Part 45 (1/2)
Jaqen H'ghar closed his eyes again, floating languid, half-asleep. ”Tell his lords.h.i.+p a man shall attend him at his leisure.” His hand moved suddenly, splas.h.i.+ng hot water at her, and Arya had to leap back to keep from getting drenched.
When she told Tuffleberry what Weese had said, the brewer cursed loudly. ”You tell Weese my lads got duties to attend to, and you tell him he's a pox-ridden b.a.s.t.a.r.d too, and the seven h.e.l.ls will freeze over before he gets another horn of my ale. I'll have them barrels within the hour or Lord Tywin will hear of it, see if he don't.”
Weese cursed too when Arya brought back that message, even though she left out the pox-ridden b.a.s.t.a.r.d part. He fumed and threatened, but in the end he rounded up six men and sent them off grumbling to fetch the barrels down to the brewhouse.
Supper that evening was a thin stew of barley, onion, and carrots, with a wedge of stale brown bread. One of the women had taken to sleeping in Weese's bed, and she got a piece of ripe blue cheese as well, and a wing off the capon that Weese had spoken of that morning. He ate the rest himself, the grease running down in a s.h.i.+ny line through the boils that festered at the corner of his mouth. The bird was almost gone when he glanced up from his trencher and saw Arya staring. ”Weasel, come here.”
A few mouthfuls of dark meat still clung to one thigh. He forgot, but now he's remembered, Arya thought. It made her feel bad for telling Jaqen to kill him. She got off the bench and went to the head of the table.
”I saw you looking at me.” Weese wiped his fingers on the front of her s.h.i.+ft. Then he grabbed her throat with one hand and slapped her with the other. ”What did I tell you?” He slapped her again, backhand. ”Keep those eyes to yourself, or next time I'll spoon one out and feed it to my b.i.t.c.h.” A shove sent her stumbling to the floor. Her hem caught on a loose nail in the splintered wooden bench and ripped as she fell. ”You'll mend that before you sleep,” Weese announced as he pulled the last bit of meat off the capon. When he was finished he sucked his fingers noisily, and threw the bones to his ugly spotted dog.
”Weese,” Arya whispered that night as she bent over the tear in her s.h.i.+ft. ”Dunsen, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling,” she said, calling a name every time she pushed the bone needle through the undyed wool. ”The Tickler and the Hound. Ser Gregor, Ser Amory, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, King Joffrey, Queen Cersei.” She wondered how much longer she would have to include Weese in her prayer, and drifted off to sleep dreaming that on the morrow, when she woke, he'd be dead.
But it was the sharp toe of Weese's boot that woke her, as ever. The main strength of Lord Tywin's host would ride this day, he told them as they broke their fast on oatcakes. ”Don't none of you be thinking how easy it'll be here once m'lord of Lannister is gone,” he warned. ”The castle won't grow no smaller, I promise you that, only now there'll be fewer hands to tend to it. You lot of slugabeds are going to learn what work is now, yes you are.”
Not from you. Arya picked at her oaten cake. Weese frowned at her, as if he smelled her secret. Quickly she dropped her gaze to her food, and dared not raise her eyes again.
Pale light filled the yard when Lord Tywin Lannister took his leave of Harrenhal. Arya watched from an arched window halfway up the Wailing Tower. His charger wore a blanket of enameled crimson scales and gilded crinet and chamfron, while Lord Tywin himself sported a thick ermine cloak. His brother Ser Kevan looked near as splendid. No less than four standard-bearers went before them, carrying huge crimson banners emblazoned with the golden lion. Behind the Lannisters came their great lords and captains. Their banners flared and flapped, a pageant of color: red ox and golden mountain, purple unicorn and bantam rooster, brindled boar and badger, a silver ferret and a juggler in motley, stars and sunbursts, peac.o.c.k and panther, chevron and dagger, black hood and blue beetle and green arrow.
