A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

and oxcarts. “Ser Ryman don’t want his boys getting bored, so he gives them whores and cockfights and boar baiting,” Ser Daven said. “He’s even got himself a bloody
singer.
Our aunt brought Whitesmile Wat from Lannisport, if you can believe it, so Ryman had to have a singer too. Couldn’t we just dam the river and drown the whole lot of them, coz?”
    Jaime could see archers moving behind the merlons on the castle ramparts. Above them streamed the banners of House Tully, the silver trout defiant on its striped field of red and blue. But the highest tower flew a different flag; a long white standard emblazoned with the direwolf of Stark. “The first time I saw Riverrun, I was a squire green as summer grass,” Jaime told his cousin. “Old Sumner Crakehall sent me to deliver a message, one he swore could not be entrusted to a raven. Lord Hoster kept me for a fortnight whilst mulling his reply, and sat me beside his daughter Lysa at every meal.”
    â€œSmall wonder you took the white. I’d have done the same.”
    â€œOh, Lysa was not so fearsome as all that.” She had been a pretty girl, in truth; dimpled and delicate, with long auburn hair.
Timid, though. Prone to tongue-tied silences and fits of giggles, with none of Cersei’s fire.
Her older sister had seemed more interesting, though Catelyn was promised to some northern boy, the heir of Winterfell . . . but at that age, no girl interested Jaime half so much as Hoster’s famous brother, who had won renown fighting the Ninepenny Kings upon the Stepstones. At table he had ignored poor Lysa, whilst pressing Brynden Tully for tales of Maelys the Monstrous and the Ebon Prince.
Ser Brynden was younger then than I am now,
Jaime reflected,
and I was younger than Peck.
    The nearest ford across the Red Fork was upstream of the castle. To reach Ser Daven’s camp they had to ride through Emmon Frey’s, past the pavilions of the river lords who had bent their knees and been accepted back into the king’s peace. Jaime noted the banners of Lychester and Vance, of Roote and Goodbrook, the acorns of House Smallford and Lord Piper’s dancing maiden, but the banners he did
not
see gave him pause. The silver eagle of Mallister was nowhere in evidence; nor the red horse of Bracken, the willow of the Rygers, the twining snakes of Paege. Though all had renewed their fealty to the Iron Throne, none had come to join the siege. The Brackens were fighting the Blackwoods, Jaime knew, which accounted for their absence, but as for the rest . . .
    Our new friends are no friends at all. Their loyalty goes no deeper than their skins.
Riverrun had to be taken, and soon. The longer the siege dragged on, the more it would hearten other recalcitrants, like Tytos Blackwood.
    At the ford, Ser Kennos of Kayce blew the Horn of Herrock.
That should bring the Blackfish to the battlements.
Ser Hugo and Ser Dermot led Jaime’s way across the river, splashing through the muddy red-brown waters with the white standard of the Kingsguard and Tommen’s stag and lion streaming in the wind. The rest of the column followed hard behind them.
    The Lannister camp rang to the sound of wooden hammers where a new siege tower was rising. Two other towers stood completed, half-covered with raw horsehide. Between them sat a rolling ram; a tree trunk with a fire-hardened point suspended on chains beneath a wooden roof.
My coz has not been idle, it would seem.
    â€œMy lord,” Peck asked, “where do you want your tent?”
    â€œThere, upon that rise.” He pointed with his golden hand, though it was not well suited to that task. “Baggage there, horse lines there. We’ll use the latrines my cousin has so kindly dug for us. Ser Addam, inspect our perimeter with an eye for any weaknesses.” Jaime did not anticipate an attack, but he had not anticipated the Whispering Wood either.
    â€œShall I summon the stoats for a war council?” Daven asked.
    â€œNot until I’ve spoken to the Blackfish.” Jaime beckoned to Beardless Jon Bettley. “Shake out a peace banner and bear a message to the castle. Inform Ser Brynden Tully that I would have words with him, at first light on the morrow. I will come to the edge of the moat and meet him on his drawbridge.”
    Peck looked alarmed. “My lord, the bowmen could . . .”
    â€œThey won’t.” Jaime dismounted. “Raise my tent and plant