Davos paled. “Gods be good. How could any man—”
“The evil is in his blood,” said Robett Glover. “He is a bastard born of rape. A Snow, no matter what the boy king says.”
“Was ever snow so black?” asked Lord Wyman. “Ramsay took Lord Hornwood’s lands by forcibly wedding his widow, then locked her in a tower and forgot her. It is said she ate her own fingers in her extremity … and the Lannister notion of king’s justice is to reward her killer with Ned Stark’s little girl.”
“The Boltons have always been as cruel as they were cunning, but this one seems a beast in human skin,” said Glover.
The Lord of White Harbor leaned forward. “The Freys are no better. They speak of wargs and skinchangers and assert that it was Robb Stark who slew my Wendel. The arrogance of it! They do not expect the north to believe their lies, not truly, but they think we must pretend to believe or die. Roose Bolton lies about his part in the Red Wedding, and his bastard lies about the fall of Winterfell. And yet so long as they held Wylis I had no choice but to eat all this excrement and praise the taste.”
“And now, my lord?” asked Davos.
He had hoped to hear Lord Wyman say, And now I shall declare for King Stannis, but instead the fat man smiled an odd, twinkling smile and said, “And now I have a wedding to attend. I am too fat to sit a horse, as any man with eyes can plainly see. As a boy I loved to ride, and as a young man I handled a mount well enough to win some small acclaim in the lists, but those days are done. My body has become a prison more dire than the Wolf’s Den. Even so, I must go to Winterfell. Roose Bolton wants me on my knees, and beneath the velvet courtesy he shows the iron mail. I shall go by barge and litter, attended by a hundred knights and my good friends from the Twins. The Freys came here by sea. They have no horses with them, so I shall present each of them with a palfrey as a guest gift. Do hosts still give guest gifts in the south?”
“Some do, my lord. On the day their guest departs.”
“Perhaps you understand, then.” Wyman Manderly lurched ponderously to his feet. “I have been building warships for more than a year. Some you saw, but there are as many more hidden up the White Knife. Even with the losses I have suffered, I still command more heavy horse than any other lord north of the Neck. My walls are strong, and my vaults are full of silver. Oldcastle and Widow’s Watch will take their lead from me. My bannermen include a dozen petty lords and a hundred landed knights. I can deliver King Stannis the allegiance of all the lands east of the White Knife, from Widow’s Watch and Ramsgate to the Sheepshead Hills and the headwaters of the Broken Branch. All this I pledge to do if you will meet my price.”
“I can bring your terms to the king, but—”
Lord Wyman cut him off. “If you will meet my price, I said. Not Stannis. It’s not a king I need but a smuggler.”
Robett Glover took up the tale. “We may never know all that happened at Winterfell, when Ser Rodrik Cassel tried to take the castle back from Theon Greyjoy’s ironmen. The Bastard of Bolton claims that Greyjoy murdered Ser Rodrik during a parley. Wex says no. Until he learns more letters we will never know half the truth … but he came to us knowing yes and no, and those can go a long way once you find the right questions.”
“It was the Bastard who murdered Ser Rodrik and the men of Winterfell,” said Lord Wyman. “He slew Greyjoy’s ironmen as well. Wex saw men cut down trying to yield. When we asked how he escaped, he took a chunk of chalk and drew a tree with a face.”
Davos thought about that. “The old gods saved him?”
“After a fashion. He climbed the heart tree and hid himself amongst the leaves. Bolton’s men searched the godswood twice and killed the men they found there, but none thought to clamber up into the trees. Is that how it happened, Wex?”
The boy flipped up Glover’s dagger, caught it, nodded.
Glover said, “He stayed up in the tree a long time. He slept amongst the branches, not daring to descend. Finally he heard voices down beneath him.”
“The voices of the dead,” said Wyman Manderly.
Wex held up five fingers, tapped each one with the dagger, then folded four away and tapped the last again.
“Six of them,” asked Davos. “There were six.”
“Two of them Ned Stark’s murdered sons.”
“How could a mute tell you that?”
“With chalk. He drew two boys … and two wolves.”
