A Clash Of Kings Part 55

"These are Lady Catelyn's wards, both named Walder Frey," Maester Luwin explained. "And this is Jojen Reed and his sister Meera, son and daughter to Howland Reed of Greywater Watch, who came to renew their oaths of fealty to Winterfell."

"Some might call that ill-timed," said Theon, "though not for me. Here you are and here you'll stay." He vacated the high seat. "Bring the prince here, Lorren." The black-bearded man dumped Bran onto the stone as if he were a sack of oats.

People were still being driven into the Great Hall, prodded along with shouts and the b.u.t.ts of the spears. Gage and Osha arrived from the kitchens, spotted with flour from making the morning bread. Mikken they dragged in cursing. Farlen entered limping, struggling to support Palla. Her dress had been ripped in two; she held it up with a clenched fist and walked as if every step were agony. Septon Chayle rushed to lend a hand, but one of the ironmen knocked him to the floor.

The last man marched through the doors was the prisoner Reek, whose stench preceded him, ripe and pungent. Bran felt his stomach twist at the smell of him. "We found this one locked in a tower cell," announced his escort, a beardless youth with ginger-colored hair and sodden clothing, doubtless one of those who'd swum the moat. "He says they call him Reek."

"Can't think why," Theon said, smiling. "Do you always smell so bad, or did you just finish f.u.c.king a pig?"

"Haven't f.u.c.ked no one since they took me, m'lord. Heke's me true name. I was in service to the b.a.s.t.a.r.d o' the Dreadfort till the Starks give him an arrow in the back for a wedding gift."

Theon found that amusing. "Who did he marry?"

"The widow o' Hornwood, m'lord."

"That crone? Was he blind? She has teats like empty wineskins, dry and withered."

"It wasn't her teats he wed her for, m'lord."

The ironmen slammed shut the tall doors at the foot of the hall. From the high seat, Bran could see about twenty of them. He probably left some guards on the gates and the armory. Even so, there couldn't be more than thirty.

Theon raised his hands for quiet. "You all know me-"

"Aye, we know you for a sack of steaming dung!" shouted Mikken, before the bald man drove the b.u.t.t of his spear into his gut, then smashed him across the face with the shaft. The smith stumbled to his knees and spat out a tooth.

"Mikken, you be silent." Bran tried to sound stern and lordly, the way Robb did when he made a command, but his voice betrayed him and the words came out in a shrill squeak.

"Listen to your little lordling, Mikken," said Theon. "He has more sense than you do."

A good lord protects his people, he reminded himself. "I've yielded Winterfell to Theon."

"Louder, Bran. And call me prince."

He raised his voice. "I have yielded Winterfell to Prince Theon. All of you should do as he commands you."

"d.a.m.ned if I will!" bellowed Mikken.

Theon ignored the outburst. "My father has donned the ancient crown of salt and rock, and declared himself King of the Iron Islands. He claims the north as well, by right of conquest. You are all his subjects."

"b.u.g.g.e.r that." Mikken wiped the blood from his mouth. "I serve the Starks, not some treasonous squid of-aah." The b.u.t.t of the spear smashed him face first into the stone floor.

"Smiths have strong arms and weak heads," observed Theon. "But if the rest of you serve me as loyally as you served Ned Stark, you'll find me as generous a lord as you could want."

On his hands and knees, Mikken spat blood. Please don't, Bran wished at him, but the blacksmith shouted, "If you think you can hold the north with this sorry lot o'-"

The bald man drove the point of his spear into the back of Mikken's neck. Steel slid through flesh and came out his throat in a welter of blood. A woman screamed, and Meera wrapped her arms around Rickon. It's blood he drowned on, Bran thought numbly. His own blood.

"Who else has something to say?" asked Theon Greyjoy.

"Hodor hodor hodor hodor," shouted Hodor, eyes wide.

"Someone kindly shut that halfwit up."

Two ironmen began to beat Hodor with the b.u.t.ts of their spears. The stableboy dropped to the floor, trying to s.h.i.+eld himself with his hands.

"I will be as good a lord to you as Eddard Stark ever was." Theon raised his voice to be heard above the smack of wood on flesh. "Betray me, though, and you'll wish you hadn't. And don't think the men you see here are the whole of my power. Torrhen's Square and Deepwood Motte will soon be ours as well, and my uncle is sailing up the Saltspear to seize Moat Cailin. If Robb Stark can stave off the Lannisters, he may reign as King of the Trident hereafter, but House Greyjoy holds the north now."

"Stark's lords will fight you," the man Reek called out. "That bloated pig at White Harbor for one, and them Umbers and Karstarks too. You'll need men. Free me and I'm yours."

Theon weighed him a moment. "You're cleverer than you smell, but I could not suffer that stench."

