A Dance With Dragons

faint, soft sound. The girl was shaking. Theon had to grab her arm to hold her still. Jeyne, Jeyne, it rhymes with pain. He tightened his grip, as much as his maimed left hand would allow. “Stay still.”
    Finally the gown fell away, a pale tangle round her feet. “Her small-clothes too,” Ramsay commanded. Reek obeyed.
    When it was done the bride stood naked, her bridal finery a heap of white and grey rags about her feet. Her breasts were small and pointed, her hips narrow and girlish, her legs as skinny as a bird’s. A child. Theon had forgotten how young she was. Sansa’s age. Arya would be even younger. Despite the fire in the hearth, the bedchamber was chilly. Jeyne’s pale skin was pebbled with gooseprickles. There was a moment when her hands rose, as if to cover her breasts, but Theon mouthed a silent no and she saw and stopped at once.
    “What do you think of her, Reek?” asked Lord Ramsay. “She …” What answer does he want? What was it the girl had said, before the godswood? They all said that I was pretty. She was not pretty now. He could see a spiderweb of faint thin lines across her back where someone had whipped her. “… she is beautiful, so … so beautiful.”
    Ramsay smiled his wet smile. “Does she make your cock hard, Reek? Is it straining against your laces? Would you like to fuck her first?” He laughed. “The Prince of Winterfell should have that right, as all lords did in days of old. The first night. But you’re no lord, are you? Only Reek. Not even a man, truth be told.” He took another gulp of wine, then threw the cup across the room to shatter off a wall. Red rivers ran down across the stone. “Lady Arya. Get on the bed. Yes, against the pillows, that’s a good wife. Now spread your legs. Let us see your cunt.”
    The girl obeyed, wordless. Theon took a step back toward the door. Lord Ramsay sat beside his bride, slid his hand along her inner thigh, then jammed two fingers up inside her. The girl let out a gasp of pain. “You’re dry as an old bone.” Ramsay pulled his hand free and slapped her face. “I was told that you’d know how to please a man. Was that a lie?”
    “N-no, my lord. I was t-trained.”
    Ramsay rose, the firelight shining on his face. “Reek, get over here. Get her ready for me.”
    For a moment he did not understand. “I … do you mean … m’lord, I have no … I …”
    “With your mouth,” Lord Ramsay said. “And be quick about it. If she’s not wet by the time I’m done disrobing, I will cut off that tongue of yours and nail it to the wall.”
    Somewhere in the godswood, a raven screamed. The dagger was still in his hand.
    He sheathed it.
    Reek, my name is Reek, it rhymes with weak. Reek bent to his task.

THE WATCHER
     
     
    L et us look upon this head,” his prince commanded.
    Areo Hotah ran his hand along the smooth shaft of his longaxe, his ash-and-iron wife, all the while watching. He watched the white knight, Ser Balon Swann, and the others who had come with him. He watched the Sand Snakes, each at a different table. He watched the lords and ladies, the serving men, the old blind seneschal, and the young maester Myles, with his silky beard and servile smile. Standing half in light and half in shadow, he saw all of them. Serve. Protect. Obey. That was his task.
    All the rest had eyes only for the chest. It was carved of ebony, with silver clasps and hinges. A fine-looking box, no doubt, but many of those assembled here in the Old Palace of Sunspear might soon be dead, depending on what was in that chest.
    His slippers whispering against the floor, Maester Caleotte crossed the hall to Ser Balon Swann. The round little man looked splendid in his new robes, with their broad bands of dun and butternut and narrow stripes of red. Bowing, he took the chest from the hands of the white knight and carried it to the dais, where Doran Martell sat in his rolling chair between his daughter Arianne and his dead brother’s beloved paramour, Ellaria. A hundred scented candles perfumed the air. Gemstones glittered on the fingers of the lords and the girdles and hairnets of the ladies. Areo Hotah had polished his shirt of copper scales mirror-bright so he would blaze in the candlelight as well.
    A hush had fallen across the hall. Dorne holds its breath. Maester Caleotte set the box on the floor beside Prince Doran’s chair. The maester’s fingers, normally so sure and deft, turned clumsy as he worked the latch and opened the lid, to