The one-eared black tom arched his back and
hissed at her.
Arya padded down the alley, balanced lightly on the balls of her
bare feet, listening to the flutter of her heart, breathing slow
deep breaths. Quiet as a shadow, she told herself, light as a
feather. The tomcat watched her come, his eyes wary.
Catching cats was hard. Her hands were covered with half-healed
scratches, and both knees were scabbed over where she had scraped
them raw in tumbles. At first even the cook’s huge fat
kitchen cat had been able to elude her, but Syrio had kept her at
it day and night. When she’d run to him with her hands
bleeding, he had said, “So slow? Be quicker, girl. Your
enemies will give you more than scratches.” He had dabbed her
wounds with Myrish fire, which burned so bad she had had to bite
her lip to keep from screaming. Then he sent her out after more
cats.
The Red Keep was full of cats: lazy old cats dozing in the sun,
cold-eyed mousers twitching their tails, quick little kittens with
claws like needles, ladies’ cats all combed and trusting,
ragged shadows prowling the midden heaps. One by one Arya had
chased them down and snatched them up and brought them proudly to
Syrio Forel . . . all but this one, this one-eared black devil of a
tomcat. “That’s the real king of this castle right
there,” one of the gold cloaks had told her. “Older
than sin and twice as mean. One time, the king was feasting the
queen’s father, and that black bastard hopped up on the table
and snatched a roast quail right out of Lord Tywin’s fingers.
Robert laughed so hard he like to burst. You stay away from that
one, child.”
He had run her halfway across the castle; twice around the Tower
of the Hand, across the inner bailey, through the stables, down the
serpentine steps, past the small kitchen and the pig yard and the
barracks of the gold cloaks, along the base of the river wall and
up more steps and back and forth over Traitor’s Walk, and
then down again and through a gate and around a well and in and out
of strange buildings until Arya didn’t know where she
was.
Now at last she had him. High walls pressed close on either
side, and ahead was a blank windowless mass of stone. Quiet as a
shadow, she repeated, sliding forward, light as a feather.
When she was three steps away from him, the tomcat bolted. Left,
then right, he went; and right, then left, went Arya, cutting off
his escape. He hissed again and tried to dart between her legs.
Quick as a snake, she thought. Her hands closed around him. She
hugged him to her chest, whirling and laughing aloud as his claws
raked at the front of her leather jerkin. Ever so fast, she kissed
him right between the eyes, and jerked her head back an instant
before his claws would have found her face. The tomcat yowled and
spit.
“What’s he doing to that cat?”
Startled, Arya dropped the cat and whirled toward the voice. The
tom bounded off in the blink of an eye. At the end of the alley
stood a girl with a mass of golden curls, dressed as pretty as a
doll in blue satin. Beside her was a plump little blond boy with a
prancing stag sewn in pearls across the front of his doublet and a
miniature sword at his belt. Princess Myrcella and Prince Tommen,
Arya thought. A septa as large as a draft horse hovered over them,
and behind her two big men in crimson cloaks, Lannister house
guards.
“What were you doing to that cat, boy?” Myrcella
asked again, sternly. To her brother she said, “He’s a
ragged boy, isn’t he? Look at him.” She giggled.
“A ragged dirty smelly boy,” Tommen agreed. They don’t know me, Arya realized. They don’t even
know I’m a girl. Small wonder; she was barefoot and dirty,
her hair tangled from the long run through the castle, clad in a
jerkin ripped by cat claws and brown roughspun pants hacked off
above her scabby knees. You don’t wear skirts and silks when
you’re catching cats. Quickly she lowered her head and
dropped to one knee. Maybe they wouldn’t recognize her. If
they did, she would never hear the end of it. Septa Mordane would
be mortified, and Sansa would never speak to her again from the
shame.
The old fat septa moved forward. “Boy, how did you come
here? You have no business in this part of the castle.”
“You can’t keep this sort out,” one of the red
cloaks said. “Like trying to keep out rats.”
“Who do you belong to, boy?” the septa demanded.
“Answer me. What’s wrong with you, are you
mute?”
Arya’s voice caught in her throat. If she answered, Tommen
and Myrcella would know her for certain.
“Godwyn, bring him here,” the septa said. The taller
of the guardsmen started down the alley.
Panic gripped her throat like a giant’s hand. Arya could
not have spoken if her life had hung on it. Calm as still water,
she mouthed silently.
As Godwyn reached for her, Arya moved. Quick as a snake. She
leaned to her left, letting his fingers brush her arm, spinning
around him. Smooth as summer silk. By the time he got himself
turned, she was sprinting down the alley. Swift as a deer. The
septa was screeching at her. Arya slid between legs as thick and
white as marble columns, bounded to her feet, bowled into Prince
Tommen and hopped over him when he sat down hard and said
“Oof,” spun away from the second guard, and then she
was past them all, running full out.
She heard shouts, then pounding footsteps, closing behind her.
She dropped and rolled. The red cloak went careening past her,
stumbling. Arya sprang back to her feet. She saw a window above
her, high and narrow, scarcely more than an arrow slit. Arya leapt,
caught the sill, pulled herself up. She held her breath as she
wriggled through. Slippery as an eel. Dropping to the floor in
front of a startled scrubwoman, she hopped up, brushed the rushes
off her clothes, and was off again, out the door and along a long
hall, down a stair, across a hidden courtyard, around a corner and
over a wall and through a low narrow window into a pitch-dark
cellar. The sounds grew more and more distant behind her.
Arya was out of breath and quite thoroughly lost. She was in for
it now if they had recognized her, but she didn’t think they
had. She’d moved too fast. Swift as a deer.
