She was grubbing for vegetables in a dead man’s garden
when she heard the singing.
Arya stiffened, still as stone, listening, the three stringy
carrots in her hand suddenly forgotten. She thought of the Bloody
Mummers and Roose Bolton’s men, and a shiver of fear went
down her back. It’s not fair, not when we finally found the
Trident, not when we thought we were almost safe.
Only why would the Mummers be singing?
The song came drifting up the river from somewhere beyond the
little rise to the east. “Off to Gulltown to see the fair
maid, heigh-ho, heigh-ho . . . ”
Arya rose, carrots dangling from her hand. It sounded like the
singer was coming up the river road. Over among the cabbages, Hot
Pie had heard it too, to judge by the look on his face. Gendry had
gone to sleep in the shade of the burned cottage, and was past
hearing anything.
“I’ll steal a sweet kiss with the point of my blade,
heigh-ho, heigh-ho.” She thought she heard a woodharp too,
beneath the soft rush of the river.
“Do you hear?” Hot Pie asked in a hoarse whisper, as
he hugged an armful of cabbages. “Someone’s
coming.”
“Go wake Gendry,” Arya told him. “Just shake
him by the shoulder, don’t make a lot of noise.” Gendry
was easy to wake, unlike Hot Pie, who needed to be kicked and
shouted at.
“I’ll make her my love and we’ll rest in the
shade, heigh-ho, heigh-ho.” The song swelled louder with every
word.
Hot Pie opened his arms. The cabbages fell to the ground with
soft thumps. “We have to hide.” Where? The burned cottage and its overgrown garden stood hard
beside the banks of the Trident. There were a few willows growing
along the river’s edge and reed beds in the muddy shallows
beyond, but most of the ground hereabouts was painfully open. I
knew we should never have left the woods, she thought. They’d
been so hungry, though, and the garden had been too much a
temptation. The bread and cheese they had stolen from Harrenhal had
given out six days ago, back in the thick of the woods. “Take
Gendry and the horses behind the cottage,” she decided. There
was part of one wall still standing, big enough, maybe, to conceal
two boys and three horses. If the horses don’t whinny, and
that singer doesn’t come poking around the garden.
“What about you?”
“I’ll hide by the tree. He’s probably alone.
If he bothers me, I’ll kill him. Go!”
Hot Pie went, and Arya dropped her carrots and drew the stolen
sword from over her shoulder. She had strapped the sheath across
her back; the longsword was made for a man grown, and it bumped
against the ground when she wore it on her hip. It’s too
heavy besides, she thought, missing Needle the way she did every
time she took this clumsy thing in her hand. But it was a sword and
she could kill with it, that was enough.
Lightfoot, she moved to the big old willow that grew beside the
bend in the road and went to one knee in the grass and mud, within
the veil of trailing branches. You old gods, she prayed as the
singer’s voice grew louder, you tree gods, hide me, and make
him go past. Then a horse whickered, and the song broke off
suddenly. He’s heard, she knew, but maybe he’s alone,
or if he’s not, maybe they’ll be as scared of us as we
are of them.
“Did you hear that?” a man’s voice said.
“There’s something behind that wall, I would
say.”
“Aye,” replied a second voice, deeper. “What
do you think it might be, Archer?” Two, then. Arya bit her lip. She could not see them from where
she knelt, on account of the willow. But she could hear.
“A bear.” A third voice, or the first one again?
“A lot of meat on a bear,” the deep voice said.
“A lot of fat as well, in fall. Good to eat, if it’s
cooked up right.”
“Could be a wolf. Maybe a lion.”
“With four feet, you think? Or two?”
“Makes no matter. Does it?”
“Not so I know. Archer, what do you mean to do with all
them arrows?”
“Drop a few shafts over the wall. Whatever’s hiding
back there will come out quick enough, watch and see.”
“What if it’s some honest man back there, though? Or
some poor woman with a little babe at her breast?”
“An honest man would come out and show us his face. Only
an outlaw would skulk and hide.”
“Aye, that’s so. Go on and loose your shafts,
then.”
Arya sprang to her feet. “Don’t!” She showed
them her sword. There were three, she saw. Only three. Syrio could
fight more than three, and she had Hot Pie and Gendry to stand with
her, maybe. But they’re boys, and these are men.
They were men afoot, travel-stained and mud-specked. She knew
the singer by the woodharp he cradled against his jerkin, as a
mother might cradle a babe. A small man, fifty from the look of
him, he had a big mouth, a sharp nose, and thinning brown hair. His
faded greens were mended here and there with old leather patches,
and he wore a brace of throwing knives on his hip and a
woodman’s axe slung across his back.
The man beside him stood a good foot taller, and had the look of
a soldier. A longsword and dirk hung from his studded leather belt,
rows of overlapping steel rings were sewn onto his shirt, and his
head was covered by a black iron halfhelm shaped like a cone. He
had bad teeth and a bushy brown beard, but it was his hooded yellow
cloak that drew the eye. Thick and heavy, stained here with grass
and there with blood, frayed along the bottom and patched with
deerskin on the right shoulder, the greatcloak gave the big man the
look of some huge yellow bird.
The last of the three was a youth as skinny as his longbow, if
not quite as tall. Red-haired and freckled, he wore a studded
brigantine, high boots, fingerless leather gloves, and a quiver on
his back. His arrows were fletched with grey goose feathers, and
six of them stood in the ground before him, like a little
fence.
The three men looked at her, standing there in the road with her
blade in hand. Then the singer idly plucked a string.
“Boy,” he said, “put up that sword now, unless
you’re wanting to be hurt. It’s too big for you, lad,
and besides, Anguy here could put three shafts through you before
you could hope to reach us.”
“He could not,” Arya said, “and I’m a
girl.”
“So you are.” The singer bowed. “My
pardons.”
“You go on down the road. Just walk right past here, and
you keep on singing, so we’ll know where you are. Go away and
leave us be and I won’t kill you.”
The freckle-faced archer laughed. “Lem, she won’t
kill us, did you hear?”
“I heard,” said Lem, the big soldier with the deep
voice.
“Child,” said the singer, “put up that sword,
and we’ll take you to a safe place and get some food in that
belly. There are wolves in these parts, and lions, and worse
things. No place for a little girl to be wandering
alone.”
“She’s not alone.” Gendry rode out from behind
the cottage wall, and behind him Hot Pie, leading her horse. In his
chainmail shirt with a sword in his hand, Gendry looked almost a
man grown, and dangerous. Hot Pie looked like Hot Pie. “Do
like she says, and leave us be,” warned Gendry.
“Two and three,” the singer counted, “and is
that all of you? And horses too, lovely horses. Where did you steal
them?”
“They’re ours.” Arya watched them carefully.
The singer kept distracting her with his talk, but it was the
archer who was the danger. If he should pull an arrow from the
ground . . .
“Will you give us your names like honest men?” the
singer asked the boys.
“I’m Hot Pie,” Hot Pie said at once.
“Aye, and good for you.” The man smiled.
“It’s not every day I meet a lad with such a tasty
name. And what would your friends be called, Mutton Chop and
Squab?”
Gendry scowled down from his saddle. “Why should I tell
you my name? I haven’t heard yours.”
