“Stark’s little wolflings are dead,” said Ramsay, sloshing some more ale into his cup, “and they’ll stay dead. Let them show their ugly faces, and my girls will rip those wolves of theirs to pieces. The sooner they turn up, the sooner I kill them again.”
The elder Bolton sighed. “Again? Surely you misspeak. You never slew Lord Eddard’s sons, those two sweet boys we loved so well. That was Theon Turncloak’s work, remember? How many of our grudging friends do you imagine we’d retain if the truth were known? Only Lady Barbrey, whom you would turn into a pair of boots … inferior boots. Human skin is not as tough as cowhide and will not wear as well. By the king’s decree you are now a Bolton. Try and act like one. Tales are told of you, Ramsay. I hear them everywhere. People fear you.”
“Good.”
“You are mistaken. It is not good. No tales were ever told of me. Do you think I would be sitting here if it were otherwise? Your amusements are your own, I will not chide you on that count, but you must be more discreet. A peaceful land, a quiet people. That has always been my rule. Make it yours.”
“Is this why you left Lady Dustin and your fat pig wife? So you could come down here and tell me to be quiet?”
“Not at all. There are tidings that you need to hear. Lord Stannis has finally left the Wall.”
That got Ramsay halfway to his feet, a smile glistening on his wide, wet lips. “Is he marching on the Dreadfort?”
“He is not, alas. Arnolf does not understand it. He swears that he did all he could to bait the trap.”
“I wonder. Scratch a Karstark and you’ll find a Stark.”
“After the scratch the Young Wolf gave Lord Rickard, that may be somewhat less true than formerly. Be that as it may. Lord Stannis has taken Deepwood Motte from the ironmen and restored it to House Glover. Worse, the mountain clans have joined him, Wull and Norrey and Liddle and the rest. His strength is growing.”
“Ours is greater.”
“Now it is.”
“Now is the time to smash him. Let me march on Deepwood.”
“After you are wed.”
Ramsay slammed down his cup, and the dregs of his ale erupted across the tablecloth. “I’m sick of waiting. We have a girl, we have a tree, and we have lords enough to witness. I’ll wed her on the morrow, plant a son between her legs, and march before her maiden’s blood has dried.”
She’ll pray for you to march, Reek thought, and she’ll pray that you never come back to her bed.
“You will plant a son in her,” Roose Bolton said, “but not here. I’ve decided you shall wed the girl at Winterfell.”
That prospect did not appear to please Lord Ramsay. “I laid waste to Winterfell, or had you forgotten?”
“No, but it appears you have … the ironmen laid waste to Winterfell, and butchered all its people. Theon Turncloak.”
Ramsay gave Reek a suspicious glance. “Aye, so he did, but still … a wedding in that ruin?”
“Even ruined and broken, Winterfell remains Lady Arya’s home. What better place to wed her, bed her, and stake your claim? That is only half of it, however. We would be fools to march on Stannis. Let Stannis march on us. He is too cautious to come to Barrowton … but he must come to Winterfell. His clansmen will not abandon the daughter of their precious Ned to such as you. Stannis must march or lose them … and being the careful commander that he is, he will summon all his friends and allies when he marches. He will summon Arnolf Karstark.”
Ramsay licked his chapped lips. “And we’ll have him.”
“If the gods will it.” Roose rose to his feet. “You’ll wed at Winterfell. I shall inform the lords that we march in three days and invite them to accompany us.”
“You are the Warden of the North. Command them.”
“An invitation will accomplish the same thing. Power tastes best when sweetened by courtesy. You had best learn that if you ever hope to rule.” The Lord of the Dreadfort glanced at Reek. “Oh, and unchain your pet. I am taking him.”
“Taking him? Where? He’s mine. You cannot have him.”
Roose seemed amused by that. “All you have I gave you. You would do well to remember that, bastard. As for this … Reek … if you have not ruined him beyond redemption, he may yet be of some use to us. Get the keys and remove those chains from him, before you make me rue the day I raped your mother.”
Reek saw the way Ramsay’s mouth twisted, the spittle glistening between his lips. He feared he might leap the table with his dagger in his hand. Instead he flushed red, turned his pale eyes from his father’s paler ones, and went to find the keys. But as he knelt to unlock the fetters around Reek’s wrists and ankles, he leaned close and whispered, “Tell him nothing and remember every word he says. I’ll have you back, no matter what that Dustin bitch may tell you. Who are you?”