She hunkered down in the dark against a damp stone wall and
listened for the pursuit, but the only sound was the beating of her
own heart and a distant drip of water. Quiet as a shadow, she told
herself. She wondered where she was. When they had first come to
King’s Landing, she used to have bad dreams about getting
lost in the castle. Father said the Red Keep was smaller than Winterfell, but in her
dreams it had been immense, an endless stone maze with walls that
seemed to shift and change behind her. She would find herself
wandering down gloomy halls past faded tapestries, descending
endless circular stairs, darting through courtyards or over
bridges, her shouts echoing unanswered. In some of the rooms the
red stone walls would seem to drip blood, and nowhere could she
find a window. Sometimes she would hear her father’s voice,
but always from a long way off, and no matter how hard she ran
after it, it would grow fainter and fainter, until it faded to
nothing and Arya was alone in the dark.
It was very dark right now, she realized. She hugged her bare
knees tight against her chest and shivered. She would wait quietly
and count to ten thousand. By then it would be safe for her to come
creeping back out and find her way home.
By the time she had reached eighty-seven, the room had begun to
lighten as her eyes adjusted to the blackness. Slowly the shapes
around her took on form. Huge empty eyes stared at her hungrily
through the gloom, and dimly she saw the jagged shadows of long
teeth. She had lost the count. She closed her eyes and bit her lip
and sent the fear away. When she looked again, the monsters would
be gone. Would never have been. She pretended that Syrio was beside
her in the dark, whispering in her ear. Calm as still water, she
told herself. Strong as a bear. Fierce as a wolverine. She opened
her eyes again.
The monsters were still there, but the fear was gone.
Arya got to her feet, moving warily. The heads were all around
her. She touched one, curious, wondering if it was real. Her
fingertips brushed a massive jaw. It felt real enough. The bone was
smooth beneath her hand, cold and hard to the touch. She ran her
fingers down a tooth, black and sharp, a dagger made of darkness.
It made her shiver.
“It’s dead,” she said aloud. “It’s
just a skull, it can’t hurt me.” Yet somehow the
monster seemed to know she was there. She could feel its empty eyes
watching her through the gloom, and there was something in that
dim, cavernous room that did not love her. She edged away from the
skull and backed into a second, larger than the first. For an
instant she could feel its teeth digging into her shoulder, as if
it wanted a bite of her flesh. Arya whirled, felt leather catch and
tear as a huge fang nipped at her jerkin, and then she was running.
Another skull loomed ahead, the biggest monster of all, but Arya
did not even slow. She leapt over a ridge of black teeth as tall as
swords, dashed through hungry jaws, and threw herself against the
door.
Her hands found a heavy iron ring set in the wood, and she
yanked at it. The door resisted a moment, before it slowly began to
swing inward, with a creak so loud Arya was certain it could be
heard all through the city. She opened the door just far enough to
slip through, into the hallway beyond.
If the room with the monsters had been dark, the hall was the
blackest pit in the seven hells. Calm as still water, Arya told
herself, but even when she gave her eyes a moment to adjust, there
was nothing to see but the vague grey outline of the door she had
come through. She wiggled her fingers in front of her face, felt
the air move, saw nothing. She was blind. A water dancer sees with
all her senses, she reminded herself. She closed her eyes and
steadied her breathing one two three, drank in the quiet, reached
out with her hands.
Her fingers brushed against rough unfinished stone to her left.
She followed the wall, her hand skimming along the surface, taking
small gliding steps through the darkness. All halls lead somewhere.
Where there is a way in, there is a way out. Fear cuts deeper
than swords. Arya would not be afraid. It seemed as if she had been
walking a long ways when the wall ended abruptly and a draft of
cold air blew past her cheek. Loose hairs stirred faintly against
her skin.
From somewhere far below her, she heard noises. The scrape of
boots, the distant sound of voices. A flickering light brushed the
wall ever so faintly, and she saw that she stood at the top of a
great black well, a shaft twenty feet across plunging deep into the
earth. Huge stones had been set into the curving walls as steps,
circling down and down, dark as the steps to hell that Old Nan used
to tell them of. And something was coming up out of the darkness,
out of the bowels of the earth . . .
Arya peered over the edge and felt the cold black breath on her
face. Far below, she saw the light of a single torch, small as the
flame of a candle. Two men, she made out. Their shadows writhed
against the sides of the well, tall as giants. She could hear their
voices, echoing up the shaft.
“ . . . found one bastard,” one said. “The rest
will come soon. A day, two days, a fortnight . . . ”
“And when he learns the truth, what will he do?” a
second voice asked in the liquid accents of the Free Cities.
“The gods alone know,” the first voice said. Arya
could see a wisp of grey smoke drifting up off the torch, writhing
like a snake as it rose. “The fools tried to kill his son,
and what’s worse, they made a mummer’s farce of it.
He’s not a man to put that aside. I warn you, the wolf and
lion will soon be at each other’s throats, whether we will it
or no.”
“Too soon, too soon,” the voice with the accent
complained. “What good is war now? We are not ready.
Delay.”
“As well bid me stop time. Do you take me for a
wizard?”
The other chuckled. “No less.” Flames licked at the
cold air. The tall shadows were almost on top of her. An instant
later the man holding the torch climbed into her sight, his
companion beside him. Arya crept back away from the well, dropped
to her stomach, and flattened herself against the wall. She held
her breath as the men reached the top of the steps.
“What would you have me do?” asked the torchbearer,
a stout man in a leather half cape. Even in heavy boots, his feet
seemed to glide soundlessly over the ground. A round scarred face
and a stubble of dark beard showed under his steel cap, and he wore
mail over boiled leather, and a dirk and shortsword at his belt. It
seemed to Arya there was something oddly familiar about him.
“If one Hand can die, why not a second?” replied the
man with the accent and the forked yellow beard. “You have
danced the dance before, my friend.” He was no one Arya had
ever seen before, she was certain of it. Grossly fat, yet he seemed
to walk lightly, carrying his weight on the balls of his feet as a
water dancer might. His rings glimmered in the torchlight, red-gold
and pale silver, crusted with rubies, sapphires, slitted yellow
tiger eyes. Every finger wore a ring; some had two.