Last of all came Ser Gregor Clegane in his grey plate steel, astride a stallion as bad-tempered as his rider. Polliver rode beside him, with the black dog standard in his hand and Gendry's horned helm on his head. He was a tall man, but he looked no more than a half-grown boy when he rode in his master's shadow.
A s.h.i.+ver crept up Arya's spine as she watched them pa.s.s under the great iron portcullis of Harrenhal. Suddenly she knew that she had made a terrible mistake. I'm so stupid, she thought. Weese did not matter, no more than Chiswyck had. These were the men who mattered, the ones she ought to have killed. Last night she could have whispered any of them dead, if only she hadn't been so mad at Weese for hitting her and lying about the capon. Lord Tywin, why didn't I say Lord Tywin?
Perhaps it was not too late to change her mind. Weese was not killed yet. If she could find Jaqen, tell him . . .
Hurriedly, Arya ran down the twisting steps, her ch.o.r.es forgotten. She heard the rattle of chains as the portcullis was slowly lowered, its spikes sinking deep into the ground . . . and then another sound, a shriek of pain and fear.
A dozen people got there before her, though none was coming any too close. Arya squirmed between them. Weese was sprawled across the cobbles, his throat a red ruin, eyes gaping sightlessly up at a bank of grey cloud. His ugly spotted dog stood on his chest, lapping at the blood pulsing from his neck, and every so often ripping a mouthful of flesh out of the dead man's face.
Finally someone brought a crossbow and shot the spotted dog dead while she was worrying at one of Weese's ears.
”d.a.m.nedest thing,” she heard a man say. ”He had that b.i.t.c.h dog since she was a pup.”
”This place is cursed,” the man with the crossbow said.
”It's Harren's ghost, that's what it is,” said Goodwife Amabel. ”I'll not sleep here another night, I swear it.”
Arya lifted her gaze from the dead man and his dead dog. Jaqen H'ghar was leaning up against the side of the Wailing Tower. When he saw her looking, he lifted a hand to his face and laid two fingers casually against his cheek.
CATELYN.
Two days ride from Riverrun, a scout spied them watering their horses beside a muddy steam. Catelyn had never been so glad to see the twin tower badge of House Frey.
When she asked him to lead them to her uncle, he said, ”The Blackfish is gone west with the king, my lady. Martyn Rivers commands the outriders in his stead.”
”I see.” She had met Rivers at the Twins; a baseborn son of Lord Walder Frey, half brother to Ser Perwyn. It did not surprise her to learn that Robb had struck at the heart of Lannister power; clearly he had been contemplating just that when he sent her away to treat with Renly. ”Where is Rivers now?”
”His camp is two hours ride, my lady.”
”Take us to him,” she commanded. Brienne helped her back into her saddle, and they set out at once.
”Have you come from Bitterbridge, my lady?” the scout asked.
”No.” She had not dared. With Renly dead, Catelyn had been uncertain of the reception she might receive from his young widow and her protectors. Instead she had ridden through the heart of the war, through fertile riverlands turned to blackened desert by the fury of the Lannisters, and each night her scouts brought back tales that made her ill. ”Lord Renly is slain,” she added.
”We'd hoped that tale was some Lannister lie, or-”
”Would that it were. My brother commands in Riverrun?”
”Yes, my lady. His Grace left Ser Edmure to hold Riverrun and guard his rear.”
G.o.ds grant him the strength to do so, Catelyn thought. And the wisdom as well. ”Is there word from Robb in the west?”
”You have not heard?” The man seemed surprised. ”His Grace won a great victory at Oxcross. Ser Stafford Lannister is dead, his host scattered.”
Ser Wendel Manderly gave a whoop of pleasure, but Catelyn only nodded. Tomorrow's trials concerned her more than yesterday's triumphs.