"Well," said Reek, "I could wash some. If I was free."

"A man of rare good sense." Theon smiled. "Bend the knee."

One of the ironmen handed Reek a sword, and he laid it at Theon's feet and swore obedience to House Greyjoy and King Balon. Bran could not look. The green dream was coming true.

"M'lord Greyjoy!" Osha stepped past Mikken's body. "I was brought here captive too. You were there the day I was taken."

I thought you were a friend, Bran thought, hurt.

"I need fighters," Theon declared, "not kitchen s.l.u.ts."

"It was Robb Stark put me in the kitchens. For the best part of a year, I've been left to scour kettles, sc.r.a.pe grease, and warm the straw for this one." She threw a look at Gage. "I've had a bellyful of it. Put a spear in my hand again."

"I got a spear for you right here," said the bald man who'd killed Mikken. He grabbed his crotch, grinning.

Osha drove her bony knee up between his legs. "You keep that soft pink thing." She wrested the spear from him and used the b.u.t.t to knock him off his feet. "I'll have me the wood and iron." The bald man writhed on the floor while the other reavers sent up gales of laughter.

Theon laughed with the rest. "You'll do," he said. "Keep the spear; Stygg can find another. Now bend the knee and swear."

When no one else rushed forward to pledge service, they were dismissed with a warning to do their work and make no trouble. Hodor was given the task of bearing Bran back to his bed. His face was all ugly from the beating, his nose swollen and one eye closed. "Hodor," he sobbed between cracked lips as he lifted Bran in huge strong arms and b.l.o.o.d.y hands and carried him back out into the rain.

ARYA.

There's ghosts, I know there is." Hot Pie was kneading bread, his arms floured up to his elbows. "Pia saw something in the b.u.t.tery last night."

Arya made a rude noise. Pia was always seeing things in the b.u.t.tery. Usually they were men. "Can I have a tart?" she asked. "You baked a whole tray."

"I need a whole tray. Ser Amory is partial to them."

She hated Ser Amory. "Let's spit on them."

Hot Pie looked around nervously. The kitchens were full of shadows and echoes, but the other cooks and scullions were all asleep in the cavernous lofts above the ovens. "He'll know."

"He will not," Arya said. "You can't taste spit."

"If he does, it's me they'll whip." Hot Pie stopped his kneading. "You shouldn't even be here. It's the black of night."

It was, but Arya never minded. Even in the black of night, the kitchens were never still; there was always someone rolling dough for the morning bread, stirring a kettle with a long wooden spoon, or butchering a hog for Ser Amory's breakfast bacon. Tonight it was Hot Pie.

"If Pinkeye wakes and finds you gone-" Hot Pie said.

"Pinkeye never wakes." His true name was Mebble, but everyone called him Pinkeye for his runny eyes. "Not once he's pa.s.sed out." Each morning he broke his fast with ale. Each evening he fell into a drunken sleep after supper, wine-colored spit running down his chin. Arya would wait until she heard him snoring, then creep barefoot up the servant's stair, making no more noise than the mouse she'd been. She carried neither candle nor taper. Syrio had told her once that darkness could be her friend, and he was right. If she had the moon and the stars to see by, that was enough. "I bet we could escape, and Pinkeye wouldn't even notice I was gone," she told Hot Pie.

"I don't want to escape. It's better here than it was in them woods. I don't want to eat no worms. Here, sprinkle some flour on the board."

Arya c.o.c.ked her head. "What's that?"

"What? I don't-"

"Listen with your ears, not your mouth. That was a warhorn. Two blasts, didn't you hear? And there, that's the portcullis chains, someone's going out or coming in. Want to go see?" The gates of Harrenhal had not been opened since the morning Lord Tywin had marched with his host.

"I'm making the morning bread," Hot Pie complained. "Anyhow I don't like it when it's dark, I told you."

"I'm going. I'll tell you after. Can I have a tart?"

"No."

She filched one anyway, and ate it on her way out. It was stuffed with chopped nuts and fruit and cheese, the crust flaky and still warm from the oven. Eating Ser Amory's tart made Arya feel daring. Barefoot surefoot lightfoot, she sang under her breath. I am the ghost in Harrenhal.

The horn had stirred the castle from sleep; men were coming out into the ward to see what the commotion was about. Arya fell in with the others. A line of ox carts were rumbling under the portcullis. Plunder, she knew at once. The riders escorting the carts spoke in a babble of queer tongues. Their armor glinted pale in the moonlight, and she saw a pair of striped black-and-white zorses. The b.l.o.o.d.y Mummers. Arya withdrew a little deeper into the shadows, and watched as a huge black bear rolled by, caged in the back of a wagon. Other carts were loaded down with silver plate, weapons and s.h.i.+elds, bags of flour, pens of squealing hogs and scrawny dogs and chickens. Arya was thinking how long it had been since she'd had a slice off a pork roast when she saw the first of the prisoners.