“Before is not now, and this Hand is not the other,”
the scarred man said as they stepped out into the hall. Still as
stone, Arya told herself, quiet as a shadow. Blinded by the blaze
of their own torch, they did not see her pressed flat against the
stone, only a few feet away.
“Perhaps so,” the forked beard replied, pausing to
catch his breath after the long climb. “Nonetheless, we must
have time. The princess is with child. The khal will not bestir
himself until his son is born. You know how they are, these
savages.”
The man with the torch pushed at something. Arya heard a deep
rumbling. A huge slab of rock, red in the torchlight, slid down out
of the ceiling with a resounding crash that almost made her cry
out. Where the entry to the well had been was nothing but stone,
solid and unbroken.
“If he does not bestir himself soon, it may be too
late,” the stout man in the steel cap said. “This is no
longer a game for two players, if ever it was. Stannis Baratheon
and Lysa Arryn have fled beyond my reach, and the whispers say they
are gathering swords around them. The Knight of Flowers writes
Highgarden, urging his lord father to send his sister to court. The
girl is a maid of fourteen, sweet and beautiful and tractable, and
Lord Renly and Ser Loras intend that Robert should bed her, wed
her, and make a new queen. Littlefinger . . . the gods only know what game Littlefinger is playing. Yet
Lord Stark’s the one who troubles my sleep. He has the
bastard, he has the book, and soon enough he’ll have the
truth. And now his wife has abducted Tyrion Lannister, thanks to
Littlefinger’s meddling. Lord Tywin will take that for an
outrage, and Jaime has a queer affection for the Imp. If the
Lannisters move north, that will bring the Tullys in as well.
Delay, you say. Make haste, I reply. Even the finest of jugglers
cannot keep a hundred balls in the air forever.”
“You are more than a juggler, old friend. You are a true
sorcerer. All I ask is that you work your magic awhile
longer.” They started down the hall in the direction Arya had
come, past the room with the monsters.
“What I can do, I will,” the one with the torch said
softly. “I must have gold, and another fifty
birds.”
She let them get a long way ahead, then went creeping after
them. Quiet as a shadow.
“So many?” The voices were fainter as the light
dwindled ahead of her. “The ones you need are hard to find . . . so young, to know their letters . . . perhaps older . . . not
die so easy . . . ”
“No. The younger are safer . . . treat them gently . . . ”
“ . . . .if they
kept their tongues . . . ”
“ . . . the risk . . . ”
Long after their voices had faded away, Arya could still see the
light of the torch, a smoking star that bid her follow. Twice it
seemed to disappear, but she kept on straight, and both times she
found herself at the top of steep, narrow stairs, the torch
glimmering far below her. She hurried after it, down and down. Once
she stumbled over a rock and fell against the wall, and her hand
found raw earth supported by timbers, whereas before the tunnel had
been dressed stone.
She must have crept after them for miles. Finally they were
gone, but there was no place to go but forward. She found the wall
again and followed, blind and lost, pretending that Nymeria was
padding along beside her in the darkness. At the end she was
knee-deep in foul-smelling water, wishing she could dance upon it as
Syrio might have, and wondering if she’d ever see light
again. It was full dark when finally Arya emerged into the night
air.
She found herself standing at the mouth of a sewer where it
emptied into the river. She stank so badly that she stripped right
there, dropping her soiled clothing on the riverbank as she dove
into the deep black waters. She swam until she felt clean, and
crawled out shivering. Some riders went past along the river road
as Arya was washing her clothes, but if they saw the scrawny naked
girl scrubbing her rags in the moonlight, they took no notice.
She was miles from the castle, but from anywhere in King’s
Landing you needed only to look up to see the Red Keep high on
Aegon’s Hill, so there was no danger of losing her way. Her
clothes were almost dry by the time she reached the gatehouse. The
portcullis was down and the gates barred, so she turned aside to a
postern door. The gold cloaks who had the watch sneered when she
told them to let her in. “Off with you,” one said.
“The kitchen scraps are gone, and we’ll have no begging
after dark.”
“I’m not a beggar,” she said. “I live
here.”
“I said, off with you. Do you need a clout on the ear to
help your hearing?”
“I want to see my father.”
The guards exchanged a glance. “I want to fuck the queen
myself, for all the good it does me,” the younger one
said.
The older scowled. “Who’s this father of yours, boy,
the city ratcatcher?”
“The Hand of the King,” Arya told him.
Both men laughed, but then the older one swung his fist at her,
casually, as a man would swat a dog. Arya saw the blow coming even
before it began. She danced back out of the way, untouched.
“I’m not a boy,” she spat at them.
“I’m Arya Stark of Winterfell, and if you lay a hand on
me my lord father will have both your heads on spikes. If you
don’t believe me, fetch Jory Cassel or Vayon Poole from the
Tower of the Hand.” She put her hands on her hips. “Now
are you going to open the gate, or do you need a clout on the ear
to help your hearing?”
Her father was alone in the solar when Harwin and Fat Tom
marched her in, an oil lamp glowing softly at his elbow. He was
bent over the biggest book Arya had ever seen, a great thick tome
with cracked yellow pages of crabbed script, bound between faded
leather covers, but he closed it to listen to Harwin’s
report. His face was stern as he sent the men away with thanks.
“You realize I had half my guard out searching for
you?” Eddard Stark said when they were alone. “Septa
Mordane is beside herself with fear. She’s in the sept
praying for your safe return. Arya, you know you are never to go
beyond the castle gates without my leave.”
“I didn’t go out the gates,” she blurted.
