It was two weeks before they had any news.

In the meantime, despite the unexpected new resident on the upper floor, life at the Inn went on as it ever did. The menagerie of children that wound up at the Inn had not gotten smaller over the past years, and neither had Gendry's responsibilities. There were close to forty of them at any given time, from little ones barely able to walk all the way up to half grown. Most of the older orphans were sent out with different bands of the Brotherhood when they were big enough to manage sword and shield at once without falling over. The Lady didn't seem to care who followed her; she took boys and girls alike so long as they were capable.

That was his job, and Jeyne's: to make them capable and keep them safe in the meantime. When the smithy didn't demand Gendry's time (which was rare enough, because every time a group of the Brotherhood passed through, they brought with them a load of damaged weaponry and armor in need of his attention), he did his best to instruct the little ones, teaching them how to hold a sword or a hammer and how best to swing it. Jeyne helped him sometimes, being proficient enough with a blade, but the general management of the Inn and the food supplies and the herd of children kept her busy as well.

Jeyne's little sister Willow had been with them for the first years, but she'd left a few months earlier. In private, Jeyne had confessed to Gendry that she missed her sister terribly, that she felt Willow was too young and she should be here at the inn where she belonged, not wandering the Riverlands with the Lady. Gendry knew Jeyne was afraid that Willow would come back different– harder, callused, jaded, or perhaps not at all– but when Willow had asked the Lady to take her, with assurances that she could cook and shoot a crossbow and tie up a wound as well as anyone, there had been something in her expression, some stubborn edge of determination, that said she would be just fine.

Gendry knew that look all too well. Willow looked nothing like Arya, not truly, but the look she had was enough to give the Lady pause, just as it had him the first time he saw the girl. He couldn't begin imagine what her reaction would be when Arya actually stood before her.

The sun had broken over the tree line, and he could see Jeyne sending off four of the biggest boys to check the traps and restock the woodpile. Red Jon rounded the corner of the yard, coming down to help him in the smithy. His very own apprentice. Gendry didn't know how many were in the Brotherhood –no one did, if the talk was true– but he knew their numbers reached well into the hundreds, not including the brood at the inn. He was the only smith among them, and incapable to keeping them all in arms and armor. There was no shortage of weapons and armor to be found on the dead, to be sure, but little enough of it was fit for wear. It had been Thoros's suggestion that he take one or two of the boys as apprentices. Gendry retorted he was naught but an apprentice himself, but Thoros had smiled a tired smile and put his hand on Gendry's shoulder.

"No," he had said, "You're no more an apprentice than you are a boy. Not anymore. War changes us all."

Red Jon was a strong lad of thirteen, and thus named by Willow to distinguish him from the two other Jons living at the Inn at the time. He would never be so tall nor broad as Gendry, but he swung a hammer well enough, and had a good eye for the forming and shaping of metal. There had been another, Wat, a scrawny, towheaded boy who had left with one of the groups of outriders several months back. He'd taken an arrow in the chest in an unexpected skirmish at the White Rock Fork, and if Gendry had had no use for arrows and archers before, he was inordinately opposed to them now. Any weapon that could punch through good steel and good men from a hundred paces away was not a weapon any honorable warrior would use.

Gendry leaned on the long, low table that lined the wall of the smithy, his hand twitching every now and then as he watched the boy. Red Jon hovered over the punch and mold with a sheet of hammered steel and a torn hauberk, working painstakingly to form neat replacement links. They both heard the horses at the same time. Red Jon straightened and peered out the open door, but Gendry held up a hand. "I'll have a look," he told the boy, grabbing his cloak and whipping it over his shoulders. "Keep the scrap metal in the pan and mind you don't drop it in the coals this time."

"Yesser," Jon grumbled.

When Gendry rounded the front of the inn, the riders were almost upon them. He recognized Harwin at once, and immediately breathed easier. So few in the Brotherhood were the men he had fought alongside in the beginning. Wolves, lions, leeches, and the hard realities of winter had taken many, but where one man fell, it seemed two arrived to take his place. The war had made widowers and paupers of many, and the work of vengeance brought with it a sense of purpose and relief that men could find in few other places. Gendry understood. He knew bitterness, and knew the thirst for vengeance as well.

