"Wine," Sandor croaked. "Wine,"
Arya held the skin to his parched lips and he received it clumsily, choking and coughing and spilling wine all across his face and down onto his pillow.
"M'thanks," he said gruffly, settling down more fully into his furs. The cold mountain mists of the Vale had settled into his lungs, and his condition had only worsened as they rode back down toward the Riverlands. He still rose and walked about the camp during the day, cursing and coughing and making everyone steer clear of him. He still would ride on Stranger with the army of the Vale. But when he got back to the tent he collapsed and became as helpless as a babe. Arya thought herself a poor nursemaid, but she did as best she could. She cleaned his furs and took his clothes to the washerwomen and brought him food and wine.
He did not need wine and food, though, not half so much as he needed medicine.
"I'm going to go to Lord Baelish," she stated firmly. "He'll get the maester to tend to you."
"Fuck," Sandor said, his head back on his pillow and his eyes closed. "I'll die of your nagging before I die of this damned cold. Leave me to suffer in peace, we can't have that fucker knowing how sick I am. I've survived worse than this."
Arya did not say anything in reply. She was too busy thinking of an old man back in Winterfell who had been sick for so long and had kept saying that he felt better with each day that passed, even as his body wasted away. It seemed such a small thing, and so long ago, but that had been the first time she had known death. Not everyone died with a spear through their belly.
"I'm going to Lord Baelish," she repeated, but she did not mean it. Maybe it was just that Sandor had scared her, or maybe something really was wrong with him, but she could not let him know the truth. She could not let him know that she was anything other than Arri the servant.
"Then fuck off and die," the Hound growled, only to break apart into a fit of rasping coughs. He fell asleep before long, and then the real nightmare began. One moment he would be wrestling with some invisible giant, cursing and coughing and fighting, and the next he would be curled up in a great ball, weeping openly and calling out names Arya had never heard before.
Arya fled. She needed to be away from the warmth of the tent, away from the sickness and the dying. She had too many thoughts buzzing in her head, thoughts that she could not voice aloud lest someone hear her. Why should she care if the Hound died? He was a killer and a brute and he deserved whatever happened to him. It would be simple mercy to cut his throat, but then she had no cause to give him mercy, either. Why should she not go to Baelish? Why should she take the Hound at his word?
Most of all though, she had thoughts about Sansa. Her sister was here, alive. Her hair had been dyed brown and her dresses were all different and she had gotten so tall but still Arya would know her anywhere. What was she doing here? Was she trusting Lord Baelish? Was he protecting her, or was she some prisoner? Should Arya steal her away in the night, like Bael the Bard, or should she reveal herself to Baelish and live happy and safe and secure with her older sister?
She had crossed the Riverlands three times chasing after her family, but now that she had found her sister, her only sister, her only living family other than Jon… she felt only fear. Fear that Sansa would die or turn into vapor if they spoke. Fear that her older sister would have turned into a stranger. She and Sansa had not parted on good terms, all those months ago in that other world. Would she even welcome her now? Or would she spit at Arya and shut her out entirely?
She had been too warm and too full of thoughts for too long. She needed cold, and she knew where to get it. A mile out of camp there a stream flowed down out of the mountains; she had seen it herself when they had ridden down the mountain earlier in the day. She would be alone there, at least, away from the Valemen and the Hound and Lord Baelish. The stream was too small for even the washerwomen to bother with, but Arya was small too, and there was enough water for her. Enough to splash her face and scrub her hands with a rag until they hurt, until they were bright pink and her bones ached. She needed to be clean, needed to feel pain, and remind herself she was alive.
She had been on the run for too long. That was the problem, Arya decided. She had been a fox chased through the woods by hounds, running so long that she could not remember how to do anything else. But Arya was a wolf, not a fox, and she should act like it. The Wolf in her dreams did not run. Grey Wind did not run. Why should she sit in the Hound's tent and wring her hands with fear? She had eyes, she had ears. She would decide for herself if Sansa was safe or in danger. She would decide for herself if Baelish was a friend or foe. Seeing. The True Seeing. That had been the most important skill Syrio Forel had taught her, but she had almost forgotten it.
She dried herself and went back into camp. Lord Baelish's army always arranged itself in the same way, no matter where they were encamped, so she had no difficulty in finding what she sought: a small line of wagons overflowing with boxes and barrels and cages full of screaming ravens. But none of them screamed as loud as the man who oversaw the lot, a short, crooked man with a pinched up face and a mouth full of sourleaf.
