A Feast for Dragons

replied.
    Last night, unable to sleep, Theon had found himself
brooding on escape, of slipping away unseen whilst Ramsay and his lord father
had their attention elsewhere. Every gate was closed and barred and heavily
guarded, though; no one was allowed to enter or depart the castle without Lord
Bolton’s leave. Even if he found some secret way out, Theon would not have
trusted it. He had not forgotten Kyra and her keys. And if he did get out,
where would he go? His father was dead, and his uncles had no use for him. Pyke
was lost to him. The nearest thing to a home that remained to him was here,
amongst the bones of Winterfell.
    A ruined man, a ruined castle. This is my place
.
    He was still waiting for his porridge when Ramsay swept into
the hall with his Bastard’s Boys, shouting for music. Abel rubbed the sleep
from his eyes, took up his lute, and launched into “The Dornishman’s Wife,”
whilst one of his washerwomen beat time on her drum. The singer changed the
words, though. Instead of tasting a Dornishman’s wife, he sang of tasting a
northman’s daughter.
    He could lose his tongue for that
, Theon
thought, as his bowl was being filled.
He is only a singer. Lord Ramsay
could flay the skin off both his hands, and no one would say a word
.
But Lord Bolton smiled at the lyric and Ramsay laughed aloud. Then others knew
that it was safe to laugh as well. Yellow Dick found the song so funny that
wine snorted out his nose.
    Lady Arya was not there to share the merriment. She had not
been seen outside her chambers since her wedding night. Sour Alyn had been saying
that Ramsay kept his bride naked and chained to a bedpost, but Theon knew that
was only talk. There were no chains, at least none that men could see. Just a
pair of guards outside the bedchamber, to keep the girl from wandering.
And
she is only naked when she bathes
.
    That she did most every night, though. Lord Ramsay wanted
his wife clean. “She has no handmaids, poor thing,” he had said to Theon. “That
leaves you, Reek. Should I put you in a dress?” He laughed. “Perhaps if you beg
it of me. Just now, it will suffice for you to be her bath maid. I won’t have
her smelling like you.” So whenever Ramsay had an itch to bed his wife, it fell
to Theon to borrow some servingwomen from Lady Walda or Lady Dustin and fetch
hot water from the kitchens. Though Arya never spoke to any of them, they could
not fail to see her bruises.
It is her own fault. She has not pleased
him
. “Just be
Arya,”
he told the girl once, as he
helped her into the water. “Lord Ramsay does not want to hurt you. He only
hurts us when we … when we forget. He never cut me without cause.”
    “Theon …” she whispered, weeping.
    “Reek.”
He grabbed her arm and shook her.
“In here I’m Reek. You have to
remember
, Arya.” But the girl
was no true Stark, only a steward’s whelp.
Jeyne, her name is Jeyne. She
should not look to me for rescue
. Theon Greyjoy might have tried to
help her, once. But Theon had been ironborn, and a braver man than Reek.
Reek,
Reek, it rhymes with weak
.
    Ramsay had a new plaything to amuse him, one with teats and
a cunny … but soon Jeyne’s tears would lose their savor, and Ramsay
would want his Reek again.
He will flay me inch by inch. When my fingers
are gone he will take my hands. After my toes, my feet. But only when I beg for
it, when the pain grows so bad that I plead for him to give me some relief
.
There would be no hot baths for Reek. He would roll in shit again, forbidden to
wash. The clothes he wore would turn to rags, foul and stinking, and he would
be made to wear them till they rotted. The best he could hope for was to be
returned to the kennels with Ramsay’s girls for company.
Kyra
,
he remembered.
The new bitch he calls Kyra
.
    He took his bowl to the back of the hall and found a place
on an empty bench, yards away from the nearest torch. Day or night, the benches
below the salt were never less than half-full with men drinking, dicing,
talking, or sleeping in their clothes in quiet corners. Their serjeants would
kick them awake when it came their turn to shrug back into their cloaks and
walk the walls. But no man of them would welcome the company of Theon
Turncloak, nor did he have much taste for theirs.
    The gruel was grey and watery, and he pushed it away after
his third spoonful and let it congeal in the bowl. At the next table, men were
arguing about the storm and wondering aloud how long the snow