[Truyện TA] George R. R. Martin - A Song of Ice and Fire 1 - A Games of Thrones

Chapter 63
Catelyn​

The woods were full of whispers.
Moonlight winked on the tumbling waters of the stream below as it wound its rocky way along the floor of the valley. Beneath the trees, warhorses whickered softly and pawed at the moist, leafy ground, while men made nervous jests in hushed voices. Now and again, she heard the chink of spears, the faint metallic slither of chain mail, but even those sounds were muffled.
?oIt should not be long now, my lady,? Hallis Mollen said. He had asked for the honor of protecting her in the battle to come; it was his right, as Winterfell?Ts captain of guards, and Robb had not refused it to him. She had thirty men around her, charged to keep her unharmed and see her safely home to Winterfell if the fighting went against them. Robb had wanted fifty; Catelyn had insisted that ten would be enough, that he would need every sword for the fight. They made their peace at thirty, neither happy with it.
?oIt will come when it comes,? Catelyn told him. When it came, she knew it would mean death. Hal?Ts death perhaps... or hers, or Robb?Ts. No one was safe. No life was certain. Catelyn was content to wait, to listen to the whispers in the woods and the faint music of the brook, to feel the warm wind in her hair.
She was no stranger to waiting, after all. Her men had always made her wait. ?oWatch for me, little cat,? her father would always tell her, when he rode off to court or fair or battle. And she would, standing patiently on the battlements of Riverrun as the waters of the Red Fork and the Tumblestone flowed by. He did not always come when he said he would, and days would ofttimes pass as Catelyn stood her vigil, peering out between crenels and through arrow loops until she caught a glimpse of Lord Hoster on his old brown gelding, trotting along the rivershore toward the landing. ?oDid you watch for me?? hê?Td ask when he bent to hug her. ?oDid you, little cat??
Brandon Stark had bid her wait as well. ?oI shall not be long, my lady,? he had vowed. ?oWe will be wed on my return.? Yet when the day came at last, it was his brother Eddard who stood beside her in the sept.
Ned had lingered scarcely a fortnight with his new bride before he too had ridden off to war with promises on his lips. At least he had left her with more than words; he had given her a son. Nine moons had waxed and waned, and Robb had been born in Riverrun while his father still warred in the south. She had brought him forth in blood and pain, not knowing whether Ned would ever see him. Her son. He had been so small...
And now it was for Robb that she waited... for Robb, and for Jaime Lannister, the gilded knight who men said had never learned to wait at all. ?oThe Kingslayer is restless, and quick to anger,? her uncle Brynden had told Robb. And he had wagered their lives and their best hope of victory on the truth of what he said.
If Robb was frightened, he gave no sign of it. Catelyn watched her son as he moved among the men, touching one on the shoulder, sharing a jest with another, helping a third to gentle an anxious horse. His armor clinked softly when he moved. Only his head was bare. Catelyn watched a breeze stir his auburn hair, so like her own, and wondered when her son had grown so big. Fifteen, and near as tall as she was.
Let him grow taller, she asked the gods. Let him know sixteen, and twenty, and fifty. Let him grow as tall as his father, and hold his own son in his arms. Please, please, please. As she watched him, this tall young man with the new beard and the direwolf prowling at his heels, all she could see was the babe they had laid at her breast at Riverrun, so long ago.
The night was warm, but the thought of Riverrun was enough to make her shiver. Where are they? She wondered. Could her uncle have been wrong? So much rested on the truth of what he had told them. Robb had given the Blackfish three hundred picked men, and sent them ahead to screen his march. ?oJaime does not know,? Ser Brynden said when he rode back. ?oI?Tll stake my life on that. No bird has reached him, my archers have seen to that. Wê?Tve seen a few of his outriders, but those that saw us did not live to tell of it. He ought to have sent out more. He does not know.?
?oHow large is his host?? her son asked.
?oTwelve thousand foot, scattered around the castle in three separate camps, with the rivers between,? her uncle said, with the craggy smile she remembered so well. ?oThere is no other way to besiege Riverrun, yet still, that will be their undoing. Two or three thousand horse.?
?oThe Kingslayer has us three to one,? said Galbart Glover.
?oTrue enough,? Ser Brynden said, ?oyet there is one thing Ser Jaime lacks.?
?oYes?? Robb asked.
?oPatience.?
Their host was greater than it had been when they left the Twins. Lord Jason Mallister had brought his power out from Seagard to join them as they swept around the headwaters of the Blue Fork and galloped south, and others had crept forth as well, hedge knights and small lords and masterless men-at-arms who had fled north when her brother Edmurê?Ts army was shattered beneath the walls of Riverrun. They had driven their horses as hard as they dared to reach this place before Jaime Lannister had word of their coming, and now the hour was at hand.
Catelyn watched her son mount up. Lyvar Frey held his horse for him, Lord Walder?Ts son, two years older than Robb, and ten years younger and more anxious. He strapped Robb?Ts shield in place and handed up his helm. When he lowered it over the face she loved so well, a tall young knight sat on his grey stallion where her son had been. It was dark among the trees, where the moon did not reach. When Robb turned his head to look at her, she could see only black inside his visor. ?oI must ride down the line, Mother,? he told her. ?oFather says you should let the men see you before a battle.?
?oGo, then,? she said. ?oLet them see you.?
?oIt will give them courage,? Robb said.
And who will give me courage? She wondered, yet she kept her silence and made herself smile for him. Robb turned the big grey stallion and walked him slowly away from her, Grey Wind shadowing his steps. Behind him his battle guard formed up. When hê?Td forced Catelyn to accept her protectors, she had insisted that he be guarded as well, and the lords bannermen had agreed. Many of their sons had clamored for the honor of riding with the Young Wolf, as they had taken to calling him. Torrhen Karstark and his brother Eddard were among his thirty, and Patrek Mallister, Smalljon Umber, Daryn Hornwood, Theon Greyjoy, no less than five of Walder Frey?Ts vast brood, along with older men like Ser Wendel Manderly and Robin Flint. One of his companions was even a woman: Dacey Mormont, Lady Maegê?Ts eldest daughter and heir to Bear Island, a lanky sixfooter who had been given a morningstar at an age when most girls were given dolls. Some of the other lords muttered about that, but Catelyn would not listen to their complaints. ?oThis is not about the honor of your houses,? she told them. ?oThis is about keeping my son alive and whole.?
And if it comes to that, she wondered, will thirty be enough? Will six thousand be enough?
A bird called faintly in the distance, a high sharp trill that felt like an icy hand on Catelyn?Ts neck. Another bird answered; a third, a fourth. She knew their call well enough, from her years at Winterfell. Snow shrikes. Sometimes you saw them in the deep of winter, when the godswood was white and still. They were northern birds.
They are coming, Catelyn thought.
?oThey?Tre coming, my lady,? Hal Mollen whispered. He was always a man for stating the obvious. ?oGods be with us.?
She nodded as the woods grew still around them. In the quiet she could hear them, far off yet moving closer; the tread of many horses, the rattle of swords and spears and armor, the murmur of human voices, with here a laugh, and there a curse.
Eons seemed to come and go. The sounds grew louder. She heard more laughter, a shouted command, splashing as they crossed and recrossed the little stream. A horse snorted. A man swore. And then at last she saw him... only for an instant, framed between the branches of the trees as she looked down at the valley floor, yet she knew it was him. Even at a distance, Ser Jaime Lannister was unmistakable. The moonlight had silvered his armor and the gold of his hair, and turned his crimson cloak to black. He was not wearing a helm.
He was there and he was gone again, his silvery armor obscured by the trees once more. Others came behind him, long columns of them, knights and sworn swords and freeriders, three quarters of the Lannister horse.
?oHe is no man for sitting in a tent while his carpenters build siege towers,? Ser Brynden had promised. ?oHe has ridden out with his knights thrice already, to chase down raiders or storm a stubborn holdfast.?
Nodding, Robb had studied the map her uncle had drawn him. Ned had taught him to read maps. ?oRaid him here,? he said, pointing. ?oA few hundred men, no more. Tully banners. When he comes after you, we will be waiting? - his finger moved an inch to the left - ?ohere.?
Here was a hush in the night, moonlight and shadows, a thick carpet of dead leaves underfoot, densely wooded ridges sloping gently down to the streambed, the underbrush thinning as the ground fell away.
Here was her son on his stallion, glancing back at her one last time and lifting his sword in salute.
Here was the call of Maege Mormont?Ts warhorn, a long low blast that rolled down the valley from the east, to tell them that the last of Jaimê?Ts riders had entered the trap.
And Grey Wind threw back his head and howled.
The sound seemed to go right through Catelyn Stark, and she found herself shivering. It was a terrible sound, a frightening sound, yet there was music in it too. For a second she felt something like pity for the Lannisters below. So this is what death sounds like, she thought.
HAAroooooooooooooooooooooooo came the answer from the far ridge as the Greatjon winded his own horn. To east and west, the trumpets of the Mallisters and Freys blew vengeance. North, where the valley narrowed and bent like a ****ed elbow, Lord Karstark?Ts warhorns added their own deep, mournful voices to the dark chorus. Men were shouting and horses rearing in the stream below.
The whispering wood let out its breath all at once, as the bowmen Robb had hidden in the branches of the trees let fly their arrows and the night erupted with the screams of men and horses. All around her, the riders raised their lances, and the dirt and leaves that had buried the cruet bright points fell away to reveal the gleam of sharpened steel. ?oWintefell!? she heard Robb shout as the arrows sighed again. He moved away from her at a trot, leading his men downhill.
Catelyn sat on her horse, unmoving, with Hal Mollen and her guard around her, and she waited as she had waited before, for Brandon and Ned and her father. She was high on the ridge, and the trees hid most of what was going on beneath her. A heartbeat, two, four, and suddenly it was as if she and her protectors were alone in the wood. The rest were melted away into the green.
Yet when she looked across the valley to the far ridge, she saw the Greatjon?Ts riders emerge from the darkness beneath the trees. They were in a long line, an endless line, and as they burst from the wood there was an instant, the smallest part of a heartbeat, when all Catelyn saw was the moonlight on the points of their lances, as if a thousand willowisps were coming down the ridge, wreathed in silver flame.
Then she blinked, and they were only men, rushing down to kill or die.
Afterward, she could not claim she had seen the battle. Yet she could hear, and the valley rang with echoes. The crack of a broken lance, the clash of swords, the cries of ?oLannister? and ?oWinterfell? and ?oTully! Riverrun and Tully!? When she realized there was no more to see, she closed her eyes and listened. The battle came alive around her. She heard hoofbeats, iron boots splashing in shallow water, the woody sound of swords on oaken shields and the scrape of steel against steel, the hiss of arrows, the thunder of drums, the terrified screaming of a thousand horses. Men shouted curses and begged for mercy, and got it (or not), and lived (or died). The ridges seemed to play queer tricks with sound. Once she heard Robb?Ts voice, as clear as if hê?Td been standing at her side, calling, ?oTo me! To me!? And she heard his direwolf, snarling and growling, heard the snap of those long teeth, the tearing of flesh, shrieks of fear and pain from man and horse alike. Was there only one wolf? It was hard to be certain.
Little by little, the sounds dwindled and died, until at last there was only the wolf. As a red dawn broke in the east, Grey Wind began to howl again.
Robb came back to her on a different horse, riding a piebald gelding in the place of the grey stallion he had taken down into the valley. The wolf?Ts head on his shield was slashed half to pieces, raw wood showing where deep gouges had been hacked in the oak, but Robb himself seemed unhurt. Yet when he came closer, Catelyn saw that his mailed glove and the sleeve of his surcoat were black with blood. ?oYou?Tre hurt,? she said.
Robb lifted his hand, opened and closed his fingers. ?oNo,? he said. ?oThis is... Torrhen?Ts blood, perhaps, or...? He shook his head. ?oI do not know.?
A mob of men followed him up the slope, dirty and dented and grinning, with Theon and the Greatjon at their head. Between them they dragged Ser Jaime Lannister. They threw him down in front of her horse. ?oThe Kingslayer,? Hal announced, unnecessarily.
Lannister raised his head. ?oLady Stark,? he said from his knees. Blood ran down one cheek from a gash across his scalp, but the pale light of dawn had put the glint of gold back in his hair. ?oI would offer you my sword, but I seem to have mislaid it.?
?oIt is not your sword I want, ser,? she told him. ?oGive me my father and my brother Edmure. Give me my daughters. Give me my lord husband.?
?oI have mislaid them as well, I fear.?
?oA pity,? Catelyn said coldly.
?oKill him, Robb,? Theon Greyjoy urged. ?oTake his head off.?
?oNo,? her son answered, peeling off his bloody glove. ?oHê?Ts more use alive than dead. And my lord father never condoned the murder of prisoners after a battle.?
?oA wise man,? Jaime Lannister said, ?oand honorable.?
?oTake him away and put him in irons,? Catelyn said.
?oDo as my lady mother says,? Robb commanded, ?oand make certain therê?Ts a strong guard around him. Lord Karstark will want his head on a pike.?
?oThat he will,? the Greatjon agreed, gesturing. Lannister was led away to be bandaged and chained.
?oWhy should Lord Karstark want him dead?? Catelyn asked.
Robb looked away into the woods, with the same brooding look that Ned often got. ?oHe... he killed them...?
?oLord Karstark?Ts sons,? Galbart Glover explained.
?oBoth of them,? said Robb. ?oTorrhen and Eddard. And Daryn Hornwood as well.?
?oNo one can fault Lannister on his courage,? Glover said. ?oWhen he saw that he was lost, he rallied his retainers and fought his way up the valley, hoping to reach Lord Robb and cut him down. And almost did.?
?oHe mislaid his sword in Eddard Karstark?Ts neck, after he took Torrhen?Ts hand off and split Daryn Hornwood?Ts skull open,? Robb said. ?oAll the time he was shouting for me. If they hadn?Tt tried to stop him-?
?o-I should then be mourning in place of Lord Karstark,? Catelyn said. ?oYour men did what they were sworn to do, Robb. They died protecting their liege lord. Grieve for them. Honor them for their valor. But not now. You have no time for grief. You may have lopped the head off the snake, but three quarters of the body is still coiled around my father?Ts castle. We have won a battle, not a war.?
?oBut such a battle!? said Theon Greyjoy eagerly. ?oMy lady, the realm has not seen such a victory since the Field of Fire. I vow, the Lannisters lost ten men for every one of ours that fell. Wê?Tve taken close to a hundred knights captive, and a dozen lords bannermen. Lord Westerling, Lord Banefort, Ser Garth Greenfield, Lord Estren, Ser Tytos Brax, Mallor the Dornishman... and three Lannisters besides Jaime, Lord Tywin?Ts own nephews, two of his sister?Ts sons and one of his dead brother?Ts...?
?oAnd Lord Tywin?? Catelyn interrupted. ?oHave you perchance taken Lord Tywin, Theon??
?oNo,? Greyjoy answered, brought up short.
?oUntil you do, this war is far from done.?
Robb raised his head and pushed his hair back out of his eyes. ?oMy mother is right. We still have Riverrun.?

