A Dance With Dragons

to his lord cousin. “Your lordship asked the onion knight what Stannis offers us. Let me answer. He offers us defeat and death. He would have you mount a horse of air and give battle with a sword of wind.”
    The fat lord opened his eyes slowly, as if the effort were almost too much for him. “My cousin cuts to the bone, as ever. Do you have any more to say to me, Onion Knight, or can we put an end to this mummer’s farce? I grow weary of your face.”
    Davos felt a stab of despair. His Grace should have sent another man, a lord or knight or maester, someone who could speak for him without tripping on his own tongue. “Death,” he heard himself say, “there will be death, aye. Your lordship lost a son at the Red Wedding. I lost four upon the Blackwater. And why? Because the Lannisters stole the throne. Go to King’s Landing and look on Tommen with your own eyes, if you doubt me. A blind man could see it. What does Stannis offer you? Vengeance. Vengeance for my sons and yours, for your husbands and your fathers and your brothers. Vengeance for your murdered lord, your murdered king, your butchered princes. Vengeance! ”
    “Yes,” piped a girl’s voice, thin and high.
    It belonged to the half-grown child with the blond eyebrows and the long green braid. “They killed Lord Eddard and Lady Catelyn and King Robb,” she said. “He was our king ! He was brave and good, and the Freys murdered him. If Lord Stannis will avenge him, we should join Lord Stannis.”
    Manderly pulled her close. “Wylla, every time you open your mouth you make me want to send you to the silent sisters.”
    “I only said—”
    “We heard what you said,” said the older girl, her sister. “A child’s foolishness. Speak no ill of our friends of Frey. One of them will be your lord and husband soon.”
    “No,” the girl declared, shaking her head. “I won’t. I won’t ever. They killed the king. ”
    Lord Wyman flushed. “You will. When the appointed day arrives, you will speak your wedding vows, else you will join the silent sisters and never speak again.”
    The poor girl looked stricken. “Grandfather, please …” “Hush, child,” said Lady Leona. “You heard your lord grandfather. Hush! You know nothing.”
    “I know about the promise,” insisted the girl. “Maester Theomore, tell them! A thousand years before the Conquest, a promise was made, and oaths were sworn in the Wolf’s Den before the old gods and the new. When we were sore beset and friendless, hounded from our homes and in peril of our lives, the wolves took us in and nourished us and protected us against our enemies. The city is built upon the land they gave us. In return we swore that we should always be their men. Stark men!”
    The maester fingered the chain about his neck. “Solemn oaths were sworn to the Starks of Winterfell, aye. But Winterfell has fallen and House Stark has been extinguished.”
    “That’s because they killed them all !”
    Another Frey spoke up. “Lord Wyman, if I may?”
    Wyman Manderly gave him a nod. “Rhaegar. We are always pleased to hear your noble counsel.”
    Rhaegar Frey acknowledged the compliment with a bow. He was thirty, or nigh unto, round-shouldered and kettle-bellied, but richly dressed in a doublet of soft grey lambswool trimmed in cloth-of-silver. His cloak was cloth-of-silver too, lined with vair and clasped at the collar with a brooch in the shape of the twin towers. “Lady Wylla,” he said to the girl with the green braid, “loyalty is a virtue. I hope you will be as loyal to Little Walder when you are joined in wedlock. As to the Starks, that House is extinguished only in the male line. Lord Eddard’s sons are dead, but his daughters live, and the younger girl is coming north to wed brave Ramsay Bolton.”
    “Ramsay Snow, ” Wylla Manderly threw back. “Have it as you will. By any name, he shall soon be wed to Arya Stark. If you would keep faith with your promise, give him your allegiance, for he shall be your Lord of Winterfell.”
    “He won’t ever be my lord! He made Lady Hornwood marry him, then shut her in a dungeon and made her eat her fingers. ”
    A murmur of assent swept the Merman’s Court. “The maid tells it true,” declared a stocky man in white and purple, whose cloak was fastened with a pair of crossed bronze keys. “Roose Bolton’s cold and cunning, aye, but a man can deal with Roose. We’ve all known worse. But this bastard son of his … they say he’s mad and