A Feast for Dragons

to the
steps, the empty eyeholes of the skins upon the walls seemed to follow her. For
a moment she could almost see their lips moving, whispering dark sweet secrets
to one another in words too faint to hear.
    Sleep did not come easily that night. Tangled in her
blankets, she twisted this way and that in the cold dark room, but whichever
way she turned, she saw the faces.
They have no eyes, but they can see
me
. She saw her father’s face upon the wall. Beside him hung her lady
mother, and below them her three brothers all in a row.
No. That was
some other girl. I am no one, and my only brothers wear robes of black and
white
. Yet there was the black singer, there the stableboy she’d
killed with Needle, there the pimply squire from the crossroads inn, and over
there the guard whose throat she’d slashed to get them out of Harrenhal. The
Tickler hung on the wall as well, the black holes that were his eyes swimming
with malice. The sight of him brought back the feel of the dagger in her hand
as she had plunged it into his back, again and again and again.
    When at last day came to Braavos, it came grey and dark and
overcast. The girl had hoped for fog, but the gods ignored her prayers as gods
so often did. The air was clear and cold, and the wind had a nasty bite to it.
A
good day for a death
, she thought. Unbidden, her prayer came to her
lips.
Ser Gregor, Dunsen, Raff the Sweetling. Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen
Cersei
. She mouthed the names silently. In the House of Black and
White, you never knew who might be listening.
    The vaults were full of old clothing, garments claimed from
those who came to the House of Black and White to drink peace from the temple
pool. Everything from beggar’s rags to rich silks and velvets could be found
there.
An ugly girl should dress in ugly clothing
, she decided,
so she chose a stained brown cloak fraying at the hem, a musty green tunic
smelling of fish, and a pair of heavy boots. Last of all she palmed her finger
knife.
    There was no haste, so she decided to take the long way
round to the Purple Harbor. Across the bridge she went, to the Isle of the
Gods. Cat of the Canals had sold cockles and mussels amongst the temples here,
whenever Brusco’s daughter Talea had her moon blood flowing and took to her
bed. She half-expected to see Talea selling there today, perhaps outside the
Warren where all the forgotten godlings had their forlorn little shrines, but
that was silly. The day was too cold, and Talea never liked to wake this early.
The statue outside the shrine of the Weeping Lady of Lys was crying silver
tears as the ugly girl walked by. In the Gardens of Gelenei stood a gilded tree
a hundred feet high with leaves of hammered silver. Torchlight glimmered behind
windows of leaded glass in the Lord of Harmony’s wooden hall, showing half a
hundred kinds of butterflies in all their bright colors.
    One time, the girl remembered, the Sailor’s Wife had walked
her rounds with her and told her tales of the city’s stranger gods. “That is the
house of the Great Shepherd. Three-headed Trios has that tower with three
turrets. The first head devours the dying, and the reborn emerge from the
third. I don’t know what the middle head’s supposed to do. Those are the Stones
of the Silent God, and there the entrance to the Patternmaker’s Maze. Only
those who learn to walk it properly will ever find their way to wisdom, the
priests of the Pattern say. Beyond it, by the canal, that’s the temple of Aquan
the Red Bull. Every thirteenth day, his priests slit the throat of a pure white
calf, and offer bowls of blood to beggars.”
    Today was not the thirteenth day, it seemed; the Red Bull’s
steps were empty. The brother gods Semosh and Selloso dreamed in twin temples
on opposite sides of the Black Canal, linked by a carved stone bridge. The girl
crossed there and made her way down to the docks, then through the Ragman’s
Harbor and past the half-sunken spires and domes of the Drowned Town.
    A group of Lysene sailors were staggering from the Happy
Port as she went by, but the girl did not see any of the whores. The Ship was
closed up and forlorn, its troupe of mummers no doubt still abed. But farther
on, on the wharf beside an Ibbenese whaler, she spied Cat’s old friend
Tagganaro tossing a ball back and forth with Casso, King of Seals, whilst his
latest cutpurse worked the crowd of onlookers. When she stopped to watch and
listen for a moment, Tagganaro glanced at her without