A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

castle was Redfort, plainly; a short man with a neat grey beard and mild eyes. Lady Anya was the only woman amongst the Lords Declarant, and wore a deep green mantle with the broken wheel of Waynwood picked out in beads of jet. Six silver bells on purple, that was Belmore, pear-bellied and round of shoulder. His beard was a ginger-grey horror sprouting from a multiplicity of chins. Symond Templeton’s, by contrast, was black and sharply pointed. A beak of a nose and icy blue eyes made the Knight of Ninestars look like some elegant bird of prey. His doublet displayed nine black stars within a golden saltire. Young Lord Hunter’s ermine cloak confused her till she spied the brooch that pinned it, five silver arrows fanned. Alayne would have put his age closer to fifty than to forty. His father had ruled at Longbow Hall for nigh on sixty years, only to die so abruptly that some whispered the new lord had hastened his inheritance. Hunter’s cheeks and nose were red as apples, which bespoke a certain fondness for the grape. She made certain to fill his cup as often as he emptied it.
    The youngest man in the party had three ravens on his chest, each clutching a blood-red heart in its talons. His brown hair was shoulder length; one stray lock curled down across his forehead.
Ser Lyn Corbray,
Alayne thought, with a wary glance at his hard mouth and restless eyes.
    Last of all came the Royces, Lord Nestor and Bronze Yohn. The Lord of Runestone stood as tall as the Hound. Though his hair was grey and his face lined, Lord Yohn still looked as though he could break most younger men like twigs in those huge gnarled hands. His seamed and solemn face brought back all of Sansa’s memories of his time at Winterfell. She remembered him at table, speaking quietly with her mother. She heard his voice booming off the walls when he rode back from a hunt with a buck behind his saddle. She could see him in the yard, a practice sword in hand, hammering her father to the ground and turning to defeat Ser Rodrik as well.
He will know me. How could he not?
She considered throwing herself at his feet to beg for his protection.
He never fought for Robb, why should he fight for me? The war is finished and Winterfell is fallen.
“Lord Royce,” she asked timidly, “will you have a cup of wine, to take the chill off?”
    Bronze Yohn had slate-grey eyes, half-hidden beneath the bushiest eyebrows she had ever seen. They crinkled when he looked down at her. “Do I know you, girl?”
    Alayne felt as though she had swallowed her tongue, but Lord Nestor rescued her. “Alayne is the Lord Protector’s natural daughter,” he told his cousin gruffly.
    â€œLittlefinger’s little finger has been busy,” said Lyn Corbray, with a wicked smile. Belmore laughed, and Alayne could feel the color rising in her cheeks.
    â€œHow old are you, child?” asked Lady Waynwood.
    â€œFour-fourteen, my lady.” For a moment she forgot how old Alayne should be. “And I am no child, but a maiden flowered.”
    â€œBut not
de
flowered, one can hope.” Young Lord Hunter’s bushy mustache hid his mouth entirely.
    â€œYet,” said Lyn Corbray, as if she were not there. “But ripe for plucking soon, I’d say.”
    â€œIs that what passes for courtesy at Heart’s Home?” Anya Waynwood’s hair was greying and she had crow’s-feet around her eyes and loose skin beneath her chin, but there was no mistaking the air of nobility about her. “The girl is young and gently bred, and has suffered enough horrors. Mind your tongue, ser.”
    â€œMy tongue is my concern,” Corbray replied. “Your ladyship should take care to mind her own. I have never taken kindly to chastisement, as any number of dead men could tell you.”
    Lady Waynwood turned away from him. “Best take us to your father, Alayne. The sooner we are done with this, the better.”
    â€œThe Lord Protector awaits you in the solar. If my lords would follow me.” From the Crescent Chamber they climbed a steep flight of marble steps that bypassed both undercrofts and dungeons and passed beneath three murder holes, which the Lords Declarant pretended not to notice. Belmore was soon puffing like a bellows, and Redfort’s face turned as grey as his hair. The guards atop the stairs raised the portcullis at their coming. “This way, if it please my lords.” Alayne led them down the