Far across the city, a bell began to toll.
Sansa felt as though she were in a dream. “Joffrey is
dead,” she told the trees, to see if that would wake her.
He had not been dead when she left the throne room. He had been
on his knees, though, clawing at his throat, tearing at his own
skin as he fought to breathe. The sight of it had been too terrible
to watch, and she had turned and fled, sobbing. Lady Tanda had been
fleeing as well. “You have a good heart, my lady,” she
said to Sansa. “Not every maid would weep so for a man who
set her aside and wed her to a dwarf.” A good heart. I have a good heart. Hysterical laughter rose up
her gullet, but Sansa choked it back down. The bells were ringing,
slow and mournful. Ringing, ringing, ringing. They had rung for
King Robert the same way. Joffrey was dead, he was dead, he was
dead, dead, dead. Why was she crying, when she wanted to dance?
Were they tears of joy?
She found her clothes where she had hidden them, the night
before last. With no maids to help her, it took her longer than it
should have to undo the laces of her gown. Her hands were strangely
clumsy, though she was not as frightened as she ought to have been.
“The gods are cruel to take him so young and handsome, at his
own wedding feast,” Lady Tanda had said to her. The gods are just, thought Sansa. Robb had died at a wedding
feast as well. It was Robb she wept for. Him and Margaery. Poor
Margaery, twice wed and twice widowed. Sansa slid her arm from a
sleeve, pushed down the gown, and wriggled out of it. She balled it
up and shoved it into the bole of an oak, shook out the clothing
she had hidden there. Dress warmly, Ser Dontos had told her, and
dress dark. She had no blacks, so she chose a dress of thick brown
wool. The bodice was decorated with freshwater pearls, though. The
cloak will cover them. The cloak was a deep green, with a large
hood. She slipped the dress over her head, and donned the cloak,
though she left the hood down for the moment. There were shoes as
well, simple and sturdy, with flat heels and square toes. The gods
heard my prayer, she thought. She felt so numb and dreamy. My skin
has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel. Her hands moved
stiffly, awkwardly, as if they had never let down her hair before.
For a moment she wished Shae was there, to help her with the
net.
When she pulled it free, her long auburn hair cascaded down her
back and across her shoulders. The web of spun silver hung from her
fingers, the fine metal glimmering softly, the stones black in the
moonlight. Black amethysts from Asshai. One of them was missing.
Sansa lifted the net for a closer look. There was a dark smudge in
the silver socket where the stone had fallen out.
A sudden terror filled her. Her heart hammered against her ribs,
and for an instant she held her breath. Why am I so scared,
it’s only an amethyst, a black amethyst from Asshai, no more
than that. It must have been loose in the setting, that’s
all. It was loose and it fell out, and now it’s lying
somewhere in the throne room, or in the yard,
unless . . .
Ser Dontos had said the hair net was magic, that it would take
her home. He told her she must wear it tonight at Joffrey’s
wedding feast. The silver wire stretched tight across her knuckles.
Her thumb rubbed back and forth against the hole where the stone
had been. She tried to stop, but her fingers were not her own. Her
thumb was drawn to the hole as the tongue is drawn to a missing
tooth. What kind of magic? The king was dead, the cruel king who
had been her gallant prince a thousand years ago. If Dontos had
lied about the hair net, had he lied about the rest as well? What
if he never comes? What if there is no ship, no boat on the river,
no escape? What would happen to her then?
She heard a faint rustle of leaves, and stuffed the silver hair
net down deep in the pocket of her cloak. “Who’s
there?” she cried. “Who is it?” The godswood was
dim and dark, and the bells were ringing Joff into his grave.
“Me.” He staggered out from under the trees, reeling
drunk. He caught her arm to steady himself. “Sweet Jonquil,
I’ve come. Your Florian has come, don’t be
afraid.”
Sansa pulled away from his touch. “You said I must wear
the hair net. The silver net with . . . what
sort of stones are those?”
“Amethysts. Black amethysts from Asshai, my
lady.”
“They’re no amethysts. Are they? Are they? You
lied.”
“Black amethysts,” he swore. “There was magic
in them.”
“There was murder in them!”
“Softly, my lady, softly. No murder. He choked on his
pigeon pie.” Dontos chortled. “Oh, tasty tasty pie.
Silver and stones, that’s all it was, silver and stone and
magic.”
The bells were tolling, and the wind was making a noise like he
had made as he tried to suck a breath of air. “You poisoned
him. You did. You took a stone from my
hair . . . ”
“Hush, you’ll be the death of us. I did nothing.
Come, we must away, they’ll search for you. Your
husband’s been arrested.”
“Tyrion?” she said, shocked.
