A Feast for Dragons

naked. “Do you have a name, woman?” he asked her.
    “My mother named me Hildy, ser.” She pulled a soiled shift
down over her head and shook her hair out. Her face was almost as dirty as her
feet and she had enough hair between her legs to pass for Bracken’s sister, but
there was something appealing about her all the same. That pug nose, her shaggy
mane of hair … or the way she did a little curtsy after she had
stepped into her skirt. “Have you seen my other shoe, m’lord?”
    The question seemed to vex Lord Bracken. “Am I a bloody
handmaid, to fetch you shoes? Go barefoot if you must. Just go.”
    “Does that mean m’lord won’t be taking me home with him, to
pray with his little wife?” Laughing, Hildy gave Jaime a brazen look. “Do you
have a little wife, ser?”
    No, I have a sister
. “What color is my
cloak?”
    “White,” she said, “but your hand is solid gold. I like that
in a man. And what is it you like in a woman, m’lord?”
    “Innocence.”
    “In a woman, I said. Not a daughter.”
    He thought of Myrcella.
I will need to tell her too
.
The Dornishmen might not like that. Doran Martell had betrothed her to his son
in the belief that she was Robert’s blood.
Knots and tangles
,
Jaime thought, wishing he could cut through all of it with one swift stroke of
his sword. “I have sworn a vow,” he told Hildy wearily.
    “No turnips for you, then,” the girl said, saucily.
    “Get out,”
Lord Jonos roared at her.
    She did. But as she slipped past Jaime, clutching one shoe
and a pile of her clothes, she reached down and gave his cock a squeeze through
his breeches.
“Hildy,”
she reminded him, before she darted
half-clothed from the tent.
    Hildy
, Jaime mused. “And how fares your lady
wife?” he asked Lord Jonos when the girl was gone.
    “How would I know? Ask her septon. When your father burned
our castle, she decided the gods were punishing us. Now all she does is pray.”
Jonos had finally gotten his breeches turned the right way round and was lacing
them up the front. “What brings you here, my lord? The Blackfish? We heard how
he escaped.”
    “Did you?” Jaime settled on a camp stool. “From the man
himself, perchance?”
    “Ser Brynden knows better than to come running to me. I am
fond of the man, I won’t deny that. That won’t stop me clapping him in chains
if he shows his face near me or mine. He knows I’ve bent the knee. He should
have done the same, but he always was a stubborn one. His brother could have
told you that.”
    “Tytos Blackwood has not bent the knee,” Jaime pointed out.
“Might the Blackfish seek refuge at Raventree?”
    “He might seek it, but to find it he’d need to get past my
siege lines, and last I heard he hadn’t grown wings. Tytos will be needing
refuge himself before much longer. They’re down to rats and roots in there.
He’ll yield before the next full moon.”
    “He’ll yield before the sun goes down. I mean to offer him
terms and accept him back into the king’s peace.”
    “I see.” Lord Jonos shrugged into a brown woolen tunic with
the red stallion of Bracken embroidered on the front. “Will my lord take a horn
of ale?”
    “No, but don’t go dry on my account.”
    Bracken filled a horn for himself, drank half of it, and
wiped his mouth. “You spoke of terms. What sort of terms?”
    “The usual sort. Lord Blackwood shall be required to confess
his treason and abjure his allegiance to the Starks and Tullys. He will swear
solemnly before gods and men to henceforth remain a leal vassal of Harrenhal
and the Iron Throne, and I will give him pardon in the king’s name. We will
take a pot or two of gold, of course. The price of rebellion. I’ll claim a
hostage as well, to ensure that Raventree does not rise again.”
    “His daughter,” suggested Bracken. “Blackwood has six sons,
but only the one daughter. He dotes on her. A snot-nosed little creature,
couldn’t be more than seven.”
    “Young, but she might serve.”
    Lord Jonos drained the last of his ale and tossed the horn
aside. “What of the lands and castles we were promised?”
    “What lands were these?”
    “The east bank of the Widow’s Wash, from Crossbow Ridge to
Rutting Meadow, and all the islands in the stream. Grindcorn Mill and Lord’s
Mill, the ruins of Muddy Hall, the Ravishment, Battle Valley, Oldforge, the
villages of Buckle, Blackbuckle, Cairns, and Claypool, and the market town at
Mudgrave. Waspwood, Lorgen’s Wood, Greenhill,