The Reign of the Wolves - Chapter I - Arya I
ARYA
"The pigeon was as plump and soft as any southron bird always was, sitting cooing and purring on the stone pavement of the tunnel floor. Its fluffy feathers were a soft greyish blue, and its reddish and black pupil eyes were peering up towards her with a still look of wondering.
She flung herself forward to catch it, flying across the grey stone floor of the corridor with all her speed, but it was not enough. The grey bird fluttered away in a quick heartbeat and flew towards the entrance of the tunnel, from where the sunlit sky outside shone its rays of gold. She would have to be even faster the next time.
She had ran into the tunnel to catch a cat from the beginning, one of the many hundreds that roamed the streets and corridors of King's Landing and the Red Keep. Brown, skinny cats with sickly eyes, black cats glimting with malice, red cats with stripes, friendly black-and-white cats, small kittens and large feisty tomcats, like the big black tomcat of the Red Keep, her secret favourite, the one that was as ancient as sin and twice as mean. If she had had more time and opportunities to practice her chasing, she might have been able to catch even him some day. As it was now, however, since she was a lady and princess of House Stark and growing older for each day, Septa Mordane and her mother, and all of her chambermaidens, held an iron grip about her all throughout the day. It was only on some very few rare occasions, mayhaps once every fortnight, that she could manage to somehow find her way out from the crowd and sneak out, still dressed in her gown or otherwise having donned a simpler set of clothes beneath it in secrecy and throwing it off, the better to hide her identity from any who might see her on the streets.
The guards would chase after her, of course, tugging at her shadow and almost running up to her in their heavy armor, but mostly just somewhat too slow to either notice her or catch up. Once she had truly decided and managed to break away for some time, she often stayed throughout the entire day, the more to get the most out of it before she had to return to dreary court and her lady Mother's hard, disapproving mouth again. She would hide away and sneak around in the corridors at night too sometimes, dodging the eyes of the guards there as well. Once she had appeared just behind the back of Ser Marlon, and he had hopped to a motion, drawn his sword in an instant and almost pointed it towards her for a short blink of an eye before he saw that it was her. That had scared her. But she had soon forgotten it after, and found the fun of the exploring again. Sometimes she would invite her brother Bran too. Bran was almost as curious as she was, although not quite as fast or wild and unruly. But he was, in truth, a very great climber, far better than she was, and so together they sometimes braved the smaller walls and other such things in and around the keep.
But just now she thought that it was probably wise to return to the inside of the Keep again. She scratched her knee a bit, lifted up her baggy brown trousers that she had stolen from the kitchen boy and looked down at it, noticing a large red scratch mark where previously she had fallen hard. It had surely been somewhat close to bleeding, but her thick skin of House Stark had saved her from that. The skin had now almost already hardened into a scab.
She waved a quick goodbye to the last of the cats that had followed her in the tunnel, the small black one and the two larger brownish ones with stripes, all of them skinny and hungry and grateful for the chicken pieces she had thrown to them, and left the tunnel again. I'll see you again when the moon is full, perhaps. Or maybe sooner, if I can get the chance to get away, she thought.
It was still the mid-day, around the third or perhaps fourth hour after mid-noon; she was not sure. The sun was high in the sky, the world was bright and people of all motley colors, though mostly the typical King's Landing brown, white, yellow and red, were moving about around the markets same as ever. Some were carrying carrots, others fish, or bread, onions or large wheels of cheese, and some sold jewelry and similar things of value. She could not afford any of it, although she was the princess. She did not have her purse on her. That had been a stupid thing to forget, she realised. But whatever of it, she thought. It will be fine, no doubt. I'll remember it the next time.
She saw the guardsmen standing watch by the entrance to the Red Keep, Norwold and Morgan. They knew her at first sight, and called out to her at a distance.
"Princess Arya! Princess! Lady Arya!"
