Maester Luwin came to him when the first scouts were seen
outside the walls. “My lord prince,” he said,
“you must yield.”
Theon stared at the platter of
oakcakes, honey, and blood sausage they’d brought him to
break his fast. Another sleepless night had left his nerves raw,
and the very sight of food sickened him. “There has been no
reply from my uncle?”
“None,” the maester said. “Nor from your
father on Pyke.”
“Send more birds.”
“It will not serve. By the time the birds
reach—”
“Send them!” Knocking the platter of food aside with
a swipe of his arm, he pushed off the blankets and rose from Ned
Stark’s bed naked and angry. “Or do you want me dead?
Is that it, Luwin? The truth now.”
The small grey man was unafraid. “My order
serves.”
“Yes, but whom?”
“The realm,” Maester Luwin said, “and
Winterfell. Theon, once I taught you sums and letters, history and
warcraft. And might have taught you more, had you wished to learn.
I will not claim to bear you any great love, no, but I cannot hate
you either. Even if I did, so long as you hold Winterfell I am
bound by oath to give you counsel. So now I counsel you to
yield.”
Theon stooped to scoop a puddled cloak off the floor, shook off
the rushes, and draped it over his shoulders. A fire, I’ll
have a fire, and clean garb. Where’s Wex? I’ll not go
to my grave in dirty clothes.
“You have no hope of holding here,” the maester went
on. “If your lord father meant to send you aid, he would have
done so by now. It is the Neck that concerns him. The battle for
the north will be fought amidst the ruins of Moat
Cailin.”
“That may be so,” said Theon. “And so long as
I hold Winterfell, Ser Rodrik and Stark’s lords bannermen
cannot march south to take my uncle in the rear.” I am not so
innocent of warcraft as you think, old man. “I have food
enough to stand a year’s siege, if need be.”
“There will be no siege. Perhaps they will spend a day or
two fashioning ladders and tying grapnels to the ends of ropes. But
soon enough they will come over your walls in a hundred places at
once. You may be able to hold the keep for a time, but the castle
will fall within the hour. You would do better to open your gates
and ask for—”
“—mercy? I know what kind of mercy they have for
me.”
“There is a way.”
“I am ironborn,” Theon reminded him. “I have
my own way. What choice have they left me? No, don’t answer,
I’ve heard enough of your counsel. Go and send those birds as
I commanded, and tell Lorren I want to see him. And Wex as well.
I’ll have my mail scoured clean, and my garrison assembled in
the yard.”
For a moment he thought the maester was going to defy him. But
finally Luwin bowed stiffly. “As you command.”
They made a pitifully small assembly; the ironmen were few, the
yard large. “The northmen will be on us before
nightfall,” he told them. “Ser Rodrik Cassel and all
the lords who have come to his call. I will not run from them. I
took this castle and I mean to hold it, to live or die as Prince of
Winterfell. But I will not command any man to die with me. If you
leave now, before Ser Rodrik’s main force is upon us,
there’s still a chance you may win free.” He unsheathed
his longsword and drew a line in the dirt. “Those who would
stay and fight, step forward.”
No one spoke. The men stood in their mail and fur and boiled
leather, as still as if they were made of stone. A few exchanged
looks. Urzen shuffled his feet. Dykk Harlaw hawked and spat. A
finger of wind ruffled Endehar’s long fair hair.
Theon felt as though he were drowning. Why am I surprised? he
thought bleakly. His father had forsaken him, his uncles, his
sister, even that wretched creature Reek. Why should his men prove
any more loyal? There was nothing to say, nothing to do. He could
only stand there beneath the great grey walls and the hard white
sky, sword in hand, waiting, waiting . . .
Wex was the first to cross the line. Three quick steps and he
stood at Theon’s side, slouching. Shamed by the boy, Black
Lorren followed, all scowls. “Who else?” he demanded.
Red Rolfe came forward. Kromm. Werlag. Tymor and his brothers. Ulf
the Ill. Harrag Sheepstealer. Four Harlaws and two Botleys. Kenned
the Whale was the last. Seventeen in all.
Urzen was among those who did not move, and Stygg, and every man
of the ten that Asha had brought from Deepwood Motte. “Go,
then,” Theon told them. “Run to my sister. She’ll
give you all a warm welcome, I have no doubt.”
Stygg had the grace at least to look ashamed. The rest moved off
without a word. Theon turned to the seventeen who remained.
“Back to the walls. If the gods should spare us, I shall
remember every man of you.”
Black Lorren stayed when the others had gone. “The castle
folk will turn on us soon as the fight begins.”
“I know that. What would you have me do?”
“Put them out,” said Lorren. “Every
one.”
Theon shook his head. “Is the noose ready?”
“It is. You mean to use it?”
“Do you know a better way?”
“Aye. I’ll take my axe and stand on that drawbridge,
and let them come try me. One at a time, two, three, it makes no
matter. None will pass the moat while I still draw
breath.” He means to die, thought Theon. It’s not victory he wants,
it’s an end worthy of a song. “We’ll use the
noose.”
“As you say,” Lorren replied, contempt in his
eyes.
Wex helped garb him for battle. Beneath his black surcoat and
golden mantle was a shirt of well-oiled ringmail, and under that a
layer of stiff boiled leather. Once armed and armored, Theon
climbed the watchtower at the angle where the eastern and southern
walls came together to have a look at his doom. The northmen were
spreading out to encircle the castle. It was hard to judge their
numbers. A thousand at least; perhaps twice that many. Against
seventeen. They’d brought catapults and scorpions. He saw no
siege towers rumbling up the kingsroad, but there was timber enough
in the wolfswood to build as many as were required.
Theon studied their banners through Maester Luwin’s Myrish
lens tube. The Cerwyn battle-axe flapped bravely wherever he
looked, and there were Tallhart trees as well, and mermen from
White Harbor. Less common were the sigils of Flint and Karstark.
Here and there he even saw the bull moose of the Hornwoods. But no
Glovers, Asha saw to them, no Boltons from the Dreadfort, no Umbers
come down from the shadow of the Wall. Not that they were needed.