“Do you have another husband? The Imp, the dwarf uncle,
she thinks he did it.” He grabbed her hand and pulled at her.
“This way, we must away, quickly now, have no
fear.”
Sansa followed unresisting. I could never abide the weeping of
women, Joff once said, but his mother was the only woman weeping
now. In Old Nan’s stories the grumkins crafted magic things
that could make a wish come true. Did I wish him dead? she
wondered, before she remembered that she was too old to believe in
grumkins. “Tyrion poisoned him?” Her dwarf husband had
hated his nephew, she knew. Could he truly have killed him? Did he
know about my hair net, about the black amethysts? He brought Joff
wine. How could you make someone choke by putting an amethyst in
their wine? If Tyrion did it, they will think I was part of it as
well, she realized with a start of fear. How not? They were man and
wife, and Joff had killed her father and mocked her with her
brother’s death. One flesh, one heart, one soul.
“Be quiet now, my sweetling,” said Dontos.
“Outside the godswood, we must make no sound. Pull up your
hood and hide your face.” Sansa nodded, and did as he
said.
He was so drunk that sometimes Sansa had to lend him her arm to
keep him from falling. The bells were ringing out across the city,
more and more of them joining in. She kept her head down and stayed
in the shadows, close behind Dontos. While descending the
serpentine steps he stumbled to his knees and retched. My poor
Florian, she thought, as he wiped his mouth with a floppy sleeve.
Dress dark, he’d said, yet under his brown hooded cloak he
was wearing his old surcoat; red and pink horizontal stripes
beneath a black chief bearing three gold crowns, the arms of House
Hollard. “Why are you wearing your surcoat? Joff decreed it
was death if you were caught dressed as a knight again,
he . . . oh . . . ”
Nothing Joff had decreed mattered any longer.
“I wanted to be a knight. For this, at least.”
Dontos lurched back to his feet and took her arm. “Come. Be
quiet now, no questions.”
They continued down the serpentine and across a small sunken
courtyard. Ser Dontos shoved open a heavy door and lit a taper.
They were inside a long gallery. Along the walls stood empty suits
of armor, dark and dusty, their helms crested with rows of scales
that continued down their backs. As they hurried past, the
taper’s light made the shadows of each scale stretch and
twist. The hollow knights are turning into dragons, she
thought.
One more stair took them to an oaken door banded with iron.
“Be strong now, my Jonquil, you are almost there.” When
Dontos lifted the bar and pulled open the door, Sansa felt a cold
breeze on her face, She passed through twelve feet of wall, and
then she was outside the castle, standing at the top of the cliff.
Below was the river, above the sky, and one was as black as the
other.
“We must climb down,” Ser Dontos said. “At the
bottom, a man is waiting to row us out to the ship.”
“I’ll fall.” Bran had fallen, and he had loved
to climb.
“No you won’t. There’s a sort of ladder, a
secret ladder, carved into the stone. Here, you can feel it, my
lady.” He got down on his knees with her and made her lean
over the edge of the cliff, groping with her fingers until she
found the handhold cut into the face of the bluff. “Almost as
good as rungs.”
Even so, it was a long way down. “I
can’t.”
“You must.”
“Isn’t there another way?”
“This is the way. It won’t be so hard for a strong
young girl like you. Hold on tight and never look down and
you’ll be at the bottom in no time at all.” His eyes
were shiny. “Your poor Florian is fat and old and drunk,
I’m the one should be afraid. I used to fall off my horse,
don’t you remember? That was how we began. I was drunk and
fell off my horse and Joffrey wanted my fool head, but you saved
me. You saved me, sweetling.” He’s weeping, she realized. “And now you have saved
me.”
“Only if you go. If not, I have killed us both.” It was him, she thought. He killed Joffrey. She had to go, for
him as much as for herself. “You go first, ser.” If he
did fall, she did not want him falling down on her head and
knocking both of them off the cliff.
“As you wish, my lady.” He gave her a sloppy kiss
and swung his legs clumsily over the precipice, kicking about until
he found a foothold. “Let me get down a bit, and come after.
You will come now? You must swear it.”
“I’ll come,” she promised.
Ser Dontos disappeared. She could hear him huffing and puffing
as he began the descent. Sansa listened to the tolling of the bell,
counting each ring. At ten, gingerly, she eased herself over the
edge of the cliff, poking with her toes until they found a place to
rest. The castle walls loomed large above her, and for a moment she
wanted nothing so much as to pull herself up and run back to her
warm rooms in the Kitchen Keep. Be brave, she told herself. Be
brave, like a lady in a song.
Sansa dared not look down. She kept her eyes on the face of the
cliff, making certain of each step before reaching for the next.
