Arya didn"t care about his precious princess, and didn"t like him giving her commands. "I have to bring m"lord water for his basin. He"s in his bedchamber being leeched. Not the regular black leeches but the big pale ones."
Elmar"s eyes got as big as boiled eggs. Leeches terrified him, especially the big pale ones that looked like jelly until they filled up with blood. "I forgot, you"re too skinny to push such a heavy barrel."
"I forgot, you"re stupid." Arya picked up the pail. "Maybe you should get leeched too. There"s leeches in the Neck as big as pigs." She left him there with his barrel.
The lord"s bedchamber was crowded when she entered. Qyburn was in attendance, and dour Walton in his mail shirt and greaves, plus a dozen Freys, all brothers, half brothers, and cousins. Roose Bolton lay abed, naked. Leeches clung to the inside of his arms and legs and dotted his pallid chest, long translucent things that turned a glistening pink as they fed. Bolton paid them no more mind than he did Arya.
"We must not allow Lord Tywin to trap us here at Harrenhal," Ser Aenys Frey was saying as Arya filled the washbasin. A grey stooped giant of a man with watery red eyes and huge gnarled hands, Ser Aenys had brought fifteen hundred Frey swords south to Harrenhal, yet it often seemed as if he were helpless to command even his own brothers. "The castle is so large it requires an army to hold it, and once surrounded we cannot feed an army. Nor can we hope to lay in sufficient supplies. The country is ash, the villages given over to wolves, the harvest burnt or stolen. Autumn is on us, yet there is no food in store and none being planted. We live on forage, and if the Lannisters deny that to us, we will be down to rats and shoe leather in a moon"s turn."
"I do not mean to be besieged here." Roose Bolton"s voice was so soft that men had to strain to hear it, so his chambers were always strangely hushed.
"What, then?" demanded Ser Jared Frey, who was lean, balding, and pockmarked. "Is Edmure Tully so drunk on his victory that he thinks to give Lord Tywin battle in the open field?"
If he does he"ll beat them, Arya thought. He"ll beat them as he did on the Red Fork, you"ll see. Unnoticed, she went to stand by Qyburn.
"Lord Tywin is many leagues from here," Bolton said calmly. "He has many matters yet to settle at King"s Landing. He will not march on Harrenhal for some time."
Ser Aenys shook his head stubbornly. "You do not know the Lannisters as we do, my lord. King Stannis thought that Lord Tywin was a thousand leagues away as well, and it undid him."
The pale man in the bed smiled faintly as the leeches nursed of his blood. "I am not a man to be undone, ser."
"Even if Riverrun marshals all its strength and the Young Wolf wins back from the west, how can we hope to match the numbers Lord Tywin can send against us? When he comes, he will come with far more power than he commanded on the Green Fork. Highgarden has joined itself to Joffrey"s cause, I remind you!"
"I had not forgotten."
"I have been Lord Tywin"s captive once," said Ser Hosteen, a husky man with a square face who was said to be the strongest of the Freys. "I have no wish to enjoy Lannister hospitality again."
Ser Harys Haigh, who was a Frey on his mother"s side, nodded vigorously. "If Lord Tywin could defeat a seasoned man like Stannis Baratheon, what chance will our boy king have against him?" He looked round to his brothers and cousins for support, and several of them muttered agreement.
"Someone must have the courage to say it," Ser Hosteen said. "The war is lost. King Robb must be made to see that."
Roose Bolton studied him with pale eyes. "His Grace has defeated the Lannisters every time he has faced them in battle."
"He has lost the north," insisted Hosteen Frey. "He has lost Winterfell! His brothers are dead . . ."
For a moment Arya forgot to breathe. Dead? Bran and Rickon, dead? What does he mean? What does he mean about Winterfell, Joffrey could never take Winterfell, never, Robb would never let him. Then she remembered that Robb was not at Winterfell. He was away in the west, and Bran was crippled, and Rickon only four. It took all her strength to remain still and silent, the way Syrio Forel had taught her, to stand there like a stick of furniture. She felt tears gathering in her eyes, and willed them away. It"s not true, it can"t be true, it"s just some Lannister lie.