By his bearing and the proud way he held his head, he must have been a lord. She could see mail glinting beneath his torn red surcoat. At first Arya took him for a Lannister, but when he pa.s.sed near a torch she saw his device was a silver fist, not a lion. His wrists were bound tightly, and a rope around one ankle tied him to the man behind him, and him to the man behind him, so the whole column had to shuffle along in a lurching lockstep. Many of the captives were wounded. If any halted, one of the riders would trot up and give him a lick of the whip to get him moving again. She tried to judge how many prisoners there were, but lost count before she got to fifty. There were twice that many at least. Their clothing was stained with mud and blood, and in the torchlight it was hard to make out all their badges and sigils, but some of those Arya glimpsed she recognized. Twin towers. Sunburst. b.l.o.o.d.y man. Battle-axe. The battle-axe is for Cerwyn, and the white sun on black is Karstark. They're northmen. My father's men, and Robb's. She didn't like to think what that might mean.

The b.l.o.o.d.y Mummers began to dismount. Stableboys emerged sleepy from their straw to tend their lathered horses. One of the riders was shouting for ale. The noise brought Ser Amory Lorch out onto the covered gallery above the ward, flanked by two torchbearers. Goat-helmed Vargo Hoat reined up below him. "My lord cath.e.l.lan," the sellsword said. He had a thick, s...o...b..ry voice, as if his tongue was too big for his mouth.

"What's all this, Hoat?" Ser Amory demanded, frowning.

"Capt.i.ths. Rooth Bolton thought to croth the river, but my Brafe Companions cut his van to pieceth. Killed many, and thent Bolton running. Thith ith their lord commander, Glover, and the one behind ith Ther Aenyth Frey."

Ser Amory Lorch stared down at the roped captives with his little pig eyes. Arya did not think he was pleased. Everyone in the castle knew that he and Vargo Hoat hated each other. "Very well," he said. "Ser Cadwyn, take these men to the dungeons."

The lord with the mailed fist on his surcoat raised his eyes. "We were promised honorable treatment-" he began.

"Silenth!" Vargo Hoat screamed at him, spraying spittle.

Ser Amory addressed the captives. "What Hoat promised you is nothing to me. Lord Tywin made me the castellan of Harrenhal, and I shall do with you as I please." He gestured to his guards. "The great cell under the Widow's Tower ought to hold them all. Any who do not care to go are free to die here."

As his men herded off the captives at spearpoint, Arya saw Pinkeye emerge from the stairwell, blinking at the torchlight. If he found her missing, he would shout and threaten to whip the b.l.o.o.d.y hide off her, but she was not afraid. He was no Weese. He was forever threatening to whip the b.l.o.o.d.y hide off this one or that one, but Arya never actually knew him to hit. Still, it would be better if he never saw her. She glanced around. The oxen were being unharnessed, the carts unloaded, while the Brave Companions clamored for drink and the curious gathered around the caged bear. In the commotion, it was not hard to slip off unseen. She went back the way she had come, wanting to be out of sight before someone noticed her and thought to put her to work.

Away from the gates and the stables, the great castle was largely deserted. The noise dwindled behind her. A swirling wind gusted, drawing a high s.h.i.+very scream from the cracks in the Wailing Tower. Leaves had begun to fall from the trees in the G.o.dswood, and she could hear them moving through the deserted courtyards and between the empty buildings, making a faint skittery sound as the wind drove them across the stones. Now that Harrenhal was near empty once again, sound did queer things here. Sometimes the stones seemed to drink up noise, shrouding the yards in a blanket of silence. Other times, the echoes had a life of their own, so every footfall became the tread of a ghostly army, and every distant voice a ghostly feast. The funny sounds were one of the things that bothered Hot Pie, but not Arya.

Quiet as a shadow, she flitted across the middle bailey, around the Tower of Dread, and through the empty mews, where people said the spirits of dead falcons stirred the air with ghostly wings. She could go where she would. The garrison numbered no more than a hundred men, so small a troop that they were lost in Harrenhal. The Hall of a Hundred Hearths was closed off, along with many of the lesser buildings, even the Wailing Tower. Ser Amory Lorch resided in the castellan's chambers in Kingspyre, themselves as s.p.a.cious as a lord's, and Arya and the other servants had moved to the cellars beneath him so they would be close at hand. While Lord Tywin had been in residence, there was always a man-at-arms wanting to know your business. But now there were only a hundred men left to guard a thousand doors, and no one seemed to know who should be where, or care much.

