11. Boy

White Harbor was the only place in the Seven Kingdoms, steward of House Manderly Whitt Vanderlin liked to boast, that had profited from the game of thrones.

With trade on the Kingsroad virtually shut down, and most of the smaller ports in the North impassable due to ice, the city on the Narrow Sea was virtually the only route still available for goods, people, and armies to move from the North to South. White Harbor was so deep it was said one hundred ships stacked mast on mast would not reach the bottom, and the depth meant that even in the coldest of winters the ocean did not freeze over, and ships bearing grain from Highgarden, fruits and vegetables from Dorne, and cloth and spices from Lys could continue to dock safety.

The inns in town were clogged with northmen seeking passage south. They came from their farms and their villages laden with furs, cloth, cutlery, and anything else of value that they could carry on their backs; they rarely left with more than a purse and the clothes on their back. Whitt Vanderlin shared his lord's affinity for material wealth but not his generosity. He kept the gates of the city open, but always under heavy guard; anyone who refused to to pay the entry tax could remain outside the walls in the snow. That that was not taxed away by the steward of White Harbor went to the innkeeps or the entrepreneurial citizens who allowed travelers to sleep on their floors in return for coin; and what the lodger-takers did not keep went to the captains in exchange for a cramped cabin, or more frequently, permission to huddle on a cold, damp deck.

The seaport was busier than it had ever been, but over the bustle hung an oppressive atmosphere that made turned the citizens against the visitors, and the the visitors against each other. But with prosperity came opportunity, and for energetic smallfolk who weren't afraid of the chill sea wind, there was work to be found.

One of the newer residents of the Harbor, was a blonde haired boy, perhaps thirteen, with a freckled face and a serious expression. No one knew where he had come from and no one knew his name; they knew only that he could usually be found by the harbor, and spoke as little as possible. When a new ship docked, the boy would help the harbor men unload the cargo, squeezing into difficult to reach spots and sometimes knocking free the ice that had glued the crates together or frozen a barrel to the floor. He'd run back to the pier to help the burly dock men lash the unloaded cargo to short sleds that would carry it across the square to the Old Mint, where excess goods were stored. At the end of the day the harbor men would throw him a coin or two, and look the other way if his coat was a bit bulkier than it had been in the morning.

The boy slept most nights in a warehouse next to the Harbormaster's Wife, a tavern that served considerably better meat pies than the Lek down the street. Usually the captain and the first mate, along with any other men of rank or means on the ships would sup there, while the common sailors and most of the northern refugees stayed loyal to the Lek's reliable fat-and-gristle. The warehouse was unheated and bitterly cold, but the boy had constructed a ragged nest of furs next to the chimney of the Harbormaster's Wife. The warm bricks kept the spot and the boy quite comfortably warm.

If anyone had bothered to flip the loose floorboard underneath the furs they would have found not one but three purses full of gold, more than enough to dine and sleep in style for a month at any of White Harbor's establishments, but of course, no one did. Next to the purses lay something even more odd: three swords, two long and broad, one short and thin, each carefully wrapped in rags.

On some days the boy would climb to the rim of the Seal Stone and watch the sun set over the whitecaped horizon, or gaze North at the icy, windswept shore. On other nights the boy would buy a bowl of stew from the innkeep at the Harbormaster's Wife or the Lek, and listen to the men talk. The seamen, happy to be in a place that was warm and did not stink of brine, paid him no notice.

At the end of one particularly busy day, the boy sat in his favorite corner at the Harbormaster's wife making his way through half of an eel pie. The tavern was crowded with the crews of a Braavosi ship that had sailed from Pentos, and two Dornish schooners, one that had come all the way from Old Town.

There was a maester among the Dornish sailors that looked familiar to the boy, although he couldn't remember he had seen him. He was thick about the middle and still had the round, fat cheeks of a child, covered by a scruffy beard. His was the shortest master's chain the girl had ever seen — it barely fit around his rather thick neck. From where he sat he could make out links of Iron, Black Iron, Copper, Yellow Gold, and tin. Over the rough brown robe of a maester was a tattered dark cloak; the boy thought perhaps it had once been black.

The boy was so absorbed in the maester that it took him some minutes to realize that one of the Pentosi sailors was watching him. The man was old for a sailor, with a patch over one eye and long, half-grey hair pulled back with a leather tie. His lips were curled into a faint smile and his one eye crinkled slightly with amusement. For a second their gazes locked. Then boy stuffed the remainder of his eel pie into his pocket and slipped as quickly as he could out the door.

