strain in her left wrist instantly. She wiped her free palm on her breeches, suddenly understanding why Vayon Poole had insisted she change out of her dress before coming here. Not that Arya had needed convincing to do so.

The bald man nodded approvingly as he took in the change. "The left is good. All is reversed, it will make your enemies more awkward. Now you are standing wrong. Turn your body sideface, yes, so. You are skinny as the shaft of a spear, do you know. That is good too, the target is smaller. Now the grip. Let me see." He moved closer, taking her sword hand and fiddling with the arrangement of her fingers on the grip. When he was satisfied, he stepped back again. "Just so, yes. Do not squeeze it so tight, no, the grip must be deft, delicate."

"What if I drop it?" Arya wondered. Her wrist was hurting with the weight of holding the sword in such a way already, but she was not about to complain.

"The steel must be part of your arm," the bald man told her, dark eyes glittering. "Can you drop a part of your arm? No. Nine years Syrio Forel was first sword to the Sealord of Braavos, he knows these things. Listen to him, boy."

"I'm a girl," Arya pointed out. In her younger years, she had always been mistaken for a boy, but her figure had changed since then, and even with her hair scraped back, even in breeches, she thought that her gender ought to have been obvious.

"Boy, girl," Syrio Forel shrugged. "You are a sword, that is all. Just so, that is the grip. You are not holding a battle-axe, you are holding…"

"A needle," Arya finished fiercely.

Syrio Forel nodded, clicking his teeth. "Just so. Now we begin the dance. Remember, child, this is not the iron dance of Westeros we are learning, the knight's dance, hacking and hammering, no. This is the bravo's dance, the water dance, swift and sudden. All men are made of water, do you know this? When you pierce them, the water leaks out and they die." He took a step backward, raised his own wooden blade, and adopted a pose like a cat poised to pounce. Arya suspected that it looked far more natural and impressive on the dancing master than it did on her.

"Now," Syrio Forel said. "You will try to strike me."

Arya tried to strike him, but he was too quick for her. She tried and she tried for four hours, until every one of her muscles screamed in protest with even the slightest of movements. Eventually, sore and aching, she was dismissed from Syrio Forel by a click of his teeth and the solemn promise that the next day would be when their real work began.

Exhausted, Arya headed straight for her chambers to rest before supper. When she got there, however, she found her lord father sitting at the end of her bed, large hands folded in his lap. He looked up as she entered, a small smile gracing his stern face.

"How was your first dancing lesson?"

"You did this?" At first, Arya had suspected Gendry of orchestrating her lessons, but it made more sense for it to have been her father's doing, now that she thought about it. It was her father's steward who had escorted her there.

"Of course I did," Eddard Stark smiled fondly at her. "Sansa is getting her seat at the tourney, I thought it only fair that you should get something you desired as well. And I know you have no desire to go to this dreadful event."

"Father, thank you!" Forgetting that she was too old for such displays, Arya threw herself against him, her arms twining around his neck. Her father laughed, smoothing down her sweaty hair. Back when she was Rickon's age and younger, he used to pick her up and spin her until she was dizzy whenever she hugged him in that manner.

Arya was definitely too old for that now.

"You're welcome, my daughter." He patted her cheek as she drew back from the embrace, and it was only then that Arya noticed the wrinkles in his brow and the deep shadows under his eyes.

"Have you not been sleeping, Father?" she wondered, sitting down beside him on the bed.

He nodded towards the open door. "Close the door."

Arya did so, coming back to sit beside him again. Concern made her eyebrows knit together as she placed one hand on his broad shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"Between you and I," he said, "It's this tourney."

"The tourney? I know you have no great love of frivolous parties, Father, but why is it giving you sleepless nights?"

"Because, Arya, the realm cannot afford the extravagance. Our king, whilst a good man, is not exactly a prudent one. He has emptied the coffers of the crown on this… this... opulence."

"You mean the whoring and the partying and the lavish tournaments and banquets and festivals?" Arya surmised, giving her father a dry smile.

"I was trying to be more delicate about it." He answered her with a smile of his own. "And you mustn't repeat what I have told you. It is just an added stress that I did not forsee."

"You will find a way to resolve things, Father," Arya said with absolute confidence. "You always do. It is what I love best about you."

He patted her hand on his shoulder. "You have more faith in me than I deserve."

"I have exactly as much faith in you as you deserve," she countered.

"I do not say it often, but at times you remind me of your mother," Ned Stark gave Arya a fond smile. "She is forever telling me that I do not give myself enough credit."

"She's right."

"I miss her, and your brothers."

"I miss them, too." Especially Jon, Arya thought, and Bran. Poor, sick Bran. "It must be so hard for you to be away from Mother."

Her father nodded sadly. In all her life, Arya had not seen her parents separated for long. Where one went, the other followed, as though neither of them could stand to be away from the other for longer than was absolutely necessary. "She is the other half of my heart, Arya. Home seems a very long way away."

"And when you love someone that much, even the smallest amount of time away from them is painful. You miss them like a constant ache in your chest, like part of you is missing, too."

Her father gave her a sideways look, something searching and curious in his grey gaze. "You speak as though you know the feeling."

"It was an observation," she hedged, feeling her cheeks colour.

"No," he replied gently. "I think it was rather more than that." Ned Stark looked down at his hands again, brow furrowed. Arya recognised that look; he got it whenever he was deep in thought. "What do you know of love, Arya, child?"

"Nothing," she said quickly. "I'm fifteen. I know nothing about anything."

Her father laughed. "I doubt that. You are wiser than your years." He paused for a moment, and Arya knew that she wasn't going to like whatever came out of his mouth next. "You and Gendry Baratheon are friends, are you not?"

"Yes," Arya replied. That was no secret. "He's much nicer than his siblings."

"Half-siblings," her father reminded her. "And I agree with you. I just worry that perhaps you are too attached to the boy."

"I'm not," she said. "I promise."

"He is a man of nineteen, Arya, and his father will no doubt want to marry him off to the daughter of a noble of a small house soon enough. You do realise that?"

"Why should that matter to me?" she asked, even as her blood ran cold at the very prospect of Gendry being married to anyone. "That's Gendry's business."

"I know. I just wanted to make sure that you knew that, also."

Arya did know, but she knew it in that distant, far-off way that meant it did not have to preoccupy her mind. Her father's mentioning of it changed that, and she found herself biting the inside of her cheek to hold back the tears burning in her eyes.

"Thank you for Syrio Forel," she murmured, changing the topic in an effort to keep her tumultuous emotions at bay. "He is a wonderful sword master."

"Dancing master," her father corrected, winking at her. "We could not have young ladies of the court playing with swords, could we?"

"Of course not," Arya replied. "That would be improper."

Although Arya was starting to think that Impropriety might as well be her middle name.