Soon enough the boy Cley Cerwyn appeared before the gates carrying
a peace banner on a tall staff, to announce that Ser Rodrik Cassel
wished to parley with Theon Turncloak. Turncloak. The name was bitter as bile. He had gone to Pyke to
lead his father’s longships against Lannisport, he
remembered. “I shall be out shortly,” he shouted down.
“Alone.”
Black Lorren disapproved. “Only blood can wash out
blood,” he declared. “Knights may keep their truces
with other knights, but they are not so careful of their honor when
dealing with those they deem outlaw.”
Theon bristled. “I am the Prince of Winterfell and heir to
the Iron Islands. Now go find the girl and do as I told
you.”
Black Lorren gave him a murderous look. “Aye,
Prince.” He’s turned against me too, Theon realized. Of late it
seemed to him as if the very stones of Winterfell had turned
against him. If I die, I die friendless and abandoned. What choice
did that leave him, but to live?
He rode to the gatehouse with his crown on his head. A woman was
drawing water from the well, and Gage the cook stood in the door of
the kitchens. They hid their hatred behind sullen looks and faces
blank as slate, yet he could feel it all the same.
When the drawbridge was lowered, a chill wind sighed across the
moat. The touch of it made him shiver. It is the cold, nothing
more, Theon told himself, a shiver, not a tremble. Even brave men
shiver. Into the teeth of that wind he rode, under the portcullis,
over the drawbridge. The outer gates swung open to let him pass. As
he emerged beneath the walls, he could sense the boys watching from
the empty sockets where their eyes had been.
Ser Rodrik waited in the market astride his dappled gelding.
Beside him, the direwolf of Stark flapped from a staff borne by
young Cley Cerwyn. They were alone in the square, though Theon
could see archers on the roofs of surrounding houses, spearmen to
his right, and to his left a line of mounted knights beneath the
merman-and-trident of House Manderly. Every one of them wants me
dead. Some were boys he’d drunk with, diced with, even
wenched with, but that would not save him if he fell into their
hands.
“Ser Rodrik.” Theon reined to a halt. “It
grieves me that we must meet as foes.”
“My own grief is that I must wait a while to hang
you.” The old knight spat onto the muddy ground. “Theon
Turncloak.”
“I am a Greyjoy of Pyke,” Theon reminded him.
“The cloak my father swaddled me in bore a kraken, not a
direwolf.”
“For ten years you have been a ward of Stark.”
“Hostage and prisoner, I call it.”
“Then perhaps Lord Eddard should have kept you chained to
a dungeon wall. Instead he raised you among his own sons, the sweet
boys you have butchered, and to my undying shame I trained you in
the arts of war. Would that I had thrust a sword through your belly
instead of placing one in your hand.”
“I came out to parley, not to suffer your insults. Say
what you have to say, old man. What would you have of
me?”
“Two things,” the old man said. “Winterfell,
and your life. Command your men to open the gates and lay down
their arms. Those who murdered no children shall be free to walk
away, but you shall be held for King Robb’s justice. May the
gods take pity on you when he returns.”
“Robb will never look on Winterfell again,” Theon
promised. “He will break himself on Moat Cailin, as every
southron army has done for ten thousand years. We hold the north
now, ser.”
“You hold three castles,” replied Ser Rodrik,
“and this one I mean to take back, Turncloak.”
Theon ignored that. “Here are my terms. You have until
evenfall to disperse. Those who swear fealty to Balon Greyjoy as
their king and to myself as Prince of Winterfell will be confirmed
in their rights and properties and suffer no harm. Those who defy
us will be destroyed.”
Young Cerwyn was incredulous. “Are you mad,
Greyjoy?”
Ser Rodrik shook his head. “Only vain, lad. Theon has
always had too lofty an opinion of himself, I fear.” The old
man jabbed a finger at him. “Do not imagine that I need wait
for Robb to fight his way up the Neck to deal with the likes of
you. I have near two thousand men with
me . . . and if the tales be true, you have no
more than fifty.” Seventeen, in truth. Theon made himself smile. “I have
something better than men.” And he raised a fist over his
head, the signal Black Lorren had been told to watch for.
The walls of Winterfell were behind him, but Ser Rodrik faced
them squarely and could not fail to see. Theon watched his face.
When his chin quivered under those stiff white whiskers, he knew
just what the old man was seeing. He is not surprised, he thought
with sadness, but the fear is there.
“This is craven,” Ser Rodrik said. “To use a
child so . . . this is despicable.”
“Oh, I know,” said Theon. “It’s a dish I
tasted myself, or have you forgotten? I was ten when I was taken
from my father’s house, to make certain he would raise no
more rebellions.”
“It is not the same!”
Theon’s face was impassive. “The noose I wore was
not made of hempen rope, that’s true enough, but I felt it
all the same. And it chafed, Ser Rodrik. It chafed me raw.”
He had never quite realized that until now, but as the words came
spilling out he saw the truth of them.
“No harm was ever done you.”
“And no harm will be done your Beth, so long as
you—”
Ser Rodrik never gave him the chance to finish.
“Viper,” the knight declared, his face red with rage
beneath those white whiskers. “I gave you the chance to save
your men and die with some small shred of honor, Turncloak. I
should have known that was too much to ask of a childkiller.”
His hand went to the hilt of his sword. “I ought cut you down
here and now and put an end to your lies and deceits. By the gods,
I should.”
Theon did not fear a doddering old man, but those watching
archers and that line of knights were a different matter. If the
swords came out his chances of getting back to the castle alive
were small to none. “Forswear your oath and murder me, and
you will watch your little Beth strangle at the end of a
rope.”
Ser Rodrik’s knuckles had gone white, but after a moment
he took his hand off the swordhilt. “Truly, I have lived too
long.”
“I will not disagree, ser. Will you accept my
terms?”
“I have a duty to Lady Catelyn and House Stark.”
“And your own House? Beth is the last of your
blood.”
The old knight drew himself up straight. “I offer myself
in my daughter’s place. Release her, and take me as your
hostage. Surely the castellan of Winterfell is worth more than a
child.”