"Maester," Arya said, stepping in front of him and forcing him to pay attention to her. "I'm Arri, squire to Ser Clegane, the Hound, and my master is sick and we need your strongest medicine."
The maester turned a baleful eye on her, his lip curling in disgust. "My medicine is too expensive for an urchin like you."
Arya took a deep breath to calm herself. This was not Luwin and she was not Arya. This man was a very important sort of person in the camp and she had to be respectful to him. "Maester," she repeated, "Ser Clegane is sick and if we're going into battle Lord Baelish will want him healthy."
"You can't afford my medicine. Go to some apothecary who will sell you cheaper tonics."
"Well, I will let Lord Baelish know that you said that," Arya spat back. "I'll let him know why the Hound can't go into battle."
The Maester laughed. "My my my. A knight makes you polish a helmet and calls you a squire and you think you're nobility. I have things to attend to, urchin, and you'll leave me be or I'll have one of my assistants see you off."
He turned to leave but she went after him, "I need a bottle of lysenthum oil," she called out, "to mix in his soup and keep the coughing down, so he can get some food without losing it all to vomit. It should be in a little blue bottle with..."
The Maester turned back suddenly, obviously surprised. "You know your way around a Maester's bench well, little urchin."
Arya bit the inside of her cheek. Back when she had been Arya Underfoot in Winterfell she had followed every servant around as they did their chores, and she knew how to do half the jobs in a household if it came down to it. Mayhap the Maester would take her more seriously if he saw Arri as more than a stupid peasant boy. She drew in a breath
"I am no urchin. I was raised in a castle," she said simply. "Acorn Hall. I used to run errands for the Lady and her family and I know all sorts of things."
"You know your letters?"
Arya nodded. "Numbers too, and the names of all the medicines. I know all the right ways to talk and bow and scrape and curtsey and whatever else you like, and I can carry a mug full of ale from here to Lord Baelish himself without spilling a drop. I'm a champion cat-catcher and I know the names of all the stars and constellations."
The Maester sighed. "I really do not have the time to be dealing with every knight who's caught a cold."
"The Hound isn't just any knight, Maester." The Hound was no knight at all, but Arya did not say that. "It won't be any burden for you, either. I can care for him myself if you just give me the medicine. I'll even run chores for you. Carry packages for you, mix potions, whatever you need."
The maester frowned. "I wouldn't call myself worthy of my chain if I let some random brat mix my medicines for me. But on the other hand..." he grimaced, and reached into his cart for a small bottle of thick blue liquid, with a wax seal on the cap. "This is a sleeping draught for the Lady Lysa. Deliver it to her and have her take it with her wine. Report back to me, and I will have your lysenthum well and ready."
Arya smiled and reached for the draught. This was exactly what she had wanted. Before her fingers could close on the bottle, however, the maester pulled his hand back and gave her a stern glare. "Don't even think of stealing this potion, urchin. My medicine is too expensive for all but the richest folk, and you're one of the poorest, castle-raised or no."
"I swear it on my mother's grave," she said, her lips thin and hard. She did not know if they had given her mother a grave, but she doubted it. The Maester let her have the potion anyway and then she was off, darting between the tents, carts, horses, and men that made up Lord Baelish's camp. This was what she had hoped for when she had gone for the Maester. The servants of a maester were invisible, running to and fro with packages and letters and aught else. If men knew that she ran errands for the Maester, they would let her go wherever she pleased, perhaps even to Sansa's quarters.
There had never been any question as to where she would find Lady Lysa. Everyone knew that she almost never stirred from the great pavilions in the center of camp. The men had taken to calling it the 'Castle of Silks,' and they said that it had been one of Lord Jon's last gifts to his Lady, a sign of the Old Falcon's love and affection. Arya thought that a smaller tent would be more fitting for a couple that was in love.
"I'm squire Arri," she announced to the guard outside the pavilion, producing the bottle and bowing graciously. "I'm here to bring Lady Lysa's sleeping draught."
The guard grunted. "So he found a footpad to take over his least favorite task, did he? Well, come on then."
Silken drapes and painted screens formed rooms and corridors within the huge pavilion. Arya looked left and right as the guard led her on, imagining that Sansa would cross their path any moment. Would Sansa shriek? Would she gasp? Would she not recognize Arya at all? Arya pulled up her collar to hide her face. She would remain Arri for now. Arri was safe and did not need to fear anything.
