A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

the other. After a moment’s hesitation, he turned the rounsey toward the hills and plodded on. Brienne watched him vanish through the falling rain, and suddenly it came to her that she had seen this same boy in Rosby.
He is stalking me,
she realized,
but that’s a game that two can play.
She untied her mare, climbed back into the saddle, and went after him.
    The boy was staring at the ground as he rode, watching the ruts in the road fill up with water. The rain muffled the sound of her approach, and no doubt his hood played a part as well. He never looked back once, until Brienne trotted up behind him and gave the rounsey a whack across the rump with the flat of her longsword.
    The horse reared, and the skinny boy went flying, his cloak flapping like a pair of wings. He landed in the mud and came up with dirt and dead brown grass between his teeth to find Brienne standing over him. It was the same boy, beyond a doubt. She recognized the sty. “Who are you?” she demanded.
    The boy’s mouth worked soundlessly. His eyes were big as eggs. “Puh,” was all he could manage. “Puh.” His chain mail byrnie made a rattling sound when he shivered. “Puh. Puh.”
    â€œPlease?” said Brienne. “Are you saying
please?
” She laid the point of her sword on the apple of his throat. “Please tell me who you are, and why you’re following me.”
    â€œNot puh-puh-
please.
” He stuck a finger in his mouth, and flicked away a clump of mud, spitting. “Puh-puh-
Pod.
My name. Puh-puh-
Podrick.
Puh-Payne.”
    Brienne lowered her sword. She felt a rush of sympathy for the boy. She remembered a day at Evenfall, and a young knight with a rose in his hand.
He brought the rose to give to me.
Or so her septa told her. All she had to do was welcome him to her father’s castle. He was eighteen, with long red hair that tumbled to his shoulders. She was twelve, tightly laced into a stiff new gown, its bodice bright with garnets. The two of them were of a height, but she could not look him in the eye, nor say the simple words her septa had taught her.
Ser Ronnet. I welcome you to my lord father’s hall. It is good to look upon your face at last.
    â€œWhy are you following me?” she demanded of the boy. “Were you told to spy upon me? Do you belong to Varys, or the queen?”
    â€œNo. Not neither. No one.”
    Brienne put his age at ten, but she was terrible at judging how old a child was. She always thought they were younger than they were, perhaps because she had always been big for her age.
Freakish big,
Septa Roelle used to say,
and mannish.
“This road is too dangerous for a boy alone.”
    â€œNot for a
squire.
I’m his squire. The Hand’s squire.”
    â€œLord Tywin?” Brienne sheathed her blade.
    â€œNo. Not that Hand. The one before. His son. I fought with him in the battle. I shouted ‘
Halfman! Halfman!’
”
    The Imp’s squire.
Brienne had not even known he had one. Tyrion Lannister was no knight. He might have been expected to have a serving boy or two to attend him, she supposed, a page and a cupbearer, someone to help dress him. But a
squire?
“Why are you stalking after me?” she said. “What do you want?”
    â€œTo find her.” The boy got to his feet. “His lady. You’re looking for her. Brella told me. She’s his wife. Not Brella, Lady Sansa. So I thought, if you found her . . .” His face twisted in sudden anguish. “I’m his
squire,
” he repeated, as the rain ran down his face, “but he
left
me.”

SANSA
    O nce, when she was just a little girl, a wandering singer had stayed with them at Winterfell for half a year. An old man he was, with white hair and windburnt cheeks, but he sang of knights and quests and ladies fair, and Sansa had cried bitter tears when he left them, and begged her father not to let him go. “The man has played us every song he knows thrice over,” Lord Eddard told her gently. “I cannot keep him here against his will. You need not weep, though. I promise you, other singers will come.”
    They hadn’t, though, not for a year or more. Sansa had prayed to the Seven in their sept and old gods of the heart tree, asking them to bring the old man back, or better still to send another singer, young and handsome. But the gods never answered, and the halls of Winterfell stayed silent.
    But that was