“So many?” The voices were fainter as the light dwindled ahead of her. “The ones you need are hard to find…so young, to know their letters…perhaps older…not die so easy…”
“No. The younger are safer…treat them gently…”
“…if they kept their tongues…”
“…the risk…”
Long after their voices had faded away, Arya could still see the light of the torch, a smoking star that bid her follow. Twice it seemed to disappear, but she kept on straight, and both times she found herself at the top of steep, narrow stairs, the torch glimmering far below her. She hurried after it, down and down. Once she stumbled over a rock and fell against the wall, and her hand found raw earth supported by timbers, whereas before the tunnel had been dressed stone.
She must have crept after them for miles. Finally they were gone, but there was no place to go but forward. She found the wall again and followed, blind and lost, pretending that Nymeria was padding along beside her in the darkness. At the end she was knee-deep in foul-smelling water, wishing she could dance upon it as Syrio might have, and wondering if she’d ever see light again. It was full dark when finally Arya emerged into the night air.
She found herself standing at the mouth of a sewer where it emptied into the river. She stank so badly that she stripped right there, dropping her soiled clothing on the riverbank as she dove into the deep black waters. She swam until she felt clean, and crawled out shivering. Some riders went past along the river road as Arya was washing her clothes, but if they saw the scrawny naked girl scrubbing her rags in the moonlight, they took no notice.
She was miles from the castle, but from anywhere in King’s Landing you needed only to look up to see the Red Keep high on Aegon’s Hill, so there was no danger of losing her way. Her clothes were almost dry by the time she reached the gatehouse. The portcullis was down and the gates barred, so she turned aside to a postern door. The gold cloaks who had the watch sneered when she told them to let her in. “Off with you,” one said. “The kitchen scraps are gone, and we’ll have no begging after dark.”
“I’m not a beggar,” she said. “I live here.”
“I said, off with you. Do you need a clout on the ear to help your hearing?”
“I want to see my father.”
The guards exchanged a glance. “I want to fuck the queen myself, for all the good it does me,” the younger one said.
The older scowled. “Who’s this father of yours, boy, the city ratcatcher?”
“The Hand of the King,” Arya told him.
Both men laughed, but then the older one swung his fist at her, casually, as a man would swat a dog. Arya saw the blow coming even before it began. She danced back out of the way, untouched. “I’m not a boy,” she spat at them. “I’m Arya Stark of Winterfell, and if you lay a hand on me my lord father will have both your heads on spikes. If you don’t believe me, fetch Jory Cassel or Vayon Poole from the Tower of the Hand.” She put her hands on her hips. “Now are you going to open the gate, or do you need a clout on the ear to help your hearing?”
Her father was alone in the solar when Harwin and Fat Tom marched her in, an oil lamp glowing softly at his elbow. He was bent over the biggest book Arya had ever seen, a great thick tome with cracked yellow pages of crabbed script, bound between faded leather covers, but he closed it to listen to Harwin’s report. His face was stern as he sent the men away with thanks.
“You realize I had half my guard out searching for you?” Eddard Stark said when they were alone. “Septa Mordane is beside herself with fear. She’s in the sept praying for your safe return. Arya, you know you are never to go beyond the castle gates without my leave.”
“I didn’t go out the gates,” she blurted. “Well, I didn’t mean to. I was down in the dungeons, only they turned into this tunnel. It was all dark, and I didn’t have a torch or a candle to see by, so I had to follow. I couldn’t go back the way I came on account of the monsters. Father, they were talking about killing you! Not the monsters, the two men. They didn’t see me, I was being still as stone and quiet as a shadow, but I heard them. They said you had a book and a bastard and if one Hand could die, why not a second? Is that the book? Jon’s the bastard, I bet.”
“Jon? Arya, what are you talking about? Who said this?”
“They did,” she told him. “There was a fat one with rings and a forked yellow beard, and another in mail and a steel cap, and the fat one said they had to delay but the other one told him he couldn’t keep juggling and the wolf and the lion were going to eat each other and it was a mummer’s farce.” She tried to remember the rest. She hadn’t quite understood everything she’d heard, and now it was all mixed up in her head. “The fat one said the princess was with child. The one in the steel cap, he had the torch, he said that they had to hurry. I think he was a wizard.”