“The lad is ironborn, so he thought it best not to show himself,” said Glover. “He listened. The six did not linger long amongst the ruins of Winterfell. Four went one way, two another. Wex stole after the two, a woman and a boy. He must have stayed downwind, so the wolf would not catch his scent.”
“He knows where they went,” Lord Wyman said.
Davos understood. “You want the boy.”
“Roose Bolton has Lord Eddard’s daughter. To thwart him White Harbor must have Ned’s son … and the direwolf. The wolf will prove the boy is who we say he is, should the Dreadfort attempt to deny him. That is my price, Lord Davos. Smuggle me back my liege lord, and I will take Stannis Baratheon as my king.”
Old instinct made Davos Seaworth reach for his throat. His fingerbones had been his luck, and somehow he felt he would have need of luck to do what Wyman Manderly was asking of him. The bones were gone, though, so he said, “You have better men than me in your service. Knights and lords and maesters. Why would you need a smuggler? You have ships.”
“Ships,” Lord Wyman agreed, “but my crews are rivermen, or fisherfolk who have never sailed beyond the Bite. For this I must have a man who’s sailed in darker waters and knows how to slip past dangers, unseen and unmolested.”
“Where is the boy?” Somehow Davos knew he would not like the answer. “Where is it you want me to go, my lord?”
Robett Glover said, “Wex. Show him.”
The mute flipped the dagger, caught it, then flung it end over end at the sheepskin map that adorned Lord Wyman’s wall. It struck quivering. Then he grinned.
For half a heartbeat Davos considered asking Wyman Manderly to send him back to the Wolf’s Den, to Ser Bartimus with his tales and Garth with his lethal ladies. In the Den even prisoners ate porridge in the morning. But there were other places in this world where men were known to break their fast on human flesh.
* * *
Alayne
She turned the iron ring and pushed the door open, just a crack. “Sweetrobin?” she called. “May I enter?”
“Have a care, m’lady,” warned old Gretchel, wringing her hands. “His lordship threw his chamber pot at the maester.”
“Then he has none to throw at me. Isn’t there some work you should be doing? And you, Maddy . . . are all the windows closed and shuttered? Have all the furnishings been covered?”
“All of them, m’lady,” said Maddy.
“Best make certain of it.” Alayne slipped into the darkened bedchamber. “It’s only me, Sweetrobin.”
Someone sniffled in the darkness. “Are you alone?”
“I am, my lord.”
“Come close, then. Just you.”
Alayne shut the door firmly behind her. It was solid oak, four inches thick; Maddy and Gretchel might listen all they wished, but they would hear nothing. That was just as well. Gretchel could hold her tongue, but Maddy gossiped shamelessly.
“Did Maester Colemon send you?” the boy asked.
“No,” she lied. “I heard my Sweetrobin was ailing.” After his encounter with the chamber pot the maester had come running to Ser Lothor, and Brune had come to her. “If m’lady can talk him out of bed nice,” the knight said, “I won’t have to drag him out.”
We can’t have that, she told herself. When Robert was handled roughly he was apt to go into a shaking fit. “Are you hungry, my lord?” she asked the little lord. “Shall I send Maddy down for berries and cream, or some warm bread and butter?” Too late she remembered that there was no warm bread; the kitchens were closed, the ovens cold. If it gets Robert
out of bed, it would be worth the bother of lighting a fire, she told herself.
“I don’t want food,” the little lord said, in a reedy, petulant voice. “I’m going to stay in bed today. You could read to me if you want.”
“It is too dark in here for reading.” The heavy curtains drawn across the windows made the bedchamber black as night. “Has my Sweetrobin forgotten what day this is?”
“No,” he said, “but I’m not going. I want to stay in bed. You could read to me about the Winged Knight.”
The Winged Knight was Ser Artys Arryn. Legend said that he had driven the First Men from the Vale and flown to the top of the Giant’s Lance on a huge falcon to slay the Griffin King. There were a hundred tales of his adventures. Little Robert knew them all so well he could have recited them from memory, but he liked to have them read to him all the same. “Sweetling, we have to go,” she told the boy, “but I promise, I’ll read you two tales of the Winged Knight when we reach the Gates of the Moon.”
“Three,” he said at once. No matter what you offered him, Robert always wanted more.
“Three,” she agreed. “Might I let some sun in?”