The stone was rough and cold. Sometimes she could feel her fingers
slipping, and the handholds were not as evenly spaced as she would
have liked. The bells would not stop ringing. Before she was
halfway down her arms were trembling and she knew that she was
going to fall. One more step, she told herself, one more step. She
had to keep moving. If she stopped, she would never start again,
and dawn would find her still clinging to the cliff, frozen in
fear. One more step, and one more step.
The ground took her by surprise. She stumbled and fell, her
heart pounding. When she rolled onto her back and stared up at from
where she had come, her head swam dizzily and her fingers clawed at
the dirt. I did it. I did it, I didn’t fall, I made the climb
and now I’m going home.
Ser Dontos pulled her back onto her feet. “This way. Quiet
now, quiet, quiet.” He stayed close to the shadows that lay
black and thick beneath the cliffs. Thankfully they did not have to
go far. Fifty yards downriver, a man sat in a small skiff,
half-hidden by the remains of a great galley that had gone aground
there and burned. Dontos limped up to him, puffing.
“Oswell?”
“No names,” the man said. “In the boat.”
He sat hunched over his oars, an old man, tall and gangling, with
long white hair and a great hooked nose, with eyes shaded by a
cowl. “Get in, be quick about it,” he muttered.
“We need to be away.”
When both of them were safe aboard, the cowled man slid the
blades into the water and put his back into the oars, rowing them
out toward the channel. Behind them the bells were still tolling
the boy king’s death. They had the dark river all to
themselves.
With slow, steady, rhythmic strokes, they threaded their way
downstream, sliding above the sunken galleys, past broken masts,
burned hulls, and torn sails. The oarlocks had been muffled, so
they moved almost soundlessly. A mist was rising over the water.
Sansa saw the embattled ramparts of one of the Imp’s winch
towers looming above, but the great chain had been lowered, and
they rowed unimpeded past the spot where a thousand men had burned.
The shore fell away, the fog grew thicker, the sound of the bells
began to fade. Finally even the lights were gone, lost somewhere
behind them. They were out in Blackwater Bay, and the world shrank
to dark water, blowing mist, and their silent companion stooped
over the oars. “How far must we go?” she asked.
“No talk.” The oarsman was old, but stronger than he
looked, and his voice was fierce. There was something oddly
familiar about his face, though Sansa could not say what it
was.
“Not far.” Ser Dontos took her hand in his own and
rubbed it gently. “Your friend is near, waiting for
you.”
“No talk!” the oarsman growled again. “Sound
carries over water, Ser Fool.”
Abashed, Sansa bit her lip and huddled down in silence. The rest
was rowing, rowing, rowing.
The eastern sky was vague with the first hint of dawn when Sansa
finally saw a ghostly shape in the darkness ahead; a trading
galley, her sails furled, moving slowly on a single bank of oars.
As they drew closer, she saw the ship’s figurehead, a merman
with a golden crown blowing on a great seashell horn. She heard a
voice cry out, and the galley swung slowly about.
As they came alongside, the galley dropped a rope ladder over
the rail. The rower shipped the oars and helped Sansa to her feet.
“Up now. Go on, girl, I got you.” Sansa thanked him for
his kindness, but received no answer but a grunt. It was much
easier going up the rope ladder than it had been coming down the
cliff. The oarsman Oswell followed close behind her, while Ser
Dontos remained in the boat.
Two sailors were waiting by the rail to help her onto the deck.
Sansa was trembling. “She’s cold,” she heard
someone say. He took off his cloak and put it around her shoulders.
“There, is that better, my lady? Rest easy, the worst is past
and done.”
She knew the voice. But he’s in the Vale, she thought. Ser
Lothor Brune stood beside him with a torch.
“Lord Petyr,” Dontos called from the boat. “I
must needs row back, before they think to look for me.”
Petyr Baelish put a hand on the rail. “But first
you’ll want your payment. Ten thousand dragons, was
it?”
“Ten thousand.” Dontos rubbed his mouth with the
back of his hand. “As you promised, my lord.”
“Ser Lothor, the reward.”
Lothor Brune dipped his torch. Three men stepped to the gunwale,
raised crossbows, fired. One bolt took Dontos in the chest as he
looked up, punching through the left crown on his surcoat. The
others ripped into throat and belly. It happened so quickly neither
Dontos nor Sansa had time to cry out. When it was done, Lothor
Brune tossed the torch down on top of the corpse. The little boat
was blazing fiercely as the galley moved away.
“You killed him.” Clutching the rail, Sansa turned
away and retched. Had she escaped the Lannisters to tumble into
worse?
“My lady,” Littlefinger murmured, “your grief
is wasted on such a man as that. He was a sot, and no man’s
friend.”
