A Feast for Dragons

meant to be?”
    “All castles,” said the captain’s sister. “The only one I
know is the Dun Fort by the harbor. I made t’other in my head, what a castle
ought to look like. I never seen a dragon neither, nor a griffin, nor a
unicorn.” She had a cheerful manner, but when Brienne showed her the shield her
face went dark. “My old ma used to say that giant bats flew out from Harrenhal
on moonless nights, to carry bad children to Mad Danelle for her cookpots.
Sometimes I’d hear them scrabbling at the shutters.” She sucked her teeth a
moment, thoughtful. “What goes in its place?”
    The arms of Tarth were quartered rose and azure, and bore a
yellow sun and crescent moon. But so long as men believed her to be a
murderess, Brienne dare not carry them. “Your door reminded me of an old shield
I once saw in my father’s armory.” She described the arms as best she could
recall them.
    The woman nodded. “I can paint it straightaway, but the
paint will need to dry. Take a room at the Seven Swords, if it please you. I’ll
bring the shield to you by morning.”
    Brienne had not meant to overnight in Duskendale, but it
might be for the best. She did not know if the lord of the castle was in
residence, or whether he would consent to see her. She thanked the painter and
crossed the cobblestones to the inn. Above its door, seven wooden swords swung
beneath an iron spike. The whitewash that covered them was cracked and peeling,
but Brienne knew their meaning. They stood for the seven sons of Darklyn who
had worn the white cloaks of the Kingsguard. No other house in all the realm
could claim as many. They were the glory of their House. And now they are a
sign above an inn. She pushed into the common room and asked the innkeep
for a room and a bath.
    He put her on the second floor, and a woman with a
liver-colored birthmark on her face brought up a wooden tub, and then the
water, pail by pail. “Do any Darklyns remain in Duskendale?” Brienne asked as
she climbed into the tub.
    “Well, there’s Darkes, I’m one myself. My husband says I was
Darke before we wed, and darker afterward.” She laughed. “Can’t throw a stone
in Duskendale without you hit some Darke or Darkwood or Dargood, but the lordly
Darklyns are all gone. Lord Denys was the last o’ them, the sweet young fool.
Did you know the Darklyns were kings in Duskendale before the Andals come?
You’d never know t’look at me, but I got me royal blood. Can you see it? ‘Your
Grace, another cup of ale,’ I ought to make them say. ‘Your Grace, the chamber
pot needs emptying, and fetch in some fresh faggots, Your Bloody Grace, the
fire’s going out.’” She laughed again and shook the last drops from the pail.
“Well, there you are. Is that water hot enough for you?”
    “It will serve.” The water was lukewarm.
    “I’d bring up more, but it’d just slop over. A girl the size
o’ you, you fill a tub.”
    Only a cramped small tub like this one. At Harrenhal
the tubs had been huge, and made of stone. The bathhouse had been thick with
the steam rising off the water, and Jaime had come walking through that mist
naked as his name day, looking half a corpse and half a god. He climbed into
the tub with me, she remembered, blushing. She seized a chunk of hard lye
soap and scrubbed under her arms, trying to call up Renly’s face again.
    By the time the water had gone cold, Brienne was as clean as
she was like to get. She put on the same clothes she had taken off and girded
her swordbelt tight around her hips, but her mail and helm she left behind, so
as not to seem so threatening at the Dun Fort. It felt good to stretch her
legs. The guards at the castle gates wore leather jacks with a badge that
showed crossed warhammers upon a white saltire. “I would speak with your lord,”
Brienne told them.
    One laughed. “Best shout out loud, then.”
    “Lord Rykker rode to Maidenpool with Randyll Tarly,” the
other said. “He left Ser Rufus Leek as castellan, to look after Lady Rykker and
the young ones.”
    It was to Leek that they escorted her. Ser Rufus was a
short, stout greybeard whose left leg ended in a stump. “You will forgive me if
I do not rise,” he said. Brienne offered him her letter, but Leek could not
read, so he sent her to the maester, a bald man with a freckled scalp and a
stiff red mustache.
    When he heard the name Hollard, the maester frowned with
irritation. “How often must I sing this song?” Her face must have given