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little brother, or my own sins would have you choking on that pear.
“Very well. I’ll take Gregor’s lot off your hands.” He could always find a use for fighters. If nothing else, he could send them up the ladders first, should he need to storm the walls of Riverrun.
    â€œTake the whore as well,” Ser Bonifer urged. “You know the one. The girl from the dungeons.”
    â€œPia.” The last time he had been here, Qyburn had sent the girl to his bed, thinking that would please him. But the Pia they had brought up from the dungeons was a different creature from the sweet, simple, giggly creature who’d crawled beneath his blankets. She had made the mistake of speaking when Ser Gregor wanted quiet, so the Mountain had smashed her teeth to splinters with a mailed fist and broken her pretty little nose as well. He would have done worse, no doubt, if Cersei had not called him down to King’s Landing to face the Red Viper’s spear. Jaime would not mourn him. “Pia was born in this castle,” he told Ser Bonifer. “It is the only home she has ever known.”
    â€œShe is a font of corruption,” said Ser Bonifer. “I won’t have her near my men, flaunting her . . . parts.”
    â€œI expect her flaunting days are done,” he said, “but if you find her that objectionable, I’ll take her.” He could make her a washerwoman, he supposed. His squires did not mind raising his tent, grooming his horse, or cleaning his armor, but the task of caring for his clothes struck them as unmanly. “Can you hold Harrenhal with just your Holy Hundred?” Jaime asked. They should actually be called the Holy Eighty-Six, having lost fourteen men upon the Blackwater, but no doubt Ser Bonifer would fill up his ranks again as soon as he found some sufficiently pious recruits.
    â€œI anticipate no difficulty. The Crone will light our way, and the Warrior will give strength to our arms.”
    Or else the Stranger will turn up for the whole holy lot of you.
Jaime could not be certain who had convinced his sister that Ser Bonifer should be named castellan of Harrenhal, but the appointment smelled of Orton Merryweather. Hasty had once served Merryweather’s grandsire, he seemed to recall dimly. And the carrot-haired justiciar was just the sort of simpleminded fool to assume that someone called “the Good” was the very potion the riverlands required to heal the wounds left by Roose Bolton, Vargo Hoat, and Gregor Clegane.
    But he might not be wrong.
Hasty hailed from the stormlands, so had neither friends nor foes along the Trident; no blood feuds, no debts to pay, no cronies to reward. He was sober, just, and dutiful, and his Holy Eighty-Six were as well disciplined as any soldiers in the Seven Kingdoms, and made a lovely sight as they wheeled and pranced their tall grey geldings. Littlefinger had once quipped that Ser Bonifer must have gelded the riders too, so spotless was their repute.
    All the same, Jaime wondered about any soldiers who were better known for their lovely horses than for the foes they’d slain.
They pray well, I suppose, but can they fight?
They had not disgraced themselves on the Blackwater, so far as he knew, but they had not distinguished themselves either. Ser Bonifer himself had been a promising knight in his youth, but something had happened to him, a defeat or a disgrace or a near brush with death, and afterward he had decided that jousting was an empty vanity and put away his lance for good and all.
    Harrenhal must be held, though, and Baelor Butthole here is the man that Cersei chose to hold it.
“This castle has an ill repute,” he warned him, “and one that’s well deserved. It’s said that Harren and his sons still walk the halls by night, afire. Those who look upon them burst into flame.”
    â€œI fear no shade, ser. It is written in
The Seven-Pointed Star
that spirits, wights, and revenants cannot harm a pious man, so long as he is armored in his faith.”
    â€œThen armor yourself in faith, by all means, but wear a suit of mail and plate as well. Every man who holds this castle seems to come to a bad end. The Mountain, the Goat, even my father . . .”
    â€œIf you will forgive my saying so, they were not godly men, as we are. The Warrior defends us, and help is always near, if some dread foe should threaten. Maester Gulian will be remaining with his ravens, Lord Lancel is