“Well, as to that, I’m Tom of Sevenstreams, but Tom
Sevenstrings is what they call me, or Tom o’ Sevens. This
great lout with the brown teeth is Lem, short for Lemoncloak.
It’s yellow, you see, and Lem’s a sour sort. And young
fellow me lad over there is Anguy, or Archer as we like to call
him.”
“Now who are you?” demanded Lem, in the deep voice
that Arya had heard through the branches of the willow.
She was not about to give up her true name as easy as that.
“Squab, if you want,” she said. “I don’t
care.”
The big man laughed. “A squab with a sword,” he
said. “Now there’s something you don’t often
see.”
“I’m the Bull,” said Gendry, taking his lead
from Arya. She could not blame him for preferring Bull to Mutton
Chop.
Tom Sevenstrings strummed his harp. “Hot Pie, Squab, and
the Bull. Escaped from Lord Bolton’s kitchen, did
you?”
“How did you know?” Arya demanded, uneasy.
“You bear his sigil on your chest, little one.”
She had forgotten that for an instant. Beneath her cloak, she
still wore her fine page’s doublet, with the flayed man of
the Dreadfort sewn on her breast. “Don’t call me little
one!”
“Why not?” said Lem. “You’re little
enough.”
“I’m bigger than I was. I’m not a
child.” Children didn’t kill people, and she had.
“I can see that, Squab. You’re none of you children,
not if you were Bolton’s.”
“We never were.” Hot Pie never knew when to keep
quiet. “We were at Harrenhal before he came, that’s
all.”
“So you’re lion cubs, is that the way of it?”
said Tom.
“Not that either. We’re nobody’s men. Whose
men are you?”
Anguy the Archer said, “We’re king’s
men.”
Arya frowned. “Which king?”
“King Robert,” said Lem, in his yellow cloak.
“That old drunk?” said Gendry scornfully.
“He’s dead, some boar killed him, everyone knows
that.”
“Aye, lad,” said Tom Sevenstrings, “and
more’s the pity.” He plucked a sad chord from his
harp.
Arya didn’t think they were king’s men at all. They
looked more like outlaws, all tattered and ragged. They
didn’t even have horses to ride. King’s men would have
had horses.
But Hot Pie piped up eagerly. “We’re looking for
Riverrun,” he said. “How many days’ ride is it,
do you know?”
Arya could have killed him. “You be quiet, or I’ll
stuff rocks in your big stupid mouth,”
“Riverrun is a long way upstream,” said Tom.
“A long hungry way. Might be you’d like a hot meal
before you set out? There’s an inn not far ahead kept by some
friends of ours. We could share some ale and a bite of bread,
instead of fighting one another.”
“An inn?” The thought of hot food made Arya’s
belly rumble, but she didn’t trust this Tom. Not everyone who
spoke you friendly was really your friend. “It’s near,
you say?”
“Two miles upstream,” said Tom. “A league at
most.”
Gendry looked as uncertain as she felt. “What do you mean,
friends?” he asked warily.
“Friends. Have you forgotten what friends are?”
“Sharna is the innkeep’s name,” Tom put in.
“She has a sharp tongue and a fierce eye, I’ll grant
you that, but her heart’s a good one, and she’s fond of
little girls.”
“I’m not a little girl,” she said angrily.
“Who else is there? You said friends”
“Sharna’s husband, and an orphan boy they took in.
They won’t harm you. There’s ale, if you think
you’re old enough. Fresh bread and maybe a bit of
meat.” Tom glanced toward the cottage. “And whatever
you stole from Old Pate’s garden besides.”
“We never stole,” said Arya.
“Are you Old Pate’s daughter, then? A sister? A
wife? Tell me no lies, Squab. I buried Old Pate myself, right there
under that willow where you were hiding, and you don’t have
his look.” He drew a sad sound from his harp.
“We’ve buried many a good man this past year, but
we’ve no wish to bury you, I swear it on my harp. Archer,
show her.”
The archer’s hand moved quicker than Arya would have
believed. His shaft went hissing past her head within an inch of
her ear and buried itself in the trunk of the willow behind her. By
then the bowman had a second arrow notched and drawn. She’d
thought she understood what Syrio meant by quick as a snake and
smooth as summer silk, but now she knew she hadn’t. The arrow
thrummed behind her like a bee. “You missed,” she
said.
“More fool you if you think so,” said Anguy.
“They go where I send them.”
“That they do,” agreed Lem Lemoncloak.
There were a dozen steps between the archer and the point of her
sword. We have no chance, Arya realized, wishing she had a bow like
his, and the skill to use it. Glumly, she lowered her heavy
longsword till the point touched the ground. “We’ll
come see this inn,” she conceded, trying to hide the doubt in
her heart behind bold words. “You walk in front and
we’ll ride behind, so we can see what you’re
doing.”
Tom Sevenstrings bowed deeply and said, “Before, behind,
it makes no matter. Come along, lads, let’s show them the
way. Anguy, best pull up those arrows, we won’t be needing
them here.”
Arya sheathed her sword and crossed the road to where her
friends sat on their horses, keeping her distance from the three
strangers. “Hot Pie, get those cabbages,” she said as
she vaulted into her saddle. “And the carrots too.”
For once he did not argue. They set off as she had wanted,
walking their horses slowly down the rutted road a dozen paces
behind the three on foot. But before very long, somehow they were
riding right on top of them. Tom Sevenstrings walked slowly, and
liked to strum his woodharp as he went. “Do you know any
songs?” he asked them. “I’d dearly love someone
to sing with, that I would. Lem can’t carry a tune, and our
longbow lad only knows marcher ballads, every one of them a hundred
verses long.”
“We sing real songs in the marches,” Anguy said
mildly.
“Singing is stupid,” said Arya. “Singing makes
noise. We heard you a long way off. We could have killed
you.”
Tom’s smile said he did not think so. “There are
worse things than dying with a song on your lips.”
“If there were wolves hereabouts, we’d know
it,” groused Lem. “Or lions. These are our
woods.”
“You never knew we were there,” said Gendry.
“Now, lad, you shouldn’t be so certain of
that,” said Tom. “Sometimes a man knows more than he
says.”
Hot Pie shifted his seat. “I know the song about the
bear,” he said. “Some of it, anyhow.”
Tom ran his fingers down his strings. “Then let’s
hear it, pie boy.” He threw back his head and sang, “A
bear there was, a bear, a bear! All black and brown, and covered
with hair . . . ”
Hot Pie joined in lustily, even bouncing in his saddle a little
on the rhymes. Arya stared at him in astonishment. He had a good
voice and he sang well. He never did anything well, except bake,
she thought to herself.
A small brook flowed into the Trident a little farther on. As
they waded across, their singing flushed a duck from among the
reeds. Anguy stopped where he stood, unslung his bow, notched an
arrow, and brought it down. The bird fell in the shallows not far
from the bank. Lem took off his yellow cloak and waded in knee-deep
to retrieve it, complaining all the while. “Do you think
Sharna might have lemons down in that cellar of hers?” said
Anguy to Tom as they watched Lem splash around, cursing. “A
Dornish girl once cooked me duck with lemons.” He sounded
wistful.