Arya suppressed a gasp as the drapes were pulled back to reveal the Lady Lysa. She lay on a heap of pillows, half-dressed with her hair spilling out behind like an auburn sunburst. The Lady Lysa was fat and sweaty and breathing heavily as though she was recovering from a great exertion and her eyes were fixed to the roof of the tent, staring intently at something in the shadows that was not there. All the while her lips quivered, opening slightly and closing, the only sound in the tent the whisperings of the maids who moved about the chamber.
Her mother's sister. Her last hope. Arya felt some small part of herself curl up to die. Every time she hoped that she might come upon someone in power, someone who could help her, they died or were as good as dead.
"The Maester sent a courier to bring over the potion," the guard said, and suddenly the Lady Lysa revived and sat up straight, her eyes coming into focus. The air had become heavy and hot in this room of quilts and pillows, and Arya felt sweat forming on her forehead.
"Yes, it is about time!" she snapped. "Do you know how long I have waited? Maester Coleman is always too long with my sleeping draught. Always too long with my fertility potion, always too long with everything. He fears me, I think, and well he might. Sometimes I dream about him burning, burning underneath a heart tree." Her eyes settled on Arya and suddenly she felt as though Lysa were a dragon and she was Queen Rhaenyra from the stories, about to be burned and eaten alive.
But it was not recognition that dawned in Lady Lysa's eyes, but fear. Her mouth went wide and her eyes filled with terror and she screamed, "No! No, what are you, and why are you here? Who did you kill with that bloodied knife?"
She rose from her pillows, whether to fight or flee Arya did not know, but her attendants restrained her and held her back. After a brief struggle, she collapsed back into her pillows, still screaming, "Away! Away! Take it away, I do not want to see it, I do not!"
Arya fled, ushered by three attendants and the guard who had first led her in. One of them took the parcel from her and then she was out, out of the Castle of Silks and away from the horrible creature that was her aunt. She crouched there a moment at the tent's entrance, gasping for air. It seemed hardly possible, what had just occurred, as though she had stepped briefly into a nightmare. Would it be the same, when she finally spoke to Sansa?
A chuckle roused her from her thoughts. The guard at the front of the tent was laughing at her.
"What's so funny?" She demanded, standing up straight and balling her fists.
"That Lady Lysa is," the guard said, "You've no cause to feel ashamed for reacting the way you did to one of her fits. There's a reason Maester Coleman doesn't like to come up here to give the potion himself anymore. There's a reason none of his assistants like to either."
"What's wrong with her?"
The guard shrugged. "Who knows? She was always a bit mad, you know. Would give the strangest orders sometimes, and if you dared to ask why she'd threaten you with awful punishments. There were those as said she heard voices, and I don't doubt that could be the case. She got better briefly when Lord Protector Baelish arrived and they were wed but..." The guard shook his head. "It's likely just the stress, what with her sister dying and all this terrible war. Women are gentler creatures, they're the ones who suffer the most in such time."
Arya snorted. She had suffered as much as anyone but she was not staring into the ceiling and seeing things. Her aunt Lysa was sick, she needed medicine stronger than a mere sleeping draught. But Arya already had one sick person to watch over, and Aunt Lysa had a personal Maester. She grimaced, her mind going back to the flash of dark blue that had filled the bottle. She could remember all sorts of potions Luwin had mixed for her family. She could remember milk of the poppy and sweetsleep and half a dozen other tonics, but she could remember nothing so dark and so inky. She shivered, and not because of the cold.
"Am I free to go?"
The guard laughed. "What, do you think milady will be requiring your services? No, you're free to go wherever you came from. Don't tell anyone what you've seen today, mind. The state of the Lady is no secret in the camp, but it's no good for idle chatter about such things to spread."
Arya sighed and shook her head as she walked away. She had come here seeking answers, but she had only found more questions. The Maester had already gone to bed when she returned, but a page gave her the oil she required and she took it back to her tent. The Hound was sleeping when she arrived, but he stirred soon and cursed at her to give him more wine. She gave him the wine and the medicine too. Just a few drops, every few hours, she reminded herself. Just as Luwin had treated her, back when she had been a child in Winterfell. Back before the world had stopped making sense.
With a sinking heart, she realized that the old man was dead now too, gone in the same attack that had killed Bran and Rickon. She felt numb to the realization, numb to everything, too tired to do anything more than crawl up next to the Hound and go to sleep.