I'm not a princess now, she thought. I'm only a wild and dirty commoner from Flea Bottom. You don't recognize me. And you are far too slow to catch me. I am faster than a pigeon. And she went speeding for the market stalls before they could start running towards her, blending into the enormous meddled crowd with ease.
She staggered into a fat man in a red vest, made a dive beneath the fabric of a stand of figs and hid behind a tall black-haired woman and her daughter, who was around Sansa's age, selling green grapes. A swift way forward and then to the right took her to the next stall, with an old, curly- and grey-haired man with a large bird-like nose who was selling pomegranates - he barely had a chance to turn around and have a proper look at her - and then next the apples, pears and other fruits in a heap behind wooden crates guarded by a sturdy lady with a hard look to her and reddish cheeks the same color as the apples in front of her arms resting determined on the stand. Arya ran past them all before they had a chance to notice. The apple-red woman made to turn and grab her, most likely believing her to be a thief, but Arya slipped away by the scruff of her shirt's back and hurried further onwards. The possibility of the guardsmen catching her was slimming down with each new stand, as she dove herself further and further into the loudly chattering bustle of the crowd.
She often thought of going away from the Keep, running away for good, or travelling to the North to find Winterfell and live with her uncle and aunt and cousins. Some other times she had thought and dreamt of being a wolf. A large, strong female with ragged grey fur loping quietly along the forest's edges and looking for her prey. She had never seen a wolf for real, but she had looked in Father's books and tapestries and their own sigils, and imagined what it looked like. There was a large grey hound in the kennels as well, the size of half a horse, which she would watch sometimes, sitting high above from a rafter beam and peering as the great grey wolfhound looked on with a tired gaze at the lesser dogs and made rounds to and fro in its stable. That was what she imagined the wolves of Winterfell to be like. It was almost like seeing her father sitting at the Iron Throne, with all the people of the realm coming up to talk to him and him looking down on them with the cold, clear and reclined judgment of the ruler.
If she were ever a queen like her father was king, she would sit there quitely just like her father did, with ice in her eyes and the heart of a strong queen wolf, and judge Sansa and Lady Wynafryda and her other friends at court, and condemn them to various punishments for how they had behaved towards her. And Sansa would beg and plead on her bare knees in front of her, and ask her to please forgive her for calling her Arya Horseface and telling on Mother about the shield from the armory that she had hid underneath her bed, but Arya would sentence them both to scrub the floors of the Red Keep and do the dishes of the kitchens for a fortnight nonetheless. She could hardly stop her giggling inside when she thought of her sister Sansa having to scoop down in her fancy silk dress and getting it all dirty and wet as Jory and the other kingsguards and lords and ladies would walk in with muddy boots from the bailey outside and contribute to her work and hard work and even more work.
But no, that was too ill thoughts, and so she stopped herself. Her lady Mother always said that she needed to be nicer towards her sister. But how could she be expected to be nice towards Sansa when Sansa was such an airheaded piece of silk? All she cared about was sewing and gossiping with Lady Wynafryda, and playing on her harp, and singing songs about brave knights and dream around and talk constantly about who she would marry out of all the young men in all the Seven Kingdoms. And they were not even seven kingdoms, at that, as she had learned from Grand Maester Pycelle. They were nine, with the Riverlands and the Crownlands included, as well as the at long last finally conquered-through-marriage Dorne.
Arya would not wish to marry anyone at all. They were all such daft boys anyway, and most of them far older than her, the ones that came to court at least. The other ones she had only heard stories about, and she imagined that none of them had even the wit of her brother Brandon, much less so the wit that was needed from someone who was to be a prince or king. They all came from such strange places, places that she knew about from Grand Maester Pycelle, the great golden keep of Casterly Rock and the flowery castles of The Reach, covered in green gardens of lush roses and fruit orchards, but she had no thoughts to travel to their castles and live her life out as some southron lord's wife nonetheless. If she were ever to marry, it would have to be a northman, preferably from Winterfell. She was of the North from the beginning, after all, just like her father, and she intended to return there one day.