“Reek, my lord. Your man. I’m Reek, it rhymes with sneak.”
“It does. When my father brings you back, I’m going to take another finger. I’ll let you choose which one.”
Unbidden, tears began to trickle down his cheeks. “Why?” he cried, his voice breaking. “I never asked for him to take me from you. I’ll do whatever you want, serve, obey, I … please, no …”
Ramsay slapped his face. “Take him,” he told his father. “He’s not even a man. The way he smells disgusts me.”
The moon was rising over the wooden walls of Barrowton when they stepped outside. Reek could hear the wind sweeping across the rolling plains beyond the town. It was less than a mile from Barrow Hall to Harwood Stout’s modest keep beside the eastern gates. Lord Bolton offered him a horse. “Can you ride?”
“I … my lord, I … I think so.”
“Walton, help him mount.”
Even with the fetters gone, Reek moved like an old man. His flesh hung loosely on his bones, and Sour Alyn and Ben Bones said he twitched. And his smell … even the mare they’d brought for him shied away when he tried to mount.
She was a gentle horse, though, and she knew the way to Barrow Hall. Lord Bolton fell in beside him as they rode out the gate. The guards fell back to a discreet distance. “What would you have me call you?” the lord asked, as they trotted down the broad straight streets of Barrowton.
Reek, I’m Reek, it rhymes with wreak. “Reek,” he said, “if it please my lord.”
“M’lord.” Bolton’s lips parted just enough to show a quarter inch of teeth. It might have been a smile.
He did not understand. “My lord? I said—”
“—my lord, when you should have said m’lord. Your tongue betrays your birth with every word you say. If you want to sound a proper peasant, say it as if you had mud in your mouth, or were too stupid to realize it was two words, not just one.”
“If it please my—m’lord.”
“Better. Your stench is quite appalling.”
“Yes, m’lord. I beg your pardon, m’lord.”
“Why? The way you smell is my son’s doing, not your own. I am well aware of that.” They rode past a stable and a shuttered inn with a wheat sheaf painted on its sign. Reek heard music coming through its windows. “I knew the first Reek. He stank, though not for want of washing. I have never known a cleaner creature, truth be told. He bathed thrice a day and wore flowers in his hair as if he were a maiden. Once, when my second wife was still alive, he was caught stealing scent from her bedchamber. I had him whipped for that, a dozen lashes. Even his blood smelled wrong. The next year he tried it again. This time he drank the perfume and almost died of it. It made no matter. The smell was something he was born with. A curse, the smallfolk said. The gods had made him stink so that men would know his soul was rotting. My old maester insisted it was a sign of sickness, yet the boy was otherwise as strong as a young bull. No one could stand to be near him, so he slept with the pigs … until the day that Ramsay’s mother appeared at my gates to demand that I provide a servant for my bastard, who was growing up wild and unruly. I gave her Reek. It was meant to be amusing, but he and Ramsay became inseparable. I do w
onder, though … was it Ramsay who corrupted Reek, or Reek Ramsay?” His lordship glanced at the new Reek with eyes as pale and strange as two white moons. “What was he whispering whilst he unchained you?”
“He … he said …” He said to tell you nothing. The words caught in his throat, and he began to cough and choke.
“Breathe deep. I know what he said. You’re to spy on me and keep his secrets.” Bolton chuckled. “As if he had secrets. Sour Alyn, Luton, Skinner, and the rest, where does he think they came from? Can he truly believe they are his men?”
“His men,” Reek echoed. Some comment seemed to be expected of him, but he did not know what to say.
“Has my bastard ever told you how I got him?”
That he did know, to his relief. “Yes, my … m’lord. You met his mother whilst out riding and were smitten by her beauty.”
