George Martin - A Storm of Swords

“Dreams,” grumbled Lem Lemoncloak, “what good are dreams? Fish women and drowned crows. I had a dream myself last night. I was kissing this tavern wench I used to know. Are you going to pay me for that, old woman?”

“The wench is dead,” the woman hissed. “Only worms may kiss her now.” And then to Tom Sevenstrings she said, “I’ll have my song or I’ll have you gone.”

So the singer played for her, so soft and sad that Arya only heard snatches of the words, though the tune was half-familiar. Sansa would know it, I bet . Her sister had known all the songs, and she could even play a little, and sing so sweetly. All I could ever do was shout the words .

The next morning the little white woman was nowhere to be seen. As they saddled their horses, Arya asked Tom Sevenstrings if the children of the forest still dwelled on High Heart. The singer chuckled. “Saw her, did you?”

“Was she a ghost?”

“Do ghosts complain of how their joints creak? No, she’s only an old dwarf woman. A queer one, though, and evil-eyed. But she knows things she has no business knowing, and sometimes she’ll tell you if she likes the look of you.”

“Did she like the looks of you ?” Arya asked doubtfully.

The singer laughed. “The sound of me, at least. She always makes me sing the same bloody song, though. Not a bad song, mind you, but I know others just as good.” He shook his head. “What matters is, we have the scent now. You’ll soon be seeing Thoros and the lightning lord, I’ll wager.”

“If you’re their men, why do they hide from you?”

Tom Sevenstrings rolled his eyes at that, but Harwin gave her an answer. “I wouldn’t call it hiding, milady, but it’s true, Lord Beric moves about a lot, and seldom lets on what his plans are. That way no one can betray him. By now there must be hundreds of us sworn to him, maybe thousands, but it wouldn’t do for us all to trail along behind him. We’d eat the country bare, or get butchered in a battle by some bigger host. The way we’re scattered in little bands, we can strike in a dozen places at once, and be off somewhere else before they know. And when one of us is caught and put to the question, well, we can’t tell them where to find Lord Beric no matter what they do to us.” He hesitated. “You know what it means, to be put to the question?”

Arya nodded. “Tickling, they called it. Polliver and Raff and all.” She told them about the village by the Gods Eye where she and Gendry had been caught, and the questions that the Tickler had asked. “Is there gold hidden in the village?” he would always begin. “Silver, gems? Is there food? Where is Lord Beric? Which of you village folk helped him? Where did he go? How many men did he have with him? How many knights? How many bowmen? How many were horsed? How are they armed? How many wounded? Where did they go, did you say?” Just thinking of it, she could hear the shrieks again, and smell the stench of blood and shit and burning flesh. “He always asked the same questions,” she told the outlaws solemnly, “but he changed the tickling every day.”

“No child should be made to suffer that,” Harwin said when she was done. “The Mountain lost half his men at the Stone Mill, we hear. Might be this Tickler’s floating down the Red Fork even now, with fish biting at his face. If not, well, it’s one more crime they’ll answer for. I’ve heard his lordship say this war began when the Hand sent him out to bring the king’s justice to Gregor Clegane, and that’s how he means for it to end.” He gave her shoulder a reassuring pat. “You best mount up, milady. It’s a long day’s ride to Acorn Hall, but at the end of it we’ll have a roof above our heads and a hot supper in our bellies.”

It was a long day’s ride, but as dusk was settling they forded a brook and came up on Acorn Hall, with its stone curtain walls and great oaken keep. Its master was away fighting in the retinue of his master, Lord Vance, the castle gates closed and barred in his absence. But his lady wife was an old friend of Tom Sevenstrings, and Anguy said they’d once been lovers. Anguy often rode beside her; he was closer to her in age than any of them but Gendry, and he told her droll tales of the Dornish Marches. He never fooled her, though. He’s not my friend. He’s only staying close to watch me and make sure I don’t ride off again . Well, Arya could watch as well. Syrio Forel had taught her how.

Lady Smallwood welcomed the outlaws kindly enough, though she gave them a tongue lashing for dragging a young girl through the war. She became even more wroth when Lem let slip that Arya was highborn. “Who dressed the poor child in those Bolton rags?” she demanded of them. “That badge . . . there’s many a man who would hang her in half a heartbeat for wearing a flayed man on her breast.” Arya promptly found herself marched upstairs, forced into a tub, and doused with scalding hot water. Lady Smallwood’s maidservants scrubbed her so hard it felt like they were flaying her themselves. They even dumped in some stinky-sweet stuff that smelled like flowers.

And afterward, they insisted she dress herself in girl’s things, brown woolen stockings and a light linen shift, and over that a light green gown with acorns embroidered all over the bodice in brown thread, and more acorns bordering the hem. “My great-aunt is a septa at a motherhouse in Oldtown,” Lady Smallwood said as the women laced the gown up Arya’s back. “I sent my daughter there when the war began. She’ll have outgrown these things by the time she returns, no doubt. Are you fond of dancing, child? My Carellen’s a lovely dancer. She sings beautifully as well. What do you like to do?”

She scuffed a toe amongst the rushes. “Needlework.”

“Very restful, isn’t it?”

“Well,” said Arya, “not the way I do it.”