“Well, I didn’t mean to. I was down in the dungeons,
only they turned into this tunnel. It was all dark, and I
didn’t have a torch or a candle to see by, so I had to
follow. I couldn’t go back the way I came on account of the
monsters. Father, they were talking about killing you! Not the
monsters, the two men. They didn’t see me, I was being still as stone and quiet
as a shadow, but I heard them. They said you had a book and a
bastard and if one Hand could die, why not a second? Is that the
book? Jon’s the bastard, I bet.”
“Jon? Arya, what are you talking about? Who said
this?”
“They did,” she told him. “There was a fat one
with rings and a forked yellow beard, and another in mail and a
steel cap, and the fat one said they had to delay but the other one
told him he couldn’t keep juggling and the wolf and the lion
were going to eat each other and it was a mummer’s
farce.” She tried to remember the rest. She hadn’t
quite understood everything she’d heard, and now it was all
mixed up in her head. “The fat one said the princess was with
child. The one in the steel cap, he had the torch, he said that
they had to hurry. I think he was a wizard.”
“A wizard,” said Ned, unsmiling. “Did he have
a long white beard and tall pointed hat speckled with
stars?”
“No! It wasn’t like Old Nan’s stories. He
didn’t look like a wizard, but the fat one said he
was.”
“I warn you, Arya, if you’re spinning this thread of
air—”
“No, I told you, it was in the dungeons, by the place with
the secret wall. I was chasing cats, and well . . . ” She
screwed up her face. If she admitted knocking over Prince Tommen,
he would be really angry with her. “ . . . well, I went in
this window. That’s where I found the monsters.”
“Monsters and wizards,” her father said. “It
would seem you’ve had quite an adventure. These men you
heard, you say they spoke of juggling and mummery?”
“Yes,” Arya admitted, “only—”
“Arya, they were mummers,” her father told her.
“There must be a dozen troupes in King’s Landing right
now, come to make some coin off the tourney crowds. I’m not
certain what these two were doing in the castle, but perhaps the
king has asked for a show.”
“No.” She shook her head stubbornly. “They
weren’t—”
“You shouldn’t be following people about and spying
on them in any case. Nor do I cherish the notion of my daughter
climbing in strange windows after stray cats. Look at you,
sweetling. Your arms are covered with scratches. This has gone on
long enough. Tell Syrio Forel that I want a word with
hirn—”
He was interrupted by a short, sudden knock. “Lord Eddard,
pardons,” Desmond called out, opening the door a crack,
“but there’s a black brother here begging audience. He
says the matter is urgent. I thought you would want to
know.”
“My door is always open to the Night’s Watch,”
Father said.
Desmond ushered the man inside. He was stooped and ugly, with an
unkempt beard and unwashed clothes, yet Father greeted him
pleasantly and asked his name.
“Yoren, as it please m’lord. My pardons for the
hour.” He bowed to Arya. “And this must be your son. He
has your look.”
“I’m a girl,” Arya said, exasperated. If the
old man was down from the Wall, he must have come by way of
Winterfell. “Do you know my brothers?” she asked
excitedly. “Robb and Bran are at Winterfell, and Jon’s
on the Wall. Jon Snow, he’s in the Night’s Watch too,
you must know him, he has a direwolf, a white one with red eyes. Is
Jon a ranger yet? I’m Arya Stark.” The old man in his
smelly black clothes was looking at her oddly, but Arya could not
seem to stop talking. “When you ride back to the Wall, would
you bring Jon a letter if I wrote one?” She wished Jon were
here right now. He’d believe her about the dungeons and the
fat man with the forked beard and the wizard in the steel cap.
“My daughter often forgets her courtesies,” Eddard
Stark said with a faint smile that softened his words. “I beg
your forgiveness, Yoren. Did my brother Benjen send you?”
“No one sent me, m’lord, saving old Mormont. I’m here
to find men for the Wall, and when Robert next holds court,
I’ll bend the knee and cry our need, see if the king and his
Hand have some scum in the dungeons they’d be well rid of.
You might say as Benjen Stark is why we’re talking, though.
His blood ran black. Made him my brother as much as yours.
It’s for his sake I’m come. Rode hard, I did, near
killed my horse the way I drove her, but I left the others well
behind.”
“The others?”
Yoren spat. “Sellswords and freeriders and like trash.
That inn was full o’ them, and I saw them take the scent. The
scent of blood or the scent of gold, they smell the same in the
end. Not all o’ them made for King’s Landing, either.
Some went galloping for Casterly Rock, and the Rock lies closer.
Lord Tywin will have gotten the word by now, you can count on
it.”
Father frowned. “What word is this?”
Yoren eyed Arya. “One best spoken in private, m’lord,
begging your pardons.”
“As you say. Desmond, see my daughter to her
chambers.” He kissed her on the brow. “We’ll
finish our talk on the morrow.”
Arya stood rooted to the spot. “Nothing bad’s
happened to Jon, has it?” she asked Yoren. “Or Uncle
Benjen?”
“Well, as to Stark, I can’t say. The Snow boy was
well enough when I left the Wall. It’s not them as concerns
me.”
Desmond took her hand. “Come along, milady. You heard your
lord father.”
Arya had no choice but to go with him, wishing it had been Fat
Tom. With Tom, she might have been able to linger at the door on
some excuse and hear what Yoren was saying, but Desmond was too
single-minded to trick. “How many guards does my father
have?” she asked him as they descended to her bedchamber.
“Here at King’s Landing? Fifty.”
“You wouldn’t let anyone kill him, would you?”
she asked.
Desmond laughed. “No fear on that count, little lady. Lord
Eddard’s guarded night and day. He’ll come to no
harm.”
“The Lannisters have more than fifty men,” Arya
pointed out.
“So they do, but every northerner is worth ten of these
southron swords, so you can sleep easy.”
“What if a wizard was sent to kill him?”
“Well, as to that,” Desmond replied, drawing his
longsword, “wizards die the same as other men, once you cut
their heads off.”