“Not to me.” A valiant gesture, old man, but I am
not that great a fool. “Not to Lord Manderly or Leobald
Tallhart either, I’d wager.” Your sorry old skin is
worth no more to them than any other man’s. “No,
I’ll keep the girl . . . and keep her
safe, so long as you do as I’ve commanded you. Her life is in
your hands.”
“Gods be good, Theon, how can you do this? You know I must
attack, have sworn . . . ”
“If this host is still in arms before my gate when the sun
sets, Beth will hang,” said Theon. “Another hostage
will follow her to the grave at first light, and another at sunset.
Every dawn and every dusk will mean a death, until you are gone. I
have no lack of hostages.” He did not wait for a reply, but
wheeled Smiler around and rode back toward the castle. He went
slowly at first, but the thought of those archers at his back soon
drove him to a canter. The small heads watched him come from their
spikes, their tarred and flayed faces looming larger with every
yard; between them stood little Beth Cassel, noosed and crying.
Theon put his heel into Smiler and broke into a hard gallop.
Smiler’s hooves clattered on the drawbridge, like
drumbeats.
In the yard he dismounted and handed his reins to Wex. “It
may stay them,” he told Black Lorren. “We’ll know
by sunset. Take the girl in till then, and keep her somewhere
safe.” Under the layers of leather, steel, and wool, he was
slick with sweat. “I need a cup of wine. A vat of wine would
do even better.”
A fire had been laid in Ned Stark’s bedchamber. Theon sat
beside it and filled a cup with a heavy-bodied red from the castle
vaults, a wine as sour as his mood. They will attack, he thought
gloomily, staring at the flames. Ser Rodrik loves his daughter, but
he is still castellan, and most of all a knight. Had it been Theon
with a noose around his neck and Lord Balon commanding the army
without, the warhorns would already have sounded the attack, he had
no doubt. He should thank the gods that Ser Rodrik was not
ironborn. The men of the green lands were made of softer stuff,
though he was not certain they would prove soft enough.
If not, if the old man gave the command to storm the castle
regardless, Winterfell would fall; Theon entertained no delusions
on that count. His seventeen might kill three, four, five times
their own number, but in the end they would be overwhelmed.
Theon stared at the flames over the rim of his wine goblet,
brooding on the injustice of it all. “I rode beside Robb
Stark in the Whispering Wood,” he muttered. He had been
frightened that night, but not like this. It was one thing to go
into battle surrounded by friends, and another to perish alone and
despised. Mercy, he thought miserably.
When the wine brought no solace, Theon sent Wex to fetch his bow
and took himself to the old inner ward. There he stood, loosing
shaft after shaft at the archery butts until his shoulders ached
and his fingers were bloody, pausing only long enough to pull the
arrows from the targets for another round. I saved Bran’s
life with this bow, he reminded himself. Would that I could save my
own. Women came to the well, but did not linger; whatever they saw
on Theon’s face sent them away quickly.
Behind him the broken tower stood, its summit as jagged as a
crown where fire had collapsed the upper stories long ago. As the
sun moved, the shadow of the tower moved as well, gradually
lengthening, a black arm reaching out for Theon Greyjoy. By the
time the sun touched the wall, he was in its grasp. If I hang the
girl, the northmen will attack at once, he thought as he loosed a
shaft. If I do not hang her, they will know my threats are empty.
He knocked another arrow to his bow. There is no way out, none.
“If you had a hundred archers as good as yourself, you
might have a chance to hold the castle,” a voice said
softly.
When he turned, Maester Luwin was behind him. “Go
away,” Theon told him. “I have had enough of your
counsel.”
“And life? Have you had enough of that, my lord
prince?”
He raised the bow. “One more word and I’ll put this
shaft through your heart.”
“You won’t.”
Theon bent the bow, drawing the grey goose feathers back to his
cheek. “Care to make a wager?”
“I am your last hope, Theon.” I have no hope, he thought. Yet he lowered the bow half an inch
and said, “I will not run.”
“I do not speak of running. Take the black.”
“The Night’s Watch?” Theon let the bow unbend
slowly and pointed the arrow at the ground.
“Ser Rodrik has served House Stark all his life, and House
Stark has always been a friend to the Watch. He will not deny you.
Open your gates, lay down your arms, accept his terms, and he must
let you take the black.” A brother of the Night’s Watch. It meant no crown, no
sons, no wife . . . but it meant life, and life
with honor. Ned Stark’s own brother had chosen the Watch, and
Jon Snow as well. I have black garb aplenty, once I tear the krakens off. Even my
horse is black. I could rise high in the Watch—chief of rangers,
likely even Lord Commander. Let Asha keep the bloody islands,
they’re as dreary as she is. If I served at Eastwatch, I
could command my own ship, and there’s fine hunting beyond
the Wall. As for women, what wildling woman wouldn’t want a
prince in her bed? A slow smile crept across his face, A black
cloak can’t be turned. I’d be as good as any
man . . .
“PRINCE THEON!” The sudden shout shattered his
daydream. Kromm was loping across the ward. “The
northmen—”
He felt a sudden sick sense of dread. “Is it the
attack?”
Maester Luwin clutched his arm. “There’s still time.
Raise a peace banner—”
“They’re fighting,” Kromm said urgently.
“More men came up, hundreds of them, and at first they made
to join the others. But now they’ve fallen on
them!”
“Is it Asha?” Had she come to save him after
all?
But Kromm gave a shake of his head. “No. These are
northmen, I tell you. With a bloody man on their banner.” The flayed man of the Dreadfort. Reek had belonged to the
Bastard of Bolton before his capture, Theon recalled. It was hard
to believe that a vile creature like him could sway the Boltons to
change their allegiance, but nothing else made sense.
“I’ll see this for myself,” Theon said.
Maester Luwin trailed after him. By the time they reached the
battlements, dead men and dying horses were strewn about the market
square outside the gates. He saw no battle lines, only a swirling
chaos of banners and blades. Shouts and screams rang through the
cold autumn air. Ser Rodrik seemed to have the numbers, but the
Dreadfort men were better led, and had taken the others unawares.