Chapter 64
Daenerys​

The flies circled Khal Drogo slowly, their wings buzzing, a low thrum at the edge of hearing that filled Dany with dread.
The sun was high and pitiless. Heat shimmered in waves off the stony outcrops of low hills. A thin finger of sweat trickled slowly between Dany?Ts swollen breasts. The only sounds were the steady clop of their horses?T hooves, the rhythmic tingle of the bells in Drogô?Ts hair, and the distant voices behind them.
Dany watched the flies.
They were as large as bees, gross, purplish, glistening. The Dothraki called them bloodflies. They lived in marshes and stagnant pools, sucked blood from man and horse alike, and laid their eggs in the dead and dying. Drogo hated them. Whenever one came near him, his hand would shoot out quick as a striking snake to close around it. She had never seen him miss. He would hold the fly inside his huge fist long enough to hear its frantic buzzing. Then his fingers would tighten, and when he opened his hand again, the fly would be only a red smear on his palm.
Now one crept across the rump of his stallion, and the horse gave an angry flick of its tail to brush it away. The others flitted about Drogo, closer and closer. The khal did not react. His eyes were fixed on distant brown hills, the reins loose in his hands. Beneath his painted vest, a plaster of fig leaves and caked blue mud covered the wound on his breast. The herbwomen had made it for him. Mirri Maz Duur?Ts poultice had itched and burned, and he had torn it off six days ago, cursing her for a maegi. The mud plaster was more soothing, and the herbwomen made him poppy wine as well. Hê?Td been drinking it heavily these past three days; when it was not poppy wine, it was fermented marê?Ts milk or pepper beer.
Yet he scarcely touched his food, and he thrashed and groaned in the night. Dany could see how drawn his face had become. Rhaego was restless in her belly, kicking like a stallion, yet even that did not stir Drogô?Ts interest as it had. Every morning her eyes found fresh lines of pain on his face when he woke from his troubled sleep. And now this silence. It was making her afraid. Since they had mounted up at dawn, he had said not a word. When she spoke, she got no answer but a grunt, and not even that much since midday.
One of the bloodflies landed on the bare skin of the khal?Ts shoulder. Another, circling, touched down on his neck and crept up toward his mouth. Khal Drogo swayed in the saddle, bells ringing, as his stallion kept onward at a steady walking pace.
Dany pressed her heels into her silver and rode closer. ?oMy lord,? she said softly. ?oDrogo. My sun-and-stars.?
He did not seem to hear. The bloodfly crawled up under his drooping mustache and settled on his cheek, in the crease beside his nose. Dany gasped, ?oDrogo.? Clumsily she reached over and touched his arm.
Khal Drogo reeled in the saddle, tilted slowly, and fell heavily from his horse. The flies scattered for a heartbeat, and then circled back to settle on him where he lay.
?oNo,? Dany said, reining up. Heedless of her belly for once, she scrambled off her silver and ran to him.
The grass beneath him was brown and dry. Drogo cried out in pain as Dany knelt beside him. His breath rattled harshly in his throat, and he looked at her without recognition. ?oMy horse,? he gasped. Dany brushed the flies off his chest, smashing one as he would have. His skin burned beneath her fingers.
The khal?Ts bloodriders had been following just behind them. She heard Haggo shout as they galloped up. Cohollo vaulted from his horse. ?oBlood of my blood,? he said as he dropped to his knees. The other two kept to their mounts.
?oNo,? Khal Drogo groaned, struggling in Dany?Ts arms. ?oMust ride. Ride. No.?
?oHe fell from his horse,? Haggo said, staring down. His broad face was impassive, but his voice was leaden.
?oYou must not say that,? Dany told him. ?oWe have ridden far enough today. We will camp here.?
?oHere?? Haggo looked around them. The land was brown and sere, inhospitable. ?oThis is no camping ground.?
?oIt is not for a woman to bid us halt,? said Qotho, ?onot even a khaleesi.?
?oWe camp here,? Dany repeated. ?oHaggo, tell them Khal Drogo commanded the halt. If any ask why, say to them that my time is near and I could not continue. Cohollo, bring up the slaves, they must put up the khal?Ts tent at once. Qotho-?
?oYou do not command me, Khaleesi,? Qotho said.
?oFind Mirri Maz Duur,? she told him. The godswife would be walking among the other Lamb Men, in the long column of slaves. ?oBring her to me, with her chest.?
Qotho glared down at her, his eyes hard as flint. ?oThe maegi.? He spat. ?oThis I will not do.?
?oYou will,? Dany said, ?oor when Drogo wakes, he will hear why you defied me.?
Furious, Qotho wheeled his stallion around and galloped off in anger... but Dany knew he would return with Mirri Maz Duur, however little he might like it. The slaves erected Khal Drogô?Ts tent beneath a jagged outcrop of black rock whose shadow gave some relief from the heat of the afternoon sun. Even so, it was stifling under the sandsilk as Irri and Doreah helped Dany walk Drogo inside. Thick patterned carpets had been laid down over the ground, and pillows scattered in the corners. Eroeh, the timid girl Dany had rescued outside the mud walls of the Lamb Men, set up a brazier. They stretched Drogo out on a woven mat. ?oNo,? he muttered in the Common Tongue. ?oNo, no.? It was all he said, all he seemed capable of saying.
Doreah unhooked his medallion belt and stripped off his vest and leggings, while Jhiqui knelt by his feet to undo the laces of his riding sandals. Irri wanted to leave the tent flaps open to let in the breeze, but Dany forbade it. She would not have any see Drogo this way, indelirium and weakness. When her khas came up, she posted them outside at guard. ?oAdmit no one without my leave,? she told Jhogo. ?oNo one.?
Eroeh stared fearfully at Drogo where he lay. ?oHe dies,? she whispered.
Dany slapped her. ?oThe khal cannot die. He is the father of the stallion who mounts the world. His hair has never been cut. He still wears the bells his father gave him.?
?oKhaleesi,? Jhiqui said, ?ohe fell from his horse.?
Trembling, her eyes full of sudden tears, Dany turned away from them. He fell from his horse! It was so, she had seen it, and the bloodriders, and no doubt her handmaids and the men of her khas as well. And how many more? They could not keep it secret, and Dany knew what that meant. A khal who could not ride could not rule, and Drogo had fallen from his horse.
?oWe must bathe him,? she said stubbornly. She must not allow herself to despair. ?oIrri, have the tub brought at once. Doreah, Eroeh, find water, cool water, hê?Ts so hot.? He was a fire in human skin.
The slaves set up the heavy copper tub in the corner of the tent. When Doreah brought the first jar of water, Dany wet a length of silk to lay across Drogô?Ts brow, over the burning skin. His eyes looked at her, but he did not see. When his lips opened, no words escaped them, only a moan. ?oWhere is Mirri Maz Duur?? she demanded, her patience rubbed raw with fear.
?oQotho will find her,? Irri said.
Her handmaids filled the tub with tepid water that stank of sulfur, sweetening it with jars of bitter oil and handfuls of crushed mint leaves. While the bath was being prepared, Dany knelt awkwardly beside her lord husband, her belly great with their child within. She undid his braid with anxious fingers, as she had on the night hê?Td taken her for the first time, beneath the stars. His bells she laid aside carefully, one by one. He would want them again when he was well, she told herself.
A breath of air entered the tent as Aggo poked his head through the silk. ?oKhaleesi,? he said, ?othe Andal is come, and begs leave to enter.?
?oThe Andal? was what the Dothraki called Ser Jorah. ?oYes,? she said, rising clumsily, ?osend him in.? She trusted the knight. He would know what to do if anyone did.
Ser Jorah Mormont ducked through the door flap and waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimness. In the fierce heat of the south, he wore loose trousers of mottled sandsilk and open-toed riding sandals that laced up to his knee. His scabbard hung from a twisted horsehair belt. Under a bleached white vest, he was bare-chested, skin reddened by the sun. ?oTalk goes from mouth to ear, all over the khalasar,? he said. ?oIt is said Khal Drogo fell from his horse.?
?oHelp him,? Dany pleaded. ?oFor the love you say you bear me, help him now.?
The knight knelt beside her. He looked at Drogo long and hard, and then at Dany. ?oSend your maids away.?
Wordlessly, her throat tight with fear, Dany made a gesture. Irri herded the other girls from the tent. When they were alone, Ser Jorah drew his dagger. Deftly, with a delicacy surprising in such a big man, he began to scrape away the black leaves and dried blue mud from Drogô?Ts chest. The plaster had caked hard as the mud walls of the Lamb Men, and like those walls it cracked easily. Ser Jorah broke the dry mud with his knife, pried the chunks from the flesh, peeled off the leaves one by one. A foul, sweet smell rose from the wound, so thick it almost choked her. The leaves were crusted with blood and pus, Drogô?Ts breast black and glistening with corruption.
?oNo,? Dany whispered as tears ran down her cheeks. ?oNo, please, gods hear me, no.?
Khal Drogo thrashed, fighting some unseen enemy. Black blood ran slow and thick from his open wound.
?oYour khal is good as dead, Princess.?
?oNo, he can?Tt die, he mustn?Tt, it was only a cut.? Dany took his large callused hand in her own small ones, and held it tight between them. ?oI will not let him die...?
Ser Jorah gave a bitter laugh. ?oKhaleesi or queen, that command is beyond your power. Save your tears, child. Weep for him tomorrow, or a year from now. We do not have time for grief. We must go, and quickly, before he dies.?
Dany was lost. ?oGo? Where should we go??
?oAsshai, I would say. It lies far to the south, at the end of the known world, yet men say it is a great port. We will find a ship to take us back to Pentos. It will be a hard journey, make no mistake. Do you trust your khas? Will they come with us??
?oKhal Drogo commanded them to keep me safe,? Dany replied uncertainly, ?obut if he dies...? She touched the swell of her belly. ?oI don?Tt understand. Why should we flee? I am khaleesi. I carry Drogô?Ts heir. He will be khal after Drogo...?
Ser Jorah frowned. ?oPrincess, hear me. The Dothraki will not follow a suckling babe. Drogô?Ts strength was what they bowed to, and only that. When he is gone, Jhaqo and Pono and the other kos will fight for his place, and this khalasar will devour itself. The winner will want no more rivals. The boy will be taken from your breast the moment he is born. They will give him to the dogs...?
Dany hugged herself. ?oBut why?? she cried plaintively. ?oWhy should they kill a little baby??
?oHe is Drogô?Ts son, and the crones say he will be the stallion who mounts the world. It was prophesied. Better to kill the child than to risk his fury when he grows to manhood.?
The child kicked inside her, as if he had heard. Dany remembered the story Viserys had told her, of what the Usurper?Ts dogs had done to Rhaegar?Ts children. His son had been a babe as well, yet they had ripped him from his mother?Ts breast and dashed his head against a wall. That was the way of men. ?oThey must not hurt my son!? she cried. ?oI will order my khas to keep him safe, and Drogô?Ts bloodriders will-?
Ser Jorah held her by the shoulders. ?oA bloodrider dies with his khal. You know that, child. They will take you to Vaes Dothrak, to the crones, that is the last duty they owe him in life... when it is done, they will join Drogo in the night lands.?
Dany did not want to go back to Vaes Dothrak and live the rest of her life among those terrible old women, yet she knew that the knight spoke the truth. Drogo had been more than her sun-and-stars; he had been the shield that kept her safe. ?oI will not leave him,? she said stubbornly, miserably. She took his hand again. ?oI will not.?