“A wizard,” said Ned, unsmiling. “Did he have a long white beard and tall pointed hat speckled with stars?”
“No! It wasn’t like Old Nan’s stories. He didn’t look like a wizard, but the fat one said he was.”
“I warn you, Arya, if you’re spinning this thread of air—”
“No, I told you, it was in the dungeons, by the place with the secret wall. I was chasing cats, and well…” She screwed up her face. If she admitted knocking over Prince Tommen, he would be really angry with her. “…well, I went in this window. That’s where I found the monsters.”
“Monsters and wizards,” her father said. “It would seem you’ve had quite an adventure. These men you heard, you say they spoke of juggling and mummery?”
“Yes,” Arya admitted, “only—”
“Arya, they were mummers,” her father told her. “There must be a dozen troupes in King’s Landing right now, come to make some coin off the tourney crowds. I’m not certain what these two were doing in the castle, but perhaps the king has asked for a show.”
“No.” She shook her head stubbornly. “They weren’t—”
“You shouldn’t be following people about and spying on them in any case. Nor do I cherish the notion of my daughter climbing in strange windows after stray cats. Look at you, sweetling. Your arms are covered with scratches. This has gone on long enough. Tell Syrio Forel that I want a word with him—”
He was interrupted by a short, sudden knock. “Lord Eddard, pardons,” Desmond called out, opening the door a crack, “but there’s a black brother here begging audience. He says the matter is urgent. I thought you would want to know.”
“My door is always open to the Night’s Watch,” Father said.
Desmond ushered the man inside. He was stooped and ugly, with an unkempt beard and unwashed clothes, yet Father greeted him pleasantly and asked his name.
“Yoren, as it please m’lord. My pardons for the hour.” He bowed to Arya. “And this must be your son. He has your look.”
“I’m a girl,” Arya said, exasperated. If the old man was down from the Wall, he must have come by way of Winterfell. “Do you know my brothers?” she asked excitedly. “Robb and Bran are at Winterfell, and Jon’s on the Wall. Jon Snow, he’s in the Night’s Watch too, you must know him, he has a direwolf, a white one with red eyes. Is Jon a ranger yet? I’m Arya Stark.” The old man in his smelly black clothes was looking at her oddly, but Arya could not seem to stop talking. “When you ride back to the Wall, would you bring Jon a letter if I wrote one?” She wished Jon were here right now. He’d believe her about the dungeons and the fat man with the forked beard and the wizard in the steel cap.
“My daughter often forgets her courtesies,” Eddard Stark said with a faint smile that softened his words. “I beg your forgiveness, Yoren. Did my brother Benjen send you?”
“No one sent me, m’lord, saving old Mormont. I’m here to find men for the Wall, and when Robert next holds court, I’ll bend the knee and cry our need, see if the king and his Hand have some scum in the dungeons they’d be well rid of. You might say as Benjen Stark is why we’re talking, though. His blood ran bl
ack. Made him my brother as much as yours. It’s for his sake I’m come. Rode hard, I did, near killed my horse the way I drove her, but I left the others well behind.”
“The others?”
Yoren spat. “Sellswords and freeriders and like trash. That inn was full o’ them, and I saw them take the scent. The scent of blood or the scent of gold, they smell the same in the end. Not all o’ them made for King’s Landing, either. Some went galloping for Casterly Rock, and the Rock lies closer. Lord Tywin will have gotten the word by now, you can count on it.”
Father frowned. “What word is this?”
Yoren eyed Arya. “One best spoken in private, m’lord, begging your pardons.”
“As you say. Desmond, see my daughter to her chambers.” He kissed her on the brow. “We’ll finish our talk on the morrow.”
Arya stood rooted to the spot. “Nothing bad’s happened to Jon, has it?” she asked Yoren. “Or Uncle Benjen?”
“Well, as to Stark, I can’t say. The Snow boy was well enough when I left the Wall. It’s not them as concerns me.”
Desmond took her hand. “Come along, milady. You heard your lord father.”