“Smitten?” Bolton laughed. “Did he use that word? Why, the boy has a singer’s soul … though if you believe that song, you may well be dimmer than the first Reek. Even the riding part is wrong. I was hunting a fox along the Weeping Water when I chanced upon a mill and saw a young woman washing clothes in the stream. The old miller had gotten himself a new young wife, a girl not half his age. She was a tall, willowy creature, very healthy-looking. Long legs and small firm breasts, like two ripe plums. Pretty, in a common sort of way. The moment that I set eyes on her I wanted her. Such was my due. The maesters will tell you that King Jaehaerys abolished the lord’s right to the first night to appease his shrewish queen, but where the old gods rule, old customs linger. The Umbers keep the first night too, deny it as they may. Certain of the mountain clans as well, and on Skagos … well, only heart trees ever see half of what they do on Skagos.
“This miller’s marriage had been performed without my leave or knowledge. The man had cheated me. So I had him hanged, and claimed my rights beneath the tree where he was swaying. If truth be told, the wench was hardly worth the rope. The fox escaped as well, and on our way back to the Dreadfort my favorite courser came up lame, so all in all it was a dismal day.
“A year later this same wench had the impudence to turn up at the Dreadfort with a squalling, red-faced monster that she claimed was my own get. I should’ve had the mother whipped and thrown her child down a well … but the babe did have my eyes. She told me that when her dead husband’s brother saw those eyes, he beat her bloody and drove her from the mill. That annoyed me, so I gave her the mill and had the brother’s tongue cut out, to make certain he did not go running to Winterfell with tales that might disturb Lord Rickard. Each year I sent the woman some piglets and chickens and a bag of stars, on the understanding that she was never to tell the boy who had fathered him. A peaceful land, a quiet people, that has always been my rule.”
“A fine rule, m’lord.”
“The woman disobeyed me, though. You see what Ramsay is. She made him, her and Reek, always whispering in his ear about his rights. He should have been content to grind corn. Does he truly think that he can ever rule the north?”
“He fights for you,” Reek blurted out. “He’s strong.”
“Bulls are strong. Bears. I have seen my bastard fight. He is not entirely to blame. Reek was his tutor, the first Reek, and Reek was never trained at arms. Ramsay is ferocious, I will grant you, but he swings that sword like a butcher hacking meat.”
“He’s not afraid of anyone, m’lord.”
“He should be. Fear is what keeps a man alive in this world of treachery and deceit. Even here in Barrowton the crows are circling, waiting to feast upon our flesh. The Cerwyns and the Tallharts are not to be relied on, my fat friend Lord Wyman plots betrayal, and Whoresbane … the Umbers may seem simple, but they are not without a certain low cunning. Ramsay should fear them all, as I do. The next time you see him, tell him that.”
“Tell him … tell him to be afraid?” Reek felt ill at the very thought of it. “M’lord, I … if I did that, he’d …”
“I know.” Lord Bolton sighed. “His blood is bad. He needs to be leeched. The leeches suck away the bad blood, all the rage and pain. No man can think so full of anger. Ramsay, though … his tainted blood would poison even leeches, I fear.”
“He is your only son.”
“For the moment. I had another, once. Domeric. A quiet boy, but most accomplished. He served four years as Lady Dustin’s page, and three in the Vale as a squire to Lord Redfort. He played the high harp, read histories, and rode like the wind. Horses … the boy was mad for horses, Lady Dustin will tell you. Not even Lord Rickard’s daughter could outrace him, and that one was half a horse herself. Redfort said he showed great promise in the lists. A great jouster must be a great horseman first.”
“Yes, m’lord. Domeric. I … I have heard his name …”
“Ramsay killed him. A sickness of the bowels, Maester Uthor says, but I say poison. In the Vale, Domeric had enjoyed the company of Redfort’s sons. He wanted a brother by his side, so he rode up the Weeping Water to seek my bastard out. I forbade it, but Domeric was a man grown and thought that he knew better than his father. Now his bones lie beneath the Dreadfort with the bones of his brothers, who died still in the cradle, and I am left with Ramsay. Tell me, my lord … if the kinslayer is accursed, what is a father to do when one son slays another?”
The question frightened him. Once he had heard Skinner say that the Bastard had killed his trueborn brother, but he had never dared to believe it. He could be wrong. Brothers die sometimes, it does not mean that they were killed. My brothers died, and I never killed them. “My lord has a new wife to give him sons.”