A stirring at the tent flap made Dany turn her head. Mirri Maz Duur entered, bowing low. Days on the march, trailing behind the khalasar, had left her limping and haggard, with blistered and bleeding feet and hollows under her eyes. Behind her came Qotho and Haggo, carrying the godswifê?Ts chest between them. When the bloodriders caught sight of Drogô?Ts wound, the chest slipped from Haggô?Ts fingers and crashed to the floor of the tent, and Qotho swore an oath so foul it seared the air.
Mirri Maz Duur studied Drogo, her face still and dead. ?oThe wound has festered.?
?oThis is your work, maegi,? Qotho said. Haggo laid his fist across Mirri?Ts cheek with a meaty smack that drove her to the ground. Then he kicked her where she lay.
?oStop it!? Dany screamed.
Qotho pulled Haggo away, saying, ?oKicks are too merciful for a maegi. Take her outside. We will stake her to the earth, to be the mount of every passing man. And when they are done with her, the dogs will use her as well. Weasels will tear out her entrails and carrion crows feast upon her eyes. The flies off the river shall lay their eggs in her womb and drink pus from the ruins of her breasts...? He dug iron-hard fingers into the soft, wobbly flesh under the godswifê?Ts arm and hauled her to her feet.
?oNo,? Dany said. ?oI will not have her harmed.?
Qothô?Ts lips skinned back from his crooked brown teeth in a terrible mockery of a smile. ?oNo? You say me no? Better you should pray that we do not stake you out beside your maegi. You did this, as much as the other.? Ser Jorah stepped between them, loosening his longsword in its scabbard. ?oRein in your tongue, bloodrider. The princess is still your khaleesi.?
?oOnly while the blood-of-my-blood still lives,? Qotho told the knight. ?oWhen he dies, she is nothing.?
Dany felt a tightness inside her. ?oBefore I was khaleesi, I was the blood of the dragon. Ser Jorah, summon my khas.?
?oNo,? said Qotho. ?oWe will go. For now... Khaleesi.? Haggo followed him from the tent, scowling.
?oThat one means you no good, Princess,? Mormont said. ?oThe Dothraki say a man and his bloodriders share one life, and Qotho sees it ending. A dead man is beyond fear.?
?oNo one has died,? Dany said. ?oSer Jorah, I may have need of your blade. Best go don your armor.? She was more frightened than she dared admit, even to herself.
The knight bowed. ?oAs you say.? He strode from the tent.
Dany turned back to Mirri Maz Duur. The woman?Ts eyes were wary. ?oSo you have saved me once more.?
?oAnd now you must save him,? Dany said. ?oPlease...?
?oYou do not ask a slave,? Mirri replied sharply, ?oyou tell her.? She went to Drogo burning on his mat, and gazed long at his wound. ?oAsk or tell, it makes no matter. He is beyond a healer?Ts skills.? The khal?Ts eyes were closed. She opened one with her fingers. ?oHe has been dulling the hurt with milk of the poppy.?
?oYes,? Dany admitted.
?oI made him a poultice of firepod and sting-me-not and bound it in a lambskin.?
?oIt burned, he said. He tore it off. The herbwomen made him a new one, wet and soothing.?
?oIt burned, yes. There is great healing magic in fire, even your hairless men know that.?
?oMake him another poultice,? Dany begged. ?oThis time I will make certain he wears it.?
?oThe time for that is past, my lady,? Mirri said. ?oAll I can do now is ease the dark road before him, so he might ride painless to the night lands. He will be gone by morning.?
Her words were a knife through Dany?Ts breast. What had she ever done to make the gods so cruel? She had finally found a safe place, had finally tasted love and hope. She was finally going home. And now to lose it all... ?oNo,? she pleaded. ?oSave him, and I will free you, I swear it. You must know a way... some magic, some...?
Mirri Maz Duur sat back on her heels and studied Daenerys through eyes as black as night. ?oThere is a spell.? Her voice was quiet, scarcely more than a whisper. ?oBut it is hard, lady, and dark. Some would say that death is cleaner. I learned the way in Asshai, and paid dear for the lesson. My teacher was a bloodmage from the Shadow Lands.?
Dany went cold all over. ?oThen you truly are a maegi...?
?oAm I?? Mirri Maz Duur smiled. ?oOnly a maegi can save your rider now, Silver Lady.?
?oIs there no other way??
?oNo other.?
Khal Drogo gave a shuddering gasp.
?oDo it,? Dany blurted. She must not be afraid; she was the blood of the dragon. ?oSave him.?
?oThere is a price,? the godswife warned her.
?oYou?Tll have gold, horses, whatever you like.?
?oIt is not a matter of gold or horses. This is bloodmagic, lady. Only death may pay for life.?
?oDeath?? Dany wrapped her arms around herself protectively, rocked back and forth on her heels. ?oMy death?? She told herself she would die for him, if she must. She was the blood of the dragon, she would not be afraid. Her brother Rhaegar had died for the woman he loved.
?oNo,? Mirri Maz Duur promised. ?oNot your death, Khaleesi.?
Dany trembled with relief. ?oDo it.?
The maegi nodded solemnly. ?oAs you speak, so it shall be done. Call your servants.?
Khal Drogo writhed feebly as Rakharo and Quaro lowered him into the bath. ?oNo,? he muttered, ?oNo. Must ride.? Once in the water, all the strength seemed to leak out of him.
?oBring his horse,? Mirri Maz Duur commanded, and so it was done. Jhogo led the great red stallion into the tent. When the animal caught the scent of death, he screamed and reared, rolling his eyes. It took three men *****bdue him.
?oWhat do you mean to do?? Dany asked her.
?oWe need the blood,? Mirri answered. ?oThat is the way.?
Jhogo edged back, his hand on his arakh. He was a youth of sixteen years, whip-thin, fearless, quick to laugh, with the faint shadow of his first mustachio on his upper lip. He fell to his knees before her. ?oKhaleesi,? he pleaded, ?oyou must not do this thing. Let me kill this maegi.?
?oKill her and you kill your khal,? Dany said.
?oThis is bloodmagic,? he said. ?oIt is forbidden.?
?o I am khaleesi, and I say it is not forbidden. In Vaes Dothrak, Khal Drogo slew a stallion and I ate his heart, to give our son strength and courage. This is the same. The same.?
The stallion kicked and reared as Rakharo, Quaro, and Aggo pulled him close to the tub where the khal floated like one already dead, pus and blood seeping from his wound to stain the bathwaters. Mirri Maz Duur chanted words in a tongue that Dany did not know, and a knife appeared in her hand. Dany never saw where it came from. It looked old; hammered red bronze, leaf-shaped, its blade covered with ancient glyphs. The maegi drew it across the stallion?Ts throat, under the noble head, and the horse screamed and shuddered as the blood poured out of him in a red rush. He would have collapsed, but the men of her khas held him up. ?oStrength of the mount, go into the rider,? Mirri sang as horse blood swirled into the waters of Drogô?Ts bath. ?oStrength of the beast, go into the man.?
Jhogo looked terrified as he struggled with the stallion?Ts weight, afraid to touch the dead flesh, yet afraid to let go as well. Only a horse, Dany thought. If she could buy Drogô?Ts life with the death of a horse, she would pay a thousand times over.
When they let the stallion fall, the bath was a dark red, and nothing showed of Drogo but his face. Mirri Maz Duur had no use for the carcass. ?oBurn it,? Dany told them. It was what they did, she knew. When a man died, his mount was killed and placed beneath him on the funeral pyre, to carry him to the night lands. The men of her khas dragged the carcass from the tent. The blood had gone everywhere. Even the sandsilk walls were spotted with red, and the rugs underfoot were black and wet.
Braziers were lit. Mirri Maz Duur tossed a red powder onto the coals. It gave the smoke a spicy scent, a pleasant enough smell, yet Eroeh fled sobbing, and Dany was filled with fear. But she had gone too far to turn back now. She sent her handmaids away. ?oGo with them, Silver Lady,? Mirri Maz Duur told her.
?oI will stay,? Dany said. ?oThe man took me under the stars and gave life to the child inside me. I will not leave him.?
?oYou must. Once I begin to sing, no one must enter this tent. My song will wake powers old and dark. The dead will dance here this night. No living man must look on them.?
Dany bowed her head, helpless. ?oNo one will enter.? She bent over the tub, over Drogo in his bath of blood, and kissed him lightly on the brow. ?oBring him back to me,? she whispered to Mirri Maz Duur before she fled.
Outside, the sun was low on the horizon, the sky a bruised red. The khalasar had made camp. Tents and sleeping mats were scattered as far as the eye could see. A hot wind blew. Jhogo and Aggo were digging a firepit to burn the dead stallion. A crowd had gathered to stare at Dany with hard black eyes, their faces like masks of beaten copper. She saw Ser Jorah Mormont, wearing mail and leather now, sweat beading on his broad, balding forehead. He pushed his way through the Dothraki to Dany?Ts side. When he saw the scarlet footprints her boots had left on the ground, the color seemed to drain from his face. ?oWhat have you done, you little fool?? he asked hoarsely.
?oI had to save him.?
?oWe could have fled,? he said. ?oI would have seen you safe to Asshai, Princess. There was no need...?
?oAm I truly your princess?? she asked him.
?oYou know you are, gods save us both.?
?oThen help me now.?
Ser Jorah grimaced. ?oWould that I knew how.?
Mirri Maz Duur?Ts voice rose to a high, ululating wail that sent a shiver down Dany?Ts back. Some of the Dothraki began to mutter and back away. The tent was aglow with the light of braziers within. Through the blood-spattered sandsilk, she glimpsed shadows moving.
Mirri Maz Duur was dancing, and not alone.
Dany saw naked fear on the faces of the Dothraki. ?oThis must not be,? Qotho thundered.
She had not seen the bloodrider return. Haggo and Cohollo were with him. They had brought the hairless men, the eunuchs who healed with knife and needle and fire.
?oThis will be,? Dany replied.
?oMaegi,? Haggo growled. And old Cohollo - Cohollo who had bound his life to Drogô?Ts on the day of his birth, Cohollo who had always been kind to her - Cohollo spat full in her face.
?oYou will die, maegi,? Qotho promised, ?obut the other must die first.? He drew his arakh and made for the tent.
?oNo,? she shouted, ?oyou mustn?Tt.? She caught him by the shoulder, but Qotho shoved her aside. Dany fell to her knees, crossing her arms over her belly to protect the child within. ?oStop him,? she commanded her khas, ?okill him.?
Rakharo and Quaro stood beside the tent flap. Quaro took a step forward, reaching for the handle of his whip, but Qotho spun graceful as a dancer, the curved arakh rising. It caught Quaro low under the arm, the bright sharp steel biting up through leather and skin, through muscle and rib bone. Blood fountained as the young rider reeled backward, gasping. Qotho wrenched the blade free. ?oHorselord,? Ser Jorah Mormont called. ?oTry me.? His longsword slid from its scabbard.
Qotho whirled, cursing. The arakh moved so fast that Quarô?Ts blood flew from it in a fine spray, like rain in a hot wind. The longsword caught it a foot from Ser Jorah?Ts face, and held it quivering for an instant as Qotho howled in fury. The knight was clad in chainmail, with gauntlets and greaves of lobstered steel and a heavy gorget around his throat, but he had not thought to don his helm.
Qotho danced backward, arakh whirling around his head in a shining blur, flickering out like lightning as the knight came on in a rush. Ser Jorah parried as best he could, but the slashes came so fast that it seemed to Dany that Qotho had four arakhs and as many arms. She heard the crunch of sword on mail, saw sparks fly as the long curved blade glanced off a gauntlet. Suddenly it was Mormont stumbling backward, and Qotho leaping to the attack. The left side of the knight?Ts face ran red with blood, and a cut to the hip opened a gash in his mail and left him limping. Qotho screamed taunts at him, calling him a craven, a milk man, a eunuch in an iron suit. ?oYou die now!? he promised, arakh shivering through the red twilight. Inside Dany?Ts womb, her son kicked wildly. The curved blade slipped past the straight one and bit deep into the knight?Ts hip where the mail gaped open.
Mormont grunted, stumbled. Dany felt a sharp pain in her belly, a wetness on her thighs. Qotho shrieked triumph, but his arakh had found bone, and for half a heartbeat it caught.
It was enough. Ser Jorah brought his longsword down with all the strength left him, through flesh and muscle and bone, and Qothô?Ts forearm dangled loose, flopping on a thin cord of skin and sinew. The knight?Ts next cut was at the Dothraki?Ts ear, so savage that Qothô?Ts face seemed almost to explode.
The Dothraki were shouting, Mirri Maz Duur wailing inside the tent like nothing human, Quaro pleading for water as he died. Dany cried out for help, but no one heard. Rakharo was fighting Haggo, arakh dancing with arakh until Jhogô?Ts whip cracked, loud as thunder, the lash coiling around Haggô?Ts throat. A yank, and the bloodrider stumbled backward, losing his feet and his sword. Rakharo sprang forward, howling, swinging his arakh down with both hands through the top of Haggô?Ts head. The point caught between his eyes, red and quivering. Someone threw a stone, and when Dany looked, her shoulder was torn and bloody. ?oNo,? she wept, ?ono, please, stop it, it?Ts too high, the price is too high.? More stones came flying. She tried to crawl toward the tent, but Cohollo caught her. Fingers in her hair, he pulled her head back and she felt the cold touch of his knife at her throat. ?oMy baby,? she screamed, and perhaps the gods heard, for as quick as that, Cohollo was dead.
Aggô?Ts arrow took him under the arm, to pierce his lungs and heart.
When at last Daenerys found the strength to raise her head, she saw the crowd dispersing, the Dothraki stealing silently back to their tents and sleeping mats. Some were saddling horses and riding off. The sun had set. Fires burned throughout the khalasar, great orange blazes that crackled with fury and spit embers at the sky. She tried to rise, and agony seized her and squeezed her like a giant?Ts fist. The breath went out of her; it was all she could do to gasp. The sound of Mirri Maz Duur?Ts voice was like a funeral dirge. Inside the tent, the shadows whirled.
An arm went under her waist, and then Ser Jorah was lifting her off her feet. His face was sticky with blood, and Dany saw that half his ear was gone. She convulsed in his arms as the pain took her again, and heard the knight shouting for her handmaids to help him. Are they all so afraid? She knew the answer. Another pain grasped her, and Dany bit back a scream. It felt as if her son had a knife in each hand, as if he were hacking at her to cut his way out. ?oDoreah, curse you,? Ser Jorah roared. ?oCome here. Fetch the birthing women.?
?oThey will not come. They say she is accursed.?
?oThey?Tll come or I?Tll have their heads.?
Doreah wept. ?oThey are gone, my lord.?
?oThe maegi,? someone else said. Was that Aggo? ?oTake her to the maegi.?
No, Dany wanted to say, no, not that, you mustn?Tt, but when she opened her mouth, a long wail of pain escaped, and the sweat broke over her skin. What was wrong with them, couldn?Tt they see? Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.
?oThe Lamb Woman knows the secrets of the birthing bed,? Irri said. ?oShe said so, I heard her.?
?oYes,? Doreah agreed, ?oI heard her too.?
No, she shouted, or perhaps she only thought it, for no whisper of sound escaped her lips. She was being carried. Her eyes opened to gaze up at a flat dead sky, black and bleak and starless. Please, no. The sound of Mirri Maz Duur?Ts voice grew louder, until it filled the world. The shapes! She screamed. The dancers!
Ser Jorah carried her inside the tent.