"Had Stannis won, all might have been different," Ronel Rivers said wistfully. He was one of Lord Walder"s b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.
"Stannis lost," Ser Hosteen said bluntly. "Wishing it were otherwise will not make it so. King Robb must make his peace with the Lannisters. He must put off his crown and bend the knee, little as he may like it."
"And who will tell him so?" Roose Bolton smiled. "It is a fine thing to have so many valiant brothers in such troubled times. I shall think on all you"ve said."
His smile was dismissal. The Freys made their courtesies and shuffled out, leaving only Qyburn, Steelshanks Walton, and Arya. Lord Bolton beckoned her closer. "I am bled sufficiently. Nan, you may remove the leeches."
"At once, my lord." It was best never to make Roose Bolton ask twice. Arya wanted to ask him what Ser Hosteen had meant about Winterfell, but she dared not. I"ll ask Elmar, she thought. Elmar will tell me. The leeches wriggled slowly between her fingers as she plucked them carefully from the lord"s body, their pale bodies moist to the touch and distended with blood. They"re only leeches, she reminded herself. If I closed my hand, they"d squish between my fingers.
"There is a letter from your lady wife." Qyburn pulled a roll of parchment from his sleeve. Though he wore maester"s robes, there was no chain about his neck; it was whispered that he had lost it for dabbling in necromancy.
"You may read it," Bolton said.
The Lady Walda wrote from the Twins almost every day, but all the letters were the same. "I pray for you morn, noon, and night, my sweet lord," she wrote, "and count the days until you share my bed again. Return to me soon, and I will give you many trueborn sons to take the place of your dear Domeric and rule the Dreadfort after you." Arya pictured a plump pink baby in a cradle, covered with plump pink leeches.
She brought Lord Bolton a damp washcloth to wipe down his soft hairless body. "I will send a letter of my own," he told the onetime maester.
"To the Lady Walda?"
"To Ser Helman Tallhart."
A rider from Ser Helman had come two days past. Tallhart men had taken the castle of the Darrys, accepting the surrender of its Lannister garrison after a brief siege.
"Tell him to put the captives to the sword and the castle to the torch, by command of the king. Then he is to join forces with Robett Glover and strike east toward Duskendale. Those are rich lands, and hardly touched by the fighting. It is time they had a taste. Glover has lost a castle, and Tallhart a son. Let them take their vengeance on Duskendale."
"I shall prepare the message for your seal, my lord."
Arya was glad to hear that the castle of the Darrys would be burned. That was where they"d brought her when she"d been caught after her fight with Joffrey, and where the queen had made her father kill Sansa"s wolf. It deserves to burn. She wished that Robett Glover and Ser Helman Tallhart would come back to Harrenhal, though; they had marched too quickly, before she"d been able to decide whether to trust them with her secret.
"I will hunt today," Roose Bolton announced as Qyburn helped him into a quilted jerkin.
"Is it safe, my lord?" Qyburn asked. "Only three days past, Septon Utt"s men were attacked by wolves. They came right into his camp, not five yards from the fire, and killed two horses."
"It is wolves I mean to hunt. I can scarcely sleep at night for the howling." Bolton buckled on his belt, adjusting the hang of sword and dagger. "It"s said that direwolves once roamed the north in great packs of a hundred or more, and feared neither man nor mammoth, but that was long ago and in another land. It is queer to see the common wolves of the south so bold."
"Terrible times breed terrible things, my lord."
Bolton showed his teeth in something that might have been a smile. "Are these times so terrible, Maester?"
"Summer is gone and there are four kings in the realm."
"One king may be terrible, but four?" He shrugged. "Nan, my fur cloak." She brought it to him. "My chambers will be clean and orderly upon my return," he told her as she fastened it. "And tend to Lady Walda"s letter."