Once again, she dreamt of Robb. They were drinking mulled wine by a campfire, with wolves all around them. Nymeria was there, huger than she had ever been when Arya had known her, and Grey Wind too, curled up behind her like a great cushion. Robb looked much as he had in her last dream, older and wearier, but still her brother. She thought they must have been talking for some time, but she could not remember what about.
"I don't know what to do," She admitted.
"That's alright," Robb replied. "No one ever does."
She sipped the wine. She had drunk wine like this once, back in the summer, when her father had let her take a sip from his cup, but she had not remembered the taste of it until now. "Sansa is right there, but I feel so scared to go to her, like everything that's happened up until now is a magic spell and it will all turn back to shit the moment I look too closely. I don't know where this army is going or what Baelish means to do with my sister or what's wrong with my aunt or..." She stopped to take a breath. She had not said so much to anyone in a long time, not at once. "I'm just tired," she said finally. "I'm tired all the time, no matter how much I sleep. I sleep almost as much as the Hound but he's sick and I'm not and it's not fair."
"You did a good thing today," Robb allowed, "you kept your friend alive."
She looked into her cup and frowned. Was that a good thing? The Hound was a killer and a villain. But these days he scared her less than her own aunt did. "I wish you weren't dead. I wish you were really here and not just a dream. You would know how to keep Sansa safe, how to kill the Lannisters, and all the others who need killing."
Robb did not reply immediately, but kept quiet, sipping his wine and scratching Nymeria's ears, "I'd try to keep Sansa safe, that's true," he said, "But vengeance is something I haven't cared about in a long time."
Arya felt her face bunching up like crumpled up paper. "They killed father," she said. "I saw them do it. He said the lies they wanted him to say and then they killed him anyway." She glared at Robb over her cup. "They killed you too."
"Only once," Robb said with a smile, and then the dream faded and she could remember no more.
The next moment she was on the ground in the tent of the Hound again, wrapped up in his cloak and sore from the hardness of the ground. She felt herself sigh as she regained her wits. She was back in the real world again, the sounds of a waking camp all around her, the smell of earth thick in her nose. This was the world, the real world, and here Robb was dead. Thinking about it made her eyes hurt.
The Hound was already stirring, rolling about in his furs and muttering about some girl. Arya grimaced. Like as not it was some whore from the Street of Silks. She bounced to her feet and set about her chores, laying aside her weariness with activity. She fed Stranger, boiled some water on the coals of last night's fire, and set about polishing Sandor's armor. The big man rose partway through her chores, coughing up black phlegm and storming about the camp like a caged beast. She gave him some more of the wine with the medicine in it and he guzzled that down without a thought.
"The outriders say we'll make it to Harrenhal by the end of the week," said Arya.
"Maybe we will," the Hound replied. "I never thought I'd be happy to be back in the Riverlands, but better the Riverlands than the fucking Mountains of Moon in fall." He suddenly doubled over, racked by heavy, wet coughs that came from deep in his chest.
"What do you think Lord Baelish means to do?" Arya asked, after he had stood up again finally. "When we get to Harrenhal, I mean."
"Who the fuck knows," Sandor replied, "Who the fuck cares?"
"You know," Arya said, testily. "You were in his tent nearly as much as Brune was, back before you started hiding from him. Before you were sick." The Hound knew about Sansa already, he had to have. That was what Baelish had been referring to when they first met. The Hound had been keeping her in the dark and feeding her shit, and yet she found herself trusting him more than any of the others.
He raised his one good eyebrow and drank more of the wine. "You're awfully chatty for a squire," he growled. "Seems that you've forgotten your place."
"I've cleaned piss out of your furs often enough that I'm owed something."
A rasping cough escaped him and he spat to the side. "You think he tells his secret councils to a hired sword? Well, maybe he talks to Brune. I only know the sorts of things he says to the Lords who command his host."
"And what does he say to them?"
"Depends who he's talking to. Corbray only wants to hear of plunder, Royce only wants to hear of honor. Half the host thinks we're marching to set the Riverlands to order, the other half claims we're marching to the aid of good King Robb." Sandor's face twisted in an ugly grimace that might have been something like a smile.
"Robb's dead," Arya snapped. "If that's their purpose, they should have ridden south when he was alive."
Sandor grunted. "Sure, maybe then we wouldn't be fighting the crown alone like a bunch of death-seeking lackwits."