The one-eared black tom arched his back and
hissed at her.
Arya padded down the alley, balanced lightly on the balls of her
bare feet, listening to the flutter of her heart, breathing slow
deep breaths. Quiet as a shadow, she told herself, light as a
feather. The tomcat watched her come, his eyes wary.
Catching cats was hard. Her hands were covered with half-healed
scratches, and both knees were scabbed over where she had scraped
them raw in tumbles. At first even the cook’s huge fat
kitchen cat had been able to elude her, but Syrio had kept her at
it day and night. When she’d run to him with her hands
bleeding, he had said, “So slow? Be quicker, girl. Your
enemies will give you more than scratches.” He had dabbed her
wounds with Myrish fire, which burned so bad she had had to bite
her lip to keep from screaming. Then he sent her out after more
cats.
The Red Keep was full of cats: lazy old cats dozing in the sun,
cold-eyed mousers twitching their tails, quick little kittens with
claws like needles, ladies’ cats all combed and trusting,
ragged shadows prowling the midden heaps. One by one Arya had
chased them down and snatched them up and brought them proudly to
Syrio Forel . . . all but this one, this one-eared black devil of a
tomcat. “That’s the real king of this castle right
there,” one of the gold cloaks had told her. “Older
than sin and twice as mean. One time, the king was feasting the
queen’s father, and that black bastard hopped up on the table
and snatched a roast quail right out of Lord Tywin’s fingers.
Robert laughed so hard he like to burst. You stay away from that
one, child.”
He had run her halfway across the castle; twice around the Tower
of the Hand, across the inner bailey, through the stables, down the
serpentine steps, past the small kitchen and the pig yard and the
barracks of the gold cloaks, along the base of the river wall and
up more steps and back and forth over Traitor’s Walk, and
then down again and through a gate and around a well and in and out
of strange buildings until Arya didn’t know where she
was.
Now at last she had him. High walls pressed close on either
side, and ahead was a blank windowless mass of stone. Quiet as a
shadow, she repeated, sliding forward, light as a feather.
When she was three steps away from him, the tomcat bolted. Left,
then right, he went; and right, then left, went Arya, cutting off
his escape. He hissed again and tried to dart between her legs.
Quick as a snake, she thought. Her hands closed around him. She
hugged him to her chest, whirling and laughing aloud as his claws
raked at the front of her leather jerkin. Ever so fast, she kissed
him right between the eyes, and jerked her head back an instant
before his claws would have found her face. The tomcat yowled and
spit.
“What’s he doing to that cat?”
Startled, Arya dropped the cat and whirled toward the voice. The
tom bounded off in the blink of an eye. At the end of the alley
stood a girl with a mass of golden curls, dressed as pretty as a
doll in blue satin. Beside her was a plump little blond boy with a
prancing stag sewn in pearls across the front of his doublet and a
miniature sword at his belt. Princess Myrcella and Prince Tommen,
Arya thought. A septa as large as a draft horse hovered over them,
and behind her two big men in crimson cloaks, Lannister house
guards.
“What were you doing to that cat, boy?” Myrcella
asked again, sternly. To her brother she said, “He’s a
ragged boy, isn’t he? Look at him.” She giggled.
“A ragged dirty smelly boy,” Tommen agreed. They don’t know me, Arya realized. They don’t even
know I’m a girl. Small wonder; she was barefoot and dirty,
her hair tangled from the long run through the castle, clad in a
jerkin ripped by cat claws and brown roughspun pants hacked off
above her scabby knees. You don’t wear skirts and silks when
you’re catching cats. Quickly she lowered her head and
dropped to one knee. Maybe they wouldn’t recognize her. If
they did, she would never hear the end of it. Septa Mordane would
be mortified, and Sansa would never speak to her again from the
shame.
The old fat septa moved forward. “Boy, how did you come
here? You have no business in this part of the castle.”
“You can’t keep this sort out,” one of the red
cloaks said. “Like trying to keep out rats.”
“Who do you belong to, boy?” the septa demanded.
“Answer me. What’s wrong with you, are you
mute?”
Arya’s voice caught in her throat. If she answered, Tommen
and Myrcella would know her for certain.
“Godwyn, bring him here,” the septa said. The taller
of the guardsmen started down the alley.
Panic gripped her throat like a giant’s hand. Arya could
not have spoken if her life had hung on it. Calm as still water,
she mouthed silently.
As Godwyn reached for her, Arya moved. Quick as a snake. She
leaned to her left, letting his fingers brush her arm, spinning
around him. Smooth as summer silk. By the time he got himself
turned, she was sprinting down the alley. Swift as a deer. The
septa was screeching at her. Arya slid between legs as thick and
white as marble columns, bounded to her feet, bowled into Prince
Tommen and hopped over him when he sat down hard and said
“Oof,” spun away from the second guard, and then she
was past them all, running full out.
She heard shouts, then pounding footsteps, closing behind her.
She dropped and rolled. The red cloak went careening past her,
stumbling. Arya sprang back to her feet. She saw a window above
her, high and narrow, scarcely more than an arrow slit. Arya leapt,
caught the sill, pulled herself up. She held her breath as she
wriggled through. Slippery as an eel. Dropping to the floor in
front of a startled scrubwoman, she hopped up, brushed the rushes
off her clothes, and was off again, out the door and along a long
hall, down a stair, across a hidden courtyard, around a corner and
over a wall and through a low narrow window into a pitch-dark
cellar. The sounds grew more and more distant behind her.
Arya was out of breath and quite thoroughly lost. She was in for
it now if they had recognized her, but she didn’t think they
had. She’d moved too fast. Swift as a deer.