Tom and Hot Pie resumed their song on the other side of the
brook, with the duck hanging from Lem’s belt beneath his
yellow cloak. Somehow the singing made the miles seem shorter. It
was not very long at all until the inn appeared before them, rising
from the riverbank where the Trident made a great bend to the
north. Arya squinted at it suspiciously as they neared. It did not
look like an outlaws’ lair, she had to admit; it looked
friendly, even homey, with its whitewashed upper story and slate
roof and the smoke curling up lazy from its chimney. Stables and
other outbuildings surrounded it, and there was an arbor in back,
and apple trees, a small garden. The inn even had its own dock,
thrusting out into the river, and . . .
“Gendry,” she called, her voice low and urgent.
“They have a boat. We could sail the rest of the way up to
Riverrun. It would be faster than riding, I think.”
He looked dubious. “Did you ever sail a boat?”
“You put up the sail,” she said, “and the wind
pushes it.”
“What if the wind is blowing the wrong way?”
“Then there’s oars to row.”
“Against the current?” Gendry frowned.
“Wouldn’t that be slow? And what if the boat tips over
and we fall into the water? It’s not our boat anyway,
it’s the inn’s.” We could take it. Arya chewed her lip and said nothing. They
dismounted in front of stables. There were no other horses to be
seen, but Arya noticed fresh manure in many of the stalls. “One of
us should watch the horses,” she said, wary.
Tom overheard her. “There’s no need for that, Squab.
Come eat, they’ll be safe enough.”
“I’ll stay,” Gendry said, ignoring the singer.
“You can come get me after you’ve had some
food.”
Nodding, Arya set off after Hot Pie and Lem. Her sword was still
in its sheath across her back, and she kept a hand close to the
hilt of the dagger she had stolen from Roose Bolton, in case she
didn’t like whatever they found within.
The painted sign above the door showed a picture of some old
king on his knees. Inside was the common room, where a very tall
ugly woman with a knobby chin stood with her hands on her hips,
glaring. “Don’t just stand there, boy,” she
snapped. “Or are you a girl? Either one, you’re
blocking my door. Get in or get out. Lem, what did I tell you about
my floor? You’re all mud.”
“We shot a duck.” Lem held it out like a peace
banner.
The woman snatched it from his hand. “Anguy shot a duck,
is what you’re meaning. Get your boots off, are you deaf or
just stupid?” She turned away. “Husband!” she
called loudly. “Get up here, the lads are back.
Husband!”
Up the cellar steps came a man in a stained apron, grumbling. He
was a head shorter than the woman, with a lumpy face and loose
yellowish skin that still showed the marks of some pox.
“I’m here, woman, quit your bellowing. What is it
now?”
“Hang this,” she said, handing him the duck.
Anguy shuffled his feet. “We were thinking we might eat
it, Sharna. With lemons. If you had some.”
“Lemons. And where would we get lemons? Does this look
like Dorne to you, you freckled fool? Why don’t you hop out
back to the lemon trees and pick us a bushel, and some nice olives
and pomegranates too.” She shook a finger at him. “Now,
I suppose I could cook it with Lem’s cloak, if you like, but
not till it’s hung for a few days. You’ll eat rabbit,
or you won’t eat. Roast rabbit on a spit would be quickest,
if you’ve got a hunger. Or might be you’d like it
stewed, with ale and onions.”
Arya could almost taste the rabbit. “We have no coin, but
we brought some carrots and cabbages we could trade you.”
“Did you now? And where would they be?”
“Hot Pie, give her the cabbages,” Arya said, and he
did, though he approached the old woman as gingerly as if she were
Rorge or Biter or Vargo Hoat.
The woman gave the vegetables a close inspection, and the boy a
closer one. “Where is this hot pie?”
“Here. Me. It’s my name. And
she’s . . . ah . . . Squab.”
“Not under my roof. I give my diners and my dishes
different names, so as to tell them apart. Husband!”
Husband had stepped outside, but at her shout he hurried back.
“The duck’s hung. What is it now, woman?”
“Wash these vegetables,” she commanded. “The
rest of you, sit down while I start the rabbits. The boy will bring
you drink.” She looked down her long nose at Arya and Hot
Pie. “I am not in the habit of serving ale to children, but
the cider’s run out, there’s no cows for milk, and the
river water tastes of war, with all the dead men drifting
downstream. If I served you a cup of soup full of dead flies, would
you drink it?”
“Arry would,” said Hot Pie. “I mean,
Squab.”
“So would Lem,” offered Anguy with a sly smile.
“Never you mind about Lem,” Sharna said.
“It’s ale for all.” She swept off toward the
kitchen.
Anguy and Tom Sevenstrings took the table near the hearth while
Lem was hanging his big yellow cloak on a peg. Hot Pie plopped down
heavily on a bench at the table by the door, and Arya wedged
herself in beside him.
Tom unslung his harp. “A lonely inn on a forest
road,” he sang, slowly picking out a tune to go with the
words. “The innkeep’s wife was plain as a
toad.”
“Shut up with that now or we won’t be getting no
rabbit,” Lem warned him. “You know how she
is.”
Arya leaned close to Hot Pie. “Can you sail a boat?”
she asked. Before he could answer, a thickset boy of fifteen or
sixteen appeared with tankards of ale. Hot Pie took his reverently
in both hands, and when he sipped he smiled wider than Arya had
ever seen him smile. “Ale,” he whispered, “and
rabbit.”
“Well, here’s to His Grace,” Anguy the Archer
called out cheerfully, lifting a toast. “Seven save the
king!”
“All twelve o’them,” Lem Lemoncloak muttered.
He drank, and wiped the foam from his mouth with the back of his
hand.
Husband came bustling in through the front door, with an apron
full of washed vegetables. “There’s strange horses in
the stable,” he announced, as if they hadn’t known.
“Aye,” said Tom, setting the woodharp aside,
“and better horses than the three you gave away.”
Husband dropped the vegetables on a table, annoyed. “I
never gave them away. I sold them for a good price, and got us a
skiff as well. Anyways, you lot were supposed to get them
back.” I knew they were outlaws, Arya thought, listening. Her hand went
under the table to touch the hilt of her dagger, and make sure it
was still there. If they try to rob us, they’ll be sorry.
“They never came our way,” said Lem.
“Well, I sent them. You must have been drunk, or
asleep.”
“Us? Drunk?” Tom drank a long draught of ale.
“Never.”
“You could have taken them yourself,” Lem told
Husband.
“What, with only the boy here? I told you twice, the old
woman was up to Lambswold helping that Fern birth her babe. And like
as not it was one o’ you planted the bastard in the poor
girl’s belly.” He gave Tom a sour look. “You,
I’d wager, with that harp o’ yours, singing all them
sad songs just to get poor Fern out of her smallclothes.”
“If a song makes a maid want to slip off her clothes and
feel the good warm sun kiss her skin, why, is that the
singer’s fault?” asked Tom. “And ’twas
Anguy she fancied, besides. ‘Can I touch your bow?’ I
heard her ask him. ‘Ooohh, it feels so smooth and hard. Could
I give it a little pull, do you think?’ ”
Husband snorted. “You and Anguy, makes no matter which.
You’re as much to blame as me for them horses. They was
three, you know. What can one man do against three?”
“Three,” said Lem scornfully, “but one a woman
and t’other in chains, you said so yourself.”