The men who rode with Harwin were strangers to him, but Gendry nodded in respectful greeting. "Harwin," he called out. And then, "Will! Penny! Horses!" The children burst out of the stable doors to see to the animals as Harwin and the others dismounted. Introductions were made and the men stepped inside to have a drink after their long ride. "Is she coming?" Gendry asked once they had tankards in hand.

"Not here," Harwin told him, not needing to ask of whom he spoke. "She'll be in the hills north of Red Fork in ten day's time. There's an inn – you remember the place? Kevyn and I, we're to stay here. Reynold and Jerome will head back with you and Jeyne and any of this lot that are ready along with you. You know how she is – likes to set eyes on everyone from time to time."

Gendry shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and Harwin frowned. "You've not been doing anything she'd take unkindly?"

Gendry let out a sharp bark of laughter. "I'd hope not. Seeing as I have her daughter upstairs, healing from a wound she took at Saltpans from some brigands who tried to have a go at her."

Harwin froze. "Her daughter?"

"Her daughter," Gendry repeated, his tone flat.

"It can't be. Lady Sansa hasn't been seen in—"

"Not Sansa."

Harwin's face twisted in disappointment, and he shook his head. "There's some mistake. Arya died at the Twins."

"No, she didn't."

"Every report we have says they went there. Someone spotted a man they swear was Clegane outside the very gates. She died there with – well. She died there." Harwin's tone was final, and very, very tired.

"I think I know her when I see her," Gendry snapped. "Besides, no one else I've ever met has such a mouth on her."

Doubt still clouded Harwin's eyes, and Gendry jerked his chin toward the stairs. "Go see for yourself. She's on the upper floor at the end of the hall."

When Harwin descended the stairs an hour later, Gendry was back at the forge with Red Jon. Harwin stepped into the warmth of the smithy and watched them for a moment, arms crossed over his chest. His face looked like Gendry felt, caught somewhere between disbelief, worry, and joy. Gendry remembered that Harwin had been almost as distraught as he the night Arya was taken and in the weeks that followed, as their hope quickly faded and died.

"Are you going to tell the Lady?" Harwin asked him eventually.

Gendry sat down the tray he was working from and drug an arm across his face to wipe away the sweat. "No," he said. "I'm going to take her with me when I go."

"You certain that's a good idea?"

"Never been less certain in my life. But what can I do?"

Harwin shook his head. "Nothing. She has to know." He was silent for a beat, before asking, "Have you told Arya? About her?"

"Aye," Gendry replied. "I don't know if she understands. How could she?"

"Didn't you say she was supposed to be resting?" Harwin asked after an uneasy lull in the conversation, the soft chinks and snaps of Jon's metalworking the only sounds.

"Aye," Gendry affirmed. "Did you see her leg? She took a nasty wound to it, just about a fortnight back. Deep, and with a rusty blade if I had to guess, but Jeyne's kept it from festering. She'd lost so much blood by the time I got to her, I was afraid –" He stopped and frowned at Harwin. "What do you mean, 'supposed to be resting'?"

Harwin gave him a look. "When I went up, she was hanging out the window, trying to get a look at who had arrived. She turned when I came in and fell flat on her face. And then fussed at me when I carried her back to her bed. Stubborn as ever – and you're right about the mouth on her. She pick up that language from you?"

There was a hint of a smile playing about Harwin's lips as he spoke, but Gendry was just exasperated. "God damn it," he said with feeling. He turned and he cuffed Jon on the shoulder. "The smithy is yours. I want you to do repair work only, you hear? No trying to forge a broadsword without me here. And if you have to melt anything down, don't throw in anything with rust like last time."

"That was three times ago!" Jon protested.

"Just the same. And don't burn down the smithy. If you do, best make sure you're inside, or I'll have your hide."

Jon glared at him, and Gendry mussed his hair brusquely.

Then, unable to put it off any longer, he headed back to the inn to tell Arya the news.