"As you say, my lord."
The lord and maester swept from the room, giving her not so much as a backward glance. When they were gone, Arya took the letter and carried it to the hearth, stirring the logs with a poker to wake the flames anew. She watched the parchment twist, blacken, and flare up. If the Lannisters hurt Bran and Rickon, Robb will kill them every one. He"ll never bend the knee, never, never, never. He"s not afraid of any of them. Curls of ash floated up the chimney. Arya squatted beside the fire, watching them rise through a veil of hot tears. If Winterfell is truly gone, is this my home now? Am I still Arya, or only Nan the serving girl, for forever and forever and forever?
She spent the next few hours tending to the lord"s chambers. She swept out the old rushes and scattered fresh sweet-smelling ones, laid a fresh fire in the hearth, changed the linens and fluffed the featherbed, emptied the chamber pots down the privy shaft and scrubbed them out, carried an armload of soiled clothing to the washerwomen, and brought up a bowl of crisp autumn pears from the kitchen. When she was done with the bedchamber, she went down half a flight of stairs to do the same in the great solar, a spare drafty room as large as the halls of many a smaller castle. The candles were down to stubs, so Arya changed them out. Under the windows was a huge oaken table where the lord wrote his letters. She stacked the books, changed the candles, put the quills and inks and sealing wax in order.
A large ragged sheepskin was tossed across the papers. Arya had started to roll it up when the colors caught her eye: the blue of lakes and rivers, the red dots where castles and cities could be found, the green of woods. She spread it out instead. THE LANDS OF THE TRIDENT, said the ornate script beneath the map. The drawing showed everything from the Neck to the Blackwater Rush. There"s Harrenhal at the top of the big lake, she realized, but where"s Riverrun? Then she saw. It"s not so far . . .
The afternoon was still young by the time she was done, so Arya took herself off to the G.o.dswood. Her duties were lighter as Lord Bolton"s cupbearer than they had been under Weese or even Pinkeye, though they required dressing like a page and washing more than she liked. The hunt would not return for hours, so she had a little time for her needlework.
She slashed at birch leaves till the splintery point of the broken broomstick was green and sticky. "Ser Gregor," she breathed. "Dunsen, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling." She spun and leapt and balanced on the b.a.l.l.s of her feet, darting this way and that, knocking pinecones flying. "The Tickler," she called out one time, "the Hound," the next. "Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei." The bole of an oak loomed before her, and she lunged to drive her point through it, grunting "Joffrey, Joffrey, Joffrey." Her arms and legs were dappled by sunlight and the shadows of leaves. A sheen of sweat covered her skin by the time she paused. The heel of her right foot was b.l.o.o.d.y where she"d skinned it, so she stood one-legged before the heart tree and raised her sword in salute. "Valar morghulis," she told the old G.o.ds of the north. She liked how the words sounded when she said them.
As Arya crossed the yard to the bathhouse, she spied a raven circling down toward the rookery, and wondered where it had come from and what message it carried. Might be it"s from Robb, come to say it wasn"t true about Bran and Rickon. She chewed on her lip, hoping. If I had wings I could fly back to Winterfell and see for myself. And if it was true, I"d just fly away, fly up past the moon and the shining stars, and see all the things in Old Nan"s stories, dragons and sea monsters and the t.i.tan of Braavos, and maybe I wouldn"t ever fly back unless I wanted to.
The hunting party returned near evenfall with nine dead wolves. Seven were adults, big grey-brown beasts, savage and powerful, their mouths drawn back over long yellow teeth by their dying snarls. But the other two had only been pups. Lord Bolton gave orders for the skins to be sewn into a blanket for his bed. "Cubs still have that soft fur, my lord," one of his men pointed out. "Make you a nice warm pair of gloves."