“No? I have always found it so. The gods give each of us our little gifts and talents, and it is meant for us to use them, my aunt always says. Any act can be a prayer, if done as well as we are able. Isn’t that a lovely thought? Remember that the next time you do your needlework. Do you work at it every day?”

“I did till I lost Needle. My new one’s not as good.”

“In times like these, we all must make do as best we can.” Lady Smallwood fussed at the bodice of the gown. “Now you look a proper young lady.”

I’m not a lady , Arya wanted to tell her, I’m a wolf .

“I do not know who you are, child,” the woman said, “and it may be that’s for the best. Someone important, I fear.” She smoothed down Arya’s collar. “In times like these, it is better to be insignificant. Would that I could keep you here with me. That would not be safe, though. I have walls, but too few men to hold them.” She sighed.

Supper was being served in the hall by the time Arya was all washed and combed and dressed. Gendry took one look and laughed so hard that wine came out his nose, until Harwin gave him a thwack alongside his ear. The meal was plain but filling; mutton and mushrooms, brown bread, pease pudding, and baked apples with yellow cheese. When the food had been cleared and the servants sent away, Greenbeard lowered his voice to ask if her ladyship had word of the lightning lord.

“Word?” She smiled. “They were here not a fortnight past. Them and a dozen more, driving sheep. I could scarcely believe my eyes. Thoros gave me three as thanks. You’ve eaten one tonight.”

“Thoros herding sheep?” Anguy laughed aloud.

“I grant you it was an odd sight, but Thoros claimed that as a priest he knew how to tend a flock.”

“Aye, and shear them too,” chuckled Lem Lemoncloak.

“Someone could make a rare fine song of that.” Tom plucked a string on his woodharp.

Lady Smallwood gave him a withering look. “Someone who doesn’t rhyme carry on with Dondarrion , perhaps. Or play ‘Oh, Lay My Sweet Lass Down in the Grass’ to every milkmaid in the shire and leave two of them with big bellies.”

“It was ‘Let Me Drink Your Beauty,’” said Tom defensively, “and milkmaids are always glad to hear it. As was a certain highborn lady I do recall. I play to please.”

Her nostrils flared. “The riverlands are full of maids you’ve pleased, all drinking tansy tea. You’d think a man as old as you would know to spill his seed on their bellies. Men will be calling you Tom Sevensons before much longer.”

“As it happens,” said Tom, “I passed seven many years ago. And fine boys they are too, with voices sweet as nightingales.” Plainly he did not care for the subject.

“Did his lordship say where he was bound, milady?” asked Harwin.

“Lord Beric never shares his plans, but there’s hunger down near Stoney Sept and the Threepenny Wood. I should look for him there.” She took a sip of wine. “You’d best know, I’ve had less pleasant callers as well. A pack of wolves came howling around my gates, thinking I might have Jaime Lannister in here.”

Tom stopped his plucking. “Then it’s true, the Kingslayer is loose again?”

Lady Smallwood gave him a scornful look. “I hardly think they’d be hunting him if he was chained up under Riverrun.”

“What did m’lady tell them?” asked Jack-Be-Lucky.

“Why, that I had Ser Jaime naked in my bed, but I’d left him much too exhausted to come down. One of them had the effrontery to call me a liar, so we saw them off with a few quarrels. I believe they made for Blackbottom Bend.”

Arya squirmed restlessly in her seat. “What northmen was it, who came looking after the Kingslayer?”

Lady Smallwood seemed surprised that she’d spoken. “They did not give their names, child, but they wore black, with the badge of a white sun on the breast.”

A white sun on black was the sigil of Lord Karstark, Arya thought. Those were Robb’s men . She wondered if they were still close. If she could give the outlaws the slip and find them, maybe they would take her to her mother at Riverrun . . .

“Did they say how Lannister came to escape?” Lem asked.

“They did,” said Lady Smallwood. “Not that I believe a word of it. They claimed that Lady Catelyn set him free.”

That startled Tom so badly he snapped a string. “Go on with you,” he said. “That’s madness.”

It’s not true , thought Arya. It couldn’t be true .

“I thought the same,” said Lady Smallwood.

That was when Harwin remembered Arya. “Such talk is not for your ears, milady.”

“No, I want to hear.”

The outlaws were adamant. “Go on with you, skinny squirrel,” said Greenbeard. “Be a good little lady and go play in the yard while we talk, now.”

Arya stalked away angry, and would have slammed the door if it hadn’t been so heavy. Darkness had settled over Acorn Hall. A few torches burned along the walls, but that was all. The gates of the little castle were closed and barred. She had promised Harwin that she would not try and run away again, she knew, but that was before they started telling lies about her mother.

“Arya?” Gendry had followed her out. “Lady Smallwood said there’s a smithy. Want to have a look?”

“If you want.” She had nothing else to do.

“This Thoros,” Gendry said as they walked past the kennels, “is he the same Thoros who lived in the castle at King’s Landing? A red priest, fat, with a shaved head?”

“I think so.” Arya had never spoken to Thoros at King’s Landing that she could recall, but she knew who he was. He and Jalabhar Xho had been the most colorful figures at Robert’s court, and Thoros was a great friend of the king as well.