Her father had talked of their cousins many a time, Willam, and Myrcella and Tommen, though they seemed almost too young to be any fun, almost even younger than Bran, she thought. And including her half-cousin Jon Snow, who was the same age as Willam, who also lived with them, though he was only of his father uncle Benjen's own blood, not of Lady Cersei's, and instead from that of some unknown woman who was his mother.
Her father had said that there were many northern lords who would like to marry her when she were to grow up, and so she hoped once or twice that she might come to marry Jon Snow, since she guessed that he had less of the Lannisters in him. He was said to look just like uncle Benjen, though only young still. The little she had seen of them had been enough, when Ser Lancel Lannister had been at court, with his long yellow blond hair that looked almost like a girl, and his squeaky voice and lordly mannerisms. Her father had pretended to like the young man, though she could see in his eyes that he only had to because he was the king.
She slid away from the stands and into the crowd, where men, women and children of all ages surrounded her, some stinking, some smelling of fragrant perfumes, and most talking with the accent of Flee Bottom. If someone were to talk to her here, she would have to answer in the same style, and not as a highborn princess. She would have to say "m'lord" instead of "mylord" if she met any of the goldcloaks that did not recognise her, and if someone of them did recognise her, she would run away again, she thought.
The crowd soon became too pressing for her, and so she decided to climb up the stands. She flung herself up, grabbed ahold of the cross-section trestles above the poles along the height of the adults' heads and got up to the fabric rooves of the stands. Well up there, sitting on top of the stands just like a faithful beggar sits posing on the ground, she had a perfect view of the entire market place, as well as the walls and gates of the Red Keep and the statue of Baelor the Blessed behind. The fountains were streaming with water, some young children around her age were playing by its springs, and men with carts were strolling with their wheels coming in with new food and goods from the world outside. Norwold and Morgan were still at the gates, she saw, their steel caps and silver mail glistening in the sunlight, but had already given up their chase and returned to their stations with their tired faces, swetting in the sun. They must surely have decided that she wasn't worth their troubles on this hot and sunny late summer's day, and so chanced that she would return again and perhaps give them another chance later on, which she of course had no intention of doing. She would not be back until the afternoon, when the sun was beginning to set along the mid-section of Maegor's Holdfast, she more and more began to decide, and when she did, they would have been released towards another shift. She wondered who else would take their places. Perhaps Jacks and Porther. She stood up, so that she was taller than anyone else beneath the crenellations of the Keep, and looked over to the next stand.
She ran towards the end of the roof and hopped over to it. And then the next stand, and then the next, and then the next. And then the next. She was soon close to the end of the stalls, and the carts of potatoes and barley and other foodstuffs were down below, with farmers and their sons and daughters coming to load them off. Arya took a measure of height – somewhere around seven feet or close – turned around and slowly climbed down to the trestle section of the poles, and then jumped down into one of the potatoe carts which at present was unguarded. The fall hit her hard in her feet, though. Potatoes were harder than they looked. When she tried standing up she saw that she had indeed also smashed at least three or four of them with her feet, yes, and they were four big ones as well, to her disappointment in her self. Another ten or fifteen potatoes tumbled out of the cart and landed on the dirty ground below, close to a goat's pile.
She saw an old man with a grey beard and a bad back returning to the cart and guessed that it was his crops. The old farmer did not look angry, only surprised and befuddled in his old and greying face. She suddenly felt felt ashamed. The farmers were rich enough, now, sure, as her father said, but sooner or later winter would come, and only a fool would ever squander good food such as that. Perhaps I can give them one of my rings as payment, she thought. But even a single droplet of silver would be worthy of more than fifty potatoes, no doubt. What about her hair pins? They were of silver, too, but very very small. Perhaps one of them could pay for some of the trouble she had caused. But which one could she part with...? She did not know. Suddenly she felt a presence, a tall shadow of steel approaching her from behind and a strong gloved hand reaching for her back shirt.