“And won’t my bastard love that? Lady Walda is a Frey, and she has a fertile feel to her. I have become oddly fond of my fat little wife. The two before her never made a sound in bed, but this one squeals and shudders. I find that quite endearing. If she pops out sons the way she pops in tarts, the Dreadfort will soon be overrun with Boltons. Ramsay will kill them all, of course. That’s for the best. I will not live long enough to see new sons to manhood, and boy lords are the bane of any House. Walda will grieve to see them die, though.”
Reek’s throat was dry. He could hear the wind rattling the bare branches of the elms that lined the street. “My lord, I—”
“M’lord, remember?”
“M’lord. If I might ask … why did you want me? I’m no use to anyone, I’m not even a man, I’m broken, and … the smell …”
“A bath and change of clothes will make you smell sweeter.”
“A bath?” Reek felt a clenching in his guts. “I … I would sooner not, m’lord. Please. I have … wounds, I … and these clothes, Lord Ramsay gave them to me, he … he said that I was never to take them off, save at his command …”
“You are wearing rags,” Lord Bolton said, quite patiently. “Filthy things, torn and stained and stinking of blood and urine. And thin. You must be cold. We’ll put you in lambswool, soft and warm. Perhaps a fur-lined cloak. Would you like that?”
“No.” He could not let them take the clothes Lord Ramsay gave him. He could not let them see him.
“Would you prefer to dress in silk and velvet? There was a time when you were fond of such, I do recall.”
“No,” he insisted, shrilly. “No, I only want these clothes. Reek’s clothes. I’m Reek, it rhymes with peek.” His heart was beating like a drum, and his voice rose to a frightened squeak. “I don’t want a bath. Please, m’lord, don’t take my clothes.”
“Will you let us wash them, at least?”
“No. No, m’lord. Please.” He clutched his tunic to his chest with both hands and hunched down in the saddle, half-afraid that Roose Bolton might command his guardsmen to tear the clothes off him right there in the street.
“As you wish.” Bolton’s pale eyes looked empty in the moonlight, as if there were no one behind them at all. “I mean you no harm, you know. I owe you much and more.”
“You do?” Some part of him was screaming, This is a trap, he is playing with you, the son is just the
shadow of the father. Lord Ramsay played with his hopes all the time. “What … what do you owe me, m’lord?”
“The north. The Starks were done and doomed the night that you took Winterfell.” He waved a pale hand, dismissive. “All this is only squabbling over spoils.”
Their short journey reached its end at the wooden walls of Barrow Hall. Banners flew from its square towers, flapping in the wind: the flayed man of the Dreadfort, the battle-axe of Cerwyn, Tallhart’s pines, the merman of Manderly, old Lord Locke’s crossed keys, the Umber giant and the stony hand of Flint, the Hornwood moose. For the Stouts, chevrony russet and gold, for Slate, a grey field within a double tressure white. Four horseheads proclaimed the four Ryswells of the Rills—one grey, one black, one gold, one brown. The jape was that the Ryswells could not even agree upon the color of their arms. Above them streamed the stag-and-lion of the boy who sat upon the Iron Throne a thousand leagues away.
Reek listened to the vanes turning on the old windmill as they rode beneath the gatehouse into a grassy courtyard where stableboys ran out to take their horses. “This way, if you please.” Lord Bolton led him toward the keep, where the banners were those of the late Lord Dustin and his widowed wife. His showed a spiked crown above crossed longaxes; hers quartered those same arms with Rodrik Ryswell’s golden horsehead.
As he climbed a wide flight of wooden steps to the hall, Reek’s legs began to shake. He had to stop to steady them, staring up at the grassy slopes of the Great Barrow. Some claimed it was the grave of the First King, who had led the First Men to Westeros. Others argued that it must be some King of the Giants who was buried there, to account for its size. A few had even been known to say it was no barrow, just a hill, but if so it was a lonely hill, for most of the barrowlands were flat and windswept.
Inside the hall, a woman stood beside the hearth, warming thin hands above the embers of a dying fire. She was clad all in black, from head to heel, and wore no gold nor gems, but she was highborn, that was plain to see. Though there were wrinkles at the corners of her mouth and more around her eyes, she still stood tall, unbent, and handsome. Her hair was brown and grey in equal parts and she wore it tied behind her head in a widow’s knot.
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