Husband made a face. “A big woman, dressed like a man. And
the one in chains . . . I didn’t fancy
the look of his eyes.”
Anguy smiled over his ale. “When I don’t fancy a
man’s eyes, I put an arrow through one.”
Arya remembered the shaft that had brushed by her ear. She
wished she knew how to shoot arrows.
Husband was not impressed. “You be quiet when your elders
are talking. Drink your ale and mind your tongue, or I’ll
have the old woman take a spoon to you.”
“My elders talk too much, and I don’t need you to
tell me to drink my ale.” He took a big swallow, to show that
it was so.
Arya did the same. After days of drinking from brooks and
puddles, and then the muddy Trident, the ale tasted as good as the
little sips of wine her father used to allow her. A smell was
drifting out from the kitchen that made her mouth water, but her
thoughts were still full of that boat. Sailing it will be harder
than stealing it. If we wait until they’re all
asleep . . .
The serving boy reappeared with big round loaves of bread. Arya
broke off a chunk hungrily and tore into it. It was hard to chew,
though, sort of thick and lumpy, and burned on the bottom.
Hot Pie made a face as soon as he tasted it. “That’s
bad bread,” he said. “It’s burned, and tough
besides.”
“It’s better when there’s stew to sop
up,” said Lem.
“No, it isn’t,” said Anguy, “but
you’re less like to break your teeth.”
“You can eat it or go hungry,” said Husband.
“Do I look like some bloody baker? I’d like to see you
make better.”
“I could,” said Hot Pie. “It’s easy. You
kneaded the dough too much, that’s why it’s so hard to
chew.” He took another sip of ale, and began talking lovingly
of breads and pies and tarts, all the things he loved. Arya rolled
her eyes.
Tom sat down across from her. “Squab,” he said,
“or Arry, or whatever your true name might be, this is for
you.” He placed a dirty scrap of parchment on the wooden
tabletop between them.
She looked at it suspiciously. “What is it?”
“Three golden dragons. We need to buy those
horses.”
Arya looked at him warily. “They’re our
horses.”
“Meaning you stole them yourselves, is that it? No shame
in that, girl. War makes thieves of many honest folk.” Tom
tapped the folded parchment with his finger. “I’m
paying you a handsome price. More than any horse is worth, if truth
be told.”
Hot Pie grabbed the parchment and unfolded it.
“There’s no gold,” he complained loudly.
“It’s only writing.”
“Aye,” said Tom, “and I’m sorry for
that. But after the war, we mean to make that good, you have my
word as a king’s man.”
Arya pushed back from the table and got to her feet.
“You’re no king’s men, you’re
robbers.”
“If you’d ever met a true robber, you’d know
they do not pay, not even in paper. It’s not for us we take
your horses, child, it’s for the good of the realm, so we can
get about more quickly and fight the fights that need fighting. The
king’s fights. Would you deny the king?”
They were all watching her; the Archer, big Lem, Husband with
his sallow face and shifty eyes. Even Sharna, who stood in the door
to the kitchen squinting. They are going to take our horses no
matter what I say, she realized. We’ll need to walk to
Riverrun, unless . . . “We don’t
want paper.” Arya slapped the parchment out of Hot
Pie’s hand. “You can have our horses for that boat
outside. But only if you show us how to work it.”
Tom Sevenstrings stared at her a moment, and then his wide
homely mouth quirked into a rueful grin. He laughed aloud. Anguy
joined in, and then they were all laughing, Lem Lemoncloak, Sharna
and Husband, even the serving boy, who had stepped out from behind
the casks with a crossbow under one arm. Arya wanted to scream at
them, but instead she started to
smile . . .
“Riders!” Gendry’s shout was shrill with
alarm. The door burst open and there he was.
“Soldiers,” he panted. “Coming down the river
road, a dozen of them.”
Hot Pie leapt up, knocking over his tankard, but Tom and the
others were unpertubed. “There’s no cause for spilling
good ale on my floor,” said Sharna. “Sit back down and
calm yourself, boy, there’s rabbit coming. You too, girl.
Whatever harm’s been done you, it’s over and it’s
done and you’re with king’s men now. We’ll keep
you safe as best we can.”
Arya’s only answer was to reach over her shoulder for her
sword, but before she had it halfway drawn Lem grabbed her wrist.
“We’ll have no more of that, now.” He twisted her
arm until her hand opened. His fingers were hard with callus and
fearsomely strong. Again! Arya thought. It’s happening again,
like it happened in the village, with Chiswyck and Raff and the
Mountain That Rides. They were going to steal her sword and turn
her back into a mouse. Her free hand closed around her tankard, and
she swung it at Lem’s face. The ale sloshed over the rim and
splashed into his eyes, and she heard his nose break and saw the
spurt of blood. When he roared his hands went to his face, and she
was free. “Run!” she screamed, bolting.
But Lem was on her again at once, with his long legs that made
one of his steps equal to three of hers. She twisted and kicked,
but he yanked her off her feet effortlessly and held her dangling
while the blood ran down his face.
“Stop it, you little fool,” he shouted, shaking her
back and forth. “Stop it now!” Gendry moved to help
her, until Tom Sevenstrings stepped in front of him with a
dagger.
By then it was too late to flee. She could hear horses outside,
and the sound of men’s voices. A moment later a man came
swaggering through the open door, a Tyroshi even bigger than Lem
with a great thick beard, bright green at the ends but growing out
grey. Behind came a pair of crossbowmen helping a wounded man
between them, and then others . . .
A more ragged band Arya had never seen, but there was nothing
ragged about the swords, axes, and bows they carried. One or two
gave her curious glances as they entered, but no one said a word. A
one-eyed man in a rusty pothelm sniffed the air and grinned, while
an archer with a head of stiff yellow hair was shouting for ale.
After them came a spearman in a lioncrested helm, an older man with
a limp, a Braavosi sellsword, a . . .
“Harwin?” Arya whispered. It was! Under the beard
and the tangled hair was the face of Hullen’s son, who used
to lead her pony around the yard, ride at quintain with Jon and
Robb, and drink too much on feast days. He was thinner, harder
somehow, and at Winterfell he had never worn a beard, but it was
him—her father’s man. “Harwin!” Squirming, she
threw herself forward, trying to wrench free of Lem’s iron
grip. “It’s me,” she shouted, “Harwin,
it’s me, don’t you know me, don’t you?” The
tears came, and she found herself weeping like a baby, just like
some stupid little girl. “Harwin, it’s me!”
Harwin’s eyes went from her face to the flayed man on her
doublet. “How do you know me?” he said, frowning
suspiciously. “The flayed man . . . who
are you, some serving boy to Lord Leech?”
For a moment she did not know how to answer. She’d had so
many names. Had she only dreamed Arya Stark? “I’m a
girl,” she sniffed. “I was Lord Bolton’s
cupbearer but he was going to leave me for the goat, so I ran off
with Gendry and Hot Pie. You have to know me! You used to lead my
pony, when I was little.”
His eyes went wide. “Gods be good,” he said in a
choked voice. “Arya Underfoot? Lem, let go of her.”
“She broke my nose.” Lem dumped her unceremoniously
to the floor. “Who in seven hells is she supposed to
be?”
“The Hand’s daughter.” Harwin went to one knee
before her. “Arya Stark, of Winterfell.”