Chapter 65
Arya​

The scent of hot bread drifting from the shops along the Street of Flour was sweeter than any perfume Arya had ever smelled. She took a deep breath and stepped closer to the pigeon. It was a plump one, speckled brown, busily pecking at a crust that had fallen between two cobblestones, but when Aryâ?Ts shadow touched it, it took to the air.
Her stick sword whistled out and caught it two feet off the ground, and it went down in a flurry of brown feathers. She was on it in the blink of an eye, grabbing a wing as the pigeon flapped and fluttered. It pecked at her hand. She grabbed its neck and twisted until she felt the bone snap.
Compared with catching cats, pigeons were easy.
A passing septon was looking at her askance. ?oHerê?Ts the best place to find pigeon,? Arya told him as she brushed herself off and picked up her fallen stick sword. ?oThey come for the crumbs.? He hurried away.
She tied the pigeon to her belt and started down the street. A man was pushing a load of tarts by on a two-wheeled cart; the smells sang of blueberries and lemons and apricots. Her stomach made a hollow rumbly noise. ?oCould I have one?? she heard herself say. ?oA lemon, or... or any kind.?
The pushcart man looked her up and down. Plainly he did not like what he saw. ?oThree coppers.?
Arya tapped her wooden sword against the side of her boot. ?oI?Tll trade you a fat pigeon,? she said.
?oThe Others take your pigeon,? the pushcart man said.
The tarts were still warm from the oven. The smells were making her mouth water, but she did not have three coppers... or one. She gave the pushcart man a look, remembering what Syrio had told her about seeing. He was short, with a little round belly, and when he moved he seemed to favor his left leg a little. She was just thinking that if she snatched a tart and ran he would never be able to catch her when he said, ?oYou be keepin?T your filthy hands off. The gold cloaks know how to deal with thieving little gutter rats, that they do.?
Arya glanced warily behind her. Two of the City Watch were standing at the mouth of an alley. Their cloaks hung almost to the ground, the heavy wool dyed a rich gold; their mail and boots and gloves were black. One wore a longsword at his hip, the other an iron cudgel. With a last wistful glance at the tarts, Arya edged back from the cart and hurried off. The gold cloaks had not been paying her any special attention, but the sight of them tied her stomach in knots. Arya had been staying as far from the castle as she could get, yet even from a distance she could see the heads rotting atop the high red walls. Flocks of crows squabbled noisily over each head, thick as flies. The talk in Flea Bottom was that the gold cloaks had thrown in with the Lannisters, their commander raised to a lord, with lands on the Trident and a seat on the king?Ts council.
She had also heard other things, scary things, things that made no sense to her. Some said her father had murdered King Robert and been slain in turn by Lord Renly. Others insisted that Renly had killed the king in a drunken quarrel between brothers. Why else should he have fled in the night like a common thief? One story said the king had been killed by a boar while hunting, another that hê?Td died eating a boar, stuffing himself so full that hê?Td ruptured at the table. No, the king had died at table, others said, but only because Varys the Spider poisoned him. No, it had been the queen who poisoned him. No, he had died of a pox. No, he had choked on a fish bone.
One thing all the stories agreed on: King Robert was dead. The bells in the seven towers of the Great Sept of Baelor had tolled for a day and a night, the thunder of their grief rolling across the city in a bronze tide. They only rang the bells like that for the death of a king, a tanner?Ts boy told Arya.
All she wanted was to go home, but leaving King?Ts Landing was not so easy as she had hoped. Talk of war was on every lip, and gold cloaks were as thick on the city walls as fleas on... well, her, for one. She had been sleeping in Flea Bottom, on rooftops and in stables, wherever she could find a place to lie down, and it hadn?Tt taken her long to learn that the district was well named.
Every day since her escape from the Red Keep, Arya had visited each of the seven city gates in turn. The Dragon Gate, the Lion Gate, and the Old Gate were closed and barred. The Mud Gate and the Gate of the Gods were open, but only to those who wanted to enter the city; the guards let no one out. Those who were allowed to leave left by the King?Ts Gate or the Iron Gate, but Lannister men-at-arms in crimson cloaks and lion-crested helms manned the guard posts there. Spying down from the roof of an inn by the King?Ts Gate, Arya saw them searching wagons and carriages, forcing riders to open their saddlebags, and questioning everyone who tried to pass on foot.
Sometimes she thought about swimming the river, but the Blackwater Rush was wide and deep, and everyone agreed that its currents were wicked and treacherous. She had no coin to pay a ferryman or take passage on a ship.
Her lord father had taught her never to steal, but it was growing harder to remember why. If she did not get out soon, she would have to take her chances with the gold cloaks. She hadn?Tt gone hungry much since she learned to knock down birds with her stick sword, but she feared so much pigeon was making her sick. A couple shê?Td eaten raw, before she found Flea Bottom.
In the Bottom there were pot-shops along the alleys where huge tubs of stew had been simmering for years, and you could trade half your bird for a heel of yesterday?Ts bread and a ?obowl ô?T brown,? and they?Td even stick the other half in the fire and crisp it up for you, so long as you plucked the feathers yourself. Arya would have given anything for a cup of milk and a lemon cake, but the brown wasn?Tt so bad. It usually had barley in it, and chunks of carrot and onion and turnip, and sometimes even apple, with a film of grease swimming on top. Mostly she tried not to think about the meat. Once she had gotten a piece of fish.
The only thing was, the pot-shops were never empty, and even as she bolted down her food, Arya could feel them watching. Some of them stared at her boots or her cloak, and she knew what they were thinking. With others, she could almost feel their eyes crawling under her leathers; she didn?Tt know what they were thinking, and that scared her even more. A couple times, she was followed out into the alleys and chased, but so far no one had been able to catch her.
The silver bracelet shê?Td hoped to sell had been stolen her first night out of the castle, along with her bundle of good clothes, snatched while she slept in a burnt-out house of Pig Alley. All they left her was the cloak she had been huddled in, the leathers on her back, her wooden practice sword... and Needle. Shê?Td been lying on top of Needle, or else it would have been gone too; it was worth more than all the rest together. Since then Arya had taken to walking around with her cloak draped over her right arm, to conceal the blade at her hip. The wooden sword she carried in her left hand, out where everybody could see it, to scare off robbers, but there were men in the pot-shops who wouldn?Tt have been scared off if shê?Td had a battle-axe. It was enough to make her lose her taste for pigeon and stale bread. Often as not, she went to bed hungry rather than risk the stares.
Once she was outside the city, she would find berries to pick, or orchards she might raid for apples and cherries. Arya remembered seeing some from the kingsroad on the journey south. And she could dig for roots in the forest, even run down some rabbits. In the city, the only things to run down were rats and cats and scrawny dogs. The potshops would give you a fistful of coppers for a litter of pups, shê?Td heard, but she didn?Tt like to think about that.
Down below the Street of Flour was a maze of twisting alleys and cross streets. Arya scrambled through the crowds, trying to put distance between her and the gold cloaks. She had learned to keep to the center of the street. Sometimes she had to dodge wagons and horses, but at least you could see them coming. If you walked near the buildings, people grabbed you. In some alleys you couldn?Tt help but brush against the walls; the buildings leaned in so close they almost met.
A whooping gang of small children went running past, chasing a rolling hoop. Arya stared at them with resentment, remembering the times shê?Td played at hoops with Bran and Jon and their baby brother Rickon. She wondered how big Rickon had grown, and whether Bran was sad. She would have given anything if Jon had been here to call her ?olittle sister? and muss her hair. Not that it needed mussing. Shê?Td seen her reflection in puddles, and she didn?Tt think hair got any more mussed than hers.
She had tried talking to the children she saw in the street, hoping to make a friend who would give her a place to sleep, but she must have talked wrong or something. The little ones only looked at her with quick, wary eyes and ran away if she came too close. Their big brothers and sisters asked questions Arya couldn?Tt answer, called her names, and tried to steal from her. Only yesterday, a scrawny barefoot girl twice her age had knocked her down and tried to pull the boots off her feet, but Arya gave her a crack on her ear with her stick sword that sent her off sobbing and bleeding. A gull wheeled overhead as she made her way down the hill toward Flea Bottom. Arya glanced at it thoughtfully, but it was well beyond the reach of her stick. It made her think of the sea. Maybe that was the way out. Old Nan used to tell stories of boys who stowed away on trading galleys and sailed off into all kinds of adventures. Maybe Arya could do that too. She decided to visit the riverfront. It was on the way to the Mud Gate anyway, and she hadn?Tt checked that one today.
The wharfs were oddly quiet when Arya got there. She spied another pair of gold cloaks, walking side by side through the fish market, but they never so much as looked at her. Half the stalls were empty, and it seemed to her that there were fewer ships at dock than she remembered. Out on the Blackwater, three of the king?Ts war galleys moved in formation, gold-painted hulls splitting the water as their oars rose and fell. Arya watched them for a bit, then began to make her way along the river.
When she saw the guardsmen on the third pier, in grey woolen cloaks trimmed with white satin, her heart almost stopped in her chest. The sight of Winterfell?Ts colors brought tears to her eyes. Behind them, a sleek three-banked trading galley rocked at her moorings. Arya could not read the name painted on the hull; the words were strange, Myrish, Braavosi, perhaps even High Valyrian. She grabbed a passing longshoreman by the sleeve. ?oPlease,? she said, ?owhat ship is this??
?oShê?Ts the Wind Witch, out of Myr,? the man said.
?oShê?Ts still here,? Arya blurted. The longshoreman gave her a queer look, shrugged, and walked away. Arya ran toward the pier. The Wind Witch was the ship Father had hired to take her home... still waiting! Shê?Td imagined it had sailed ages ago.
Two of the guardsmen were dicing together while the third walked rounds, his hand on the pommel of his sword. Ashamed to let them see her crying like a baby, she stopped to rub at her eyes. Her eyes her eyes her eyes, why did...
Look with your eyes, she heard Syrio whisper.
Arya looked. She knew all of her father?Ts men. The three in the grey cloaks were strangers. ?oYou,? the one walking rounds called out. ?oWhat do you want here, boy?? The other two looked up from their dice.
It was all Arya could do not to bolt and run, but she knew that if she did, they would be after her at once. She made herself walk closer. They were looking for a girl, but he thought she was a boy. Shê?Td be a boy, then. ?oWant to buy a pigeon?? She showed him the dead bird.
?oGet out of here,? the guardsman said.
Arya did as he told her. She did not have to pretend to be frightened. Behind her, the men went back to their dice.
She could not have said how she got back to Flea Bottom, but she was breathing hard by the time she reached the narrow crooked unpaved streets between the hills. The Bottom had a stench to it, a stink of pigsties and stables and tanner?Ts sheds, mixed in with the sour smell of winesinks and cheap whorehouses. Arya wound her way through the maze dully. It was not until she caught a wiff of bubbling brown coming through a pot-shop door that she realized her pigeon was gone. It must have slipped from her belt as she ran, or someone had stolen it and shê?Td never noticed. For a moment she wanted to cry again. Shê?Td have to walk all the way back to the Street of Flour to find another one that plump.
Far across the city, bells began to ring.
Arya glanced up, listening, wondering what the ringing meant this time.
?oWhat?Ts this now?? a fat man called from the pot-shop.
?oThe bells again, gods hâ?Tmercy,? wailed an old woman.
A red-haired whore in a wisp of painted silk pushed open a secondstory window. ?oIs it the boy king that?Ts died now?? she shouted down, leaning out over the street. ?oAh, that?Ts a boy for you, they never last long.? As she laughed, a naked man slid his arms around her from behind, biting her neck and rubbing the heavy white breasts that hung loose beneath her shift.
?oStupid slut,? the fat man shouted up. ?oThe king?Ts not dead, that?Ts only summoning bells. One tower tolling. When the king dies, they ring every bell in the city.?
?oHere, quit your biting, or I?Tll ring your bells,? the woman in the window said to the man behind her, pushing him off with an elbow. ?oSo who is it died, if not the king??
?oIt?Ts a summoning,? the fat man repeated.
Two boys close to Aryâ?Ts age scampered past, splashing through a puddle. The old woman cursed them, but they kept right on going. Other people were moving too, heading up the hill to see what the noise was about. Arya ran after the slower boy. ?oWhere you going?? she shouted when she was right behind him. ?oWhat?Ts happening??
He glanced back without slowing. ?oThe gold cloaks is carryin?T him to the sept.?
?oWho?? she yelled, running hard.
?oThe Hand! They?Tll be taking his head off, Buu says.?
A passing wagon had left a deep rut in the street. The boy leapt over, but Arya never saw it. She tripped and fell, face first, scraping her knee open on a stone and smashing her fingers when her hands hit the hard-packed earth. Needle tangled between her legs. She sobbed as she struggled to her knees. The thumb of her left hand was covered with blood. When she sucked on it, she saw that half the thumbnail was gone, ripped off in her fall. Her hands throbbed, and her knee was all bloody too.
?oMake way!? someone shouted from the cross street. ?oMake way for my lords of Redwyne!? It was all Arya could do to get out of the road before they ran her down, four guardsmen on huge horses, pounding past at a gallop. They wore checked cloaks, blue-and-burgundy. Behind them, two young lordlings rode side by side on a pair of chestnut mares alike as peas in a pod. Arya had seen them in the bailey a hundred times; the Redwyne twins, Ser Horas and Ser Hobber, homely youths with orange hair and square, freckled faces. Sansa and Jeyne Poole used to call them Ser Horror and Ser Slobber, and giggle whenever they caught sight of them. They did not look funny now.