Once outside, the boy made several sharp turns, cutting away from Fisherman's square into a narrow alley, and then up an even narrower staircase that twisted up the hillside, towards the Seal Stone. He knew the old sailor had followed him. The staircase ended in a locked door that the boy knew ended in the house of a Manderly vassal. More important to the boy were the uneven stones beside the door, that he quickly scaled. From there he jumped lightly from roof to roof, gripping the slanted slate with the hatched leather on the toes of his boots, cutting back towards the thin column of smoke that rose from the chimney of the Harbormaster's Wife, a line of gray against the violet blue Northern sky.

He waited in an eave of tavern roof for some time. The sailor had not followed him onto the roofs, and he did not see him in the square in front of the Habormaster's Wife. A light snow began. He waited until his fingers had gone numb and his eyelashed were coated with flakes.

From the tavern roof he jumped to the deteriorating roof of the warehouse, where he climbed to the far corner and carefully swung himself through the small hole below the eaves. He ran in relief towards the pile of cloth on the opposite side, and hurriedly swept away the furs to expose the floorboard beneath.

"A girl is not a boy," said a voice in the dark.

The boy fell back onto her heels and looked around wildly. She recovered quickly and drew a short knife from her boot.

"A servant of the faceless god does not kill another servant," said the voice with a tone of amused disappointment. "But a servant wonders, does a girl still serve?"

"Where are you?" said the boy.

"A girl has taken many lives," said the man, stepping into a shaft of pale blue light that shone through a small crack in the roof.

The boy straightened when she saw the man and her expression took on a subtle, determined set.

"They deserved to die."

"It was not their time. It was not your task."

"Valar Morghulis."

"The lives must be repaid."

The boy shivered. The warehouse was bitterly cold apart from the few inches near the chimney, but she did not shiver for lack warmth. The man took a step closer, examining her face in the dark.

"Does a girl still serve?"

"I still serve." The phrase was even, and the boy's face was blank. The man studied her quietly and then smiled faintly.

"Who are you?"

"No one."

The man hit her, quickly and violently, with the back of his hand. The boy bent under the force of the blow, her hand involuntarily going to her jaw where the man had hit. But quickly she straightened.

"Who are you?"

"No one," she said, slightly louder.

The man hit her again, this time sending her staggering a step and making her left ear ring. She straightened again, her lip starting to blister from the first blow, and looked the man in the eye. The man smiled, a full smile this time.

"The god has no need for no one," the man said, looking at her steadily. "The god calls Arya Stark."

The boy's expression changed rapidly, confusion and surprise showing on his thin pale face. Behind the confusion was something else, an emotion that the boy flashed briefly across her face before the boy managed to control it, and looked back at the one-eyed man, jaw set.

"A girl is afraid."

"I am not afraid!" said the boy hotly. The man hit her, not hard this time, but on the side that had already been hit, so it hurt.

"A girl lies. Does a girl still serve?"

In a small voice, the boy replied: "I still serve."

The man smiled again, and clasped his hands in front of him, beneath his cloak. "Your task is the same. Deliver the swords to the smith at Winterfell."

This time, the boy's expression did not change, although there was a hint of anger in her voice. "The smith at Winterfell is dead."

"There is a new smith. You will deliver the swords to him." The man paused. "Then you will go to Castle Black. The god demands two lives. First, the life of the red woman. She is a servant of the Lord of Light, and she will tell you what you must do."

The man paused again. "The second life you must take is the life of Catelyn Stark."

**NOTES

This is the chapter where Arya's motivations become a lot more clear. "Oh, she was doing it for the swords the whole time?" So yea, in case I wasn't clear, the house of white and black told her to go find the swords and bring them to "the blacksmith at winterfell", so she went to King's Landing and stole Widow's Wail from the Red Keep. She didn't know where Oathbreaker was but then Gendry showed up with it saying he was going North and she was like "Why how convenient." Then he blew her cover so she grabbed the goods and made for Winterfell, but when she go there Milken was dead and she was like "wut, fuck this, fuck them" and went to go hide out at White Harbor. But the faceless men found her and are like "go try again." And we know who the smith at Winterfell is now...

Its times like these when I wonder how this plot got so complicated