A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

“You can stay with me.” Come the morrow she meant for the two of them to strike out on their own. Septon Meribald was going on to Nutten, Riverbend, and Lord Harroway’s Town, but Brienne saw no sense in following him any farther. He had Dog to keep him company, and the Elder Brother had persuaded her that she would not find Sansa Stark along the Trident. “I mean to rise before the sun comes up, whilst Ser Hyle is still sleeping.” Brienne had not forgiven him for Highgarden . . . and as he himself had said, Hunt had sworn no vows concerning Sansa.
    â€œWhere will we go, ser? I mean, my lady?”
    Brienne had no ready answer for him. They had come to the crossroads, quite literally; the place where the kingsroad, the river road, and the high road all came together. The high road would take them east through the mountains to the Vale of Arryn, where Lady Sansa’s aunt had ruled until her death. West ran the river road, which followed the course of the Red Fork to Riverrun and Sansa’s great-uncle, who was besieged but still alive. Or they could ride the kingsroad north, past the Twins and through the Neck with its bogs and marshes. If she could find a way past Moat Cailin and whoever held it now, the kingsroad would bring them all the way to Winterfell.
    Or I could take the kingsroad south,
Brienne thought.
I could slink back to King’s Landing, confess my failure to Ser Jaime, give him back his sword, and find a ship to carry me home to Tarth, as the Elder Brother urged.
The thought was a bitter one, yet there was part of her that yearned for Evenfall and her father, and another part that wondered if Jaime would comfort her should she weep upon his shoulder. That was what men wanted, wasn’t it? Soft helpless women that they needed to protect?
    â€œSer? My lady? I asked, where are we going?”
    â€œDown to the common room, to supper.”
    The common room was crawling with children. Brienne tried to count them, but they would not stand still even for an instant, so she counted some of them twice or thrice and others not at all, until she finally gave it up. They had pushed the tables together in three long rows, and the older boys were wrestling benches from the back.
Older
here meant ten or twelve. Gendry was the closest thing to a man grown, but it was Willow shouting all the orders, as if she were a queen in her castle and the other children were no more than servants.
    If she were highborn, command would come naturally to her, and deference to them.
Brienne wondered whether Willow might be more than she appeared. The girl was too young and too plain to be Sansa Stark, but she was of the right age to be the younger sister, and even Lady Catelyn had said that Arya lacked her sister’s beauty.
Brown hair, brown eyes, skinny . . . could it be?
Arya Stark’s hair was brown, she recalled, but Brienne was not sure of the color of her eyes.
Brown and brown, was that it? Could it be that she did not die at Saltpans after all?
    Outside, the last light of day was fading. Inside, Willow had four greasy tallow candles lit and told the girls to keep the hearthfire burning high and hot. The boys helped Podrick Payne unpack the donkey and carried in the salt cod, mutton, vegetables, nuts, and wheels of cheese, whilst Septon Meribald repaired to the kitchens to take charge of the porridge. “Alas, my oranges are gone, and I doubt that I shall see another till the spring,” he told one small boy. “Have you ever had an orange, lad? Squeezed one and sucked down that fine juice?” When the boy shook his head no, the septon mussed his hair. “Then I’ll bring you one, come spring, if you will be a good lad and help me stir the porridge.”
    Ser Hyle pulled off his boots to warm his feet by the fire. When Brienne sat down next to him, he nodded at the far end of the room. “There are bloodstains on the floor over there where Dog is sniffing. They’ve been scrubbed, but the blood soaked deep into the wood, and there’s no getting it out.”
    â€œThis is the inn where Sandor Clegane killed three of his brother’s men,” she reminded him.
    â€œâ€™Tis that,” Hunt agreed, “but who is to say that they were the first to die here . . . or that they’ll be the last.”
    â€œAre you afraid of a few children?”
    â€œFour would be a few. Ten would be a surfeit. This is a cacophony. Children should be wrapped