ARYA
Hot pain burnt in Arya's cheek, struck by a heavy hand. "Up, lazy bitch!"
As ever, Pinkeye rose late, and, as ever, he was in a foul mood when he did. He already had the day's first cup of ale. It would be far from the last. Bleary-eyed and dozy though he was, his slaps still stung. They were better than the kick of Weese's sharp-toed boots, but that was not saying much.
Arya rose from her bed of tough old straw and broke fast on barley soup. It was thin, in truth, more like water than anything else, with floating traces of vegetable, but she got a crust of stale bread with it. That was the best part of the meal.
Pinkeye set about instructing the servants on their work, between quaffs of his ale. When eventually he turned to Arya, he ordered, "Weasel, you go back to the Widow's Tower. Them stairs won't clean 'emselves."
"I'll work on it," Arya said, her head lowered.
"Not your old layabout ways. Work hard. Get it done today—really done this time, not a lie, you hear me? You do your job m'lord's feeding you for and you ain't gettin' no more meals till you done it."
"I have been working hard," said Arya truthfully. She had stayed up late yesterday. That was why she had awoken later this morning than Pinkeye—a rare thing, for his drunken sleep was never short. "It's just, the Widow's Tower is huge…"
"No backtalk!" Pinkeye slapped her; she fell over and her head was flung to the side by the force of the blow. He was angry, certainly, but there was another expression in those runny eyes, one that she had not seen before. For one mad moment she thought it was fear. "I can't put everyone on it, all's too busy, everyone's needed for somethin' nowadays. Six days I give you clean them stairs, and what's I got? Nothin'! The castle's dungeons are under that tower. Ser Amory said 'make it ready for in'abi… inhabi…' well, somethin'. Ser Amory says his lordship might end his siege o' them castles, the ones Lord Bolton's men are holed up in; his lordship might take 'em by storm and come back here with wagonloads of northern prisoners, an' use Harrenhal to hold out against Lord Renly. And if his lordship does, what if he sees the Widow's Tower all dusty, when it was shinin' clean when he and his host left Harrenhal with most of the servants? Think 'e'll be pleased? What'll happen to old Mebble then, you reckon? Selfish slut." He hit her again. "Now get on with it, and don't you come back till it done, else I'll beat you bloody."
So Arya took her pail and crossed the bridge of stone from Kingspyre Tower to the Widow's Tower, even though, ever since Lord Tywin's host departed, Ser Amory the castellan and his servants lived only in Kingspyre. She had cleaned a great deal of the upper stairs already, though, she noticed with a sinking feeling, dust was beginning to resettle on some of them. She found the spot where she had stopped yesterday, knelt down and resumed washing.
She scrubbed the stairs with vigour for all of that day, working her way down the tower, despite it making her hands red and raw. By the end of the day, they were bleeding. She took some sips of the filthy water. It was all she had. Bitterly hungry, deprived of her bed in her little niche in Kingspyre, she curled up on cold bare rock in the darkness, taking care to place her hands so that they bled more on her shift than on the stone of the deserted tower she had been cleaning.
However much she wriggled and rearranged herself, she was uncomfortable. It took her a long time to get to sleep that night.
"Ser Amory," she said, first and foremost, thinking of herself as much as of poor Liane. Her voice was a whisper, despite that there was nobody to hear. "Pinkeye. Ser Gregor, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn. The Tickler and the Hound. Dunsen, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling. King Joffrey."
She left Queen Cersei out of her prayer. She still remembered hearing the news of the capital's fall and the queen's impending execution, by eavesdropping on some of Ser Amory's soldiers a week ago. It was one of the best memories she had.
Arya dreamt of that moment tonight, not for the first time. She had not seen it, but in her mind it took place just as her father's had done. Queen Cersei would confess her treason on the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor, apologising for Father's death (and maybe other things, but that was what mattered). Then King Renly—whom she barely remembered, for she had never spoken with him long; now he was king, she imagined him looking like King Robert—would order some southern knight to take her head. The difference was, Queen Cersei was screaming and crying and begging for mercy that would never come, no more mercy than she had granted Father.