“No. The light hurts my eyes. Come to bed, Alayne.”
She went to the windows anyway, edging around the broken chamber pot. She could smell it better than she saw it. “I shan’t open them very wide. Only enough to see my Sweetrobin’s face.”
He sniffled. “If you must.”
The curtains were of plush blue velvet. She pulled one back a finger’s length and tied it off. Dust motes danced in a shaft of pale morning light. The small diamond-shaped panes of the window were obscured by frost. Alayne rubbed at one with the heel of her hand, enough to glimpse a brilliant blue sky and a blaze of white from the mountainside. The Eyrie was wrapped in an icy mantle, the Giant’s Lance above buried in waist-deep snows.
When she turned back, Robert Arryn was propped up against the pillows looking at her. The Lord of the Eyrie and Defender of the Vale. A woolen blanket covered him below the waist. Above it he was naked, a pasty boy with hair as long as any girl’s. Robert had spindly arms and legs, a soft concave chest and little belly, and eyes that were always red and runny. He cannot help the way he is. He was born small and sickly. “You look very strong this morning, my lord.” He loved to be told how strong he was. “Shall I have Maddy and Gretchel fetch hot water for your bath? Maddy will scrub your back for you and wash your hair, to make you clean and lordly for your journey. Won’t that be nice?”
“No. I hate Maddy. She has a wart on her eye, and she scrubs so hard it hurts. My mommy never hurt me scrubbing.”
“I will tell Maddy not to scrub my Sweetrobin so hard. You’ll feel better when you’re fresh and clean.”
“No bath, I told you, my head hurts most awfully.”
“Shall I bring you a warm cloth for your brow? Or a cup of dreamwine? Only a little one, though. Mya Stone is waiting down at Sky, and she’ll be hurt if you go to sleep on her. You know how much she loves you.”
“I don’t love her. She’s just the mule girl.” Robert sniffled. “Maester Colemon put something vile in my milk last night, I could taste it. I told him I wanted sweetmilk, but he wouldn’t bring me any. Not even when I commanded him. I am the lord, he should do what I say. No one does what I say.”
“I’ll speak to him,” Alayne promised, “but only if you get up out of bed. It’s beautiful outside, Sweetrobin. The sun is shining bright, a perfect day for going down the mountain. The mules are waiting down at Sky with Mya . . .”
His mouth quivered. “I hate those smelly mules. One tried to bite me once! You tell that Mya that I’m staying here.” He sounded as if he were about to cry. “No one can hurt me so long as I stay here. The Eyrie is impregnable.”
“Who would want to hurt my Sweetrobin? Your lords and knights adore you, and the smallfolk cheer your name.” He is afraid, she thought, and with good reason. Since his lady mother had fallen, the boy would not even stand upon a balcony, and the way from the Eyrie to the Gates of the Moon was perilous enough to daunt anyone. Alayne’s heart had been in her throat when she made her own ascent with Lady Lysa and Lord Petyr, and everyone agreed that the descent was even more harrowing, since you were looking down the whole time. Mya could tell of great lords and bold knights who had gone pale and wet their smallclothes on the mountain. And none of them had the shaking sickness either.
Still, it would not serve. On the valley floor autumn still lingered, warm and golden, but winter had closed around the mountain peaks. They had weathered three snowstorms, and an ice storm that transformed the castle into crystal for a fortnight. The Eyrie might be impregnable, but it would soon be inaccessible as well, and the way down grew more hazardous every day. Most of the castle’s servants and soldiers had already made the descent. Only a dozen still lingered up here, to attend Lord Robert.
“Sweetrobin,” she said gently, “the descent will be ever so jolly, you’ll see. Ser Lothor will be with us, and Mya. Her mules have gone up and down this old mountain a thousand times.”
“I hate mules,” he insisted. “Mules are nasty. I told you, one tried to bite me when I was little.”
Robert had never learned to ride properly, she knew. Mules, horses, donkeys, it made no matter; to him they were all fearsome beasts, as terrifying as dragons or griffins. He had been brought to the Vale at six, riding with his head cradled between his mother’s milky breasts, and had never left the Eyrie since.