"If it's so bad then why haven't you left yet?"
"I'm no craven, you little shit, I'm tired. And marching with Baelish is less work than running for now."
"Seems the same either way, craven."
"How the fuck have you lived this long? Quit chattering and get back to work."
Arya bit her cheek and held back her questions. The Hound knew more, but she still had to be careful with him. She still did not know why he had kept her secret from Baelish, or why he had kept Sansa a secret from her. Everything about him was confusing and made her head hurt and she hated it.
A week later she was no wiser. She saw Sansa three times, passing between her carriage and her tent, or praying at the shrine of the Seven, but there were always half a dozen guards and twice as many maidens about her, watching, listening. Arya overheard she was to marry their cousin, the sickly Lord Robin Arryn, and that made her nose wrinkle in disgust. She had seen him too, weak and sickly, pampered at every turn. He would not live long in the Riverlands, Arya thought with scorn, but at least he would be no threat to Sansa for now.
Her nights were split between Robb and the Wolf. The Wolf was traveling northward now, away into lowlands where the fog was thick and the ground wet and earthy. There were no men to hunt, only deer and stray sheep and cattle. Her other nights she spent with Robb's ghost. Always smiling, always calm, always… strained, and older and different from how she remembered him. Mysteries and confusion confronted her at every waking moment, and all she felt in the end was weariness.
But time marched on and so did the host, passing from the foothills of the Mountains of Moon into the fertile river valleys, still green and lush despite the chill of fall. The host passed through the remains of a village on the third day, filled with vines and moss over a layer of ash. Arya wondered if she should feel guilty for thinking it beautiful. Sandor had become strong enough by then that he rode up at the front with Baelish, and Arya was glad of it, for then she rode closely with Lord Baelish as well.
Harrenhal loomed large at the end of their trek, almost unchanged from how Arya had remembered it, though it must have changed hands half a dozen times since then. It had been a colossal ruin before, and so it was now, almost more like a mountain than anything made by mortal men. Rumors from the outriders came, bearing wild stories that King Robb had returned, that Gregor Clegane had died by his hand. Arya hoped Gregor was dead, but she dared not believe that her brother walked among the living. Robb survived only in her dreams now.
"Where are the Lannisters?" Arya whispered to Sandor as they approached Harrenhal. "I thought they held the castle?"
"You'll see them soon enough," Sandor replied.
With each passing minute, Arya felt her terror grow. Where were the siege towers, the lines of breastworks, the trebuchets? She had never seen a battle before but she had sat in the lessons with Robb and Jon sometimes when she could escape from her minders. Baelish was just marching the army straight up into the gaping maw that was the front gate of Harrenhal. Any second now there would be darts and rocks and ballistae raining death on them from above…
...But no death came, and even stranger, the gates opened to welcome them. More shocking still, she spied a knight in white standing ready to greet them on the far side of the gatehouse. A Kingsguard! Here! Her eyes flashed to the Hound. Traitor! It was all she could do to stop herself from screaming at him. Had Baelish betrayed them?
But Arya had no choice. Arri was a mere squire, and squires who broke ranks and fled would be cut down by outriders before even getting a chance to surrender. Arya had no choice but to sit quietly on the back of Craven her horse and trust, trust that the Hound had not led her astray.
They had come under the gatehouse itself now. The grand old building was practically a castle unto itself, a great vaulted hall with a set of portcullises on either end. Arya's eyes darted around warily, glancing at the murderholes in the roof above, at the arrowslits in the walls to the side. When she had lived here before Lord Tywin's order had been to have great vats of boiling oil readied in the case of a siege, to be poured on the attackers, to melt their flesh from their bones. Arya could not help wondering whether the Kingsguard that greeted them had made any such preparations.
She could see him more clearly now, and saw that he had brought out the entire garrison to stand in formation behind him, as though they were to be inspected by a superior officer. Besides the garrison standing in formation, the inner courtyard of Harrenhal was barren, the shops and houses that had once filled the square burned or abandoned, and the garrison had been living in tents. Even the old gray ruin bore the scars of war, Arya thought glumly. The memories she had of Harrenhal had never been pleasant, but a part of her had hoped that she would at least be seeing a familiar sight, that she would be returning to a place she knew.
"Blessin be 'pon you, Lord Baelish," The Kingsguard called, bowing deeply as the Valemen flooded into the courtyard around him. Arya did not know him. He was tall and broad and his armor fit him poorly, but he was no Boros. Despite his words of welcome, his eyes remained hard.