She hunkered down in the dark against a damp stone wall and
listened for the pursuit, but the only sound was the beating of her
own heart and a distant drip of water. Quiet as a shadow, she told
herself. She wondered where she was. When they had first come to
King’s Landing, she used to have bad dreams about getting
lost in the castle. Father said the Red Keep was smaller than Winterfell, but in her
dreams it had been immense, an endless stone maze with walls that
seemed to shift and change behind her. She would find herself
wandering down gloomy halls past faded tapestries, descending
endless circular stairs, darting through courtyards or over
bridges, her shouts echoing unanswered. In some of the rooms the
red stone walls would seem to drip blood, and nowhere could she
find a window. Sometimes she would hear her father’s voice,
but always from a long way off, and no matter how hard she ran
after it, it would grow fainter and fainter, until it faded to
nothing and Arya was alone in the dark.
It was very dark right now, she realized. She hugged her bare
knees tight against her chest and shivered. She would wait quietly
and count to ten thousand. By then it would be safe for her to come
creeping back out and find her way home.
By the time she had reached eighty-seven, the room had begun to
lighten as her eyes adjusted to the blackness. Slowly the shapes
around her took on form. Huge empty eyes stared at her hungrily
through the gloom, and dimly she saw the jagged shadows of long
teeth. She had lost the count. She closed her eyes and bit her lip
and sent the fear away. When she looked again, the monsters would
be gone. Would never have been. She pretended that Syrio was beside
her in the dark, whispering in her ear. Calm as still water, she
told herself. Strong as a bear. Fierce as a wolverine. She opened
her eyes again.
The monsters were still there, but the fear was gone.
Arya got to her feet, moving warily. The heads were all around
her. She touched one, curious, wondering if it was real. Her
fingertips brushed a massive jaw. It felt real enough. The bone was
smooth beneath her hand, cold and hard to the touch. She ran her
fingers down a tooth, black and sharp, a dagger made of darkness.
It made her shiver.
“It’s dead,” she said aloud. “It’s
just a skull, it can’t hurt me.” Yet somehow the
monster seemed to know she was there. She could feel its empty eyes
watching her through the gloom, and there was something in that
dim, cavernous room that did not love her. She edged away from the
skull and backed into a second, larger than the first. For an
instant she could feel its teeth digging into her shoulder, as if
it wanted a bite of her flesh. Arya whirled, felt leather catch and
tear as a huge fang nipped at her jerkin, and then she was running.
Another skull loomed ahead, the biggest monster of all, but Arya
did not even slow. She leapt over a ridge of black teeth as tall as
swords, dashed through hungry jaws, and threw herself against the
door.
Her hands found a heavy iron ring set in the wood, and she
yanked at it. The door resisted a moment, before it slowly began to
swing inward, with a creak so loud Arya was certain it could be
heard all through the city. She opened the door just far enough to
slip through, into the hallway beyond.
If the room with the monsters had been dark, the hall was the
blackest pit in the seven hells. Calm as still water, Arya told
herself, but even when she gave her eyes a moment to adjust, there
was nothing to see but the vague grey outline of the door she had
come through. She wiggled her fingers in front of her face, felt
the air move, saw nothing. She was blind. A water dancer sees with
all her senses, she reminded herself. She closed her eyes and
steadied her breathing one two three, drank in the quiet, reached
out with her hands.
Her fingers brushed against rough unfinished stone to her left.
She followed the wall, her hand skimming along the surface, taking
small gliding steps through the darkness. All halls lead somewhere.
Where there is a way in, there is a way out. Fear cuts deeper
than swords. Arya would not be afraid. It seemed as if she had been
walking a long ways when the wall ended abruptly and a draft of
cold air blew past her cheek. Loose hairs stirred faintly against
her skin.
From somewhere far below her, she heard noises. The scrape of
boots, the distant sound of voices. A flickering light brushed the
wall ever so faintly, and she saw that she stood at the top of a
great black well, a shaft twenty feet across plunging deep into the
earth. Huge stones had been set into the curving walls as steps,
circling down and down, dark as the steps to hell that Old Nan used
to tell them of. And something was coming up out of the darkness,
out of the bowels of the earth . . .
Arya peered over the edge and felt the cold black breath on her
face. Far below, she saw the light of a single torch, small as the
flame of a candle. Two men, she made out. Their shadows writhed
against the sides of the well, tall as giants. She could hear their
voices, echoing up the shaft.
“ . . . found one bastard,” one said. “The rest
will come soon. A day, two days, a fortnight . . . ”
“And when he learns the truth, what will he do?” a
second voice asked in the liquid accents of the Free Cities.
“The gods alone know,” the first voice said. Arya
could see a wisp of grey smoke drifting up off the torch, writhing
like a snake as it rose. “The fools tried to kill his son,
and what’s worse, they made a mummer’s farce of it.
He’s not a man to put that aside. I warn you, the wolf and
lion will soon be at each other’s throats, whether we will it
or no.”
“Too soon, too soon,” the voice with the accent
complained. “What good is war now? We are not ready.
Delay.”
“As well bid me stop time. Do you take me for a
wizard?”
The other chuckled. “No less.” Flames licked at the
cold air. The tall shadows were almost on top of her. An instant
later the man holding the torch climbed into her sight, his
companion beside him. Arya crept back away from the well, dropped
to her stomach, and flattened herself against the wall. She held
her breath as the men reached the top of the steps.
“What would you have me do?” asked the torchbearer,
a stout man in a leather half cape. Even in heavy boots, his feet
seemed to glide soundlessly over the ground. A round scarred face
and a stubble of dark beard showed under his steel cap, and he wore
mail over boiled leather, and a dirk and shortsword at his belt. It
seemed to Arya there was something oddly familiar about him.
“If one Hand can die, why not a second?” replied the
man with the accent and the forked yellow beard. “You have
danced the dance before, my friend.” He was no one Arya had
ever seen before, she was certain of it. Grossly fat, yet he seemed
to walk lightly, carrying his weight on the balls of his feet as a
water dancer might. His rings glimmered in the torchlight, red-gold
and pale silver, crusted with rubies, sapphires, slitted yellow
tiger eyes. Every finger wore a ring; some had two.