She was grubbing for vegetables in a dead man’s garden
when she heard the singing.
Arya stiffened, still as stone, listening, the three stringy
carrots in her hand suddenly forgotten. She thought of the Bloody
Mummers and Roose Bolton’s men, and a shiver of fear went
down her back. It’s not fair, not when we finally found the
Trident, not when we thought we were almost safe.
Only why would the Mummers be singing?
The song came drifting up the river from somewhere beyond the
little rise to the east. “Off to Gulltown to see the fair
maid, heigh-ho, heigh-ho . . . ”
Arya rose, carrots dangling from her hand. It sounded like the
singer was coming up the river road. Over among the cabbages, Hot
Pie had heard it too, to judge by the look on his face. Gendry had
gone to sleep in the shade of the burned cottage, and was past
hearing anything.
“I’ll steal a sweet kiss with the point of my blade,
heigh-ho, heigh-ho.” She thought she heard a woodharp too,
beneath the soft rush of the river.
“Do you hear?” Hot Pie asked in a hoarse whisper, as
he hugged an armful of cabbages. “Someone’s
coming.”
“Go wake Gendry,” Arya told him. “Just shake
him by the shoulder, don’t make a lot of noise.” Gendry
was easy to wake, unlike Hot Pie, who needed to be kicked and
shouted at.
“I’ll make her my love and we’ll rest in the
shade, heigh-ho, heigh-ho.” The song swelled louder with every
word.
Hot Pie opened his arms. The cabbages fell to the ground with
soft thumps. “We have to hide.” Where? The burned cottage and its overgrown garden stood hard
beside the banks of the Trident. There were a few willows growing
along the river’s edge and reed beds in the muddy shallows
beyond, but most of the ground hereabouts was painfully open. I
knew we should never have left the woods, she thought. They’d
been so hungry, though, and the garden had been too much a
temptation. The bread and cheese they had stolen from Harrenhal had
given out six days ago, back in the thick of the woods. “Take
Gendry and the horses behind the cottage,” she decided. There
was part of one wall still standing, big enough, maybe, to conceal
two boys and three horses. If the horses don’t whinny, and
that singer doesn’t come poking around the garden.
“What about you?”
“I’ll hide by the tree. He’s probably alone.
If he bothers me, I’ll kill him. Go!”
Hot Pie went, and Arya dropped her carrots and drew the stolen
sword from over her shoulder. She had strapped the sheath across
her back; the longsword was made for a man grown, and it bumped
against the ground when she wore it on her hip. It’s too
heavy besides, she thought, missing Needle the way she did every
time she took this clumsy thing in her hand. But it was a sword and
she could kill with it, that was enough.
Lightfoot, she moved to the big old willow that grew beside the
bend in the road and went to one knee in the grass and mud, within
the veil of trailing branches. You old gods, she prayed as the
singer’s voice grew louder, you tree gods, hide me, and make
him go past. Then a horse whickered, and the song broke off
suddenly. He’s heard, she knew, but maybe he’s alone,
or if he’s not, maybe they’ll be as scared of us as we
are of them.
“Did you hear that?” a man’s voice said.
“There’s something behind that wall, I would
say.”
“Aye,” replied a second voice, deeper. “What
do you think it might be, Archer?” Two, then. Arya bit her lip. She could not see them from where
she knelt, on account of the willow. But she could hear.
“A bear.” A third voice, or the first one again?
“A lot of meat on a bear,” the deep voice said.
“A lot of fat as well, in fall. Good to eat, if it’s
cooked up right.”
“Could be a wolf. Maybe a lion.”
“With four feet, you think? Or two?”
“Makes no matter. Does it?”
“Not so I know. Archer, what do you mean to do with all
them arrows?”
“Drop a few shafts over the wall. Whatever’s hiding
back there will come out quick enough, watch and see.”
“What if it’s some honest man back there, though? Or
some poor woman with a little babe at her breast?”
“An honest man would come out and show us his face. Only
an outlaw would skulk and hide.”
“Aye, that’s so. Go on and loose your shafts,
then.”
Arya sprang to her feet. “Don’t!” She showed
them her sword. There were three, she saw. Only three. Syrio could
fight more than three, and she had Hot Pie and Gendry to stand with
her, maybe. But they’re boys, and these are men.
They were men afoot, travel-stained and mud-specked. She knew
the singer by the woodharp he cradled against his jerkin, as a
mother might cradle a babe. A small man, fifty from the look of
him, he had a big mouth, a sharp nose, and thinning brown hair. His
faded greens were mended here and there with old leather patches,
and he wore a brace of throwing knives on his hip and a
woodman’s axe slung across his back.
The man beside him stood a good foot taller, and had the look of
a soldier. A longsword and dirk hung from his studded leather belt,
rows of overlapping steel rings were sewn onto his shirt, and his
head was covered by a black iron halfhelm shaped like a cone. He
had bad teeth and a bushy brown beard, but it was his hooded yellow
cloak that drew the eye. Thick and heavy, stained here with grass
and there with blood, frayed along the bottom and patched with
deerskin on the right shoulder, the greatcloak gave the big man the
look of some huge yellow bird.
The last of the three was a youth as skinny as his longbow, if
not quite as tall. Red-haired and freckled, he wore a studded
brigantine, high boots, fingerless leather gloves, and a quiver on
his back. His arrows were fletched with grey goose feathers, and
six of them stood in the ground before him, like a little
fence.
The three men looked at her, standing there in the road with her
blade in hand. Then the singer idly plucked a string.
“Boy,” he said, “put up that sword now, unless
you’re wanting to be hurt. It’s too big for you, lad,
and besides, Anguy here could put three shafts through you before
you could hope to reach us.”
“He could not,” Arya said, “and I’m a
girl.”
“So you are.” The singer bowed. “My
pardons.”
“You go on down the road. Just walk right past here, and
you keep on singing, so we’ll know where you are. Go away and
leave us be and I won’t kill you.”
The freckle-faced archer laughed. “Lem, she won’t
kill us, did you hear?”
“I heard,” said Lem, the big soldier with the deep
voice.
“Child,” said the singer, “put up that sword,
and we’ll take you to a safe place and get some food in that
belly. There are wolves in these parts, and lions, and worse
things. No place for a little girl to be wandering
alone.”
“She’s not alone.” Gendry rode out from behind
the cottage wall, and behind him Hot Pie, leading her horse. In his
chainmail shirt with a sword in his hand, Gendry looked almost a
man grown, and dangerous. Hot Pie looked like Hot Pie. “Do
like she says, and leave us be,” warned Gendry.
“Two and three,” the singer counted, “and is
that all of you? And horses too, lovely horses. Where did you steal
them?”
“They’re ours.” Arya watched them carefully.
The singer kept distracting her with his talk, but it was the
archer who was the danger. If he should pull an arrow from the
ground . . .
“Will you give us your names like honest men?” the
singer asked the boys.
“I’m Hot Pie,” Hot Pie said at once.
“Aye, and good for you.” The man smiled.
“It’s not every day I meet a lad with such a tasty
name. And what would your friends be called, Mutton Chop and
Squab?”
Gendry scowled down from his saddle. “Why should I tell
you my name? I haven’t heard yours.”