It was a nice dream. Arya was a little disappointed when it turned into her usual dream about running through woodlands as a wolf.
Arya awoke late, a while after dawn, without Weese or Pinkeye to hit her. She had been very tired. She was no longer tired, but she was hungry, so fiercely hungry her stomach felt it as a constant pain.
She ignored it. There was work to be done.
She scrubbed more steps that day, drawing nearer to the bottom of the tower. She had started at the top. It was in the late morning, while she was doing this, that she saw a pair of men-at-arms crossing a broad corridor below. That was not typical but not unheard of. There were no more than three-hundred men-at-arms in Harrenhal, she judged, and many of them remained in Kingspyre; the remainder were like ants spread around the cavernous enormity of the rest of the castle. From the manticore badges on their chest, they were not from the half of the garrison that consisted of men sworn to the Braxes of Hornvale. They were from the other half, the men of House Lorch. Ser Amory's men, she thought. She hated them.
They had not seen her.
"…a hope," one of the soldiers was saying. He had a thick, bushy beard. The Lorch men-at-arms were too far for her to see much else. "Aye, Lord Renly's got few ships to speak of, but old King Robert didn't neither. Who gave a shit 'bout that? He had the mainland, that's what mattered. So he built a fleet—it took him, what, a year? Some'at like that anyway—and he cleared out the Mad King's spawn what were squattin' on Dragonstone. Lord Renly can do the same. It's like the Mad King's War come again, only this time, that fucker Renly is old King Robert and we westermen are the Targaryens. And they've got the Narrow Sea between them and the armies of the south. What've we got? We're fucked like a Lannisport lass when the fleet comes in—a thousand cocks and they just keep comin' and they don't stop comin'."
"That's a bit grim," said the other, who was clean-shaven, or, at least, not as noticeably bearded. "Have some faith. Lord Renly's the shittest commander the gods ever made, mark my words. Lord Stannis bled him badly in the Clash of the Stags, Ser Kevan fucked him up the arse on the Blackwater, and he only won the Battle o' King's Landing 'cause them crownlander turncloak bastards rioted. Elsewise he'd got crushed up against the walls, I tell you. The northmen will race to suck his cock, aye, but if we all come to Harrenhal he'll charge like a fool into the teeth of our defences—he's Lord Renly, that's what he always does—and die there. Then, once he's wasted his army bashing it against high walls, we can take back the capital and then march on the south."
"Dunno about that," said the bearded man. "What if he doesn't? Lord Renly's no great leader, but might be he's noticed that. And the Young Wolf is another thing. Once Lord Stark's joined Lord Renly, he'll tell him to surround us at Harrenhal and lay siege with part of the army but use most to go back to the westerlands and burn them black. If Lord Renly listens, our lords'll have to surrender."
"Yeah, mayhaps we're fucked," the clean-shaven man admitted. "But mayhaps we aren't. No man ever won a penny bettin' on Lord Renly to be wise. When our army's safe in a nice big castle, we got a chance to stop him, at the least."
"Don't think so, Tom," said the bearded man gloomily. "What if they never get to Harrenhal? How are them lords gonna agree on anythin'? Who's goin' to be in charge now?"
Arya drew in breath sharply. Did they mean what she thought they might mean? She held herself very still.
"The Father Above knows," said Tom with a shrug. "Lord Hawthorne, might be? Lord Falwell? Lord Serrett? Lord Lydden? Maybe Lord Brax or Ser Addam—they're young, but what with the Tullys marchin' on us now, might be we need a young fightin' man to command."
The Tullys marching? Arya knew that meant her great-uncle, her uncle or her grandfather. Are they near? But they would not recognise her, unless Mother was there…
"None of them'll be as good as Lord Tywin, though," said the bushy-bearded man.
