A Feast for Dragons

now
too, though. So is your brother. But you and I are here, still living. Is there
blood feud between us, Lord Snow?”
    “When a man takes the black he puts his feuds behind him.
The Night’s Watch has no quarrel with Karhold, nor with you.”
    “Good. I was afraid … I begged my father to leave
one of my brothers as castellan, but none of them wished to miss the glory and ransoms
to be won in the south. Now Torr and Edd are dead. Harry was a prisoner at
Maidenpool when last we heard, but that was almost a year ago. He may be dead
as well. I did not know where else to turn but to the last son of Eddard
Stark.”
    “Why not the king? Karhold declared for Stannis.”
    “My
uncle
declared for Stannis, in hopes it
might provoke the Lannisters to take poor Harry’s head. Should my brother die,
Karhold should pass to me, but my uncles want my birthright for their own. Once
Cregan gets a child by me they won’t need me anymore. He’s buried two wives
already.” She rubbed away a tear angrily, the way Arya might have done it.
“Will you help me?”
    “Marriages and inheritance are matters for the king, my
lady. I will write to Stannis on your behalf, but—”
    Alys Karstark laughed, but it was the laughter of despair.
“Write, but do not look for a reply. Stannis will be dead before he gets your
message. My uncle will see to that.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Arnolf is rushing to Winterfell, ’tis true, but only so he
might put his dagger in your king’s back. He cast his lot with Roose Bolton
long ago … for gold, the promise of a pardon, and poor Harry’s head.
Lord Stannis is marching to a slaughter. So he cannot help me, and would not
even if he could.” Alys knelt before him, clutching the black cloak. “You are
my only hope, Lord Snow. In your father’s name, I beg you. Protect me.”

----

    THE BLIND GIRL
    Her nights were lit by distant stars and the shimmer of
moonlight on snow, but every dawn she woke to darkness.
    She opened her eyes and stared up blind at the black that
shrouded her, her dream already fading.
So beautiful
. She licked
her lips, remembering. The bleating of the sheep, the terror in the shepherd’s
eyes, the sound the dogs had made as she killed them one by one, the snarling
of her pack. Game had become scarcer since the snows began to fall, but last
night they had feasted. Lamb and dog and mutton and the flesh of man. Some of
her little grey cousins were afraid of men, even dead men, but not her. Meat
was meat, and men were prey. She was the night wolf. But only when she dreamed.
    The blind girl rolled onto her side, sat up, sprang to her
feet, stretched. Her bed was a rag-stuffed mattress on a shelf of cold stone,
and she was always stiff and tight when she awakened. She padded to her basin
on small, bare, callused feet, silent as a shadow, splashed cool water on her
face, patted herself dry.
Ser Gregor
, she thought.
Dunsen,
Raff the Sweetling. Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei
. Her morning
prayer. Or was it?
No
, she thought,
not mine. I am no
one. That is the night wolf’s prayer. Someday she will find them, hunt them,
smell their fear, taste their blood. Someday
.
    She found her smallclothes in a pile, sniffed at them to
make sure they were fresh enough to wear, donned them in her darkness. Her
servant’s garb was where she’d hung it—a long tunic of undyed wool, roughspun
and scratchy. She snapped it out and pulled it down over her head with one
smooth practiced motion. Socks came last. One black, one white. The black one
had stitching round the top, the white none; she could feel which was which,
make sure she got each sock on the right leg. Skinny as they were, her legs
were strong and springy and growing longer every day. She was glad of that. A
water dancer needs good legs. Blind Beth was no water dancer, but she would not
be Beth forever.
    She knew the way to the kitchens, but her nose would have
led her there even if she hadn’t.
Hot peppers and fried fish
,
she decided, sniffing down the hall,
and bread fresh from Umma’s oven
.
The smells made her belly rumble. The night wolf had feasted, but that would
not fill the blind girl’s belly. Dream meat could not nourish her, she had
learned that early on.
    She broke her fast on sardines, fried crisp in pepper oil
and served so hot they burned her fingers. She mopped up the leftover oil with
a chunk of bread torn off the end of Umma’s morning loaf and washed it all down
with a cup of watered wine,