"And what have we here then?" said a familiar voice from high above. It was Jory. She could not see his face for his helmet but she would recognise his voice anywhere and anytime. "Out and about again, princess?", he said in a tired voice.
"I'm not a princess! I'm a wolf of the North!" she said angrily. The old farmer only stared at them.
"Aye, that you are, no doubt about it. But it would be a shame if you were not also the princess, and if your father did not get all his pups safely back into the Keep before nightfall."
"I don't have to be in by nightfall. I can fend for myself and find shelter out here, or out in the Kingswood!"
"Aye, no, we can't be dealing with any of that, lady Arya", Jory said, picking her up all the way towards the sky and landing her up to sit on the white cloak and metal of his tall shoulders. "Your father would have me sent to the Wall if anything were to happen to you."
"No, he wouldn't. He would understand. He is a wolf too."
"Even wolves need a safe place to hide sometimes, when all the other beasts of the land are a-spying", said Jory with a matter-of-fact tone and started walking through the bustle of the crowd all the way back to the Red Keep. The old farmer with his bad back stood still on the spot where he had first seen her, watching them at length, and then finally bent down with his back in a slow and painful motion to start picking up the potatoes and brushing them off from the dirt and muck.
She looked down on all the people around her as they went, feeling more and more ashamed as they looked up on her, and tried her best to keep her eyes closed and pretend that she was indeed only a poor gutter rat who had tried getting too close to the Keep, when in reality the truth was far worse than that. It was a great shame to be seen as an equal or lower than the smallfolk, her lady Mother had said staunchly to her a thousand times before, and just now, as she was cradling Jory's helmet on the side of his head and sitting with her feet dangling uselessly towards his chest as he strode on before the parting, gawking crowd, she did not feel very much a wolf nor a princess. Only a spoilt royal child who had wanted to see what was outside the gates again, for once. Perhaps rather a royal baby, like Brandon when he was still litte. She promised herself that she would never have Jory pick her up like that again. She would command him to walk beside her instead, and tell her lord father the king about it. Jory should know better than that, after all.
Jory lemped her off on the floor of the corridor just inside the entrance, as Norwold and Morgan stood sniggering at the sight. "Aye, it's loads of fun, no doubt", said Jory, "but if any of you lot had been fast enough to catch a small girl of nine, I would not have had to do it like this."
So that is how he sees me, thought Arya. A small girl of nine, not his queen, not a wolf, only a small girl who is too foolish to know her own good. But she would show them. She would show them all some day. That she was indeed a strong and fierce wolf queen, faster and stronger than all of them, and that she did not need any protection like a baby. First of all, however, it seemed as though she would have to show the exact opposite in front of her Mother. Jory put her down on the floor just inside the hallway and took off his helmet to look directly at her, face to face.
"Now you listen here, my little wolf princess. You are going to run right up to your chamber and put on your clothes again, and then you are going to present yourself swiftly and humbly, most of all quietly, to the Queen. You will not have to say that you were outside the Keep, but if you do, say something which will make her less wroth. If your father or the queen should ask me about it, I will have to tell them, though."
"Do you understand?" he asked her again, his face suddenly serious and stern.
"Yes", she said, relentingly, made a small curtsy before him, and then made to run all the way up the stairs to her chamber. She only hoped that none of the washerwomen or chambermaids who met her in the stairway would tell on her. Most of all, she was not sure if she could trust Ayla Seffryn, her own chambermaid, but perhaps Ayla had been out for the past two hour or so.
