A Dance With Dragons

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 wonder, 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 un-chained 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