“Well, as to that, I’m Tom of Sevenstreams, but Tom
Sevenstrings is what they call me, or Tom o’ Sevens. This
great lout with the brown teeth is Lem, short for Lemoncloak.
It’s yellow, you see, and Lem’s a sour sort. And young
fellow me lad over there is Anguy, or Archer as we like to call
him.”
“Now who are you?” demanded Lem, in the deep voice
that Arya had heard through the branches of the willow.
She was not about to give up her true name as easy as that.
“Squab, if you want,” she said. “I don’t
care.”
The big man laughed. “A squab with a sword,” he
said. “Now there’s something you don’t often
see.”
“I’m the Bull,” said Gendry, taking his lead
from Arya. She could not blame him for preferring Bull to Mutton
Chop.
Tom Sevenstrings strummed his harp. “Hot Pie, Squab, and
the Bull. Escaped from Lord Bolton’s kitchen, did
you?”
“How did you know?” Arya demanded, uneasy.
“You bear his sigil on your chest, little one.”
She had forgotten that for an instant. Beneath her cloak, she
still wore her fine page’s doublet, with the flayed man of
the Dreadfort sewn on her breast. “Don’t call me little
one!”
“Why not?” said Lem. “You’re little
enough.”
“I’m bigger than I was. I’m not a
child.” Children didn’t kill people, and she had.
“I can see that, Squab. You’re none of you children,
not if you were Bolton’s.”
“We never were.” Hot Pie never knew when to keep
quiet. “We were at Harrenhal before he came, that’s
all.”
“So you’re lion cubs, is that the way of it?”
said Tom.
“Not that either. We’re nobody’s men. Whose
men are you?”
Anguy the Archer said, “We’re king’s
men.”
Arya frowned. “Which king?”
“King Robert,” said Lem, in his yellow cloak.
“That old drunk?” said Gendry scornfully.
“He’s dead, some boar killed him, everyone knows
that.”
“Aye, lad,” said Tom Sevenstrings, “and
more’s the pity.” He plucked a sad chord from his
harp.
Arya didn’t think they were king’s men at all. They
looked more like outlaws, all tattered and ragged. They
didn’t even have horses to ride. King’s men would have
had horses.
But Hot Pie piped up eagerly. “We’re looking for
Riverrun,” he said. “How many days’ ride is it,
do you know?”
Arya could have killed him. “You be quiet, or I’ll
stuff rocks in your big stupid mouth,”
“Riverrun is a long way upstream,” said Tom.
“A long hungry way. Might be you’d like a hot meal
before you set out? There’s an inn not far ahead kept by some
friends of ours. We could share some ale and a bite of bread,
instead of fighting one another.”
“An inn?” The thought of hot food made Arya’s
belly rumble, but she didn’t trust this Tom. Not everyone who
spoke you friendly was really your friend. “It’s near,
you say?”
“Two miles upstream,” said Tom. “A league at
most.”
Gendry looked as uncertain as she felt. “What do you mean,
friends?” he asked warily.
“Friends. Have you forgotten what friends are?”
“Sharna is the innkeep’s name,” Tom put in.
“She has a sharp tongue and a fierce eye, I’ll grant
you that, but her heart’s a good one, and she’s fond of
little girls.”
“I’m not a little girl,” she said angrily.
“Who else is there? You said friends”
“Sharna’s husband, and an orphan boy they took in.
They won’t harm you. There’s ale, if you think
you’re old enough. Fresh bread and maybe a bit of
meat.” Tom glanced toward the cottage. “And whatever
you stole from Old Pate’s garden besides.”
“We never stole,” said Arya.
“Are you Old Pate’s daughter, then? A sister? A
wife? Tell me no lies, Squab. I buried Old Pate myself, right there
under that willow where you were hiding, and you don’t have
his look.” He drew a sad sound from his harp.
“We’ve buried many a good man this past year, but
we’ve no wish to bury you, I swear it on my harp. Archer,
show her.”
The archer’s hand moved quicker than Arya would have
believed. His shaft went hissing past her head within an inch of
her ear and buried itself in the trunk of the willow behind her. By
then the bowman had a second arrow notched and drawn. She’d
thought she understood what Syrio meant by quick as a snake and
smooth as summer silk, but now she knew she hadn’t. The arrow
thrummed behind her like a bee. “You missed,” she
said.
“More fool you if you think so,” said Anguy.
“They go where I send them.”
“That they do,” agreed Lem Lemoncloak.
There were a dozen steps between the archer and the point of her
sword. We have no chance, Arya realized, wishing she had a bow like
his, and the skill to use it. Glumly, she lowered her heavy
longsword till the point touched the ground. “We’ll
come see this inn,” she conceded, trying to hide the doubt in
her heart behind bold words. “You walk in front and
we’ll ride behind, so we can see what you’re
doing.”
Tom Sevenstrings bowed deeply and said, “Before, behind,
it makes no matter. Come along, lads, let’s show them the
way. Anguy, best pull up those arrows, we won’t be needing
them here.”
Arya sheathed her sword and crossed the road to where her
friends sat on their horses, keeping her distance from the three
strangers. “Hot Pie, get those cabbages,” she said as
she vaulted into her saddle. “And the carrots too.”
For once he did not argue. They set off as she had wanted,
walking their horses slowly down the rutted road a dozen paces
behind the three on foot. But before very long, somehow they were
riding right on top of them. Tom Sevenstrings walked slowly, and
liked to strum his woodharp as he went. “Do you know any
songs?” he asked them. “I’d dearly love someone
to sing with, that I would. Lem can’t carry a tune, and our
longbow lad only knows marcher ballads, every one of them a hundred
verses long.”
“We sing real songs in the marches,” Anguy said
mildly.
“Singing is stupid,” said Arya. “Singing makes
noise. We heard you a long way off. We could have killed
you.”
Tom’s smile said he did not think so. “There are
worse things than dying with a song on your lips.”
“If there were wolves hereabouts, we’d know
it,” groused Lem. “Or lions. These are our
woods.”
“You never knew we were there,” said Gendry.
“Now, lad, you shouldn’t be so certain of
that,” said Tom. “Sometimes a man knows more than he
says.”
Hot Pie shifted his seat. “I know the song about the
bear,” he said. “Some of it, anyhow.”
Tom ran his fingers down his strings. “Then let’s
hear it, pie boy.” He threw back his head and sang, “A
bear there was, a bear, a bear! All black and brown, and covered
with hair . . . ”
Hot Pie joined in lustily, even bouncing in his saddle a little
on the rhymes. Arya stared at him in astonishment. He had a good
voice and he sang well. He never did anything well, except bake,
she thought to herself.
A small brook flowed into the Trident a little farther on. As
they waded across, their singing flushed a duck from among the
reeds. Anguy stopped where he stood, unslung his bow, notched an
arrow, and brought it down. The bird fell in the shallows not far
from the bank. Lem took off his yellow cloak and waded in knee-deep
to retrieve it, complaining all the while. “Do you think
Sharna might have lemons down in that cellar of hers?” said
Anguy to Tom as they watched Lem splash around, cursing. “A
Dornish girl once cooked me duck with lemons.” He sounded
wistful.