Theon watched them charge and wheel and charge again, chopping the
larger force to bloody pieces every time they tried to form up
between the houses. He could hear the crash of iron axeheads on
oaken shields over the terrified trumpeting of a maimed horse. The
inn was burning, he saw.
Black Lorren appeared beside him and stood silently for a time.
The sun was low in the west, painting the fields and houses all a
glowing red. A thin wavering cry of pain drifted over the walls,
and a warhorn sounded off beyond the burning houses. Theon watched
a wounded man drag himself painfully across the ground, smearing
his life’s blood in the dirt as he struggled to reach the
well that stood at the center of the market square. He died before
he got there. He wore a leather jerkin and conical halfhelm, but no
badge to tell which side he’d fought on.
The crows came in the blue dust, with the evening stars.
“The Dothraki believe the stars are spirits of the valiant
dead,” Theon said. Maester Luwin had told him that, a long
time ago.
“Dothraki?”
“The horselords across the narrow sea.”
“Oh. Them.” Black Lorren frowned through his beard.
“Savages believe all manner of foolish things.”
As the night grew darker and the smoke spread it was harder to
make out what was happening below, but the din of steel gradually
diminished to nothing, and the shouts and warhorns gave way to
moans and piteous wailing. Finally a column of mounted men rode out
of the drifting smoke. At their head was a knight in dark armor.
His rounded helm gleamed a sullen red, and a pale pink cloak
streamed from his shoulders. Outside the main gate he reined up,
and one of his men shouted for the castle to open.
“Are you friend or foe?” Black Lorren bellowed
down.
“Would a foe bring such fine gifts?” Red Helm waved
a hand, and three corpses were dumped in front of the gates. A
torch was waved above the bodies, so the defenders upon the walls
might see the faces of the dead.
“The old castellan,” said Black Lorren.
“With Leobald Tallhart and Cley Cerwyn.” The boy
lord had taken an arrow in the eye, and Ser Rodrik had lost his
left arm at the elbow. Maester Luwin gave a wordless cry of dismay,
turned away from the battlements, and fell to his knees sick.
“The great pig Manderly was too craven to leave White
Harbor, or we would have brought him as well,” shouted Red
Helm. I am saved, Theon thought. So why did he feel so empty? This was
victory, sweet victory, the deliverance he had prayed for. He
glanced at Maester Luwin. To think how close I came to yielding, and taking
the black . . .
“Open the gates for our friends.” Perhaps tonight
Theon would sleep without fear of what his dreams might bring.
The Dreadfort men made their way across the moat and through the
inner gates. Theon descended with Black Lorren and Maester Luwin to
meet them in the yard. Pale red pennons trailed from the ends of a
few lances, but many more carried battle-axes and greatswords and
shields hacked half to splinters. “How many men did you
lose?” Theon asked Red Helm as he dismounted.
“Twenty or thirty.” The torchlight glittered off the
chipped enamel of his visor. His helm and gorget were wrought in
the shape of a man’s face and shoulders, skinless and bloody,
mouth open in a silent howl of anguish.
“Ser Rodrik had you five-to-one.”
“Aye, but he thought us friends. A common mistake. When
the old fool gave me his hand, I took half his arm instead. Then I
let him see my face.” The man put both hands to his helm and
lifted it off his head, holding it in the crook of his arm.
“Reek,” Theon said, disquieted. How did a serving
man get such fine armor?
The man laughed. “The wretch is dead.” He stepped
closer. “The girl’s fault. If she had not run so far,
his horse would not have lamed, and we might have been able to
flee. I gave him mine when I saw the riders from the ridge. I was
done with her by then, and he liked to take his turn while they
were still warm. I had to pull him off her and shove my clothes
into his hands—calfskin boots and velvet doublet, silver-chased
swordbelt, even my sable cloak. Ride for the Dreadfort, I told him,
bring all the help you can. Take my horse, he’s swifter, and
here, wear the ring my father gave me, so they’ll know you
came from me. He’d learned better than to question me. By the
time they put that arrow through his back, I’d smeared myself
with the girl’s filth and dressed in his rags. They might
have hanged me anyway, but it was the only chance I saw.” He
rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. “And now, my
sweet prince, there was a woman promised me, if I brought two
hundred men. Well, I brought three times as many, and no green boys
nor fieldhands neither, but my father’s own
garrison.”
Theon had given his word. This was not the time to flinch. Pay
him his pound of flesh and deal with him later.
“Harrag,” he said, “go to the kennels and bring
Palla out for . . . ?”
“Ramsay.” There was a smile on his plump lips, but
none in those pale pale eyes. “Snow, my wife called me before
she ate her fingers, but I say Bolton.” His smile curdled.
“So you’d offer me a kennel girl for my good service,
is that the way of it?”
There was a tone in his voice Theon did not like, no more than
he liked the insolent way the Dreadfort men were looking at him.
“She was what was promised.”
“She smells of dogshit. I’ve had enough of bad
smells, as it happens. I think I’ll have your bedwarmer
instead. What do you call her? Kyra?”
“Are you mad?” Theon said angrily. “I’ll
have you—”
The Bastard’s backhand caught him square, and his
cheekbone shattered with a sickening crunch beneath the lobstered
steel. The world vanished in a red roar of pain.
Sometime later, Theon found himself on the ground. He rolled
onto his stomach and swallowed a mouthful of blood. Close the
gates! he tried to shout, but it was too late. The Dreadfort men
had cut down Red Rolfe and Kenned, and more were pouring through, a
river of mail and sharp swords. There was a ringing in his ears,
and horror all around him. Black Lorren had his sword out, but
there were already four of them pressing in on him. He saw Ulf go
down with a crossbow bolt through the belly as he ran for the Great
Hall. Maester Luwin was trying to reach him when a knight on a
warhorse planted a spear between his shoulders, then swung back to
ride over him. Another man whipped a torch round and round his head
and then lofted it toward the thatched roof of the stables.
“Save me the Freys,” the Bastard was shouting as the
flames roared upward, “and burn the rest. Burn it, burn it
all.”
The last thing Theon Greyjoy saw was Smiler, kicking free of the
burning stables with his mane ablaze, screaming,
rearing . . .
