A Feast for Dragons

a simple thing to
slide it out and drive it down between her shoulder blades. That much he was
still capable of, missing teeth and broken teeth and all. It might even be a
kindness—a quicker, cleaner end than the one she and her sisters would face
when Ramsay caught them.
    Reek might have done it.
Would
have done it,
in hopes it might please Lord Ramsay. These whores meant to steal Ramsay’s
bride; Reek could not allow that. But the old gods had known him, had called
him Theon.
Ironborn, I was ironborn, Balon Greyjoy’s son and rightful
heir to Pyke
. The stumps of his fingers itched and twitched, but he
kept his dagger in its sheath.
    When Squirrel returned, the other four were with her: gaunt
grey-haired Myrtle, Willow Witch-Eye with her long black braid, Frenya of the
thick waist and enormous breasts, Holly with her knife. Clad as serving girls
in layers of drab grey roughspun, they wore brown woolen cloaks lined with
white rabbit fur.
No swords
, Theon saw.
No axes, no
hammers, no weapons but knives
. Holly’s cloak was fastened with a
silver clasp, and Frenya had a girdle of hempen rope wound about her middle
from her hips to breasts. It made her look even more massive than she was.
    Myrtle had servant’s garb for Rowan. “The yards are crawling
with fools,” she warned them. “They mean to ride out.”
    “Kneelers,” said Willow, with a snort of contempt. “Their
lordly lord spoke, they must obey.”
    “They’re going to die,” chirped Holly, happily.
    “Them and us,” said Theon. “Even if we do get past the
guards, how do you mean to get Lady Arya out?”
    Holly smiled. “Six women go in, six come out. Who looks at
serving girls? We’ll dress the Stark girl up as Squirrel.”
    Theon glanced at Squirrel.
They are almost of a size.
It might work
. “And how does Squirrel get out?”
    Squirrel answered for herself. “Out a window, and straight
down to the godswood. I was twelve the first time my brother took me raiding
south o’ your Wall. That’s where I got my name. My brother said I looked like a
squirrel running up a tree. I’ve done that Wall six times since, over and back
again. I think I can climb down some stone tower.”
    “Happy, turncloak?” Rowan asked. “Let’s be about it.”
    Winterfell’s cavernous kitchen occupied a building all its
own, set well apart from the castle’s main halls and keeps in case of fire.
Inside, the smells changed hour by hour—an ever-changing perfume of roast
meats, leeks and onions, fresh-baked bread. Roose Bolton had posted guards at
the kitchen door. With so many mouths to feed, every scrap of food was
precious. Even the cooks and potboys were watched constantly. But the guards
knew Reek. They liked to taunt him when he came to fetch hot water for Lady
Arya’s bath. None of them dared go further than that, though. Reek was known to
be Lord Ramsay’s pet.
    “The Prince of Stink is come for some hot water,” one guard
announced when Theon and his serving girls appeared before him. He pushed the
door open for them. “Quick now, before all that sweet warm air escapes.”
    Within, Theon grabbed a passing potboy by the arm. “Hot
water for m’lady, boy,” he commanded. “Six pails full, and see that it’s good
and hot. Lord Ramsay wants her pink and clean.”
    “Aye, m’lord,” the boy said. “At once, m’lord.”
    “At once” took longer than Theon would have liked. None of
the big kettles was clean, so the potboy had to scrub one out before filling it
with water. Then it seemed to take forever to come to a rolling boil and twice
forever to fill six wooden pails. All the while Abel’s women waited, their
faces shadowed by their cowls.
They are doing it all wrong
.
Real serving girls were always teasing the potboys, flirting with the cooks,
wheedling a taste of this, a bite of that. Rowan and her scheming sisters did
not want to attract notice, but their sullen silence soon had the guards giving
them queer looks. “Where’s Maisie and Jez and t’other girls?” one asked Theon.
“The usual ones.”
    “Lady Arya was displeased with them,” he lied. “Her water
was cold before it reached the tub last time.”
    The hot water filled the air with clouds of steam, melting
the snowflakes as they came drifting down. Back through the maze of ice-walled
trenches went the procession. With every sloshing step the water cooled. The
passages were clogged with troops: armored knights in woolen surcoats and fur
cloaks, men-at-arms with