Tom and Hot Pie resumed their song on the other side of the
brook, with the duck hanging from Lem’s belt beneath his
yellow cloak. Somehow the singing made the miles seem shorter. It
was not very long at all until the inn appeared before them, rising
from the riverbank where the Trident made a great bend to the
north. Arya squinted at it suspiciously as they neared. It did not
look like an outlaws’ lair, she had to admit; it looked
friendly, even homey, with its whitewashed upper story and slate
roof and the smoke curling up lazy from its chimney. Stables and
other outbuildings surrounded it, and there was an arbor in back,
and apple trees, a small garden. The inn even had its own dock,
thrusting out into the river, and . . .
“Gendry,” she called, her voice low and urgent.
“They have a boat. We could sail the rest of the way up to
Riverrun. It would be faster than riding, I think.”
He looked dubious. “Did you ever sail a boat?”
“You put up the sail,” she said, “and the wind
pushes it.”
“What if the wind is blowing the wrong way?”
“Then there’s oars to row.”
“Against the current?” Gendry frowned.
“Wouldn’t that be slow? And what if the boat tips over
and we fall into the water? It’s not our boat anyway,
it’s the inn’s.” We could take it. Arya chewed her lip and said nothing. They
dismounted in front of stables. There were no other horses to be
seen, but Arya noticed fresh manure in many of the stalls. “One of
us should watch the horses,” she said, wary.
Tom overheard her. “There’s no need for that, Squab.
Come eat, they’ll be safe enough.”
“I’ll stay,” Gendry said, ignoring the singer.
“You can come get me after you’ve had some
food.”
Nodding, Arya set off after Hot Pie and Lem. Her sword was still
in its sheath across her back, and she kept a hand close to the
hilt of the dagger she had stolen from Roose Bolton, in case she
didn’t like whatever they found within.
The painted sign above the door showed a picture of some old
king on his knees. Inside was the common room, where a very tall
ugly woman with a knobby chin stood with her hands on her hips,
glaring. “Don’t just stand there, boy,” she
snapped. “Or are you a girl? Either one, you’re
blocking my door. Get in or get out. Lem, what did I tell you about
my floor? You’re all mud.”
“We shot a duck.” Lem held it out like a peace
banner.
The woman snatched it from his hand. “Anguy shot a duck,
is what you’re meaning. Get your boots off, are you deaf or
just stupid?” She turned away. “Husband!” she
called loudly. “Get up here, the lads are back.
Husband!”
Up the cellar steps came a man in a stained apron, grumbling. He
was a head shorter than the woman, with a lumpy face and loose
yellowish skin that still showed the marks of some pox.
“I’m here, woman, quit your bellowing. What is it
now?”
“Hang this,” she said, handing him the duck.
Anguy shuffled his feet. “We were thinking we might eat
it, Sharna. With lemons. If you had some.”
“Lemons. And where would we get lemons? Does this look
like Dorne to you, you freckled fool? Why don’t you hop out
back to the lemon trees and pick us a bushel, and some nice olives
and pomegranates too.” She shook a finger at him. “Now,
I suppose I could cook it with Lem’s cloak, if you like, but
not till it’s hung for a few days. You’ll eat rabbit,
or you won’t eat. Roast rabbit on a spit would be quickest,
if you’ve got a hunger. Or might be you’d like it
stewed, with ale and onions.”
Arya could almost taste the rabbit. “We have no coin, but
we brought some carrots and cabbages we could trade you.”
“Did you now? And where would they be?”
“Hot Pie, give her the cabbages,” Arya said, and he
did, though he approached the old woman as gingerly as if she were
Rorge or Biter or Vargo Hoat.
The woman gave the vegetables a close inspection, and the boy a
closer one. “Where is this hot pie?”
“Here. Me. It’s my name. And
she’s . . . ah . . . Squab.”
“Not under my roof. I give my diners and my dishes
different names, so as to tell them apart. Husband!”
Husband had stepped outside, but at her shout he hurried back.
“The duck’s hung. What is it now, woman?”
“Wash these vegetables,” she commanded. “The
rest of you, sit down while I start the rabbits. The boy will bring
you drink.” She looked down her long nose at Arya and Hot
Pie. “I am not in the habit of serving ale to children, but
the cider’s run out, there’s no cows for milk, and the
river water tastes of war, with all the dead men drifting
downstream. If I served you a cup of soup full of dead flies, would
you drink it?”
“Arry would,” said Hot Pie. “I mean,
Squab.”
“So would Lem,” offered Anguy with a sly smile.
“Never you mind about Lem,” Sharna said.
“It’s ale for all.” She swept off toward the
kitchen.
Anguy and Tom Sevenstrings took the table near the hearth while
Lem was hanging his big yellow cloak on a peg. Hot Pie plopped down
heavily on a bench at the table by the door, and Arya wedged
herself in beside him.
Tom unslung his harp. “A lonely inn on a forest
road,” he sang, slowly picking out a tune to go with the
words. “The innkeep’s wife was plain as a
toad.”
“Shut up with that now or we won’t be getting no
rabbit,” Lem warned him. “You know how she
is.”
Arya leaned close to Hot Pie. “Can you sail a boat?”
she asked. Before he could answer, a thickset boy of fifteen or
sixteen appeared with tankards of ale. Hot Pie took his reverently
in both hands, and when he sipped he smiled wider than Arya had
ever seen him smile. “Ale,” he whispered, “and
rabbit.”
“Well, here’s to His Grace,” Anguy the Archer
called out cheerfully, lifting a toast. “Seven save the
king!”
“All twelve o’them,” Lem Lemoncloak muttered.
He drank, and wiped the foam from his mouth with the back of his
hand.
Husband came bustling in through the front door, with an apron
full of washed vegetables. “There’s strange horses in
the stable,” he announced, as if they hadn’t known.
“Aye,” said Tom, setting the woodharp aside,
“and better horses than the three you gave away.”
Husband dropped the vegetables on a table, annoyed. “I
never gave them away. I sold them for a good price, and got us a
skiff as well. Anyways, you lot were supposed to get them
back.” I knew they were outlaws, Arya thought, listening. Her hand went
under the table to touch the hilt of her dagger, and make sure it
was still there. If they try to rob us, they’ll be sorry.
“They never came our way,” said Lem.
“Well, I sent them. You must have been drunk, or
asleep.”
“Us? Drunk?” Tom drank a long draught of ale.
“Never.”
“You could have taken them yourself,” Lem told
Husband.
“What, with only the boy here? I told you twice, the old
woman was up to Lambswold helping that Fern birth her babe. And like
as not it was one o’ you planted the bastard in the poor
girl’s belly.” He gave Tom a sour look. “You,
I’d wager, with that harp o’ yours, singing all them
sad songs just to get poor Fern out of her smallclothes.”
“If a song makes a maid want to slip off her clothes and
feel the good warm sun kiss her skin, why, is that the
singer’s fault?” asked Tom. “And ’twas
Anguy she fancied, besides. ‘Can I touch your bow?’ I
heard her ask him. ‘Ooohh, it feels so smooth and hard. Could
I give it a little pull, do you think?’ ”
Husband snorted. “You and Anguy, makes no matter which.
You’re as much to blame as me for them horses. They was
three, you know. What can one man do against three?”
“Three,” said Lem scornfully, “but one a woman
and t’other in chains, you said so yourself.”