Maester Luwin came to him when the first scouts were seen
outside the walls. “My lord prince,” he said,
“you must yield.”
Theon stared at the platter of
oakcakes, honey, and blood sausage they’d brought him to
break his fast. Another sleepless night had left his nerves raw,
and the very sight of food sickened him. “There has been no
reply from my uncle?”
“None,” the maester said. “Nor from your
father on Pyke.”
“Send more birds.”
“It will not serve. By the time the birds
reach—”
“Send them!” Knocking the platter of food aside with
a swipe of his arm, he pushed off the blankets and rose from Ned
Stark’s bed naked and angry. “Or do you want me dead?
Is that it, Luwin? The truth now.”
The small grey man was unafraid. “My order
serves.”
“Yes, but whom?”
“The realm,” Maester Luwin said, “and
Winterfell. Theon, once I taught you sums and letters, history and
warcraft. And might have taught you more, had you wished to learn.
I will not claim to bear you any great love, no, but I cannot hate
you either. Even if I did, so long as you hold Winterfell I am
bound by oath to give you counsel. So now I counsel you to
yield.”
Theon stooped to scoop a puddled cloak off the floor, shook off
the rushes, and draped it over his shoulders. A fire, I’ll
have a fire, and clean garb. Where’s Wex? I’ll not go
to my grave in dirty clothes.
“You have no hope of holding here,” the maester went
on. “If your lord father meant to send you aid, he would have
done so by now. It is the Neck that concerns him. The battle for
the north will be fought amidst the ruins of Moat
Cailin.”
“That may be so,” said Theon. “And so long as
I hold Winterfell, Ser Rodrik and Stark’s lords bannermen
cannot march south to take my uncle in the rear.” I am not so
innocent of warcraft as you think, old man. “I have food
enough to stand a year’s siege, if need be.”
“There will be no siege. Perhaps they will spend a day or
two fashioning ladders and tying grapnels to the ends of ropes. But
soon enough they will come over your walls in a hundred places at
once. You may be able to hold the keep for a time, but the castle
will fall within the hour. You would do better to open your gates
and ask for—”
“—mercy? I know what kind of mercy they have for
me.”
“There is a way.”
“I am ironborn,” Theon reminded him. “I have
my own way. What choice have they left me? No, don’t answer,
I’ve heard enough of your counsel. Go and send those birds as
I commanded, and tell Lorren I want to see him. And Wex as well.
I’ll have my mail scoured clean, and my garrison assembled in
the yard.”
For a moment he thought the maester was going to defy him. But
finally Luwin bowed stiffly. “As you command.”
They made a pitifully small assembly; the ironmen were few, the
yard large. “The northmen will be on us before
nightfall,” he told them. “Ser Rodrik Cassel and all
the lords who have come to his call. I will not run from them. I
took this castle and I mean to hold it, to live or die as Prince of
Winterfell. But I will not command any man to die with me. If you
leave now, before Ser Rodrik’s main force is upon us,
there’s still a chance you may win free.” He unsheathed
his longsword and drew a line in the dirt. “Those who would
stay and fight, step forward.”
No one spoke. The men stood in their mail and fur and boiled
leather, as still as if they were made of stone. A few exchanged
looks. Urzen shuffled his feet. Dykk Harlaw hawked and spat. A
finger of wind ruffled Endehar’s long fair hair.
Theon felt as though he were drowning. Why am I surprised? he
thought bleakly. His father had forsaken him, his uncles, his
sister, even that wretched creature Reek. Why should his men prove
any more loyal? There was nothing to say, nothing to do. He could
only stand there beneath the great grey walls and the hard white
sky, sword in hand, waiting, waiting . . .
Wex was the first to cross the line. Three quick steps and he
stood at Theon’s side, slouching. Shamed by the boy, Black
Lorren followed, all scowls. “Who else?” he demanded.
Red Rolfe came forward. Kromm. Werlag. Tymor and his brothers. Ulf
the Ill. Harrag Sheepstealer. Four Harlaws and two Botleys. Kenned
the Whale was the last. Seventeen in all.
Urzen was among those who did not move, and Stygg, and every man
of the ten that Asha had brought from Deepwood Motte. “Go,
then,” Theon told them. “Run to my sister. She’ll
give you all a warm welcome, I have no doubt.”
Stygg had the grace at least to look ashamed. The rest moved off
without a word. Theon turned to the seventeen who remained.
“Back to the walls. If the gods should spare us, I shall
remember every man of you.”
Black Lorren stayed when the others had gone. “The castle
folk will turn on us soon as the fight begins.”
“I know that. What would you have me do?”
“Put them out,” said Lorren. “Every
one.”
Theon shook his head. “Is the noose ready?”
“It is. You mean to use it?”
“Do you know a better way?”
“Aye. I’ll take my axe and stand on that drawbridge,
and let them come try me. One at a time, two, three, it makes no
matter. None will pass the moat while I still draw
breath.” He means to die, thought Theon. It’s not victory he wants,
it’s an end worthy of a song. “We’ll use the
noose.”
“As you say,” Lorren replied, contempt in his
eyes.
Wex helped garb him for battle. Beneath his black surcoat and
golden mantle was a shirt of well-oiled ringmail, and under that a
layer of stiff boiled leather. Once armed and armored, Theon
climbed the watchtower at the angle where the eastern and southern
walls came together to have a look at his doom. The northmen were
spreading out to encircle the castle. It was hard to judge their
numbers. A thousand at least; perhaps twice that many. Against
seventeen. They’d brought catapults and scorpions. He saw no
siege towers rumbling up the kingsroad, but there was timber enough
in the wolfswood to build as many as were required.
Theon studied their banners through Maester Luwin’s Myrish
lens tube. The Cerwyn battle-axe flapped bravely wherever he
looked, and there were Tallhart trees as well, and mermen from
White Harbor. Less common were the sigils of Flint and Karstark.
Here and there he even saw the bull moose of the Hornwoods. But no
Glovers, Asha saw to them, no Boltons from the Dreadfort, no Umbers
come down from the shadow of the Wall. Not that they were needed.