Still, they had to go, before the ice closed about the castle for good. There was no telling how long the weather would hold. “Mya will keep the mules from biting,” Alayne said, “and I’ll be riding just behind you. I’m only a girl, not as brave or strong as you. If I can do it, I know you can, Sweetrobin.”
“I could do it,” Lord Robert said, “but I don’t choose to.” He swiped at his runny nose with the back of his hand. “Tell Mya I am going to stay abed. Perhaps I will come down on the morrow, if I feel better. Today is too cold out, and my head hurts. You can have some sweetmilk too, and I’ll tell Gretchel to bring us some honeycombs to eat. We’ll sleep and kiss and play games, and you can read me about the Winged Knight.”
“I will. Three tales, as I promised . . . when we reach the Gates of the Moon.” Alayne was running short of patience. We have to go, she reminded herself, or we’ll still be above the snow line when the sun goes down. “Lord Nestor has prepared a feast to welcome you, mushroom soup and venison and cakes. You don’t want to disappoint him, do you?”
“Will they be lemon cakes?” Lord Robert loved lemon cakes, perhaps because Alayne did.
“Lemony lemony lemon cakes,” she assured him, “and you can have as many as you like.”
“A hundred?” he wanted to know. “Could I have a hundred?”
“If it please you.” She sat on the bed and smoothed his long, fine hair. He does have pretty hair. Lady Lysa had brushed it herself every night, and cut it when it wanted cutting. After she had fallen Robert had suffered terrible shaking fits whenever anyone came near him with a blade, so Petyr had commanded that his hair be allowed to grow. Alayne wound a lock around her finger, and said, “Now, will you get out of bed and let us dress you?”
“I want a hundred lemon cakes and five tales!”
I’d like to give you a hundred spankings and five slaps. You would not dare behave like this if Petyr were here. The little lord had a good healthy fear of his stepfather. Alayne forced a smile. “As my lord desires. But nothing till you’re washed and dressed and on your way. Come, before the morning’s gone.” She took him firmly by the hand, and drew him out of bed.
Before she could summon the servants, however, Sweetrobin threw his skinny arms around her and kissed her. It was a little boy’s kiss, and clumsy. Everything Robert Arryn did was clumsy. If I close my eyes I can pretend he is the Knight of Flowers. Ser Loras had given Sansa Stark a red rose once, but he had never kissed her . . . and no Tyrell would ever kiss Alayne Stone. Pretty as she was,
she had been born on the wrong side of the blanket.
As the boy’s lips touched her own she found herself thinking of another kiss. She could still remember how it felt, when his cruel mouth pressed down on her own. He had come to Sansa in the darkness as green fire filled the sky. He took a song and a kiss, and left me nothing but a bloody cloak.
It made no matter. That day was done, and so was Sansa.
Alayne pushed her little lord away. “That’s enough. You can kiss me again when we reach the Gates, if you keep your word.”
Maddy and Gretchel were waiting outside with Maester Colemon. The maester had washed the night soil from his hair and changed his robe. Robert’s squires had turned up as well. Terrance and Gyles could always sniff out trouble.
“Lord Robert is feeling stronger,” Alayne told the serving women. “Fetch hot water for his bath, but see you don’t scald him. And do not pull on his hair when you brush out the tangles, he hates that.” One of the squires sniggered, until she said, “Terrance, lay out his lordship’s riding clothes and his warmest cloak. Gyles, you may clean up that broken chamber pot.”
Gyles Grafton made a face. “I’m no scrubwoman.”
“Do as Lady Alayne commands, or Lothor Brune will hear of it,” said Maester Colemon. He followed her along the hallway and down the twisting stairs. “I am grateful for your intercession, my lady. You have a way with him.” He hesitated. “Did you observe any shaking while you were with him?”
“His fingers trembled a little bit when I held his hand, that’s all. He says you put something vile in his milk.”
“Vile?” Colemon blinked at her, and the apple in his throat moved up and down. “I merely . . . is he bleeding from the nose?”
“No.”
“Good. That is good.” His chain clinked softly as he bobbed his head, atop a ridiculously long and skinny neck. “This descent . . . my lady, it might be safest if I mixed his lordship some milk of the poppy. Mya Stone could lash him over the back of her most surefooted mule whilst he slumbered.”
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