“But he saved me.”
“He sold you for a promise of ten thousand dragons. Your
disappearance will make them suspect you in Joffrey’s death.
The gold cloaks will hunt, and the eunuch will jingle his purse.
Dontos . . . well, you heard him. He sold you
for gold, and when he’d drunk it up he would have sold you
again. A bag of dragons buys a man’s silence for a while, but
a well-placed quarrel buys it forever.” He smiled sadly.
“All he did he did at my behest. I dared not befriend you
openly. When I heard how you saved his life at Joff ‘s
tourney, I knew he would be the perfect catspaw.”
Sansa felt sick. “He said he was my Florian.”
“Do you perchance recall what I said to you that day your
father sat the Iron Throne?”
The moment came back to her vividly. “You told me that
life was not a song. That I would learn that one day, to my
sorrow.” She felt tears in her eyes, but whether she wept for
Ser Dontos Hollard, for Joff, for Tyrion, or for herself, Sansa
could not say. “Is it all lies, forever and ever, everyone
and everything?”
“Almost everyone. Save you and I, of course.” He
smiled. “Come to the godswood tonight if you want to go
home.”
“The note . . . it was you?”
“It had to be the godswood. No other place in the Red
Keep is safe from the eunuch’s little
birds . . . or little rats, as I call them.
There are trees in the godswood instead of walls. Sky above instead
of ceiling. Roots and dirt and rock in place of floor. The rats
have no place to scurry. Rats need to hide, lest men skewer them
with swords.” Lord Petyr took her arm. “Let me show you
to your cabin. You have had a long and trying day, I know. You must
be weary.”
Already the little boat was no more than a swirl of smoke and
fire behind them, almost lost in the immensity of the dawn sea.
There was no going back; her only road was forward. “Very
weary,” she admitted.
As he led her below, he said, “Tell me of the feast. The
queen took such pains. The singers, the jugglers, the dancing
bear . . . did your little lord husband enjoy
my jousting dwarfs?”
“Yours?”
“I had to send to Braavos for them and hide them away in a
brothel until the wedding. The expense was exceeded only by the
bother. It is surprisingly difficult to hide a dwarf, and
Joffrey . . . you can lead a king to water, but
with Joff one had to splash it about before he realized he could
drink it. When I told him about my little surprise, His Grace said,
‘Why would I want some ugly dwarfs at my feast? I hate
dwarfs.’ I had to take him by the shoulder and whisper,
‘Not as much as your uncle will.’ ”
The deck rocked beneath her feet, and Sansa felt as if the world
itself had grown unsteady. “They think Tyrion poisoned
Joffrey. Ser Dontos said they seized him.”
Littlefinger smiled. “Widowhood will become you,
Sansa.”
The thought made her tummy flutter. She might never need to
share a bed with Tyrion again. That was what she’d
wanted . . . wasn’t it?
The cabin was low and cramped, but a featherbed had been laid
upon the narrow sleeping shelf to make it more comfortable, and
thick furs piled atop it. “It will be snug, I know, but you
shouldn’t be too uncomfortable.” Littlefinger pointed
out a cedar chest under the porthole. “You’ll find
fresh garb within. Dresses, smallclothes, warm stockings, a cloak.
Wool and linen only, I fear. Unworthy of a maid so beautiful, but
they’ll serve to keep you dry and clean until we can find you
something finer.” He had this all prepared for me. “My lord,
I . . . I do not
understand . . . Joffrey gave you Harrenhal,
made you Lord Paramount of the
Trident . . . why . . . ”
“Why should I wish him dead?” Littlefinger shrugged.
“I had no motive. Besides, I am a thousand leagues away in
the Vale. Always keep your foes confused. If they are never certain
who you are or what you want, they cannot know what you are like to
do next. Sometimes the best way to baffle them is to make moves
that have no purpose, or even seem to work against you. Remember
that, Sansa, when you come to play the game.”
“What . . . what game?”
“The only game. The game of thrones.” He brushed
back a strand of her hair. “You are old enough to know that
your mother and I were more than friends. There was a time when Cat
was all I wanted in this world. I dared to dream of the life we
might make and the children she would give
me . . . but she was a daughter of Riverrun,
and Hoster Tully. Family, Duty, Honor, Sansa. Family, Duty, Honor
meant I could never have her hand. But she gave me something finer,
a gift a woman can give but once. How could I turn my back upon her
daughter? In a better world, you might have been mine, not Eddard
Stark’s. My loyal loving
daughter . . . Put Joffrey from your mind,
sweetling. Dontos, Tyrion, all of them. They will never trouble you
again. You are safe now, that’s all that matters. You are
safe with me, and sailing home.”