Everyone was moving in the same direction, all in a hurry to see what the ringing was all about. The bells seemed louder now, clanging, calling. Arya joined the stream of people. Her thumb hurt so bad where the nail had broken that it was all she could do not to cry. She bit her lip as she limped along, listening to the excited voices around her.
?o-the King?Ts Hand, Lord Stark. They?Tre carrying him up to Baelor?Ts Sept.?
?oI heard he was dead.?
?oSoon enough, soon enough. Here, I got me a silver stag says they lop his head off.?
?oPast time, the traitor.? The man spat.
Arya struggled to find a voice. ?oHe never-? she started, but she was only a child and they talked right over her.
?oFool! They ain?Tt neither going to lop him. Since when do they knick traitors on the steps of the Great Sept??
?oWell, they don?Tt mean to anoint him no knight. I heard it was Stark killed old King Robert. Slit his throat in the woods, and when they found him, he stood there cool as you please and said it was some old boar did for His Grace.?
?oAh, that?Ts not true, it was his own brother did him, that Renly, him with his gold antlers.?
?oYou shut your lying mouth, woman. You don?Tt know what you?Tre saying, his lordship?Ts a fine true man.?
By the time they reached the Street of the Sisters, they were packed in shoulder to shoulder. Arya let the human current carry her along, up to the top of Visenyâ?Ts Hill. The white marble plaza was a solid mass of people, all yammering excitedly at each other and straining to get closer to the Great Sept of Baelor. The bells were very loud here.
Arya squirmed through the press, ducking between the legs of horses and clutching tight to her sword stick. From the middle of the crowd, all she could see were arms and legs and stomachs, and the seven slender towers of the sept looming overhead. She spotted a wood wagon and thought to climb up on the back where she might be able to see, but others had the same idea. The teamster cursed at them and drove them off with a crack of his whip.
Arya grew frantic. Forcing her way to the front of the crowd, she was shoved up against the stone of a plinth. She looked up at Baelor the Blessed, the septon king. Sliding her stick sword through her belt, Arya began to climb. Her broken thumbnail left smears of blood on the painted marble, but she made it up, and wedged herself in between the king?Ts feet.
That was when she saw her father.
Lord Eddard stood on the High Septon?Ts pulpit outside the doors of the sept, supported between two of the gold cloaks. He was dressed in a rich grey velvet doublet with a white wolf sewn on the front in beads, and a grey wool cloak trimmed with fur, but he was thinner than Arya had ever seen him, his long face drawn with pain. He was not standing so much as being held up; the cast over his broken leg was grey and rotten.
The High Septon himself stood behind him, a squat man, grey with age and ponderously fat, wearing long white robes and an immense crown of spun gold and crystal that wreathed his head with rainbows whenever he moved.
Clustered around the doors of the sept, in front of the raised marble pulpit, were a knot of knights and high lords. Joffrey was prominent among them, his raiment all crimson, silk and satin patterned with prancing stags and roaring lions, a gold crown on his head. His queen mother stood beside him in a black mourning gown slashed with crimson, a veil of black diamonds in her hair. Arya recognized the Hound, wearing a snowy white cloak over his dark grey armor, with four of the Kingsguard around him. She saw Varys the eunuch gliding among the lords in soft slippers and a patterned damask robe, and she thought the short man with the silvery cape and pointed beard might be the one who had once fought a duel for Mother.
And there in their midst was Sansa, dressed in sky-blue silk, with her long auburn hair washed and curled and silver bracelets on her wrists. Arya scowled, wondering what her sister was doing here, why she looked so happy.
A long line of gold-cloaked spearmen held back the crowd, commanded by a stout man in elaborate armor, all black lacquer and gold filigree. His cloak had the metallic shimmer of true cloth-of-gold.
When the bell ceased to toll, a quiet slowly settled across the great plaza, and her father lifted his head and began to speak, his voice so thin and weak she could scarcely make him out. People behind her began to shout out, ?oWhat?? and ?oLouder!? The man in the black-and-gold armor stepped up behind Father and prodded him sharply. You leave him alone! Arya wanted to shout, but she knew no one would listen. She chewed her lip.
Her father raised his voice and began again. ?oI am Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Hand of the King,? he said more loudly, his voice carrying across the plaza, ?oand I come before you to confess my treason in the sight of gods and men.?
?oNo,? Arya whimpered. Below her, the crowd began to scream and shout. Taunts and obscenities filled the air. Sansa had hidden her face in her hands.
Her father raised his voice still higher, straining to be heard. ?oI betrayed the faith of my king and the trust of my friend, Robert,? he shouted. ?oI swore to defend and protect his children, yet before his blood was cold, I plotted to depose and murder his son and seize the throne for myself. Let the High Septon and Baelor the Beloved and the Seven bear witness to the truth of what I say: Joffrey Baratheon is the one true heir to the Iron Throne, and by the grace of all the gods, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm.?
A stone came sailing out of the crowd. Arya cried out as she saw her father hit. The gold cloaks kept him from falling. Blood ran down his face from a deep gash across his forehead. More stones followed. One struck the guard to Father?Ts left. Another went clanging off the breastplate of the knight in the black-and-gold armor. Two of the Kingsguard stepped in front of Joffrey and the queen, protecting them with their shields.
Her hand slid beneath her cloak and found Needle in its sheath. She tightened her fingers around the grip, squeezing as hard as she had ever squeezed anything. Please, gods, keep him safe, she prayed. Don?Tt let them hurt my father.
The High Septon knelt before Joffrey and his mother. ?oAs we sin, so do we suffer,? he intoned, in a deep swelling voice much louder than Father?Ts.
?oThis man has confessed his crimes in the sight of gods and men, here in this holy place.?
Rainbows danced around his head as he lifted his hands in entreaty. ?oThe gods are just, yet Blessed Baelor taught us that they are also merciful. What shall be done with this traitor, Your Grace??
A thousand voices were screaming, but Arya never heard them. Prince Joffrey... no, King Joffrey... stepped out from behind the shields of his Kingsguard. ?oMy mother bids me let Lord Eddard take the black, and Lady Sansa has begged mercy for her father.? He looked straight at Sansa then, and smiled, and for a moment Arya thought that the gods had heard her prayer, until Joffrey turned back to the crowd and said, ?oBut they have the soft hearts of women. So long as I am your king, treason shall never go unpunished. Ser Ilyn, bring me his head!?
The crowd roared, and Arya felt the statue of Baelor rock as they surged against it. The High Septon clutched at the king?Ts cape, and Varys came rushing over waving his arms, and even the queen was saying something to him, but Joffrey shook his head. Lords and knights moved aside as he stepped through, tall and fleshless, a skeleton in iron mail, the King?Ts Justice. Dimly, as if from far off, Arya heard her sister scream. Sansa had fallen to her knees, sobbing hysterically. Ser Ilyn Payne climbed the steps of the pulpit.
Arya wriggled between Baelor?Ts feet and threw herself into the crowd, drawing Needle. She landed on a man in a butcher?Ts apron, knocking him to the ground. Immediately someone slammed into her back and she almost went down herself. Bodies closed in around her, stumbling and pushing, trampling on the poor butcher. Arya slashed at them with Needle.
High atop the pulpit, Ser Ilyn Payne gestured and the knight in black-and-gold gave a command. The gold cloaks flung Lord Eddard to the marble, with his head and chest out over the edge.
?oHere, you!? an angry voice shouted at Arya, but she bowled past, shoving people aside, squirming between them, slamming into anyone in her way. A hand fumbled at her leg and she hacked at it, kicked at shins. A woman stumbled and Arya ran up her back, cutting to both sides, but it was no good, no good, there were too many people, no sooner did she make a hole than it closed again. Someone buffeted her aside. She could still hear Sansa screaming.
Ser Ilyn drew a two-handed greatsword from the scabbard on his back. As he lifted the blade above his head, sunlight seemed to ripple and dance down the dark metal, glinting off an edge sharper than any razor. Ice, she thought, he has Ice! Her tears streamed down her face, blinding her.
And then a hand shot out of the press and closed round her arm like a wolf trap, so hard that Needle went flying from her hand. Arya was wrenched off her feet. She would have fallen if he hadn?Tt held her up, as easy as if she were a doll. A face pressed close to hers, long black hair and tangled beard and rotten teeth. ?oDon?Tt look!? a thick voice snarled at her.
?oI... I... I...? Arya sobbed.
The old man shook her so hard her teeth rattled. ?oShut your mouth and close your eyes, boy.? Dimly, as if from far away, she heard a... a noise... a soft sighing sound, as if a million people had let out their breath at once. The old man?Ts fingers dug into her arm, stiff as iron. ?oLook at me. Yes, that?Ts the way of it, at me.? Sour wine perfumed his breath. ?oRemember, boy??
It was the smell that did it. Arya saw the matted greasy hair, the patched, dusty black cloak that covered his twisted shoulders, the hard black eyes squinting at her. And she remembered the black brother who had come to visit her father.
?oKnow me now, do you? Therê?Ts a bright boy.? He spat. ?oThey?Tre done here. You?Tll be coming with me, and you?Tll be keeping your mouth shut.? When she started to reply, he shook her again, even harder. ?oShut, I said.?
The plaza was beginning to empty. The press dissolved around them as people drifted back to their lives. But Aryâ?Ts life was gone. Numb, she trailed along beside... Yoren, yes, his name is Yoren. She did not recall him finding Needle, until he handed the sword back to her. ?oHope you can use that, boy.?
?oI?Tm not-? she started.
He shoved her into a doorway, thrust dirty fingers through her hair, and gave it a twist, yanking her head back. ?o-not a smart boy, that what you mean to say??
He had a knife in his other hand.
As the blade flashed toward her face, Arya threw herself backward, kicking wildly, wrenching her head from side to side, but he had her by the hair, so strong, she could feel her scalp tearing, and on her lips the salt taste of tears.
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Câu truy?n về Arya và Eddard Stark kết thúc tại 'ây?

