A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

wondered . . . until a realization came upon him, one night in the red darkness.
    â€œAll gods have their instruments, men and women who serve them and help to work their will on earth. The slaves were not crying out to a hundred different gods, as it seemed, but to one god with a hundred different faces . . . and
he
was that god’s instrument. That very night he chose the most wretched of the slaves, the one who had prayed most earnestly for release, and freed him from his bondage. The first gift had been given.”
    Arya drew back from him. “He killed the
slave?
” That did not sound right. “He should have killed the
masters!
”
    â€œHe would bring the gift to them as well . . . but that is a tale for another day, one best shared with no one.” He cocked his head. “And who are you, child?”
    â€œNo one.”
    â€œA lie.”
    â€œHow do you
know?
Is it magic?”
    â€œA man does not need to be a wizard to know truth from falsehood, not if he has eyes. You need only learn to read a face. Look at the eyes. The mouth. The muscles here, at the corners of the jaw, and here, where the neck joins the shoulders.” He touched her lightly with two fingers. “Some liars blink. Some stare. Some look away. Some lick their lips. Many cover their mouths just before they tell a lie, as if to hide their deceit. Other signs may be more subtle, but they are always there. A false smile and a true one may look alike, but they are as different as dusk from dawn. Can you tell dusk from dawn?”
    Arya nodded, though she was not certain that she could.
    â€œThen you can learn to see a lie . . . and once you do, no secret will be safe from you.”
    â€œTeach me.” She would be no one if that was what it took. No one had no holes inside her.
    â€œ
She
will teach you,” said the kindly man as the waif appeared outside her door. “Starting with the tongue of Braavos. What use are you if you cannot speak or understand? And you shall teach her your own tongue. The two of you shall learn together, each from the other. Will you do this?”
    â€œYes,” she said, and from that moment she was a novice in the House of Black and White. Her servant’s garb was taken away, and she was given a robe to wear, a robe of black and white as buttery soft as the old red blanket she’d once had at Winterfell. Beneath it she wore smallclothes of fine white linen, and a black undertunic that hung down past her knees.
    Thereafter she and the waif spent their time together touching things and pointing, as each tried to teach the other a few words of her own tongue. Simple words at first, cup and candle and shoe; then harder words; then sentences. Once Syrio Forel used to make Arya stand on one leg until she was trembling. Later he sent her chasing after cats. She had danced the water dance on the limbs of trees, a stick sword in her hand. Those things had all been hard, but this was harder.
    Even sewing was more fun than tongues,
she told herself, after a night when she had forgotten half the words she thought she knew, and pronounced the other half so badly that the waif had laughed at her.
My sentences are as crooked as my stitches used to be.
If the girl had not been so small and starved, Arya would have smashed her stupid face. Instead she gnawed her lip.
Too stupid to learn and too stupid to give up.
    The Common Tongue came to the waif more quickly. One day at supper she turned to Arya, and asked, “Who are you?”
    â€œNo one,” Arya answered, in Braavosi.
    â€œYou lie,” said the waif. “You must lie gooder.”
    Arya laughed. “Gooder? You mean
better,
stupid.”
    â€œBetter stupid. I will show you.”
    The next day they began the lying game, asking questions of one another, taking turns. Sometimes they would answer truly, sometimes they would lie. The questioner had to try and tell what was true and what was false. The waif always seemed to know. Arya had to guess. Most of the time she guessed wrong.
    â€œHow many years have you?” the waif asked her once, in the Common Tongue. “Ten,” said Arya, and raised ten fingers. She
thought
she was still ten, though it was hard to know for certain. The Braavosi counted days differently than they did in Westeros. For all she knew her name day had come and gone.
    The waif nodded. Arya nodded back, and in her best Braavosi said, “How many years