Arya had no choice but to go with him, wishing it had been Fat Tom. With Tom, she might have been able to linger at the door on some excuse and hear what Yoren was saying, but Desmond was too single-minded to trick. “How many guards does my father have?” she asked him as they descended to her bedchamber.
“Here at King’s Landing? Fifty.”
“You wouldn’t let anyone kill him, would you?” she asked.
Desmond laughed. “No fear on that count, little lady. Lord Eddard’s guarded night and day. He’ll come to no harm.”
“The Lannisters have more than fifty men,” Arya pointed out.
“So they do, but every northerner is worth ten of these southron swords, so you can sleep easy.”
“What if a wizard was sent to kill him?”
“Well, as to that,” Desmond replied, drawing his longsword, “wizards die the same as other men, once you cut their heads off.”
EDDARD
“Robert, I beg of you,” Ned pleaded, “hear what you are saying. You are talking of murdering a child.”
“The whore is pregnant!” The king’s fist slammed down on the council table loud as a thunderclap. “I warned you this would happen, Ned. Back in the barrowlands, I warned you, but you did not care to hear it. Well, you’ll hear it now. I want them dead, mother and child both, and that fool. Viserys as well. Is that plain enough for you? I want them dead.”
The other councillors were all doing their best to pretend that they were somewhere else. No doubt they were wiser than he was. Eddard Stark had seldom felt quite so alone. “You will dishonor yourself forever if you do this.”
“Then let it be on my head, so long as it is done. I am not so blind that I cannot see the shadow of the axe when it is hanging over my own neck.”
“There is no axe,” Ned told his king. “Only the shadow of a shadow, twenty years removed…if it exists at all.”
“If?” Varys asked softly, wringing powdered hands together. “My lord, you wrong me. Would I bring lies to king and council?”
Ned looked at the eunuch coldly. “You would bring us the whisperings of a traitor half a world away, my lord. Perhaps Mormont is wrong. Perhaps he is lying.”
“Ser Jorah would not dare deceive me,” Varys said with a sly smile. “Rely on it, my lord. The princess is with child.”
“So you say. If you are wrong, we need not fear. If the girl miscarries, we need not fear. If she births a daughter in place of a son, we need not fear. If the babe dies in infancy, we need not fear.”
“But if it is a boy?” Robert insisted. “If he lives?”
“The narrow sea would still lie between us. I shall fear the Dothraki the day they teach their horses to run on water.”
The king took a swallow of wine and glowered at Ned across the council table. “So you would counsel me to do nothing until the dragonspawn has landed his army on my shores, is that it?”
“This ‘dragonspawn’ is in his mother’s belly,” Ned said. “Even Aegon did no conquering until after he was weaned.”
“Gods! You are stubborn as an aurochs, Stark.” The king looked around the council table. “Have the rest of you mislaid your tongues? Will no one talk sense to this frozen-faced fool?”
Varys gave the king an unctuous smile and laid a soft hand on Ned’s sleeve. “I understand your qualms, Lord Eddard, truly I do. It gave me no joy to bring this grievous news to council. It is a terrible thing we contemplate, a vile thing. Yet we who presume to rule must do vile things for the good of the realm, howevermuch it pains us.”
Lord Renly shrugged. “The matter seems simple enough to me. We ought to have had Viserys and his sister killed years ago, but His Grace my brother made the mistake of listening to Jon Arryn.”
“Mercy is never a mistake, Lord Renly,” Ned replied. “On the Trident, Ser Barristan here cut down a dozen good men, Robert’s friends and mine. When they brought him to us, grievously wounded and near death, Roose Bolton urged us to cut his throat, but your brother said, ‘I will not kill a man for loyalty, nor for fighting well,’ and sent his own maester to tend Ser Barristan’s wounds.” He gave the king a long cool look. “Would that man were here today.”
Robert had shame enough to blush. “It was not the same,” he complained. “Ser Barristan was a knight of the Kingsguard.”
“Whereas Daenerys is a fourteen-year-old girl.” Ned knew he was pushing this well past the point of wisdom, yet he could not keep silent. “Robert, I ask you, what did we rise against Aerys Targaryen for, if not to put an end to the murder of children?”
“To put an end to Targaryens!” the king growled.