Chapter 66
Bran​

The oldest were men grown, seventeen and eighteen years from the day of their naming. One was past twenty. Most were younger, sixteen or less.
Bran watched them from the balcony of Maester Luwin?Ts turret, listening to them grunt and strain and curse as they swung their staves and wooden swords. The yard was alive to the clack of wood on wood, punctuated all too often by thwacks and yowls of pain when a blow struck leather or flesh. Ser Rodrik strode among the boys, face reddening beneath his white whiskers, muttering at them one and all. Bran had never seen the old knight look so fierce. ?oNo,? he kept saying. ?oNo. No. No.?
?oThey don?Tt fight very well,? Bran said dubiously. He scratched Summer idly behind the ears as the direwolf tore at a haunch of meat. Bones crunched between his teeth.
?oFor a certainty,? Maester Luwin agreed with a deep sigh. The maester was peering through his big Myrish lens tube, measuring shadows and noting the position of the comet that hung low in the morning sky. ?oYet given time... Ser Rodrik has the truth of it, we need men to walk the walls. Your lord father took the cream of his guard to King?Ts Landing, and your brother took the rest, along with all the likely lads for leagues around. Many will not come back to us, and we must needs find the men to take their places.?
Bran stared resentfully at the sweating boys below. ?oIf I still had my legs, I could beat them all.? He remembered the last time hê?Td held a sword in his hand, when the king had come to Winterfell. It was only a wooden sword, yet hê?Td knocked Prince Tommen down half a hundred times. ?oSer Rodrik should teach me to use a poleaxe. If I had a poleaxe with a big long haft, Hodor could be my legs. We could be a knight together.?
?oI think that... unlikely,? Maester Luwin said. ?oBran, when a man fights, his arms and legs and thoughts must be as one.?
Below in the yard, Ser Rodrik was yelling. ?oYou fight like a goose. He pecks you and you peck him harder. Parry! Block the blow. Goose fighting will not suffice. If those were real swords, the first peck would take your arm off!? One of the other boys laughed, and the old knight rounded on him. ?oYou laugh. You. Now that is gall. You fight like a hedgehog...?
?oThere was a knight once who couldn?Tt see,? Bran said stubbornly, as Ser Rodrik went on below. ?oOld Nan told me about him. He had a long staff with blades at both ends and he could spin it in his hands and chop two men at once.?
?oSymeon Star-Eyes,? Luwin said as he marked numbers in a book. ?oWhen he lost his eyes, he put star sapphires in the empty sockets, or so the singers claim. Bran, that is only a story, like the tales of Florian the Fool. A fable from the Age of Heroes.? The maester tsked. ?oYou must put these dreams aside, they will only break your heart.?
The mention of dreams reminded him. ?oI dreamed about the crow again last night. The one with three eyes. He flew into my bedchamber and told me to come with him, so I did. We went down to the crypts. Father was there, and we talked. He was sad.?
?oAnd why was that?? Luwin peered through his tube.
?oIt was something to do about Jon, I think.? The dream had been deeply disturbing, more so than any of the other crow dreams. ?oHodor won?Tt go down into the crypts.?
The maester had only been half listening, Bran could tell. He lifted his eye from the tube, blinking. ?oHodor won?Tt...??
?oGo down into the crypts. When I woke, I told him to take me down, to see if Father was truly there. At first he didn?Tt know what I was saying, but I got him to the steps by telling him to go here and go there, only then he wouldn?Tt go down. He just stood on the top step and said ?~Hodor,?T like he was scared of the dark, but I had a torch. It made me so mad I almost gave him a swat in the head, like Old Nan is always doing.? He saw the way the maester was frowning and hurriedly added, ?oI didn?Tt, though.?
?oGood. Hodor is a man, not a mule to be beaten.?
?oIn the dream I flew down with the crow, but I can?Tt do that when I?Tm awake,? Bran explained.
?oWhy would you want to go down to the crypts??
?oI told you. To look for Father.?
The maester tugged at the chain around his neck, as he often did when he was uncomfortable. ?oBran, sweet child, one day Lord Eddard will sit below in stone, beside his father and his father?Ts father and all the Starks back to the old Kings in the North... but that will not be for many years, gods be good. Your father is a prisoner of the queen in King?Ts Landing. You will not find him in the crypts.?
?oHe was there last night. I talked to him.?
?oStubborn boy,? the maester sighed, setting his book aside. ?oWould you like to go see??
?oI can?Tt. Hodor won?Tt go, and the steps are too narrow and twisty for Dancer.?
?oI believe I can solve that difficulty.?
In place of Hodor, the wildling woman Osha was summoned. She was tall and tough and uncomplaining, willing to go wherever she was commanded. ?oI lived my life beyond the Wall, a hole in the ground won?Tt fret me none, m?Tlords,? she said.
?oSummer, come,? Bran called as she lifted him in wiry-strong arms. The direwolf left his bone and followed as Osha carried Bran across the yard and down the spiral steps to the cold vault under the earth. Maester Luwin went ahead with a torch. Bran did not even mind-too badly-that she carried him in her arms and not on her back. Ser Rodrik had ordered Oshâ?Ts chain struck off, since she had served faithfully and well since she had been at Winterfell. She still wore the heavy iron shackles around her ankles-a sign that she was not yet wholly trusted-but they did not hinder her sure strides down the steps.
Bran could not recall the last time he had been in the crypts. It had been before, for certain. When he was little, he used to play down here with Robb and Jon and his sisters.
He wished they were here now; the vault might not have seemed so dark and scary. Summer stalked out in the echoing gloom, then stopped, lifted his head, and sniffed the chill dead air. He bared his teeth and crept backward, eyes glowing golden in the light of the maester?Ts torch. Even Osha, hard as old iron, seemed uncomfortable. ?oGrim folk, by the look of them,? she said as she eyed the long row of granite Starks on their stone thrones.
?oThey were the Kings of Winter,? Bran whispered. Somehow it felt wrong to talk too loudly in this place.
Osha smiled. ?oWinter?Ts got no king. If you?Td seen it, you?Td know that, summer boy.?
?oThey were the Kings in the North for thousands of years,? Maester Luwin said, lifting the torch high so the light shone on the stone faces. Some were hairy and bearded, shaggy men fierce as the wolves that crouched by their feet. Others were shaved clean, their features gaunt and sharp-edged as the iron longswords across their laps. ?oHard men for a hard time. Come.? He strode briskly down the vault, past the procession of stone pillars and the endless carved figures. A tongue of flame trailed back from the upraised torch as he went.
The vault was ****rnous, longer than Winterfell itself, and Jon had told him once that there were other levels underneath, vaults even deeper and darker where the older kings were buried. It would not do to lose the light. Summer refused to move from the steps, even when Osha followed the torch, Bran in her arms.
?oDo you recall your history, Bran?? the maester said as they walked. ?oTell Osha who they were and what they did, if you can.?
He looked at the passing faces and the tales came back to him. The maester had told him the stories, and Old Nan had made them come alive. ?oThat one is Jon Stark. When the sea raiders landed in the east, he drove them out and built the castle at White Harbor. His son was Rickard Stark, not my father?Ts father but another Rickard, he took the Neck away from the Marsh King and married his daughter. Theon Stark?Ts the real thin one with the long hair and the skinny beard. They called him the ?~Hungry Wolf,?T because he was always at war. That?Ts a Brandon, the tall one with the dreamy face, he was Brandon the Shipwright, because he loved the sea. His tomb is empty. He tried to sail west across the Sunset Sea and was never seen again. His son was Brandon the Burner, because he put the torch to all his father?Ts ships in grief. Therê?Ts Rodrik Stark, who won Bear Island in a wrestling match and gave it to the Mormonts. And that?Ts Torrhen Stark, the King Who Knelt. He was the last King in the North and the first Lord of Winterfell, after he yielded to Aegon the Conqueror. Oh, there, hê?Ts Cregan Stark. He fought with Prince Aemon once, and the Dragonknight said hê?Td never faced a finer swordsman.? They were almost at the end now, and Bran felt a sadness creeping over him. ?oAnd therê?Ts my grandfather, Lord Rickard, who was beheaded by Mad King Aerys. His daughter Lyanna and his son Brandon are in the tombs beside him. Not me, another Brandon, my father?Ts brother. They?Tre not supposed to have statues, that?Ts only for the lords and the kings, but my father loved them so much he had them done.?
?oThe maid?Ts a fair one,? Osha said.
?oRobert was betrothed to marry her, but Prince Rhaegar carried her off and raped her,? Bran explained. ?oRobert fought a war to win her back. He killed Rhaegar on the Trident with his hammer, but Lyanna died and he never got her back at all.?
?oA sad tale,? said Osha, ?obut those empty holes are sadder.?
?oLord Eddard?Ts tomb, for when his time comes,? Maester Luwin said. ?oIs this where you saw your father in your dream, Bran??
?oYes.? The memory made him shiver. He looked around the vault uneasily, the hairs on the back of his neck bristling. Had he heard a noise? Was there someone here?
Maester Luwin stepped toward the open sepulchre, torch in hand. ?oAs you see, hê?Ts not here. Nor will he be, for many a year. Dreams are only dreams, child.? He thrust his arm into the blackness inside the tomb, as into the mouth of some great beast. ?oDo you see? It?Ts quite empt-?
The darkness sprang at him, snarling.
Bran saw eyes like green fire, a flash of teeth, fur as black as the pit around them. Maester Luwin yelled and threw up his hands. The torch went flying from his fingers, caromed off the stone face of Brandon Stark, and tumbled to the statuê?Ts feet, the flames licking up his legs. In the drunken shifting torchlight, they saw Luwin struggling with the direwolf, beating at his muzzle with one hand while the jaws closed on the other.
?oSummer!? Bran screamed.
And Summer came, shooting from the dimness behind them, a leaping shadow. He slammed into Shaggydog and knocked him back, and the two direwolves rolled over and over in a tangle of grey and black fur, snapping and biting at each other, while Maester Luwin struggled to his knees, his arm torn and bloody. Osha propped Bran up against Lord Rickard?Ts stone wolf as she hurried to assist the maester. In the light of the guttering torch, shadow wolves twenty feet tall fought on the wall and roof.
?oShaggy,? a small voice called. When Bran looked up, his little brother was standing in the mouth of Father?Ts tomb. With one final snap at Summer?Ts face, Shaggydog broke off and bounded to Rickon?Ts side. ?oYou let my father be,? Rickon warned Luwin. ?oYou let him be.?
?oRickon,? Bran said softly. ?oFather?Ts not here.?
?oYes he is. I saw him.? Tears glistened on Rickon?Ts face. ?oI saw him last night.?
?oIn your dream... ??T
Rickon nodded. ?oYou leave him. You leave him be. Hê?Ts coming home now, like he promised. Hê?Ts coming home.?
Bran had never seen Maester Luwin took so uncertain before. Blood dripped down his arm where Shaggydog had shredded the wool of his sleeve and the flesh beneath. ?oOsha, the torch,? he said, biting through his pain, and she snatched it up before it went out. Soot stains blackened both legs of his unclê?Ts likeness. ?oThat... that beast,? Luwin went on, ?ois supposed to be chained up in the kennels.?
Rickon patted Shaggydog?Ts muzzle, damp with blood. ?oI let him loose. He doesn?Tt like chains.? He licked at his fingers.
?oRickon,? Bran said, ?owould you like to come with me??
?oNo. I like it here.?
?oIt?Ts dark here. And cold.?
?oI?Tm not afraid. I have to wait for Father.?
?oYou can wait with me,? Bran said. ?oWê?Tll wait together, you and me and our wolves.? Both of the direwolves were licking wounds now, and would bear close watching.
?oBran,? the maester said firmly, ?oI know you mean well, but Shaggydog is too wild to run loose. I?Tm the third man hê?Ts savaged. Give him the freedom of the castle and it?Ts only a question of time before he kills someone. The truth is hard, but the wolf has to be chained, or...? He hesitated.
Or killed, Bran thought, but what he said was, ?oHe was not made for chains. We will wait in your tower, all of us.?
?oThat is quite impossible,? Maester Luwin said.
Osha grinned. ?oThe boy?Ts the lordling here, as I recall.? She handed Luwin back his torch and scooped Bran up into her arms again. ?oThe maester?Ts tower it is.?
?oWill you come, Rickon??
His brother nodded. ?oIf Shaggy comes too,? he said, running after Osha and Bran, and there was nothing Maester Luwin could do but follow, keeping a wary eye on the wolves.

Maester Luwinâ?Ts turret was so cluttered that it seemed to Bran a wonder that he ever found anything. Tottering piles of books covered tables and chairs, rows of stoppered jars lined the shelves, candle stubs and puddles of dried wax dotted the furniture, the bronze Myrish lens tube sat on a tripod by the terrace door, star charts hung from the walls, shadow maps lay scattered among the rushes, papers, quills, and pots of inks were everywhere, and all of it was spotted with droppings from the ravens in the rafters.
Their strident quorks drifted down from above as Osha washed and cleaned and bandaged the maesterâ?Ts wounds, under Luwinâ?Ts terse instruction.
â?oThis is folly,â? the small grey man said while she dabbed at the wolf bites with a stinging ointment. â?oI agree that it is odd that both you boys dreamed the same dream, yet when you stop to consider it, itâ?Ts only natural. You miss your lord father, and you know that he is a captive. Fear can fever a manâ?Ts mind and give him queer thoughts. Rickon is too young to comprehend-â?
â?oIâ?Tm four now,â? Rickon said. He was peeking through the lens tube at the gargoyles on the First Keep. The direwolves sat on opposite sides of the large round room, licking their wounds and gnawing on bones.
â?o-too young, and-ooh, seven hells, that burns, no, donâ?Tt stop, more. Too young, as I say, but you, Bran, youâ?Tre old enough to know that dreams are only dreams.â?
â?oSome are, some arenâ?Tt.â? Osha poured pale red firemilk into a long gash. Luwin gasped. â?oThe children of the forest could tell you a thing or two about dreaming.â?
Tears were streaming down the maesterâ?Ts face, yet he shook his head doggedly. â?oThe children... live only in dreams. Now. Dead and gone. Enough, thatâ?Ts enough. Now the bandages. Pads and then wrap, and make it tight, Iâ?Tll be bleeding.â?
â?oOld Nan says the children knew the songs of the trees, that they could fly like birds and swim like fish and talk to the animals,â? Bran said. â?oShe says that they made music so beautiful that it made you cry like a little baby just to hear it.â?
â?oAnd all this they did with magic,â? Maester Luwin said, distracted. â?oI wish they were here now. A spell would heal my arm less painfully, and they could talk to Shaggydog and tell him not to bite.â? He gave the big black wolf an angry glance out of the corner of his eye. â?oTake a lesson, Bran. The man who trusts in spells is dueling with a glass sword. As the children did. Here, let me show you something.â? He stood abruptly, crossed the room, and returned with a green jar in his good hand. â?oHave a look at these,â? he said as he pulled the stopper and shook out a handful of shiny black arrowheads.
Bran picked one up. â?oItâ?Ts made of glass.â? Curious, Rickon drifted closer to peer over the table.
â?oDragonglass,â? Osha named it as she sat down beside Luwin, bandagings in hand.
â?oObsidian,â? Maester Luwin insisted, holding out his wounded arm. â?oForged in the fires of the gods, far below the earth. The children of the forest hunted with that, thousands of years ago. The children worked no metal. In place of mail, they wore long shirts of woven leaves and bound their legs in bark, so they seemed to melt into the wood. In place of swords, they carried blades of obsidian.â?
â?oAnd still do.â? Osha placed soft pads over the bites on the maesterâ?Ts forearm and bound them tight with long strips of linen.
Bran held the arrowhead up close. The black glass was slick and shiny. He thought it beautiful. â?oCan I keep one?â?
â?oAs you wish,â? the maester said.
â?oI want one too,â? Rickon said. â?oI want four. Iâ?Tm four.â?
Luwin made him count them out. â?oCareful, theyâ?Tre still sharp. Donâ?Tt cut yourself.â?
â?oTell me about the children,â? Bran said. It was important.
â?oWhat do you wish to know?â?
â?oEverything.â?
Maester Luwin tugged at his chain collar where it chafed against his neck. â?oThey were people of the Dawn Age, the very first, before kings and kingdoms,â? he said. â?oIn those days, there were no castles or holdfasts, no cities, not so much as a market town to be found between here and the sea of Dorne. There were no men at all. Only the children of the forest dwelt in the lands we now call the Seven Kingdoms.
â?oThey were a people dark and beautiful, small of stature, no taller than children even when grown to manhood. They lived in the depths of the wood, in ****s and crannogs and secret tree towns. Slight as they were, the children were quick and graceful. Male and female hunted together, with weirwood bows and flying snares. Their gods were the gods of the forest, stream, and stone, the old gods whose names are secret. Their wise men were called greenseers, and carved strange faces in the weirwoods to keep watch on the woods. How long the children reigned here or where they came from, no man can know.
â?oBut some twelve thousand years ago, the First Men appeared from the east, crossing the Broken Arm of Dorne before it was broken. They came with bronze swords and great leathern shields, riding horses. No horse had ever been seen on this side of the narrow sea. No doubt the children were as frightened by the horses as the First Men were by the faces in the trees. As the First Men carved out holdfasts and farms, they cut down the faces and gave them to the fire. Horrorstruck, the children went to war. The old songs say that the greenseers used dark magics to make the seas rise and sweep away the land, shattering the Arm, but it was too late to close the door. The wars went on until the earth ran red with blood of men and children both, but more children than men, for men were bigger and stronger, and wood and stone and obsidian make a poor match for bronze. Finally the wise of both races prevailed, and the chiefs and heroes of the First Men met the greenseers and wood dancers amidst the weirwood groves of a small island in the great lake called Gods Eye.
â?oThere they forged the Pact. The First Men were given the coastlands, the high plains and bright meadows, the mountains and bogs, but the deep woods were to remain forever the childrenâ?Ts, and no more weirwoods were to be put to the axe anywhere in the realm. So the gods might bear witness to the signing, every tree on the island was given a face, and afterward, the sacred order of green men was formed to keep watch over the Isle of Faces.
â?oThe Pact began four thousand years of friendship between men and children. In time, the First Men even put aside the gods they had brought with them, and took up the worship of the secret gods of the wood. The signing of the Pact ended the Dawn Age, and began the Age of Heroes.â?
Branâ?Ts fist curled around the shiny black arrowhead. â?oBut the children of the forest are all gone now, you said.â?
â?oHere, they are,â? said Osha, as she bit off the end of the last bandage with her teeth. â?oNorth of the Wall, things are different. Thatâ?Ts where the children went, and the giants, and the other old races.â?
Maester Luwin sighed. â?oWoman, by rights you ought to be dead or in chains. The Starks have treated you more gently than you deserve. It is unkind to repay them for their kindness by filling the boysâ?T heads with folly.â?
â?oTell me where they went,â? Bran said. â?oI want to know.â?
â?oMe too,â? Rickon echoed.
â?oOh, very well,â? Luwin muttered. â?oSo long as the kingdoms of the First Men held sway, the Pact endured, all through the Age of Heroes and the Long Night and the birth of the Seven Kingdoms, yet finally there came a time, many centuries later, when other peoples crossed the narrow sea.
â?oThe Andals were the first, a race of tall, fair-haired warriors who came with steel and fire and the seven-pointed star of the new gods painted on their chests. The wars lasted hundreds of years, but in the end the six southron kingdoms all fell before them. Only here, where the King in the North threw back every army that tried to cross the Neck, did the rule of the First Men endure. The Andals burnt out the weirwood groves, hacked down the faces, slaughtered the children where they found them, and everywhere proclaimed the triumph of the Seven over the old gods. So the children fled north-â?
Summer began to howl.
Maester Luwin broke off, startled. When Shaggydog bounded to his feet and added his voice to his brotherâ?Ts, dread clutched at Branâ?Ts heart. â?oItâ?Ts coming,â? he whispered, with the certainty of despair. He had known it since last night, he realized, since the crow had led him down into the crypts to say farewell. He had known it, but he had not believed. He had wanted Maester Luwin to be right. The crow, he thought, the three-eyed crow...
The howling stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Summer padded across the tower floor to Shaggydog, and began to lick at a mat of bloody fur on the back of his brotherâ?Ts neck. From the window came a flutter of wings.
A raven landed on the grey stone sill, opened its beak, and gave a harsh, raucous rattle of distress.
Rickon began to cry. His arrowheads fell from his hand one by one and clattered on the floor. Bran pulled him close and hugged him.
Maester Luwin stared at the black bird as if it were a scorpion with feathers. He rose, slow as a sleepwalker, and moved to the window. When he whistled, the raven hopped onto his bandaged forearm. There was dried blood on its wings. â?oA hawk,â? Luwin murmured, â?operhaps an owl. Poor thing, a wonder it got through.â? He took the letter from its leg.
Bran found himself shivering as the maester unrolled the paper. â?oWhat is it?â? he said, holding his brother all the harder.
â?oYou know what it is, boy,â? Osha said, not unkindly. She put her hand on his head.
Maester Luwin looked up at them numbly, a small grey man with blood on the sleeve of his grey wool robe and tears in his bright grey eyes. â?oMy lords,â? he said to the sons, in a voice gone hoarse and shrunken, â?owe... we shall need to find a stonecarver who knew his likeness well...â?

