A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

jams and jellies, honey on the comb. Perhaps a pinch of sweetsleep in his milk, have you tried that? Just a pinch, to calm him and stop his wretched shaking.”
    â€œA pinch?” The apple in the maester’s throat moved up and down as he swallowed. “One small pinch . . . perhaps, perhaps. Not too much, and not too often, yes, I might try . . .”
    â€œA pinch,” Lord Petyr said, “before you bring him forth to meet the lords.”
    â€œAs you command, my lord.” The maester hurried out, his chain clinking softly with every step.
    â€œFather,” Alayne asked when he was gone, “will you have a bowl of porridge to break your fast?”
    â€œI despise porridge.” He looked at her with Littlefinger’s eyes. “I’d sooner break my fast with a kiss.”
    A true daughter would not refuse her sire a kiss, so Alayne went to him and kissed him, a quick dry peck upon the cheek, and just as quickly stepped away.
    â€œHow . . . dutiful.” Littlefinger smiled with his mouth, but not his eyes. “Well, I have other duties for you, as it happens. Tell the cook to mull some red wine with honey and raisins. Our guests will be cold and thirsty after their long climb. You are to meet them when they arrive, and offer them refreshment. Wine, bread, and cheese. What sort of cheese is left to us?”
    â€œThe sharp white and the stinky blue.”
    â€œThe white. And you’d best change as well.”
    Alayne looked down at her dress, the deep blue and rich dark red of Riverrun. “Is it too—”
    â€œIt is too
Tully.
The Lords Declarant will not be pleased by the sight of my bastard daughter prancing about in my dead wife’s clothes. Choose something else. Need I remind you to avoid sky blue and cream?”
    â€œNo.” Sky blue and cream were the colors of House Arryn. “Eight, you said . . . Bronze Yohn is one of them?”
    â€œThe only one who matters.”
    â€œBronze Yohn
knows
me,” she reminded him. “He was a guest at Winterfell when his son rode north to take the black.” She had fallen wildly in love with Ser Waymar, she remembered dimly, but that was a lifetime ago, when she was a stupid little girl. “And that was not the only time. Lord Royce saw . . . he saw Sansa Stark again at King’s Landing, during the Hand’s tourney.”
    Petyr put a finger under her chin. “That Royce glimpsed this pretty face I do not doubt, but it was one face in a thousand. A man fighting in a tourney has more to concern him than some child in the crowd. And at Winterfell, Sansa was a little girl with auburn hair. My daughter is a maiden tall and fair, and her hair is chestnut. Men see what they expect to see, Alayne.” He kissed her nose. “Have Maddy lay a fire in the solar. I shall receive our Lords Declarant there.”
    â€œNot the High Hall?”
    â€œNo. Gods forbid they glimpse me near the high seat of the Arryns, they might think that I mean to sit in it. Cheeks born so low as mine must never aspire to such lofty cushions.”
    â€œThe solar.” She should have stopped with that, but the words came tumbling out of her. “If you gave them Robert . . .”
    â€œ. . . and the Vale?”
    â€œThey
have
the Vale.”
    â€œOh, much of it, that’s true. Not all, however. I am well loved in Gulltown, and have some lordly friends of mine own as well. Grafton, Lynderly, Lyonel Corbray . . . though I’ll grant you, they are no match for the Lords Declarant. Still, where would you have us go, Alayne? Back to my mighty stronghold on the Fingers?”
    She had thought about that. “Joffrey gave you Harrenhal. You are lord in your own right there.”
    â€œBy title. I needed a great seat to marry Lysa, and the Lannisters were not about to grant me Casterly Rock.”
    â€œYes, but the castle is
yours.
”
    â€œAh, and what a castle it is. Cavernous halls and ruined towers, ghosts and draughts, ruinous to heat, impossible to garrison . . . and there’s that small matter of a curse.”
    â€œCurses are only in songs and stories.”
    That seemed to amuse him. “Has someone made a song about Gregor Clegane dying of a poisoned spear thrust? Or about the sellsword before him, whose limbs Ser Gregor removed a joint at a time? That one took the castle from Ser Amory Lorch, who received it from Lord Tywin. A bear killed one, your dwarf the other.