Soon enough the boy Cley Cerwyn appeared before the gates carrying
a peace banner on a tall staff, to announce that Ser Rodrik Cassel
wished to parley with Theon Turncloak. Turncloak. The name was bitter as bile. He had gone to Pyke to
lead his father’s longships against Lannisport, he
remembered. “I shall be out shortly,” he shouted down.
“Alone.”
Black Lorren disapproved. “Only blood can wash out
blood,” he declared. “Knights may keep their truces
with other knights, but they are not so careful of their honor when
dealing with those they deem outlaw.”
Theon bristled. “I am the Prince of Winterfell and heir to
the Iron Islands. Now go find the girl and do as I told
you.”
Black Lorren gave him a murderous look. “Aye,
Prince.” He’s turned against me too, Theon realized. Of late it
seemed to him as if the very stones of Winterfell had turned
against him. If I die, I die friendless and abandoned. What choice
did that leave him, but to live?
He rode to the gatehouse with his crown on his head. A woman was
drawing water from the well, and Gage the cook stood in the door of
the kitchens. They hid their hatred behind sullen looks and faces
blank as slate, yet he could feel it all the same.
When the drawbridge was lowered, a chill wind sighed across the
moat. The touch of it made him shiver. It is the cold, nothing
more, Theon told himself, a shiver, not a tremble. Even brave men
shiver. Into the teeth of that wind he rode, under the portcullis,
over the drawbridge. The outer gates swung open to let him pass. As
he emerged beneath the walls, he could sense the boys watching from
the empty sockets where their eyes had been.
Ser Rodrik waited in the market astride his dappled gelding.
Beside him, the direwolf of Stark flapped from a staff borne by
young Cley Cerwyn. They were alone in the square, though Theon
could see archers on the roofs of surrounding houses, spearmen to
his right, and to his left a line of mounted knights beneath the
merman-and-trident of House Manderly. Every one of them wants me
dead. Some were boys he’d drunk with, diced with, even
wenched with, but that would not save him if he fell into their
hands.
“Ser Rodrik.” Theon reined to a halt. “It
grieves me that we must meet as foes.”
“My own grief is that I must wait a while to hang
you.” The old knight spat onto the muddy ground. “Theon
Turncloak.”
“I am a Greyjoy of Pyke,” Theon reminded him.
“The cloak my father swaddled me in bore a kraken, not a
direwolf.”
“For ten years you have been a ward of Stark.”
“Hostage and prisoner, I call it.”
“Then perhaps Lord Eddard should have kept you chained to
a dungeon wall. Instead he raised you among his own sons, the sweet
boys you have butchered, and to my undying shame I trained you in
the arts of war. Would that I had thrust a sword through your belly
instead of placing one in your hand.”
“I came out to parley, not to suffer your insults. Say
what you have to say, old man. What would you have of
me?”
“Two things,” the old man said. “Winterfell,
and your life. Command your men to open the gates and lay down
their arms. Those who murdered no children shall be free to walk
away, but you shall be held for King Robb’s justice. May the
gods take pity on you when he returns.”
“Robb will never look on Winterfell again,” Theon
promised. “He will break himself on Moat Cailin, as every
southron army has done for ten thousand years. We hold the north
now, ser.”
“You hold three castles,” replied Ser Rodrik,
“and this one I mean to take back, Turncloak.”
Theon ignored that. “Here are my terms. You have until
evenfall to disperse. Those who swear fealty to Balon Greyjoy as
their king and to myself as Prince of Winterfell will be confirmed
in their rights and properties and suffer no harm. Those who defy
us will be destroyed.”
Young Cerwyn was incredulous. “Are you mad,
Greyjoy?”
Ser Rodrik shook his head. “Only vain, lad. Theon has
always had too lofty an opinion of himself, I fear.” The old
man jabbed a finger at him. “Do not imagine that I need wait
for Robb to fight his way up the Neck to deal with the likes of
you. I have near two thousand men with
me . . . and if the tales be true, you have no
more than fifty.” Seventeen, in truth. Theon made himself smile. “I have
something better than men.” And he raised a fist over his
head, the signal Black Lorren had been told to watch for.
The walls of Winterfell were behind him, but Ser Rodrik faced
them squarely and could not fail to see. Theon watched his face.
When his chin quivered under those stiff white whiskers, he knew
just what the old man was seeing. He is not surprised, he thought
with sadness, but the fear is there.
“This is craven,” Ser Rodrik said. “To use a
child so . . . this is despicable.”
“Oh, I know,” said Theon. “It’s a dish I
tasted myself, or have you forgotten? I was ten when I was taken
from my father’s house, to make certain he would raise no
more rebellions.”
“It is not the same!”
Theon’s face was impassive. “The noose I wore was
not made of hempen rope, that’s true enough, but I felt it
all the same. And it chafed, Ser Rodrik. It chafed me raw.”
He had never quite realized that until now, but as the words came
spilling out he saw the truth of them.
“No harm was ever done you.”
“And no harm will be done your Beth, so long as
you—”
Ser Rodrik never gave him the chance to finish.
“Viper,” the knight declared, his face red with rage
beneath those white whiskers. “I gave you the chance to save
your men and die with some small shred of honor, Turncloak. I
should have known that was too much to ask of a childkiller.”
His hand went to the hilt of his sword. “I ought cut you down
here and now and put an end to your lies and deceits. By the gods,
I should.”
Theon did not fear a doddering old man, but those watching
archers and that line of knights were a different matter. If the
swords came out his chances of getting back to the castle alive
were small to none. “Forswear your oath and murder me, and
you will watch your little Beth strangle at the end of a
rope.”
Ser Rodrik’s knuckles had gone white, but after a moment
he took his hand off the swordhilt. “Truly, I have lived too
long.”
“I will not disagree, ser. Will you accept my
terms?”
“I have a duty to Lady Catelyn and House Stark.”
“And your own House? Beth is the last of your
blood.”
The old knight drew himself up straight. “I offer myself
in my daughter’s place. Release her, and take me as your
hostage. Surely the castellan of Winterfell is worth more than a
child.”