Far across the city, a bell began to toll.
Sansa felt as though she were in a dream. “Joffrey is
dead,” she told the trees, to see if that would wake her.
He had not been dead when she left the throne room. He had been
on his knees, though, clawing at his throat, tearing at his own
skin as he fought to breathe. The sight of it had been too terrible
to watch, and she had turned and fled, sobbing. Lady Tanda had been
fleeing as well. “You have a good heart, my lady,” she
said to Sansa. “Not every maid would weep so for a man who
set her aside and wed her to a dwarf.” A good heart. I have a good heart. Hysterical laughter rose up
her gullet, but Sansa choked it back down. The bells were ringing,
slow and mournful. Ringing, ringing, ringing. They had rung for
King Robert the same way. Joffrey was dead, he was dead, he was
dead, dead, dead. Why was she crying, when she wanted to dance?
Were they tears of joy?
She found her clothes where she had hidden them, the night
before last. With no maids to help her, it took her longer than it
should have to undo the laces of her gown. Her hands were strangely
clumsy, though she was not as frightened as she ought to have been.
“The gods are cruel to take him so young and handsome, at his
own wedding feast,” Lady Tanda had said to her. The gods are just, thought Sansa. Robb had died at a wedding
feast as well. It was Robb she wept for. Him and Margaery. Poor
Margaery, twice wed and twice widowed. Sansa slid her arm from a
sleeve, pushed down the gown, and wriggled out of it. She balled it
up and shoved it into the bole of an oak, shook out the clothing
she had hidden there. Dress warmly, Ser Dontos had told her, and
dress dark. She had no blacks, so she chose a dress of thick brown
wool. The bodice was decorated with freshwater pearls, though. The
cloak will cover them. The cloak was a deep green, with a large
hood. She slipped the dress over her head, and donned the cloak,
though she left the hood down for the moment. There were shoes as
well, simple and sturdy, with flat heels and square toes. The gods
heard my prayer, she thought. She felt so numb and dreamy. My skin
has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel. Her hands moved
stiffly, awkwardly, as if they had never let down her hair before.
For a moment she wished Shae was there, to help her with the
net.
When she pulled it free, her long auburn hair cascaded down her
back and across her shoulders. The web of spun silver hung from her
fingers, the fine metal glimmering softly, the stones black in the
moonlight. Black amethysts from Asshai. One of them was missing.
Sansa lifted the net for a closer look. There was a dark smudge in
the silver socket where the stone had fallen out.
A sudden terror filled her. Her heart hammered against her ribs,
and for an instant she held her breath. Why am I so scared,
it’s only an amethyst, a black amethyst from Asshai, no more
than that. It must have been loose in the setting, that’s
all. It was loose and it fell out, and now it’s lying
somewhere in the throne room, or in the yard,
unless . . .
Ser Dontos had said the hair net was magic, that it would take
her home. He told her she must wear it tonight at Joffrey’s
wedding feast. The silver wire stretched tight across her knuckles.
Her thumb rubbed back and forth against the hole where the stone
had been. She tried to stop, but her fingers were not her own. Her
thumb was drawn to the hole as the tongue is drawn to a missing
tooth. What kind of magic? The king was dead, the cruel king who
had been her gallant prince a thousand years ago. If Dontos had
lied about the hair net, had he lied about the rest as well? What
if he never comes? What if there is no ship, no boat on the river,
no escape? What would happen to her then?
She heard a faint rustle of leaves, and stuffed the silver hair
net down deep in the pocket of her cloak. “Who’s
there?” she cried. “Who is it?” The godswood was
dim and dark, and the bells were ringing Joff into his grave.
“Me.” He staggered out from under the trees, reeling
drunk. He caught her arm to steady himself. “Sweet Jonquil,
I’ve come. Your Florian has come, don’t be
afraid.”
Sansa pulled away from his touch. “You said I must wear
the hair net. The silver net with . . . what
sort of stones are those?”
“Amethysts. Black amethysts from Asshai, my
lady.”
“They’re no amethysts. Are they? Are they? You
lied.”
“Black amethysts,” he swore. “There was magic
in them.”
“There was murder in them!”
“Softly, my lady, softly. No murder. He choked on his
pigeon pie.” Dontos chortled. “Oh, tasty tasty pie.
Silver and stones, that’s all it was, silver and stone and
magic.”
The bells were tolling, and the wind was making a noise like he
had made as he tried to suck a breath of air. “You poisoned
him. You did. You took a stone from my
hair . . . ”
“Hush, you’ll be the death of us. I did nothing.
Come, we must away, they’ll search for you. Your
husband’s been arrested.”
“Tyrion?” she said, shocked.