Bolton glanced up at the banners waving above the gatehouse towers. "As the Starks are wont to remind us, winter is coming. Have it done." When he saw Arya looking on, he said, "Nan, I"ll want a flagon of hot spice wine, I took a chill in the woods. See that it doesn"t get cold. I"m of a mind to sup alone. Barley bread, b.u.t.ter, and boar."
"At once, my lord." That was always the best thing to say.
Hot Pie was making oatcakes when she entered the kitchen. Three other cooks were boning fish, while a spit boy turned a boar over the flames. "My lord wants his supper, and hot spice wine to wash it down," Arya announced, "and he doesn"t want it cold." One of the cooks washed his hands, took out a kettle, and filled it with a heavy, sweet red. Hot Pie was told to crumble in the spices as the wine heated. Arya went to help.
"I can do it," he said sullenly. "I don"t need you to show me how to spice wine."
He hates me too, or else he"s scared of me. She backed away, more sad than angry. When the food was ready, the cooks covered it with a silver cover and wrapped the flagon in a thick towel to keep it warm. Dusk was settling outside. On the walls the crows muttered round the heads like courtiers round a king. One of the guards held the door to Kingspyre. "Hope that"s not weasel soup," he jested.
Roose Bolton was seated by the hearth reading from a thick leatherbound book when she entered. "Light some candles," he commanded her as he turned a page. "It grows gloomy in here."
She placed the food at his elbow and did as he bid her, filling the room with flickering light and the scent of cloves. Bolton turned a few more pages with his finger, then closed the book and placed it carefully in the fire. He watched the flames consume it, pale eyes shining with reflected light. The old dry leather went up with a whoosh, and the yellow pages stirred as they burned, as if some ghost were reading them. "I will have no further need of you tonight," he said, never looking at her.
She should have gone, silent as a mouse, but something had hold of her. "My lord," she asked, "will you take me with you when you leave Harrenhal?"
He turned to stare at her, and from the look in his eyes it was as if his supper had just spoken to him. "Did I give you leave to question me, Nan?"
"No, my lord." She lowered her eyes.
"You should not have spoken, then. Should you?"
"No. My lord."
For a moment he looked amused. "I will answer you, just this once. I mean to give Harrenhal to Lord Vargo when I return to the north. You will remain here, with him."
"But I don"t-" she started.
He cut her off. "I am not in the habit of being questioned by servants, Nan. Must I have your tongue out?"
He would do it as easily as another man might cuff a dog, she knew. "No, my lord."
"Then I"ll hear no more from you?"
"No, my lord."
"Go, then. I shall forget this insolence."
Arya went, but not to her bed. When she stepped out into the darkness of the yard, the guard on the door nodded at her and said, "Storm coming. Smell the air?" The wind was gusting, flames swirling off the torches mounted atop the walls beside the rows of heads. On her way to the G.o.dswood, she pa.s.sed the Wailing Tower where once she had lived in fear of Weese. The Freys had taken it for their own since Harrenhal"s fall. She could hear angry voices coming from a window, many men talking and arguing all at once. Elmar was sitting on the steps outside, alone.
"What"s wrong?" Arya asked him when she saw the tears shining on his cheeks.
"My princess," he sobbed. "We"ve been dishonored, Aenys says. There was a bird from the Twins. My lord father says I"ll need to marry someone else, or be a septon."
A stupid princess, she thought, that"s nothing to cry over. "My brothers might be dead," she confided.
Elmar gave her a scornful look. "No one cares about a serving girl"s brothers."
It was hard not to hit him when he said that. "I hope your princess dies," she said, and ran off before he could grab her.
In the G.o.dswood she found her broomstick sword where she had left it, and carried it to the heart tree. There she knelt. Red leaves rustled. Red eyes peered inside her. The eyes of the G.o.ds. "Tell me what to do, you G.o.ds," she prayed.