"Blessins and honor 'pon your entrance to your Lordly seat. I bear word from the Queen, who thanks you for everything you've done and will do in the defense of the Riverlands against the wicked rebel Robb. The Queen will not forget this service, nor will she forget the service of the Lords of the Vale."
"It is my honor," Baelish said, the front of the column stopping just inside the walls. "The Queen must know that I am amongst her most loyal servants. You are Osmund Kettleblack of the Kingsguard, yes?"
The Kingsguard bowed again, "That I am your Lordliness. Knighted after the Blackwater. It was a great honor that I was given charge over the garrison here, and it is a greater honor still to turn it over to you. Harrenhal is yours, and I have drawn the men up for inspection as you asked."
Baelish gave them a cursory glance, "They seem a bright, fine group of men, only..." he paused, a huge smile blossoming on his lips. "It is unfortunate that they are all Lannister men. I am afraid I will have to order them all to the dungeons."
Kettleblack stepped back, shock on his features, "Milord?"
The only reply he got was the Valelords calling for an advance, and the host of the Vale surging forward to encircle him and his men. The men of the garrison panicked, some throwing down their arms, others trying to form ranks and fight, still others running for the city of tents that had been put up in the courtyard. In the end it made little difference. Those who fought were defeated, those who surrendered were led away in chains, and those who fled were ridden down by the Vale light horse. Arya and Sandor could only sit and watch, an island in a storm of confusion. She looked up at Baelish, more than once, but the sly man's composure never shifted in the least. He wore that slight smile as though it had been etched into his face on the day he was born.
"I do not like this," grumbled Lord Royce, speaking for the first time in three days as he rode near. Arya liked the proud old knight in spite of herself. Her father had feasted him, once in the distant past, and sometimes Arya imagined that he was someone she could trust, that he would help her get her sister back... but Baelish had been a friend of father's as well, and Royce had left her brother to die alone in the Riverlands. "This was treachery."
"If you wish to throw a third of your men off the side of those walls to satisfy your honor, Lord Royce, you are more than welcome. But why should we fight to take what the Lannisters offer freely? Harrenhal is mine, by their decree, and I do not see why we should relinquish such a proud fortress willingly. This war will not be easy, and it is greatly to our advantage if we delay a response from the Roses and Lions for as long as we can."
"And what service did you render the Lannisters, that they should give you such a prize, Baelish? What did you do in their name?"
"A prize? Harrenhal?" Baelish laughed. "Harrenhal is a curse and the lands around it are ash. You should ask what I had done to earn such a death sentence. How long do you think proud Lord Frey would have suffered a poor man with no army as his ruler? How long do you think I should have lived as his overlord, when any roaming pack of Lannister dogs might easily overrun my fortress and put my head on the wall? Cersei wanted to be rid of me, make no mistake, and had it not been for Lady Lysa's love for me I would be shivering within those walls, waiting for death to take me."
"Perhaps you did fall out of favor," Royce replied, "But you were no traitor to the Lannisters, whatever you might claim."
"The queen hated me, I have no doubt she would have killed me if I gave her a reason. But I kept my treason, such as it was, well hidden." Baelish laughed. "And yes, you may call me a traitor, call me treasonous, and these are all true! I hated the Lannisters from before King Robert's death, and it was such a sacrifice to hold my tongue and smile at their atrocity. But what else might I have done, Lord Royce? I had no men, no armies, no vaults full of treasure. You had all these and more, and you have done less to curb these Lannisters than I. Or do you mean to hide behind my wife's skirts and claim that she would not let you intervene?"
Royce's eyes glinted with inner fire, but his voice was cool. "I will say no more for now, but do not think this matter settled, Lord Baelish." With that he rode away from their party in disgust.
Arya's eyes flitted between the assembled Lords, wondering how many had been won over by Baelish's speech. Corbray ignored him, Templeton and Redfort were near as hostile as Royce, but Shett and Waynwood and Upcliff all seemed happy to see Royce quieted on the matter. Did they believe him? Did Arya herself believe him? Perhaps she would have, if the Hound had not poisoned her mind against him.
A big hand cuffed her shoulder, "I'll feed you your own teeth if you keep your mouth open like that," Sandor said roughly, "You have a job, shit, and it doesn't involve minding the affairs of your betters."