“Not to me.” A valiant gesture, old man, but I am
not that great a fool. “Not to Lord Manderly or Leobald
Tallhart either, I’d wager.” Your sorry old skin is
worth no more to them than any other man’s. “No,
I’ll keep the girl . . . and keep her
safe, so long as you do as I’ve commanded you. Her life is in
your hands.”
“Gods be good, Theon, how can you do this? You know I must
attack, have sworn . . . ”
“If this host is still in arms before my gate when the sun
sets, Beth will hang,” said Theon. “Another hostage
will follow her to the grave at first light, and another at sunset.
Every dawn and every dusk will mean a death, until you are gone. I
have no lack of hostages.” He did not wait for a reply, but
wheeled Smiler around and rode back toward the castle. He went
slowly at first, but the thought of those archers at his back soon
drove him to a canter. The small heads watched him come from their
spikes, their tarred and flayed faces looming larger with every
yard; between them stood little Beth Cassel, noosed and crying.
Theon put his heel into Smiler and broke into a hard gallop.
Smiler’s hooves clattered on the drawbridge, like
drumbeats.
In the yard he dismounted and handed his reins to Wex. “It
may stay them,” he told Black Lorren. “We’ll know
by sunset. Take the girl in till then, and keep her somewhere
safe.” Under the layers of leather, steel, and wool, he was
slick with sweat. “I need a cup of wine. A vat of wine would
do even better.”
A fire had been laid in Ned Stark’s bedchamber. Theon sat
beside it and filled a cup with a heavy-bodied red from the castle
vaults, a wine as sour as his mood. They will attack, he thought
gloomily, staring at the flames. Ser Rodrik loves his daughter, but
he is still castellan, and most of all a knight. Had it been Theon
with a noose around his neck and Lord Balon commanding the army
without, the warhorns would already have sounded the attack, he had
no doubt. He should thank the gods that Ser Rodrik was not
ironborn. The men of the green lands were made of softer stuff,
though he was not certain they would prove soft enough.
If not, if the old man gave the command to storm the castle
regardless, Winterfell would fall; Theon entertained no delusions
on that count. His seventeen might kill three, four, five times
their own number, but in the end they would be overwhelmed.
Theon stared at the flames over the rim of his wine goblet,
brooding on the injustice of it all. “I rode beside Robb
Stark in the Whispering Wood,” he muttered. He had been
frightened that night, but not like this. It was one thing to go
into battle surrounded by friends, and another to perish alone and
despised. Mercy, he thought miserably.
When the wine brought no solace, Theon sent Wex to fetch his bow
and took himself to the old inner ward. There he stood, loosing
shaft after shaft at the archery butts until his shoulders ached
and his fingers were bloody, pausing only long enough to pull the
arrows from the targets for another round. I saved Bran’s
life with this bow, he reminded himself. Would that I could save my
own. Women came to the well, but did not linger; whatever they saw
on Theon’s face sent them away quickly.
Behind him the broken tower stood, its summit as jagged as a
crown where fire had collapsed the upper stories long ago. As the
sun moved, the shadow of the tower moved as well, gradually
lengthening, a black arm reaching out for Theon Greyjoy. By the
time the sun touched the wall, he was in its grasp. If I hang the
girl, the northmen will attack at once, he thought as he loosed a
shaft. If I do not hang her, they will know my threats are empty.
He knocked another arrow to his bow. There is no way out, none.
“If you had a hundred archers as good as yourself, you
might have a chance to hold the castle,” a voice said
softly.
When he turned, Maester Luwin was behind him. “Go
away,” Theon told him. “I have had enough of your
counsel.”
“And life? Have you had enough of that, my lord
prince?”
He raised the bow. “One more word and I’ll put this
shaft through your heart.”
“You won’t.”
Theon bent the bow, drawing the grey goose feathers back to his
cheek. “Care to make a wager?”
“I am your last hope, Theon.” I have no hope, he thought. Yet he lowered the bow half an inch
and said, “I will not run.”
“I do not speak of running. Take the black.”
“The Night’s Watch?” Theon let the bow unbend
slowly and pointed the arrow at the ground.
“Ser Rodrik has served House Stark all his life, and House
Stark has always been a friend to the Watch. He will not deny you.
Open your gates, lay down your arms, accept his terms, and he must
let you take the black.” A brother of the Night’s Watch. It meant no crown, no
sons, no wife . . . but it meant life, and life
with honor. Ned Stark’s own brother had chosen the Watch, and
Jon Snow as well. I have black garb aplenty, once I tear the krakens off. Even my
horse is black. I could rise high in the Watch—chief of rangers,
likely even Lord Commander. Let Asha keep the bloody islands,
they’re as dreary as she is. If I served at Eastwatch, I
could command my own ship, and there’s fine hunting beyond
the Wall. As for women, what wildling woman wouldn’t want a
prince in her bed? A slow smile crept across his face, A black
cloak can’t be turned. I’d be as good as any
man . . .
“PRINCE THEON!” The sudden shout shattered his
daydream. Kromm was loping across the ward. “The
northmen—”
He felt a sudden sick sense of dread. “Is it the
attack?”
Maester Luwin clutched his arm. “There’s still time.
Raise a peace banner—”
“They’re fighting,” Kromm said urgently.
“More men came up, hundreds of them, and at first they made
to join the others. But now they’ve fallen on
them!”
“Is it Asha?” Had she come to save him after
all?
But Kromm gave a shake of his head. “No. These are
northmen, I tell you. With a bloody man on their banner.” The flayed man of the Dreadfort. Reek had belonged to the
Bastard of Bolton before his capture, Theon recalled. It was hard
to believe that a vile creature like him could sway the Boltons to
change their allegiance, but nothing else made sense.
“I’ll see this for myself,” Theon said.
Maester Luwin trailed after him. By the time they reached the
battlements, dead men and dying horses were strewn about the market
square outside the gates. He saw no battle lines, only a swirling
chaos of banners and blades. Shouts and screams rang through the
cold autumn air. Ser Rodrik seemed to have the numbers, but the
Dreadfort men were better led, and had taken the others unawares.
