A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

me.”
    â€œAnd did he tell you that when he grew bored with her, he made a gift of her to his father’s guardsmen? He might have done the same to you, in time. Shed no tears for the Imp, my lady.”
    The wind ran salty fingers through her hair, and Sansa shivered. Even this close to shore, the rolling of the ship made her tummy queasy. She desperately needed a bath and a change of clothes.
I must look as haggard as a corpse, and smell of vomit
.
    Lord Petyr came up beside her, cheerful as ever. “Good morrow. The salt air is bracing, don’t you think? It always sharpens my appetite.” He put a sympathetic arm about her shoulders. “Are you quite well? You look so pale.”
    â€œIt’s only my tummy. The seasickness.”
    â€œA little wine will be good for that. We’ll get you a cup, as soon as we’re ashore.” Petyr pointed to where an old flint tower stood outlined against a bleak grey sky, the breakers crashing on the rocks beneath it. “Cheerful, is it not? I fear there’s no safe anchorage here. We’ll put ashore in a boat.”
    â€œHere?” She did not want to go ashore here. The Fingers were a dismal place, she’d heard, and there was something forlorn and desolate about the little tower. “Couldn’t I stay on the ship until we make sail for White Harbor?”
    â€œFrom here the
King
turns east for Braavos. Without us.”
    â€œBut . . . my lord, you said . . . you said we were sailing home.”
    â€œAnd there it stands, miserable as it is. My ancestral home. It has no name, I fear. A great lord’s seat ought to have a name, wouldn’t you agree? Winterfell, the Eyrie, Riverrun, those are
castles
. Lord of Harrenhal now, that has a sweet ring to it, but what was I before? Lord of Sheepshit and Master of the Drearfort? It lacks a certain something.” His grey-green eyes regarded her innocently. “You look distraught. Did you think we were making for Winterfell, sweetling? Winterfell has been taken, burned, and sacked. All those you knew and loved are dead. What northmen who have not fallen to the ironmen are warring amongst themselves. Even the Wall is under attack. Winterfell was the home of your childhood, Sansa, but you are no longer a child. You’re a woman grown, and you need to make your own home.”
    â€œBut not here,” she said, dismayed. “It looks so . . .”
    â€œ. . . small and bleak and mean? It’s all that, and less. The Fingers are a lovely place, if you happen to be a stone. But have no fear, we shan’t stay more than a fortnight. I expect your aunt is already riding to meet us.” He smiled. “The Lady Lysa and I are to be wed.”
    â€œWed?” Sansa was stunned. “You and my aunt?”
    â€œThe Lord of Harrenhal and the Lady of the Eyrie.”
    You said it was my mother you loved.
But of course Lady Catelyn was dead, so even if she had loved Petyr secretly and given him her maidenhood, it made no matter now.
    â€œSo silent, my lady?” said Petyr. “I was certain you would wish to give me your blessing. It is a rare thing for a boy born heir to stones and sheep pellets to wed the daughter of Hoster Tully and the widow of Jon Arryn.”
    â€œI . . . I pray you will have long years together, and many children, and be very happy in one another.” It had been years since Sansa last saw her mother’s sister.
She will be kind to me for my mother’s sake, surely. She’s my own blood
. And the Vale of Arryn was beautiful, all the songs said so. Perhaps it would not be so terrible to stay here for a time.
    Lothor and old Oswell rowed them ashore. Sansa huddled in the bow under her cloak with the hood drawn up against the wind, wondering what awaited her. Servants emerged from the tower to meet them; a thin old woman and a fat middle-aged one, two ancient white-haired men, and a girl of two or three with a sty on one eye. When they recognized Lord Petyr they knelt on the rocks. “My household,” he said. “I don’t know the child. Another of Kella’s bastards, I suppose. She pops one out every few years.”
    The two old men waded out up to their thighs to lift Sansa from the boat so she would not get her skirts wet. Oswell and Lothor splashed their way ashore, as did Littlefinger himself. He gave the old woman a kiss on the cheek and grinned at the younger one. “Who fathered this one,