“Do you have another husband? The Imp, the dwarf uncle,
she thinks he did it.” He grabbed her hand and pulled at her.
“This way, we must away, quickly now, have no
fear.”
Sansa followed unresisting. I could never abide the weeping of
women, Joff once said, but his mother was the only woman weeping
now. In Old Nan’s stories the grumkins crafted magic things
that could make a wish come true. Did I wish him dead? she
wondered, before she remembered that she was too old to believe in
grumkins. “Tyrion poisoned him?” Her dwarf husband had
hated his nephew, she knew. Could he truly have killed him? Did he
know about my hair net, about the black amethysts? He brought Joff
wine. How could you make someone choke by putting an amethyst in
their wine? If Tyrion did it, they will think I was part of it as
well, she realized with a start of fear. How not? They were man and
wife, and Joff had killed her father and mocked her with her
brother’s death. One flesh, one heart, one soul.
“Be quiet now, my sweetling,” said Dontos.
“Outside the godswood, we must make no sound. Pull up your
hood and hide your face.” Sansa nodded, and did as he
said.
He was so drunk that sometimes Sansa had to lend him her arm to
keep him from falling. The bells were ringing out across the city,
more and more of them joining in. She kept her head down and stayed
in the shadows, close behind Dontos. While descending the
serpentine steps he stumbled to his knees and retched. My poor
Florian, she thought, as he wiped his mouth with a floppy sleeve.
Dress dark, he’d said, yet under his brown hooded cloak he
was wearing his old surcoat; red and pink horizontal stripes
beneath a black chief bearing three gold crowns, the arms of House
Hollard. “Why are you wearing your surcoat? Joff decreed it
was death if you were caught dressed as a knight again,
he . . . oh . . . ”
Nothing Joff had decreed mattered any longer.
“I wanted to be a knight. For this, at least.”
Dontos lurched back to his feet and took her arm. “Come. Be
quiet now, no questions.”
They continued down the serpentine and across a small sunken
courtyard. Ser Dontos shoved open a heavy door and lit a taper.
They were inside a long gallery. Along the walls stood empty suits
of armor, dark and dusty, their helms crested with rows of scales
that continued down their backs. As they hurried past, the
taper’s light made the shadows of each scale stretch and
twist. The hollow knights are turning into dragons, she
thought.
One more stair took them to an oaken door banded with iron.
“Be strong now, my Jonquil, you are almost there.” When
Dontos lifted the bar and pulled open the door, Sansa felt a cold
breeze on her face, She passed through twelve feet of wall, and
then she was outside the castle, standing at the top of the cliff.
Below was the river, above the sky, and one was as black as the
other.
“We must climb down,” Ser Dontos said. “At the
bottom, a man is waiting to row us out to the ship.”
“I’ll fall.” Bran had fallen, and he had loved
to climb.
“No you won’t. There’s a sort of ladder, a
secret ladder, carved into the stone. Here, you can feel it, my
lady.” He got down on his knees with her and made her lean
over the edge of the cliff, groping with her fingers until she
found the handhold cut into the face of the bluff. “Almost as
good as rungs.”
Even so, it was a long way down. “I
can’t.”
“You must.”
“Isn’t there another way?”
“This is the way. It won’t be so hard for a strong
young girl like you. Hold on tight and never look down and
you’ll be at the bottom in no time at all.” His eyes
were shiny. “Your poor Florian is fat and old and drunk,
I’m the one should be afraid. I used to fall off my horse,
don’t you remember? That was how we began. I was drunk and
fell off my horse and Joffrey wanted my fool head, but you saved
me. You saved me, sweetling.” He’s weeping, she realized. “And now you have saved
me.”
“Only if you go. If not, I have killed us both.” It was him, she thought. He killed Joffrey. She had to go, for
him as much as for herself. “You go first, ser.” If he
did fall, she did not want him falling down on her head and
knocking both of them off the cliff.
“As you wish, my lady.” He gave her a sloppy kiss
and swung his legs clumsily over the precipice, kicking about until
he found a foothold. “Let me get down a bit, and come after.
You will come now? You must swear it.”
“I’ll come,” she promised.
Ser Dontos disappeared. She could hear him huffing and puffing
as he began the descent. Sansa listened to the tolling of the bell,
counting each ring. At ten, gingerly, she eased herself over the
edge of the cliff, poking with her toes until they found a place to
rest. The castle walls loomed large above her, and for a moment she
wanted nothing so much as to pull herself up and run back to her
warm rooms in the Kitchen Keep. Be brave, she told herself. Be
brave, like a lady in a song.
Sansa dared not look down. She kept her eyes on the face of the
cliff, making certain of each step before reaching for the next.
