A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

the world, say the Nightingale or else they’ll challenge you. Do you want to buy some clams? I sold all my oysters.”
    â€œI have no coin,” Sam said.
    â€œHe has no coin,” mocked the fair-haired bravo. His dark-haired friend grinned and said something in Braavosi. “My friend Terro is chilly. Be our good fat friend and give him your cloak.”
    â€œDon’t do that either,” said the barrow girl, “or else they’ll ask for your boots next, and before long you’ll be naked.”
    â€œLittle cats who howl too loud get drowned in the canals,” warned the fair-haired bravo.
    â€œNot if they have claws.” And suddenly there was a knife in the girl’s left hand, a blade as skinny as she was. The one called Terro said something to his fair-haired friend and the two of them moved off, chuckling at one another.
    â€œThank you,” Sam told the girl when they were gone.
    Her knife vanished. “If you wear a sword at night it means you can be challenged. Did you
want
to fight them?”
    â€œNo.” It came out in a squeak that made Sam wince.
    â€œAre you truly in the Night’s Watch? I never saw a black brother like you before.” The girl gestured at the barrow. “You can have the last clams if you want. It’s dark, no one will buy them now. Are you sailing to the Wall?”
    â€œTo Oldtown.” Sam took one of the baked clams and wolfed it down. “We’re between ships.” The clam was good. He ate another.
    â€œThe bravos never bother anyone without a sword. Not even stupid camel cunts like Terro and Orbelo.”
    â€œWho are you?”
    â€œNo one.” She stank of fish. “I used to be someone, but now I’m not. You can call me Cat, if you like. Who are you?”
    â€œSamwell, of House Tarly. You speak the Common Tongue.”
    â€œMy father was the oarmaster on
Nymeria
. A bravo killed him for saying that my mother was more beautiful than the Nightingale. Not one of those camel cunts you met, a real bravo. Someday I’ll slit his throat. The captain said
Nymeria
had no need of little girls, so he put me off. Brusco took me in and gave me a barrow.” She looked up at him. “What ship will you be sailing on?”
    â€œWe bought passage on the
Lady Ushanora.
”
    The girl squinted at him suspiciously. “She’s gone. Don’t you know? She left days and days ago.”
    I know,
Sam might have said. He and Dareon had stood on the dock watching the rise and fall of her oars as she beat for the Titan and the open sea. “Well,” the singer said, “that’s done.” If Sam had been a braver man, he would have shoved him into the water. When it came to talking girls out of their clothes Dareon had a honeyed tongue, yet in the captain’s cabin somehow Sam had done all the talking, trying to persuade the Braavosi to wait for them. “Three days I have waited for this old man,” the captain had said. “My holds are full, and my men have fucked their wives farewell. With you or without, my
Lady
leaves on the tide.”
    â€œPlease,” Sam had pleaded. “Just a few more days, that’s all I ask. So Maester Aemon can recover his strength.”
    â€œHe has no strength.” The captain had visited the inn the night before to see Maester Aemon for himself. “He is old and ill and I will not have him dying on my
Lady.
Stay with him or leave him, it matters not to me. I sail.” Even worse, he had refused to return the passage money they had paid him, the silver that was meant to see them safe to Oldtown. “You bought my finest cabin. It is there, awaiting you. If you do not choose to occupy it, that is no fault of mine. Why should I bear the loss?”
    By now we might be at Duskendale,
Sam thought mournfully.
We might even have reached Pentos, if the winds were kind.
    But none of that would matter to the barrow girl. “You said you saw a singer . . .”
    â€œAt the Happy Port. He’s going to wed the Sailor’s Wife.”
    â€œWed?”
    â€œShe only beds the ones who marry her.”
    â€œWhere is this Happy Port?”
    â€œAcross from the Mummer’s Ship. I can show you the way.”
    â€œI know the way.” Sam had seen the Mummer’s Ship.
Dareon cannot wed! He said the words!
“I have to go.”
    He ran. It was a long way over slick cobbles. Before long he was puffing, his