Chapter 67
Sansa​

In the tower room at the heart of Maegor?Ts Holdfast, Sansa gave herself to the darkness.
She drew the curtains around her bed, slept, woke weeping, and slept again. When she could not sleep she lay under her blankets shivering with grief. Servants came and went, bringing meals, but the sight of food was more than she could bear. The dishes piled up on the table beneath her window, untouched and spoiling, until the servants took them away again.
Sometimes her sleep was leaden and dreamless, and she woke from it more tired than when she had closed her eyes. Yet those were the best times, for when she dreamed, she dreamed of Father. Waking or sleeping, she saw him, saw the gold cloaks fling him down, saw Ser Ilyn striding forward, unsheathing Ice from the scabbard on his back, saw the moment... the moment when... she had wanted to look away, she had wanted to, her legs had gone out from under her and she had fallen to her knees, yet somehow she could not turn her head, and all the people were screaming and shouting, and her prince had smiled at her, hê?Td smiled and shê?Td felt safe, but only for a heartbeat, until he said those words, and her father?Ts legs... that was what she remembered, his legs, the way they?Td jerked when Ser Ilyn... when the sword...
Perhaps I will die too, she told herself, and the thought did not seem so terrible to her. If she flung herself from the window, she could put an end to her suffering, and in the years to come the singers would write songs of her grief. Her body would lie on the stones below, broken and innocent, shaming all those who had betrayed her. Sansa went so far as to cross the bedchamber and throw open the shutters... but then her courage left her, and she ran back to her bed, sobbing.
The serving girls tried to talk to her when they brought her meals, but she never answered them. Once Grand Maester Pycelle came with a box of flasks and bottles, to ask if she was ill. He felt her brow, made her undress, and touched her all over while her bedmaid held her down. When he left he gave her a potion of honeywater and herbs and told her to drink a swallow every night. She drank it all right then and went back to sleep.
She dreamt of footsteps on the tower stair, an ominous scraping of leather on stone as a man climbed slowly toward her bedchamber, step by step. All she could do was huddle behind her door and listen, trembling, as he came closer and closer. It was Ser Ilyn Payne, she knew, coming for her with Ice in his hand, coming to take her head. There was no place to run, no place to hide, no way to bar the door. Finally the footsteps stopped and she knew he was just outside, standing there silent with his dead eyes and his long pocked face. That was when she realized she was naked. She crouched down, trying to cover herself with her hands, as her door began to swing open, creaking, the point of the greatsword poking through...
She woke murmuring, ?oPlease, please, I?Tll be good, I?Tll be good, please don?Tt,? but there was no one to hear.
When they finally came for her in truth, Sansa never heard their footsteps. It was Joffrey who opened her door, not Ser Ilyn but the boy who had been her prince. She was in bed, curled up tight, her curtains drawn, and she could not have said if it was noon or midnight. The first thing she heard was the slam of the door. Then her bed hangings were yanked back, and she threw up a hand against the sudden light and saw them standing over her.
?oYou will attend me in court this afternoon,? Joffrey said. ?oSee that you bathe and dress as befits my betrothed.? Sandor Clegane stood at his shoulder in a plain brown doublet and green mantle, his burned face hideous in the morning light. Behind them were two knights of the Kingsguard in long white satin cloaks.
Sansa drew her blanket up to her chin to cover herself. ?oNo,? she whimpered, ?oplease... leave me be.?
?oIf you won?Tt rise and dress yourself, my Hound will do it for you,? Joffrey said.
?oI beg of you, my prince...?
?oI?Tm king now. Dog, get her out of bed.?
Sandor Clegane scooped her up around the waist and lifted her off the featherbed as she struggled feebly. Her blanket fell to the floor. Underneath she had only a thin bedgown to cover her nakedness. ?oDo as you?Tre bid, child,? Clegane said. ?oDress.? He pushed her toward her wardrobe, almost gently.
Sansa backed away from them. ?oI did as the queen asked, I wrote the letters, I wrote what she told me. You promised you?Td be merciful. Please, let me go home. I won?Tt do any treason, I?Tll be good, I swear it, I don?Tt have traitor?Ts blood, I don?Tt. I only want to go home.? Remembering her courtesies, she lowered her head. ?oAs it please you,? she finished weakly.
?oIt does not please me,? Joffrey said. ?oMother says I?Tm still to marry you, so you?Tll stay here, and you?Tll obey.?
?oI don?Tt want to marry you,? Sansa wailed. ?oYou chopped off my father?Ts head!?
?oHe was a traitor. I never promised to spare him, only that I?Td be merciful, and I was. If he hadn?Tt been your father, I would have had him torn or flayed, but I gave him a clean death.?
Sansa stared at him, seeing him for the first time. He was wearing a padded crimson doublet patterned with lions and a cloth-of-gold cape with a high collar that framed his face. She wondered how she could ever have thought him handsome. His lips were as soft and red as the worms you found after a rain, and his eyes were vain and cruel. ?oI hate you,? she whispered.
King Joffrey?Ts face hardened. ?oMy mother tells me that it isn?Tt fitting that a king should strike his wife. Ser Meryn.?
The knight was on her before she could think, yanking back her hand as she tried to shield her face and backhanding her across the ear with a gloved fist. Sansa did not remember failing, yet the next she knew she was sprawled on one knee amongst the rushes. Her head was ringing. Ser Meryn Trant stood over her, with blood on the knuckles of his white silk glove.
?oWill you obey now, or shall I have him chastise you again??
Sansâ?Ts ear felt numb. She touched it, and her fingertips came away wet and red. ?oI... as... as you command, my lord.?
?oYour Grace,? Joffrey corrected her. ?oI shall look for you in court.? He turned and left.
Ser Meryn and Ser Arys followed him out, but Sandor Clegane lingered long enough to yank her roughly to her feet. ?oSave yourself some pain, girl, and give him what he wants.?
?oWhat... what does he want? Please, tell me.?
?oHe wants you to smile and smell sweet and be his lady love,? the Hound rasped. ?oHe wants to hear you recite all your pretty little words the way the septa taught you. He wants you to love him... and fear him.?
After he was gone, Sansa sank back onto the rushes, staring at the wall until two of her bedmaids crept timidly into the chamber. ?oI will need hot water for my bath, please,? she told them, ?oand perfume, and some powder to hide this bruise.? The right side of her face was swollen and beginning to ache, but she knew Joffrey would want her to be beautiful.
The hot water made her think of Winterfell, and she took strength from that. She had not washed since the day her father died, and she was startled at how filthy the water became. Her maids sluiced the blood off her face, scrubbed the dirt from her back, washed her hair and brushed it out until it sprang back in thick auburn curls. Sansa did not speak to them, except to give them commands; they were Lannister servants, not her own, and she did not trust them. When the time came to dress, she chose the green silk gown that she had worn to the tourney. She recalled how gallant Joff had been to her that night at the feast. Perhaps it would make him remember as well, and treat her more gently.
She drank a glass of buttermilk and nibbled at some sweet biscuits as she waited, to settle her stomach. It was midday when Ser Meryn returned. He had donned his white armor; a shirt of enameled scales chased with gold, a tall helm with a golden sunburst crest, greaves and gorget and gauntlet and boots of gleaming plate, a heavy wool cloak clasped with a golden lion. His visor had been removed from his helm, to better show his dour face; pouchy bags under his eyes, a wide sour mouth, rusty hair spotted with grey. ?oMy lady,? he said, bowing, as if he had not beaten her bloody only three hours past. ?oHis Grace has instructed me to escort you to the throne room.?
?oDid he instruct you to hit me if I refused to come??
?oAre you refusing to come, my lady?? The look he gave her was without expression. He did not so much as glance at the bruise he had left her.
He did not hate her, Sansa realized; neither did he love her. He felt nothing for her at all. She was only a... a thing to him. ?oNo,? she said, rising. She wanted to rage, to hurt him as hê?Td hurt her, to warn him that when she was queen she would have him exiled if he ever dared strike her again... but she remembered what the Hound had told her, so all she said was, ?oI shall do whatever His Grace commands.?
?oAs I do,? he replied.
?oYes... but you are no true knight, Ser Meryn.?
Sandor Clegane would have laughed at that, Sansa knew. Other men might have cursed her, warned her to keep silent, even begged for her forgiveness. Ser Meryn Trant did none of these. Ser Meryn Trant simply did not care.
The balcony was deserted save for Sansa. She stood with her head bowed, fighting to hold back her tears, while below Joffrey sat on his Iron Throne and dispensed what it pleased him to call justice. Nine cases out of ten seemed to bore him; those he allowed his council to handle, squirming restlessly while Lord Baelish, Grand Maester Pycelle, or Queen Cersei resolved the matter. When he did choose to make a ruling, though, not even his queen mother could sway him.
A thief was brought before him and he had Ser Ilyn chop his hand off, right there in court. Two knights came to him with a dispute about some land, and he decreed that they should duel for it on the morrow. ?oTo the death,? he added. A woman fell to her knees to plead for the head of a man executed as a traitor. She had loved him, she said, and she wanted to see him decently buried. ?oIf you loved a traitor, you must be a traitor too,? Joffrey said. Two gold cloaks dragged her off to the dungeons.
Frog-faced Lord Slynt sat at the end of the council table wearing a black velvet doublet and a shiny cloth-of-gold cape, nodding with approval every time the king pronounced a sentence. Sansa stared hard at his ugly face, remembering how he had thrown down her father for Ser Ilyn to behead, wishing she could hurt him, wishing that some hero would throw him down and cut off his head. But a voice inside her whispered, There are no heroes, and she remembered what Lord Petyr had said to her, here in this very hall. ?oLife is not a song, sweetling,? hê?Td told her. ?oYou may learn that one day to your sorrow.? In life, the monsters win, she told herself, and now it was the Hound?Ts voice she heard, a cold rasp, metal on stone. ?oSave yourself some pain, girl, and give him what he wants.?
The last case was a plump tavern singer, accused of making a song that ridiculed the late King Robert. Joff commanded them to fetch his woodharp and ordered him to perform the song for the court. The singer wept and swore he would never sing that song again, but the king insisted. It was sort of a funny song, all about Robert fighting with a pig. The pig was the boar whô?Td killed him, Sansa knew, but in some verses it almost sounded as if he were singing about the queen. When the song was done, Joffrey announced that hê?Td decided to be merciful. The singer could keep either his fingers or his tongue. He would have a day to make his choice. Janos Slynt nodded.