The stone was rough and cold. Sometimes she could feel her fingers
slipping, and the handholds were not as evenly spaced as she would
have liked. The bells would not stop ringing. Before she was
halfway down her arms were trembling and she knew that she was
going to fall. One more step, she told herself, one more step. She
had to keep moving. If she stopped, she would never start again,
and dawn would find her still clinging to the cliff, frozen in
fear. One more step, and one more step.
The ground took her by surprise. She stumbled and fell, her
heart pounding. When she rolled onto her back and stared up at from
where she had come, her head swam dizzily and her fingers clawed at
the dirt. I did it. I did it, I didn’t fall, I made the climb
and now I’m going home.
Ser Dontos pulled her back onto her feet. “This way. Quiet
now, quiet, quiet.” He stayed close to the shadows that lay
black and thick beneath the cliffs. Thankfully they did not have to
go far. Fifty yards downriver, a man sat in a small skiff,
half-hidden by the remains of a great galley that had gone aground
there and burned. Dontos limped up to him, puffing.
“Oswell?”
“No names,” the man said. “In the boat.”
He sat hunched over his oars, an old man, tall and gangling, with
long white hair and a great hooked nose, with eyes shaded by a
cowl. “Get in, be quick about it,” he muttered.
“We need to be away.”
When both of them were safe aboard, the cowled man slid the
blades into the water and put his back into the oars, rowing them
out toward the channel. Behind them the bells were still tolling
the boy king’s death. They had the dark river all to
themselves.
With slow, steady, rhythmic strokes, they threaded their way
downstream, sliding above the sunken galleys, past broken masts,
burned hulls, and torn sails. The oarlocks had been muffled, so
they moved almost soundlessly. A mist was rising over the water.
Sansa saw the embattled ramparts of one of the Imp’s winch
towers looming above, but the great chain had been lowered, and
they rowed unimpeded past the spot where a thousand men had burned.
The shore fell away, the fog grew thicker, the sound of the bells
began to fade. Finally even the lights were gone, lost somewhere
behind them. They were out in Blackwater Bay, and the world shrank
to dark water, blowing mist, and their silent companion stooped
over the oars. “How far must we go?” she asked.
“No talk.” The oarsman was old, but stronger than he
looked, and his voice was fierce. There was something oddly
familiar about his face, though Sansa could not say what it
was.
“Not far.” Ser Dontos took her hand in his own and
rubbed it gently. “Your friend is near, waiting for
you.”
“No talk!” the oarsman growled again. “Sound
carries over water, Ser Fool.”
Abashed, Sansa bit her lip and huddled down in silence. The rest
was rowing, rowing, rowing.
The eastern sky was vague with the first hint of dawn when Sansa
finally saw a ghostly shape in the darkness ahead; a trading
galley, her sails furled, moving slowly on a single bank of oars.
As they drew closer, she saw the ship’s figurehead, a merman
with a golden crown blowing on a great seashell horn. She heard a
voice cry out, and the galley swung slowly about.
As they came alongside, the galley dropped a rope ladder over
the rail. The rower shipped the oars and helped Sansa to her feet.
“Up now. Go on, girl, I got you.” Sansa thanked him for
his kindness, but received no answer but a grunt. It was much
easier going up the rope ladder than it had been coming down the
cliff. The oarsman Oswell followed close behind her, while Ser
Dontos remained in the boat.
Two sailors were waiting by the rail to help her onto the deck.
Sansa was trembling. “She’s cold,” she heard
someone say. He took off his cloak and put it around her shoulders.
“There, is that better, my lady? Rest easy, the worst is past
and done.”
She knew the voice. But he’s in the Vale, she thought. Ser
Lothor Brune stood beside him with a torch.
“Lord Petyr,” Dontos called from the boat. “I
must needs row back, before they think to look for me.”
Petyr Baelish put a hand on the rail. “But first
you’ll want your payment. Ten thousand dragons, was
it?”
“Ten thousand.” Dontos rubbed his mouth with the
back of his hand. “As you promised, my lord.”
“Ser Lothor, the reward.”
Lothor Brune dipped his torch. Three men stepped to the gunwale,
raised crossbows, fired. One bolt took Dontos in the chest as he
looked up, punching through the left crown on his surcoat. The
others ripped into throat and belly. It happened so quickly neither
Dontos nor Sansa had time to cry out. When it was done, Lothor
Brune tossed the torch down on top of the corpse. The little boat
was blazing fiercely as the galley moved away.
“You killed him.” Clutching the rail, Sansa turned
away and retched. Had she escaped the Lannisters to tumble into
worse?
“My lady,” Littlefinger murmured, “your grief
is wasted on such a man as that. He was a sot, and no man’s
friend.”