As it turned out, she had not. Ayla stood at her bed, already waiting for her, long and tall and with dark hair and beautiful dark freckles and spots as always, with a scolding look in her eyes. Why were all the girls and ladies in the world older, taller and prettier than her, and angry at her? It was not fair. Ayla Seffrey came from a merchant's family, a small and modest House Seffrey, which had existed only since her grandfather had started with the permission of some old Targaryen king, but she was more beautiful than Arya, despite her low birth, with a slender swan-like neck and a beautiful nose and mouth, and those large doe-like brown, yet decidedly hawkish eyes, and sixteen grown years of age, far older than Sansa even. Just for once she would have wished to have a baby sister to take care of, or to scold herself. Instead she was always ever the runt of the litter, except for Willam of course, she thought to herself. Ayla did not seem to have any large portion of sympathy today either.
"Princess, you are far too late to your Lady Mother, the Queen. Come here now", she said, waving Arya towards her, and Arya obliged, disappointed, slightly ashamed, but most of all angry that everyone in the Keep seemed to be working against her in this. Ayla helped her on with her fine gown again, the nice red one with the colors of Tully for her lady mother, and then started combing her hair, letting it out from the silver hairpins she had put it up in earlier in the morning, and suddenly she was merely a quiet, devout and demure trout again, standing before the silver mirror, standing with her hair out, and wishing that was only the slightest amount more of the amber red, as she knew her Mother would have liked.
She always knew that Mother liked Sansa more because she looked just like Mother, with the same color hair, the same blue eyes and high cheekbones and heart-shaped face. Arya herself was only a small wolfish girl posing as a trouth now, but somehow Ayla helped her with it and made it seem fine. She took the large beautiful fat silver trout from Arya's jewelry box and fastened it at her chest as always. She put a flower ring of red and blue flowers and vines, the colors of House Tully, on her head and pulled down some ribbons into a beautiful arrangement in her hair, making it seem slightly red from the red ribbons. That would have to suffice, she thought, and studied her image and posture.
"Shoulders down, chest front, and arms together in a still position", said Ayla. Arya obliged in silence.
They walked down the stairs together, with Ayla holding Arya's hand, even though she didn't need to, most like to prevent her from running away again, as if she could ever run away again dressed like this, stuck and framed in like a piece of trout or a mermaid from her chest down to her heels, even without a corset on. She hoped that it would take a long time before she would have to wear one as well, though Sansa had started wearing hers at ten, and that was only less than a year away.
Her Lady Mother, the Queen, was in her sewing chamber clad in a dress which was Tully red and lined at the sides with Stark white, busy at work with a tapestry as always. Septa Mordane sat next to her, equally concentrated as the queen, and next to both of them sat in orderly fashion Sansa, Wynafryda, Marla Piper and Jeyne Poole. Sansa saw them directly, and stared up at her with a judgmental look which Arya tried to avert her eyes from and look above. Ayla and Arya approached slowly, curtsying without a sound, as if to not wake the two older women from their deep labours. Her lady mother was always good of hearing, though, more so than the old Septa. She lifted her gaze from her work and looked at Arya when she finally heard they had come in through the door.
"Arya! Where in the Seven Kingdoms have you been?"
"The Crownlands", Arya said. "And perhaps the Riverlands, and the North, a little bit".
"I certainly hope that is not the case", said her mother disapprovingly, in an angry tone. "You have enough of the North in you without encouraging those wild wolfish drops of your blood." She had clearly not cared the slightest that she was dressed the way she was for her sake, to be less wolfish.
"No fair! I'm a trout now, just look at me! I'm a nice and proper princess trout of Tully! See?"
Sansa giggled at her sister, and Lady Wynafryda and Jeyne Poole too. Marla only looked worried.
"Enough of this! You run away at every chance you get, outside the gates! Will we have to lock you to your bed to stop you from running outside the castle like some wild beast? The trout of Tully does not jump from the safety of its river for the sheer excitement and folly of it. It only ever does so to spawn, and you are far too young for that still, thank the Seven for it. Now: Sit down, young princess, and help me and the septa with this needlework until it's time for supper."