"Aye." They had moved past, so Arya could not see their faces any more, but she heard Tom sigh. "Fuckin' mess, that. And such a weird business. Who'd thought it? King's Hand, king's granddad, Lord o' Casterly Rock since ere I was born, and he got killed by his own horse what ran away to eat when he's mountin' it. I always thought it takes a great battle or some'at to slay a man like that, an' it's a barrel of apples."
They spoke more as they receded into the distance, but she paid no attention. They thought a horse had killed Lord Tywin. Arya knew better. She remembered the death of Weese, whose own loyal dog had been somehow bewitched to tear out his throat. The true murderer had lurked above them as they passed. The horse was not responsible for Tywin's death; it was Jaqen H'ghar—no, I mustn't think that, that was a lie, he lied to me, I asked and he admitted it—no, it was a Braavosi man who did not have a name. And it had not really been the nameless Braavosi man, any more than it had been the horse; for like the horse he had done as he had been made to. Weasel was a mouse; but Arya Stark had killed Lord Tywin Lannister as surely as if she had put a sword in his chest with her own hand, simply by whispering a name.
It occurred to her, darkly, to wonder what Ser Amory and his garrison would do to her if they knew. She could think of all sorts of gruesome possibilities. It did not worry her. The man who had no name had not been caught, or else the Lorch men-at-arms would have referred to a murderer instead of a horse. He would not tell the westermen, and of course she never would.
It pleased Arya to hear of her nameless killer's victory. Oh, King Renly had won a great battle, and that had been very good news… but he had lost a great battle too, the Battle of the Blackwater, and that had not stopped him from winning the next one. Lord Tywin might have defeated him and taken King's Landing back for Joffrey. That was why she had named him. Joffrey had killed Father and for that he deserved to die, but he was not dangerous, not in the same way as Lord Tywin was; he could not fight and lead battles. He was a king and Tywin Lannister was a lord, but he only had power as long as Tywin Lannister fought for it. Lord Tywin's death would hurt the Lannister cause, and thus help her family, more than Joffrey's would have done. Now Lord Tywin was dead and the host of the westerlands was leaderless, and even the more hopeful of the westermen seemed to believe that they could survive only if Renly acted foolishly. Robb could advise Renly not to act foolishly, since he had won lots of battles, and he would help Renly, she was sure; they were both fighting the Lannisters, and Renly had helped avenge Father, so they must be friends. Mother and Sansa and Robb would soon be back with Bran and Rickon in Winterfell. It seemed very likely now that the war was won.
And the price? For such a great achievement, small indeed. Merely that a servant girl named Weasel would never leave Harrenhal.
The castle was vast, but there were guards on the gates, and they were all bigger and stronger than Arya. The smallest one, more a door than a gate, had only one guard, a man called Jon of Hornvale. She had no chance on any of the others; she could not possibly kill multiple guards. One guard was a better choice, but still hopeless. Jon of Hornvale was too tall and too armoured, and Weasel had no position of authority over him; she would not be able to make him do something to make him vulnerable. She had had the power to kill him, and to be free… and she had thrown it away, so that her family could win their war.
Her only hope was that the Lannister garrison would leave Harrenhal, the strongest castle in the region, but the chance of that seemed vanishingly slim. If they stayed, King Renly would besiege them. Might be, Mother and Sansa and Robb would be there too, waiting a few miles away from her, mayhaps less, yet utterly out of reach. She had heard plenty of horrible tales from Old Nan. It seemed that the past was replete with stories of sieges where men in a castle or walled city were desperately lacking for food. And Arya knew Ser Amory did not care about his servants, except mayhaps that he would like to keep the girls he took into his chambers, and she was not old enough for that. She did not think she would be likely to get any food at all if the garrison had too little of it.
Arya resumed scrubbing the steps of the Widow's Tower with her red, raw hands. She wondered whether she would die there.