“But he saved me.”
“He sold you for a promise of ten thousand dragons. Your
disappearance will make them suspect you in Joffrey’s death.
The gold cloaks will hunt, and the eunuch will jingle his purse.
Dontos . . . well, you heard him. He sold you
for gold, and when he’d drunk it up he would have sold you
again. A bag of dragons buys a man’s silence for a while, but
a well-placed quarrel buys it forever.” He smiled sadly.
“All he did he did at my behest. I dared not befriend you
openly. When I heard how you saved his life at Joff ‘s
tourney, I knew he would be the perfect catspaw.”
Sansa felt sick. “He said he was my Florian.”
“Do you perchance recall what I said to you that day your
father sat the Iron Throne?”
The moment came back to her vividly. “You told me that
life was not a song. That I would learn that one day, to my
sorrow.” She felt tears in her eyes, but whether she wept for
Ser Dontos Hollard, for Joff, for Tyrion, or for herself, Sansa
could not say. “Is it all lies, forever and ever, everyone
and everything?”
“Almost everyone. Save you and I, of course.” He
smiled. “Come to the godswood tonight if you want to go
home.”
“The note . . . it was you?”
“It had to be the godswood. No other place in the Red
Keep is safe from the eunuch’s little
birds . . . or little rats, as I call them.
There are trees in the godswood instead of walls. Sky above instead
of ceiling. Roots and dirt and rock in place of floor. The rats
have no place to scurry. Rats need to hide, lest men skewer them
with swords.” Lord Petyr took her arm. “Let me show you
to your cabin. You have had a long and trying day, I know. You must
be weary.”
Already the little boat was no more than a swirl of smoke and
fire behind them, almost lost in the immensity of the dawn sea.
There was no going back; her only road was forward. “Very
weary,” she admitted.
As he led her below, he said, “Tell me of the feast. The
queen took such pains. The singers, the jugglers, the dancing
bear . . . did your little lord husband enjoy
my jousting dwarfs?”
“Yours?”
“I had to send to Braavos for them and hide them away in a
brothel until the wedding. The expense was exceeded only by the
bother. It is surprisingly difficult to hide a dwarf, and
Joffrey . . . you can lead a king to water, but
with Joff one had to splash it about before he realized he could
drink it. When I told him about my little surprise, His Grace said,
‘Why would I want some ugly dwarfs at my feast? I hate
dwarfs.’ I had to take him by the shoulder and whisper,
‘Not as much as your uncle will.’ ”
The deck rocked beneath her feet, and Sansa felt as if the world
itself had grown unsteady. “They think Tyrion poisoned
Joffrey. Ser Dontos said they seized him.”
Littlefinger smiled. “Widowhood will become you,
Sansa.”
The thought made her tummy flutter. She might never need to
share a bed with Tyrion again. That was what she’d
wanted . . . wasn’t it?
The cabin was low and cramped, but a featherbed had been laid
upon the narrow sleeping shelf to make it more comfortable, and
thick furs piled atop it. “It will be snug, I know, but you
shouldn’t be too uncomfortable.” Littlefinger pointed
out a cedar chest under the porthole. “You’ll find
fresh garb within. Dresses, smallclothes, warm stockings, a cloak.
Wool and linen only, I fear. Unworthy of a maid so beautiful, but
they’ll serve to keep you dry and clean until we can find you
something finer.” He had this all prepared for me. “My lord,
I . . . I do not
understand . . . Joffrey gave you Harrenhal,
made you Lord Paramount of the
Trident . . . why . . . ”
“Why should I wish him dead?” Littlefinger shrugged.
“I had no motive. Besides, I am a thousand leagues away in
the Vale. Always keep your foes confused. If they are never certain
who you are or what you want, they cannot know what you are like to
do next. Sometimes the best way to baffle them is to make moves
that have no purpose, or even seem to work against you. Remember
that, Sansa, when you come to play the game.”
“What . . . what game?”
“The only game. The game of thrones.” He brushed
back a strand of her hair. “You are old enough to know that
your mother and I were more than friends. There was a time when Cat
was all I wanted in this world. I dared to dream of the life we
might make and the children she would give
me . . . but she was a daughter of Riverrun,
and Hoster Tully. Family, Duty, Honor, Sansa. Family, Duty, Honor
meant I could never have her hand. But she gave me something finer,
a gift a woman can give but once. How could I turn my back upon her
daughter? In a better world, you might have been mine, not Eddard
Stark’s. My loyal loving
daughter . . . Put Joffrey from your mind,
sweetling. Dontos, Tyrion, all of them. They will never trouble you
again. You are safe now, that’s all that matters. You are
safe with me, and sailing home.”