And she signalled for Arya to sit down in the chair next to her and start sewing with her. Arya did as she knew she had to, but slowly, slowly, her legs cramping beneath her from pain and anticipation, and not with any joy. Arya hated sewing. Septa Mordane had awakened now as well, and looked her over with a stern face like that of the Crone incarnate. Ayla stood still where she had, frozen in a pose before the queen and not knowing what more to do. Her lady mother finally waved her off, after seeing Arya come into the sewing more and more with each flick of her fingers.
"Thankyou, Ayla. If you were to be so kind as to ask the guards which one of them it was that found her, I would be most grateful, and reward the man with whatever precious thing he chooses."
"What? How do you know it wasn't I who returned on my own?" protested Arya. She did not want Jory to be gotten on, nor herself to be revealed as having been caught by him. That was embarrassing, without a doubt. Sure, Jory was the Kingsguard, but he was also a grown man in a huge clanking suit of armor, and she had let herself be captured by him without even hearing him approach. Aye, that was badly reflecting of her skills as a wild and untameable wolf of the North.
"Of course, Your Grace. I shall see to talk to them right away.", said Ayla, made a deep curtsy again, and turned away for the door.
"Ayla? No, don't go! Stay here and help me with my needlework! I command it of you! Your princess commands you!" She felt ashamed but she had to get Ayla to stay somehow, or her mother and Septa Mordane would eat her up completely with their fury and bitterness, nagging at her and poking her with their scolding looks and comments about her sewing, until she was as old and sour as they both were, her hands frozen with the needles still in place on the thousands of tiny threads.
"Arya, by the Mother, behave yourself, you unruly child!" said Septa Mordane. "That is not proper talk coming from a princess. A princess is always dignified, as the gracious fluttering voice of the Maiden. Never angry or cross, nor commanding with the voice of a man in battle or ire."
"Never angry? But you are angry at me all the time!" she protested.
Sansa heard her, and almost giggled beside her at that, but then stopped herself with a dainty covering of her mouth. She was far too clever and scheming to laugh at the septa openly. Arya hated her for that.
"Yes, but I am no princess, and no maiden", replied the septa. "The Father above gives the gift of hardship to his wife, so that she after a life of good service to him may turn more to the light of the Mother, who must watch over her children in both good-natured and stern accord. But the Maiden is not yet a Mother, and so does not have the sway of command in such a brutish way. Learn that first, child, so that you may be seen as a proper princess in blood, name and deeds, and then you may command your chambermaids to do your bidding as you see fit."
Arya tried protesting again, opening her mouth for a split second, but then closing it quickly again. Septa Mordane would no doubt have a come-uppance or answer or quotation from the Seven-Pointed Star lying at bay in her dry crone's mind for every question or objection Arya could raise, as she always did. It was not fair. And Arya particularly hated how she would call Arya "child", like that. Yes, she was a child, so sure could she be of that, but she was also the princess, daughter to her mother the Queen, although no one had seemed to truly realise that yet. Did a princess not get her will through? Did Princess Nymeria not get her will through when she commanded all her people to go and build ships and sail for Dorne and then burn all those ships and set foot there and make a new land?
That Septa Mordane somehow thought that Arya would appreciate her many harsh lessons and scoldings once she had grown up was laughable, in truth. She only hoped for her septa's own sake that she would be well far away from the castle by then, or Arya would have her revenge on her. Then she would call her "child", and point out everything that she did wrong, if she did not carry out her orders exactly as they were, and then send her all the way back to the Citadel, or Riverrun, or wherever she had said at some point that she came from, and Princess Arya would be free to rule as she pleased. Thus she told herself, as she made hateful sewing stitch after hateful sewing stitch.
She would rule as a wolf, not a trout nor a needleworking maiden like Sansa. She would be a hard, vengeful wolf, and all the realm, her Lady Mother and even Septa Mordane would see her for her strength and power, not her many faults, as they at current moment saw them to be. And they would all tremble before her, and she would take her prey with her sharp fangs. Arya wolf. I am Arya wolf. And here and now begins my reign.