A Feast for Dragons

house in Duskendale, brother?”
    “’Twas nearer Maidenpool, m’lady, but the wolves burned us
out,” the man replied, gnawing on a heel of bread. “We rebuilt as best we
could, until some sellswords come. I could not say whose men they were, but
they took our pigs and killed the brothers. I squeezed inside a hollow log and
hid, but t’others were too big. It took me a long time to bury them all, but
the Smith, he gave me strength. When that was done I dug up a few coins the
elder brother had hid by and set off by myself.”
    “I met some other brothers going to King’s Landing.”
    “Aye, there’s hundreds on the roads. Not only brothers.
Septons too, and smallfolk. Sparrows all. Might be I’m a sparrow too. The
Smith, he made me small enough.” He chuckled. “And what’s your sad tale,
m’lady?”
    “I am looking for my sister. She’s highborn, only
three-and-ten, a pretty maid with blue eyes and auburn hair. You may have seen
her traveling with a man. A knight, perhaps a fool. There’s gold for the man
who helps me find her.”
    “Gold?” The brother gave her a red smile. “A bowl of that
crab stew would be enough reward for me, but I fear I cannot help you. Fools
I’ve met, and plenty, but not so many pretty maids.” He cocked his head and thought
a moment. “There was a fool at Maidenpool, now that I think of it. He was clad
in rags and dirt, as near as I could tell, but under the dirt was motley.”
    Did Dontos Hollard wear motley? No one had told
Brienne that he did . . . but no one had ever said he didn’t, either. Why would
the man be in rags, though? Had some misfortune overtaken him and Sansa after
they fled King’s Landing? That could well be, with the roads so dangerous. It
might not have been him at all. “Did this fool have a red nose, full of
broken veins?”
    “I could not swear to that. I confess, I paid him little
heed. I’d gone to Maidenpool after burying my brothers, thinking that I might
find a ship to take me to King’s Landing. I first glimpsed the fool down by the
docks. He had a furtive air to him and took care to avoid Lord Tarly’s
soldiers. Later, I encountered him again, at the Stinking Goose.”
    “The Stinking Goose?” she said, uncertain.
    “An unsavory place,” the dwarf admitted. “Lord Tarly’s men
patrol the port at Maidenpool, but the Goose is always full of sailors, and
sailors have been known to smuggle men aboard their ships, if the price is
right. This fool was seeking passage for three across the narrow sea. I oft saw
him there, talking with oarsmen off the galleys. Sometimes he would sing a
funny song.”
    “Seeking passage for three? Not two?”
    “Three, m’lady. That I’d swear to, by the Seven.” Three, she thought. Sansa, Ser Dontos . . . but who would be the third? The Imp? “ Did
the fool find his ship?”
    “That I could not say,” the dwarf told her, “but one night
some of Lord Tarly’s soldiers visited the Goose looking for him, and a few days
later I heard another man boasting that he’d fooled a fool and had the gold to
prove it. He was drunk, and buying ale for everyone.”
    “‘Fooled a fool,’” she said. “What did he mean by that?”
    “I could not tell you. His name was Nimble Dick, though,
that I do recall.” The dwarf spread his hands. “I fear that’s all that I can
offer you, aside from a small man’s prayers.”
    True to her word, Brienne bought him his bowl of hot crab
stew . . . and some hot fresh bread and a cup of wine as well. As he ate it,
standing by her side, she mulled what he had told her. Could the Imp have
joined them? If Tyrion Lannister were behind Sansa’s disappearance, and not
Dontos Hollard, it stood to reason that they would need to flee across the
narrow sea.
    When the little man was done with his bowl of stew, he
finished what was left of hers as well. “You should eat more,” he said. “A
woman big as you needs t’ keep her strength up. It is not far to Maidenpool,
but the road is perilous these days.”
    I know. It was on that very road that Ser Cleos Frey
had died, and she and Ser Jaime had been taken by the Bloody Mummers. Jaime
tried to kill me, she remembered, though he was gaunt and weak, and his
wrists were chained. It had been a close thing, even so, but that was
before Zollo hacked his hand off. Zollo and Rorge and Shagwell would have raped
her half a hundred times if Ser Jaime had not told them she was worth her
weight in sapphires.
    “M’lady? You look