A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

gathering swords around them. The Knight of Flowers writes Highgarden, urging his lord father to send his sister to court. The girl is a maid of fourteen, sweet and beautiful and tractable, and Lord Renly and Ser Loras intend that Robert should bed her, wed her,and make a new queen. Littlefinger … the gods only know what game Littlefinger is playing. Yet Lord Stark’s the one who troubles my sleep. He has the bastard, he has the book, and soon enough he’ll have the truth. And now his wife has abducted Tyrion Lannister, thanks to Littlefinger’s meddling. Lord Tywin will take that for an outrage, and Jaime has a queer affection for the Imp. If the Lannisters move north, that will bring the Tullys in as well.
Delay
, you say.
Make haste
, I reply. Even the finest of jugglers cannot keep a hundred balls in the air forever.”
    â€œYou are more than a juggler, old friend. You are a true sorcerer. All I ask is that you work your magic awhile longer.” They started down the hall in the direction Arya had come, past the room with the monsters.
    â€œWhat I can do, I will,” the one with the torch said softly. “I must have gold, and another fifty birds.”
    She let them get a long way ahead, then went creeping after them.
Quiet as a shadow
.
    â€œSo many?” The voices were fainter as the light dwindled ahead of her. “The ones you need are hard to find … so young, to know their letters … perhaps older … not die so easy …”
    â€œNo. The younger are safer … treat them gently …”
    â€œâ€¦Â if they kept their tongues …”
    â€œâ€¦Â the risk …”
    Long after their voices had faded away, Arya could still see the light of the torch, a smoking star that bid her follow. Twice it seemed to disappear, but she kept on straight, and both times she found herself at the top of steep, narrow stairs, the torch glimmering far below her. She hurried after it, down and down. Once she stumbled over a rock and fell against the wall, and her hand found raw earth supported by timbers, whereas before the tunnel had been dressed stone.
    She must have crept after them for miles. Finally they were gone, but there was no place to go but forward. She found the wall again and followed, blind and lost, pretending that Nymeria was padding along beside her in the darkness. At the end she was knee-deep in foul-smelling water, wishing she could dance upon it as Syrio might have, and wondering if she’d ever see light again. It was full dark when finally Arya emerged into the night air.
    She found herself standing at the mouth of a sewer where it emptied into the river. She stank so badly that she stripped right there, dropping her soiled clothing on the riverbank as she dove into the deep black waters. She swam until she felt clean, and crawled out shivering. Some riders went past along the river road as Arya was washing her clothes, but if they saw the scrawny naked girl scrubbing her rags in the moonlight, they took no notice.
    She was miles from the castle, but from anywhere in King’s Landing you needed only to look up to see the Red Keep high on Aegon’s Hill, so there was no danger of losing her way. Her clothes were almost dry by the time she reached the gatehouse. The portcullis was down and the gates barred, so she turned aside to a postern door. The gold cloaks who had the watch sneered when she told them to let her in. “Off with you,” one said. “The kitchen scraps are gone, and we’ll have no begging after dark.”
    â€œI’m not a beggar,” she said. “I live here.”
    â€œI said,
off with you
. Do you need a clout on the ear to help your hearing?”
    â€œI want to see my father.”
    The guards exchanged a glance. “I want to fuck the queen myself, for all the good it does me,” the younger one said.
    The older scowled. “Who’s this father of yours, boy, the city ratcatcher?”
    â€œThe Hand of the King,” Arya told him.
    Both men laughed, but then the older one swung his fist at her, casually, as a man would swat a dog. Arya saw the blow coming even before it began. She danced back out of the way, untouched. “I’m not a boy,” she spat at them. “I’m Arya Stark of Winterfell, and if you lay a hand on me my lord father will have both your heads on spikes. If you don’t believe