A Feast for Dragons

years of scorn had only made her shyer. I must ask after Sansa. How
else will I find her? She cleared her throat. “Goodwife,” she said to the
woman on the turnip cart, “perhaps you saw my sister on the road? A young maid,
three-and-ten and fair of face, with blue eyes and auburn hair. She may be
riding with a drunken knight.”
    The woman shook her head, but her husband said, “Then she’s
no maid, I’ll wager. Does the poor girl have a name?”
    Brienne’s head was empty. I should have made up some name
for her. Any name would do, but none came to her.
    “No name? Well, the roads are full of nameless girls.”
    “The lichyard’s even fuller,” said his wife.
    As dawn broke, guardsmen appeared on the parapets. The
farmers climbed onto their wagons and shook the reins. Brienne mounted as well
and took a glance behind her. Most of the queue waiting to enter Duskendale
were farm folk with loads of fruits and vegetables to sell. A pair of wealthy
townsmen sat on well-bred palfreys a dozen places behind her, and farther back
she spied a skinny boy on a piebald rounsey. There was no sign of the two
knights, nor Ser Shadrich the Mad Mouse.
    The guards were waving through the wayns with scarce a look,
but when Brienne reached the gate she gave them pause. “Halt, you!” the captain
cried. A pair of men in chainmail hauberks crossed their spears to bar her way.
“State your purpose here.”
    “I seek the Lord of Duskendale, or his maester.”
    The captain’s eyes lingered on her shield. “The black bat of
Lothston. Those are arms of ill repute.”
    “They are not mine. I mean to have the shield repainted.”
    “Aye?” The captain rubbed his stubbled chin. “My sister does
such work, as it happens. You’ll find her at the house with the painted doors,
across from the Seven Swords.” He gestured to the guards. “Let her pass, lads.
It’s a wench.”
    The gatehouse opened on a market square, where those who had
entered before her were unloading to hawk their turnips, yellow onions, and
sacks of barleycorn. Others were selling arms and armor, and very cheaply to
judge from the prices they shouted out as she rode by. The looters come with
the carrion crows after every battle. Brienne walked her horse past mail
shirts still caked with brown blood, dinted helms, notched longswords. There
was clothing to be had as well: leather boots, fur cloaks, stained surcoats
with suspicious rents. She knew many of the badges. The mailed fist, the moose,
the white sun, the double-bladed axe, all those were northern sigils. Tarly men
had perished here as well, though, and many from the stormlands. She saw red
and green apples, a shield that bore the three thunderbolts of Leygood, horse
trappings patterned with the ants of Ambrose. Lord Tarly’s own striding
huntsman appeared on many a badge and brooch and doublet. Friend or foe, the
crows care not.
    There were pine and linden shields to be had for pennies,
but Brienne rode past them. She meant to keep the heavy oaken shield Jaime had
given her, the one he’d borne himself from Harrenhal to King’s Landing. A pine
shield had its advantages. It was lighter, and therefore easier to bear, and
the soft wood was more like to trap a foeman’s axe or sword. But oak gave more
protection, if you were strong enough to bear its weight.
    Duskendale was built around its harbor. North of town the
chalk cliffs rose; to the south a rocky headland shielded the ships at anchor
from storms coming up the narrow sea. The castle overlooked the port, its
square keep and big drum towers visible from every part of town. In the crowded
cobbled streets, it was easier to walk than ride, so Brienne put her mare up in
a stable and continued on afoot, with her shield slung across her back and her
bedroll tucked up beneath one arm.
    The captain’s sister was not hard to find. The Seven Swords
was the largest inn in town, a four-story structure that towered over its
neighbors, and the double doors on the house across the way were painted
gorgeously. They showed a castle in an autumn wood, the trees done up in shades
of gold and russet. Ivy crawled up the trunks of ancient oaks, and even the
acorns had been done with loving care. When Brienne peered more closely, she
saw creatures in the foliage: a sly red fox, two sparrows on a branch, and
behind those leaves the shadow of a boar.
    “Your door is very pretty,” she told the dark-haired woman
who answered when she knocked. “What castle is that