For a long moment there was no sound but the wind and the water and the creak of leaf and limb. And then, far far off, beyond the G.o.dswood and the haunted towers and the immense stone walls of Harrenhal, from somewhere out in the world, came the long lonely howl of a wolf. Goosep.r.i.c.kles rose on Arya"s skin, and for an instant she felt dizzy. Then, so faintly, it seemed as if she heard her father"s voice. "When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives," he said.
"But there is no pack," she whispered to the weirwood. Bran and Rickon were dead, the Lannisters had Sansa, Jon had gone to the Wall. "I"m not even me now, I"m Nan."
"You are Arya of Winterfell, daughter of the north. You told me you could be strong. You have the wolf blood in you."
"The wolf blood." Arya remembered now. "I"ll be as strong as Robb. I said I would." She took a deep breath, then lifted the broomstick in both hands and brought it down across her knee. It broke with a loud crack, and she threw the pieces aside. I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth.
That night she lay in her narrow bed upon the scratchy straw, listening to the voices of the living and the dead whisper and argue as she waited for the moon to rise. They were the only voices she trusted anymore. She could hear the sound of her own breath, and the wolves as well, a great pack of them now. They are closer than the one I heard in the G.o.dswood, she thought. They are calling to me.
Finally she slipped from under the blanket, wriggled into a tunic, and padded barefoot down the stairs. Roose Bolton was a cautious man, and the entrance to Kingspyre was guarded day and night, so she had to slip out of a narrow cellar window. The yard was still, the great castle lost in haunted dreams. Above, the wind keened through the Wailing Tower.
At the forge she found the fires extinguished and the doors closed and barred. She crept in a window, as she had once before. Gendry shared a mattress with two other apprentice smiths. She crouched in the loft for a long time before her eyes adjusted enough for her to be sure that he was the one on the end. Then she put a hand over his mouth and pinched him. His eyes opened. He could not have been very deeply asleep. "Please," she whispered. She took her hand off his mouth and pointed.
For a moment she did not think he understood, but then he slid out from under the blankets. Naked, he padded across the room, shrugged into a loose roughspun tunic, and climbed down from the loft after her. The other sleepers did not stir. "What do you want now?" Gendry said in a low angry voice.
"A sword."
"Blackthumb keeps all the blades locked up, I told you that a hundred times. Is this for Lord Leech?"
"For me. Break the lock with your hammer."
"They"ll break my hand," he grumbled. "Or worse."
"Not if you run off with me."
"Run, and they"ll catch you and kill you."
"They"ll do you worse. Lord Bolton is giving Harrenhal to the b.l.o.o.d.y Mummers, he told me so."
Gendry pushed black hair out of his eyes. "So?"
She looked right at him, fearless. "So when Vargo Hoat"s the lord, he"s going to cut off the feet of all the servants to keep them from running away. The smiths too."
"That"s only a story," he said scornfully.
"No, it"s true, I heard Lord Vargo say so," she lied. "He"s going to cut one foot off everyone. The left one. Go to the kitchens and wake Hot Pie, he"ll do what you say. We"ll need bread or oakcakes or something. You get the swords and I"ll do the horses. We"ll meet near the postern in the east wall, behind the Tower of Ghosts. No one ever comes there."
"I know that gate. It"s guarded, same as the rest."
"So? You won"t forget the swords?"
"I never said I"d come."
"No. But if you do, you won"t forget the swords?"
He frowned. "No," he said at last. "I guess I won"t."
Arya reentered Kingspyre the same way she had left it, and stole up the winding steps listening for footfalls. In her cell, she stripped to the skin and dressed herself carefully, in two layers of smallclothes, warm stockings, and her cleanest tunic. It was Lord Bolton"s livery. On the breast was sewn his sigil, the flayed man of the Dreadfort. She tied her shoes, threw a wool cloak over her skinny shoulders, and knotted it under her throat. Quiet as a shadow, she moved back down the stairs. Outside the lord"s solar she paused to listen at the door, easing it open slowly when she heard only silence.