“Before is not now, and this Hand is not the other,”
the scarred man said as they stepped out into the hall. Still as
stone, Arya told herself, quiet as a shadow. Blinded by the blaze
of their own torch, they did not see her pressed flat against the
stone, only a few feet away.
“Perhaps so,” the forked beard replied, pausing to
catch his breath after the long climb. “Nonetheless, we must
have time. The princess is with child. The khal will not bestir
himself until his son is born. You know how they are, these
savages.”
The man with the torch pushed at something. Arya heard a deep
rumbling. A huge slab of rock, red in the torchlight, slid down out
of the ceiling with a resounding crash that almost made her cry
out. Where the entry to the well had been was nothing but stone,
solid and unbroken.
“If he does not bestir himself soon, it may be too
late,” the stout man in the steel cap said. “This is no
longer a game for two players, if ever it was. Stannis Baratheon
and Lysa Arryn have fled beyond my reach, and the whispers say they
are gathering swords around them. The Knight of Flowers writes
Highgarden, urging his lord father to send his sister to court. The
girl is a maid of fourteen, sweet and beautiful and tractable, and
Lord Renly and Ser Loras intend that Robert should bed her, wed
her, and make a new queen. Littlefinger . . . the gods only know what game Littlefinger is playing. Yet
Lord Stark’s the one who troubles my sleep. He has the
bastard, he has the book, and soon enough he’ll have the
truth. And now his wife has abducted Tyrion Lannister, thanks to
Littlefinger’s meddling. Lord Tywin will take that for an
outrage, and Jaime has a queer affection for the Imp. If the
Lannisters move north, that will bring the Tullys in as well.
Delay, you say. Make haste, I reply. Even the finest of jugglers
cannot keep a hundred balls in the air forever.”
“You are more than a juggler, old friend. You are a true
sorcerer. All I ask is that you work your magic awhile
longer.” They started down the hall in the direction Arya had
come, past the room with the monsters.
“What I can do, I will,” the one with the torch said
softly. “I must have gold, and another fifty
birds.”
She let them get a long way ahead, then went creeping after
them. Quiet as a shadow.
“So many?” The voices were fainter as the light
dwindled ahead of her. “The ones you need are hard to find . . . so young, to know their letters . . . perhaps older . . . not
die so easy . . . ”
“No. The younger are safer . . . treat them gently . . . ”
“ . . . .if they
kept their tongues . . . ”
“ . . . the risk . . . ”
Long after their voices had faded away, Arya could still see the
light of the torch, a smoking star that bid her follow. Twice it
seemed to disappear, but she kept on straight, and both times she
found herself at the top of steep, narrow stairs, the torch
glimmering far below her. She hurried after it, down and down. Once
she stumbled over a rock and fell against the wall, and her hand
found raw earth supported by timbers, whereas before the tunnel had
been dressed stone.
She must have crept after them for miles. Finally they were
gone, but there was no place to go but forward. She found the wall
again and followed, blind and lost, pretending that Nymeria was
padding along beside her in the darkness. At the end she was
knee-deep in foul-smelling water, wishing she could dance upon it as
Syrio might have, and wondering if she’d ever see light
again. It was full dark when finally Arya emerged into the night
air.
She found herself standing at the mouth of a sewer where it
emptied into the river. She stank so badly that she stripped right
there, dropping her soiled clothing on the riverbank as she dove
into the deep black waters. She swam until she felt clean, and
crawled out shivering. Some riders went past along the river road
as Arya was washing her clothes, but if they saw the scrawny naked
girl scrubbing her rags in the moonlight, they took no notice.
She was miles from the castle, but from anywhere in King’s
Landing you needed only to look up to see the Red Keep high on
Aegon’s Hill, so there was no danger of losing her way. Her
clothes were almost dry by the time she reached the gatehouse. The
portcullis was down and the gates barred, so she turned aside to a
postern door. The gold cloaks who had the watch sneered when she
told them to let her in. “Off with you,” one said.
“The kitchen scraps are gone, and we’ll have no begging
after dark.”
“I’m not a beggar,” she said. “I live
here.”
“I said, off with you. Do you need a clout on the ear to
help your hearing?”
“I want to see my father.”
The guards exchanged a glance. “I want to fuck the queen
myself, for all the good it does me,” the younger one
said.
The older scowled. “Who’s this father of yours, boy,
the city ratcatcher?”
“The Hand of the King,” Arya told him.
Both men laughed, but then the older one swung his fist at her,
casually, as a man would swat a dog. Arya saw the blow coming even
before it began. She danced back out of the way, untouched.
“I’m not a boy,” she spat at them.
“I’m Arya Stark of Winterfell, and if you lay a hand on
me my lord father will have both your heads on spikes. If you
don’t believe me, fetch Jory Cassel or Vayon Poole from the
Tower of the Hand.” She put her hands on her hips. “Now
are you going to open the gate, or do you need a clout on the ear
to help your hearing?”
Her father was alone in the solar when Harwin and Fat Tom
marched her in, an oil lamp glowing softly at his elbow. He was
bent over the biggest book Arya had ever seen, a great thick tome
with cracked yellow pages of crabbed script, bound between faded
leather covers, but he closed it to listen to Harwin’s
report. His face was stern as he sent the men away with thanks.
“You realize I had half my guard out searching for
you?” Eddard Stark said when they were alone. “Septa
Mordane is beside herself with fear. She’s in the sept
praying for your safe return. Arya, you know you are never to go
beyond the castle gates without my leave.”
“I didn’t go out the gates,” she blurted.