That was the final business of the afternoon, Sansa saw with relief, but her ordeal was not yet done. When the herald?Ts voice dismissed the court, she fled the balcony, only to find Joffrey waiting for her at the base of the curving stairs. The Hound was with him, and Ser Meryn as well. The young king examined her critically, top to bottom. ?oYou look much better than you did.?
?oThank you, Your Grace,? Sansa said. Hollow words, but they made him nod and smile.
?oWalk with me,? Jofftey commanded, offering her his arm. She had no choice but to take it. The touch of his hand would have thrilled her once; now it made her flesh crawl. ?oMy name day will be here soon,? Joffrey said as they slipped out the rear of the throne room. ?oThere will be a great feast, and gifts. What are you going to give me??
?oI... I had not thought, my lord.?
?oYour Grace,? he said sharply. ?oYou truly are a stupid girl, aren?Tt you? My mother says so.?
?oShe does?? After all that had happened, his words should have lost their power to hurt her, yet somehow they had not. The queen had always been so kind to her.
?oOh, yes. She worries about our children, whether they?Tll be stupid like you, but I told her not to trouble herself.? The king gestured, and Ser Meryn opened a door for them.
?oThank you, Your Grace,? she murmured. The Hound was right, she thought, I am only a little bird, repeating the words they taught me. The sun had fallen below the western wall, and the stones of the Red Keep glowed dark as blood.
?oI?Tll get you with child as soon as you?Tre able,? Joffrey said as he escorted her across the practice yard. ?oIf the first one is stupid, I?Tll chop off your head and find a smarter wife. When do you think you?Tll be able to have children??
Sansa could not look at him, he shamed her so. ?oSepta Mordane says most... most highborn girls have their flowering at twelve or thirteen.?
Joffrey nodded. ?oThis way.? He led her into the gatehouse, to the base of the steps that led up to the battlements.
Sansa jerked back away from him, trembling. Suddenly she knew where they were going. ?oNo,? she said, her voice a frightened gasp. ?oPlease, no, don?Tt make me, I beg you...?
Joffrey pressed his lips together. ?oI want to show you what happens to traitors.?
Sansa shook her head wildly. ?oI won?Tt. I won?Tt.?
?oI can have Ser Meryn drag you up,? he said. ?oYou won?Tt like that. You had better do what I say.? Joffrey reached for her, and Sansa cringed away from him, backing into the Hound.
?oDo it, girl,? Sandor Clegane told her, pushing her back toward the king. His mouth twitched on the burned side of his face and Sansa could almost hear the rest of it. Hê?Tll have you up there no matter what, so give him what he wants.
She forced herself to take King Joffrey?Ts hand. The climb was something out of a nightmare; every step was a struggle, as if she were pulling her feet out of ankle-deep mud, and there were more steps than she would have believed, a thousand thousand steps, and horror waiting on the ramparts.
From the high battlements of the gatehouse, the whole world spread out below them. Sansa could see the Great Sept of Baelor on Visenyâ?Ts hill, where her father had died. At the other end of the Street of the Sisters stood the fire-blackened ruins of the Dragonpit. To the west, the swollen red sun was half-hidden behind the Gate of the Gods. The salt sea was at her back, and to the south was the fish market and the docks and the swirling torrent of the Blackwater Rush. And to the north...
She turned that way, and saw only the city, streets and alleys and hills and bottoms and more streets and more alleys and the stone of distant walls. Yet she knew that beyond them was open country, farms and fields and forests, and beyond that, north and north and north again, stood Winterfell.
?oWhat are you looking at?? Joffrey said. ?oThis is what I wanted you to see, right here.?
A thick stone parapet protected the outer edge of the rampart, reaching as high as Sansâ?Ts chin, with crenellations cut into it every five feet for archers. The heads were mounted between the crenels, along the top of the wall, impaled on iron spikes so they faced out over the city. Sansa had noted them the moment shê?Td stepped out onto the wallwalk, but the river and the bustling streets and the setting sun were ever so much prettier. He can make me look at the heads, she told herself, but he can?Tt make me see them.
?oThis one is your father,? he said. ?oThis one here. Dog, turn it around so she can see him.?
Sandor Clegane took the head by the hair and turned it. The severed head had been dipped in tar to preserve it longer. Sansa looked at it calmly, not seeing it at all. It did not really look like Lord Eddard, she thought; it did not even look real ?oHow long do I have to look??
Joffrey seemed disappointed. ?oDo you want to see the rest?? There was a long row of them.
?oIf it please Your Grace.?
Joffrey marched her down the wallwalk, past a dozen more heads and two empty spikes. ?oI?Tm saving those for my uncle Stannis and my uncle Renly,? he explained. The other heads had been dead and mounted much longer than her father. Despite the tar, most were long past being recognizable. The king pointed to one and said, ?oThat?Ts your septa there,? but Sansa could not even have told that it was a woman. The jaw had rotted off her face, and birds had eaten one ear and most of a cheek.
Sansa had wondered what had happened to Septa Mordane, although she supposed she had known all along. ?oWhy did you kill her?? she asked. ?oShe was godsworn...?
?oShe was a traitor.? Joffrey looked pouty; somehow she was upsetting him. ?oYou haven?Tt said what you mean to give me for my name day. Maybe I should give you something instead, would you like that??
?oIf it please you, my lord,? Sansa said.
When he smiled, she knew he was mocking her. ?oYour brother is a traitor too, you know.? He turned Septa Mordanê?Ts head back around. ?oI remember your brother from Winterfell. My dog called him the lord of the wooden sword. Didn?Tt you, dog??
?oDid I?? the Hound replied. ?oI don?Tt recall.?
Joffrey gave a petulant shrug. ?oYour brother defeated my uncle Jaime. My mother says it was treachery and deceit. She wept when she heard. Women are all weak, even her, though she pretends she isn?Tt. She says we need to stay in King?Ts Landing in case my other uncles attack, but I don?Tt care. After my name day feast, I?Tm going to raise a host and kill your brother myself. That?Ts what I?Tll give you, Lady Sansa. Your brother?Ts head.?
A kind of madness took over her then, and she heard herself say, ?oMaybe my brother will give me your head.?
Joffrey scowled. ?oYou must never mock me like that. A true wife does not mock her lord. Ser Meryn, teach her.?
This time the knight grasped her beneath the jaw and held her head still as he struck her. He hit her twice, left to right, and harder, right to left. Her lip split and blood ran down her chin, to mingle with the salt of her tears.
?oYou shouldn?Tt be crying all the time,? Joffrey told her. ?oYou?Tre more pretty when you smile and laugh.?
Sansa made herself smile, afraid that he would have Ser Meryn hit her again if she did not, but it was no good, the king still shook his head. ?oWipe off the blood, you?Tre all messy.?
The outer parapet came up to her chin, but along the inner edge of the walk was nothing, nothing but a long plunge to the bailey seventy or eighty feet below. All it would take was a shove, she told herself. He was standing right there, right there, smirking at her with those fat wormlips. You could do it, she told herself. You could. Do it right now. It wouldn?Tt even matter if she went over with him. It wouldn?Tt matter at all.
?oHere, girl.? Sandor Clegane knelt before her, between her and Joffrey. With a delicacy surprising in such a big man, he dabbed at the blood welling from her broken lip.
The moment was gone. Sansa lowered her eyes. ?oThank you,? she said when he was done. She was a good girl, and always remembered her courtesies.

Chapter 68
Daenerys​

Wings shadowed her fever dreams. ?oYou don?Tt want to wake the dragon, do you??
She was walking down a long hall beneath high stone arches. She could not look behind her, must not look behind her. There was a door ahead of her, tiny with distance, but even from afar, she saw that it was painted red. She walked faster, and her bare feet left bloody footprints on the stone.
?oYou don?Tt want to wake the dragon, do you??
She saw sunlight on the Dothraki sea, the living plain, rich with the smells of earth and death. Wind stirred the grasses, and they rippled like water. Drogo held her in strong arms, and his hand stroked her *** and opened her and woke that sweet wetness that was his alone, and the stars smiled down on them, stars in a daylight sky. ?oHome,? she whispered as he entered her and filled her with his seed, but suddenly the stars were gone, and across the blue sky swept the great wings, and the world took flame.
?o... don?Tt want to wake the dragon, do you??
Ser Jorah?Ts face was drawn and sorrowful. ?oRhaegar was the last dragon,? he told her. He warmed translucent hands over a glowing brazier where stone eggs smouldered red as coals. One moment he was there and the next he was fading, his flesh colorless, less substantial than the wind. ?oThe last dragon,? he whispered, thin as a wisp, and was gone. She felt the dark behind her, and the red door seemed farther away than ever.
?o... don?Tt want to wake the dragon, do you??
Viserys stood before her, screaming. ?oThe dragon does not beg, slut. You do not command the dragon. I am the dragon, and I will be crowned.? The molten gold trickled down his face like wax, burning deep channels in his flesh. ?oI am the dragon and I will be crowned!? he shrieked, and his fingers snapped like snakes, biting at her nipples, pinching, twisting, even as his eyes burst and ran like jelly down seared and blackened cheeks.
?o... don?Tt want to wake the dragon.?
The red door was so far ahead of her, and she could feel the icy breath behind, sweeping up on her. If it caught her she would die a death that was more than death, howling forever alone in the darkness. She began to run.
?o... don?Tt want to wake the dragon.?
She could feel the heat inside her, a terrible burning in her womb. Her son was tall and proud, with Drogô?Ts copper skin and her own silver-gold hair, violet eyes shaped like almonds. And he smiled for her and began to lift his hand toward hers, but when he opened his mouth the fire poured out. She saw his heart burning through his chest, and in an instant he was gone, consumed like a moth by a candle, turned to ash. She wept for her child, the promise of a sweet mouth on her breast, but her tears turned to steam as they touched her skin.
?o... want to wake the dragon...?
Ghosts lined the hallway, dressed in the faded raiment of kings. In their hands were swords of pale fire. They had hair of silver and hair of gold and hair of platinum white, and their eyes were opal and amethyst, tourmaline and jade. ?oFaster,? they cried, ?ofaster, faster.? She raced, her feet melting the stone wherever they touched. ?oFaster!? the ghosts cried as one, and she screamed and threw herself forward. A great knife of pain ripped down her back, and she felt her skin tear open and smelled the stench of burning blood and saw the shadow of wings. And Daenerys Targaryen flew.
?oWake the dragon...?
The door loomed before her, the red door, so close, so close, the hall was a blur around her, the cold receding behind. And now the stone was gone and she flew across the Dothraki sea, high and higher, the green rippling beneath, and all that lived and breathed fled in terror from the shadow of her wings. She could smell home, she could see it, there, just beyond that door, green fields and great stone houses and arms to keep her warm, there. She threw open the door.
?o... the dragon...?
And saw her brother Rhaegar, mounted on a stallion as black as his armor. Fire glimmered red through the narrow eye slit of his helm. ?oThe last dragon,? Ser Jorah?Ts voice whispered faintly. ?oThe last, the last.? Dany lifted his polished black visor. The face within was her own.
After that, for a long time, there was only the pain, the fire within her, and the whisperings of stars.
She woke to the taste of ashes.
?oNo,? she moaned, ?ono, please.?
?oKhaleesi?? Jhiqui hovered over her, a frightened doe.
The tent was drenched in shadow, still and close. Flakes of ash drifted upward from a brazier, and Dany followed them with her eyes through the smoke hole above. Flying, she thought. I had wings, I was flying. But it was only a dream. ?oHelp me,? she whispered, struggling to rise. ?oBring me...? Her voice was raw as a wound, and she could not think what she wanted. Why did she hurt so much? It was as if her body had been torn to pieces and remade from the scraps. ?oI want...?
?oYes, Khaleesi.? Quick as that Jhiqui was gone, bolting from the tent, shouting. Dany needed... something... someone... what? It was important, she knew. It was the only thing in the world that mattered. She rolled onto her side and got an elbow under her, fighting the blanket tangled about her legs. It was so hard to move. The world swam dizzily. I have to...
They found her on the carpet, crawling toward her dragon eggs. Ser Jorah Mormont lifted her in his arms and carried her back to her sleeping silks, while she struggled feebly against him. Over his shoulder she saw her three handmaids, Jhogo with his little wisp of mustache, and the flat broad face of Mirri Maz Duur. ?oI must,? she tried to tell them, ?oI have to...?
?o... sleep, Princess,? Ser Jorah said.
?oNo,? Dany said. ?oPlease. Please.?
?oYes.? He covered her with silk, though she was burning. ?oSleep and grow strong again, Khaleesi. Come back to us.? And then Mirri Maz Duur was there, the maegi, tipping a cup against her lips. She tasted sour milk, and something else, something thick and bitter. Warm liquid ran down her chin. Somehow she swallowed. The tent grew dimmer, and sleep took her again. This time she did not dream. She floated, serene and at peace, on a black sea that knew no shore.
After a time - a night, a day, a year, she could not say - she woke again. The tent was dark, its silken walls flapping like wings when the wind gusted outside. This time Dany did not attempt to rise.
?oIrri,? she called, ?oJhiqui. Doreah.? They were there at once. ?oMy throat is dry,? she said, ?oso dry,? and they brought her water. It was warm and flat, yet Dany drank it eagerly, and sent Jhiqui for more. Irri dampened a soft cloth and stroked her brow.
?oI have been sick,? Dany said.The Dothraki girl nodded. ?oHow long?? The cloth was soothing, but Irri seemed so sad, it frightened her. ?oLong,? she whispered. When Jhiqui returned with more water, Mirri Maz Duur came with her, eyes heavy from sleep.
?oDrink,? she said, lifting Dany?Ts head to the cup once more, but this time it was only wine. Sweet, sweet wine. Dany drank, and lay back, listening to the soft sound of her own breathing. She could feel the heaviness in her limbs, as sleep crept in to fill her up once more. ?oBring me...? she murmured, her voice slurred and drowsy. ?oBring... I want to hold...?
?oYes?? the maegi asked. ?oWhat is it you wish, Khaleesi??
?oBring me... egg... dragon?Ts egg... please...? Her lashes turned to lead, and she was too weary to hold them up.
When she woke the third time, a shaft of golden sunlight was pouring through the smoke hole of the tent, and her arms were wrapped around a dragon?Ts egg. It was the pale one, its scales the color of butter cream, veined with whorls of gold and bronze, and Dany could feel the heat of it. Beneath her bedsilks, a fine sheen of perspiration covered her bare skin. Dragondew, she thought. Her fingers trailed lightly across the surface of the shell, tracing the wisps of gold, and deep in the stone she felt something twist and stretch in response. It did not frighten her. All her fear was gone, burned away.
Dany touched her brow. Under the film of sweat, her skin was cool to the touch, her fever gone. She made herself sit. There was a moment of dizziness, and the deep ache between her thighs. Yet she felt strong. Her maids came running at the sound of her voice. ?oWater,? she told them, ?oa flagon of water, cold as you can find it. And fruit, I think. Dates.?
?oAs you say, Khaleesi.?
?oI want Ser Jorah,? she said, standing. Jhiqui brought a sandsilk robe and draped it over her shoulders. ?oAnd a warm bath, and Mirri Maz Duur, and...? Memory came back to her all at once, and she faltered. ?oKhal Drogo,? she forced herself to say, watching their faces with dread. ?oIs he-??T
?oThe khal lives,? Irri answered quietly... yet Dany saw a darkness in her eyes when she said the words, and no sooner had she spoken than she rushed away to fetch water.
She turned to Doreah. ?oTell me.?
?oA... I shall bring Ser Jorah,? the Lysene girl said, bowing her head and fleeing the tent.
Jhiqui would have run as well, but Dany caught her by the wrist and held her captive. ?oWhat is it? I must know. Drogo... and my child.? Why had she not remembered the child until now? ?oMy son... Rhaego... where is he? I want him.?
Her handmaid lowered her eyes. ?oThe boy... he did not live, Khaleesi.? Her voice was a frightened whisper.
Dany released her wrist. My son is dead, she thought as Jhiqui left the tent. She had known somehow. She had known since she woke the first time to Jhiqui?Ts tears. No, she had known before she woke. Her dream came back to her, sudden and vivid, and she remembered the tall man with the copper skin and long silver-gold braid, bursting into flame.
She should weep, she knew, yet her eyes were dry as ash. She had wept in her dream, and the tears had turned to steam on her cheeks. All the grief has been burned out of me, she told herself. She felt sad, and yet... she could feel Rhaego receding from her, as if he had never been.