A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

Cat’s fishy brown tunic over her head, kicked off Cat’s salt-stained boots, climbed out of Cat’s smallclothes, and bathed in lemonwater to wash away the very smell of Cat of the Canals. When she emerged, soaped and scrubbed pink with her brown hair plastered to her cheeks, Cat was gone. She donned clean robes and a pair of soft cloth slippers, and padded to the kitchens to beg some food of Umma. The priests and acolytes had already eaten, but the cook had saved a piece of nice fried cod for her, and some mashed yellow turnips. She wolfed it down, washed the dish, then went to help the waif prepare her potions.
    Her part was mostly fetching, scrambling up ladders to find the herbs and leaves the waif required. “Sweetsleep is the gentlest of poisons,” the waif told her, as she was grinding some with a mortar and pestle. “A few grains will slow a pounding heart and stop a hand from shaking, and make a man feel calm and strong. A pinch will grant a night of deep and dreamless sleep. Three pinches will produce that sleep that does not end. The taste is very sweet, so it is best used in cakes and pies and honeyed wines. Here, you can smell the sweetness.” She let her have a whiff, then sent her up the ladders to find a red glass bottle. “This is a crueler poison, but tasteless and odorless, hence easier to hide. The tears of Lys, men call it. Dissolved in wine or water, it eats at a man’s bowels and belly, and kills as a sickness of those parts. Smell.” Arya sniffed, and smelled nothing. The waif put the tears to one side and opened a fat stone jar. “This paste is spiced with basilisk blood. It will give cooked flesh a savory smell, but if eaten it produces violent madness, in beasts as well as men. A mouse will attack a lion after a taste of basilisk blood.”
    Arya chewed her lip. “Would it work on dogs?”
    â€œOn any animal with warm blood.” The waif slapped her.
    She raised her hand to her cheek, more surprised than hurt. “Why did you do that?”
    â€œIt is Arya of House Stark who chews on her lip whenever she is thinking. Are you Arya of House Stark?”
    â€œI am no one.” She was angry. “Who are
you
?”
    She did not expect the waif to answer, but she did. “I was born the only child of an ancient House, my noble father’s heir,” the waif replied. “My mother died when I was little, I have no memory of her. When I was six my father wed again. His new wife treated me kindly until she gave birth to a daughter of her own. Then it was her wish that I should die, so her own blood might inherit my father’s wealth. She should have sought the favor of the Many-Faced God, but she could not bear the sacrifice he would ask of her. Instead, she thought to poison me herself. It left me as you see me now, but I did not die. When the healers in the House of the Red Hands told my father what she had done, he came here and made sacrifice, offering up all his wealth and me. Him of Many Faces heard his prayer. I was brought to the temple to serve, and my father’s wife received the gift.”
    Arya considered her warily. “Is that true?”
    â€œThere is truth in it.”
    â€œAnd lies as well?”
    â€œThere is an untruth, and an exaggeration.”
    She had been watching the waif’s face the whole time she told her story, but the other girl had shown her no signs. “The Many-Faced God took two-thirds of your father’s wealth, not all.”
    â€œJust so. That was my exaggeration.”
    Arya grinned, realized she was grinning, and gave her cheek a pinch.
Rule your face,
she told herself.
My smile is my servant, he should come at my command.
“What part was the lie?”
    â€œNo part. I lied about the lie.”
    â€œDid you? Or are you lying now?”
    But before the waif could answer, the kindly man stepped into the chamber, smiling. “You have returned to us.”
    â€œThe moon is black.”
    â€œIt is. What three new things do you know, that you did not know when last you left us?”
    I know thirty new things,
she almost said. “Three of Little Narbo’s fingers will not bend. He means to be an oarsman.”
    â€œIt is good to know this. And what else?”
    She thought back on her day. “Quence and Alaquo had a fight and left the Ship, but I think that they’ll come back.”
    â€œDo you only think, or do