Husband made a face. “A big woman, dressed like a man. And
the one in chains . . . I didn’t fancy
the look of his eyes.”
Anguy smiled over his ale. “When I don’t fancy a
man’s eyes, I put an arrow through one.”
Arya remembered the shaft that had brushed by her ear. She
wished she knew how to shoot arrows.
Husband was not impressed. “You be quiet when your elders
are talking. Drink your ale and mind your tongue, or I’ll
have the old woman take a spoon to you.”
“My elders talk too much, and I don’t need you to
tell me to drink my ale.” He took a big swallow, to show that
it was so.
Arya did the same. After days of drinking from brooks and
puddles, and then the muddy Trident, the ale tasted as good as the
little sips of wine her father used to allow her. A smell was
drifting out from the kitchen that made her mouth water, but her
thoughts were still full of that boat. Sailing it will be harder
than stealing it. If we wait until they’re all
asleep . . .
The serving boy reappeared with big round loaves of bread. Arya
broke off a chunk hungrily and tore into it. It was hard to chew,
though, sort of thick and lumpy, and burned on the bottom.
Hot Pie made a face as soon as he tasted it. “That’s
bad bread,” he said. “It’s burned, and tough
besides.”
“It’s better when there’s stew to sop
up,” said Lem.
“No, it isn’t,” said Anguy, “but
you’re less like to break your teeth.”
“You can eat it or go hungry,” said Husband.
“Do I look like some bloody baker? I’d like to see you
make better.”
“I could,” said Hot Pie. “It’s easy. You
kneaded the dough too much, that’s why it’s so hard to
chew.” He took another sip of ale, and began talking lovingly
of breads and pies and tarts, all the things he loved. Arya rolled
her eyes.
Tom sat down across from her. “Squab,” he said,
“or Arry, or whatever your true name might be, this is for
you.” He placed a dirty scrap of parchment on the wooden
tabletop between them.
She looked at it suspiciously. “What is it?”
“Three golden dragons. We need to buy those
horses.”
Arya looked at him warily. “They’re our
horses.”
“Meaning you stole them yourselves, is that it? No shame
in that, girl. War makes thieves of many honest folk.” Tom
tapped the folded parchment with his finger. “I’m
paying you a handsome price. More than any horse is worth, if truth
be told.”
Hot Pie grabbed the parchment and unfolded it.
“There’s no gold,” he complained loudly.
“It’s only writing.”
“Aye,” said Tom, “and I’m sorry for
that. But after the war, we mean to make that good, you have my
word as a king’s man.”
Arya pushed back from the table and got to her feet.
“You’re no king’s men, you’re
robbers.”
“If you’d ever met a true robber, you’d know
they do not pay, not even in paper. It’s not for us we take
your horses, child, it’s for the good of the realm, so we can
get about more quickly and fight the fights that need fighting. The
king’s fights. Would you deny the king?”
They were all watching her; the Archer, big Lem, Husband with
his sallow face and shifty eyes. Even Sharna, who stood in the door
to the kitchen squinting. They are going to take our horses no
matter what I say, she realized. We’ll need to walk to
Riverrun, unless . . . “We don’t
want paper.” Arya slapped the parchment out of Hot
Pie’s hand. “You can have our horses for that boat
outside. But only if you show us how to work it.”
Tom Sevenstrings stared at her a moment, and then his wide
homely mouth quirked into a rueful grin. He laughed aloud. Anguy
joined in, and then they were all laughing, Lem Lemoncloak, Sharna
and Husband, even the serving boy, who had stepped out from behind
the casks with a crossbow under one arm. Arya wanted to scream at
them, but instead she started to
smile . . .
“Riders!” Gendry’s shout was shrill with
alarm. The door burst open and there he was.
“Soldiers,” he panted. “Coming down the river
road, a dozen of them.”
Hot Pie leapt up, knocking over his tankard, but Tom and the
others were unpertubed. “There’s no cause for spilling
good ale on my floor,” said Sharna. “Sit back down and
calm yourself, boy, there’s rabbit coming. You too, girl.
Whatever harm’s been done you, it’s over and it’s
done and you’re with king’s men now. We’ll keep
you safe as best we can.”
Arya’s only answer was to reach over her shoulder for her
sword, but before she had it halfway drawn Lem grabbed her wrist.
“We’ll have no more of that, now.” He twisted her
arm until her hand opened. His fingers were hard with callus and
fearsomely strong. Again! Arya thought. It’s happening again,
like it happened in the village, with Chiswyck and Raff and the
Mountain That Rides. They were going to steal her sword and turn
her back into a mouse. Her free hand closed around her tankard, and
she swung it at Lem’s face. The ale sloshed over the rim and
splashed into his eyes, and she heard his nose break and saw the
spurt of blood. When he roared his hands went to his face, and she
was free. “Run!” she screamed, bolting.
But Lem was on her again at once, with his long legs that made
one of his steps equal to three of hers. She twisted and kicked,
but he yanked her off her feet effortlessly and held her dangling
while the blood ran down his face.
“Stop it, you little fool,” he shouted, shaking her
back and forth. “Stop it now!” Gendry moved to help
her, until Tom Sevenstrings stepped in front of him with a
dagger.
By then it was too late to flee. She could hear horses outside,
and the sound of men’s voices. A moment later a man came
swaggering through the open door, a Tyroshi even bigger than Lem
with a great thick beard, bright green at the ends but growing out
grey. Behind came a pair of crossbowmen helping a wounded man
between them, and then others . . .
A more ragged band Arya had never seen, but there was nothing
ragged about the swords, axes, and bows they carried. One or two
gave her curious glances as they entered, but no one said a word. A
one-eyed man in a rusty pothelm sniffed the air and grinned, while
an archer with a head of stiff yellow hair was shouting for ale.
After them came a spearman in a lioncrested helm, an older man with
a limp, a Braavosi sellsword, a . . .
“Harwin?” Arya whispered. It was! Under the beard
and the tangled hair was the face of Hullen’s son, who used
to lead her pony around the yard, ride at quintain with Jon and
Robb, and drink too much on feast days. He was thinner, harder
somehow, and at Winterfell he had never worn a beard, but it was
him—her father’s man. “Harwin!” Squirming, she
threw herself forward, trying to wrench free of Lem’s iron
grip. “It’s me,” she shouted, “Harwin,
it’s me, don’t you know me, don’t you?” The
tears came, and she found herself weeping like a baby, just like
some stupid little girl. “Harwin, it’s me!”
Harwin’s eyes went from her face to the flayed man on her
doublet. “How do you know me?” he said, frowning
suspiciously. “The flayed man . . . who
are you, some serving boy to Lord Leech?”
For a moment she did not know how to answer. She’d had so
many names. Had she only dreamed Arya Stark? “I’m a
girl,” she sniffed. “I was Lord Bolton’s
cupbearer but he was going to leave me for the goat, so I ran off
with Gendry and Hot Pie. You have to know me! You used to lead my
pony, when I was little.”
His eyes went wide. “Gods be good,” he said in a
choked voice. “Arya Underfoot? Lem, let go of her.”
“She broke my nose.” Lem dumped her unceremoniously
to the floor. “Who in seven hells is she supposed to
be?”
“The Hand’s daughter.” Harwin went to one knee
before her. “Arya Stark, of Winterfell.”