“Well, I didn’t mean to. I was down in the dungeons,
only they turned into this tunnel. It was all dark, and I
didn’t have a torch or a candle to see by, so I had to
follow. I couldn’t go back the way I came on account of the
monsters. Father, they were talking about killing you! Not the
monsters, the two men. They didn’t see me, I was being still as stone and quiet
as a shadow, but I heard them. They said you had a book and a
bastard and if one Hand could die, why not a second? Is that the
book? Jon’s the bastard, I bet.”
“Jon? Arya, what are you talking about? Who said
this?”
“They did,” she told him. “There was a fat one
with rings and a forked yellow beard, and another in mail and a
steel cap, and the fat one said they had to delay but the other one
told him he couldn’t keep juggling and the wolf and the lion
were going to eat each other and it was a mummer’s
farce.” She tried to remember the rest. She hadn’t
quite understood everything she’d heard, and now it was all
mixed up in her head. “The fat one said the princess was with
child. The one in the steel cap, he had the torch, he said that
they had to hurry. I think he was a wizard.”
“A wizard,” said Ned, unsmiling. “Did he have
a long white beard and tall pointed hat speckled with
stars?”
“No! It wasn’t like Old Nan’s stories. He
didn’t look like a wizard, but the fat one said he
was.”
“I warn you, Arya, if you’re spinning this thread of
air—”
“No, I told you, it was in the dungeons, by the place with
the secret wall. I was chasing cats, and well . . . ” She
screwed up her face. If she admitted knocking over Prince Tommen,
he would be really angry with her. “ . . . well, I went in
this window. That’s where I found the monsters.”
“Monsters and wizards,” her father said. “It
would seem you’ve had quite an adventure. These men you
heard, you say they spoke of juggling and mummery?”
“Yes,” Arya admitted, “only—”
“Arya, they were mummers,” her father told her.
“There must be a dozen troupes in King’s Landing right
now, come to make some coin off the tourney crowds. I’m not
certain what these two were doing in the castle, but perhaps the
king has asked for a show.”
“No.” She shook her head stubbornly. “They
weren’t—”
“You shouldn’t be following people about and spying
on them in any case. Nor do I cherish the notion of my daughter
climbing in strange windows after stray cats. Look at you,
sweetling. Your arms are covered with scratches. This has gone on
long enough. Tell Syrio Forel that I want a word with
hirn—”
He was interrupted by a short, sudden knock. “Lord Eddard,
pardons,” Desmond called out, opening the door a crack,
“but there’s a black brother here begging audience. He
says the matter is urgent. I thought you would want to
know.”
“My door is always open to the Night’s Watch,”
Father said.
Desmond ushered the man inside. He was stooped and ugly, with an
unkempt beard and unwashed clothes, yet Father greeted him
pleasantly and asked his name.
“Yoren, as it please m’lord. My pardons for the
hour.” He bowed to Arya. “And this must be your son. He
has your look.”
“I’m a girl,” Arya said, exasperated. If the
old man was down from the Wall, he must have come by way of
Winterfell. “Do you know my brothers?” she asked
excitedly. “Robb and Bran are at Winterfell, and Jon’s
on the Wall. Jon Snow, he’s in the Night’s Watch too,
you must know him, he has a direwolf, a white one with red eyes. Is
Jon a ranger yet? I’m Arya Stark.” The old man in his
smelly black clothes was looking at her oddly, but Arya could not
seem to stop talking. “When you ride back to the Wall, would
you bring Jon a letter if I wrote one?” She wished Jon were
here right now. He’d believe her about the dungeons and the
fat man with the forked beard and the wizard in the steel cap.
“My daughter often forgets her courtesies,” Eddard
Stark said with a faint smile that softened his words. “I beg
your forgiveness, Yoren. Did my brother Benjen send you?”
“No one sent me, m’lord, saving old Mormont. I’m here
to find men for the Wall, and when Robert next holds court,
I’ll bend the knee and cry our need, see if the king and his
Hand have some scum in the dungeons they’d be well rid of.
You might say as Benjen Stark is why we’re talking, though.
His blood ran black. Made him my brother as much as yours.
It’s for his sake I’m come. Rode hard, I did, near
killed my horse the way I drove her, but I left the others well
behind.”
“The others?”
Yoren spat. “Sellswords and freeriders and like trash.
That inn was full o’ them, and I saw them take the scent. The
scent of blood or the scent of gold, they smell the same in the
end. Not all o’ them made for King’s Landing, either.
Some went galloping for Casterly Rock, and the Rock lies closer.
Lord Tywin will have gotten the word by now, you can count on
it.”
Father frowned. “What word is this?”
Yoren eyed Arya. “One best spoken in private, m’lord,
begging your pardons.”
“As you say. Desmond, see my daughter to her
chambers.” He kissed her on the brow. “We’ll
finish our talk on the morrow.”
Arya stood rooted to the spot. “Nothing bad’s
happened to Jon, has it?” she asked Yoren. “Or Uncle
Benjen?”
“Well, as to Stark, I can’t say. The Snow boy was
well enough when I left the Wall. It’s not them as concerns
me.”
Desmond took her hand. “Come along, milady. You heard your
lord father.”
Arya had no choice but to go with him, wishing it had been Fat
Tom. With Tom, she might have been able to linger at the door on
some excuse and hear what Yoren was saying, but Desmond was too
single-minded to trick. “How many guards does my father
have?” she asked him as they descended to her bedchamber.
“Here at King’s Landing? Fifty.”
“You wouldn’t let anyone kill him, would you?”
she asked.
Desmond laughed. “No fear on that count, little lady. Lord
Eddard’s guarded night and day. He’ll come to no
harm.”
“The Lannisters have more than fifty men,” Arya
pointed out.
“So they do, but every northerner is worth ten of these
southron swords, so you can sleep easy.”
“What if a wizard was sent to kill him?”
“Well, as to that,” Desmond replied, drawing his
longsword, “wizards die the same as other men, once you cut
their heads off.”