“Your Grace, I never knew you to fear Rhaegar.” Ned fought to keep the scorn out of his voice, and failed. “Have the years so unmanned you that you tremble at the shadow of an unborn child?”
Robert purpled. “No more, Ned,” he warned, pointing. “Not another word. Have you forgotten who is king here?”
“No, Your Grace,” Ned replied. “Have you?”
“Enough!” the king bellowed. “I am sick of talk. I’ll be done with this, or be damned. What say you all?”
“She must be killed,” Lord Renly declared.
“We have no choice,” murmured Varys. “Sadly, sadly…”
Ser Barristan Selmy raised his pale blue eyes from the table and said, “Your Grace, there is honor in facing an enemy on the battlefield, but none in killing him in his mother’s womb. Forgive me, but I must stand with Lord Eddard.”
Grand Maester Pycelle cleared his throat, a process that seemed to take some minutes. “My order serves the realm, not the ruler. Once I counseled King Aerys as loyally as I counsel King Robert now, so I bear this girl child of his no ill will. Yet I ask you this—should war come again, how many soldiers will die? How many towns will burn? How many children will be ripped from their mothers to perish on the end of a spear?” He stroked his luxuriant white beard, infinitely sad, infinitely weary. “Is it not wiser, even kinder, that Daenerys Targaryen should die now so that tens of thousands might live?”
“Kinder,” Varys said. “Oh, well and truly spoken, Grand Maester. It is so true. Should the gods in their caprice grant Daenerys Targaryen a son, the realm must bleed.”
Littlefinger was the last. As Ned looked to him, Lord Petyr stifled a yawn. “When you find yourself in bed with an ugly woman, the best thing to do is close your eyes and get on with it,” he declared. “Waiting won’t make the maid any prettier. Kiss her and be done with it.”
“Kiss her?” Ser Barristan repeated, aghast.
“A steel kiss,” said Littlefinger.
Robert turned to face his Hand. “Well, there it is, Ned. You and Selmy stand alone on this matter. The only question that remains is, who can we find to kill her?”
“Mormont craves a royal pardon,” Lord Renly reminded them.
<
br /> “Desperately,” Varys said, ““yet he craves life even more. By now, the princess nears Vaes Dothrak, where it is death to draw a blade. If I told you what the Dothraki would do to the poor man who used one on a khaleesi, none of you would sleep tonight.” He stroked a powdered cheek. “Now, poison…the tears of Lys, let us say. Khal Drogo need never know it was not a natural death.”
Grand Maester Pycelle’s sleepy eyes flicked open. He squinted suspiciously at the eunuch.
“Poison is a coward’s weapon,” the king complained.
Ned had heard enough. “You send hired knives to kill a fourteen-year-old girl and still quibble about honor?” He pushed back his chair and stood. “Do it yourself, Robert. The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. Look her in the eyes before you kill her. See her tears, hear her last words. You owe her that much at least.”
“Gods,” the king swore, the word exploding out of him as if he could barely contain his fury. “You mean it, damn you.” He reached for the flagon of wine at his elbow, found it empty, and flung it away to shatter against the wall. “I am out of wine and out of patience. Enough of this. Just have it done.”
“I will not be part of murder, Robert. Do as you will, but do not ask me to fix my seal to it.”
For a moment Robert did not seem to understand what Ned was saying. Defiance was not a dish he tasted often. Slowly his face changed as comprehension came. His eyes narrowed and a flush crept up his neck past the velvet collar. He pointed an angry finger at Ned. “You are the King’s Hand, Lord Stark. You will do as I command you, or I’ll find me a Hand who will.”
“I wish him every success.” Ned unfastened the heavy clasp that clutched at the folds of his cloak, the ornate silver hand that was his badge of office. He laid it on the table in front of the king, saddened by the memory of the man who had pinned it on him, the friend he had loved. “I thought you a better man than this, Robert. I thought we had made a nobler king.”
Robert’s face was purple. “Out,” he croaked, choking on his rage. “Out, damn you, I’m done with you. What are you waiting for? Go, run back to Winterfell. And make certain I never look on your face again, or I swear, I’ll have your head on a spike!”
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