Martyn Rivers had made his camp in the sh.e.l.l of a shattered holdfast, beside a roofless stable and a hundred fresh graves. He went to one knee when Catelyn dismounted. ”Well met, my lady. Your brother charged us to keep an eye out for your party, and escort you back to Riverrun in all haste should we come upon you.”
Catelyn scarce liked the sound of that. ”Is it my father?”
”No, my lady. Lord Hoster is unchanged.” Rivers was a ruddy man with scant resemblance to his half brothers. ”It is only that we feared you might chance upon Lannister scouts. Lord Tywin has left Harrenhal and marches west with all his power.”
”Rise,” she told Rivers, frowning. Stannis Baratheon would soon be on the march as well, G.o.ds help them all. ”How long until Lord Tywin is upon us?”
”Three days, perhaps four, it is hard to know. We have eyes out along all the roads, but it would be best not to linger.”
Nor did they. Rivers broke his camp quickly and saddled up beside her, and they set off again, near fifty strong now, flying beneath the direwolf, the leaping trout, the twin towers.
Her men wanted to hear more of Robb's victory at Oxcross, and Rivers obliged. ”There's a singer come to Riverrun, calls himself Rymund the Rhymer, he's made a song of the fight. Doubtless you'll hear it sung tonight, my lady. 'Wolf in the Night,' this Rymund calls it.” He went on to tell how the remnants of Ser Stafford's host had fallen back on Lannisport. Without siege engines there was no way to storm Casterly Rock, so the Young Wolf was paying the Lannisters back in kind for the devastation they'd inflicted on the riverlands. Lords Karstark and Glover were raiding along the coast, Lady Mormont had captured thousands of cattle and was driving them back toward Riverrun, while the Greatjon had seized the gold mines at Castamere, Nunn's Deep, and the Pendric Hills. Ser Wendel laughed. ”Nothing's more like to bring a Lannister running than a threat to his gold.”
”How did the king ever take the Tooth?” Ser Perwyn Frey asked his b.a.s.t.a.r.d brother. ”That's a hard strong keep, and it commands the hill road.”
”He never took it. He slipped around it in the night. It's said the direwolf showed him the way, that Grey Wind of his. The beast sniffed out a goat track that wound down a defile and up along beneath a ridge, a crooked and stony way, yet wide enough for men riding single file. The Lannisters in their watchtowers got not so much a glimpse of them.” Rivers lowered his voice. ”There's some say that after the battle, the king cut out Stafford Lannister's heart and fed it to the wolf.”
”I would not believe such tales,” Catelyn said sharply. ”My son is no savage.”
”As you say, my lady. Still, it's no more than the beast deserved. That is no common wolf, that one. The Greatjon's been heard to say that the old G.o.ds of the north sent those direwolves to your children.”
Catelyn remembered the day when her boys had found the pups in the late summer snows. There had been five, three male and two female for the five trueborn children of House Stark . . . and a sixth, white of fur and red of eye, for Ned's b.a.s.t.a.r.d son Jon Snow. No common wolves, she thought. No indeed.
That night as they made their camp, Brienne sought out her tent. ”My lady, you are safely back among your own now, a day's ride from your brother's castle. Give me leave to go.”
Catelyn should not have been surprised. The homely young woman had kept to herself all through their journey, spending most of her time with the horses, brus.h.i.+ng out their coats and pulling stones from their shoes. She had helped Shadd cook and clean game as well, and soon proved that she could hunt as well as any. Any task Catelyn asked her to turn her hand to, Brienne had performed deftly and without complaint, and when she was spoken to she answered politely, but she never chattered, nor wept, nor laughed. She had ridden with them every day and slept among them every night without ever truly becoming one of them.
It was the same when she was with Renly, Catelyn thought. At the feast, in the melee, even in Renly's pavilion with her brothers of the Rainbow Guard. There are walls around this one higher than Winterfell's.
”If you left us, where would you go?” Catelyn asked her.
”Back,” Brienne said. ”To Storm's End.”