As she pa.s.sed the armory, Arya heard the ring of a hammer. A deep orange glow shone through the high windows. She climbed to the roof and peeked down. Gendry was beating out a breastplate. When he worked, nothing existed for him but metal, bellows, fire. The hammer was like part of his arm. She watched the play of muscles in his chest and listened to the steel music he made. He's strong, she thought. As he took up the long-handled tongs to dip the breastplate into the quenching trough, Arya slithered through the window and leapt down to the floor beside him.

He did not seem surprised to see her. "You should be abed, girl." The breastplate hissed like a cat as he dipped it in the cold water. "What was all that noise?"

"Vargo Hoat's come back with prisoners. I saw their badges. There's a Glover, from Deepwood Motte, he's my father's man. The rest too, mostly." All of a sudden, Arya knew why her feet had brought her here. "You have to help me get them out."

Gendry laughed. "And how do we do that?"

"Ser Amory sent them down to the dungeon. The one under the Widow's Tower, that's just one big cell. You could smash the door open with your hammer-"

"While the guards watch and make bets on how many swings it will take me, maybe?"

Arya chewed her lips. "We'd need to kill the guards."

"How are we supposed to do that?"

"Maybe there won't be a lot of them."

"If there's two, that's too many for you and me. You never learned nothing in that village, did you? You try this and Vargo Hoat will cut off your hands and feet, the way he does." Gendry took up the tongs again.

"You're afraid."

"Leave me alone, girl."

"Gendry, there's a hundred northmen. Maybe more, I couldn't count them all. That's as many as Ser Amory has. Well, not counting the b.l.o.o.d.y Mummers. We just have to get them out and we can take over the castle and escape."

"Well, you can't get them out, no more'n you could save Lommy." Gendry turned the breastplate with the tongs to look at it closely. "And if we did escape, where would we go?"

"Winterfell," she said at once. "I'd tell Mother how you helped me, and you could stay-"

"Would m'lady permit? Could I shoe your horses for you, and make swords for your lordly brothers?"

Sometimes he made her so angry. "You stop that!"

"Why should I wager my feet for the chance to sweat in Winterfell in place of Harrenhal? You know old Ben Blackthumb? He came here as a boy. Smithed for Lady Whent and her father before her and his father before him, and even for Lord Lothston who held Harrenhal before the Whents. Now he smiths for Lord Tywin, and you know what he says? A sword's a sword, a helm's a helm, and if you reach in the fire you get burned, no matter who you're serving. Lucan's a fair enough master. I'll stay here."

"The queen will catch you, then. She didn't send gold cloaks after Ben Blackthumb!"

"Likely it wasn't even me they wanted."

"It was too, you know it. You're somebody."

"I'm a 'prentice smith, and one day might be I'll make a master armorer . . . if I don't run off and lose my feet or get myself killed." He turned away from her, picked up his hammer once more, and began to bang.

Arya's hands curled into helpless fists. "The next helm you make, put mule's ears on it in place of bull's horns!" She had to flee, or else she would have started hitting him. He probably wouldn't even feel it if I did. When they find who he is and cut off his stupid mulehead, he'll be sorry he didn't help. She was better off without him anyhow. He was the one who got her caught at the village.

But thinking of the village made her remember the march, and the storeroom, and the Tickler. She thought of the little boy who'd been hit in the face with the mace, of stupid old All-for-Joffrey, of Lommy Greenhands. I was a sheep, and then I was a mouse, I couldn't do anything but hide. Arya chewed her lip and tried to think when her courage had come back. Jaqen made me brave again. He made me a ghost instead of a mouse.

She had been avoiding the Lorathi since Weese's death. Chiswyck had been easy, anyone could push a man off the wallwalk, but Weese had raised that ugly spotted dog from a pup, and only some dark magic could have turned the animal against him. Yoren found Jaqen in a black cell, the same as Rorge and Biter, she remembered. Jaqen did something horrible and Yoren knew, that's why he kept him in chains. If the Lorathi was a wizard, Rorge and Biter could be demons he called up from some h.e.l.l, not men at all.

Jaqen still owed her one death. In Old Nan's stories about men who were given magic wishes by a grumkin, you had to be especially careful with the third wish, because it was the last. Chiswyck and Weese hadn't been very important. The last death has to count, Arya told herself every night when she whispered her names. But now she wondered if that was truly the reason she had hesitated. So long as she could kill with a whisper, Arya need not be afraid of anyone . . . but once she used up the last death, she would only be a mouse again.

With Pinkeye awake, she dared not go back to her bed. Not knowing where else to hide, she made for the G.o.dswood. She liked the sharp smell of the pines and sentinels, the feel of gra.s.s and dirt between her toes, and the sound the wind made in the leaves. A slow little stream meandered through the wood, and there was one spot where it had eaten the ground away beneath a deadfall.