Theon watched them charge and wheel and charge again, chopping the
larger force to bloody pieces every time they tried to form up
between the houses. He could hear the crash of iron axeheads on
oaken shields over the terrified trumpeting of a maimed horse. The
inn was burning, he saw.
Black Lorren appeared beside him and stood silently for a time.
The sun was low in the west, painting the fields and houses all a
glowing red. A thin wavering cry of pain drifted over the walls,
and a warhorn sounded off beyond the burning houses. Theon watched
a wounded man drag himself painfully across the ground, smearing
his life’s blood in the dirt as he struggled to reach the
well that stood at the center of the market square. He died before
he got there. He wore a leather jerkin and conical halfhelm, but no
badge to tell which side he’d fought on.
The crows came in the blue dust, with the evening stars.
“The Dothraki believe the stars are spirits of the valiant
dead,” Theon said. Maester Luwin had told him that, a long
time ago.
“Dothraki?”
“The horselords across the narrow sea.”
“Oh. Them.” Black Lorren frowned through his beard.
“Savages believe all manner of foolish things.”
As the night grew darker and the smoke spread it was harder to
make out what was happening below, but the din of steel gradually
diminished to nothing, and the shouts and warhorns gave way to
moans and piteous wailing. Finally a column of mounted men rode out
of the drifting smoke. At their head was a knight in dark armor.
His rounded helm gleamed a sullen red, and a pale pink cloak
streamed from his shoulders. Outside the main gate he reined up,
and one of his men shouted for the castle to open.
“Are you friend or foe?” Black Lorren bellowed
down.
“Would a foe bring such fine gifts?” Red Helm waved
a hand, and three corpses were dumped in front of the gates. A
torch was waved above the bodies, so the defenders upon the walls
might see the faces of the dead.
“The old castellan,” said Black Lorren.
“With Leobald Tallhart and Cley Cerwyn.” The boy
lord had taken an arrow in the eye, and Ser Rodrik had lost his
left arm at the elbow. Maester Luwin gave a wordless cry of dismay,
turned away from the battlements, and fell to his knees sick.
“The great pig Manderly was too craven to leave White
Harbor, or we would have brought him as well,” shouted Red
Helm. I am saved, Theon thought. So why did he feel so empty? This was
victory, sweet victory, the deliverance he had prayed for. He
glanced at Maester Luwin. To think how close I came to yielding, and taking
the black . . .
“Open the gates for our friends.” Perhaps tonight
Theon would sleep without fear of what his dreams might bring.
The Dreadfort men made their way across the moat and through the
inner gates. Theon descended with Black Lorren and Maester Luwin to
meet them in the yard. Pale red pennons trailed from the ends of a
few lances, but many more carried battle-axes and greatswords and
shields hacked half to splinters. “How many men did you
lose?” Theon asked Red Helm as he dismounted.
“Twenty or thirty.” The torchlight glittered off the
chipped enamel of his visor. His helm and gorget were wrought in
the shape of a man’s face and shoulders, skinless and bloody,
mouth open in a silent howl of anguish.
“Ser Rodrik had you five-to-one.”
“Aye, but he thought us friends. A common mistake. When
the old fool gave me his hand, I took half his arm instead. Then I
let him see my face.” The man put both hands to his helm and
lifted it off his head, holding it in the crook of his arm.
“Reek,” Theon said, disquieted. How did a serving
man get such fine armor?
The man laughed. “The wretch is dead.” He stepped
closer. “The girl’s fault. If she had not run so far,
his horse would not have lamed, and we might have been able to
flee. I gave him mine when I saw the riders from the ridge. I was
done with her by then, and he liked to take his turn while they
were still warm. I had to pull him off her and shove my clothes
into his hands—calfskin boots and velvet doublet, silver-chased
swordbelt, even my sable cloak. Ride for the Dreadfort, I told him,
bring all the help you can. Take my horse, he’s swifter, and
here, wear the ring my father gave me, so they’ll know you
came from me. He’d learned better than to question me. By the
time they put that arrow through his back, I’d smeared myself
with the girl’s filth and dressed in his rags. They might
have hanged me anyway, but it was the only chance I saw.” He
rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. “And now, my
sweet prince, there was a woman promised me, if I brought two
hundred men. Well, I brought three times as many, and no green boys
nor fieldhands neither, but my father’s own
garrison.”
Theon had given his word. This was not the time to flinch. Pay
him his pound of flesh and deal with him later.
“Harrag,” he said, “go to the kennels and bring
Palla out for . . . ?”
“Ramsay.” There was a smile on his plump lips, but
none in those pale pale eyes. “Snow, my wife called me before
she ate her fingers, but I say Bolton.” His smile curdled.
“So you’d offer me a kennel girl for my good service,
is that the way of it?”
There was a tone in his voice Theon did not like, no more than
he liked the insolent way the Dreadfort men were looking at him.
“She was what was promised.”
“She smells of dogshit. I’ve had enough of bad
smells, as it happens. I think I’ll have your bedwarmer
instead. What do you call her? Kyra?”
“Are you mad?” Theon said angrily. “I’ll
have you—”
The Bastard’s backhand caught him square, and his
cheekbone shattered with a sickening crunch beneath the lobstered
steel. The world vanished in a red roar of pain.
Sometime later, Theon found himself on the ground. He rolled
onto his stomach and swallowed a mouthful of blood. Close the
gates! he tried to shout, but it was too late. The Dreadfort men
had cut down Red Rolfe and Kenned, and more were pouring through, a
river of mail and sharp swords. There was a ringing in his ears,
and horror all around him. Black Lorren had his sword out, but
there were already four of them pressing in on him. He saw Ulf go
down with a crossbow bolt through the belly as he ran for the Great
Hall. Maester Luwin was trying to reach him when a knight on a
warhorse planted a spear between his shoulders, then swung back to
ride over him. Another man whipped a torch round and round his head
and then lofted it toward the thatched roof of the stables.
“Save me the Freys,” the Bastard was shouting as the
flames roared upward, “and burn the rest. Burn it, burn it
all.”
The last thing Theon Greyjoy saw was Smiler, kicking free of the
burning stables with his mane ablaze, screaming,
rearing . . .