A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

have
you?
”
    The waif showed ten fingers. Then ten again, and yet again. Then six. Her face remained as smooth as still water.
She can’t be six-and-thirty,
Arya thought.
She’s a little girl.
“You’re lying,” she said. The waif shook her head and showed her once again: ten and ten and ten and six. She said the words for six-and-thirty, and made Arya say them too.
    The next day she told the kindly man what the waif had claimed. “She did not lie,” the priest said, chuckling. “The one you call
waif
is a woman grown who has spent her life serving Him of Many Faces. She gave Him all she was, all she ever might have been, all the lives that were within her.”
    Arya bit her lip. “Will I be like her?”
    â€œNo,” he said, “not unless you wish it. It is the poisons that have made her as you see her.”
    Poisons.
She understood then. Every evening after prayer the waif emptied a stone flagon into the waters of the black pool.
    The waif and kindly man were not the only servants of the Many-Faced God. From time to time others would visit the House of Black and White. The fat fellow had fierce black eyes, a hook nose, and a wide mouth full of yellow teeth. The stern face never smiled; his eyes were pale, his lips full and dark. The handsome man had a beard of a different color every time she saw him, and a different nose, but he was never less than comely. Those three came most often, but there were others: the squinter, the lordling, the starved man. One time the fat fellow and the squinter came together. Umma sent Arya to pour for them. “When you are not pouring, you must stand as still as if you had been carved of stone,” the kindly man told her. “Can you do that?”
    â€œYes.”
Before you can learn to move you must learn to be still,
Syrio Forel had taught her long ago at King’s Landing, and she had. She had served as Roose Bolton’s cupbearer at Harrenhal, and he would flay you if you spilled his wine.
    â€œGood,” the kindly man said. “It would be best if you were blind and deaf as well. You may hear things, but you must let them pass in one ear and out the other. Do not listen.”
    Arya heard much and more that night, but almost all of it was in the tongue of Braavos, and she hardly understood one word in ten.
Still as stone,
she told herself. The hardest part was struggling not to yawn. Before the night was done, her wits were wandering. Standing there with the flagon in her hands, she dreamed she was a wolf, running free through a moonlit forest with a great pack howling at her heels.
    â€œAre the other men all priests?” she asked the kindly man the next morning. “Were those their real faces?”
    â€œWhat do you think, child?”
    She thought
no.
“Is Jaqen H’ghar a priest too? Do you know if Jaqen will be coming back to Braavos?”
    â€œWho?” he said, all innocence.
    â€œJaqen
H’ghar.
He gave me the iron coin.”
    â€œI know no one by this name, child.”
    â€œI asked him how he changed his face, and he said it was no harder than taking a new name, if you knew the way.”
    â€œDid he?”
    â€œWill you show me how to change my face?”
    â€œIf you wish.” He cupped her chin in his hand and turned her head. “Puff up your cheeks and stick out your tongue.”
    Arya puffed up her cheeks and stuck out her tongue.
    â€œThere. Your face is changed.”
    â€œThat’s not how I meant. Jaqen used magic.”
    â€œAll sorcery comes at a cost, child. Years of prayer and sacrifice and study are required to work a proper glamor.”
    â€œYears?”
she said, dismayed.
    â€œIf it were easy all men would do it. You must walk before you run. Why use a spell, where mummer’s tricks will serve?”
    â€œI don’t know any mummer’s tricks either.”
    â€œThen practice making faces. Beneath your skin are muscles. Learn to use them. It is your face. Your cheeks, your lips, your ears. Smiles and scowls should not come upon you like sudden squalls. A smile should be a servant, and come only when you call it. Learn to
rule
your face.”
    â€œShow me how.”
    â€œPuff up your cheeks.” She did. “Lift your eyebrows. No, higher.” She did that too. “Good. See how long you can hold that. It will not be long. Try it again on the morrow. You will find a Myrish mirror in the vaults. Train