A Feast for Dragons

Insolent and …” He
licked his lip, trying to think of what else he had done.
Serve and obey
,
he told himself,
and he’ll let you live, and keep the parts that you
still have. Serve and obey and remember your name. Reek, Reek, it rhymes with
meek
. “… bad and …”
    “There’s blood on your mouth,” Ramsay observed. “Have you
been chewing on your fingers again, Reek?”
    “No. No, my lord, I swear.” Reek had tried to bite his own
ring finger off once, to stop it hurting after they had stripped the skin from
it. Lord Ramsay would never simply cut off a man’s finger. He preferred to flay
it and let the exposed flesh dry and crack and fester. Reek had been whipped
and racked and cut, but there was no pain half so excruciating as the pain that
followed flaying. It was the sort of pain that drove men mad, and it could not
be endured for long. Soon or late the victim would scream, “Please, no more, no
more, stop it hurting,
cut it off,”
and Lord Ramsay would
oblige. It was a game they played. Reek had learned the rules, as his hands and
feet could testify, but that one time he had forgotten and tried to end the
pain himself, with his teeth. Ramsay had not been pleased, and the offense had
cost Reek another toe. “I ate a rat,” he mumbled.
    “A rat?” Ramsay’s pale eyes glittered in the torchlight.
“All the rats in the Dreadfort belong to my lord father. How dare you make a
meal of one without my leave.”
    Reek did not know what to say, so he said nothing. One wrong
word could cost him another toe, even a finger. Thus far he had lost two
fingers off his left hand and the pinky off his right, but only the little toe
off his right foot against three from his left. Sometimes Ramsay would make
japes about balancing him out.
My lord was only japing
, he
tried to tell himself.
He does not want to hurt me, he told me so, he
only does it when I give him cause
. His lord was merciful and kind. He
might have flayed his face off for some of the things Reek had said, before
he’d learned his true name and proper place.
    “This grows tedious,” said the lord in the mail byrnie.
“Kill him and be done with it.”
    Lord Ramsay filled his cup with ale. “That would spoil our
celebration, my lord. Reek, I have glad tidings for you. I am to be wed. My
lord father is bringing me a Stark girl. Lord Eddard’s daughter, Arya. You
remember little Arya, don’t you?”
    Arya Underfoot
, he almost said.
Arya
Horseface
. Robb’s younger sister, brown-haired, long-faced, skinny as
a stick, always dirty.
Sansa was the pretty one
. He remembered a
time when he had thought that Lord Eddard Stark might marry him to Sansa and
claim him for a son, but that had only been a child’s fancy. Arya,
though … “I remember her. Arya.”
    “She shall be the Lady of Winterfell, and me her lord.”
    She is only a girl
. “Yes, my lord.
Congratulations.”
    “Will you attend me at my wedding, Reek?”
    He hesitated. “If you wish it, my lord.”
    “Oh, I do.”
    He hesitated again, wondering if this was some cruel trap.
“Yes, my lord. If it please you. I would be honored.”
    “We must take you out of that vile dungeon, then. Scrub you
pink again, get you some clean clothes, some food to eat. Some nice soft
porridge, would you like that? Perhaps a pease pie laced with bacon. I have a
little task for you, and you’ll need your strength back if you are to serve me.
You do want to serve me, I know.”
    “Yes, my lord. More than anything.” A shiver went through
him. “I’m your Reek. Please let me serve you. Please.”
    “Since you ask so nicely, how can I deny you?” Ramsay Bolton
smiled. “I ride to war, Reek. And you will be coming with me, to help me fetch
home my virgin bride.”
    ----
    Brienne
    T he gates of Duskendale were closed and
barred. Through the predawn gloom the town walls shimmered palely. On their
ramparts, wisps of fog moved like ghostly sentinels. A dozen wayns and oxcarts
had drawn up outside the gates, waiting for the sun to rise. Brienne took her
place behind some turnips. Her calves ached, and it felt good to dismount and
stretch her legs. Before long another wayn came rumbling from the woods. By the
time the sky began to lighten, the queue stretched back a quarter mile.
    The farm folk gave her curious glances, but no one spoke to
her. It is for me to talk to them, Brienne told herself, but she had
always found it hard to speak with strangers. Even as a girl she had been shy.
Long